City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening, everyone.

Get this meeting started. Roll call, please.

Councilmembers Garcia? Here. Lara?

Here.

Lutz?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Sanchez? Present. Mayor Camacho?

Here.

All here.

And to our city manager, any changes to the agenda?

Mayor, I think item number 16, we're gonna still hear the presentation, but I think we're gonna continue that to the next available meeting. I'll wait for direction from council.

So we're pulling item 16? Okay. For presentation. VERY WELL. WITH THAT, I'D LIKE TO ASK ALL TO RISE AND ASK OUR COUNCILMEMBER JOHN GARCIA TO LEAD US IN THE INVOCATION.

HEAVENLY FATHER, AS WE ARE ASSEMBLED HERE TODAY, MAY YOU BLESS THIS MEETING. AS WE DISCUSS THE BUSINESS AT HAND, MAY YOU GUIDE US TO THE PROPER AND CORRECT SOLUTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN BROUGHT BEFORE US TODAY. We pray for the ability to see clearly the directions we need to take for the care and the well-being of our community. As we look with new vision, may our serving, caring, and sharing be unto us a life service. Amen. Amen.

I'd like to ask our Commissioner Gil Perez to lead us in the flag salute.

Can we all face the flag, please? Place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you both. And I'd like to recognize our commissioners here with us in attendance. We have Justin Smith from our planning commissioner. Thank you for being here, Justin. And we have Gil Perez from our Veterans Commission. Thanks for being here, and thanks for the flex, Luke Gil. Appreciate it. With that, we're going to start off with our presentations by first providing a proclamation. So what was it, Mayor Pro Tem, about a couple weeks ago? PICO WATER DISTRICT CELEBRATED THEIR 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF EXISTENCE. AND SO THE CITY OF PICO RIVERA WAS FOUNDED IN 1958 AND WE'RE ABOUT 68 YEARS OLD. SO THE PICO WATER DISTRICT DEFINITELY HAS BEEN AROUND MUCH LONGER THAN THE CITY'S INCORPORATION AND WE JOINED THE CELEBRATION OVER AT THE W.R.D. FACILITY A COUPLE WEEKS AGO WHICH BY THE WAY WAS A GREAT EVENT A LOT OF HISTORY A LOT OF HISTORY THAT I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT SO IT WAS NICE YOU PUT TOGETHER A REALLY NICE PRESENTATION ILLUSTRATED WHERE YOU THE BEGINNINGS OF PICO WATER DISTRICT AND ONE OF THE THINGS THAT MAYOR PORTEMP AND I WENT UP TO CONGRATULATE BUT WE DIDN'T SHOW UP WITH OUR AWARD, OUR RECOGNITION. BUT WE STILL WANTED YOU TO COME SO THE COMMUNITY CAN VALUE WHAT HAS HAPPENED HERE. I KNOW YOU INVITED US SOME TIME AGO TO JOIN US, AND WE DID. BUT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE SAID THAT, YOU KNOW, The Pico Rivera, even though we have our own Pico Water Authority, Pico Rivera's existence is because of the foundation that Pico Water District has done. And so we appreciate that because we are who we are as a city based on the foundation that Pico Water District put together and made us where we are today. So we'd love to bring up the board members. In fact, Raymond, we got Pete. Pete Ramirez, who is a former mayor as well here in the city, and we have also David Angelo and our general manager, if you could join us up here as well. Something we want to, like I was mentioning, these are this is a AN ORGANIZATION, ELECTED OFFICIALS, UNLESS YOU LIVE IN AN AREA WHERE YOU ELECT PICO WATER DISTRICT BOARD MEMBERS, THEY ARE ELECTED BODY. ONCE AGAIN, THE OLDEST ELECTED BODY HERE IN THE CITY OF PICO RIVERA. AND TO BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH SUCH 100 YEARS, I THINK IT'S SOMETHING TO RECOGNIZE. AND I THINK IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR US TO, AS A CITY COUNCIL, AS A COMMUNITY OF PICO RIVERA, TO MAKE SURE THAT WE RECOGNIZE THEM AS WELL, NOT ONLY FOR WHAT THEY'VE DONE, but for the partnership that we have and the people that we represent, the CFP Correra, because the goal is the same. It's to make sure we have clean, reliable water for residents that is safe. And I believe that both entities have accomplished that and will continue to do what we can. I know the state keeps giving us more and more rules that we're not always in agreeance with, but nonetheless, if it's for the betterment of our residents to have cleaner and better potable water, that we're all for it and we do it. So on behalf of the City of Pico Rivera, on behalf of the City Council members, I want to present to you a proclamation to the Pico Water District for your 100th anniversary of existence and to the next 100 years as well. So congratulations. Thank you very much. Take a picture.

Sure.

One, two, three. One, two, three. Now can I have one with the board?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's hear a few words from them.

My name is Raymond Rodriguez. I'm currently serving as the president of the board of the Pico Water District. I humbly serve as the president. On behalf of all the board members, we have three of us here today, two of us couldn't make it, and our general manager and staff. We greatly appreciate the recognition by the city of Pico Rivera. Longtime residents here, the board members, three of us, and we look forward to strengthening our partnership, and I mean that wholeheartedly, and we look forward to seeing how we can continue to provide the city, like you said, with the cleanest potable water that we can at the best possible way we can do it, modernizing our infrastructure, whatever we can do. We're looking forward to that, as I know the city is doing the same thing. But we humbly and respectfully thank you for the proclamation and the acknowledgement. Thank you very much.

I think that's appropriate. As a rate payer of the Pico Water District and also a former director on the board,

I've always believed this, that the basic function that any community can do throughout time is protecting their water source for their community. And Pico Water District has done that now for 100 years. And it represents residents coming together and choosing to serve and to do that in an honest, transparent, and honorable way. And having sat on that board and then knowing these gentlemen and knowing the ladies that work in the office and knowing the field staff, we're blessed as a community to have such people working on our behalf to make sure that they're providing clean, drinkable water. At a at a good price, and I know that a lot of sweat a lot of equity and a lot of mental energy is put into that into improving our infrastructure, providing good jobs for those that are employed. But yet also providing a reasonable price, so I thank you gentlemen for always doing that Joe, thank you for taking the lead as a general manager. there's there's problems but it's not problems in my opinion that are internal it's a lot of times problems that are external age infrastructure and then also regulations that come down that also put a burden on the water district so, but thank you gentlemen it's it's here 100 years.

I just want to say congratulations, guys. And thank you for inviting me as well. Mayor and I were able to attend the 100th anniversary celebration at the WRD. It was gorgeous event. And like I said at the event, you guys are looking good for 100 years old. I have proposed to present the certificate at the Delray, but mayor insisted we come here. So thank you. Congratulations. And thank you for inviting us as well. Thank you very much.

when you see them over in Rio instead.

Congratulations.

ALL RIGHT, WELL, THANK YOU FOR THAT. THANK YOU, PICO WATER DISTRICT. WITH THAT, WE DO HAVE ANOTHER PRESENTATION REGARDING THE PICO DE VERA PROCUREMENT POLICY. CITY MANAGER?

YES, MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL. TONIGHT I'LL HAVE DIRECTOR NOE NEGRETE DO THE PRESENTATION. IF YOU RECALL, COUNCILMEMBER GARCIA REQUESTED THE ITEM SECONDED BY LAURA TO BRING THIS ITEM FOR DISCUSSION AS FAR AS OUR POLICY AS IT RELATES TO THE SELECTION OF WEST COAST IN A PREVIOUS ITEM NOE

There we go. Microphone is on now. Thank you. So we're here today to give you a presentation on our procurement policies. In particular, we're looking at when and why we use either piggybacking or cooperative purchase agreements. So, and let me go back here one more slide. For the piggybacking procurement in the overview, we always want to make sure it's legal. We always want to make sure that it passes various strategic importance, like transparency, efficiency, fiscal responsibility. We want to make sure that we're using the right tool. In this case, we're talking about the piggyback for the West Coast arborist contract. So the purpose of today's meeting and THIS PRESENTATION IS TO GO OVER WHEN AND WHY WE USE THESE DIFFERENT TOOLS. SO WE HAVE MANY THINGS WE PROCURE IN THE CITY AND WE HAVE A DIFFERENT TOOL BOX FOR EACH OF THOSE THINGS. WE ALWAYS WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND IN TERMS OF WHAT THOSE TOOLS ARE. I ALWAYS WANT TO MAKE SURE THOSE ARE PASSING THE LITMUS TEST FOR LEGAL AND WE'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT OUR ROLES AS A STAFF AND WHEN AND WHY WE GO USE THOSE DIFFERENT PROCESSES. Okay, so one, we wanna make sure it's legal, okay? Anything we purchase or procure, whether it be an agreement for services or a contract, we always wanna make sure that we're following our own code. So in our municipal code, chapters 3.20 and 3.48, Establish what those requirements are we also have state since we're part of the state of California their state code sections As you recall we recently updated our procurement policies for the city That changed some of the limits in terms of what we're allow and don't allow and again Any and all procurements what we're trying to do is we're trying to make sure that there's transparency we want competition right so we want a good price and We want fiscal responsibility in terms of to the residents that we're spending our money in a responsible fashion. And we want fairness, right? Because we want people to bid for us. If people are continually bidding for us and we're continually giving it to, say, the one bidder, they're probably not going to bid for us in the future because they're saying, hey, that city's not being fair. They're not being open to give us an opportunity to try to bid in that city. Okay. SO JUST LET ME TALK MORE ABOUT JUST IN YOUR OWN HOMES, FIRST OF ALL, BECAUSE THE CITY, WE DO A LOT OF CRAZY THINGS HERE THAT ARE HIGH DOLLAR LIMITS, BUT IF YOU TAKE IT ABOUT TO YOUR HOME NOW, IN YOUR HOME YOU HAVE PROJECTS YOU DO AT YOUR HOUSE AS WELL, AND I THINK EVERYBODY WANTS TO PAY THE LEAST PRICE, RIGHT? RAISE OF HANDS IF ANYBODY WANTS TO PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE. NOBODY, RIGHT? YOU HAGGLE WITH YOUR CONTRACTOR TO TRY TO GET THE LOWEST PRICE. HOW DO YOU KNOW IT'S THE LOWEST PRICE? You try to get more than one bid, right? Otherwise, you don't know, right? And then how do you know the contractor's good? Well, you try to ask them for a license, Many of us will go to a neighbor or somebody else who's used them and get a reference and that's what we do in essence is we will ask our neighbors too if there's a reference in terms of that prior work that's been done. Best reference is if they've done work for us and we're happy with that work and usually we try to hire them again, but unlike at your house, where there's no compliance rules, right? There's not the state coming down on you and say, hey, you didn't follow three bids or you didn't follow the code section 3.20 or 3.48. You can essentially hire who you want. We don't have that option. We have to follow certain protocols. Even if I want to hire somebody or if I like their price, there's still a process that we go through. So I want you to remember that is there's always a process that we go through. We're never just picking somebody randomly. It's always a vetted process. So in our toolbox, these are our foremost used tools, is when we have competitive bidding for projects, there's informal competitive bidding and a formal competitive bidding, and all this follows the public contract code. Now we use a subset of that called the Uniform Cost Accounting Guidelines, which is a streamlined version of the public contract code that allows us to do things a little bit faster. And that's where those numbers come from. Every three to four years, they update that policy by the state, and that number seems to go up. Probably dating myself, when I first started, it was about 150, and it's now grown to 220. So anything under 220 is an informal process. And I won't bore you with that, but there is certain parameters that we have to follow to make sure that we can still do that project up to that price. A formal project is what you're used to seeing more here where we go out to bid with contractors. Most of our projects are over 220, and we go through a formal bidding process. We vet them, check their references, take the low price and bring that to you to award that contract for them to go build either a road or a facility for us. Sole source purchasing, we try not to use that sparingly, but again, there is a place for that when there's a justification. So there's a sheet that we work with finance on in terms of has to be reasons why we have a sole source justification, whether it, a lot of the reasons is either compatibility with our, it could be like an IT compatibility. It could be that they're the only provider of that service or of that piece of material. And the last one is what we call a cooperative or a piggyback purchasing. And we'll go into more details on that in the following slides. But again, we do have our city code and state code that allow us to do that. And I'll go into more details. But in essence, it's somebody else has already done that process for us. And then we are just using their process that we go through and vet to make sure that it meets all of our standards, first of all. and then we award that contract based on that. And we'll get into reasons why we do that. Okay, our responsibility as a staff, again, we just don't wake up one day and say, hey, let's do this, right? I don't look through contracts or look through city's council agenda reports and say, hey, I like this contract, let's get them. We don't normally do that. There's a whole process of things that we need to look at. THIS IS IN PARTICULAR FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. SO FOR TODAY YOU DO HAVE A COUPLE OF ITEMS ON THE CONSENT AGENDA THAT ARE LOOKING AT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AND HOW WE AWARD THAT. ITEMS 12 AND 13, THERE'S TWO PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING CONTRACTS THAT WE'RE ASKING YOU TO AWARD TONIGHT. AND I COULD SAY ALMOST EVERY MEETING WE AWARD SOMETHING FOLLOWING THESE PROCESSES AND FOLLOWING THIS TOOLBOX AND WE BRING YOU THAT TO VOTE ON. FOR THE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PROCUREMENT, WE NEED SOMETHING THAT'S IN WRITING, WHICH IS A SCOPE OF WORK. It tells them in terms of what it is that we're asking them to do. So I can't tell one contractor I want scope of work A, and then another one scope of work B, give me a price, and then compare that. That's not a comparison. They have to have the same scope of work. The threshold for us in our new policy was the threshold got raised to $75,000. Anything below $75,000, we can go to the city manager for approval. Anything above $75,000, we come to the council for approval. whether it's informal or formal, sole source or piggyback, we always have a legal review, right? Our city attorney and their staff. Again, even though we're as a staff, we know all the code sections. We are looking at those, making sure they comply. We have a secondary review through our legal review to make sure that what we're interpreting is exactly what the law should be. And they're basically making sure that we're on the right path. AND IN THE END, WE BRING IT TO CONTRACT EXECUTION. LIKE I SAID, UNDER 75 CITY MANAGER, OVER 75 THAT COMES TO YOU AS A COUNCIL. AS A STAFF, WE WANT TO AVOID ANY CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. AGAIN, WE WANT TO ENSURE FAIRNESS. I WOULD SAY THE BIGGEST THING WE DO IN OUR DEPARTMENT AS ENGINEERING IS THIS PROCESS OF BIDDING. IT HAS TO BE SACRED. It has to be trust. There has to be integrity in that process. That is our covenant in terms with the community that we hold that process as sacred and we will follow these rules. Compliance. So again, in your home, there's no compliance. You don't have different things you need to comply with, but we do. We have to go back to the code and make sure we comply with these things to make sure we don't get in trouble. We don't want to go outside of the legal means when we award contracts. And then of course, we want to make sure the budget is available, right? So we're constantly in communication with finance and their team to make sure that what we understand to be available is available. We do get a lot of grants. So there's federal and state grants that also have a lot of strings attached to that. So we got to read the fine print on those grants, make sure those grants are also complying, that we're doing everything in our purchasing that's complying with those grants. I can't go backwards. Once I award it, I can't go back, oh, sorry, state. I missed these two conditions. I'm going to go back and please forgive me and let's go forward. No, we could jeopardize the money if we don't follow the rules from the beginning. So, again, all very procedural in terms of what we can and can't do. And there is a lot of collaboration across departments. We also have an evaluation team, so it's not just me picking people. whoever, or it's not just whoever the department is picking whatever service or whatever vendor, it's usually an evaluation team. So when we get proposals, we have to read them, we have to evaluate them based on the scope of work, their project understanding, their team, and their price. And we all rate those separately. When everybody's completed with their rankings, then we come together and we meet. And we talk about how you got that score. Sometimes you change your score. Depending on what somebody else read, maybe you missed something. Or maybe that person had more intimate knowledge about that proposal or that team or someone that worked on that team. And it could make the score go up or down. At the end of the day, the three, it's usually three people, you agree to your scores, you rank them, and you figure out who one, two, three, and so on and so forth is. For professional services, we negotiate the price. We don't always have to take their price that they give us. you can actually go back and negotiate with them. When we do contracts with contractors, you can't negotiate the price because usually it's low bid based. You're not able to do that. That's the difference between the professional services and the non-professional services. In terms of piggyback procurement requirements, again there is a process here so we always look at is there something out there that our neighbors have done that we like in terms of we all do the same thing right we all have a sweet sweepers we all have tree trimmers in this case custodial services we have HVAC so why why not use their process when we can okay but again we just don't USE IT BLINDLY, THERE'S A LOT OF VETTING AND A LOT OF READING AND ANALYSIS THAT HAS TO GO THROUGH. SO JUST LOOKING THROUGH THIS, LOOKING ONE THROUGH FIVE, ONE, YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOMEBODY THAT DID IT RECENTLY. I CAN'T GO BACK, YOU KNOW, WE TRY TO KEEP IT RIGHT AROUND A 12-MONTH PERIOD. WE WANT IT TO BE A RECENT BID. AND AGAIN, WE HAVE TO GO BACK AND LOOK AT THEIR PROCESS. DOES THEIR PROCESS MATCH OR MEET OR EXCEED OUR PROCESS? IF IT DOES NOT, THEN WE STOP. CANNOT USE THAT. AGAIN, WE HAVE TO, AND THEN SAY WE MEET THOSE. THEN WE CALL THE VENDOR. AND WE ASK THE VENDOR IF THEY'RE WILLING TO MEET THOSE CONDITIONS AND THOSE PRICES. SOMETIMES IT'S YES, SOMETIMES IT'S NO. WE DON'T KNOW. WE HAVE TO HAVE THAT CONVERSATION. IT HAS TO BE A MUTUAL AGREEMENT THAT WE WANT TO GO FORWARD USING THAT PIGGYBACK. AND THEN SAY IF THEY AGREE, THEN WE LOOK AT THE PRICES AND WE LOOK AT THE SCOPES AND WE GOT TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY MATCH. A lot of times we may be doing the same services, but we may not have it in the bid schedule noted out the same way. So we can't use it. Even though we may have liked that contract, the services that they're doing in a different city don't match our services. So that piggyback, it's like apples and oranges. Can't use it. So after that, we have to look at the price. Let's just say we did all those things and the price came and we didn't like the price. Well, we're not going to go forward with it. It doesn't make any sense. If it's not competitive for us to go forward, then we stop at that point. If the price is competitive and current, then we go forward and we bring out, obviously write the report, working with our administration, and then we bring it to you. So again, a lot of different things go into it. Has to be cost savings. We don't wanna pay higher than if we go out to bid. There's no purpose in doing that. Saving time, that's the other big thing too. Us putting together an RFP takes time to write the document, review the document, it goes a lot of back and forth, gotta go through legal, comes back, then we put it out on the street. Usually we wanna at least have 30 days minimum to get a bid back. And then when we get that bid back, it's not like it's automatic, we gotta go review those bids. We've got to make sure their numbers are accurate. We've got to make sure that their references are accurate, their licenses are accurate. Make sure that they have experience doing that type of work. Then when all that's done, then we bring it back. But that's a lot of time there. It could be anywhere from two to four months. So a lot of times we look at a piggyback as saving time. But not only time, but you're saving staff time, the legal review time, to be able to go through that process. Because the services don't stop. We don't have that luxury. If that service expires, that agreement, that deadline, I can't say, oh, sorry, city, the sweeper's not gonna be out there for two weeks because we gotta go get our bids, and then we gotta review the bids, and then we gotta come back to you to award that contract. We don't have that luxury. The services must continue. That's why you'll see a lot of times when we can't agree, or maybe we don't get the RFP out in time, you have to go on a month-to-month. That's what happens. Transparent and legal, I think I've said that enough times. That's always the foundation of all of our process procurements is they have to be that. They have to meet that. And it's a high level. It's not you can pass with a C, even a B. It has to be an A. Always. We have to make sure, again, cost savings, best value assured, kind of go hand in hand. And again, we want to have reduced risk in terms of we would know the contractor now. We would know the vendor if we went off a piggyback. And that's kind of the first thing. If you're doing poor work for us, we're not going to do a piggyback. If I didn't say that from the beginning, that's the foundation. If you're not doing good work, we're not going to give you more work. Plain and simple. So if you are doing exemplary work, usually that's when we have conversations. We'll talk to the vendor or to another city. Hey, when's the last time you bid this? Who won it? In this case, in West Coast, we had that conversation. Hey, what's the latest ones you had? And we'll get into more detail on that. And again, we do this. It's widely adopted, not just us, other cities, states. It's available. And for those reasons that we mentioned. In this case for West Coast, we met with them WAY EARLY ON, I WANT TO SAY EIGHT OR NINE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE EXPLORATION OF THEIR AGREEMENT, WHICH IS IN AUGUST, AND WE EXPLORED THE OPTION OF A PIGGYBACK. WE HAD THE RFP WRITTEN BUT SAID LET'S SEE IF WE CAN DO A PIGGYBACK. WE WENT THROUGH AT LEAST FIVE CITIES THAT HAD RECENTLY BID THEIR TREE TRIMMING CONTRACT And we went through their scope of work and through their pricing. So it wasn't like we just picked Rosemead because we liked Rosemead. It was because that's the one that had the best fit for us. The best fit meaning all of our items in terms of our services, best match. And that was actually difficult. Of the five, we only found two that had the same services. That was our starting point. And then of those two, we looked at the two different pricing, and Rosemead was the best beneficial price for us at Pico Rivera. And that's how we settled on Rosemead. In terms of them they did have a process they got eight bidders We looked at through their process made sure that their process met our procurement process. That was the litmus test A reputable bids and again, we were locking in their price from about a year ago So that was that was an advantage to us because if we go bid out today We're gonna bid out for today's prices now a year later Prices do go up Okay, and we'll go into that in terms of how we benefited from that. And you can see in terms of in the fall, end of the year, sorry, December, Rosemead actually awarded it to West Coast, and then we brought this back. The first meeting in June was when we finally had all the documents in line, everything was passed through legal, and we were able to bring that to you. Okay, here's the value analysis. And again, a lot of information. I'm trying to skip through the main highlights. If you have questions, you can feel free to ask. So our initial contract is going to be a three-year contract with one two-year extension. Okay, and that locks in the prices for the first three years. And as you can see, you should ask me why are year one, year two, year three different is because we have three. What we've done is we've broken the city down into three different grids. So I think when I got here, there was... HELP ME SOMEBODY OVER HERE, GONZALO, WHERE ARE YOU AT? 27, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS TOO MANY. SO I MAY HAVE SIMPLIFIED IT WORKING WITH THEM. NORTH OF WHITTIER IS ZONE 1. BETWEEN WHITTIER AND WASHINGTON IS ZONE 2. SOUTH OF WASHINGTON IS ZONE 3. AND WE TRIED TO BALANCE IT BY THE NUMBER OF TREES IN THAT ZONE. SO WE HAVE 11,600 TREES TOTAL IN THE CITY ROUGHLY. SO WE'RE TRYING TO GET RIGHT AROUND 4,000 TREES PER GRID. And that's why the prices are different, because there's not exactly the same number of trees in that grid. So our most trees is in year three, based on the price. I could tell you right there, that 415. But if you look at the price in terms of our current contract versus the new contract, should we go with this process, you'll see that the highest increase is 1.44%. The other two years are less than 1%, which we think is an excellent price for us because their contract bid five years ago. So from five years ago, we're only increasing roughly 1% five years later. And this is one of our largest contracts. So we thought that was an excellent value for us. And again, in discussions with them, our tree inventory assessment is outdated. There was a time where they weren't here for two years roughly. The inventory got, it just wasn't kept up with by the other vendor. And then we've added a lot of trees in the last three years, like the medians, for example, is a good one, where we want to go ahead and GPS those. And they've offered to do that service roughly just under 100 grand if we normally would go out to have that done. They've offered with this piggyback to do that at no cost to us, which is a benefit to us and a benefit to them because they have a software system in terms of that keeps track of the history, the work history. So I know many residents do come to us about history of a tree, when the last time it was trimmed, or if they want it removed, and all that's in this software. So we have a history now of when we done the last trimming, if it was removed, if the tree was replanted, if their request was denied to get it removed, all that history is in this program. And I'll say the last two years we've done great lengths As internal staff in training our internal staff to keep up with that as well because we out We also have a crew in our street section that does tree trimming for the lower Lower height trees and they're now they're able to cut to trim those to augment those services But also to put it in that program so that everybody's on the same page in terms of when that tree was touched Okay, so again competitive pricing right there's no there's no markup from the Rosemead right from that last year and the tree value, the tree inventory assessment included in there. And again, all these are verified numbers in terms of what we pay now, what Rosemead paid, to what we will pay in terms of those increases. And there was a question, there was a couple questions talking about transparency, making sure that we are being in a transparent process. So again, this is a competitive process. Rosemead did a competitive process through an RFP. Eight firms, went and submitted bids to the city of Rosemead, that it would be very similar to our process, should we do it ourselves? So that process does pass the transparency. Is a piggyback legal? Yes, it's legal per our code, per the state of California. We've done this in other situations. Our most popular is vehicles. We go through source well. It's how we buy our vehicles. We use estate, auto parts. We use source well. Custodial supplies. We also use source well. So we use this quite often, a tool. because you get a lower price if you have bigger volume, right? If you're buying more volume, then you're going to get a lower price. So when we go to these piggyback contracts from the state, we're going to get a much cheaper price than if we were to go buy it ourselves because our quantities are going to be a lot less. And again, the pricing's fair. Again, our highest is 1.44% in that second year. But overall, it's just 1% difference from five years ago. And again, why not do our own RFP time we can do it still there's no reason why we can't We're gonna probably get a higher price because that's a 12 year 12 month old price and it'll take more time And you know staff time and legal time to do that Let's see we have to have access to public records when you public records requests Kind of similar pricing legal legal oversight and So in summary, we've confirmed that this piggyback method is legal, has been approved by the council, reflecting adherence to best practices, not only locally, but in the state. Again, this offers great cost stability to us in terms of only getting an increase of just 1%, and would also give us uninterrupted service and a continuity for our program. And lastly, we're talking about the tree inventory assessment, that that would be done in the first year. And with that, I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you, Director, for that refresher. AS TO WHAT THIS PROCUREMENT PROCESS IS. AND JUST, I UNDERSTAND, TOO, WE'VE RECEIVED RECOGNITION BY THE STATE FOR OUR PROCUREMENT PROCESS AS WELL, RIGHT? I MEAN, FOR HIGH STANDARDS OF PROCUREMENT PROCESS, WE'VE BEEN RECOGNIZED BY THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, CORRECT?

IF THAT'S THE GFAO, IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, JANE?

NO, BUT WE SEND IT TO THE STATE DEPARTMENTS AND THEY REVIEW AND THEY OKAY IT.

WHEN WE WERE, MR. CITY MANAGER, WHEN WE WERE RECOGNIZED FOR A LOW-RISK CITY, THAT, UNDER THAT, THERE WERE STANDARDS OF PROCUREMENT THAT WERE ACKNOWLEDGED.

YES, IN FACT, A LOT OF OTHER CITIES THAT WEREN'T RECOGNIZED WERE DEANED FOR NOT HAVING THE PROPER PROCUREMENT POLICIES IN PLACE.

SO WE HAVE HIGH ACCOLADES FOR RECOGNITION FOR OUR PROCUREMENT STANDARDS.

THEY SHUT DOWN THEIR MAJOR BOULEVARD ON SUNDAY, AND PEOPLE GET OUT THERE AND ROLLER SKATE and ride their bikes and walk. And that is what it reminded me of. And it was nice to experience. People really enjoyed the Smith Park location with the... The screen, that big screen. I heard that people would like that screen for movies in the park. It's large, but it's nice. And I don't know if in some way we could do like a Dodgers game. like a playoff game or, or maybe a world series game. I think we're going to do the world series. Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I, and I respect the fact that it takes planning, right. And so on and so forth, but I think that would be a really good venue to have. And if I can, if I could say this from the dais, people enjoyed the expanded beer garden. It is what it is. Um, uh, but, but people enjoyed that. And, and I think, I think that's, um, there's things to take away that we can, you know, constructive, constructive criticism about that project. But at the end of the day, I think there's things that we take away that were positive and it was just good that we as a community were able to provide that. And also the soccer clinics, um, THE SOCCER CLINICS. I DON'T WANT TO GET TOO LONG-WINDED ABOUT SOCCER, BUT I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE PROVIDE THESE SORTS OF ACTIVITIES FOR OUR CHILDREN, FOR FAMILIES, BECAUSE SOCCER IS DEFINITELY A THING IN OUR COMMUNITY. THE NEXT ITEM WAS THE AQUATIC CENTER, THE GROUNDBREAKING FOR THAT. I'M GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF. THAT WAS A SPECIAL ITEM. THAT WAS A SPECIAL ITEM. I REALLY APPRECIATED I REALLY APPRECIATED YOUR SPEECH, MAYOR. YOUR SPEECH, MAYOR. I THINK YOU TALKED ON, I THINK YOU TALKED ON, YOU TALKED ABOUT THE PROMISE YOU TALKED ABOUT THE PROMISE THAT WAS MADE TO THIS COMMUNITY THAT WAS MADE TO THIS COMMUNITY TO IMPROVE OUR INFRASTRUCTURE TO IMPROVE OUR INFRASTRUCTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN. FOR OUR CHILDREN. I JUST THINK ABOUT THAT MINDS I JUST THINK ABOUT THAT MINDS PROJECT ABOUT THE BIKE LANE. PROJECT ABOUT THE BIKE LANE. AND I FORESEE, ONCE THAT'S DONE, AND I FORESEE, ONCE THAT'S DONE, I FORESEE KIDS RIDING I FORESEE KIDS RIDING THEIR BIKES D Like a lot of these projects that staff, council's leading, it's like legal pieces. It's coming together to just provide more opportunity. But, you know, I'm happy just it's taking a little bit longer than what was anticipated, but I'm happy with our project management company that we hired. I'm happy with the contractor that we've hired. Just solid people all the way around. And I'm confident that that's going to give us a really legacy project. Lastly, I managed... to put together a meeting with Skag and our staff with Javier, Mr. Hernandez, and also Mr. Farrar, Mr. Negrete. And we presented some of the projects that we're doing, pushing forward. There's a lot of money that they oversee and just ways in which we can fit to continue to advance our community forward. But not only just like projects that affect Pico Rivera, but also regional projects. There's a number of transportation projects that the city's working on that we're spearheading that improves our lives, but then improves the lives of our communities around us. So that's it. That's all I have to report. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. I'll go to my right. Councilmember Lutz.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to speak on AB items, AB 1234. I attended the Gateway Council of Governments meeting this past month. And on another item, along with you and the rest of the council and city staff, we attended the groundbreaking of our Smith Park Aquatic Center, an amazing project, over $40 million. And it's probably going to be one of our memorable projects that we're going to have this generation at Smith Park. So we're very happy to be a part of that. And it's a long time coming. And I look forward to that project to be completed sooner than later. And of course, I want to give a big thank you to the creativity of our Director Hernandez for World Spirit Festival, because I think it's bigger than the World Cup. It now expands Pico Rivera. as a city that has a reputation that embraces celebration of all communities and all ethnicities and races and religion to come together in a free event and enjoy themselves out in the open. And of course, if we do a little consolidation of the venue, I think we're just gonna have an explosion of attendance for future events. So I'm looking forward into doing a couple modifications and making that an amazing event in upcoming years. Aside from that, I do want to close with one item that I find very dear and special to me. This past month, I had the opportunity to travel to Changting County, Fujian Province in the country of China. And I took my colleague with me, Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem, Dr. Sanchez, to explore the opportunity of sister cityhood outside in another continent. And I've been out to China three times prior, and this was just an amazing opportunity where we take children all across the United States to interact with other students. there in China and they get to experience either whether it's basketball or football or soccer competitiveness. And this time around we were exploring playing pickleball and we had an enjoyable opportunity to play pickleball with these professional pickleball coaches out there in Fujian Province, China. We also explored going to a middle school in this respective city called Changting County. And we met the principal and the students. And the students were so happy to see us. But yet they were even more happy and can't wait to see when we bring our middle school or our local high school students out to their respective city. And so I'm working diligently on making that happen. One of the great things that we also did was explore some of the local artists of the community. And there is a tradition, an art form of paper cutting that is centuries old. And one of the local artists created a one-of-a-kind piece for us. And it was a paper cutting image of a historical building there in the respective city of Changting County. I wanted to reveal it And it's a gift from the local government to our local government here in Pico Rivera. Wanted to reveal it here while we're... Yeah, while we're here on the dais. And my colleague here, Dr. Monica Sanchez, she'll go ahead and showcase it. The many hours went into this one-of-a-kind art piece. And again, if you look at it, you have actual red construction paper type material that's meticulously cut in the design of that historic building there of Chantine County. And again, that was gifted to us to showcase. in a symbolic gesture of starting the process of becoming sister cities. So I wanted to share that with the community and hopefully we can put that somewhere for the public to view in the upcoming weeks.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

They're going to take a, Robert wants to take a picture of us at the end of the meeting. Why don't we hold off and we'll do one right there so we can finish the public comment. Thank you.

And then one final item. We had the opportunity to go up on a hilltop because Fujian Province is an area that's rich in historic and known for its historical sites and historic buildings. government parks. We went up on a hilltop and we planted a tree, symbolic of the future sisterhood that we're looking in, embarking on between the two cities of Pico Rivera and Fujian Province. So with that, I'd like to conclude. And again, one thing that I always like to tell people is that regardless of politics on a national level, All of us communities consist of human beings, and we all are prideful of our heritage and culture. And that's the one thing that we have in common. We have culture and heritage, and that's all sewn and held together with families, with mothers and fathers and parents and uncles. And so we have one community across the Pacific extending their hand of opportunity of friendship WITH US, AND WE'VE EMBARKED ON THIS PROJECT WITH FOUR PRIOR CITIES IN MEXICO, AND I THINK THIS IS A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY IN THE UPCOMING MONTHS TO WORK ON THIS FRIENDSHIP CITY PROJECT. AND THAT CONCLUDES MY COMMENTS, MR. MAYOR. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER.

I'LL GO TO MY LEFT, COUNCILMEMBER GARCIA.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. FOR AB 1234, ATTENDED THE SANITATION MEETING, And I just want to thank my colleagues on the dais because I wasn't on city council when you started to put together the rendering and for the aquatic center. But what an amazing groundbreaking that was put together. Kudos to the staff. It was well done and well presented. Great job. Javier Hernandez, great job with you and the staff and the team and everybody who put together the Spirit Festival. Actually, when I seen those rides, I got a flashback of the Pomona Fair and those big giant turkey legs. But, you know, it was well done. And that libation area was a 40 by 20. I measured it. It was a 40 by 20 and it was huge and it was full on. But the jumbo screen, as Council Member Lara talked, you could have other sports venues and watch parties there. It's a great idea. And that's what the community was sharing. The car show was amazing on Whittier Boulevard. Mayor, I would like to look at a critique and one of our ad hocs TO LOOK AT LESSONS LEARNED, TO LOOK AT LESSONS LEARNED, TO LOOK AT LESSONS LEARNED, WHAT WE DID WELL, WHAT WE DID WELL, WHAT WE DID WELL, WHERE CAN WE IMPROVE WHERE CAN WE IMPROVE WHERE CAN WE IMPROVE WITH 2028 COMING, WITH 2028 COMING, WITH 2028 COMING, TURNING THE CORNER, TURNING THE CORNER, TURNING THE CORNER, AND WE CAN ARCHIVE AND WE CAN ARCHIVE AND WE CAN ARCHIVE THIS INFORMATION THIS INFORMATION THIS INFORMATION ACROSS THE GAMIN, ACROSS THE GAMIN, ACROSS THE GAMIN, SO THAT WE'RE BETTER PREPARED, SO THAT WE'RE BETTER PREPARED, SO THAT WE'RE BETTER PREPARED, AND WE WOULD DELIVER AND WE WOULD DELIVER AND WE W TO THE WATER DEPARTMENT. THEY CAME OUT ON AN EMERGENCY CALL ON THE SOUTH END OF TOWN TWICE. ONCE ON FRIDAY ON CALL AND SATURDAY THE CITY HAD INSTALLED SOME NEW WATER METERS BY THE CURB THE LEAK HAPPENED TO BE ON THE RESIDENTIAL SIDE. THEY GOT THEIR PLUMBER. AND WHOEVER THE STAFF WAS, WAS PROFESSIONAL, KIND, RESPECTFUL, COURTEOUS TO THE RESIDENTS. SO PLEASE CONVEY THAT MESSAGE. JOB WELL DONE. THAT CONCLUDES MY REPORT, MAYOR. THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER. MAYOR POTENTIAL.

YES, THANK YOU. I have a few items to report. My first item I wanted to report out was the, what was my first item? Here we go. My first item, I do wanna mention that I attended the 100th anniversary at the Pico Water District with Mayor. And it was great to be able to celebrate with them. Secondly, I did attend the World Cup Festival on one evening and I thought it was wonderful. I got great reviews on the carnival rides and just the screen and the park. The only gripe that I heard was about the price of the food. But I said, hey, inflation, you know, we can blame someone else for that. But that was the only thing, you know, that came up in terms of the festival. But I heard great things. And I think we can build off of that and see what we do for the future and growing our projects in the park and our events. I also had the opportunity, as Councilmember Lutz mentioned, we were invited by the Minister of China and also we were joined by a minister. She was a woman, right? The Minister of Education. And we visited a high school in China. We visited a humanoid robotics factory. Technology is way advanced, more than here. in China where we went. I saw a lot of similarities with Chengting and us. Although they're a larger province, they have a lot more people, they too have a river that runs through their city. Our rivers are on each side, but they have a river that they were highlighting. We got to take a boat tour along that river. In addition, they received us very well and I think that part of this initiative through the Minister of Tourism and the Minister of Education is post-COVID Americans have this xenophobia or fear of Asians and Chinese culture because of COVID. And, and so there's this push to help invite Americans like ourselves. And thank you, Council Member Lutz for inviting me. Mayor was invited as well, but I think every, it was the week that Saturday of the Spirit Festival. So unfortunately not all of us could go, but it was, it was a wonderful experience. And I think we're, we're supportive of learning about Asian culture. We have Chinese, I think, I don't know how many, very few, but I think that it's great to teach our youth about culture. We were invited also to a baseball exhibit. It was called Pitching Across the Ocean, where they invited youth from high school and college age to play big exhibition games with teams from Hong Kong, and all over as well as Iowa, Hawaii, United States. They give us an invitation as well to bring youth to play a soccer game in August. I don't know that we can make that happen when they need 17 kids and three chaperones, but we do need to get a visa. But I think this is an opportunity for us to engage in cultural exchange. I learned a lot. I've never been to China And I think that it's a great experience, cultural exchange between our cities as a potential. Lastly, I wanted to bring up as a couple of items. One, the fireworks. I wanted to piggyback on the resident what she said. I experienced... excessive fireworks and that damage to my house and my neighbor's home. So around 9 p.m. in 4th of July, a illegal firework struck my neighbor's roof. The ceramic debris shattered and shattered the vehicle of a car parked in front and also shattered my glass patio table and the second story window at my house. So the fire department had to come out in the evening and extinguish the firework, which was inside my neighbor's attic. He had to cut open the roof and also the house, his house smelled like smoke. It was a world war, a war zone out in my neighborhood on 4th of July, which is usually a quiet neighborhood. So I think this is serious and I appreciate the efforts, but I would like to be in support of further supporting our sheriffs. And I know that we're already have a deputy shortage. I know that we have our PSP team, but perhaps if we are able to have more resources go toward that team because these are illegal fireworks that are being smuggled into our city. So we should treat it as such, like we treat drugs in the city. And this is causing thousands of dollars of damage. Not only the noise complaint, not only the people not sleeping, the dogs, but I really experienced it firsthand and my neighbors too. And there was a palm tree that caught on fire in Montebello. And so there are serious dangers, not only injuries, but property damage too. that can come and have come from these fireworks. So I'm on board with, I don't know what our deputies, what our captain recommends, increase in the fine to, Whittier has a $5,000 fine, whatever recommendations, let's take a look at that and bring that back to the table and see, because it seems like perhaps the increase in tickets is due to our increase in enforcement, but it's not, it's not reducing the instances or severity of of our fireworks and these weren't safe and same fireworks this felt like a bomb and that went off enough to shatter my second story glass window and a patio outdoor patio table so there's this is severe damage and thousands of dollars in property damage that is happening and it could have caught homes multiple homes on fire So that's one thing I'm serious about. And if we have a committee, whatever it may be, I would like to be part of that. And then secondly, just wanted to give the kudos again about the parks, but also I know we're gonna have the concert in the parks coming up. I don't know if the parks director is gonna give a little bit about that. I'll let you share, because I don't remember all of the details. The Summer Street Fest.

Yeah, sure. I just also wanted to let Council Member Lara know that the last two Halloweens, we did have the Dodger game on the big screen because it was during the World Series. So, yeah, and we had to stop the contest, the Halloween costume contest.

I was watching that.

So we're all for that. But we do have Summer Street Fest coming up August 14th and August 21st. August 14th, we are collaborating with Ahua and it's going to be a tribute to mariachis and Jalisco style music. It's going to be really fantastic with folklorical dancers and we're going to have great music and great vibes and a beer garden. So we encourage everybody to come out to that. And also on the 21st, I think this is going to be really special. I feel like it's a tribute to a Rancho High School and retro. And so we've got Exposé, who's a high school graduate, will be there. We've got the Tapia Sisters, who will be there as well, high school graduates. And we also have Dawns of Distinction, who will be playing. So it's going to be a really good kind of experience.

back in the day tribute. Yeah, 1980s and the Dawns of Distinction are the alumni high school, El Rancho High School alumni band.

Oh, it's going to be a reunion. It's going to be really fun. Yeah, we encourage everybody to come out, please. And then also we have National Night Out, which will be we're collaborating and helping our captain and the sheriff's department on July 31st. So we hope you all come out and it'll be here at City Hall. There is going to be a backpack giveaway as well. And I believe that is Assemblyman Calderon's office who will be giving out backpacks.

Thank you for that, Director Ugar. That's very important.

Oh, I forgot to mention, these are the paddles. They, too, like pickleball, just like us. They took us to this extravagant mega pickleball court, and we got a private lesson from a Chinese coach. Our coach didn't speak English, but we had a competition. My team won. And the coaches, we had them sign. They sent pickleball signed by our coaches. And so we had a lot of fun. It's great exercise. So I'm going to have to play pickleball at our... LET'S GO, JOHNNY.

WELL, PICO BALL WELL, PICO BALL WELL, PICO BALL IS FORTHCOMING IS FORTHCOMING IS FORTHCOMING IN PICO RIVERA AS WELL.

IN PICO RIVERA AS WELL.

IN PICO RIVERA AS WELL. YES, YEAH. YES, YEAH. YES, YEAH. ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU, MAYOR POTEM. THANK YOU, MAYOR POTEM. THANK YOU, MAYOR POTEM. I DO JUST HAVE A FEW ITEMS. I DO JUST HAVE A FEW ITEMS. I DO JUST HAVE A FEW ITEMS. I'LL GO THROUGH THEM QUICKLY. I'LL GO THROUGH THEM QUICKLY. I'LL GO THROUGH THEM QUICKLY. JUST A COUPLE THINGS JUST A COUPLE THINGS JUST A COUPLE THINGS JUST WANT TO ECHO. WANT DIRECTOR HERNANDEZ FOR LEADING THIS EFFORT. I'VE BEEN PART OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE ALONGSIDE COUNCILMEMBER GARCIA. THERE'S A LOT THAT WENT THROUGH IT. THE CITY MANAGER, OUR ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER, OUR FINANCE DEPARTMENT, OUR PARKS AND RECS, EVERYBODY AT THE END OF THE DAY, JOB WELL DONE. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAS NOT BEEN DONE IN THE CITY OF PICO RIVERA, PARTICULARLY CLOSING DOWN WHITTER BOULEVARD. BUT I THINK OVERALL, WITH EXCEPTION TO, I KNOW, WITH EXCEPTION TO, I KNOW, WITH EXCEPTION TO, I KNOW, SOME INCONVENIENCES SOME INCONVENIENCES SOME INCONVENIENCES OF SOME RESIDENTS, OF SOME RESIDENTS, OF SOME RESIDENTS, PARTICULARLY ON PAST SINCE PARTICULARLY ON PAST SINCE PARTICULARLY ON PAST SINCE BOULEVARD BECAUSE BOULEVARD BECAUSE BOULEVARD BECAUSE THE STREET CLOSURE, THE STREET CLOSURE, THE STREET CLOSURE, I THINK IT WOULD PUT US I THINK IT WOULD PUT US I THINK IT WOULD PUT US UP IN THE MAP UP IN THE MAP UP IN THE MAP WITH THE ULTIMATE GOAL WITH THE ULTIMATE GOAL WITH THE WE SHOULD HAVE THIS POOL READY FOR OUR KIDS AND ALL FAMILIES TO ENJOY, SO SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO AS WELL. SO I DO HAVE SOME QUESTIONS IN REGARDS TO SOME UPDATES, QUESTIONS THAT WE NEED UPDATES AS IT RELATES TO OUR ROAD IMPROVEMENTS. I KNOW WE'VE, DIRECTOR NEGRETE, YOU'VE, AND CITY MANAGER, We've spoken about the road improvements that are forthcoming. There's several, quite a few million dollars that are forthcoming. I know we've discussed that the process will lead us into July, August, and so forth. Can you tell us where we are on those projects, on that road improvement that entails major corridors and residential streets?

Yeah, it's commonly known to us as CIP 50106. It's just under $10 million, roughly $10 million. So we did receive the bids. We're evaluating the bids. I can tell you that we are investigating the low bidder a little bit more, kind of like per your comments earlier. And we're working with our city attorney's office, and we'll be getting ready to bring that back at the next special meeting.

And it is something that's forthcoming, but again, we want to do it right. but I just want to make sure that the residents, I know that's something that they hadn't, we've been doing road improvements throughout, but this next phase is forthcoming. It's around the corner and we should be seeing some more construction. It's going to be, again, people complain about the road closures, but we're going to be improving our roads. So on the same subject regarding roads, I know we have a project that is led by Gateway Cities in regards to the fiber optics. I KNOW THAT CONTRACTORS HIRED BY THE UTILITY COMPANIES COME AND DO REPAIRS INTO THEIR LINES, WHETHER IT COULD BE, YOU KNOW, A GAS COMPANY OR EDISON OR YOU NAME IT, AND THEY COME, MAKE HOLES, FIX, AND LEAVE, AND THERE'S A PROCESS FOR IT TO MAKE SURE THAT THAT HOLE THAT WAS DONE WAS LEFT AS THE CONDITION THAT THEY FOUND IT OR BETTER. HOWEVER, THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT IS HAVING, I WAS PROBABLY SEEING THERE'S PROBABLY A GOOD 40 TO 50 HOSTS THROUGHOUT OUR CITIES, INTERSECTIONS. THERE'S A LOT OF PATCH WORK GOING ON RIGHT NOW. ONE, I ASSUME THAT'S NOT THE FINAL, BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, AS I WOULD BE COMPLAINING MAJOR RIGHT NOW. BUT TWO, WHAT IS THE PROTOCOL FOR THEM TO COME BACK, THE CONTRACTOR, MAKE SURE IT'S DONE, AGAIN, AS THEY FOUND IT, IF NOT BETTER. because I would like to see that because that's a large project and so many holes in our streets. I would like that to come forward to us to make sure that this contractor has completed it and done it to the level that we set our standard of expectation.

So thank you, Mr. Mayor. There was extensive conversation about this on the plans. So we went back and forth with the designers on that in terms of what our expectation was for the restoration of that pavement, whether it be concrete or asphalt. You're correct. They basically started on the north side of the city on Beverly. They've completed Beverly, come down Rosemead, and now they're in Whittier. They completed Washington, that little small segment up to Passins. And now they're on parts of Whittier and parts of Passins now. We want to get out of Passins before school starts. They're actually well on schedule. They're doing a good job with communicating with us. So they this is the gateway called project. So they have a contractor that's doing the work which we've met with several times then they have a construction management Consulting firm that oversees them with an inspector and then we have our inspector Who is in constant communication with their inspector? so you're correct right now the holes that are out there are temporary and in nature and We've gone over what our expectation is in terms of what we want to be put back. That's agreed to on the plan. And what they'll do is they'll do it all at one time. So right now, the primary goal is to get the conduit in the ground, get that in the ground first. That way, they don't have to disrupt all the different traffic. They're putting in back what they call temporary asphalt. And then once they complete all the underground work, they'll come back and do all the asphalt permanent fixture first to what you exactly said to either equal to or better than what was out there. What will take a little bit longer is the concrete pieces that are in the intersections. Because we don't accept just piecemeal. They have to take out the full panel. So if you ever look at a concrete intersection, it's about 10 by 10, and you'll see the little lines, the score lines. In some cities, you'll see where they just let them rip through it, and they give a little four-foot strip or whatnot, and it gets uneven, and we don't allow that. they have to take the whole piece out. If they even touch, you know, one by one, they got to take it all out. So you'll see that at the end of the project. And I can give you a schedule later, but they are on schedule. They are going to be out of passes before school starts.

And I think this conduit is a good thing. It's a good investment in our community. So that's a great thing. But, you know, it's the...

THE CONTRACTORS THEMSELVES, OR THE SUBS, OR THE SUBS, OR THE SUBS, WHOMEVER THEY MIGHT BE, WHOMEVER THEY MIGHT BE, WHOMEVER THEY MIGHT BE, THEY MIGHT JUST KIND OF, THEY MIGHT JUST KIND OF, THEY MIGHT JUST KIND OF, HEY, THIS IS GOOD ENOUGH, HEY, THIS IS GOOD ENOUGH, HEY, THIS IS GOOD ENOUGH, SAVE SOME MONEY, AND WE DON'T, SAVE SOME MONEY, AND WE DON'T, SAVE SOME MONEY, AND WE DON'T, GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT, GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT, GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT, THAT'S NOT GOOD FOR US.

THAT'S NOT GOOD FOR US. THAT'S NOT GOOD FOR US. I'M TAKING THIS AS I'M TAKING THIS AS I'M TAKING THIS AS A COMPLIMENT, BUT THEY ALWAYS A COMPLIMENT, BUT THEY ALWAYS A COMPLIMENT I'D LIKE TO REQUEST, IF THE COUNCIL IS OKAY WITH IT, THAT THIS PARTICULAR ONE, ONCE YOU'VE DONE THOSE CHECKLISTS OF MAKING SURE THAT IT'S TO STANDARD, TO OUR STANDARD, IF YOU CAN COME BACK TO US, DIRECTOR NEGRETI, AND REPORT THAT THAT IS THE CASE SO WE CAN MAKE SURE THAT IF WE'RE ASKED BY THE COMMUNITY, WE CAN SAY, YOU KNOW, THUMBS UP.

YEAH, HAPPY TO DO SO. SCAGA set up a website for this project, so if you want me to send that out to you, I can. You should get questions. They have a specific person doing public relations and outreach for this project.

Thank you very much on that. Just for me, lastly, I also was able to go about a week ago to our sister city, Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. They put up a street, not a street sign, a sign, Pico Rivera, just similar to where I have a sister city, so they kind of unveil that and reaffirm our sister city with President Alejandro that joined us. So it was a great ceremony to reaffirm our sister city relationship. With that, that concludes our good of the order. We do have two closed session items that I'll ask our city attorney to lead us into. But I'd like to ask our city council to just hold off. We're going to take that group picture. AND I'D LOVE TO, AND BEFORE WE GO INTO CLOSED SESSION, WE'RE GOING TO ADJOURN THIS MEETING IN MEMORY OF TERI CORRELLA, WHO WAS A VOLUNTEER AT RBA, DONS, AND ARANCHO HIGH SCHOOL. IN HER MEMORY, WE ADJOURN THIS MEETING. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE. APPRECIATE IT.

THANK YOU. YES, MR. MAYOR, AS FAR AS CLOSED SESSION, WE HAVE THE TWO ITEMS THAT ARE LISTED ON THE AGENDA UNDER CONFERENCE OF LEGAL COUNSEL EXISTING LITIGATION. THANK YOU FOR COMING.