City Council - Regular Meeting

like to call the regular meeting of the city council to order. January 6 at 700 p.m. May we have the roll call, please. Council member Chavez here. Council member Chen is absent. Council member Yu here. Mayor Proen Man here. Mayor Sternquist here. Thank you. A motion to excuse Council Member Chen. Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Do we need a roll call? No. Okay. Okay. I am going to ask Jennifer if you would lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please. Invocation.

Oh, the invocation. Well, it's okay. We can do them. You're both. Okay. All right. Right hand on on your heart, please. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] And we have Jerry Jambasian who will be leading us in the invocation this evening. Welcome, Jerry. Thank you, mayor. So if we stand.

If we could all stand. Great. Good. [cough] Let's pray [clears throat] together. Our gracious heavenly father, as we gather here today to embark on a new year, let us take a moment to pause and reflect. We stand at the threshold of new beginnings with opportunities before us to serve our community and uplift our one another. In this point, a spirit of renewal, may we be reminded of the values that bind us together. Compassion, unity, and a shared commitment to the well-being of our residents. Let us embrace the diverse voices of our city, recognizing that each individual brings unique strengths and pers perspectives that contribute to the fabric of Temple City. As we make decisions that will shape our future, may we be guided by the wisdom and integrity that these council members provide, let us approach our work with open hearts and open minds, fostering collaboration and understanding. Together, may we tackle the challenges ahead, turning them into opportunities for growth and improvement. As we step into this new year, may our actions reflect our dedication to creating a vibrant, inclusive, and thriving city for all who call it home. Father, we continue to pray for our first responders such as our sheriffs. And I do want to give a shout out to uh Deputy Buouie, who uh welcomed a new son uh this last few weeks, and thank you for that. our firefighters, our paramedics, and public safety who protect and serve us every day. Father, tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of our devastating windstorms and wildfires

that affected thousands just north of us in Aladena, including our city attorney. We look to the future as we soon celebrate Lunar New Year and the 82nd Chameleia Festival. With gratitude for the opportunity to serve and a hope for the future of Temple City, let us now begin our work together for your glory. We ask this all in your name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jerry. [clears throat]

Did you know that? And for those of you in the audience, Jerry Jambasian is the owner of Wonder Cleaners and Draperies located at 9136 Lost Tunis Drive. And if you have any dry cleaning needs, go see Jerry. So, thank you. Um, we move to item five, ceremonial items, presentation. And I'm going to call on our parks and recck secretary, Jennifer Venter, to introduce the contest. Hello and good evening, Mayor Sternquist and members of the city council. Tonight, we are recognizing the most festive holiday and decorated homes and businesses in Temple City. Last month, our judging committee made up of parks and recreation commissioners considered a multitude of homes and businesses throughout the city. The winners received a holiday ornament and lawn sign in December. And tonight, all are receiving city council certificates. Of the many homes and businesses decorated, the following 20 winners shined for their creativity and holiday spirit. And we are ready. We're going to start off with the residential winners of the holiday decorating contest. Uh, first off with 4826 Alesandro Avenue, 5209 Baldwin Avenue, 5136 Durine Avenue, 10703 Frier Avenue, 5632 Glickman Avenue, 9903 Lar Roa Drive, 9922 Lar Roa Drive, 6436 Loma Avenue 5309 Noel Drive 5563 Noel Drive

6136 Oak Avenue 10520 Olive Street 9335 Pentland Street 5733 Temple City Boulevard 5446 Wellland Avenue, 5226 Wilmont Mononte Avenue, and then now we are on to the business section. Is Jennifer, is that more than we normally give out or is that about the same as last year? It's the same that we give every year. Okay. Seems like a lot more. Yeah.

Cool. And starting with the businesses, we have 9217 Lost Tunis Drive, Classic Cut, Scott Dog Grooming. 9403 Lost Tunis Drive, Super Pets. 9628 Lost Tunis Drive, Temple City Bike Shop. Yay. Is anybody here from there? Oh. [laughter] Followed by 5829 Roseme Boulevard, Banana Bay. And that concludes the presentation. Thank you, Jennifer. Congratulations, guys, and thank you [applause] for being here.

So, I'm going to ask all the winners to come up and the council to take a picture, and then Jennifer will pass out the um certificates. Yes. Okay. Can will we know who belongs to which house and business or we're not going to disclose up individually or have them all? Um I'm going to have them come up as a group. I'm reading the There's not that many here. It's crazy. Okay,

you can do whatever you want. You're the mayor. How are you? I will hop in. All right.

Good. Thank you.

All right. And this means we're not Oh, you're welcome.

Before you go, I just want to ask, how many of you decorate for Halloween? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. [laughter] If we leave it up until Halloween, only if they're orange lights. I mean, I see so many um Halloween decorations now in the city. Yeah, a lot of more people do. Yeah, it's really fun to see all the Halloween and Christmas decorations. Thank you, Jennifer. Oh, there it is. Did a good job.

Okay, we move to item six, public comments on items not listed on the agenda. The city council will now hear public comments. Those public comments. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Nope. I'm going to close public comment. We move to item I'm sorry. We do consent. Did we do it? It's next. It's next. Next. I'm sorry. We move to item seven, the consent calendar. All consent calendar items may be moved. Approved. [laughter] You're thinking I'm at a JPI meeting. We we make a motion before we give you a chance to finish. Oh lord. Okay. Motion to approve. I'll second.

It's been moved and second is fine with me. All right. May we have a roll call, please? [clears throat] Council member Chavez. Yes. Council member Yu. Yes. Mayor Prom man. Yes. Mayor Stern. Yes. Okay. We move to item eight, public hearing rescheduling for ordinance number 25-1086. Um man, our city manager, Brian Cook.

Thank you, Mayor Stingquist. Um this is just a receiving file. We'll be moving this public hearing to uh January 20th. We will be be bifurcating the ordinance. Um the next staff report will talk about that related to statemandated uh changes that we need to make and discretionary ch changes that are being proposed in the zoning code. So that'll be spelled out in the next staff report for you on the 20th. Okay. Do we have any council questions on this item, Tom? No.

None. Okay. Open public comment. Is there anyone who wishes to speak on this? Nope. Going to close public comment. I think there are no final questions. Anything? Nope. Okay. Can I have a motion for the item? This is actually just a receive and file and not even a motion's necessary. We don't need one. All right, we move to item nine, unfinished business. None. Item 10, new business. None. Item 11, our update from our city manager.

Thank you, Mayor Sternquist and members of the council. Just a couple brief things. I want to thank city staff over the holiday weekend and the holiday week uh did a great job of preparing for the storm, dealing with a few things. You may have seen an Instagram post of the underpass at RoseMe being flooded, but with our county partners and our staff, that was remedied very quickly. Um, the amount of water, the amount of uh debris was just uh overwhelming, but it was just a brief delay. Uh, and uh, no one injured, no one harmed, uh, was the great outcome of that. Um, also too, uh, as we get ready, we were getting ready for our Lunar New Year festival, partnering with the Temple City Chinese American Association in about a month and Chamilleia Festival be around the corner. So, um, thank you and look forward to a great 2026. [clears throat]

Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Item 12, update from our city attorney, Greg Murphy. Uh, nothing substantive tonight. I I did read in the past couple weeks about uh some new ebicycle laws and I want to really um kind of dig into them and see whether they're applicable. So, I'll have a report on the new ebike laws at your next meeting. Thank you. Yeah, I I'm the one who brought that up with city manager since there's been a lot of discussion regarding ebikes in our city. I thought maybe a refresher course on what the new laws provide or don't provide might be interesting not only to us but also to the public as well. So, thank you, Greg, for doing that.

Greg, I'm not sure if it was from Burke Williams, but there were a couple of cities and some email communication we got that implemented ordinances. So, for certain um cities in San Diego County have some special legislation that allows them to have very strict new uh ordinances, but cities statewide have at least some extra powers. And so, I want to make sure that when I bring it to you, I'm distinguishing that that Well, thank you. Thank you. All right. Item 13, council reports regarding ad hoc or standing committee meetings. Were there any during this busy holiday season? No,

I don't think so. Okay. Item 14, items separate from the city manager's regular report. Council member Chavis. Uh, nothing. Just happy new year to everyone and look forward to the coming year. Okay. Council member, you nothing mayor and nothing to add and happy new year everyone.

Okay. Mayor Prom. Yeah, I I do want to reiterate the shout out that Brian mentioned earlier about our response to the rains because um if you look across the region in Southern California, there was substantial damage done to other parts of Southern California um including debris, debris slides, mud flows, road closures um in particular the north county, Palmdale lang Lancaster area was hit particularly hard. So, we were lucky and blessed to not have not have to have dealt with um a lot of those issues. And even with the flooding, you know, we've gone through this more than once. So, I do want to extend my kudos to our entire team who does the preparatory work to make sure that these things don't create bigger problems when the rains do hit. So, so thank you to to our staff and the team for doing that. and also wish uh everyone a happy new year.

Just since William brought that up, um have we taken a look at Frier Street and by Clemenson School and the fact that uh it's flooded all the time when it rains. I mean, I don't know if you don't you you didn't put an arc out and start going down. I was thinking about it, but uh when when I go to Albert when I get to Albertton's, I thought maybe I might have. Thank you, Mayor. I mean, thank you, council member. In all seriousness, um there are some areas of the city that the topography of how the street and where it's situated

just creates a level of ponding and flooding that it's extremely difficult to mitigate against. It does recede over time. It just takes time for that. Well, that I was thinking would it be feasible perhaps because some of the neighbors in that area have mentioned to me to maybe do some pumps and move the water maybe when it gets a little That is one that's one that's one option to to because I know we've done that for underpasses and things like that obviously

and uh and but we can we can always take a look and we can always re-evaluate with our city engineer what options there are for what we know for our areas that do pond and flood and not flood flood, but they do pond excessively. And I I know on Frier it does go above the curb lines. I probably would characterize it more than ponding [laughter] more like uh like what a river ran through it maybe is a better way to describe it. So just to just to bring it to your attention. I know we've talked about it before and we do have some challenges in that area. There's no question. Which we're no fault of

really anyone other than the fact that that's the way the street was put in unfortunately. So, but we can take Yeah. Maybe some mitigating maybe some mitigation uh measures um when we do have those fairly hard range. Sure. Not a problem. All right. Thanks.

Okay. Um just a couple things along the lines with, you know, thanking the staff for such a a great job. Thank you, Brian, for consistently sending us out an email report, you know, daily regarding, you know, if there were any issues and uh even though there weren't. I so appreciate that you keep in constant contact with us. So, thank you for that. [clears throat] And then I I have a question. Are we how how long can people leave the storage pods? I forget what they're they're it's a brand. It's called something pods. How long can people leave them in the front of their house in the driveway? Do we have an ordinance on that?

Off the top of my head, I do not know. I couldn't tell you, but I would I can I can find out. Okay. And the reason I ask is because there's one just north of of Kaufman or Golden West on Woodruff near city hall. It's been there at least for 3 weeks. Okay. So then every time I see it, I think, oh, I need to ask if we have anything regarding that. Sure. can I can look that up tomorrow, consult with staff and look at the code and get back to the council. Okay, I appreciate it.

And I I think that's it. Um, thank you for um making last year. I think a it was a pretty good year in except with all the fires, but as far from a council perspective and working with staff and having staff do everything they could to help mitigate the issues that cities were going through, whether it was displacement of people and people coming into our cities or trying to aid the people in Altadena. just a big shout out to them and and I'm hopeful that we will have a very bright and relaxing new year. So, um thank you and um with that we are adjourned. Oops. Public comment. Jerry, do you have a public comment?

I'm just seeing if you broke a new record. [laughter] Okay, with that we're journ