Music We have the ability to comment on items not in the agenda. We do have two speakers. We'll start with David Gingold. Welcome. Three minutes. And after David starts speaking, we will close the acceptance of public comment. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Miers. This is the kind of notice that the City of Beverly Hills usually puts in the Beverly Hills Courier for their hearings. This is the kind of notice that the City of Beverly Hills usually puts in the Beverly Hills courier for their hearings. There's two different hearings listed on page two. Unfortunately, the City did not deem it important enough to put notice to the full community in Beverly Hills about tonight's hearing on traffic commy. So I paid $4,000 to put this ad on page two in the courier to notify the entire community of what is meant by traffic calming. And I suggested everybody on the deas here be prepared to understand these elements this evening. Bernie Sanders spoke over a year and a half ago about the 1% as if of the United States and income inequality as if they were villainous. I have always defended the 1% in Beverly Hills as honorable people who are not only extremely charitable with the Wallace-Anne and Burke, Beverly Gardens, Greystone, Cedar Sinai, USC, UCLA, all of our museums, and most of our people are honorable people. And the City of Beverly Hills, minority of few residents, or our government, or our city council members, should never do anything, decision that dishonors our city and our ethics and our values. This traffic calming plan basically says that it's transferring traffic to this north-south streets between Linden and El Camino, Olympic and Wilshire, to Spalding and Olympic because they're only runners and they're now worthy enough of us homeowners and South Beverly Drive which can't handle the congestion. Ingestion. This traffic plan of circles between Linden and El Camino on Charlieville not only detracts from our high school students and parents driving the Beverly Hills High School and the Good Shepherd Elementary School and both of these streets going east west at 5.30 to 6.30 and 7.30 at 3.30 in the morning, the sun is in your eye and it is in blinds you. I am told by residents who have arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, shoulder problems, wrist problems, I have neuropathy. It's very difficult to have to go through eight traffic circles roundabouts. I want to say to this council that this is beyond traffic calming in the southwest. This is a referendum on this city of Beverly Hills and this city council. This council is in the past given resolutions against anti-discrimination and bias against the treatment of protesters in Iran against the Sultan of Brunei for discrimination against Airbnb and Israel for discriminating. There must not be allowed the discrimination at this small little group that's an illegitimate organization unauthorized according to California Public Records Michael Dunn in the City Clerk's office, that they want to discriminate against residents who can't go to their own homes six hours a day because of turn restrictions. It will stop shoppers and employees from going to the business district and the triangle, as well as Neiman Marcus, Sacks with Avenue, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. They can't even come from the airport and take a regular street to the Beverly Hills Hotel. And. Could you please wrap it up as you know this will be on tonight's agenda. So. And I just wanted to give you a little heads up then. Unfortunately, this city is under the radar in the eyes of the San Francisco Chronicle based on very appropriate discussion by Mayor and Mayor against SB 50, which we all disagreed with. But we're under their radar and I just want to make sure that whatever you decide that it's based on evidence, we always have the right of appeal. I'm aware of, I just want to say one thing, when the Hillside ordinance, Mayor Bossy said, we never have, and we never will vote on something because of a Puele or a lawsuit, we understand that. So as long as every decision is based on evidence, everybody's gonna be happy. Thank you, Terry. Smooth, well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Terry, welcome. Okay, so in other words, you'll speak, but you want Carol to go first. Okay, Carol. Awesome. I'm going to go to the microphone. Into the microphone. Hi, my name is Carol Oken, and I want to speak to you today about the Temple Emanuel School in Eligibility Certificate. The school is located at 44 Burt andurt-and-way between Swal and Clark Drive. A certificate of ineligibility was issued recently for this law-ded billing by a design by Master Architect, Sydney A. Eisenstadt, F.A.I. and my father. The investigation of the Temple Emanuel School was flawed from the beginning because all the supporting materials were prepared by HRG, a consulting firm hired by the school's owner. Any choice of information provided supporting materials presented and definition of the process were submitted in a manner to elicit a negative decision and thereby making a sale of the building more attractive to a potential buyer desiring to demolish it. Therefore, any decision that followed was based on an incorrect and inaccurate and incomplete report. Many items supporting landmark eligibility were not included in the report in this envelope, which is what I was looking for when I was delay, are a certificate of an award from the AIA, newspaper articles regarding the building and other supporting materials that I can make available to you if you want them. I have, I also understand that there was a front page article in the New York Times, which I have not seen, but which we are trying to get. You have to remember that all of this happened in the 1960s. The building was completed in 1964, so obtaining some of these materials is going to take us a little bit longer. In any event, there's an archive at USC as well. None of the documents were mentioned in the review, and I think this is due to intentional misrepresentation of the facts. Shortly after my father died, Temple Emanuel celebrated its 50th anniversary. They invited me and my sister to be a part of all of that celebration. In addition, when they did their recent remodeling of the main sanctuary, they invited our input and materials from our sources. So they were aware that other materials were available. Why they didn't ask us to do this, I have no idea. It's inexcusable that there was no public review or input towards the ineligibility decision. And that no other than immediate commission members knew anything about it. By the way, all of the materials were sent to them in the midst of the Thanksgiving and winter holiday season and the final decision was on December 24th, 2018. Until publication on March 22nd in the Beverly Hills Courier after the building was up for sale We knew nothing about any of this I'm here today because an opportunity to rescue the building is still available if the escrow falls through and Then it eligibility certificate could be rescinded. I haven't thought of any other way, but perhaps you can I haven't thought of any other way, but perhaps you can. Other examples lost by the current flawed process of my dad's award winning Western Federal Savings Building, and most recently the Friars Club, which has been turned into a parking lot since 2011. There's just no excuse for that. Mostly I'm concerned that many buildings designed by a master architect, my dad, and many other important Beverly Hills architects are at risk if the current system for vetting them is retained. The point is that the system currently employed by the city of Beverly Hills, a pay, fairs to favor real estate investors and developers over cultural heritage. I understand the financial appeal of being able to remove smaller, less profitable buildings and replacing them with large higher tax based buildings. But I also understand that there is a pride and integrity in retaining works of art that enhance the city and make it attractive to the citizens of Beverly Hills and the millions of tourists who visit here each year. If the city is short-sighted in its landmark designation decisions, these buildings will be permanently lost. They can't be replaced. Pictures don't replace real things. The city must immediately attend to revising its policies and procedures for issuing in eligibility certification. And in addition, the process for demolition of landmark and landmark eligible buildings requires review to eliminate demolition prior to issuing building permits. I urge the city and its relevant commissions to take these suggestions under advisement and act upon them today. The beauty and integrity of the city really depends on all of you. That's what I'm here to ask and I hope that you will take note. Thank you very much and just so you know the procedure and policies are going to be under review at a future study session. So I would urge you to continue getting as much information as you can together for presentation. We're certainly going to look at this process and what may have gone wrong. And the more documentation you can present, the better it will be for us to be able to hopefully avoid that in the future. Okay, but as you said, like the New York Times and other things, and I see that there's a, and you should have a look at it, the staff just sent while you were speaking a response about how even with the new information according to them, it wouldn't have been eligible. I mean, that's, I'm not saying that, that's what they're saying. You should look at that, you should feel free to rebut that, you should feel free to add information that shows why that's not the case and you'll have a little bit of time to do. We can have that, it's a public document, we'll have the city manager send it to whatever email you want right now so you can look at it and deal with it and ask said you can be prepared and get as much information together as possible. As you know, unfortunately, when the Friars Club was torn down, I believe at that point we did not have a cultural heritage commission. So you can do the microphone. I testified for the Noitra House hearing when that happened and I introduced myself and they heard who my father was. We talked about the fire. Well, the Noitra House was the... No, listen to me. So we talked about the Friars Club building. And that kind of was the impetus for the beginning of that commission. That's when the conversation began. Well, I recall I was on the council. It was the Noitra House, but I believe, unfortunately, as said, the building had been sold and demoed before the Friars Club. And so from my perspective, this is just me speaking as one council member, if the Friars Club were before us today, there's no way that we would say that it's not historic. Exactly. And that's exactly what the fact that this review was done by a group hired by the seller. We're going to look. No, this is just not acceptable. We're going to look at that. That is, I think, a concern of a number of people. We're going to look at that. And with that, I'd like to ask Terry to come to speak. And as said, you'll be noticed, George, let's make sure, please, that Miss Oaken knows exactly when we're going to do it. It's going to be in June or July. And we're going to have a thorough look at the entire process. And I said, the more information you can present, the better off we will be. And I would be happy to participate in any way that I can. I am an urban planner by training. And this will definitely be a public that I can. I am an urban planner by training. Well, this will definitely be a public policy research. So I am able to, you know, provide input in any way that I can. As we look at the procedure and policies that we have, this case study will certainly be something we'll look at. So thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm going to leave this with you on a copy of my talk if you want additional notes. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, Terry. Thank view of historic preservation in the city and to say that I'm very happy to hear that there's going to be a review and that buildings will not be able to be torn down before building permits have been issued and that buildings that should fall into historic value be looked at by others than representatives from the sellers because we know in eligibility makes it easier to sell a building than when a building is covered. There are some remarkable buildings in Beverly Hills and what is going to differentiate this city from the big box cities that we see around us, which have no personality and no character, the difference is maintaining, preserving, and appreciating what we have here in Beverly Hills. It would be the same as tearing this building down just because we wanna do something different. Some people might say the same thing about LACMA. An architecture and design is individual, and people can look at new reasons for keeping things or for disturbing them. But in this case, I think that we have an architectural legacy in Beverly Hills that is worth holding on to. And that's what I would like to see that we have this process. And I thank you very much for giving it the consideration. Thank you, Steve Mayer. Welcome. Good afternoon, Mayor Vice Mayor and Council members. My name is Steve May mayor and I'm speaking on behalf of the North Ocus Drive neighborhood from Burton Way to Aldon. As background I became an accidental activist to stop a developer from bowling 84 year old neighbor, well to 332, 336 North Ocus. Today I'm here to speak about 331 North Ocus and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York and the city of New York to the tenants or the joining buildings or to the rest of the neighborhood. While the notice itself is not illegal, it is really another form of bullying and intimidation and harassment so far as the neighbors are concerned. What we learned subsequently is that no excavation could take place until plans and permits are approved, and that could take 18 months. The overwhelming majority of developers played by the rules, but then you have something like this applicant who believes that he can walk over anyone and everyone. For example, previously he went to the employer of one of our neighbors, and effectively threatened the employer, thereby threatening the employment of the neighbor who ended his advocacy toward this project. That wasn't right but there was nothing to do which we could do to prevent it. But with this note of excavation which has basically no purpose and cannot should not have been issued, it opens the door for the window for something to be done. Whether a letter could come from the director of community development, the city prosecutor, the city manager or the mayor, but the only way to stand up to a bully is to stand up to, or the deal with the bully is to stand up to them. The rebuked must be stern without equivocation, and the message must be clear. You must act in the best interest of the cities, not the worst. Thank you. Thank you, and I'd ask the City Manager to please look into that if there is any bullying or any Activity that is not kosher going on. We need to stop it make it very clear that it's not acceptable in our city Let's deal with that. Thank you and with that we're going to move to the first item on the study session agenda Which is the national public works week proclamation? I'd like to ask the entire council to please join me on the showroom floor. So today we're recognizing National Public Works Week and we welcome some but far from all of our public work staff to join us The city of Beverly Hills has the best public works professionals in the industry Well Yeah, not right yet. Let's give them their cutos. We don't want them all blushing here in front of us And That's not a surprise We believe that public works efforts to sustain our infrastructure, facilities and services are a vital importance, or as we like to say the backbone of the city. Public works maintains our city's roadways, traffic lights, sidewalks, streetlights, street signs, city buildings, and the facilities, fleets, solid waste, water waste, water stormwater parks, parking operations, city trees, and sanitation. We believe in creating a sustainable and resilient community where a high quality of life has become a standard which public works upholds. We, the city council, want to take this moment to thank all of you. Your dedicated efforts towards rebuilding, improving, and protecting our local government's transportation, water supply, solid-way systems, public buildings, and facilities are essential for the quality of life that our residents deserve. So we now declare May 19th to the 25th, 2019 is National Public Works Week in the City of Beverly Hills. And with that, we have a list of public works employees we'd like to call down, and then I will ask the vice mayor to read the actual proclamation. So please come down, Andrea Simmons, Christine Chung, David Gerard, Michael Hensley, Rob Welch, Semer L.A.N., Shana Epstein, Tanya Schwartz, Theresa Revis, and Jonathan Chacon, to all of you, this wonderful fabulous proclamation is dedicated. So now I get to read all the where-as is. Where-as public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality in life, and well-being of the people of Beverly Hills, and, whereas these infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers, and employees from state and local governments, and the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding, improving, and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment, and solid waste systems, public buildings, and other structures, and facilities essential for our citizens. And, whereas, it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders, and whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders and children in Beverly Hills to gain knowledge of and to maintain a progressive interest in understanding of the importance of public works and public safety works programs in their respective communities, communities and whereas the American Public Works Association has celebrated the annual, you let me know when you're done, Vicki. Works week since 1960 and therefore as we the council of the City of Beverly Hills to hereby declare the third week of May 19 through 25 2019 as National Public Works Week in the City of Beverly Hills. Okay. David? Okay everybody, we're going to do two. One, two, three. Come on. Sure. I'm turning the note. Okay. I'm standing on the other end. I'm standing on the other end. I don't know what I'm going hanging on. I'm dirty enough. I'm dirty enough. I'm hanging on. I'm dirty enough. I'm dirty enough. I'm dirty enough. I'm hanging on. I'm dirty enough. I'm hanging on. I'm dirty enough. I'm hanging on. I'm dirty enough. he won't get in the way. Okay, so we go over here. Social media. Okay, one, two, three. Okay, that's funny. Now wait, on the count of three, public works. Okay, one, two, three. All right, boys. Thank you, Sherry. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. All right, Sherry. Thank you. Okay. With that, moving right along to item number two, recommendation from the City Council. Liaison Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce Committee regarding the fiscal year 2019, 2020 work plan and funding request. Laura Byrie, welcome. All right. Happy Public Works Week. Good afternoon. Mayor, Councilmembers, my name is Laura Byrie, Marketing and Economic Sustainability Manager for the City of Beverly Hills. Today I have with me the Vice President for Economic Development and Government Affairs for the City of Beverly Hills. Today I have with me the Vice President for Economic Development and Government Affairs for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Blair Schlechter. Blair will be taking over the second part and the meteor part of the presentation today. But we have before you this afternoon is the Chamber's work plan. This is for fiscal year 2019-2020. It is the proposed work plan that was reviewed by the City Council Member Liaison's of Council Member Vossi and Council Member Wonderlick on April 18th of this year. It includes a combination of 14 ongoing programming initiatives from the current year and one new initiative for the upcoming new fiscal year. The available business development budget for fiscal year 2019-20 is $407,500, and that is if that is what Council chooses to adopt later in June. Based on that number, you do see here that the Chamber Work Plan Budget for Fiscal Year 2019-2020, inclusive of the one new initiative, is $347,505. A difference of $59,995 that are available for other business development programs and initiatives throughout the upcoming fiscal year. This is a simple comparison chart of the prior year to the current year. You'll see that the difference between the two is roughly $4,890. This is a result of cost efficiencies that the Chamber of Commerce was able to achieve in four continuing programs into the new fiscal year, as well as cost increases in 10 of the continuing programs, and the addition of the one new initiative. At this point in time, I'd like to bring up Blair to discuss a little bit further about the different programs, as well as to give you a recap of the last year. Blair, come on up. Thank you, Laura. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, Blash, lecture, vice president of economic development, governor affairs for the baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, Todd Johnson, CEO of the Chamber, gives his regards. He was unable to attend. Do something come up medically and he's okay, but he gives his regards. So anyways, thank you for having us. We appreciate our relationship with the city. We've had a great year. What I'd like to do is go through our initiatives and tell you a little more about them in the past year. And then I'm happy I'd answer any questions. So just a little bit overview as you know the city contracts annually with the Chamber of Commerce for a number of economic development initiatives as well as business programming and development and we met with our council liaisons, councilman Bruce Bosch and Wonderlick who are supportive of this initiative. We appreciate their support. Let me walk you through some of our initiatives and then we'll go over there. So the first one is the New York Business Attraction mission. That's one thing we've done for many years. It's a combination of business attraction and retention. We had some great meetings with rodeo drive retailers, corporate offices, LVMH, Chanel, and others learn some important information. Had the opportunity to tell them about city initiatives like bold, like the subway coming in. Oftentimes it's a great way to keep the senior leadership or prize of what's going on. We also had some great business attraction meetings. A couple of them are listed on here. One of them is called Kremau, a French retailer which we're talking about. Possibly moving out here. Another one calls me is known and another one called Tuyaki and Tayaki's Asian theme ice cream Location they've already come and visited and we're talking up potentially coming out in the fall So several businesses from past trips have opened here in Beverly Hills fallen trips a couple examples are Burlutti La Colomca on Santa Monica Boulevard So we're looking forward to more successes in the years to come So our plan for 2019 2020 is really to continue the trip in its present form and to basically continue really focus on business attraction missions, something with innovative, different retailers that we don't have in Beverly Hills, retail restaurants as the primary focus occasionally we look at other types of businesses. One of the new issues we started, this pastor is a trip to San Francisco, which is a similar theme to New York. We just completed that trip. It was a combination of seven business attraction meetings and one business retention meeting along the same lines. We had some great meetings. One business is already coming to visit and looking spaces out here. So we're really excited about that. So we're coming in about two and a half weeks. So that's very exciting. And we also had a great meeting with William Sonoma, one of our two stores here in Beverly Hills. So our plan for 2019, 2020 is really to continue the trip. I think San Francisco is a great target because it's close by. It has a huge culture of innovation. A culinary scene is truly amazing. In New York, I think they have more of Michelin star restaurants. So really, we'd like to continue that trip and hopefully bring some more innovative businesses to our town. Another initiative we have, we've had for many years, is business retention meetings. So we've conduct meetings with a wide variety of businesses across different spectra small, large businesses, different neighborhoods. We've had some great meetings this year. We've helped businesses along Robertson Boulevard improve one-way signage. We had a great meeting with Brighton Way retailers about kind of the style and the vibe of the street. We also met with Ferrari Beverly Hills, their president, and talked to them about what's going on with the subway. So it's a great opportunity to learn what's going on with them, how do we partner together to improve their business and what's going on in the city. So our plan is really to continue that along the same lines, produce a quarterly report, following up on action items. Brokers Roundtable, that's really formed to bring together the major commercial brokers in the city, a forum for number one for the brokers to learn, what are the city initiatives they're going on? But two, what's going on in terms of the space is opening in the city and the Chamber have an opportunity to learn about what's open, the brokers have an opportunity to share information about potential spaces they can fill. And we also use it across promote. So at each of these meetings, we provide them information about companies we've met with in New York in San Francisco with the Hope to Dell partner with us to help fill spaces. Economic development portal. So that's an initiative we started this past year. The idea being to provide a sort of a one-stop shop for information about what's going on economically in the Beverly Hills area. Obviously we have a lot to offer. This is information about labor force, economic output. How many businesses are here? Well, I come here and do business. So this is a great resource for both existing and new businesses to use. We're hoping to roll that out in the next month or two. And really our plan is to continue that website in 2019-2020. LA Metro Subway State state color outreach meetings. So that's something that we also started or took over in 2018-2019. With the idea of bringing together the city, the chamber, state holders, and Metro and figure out how do we work cooperatively to reduce the impacts on businesses in that very sensitive area, section one and two. So we had some great meetings in the past year. A sort of a peer review came out of that that came and I think helped really add something additional, add protections to the MOA and we really appreciate the city's work on that and Metro's work on that. And so we've had great cooperation. We have meetings once a month. Our plan for 2019, 2020 is really to continue that work and helping to protect the businesses in the area. Small Business Task Force, that was actually initiative, it was started in 2011 with Dr. Gold's help and former mayor Willie Bryan. We restarted in 2018, 2019 is a way to help attract and retain small businesses. And we've had a series of meetings really focusing on four areas, parking, streetfront beautification, foot traffic. And I believe the fourth one is, I'm forgetting the fourth one, sorry, excuse me. But we're working on a series of areas that really to help small businesses. It's really composed of a wide variety of businesses, places from Bedford to Roberts and to La Sienaica. And so we're hoping to come with a series of recommendations, probably early summer, to this council to look at each of these areas and then move forward helping to implement them and working with the stakeholders to implement those proposals in 2019-2020. LaCiana land over property manager development forum. So in 2018-2019 to give you just a bit of context, we help convene a series of I lost any land over property manager development for them. So in 2018-2019 to give you just a bit of context, we helped convene a series of landowners at the Mayor's Strategic Initiative. We actually got really great turnout. We got, I think, 80% of the landowners on La Sienaig between Gregory and Wilshire, I think Stemmerstates, a high level of interest in this area. And the really the idea is to bring them together to find, what do they see? What potential ideas can they add to a vision for the area? The subways coming in, this is an area we certainly look to as an area where we can develop and add a lot of growth to. So our plan for 2019-20 Duney is to continue this series of stakeholder meetings, report back to the city on our findings and work together on a common vision. Destination Master Plan Strategic Report. I know that the CVB has been working and we've been helping work with them on a strategic master plan for the future of tourism in Beverly Hills. This past year we worked on a steering committee helping to recruit and help support the CVB's efforts, providing strategic advice and input on their master plan. We worked on a steering committee helping to recruit and help support the CVB's efforts, providing strategic advice and input on their master plan. Really, the plan for 2019 is a little scaled down version of that, a governance committee in which we've been asked to serve, meeting by monthly and helping to implement any proposals that the city and CVB agreed to implement as part of that destination master plan. Moving on to Beverly Hills Business Programming and Development. So it gets into your city program. That's a program of start in 2016, 2017 to really bring business community together to understand how to navigate city requirements. So it consists of two open houses, two twice a year, and basically bring different departments together so people can learn about what's going on, what are the key departments they need to know and hear presentations. So we actually had an excellent presentation this past about a week ago about preventing crime prevention tips for small businesses. Well attended, along with that we prepare pamphlet on, attracting, how to maintain, and start a new business in Beverly Hills, and electronic pamphlet we distribute yearly. So working on both of those, our plan is really to continue that same program this year. Small Business Development Center, that's an educational component we provide, two small businesses in Beverly Hills. It consists of monthly one on one seminars across a wide variety of subjects, marketing, starting a business plan, accounting tips, along with free one on one consultations for Beverly Hills businesses. So it's been really a great service for the community. I've gotten a lot of accolades for the SBDC for this and our plan for 2019-2020 is to continue that program. My Beverly Hills, another program we've done is really designed to connect residents to the local businesses, get people to shop local. We had a wide variety of mixers. We've used it really a lot to cross remote bold. So during the summer and winter bolds, we had a series of mixers, one with Alexa Meade. We had huge turnout, I think it was excess and 200 people. Each of these mixers during bold, along with regular ones in between that. The other component of that is a social media and marketing component online. Website with business profiles, constant social media posts to support local businesses, drive people to businesses all around town. We've gotten some great input and feedback about that. And our plan for 2019-2020 is to continue that Similar lines. I would say with the only tweak being really to focus on section two the purple line that area that is likely to be impacted by construction Instruction in the year ahead Here a few testimonials So, I'm going to hold a bold. We work with our partners, the CVB and the RDC and the City, to help with outreach efforts, marketing support, e-blast, canvassing the street and listing support, engaging businesses to stay open later. We've done that for the past couple years and our plan again is to do that for 20 years. And last but not least, one new initiative is a business success video. So we have a lot of successful businesses to draw on. One of them you can see here is C.P.K., other businesses to really highlight and show to the world as Beverly Hills is a great place to do business. I'm also to show existing businesses all the great success stories we've had here over the years. Here's a breakdown. As Laura mentioned of our work plan from last year and this year, pretty similar to the exception of the business success videos. And I'm happy to answer any questions and I thank you for your time. Thank you. Before that, we have public speaker, David Gingold, and then we will close the public comment. Thank you. I attended a liaison with City Council and the Small Business Task Force and although they had a lot of good suggestions and programs, some of them seemed very restrictive over regulated. One person there said that let me backtrack for a second. I understand that the city has codes for certain signage which is a good idea to size and others so that things stand or control. But some of the numbers there they said they wanted every single sign to be the same size. Other said they want everybody sign on the business should be the same color. There's no reason to over regulate like that and have the Chamber of Commerce or the City of Beverly Hills enforce certain personal beliefs on these business owners. Suppose someone wanted to open up a store that said Schleckters, who would be in favor of a store with a sign that said Schleckters, probably only Blair Schleckter, and maybe all of you. Anyway, I would be in favor of it, too. What I want to say about the Chamber of Commerce is that I have been an Army of one and the voice of the people, the residents and the commercial area. West, West Friday, I visited Neiman Marcus, Sacks with Avenue, the Good Shepherd Elementary School as well as the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to let them know about the no-turn restrictions off of Olympic between seven and 10 in the morning and four to seven in the afternoon. This is anti mayor gold's economic sustainability program. It's anti two-time mayor Lily Bosse's bold program. How are people from our area, the southwest, supposed to get into the triangle, or Nemen Marcus, or the stores, or anywhere in Roo drive if they're either unable to, let's say they're coming even from Beverly Wood if they're unable to turn on rodeo drive on Roxbury Drive on Camden they can't get there. They're not going to want to go up South Beverly Drive which is full of traffic and diagonal parking. And I have asked to see if Todd Johnson would appear tonight. And Blair, is anybody coming from Chamber of Commerce tonight to speak at the meeting to say that the 4 to 7, no turns off Olympic or these roundabouts will restrict traffic from going to the business area. Is anyone coming from the Chamber of Commerce to support your members in the business? Can you come up and ask me, and answer that please? Or can anybody from the Chamber of Commerce tell me? Because in the staff report, and the big book that the council has, there's not one letter there from Todd Johnson saying, as CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, we oppose this because it's at first business between 7 and 10 where employees can't get there before the store opens and snub stores open at 9. It's against patrons and Beverly Hills being able to shop there. But I would like to know if you could tell me please if anybody is planning to come tonight to oppose this as I haven't seen any written letters. David, you can ask after your time is over, you can go up to Blair and ask. I can only assume that the Chamber of Commerce has ignored their own members. If Todd Johnson, Chamber of Commerce CEO, he needs to come and support his members. If not, I think he should be sent back to Larry's prime rib, carving prime rib. Thank you, and with you should be sent back to Larry's prime rib, carving prime rib. Thank you. And with that, we'll go to council member questions and comments. He is on report, absolutely. So council member Bosse and I were the liaisons. And we did get a similar update. And we supported the initiative. We commend the Chamber on its efforts and give our support for them to continue. Blair, you mentioned a couple of updates on some of the initiatives, the economic development portal, the small business task force. Are you going to be back in front of us at the time that those things have reached fruition maybe a few months from now? Absolutely. I'd be happy to. That's good because I would like to hear more that those things have reached fruition maybe a few months from now. Absolutely, be happy to. That's good because I would like to hear more about those things. The Lasianna-Ga, landowner form, are you coordinating with or how are you coordinating with the Strategic Planning Commission and the Southeast Task Force on that? Sure answer, we're happy to do so in any way that works for the city. I mean, I think that's good. Has that been happening yet. Well, we haven't started it We so we have and this is just initiative at the time it was the meeting was as part of the strategic initiative So we're happy to we're happy to work it in any way that works for the city I mean because it seems like yeah, oh yeah We should be coordinating at least touching basically. Yeah, and I yeah clarify, we all work together. So this is something we'll be communicating. So that's fine. We started as part of the strategic planning committee, they put together a really good panel. Not knowing what the direction strategic planning committee moving forward is or will be. It's good that the chamber is stepped up to keep that group together because I think it's a powerful group and in the end they will shape what that area of town looks like. So I think it's important to see what that looks like. Well, I certainly support your efforts or are seeing needs them or small businesses need them or business community need them. So I'm certainly supportive. Yeah, Lily. Yeah, I just want to add that we unanimously supported it. And the programs that you have in place are working. But the new program that you are proposing, the business success videos, is something that we have said we've wanted for years. And I know that we've talked about it regarding CPC, regarding sprinkles and other local businesses that have really hit it fantastically in our city and then have gone to other states and such. And I think it's really important to tell our story. There's one thing, though, that I did not see in the report that we did talk about in the liaison was that part of what we wanted was to also have social media ready videos and that we were going to have some that were less than a minute that can be placed on Instagram and such that are shareable. So I know that was something we agreed on and I just didn't see it in the staff report so just wanted to include that but great work and wholeheartedly support it. Thank you. Hey thank you, Julian. Thank you, Julian. Thank you, Mayor. So, you know, when we started the small business, Task Force in 2011, we were faced with a fair number of empty storefronts. We've come out of the recession and a lot of those small businesses had failed. They got better for a while, but it's beginning to look like we have a fair number of empty storefronts again, I think, for different reasons. But I think that it really does need to ignite us to see what we can do in support of the existing small business, and at the same time what we can do to attract newer small businesses, maybe in today's world with a different focus from what came before, but nonetheless, I think that we have to be proactive here to try and refill some of those storefronts. So I'm very, very supportive of all of that. Actually, I'm supportive of all of the ceiling question I really have surrounds the dollars attached to the San Francisco mission. Because as a proportion of the New York mission, it seems pretty high. So you only spend one night, you take six people, seven people. It seems like a lot of money to get to San Francisco and back. So I'm kind of curious what the detail on. Yeah, I would say, I think there's certain kind of scale. I mean, once we start researching businesses, that's a significant part of the cost of the trip. And so I know it's more proportionally, I think it gets a little, besides the distance, the trips are otherwise, and the length of the trip they're otherwise pretty much the same as far as the amount of legwork we need to put in to prep the trip, prep the meetings, to do all the research. So this is prep? This is prep. Well, a lot of it is. It's prep and the travel time and then the follow-up and the further research. Just similar to the New York trip, which I think if you penciled it out, it would be 120 for the... penciled out the San Francisco trip, times three, it would be about... New York's about 110, so, just certain sort of a kind of a scale that you get, I think, by doing multiple day trips. Okay. Thank you. So, if I may pick up right where that left off and comment how well research the contacts were made in San Francisco. I can see where the work was put into it. I think it's the first time you've done the research into San Francisco and did a really, really good job. I mean, to have a business show and interest and come out within 30 days of when we met with them. It is really a tribute to the work you did. So thank you. In terms of economy, it looks as if everything is staying about the same, the minor increases. The only significant change is the business success videos, which I would be totally supportive of. I mean, showcasing businesses that have made it like CPK and sprinkles, has really contributed to our city and our community. So I am supportive. Thank you and don't forget cheesecake factor. I agree. I also though think when we look at empty storefronts, sometimes it really is only a function of unreasonable expectations from landlords. And we really need to distinguish between that. In some cases, as said, it really is the rents that are pushing businesses out. And that's something over which we don't necessarily have a lot of control unless I do like the idea of pointing out the success that our businesses have had. And I think one of the advantages of some of these outreach missions is personal contacts. It's a lot easier, I think, to meet somebody and to generate interest by actually being there and having a one-on- two on two conversation with people. So many businesses are made up of relationships and the notion of attracting economic development to our city is no exception. So thank you and with that we'll move on to item number three. Thank you. Recommendation from the City Council is on Beverly Hills Conference and Visitors Bureau CVB Marketing Committee regarding the fiscal year 2019, 2020 work plan and funding. Good afternoon mayor, members of the council,, Huma Ahmed, Community Outreach Manager for the City. The item that is before you this afternoon is a proposal from the Beverly Hills Conference and Visitors Bureau. It is their annual work plan for fiscal year 2019-20. The CVB is completely funded by the City's tourism and marketing budget which is why the work plan is reviewed on an annual basis. This year's plan was presented to the city council liaisons for the CVB marketing committee which consisted of Mayor Mirish and council member bossy on May 6th of this year. The CVB provided a combination of ongoing programming and new initiatives which included these are just highlights but they included winter bold as spring 2020 program an additional group sales position and a possible expansion of office space. The tourism and marketing budget currently we have available is about 7.7 million. The requested amount is at 8.1 million, which is inclusive of bold summer. The difference between the two is $436,000, which was approved from the General Fund surplus for bold summer 2019. That item is on this evening's consent. It was approved at the May 7th study session. Again, this is just a snapshot of the current tourism and marketing budget of where it is at this time. And this is inclusive now of Bold Winter. The previous budget that I showed you did not have Bold Winter. It only had summer. And so this is what we anticipate for 2019 about $896,000. As part of the conversation that took place with the liaisons, with the addition of an additional staff member and an expansion of office space, there are going to be ongoing costs and expenditures. They're not one time. So with that in mind, there was a discussion that said that should there be a revenue short fall, the CVB will be advised to review their expenditures and adjust accordingly. There's no guarantee since they are funded completely by TOT. I'd like to invite Julie Wagner from the CVB along with Bill Wiley who are here and they would like to provide their presentation to you. Good afternoon, Mayor Mierish. Members of City Council, it is both an honor and a privilege to stand before you and present a little bit of a recap of the wonderful work that our incredible team has accomplished this past year and also to talk about plans for next year. We had the privilege of meeting with City Liaisons, Mayor Miresh and Council Member Bosse, who were very patient as we went through the whole entire book. We did talk about the need for potentially setting aside some dollars should TOT revenues fall short next year and we are getting ready to figure out exactly how that will go. Before I get started though I just wanted to take a minute to allow our esteemed treasurer and pass board chair twice or three times is it two or three times just to say a couple of words Mr. Bill Wiley. Thank you and I'm thrilled to be here and really looking forward to this year's scope of work that we have for the CVB we're always trying to keep the brand front and of an incumbent traveler and visitors to our city. And it's really an honor to be part of the organization. Thank you. All righty, you still have that cough. Me too, just doesn't go away. So we usually show a chart, but we didn't have numbers right away. And I just wanted to recap that since this organization has become independent, which was back in 2008, TOT revenue has grown by over 100%, which is incredible for the city. And it's also been incredible for us as well, because the city has very generously raised our budget, commensurate with that growth in revenue. And what that's allowed us to do is increase our program of work and really work really hard to expand the initiatives that we were formally focusing on into much more creative paths for us that allow us to market to our existing markets, but then also to farm for new business and emerging markets. So we just finished a visitor profile economic impact study and waiting for the final report. I think we gave some of these numbers to you all when you so kindly gave us a proclamation for travel and tourism week. But initial results show that we had about 7.5 million travelers come in 2018, which is slightly up for 2016. Almost 80% of our travelers came from international markets. Now that's both hotel guests, visiting friends and relatives, and a substantial amount of our visitors, 94% come for the day. So that's an incredible shift because in 2016, it was 50-50. Hotel guests are spending more money per capita at $729, which is up 9%. The visitor spend generated $64 million in taxes, which is up and that makes up a little over a quarter of the city's general fund revenue. And then similar to 2016, we haven't seen much increase. Jobs are flat, but still representing 13,000 jobs in our city. And I believe one of our hotels is one of the biggest employers in the city. And then direct spend at local businesses was up 5% from 2018. So here's just some initial highlights. We like to do a little snapshot or infographic to showcase. Bold summer and holiday, our holiday bold program, as you know from past presentations, was the best performing from a PR perspective program that the CVB has ever done. Both for holiday and summer, we had close to 1.5 billion PR impressions, and we had close to 1.8, or just a little over 1.8 billion PR impressions for just our ongoing activities. Group sales, which we have requested money to add a coordinator to the position. We sent about $5 million in leads to the hotels, and we've booked since the group sales executive has taken her position over $1 million in revenue, which is about $250,000 in TOT. Our visitor center, our sales are at, people are buying more Chachkis, but the visitor growth is down. I'm not sure if that's because a lot of the buses are no longer coming. We had all that construction on Santa Monica Boulevard, and so buses were stopping on third straight, so maybe the proximity was a little bit different than it had been in past. We're pretty flat in turn I mean we're slightly up for visitors so I'm not sure we have to look into that a little bit more and then Chinese New Year we always generate revenue because we charge we have a public event that we charge for tickets. I think one of the things that our group is most proud of last year was our Alexa Meade pop up. We're always looking for new and fresh ideas. One of our key team values is a fresh perspective and so we want to make sure that we're constantly thinking about how can we do this better? How can we add to this? Should we throw this out and start over from scratch? But we want to make sure that we're constantly focused on that. We found a new advertising network that actually shows a return on investment and for bold, it was close to $11.50 per every dollar we invested. And that's a great number because it's really hard for us to track ROI because we're not really selling a product. We're selling an experience. And as you all know, hotels share their TOT information with the city but they don't with us because of non-disclosure agreements or lack thereof. We just did a spring campaign for a spring campaign to promote the hotels. Just did a huge pop-up in Grand Central Station. That was amazing. It was beautiful. And we're actually thinking about using some or all of it at our New York sales mission. So if you're going to be coming, you'll be able to see some of the design that was there. And then, as I mentioned, group sales is up. International marketing, we travel to as many countries as we possibly can that either are established markets or prospective markets because, as Mayor Marish mentioned, earlier relationships are key in terms of generating business. When people know us face to face, they connect with us. We remain top of mind and they think about us when their client is making a booking. And also they know they can call us so that we can do additional things for them, whether it be gift bags or have the hotels deliver amenities or whatever the case may be. From an interactive perspective, we've kind of ramped up our Chinese digital approach while we can't compete directly with some of our competitors who are spending millions and millions of dollars on consumer, we're trying to spend smart. So we're working with our agency to track key opinion leaders to make sure that they post about us and our Vice President of Business Development Mary Saunders, who's in the audience, has been working on tour operator training waking up in the middle of the night to talk to Chinese tour operators about Beverly Hills and convince them to come here. We finished our destination development plan. So I'll be talking about that as soon as we're done with this piece of business. We are in our first year of implementation for our strategic plan refresh. And as I mentioned, we finished our economic impact study. And then from an ad hoc perspective, we talked about tour buses and looked at are there other places besides Third Street to enhance accessibility in the city. We're at a standstill on that one at the moment. And then we also had a tours in breakfast which featured Mayor Mirish. And we also had a global summit panel of all of our agencies, Q&A, and then a company called Canvas 8 talked about consumer research. Domestic market growth, just as a point of reference, so the local Los Angeles market continues to lead in terms of revenue, but they also only have 1% hotel share. So we need to make sure that we keep this market in mind when we're trying to sell the experience. It just may not necessarily include a hotel experience unless it's a visiting friend or relative or staycation type initiative. And of course, New York and San Francisco continue to be our number, our top markets in terms of hotel stays. International growth, we continue to see a slight decline in China and I think some of that is due to the fact that Union pay is no longer working with visas so there's just a natural attrition. And I also think that shopping is not the number one priority for them anymore. They're looking for unique experiences. They are still spending a ton of money here. But, and we are some of our five star hotels have seen growth in the hotel sector, but they're still probably one of our lowest, if not our lowest, international feed market in terms of staying at our hotels. The Middle East is solid. We lost a tremendous amount of business in 2017 and we're starting to see that come back and when I was over there, most of the travel trade that we talked to felt that this summer would be strong again. New programs, bold summer, which we presented on May 7th, we are going to be working with Janet Eckelman. Hopefully we can get that all worked out to hang a piece over North Santa Monica Boulevard. We're working on new decor in Beverly Cannon Gardens. We have partnered with Metro in conjunction with their each shop stay program. We've created artwork that's on brand for the City of Beverly Hills that all the businesses can use and the CVV paid to have that done. And so now we've got an advertising plan or a media plan that will be presenting to Metro, which they will hopefully implement on our behalf, but it will be paid for by Metro. We're going to revamp Chinese New Year's slightly this year. We'd like to add a group sales coordinator so that they're on the home front being able to process leads and mine for new business with some of our tracking software. in the future. And I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. I think that's the end of this week to go to ILTM Asia Pacific in Singapore. The Southeast Asia is showing in our top 10 markets now, so it really warrants investigation and not a lot of our competitors are there yet. So we're trying to get ahead of the curve before all the big guns come in with their dollars. We'd like to expand our destination marketing that we do at the hotels for to go into UK and Canadian markets. Canada is a really big market for us and we haven't done a lot. And then we want to continue to expand our digital efforts in China and we're looking at multicultural efforts like our Grand Pop program, which we will present separately. I'm going to do a website refresh because needs to have, we haven't touched our website in about four years. We're going to look at, as we talked with our city liaisons, when we met, we're going to look at either renovation or potentially moving as we've pretty much outgrown our space. So more investigation will happen on that. There's no dollars in this plan at the current time to address that. And then hopefully we'll be able to receive approval of the destination development plan. And once we get your stamp of approval on that and the next steps, then we will work to form a governance committee. So here's a summary of the categories of our budget and a comparison year over year. So local holidays, that's basically Santa at the Paley and some local advertising around that. And that is flat. There's no change, $20,000. Our events, we moved that. So that's Chinese New Year in 1819. We moved it to international marketing because it didn't seem to make sense to just have this one category for this one event. We put bold in its own category. Domestic marketing, that is slightly up, and that's to allow for the marketing, for the UK and Canada expansion that I spoke about. International marketing, that's up slightly because we added Chinese New Year into the mix. And then we're not sure what our carryover is going to be, but we're proposing that we use some of those dollars if we don't need them for shortfall to enhance some of our international initiatives. Perhaps do a pop-up like we just did in New York, in Australia, or the UK. Interactive, that's slightly up because we're going to do a website refresh and we have to start shooting video. We don't have enough video content. Again, some of these things, these new programs could potentially be dialed back if necessary to address any shortfalls that may or may not happen. Collateral, that's pretty much flat. That's our visitor guides and our premiums for our trade shows and sales efforts. And then also our fulfillment of those visitor guides. Research that came way down because we finished our destination development plan and our economic impact study is complete. So those dollars basically are for PR tracking, visa view credit card, and then Smith travel research. And then special programs is flat operations, including salaries, taxes, and benefits. That's up by 7 percent. That incorporates the new individual, the coordinator position, our accountant has raised to their rates. So we're going to do an RFP to see if we can potentially find a better deal, but at least know what our options are. Rent increases, phones, HVAC, all the things that you would imagine are fixed costs, and then our visitor center is flat. So we were told to present a budget with a 5% increase and that's where we netted out once we looked at programs we had taken away in programs we had added and then for bold winter holidays we've reduced costs a little bit. When we presented bold summer, we talked about new sculptures for Beverly Cannon Gardens. So that is included in that storage installation of the pieces that we have. And then we're also looking at other ideas, which if we come up with interesting opportunities, we'll come back to the liaisons to share those ideas and get further direction. So the total including winter bold is $5,080,023. We're proposing $50,000 and carry over to be used towards winter bold. And then we have a tenant improvement account which will help for some of the costs if we renovate or we move spaces, but certainly it won't cover all of it, but more to come on that. And then just as a FYI, if you'd like to see, this is how our budget breaks down in terms of percentages. It's pretty much the same as it was in 2018, 19 fiscal year with fixed costs being number one and then domestic, international and interactive following there behind. So there's more detail in there, which I know you got in your packets, but I'll spare you of through going through all those line items. Any questions? Okay. First we have public comment from David Gingold and then we'll go to council member I said I've been a voice of the people, the residents and business. I was at conference and visited Bureau of Law and Law and Law meetings where they presented taking the tour buses off third and civic center and in front of the Beverly Hills Library and putting them at 414 Camden where traffic planner Martha Eiffros came up and said that the only thing at 414 Camden is a pharmacy and then I got up and said on top of that is an 11 story medical building and against that plan I've showed photos of what three buses would have looked like with their toxic fumes and causing chaos and blocking the entrance and lovely Julie Wagner, after considering all these events has decided to take the tour buses off of Camden and leave them where they are. In regards to what I just spoke at Chamber of Commerce, when I talk to people in the community, a lot of them say, what is the sense of going to public comment at the City Council when they don't respond to you and just do what they want anyway. I think it would have been prudent, polite, respectful, and for due process. For some one member of the city council, when Blair Shector got up here from Chamber Commerce to say one of the members in public comment asked if anybody is coming tonight to speak on behalf of the businesses that are members of the Chamber of Commerce to take a stand either for it or against it without taking sides. But every member of this council just ignored my public comment. As usual, two members of the council just read from their computers what was pre done. And the purpose of public comment is so that they would have an open discussion and give ideas that this council could discuss as part of the comment and maybe ask questions. Blair Slector just told me that Todd Johnson will not be coming for medical reasons. and nobody else was appointed. He's not coming. Nobody's coming. Now to conference and visitors. Are they coming tonight? What happens when somebody comes from the airport and they rent a car and they want to go to the Beverly Willshire hotel and they want to go right up El Camino or so that they could go right into their valet parking. They won't be able to turn on the street at certain hours of the day. They will have to confront roundabouts and circles and make it difficult for them. And what about visitors and tourists that want to go shopping in the triangle? And so, and what about, I meet a lot of people in doctor's offices in Beverly Hills who make special trips here from all over the country to go to our doctors on Bedford and Camden. How are they, they should be able to easily go up Bedford, rodeo, good, to go to Bedford, make a turn on Wilshire, go up Rocksbury, little Santa Monica, down Bedford, park into turn on Wilshire, go up Roxbury, little Santa Monica down Bedford, park in the city lot. They won't be able to do this either. I'm sorry. I'm gonna ask you, we've heard the same thing three times. I'm gonna ask you to stop. We have a lot of items we need to get to. Okay, the only reason I mentioned this, when you say three times, one was general. I understand. Second you said the same thing three times and we've heard it. We're not. I want to know if visitors and tourists is coming tonight. You can ask them, they're there. Thank you. And with that, we'll go to the Council Member Liaison Report starting with Council Member Bossy. Thank you. So the mayor and I supported the proposal. First of all, to the conference in Visitors Bureau, you've done a wonderful job, especially this past year. I think year upon year you are working on bettering oneself. I think the numbers have shown for themselves. The Aleximid during bolt holidays, I think, exceeded anybody's expectations. In terms of the group sales, that was a conversation that we spent a bit of time on that we felt group sales, as well as conferences, is a huge priority, looking to have more milk and type conferences. So I know that that's something that you are as well, making a priority, and that's part of the reason for the group sales. And then in terms of the reason for the group sales. And then in terms of the international reach based on the data that you have that that's where we should be looking towards. So Mayor and I fully supported your proposal. Thank you. And with that, can you talk a little bit more, tell us a little bit more about that pop up at Grand Central Station that looked great from the pictures that I saw? It was beautiful. We learned a lot of lessons. I mean, I think, on the one, it's the first time we've ever done anything like it. It was about 2,000 square feet. Grand Central Station is a very difficult because it's run by Metro. It's a challenging place to do anything because there's a tremendous amount of rules and there's not a lot of flexibility. So for example, on the first day of the pop-up we found, and we learned a lot, you know, that people were in transit and that, while they were passing by and they were looking, they weren't necessarily coming in. So, you know, we talked about adding live music, we called up Juilliard, we engaged several musicians, and we had a permit for live music, and Grand Central said, no, it's too late. So, we had to come up with a separate solution, we called them staff, and we had two beautiful Amazonian flower women there that looked on brand that matched some of the floral decor. So it doesn't allow a lot of ability to be on the fly. We had an instant trip giveaway where we had over 100 people line up to win an instant trip to Beverly Hills. There's a lot of different types of people that show up for those types of things, but the person who won the trip had just lost her job at the New York Stock Exchange several days earlier. And so this was just, it was nice to see, you know, the universe kind of giving back to somebody. I would say for the future, the key takeaways were, it's better maybe sometimes to make a space a little bit smaller so it looks a little bit more crowded, rather than having it be huge. To budget a little better, this was one of those ideas that came up after our program of work had been finalized. And so our team is super creative, but it came up. We didn't quite have enough money to do all the bells and whistles. So it's important to make sure that you work with as much lead time as possible. And I was a little bit disappointed in the turnout with regard to media. The whole media landscape is changing. Media aren't necessarily, they don't necessarily need content served up to them in quite the way that they used to. Now they can find stuff on the internet, the people are calling. So their ability to seek out new experiences is a little bit different. And so I think I would look at how to engage the media a little bit better. But we've gotten a lot of great press, a lot of great pick-up. You know, great story in Forbes. Yeah, we had a great story in Forbes. You know, so we just continue to march on work. Was the target individuals trying to get the target was this is our main feeder market domestically. So the target was consumers, but also giving the media something meaty and influencers something meaty to talk about online. So as you know, you gotta have a story angle. And the Chinese New Year, and speaking about a potential with Tencent, is that an alternative? Is that we're contemplating doing something different than we've done the last several months? We talked about that. We are locked in with the Chinese government this last year. So we're going to see if we can freshen up. We've made it very clear to them that we need some new. I think the quality of the entertainment is declined a little bit in the last couple of years. So we're going to try and make sure that they provide a little bit more exciting entertainment, although they had that interactive screen this past year that was pretty cool. But it still would be a- So it'll still be at the Saban and we're looking how to freshen it up a little. And so I am supportive of this just, I mean, in general, I think it's important that we make investments like this in the city without making investments like this in the city. We run the risk of becoming stagnant, going into decline. We have to do things like this to ensure our economic sustainability going forward. These are our referalist expenditures. These are investments in the city. A few recommendations. We have more than one group that funds these things. And so at least for me it would be helpful and I could say this for you or when the Rodeo Drive Committee is speaking more than one of these groups that whenever we talk about something in which money is coming from more than one pot to have some place closely Connected with that. What's the total amount of money that we're spending on this when we see the money for bold or to see the money for the New York trip and Any individual on it's just the part of it. What's the total amount of money to? Part of your presentation today was some of the things connected with summer bold and winter bold and some local initiatives. For that, I would like to see as move towards extending some of the areas in which we have some of those activities. Perhaps the most immediate one might be to have some additional stuff on Can and to do some additional things to promote commercial activity on Canaan in the existing restaurants that we have there as well. And then the last one is kind of related to some things that I've said before, which is measuring the impact of what it is that we do. And I'm a believer in doing this, and a lot of it comes in real business also, it comes from a gut that you know that you have to spend money to promote your product in your product in this case is the city. But you do want to try to measure things to the best that you can to fundamentally answer the question, how are we doing? And to know to the extent that you can what things are working in terms of spending money, what things aren't working as well. And I think we can continue to improve there. We have some numbers that reflect on us year to year. But that's not really enough. That's only a dressing part of the question. If we show growth in some category of 3% and all of LA counties showing growth of 3% then we're just keeping up. We're not doing particularly well. So we need other benchmarks, we need other perspectives, we need to know what LA County is doing, we need to know what our neighboring cities are doing, Santa Monica, Culver City, West Hollywood. They presumably have presentations given to them, very similar to this this one some of their numbers would be available And just like businesses do competitive intelligence so that they can benchmark themselves against other people We should be regularly to the extent that we can trying to track those numbers and presenting them so that we do have a better sense of how are we doing? Are we just keeping up? But we are we increasing? Are we just keeping up? Are we increasing on people? Are we falling behind people? Who knows if there's something going to say? Yeah, I'll call it on. Add that we are going to be moving forward with a fiscal impact analysis report, and it will include both summer and winter 2018, vanity fair and golden globes. So we are going to be providing you with additional information moving forward. And so I look forward to seeing that. And just as one rough measurement, if you look at the numbers that we had in your domestic growth and international growth tables, which refer, whatever it does in a so different feeder areas in each category, that overall was reflecting put them all together about a 3% growth, you know, which, you know, hard to know whether that's a good number or a bad number. That's, I mean, it's kind of reflective of what we've seen in the last year. We also get Smith Travel Research Reports, which show hotel performance in our competitive market. So it looks at Santa Monica, West Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles, and all the luxury categories. And that does give us an indication if we're just keeping up with the Joneses or if we're doing better than our competitors. And I think it's good to provide us with numbers like that, because we do want to answer that fundamental question, however we're doing. Sure. You know, in my real life, I do stuff similar to this. And also some of the numbers, frankly, make me kind of skeptical. When you show an 11 to 1 return on advertising, that's not really an 11 to one return. Well, what that is is just an administrative point. We're going to have to get out of here at five. Okay. I'm intending to get to five and six, so we will probably skip over the next one and come back to that just so everyone knows. Okay. I will take my lesson. Hello, no one knows. And I would just say that the way Sojourn works is it if somebody saw the ad and then actually booked a room, that's how it works. And then they use our figures from our economic impact study to calculate the dollar about. You have to maintain a healthy skepticism about numbers. When you look at that astounding change from 2016 to 2018 of the mix of where our visitors are coming from, my initial reaction would be to double check and triple check those numbers because on the face a switch from making up the approximate numbers, you know, from 50% to 80% doesn't seem plausible. And so that actually is a key number for, as feedback is to whether or not we're putting our money in the right place. And so when you see such significant changes like that, that's a suggestion to make sure that that's a well-founded number because that is a large change. But I'm supportive of the work that you're doing is great and I'm certainly supportive of making this investment in the city. Thank you. Joy, thank you. So I just have started following up on Councilmember Wondrelick's questioning. Your decision making around spending money domestically or internationally. What drives that? The return that we see from our feeder markets and understanding. It's based on historic data or projections of next year's data. It's historic. It's based on historic data. And then we confer with all the hoteliers on the board and make sure that the data we're getting for Visa is in line with the data that they're seeing and then they approve our program of work. So roughly then you would expect that you're gonna see 50% more business total dollars coming out of the domestic market than you are from the international market. That's what the spend is here. Yeah, the spend is higher domestically, because there's more. More people, huh, pardon? proportionately. What do you mean by that? You're going to spend 50% more. Oh, uh. You're spending a million to domestically and 800,000 internationally. So it's 50% more on the domestic market. So the expectation is then that the revenue that comes from that would be in that same proportion. So there's a caveat to that. Domestically, because it's easier, we do direct to consumer marketing. And so there's a higher return on investment than doing it with trade and PR. Internationally, we tend to focus on trade and PR because it's less costly. So that's kind of how we make our decisions. So the dollars that we're investing internationally is just a function of just cost of communications and the way that we're marketing to various audiences. So that has something to do with it. The other piece of it is part of why our mix, 94% to 6% is because a large percentage of those international travelers come for the day. And we're hoping to continue to be able to convert that so that when they do spend money here at our hotels, they spend more than domestics do because they stay longer, but more domestics come and thus spend more money. Does that make sense? Well, sort of, but I just think to Council Member Wunderlich's point, it would be nice to have some way to tie some of this back in a way that we can actually measure it. I recognize that some part of this is art and that science. But for me it would be nice to kind of know specifically what drives it. Yeah, I think it would be nice to know that the CVB spent $1.2 million on domestic initiatives and we as a city got $2 billion in direct spend from domestic markets. And so there was a straight apples to apples comparison. I would love to see that. I would love to be able to get hotel numbers telling me that the domestic market spent this and the international market spent that to this date, it still continues to be a challenge. I mean, we don't even know sometimes when we send a lead if the business got booked. They don't even, they won't tell us that. So it's something that we continue to work on and perhaps we can all, we can work with you to figure out what a solution might be to help. So it's sort of segues into my next series of questions, which really had to do with the hotels, hotel occupancies, the impacts of Airbnb, things like that. And we sort of get delayed information in the form of taxation information, but that's not really good information. You have no idea what the rack rates are, aren't? There's no way we can get the cooperation of the hotels to actually get some real data. Well, this, which would, which would, which would, which would, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, which, It doesn't address where do they come from? Yeah, it doesn't. How long will they be there? What do they spend? It doesn't address any of that kind of stuff. It doesn't address the year over year occupancy rates. It doesn't address. Well, the year over year occupancy, I can get that for you. Not by feeder market, but I can get you just calculating it through Smith Travel Research. I can tell you what. I hotel. But it does compare the different city and the months of the year. It actually has quite a bit of information we can send in a star report. It might be worthwhile. I mean, I'd be curious to see it. I don't really think it. But maybe it calls for a sit down with the hotels to say, maybe they send it to the city and the CVB never sees it. You know, that can help. I don't, you know. Well, I think it's worth having the conversation because if we are making decisions about how we're going to spend money would only make sense that we we understand what that market is who are we actually targeting if China is spending whatever was only 3% 53% increase or if they're spend low compared to somebody else, maybe we want to readjust that. And we do, we do do that. Like when we see things drop off like what happened, I mean there's two rules of thought and I'll make this real quick. You know when you need to market more when the market is down because you need to you know you need to recapture people. But some people say when the market is down just leave it be until it returns And so I think that just depends on whatever the circumstances might be Well, I I think that to the extent that we can shed a little light on what that looks like I would be happier for that Sanchez pretty expensive. What do we get for 20 grand? Santa Santa is about 10 grand or 7,500 grand. That's four weekends with him, both there on both Saturday and Sunday, and potentially a Mrs. Claus thrown in on the Jolly Trolley, as we like to call it. And then posters and creative to send out to the schools, to have the schools be able to disseminate that information. And then we do a full page ad in Los Angeles Magazine opposite a map of the golden triangle. I think we underspent a little bit last year. So we did not increase that number for this year because $20,000 was enough. We ended up getting some bargain deal with LA magazine. The Chinese New Year. So the lady who curates that for the cultural. Our person, Jennifer, Madam Shue, who so there's been a whole reorganization of the cultural association that now falls under tourism and so Madame Shua is no longer with the organization. So we have a new representative and I'm not sure exactly who that is. So in our conversation last year she told me that she had intentionally gotten us away from the kind of the gymnastics acrobatics things into the more esoteric and, I don't want to say historic, but. Folk, culture. Yeah, more kind of down at the real folk level. So maybe it was just a matter of herd direction that got us a program that looked different year over year. But if you're going to do it with somebody different, that's probably OK. So when I see visitor services, you have 25, 25 and 25. Round numbers like that really just raise a question mark for me. What does that mean? Community work is collateral. One of the categories is all the collateral. So those are the exclusive offer books that we do. No, I know. I know. It's in the buckets. But why do we use a round number like that? Yeah, why are they all the same round number? Because it's really all that we need and we haven't had to increase it a lot of times when you get the numbers that are, you know, super detailed like that. It's because we've taken it up 4% year after year, but this isn't we found that this is enough money for what we spend what we spend on in last year. About the same, maybe a little bit under 25 in some cases, maybe a little bit over in other cases. This year we haven't bought very much new merchandise. Last year we bought a lot of merchandise because we've just had a tremendous amount, but we've spent more on display materials. It just kind of varies. I think if you're going to break out those sort of categories, they should bear a closer relationship to whatever the actual is, opposed to just broad guesstimates, you know. Well, they're based on actual, they're based on actuals for the last few years. Give or take. I mean, $1,000 here. I mean, the way our variance report works is we report variances over $2,500. So we're all within reach. Okay, talk to me about the carryover. It says a total carryover 150 from last year, which is not included in the 4.5 million. So we usually, for our contract, we usually either because we didn't, weren't able to execute a program or because we decided not to execute a program or just because we had a lot of personnel changes, people go on maternity leaves, et cetera. So this is money that we have at the end of the year that's left over. And then we go before City, Lee, our City, Lee A's on. So this year it would be Council Member Bosse and Mayor Mirish to say, if we, I mean, we would say to you, we're estimating we're having, we're going to have $150,000 leftover and this is where we'd like to spend it. But if there's any more or that's different, then we would come back to the Liaisons and we would readjust that. I think for this year, what's going to be key is how TOT is doing. And there's a couple of hotels that are doing renovations and Smith Travel Research is projecting flat TOT. But if some of these hotels are taking inventory out of circulation, then we might see a little bit of a decrease in TOT this year. So the next piece actually is your buffer of circulation, then we might see a little bit of a decrease in TOT this year. So the next piece actually is your buffer and your concidancy, which are budgeted at zero? Yeah. So why wouldn't this 150 one or the other of those? It definitely, do you want to talk? You go, go, go. So traditionally going back many years, Council has asked for a buffer to be set aside in the . So traditionally going back many years, council has asked for a buffer to be set aside in case . Due to the bold summer programming, we've opted to use that money to help fund summer bold but leave notice with the CVB and notice with the RDC that if TOT revenue is short, if you're going to have to adjust your programs downward in order to cover that shortfall because the city will not be able to do it for you. So that was a decision made to help fund the summer bull programming. So the only reason for that was because of summer bull? Yes. So we would not have in real time? How do you adjust? What do you adjust? It really depends on where in the year it happens. If it happens late in the year, if we're in March of next year, and you spend all that money, then what are you going to do? So part of the TOT as far as the contingency goes, we don't know what our true TT for like this year for 1819 is going to be until November. And so the buffer helps adjust that in the following year. So in night, for example, we'll be okay in 1920 because we're looking at 1819 having almost all the TOT revenue, what, what, six, seven months into the year, we know what we've collected with Don Harrison. We're fairly certain that we're going to be okay putting that to zero. However, in 2021, there's not going to be that buffer to kind of help balance that out. Well, at the very least I would suggest you took the 150 grand. And I don't give you a little bit of a buffer. May, I mean, if there's nothing that it's here marked for, there's no reason to. Part of its vote. 150? 50 of its vote. 50 of its timing and encouragement. And 50 of it is for an international initiative, which will be similar, or part of an international initiative that would be similar to what we just did in Grand Central Station. However, I mean, what I think, I mean, Winter Bowl is Winter Bowl, we'll have to spend it if, you know, if that's the case. But that other, the tenant improvement, if we move offices, that was to help with that. The 50 for international would not be used until next year, just in case. And then if we have additional dollars left ever, which we might, because of staff things and other things that have come up, then we would put that into the bucket as well. And then in January of TOT is down, then we'll look to cut from other programs and make a recommendation that we would seek for approval. Well, I would also suggest that moving forward, if you're not spending money that you've earmarked, that you not find another place to spend it, but put it back in the contingency until you're sure that we can afford everything that we need. We'll know more in July, exactly what we have left over when we close the books, and so we'll be able to say, okay, this is what we have, this is going for the buffer and then if we'll need to cut from programs, we can put this aside and this is the date that we would put it aside. And then just a couple more. Julie, have any FTEs do you currently have? We have 10 FTEs in one part time. And how, and you're looking to add one more this one more yeah you have 11 and that doesn't change the part time FTE part time T.E. No okay and how do you guys do benefits are your benefits done like the city does benefits are we We actually outsourced, so we used to do everything in-house and it was very expensive. So we outsourced with a company called TriNet, which actually puts us into a bucket of 30,000 employees. So we save a tremendous amount on medical insurance, on 401K services, on payroll. It's been a great find for us, and it's very efficient. Everything's done automated. So is a percentage of your salary budget? What is the benefits? It's about, I mean, we estimate about 25%, but I would believe it's probably less than that. I would have to ask our accountant for the exact figure that she budgets. If it is really 25% or less, that's a pretty good number. So I would be curious to. And I do know in our auditor, our auditor said that we had one of the lowest fixed to operating ratios in the industry. That's a good thing. So, who's, anyway, I'm supportive of this. Thank you very much. Thank you for your support. So, a lot of things of my questions have been answered but I want to go over a couple of things first. So, I find it kind of humorous that you were too late to get a live music permit yet you go in the subways and- Yeah, you could in the subways and- Yeah, you could just pull, yeah, I know. I know. And one other comment. Ask for forgiveness, no permission. Yeah. There is a council member sitting next to me that will probably do the Santa bit for less than $1,500. I have a picture of him with a Santa hat on. Here you go. I appreciate the critical comments that you made regarding the pop-up. I think that's important. I mean, a lot of times we hear everything positive about something, and it's really nice to hear from the day to the day, as critical comments about what could have been done. So I do appreciate that, and I thank you for it. I'm interested about the Visa Credit Card details. Sure. How does that work? Do they, does Visa give you a report as to where the user of the credit card comes from and then they translate that into what was spent in our zip code? So I'd be happy to share it with you. So we pay Visa, visit California has a pool that gives you discounted pricing. And every quarter we receive reports that break it down by where they come from, what they spend it on, and then also where else they go. So again, it identifies a group of individuals by where they reside, is that it? Yeah. It's done by feeder market and they have an international report and a domestic report. Okay. And I think you said that since the Chinese government is not using or allowing their citizens to use these, are they really... Well, it's just the relationship deteriorated and most people are using alley pay and we chat pay with 10 cents So the usage of union pay has decreased quite a bit too Different payment time Yeah, you can't use to be able to take you know a tremendous amount of money out now I think it's $10,000 is the max So to take a tremendous amount of money out, now I think it's $10,000 is the max. It's 50 a year. I don't understand the reduction of the $177,856 for Chinese New Year. It was just placed into international marketing. It mounts the same. So it's just a movement that we... Yeah, we just moved it to a different category. And it doesn't affect the programming for this fiscal year regarding the Chinese New Year. No, we're just trying to, so originally we did that because we were hoping that maybe we could do something very, very different. But it was brought to our attention that the expectation was that we do it for one more year. So it's now in international because that's how we built the budget. But the plan is to do the Chinese New Year event at the Saban, similar to what we've done, but hopefully freshen up the acts that come. Tenant improvements. What does the need and purpose of that? So, our next step in our current offices to install bunk beds were a little maxed out. So, we looked at in conjunction with the city manager and public works, Mondana, at a solution to take our existing space and reconfigure it a little bit. And, and we looked at the community's work and the public work and the public work and the public work and the community's work and the public work and the public work and the community's work and the public work and the public work and the community's and public works, Mondana, at a solution to take our existing space and reconfigure it a little bit. And basically, if we add more offices, which we can, we'll lose our conference room. So there is some discussion at the liaison meeting about perhaps looking at another space before we go down the path of trying to renovate the current space. So that's all a work in progress. But as is what we do every year, we put money in that tenant improvement account just in case things break. Like God forbid, we lost, you know, the air conditioner broke and we had to replace the unit or the copier or the servers or whatever. We had to add more storage space so that we have that fund in case we need it. So does that fund carry over or is it? Yeah, it's just a bank account basically. And it goes from year to year so which money. Yes, so it's on our balance sheet. So how much money is in that account right now? I'm gonna say, I'm gonna estimate around $100,000. But after this it'll be 150. I'm going to estimate around $100,000. But after this, it'll be 150. But I can get back to you without exact figure, if you like. And in terms of the contingency plan, it sounded a little morphous out there. Is it just that you was scaled back? What hasn't been so? It's a little fluid at this point because I want to make sure, I want to see where we're at when we close the books. So yes, if we have additional carry-over dollars that are not part of this program of work that we've presented to you, that would definitely go into that contingency fund. If we don't have very much, we would take the 50,000 from international, put it in a contingency fund. If we don't have very much we would take the 50,000 from international, put it in a contingency fund. And depending on how TOT is doing, we would revisit our budget towards the end of the calendar year to figure out what we may need to cut for the second half of the fiscal year in order to make sure that we have those dollars. Okay, and one thing I think we as a council would not like to see is a surprise at the end of the year. So hopefully if there are shortfalls, we will be made aware of anything that is being done or needs to be done to reduce the expenditure. And we would want to work with you all closely on exactly what that plan forward is and we'll be watching our Smith Travel Research Reports and our CBRE reports and working with Don Harrison to estimate. And I concur with the other comments regarding the measuring the impacts of the dollar spent. I think that there are some more metrics that could be and should be provided so that we see what the impact is. And I know you've heard that already. And I am supportive of it. It's a large chunk of money, but I do think that it is being spent in a worthwhile manner and just keep around. Okay, thank you and with that we appreciate it but we are going to go to item five and then six and then come back to four time permitting item five please. All right. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Mirish, Vice Mayor Friedman and members of the City Council. As your city planner, I'm here to give you an update on perhaps a little known provision in the municipal code that is a hotel room cap. The purpose of this meeting really is to discuss the regulations that we have today and also to talk about interpretation of the cap and what we do with it going forward. So the hotel cap actually came about in 1984 and established regulations, overall regulations for hotels and within that was a cap on hotel rooms and that provision basically says that after November 1st of 1984 the city shall not have more than 1,000 new hotel rooms in the city. And that again is coupled in with other things like parking requirements and meeting room space and how that all gets handled. The intent of the provisions when they were adopted and this again is the whole package of hotel provisions was to protect adjacent residential zones, identify differences between hotel uses and general uses and particularly how those impacts such as traffic and other environmental effects play into the surrounding area. So the hotel room cap that we have here, there are actually two different ways to count the hotel rooms, and that's one of the items that we're asking for direction on today. We've been keeping track of these rooms since that 1984 ordinance, and we update it as different projects come through. And since that time we have had 832 rooms approved and either constructed or remain with active entitlements that could be exercised. That is approaching the thousand number so we want to give you information on that. Another way to look at the hotel room calculation is to look at the net new rooms that occur because we have had some projects that have resulted in demolished hotel rooms and those could be subtracted from the added new rooms. And just to give an example of some of the accounting differences, we'll look here at the Beverly Hilton specific plan. The Waldorf Astoria, as you know, was built and is in operation. It included 170 new rooms. However, the overall build out of the specific plan does include demolition of 217 rooms. Those rooms haven't been demolished yet, but they are planned for demolition in the later phases of the project. And we know there's a larger project that we will probably be presented with sometime this year or next. But because of the phases of the project, this could either be an ad of 170 rooms against the 1000 room cap or it could actually be a net decrease of 47 rooms. Another example is that we've got two pending hotel applications on file right now. One is the Stinking Rose Site at 55 North La Sianica for 195 rooms. No hotel existing there, so no question about how that gets calculated. But we do also have an application at 140 South Lasky Drive. This is the Mace on 140 hotel. And they are proposing a total of 94 rooms, but they would also be demolishing the existing rooms on site. And so again, a question of how that gets tabulated. When we look at the total package of approved hotel rooms and also the ones that are current pending applications, if you just add them all on a one-to-one basis, we're looking at 1,121 rooms, which would affect the potential processing of some of these pending applications. Some, the La Sionica one is seeking an overlay zone and other legislative changes so the hotel room kept could be dealt with through that mechanism. However, if you look at the net increase and subtract out those demolished rooms or planned to be demolished rooms, then we're at 838 rooms as of today. So what we would like to hopefully get some direction from the council on is interpretation of the cap. There's very little guidance provided in the municipal code, so really the question of whether we subtract out those demolished rooms. And then the other question that we'd like to try to get some direction on is whether or not this thousand room cap is still appropriate for the city. It's seemed to have worked over the last 30 plus years but again we are approaching the limit and we know that we continually have interest from applicants in pursuing hotel developments. And so we would ask if there is any interest from the City Council in directing the planning commission to look at either modifying the cap or eliminating it altogether. And with that, happy to answer questions and hopefully get some direction. Thank you, and at this point, I'll take public comment. If there isn't any, we'll close public comment and we'll go to council member. First, the issue of how to interpret the cap. I would think it only makes sense in terms of a net change that if we're losing some rooms and gaining some rooms we said net them out to apply the existing cap. The bigger question of whether or not a cap is appropriate. A lot has changed since 1984. It's hard to know now what we were thinking then. The nature of what drives our economy is changing. I think we should question whether or not we want a cap. I think if the purpose of the cap was to protect neighboring areas or to guard against increases in traffic. Why aren't we specifically considering those issues when a project comes in front of us as opposed to sending an arbitrary cap, it would depend upon what would be there instead of the hotel. What would be there instead of the hotel might have more impacts on the neighborhood, more impacts on traffic than a hotel. So to me, it makes more sense to consider the individual specifics of the particular development as opposed to constructing a different arbitrary cap. And I would support going back to the Planning Commission to have them wrestle with these issues and to try to figure out what we want to do going forward. Beyond wrestle, would you be comfortable with giving them direction to eliminate the cap? My gut would be unless I hear a good reason why there should be a specific cap, not to have a cap. And just on the question of impacts, we do require a conditional use permit for all hotels. Right. So there is no such thing as that. And so that's why I would say unless there's a particular reason why it could be demonstrated that we really want an arbitrary cap on hotel rooms. Right. Not to have a cap. Okay. Dr. Gole. Ryan, this was part of the four seasons conversation. This cap came about as part of the four seasons conversation. I believe it came about around the time of the four seasons, which as you know is on Dohenian and Los Angeles. There was also another hotel proposal. I believe on either Bedford or Camden at the time. And they were sort of close proximity time wise. I'm not sure whether one of them in particular was the driver for this, but overall, there was just concern about hotels and the impacts. I think it was Lasky. We had Lasky also. Yeah, I think it was last key. We had the last key also. Yeah, I think it was that time as well. Yeah. Well, I actually think that the decision about the four seasons was one of the worst decisions that got made around here. Thankfully none of us were part of that. And I agree that there's, I don't see any reason to have a cap. I think that if we have an issue with a particular development, I think we should do part of that development. But the cap is at best arbitrary. And I think we've seen over the course of time that Hotel A can be constructed here in a way that is not terribly intrusive in the community. It actually benefits the community. And at the same time, it happens regardless of what the absolute number of rooms that are allowed. I would remove the cap. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Bob. So, yeah. In respect to time, I completely agree with my colleagues. I think it should be based on net. But from my perspective, I don't see any reason to have a cap. I would ask that we look to eliminate the cap for the exact same reasons that my colleague said, we have protections in terms of impacts for hotels. And I do not see that we should not allow a hotel because of a cap. I think there's other reasons to make that decision one way or the other. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I will not hold anybody in suspense. I agree with my colleagues. Should be net rooms that only make sense to me. And I would also eliminate the cap we can deal with that in a different way. I'm not sure why it came up that way, what the impetus was, but it's arbitrary. And I would seek to look at that and see if we can eliminate. Thank you. So you have unanimity. The Planning Commission will be given direction to eliminate the cap. Excellent. And you know, shouldn't take them a long time. It's not like asking, unless there's some amazing argument we haven't heard about, but barring that, let's just get it done. We'll work on ordinance and bring that back for the City Council. Thank you very much. And with that, we'll move on to item 6, which Council Member Bossy is going to recuse herself from because she has wanted to. Yes, thank you. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if you can see the screen. I'm not sure if And he's back. So let's go for it. All right. So next up on my list here is a request by Mayor Gold. I'm sorry, Mayor Mirish. Apologize to look at basements for single family zones in the city. And really the question being should a percentage of the basement be counted against the square footage that is allowed above grade. Just to give a little background on where we are today with our regulations, we do not count basements against the allowed square footage as long as they meet our definition of basement. We did as you're aware recently amended the definition for basement and how basements are qualified. A basement does need to be below a story of the house above and it also needs to be not more than three feet above grade and that applies on all sides now. So the basement needs to essentially be fully subterranean. We do allow basements to extend beyond the footprint of the building, but they do need to be entirely below either the natural or finished grade, whichever one is lower. So again, the goal being that they are fully subterranean and not visible. We have had some previous discussions through several different projects that we've worked through over the years, where basements and whether they should be counted has come up. In 2013, we worked on what was known as the R1 bulk in mass study. Really, the focus was to look at the central area of the city and some of our development standards. And at that time, there was discussion about basement square footage and whether that should be counted as a means of trying to regulate some of the above ground scale and mass. The discussion at that time resulted in direction to not count basements to leave the regulations as they were. And then more recently in 2017 and 2018, we worked on the basement ordinance that looked at basement citywide, but did also look specifically at some of our development standards on grading and retaining walls for the hillside area specifically. As you know, we eliminated day lighting basements. We also modified the thresholds for land formalteration, but that was in the hillside area, not in the central or truesdale areas. And we did also at that time again, discuss basement square footage and whether that should be counted against the allowed square footage above grade. And at that time the consensus was to not count basements and to continue to exempt them from floor area. So the recommendation here is to get direction from the city council as to whether there is interest in directing the planning commission to do work on an ordinance that would count some portion of basements against the allowed square footage and I'm available for questions. Okay, and we do have public comment, but before we go there, I'll just mention why I asked for this to be brought up. There are a couple of cases that have been brought to my attention. I think there's a house you can confirm it that's 20,000 square feet above ground and approximately 20,000 square feet below ground. And I know that the reason that before the planning commission, a prior planning commission had suggested that they didn't want any part of the basement to count towards the allowable, buildable space is that they felt that that would only encourage people to build more above ground. Well, we see on the basis of these cases, they're building to the max anyway. And the notion of having such outrageously large basements, some of which are two or three levels, is to me against the spirit of what we, I believe, intend. And I do believe personally that it should count. I think it should count perhaps at 50%, but that's something that we could look at. But the fact that it's not counting at all is leading to some of these really, what I would consider to be outrageous levels of basements. And with that, we'll go to public comment from Debbie Weiss. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am in favor of the Planned Commission exploring this issue. There are some properties in the flats and even some in the hillside that could have non-dulating basements of what could be considered an excessive size. And I think it's worth considering instituting some kind of a limit and or as subjecting them to a review. And while staff has told me the deepest basement they've seen as two stories as possible that in the future applicants could propose basements even deeper, these are known as iceberg basements if you have not heard that phrase. I think it's worth us getting ahead of the possibility that three or more storied basements will come here. And as the code currently allows non-dynamic, non-delyting basements of infinite size, we couldn't theory have a basement that's 100,000 square feet or more. I would imagine that if applicants start applying for iceberg basements, the city would either want to limit the size of them or want them to go through some form of reveal. A way you could address the staff recommendation of exploring basements as a percentage of floor area could be that we consider putting a maximum percentage limit on the basements vis-a-vis the FAR. For example, a basement should not be able to increase the available FAR by more than 50%. The city could also have a process for those applicants that want to exceed this percentage, but I suggest that there be clear parameters put in place to minimize the impacts. For example, the city could require that any excess excavated dirt must be kept on site, not hauled away. Thank you. Thank you, Linda Brown. And with that, we'll close public comment after Linda. I'm here because I have mentioned to Dr. Gold for the last year about in the Sunshine Committee about the basement ordinance being all over the city. I just feel that it should be counted. I'm going to leave it to the Planning Commission to decide how big or how small. But they're getting massive in size. All over, on foothill, on the end of the 500 block, they're building one. And the beginning of the 600 block right across the street, they're doing another one. On Palm, the people next door who I talked to, they had to move because it was so intrusive to their house. There was no place where they had any privacy. So I think it's getting to be a problem. And it's also getting bigger and bigger. And two to three levels is getting to be too much. So I thank you. Thank you. With that we'll close public comment and we'll cancel comments and questions. There's more than one issue here. One issue is the scale and mass above ground and that could have obvious impacts on the neighbors. There's the construction aspect of a very large basement. And there's the notion that it might offend some people sensibilities to have such a large house. But other than those things, what's the downside of a large basement? The large basement doesn't intrude on the neighbors. It could have the construction intrusion. It would seem that it would be better to have more of the house underground than above ground where it's intruding on the neighbors. If the real notion is to reduce impact on neighbors, why don't we revisit what's allowed for scale and mass above ground as opposed to sort of backduring it by saying if you have a large basement, you lose some of your entitlement above ground. So I mean, what are some of the arguments that are raised in terms of how a large basement impacts others? Well, wait a second. you just made the point that, and that's the exact point, in theory, it's better to have more of a below ground than above ground. But what's happening is they're not doing less of it above ground, they're doing the max above ground. Okay, so why don't we target that? Why don't we target what our requirements are for above ground, totally separate from the issue of what's below ground. Well, they're connected. We could do that. The point is you incentivize, so in other words, a 50% underground counts, they can still get twice as much below ground as they can above ground. That would reduce what they're doing above ground and that would reduce the impacts. Now, I agree. We can look at bulk and mass and show that. But I don't really see it that way. If our concern is what's above ground, then let's look at what we allow above ground. I don't really see why we make a connection with what's below ground. And I am posing as a question for Ryan or anybody else to answer. What are the downsides other than the construction impact other than, I don't live in a huge house certainly other than that it depends on people's sensibilities that live in a huge house, certainly, other than that it affends some people's sensibilities to have such a large house. What are the downsides of a large basement? I think you probably hit most of the concerns that I've heard. Part of it is really just the construction related impacts, the hauling and the excavation that goes with that, the added time that it takes for construction. And would we have controls over that? Do we have the ability to regulate construction plans and- Debbie also provided a solution. Debbie also provided a solution to that require that they keep the excess soil on site. Do we have existing abilities to require large amounts of excavation. We require construction management plans for all of these projects. We don't specifically limit the amount of dirt or the size of basements within the central area of the city or in Truzedale estates, but we do limit it in the hillside area. Yeah. I think that what we've done already in terms of restricting basements to actually be being basements, being subsurface, not being partially above ground, and the ability to have construction management plans that would mitigate or not allow something if the construction impact were to be too great. I would be okay with asking the Planning Commission to revisit whether or not we should construction impact were to be too great. I would be okay with asking the Planning Commission to revisit whether or not we should change what we allow in terms of bulk and scale above ground, but I really don't see it as a separate issue to target specifically whether we want to tie this size of the basement into what we allow above ground. So you would be okay, and I'd please support it. I'd say the greater issue not not just the focus on basement but yours be completely supportive of looking and revisiting bulk and mass above ground as well okay doing. So I agree with councilmember Wendellick but we just actually did one did we last look at bulk and mass above ground. We looked at bulk and mask between 2013 and 2014. We actually spent about two years working on that. We had a number of community workshops. We engaged with architects. We hired a consultant and we did make changes to development standards with respect to the height of buildings, the setbacks, parking requirements. And there was a substantial amount of discussion about above grade square footage. And not to say that you couldn't change that now, parking requirements and there was a substantial amount of discussion about above grade square footage and not to say that you couldn't change that now but at the conclusion of sort of that two-year work product the consensus was to not limit the above ground square footage but to instead look at the setbacks and parking requirements and whatnot. You know maybe one of the problems there is that we don't consider the cumulative impact that when someone builds out to every inch of every allowed space, there's that cumulative impact that goes beyond each individual. That was the reason that we changed the setbacks. That was the reason to talk about changing the setbacks, to increase the setbacks so that you couldn't do that. So that was the work product that they did to that point. So first off, I don't see a basement. I mean, I didn't know that people were building basements that were that deep. And truthfully, worried about basements that deep, I don't know, maybe it's the problem by saying, can't build a basement that's more than two stories down. But I don't honestly see what it matters. You could have 100 story basement, I suppose, and it would have no impact on anybody. I do think, and I think that it's a proxy for size of building above ground. I don't see that they tie together. I don't see it as a proxy. So I don't really think that there's any need to deal with the basement issue. On the above ground issue, we spent a lot of time it took two years when we came to some conclusions only a couple of years ago. And I guess you can always revisit it, but at some point it gets like a redundant process. So I don't have a strong objection to it, but I think it may be a category of make work. Less. So one of my colleagues I believe lives next to a house that has a fairly large basement next to a house that has a fairly large basement next to it. More than one. And I have never noticed it other than the fact I was told about it. And I think at some point in time we have to be considerate of the ownership values that our residents have. And I think that this could have a significant negative effect on the value of homes going forward and I don't see the corresponding benefit to the community. If I saw the corresponding benefit then you know I could look at it but I also don't see the basements. Yes, there is a construction effect that occurs. But again, I don't think that rises to the level of affecting the value or potential value of a home. So I don't have a particular interest in looking at the basements in the flats area. Certainly, in the hillside we dealt with that. There was a reason for that with the narrow passageways, et cetera, but I don't see the need for it. And in terms of bulk and mass, it looks like it was a two-year project and there was probably a lot of time and effort put into it. I don't think it's that old. It sounds like the setbacks were the result of it, which ameliorates some of the problem. So I don't even have a particular interest at looking at that at this time. So I'm going to ask Larry since we're now looking at revisiting the bulk and mass above ground if we can bring back Councilmember Bossy because that's something that would not impact her. Well we really should, if that's what we're going to discuss, we probably should put it on another study session to discuss that topic. Well but it organically arose from this we can... I recognize that. But I just before we do I want to see if we should get direction, if there's not, if there's not momentum to move forward, then we're not going to waste time doing it. I think that the item on the agenda was really the basements. And if we want to change that and invite Councilman Robossi back and discuss what to do above ground, we should put it on a agenda again. Let's find out the first before we agendize it because I won't agendize it if she's not interested in it or if there's not a consensus. Well, and as we know we are allowed to discuss potential agenda items here as you yourself is used. Yes, no that's true. So let's bring Council Member Bosse back place. Well, again, if this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If this is- If consensus to move the basement, looking at the basements forward, but I know at least from Councilmember Wonderlake, there's interest in looking at bulk and mass above ground, and that's what we'd like to look at. Okay, so. So, just to be clear then, we're not discussing basements anymore, and we're talking about what to put on a future agenda at this time, yes. Okay. And of course, this should not be the discussion of what to put on the future agenda since I've got a minute until councilmember Bosley comes back. Should not be a detailed discussion, it's merely should we put this on a future agenda? Right. Well, presumably she's watched this. I hope she has. Hopefully we can just get a quick yes or no. Councillor Member Bossy, I'm guessing you watch this. And we're not discussing anything in detail now, but I would like to know if there's interest for you from looking at bulk and mass of above ground, which is something that is a concern of myself and council member Wonderly. Yes, I would support it coming back on another agenda. Thank you. So let's re-agendize that with that in mind, and we'll move on to the next item, the last item, which is CVB marketing plan update. Okay. Left. We got this done in 10-15 minutes. Okay. Great. Thanks. Good afternoon. So this is an item on the destination development plan. The CVB was contracted to conduct tourism and marketing programs for Beverly Hills on August 30th of 2017. They received approvals from then mayor bossy and council member wonderlick to develop a destination development plan. The CVB provided an executive summary to the City Council of Liaisons with current Mayor John Mirish and Council Member Bossy on April 8th. The destination plan highlights to develop a committee of business experts to provide visioning and strategy for the cities next to five to ten years. Discussion also included the importance of considering impacts to the residential areas. And the report highlights new elevated experiences for retail, hotel, public spaces, and addressing infrastructure needs within the city. I'd like to welcome Julie Wagner from the CVB to come and provide her presentation. Hi again. I'll make this quick. So I was here several months ago when Dr. Gold and Mayor Mirish's presentation on the Strategic Planning Committee presented their findings for the Golden Triangle. And I gave a little bit of background on the program. I'll just highlight as quickly as possible. We brought this to the attention of our liaison and the city manager back in August of 2017. In that October, the city liaisons agreed for the city to contribute $50,000 to this plan. We contributed $55,000. And the goal was really to assemble a team across different business verticals to develop a long-term vision for the plan. And this, once we got started, this overlapped, some of the efforts that the former mayor, Dr. Gold, his group were undertaking. And so we tried to see where there were synergies and we also wanted to identify other areas that weren't potentially being addressed. The bottom line is that we have an incredible brand and we just want to make sure that we take the necessary steps to keep it that way, and it's refreshing and wonderful to see that everybody in our city is on the same page. So I talked a little bit about who the committee members were. Council member Gold, city manager, Maddie Illusari, we had city staff and then we had various other people. We had our staff and we had the chamber. This was in conjunction in partnership with both the chamber and city staff. I don't really need to, we finished our workshop and our planning and our plan in at the end of the year and you've received the copy of the full plan. And I think what we're looking forward to today is to receive your direction and your approval on some of the elements of the plan. This plan has been approved by both the board of directors and the board of directors of the Chamber. We identified visitor groups that we think are going to continue to be relevant listed here. Chinese day visitors, Middle Eastern affluent travelers, foreign couples, US travelers, and also the as evidenced by some of the visa numbers that I presented in our program of work, LA County visitors who come for the day as well. And we identified nine areas of focus, those that overlapped with Dr. Gold's Strategic Planning Committee where retail innovation in ticing public spaces, curated restaurant and nightlife experiences, holistic mobility plan and Beverly Hills is open for business translation, making sure that code and everything is up to date and that it's easy to do business in Beverly Hills. And then we also had some other things that came up, redefining the five-star experience if possible, being a leader in sustainable practices, looking at an event space in the city for conference groups and things like freeze and other things that have come to us that we've had to turn down. And then developing a governance committee. And the big thing for me is I didn't want us all to work on a plan that got put on a shelf and nobody did anything about it. So this governance committee is really about parsing everything out, creating action plans for all of the items and then staying on top of it. So what if you're on board with all of this, we're looking at a governance committee that would consist of the following, Mayor Marish or his appointee, our city manager, George Chavez, Laura Byrie, Timmy Tway, members of the Chamber, Todd Johnson and Bush Lecter, Rodeo Drive Committee President, or they're a pointy, and then myself and Bob Ibo, who's our Director of Marketing. We'll meet every other month, and as I mentioned, it really will be, it's not necessary this governance committee that's gonna do everything, but they're gonna be able to plug in to what's going on in the city with other groups and other actions or be able to start conversations and then kind of keep it all under tabs so that it doesn't fall by the wayside. So what we're here to hear for today is to make sure that our direction on the visitor profiles and the big moods are in keeping with your thinking and we did meet with the liaisons and they were on board. And then the ideas that we would as a governance committee, we would form and we would report back to city manager, liaison, city council, whatever you think is best once or twice a year to make sure that you were comfortable with the movement that we were making. And or had the opportunity to weigh in if there were things that you thought weren't lining up the way you had envisioned. The public comments, not seeing any, will hear from Belia's on. Oh, sorry. Which in this case, I believe we're council members bossy and wonder like. Rob, do you wanna go? We did have a presentation about this. I don't really remember exactly how similar it was to what we had in front of this right now, but we were supportive of it. I mean, this is the kind of things that we have to be doing for our city. In terms of the specifics that you're asking us to give guidance on, there's the different visitor groups. I mean, it really is a pretty general group. I mean, it's our target demographic from outside. And we would be fluid if we needed to be. If we saw, you know, I mean, I think that's, this is our starting ground. And the idea is, is that if things started to shift or change that we would have the ability to be fluid and change with it. And it could be, it probably is an element of what you're thinking about when you're talking about attractive public spaces and nightlife and things like that but something that it's a very good fit for Beverly Hills. Right has to be on brand. It's oriented so it's of things but that probably is already what you're thinking about in terms of feeding to those aspects. So I agree. Councillor Mburene, we did support this wholeheartedly and I think this really embraces what we have been talking about the last number of years. And from my perspective I think in terms of reporting I think it should be twice a year. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Gold. So I was part of the development of this. I certainly supported. The one target group you missed I was actually on a panel a month or two ago, a couple of months ago, with the mayor of Culver City who was saying that he had hordes of millennials with $100 bills hanging out of their pockets looking for things to do in Culver City. So I would target that group. So, rich millennials. Sign me up. but that was, because Cory from NextGen was, and he brought that point up in our meeting, and that's the LA, the LA Day Trippers. Right, so, okay. With the big wallets. Target rich millennial. Vice mayor, last. I'm supportive, sounds good. As am I, and with that, we will go into the next class. Thank you, close session. I didn't think before we do that. Yeah, absolutely. I just want to acknowledge Jim Lada in the back there, next item, and happy to see the refresh of the Ambassador uniforms, and they're, he's showing us the blue, dodger blue, like that. So thank you very. Like that. So thank you very much for that. Ain't it something? Pantone 294. With that, we'll move on to. Is that true? It is true. That is. Pantone is a color identifier. If you go for Pantone 294 is dodge or blue. It's the equivalent. So with that, we will move as is this. We will move to close session for those items on the close session agenda and see you later.