City Council - Regular Meeting

Real pleasure when we open up our meetings for the little ones who have joined our community. Do we have pictures? Oh, yes, there you go. We have Monty Aram Gazarian, born August 1st, 2026, to Dr. Neda Gofranian and Dr. Haig Garzanian. So welcome, Monty. Very cute. And then we also have Reagan Joanne Kitterman, born September 1st to Emily and Jack Kitterman. So welcome to the family. All right. And we are going to have this evening our invocation by Karen Master Giovanni, followed by the presentation of colors by Scout Troop 66. But Pastor Master Giovanni, please.

That's a tough act to follow, I'm just saying. Well, good evening, y'all. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for everything you've given us. We thank you for this day and for the opportunity to come and gather this evening in the beautiful city of Monrovia. Thank you for the mayor, the city officials, the citizens, and everyone who's come out to participate in the city council meeting. God, we ask you to guide our thoughts and actions and to give us direction so this meeting will be filled with wisdom, productivity, cooperation, and a mutual respect for one another. As we put our hearts and minds together, We thank you for helping us to accomplish our goals for the good of Monrovia and for all who love it. We pray these things in your mighty name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Pastor. And so we will move on then to the presentation of colors. Scout Troop 66, gentlemen.

Color Guard attention. Audience attention, those who can please rise. Color guard, mark time, mark. Forward, march. Color guard, halt. Cross the colors. Prepare to post the colors. Color guard, post the colors. Those in uniform, please salute. Those non-uniform, place your right hand over your heart. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready to begin.

Two.

Color Guard, reform. Color Guard, dismissed. Audience, you may be seated.

Thank you, Troop 66. May we please have roll call?

Council Members Belton? Here. Dr. Kelly? Here. Spicer? Present. Mayor Pro Tem Jimenez? Here.

And Mayor Shetland? Here. We did not have a closed session this evening, so there is no report. And then we will proceed now to our salute to service program. This is always a very special time, and we are going to have Tiffany Peterson, a recreation supervisor. She will make the introductions. Thank you, Tiffany. Yeah.

Good evening, Mayor Shevlin and city council members. This evening, we have the honor of assisting you with recognizing five service members and their families at this very special salute to service ceremony. We are proud to have recognized over 350 service members and their families since 2002. In a few moments, I will have each service member and their families join me at the podium to be introduced to our community and city council. As a small token of our appreciation, we will be providing each member and their family with a certificate of recognition, a blue star window display poster, a spirit box, a letter from the entire community signed by the city council, and a flower bouquet for the family. We will also be displaying a blue star banner on Huntington Avenue with the service person's name and military branch. At this time, I would like to call up each service member and their family to be recognized and to share with the group some special words on each service member and how they got to where they are today.

Tiffany, do you want us to come down now or when?

I have a few tidbits on each of them, so it may be right after and then when we call up the family. Thank you. First up, we have Amelia Baca. Amelia joined the US Navy in 2025 at 19 years old. She is currently deployed aboard the USS George Bush, serving as an AME with Hawkeye Squadron 116. Amelia comes from a family with deep roots in the Monrovia community where her family has lived since the 1960s. They are also proud local business owners on Myrtle Avenue. Amelia's commitment to serving her country is a source of tremendous pride for her entire family and community. Amelia's family is incredibly proud of her dedication and service and are eagerly counting the days until she returns home in July. Tiffany, can you name the business? Can we name the business? Who are we?

Oh, okay. There we are. Smudges and scribbles.

At this time, we'd actually like to welcome up Amelia's family. Her mom is here, Elizabeth, and her brother, Joshua. So at this time, council, if you'd like to come down, we'd like to present them with their keepsate and their certificate and take a nice photo with them.

Thanks.

Next we have Sully Zinn. He's part of the United States Navy. Born and raised in Monrovia, Sully is someone who was drawn to the Navy as he felt that the physicality of the work would fit with his nature. He was a varsity baseball player at Monrovia High School, earning Rio Hondo League First Team honors by his senior year. Before joining the Navy, Sully spent a lot of time mountain biking. When not biking, he was frequently at the beach surfing. In fact, surfing was the part of the reason why he joined the Navy, so that he can maximize his chances of getting a job near the water to surf. Sully was in the top 10 recruits for his boot camp training group of 968 graduating sailors. At boot camp, he earned a sharp shooting rating. After boot camp, Sully did further training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, earning a rating as an aviation ordnance man. He has been assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is currently headed back to its home port of San Diego after being deployed for a record-breaking 300-plus days. Sully will be home for his first leave this coming Wednesday since joining the Navy. We would like to welcome up his mom, Susan.

I don't know if she can carry all this.

One, two, three.

Next up, we have Joseph Webster. He's also part of the United States Navy. Joseph has attended Monrovia schools all his life, beginning with Mayflower, moving on to Clifton, and graduating from Monrovia High School in 2024. He played football, wrestled, and did track and field throughout high school. He was also a member of the Sports Medicine Program and Fire Explorers Program. Joseph loves his family, animals, and has a sweet and loyal disposition. Joseph was inspired by his uncle, Nicholas Lamb, to join the Navy, who also has a blue star banner in Monrovia for his service. We'd like to welcome up Joseph's family with us here tonight is mom and dad Melissa and Matt, brother Elliot, and grandfather Michael Lamb. Next up, we have Nicholas Gabriel Mannequin. Nicholas attended Monrovia High School, where he joined the Camarada Choir. After graduating, he started attending Cal Poly Pomona, but when COVID hit, he changed plans and decided to join the military. Nicholas enlisted in the Coast Guard, and in May 2025, he traveled to Cape May, New Jersey, where he successfully completed eight vigorous and challenging weeks of boot camp. Several months after graduating, he left for Defense Information School where he studied public affairs, journalism, photography, video production, and broadcast journalism. He graduated in March 2026 as a public affairs specialist third class in the U.S. Coast Guard and was the distinguished honored graduate of his class earning the highest GPA. One of the most special moments in his life was when he became an uncle in April 2025 to his nephew Asher. We welcome Nicholas and his family to the podium today. Mom and dad are here with him, Linda and Vahe, brother Christian, sister-in-law Laura, and nephew Asher. Come on up.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, the last one's not here, but I still wanna recognize him. Our final service member we would like to recognize this evening is Francisco Javier Zamora of the United States Marines. Francisco was unable to attend tonight, but we would like to recognize him for his dedicated service and commitment and express our sincere appreciation and gratitude for his service. Also with us, also we wanted to mention tonight was the Veterans Resource Center at our Monrovia Public Library. It's dedicated to assisting local veterans and their families. With us here tonight is the team who supports the program and we encourage all of our service members to contact the library for more information. Thank you City Council. We appreciate all of your service and we hope you all have a great evening. Thank you.

OK, that's always a very special service presentation. So thank you all. Thank you all to the parents and the families. My son was, I think, in one of the first groups that was recognized. He was deployed. We started right after 9-11, I do believe. And he was deployed a month to the day. on October 11th, I believe it was, after that. And I think he was in that first group of soldiers that were recognized. So at any rate, thank you very much to staff and to everyone that's kept this program alive. Okay, we are moving on then to our presentations and proclamations. And we're going to, I'm sure that Kevin is really anxious to come forward because that little pup wants to be on the move here. PR1, our Pasadena Humane Pet of the Month. So Kevin McManus, Public Relations and Communication Manager.

Good evening, everybody. Yeah, Bandit. best dog ever, but yeah, he needed to go outside.

This is a little, yeah, a little overwhelming here.

Yeah, so tonight I brought Bandit, who's a six-year-old. Really, we don't know what kind of dog he is. I see a little beagle and maybe lab or something in him, but he is a very good boy. He just doesn't really like other dogs, so... So he's been with us for quite some time, and I think that's really the only reason why. As you can see, he's very sweet, loves everybody he meets, as long as they're on two legs, I guess. Bandit is one of the many dogs that we have available, and he and all other dogs over six months old will be eligible for a fun adoption promotion we're doing in the next week or so. where we're reducing adoption fees to $50 for all dogs. Of course, that still includes everything you would normally get. So he and all these other dogs are already fixed, vaccinated, microchipped, and ready to go into a loving home. Another exciting thing that we've got coming up for the cat folks is we are participating in Cat Con once again. Cat Con weekend is October 10th and 11th. So if you have not purchased a ticket, please do so in advance. And if you're looking to adopt a kitten, we will have over 200 kittens available for adoption at Cat Con. It's a really fun time. Even if you're not like a super cat person, there's something there for everyone. And if you are a CAP person, it's a weekend that you should definitely check out. It's at the Capacity Interconvention Center next month.

Do you still have your foster programs going on?

Our foster program is booming. If you can't open up your home to kittens right about now, we are looking to fill 200 kittens available for adoption. So they need to be put somewhere. So if people are interested in fostering a kitten for a couple weeks, it would really help us out. It would really start those kittens on their path to their forever home. Our foster program is always accepting people who can do that. And also big dogs, which is always a challenge for us. It's a challenge for every shelter across the country, especially here in Southern California. And as nice as we are at Pasadena Humane, we are not... We are also feeling the impact of the nationwide kind of crisis, I think, where there's just not enough homes for big dogs. So if you can open up your home for even a short period, give a dog like Bandit or any other really big dog a break from the shelter, it really helps them basically deal with what's a really stressful situation. And for us, it makes them much more adoptable because then we can confidently say, oh, you know, Bandit is house trained and he's good with people and he's not good with other dogs. All the things that help when someone is coming to adopt a dog. So if you could do that, please let us know. All the information is on our website, PasadenaHumane.org.

And the senior to senior program.

Thank you, Mayor, for always reminding me about that. As I get closer and closer to being eligible for this program, I should be talking about it more. But our senior for senior program is for any dog over the age, or cat, over the age of five. The adoption fee is completely waived for any human over the age of 60. And I should be speaking about this as well, considering what we just had presented. But any military veteran is also adoption fee is waived for all of them as well for any animal.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And would you like to introduce your sidekick here?

Oh, my gosh. My sidekick here is Officer Avila, who became famous a couple weeks ago because he was the officer who responded to the white peacock who'd been killed. can't say assaulted, my attorneys have advised me not to do that, but the investigation on the peacock, if you have, there's a peacock in Pasadena, this guy went out and basically saved the peacock's life. So he's a rock star, and the peacock has completely healed, he's doing really well, he's still at the shelter, until we kind of figure out next steps for him.

Great, well we'll come down and take a picture.

All right.

And he'll look this way. Aw, don't turn around. Show us your face. And look this way. There you go. Show that pretty face. There you go, you're so cute.

Wishing bandit, lots of luck there. Okay, moving right along then, we have a recognition of a very special person, Sonia Lugenbuehl, and our staff, Rebecca Sandoval, Community Services Director, will make this presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, council members. I have the honor to recognize Sonia for her extraordinary dedication to Monrovia and the important role that she played in our Homeless Displacement Response Program, or as other may know it as HDRP, since its creation in 2018. For those of you who don't know, HDRP was created to prevent homelessness by providing a hand up to Monrovians at immediate risk of losing their housing. From the very beginning, our dedicated team, Heather Gibson, who is here tonight, retired Director Tina Cherry, Pastor Josh Smith and Sonia, through our partnership with Mountainside Communion, helped turn that vision into a program that we are so proud of today. Over the past eight years, Sonia has built strong relationships with faith communities, schools, nonprofit organizations, landlords, community partners, while creating a network of advocates to help Monrovians face immediate housing crisis. Sonia has always been there when we need her, often dropping everything to respond to an urgent crisis that we have, meeting directly with landlords, conducting site visits, and consistently going above and beyond. She finds solutions for individuals and families during the most difficult times of their lives. Some stats that I wanted to share. Since 2018, HDRP has assisted 148 households. Yes. That's 350 individuals. This includes 154 adults, 152 youth, and 53 seniors. Beyond each of those numbers is a person, a family who was impacted by this program that Sonia had a direct contact with and her dedication and passion. Sonia, thank you for everything you had given to HDRP. I'm a little sad that I did not get enough time with you. We want to thank the families that you've served and our entire community. And I'd just like to pass it to Sonia, who would like to say a couple words.

just want to say thank you to Rebecca thank you so much for stepping in and getting this all continued in the last year thank you like you said Heather Gibson Josh Smith and the City Council for approving this every year it's a really great program it's going to continue to run really well I'm so confident and Today we were working on our hundred and fiftieth okay case hundred and fiftieth case So it's even increased since these notes are written. So thank you all and It's gonna it's gonna be a amazing to watch it continue Thank you And we just would like to invite counsel to take a photo and her family to join her in the photos and

Dr. Kelly just asked, and I know that you're finding a replacement. Is there a replacement in place right now? I am happy to introduce you to Katie Cabrera, who's right here. Hi, Katie. Great to have you on the board. Thank you. All right. Then we are moving on to our PR3, which is recognizing our proclaiming September 3rd, except 3rd, September 26th, the whole month, as National Preparedness Month. And our Fire Chief, Jeremy Sanchez, is going to be making that presentation. And we also have a proclamation for you. Larry, you want to read the proclamation, and then you can follow up?

Yeah, I'll read it. Whereas we will soon commemorate the 23rd anniversary of one of the worst disasters in history, the attacks of September 11th. And whereas the Bobcat fire and subsequent debris flows that devastated Canyon Park and its hiking trails remind us of the importance of preparing for local disasters. And whereas emergency preparedness is the responsibility of every resident of the City of Monrovia to ensure that the whole community is prepared for disasters and emergencies of any type. Whereas for more than a decade, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has proclaimed September as National Preparedness Month as part of an effort to encourage personal preparedness for emergencies. And whereas local agencies and businesses have supported that effort to raise awareness and educate the public about the importance of being prepared. Now, therefore, I, Becky Shevlin, Mayor of the City of Monrovia, California, along with the entire City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2026 as National Preparedness Month, and we urge all Monrovians to continue their villaginousness and increase their efforts to make our families, community, and the entire nation better prepared for disasters, dated this 15th day of September, 2026, signed by Mayor Becky Shevlin.

Chief.

Well, good evening, Mayor Shevlin and Council. Thank you very much for taking the time to recognize September as National Preparedness Month. This year's national theme is American Stand Ready, which celebrates American resourcefulness, self-reliance, and resilience, empowering individuals to take charge of their own readiness. Today, I want to encourage Monrovians to prepare for emergencies by taking small steps to make a big difference. As we know, our community is our greatest strength. And when we prepare for disasters together, we are more resilient as a community. This year's theme highlights preparedness as a civic responsibility and reminds us that in the face of disasters, we can take simple, practical steps to keep ourselves and our families safe. National Preparedness Month encourages resourcefulness by taking these actions to be ready. One, make a plan. Make a plan for your household, including your pets, so that you and your family know what to do, where to go, and what you will need to protect yourself in the face of a disaster. Two, build a kit. Doing so ensures you have what you need to stay safe, comfortable until help arrives. And three, be in the know. Sign up for notification outlets. Disasters can happen suddenly, so it's important you have multiple ways to get alerts. For us, please visit our city's website to get the emergency alerts that you need. We have a couple options. We have our opt-in options, whether that be through the Rave platform or through Nixle. Or we also have our re-alert system, which does not require you to opt in, but we will notify you in the face of a disaster by your geographical location. And as you know, Fortunately, here in Monrovia, there are many ways to get involved to better prepare for an emergency. This includes joining one of our many community nonprofits, community programs, or our preparedness programs. I encourage anyone who would like to further prepare for an emergency to join one of our CERT trainings. We host one or two a year, and to date, we have graduated 228 graduates, and we have 87 CERT members in our team. We also have our listos training, which we try to host two of those a year as well, and we have an English and Spanish version. And then our BERT training courses, which is for businesses to help train them to better prepare for a disaster. And if you've already done all these trainings, I encourage you to look into our MAP leadership program. We have one starting up soon. I'm not sure if we still have openings, but they're on their way next year. So please look forward to joining one of those. We encourage everyone to celebrate National Preparedness Month this September by taking these steps and ensuring that we stay safer as a community. Thank you.

Chairman, how about your open house?

Our open house for our fire prevention week is coming up. It's going to be the second Saturday of October. We host it annually, and we basically look to get everybody out there and join us in celebrating National Preparedness Day.

And I think we all, the Great American, or the Great Shakeout, that's not something that you, how does that actually work?

So the Great Shakeout will be every year in October, the Great Shakeout, which asks everybody to kind of take the actions needed to prepare for an earthquake. We'll be hosting our own in-house Monrovia Shakeout involvement, which will look to identify our local businesses in the city that we call target hazards. And what we do is when the time comes, we visit all these businesses to make sure that they are safe and kind of proactively take their approach that we would need in a disaster.

And that's on Thursday, October 15th?

Correct.

All right. Well, thank you very much. We have to, of course, have a picture with you and give you your proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, and PR4 is proclaiming September 15th to October 15th as Hispanic Heritage Month. And although we do not have anyone here to accept the- Madam Mayor, we do. Do we have someone? Yes. Great.

We have Mr. Hill Olivas and Maritza Travanti here from .

Well, come on down, and I also wanted to give a plug then, too, for our library. This, on the 19th, will have a special presentation event at the library as well.

All right. Madam Mayor, may I read the proclamation? Sure. Whereas National Hispanic Heritage Month, which was enacted into law in August of 1988, is a time to recognize the contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans every September 15th through October 15th, and whereas those of Hispanic descent have long have been longtime residents of Monrovia since before the incorporation of the city, and whereas the Hispanic culture has embraced our community with a vibrant outlook on life, an enriched appreciation of dynamic art and music, and a life lived dedicated to loved ones, and whereas even though times of despair as inequities and challenges divide the society, the Hispanic community has worked to bridge the gap to build a future full of opportunity, anchored by faith and optimism, and whereas Contributions made by individual Hispanic and Latino Americans in groups such as the Monrovia Latino Heritage Society have made an overwhelming impact on the entire community over the years through annual toy drives, art exhibits at the Monrovia Community Center, and scholarships to fund educational endeavors, and... whereas the City Council of the City of Monrovia recognized the rich Latino heritage in Monrovia by renaming Olive Avenue Park in honor of Lucinda Garcia, a longtime resident from the late 1880s to mid-1900s, who through her generosity towards the disadvantaged was considered a matriarch of the mexican-american community for decades now therefore i becky a shevlin mayor of the city of monrovia california along with the entire city council do hereby proclaim september 15th through october 15th 2026 as hispanic heritage month and encourage all to celebrate the vibrant culture and the many extraordinary success Hispanic and Latino Americans have achieved, dated this 15th of September, 2026, Mayor Becky A. Shevlin. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Would you like to say anything? Yes, please. Thank you, Mayor Shevlin, Mayor Pro Tem Jimenez, council members, and community. Thank you for this proclamation this evening. As president of the Monrovia Unified School Board, I invite everyone to the activities surrounding Hispanic Heritage Month at all of our schools. There's many, many activities. Please reach out to the district office or me. I'd be happy to let you know times and dates and all of that. But this year's national theme is juntos somos mas, together we are more. And I truly, truly believe that our community can unify and celebrate all cultures and all backgrounds. And with me here today is Henry Olivas, and he is the great grandson of Lucinda Garcia. And I'd like to give him a few moments. Henry.

Thank you, thank you, Mayor and Council. I wasn't expecting to be out here tonight, so I haven't prepared anything, but the main thing I'd like to do is pay tribute to a member of our Latino Heritage Society who passed away last week, Velia Armas. Her husband was Robert Armis, and they were both really key members of our group. And, yeah, she was just very helpful, very, like I say, a key member, and she was there for all our fundraisers and everything. And I'd like to think of our group as being more... on hiatus rather than being defunct because, you know, under some form I'd like to maybe revive it. But, you know, we have to think about how we're going to do that. But thank you for this honor, too.

Well, we look forward to it, and it is a nice surprise having you here tonight. I did want to highlight, too, that our library will have Hispanic Heritage Month presentations. Families can enjoy cultural crafts and a special performance by group of Thank you. And the little ones will take home a free book to add to their home library while supplies last. And that's this Saturday, September 19th from 1 to 2 p.m. in Library Park. So please come out for that. And let's go down and get a picture. Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you very much.

okay uh we now have um pr5 which is the recognition of us two very very special individuals uh uh hal levins and john watson long time volunteers and founders of the monrovia welcome wagon many of you may have had them Come to your home when you first moved in. So Hal and John, or Katie, you want to come up? I know that Katie had some words about them.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. And citizens of Monrovia, thank you for this opportunity to recognize something very special in town. Before I get into that, by the way, I found on the carpet a silver bracelet. So if anyone is missing that, I have it. I just wanted to give you a tiny bit of history of how the welcome wagon came to be. John Watson and I, husband and wife, were serving as co-presidents of the Monrovia Historic Preservation Group between 1998 and 2002. We were getting near the end of our term and we're beginning to recognize that the next generation of homeowners were coming into Monrovia. MOHPG in its early days was sort of comically the place to get glue guns and other kinds of equipment to help to fix homes. Well, here came the next generation of homeowners who had the same need. So before we ended our term, we said we've got to be able to find a way to reach out to these new homeowners, connect them with MOHPG, and get them connected to the town. So I, in my infinite wisdom, came up with this great idea of bringing them a teacup with a plant in it and recognizing their newness to Monrovia and welcoming them aboard. So John and I talked about it for quite a while. We presented the idea to the board. They thought it was a wonderful idea, and nobody wanted to do it. So we said, OK, no one else is going to do this. When our term was up, we said, we are going to do it. But John wasn't too keen on teacups with flowers in them. And he said, no, no, no. We need to be able to bring some information that's more germane to the needs of someone new in the community. like phone numbers and addresses and names of people to connect. But still, the bottom line always was at that time connecting people to MOHPG to understand the importance of maintaining our heritage in Monrovia and how to find like-minded people here. so we started to get addresses from what used to be in the newspaper of closed escrows and that's how we began to reach out to new property owners in town at no time did we know who those people were we had no idea anything about them and here we were two people knocking on doors and they would look at us like who are you and what do you want We began to recognize that it needed to grow more. John and I would do this on occasional Saturdays, and I had to work oftentimes on Saturdays. So I said, I can't keep doing this with you. We've got to find somebody else. And John looked at me and said, who is going to do this? And I said, Hal Levins. He's the man. So I stepped out. John Watson and Hal Levins continued.

You want to say something there, buddy? No, go ahead. You're first. You're the founder. Thank you.

For me, this is kind of sweet and kind of sour. I hate to leave after 23 1⁄2 years of doing this. It really became a part of my life. I know Hal and I both look forward to going out and knocking on doors. The responses we got, we never expected from some. Some were really nice. But I want to start by saying thank you to the...

Most.

I want to say thank you to the City of Monrovia, the Chamber of Commerce, the schools, and the non-profits which has really supported us and allowed us to do this. When we'd go up, knock on our door, we had no idea what the response would be. We didn't think we were strangers, but when people opened the door, we were pretty strange. So some people wanted us to come in and talk to them. Other people had good excuses for us not to enter their home. The ones that allowed us to come in and talk to them We're totally blown away by how much information we were able to give them. One of the couples we were going through the packet with, we were sitting on their porch and telling them about Monrovia. And the lady looked at her husband and she said, I think we're in the presence of royalty. I've never been royal in my life, but that was very interesting. But some of the statistics along with the work that we did we knocked on over 18 000 doors some of those doors we knocked on three or four times trying to catch the owner some of them we found out this was their third home that we had welcomed them to three homes all total so it was interesting meeting all these people that were already native to monrovia Some of the things that we accomplished while we were doing this, besides the $18,000, we passed out over 5,000 packets of information. They did not go to all new residents. Some of them went to new business owners. Some of them went to mail. We mailed them away. So they weren't all new residents. But... I got to looking at the time we spent. We spent about 2,400 hours passing out information. Hal drove over 9,300 miles up and down the streets of Monrovia.

I'm still waiting to get paid for the gas.

We've been fortunate enough, we had several people ride along with us that we thought we might be able to pass this down to, but we settled on one, Mr. Phil Lujan.

Phil, you want to come on down?

Where do I talk first?

Phil, let me finish this. Phil actually moved to Monrovia in 1992. He was a schoolteacher. high school football coach for Monrovia High, and retired as principal of Canyon Oaks and Mountain Park.

He also drove the bus for Monrovia Reads and read books to preschoolers.

Well, one of the things that's interesting about this whole presentation is we saw a lot of people who said, I've lived in Monrovia for many years and I know everything there is to know about Monrovia, and we would say, Would you like to bet? And then one of the outstanding was when we called on Oliver Chee. He was the city manager. And it was interesting because he was holding the baby. This was many years ago. And his wife was going through the packet with us. And every so often she'd say, Oliver, did you know that? And he'd say, no, I didn't know that. So that was a challenge to tell people things that they really didn't know about Monrovia. John always liked to ask people, do you know about the Monrovia airport? And that was always a starter. So enough said by me. Now we're going to have our new welcome wagon host.

What tough shoes to fill, right? I'm honored to be able to take the torch and to continue the service. I love the city. I've made it my life, and I'm very excited to continue this program.

Well, we're excited to have you, too. And I understand that Randy Bell, who's now retired, is going to be your sidekick.

That's correct.

Another Monrovian. Have you already started?

Oh, yes. I've got a couple months under the belt. All right. Doing well.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. And we do have certificates for both John and Hal. And they both have your names on them, of course. And we extend our congratulations and deepest gratitude for 23 years of dedicated service to the city of Monrovia. Your warm and tireless commitment to turning new residents into neighbors and fellow Monrovians is what makes our community feel like home. So thank you again very much. And we'll come down and give these to you and take a picture.

Mayor, one last comment that I think is important for the city to know. The Welcome Wagon title is a copywritten name, and we were nervous when we first started using it because we thought we would be in trouble. What we discovered is that the business of the Welcome Wagon was a for-profit institution, but it has long gone out of business. However, the name still remains, which is why our name now is Monrovia's Welcome Wagon. We had no idea when this started the impact it would have on new Monrovians, Or the impact it would have on the city as a whole, as being recognized as a warm and welcoming city. So here we are, and thank you for acknowledging.

Thank you. Congratulations, and thank you for everything. This is a wonderful gift. There you go.

Ready?

One, two, three. Say welcome. Welcome. Wagon. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, thank you again, Hal and John, Katie, and we've wondered for many, many years who is going to take the place of John and Hal, and thank you for stepping up, and thank you for all the great work, John and Hal, that you've done, and Katie, too. Thank you. Okay, now we do not have a student government representative report yet. We have been in touch with the high school and we hope by next meeting that they will be in place. And so in order of business, we do have a little change under RCM 3, Care Solace Update. We are moving that up to right now. And if you would like to come on up, it's Kevin Court from Care Solace, and welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Sheldon and City Council. Thank you for your time tonight. I am Kevin Court from Care Solace, and I'm going to start with just a short little story. Last week, I was working on this presentation, and my daughter came home from college, and she said, Dad, what are you working on? I told her, she said, tell me a little bit about Care Solace. And I gave her my elevator speech. It's, you know, we're a 24-7, 365 care coordination company connecting residents to mental health care and substance use. And she stopped me. She said, Dad, stop. We think, she goes, I think people are going to care more about what does Kerasalis believe in and who Kerasalis is, not just what you do. So I took that to heart. I reworked it. I'm going to share it with you now. Sometimes life gets complicated and hard. And when it does, you may need help. And at Kerasalis, we believe that getting help should be quick and easy. We believe you should get help regardless of your circumstances or your insurance. We help people be their best. That's who Kerasalis is. And in the next few slides, you're going to see the impact that our partnership has had on the residents here of Monrovia. There we go. So you can see from the start, two and a half years, we've had over 10,000 service requests coming from your residents, and that's a mix of both social services, substance use, and mental health. The median days to an appointment is 13, and to put that into perspective right now, the national average is 90 days.

I was going to say, when was the last time you tried to get an appointment with somebody? How long did it take?

The average is 90.

It's a lot.

Looking at the demographics, we're serving all the age groups here in Monrovia. It's skewing towards adults 26 to 59, but most all age groups are representative. Here's a breakout by ethnicity of the residents who are using the service as well. What services are they looking for? These are the mental health categories that the residents are looking for most. It's those top three big ones, depression, anxiety, trauma, and stress. That makes up about 65% of all the service requests coming from the city. What I find interesting on this chart, if you look at the other four or five, they're all around 5%. The same percentage of residents that are looking for family counseling or support with ADHD are also looking for support with suicidal ideation and self harm. This next one is the category of substance abuse category. 40% alcohol, 20% looking for support with cannabis, and then 13% for opioids. The next biggest one is around 9%, and those are the inhalants. Typically, that's the adolescent group that are looking for support on that one. When it comes to social services, there's an overlap here because residents are selecting more than one of the options. But you can see the top big three, affordable housing, food, and finding temporary housing. And the types of treatment the residents are looking for, overwhelmingly they're looking for that individual therapy. There's some psychological assessment, some psychiatry, some ABA therapy as well, some intervention services. So these are all the numbers, and I want to take you beyond the numbers with this real case here in Monrovia so you can get an idea of what happens behind all these numbers. A few weeks ago, a family in Monrovia contacted one of our care companions seeking help for their child. The family was seeking in-person therapy to help address behavioral concerns and support their child's emotional success. The care companion reached out to the providers on the family's behalf, navigating several barriers, age requirements, language differences, insurance questions, confusion around deductibles and types of coverage, long wait times, and being placed on hold. Now, rather than allowing these obstacles to become roadblocks, the care companion stayed persistent and continued searching for a provider who would meet the family's specific needs. After a few weeks, the care companion had reached out to a total of 26 different therapists in and around Monrovia in order to find the perfect match for their child and an appointment was scheduled. The family has since shared that they are happy with their therapist and the support that their child is receiving. It's a great honor to be partnered with City Council and to serve the residents of Monrovia. And I'll end with our tagline, it's okay to ask for help. And if residents do, we're with them every step of the way. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I don't know if you can answer this question or Mr. Feek. There used to be two programs, and it was also with the schools and us as a city. Correct. How has that transition been made now that the school has dropped significantly? their programs.

So they've dropped what we affectionately refer to as a warm handoff, where the counselor will sit down with a family and actually track the case. They use, and they're welcome to use, the flyers, the QR codes that connect them to the city's CareMatch dedicated website. And on that website, they can do an anonymous confidential search at home, regardless of their insurance. They can also call a phone number and get a care companion. And they can also search for social services for food insecurity, housing, and low and no cost dental and medical.

And I think that's probably your biggest secret. I know that when I first became aware of the program, it was really for mental health services. Correct. And you have a wealth of other services that can help our residents. So it's wonderful.

It's an honor to be partnering with you.

Well, thank you. And since we invited everybody else to take a picture, we'll take a picture with you, too. Oh, great.

I can show my boss.

You can show your daughter.

I'll tell her.

Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you, guys. You can tell your daughter you did a great job. Yeah.

You know, some meetings are all about recognizing others, and that's pretty much what we're doing this evening, but very important recognitions. Okay, moving on then to our consent calendar, which are items CC1 through CC9, and they are considered ordinary in nature and can be enacted in one motion unless there's something that someone needs to have.

And Mayor, before we proceed with the consent calendar, I just want to note for the record that I have a conflict of interest in CC7 because it impacts my employer. So I will not be participating in that item.

I hope you can move forward. Great. And with that then, we have CC1 through CC9. Do we have a motion?

I'll move for approval.

I'll second it.

We have a motion and a second. Then without objection, without one abstention or recognition of a conflict, so approved. Then we are moving on then to our public input section. And this is the time, thank you very much for coming and joining us this evening. I know we started out with a full room and it's kind of emptied out, but you're all very important. And so this is your opportunity to address the city council. And I do believe we've got some cards, speaker cards. You will be allowed three minutes to address the city council. And these are for items not on the agenda. So please, Sherry Lochner. Sherry. Sherry.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Sherry Lochner, and I'm a Monrovia resident. I am here this evening to continue to advocate for day laborers and other people who are immigrants targeted by ICE. At the last council meeting, I reported there have been 81 deaths as a result of ICE actions since the beginning of this current federal administration. There are an estimated 73,000 people being held in ICE detention facilities across this country. The spectacle of the so-called immigration enforcement, the raids, the numbers, the performance of control, reduces people to props, human beings to bodies. Numbers alone cannot hold the weight of grief or the significance of the lives lost. The people who have died as a result of ICE actions and in immigration custody have names, have friends, have families who love them. They woke in the mornings and hoped and slept at night and dreamed, just like us. For people in ICE detention centers, cages built by cruel policy and indifferences has robbed people of their hopes and dreams. and robbed their loved ones of even the chance to say goodbye. Their lives mattered and their deaths mattered too. Who we ignore defines who we are. Every bureaucratic system that has ever committed atrocity has relied on the same quiet mechanism, the removal of personhood before the removal of life. Call them aliens. Strip their names of their diacritics. Issue a press release two days later that says they passed away. They do not say we caged them. We denied them care. We turned our backs as they died. This evening, I reiterate the following requests of the Monrovia City Council. One, continue to pursue an independent report investigating the circumstances resulting in the death of Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdez. Two, adopt an ordinance declaring Monrovia a sanctuary city. And three, continue to work with us to establish a permanent memorial honoring Carlos. In 2025, it was estimated there were 30 million undocumented people in the US in 2025, undocumented people were responsible for 29 murders. If you do the math, that means that one in a million undocumented people is a murderer. There are 22,000 ICE agents, and they were responsible for 34 murders that we know of in 2025. That means one in every 647 ICE agents is a murderer. A recent U.S. Department of Justice report found that the undocumented immigrant offending rate is lower than the U.S. born citizen offending rate. I'll take a neighborhood of undocumented people any day. Thank you. Thank you.

Martha Mack.

Good evening, Martha.

Hello. Good evening, counsel. I will read the names of the people who have died in ICE detention and as a result of ICE actions beginning from 2024 in remembrance. Jose Manuel Sanchez Castro, Pankaj Karan Singkateria, Ramesh Amachand, Henry Donald Ruiz-Guyen, Sarawit Gezaheng Dehene, Maxim Cherniak, Juan Alexis Tineo Martinez, Ruben Ray Martinez, Brian Rayo Garzon, Non Nock Nguyen, Marie Ange Blaise, Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado, Jesus Molina Vella, Johnny Noviello, Isidro Perez, Jaime Alaniz Garcia, Tianxuan Fan, chao feng gay carlos roberto montoya valdez lorenzo antonio batrez vargas oscar rascón duarte silvarillo viega gonzalez santos benegas reyes ismael ayala uribe norlan guzman fuentes hua bing she miguel angel garcia hernandez Leo Cruz Silva, Hassan Ali Moed Saleh, Gabriel Garcia Aviles, Josue Castro Rivera, Kai Yin Wang, Francisco Gaspar Andres, Pete Sumalo Montejo, Shiraz Fatahale Sachwani, Isaiah Sanchez Barbosa, Jean Wilson Brutus, Fawad Saeed Abdul Qadir, Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, Nenko Stanev Ganches, Keith Porter Jr., Geraldo Lunes Campos, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, Luis Beltran Yanez Cruz, Renee Nicole Macklin-Good, Para Dee La, Victor Manuel Diaz, Eber Sanchez Dominguez, Wael Tarabishi, Alex Jeffrey Pretty, Jairo Garcia Hernandez, Lorth Sim, Linda Davis, Nurul Amin Shah Alam, julio cesar pena alberto gutierrez reyes pejman kershenas nachifabadi emmanuel clifford damas daffy michel irvin cruz nape orlin josue hernandez reyes mohammed nazir paktiawal royer perez jimenez jose guadalupe ramos solano tuan van buoy alejandro cabrera clemente aled damian carbonell betancourt danny adan gonzalez jonah neal mamuka artmaladze felix alcorta rodriguez adrian andreas florian lorenzo salgado araujo Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, Jesus Manuel Arenas Silva, Juan Jairo Corania Duran, Jose Chajon Raxon, Prisciliano Trejo Ricano, Edwin Giovanni Lopez Cornejo, Lian Yong Wei, Pierre Damas Bell. Thank you. Thank you.

No other speaker cards?

Is there anyone else wanting to come and address the city council under public comment? Not seeing anyone, then we will close that portion of our meeting and we will move on then to, we have no public hearings. We're moving on to our reports of city manager and staff, starting with RCM1, city council directives update. Mr. Feek.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. A few of the items I'd like to just brief council on as well as the broader community who are listening at home. We'll also share some of this information in the upcoming city manager updates. We're very excited to share that this Thursday we'll be meeting with the contractor who has awarded the renovation project at the library. So we'll be doing a pre-construction meeting. We'll have some library staff there present. We've already instructed the contractors to begin ordering some of those long lead time items. But what's exciting about this is we'll also begin developing the communication schedule for the actual construction project and the work that's set to take place. It's 42 working days. And so we expect this to be a fairly quick project. The library is going to remain open during the duration of the construction project, but we expect it's going to make a little bit of noise, but all in good, for good reason. We're going to be almost tripling the size of our youth program space. So we're very excited. We're very grateful for the council's support. At your next council meeting, we'll be bringing some additional items for your consideration related to some of the other costs associated with the project, like some new shelving, some minor miscellaneous repairs in the facility. We want to upgrade some furniture, both on the outside of the building as well as on the inside, all within the budget. But it's just exciting to be making some improvements to the library. Also on Thursday, we'll be releasing the notice inviting bids for the community center construction project. So this project, we've been underway planning, designing in some fashion since 2016. The project was approved Through plan check, all the necessary permits are ready to go. And we'll take about a month, maybe slightly more, about five weeks to provide answers to questions. We want to make sure we get very competitive proposals from different construction teams all seeking to do work on this major facility upgrade. We expect the information to be due by the end of October. That will give staff plenty of time to review and prepare all the necessary reports and bring an item back to the council at your second. There will not be a council meeting on November 3rd, which is our election date, but our meeting in November will be on the 17th. And so that's the date we expect to bring something to you to award a contract for the almost $24 million worth of construction cost for the facility. So we're very excited about that, too. Last Wednesday, we... completed the bond issuance for the large infrastructure projects we've been discussing. As council's aware, we issued 56, council authorized us to issue $56 million in municipal bond issuance to help cover the cost of the library, or excuse me, of the community center of Recreation Park and Station 102. The good news to share is that we received a 4.367 an average annual percentage rate for the duration of the 20-year bond. That's a very favorable rate. It's on the lower end of the range we were anticipating. We did have five competitive offers that were all submitted. What's interesting is if you're watching some of these discussions at the national level around the treasury and interest rates and municipal bond markets. If we had solicited bonds one day later, it would have resulted in more than 15 basis points increase. That would have been a million dollars alone. And if we had issued bonds this week, it would be several million dollars more. So the timing and when these bonds are issued, it was very serendipitous with all that's happening in the industry, some of which are far above our pay grades. But what our bond council financial advisors have shared with us is having a good, strong offer is indicative of our good bond rating, our overall rating, as well as this particular bond rating. And the city should be very excited. They even provided us a comparison of other similar bond proposals for other AA rated agencies. Lastly, I'd like to just share, I asked Alice to share a simple memo to the city council. as we are preparing to attend the Cal Cities annual conference next week. Every year, Cal Cities undertakes, not only do they hold this conference, but they have a lot of discussions about resolutions, whether they request from cities to either participate and support those resolutions. There's also opportunities over the course of the year where Cal Cities ask member cities to either advocate or take positions on certain matters. Recently, the Cal City's Board of Directors took action on two specific ballot measures I'd like to share with you here tonight. And they're seeking endorsements from city officials. I thought I'd bring this to you just to make you aware. The city council tonight, you can either decide to take formal action and give direction to staff. We can discuss it at a future upcoming meeting. But these propositions will both be on the November 3rd ballot. And what the league is doing is they're sending out mailers and they're doing the advocacy work that is reflective of the league's board position on these matters. So the two items that they've asked us to review and consider first is Prop 1. This is known as the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026. CalCities has taken a position of support or a voting yes. This proposition authorizes $11.25 billion in bond funding to build and preserve affordable homes and expand home ownership opportunities across California. There are accountability transparency requirements as well as this is not a new tax issuance, but using the state's general fund to repay this debt. And they're hoping to unlock federal funds, bringing additional tax dollars from Washington back to California. I've included in your memo just a list of how the $11.25 billion would be broken down into what they estimate are 40,000 shovel-ready affordable housing projects across the state. We've included some additional resources. We can share this information in City Manager Update for those who are interested in following these proposition matters. The second item is Prop 43. This is known as the two-thirds vote requirement for local special tax initiatives and property tax initiative prohibition amendment, kind of a lengthy title. Cal City's board has taken the position of opposing it or a voting no. The reason I draw this out is over the years, There's a lot of discussion about voter approval limits and thresholds. We've even had similar discussions back when we had Measure K voted on in November 2019 for the city. But this initiative would amend the California Constitution and require that any local ballot measure, which is a citizen-proposed ballot measure that proposes, extends, or increases special taxes, receives a two-thirds vote to be enacted. So currently, local special tax measures can be enacted in two ways. First, as a local governing board sends the tax to voters, and it's approved by a two-thirds majority. Or citizens can petition to place a special tax on local ballots, and it's approved by a simple majority of voters, which is 50% plus one. So what this ballot measure does is it would increase that to where it's the same as if the city had proposed it.

And under general tax, though, the city can propose something and it's the simple majority. Correct. We're talking about special taxes.

Correct. So a general purpose tax measure is a simple majority. A special purpose tax measure is a two-thirds majority. This is of significant concern to communities across California. If you were to compare or look recently at recent local measures on how essential services are funded, Prop 43 would have created some challenges for over $3 billion worth of funding that was approved and only met that simple majority threshold. And so the board and members of the Cal Cities Board are concerned that if that threshold is increased, it will lead to significant reductions in tax revenues for cities. On the other side, there are many cities that feel that that voter threshold should either be the same, should be a two-thirds requirement, or If you're going to create a special tax, if the city's going to do it, it should be two-thirds for us. If residents are going to propose a two-thirds vote, propose a special tax measure, they should have the same threshold. So this one is probably a little bit more divisive than the other one. And the Cal City's board of directors, I had mentioned, had taken the position of opposing this. They're recommending to leave it alone.

Dylan, could I make a suggestion since the Cal Cities Conference is next week that we take that time and they'll obviously be talking about it at the conference that we hear what has to be said about the measures. We don't have a resolution packet and I'll be talking about that in a minute and then come back at our next council meeting when we've had a chance to look into this further.

Absolutely. I should have been clear. I don't believe a decision is not needed tonight. How that could affect CalCities is CalCities is seeking those who are interested to let them know sooner rather than later so that they can include information in any mailers or brochures or marketing that they're going to be doing. So it could affect that part. But I think ultimately they do want to know who is interested in supporting or not. So I think that sounds great. One week isn't going to hurt. Absolutely.

Individual council members can also sign.

As with any proposition or matter with the league.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But it's up to the council whether we want to vote on it or not now, right? If we wanted to.

So as an individual council member, the league allows you to weigh in. And if you would like to say, hey, I'm a council member and I support this, they would like to know that. If the city takes a position as the city of Monrovia on a particular legislative matter, then we do that here at the dais where it's a full city position. As you can recall, there have been instances in the past where where if one council member takes a position on something, and that is not reflective of the majority of the city council, when that person's out publicly discussing or sharing or even advocating for how they feel, it's hard for people to know whether they're representing themselves or representing the entire city council.

So my question is, so what other information would we receive at the conference than what we've already received from you?

I just heard about this today.

I did too.

That's why I did my research.

I think that the primary thing is when we go to these conferences and you're interacting with other officials, you're interacting with league staff, They're going to be presenting additional information. They're going to be preventing more detailed information. What I've summarized in this memo is just a small tidbit of information that the league provides on their website. You're going to be able to ask questions of staff. I think, ultimately, it's if you feel there's additional information that you would need before you can decide. I think that's probably what Becky's suggestion is, is allowing her to go and learn more from others. But if there's anything specific that you would like to know or if there's any information you want staff to research, we can certainly seek that out too.

No, I would just like to find out what the other council members would want to do with this.

I personally am not ready to vote on it.

You ever? I can vote on it. I can vote. Yeah, but I'm just saying if we should have the opportunity to be able to weigh in on it if we want to vote on it or not.

Sure.

Instead of just going to the league. But, you know, give us all the opportunity to say yay or nay, whether we want to wait or do we want to move forward with it.

I would like to do a little bit more research first before I vote on it.

Yeah, I'm a little torn, but I can go.

I can do either one, to be honest.

I can do either one.

So I think what I would say is I don't.

Well, look, I'll pull back my suggestion. We'll just wait. All right? So that way you won't be all stuck going back and forth. Let's move forward.

Thank you, Larry. I'll make this agendized for the October, for the first meeting in October. We'll have it ready to go. And then we'll have a discussion at that meeting and be ready. Thank you.

All right. Yeah, I think that's, it is October 6th, so I said I was right the first time. Okay, thank you, Mr. Feek. Any other questions of Dylan this evening? Okay, then RCM2 November 3rd election update. Alice.

Need my mic. I'm excited to give you an election update to this whole house we have here and all the people at home. So as everybody I think here knows, we have an election coming up on November 3rd. It's our statewide general election, but also includes our local offices. So we have the position of mayor, two council members, one city treasurer, and one city clerk on the ballot. There's several ways that folks can vote in this election. Starting October 24th, the Monrovia Public Library will host a vote center. Those hours are up there from 10 to 7. And then starting October 31st, a couple of additional vote centers open at Santa Anita Family YMCA. and the high school. And then I'm excited to host again on October 30th at the Friday Night Street Fair and Market. We have the Mobile Vote Center coming. So hoping to get a lot of word out on that and get some good turnout for them. And just a reminder that anybody can vote at any vote center in L.A. County if you're registered in L.A. County. So folks that work here can vote at the library of any of those locations. Or if you are registered in Monrovia but you work downtown L.A., you can find a vote center near you just by going to the website. There's a lot of them. Yes, Edward.

It's probably obvious to everyone. So on November 3rd, all those centers open from

Yes, except for the Mobile Vote Center. Yeah, thank you, because I probably would have glossed right over Election Day. But yes, Election Day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on November 3rd. So yeah, at those three and all the other places, I think, close to 10,000 in L.A. County. So another thing to remember is that every voter does receive a vote by mail ballot, and those can be returned either by mailing them in the postage paid envelope, so you don't even need a stamp. You just need to have it postmarked on or before November 3rd. You can also put in a secure drop box that is right across from the community center on Palm Avenue, or beginning on October 24th, you can drop it off at any vote center. Again, any one of them in L.A. County. We do get questions pretty much each election about somebody hanging out and loitering in vote centers or elsewhere in the city. So I just wanted to kind of go over a few of the do's and don'ts and just let people know that people are permitted to observe and vote. monitor vote centers and the whole election process. That includes setup, packing up, all of that. They do ask you to check in with the vote center lead staff so that people are identified as observers. And of course, sort of not disrupt things, so directing your questions or any concerns to that vote center lead. Observers may not touch or handle election materials or interfere with personnel or their processing of people coming in to vote. They obviously can't intimidate voters. And then a few just kind of normal housekeeping rules of just being a good visitor. So no eating, drinking, or talking on your cell But I also want to touch on electioneering. Electioneering are things like wearing campaign materials, a button, a hat, distributing campaign materials, holding signs, broadcasting, circulating petitions, any of that. is not permitted within 100 feet of an entrance of a polling place, where curbside voting is taking place, and also around a drop box. It's also not allowed within the immediate vicinity of a person standing in line, so if the line's wrapping all the way around the library like we had in the early days, well more than 100 feet, they still can't do the electioneering in that area. But another thing we get a lot of calls about each time, I think, is tables set up in front of the post office or at library or what have you. As long as they're outside of that 100-foot boundary, they are permitted to be in public places and in the public right-of-way. As long as they're not impeding traffic, they've got space for everybody to pass and they're not interfering with that voting. Although it may be upsetting, sometimes they have you know, graphic displays or, you know, maybe just views that you don't agree with, they are permitted. Just a little touch on election security. The county gets into greater detail about kind of the global, federal, and all those other bigger threats when we get closer to the election. But a few things people ask about the security of ballot drop boxes. So I just want to say that once the drop box is open, which is, I think it's October 6th. I might have passed that already. The ballots are collected daily. I think they say towards Election Day, even more often if needed, but they always have two county personnel. So they're making sure that they have that chain of custody and enough support. Vote centers, just a reminder, the ballot marking devices are not electronic voting. They are ballot marking devices that prevent excuse me, print a verifiable paper ballot so somebody can take what they voted on, review it, make sure that it matches everything that they entered, and then deposit it. Printed ballots don't contain voter IDs or any of the other information that ties it back to you. And then there's always the locks and tamper evidence seals on the integrated ballot boxes that are sort of part of that marking device, which helps ensure that chain of custody and keep things until they get all the way down to the ballot counting center. And then vote by mail ballots, you know, every signature is compared against the voter registration Before we handed things off to the county our city clerk's office verified probably over 5,000 ballots by hand Against the county system a little bit harder now that the DMV and the county share information so when you sign with your little fingertip that's Got to kind of translate to how you sign your ballot. But if Mr. Smith signs for Mrs. Smith, they're probably going to catch it and make sure to look for some corrections. And then I think lastly, if I recall in my slides, your vote matters. So I just want to kind of touch on sort of that after-election ballot processing. My own dad told me he lived in an all-male ballot precinct before everybody got a male ballot. He was in a small area over in Pear Blossom. And he goes, yeah, but they don't really count those ballots unless they're needed. Right. I was like. No. So all ballots that are postmarked on or before election day, they're verified. If they're able to be counted based on that verification, they're tallied and they're counted regardless of whether all the races have been decided. Unsigned ballots, this is one of the reasons Los Angeles County and California in general get a lot of flack, but LA County being so huge for certifying the results of the election. There's a lot of things in place to make sure that people's votes are counted. So if somebody forgot to sign their ballot, they'll get a letter and they'll have a chance to correct that. If their signature didn't match because it's just changed so much since they registered 45 years ago, again, they'll be contacted and have a chance to fix that. Provisional ballots are all verified, and then contests can come down to one vote. So really, every vote really does matter, and everybody should get out there and do that. And to wrap it up, the certification of results done by the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder, we expect to receive that Friday, November 27th, and then we would bring it to City Council on Tuesday, December 1st. Very, very last, if anybody does have questions, ballots, I don't think I mentioned, probably will start mailing end of September, early October. And so you've got to remember LA County has nearly five to 6,000, sorry, million voters. And all of that mail has to get through the mail process. So your neighbor might get their ballot before you do. Give it some time. But if you need a replacement ballot, if you want to track your ballot, you can tell if it got received. You can tell when it got counted. You can find the ballot drop off and all your vote center locator information. So that does wrap up my presentation and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Alice. Any questions of Alice? Nice report. Can we make sure that that presentation is in your update or somewhere on our... It's probably on your... It's on the agenda page, but we can share it too. Sounds good. Okay, then we are now... Since we did have our RCM3, the care solace update, we moved that up at the end of presentations. We are moving on to our reports of city council members, and I will start off with Councilman Member Belden.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. Well, I think like many of you, all of us, it was honored and It's a sad day to go out and join everyone at the memorial for 9-11 and the fire department. Thank you for hosting that. I see the chief there in the back. And for all of our staff and our first responders, thank you for all the work you do. It was a busy day as well. On the next Saturday, there was quite a group that showed up for the city's sponsored bike audit and kind of looking at some options and routes, as well as Green Care Day with food ed. So I think a lot of us had a chance to get there and join that. And it was just great to see some of the new garden spaces they're opening up. I had the pleasure to work at Clifton, which they've expanded that area. So a lot of students are going to have a great opportunity to learn about where their food comes from and how to be engaged there. The Clean Power Alliance is hosting our board retreat this coming Friday, so I'll have a chance to go and participate in that. We're going to be talking about a lot of potential areas that the Clean Power might get into from some of the grants they're already doing, but looking at even if there's a reason for the Clean Power Alliance to get into transmission, helping out with that end of delivering power to other sources of power as changes may come down line or came down from the state in terms of what future options we have to get renewable power and other types options there but at the past board meeting we had the the group did to go ahead and move forward on a couple other grants that are coming and they're gonna be available to uh folks that are multiple family providers out there so folks um own maybe smaller uh two homes two rooms to uh our large providers even our multi-tenant big big providers to have grant opportunities for both HVAC units and also car chargers so if you know folks that are interested in looking at that there's going to be some rebate options and some especially on the car chargers is actually some pretty good values that folks can access through CP the clean power lines excited about uh fountain of the falls this saturday i'm sure somebody else is going to talk about that as well see many of you out there and then the maneuver parks wilderness recreation foundation of course thanks to our our friends and rec department and community services for all their support there's a few events coming up uh max food we have a fundraiser on september 23rd where we also have yoga in the park on saturday september 26th at 8 a.m if you want to go Hang out and enjoy that. And then the next day on Sunday as well, we're having a bird walk up in Canyon Park. And Karen Suarez is going to lead that. So if you want to come out. Bird walk? Yeah.

You're walking the birds?

They're walking you.

Look for birds. Oh. So you can go out.

Oh. I mean, unless you want to. It's late. I don't know. I just saw a bird on a leash.

That's Arcadia. It's peacocks.

Bird walk? Yeah. Got it. Sorry.

No worries. So that's on Sunday, September 27th. We'll make sure we get some of these flyers out. I think they're already out from Empower on our website and our newsletter. And then October 22nd is our annual Evening in the Canyon fundraiser. So I hope many of you can join us for that, too. Thank you. That's it for me.

Edward, for the 23rd, for Max's, is there a particular time? Do you want us to buy dinner?

There is a time, and I'd have to look it up right now. I know it's on our newsletter. I feel like it is around dinner time for sure. I don't remember if it's lunch, too, or not.

I mean, if I can just help raise money at Max's.

You can go at lunch and dinner. How about that?

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Spicer.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. This Saturday, our annual Fountain to the Fall run is happening September the 19th. Check-in begins at 6 a.m. Race starts at 7 a.m. The horn will go off. All runners will receive a t-shirt and a participation medal. This is one of Monrovia's signature fitness events and we look forward to seeing our community out there early and energized. Senior Fall Movie Day. Our seniors are invited to enjoy a free movie day at the community center. Thursday, September 24th. And the name of the movie is Little Women 2019. Little Women 2019. And it starts at 11 a.m. and it will run until 1.30 p.m. It's free and it's held at our community center. This is a great chance for fellowship, relaxation, and it's also a beloved film. Kids Craft in Canyon Park. Families can join us for a creative morning with nature. Saturday, September 26th, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Canyon Park Nature Center, sponsored by the Monrovia Parks Wilderness and Recreation Foundation. Kids will enjoy hands-on crafts surrounded by the beauty of our canyon. Recreation classes, fall session. There is still time to sign up for many of our fall recreation classes beginning this week. Residents can contact the community center for details. Classes are also listed in the Monrovia Today fall edition, and it's also available online at any city facility. And that's my report, Mayor.

Thank you very much.

And Dr. Kelly.

Hello. Thank you very much. I want to start off with reporting that I kept our Monrovia Police Department safe. I did a ride-along, and everybody slept extra well that night, didn't you guys, on Friday?

Scared.

Because I was on the beat. Well, I want to say that I got a chance to ride along with Sergeant Adam Villalobos, and I just want to say this. That the police that are working so hard in our community, that they don't just wait until they get a phone call before they actually move. They're moving nonstop. They're constantly working, they're constantly patrolling, they're constantly engaged. They're all kind of calls. That was my first time ever doing it. And they're all kind of calls that are coming in from a lost dog to things that are more serious. But they're constantly, they're always working. And so I just want our community to know that. I mean, this is a place. that people feel safe living here and there's a reason for it because there are people that are working really hard behind the scenes so that we can go out of our home at night and walk to get ice cream or ride our bikes in the middle of the day and all the beautiful things that we get to do and share is because people are working really hard to make sure that that happens and so Another thing I wanted to share concerning the right along, there were a lot of teenagers out, and so we hear you. I know that we get a lot of calls on that. But I want to say that most of the teens are behaving and they are enjoying the evening and they are, you know, doing what teenagers do and it's not all the time doing something that they're not supposed to be doing. However, you do have some serious situations going on and so I just want to also say to parents, know where your kids are. Please make sure that they're calling in or you're calling them. Make sure you know who they're with those are all important um the police they are patrolling and um just um you know we got to work together um parents as well as um community and police all together so that's all i want to say about that um the other thing um today we had a motab meeting And I wanted to ask maybe if they could do a report to council, because there were such great reports in MoTAP concerning the SPOT program. Wow, I was impressed. I can't even... recite all of the numbers but there was a wonderful report and I'm wondering if we can get that in so that we all could be aware of it but I do want to say this I learned today the 63% of the kids actually come from Monrovia that were a part of that spot program and when they were giving the numbers we have gone as high as 200 young people. Yeah, taking care of them. And I'm telling you, we're feeding them and all kinds of things. And there's wonderful community partnerships. And just the teams did such a great job with the SPOT program. I'm just really... impressed by that, that there is a place for your young people to go and it is done and Renwell is secure. So anyway, you'll find out all the details. I don't want to chop up the information. So hopefully, Dylan, we can get a report in the future so that we can. Sometimes we have all these assignments that we give or that the staff is working on. And we don't recognize all of the numbers and the reports and the good that come out of the things that we're doing, because we're doing so much. But sometimes we've got to stop and just report on, this is what happened as a result of us putting money in this direction. So I'm really glad about that. And lastly, well, don't get excited, because lastly, this report is going to take 10 minutes. No, it's not, guys. It's a joke. My goodness. Are you tired? Laugh. Okay, it's quick. The library teen game hangout is Friday the 18th. There's a bunch of things for the family. I want you to go to the website. You can go on the library website because there's so much information. There's so many activities for families, for adults. and for veterans. So I want you to take a look at it. But I do want to tell you that Old Town Monrovia Fall Festival is happening Saturday, October the 10th from 10 to 2 in Old Town, and that's for the whole family. Trackless train rides, horse-drawn carriages, a face painting, art, crafts, live entertainment, all kinds of good stuff. So come on out and please go to the library website because there's just so much going on. That's it.

Great. Thank you very much. And Mayor Pro Tem Jimenez.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I too attended the commemoration 25 years of 9-11. There was a good turnout. Every elected member of the Minerva City Council was there. Members of the public, our firefighters, our police officers. To my thinking, our first responders are heroes. And I want to share a story. Perhaps I should have talked to our fire chief before I shared this. This did not happen this 9-11. It happened in the previous event at the fire station. I remember I made some comments, and I heard a member of the audience who was a firefighter chuckle when I used the word hero to describe Monrovia firefighters. I thought that was unusual. And later on, I talked to the fire chief about it, and he says, Sergio, yes, their job is to go inside burning buildings to save people, to put their lives at risk, but they don't see themselves as heroes. That's just what they do. And I think that sometimes we don't appreciate enough what our Monrovia firefighters and police officers do, which is that they put their life on the line. I remember a couple, I think it was this past year, when there was a false alarm of a shooter at Monrovia High School. Well, our brave first responders do not wait for backup. Whoever's closest to the scene gets there first. And there was one officer who got there first. These officers, these firefighters, put their lives on the line all the time. They don't know if it's a false report or whether it's factual. So I just want to say thank you, and yes, I use the term heroes. I don't use it lightly to describe our first responders, whether it's an everyday task that they do or faced with an emergency. So I want to say thank you to them, something that we should do every day of the year, not just on 9-11. I also want to tell people that there's going to be a very special event this Saturday. Monrovia Rotary is having a casino night and speakeasy. It's going to be a 1920s theme. where we encourage people to dress their best and dress in that era. It's going to be casino, games, auction, food. If you're interested, go to MonroviaRotaryClub.com. It's this Saturday at the Community Center. It's $75 in advance, $85 at the door. And again, it's Dress to Impress. And Saturday's the Tire. It's going to be from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Monrovia Community Center. So I hope you can all attend. Of course, the proceeds all go back into our community to help. our youth and others in need. So hope to see you this Saturday at Rotary Casino Night at the Community Center at 6 o'clock. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

You're welcome. And I'm really sorry I can't make the Rotary event. That also is the night that Habitat for Humanity is having their Raise the Roof annual gala that night. Same night. It's in Arcadia at any rate. For my report, I wanted to recap a few things. I did want to mention the one young gentleman that came and spoke at public comment at our last meeting, his first name was Bonnie. At any rate, he messaged me after the meeting and he really, really appreciated the treatment that they received here when they were. here and really really enjoyed it so that was very nice that they enjoyed their time here at the the council meeting um and then uh since our our last meeting then yes the 9 11 uh ceremony and as you know chief jeremy sanchez he um allowed me the opportunity to address the gathering, and I was having a really rough time of it that day, but I just really thank our fire department, our police department, and all those that made it possible so that we don't forget. We don't forget the tragedy, but out of that tragedy, we create something good, and we talk about doing something good uniting together and for for good and I made the my comment was the next chapters are ours to write and we really that that feeling we had right after 9-11 and that unity was so very special and we've just definitely a lot of that has tarnished since then and but it's so important that we work together for good So thank you to our first responders as well. And I'm sorry you don't like to be called heroes back there. I'm looking at you. We love you. At any rate, and then I wanted to mention the cooling centers. We had some conversation at our last meeting about the cooling centers. We had both our community center and our library that were open. And the one day it was particularly hot. And I went by at about, I want to say it was around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Our library on a weekday had around 70 people in there where they would normally have around 30. So it was definitely being availed. Our community center, although there was a table and chairs and a few items for anybody that wanted to drop by, we didn't have any visitors at that time to the community center, but our library was definitely being used. And as Edward mentioned, Green Care Day, that was a lot of, I guess, good dirty fun and was helping clean out the beds at the community garden there at Mountainside Church. And that was great. And then rushed home and. went to the MOHPG, the earthquake preparedness program, and our fire department chief, Sanchez, was there and was a big part of that program. And just a very, very important reminder that we need to be prepared. We all talk about being prepared, but when you really sit in and listen to those presentations, you realize just how short you might be either on water supplies and and all that. So we also talked about, and this goes back years, about mapping your neighborhood, and it's something that the... Red Cross used to do and if maybe this again is something that we've talked about many times, but it hasn't actually happened. So maybe that's something that we can actually pull the trigger on going forward and making ourselves as a community all very prepared for disaster. I attended a COG, San Gabriel Valley Council Government's Homelessness Meeting, and we talked about the LA County Homeless Services and Housing, the new department, HSH Department, and the Fiscal Year 26-27 Homeless Services Update and the Measure A Spending Plan. We had that and also talked about the 2026 homeless count results and how that's going to be going forward. Went to the at the City of Hope the San Gabriel Valley Consortium on homelessness Had a little one-day summit whole health whole systems bridging care gaps in health and housing we had some excellent speakers and a gentleman from the USC street medicine group very very great, but my comment and I talked to him afterwards and Some great work is being done out there, but we are spending a boatload of money after everything's already broken. And why can't we somehow, I know it's not perfect or it wouldn't be perfect, but it just seems because they showed people how they had been rehabilitated and what they were capable of, but why can't we catch it? Why can't we work more on the prevention piece? it's it's a tough nut to crack so but it was a very good presentation at the City of Hope I also went to the San Gabriel Valley mosquito and vector control meeting and I wanted to because there's been a lot of talk about West Nile virus West Nile virus In California is endemic. It's it's always going to be there to a certain level, we're never going to get totally eradicated. Unfortunately, this year, we are at a five-year high in terms of our numbers, but the latest, and I think these are updated through, I believe, Friday. In the San Gabriel Valley, we do not have any human cases statewide there are 126 cases but the San Gabriel Valley has does not have any and then in fact I was thinking LA County might have had one but no it's I don't believe it's it's even that the the numbers in the LA County area and San Gabriel Valley are short and yes why West Nile virus can be a deadly to humans. Most people, in fact, I have a little page here. Let me see if I can find it real quickly. Let me see if I can find it real quick. It talks about the actual...

Madam Mayor, is there a cure to it? Is there a vaccine?

No, there's no vaccine. There's no vaccine for West Nile. And most people, they either have no symptoms or mild symptoms and recover totally. But there are in a few cases that they can. And it's the mosquito that transmits the West Nile virus to people. to the human. Oh, shoot, I thought I had a direct page. But they have, you can get more information on it at the San Gabriel Valley, well, it's sgvmosquito.org. Or there's also this one, I don't know that I've got it. an email or a website. And Dylan, if you could just then maybe include some of this information in the update. But yes, in most cases, people do It's definitely something that you can survive, but there are those rare cases where it can lead to death, unfortunately. So the big thing is to tip, toss, and protect. Tip out any water, especially those little 80s mosquitoes, the ankle biters. They can reproduce in a cap full of water. And their eggs can also dry out and then reconstitute it. They can hatch. Yeah, they can come out. But, yeah, they are... So tip out any sitting water and then protect yourself with... bug repellent. Doggone it, I thought I had that in here and I can't find it, but sorry about that. Yeah, I'm not gonna make you, I'm not gonna torture you anymore.

Take it to the League of California Cities conference.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm sure they're going to, and also in talking about, follow up what Dr. Kelly was saying about kids and whatnot, the other issue with kids are the e-bikes. And there is going to be a session, I know, at the league about e-bikes. This is not something that's just affecting Monrovia. It's affecting everyone everywhere. Orange County had a buyback. Well, Orange County. Orange County had.

Mostly for the e-motorcycles, essentially. Because that's the challenge.

Well, I guess maybe what I'm talking about is the behavior of some of the young people that just, they're riding e-bikes. They're not motorcycles or anything. They're e-bikes or even skateboards. A lot of e-bikes that we think might be an e-bike is technically an e-motorcycle, but it's really fast and more... Well, whatever they are, whether it's a bicycle, whether it's a skateboard, or whatever it is, motorized or not, the behavior...

I think we should buy the PD some.

The behavior on our streets needs to be... improved and I know that we've all run into that situation where maybe we brought some ill behavior to light and the comeback on it is anything but respectful. Let's put it that way. I'm making it very clean. So anyway, and then I also attended the swearing in of, and so did Dr. Kelly, the swearing in of our new, three new police officers. That is Just fantastic. So we congratulate them and welcome them to the family. So I think you've listened to me enough this evening. That will do it for me. And, oh, except for the League of California Cities, it says General Assembly. Now, I am your voting person. Right now they don't have a resolution package. Well, I couldn't find one.

It was included in the agenda, actually. There's just one resolution.

I couldn't find any. I went online and all I could find was the presentation of the... Hold on a second, guys. It was the process for, okay, submitted by the city of Marietta, resolution of the General Assembly of the League of California Cities calling for a working group to consider a state constitutional amendment or other form of initiative to ensure final local authority over housing and land Now this is a working group. There's also though, they have a resolution committee that can, there could be more than this. We also verify or confirm the elections and things like that at that meeting.

Well, that's what we all want, more local control for Monrovia.

Yes, and I don't believe, unless speak up now, that you'd have any problem with just agreeing or calling for a working group to consider.

Yeah. Yes.

So, okay. All righty. Well, that's strange that I couldn't find that. because I just looked for it. That's okay.

It's late.

Yeah. I feel bad. Okay, then with that, we have no administrative reports and no further public input. And there are no items pulled from our consent calendar. Our next scheduled meeting is Tuesday, October 6th at 7.30 PM here in these council chambers. And with that, boy, we got to convene our meeting with babies and no in honor of or in memory of at the end. So I like a meeting like that. So with that, we are adjourned at 931. Thank you for joining us.

Yay.

Are you my liaison