City Council - Regular Meeting

announcement if you would like to speak during this council meeting please fill out either a yellow card for public communication or a blue card for our public hearing items if you're not sure which one is which you can come up and ask our city clerk so if you would like to speak public hearing items is a blue slip And public comment is a yellow slip. Those are in the back of the room. Rebecca, wave your hand. There you go. Rebecca and the chief can help you with that. You'll fill it out and you will turn it in right here at the front to Cindy, who's got her hand raised. Thank you.

One more quick announcement. If you have an open seat next to you, can you just raise your hand if you have open seats next to you? So there's people in the back. If you'd like to come and take a seat, there's some seats here and there's some seats back here. just for the ones that are standing in the back or just coming into the chambers. Thank you.

Are you ready? Okay. Okay, well, good evening. Welcome to today's regular meeting of the City Council on this day, Wednesday, August 19th, 2026. Let us proceed with our land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge that the land we inhabit today was once known as Talvangar, the home of the Gabrielino Tongva people. We show our respect to the Gaborlino-Tongva people as well as all indigenous people, past, present, and future, and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land. We commit to uplifting the Gaborlino-Tongva people and invite you to acknowledge their history and join us in caring for this land. Thank you. Let's proceed to flag salute. Members and public, please rise.

Outward face, present colors.

Members, please put your right hand over your heart. Ready to begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Order. Colors.

Outward face. Forward march. Oh, good. Oh, no.

And thank you to our police explorers. Members, please be seated. Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Yang? Present. Council Member Goh?

Present.

Council Member Wong?

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Sanchez?

Present.

Mayor Low? Here. Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you, Clerk. Okay, pursuant to SB 707 and resolution number 2026-R23, rules for conducting legislative meeting, remote participation via Zoom is available. Public comments for all agenda items will be accepted during the public comment period, item number seven, except for public hearing, which will be taken at the time each hearing is called. Please complete one yellow speaker card only if you wish to make a comment on the non-public speaking items, and a separate blue public hearing speaking card for each public hearing item. The time allotted for each speaker will be determined based on the total number of requests to speak, including those submitted by in-person attendees, Zoom participants using the raise hand feature, and callers participating by phone by pressing star nine to join the speaker queue. Request to speak will be accepted until the beginning of the applicable public comment period to determine the speaker time limit. And for those limits, five or fewer speakers, five minutes each. Six to 20 speakers, three minutes each. 21 to 40 speakers, two minutes each. 41 or more speakers, one minute each. Live interpretation is available through the Wordly app and closed captioning is available on Zoom. As a reminder, Any person addressing the Council who disrupts, disturbs, impedes, or otherwise renders infeasible the meeting's orderly conduct, who, after a request by the presiding officer, refuses to cease such behavior, may be removed from the City Council Chamber's remote participation platform. For more information, procedures, and instructions, visit the City's website agenda page. Telecommunication announcements. Are there any? Okay. Agenda revisions and additions?

No changes, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Okay.

I'm sorry. There was a typographical error on the staff report.

Okay.

There were two 10Es. One of them, the first one is supposed to be 10C, not 10E.

Okay. Verify. 10C. Okay, thanks for clarifying. Okay, on to, I think many are here today, presentations. Okay, well, we are so excited, so thrilled to be here tonight to welcome, to congratulate some superstars, some fine lads, some role models in our community, and we just wanna say congratulations. So we have two sets of presentations tonight. And again, these are to recognize our incredible champion all-star, all of you. Yay, again. And before we make the presentation, I'm gonna call the first set and ask the coach to come up to say a few words. So we are thrilled tonight to, for our first presentation, make them to the Monterey Park Sports Club Heat 14U Softball District Champions, the finalists and national champions. Okay, so who's gonna come up? All right, all righty. Right up front, okay.

Is this on?

Yes, it is. I didn't write a speech, but they just sent me one right now. It's been a long journey, long journey for these girls. Couldn't be so proud for these coaches and those parents back there, amazing. Thank you, Monterey Park, for having us here tonight honoring the 14 new girls, all-stars, like you said, Mr. Mayor, districts, states, and nationals, which we all work hard for. And even that young man sitting in the corner over there, John, We all do this because this is what we want to do and this is what we volunteer for. Coach June, Coach Q, John for letting us all be here, our family back here. Yeah. So we want to present to you, yes. We have a plaque for all three. And then we have our USA, and then we have... They're all on here. Oh my goodness. Can we hand it to you?

Sure. Yeah, actually, how about this? We'll come down now or maybe after...

Yeah, we'll do all of them at once. It's going to happen with having John having us come in his league. So we have a lot of things to hand John. So John, you got to get up.

Yeah.

Those are all the banners that, from Fountain Valley, where it all started, to districts, to states, to nationals, and those are gonna be hung up in, at La Loma Park, there we go.

Oh, La Loma Park, okay, wonderful.

So thank you, John. Thank you, young ladies, and Mr. Mayor, we have, this is for,

Thank you. When we come down with our presentation, we'll accept all at once. But again, congratulations. Members, any comments you'd like to make? Congratulations.

Congratulations. What a huge honor. We're so proud to have you all in our community and keep up the great work.

I love those championship rings, all three of them. So thank you for representing our community, our city.

Echo kudos and congratulations to the team. Really appreciate your representing Maury Park in such a spectacular fashion. And yeah, I'm noticing all three rings are ginormous and they look amazing. So looking forward to another successful season to come and whatever we'll Love that the city and the community is supporting this and so many championship winning teams for youth and for adults as well in our city. Really appreciate being able to celebrate together. So thank you.

I'm also very ecstatic. I think the first thing I noticed when I came in was all of your Monterey Park gear. And I just want to say how thankful we are that wherever you were, you were sporting and representing Monterey Park in such an amazing fashion. It makes us as council members, but as a community, so proud that you carry our name. So thank you so much for not just a successful season, but also for representing your community and representing Monterey Park in such an amazing way. Thank you so much. And I think if we can find a way to be able to display some of these items in our lobby for the community when they come through, be able to share in that glory, but also in that pride. So thank you so much. And if you notice, you know, we have a lot of pride here, but a lot of faith in you as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you, well said, colleagues. And with that, it is my pleasure to present these certificates. We have to say to outstanding players and coaching staff, members, please accompany me.

Yeah, you did, Trent. I got taller. I got talk. I think it's Aubrey. Kylie. Clarissa. Caitlin. Olivia right here. Apollo is right next to her.

We'll take justice. Eileen? Right here. Ah, thank you. Emma, OK. Thank you.

Alex? Alex?

Alex?

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Yes. Thank you.

You want?

All right, let's smile. All right.

Everybody, one, two, three.

Let me go a little bit wider.

Oh my goodness.

Okay, one, two, three.

Take it a little bit of angle.

Thank you everybody for coming out to celebrate these young men here with their accomplishments and our ladies here. I would like to elaborate a little bit more on the sacrifices that these young ladies have had. They gave away their summer from end of school till basically about maybe a month ago. every weekend, 100 degrees, playing all day long, five, six games, and they really, really work their tails off. For those of you who don't know, our program is very tiny, and we now can hang six banners up that we are district champs and state champs. Okay? We are, compared to some of these other programs, we're D3, they're D1. You have programs with 300 girls and we come in with 60. And these girls work their rear ends off and they deserve everything that they've gotten, all the accomplishments and all the accolades. Okay, I'm very proud of all you girls. And parents, thank you for sacrificing your summers. I know what that's like, it's not easy. Okay, thank you very much for your dedication. Coaches, thank you very much. Okay, enjoy what's left.

And next, we have the Modern Park Pony Baseball Shetland All-Star Pony World Series participants. And if we could have the team and the coach, please come up and say a few words.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Daniel Mercado. I am the head coach of the Shetland All-Star team here. I wasn't prepared to speak, but I'm going to say a couple things. First off, thank you guys for having us here today and presenting these young athletes with certificates. We really appreciate it. First off, a big congratulations to all these players. They pretty much gave up their summer. They were on the diamond every single day, putting in work, dedicating themselves to get themselves better, right, for this tournament. And in doing so, they accomplished a very big thing, which making it to the Pony World Series. It's the first team ever from MPK to make it to the World Series and I think it's the first time they even passed regionals. So good job guys and girls. Good job, good job. Secondly, thank you to the coaches. They were sane enough to join me on this journey, right, to take the extra step to get these kids ready, to be patient with these little ones, to get them ready for battle every single day. They did a great job in helping me get these kids ready. So thank you guys. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. And last but not least, you know, our great parents. Very supportive, very supportive group. Anytime coaches and I made a change that could have affected their kid, it was very supportive, right? A team-first approach from the parents. And you could see that trickle down to the kids, right? They're there fueling our kids, giving them water. What do you call them? Chargels to get them ready for the game in the mornings. and bringing shade. So everything that the parents did, thank you guys so much. It was a team effort, we couldn't do it without you guys. So thank you guys very much, appreciate it. And that's all from me.

And thank you for those heartfelt words. We're so proud of you. We're just so proud of you as a community, as a city, and I'd like now to ask my colleagues to share a few words.

Well, huge congratulations. I remember being at the Pony opening ceremony at the beginning of summer and then the closing ceremony at the end of summer. So I know how much effort and time and dedication you all put in. Congratulations on getting to the World Series.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Coach Daniel said you guys work all summer, but I'm sure a lot of that was also play, right? But you earned it. You're champions, and thank you for all your hard work, and this is going to help you guys grow and get better in life. Thank you, coaches, and thank you, parents.

I'll quickly add my congratulations as well. And thank you to the parents and the families that really invested in your kids and in this team. Appreciate this. And again, really appreciate being able to celebrate as a whole community for this amazing occasion and to be able to celebrate this kind of work and look forward to next year as well and repeat champions.

I like all the sentiments and just how proud we are. I really admire and I was just telling our city manager and our mayor, I really love your hats and your jerseys. Thank you so much again for sporting our name and for all that you do for our community. I'm just so amazed by all the accomplishments here tonight. And I know a lot of you guys are going to school tomorrow, so make sure you take your certificates and share with your teachers. uh getting certificates and honors at such a young age making us really proud thank you thank you to the parents i know how i have three daughters myself so i know a lot of the sacrifice that it takes to to accomplish and do what you're doing thank you to the coaches for your dedication and time appreciate it i know it takes a village so thank you

Thank you so much, colleagues. And now, the fun part, we get to make presentations. Members, you will come with me to make presentations to the players and the coaching staff.

Joel is here.

This is Joel.

Congratulations. Alex is at the end.

Who is it? Clement. Where are you at, Clement? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And where's Luna? Congratulations. What school do you go to? Also. Also. All right.

And Milo.

Milo. All right. What school do you go to? Oh, right. I know.

Go up there and take a picture.

Don't cover your face, don't cover your face.

you guys may not want to stay

Thank you so much. I'm watching you on MLB. I'm serious.

Get your rookie card. Actually, you do have cards now. I guess you brought your cards.

Okay, awesome. The link for tonight's video will be on the screen. What? Thank you.

Okay, members, let's now proceed with the agenda. So, we will now proceed with public comment. Again, this is the final opportunity to request to speak on agenda items other than public hearing items. If you have not yet submitted a yellow speaker card and wish to comment, please raise your hand, complete a speaker card, and provide it to the city clerk. For those participating remotely, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom. If you're participating by phone, press star nine to join the speaker queue. We'll hear comments from in-persons first, followed by remote participants. City Clerk, how many in-person speakers and how many remote speakers we have and what is the speaker time limit?

Thank you, Mayor. There are 14 in-person speakers and zero on Zoom for a total of 14 speakers. That will provide three minutes for each speaker.

Three minutes per each speaker. Okay, very good. Three minutes per each speaker. Okay, well, then I will proceed and call up the in-person speakers who submitted a yellow card. Again, three minutes. First up, Raymond Yu.

Good evening.

Okay, three minutes.

Good evening, everybody. I'm Raymond Yu. I have emailed you to the Monterey Park City Hall that I am requesting and demanding to add and install groundbreaking ceremony to install a brand new Panera Bread. It's coming to the Monterey Park Marketplace, which will be located at 4400 Marketplace Drive. It's between the Buffalo Wild Wings and the Honor Hawaiian Grill. Chick-fil-A, and In-N-Out Burger. Those opened eight years ago inside the Monterey Park Marketplace, Costco, and Home Depot shopping center. We're missing one building, which is Panera Bread. We would like... to order Panera Bread. Corporate headquarters come to Monterey Park Marketplace to celebrate groundbreaking ceremony before constructing a brand new Panera Bread which will take place at Monterey Park Marketplace between, I told you that before, Buffalo Wild Wings and Arnold Hawaiian Grill and Panera Bread will have a drive-through in the marketplace inside the Costco shopping center. In Panera Bread, we have a monthly or yearly unlimited subscription, which is $15 a month. and then $120 annually, you can sign up at panerabread.com. This is why Monterey Park residents inside the city needs to have a brand new Panera Bread with a drive-through built and installed grand opening ceremony celebration taking place in the future only at Monterey Park Marketplace. Since Monterey Park residents were driving too far away to go to Alhambra Panera Bread in 2018, that opened up good next to Alhambra Costco. And the other, on the other hand, is Panera Bread in Pico River opened in 2016. This is why I email you the letter regarding that we need Panera Bread with a drive-thru should be built inside the Monterey Park marketplace where people are convenient, want to use Panera Bread while reading or studying and Panera Bread will have a Wi-Fi in the marketplace because Panera Bread is the best company we ever have. They sell bread and they sell food and they sell breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everything's in the Panera Bread which is a missing store out of total to be almost filled up at the Monterey Park Marketplace. Everything filled up except Panera Bread. This is why you need to report to the Panera Bread corporate office at Fenton, Missouri that we want to have a brand new, we need a new Panera Bread with a drive-thru in-store built at the Monterey Park marketplace where people need to enjoy consuming there in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, Joel Barton.

Testing. Okay, great. Honor roll, Mayor, members of City Council. Thank you so much for taking the time to hear me today. My name is Joe Martin. I lead our West Coast Partnerships team at Via Transportation. Via Transportation is the company that has operated MPK Transit Express since 2025 and this past spring began operating the city's Dial-A-Ride service. Um I am here today to request that the city consider pool or that council consider pulling item 10 B from the consent agenda for discussion with a recommendation to recommend that staff uh issue a best and final offer process for that procurement. Via has been really really proud of the work in the partnership we've had with the city over the past year and a half. We have grown MPK Transit Express to serve over 25,000 riders, have taken it to operate as the most efficient mode of transit in the city, with a cost per ride at about half that of the Spirit Bus. And since taking over operations for the Dial-A-Ride service just about three months ago, we've already doubled or taken ridership about 20% higher. With that in mind, we were extremely excited to have the opportunity to bid on the transit RFP that was released last spring, thinking that we could bring more of these benefits to the entire city. As you all probably saw in the staff packet, VIA was not selected as the RFP respondent due to our cost. Our price was higher materially than the other selected applicant, Transdev. And I think after we reviewed the city council packet, we came to realize there was quite a discrepancy between the two proposals in terms of the services offered and the information provided to all respondents. I provided a letter to council detailing some of these. I'll go very quickly in the interest of time. One of these relates to vehicles. We interpreted the city's recommendation, the council's guidance to begin infleeting electronic vehicles by 2029 as a requirement that was approved by council in March of this year. So we recommended an entirely EV fleet, which is much more expensive than a CNG fleet. that the selected responder went with. We also did not receive information on the roster and wages for current employees for the transit services, which is required by California regulations. With that in mind, we are totally fine. We may not be the provider that the city chooses to move forward with, but we recommend releasing a best and final offer process so that the city can really compare like to like proposals and decide what is best for residents in the city, rather than comparing apples to oranges, which is what we think is happening today. We don't mean to be difficult, we just think we can do a lot of benefit to continue innovating and driving improvement for transit in the city. I thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

Next, Susan T. What's up?

I don't need the whole three minutes. I just want all of you to know I'm for the flock cameras, but I do believe we should go back to the table and listen to everybody else and try to meet in the middle. That's all I gotta say.

Next, Robert Ogawa Monroe.

Greetings Honorable Mayor Lowe, members of city council and staff. I'm Robert Ogawa-Monroe speaking tonight on behalf of SGV Power Up Beacon, also known as SGV Pub. I'm here tonight because of the efforts of two outstanding members of our city whose activism, planning, and actions will positively impact generations of children, families, swimmers, and seniors through their advocacy for the Barnes Park Aquatic Center. Cindy Yee was among the first to alert our community to the fate of the Barnes Park pool in April of 2025, and she's continued this effort ever since. Cindy often speaks thousands of words with her photography. Margaret Leong is the next on my list of recognition. Margaret contacted me while researching and writing the SGV pub's user requirements specifications. My ears perked up. She's one of my people. In engineering, this document is critical when it formally defines what the users and customers need as a system to accomplish. without prematurely dictating how engineers will implement it. With her background planning and managing multi-million dollar projects, Margaret has poured her heart and soul into this document. There's been frustration dealing with the city staff. And sadly, I report tonight that Margaret Leong has chosen to step back from leadership of SGV Pub. My role is transitioned from vice president to president. We are well positioned to continue. Above all else, Margaret has accomplished with STV Pub is the URS document, and it will serve as her enduring legacy for this project for decades to come. But has the city been listening? Tonight, we have item 9B on the agenda. Yet we have received no meaningful recognition from the city that it understands the significance of the ORS from an engineering perspective. We see the contractor's glossy proposals in the agenda full packet, but where is the transparency that instills community confidence in what would be the most complex and most expensive project the city has ever undertaken? Your constituents have formed two nonprofit corporations advocating for Barnes Park Pool. You need to help us with outreach You need us to help out with outreach and fundraising. We've heard tremendous support from the council members, and we thank you. But we need significant greater confidence in the city staff who will execute what is likely the largest project of their careers. Thank you.

Next, Dave Jones.

Three minutes. I hardly know what to do with all the time. uh honorable mayor lowe airport tim sanchez council members dedicated staff thank you for hosting the community meeting on alprs last week i noticed at that meeting the people who spoke in favor of flock cameras highlighted their experience with crime i too have been a victim of crime Our house on Taylor has been burglarized twice. When I was growing up, my parents' house was burglarized and my music equipment stolen. I've also been assaulted with a knife held to my throat. I was sexually assaulted. And that's all I'm gonna say about that, please don't ask. So why am I against Flock? because I will not be made a victim twice. I will not give up my civil rights. I will not let the criminals win. Simply put, I will not live in fear. Criminals want us to live in fear. Fear makes us compliant. When we live in fear, we are already a victim. I refuse to live life that way. I refuse to be treated as a victim, just as I refuse to be treated as a criminal every time I get in my car and drive through the city. What I don't understand is why everyone doesn't feel this way. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights define the United States and what it is to be an American. If we don't have freedom of speech, if we don't have freedom from illegal searches and seizures, all of our other freedoms are as fragile and fanciful as fairy wings. Council members, Chief Weiss, Officer members of the POA, you all took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, even before you swore to protect the safety of everyone in this room. There's a reason for that. Without the Constitution, without the Bill of Rights, there is no real safety. We have plenty of people living in Monterey Park who lived under authoritarian regimes and dictatorships like China, Cambodia, Myanmar, North Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, where these rights are not protected. Are those countries now to be our models? Is that what we really want? not me, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, and all my mind.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, Edlin Takahashi.

Amen.

I'll just do the best I can. Hello, my name is Edlin Takahashi, and I'm here representing SGV Pub. And let's see, first of all, I'm also a past president of Mark Keppel. Again, I want to thank you for your support and for all the work you've done in getting this pool project move forward. So thank you very much. Thank you and congratulations on receiving the $500,000 grant and hearing my concerns about our dedicated city account. I'm very pleased one has been set up and now we can go ahead and see how much money we've raised, and we can go ahead and keep track of those milestones for our community and get them all excited about any fundraising opportunities that we have. Since we're now at the design stage, I do have a concern, because none of the aquatics coaches were consulted by Dolling when they were putting together the initial design, and they kind of used what they had done for other schools and other parks as kind of their template, And they did take to consideration that we have unique needs as we are a competitive aquatics community. We have 91 All-Mount League Championships for Mark Keppel, as well as nine CAI uptitles and four runner-up titles. And we have a coach, a diving coach, who is an Olympic medalist, and he right now is in Croatia coaching the junior divers at representing both the United States and China as we speak. So one of the things with the last design was that it was six inches too short for competitive diving and that's a concern because all we need is someone to get hurt and we would have a terrible lawsuit. So I just want to make sure that as we move forward that the city considers all of these things and that both coaches are consulted on what we need to be doing to make this successful. So I will respectfully request that we go ahead and the city and the new company consult these coaches and I will be forwarding their contact information to you. And I do want to speak about the cameras and how helpful that I believe they are because several years ago there was a hit and run accident in front of the Murray Calendars by Atlantic and it was cameras that helped catch that white van and the driver of that car, of that Keppel student who was so tragically killed that night. And as tonight, as many of you probably got that Amber Alert, this time there was no plate number with the Amber Alert, but many times there are with the Amber Alerts and the Silver Alerts. And as a driver, my eyes are on the road. I am not looking at other license plates as people are driving by, unless I'm stopped at a traffic light. And so those cameras help us find those people that we are looking for, and I hate to see them taken down. Our property crimes are down 11% overall, robberies down 31%, Burglary's down 29%, auto down 8%, and theft down 5%. So thank you to our police department, and thank you, city council members. Thank you.

Next, Gregory Verber? And forgive me if I mispronounced your last name. Verber, okay, thank you, okay.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council, and Mr. Berger. Member from the Personnel Board. My name is Greg Verbeck, I'm retired Monterey Park Police Sergeant. I'm here tonight to encourage you to support Monterey Park's Flock Camera Program. During my career of 39 years, I'm sorry, 31 years, four months, two weeks, one day, two and a half hours with the City of Monterey Park, I learned that solving a crime often comes down to getting a good first investigative lead. Flock can provide that lead. When a burglary, robbery, or auto theft, or other serious crime occurs, investigators may have very little information to work with. A witness may remember a vehicle, but not a person. A license plate may be captured by another camera. FLOC can help investigators determine whether a vehicle connected to a crime was in a particular location at a particular time. It's not a replacement for good police work, good judgment, or traditional investigative techniques. It's just another tool that can make things more effective. I also recognize there are legitimate concerns about privacy, data sharing, and the potential misuse of technology. I don't believe these concerns should be dismissed. I believe they should be addressed through strong policies, transparency, auditing, appropriate limits on access and data sharing, and consequences when the system is misused. In fact, I believe we can support FLOC while demanding those protections. I would also respectfully ask the Council to look at the decision based on the evidence and long-term interests of Monterey Park. not on political pressure or what may be the easiest during an election or reelection cycle. As elected officials, you sometimes have to make difficult decisions. I would encourage each of you to put political considerations aside and ask a simple question. Does this technology, when properly regulated and responsibly used, provide a meaningful public safety benefit to the people of Monterey Park? As a retired police officer, I believe the answer is yes. You don't have to believe that FLOC is perfect to believe that it is useful, and you don't have to ignore legitimate privacy concerns to support its continued use. I hope you will make this decision based on facts, the public safety needs of our community, and the responsibility you have to protect both the safety and the rights of the people you serve. I respectfully urge you to support the FLOC program with strong safeguards, transparency, and accountability. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, Troy Grant.

Good evening, members of the council, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, city attorney, city manager, and members of the public. My name is Troy Grant. I'm a police corporal for this police department. I come here tonight to represent the Monterey Park Police Officer Association as their president in my fourth term. So I was gonna come to you in January, introduce myself and talk about myself and the good people that come out here and protect the city daily and night. The men and women that put on a gun and badge come out here every day. I was supposed to come in January, but of course this year has been a busy year for people and the First Amendment. The First Amendment in which I support and respect everyone's opinion. So it's time that I come up and talk about my opinion based on my training and experience here in the city of Monterey Park as being a police officer and a police corporal and a part-time supervisor. The men and women that come here every day to protect you, they're talented, they're educated, they're motivated, they're dedicated, they're hardworking. They come out here every day and risk their lives. So all of you have a home, a safe place to work, a safe place to shop, a safe place to eat, and to have that American dream, or that dream of whatever you want to call your American dream. This issue with the automated license plate readers, again, is a topic of the day, obviously, and there's pros and cons to it. And I'm gonna tell you first off how important it is, how obviously I support it. I've used it many times. We had a homicide in the city back in 2009 where a husband murdered his wife. I was on that call. I knew the woman and I had arrested her husband a year earlier. Long story short, he killed his wife and he took off in his vehicle. It took the Monterey Park Police Department about three to four weeks to find him. We didn't have the flock system. We didn't have the automated license plate readers. We do now. We could find him now, if it happened today, probably within four minutes, four hours, or four days, not four weeks. So if this thing is ever taken from us, then that's the service we're gonna have. Clear back to 2009 technology, and I don't think we want that. We need to keep Monterey Park safe. The men and women that wear the badge and gun and wear the uniform can do that if we have the tools to do that. And I'm going to say, for 25 years that I worked for this city, the man that gives us these tools, besides the support from this council, is Scott Weaves. I've had five chiefs. He's the best one. Okay? If you thank God you have him, that we have him. And his command staff, Bob Hong and Gus Jimenez. And, again, we support him. The POA does support our current leadership here. Thank you very much. And we can't do it without them. And I appreciate all the support and dialogue I have with you. That's the three minutes I got. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you.

Next, Rob Del Torrio.

Mayor of City Council, how are you guys doing? I want you to make a note of two things right now before I speak. I'm not wearing a mask and I didn't come in on a bus. I'm a long-term resident. My house in Monterey Park was built in 1954. My family moved in the day after the past final inspection. I've lived in the city 72 years. Of those 72 years, I spent 30 exciting years working with the Monterey Park Police Department. I spent six of those years working on a city commission. and I spent three long, arduous, sometimes miserable years helping run the city swim team. See, back then we had 150 kids, it was a big team, and probably 50 plus sets of parents that all thought their kid was the fastest and deserved preference. So that was a try, but right now I'm here to talk about my time on the police department. Way back when, we had a real burglary problem in this city. And I'm talking in the late 1970s, early 1980s. We were having upwards of 150 houses a month broken into. I would start my shift as a report car and write burglary reports for the entire shift. And this means going into people's homes who had just come home from a happy night, maybe at the movies or out to dinner. They come home and find the front door open, the back sliding glass door smashed, The house looked like a tornado went through it. Every drawer dumped on the floor, the refrigerator and freezer standing open, carpet torn up, pictures and portraits ripped off the walls, the bathroom toilet partially taken apart and starting to flood the house. Oftentimes, houses that had a nice big fish aquarium would either find the fish missing or worse, the fish tank would be filled with milk. Some of these bad guys are real mean. At each one of the reports that I take after I finish my investigation, I had to tell the people there's not a whole lot chance of getting your stuff back. We just didn't have a real high recovery rate. I wish I could have told those people There's a camera, a flock camera on your street, and we have a good chance of catching who did this. I hope that none of you ever have your place broken into, but if you do, I hope there's a flock camera close by.

Thank you.

Next, Brian Stothers, please.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and city personnel. I appreciate the time. I'm here today just to kind of, I heard some stories, and I feel bad for the people who don't believe in the system, and I want to listen and agree with them, but I've been a police officer now for almost 30 years, and I did work before we had the flock system, and I've worked now with the flock system, For those of you that don't know, I just came out of the traffic bureau, but I was the traffic investigator and I did all the hit and runs. So if your car was hit at the Costco or something like that and somebody took off and didn't leave a note, well, unfortunately, it's hard to find those people. And the cameras that are there, it's not like CSI where we can zoom in real tight and get an actual plate and wazoo, we got everything. But what I can do is, first off, for those that don't know, they talk about the flock, but they don't know what's all involved in it. When I look into flock, I have to put a case number, the reasons why I'm using the flock, and then put hit and run, everything. I have to detail while I'm using that flock system. And if I don't have a plate, I could put, if it was a white Toyota Corolla, I could put that information in there, bumper sticker, things of that nature, and it will pop up any cars in the neighborhood with our cameras in the system, and we're able to possibly get a hit on that car. Well, I have closed numerous cases due to the flock system that I would have never found those cars if it wasn't for the flock system and being able to use those different characteristics to find those vehicles. So it is a good tool, it's not abused, like a lot of people think that we just use it to use it. We don't use it to locate people, we use it to locate suspects. And that's the big difference. I'm not interested to see where your car is going all the time unless you're a criminal. then I wanna know what's going on and if I can locate your vehicle. So it's a great tool for the police department and if for some crazy reason somebody's using it that shouldn't be using it the correct way, you're gonna get disciplined and probably fired for using it So that's all I gotta say about the flock. It's very important and it helps us solve a lot of crimes. I'm on the hit and run side of it where it's a lot of it's misdemeanors and felonies, but at the end of the day we're able to usually find or locate the vehicle that's involved with it and we can then continue our investigation. I appreciate your time, I appreciate everybody, and the flock system is actually a very good tool that we use in our police department. Thank you.

Next, Officer Becerra.

good evening uh members of the council of mayor thank you for having me um you've obviously heard my counterpart brian stallers he gave you the investigative side of how flock is used i can give you the patrol side as i am currently a police officer for the city of monterey park i've been so for two and a half years and currently am on patrol as police officers we are not um allowed to perjure ourselves. So I'm up here telling everyone the truth. Okay. Uh, this ongoing notion that flock is used to, uh, enforce immigration or to violate civil rights is wrong. It's false. Okay. I personally, along with a few of my partners behind me have taken some pretty dangerous people off the streets. Thank thankfully because of the use of flock.

Okay.

Um, Other than that, I can't really say anything more that it's a useful tool that I use on a daily basis. I come with the mentality to take dangerous people off the streets, um, along with my partners behind me. Um, And I think that's what the citizens of Monterey Park deserve for officers to come to work every day, being prepared to take bad people off the streets. The flock system for the patrol standpoint, it notifies me of the presence of either a stolen vehicle or a vehicle that is wanted for a serious felony. That's from the patrol standpoint. That is the only information that we get from FLOC. If your vehicle is stolen and a suspect is driving that vehicle or if you are a suspect and you are wanted for a serious felony, those are the notifications that we are going to get and that is it other than that i really don't have anything else to say then i hope that our citizens are behind us our council is behind us for us to continue to use this technology it's vital for me it's vital for my partners so thank you for your time

Next, Sara Mena. Good evening.

City Council and Mayor. I grew up in the city of Monterey Park. My parents have been here since the late 1950s. And it's always been safe, the city, since growing up here. I also had a family member here that used to work here at Monterey Park Police Department. And also I have other family members in other departments in law enforcement as well. And this city has always been safe, and I love my city. And that's why I won't move. And so I believe that the flock is something great for our citizens and for the city of Monterey Park. And that's all I can say. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, Lwin Ku, L-W-I-N, last name K-Y-U, I believe.

Thank you, Mayor Henry Lowe. Good to see you again. And Mayor Pro Tem, Councilman Thomas Wong, and Councilmember Van Gogh, and Councilwoman Elizabeth Yang, thank you for having me here. because today I come with a heavy heart and I want to talk about the subject of illegal boarding house. And this is just not Monterey Park, but this is gonna be a multi-city between Rosemey and Alhambra. I will be reaching out to Alhambra Mayor, who is a friend and we've also done a documentary interview with him, Mayor Goji Maloney. So I believe Monterey Park has a strict unpermitted and in regards to overcrowding housing and this finds up to a thousand dollar per day as well as six months in jail and We need your help to track down Not every illegal boarding house, but one in particular because I call her the illegal boarding house queen because she has one boarding house on 319 West Emerson Avenue, Monterey Park, another one in Alhambra, 777 Valley Boulevard, another one in Rosemead, 8315, County Street in Rosemead and She has done more than this. She's done an identity theft. I have actually a resident of Monterey Park He wants me to maybe if I can speak to you guys Personally a little bit more he didn't want but he will release his name and this illegal boarding house Queen has stolen his I didn't use it to purchase a van this year, and this has gone pretty crazy. She's doing a lot of illegal acts, and if I may ask the City Council to be able to help stop the crimes that she's committing, and that's the reason why I'm here.

Mayor, maybe we can have PD just follow up with her on the side.

if Chief can just kind of speak with her and aside, get the information needed. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Goh. Thank you, Councilman Brown.

Okay, next, Mistress Flock.

All right, so first I want to comment about the last week that kind of community event. That event is generally pretty good, but I do have several concerns. Number one, I believe that we have like 100, 200 residents attending that event. We dedicated our time to show up, but only like 10, 15 people are actually allowed a chance to ask chief a question. The other 95% of the residents was not given a chance of asking a question. So I really wish the chief, next time of doing it, such important, such a great event, we should make sure we have enough time, not just wrap it up after one hour and everybody go home in such a rush. So that's number one. Number two is that I believe that Chief mentioned that the flock representative fly all over here from thousands of miles away, but in reality, the flock representative only say the two words, customer data. They only, they fly thousands of thousands miles right here and I was really happy. I was assuming that I was able to ask him a question. He was able to, can go like, maybe he can host the meeting for one hour. The police department can host the meeting for one hour and then Q&A for one hour, something like that. That's my general expectation, but something, everything squeezed into that one hour time window. I just feel I was left without much information. I was expecting I can go there and I got all of my questions answered and I go home with a clear mind, but in reality I feel that 90% of my question was never addressed, was not answered, So I just wish that if this is a really successful event that in the future we should continue to host such community event that we can promote more transparency, promote more accountability, but just not in a such rushed way. We should not follow the Mayor Lowe like, you know, we're gonna cut our public comment from five minutes to three minutes, three minutes to two minutes, two minutes to one minutes. I mean that is not a That is not what he advertised, we value community voice, or we really love your feedback. That is exactly the opposite of so-called, you know, we want your comments, we want to hear from you. That is exactly the opposite how he campaigned to run as a city mayor, city council member, or whatever. And then at the end, I really wish that the city should have a vote, how many members supporting the flaw, how many members against the flaw. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes the comment. Okay, let's No, no, we already started. I mean, I'm sorry, we were supposed to turn it in before we started the council meeting. I'm sorry about that. Okay, and next, let's see. Okay, let's proceed then. All right. See, Okay, staff communications, none, okay. Old business, 9A, January 21st, 2023, memorial project update.

Mr. Mayor, before we move on to the next item, I just wanted to thank all the people that came out tonight. I also wanted to express appreciation for some of our retired police officers that came out tonight to share their stories. Thank you so much for the PD came out, thank you.

Thank you mayor pro tem all right and when staff is ready on nine a January 21 2023 memorial project update.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Diana Garcia, assistant city manager, presenting with me tonight is Ziad Masbudi, our city engineer. We're here this evening to give you an update on the January 2023 memorial. We'll do a recap of the project background, the overview of the evolution and concept, a few of the key milestones since the January 21st, 2026 city council meeting, and then we'll present some elements from the final design. So, as you know, the site selected was the demonstration garden on Metro and Orange. Its outdoor gardens allow us to build on the existing site layout. It's got views and there is a bus route there for nearby connectivity. Quick review of the project timeline. October 8th, the proposal was submitted. In December, we had presentations to the victims, families, and survivors. December 11th, we did a community meeting. January 21st was the last city council presentation. And then this evening, we'll be presenting the final design. If you recall, this was the concept that was presented in December for the community meetings. We received some feedback on that. We received a preference feedback that people preferred the interior garden space for the memorial. They wanted opportunities for dance and a dance floor added They wanted an opportunity for social interaction and connection, private spaces for thought, memorial signage, night lighting for safety, and views for reflection. And so we've updated the concept to design the space for dancing. We switched the layout of the trees to have a path and a procession, and we emphasized the concepts of renewal and protection. You may recall this was presented back in January, this was the rough concept for the memorial you have a memorial growth down at the bottom and then the top that you see bigger in the inset there is the dance floor space. So this evening we're going to be presenting some elements from the final construction documents, including the dance floor, the landscaping proposals, the moon gate, the seat walls, solar lighting and monument signage. So I wanted to demonstrate or to show you some examples of the dance floor material that's going to be used. This is a glass aggregate material called lithocrete. It's going to be presented in blue and light blue hues. I've actually got a piece of it right here. If you'd like to pass it around, you can see it. And this one is really special because it is glow in the dark. We might not be able to see it in this council chambers. but it will charge during the day and then when the evening comes and the sun goes down you'll be able to see those glow-in-the-dark pieces there. These are the proposed plants for the landscaping. The memorial grove will include this Natchez crape myrtle here. There will also be trailing lantana, English lavender, lily turf, and deer grass used. So those are consistent with the city's tree, tree master plan, thank you. And they're native, they grow well in California in low water. drought tolerant. Thank you, Ziad. This is a couple examples of what the memorial panels will look like. There will be two memorial panels. I'll show you the text that was worked on for those. So this is going to be made out of steel with the wording and the names cut into it there. This will be the text for the entry monument. As I said, there will be two plaques. This will be as you're entering the memorial grove. So it will say, in remembrance of January 21st, 2023, these 11 trees honor the lives lost and the love that continues to grow through those they touched. Like nature through every season, may this path remind us that even through sorrow, healing and hope can take root and flourish. May all who walk here find peace, comfort, and the strength to move forward with love. I want to note that this and the next slide that you'll see, these words were chosen in collaboration with the families and the survivors. So we had drafted a couple different options for them. They gave us feedback and suggestions, and this is how we landed at the final text. So for the dance floor memorial, as you enter that, there will be an additional plaque. This will include the names of the folks who were killed in the shooting. We're working with each family to ensure that they want their loved one's name and that we have the correct spelling. And I didn't mention, but this will be in English, Chinese, and Spanish, both plaques. So as you enter the dance floor, this plaque reads, This space honors the lives lost, the memories they left behind, and all those whose hearts were forever changed. As we remember their laughter, kindness, and the love they brought into our lives, may this place offer comfort, reflection, and hope. This memorial stands as a reminder that grief does not have to be carried alone and that healing grows stronger when a community comes together, moving, healing, and dancing forward with love and remembrance. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions or receive feedback. Thank you.

Thank you for the report members.

Thank you staff for that report. I think it's great that you guys hosted community sessions to gather feedback from our residents and community members and those feedback we're taking into consideration to come up with the updated concept. I like how now there's a designated space for dancing and how the procession of trees has been modified to represent the 11 victims. So thank you for the changes.

I want to just say comfort reflection and hope three very powerful words that kind of encapsulates what we're doing here for our Community and for the families who had to go through this tragic Thank you staff and the Community members for working on this together. We look forward to getting this accomplished.

I echo the sentiments, appreciate all the staff work that went into this and getting here and really appreciate the community for engaging in this process and the design getting us to this space and particularly the families of the victims that have been invited and many of which participated in the process up to now and hope that they will continue to engage as we move ahead on this. My question is if you can just detail kind of what the next steps would be assuming we receive and file this update today. and what that timeline might look like.

Yeah, certainly. Thank you for that question. I did forget to mention next steps. So this design is basically completed. We'll receive those design documents. The next steps would be to put this out for a request for proposal for construction. That typically is open for about four to five weeks in order to give firms the opportunity to present a proposal. We'll also have meetings available for firms that have questions about the construction. We'll do an opening of the bid documents, and then we will be back to Council for an award of contract to build this. Once we've got that award of contract, that will probably take, I'm thinking, and Ziad's our engineer, so he can check me on this, probably a couple months to build.

I mean just doing my mental math I know January 2027 will probably be aggressive in terms of timeline, but would be an amazing way to mark the anniversary, but knowing that let's do this right obviously not not rush it either, but just putting it out there.

we're we're gonna do our very best sir there's some fabrication that may take a little bit of extra time i mean a lot of the work is won't take as long but we're gonna try our best to align it with the date thank you indeed that would be our goal uh we're already talking to um our colleagues at the resiliency center about uh plans for when this is is ready to be dedicated

I'll echo the sentiments and just wanted to thank staff for I think all of us have seen this process kind of play out and so I wanted to thank you for not just the time and effort that it took to do this but for doing it in the right way in terms of taking a lot of you know the input from from the victims and the victims families and survivors to make sure that this was done in a very proper way and so I really appreciate all of the effort that went into putting this together I can't wait uh like council member long is set to see this um come to fruition so thank you again

Thank you, colleagues, and I also want to express my appreciation for the thoroughness of this endeavor, this project. Let us not forget that three years ago, members of our community lost their lives in a horrific mass shooting, and I think to this day, it is still marked as the worst incident of urban violence, gun violence, in Los Angeles County history. It's certainly not an easy task, but I think I want to appreciate the sensitivity um and working with uh the survivors their families um to uh get us to this point um and i think that um many of us you know uh want to see this memorial um uh be uh finished so that um the community can continue to play have a place to reflect and to mourn and with that um thank you so much do we need about we made a motion on this uh

You can make a motion to receive and file. And I'd like to just add, this has been a team effort. So I'd like to thank everybody in public works, particularly Ziad, who's been working with me on this project, as well as our designers, Kim Lee Horne, they did a wonderful job leading outreach on something that was really sensitive. And of course, our partners at Chinatown Service Center Resiliency Center, who have helped us in working with the families. They put a lot of work into this.

Thanks. I'll make the motion to adopt staff recommendation. And I'll second.

OK. Moved by Councillor Wong, seconded by Councillor Goh. Hearing no further debate or discussion, members please vote.

Approving unanimously.

Thank you. Next item, 9b, Award of Professional Service Agreement to AGW Architecture for the Preparation of Plans, Specification Estimates for the Barnes Park Aquatic Center, CIP number 95067. Staff, proceed with presentation.

Good evening, I'm Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council, Sean Igoe, Public Works Director. I also have with me Robert Aguirre, who's our Recreation Director. So we're going to get into the presentation. Tonight you have an item for you to award a professional service agreement to HGW architecture for the preparation of plans, specification, and estimates, or PS&E, for the Barnes Park Aquatic Center. The existing Barnes Park pool has been closed for several years due to significant deficiencies that resulted in substantial water loss. Out of an abundance of caution, the pool was ultimately closed and filled in to address safety concerns. More recently, as part of the park system master plan, the Barnes Park Aquatic Center was identified as a key community priority. This led to a series of community meetings beginning in late 2025 where residents and stakeholders provided input on conceptual designs for the future aquatic center. Based on the community input, option B was advanced. The proposed facility includes a 50 meter competition pool, a 25 yard six lane recreation and lesson pool, an approximately 10,000 square foot aquatics building, an expanded pool deck, and shaded bleachers. On April 27th of this year, the city issued an RFP for full PS&E services based on the conceptual designs. The city received seven proposals, and following initial evaluation, the top four firms were invited for interviews. Based on the evaluation of both the written proposals and interviews, HGW Architecture was determined to be the most qualified firm. Next slide, please. HGW distinguished itself in its extensive aquatic facility experience, integrated project team, approach to community engagement and risk management, and commitment to principle level involvement throughout the project. Next slide, please. The proposal also provides a comprehensive team covering architecture and engineering, site investigation, accessibility, cost control, public engagement, and aquatic operations. Next slide, please. Including contingency, the proposed contract amount is $1.74 million. Of this amount, $1 million was previously allocated by this city council. $500,000 is funded through the LA County Measure A competitive grant, and the remaining amount will be funded through the general fund. The design phase is anticipated to take approximately 13 months. At the same time, staff is proceeding with a NEPA review associated with the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. Advancing these efforts concurrently will help minimize the overall project schedule. With that, staff is able to answer any questions. And also representative from HEW team are here to answer any technical questions that city council may have.

Thank you for your presentation, members.

Thank you for the presentation regarding the pool and all the bids. I'm glad to hear that we're making more progress. It's been a while since the pool has been on our agenda. So appreciate the updates and appreciate all the Save the Barms Park pool supporters for coming here today.

Well thank you for the update I think just wanted to thank both of you and actually many others in the city on the staff side for just taking the initiative within the last probably seven eight months from getting the first $500,000 from the city to put into the account to now getting the grants to moving forward. We've secured about a third of what we need. So we still have some work to do, probably a lot more work to do, but we're going to get there. And I have full confidence in you guys doing that, especially Robert, because I know you've got a grant coming up. We're here to help. Whatever we can do. I know we've got a lot of the folks in the community here, swim moms, the pub, different groups. They're all here to help. We can get this done as a community. I have confidence, full confidence in our city. So thank you.

I'll echo that. I appreciate all the staff work and the community for engaging through this process, through the conceptual design, even going back to the Parks Master Plan process. All that work has gone into where we are now. And that's made us more competitive for the grants that we've won and will make us more competitive for the grants we are continuing to apply for. And this kind of engagement is really into somewhat what the speaker said earlier. We need this engagement. We need the community to really show up for this. And that way, we can show to the people that we're applying for grants from that this community is fully engaged on this and this is a priority for those here in Maury Park and beyond and that this pool will be not just a Maury Park resource but a regional resource And so we're working on that. Appreciate those that showed up to our first subcommittee meeting for the pool a few weeks ago. We're planning for the next one. Hope and expect that Pub and others who are engaged and have been engaged on this process for years now will continue to engage with the city. We'd love to continue partnering with anyone and everyone who is interested in helping to support this project. And a lot of that will be, as some of the speakers noted, getting people and residents here in Maury Park engaged on this process and helping to push this up on the priority list for the people they were applying for money from and making sure that we can get to the finish line. And the major hurdle here is going to be funding. We're moving ahead on what we can in terms of the design here. I'm looking forward to voting yes on this specific item, because this will get us further along. And once this design is ready, this project will be shovel ready. And that makes us even more competitive for all the grant funding and opportunities that are available out there. People want to give money. They have money to give to something that they know will get built. And to be as close to being ready to build means having all of the plans and the actual drawings engineering estimates and all that stuff, being ready to go and being able to hand those to a construction firm the next day. And so this is what's going to get us there. And Sean, if you can remind us what the timeline is for the concessions.

I think you said 13 months, if I read that right.

So that's still a long process, but that gives us some time to make sure that we can fill this remaining two thirds of the funding gap we've got right through the work of. The staff, the grant applications that we've won and this frankly this council's work in the budget that we've been able to balance last few years and set aside funding for we are a third of the way there where. a year or two ago, we were zero of the way there. So we are making progress. There's still a long way to go. And we really need the community to show up here and for this project if we want to see it happen. So we really appreciate that and appreciate all the work, again, that the community has been doing to uplift this as a priority for many others. I think safe to say for many of you as you have talked to your neighbors and friends about this project, not everyone thinks the pool is the normal priority for or a top priority for the city to pay attention to. There are a lot of other issues going on. So your work, the work that you've been doing and I hope you will continue to do is very, very, very important. I want to emphasize, too, because I think this was brought up during one of the comments earlier during public comment. Sean, if you can confirm that through the design, the full design process that's going to happen here over the next 13 months, there will be community meetings to refine the design and to make sure that if there are ideas or specific specifications that we want to make sure are integrated into the design for this pool in the complex that those will be that those opportunities are there for the community to make sure that that input is provided to the design team yes that is correct we will have community meetings and we will provide social media posts we will reach out to the community as much as possible to let them know when these dates and times and locations will be thanks sean and look forward to those community meetings and invite everyone to join. I'd also note that I know many of those that have been advocating for the pool have been part of and involved in competitive swimming. But I want to emphasize, too, that this is really a community pool. Yes, we want a pool that is fit for competitive swimming for high school and beyond and lower, too. But this pool is also meant for recreational swimmers. aerobics, exercisers in the morning, afternoon, nighttime, even for movie night in the pools. This pool is meant for everyone in the community and we want to make sure everyone that has an interest and wants to make use of this pool and I expect this pool will be here for many, many decades once we build it. We want to make sure it provides that flexibility for the needs that we know we have and that potentially that we know might be coming in the future too and that it provides for the desires and the needs of everyone in the community that wants to integrate into this and to utilize the pool. So appreciate that we are having this comprehensive process for community engagement and a lot of different people who want to use the pool in different ways and pool facilities in different ways, including the schools. And I know we're working on a partnership with El Hammer Unified and we're hoping to finalize something or formalize something soon but looking for additional opportunities any other partners to continue to join us this is going to be a long haul right the design process at least another year but if there are ways i know sean will be very creative to shorten that timeline uh to be more competitive but we're gonna get there and i i can the finish line is really more and more insight we're getting there we're making progress really appreciate all the work that's gotten us to this point i also want to note uh appreciate um This firm already, there's a sheet in this agenda packet, project considerations, they have already added some suggestions in terms of redesigning and retooling some of the conceptual designs that we had initially out of the communication process, already making some recommendations for how we can make this a more functional and efficient physical kind of layout and facility, including prioritizing shade structures, we know we're in the middle of another heat wave. We know how important shade is and a pool is for as a cooling tool and element for our Community, particularly during the summer, but throughout the year as well. So appreciate that this is that's been prioritizing other design elements and again welcome. Everyone to provide additional feedback about what we want to see this, because once this pool is built, I think many of these it'll be. Let's make sure we put as much as we can into this, because it's hard to rebuild these things. I don't know that we will rebuild this thing in a matter of decades. All right, barn spark pool. lasted us close to 80 years elder pools coming getting close to that at this point uh and right we want to make these investments these the major parts of these investments uh at the right time with that happy to pass it on but looking forward to supporting them

I also wanted to share sentiments in terms of how proud I am of where we are today. I think it's about a year ago that we were just beginning to make this or discuss this and make this a priority. And I think it's so exciting because I know that the SUV pub is here in the same uh the barnes park pool but i think everyone in monterey park wants to save the pool um and so i have three daughters and i know they're going to be swimming in that pool and and then i can already envision the pool being ready so whatever we can do to expedite the process i would love to see that but i think it's so i think it's a time to celebrate what the milestones that we've already made i know that we still have a lot of money to find and raise so whatever we can do and also finalize our you know partnership with alhambra unified and make this happen if you know what i mean so anyhow uh looking forward to to use um the next process and i'm also uh very supportive of this and making sure that this moves forward tonight thank you to the staff and robert for helping spearhead this appreciate them and sean too

Thank you, colleagues, and I'll be brief. It's been a long journey, and we made tremendous progress. I think it's something that we should be proud of, because in my years on city council, from 2020 to now, I mean, we have made tremendous progress, and that is probably thanks to the efforts of our city staff, working in collaboration with our community, working together, and I think that this is a good start. And I look forward and we should congratulate ourselves and continue to push and make the effort so that in the end we realize our vision of having a refurbished new pool that our community can enjoy and respect.

With that, I'm happy to make the motion to adopt staff recommendation. With the additional note, Robert, I appreciate that we're at least noting to set aside potential wall space for art and murals and look forward to filling those as well. I'll second.

Moved by Council Member Wong, seconded by Council Member Goh. Hearing no further debate or discussion, members please vote.

Approve unanimously.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on to set agenda items. Any items member that wish to be pulled?

Mayor, I'll pull item 10 B for off consent. And then for the minutes for I was late to the mayor's meetup or the mayor's State of the City. In the minutes it notes that Mayor Goh called the meeting order. I'm not sure if that was a typo or if he actually did call the meeting order, just pointing it out, if we need to make that edit.

OK, we'll make a note of the edit to the minutes. And I'm sorry, you said you would like to pull 10b? Yeah. OK, pulling 10b.

And I'll recuse from 10c due to my property's proximity.

OK, customer again, recuse 10c. OK, items.

Otherwise, I'll make the motion to adopt the remaining consent.

OK.

And I'll second the remaining items.

Moved by Councillor Wong, seconded by Councillor Margot. Hearing no further debate or discussion, members please vote.

Approve unanimously. Thank you very much.

Okay, item 10b, award of contract to First Transit Inc. for fixed route microtransit and dollar ride transportation services.

Good evening, Honourable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Shawn Aigo again, Public Works Director. I also have Xochitl Pan, our Public Works Manager, who will be leading the presentation, so I'll hand it over to her.

Thank you. Good evening, Honourable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the City Council. Xochitl Pan, Public Works Manager. The item before you is consideration of award of contract for the City's Transportation Services. To provide some background regarding this item, the city completed a transit study back in 2024 that evaluated our transportation service Spirit Bus. That study resulted in recommendations for service improvements and the implementation of a pilot program in April of 2025. The pilot introduced a new on-demand service, MPK Transit Express, which was launched in April 2025, and route restructures for Spirit Bus, which were implemented in August 2025. In March of this year, City staff reported back to Council on the results of the pilot program and highlighted success of the combined services offered to the community. At that time, additional service changes were recommended, including the use of on-demand services to augment the City's current Dial-a-Ride program, which was implemented in May, and also the elimination of the link shuttle effective July 2026. The results of the pilot program, in addition to Community feedback received throughout the pilot demonstrated that the hybrid model of fixed route and on demand service was an effective service model for the Community. These findings help develop a request for proposal for fixed route on demand and dollar right services in the city. The request for proposals was released on may 7 2026 for all three services proposals were due on June 18 2026 and for proposals were received. All four proposer submitted proposals for the three services, however, two of the proposals were deemed non responsive due to missing rfp requirements. The city with assistance from its consultant reviewed the technical and cost proposals of the responsive proposers based on both technical and cost review first transit received the highest score and is recommended for award of contract for all three services. First Transit is the city's current operator for Spirit Bus and also provides service to other cities in the region, including Alhambra, Arcadia, Pasadena, Baldwin Park, and has their local yard located in Almani. The proposed contract would provide fixed route, on-demand, and dial-a-ride services under the same coverage of existing services. The recommendation for award of contract is for a four-year agreement with First Transit in a not-to-exceed amount of $12,534,987. The estimated cost for the first year of for all transportation services is about 3 million, and this includes special events charter services, in addition to our fixed route micro transit and dial a ride. The city's transportation services are currently fully funded through metros prop a and proxies local return funds. This concludes my presentation city staff and our consultant Steve Wilkes from flex links are available for any questions, and we also have representatives from first transit with us tonight, thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation. Members.

Thank you for the presentation. So I've read the city staff report and also the letter that Via sent to us via written communication as well as the city's response to Via. So my question is I know Via is requesting a best and final offer process. What is the downside to providing that if staff can respond?

Mr Mayor, members of the Council, I'll take that one. The RFP does not actually allow for a best and final offer. So if that's something that the City Council would want to explore, the recommendation would be to reject all proposals and re-solicit for proposals through an RFP process.

Sean and Sochi, can you kind of give us just like a big picture in terms of how the RFP went out, the timing it took for people to bid, and then how long it took for us to decide, just a time capsule of what went on?

So, like I mentioned, we did a study back in 2024 we've been evaluating our services for quite some time release the pilot program and also evaluated the success of that pilot program to help develop. a comprehensive program or rfp for city services we've been working with our consultant since the start of the transportation study they've been supporting the city along the way to help develop what meets the community's needs based on what the data is telling us what ridership is telling us and what the community feedback is telling us we did conduct a couple of surveys throughout this process When we came back in March of this year to Council to report back on the evaluation of the pilot and further service recommendations, that's when we started finalizing our RFP development with our consultant. That RFP was released in May. The deadline was June eighteenth. We did extend it to be able to respond to several questions from potential proposers. And so after June eighteenth, when all four proposals were received, we went through a comprehensive evaluation again, both on the technical and the cost. proposals that we received our consultant also reviewed the technical proposers proposals from those who were deemed non responsive for comparative reasons. And so, throughout this time we've been working on evaluating the responses, making sure they met the rfp requirements, we did meet with first transit for some clarifications once we had determined that they were. the recommended contractor for this service. And so ultimately that's been the timeline for this RFP process.

So I'm just going to, I read the report, I just wanted kind of an update so that everyone can hear it. We fixed the route over time to determine how we wanted the route to be run, not only the Spirit Bus, but the transit as well as the dial ride, because it has to connect for everyone. We went out to bid on May 7th of this year. We gave all the bidders six weeks, six plus weeks for the bidder and you said we extended that. How much time do we extend that?

I believe we extended by two weeks to allow enough time to respond to the questions that were presented to us and give the proposals enough time to review them and develop the proposals based on those clarifications.

Okay, so we gave six weeks and we extended two more weeks. And then of the four proposals that came in, I'm gonna make the assumption that they came back for Q&A within the last two weeks and you guys responded to those Q&A. Two of those bids, They couldn't, they fell out for whatever reason. I think we call it non-responsive, but they fell out. So it was down to two and then ultimately staff made a recommendation on one of them and that's the request. Okay, just wanted to clarify that, thank you.

Thanks. Sean, for the one for our current fleet of Spirit buses and the Microtransit and Dial-A-Ride, do we own all those vehicles, and which ones do we own of the fleet?

So we own portions of them. We own the Spirit bus vehicles. We own those. The Microtransit, we do not own those. And then the Dial-A-Ride, we own those.

Okay. None of those are zero emission currently, right?

That's correct.

There's no EVs. And then what's our current contract for Spirit Bus with First Transit and then contract for Microtrans and Dial-A-Ride? When do those contracts end? The end of this year, this calendar year. OK. So in terms of a timing perspective, there's still some time if we want to potentially rethink this. And there's potential to extend this if we want it, or extend the current contracts if we need to.

Ultimately, it's Council's prerogative to make those decisions. um if we still want to move forward with the january launch um extending the art extending this duration could put for potential bidders in a time crunch to purchase vehicles to purchase equipment drivers those things could squeeze that timeline which might actually have companies fall out so we just need to be mindful of the whole process and if we're going to extend contracts things like that all right and then our uh

Any reason why I know my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong is for the state's requirement for municipal fleets, like our spirit bus and our fleets for vehicles, police cars, things like that. The requirement is for us to transition to zero emission by 2045. Are there interim steps there too that we have to meet?

So there's 2040 is the is the goal. And so yes, there are interim requirements that should be looked at. I think the biggest challenge for for us, especially these large vehicles, is The technology isn't quite ready. And again, we rely on the experts, so not only our consultant that's helped us with this process, but also the transit providers themselves. They're the ones that evaluate this and make the best decision on when we should be looking at EV when it comes to these large vehicles. Again, even on our side, when we look at our public works vehicles, we look at those same metrics to make a determination on what makes sense for us to do EV now versus later.

I suspect that went into some of why the RFP didn't require zero emission for vehicles and even a phase-in for some of the vehicles for this. Just wondering if you can confirm that or what was our thinking in terms of allowing for non-zero emission or CNG versus other types of technology?

Ultimately, it was up to the proposers to evaluate that and determine what made sense for them. to not only meet current regulations but future regulations. Again, our current RFP was for four years and that doesn't get obviously to 2040. So it's up to them to propose what makes sense for their operations and ultimately for us financially too. So it's a dual evaluation when they look at how they're going to propose and what makes sense for us and for them.

I'll say up front, when I read through this, my immediate question was, how can we transition more of our fleet to zero emission? Understanding technology is in the way, and even if we want to go zero emission, some of these vehicles in terms of, especially the Spirit Bus, larger size vehicles, the technology is a little more limited. Can you talk about... if we would think through or what we would think through in terms of not only fleet changeover to zero emission if it's electric or whatever other technology. I assume there will be also other infrastructure concerns or considerations we'd have to take into account that would be probably part of the cost. Would that be on us or on the proposer? Just what's our thinking there if we have any?

So ultimately the way the RFP is written is those requirements fall on the bidder. So yes, they're responsible for making those purchases. That's all within their cost proposal. However, the city ultimately will pay that, right? We have to pay for those costs out of their proposal. So ultimately, the city will be on the hook for that. Again, the big thing that we're looking at is cost. And one thing that we need to keep in mind is we're using Prop A, Prop C funds. Those are not infinite funds. And so those funds can go away at any given point. They can be reduced at any given point. And so if we're to look at increasing, you know, our aggressive approach to putting EV in, we could end up paying out of the general fund moving forward because we might run out of Prop A and Prop C funds. So again, all those factors we need to be considerate of when we're making these decisions.

yeah there's uh right i understand that there are limitate right there the technology in terms of especially the larger vehicles like what we would expect for the spirit bus much more limited and from infrastructure perspective would be much more demanding but there are zero emission technologies available for the type of vehicles we use for dowel ride and for the transit express for the the microtransit system, I would be interested actually, I don't know if this was a consideration, we dismiss it because we thought through some of these concerns, but barring significant concerns, I would be interested in seeing how we can start to phase in zero emission technologies and particularly on the side, right, the microtransit side and the dial ride side. uh integrate those technologies if that's a phase-in through this four-year or longer-term contract to make sure we can amortize those costs in a more right cost-effective way uh and then when the technology maybe makes sense i don't know if it's after this contract or also seeing how we might be able to phase that in here although i know that's difficult to do up front in a contract uh also looking at when these when technology feasible and economically feasible See how we can phase in for the larger kind of spirit bus. fleet that we will have to replace. I will be open to. Exploring that I would actually like for us to explore that wondering if we thought through that at all, if the challenge were overwhelming and, if not, I would be open to exploring a process to phase in right. The kind of vehicles that are available technology available scalable already to integrate into the fleet, as we make this transition next few years and I would just. reiterate right we have adopted a sustainability plan here in the city, a few years ago now I know we're working very, very diligently to adopt as many of those technologies as possible into encourage residents to do so. think this would be great way where it makes sense financially to and economically to search up right lead I know we've been doing a lot of fleet transition appreciate Public Works PD fire and all those city staff that have been working to transition our other municipal fleet zero emission vehicles where the technology exists and makes sense from a cost perspective I would love to see us integrate that thinking and that implementation into our transit operations where it's feasible. From what I've seen, I don't think we did all of that thinking. And maybe we can do that, and I'd be OK exploring how we can do that here. But open to thoughts from staff if there are significant concerns around doing that here. I don't see any at this point. I would like to retool an RFP or start the RFP process over again, and maybe we phase in or Not even phase in but see how we bifurcate right this transit proposal or this request for proposals to make sure that we have zero emission vehicles. Or at least look at the cost for zero emission vehicles for the dowel ride and the the the micro transit system or part of this and then see out what the cost is difference is going to be between phasing. phasing that in and then phasing in the larger vehicles as well and be able to decide similar to how we did for for the trash contract right we asked the proposers to give us different price points for different right to to. To Ben three Ben system and all that stuff so we were able to have a more detailed kind of rfp process.

So one of the things to think about is if you look at the cost comparison that VIA provided versus Transdev. So the majority of VIA's proposal was EV. And so looking at that price difference, that gives you a pretty decent overview of what that cost difference may be, which I think is $1.7 million per year.

Is that what that cost is?

So about $1.7 million per year in addition to this $3 million that we're looking at for Transdev. And so if that kind of puts things in perspective, The other thing is for Prop A, Prop C, we have about $200,000 left, and Martha can correct me if I'm wrong, but we have about $200,000 left in those two funding sources. which leaves us with a significant funding gap, about $1.5 million annually, that we would need to think about as part of this EV conversion. So we're open to the idea, and that's why we put it in the RFP to evaluate that. It was ultimately up to the proposers to look at how they would integrate that EV process into our transportation services. So again, we hear you. We ultimately at Public Works, we try to incorporate those when we can. It's no different when we look at any of our providers, a contractor, consultant, we want to make sure that they're seeing those same visions that we have.

For the Via proposal, did they propose EV for the Spirit bus as well, or just the other, the Dalaride and the Microtransit?

I think it was every angle they could, but it wasn't 100% EV conversion. Maybe Sochi can speak to it a little more.

That's correct. It wasn't all EVs. I think for the fixed route it was two buses that would have been EVs for the first term of the contract.

i i'll put out there i would be interested in a new rfp process that integrates zero mission right technology for at least the dollar ride and the microtransit system part of this and options for potentially phasing in ev4 or zero mission for the fixed route system but understanding i mean just I'm guessing the bulk of the cost is probably the fixed route system transition to zero emission, probably the most expensive part of this. And so understanding that cost, and we only have so much envelope if we want to utilize local return for Prop A, Prop C money, knowing we don't want to bust into our general fund to the extent possible, but also would be good to have that option to see what that might cost and make sure that that's an option for the council to consider. I would like to consider that at least.

Um, Sean, I want to do a follow up question. Uh, thank you to, uh, Council member Wong for bringing this up. Um, I personally would also like to see us be able to transition to, um, EV vehicles. Um, but I know that we've already gone through this process and, um, I know that, um, that a lot of staff time and resources were expended to go through this process. I want to make sure that we honor that. If we did go through a new RFP process, how long would that take or how long would that extend? And then would this go beyond our current contract and also in terms of cost of going out for a new RFP?

i'm not sure if that's necessarily feasible i know that we already you guys are already making a recommendation here for um for a different company um can you speak a little bit to that sure so again thank you for the question mayor pro tem so we we could evaluate this putting our p back out you probably need a couple of weeks to retool the rfp um once council gives us full direction on what they're looking at and then we would have to put it out for at least another 30 days, maybe even six weeks, pending any more questions. It could be another two plus months before we get any proposals back. Then we have to evaluate all that, probably another two to four weeks, and then once we have that, we'll bring it back to council. So we're pushing the end of the year. Based off of that evaluation, we would need to extend out the current contracts, probably another six months, which gives us enough time for an Audit of the Council to make the decision on how they move forward, But then also the transition plan. Ultimately, we want to make sure we give the future contracting team time to retool, purchase any vehicles. Again, if council direction is look at EV, we want to give them time to purchase those EVs if they don't have them in house already, get them tooled up, get them outfitted, and ready for rollout. So we would look at best case scenario probably July 1 of next year.

Okay. And and I do like the the analogy that Councilmember Wong said in terms of when we were transitioning in terms of trash haulers, we had we were able to see in their proposals, a lot of the different options. If we went through a new RFP process, I'm assuming we could potentially look at EV versus non EV proposals. My question is, would all of the same, do you feel like all of the same companies that put in our proposals to our RFP would respond back with both a EV option and the current gas powered, I guess?

I would hope so, but ultimately it's their decision if they want to bid on it, right? They already expended their resources to evaluate the proposal based off the current RFP. They may feel that they don't want to move forward anymore because they've already invested their resources into it. Again, that's truly up to those proposers.

OK, thank you.

Mayor, I know that we have representatives from both First Transit and Via here. I just wanted to see if they had anything they wanted to add to the conversation after hearing all of our questions and discussions.

Yes, good evening Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. David Smith, Director of Business Development for First Transit. I appreciate actually Council Member Wong's comment about appreciation or depreciation, amortization. Of these assets over time the larger vehicles are quite expensive carb actually has deferred on the larger vehicles Their recommendations for at least a couple years because there's not a lot of good medium-sized Opportunities out there in the electric vehicle range when you get into large ones They're very very expensive and then the infrastructure that you're asking us to put in place for a facility to run these and the cost of these Thank you. and a four year contract that obviously, if we amortize it all over four years, that's gonna be extremely expensive to you. So we really tried to balance your needs and desires with your budget and the knowledge we have for the service and the vehicles and looked at options continuing with clean air with the CNG on the medium size larger vehicles and hybrid vehicles on the smaller vehicles as the technology catches up with what is really viable for something that has to go through a lot of durable use for a long business day. And it's not just a trip to work and a trip back on some of those electric vehicles that maybe we have in our garages at home. So we're absolutely excited about the opportunity to continue as your partner and would like to still have that opportunity to move forward. And again, this is a four-year contract, and our philosophy was it'll give us time to work with staff to look at what is the long-term goal to get you to that 2040, and what is changing in the industry. So, appreciate it.

City Council Chambers. Hello again, and thank you for the question, Council Member. Just two quick clarification points I think we would add from our perspective. The language that we were referring to in the RFP cites that vehicles supplied for the contract shall be compliant with the City's ZEB plan provided in Appendix A, which was the City's ZEB plan that was adopted in March 2026, and states that beginning in 2028 to 2029, so during the duration of the contract, that all vehicles inflated into the service should be ZEVs, which we understood to mean that throughout the course of the contract, or that during the course of the contract, we would be required to have EVs in the service. I personally don't disagree with the opinion from the first transit team. We have operated both electric fixed-route vehicles, and we have operated electric microtransit vehicles, which are a smaller form factor. And the technology is much better for the smaller vehicles, the Ford transits. In Rosemeads, we're introducing ID buzzes. We use entirely EV fleet with Rosemead Go and Rosemead Go Plus right next door. But we were interpreting this as a strict requirement of the rfp. We would absolutely be willing to provide kind of a matrix in a future proposal documenting here is what the service costs with evs for micro transit with non evs for micro for for micro transit. City Council Chambers and we could give a solid recommendation as part of that as well, again we we understood this based on the city ordinances to be a firm requirement, but really appreciate the time again in partnership.

City Council Chambers and any further comment questions.

Well, having heard all the information, I understand that staff has already gone through a whole process to come up with the RFPs and that reopening or canceling and re-soliciting is going to take time and that we would need to continue our current contracts and wait until the end of the year. But I think, you know, my, my opinion is we want the best services we can for our residents long-term. And so finding all the best options and evaluate everything thoroughly, I think is important in my opinion. So I would want to, um, re solicit all the, all the bids and see, you know, the best service we can get for our residents.

I'll offer up a motion to reject the bids from the current RFP direct staff to retool the RFP given the feedback today to solicit bids for zero emission vehicle technologies for all three segments and options. We'll both look at zero emission vehicle options for the three segments and non-zero emission vehicle options for the three segments so that we can price that out in a matrix as it was suggested for us for the Council to consider for moving forward and the ability to potentially Well, I would also support staff looking at longer amortization periods, knowing that the infrastructure potentially to the investments that are going to be needed for the upfront costs for transitioning to zero emission vehicles will require more costs upfront. So amortizing that might help with the annual costs. I don't know what that period looks like or makes sense as would look to staff. I imagine probably longer than four years. probably shorter than i don't know uh so trust staff to to look into that um and would love to see how we can how close we can get to being a little more kind of just bring back some other options for the council i imagine the current operators both of whom are here for our micro transit system dow ride and for fixed transit or fixed route transit systems I hope would not object if we need more time to fulfill this requirement do our homework I imagine will not be a difficult negotiation to extend some of those contracts and figure that out But leave that to staff to bring back for counsel, but I would make that motion if that was clear

Can I get just one clarifying point? So as we look to go back out to RFP, are we okay with having current proposal, which is they can deem it all gas or CNG, and then it's not that basic option A. Option B would be a hybrid model of blended, and then an option C would be all EV. I just wanna make sure I'm clear on, because ultimately if I leave it up to the proposers again, we could be back in the same boat.

Yeah, I think as many of the options as possible to bring back for council's consideration. I think all those options would be helpful.

If I may, I just wanted to reiterate what I think I heard. So I think there could be an option. I think the hybrid option that you're talking about, Sean, maybe if the smaller vehicles for microtransit and dial-a-ride, it might be a hybrid option where those vehicles might be EV and the larger vehicles may not be EV. Those might be CNG or some other kind of vehicles. So have those flexibilities for various different options. So we can probably come up with those so that we're clearer in the RFP of what the options are.

And then also, maybe this is a Carl question, is there an opportunity for us, because we know this is going to go beyond the end of the current contract, can we just go into a month-to-month contract? Does council have that authority to do that?

Council can direct that that happen right now. The agenda description, that's why there's always language at the bottom saying any desirable related actions related to this item. So that's something that the council would like to do.

And authorizing the staff to negotiate with our current operators to see what options are available and what makes sense to extend the contract as needed. Existing contracts to make sure service is not interrupted.

Yeah, including month-to-month options.

Thank you.

I think what I'm hearing is, one, rescinding this request, two, putting on a new request for staff to go back and get bids for different options, option A, option B, and you would dictate those terms so that the vendors can select where the bids will come in. And three, we would have to go in and give you additional time for the current contract, extended reasonable time, and we'll let you decide, like, is that 60 days, 90 days, 120 days? So there's kind of three different items. I believe Councilmember Wang made the first request, so I'm going to let you kind of go through that.

Is that clear?

Overall, yes. We'll make it work.

Mr. Member, members of the council, just to make sure that we don't have a similar discussion at some point. That the direction from the Council is one to reject the current proposals reissue the rfp asked for three different proposals. Coming back either all electric a hybrid or something else for you to consider and as part of that obviously when the proposals come forward for Council consideration there will need to be a budget associated with each one of those proposals for you to consider. and also to authorize a month-to-month, if necessary, in order to bring this back.

Any other direction the staff need? Nope, I think that's good. I'll make that motion then.

OK, a motion to be made. Can we have a second, please?

Second.

Moved by Councilor Wong, seconded by Councilor Yang. Any further debate or discussion? Hearing none, members please vote.

We have a split vote.

That should not be a no.

I don't know.

It's four. That was an error? OK. Let's revote and clear the board.

Members, please vote.

Approve unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you members for a very robust conversation. And staff for your patience in hearing our deliberations. Okay. Okay, on to item 11, public hearing. Again, this is a fine opportunity to request to speak on public hearing items. If you have not yet submitted a blue speaker card and wish to comment, please raise your hand, complete a speaker card, and provide it to the city clerk. For those participating remotely, please use the right hand feature and Zoom. If you are participating by phone, please press star 9 to join the speaker queue. And I think for this, we're going to hear staff presentation, then proceed with any hearing comments. Clerks, how many in-person speakers and how many remote speakers do we have? And what is the speaking time limit for item 11?

Mayor, there are a total of six in-person speakers, none on the Zoom, and so the time will be three minutes per speaker.

Okay, three minutes per speaker and six items. Okay, thank you very much. And with that, then let's... Proceed with the public hearing rescinding and terminating development agreement number 21 dash 01 and repealing good view specific plan for the property located at 61688 West Garvey Avenue. Hearing is open. So proceed with presentation.

Thank you, honorable Mayor Lowe and city council members. I'm Tim Howe, community development director, providing the staff presentation tonight. I'd like to introduce Jerry Guevara, our new planning manager for the city.

Thank you, Tim, for that introduction. And good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and council members. This next item, as mentioned, is a continuation effort to rescind and terminate the specific plan and development agreement associated with the good views property located at 1688 West Garvey avenue next slide quick background on the good views entitlements on July 7 2021 the City Council approved various entitlements to facilitate the development of 16 residential units at the subject property. The entitlements included certification of a final environmental impact report, approval of a vesting tenant track map, as well as adoptions of two ordinances, ordinance number 2210, which approved the zone change and established the Goodview specific plant, as well as ordinance number 2211, approving a development agreement number 2101 between the city and Center International Investments. Moving forward, we'll refer to them as CII. Following the entitlement, actually prior to the entitlement in April of 2017, the city council and CII executed a settlement agreement that obligated CII to construct and maintain erosion control measures and stabilize the subject property. After project entitlement, CII failed to stabilize the property. And in August of 2021, the city served CII with a notice of breach and then followed with a notice of default in 2021, October of 2021. Following in May of 2022, the city council initiated legislative subpoena proceedings to gather facts related to CII's noncompliance with regards to the development agreement. Next slide. Furthermore, in June of 2022, the city declared an emergency due to an immediate threat of public health and safety and began direct abatement work under the Good Views Abatement Project. The city incurred approximately 16 million in cost secured through new system payments leads on the project site. Under the amended settlement agreement, the city of, sorry, CII pledged commercial property on Lee Avenue in the city of South Amonte to secure It's obligations based on the costs associated with the improvements after ci fail to reimburse the payment costs, the city initiated non judicial foreclosure of the lead property. In May of this year, the City Council held an annual review of the subject development agreement and found that CII failed to demonstrate good faith compliance with the terms and conditions of the development agreement. Furthermore, Council directed staff to initiate proceedings to rescind and terminate the development agreement in accordance with government code section 65868 and section 12 of the development agreement, as well as to repeal the Goodview specific plan associated with the development agreement and the project, including any necessary zone changes to restore the prior zoning destination of the property. Here you see two maps. The one on the left is showing the current zoning destination of the property, which is Goodview Specific Plant, as outlined by the dashed line and highlighted in red by the subject property line. The map on the right is showing the restored destination of the property zoning to high density residential, or R3, which was, again, the original destination of the property prior to the adoption of the specific plan. In terms of the analysis for restoring the zoning destination of the property, currently Goodview's specific plan allows a maximum of 16 single-family residences. Restoring the zoning to R3 would allow a maximum of 155 dwelling units and would broaden the potential buyer pool and maximize the sale price of the property as recommended by the study prepared by Kidder Matthews, the commercial real estate firm that the city hired to assess the property. It is important to know that tonight's actions are not approving a development project at such density and merely it's restoring the zoning destination of the property as it existed prior to the adoption of the specific plan. Moving on to the analysis for terminating development agreement, as previously mentioned, CII failed to demonstrate good faith compliance with multiple core obligations. The city identified eight specific areas of noncompliance, which include failure to implement a required hillside stabilization, abate longstanding public nuisance, comply with mitigation measures, cooperate or provide necessary documentation, obtain necessary permits, defend and indemnify the city in litigation, reimburse approximately $60 million in abatement cost, as well as provide evidence supporting good faith performance compliance. These are the basis for staff's recommendation to rescind and terminate the development agreement. In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, the proposed actions being requested for tonight's consideration for council are exempt from further environmental review in accordance with CEQA guidelines section 15061 , also known as the general rule or the common sense rule. The proposed actions will not have a significant effect on the environment as they involve the repeal of a specific plant and restoration of prior zoning destination and terminating the development agreement. These actions are not proposing or approving any new development and any further future development at the project site will be analyzed independently and in accordance with CEQA at that time. If the proposed actions are approved by this council to nine, a notice of exemption will be filed for these actions. With that, staff is recommending that the city council, after considering the evidence received during the public hearing, introducing and waiving first reading for an ordinance repealing ordinance number 2210, and restoring the zoning destination of the property from Goodview specific plan to R3, as well as an ordinance repealing ordinance number 2211 and rescinding and terminating development agreement 2101. And lastly, taking any such additional related action that the council may desire. That concludes staff's presentation. Tim and I are available to answer any questions.

Thank you very much for the staff presentation. We'll proceed now to public comment, and then we'll close the hearing and let members ask their questions. First up, David Almada.

Good evening, I'm David Almada. I'm a former city council member and also mayor, 1982 to 1986, so I'm very aware of the history of Monterey Park. I'm also an educator, retired from the LAUSD, some 40 years almost, and 34 plus of that as an administrator. I've worked on infrastructure projects. I reconstructed two schools for the LA City school system. So I've been very involved in the school system and also here in the city. How did I become involved? In 1987, there was a major rainstorm in Monterey Park. I lived at that time at 702 South Inez. There was a river in front of our street. The neighbor right behind me on Divina Vista almost got killed and impaled by a rod. The fire department saved him at the last moment. That's how I became involved in the city. The residents around me wanted me to represent them and to find out what was going on in the city with this flooding and all these mudslides that were taking place. And believe me, they were everywhere, including the street where I live at now. The Juarez family that lived across the street, I don't have the exact address, facing Garvey, he was an architect and his wife was a professor at Cal State LA, suffered major damage. The water tank is up there. That was a big concern all along. A few years later, I was elected to the city council. That's why I had gotten involved, and that's why I think I was elected. Now, since that time, I live at the bottom of the hill on Sombrero Drive. However, at the top of the hill, that water tank is still there. That water tank suffered major damage, I don't want to say major damage, suffered damage in 1988 earthquake. Any movement of soil in that area is detrimental to the overall best interest of our city. I recently stopped a water leak, helped stop water leak by letting the city know there was a water leak in the hills by the Monterey Highland School near my home. Finally, they did find two different leaks. One was coming up from Arriba. Why? Because I know what can happen. If there's water coming down, there can be a landslide, a mudslide, and then soil movement. We cannot take this other than seriously in our city, because we're a hillside city, and it's a very pretty city. And I still live here. I haven't moved out like others have. I'm still here. Councilman Wong is our councilman. You especially have to look into this. The historical record is there, historical record. I have a master's degree in history, so I know it's important. From UCLA, by the way. And so I think that this council and in general the community where I live at need to investigate this further Thank you very much. That land needs to stay open and just two more points. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just have two more points. You need to make it, if anything, a dog park maybe, a little trail and that's it. Thank you very much. Leave that land alone. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Next, Dave Jones.

Thank you Mayor Low, Mayor Potem Sanchez, council members, dedicated staff. The property at 1688 West Garvey has had multiple landslide and stabilization issues since the 80s all the way up to the 2010s. It is well known as the least stable land in Monterey Park Based on the documents in the record, the Goodview abatement project was designed specifically for the 16 parcel property at 1688 West Garvey, not for a much higher density project, certainly nowhere as big as 155 units. I also couldn't find anything in the record indicating the remediation project was signed off on by a professional engineer. Without that, really, nothing has been accomplished, and restoring the original zoning would be an invitation to disaster. Now, I've heard the testimony that this is just taking away the Goodview zoning plan and not determining anything else to be done. But it's clear that the intention is to sell the property for higher density. And that would be a huge mistake, in my opinion. Thank you very much for your time.

Next, Mr. Splock.

Good morning. So I am not as educated as all of our previous speaker. They have master degree, PhD. I only have elementary school degree. So I'm not that professional. But I can do the kindergarten math. I know that 155 ADU units, that is potentially putting 155 homeless person or maybe 155 low-income person, providing them with a roof on top of their head. That is exactly how Kevin de Leon did and how Kevin de Leon succeeded. Kevin de Leon did, well, they call it a small village home. You guys are maybe calling that as an ADU. Kevin de Leon built more small village home than the other 14 council district member combined together. That's how much roof Kevin de Leon put on people's head. So people doesn't have to sleep in the park. People doesn't have to sleep inside of the trash can. People doesn't have to, you know, getting chased by a whole bunch of coyotes, you know, in the summer. So I am not an engineer regarding that safety. I don't understand that. I only learned from our kindergarten that Monterey Park does not have much alternative to affordable housing. If we have 1,000 people, low income, they are finding somewhere, I know that Monterey Park does not have enough roof to provide it to them. But for this one, we are putting 16 residential units and converted them from 16 to 155 and I believe this is some great opportunity because I advocated numerous right here on behalf of a homeless population, but again, we just, the city of Monterey Park is just, we just never had a council member like Kevin DeLeon who actually answered the calls for homeless people, who actually meet with homeless people, who actually walk on the skid row and then shake the hands with homeless people to see that how can I put a roof above your head? We just don't have such council member in Monterey Park. So I see this one project, I see the Goodwill company, whatever that name is, if they fail, whatever the promise they did, and then if we were able to try a different plan to have a 155 ADU, I personally consider that is a good plan. I know there are so many people need a roof on top of their head, that I know there are so many people needs a safety place to sleep at night, and I hopefully this one will help them.

Next, Jenny Bradshaw. I'm sorry.

Good evening. Honorable Mayor Lowe and council members, Mr. Burger. I'm James Bradshaw. I'm representing SOS Save Our Slopes. And I'm here tonight specifically to comment and object to the determination by the city that the actions are exempt from the California Quality Act, Environmental Quality Act. The proposed rezoning is a project subject to CEQA. A project is an activity directly undertaken by a public agency that may cause either direct physical change in the environment or reasonable foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. Under the Supreme Court, they held that land use ordinance is a project, whereas here it may be foreseeable or foreseeably result in new construction and associated physical changes. CEQA provides that this is an activity, the guidelines provide that an activity is not subject to CEQA where it can be seen with certainty that no possibility that the activity in question has a significant effect on the environment. The showing is just if I raise legitimate questions whether the project has a significant impact per Davidson, The agency must refute that claim to a certainty before finding that the exemption applies. Thirdly, the agency must actually conduct a preliminary review. The city has not conducted any review, produced no supporting evidence. The staff report and the two draft ordinance contain a single identical four sentence CEQA recital. It cites no study, no map, no technical analysis, no geotechnical opinion, and no biological survey. There is no initial study for preliminary review and no administrative record supporting that this can possibly not affect the environment. The city is not making a neutral ministerial correction to its zoning map. It is deliberately increasing development capacity on a hillside by roughly a factor of 10 for the express purpose of attracting a buyer who will build on it. This is the paradigm of a growth-inducing action, and CEQA requires that it reasonably foresee all consequences be examined now. I have a lot more. And I won't get through it all. This abatement work was taken to just as an emergency basis, not to shore up anything for units up to 155. Quickly, in summation, the common sense exemption is reserved for activities that are obviously exempt where CEQA guidelines language, absolute and precise language, clearly implies, has no application to the legislated act. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next, Ramon N. Ramon N.

It's ramen noodle, dumb fuck. Read the card correctly regarding the real estate project application here. 16 million motherfucking dollars in liens and years and years of landslide use for a disaster called erosion. Now, 16 single parcels versus 155 dwellings sounds enormous and sounds very fishy when it comes to development in California. The same kind of deals, backdoor deals that that shithole governor, I guess his name is Newscum, or the same bitch that runs this district, Hilda L. Solis of the First District, So I must be navigating a real narrative here to correct the so-called evidence and the support of public testimony tonight on their behalf, because I can see that there were no subcommittees as brought out by Mr. Rong Wong to explain why the fuck the Wong go on for so long. It sounds like when you eat chop suey, you're getting fucking ramen noodle, right? Just like in this picture. Oh shit. Just like in this picture here, you see this folks, that's what a politician looks like. This is what ramen noodle shit looks like development like this shit here. And so As I said earlier, WTF, acronym for what the flock, of 60 million fucking dollars for this shared understanding. Well, I've addressed it. They're off of a Bajo Drive by the associated location in which this motion clearly identifies the crisis as you heard in public testimony. That it means there's gonna be more homes destroyed on the landslide falling down. Almost sounds like a landslide song. Now who could that be? Does anyone want to raise their hand and answer the million dollar questions to this fucked up choice? This fucked up decision? And the fucked up idea that we can tear down 16 single homes to build 155 motherfucking dwellings. Now you know what the flock I'm talking about. That's where you should have your cameras investigating this kind of flock shit to prevent it for future damage and have FEMA pay for your flock up fucked up mistakes. For the record, I'm submitting this documents as public testimony. Thank you very much. I didn't run out of my time. I've got four seconds.

Cindy Yee.

Good evening, City Council. Yesterday I sent an email regarding the history on Goodview's property dating back to the 70s, pointing out the instability of that hillside and to inform the residents of Monterey Park tonight that us taxpayers have funded a piece of worthless property for decades from attorney fees to a $17 million retaining dollar. $17 million retaining wall that the city left undone because someone else owns a tiny parcel below Goodviews. Where it lost a retaining wall in a severe storm and Abajo was closed for two years. I recently discovered the $17 million retaining wall along Garvey is only the exit and entrance into the property. The 16R1 or 18 lots is on Abajo Drive above the homes that stretch across the single family homes on Abajo. Goodview property is below Holmes at the top of Sumburl and the water tower that sustained damage in the 87 Whittier earthquake with only a magnitude of 5.9. At the intersection of Abajo and Garvey, the structure sustained considerable damage to buildings within a one quarter mile radius that I outlined in my email since I was a witness with three young children and we are unfortunately in the ring of fire. Since us taxpayers own Goodview properties now and have a 10-year plan to improve parks, I am proposing to add Goodview's property as open space for a much needed dog park and hiking trail. The history of this prehistoric hillside with magnificent views of SGV is a shot in the arm bonus to the City of Monterey Park residents and visitors. The unique infrastructure is that it already has a security gate entering and exiting onto Garvey. We can apply for a grant to improve this site as a park. Please do not change the zoning code from R1 to R3 because you will be doing a disservice to Monterey Park. Two weeks ago, you marked up the city with vacant lots, empty parochial schools, empty buildings, and possibilities of R3 residential zone. with no vision, no thought, no well-planned community, nor infrastructure, and don't care about the future overcrowded schools and congestion and traffic flow. You mentioned school enrollment is down. Have you considered the threat of ICE and people of color are hiding or have disappeared? Thank you.

Any further requests, clerk? There are none. Okay, then I will conclude this hearing. Okay, council members.

Thank you for the presentation and for all the public comments. A few questions. If we repeal this ordinance, can the city still collect on any of the existing liens or city expenditures or judgments or any other remaining claims that the city has?

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, this is city-owned property at this point? Uh, so the liens are in effect what caused the property transfer or property title to transfer to the city. The discussion in December of 2025 with the city council was what was the best option for the city at that point? Uh, that was when the real estate broker brought forth a plan for marketing that piece of property in order for the city to potentially recoup part of its costs. So to answer your question, yes, if you sell the property.

And also if we restore the previous zoning what could actually be built there? And would any future residential development have to come back to Council for approval in the future?

Yes, mr. Mayor members of the council. There's As was indicated in the staff report. There is zero development being proposed for the site The issue has to do with making it more marketable for a potential buyer and a potential developer as some of the speakers have observed and has been very apparent in the record for years now, I've been working on this project since 2015, that all of the improvements that were made through the emergency process to stabilize the hillside would have to be re-examined by any residential builder that wanted to actually build homes on that. More than likely, it would have to be re-stabilized in order to put the weight of those homes onto that Onto that particular slope. So at the moment nothing can be built on there the question again for the City Council, which is ongoing is Whether or not you want to keep the property for a public purpose or if you want to sell the property right now the direction from the City Council in December and in May was to move forward with making it as marketable as possible and we have brokers actively seeking interested buyers

And I know some of our community members suggested uses like a dog park or other uses. If we do go with that route, does that mean we wouldn't be able to collect and pay back the outstanding liens?

Correct. The liens, in essence, is the real property. So that's your interest in the property. The liens have been wiped out by the transfer of the title to the city. There was an additional piece of property that has now been sold for $2.5 million, $2.2 million for the city to recoup part of its cost. That was in the city of South El Monte. Escrow closed and title transferred to a private property owner. We now have that money. So that is a partial recoupment of the money that has already been expended. But with regard to this property, the city holds title to it. It is public property.

Thank you.

Okay, well, first off, thank you for our few speakers here who actually have the background history of the property. And from what I gathered, I mean, the rain problem, the soil erosion, that was probably in the 70s, before the water tower in the 87 earthquake. So that has continually been a problem that was, for many different reasons, not addressed by the city, not addressed by prior councils, because we had different priorities. But I'm going to give a shout out to the council members who actually voted to stabilize the hillside. Because from that point on, after the 2000s, 2010s, we had major rainstorms. And had that not been stabilized, that would have been a real concern for the community. Now, moving forward to where we are, I have a couple of questions for staff here that you can probably help here. This parcel went into a specific plan for 16 units. What timeline was that? When did you get approval for that?

The approvals for the specific plan were in 2021, Council Member Ngo.

So 2021, they got a specific plan for 16 units. And how long were they given before they had to perform and start the process to build the 16 units?

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, I'll jump in on this. I've been involved with this, as I said, for a while. So just to back up and put it into context, the specific plan is not something that I think the City Council at the time in 2021 was extremely excited about. It was part of an overall agreement with the property owners at that time to abate and stabilize the hillside. City Council allowed as part of an overall development plan for those property owners to stabilize the hillside. So to answer your question, City Council was less interest is interested in when those homes were going to be built as when the hillside was going to be stabilized and for that purpose off the top of my head the specific plan was considered in June of 2021 and building permits for the the hill stabilization were supposed to have been pulled by August of 2021 that never happened which is why we're here now and why the city went in and stabilized the hill itself. So that is a very, I can't tell you off the top of my head when the homes were actually supposed to be built, but that wasn't the city council's concern at the time. The city council's concern at the time and continues to be the stabilization of the hillside.

Well, part of the development, so what I'm hearing is part of the development agreement with the builder, the owner at the time, was you need to fix the hillside, then you can build your 16 units. The hillsides were never fixed. The city went and put the stabilization guards in place. They defaulted on that development agreement. The city took action. Am I hitting the right approach here? you are spot on the city took action they defaulted they went away the city actually went into some kind of modification because we gave them additional time. That's how they secure additional collateral in which they defaulted again. Then the city foreclosed and took those collateral. We're still in default. Now the city owns the site because we've actually finished the collection process. We own the collateral. We collected on the additional collateral. We own the site. And the point we're trying to do today is that development agreement with this developer is now kind of defaulted or defunct, right? Because there's no one building a 16-unit. That development agreement no longer exists.

For all intents and purposes, the development agreement is moot because there is no private property owner. The city owns the property. In essence, if you really wanted to get wonky about it, The city has a development agreement with itself, because it's the successor in interest to the private property.

So the request is to basically restore this back to the original zoning for this, which could be R3. Or actually, it is R3, which potentially, if a private developer bought it, they can build up to 155 units Before they get there, they would have to go through the development, well, buy the land, go through the development, get the buy-in, go through the planning commission, and then the city council for approval.

So Mr Mayor members of the Council yes any potential buyer that wouldn't want to build anything on that hillside would as an initial matter first have to enter into a deal with the city to actually acquire the property. But secondarily and more importantly for the purposes of one of the council members questions. All of the development protections are remain in place for any private development let's just assume, for the sake of your question and for a hypothetical that the city council decided to part. With with the with the hillside to whichever developer there's a process for doing that there's a process for actually declaring the land surplus being able to hand it off to a private property owner. And then that private property owner has to come up with a proper development that works. Right now, remember that with the hillside stabilization, the City Council at the time decided to not make the stabilization as robust as would be necessary to put homes on it. So it's robust enough to keep the hill back, but that assumes that there's no buildings on that hill, which means that any future developer, if there were one, would have to first of all do the engineering and cost estimate for re stabilizing the hillside so that you could actually put buildings on to that hillside. there's environmental process multiple studies, I mean just the environmental process by itself is likely a million dollars for somebody to actually make a decision about whether or not something could be developed there. And then, to your point, you would still have to enter into a development deal with the city, most likely in the form of a development agreement, it would move through the usual process that we have for any private development, so there are multiple instances all along for years to come. whereby the public input would be considered and the project would be developed. Tonight is no project. Tonight is simply a suggested repeal of a specialized zoning that was approved by a split council in 2021 solely for the purpose of stabilizing that hillside. We're the council to move forward with the recommended action. The repeal of that ordinance from 2021 would restore the zoning that had existed at that site for years, years. So and that's our three. So this is not a new zoning designation. This is not a new plan for that area. This is a plan that has always been on the books up until the aberration that occurred in 2021.

So I'm just gonna finish up here. So I wanted to kind of ensure that our residents understand that point, which is if someone were to build this, if and when they would have to go through the process of re-stabilizing the hillside to the planning commission's ideal specs. And they have to get through that, well actually they have to get development agreement to get through the city's understanding. And then it will come through the city council's approval as well. So we are, that's many different steps.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. The city council, first of all, is the only one that can approve the conveyance of title to anyone. Right now it's public property. So if at some point down the line, even though the council gave us direction last year to move down this line to market the property, to try to sell the property to recoup costs based upon the nuisance abatement costs, you can change your mind anytime you want to. There's nothing that locks you into this particular point. There were speakers that had talked about perhaps having as open space or parks or whatever it is, all those are on the table. those are on the table and it's completely within your discretion about what to do we are simply implementing the direction that the city council has already given us and that's why this is in front of you tonight okay thank you

Carl, you already touched on it a little bit, but can you just address more directly some of the claims from the Save Our Slopes representative that was here and was addressed by public comment in a letter to us?

Sure. I should note for the record that the SOS folks did submit two letters for the record. I have responded to both of those as recently as 4.30 this afternoon, actually 6 o'clock this afternoon or this evening. In essence, SOS, which keep in mind has a pending lawsuit against the city, which specifically asked that the city council repeal the specific plan and the development agreement, which for different reasons the city council is contemplating doing tonight, nothing to do with the lawsuit, mainly having to do with the marketing. Now it objects to the very thing that it's asking for in its lawsuit. So I've read the arguments, I've responded to them in writing. I can certainly go down the rabbit hole if you want me to, but I don't know that it's necessarily relevant to this discussion.

I just want to make sure it was addressed since it was brought up as well. And I just want to note, personally, I grew up on that hill. My parents still live there. I represent the Highlands neighborhood. I care very deeply about this. And this is an issue that, frankly, as others have brought up, has been decades, many, many decades ongoing. And it continues to be a safety issue right remember in 2000 right with the was noted by some of the speakers. The landslide on the other part of that hill that notes right helps showcase the instability of that hillside right that a bottle being shut down for years and having to drive around because of the unsafe nature of that hillside. I'm glad the previous council, most of us were not on this council when the decision was made to force and make sure that the hillside was stabilized to the extent that it is now. And to your point, as the staff were making, made safe just to the point of stabilizing the hillside, not for potential development. Any kind of development would have to do geotechnical studies, do whatever else, engineering, all that stuff to make sure that if they propose anything, would have to, very likely, have to do a lot more work to make that hillside ready for development. I know it's been brought up... Hey, excuse me. Let him speak! Let him speak!

So the...

All right, so in terms of the zoning, my question to Tim or to staff, the existing R3 zoning, when was that put into place? Or when was that effectuated? Do we know?

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, it was R3 in 2009 when I joined city service. So I can't tell you exactly when it was applied to that piece of property, but that gives you an idea that it was existing.

So it's been an existing R3 for quite a while.

And I was looking at the land use map for the city right there.

I understand the concerns around overdevelopment, density. I think we want to be sensitive to that. I certainly want to be sensitive to that, particularly for this portion. But I just want to point out, right, there are other parts of the city, including the Baja del Sol, the senior housing across the way there that is also R3 zoned. They are not built to their max development envelope.

Is that right? That would be accurate.

there are many other places that are r3 in the city that are not built to their maximum development envelope fair to say fair to say yes correct and so i just want to reiterate right the i don't see a choice not to rescind the development agreement and the existing specific plan that is obviously not workable otherwise we'd have a 16 unit development there uh I support and I would like to take this action. I think there's further discussion to be had in terms of what the right density should be here. That's not on the agenda tonight for discussion, but that is something I would be open to having a discussion about. It sounds like that's what the concern is from some of the residents that I've heard from from the Highlands Inn tonight, and that's something I'm open to. But I just want to point out, right, the RV zoning that exists there, was there before this specific plan approved just a few years ago, has been there for quite a while. And just because it's zone artery doesn't mean it's going to become a development that's going to reach its max development on what's going to happen. And if any project, any kind of project, was developed there or was proposed there, again, as was pointed out by other council members, would have to come back to council, would have a public hearing, and would be publicly vetted, have to be publicly vetted, and enter into a development agreement and proposed for the council to consider. Is that right? That's correct. I want to dig a little bit deeper to write the staff report looked at the inconsistency between the land use element that was approved in 2020. And the existing zoning are three, there's an inconsistency there, the land use element approved by voters in 2020. Right. notes lower density than the r3 currently allows state law, I think, would when there's if I read the staff report correctly and my understanding is correct state law would defer to the larger or the higher density that's allowed there right if there's inconsistency.

Yes, Mayor members of the Council, as you recall, since we've talked about it a lot. Monterey Park the land use element has to be approved by voters so when this project was being considered by the city in 2020 2021 one of the issues had to do with the land use designation for the site upon based upon the settlement agreement between the CIA and the city the City Council agreed to add in a City Council Chambers, change to the land use designation for the site within major jj which happened. City Council Chambers, So any future development, if there were a theoretical development. City Council Chambers, would be required to ensure that there was consistency between the land use element and the zoning at any time that there was a planning or development being proposed at the moment. There is an inconsistency between the land use element and the zoning. That said, there's no project being planned at the moment. So again, either through state law or through the amendments to the land use element, if and when any development were to be considered by the city council in the future, that inconsistency would have to be resolved through legal means. Again, either through state law or through potentially a ballot measure on the ballot to ensure that the land use designation matched with the zoning.

Thanks, I appreciate that. And also, some of the comments here noted the desire for a public park, other uses potentially for this space. If we wanted to utilize this space potentially as a public space or public park, it's not, correct me if I'm wrong, it's not as simple as just opening it up as a park. There would be relatively significant costs to make sure that this is an actual park, which would cost money. And let's start with that one, right?

It'd be fair to say, Council Member Wong, that to make the site accessible for the public for, let's say, some sort of public use, such as a park or trail, that would require significant investment, likely and probably in the millions of dollars, just as a rough guess.

I appreciate it. And there's no existing plumbing. There's no existing utilities. There's nothing. There are no amenities, no resources, no things that go there, right?

That's, I believe, for the most, I believe that is accurate. Yes.

OK. And then I just want to detail, there's clearly a lot of interest in this, how I have approached this issue since my time on council. and hopefully offer some clarity to those, especially those who live in the highlands that are very, very, have a very vested interest in the outcome of this. We've detailed how we got to this point, the litigation, the development agreement, all that stuff, some of the continuing litigation. for the city has expended significant funds to taxpayer money on this project that was initiated before this council was this council. It is what it is. It was done. I'm actually glad it was done to make that hillside safe, that hillside I grew up with and many of us have lived with for a long time, to make it safer and to prevent landsliding, especially as we're looking at another historic El Nino season. Hopefully rain actually shows up, but not too much rain. Appreciate that the city took the action to make that hillside safe, but The The Like the city has expended significant funds to do that We are working to recover that money and we've heard I've heard from many residents in the highlands and beyond the don't desire and the vociferous right advocacy for us to recover as much like those costs and ideas for how we could have spent that money otherwise we didn't spend on this hillside and i i can think of a hundred other things to spend that money on uh that we would love to do right we have that i think i would love nothing than more public space public parks we had a park master plan that we went through that process we're looking at making these investments in parks expanding open spaces in the community i'd love to have a dog park other public spaces park spaces but i'm also looking at this from we've already spent the city's already spent 16 plus million dollars of taxpayer money we've recovered a little bit of that 2 point something million dollars from this other property. Uh, we're missing right? We've got a gap of 14 or so million dollars of cost that the city's taxpayers have spent on this hillside. And so if we're looking at this from from the options perspective of. Utilizing the space as public space or park space, costing the city potentially millions of dollars to make it there, or potentially recovering more of that cost so that we can relieve the taxpayer's burden of the costs of remediating this hillside and making it safe. I feel and I think my role as a council member is to do our best at least to try very, very hard to recover as much of that taxpayer money as possible so that we can use it on the many, many uses that we already have on our capital improvement plan that are unfunded and a whole host of other things that we know we need to spend money on to make sure our residents are getting the services and getting their needs met in the community. And so that's the approach I've taken. That's why I think we have pursued this option uh to market this property to recover as much of this cost at least try so that we have a case to make to the taxpayers that we are doing our best to recover that money that was spent to make this taxpayer money that was spent to make this hillside safe which i thought i think is what's critically important to do if there is no interest in this property then the option on the table for the city is to utilize the space as public space potentially and to consider spending that money but when it comes to potentially recovering millions of dollars for the city that we expended because of the lack of seriousness of the developer. I think it's my and our fiduciary duty to do our best to recover as much of that funding as possible to restore that to taxpayers. And if that doesn't work, then at least we tried, we did our best and we need, I think we need to do our best to do that. And then if that fails, look at other options. That's why I've approached this this way. And that's why this agenda item is brought here. I think that's why we, I, that's why I voted to or directed staff to bring this as an item here. And that's why I support. item and the staff recommendation here and there's more work to be done uh and i know there are concerns around potential development here those are all to my mind separate conversations that will happen if there is interest in developing this property down the line that's not what's on the agenda tonight that's not what's being discussed thank you next mayor pro tem

thank you staff for the report I know this is something decision that was made by previous councils and I know that the idea behind this was to stabilize the hill and make it a lot more safe for people who live there and I'm glad that that action was taken I agree with councilmember Wong in that a lot of people have a lot of residents have approached us about not just how do we recover these funds but the 16 million dollars plus that were spent how it could have been used for other cip projects and i know sean is back there our cip project list is upwards of 200 million dollars right so there's a lot including the pool that we could potentially be using a lot of these funds that if we recovered, we could expand on pressing projects like the pool as well. I think there's no project that is being discussed tonight. I think that if in the future there were a project that was proposed, there would be a lot of discussion about not just the stabilization of that hill and whether the developer would have to do something new to stabilize, Also, that also is dependent on whether a developer wants to even purchase them. It could well be that we don't have a buyer and we might see other options in terms of what we could do with this property. But I agree with Council Member Wong that we do have a duty to try to recover as much of these funds. I know that we've already done that. This council's worked hard to try to recover a lot of those funds with the help of our city attorney and staff. So appreciative of recovering those $2.4 million and looking forward to recovering even more because I know we have a lot of expenditures. And for those of you guys who have been here all night, you heard a lot of the different projects that the city is working on to try to improve not just the quality of life of our residents, but also improve our infrastructure, which we're working really hard to do as well. So I'm also supportive of moving this item forward. Thank you.

Um, Mayor, if I may.

Yes, Councilman Yang.

Just a few more follow-up questions. So I know there's two actions being recommended here. One is terminating the development agreement, which I'm in agreement with. The second action is restoring the zoning designation. So does Council have to restore the designation back to R3, or do we have discretion to designate it low density or something else other than high density residential?

Mayor Mrakas, Mr mayor members of the Council, so the recommended action is simply to repeal the specific plan, and the reason for that is because the zoning that occur that existed before then then take reappears, if you will. Mayor Mrakas, If you want to change it to some other designation that will require a sequel process that's going to require initial study that's going to require. Whatever additional things that secret points out from an environmental standpoint, because that would be a new zoning designation that had not previously been contemplated for that particular piece of property. So to answer your basic question, yes, you have the discretion to change it to something else, but there is a process for doing that that is not tonight.

And how long would that process take.

Depending on what you wanted to do and what direction you gave, it could take anywhere from six months to a year, potentially longer.

So if we did go through the CEQA study, could we designate some of the property as R3, some as R1, and have different designations for the entire property?

City Council Chambers, Mr mayor members of the Council, depending on what the Council wanted to do with the property, yes, you could subdivide the property and then have different. City Council Chambers, zoning designations for different parts of the property, the reason that we've gone down this route is simply because. City Council Chambers, The recommendation from the real estate broker was our three is the highest and best use for the property, which was the former does. City Council Chambers, zoning designation for this property and so that's how it's being marketed for for again being the highest and best use. the council wants to put a pause on that particular plan and take a different direction we're happy to do that really it then becomes my recommendation would be to have a specific agenda and discussing exactly how you want to use the property and what all of those different options entail because of course there is a bigger price tag associated with that both in terms of the initial investment in terms of changing the land use designations and also then The consequences of not potentially getting your entire investment back from property but. To answer your basic question, yes, of course, you have discretion to do it it's your property.

Got it, yeah. My prerogative is to say yes to the first part, which is rescinding and terminating a development agreement, and then taking some time to maybe do a study, look into CEQA. You know, residents are saying they want different uses. It's a pretty big piece of property, so maybe a smaller dog park on some part of it, and building some high density residential and other parts of it to try to recoup our money to pick back the links. Because right now if we just make it R3, it sounds like a lot of the other suggestions are going to be out of the question. Is that correct? No?

So, again, the Council can shift paths anytime that wants to even if let's just say hypothetically tonight, you were to introduce and way first reading on these ordinances and let's say the ordinances take effect. from the city's perspective it doesn't really matter because except from a marketing standpoint so the advantage to the city right now is the direction from the city council was try to recoup as much money as possible from this property um we've invested a lot we want to recoup the taxpayer money but if at some point the city council wants to have a substantive discussion about well is that still the best course of action then that's certainly something that we can put onto the agenda to bring you options and that point or perhaps to your point uh there's no reason that you have to sell the entire property you could sell part of the property or none of the property or whatever you wanted to do it's it's it's the city's property so it's completely within your discretion about what if anything you want to do with it got it so basically by taking the recommended recommended actions today we still have the flexibility later to correct there have various uses yes

Thank you.

I'll make the most short answer.

Hold on. If I can say something, please. So again, obviously this is an issue that has inside a lot of passion and rightly so. In fact, we talked about a little bit of history about how it was a split council. I was one of the people who voted no for the project because I have to say that at the time I was very skeptical, given the history of that hillside slope going back to, my goodness, the early 70s, in which countless people have tried to develop it and only to see it fail. And meanwhile, the slope continued to be eroded. And I will say that I had a lot of skepticism for the project, not only because of the... in my opinion, that the developer was not, I think, presenting a good faith explanation of how they would stabilize that slope. But also too, and you've heard me talk about how I care about housing in this community. The developer was interested in, the question was asked, if you build this, how much are you going to be selling it for? They said a million dollars. A million dollars in this community, are you kidding me? I mean, this is a working class community, and I just said, I don't believe the fidelity of the project or your abatement plan, and that's why I voted no, and it is unfortunate that I was from right, because that developer basically was unable to prove to us that they were able to abate, and that's also why I, along with the colleagues at the time, voted to also to take the property, because for decades, for decades, nothing was done, and yet meanwhile we had slides, which could potentially cause problems for homes nearby, for commuters, for drivers, for pedestrians. And I will say right now that I get these concerns, and I will tell you right now that the same skepticism I had back then, and thank you, Cindy, for even speaking back in 2021 about the project back then. Again, I voted no for the project, but I can tell you right now that even if we were to, you know, Again, go back to what it was zoning. I highly doubt that any project would be viable. And frankly, I would probably apply the same vigor, if not more, knowing what we know about how realistic can this project be. And again, you know, going back to the Goodview, I mean, it was just shocking to me that number one, they, when asked about abatement, they very arrogance that we can do it. And then even more shocking to me when they said, oh, well, you know, we're selling homes for a million dollars. I said, and who do you think is going to buy this unit? And frankly, I just think that that's something that needs to be said. We have had so many proposals from apartments to condos to a 16-unit luxury project, and none of them have panned out. And honestly, I think that, you know, those concerns that have been raised tonight they're valid concerns but at the same time we are trying to recruit our costs when we finally took action to abate the hill and if anyone is interested i'm going to say well god bless you because you are going to be subjected to so much rigor that you may want you may just sell it again to someone else my opinion that's my opinion so all right

I'll make the motion to adopt staff recommendation and also provide additional direction for staff to begin looking at correcting the inconsistency between the land use element and the zoning code.

Thank you. The motion, do I have a second please? I'll make the second then if I don't hear one. Okay. Motion made by Councilman Wong, second by Mayor Low. Any further discussion? Members please vote. approve unanimously thank you okay let's see going on new business none correct okay all right we're very good okay on to city communications council yang

Thank you, Mayor. On Monday, one of our commissioners, Victoria Chavez Calderon, we recognized some of the outstanding citizens in our city, including Cesar Gonzalez, Edith Torres, and a few other outstanding residents. Let's see, what else do we have? I think that was it. Yeah, go ahead.

OK, so I'll go back. Been a busy couple of weeks. I'll go back to August 6. I attended on behalf of the city for the changing of the command ceremony for LA County Army Recruiting Battalion. And we saw the retirement of Lieutenant Colonel Fritzer. to the new commander, Lieutenant De Jesus, as a regional recruiting officer for LA County. We do have a Mario Park Army Recruiting Center in Atlantic Square. Friday the 7th, we had a ribbon-cutting grand opening for Nae Snow, which is at Atlantic Square, and I also attended the Roast Meat National Night Out event, which I was part of the donors to their backpack programs to not only the Rosemead schools, but covering some of the Monterey Park schools as well. Friday the 14th, I attended the AAEDE career fair at a master court. And then Saturday the 15th, a few of you guys were there. It was the Monterey Park Dodger night, so Robert and Parks and Rec staff, good job on that. And then this morning, I know I have a unified sort of school last week, but Garvey school district started school started the teacher or staff orientation this morning. They start school tomorrow. That's my report.

Okay, I am one of the first thank all the teachers who returned this week or are returning tomorrow in our community to teach our students. But I also wanted to take a moment to thank our library because throughout the summer, I had an opportunity to visit our library and I think our library is such a valuable resource, especially during the summer when kids are out. Every day that I went with my daughters to the library, the library was just buzzing with students. wanted to take the opportunity to thank librarian kristen i know you're here so thank you for all of and that not to mention all of the programming that was provided throughout the summer uh to help fill all of those uh gaps while the kids are out on um for summer break so now that they're returning hopefully you get a little bit of a break or not i don't know it might pick up even more so i wanted to thank you for that uh because that was uh extremely helpful especially being able to go get books for the girls uh and attend some of that programming but i wanted to thank police um as well especially our police chief for running our town hall on august the 11th at monterey highland school uh thank you chief for running uh very tight and uh and very robust uh discussion regarding um alprs and flock so thank you so much for that and for all of the people who came out and um and spoke at that uh at that event so thank you so much I wanted to also lastly thank Robert and all of the Monterey Park residents who came out for Dodger Night on the 15th. Next time, Robert, maybe select a date or a team that we can defeat. so we don't have to all leave so sad. Luckily, it was still early and there were still tons to do. But anyhow, that's not your fault. I know you can't control whether the Dodgers win or not. But thank you, Robert, for helping coordinate that. It's great to see so many Monterey Park residents out enjoying the game. And thank you for also, because it was a mid, not midday, but it was like an early game for selecting an area that was shaded. That was very appreciated as well.

I don't know how you do it, but you did a great job, Robert.

Now we just gotta work on making sure the Dodgers win. Thank you so much, and that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, staff. Thank you, community, for coming out and engaging, as always, in robust conversation about the quality of life in our city. We thank you. That is what civic engagement is all about. And with that, let's see, no full session items. Councilmember Locanemi, one last comment.

I forgot to mention that Last week I also had an opportunity to attend the farmer's market, which is here every Thursday. And I just wanted to do a quick plug because I know they will be there tomorrow. So if you don't have fresh vegetables or fruit, go to the farmer's market and get some. If you need... dinner there's also a lot of dinner options as well um it's a great resource and i think sometimes people uh don't realize that that's available on a thursday night um it's become kind of a staple for my family and i in fact my girls were just asking me earlier today are we going to the farmer's market tonight and i said you betcha so um make sure you guys go out and support thank you thank you oh i forgot one more thing um one of our residents bob jinn got honored at judy chu's

congressional awards this past Saturday. So I just wanted to give a shout out to Bob Jinn.

And actually, thank you, Councilor Yang. We want to thank school board member Bob Jinn for his service to Monterey Park. He has served 23 years on the Alhambra School Board, but his involvement and his family's course go beyond that, from the Boy Scouts to the library. And so he is definitely an example of a public servant, and we are very grateful for his service. And I think that's a nice way to end tonight's meeting. And no other further discussion of business. And we adjourn at 10.01 p.m. Thank you.