you you you you I'm really glad to see that that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to see that I'm really glad to this, I'm really glad to see that that includes a section between Garfield and Chapel on East Main Street. The north side there, we've seen a few good businesses coming in, the dollar store with the artwork on the outside, I think, is a nice improvement. The business on Southside in that area, quite vibrant, but they don't face Main Street. They face away from Main Street, which I think detracts from what we'd like to see in the area. But there's a lot of stuff on the north side that still needs a lot of help. You look at that new dollar store, the storefront just to the west of that is kind of an eye sore at the moment and so forth. But I'm glad to see focus going on there. It does not only in this one, but also in the last one, objective 6.5, promote citywide mixed use housing developments with an emphasis on main street between travel and elmands or both of these, 3.6 and the last one, 6.5, recognize that there's a big difference on the Eastman quarter between the section between Trapal and Elmancer and the rest of the Eastman quarter. There are some taller buildings in that area. I'd sure hate to lose some very historical properties that we have there, like the church on the north, west corner of Chapel, about Mansor and Main Street. And the Rose Hills Marchwear in the South side with its absolutely gorgeous trees and architecture. Again, it's featured in the historical resources in the draft plan that's will soon be coming before you. The other thing is just what I pass I just noted and I think Andrew who is right we have the economy is not very conductive to opening businesses right now. The interest rates remain very high particularly if you've got to do a lot of capital improvements. And just the whole, everything that's coming down from Washington, the back and forth, is created so much uncertainty in the economy that businesses are a little bit reluctant to move forward. And we see this. All you got to do is look at the stock market as Exhibit A and what's happening there. There've been a lot of anticipation that things would be very good for business, but this back and forth, things with tariffs and so forth is really shake it up. A lot of business confidence. What we have here in the last nine months, you can see that the planning commission, which used to regularly go to almost midnight sometimes, has only met a grand total of 42 minutes and 42 seconds. Actually, the meeting time is less than that. That's the length of the time of the videos in the last nine months and one week. On an annual rate, that'd be about an hour a year. And it's just such a dramatic difference. Part of it is that the residential projects have been eventually removed from the jurisdiction of the planning commission. Part of it is the economy. And part of it is there's some projects that generated a lot of interest before the planning commission. The one that came in June of 2023, 1117 East Main Street, the Ghost Kitchen, which was turned down 7 to 1 by the Planning Commission, just came back same owner, same different applicant, but same project and so forth. Went to the design review board, but it will not go to the planning commission this time. The planning commission felt that belonged in the industrial area because it didn't, it wasn't a restaurant. People couldn't go there and pick up food. It was only dealt with Dord to action Uber Eats tight businesses. But just putting those things before you today so we can kind of focus our work. But good job on this plan before you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reckham. The next speaker is Mr. John Wary. Hello. There we go. Good morning, Madam Mayor. Members of the City Council. John Wary, CEO of the Alhamburg Chamber of Commerce. Again, thanks for taking on this important work, especially as it relates to economic development for our city. On goal three, where I'm gonna focus my comments today, the updated plan is a great improvement, but I wanted to highlight a couple key items that were discussed last time that I think are worth highlighting once again. I'd like to first start with the idea that the goal of creating a strong financial base and strong economic base is valid and important, but to be more specific if we are trying to be the most business-friendly city in the San Gabriel Valley, we should say our goal is to be the most business-friendly city in the San Gabriel Valley. I also think that tying economic and financial base can be somewhat of a distraction, and if you separated out items 3.3 and 3.4, even though there's only two of them, it really gives a clear message that there is a focus on economic development that is not tied to specifically revenues but rather community development. I'd also like to just note something that Councilmember Wang mentioned around metrics, and I know that maybe that's what we'll talk about today, but as you consider, the new items being presented, which are great, especially around attracting businesses between Garfield and Mance are in Maine and the work around the downtown and shop local, adding in specific metrics that are measurable. So we can see at the end of the year or at the end of the time frame, whether or not we've been successful in this work. So for instance, the shop local program 3.9, we can look at a lot of different jurisdictions that are doing this and understand what might be a measure of success. And perhaps that's part of this plan today is to establish a measure of success in launching such a program. But I think it's really important to do so. The other thing I just wanted to, that's not on here that I mentioned last time, or some things that don't cost any money that are a signal of the priority of supporting business. In particular, the establishment of a committee of the city council of two perhaps that meet on quarterly basis that are looking at economic development issues of the council. Doing a recognition program. always hate to point to other cities when saying what we could be like or do like, but they're in the far north of LA County is Lancaster and they have a really interesting low-cost business recognition program that leverages their own assets as well as some other community and civic assets that if you're the business of the month, you get a billboard put up, you get some digital assets, you get some promotion of video made, social media attention. These are ways that they're signaling to their businesses, especially their small businesses, that they're important to the community. And sometimes that signal is almost as important as the tax break or the financial incentive because we're showing people that Alhambra is for businesses. We care about our businesses and we can do things that are simply simple and somewhat affordable to do that show them, send that message out to the wider community, especially those that look to locate here and say, oh, when I go to El Hanber, there's these opportunities for me to be part of a community and I'm appreciated and they want me here. I think a lot of communities and cities around San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles take for granted because we're a metropolis that people just show up. We have a vacancy they want to be here. We have, but we, I think they need to know that they're welcome here. We want them here. We appreciate them and some of these programs that are not listed here could be important ways to demonstrate that and send that message. And so it could be just enhancing some of these items like the shop local program, maybe has a recognition program or something like that. So with that, I just want to thank you again for your attention. Look forward to future collaboration and whatever you decide to do here, we are 100% behind that success and whatever we can do through the Chamber organization, through the foundation or through our members to make that happen. You can count on us to be there. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Carrey. The next speaker is Ms. Bernice Ortega. Is it out? No. Oh, I'm on. She love. Good morning, everyone. I want to talk about a little bit, but that gentleman was talking about. I think the Chamber of Commerce, they should take care of the business part of Elhamber. I don't think it's our, you know, the Elhamber's council or our Elhamber residents to generate business. That's what we had the Chamber of Commerce for. That's their job. And plus, that's a private entity and we're public. So it doesn't really go together. I wanna talk about the neighborhood watch program. You were talking about it and the safety issues. I came across some papers that I had from years ago from neighborhood watch. We used to have a good program. And what we did, we had a crime prevention office in the Alhambra police department. Now we had a person that that would go to the meetings at each neighborhood when they have on explain how the police work, how many cars they have, how many patrol cars, the how many helicopters, how they go out, you know, ideas. I brought, I brought these, I couldn't take copies, but they had like pretend preventing murderers, you know, a whole booklet. And then they had this, they had earthquake on Earth Parade Plan 2. And we haven't even started working on that. And I think it's good to, or us to have an earthquake plan. We have to know if we have to evacuate, where do we go? You know, what gymnas are the kids? Do the kids have all their supplies that, you know, they need water. They need a place to lay down if they have to stay there a long time. You never know, but we have to be prepared. And the city should, you know, doesn't take much to go do this community work. There's a head that we used to have. Her name was Jessica Cadill. And then at first we had Sharon Williams. And she was really good. She brought videos to the moon to the meetings and everything. And you each neighborhood started a neighborhood watch. And that the flyers explain, you know, And you know, how to do it, how to communicate with your neighbors and stuff like that. It doesn't take any money, it just takes some labor, and we can even get volunteers for that. You know, and organize it better, but we need that crime prevention office within because The programs you have now are just call in and report. And it's nothing because at the time you can't even get the person you want to talk to. And then we never know what's going to happen, what happened. Because the homeless situation when I see them in the street, I feel so bad, especially in nights like last night, you know, you just feel so bad that they're out there. And some of them, you just see them in different places of the city. So they could, they need help. And I'm sure I see this one woman with her, she has a teenage girl, maybe in high school. And she just from place to place trying to get food. They give her food but it's not food that she could eat because she now plays a stay so she can't cook. So things like that have to be organized. I think there's references and county places that you can refer them to for that. Let's see, another thing I wanted to talk about was the dog park. I know that we, you had some names, a plaza, a dog, a man's or plaza, dog, plaza. Out of these plazas, like a place for a dog, it seems like a mall or something. But how about just sell mans or a hemp dog part real simple? But when it's going to get started, it's been a long time already. I mean, you had the place. We know how to do it. Because you did it for a while. I don't know what's the hold up. And then I wanted to know how many city buildings do we have in Alambra? Because that's where you're going to put the signage in the city buildings. And for that to be in different languages, I don't know about that. Like it's going to be running all over and what's it going to say, like the same thing you say on the... There's no communication really, because it's all gonna be in Chinese for not being able to read it. I don't know how many of those you're gonna have, but are what's gonna be involved in that. Okay, well, I was just gonna let you see, look at this and maybe some ideas. I have a book for to plan after a house. You know what to say, what you have to do it, organize your family. It helps and the things haven't changed that much. They haven't even changed. I thank all the speakers this morning. Do we have any speakers via Zoom that? We should speak on this item. Madam Mayor, there are no raised hands on Zoom at this time. Thank you. Mr. Kelly, please get us started on the review of this draft strategic plan. Mayor and Council, before I do that, I was told to make an announcement. It's going to be a door check as you exit. See how many eggs are disappearing out of the room. You could balance your budget. May it be price them right? As I said at the outside of the meeting, this is the rear review of the plan from you discussed last week. So we're basically going to be talking about the areas that are highlighted in yellow. These were the changes resulting from the council comments and questions. So I'm not going to read each one of them. I'll just call the number up and then have the council may comments or ask questions. It'll move to the next item. So 1.1 is public education. Are there any council comments or questions? I do. So this one is under public safety. I think what staff presented is a really good starting point and I just want to bring up maybe some specific areas we can work on regarding like neighborhood watch and emergency preparedness which we talked about last time. So you know also hearing the public comment I think it just gave me a little bit of idea where we could also refine some of our goals. So, neighborhood watch, I think we all agree that it's an important one. We want to expand. We want to strengthen to build that network in our community. And for two reasons, why is to, for public safety, deter crimes, neighbors watching out for each other, the otherwise emergency preparedness. So we can come together as a community and build that connectedness. So two areas I'm thinking where we can maybe refine this a little bit is, you know, thinking along the lines of, well, first recognizing that neighborhood watch has to be an effort that's initiated by our neighbors. It's not the city that initiates this effort. Neighbors have to want to have it. So it takes that initiative from our neighbors or residents. How do we as a city, what can we do as a city to set them up for success? What can we do to support them along the way? Those are the things I'm thinking about. So one area is that I think we should have a dedicated liaison, a person who can be dedicated to the program and support neighbors. If we have someone interested to say, hey, I want to be the block captain and reach out to my neighbors and create this group. How do I do this? Then we have someone who can walk them through step one, two, three, five, four, five and just help them along the way. So that's one and then the other area where we can do is I think we could there's always going to be meetings and there's always going to, you know, need a space to offer the neighbors to come together. And I think if we could set aside maybe a small fund available for, you know, maybe purchase some coffee cookies for those meetings and even given out some materials and, you know, whistles, flashlights, little things for neighbors to send the message. He were here to support you, and we're here to help you along the way. And then just also hearing the comment from our chamber, wondering if this is something we can also collaborate with our local businesses as well. We have so many business that could help use some help with foot traffic. And we even maybe marry the two together You know, we need space maybe we can host a neighborhood watch meetings in our local businesses Maybe we do a campaign with chamber chamber can take this on do a campaign and have business businesses sign up to be the host of neighborhood watch meetings and And then we can have hostels meetings there. And I think they would appreciate having our police department visit there. And they can be a partner with our community safety. They can offer discounts to our neighbors when we have a meeting there. And the city with our small fund, maybe we issue like, you issue like voucher or certificate of $100 to buy something, just some appetizers there for them to spend there. So it just really strengthened the tie between our community and our businesses. It helps both ways. It's a win-win situation. And then at the end of the year, maybe if we recognize, I think it's a good idea to recognize businesses and highlight them, we can recognize them as community safety partners in our community as a way to also help out with our community. And so I just want to share that when the wildfire happened, I went to some businesses to buy coffee and donuts and they were just so gracious that they wouldn't take payment and they want to be part of this community. They want to support our first responders. I just want to share this message with our community that I think we have a lot of business in our community that want to be a part of this. So maybe this is something we can incorporate into our program. And you know, as we, the city do a campaign on the neighborhood watch, and chamber can take it on a business side. Maybe this is an effort that can be combined together. So that's the one on the neighborhood watch. And then under public safety, I have another thing I want to bring up. It's our street lights. I know that street lights is, you know, there's efforts underway to create a master plan of street lights as part of our sustainability plan. I want to, you know, highlight it under public safety because we're seeing increased activities in people driving around our community, suspicious activities. We see on social media, our neighbors talk about it, and there are cars and people coming in and scoping our properties during the day. So when the street lights are out at night, it's just a huge concern. So I want to flag it here and maybe ask staff to look at ways to prioritize this and making sure that this is a priority not only under sustainability but also under public safety if there's any way we can prioritize this and make it happen. I know we have a plan to replace our light bulbs to be LED and you know, improve reliability of street lights. And also, El Hambra owns 95% of street lights. That's very unusual. A lot of other cities actually Edison owns a big portion of the street lights. So this is actually a very distinct opportunity for us to do something. It's very, you know, one of the very basic foundational things that we can do for our community, improve quality of life and safety. So those are the two things I wanna bring up under public safety, thank you. Mayor, thank you so much for those comments. I appreciate them and I echo them. I would sense 95% of our lines are ours. It would be who does to make sure that we're spending sustainability plan money for that. Right? I think that is critical for our, the safety of our residents. Any dark place will increase crime. Our officers will tell you that. Also, under the neighborhood watch, we have one on our block and everybody has each other's phone numbers. Also, I know that the police department doesn't coffee in a cop. Maybe just a little bit. I increase the coffee in cop and not reinvent. You know, the, and the businesses offer the coffee and the officers offer the cop. So, but sometimes those are done during the day and maybe if we do a couple of them in the evening, we might get a few more folks to come out so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel there. You know, I just wanted to, we used to have the Red Cross here in Ohambera years ago. You remember Mr. Rontis. And the Red Cross worked in tandem with the school districts. So, and I think in our plans somewhere, maybe in under dust or something. the Red Cross utilizes high school gyms in an emergency. They set up cuts, they do whatever it is, that they need to do to make sure it's safe. Having them here was very important, I think. And maybe we need to reach out to them again and have them potentially be with us. In addition to that, just so everyone knows all schools, you see those ugly containers on the playground. Yes, they take a playground space. And those large containers, specifically the one you see on Fremont and and how men at the Fremont Elementary, that holds all the necessary items that that school needs in order to if they if they do a lock down there and safe, which means includes water and all those other things. And they're supposed to turn that once a year, you know, another which is inspected and do all of that. That's my understanding. I agree that we need to maybe look at neighborhood watch a little bit closer, maybe expand it, maybe do a training on how to do that, on how to be the leader. A lot of folks don't want to take on extra things to do in their household and they get home from work. They just want to relax and have a safe safe neighborhood, but we know that sometimes that's not. That just doesn't happen. So having that point person is critical to alerting the neighbors that somebody is in the neighborhood that doesn't look familiar, even our coyotes when they're coming down the street. I also think social media is huge on this. We're all connected on social media and it really does help to have neighborhood watch be connected to their social media spots. But thank you so much. And I look forward to the emergency plans, expanding, and I appreciate the councilwoman mentioning that 95% of our lights are our lights. So it behooves us to set aside dollars specifically for that. Thank you. And in terms of the chamber and downtown business, they are critical to our success here in Alhambra. And I think they continue to do the right thing by the businesses. Thank you. Any other council comments? Yeah, I would support a lot of the ideas that two colleagues have raised already. I wanna drill down a little bit on, can somebody, let me know, like what the 10 annual neighborhood watch program, what does that refer to? Is that all that we do currently? That is correct. So the police department will coordinate and work with the block captains. And it looks like that would be a slight increase for us, but that's about what we are averaging per year. I think what we're hearing is maybe it a desire to increase capacity. And I don't know. I mean, Councilman Andrade said that there's not a lot of people who are jumping at the opportunity to take on more things in their lives. However, if the city provides some of the structure and maybe resources where it's kind of a package and you just sort of... Here, it's not that much work. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just need to call your neighbors and have them over at your house. That might help. I don't know... I mean, I've been to a couple of neighborhood watch meetings over the years and I think they go really well. So I don't know if that is like a package already. If not, it will be. We currently have a liaison as Miss Ortega was giving us the history. It used to be with Sharon Williams, then it was Jessica Kuccia. And now it is Jamie Coba out of the police department. She will be the liaison. She can assist with helping link interested parties that want to be a block captain. They can work together. National Neighborhood Watch has a curriculum. They have a toolkit. So the toolkit should be something that they you can systematically walk through and the you know ideal requirements for what it would be to have an active neighborhood watch program. In. In addition to that, we could solicit on social media for new block captains. There may be people we have 18 city wide right now. But if there were others that were interested, we could cultivate those relationships and help coordinate those meetings. And then periodically, we would attend where most of their meetings, it would just be meetings amongst the neighbors. So in the ones that we would attend, we could facilitate by providing the location being a park gym or as Councilmember Wang mentioned, we can work with the chamber and have businesses host them. No problem. We'd be happy to help coordinate those. And I know that we do copy with the cop. I love the evening time thing because it's often difficult. Maybe it could be cocktail with the cop. The cops can't drink. Everyone else can if they walk. No. I do. So I wouldn't want to see this sort of limited to 10 per year. If it really takes off, I think we should do an outreach campaign that includes social media, but also, you know, flyers, posters at the parks that we have in language, because there's a lot of folks that may not immediately understand what that is, but if we put it in language, I think it will have a wider draw. Social media, yeah, put it in the around El Hambra. So I think like a have a wider draw. Social media put it in the around El Hambra. I think like a coordinated campaign to let people know that you don't have to do all of this yourself. We have stuff ready for you to go. It's ready made and all you need to do is volunteer and call your neighbors. What I'd also like to see as part of this, and we talked about disaster preparedness and different things, I don't know if we have. I know that this exists that people do presentations on earthquake safety and fire safety. I don't know if we, I know that we have fire experts. I don't know that we have people that are experts in explaining that to regular people. I'm sure the fire department police department do on some level. I don't want to put this all on them. I know that there's outside sources. So if that is a, you know, like an as needed contract and other people from like Caltech that put on these things pretty often and they do, I've gotten a really good feedback from people that have been to those. So we make this all available because I do think that the neighborhood watch program especially if we get it, you know, grow it and make it more robust. It's a perfect venue or vehicle for getting this other message out. And I think we should maybe do like we like to counsel those town halls around town. Maybe we should do, you know, spread it throughout the year and we should do a town hall where the focus is public safety. And we bring in the PD, we bring in the fire department, and we bring in our fire and earthquake experts. And it's an hour and a half, two hours, and people can come and get their fill all at once. So those are my thoughts on this, but I think it's a good start. It sounds like a lot of us are on the same page. Any other comments, and we can go move forward? Yes, I've got a couple comments. Number one, I also support a lot of the comments that have been made. I think that in regards to neighborhood watch, as Council Member Wang mentioned, it definitely goes hand in hand with economic development. I think one kind of supports the other and I love the idea of kind of marrying the two. I have some comments later on on goal number three regarding economic development. I think a lot of this ties into some of the goals and objectives there that I liked to discuss later. But just, you know, again, with regards to street lights, you know, I agree with Council and Bernie Rodr and Dr. Sather mentioned, you know, dark places do it, but I think, as you mentioned, in bike crime, that kind of goes hand in hand also with what I brought up somewhere in here about just cleanliness to our sidewalks, you know, places that look, I mean, I'm not saying we look blighted, but places that look dirty blighted, you know, also kind of attract that that type of energy and vibe. So, you know, street lights also, you don't want to support that, you know, the possibility. It's one of the things. places that look to really blinded, you know, also kind of attract that that that type of energy and vibe. So, you know, street lights also, you don't want to support that, you know, the possibility. It's one of the things that I talked to pretty frequently with our city manager about, you know, just list of street lights that are out dark places and they get handled, you know, pretty, pretty immediately. But if we have a more, um, I think it would make the entire community benefit from that. But with regards to just the neighborhood watch portion of it, I'd like to just become a little bit more descriptive, I think a little bit more intentional with some of these objectives are. I think we've highlighted some of those today. With neighborhood watch meetings, I think a lot of it has to do with just the fact that people aren't aware. This is or take it just brought up, the fact that some people in her neighborhood aren't aware that these resources and meetings are put on by PD. So maybe just trying to or making it a goal to have, let's say five or six annual meetings per district, what happens with a lot of these districts is like, in my district, you've got like a separation that's pretty marked between the airport track, South of Valley and North of Valley, around El Mano Sir Park. And so, people don't talk to each other. And so maybe making it a point point to have five six meetings in every district per year as opposed to the 10 that we've got marked here you know I know that PD has been very accommodating with putting this together in the past they've been great I don't know that coffee has brought would not but you know water is definitely brought I think or maybe the homeowners offer it but you know some homeowners also you know are not always comfortable with having people at their homes as well. So that's where councilmember Wang's idea of maybe promoting the businesses. And it helps economic developing it exposes businesses as well. So again, just being a little bit more intentional. And hopefully we can update the ten annual meetings to maybe along the lines of five for district which I know is a lot 25 meetings but if it's something that can be done you know maybe not immediately but somewhere in the future then I'd love to see that happening. Thank you. I just have a few comments I appreciate all the comments made by my colleagues. It seems like there's a focus on the neighborhood watch program. As far as I know that you have a block captain who volunteers and organized the residents. I actually have a neighborhood watch. We are the captain. It's a little bit overwhelming when you have the block captain organized over public safety issues and emergency preparedness at the same time. I think it needs to be voluntary. So we've got to be a little bit careful about putting a lot of responsibilities on the block captain from neighborhood watch groups. I'm not sure how many we have per district. I think maybe 17 for area one, I'm not sure. But the point is that I actually like council member Miloni's idea. I caught that we do need to use outside resources to train our residents either through neighborhood watch groups or other other forms such as town hall meetings or informational meetings. We have to be careful not to overburden the neighborhood watch groups because usually the block captain as far as I know we would call the liaison and say can we have a meeting have the officer come over over to a location? Because we have specific issues such as burglaries or or vandalism or whatever it is. So the challenges for the city is to how do we disseminate information to help our resident all resident to prepare for emergency. I think a lot of it has to do with self-help and their websites from the state they have list of items that you need to prepare for yourself. So I think the responsibility is with on the city as well not to place on PD for a reasonable watch group because the PD actually coordinate all the in the Relogy Watch groups. So we have to kind of think outside that box by providing inviting outside resources either from the state or experts. I know how to Tring our resident to prepare for emergency preparedness From supplies to evacuation procedure What to do when you have a fire what to do when you have earthquake that one minute precious minute that you have for 30 seconds. So these are things that we need the city need to take on instead of through the Maple Watch group, but we have to use other resources to reach out to our residents. So that's why I suggest the video, the safety videos, which if done correctly and comprehensively, it will help our residents to train themselves. That's really important. So I just want to highlight that. And I do like the fact that we recruit the businesses with to be our partners. Business are important and they're everywhere and they can be our partners in many ways. I do like the fact that we want to look at our lightings around this city. As we drive around, there are dark corners in the city that need to be addressed. I know it's a funding issue, but also making sure that we prioritize the dark corners. And I notice a lot of them on mission, and they'll have a road or especially an issue that I noticed That's it. Thank you Merin Council This is a really important issue with a lot of extensions to economic development and other activities We have 18 of these to go over still It's the hard stop at noon. So I just wanted to keep it moving accordingly I do I do have a quick comment just to follow up on mayor's comment And I think that Mayor made a really good point about how a lot of this has to be self-help. So maybe what we can do as a city is to look at some potential materials checklist and those serve as a guide. We can develop, but then we distribute it to our residents and kind of guides them on what they should be doing right now to prepare for disasters. So maybe that's something we can look into and there's another sort of already some of materials available. Maybe we could just make some modifications and develop those content. Thank you. Sure. And so I'll just recap what I'm hearing of what we've amended 1.1 to look like. We will add expanding the coffee with a cop program to include evenings. And then the enhanced neighborhood watch, we will start with a social media campaign. And then enlist the National Neighborhood Watch Toolkit to provide a how-to for additional block captains, flyers and posters in three languages at the parks to help cultivate that list, also around Alhambra, and putting together a small fund for coffee cookies and assisting with the chamber to host neighborhood watch meetings in the businesses. Just want to address really quickly having five per district per year could be difficult in your district. Well, we do them during or according to area commands. So in the southeast area, command area, there are three block captains. So that would be putting a lot of pressure on the block captains if we continue to call them for meetings. If they want to, they can, but otherwise we're just hosting meetings without them. So that's our challenge of, you know, but hopefully with a new campaign, we'll get individuals that are passionate about neighborhood watch and also emergency preparedness separately and being involved and Hopefully, with a new campaign, we'll get individuals that are passionate about neighborhood watch and also emergency preparedness separately and being involved. And if we get that expansion, then 20 may be very possible. It's just that in the Northeast area command, there are four. And then in the southeast, there are three. Very differently in the Southwest, there are six block captains of which, Noia is one of them. So, just, but that's the variety. There are only a total of 18 citywide. So if we did 20 meetings, that's fine. We probably could do 20 if all 18 of these people are in fact still interested in being captains. So we think that they're active, but until we try to schedule something and trying to schedule something regularly, may prove to be tough, but we will absolutely try. So we can play with that number as we move along and we will update it every quarter as we bring this back to you. And then a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. checklist that the cog is promoting. I think that those are things that are very simple and those are things that the county, Office of Emergency Services also has individuals that they're a checklist that we can, that we can provide to residents for something easy as they're running out of the house in the event of emergency. Also under this goal we can add item 1.2 to be create a street light master plan for citywide LED conversion. I think that wraps up goal number one. The next change is 2.10 which is the community center. Council questions or comments? Not hearing any. 2.11 is the development of the city branding. It's a new program. Questions comments? Just a real quick comment, which is that since this issue is brought up, I you know, you just notice that there's a lot of different types of signage around towns. So maybe the first step would be to sort of get a inventory. It doesn't have to be exhaustive. it just figure out what signs are where and what purpose do they serve, and the idea would be to standardize a lot of them and sort of have a thing that's all. I just have a quick question about the, I don't really call it those different districts around the city, like the airport track, those, they're getting really old. So do we have funding for that to replace them? I'd have to look into this category. Well, we could look at it in part of this. We're looking to standardize, then there may be the opportunity that we're changing some of the look of them as well. So maybe it goes hand in hand, and maybe it's really good timing. We evaluate this. value. We evaluate this. A budget every year too. Oh, thank you. Let's look into those. Okay. Moving on to 2.12. Expansion of downtown parking structures at all. Questions, comments? They have a comment, Mayor. The elevators rarely work in those parking structures. I don't know whether you guys go downtown a lot, but we do. And they rarely work and it's okay. We can use the stairs. But my question and that that's where it's really dirty too. I mean that parking lots really need some some loving care. But I'm curious, we contract that out. Is that a contract that we have to handle the cleaning and the maintenance of the elevators? Yes, but also every time we get the contractors out to fix the elevators, people damage them. And unfortunately, parts have really long lead times, and then we finally get parts replacements, and they're up working again, and then they're vandalized. So it is a very big challenge with the elevators and the parking structures, just from the mechanics of them. The cleaning, this item, we will reevaluate the cleaning and the timing of that along with the cleaning that the Downtown Business Association also does in the downtown and see if we need to increase that. And I'm wondering maybe we need security at those sites to help prevent the graffiti and I know some people sleep up there. So that might be part of that as well. I'm not trying to create an issue here, but I think that maybe our contractor's not doing a very good job. And so maybe they need to provide, we need to look for somebody who provides a security and as well as maintenance. I don't know. I don't know. It's just an idea. Thank you so much. Mayor, my only comment would be is I agree. I think we need to consider lots of different options down there for safety and appearances and cleanliness. I just want to point out that 2.12 is I think really closely tied potentially to what six something where we're talking about expansion of the business improvement district down there. I don't want to put all of this on the assessment or on the down to business association, but I think it is a partnership between the city and on the down to businesses and that that might be obviously obviously really helpful to look at when we're expanding services. So. Yeah, and the same thing, not to, you know, over meet this item and just, but, you know, again, just want to emphasize, you know, how important this is, again, you know, with economic development. And so, you know, whatever city staff can do to just keep pushing on this. I know it's frustrating because like you said, you know things get done and they get undone really quickly and so it's an ongoing issue but whatever we can do to really emphasize this would be great. Thank you. Moving on 2.13 new three new evaluate senior right use and demand questions comments. I'm glad we haven't. Moving on to point one four new study critical facility city facilities for seismic retrofitting. I was just going to say I'm glad to see this one. I think it's important that we look at that because our city, you know, critical city facilities serve critical functions for our community and, you know, we're living this active seismic zone and we got to be thinking about how we can be resilient. And if there's a major earthquake, we've got to be able to bounce back quickly and recover. And there's different levels of retrofit for seismic events. And it starts with life safety, meaning people can get out of the building safely. But the building may not be salvageable, that it may be damaged so badly that we cannot reuse. And there's the next level of, you know, with significant time and money, we can repair the building. There's the next level of, you know, maybe it's a minimum repair, minimum effort and time to recover. And then there's next next level, which is a lot of the hospitals where it has to stay operational throughout a major event. So there's different levels that we can be looking at this. But I think to some extent, we should start with the study to see what our seismic vulnerabilities are and making the way we, we can recover some of the critical city functions in a major sex event. So thank you for putting this on here. Quick question. Does this include the bridges over the railroad French to because I don't Where's that already there? They are a separate item that bridges already just on going. That's right. It was already there. I just they're obviously related and a little bit overlapping. That's fine. That's fine. If we do form a council subcommittee, I nominate our resident council engineer to leave the the chair of that Thank you Moving on 3.4 finance increased city reserve to 30% Sort of affirmed that last meeting. I just want to make sure I Don't see any head shaking no 3.5 update address vacant commercial properties explore vacancy for a 2026 ballot measure. Questions, comments from council. Mayor, I just want to ask that we include I know it's not directly on point here, but the other thing we were talking about with the ballot was the transit occupancy tax set in there. Sorry, I should know this by heart. Randy and I do, unfortunately, 6.5 is promote city wise mix. Oh, I'm sorry. Take it back. It was the last item. Apparently we added another one. 6.4 address the effects of short-term rentals and explore the opportunity to collect transient occupancy tax on the 2026 ballot. We'll be bringing that forward as well. Thank you. I have a question and maybe he asked it and I just didn't hear it. Have we done a study on how many vacancies we have, why they're vacant, where are those folks? I think before we, this is a huge step to take this to the ballot. But I think we need to be ready to be able to answer those questions other than what we see on a day-to-day basis, just so that we're well informed. Sure, and because vacancies are an ever-changing thing in our commercial corridors, we would anticipate that initially, we would count the amount of vacancies. we do not going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be a drive by and and personally checking and so you know someone drives someone says okay here's one two three four and counting as we go around in the commercial corridors also looking at what other agencies are doing for a vacancy tax this is not we are not the only city that is looking at this or has undertaken this. So we'll be looking to see what it is that the tax includes and then what our potential revenue would be. And when we bring that back to the council, you can decide whether we want to proceed with this item and we want to take it to the ballot. Or if it's not worth it, then we say, okay, hey, we went through. We're going to continue with our vacant storefront program, but we're maybe not going for a full vacancy tax. That will be at a later date. But here, shortly, because we need to get moving if we're going to put this on the ballot. I love the idea of a tax. I hope we collect zero money from it. Right? That's a good I love the idea of a tax. I hope we collect zero money from it. Right? That's a good metric. Moving on, 3.6 is an update focused study on development incentives for certain properties on on main. Council comments. Not hearing any moving on. 3.7 is an update update the economic development plan on valley. Comments questions. Yeah, I would just like thank you for always including this and I know there's been some things moving forward. I just think we need to measure success as they as it comes. And also, maybe this is where we're going to look at a lot of vacancies. Unfortunately, especially at the entrance to Alhambra, where we see a lot of small of their small. And I don't know if people need to get together those businesses and create one business together or what it is, but this is where it's really we're challenged. Thank you. 3.8. I will just echo that comment. Sorry, 3.8 is an updated description of ADU opportunities flow charts and graphics. Council comments. Do we know what average time it takes to get one ADU completed? It depends. So we are working on standardized plans for ADUs that will already be pre-plan checked. So they will not require the plan check process if residents utilize those plans. Doing them on their own, it really just depends on, you know, if there are comments, how quickly they get them back to us. But other than that, we believe that getting a project fully approved within 90 days is absolutely doable if the applicant is moving very quickly in responding back if our community development departments need further documents or corrections. Thank you. 3.9 is new research shop local program has incentives. I think the Chamber of Commerce brought this up last meeting. Council comments. Mayor Finne. So I think this is where you know I mean it can be in 338, 3, I mean, any of these really where maybe we can kind of reconsider how we're addressing some of these objectives. So I think some of the points made by Mr. Browry with the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce are things that I'd like to see. You know, I mean, for example, he brought up, you know, maybe establishing a micro grant fund for some of these small businesses, you know, to maybe promote some of the online businesses or home businesses to become work and mortar as an example. I know somebody brought up the economy earlier and of course yeah we know that those are those are challenges that business is face And that's why you know a lot of the vacancies on Main Street as well, you know, just the model of a lot of these businesses changed over time. A lot of business moving to online and so you know you're going to see a lot of that until we kind of recreate a vision for the types of businesses that we see on Main Street. But so a micro grant program is something that I'd love to see. I mean, I know it's probably, as I always say, not as easy as it may seem, but if we can go after any type of grant funding to, to, I know that, you know, City Manager's Office has done a great job already with trying to find grant money wherever you can. you know, we see them through our newsletter every week, I think, you know, we receive a grant for this, a grant for that, or we got turned down on some grants in some cases. But if we can establish that, I think it'll kind of go hand in hand with some of the other items here, but you know, the shop local as well. I just want to be a little bit more intentional about these and I think that's where I'd like to somehow incorporate these into our objectives. Where we do it, I don't know, but I'd like to see them incorporated. Mr. Wary talked about a city business recognition program as well. So let's see, maybe even have an economic development subcommittee with the council maybe a couple people that will work a little bit closer with the Chamber and Downtown Business Association and establish a fund-free business accelerator like a set of to program to businesses that want to become brick and mortar. So that's really it. So you know where we can kind of incorporate some of these, you know without really trying to add too many more objectives. I know this one's pretty, this this folks could be long already. We've got 11 objectives. So if we can find a way to incorporate these, I don't know if anybody has any comments regarding that but would love to hear. Councilman, I agree. I think that's a really good idea, but I'd also like to bring up the fact that we have a lot of businesses that do really well, but they have very little parking. So they, during the pandemic, you all know, they became more fast food, but they're excellent. Like, Spanish kitchen. Why aren't we reaching out to them and giving them a better spot? Why aren't we reaching out to, there's one on Valley is great, just right around the bend, does really well, has a little more parking. The Hawaiian place on the end there does very well. And even Pippas, I know Pippas doesn't probably want to reduce their drive through, but they do an incredible business. But especially Spanish kitchen, they are on a unique kind of infusion of type of food and they're used all the time. And I'm sure if we go into our nooks and crannies of our smaller streets that are north and south, we'll find a few that may do better on Main Street or may do better on Valley. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I mean, if that's something that can be promoted, you know, but what that are coming on the Main Street, it's the initial six to 12 months right that are better tough for them. And so if we can find ways to help promote the businesses, I know we talked with Mr. Rary some days ago about maybe a micro grant for signage. I mean, for something as small as a couple of, I mean, if code allows it, a couple of tables, a couple of tables on Main Street, a couple of chairs, you know, things like this, just anything that we can do to just try to keep these business on Main, or even, you know, encourage other businesses that may be looking at other cities to come to Tellambera. So just incorporating just that micro grant fund if at all possible, a formal shop local incentive program, you know, between city staff and the chamber. Some of these things that I mentioned, I'd love to see incorporated into some of these, like 3.8, 3.7. Maybe as, you know, I don't know how we incorporate them, but just, you know, maybe we restructure this. Can I agree? I mean, with a lot of the, what we're talking about here, and it, it's clear that this discussion is probably much bigger than, than what we can squeeze into the next 47 minutes here, even if we spent the whole time on this. Um, I mean, I, I think this maybe calls for like a special session or something about how we talk about economic issues throughout the city, how we better cooperate with the Chamber and the Down to Business Association. And you know, I mean, volleyball, Varta is ripe for some big changes. So there's probably, I hope there's going to be something that develops down there too. That's sort of analogous to what we have in the downtown area. Couple of thoughts is maybe we have two subcommittees, one for the valley boulevard area and one for the downtown area, just a thought. But I feel like we need to have a larger discussion about this and I don't want to rush it because there's so many important things to talk about. And maybe if we just dedicate two hours to it and have an open session and agenda is it properly, we can just kind of go for it. I I support that. I think that that it's a it sounds like we have a lot of interesting figuring out ways to support our business and figure out ways to do a number of developments. So I support the idea of you know finding another time just my quick comments. I feel like I'm hearing, before we jump in, we want to understand different challenges from businesses. And we wanna, maybe there are business that are doing well, but the limitation is parking situation. So we outreach to them. And maybe there are business that are struggling a little bit and we could use some help with the micrograms and the funding sources. So starting with that and understanding maybe that something chamber can also help assist in this effort. Understanding the challenges, but I do I do support the outreach effort. I do support the you know looking for grants available to help some of our small businesses and and I want to also add that want to be more intentional about, I think, you know, when we see turnovers on our major business corridors, it's really tough once the business leaves. So we want to be able to do something when they're struggling. They're maybe considering leaving. They may be considering closing their doors. That's where the help is most needed. So I don't know if there's a way, maybe there's a way to look at the sales tax and to look at how well the business is doing and be a little more intentional about helping those small business mom and pop shops who have been here in our community for a long time, but they're just facing some challenges where we can be more intentional about helping them. So I do support that idea very much. Thank you, and I would just want to make a quick comment based on what Councilman Maloney said. You know, I agree, as I'm talking through this, and I'm feeling kind of rushed myself and wanting to just kind of lay it all out, right? But not having a structure so I agree. It requires a separate discussion, but with the points as far as resources that Councilmember Wang mentioned, even going after partnering with Chamber with the Downshambler Association and staff to go after, like we had at our Council meeting on Monday, we had a gentleman from SBA come out. We've got a lot of resources that people just aren't aware of. I mean, a business loan at 3.9 interest these days is incredible. I think he mentioned that number. I talked to a gentleman with the gas company recently and he said, we've got like, I was like $16 million that they're trying to give out to businesses and it just needs to be broadcast that I guess, you know, this money is available. Nobody's touching it. Nobody's going after it. I mean, it's for restaurants, it's for businesses. Very easy to apply. I mean, I know Edison has some programs as well. So just a partnership to promote and highlight some of these resources. But yes, I agree. It would take a much more in-depth discussion. But I'd love to see that happen in the near future. How do we incorporate that in 3.10, which is to expand the downtown business association and increase their assessment fees? Do we know how long they've had the fees and what fees are? Yeah. We could get back to you with that. This item we would bring back what their current pre-structure is, what the current area of the Downtown Business Association, where they are collecting the assessment what that looks like, and then we would work with the chamber to see if this is something that they wanted to expand the area and or just increase the assessment. And since it has been, I think it's been decades since it has been increased or modified. And so that that absolutely would be something that we would look for under that item. Thank you, City Manager. Well, Council, you basically move through 3.9 and 3.10. So moving on to 3.11, remove this flow chart infographic is already in process and it's in the budget and it's already available to counter. I think staff is suggesting this be removed. No objection. Next is 4.3 new options for indoor outdoor digital signing at all on city property council comments. Just that that maybe it's digital and you know traditional signage also okay for whatever situation calls for. I agree with that one doesn't have to be all digital that we can have traditional ones. I'd like to see some actually I'd like to see like a maybe a bulletin board or something on the south side of the city, area where we have a lot of folks walking around there. Any other comments from the council? Okay, the next project is 4.3 new. I'm sorry, 4.4, app for submission of service request. Council comments. All right. Getting sick of myself talking as well. So. I think this is great. I appreciate everyone agreeing to include this on here. I just want to make sure that it's a creation of a city app that shouldn't just be limited to service requests. Definitely service requests, but maybe also a communication for a blast that we want to send out. Just make it a full service multi-tool type of thing. That's actually a really good comment. So from hearing from public comment, I feel like there is a desire to understand maybe some stats, the crime stats and different things. Maybe that's something we can incorporate into the app as well. If citizens log into the app, they can see upcoming events, crime stats, things of interest to them. I think this is a great idea. I want to make sure that it includes that in the reservoir, submit the application, we'll get feedback of the progress received how many weeks before the job will start. Sometimes people don't know why they're waiting, so I think that features are important to app. So I don't know that will be in there. Well, we're investigating a couple of different apps right now and because we're not creating our own app, It may be customizable, but it also may not. But for sure, our baseline is that when an individual reports something, they will get a response saying, thank you for reporting this to us. This is received. And then they will also get something that says, thank you for reporting this. It is completed. Anything in the middle, we'll have to look at, but it would be ideal to keep people in the loop as it goes, but I'm just not sure that the app has that capability, we'll definitely ask. We bring that back to the table. And I would just ask that it may be have a date. So then we can track how long it takes for that to be, for something to be completed. Moving on, 4.5 internships, desk recommending removal, it's always going on. Any council objections to removal? Seeing none? Quick comment, when we remove these items, we're not just removed that, we're putting them elsewhere as, maybe a council achievement or accomplishment, right? I think we have great goals. We accomplished them. It's great. And instead of just removing them, maybe we create a list and these are the things that we were able to accomplish through strategic plan. Okay. Next item 6.4 is updated. The short-term rental discussion and the tax. Before we do that, I'm sorry, not to talk about a non-yellow item here on goal five sustainability. Can we just get a quick update and we make good progress? We have a little time. Can we get a quick update on the situation with the funding for our sustainability plan? Lucy, be happy to give us an update, but I don't believe that we have any indication that there's any trouble with our federal funds that were allocated for the plan. Okay. Okay. taking that to the bank. You see, my only comment would have been that there may be opportunities through the state to sort of shoehorn program like this in there. There's going to be, I think, probably a lot of money and fire resiliency. So there's going to be a lot of overlap there. So just always think about a plan be just in case because some things apparently are very unbroken for right now. Thank you. I also think it doesn't hurt for us to since the now state senator was very, was a big part of the sustainability dollars that came through for us to keep their office in updated and when they have dollars, we can go to her or whatever. Back to 6.4, we're just to review STRs and TOT taxes. Any comments? The last one updated 6.5 promote citywide mixed use housing between chapel and element or any questions or comments. My only comment is that it would be this is kind of close related to the other item we had for East Maine up to El Mancer, right? So just recognizing that there was overlap there and to avoid siloing those two. And that item, particularly today we wanted to get clarification because there was conversation about both of them and they were at separate times but referred back to one another in different times of our meetings. So we put them both on here if you you want to see them differently or you wanna hash this one out, that would be excellent. We'd like the clearer direction. I like 6.4. Yeah, I mean, 6.5. Oh, 6.4. Oh, the transit documents attack. Yeah, the ones that have a overlap are 6.5 and it was 3 points, something, right? 3.6. I mean, I sort of feel like they should be kind of combined in a way because it is looking at kind of long term land use and the best economic opportunities in that area. I know they're not exactly perfectly geographically the same, but they could be. We could just say Garfield-Telmons or I mean that whole section there. So one of them is to promote mixed use housing. The other one is promote commercial uses. I don't think those are mutually exclusive. Okay. Okay. Personally. Okay just want then under 3.6? Want to focus study? So yes, so it can be both or we can combine them to say to conduct a focus study to develop incentives for attracting commercial and or mixed use in that entire corridor or do you want just mixed use housing from chapel 12, and then commercial uses Garfield 12 answer. I like the fact that one is more related to housing specifically and the other one is more related to business and so that's why it feels important to kind of separate them. But, you know, know, again, I'm open both. I think just focusing on that area, I think, is the idea between Chaplin, Elm answered. Okay. I guess the, the, the, the, the, the danger I see is, is the two ideas competing with each other or not informing each other. And that's all, I mean, whatever the best use of those properties, that those areas, the highest and best use is probably what we should be pushing for. You know, whatever brings us best paying for our buck and that area. But I mean, you know, not the expert in the same way. As retail is a fair, yeah, exactly. Mayor and council, well, that concludes your update discussion. Staff will make your appropriate revisions and this will appear on your March 24th City Council agenda. So that in essence includes my part of the presentation at a Mayor Your Meeting. Oh, yes, thank you. So one of the residents recently brought up the idea of our water system and water security, I think in the context of the fire, but also longer term for earthquake safety, you know, our actual infrastructure for the storage, the transport of water. And I think we have a, we should be proud of our water system, but everything ages and everything can be improved. And I think it's probably time for us to kind of think about a master plan, a renewed master plan for water infrastructure improvement. Thank you Jessica for reminding me because we had a good conversation about this. I mean it sort of came up that we're probably overdue for that. And the you know this is a good time for us to talk about this after the fires earthquakes always on our minds. And we have an opportunity to upgrade our system. This is probably the right time to do it and to have a citywide conversation about how that is going to happen, what the costs are going to be and what improvements we could make. But my neighbor that came and spoke at her council meeting the other day and at a previous meeting she didn't mention these. I guess we must have heard about it from different points but these Japanese water pipes that they've engineered to be super flexible so that in an earthquake, they don't burst like, you know, old, I don't know what materials they used to use, but they would break in city communities without water, without potable water for weeks and months. And they did this study, they created these flexible water pipes and the ground would move quite a bit and they would just roll with it and it would much much easier to get back online. So I mean, just that's the kind of thing we could be thinking about in our community here and regionally we could be a leader in that. So the risk of dumping more stuff on staff's plate, I think this is something that we would be working on anyways. So why not elevate it to the level of the strategic priority? Councilman, may I suggest that all of us take a tour of the site and really because I did that when I first was elected, so impressed by it. And I think if we're all there, we kind of get a good look at what it is and how it functions and then move forward with that. That's what I would propose. Just wanted to clarify, clarification councilwoman, Adreddy-Staller, which side are you talking about? See? It's right by the um garden, the community garden on mission. You're talking about the water treatment facility. We'd happy we'd be happy to facilitate a tour of that. It's great. It's great. You want to see it? Yeah, that's that's a great idea. I do I do want to see this site and thank you for suggesting it. I think Councilmember Malone's idea is the water pipes that goes beyond the water treatment facility. So I understand the point here is when the earthquake happens, then the pipes are brittle, then they break, then we lose water. and, I think this is a way bigger problem than what we can do in our city that requires, you know, huge efforts regionally. And that's, there's discussions going on right now to look at those. But I think we should start, right? As right now, we don't have anything going on, then let's, I support this idea. I think we should, these are the things that we should be looking at now when we have the time instead of reacting to you know when that happens so yes absolutely would start to support this idea. I think all the public comments and everyone attending to today this morning. Oh, one more. Sorry. Thank you for reminding me, city manager, the other issue that I raised was, I think we have the bike and ped plants still in here somewhere. My only and it used to say or at least we had a separate item that that's specifically caught out our open streets events and that we would be continued to support those. And I'd just like to formally add that back in and just say that as part of the overall by competitive. Absolutely. Is it such a great asset for our community? We have completely item on today's agenda, we are adjourned.