City Council - Regular Meeting

Lord. Thank you.

Just as a quick announcement, We apologize for the delay. We are organizing the speaker cards. So, if you can just bear with us as we organize the speaker cards.

All right, good evening everyone. We have a full house tonight. Uh let's get this meeting started. We'll call to order at 6:42 p.m. and we'll start with our Monterey Park Fire Explorers for a flag salute. Everyone, please rise. brothers. America. colors. He

Thank you everyone. You may be seated.

Madame clerk, may we get a roll call, please? Council member Go present. Council member Wong present. Council member Sanchez present. Mayor Promlo not. Mayor Yang present. We have a quorum.

Thank you. All right. So, thank you everyone for coming tonight. Um during the past two days, you know, the city council was informed that there's been a social media campaign prompting a lot of questions regarding item number 10B on the agenda, which I believe many of you are here for today. Um, reading the original social media post, I prompted the multitude of written comments regarding this item, it's apparent that the applicant should take some time for community outreach and address a lot of the community's concerns. Um, I believe that the applicant should take an effort to share a lot of uh information about uh item 10b the project more widely with the public. Um, also I'm aware that the city's waiting to hear from the Fair Political Practices Commission regarding whether Council Member Thomas Wong has an actual conflict of interest regarding item number 10B. The question was posed to the FPPC on October 31st and we are still waiting for an answer. Uh it would be better for all five council members to be c uh considering this very important development. To give the applicant an opportunity to better explain the proposed project to the public and to give the FPPPC time to answer the question regarding Council Member Wong, I'm asking the applicant and the council to continue tonight's matter until January 21st, 2026. If the applicant is agreeable to additional public outreach, then I suggest it provides some workshop opportunities, town hall meetings to discuss all of the um concerns that the residents have posed to us in the multitude of written communications that we've received, including the concerns about water usage, electricity demand, environmental hazards, and a lot of

other potential impacts to our city. Um, could we get the applicant Brian Marsh to the podium? Mr. Marsh, are you in the audience?

I'm actually Brian. This is Jim Pew with Shepherd Mullen who represents us. Thank you both. Um, so you've heard my request. We wanted to make sure your company was open to this continuence and also to the type of public outreach that I've described so that you know the public's concerns can be addressed. Please let me know what your thoughts are about this.

Yes, very much so. Uh Mayor Yang and council, uh we want to engage with the public as much as possible. We want to uh be able to share more details about the proposed project to hear their concerns, answer their questions. Uh we we do feel like there's been a lot of misinformation out there. Uh so we'd love to set the record straight. Uh we think that would be beneficial for everybody in the city to make a more uniform uh decision. Uh so we're we're we're happy to meet with them. Uh and we will um schedule some times and a place and and and post that publicly. Uh so that uh we plan to have a few different sessions I'd say uh between now and January 21st, right? And so um yeah, we're more than willing to do it.

Um do my colleagues have any thoughts about this? Yeah, I I Well, thank you Brian and Jim for being here. I my suggestion is if you can incorporate some of the concerns are environmental, water and power and if you have your public session forms, if you can have the speakers who you have contracts or the representatives from those entities also uh be there to help present some of the the factual information. I think that would be helpful.

Can I clarify, Carl? Do I need to step out of the room for this? Uh thank you madame mayor, members of the council. This is not a substantive discussions. It's really a scheduling issue. So it sounds like the applicant is willing to continue. And if the council wishes to continue, then my suggestion would be for you simply to abstain from the vote. Uh you'll not be counted as part of the quorum. Uh the other three council members can make that determination.

Uh thank you, Mayor Yang. Um I also have a lot of concerns about and and questions. Uh but before I I do, I want to thank uh a lot of you guys who came out tonight. Uh I'm a civics teacher and I know how important civics is and uh and I want to appreciate uh and thank you for all the emails that you've sent. I know that takes a lot of time and for being out here tonight. I know that also takes a lot of time out of your personal schedule. Um I have a lot of questions that I want to ask and I think uh moving forward with a town hall uh that um or a public forum where not just myself but anyone in the audience can ask a lot more detailed information about what is um happening at the data center and pertaining specifically with water usage uh electric uses um environmental concerns um I think would be a great way for us to be able to get a lot of our questions answered. Um, and I know that a lot of you guys that are here today have a lot of concerns about those. And I think this is another great way to engage the community and and uh share a lot of those concerns uh that you might have uh with the data center. Um, I have I share some of those concerns as well. Uh so I want to thank uh the mayor for um you know suggesting this uh and and I think on our end uh whatever we can do as a city to be able to share and publicize the locations the dates uh of these uh events would be extremely useful as much as as much as we can and I think for people in the audience who are here tonight with questions about data centers uh I think this gives you also more time to be also be uh hone in on your questions and be ready to ask these uh serious questions uh to the data center um applicant uh on these days. Um and I think it would also be important to uh just as council member uh go said to include uh Edison um and if possible um our water providers here um and or at least from our city on our end uh to be

able to answer some of those questions regarding uh water usage as well uh that I share um concerns about those as well. Uh but I want to thank uh also the applicant for being amendable to uh having these meetings. Uh and I know that I'm looking forward to these and I know a lot of people in the audience are looking forward to asking you some questions uh regarding environmental concerns and water usage and electrical uses. So um whatever we can do on our end to help uh facilitate those and also ensure that the community is engaged and their questions are answered. Uh thank you councel. Yeah, so all of us are residents of the city and we take our community's concerns very seriously and so we're all very concerned about some of the issues that have been raised and there's been a lot. I have a whole stack of you know people who are against it and also people who are for it. So there's definitely a lot of concerns back and forth. Um, but if you're amendable to hosting a town hall meeting to provide all the information that the public needs to them, I think that would be great. And like um, Council Member Sanchez said, please invite Edison um, the folks who can answer the water questions, the electricity questions, everybody who's um, knowledgeable on uh, the questions so that we can get everybody's concerns addressed. Uh, so does someone want to make a motion to continue item 10B? And we won't vote. We won't vote to approve a data center today. I I'll go ahead and make the motion.

So, just to clarify, we're voting to extend the public hearing to January 21st to give January 21st 21st to give the applicant an opportunity to address the community's concerns regarding uh the environment, the water usage, electric uses, and all of those. So, uh Council Member Go makes a motion and I'll second. Council member Sanchez seconds. Let's do a vote. Approved unanimously.

All right. So, this item has been continued to January 21st, 2026. Um, let's take a five minute recess right now. Thank you. hilarious. Thank you. What is your We already got

I can't do it. I would. Can you let everybody know that if they speak tonight that they can't speak again? Is that what you're going to do?

Yeah. Go ahead. No, you could tell them. I don't care. It's okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go. No. No. No. I don't They don't. May I have your attention please? If you are going to stay for the council meeting, if you please take a seat so we can reconvene. If not, if you can please help u clear the room. Thank you. Also, I want everyone to know, please know that if you stay tonight to continue to speak on this item, you will not be able to speak again when the item is actually heard. So, if you want to speak when it's heard, you may want to hold off until then, or you can speak tonight, of course.

Hallelujah. Thank you. Hallelujah.

Good morning. Hello again. If you're staying for the meeting, if you please can take your seat. If not, if you please can clear the room so we can reconvene. Thank you very much.

Okay. All right. Yes. All right, let's come back from recess. Thank you everyone for your patience. Um, any other agenda revisions or additions?

Yes, Madame Mayor and members of the council. uh request to move up the presentation items 7A and 7B to after uh public communications. All right. Any uh objection to moving up presentation item seven? No. All right. We'll move up item seven. Any other revisions? No other revisions.

Okay. So, um we'll go to public communications. Um for tonight's meeting, we're doing five minutes for um the agenda and five minutes for the consent calendar. So, we'll go ahead and start with our first public speaker, uh, Robert Ogawa Monroe, Julie, just confirming that you're speaking on oral communication, correct?

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, mayor and members of the council. Um, last time I spoke, I warned about the poor condition of the Elder Pool uh, Elder Park Pool deck. And as many of you know, uh, now, the deck did fail a few weeks later. and uh part of it collapsed into the pool. The unplanned repairs forced an 8week closure and the fall swim aerobic session that I attend was cancelled entirely. Um it would have been far better to plan these repairs than wait for an emergency. That said, the repairs do look good and I thank you for getting them done. It it really does look look nice. Um I also want to share a story um about Disneyland ride maintenance. So when I was young, I knew a pinball repair man who worked at Disney. And over the time, through his skill with tinkering and repairing the machines, he rose into the senior roles responsible for a ride repair. He was a true homegrown success. I also knew a young man about my age. Young. Yeah. Um he wasn't a standout student, but he found success by serving the US military as an aircraft mechanic. They trained him um and that's where he learned his trade. After leaving the service, he joined Disney's ride maintenance team. He was shocked to find the very few standard operating procedures for planned maintenance existed. In his

world, SOPs weren't optional. They were uh they protected uptime and they saved lives. At first, after he joined Disney, the old crew resisted, but after he hired a few of his military colleagues and they brought on more systematic uh standardsbased approaches, the results spoke for themselves. Management embraced the changes and many of the homegrowns eventually shifted to other departments. So, switching back to our pool. For years, I've pointed out that like clockwork, shortly after the first cold winter nights, either the Elber or Barnett Spark pool when it still existed, um the heating system would fail. Um when I asked about the pool covers, I was told they were too old, falling apart, or too much work to deploy. Um, I do understand that now the Elder Park pool um, cover was replaced and I'm but I'm not sure how consistently it's being deployed. Um, hopefully the heater hasn't failed yet this year, but I want to just lay that discussion aside just to to consider standards and the expertise of people, okay, and how important that is. Um, the predictable failures are exactly why SOPs matter. Without them, we fall into a constant firefighting mode of emergency repair. So, tying this this together, our city has very few full-time employees. Um, and we rely heavily on consultants. We've supported our homegrown staff and they do good work. But for a major project like building a new pool, the design, community support, funding, we need broader expertise. I was underwhelmed by the recent community meetings. I believe we spent maybe around $40,000 of taxpayer money and I think gained very

little. The meetings felt more like a checkbox labeled community outreach, not a serious attempt to steer a major capital project forward. The city needs to be much more proactive in managing this process. We also need to move beyond the verbal commitments that um and finally formalize a memorandum of understanding with SGV pub. SGV pub's chair Margaret Lung has exactly the kind of experience this project needs. Um if she were consulting, her billing weight rate would be over $400 an hour. As a volunteer with deep ties to the community and a genuine commitment to building the smartest, most useful uh aquatic facility, the city should be leveraging her skill, not sidelining it. So far, she's already helped produce tangible progress, including productive meetings with Olympic medalist diver and coach Dylan Lee um on preliminary layout concepts and support from assembly member Mike Fong, who represents 49th district. This is the momentum we should be building on, not slipping it away through delays, weak planning, and with minimal guidance. Um, I I really encourage the the U council to step it up. Um if if Margaret is not a lawyer um to create that memory of memo of understanding um the board the the council needs to do what they need need to accomplish to get that done. Verbal is not enough. Thank you. Thank you Robert. Our next speaker is Cindy E.

Where did all those people go? Madame Mayor, members of the council, I was one of a handful of residents who attended the four weekly meetings of the Spark Committee last summer when the data center was being considered at Saturn Park. The sole intent was to play a game with the residents of the southeast end of Monterey Park to overturn the vote of the people on measure JJ and to not allow the data center to be approved even though StrapCat had the legal right after purchasing the property in 2024. They have a right only because the area is zoned professional innovative technology. Due to this fact only, they have a legal right to sue our city for not complying. However, the company needs to comply with all the building codes and EIR requirements and correct all negative findings prior to demolition. What did four weeks of pathetic waste of our taxpayers money in consultant fees, overtime for our city employees gain in this hideous practice of cat and mouse? How many years has us residents been attending all of these stupid consultant games and our city still wasting money? On October 19th, city council meeting, they approved U5 create approved taking back a piece of rotten hill close to the close to $20 million in an empty council chamber hall when the previous city council should have rebuilt Barnes pool back in 2022. SGP Pub has already shared with you the

aquatic center and all you have to do is copy it because it's just east of us. We've been going around visiting other aquatic centers and we have found that the best aquatic center is 20 miles away. Why spend the money to reinvent the wheel? Our community deserves better. consultant fees after consultant fees. Going to town hall meetings over and over again is a waste of time and resources. We need to get Barnes Park rebuilt. All All you guys do is waste time. More years are going by and it's doubling and tripling the cost. Right, Etelyn? How many years have you been fighting this? 10 years. So after all these times of wasting of consultant fees, I find that this city is incompetent to take care of the needs of our community, Monterey Park. Thank you, Cindy. Our next speaker is P Isaki. A Dodger fans. A Dodger fans. Got you, Jose listening now, huh? Okay, that's what I want to do is get your attention people because I want Monterey Park to be like the Dodge organization. Let's be winners. Let's be champs. Okay. Well, I want to say I'm

here because I support the rebuilding of Barnes Park swimming pool. Um, you know, I spoke to Enz, our city manager, and Robert, head of parks and wreck, and I had a very, very, uh, informative talk. And I'm going to tell you right now, they're for the pool. They're for the pool, and they're going through the process of the pool. But just like government, it's a slow process. You know, they're doing step one, uh, seeing what the needs are, what they what this the public wants. But I'm telling you right now, they're for the pool. Can't say that I agree 100% the way they're doing it, but in their heart, that's what they want. Uh, now we have another group, the Save uh, the Barnes Park group. God, are they doing a great job in a quick time? First of all, they got a nonprofit number in no time. They set up a nonprofit organization. Not easy to do, people, but they did it. And um with it, they have a couple of financial people with auditors to keep track of the money because it's going to be big bucks, right? We're talking about millions, not thousands. So, you got to respect what they're doing and putting in grants. But the problem is we have two good organizations. the city of Monterey Park uh and their administration. And then we have this group that's you know applying for grants already um unbelievably but they're not working together. They're not working together. And it's very important for these two organizations to work together because if I was going to give $4 million, could I give $4 million to this group without knowing that they're not really

in true step with the city? Because then the city goes the money's got to go to the city to get it built. And I'm going to say to myself, I don't know if I could trust my $4 million going to this group. So, we lose the money. Then on the other hand, but that our city's not getting that money. So we have to work together. And I look at you guys, the first one I look at you, Thomas, we swim together. I know Thomas would be a good person to put the two groups together because he knows swimming. I see Vin and I see Vin in community organization functions, fundraisers. Vin's there for for for us. He could put it together. Jose, I don't know you that well. Uh, but I will say this, but it's you, Elizabeth. I think you're the person that could put it together. You can work with ENZ, work with Robert, see what their needs are, and then go work with their group. Be the middleman. You know, I said I brought the other people, but I look at you because I think you're the person. That's my guess. I could be wrong. Maybe Vince steps up and says, "I'm the man." But um no, they we need someone to put the two groups together. Otherwise, we're two different groups and you know the saying, divided we fall. And that's what's going to happen. You know, and we shouldn't be fighting over something we both agree on. You know, I'm going to tell you a quick story. Um with the Markeo alliance, you know, if anyone's been around, Markeo was a dive. I'll say it right now. It was a dive, a terrible school. Education was okay. But then when when the school district made the change, I said, "No way in hell am I going to send my kids to no lawy school." So I I got involved, really involved with uh Monterey Park.

And it was a time when Hillary Clinton wrote the book, It Takes a Village. And that's what we did. We got the city councilman here to help support us, businesses, the community, politicians, and we made it work. We did it together. And we don't all get along. We don't all get along, but we all put our differences aside and worked together to have this done. So, what I'm going to say to you people is this. If we don't get it together, we're not going to get a poo. We're going to have to let go of our egos and we're going to have to start communicating these two groups. And you know what two groups I clearly made it uh clear? The city of Monterey Park and the group supporting the people. And if we don't work together and that the video uh the petty stuff comes up, nowhere are we going to get $22 million and we're not going to have a pool. And that will be a shame for all the kids that use the pool from learning how to swim, from joining a swim team like the Manor race, for joining the high school program, um to becoming lifeguards to even working for the city like uh Ken um Iumi. So, you know, I just want to say please let's one of you say I'm the man that can put the two groups together so we can have a pool. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Paul. All right, next speaker is Tanya Hang. Hello, council members. Thank you for having me here tonight. And uh I'd just like to make a general public comment concerning large projects such as the data center. I would prefer that we move forward with a a full environmental impact report. And I will reiterate concerns for the incoming pollution, rising utility costs, and uh other negative impacts possibly for future reference, of course. And well, I'm not a resident of Monterey Park, but I live nearby. I live 3 miles from 1977 Saturn Street. and I considered the matter life or death for me. Thank you. Thank you, Tanya. Our next speaker is Zay Bowden Beggar. Bowden Bender. Hello everyone. Yeah, also here to talk about the data center. And my name is Zay Bode Bender, relatively new resident to Monterey Park. Uh, I did try to take some time to go through the M andd. Uh, it's a 7,000page document, so uh, only got so far. Uh, I'm an electrical engineer by training, so I tried to hone in, uh, on the things that I'm familiar

with. Uh, and that was the energy usage. Uh, and looking at that, there was some calculations for the uh, increased impact of the data center. It was something like 6% across LA County. And that seemed a little bit off to me. Uh, and I started looking at the reports. Uh we referenced uh some combined uh estimations for the increase in energy usage throughout California uh from a 2021 report. Dug into that a little bit more. Looking at a 2024 updated report which was released in September of this year. Uh there was an extra section added specifically for data centers. uh and that called out uh that the projections from 2023 to 2024 had been increased up to about 20% specifically for data centers. So I think when we're considering uh the goals of Monterey Park, which are things like improving air quality for future generations uh and improving health generally, it's uh frustrating to see it honed in on just that local aspect when the problem of data centers is much larger than that. uh and I think I would be disappointed as a resident to be contributing to that larger problem uh with having a data center in our city. So uh it seems like mostly a legal matter uh for for how we we talk about the data center and what we do about it. But uh at a bare minimum I think a more detailed analysis of the effects of this data center is required. uh and uh to to say that it is uh insignificant or that there's no impact is disingenuous and I think we need to do better. Appreciate your time. Thank you, Zayn. Our next speaker is Margaret Leang. Oh, no. Okay. All right. Um then our

next speaker will be um I have two names on one speaker card. Harog and Emily. I don't know if you guys want to come up together or separately. Separately. So two cards. Okay. So Harog first.

Uh thank you so much. Um I'm a resident of Monterey Park, uh District 2. Um like many of the people that were were here um you know I just learned about this this data center project uh recently um and after my initial shock you know I I start to dig and what I found was the city you know kind of going out of their way to protect developer interests at the expense of the community. Um my my comment here is um more for you actually uh council and less for the applicant. Uh which is why I thought it'd be worthwhile still saying a comment today. Uh so the public hearing that's going to happen I guess in January. Um is really about whether the M&D for the data center is defensible. Uh I'm going to argue that it's not defensible. um you know and we need a full environmental review um because the heart of the M andD is the claim that this data center will not have any significant environmental impact um and your vote on in January is going to rest on the plausibility of that of that claim. So how does the city justify no significant environmental impact when this project would consume 434 million kilowatt hours per year? Now, that's more than twice what Monterey Park current uh uh what all current households in Monterey Park consume currently. So, I want to make sure you all understand the scale of this data center. Twice what Monterey Park currently produces. So, that means you know before the data center you have one Monterey Park, after the data center you have three Monterey parks. That's a lot of electricity uh demanded from one location, the site of the data center. So the electricity is going to produce 85,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. So how could there be no significant impact? You know, it seems like an

obvious obvious question, right? Obvious answer. Um in 2012, the city's then city council gave Monterey Park a climate action plan uh to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Um, and this is kind of like centered around some key strategies like energy efficiency, renewable energy, um, and sustainable land use. This, uh, this this plan was a strategic document adopted by the Monterey Park to both guide the city toward a greener future and help make the city a better neighbor more broadly in the region. Okay, fast forward to 2024. a data center proposal comes along from an Australian company uh that would pump an estimated 85,000 tons of CO2 into the air every every year. So, mayor and council members, now I want to provide an analogy here. So, imagine the state of California didn't mandate how cities define speed limits for roads and gave that power to cities to define however it want they wanted to. So most cities will adopt some kind of numerical limits, right, for for different kinds of roads based on research and common sense. So for example, let's say LA creates a speed limit of 35 miles per hour in residential zones, 40 miles an hour on on main thoroughfairs, you know, so on so forth, all based on their discretion by using common sense numbers. So Monterey Park, on the other hand, says, you know, we don't need to define speed limits using numbers. You know, let's use something more qualitative like like saying drivers just need to feel safe, you know, and that feeling of safety can guide their personal speed limit. So maybe this works for a little while and drivers respect each other and drive at a reasonable speed, but then a new kind of vehicle is uh invented. It can't go any less than 60 miles hour anywhere.

Instead of banning that vehicle from being driven in Monterey Park, we just let the drivers of those vehicles decide if they feel safe uh while they're while they're barreling down our residential streets at 60 miles per hour wreaking havoc to everyone else. Like would you allow that to happen? Like that is exactly the situation that Monterey Park is in today with this data center. The data center is the new vehicle and the speed limit is that threshold of significance. So, SECA section 5064.4B2 uh says that cities like Monterey Park need to define a threshold of significance for environmental impact. SECA gives cities discretion in how they define that threshold. Most cities define, you know, follow standard guidance like that defined by South Coast Air Quality Management District and define that threshold numerically. For example, 3,000 metric tons of CO2 u or 1100 metric tons or 10,000 metric tonses at the higher level. Um but and the data center is at 85,000 metric tonses per year. So knowing this, Monterey Park is defining the threshold, that speed limit, not using a number, but qualitatively. Um so yeah, well I'm out of time, but I I hope that that full environmental report is commissioned and um I think it's absolutely necessary because the M&D is not defensible at all. Thank you.

Thank you, Har. Uh, next up is Emily.

Um, good evening. Good evening, council members. Um, my name is Emily Chu. I am a resident of Monterey Park in District 2. Um, first before I get into my comment, I just wanted to quickly say how disappointed I am by the intentionally misleading communication that happened earlier tonight to the public. You saw that this room was packed full of people to give comment on this item who wanted their voices heard and they were led to believe that they would not be able to speak again, which is not true. Um, so I'm glad that I'm still here. I have things I would love to say to you. Um, I have been reading through a lot of documents about this entire process and I have a number of concerns that I would love to walk through with you. Um, so I am here today to oppose item 10B because I care about Monterey Park and I want to see it thrive and as such I don't think the proposed data center is the right solution for Saturn Park. This is not only based on my opinion, but also many things I've learned over the course of the research that I talked about. I've read through a lot of agenda notes, um, summary documents. So, I wanted to walk through some of my concerns, specifically focused on the Saturn Park Advisory Review Committee or SPARC. Um, having studied these documents, I seriously question the validity of their findings. This is critical because those findings shaped everything that came afterwards. In short, um the process was flawed from the beginning and the community did not have the opportunity to give sufficient input. I have a few examples here. So, first, the spark committee was supposed to be nine people to represent the community, but two of the nine were city council members. Most of the remaining seven had clear ties to city hall as either existing or past board members or

appear to have personal relationships with council members. How could this be a representative group of Monterey Park residents? Council member Wong, who has only recently recused himself or may be recusing himself um from the process due to a potential conflict of interest, was not only on the Spark Committee, but he was the chairperson of the Spark Committee, driving the data center forward. Also, flyers notifying residents about the Spark sessions were only sent to homes within 500 ft of the proposed data center. and the one online post about it on the city Instagram did not even mention the words data center at all. As a result, many Monterey Park residents did not know about it, would not have understood the severity of these sessions based on the promotional materials. I can say that I have talked with neighbors on my street this week and no one knew. No one knew about it. They were all here at the time. Um, also the spark session seemed to be very biased towards pitching the data center to participants. In fact, the CEO of the applicant company flew in from Australia to attend the sessions. There appeared to be no other presentations from any other types of companies like mixeduse or commercial developers which were requested by participants and don't appear to have been followed up on in any way. Lastly, uh during one of the Spark sessions, participants voted on ideas. There were only 40 people present, nine of whom were the Spark members themselves. Again, how could this be representative of our community? Uh I also had some questions for the applicant who I think is not here anymore, but I would like to still read through um so everyone in the room can hear. So, first, as this project would triple the energy consumption of Monterey Park, precisely how much should residents expect their energy bills to

go up and how much should Edison customers across Southern California expect their energy bills to go up? And if the answer is that customers energy bills will not go up, can you clearly explain why? When cities across the US are seeing increased rates correlated with data centers, this would make Monterey Park so unique to the point that it is unbelievable. I have seen claims that residents will not pay for infrastructure upgrades to support this project. So, who will pay for this and how much is this estimated to cost? Lastly, noise pollution has not been clearly addressed. Residents living near other hyperskilled data centers report health issues. This is due not only to the loudness of the sound, but the frequency. precisely what is the estimated noise from the operating data center including its generators in decibb and at what frequency. We should not rush forward. Workshops are great but council should also order a full environmental impact report including estimates for indirect emissions and quantitative thresholds for evaluating emissions and be transparent with the community about its findings. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Emily. Next speaker is Stephen Um, excuse me. Lisa, did you want to speak um during public hearing or oral communication?

Oral communications. Okay. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Stephen Kong. Thank you so much, council members, for taking the time to hear out your constituents and um taking our opinions very seriously. No data center company sets out to worry the residents, right? Of course, they've been presenting their best face. They give you a proposal, a pitch, but as we know, if we read the news, the reality is always far different. Just ask Mororrow County in Oregon or really any other to read the University of Michigan study about what happens when data centers come to town as well as the Rolling Stone expose from last week that tells you in grueling detail how data centers are now linked to cancer. These have no these articles have no stake in the project. They are objective. They're not even talking about us. They're talking about data centers across the country. And I want to say the quiet part out loud. Monterey Park is a community of color. We are Asian, Latina, black, brown, and white in every color of the rainbow. Our small community is being targeted because we are seen as poor, vulnerable, and desperate for promises of easy money. A data center would never fly in Brentwood, Henark Park, or even like South Pasadena. They value their quality of life, and so do we. That's what makes our city special. We are too smart to be swindled by snake oil salesmen such as HMC Capital. A data center conflicts with the very core of our city identity. Park is in our name, not data center. We value community, green spaces, and a

peaceful quality of life. A data center, which in which enhances none of these threatens to take all of those away. It belongs in a city that actively solicits industry like city of industry or commerce, which are literally advertising with their names. We are not that city. We are we are not the city that shuts down swimming pools to build data centers. If you don't understand that, you don't understand our city. A continuence is a waste of everyone's time. We don't need a full environmental impact report. The choice is clear. Deny the permit to build. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen. The next speaker is Julie. I don't have a last name. Julie.

Hi. Um, uh, good evening. I stand here before you guys as a resident of Monterey Park and of, you know, as a mother of children who live here and are going to be here for a long time. Um, I just don't understand who wants this other than the corporation. There is no benefit to the community for this data center. And like all the other neighbors earlier than me, I agree with everything they said. Um, I'm flabbergasted that we are here at this moment. Um, I just want to reiterate uh how, you know, terrible of an idea this is for our community. Um, and if it's in your power to, you know, prevent the data center from being built here, please, you know, you swore an oath to do what's best for the community. and the answer is very clear. So yeah,

thank you Julie. Uh the next speaker's name is Yellow Lives Matter.

All right. Well, the name could be a little bit entertaining, but I'm really desperate right now. So start with general public comment. I have so many things to cover under five minutes. Let's try to make the miracle occur to that tonight. Number one, I heard some miracle words from the mayor. Uh she said that we care about the voice of our constituents. I was like, "Oh my god, am I dreaming? Is this a reality?" I couldn't believe what I heard. Why is that? because that several several months ago when so many uh uh uh constituents crowded the room are talking about stop eliminating public comment to five minutes uh because we used to for so many years so many decades that five minutes per item but right now you can have 20 items but you only have five minutes and then at that time I was like oh mayor mayor you listen to your constituents okay did you what what did you do and I was like especially council member Ron Council member Ron said said, you know, oh, I care about my the community voice. Okay. All right. We're going to shut their voice. We're going to cut their voice. I was like, oh, okay. That that is how you listen to your constituents. And then tonight, we are uh having the same problem, right? And then I heard for the swimming pool issues. I'm not familiar, but all I know is for the previous several times I come here, the residents made their voice loud and clear, but the council member is like, "Oh, I don't know what do you want. I don't know what the what our residents want." Okay, I don't understand. Can you clarify? So, actually for me, I have very limited English language skill and I heard them loud and clear. The only thing who doesn't understand English is our mayor, is our council member. Um second of all is that uh uh talking about uh for for whatever the comments I heard previously about the data center. Uh by the way just want to city attorney I'm talking

about the general public comment. I'm not talking about a 10b. This is general. Um so talking about the data center. Um uh let's start with city city manager. Okay. And then several residents talk about they don't trust the city manager. Well the answer is pretty easy and clear. Now, we have to ask the city manager, do you care about the residents of Monterey Park or do you care about your $300,000 uh annual salary package? So, I think the the the choice is easy because she has to go with the mayor in order to continue her whatever 300,000 400 400,000 annual salary package. If she go with the residents, she she she's no longer have a job. That's pretty easy right there. Second of all, let's talk about our city attorney. City attorney is not elected. Um, you know, for people like for people like city attorney of Los Angeles city, then sometimes we can rely on them because their job does not depends on the mayor. But for this city attorney, well, does he care about his firm, his continuously annual contract with the Mon Park or does he care about the uh the the life quality of the Mon Park residents? Again, that's pretty easy. a three years old can figure that out. So there's no there's no um it's not a rocket science that uh politicians are not really trustworthy. So obviously this two continue to lie and lie and lie. uh another thing is about a data center when why when I heard about the word a data center because um I have very limited understanding what is a data center but I I'm I want to share about my understanding of data center is a police state right data center facial recognition let's consider uh you know license place raider or maybe some other cities that contracted with ICE so what that means is that they run your automated license plates raider and then you know they whenever a police car pass your car they automatically know who's

driving your registration whatever whatever and then in certain other cities they have a drone or what does that mean is every every like three or four hours they have a drone flying backyard they call it make sure your neighborhood is safe but you know sometimes you take a shower in your backyard somehow yeah the your city is live streaming or whatever on your uh right there so it's a huge concern about the right to privacy for me okay I'm not really my my concern is not really about the environmental that's not my expertise but I am an advocate of a right to privacy because some of my neighbors uh they said that well we came to the United States because we believe a democracy we pursue uh uh you know a quality of life we pursue our fourth amendment which is right to privacy but somehow you know of right now we are trying to build a data center that means all of your data will be collected by the city will be shared will be sold will be you know do whatever So there will be no such thing as as a as a right to privacy because all of your data are gone. So thank you very much mayor. You're the best. Our next speaker is Cash Patel. Interesting. Interesting to know that politicians continue to pad their wallets, stick their greasy hands in scams, and forfeit the trust of the public. Right, Mr. Sanchez? No one cares about teachers anymore. teachers don't give a about their students because if they

did, they would actually tell them the truth about what the politicians are doing and what the politicians are like. And the definition of Satan and the ass who speaks out loud behind me is that Satan is a slanderer and slanderers speak lies. Right, Miss City Manager? Money is more important. That's what Matthew Perry's family learned today about the doctor who killed him. Not intentionally, but for the money. Where the money is green, the grass grows and it feels good. Money and power always feels good, Madame Mayor Yang. But in my soul, in my spirit as the Thunderbird loud is there's lessons to learn from this He got 30 months, which is two years. Now he doesn't get to see his child grow up. Good. You just took the life of a man and had his family cry before a judge because the Mr. Sanchez was saying to the judge, "Just give me a day of service behind bars and let me walk away from my mistake." No. you. 10B is a you. You know why? Cuz tonight I heard a lot of compassion. Real people in this community speaking out loud, "What the is wrong with you people?" Right, Mr. Wint? How about you, Wong way? You're looking the wrong way, Because when I speak, I speak loud and clear. Matter of fact, when I was in the federal courts the day before yesterday in front of David O' Carter talking

about homelessness and hearing the outburst from the city of Los Angeles in LA County and that stupid Hilda Ciss lie to the magistrate judge David O' Carter that oh it's clear we don't have reports. Well, where is the 32 million dollars you stole of the hardworking taxpayers here to remove veterans and remove homeless people off our streets and into housing? Well, we're still trying to find out tomorrow in court. We will find out. Matter of fact, we're gonna find out the following week in court what Judge David O' Carter decides to punish the city of Los Angeles and LA County for stealing federal and state dollars, lying their ass off, paying a Gibson and done $1,300 an hour. $1,300 an hour for 15 dumb asses who lie their ass off before me, their judge. And I know what it's like to see people suffer. I worked in the medical field at County USC. I watch you dumb die from AIDS. That's how far back I go in life. And now AIDS is just a game. Bend over and collect. No. No. But the case here 220 for the record. CV02291 doc ke Mr. Ber is what I'm talking about. reality. And I'm reality. Cuz I hate to see corruption. God hates

corruption and I hate you that likes corruption. So for those of you who believe in God, believe in your pagan Christmas tree, pray for it. Cuz the hour and time is coming of judgment. You see it already. Every city I've been to has the same manner of corruption. So 42 USC 1983 politely I will always be number one. you for the record and I hope you take that to advice. These are for the record. Who do I hand them to? You. Thank you.

Uh just a word of comment. Um you know this is a form of respectful courteous communications. No var language or hate language. hate speech is um acceptable here. So uh moving on to the next speaker, Lisa Aragona. Um hi, I'm Lisa. Um, I'm still learning about civics, so thank you for your help. Um, I wasn't originally planning on speaking today, but I will say I feel like there was um, a misrepresented direction earlier tonight in that audience was made to understand that if you spoke tonight on item 10B, you wouldn't be able to speak in January. And I feel it was clearly understood widely as such because the crowd dispersed. So I wanted to try to add comment perhaps for the people um who I I feel were misled and um left after such direction. Um anyway, I'll I will be brief. Um I am not a resident of Monterey Park, but I am nearby in Elsareno. And I wanted to thank everyone who's spoken today and echo the local community's concerns. I think my grounds to speak are that I am concerned about the president that this could set for other local communities nearby such as uh my own. And um I I think that's mostly it. again adding support to those who are doing the work to um really

really do the research into the potential harms of constructing a data center. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Sar Sarcis and Antonio I believe Antonio. Good evening, mayor, council, and audience. This has been about maybe over two years since I physically came to a council meeting. So, I came here late. So, about seven years ago, that same location, they wanted to use that location for a body harvesting where they were bring a dead body, cut it up, see what they could process, and sell it to other hospitals. That was like seven years ago. I don't know if anybody knows about that. So, that's one issue. Number two, I I'm in Pasadena three days a week where they have fire justice where they have the two attorneys going after Edison on the fire in Aladena. So, a show today is only one house built. So, that agenda, I picked it up Monday and I handed it to the attorneys. I see them three days a week when I go up there. So, they're trying to put this processing center here. Those homes are not even built. And Christmas and New Year's is right around the corner. And there's people in that location that don't even have a place to live. They have to park their vehicles there on a monthly basis. So, these so they want to build over there again. So, go ahead and build. But what was over there years ago was a Tokai bank processing your billings, your tra credit cards, your your checks and stuff like that. So go ahead and put something like that over there again. So they they're determined to open up that location and keep it open. It's been closed. They're losing money. And I drive by there almost every day. They

got a sec. They're paying a security guard to watch over the the watch over the property. And if all this stuff is they're coming out with, they haven't even finished the homes in Altadena. That's priority first. Go somewhere else in Roseme. They have that large location right there. Build build it right there. That's where the Ed Why would they want to build that now when Edison has been there for years? Huh? So, who's getting paid off over here? And the only two that know about this body harvesting was maybe the city manager. She had a different position. And I think the city attorney was here that was and then some somebody in the back and the staff to know about this body harvesting. So, every five every five to seven years. Oh, let's see if we can build something there. And let's see, bring all these people out here in December. You're bringing people out Christmas time, Hanukkah, whatever, New Year's. You're bringing people out. They want to go shopping, buy Christmas gifts and things like that. You're bringing people out over here. Why you want to do it? Do it the first and then you have to then you tell the people it's going to be the first of the year. So, why are we here for it then? Why? Why are we speaking? You're giving you're coming out here. Good thing it's not raining out, but then in back east it's snowing in. So that so prioritywise, if you want to bring this on the agenda, they should we we shouldn't even be here. You should just wrap up little like you do in December. Have a little things what's going on and then have a fast meeting and that's it. Because this is December. It's a holiday month. You want to do this, do it next month, January, February, March. Not tonight.

You You do do not bother people in the holiday months and the and that you're bringing people out here when they could be doing shopping or whatever they want to do. Bring it out here and then all this other all this other things. I've been to about I've been to 10 15 meetings a year. I used to come over here twice a month to get up here and speak. I used to be with with Nancy Curry. Sometimes she would be here till 11:00 at night, sometimes 12. So this is the joke. You just bring it on the agenda, see how many people are going to come out here and to be against it. And by the way, I'm against it. You want to put a center over there, do like it was before, a bank processing center, not this humble jumble stuff. Humble jumble. Edison, let Rose me take care of Edison. And I know the mayor and Rosemary for many years. They have a big complex over there. They don't have a they don't have a a level where they can put a processing center. And like the other speaker said, city industry, city of commerce, do it where the injury this is 60 70,000 people and don't bring the like I said again, don't bring the people out here in December. And thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Bob Tam. Yes, brother.

Uh my name is Bob Tam and um good evening uh mayor and all the council members. Uh I'm going to change it up a little bit because I'm going to talk about short-term rentals in Monterey Park. So, uh hopefully it's a little lighter subject for tonight. I feel the passion and the heat here and uh so I'm going to try to lighten up a little bit. Maybe I can get a couple of jokes in. Anyway, um I live on the bright wood hill up here above Barnes Park and I've been a resident in Monterey Park for about 25 years and I also have another property down by U Riggins and uh so I have two properties here but for the purpose of transparency I have to let you guys know that I am not a Californian. I'm a Nevada. Okay. And all my notes here from Chad GPT. So, uh, but I'm not pro data center, nor am I anti-data center. Okay? So, uh, don't beat me up on the way out tonight, okay? Um, what I want to say is that, um, my neighbor, uh, about a year ago, I have some new neighbors and they added an ADU in their backyard. And what happened was, uh, they made it into a commercial forprofit center in uh, up on the Bradshaw Hill. And I'm very much concerned about that because I've been living there for 25 years and it's a very residential area. Okay, I'm not I have nothing against Airbnb. I've used Airbnbs before. My daughter has used Airbnbs in South Korea when she visited. So, I'm not anti-airbn. What I am concerned about is when you have homeowners that come in here and add additional units like ADUs and stuff like that. Um, and then all they want to do is just rent out an on Airbnb and make a profit. And I think they got popped. They got busted because they did not get the proper permits and licenses. And so I think they were fine. And I noticed that they took it off of the their rental off Airbnb website. And I think they're applying. So they I'm here because they sent me a letter telling me

how many people they plan to rent on a any particular given basis. A maximum of eight individuals. And they claimed that I believe they said they have six parking spaces. I can't even read the letter because they it's very misleading. It's typed over the word vehicles or something like that. So, I contacted the planning office a few days ago and I started doing research and I found out that there are a lot of rules. I don't I don't my personal opinion is that the rules on these short-term rentals I think they're inadequate to a large extent and I hope that the city council will reconsider and maybe uh try to improve it so that Monterey Park does not become a commercial for profit in the residential areas such as the Bradshaw Hill up here in bar uh behind Barnes Park. Okay. So some of the things I want to touch on is that um they they're supposed to get a permit. They did not get a permit. Um, they have uh renters there that was smoking dope. Uh, I experienced that about 12 months ago when I came back from Las Vegas. Um, they were drinking uh having beer bottles uh on the fence. Um, uh, I heard people talking on cell phones outside in the yard at about 1:30 a.m. in the morning. I think these are things that I'm very concerned about and it really disturbs me. Um, and also I'm concerned about my property value, right? If you have a house that's doing nothing but Airbnb rentals across the street from you, how's that going to affect the property value? I mean, when I buy property, when I rent property, I usually check the uh sex offenders website, right, to see if there's any sex offenders in my period in my area. So, am I going to have to start checking Airbnb and see how many Airbnb rentals are are in my neighborhood? So I think Monterey Park should seriously consider that and look at the zoning and make sure that you know u people don't come in Monterey Park specifically in

residential single family areas where they allow people to run a commercial for profit for Airbnb. Okay. I don't think they got a resale license. Um I don't think they're paying taxes and collecting uh the uh occupancy tax and all that. So, I think Mari Park should probably um try to uh strengthen that and enforce these laws. Uh, another thing is that uh the letter says that uh if there's an issue, I'm supposed to call the homeowner. Well, who am I going to call 1:30, 2:00 in the morning? Do I call the police department and have them come? Am I supposed to take photos when all this stuff is h happening in my neighborhood? Um the shy bond asking for $1,500. I think if somebody made a big mistake, probably a one-way ticket out of the country costs more than $1,500. So, how could you have a shy bond that's only asking for $1,500? Okay. Um, the property value I'm concerned about. And the other thing is that I noticed that on the books, um, it says they're not allowed to, uh, rent, uh, Airbnb to ADUs. And uh so if you're going to do a Airbnb, I think in the spirit of the Airbnb concept and law, they should at least make the homeowner uh live in the premise before they rent places out. Okay. Thank you.

Um thank you, Bob. If I don't have your contact information, Bob, if if you could leave your contact with the staff, they can follow up with you. It only has your name, no phone number or contact information.

Contact information. So, um, Chief Chief Hing, can can you uh see Mr. uh Bob Tam and get his contact information? Uh, Chief Hing is over the code enforcement division and he he'll be able to help us. Thank you so much, Mr. Tam. And and also Sarkezis, I know you came in late, but we did take 10B off today's agenda, so we're not voting on it tonight. Yeah. Um it's it's moved to January. Um our next speaker is Marabel Cast Castillan. Hello everyone. Good evening. Uh my name is Mariel. I am a resident of Monterey Park. I've lived here now for approximately 30 years. I've raised four children in the city. I love the city and I'm also a public health nurse for the LA County Department of Public Health. I currently work with the Department of Children and Family Services. And when people ask me if what I do is depressing, my response is, of course, it's heartbreaking, especially, you know, knowing that I'm working with children who are being abused. And I personally feel that the things that I see are a snapshot of our current society. I believe that some parents don't mean to hurt their children, but they are under so much stress due to life responsibilities that they lose control and take it out on their children. I oppose 10B data center because of everything that has been said thus far and because of what data centers feed into.

We are now living in a time with the highest levels of anxiety in children and loneliness. Social media companies are being sued because kids are committing suicide because of what they're exposed to. I'm still learning about, you know, the data center and and all that information. But here tonight, learning that it's a company from Australia surprises me because I know that in Australia they actually banned the use of cell phones for kids under the age of 16, but yet they want to come here and open a data center. So I am against the inhuman inhumane toxic technology governed by toxic incentives. I invite our city council seeking I invite our city council to seek out intervention in in innovations, progress and evolution. Let's strive to return to being the best city to live in once again. Thank you. Thank you, Marabel. Um any other public communications? No. Okay. Thank you so much everyone for Oh, one more. I didn't you submitted a card. Oh, I don't see it. But uh yeah, Alex Lee.

Oh, okay. Eelyn don't. Maybe it got mixed in the pile, but that's why we asked. So, come on up. If you submitted a speaker card earlier for public hearing items, um you're going to have to let us know if you want to speak during oral communications because your card is already mixed with the other cards. So, any other individuals who want to speak doing oral communication, um please let us know. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. Um, good evening, uh, Madame Mayor, um, Mayor Prom, city council members, and city staff. I'm here to ask for your support and commitment to rebuilding the Barnes Park Olympic size pool and aquatic center. And I wanted to thank you, Madame Mayor, uh, for meeting with us um, last night. um the board members of the SGV PowerU beacon to work together to show support for our organization um because we need support to for possible funders and thank you for leading us with the proper steps to receive a memorandum of understanding so we may move forward um to gain momentum for raising funds for the aquatic center and to give us more credibility toward possible donors. Um currently we have over um 1100 signatures on our change.org petition to rebuild the pool and our organization has also met with Assembly Member Mike Fong and Assembly Member Fong is interested in the rebuilding of the aquatic center has offered us suggestions and would like the SGV um park beacon to keep him informed of our our progress. Um the Beacon has met extensively with the Mark

Keell coaches um Perez and swimming um diving coach Lee and a water water aerobics representative to have a pool design that incorporates the needs of swimmers, divers, water polo, water aerobics and swimming lessons. Um and with our design, we can run simultaneously run aquatic sports. We'd like the city of council to consider consider our design because it was made with the input of people who use the pool on a daily basis rather than a seasonal basis. And I would like to um respectfully request that Monterey Park City Council create a dedicated account to show the dollar amount, the actual financial progress for the pool and aquatic center as we go and raise um the money to our goal of 22 million. And it would just be nice to see a dollar amount just put aside, you know, set aside just for the pool that it's for the public and for everyone to see. And I also request that this become a regular meeting agenda item until the project actually begins construction. So, thank you very much for your consideration and for your time this evening. Thank you, Edund. Uh, got another speaker card from Ronan Rock. Um hello. So I've been here a few times for a few other things, but I came to speak about the potential construction of the data center on Saturn Street. Um it's kind of I've been working on a scientific report that's kind of in this realm. So um to begin uh we are being told that the project will be clean and

a low impact project. Um there's absolutely no way to create a data center that is clean or low impact. Data centers consume an insane amount of electricity so fast that there is no way to sustain them on green or renewable energy like solar or wind. Many cities implementing data centers are moving back on their green energy initiatives in order to power their data centers. Data centers produce a ton of carbon emissions contributing to climate change and destroying the quality of air. These centers run 24/7 all the time and are equipped with diesel generators. This project in particular outlines having around 24 diesel generators. These diesel generators run fairly consistently, keeping the data center running in order to create no downtime. The entire time a data data center runs, it uses energy and emissions are produced. Diesel itself contains a compound known as black carbon which is a carcinogen known for causing chronic respiratory issues, strokes, and heart attacks as well as having negative effects on baby's developmental progress. Diesel can also admit sulfur dioxide, nitro nitrogen oxides and other particulate matter. There is another concern of water consumption. Data data centers become extremely hot while running and in order to cool the machines, water is run through connecting pipes to keep the machines cool. Only 3% of of the Earth's water is fresh water and only 0.5% of all water is accessible and safe for human consumption. Data centers consume an insane amount of fresh water specifically. Um, and on average, Google data centers consume approximately 400 450,000 gallons of water per day. Living in an area that is prone to drought, this is a dangerous idea and it can and will increase water bills. The data in the data center will also increase electricity bills. This project is estimated to consume 434 million kilowatt hours per year of electricity. This is effectively double the amount of the energy that Markele

Markeell Monterey Park consumes without the data center. There have already been multiple examples of data centers polluting air, water, and consuming copious amounts of energy in places like Nebraska, Texas, and other locations in California. There are some locations where residents utility bills have tripled. All of this does not include the sheer amount of noise pollution and habitat loss that this will cause. The claim that the data center will create sizable a sizable amount of jobs is also negligible. Data centers are run by a small group of people at all times. So besides the construction of the building, there would be no significant numbers of jobs created. I found that the use of the mitigated NE uh negative declaration the M andD instead of a full environmental impact report quite interesting particular because I have seen this done in several case studies related to my report. A multitude of companies have done this before resulting in mass poisoning of surrounding residents. An example of this is the Exide e-waste recycling plant that used to be located in Vernon, California. The company went forward with an M andD and it resulted in heavy levels of lead poisoning in the soils of surrounding communities. At the time of the MMD's official release, it was stated that the project will quote have no impact on wildlife and the habitat upon which it depends. Which is the exact same thing that is being said for this project. Exide ran the plant for 15 years, pumping copious amounts of heavy metals into the air and soil of the homes, schools, and parks around the plant. In a study analyzing the soil samples from the surrounding homes, it was found that over 80% of the soil collected and inspected was above 80 parts per million, which is the California limit for lead. A lot of the levels ended up shooting higher than a thousand parts per million. To highlight, there is no safe levels for lead. So, the fact that there is even 80 parts per million is exceedingly dangerous. Lead was found in the community's children's blood. It was found replacing the calcium of baby's teeth and it is causing issues with residents pregnancies and increasing the number of patients with cancer. Even worse, Exide was able to declare bankruptcy in 2020 and left the cost of the multi-million dollar cleanup to

taxpayers. There are multiple examples of multi-million dollar companies pursuing an MMD resulting in a severe lack of health inspection, toxicity remediation, and the general care of residents. I would also like to mention we have a lot of residents under the age of 18 and about 44% of the populace in Monterey Park is over 50 years of age. All of which are extremely high-risisk groups to exposure to toxic emissions. There has been no clear and transparent communication. It makes this develop feel shady and untrustworthy. It doesn't matter if it's a private development. It doesn't matter if this development has no monetary cost to the city. The health concerns and increase of utility prices is a cost to the residents living in Monterey Park. I've seen no rush to prevent citizens being taken by ICE, no rush to help families priced out of their homes, and no rush to provide third spaces for communities to gather. And yet, there's such a rush to get this data center developed. I feel as if, again, the priorities of this council are not reflecting the opinion of the citizens. With so much space, there are endless possibilities of community gardens, parks, accessible ed education locations, food banks, etc. I have to question why a data center is the first and most advocated choice for a development other than of course personal stakes or gain.

Thank you Ronin. Any other public comments? All right, last call. Okay, then let's move on to presentation item. Oh, any uh comments from my colleagues? Thomas, uh council member Juan.

Um well, first I want to thank everyone for sticking around and for making public comment. Really appreciate the engagement with the city council. Um and especially on this meeting and hope you will continue to engage in future meetings and future items. Uh on a few of these things, one on the short-term rental regulation. And I think staff is already working on potential or proposed changes to our short-term rental uh regulatory scheme. Uh would love to see if we can get a check in on that at some point in the coming months uh to look at what we can do and appreciate those the speaker coming in to share some of those comments and I think those are things we're already on our radar. Um on we'll ask that for Robert later on his item. Uh there are some speakers on the pool. I I really appreciate uh members of the pub and others coming to engage and continue to engage uh the council on this. Uh I I know the survey we had out ended already in November, right? Robert is nodding his head. Uh so appreciate the hopefully I think hundreds of people that uh both through the our initial parks master plan process to this initial kind of design phase, hundreds of people engaging on the pool and Barnes Park pool in particular in the aquatic center. Uh and look forward to the next steps. As we've stated and told uh folks uh over a series of meetings uh we've been talking about this timeline. We're gonna move to design soon uh in the coming months and expect earlyish next year to have more of these opportunities uh for the community engaged on a final design for what the Barnes Park pool might look like. I hope you'll continue engaged. Encourage all of you and anyone else who's interested in the future of Barnes Park and Barnes Park Pool to continue engaged there. where we've been partner we've had many

many discussions with uh power and others who are interested uh in the final design and getting a pool built. There's a long way to go still to get there and we the city cannot will not do this on its own in terms of the city city hall. Uh we need a lot of participation from the community to make sure that we get there just like we did with the library expansion project that happened 15 years ago or so. uh a lot of community engagement and community support for something like that. I'm hoping that we can partner with those that are here in the audience and others who have been uh part of this and hopefully others as well that haven't been and haven't heard about the pool project for some that might be here haven't heard about it. Uh hope that you'll engage in this process support next steps for that as well because we're going to need a lot of community support uh to get that to for future steps. Uh but really appreciate the the engagement along those lines for for I know it's it's been years now, but really appreciate it. Uh yeah. Um on the I I can't engage on those the Staturn Park and the data center project specifically, I do want to address because it's come up in a lot of social media posts and emails I've received and repeated tonight around these this conflict of interest concern. And I'll repeat this at the public hearing tomorrow or whenever it happens in January. Uh for those who engaged and read the Spark report, appreciate that. For those that engaged in the Spark meetings, appreciate that. And Carl's going to stop me if I get into trouble here with my words. Um but the Spark process, right, we started the Spark process, the Saturn Park Advisory Review Committee back in 2024, uh because we noticed as a city that there was significant vacancies in this office, Spark, business park. uh the allowed use for data center was an allowed use in that area and other areas

of the city for that matter way before the spark process and before and it was part of the land use element that was approved in 2020 2020 um and was it allowed use I believe even before that uh in that area we had a data processing center which is not quite the same as the data center uh but just to be clear the spark process did not come out with data center as a new use or use that was allowed in that area because of the spark process. Uh what came out of the spark process and I hope you'll review the spark report and for those who were engaged in the meeting the many meetings that we had uh then and afterwards to discuss what changes in the community and that neighborhood's interests in what the future could be included expanding uses and a lot of discussion was on potential what could go there. Uh and that's the purview of of the council to determine zoning and land use. what's allowed in the Saturn Park area and other parts of the city for that matter in line with the land use settlement that's approved by the by voters. Let's be clear. I want and I want to be very clear. I received and we the city uh asked the fair political practice commission which is the regulator for ethics for elected officials and candidates in the state uh received guidance and we pursued guidance to make sure that I could engage on the project was cleared by the FPC uh to engage on that project because there was no or on that on the spark discussions in that process uh because there was no project to talk about we're talking about uses and potential zoning uh for the Saturn park area and so there was there is and no conflict and was no conflict in terms of my engagement in the Saturn Park advisor review committee. Um for those that are continue to spread information around that, I hope that you will take that into account. Um and uh there is a potential conflict that we're hoping to get some clarification on from the FPC on a specific project that might be a

customer that if approved would be a customer of my employer in terms of purchasing power uh just like everyone else who purchase uses power in the city uh is so I just want to be clear there's a very a very different uh right issue on the table in terms of what spark was looking at and what a data center project is. Uh, so I just want to clear that up a little. I don't know if that helps a lot. Uh, Carl's gonna help me out if I if I mess that up, but I want to be very very clear. This this spark process was I think and I was chair of this. Uh, there were some allegations, right, that the community wasn't involved because they weren't on the committee. The point was to have the community and we had dozens and dozens of people from that neighborhood, from the community engaged in that process who were taking input. uh and so appreciate everyone engaged that process and engaging now today. Uh but I just wanted to make clear that the around hopefully add some clarity and help uh provide some clarity around the potential conflict since there's been some information on that uh bandied about in social media. Carl's going to clear anything up if I mess that up. Let me add to that because the Sparks Project was created two years ago for the purpose of being a lifelong resident here for 46 years. When I grew up, Saturn Business Park was 99.6% occupied. It was full. For those of you who've been in the city, you know what I'm talking about. In the 60s, late 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Go back 15 years ago, it's been half full. For about 10 years, it's more than half empty. And when we engaged in this process, Saturn business park was 86% vacant. That's why we had this discussion. What can we better use for that strip of property? And there was community discussion. There were

four different discussions. 40 members showed up. The committee consists of committee members, two council members, uh, seven other committee members who are either volunteers with the city through the commissions or were shareholders in the community. I think one was a business or business owner and one was a property management company for the property there and they wanted to see new signs of life. That's why we engaged that process. But, you know, again, just to clarify kind of like how we got to the Sparks project and there's a lot of misinformation out there. I just want to clarify that. M

Madame Mayor, members of the council, if I could just remind the council that this is a brief opportunity for brief response to public comment. Uh, I think that the spark information is all online. If people are interested, they can certainly look it up themselves. Um, and I know that I'm sure the topic will arise again in January when the council uh can participate in discussions about the applicant and the data center specifically.

All right. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Sanchez. Um, I just wanted to address the the data center briefly and just say I wanted to thank people who came out today. Um, and we're civically engaged and I hope that you guys continue to engage uh not just us but also uh the uh applicant. Um, I I know that we will be sharing information in terms of when we set those up. So, I just want to make sure that u I communicate that with our city manager and our staff in terms of sharing that information and I hope you keep an eye out um and that you do keep uh participating. civic engagement is very important and um and we hear your concerns. Um I've received hundreds of emails in the last couple of days. So um thank you guys for coming out tonight and I hope you will continue to come out. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you everyone for coming out and uh thank you to those who also had one-on ones with me including phone calls, in-person meetings. You know that was the discussion was very helpful because in a council meeting there's not really room for discussion one-on-one. So thank you everybody. Um all right so let's move on to section seven presentation 7A is 1688 West Garvey Avenue marketing. Good evening um madame mayor members of the council just wanted to briefly introduce this item. Um this item was um is being brought forward to council tonight. Um this is based on the direction from city council to uh market the 1688 Westgarvey uh property for sale. So uh the city is working with Kder Matthews and um Linda Lee and Bill Boyd are here from Ker Matthews uh tonight to just provide a brief um marketing strategy about this parcel. Thank you, Linda.

Good evening. Good evening, madame uh mayor and good evening mayor prom along with honorable council members uh Mr. Burgerer and Miss Alvarez. Uh my name is Linda Lee and I'm with I am commercial real estate broker with Ker Matthews um a regional commercial real estate brokerage firm. Uh I have been advising clients and doing business in this great city and the greater Los Angeles area for over 20 years. I'm honor here honored to be here tonight to present on 1688 West Garvey Avenue. Uh as real estate consultants to the city, the city staff has tasked my team and I with the following objectives. Uh next page. Thank you. Uh OB our objectives are to identify the property's highest and best use to determine the maximum potential value of the property and to recommend marketing strategies for maximizing uh the property's potential. Next slide, please. So, uh, I think most of the people, it seems like most of the people are very well aware, um, of this property, but for those who aren't, let me just give a little bit of a brief background. The subject property is located at 1688 West Garvey Avenue, um, just to the south of the intersection of Garvey Avenue and Abaho. Uh the site consists of uh just a little over six acres uh and is uh situated on a slope about 150 ft above the intersection of Garvey and Abaho. Um the let me see I can't even see the my own slide there. The um the the topography of the property is moderate to steep slope. Um some attributes about the property is that the property is um uh has no direct freeway access, no

direct freeway visibility, and is not pedestrian friendly. Uh next slide. The property is currently under the 1688 West Garvey Avenue specific plan. This plan was adopted in 2021 as part of a development agreement with the prior owners. Um and the the specific plan entails approximately 177,000 square feet uh um uh split into 16 lots of homes ranging from 2500 ft to approximately 5600 square ft. The average lot size uh ranges from 7,500 feet to about 15,000 ft. So the average lot size is about 11,000 square feet. These are pretty pretty um sizable um homes and lots. the um the spec uh let me see I can't even see over there the specific development um entails um grading the soil and uh some remediation reinforcements of the of the property um including wall uh a retaining building a retaining wall and um uh performing some soil drainage.

Yeah, I think that's it. Next slide. Um this is the zoning map of the city of Monterey Park and u the property is located at the top northwest area. You'll see it's a very tiny little sliver uh right along Garvey Avenue um just bordering city of Alhhamra. Um this shows you that the overlay um was created um and prior to that overlay the property was zoned R3 highdensity residential. the properties to the north uh or the uses to the north of the property um include multif family apartments. Uh some uses surrounding the property to the south are single family homes. There's a church to the northwest uh side of this property along with a senior living facility uh to the east of the property just across the street from uh on the Bajo and also a self- storage facility uh below that. Uh next slide please. So part of our um task was to determine what kind of or or consider some alternative uses for this site and based upon the surrounding um we we've considered some residential and non-residential uses in determining the highest and best use um we have to meet four typically we have to uh meet four criteria. One is is the property physically ac uh possible? Is the property legally permissible? uh three is a property financially feasible and four is property maximally productive. So I think given the number one the physically possible um given the the attributes and features of this property uh being located on a slope um 150 ft above the intersection the irregular shape of the property that's narrow and long um and just simp simply the the the physical attributes um don't pertain to

most of these non-residential uses. So we can eliminate the office, the retail, the industrial. Um the third one, financially feasible, um can pretty much eliminate some of these single uses such as a church, um the hospital and uh post-secondary education, um as well as self storage. Uh so next slide, please. So we've determined that the highest best use is residential. But the question is what type of residential. So right now under the current zone um the uh uh the specific plan allows for 16 single family residences. Now the specific plan is very specific as to how how large and how these properties are how these homes will be built and designed. So based upon that um we've attributed values to each of these different types of residential developments. So under the current zoning it's 16 single family residences under an R2. If we were to change a zone to R2 medium density the maximum buildable units are 99. Not that not to say that that's what will be built but that's the maximum buildable units under an R3 zoning. The maximum buildable units um is about is 186 units. you'll see the respective uh values that we've given to each of these categories. And it's not for us to say that yes, this property will be sold for this amount. It is really just to provide a range in values because really anything can be built. Um let's go on to the next slide. So we've determined that the residential use is the highest and best use. Um but in order to maximize the property's value uh potential it would be we would need to zone it as R3. Uh so uh let's move on to the next slide. So our recommendations are to

remove the specific plan overlay and resort the um and have the property be market as an multif family R3 development opportunity. Now this is just to give the city the flexibility of achie um of obtaining different bids from different developers for um the different kind of residential developments and and um so that the city can decide what will be built there and how many units in the design and size etc. That's it.

And madame mayor members of the council if I could just tag team on the comments. Remember, this is just a marketing presentation. Uh we will have a future agenda item for you to consider any of these strategies that you would wish in order to implement that marketing strategy. Uh there's no action being asked of the city council tonight, but we wanted to make sure this was on your radar. So when it popped up again uh for your consideration, it wasn't coming out of the blue. Thank you. Yeah. Any questions? Yeah, just a question. Maybe you can I I want to make sure I heard correctly because I it's I may need reading glasses. Maybe that's the reason I have distance classes and I still can't see.

So, highest and best use residential R3 potentially uh 100 plus units, right? Or 186 is what I see there. Well, highest best use would be residential. Um, but to maximize the potential value of the property would be to R3. Okay. Got it. Right. Thank you. Just real quick, the so the existing overlay zone that's that came with the entitlement of the initial or the project that was proposed there, right? And that was entitled. That's correct. And that wouldn't go away if the project goes away.

Uh well, the zoning for it is specific planned. So if, as I said on a future agenda, if if you want to consider how to maximize the potential price that a developer would be interested in paying for this particular piece of property, zoning would be an issue. So again, we'll provide additional options for you in the future, but we wanted to make sure that you knew why we were bringing those types of options to you for consideration. under the current specific zone, they it it they the developer has to build that particular set of plans basically 16 lots, 16 homes.

So to Linda's point, the specific plan is the zoning at the moment. You would have to change the zoning either by changing the specific plan itself or removing the specific plan as the zoning for this. But but it was R3 until that that plan proposed was titled. So, the original zoning for that property was R3. That's correct.

Any other questions? No. All right. Thank you so much for that presentation. Uh, let's move on to 7B. Another presentation. SGV Ford bus corridor transit improvement project update by the SGV COG. Good evening um mayor, members of the city council. I'm Ricky Choy with Sanger Valley Council of Governments. Um I'm also here with um our consultant, our technical consultant, May Bush from Kimley Horn. Um we just wanted to come here to provide a brief update on the Sango Valley uh bus corridor transit improvement project. Know it's a mouthful. Uh so that's why we actually recently rebranded it as SJV forward. Um before we begin, just want to take this opportunity to thank uh city staff for their um partnership and engagement on the project. Um we've worked really closely with city staff. Uh so we really want to thank Anz Diana um Sean and and uh Zead. Thank you so much um for working with us. We worked really closely as well with um the uh Garvey Avenue improvement projects team. um you know our our alignment is uh on Garvey uh complements the work that uh you all might be doing uh in the near future. So we definitely appreciate the collaborative effort. Um Mayor, I don't think uh you were on the council last time we were here last spring. So um wanted to just also take the opportunity to provide some background and maybe it's a refresher for for the rest of you as well. Um so uh last time we were here uh we had just wrapped up the Sanger Valley transit feasibility study. Um if you recall u that was a um uh a study that was born um after the metro board in 2020 uh decided to um uh essentially abandon the SR60 alternative for the um what it was the uh transit corridor

phase 2 project uh which would extend the uh current terminus u of the metro gold line or e-line as we call it now um which now ends on Atlantic Boulevard. Um so the COG in partnership with Metro um initiated a transit feasibility study um back in 2021 um which was completed last year and we looked at short-term and long-term um transit options uh to really uh evaluate uh how we can improve mobility and transit across the Sango Valley and of course in city of Monterey Park. um really focusing on underserved communities um and those specifically uh in particular the along the SR60 corridor. Uh we worked in coordination with all of the cities in the region. Uh and what we came up with were a series of jumpstart demonstration uh improvements for um for bus service. And so we are hoping to uh develop continue to develop those uh and implement some short-term demonstration projects here across the region uh segment uh being in Monterey Park uh prior to the 2028 Olympic Games. Uh we see that as a great opportunity uh and we also have a midterm plan uh for implementation in 2035 as well as a long-term vision plan uh which uh would really create an integrated network uh for transit across the entire region. Um but right now the S SGV4 project uh is really a continuation of the transit study. We're focusing on implementing um bus improvements. Um and we go to the next slide. Uh there's some information there. Um we're focused on uh dedicated bus lanes um upgraded traffic signals and also improved bus stop um amenities. Uh we envisioning a future where uh we have enhanced transit service um across the region uh with higher frequencies um faster service and better connectivity

to get people to where they need to go uh to jobs to schools to um you know to recreation centers to hospitals and so on and so forth. Uh and obviously also to connect them to mobility hubs across the region. So uh we're really excited about this project and the potential. Um, as you may recall when we were here last time, uh, we said that we would be doing some traffic studies as well as parking studies. Um, and, uh, we would do some committee outreach as well. And so, um, we're back here today to give you a brief update on what what we've, uh, done so far. So, I'm going to turn over to Maya to give you some additional details of, uh, all that we've done this past year and what we plan to do. Maya.

Um, thank you. We can advance to the next slide. Um so just kind of an overview of the project limits and give you kind of a sense of where this falls locally but also regionally. Um we're looking at different opportunities to create quick build transit improvements. So ways to kind of test out these different transit improvements and then based on those improvements find different opportunities to refine it. But as we know as a region we're preparing for a major event and so we really see this as a great opportunity to incorporate these quick build treatments. You'll see here we have six total segments. um starting over here in the west um and then heading all the way east. Uh the furthest east is in Pomona. So for tonight we'll be focused primarily on segments one and two which fall within the city of Monterey Park. The first segment is along Atlantic Boulevard and the second segment is along Garvey Avenue. We'll go to the next slide. So just starting off um there really is a nice demonstrated need for transit improvements in um the region. The Metroine 70, which runs along Atlantic and along Garvey, sees 16,000 daily boardings. That is quite a large number. It already serves quite a few riders, getting people to destinations. And within the San Gabriel Valley, more than 15% of households don't have access to a car. So that means that those households are relying on different ways to travel around the region, whether it's getting to schools or jobs, and um they don't have access to a car. Now, we also aren't looking at another number which are households that maybe have access to one car and they're relying on other ways, right, um to get around uh the region. And so, you can see here there's a lot of people already in the region that rely on transit to get around. Now, 44% of San Gabriel Valley residents are either senior or minor populations and we know that these age groups often rely on other modes of travel besides a personal automobile. And within these improvements, looking at these six segments, u more than 10 transit lines would benefit from these improvements.

Now, Monterey Park has made a lot of um uh commitment and investment to complete streets. So, looking at different ways that um different modes can be integrated into the roadway network and that also includes transit as a key component. In 2028, we're preparing for a very exciting event, which is the summer Olympics and Parolympics. And this really provides a lot of opportunity from an economic development standpoint for this region. And so that's really where this kind of idea of moving some of these improvements forward, taking advantage of them being quick builds, so not necessarily totally permanent. They'll be put in place, but you're not necessarily committing to a long-term project. And, you know, testing them out and seeing kind of what they can do for the community, not only on a daily basis, but also from an economic development standpoint. go to the next slide. So, um we've done quite a bit of work to get here, but we have focused on two kind of key components from the technical study standpoint. The first is a traffic study and this looks at um an option which we're calling side running and I will show in the next slide in a moment what that looks like. But the traffic study looks at what it would um what would happen from an operational perspective if we were to repurpose a travel lane um on uh these corridors, so on Atlantic and Garvey. And then the parking study looks at the option of u transitioning parking to a dedicated bus lane. So we'll go to the next slide so I can give you kind of a visual of what that would look like. These are just typical crosssections but gives you a sense of kind of how that would fit within an existing corridor. And so you can see here the um cross-section on the left is the side running configuration. And that would be the configuration where we would use the traffic study to study what that would do from an operational perspective if we were going to repurpose a travel lane to a dedicated bus lane. Now, it's also important to note that drivers could still use the bus lane right um at the intersection to make right turns. So, it still would act as a right turn pocket for those drivers, but they wouldn't necessarily be able to use the bus lane

as a travel lane. And then um on the right hand side is the curb running configuration and that looks at repurposing parking um onto um from a parking lane onto a dedicated bus lane. And so specifically on these two corridors um we looked at both and we got some feedback on from Garvey uh the the small businesses on that corridor were um pretty vocal about the importance of parking and we also were working alongside uh the Garvey Avenue improvements project. So for Garvey, only a side running configuration was presented at these community meetings as an option. Atlantic, we haven't had a community meeting yet. That is upcoming in January. So both kind of options are on the table. And just to give you a sense of what we've seen um from the traffic study, we do see opportunity to improve operations from a signal synchronization perspective. I'm sure a lot of you have experienced this firsthand. There's a lot of starting and stopping on the corridor as it stands. So synchronizing signals will certainly help from an operational perspective. And then from the parking perspective, we saw that there was really a pretty low demand for parking at the peak hour on Atlantic Boulevard. And I think this is mostly attributed to a lot of um off- streetet parking options on Atlantic. And then Garvey was really at moderate demand during the peak hour. Go to the next slide. So when we're looking at dedicated bus lanes, there's a lot of benefits that come from them. One is increased transit reliability and reduced travel times. So thinking about how people travel and right now when people take transit a lot of them have to add on quite a bit of time to account for that transit uh we'll call it you know unreliability currently dedicated bus lanes provide more um reliability for these riders. It also decreases single occupancy vehicle use. It creates higher person throughput and transit ridership. It improves transit access from a socioeconomic status and it also loers greenhouse gas emissions contributing to regional sustainability goals. So we'll move into the next slide which talks about transit signal priority. So we talked a lot about dedicated bus lanes but this is also complemented by

transit signal priority. And what this does is extends the green light or shortens the red light as the bus is approaching the signal. Now not only does this benefit the buses but it also benefits the vehicles on the corridor meaning that they are also getting an extension of the green time and a shortening of the red time so they're not having to start and stop at each of the intersections on the corridor. It also provides the opportunity and lays the foundation for the infrastructure for emergency vehicle preeemption and it also increases like I said vehicle throughput on the corridor. The final kind of key component of these quick build treatments are bus stop amenities and so um right now there kind of are some varying bus stop amenities on the corridor. Some areas have no cover and as we know it gets very hot during the summertime and so people have to kind of find areas of shade to wait for the bus. So, integrating canopy for shade um including safety lighting for greater safety and security. Real-time arrival displays will help display uh upcoming uh buses. And then maps for riders will provide some kind of situational awareness and and an understanding of kind of where uh they can go on the system. And then um we also have called out here for some of those more popular transit stops. There could be an extension to accommodate um additional transit riders waiting for the bus. A key component of the design is really thinking about the long-term maintenance and longevity of this and also making sure that these stops feel safe and secure. Right. Um so as I mentioned, we have had a few uh community outreach events. Um the city has been a wonderful partner in all of this and so again, thank you for your uh partnership. Um we attended the Monster Mash event on October 16th. Uh we also participated in the Garvey Avenue improvement projects uh meetings and those were on November 10th and 13th and we are planning for another community meeting in January which will be more focused on Atlantic but we'll still provide opportunity for comment on the Garvey um Avenue segment and then we're planning to come back here to city council um once we've gotten that information and input uh to get your

guidance on you know kind of the next steps and what um you know what elements will be implemented as part of this project. Um so with that um I'm going to conclude my presentation and say thank you so much. I've left up two uh links for the project. Um the first is a website um which gives a lot of information also has all the background documentation that we've prepared as part of the feasibility study and then also includes our email so that um if anyone wants to reach out from you know the public there's a way to contact us. So um thank you again for your time and really appreciate it. Thank you so much for that presentation. Any uh questions, comments? No.

Uh well, appreciate the the community outreach you've been doing and the initial uh concepts and designs for the so the current work in terms of the outreach and preliminary design is being funded by Metro Grant. Is that right? for the SR760 whatever is there what are the potential sources for actual construction and moving forward to a final design all that stuff I can also share too

um currently we uh as as part of the um the motion uh to from 2020 uh there's $635 billion um that is going to be available in 2035. Um, we're looking to perhaps um hopefully maybe even advance some of that funding or also look for uh additional funding um pursuing federal and or state dollars to to do some of these demonstration projects sooner rather than later.

What's the I know we're moving on our Garvey project. How are what are the I mean I'm just thinking through what the challenges are to make sure they align if we're going to have to build something I don't want to slow one one down over the other and all that stuff. There's a way to integrate.

Yeah, I think that's a good that's a really great comment. Um, so we've been coordinating with that team and right now they have certain elements of their project that um I will say are kind of more what we call civil improvements. So they're kind of longer term improvements. Ours is primarily striping. Um so there would be some coordination between the two um groups in terms of what that striping would ultimately look like um on the corridor. And then also, you know, um related to the transit signal priority, that could actually come in a little bit later. Um for us, we would want to get all our improvements done by, uh the end of 2027, um because of the, you know, upcoming year in 2028. Um and then same for the bus shelter amenities. There would just need to be enough space for it, but those could also come in. So, it really comes down to the striping, and I think that um that is been being coordinated between the two groups. So, there is some kind of time to make sure that those two projects align.

Great. No, I know we're working closely. So appreciate that. Uh I don't know if you're able to model. I'm just curious uh if this were built how what the improvement in terms of the time would be for the segments that could be built out uh for BRT versus nonBRT and how much time that might shave off the travel time.

Yeah. So typically when we're looking at dedicated bus lanes, it's usually a 10 to 25% sort of um reduction in travel time. We did look at it from end to end of the corridor. Um but I don't have the specific numbers for each of these segments because they were essentially parts of that end toend corridor that were pushed up to advance in these quick build improvements. But um ultimately with that 20 35 year um there are significant travel time savings because people aren't going to have to, you know, uh transfer from so many different buses and there are those dedicated bus lane uh facility potential. So

I appreciate that. Um, and then I noticed on the map you had right the you have potential quick build for certain segments but not the whole potential route. Can you just talk about that why some of these are priority versus some other segments? And my concern is a little bit on if if there are these gaps between right if the idea is to connect all these and I think BRT and public transit generally right the longer it is there's more efficiencies in terms of the construction and all that stuff but also it makes sense just to connect actual things to actual places that our people are at to places people want to go as opposed to stopping short and having to having not having a BRT or having a gap in the BRT might be an issue. I'm just concerned around that. If you have any thoughts.

Yeah. So, when we looked at it, we did a pretty comprehensive study and through that transit feasibility study, there's a couple things that we look at. So, especially when we're advancing certain segments, we want to make sure that there's high quality transit service, which along Garvey, there is that existing highquality transit service with the Metro Line 70. We also want to look at segments that aren't overly congested, right? That don't have that necessarily space to repurpose a lane. But also, we want segments that would present travel time savings. So if you have a corridor that every basically everything is open, you're not necessarily going to see a travel time savings. So there's kind of this balancing act there. Um and then also just looking at kind of key destinations around it. Um what's around in terms of land use? Is there that kind of demand um in terms of you know transit ridership? So that's ultimately how it was decided. And then from the you know feasibility study, there's certain segments that were advanced based on those pieces. And I think um you know ultimately we want to make sure those pieces are even if they stand alone they're going to make a measurable kind of positive impact in terms of that travel time savings and reliability. And so that's how those pieces were um were decided upon.

And then I don't my it's also small and my eyes were not young but the the start of that segment one is that at the East LA train station. Okay. So it's at first street. Okay. Okay. I have some questions. I I think this is a a great idea. I I just um and I have questions regarding the line 70. Is line 70 end at the Elmani station? Correct.

So, but but there's segments and and the first segment um is in my district and the southern part of Monterey Park. Um and and I see a lot of people taking that line, a lot of the bus stops. So I know it's just it's not just students, it's also a lot of community members. So I think in that sense I think it's it's a good idea to be able to improve their transportation. But my concern is um I think council member Wong might hinting at it is maybe the segments where they're not connected. Um and and just wondering um if we can connect them and I'm I'm trying to guess here is that like Rosemead. So um Rosemeat is included as part of this and we'll be doing community outreach there too. So it does continue um through Rosemeat on Garvey. So the segments one through four are continuous through the cities of Monterey Park, Roseme, South Alante and Alanti. Um and then in terms of kind of those pieces, you're seeing a gap from four to five. Um which um that you know when we're looking at those kind of characteristics that I mentioned earlier, it's why certain parts of it were um advanced. But there are parts of the project that would be kind of continuous throughout um that we're looking at such as transit signal priority where there would still be that benefit of integrating transit signal parade.

Okay. So so just so I understand it. So segments three and four which are part of RoseBad and Omani they've been uh there in favor of doing something similar. So right now we're in we're in the community outreach stage. So we haven't gone for any sort of formal like acceptance of the project. um we are working closely with them in terms of the direction we've gotten from those cities is really to um listen to the community, see the input we're getting, but they're certainly open to these improvements. Thank you. Question. So the 70 I know goes on Garvey, but one is on Atlantic. Does the 70 actually change route from what it would did before?

Yes. So it turns from Atlantic onto Garvey. Um and what um what we're looking at too, so I should you know without getting too specific into the design when it turns from Atlantic onto Garvey likely that would be a mixed flow. So there would be kind of a small segment just because of the characteristics of that intersection. And so after Chandler would be more likely where the dedicated bus facility would be considered

because just memory like 7077 that was on Garvey and 262 is where you have Atlantic that that was the original bus routes. So that's all being interchanged to included in part of this. So, we're not making any modifications to service for this part. When we're looking at 2035, that is where service enhancements would be made, but when it comes to the 70, it does go along Atlantic and then it turns right um onto Garvey as you're heading north. Um so, it is a continuous um high-speed transit line that exists um with Metro Service.

Thank you. Um well, thank you very much for coming and making this presentation. Um, as council Sanchez mentioned, um, uh, part of the, um, project proposal runs for his district, the other part runs for my district. And, and I am also someone who occasionally takes bus 70 to work in downtown, so I'm very familiar with how important this corridor is, and so I I'm very pleased to see this both uh, come before us. Um, so if I'm not mistaken, you're saying your timeline should everything align is to have this either constructed or completed by 2027.

Yeah, that's the goal. I mean, it is contingent upon funding, but we do have, you know, metro supporting us and we're looking at options such as um advancing the funds that are dedicated for 2035. I'm curious given that this also runs through several jurisdictions like our neighboring city to East Roseme, what has been their feedback or reception regarding this proposal?

So, like I said, they're definitely open to it. We have a community meeting uh planned for Roseme in uh January. So, um we'll be hearing feedback from the community then. Um and then part of our work is also attending different community events and getting input there. So, we've attended an open streets event in South Elmani and Elmani. got a lot of positive feedback from the community there. A lot of people who rely on other modes of travel to get around. Um but yeah, ultimately the, you know, the point of being here tonight is to brief all of you, but it's it's going to be up to the cities and the community based on what you kind of envision for the future of transportation um within your jurisdiction. So, I think in terms of the feedback we've gotten, everyone's open-minded, but they ultimately want to hear what the community has to say. And I also ask because given that you have multiple jurisdictions, I imagine also complicates it because let's say hypothetically we decide, oh, let's just do it 100% BRT, but then they said let's not. So is there any effort or possible to also try and articulate consistency along the route if that's possible?

I mean, I think that would be wonderful. Um in terms of the implementation um it could be implemented in pieces. So in theory if one city were to say we want dedicated bus facilities that could happen. We might also see in some cases certain um certain jurisdictions might be more in favor of a curb running configuration based on parking demand versus a side running or vice versa. And they still present opportunity for travel time savings and reliability. So it's not necessarily that you know if there's one segment that's taken out that the um you know the enhancement or improvement is removed. Um so there's there's a lot of different ways that could be approached. Um but these segments were decided upon to become um a length that would have an actual measurable positive impact um on transit reliability.

And and is and in terms of that articulation is that where the cog take the lead or is there any role for say at our level of city to have conversations with like Roseby for example given that we're right next door to them? I mean I would say definitely I don't know Ricky if you want to provide any but yeah I think um in terms of that coordination across boundaries I think that would be you know of course helpful to the project

and I only bring it up because again in side conversation I've had with our counterparts in Roseme I think they've asked us like well what has been and this is before today's presentation but I think at least my what I'm hearing is that maybe from the Rose side too is that is again whether I should be at our level working with COG but again I think there seems to be a need to have some more broader convers conversation between jurisdictions to make sure is that well as you said it reflects constituent needs but also it presents a project that actually meets it goal which is makes traffic flow and I think then I think that's your challenge is that you have multiple jurisdictions and you may have different ideas input from the community of these different jurisdictions

I think that's a great comment thank you um just for quick clarification Um, I know the SUV COG right now is working on the jump start segments. Just for clarification, um, I might have missed it, so I apologize if you clarified this, but the Rosemade section is part of the jump start uh, project as well or is that part of the larger 2035 vision? So, all those segments up there are part of the jump start that's just focusing on the jump start um, improvement. So, Rosemeat is included as part of that. Thank you.

Thank you. Um yeah, I I appreciate um you guys being proactive to share the information ahead of time and thanks for hosting all of the committee meetings so that we can gather community input on this project. Um do you have a date for the upcoming January meeting? We don't have a finalized date, but it's likely going to be either mid or late January and we're working with the city right now to um select that date and then um we'll make sure it's on the calendar. Great. Yeah, we can publicize it to the community so more people can attend. Just a quick question. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, has there does anyone have uh like peak hour only kind of bus dedicated bus lanes and is that an option that's being studied here or potential here as opposed to 247 kind of dedicated bus lanes?

There's definitely the option for that. Yeah. So, typically when you look at a peak hour lane, um, it could be in a side running configuration, but the most common that you'll see is a curb running. And so what that means is that you can park curbside throughout the day, but then during the peak hours, you can't park there and it becomes a dedicated bus lane. Um, city of LA has done this in many many places and I know that they're advancing this also in preparation for, you know, uh, 2028.

I had this I had the same question as council member Wong, but the reason I say that is because I know there's a corridor um, on Atlantic that has a lot of apartments, particularly I think around Floral all the way to maybe Rapto. Um, and I see a lot of people park in that area, but but after the morning part, maybe nine or 10, I see it's pretty vacant. So, just, you know, thinking about because I I I also foresee a lot of residents probably asking those types of questions like where's the parking is the parking going to be gone? And we're already in some ways hearing it um when we have these type of dialogues. I know I attended some of the um Garvey improvement meetings and I know some I heard some of the people asking those types of questions uh regarding parking and I think for them that's uh one of the probably major concerns uh dealing with parking. But the last thing I I wanted to say is I think as we progress and move forward it might be useful to have uh meetings in conjunction also perhaps with Rosemead um just to make sure that we're all aligned with this. I think it just would make more sense and would also ensure that um this dedicated bus route um successful the and I think that the only way it can be successful is if we include all of the stakeholders and ensure that that bus line connects. I I would love to I I serve on the metro service council but I would love to take the bus line on a bus route all the way to metro station would be amazing in a shorter amount of time.

Thank you so much. Thank you both.

Right. That completes our presentation section for this evening. Uh moving on to item six, staff communications. 6A, city manager's office. Good evening, Madame Mayor and City Council. Uh Diana Garcia, assistant city manager. The city of Monterey Park invites all community members to attend a public meeting on Thursday, December 11th at 5:00 pm to learn about the proposed design for the permanent memorial honoring the victims and survivors of the January 21st tragedy. This meeting will be held at the Langley Center in the Friendship Room and will provide an opportunity for residents and stakeholders to hear an update on the project, view the conceptual design, and share their thoughts with city staff and architects. Community participation is essential in shaping a memorial that reflects collective remembrance, healing, and hope. And we welcome all who wish to be a part of this important conversation to the meeting. Thank you. And I'm I'm happy to answer any questions. All right. Uh item 6B, library Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Kristen Oliver. I'm the city librarian at the Monterey Park Burger Meer Library. And this evening, I'm here to share some events we have coming up in December. But first, I wanted to highlight some of the programs that we held in November. In November, we held 44 programs for 24,470 community members of all ages. And depicted here are photos from the junior cards, junior friends cards for veterans program, a poetry workshop, books and cooks, and die november. Next slide.

Adults, teens, and children can join the 2025 Curl Up with a Good Book Winter Reading Challenge by registering at monterey park.beanstack.org or and logging their reading hours for a chance to win prizes. The challenge runs from December 20th to January 3rd and you can visit the library's website for more details. This uh program is sponsored by the friends of the Monterey Park Library. Next slide. The library is launching a new low pressure book club. Each month we'll meet in a local cafe or tea shop. Read whatever you like while enjoying a beverage of your choice. Then afterwards, chat with your fellow book lovers. This month, we'll be meeting in Yewwayi Coffee located at 550 West Garvey Avenue, unit C. Bring your own book or borrow one from our popup library. And the first attendees will receive a free coffee, tea, or matcha drink of their choice. This program is also sponsored by the friends of the library. On Saturday, December 13th at 10:00 a.m. in the Friends Room, WSGV First, teams will share highlights from the 2526 First LEGO League season. Learn more about this LEGO Robotics and Engineering Youth Program for grades 2 through 8 and hear from the students about their experiences. Next slide. Registration for the spring semester of LAMP literacy classes will begin in January. Those interested in enrolling are encouraged to visit or contact the literacy department now to complete a pre-EST before joining classes. English as a second language classes, conversation groups, and citizenship preparation classes are free and you can find it more information on our website. Lastly, take some time to enjoy classic holiday themed films and TV shows on Canopy. The home viewing for the holidays playlist features entertainment for the whole family and will put you in

the holiday spirit. Grab your library card and visit canopy.com to start streaming. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you so much. Uh, next item is I just had one question. I Yeah, I I'm glad you did a plug for Canopy because I think it's great. Um, and there's a lot of amazing movies and documentaries. In fact, I find stuff in there for my classroom and students all the time. So, thank you for that. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Next item. 6C Police Department.

Madame Mayor, member, city council, Scott Whis, police chief. Um, I'm here tonight to talk to you a little bit about holiday safety. We we talk about this every year. Just a reminder for people as traffic patterns start to be uh to pick up, people start going out and shopping, going out to dinner, so do criminals. And they will go out and take advantage of different situations both residentially and commercially. So I just have a couple slides here to talk about some things to uh consider residentially wise. Not a lot has changed other than the fact that criminals will be out there looking for targets of opportunity. We like residents to create lighting situations at their house. Motion lights obviously cameras. They can register those cameras with us on our um rims page, our our CAT RMS page. We don't have access to the cameras. We just know that they have cameras in case we have a situation in their neighborhood. We then know that that residence has cameras and we can contact them to see if they have any footage. That helps us out quite a bit with investigations. Um, obviously residents need to make sure that their home security situations are are current. I I just did this at home recently. My cameras weren't working the way that I liked. I was very frustrated. Uh, I couldn't get them to to log back on. Typical issues. And so, I ended up going with a new camera system just recently that I have to install this weekend. But I try to do it once a year around Christmas time just before the holidays as I'm putting up my Christmas lights because it gives me an opportunity to kind of get up there into the nooks and crannies of the house. So I kind of anticip I kind of want people to start to do the same thing. We forget about those kind of things during the year. But when you're out on the perimeter of your house and you're do getting ready for your Christmas decorations, also kind of take an extra opportunity to look at the security you

have set up at your house. Go. Next slide. Vehicle burglary is still a big deal. Uh, criminals like to break into cars. They like to take stuff out of your cars. They like to steal your car. We ask that when you're out shopping, don't leave items that you purchased in the open area of your car so people can see them through the window. Put them in the trunk or the back area of your car. If you're driving an SUV and you have the ability to to close off the cargo section with a a lot of the vehicles now have a pulloff a screen that you can close. We we ask that you do that so that your items aren't seen through the window. Um make sure you lock the doors of your vehicle. Uh if you if the vehicle comes with alarm, set the alarm and listen for the alarm going off. Also uh don't leave your purses out in the open in the car. Don't leave computers, uh, backpacks, anything that can draw attention from a from a potential thief. They're looking for targets of opportunity, and it doesn't take very long to break a window, reach inside, and steal the items out of the car. We haven't experienced some of the things that we've seen on the news up in maybe Northern California where people will pull up, jump out, break the window in the middle of a shopping center, grab the things when people are in the car. We have not seen that happen here. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it's something that we don't see very often down here in Monterey Park, but still that kind of safety around your vehicle is super important. Go ahead. Next one. We're always available to help out the community. Um, community relations bureau and quite honestly, patrol officers when they're out on their regular beats, they're a perfect opportunity for people to contact them. They'll give you advice of what they think works for that neighborhood, what works for your house. I can set up an appointment and one of my officers or one of my csos can come out, walk through the perimeter with the person and give them some advice about where we think they should enhance their

security. We're always there to to prevent what what takes place. Although we will respond obviously and and investigate, we're very good at that. We like to prevent crime before it happens in the first place. We want everybody safe this year. Uh there's a lot of aspects of the holidays that uh cause people anxiety for for all of us, whether it's traffic, whether it's gifts, whether it's all those different things. So, um everybody just needs to kind of take it easy, calm down, take a breath, plan your day a little better, plan dropping your kids off of school the right way, uh and we'll get through this. But we're here to help with whatever people need. Um, we're full service department and we're available all the time to help out when whenever we need. I'm I'm available for any questions.

Okay. Yes. Uh, thank you for sharing that. And again, it's very relevant and timely information for the holidays. I'm kind of curious to I mean besides the potential for um material theft during the holiday which just happens but um what about also theft that's targeted at you know people's I guess compassion like scams like charity scams you know especially you see them come up saying hey you know it's like um sponsor a holiday meal for family or gifts or because of the recent eaten fires um in our neighbors to the north um you and and then throughout the year, you know, you've seen example scam. So, I guess if if how do if if someone is aware of something or have been scammed, do they also report it to RPD as well?

Absolutely. Um we're in partnership with uh county, state, and federal agencies that investigate fraud, internet fraud. Um they get they're very inventive, some of these fraudsters, and some of them are obvious. If you get an ad for something and it it doesn't appear to be uh correct or it's just too good to be true, it probably is is fraud. I receive two or three of those every day. Hey, come and buy this this jacket that would have cost $500. We only going to sell it to you for $10. It's like, okay, something's wrong there. That it's not a real it's not a real situation. Uh we're starting to see people that will send out receipts saying here's your receipt for this item that you purchased. When you know you didn't purchase it, what they're trying to get you to do is click on the connection to that website and that's when you're downloading spyware to your computer and they're going to hold your computer hostage. So, if you don't if you hadn't purchased something, don't open the receipt. If you don't own a home in Tennessee and they're sending you your monthly HOA bill, don't open that HOA bill because it's a scam. Um, we put out information to the public quite often about that. Uh, along with the fraud bureaus from the sheriff's department, LAPD and the state and the FBI and Secret Service that deal with internet fraud internationally. So, we work with all those partners. It happens all the time and they get very inventive. A lot of those people that are committing those frauds are not in the United States. So, it's very difficult to do enforcement on them.

Yeah, thank you for that. I know Assembly Member Mike Maul recently did a um seminar at the Langley Center about preventing scams like that. So, maybe the police department can also put on some sessions as if the public Okay, great. find it useful. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, next uh item is 6D, public works.

Good evening, our mayor, mayor promis city council. Sean, public works director. Um, next we have our last composting event for the year. Uh, that's coming up on December 13th at our public works yard located at 751 South Alhamra. We encourage everyone to come out and get get a free bag of compost. Event starts at 8 a.m. and it's on a first come, first- serve basis. And then we'll also have some loose loose compost there at our site too that people come pick up at any time. So again, first come first- serve basis with that. Any questions? Um more just compliments because um I live by Gary Ranch Park and I know whenever we have surplus compost, you leave them on the side and and and and and you know, you happen to know or you already know that it is very popular. people I see morning, the evening will drive up their their uh cars to the side and start shoveling into their cars. Um so again, clearly is very uh popular.

It definitely is. Yeah. Thank you. I know a lot of residents appreciate this. Thank you.

All right. And next item is 6E, Recreation and Community Services Department. Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Memo Chavez, recreation supervisor with the recreation department. Thank you for having me this evening to share a few updates with you. Uh first, I want to thank uh all who joined us at our recent events, including the Veterans Day event at the American Legion Post 397 on November 11th and the Native American Heritage Month event on November 13th in Barnes Park. Your your participation is truly appreciated. Next slide, please. Uh Langley Center will offer a holiday cookie decorating class on Thursday, December 11th. Registration is now open at the Langley Center. Additionally, our monthly themed dance social. This month's theme is Christmas party. Will take place on Thursday, December 18th from 1 to 3. The event is $5 and includes live entertainment and a holiday lunch. Uh both programs are open to adults ages 50 and older and registration is currently available at Langley Center. Looking ahead, the recreation department will offer MPK night at the Clippers game versus the Chicago Bulls on Friday, March 13th. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased using the QR code on the flyer or by visiting the Monterey Park website at monterey park.ca.gov/clippers. Attendees are responsible for their own transportation. For questions, please contact the recreation department at recreation monterey park.ca.gov. Next slide, please. Also, looking ahead, please save the date for two January events. The first is the City of Monterey Park resiliency day on Saturday, January 17th at Barnes Park from 10 to 2. This event will feature wellness activities and serve as a day of remembrance and hope honoring

those lost on January 21st, 2023. Later in the month, the annual Lunar New Year festival co-hosted with World Journal will take place on January 31st and February 1st. The year 2026 will celebrate the year of the horse. December will feature a variety of activities and events, all of which include a visit from Santa, who is here to make a special appearance as well. So, come on down, Santa. Uh, please join us at the annual holiday snow village event tomorrow night here from 4 to 8 at Barnes Park featuring entertainment, games, food, a sled run, snow play, and more. Santa here has made himself available for photos at the event. It's also not too late for children to send their letters to Santa at the North Pole. Letters may be dropped off at Langley Center, 400 West Emerson, and must include a name and return address. The final day to submit letters is this Friday, December 5th by 4:30 p.m. And finally, Santa's Jolly Journey will take place on Sunday, December 14th at 6 p.m. as Santa travels along a designated route through all five Monterey Park districts. We hope everyone enjoys these festive events. Thank you very much for having me this evening.

Thank you so much, Mr. Grinch. And what what a nice unexpected surprise from Santa. May we take a picture?

Yes. Hallelujah. uh

yeah comments. Uh I thank you. Appreciate it. A question more for Robert on the pool. Uh I know we finished the input receiving input and soliciting some input for the preliminary design I guess uh or the concepts for what we want to do. Can you just lay out really quick for those might be interested uh what the next steps are?

Yeah. Good evening. Uh recreation director parks and recreation director Robert Giri. Uh yeah, so we went through recently through the community engagement uh sessions. Uh now we're working with Dalin to develop conceptual designs. Uh we're expecting those to come back sometime uh towards the end of January. Uh there will be an opportunity for community comment on some of those conceptuals. Then we'll bring those back to council hopefully sometime uh February, early March uh for council decision on which kind of conceptual to move forward with uh later on potential design. Yeah. And at the same time continuing to apply for grants and look for other additional funding opportunities. And do we uh that um LA County grant we made the application for and any others? Do you have uh do you know when we might expect to hear back from some of those operations?

So the the first grant that we applied for back in August, the LWCF or land water and conservation fund, uh we expect to hear back sometime late February 2026. Um and then the measure A, the two grants uh we applied for with measure A LA County, we expect to hear back sometime March 2026. So those are the dates they're currently giving us. We'll continue to follow up to see if we can get any additional information uh as we move forward. Yeah. Well, yeah. What and when the the proposed concepts or designs come back, I'm I know we will, but let's make sure to do as much outreach. There's obviously a lot of interest in the pool. Oh, absolutely. And uh whatever email list and folks that have been coming to the meetings, make sure we're communicating to them when that will come.

Absolutely. Thank you, Robert. Um, first of all, thank you for the before we address Santa the Clippers game. Um, as soon as I saw it and I saw uh Ness sent it out, I bought some tickets. So, awesome. Awesome. I did want to highlight one thing. Uh, so for that night also, anyone that is attending the game uh with uh MPK uh will also get a Japanese Heritage Night um jersey. So, that's included with your fee or your tickets. So, thank you. Um, and then I I know um you mentioned the uh Snow Village tomorrow. Looking forward to that. I know that's my daughter's favorite event. Uh, they've been asking for a while now. So, looking forward to being there. Um, and as always, I mean,

if any council members want to come by and test it out, we start uh taking the test runs around 3:30. So, what time? About 3:30 before before we open, if you want to stop by. Is the snow there already? Not. No, be there tomorrow. I'll be there tomorrow. Yeah, Santa's dropping it off tomorrow. Okay. And then I'm glad Santa's here. Santa, I think you might have missed it, but and I know that you know everything, but um and uh but just wanted to uh ask, you know, we we don't ask for much here, but you know, just a pool would would be nice. If you can make that happen and a lot of your magic uh Robert knows all the details and you guys can communicate. I'll talk to But I'm definitely putting it in my Santa list and I know that I have uh till Friday to turn it in. So, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. Um, we have one item of uh old business uh nuisance abatement at 795 West Garvey. May we get a presentation, please?

Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the council, assistant city attorney uh Tim Campin will be giving this presentation. Madame Mayor, city council members, good evening. This is a presentation on 795 West Garvey Avenue um to provide an update on the abatement status of this property following uh the hearing we had on this matter on September 17 and to seek uh direction with regard to uh further abatement of the property. Um you are all familiar with uh 795 West Garvey. Um, I would like to give a very very quick um, recap to bring us back into this case um, and then give you an update as to what has happened since September 17. The Chan family purchased the property in 2007 um, and then proceeded with eventually proceeding with development. Um, city issued building permits in uh, mid 2017. Construction began later that year and progressed pretty solidly through 2018 and 2019 and then began to slow down and eventually stalled in 2021 effectively. That resulted in the that first building permit that was issued in 2017 uh expiring in 2022 due to inactivity. They got another building permit which also expired due to inactivity in 2023 and the same thing happened with a third per permit in 2024. Also in March of 2024 um we initiated a civil enforcement action to um hopefully encourage voluntary compliance and if not um to seek a court order to mandate compliance by the ownership to finish construction. Um, as you know, this is uh public nuisance flowing from

maintaining a property in a state of partial construction for many years, resulting in blight, attractive nuisance, elicit runoff, and many other um associated public nuisances. The filing of the lawsuit seemed to get things sort of moving. Um, and they did get some plans approved over the following year just about. Um and but we had a meeting on May 21st of this year at which time um the purpose of which was to go over what needed to be done and what the expectations were from ownership. Um because they kept saying we're going to finish construction. We're we're getting ready to go. We're going to do it. Uh at that time on May 21st, they said they would have crews working in earnest not just on any one particular aspect but all aspects of construction of the property within two weeks. There wasn't any construction for um at least seven weeks which did not begin until July and that only included partial installation of the lid or low impact development system which is on-site storm water capture system. um Hope Springs Eternal. Um and we were hoping that they would actually follow through and and conduct and complete construction in good faith in a timely manner. Um and partially that was one of the reasons why we um dismissed the action um uh around August 8th of this year. Um I will note that the uh the court in that action recognized that it looked like they were proceeding just as the court asked them to and uh understood why the city dismissed the case at that time under the circumstances. Um unfortunately um it continued to stall um after um basically placing um a water capture system as part of the lid system and doing some manual covering it

up. That was it. nothing else. Um so we brought the matter back before uh this body on September 17th um for a public nuisance determination uh administrative hearing um and to seek uh that determination and an order of abatement uh which uh the findings were made and the order was given um following the hearing on September 17th. On September 19, we um obtained an abatement warrant for the purpose of completing construction. Um I'd like to note at this point um that at the September 17th hearing, the owner's general contractor testified that the cost of completing construction should be between 500,000 and 750,000. and specifically noting that 750,000 was at the high end. Our own city staff estimated uh completion to be upwards of $1 million. Hopefully not that much, but of course that estimate was based on what the conditions were known at the time. We did not have complete access to the property at that time. We were not able to conduct a full and thorough and complete assessment um uh to know exactly what had been done, what needed to be done, and whether any additional um work needed to be done in light of the city remaining in a state of partial construction for so long. Then um around October 6, um is when uh well, we took possession of the property and executed the warrant on September 29. Um and then began uh getting on the property uh inspecting it, getting uh got a a contractor uh US builders on the property. Um who was prepared to

mobilize very quickly um and get working right away. Um we did have a few um issues unfortunately. Um the family um the owners, the responsible parties uh refused to release the remaining lid components that they had paid for and that were custom fabricated for this project. they can't be used anywhere else and but they refused to release them to the city meaning the city would either have to um basically order new parts to be fabricated which would take months. Um we did get a a workaround on that uh through the courts um which is uh uh has not been done for reasons that will be explained in a moment. Um they also um prevented access to the property from the surrounding parking lot area which they also own as a separate parcel. Um but they uh directed the city not to use any of that area for any kind of staging or to even access the property and would not provide um uh the ability to unlock access from that those sides only from the Atlantic side off the street. Um so because we do have a warrant, we cut the lock um to allow us access. Um but this is just an example of the uh lack of cooperation from ownership and allowing us to move forward. We also uh like I said uh had US builders out there uh to give a estimate for building the project or completing the project I should say. Um and that's where we are at now. to give you a sense of um the property. It looks the same as it did last time we showed you pictures. There's been no change. Um and that's true except for completion of uh sidewalk improvements that were part of this

project that we completed immediately after um taking possession. Now, the part of the issues that we um and I'm going to go through some of these issues here. One of the main issues we discovered was the condition of the roof, which was in substantial disrepair. Um cost is going to be at least $170,000. needs to be completely replaced with all kinds of um uh work to be done to it, including um as part of examining the roof. It was discovered that this was the reason for water intrusion during heavy rains and had resulted in what appears to be visible signs of mold. We do not know how bad the mold is. It requires a professional evaluation and then a remediation plan. Um it should be noted that um regardless of of what kind of abatement we do, whether it's finishing construction or demolition, that the mold abatement has to be done. Um it cannot be demolished without the mold being removed because of um we don't want it escaping uh into the the air and uh being a public health hazard and AQMD regulates this very heavily and that takes time as well. Um next slide. Um these are just um some just pictures of of the roof. A little hard to see, but this calls out some various issues. Next slide. Um and you can see how um you have parts that are peeling, parts that weren't even constructed at all properly. Next slide. Um this is just shows you the workmanship. A roof should not deteriorate this quickly. And this roof was probably from 2019. So the roof is only about six years old. and it should not be in this condition. It simply was not constructed to um acceptable standards. Um a lot of aspects of it were not done um not just

to standards but not even to code including um uh aspects that are required for the mechanical such as air conditioning units and so forth to be on the roof. Next slide. um is the exposure has resulted in decay of many parts of the roof and uh we've had several different contractors and estimates um and the consensus is that the entire roof needs to be taken off and redone. I focus on this not just because of the extensive cost that was not anticipated um back when we on September 17, but also as something of what is a warning that if this is what we can see immediately, what do we not know about and what will we not find out about until we really get into construction, start digging, start trenching, um installing um utilities, grading, um opening up potentially walls are seeing what kind of electrical work um was done or needs to be done. Same with the plumbing. Um this is pictures from the inside um that shows uh the water infiltration that happened during recent rains. These pictures were taken um just last month. Um, and the the problems with the roof, um, we don't know how badly it may have damaged other parts of the structure. Um, which would require more remediation, more work before we can even start doing the actual completion of construction as originally intended. What you see in there is a combination of junk, debris, material, supplies that have been there probably for four or five years. Has not changed. So, and it so the issues include mold remediation, uh roof replacement, um the HVAC platforms on the roof need to be completely rebuilt. The grease interceptor that's out in the parking lot area um was not installed correctly. Has to be completely redone. Electrical

panel and wiring um appears to be need to be redone to um meet code. Um portions of the fire sprinkler system need to be installed. Um there's there's plumbing that has not been inspected that needs to be inspected. Um there are no fire alarm security um system plans that need to be done and to be installed at some point. There's also um uh issues with the facade. Uh these are these are um design improvements that need to be um done as well like awnings and things of that as part of the design um approved design of of of it. And again um we don't know what we don't know but if uh if the past is any prologue to completing construction um we can we should expect additional issues. Um our um engineer who's our current project manager um John Turner estimates that the exterior portion is approximately five maybe 6% completed effectively not done at all. Um, and so you can see a list of here of things that need to be done. This is only a partial list, by the way. Um, and it doesn't include a lot of the fine details of things that are connected to all these systems such as light standards, landscaping, the LED system, um, grease interceptors, uh, connecting sewer and water, electrical, all of these things. Um, uh, again, and the structure itself, uh, requires a great deal of work. Um, one of the contractors that we had re-evaluate and provide estimates, which I will be providing in just a moment, made the comments, it looks like they didn't know what they were doing when they built the place. Um, it was just poor construction and workmanship. Uh, and so again, we don't know what we're going to be dealing with when we actually get in there if we're going to complete construction.

US builders came um back with about a $1.8 million um cost, very itemized cost. Uh we worked with them to see if there were ways to get that down. We got down to $1.66 million. Um that obviously was a shock and a surprise to us. And so we wanted to get some more estimates from other contractors. We got two more informal estimates. all they're both saying at least 1.5 million. Um and uh expectations are this could this could reach 2 million. It could exceed it. We just don't know what we don't know about the property. Um 6 months to complete is still the estimate in comparison to demolition costs. the actual demolition itself, which includes dro um uh taking out the um concrete uh foundation, the slab, and basically getting it to dirt, the whole lot to dirt, grading it, making it level um and so forth. Um is estimated at about $150,000 and be about another $150,000 to bring the property into compliance with the city's vacant lot ordinance uh in section 4.30.060, 06 which requires fencing, ground cover, weed abatement, landscaping. It's supposed to have irrigation. I don't believe this in covers actual irrigation for landscaping. Um and that that process would take um uh four to six weeks to complete factoring in um possibly longer depending what the mold remediation requires. mold remediation, the inspection, mold remediation could take weeks in itself, maybe even longer depending on how extensive it is, but it doesn't look too bad based on initial observations.

Um finally um if uh the council were to direct staff to pursue demolition in lie of completing construction uh it should be noted that we would have to go back to the court and ask uh for the abatement warrant to be amended to allow for this type of abatement rather than completion of construction. And that is going to be up to the judge. We we don't know what the judge will say about that. Normally I can provide a bit of uh confidence as to what I think a judge would do in a in a case based on my experience of getting quite a number of abatement warrants. Uh in this case it's uh more difficult and I I would be um I would be very hesitant to to uh give my prediction on what the court might do on this case. it would be more difficult than most abatements um because the property at least has the appearance of being almost complete which it isn't uh and that when it is in this state the idea of demolishing it um could be a difficult cell for the judge. I I think on balance it's a better than 50% chance we would get it but I wouldn't go much further than that. Uh next slide. So you're pre presented essentially with three options here. Um complete construction as we have been planned. Uh understanding what the new uh budget considerations are. Demolition um with vacant lot uh compliance. Of course that would be contingent on approval by the court. Um or abandon um the abatement process all together return it to ownership and hope for the best. Um other considerations um should be um that the rainy season is approaching. So we going to have to act fairly quickly, especially if construction if completion of construction is the goal. We have to

get on that roof and get that roof repaired ASAP um to try to mitigate the effect that uh any heavy rains coming this month um would would propose. Um, next slide, please. So, um, I just want to, um, also finish up by saying I think there's some question as to what is the value of the property. We did run a supplemental title report. Um, it just hasn't been completed yet. We ran um a title report, also known as a litigation guarantee, prior to filing our civil enforcement action, which showed that the owners were all of different percentages among the Chan family, but there were there were no real loans or incumbrances on the property. It was owned free and clear. It is unlikely since early 2024 when we had that initial title report run that any additional incumbrances have been um placed on the property primarily because there's issues with title. Um without getting into too many details about it. the um the nature of uh of uh recording uh ownership and whether it's owned by a trust or an estate based on the deceased parents and so forth is is being um uh cured at this point. And because of that issue, it's unlikely that anyone would be able to get uh any kind of loan or or use the property to secure any kind of loan. So I think it's it's unlikely that there are any incumbrances with the property at this point. um aside from, you know, any kind of property taxes that maybe need to be paid, but there's no indication that they're um unpaid property taxes and so forth. Um as far as the value of the property goes, it was purchased in 2007 um reportedly for $3 million. It is unlikely that it's gone down in value since then. Um uh

looking um we have not had a professional um uh evaluation done for the value of the property both as an empty lot or if construction were to be completed. But comparable um properties should be safe to say the property if completed be worth between four and $5 million. If it's reduced to a lot, it certainly shouldn't be worth less than $3 million. But again, we have not had a professional evaluation done. Um, but that's just based on um the uh information that we able to gather for your information. Um, with that said, I'm available for any questions you may have regarding um the status of this property and the abatement options. And madame mayor, members of the council, if I could just tag team on those comments. I know there has been in the past discussion both in public uh and otherwise about interest from certain companies in this particular property. In particular, Seven Leaves has been often thrown around as a as a talking point. Uh recall that this is a nuisance abatement action. In essence, it is a law enforcement action to bring a property to compliance. Uh the city attorney's office certainly is not in the business of negotiating contracts on behalf of private property owners and so we have had no contact uh in that regard with regard to seven leaves and certainly we have not invited seven leaves to be onto the property. We have no idea whether that particular business or a different business might be interested in the property and that's not within the scope of our authority to to absolutely negotiate or or even approach anyone that would be interested in it. Our sole mission is to make sure that the property comes into compliance with the applicable provisions of the municipal code and follow the direction from the city council in that regard. I would encourage you not to be talking about other businesses and and what have

you because that's really not what we're here to discuss. Um it's not part of the overall nuisance abatement. That is a private matter between property owner and whatever business might be interested in that particular property. Again, Tim and I are here to happy to answer any questions. Yes. Any questions, Madam Mayor? Yeah, I'm gonna start. Um Tim, how much has been spent today on this? It's been almost two months now.

I I know we when we when we took over the property, we had to do some work, the fencing, some how much has been spent to date? Uh the the primary expense um as far as construction goes was was um in completing the um the sidewalk and public works director I think can address those issues. Yes. Good evening, Mayor. Mayor Prom City Council Sean, public works director. Uh we spent about $40,000 on the concrete work that was needed um to get the sidewalk back into compliance. So um anything beyond that would have been some of the um inspections and things like that, but about 40,000 thus far.

Okay. And we I mean I was I remember when the the contractor was out there saying that it cost I I asked him twice actually maybe three times. He confirmed that it was less than half a million to finish. So that number versus the number we have and I'm going to trust our number because we have three different quotes here. uh we didn't know about the extent of it looks like the roof leaks, the other issues with the infrastructure, the building. To me, that's also non-compliance within the building code. Meaning, did our inspector go out there and inspect the property? Did they build it to a point where they say, "Hey, we've built it here. Now, get the inspection before they proceed."

The the um um Council member know, thank you for the question. So, if I'm understanding your question, you may be looking at that roof and say, "How did that roof ever get approved if it was built so poorly?" Correct.

Um, and a lot of these conditions by looking at it, you can't exactly tell whether they used the right kind of of adhesives and so forth, you know, under under these tar roofs and and whether certain materials were underneath. Um, and you also recall that the first permit expired due to inactivity. So, a lot of these things were in progress and we're getting um intermittent inspections but didn't get final inspections for for them. And and so um that that's what we're running into a lot of this. They they've got inspections for roughing in the plumbing, for example. Um, but we also noticed there appears to be some plumbing that was done um after that inspection where uh there there are cut marks in the uh slab where um some uh it appears to be the tenant improvements by Seven Leaves did that in their portion to start installing some plumbing. That's about all they've done is is some piping underneath the slabs that just hasn't gotten to inspection yet. And so um they had a permit, they did the work, it just hadn't been inspected. And so, um, there's aspects that just have been done. They just haven't gotten to the point of inspection. It's the lack of calling for inspection that tells the city that they're not doing work that caused the permits to expire. It's by calling inspections that keeps the permit active.

So, it sounds like there's been deterioration because that project's been standing and it looked like that shell has been in place for four or five years and that probably contributed to the deterioration u of of the property. Uh and then and we're we're kind of left with three options, right? One is to give it back, which defeats the purpose of calling this an uh abatement warrant and a nuisance. two is to knock it down and demo it to lot which is probably the original purpose of why we we well not quite but the original purpose was to get it finished but get it finished within a reasonable amount of money which was the 500,000 which I clearly remember the contractor said that he can finish that within like three months and have we reached out to that contract contractor to get his bid or to have him finish the work for the 500k that they promised that they can do.

So, you you may recall at the um at the hearing on September 17th that they had signed a contract for his services the day before on the 16th.

Um before that, it was a kind of an informal consultant um state that he was, you know, helping them out when they needed it kind of thing. and advise on occasion when they asked for it. Um, that contract was not a real construction contract. It was very vague. Um, it did it it had general ideas of what needed to be done, but it did not have a construction schedule. It did not have a budget. It didn't call out any um nothing was itemized, let alone itemized for cost like we got from um US builders, which is very itemized list to understand what the costs are. So, um I don't know where that estimate came from. Um but it does not appear that it was made through the same kind of considered uh inspection and thoughtfulness that uh our contractors we've consulted have done.

And if I may add, we did reach out to the contractor. The original thought was, well, if this individual can do it for $500,000 within four to six months, fine. the city will contract with that that contractor and have it done with as exactly the way that was described. I I think perhaps I'm paraphrasing and Mr. IO can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the response was hell no. I'm not doing that.

So I I I mean, you know, I I'm I'm of the position that, you know, we're the city. We don't own properties that don't belong to us. We we did this for a reason and that was because it was a nuisance. It was sitting there. It was an eyesore. We got many emails from the community. You know, we listened to the community. That's why we we took action and we did this abatement warrant. And to spend another 1.6 million. And I'm going to guess by the time we finish, it may be closer to two million. To me, that's throwing good money out the bat at this point. And who knows after you finish it. Again, we don't own the property. We don't we can't force the owner to lease it or to rent it or to sell it because that's not in our position. All we have is a lean on the property. I'm of the opinion that perhaps we can just spend the 150k or closer to 300k just get it back in shell position and say we've got a lean on this. It was an eyesore. We took care of the problem. It's back. And if you want to build something, if you want to sell sell it to someone and lease someone, you start over with the construction. And we're back again looking at the contracts, looking at the construction timeline and the project timeline so that you are consistent to build something within the permitting process of either six months or a year. That that's that's my opinion on this. Does that sound reasonable? Mr. Mayor or Madame Mayor, members of the council, that's what we're here to ask you.

Well, you just heard my opinion then.

And I'll let my other council members kind of chime in here. And I'll just uh Thank you, mayor. Um echo many of the same concerns that council go mentioned around this project. There there are no easy good options here, right? I don't I don't like being in this position. I don't want to be in this position. Did not want to get here. I think we made every effort to encourage nicely and after being very very nice continuing to give additional time to the property owner to abate this nuisance and to finish the projects that they have proposed and they wanted to build and it's it's has sat for years. um and they forced our hand uh as the nuisance became worse and worse and once we got in there, right, it's clear from the pictures you're showing here and the staff reports that it was in even worse shape than we knew of and expected going in. Uh and that we could tell from the outside than anyone could tell, even their own contractor could tell from the outside. And so uh my approach to this I think similar to to council regos is to approach this and my philosophy I think is uh not I think it is to reduce the risk as much risk as we can for the city and for the city's taxpayers on this as we all agree I think we all agree need to abate the nuisance that exists here uh and the options that are before us are either to complete the building which is going to cost at least twice what the project or the property owner's own consultant and their contractor said it was going to cost at least that much. Right? It looks like it might even be more because we don't know what's there. Um or to demolish this so that it isn't a nuisance and and to to reduce that risk.

And I'm leaning towards uh demolition option here because that that's what abates the nuisance that exists there. the least cost from what I can see unless someone else unless I'm reading this and understanding this wrong with the least cost to the city and taxpayers and the least risk to us in terms of the timeline and the impact and potential other issues happening as the rainy season isn't coming it's already here we had uh more rainfall in the last few weeks than we traditionally have uh and very clear what the damage was from this damaged roof uh already with water there and so can only imagine letting this sit longer if we're going build it, finding other issues. There's just too much risk in my mind to, as Council Morgo was saying, uh, to put good money after bad. Uh, and this property owner also has proven over right the record in over the last few years that they are not a responsible property owner. Um, and I worry that if we put money, we put taxpayer, city park taxpayer money into finishing this pro, this building that and we hand it over to an irresponsible property owner that what what happens then and I'm not confident that I'm going to trust this property owner to operate that building or to to find tenants responsibly and to to get to a point where uh the development is actually generating revenue and doing well and adding a benefit to the community and so very much lean towards the option here which is I don't want to be in anyway not would really would rather a place where we're working with a responsible owner completing this project on their own and getting it to a point where it's actually serving this community and the neighborhood. Uh but that's not what we have. That's clear from the record and clear from what we've seen from the inspection uh and from the quotes that we're getting for construction to complete this project which are right showing everything that

continue to add to the record that uh this property owner has been unfortunately irresponsible and still is not coming to the table to cooperate. um when all we want to do from the city's perspective just is bait this nuisance and to make sure that this lot is at a place that doesn't isn't detrimental to the neighborhood and to the community. So leaning towards that I'll leave it to the other council members to weigh in as well.

Uh thank you Tim for the presentation. Um can we go back to the timeline? Um, I really appreciate the timeline because I think for it's important for the public to know just uh how long we've been um working with the chance to try to make this uh property um um I think it says right there it's 5200 square feet. Um, so, uh, I appreciate the timeline in terms of making, uh, showing the public just how long we've been working or trying to work with them, right? In terms of making this, uh, this building possible. And I, I know for the public, it's kind of hard to understand sometimes just, you know, why we just can't construct something there or finish the construction. And I think for a period of time, you know, when the sign when the uh banner went up and it said for real this time, I I think uh we were really anticipating it for it to be for real and and now we're considering options in terms of demolition, including demolition. Um I also wanted to go back, if we could go back to where the roof is. I mean, something that I'm really having trouble understanding um is this is a completely new building. Am I is this correct? I mean, it hasn't been used. Uh, but it just looks so dilapidated. Uh, like it's been around for a long time and not and so to me, um, aside from all of the the I mean, look at that. Um um it's hard for me to understand that uh that the that the owner was in good faith trying to complete this building to try to ensure that the tenant who was supposed to come here uh was ready to, you know, to do business here. And so I'm I'm glad that we're showing these images to the public so they understand that this is a tough decision for the council to make. and we've done our due diligence in terms of ensuring that we are working with the tent with the

owners uh to try to make this uh building come to fruition and unfortunately it's just been uh we just haven't been able to do that. So uh thank you for your work in terms of doing that. I'm also in in in agreement with the my council colleagues um council member Go and council member Wong in terms of finding the cheaper alternative for the city in terms of ensuring that this is that we abate the warrant but but also to make ensure that um that we're not spending as much money city money and taxpayer money um to try to complete this project. So u I'm I'm also in agreement in terms of moving forward with this with a complete demolition Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question for staff. Um, if this council decides to move forward with say the option of a demolition, is it possible to also then put signage to inform the public for the reason like in other words, this building is being condemned? And the reason why I say is because look, I mean, when I was elected in 2020, that building was already a show and it has been five years. I am my in my second term now and we are still discussing this building and as my colleagues said residents come up to us and say you know why is that shell still there this is a prime location and it's and and and and and again we have before us on record that we have tried in good faith to work with um that developer and so I guess my question is if we were to go the option of a demolition I would like if permissible to have some type of signage so let the public know it's being condemned because of of a nuisance abatement issues.

Um council member Low, thank you for your question. Um as long as we have possession of the property, there's no reason why we couldn't do that. And I'm saying if we are going to do because you know people are going to ask why after five years you're not tearing it down. And I think we need to let public know it is because of that because of the the the nuisance the the the mess the little pile of mess they've created at the corner of Garvey and Atlantic. Uh Madame Mayor if I may. Um I I believe we we can post I think maybe um putting some information on the city's web page. Yes.

And then the signage that we post um because as as you know it might be difficult to maintain signage out there especially if it's like temporary. Um, but we might be able to post something that has a QR code link about information uh about what's happening with this property. That way it links back to the web. Even if it's temporary, I want to be a large sign. Understood. Well, we we Yes. Understood. And can we even point to like like and if the people who own that market, you know, I mean, and can we also say who the owner of I mean, hey, let's shame him. Let's let's publicly shame him, you know. Madame Mayor, members of the council, we'll certainly put together a sign that is legally appropriate. Absolutely.

Um Tim, thank you for the presentation. I have a question about the timing. If you go to that slide where you're talking about the upcoming ring, um if we go forward with the demolition um how the one with the court order where a court order is needed for demolition and where is it? this one. Um, how what would be the timing if we have to get core order for a demolition giving the upcoming rings you mentioned?

Um, Madame Mayor, thank you for the question. So, there there's a different issue with completing construction and demolition. If we're going to complete construction, we need to get on the roof right away to to u mitigate further um water intrusion and water damage to the structure. um the the rest of the parcel is undeveloped. Um and so that's why you have sandbags around the perimeter to try to uh stop some of that water that invariably runs off from the larger parking lot because of the slope into that area, which is why we had the water capture system and so forth. So, so that issue of sort of containing the um elicit discharge from that property onto the uh streets and storm drains is is essentially taken care of already. So, if we're going to demolish, the timing is not as critical with regard to the rain. Um except for to the extent that the um there may be the need for mold um uh mitigation. the mold has to be removed before the building can be destroyed and taken down and raised. So, um I I I think we could it all depends on how bad the mold is. Um that this could be a matter of a week or two. It could be a matter of a month or more depending on um the the degree of mold and how much remediation needs to be done to um get it out of the of the structure. Um, so I to answer your question, I think it's it's less of an issue, less of a concern if we're going with demolition. Um, but it's still a concern to some extent.

Understood. Yeah, I'm I'm very uh torn on this issue because, you know, the options in front of us are both not very favorable. um part part of me wants to spend the least amount of um taxpayers dollars and you know protect the the city um and demo it but at the same time I'd love to know what the value of the property is because right now we don't have the title report back yet so we don't know you know the status of lings and if we can get our money back if we were to reconstruct it but it sounds like my colleagues are all in favor of demolishing it so um if that's the case that probably aligning Um, does anyone want to make a motion or

Well, I'm I'll I'll make a motion to basically uh proceed with the demolition of the structure, which also requires us to get an uh expanded abatement warrant from the from the court. So, I'll make that motion. I have a second. I'm just curious uh the So, we would have to go to the court for permission, right, for this specific action. If we're going to demolish, how long would that take? And when might that come back? Would would that need to come back to the council in any way, shape, or form?

Um, Council Member Wong, um, I would I think I think the city attorney's office is advising that if your direction is to proceed with demolition, then we could go in um, no later than the end of next week. Um, sometime next week, we will go in and and request the warrant. Um, it's it's we already have an abatement warrant. It's I'm going to frame it more as amending the uh warrant for a different type of abatement of the same nuisance. Um, and if that is granted, then we proceed. If it is denied, then we would come back before council to seek um further direction.

Understood. And then I think to the mayor's concern too, right? How uh for my and the public's knowledge too, right? How what are the mechanisms for us to recover our costs, whatever they are on this this potential project and how would that work? So, uh, regardless of whether it's demolition or completing construction, um, upon completion of, uh, the city's abatement action, we'll send a demand for the full abatement related costs, which includes not only our hard costs, um, but also, uh, staff time, attorney fees, and so forth. So, we will submit that demand to ownership. They will have a certain amount of time to pay that in full. If they um refuse or deny to pay that in full um then we can proceed with uh bringing a resolution before a council to seek uh a lean an abatement lean and collection um against that lean by special assessment essentially property taxes. If there's a lack of payment of those assessments uh for commercial property I believe it's three years um we could move for uh foreclosure of the property. So, thanks.

If you go um before a court and they deny the demolition request, are you able to come back before the next council meeting for a new decision, which is December 17th, I believe? I I believe we can definitely do that. Yeah. Because if if it gets denied and we do need to reconstruct, then the rains will be a big concern.

All right. Uh, so Council Member Go made a motion. Uh, council member Wong. Uh, second. Let's make a vote. No, we we already have public comment for the agenda. The next public comment will be for the consent calendar. Did it go through? Did the vote go through?

Um, please. Okay. Clear. The board, please vote. Approved unanimously.

All right. Thank you. Um, now we have the consent calendar. So, uh, we'll open up the public communications. Uh, first it first speaker is, uh, yellow lives matter. All right. Uh, happy Thanksgiving. Um, I thought that uh, uh, I was kidnapped right here for like three hours. I thought I can hear some like amazing update, but I heard like non-stop two hours of BS. So let's start with item number nine. Let's go by one by one. Item number 9G specifically NG it is talking about a human rights. Okay. Uh let's talk about what is a human rights. I believe that petition to the government it is a human rights. Right to petition it is guaranteed by the first amendment in the constitution. And then what I heard one of our mayor said no hateful speech is acceptable right here. And then the mayor uh mayor is very polite in her language, very professional but however behavior destroyed thousands of thousands of lives. People who wants to swim swim uh the kids wants to swim they no longer have the opportunity to do that. So if you ask me, do I want a polite, professional mayor who always use the beautiful words but destroy the lives of thousands of thousands of residents in their recreation um activities? Or do I want a a mayor who gave me a profanity all day long, but actually who actually care about the community and then give the community a swimming pool they deserve, not a nonsense data center. that data center that nobody likes in this in this

building and then I would choose a big dirty mouth mayor because that mayor cares about community just have a dirty mouth. So our mayor unfortunately is the opposite always using uh professional language but her behavior contradict every single word uh she made during her campaign. Second let's talk about the u uh human rights. I believe that um um uh first amendment is a human rights the right to free speech because the reason why that I'm not able to do that in North Korea in Russia in any other communist country is because we do not have such thing as a first amendment as a freedom of speech. We don't have such human rights but our council member wrong just said thank you so much for your comments. Thank you so much for being right here tonight. That's what council member Ron said, but at the same time, council member R also made the motion, let's cut all of the public comments in the consent calendar to five minutes. So, council member R is saying that, thank you so much for your comments. I want to hear from you, but you know what? Hey, no more than five minutes. No more. So, this is a contradictory council member in the best display right here. So I am a professional communist because I do not speak with your capitalist political filter. I say what I think. I say what I thought. So I do not play with your political filter languages like your mayor. Her language is so beautiful that no one understand and no one believes her. Uh continue that I believe that bus services is also actually you know what not the bus we got a library right here. library right to toilet is a human rights if you ask me today today 5:40 be I was waiting for the uh council meeting

to begin at 5:40 I was at the library and I said uh I need to use the toilet and then the library told me that hey you know what the last 20 minutes during the library hour all all toilet closed and then I asked the library I said uh I am on my period I need to change my pad so what what can I Then and then can I in my pants? And then the library told me that uh I cannot control what you do, but if you do decide to in your pants, we will call 911 and get you arrested. So I want to ask our council member, if your daughter needs to change her pad in the library, and then right now it's 5:40, 20 minutes before the library closed, tell me, tell me, you tell me this is humane. this is you under your city under your department under your leadership and you call this is humane tell me I really want you to tell me and then at the last minutes I don't know u I think I don't have enough time for the bus services bus services nobody understand the bus better than me nobody we continue to have those bus corridor project manager who talking about bus services but nobody ride the bus every single day I spend three hours on the bus average daily and then what she said I disagree literally every single word every single sentences. The only thing I can do is come back another time another day for the bus services because I took I took a comprehensive vote a comprehensive notes for this but thank to our mayor and council member Ron I have to come back wait for another months come back to talk about the bus. Next speaker on the consent agenda is Cash Patel. So, um, look at here. Local emergency.

We went through a filibuster with Tim and this attorney service and five that don't see that there's an eyesore in the community. Just tear the down and wait till you get paid. Yeah, shut the up back there. That's all you have to say. Be be proud. Just say shut the up. No, no one's No one's talking.

Excuse me. will have I I'm I'm I'm here at the podium and some keeps talking behind my back like that. Why is that? That's political violence. You know that that's political violence. If you tell me if you look at your item 9G, it says human rights. What's my right if you don't protect me when I'm speaking up here and you don't pause my time? You don't tell the public in the back that they can come up here and say what they want or what they believe. So why do you allow this Well, Henry, thank you for for interfering with that person back there. You know, I don't have to look back to see what kind of behind me trying to cheer on his cheerleading pride I don't give a I'm here to talk about my opinions, and my opinions matter. So, going back to that hole building over there, taxpayers don't want to pay for it. They get nothing out of it. Nothing. Not one godamn thing other than a bill. And had the goddamn inspectors would have inspected each permit from the time it starts to the time it ends before issuing another permit, you wouldn't have this problem. And besides that, that roof, it needs a metal capping on it. Doesn't have any metal capping. I'm not even a roofer, but you need metal capping on it. flashing doesn't have it. So, that's going to be an extra cost. Put that on the record. Now, let me go back to um local emergency. That was my point. If that's a local emergency, it should be handled because if someone steps into that property, you're liable because now you've taken action. Stay the out of it. Get Mr. Chan

and Green Leaf Tea or whoever they are, take responsibility. If not, send Tim, send Burger up there to the courts and demand the judge that this is nonsense. The public, I'm here representing the public right at this podium. And I say tear it down. Stop wasting taxpayers dollars. But going back to 9G now, human rights months. Well, Mommy Mayor there, Mommy Mayor made a comment about my last public comment, which was non-aggenda, making reference to my impermissible prior restraints that my language, my vulgar, my venom was an insult to who? I'm speaking to all of you. Those are my thoughts. Those are my feelings more so they're my beliefs constitutionally. I have a first amendment. I don't come in here speaking about violence. I'm not the immigrant throwing moloto cocktails at a federal building because you hate ICE because some from Kad and this from Elmani who have gang members backing their ass up. You don't see me doing that. I don't need a gang. I'm a one-man killing machine. Mentally, mentally, clinically, physically. So, in the future, keep the political violence down. Tone it down. Don't let these come in here and disrupt our meeting. Now, if you want to disrupt it, stand here at

the podium and present your argument. Set your debate. Set your opinion. You have that right. But when you're back there being an shut the up. For the record, that's my opinion. And so, Mommy Mayor, with all gratitude and understanding, reach out to that broad Hilda Ciz. She represents this area. Ask her for money. Ask her for money to deal with the you guys can't deal with because your budget doesn't meet the criteria of what the taxpayers have already paid out for all this damage and refuge that you leave on our goddamn streets. Thank you and good night. Do we have any other public comments? No. All right, then we will move forward with our public hearing. Oh. Oh, yes. Any uh discussion or motion on the consent agenda?

I'll move consent. All right. We're going to move from council member Wong. I'll second. Second from council member Sanchez. Let's vote. Approved unanimously. All right. Thank you. Um item 10A. Let's have a presentation on the consideration and possible action to conduct a public hearing to read by title only weigh further reading and adopts an ordinance amending title 16 and 17 of the Monterey Park Municipal Code.

Good evening, Madame Mayor, honorable council. Uh tonight's agenda item is the second reading in the public hearing of an ordinance to amend title 16 and 17 of the city's municipal code to adopt by reference the 2025 California building standards codes. This is a process that uh cities typically handle every three years. This item was introduced for first reading on November 15th and a second reading and a public hearing scheduled for tonight. Our building official is here with me, Dennis Tango. Uh he's here this evening to offer further details regarding the code adoption ordinance. Good evening, Madame Mayor, uh members of the council. The uh California Building Standards Commission updates the statewide construction codes every three years. These updates are intended to improve safety, sustainability, and the overall performance of all buildings throughout the state. Local jurisdictions may amend these state codes with supporting uh factors. However, recent legislation uh places a moratorum on residential code changes preventing cities from adopting standards that exceed the state standard except for very limited conditions. Given these factors, staff is recommending that city council adopt the 2025 California Building Standards Codes along with very specific city uh amendments necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of our community. We respectfully request that the council conduct the public hearing, read by title only, waving the further reading of the ordinance, and adopt the ordinance. I would be happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you so much for the presentation. Uh we'll open the public hearing.

Okay. Um we had one speaker, Cash Patel, but I believe he left. So, any other speakers on this item? All right. Then we'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Any uh questions for staff? Uh thanks ma madam mayor. Uh quick question for staff one. I appreciate uh the staff report and the work that goes into this. Just the for my edification and clarification. This is just adopting essentially the states mandates for we're not doing anything above and beyond what the state's mandates are being passed down for building codes.

Exactly. We do have amendments, but they're administrative amendments. Basically, how we uh use the code, what requires permits, um how we charge for permitting, the actual technical standards. We're adopting the state. Thank you. I'll make a motion to adopt, too. All right. Council member Wong makes a motion. Mayor Prom seconds. Let's make a vote. approved unanimously.

Thank you. Um and item 10B has already been moved to January. So that concludes our public hearing for this evening. Any new business? None. All right. Then city communications.

All right. I'll start. Um glad to be back. I took the last council meeting uh off and you know when I came back today I was surprised that everybody missed me so much to show up today mass but uh I'm glad we kind of went through the meeting today and just want to say Thanksgiving is now behind us how quickly it goes and Christmas cards are in route. So, thank you, Santa, for making your trip to Mar Park two times in two days, and I'm sure we'll see him again a couple of other times when we have our uh snow village this later this week, and also the Santa Ride. So, want to wish everyone a uh early Christmas and happy holidays to everyone. Uh, I'll just say I missed Council Rego immensely. So, appreciate that he's back uh with us, but uh I'll echo that and we have another meeting before Christmas, so we'll save that for for a few weeks from now. Uh, but really appreciate staff and just expressing postth Thanksgiving appreciation to everyone uh on the city team that's been really hard at work uh keeping everything running. So, thank you. Yeah, I think we've been lucky the last two days to have Santa and I think he's coming tomorrow too, right? Uh very blessed. Hopefully, um he is able to find us some monies to be able to build the pool. Uh but I did want to say the treelighting ceremony uh that many of us attended yesterday at Time Square was uh really well attended. Very nice. I I love the collaboration between the city uh and the business. Uh I think that worked out well. I'd love to see a lot more of that happening uh in the city. Um love to see it happen at Atlantic Square in the in South Atlantic Square. Uh so the to to um to them and to Byron,

the ball's in your court now. So um to make something like that happen on that end, but uh wanted to also I'm looking forward to Snow Village tomorrow. Very good. Uh and then right before um or during think uh for me it's Thanksgiving. It was Thanksgiving break, but I know that council member Wong and I had an opportunity uh to meet with the delegation from Help me out. Bayan uh district.

Yeah, the Bay district. Yes. And I had an opportunity to look them up. They had an amazing video uh about uh their um city. Um got to learn a lot about uh what is manufactured there, their city. Um a huge shipping city, right? So um we had an opportunity to meet with them and they presented us well I think we should have brought it down but the um with a gift uh for us so maybe we can display it somewhere uh in our city and um yeah that's it for me. Thank you. Uh uh deal I would like to uh report and bring up is um uh well first of all again um I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving um and also uh during I think the weekend before Thanksgiving holiday uh uh many of us in community including myself and council Wong attended a memorial service for uh Mr. Mr. Anthony Dwarte, a former Hassienda Lapenta Unified School board member who unfortunately passed away. But um and the reason I bring it up is because Mr. Dwarte actually was a board member for the West Sango Valley Boys and Girls Club, our neighbor across the street for many years. and and and and and if you're wondering why, even though he was in a school board in the H La Lunt area, is because he really cared a lot about youth issues and that's why he served for many years on the board of the West Sangra Valley uh Boys and Girls Club. Not to mention, he was also a staffer for many years um for our Congresswoman Judy Chu. So, I was wondering if we could also close the meeting tonight in um the memory of someone who was very involved in our community, Mr. Anthony Dwarte.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tam. And to add on top of that, um you know, it's it's a festive season, but there's also been a lot of other tragedies during the Thanksgiving holiday, including the loss of um Alhamra Police Department officer Alexander. Um and you know we've also had you know in the news the mass shooting in Stockton um where a lot of children's lives were lost and also the fires in Hong Kong where uh over 200 people either were killed or um are still missing. So I I'd like to also close our council meeting tonight in memory of you know everybody all the victims recently. Um, and just a reminder, we have our last meet up with the mayor this year on December 18th at Shinano. So, hope everyone uh can come and attend. So, any other comments before we adjourn? No. All right, then we'll go ahead and adjourn at 10:36 p.m. Thank you everyone.