City Council - Regular Meeting

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Heat. Heat. Live from Burbank, the media capital of the world. Heat up here. To participate in the general public comment period, please call now at 8182383. 3335 for any scheduled public hearings. Please call when prompted to speak if you want the comment to be part of the record. Speaking times will be determined by the total number of public comment cards and callers in the queue at the start of each public comment period. For 1 to 20 total speakers, each speaker will receive up to 3 minutes. For 21 to 39 total speakers, each

speaker will receive up to 2 minutes. And for 40 plus total speakers, each speaker will receive up to one minute. No additional comment cards or calls will be accepted once the public comment period begins. Interpreters are available for assistance with in-person public comment. Please connect with them if you are in need of services. Good evening and welcome to a joint meeting of the Burbank City Council and the Parking Authority on Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. Please join me for a moment of reflection. This moment is intended to begin our meeting with a positive and collective support for our beloved community. The city council welcomes everyone joining us this evening. We encourage you to take a moment to reflect on our community and the work we we will be doing tonight. Although each of us has our own unique reasons for being here, we are united in our passion for our wonderful city. As we pause, let us consider our individual contributions and what they mean to those around us. Let us find solace in knowing that by working together with a shared spirit of community and partnership, we will always act responsibly for the betterment of Burbank. Thank you. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Ready, begin. I pledge algiance 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.

Good evening, Madam City Clerk. Good evening, Madame Mayor. Good to see you. Uh, could you please conduct the roll call? Council member Anthony present. Council member Perez here. Council member Rosati I am here. Vice Mayor Mullins here. And Mayor Tagahashi here. Thank you. Thank you.

There will be two periods of public comment tonight. Members of the public may comment in person or by telephone during the general public comment period and must submit cards or call before the general public comment period begins. The first public comment period is for general public comment on any matter concerning city business and/or any agenda item. If you are here in person and wish to speak during general public comment, you should submit a yellow public comment card to address the council over here at the clerk city clerk's bench. If you would like to participate in the general public comment over the phone, please call now at 818238335. Callers will be placed in a queue until the general public comment period begins, at which time no additional calls will be taken. An additional public comment period will be available following the one report to council this evening. Interpreters are also available for assistance with public comment. We have both Spanish and Armenian interpreters here with us this evening sitting in the front row. Please connect with them if you are in need of services and feel free to walk up to them and let them know that you would like translation. We have five announcements this evening.

The following are announcements for March 10th, 2026. Did you know the city offers an e comment option for written public comment? To access this feature, visit the meetings, agendas, and minutes page on the city website. Once the agenda is posted, you can submit an e-comment directly from the page. E- comments may be submitted from the time the agenda is posted until 1 hour before the meeting begins. And all e- comments will be distributed to the city council in advance of the meeting. To learn more or submit an e-comment, visit burbankca.gov. Join the city of Burbank and the Housing Rights Center for a free fair housing workshop from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 16th at the Community Services Building. Burbank landlords and tenants are welcome to learn about federal and state fair housing laws, California tenant protection act, and Burbank's tenant protection ordinance. Spanish and Armenian interpretation will be provided. Register at housingrightscenter.org/workshops. Burbank Parks and Recreation invites you and your family to the 2026 spring extravaganza on March 28th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at McCambridge Park. The event will feature egg hunts for various ages, games, and prizes. Burbank residents can register now at burbankparks.com. Open registration begins March 20th. The city of Burbank continues the community engagement for a potential new central library and public plaza through a series of community town halls. These meetings are intended to provide updates on the project timeline, design process, and potential construction impacts and mitigation measures while also offering residents the opportunity to ask questions and share feedback. Each meeting will present the same information and include a presentation

followed by time for questions and discussion. An in-person town hall will be held on Wednesday, March 25th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Burbank Central Library, followed by a virtual town hall on Thursday, April 9th from 7 to 8:00 p.m. and an additional in-person session on Saturday, April 11th from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Burbank Central Library. Additional details are available at new Burbank Library.com. The city of Burbank has launched the second year of the pilot community events and program grant to eligible community nonprofit organizations for events and/or program initiatives that foster community engagement and benefit the Burbank community at large. For more information, including eligibility requirements, workshop information, detailed guidelines, important dates, and application link, please visit the city's web page. The deadline to apply is Thursday, April 2nd at 12:00 p.m.

This concludes the announcements for this evening.

Good evening everybody. Tonight we have three proclamations. So first proclamation tonight is declaring March 1st through 31st as Women's History Month in the city of Burbank. During Women's History Month, we take time to recognize the many women whose leadership, talent, and determination have helped shape our community and our nation. Here in Burbank, we are fortunate to have women who continue to lead, innovate, and serve in ways that strengthen our city every day. This month give us gives us an opportunity not only to celebrate those achievements, but also to inspire future generations of women and girls to pursue pursue their ambitions and make their own lasting contributions. And we have a proclamation. I will read some of it here. So whereas Women's History Month has had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed public law 9728 which authorized and requested the president to proclaim the week beginning March 7th, 1982 as Women's History Week. And whereas American women have been leaders not only securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and especially the peace movement, which created a more fair and just society for all. Whereas throughout American history, women and girls have made vital contributions, often in the face of discrimination and undue hardship, courageous women marched for and won the right to vote, campaigned against injustice, shattered countless barriers, and expanded the possibilities of American life, particularly in times of crisis and emergency. And whereas Women's History Month honors the accomplished and visionary women who have helped build our country and pays tribute to the trailblazers from the recent and distant past for daring to envision a future for which no past president existed and for building a nation of endless possibilities for all its women's and women and girls. Now therefore, I Tamila Takahashi, mayor of

the city of Burbank, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as women's history month in the city of Burbank. This the council of the city of Burbank commemorates and encourages the study, observance, and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. And for the picture, I'm wondering if we can get a picture. Would it be okay to get a picture of the women council members and maybe the women department heads here all in a row? If we get is Bri in the room? If we get a picture of all of us, be great. Everybody, two, one more. Wonderful. Thank you all. And um I don't know if you all know, but we are the first majority women council in Burbank. And this is the first time we've had two years in a row with mayor and vice mayor being women. So it's pretty cool. Pretty cool history making. Yeah. All right. Our second presentation this evening is a presentation of a proclamation declaring March 23rd through 27th, 2026 as government finance professionals week in the city of Burbank. It's just as sexy, I promise. I'd like to welcome Miss Jennifer Becker, financial services director, to join me. You're already here at the podium. Welcome, Jennifer. Thank you for taking the time to join us this evening. At this time, I will read the proclamation and you'll have an opportunity to say a few words. Okay,

great. Thank you. Uh-huh. Speaking of a strong awesome woman, man, Jennifer. Okay. Government finance professionals week. Whereas government finance professionals serve cities, counties, special districts, and joint powers authorities by ensuring transparency, accountability, and responsible stewardship of public funds. And whereas these professionals play a critical role in managing complex budgets, complying with state and federal laws, maintaining accurate financial reporting and compliance with the with government accounting standards, which is a big job, administering utility rate processes and enterprise funds, and supporting long-term financial sustainability. Whereas California's financial landscape shaped by Proposition 13, 218 and the GAN appropriations limit Kalpers's pension and fluctuating economic conditions requires expert analysis and sound financial leadership. And whereas the California Society of Municipal Finance Officers has designated the last week of March as government finance professionals week to help highlight the dedication, integrity, and professionalism of these essential public servants. Now therefore, I, Tamila Takahashi, mayor of the city of Burbank, do hereby proclaim the last week of March as Government Finance Professionals Week and encourage all residents to recognize and appreciate the hard work and contributions of the finance professionals who serve our community.

Thank you.

So, just real quick, good evening, mayor and members of the council. My name is Jennifer Becker, uh, financial services director, and I'm thrilled to be here with you to celebrate for the very first time Government Finance Professionals Week. I'm proud to be a part of the leadership team at the California Society of Municipal Finance Officers who brought this event to fruition, which gives finance directors like me the opportunity uh to publicly recognize the incredible work done by our staff. Uh, every day finance professionals ensure that our public dollars are managed responsibly, transparently, and in full compliance with California's complex regulations. Uh, their work includes budget development, financial reporting, revenue management, debt and grant administration, payroll, procurement, and support for strategic decision-making citywide. And much of this work happens behind the scenes, but it is absolutely essential to our city's government. Uh so I really want to thank our department uh to help maintain our public trust to ensure that our taxpayers payer dollars are used wisely and recognizing these individuals tonight. It's more than a symbolic gesture. It reinforces Burbank's commitment to transparency, accountability, and excellence in financial stewardship. So I'm thrilled to recognize the members of our finance team who are here this evening. So let's give them a round of applause and I I love the opportunity for these behind thescenes folks to come up for a photo if possible.

Yes. Come on. Come on. Look, they don't want to get up. Now, while they're walking up here, Yes. while they're walking up here, Jennifer, you the financial team has won some awards recently. Is that true? Absolutely. We actually have been awarded the GFOA triple crown and that is for uh cities that win the excellence in budgeting, the excellence in financial reporting and the excellence in popular financial reporting. So we get the extra gold star for winning all three in the same year. That's amazing.

Share the proclamation. You got little people. We've been there. Look at all these amazing women saying women. Okay. Okay. Looking right here. One, two, three. And one more. One, two, three. Thank you all. Rock stars all. Now you're doing the second half too, right?

Yes. Just introduce. Okay. So, all right, Jennifer, don't go too far because the next one, the last one, is our final presentation this evening is the presentation of a proclamation declaring March 2026 as public procurement month of the city of Burbank. Uh thank you again. Uh if it's okay, I'm going to uh introduce Cliff Krauss, our new purchasing manager uh to accept this proclamation on behalf of the city.

Cliff's been right. Cliff's been with us since October and he's hit the ground running on all sorts of initiatives to modernize our procurement division and I'm happy to uh introduce him to the city council this evening. So I'll pass it to you and you can accept the proclamation.

Wonderful. So I'm going to read the proclamation, but I also would like to hear just a little bit of what he does because I, you know, procurement may me half this room probably knows what that means and the other half may not. So all right, pro public procurement month procurement month. Whereas the public procurement and contracting contracting professionals play a significant role in the efficiency and effectiveness of both government and business. And whereas the city's public procurement professionals dedicate themselves to providing the best value for every taxpayer dollar as they adhere to public procurement values and guiding principles of accountability, ethics, impartiality, professionalism, service, and transparency established by the Institute for Public Procurement as a fun as fundamental tenants of the public procurement profession. And whereas the city's public procurement professionals add value by executing and administering contracts. There we go. This is what they do. developing strategic sourcing and procurement strategies, cultivating collaborative relationships with suppliers and city departments, ensuring regulatory compliance, mitigating risk, and continuously expanding their professional knowledge, skills, and competencies. And whereas the Institute for Public Procurement has designated the month of March as public procurement month to raise awareness of the vital role procurement professionals serve in government, business, and the broader community. Now therefore, I, Tamila Takahashi, mayor of city of Burbank, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as public procurement month in the city of Burbank. And I urge all people in our city to join me in this special observance if you like.

Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. Tell us about Thank you. Yeah. Should be on now. Should be good. Yeah.

So, thank you. I'm thrilled and honored to accept this proclamation on behalf of the staff of procurement. And I did want to say a couple words about what procurement does in the city. So we have an amazing team in procurement today. So we have folks like Lisa Vieas who helps parks fill out the catalog full of activities that uh the members of the community get an opportunity to do. Um we have uh uh Karen Little. So Karen, for example, helped us uh run the competition to award uh the Home Again LA site where we had the opportunity to go the other day. So we work on those contracts, we run those solicitations, uh we sign up those vendors, we do things like uh insurance and bonds, and we get everything set up so that at the end of the day, our internal stakeholders can pay for the products and services that our community uses every day.

Wow. Great. Well, thank you so much. Let's do a picture. We'll share the holding of the

Thank you. So, congratulations again. City Manager, do we have a city manager report?

Uh, yes, Madam Mayor. I do have one item. Um, I'd like to call up at this time our public works director, Damen Skinner, uh, to talk about a large, uh, public uh, works infrastructure project that we just completed. Is it on? All right. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. Uh, Damian Skinner, works director. There we are. I am very pleased to announce the completion of the Providence sewer improvement uh phase 2 project. As the city manager mentioned, this is a it was a major capital project that took a some time to complete. Had a lot of uh twists and turns, some obstacles, a lot of calories spent, a lot of cortisol generated, but I think we uh we got through it. So, um, this has been a long time coming, so I'm going to briefly reacquaint you with the project. Um, I'm going to go over what we did, uh, where we did it, and why. So, uh, we completed the project last month. So, this is really fresh off the presses, and the construction was about, um, $1 million. So, what we did was we upgraded the sewer, uh, the sewer line near downtown. uh we upgrade the capacity from 1 million gallons per day to um 1.6 million gallons per day. And to give you some perspective of what that means is that 1 million gallons serves about 2,000 homes. So 1.6 increases that to 3200 homes. So that was accomplished by uh replacing a 12-in pipe sewer pipe with an 18-inch pipe. So if you look at this picture here, you see a a looks like a small man, but he's not small. He's just in a 12t deep trench. And um that red pipe that um that's shown there is the metal casing that the new sewer line is going to go through.

So they're drilling it out. They're they're putting that metal casing and that's that's a way of kind of like a secondary containment to protect that sewer line that we're putting in. So um we replaced 1500 ft of pipe from Providence Avenue to uh Bonnywood Place uh to Verdugo A and Vney Street. So with the completion of this project you know there's some uh tremendous community benefit and mainly we are adding sewer capacity to downtown. So, for example, the First Street Village project, um, that's going to be a direct benefit from this project, as well as any other project contemplated in the downtown area. So, I have some just a few more pictures just to show you what it all look like. So, the very uh left picture is a sewer pipe. I wish there was a way to make it look more interesting, but it's it's there and it's completed. Um, the middle picture is the removing of the shoring. Basically, that's the walls that keep the trenches from collapsing in. And that's a real milestone in construction. It's like, okay, we're moving this. That means we're not going back. And the last picture is after we backfill the excavation and regraded. So, uh, big project completed. Very happy. And it means it's a big deal for our downtown area and future development. Thank you.

Well done. Well done. Public works for sure. Thank you. Okay, we have one more item before a couple more before we move to public comment. So, our next item is a presentation um of an update on the city's preparation for the 2028 summer Olympics. I welcome Miss Marissa Cardwell from the community development department to begin the presentation. Welcome, Miss Cardwell.

Thank you. Just make sure I'm good there. Um, good evening, madame mayor, madam vice mayor, and members of city council. As noted, my name is Marissa. I'm a senior analyst with our city's economic development division in the community development department. Right now, admittedly, we're fully focused on preparing for the Los Angeles World Cup 26 fan zone in downtown Burbank, which is just 130 days away if anybody's counting. Um, it's an all hands-on deck effort as we prepare for this really exciting community celebration. That being said, even though we're dedicating a lot of time and resources, we're also keeping an eye on what's ahead. And in just over two years, which is less time away than we realize, the 2028 Olympics and Parolympics Games will come to Los Angeles. Economic development staff and visit Burbank have been proactively positioning our city to capture tourism, hospitality, and business opportunities tied to these important global events. While no events take place in Burbank specifically, many will be staged very close by, including at Universal Studios, the Seulva Basin, downtown Los Angeles, and at Dodger Stadium. Given the proximity of events and programming to Burbank, we're coordinating a destination branding and marketing strategy to capitalize on and better manage the expected influx of visitors. This approach is grounded in the understanding that with more than 4.9 million annual visitors in downtown Burbank alone, the city is already a destination for visitors from near and far. The city's many hotel offerings and extensive dining and retail options will be a feature attraction to Olympic visitors from the around the world, offering increased international visibility for our city. We're also prioritizing early engagement with our regional partners to ensure the Burbank is included in procurement and planning conversations. This includes attendance at the LA

Sports and Entertainment Procurement Summit and participation in the 88 for 28 LA County Cities Initiative to name a few. These forums help align our strategy around transportation, accommodations, workforce development, and small business inclusion. Economic Development will also be conducting outreach to our key local partners including the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, Warner Brothers Studio Tour Hollywood, Universal Studios Hollywood, and the Hollywood Burbank Airport to coordinate our planning efforts. Burbank venues are now featured on the LA28 events venue resource hub through our partnership with Visit California and our staff continue coordination with the Los Angeles city tourism department and regional partners on transportation and accommodation planning. Lastly, a tourism impact report from the aptly named tourism economics was commissioned which analyzes and projects the economic benefits of the LA28 games to help guide our strategy and our resource allocation. Overall, we feel our proactive and collaborative approach will ensure that Burbank is well positioned to benefit from the economic and tourism opportunities generated by LA28 while strengthening our long-term partnerships and our regional alignment. Of course, uh what we're doing in economic development is just one piece of the puzzle. So, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague in transportation to provide an update on that.

Thank you. Uh good evening, Madame Mayor, uh Madame Vice Mayor, and members of council. My name is Chris Bonamo. I am a senior transportation planner in the community development department, and I will outline how we will move all of these visitors who will be coming here in 2028. As MRSA just outlined, the city is already a destination for visitors around the globe every single year. Uh, and it is uh it's a city that's well positioned to connect these visitors to the LA 2028 venues and the broader transportation ecosystem around them. With downtown Burbank served by Metroink, Amtrak, Metro Bus, and Burbank bus, and further rail and bus connections at the Hollywood Burbank airport, the city can effectively serve as a home base for people looking to move throughout the region on a daily basis during the games. These services will be vital because LA 2028 is building itself as a transit first games. There will be no parking at any of the venue sites and attendees will need to utilize public transit uh to reach the competitions. Therefore, we expect a greater portion of visitors than normal to be here without cars or or to be car-like visitors where you might have it some days or you might not use it during the day, but maybe in the evenings. Existing and expanded transit service will remain in place and Metro will deploy a shuttle bus fleet from satellite stations around the around the county uh directly to venue sites. Uh so with an influx of these visitors who are car light, downtown Burbank will serve um as a as an effective venue for getting people to and from the shuttle buses to downtown Burbank and to the other uh to downtown Los Angeles and to the other venue sites. With this in mind, staff has been working with regional partners to find opportunities and access resources for Burbank's transportation needs. Staff members sit on regional game subcommittees focused

on mobility hubs, commuter rail, and transportation demand management. They also regularly attend forums hosted by Metro, the city of Los Angeles, and the Southern California Association of Governments, also known as SCAg. In particular, staff is working with Skagg to advance a mobility hub concept in downtown Burbank that aims to improve transit connectivity on either side of the five and enhance transit rider experience. Staff will use the FIFA FanFest to pilot some of these elements in advance of the Olympics. Finally, staff coni staff continues to pursue grant opportunities to improve transit service, most notably funding the expanded Burbank bus service following the recommendations of the forthcoming comprehensive operational analysis for Burbank bus. While Burbank is not hosting actual events, it will host many of the visitors who will attend these events. The immediate objective is to improve the pathways to transit in the summer of 2028, but the long-term goal for transportation is to have these connectivity improvements serve residents, employees, and visitors in Burbank long after the games conclude. And with that, I will hand it off to the Department of Parks and Recreation. Good evening, Mayor Takahashi, Vice Mayor Mullins, and members of city council. I am John Mc Mcinley, recreation service manager, and I have the pleasure of providing the parks parks and wreck update this evening. Since October 2025, the parks and rec department has continued to strengthen the LA Olympic, Parolympic and FIFA World Cup readiness through targeted regional, national, and international engagements, advancing strategic partnerships, and positioning the city as a hub for major sporting events. On November 23rd, 2025, Burbank hosted its first power soccer adaptive sports

tournament at McCambridge Recreation Center, bringing together athletes who compete while using wheelchairs. The event showcased inclusive recreation and highlighted connections to the FIFA World Cup 2026 legacy programming. On March 5th, 2026, the parks and recreation department premiered a professionally produced power soccer spotlight video highlighting the city's commitment to adaptive sports and inclusive recreation in advance of FIFA World Cup 2026. Funded through the 26 Community Champions Grant from the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 host committee in the play equity fund. The video features Burbank's first annual power soccer adaptive sports tournament and lo and local athletes who compete using power wheelchairs. LA28 Olympic and Parolympic Games. On September 26, 2025, staff continued pregame coordination with the International School of Los Angeles, Leela, to serve as a training hub for potential international delegations, including France and Italy, and held a strategic meeting at Woodbury University to explore housing and facil facility solutions for Olympic and Parolympic teams. On October 26 and 30th, 2025, staff participated in the LA28 bad mitten meet and greet and the 88 for 28 gathering, strengthening relationships with Olympic sport managers, learning volunteer pathways, and reviewing best practices for live sites in fan zones to engage the community during the games. On November 7th, 2025, Parks and Wreck was honored to participate in the team GB and Olympian Tom Dailyaly reception at the British residence in Hancock Park, Los Angeles. The event

strengthened international Olympic connections and highlighted Burbank's leadership in supporting elite athletic engagement in fostering global sports collaboration ahead of LA 28. On November 23rd, 2025, the department met with David Clark, chief executive of Parolympics GB, to explore hosting and training opportunities for the Parolympics delegation. On December 10th, 2025, staff hosted His Majesty's British Council General at Warner Brothers, highlighting Burbank as a potential host city for Team Great Britain, emphasizing the city's creative economy, hospitality, and public private partnerships. On January 12th and 25th through the 29th of 2026, the city participated in an exclusive Parolympic Games leadership discussion at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and joined an international delegation to London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, gaining insights on event planning, delivery, and long-term legacy strategies. On February 3rd, 2026, Marissa Garcia and Patrick Prescott met with John Fleck, CFO of Leela, and Julie, former French council general in Los Angeles and CEO and founder of Jewel Links to advance Burbank's efforts to host foreign Olympic delegations, transportation, housing, and coordinating meetings with the French, South African, Swiss, and Italian teams. Just as of yesterday, March 9th, 2026, Leela hosted the French Triathlon Federation delegation to tour Burbank venues, including the Ferdo Aquatic Facility and John Burrough's Memorial Field, demonstrating the city's role in supporting elite athlete training and

international games readiness. This concludes the update on the city's preparation for the FIFA World Cup 2026, the 2028 Summer Olympics, and Parolympics. Thank you guys. Great. Thank you, council. Yeah, round of applause. Council, any quick questions or comments regarding it? Yeah, vice mayor.

Um, first of all, I applaud all of you, all this work you're doing behind the scenes. Um, I had no idea the amount of meetings that has been happening. I know the city manager has been giving us updates, but uh sound like you're constantly in contact and you really want this to happen. So, I applaud you. Thank you for bringing all these events here to the city of Burbank. So, I really appreciate you guys working on and look forward some for more updates. Thank you. Great. Council member Rosati, did you have a comment?

I was simply going to say the same thing. Um you're doing a great job getting ahead of this. uh there's going to be a lot coming at us and we're going to be very well positioned and organized for this. So, um I I could see great things coming from this. So, thank you uh on behalf of the residents and and council. Your hard work is is definitely going to pay off. So, thank you so much, Council Member Perez. I mean, congrats on all the work you all are doing. Like my colleagues said, absolutely. Thank you for everything you've been doing. It's been great to watch the progress. We're ready. So, thank you all.

Thank you so much for this update. As I've said before, the Olympics is my favorite sport and I'm really excited about how much work the staff has put into creating uh really creating Burbank as a hub and bringing the the narrative around Burbank as a hub for the games, for transit, for lodging, for postgame enjoyment, in between game enjoyment of our region. and thank you for putting Burbank in the center of these conversations. We know that there's a lot of cities and interests that want to be involved with this with the games and it's important to be in these rooms and having these discussions and it takes work to do that. So, I appreciate you are putting yourselves in those conversations and really so many uh strategic partners. It's great to hear the list of strategic partners including international partners which is exciting and and for leveraging those partnerships for not just creating this this amazing event but beyond as well and benefit beyond the event as well. So great strategic planning, excellent conversations. Thank you for the update and like the vice mayor said I'm looking forward to continued uh information and updates for this for this program. Thank you. All right, Mr. City Attorney, will you please report on our close session?

Yes, Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the city council, and for the benefit of the public, city council met at 4 p.m. this afternoon to convene a close session on one item of existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9D1 in the case of Nicholas Gutierrez versus City of Burbank under the California Voting Rights Act. The city council took no reportable action and uh will be resuming close session on the same item at a special meeting of the council on Friday, March the 13th at 2:30 p.m. This meeting will be uh publicized in the uh normal course for for uh special meetings.

Thank you. Now is the time for general public comment. I will be calling calling out the speaker's name as well as the person who is next in line to speak. In order to keep public comment moving in a timely fashion, we have a designated seat in the front row for speakers who are next up at the podium. And it has uh the sheet over it there. A timer is available on the podium. This is also the last call for anyone who needs an interpreter or that the staff members will be released for the evening. Have you received any requests for interpretation? No. Okay, you are free for the rest of your evening. Thank you for being here. Persons may choose to use the first period of public comment to address an agenda report, but will not be able to speak on that item um following the segment. When you speak, please state your name for the record and adjust the microphone if necessary so it's in front of you so we the folks listening at home can hear you. The general public comment is now beginning and no more cards will be accepted. Madame city clerk, how many public comment cards do we have for general public comment and how many callers?

We have 18 cards and we have no callers. Okay, 18 just under the wire. So we have based on 18 number of speakers, your time limit is three minutes. You don't have to use all the three minutes. Just saying. Um but you can and um um we'll call them in order. I'll call the first speaker then the one after so you can get ready. All right. Our FE first PE speaker is that guy who hates new taxes, followed by Ron Bax. Welcome. It's been a minute since we've seen

It has. It has. I hope everybody's off to a great new year. Uh Mr. City attorney, I hope the city will capitulate to districts and stop wasting money. It's has to happen. Why do I have three peace officers here for this meeting? and are any of them on overtime? Why is it you're talking about all the rest of my comments here pertain to the library? Why is it that you're talking about building a new fivetory or four-story parking deck when we have an empty one across the street behind the courthouse? And if you'll drive through there, if you'll take the time, look down at the parking spaces, you'll see there's no oil on those parking spaces. They've never been used. It's essentially a new parking deck. So, why are we spending money on a second one? At least at very minimum, you should, you know, cut the deck in half and use some of the spaces from over there. Make your employees walk a block. Um, I have no confidence in the city, uh, being able to build this thing effectively. And I say that based on the joint police fire building fiasco that happened and you had to rebuild it and spend many, many, many millions of dollars right after it opened. You couldn't get it right. I listened to the presentation. It was a grandiose deal. Like kids in a candy store. You should be ashamed of yourself for all the things you're asking for. We're talking about a library. Period. And when I heard the component of more city space, I heard Dave Gordon's voice when he was sitting here and he said, "Let's add a fourth story to the community services building." He saw the future. He was right. that we would need this space. You think it would have been cheaper to build it, you know, 20 25 years ago or or or now? He he knew what he was talking about. There's no way you

can do this thing for $200 million. Impossible. And I'll bet money. I'll take a bet with anybody who wants to bet me. You can't do it. Okay. The way I heard you say this thing, you're not going to be coming to the voters for another bond. And that's a good thing. Please confirm that you will not come to the voters with another bond because we're paying a billion dollars now for the school district. And they lied every which way about that thing. Ideally, if the five of you were looking out for the citizens here in Burbank, you'd be lowering our sales tax rate. We have the highest rate in the area, and it's shameful. We're suffering. And if you want to get the money to pay for this thing, cut every department 5%. Make that happen. Make a deal. go nationwide and look for a developer and let them build housing to the sky in exchange for us getting a library and what we need. I don't believe you've done everything you can do.

Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Good to see everybody. Next up is Ron Bax followed by Trina Pitchford. Welcome, Mr. Bax. You have three minutes tonight.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council. Ron Bax. Even though I have three minutes, I'm not going to spend too much time on the fact of forum hasn't been changed. End of that subject. If you're going to engage in direct equal consideration of housing providers, if you're not going to engage in direct equal con consideration of housing providers, at least adjust the message at the free housing rights clinics, which I think one was held yesterday, although I can't prove it because it's not in the agenda and I might have deleted it from my emails to free housing rights and responsibilities and adjust the format accordingly. I went to one and it was kind of like here's how you got to mess with your housing provider. Some tenants seem to think their housing provider is responsible for all their housing issues and they have none. Similarly for the free housing rights workshop scheduled for next Monday. Change the format. Okay. And make it responsibilities. Examples but not all inclusive examples of uses for the complaint form or carpet never being cleaned. I had a tenant just move out. I had it professionally cleaned. Then I went over it probably five times to get it down to what my wife would consider black. And I went over it five more times. Fortunately, the incoming tenant is a carpet cleaner. And he cleaned it. And I checked this morning. It looks better, but it was much it's much better than what they left it. And the and the carpet was not at its service life, which is why I struggled to retain it. Cat shredding. I have cats shredding in corners of apartments and then the hallway by the front door. Fortunately for that tenant, that carpet was near its service life and he moved to Georgia. So that might have been an inconvenience for me to try and pursue it. AC filters. I recently had my air conditioner. I had to bring in a professional. My tech um my training I could have changed it myself, but the new new module or the old module is not available. It's a universal module. I didn't want to make a mistake.

And my wife had just dealt with the tenant at my father-in-law's house. And don't ask me why I wasn't dealing with her. That's a long story, but I got my wife dealing with her because her power was acting up. You guys use aluminum wire still for the um neutral wire on the drop. And the city knows that the squirrels love that. Well, a squirrel ate it out. And it happened to my neighbor, too. And the possibility on that is that it'll damage a lot of your equipment in your house. My tenant my tenant my neighbor lost a lot. Fortunately, the tenant didn't lose anything. Otherwise, she'd probably be suing my father-in-law's estate for the damage to her equipment. Oh, and by the way, when my wife went down there, cuz she, the tenant was complaining about humidity in her bedroom, my wife looked up at the air conditioning filter and said, "You need to change that." And the tenant said, "I do? She's been there six years and hasn't changed the filter." So when they came to do my air conditioner, and I use that example, the t the technician, the two John's, John the fourth and John the 5th. I've never seen a John the fifth. Um told me that for a $10 filter not being changed, it could have a $16,000 bill.

Thank you for your comment.

Next up is Trina Pitchford, followed by Michael Stanley. Welcome. Good evening, Mayor Takahashi, Vice Mayor Mullins, council members, staff, and the general public. I am Trina Pitchford. I am the, uh, current chair of the Leadership Burbank Board of Directors, and with me is our vice mayor, uh, Jesse Freemire. Additional board members are here with us in the room, Alyssa, Darren, Courtney, I think Jaime's on the line. Um we are here tonight to report out on the impact of last year's community events and program grant provided to Leadership Burbank by the city of Burbank. Um for 30 years, Leadership Burbank has been serving the Burbank community and identifying, educating, and motivating current emerging leaders in Burbank to develop ideas and solutions that make Burbank a strong, sustainable, and vibrant community. This grant supported year two of our three-year strategic growth pro growth plan and we could not be more grateful to the city for our continued partnership. As a founding partner to our mission, we align with the city and its key value of community partnerships for Leadership Burbank. We believe in civic engagement, leadership, volunteerism. Um we feel that they are critical for a thriving community. With these grant funds, Leadership Burbank was able to move forward in our strategic plan goals. And over the summer, we hired our first ever deputy director who is with us tonight, Miss Renee Johnson. Miss Johnson is an alumni of our program and a proven leader in the charitable sector of Burbank. This position assists the board and will primarily support our fundraising efforts as we plan to expand our services and to our alumni and to the general Burbank community. Additionally, the grant supported leadership Burbank in hosting our successful 9-month leadership program with the class of 2024 2025 and their successful implementation of the play

without limits class project. They currently hold the record of the best class ever through the impact of the support of the parks and recreation department's adapted sports program. They surpassed their initial goals and they provided over $90,000 in specialized fencing equipment and all-terrain wheelchairs. And with this support, the city has received numerous accolades and most recently launched its first adaptive hiking program with the all-terrain wheelchairs, the first of its kind in Southern California. And we continue to look um and see how wonderful the program does not only for the city of Burbank for but regionally as well. I believe one of the class project managers from that class now serves on the park, recreation, and community services board. Farah Assadi, she is an example of our mission in action. It's what we look forward to and we hope our alumni will do um among other impacts in the community of Burbank. We cannot wait to see what happens with this year's class project, New Day Laundry. It's going to expand mobile services of the Salvation Army and providing free laundry services to individual and families in the community.

Thank you for your comments. You're welcome. Thank you. Next up is Michael Stanley followed by Emo Sawani. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Takahashi, Vice Mayor Mullins, and members of the commission. I am here uh my name is Dr. from Michael Stanley and I am the conductor of the Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra and the Burbank Community Band, which are both uh music ensembles that serve the community of Burbank with free concerts. I'm here tonight in my orchestra hat um because the next upcoming concert is the Burbank Philarmonics free at three concert on coming up on Sunday, March 22nd. And this concert will be at the Burbank High School Auditorium. And we're going to be featuring a lot of our educational programs. We have a program called the discovery conductor project where uh we select a high school student to get who gets uh mentorship and we have a wonderful student this year who's going to be conducting the orchestra at the opening of the concert. So it's a high school student that gets to work with a professional orchestra which is an amazing opportunity. We also host our Hennings Fisher Young Artist Competition here in Burbank at the Celite Conservatory. And we have two past winners who will be performing. A a lovely soprano who'll be singing three aras and a violinist who will be performing the bronze violin concerto. The concert is free and open to the public. So we'd like to encourage everyone to attend and enjoy the concert. It will um feature also a performance pre-con by the string quartet from Burbank High School and a local brass ensemble will be performing at the intermission. So, we just really encourage everyone to come out and take advantage of this opportunity. Uh, we have some postcards that we left on the table over there a couple weeks ago. So, uh, we hope everyone will attend. And then coming up in April, the Burbank Community Band will presenting a concert, uh, themed to America's 250th and also to California's 175th anniversary of statehood. And that'll be at Dolores Huerta Middle School on Saturday, April 11th. So, we hope you will join us for those. And thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Emiko Sawanobi and followed by MJ Kenny. Welcome. Uh good evening, Mayor Takahashi, council members, city staff, and my fellow Burbank residents. Um my name is Amiko, and for the past few months, I've gotten to know several of our unhoused neighbors in Burbank. Uh despite the constant indignation of being treated like a nuisance rather than human beings, many of them are kind, friendly, and helpful. Um, rather than generally condemning the city for not doing enough for these individuals, I would just like to highlight the logistical difficulties of living on the streets in Burbank. The two main resources for the unhoused community are the Burbank Temporary Aid Center and the Burbank Safe Storage and Help Center. Both of these services have very limited hours during the day and offer no services at night. As far as I know, they do not offer overnight shelter. Often times, you need government ID to receive any kind of meaningful service. So, if you don't have that, you're out of luck. The homeless outreach team will let people know about these services, but can't or won't drive anybody there. So, you must carry all of your belongings and walk. Hopefully, you won't get turned away for whatever minor requirement you overlooked or couldn't for fulfill. At night, you try to find a safe place to sleep because there are no shelters. A library, a public space that all residents should have access to, seems like a logical choice. and yet you get woken up at all hours of the night and receive a citation from a police officer or security staff. If you can't appear in court, which could involve having to go to a separate city, you can be arrested the next time you encounter a police officer. Your ID is no longer safe to use because that could be the very thing that leads to your arrest. You are now a criminal because you can't afford the astronomical price of rent in this city. I'm not saying that homelessness is a simple issue that can be easily solved overnight. We all know that's not the case. However, I find it difficult to understand why the city can easily find money to buy military equipment for our police, but claim

claim that there is simply nothing in our budget to provide essential services to the most vulnerable. Do these choices not paint a very clear ethos of the city? That we are far more interested in punishment rather than prevention. I want to end this comment with an earnest question for the council members and for city staff. This is not a gotcha moment. I genuinely want to know and I hope you can provide an answer. If unhoused people are not allowed to sleep in publicly owned spaces, where are they supposed to go? Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is MJ Kenny followed by Jonathan Wilder. Welcome. Thank you. I do have some images that I submitted in advance. Okay, perfect. So, good evening. On Friday, February 27th, three Burbank police officers woke up the unhoused sleeping outside Burbank Central Library. It was approximately 3:00 a.m. The officers requested identification and issued citations. They verbally stated that unhoused residents are no longer allowed at the library at 10 p.m. or later and cannot sleep outside the library for the reasons of trash, litter, and loud music. I received a copy of three citations. The writing and paper quality render most forms illegible. During this time, I'd like to share the citation copies I have and walk the public through what is a predatory and unhelpful practice. I'd like to reference image one. In this first image, we have a photo of citation one. When someone receives a citation, their next steps are determined by the information housed in these three boxes. The red box, whether to appear in court or respond to citation. The yellow box, the location of the court with options for Burbank, Glendale, East LA, or other venue. and the green box, the date one needs to act by to avoid a warrant or added fees. As you can see, the three critical fields that would direct next steps are allegible at a consequence that is severe if ignored or misunderstood. To be clear, missing court may result in a warrant for arrest. I'd now like to reference image two. Even with the contrast of a black and white copy and the help of library staff, I cannot make out this critical information. Moving on to images three and then four. It was only through the comparison of three citations that I could make out the following. The notice is to appear in court. The court selected is Glendale Superior Court and the date is potentially May 28th, 2026. It should not be this difficult to read and respond to a citation, but there are

more significant questions we should be asking. Dark after hours is a citation's current reason, but why are citations really being issued at this time? These individuals have been able to rely on the Burbank Library as a safe place for rest. After all, the library is for everyone. Why are police approaching the unhoused when Allied is specifically contracted for outreach services for Burbank's homeless? Further, why was a member of the Burbank mental health evaluation team not present? Lastly, to address the most immediate concern concerns of our unhoused neighbors, can this court's location be changed to Burbank? And even better, can these citations be removed? I have had the pleasure of getting to know our unhoused neighbors in Burbank, especially those outside Burbank Central Library. I have only observed loud music from passing cars and little to no trash and litter contributed by their behaves. Whenever I bring uh food or supplies, there is a collective and cooperative effort by our unhouse community to make sure others are cared for and that the space is respected. They take the initiative to clean up after themselves and others and even refuse food and supplies they don't need. I want our city to do better by our most vulnerable and in need residents. Criminalizing poverty is not the way. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Jonathan Wilder followed by Carmenita Heliger. Welcome.

Good evening, city council. My name is Jonathan Wilder. Uh, and I'm here because I'm deeply concerned about the punitive measures that were taken by Burvank police to push unsheltered residents of Burbank away from place that they found stability, that they found security and community. Displacement is not a solution. But the good news is that it's not too late to prioritize real solutions that treat our unhoused neighbors with dignity and work to meet their needs. In the short term, the city should respect their choice to sleep at the library, which allows people to maintain community connections and personal safety. Other short-term solutions include removing as many of the barriers to service as possible and provide more support and structure for the existing social worker service at the library. In terms of longerterm solutions, on April 9th, 2024, nearly two years ago, the city council selected the site of the Burbank's homeless solution center and declared a shelter crisis within the city of Burbank. I would like to see the city act urgently to address this shelter crisis. on the agenda forecast for this very meeting. There was originally supposed to be an update about the Spurbank Homeless Solutions Center, but now not only is it not on today's agenda, as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to be on the agenda forecast for the remainder of the forecast. While I understand that the long-term solutions take time and planning, I think that the community deserves an update on how the city of Burbank plans to improve its current services. And related to this, I attended one of the community workshops for the new library. And I I was glad to see that multiple community members had placed sticky notes asking the city to include services for our unhoused neighbors as part of the plan res renovation. the

city, sorry, the library has already made strides towards this an existing space, but we can do more. Uh, in the time between now and the construction, I'd like to see the city focus more on what Burman can do to be more supportive of people who are unhoused rather than push them away. We also need to prioritize building housing in the area around the new library. And I hope that the city will comprehensively address this uh urgent need in the housing plan for the downtown specific plan. We as a community need to engage in short-term and long-term planning to reject punitive measures and like those citations mentioned and work towards clear comprehensive support network that'll provide secure supportive permanent housing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Carmenita Hela followed by Dana Diana Pulver. Welcome. Good evening, Madame Mayor, Mayor Takahashi, and our vice mayor Mullins, and then our city council. Uh, members Rosati, Perez, and Anthony, and our city staff. Um, my name is Carmenita Hela, and come on, you're killing me. My name's Carmenita Heliger. I'm a 20 plus year resident. Um, I have the pleasure of sitting on your library board and I'm here to speak about uh item nine. I don't think that we should be shrinking our uh members on our boards. I do understand that it is a lot of work on our staff, but the library board for one was one of our first boards that the city um had in its charter. Every council has come across to um add more library board. I mean add more boards. uh we ended up adding the um the OTB like every time. But another point is that most of everyone sitting up here came from a board. So the optics on that says what? That you don't want competition. I love serving on the library board. Right now, we are about to embark on potentially a huge service, a new library, and we need as many community advocates um out there speaking for that. Um, Council Member Rosati came from planning. He served over a decade. All of us, you know, have come besides our former city clerk. But I just want you to reconsider that to say that, you know, a lot of us really we love our

positions there. We love being able to um to work with council and give advice. It's a really important role that we take seriously. And if there is certain boards that need to be considered, then they should be separated out just like if you needed to add another board, you can look at each one separately. So, I'm just asking for you to reconsider that. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next up is Diana Pulver, followed by Mark Scrogs. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members. My name is Diana Pulver, and I am a housing provider and a proud banker. I am here to say again that additional rent control is counterproductive and will only make it more difficult for housing providers to maintain their properties. The recent rainstorms made it necessary to replace several windows on my building at a cost of $6,000. If additional rent control was in place, I would not be able to replace them. AB1482 has allowed me to have enough of a financial cushion to do this. I realize every business has to deal with regulations, but excessive controls hit small businesses the hardest. We do not have the resources that larger businesses do. Ask any small retailer, restaurant tour, or grosser. Small business owners are an independent-minded. We didn't go into business to make a ton of money, but we didn't go into business to lose money either. We go into business to be our own boss, to have some control over our lives, to provide for our families, ourselves, and our community, to become part of the middle class. Small business is an important part of Burbank. It is important to create and maintain a vibrant middle class because a middle a strong middle class is the cornerstone of a strong democracy. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next up is Mark Scrogs followed by Joe Pimeient. Welcome.

Good evening everyone. I'm Mark Scrogs. Um I just want to discuss about a little bit about the Warner Brothers Paramount merger. People think it's already a done deal. It's far from a done deal. I know that they're talking about like people being let go already. I talked to people at the studios who are all kind of like keeping their heads low so they no one notices they're there so they don't get fired soon. Um it's not a great situation but it's not done yet. Um I know Rob Mont and the other attorney generals are getting into it now. I really recommend I've brought this up before, but go to blockthemer merger.com. It's a very simple website. It's very userfriendly. Even I could figure it out that you can go and reach out. It's like tell your stories. Tell why you know how it affects how it's going to affect like like a Warner Brothers the dog house or smokehouse or any of those h you know restaurants in those areas. How it's going to affect these people because it's going to affect a lot you know and we've already been through enough already in entertainment. Um so register your opinions there. um foreign regulators are very involved also and I think people haven't really even thought started to think about how the Saudis are involved with Paramount, how China's involved, how MAGA's involved and um well they know about that but um so there's going to be a lot of push back even though they're trying to you know like here's what we're doing now, here's what we're going to do and here's how we're selling the lots and all that sort of stuff. So just keep that in mind but please go to blockthemer merger.com. Um, also on that same front, um, just so you know, I today I read that YouTube is now the biggest media company in the world. It surpassed Disney. So, just be realized that that's the world we live in right now. I was going to bring up something about nond develop projects, which are non-development u projects where people do on their own, they release them themselves, they do the music on their own. I'll bring that up another time, but this is the future and I think we need to kind of jump into it a lot more. You know, I know we got

the the few of the companies here like Darmman, the others that do um vertical short forms, but YouTube is our future. It's not Disney and Warner Brothers. So, that's it for tonight. Although, I'll take checks from people who working for Disney and Warner Brothers for my clients. Anyway, thanks a lot.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Joe Pimeient, followed by Mario Hair. Welcome. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, staff, and everybody present in the chamber. Uh that's a fascinating conversation that I would like to follow up on, but like it's I only have 2 minutes and 50 seconds. Anyways, first and foremost, uh just to put the tone into it, I'm actually very excited about the new library. So, I do I am very optimistic and positive that it brings exactly what they're promising. Uh cannot wait. Um and I'm sure and I'm glad that neither can you. Uh anyways um as you all know a participant with the Burbank tenant union and as as of right now we continue to see displacement of people due to high rent increases. We continue to see you know we continue to see displacement due to uh being able being unable to afford rent. We continue to see displacement due to rent evictions and we continue to see neglect of buildings due to precisely you know due precisely because tenants are fearful of saying that the building needs to be repaired because of high rent increases. Um last session someone in came saying that home ownership matters and yet um you know there's a great way to save money which is you know like what if your rent were to be lower. Anyways it's not what I'm here about talk about today. Uh what I actually want to talk about today is uh I want to get a little personal and uh as you may have already heard uh I have a child uh and I love to walk around with my child. I like to go everywhere with my child. Uh and in case anybody is curious, uh I happen to live around the area of Lake and Alama, which is an amazing which is an amazing location because it's very centralized to a lot to a lot of um a lot of resources such as um there's a lot of burrito stores close by. There's Geeky Te's down the corner. Uh there's also uh Yakis if you never had it. Anyways, and on the other side of the freeway, there's other a location such as the Inkwell Tavern, the Blue Room, Walgreens, Terry Joe's, and Ralphs. Now what I'm here to talk about is just how annoying and embarrassing as a city it is that 6 miles from where I live I cannot access you know you know the other side of the freeway unless I

take a car that should be a shame for our city because again you will go on Google maps and if I try to say like how do I walk from you know how do I walk from the corner of Alama and lake to the corner of flower in Alama it will tell me to go all the way to Providencia take the providencia bridge and then walk all the way back which takes three times as much. And if you know your geography, you know that it goes Alama, Ash, Elmwood, Cedar, and then Providencia. Not to mention that after dark, anyone who likes to go on the Providence bridge has my hats off because that bridge is dark. And again, if this is the only accessible way to get there via walking, I don't think that we're doing enough as a city. Anyways, so the reason why I bring all this up is because again to really important to take these measures into consideration of how to make a city more accessible by providing you know by providing the resources to make it more walkable and the only way to do that is that there has to be you know there has to stop being a prioritization to the automobile. Uh again like for anyone who has walked alama that vehicles you know especially cars use that as a ramp. uh the bus, you know, the bus is often late because it's either and I'm out of time. Anyways, this is something to take into consideration of how important it is walkability because it makes streets safer. Thank you for your time. Good evening.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Mary O'Hare followed by Susan O' Carol. Welcome. Um before I start, could we make sure that we have the right video? It's a Yes. Great. Good evening everyone. Please roll the video.

It's going to come in one form or folks. The BRT is coming. It's going to come in one form or another. No matter how much you wish, no matter how much you stomp, no matter how much you yell, that train has left the station. The BRT is coming. We may adjust issues such as headways, uh, areas of dedicated lane, onboard, all door boarding, synchronized lights, but it's coming. So those who think in the audience or on the dis that BRT is not going to come, it's coming. Let me tell you that. In fact, we're trying to plan the groundbreaking. It's tied between uh Glenn Oaks Boulevard and Central Avenue or Olive Avenue in Burbank. We're trying to figure out where the biggest impact is going to be. Um the folks in Burbank uh keep on being uh obstructing obstructive first. They didn't like the BRT because it was running on the curb and it was taking away parking lanes. So Metro went back and redesigned it. So they made it so that you do have the cars being able to park. It becomes a side running route. Then then they say no, they don't want it. Uh you have to show us that there's enough daily ridership. They wrote a letter to Metro saying you better do an EIR. I can't say for certain, but I believe there's about 0.01 chance that there's going to be a new EIR done for the the BRT in light of SP79. Um, city of Burbank also said, "We're

not going to give you construction permits." Quite frankly, they don't know what they're talking about. I wish there was a little more clear-headed um analysis in our neighboring city. Uh Metro doesn't need construction permits from anyone. News flash. Read the public utilities code. They have complete control over the high of the highways and roads in the cities. Complete control. So, let's keep that in perspective. and the city of Glendale has very little if any influence on the BRT. So that's the way it is. If you're angry at it, don't be angry at a transit agency that has levied a tax on the residents and is collecting money and spending it as the residents voted for Measure R and Measure M. You can raise your issues with the coalition that has supported SB79.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Susan O' Carol followed by Kevin Morris. Welcome. As a followup to the video Mary played, we would respectfully request council to ask the city attorney to respond to Glendale Mayor and Metro board member Njarian's contention that Burbank does not have the power to deny Metro construction permits. In terms of his contention that there we are powerless to do anything about the BRT because voters voted for it, I would note the following. Voters voted for a tax to fund transit projects. They did not vote for specific transit projects because that information was not provided to them in their voter information. When voters voted for Measure M and Measure R, they did not know that transit projects would be the trigger for destruction of single family neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County and remove the ability of cities to limit development in fire zones because SB79 did not exist. I would also note that both of these measures predate COVID and the significant postco COVID drop in transit ridership in the county. In fact, the significant drop in transit ridership began in 2014 with ridership still only 62% of 2013 levels. Measure the measure M projects list is not cast in stone. Section 11A of Measure M allows for amendments for any purpose to the list of transit projects funded by these measures. So we should not be stuck with the BRT when an express bus with signal preeemption would accomplish the same thing. Please continue to fight for to protect Burbank's neighborhoods. We all want affordable housing, but

that's not what SB79 with its luxury loophole is about. We all favor the availability of transit, but neighborhoods people love and have poured their hopes, dreams, and life savings into should not be destroyed to replace a transit line that generates 1,381 riders per day with a slower BRT with a dedicated lane that's unlikely to serve as many people as the current car lane serves. Metro can say that the BRT will serve 30,000 riders per day, but the two existing BRT lines serve half that number and their wrership is falling, not growing. Spending $317 million for a BRT that along with SB79 will destroy neighborhoods, increase exposure to firehousers, overburden the city's infrastructure, and likely cause increased cost to all of Burbank's residents. Makes no sense. that cost. That's a cost we should not be required to pay, especially on top of the fact that taxpayers already pay 88.1% of Metro's more than $2.4 billion annual operating costs and 100% of its nearly $2 billion capital costs. Please continue to fight for Burbank. Save our neighborhoods. Thank you, mayor, members of the council, staff, city manager, city attorney. Thank you. Next up is Kevin Morris, followed by Jackie Waltman. Welcome.

Good evening, Madame Mayor and members of the council. U my name is Dr. Kevin Morris, and I'm here to speak um about the support of the consent calendar for item number seven. that is the acceptance of an additional $200,000 from the Los Angeles County Aging and Disabilities Department for the funding for the contracted elderly nutrition program. So, I obviously support this. This is something that we need in the community. U my only caveat to it. I'm wondering if the city or the city manager's office can write a letter or have communications with the Los Angeles County aging and disabilities department uh about the food and the current vendor. I have several home care patients that use their elderly services to have their meals and often the complaints that I hear about these food items are the meat is often too tough. Um, produce like bread and fruits and vegetables u can sometimes be moldy and spoiled. Um, and then additionally, there are not enough plant-based options for people who do not eat meat. Um, they may have plant-based options that are fruit, but that might be spoiled and there's not entre for our senior citizens. Um, so uh I know that this is through the Los Angeles County of Aging and Disabilities Department. So, my request is if we can write a letter uh to this uh to this group um about the vendor and what are their standards for having more plant-based options as well as non-spoiled food. Thank you for your time and I appreciate all you do.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Jackie Waltman followed by David Cocher. Welcome.

Hi. How are you? Okay. Having live having lived in Burbank a very long time, I'm concerned about the change in Burbank politics. Previously, when members of the community signed up to run for an elected office, they were asked to sign an agreement not to engage in negative campaigns. That requirement seems to have changed and it seems as though there is a cancer in our city that shows in council members refusing to represent all float all citizens and floating negative comments about other com council members and trying to silence any differing opinion. Over time, some of the members of this council have made it clear that only ideas that agree with their ideology has merit. I have seen council members belittle residents who speak before them, referring to their positions as insane and participating in having other council members censored. No such approach was exhibited when councilman Anthony Council member Anthony embarrassed many residents by actions that led to his nickname Mayor Spanky. It is really expected that the council members remain open to listening to all residents. The recall of council member Rosati for having a different opinion is certainly the right of citizens. Unfortunately, there is an ongoing belief that council member Anthony is deeply involved with the group behind this movement. Council member Perez has repeatedly stated how much she enjoyed growing up in Burbank. That brings the question of why then is she trying to destroy it. Council members Anthony and Perez are rumored to be looking for other political opportunities like Nick Schultz did. I would like to see more professional, ethical, and respectful council who upholds the oath that they took and who are more concerned about all of the citizens in Burbank over their political future. The arrogance of that metro guy is how many people in Burbank feel about three of you.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is David Cocher, followed by Liz Fax. Welcome.

Yeah. Hello. My name is uh David Coker. It's completely normal everybody butchers my name, so it's okay. It's all good. Um, anyways, I just wanted to uh just first state that I love Burbank and I'm happy to be here and uh I'm here to just talk about the uh Paramount uh Warner Brothers merger and um I mean first and foremost I'm a comic book geek. Um I'm a fan of Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern. So obviously I'm very curious to see how it would affect that. But I know that it goes deeper than just that. And I am just here to just get all the answers just to see how this merger would affect uh citizens and uh just people all around the world. And uh you know my question is is there any upside to this if it does close? I know there's a lot of opposition uh to that and uh I'm just here just to get both perspectives uh upsides and downsides and also I just wanted to uh congratulate uh Nikki Perez on being the California Film Commission. So there's that. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next up is Liz Bax followed by JO and that's my last card. Welcome. Good evening, mayor, city council members, and city staff. Thank you for taking the time to listen to all of us tonight. I appreciate all that you have done so far for Burbank residents who are concerned about the potential impact the LA Metro BRT project could have on our single family home neighborhoods. I also want to thank Susan and Mary for their information that they shared with you tonight. This was important for everyone to see. I attended last week's Glendale City Council meeting and was surprised by the mayor's comments. That said, not all Glendale Council members share that view. Some express interest in doing what Burbank is doing, requesting a new environmental impact report for this project as it relates to our communities. Earlier today, the Glendel Council was scheduled to vote on whether or not they would even submit a request for the EIR. I also attended the LA Metro community outreach open house in Glendale yesterday where the BRT design was presented. Again, the design for Olive still shows dedicated lanes. What also concerned me was that the design team present did not seem to have information about SB79 and how it might affect these plans. This is not about opposing traffic or transit. It's not about opposing affordable housing. I believe everyone in this room ultimately wants the same thing. A strong livable community for people who call Burbank home. It is about protecting neighborhoods and preserving choice. Many residents work their entire lives for the opportunity to buy a home in the neighborhood in a neighborhood community and we should not eliminate that choice. I am not against growth. I am simply

asking that the choice I made here in Burbank 26 years ago, the choice to buy a home, to get married, raise my children, and have them attend neighborhood public schools. I'm just asking that that be respected. I'm not wealthy, but like many residents, I have worked incredibly, incredibly hard to make sacrifices to build a life here. For many of us, owning a home in a neighborhood like this represents decades of work, commitment, and investment in this community. I hope those long-term commitments are carefully considered as decisions are made about the future of our neighborhoods. I'm hopeful that as you have worked to protect the tenants in this city, you will also protect the homeowners. I know the decisions you are facing are complex and I appreciate the responsibility you carry for the future of our city. That is why I believe it is so important we fully understand the impacts moving forward. Please continue to moving forward with urgency to ensure the fully environmental review for this project. Thank you all very much for listening to me. Thank you for your comment. Next up is Jomo, and that's my last card. Welcome.

Hi team. Hi. Good evening. Um, you know, we're all here because we um we love Burbank and we know that there are things that set apart this city. Um, and there are also things that don't set apart this city. And to echo some of what my um neighbors have said is that, you know, criminalizing poverty um disenfranchising people does not prevent crime. And I think we know that there's no shortage of data of studies that that indicate that. Um things that do prevent crime are social services, our preventative measures that we can invest in. Um, as part of the Burbank Community Defense Coalition, we know that more people are continuing to be kidnapped off of the streets of Burbank, upwards of 16 people. We still believe that number is higher. Um, and a big arm of that is well, I can't say that, but the flock cameras are are a a scare scary aspect of this for a lot of us that we want this flock contract canled. Um, San Santa Cruz canceled it in January. Um Oxnard Police Department suspended their flock cameras. We know that 71 California um law enforcement agencies have been uh caught illegally sharing data with with ICE through these flock cameras. Um last year Rob Bont sued the city of Alcohone for um sharing data with ICE. And I know you know these these cameras could be ran by Wonder Woman and they are still um pose a danger and a threat to our community. Um, I also want to echo what another neighbor of mine said that a strong middle class um is the foundation of a strong democracy. That a strong middle working class is the foundation of a strong democracy. And I think that rent control is one way to support the middle class, not one way to uh um uh hinder

it. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. That's my last in-person comment. Do we have any calls on the line? We do not. Okay. Okay. There being no further public comment, I now declare the general public comment period closed. Now is a brief response. Time for a brief response from city council, city manager, or the city attorney. Does city staff or city attorney have any? Yes.

Uh thank you, madam mayor. Uh I have a few things uh real quick. So um one uh for the first call uh first speaker uh we are not planning to uh go to a vote or an election for the library. Uh we are as uh Miss Becker said uh again we are going to leverage our measure P funds that were are previously approved to uh uh finance the project and then we have other things like grants and u um uh um there there's some other smaller uh monies that we're going to take advantage of. So uh um so that's that one. Uh the homeless solutions center uh that's coming back next month. that had to get rescheduled from this month. So, but that's still on track to come back uh with uh details and you're going to have to make a decision there. Um I do not have the details regarding the uh uh citation at the library. Um what I would like to recommend is that uh we uh come back and give you a a comprehensive uh um uh uh uh umformational email related to that. So, uh we could get the details of that uh rather than uh try to get into some discussion here. So, I want to make sure I give you the correct facts. Uh, but we could follow up and let you know. Uh, and as the council knows, we do provide a lot of, uh, uh, outreach services related to homelessness. So, I want to make sure that that's on the record, um, despite us not receiving, uh, much money from measure H and now measure A. So, uh, so we do our best, uh, with that and, uh, uh, with with all our different services and different outreach. So, I wanted to make that, uh, a point. And then um also to um the uh concern about the nutrition program. I think uh Miss Garcia already reached out uh to the resident and um that's a very successful program, but if there are concerns uh you can certainly uh submit any concerns uh to our parks and recck department who does run that and is constantly trying to uh get us money from the county uh related to uh funding that successful program. So uh those are my four items. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. City Attorney, do you have anything?

Uh, briefly, uh, I can respond to Ms. O'Hare and O' Carol's uh, comments and the showing of the video. Uh, I'm aware, uh, of of, uh, Mayor Najarian's comments. I understand that their council, majority of the council actually requested for uh, the BRT issue to come back. Uh I'm not at liberty to discuss uh uh my legal strategies, but um Burbank is doing its utmost to make sure that the approvals that the city uh must issue uh receive the u proper environmental review where SB79 is is triggered. There are approvals that need to be issued. Burbank is working with Metro under the cooperative agreement uh that this city council approved to make sure that um the design is is thoughtful and sticks with council policy. Uh council does have a consistent policy uh contrary to how it was represented in the video that um the initial BRT is to be mixed flow until they reach certain ridership targets. And SB79 is certainly substantial new information that changes uh Metro's own environmental determination that there would be no land use impacts by imposing increased densities where certain triggers are met statutoily. So um that said, the city did provide uh comments 100% comments to Metro on on uh design. We haven't received a response back from Metro yet, but we indicated our concerns were not with mixed flow portions uh of the project, but where dedicated lanes would trigger SB79. Uh we we had not concluded that their EIR needed to be circulated, but simply requested supplemental environmental review. uh they may have interpreted it that way, but uh we're primarily concerned with the city being

able to reuse the same environmental process uh once we have that substantial new information that really changes the land use uh impacts of the project. So, in any event, I'm not at liberty to really share any more of the city strategy, but uh we're looking to fully vet um the project uh and the implications of SB79. Thank you. All right. Council questions, staff comments. Yes, Council Member Anthony.

Um, thank you, Madame Mayor. Um, I wanted to uh just point out uh to Miss O'Hara, Mr. O' Carol, if you notice, our city attorney did not comment on the substance of what was going on in Glendale. Uh, because we don't do that. This is Burbank. We talk about Burbank. And in fact, Mayor Narian does serve as our representative to the Metro Board, but that video you showed was not a Metro Board meeting. That was a Glendale City Council meeting. So, he was out of line talking about what we do here. He should be talking about Glendale. Um, so we'll we'll move on and we can talk about what we're doing when that comes up uh on our next agenda. Um, Mr. Coker,

thank you. Do me a favor, check out the silver fox in row six, Mark Scrogs. Have a conversation with that gentleman. I'm sure he can inform you on a lot of what's going on. He informs us about a lot of what's going on. Uh if you have any other questions, uh you feel free to email city council burbankca.gov. city council at burbankca.gov. um AMO in November. It'll be 10 years 10 years since I first ran for this seat. And I asked then why we don't have a 247 homeless shelter in Burbank. We're close. Um Front Street is coming. Um, I'd love to ask for even a calendar update if we have a timeline available on what we're doing, but a lot of the stuff that you mentioned and a lot of your friends that came up mentioned are things that we can't solve without that last component. Uh, I do want to say the citations we typically give are usually for issues that uh either impede the way or our disturbances. Um, if I could have the chief, if you have any information on how these citations are given out, uh, I don't want misinformation to get out there. I'd like to understand uh what what's happening at the library after 10 p.m. if that's all right. Council member Anthony, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, and staff, I would love to give you additional information, but without additional context and talking to my staff, especially on this incident, I don't want to give you the wrong information.

If you allow me to look into it, I will definitely get back to council. Can I have one of the uh audience members, if they can get you the citation number, would uh Yes, that would help. That would help. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And then uh lastly um uh Dr. Morris, I see uh one of our director of uh parks and rec talk talked to you about plant-based options. Okay, great. Perfect. Thank you, uh Marissa uh Garcia. Um and then uh lastly, I'm excited for the uh orchestra on the 27th. So there you go.

All right, who's up next? Council member Rosati. Uh thank you, Madam Mayor. Um just want to say uh thank you to all the women who helped shape Women's History Month. Um it's a it's great uh that we recognize that. Um congrats to Miss Beckler on um finance week and such a great job you and your team do for our for our city. Thank you very much. Um I really appreciate the update on the the Olympics and the fan zone. Again, I think we're we're ahead of the curve and that's it's obviously it's going to be a benefit to our city and our residents. Um, Miss Pitchford, uh, thank you for all you do with Leadership Burbank. You guys, uh, for 25 years have done amazing work in our community and, um, there's no doubt that this year's class will will knock it out of the park. Um, Mr. I think it was Mr. Stanley regarding the uh update on the uh concert. Um it's it's it's great that we can bring this content to our community in in different formats and ways. So I I thank you for coming and presenting. I don't know if you're still here. Um but I think it's important to that our residents know that that there's an outlet for that. Regarding the BRT, I really don't have any emotion over what somebody from Glendel says. We are Burbank. We will do what's best for Burbank. We will fight for our residents of Burbank. So, I really have nothing to say about what a council member says in another city. We do what we do here, and that's all we're going to focus on personally. Uh, Miss Heliggar, thank you, uh, for your

comments regarding our boards and commissions. Uh, Mr. Coker, um, you know, I think there's more to the story. I don't think it's over yet. There's a lot of speculation. You know, there half half the people say it's a bad thing, half the people say it's a good thing. I don't think the story is fully written. So, um I think there's going to be some jocking, some maneuvering, and we'll just see where it all goes. I can tell you that all of us are are we we know the impacts of of this industry on our city. We are very in tune with all the key players. Our staff is watching every report that comes out. Um we have our former mayor uh appointed on a very important prestigious um commission and board. So we got our finger on the pulse. So, we're we're watching. We're watching. Um, and Miss Bax, um, you know, I understand your fear and I have, uh, expressed myself in the last 10 years about what's happening with all the things coming down from Sacramento. And I I will tell you, I will be your voice. Um, I will be the loudest voice. Um, I will carry your voice. Um, and I understand the investments that our residents have made into our community, into their homes, and uh and the impacts that that could have. So, thank you for coming and um and and expressing, Madame Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, um, Council Member Perez. Okay. All right. Uh, thank you everybody for coming on down and joining us. Um, first I want to say Trina, congratulations on another great leadership Burbank class. I will not say who's the best because I fear that it gets into a horrible situation with all my colleagues. I'm already getting threats. I was fighting words.

They're all amazing and and I look forward to this year's project. Um, thank you to Mr. Stanley for um the Burbank Flormonic uh updates. I think that program is great. I've had the honor of attending as a high school student uh myself and and I think it's it's a wonderful program and I hope that everybody attends the free concert. They are a wonderful and professional group of musicians um on the concerns of of housing and homelessness. And Michael, thank you for coming and sharing everything you you did in the questions and to the other two folks that did as well. But uh I did want to address I I appreciate your questions in particular. There's a couple things like the homeless solution center that you're absolutely right. We are working towards. You're absolutely right. Takes a while. It's expensive. But I know this council has voted in in exactly what we would like to see at that center. And personally from from my point of view as as a former homeless service provider, there are specific things that I saw there that would really fill the gaps for what we need here in Burbank and that's why I hope we can push it forward. And I don't want to get too much into what's coming up next meeting or or the following meeting on the docket. But that's in the works and I hope you tune in for that meeting. Uh the only piece I will address is I I I do recall and I'm happy to sit down and chat more one-on-one about this. you mentioning about uh allied services driving folks over the possibility that's beyond our purview because that is that is violating several several laws and several liability clauses that are above even our heads and I can tell you how difficult that gets for for the individual working as a provider with safety with etc etc. So, I'm happy to talk about kind of the pieces on on how that works from from that point of view because I I know it's hard until you get there and and and you're in this situation. Um, I do want to hear from the chief. I know it's hard to say it without knowing the citation, but I know

the chief will follow up and I do want to hear a little bit more about what happened, why the Met team wasn't called, and the reasoning. And I think we'll all be able to to learn from it together, which is how it should be. So, I appreciate you putting forward thoughtful questions. Um, Carmenita, I know she had to take off. I was giving her a hard time because she had a UCR mom shirt and I have a UCR alumni folder. So, speaking near and dear to my heart. Um, I know she asked I I wanted to make sure we covered it. I know she asked about the um board and commission reductions. That's not on the agenda tonight. There is something on the agenda involving boards and commissions, but that's about um the boards and commission policy that's that's just on consent to add it to when when we give them the information. That will be discussed at our following meeting though. So, I just wanted to kind of clarify that distinction and tell Miss Heliger that we hear you and thank you for sharing your comments and we'll address them at the following meeting. Um let's see. Mr. Morris, thank you for coming and sharing that about the food. I I will say it's not the first time I've heard it. So, thank you for bringing it up and I I would like our our staff to to take a look at that. I appreciate Miss Garcia being proactive and and talking with our provider. We appreciate the food. We appreciate the grant that we get, but we want to make sure it's edible for our our seniors in our community who rely on it heavily. Um, let's see. Uh, Mr. Coker, thank you for the question and asking and I think we could spend an hour talking about what our thoughts are on on the merger, but I can tell you that as a council, we have sent letters to our federal representatives and our attorney general with exactly how we feel and our concerns for our city and for our workers. And so I will gladly send you that letter. I'll give you my card in a second. I'll gladly send you that letter um so you can take a look at what we've been putting out to our representatives

and where we stand. Um and then and thank you for the kudos. And then finally, let's see. Um I just want to thank uh folks for coming and speaking about the entertainment industry and about the immigration issues in our city. A lot of you do this every week and so I'm grateful that you come up, you share your thoughts, you keep us updated and know that you we hear you. And Mr. Scrogs, I owe you an email and a meeting. I was in DC last week. That's why I was not here trying to keep our power rates low. So, thank you everybody for being here. And thank you. Those are all my comments. Thank you, uh, Vice Mayor.

All right. Um well my colleagues addressed and staff a lot of the issues and concerns but uh first of all I want to congratulate all the women that are here tonight and listening to us for just existing. I think you know we're here we're awesome. We do great job and so congratulations to all of us uh for always doing a great job. Um, also to Miss Becker and her team for the two uh, recognitions. You always do a great job and we're always impressed with your um, the professional of finance and you guys run our city with the budget. So, we appreciate that. Um, Trina 2013 is the best class ever. So, I'm sorry. I know. I know that the last year's project was amazing. I was there and you guys did an outstanding job and you helped a really good uh cause in the community, but I'm still biased. So, 2013, but I'll include 2025 as well. Um, you know, I'm always supportive of the leadership Burbank uh program and yes, we do have a lot of leaders that come out of the program and join our boards and commissions and also run on council and we're here. So, yes, keep up the good work and whatever we can do to support you, we'll be there for you. Um, Dr. Stanley, everybody talked about the the band and what a great job uh you guys do. I will try to find some time to attend and enjoy uh the music. Um Amo, we all talked about homelessness and you already heard um our approach here on council, but I also

want to give a shout out to our staff who run the homeless uh program. They approach our homeless individuals with kindness, with fairness, and they do work extremely hard, and I know this firsthand to approach them and find a solution for them because no one should be left sleeping on the street. So, um, I want to assure you that we don't take that lightly here in our city. Yes, we don't have a shelter, but we're definitely working. We're making progress moving forward. We just uh broke ground at Holla. We did the ribbon cutting. So, that's a a great asset to our community and the city has invested a lot of money in that as well. Uh, so you know, to hear you talk about a homeless population knowing I know what our staff does. I know what the police department does and what this city council continue to do to work or a homeless population. Um, I think we're far off ahead of any other city and how we approach our homeless individuals here in the city. So, I want to assure you they're not being abused in any way. Uh, but we have an issue that we need to deal with. So, I agree with that. Um, Carmenita, I know she just left. Uh, exactly what m u going to call you mayor Perez again. Um, what the council member Perez said the item tonight, we're not talking about reduction of our boards and commission. I believe that's coming back in the near future. Um, so we will address it when it comes back. And I do want to say, Carmenita, I did serve on

the civil service board for two years. So I think most all of us here have started on boards and commissions. So um, Madam Vice Mayor, I think this is I think this might be the first first council that all of us all five of us have served on a board before.

We've done our dues. We've served. We we climbed up the ladder, right? Yeah. Um, but it I did serve on the civil service. It was it was fantastic. Um, now going on to Miss O'Hare, Susan, and Liz. I want to combine all three of you um with the metro issue. Um, yeah, the video is very disappointing, you know, watching this and seeing what our neighboring city is talking about Burbank when we don't talk about Glendale and kind of getting in our business. Uh, yeah. Your first reaction would be what's going on, who's lying to who. BA, basically, that's the these are the questions that I've been answering since this video came out. Um, and I have full trust in our city attorney and our staff that we're doing what's best for our city. I am not going to be shaken or moved by anything other uh council members may or say about what Burbank does and what we need to do for our people. I think you all know where I stand on BRT and I want to correct a statement that was said um that there's a perception or you know the mayor put out a perception out there that we don't want uh transportation to come to Burbank. On the contrary, we welcome the bus to come to Burbank. We want Metro to bring the bus to Burbank, but we have the terms of mixed flow. And now with SB79, it puts us in a greater impact. And I trust our city attorney and the staff. And I hope you trust us that we're sitting up here representing the most the best interest for our community as much as we can with the laws that we're being given. So, thank you for bringing the video, but please inform others because um I know that

kind of created some some concerns from the community about watching that video. So, um I David that you were already addressed. We don't know more than you do. We watch the news. So, uh whatever you hear, we hear. But like they said, Mr. SCR back there probably has a lot more information that we can give you. Um, Anata, thank you everyone. Appreciate it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, Council Member Perez, you had one more.

I forgot to mention one thing in the long list of things that I said. Uh, I also did want to address like all of my colleagues cuz I think it's worth addressing. I think my colleagues here put it best. we're in Burbank and I appreciate the respect of my colleagues outside of the city when they talk about their own cities rather than talking about ours and the decisions we're making up here. I think that's the same respect that everybody up here has shown um our regional partners and for the not for nothing every city has had a vote and has had a stake in the BRT. We have made our position very clear. Glendale has made their position very clear. Pasadena and the city of Los Angeles. I appreciate you all sharing this with us as our residents and our constituents. And I think this body has been very clear in where we are. And our staff, I have full confidence, are working very well to tell Metro where we are. And again, one member does not represent an entire city, nor an entire body on the Metro board. So, I just want to make sure I let you know where I'm at, too. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Um my colleagues have addressed a lot of the most of the questions and concerns and thoughts that I was going to respond to. So thank you for for sharing that. Um also thank you to all who came out tonight as always taking time out of your lives to express your concerns and your celebrations of what's happening in the community. Really appreciate that. Those who email and and contact us between meetings as well. Appreciate those. Um so um unfortunately the fact that 2022 is the best class of leadership Burbank is not on the agenda so I can't talk about it but you know maybe I can agendaize that another time. Sorry.

And um I had to say it. Had to say it. You queued it up. You queued it up. I know I'm older though. She's playing the age card. I don't know. We all know it's 2018. Stop. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's not agenda. can't talk. So, I would say the mayor is correct. It's not on the agenda. Yes.

Yes. All right. And um I I wanted to for those who uh discussed the the homelessness situation and the situation with the citations. At first I want to just thank you in for being for caring so much and for being willing to come here and address something that matters this much to you of folks who live in our community and making sure they're being cared for and that when you see something that does isn't right and it's not working right that you come here and share that with us so that we can make it right. As uh council has mentioned, we have a lot of services for our unhoused. We have a lot of support and at the same time there are times that may not be what's needed and we can look for areas of improvement and how we can can do this better. So this is an example that maybe we could have we missed something or we could have done something different or there's an opportunity here. So I also look forward to the report to find out what happened. And then in general, I wanted to ask staff too, like about the citations being illeible. If somebody has an illegible citation, what how do where do they go or how do they follow up on that to understand what their citation is says or how do they how do they know what to do?

Mayor Takahashi Rafael Canary, police chief. Um, good question. they could actually go to the front counter of the police department, turn in that illeible citation, and we can give them a copy of a legible one. Okay? Or at least what ends up happening more often than not is it's a three-part duplicate triplicate copy. So, if the officer does not press hard enough, what ends up happening is it doesn't transpose over to the others. And then it's it's really easy to rub off, especially if you put it in rub it on your clothing or otherwise, but we can we can print them a new copy. Okay. Is there a way to do it online to check what the citation is or not that I'm aware of? Okay. I think it has to be done in person.

Okay. All right. Well, at least we know that that's a next step that can be taken if there's another hopefully not another, but if there is a situation with an allegible citation that folks know where they can go and if for some reason they do not want the information, we can provide them with other information as to the court date and the important dates on the citation.

Okay, great. Thank you. I look forward to your report about that follow-up. Um, not to to uh to beat uh too much on this drum, but I concur with my colleagues about what was mentioned on the video and that one member on another city's city council has no power in Burbank. So, I just want to say that and um there's some folks who have mentioned some, you know, ongoing concerns or things that you really want to keep sharing with us and I and I encourage you to do so. I also want to say that some of you I haven't seen in a while in a meeting. So I'd love to check in, have a meeting, we can sit down and chat over Zoom, in person, um over coffee and my contact information is on the city website. I have my link to my calendar, link to my phone number and my email and it would be great to catch up. So if there's anyone who feels like they want to go deeper into the conversation, feel free to reach out and I'm sure my colleagues feel feel the same. So, thank you so much for bringing it up here, but there's always opportunity to go deeper dive. You only have three minutes here, understand? So, please feel free to reach out. Okay. All right. That's all I've got. And thank you again for all for being here. The consent calendar is next. This consent calendar may be enacted in one motion. Madam city clerk, please read the consent calendar.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We have nine items on tonight's consent agenda. Item one is approval of the city council minutes of the regular meeting of February 24th, 2026 and the dark meeting of March 3rd, 2026. Item two is approval of the parking authority minutes of the joint meeting of January 13, 2026. Item three is adoption of resolutions approving the establishment of the salary and conflict of interest code designation for the classification of senior manager BWP water systems and adoption of a resolution approving the citywide salary schedule. Item four is adoption of a resolution approving contract documents, plans, and specifications authorizing execution of a contract for bid schedule 1548, new emergency operations center at Burbank City Hall to BBS Construction Incorporated and finding of SQA exemption. Item five is adoption of a resolution determining a public necessity and permitting the prime contractor to add a subcontractor to the Orange Grove parking structure restoration project. Item six is review of the 2025 military equipment annual report and renewal of ordinance number 20 22-3974 approving the military equipment funding acquisition and use policy. Item seven is acceptance of an additional $200,000 from the Los Angeles County Aging and Disabilities Department funding for the contracted elderly nutrition program older Americans act title 3 C1 and related amendment of the fiscal year 2025 2026 adopted budget. Item eight is approval of the 2025 general plan annual progress report and

2025 housing element annual progress report. And item nine is approval of the amended city council expectations of board commission and committee members. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Motion to approve the consent calendar. I'll move to approve the consent calendar. Second. Council member Perez first. Vice Mayor second. Let's please take a role. Council member Anthony. No. On six. Yes. On the rest. Council member Perez. Yes. Council member Rosati. Yes. Vice Mayor Mullins. Yes. And Mayor Tagahashi? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Tonight we have one report to council this evening. After staff's presentation, the city council will proceed with an in-person public comment only. Speakers will be allowed to speak on this item at the conclusion of the presentation as long as a speaker has not spoken on the item during the first period of general public comment. Please be sure to submit your public comment card now as no additional public comment cards will be accepted once the comment period starts following the staff's presentation. So the first report to council tonight is review of the general funds financial status. You're busy tonight. As of December 31st, 2025, an adoption of resolutions amending the fiscal year 20252026 budget for midyear adjustments. I welcome again back to the podium Miss Jennifer Beckett, financial services director, to please present the report. Thank you and good evening, Mayor Takahashi and members of the city council. I'm Jennifer Becker with the financial services department and I'll go ahead and date myself leadership Burbank class of 2004. Uh, and I'm here tonight

and I'm here tonight to present you with our midyear financial report. Uh, we recently closed our second quarter, which is the halfway point of our fiscal year. So, this is a good time to take a look at the status of revenues and expenditures and make adjustments where needed and as we head into next year's budget process with an updated look at the city's financial future. So, we'll go ahead and start that PowerPoint presentation. Um, so we'll start with a brief economic outlook for the national economy and the state of California budget. Uh, we'll review our fiscal year 2526 mid-year results for both revenues and expenditures. Uh, we'll review our mid-year appropriation requests. And then we'll roll all of those items into a financial projection for our general fund year-end budget and 5-year forecast. And lastly, we'll provide a brief preview of our upcoming 2627 budget process. With that, let's begin. So, let's talk about the US economy for just a minute. Uh, I've revised this slide more times than I can count because it seems as if the economy is changing by the day. Uh, but when you look past the headlines and into the actual data, there's actually a lot more stability than one would think. Uh, we can now look back at the full calendar year 2025 and we did see pretty consistent economic growth, just slightly slower than the year before. Uh, GDP increased by 2.2% 2% in 2025 compared to 2.5% in 2024. Now, the main driver for this decline was a contraction in federal spending late in the year due to the government shutdown. So, it's safe to say that this decrease was entirely self-inflicted. Uh we also saw very little job growth in 2025 with the labor market adding about 181,000 jobs, uh the weakest year since the pandemic. Uh, federal job cuts also contributed to this figure, as did lower immigration and just a general uneasiness in the labor market over things like federal trade policy, interest rates, and high prices. Unemployment nationwide as of December

was 4.4%, which all things considered was only a very small increase from the 4.1% a year ago. But the true driver of the US economy is and has always been consumer spending, which remained remarkably strong across all income levels in 2025. What is changing is how consumers spend their money with a big shift away from tangible goods like cars and clothing to more service-based items. The top three growth sectors in consumer spending in 2025 were housing and utilities, recreation services, and healthcare. Inflation continues to ease with December CPI coming in at 2.7% nationally and 3% in California. Both of these are an improvement from this time last year. And the Federal Reserve did cut interest rates another quarter% in December and the general projections now indicate that rates will probably remain stable for the time being with some potential for movement maybe in late 2026 or early 2027. So, all that being said, the general political instability we're experiencing here in the US has implications around the globe and makes it really challenging to predict where the economy is headed. A potential new tariffs, the war in Iran, and of course, the upcoming election cycle will make for a little bit of turbulence and we're all just kind of holding on right now and seeing where this bumpy ride takes us. So, here in California, Governor Nuomo just released his fiscal year 2627 proposed state budget, which includes $349 billion in total state funding with 248 billion of planned general fund spending. The budget includes new discretionary general fund spending of 570 million for various priority programs and 180 million for the extension of existing tax incentives such as the California Competes tax credit. Similar to last year, the proposed budget includes another 4.5

billion set aside in the special fund for economic uncertainties uh which can be used for any unexpected economic event that arises from wildland firefighting to tax revenue shortages. And notably, the state budget does not project a shortfall for the coming fiscal year. The governor is revising the revenue forecast from the 2025 budget act due to the stronger than anticipated performance of the economy, particularly in the high wage technology sector. This growth is forecasted to continue into fiscal year 2627 with revenue projections increasing by 42 billion. So, we'll keep you posted of the status of the state budget as it moves throughout the approval and adoption process. Now, let's focus on Burbank's budget with a look at our mid-year general fund revenues as of December 31st, 2025. While we are 50% through the year, the timing of our various revenues typically lag a month or a quarter behind. Uh you can see on the right hand column of the chart, we've received 34% of our revenues at this point in the year. And this is right in line with last year at this time. Now, you may remember back in November when we brought you our first quarter report, uh we made some downward adjustments to our revenue projections of roughly $2.8 million. This was largely a result of significant declines in our sales tax revenue. Based on our second quarter results, we feel like those adjustments were sufficient and we are not recommending any additional adjustments to revenue at this time. I will just briefly discuss a few of our largest revenue categories to set the stage for how we're trending as we move into our budget development process for next year. We'll start of course with sales tax. Uh in November, we revised our current year sales tax revenue projections down about $3.5 million and we've continued along that trend in the third quarter with July through September revenues down 11.4% from the prior year after adjustments. As previously discussed, auto sales are largely responsible for the decline

following the closure of a major retailer here in Burbank. Fuel and service station revenues were down over 9% as well, with crude oil prices at their lowest level in years, combined with a decline in overall fuel consumption. Now, the current conflict in the Middle East could easily uh send those prices the other way in future quarters, uh which isn't necessarily a great thing for Burbank overall, but would have the side effect of bringing in additional sales tax revenue in the second half of the year. And lastly, business and industry is still kind of lagging, down 7.6% from the prior quarter. A good portion of this decline is a result of a large one-time payment in the same quarter the prior year, but the rest is just generally a result of the overall sluggishness in our local film and television industry. Our measure P transactions and use tax or TUT revenues continue to be a bright spot in the city's overall sales tax, up 1.7% from the prior year. Because TUT revenues from automobiles and e-commerce are based on the destination address instead of the point of sale address, those revenues are less impacted by some of the declines affecting our traditional sales tax revenues. We should receive our fourth quarter sales tax reports sometime in April, which represent our very important holiday quarter, and that should give us a bigger indication of overall consumer spending in Burbank as we head into the next fiscal year. Next up is property tax. Burbank is fortunate that this has remained a very stable and reliable source of revenue for the city, even with interest rates continuing to have a cooling effect on the market. As we reported to you last quarter, Burbank's assessed value increased 2.6% or 854 billion uh million for 2025. This is largely attributable to new commercial and residential development and transfers of ownership that trigger reassessments. The median sales price for a single family home in Burbank during the fourth

quarter of 2025 was 1.2 million. Uh this is actually a 1.4% decrease from the third quarter and a 2.9% decrease from the same quarter in the prior fiscal year. So next up is our transient occupancy tax or toot which is a good indicator of how Burbank's tourism industry is performing. Uh the chart here shows the last 5 years of hotel occupancy in those blue bars with the red line representing the average daily room rate collected by our hotels. So our average occupancy rate in calendar year 2025 was at 76% which is up slightly from 74% in 2024. Uh the average daily rate charged by our hotels was $186 which is pretty much flat from the prior year. We do expect expect to see a slight bump in toot towards the end of the fiscal year with the opening of the FIFA World Cup in Los Angeles in June. And we look forward to welcoming all of those diehard soccer fans to Southern California. Okay, so let's switch modes from revenues to expenditures and take a look at our second quarter results. Overall, general fund expenditures are at 47% as of December, which coincides with the general expectation of 50% at the halfway point of the fiscal year. Uh, the only item really trending above that 50% mark are non-depart expenditures at 54%, but those are typically due to the one-time nature of the items budgeted in that cost center, which tend to take place at the beginning of the year. So, in terms of expenditures, the general fund is right where we should be at this point in the year. We do have several mid-year budget requests for the current fiscal year before you tonight. Typically, a mid-year request is submitted when there are unforeseen or unanticipated expenses that exceed a department's budget authority or when the city receives a grant or other one-time revenue that needs appropriation. For the general

fund, we have approximately 2 million in appropriation requests with 61,000 offset by increased revenues or the use of restricted funds. In total, roughly 5 million in requests from 10 different funds are before you tonight for review with a net fiscal impact of 4.8 million after factoring in offsetting revenues. I should point out that all of these budget items are one-time in nature, so they do not add or reduce to our recurring deficit in any way. A detailed list of all requests can be found in attachment five, but I will review a few of the highlights. Now, uh, within the general fund, uh, CDD is requesting funding in support of the FIFA fan zone event that is taking place this summer as part of our World Cup celebrations. Uh, parks and recreation is seeking funding to cover cost of service increases for both Debbell Golf Course and the senior nutrition program. And lastly, funds are being requested to cover the cost of surveying and public education related to a potential toot ballot measure. Within our non-general funds, parks and recreation is requesting capital projects funding to cover roof and structural repairs at the Starlight Bowl that resulted from the January 2025 windstorms. Uh we will be seeking FEMA reimbursement for much of this expense, but either way, we want to get that work going now so the facility is ready in time for the summer season. within our utilities. The refuge fund needs an appropriation to cover the cost of significant repair repairs to the landfill compactor. And the BWP water fund is requesting a budget increase to cover electricity cost for recycled water pumping. So now putting together all of the revenues and expenses we touched on, I want to quickly give you an updated summary of our general fund's financial status. uh we adopted 263.5 million in revenues as part of this budget but then later in November we revised them downward by 2.8 million.

Factoring in adopted recurring appropriations of 262.2 million we are left this year with a recurring deficit of about 1.5 million. Our non-recurring balance has been adjusted to 35.8 8 million after incorporating those general fund mid-year budget requests that we are uh highlighting tonight and you can see that line uh was highlighted in yellow. Uh it's the second to last line, the 1.9 million. So adding together the recurring deficit and the non-recurring balance from the previous two slides, we are projecting a general fund spendable balance of $34.2 million at the end of this fiscal year. So, let's look at how those revised numbers play into our updated general fund 5-year forecast. The chart here displays projected recurring revenue and recurring expenses for the next 5 years. You can see the city's recurring budget deficit in the current year of $1.5 million. On the left, and after factoring in revised revenue projections and anticipated expenses for next year, we are currently looking at a budget deficit of about $4.2 2 million heading into fiscal year 202627. This is slightly larger than the 3.9 million we projected in in November and there haven't really been any significant financial impacts since that time, but we did revise our revenue projections downward for next year just based on another quarter of information from last quarter's sales tax receipts. Beyond fiscal year 26 27 you'll see that deficit largely remain stable hovering in the range of three to point three to4 million a year on a cash basis the city's position is very strong with that available spendable balance of 34.2 2 million. So, we have a nice cushion of onetime funds to buy us time. Uh, but if we do not take any action to address those future deficits, that fund balance

would be depleted down to about 3 million at the end of the 5 years. As a reminder, the city council has nearly $140 million in available one-time resources to insulate the city from future economic events and apply strategically towards investments that will reap recurring general fund savings. In addition to our projected $34 million fund balance, we have our fully funded formal reserves totaling over 65 million. We also have 4 million in our compensated absences reserves and another 35 million in our section 115 pension trust. Altogether, the city has amassed onetime funds totaling more than half of the total annual general fund budget. And speaking of budget, our fiscal year 2627 budget development process is well underway with all departments actively updating their revenue projections and expenses for the coming year. As the 5-year forecast showed us, we are currently projecting a recurring deficit of $4.2 million, which represents about 1.5% of the projected recurring general fund budget. Staff is working on a number of different strategies to address the deficit without making significant budget cuts that would impact the programs and services that the city provides to the community. Uh the budget being developed for the coming year will look somewhat different than what you're used to seeing with very minimal new budget items. Uh the city manager's office has already implemented not a full-time hiring freeze, but a hiring chill uh to make sure all vacant positions being filled are positions of absolute need. And we are engaging with our labor groups to help partner with us to address our budget gap. We're analyzing a variety of opportunities for increased revenue, which you will hear more about in the coming months. Uh we will continue to recommend investing in items that generate long-term recurring savings like our pension funding plan and our infrastructure maintenance. And that $34 million fund balance gives us options to

use some amount of one-time funds to fill the gap while we implement these other more permanent solutions to address our budget deficit. So here's a timeline of what the budget process will look like. Uh we plan to distribute our proposed budget uh right around April 30th. On May 5th, we'll review the budget uh the proposed budget with the city council at a dedicated budget meeting with continuation of our budget presentations on May 19th. And then the public hearing and adoption of our citywide budget will take place on June 2nd. So with that, we recommend that the city council approve the resolution amending the fisc year 2526 adopted budget for the purpose of mid-year adjustments. And I'd like to thank all the members of our budget team who are here with me tonight and assisted with the preparation of this report. Our department heads are also here to answer questions about their midyear requests. And of course, I'm happy to answer questions as well. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. Um, madam city clerk, do we have any comment cards? We do not. Okay, then we will go straight to council questions. Does council have any questions for staff comments? Yeah, vice mayor, thank you so much. Um, great presentation and I I appreciate your staff and everything you guys do for the city keeping our budget in balance and checked.

Thank you. Um, I just want to um make sure that I know you just said it that the funds for the midyear request, they're nonreoccurring. That's right.

Okay. So, there can you maybe for the public? So there is difference when you have reoccurring uh requests and in one-time funds that they're going to be used in the budget cuz some somebody could look at the budget and say well why are you asking for all these things since you already have $1.5 million um in the negative coming up the end of this year. So can you just elaborate a little bit on the difference between the reoccurring and the onetime fund?

Absolutely right. So reoccurring budget items are uh something like salaries or a program that once we put that into place that expense exists every year and that's really what drives a budget deficit, right? Because you can project your future spending against your future revenues. Uh and it's just like your own personal checking account, right? You want to make sure that your income coming in is at least enough to cover your monthly expenses going out. And it's the same way with a city budget, right? We might use uh one-time funds to b to pay for a one-time item. Uh but we wouldn't want to do that to pay for recurring items because if you have to do that every year, eventually those onetime funds run out. Uh as part of our midyear process, we try to avoid any budget items that will have a recurring impact because we feel that that should be the council's perview to get to decide that during the budget process. So the only items we typically bring for midyear are things that are a one-time item. Uh renovations that we have to do at the Starlight Bowl, we would do that once and not having a a continuing expense or we received a one-time grant and we want to appropriate those dollars. So, those are the types of things that are appropriate for mid-year adjustments. Uh, but they don't add to our deficit because essentially we're sort of using that fund balance to cover them and not uh creating a recurring impact that will be uh uh that will affect us in future years. Okay. I hope that answers the question.

Oh, absolutely. And I and I think it's just um seeing that there is request on the budget and sometime it's a confusing process to say well why are you asking for more things when you're in deficit. So I wanted to make sure that you explain that to someone who's not familiar with our process in the in the city. And I do appreciate you taking also the conservative approach with the projection of the revenue because um we've seen uh some cities you know I'm not going to talk about them but where they um overp project the revenue and then what we find oursel at the end of the year there is a huge deficit because of the over projection of revenue. So, this is always a a good strategic part from you and your staff to look at um what being realistic, how much money are we going to be receiving based on what we the current economy and what we got last year. So, I I do appreciate that.

Appreciate that. I'd rather the uh city council be pleasantly surprised than sadly disappointed with our protection. Me, too. Me, too. Uh thank you. Those were my comments. Appreciate it. Any other council member comments, questions? Yeah, council member Anthony. Um, yeah, thank you for the presentation. I know some of these items are the changes and the requests are, you know, they were not projected, right? Um, you know, the the the FIFA fan zone. We didn't know we were going to be a FIFA fan zone, right? But some of these uh they're necessary to I mean, that one will probably recoup costs, ticket sales and fees and whatnot.

Yes. um disappointing I see that we have to train a new K9 unit. That was very unfortunate and all of the circumstances around that. So, uh I do want to point out um item six on page 305 uh years ago when we redid all of the uh Debell Golf Course issue and I don't want to dig too much into it. I just want to point out that we really took care to make sure that new contract did not end up costing us uh the kinds of money that he used to. So, I'm going to keep an eye on this. Um I understand, we know the cost of goods and labor has gone up. We understand that prices have increased. Uh I'd be remiss if something like this came back again in a future year and we hadn't taken care of it. So, I'm just put a pin in that and I'm going to keep an eye on it. Um, the rest of these I've I've gone through and yeah, they're they're fine with me.

Council member Rosotti Perez, any questions, comments? No, none Rosati. Okay, Council Member Perez.

No question, comment. Uh, you kind of beat me to the punch. That's I I do want to note that that's the only one out of all of these that I I have my eye on and and that I don't see is, you know, the Debell Golf Course one. And then I have received a couple comments from the public about that one. So I do see Marissa Garcia coming forward. Uh good evening, Marissa Garcia, parks and recreation director. Um I understand that is a large um uh amount that we're requesting. I do want to um assure you that we're actually generating our revenue exceeds our expenditures at the golf course. So I just want to make it clear that we um are requesting a large uh sum this year. Uh costs have gone up um and you know from wages to you know water, utilities, um cost of goods. Um and so that golf course um the city owns it. Uh we're responsible for it. We do have a management company that operates it on our behalf. So we are managing that very responsibly. We are going to be as costs continue to go up um we will be um we are actually um adjusting our revenues um to make sure that we are in line with comparable golf courses, municipal golf courses um that we're you know kind of that fine balance but want to assure you that we're still generating um I think our we're somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.2 million that we're bringing in and our expenditures are 4 six or seven um in that neighborhood. Don't quote me. I'm just I was looking at some numbers earlier today and and that's roughly uh what I recall.

Yeah. Council member Rosati, follow up.

Yeah. I just wanted to simply say I've taken two tours of the golf course. Um one last year and one earlier this year. Um we've had some storm damage. um and it affects playability. But the one thing I did note is that our golf course is probably in the best condition I've ever seen it in as long as I've been a resident here. For one, two, to get a tea time at Debell is really, really, really difficult. Um, me personally, I made some recommendations that if we can bring our golf course up a notch or two, we can increase our revenue because our our rates are amazingly low compared to around.

You're saying bring the price up? Bring the price up, bring the cart fees up because the demand is already really high.

The demand is there, but you have to give the the customer a little bit of a higher just a just we talked about this, right? just to bring the golf course up a couple of notches and we will be right there with a lot of other municipal golf courses. Um, but you got to make the investment, you know, in anything. You make investment in your house and your car, same thing. You got to make a little bit of an investment, but at the same time, the playability is there and and it is tough to get a tea time up there. So, um, I think Mr. Garcia said it straight. um our revenue is going to go up. Just make a little bit more investment and then we'll we'll up those rates. Um but I was very impressed. Again, I was I was there about eight months ago and then there recently there was some significant improvements made, visible improvements. And then I had people that I know say, "Wow, what's going on with the bell?" Um it it's in one of the best conditions it's been since I've been a resident. I, you know, just to that I appreciate you sharing that, Council Rosati, because I think

I would feel much more comfortable about it if we do talk about rates going up and those kind of things just to keep everything going because I know this is a one-time piece, but I know that maintenance is really rough up there. Like it's hard on on you all to keep that up.

Correct. Yes. No, we we definitely um are uh looking at um you know improvements which we've been making incrementally um every year uh since uh December of 2018 whether when our operator uh came on board and um it you know we we thank the council for the the funding the c capital funding that we we received. Um but certainly we recognize that we need to be responsible to our taxpayer dollars and and although it's um a golf course and you know we do have community events there and and there's a lot more things that we're doing to really um expand um the um the value of that golf course uh to um serve the entire community, not just golfers.

So following up on this conversation since we we have you here and we're talking about it. So, if there was an interest um one of the council members had an interest in increasing the fees, when when that would be appropriate time to discuss budgeting, would it be a white paper? Would it be something? We we actually already I believe um our first tier of increases are going into effect on April um 1st. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. Yes. And is Okay, that's actually a follow-up question for Jennifer about that actually. So, is that included things like that? Are those included in the projections and in the the deficit? Yes.

If I could, it what would probably be good isformational memo regarding the um how the course is looking as far as the cash flow. There's also with respect to the fees. There's other things that we're actually doing as far as uh wanting to invest in uh cutting some of the trees, uh pruning some of the trees and doing things like that and some of the other longer term investments. So, I think kind of maybe more of a 5-year plan uh with the golf course. So, you don't see it in isolation here of just um you know, an expense uh that the different things that we have planned for the golf course would be probably beneficial as anformational memo for you guys prior to the budget uh um uh meeting. So, if you guys want to do something different, uh we could certainly then at that time uh talk about it.

Great. Madame Mayor, I would appreciate that because it is a question that I think would be good for us to have the information sequentially and from previous years because it is a question our residents, especially those who maybe don't golf but know they pay into that, ask a lot of us and then add mini golf. Yeah. And every year since I've been on since I was on the uh beginning of the OB, it the golf course improvements have been on the CIP list. And I think that that's good to see kind of maybe a history and how it's all um uh added to the entire picture. I think that we all would benefit from from that for sure. Yeah. Council member Anthony.

Uh Madame Mayor, to to your point about projections, I want to see if I if I know the answer because I've done enough budgets. I think I know the answer. We take the current projections because that's the most conservative number and then later if the projections are higher like fee increases or returns from the FIFA fan zone, then we include that in the next budget or the budget update. Is that right? Pretty close. Yes. All right. If we know ahead of time that fees are increasing, we'll we'll ask parks and recck to give us a projection and we'll include that in the upcoming budget so that we have that as part of our general fund.

Council member Rosati. Yes. I just failed to mention the venue itself to rent is one of the most inexpensive places in Burbank to rent for qualitywise for food and service. Um so I'm giving it a plug. I've rented it myself. Um but um it it it is booked quite a bit. So that is one of a great place to host a party or birthday, whatever. But it is booked a lot and they do a great job. All right. Um, any more questions, council? Yes, council member Perez.

Not question, just a comment. Thank you so much for bringing this forward. I know you are working in unprecedented and very difficult budget time. So, I congratulate you on this and I'm sure we'll see an amazing uh thing come budget season. I know that's your Super Bowl. This is like your sugar bowl. Thank you so much, council member. Appreciate it.

I just have one one more question before you sit down. um uh based on this forecast and um what we're looking at for a potential deficit, are we making any change to our approach to Kalpers or any you know, you know, kind of working it through it early or or is that going to be something that's we're going to discuss during the bud next budget cycle?

Yes, absolutely. So, at the end of at during this budget process, uh we completed uh our last pension funding plan uh that resulted in the savings of over a million dollars uh annually to the general fund. I see no reason why we shouldn't continue to make those investments to try to bring down that budget deficit. So, that will be one of several strategies brought before you. Uh but we are getting close. Uh if you look at 2032, our pension rates naturally start to go down as we've paid off that sort of 30-year uh debt resulting from the housing market crash. Uh so this will probably be the last pension funding plan we do, but we're looking at yeah proposing another four years and we'll bring back to something to you as part of the budget process.

Okay. Yeah, I definitely want to review that during the next budget cycle for sure.

Okay. Um, echoing um, Council Member Perez's comments and everyone else's comments, thank you so much for all the hard work you do on our budgeting, I say when I am speaking with my colleagues at Cal Cities, I'm always proud to talk about our budgeting and our financial forecast is even with this forecast, we are still doing comparatively we're doing fairly well compared, you know, in the in the system that we're living in right now. and and a lot of that is because of the work that your team does to look at every angle, every detail, every possible way that we can make sure that we're efficient and focused and doing the best possible financial approach we can. So, thank you for doing that and thank you to the entire all the departments who also do that within the departments as well to to give you the best material to work with. Thank you. I I get to stand up here and take credit, but I uh what a great night to get to honor our whole team today as well. So, that was really a treat for me. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we're almost done, y'all. Let's see. So, now is the time. Hang on. Oh, wait. Hold on. We'll give it a We have a couple. That's right. Thank you. Um before we move on to the next item, we do have a vote. Would anyone like to make a motion to Yes. I'll make a motion to approve resolution amending the fiscal year 202526 budgets for the purpose of midyear adjustments. Second. All right. We have a first from Perez, a second from Vice Mayor. I think we did that earlier. Thank you. Can we do roll call, please? Council member Anthony, yes. Council member Perez, yes. Council member Rosati, yes. Vice Mayor Mullins, yes. And Mayor Tagahashi? Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. So, I'll consider that the motion for the city budget. We also have a separate resolution for the parking authority. Okay. Would you like to do that one, too? Sure. Still moved. You want to second it? Second. All right. Same first and second from the same council members. Let's do it again, please. Council member Anthony. Yes. Council member Perez. Yes. Council member Rosati. Yes. Vice Mayor Mullins. Yes. Mayor Tagahashi. Yes. Thank you. Deja vu.

All right. Now is the time to move on to the next item. Uh council comments. We will hear council comments including reporting on council committee assignments, attendance at conferences, regional meetings, community events, etc. Who would like to go first? Council member Perez first. Okay. And then council member Anthony after. All right. So, I have a long one just cuz I was not here last week. On Wednesday, February 11th, I attended the board of library trustees meeting. So, I got a sneak peek at the presentation we saw today. Um, on Thursday, February 12th, I attended the groundbreaking for the Home Again LA Access Center with all of you. It was great putting shovel to the ground and the ranch lot tour uh with all of you as well. Um, on Friday, February 13th, I had coffee with Jonathan Ritter. He's our uh a resident and the UC Riverside Department of Music chair, a UCR alum. So, that was nice to know he is our resident here. And there's a lot of music folks in our community. Um, let's see. On Friday, February 20th, I met with Mayor who is a student from the Boys and Girls Club and he is the youth of the year. It's a really special actually. Shout out to him and shout out to all the folks at the Boys and Girls Club because it's one of the first times we select somebody who's a ninth grader for youth of the year. Usually, it's somebody who's in their junior or senior year. And so, it was really nice to meet with him. he asked if he could meet with me to talk about what it's like to be one of the youngest serving in a position or being granted a position. So, it was great to hear him speak and share his thoughts. And if you haven't heard him speak, I invite you to do so. He's a wonderful public speaker. So, shout out to Mayor. I hope you did really well in the regional youth of the year competition. You're making Burbank proud. Um, and then on Monday, February 23rd, I flew to Washington DC to attend

the American Public Power Association legislative flyin. Met with our representatives in Washington to talk about our water and power interests, specifically power this time around. Um, things that we can do to keep our rates low, things that they can do in Washington to help us keep our rates low. asking our representative for some congressional earmarks that we will hopefully see come through and later in our budget and had a couple of meetings with uh house committees on our Burbank bridge. We are starting to set up those foundations to see how we can get funding coming in from the feds since it is a very good item for that. So very excited about all those meetings and yes it was 30° in DC. Um, and then of course I came back and right back to it on Friday, February 27th, I had my first California Film Commission board meeting. So that was great. Talked a lot about what cities can do to stick out and to be competitive in the um in the uh scouting process for film scouts. And there are a few suggestions and things that we could do uh in our film permitting office to be seen in stickouts. I'll be sharing those with staff. Um, on Wednesday, March 4th, I attended the Burbank Glendale El Pasanita Regional Housing Trust meeting. More information about measure A. We will stay tuned. Those funds are going to get released finally. Um, anyways, I also attended the youth board. They had a great meeting. Check out their social media. They're going to have some really cool um, posts coming out about engagement with the city. We have a really active youth board this year. I have to say they're really doing work and uh revamping the social media. Um Thursday, March 5th, attended the SCAG transportation committee meeting and the regional council meeting as a

representative. Um just as an update after the regional council, which is um the conference, which most of you go to in May out in Palm Desert, I will be most likely ending my term and we'll have the switch happen. So, someone from Glendale will will take over because we've been doing that as a courtesy. Just an FYI. And then my last thing, Saturday, March 7th, I had the absolute honor of being the keynote speaker at the UC Riverside Women's Alumni Conference. So, that was very, very wonderful for me. Yeah, I went out to Riverside. It was very nice. It was very nice to be back and it felt very full circle. So, yeah, that's it. Thanks everybody. Council member Anthony, do you want to go next?

Uh yeah, I'll be quick. Um I went to the uh transportation commission on the 25th. Uh they were in the big room cuz they had a bigger presentation. Uh a lot of folks showed up. And then I went to uh Mckenley McKinley Elementary's uh the annual community readin. That was on March 5th. Uh very fun. Uh, I got to read the true story of rock paper scissors and talk to the kids about sportsmanship and winning and losing and it was great. It was good. Uh, how to be a good sport. And then on March 6th, I attended the uh St. Gabriel Valley Public Affairs Network um their lunchon series, their leadership series. uh first time I'd been there. Uh but their uh featured speaker was Assembly Member John Herabedian uh former mayor of uh Sierra Madre and he's the assembly member just over the hill in Lockinatada. Um I believe he sits on the uh uh state assembly subcommittee on housing. So much of the conversation uh at that uh lunchon was about state bills, housing bills and SB79. So,

all right. Uh, Council Member Rosado, you want to go next? Vice Mayor next. Okay.

Thank you. Uh, Wednesday the 25th, I attended the senior citizen board meeting. Um, and then on the 25th, I attended a grand opening and ribbon cutting for Harmony Speech Therapy Diagnostics. Um they're right here on Glenn Oaks and they help children with uh and adults with speech issues. Um they were in the city of next door to us, no mention, but they relocated here to Burbank. Um so I'm I'm wishing them best of luck. Uh on Friday I attended there's a meeting with a couple of residents um in Burbank and regarding um some of the projects that we have here in the city. And then I on March 5th I'm I apologize my calendar's jumping different directions here. So I attended the SCAG transportation committee meeting. Um and then on Saturday the 7th, I started off in the morning attending Buchabal um with the for the police foundation raising money for Matthew Pulpa. Great event, good turnout. I think I heard somewhere in the number of $80,000 being raised for the student scholarship, but I'll leave council member Rosati uh to talk about it. And I also heard some rumors that our city manager and assistant city manager team won. Mr. Rosadotti or was it the city manager? He actually beat Mr. Rosati for a change. Um, usually it's him and his team that win. And I'm glad to hear that Mr. Hess kudos. Congratulations.

Yeah, good job. Um, yeah, finally we get somebody else that knows how to play. But no, seriously, it was a beautiful day, great turnout and raised a lot of money. So, thank you for the police foundation for putting this on and everyone involved. Um, and then in the same evening, uh, same night, I attended the ARF, um, the Burbank chapter 35th anniversary gayla. Uh it was here in the city of Burbank. Uh again we had really nice turnout from the Armenian community. Um got to chat a little bit with Assembly Member Schultz and uh it was we had good conversation about all these things are coming from Sacramento. So it was a good dialogue. Um and that's it. Thank you. You council member Rosati.

Thank you Madame Mayor. Uh on Sunday the 1st, I attended the Cub Scout Pack 2011 pancake breakfast fundraiser and uh that was the same place uh at Magnolia Park Methodist where I went when I was a kid. So that was fun to be back there. First time in a long time. Um on the 2nd uh I had a meeting with a member of the public. On Tuesday, March 3rd, I had a coffee with Jamie Kezer of the chamber. On the 5th, um I had uh conversation with Mandep Seamra and Frank Msino of DWP. And then on the 7th, I co-chared the Buring Police Foundation Botchi Ball Tournament. Um we tied with uh Mr. Hessa's team. My dad and I, there was a rumor that my dad played in the Sicilian Professional League, which is not true, but uh we lost in a one ball rolloff. So, you crushed my father's 97y old heart, but we raised a ton of money. So, that was the upside. It's all about what we can do, right? Um and then uh that evening I met with a member of the public for coffee on Sunday, March 8th. Uh I attended the uh Scouting of America uh service star uh presentation and that was a lot of fun. Um thank you for the invite. And then on March 9th again I met with a member of the public. Uh last night I was at the planning a board meeting and then today again I met with a member of the public. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. In addition to many meetings with residents, members of the public, several handfuls since the past two weeks, um on the 25th, I

attended the Burbank Chamber Small Business Monthly coffee chat. On the 26th, attended the Valley Economic Alliance Board of Directors meeting. And then later on that same day, I also attended uh the state boards and commissions appointments webinar. So, learning more about how you got your appointment. And then on the first uh I also attended the Cub Scout Pack 2011 pancake breakfast fundraiser. So adorable. I love going to I can eat pancakes every weekend for these guys. It's so cute. And um when I walked in and I introduced myself as the mayor, they were like, "You're the mayor?" And they took a picture of us. It was so adorable. And then on the third um I had coffee with um Amanda Fizzle I think is how I pronounce her last name who representative or who represents our district for assembly man um Schultz Vel and then later that day I also had a meeting with representative from the Burbank Eco Council and then on the 5th I attended the SCAG energy environment committee meeting while you were at transportation and you were at transportation I And then um later that evening I attended the Cal City's LA County Division general membership meeting um out in Rosemead and their speaker there was LA28 and um talking about the preps for the whole region and they uh went through a lot of similar to what we talked about today. Lots of good questions. On the fourth, I'm backtracking a little bit. On the fourth, I attended the Burbank High School PTSA meeting and gave them an update on the city. my kids alma mater. And then on the 9th, I met with a representative from Zanta Club and talked about their 90th anniversary upcoming event. And that later on that day, that was yesterday, last night, I attended the sustainable Burbank Commission meeting. And then earlier today, I attended the

uh Burbank or the uh Valley Economic Alliance business attraction working group talking about various ways to bring more business to the valley. And that's all my report. All right. Next up is the time for the introduction of additional agenda items. Does anybody have Council Member Rosati? I just had two things. I I had a on good authority that FX was moving uh to the Disney lot. I wanted to find out if we can just find out if that's fact. Um it's it represents hundreds of workers. So, I was just curious if that was the case. Yeah, we can follow up and uh let you guys know.

Yeah. And then the second item, um I wanted to see the possibility, it put this on the future agenda that we can discuss possibility renaming one of our parks and maybe adding a statue of the patron saint of immigrants St. Francis Cababrini. And considering this is women's history month, if I don't know if you know the story of uh St. Francis Cababrini who walked these streets of Burbank. It might be very appropo to do something like that. So we could just have a nice discussion about that. Thank you. Yeah, we we bring that back next meeting as part of our first step. Yeah. Okay. Great. Any other council member Anthony?

Uh just two quick questions. Um last meeting I uh requested a letter for the uh the uh the MINA census. How did that go? Um, we just completed it and we'll give you guys a copy. Okay. And then second, uh, I know the chief was going to give us, uh, an update on those citations. Should we request it as an official thing in the Whammer or is that We're already We're doing it already. I'm doing that. Okay. All right. Great. Okay. Great. Great. Any other agenda items? You have 10 items. Okay. Get get comfortable, everyone. Vice Mayor has 10. All right.

City attorney All right, we are now my my sheet here says adjournment at 8:55. We're really close. So, yeah, good job everybody. I mean, we started late, too. So, excellent work. We now adjourn the meeting on to Tuesday, March 24th, 2026 for a regular meeting of the in the council chamber here at 275 East Olive Avenue, second floor. Thank you and good night.