City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello everyone. How's everybody doing this evening? Good, good to hear. We got some young men in the house representing Pico Rivera looking forward. Just welcome to our city council meeting. We'll get started. Ask our city clerk to for a roll call please.

Council members Garcia.

Here.

Lutz. Here. Mayor Pro Tem, Doctor. Sanchez.

Here.

Mayor Camacho? Here. All present.

And we did get a call from Council Member Angela. He's not unable to join us today. So with that, wanna go into their next is our invocation and then thereafter, the Pledge of Allegiance. We have a guest to do for our for our invocation. We have pastor Ochoa from Hope Community Church. Thank you, pastor, for being here. Can you everybody rise so we can be led with the invocation?

The council people, our sheriff department, our our city manager, father, our fire department, father, in the city of Pico Rivera, father, I thank you that, father, they are in the place that you have called them to be, father, to to take care of Pico Rivera and the families, father. I thank you, lord, father, that they they acknowledge you in all their ways, father, every day for wisdom to deal with the city, father. And I thank you, lord, you direct their path, father. And I just thank you, father, for this time of your presence. I thank you, lord, for the wisdom of god that you give every member here, father, in the council, in the city, father.

I thank you, Lord, father, that you bless them Pico Rivera, father. You bless the city of Pico Rivera, and God bless America, and God bless Pico Rivera. And I just thank you, father, that the word says, where the righteous are in authority, the city rejoices. And we rejoice, father, because we have a great team of the administration here in Pico Rivera. I thank you, lord, for the anointing that they have on their lives to serve you and to serve the people of Pico River. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, pastor Chaw. Appreciate it. If you can remain standing, we have another special guest that's gonna lead us in the flag salute Coming from a first grader at Boerne Tech Academy, we have Holly Perez. Let's give her a big round of applause.

All right, Boerne Tech Academy.

Good evening.

Good evening. Good evening.

Evening. Mayor.

Mayor. Members of the city council.

Members of the city council.

And members of the community.

And members of the community.

My name is

My name is Harley Perez.

First grader at Burnie Tech Academy.

And I am a first grader at Burnie Tech Academy.

It is my honor.

It is my honor to say the present for the reasons.

Please face the flag.

The face of the flag.

Put your right hand over your heart.

Place your right hand over your heart. Ready, be done. Thank you. Thank you. Good job.

Holly, can you join us up here with your parents to take a picture? Presentation so we might we'll stay standing up here. But before I continue, I wanted to recognize our commissioners representing us here today. We have Esther Salis from the Planning Commission. Thank you Esther.

And we have Yifan Hernandez, our Veterans Commissioner. Thanks for being here Yifan. Thank you for your service. And with that we have a few presentations as we have these young men here who are being recognized and I have them here. We're gonna bring up first the Pico De Vera Dons football flag gold. Come on up and join us. And where's the where's the coaching coach coaches. Join us up here as well, coaches. Come on then. You can come this way too.

Alright. So let's give it up to these young men who has represented us. Congratulations.

Championships, they put a lot of hard work in. The new boys that we got, they caught up to speed real quick. I just wanna say thank you to the parents for all your participation. Thank you to the council for recognizing my boys. Boys, again, congratulations. A lot of hard work went into this season as you guys showed out this season. Thank you to my staff. Definitely wouldn't be nothing without them. My, AD over here, my head AD, she helped me out a lot with the boys, all the other all the meetings and stuff. Thank you guys. Thank you again to the city.

Well, Give them a big round of applause. You made the champion. So congratulations. Let's take a picture. Special remarks to you right here.

Thank you. Thank you for all the parents that put their kids in hard

work. Let's give it up. Nothing but champions in the house. All right. Let's take a picture.

Thank you.

John John, can you give this to the Yes.

They're all and they're he's in the areas.

There's no. Okay. Perfect. Thank you, John.

Okay. So we're moving on to our next recognition. Everybody's in? We're good? Okay.

Now we're recognizing the Pico Rivera Dance Football Junior Grim League goal. Let's give them a big round of applause. I can't tell if my mic is working or not but if you can hear me, we'll go from there. So again, just wanted to recognize the young men earlier, wanna recognize you for what you've done and what I didn't do is read the certificate note on the last one but on behalf of the city of Pico De Reda, I wanna present this recognition for to the Pico de Reda Dance Football Junior Gremlin Gold, recognizing for your outstanding dedication, hard work, and valuable contributions to the team's achievement as the '20 25 Junior Gremlin Division San Gabriel Valley Junior All American Conference Division champions. Let's give them a big round of applause.

Congratulations on your commitment, your hard work, and everything you put out there on the field. So come and join us up here for a picture. Our coaches included as well. So come on all of you guys, come on this way, go make your way around. Tell the captain to move out the way. He's moving.

Can I say something really

quick, thanking all of the boys, we also had, my youngest son played on the Dawns, and I wanna give a shout out? Many of the boys have a patch, not only for their championship, but they have scholar athlete patches. So that means that they got, maybe the coach can tell us a little bit more about, I forget the GPA, but that means that not only are they excelling in academics, but they're champions on the field. And I think that's really important to recognize. They're at the field everyday practicing, but they're doing their homework as well. So I wanna congratulate you, all of you a shout out for your championship patch and your cool jackets, but also all of the scholar athletes from all the divisions.

All right. Yes, let's give them another round of applause. Coach, you wanna say a few words? Tell us a little bit about it.

Yeah, I just wanna thank the city for everything you guys do for us and these kids and keeping these parks safe and clean for us. And honestly, everything goes to these kids. They're the ones that put in the hard work day in and day out. We just tell them what to do. We give them the tools and you know what? They're the ones that show up during game time. So everything goes to these kids. And honestly, in the last three years, these kids brought two championships back to the city. So I'm very proud of this team and honored to be helping out and the opportunity to be coaching these great young men. So thank you guys. Appreciate everything you guys do.

Congratulations. Thank you. You, coach. Congratulations for all the hard work and commitment. Here's certificates for you. You can distribute it. They should all be there. Thank you, guys. Coach, can you designate one of the kids here to say a few words as well? Or let's see.

Who wants to tell us a little bit from your perspective? Any any takers?

Anybody? There we go.

I can't

do it. I

can't do it. And the champions are too excited. So, alright. Let's get let's have a picture. Alright. I'm nervous up here right now. It's okay.

We're proud of you.

I'm proud to be winners.

Exactly. Alright. Let's take a picture.

Real

quick. I just ran here. Santino brought his buddy steak all the way from Laughlin over here to celebrate in the festivities. You don't know this is steak.

Steak? Alright,

guys. Glad you guys. See you guys soon. Lot of energy. Okay.

We have another group coming in. How you guys doing? Excited? Alright. Wait.

Wait. Does everybody brought the rings? Alright. Look at that. I love it. We need rings, guys. We don't have any championship rings up here. Come on.

The shirts the shirts look great.

Yeah. They do. I'll defeat it. I'll take one of those. Other shorts. Okay. Everybody's in? Alright. I think we just got parents out there.

Here we go.

You guys have a lot of fans that came to support. Love it. It's the largest group. We're getting used to the new chambers and accommodating everyone but we'll figure it out. All right, so I'm gonna just go ahead get started.

Again, it's great to see you young men here as leaders and doing great work, your commitment, your passion for the game, your ability to learn from your coaches, just to, the discipline to continue has led you to become champions. And here we are, the city of Pico De Reda wants to give you the certificate of recognition to Pico de Reda Dance Football Gremlin Blue, presenting recognition of your outstanding dedication, hard work and valuable contributions to the team's achievement as a 2025 Gremlin Division San Gabriel Valley Junior All American Conference Division Champions. Congratulations. That doesn't come easy. As I mentioned, there's a lot of commitment, there's a lot of discipline, there's a lot of passion and there's a lot of support from your parents.

As a parent, I know there's a lot of commitment on their part and of course the coaches. The coaches from your head coach to everyone that participates to make sure that they're successful. They're here because of all of you. Keep it up, keep up the commitment, do the hard work and remember though, school's important. As you commit yourself to the game, commit yourself to the schoolwork and you'll be successful in life.

So congratulations, come on up here and let's take a big group picture here. So come on Lita's way. And the coaches as well, I think. Yeah. I was just wondering about for him. Yeah.

Couple of things. Alright. Let's go.

Robert, we'll get some in the bottom.

Yeah. Focus.

Yeah. Alright. Hey coach, come over here. If you don't mind joining us and making a few remarks and telling us a little bit about these young men and how they got here.

Thank you.

I don't have much words to say, but I just wanted to thank all the parents and the families for coming out and supporting us. These boys did a great job, a phenomenal job just working so hard to get to this goal. This is something that doesn't happen overnight and we worked super hard for months and everybody here knows that we did that. We thank every single one of you guys because you guys all played a big part of our journey, our championship role here. And we did a great job supporting and representing Pico Rivera and we love Pico Rivera.

I can't tell you how much as I can't tell you enough about Pico Rivera as a city. Thank you so much for all the support that you've given us. Thank you city council for holding this. We appreciate everything that you do for us. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, coach. Anyone of you wanna say a few words? The captain, anyone? Just from your perspective?

About the staff? Jack Jackson. Where is it? Estrada. Evan. Evan.

Come again. Estrada. I

just wanted to say thank you for all of your support. I mean, we couldn't have done it without you guys. You guys go into the games, to the practices. Thank you all the parents, and thank you the coaching staff for everything.

Congratulations,

coach. Congratulations, team. Thank you, everyone. And let's get the picture.

Thank you, everybody. Can you hear me? Yes. Congratulations boys. We have certificates.

You. I wanted to let you all know boys and parents, have a certificate for every kid. Make sure you keep that certificate so when you go to college and they ask you for your awards and certificates, you share that and there's one for each of you, not just for the team. So thank you. Thank you all for coming.

Right, so we'll continue. We got two more presentations. So thank you for staying here. Of course, it's municipal clerk's week. It's great to recognize our municipal clerk share in particular because this is gonna be Cynthia's first municipal clerk week recognition, right?

So, well, we're gonna congratulate you, Cynthia. I know you have been here for a while with us and you stepped up to the big seat and you've done a great job in, it's not just about elections, there's a lot more that comes to it. So I want you to come up here and your team and tell us a little bit more about it. But in recognition of municipal clerk's week, May 2026, we congratulate you and your entire team for everything you do, Pico de Vera. The city manager.

Yes, mayor. We do have a short video presentation just to show you what our city clerk's office does. If Gabe, you can queue it up.

I think I know which one I It's a little funny.

Good morning, angels.

Good morning, Steve.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep the city running smooth, accurate, and on time as always.

Once upon a time, there were three professionals who kept the city in motion with precision, grace, and a whole lot of hustle. They are the keepers of the record, the masters of minutes, the guardians of deadlines. From agendas to elections, public records to notary, no task too big, no detail too small, calm under pressure

Cynthia, I'm having a break.

Stylish under deadlines and always getting it done.

We can handle it.

This city clerk's meeting, we celebrate the team that keeps the city in motion. Our very own city clerk's angel.

Great work, angels.

Aside from getting that, what's what is your question

about Public records to

with it. So I'm glad you guys having a little fun with it. And, course, Gabriel had to do his little cameo right there. Right? It's like, voiceover over. Well again, congratulations. Bring up your team so we can be recognized and you can tell us a little bit more about it. So congratulations, give them another big round of applause please.

Well,

first off, thank you mayor and city council members. Thank you for your support and the ongoing support that you have shown not only me but the city clerk's office over the years. Thank you for this recognition, for just recognizing everything that we do in the office. From the mundane records keeping to agendas, transparency, ensuring that we have transparency, democracy, and compliance. And every now and then, you'll get an email or a phone call from us telling you that a deadline's approaching, whether it'd be conflict of interest or agendas.

This year has been a little bit more of exciting for us, in specific in the last couple of weeks, because the city clerk's office of the city of Pico Rivera received the Innovative Program of the Year award by the California Municipal Clerks Association. Exciting. What started off as

a

creative idea to engage the public and to make collections a little bit more accommodating or comfortable turned out to be a little bit more. It's been the little icon, the elections icon that we created has now been recognized through the community. Everywhere we go they do recognize it. And now they recognize it statewide. So that is something that we are very very appreciative of.

But since I have the mic, I don't always have the mic and I don't always want the mic. I do want to take the time to recognize and thank the media and communications team. From Robert to both Gabriel's, to Jonathan, Barbara, Marco, Rudy, thank you for your collaboration. I sent them the concept of my vision and they brought it to life. They blew it out of the park.

So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you Steve and Angelina. I know Angelina's not here, but thank you for your ongoing support, for your trust in our vision, in our ideas. I know there's been times that I walk in Steve's office and I tell him, hey Steve, I have an idea and he looks at me like a little concerned. But in this case, it worked.

But thank you to staff and the community and actually I wanna thank staff. Genevieve has been with the city clerk's office for many, many years with not only with me as the lead, but previous to that. And she has been an invaluable asset to our team. She literally holds down the office when I'm not there. When I give her the visions, she goes with it, runs with it, and makes it possible.

So thank you very much, Genevieve. Appreciate it. Yasmeen, Yasmeen is newer to the team, but the moment she got in, she took off with the Citrus Sam and the outreach efforts, and she has been killing it. Thank you, appreciate it. So I appreciate these ladies for their hard work and dedication to our office, and thank you to the residents for making innovative program a success, and just for trusting your local city clerk's office. So it's been an honor to serve the community, at Pico Rivera, it is home.

This is our first?

This is our first. You mentioned a couple meetings ago. Challenged me. You challenged me. You also pointed out every department that had it, kind of left out. But guess what, we have one now. So thank you very much. Thank you, thank you.

I wanna say something too, I just wanna say I've been here for seven years and seen the difference in the department. So it's so proud, we're so proud to have champions from the football to our prime and innovative program to our city clerk's office. And I also really appreciate that our city clerk's office engages youth with our pledge of allegiance that we invite children every meeting. And if you notice that, we have more and more children coming in. When I was their age, I didn't know who the mayor was, who the city council members are, and I think it really does make a difference to make the office more accessible from children to seniors.

You offer services for signatory services. I love the Citrus Sam idea, makes it more fun and friendly and engaging. So I applaud you on all of these efforts and I know it takes a lot of work. People don't know behind the scenes but even today our agenda is over 300 pages and that's the case for every single meeting. Yes, and she has to have everything accessible, digitized, legible, organized and that's a lot of work that she does and it has to be done the Thursday before every single meeting. So she's, they're working on this very hard and we only have a team of three doing this for the entire city so I recognize it's a lot of work, appreciate all that you do. So thank you so much.

Congratulations ladies. So nice. And we'd like to recognize, I know city clerk's office doesn't always get recognized as such, but thank you, Cynthia. You've done a great job. Speaking of our employees and doing a great job, we just had a capital improvement project meeting last week which talked about all the big projects that are happening in our city.

And as we recognize the fact that our public works department does a lot of great work from the office staff to our staff on the field that's there directly engaging with our residents. So again, we couldn't be prouder and appreciative of what you do. I know you, what the projects that you work on are life changers. You're changing the environment in many cases for our residents. And so you do a lot of great work, a lot of work that is not seen or appreciated, which a lot of is below ground.

But again, congratulations, thank you. We wanna recognize you, appreciate all you do. So today is on behalf of city of Pico Rivera, it's National Public Works Week, May 18 to the twenty first, twenty twenty six, rooted in service powered by community. So again, thank you staff, thank you all for you do and know that as I mentioned, all the work that is being done from public works. We have over, Steve remind me the number, I got 100 some million dollars of capital improvement projects that are coming up.

Two zero one and all of those majority is grant funded, right? 44 which doesn't come from our general fund. Now that money just doesn't come in flow automatically to our city. So there's staff and folks that are doing a great job in going after these grants. And so that's very important to recognize.

There's money coming in because of the work that you guys are doing and wanted to recognize and especially thank Maria Carrillo who's been with us for some time for what you do on the grant side. And it's a big team, it's a great team led by Noe Negrete here. So again, congratulations. Come on up so I can give you this recognition. Put a lot of pressure on this department, but that's our job to do. But again, we love you. We appreciate you. And you're doing a great work for the community. Alain, congratulations. Wish you're bringing your whole team up.

Play this for myself.

It's your weekend. Thank you very much. Say it for words? Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

Mister mayor, I just wanna say thank you to the staff for their dedication and commitment to the city. A lot of them either have lived here or have a family that still lives here. And I really can't teach them to have pride in their work. That's something that they do on their own and to care, to care about improving the quality of life for our residents. So just wanna thank them for what they do on a daily basis. Really, we're behind the scenes and our job here is to make the lives of this of the residents a little bit easier with each day. Thank you.

Recognitions. Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Okay. So now we've done with presentations. We're gonna continue on with our regular agenda items. So starting off with our public hearing. That's item number one, ordinance adding chapter 8.7 smoke free multi unit housing to title eight health and safety of the Pico De Villa Municipal Code. I'd like to open up this hearing. Mr. Sindel, is there any memos?

No memo.

I do have some written communication and some oral communications. So I'm gonna call up speakers. Start off with Joseph Ramos.

Support the city's goal of improving public health and reducing exposure to secondhand smoke. However, we urge the council to carefully consider the impact this ordinance will have on existing renters and small housing providers. The first issue is a lack of adequate time for existing renters to adjust. Many current owners moved into their homes with one year leases that allowed smoking. Changing a core element of the lease for those renters who smoke with only six months notice will put these renters in jeopardy of violating their lease, as well as losing their housing entirely.

We must remember that smoking is an addiction, telling someone they must quit immediately or become unhoused is neither realistic nor compassionate. As with any addiction, many people require multiple attempts to quit successfully, an added threat of losing their housing will only make them less likely to succeed as a knee stress trigger. At the same time, the rental housing market remains extremely competitive. If a vendor decides they cannot comply and need to move, there are very few affordable alternatives readily available. Finding an affordable housing replacement could take several months or even a year.

That is why we are requesting a long compliance period of at least one year for existing tenants. Other local cities have granted as much as three years as an off ramp for existing renters. The second issue is that similarly function properties with two or fewer units are being treated drastically different under the ordinance, which is unfair and unwarranted. A duplex is virtually identical to a single family home with an accessory dwelling unit. Both have two households living on the same lot, therefore both should be exempted from this ordinance. We respectfully ask the council to provide at least one year for compliance by existing renters, or for them to able to locate similar housing outside the city, and that all properties with two units be treated the same under the ordinance. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. I'd to invite Antonio, Antonio's ceiling.

Can you guys hear me? Oh, perfect. All right. Honorable Mayor Camacho, members of the city council and dedicated city staff. My name is Antonio. I speak today in my own capacity and as a proud community member of Pico Rivera. You may notice that myself and several community members in this room are wearing white today. We wear it in solidarity for a smoke free Pico Rivera. I was here last December, well, technically here, but at the senior center standing at a podium doing a public comment. And I want to begin by saying thank you.

Thank you to city staff for your tireless work behind the scenes. And thank you to each of you on this council for keeping your doors and ears open and for agendaizing today's discussion on this important public health issue. So yeah, we just appreciate your willingness to engage with us and to our community members. As many of you know, secondhand smoke, whether from cigarettes, cannabis, electronic smoking devices such as vaping, poses serious health risk to all those exposed, particularly children, seniors, and residents living with chronic conditions. Families who choose to keep their own home smoke free can still be exposed through vents, cracks in the walls, and shared spaces.

The US Surgeon General has been clear, there is no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure. While Pico Rivera may have fewer multiunit housing properties today compared to other cities, new housing is on the rise. Now is the time to act to ensure that our city grows and it grows in a way that protects the health of every residence and every home. I also want to personally thank those council members who took the time to sit down with our community members and hear them out last year. So thank you to all of you actually to meet with us, and to also kindly direct the dialogue about local government and how we can work together.

With that, I respectfully and constructively call on this council to move forward with a smoke free multi unit housing ordinance for Pico Rivera. Our residents deserve the right to breathe clean air, and the time to act is now. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we have another speaker, Janet Gannon. That was written, okay. This is in regards to the subject. I'll put ahead and and add it to to the record. I'm just trying to I don't read it out, but I'm trying to this is new to us. I'm trying to figure out if they're in support or oppose. Is there something in here that says otherwise I can at least say that?

That is in support.

In support, this one's in support of the ordinance, okay. Thank you. Maybe we can figure that one out so I can read that. Okay, next one is Yanet Rodriguez. Was also reading that one. Okay, and this one also is about the subject, small decree. Is this one in support of the ordinance? Okay, with that in mind, we're done with, we don't have any other written communications. We've done their oral communications. Any comments from my colleagues?

Mayor, if I may. I just wanna thank Mayor Pro Tem, Doctor. Monica Sanchez, who is advocating for this when it first started.

Okay, anyone else? Go ahead and again, thank you for the commentary. Looking at both sides, would like to close this public hearing and entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve, but with modifying the penalty where the penalty continues a fourth year onward. Currently the year one, year two and year three show a penalty but year four onward do not.

Is that a question to our, you wanna amend something but can you add some clarification, add a question to our Yes,

so if we can motion to approve so that we amend the ordinance year four onward continues a thousand dollar fine.

So right now it only goes up to year three. That's correct. You wanna do, your amendment is to do indefinitely.

Correct.

Mr. City Manager.

I'll have Alvin get some clarification on that.

Yes, thank you, mayor and council. There is no time schedule for penalties. Penalties occur first occasions, first violation, second violation, third violation, but there is no time limit. So if there's a fourth violation, it'll continue at a thousand dollars. So

it's just the violation itself, not necessarily a year to the year.

Correct, there are no time constraints for the penalties.

And my understanding is the intention is not for this to be punitive, but more educational, particularly in offense. The It's intended to educate as well because this is gonna be a part of an educational initiative as well for landlords and tenants.

Correct, staff will take the grace period through the end of the calendar year to ensure that we notify all multifamily property owners of the new law that goes into effect in the calendar year, in 2027 calendar year.

Great, thank you.

Council member based on that clarification, would like to withdraw that?

Yes, Mayor I'd like to withdraw my motion to approve and apply a new motion to approve. I'll second.

So there's a motion to approve as recommended and there's a second. Roll call please.

Council Member Garcia.

Yes.

Council Member Lutz.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem, Doctor. Sanchez. Yes. Mayor Camacho.

Yes.

Motion passes four zero.

And also wanna echo that thank you Mayor Pro Tem for bringing this to us. I know you've been working on this for some years now and I know there's been many other hurdles. Thank you everyone, appreciate it.

Yes, I'd like to say thank you as well to the coalition. I forget the exact title and acronym, I'm sorry, remind me. CHA. Community Health Alliance, Antonio Leroux, apologies, and all of the team that brought it to our attention and the community members that have shared this information and also encouraging those that are still smoking, you're correct, it is an addiction and it's not to be a penalty, but let's encourage individuals to have a healthy lifestyle and get them resources and CHA can also help give you those services as well, through free services for smoking cessation devices and other free services to help people that, of course the ordinance is not saying that you can't smoke, but it is not a way of health for people to have secondhand smoke, particularly if there are children in apartment complexes. So trying to get them to smoke less or even in areas that are not in shared environments in apartments.

So we wanna reiterate this is not to make it punitive, but more educational and helpful community. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. With that, we're gonna lead us to our public comments. Those who've turned in a green card or submitted online, I'll start off with, I know I got two names but you guys decide who's gonna speak. Evelyn and Tony Aguilar from Pico de Vera Kiwanis. Guys have been actively out there working.

Very hard.

Good for you.

Good evening. I'm Evelyn and I'm here to represent the Pikor Rivera Kiwanis, and I wanted to give you an update on where we're at. We've been meeting monthly at El Rancho Library. It's an arrangement we made with the school district and they welcomed us because we are about children. El Rancho High School has a key club and they didn't have a parent Kiwanis Club here in Pico for some years now.

Although Pico Rivera Kiwanis started in 1951. So it's not new to the community, but it's sort of faded out after COVID I believe. And so we're bringing it back because we do need the leadership of adults to help the children learn how to serve in their community. So that's why we're so passionate about getting this club started and we need a minimum of 15 brand new charter members to start the organization here in PECO and we have 10 that have signed up and have paid dues. So we're looking for five additional individuals from the community or employed here in the city to help get this club up and running again.

So I wanted to also mention to our city clerk that we took your idea and we added the little oranges to our logo and we've had t shirts made or polo shirts made and they currently have the logo on there, but we can't wear them until we're chartered. So we're sort of wanting to get this up and running as soon as possible. And because this year is the seventy fifth year Kiwanis would be in Pico Rivera, we'd like to have a big gala and fundraiser in September sometime. So with that, I have some other members here. We have a couple seconds if they want to say If

you want to share as well your email or how do they contact you and how much are the dues? You can sign me up, but I want people to know this as well.

Okay, I took a tally on what the dues is for the year and it comes, and it's $21 a month, which totals to 250 a year, and that's pretty much for the insurance and support of the International Kiwanis Club.

Okay. So how do they contact you? We Instagram and

have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have a QR code that everybody can sort of use to find out more information. I have applications for anyone interested in joining our organization and I'll put them in the back table.

Thank you, Evelyn. Thank you everyone for being here and keep up the good work. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good organization for our community. Next speaker is Lauren Talbot from the library updates. The famous Laurens.

Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. My name is Lauren Talbot, and I'm the community library manager at the Pico Rivera Library and the Rivera Library. Here are our updates for May. The Rivera Library is still closed for construction until June 2026. We do not have a reopening date yet. However, the Pico Rivera Library has extended hours of operation on Mondays from ten a. M. To six p. M. Until the Rivera Library reopens.

So, please drop by on Monday and visit us. The Pico Rivera Library Book Club will be discussing Michelle Zahner's memoir, Crying in H. Mart, on Tuesday, May 19 at six p. M. At the Pico Rivera Library, and copies of the book are available for checkout. The Pico Rivera Library will be a polling place for the June primary starting on Saturday, May 23 until Tuesday, June 2. From Saturday, May 23 to Monday, June 1, voting hours are ten a. M. To seven p. M, even on Memorial Day. And on Tuesday, June 2, voting hours are seven a. M. To eight p. M. Please come out and vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Lauren. We have a few other speaker cards that were submitted online and started off regarding Rio Hondo Park Handball Courts. Ramona Valencia. Ramona. Okay. I'm gonna submit this to record as reading comments in regards to the Rio Hondo Park And Ball Courts. Next, I got two, Ramona Valentias. Okay, I will also submit that one. And then now we have Luciana. I should be able to say it. I'm getting tongue tied here. Luciana Delgado.

Thank you. Thank you council members. So again, I'm here speaking in regards to Rio Hondo Park, to the Hamble Court, and our mural that you guys want to remove in regards to, you know, the recreation of the Rio Hondo Park. I was I looked them to online when the meeting about in regards to the fixing of Rio Hondo Park happened on 03/15/2021. What it was told that Peekerville was receiving 8,500,000 proposal, includes new playing fields, courts, fitness area, and playgrounds.

And all this, I don't have forms to I don't know if I could give you guys forms, but I do have copies of stuff. Well, it does not mention that once that the Hamburg courts were getting removed, but were getting us were supposed to get fixed, which none of that has, you know, we have not seen anything. And me being there, you know, constantly, I know they haven't, you know, been fixed, including our mural, you know, has been, you know, I I had part of it again. I'll I'll bring that up with Teen Club when I was a teenager, and it's it's just peeling everything. Carpenters, construction, and stuff.

They took a look at the courts because it was brought up to me that they were replaced, you know, unfixable. However, they did mention that that's not the case. Of course, you guys could take your own, but but these are fixable. They could be fixable. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with the hamble cords and and the commerce.

Yeah. And they're exactly the same hamble cords as ours. And those, as you could tell the big difference, those have been fixed. Those look nice, beautiful, you know, non slippery. They also have cameras inside the cords that face, you know, the whole court just in case so people, you know, do not drink, smoke, and, you know, and so far the players are due respect the rules and everything on that.

It was mentioned to me last meeting that it was, you know, the drinking had a lot to do with it. But, you know, I was, you know, I see soccer players, baseball players, everyone drinks around there. And, you know, that doesn't mean you guys are removing the soccer field or the baseball field. You know, one of the main reasons before the time's up that I wanna bring up is when my son was young, he turned 14. He played for RBA for three years.

When he turned 14, unfortunately, he didn't he couldn't play at RBA no more. He didn't make the baseball team for high school. My son was going into the streets. The handball has no age limit. They were the only ones that took him in to teach him how to play and, you know, and brought him in an open arms with no age limit. And my son right now, he's going to the trying to join the military now. But, you know, that's what big part of me why I'm so involved with the handball players. I'm just asking for you guys to not remove them, but help us fix them and for the community of Iquitriverat. Thank you guys.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. And I know we had a conversation in the last meeting. We are, meeting internally trying to figure out based on where this project is now, the Rio Hondo Park project that is and where it's headed and trying to figure out if options are available but we'll be coming forward to the group to have further conversation.

I'll continue in public.

Thank you.

Please do. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Just have one last written comment by Victor Gonzales regarding street repairs on Nantes Street. Okay.

Well that concludes our public comments leading us to the consent calendar. Before I go into the consent calendar, I wanted to ask, was gonna ask earlier, but I wanted to ask our city attorney to give us I know there's conversation about the Epic Hotel. Folks have come here and just asked about what's going on, what happened. We've explained how this has come to be and we're working through the courts. But wanted to ask our city attorney to just give us I know we have a closed session conversation following this part of the meeting, but if you can share with the public where we are, mister attorney.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, and members of the audience, and members of the public. This has been an ongoing matter of litigation. The City Council has been taking the leadership and a very aggressive approach in trying to cure the condition that has taken place at the Epic Hotel at the Northwest Corner, near the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Rosemead Boulevard. It's been a very challenging process in as much as the current operator transformed the permitted use of the hotel without contacting the city, without seeking approval from the city, without obtaining a business license from the city.

With those types of bold actions and illegal actions, the city council directed the city attorney's office, my office, to prepare the necessary documents to seek a temporary restraining order by the court against the owner of the site and against the current operator of the site. I'm pleased to report that about, well it was on the Thursday after the last city council meeting. So it's been two weeks now about. The court issued a temporary restraining order against the owner of the hotel that the they could not bring in any new, for lack of a better term, patients or residents to that location and that they would have to work cooperatively with the city to try to relocate current residents at that site. Needless to say, the operator has been less than cooperative with the city.

We are actually considering, I don't wanna go into too much detail because we will brief the city council, but we're currently considering the possibility of seeking a order from the court that the owner and the operator are in violation of the restraining order that was issued by the judge. Seeking a contempt action if necessary, and that to try and get that before the judge. I should also note, we do have a subsequent hearing date with the court of May 20. That date is the date set for what is called the preliminary injunction. That is a further enforcement or further action that supports the, would support the temporary restraining order.

So, at this point, there is a restraining order against the operator. It's come to our attention as of today that that same operator has now taken the same type of action on a motel in the city of Whittier. And we are working with the city, my office is working with the city of Whittier to provide them our pleadings. And also in return, we will try and get information from the city of Whittier so that we can present that to the judge at the time of our hearing on May 20, if not sooner. That is a quick summary of the current case against Epic Hotel and the operator whose name is Ari Stock.

This isn't the first time that this individual has engaged in such illegal conduct and activities upon a community. So, unfortunately, you know, unfortunately, we're dealing with him, but we certainly, with the council's leadership and direction, have been successful in the aggressive nature of trying to shut this thing down.

Thank you, Arnold. Thank you for that update to the community. I know residents were upset. They wanted some immediate remedy, but we have to go through the court system and here we are but we're working as aggressive as we can to bring this to closure. But as was stated, it's not just as simple as going in there and closing the doors. We had to go through the legal process and here we are. And obviously we have a closed session item to go into a little more detailed conversation. So with that, thank you Arnold. And we'll go on to our consent calendar. I'd like to obtain a motion.

I'll move mayor.

I have a first.

Second.

And we have a second. We don't have any presentation, right? City manager? Okay. So we have a first and a second. All those in favor, simply saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. No opposition or abstentions. Consent calendar items move as recommended. And so now leading us to our regular agenda item, which is item number five, fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty six third quarter budget report as of 03/31/2026. Mister city manager.

Mayor, city council, I'm gonna turn it over to Jane Guo to introduce our deputy director for the presentation.

Great.

No. This is not ours.

Good quarter.

Yes.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council member. So we are here to present the fiscal year twenty five twenty six third quarter financial review. Before we dive into the numbers, we would like to acknowledge an important accomplishment for the city. I am pleased to share that the city has once again earned investment policy recognition from the California Municipal Treasury's Association for our strong investment practice, financial transparency, accountability, and sound physical management. So the city's investment policy underwent an independent review by three industry experts and received an average score of 95.

And that exceeding the required passing threshold of 85. And this achievement reflects the city's continued compliance with state law and alignment with industry best practice. So we're very proud. And next, our deputy director Jessica will present the numbers.

Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. It's my honor to present to you the third quarter operating results. We will review the first nine months of the year and this graph before you presents the general fund operating revenues and expenditures for the '6 with those for the same quarter of last fiscal year. As was projected, both operating revenues and expenditures increased compared to the prior fiscal year. While revenues have come in 12% higher, our expenditures have a modest increase of 4%, demonstrating citywide conservative spending practices.

Total operating revenues, excluding transfers, are approximately 4,200,000 or 12% higher than the last fiscal year. There are gains in property tax, business license, and other revenues. It is important to highlight that some of the increases are driven by one time factors. Here is a visual of Major General Fund's third revenue quarter revenues. Sales tax remains the city's largest revenue source and is currently tracking slightly below last year.

Since the year over year change is below the consumer price index of 3.4%, it suggests that spending is shrinking. Households appear to be shifting towards a more cost conscious purchase as higher cost of housing, utilities, and everyday necessities take up a larger share of their budgets. These amounts do not yet reflect the impact of the ongoing conflict in Iran. As the conflict continues and fuel prices rise, we anticipate further pressure on consumer spending. Property tax increased by 1,100,000, which our big win of the year was the dissolution of the successor agency, which happened in December 2025.

While the dissolution took more than five years in the making, we are finally starting to see the economic benefits. As a result, this fiscal year, the general fund received approximately 622,000 in property tax revenue. The significant milestone will allow the city to strengthen long term financial stability. In addition, the city received 138,000 more in property tax in lieu of vehicle license fee revenue. Business license also saw an increase of 468,000, reflecting the city's continued dedication towards enforcing the updated business license tax that was approved in 2022 by the city through the passage of Measure AB.

License and permits revenue decreased by 67,000. This is because the city collected a one time plan check revenue last fiscal year for the redevelopment project at the former Knights Inn location. Permit revenues are now received as individual units are constructed, with full project completion expected in 2028. While the redevelopment of the former Knights In site has resulted in slight reduction of TOT, the project is expected to generate long term benefits through increased property tax revenues. Utility users tax experienced a modest growth primarily due to the higher electricity prices.

All other revenue increased by 2,700,000. This growth is largely driven by one time exchange of 3,000,000 of Metro funds for 2,250,000 in general fund resources. With Metro's approval, the city exchanged restricted funds for unrestricted general fund dollars, and the city can now use the funds to fund capital improvement needs. Another factor is the implementation of rent charges to the water and prime funds. For office and storage space that was previously fully absorbed by the general fund.

Next, we will review the expenditures. Most departments experience moderate increases while compared to fiscal year twenty four-twenty five. It is driven by cost drivers that are well known to us, including COLA adjustments, filling of vacancies, contractual increases, and supply costs. The largest increase is seen in the administration department, but it's primarily due to the transfer of the IT division from administrative services and the continued progress in digitizing records and branding efforts. Parks and recreation also see an increase, but it's due to expanded camp programming and senior services.

Non operating transfer out vary from year to year, and they're mainly transfers to the CIP fund. This year, council transferred 3,000,000 from Measure AV related receipts to the Pavement Capital Improvement Plan. The city also transferred 4,500,000 for the Smith Park Aquatic Center and 943,000 to support HVAC improvements at the Rivera And Pico Park Gymnasium. At the end of the third quarter, expenditures are approximately 72% of the amended budget, which is consistent with historical trends. Expenditures continue to track closely to the amended budget, reflecting strong fiscal discipline across all departments.

Staff have been proactive in managing costs and implementing targeted cost containment measures. These efforts may result in year end savings. However, it is still too early in the fiscal year to project financial outcomes with certainty. Here's the summary of revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six amended budget, along with the comparison of third quarter activity and year end projections. At the end of the third quarter, expenditures exceeded revenues by $7,400,000 primarily due to the timing of major revenue receipts, including sales tax, property tax, franchise fees and TOT, which are typically received later in the fiscal year.

While several expenditures and project related transfers are paid upfront. Given ongoing economic uncertainty and potential impacts to the city's revenues, staff continues to closely monitor revenue trends and maintain a fiscally prudent approach to expenditures. At this time, staff is presenting the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six projections on a conservative breakeven basis to maintain financial flexibility as economic conditions continue to develop. Now we will go into the enterprise funds, which are operated with the fee for service structure.

I have a question. Sure. Should we do it now or do you wanna wait till after this? There is a current ballot measure, the ER half cent sales tax that's being presented by the county. How will that projected to impact Pico Rivera? And you said our largest sales tax revenue is, sales tax is our largest revenue for the city. So will our sales tax increase if measure passes in June?

Yes, the answer is yes, it's currently going state legislation right now for possible approval to lift the caps throughout the state of California. The rationale is the less money people have to spend, it's gonna be very challenging and there's also competitive issues because if you go to Orange County, their sales tax are much less, but many budgets are challenged. Discretionary income is always dependent upon people's money. So I think at the end of the day, we have taken the initiative of trying to diversify our revenue streams. That's why measure AB was so critical where we were so reliant on sales tax.

Now with measure AB and our business license, we are diversifying our income stream. Hopefully So to insulate us a little bit better for some of these challenges that we have ahead of us.

And should that measure pass, that doesn't guarantee none of those half cent sales tax will come back to the city, correct?

No, that's Go to the county.

Go to the county. And the city, we did send a opposition to contract cities, correct? We did

send a letter of opposition to legislative bill that is going through Sacramento right now, yeah, which is in conjunction with county measure.

Thank you. So if they should pass it could potentially result in people not purchasing things in the city which would then reduce our sales tax revenue. Okay, thank you. So as

we look at the enterprise funds, the water fund, the city continues to invest in capital outlay to improve water infrastructure. The city has spent 650,000 this fiscal year. The fund is positioned to finish the year with a surplus, which will be used to fund continuing water projects, such as the destruction of wells 789, And 10, the PFAS treatment system phase two, and the Berg Street water main replacement and street reconstruction, as Noe discussed in more detail during the CPI study on May 5. PRIME launched in September 2017 and experienced a rough start in the first five years. But through disciplined financial management and strategic energy procurement practices, Prime has strengthened its financial position and can now offer a rate reduction.

This is the first step in a long range plan that provides annual financial relief to program participants. In the golf course, revenue has remained generally consistent with prior years. And while operational expenses have declined, revenues continue to fall short for offsetting the costs. The sports arena has also experienced lower revenues due to reduced activity at the outdoor venue. And this could also be correlated to possible ice activity.

And, the expenses have also decreased in line with the reduction in events and related operations. Now shifting gears from operational numbers, we will now review the proposed budget adjustments for the CIP funds. To better align funding with current project priorities and the delivery strategies that Noy presented last week, staff is recommending the reallocation of $5,800,000 from the road resurfacing program to targeted pavement preservation projects, including a slurry seal, cape seal, and curb and gutter and ADA improvements, which are more cost effective and help extend roadway life and improve pavement conditions in this citywide. In addition, staff seeks to appropriate 325,000 from the Measure R Fund balance to prioritize improvements at Marjorie Street and Passons Boulevard, enhancing pedestrian safety and accessibility through the upgraded crosswalks and ADA compliant infrastructure. This slide includes all the additional proposed budget adjustments for council review and consideration as detailed in the agenda.

Here are our recommended actions. One, receive and file the third quarter budget review ending 03/31/2026. And secondly, staff is seeking approval for the fiscal year twenty five twenty six budget adjustments as detailed in the presentation and in the agenda report. We would also like to highlight a timeline of key milestones for the upcoming budget process. We're finalizing the fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty seven budget and are very close to closing a small budget deficit.

We will continue to closely monitor revenues, expenditures, and broader economic financial conditions that may influence the city's fiscal outlook. On June 9, we will present the fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven preliminary budget to council, and on June 23, bring it back for adoption. This concludes my presentation, and we're happy to answer any of your questions.

Thank you. Thank you for the detailed presentation. Appreciate it. Any questions, comments? Mayor Pro Tem?

Yes, the item regarding the 25,000 for the immigration services, is that in addition to the 25,000 we already gave last year?

Yes, it is.

So we already expended the first 25,000 to assist.

Yes, if you recall, the council authorized up to 100,000. This is an additional tranche to help truly help some of our local residents here.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions, comments? No, thank you for that. I mean, healthy budget, you know, of course we have challenges based on what's happening out there that's beyond our control. However, think we were planned accordingly and to, emphasize the fact that we have 50% reserves, which most cities do not have that policy. Usually they're around 25% if anything. So that shows a lot in our part. And when you talked about at the beginning about procurement standards, our accounting standards and being recognized for that, you know, that's a lot of work to be done to be able to give that recognition. And the state of California is still recognizing us as a low risk city. You know, we're managing well.

So kudos to your staff, city manager and their finance director and everyone involved. You know, we're on the right track. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. With that, I'd like to entertain a motion.

So move.

So we Second. First and a second, city clerk roll call please.

Council Member Garcia. Yes. Council Member Lutz.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem, Doctor. Sanchez. Yes. Mayor Camacho.

Yes.

Motion passes four zero.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Leading us to our city manager staff reports.

Mayor, council, I just have one item. Recently our office of sustainability had an award from the gateway cities. I am proud to announce that we just received another award from SCAG, which is an association, Southern California Association of Governments. It represents over six counties, 191 cities. We received award for climate leadership in that particular category. So again, kudos to our staff who worked very hard to get that award.

Congratulations, Speaker Rivera, once again, on these recognitions. So are we putting at this, we got so many awards now, are we displaying them or?

Yeah, I had that award in my office and I can't find it. Somebody took it. I'm looking for it. So yes, we need a safe location.

Let's put them out there so the community can see. You guys are actually working and stuff. But no, thank you for that. That'll lead us then into the good of the order. Council Member Garcia.

Thank you, Mayor. I had an opportunity with my colleagues here to attend the student government. It was nice to see these young individuals into student leadership and city affairs. Also, the mayor and I had an opportunity to attend the National Day of Prayer. Just wanna thank all the pastors and give a shout out to Ramon over at Pico Park for his assistance on that evening.

The juices were flowing with Movita's grand opening on Rosemead Boulevard. If you haven't had a chance, stop by there. I recommend the ginger shot or the turmeric shot. And also, Noe, congratulations to you and your department on this week and city clerk and our finance, you guys are the backbone of the agency will keep us going, we really appreciate your hard work. Congratulations.

Thank you, thank you. Council member Lutz.

Thank you, mayor. Yes, indeed we actually, I think the entire city council, as well as a good amount of our city staff attended the grand opening of Movita Juice Bar, a healthy alternative to coffee. We love coffee, but we also like the healthy alternatives. So that concludes my comments and no items for AB1234.

Thank you, council member. Mayor Pohlten.

Yes, thank you. I did also attend the student leadership day that was with Montebello Unified School District. And many people may not know that students that live on the North Side Of Pico Rivera are serviced by that district. And Montebello the Gardens Elementary School is actually in Pico Rivera and that's the second school in the nation in terms of testing and number one in the state. So we have a really great school that's in Pico Rivera and our Pico Rivera kids attend that school.

And then Pico Rivera kids that live on the North Side also go to schools in Montebello Unified. So they came up with the idea. This is the third year that we participated, so thank you to our staff, captain as well, and city clerk, she provides a summary and a little script for them. And I think it's really important for our kids to see, not only who their elected officials are, but the career opportunities. It's an exposure to these types of jobs that they never even heard of.

What does the city manager do? Maybe they aspire to be a doctor or a teacher or a lawyer, but they don't know what a public works director is or economic development. And then we had a mayor, student mayor Camacho was awesome. It just happened to be

That'll be awesome.

The same name, mayor endorsed the prom king. They got him to do a video and the students were very bright and then the luncheon was sponsored by Commerce Casino, breakfast coffee and muffins were sponsored by Tiramia Coffee. So it takes a full day and it takes the staff to participate, but I think we're getting the rhythm of it and this is our third year. I hope El Rancho maybe wants to model it one day, maybe in the months to come.

It's in

the works. Yes, it's in the works, so hopefully we can get some El Rancho kids to come and do the same. And their topic was AI and implementing it within the city. Some students were against it surprisingly, I thought all of them were gonna love it. But in the end they did vote on a motion to implement AI within their city. So I loved the student leadership day. I also got to attend the Movita juice bar. I had the smoothie, mayor made us a smoothie. He made a mess too.

Not hired.

But they say that food does not taste good if you don't make a mess, so it was delicious.

You put

your finger in it and it rose.

So it was delicious and I love the Movita juice bar, it's one of my favorites. So it's fast and be sure to download that rewards app because you get points towards free drinks and teas and shots. They're not alcohol shots though, they're healthy shots, so that was great. In terms of new business, I've been thinking about the park and the handball courts. And I know that Pico Rivera is a tradition.

We have a lot of traditions. I'm not on that committee, but if we can maybe take it back to our parks director about possibly reconfiguring those. And it may take a delay in construction, which we hate that. But let's take a look at that seriously and see. I know that not everybody plays soccer.

Not everybody plays football. But if that's something that the community wants, maybe we need to take a look and reconsider that. Because I do remember we had those outdoor sessions. It may have been low attendance due to COVID and coming out of the pandemic, maybe people didn't wanna come out and they weren't as knowledgeable about it back then. So that's just been kind of on my mind. Don't know if I need a second or just direct staff and

We're already working on it.

Yeah, so that's something that I wanted to share.

Thank you. Yeah, we've been having some meetings with staff trying to figure that out, but thank you for bringing it up. And I I definitely am hooked to Mobita now. I think I've been there every day now, but great place. And thank you for the leadership with student leadership with Montebello Unified School District and yeah, El Rancho High School is in the works.

They've communicated so we'll be hosting them pretty soon waiting on them to let us know when. So with that, just wanted to a couple of things, wanted to invite folks to May 22, we have a Purple Heart ceremony. We are Purple Heart City now designee and we'd be doing an unveiling of a nice beautiful plaque at our Veterans Memorial Plaza. That's on the twenty second in the evening. I think it starts at six, right?

Yeah. So if you wanna join us there. In addition to that, of course we have Memorial Day on May 25 that we have a nice ceremony. So we invite all of our community members to join us there. Also, we had a World Cup spirit festival committee meeting earlier today. I know Javier has been working on that with other team members and it's exciting. It's the June World Cup World Spirit Festival. Let me correct myself there. In Pico Rivera, celebrate all things that is happening within soccer and the activities during the World Cup. And so but it's gonna be great.

So keep, know, just it's more more information is forthcoming with the with the World Cup Spirit Festival. June. Lastly, we had a Widener Narrows Dam town hall meeting led by the Army Corps of Engineers Last Wednesday at the golf course is the second meeting that they lead. We were there with staff. I had a chance to present and provide our perspective as to what's happening.

There was a lot of, there's been a lot of great questions, concerns that have come about from the community as it relates to the Whittier Narrows Dam project that is, you know, somewhere in the realm of close to $800,000,000 project. It's a five to six year project. I would say just based on that probably ended up being a billion dollar project. But as was stated, it's when that dam was built in the 40s, it allowed communities like Pico Rivera to develop and grow. And since then it has done its job as it relates to keeping that water.

The biggest question is what's a dry dam most of the year? Why would we need this? Well, Corps and engineers and there's studies have determined that it needs a major upgrade and they cannot take their risks and need to continue functioning for another, you know, seventy plus years or a hundred years. But if that one big rain did come about, it can compromise. It's a small percentage, small chance, but it is there. And unfortunately, the unfortunate side of things is that it impacts our community. We lose 60% of our green space that we've grown with. Many members of the community didn't even know it didn't belong to us. They never did. Since the city incorporated it has been with us since and we again grew with it.

But now with this fix, we lose a grand part of it. Pico Boys Streamland Park is a major major impact. We're having meetings with Pico Boys trying to figure out where we can place them. And we've had some ideas, we have some designs, we have a meeting forthcoming with them. We lose the golf course as you know, many youth and seniors play on that. It's well priced. I know that looking at the budget, we underwrite it. But then again, if we look at it from a perspective of a park, we've been underwriting our parks and programs and so forth. So we don't look at it from a cost perspective. We look at it from a service perspective like we do all our other parks.

And then of course, part of the sports arena, we've been working on that. A lot of great questions. Didn't wanna get into too much in the overall, but I think it's important because this is gonna be going on for many years. You're gonna be hearing about this. We've been talking about this. People say, why all of a sudden you tell us now we've been dealing with 2018. There's been a lot of studies being done. And then just like that, the funding was obtained by the army corps. The designs were completed. So in February, we got noticed, and all a sudden, here we are now positioning ourselves and we'll be doing more outreach ourselves as a city.

But because there's been so many great questions, we wanna make sure that we have all those common questions up on their website, but also directly engage and position the city to make sure that we're able to answer and deal with. And as we mitigate the impact, whether it be noise, dust, security issues, those are a lot of things were being addressed. But with that, City Manager, I'd like to create a I think it's warranted that we don't only have internal meetings, staff, council and army corps. And we don't only have town hall meetings that we're going to be doing a lot of them and going directly. But I think it'd be important to develop a committee that includes some residents, especially on the North Side.

So as we have these regular meetings throughout these years, they can also input in here and the community ambassadors, if you will. So I like to get a second.

I'll second that. Great idea, Mayor.

Thank you. And I think it'd be something that we need to create, figure out the criteria as to, you know, amount, membership area, you know. Most folks that are impacted are folks that live within that zone. So I would say to maybe concentrate on getting residents from that area in particular, but we can develop something and then we can figure out when we can begin city meetings for this group so they can be as informed. I know Mayor Potem was at the meeting and we had this conversation with some residents before the meeting started.

So we talked about with Mayor Potem about getting this going. I know council member Lutz was there at the meeting as well. But yeah, so I think that'd be good. Yep. So we have first, second, we're good. Sorry for the long dissertation here but I wanted to make sure that we had a meeting.

You know, right now is an extremely busy time. There's many issues going on here and there whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. And mayor, wanna just thank you for your leadership, our city manager for his leadership and all the staff who prepare and support them so we can get the factual information out to the community in a timely manner. So thank you.

Thank you, council member. Thank you. That then, that concludes the good of the order and we have a one closed session item. I'd like to ask our city attorney to lead us into closed session. Thank you all for being here.

Yes, thank you very much Mr. Mayor, members of the council. We do have one item which is the litigation related to the Epic Hotel as listed on the agenda.

Thank you. With that, let's go into closed session. Thank you everyone for being here. Have a nice evening. Pleasure.