Good evening. Good evening, everybody. So she goes in this plan. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call the regular meeting of the City of Lehoever Heights City Council to order January 13th, 2025. Norm, you want to leave the flag salute please? I have to get a little call. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands what nation under God in the middle of liberty and justice for all. I forgot, I forgot roll call. Mr. Bergman. Mr. Steffler. Mr. Zazula. Here. Angle heart is here. And John Pispisa. I didn't want to keep running meetings, so I'm not happy about this. But John is, works for Edison, and he's got an excuse to absence. He's leading their team and their emergency operations during this fire outage and he apologizes that he was unable to be here tonight. It's been suggested because more people are interested in the housing element item which is number 13 Number 13 that will move that to the front. I thank the people who have other subjects to talk about their public in the public if they don't mind waiting. So I'll call that item and ask for the staff to give us some information. Thank you Mayor Protangelo Hart. Item before it's a night is a revised draft of the 2021 to 2029 housing element. So this is an update of the draft and the city last adopted a housing element in 2022. At that time, the state did not certify our housing element. So we've been going back through the process to continue working towards certification. There were some concerns and some other issues that were raised as part of our last round of reviews from the state related to site selections and other parts and pieces of the housing element related to furthering fair housing and some of the housing element and related to furthering fair housing and some of the other emergency shelters and density bonus programs and things that we had in our housing element. So we have been going through the process of redoing or updating the housing elements. We took that last draft that the City Council adopted. It has made a couple of informal reviews and we have a revised draft that is before you tonight. This item before you tonight is part of a stipulated judgment. We have been having communications with the state. City Attorney will talk a little bit, brief about that in just a moment here, about through the process, but we do have some requirements by the state to keep us Moving forward in the process of adopting a housing element and obtaining certification for it Which does a couple of things helps us maintain our local control? So we don't have those things taken away from us over zoning and building Which would affect greatly the community as as a whole So we have been working to revise our housing element to meet some of those requirements that were put out by the state at our last review. Some of the comments we received related to our site selection. So our site selection will be mainly focused on a property along Harbor Boulevard as our site, which was re-zoned as part of the adoption by the council previously. After further review from HCD, they raised some concerns and issues related to utilities to that particular property, one major component being sewer access. So looking at sewer and no availability of sewer in or near that site became the issue to it. In further working with HCD, it really came down to needing a couple of those things, trying to find a place in the city where we could provide affordable housing for which the state requires that at a minimum to be 20 units to the acre that would have the ability to have access to utilities, specifically sewer as one of the main components. Obviously in the Hobbriides we have very limited sewer access. There's not a great amount of sewer within the community. We have a main line that runs up Possean to Road to East Road and that's where the majority of our sewer branches off from to a few properties along that stretch. The staff in the housing consultant looked at the community as a whole and looked to try to find a way to where we could find available sites. We could look for places that have utility connections and we would be able to have access to that utility and be able to be developed at a density that would have the ability to provide affordable housing at the units that we need to provide based off of our arena numbers which comes through SCAG, our local association of Southern California governments, is provided a number by the state. They go through a process to spread that number across our region. We are provided with a unit count that we have to have, which in our total is 244 units through that process. In looking at all those factors, we identified a few sites along Costa Indorode as the best potential sites for affordable housing at a density that would work within the limitations that HCD is looking for. So we've identified a few sites that would potentially could be rezoned and have the capacity to have density and be able to meet the units that we need for Rina, which would be one process of moving us closer to being able to get certification of our housing element, which is something that we've never done before. We've never had a certified housing element in the history of the community. I know we've attempted it a few times. This particular process, we've actually been working since 2019 on this process and going through it and making revisions and making a temp we did it at the previous cycle and again started with this current cycle that we're on right now. So there are three sites that we identified. There is a site just north of City Hall in the water district along the curve between Navacado Crest. There's a few different property owners that own a little bit of vacant and one residential house on that particular property. that is within an area that has available land around it, has access to utilities. We looked also at the property of the city owns at West and Hossie Underroad. Again, has available land at a site that could potentially host and hold enough density to be able to meet those affordable units and has access to utilities. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to have a look at the at a site that could potentially host and hold enough density to be able to meet those affordable units and has access to utilities. We looked a little farther north. Between East and West there's a little bit of land over there that would identify that could have potential for another bit of housing units. We also looked at the school that's next to City Hall. HCD looks very closely at those properties and the potential for things to be turned turnover and developed as part of the review of the available sites to look at if those sites can be selected or not be selected for that. So school was not as high on their list because it is an active school site but there has been some work done with the school board and the potential interest that was shared with HCD. So there's the ability for us to potentially look at the school site as well, which means that there would be four sites along Hossein de Roe with the potential for affordable housing. There's also some ability to do some things that some churches in town as well. We also are looking at our 80Us as well so potential for 80Us across the community and looking at that to also add the capacity and the units that we need for. Meeting arena numbers for that. Right now it's in a draft form. This is just a draft or not. Making a decision on it tonight. There is no approvals of it going forward tonight. There is no rezoning directly coming out of this tonight. We have to have a series of meetings on the housing element. This is one of them. It's been released in November out. There's been slight changes to this version that's out tonight. We have to submit a draft to the state by January 27th for them to be able to do a formal review. We've done informal reviews with them and had conversations. But as part of that formal review process, we have to put it out to the community. We are holding a public hearing tonight to take input from the community and the residents and surrounding area on the housing element, which we can incorporate into the housing element as part of it. And then we have to send a formal copy to the State Department of Housing and Community Development HCD by the 27th of this month for them to begin the formal review process. Through that formal review process, they will look at our draft housing element to compare it to state law to see if we're a compliance with state law and they'll do a couple of things. They'll provide us with a comment letter saying here are some additional changes that you need to be make to the housing element to meet state law where they potentially could give us a pre-certification letter. Pre-certification letter is exactly that. It's them letting us know. It's HCD letting us know that they have reviewed it. They feel that the draft as in the form as it is would meet substantially meet state law and it is adopted by the council and sent to the state for certification that they would certify it. So ultimately that is the goal for us to receive a pre-certification from HCD before we move forward with any rezoning of the other components to this. So, how many people in here know this is sort of your first time dealing with housing law? You can raise your hand. I mean, I'm just trying to figure out what I should explain. So fair number of you, right? Okay. So this is all driven by the state of California. The state of California has decided that we, they, I'm going to say they because they're not we, are going to require cities to set aside zoning or establish zoning so that private parties can build more residential units and that's going to solve the states affordable housing crisis. That's the theory. Now you can agree with the theory or you can disagree with the theory. It doesn't matter. It's state law. And every city, the primary one here about the newspaper is hunting to beach. But heaps of cities have tried to challenge this, have tried to say the state does not have the authority to do this, and every city has lost. many of them spending millions, multiple spending, hundreds of thousands of dollars in that process. It is a futile effort to fight the state on this. Every court has ruled against cities. So this is dumped in our lap. This is not something the city wants to do. It's not something the city council wants to do We're doing it because we have to comply with state law So what does that mean? What are all these terms that the city manager is using? Well the main Document that governs the laws of the city is called a general plan So the city of Le Haber Heights has a general plan one part of that general plan is called a general plan. So the city of Lahabra Heights has a general plan. One part of that general plan is called a housing element. All the different parts are called elements. You have land use element, recreation element, circulation, traffic elements. This is the housing element. And what state law requires is it goes through this process and it said, Lahabra Heights, you have to put laws in place zoning laws that will allow X number of units, homes, apartments, town homes, different things to be built. And our number is 244. So state says city, you got to put zoning laws in place that allow there to be 244 units to be built. Now city you're not going to you don't have to build those units. Cities are not in the business of building properties that usually ends horribly, right? But you have to put the zoning in place which are the land use regulations that allow units to be built, and the first place you have to put that is in the housing element. So what we're here about tonight, and this is like, referee was saying, there's no final decisions tonight, this is the public hearing process. We're glad everybody's here because this is the process. This is where we get the public's input. We have to pick certain sites and the rationale is if you pick certain sites within the city and you put a certain zoning on top of it which is you can build this number of units, you can get to laws in the city that allow for these additional 244 units to be built. So this is often a contentious issue in every city, right? Because like Lahabra Heights, a lot of cities value their residential neighborhoods and the reality is the state is making cities put zoning in place for usually apartments or condos or something of that nature in the residential or a adjacent to residential neighborhoods and nobody likes that. And once again you can say that's a horrible idea or yes that's a good idea the the ethical or personal opinion aspect of it doesn't matter because it's the law. Now, like I said earlier, well then let's fight the law. Everybody says city attorney, man up, fight the state. Everybody's lost. And they just spend lots of money on overpriced attorneys to lose. It gets you nowhere. And the state can do horrible things to you if you do not have a proper set of zoning regulations in place. So they can take away your building permit authority. Which means if you're coming in and you want to remodel your kitchen, the city can issue you a permit because you don't have a compliant housing element. They can find you $100,000 a month and they can multiply that and get up to $600,000 a month and I assure you the city of La Habra Heights does not have that sitting in the bank. So and some say just what's the city that Bertorot Valley is basically on the cost of a bankruptcy because they've been trying to fight the state. They can take over your zoning, and a court gets to decide where people can build apartments, townhomes, within the city. And probably the most problematic from a local perspective is something called the Builders Remedy, which is where a developer, like because we have some big lots in the city right some beautiful homes They can come in they can ignore if we don't have our laws in place They can ignore all the zoning laws of the city and pretty much build whatever they want in the city wherever they want So what the city is forced to do and once again this is saying this is, we want it, it's the law. So what the city can do is put zoning in place to the best of its ability through this process with everybody's input, trying to pick the sites where we can think are the best way to put these homes with the least impact upon the rest of the community. And here we are. And that's what we're trying to do. If we, the first step in that process is we put a draft housing element, which is what Rafferty was talking about, and we send it to the state. It's a state department called HCD, housing and community development. And they have within 60 days, they have to get back to us and say either that looks good or it doesn't look good. And frankly they're pretty tough to deal with. They're a state agency, but that's that's the straw that everybody draws on this state currently. Once that happens, if we get a certified element, then we are immune from all of those bad things I listed, and then we have to put zoning in place, which are the actual land use regulations, which put into law the ability to build more units on the various sites that are selected. So that's the process that we're going through this evening, trying to figure out what we should submit to the state so we can get to our number of 244 and be compliant with the law. One other wrinkle, so LaHobrites has never had a certified element, which is unique, I think, within the state of California. The state ain't having it with us anymore. And they threatened to sue us, and I mean, this isn't my first rodeo, it was a real thing. So we entered into a stipulated judgment, rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting them on a losing cause right Don Quillotty and Tiltine after windmills we are with in-excipulated judgment where we basically said the city yes we're going to do something give us nine more months to go through this process we will submit something if we need more time we can ask for more time but it's got to be a reasonable request. Buh, blah, blah. So if you hear something about, well, we're in litigation with the state or we settled with the state, that's what we're talking about, the stipulated judgment. So that's the basic overview. Is that, I think, mayor, is there anything else? Mayor Pro Tem, acting mayor, former mayor, future mayor. Is there anything else you would like me to explain? I tried to be as simple. I don't know if you could give a few words about the fact that we tried to get this site on the other side of Harbor and how that plays in. So maybe Raf you want to talk about the history on that particular site because we've been trying this for years. I did want to say that Mr. Litt and that he's the city attorney for Villa Park and they manage to get their housing element and he also is for your Belinda. So we hope he's as good as his credentials. Well. But he's an experience when he tells you he's been doing this. And in your window, we actually had to in your window has an anti-density voter initiative, sort of like Newport Beach Greenlight. Anyway, so we had to go to a vote of the people in order for them to the voters to change the zoning. So I pretty much did this 20 times in the community center and Parks and Rack you know because everybody was incredibly interested because it's important right it's our community we you know want to limit the impacts upon our community but yeah so I've been dealing with the wonderful static California for a while. You want to talk about the site, right? Just a quick summary that we tried just zoning, you already mentioned it, but we tried zoning across Harvard. Yes. In previous attempts of the housing element in the past, the city has identified property along the east side of Harper Boulevard for potential affordable housing. So higher density on those particular properties. And as we moved through the process previously, that was a site that we had identified. There's a couple of things that came from that 3HD. Some of it was related to about now. We are concentrating this potential area for lower income housing in one part of the unit. And are we being discriminatory by just zoning that in one particular zone that came up quite a bit. We were able to work through that with them to where they understood that it wasn't that we were trying to just zone them in one particular part and we're trying to be discriminatory. But it was just that was a large available site, had the potential for it in there. So we worked through some of those issues. They went back and forth with us related to the utilities to it. There is water in our boulevard. There is no sewer in our boulevard in the heights. So that's one of the things we worked with them related to trying to look at packaging plants, many processing treatment plants on site. We looked at what it potentially would cost to add a extend to sewer line from like Arbolita is downward as sort of the lower end of it. Up to the site, we tried to write programs where we would go out and aggressively go after grants to try to get grant funds to be able to connect the sewer to the particular to that site. And you know, our own money, grant money, we tried everything, we really could try to ultimately stick with just that one site. Unfortunately, through that process, HCD would not grant us approval and certification based on just that one site and going through those steps. Even you know We would have to pay to put the sewer in potentially even trying to get grants funds for it just it wasn't acceptable to them Thank you so Does anybody on the council have questions of staff? I'm not sure if this is directed necessarily to staff, but to sort of emphasize a couple of things. First, as our city attorney tells us, we don't have any choice but to try to designate properties that fit and allow us to be certified. That means that there's going to be properties that we're going to designate that we don't actually believe maybe we'll ever be built on. But what we're doing is we're saying that if someone has the audacity to build on some of these properties or the money to do it. We'll let them do it by zone. Our efforts here are circumscribed by the time of the stipulations. So we haven't held late June to complete the process. We had a close session meeting today that discussed the litigation. One of the things that I think we're going to try to do today is once we give you some basic information and share that with you, we're going to attempt to adjourn the meeting to next week and hold an open workshop where we openly discuss the terms and conditions of the project designed that we're suggesting. We'll take more comments from folks. We're the design of the overall proposal that we have to make to HCD would give anyone, in my grain, for a couple of years. It's totally designed around the bureaucrats desire to have it their way. And so if you were to sit and try to read it and I'd encourage you to do that if you wanted a migraine, we're going to attempt to synthesize it to the truly important parts and that really is in our province. What sites are we going to make available in our view. And how do we argue that they are appropriate sites? And how do we argue that there are limitations upon the sites that you're created by topography? And then, and earthquake conditions, and stormwater conditions, and mudslide conditions, and all of those other things. We got a bunch of wonderful written comments that are very thoughtful. The one thing that's true about them is they're consistent. We all know that this is a very unique city, but the state doesn't give a damn. So the reality is, is that we're going to have to sort of try to fix ourselves as a cube into a circular hole. And we're going to do it in a way that none of us are going to really love. But it's we're going to do our best to moderate that. We have a couple of pretty good ideas that we think will then are in the current draft. We'll continue to refine it until we get to the until we get until the 27th when we have to submit this draft. We won't get any one of the things that happens with the state of course is they don't actually say, oh yes, here's what you can do, and if you do that, we'll approve you, no, no. We have to suggest stuff to them, and then they have the power to question it, shoot it down, modify it, argue about it, bitch about it. At the end of the day, there's only so much land here, though. So part of the issue is for us that makes us unique is we have our one acre zoning, which is now being ripped away from us. The positive part of that is that the topography means that you still can't build on a lot of these properties under one acre because you're just not in the room to do it to create the building. So what we're hoping to do here is complete the process to the first stage. Once we've got to the first stage of the 27th, their obligation is to come back to us and say, here's what we agree with, here's what we don't agree with. Then we have an opportunity to job on that with them. That'll come back to public comment once again. But the one thing that Todd said that's true is these people don't really care about us. This is a political game that we're parts of. And we're going to have to play it the best way we can play it. And I think we have some ideas that will be not, we actually don't think that some of this owning would ever be developed. But that's okay. It's not our job to do that. Our job is to say we'll make it available if someone's fool enough to try to do it. That would be my thoughts at the moment. I'm just a little bit with the city attorney who was saying it's a state lawn. We have to comply with this. It's not something we want to do. Believe me. The thing we do have a little bit of latitude on and I'm looking for public comment on that as the number is 244. So we have to come up with that number 244 to be certified. We do have some latitude about where they're placed. And you can look in the housing element and see that the locations that so far that have been picked out that have viable services. And it's a long hos anda here and recently we added the element of the property south of us here at the school is there's that could be developed too with I guess in my opinion that's my opinion lesser lesser impact to the citizens. It's on the other side over there. So with those numbers in that, we can maybe drop this property up here out of the equation and put it down here. But I guess I'm looking for input as far as you're looking at the parcels we have here and you know based on what we have if you have other ideas for other parcels and things you know fine but we're stuck with the 244 and we have to come up with site specific and rezone the city to comply with the law to allow that 244 number. Are you okay? No, I'm not okay, but none of the sorry wouldn't be here otherwise. But I will withhold my comments until a little bit later. Thank you. And I wanted to say I think the public comment in your participation is extremely important. One, because of the wear, the choice, and if you have other suggestions, and I think from a political standpoint, it's very important. Maybe housing doesn't care, but I think it does have an effect if the community takes a position and I've heard a lot lately, more recently people have become very concerned about emergency. So I think your participation is extremely important. So we're going to set the time at three minutes. Christina will wave a 30 second and I'll start with Glen Shepherd. Is he here? Okay. Dina will wave a 30 second and I'll start with Glen Shepherd. Is he here? Okay. For those of you who don't know, Glen lives right up here at the edge of one of the proposed resounds. three zones. Good evening, Councilmembers. Can everyone hear me? I couldn't hear half the comments from the staff because that is not loud enough. But my wife can probably fill me in with what was said. Okay, anyway, I'm Glenn Shepherd, 1403, Hossie and of Road, LaHobber Heights. I'm a 32-year resident at that address. We live in a semi-forest-like environment, okay? Rugged, steep canyons. We're in a very high-risk fire danger area. My house insurance can prove it. Thank you, fire department. That keeps the pricing down a little bit. We should remember six firefighters were killed up there on Hossie under road in one of the many fires that we've had in the city. Okay, so we're not immune to fire like some cities might be. States forcing you to destroy the one acre general plan. Your harbor boulevard plan for multifamily housing is on a major four lane highway close to a large grocery store it makes sense okay. The states rejecting that they want you to put 135 units specifically of the 244 on Hosseianda road right here, about 100 yards away, and then at that little piece of property that you use for staging construction, reconstruction and all that at Weston, Hossianda. 135 units. Okay. has anyone ever tried to drive Hossie Enda between 7 and 9 in the morning or maybe 3 and 7 at night? I don't know how fire trucks, EMTs, ambulances get through that mess. Now we're gonna put more cars in that road bed. It doesn't make sense. So what do you do when those power lines up there at the top of the hill get blown over in the Santa Ana, south wind going to the beach, ignites the top of the hill and just forces it right down through the Hossi Inda corridor. Okay? A lot of people aren't going to be able to get out west and east. They're going to go down Hossi Inda and maybe we'll see a bulldozer pushing those cars off the burnt cars off the roads so the fire trucks can get through like we're seeing in palisades. Anyway, okay, so I'm concerned about safety. Two solutions. One, pursue the harbor boulevard rezoning, defend it, including expenses such as consultants to defend it. Also double the church property calculations from 10 units to 20. Right now your plan shows 10. Yet you just said we can budget, we can legally put 20 on. That's the plan. So why aren't we putting 20? Okay. That'll get rid of 20 units somewhere. Resonance into schools already mentioned. Secondly, in four years, we're going to get another 200 units. Where are you going to put that? How is this going to work if you don't fight to change the law? Okay? I suggest that we defend our general plan. We join coalitions of cities, support a March 26 proposition to modify. I'm not trying to get rid of Rina, but modify it. Make it respect certain environmental and topography areas like us, okay? And finally, although I don't know, approach our Assembly Member and Senator and ask for a specific legislative exemption from Rina. If Gavin Newsom can put a huge stadium up in Sacramento by bypassing Seaport and everything else with spot legislation, then hey, how about us? We've got an issue with safety. And I think you should keep the, am I out? Oh, thank you very much. Do keep the residents informed. Thank you very much for your time this evening and your service. I'm going to go to the Councillor Neill. Good evening, Council Members and Staff. My name is Ray Fernandez. I'm a 20-year-plus resident of this Fine City. As you know, I've served as a planning commissioner three different times currently the vice chair. And I'm here speaking as a private citizen. I in no way presume to speak for my fellow commissioners. So first I want to say I'm not here to promote the building of apartments. I believe that the one acre zoning to me is one home per acre, I should say. That's why I moved here. You know, if I want to be crowded like sardines, I'd go to the end of the last palomans and live up on that street in Whittier, but I choose to live here. I'm not even a big fan of the state mandate at 8 UDs that can be built four feet from my property line, but we have no choice in there. Now, you may think that as a retired developer, I've been in the business 45 years, I would welcome a lot of new housing being built, but really nothing could be further from the truth. So I met with two of our council members. They reached out to me and I've got a pretty good handle on what we need to do. We're here because this issue has been kicked down the road. The can has been kicked down the road for so many years. I noticed in a report in 2022, we needed 172 units, now we need 244. But anyway, I want to offer a solution. I think the property on Harbor is the best site. I know the state has rejected it because no sewer, and it's too far east, but it's actually a perfect site from many issues and I agree with the first speaker. So when I heard that the issue was a sewer, I didn't think that was a big deal. I mean, that's something you take into the cause. So I reached out to a good friend of mine who was a principal in a big development company. And I talked to him about the issue with the sewer, you know, Mylon A.F. down the road, whatever. And he sent me an email and it's not really a big problem. So I'd like to read just a couple of paragraphs real quick. It says, based on our conversation, my brief review of the potential housing sites and also a brief conversation with one of our project managers. I believe the site along harbor Boulevard should be considered for housing. Although the founder of diversified Jeff Burm and also founded so-called housing, now known as the National Community Renaissance Corps. Corps has built and manages more than 10,000 affordable housing units in California, Texas, and Florida, most of the new development projects by core are in Southern California. Ten acres is a large site for core, given their ties credit deals normally are funded on properties in the 80, 120 unit range. But he says it's a doable. So I would urge the council to end the city attorney to renew your efforts to maybe talk some sense into the plan checker, I guess that's reviewing the housing plan. I know that's easier said than done. And I want to see this issue put to rest. I think we're spending way too much money on legal fees. No disrespect, miss city attorney. Otherwise you did a great explanation. And I hope it is kind of nice to see such a great turnout standing room only out there. So I just want to say to my fellow citizens, the city is between a heart and a rock place. None of these council members, one of a bunch of apartments built, but they're dealing with this issue and they're doing their duty. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ray. Thank you for going that extra mile. The letter from the developer is public and it's been distributed. Quon Lee. Good evening Council membersmembers and staff. And so you're turning, thank you for explanation of the need. I'm not here to dispute against the 244 homes, but just to address what the emergency preparedness I, the current chair of Quenley 2020 House in the road that's, get that address done. And the current chair of the Public Safety Emergency Preparedness Committee have been on the committee since 2019 and trying to address the wildfire issues and emergency issues that the city is exposed to throughout the city. So the tragic fires are specific palisades and also to exemplify the mistakes the state of California is making and attempting to enforce construction on dense residential properties in our hill area. The narrow one lane roads that are in east west limit evacuation routes as we saw during the Pasadena and Palisades fire where drivers abandoned their vehicles as the fire spread rapidly and significantly delayed emergency responses access to the battle of fire. The Hobber Heights is mostly made up of narrow and winding roads with increasing population density will endanger existing and any new residents. With homes spread out over two hilly ridges, additional homes will only increase traffic in and out of the city. It's already over use of Hasey Interroad, the main egress. February 2024 storm dropped 13 inches of rain in less than two days. Distorm caused, storm drains to be clogged and causing the roads to be covered up to three feet of water and mud. Making the roads inaccessible by both residents and emergency responders. Considering the unique makeup of La Habra Heights and its only one fire department, the state housing requirement to add 244 homes on Hossie in the road and a fire prone area with limited evacuation routes, no sewage facilities, limited city services, primary due to our budget and revenue, will only compromise the service to both the new and current residents. By placing these 144 homes north of the water company to water Alvacado Crest, would only increase not only traffic, but possibly cut off emergency services to the rest of the city. From wild, earthquake, and flooding. So after listening to all this, you know, we do have kind of an idea. Haseyna Road has more services that are, or harborable, where it has more services that are available for the new residents, i.e. public transportation, which we don't have. And as the previous speaker also said, Hossie noted is readily used. And if any issues arise either on Kalima and Fullerton Road, we become a parking lot. Imagine us having a fire. Where are those 244 people gonna go? And where, with the fire department south of the city, where is the fire department gonna get to emergency spaces? So I think the idea of putting something on Haasian road, or a full ocean road with four lanes is much more feasible than trying to just put 244 residents in just a condensed area. Because as you know, our biggest concern is if we have to go because the win and we have less than 10 minutes It's not gonna happen. Thank you My cues Well good evening everyone it's been a while since I've been here and our acoustics still suck. That's true. I wanted to start off with more of an announcement and an invitation to our equestrian community. Fortunately, we have a property also outside of La Habra Heights in Peacore Vera. And in the event, we were to have a wildfire here and need to evacuate. I just wanted to make the offer available. We could accommodate 10, maybe 12 mayors or guildings and house them, feed them and care for them. So just an offer to our community. Back to the item that we're speaking of, the housing development and the increased inconveniences that would cause. One of the vehicles that I have to evacuate with is a 40-foot fifth-wheel trailer. I need to be able to get out of here with my animals. The development that was suggested of being on West and Haseyenda would sincerely cramp the West side from getting our equestrian community out of the area in the event of a fire. We should take example from what's recently happened in Pacific Palisades. If adjustments need to be made as to where we place these 244 units, I strongly agree with those that have commented before that we look towards harbor. The idea of utilizing west and Hossianda puts a big cramp to the west side. I cannot take my trailers out through any of the other avenues other than west and Hossie and I. I don't want to be stranded. Give me a way to go. Perhaps looking at the Fullerton Harbor Boulevard area is a far more feasible approach than building it within our infrastructure, which is already compromised with our narrow streets and normal commuting just getting through. We have tree trimming being done and I notice we have to shut roads down in order to get things done here. In the event of an emergency we have to shut roads down in order to get things done here. In the event of an emergency, we have to be able to get our animals out. They are a vital part of our lives as well. So let's please keep that all into consideration. We are a heavily equestrian oriented community, and we need to care for our large animals. So again, I can accommodate 10 to 12 if we have to bail, but no stallions. I've got too many mayors. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hughes. Alex. Alex Bill and Aweva. Good evening. Good evening. I just want to speak on item 13 on this new, I know the pressure from the state of revise our plan and what we're going to accommodate these 240-4 homes. But I just want to hopefully, you guys, whatever legal means you have to put a pause in light of the fallout from the, the Eaton Canyon and the Palisade's fire. Because both of those has really revealed the shortcomings right now in terms of housing density and pushing development further, further into the interface between the wildlands and the suburbs. And just the sheer nature of trying to do evacuations, massive evacuations is proved to be a fall that we're at the mercy of nature. So I don't want to condemn more people to be in the threat of not making it out of an evacuation event of a major, we just saw. And the likelihood that will occur again are great. And the last time there was a major fire through here was a 1555 or so. So that means that's an awful lot of underbrush that hasn't been removed. And I want to encourage you definitely to make sure you're aggressive on the brush clearance and the defensible areas around properties. And I want to commend you for what you're doing in that regard. But there's a lot of properties that don't have, but they're not owner-occupied lots that they belong to businesses, or they're part of government properties that are not cleared. And that's of concern. And but if you can put a pause on whatever you're doing in terms of getting the feedback from the after-action from this, it's going to be very key because it's going to inform how you move forward. And I think and I agree with most of the speakers here, it's a follow the disquease 244 more housing everyone on the community. I think that's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Tim Evans. Good evening, everyone. My name is Tim Evans. I'm representing Marsha Norris. Sue resides at 1337 North Hossie, and I feel like I need to talk to you a little bit as well. Marsha's been on that property since the 1950s. Her and her father had a big hand in building that property. And since I married Gale in 1987, which is Marsha's daughter, we've always had plans for what to do with that, and we've continually kind of been stifled by the existing zoning laws that said we can or can't do certain things. So you can imagine how we felt when we found out in December of 2024 that there might be other plans for that property. And so I'm here tonight not to refute what Rina has put on us as a city. I think it's reasonable to expect that that would happen. But I'm here to talk about a few things that I'd like to have as an ask. So one ask and a couple of other items. I've submitted to the council of you a document that has all my comments. I'm not going to have time to go over each one, but I would like to focus on a couple. Yep, that's the document. Yep. And the first is the subject of communication. So as I mentioned before, we've just become aware of this and it's probably not any fault of anybody. So we take the accountability and saying maybe we didn't understand how we needed to understand and communicate and be aware. But now we are informed. So we spent time looking at the website. I know nowhere to find documents now, which is great. Whoever has done that has done a really good job, especially recent iterations. I've looked at several iterations of the website. So thanks for that. But we don't feel like we've been reciprocated in terms of communication. So our ask, especially over the last two or three years, we have had no communication directly to Marsha. So that being the case, we'd like to ask for overcommunication. So anybody that is impacted by any of these plans, for example, has a direct impact like Marsha's property does now. We'd like to, excuse me, request that there be overcommunication. What overcommunication really means is that we are personally contacted, we're sent emails, something above and beyond the normal level of go to the website and see what's there. Come to a city council meeting and understand. We will do that now that we know. But we're asking for that overcommunication. So that's the one item I'd like to talk about. The next item that I'd like to talk about is my general impression of what goes on in the housing element and some of the accountability issues. My background, I led a research and development team for a large manufacturing of medical devices in Breake, California recently retired. So now I've got a little bit more time to look at some of these things like this. manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing, not saying I know everything, I'm saying that I'd like to give you my perspective. So one of the key things when I read the housing element is that it really lacks a comparative analysis of options. And my take on the debate about the location of housing and the distribution within the city is really inhibited by not having a good brom or avoid the measure options. So you've got one iteration that says, hey, you know, harbor bull of art might be a good choice. And then you've got feedback that comes back from the state that says, no, that doesn't meet our requirements for DEI, right, among other things, among the sewer too, right? But those are, the sewer is a solvable problem, right? The DEI thing is a little bit harder net to crack. And they say we want to distribute within the city where these sites are. And we say, okay, that sounds great. But we really have no direct comparison, right? And a criteria established to say, if we've got all these various options or combinations of options, what is a criteria by which these things will be measured? If we had that, it'd be very simple to create what I call a comparative matrix that says this is by far the best option, number one, clear winner. This is number two. This is number three. This is number four. When you have that then, you have a great basis for conversation with the state and others. We're doing it on time. Great. So, I know that's not something that's easy to implement. It's not something that the stipulation would support immediately. But what you could do is you could say that to the state and when you submit this next version on January 27th, look, an upcoming submission of the housing element to the state is qualified with the verbites that says we have an ongoing activity with more formal comparison options, which may significantly impact a future revision of the plan because that's what this is about. The design development plan, housing element is not static. I know there's a seven or eight year window on those things, but it's never static. And there's nothing that says we can't have iterations and modifications to make it better for all people who both. So that's my message for tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Rick Brooks. Good evening, Rick Brooks, Skyline Drive. This evening I'm up here speaking as a private resident. Mr. City Attorney, I want to say thank you for your explanation for the community of the process. I wanted to read my statement into the file. The dangers and costs of 244 residents being added to the City of the Haber Heights for the state housing element mandate. The Haber Heights is located in a very high fire zone per cal fire. Hello, as of this writing, there are three fires burning in the Los Angeles area. Over 40,000 acres have burned. Over 15,000 structures destroyed. Over 150,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and businesses and 26 deaths. I'm a 15 year resident of Lahabra Heights and I've served on the planning mission for six years. I have a very good understanding of the city's infrastructure. The roads, the majority of our roads are extremely narrow and we're cut in the 30s, 40s and 50s. None of them have- The most have little or no- or older and are only 20 foot wide. The addition of 244 residents would add 488 more vehicles that would need to evacuate in the event of a wild car. In panic, the residents of Pacific Palisades trying to flee, left their cars blocking the road and access for emergency vehicles. The fire department had to use bulldozers to move the cars. These delays no doubt added to the extent of the damages. The cost to widen 41.7 miles of roads that we have in La Haber Heights to today's safety standards is estimated at $400 million. If the state of California will issue a grant in that amount, it would be a good start to make this community safe to add the 244 more units. Suer. 90% city is on septic tanks to build high density housing on septic tanks is simply not feasible. Therefore, any multi-unit housing project would have to run miles of sewer lines that would make the project not cost-effective. A few years back, they put a cost investment on the whole city to go on sewer and it exceeded $150,000 per parcel. Therefore, the roughly 2,000 parcels would cost approximately $300 million. If the state of California will grant the city another $300 million to upgrade their sewer systems to make the multifamily units more feasible. Oil wells, the city has within six, eight, two miles, nine oil well sites. This California has deemed it unsafe to build a residence within 3200 feet of a well. This 3200 foot radius encompasses well over 60% of the city. So in closing, if the state of California will grant the city of La Haber Heights $700 million to upgrade its roads and sewer systems to safe standards, and remove the law of no oil wells within 3,200 feet of a residence, the city will gladly figure out how to add 244 more housing units in its buildable space. If the state is not willing to do the above and remove the mandate, then it should take full responsibility for all the damages and the lives lost in the event of a wildfire in our small rural city. Thank you. Thank you,. Dicks. Dr. Martin Offenberger? Offenberger, 1863, Cashland Road, and since 1971, it's obvious that all of you have thought this through very well. It's obvious that you've given it a lot of time, effort, and energy. And if that's true, then what we're left with is people on the east side of the heights wanting the housing on the west side and people on the west side wanting it on the east side. And that's not really how we've ever accomplished anything in the past. We've done it as a unified community and with both sides sticking up for causes that have happened on one side or the other. Okay. Generically, if there's a problem that we have, that we've thought out completely thoroughly as well as we possibly can, that means, presumably, that within the limitations of our thinking, we've given it our best, but that also doesn't preclude the possibility that the answer comes from outside of our usual way of thinking. And if that's true, it's going to look weird. It's going to be different, and it's going to be difficult to sell. Now the question is, this is the third existential battle or cause that I've been involved in since I've been in this community. The first was when we took on the County of Los Angeles in the 1970s. We all put in a lot of effort and energy and we won. We created this city. The second time was when we took on these two enormous international oil companies that everybody said we couldn't possibly take on and we won that one too. This time the adversary is the state of California. Now, either we have people with the energy and the determination to take on the city of the state of California, or we don't. If we don't then let it be, let it be, the answer will come to us, let it be, you know. And we might as well get behind that. But there is a possibility that there is an answer, and that that answer is outside of the way that we normally think. But I don't know if we have that energy. A lot of the people who have had that energy are now dead. But yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, you only have 30 seconds left. Yeah. So that's the question. I think that this City council represents the best of what we have in this community and that they're sincerely interested in providing us with the best possible solution to this situation. So if we decide that we want to just let it be, we've got the best people here to do that. But there are other answers available and I don't have time to discuss them now, but they do exist. Thank you. Thank you. on. Good evening, my name is Polly. On and I live at 875 Piccacho Drive. My husband has lived here for 55 years. I've lived here for 42. I'm not a great public speaker so I'm going to read what I wrote. We must acknowledge that California faces a real problem, not enough affordable housing for all its residents. However, the idea of building low cost housing in La Haber Heights is a bad idea. Although well-meaning, the social experiments simply won't work in La Haber Heights. La Haber Heights is a hillside community with narrow roads, limited ingress, egress, private sewage systems, and very expensive construction costs. These facts make La Haber Heights an unsuitudable place for high density residential construction. I know that firsthand. We just did a remodel. As we have seen firsthand with the recent wildfires, it is extremely important for the residents to have a good road system to get in and out of during an emergency situation. Lahabar Heights is a bedroom community with limited resources including financial resources. Also there are no sidewalks, no street lights, no retail shopping, and no other amenities commonly found in most cities along with public transportation. That being said, the idea of creating high density housing in La Habra Heights probably won't work. The state must realize that the nature of our city makes it different from other places and that one mandated rule will not work in every situation. In other words, we don't have much as it is. And if there are more straws in the punch bowl then you will have even less to go around. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Stephen, Stephen Blackdon. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. It is most important for public notification involvement. I think more people were here for barking dogs. Will previous comments and those tonight be incorporated into the housing element? Either as changes are included documentation before the January 27th of middle. Current fires burning are assertive in the consequences of density and placing homes on narrow roads, essentially, with one way in and out. We are told the city isn't responsible for building true, but if there is not building within a certain number of years, the city will go back to the penalty box. It is your responsibility to protect the health, safety and welfare of residents. If the state is requiring you to endanger citizens, you say no and we will support you. I have sent you multiple letters and communications regarding errors or missions, suitability of chosen locations and overlay instead of base rezone and several additional topics that could or should be in the element, including fire safety, evacuation, oil wells, fire insurance, homeless, shelter alternative, and more. Other than a couple of corrections made and have been addressed, you need to be fully conversant with density bonus and no net loss. With the state requirement of 20% affordable right to build, the 244 housing unit quota could become 900 units, a 50% increase of the existing number of homes and residents. This is not a one-time ordeal to get through. This one will be comparatively easy. The state will be backed every five to eight years with another quota and diminution of the rural environment until it is gone. You need to be discussing the big picture. How and where will this and future quotas be dealt with and placed. The only true solution is representation and Sacramento and restoration of local control. The biggest impact of high density apartment building type housing is not the large and slightly buildings, crime, noise, or increase in demand on city services, but the change in voter interests. A parkman in condo dwellers will not be interested in rural living, having animals, dark skies, no streetlights, no sidewalks, no shopping areas, etc. They can vote those out and bring in urban features and development. The city was founded to control land use and have our own volunteer fire department. If the state is going to hijack land use control, what point is there in being an independent city? Should city reserves be used to protect the general plan stated goals and resist by all means and funds necessary efforts to destroy the city? Thank you. The last card I have is Richard Beckman. The last card on this subject. Yes, I believe Kathy saw was interested in speaking. Council thank you for letting me address you tonight I'm Richard Beckman, Alvacata Crest Road. 57 years living in La Habra Heights, five different homes to I rented one I was raised in and two others I've owned both on the east and the west side. I was on the emergency preparedness committee for four years and spent 20 years with the La Habra Heights fire department. I spent a little over a year on the emergency preparedness committee for four years and spent 20 years with the La Harbor Heights Fire Department. I spent a little over a year on the planning commission and during that time the planning commission the issue of Harbor Boulevard and the rezoning came up. And when that issue came up I told the planning commissioners I shared with them that the housing element which at that time was compressed into the land use element, lived in my living room at my house. My father was the chair of the commission or the committee pre-incorporation that was coming up with this plan as part of the general plan. We had people like Tom Higgs, Julianneus, Bill Mangum, Margaret Bayer, Walla McMan, Pete Filer, all coming once a week to my house and setting everything up for this plan that they were going to submit to the county the county hated it our Nymesis there was a I'm not gonna say the word Shabaram was the guy who was our Nymesis and he fought against it With everything he had and yet politically we went around him and Pressure the the county and ended up getting the other supervisors to vote against Shabaram. To us back then, he was as powerful as a governor. We need to push back on this in many of the ways that our community has talked about tonight. I'm very encouraged about what the community said tonight. I was kind of feeling down when I saw how this is working out. But I'm hoping that the energy that Dr. Oftenberger talked of, the other ideas that the other speakers That brought in, we need to coalesce those and bring them as a United front against the state taking over our city. Because as I was mentioned before, then why do we have a city if we can't control our own land use? We fought Azusa Avenue cutting our city in half. We fought the Abate landfill in powder canyons and they were going to make it a dump. We fought the boys incarceration camp at the end of Los Palomas. We fought cluster housing in powder can and all of these things as a community, we were able to stop larger interests than us from having their way. South Pasadena fought the 710 freeway successfully all the way through. They spent tons of money. Maybe the citizens want to spend that kind of money to push back in some way. I think that if not legally, we need to work on this politically. And the only other thing I would say is that if we've re-zoned Harbor, and I was part of that on a planning commission, we need to un-re-zoned it if we're not going to use it as that. We can't just leave it out there, a bunch of little parcels, zone for high capacity, high density, when we don't need them. Also we have the, there was something mentioned about a density vote, something I'd be very interested in us looking into if we as a community can vote locally, like what South Pasadena has done recently on the same issue with this last election in order to keep us as rural and as country as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you. So that's, we'll close the public hearing comment and return to the council. At this point. I have a partner. You didn't specify, Kathy, I'm sorry, but you didn't specify. Come right up. Kathy Solvall, Fullerton Road. I'm hearing a lot of concern with high density, which I totally understand, which will impact the reason that I'm making an announcement tonight is the way we have our residents and houses now is already difficult for an evacuation. Tomorrow night we're going to have at 6.30 p.m. in the same multipurpose room. The Firesafe Council is sponsoring a Wildland Fire Safety and Ev and evacuation, which will also be talked about large animals and horses evacuating also. We have some lessons learned from the complex fire when the highway patrol closed down the freeways and the fire was trying to jump the 57 freeway and they thought they would do the people on the freeway a great favor and dump them off onto Hacienda and Fullerton Road which really impacted us and it had the fire reached us. We would have been like Australia. We would have been overrun in our cars. And so since there is passion and stuff, I really encourage people to come tomorrow night and listen to the presentation. We will also have a Q&A afterwards. And Chief Emory will be here as well as Lieutenant Gomez from LA County Sheriff's Department out of city of industry. So I think that it would be worthwhile for people to attend and be able to get information on concerns, questions and answers. And together we can help keep Blahabra Heights a safer place to live. Any questions? Mayor Patron, may I have to question briefly? A question, if I call correctly during the freeway complex fire you tried to evacuate to see how long it would take. How long did it take you for you to go to your home, from your then home to South Rep. Witte Boulevard? Once I was on Haasienda and it's usually a three minute drive to Witte Boulevard if there's no traffic. If there's, you know, if there's normal traffic, it's like five minutes. So once I got onto Hasi and I timed it, once they opened the freeways, I timed it. It was 45 minutes in moving traffic. And that's Reposato to Whittier Boulevard. And that's one of the reasons that we, I have always said when I used to chair EPC, never, ever, ever wait to be told to evacuate. Because what happens is you gridlock, you're not going to get out, you want to take your belongings, the first trip in a voluntary situation, because by the time you come back and it's mandatory, you're not going to be able to get in and get anything else. So we really need to be proactive. We need to have a plan. We need to practice leaving in five minutes because a lot of times with a fire, you don't have time to try and figure out what you're going to take. Those things already should be decided ahead of time and also knowing your evacuation routes. Even people that have lived here for most of their lives are pretty familiar with the ways they go in and out. But there are several ways. We have information on major road closures, different evacuation things. So there's a lot of information that we'll be shared tomorrow night, so I would encourage you to come. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So at this point, we'll close the public hearing. This is limited to comments on the housing element. I know there's other cards. And once we get done with this, then we're going to go back to the normal procedure. She's on the housing element, I think. Oh, even if there's no. You are? Okay. Sorry. It says matrix oil. Yes. I'm talking about housing now. I didn't see housing. Anyway. The cat matrix oil are a max resources. Rmx resources is one of the largest surface and mineral owners in the hubber heights. Each year, matrix oil distributes almost a million dollars in oil revenue to all the citizens in the city. As you're aware, in 2022, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 1137, which creates a 3200-foot setback, or considered a health protected zone. From any, this is a, creates a dead zone, essentially, and setbacks go both ways. So from here, is that it actually prevents any future development within the setback of the health protected zone. So, lojara heights is essentially all considered a health protected zone due to the oil wells in the community. Any future development will have to require extensive and costly health studies and therefore proving anything what the city will create things potentially opposed by the oil industry and the oil company that neighbors in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I apologize. Is there anybody else now on the draft housing element? Okay. Then I will close the public hearing and return it to the council. Does anyone on the council want to talk or? Mr. Steffler? I'm pretty sure we've heard everything you said and it's all true. None of us are going to object to any of the comments that were made tonight. They're accurate. Our problem is that we're dramatically constrained so we'll do the best we can to work within trying to get ourselves certified. The other thing that I have had mentioned, and I think is worth mentioning, is that the mere fact that we change zoning on something doesn't never mean that the person who owns the property that's being re-zoned is ever going to have to sell the property for that type of development. Remember, what we're doing here is we're simply changing the classification, and we do that. Then the original use is now illegal, but an on-conforming use, but it's illegal use. And it continues that use. So the overall impact of this, if it ever were to happen, and I'm honest to God doubt that it's ever going to happen, except perhaps on Harbor and except perhaps with the Christian school next door, those two would be viable candidates for density housing that wouldn't really affect most of the problems we talked about here. They wouldn't really affect the septic system and the overflow. They wouldn't really affect storm water. They wouldn't really affect the interior traffic within the city as opposed, except for the Haasianna Boulevard and a bit of Fullerton Road. So, although it seems terrible, I mean, I think we're following the path we have to follow. We'll do it the best way we can, we'll negotiate for the best we can. But, you know, we don't, we don't hold a lot of strong cards here. You know, we want to hear what you have to say. I will tell you that everything I heard tonight I absolutely agree with. I will do everything in my power to make sure that we advance that. One of the things I was musing about is we are going to try to get certified because that is the best thing for the city that is the best in the long run as long as we don't create problems that are insurmountable. One of the things we can do is we can create a compendium all over reasons of why this is a bad idea. And we can publicize that and use that. There was some discussion about perhaps a political activity. There are other cities like us, friend of mine is on Councillor Rolling Hills. They were able to use ADUs to get past their requirement. There are other cities that are very, very similar to us that might be willing to join in the political activity to change the statute. That's really what you have to do here. The only solution we have in the long run is a group if we're going to energize ourselves, if we're going to reclaim the wonderful things we did in 1978 and thereafter is try that process and how that ultimately works is we're happy to hear whatever you whatever kind of group you want to put together we're happy to hear about it and support it. I think there's a way to possibly do that but we're going to have to have all the cities have these unique wildfire exposure characteristics. That's the key. Terrible roads and wildfire exposure. Those kind of keys might allow us to change the statute. Maybe. Anyway, that's my thoughts. Thank you all. I guess, according to what Greg was saying, the plan is on this to move forward with a workshop on it. I guess I raised my comments earlier that we have options as far as the where we put the units within the city. We're stuck with that number at 244 but they can be placed at different locations and we talked about the school site over here the density on that so I guess all of those things will be discussed when we get together in that workshop then. I'm not quite sure how to put this, but some of the pushback received from outside the city has been the implication or actually outstabbed and somehow we're doing this because we're against, or have something against low income people. Having been a long time resident law or heights, I know from firsthand experience, over the years, many significant leadership positions has been held were held by low income people. Highland writers for example was founded, so a lot of people, and some of them are finally in creating Highland writers, the horse writing group, were relatively modest, means people, blue-collar people, working people. In one case, I will mention the name for obvious reasons, but one of the principal founders of Holland writers, one of their daughters did not have enough room to live in the house for a bedroom, so her bedroom was outside the small trailer. Yet they were respected leaders in law or heights, they'll found Highland writers in a number of other things back in the pre-incorporation days. Just one example, we have a long tradition of including low-income people, moderate, people moderate means in leadership positions. Now a lot of things have changed, of course, because of the rapid rise and housing all over the place and so forth. My way to make it absolutely clear that our concerns about housing is not the fact that some of the people who be a low-income people is the high-density part. I much rather have low-income people like the quality of people we had when I was going up and high-density housing. I think that's something that I'll be clear for all of us. Thank you. So the tentative discussion was to have a workshop next Monday. Do we set that now? We continue this meeting to that. Is that? Yes, to whatever time you collectively wish. Do we do that now or at the end of the meeting? You do it now. Okay. Can we pick a time? We have to, they've given us this 100 page book. There's a lot of language in here I don't like. And as Mr. Bergman said, we've got to talk about the different sites and actually make a decision. So that's what would be accomplished and everybody's invited if they wanna come. So do we wanna pick a time? Evening, morning? I'm available at any time. Me too. I'm available. I'd rather do it during the day so we have more time. I would propose that we try to do it around three o'clock in the afternoon and schedule it for at least a couple of hours. It'll take that long to sort of start to get more detail out of the air, I think. Is that all write with everyone. Why don't we schedule it earlier because that way in case the thing runs way light. I mean I'm leaning more toward like one o'clock. Is that okay with staff? Yes. Well I'm open any time for myself personally but my major concern is make sure it's convenient for the residents to show up at the workshop and to make additional suggestions and help us out on this. So my question is will the residents be able to attend this who really have work or other schedules? I think it's better we get it as soon as possible. We have this deadline. I realize that. I just want to make sure the time would choose for the meeting during the day will be available to a lot of the residents. They can certainly submit all the comments that they want during that time period from now until, you know, if for some reason they want to come and they can't, they can certainly submit their comments, because we'll take those. So, can I have a motion to continue this particular item till I have the right. Some move. On day January 20th at 1 p.m. here. Some moved. Second. Second 20th at 1 p.m. here. So moved. Second. Second. Mr. Bergman. Yes. Mr. Defler. Angle heart say yes and Mr. Zuzulu. Yes. Thank you. And thank you all for coming. I really think it's important. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm hoping that not that I want these fires, but I can't believe the state's not going to listen after that. But we'll see. I'd like to make an additional comment on that. With the fires going on, of course, everybody's pointing fingers at everybody else and so forth. My primary concern is, obviously, for the lives of those people being who've been impacted by this, but at the end of the day, it's most important that we learn our lessons from this. And not because everybody makes mistakes, but let's learn from the disasters and the pain and the suffering that the victims of these fires are already going so perhaps we can help prevent some of the stuff in the future. Thank you. Will are there any presentations or commentations? I think Mayor just so the public knows I mean to be clear so this is basically continued until next Monday right if anybody has anything else that you think the council needs to know email letter come in person next Monday so they can discuss it digest it. Basically the council took everybody's comments tonight and are going to try and figure out the best path forward so that's what's happening. So, if you're only here for the housing element, we're done on that tonight. We're going to do other fun stuff. So you're feel free to leave or what have you or stay, you know, for the rest of the party. Before we do public comment, Mr. Pispiza, Mayor Pispiza had asked us to alert the citizens that due to the fire, he and Mr. Bergman had been working consistently with fire threats, so I'll let Brian. Well, when these fires broke out, there was obviously a big concern for the Haber Heights. And I did, of course, talk to the water district and things, and they were filling the tanks to their maximum fill point, because in case there's power loss and all those other things. And they, because I knew that, you know, something happened in the hover heights, it would be really difficult for us because we would have to, all the helicopters and all that are fighting these Augustine fires. So the only way we could get that type of support would be for the Command Center to divert those helicopters back to log rights to fight something here. So that was a huge concern of myself and I'm sure all the citizens. And on the weekend, I drove over to Potter Canyon and I noticed that place was open. And I thought, well, why is this open when we're going through this type of experience so then I talked to John. The speeds are mayor and John was very aggressive with it and he took it to Janus Hans off as so they closed all the trailheads so every parking is closed and all the trailheads are closed and I think the county actually closed more areas than that But anything to do with the Hobbri Heights is closed Until we ask that it be closed until These events are over and at least until we get some rain so it's safe up there Thank you Okay back to public comment. John Dominguez. Good evening, Council. Just a short. We remind our new guards to the upcoming Saturday the 18th Hussien the road quarterly trash pickup, volunteer trash pickup. Oh, has cleaning up Hussien the road. So yes, it's the 18th and we'll be meeting at this very room at City Hall. The effort starts at 6.45 in the morning and ends at 9 a.m. in the morning. It's never too late to volunteer either by calling City Hall Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. or telephone, 5.6.2, 6.9.4, 6.302, or send an e- email to beautify L-H-A-G-M-L dot com. Or you may see me on Facebook or next door, send me a message and we'll add you on to the schedule. The other consideration this time around is the weather. So if it's raining or if it's heavy fog or there's smokey because of the fires, then we're going to cancel it. But hopefully now that's going to happen and hopefully we'll have enough volunteers to continue our efforts for the next effort. And see, oh, nothing wanted to clarify is that these quarterly events also coincides with the park quarterly cleanup, which is a different event. It's not the same thing as some people get that mixed up. So it's two different events on the same date. My volunteer effort is to clean up as in the road to physically walk as in the road and clean it up. The other one is for residents to go to the park and leave off their bulky items to be picked up by the waste disposal company. Different events, same date. That's all I have. Thank you. I'm sorry. Rick Brooks, skyline drive. Sorry, I thought we were going to do public comment first, so I don't want to repeat myself. In regards to this fire, in the 10 years I've owned the property up on Skyline, I've never seen the winds that bad. I prayed that we didn't have a fire break out because my house is brand new, as much fire safety as could be done, and I probably would have lost it as well as the rest of our city. In the last week or so, I have to say, driving through the city, I found myself getting angry Because I looked around and I see how many people are So inconsiderate for their neighbors that haven't done weed abatement. We talk about it We talk about it. There's notices. There's notices, but yet when I drive through the city I still see all of these different weed abatement code violations. I think City Council needs to get a lot stiffer on this. You know, maybe you need to start doing public humiliation and posting everybody who has a code violation. You know, maybe you need to start finding them sooner. I don't know what it's going to take. Perhaps you need to start finding them sooner. I don't know what it's gonna take. Perhaps you need to talk to the city attorney and tell that person that in the event that we have a wildfire and their house catches on fire because it went to their house and because they didn't do weed abatement that it spread to their neighbor's house and they're financially responsible because they were out of compliance. And so not only would their house burn down, they lose everything in their house, but if they get sued by their neighbors because they didn't do their weed abatement, then they lose everything in their bank account. I don't know what it's gonna take, but you have to think of some ways to make it more painful to not do the weed abatement than to do it because that's really what it comes down to as human nature. The Eaton Canyon fire started in a habitat area and I really think that City Council should take a serious look at our neighbor and their lack of weed abatement. I don't see why they get a pass. Every resident here has to do 100% weed abatement, but yet they do a little bit here and a little bit there and they get a pass. The skyline homes over there on Kalima, very nice gated neighborhood, the habitat authority like discs, at least 300 feet from that place. So why can't they do that along all of our residences? Not just where there's a structure, but everywhere along there because we all saw the fires, we all saw the embers blowing and it's going to come from up there. The last couple of fires, correct me if I'm wrong, have been up on their property. So we need to look at that. And you know, it wasn't that, maybe it was that long ago, but 20 years ago, 30 years ago, every ridge that you would see driving around had big 40 foot wide cuts in them. You don't see that anymore. And those are fire breaks. Chief could probably tell you, it's not going to stop a fire going in that direction, but the backside of the wind is going to burn to that and stop. And then when the wind changes, it's already at a place where it stopped. I think the habitat authority should be doing that on every single one of the ridges. We need to protect our residents. Because when it happened up in Paradise, I talked about it because it hit home because my sister and I owned a house had burned down up there. When it happened in Maui, I'm sure everybody said, oh, that was Maui. Well, this is Malibu for God's sakes. Specific palisades, a whole lot nicer communities than what we have. Burned down, sad. Everybody should go visualize what it would look like if every house from Whittier Boulevard to Imperial and Beach Boulevard to the harbor Boulevard was burned down because that's what happened in Altadena That same type of square area and it happened and it started in a habitat area So please take it up with them. I'm all for the habitat. Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-habitat In fact, I rode my mountain bike up there this weekend. The tarot heads weren't closed. Somebody gave you some bad information. I went in right here on Skyline Trail, rode all the way over to Pathfinder and back up. It was all open. There was cars in the parking lot in Shabaram Park, so that I'm assuming was open. On Sunday, I rode my bike all the way over to Termbo Canyon. There was no close sides. There was nothing else. I would have respected it if there was. So I think someone gave you bad information there, Brian. Actually, it was open. That's why I said what I said. I was over there and I drove it this weekend. And you're right, it was totally open Sunday. And now they've closed it, do to our actions. I apologize, I misunderstood you then. So anyway, that's all. Just please take this very seriously. Don't let it sweep under the carpet. We need to deal with our community, but we also need to deal with the habitat authority to make it safe. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So November I was here and Mr. Manny, he talked to me, made lots of promises again. I still don't have my trash cans. And so Friday, after New Year's, I was at the park doing sandbags and he was up there and I tried to talk to him and it was very rude, very rude, disrespectful. And I guess he had a short memory on what he promised me. So I just said, I'll go to the city council meeting. He said, fine, go. And I've called three times to Kevin. And finally got a hold of a person. Her name was Paul Ling. She was very, very helpful, very nice lady, very helpful. And that was last week. And right after I talked to her, then the trash guy came. My black trash can was not picked up the week of New Year's. Then the next week he comes Friday, he's down there on the phone, I go down. I said, what are you doing? He says, well, you're out of compliance. You have six cans. He's been picking up four cans since October 1st. I said, where's the six cans? So he says, well, the truck took a picture. They took a picture of two cans on another property, and he was going to write me up for six cans. How many people is happening to? I have four cans. A camera picks up two cans, 50 feet away on another property, and he was accusing me of having six cans and gonna write me up and be charged for it. And I'm wondering how many other people, they don't even know this is happening. So I told him, you know I have four cans. Well, that's what the camera says. I mean, are we going to use people, what people see or what a camera is going to take? So then with that, he's got red tags out. Now he's going to tag me on a trash can. I still don't have my trash cans. So I'm just filling up the trash because that was a stipulation. Just fill your trash cans up. And he says, I don't know. You have too much yard waste. I said, fine, put your tags away. I'll take one back in my yard and I'll put it in bags. So now he was gonna tag me for that. I mean, honestly, I gotta tell you, I have a lot of patience, but my patience is running thin. And I feel now, it's just borderline harassment is what it's coming to and then being charged for things that are not true if I wouldn't have been down there to catch this going on I would be charged for two more cans I'm tired of fighting but I guess that's part of what they do they want to wear you out so you're just going to give up. They're going to wear you out. So I reported it to Grace. She's going to look into it or you know and see. But the other thing is the heaviness of these trucks. Okay, so we live on a private driveway. These trucks are compressing the trash and coming down and so heavy it's doing damage to our roads. Big time. The road, when you have a private driveway down, the asphalt is half the amount of the main road at the top. They were never set up to have heavy equipment down there. In the 55 years that I have lived up there, we never had big trash cans. Ever go down these roads, and you can see it on the road. It's wearing and making holes and this and that and us the people are responsible for it. So now with this new trash company these heavy trucks compressing the trash in the truck they're coming down heavy they're destroying our private driveways and we get no help fixing them. So that's another issue. I'm sure my driveway isn't the only one that's being torn up. They're all over the heights. But these trucks are heavy. And they've never been allowed in the 55 years that we have lived here. They have never been allowed. So I think that's about it. It's the trash issue again. And you know, these cameras they're using they're inaccurate you know being accused of having something when you don't have it I mean I you know it's it's beyond the pale at this point in time I've been here every single month since this debacle has started and they've made promises they deliver a lot of lip service but things are not getting done. Thank you. Catherine Howellin. Hi, I'm Cathy Howellin. I represent La Harbor Heights along with Roy Francis and Adam Nasrov. 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, and the city of New York, and the city of New York, and the city of New York, with the anticipation of them, which we now are in a flag, red flag warning right now. I just got a text saying that, and the habitat trails, I know people will be disappointed, but they will be closed until we get to a point where it's safe to open them again. But I also want to point out that the Habitat Authority has spent a lot of time doing clearance in La Harbor Heights more than they then they have in the past. I know that they've done a lot of removal of trees like in Powder Canyon we've done the mitigation removal of the debris we've had the goats came in and cleared out areas and such. Actually just recently in the last week they've been out there clearing the trails in the powder canyon as well. We do have our rangers on high alert including the chief ranger and they've been working with our fire department and working with them and they've said if you need the rangers for anything they're there for you so don't be afraid to give them a call. So that's something too but they've been if there is any problem just remember the three of us represent the city. So give us the information. Like tomorrow evening, we have a C-TAC meeting. So I know there's been questions that were said today. Forgive me, the areas that you're questioning about clearance and such, I can bring that to the attention of the board. I'm also the liaison to the board. So it's things that I can do as well for the city. So use us. You got Roy, Adam and myself, that you know are on the seat. So use us. Okay, thanks. Thank you. That's Stephen Blackness to turn around. Two things. One, there are a lot of good comments tonight that shouldn't be lost in the wind. So I hope you're going to do a transcript of the meeting and include that with the housing element you sent to the state. It's better they have software programs, audio to text, so I'm just pure free to it. Two, the minutes, the action minutes are almost entirely useless, but they do, they are supposed to document action. I noticed the closed session for the minutes you're approving tonight. It said it was a closed session but didn't say what happened. There's either no report or action, others action. The minute you say what it was, thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I had one question. I got sidetracked. I didn't use all my time. But I just asked one quick way. Certainly. Thank you, man. I just asked one quick way. Certainly. It was brought to my attention that last week we had a tragic situation where a pedestrian got hit on one of our roads. And at the location that the resident, or I'm not sure it was a resident, but the person that the resident, I'm not sure it was a resident, but the person that got hit, the bushes were way out, at the edge of the roadway and sticking out past the roadway, which is a very clear fire department violation. And I meant to bring this up. And so my question is if the chief happens to know, were those people cited? And if not, maybe he could explain why or maybe there needs to be an investigation and it needs to be looked at. But I've talked before about the roadside clearance and keeping that three foot and the 13 foot six high and this resident didn't do it and someone got hit. So anyway, it's pretty serious and I think we need to take that seriously. So thank you. Hopefully we'll have a code compliance meeting this month. All right, that was the last public comment. Moving on to committee comments No, get me to come once city council comments I Have one I'm one thing a referee. I'd like to agenda is this item regarding the Habitat and the brush clearance up there and the fire breaks for the next meeting. Do I have a discussion as far as and. Mitch, you can help get involved in that way. I want to discuss. At the next council meeting as far as Brush clearance and adequate fire breaks and what can be done to Totally safe garter city from a wild land fire Then we also have announced planning commission appointments Unless there's any other council comments. Oh, I'm really fortunate that I was able to Commend Jim Lucas to take an appointment with the planning commission. Jim's here at the evening. He's a professional engineer works for the gas company in an executive engineering position. He wants to do this job and that's a wonderful thing for us. The planning commission can always use skills that are in the engineering world and I welcome Jim to the planning commission and I think he'll do a fine job. So I thank you. I publicly thank Jim for would be willing to do it. It's sometimes a thankless job, but sometimes it's thankful. Okay, as I announced the last meeting, I appointed Steve Blight into the planning commission. And for those of those who know him well, know that he starred out. He was one of the original members of the GPAC, so help writer general plan is serve several times on our planning commission and has been involved in the city affairs for decades. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you Steve. The other part of that one will be selection of a chair and vice chair. So here's the law rights likes to chair the planning commission and the vice chair of the planning commission. It's action done by the council. I'll make an announcement. First the, um, Ross on and I thank Ross for all his dedicated work. I didn't know if he was going to continue on or not, but he recently gave me an email with his resignation. So I want to thank Ross for all his many, many years. I know I can't think back. I'll hang on after review it for probably the next meeting. But as far as when he started, it was way back when. And then there was a period of where he was off due to some health issues, and actually Fred Klein filled in, and then Fred Klein elected to get off the commission, and Ross came back on, so he's been on there for many, many years. So anyway, Ross is resigning, and in order to keep things continuing, go ahead and smooth, I'm going to, my appointment will be Rick Brooks for the future. So we should move on to electing the chair and the vice chair. I'll make a nomination to appoint Ray Fernandez as a planning commission chair. I'll second the nomination. Are there any other nominations? Mr. Bergman. Yes. Mr. Steffler. Yes. Although yes, Mr. Zouzoula. No. May I have a nomination for Vice Chair? I nominate Laura Hess to be Vice Chair. Second. I have a nomination for Vice Chair. I nominate Laura Hess to be Vice Chair. Second. Are there any other nominations? Mr. Bergman? Yes. Mr. Stephler? Yes. Angle Hart C.S. and Mr. Zuzula. Yes. Thank you, gentlemen. If I might just for a moment, I'd like to take just a second to thank Rick books for his service on the planning commission If there's ever been a dedicated guy At the planning commission Rick qualifies as being immensely dedicated and immensely hardworking So I'd like to just publicly thank him for all of his work Congratulations to Ray our new chairperson. Administrative reports. City manager's report. Just a couple of items to hit on real quick. There is, as you heard from Kathy Solval earlier, the fire watch, the law rights, fire watch is going to be having meetings tomorrow night and here about fire safety and fire safety issues. So that is tomorrow night the 14th at 6.30 p.m. a good one to attend. Similar we have a public safety and emergency preparedness committee meeting this coming Thursday at 6 p.m. We're also having an additional conversation related to fire safety and evacuation preparedness from there. As you heard from Mr. Dominguez earlier, this coming Saturday is Haasina Road cleanup. So that will be taking place on Saturday morning if you have any interest in joining us. It's a great event. Please reach out to us here at City Hall or email beautify LHH and Gmail to get in contact with Mr. Dominguez and we will see you out here on Saturday morning. And also at the same time on Saturday morning will be the first quarterly cleanup that we've had with Weir. So quarterly cleanup will be going on at the park as similar time as it has been before. So a to noon hopefully in the same sort of setup configuration we've working with them as how has been done in the past so if we will continue on as it is Normally so those are a couple of things that are coming up this week Did he attorneys report? Yeah, thank you. We did have closed session as mr. Blackden Recognize and one of the items we did discuss was the pending lawsuit Well the current lawsuit with the state overall the housing stuff There is no reportable action And just so people understand that doesn't mean we didn't talk about everything But they're only there are only certain times you actually report out a closed session what you did Like if you settle a lawsuit or if you authorize the purchase of property or fire someone and none of those types of things happened but those the items on the agenda were discussed with no reportable action. That is all. And I guess we should congratulate Mr. Litvin. We missed his first anniversary but he's been here a year now, right? Over a year. Yes. I thought leaving it. Okay. Community Development Report. I'll just highlight a couple of things for the council. At the end of the year we're going to go back through what we've done over the year. So CDD over the last year took in planning, 59 planning applications and approved 45 projects. Code enforcement has been busy throughout the year. Regular code enforcement complaints, we had 28 that came in over the year and our code enforcement staff closed 51 cases. Code enforcement officers also issued 51 stop-work orders over the last year. And we've closed 64 unpermitted stop recorder enforcement cases in that time. Throughout the year, we kind of report out on building permits we issue, kind of the four major ones, so building permits, grading, suing pools and re-roofs. Over that over the last year, we've issued 157 of those permits for just over $300,000 worth of permit fees. All in all, once you include all the permits we issue you, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, encroachment, and other things like that. Staff's issued 562 permits over the last year, as what's been issued for a little bit over $650,000 in permit fees collected. Our building inspector has done 1,051 inspections, which is pretty good for a part-time building inspector. Four days a week, we keep Michael very busy and he's a great asset to the community and does a great job with inspections. Most residents that come to know him over the course of inspections always enjoy seeing Michael when they either come in and stop by or he's back out at their house from there. Also at the same time in 2024 we did add code enforcement staff. We added a part time code enforcement officer to our staff and we also added a full time combination code enforcement and brush clearance inspector to staff over the last year as well. So having those two staff members in place, as you can kind of see with those numbers, we've closed 51 regular code enforcement cases and 64 unpermitted construction cases so we keep them quite busy. I mean it's nice to have some overlap to between code enforcement and the brush clearance side of it as well. So we keep those two staff members extra extra busy on code enforcement things and brush clearance related items. So that's all I have for CDD. I just, if I might, I'd like to command the idea of having the co-enforcement officer and the Fire Marshal work together. I think that the combination of those two people working in absolute concert is going to make some people pay more attention than they might otherwise pay. So I'd love to have some apocryphal feedback about how that's working as we move forward into this process. Okay. Fire Chiefs report. Okay for the December of fire chiefs report, I'm happy to report that we've had a slow month in December. We're down 47 calls this month. Usually we average about 60 per month. 47 calls. And we have the Pierce Fire Engine. It's now been moved over to Elsonore where it's being outfitted with radios, compliant with LA Rix. We're expecting to have the rig in service by summer. I really hope that we can get all of the equipment and radios all together so we can bring it here and put the 7-7-1 rig that we're using now into reserve. It just came out of the shops actually. We were unable to deploy on the like recent fires because we only had the 7-7-2, the type III fire engine that we have. It was the only one that was available for deployment and we were using it as our front line. As you might be aware, Al-Kaldi has read left city service and chief Ryan Jorgensen has stepped up to assume the brush clearance program. He is also going to service the city's paramedic coordinator since he already interfaces with Lemsa and the EMS authority. So I'm happy to bring him on board as a replacement for Al, but there's going to be a learning code for Ryan as he gets acclimated to the rigors of the BCP. And that's it. No more, nothing else? Thank you. So we're not going to have the fire engine till summer? I would rather say summer and be conservative, and then if we get it earlier, then it's a joy, right? So we seem to always run into some hurdle but I hope that we can get it by May. Of course, we have to honor Senator Archuleta at the right time. Sheriff's Department report? Good evening, council. Reporting three aggravated assault incidents that occurred in the months of December. One grand theft motorhome that's probably related to one of the aggravated assaults. It was a domestic violence incident, which probably turned over to the, it probably be a sale matter between a couple. One identity theft report, we had four vehicle collisions, one hidden run, it's under investigation, and I like to report there was no burglaries for the month of December. Just a note, if there's any suspicious activities in the community, please notify the Sheriff's Department. We had arrested two burglar, excuse me, two arsonists this weekend, not in this city, but close by. And one was one of the arson incidents was a cover up for a homicide. But if you see any activity in the city that's not normal normal people that are mainly outsiders, please notify the Sheriff's Department. It's a suspicious activity. That's all you have to say. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Moving to the consent calendar. Does anyone want to pull an item? May I have a motion? I went a question just to clarify. These minutes have replaced the original minutes on the agenda. There's another set of minutes from December 9th. Yes. And the correction was made in other words. There's a revised set of minutes. Right. Dias. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. I, Diane. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. I'm ready. The. It's like I forgot what I do. We don't need them. Do we have a motion to prove all the items on the consent calendar? Move approval. I'll second it. Mr. Zazula. Yes. Englehart's a yes. Mr. Steffler. Mr. Bergman. Yes. We've done 13. 14. Fresh Clarence costs. Thank you, Mayor Prozem. On this item, council member Steffler actually has a conflict related to the properties on this item. So they'll have to reduce himself from this particular item which is related to Protissiering for unpaid brush clearance costs. Which means you actually have to get up and come back and sit with us back here Can't be on the dius or go in the back If you want to know the football game score I can tell you it's a horrible result no And for those interested I am a proud Minnesota Vikings fan and I'm very sad right now No, the Rams are winning. They won I just ruined that for people hopefully What yes, I was gonna say there any public comments on item 14 the I'm a charge of fan. I'm an L.A. Friend. What? Yes, I was going to say, are there any public comments on item 14, the unpaid brush clearance costs? Bringing it back. May I have a motion to adopt the resolution? Okay. I may have a brief comment. The usual questions they ask. Are these all recurring violations that have occurred year after year? Two of them were frequent flyers, correct. Two, are these the two vacant properties? One is vacant and one has a house on it. Okay. And the second question is that, has any of them contacted you or tried to work with the city at all? No. Thank you. Any other questions? May I have a motion? I'll move approval of resolution number 202501 confirming the report of costs incurred by the city and authorizing the system as the links to be placed on the tax rolls effective January 13, 2025. Second. Mr. Bergman. Yes. Single heart to yes. Zooler. Yes. Thank you. Okay. 15. Initiate proceedings to vacate La Habra Road within Powder Canyon. Just a second to wait for it. Oh. Mr. Stephler, can I go? the state Mahabra Road within powder canyon. Just a second, wait for it. Oh. Mr. Staffler, come back out. Item 15. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Item before you tonight is to initiate proceedings to Vakey La Habba Road within Powder Canyon as part of our agreement with habitat authority for the installation of the Hela hydrant on property that is owned by the habitat authority. One of the items that the city agreed to do as part of that process would be to VK LaHava Road. LaHava Road runs through Powder Canyon from Fullerton Road to our north city limits, roughly where the end of Shabbar and Park is. It doesn't directly line up to any particular thing in Shabbar and Park, but it's closest to where the horse stables are. The very end of Shabbar and Park is where it ends. Currently, La Haberode does not serve any residences. It is not improved. There is trails that run through, but do not actually run like that delineated full length of La Haberode that run through but do not actually run like that Delineated full length of lava road that goes through So to begin this process the council would have to do a couple of things First one is to adopt a resolution and we have a draft resolution prepared for the council tonight resolution 2025-02 Which is the resolution by the city council of city of Leber Heights, California declaring its intention to vacate all or portion of on our approved roadway named the Hobber Road from the city's roadway network. As part of this process, we would do a couple of things. This adopting this resolution would set a need for a public hearing to be able to fully consider the vacation of the roadway. As part of our agreement with the habitat authority, we will maintain an easement that runs through the right of way on the harbor road for emergency purposes and the event that fire department or fire resources need to utilize it. So we will vacate the roadway as a roadway but we will still maintain a, a, a fire lane that runs along the length of the lava road for emergency purposes gives the ability for the fire department to do what they may need in the event of an emergency along that roadway. So we will vote vacated out of the roadway network in the city but we will still maintain the emergency accessibility accessibility of the roadway as part of that process. So if you council's use tonight would be that, would be to adopt it and we will set a public hearing for our February City Council meeting for us to consider it and we will post the trail along segments of the trail to allow the general public to know that this particular roadway was up for consideration of being vacated. As we have seen in the past back in 2021, the Planning Commission did review the vacation of La Haba Road as part of the process to go through that and has made a recommendation that the City Council evacate the roadway as it there is policy within our circulation or circulation element of the general plan related to roadway road networks through powdercaning to be an obsolete land use due to that area being preserved as a natural environment. So the City Council did their planning commission did make that recommendation to the Council to further bolster the recommendation to vacate the roadway. So, if you have any questions, my self-incidie attorney, or if I miss anything, city attorney will hit on that further. Yeah, I mean, roughly you explained it, but I'm available for questions. This is basically part of the deal we did four years ago for the Hall of Hydrint. What you're all you're doing tonight is setting this for a public hearing at the next council meeting in February. Rafferty has to go out there and put posts at both ends of the road. So people know that we're giving it up and once in the middle, wherever the middle is. And then it's also on the internet and in the newspaper twice. And then you come back in February and you decide it. Now it's like I said, it's all part and parcel of the overall agreement. Then we have to finalize the easement document and certain things I know we've talked about. So that's what's going on. Any questions? Any public comment? May I have a motion? I'll make a motion that the City Council adopt resolution 2025-02 initiated in the vacation of Lahab road and schedule a public hearing on February 10, 2025. Second. Mr. Zazulda? Yes. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. I'm going to be looking at the next slide. 25. The hearing is done over the last few years. Some of the points that give staff and council the ability to go out and work proactively towards some of these legislative things that aren't going through at the state and federal level. For that, so it kind of lays out some of those things that the City Council is interested in and would work to continue reaching out to our state and federal legislators about these various issues for the city. Your actions tonight would be to adopt the legislative platform, and we will formalize it and continue to work with it. Any questions? Any comments? May I have a motion to adopt? Loved. I'll second. Mr. Bergman. Yes. Councillor Engelhart. Yes. Another exciting item. 17. Adoption of Fair Political Practices Commission Form 806. Yes. Form 806 is related to committees that the council sits on that do receive a stipend. There are two that actually pay stipends for it. One is a sanitation district and the other is our California joint powers insurance authority, CJAPA, do pay a stipend. So those council members that attend it do receive a stipend. So it's one of the things that we have to update every year as these memberships change every year. I mean, it's updated and sent to the state and post it on our website and outside. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. Questions, comments? Motion? Move approval. Second. Mr. Zula? Yes. Bill Hartz, yes. Mr. Steffler? Mr. Bergman? Yes. 18. Mr. Zula? Yes. Mr. Hartz, yes. Mr. Steffler? Mr. Bergman? Yes. 18. Federal Transit Administration Title 6 program update. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. This particular item is related to some of the funding that we received from Metro. A lot of it is related towards a dialeride and other services that those transportation dollars go to. There is a Title VI program that we have, and we have to update on a three year basis or four year basis. It is up for renewal right now. We need to update our Title VI program. Staff has met with our representative, Zett Metro, to go through the program, make sure that we have updated the appropriate things that we need to update in it. And it is ready for City Council's adoption, which does take place by resolution. So there's an attached resolution, 2025-04. A resolution to City Council of City of Lehober Heights, California adopting the 2025 Title VI program update and that will be sent to Metro and keep us in compliance with the funding that we receive from Metro. Any questions? We'll do it off the resolution. Questions? Okay. We have a motion. Who did that? Second. Is Zula? Yes. Single hearted yes, Defler. Furnwin. Yes. Okay, 19. Agreement with EMSQ1 partners for EMS coordinator services. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem and Council. This item is a continuation from an agreement that City Council authorizes us to enter into at the December meeting for paramedic and EMS services. This is a company that provides training services for our paramedics and firefighters to meet their mandatory continuing education. As part of that approval back in December 9th, the City Council put a couple stipulations on it. One was to strike a sentence out of a portion of the agreement itself, which they are okay moving forward with. The other part was related to insurance limits and not Council wanted to make sure we kept the same insurance limits that UCLA who is our current provider provides to the city and so we had to go back and double check the limits from that. So fire department has gone back to look at the limits for insurance that UCLA provided us. So UCLA provided a couple of things that one million dollars of per occurrence general liability and a five million dollar general aggregate insurance as well was provided by UCLA. UCLA is self-insured much like cities like us. We are in an insurance pool that way so they provided us a lot larger of that. EMS QI partners is the company that we are looking to move to and enter into an agreement to provide those services. They provide us, and will provide us currently with what million dollars of per occurrence general liability and two million dollars of general aggregate insurance for that limit. So the limits are different between the two. Chiefs have had a discussion with the company to look at the potential for raising that insurance limit to meet the same that UCLA had provided. They have had conversations with their underwriter. There is a potential for them to do that. But whatever increase in cost associated with that would be borne by the city. So potentially we could require them to provide us with the $5 million worth of insurance for their services but any additional cost would be born to us which more than likely would wipe out the cost savings that we would be seeing by going with the new company. The limits that they are providing us is the insurance limits that we require for professional services being provided to the city and the one million and two million dollar limits is What our current requirements are for professional services and insurance? So they're they're meeting our general qualifications. We had a conversation with JPI a related to it city attorney as well And we feel that the insurance limits that they are providing us of one million dollars of Per occurrence general liability and $2 million of aggregate insurance are sufficient for the type of work that they do in need and there isn't a risk or a need to go to a $5 million policy but it was a stipulation condition by the council. So it would be one item that the council would have to approve us moving forward with the proposed insurance limits versus the limits that are currently being provided by UCLA. So the, they're telling you the insurance would cost $5,000 more? Because that's what that savings was, isn't it? It's about $5. We don't have an exact dollar amount. They said their underwriter wouldn't give an exact cost unless we had an agreement in place for them to write a policy again. So we don't really know how much it would be, but one of the things that is a benefit of going with this company as a additional hours that they will provide for training for our part of our personnel, but it was also a cost savings versus what it was with UCLA. The JPA cover, just on the horrible situation we had a loss of more than 2 million, does the JPA agrees they cover that? They didn't have any issues with the insurance limits that they would be providing to us. They felt it's more than enough to cover any potential. But do they provide coverage if somebody has a claim over two million? In my perspective, insurance in this type of contract is sort of superfluous anyway. I mean, what would be the nature of the claim, you know? Is the training coming? Yeah, I mean, it's not like you're giving somebody the Heimlich wrong and you crack a ram or something. So whether the JPA itself would cover over $2 million, I don't think that that's the nature of the insurance. I think no, but that was my take on why I thought the insurance requested was sufficient. Any other questions? Motion to authorize authorized I guess. Move to authorize the city manager to enter into the agreement with the MSQ and partners for MS coordinator services. Second. Mr. Bergman. Yes. Councillor Engelhart to yes. Zizula. Yes. Did 20 get pulled? Yes, if I can make a rendition, we're going to pull item number 20 and provide some further information and bring it back at the next council meeting. 21 is the reappointment of Adam Nazarov to the 20 Hills Habitat Preservation Authority City Technical Advisory Committee. I will announce that unfortunately Council Member Seffler has a conflict with this one as well as he is in a close proximity to Mr. Nazaroff. I'd abstain anyway. I don't think I've ever recruased myself as an appointment. If it's a conflict under the rules of the state of California. I'm gonna tell him he has to leave even when he doesn't from now on because that was fun. The conflict is too close to him? He has a business relationship with the guy. Oh, no, they live within it. Yeah. So, any questions? May I have a motion? Reappoint. I'll make a motion to reappoint. Adam Neseroff to the C-TAC. Second. Second. Mr. Bergman. Yes. In parts, yes. The Zula. Yes. Okay. Project updates. Greg? Oh, I'll go get, oh, I forgot. We need a bell. It reminds me of what happened when I went to school here and somebody misbehaved their accent to the next room or put their head down or something like that. Or keeping the traditional, sounds good. Yeah. All right, thank you, Mayor Prozema. So project updates, as you heard, we heard a little bit ago from the fire chief related to the new type 1 fire engine. It has been built, delivered to the dealership just after the holidays, Chief Martin and Dawn from the fire department. We're not to go look and do an inspection of it. It has currently been moved over to the radio shop to have all the radio equipment installed into it. So that takes a bit of time to get all the radios and everything installed in the rig. And then as soon as that is done and completed, we will have it back here with us. And where we can show it to the community and show it to council and prepare a nice event with Senator Archer-Leta and have a good welcoming home for it as the Fire Department finishes their build out. So obviously they once we have it on hand they need to get all the equipment into it put all the hose in it and all the other parts of the system. Make sure everything that they have and the old engine is on the new engine and it's ready for service and will place into service as soon as they've completed all the outfitting of it. So hopefully pretty quick here we'll have a back from the radio shop. I'll give a good recommendation to Chief Brokizer and Chief Martin. They've worked really hard to find a radio shop, get the radio equipment and get it in everywhere we went. There was very long lead times as lots of equipment is in to get new radios installed to be compliant with the LA area of RICs requirements with the radio. So those shops have been extremely busy. They have been looking around doing their best to be able to find a shop that we can get it in and have all the equipment ready to get it installed so they have been working very hard on that one. So that would be here soon. Solid ways, we're scheduled our first quarterly cleanup for this Saturday, so this will be the first quarterly cleanup with Weir. We take place on this Saturday morning. We've been working with our staff to have it laid out similarly to how it's been done on the past. So hopefully residents won't notice a difference. I'm really will continue to come in the same way they do by West and El Trevicia and Kenyatta into the lower parking lot. So that hopefully will be our first one. We'll have a staff member there at the event the whole time. In the past, before we did our cleanup, Hossie had a road cleanup. Generally grazing myself would be at the event. Probably this go around grace will be at the event and I will be with our residents doing the cleanup on Hossie to Road, but that's this coming Saturday. So I'm sure there's lots of people that have lots of stuff ready for a quarterly cleanup and hopefully will be a good first event for where. That one. The next one up is accessibility improvements at the park. This is the ADA ramp from the upper parking lot down to the lower parking lot. We've been working on an RFP for design build to be able to do the ramp at the install the ramp and design construct that ramp. We have had a little more back and forth with the CDBG. It was one of the places we were getting the grant funding to be able to do this. So we're finalizing a full version of the RFP to make sure we can have them ready for release and make some changes to funding. We were gonna try to have it at this meeting for you tonight, but more likely it was not 100% ready for the meeting tonight, so we'll have that at the February meeting, changing some authorizations to allocation funding for the program year and authorizing us to release the RFP to move forward with installing that ADA ramp at the upper parking lot at the park. Next up is Hossie Narrowed Safety Improvement Plan. This is the Avocado Crest Signal. We have a meeting with the contractor this Thursday, a afternoon, about it as anticipated to start construction on the 27th. So that is roughly their time frame for beginning construction out on Hossie in the road. So in the very near future, I'll start seeing some message boards go up here in the next week or two, letting everybody everybody know that we're going to be doing construction. That intersection and you'll start seeing more and more construction activity in that area. So looking forward to the start of that project. It's been ongoing for quite a long time from there. Measure W. We are working on a transfer agreement with the regional project. There is a municipal program and a regional program that is a group that submitted its applications on behalf of the city for a regional project at the park. We're working with the county public works who administers that to finalize the transfer agreement so we can bring it to council for council to authorize the transfer agreement so we can begin that process along with an agreement with the contractor to be able to begin those services for installing that water quality project at the park. She's becoming moving forward. The last one is guard rail projects. We've been working to look at redoing the proposal for guard rail services. We have had a couple conversations with the LA County Public Works related to doing the design for guard rail replacement in the city. It's lots of various here, very hillsidey technical, so it's very difficult. We have a design proposal from them, or we may take some of that information to the Rhodes Committee meeting later later this month? So they can make a recommendation to council on how to move forward with the corridor rail designs and replacement project Those are my updates if you have any questions on happy to answer The guardrail with the Needs Road at the Well, well, it's been taken out completely. What's the status of that? Right now we're getting bids for the East Road between just a little bit west of VA. That was damage in an accident. Grace has bids coming in for that one. And also sections of Hossie and Ed close to Konata-Somerang. We've had a couple of accidents that have damaged a couple of sections there. Yeah, for that yardrail, that was taken out by a third party, right? So that's very coverable. Correct. We file an insurance claim related to the damage to the guardrail for that one. Okay. That's proceeding. Yes. So, I've lost track of which guardrails are going to be covered by the it's a grant money Which a I guess is not expiring even though it's like 10 years old And then be could you next time tell us which guardrails they're going to do or At the next meeting after we're working with city generator bring some of that stuff to the roads committee So they can look at it and then provide a Recommendation to the council. So hopefully at our February council meeting we should have a recommendation from the roads committee to the council related to Gardriel stuff. So we can provide a little more information. The East Road Gardriel that was never part of the proposed grant guardrails. Is included in the areas that we have available to do guard rails. We had to, you know, have locations for guard rails that could be replaced as part of that grant. East Road is one of the roadways that we can work on for a guard rail replacement as part of the grant. Yes. But that guard rails been damaged in the vehicle accidents or in the process of getting a replace right now. We won't have to use grant money on that one. That one we won't end up using having to use grant money for. Maybe you could, when you bring it up you could explain that in numbers for me. Quick question, why are we referring to the Rhodes Committee? Is the guardrail for God's saves? They've been looking at the guardrail as part of the like restriping in the signal and the guardrail project over the last few years the road's advisory committee has been reviewing it and making recommendations to the council. Does it just delay the process? I mean this? Yeah. Well, we don't need any delay processes in the city. Could we kind of kick them up a little bit? We could. Well, it's the past. If you want my opinion, I can check it up a little bit. I mean, it's we're just doing guard rail for all our time. Any other questions? Okay. On to 23, which is individual council member information items or attendance reports? I have a question. Has my hearing gotten bad or have you changed the microphones or? So we do have somebody in the back adjusting levels right now. So things have been going up and down through the meeting as making adjustments to the levels of all the mics as we're talking. Somebody mentioned, and I agree with that person that it's very difficult. Okay, any public comments? An item's not on the agenda. Can we adjourn? Thank you everybody. So we are adjourning to next Monday at 1 o'clock as a regular adjourn meeting. Monday at 1, right? 1. You say 1 o'clock? 1 o'clock. Got it. Did you say one o'clock? One o'clock. Oh wait. Five. Let's get you. Yeah. I was interested in what you said at the first beginning about the housing element. Six. Are you familiar with what I don't guys see done? Avocado heights? Yeah. I am not. OK. Avocado heights is unincorporated. OK. I am not. Okay. Other carol heights is unincorporated. Okay. But they have an agreement with the county.