Remarks by Aaron Starr
85 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 4
“I think you actually answered this question for me last year, but I'm trying to remember the answer. But it was regarding the Automobile Club of Southern California and Westways Magazines. I think you were doing some sort of experimentation with that or were going to. I'm just wondering if you could talk about that a little bit.”
“Yeah. Did you mention how much the budget was last year in comparison?”
“Actually, even the budget for last year. I just want to know what the increase is or decrease is.”
“NEW SPEAKER P. MY QUESTION ON THE SIMPLE SIDEWALKS PORTION OF THAT BUDGET, THE 362,000 AND CHANGE, What portion of that do you think is because of homeless issues?”
“I guess my question is more along the lines of what portion of this is spent on dealing with homeless issues versus other things that you could do with the money?”
“I move that we adopt, approve the work plan and budget for fiscal year 2026-27. Okay.”
“I would like to move to extend time like we normally do so any other speakers want to speak may speak. Okay.”
“Thank you. Just out of courtesy to our virtual speaker who's been patiently waiting, I think we should let him speak or her speak and then go on to the rest.”
“ONLY THING I'D LIKE TO REPORT IS THAT THERE'S AN UPCOMING LA COLONIA NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28th, AND THAT OUR MAYOR WILL BE A GUEST SPEAKER AT THAT EVENT. SO I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING WHAT HE SAYS. NEW SPEAKER.”
“NEW SPEAKER. I HAVE WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28th.”
“everyone else said that there had not been any questions or inquiries ahead of the meeting but hearing that do we have any items that would like to be pulled for discussion yes counselor star yes if there's any my understanding is that l4 that somebody wants to speak on that uh so if if if that's correct uh i'd like to have that as a separate item if there's anybody else that is signed up to speak for any other item, I would ask that those items also be separately considered.”
“I just want to hear the public comments. Okay. That's fair.”
“Eric Andrews, please play my video for L4.”
“Go ahead, Council Member Cesaro. Mayor, actually I have some questions on L4 now that I've seen what the public commenter was saying.”
“Yeah, I just, I guess what I wanted to understand and, is how time sensitive is this decision? The speaker did bring up some points. Maybe they're valid, maybe they're not. But if it's not time critical, I would prefer that those issues be addressed at some point.”
“Would it be somewhere around, I guess no later than July 1st because that's when the assessments are determined. Do you think that it's possible that there's some margin of time between now and July 1st where this can be decided?”
“Well, if it's not going to impede anything, I would ask that this IME brought back at whatever council meeting is appropriate, but certainly well before the December 31st so that we can make a decision based on all these facts. Like I said, I don't know if the speaker's comments were valid or not, but he brought up some issues that I thought, well, it seems like he researched it, looked into it. MAYBE HE'S GOT GOOD INFORMATION, MAYBE HE DOESN'T, BUT I'D FEEL A LOT MORE COMFORTABLE IF WE BROUGHT IT BACK AND WE COULD RESOLVE THAT BEFORE WE VOTE ON THIS. I WOULD NORMALLY BE IN FAVOR OF VOTING…”
“SO THE ISSUE IS THE PROPERTY TAX THAT WE'RE GIVING AWAY. THERE IS A PUBLIC ISSUE INVOLVED IN THIS. IT'S NOT JUST THE PROPERTY OWNER. AND IF THERE'S A QUESTION AS TO WHETHER WE SHOULD BE GIVING THIS PROPERTY TAX SUBSIDY, IF YOU WILL, TO THIS OWNER, AND THERE'S SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT WHETHER THESE ARE APPROPRIATE, I THINK IT'S STILL AN APPROPRIATE DECISION TO LOOK AT, I GET YOU DISAGREE, BUT THAT'S HOW I'M SEEING IT. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER.”
“I guess at this point if we were to vote on this right now, I would have to abstain because I feel like there's still information that I'd like to know or at least I want clarity on what's really the case here. If my colleagues would like me to be able to vote in favor of this and I want to, I would ask that it be postponed for staff to bring it back as long as it sounds like we can bring it back well before December 31, that'd be my preference. So if my colleagues are open to that, I would, I think it would be appropriate to postpone it until then. So that would be my motion.”
“Mayor, I don't think that's fair. I think that the whole point is to give the public 12 days to review if the public comes in with a concern on the 12th day, I think it's their right to do that. I think it's good that we give people 12 days. I don't want to give the public like a much shorter timeline in order to, you know, inject a thought into this process.”
“Yeah, Mayor, I just want to make sure this is a separate vote because I'm going to need to abstain from this. Like I said, I'd love to vote for it, but. Let's get a second first.”
“Actually, Council Member Perrello asked the question that I was going to ask. I was very curious whether there was a carve out for unions in this pay for play law. Yeah.”
“So while the firefighter EMTs are spending this nine-month period to become paramedics, who backfills them and does this grant cover those backfilling costs?”
“Okay. And I assume, I don't know this, I assume that when a firefighter upgrades his skills to be a paramedic from being an EMT that there's a change in his compensation?”
“Do you have kind of a ballpark of what that might be?”