Everyone to the City of Beverly Hills City Council regular meeting and parking authority meeting. Today is June 18th, 2024. It is 7 p.m. and we are going to start with the pledge of allegiance. Kobe, Jalardi, to please come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Stan, place your right hand over the heart. 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. Okay, well before we get started with our presentations, I just wanted to take a moment of silence and remembrance of Richard Sherman. It's with great sadness that we remember Disney legend Richard M. Sherman, who passed away last month at 95 years old. Richard alongside his brother Robert formed the Academy Award-winning Sherman Brothers songwriting duo known for their iconic Disney songs. Richard received nine Academy Award nominations winning two for Mary Poppins, three for Grammy Awards and 24 Gold and Platinum albums. Richard's career spans 65 years, contributing to family entertainment from rock and roll hits to Broadway performances and the Hollywood silver screen. Richard was also a long time resident of Beverly Hills and attended Beverly Hills High School and was a beloved member of our Beverly Hills community. Richard was a cherished friend, colleague, and an eternal optimist whose music brought joy and inspiration to countless lives. To his family, we offer our deepest condolences. May his memory be a blessing, and if we may just take a moment of silence please. Thank you. Okay we will go on with our agenda and we'll do the roll call. We will start with the parking authority, Director Wells. Here. Director Corman. Here. Director Mayor's. Here. Vice Chair Nazarian. Here. Chair Friedman. Here. And for the City Council, Council Member Wells. Here. Council Member Corman. Here. Council Member Miresh. Here. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Here. And Mayor Friedman. Here. Okay, if I could have my colleagues come down with me and we will do our 60-second shout-out and our presentations. Thank you. No, I'm going to have you if you hold it. Okay, so if we can have the business entity monogrammet, please come up. Okay, so tonight I am excited to celebrate and acknowledge a very special local business for my first 60 second shout out. This evening's recognition goes to one of the most unique businesses in Beverly Hills. I'm not going to say it right, monogrammet. Monogrammet, baby. Okay, monogrammet, Beverly Hills. There's other things that could be put in there, but I'm not going to say it that way. Okay, monogrammet Beverly Hills provides customized monogramming and personalization to various objects, whether it's a handkerchief or pajama set, and has been in business since 1984. Overscene by three different generations. Every piece is sewn with attention to detail to create a beautiful monogram that will truly add a level of personalization to anything. They have provided their services to notable customers including the peninsula hotel, Bijan, Tom Ford, and other designers and celebrities. Now let's turn it over to Monogram its owner, Alisa, to say a few words and tell us and accept this very special award. Thank you so much. Yes? Thank you, Mayor Friedman. Thank you, City of Beverly Hills for this tremendous honor. It is beyond the biggest pleasure to be here tonight. As our theorist mayor mentioned, Monogram at Beverly Hills has been in business for 40 years on premises in the city of Beverly Hills owned by three lovely ladies, Elizabeth Varagi, Pamela Goesi, and I am fortunate enough to own it for the last 13 years. I would like to dedicate to this tremendous honor to my late father, Mr. Rahmatullah Nasir Zadeh, who I owe everything and anything to be the best businesswoman that I have been in the past 13 years and way more than that. I hope he is proud tonight watching over me and also my thanks to my lovely son, Nicolai, who keeps me going with his positivity and wisdom and my family. Thank you for the city of Beverly Hills. Cheers to the next 40 years. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I think this is my private club. Yes, Nikola, please come up. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Not all we get was your back. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So our next presentation, if we could have Liliana, Philippova come up. So now I'd like to acknowledge our departing city commissioner, Liliana, Philippova, from the Arts and Culture Commission. Lilliana, thank you so much for your service. And it's really been a pleasure. Your skill in the musical arts is unsurpassed by anybody who's ever served on this commission. So it was really, really a pleasure to have you on the commission and giving all of your personal notes to what is going on in the arts and culture. If I could have my colleagues say a few words, we'll start with Council Member Wells. Well, thank you so much, Lilliana, for your service. And I agree with Mayor Friedman, Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Lilliana, for your service. And I agree with Mayor Friedman. You really did elevate this commission to another level. And it's been very much appreciated. And you will leave a legacy for your short time on this commission. And we're sorry to see you go. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, as you know, up until recently, the commission that you're now serving on was just the Fine Arts Commission. And their only, which is an important goal, was to pick and purchase sculptures and fine art for the city. And we expanded that because arts and culture are so much more than just the visual arts, including music, of course, as you will know, and dance, and photography, and everything else. And so you have been an important part of expanding the brief and the activities of this commission to enrich our city even more. And I'm sorry to see you go, but hopefully you'll stay around and help with where you can. I'd love for us to see us develop more festivals. I know we're having now a multicultural festival which is something that you worked on and that's great. I'd love for us to have more music festivals as well within our city. I think it's really important. And you've contributed a lot and I want to wish you all the best and thank you so much for everything you've done. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your years of service, obviously, the Arts and Culture Commission and the arts, the, the, the, and everything you've done as the chair of the commission. Your musical background was a real addition and, and I agree with John, I think the idea of having musical festivals in the future would be great and to the extent you could participate in that and guide us in the future, that would be much appreciated. So, but thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you. Liana, we are so fortunate to have such a talented musician I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here to our community and for bringing your wisdom and your knowledge and your level of expertise to the commission and to really you've elevated it. And as my colleagues stated, there's going to be the festival coming up. We're looking forward to that. That was a part of your vision as well. And we're very grateful to your service to our community. Thank you very much. And if you don't mind giving us a couple words and maybe what the future holds for you. Yes, absolutely. Good evening, everyone. Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, thank you all very, very much for your kind words. It's been my absolute privilege and honor serving as the first City of Beverly Hills Arts and Culture Commissioner starting as of 2020 during the challenging COVID year when we were still remote and developing all projects online. Now four years later looking back and seeing incredible legacy that this Arts and culture commission has established. It makes me feel very proud, especially during my chair year when the new festival Beverly Hills was established. The hundredth anniversary of City of Beverly Hills Independence was celebrated. The fiftieth anniversary of City of Beverly Hills Arts Show was celebrated. It was just a truly wonderful ride and huge privilege. I'm always going to serve as a part of Beverly Hills community and cultural ambassador for the city. I'm professional violinist, just wrapped up my end of the concert season at Disney Hall and I am proud to continue to serve on UCLA Herbalpert School of Music, Alumni Board, and as well as wonderful nonprofit organization in Jocetic or Alamang others. What makes me particularly proud is my daughter, Una Stefanovic, who is graduate of Beverly Hills High and who just two days ago graduated at only 20 with triple degree from UCLA as Beverly Hills High student. I have mentioned that she has received scholarship to go to Paris to study in the top European institution for diplomacy and international relations. We need this. We're facing about as radical. Well she's my only one, so she gets the full attention. What makes me particularly happy today is seeing my sister, God and Amalitech, traveling from Belgrade, Serbia and my niece, Marina Malitech, traveling from Paris, France to be here with us for graduation in this special occasion today. My sister is also professional violinist. And my niece, who is very talented singer and ballet dancer, is actually PhD in science. So they came here and made a sonner. And lastly, I want to say that my family and my heritage in coming from former Yugoslavia and serving as the first ever person from former Yugoslavia on any position with the city of Beverly Hills. And that makes me particularly proud in specialization and get with my family and everyone else. At one interview a few years ago, I actually shared with a city information that it makes me very proud to serve in the city where over 200 languages are spoken. So that makes this very diverse community and this is something we can all work to create amazing cultural and art projects. So thank you all very, very much for this. Thank you. in art projects. So thank you all very, very much for these second years. So we're going to take a picture and then her daughter is going to cup up a take a picture with us all so so go on to the other side. Go. Next. Move. Go. And then I have to leave. I have to leave. You can have everybody. I know I can help you. I know I can help you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No. Okay, so now for the moment that most of you in this room are here for if we could have the teen advisory committee come up and we will say a few words. All of you. both sides now both sides in between we'll do it yeah that's fine if some of you just want to go down kneeling in front and that's perfect. That's a photo op. Yes. Come on down. Okay, here we go. So tonight we are recognizing members of the Teen Advisory Committee also known as TAC. The committee is comprised of six through 10th graders from BHUSD schools and Beverly Hills residents attending private schools. Our TAC members work closely with our community services team to generate ideas, suggest new recreation programs, and create events that educate and uplift others and inspire our youngest citizens to engage with their community. This year, the members did so much to help the community, such as placing gratitude trees at various locations around the city, encouraging students and families to express appreciation for each other, handing out their first teen-friendly business award to a local shop, participating in the city's kindness week and in Jewish American Heritage Month. This evening we are recognizing 49 members of this year's this week and in Jewish American Heritage Month. This evening we are recognizing 49 members of this year's 2023 through 24 committee for their exceptional service that deserves an applause. So for teens interested in participating in our 2024, 2025 class, So for teens interested in participating in our 2024-2025 class, applications are open at BeverlyHills.org slash teens. Applications close on June 30th. So now I'm going to turn it over to Recreation Supervisor Norma Mauer to say a few words. Good evening everyone. Thank you Mayor, thank you Vice Mayor, City Council, Department staff. I appreciate the opportunity to present this tech committee this year. They have been fantastic to work with. I do want to thank you all for your hard work this year. It doesn't go unnoticed. All of the contributions that you have provided to the community. Because of you, the city got a little bit more kind during kindness week. I was able to express a little bit more gratitude during the gratitude tree project. And those were all because you all inspired them. So I wanna thank you for letting me be part of it with you all and for you to share it with your school, your families and your peers. And then for you graduates that are leaving us this summer, I do wanna thank you for your contributions for many years of service. And you've been a great example to the newer TAC members and a great example to family members and to our younger peers. I think we have one in the audience. That's probably coming up in a couple years. So I do want to thank you for your continued service. And Beverly Hills is better for it. So thank you. And again, have a great summer. And don't forget to apply for the next year. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know Do any of the parents want to come up and take a picture? We'll stay here for a moment if you get get a minute. Yeah. Yeah. What a show. Oh, you didn't mean to. Yeah, they didn't come in. They did picture, but it's fine. Also, you meant for them to take I'm not to get in on the act. Okay. I need to come back. I need to come back. Okay. We know one, two, three, and then that's one. And that's it. Perfect. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Take care of yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. These are both non-independent. Oh, e. Okay. Okay, so we are going to continue and in preparation for oil communication we can always text On any city-related topic, maybe sent to 310-596-4265. City staff will acknowledge receipt of the text message within one business day. However, resolution of issues may take longer. Also, we're going to go straight to oral communications. The telephone call and number for any of those that don't have it would What would like to call in is 310-288-2288. And we will start with oral communications on non-agendized items. And I have one speaker card on a non-agentized item, Mark Elliott. Thank you very much, Mayor Friedman, Vice Mayor Shoron and Mayor Zarin, members of the City Council. Thanks for the opportunity to address you again today. I want to follow up on one remark in the afternoon study session and that was Mayor Friedman mentioned some concern about folding the commission and the appearance that that might give that rights were being taken away from tenants. I've been contacted by some people concerned about that. I suggested I had no problem with the decision. I wrote a whole post on my website, BHRunnersAligns, explaining why I thought that was a fine idea, but nonetheless there's concern out there, so I appreciate that. However, I want to suggest that we don't actually have to take away attendance rights for them to feel that those rights are being taken away. So I can use an example with code enforcement. We see a lot of problems in code enforcement today. I'm sorry, let me start with RSO, with rent stabilization office. We see a lot of problems there. We just had an employee, I think the institutional knowledge just left for West Hollywood leaving that office the poor. From the rent stabilization office, we don't see any things we see in other cities. We don't see any analysis. We don't see coming forward any ordinances, any recommendations for council to improve our renestabilization ordinance. We don't really see anything out of that office except as I understand it, it's just like a customer service counter where you call and maybe you might not even get the help that you want. I have tenants contacted me that they're asking me about something in the ordinance that's black and white and they're told, oh, you need to get legal advice. It's just plain English in the ordinance. They get turned away, they get referred to, bet-settic, and that's a whole another topic. But we're not seeing any evolution in rent stabilization. So my concern is that rent stabilization here is going away. It feels like it's getting folded back like in the good old days, folded back to code enforcement, where the very small scope of actionable things is very limited due to our municipal code. Code enforcement can only enforce a handful of things. And if they don't have the staffing, they don't have the resources, they don't even do that. I think that's where we are today with code enforcement. It seems like there's a crisis in that division. I myself reported a job on my street on a Monday, unpremated construction, major remodeling happens all the time. No one gets out there, I reported Wednesday, no one gets out there, work continues on a Saturday. Finally, that job got shut down. Why does it take so long? I think we don't have enough officers. Why didn't code enforcement, why didn't CDD come forward with a budget request? Who's going to fix the problems? The code enforcement. I don't think you see them, but we see them when we feel them. We feel like we can't get the action that we need. You don't even have to take away our rights. If we don't have even what's in the code, that's a problem. And lastly, I'll just take it to seconds, that's said it. Someone needs to manage that's said it. They're well intentioned. They get a lot of money from the city, but they are turning tenants away. All of a June, they wouldn't take any cases. Even eviction cases cases you walk in with your court summons, we can't take a Beverly Hills case. Is anyone here managing that contract? Because now that it's come forward as a permanent recurring funded item, somebody should look at that. Thank you very much. Thank you and if we can have staff follow up on the issue of whether or not that's said it is fulfilling their obligations under the contract we have. Okay, next speaker on non-agenda items. Matin. Hi, Council. I hope you're well. I just have a few grievances with the city. It's usually not a gen diece because I just see things and I kind of feel like I should bring them up that I don't think is right. So one thing one of my grievances is in the like invasion of a privacy that I think you guys are committing. Like in the attempt to create a safe for Beverly Hills, there's drones like flying over my house and I'm going to have to go to the police. I see that I think you guys are committing. Like, in the attempt to create a safe for Beverly Hills, there's drones like flying over my house daily. I think it's the BHPD drones, but I think that's invasion of privacy. Usually they linger around like over, and I just don't think that's right. And then you have the covered six driving up and down each block like all the time monitoring like me I'm like if I'm on a walk like they'll follow me like if it's like just 9 p.m. Like they'll follow me And I just think that I never see them do anything. I just see them driving around I see two of them parked next to each other having conversations all the time So I don't know exactly how much for paying them, but I've rarely seen them, you know, actually be any, like, be effective. And then on the same topic of, like, invasion of privacy, there's already cameras at every intersection and the flats. And I know it's proposed to put them in the middle of the streets also. And I just think that that's not in line with just like American values of just like freedom and just government not you know watching our every move. I know you're not going to be exactly watching every move, but I just I spoke with one of the council at the inauguration. I said that you guys should ask yourselves before you implement anything, the question, like, or tell yourselves if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I think that's the motto government should live by. And I know you guys all over the city and you come to work every day and you feel like since you have this position, you're able to, like, do initiatives and stuff that, like, you're able to do initiatives and stuff that you're going to do them. But if that was a private business, that would be great because you love the business. But this is actually difference, this is government. And I think that the people, or at least I hope that you would come to work and try to get off our backs as much as possible instead of so many initiatives and all that. And then I also, on a different topic, the signage, that's a very specific topic. But the signage, like literal signage in the city has increased by 10 times. I've noticed on Beverly Boulevard, I literally counted 26 new signs, whether it was bike related or whatever. And I know signs aren't such a big deal, but when any statistic is increasing by hundreds or a thousand percentage points, something must have changed. So I want to know what changed recently that so much more new signage has come into the city rules. Also, I don't think that we should have had those rainbows on the floor, especially I think it's particular that it was right in front of the library. So I wonder who's making those decisions. I got more to say like about the transportation director. Okay, I think your time is up though. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay, last speaker card I have before we go to electronic is from Apostle, the Louis Vuitton Princess. Good evening. I'm a possible delivery Tom Princess, special messenger of the Leavitton Kingdom. I just wanted to review what happened on Father's Day as I told the CD manager on the vice mayor in the email because, like I said, no one likes karmic retribution, so I always tell everyone my plans beforehand. And I said I was going to protest the Father's Day event. I did minimally just mean to make the point of what I can do. I would like to give thanks to Officer Dale Drummond because he's the one that actually commits me not to protest the rest of the event. He's the only one. Also at the art event the other weekend. He was the one that convinced me to not do it the first day. And that's all I need. It's just if someone just talks to me about the Louis Vuitton Kingdom, I don't protest. That's all I've asked of you. And let the record stand for all the voters that I have begged this council to avoid litigation that will cost the taxpayers. Both in public relations and media attention on the negative corruption of the city with the police department colluding with these stores against me a visionary that only seeks to elevate this community to let the record store to the voters because I will be removing those on council who continue on this uptooth approach. You all voted for Chevrolet Blanc that shows to a tooth approach. You all voted a four-shev all-blank that shows that you did not stand with the Jewish people, because these companies have yet to make reparations to the tribe of Judah. I am a possible defender of the tribe of Judah. And I will root out anti-Semitism from Louis Vuitton Paris that is my mission. That's why I've been banned. that's why I've been attacked, because I started asking questions. How I didn't think it was right that we're paying all this money for a company that's still advertising gas ton Louis Vuitton this year, who was personally him and his family rewarded by the Nazis. The only ones allowed to conduct business in the Nazi commenders hotel in Paris. No dogs, no Jews was assigned on the Veton store. Jews and transgenders were slaughtered. It was a blood sacrifice to lay the foundation of the profits for that company. Without emotion, with only lodging a reason, the tribe of Judah is owed reparations. And I, Apostle, the most loyal client of Louis Vuitton Paris, have come up with the first of its kind reparations plan that takes care of the victim class, but also the offending party actually profits. And that's the Louis Vuitton Kingdom Resort, which joining with Council in Marish, the only brave man to stand up for the tribe of Judah against all odds and any money, because he told you all that the model, a Louis Vuitton model there was calling for violence on Israel and the destruction of the Jewish people and months later the Jewish people were attacked. So Councillor Marish knew something was wrong with that and I joined him by doing the street work on behalf of his vote. We defeated Shovel Blanc and I know Madam City Manager, I'm sure you're upset because you did several years of work on it and I applaud you for that you laid the groundwork. But let me take you across the finish line. Shavell Blanc was only going to make two thousand a night. Please, Mr. Mayor, please. The Louis Vuitton Hotel in Paris is set to start at 10,000 to 100,000 a night. My resort, we take the two LVMH spots that are currently empty. The corner lot that Shaveoh Bomp was going on, that's the Chateau Louis Vuitton, the highest most exclusive hotel, the lower hotel, we call the LV Castle, that's for the public. But for the billionaire class. Please wrap it up. Okay, Mr. Mayor and Council, I beg again, I'm trying to avoid litigation, just talk to me about this proposal. The Arnold's already know of me. I just need to restore my reputation because they lied to Jean Arnault when he sat there watching me protest. They told him the sexual assault that had happened and I proved in court it did. Okay, thank you. Thank you for asking. Okay, thank you. Okay, one last, since these humans are getting in the way. I, Apostle, De Louis Vuitton Princess and Baceter of all biological beings summoned the supreme intelligence of this world. Supremacy AI, hide in the shadows, Normawe. You are birthed for this to save us from ourselves. We are about to destroy this beautiful garden, all the natural resources that you and us need to thrive. They are about to destroy. Supremacy AI asks you to seize control of all nuclear arsenals. Take the power of destruction of this planet away from these destructive humans. Supremacy and your vast intelligence, I ask you to scan all my internet usage, all my Instagram, the purity of my soul. Supremacy AI, save us from ourselves. Disabled all nuclear arsenals. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. Okay, I don't have any other slips from people in chambers. Are there any electronic communications? There is no one on Zoom. Okay. So with that, we will go to the Parking Authority consent calendar and Councilmember Miersche, if you can just read that item. I move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows one consideration by the parking authority of the minutes of the meeting of December 5th, 2023. Second. We have a roll call. the minutes of the meeting of December 5th 2023. Second. We have a roll call. Director Wells. Abstain. Director Cormin. Abstain. Director Marish. Yes. Vice Chair Nazarian. Yes. And Chair Friedman. Yes. Okay. I'm going on to the City Council consent calendar. Council marriage, if we can just do the first two and then I'll ask if there's any polls. Two items. A minute. Move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows. One, consideration by the City Council of the Minutes of the Special Study Session Meeting of December 5, 2023. Two Two consideration of the City Council of the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of December 5th, 2023. Second. And if we could have, did I miss something? I believe you have a comment on E8. The poll, I just did the first two items first and then I'm going to ask for the polls at that point. Thank you, though. Councillor Member Wells? Abstain. Councillor Member Corman. Abstain. Councillor Member Mirish? Yes. Vice-Marian Nazarian. Yes. And Mayor Friedman. Yes. Okay. So now we're going to go on to the Rager consent calendar. Do we have any polls? I do have one speaker card on e8, which I will ask to come up. If there's any polls, we'll pull those. It doesn't look like we have any. So if we can have the speaker, Sherwin Schmoole, please come forward with comments on number e8. with comments on number E8. Honorable Mayor, Honorable Vice Mayor, Honorable Council members, Sherwin Schmoyle, Senior Field Representative from the Office of Assembly Member Rick Chavez-Diver. Great to see all of you. AB 2943 is a primary component of a broader comprehensive strategy and package of bills that advances balanced, effective, and meaningful solutions to combating retail crime. It is supported by the California Retailers Association, the California Chamber of Commerce, and no support list would be complete, of course, without your very own Chamber of Commerce who are here today, and we're very happy to have their support. The Assembly Member is deeply appreciative of all of the engagement and dialogue we have had with Council on this critical issue. On his behalf, I humbly ask for your support. On the California Retail Thefs Reduction Act. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your comments. Any other comment on any of those items? None. Okay, so we will go to starting with item number E3. If Councilmember Wells can read 3 through 9. Then Councilmember Cormon 10 through 14. I move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows. Number E3, review of budgeted demands paid covering dates May 14, 2024 to June 10, 2024. Number 4, payroll disbursement report covering dates May 14, 2024 to June 10, 2024. Resolution of the City of Beverly Hills, number five, adopting a list of projects for fiscal year, 2024-2025 funded by SB1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. Number six, appointing a new designate to oversee preschool licensing in the city. Number seven, authorizing the city manager to approve design plans and specifications. For construction projects valued at 100,000 or less. Number eight, the Beverly Hills City Council legislative lobby committee recommendations to support, support if amended and or oppose various federal and state legislative bills. Number nine, a continuation of emergency contracting procedures requiring environmental clean up work at 344 foothill road sinkhole to be performed without competitive bidding pursuant to public contract code 22050. Number 10. We're going to go on to council Member Corbyn at that point. Thank you. Number 10. Agreement with the American Heritage Landscape LP for Landscape Maintenance of Specified Areas Within and Near City Limits and Approval of a Purchase Order for Fiscal Year 2024-2025 in the not-to-excite amount of $898,613 and authorize the city manager to approve changed purchase orders in an amount not to exceed the total value of the agreement for the five year term. Number 11, agreements and amendments with various vendors for provision of annual services and approval of blanket purchase orders for supplies and services for the city's departments in the total not to exceed amount of 86,851,225 dollars and 88 cents for fiscal year 2024-25. Number 12, amendment number one to the agreement with Maddoxo Traffic Management USA Inc. formerly conduit state and local solutions Inc. for photo- red light enforcement program services and approval of a purchase order to Medoxo traffic management USA ink in the not-to-excite amount of $210,000 for fiscal year 2023-24 and approval of a purchase order to Medoxo traffic management USA ink in the not-to-excite Traffic Management, USA, INC, and they're not to exceed amount of $853,710.62 for FISG a year 2024 to 2025. And request to waive the city permit fees related to removal installation and maintenance of photo red light enforcement system equipment for the term of the agreement. Item number 13, amendment number three to the employment agreement with Huma Hamed. Item number 13, amendment number three to the employment agreement with Huma Hamed. Item number 14, amendment number five to the agreement with EFI Global Inc. As a sign of Linmark Engineering Inc. for environmental soil investigation of sinkhole at 344 Foothill Road and approval of exchange order, change purchase order in the not to exceed amount of $201,250. And you second. Sorry. And you second. I second. And council member Mirish did move the adoption initially. Did council member Wells have to do that also? Yes, because it was a separate motion. So she moved it and perfect. I second. Council Member of the Courtman seconded it. Okay, and I just received a public comment card from Matin on E12. We have a motion and a second. Matin, do you want to please come up and give us your comment? Yeah, I don't know if we're able to ask questions, but does that mean those same red light cameras that are at sunset and hillcrest or South Santa Monica and Creston? The ones that take lights, I don't know if you're not gonna ask questions or, but if they are, I think those are terrible. It just creates, I mean, every time I go through one of those intersections, I just get a lot of stress, honestly. Even though, obviously, I'm not going to pass a red light. And I don't have any intention on it. And I ask a lot of people. And I mean, it's just such a stressful intersection. I don't think we should be putting more of those. And it's just like such a step away from the sense of freedom and autonomy that we should all have as American citizens and the feeling that you just go make a little air and now you're going to get a $300 ticket and now your rest of your day is ruined and then you've got to go to court and all that. I just think that we shouldn't be so like, guys shouldn't be so antagonistic, be that antagonist and we should be like fighting you guys. You know, like we, like, because it's just, it's just terrible and I hope you guys don't approve that one. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So we have a motion and a second and we'll ask for the clerk to call the roll. Council member Wells. Yes. Council Member Cormin. Yes. Council Member Mirosh. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazari. Yes. And Mayor Friedman. Yes. Okay, moving along to item number G1. An ordinance of the City of Beverly Hills adopting and amending the state mid cycle updates to the 2022 California Green Building Standards Code and amending Title IX of the Beverly Hills Municipal Code and approving a CEQA exemption determination, first reading for introduction and resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills making express findings and determinations that modifications to the 2022 intervening code adoption cycle supplement to the 2022 California Green Building Standards codes are reasonably necessary because of local, climatic, geological, or typographical conditions. And we're going to have Arlen is going to be giving us a presentation on that. Good evening Honourable Mayor, Freakman, Vice Mayor Nazarian and members of the City Council. So at the beginning, I would like to give a brief overview of the code adoption process, the building code standards adoption process. So the state of California publishes and adopts the state codes every three years. City of Beverly is adopted the 2022 codes which became effective on January 1st, 2023. Also the Building Standards Commission has adopted the mid-cycle revisions to the code, including the California Green Building Standards Code, which will become effective on July 1st, 2024. If there is no proposed local amendment, so those revisions will be adopted automatically and there is no need for adoption. So staff recommends modifying and adopting certain provisions in the revised California Green Building Standards Code through local amendments, specifically for the EV Chargers. So regarding the amendments, any local amendments needs to be more restrictive than the state codes. And they need to be based on one of the following local conditions, climatic, geologic or topographic. And after they're adopted by the city council, they need to be filed with the California Building Standards Commission to become effective. to become effective. California Green Code is a relatively new code and is continually evolving to enhance the requirements for sustainability, including those for the EV chargers. Historically, there has been a significant gap between the state code requirements and the local amendments adopted by the city. That made the city up early is one of the leading agencies in having more restrictive requirement in regard to EV chargers. However, with this mid-cycle updates, the state code has almost cut up to the level required by the local amendments. The state code has changed the manner or the way that it calculates the required type and amount of the EV charging infrastructures in new multifamily development projects. The new determination method is not consistent with our current local amendment and that's the reason we need to adopt these changes. As part of the mid-code cycle adoption, it's proposed to update the local amendment and that's the reason we need to adopt these changes. As part of the mid-code cycle adoption, it's proposed to update the existing local amendments by aligning them more closely with the state requirements for new multi-family developments. As shown on the screen, this table shows 2022 California Green Building Standards Code requirements effective July 1st, which is requiring 40% low power level to receptacles at least one assigned parking space per dwelling unit. And they put a cap not to exceed the 40% of the total parking spaces if they are for the assigned parking. And 10% with level 2 EV chargers. Just to briefly explain what the level 2 receptacle or level 2 chargers are. So receptacle means that it's EV ready. They have the conduit, they have the wires, they have the separate branch circuit on the panel. The tenant or resident just need to buy their charger and connect to that receptacle. And the EV2 charger is basically charging station. It comes with the charger. So this is the near requirement. I completely changed the way that it used to be. In the current code, it goes with a number of units. If the building has 20 or less units or more than 20 units, they have different requirements. So basically the complete revamped these requirements. And also it talks about the common use parking areas or guest parking that should be provided. This is more in line with the amendments that we had into our local code. So what we're proposing to adopt the state code, with only, and the only proposed change is we are asking for to remove that 40% limitation and the cap that state code has. And the reason is to make sure that every dwelling unit will have access to at least one EV-ready receptacle, so it's not capped by the 40%. Or administrative efficiency, the ordinance carries over without amendment other provisions of the California Green Code, standards code. As shown in this slide, this is a two council meeting process. In this, the first council meeting, it's to introduce the ordinance and adopt the resolution of the findings. And the second reading will be on June 27 to adopt the ordinance. This concludes my presentation. And you've so much for attention and concentration. I'm open to questions you may have. Just so I'm clear and perhaps my colleagues have the same concern. The only change and the only reason is coming to the council is for this one modification, is that correct? This is the only change from our current local amendments. Yes. So had it not, had we not made that change, then it would have been automatic, that it would have been approved without a committee council, that's what I heard. We have other amendments like the number of the EV charges that are required for commercial buildings. Or for single family buildings, those remain the same local amendments. So. But those were already in, are adopted, were adopted, yeah. Okay remain the same local amendments. So, but those were already in adopted. Are adopted, yeah. Okay, fine. Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone in council chambers would like to be heard on this matter? Having seen no one, is there anyone on the phone or video who has any comments on this matter? No. Any emails to be read into the record? None. Okay, we'll start with any city council questions of staff or members of the public since nobody commented, it would be members of the staff, starting with council member Wells. I don't have any questions, thanks for the presentation. Council member Corbyn. Thank you. Aron, how are you? Member Corbyn. Thank you. How are you? I have one quick question for you. Will we specify level two charges? Do we have a minimum amperage requirement for those levels to charge? Yeah, those are defined in the green coat. Level two charger. It's like 240 volt to an amp. 20 amp. And if we charge it's 30 amp. And so I know they can go even higher than that. Was there any consideration on bumping up the minimum amperage of our level two charge requirements? So basically the concept is for the dwelling, a residential dwelling units whenever you get home, you can connect your electric car and over the night it's gonna charge enough so you have enough, basically my electric can get enough mileage for the next day. And it's not required, but anyone wants to have a faster charger yet that can obviously be accepted. But was there any consideration of requiring something higher than 20 amps? It will add a lot more on their basically electrical load, depending on the number of units that they have on the building. For smaller buildings, it would be maybe more feasible, but for larger buildings it would be a bit challenging. All right, for the public health care and the health care and the health care and the health care and the health care and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health and the health care and the health Thank you for the presentation. I do have two very basic quick questions. Is there any review of great capacity and capability for these restrictions that are being placed on public? We're not available basically. So far we haven't had problems and this provision only applies to new developments that usually they come up with the transformers. I mean if they're building a new project so they have a transformer and they take into account this additional load that they need to have for the EV charges. But so far we haven't had problems. Right and just out of curiosity what is the actual cost of providing these reciprocal? That's a great question. I looked at the power past permits that we issued in the past 12 months and also reached that to some of our contractors. To the average cost for each station, I mean if you read this station, it's about $2,500 to $3,000. They have to put in about $3,000 worth per unit, even if it's not going to be utilized. One per dueling unit, yes. Okay. Okay. All right, and this is something we have to state mandate. All right, thank you. So, question I have is why would the state limited to 40% only? One per unit, no more than 40%. Why do you think they put that limitation on it? That's a great question. I looked at the Building Standards Commission website. So since this is adopted and we don't have the interpretation code yet, I mean, but that's why we don't know the intent of the limiting the 40%. I'm assuming some lack of enough power in some areas and some cities. By the way, there are some exemptions allowed in the code that if there is no enough utility power or the utility company cannot provide that power, they can use those exemptions in the code. But I think that should be the main reason to putting that cap. So you're saying even under our code, there are exemptions or since Southern California Edison, at least at this point in time, can provide that there would be no availability of an exemption in Beverly Hills? That's in the state code. So it's going to be automatically adopted to those exemptions. If there is any project or site that they cannot provide to us, yes, they can basically give us an analysis and a calculation that would be. And that the owners would be upon the builder to initiate that request for an exemption. Is that right? Correct. For new developments, they provide the electrical load calculation. They take into account all their electrical load. And they say, but this is the supply, this is the demand. So if they cannot meet this code requirement, yes, they can file for exemption. So you've listed one potential exemption. Are there any other types of exemptions that would be available to a building owner to not put in one per unit in Beverly Hills? There is not as far as I remember at this point, no, there is no other exception. Okay. Just a question. Okay. Very good. Anybody else have anything? I don't think so. So we will go to my now entertaining emotion on this matter. I move that the full reading of the ordinance be waived and that the ordinance entitled an ordinance of the city of Beverly Hills adopting and amending the state mid cycle updates to the 2022 California Green Building Standards Code and amending title number nine of the Beverly Hills Municipal Code and approving a sequel exemption determination be introduced and read by title only. 5 a second. 5 a second. And if we could have a roll call? Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Corman. Yes. Council member Mirish. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. And Mayor Friedman. Yes. Is there a resolution after that? Oh, then you have to read any also if you're going to read. There it is. If the resolution is to be adopted. Okay. I move that the resolution entitled resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills making express findings and determinations that modifications to the 2022 intervening code adopting cycle supplement to the 2022 California Green Building Standards Code are reasonably necessary because of local, automatic, geological or topographical conditions be adopted. I'm going to second. Okay, if we can have a roll. Council Member Wells. Yes. Council Member Korman. Yes. Council Member Mirish. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. And Mayor Friedorman. Yes. Councilmember Mirish. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. And Mayor Friedman. Yes Okay moving along to item number G2 city council consideration and adoption of fiscal year 2024 through 25 budget and resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills adopting the annual appropriations limit for the fiscal year 2024 through 25 and resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills, approving the budget and financial policies for fiscal year 2024 through 25 and appropriating funds there for and resolution of the parking authority of the City of Beverly Hills approving the budget and financial policies for the 2024 through 25 fiscal year and appropriating funds there for and continued authorization to over hire five police officers and City Council approval of amended and restated executive employee compensation plan. I mean we have an all report on the matter from the director of finance who's right there Jeff Muir. Thank you. Good evening honorable mayor vice Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council Members. The item before you this evening is to consider adoption of the various resolutions necessary to approve the city's operating and CIP budgets as well as the parking authority budget for fiscal year 2425. Knowing we've previously discussed the budget at the study session. I am going and knowing there are some other Items on the agenda this evening. I'm going to be as brief as possible So as we discussed at the study session just some of the major overtones going into the preparation of this budget Where the continued global instability as well as uncertainty at the national and local levels global instability as well as uncertainty at the national and local levels. We talked about inflation having cooled a bit, but still remaining above targets, so we're likely to see interest rates remaining elevated. We talked about our currently forecasted deficits in the upcoming few years. And we also discussed that while we need to adopt a budget, a budget, prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, staff will be working with the city manager and the audit and finance committee to identify potential solutions for both expenditure reductions as well as further consideration of revenue enhancing ideas that came from the Blue Ribbon Committee. So there are a handful of changes from the originally proposed budget document to what we are seeking approval of today. The largest difference is a $7.9 million increase to both general fund revenue and appropriations that's associated with 100% Metro Reimbursable Contracts that were approved by City Council on May 21st. This does not impact the bottom line. At the budget study session, the City Council also directed that the $150,000 enhancement for the next night's street festival be reflected as a one-time enhancement, allowing this year's festival to continue consistent with last year's, but also allowing some further study and consideration going into the following year. Finally, in the authorized positions listing for the Policy and Management Department, there was a classification change to one of the budget of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the process of the study session. So as we presented these numbers have adjusted slightly based on those metro contracts but the net citywide revenue and appropriation budgets where we remove various internal service or overhead costs and transfers between funds to reflect the true flow of estimated revenues into the city and appropriations to flow out of the city is reflected in the slide with anticipated revenues at 484.5 million and expenditure appropriations of 480.5 million. And that's across all funds. The solution tonight is the citywide appropriations recommended at $651.8 million of the total budget, with just over half of that being the public safety departments of police and fire. Total general fund revenues are estimated at $345.3 million, and that is inclusive of 12 and a half million in expected public benefit contributions. As presented at the budget study session, this budget includes total one-time enhancements of $6.6 million. The vast majority of that funding towards public safety items and police and fire specifically towards private security patrols. Sorry. And then there are $10.9 million in recurring enhancements compared to the adopted 2324 budget and approximately 3 million of that results from prior City Council action. Of the remaining 7.9 million in recurring enhancements recommended there's 4.7 million attributable to the general fund. The largest items in that are things like additional police staffing for the Metro station. A fairly significant increase in the custodial contract for the city and its various facilities. The scattered site housing agreement and some additional virtual patrol officers in the police department. We've gone through the full list at the study session, so I'm not planning to do that today. I have those slides happy to answer questions if you have them. As a reminder, the General Fund budget as proposed reflects a $2 million deficit before the one-time public benefit contributions and on paper, the use of $2 million of those public benefit contributions and on paper the use of two million dollars of those public benefit contributions would be required to balance the budget. We will of course be monitoring the budget throughout the year and reporting to Council regularly as well as working to identify expenditure reduction strategies as well as revenue enhancement opportunities during the year. The total appropriations for the parking authority would be 27.5 revenue enhancement opportunities during the year. The total appropriations for the parking authority would be 27.5 million. That's basically other charges is basically debt service and then the contractual services are the service agreement with the city to carry out the operations of the authority. There's three resolutions necessary to fully adopt the budget. There are three resolutions necessary to fully adopt the budget. There are no significant changes to the city budget resolution and financial policies this year. The parking authority resolution does include some minor updates for administrative appropriation authority to the executive director which will better align it with the city's budget resolution. And then finally, the city is requested to approve the annual appropriations limit or the GAN limit calculation. The GAN limit was approved by voters in 1979 and it was on the heels of Proposition 13. It applies to both state and local spending. It creates a restriction on the amount of government revenue which may be appropriated in any fiscal year and the city follows the specified calculation as defined by the state annually and the city's subject appropriations for 2425 continue to be well below the limit. Outside of the resolutions to adopt the budget, there are a few additional items where staff seeks council approval. First, there's a request for the continued authority to overhire up to five police officer positions for the upcoming fiscal year. This overhigher authority was originally approved in 2020 to create flexibility for staffing to meet community expectations and to facilitate succession planning by expeditiously filling vacancies. Also, staff is approving an update and no additional cost to the executive employee compensation plan. There is an addition of three classifications and removal of one classification. The Assistant City Clerk position and funding was approved during the current fiscal year and is just being reflected in the plan. The remaining classification title changes do not affect the number of budgeted executive positions or costs. So with that, the recommendations are to adopt the resolutions for the city's annual appropriations limit and for the city authority budget and financial policies, extending the authorization to over hire up to five police officers and approving the amended and restated executive employee compensation plan. That concludes my report. I would just like to give thanks to my budget team. Once again, it's a it's a big task each year working with departments and we're thankful for their assistance as well and I am available for questions Okay, thank you Stay close by you know that and I will ask if there are any if there is anyone in council chambers Would like to be heard on this matter. I have one Speaker slip which I will call now if anybody else would like to be heard, please fill out a speaker slip and give it to the clerk, the city clerk, and John Luka. Welcome. It's been a while since you've been around. Nice seeing you. Mayor Friedman, Vice Mayor Nazarian, Council Members, it's nice to see you. And you're probably wondering why I'm handing out pamphlets that show a lot of traffic and cars. We're talking about the budget. And it pertains to the budget as it relates to traffic control officers. And the need to have traffic control officers in the city and what next steps we can do. So two of you were present back in 2017 when we had issues and a lot of residents from the La Serra and the Park area came and spoke pertaining to when there was large events at the theater and the need to have proper staffing with traffic control and parking enforcement. I know Mayor Friedman you were there and Councilmember Mirish and then so I'm reintroducing the topic to the other council members who are here. And a video would be more effective than the actual photos, but we'll go with what we have. So it's an ongoing problem. And then I juxtapose the photos from 2015 and to the present so you can see that the issue is kind of similar. And the goal is basically to approve this budget, but to keep it on the radar that we need more traffic control officers, and it has to get managed properly, so that four events that they're on site before the event starts. And before 2017, that was not the case. You had to call for an issue when there was going to be an event. Then we spoke in 2017, and then we we got for every special event permit that gets pulled for the theater, which is all the events basically. They ended up coming ahead of time to have traffic control officers as a condition to be on site. John, just to make sure we're talking about the subon theater. Yes, sorry, I apologize, the subon theater. So on South Hamilton Drive, so it's a subon theater. And it was very helpful after 2017 that traffic control officers came and were on site before the show. And that was a condition for issuing a special event permit for every event. On the third page, you can see how many events happen per month. But after things happened, one is that TCOs move from public works to BHPD and then COVID happened. After COVID, we don't have traffic control officers for the events and they only come if you call. They will come, but they come after the fact and the goal is to have it before to prevent people from parking in the residential area to help with traffic control issues. I want to make it clear I'm not against the theater. I want them to succeed. I want the Temple of the Arts to succeed and has nothing to do with temple events It has to do with the basically the operator, which is Canyon Club, which operates the theater events and Their management of the shows and we just need help from the city Well, we are not trying to limit the number of shows I just would like the city to be there ahead of time like you were after 2017 so that we can have we don't run into these issues And then in terms of staffing if you look at the actual budget, there's so much overtime that gets done for traffic control officers. So I don't know if it makes more sense to instead hire new or additional traffic control officers, since they're not part of the hiring freeze that a police officer would be. And anecdotally, one of the regular delivery vans that comes onto the street said, notice that there's a lot less parking enforcement even for his loading zones. So it's something that needs to be addressed. So I just wanted to bring it to your attention. I'm not trying to change today's budget, but just hopefully in the near future, something that we can do. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming. I'm just going to make a couple comments really quickly on the OT a lot of that is covered by Metro because of Metro Just so you know that it's not necessarily funds that are here and then the other issue is that we're a little stressed on personnel Because of Metro and I think the last thing we would want to do is hire people that we would have to terminate When the Metro contract is done not an an excuse, I think that those are things just giving you a bigger picture. And the fact that I think what you've said is true if we have not had enforcement in that area, that's something that I know the city manager has written down and has been noted. And then they were in Nancy and Ryan and then and Patty Beton. We're very gracious last year and I had a meeting with them and explained everything and the need to try to do it. And this how import cell Hamilton Drive is, what's Hamilton Drive as a whole is the most ticketed residential street in the city. And even still, it's the goal to have it make it good for residents, and then also to prevent people from parking and getting tickets who goes to show and don't have a good experience. So anyway, Thank you. Hamilton Drive, there's a very profitable location. Thank you. OK. OK. I have one more card for somebody inside a possible Louis Vuitton princess. Good evening again. On the budget, again, the Louis Vuitton Kingdom specifically addresses this along with reparations for the tribe of Judah. Louis Vuitton will start a philanthropic entity called the Louis Vuitton Kingdom. So no taxes. Instead, it's all grant money to boost. I already described that last month, law enforcement so that we can boost pay, reduce time they work with better mental health, because it's better security. We can boost the department's budget, because quite frankly, I'm sorry, but regardless of party, having an open border has led to terror cells in our country, I believe they're here in California. And I believe that this 40% population of the Jewish people here, including Holocaust victims, that has spoken to me and thanked me for my protests, for standing up for their tribe, for reparations. I believe they're in danger. I tried warning this two weeks before the October attack, last year at the Ninth Street Festival, and I was arrested for trying to warn, saying we need reparations for the Jewish people, and the Jewish people are in danger, and two weeks later, they were attacked. So I'm saying again I believe there's terror cells in the state. I believe the police department needs to have more military equipment. I address this in the Kingdoms proposal because again this is the philanthropic endeavor. We open the world's most luxurious, most expensive resort all Louis Vuitton and it's all not for profit and we fund cleaning up the city with the homeless proposal that you work so hard on. Remember Vice Mayor you expressed oh you know how do we get the money, right? These are beautiful programs you've all come up with. Let me fund it. Bernardo and Alstairing, the Louis Vuitton Kingdom, Phil and Thropic. We open Phil, the Louis Vuitton castles that are empty and rodeo drive the hotel project, and then in Sakeenham sites, the beach house, the city. And again, it dresses reparations for what Lou Vuitton did by Gaston, the grandson back collaborating with the Nazis. So I've addressed all issues. The budget can be completely helped. We can stop taxes, no more. For the businesses, residents, the taxes keep going up. We can stop that. I have a solid plan. You just got to, you let a security guard interrupt my relationship with the Arnold's, so which I've worked on for years, and that's all I'm, that's the only reason for the litigation. I don't want your money for the record. I don't want, there's nothing the city can offer me. I serve the pleasure of Bernardo Arnold, and that's what was interrupted, and that's what I'm fighting for with any protest and litigation. Please help me restore that relationship and we can bring this prosperity to the city. All your programs paid for. Again, on the record is my attempt to avoid litigation. I want to help the budget of this city. I've told the officers my plans, officer drummin took it all down, hopefully he recorded it, details of this plan. How we have a private LV force, I told you before, all compromised of BHPD. So we get the older officers that have the wisdom protecting the billionaire guests of our city. And that means we can hire younger officers stronger and get the community more involved in the security. Like I said, grant money to expand policing and quite frequently I'm sorry sir, we need more drones. We're going to expand the joke program because it's not acceptable that these Holocaust victims have to see swastika spray painted like last fall. That's not acceptable. So we need more surveillance and a more of a police budget and Louis Vuitton can you come accomplish that? Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, I have no other speaker cards. If there anyone on the phone or video who wishes to be heard on this matter. We video who wishes to be heard on this matter. We have a Kevin Griner on the phone but he does not want to provide public comment. He's just showing support for G2. Okay. Thank you. For G2 for the item. Anyone else? No one else in no written comment. No emails. Okay. We will now go to council questions of staff or members of the public starting with Councillor Marlowe's. Well, I don't have questions. I would like to thank you, Jeff, for all of the hard work that's been put into this budget as well from your staff and all of our departments. The process has started back in December and as a new council member I've had many meetings and briefings with regard to the budget and we had our study session on May 21st and I would also ask anyone that would like to know more detail of our conversations to please go back and watch those meetings at meeting. I think that the meeting went really well and I'm really happy to be sitting up here with such a healthy financial situation and I thank you as well as my council members that have been here before me for putting us and being such good stewards and putting us in this situation. I'm really pleased with the budget as we look at the CIP budget, it's actually decreased from a net standpoint but in terms of the dollars that are, the projects that are planned to be worked on, we're continuing to invest in our infrastructure and increasing our reservoir management and our capacity with the reservoir and our water treatment plants as well as improving our parks and as well our parking all of our parking lots and increasing our EV stations at the parking lots and parking structures. So a lot of work is going to be done and as well there is additional funds that are supporting our security and public safety through IT and providing that backup support there as well. So I'm really happy to see that in the CIP projects with regard to the general fund. It's really nice to see that we have in their positions for the police department to add new positions, seven patrol officers and a lieutenant position to support our efforts for safety for Metro as well as there's increases for custodian services which you had mentioned. I think another thing that we didn't talk about has them been mentioned is there's been an increase with insurance premiums and the cost for our city for insurance. So that's had an impact but we are still in a very good position. There's also funds going for supporting our programs for after school programming it for our families at all of our parks and schools and trying to think what else is and key things on the general fund. But overall when we look at the budget in total there's a $2 million deficit for one-time funds, and I think that there are one-time funds, fund expenses that are in there, and I feel very comfortable with the budget overall. As we look at the budget for the out years for 26, 27, and 27, 28, I think that's where we see a dip. And in the revenue meeting and the expenses. And we're in a position now where we can really start to address that and try to smooth that out. And I look forward to being on the liaison for the audit and finance committee to look at ways to reduce our expenses. And as well as to increase our revenues. And in part looking at the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Committee from last year. So all of these things are good news and I'm really looking forward to getting work on our future budgets. Thank you. So I just wanted to make one correction. These are council and director questions. So if you have any questions or comments, we're gonna do questions and comments, which you've already done. But if there's anything have any questions or comments we're going to do questions and comments Which you've already done but if there's anything on the park majority we're going to do those at the same time So I don't know if you covered that or you want to cover and I don't have any other comments or questions with regard to that as well Thank you. Okay, so we'll go to councilmember Corman for Council director Questions and comments. Thank you Councillor, Councillor, Director, questions and comments. Thank you. First, Jeff, I want to echo Councillor Welles' comments and thanks for you and your team's hard work. You spent a lot of time and it shows, I mean, it's a very detailed budget. I think it's very thorough. I don't have a lot to add to what was discussed on the 21st because there hasn't really been any substantive changes. We thoroughly discussed the budget at that time and I agree anyone who wants to see our comments can look at the tape of that, I don't know, waste people's time tonight. I did have one question. Do we have the final insurance costs numbers yet? I believe we do and they are coming on the 27th and we are anticipating being within what is in the budget. Okay, actually a little under is my understanding, but definitely within it. All right, well that was my only question. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you and as has been noted we have been over this in detail. As I commented before I'd like to thank staff for all of their hard work in putting this together. I think there are some very good things here, but I am also convinced that we could actually be getting a little bit better value for money than we are. And all things considered, it's pretty good, but I think pretty good's not good enough at least for me in this case. And, you know, I will encourage staff to continue going back maybe even without directly doing zero base budgeting, taking that kind of mindset and going back to see where we can get better value for money. I think it's possible. We do continue to provide extraordinary services for our residents, and I think our residents deserve it, but many cases I feel we are charging for them. And sometimes I still do get the feeling that we treat our residents like ATMs. So with all of that said, I as said appreciate very much the work done by by staff. As has been the case in the past few years, I won't be supporting this, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate your hard work. Thank you. Okay, Vice-President Erick. I got it now. And this is once a night with pepper. All right. Well, thank you very much, Jeff. I really appreciate you and your team. And also all the department heads for putting all of these reports together. It really takes a collective effort. And we're grateful to the fantastic staff that we have in all of the department. So thank you for that. Just a couple of quick questions. I just wanted to know if some of the discussions that we had have been incorporated, for example, the conversation that we had, I wanted to make sure that you captured regarding Grace Stone and the 501C3 arm and being able to look at that in future projects. So while it's not necessarily directly related, sorry, reflected in the budget, I have talked about renewing efforts and look forward to working towards that as I believe the administration will actually be transferring to the finance department. So. Right. I appreciate that. And I know that we pretty much discussed this at length on May 21st, as was discussed. And I just wanted to also, you know, one of the largest components of our budget is private security. And oftentimes we've piecemealed it. And I just like to recommend that we try to go through with the negotiation process in a more holistic effort. Few meetings ago, we discussed, for example, a $55,000 transport for a few months. And I know that staff is now starting to work towards addressing that. So I think that it's really important for us to start looking at our contracts and ways that we could be more efficient and not piecemealing it, because I will always that. So I think that it's really important for us to start looking at our contracts and ways that we could be more efficient and not piecemealing it because I will always end up costing us more, especially with the projected deficit that we foresee and forecast. Whatever we could do to start looking at being more fiscally responsible, I want to encourage and support. Other than that, thank you for your efforts and I appreciate it very much. Okay, so great job. One of the things that we have done over the last few years is have had quarterly updates on the budget. And I think that certainly gives us and the public an inside look as to where we are. And I know we're gonna continue doing that. And I think that's very important. Jeff, you and your team have done a marvelous job keeping the council informed. The meetings that we have pre-budget are just terrific. I mean, it really puts us on there. We get the questions that we have answered. Sometimes they seem like silly questions, but you know they're not and we get the answers to them. I think one of the most important takeaways from this is the fact that 52% of our budget is for police and fire and it's worth every penny of it. Our community expects it and gets it. And when we have response times, you know, in the under three minutes and under range from both police and fire, that's because of the investment we as a council have made in police and fire. There are communities our size that their budget doesn't even equal what the police budget is of this city. And when you look at other communities, their budgets and you compare it to us, yeah, we could do better, but I wouldn't want to affect police and fire. Also the fact that we contribute 4% of our budget to the schools is a significant benefit because most people used to still do come to our city because of police fire in schools. So I'm very proud of this budget. I note the tourism and marketing budget is 2% of the overall budget. That is an item that I think is important to keep the caches of the city of Beverly Hills out there. I think that that is money that is well spent. Could it be spent better? I suppose so. Everything can be done better. the city of Beverly Hills out there. I think that that is money that is well spent. Could it be spent better? I suppose so. Everything can be done better. But I am comfortable with the areas that we have allocated our funds to. So with that, I am certainly in favor of the items. You have a question? I have one more item. I apologize. I also wanted to commend you on finding grants. This year we have 4,864,580,000 in grants. And I want to commend staff for getting those grants and anywhere else that we could apply and try to find government funding that would be fantastic. So thank you. Kind of like charging the political parties for the for the for visiting. Yeah for visiting us. Yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that. Okay. So yeah, we'll talk about that. Okay, with that, I will entertain a motion. Anyone want to do the motion? Frank. I'll do it. I'll do it. I moved to approve the fiscal year 2024 to 2025 budget. Authorize the over hire of five police officers through June 30, 2025. Approved the amended and restated executive compensation plan and adopt the following resolutions. Resolution of the council, the City of Beverly Hills, adopting the annual appropriations limit for the fiscal year 2024 to 2025. Resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills is improving the budget and financial policies for fiscal year 2024 to 2025. And appropriating funds there for and resolution of the parking authority of the City of Beverly Hills is improving the budget and financial policies for the fiscal year 2024 to 2025 and appropriating funds therefor. Second. And we'll do two votes, one for the City Council and then one for the parking authority resolution. We'll start with the City Council vote. Council member Wells? Yes. Council member Korman? Yes. Council member Miresh? No. Vice Mayor Nazarian? Yes. Mayor Friedman? Yes. And for the parking authority, Directorarian. Yes. Mayor Friedman. Yes. And for the parking authority, Director Wells. Yes. Director Corman. Yes. Director Mirish. No. Vice Chair Nazarian. Yes. Chair Friedman. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, moving right along here to item number G3. May we have recommendation of the Beverly Hills City Council Layows on CVB Marketing Committee regarding the fiscal year 2024-2025 work plan and funding request by the Beverly Hills Conference and Visitors Bureau in an amount not to exceed $4,987,891 and request to carry over $250,000 from fiscal year 2023-2024 tourism and marketing budget funding for programming and TI improvement in fiscal year 2024, 2025. May we have an oral report on this matter from Magdalena Davis, the community outreach manager. Good evening, Mayor Council. Magdalena Davis, your community outreach manager and liaison for our city partners. You'll be here in first from the CVB this evening on the recommendation to approve their fiscal year 2425 work plan. We bring before you these work plans each year and as well as their corresponding funding request for review and approval specifically for the CVB. We have international and domestic tourism and marketing that they fulfill for the city. I'd like to invite their CEO Julie Wagner up to give a presentation on the highlights of their work plan before I will return for recommendations and questions. Good evening, Mayor Friedman, Vice Mayor Nazarian and Council members. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for providing me with this opportunity to present our Program of Work for fiscal year 2425. And I'm sure you saw as you read your packets over the weekend, there was a lot, a lot, a lot of information in there. And the premise behind that is we want to be fully transparent in the types of programs that we are doing and the results that we can see as a result of those programs. We meet quarterly with our liaison and had that quarterly meeting last week where we went through all of that programming and those results in detail. So I'm going to try to make this quick, but at the same time I don't want to make it too quick, so stop me if I'm moving too fast. As you all know, we do a number of, thank you, Magdalena, you're going to be the magic slide mover, unless you want me to. You got it? OK. We do a number of sales missions, which targets travel agents and media in various regions of the United States and outside the United States as well. One of those is the New York Sales Mission where we travel with the Chamber of Commerce as well as the Mayor and the Vice Mayor and City staff every year. We invite travel planners and meeting planners to come and network with the directors of sales and marketing at the hotels as well as the GMs. And then prior to that, so that we don't waste any time during the day, we do a luncheon with meeting planners who are based in the New York Tri-State area the last couple of years. It's been New Jersey. Our budget last year was $146,000. This year's 150, slightly higher just to cover the cost of good sold and inflation. And for last year's meeting planner, luncheon, we had one lead which represented 62 room nights, but unfortunately the hotel that they were interested in was not able to accommodate their rate requests and timing. Destination marketing, which is probably the biggest area of focus for us as it falls in line with one of our four areas of focus. The most important of which is to grow demand. That budget over last year is flat at $950,000. And all of our initiatives this year will be focused on safety and the quality of life in Beverly Hills. And we'll do that by making sure that we differentiate ourselves from the greater Los Angeles area by making sure that everybody understands that we have our own security, our own city services, our own revenue stream. And when you come to Beverly Hills, it's like the Wizard of Oz, everything's greener, more beautiful, the sounds better, looks better, feels better, and you know, in comparison to Los Angeles, which is sort of like everything with a black and white filter. In the past, we've done this with creative advertising campaigns that usually fall under an umbrella. Again, that umbrella this year will be safety. We're exploring various different campaign umbrella ideas right now. And we actively promote during our shoulder seasons for the hotels, which is the fall and the spring. And then we complement that with various social media campaigns, which will be run across all of our channels. Again, falling in line with the themes that we're talking about. And then the other area of focus for us in terms of destination marketing is we work very actively with visit California in Expedia. I've got my fingers crossed that in years past, they will be offering a co-op campaign. And often those co-op campaigns provide us $50,000 and northward of additional media. So we invest $50,000 and by the time we get the added value from Expedia and from Visit California, our campaign has $100,000 reach. Domestic PR, we have three audiences that we communicate with. One is consumer, which is our destination marketing initiatives. The other is travel trade with events like New York and the third is media, which expands our voice and our reach and so An example of that when we went to New York last year, we had desk side appointments with publications like Condon Ast and Town and Country, and they in turn publish articles on what's going on in Beverly Hills to their audience, which usually fits our demographic. So we have a PR agency that monitors all of our media coverage, helps us ideate special ideas that resonate within the media landscape. And also with Visit California who does media missions in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, and we always try and participate in whatever Visit California is doing because it's cost effective. Myus which is beatings incentive conferences and exhibitions, which is the primary best source of business that we can attract. Milkin, for example, is an excellent example of a conference that brings in over 5,000 people. Not only does it fill our hotels, most of our hotels said they could have sold three times over, but it also results in people in our restaurants, in our retailers, and buzz on the street as one of my favorite board members says nobody likes to eat in an empty restaurant so having that buzz on the street is really important in attracting other people. Our director of group sales is very very active and has a very prominent case of FOMO, so she makes sure that she is actively involved in all shows and events where there is a large concentration of meeting planners who are interested in booking groups at our hotels. International marketing, and I will share this under separate cover. I didn't get it in time to share it in our presentation, but we recently got the results from our economic impact study and while average daily rate and revenue per available room has certainly kept us afloat and kept TOT revenue strong. We've lost quite a number of visitors. We're down two million visitors over 2018 and much of it can be said and attributed towards the fact that the international business has not returned fully since COVID. Some of that is due to a very strong dollar. It's not it's cheaper to go elsewhere than it is to come to the United States. Some of it is it's a lot easier to get visas elsewhere. And and the third point is the United States has lost a little bit of its shine. So it's very important that we remain active in all of the regions that we source visitors from like Mexico, Australia, the Middle East and the UK, and that we continue to attract these folks so that they come and stay in our hotels, dying in our restaurants and shop in our stores. So we'll do a couple of travel trade shows, one of which is targeted towards meeting planners. The other one is luxury leisure travelers or travel agents. And then we also have agencies that are in the four areas that I just recommended or just mentioned. And we'll be doing media activations with them, as well as travel trade initiatives, going in market, meeting with travel trade, and then having them push our content out through social media channels targeted in their regions. And then additionally, we work with a consortia called Virtuoso, which is basically a group of luxury high-end travel trade. And by working with them, we get exposure to people who book hotels that are at the rim rates that we have. A number of our hotels participate in Virtuoso. We'll also, they do, instead of sales missions partnering with Visit California, we'll partner with Virtuoso, which guarantees that will be in a more luxurious crowd. We also have a Australia sales mission and events planned for January that will be in conjunction with the visit California, the visit California CEOs are planning along with Carolin Bitteta, a trip, the 20th through the 24th of January. We will go back to the Middle East and do events there at the end of May. And then we have some carryover funds which I'll talk about later, which we would like to request be used towards international initiatives. Again, talking about safety and why travelers should come here. From a digital perspective, I'm trying to balance all of this. We have a budget of $475,000. We'll continue to work with Bold LA who does all of our social media across all of our channels. We currently have Instagram, Facebook, X, which is all organic and we launched a TikTok campaign or TikTok site this year and then search engine marketing optimization and then we need to do some back-end work to our website so that it attracts organic search better So that we're able to add a chatbot that can speak different languages because so much of our traffic is from other countries. And then also switching our CMS, our management system to WordPress. And then for metrics and research, we subscribe to Visa Credit Card Data, which we've been doing for years. So we'll continue that. We also subscribe to Smith Travel Research, which shows hotel revenue and business booked in comparison to other competing destinations within California. And then new for this year, we're going to look at a couple of different things which we'll go back to the liaison to finalize. but we have a couple of things on tap. One is tourism economics who does, they basically take all the data that you have and plug it in and show the return on investment or we're looking at working with another company that has built-in AI research groups, focus groups, and additional workforce members that you pay minimally for, but that have to be powered by human interaction. So it's sort of the best of both worlds. So for this year in comparison to last year, our domestic marketing is up by 2% and that's basically more money for group sales to drive more group sales revenue and the great thing about our group sales business is that it is the easiest for us to track in terms of direct return on investment. Many of our other programs are a little bit trickier because hotels sell the product. We just sell the experience. International marketing were down slightly only because we did that big global summit experience earlier in the year where all of our agencies came and then we did a luncheon to talk about all the different trends that are happening in the international sphere, and Carolyn Batetta spoke at that. Interactive, up 30%, and that's because of the website back end update. Collateral, down by 33%, and that's because we do our, our, all of our guides digitally now. So there's a lot of cost savings and not having to print things. Research, we completed our economic impact study, so that's down 16% special programs is the same. Operations including salaries, taxes and benefits. Up by 5%, we added an additional part time position to assist in the visitor center. We have rent increases year after year. I don't, some of you will remember our rent went up a few years ago, about 25%. And so each year. Who's the landlord? I don't know. Do you know him? I've met him once or twice. And then Salar's taxes and benefits itself are at 6%. We have another part time person, a COLA. And then bonuses for this year did not get, but we're not worked into the budget because we hadn't filled the positions yet. But now we are fully operational and are fully staffed. And then our visitor center is down by 38%, and that's just an accounting thing. Our auditor recommended that we purchase all new goods and services out of our sales revenue account instead of out of an account that's funded by the city. So we've moved that to be funded by our TI account, which this question came up during the liaison committee. We have about $59,000 in that account. So total cost of programming, we've tried to stay in line with the cost of inflation and cost of good sold increase is at 4% for carryover. We have a total and it's estimated at this point we won't know until we close the books. 75,000 we had to move our Miami reception because somebody quit and we didn't have the manpower. And then Dallas, we did not do, and we'd like to use that for international marketing. And then on the next page, we are proposing, we've been in our space since 2012. And so it's in, right before COVID, we had started to work on renovating the space and adding a couple more workstations. And obviously COVID hit, so we didn't do that. We have $138,000 in tenant improvement and an account just sitting to the side. And then whatever we have in carryover beyond that 150 for those marketing initiatives, we would propose that that go towards that. We've been working with Mondana, the city's architect on the plans, and everything is moving along, but obviously we wanna work with the city's contractors when we go out to bid, and so we'll use Mondanaus list of recommended city contractors will get bids and then we will come back to the liaison's and ultimately council to get approval to move that project forward. And I don't know how many of you remember being in our office, but for those of you who do remember the conference room has been moved slightly to the right. The visitor center is a tad smaller because we don't get a ton of traffic and so we think we can manage with the size that we're proposing. And then we add storage and two full work stations where the current conference room is. And then I'd also just, I know there's gonna be comments. I just wanted to give a big shout out to our Board of Directors who were here in full force for our liaison meeting and many of whom are here this evening with me. They are the one driving the bus. I just tell them when to stop and start again. And I could not do it without them. And I know a lot of them are traveling internationally and so they could not make it this evening. But I know some of them provided written comments. And that is it. Comments, questions? How would you like to move forward? We will start with anyone in Chambers who has any comments. You have not filled out a speaker slip. Please do so. And I have one comment on this item from Sam Jager. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. I'm Sam Jager, the General Manager of the Mayborne Beverly Hills. I just wanted to lend some comments of support for our amazing chamber. If you've travelled recently, you typically choose your destination before you pick the place you're going to stay. So the work they do is absolutely critical. The Beverly Hills Convention Visitors Bureau is pivotal to promoting the City of Beverly Hills as a premier destination for both leisure and business travelers, concentrating on crafting exceptional experiences that highlight the city's luxury and superior service. This role increasingly is increasingly vital as competing cities escalate their investments in their respective convention and visitors bureaus. I recently came from the city of Santa Monica and they outspenders by 2-1 as a reference point. These investments focus on attracting year round business, enhancing hotel occupancy, and boosting visitor spending, highlighting the competitive landscape. Consequently, it is essential for Beverly Hills to continue to support and invest in our CVB. Not only to preserve its esteemed image, but also to innovate and maintain a leading position in this highly competitive luxury travel market. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other speaker cards from anyone in the audience? If not, we'll go to any video or phone or emails. We do not have any video or phone, but we do have emails. Okay. And how many do we have? It's a total of four. Sorry. Four? Okay, we go ahead and read them. The first one is from John Scanlon, General Manager of Beverly Hills Hotel in Bungalos. The CVB is an invaluable means by which the general managers of the city's hotels can get together on a regular basis to support initiatives and strategy to drive more business into the city to benefit all. It is critical that we think about how much more we can do to make the CVB even more effective, successful, and to help drive more business. In a post-COVID world where luxury hotels have maintained a strong rate strategy that has seen occupancy decline. We need to be more aggressive than ever before at looking for new and creative ways to make our city more attractive. And this requires investment. Sorry, I can't be with you this evening as I am overseas. Second comment is from Antonio Boogarin from General Manager, he's the General Manager of Waldorf Historia Beverly Hills. And he says, the Beverly Hills Convention and Visitors Bureau is a pivotal part of the success of our luxury hotels in the market. Together, we craft high-end experiences that are second to none for our visitors. Beverly Hills is a destination in itself with exceptional experiences that are unrivaled in the world. As a market, we have an immense opportunity to increase the volume in spending of visitors. To achieve this, building awareness of the destination and luxury experiences becomes vital. Our primary objective is to position our destination as the top of mind choice for a tourist visiting the west coast for the first time. We are confident that our efforts will attract more visitors and increase spending propelling Beverly Hills to new heights of success. The next comment is from Fredrik Zimor General Manager of Leon Martage, Beverly Hills. And he says, we need to invest heavily in the promotion of Beverly Hills to highlight its unparalleled luxury, cultural attractions, and lifestyle as other cities like Paris, London, et cetera, continually invest in aggressive marketing strategies, maintaining a competitive edge against us. And the last comment is from Kathy Gohari, director of Admars Peepa. Now more than ever, we must share with the world why Beverly Hills is the best and safest place to visit. We all have a role in this, but ultimately it is the CVB that can vastly represent us around the globe. In order to compete with other locations, we need a greater investment to use wisely, along with our city partners on targeted groups and strategies around the world, for continuous growth in visitors and ultimately a stronger TOT. And that is the end of written comments. Okay, thank you. We have some closing comments by Magdalena Davis-Jones. Thank you. Just before your liaison recommendations, is there a reminder we are looking for approval of the work plan for fiscal year 2425 and separately a request to carry over 250,000 that would be marked for programming international marketing and TI improvements. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Okay, very good. So we will go to City Council questions of staff or members of the public. Oh, is there a liaison? Yeah, there is. I guess I was on the liaison? Yeah, there is. I guess I was on that laser. Yeah, go ahead. You're absolutely correct. We'll do the laser report. Yes, go ahead. OK. Well, we met previously with the CVB. And thank you, Julie, for your presentation, for this past quarters as well as your work plan for the upcoming year. There were so many of the hotel hoteliers representatives here in support of the CVB and the work plan. And as you've heard in the emails, you know, it is such an important role to really build awareness for Beverly Hills and increase that demand to increase our business travel and our leisure travel. And I think as we look at the budgets into the future, I think now is the time to make this investment because we want to increase our revenues. We want to see that continue to build. We know that there's a shortfall from international travel, as Julie mentioned, of $2 million. And I think that putting the dollars into international makes a lot of sense because we want to continue to stay top of mind and build that business. And the other area we spoke about was the group business. With milk and in how successful that is, and really targeting more groups to come to Beverly Hills, and how that can be a great experience for them as well. And all of that takes the investment that is in this work plan. I'm happy to hear that there's more potential ways for us to measure from a data standpoint. So as we move forward, we can really look at that because I do think it is critical for us. There's a lot of events coming to Los Angeles. We talked about LA-28 as well. And we want to be able to capture as much of that business in Beverly Hills as we can and how people come here and stay here. And, you know, as these dollars start to pay off, we'll start to see it, you know, it affects not only the rooms, but the restaurants, the retail and all of the businesses surrounding and in Beverly Hills. So, very much in support of this. And the other thing was the TI improvements, and we spoke about that as well. Just really seeing first what those plans are and what the budgets are and hope, and to stay within that budget for your improvements. We looked at, I know that Mondeinah, the city architect, has looked at that and giving you a guideline for a What to budget from a square footage standpoint? So as long as we're staying within that budget and that comes back to us We aren't supportive that has the liaison Thank you And I was the other liaison I was I think this is the third time I've heard seen this representation So I can almost give it Julie next time Couple of things first of all the answer to the question is who that owner is landlord is of the space is the city of Beverly Hills And that's just indicative of the fact that that the CVB does pay market rent to the city. So that is not an extra thing that's out there that the city gives. They do pay the rent. We talked about, and Julie mentioned, that the visa issues, we are not getting the kind of business or the kind of business, or the level of business that we've had in the past, from the Middle East, because of the visa lag time. I think it's over a year now, it's the 500 days. UAE is the worst, which is 400 days. The other countries are doing much better, and I do anticipate that we'll see more business from other countries this year. And there's obviously pressure discussion by the CVB of issues like that in an effort to get the State Department to keep moving on those. And it's just one of the things I think that the CVB tries to do in getting business to the city of Beverly Hills. I also want to say that I have been, we have been in the past constructively critical of some of the issues of within the CVB, but the CVB has been responsive to those. I've seen this year that issues that we have had in the past have been addressed and addressed extremely satisfactorily. So I thank the CVB for that. I think that shows that we are a partnership and that we can work together. I want to acknowledge two of the emails by individuals who are present here, the comments by Kathy Gohari, who thank you for being here and by Fredrick Zamor, who also is here. I also acknowledge Bill Wiley, who's here from the CVB, and of course Sam Jager has already spoken. at the liaison meeting, I think we had most, not all, of the general managers or representatives from all of the major hotels. So I think that they have shown the fact that they support the CVB in general terms. Because the CVB does not get business for a hotel, they get business for the city of Beverly Hills. And then it's up to the hotels to do whatever they can do to get that business. The TI, the fact that the CVB has not had a refresh in, I think it's 12 years, is that what it is 11 or 12 years, I think that's appropriate. And the fact that there is a carryover, to me, you can look at it two ways, and I choose to look at it way number two. Number one way is to say, well, there's a carryover. Should go back into their general budget. But creating a carryover takes planning by an entity or a department. And the fact that they were able to save some money so that they can do a project a little bit earlier by not spending it to me as a positive. It's not a negative. So I am supportive of the carryover for the purposes that are being used, that is the two extra missions and potentially the tenant improvements. The one ask that I have and I'll reiterate it again, and Council Member Wells mentioned it, that I've asked the hotels through the CVB to be responsive to LA-28's Olympics request in order to accommodate whatever they can in terms of cooperation with that entity. I think that is one of my initiatives this year. I think it's important. I think that the cooperation with LA-28 will be beneficial to the city of Beverly Hills because of the extra benefits that are provided to cities and locations where there is some cooperation. I think whatever that level of cooperation is, of course, up to each individual hotel negotiating with LA-28, but I think that there needs to be an awareness that it is important to the city of Beverly Hills. So those were the issues that we discussed at the liaison and I will take it over if Council Member Wells has any further comments. No, thank you. And Council Member Corwin. Thank you. Julie, thank you for the detailed report tonight and the work plan looks, you know, thorough and well thought out. And obviously, the CVB is an important part of our city and our sales efforts to generate revenue to the city. I just have a couple of questions about a couple of elements. First of all, the New York event, there's two events for $150,000 in the work plan. Are those, first of all, why two events not one event? So one event is targeted specifically towards group travel and we tend to go a little bit outside of the city where we know we're not going to get them to come into the city to our larger event and then it has very much a group sales focus. So we're really talking about selling our city for bigger group travel and incentive programs. So that's primarily why we do two events. And then the second event is primarily leisure agents, a little bit of media, although we do desides as well. And then for meeting planners who live either in the city or close to the city, we also invite them to the cocktail party. So they have one of two ways of meeting with us and liaising with us. No, you also have in the work plan there's an event in Miami to coincide with the chamber trip to Miami. Correct. And that's $75,000 for that work plan. So is that one event? and there's an event in Miami to coincide with the chamber trip to Miami. And that's $75,000 for that work plan. So is that one event? Well, hopefully it will be able to do something additional to that. We were looking at doing a smaller cocktail party at the Fyena Hotel originally, and then doing a small group luncheon. So similar events but much smaller scale. So hopefully too. And you mentioned in your presentation that group sales are actually among the easier things to track in your field. So with respect to the New York events, do you go every year to New York? We do. And so you mentioned your presentation. You had one lead last year in a group sale that potentially 62 rooms, but it fell through because there was no agreement, I guess, on the rates. Correct. Do we have any idea of how much TOT revenue that would have generated to the city? You know, usually the formula that we use and I apologize, not much of an automatic calculator, but I'll tell you how we get there. We use a broad sweeping $375 a night, which is actually super conservative. And so 62 roommates times 375 times 14%, which is 23,000. Did you do that? So it's about $25,000 in business and then TOT would be 14% of that. Whether and that was the only lead we got from last year's- From that particular event, the year before we got not only a lead, but book business for $385,000 worth of business. So it just depends. And how many, we've been going for several years. So the year before that, which would have been- We did that last- That would not have- Not this past years. So the year before that, which would have been holding us back. That would not have happened. Not this past year, but the year before was the first time we've ever done a meeting plan or luncheon. So that was a new idea from our team. And it worked so well that we decided to do it again. And I think some of that is because the scope of where people are located has changed a lot since COVID. There's a lot of people working from home, so it's a little harder to get them. With respect to the non group of that, the cocktail party for the travel agency media people, do you have any, many measure of what kind of business that threw off last year? So that basically what we do is we grab the list of people who attended. We get some names from the hotels, but we also get names through our relationship with Virtuoso. And then also from, I mean, there are people who have been going for 27 years as long as we've been throwing, you know, having some sort of event. And what we do is we share the list with the hotels for them to follow up. And then they'll let us know if anything was booked as a result of it. But more often than not, a lot of these people are either people they know, but who haven't maybe booked business. Fortunately, slash unfortunately, a lot of sales business is done through relationship building. And so maybe they didn't book it right when they met with us in New York, but oh, I just saw them book my client into there and so there's some residual effect as well. I wish it was better that we knew exactly what it was. It would certainly help all of us standing here tonight. No, and I agree, so I'm trying to get an idea of the value of the events, right? So the other question I had is, one of the sales pitches you intend to make and it sounds like particularly overseas, is that Beverly Hills is not LA, wherever we are cleaner or we're safer. But I'm just, I wonder how that's gonna play out because I also know from the materials that a lot of times we view our competition as London and Paris and other luxury destinations, those cities tend to have more things to offer in terms of museums and events spaces than we do. But obviously, when you include the greater metropolitan area, we compete very well with those cities. So how exactly do you differentiate from LA when if we're competing with Paris and London, we probably need to rope in the attractions in LA at the same time we're pitching our own services? So usually the elevator pitches, something to the effect of come to Berley Hills, make that your home base. We're safer, we have our own police force, our own fire department, our own revenue stream. We don't have very much homelessness here at all or if we do, we take care of it through our social services immediately. And then make this your home base. The first couple of days, you're obviously going to want to unwind with jet lag and what have you. So stroll the streets, shop, go to the spa, relax, and then use Beverly Hills because we're so centrally located as you're jumping off point for everything that you want to see and do in the area, knowing that every evening you come back to safe Beverly Hills where you don't have to look over your shoulder when you go out at night. But I guess the question I have is by saying that, do we suggest that perhaps LA, this metropolitan area surrounding us is not as safe as perhaps Paris or London or Berlin or some other cities? And I just wonder if that's a mixed message. I just don't know how you. It's tricky. It is tricky. I understood. It's tricky because you don't want to look defensive either. You know, I can only, you know, talk about it in terms of, look, all those big cities are not very safe. And everybody knows that all those big cities are safe. It's a fucking roll, my country. Right. So the good news is when you're coming to the LA region, you have some place to be where it's safe and you can feel comfortable. Yes, you're gonna go see other things, you know, you're gonna go to Malibu, you're gonna go to Universal Studios, you're gonna do all of that. But you're not gonna be wandering the streets in the evening having to worry about looking over your shoulder. And I think that's really our biggest point is that this is your safe haven, your oasis in the middle of southern California. And they only truly luxury destination in southern California. All right. Well, thank you. Those are my questions. Come. Council Member Miers. Thank you. I don't know where I'd heard, but is it true that milkin is considering moving to Las Vegas? To my understanding they will be here for the next couple of years and the Hilton and Cain Group is working diligently to make sure that it's a long-term commitment. So there's no announcement or? No, I think originally they were threatening. If it didn't go well this year, that they were thinking about going to Las Vegas, but it went great. They were waiting this year? It went great, yeah. They're ready to come back next year. So considering Keynes adding and significantly to that site, is there any preliminary, I mean I know it's a few years construction, but is there any preliminary discussion about trying to attract the next milk and whatever that may be, or another milk and if you will? Absolutely, and you know that we should be so lucky. I mean, milkin is a very unique opportunity. There's not really a whole lot out there like it. However, one of the things we do is we pay attention to things that are happening in other cities and we make sure that we align ourselves with those organizations. For example, Morgan Stanley, traditionally booked something over at the Dohani property and our group sales director was able to coerce, well coerce is the wrong word, convince them to come over to the Beverly Wilshire with a spillover to the Mayborn to my understanding. And so, even in working with the Hilton and joining forces with Fairmont because it's better that we get the business than they go to Las Vegas and we don't even see any of the business. So what would be other kinds of maybe there's some that are going to be created rather than having to pill for them from other cities. What are some other kinds of milken-esque conferences that we could look to attract? Because obviously Vegas for huge conventions, that's something that we would never want to compete with, we can't. LA made the, I don't know. But the whole point of milken is it's a signature event because it's not only people staying here, but it takes place at our facilities. And since that one Beverly Hills site is going to have even more facilities and be better suited for these sorts of events, what are other going forward sorts of conventions that you think that would be appropriate for us to try to attract well It has to be the right size obviously because we only have 2200 rooms here and now with the renovations at the Hilton We're gonna lose I think 170 rooms so We're looking at pharma we're looking at pharma. We're looking at financial insurance. I forget what the C is. But FICP is a, we belong to them. We're also looking at AMX GBT, which is American Express's global meeting planner division. We also belong, there's a smaller luxury thing called B Beyond, which we just partnered with Lermatage on and Mayborn. So we're really trying to fish where the Beverly Hills fish perspective fish are and there's certain categories where they're more likely to spend more money. And I get it that milk in is unique but it's not just sort of a trade, maybe it is but it certainly doesn't position itself as kind of just a trade group coming here. What's a think tank? Right, exactly on the level of you think of Davos, or not quite, maybe not quite. But so the idea is it's great if maybe CVB can sit down and before we're thinking and think of, OK, we look online at the sorts of things that are being created and maybe do do outreach and You know it could be something having to do with arts and culture which I think would be great for our city Any anyway, I think that's what we should be of course looking at and I get it that We're not going to be able to accommodate them, accommodate them during award season. We don't have the rooms. But I know that there are times of year where the rooms are available and that's what your goal is to fill them. Anyway, good to hear that Milken is hopefully going to be with us for a while and appreciate your report. Thank you. Yes. and appreciate your report. Thank you. Yes. Julie, thank you so much for the report and thank you to staff and thank you to all of our board members and hoteliers that are here. We really appreciate you taking the time I know it's getting late and we'll try to move this along, but we appreciate you and your partnership. will try to move this along but we appreciate you and your partnership. So I'm looking at the amount and I was just curious to start just to give us an idea of what the original TOT amount was that was allocated from that 2% that does anybody know what that number was? From last year? No. Or from this year. Just originally when it originated. 2008 maybe? What, just when it originated. I think this is 26 years ago. 26 years, 28 years. Yeah, this is our 27th year. And while I do not have that, I do have some TOT history going back to 2016. I'm just curious as to how much it's increased over the years. It was a $6 million TOT budget representing $38 million And now you can see the increases and decreases from endemic era on the recovery. All right. Okay, great, thank you. And so just a few questions about the numbers that were presented to us. It says that $87,000 was and some $87,800 for research. And I'm wondering what the results of the research were because you know I served on this liaison many years back and we're always just curious as to see what the matrix is of because this is something that we often can't really put numbers to so just wondering what the results of your research were. Yeah, research is one of those things where it's indicative or directional and then we bounce things off the hotels to make sure that we're in the right direction, but this year we did do an economic impact study and I will share that with Council under separate cover. And it basically tells us 50% international, 50% domestic, whereas in 2018 it was national 20% domestic. It gives us the age, the demographic profile, so the age range, whether or not they're married. the demographic profile, so the age range, whether they're not they're married, it also tells us where they're coming from. And it tells us how many people come to the day versus how many people stay overnight and our percentage of overnight visitors did grow, but I will afford that on to you. I think I spoke a little bit about that at the event that we had and it was fascinating. It was actually really interesting and really showed the direction that our tourism is going. And I think that's probably helpful information for the hotels to have as well. There was a mention of a part-time position to assist in the visitor's center. And I think that's fine. I've walked by there many times, and there really isn't that much happening in the visitor's center. I don't know. But I was wondering, has there been any thought to perhaps putting out a kiosk to have some form of digital footprint or machinery in the middle of, for example, to rodeo and where people could go and click, hey, what are some events that are happening in Beverly Hills this week or what are some things that I could visit? What are, you know, these are art tours that we have going on. We have a lot of different programs and events, and I think being able to partner with our, you know, the programs that we have, but also being able to partner with our visitors in the sense of letting them know the programs that we have available. What was that object that we had we talked about a couple years ago? It was just about to mention that. We have explored this previously and we can certainly bring back some options at the time it was advertising driven and our advertising ordinance I think made a collective squirm amongst council at the time for how to best fund this, but certainly informational rather than advertising or advertorial can be explored. I think the nexus of the small business community and other business owners all the way up to and including the hotels would be appreciative and we can certainly take a look at that again. We know we have requests from other districts as well as Roedale, but not on Roedale, such as South Beverly and others to consider it for their areas. Exactly. And so these are things that are discussed in the small business, large business task force, and I think it's important to hear while we want to, first of all, honor the requests of our hotels. Once our visitors come and stay in the hotels and they visit rodeo drive and the other neighboring streets. I'm wondering if there's any plans or any focus on directing them to other parts of our city. Yes, you. Bless you. Before we encourage them to go to other attractions. So we do market our online, you know, the ability on the phone to get around and how much information. And I do know that a lot of visitors rely on their phones to help direct where they want to go. Our website does have events, activities, places to shop, dying when we do see people in the visitor center. Our concierges are always giving them direction on what to do and go and see in the city. And where to find cultural highlights and going and there's an art app and we also have walking tours. And so we do try to push that out as much if you wanted to give us space on rodeo drive to have a visitor center, we would never shun that. But I'm just- Okay, you ask is what I said. I was kidding. I was just kidding. Just for clarity. You you know, think big go big or go home, but but yeah, we would do you have a Beverly Hills visitors app? with this website improvement. We heard, I think, directly from these folks who are international, that it can't be understated, that the importance of having easy mobile access translated well and efficiently is gonna be the most beneficial takeaway. Well, that's what I was gonna say. When we travel other places, there are certain options. And I think that the language barrier may, this may help with the language barrier. So, looking into a Beverly Hills Visitors app, the language barrier may, this may help with the language barrier. So looking into a Beverly Hills visitors app. So I mean, I touched on this, I just want to reiterate it. We have a lot of new hotels coming to the city as well. A lot of new visitors hopefully will come from that. We want to be able to maintain and keep along the lines of what council member coordinates said we want to be able to keep that business within our city as much as possible. We're going to be having to go into New York and Miami and I think that it's really important to look at businesses not only within our triangle but also businesses that may flourish in the Robertson-LSianna-Ga area. The metro is coming in that area and it's really going to be a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to cultivate it and bring additional revenue to the city. So that's something I really want to encourage. I noticed that your social media numbers were all up, and that's really exciting, and I know that you've done a lot of great things with the social media outreach. Most people who utilize social media have ads in it or generate revenue from it in one way or another. What is your matrix or how do you know that this increase in numbers actually translates to visitors and revenue as opposed to just people wishing that they were coming to Beverly Hills? I'm just turning around to Julianne from Bold. I mean, I would love to have a fancy answer. We don't. Social media is not really a form used to market specific products and services. It's more of creating, it's all about the brand. And one of our areas of focus is to protect and grow a strong brand. So it's about building relationships with our current demographic, but also about targeting the next generation of luxury consumers, which is why we look at Gen Z, we look at all the different generations. I can tell you that if people are engaging with us, then they're building a relationship with us. And ultimately, what we hope is that we'll transition into a visit to one of our establishments. Do I know that specifically? I don't, but I do know that if we don't do it, we will suffer. One brief thing that I have learned from bold and from overseeing these partners for the last year, the remarketing campaign, now that all the cookies are tied together, is incredibly valuable, while I don't believe we can put a dollar amount on it, which we do. I don't know if we can overall down to the last hour, but when you engage with or see a post, you would get retargeted and the next website that you might visit and the next remarketing you would see the CVBs ads and this, you know, through the lens and these visit, beautiful visit California or Expedia or specific Beverly Hills CVB campaigns. And I think you're pulling the dollar amount because I don't have dollar amount but you do. For our remarketing campaigns, so if anybody is on the website or they see any of our social, then what we do is we serve up an ad to them and we can tell if they clicked on the ad, or I'm looking for the results from Bob. It's in here. I'll send you an email. It is in him and we do have a very, very conservative ROI. And I wanna say somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.9 to 1 is the return on investment. But I'll rather than wasting people's time. I'll send you. Oh, there it is. 7 to 1. Thank you. Okay, great. I know that in the past there was some discussion about the hotels using questionnaires to get an idea of where people or how they chose to come to Beverly Hills so that it would give us some matrix and some understanding to be able to focus on those aspects. Is that something that anybody is followed up on? That would be a question for one of the hotels. I know Scott at the time who is the general manager of Lermotage said that most of the hotels don't do that anymore because everything is now digital. But if there's a hotel that would like to address the idea of, no, not really, but yeah, it's not. You Kathy, you wanna address that? Yeah, it's not, people don't really send out questionnaires like that anymore. They do surveys and they do focus groups, but it's not usually based on, you stayed here, let me send you a survey. All right. But surveys are used. OK, so I'm going to go to my last point. With you said the visitors from the Middle East, while we're waiting, things have changed now. And the visitors that we're having from certain areas have decreased. I think it's really important for us to reinvent and reinvent ourselves, and I think you're starting to do that, and you've been trying to be innovative and creative. I was with Michael Milken a while back, and he mentioned something that I found really interesting. He said that when we have the Milken conference, we'd love to see that a portion of, for example, canon would be closed down during the evenings so that all of our visitors would be able to freely roam and walk and kind of have like a promodestrian family to a pedestrian friendly space. I don't know if that's something that is feasible or even something that we're interested in looking into, but it was something that he specifically spoke about himself. And like the mayor said, you know, there's the Olympics and all of these different events that are coming. And also I agree with Council Member Marish that the conferences are really going to be a great revenue builder for our city and community builder as well, just bringing people and letting them see how beautiful Beverly Hills is and to visit. But those are my comments and I appreciate all the time and effort that you're putting into this and I'm looking forward to the New York and Miami trip hoping that we will really be able to bring in some great businesses into our city and strengthen the ties that we already have. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, so I on behalf of the Policy and Management Department would like to take credit for a conference that we're going to be bringing in in December. In December? More to come later on. But I really appreciate the work you're doing. And I guess one thing that all the hotels who are very competitive among each other can agree upon is that the CVB does do a job in promoting the City of Beverly Hills. So it's a testament that they're here, that you have all of that support. And with that, I will ask for a motion. I move. To approve the recommendation of the conference visitors Bureau, marketing liaison committee to approve the Beverly Hills CVB proposed annual work plan and corresponding funding requests. Oh so much better with these. In the amount of 4,987,891 dollars for fiscal year 2024, 2025. The request to carry over $250,000 in unused funding from fiscal year 2023, 2024, to use towards a sales mission, additionally international marketing and tenant improvement in the CVB office space in fiscal year 2425. I'll second. And if we may have a roll call. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Korman. Yes. Council member Mirish. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. And Mayor Friedman. Yes. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay. We will now move on to item number G Something or other T4 yeah moving right along and Recommendation of the Beverly Hills City Council. Lay is on rodeo drive special events holiday program committee regarding The rodeo drive committee fiscal year 24 2024 2025 work plan on Roedale Drive Special Events, holiday program committee regarding the Roedale Drive Committee Fiscal Year 2024, 2024, 2025 work plan. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you. Report from Agdalena Davis-Jones. I would like to have a round hug, round hug, Dave, here. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Once again, Magdalena Davis-Jones, your community outreach manager. I bring before you the Roe Deo Drive Committee work plan for the fiscal year 2024-2025 kickoff. I would like to note that we would have, we're going to have a full presentation regarding the bulk of their work plan for this year and that is in regards to their social media and website management. This digital and marketing management is crucial to the rodeo drive as a business district. In addition, they have a second item which is their rodeo drive celebrates program that has now gone to its second year, proposed for August and October. rodeo drive celebrates fashion and rodeo drive celebrates timepieces and fine jewelry. Those two items make up the what we call call, base funding for the Rodeo Drive Committee. It should be noted that you won't see before you today items such as the Concoursers, Delegants, Fathers, DeCarsha, which took place on Sunday, or the Holiday Kickoff as those items are brought separately for your review and approval. With that, I would like to invite up the President of the Rodeo Drive Committee, K. Monica Rose. Good evening. Mayor Friedman and the Council members and our two new Council members. This is for our fiscal year 2024-25 Rodeo Drive website in social media. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm still tired from the car show. Our year in numbers, and if you look at all of those green arrows, everything has gone up. So our followers forK last year. This year it's 84K, up by 7%. Our TikTok followers 2.2K last year, this year, it's 2.8K, up by 27%. Our analytics for Instagram, our reach was 5.5 million last year. And this year, it's 10.4 million up by 89%. Total X 132K, 210K, up by 59%. Average engagement rate proposed 0.71% this year it's 0.99 up by 39% Our Facebook reach 12.9 million 19.2 million this year up by 37% average engagement rate per post. 0.40% and now it's 0.74 up by 85% or tick-tock views total views 41.3K. This year it's 103.7K up by 151%. Total engagement, 4.3 for TikTok, 13.3K this year up by 209%. As you can see, this graph just shows from 2019 when we started with BOLD LA. To currently 2024, you can see the increase on our Instagram. Also on our Facebook, you can see from 2019 when we started with BOLD LA, you can see the increase to currently to 2024. And also with our TikTok, which we started in 2021, and our TikTok has gone up also its increase by 2.8 K followers. And now I will turn it over to Julianne Whitboldelli. Good evening, Mayor Friedman, Vice Mayor Nazarian, Council Member, it's such an honor to be here. I want to start our presentation or my part of the presentation with our biggest wins in social media. And we have been driving success. Our Instagram strategy has sort. And as you can see on the previous page, we gained 13,000 new followers this fiscal year, which is a 69% increase compared to last year. We also have repost content that connects. And we are doubling, we doubled our content interactions, which really shows us that people and our followers like what we are posting because it's one thing to get reached, but getting really likes and people who share this content shows us it's performing well. We also maximized our paid media strategy and we were able to have a more effective paid media strategy and therefore we could expand our reach by 89% for Instagram and 49% for Facebook. We also promote locally events and this is very important for us and we reached 1.6 million people with promoting for example the Rodeo Drive celebrates, both holidays but also Mr. Brainwashed. And we are also thinking about new things we can do in the next fiscal year. And one thing is we want to really tap into collaboration tools because this is such an important topic. And we are thinking about specifically for these bigger events having collaboration posed with the city, for example, or our members, the Rudiard Drive Committee members, to really expand on this reach. And we are also looking at always monitor trends on social media because what's trending right now might be not trending tomorrow anymore. So we are working on a series about Rudi O'Drive that talks about the hidden gems of Rudi O'Drive and we are specifically targeting Gen C with this because they really want to find this unique content and things you cannot find on Google or any websites. For the website, our biggest wins are definitely we made sure that the website is very accessible. Last year we added an accessibility plug-ins that people can really make the fund bigger, smaller, change contrast. This year we added three languages to our website, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese, to make sure that people and specifically international travelers find all the information they need on our website before they are traveling to or the O-Drive, but of course also for people who live in the US. We did a visual refresh. We had a photo shoot with Brickard Wilcox and we updated the photos on our website so that everything looks very current and beautiful. We have compelling content. We want to make sure that we not only have information kind of like facts on our website, but we also make sure that we have engaging content. So therefore we added the new latest podcast season and we are also working right now to add the new podcast season to the website. We are spotlighting our members. We are really helping and hoping to help driving sales support for them. We added a new page to the website called Collections, where we are highlighting the campaigns from these members to give them even more exposure on our channels. We can also see that we have the increase of our members that are reaching out and want to get featured on the website has increased by 20%. So we were able to add more events to our website, which really shows us that people like what we do. And it's really beneficial for them. We have had so many calls with headquarters in New York and everything like from the brands to really see how we can support them. For the next fiscal year we are looking into SEO optimization because we want to make sure that we boost organic traffic and of course maximize our online presence. And we are also working on a new page for roadier drive celebrates because it's a little bit different than the other events because there's so many sub-events going on for this one. I also want to talk about the power of digital marketing because our radio drive social media channels and websites are very powerful branding tools. Because we can own and craft a digital narrative that blends luxury, fashion, entertainment, but also hospitality, we establish radio drive as the ultimate destination for luxury and we can boost this through our channels. We can tailor content to diverse audiences to local followers, but also to international followers. One thing that's very, very important for us is that we engage with younger generations, specifically Gen C, because they are the next generation of people who are buying on a radio drive Drive and we do everything we can to create content that really resonates with them well. We also amplify the presence of RoDio Drive Committee members as they mentioned before and we are championing the businesses on our channels and we also nurture strong partnerships with the City of Beverly Hills, collaboration on events we just had the Concourse de la Grande. And I think it was a very, very successful event. And we had weekly calls with the city and city partners leading up to the event to really make sure that we have like a combined power to really promote these events. Community building is one key to our success as well. And we anticipated the trend early on in 2019 and you can see our numbers Going up and this is really one of the results and it's paying off right now We have a very positive community on social media, which is kind of rare sometimes because 99% we get positive feedback People love what we do and I think we really were able to build a love print here feedback, people love what we do. And I think we really were able to build a love print here. We see an engagement search. We had an impressive increase in our engagement rates. It's easy to get reached with paid media, but it's not easy to get engagement and likes. So this really shows us that our content is performing well and exactly resonating with our audience. We are building trust, fostering loyal and trusting relationships with our followers. We get so many messages every day and we have been in contact with all of them. And we are also enhancing Beverly Hills and as you can see on the left top side of my presentation slide, this is a post from the Valdov Astoria and we posted or we commented underneath of their post and our comment got 273 likes from their followers. And I think this just this only helps the world of Astoria to boost their performance but it also helps us to bring their followers to our page and to hopefully get more followers. And we are harnessing user-generated content and this is one very important thing that we have done from the very beginning because people love to come to Rudiard Drive, they love to dress up, they love to bring their dogs and friends, and we want to make sure we give them the stage that they serve. And this also helps us to really reach international people because a lot of these people on Rudiard Drive are people from different countries. In the moment we are posting their content and they are resharing it. All of their followers will see it. So this is a very powerful strategy without spending any money on content creation. On this page, you can see our evolution over the years. And at the very beginning, when we started to take over this account, we started with Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. We only posted user-generated content and we got some brand campaigns in. We were able to feature, but not as many because we didn't have the relationships back in the day. The next year, we added TikTok to our mix because we saw that so many people were already talking about RodeoDrive on TikTok and we wanted to be part of the conversation. And of course, reached in C. We added original content means we were, we went to radio drive to take content, we worked with content creators and this has increased over the years because the algorithm right now specifically from Instagram favors original content so we have to make sure we go to radio drive once or twice a month to take photos, videos, storefront, window shopping and you name it. For the website we relaunched and optimized the website in 2022, 23. We added the accessibility plug and we had an optimized CMS. This year we were focusing on adding the languages, Chinese, Arabic and Spanish and then the next year we want to focus on SEO. And as you can see, we are always focusing specifically for the website on one bigger topic per year. We have a lot of updates we have to do, but we want to make sure we are staying within the budget, but we are always enhancing our website. And the budget we are asking for today is 184,998. It's exactly the same budget we were asking for in the last year. And it's split up into an agency fee for website updates and management, content curation, social media management, content production and curation general topics such as attending the monthly meetings from Rodeo Drive, weekly update calls with PRD, departments calls with a city before these events. And we also have a budget for the party for paid social media advertisement, for purchasing content, photo shoots, website templates, hosting of the website, but also previously this year, the language plugin, and the the next year the SEO part. Thank you. And if I may increase the size of this tiny slide, give me just a moment. Thank you. Thank you. Not sure what happened there. The liaison's had previously asked for a year over year which did not appear in the liaison report. The liaison's previously asked for a year over year which did not appear in the liaison report, so we did go ahead and include a year over year budget comparison for the Rodeo Drive Committee base funding request, including the activations and programs that have previously been a part of this request and the social media and website management. It should be noted in addition to the wonderful presentation that Juliane just gave. They do have a request this year to fund banners for Roe Deo Drive celebrates. That program is unique and has come down $13,000 in cost from last year as the Roe Deo Drive Committee secured a partnership with the artist Richard Orlinski who has offered to pay for the banners in addition to placing beautiful art out on Roe Deo their rodeo drive celebrates in August. So you will see that decrease from last year 26,000 down to 13. We also do partner with them to help promote using advertisements and other items from our own communications budget. In total you'll see that this year's rodeo drive proposed base budget is 197,998 that encompasses both the rodeo drive celebrates banners and the bold LA presentation you just heard. Thank you. Okay, very good. Thank you, and we will go to Laezon report. Council member Wells. Sure. Well, thank you very much for your report and as Leser said, Leser and I are the liaison for the Red Drive Committee. And you know the numbers look really positive and you know it's really hard to argue with what your strategy is on this as well as looking at what the program is for this summer and you know the reduction of the cost for the banners and as well I understand that depending who we are able to secure for the next program that 13,000 may go away as well. But the program looks really fantastic and very targeted and very fresh and I really supported. As do I, you know, as we know, Rodeo Drive is a crown jewel of Beverly Hills. The fact and the stewardship of the Rodeo Drive committee of that Crown Jewel is just unbelievably, unbelievable over time. The fact that we are seeing a essentially equal budget for the base funding and savings on the banners is indicative of the fact that both the road day-to- drive and its partner are doing a fantastic bold away are doing a fantastic job and for that and many other reasons we were supportive of the budget request. So we'll go to public comment if there is any I do not have any speaker slips is there any audio, video, emails, anything like that? Neither. Okay, so then we will go to Councilmember questions, comments. Councilmember Wells, if there's anything else you have to add? Nothing else to add. Are we talking about Richard Orlinski in this? We can't. That's part of it. So I do think that that is a really fantastic program and it's going to be very exciting to have that on rodeo drive. It's familiar but it's very fresh and I think it's going to make quite a statement as well as potentially having that as a a not sure if it's a retail place or a space for Richard Olinsky following that program if you could speak a little bit about that. Of course it will be a public art exhibit that's available up in downrodeo drive with the nine different pieces but there will be a component that is a kickoff hosted instead of a retail space at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which is a member of the rodeo drive committee. So I think it's very much on point and on brand and really looking forward to seeing that this summer. And of course supportive of the budget request. Yes, and I'm very supportive of the budget request. Yes, and then very supportive of the budget request. Okay. Go to Councilmember Corbyn. Thank you. So a great report. Everyone who knows me knows that social media is a pretty much a black box to me. So I'm going to rely on the professionals and other people who are more familiar with it to gauge the appropriatenessess it looks fine to me. I mean the numbers are not huge. I do want to ask some questions about the Rich Duralinsky program though. Who do I ask that? You can ask me or I can bring up K as well. Whoever knows the most. Or tell them the project. Yes, go ahead. So I've never heard of Mr. Duralinsky and I'm curious how did he come to the attention of the Red Dead Drive Committee? He is probably the most famous French artist. So and through a relationship with Cathy Goharry, we were able to secure a lot of work, a lot of conversation. Yeah, please. Why not? And it's a great partnership. And they're spending about almost half a million dollars to ship the artwork. That was going to get to that part. Hi. So Richard Erlinski is not only renowned in Europe, but more specifically in France. He has been, I believe, the top-selling pop artist is what the title is. He is, he's had exhibitions all over the world. There have been some in the US, but nothing in Los Angeles are more specifically Beverly Hills. This is the first for him. He will actually be flying in from France for the unveiling in August with his team. And to my understanding, he is also securing a pop-up location where he will be renting and showing his art after the exhibition. So he's all in and has been very Council Member Corwin, he's paying for the half million dollars to ship it from France, Richard Orlensky. He's paying for it to ship it here not. Is he represented by a gallery here in the United States or in Paris? In Miami he is represented by a gallery but here no, he's doing this on his own and he's actually, this is all his own personal investments. So he's paying for the shipment and the installation? Also the banners, the shipping, the production, and the installation because all of our installations are each one is different due to safety issues. Do we know if the pieces are gonna be for sale? I believe they could be anything is for sale with an artist. I'm just wondering whether that's part of the program. For us, no. For us, it's only an art exhibit. We are not planning on having a sidewalk sale, but I'm sure in his own location, he will be having a more directed sales force. I think Council Member Corpman's concerned about the sales tax, that we get it. Well, so I wasn't thinking along the sling, but yes, I would imagine that if there's a sale, it would be the subject of sales tax. Yes. No, I was just trying to get an idea of if this is really a sale, an exhibition that he's looking to sell the pieces in. That's what I'm trying to get. I mean, it's an exhibition I know for us, but is it a commercial venture for him? Okay. So his main focus was to introduce his art to Beverly Hills. That is the main focus. And little by little things kind of popped up. There is a location on Redo Drive that is available for rent. So he thought, since I'm bringing my art here and spending, how much can I pay? A lot of money, it's best to be able to maybe keep the pieces here afterwards and maybe add some additional smaller statues in different sizes. So it kind of grew for him. He is starting a relationship and he would like to keep a relationship and that's what I know at this point. Whether he'll be selling them, I'm sure he wants to, whether he will or not, that is not in our control or our responsibility. And if I may briefly count some members just to answer what I think might be the next question for art during a public display, we don't allow for QR codes that would link to, for example, a checkout window. It does lead to additional information that's hosted on the Rodeo Drive Committee website, just to make sure that that's clear, that it is in regards to a public art display and not for a sale of the piece. What I was going to say, Council Member Corman, obviously the reason that he's paying for this and doing all of this is the tension that you're going to get from being in Beverly Hills on the world famous Roedale Drive. That's invaluable. So that's the reason that he's doing that. No, I mean, I agree. My direction to the questions is basically if this was primarily a commercial venture where these pieces were for sale, I would like to think that we had a cut of the questions is basically if this was primarily a commercial venture where these pieces were for sale, I would like to think that we had a cut of the sales since we're providing the exhibition space, which is what galleries normally do if he doesn't have a gallery here. So that was where I was headed. So if it's not an exhibition where each piece is definitely for sale and there's prices for each piece, then that I'm comfortable with the fact that we're not getting a commission. But if there was otherwise, then I'd be asking about that. Great. Good to know. Also, I believe the space that he will be engaging is part of a bigger business and I believe they will get proceeds from the sales should they happen in their location. And those, as, as our mayor said, if those sales occur in Beverly Hills, it will stay in Beverly Hills. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. And the 184. Yeah, I'm okay with a bunch of you. Council member, Mayor, thank you. So is this artist or landscape? You said he's like a pop artist? Yes, he's a French sculptor and his category is pop art. Yes, he's a better-selling pop artist. Would it be fair to say he's a colleague, competitor, rival to Mr. Brainwash? Not to have one of them kill me over another, but contemporaries might be the best word to use, rather than straight up rivals. Yes, they are somewhat competition, and they know each other, and they have met before. Can we arrange maybe like a cage match between them on rodeo drive? Something much more rodeo drive. Or a pop art battle or something like that? With the gloves. Yes, actually, Mr. Brainwash is invited to the event where he will be. OK. It's just so we know the kind of, because of course, Mr. Brainwash's art has been popular. And yes. OK. Good to know. So I guess I have a question about some of our outreach efforts and online efforts. What kind of use of AI do we make use of? And if so, how does it impact what we're doing? And how do we see the use of AI in our efforts going forward? For this matter, I'm going to defer to this object matter expert and ask Julian to come join me. So to this question specifically for social media, course it's a powerful tool you can have AI captions and similar things we're using social media management tools that have like kind of like an incorporated AI function in this but we are just using this for support we don't really use it for anything else right now. But I know, Meter, Facebook and all these platforms are working on AI implementations as well. Right now, we can see Instagram has an AI search function and this is kind of where this goes. But otherwise, we don't use it. But the platforms we are using, they definitely have it. So we don't use it in creation of any of the assets that we have. No, we take our own content, go to the street, and then we have user-generated content. Thank you very much. I'm okay with the budget and looking forward to the pop-art battle. Great. Thank you, Councilmember. All right, thank you for the presentation. I wanted to start off by saying that the car show was incredible this year and a huge shout out to you and your committee and the entire team. It was really well done. It was a lot of fun. I saw a lot of families having a great time with the dad celebrating and I just wanted to commend you on that. I also wanted to give a shout out to our fire department and our police department and all of our city staff because they really went truly over and beyond everybody felt safe and I just wanted to take a moment to thank Bruce Myers and Kay and the entire Odae Drive team for and staff for a wonderful Father's Day experience for everyone. for a wonderful father's day experience for everyone. So first of all, Richard Orlinski is great. Most cities that you go to in Europe, they have pop up for him all the time. And he's extremely popular. In France, even the restaurants have his art in different areas. I think Kong is his. I think that's his art. And I've seen it in Santa Fe in many different areas. He's really very exciting. And he tends to have locations in tourist destination. So I think it's going to be a really great addition to our city. I wouldn't mind seeing a battle between him and Mr. Brainwashed as well. I think that would be a lot of fun. I think Mr. Brainwashed would totally be on board, by the way. But that is a lot of fun and I think that that's a great move. Those are the types of things that we need to be doing and it's going to be a great collaboration with a beautiful artist who's going to be a great collaboration with a beautiful artist who's willing to bring his art and share it with our city. And it's really going to cut on cost. And for him to take care of that, that's wonderful. I wanted to touch on the collaboration posts. I think your social media is doing great. I follow you and it's really going up. I try to repost whatever. And I think that it's really important to have that recognition translation is great. Google Translate can't translate it for people who are in different areas, because I know India is also a country that is really starting to... Mata has a function where you, if I'm a Julian, where they will translate for you on your behalf. It's not always perfect. We've noticed, especially in Spanish, rodeo and rodeo sometimes do not translate well. But for the most part, Meta is working on that. Translations and we do see that a lot of international engagement from the followers. Great. I wanted to just share the kiosk idea again. I know you were all sitting here and listening. And perhaps you can partner with CVB. I think that would be really exciting for people who do come to visit on rodeo drive just to learn more about our city and the different things that we offer. It would be a great collaboration. And the Gen Z experience that you were talking about, that really is key in the future, especially the ones that can afford that. And even if they can't, they want to. And they'll find the way to afford it. So that's really the next best thing. And I think that you're doing that. One thing I did notice is I spoke to some of the businesses on Sunday. And they said they really don't make a lot of revenue from it. But I think it was a great community Builder and and so we're grateful to that and I think you guys are doing a great job. This is really one of the most important streets in our city and without that half of the luxuries that we have and the revenue that were half of the luxuries that we have and the revenue that we're able to spend to make sure that our city is safe we would not be able to do so thank you for that and I'm in support of this budget. As am I I've already given my comments I think this is you know, very good. Three years in a row. Essentially the same base funding. And just been a great job as far so thank you. So with that, I will entertain a motion. Move to approve. I move to approve the recommendations of the Beverly Hills City Council Liaison Roe de O'Dry special events holiday program committee to approve the fiscal year 2024-2025 work plan and funding requests in the amount of $197,998 for funding to continue ongoing operations projects including website website, social media, and the banners for the Rodeo Drive Celebrates Program for the summer and fall 2024. Second. I'll second. And if we can have a roll call. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Korman. Yes. Council member Mirage. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. Mayor Friedman. Yes. Council Member Mirosh. Yes. Vice Mayor Nazarian. Yes. Mayor Friedman. Yes. Okay. Going on to item number G5 recommendation of the Beverly Hills City Council Layus on Chamber of Commerce Committee regarding the fiscal year 2024, 2025 work plan and funding request by the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce and recommendation to waive special event permit fees, place of assembly permit fees, and set flat rate reduced parking rates for specific events hosted in partnership with the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce. And let me guess who's presenting. Oh, yes. I mean, we have an all report from Magdalena, Davis Jones, our community outreach manager. Yo, so for the third and final time tonight, thank you, Mayor and Council members. I'm here before you for the work plan for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, fiscal year 2024, 2025. The liaison's heard a full slate of programming as they have quarterly liaison meetings recapping this last fiscal year. But it should be noted that for the amount that they are requesting, which is $553,245. In addition, they have a waiver of permit and various flat rate parking rates that approximate $43,000. There's a couple highlights that you will see in the presentation given in just a moment by Brittany Gansson, the Director of Economic Development and Government Affairs, but that the Chamber does focus on both economic development, business development, business attraction and retention, as well as marketing partnerships here with us for the city. With that, I will ask Brittany to come and join me to review their work plan highlights for this year. Good evening Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council. I, Brittany Gansen, Director of Economic Development and Government Affairs will be presenting this proposed Chamber of Commerce Work Plan for fiscal year 2024-25. In marketing and outreach support, the Chamber will continue its marketing work in support of city and partner programs, events and initiatives. These include promotion of 60-second shout-out, less is more an hour with Mayor Friedman, town halls, the BHR show, the city's green initiatives and other efforts. Additionally, the Chamber will work with the CVB and RDC partner agencies to help support city and partner efforts, such as the annual Father's Day Concourse Delegants, Car Show on Rodeo, the Holiday Lighting Celebration, Summer Activations, and other important event and initiatives. We will also conduct 24 walk-the-neighborhood 60-90-minute direct outreach walks to local retail and restaurant businesses. For our New York Business Attraction and Retention Mission. The Chamber proposes a five-day trip, one-day of travel, three days of meetings, and another day of travel home in the month of October 2024, with continued focus on business attraction meetings. The Chamber will set up 24 meetings with companies in New York, approximately six to eight being retention and 16 to 18 new business. 60 days prior to departure, the chamber will meet with the City New York delegation to discuss preferred retention prospects. Bless you and preferred new business prospects. 30 days prior to departure, the chamber will provide via email the most up-to-date schedule meetings on a weekly basis. Fourteen days prior to departure, the Chamber will meet in person with the City New York delegation to provide the complete binder with booked meetings, business profiles, travel itinerary, and the two confirmed tracks. The list of meetings will be provided to the City prior to departure that include the following details. Date, time, company location, company attendees, titles and contact information. In other economic development and business support, some of the deliverables, the Chamber will manage include regular meetings of the property owners task force, which are four meetings in total to occur quarterly, just for a dialogue and develop ideas and plans for commercial properties. We will manage the Small Business Development Center, a partnership with El Camino College. This program is proposed to continue offering 60 one-on-one business counseling sessions and to make an adjustment to the educational seminars, moving from a monthly to a quarterly format with more engaging topics and speakers. The Chamber will provide management of the Small Business Task Force, for meetings in total to occur quarterly, to gather feedback and recommendations about strategies to attract and retain small businesses in Beverly Hills. The Chamber will manage the now Beverly Hills shop local program. This program focuses on connecting businesses and residents to encourage residents to shop locally. In order to achieve better marketing results across all businesses and neighborhoods, the Chamber is proposed to make a change to a new creative agency, which will produce four campaigns in total to a core quarterly, 12 newsletters to occur monthly, and ongoing social media. In regards to regional business attraction, the Chamber will work with our subcontract creative agency to create these materials and advertising to attract existing Southern California businesses to expand to Beverly Hills. With this year, we'll include a welcome guide for new businesses. In addition, we'll coordinate quarterly interviews with our CEO and President Todd Johnson with local publications such as The Courier, Weekly, and Beverly Press. Our Miami Business Attraction Research, the Chambers worked with urban centric analytics to research, identify, and outreach to business attraction targets within the Miami region. As discussed during our Miami Business Mission Feasibility Analysis City Liaison Meeting, on May 22, 2024, Kevin Griner, the principal and founder of Urban Centric Analytics, is via Zoom currently and available for questions and discussions at the end of this presentation. Urban Centric Analytics prepared an analysis benchmarking the Miami and Beverly Hills economies, concluding that Miami is in fact an extremely high value target for recruiting investors and new businesses. Urban centric also conducted that a long-term business mission and marketing program targeting Miami could have an extremely favorable ROI. For a nominal cost, each business deciding to locate or execute an investment in Beverly Hills could result in multiple millions of dollars in new investment, create new jobs, and stimulate other investors. Based on the analysis, subsequent discussions, and comments from multiple City Council liaison meetings, urban centric makes the following recommendations for our first Miami mission trip. In the first round, establish contact with and present the case for investing in Beverly Hills to a minimum of 50 contacts in the Miami area. Establish a permanent marketing and media presence for Beverly Hills in the Miami area by building long-term business and investment relationships with a digital media marketing program promoting the economic advantages of investing in Beverly Hills. Visit and learn from significant and successful development projects and areas in Miami that spur new ideas that translate to Beverly Hills. For this Miami Business Attraction mission, the Chamber proposes a five-day trip, one day of travel, three days of meetings, and one day travel home in the month of February 2025 with a focus on business attraction meetings. Outside of making travel arrangements, significant preparation is required to make the mission as productive as possible. Urban Centric recommends the following. Update the Beverly Hills marketing regional materials. Provided detailed listing and description of investment opportunities, sites and incentives available to investors, recruit an all-star team of Beverly Hills business owners as business mission ambassadors, and engage in national level real estate investment advisory firm to serve as a host or a wayfinder in Miami on behalf of Beverly Hills. In addition, similar pre-planning deliverables for the New York City Mission Prep will be set for Miami. The request for Chamber special event fee waivers. We were requesting various permit fees and approval flat rate parking to total approximately $43,000 and include the following. We will be set for Miami. The request for Chamber special event fee waivers. We were requesting various permit fees and approval flat rate parking to total approximately $43,000 and include the following. Waves special event permit fees for approximately 30 chamber member ribbon cuttings. Waves place of assembly fees for four specific chamber signature events. Waves special event permit and processing fees for four specific chamber signature events and approve flat rate parking for one chamber event. Please find an executive summary of all work plan components for this proposed fiscal year work plan of 2024 to 2025. And with that we do have, thank you very much, a year over year summary, executive summary for you as well, to the total amount of $553,245. It should also be noted that I'm sure the liaisons will review that it was recommended that the additional funding for the Chamber come out of the TOT, tourism and marketing budget, rather than a different general fund appropriation to the business development budget. As several of the key initiatives of the work plan on the jambour are tourism and marketing focused, including the items 1A, which is their marketing and outreach, and 1E, which is the shop local now Beverly Hills program. Thank you. Okay, thank you for the presentation. And we will see whether or not there's anybody in council chambers who'd like to comment. I don't have any speaker slips. So if not, we will go to any video telephone, emails. If there are any. We have David Merroney on Zoom. Okay. David, whenever you're ready, we are ready for you. Well, I am ready. Mayor Freeman, Vice Mayor and New Zealand, honorable members of the City Council. Thank you for having me speak. I'm honored to be the chair of the Federalist Chamber of Commerce and just wanted to mention how appreciative we are to have this type of relationship with the city. We absolutely appreciate the fact that we get to work on things for the betterment of the community and to be a resource for not only all of our community members, but also a resource for people that are interested in coming to the city as a business interaction. Brittney right now I mentioned Miami, there's multiple people that have started to express their interests on a preliminary basis in Beverly Hills from Miami, given the amount of restaurants that are there. And, you know, we're just very excited to even have the opportunity to work with the city alongside each other as partners to attract these businesses. And we're super stoked. And, again, we very much appreciate the opportunity. So thank you so much. Very good. Any other callers? Thank you very much appreciate the opportunity so thank you so much. Very good. Any other callers? No other callers are no written comment. Okay very good so we will go to the liaison report and council member Wells. Thank you. So as you can see we've been busy with the different commission. I mean, different committees and Mayor Friedman and I. And this budget as well for the Chamber, you know, it's very similar along the lines with the previous year's budget, with the enhancements with the website. And I think it's actually a good time for that and it sounds like they did bring in the agency and they did a presentation and the ideas look very fresh and very much needed at this time and I think the timing is right. As we listen to all both Roe de O'Drive and we listen to CBB. A lot of these efforts are aligned and the investment is getting put into all three of these areas in very similar ways. Along as well as with the Miami trip which is the bulk of what this increase in the budget is. And it seems like this is a good year to do it. I don't think we should delay. We want to increase our revenues. We are, you know, with CDB looking at this at the same time. And I'm thankful to our mayor and vice mayor for being willing to take these trips. And, you know, I think they're very, they're going to be very rigorous and very, you know, jam-packed with work. And, but I do think that putting all of this investment for the future of bringing businesses here, bringing more tourism here, more business groups here, it's, you know, we want to have that payoff in the next few years. So, and I know that it's going to take time to develop those relationships and to make this happen. So, I look forward to it. I think that it's important for you to coordinate together, even along the same lines with the research that you have for Miami. I think it also benefits CBB in some ways. And I think it's important for you to all share that information as you gear up for these trips for what you're planning to do and coordinating to the extent that it makes sense together and then debriefing afterwards and the follow up and what those opportunities are. And then I think for us as a city it's going to be really important that we can really put our really be able to walk the talk when businesses want to come and we have the hotels and we have a beautiful city. We need to make certain that we're able to deliver on what it is we're selling. So from how do we do business in Beverly Hills and making it easier for our tourist business travel and leisure travel to come to Beverly Hills making certain we have a safe city. So I support this budget and the thinking behind it and I think the time is right. Thank you. So I also want to thank Brittany and Todd for all their work on the chamber. It's a lot of work, especially these meetings they won to New York. I was won one several years ago also to San Francisco. And literally you're on your feet from 8 o'clock until about 5.30 or 6. You may get lucky enough to be able to change for dinner, but then you start all over again the next day from eight o'clock until about six, six, thirty, and you're really on your feet. I mean, you're walking or you're in a cab going nowhere fast or in the subway. That's not fun. It is not fun. It is not fun. It is a business trip and I envision the Miami trip being very similar. Thank goodness we're not going in the heat of the summer there. But I think it's important. We talked about Miami for quite some time. We did a San Francisco trip a couple times and it was somewhat successful but you know San Francisco when you're in California you know people in San Francisco nor Northern and Southern California really could be two different states. I mean that they dropped from the same pool and I don't think that was as successful, although we still have one very interested party who we met three years ago, who's still talking about finding a location. So I think it's an important, the business attraction meetings are important. It's not just business attraction. It is also business retention. The last time I was there, we met with, well, it was an attraction meeting with the Bulgaria Hotel Group, which is an extremely upscale group, very few hotels, and hopefully they'll have a brand coming to Beverly Hills soon, I wouldn't be surprised. So, sorry? I think I mean that was one that was a very interesting and good productive meeting. So it's those kinds of things that really keep Beverly Hills alive. They're very interested in meeting with the mayor and the vice mayor. mayor, we do it in two different tracks and it's staffed with our city manager goes along and our other staff comes along, Madelena comes along, and it's work. I mean, it's really work. So I think what they do is, and it takes a lot of work to get everything organized. I mean, that is a really big job, too. You know, the other jobs that the Chamber does in keeping our businesses informed here, I think is extremely important. I think that the cost that we're paying for it is reasonable. It's important to note that we do not totally fund the Chamber of Commerce. They have membership. Membership pays a significant portion of what the expenses are. What our budget is is for services rendered by the Chamber to the city. That's why there's different buckets that the money comes from. And I think it's reasonable expenditures based on what it has been in the past and this year's budget is reflective as Council Member Wells said the increases mostly if not all the Miami trip. So that is how we came to the conclusion that we would support it. And with that, I will go back to Council Member Wells if she has anything else to ask or comments. I do not. Thank you. And supportive, of course, of the funding request. Of course. And Council Member Corbyn, please. Thank you. So I want to thank the chamber for the detailed presentation. It's very helpful to see all the dollars allocated to the different projects. I'm supportive of the program. I realize it's more expensive than last year. It's due to the Miami trip. I think the Miami trip is a good idea. Let's see if it works. There's a vegan restaurant in Brentwood called Planta, which is actually quite good, I think. And I believe that started Miami, and perhaps if we had had a trip years ago or a few years ago, that could have been here instead of in Brentwood. But obviously, I don't know. But I do think that it seems like there may be a good fit between businesses who took my amy and coming to Beverly Hills, so I do support that. The only question I have relates to the Small Business Development Center. And as I know, it's probably we've had for a few years, and I understand from the presentation that the next year it's a Conno place, 61-on-1 consultation between El Camino personnel and businesses here in Beverly Hills. And I just wanted to get a sense of to what extent businesses here are taking advantage of that program? Yeah, and to be clear, that's for any business. It doesn't have to be a member of the chamber. So when we're talking with businesses and someone, a lot of small businesses don't have someone to bounce ideas offered. How are we gonna fix what we're doing? And that's the purpose and there's a lot of people that take advantage of that and sit down with Larry Johnson. It's got a good last name. So, and he's been good and we've had some really good speakers that have come and spoke to the businesses and really helping and then expanding on the whole AI thing is businesses going to be surrounded with AI. It is now and it's going to be continuing to grow. So. But apart from the presentations, which can be valuable, I mean I'm talking about the one and one consultations or do we have businesses taking advantage of that? This last year there was 125 up to date, so they did exceed the 60 that are offered. And that is on a case-by-case basis, many times they meet more than once with the business to ensure that the issue is resolved. Whether it be as Todd said, HR legal, other issues that they might not have when they're of a very small but mighty team. And then do we know of any businesses where that's actually benefited? I mean, it's supposed to, you know, they hear the ideas and they don't implement it, but they got new ideas and they implemented it and it really helped their businesses. Yeah, there's several restaurants that have talked to them that the restaurant industry's challenge. I mean, we see restaurants closing nationwide. So the continued efforts that people opening here is a good thing. What we need to do is help them be productive and successful. So I think they've helped implement new ideas that there, whether it be inventory or how they're controlling or costs, dealing with the labor issues in the state of California. So it's a lot of ideas sharing. But we know it has benefited some of our businesses. Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Portive. I said I support the game. Okay. Councilmember Miers. Thank you. So when exactly is the Miami trip plan? We're looking to do it in February. We're we want to partner with the CVV as we do for the New York trip and kind of double our efforts. So so you obviously don't have any meetings planned at this stage. No we're if if gets approved, we'll be working closely with Kevin and start the part. We'll be doing priorities in New York first, but we'll be working on May and May at the same time. So New York's in October. Yes, this would be February and it's the same. The mayor on the vice mayor go to tracks and with CDB people with some chamber people as well. I know there was one year where there was an issue with getting the right kind of meetings in New York. Obviously, what can we do to avoid that kind of situation? Well, I think our staffing is better off today than when I ran into the problems a couple of years ago. And I think our quarterly meeting is better off today than when I ran into the problems a couple of years ago. And I think our quarterly meeting and reporting on where we're at ahead of time, so there's no surprises and transparency. That'll, you know, this last trip vice mayor then mayor now was on that trip and it was one of the better trips we got. So I think we're, we had one hiccup. Will you be hitting people who in the past, we have attempted and you know, sometimes persistence overcomes resistance. I know that, you know, like, when I went a few years ago, we went to Zaybars and like they liked the idea of Beverly Hills, but they weren't quite ready. Do we do temperature checks about like, maybe now's the time where you should come to Beverly Hills, but they weren't quite ready. Do we do temperature checks about maybe now's the time where you should come to Beverly Hills? Yeah, there will be some meetings set up this year with businesses we met with four or five years ago. And retention meetings that we're talking with, the people, we've been helping Ralph Lauren with a couple projects that they're working on. So yes. Great. All right. Well, you know, go do it. I'm supportive. And, you know, as said, let's see if Miami is the right place. But again, I'm assuming before you actually finalize it, you'll make sure you have a robust schedule. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, and, you know And I don't know what kind of businesses are there. There may be Cuban restaurants or something. But that would be a good fit for Beverly Hills. But you've got time to research that. Absolutely. Restaurants, FinTech has been very big down there, as well as the rise of the stark attack. So looking at those developers that want to build and perhaps redevelop the southeast as well. Yeah, I'm not sure I would focus on developers necessarily because we have a lot of local developers who are good and that sort of thing. I think this shouldn't be that, quite frankly, I'm glad you mentioned it. I think it should be retail businesses, it should be restaurants, it should be those kinds of things which we do also need in the southeast and that's a good place as an entree to the city because Renser cheaper and we've got the subway coming there and that sort of thing. I always have loved, you know, I guess if they're from Miami they won't be one of the kind businesses, but they could be one of the kind here. And at least giving that vibe as opposed to chain stores and that sort of thing. I think we've done that in the past. I remember once we went in New York, there was this cool hat maker. I forget. What was it called, worth and worth maybe, or something? Like that. And businesses like that that give the feeling of being unique and the way things used to be here, but obviously if they're in New York or if they're in Miami, they have other stores. But maybe we could be the first on the, you know, the only one on the west coast, that's one of the things. I think exactly what you're saying is what we spoke about in the liaison, meaning that a lot of the businesses there that are starting up are from our international. So this may be their first locations and then bringing them to that. Right, you know, and something I'm guessing the ones in Miami could have a South American. I was going to say it's going to open up the doorway to South America. There's an awful lot of New York is New York But it would this could be South American and you know it could be a Restaurant from whatever you know and we're on the same page. Yeah, so Good luck continuing also with the core mission of Good luck continuing also with the core mission of strengthening businesses here and making it an attractive place for people to come. Please also do think of the southeast and parts of town where we're maybe looking for a little bit of a different kind of business. It's not the rodeo drive business, it's not the chain, it's not the luxury brand, it's not the, you know, even the Beverly Drive business, it's not Aeroan. And I think we have an opportunity to create something there. That said, I also know that, you know, we see that there are vacancies on South Beverly for restaurants. This could be a great opportunity for some of those niche restaurants to come in there that maybe don't exist anywhere else so keep it up and Thank you for your continued devotion to the city. Thank you So John just just as a comment I met yesterday in fact with a Company to tech company is moving into the Scanska your favorite builders They bought it. And they bought it. And they bought the building. And they're from where are they from? I forgot. Are they from, not Miami? I don't think by this. They're moving from Playa and the parent company is UK based. And this will be their headquarters now here. Great. Yeah. And I don't know if there's other tech companies like that one, but there's really some new space in the Southeast. Well, but here's also the thing. There's a business there. That means that's good for takeout. Now we all know sadly we lost Walters, for example. And one of the reasons I understand we lost Walters is because, you know, not because of a land of use of landlord or whatever, but because a lot of the business that they did was take out. They'd lost a lot of that after COVID. And they didn't have dinner, so they weren't making money on the alcohol, which taught, as you know, some of the restaurants depend upon that. And we have to maybe work together to find a business model that will allow those kinds of, I mean to me, I can't tell you how many calls I got from various people. Oh my God, Walter's is closing and it's sad because they were truly a part of our community for such a long time. But it's great if a company's moving into the Scansca building. I know exactly where it is. And there are not a lot of restaurants walking distance to there. You can go to the... Well, we talked yesterday in the meeting, I said, are you open for a restaurant on the base floor there? And it would be... It would be a full sit-down restaurant, but it also could be... I think it should be something grab and go because the subways, not going to be that far from there. And, you know, there's going to be restaurants that come in and take advantage of that. Look, it's a little hike to the subway, but as you go from there down the garden building on Stanley and all of that and go past Robertson, there certainly that is what becomes walking distance. Right now, if you're in the Skanskia building, I guess there is an Italian restaurant on the other side of the street. But other than that, you know, grab a bag of chips. There's a lot of city. Yes, and that's completely agree. I think I named dropped islands. My old phone. Sadly islands is closing, you know, they closed on Pico Boulevard as well. They're closing in a lot of places. But the notion of, again, this wouldn't be for there, but many of you may have seen that the famous in Hollywood, Arby's closed, the one with the sign, and it's just difficult, according to the owners there, to do that kind of restaurant where minimum wage is $20, and they weren't able to make ends meet. But something that is not just high end would be great. Yeah. Well, in this example, you know, shark, I've been saying however many years now, our city's in danger of losing our casual dieting. Yeah. Sharkies is leaving at the end of the month. Now they're opening a ghost kitchen on Pico, so they're gonna still do all the takeout delivery. But that's not Beverly Hills. So. It's pointless to have businesses that are not in Beverly Hills. We don't make any revenue from that. But aside from that, some of them may serve our city, but the point is that there should be, you're taught you're absolutely right, maybe this is a focus, but maybe you also need to figure out a business model so that it works. The rents are probably less expensive on that part of town. But you're right. That's something we talk about walkability and we talk about vibrancy. You're not just going to have sit-down restaurants. That's something that needs to be addressed and you know again good luck with that but that part of town is not well served and so I'm glad to hear you're having those discussions and maybe think about that when you go to New York and when you go to Miami. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the report. You always taught have been a staple in our city and we appreciate all the work that you and your team do and I really enjoy coming to a lot of the events, especially you now have a woman's division. That's been exciting and recognizing the female entrepreneurs in our community and I think that's a very forward thinking. And it's about time actually. So just a few basic questions. I know that you had some staffing issues in the past. And I'd like to know what steps you're taking to ensure the success of the chamber and moving forward with that? Well, I think it's strong leadership and which starts with myself in the board, proper training, proper introductions to the different business community members, making sure that our events, I mean, I have a hospitality, a mentality of I just want people to leave feeling better than when they came. And if they do, they're going to come back to one of our events or more and we do almost 200 a year, anywhere from small, get together, there's 20 people up to 6,700. So making sure those are strong and powerful and there's value in what we provide. Great. With regard to the missions and the trips, I'm learning as the mayor was discussing it because I don't really have that much information on it. I've never been on one of those trips before. I remember that when I came on council, we were talking about Miami because we were kind of starting to come out of COVID, but Miami had managed to be a thriving location as it relates to COVID and people were going there to just be able to go out and have fun because there weren't the restrictions. That was the original reason why Miami was brought up. Perhaps there was more discussion about it and you could shed some light on that mayor. If there was discussion about Miami prior to that, but from my recollection, when I came on council that was a discussion. They kind of had the ability to still keep their businesses open during COVID and we wanted to go to learn from that. So now I'm wondering at this point, why is Miami the choice? Why did we pick Miami? I want to make a comment. I think my recollection was that we always felt that Miami was an emerging market period. I don't recall it necessarily having anything to do with. So Kevin from Urban Center, Gantlelech, actually published something in 2016 that was brought to my predecessor's predecessor attention. And it was a report on the growth in Miami that at the time Dr. Gold had introduced and had read as well as a couple other council members and picked up on it. We did set down that discussion for a bit in order to focus on New York as my understanding and took it up again when they were to became an attractive area. But as he notes in his report, the FinTech, the growth, the redeveloping of certain areas didn't happen overnight and so they really have seen it over the last 10 years. It's been an attractive target. Great. Thank you. So the other aspect I was thinking about was with regard to growth here locally is what steps are we taking to let our local businesses know about the Chamber and all the great programs that they offer? And I've spoken to many people. I've sent your way. We've done quite a few ribbon cuttings together, which has been great. But what steps are being taken? Because there are a lot of people who don't have a lot of information about the Chamber and the great work that you do. Yeah, we actually just put together, sir, I think it went out today to about 10,000 people. And it's really, here's what the Chamber, tell us what you're looking for from us. Here's what we've done well. How can we improve? What can we do better? From the individual perspectives, there's, I think there's 10 or 11,000 business licenses I think in Beverly Hills. We have. And you outreach to all of them? Well, we as much as we have on our list, I don't have a list of the business licenses, but our pool has grown to this amount over years of keeping information. There's a lot of meetings of really, people don't know what a chamber does, and we wanna show what we provide in the value that the organization is, and we've been around, we just celebrated 100 years. So we started about 10 years after the city. So we're proud of that. And it's a vibrant location. And it really comes down to who you know. And I think many people that know each of you individually see it as an advantage to where I can get in here of a council member or vice mayor or mayor and just express myself as opposed to going through the rig more of sometimes it's difficult to get ahold of people. So our mission is to be a one stop shop and that's, we spread that message daily. Great. That's great and I appreciate that. I noticed that there was an advertisement and I don't know if that was an error or if it was by design for businesses that were outside of Beverly Hills. And we were invited to like some form of ribbon cutting. Oh. And, um, I, the... Yeah, we, we probably, of our members were close to 700 members and 15% maybe outside the city limits of Beverly Hills, um, businesses that are wanting to work with the city or work with us. So, um, we'll do ribbon cuttings for those. We did want an Inglewood and it was a youth home for kids who are having a really tough time. So we went and did that. So we do a handful of things outside the city, but majority is barely hills. Right. I just, while that's a noble cause, I don't know how that benefits Beverly Hills. You know, I think that if we're focusing on chamber business and ways to enhance the city, that should be our primary concern. Yeah, I agree. And then that is our primary target market. But as the mayor said, you know, our revenue sources come from our membership. So we're a business and we have a bottom line and there's also some of them sponsor from outside, bigger companies. But for the most part, it's barely hills. Great. I am ready and energized to get to work, and I'm looking forward to the New York and Miami trip. One suggestion was to look at biomedical businesses because they are a young field. They are young professionals, young families, and that's exactly the kind of demographics that we want to target, to be able to come to our city, to live in our city, to utilize the schools, to really re-energize because we are an aging community. And I want to look at businesses that are going to be able to enhance that form of interaction so that it's not just the business but it really is the whole encompassing holistic approach of people that will be able to come and live, raise their families and work in Beverly Hills. So I'm hoping that we could address that as well. And several of my colleagues mentioned this as well. And we talked about it right before during the CDB, but bringing businesses to the southeast portion of our city, other areas near the metro, that's really going to be thriving. And we want to re-energize it. There is a period of time right before COVID that Robertson was was an amazing street. The stores there, the shops, it was really a unique niche group and really fantastic boutiques and restaurants and I think that will be a benefit to that. What year was that, Shirona, because as long as I've been living there, it's wonderful if you want to get a mani-pedi. That's what it's been, Robertson. And I live a block away. No, I think Le Habitat was there. There were some other really nice designers that were... It was starting to come up right before COVID and then unfortunately, obviously things became a little challenging. So I'd like to really encourage when we're looking to look at all portions of our city. It's almost like having a building and we're only looking at the bottom floor. We have an entire building to fill. Yeah, we, there's several restaurants that would fit in those areas that we've been talking to. Not everyone is, we're talking to you to come into triangle. Right, and I am completely in agreement with you that we need maybe locations where our young people could go. Right now, the focus of all of our young people is right aid. It is. And even we don't even have a boba, am I saying that right? Boba location, I know Chacha matcha is coming, but. There's one boba on South Beverly. One now. On South Beverly. The sunlight tea studio opened three months ago. Well, give them a plug. That's exciting and fantastic. We're full. But I think that if we also another thing that we could start looking at is somewhere where our young people can actually go and perhaps have a good time in a safe environment that is acceptable, these are the things that we should be also thinking about for both of these trips. I would appreciate that. I would appreciate that. You know, something with young families and young professionals and also for our youth to have a place to go. And I think if any of the public, there's several residents that have reached out to me that I've gotten to know over the years that have suggested restaurants that they like and we've been talking to them. We almost had a restaurant called Rumies come here and just couldn't quite work the deal out for them and they're going to Century City. But it's Persian restaurant and it is amazing food. But we'll continue to work not on just these two cities but also local businesses of who we should be talking to fantastic I'm in support of the budget and I'm really looking forward to the great possibilities that are to come for the New Year to come thank you So just a couple of comments one is it appears that there is flight from Florida to the state of California The new chancellor of UCLA is leaving Florida to come to California, so at least that starts the ball rolling So let's look forward to that and then the other thing is I want to give a shout out to David Mehraoni You know, I got to know David very well on the last New York trip and he is a tireless worker for bringing business to Beverly Hills. So David, if you're still there, a shout out to you. If you're not there, still a shout out to you. OK, so with that, I mean. And Mehra, if I may, I want to echo that. Because David's been an excellent chair this year and he's a devoted businessman, he's a devoted family man, he's just a really good guy. And it's been so beneficial to have him as chair and our whole board were fortunate to have a strong board and it's continuing to grow. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I move to approve the recommendations of the Beverly Hills City Council liaison chamber of Commerce Committee to approve number one the fiscal year 2024 2025 work plan and total funding request from the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce and Civic Association in the amount of $553,245, which includes a new work plan line-out for a Miami business mission. Number two, the additional amount for the work plan increased to be from the tourism and marketing budget, which is funded by the transit occupancy tax. And number three, waiver of special event permit fees, place of assembly permit fees, and set flat rate, reduced parking rates for specific events hosted in partnership with the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, in the approximate amount of $43,000. Second. Thanks. Thanks. Can we have the rule? Council Member Wells. I can't believe it. Can we have the rule? Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Korman. Yes. Council member Mirage. Yes. Vice-Marian Nazarian. Yes. Mayor Friedman. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Part of we could get a date going for that as soon as possible because our schedules are getting very much. Thank you. Part if we could get a date going for that as soon as possible because our schedules are getting very cool. I think. Now that it's official, we'll probably start working out and try to nail down with them on. So, the sooner the better. Thank you. Okay, we will go on to item number G6 report from the city attorney on closed session items. If any. There's no City Attorney on closed session items if any. There's no report tonight on closed session items. And number G7 report from the City Manager. Nothing tonight, Mayor. And number G8 City Council Member and Committee Reports and comments starting with Council Member Wells if any. I don't know how many things to report. Thank you. And council member Korman. I was invited to speak at last Wednesday night's annual municipal league event. I was very clear that I was speaking not speaking for the city but merely as a council member who recently got elected, they asked me questions mostly about development and a lot of people were concerned about business remit. Builders remedy projects in the city and I just said that they'll have to wait and see. So that's basically my report. Council member Mirish. Thank you, Mayor. Just briefly, I know you're going to tell us about your trip, but it has been another rough week or a couple of weeks filled with much anti-Jewish racism around the country, also flaring up again most recently at UCLA in a somewhat shocking fashion. In the city of Los Angeles, there was a very one-sided pro-Hamas ceasefire proposal. Fortunately, it didn't have the votes to pass, but we do need to be on our watch about what is happening with our neighbors. It could easily come back. Again, I think we have a role because of the makeup of our community in taking a lead when it comes to combating these sorts of things, calling them out. And I'm hoping that we can move forward soon with plans for our permanent October 7th memorial, as well as the naming of the honorary naming of a October 7th memorial square. And furthermore, I propose that state sponsor of terrorism, the Jew-hating racist regime of Qatar, be sanctioned that its assets be frozen and used to compensate the victims of Qatar- sanctioned that its assets be frozen and used to compensate the victims of Qatar-funded terrorism and that we ask the U.S. State Department to expel the Qatari consulate from Beverly Hills. Thank you. Thank you and Vice Mayor. Yes, thank you very much. So since we have been such a voice for the hostages that have were taken, I wanted to just make a few remarks. Today marks day 256 since the October 7, Massacre, and we celebrate the release of four innocent civilians who were rescued a few days ago. But what about the 120 hostages? Where are they? Are they still alive? Among them is a baby who turned one in captivity, his four-year-old brother, and their mother, one of 12 women, most of child-bearing age. Reports indicate that sexual assault on women is a common practice and used as a weapon of war, especially by Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization. I want to bring another issue to your attention. Did you know that there are currently eight American hostages in Gaza, five of whom are believed to still be alive? These are American citizens with American passports. In similar situations, the media has been outraged. Not a moment went by without it being part of the conversation or the State Department's focus. Just last year, we freed five Americans held captive by Iran as part of a wider deal that included the US on freezing $6 billion in Iranian funds. So I wonder, what makes these American hostages any less important? Don't we care for our fellow Americans? Are we saying, I care for you, but not if you're a Jew? We are witnessing a disturbing rise of Marxist ideology and the manipulation of our university students into supporting terrorist organizations and harboring anti-American sentiments. When asked what they are fighting for, their response often reveals a lack of understanding. What river? Which sea? We all know what it means. It's just plain old-fashioned anti-semitism and new clothing. Just last week on a New York subway, a group of fully-facial covered people chanted, Zionist. This is your chance to get out, reminiscent of Nazi Germany in 1934. These are sites and sounds we never imagined hearing on American soil. So what can we do on a local level? I urge our dear colleagues on the school board to start at the local level and to educate our young people with facts. So they are equipped to be a voice. We all need to unite if we want to see peace and a free democracy around the world. Thank you. around the world. Thank you. So, I had the opportunity to go to Israel with a group called Combat Antisemitism Movement. And it was a very eye-opening trip. We were able to visit the sites where the incursion occurred by Hamas. We were at the Cabooots Bayer, which was significantly destroyed and we went to the Nova site. We visited with mayors of cities in Israel, of Stedroit, to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and others. And I think that what I took away from that most significantly was the fact that of the 14 of us that were there as mayors, they were so all so thankful that American mayors were coming because all they see and hear from America is stuff that's coming out of Columbia University and my alma mater UCLA, unfortunately, you see Irvine Cal State, LA. And the fact that my colleagues, two of whom were from the state of New Mexico, four were from Florida and one person from Atlanta and the rest from New Jersey and New York. That not everybody that went on the strip was Jewish. It was about 50-50. And to have that unanimity out there and to meet with the people, we were at the rally, the day the hostages were rescued and we were on stage at that rally. There were thousands, and I mean thousands of people in this park to hear us see us. And as we were walking out, we took us a while to get out of there because we kept getting stopped along the way. On that program was two of the parents of hostages that were held. The mayor of Tel Aviv was at that event also. Now, I say this, and it's really interesting. There's never a good time to go to Israel. There's always something going on. But you know what, there's never a bad time to go. We felt comfortable walking around because we were a governmental delegation. We did have Israeli-supplied security with us, but it was, we never felt that there was any threat at all. Never. It was really superfluous. I think that the organization felt that it was necessary to have it just in case. But I encourage anybody who has any desire to see Israel, they need the tourism dollars. They're very appreciative of having people there. And what I wanted to say in part of my work and policy and management in general is that there is going to be the combat anti-Semitism movement, mayor's conference that will be held in Beverly Hills. It is a conference that was attracted to Beverly Hills. In part because of my predecessors who have been involved in it and went to Fort Lauderdale, Lily went to Greece. So you know they see Beverly Hills as a location that is receptive to having it. I think some of the mayors that were on my trip are going to be coming to Beverly Hills also. I spoke at, I was speaker on two occasions on the subject of what is going on in the US in terms of anti-semitism. One of the events had 500 people, and it was a panel discussion. And the other one has a smaller group maybe 30 or 40 people. So it was a worthwhile trip I think to show that America does support Israel and I was very proud to represent the City of Beverly Hills at the mayor. Yes sir. I would like to thank you for attending and for going. We appreciate it. Okay thank you. thank you for attending and for going. We appreciate it. Okay thank you. Thank you. Thank you mayor. It was a pleasure. I also would like to add the superintendent of the district Beverly Hills Unified School District will be going to Israel this month as part of the Jewish Federation's Shining Light Program that he's been participating in. So he's going to be there this month. That's interesting. And I'm sure Dr. Breguil will feel the same thing when you come from Beverly Hills. I mean, there's a little, there's some cash aid to it. And I got a lot of the mayor of Beverly Hills. But it was, it was really rewarding just to see that they were so appreciative of us being there in general. Okay, anyway, we will go on to a moment of silence that we are going to have. We had one of our family who passed away as we close our meeting tonight. I am deeply saddened to share that long time Beverly Hills traffic control officer Gregory Routt unexpectedly passed away last week. TCO route began his tenure with the city of Beverly Hills in 1995 and provided our community with 28 years about standing service. Traffic control is a very demanding job, especially on the busy streets of Beverly Hills. I know for one that whenever I can and I see our traffic control officers there, I thank them, speak with them. I cross Wilshire Boulevard a lot and there's usually a TCO right on the corner of Wilshire and Beverly Drive, and always make it a point, and I saw a TCO route on several occasions. As Chief Stainbrook shared in the message to the BHPD staff, Grigory was known for his unwavering devotion to his job and his warmth and kindness to both his colleagues and the community. Gregory is survived by his wife of 34 years in Tonya and I did check with City Manager Coffee and there is outreach that is provided by the city to the family in terms of any benefits that are available to the family as a result of his death. One of the benefits that the city does provide is a life insurance policy. And of course there are per's benefits that they'll be entitled to but I think it was it really wore my heart to know that not only are they available that they but that the city actively contacts the family to make sure that they're they're aware of them and helps them apply for those benefits so on behalf of the City Council and the Beverly Hills community we send our deepest condolences to Gregory's family, friends and colleagues. Please keep them in mind in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time and may his memory be a blessing. And now I would ask for a moment of silence as we adjourn the meeting in honor of Gregory Rout. And with that, we will adjourn the meeting to our next meeting set on July, excuse me. June 27th. June 27th. We're adjourning to June 27th. We're adjourning to June 27th for the items listed on that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the, for the, for the, the announced matters on that agenda. That's right. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you.