Thank you. I'm going to play a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a on the top right corner. I'm going to put it on the top right corner. I'm going to put it on the top right corner. I'm going to put it on the top right corner. Good evening and welcome to the January 27th Special Meeting of the Alhambra City Council. Roll call please. Lee, Mazza, Maloney, and Rady Sadler. Here, Wang. Here. The only item on the agenda is closed session. Do we have any speakers from the public for this item? Madam Mayor, we do not have any speakers, nor do we have any participants on Zoom at this time. All right. We will now move into closed session, Mr. City Attorney. Yes, Madam Mayor, members of the council tonight. We would request a recess in the closed session to discuss one anticipated litigation item. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. We're now recesse from closed session. Mr. City Attorney, do we have anything to report? There is no announcement out of closed session this evening. All right, we have now completed the item on this evening's special meeting agenda. I will adjourn the special meeting and I'm moving to this evening's regular meeting. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the January 27th regular meeting of the Elham Breast City Council. Roll call please. Lee here, Mazza here. Maloney here. Andrade Steadler here. Wang here. Please join me in the flag salute. Put your right hand over your heart ready to begin. Congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the justice for all. Next on the agenda is our land acknowledgement. We acknowledge the land on which we are gathered is the traditional ancestral and unseated territory of the Gabelino-Tama peoples. We seek to prioritize respect for the historic culture and contemporary presence of the native peoples throughout California, especially in the greater Los Angeles and El Hamba area. We come with respect and gratitude for the Gabelino-Tama people who still consider themselves the caretakers of this land. It is through their examples that were reminded of our greater responsibility to take care of mother earth and to take care of each other. Our first item on the agenda is a ceremonial presentation of commendations for the winners of the 2024 holiday home decorating contest. This contest invited residents to show their sense of community and holiday spirit through the use of holiday decorations on their homes. The winners are to be commended for displaying extraordinary efforts in enhancing and promoting a family-oriented community through their colorful and imaginative holiday displays. I'm going to ask our Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation to say a few brief words and members of the City Council. Staff is here to present the 2024 holiday home decorating winners. This is a contest that invites residents to express their holiday chair by submitting their homes to showcase their holiday decorations. It's a festive and fun community wide program that also invites the community to judge the homes that have been entered. For 2024, we had 26 houses that were entered and 25 judging packets that were submitted. Today, I present to you the five community chosen 2024 holiday home winners. Starting with the families we have here tonight, we have the Sal Dalté family, Ariano family. And as the ones that are not able to come today, we have the Go family, Vazquez family, and Aureus family. Now I'm going to invite the family to come on the podium, and I'm going to come down there to present certificates. before I hand out the certificates I just want to say I had opportunities to go around with our parks and rec department team to meet with each of the families during the holiday season and it's just so incredible to see the decorations and I have little kids and also drive them around during holiday season to see those homes. You may not hear but I can tell you a lot of the kids they so enjoy those decorations. They'll always say mommy check this out mommy check that out and we drive around the community and really really enjoy it. So I want you to know how much joy your decorations bring to our community. I really, really appreciate that. So with that, I'm going to hand out the first advocate to the Salted Family. Thank you. In the next one, I have Arianna family. Thank you. Our next ceremonial is the presentation of a certificate of service to W. Director of Utilities, David Dolphin, who recently retired from the city after 20 years of outstanding and dedicated service to the city and the utilities department. So David, I share the same background in public works and I know that oftentimes we do so much work behind the scenes and you know a lot of times people don't realize how much work we do. And just keeping the water going, just keeping the utilities running. And I just wanted to recognize all the work in your 20 years of service, that all the work that you do for this community to keep the city functional. So thank you so much on behalf of the council and staff and all the community. Thank you for your 20 years of service and wish you all the best year retirement. Just wanted to say a couple of words. It's been an honor and a privilege to serve the residents of Alhammer. I want to thank the City Council. I want to thank the executive management team and all of my staff for just having faith in me and also, you know, allowing me to navigate through the complicated and oftentimes convoluted environmental laws that we had. And we still have to come. And also, I want to just thank the staff and all the different departments working together. I'm excited about this new journey embarking on retirement, but I will be remiss if I wouldn't say that. I staff with some great relationships. I work with people who are extremely talented. I thank you all and you know, I just thank the city council and all of my staff. I'm excited about traveling and doing other things and spending time with family. I want to thank my family for supporting me during my career and being here for me tonight. And Alhamber is a tremendous city, is a great city. It's a great city to work for, is a great city to live in. Even though I don't live in Alhamber, I think of it as home. Every time I hear Elhamber on the news, I'm like, okay, what's going on in Elhamber? So I'm going to really, I'm really going to miss you guys. I'm going to miss just the interaction just being able to do whatever I can do. Hopefully that, my time here, I was able to help someone. I was able to inspire someone to do better. I was able to participate and contribute to the greatness of the city. Alhamdulillah has a tremendous and great executive team, the City Council. We have great staff talented. It's a small city, but it's a mighty city. And I wish you all well. I wish you great success. Continue to build on everything that you've done. And I have is going to be one of the greatest cities in America. And thanks again. Thank you. If I can invite my council colleagues to join me for a photo with David. I'm sorry. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're doing it. Come back, you come back. the Thank you again. Appreciate it. You're the best enjoy your time. We'll take time. you Next, we have public comment for non-agentized items since this is a change from our previous meetings. I'm just going to take an opportunity to talk a little bit about public comment. This is window that the council decided to open up in the beginning of the meeting for 30 minutes to allow public comment for anything that's not related to the agenda items. If you have any, if you wanted to address the council on anything related to agenda items, there will be an opportunity for that as we move through the agenda. So this is the time for you to come address the council. If you have any concerns, anything that's not related to the agenda items. And we have 30 minutes. And if we don't finish all the comments, we will open up public comment again at the end of the meeting. And each person has five minutes. We actually have a tool here on the podium that will help you keep track of time. So you will see that there's the light bulbs if you have five minutes. So when you are down to one minute, it will turn, it will start out with the green light. And as you have moved and have only one minute left, it will become a yellow light. When your time is up, it will become red light. And you'll also hear the beeping sound. So I'm just going to ask everyone to stick to the five minute limit. And so we can allow everybody to provide public comments. And also, this is not a requirement, but I do want to encourage you all to provide your name and address as you provide your comment. Again, this is optional. You do not have to, but that will allow the city staff to follow up with you after the meeting. So consider doing that. So with that, I'm going to open up public comment for not agendas items and I have two speaker cards here and the first one I have Jennifer in followed by Louis McCemmon. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. Just for my disclosure, I am part of our designer of view board and I'm speaking for myself as an individual. And I wanted to talk about our historic preservation commission, which, you know, we're making it through slow and steady is kind of the name of the game. But one of the things that keeps coming up is part one and two of the historic preservation. We had three parts. So it was the historic content and statement, the historic resources survey, and then trying to get the ordinance and the nitty gritty of how we're going to get things through with staff, what our procedures are going to be. So phase one and phase two, the historic content statement, and the historic resource surveys, you accepted as a council before the historic preservation actually was created with actual people in it. But when it was first created by you and you gave kind of, I don't know if it's an ordinance or whatever, it was, I forget the document name. To create it, you gave the historic commission three tasks, which were to review and advise you on phase one for the historic content and to review and advise you on the historic resource survey, but you've already accepted those. So I believe at least one person on the commission needs more clarity on you've accepted it. Is that done or do you still expect them to do that part? Staff has come back and said, understandably to me, that you've already accepted those. So there's really not much to do, but let's kind of put that to bed and figure out whether you do expect feedback on that or not. And it's kind of nice to have public feedback a little early. I think it's going to really encourage one kind of word gets out. People who aren't able to stay until you know the end of the meeting so thank you for giving this a trial run and you might just have to write some stuff down before talking this early because there's going to be some long agenda so thank you for giving the trial run to have comments early. Thank you for the comment. Next we have Luma Keman. Good evening, Lumi Kamen 105 North North Cordova Street. And what I wanna speak to you about today, what I've handed out is just on the last half of last year, the Planning Commission meetings is off the city website. I'm actually gonna be talking to you about the city's historic preservation commission and access getting more access to their meetings so that people can understand and follow what's going on. At the moment, the only way to participate in the meetings of the historic preservation commission is to be there in person. There is no Zoom access to their meetings. There is no video recording. An audio recording is posted online later, but there is no video. And the audio recording, I know Joyce Marrow, the chair of the committee, really makes an effort to have people before they speak, state their name and so forth. It's still pretty hard to follow on, particularly if there are presentations by the consultant being shown on the screen. Those aren't visible in the record or anything. We only have action minutes, we don't have any detailed minutes of what kind of comments. As the discussions have been taking place, now it's at that this committee wasn't formed at the time the COVID lockdowns ended and we went back to in-person meetings and everything. And at that time a decision was made ratified by the City Council itself that there would be Zoom access for planning commission meetings and those would be video recorded and you can see those online. As you'll see from the beginning of June through the end of the year 2024, the planning commission only met twice and it hasn't met this month. Maybe it'll meet next month. I don't know. But something is really, this is not normally such a difference from what we've had here. Usually there be projects, commercial projects coming for review and so forth. And I know this already is a little bit item five later tonight about whether we want to keep more projects from coming and getting review by your commissions and so forth. But those commissions here, it's not ideal. The video is done by staff there. It's not the professional quality video that you have at your meetings here, which is really excellent. When a person is speaking, they zoom in on that person, you can really follow what's going on. They're able to take pictures of what's up on the screen of a presentation is being made and so forth. But what I'm saying is the, well, since the last meeting of the Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission has in fact met three times. It's involved in very serious work of developing your historic preservation ordinance. And this is very important for the city. And I'm thinking we really need to encourage access and the ability to follow what's going on there and to follow that is important discussion. Not just have a record what the final vote was on something, but what was the commentary, the back and forth, there was a lot of very good back and forth going on between the members of the committee, and in a few cases, presentations made by members of the public. But what I would like to see is I know you can't act on anything by my bringing it up here tonight. But you could, so when it comes to your turn at the end of this meeting, say maybe you'd like to see something put on the agenda for a future meeting where we consider opening up the public access to the city's historicoric Preservation Commission meetings. Thank you very much. Thank you for the comment. Do we have any speaker cards from Zoom? We do, actually. We have a raised hand from Melissa Michelson. Go ahead, Melissa. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Yes, thank you. Okay, my name is Melissa Michelson. I'm speaking. I'm actually the vice chair of the historic preservation commission, but I am speaking only for myself and not for the commission at all in this capacity tonight. I would like to ask again for some things to change in the historic preservation commission. Namely, the way the staff keep the commissioners on a tight leash is repressively non-democratic. I've requested the meetings beyond Zoom as well as member of the public. But the city spokesperson said because the city council is no longer following COVID protocols, therefore our commission meetings aren't on Zoom. And to me that's a non-answer. That doesn't mean meetings can't be on Zoom. Also I was here a couple months ago and I mentioned that I had asked the staff for specific documents, but I haven't gotten them. I've asked multiple times, be an email or in person. I got chastised for asking questions. Then insistence that I had to come in person, I were talked to them on the phone instead, when my schedule doesn't allow that, I work full time. Again, I was asking for documents to help me and my capacity of commissioner to be provided by a simple email. And if, for some reason, the document is not available, that should be told, but that's not the case. It's obstruction. The cherry on top for me was at the end of last week's meeting when at the end of three long hours, going through the bulk of what they put in front of us, when commissioners had what I thought were very good discussions. We listened to each other's rationale and experience and voted accordingly. It was a good discussions. We listened to each other's rationale and experience and voted accordingly. It was a good meeting. But after three hours, we reached a really good point to stop the meeting because then the city staff wanted us to go through substantive changes in the ordinance. Well, it's safe to say, well, sorry, excuse me, staff wanted to continue, wanted us to continue and pressured us to giving them those changes. Let's just not forget that it took, as an aside, it took them six months after the commission had all its members in place for them to schedule our first meeting in September. It took the city three years from the time that you, most of you, on the City Council, approved the making of the Historic Commission. It took the city to three years to convene a meeting of the commission. So, I think one more month would have been fine and we didn't need to proceed. I'm at the last meeting after three hours to now go over all the substantive changes to the ordinance. Basically, it was pressure to, you know, speed things along, re-reverse stamp things and push things through so they could have multiple months to do what they need to do. But they're not giving us the time to thoroughly go through. So I suggested that instead we could each of the commissioners email the staff and talk about it at the next meeting. The staff spokesperson, Ms. Reynoz, kept insisting, no, we do tonight. And you know, it was just, she just pushed us to keep going. And eventually, because it was obvious that commissioners had more to say, it wasn't just minimal changes. It wasn't going to be possible for us to then vote on this after the three hours. Finally, the attorney suggested exactly what I suggested, had suggested to put through to just have another meeting in February and continue. So anyway, I just wanted to share what is going on in there. It's difficult. It's also not clear how and multiple commissioners have asked now how to put something on the agenda. It's not as simple as directing them because they don't like that. It's not clear. They really, and I've heard from other commissioners as well from other commissions. It's a very opaque and they want to be in control of the agenda. And we're just supposed to be there to, I guess, rubber stamp. That's what it feels like. And I don't think that's good governance. And just as a reminder, two years ago, there was the change.org petition about transparency and due diligence and good governance. I think we need to continue to work on that for our city. Thank you. We do have one more raised hand from Jenny Chan. Go ahead Jenny Chan. Hi good evening. May I want Vice Mayor Lee and Council members. My name is Jenny Chan and I'm the president of the Post-Mine Booster Club. Our club is a local nonprofit organization formed to support hours. I'm here tonight to share an exciting upcoming event. The second annul Nune New Year Night Market at Nov. We will celebrate the year of snake with life entertainment, ass and craft, delicious food and much more. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, February 12 between 3 to 6 pm. We would like to invite the Council and everyone here tonight to be part of our event. Thank you very much for the time and we look forward to seeing you there. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. We don't have any more speakers on soon. It's time. That was a good test run. We have a lot of, we had a lot of public comments during that 30-minute window. So for any of you that wish to address the council on any non-agendaist items, you still have the opportunity at the end of the meeting to do so. Next, item on the agenda is a public hearing to consider a resolution certifying an EIR, including the response to comments, adopting findings of fact and a statement of overriding considerations, approving the MMRP, approving the Community Center Project and the site of the former Health Clinic on Shorbstree between 6 and 7th Street, located at 6 12 West Shorp Street. On a site of 1.77 acres and approving a parcel map for the project including a vacation of a portion of Shorp Street located between 6 and 7 street and directing issuance of a notice inviting bits. Miss City Manager, is there a staff report on this item? There is this evening's presentation will be given by Mike Macias, Director of Parks and Recreation, followed by a City Attorney Jomantes. Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, so how do we get here? Well, a little background. The City of Elhamber is the owner of the property at 612 West Shorb Street, located at 6 and 7th Street. The property is a site of a historic building that was formerly a health clinic, but which has been vacant for decades. In 2020, the City Council began imagining the use of the property and determined that construction of a community center on the site would provide much needed amenity for the local neighborhood, as well as city of Alhambert large. Unfortunately, the city did not have funding for such a project at that time. In April of 2023, the city received a grant from the state for construction of a community center in the amount of $25 million. The city then retained an architect, project manager, environmental consultant to prepare designs for consideration by the City Council and Elhamber community. This council held public meetings to consider design options on October 25, 2023, March 11, 24, and June 18, 2024. Initially, the City Council favored the project that would demolish all of the existing health clinic. But after dialogue with the community as well as collaboration with the Elhamber Preservation Group and the Elhamber Historical Society, settled on a project design that would retain 9,000 square feet of the health clinic and add new construction for the balance of the project. Approval of the project requires an environmental evaluation under the California Environmental Quality Act. Options were included in the project studied in the event that additional funding became available during the processing of the project ranging from 17,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet. Currently, the city projects, the current available funding would be sufficient to construct 17,000 square feet of building. But the project will be designed to enable additions if funding becomes available in the future years. Staff requests Council to direct staff, the city's consultants to prepare a notice of inviting bids for the 17,000 square foot project. The attached resolution direct staff to do so and return to Council with a proposed award contract for construction. That concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I will now open the public hearing. Please note that we kindly request that speakers state their name and address for the record before making their comments. I have one speaker card. Suzy Doncosoto. Good evening Honorable Mayor Wang. It's also different than, when we serve together. And City Council. I'm Susan Uncle Soto, 223, Wentham Drive, Alhambra. And I am full disclosure, President of the Parks and Rec Commission, but I'm speaking not against or I'm just speaking on my own on something. Just when I was reading through this so in the third paragraph on The recap here it notes in April 2023 city received a grant From the state for construction of a community center in the amount of $25 million thanks to the efforts of state Or state assembly member might phone With no disrespect to assembly member might phone. With no disrespect to assembly member might phone, my understanding, and I was here when it was presented, the work was done, took much longer before assembly member phone was elected, but Senator Susan Rubio put in the fight on the efforts to secure this for the City of Al Hamburg. So I just wanted to have that correction noted and also should there be any names on the building that Senator Susan Rubio is acknowledged in gratitude for that for her work on that as well. And in addition to Assembly Member Mike Vaughn, who was there in wrapping up to close up the deal. So that was all my only comment on that correction. Thank you. Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, I just want to take responsibility for that error in drafting the staff report. There were some blanks in the staff report that I asked staff to help me with. And I think that I inadvertently deleted in the final draft. If you read the sentence, it says thanks to the efforts and state assembly member, Mike Fong. So there's clearly a missing word there. The missing words are state senator Rubio. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney for the clarification. Do we have anyone from Zoom wishing to speak on this item? Madam Mayor, I am not seeing any raised hands on Zoom at this time. All right. Seeing that there is no one else remaining that wishes to speak, I'll close the public testimony portion of the hearing. Does the Council have any comments or questions for staff on this item. Councilmember Andrade Soutler. Yes, I just want to thank my subcommittee council member who helped us work with the preservation folks on this event, on this actual wonderful thing that we're hoping to move through as quickly as possible. We know that on the, that's the middle of Elhamber, right? And we have nothing in the middle of Elhamber for our families. And this will give us the opportunity to have so much more offered resources to our families. And so I'm really looking forward to moving this as quickly as possible. Thank you. I'm going to wait to make a motion. Let my councilman Mazza take the lead on that since it is his district and the work that he did with the subcommittee. So thank you for staff. Let's cross our fingers at it's all ours and we can move forward. Thank you. Council Member Maloney? Yes. This is exciting. I'm really happy that we're here at this point. Thank you to Council Member Dredi Stadler and Mazza for being the subcommittee and leading this effort from the Council. Thank you to staff for pushing this through and working from day one with our legislators to get this funded. I don't want to say this too loudly, but this is one of the biggest appropriations to any city in a long time or a project like this. And that was not easy for our team to do. We did it, we pulled it off and we thought we we had a budget surplus, and then the next year, two years after it turned out, we had a giant budget deficit. So the fact that we were able to hang on to that money and not get it cloudback was really special as well. That was a team effort, and I think everyone really did their best in ensuring that we had this. 25 million doesn't go as far as it used to, even a few years ago, as we know, but we're gonna do our best, we're gonna plan for the future and I hope for additional funding down the road, but we're gonna have something and it's gonna be great at this site. I also wanna thank our members of our community, our preservation group and the Historical Society, for being partners on this, for helping to inform the decisions that we made along the way, several points along the way so that we get a project that not only preserves a significant portion of the historical building there, but also allows us to improve with a state-of-the-art multi-use space and a really functional community center in the future. And it's going to pair very nicely with what I understand might be a new and improved more field there as well. So this is a significant time in Nellamber's history that we're going to have a new project like this because it doesn't have all the time. So thanks to everyone. What we're doing tonight is just kind of getting on track to make this project move forward. The EIR is important. The notice of inviting bids is important, all this allows us to stay on track so that we don't risk further endangering our funding for this and our community can benefit sooner rather than later. So thank you to everyone who is involved in this. This is a great project. Council Member Masa? Thank you, Mayor. I, too, want to thank, number one, Council Member Androide Establer for the work and the support and working as a subcommittee with members of the community, specifically the Alhambra Preservation Group. I want to thank you as well for your efforts, your guidance to get to this project to where it's at today. City staff, just everyone that's taken it to this point. I always say it's very surprised that we are at this point, from a conversation in passing with a city manager and are then State Senator Susan Rubio in making this happen. Never thought it would be a possibility to have this slide developed and especially into a community center like we are getting now. So very excited to see that happening. It's going to be a tremendous amenity for the community, for seniors, for youth, etc. So we can't wait to see it happen. We've got a very short time period now between the time that we're at now and the time that we're supposed to be getting this done. We've got about a year and a half. I'm world full that everything's going to line up, come together, and we'll see the completion of this project maybe in the middle or the end of 2026. But looking forward to continuing to work with the Alhamer Preservation Group, the historic society and getting into its final point and getting all the details worked out and ironed out. But again, thank you everyone that's been involved and looking forward to seeing this second together. Thanks. Nice, Mayor Lee. Thank you, Mayor Wong. Just very glad that since 2023, beginning with appropriation from our state senator Susan Rubio, to now we've come a long way. This community deserves a committee center that is to this scale. However we built it, I'm looking forward to it. Alhambert has come a long way in terms of preservation. I'm just glad that Council has decided to approve a committee center that incorporates the vision of preserving Alhamdra history as well as putting in brand new state of art commuting center that all of us can enjoy. And again, I like to thank the state senator Susan Rubio. I think that it's not just the amount of money that she appropriate for Alhamdra. It's the fact that this is what I expect from state senators and assembly members. That's her job. I think the preservation group for your effort in making sure that the council remembers to preserve the history of alhambra. Without your reminder, we should not wait any longer. So tonight as we approve the resolution for the IR, I'm looking forward to construction immediately. And also I thank the preservation group for your effort in making sure that the council remembers to preserve the history of Alhambra. And without your reminder, we might have chosen a state of our brand new community center, which is great for the city, however, we forget. The history of Alhambra, which is very important. That's it, thank you. One of the nice things of being mayor is that by the time it's my turn to speak, there's nothing left for me to say. I just really appreciate all the comments made by my council colleagues. And at this point, I can't entertain a motion to vote on this. All right. Is there a motion? I thought it was nice merely. I'll move. Let me check in with nice merely. I'll second retroactively. Okay. So motion by Council Member Andrade Stadler, second by, nice merely. Or call please. Mazza. Yes. Maloney. Yes. Andrade Stadler. Yes. Lee. Or call please. Maaza. Yes. Maloney. Yes. Andrade Sadler. Yes. Lee. Yes. Wang. Yes. All right, motion passes. The next item is a presentation regarding the mid-year budget review for fiscal year 2024, 2025, and the resolution adopting the fiscal year 2024, 2025 budget adjustment. Mr. Demanager is a report from staff on this item. There is this evening's presentation will be given by Finance Director Perlou. Good evening. Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight's staff is presenting. That is the PowerPoint. Okay, sorry. Tonight's staff is presenting the mid-year budget review for fiscal year 2425. Staff will provide an update on the city's financial performance and recommended adjustments to revenue and expenditures. Next slide, please. The city ended fiscal year, 2324, with general fund revenues of $95.9 million. And expenditures of $94.2 million, resulting in a surplus of $1.7 million. Across all funds, total revenues were $179 million, with expenditures at $165 million. Overall, the city ended the fiscal year with a $14 million surplus, mainly from the special revenue funds and enterprise funds. Delays and CIP projects contributed to this surplus. Next slide, please. Next, staff recommends the following budget adjustments for revenues based on actual revenues received so far and historical revenue trends. First item is the property tax, which is the second largest revenue source. The taxable assess value increased about 4%, staff is requesting $1 million increase for property taxes. Sales tax is sales tax measure AL and public safety tax is the second largest revenue source. South Tax has remained relatively flat due to high interest rate, tighter credit, and higher financing costs, all of which have reduced discretionary spending. All sectors have seen a decline. Fortunately, Measure AL has been a key support for the city. As the Humber residents continue to spend outside the city, inside the city, on online boosting measure AAL revenues. Sales tax is decreasing about 600,000 with AAL increased in 140,000. Public sales tax decreased 20,000. For other revenue sources that will see an adjustment is Franchise Tax 600,000, UDUT 500,000, interest earnings 7,000, about 800,000, Missilaneous Revenue 141,000, a Police Special Duty Reimbursedment 125,000, Increase, Paramedic En voicing 393,000. This brings us to adjusting a revenue upward through about $3.1 million. Next slide, please. Staff recommends the following budget adjustments for general fund expenditures based on department requests and spending trends from the past six months. The first item is a membership fee increase about 21,000. That was not budgeted in previous year's budget and also this year's budget. Next item is a business card increases to do email change of a's various projects, $6,000 increase. Next items are the mailers and for outreach preparation, $8,500 increase. The next item is a leap grant expenditure that staff is requesting for a decrease of 240,000 as a budget correction because these expenditures were already spent in prior year. Next item is postage for citywide $5,000 increase. Projects funded with other sources, mainly the ARPA fund, decrease of $75,000. Funding for two paramedic interns and the next item is a fire apparatus repair cost of about 100,000 to complete for the year. You've sport expenses increases 9,300. Next slide please. For the next slide there's a grant expenditure that the city incurred. However, we're gonna receive reimbursement for. DOJ, Depacal, Expenses of 8,500. OTS grant related expense of a 65,000. Then there's a budget correction for part time salary of 85,000. Next item is building maintenance, expense shifted to the facility division, reduction of $270, and an increase in public works of $270. So that's a wash. Next item is an increase in plan checks and traffic studies for $1,000 increase. Higher utility costs about $128,000 increase. A transfer to the self insurance fund to cover claims liability including general liability and workers comp, $1 million. A contribution to the general fund reserve, $3.1 million increase. And the salary, one time salary savings from various departments of $3.1 million. The net increase for general fund expenditure is about $1.1 million. Next item, please. Next slide. This slide provides an overall view of the mid-year budget. Mid-year revenues are coming in at $96.5 million with mid-year expenditures at $98 million, a net operating deficit of $1.5 million, but we already know that we're ending the year for fiscal year 2324 at $1.7 million surplus. The net surplus for the operating year is $174,739. Next slide, please. Now we're moving on to non-general fund revenues. The only adjustment for non-general fund revenue is the 710 mobility fund of $174,000. And this is the actual revenues received to date for the reimbursements received to date. Next item. Next slide. For non-general fund expenditures, gas tax increase of material cost $60,000, measure M, budget move from the 710, measure M fund to the 710 with ability fund, reduction of $248,000. For Prop A fund, increase in fund reduction of 248,000. For Prop A fund, increase in future costs, 12,000. And then the next item, 710 mobility fund, for projects, additional budget for 710 mobility projects, $0.7 million. And the next item is for the public works maintenance improvement assessment district, $2,000 for increased materials. PLHA is increase of 240,000 for home team salary and the rest of the items for capital outlay fund are just additional appropriation needed to complete several CIP projects for Resurrect Model of Fire Station 72-74, building a block wall concrete green space at Fire Station 71, various repair costs at police department, police building, and then also increase in concrete project costs at the Fire Station 71 due to additional damage discovered. And for the water fun, there's a million dollar adjustment due to the engineers estimate of the project, the material costs are hired and expected, then budgeted about two years ago. And there are other costs such as utility cost increase of 300,000. And next slide, please. There's various costs in the water fund, totaling about 293,000 for training cost, material cost, repair cost, and new batteries. For the SURFUN, again, this is another CIP project. The engineers estimate is hired and expected a request of an additional 1.6 million a SIRFUN and a total of 25,500 for various costs in training cost, material costs, two cost battery generators costs. And next item is the sanitation fund, $12,000 for increase in material cost and two's cost, equipment, additional $70,000 for field cost maintenance cost, material cost increase. And the last item is the, for the self insurance fund, more claims are settled during the fiscal year requesting for an additional $1 million increase. Total non-general fund expenditure total $6.5 million increase. Next slide, please. City counts, this will conclude the presentation. City Council, staff is requesting City Council to approve. Resolution R2M25-2 to adopt the fiscal year 2425 budget adjustment for the City of Ahembra. Golf Course Clubhouse, Ahembra Capital Improvement Corporation, Ahembra Parking Authority, Ahembra Facilities Financing Authority, and Ahem brought public finance authority. This City Council have any questions? Thank you for the presentation. At this time, I'm going to open up public comment portion of this item and we will have questions later. Do we have any speaker cards from the public for this item? Madam Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item, and I am not seeing any raised hands on Zoom at this time. All right, I'd like to move to my council colleagues. I'll start with Vice Mayor Lee. Yes, thank you, Mayor Wong-Aum. Thank you for the presentation. I noticed there's a, I'll talk about that later. It's an other item, but thank you for your presentation. Also, Member Masa. I just want to thank you for the presentation as well. Just to appreciate the responsibility with which the budget has always looked at and balanced and just appreciate as a city being the position that we are in. You know, in comparison to other cities that we hear about. So just to appreciate your work, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. Just echo in the comments, thank you. Good budget. Thanks for keeping us on track. Thank you. Council Member on Judge East out there. Just real briefly, also Pearl, thank you so much by laying everything out. It tells us the big story of what it takes to run our city. So thank you for doing that. I just have a couple questions and I'm sorry but I'm going to sound like a kindergartner here but with respect to what is it maybe not quite a kidney gardener, but measure AL, that sales tax. Is that even definite for us? Yes. You know, I'm really glad. So thank you for that, because it actually looks very healthy. So thank you for that. Thank you for seeing that in your vision that we needed to do exactly that when we went to for that campaign out for that campaign. So I want to thank the city manager for that for pushing that. And then I just want to draw your attention only because this is something that I work on for the City Council. Is the St. Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust Membership fee? It is a lot. It's 21,322. It actually is an increase slightly this year, but if you look at subsequent or years prior, it's actually a lot lower. This is our trust membership fee that actually puts us in compliance with providing affordable housing. And what do I mean by that? We have one project that is already the ribbon was cut and we have members of our community already inside their supportive housing over in the first district area and we're looking at our second one. Had we not been part of this trust, we probably would have been working a lot harder to get what we needed. So it was additional funding from different sources which to make all of this happen. So I just want to thank you for the vision once again, City Manager and of course for our housing director and everybody else who wait in here. So thank you very much and do you need a motion to approve this? Yes, if no more comments, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the adoption of my ear budget. Yes, I just made that. Can I have a second? I second. All right, we have a motion a second row call please on dr. DeSdeller. Yes Lee. Yes, Maloney. Yes, Mazza. Yes, Wang. Yes Motion passes. Thank you, Pearl All right moving on our next presentation is regarding incentives for commercial use on the ground floor of mixed use buildings and a review of development for East Main Street with regard to building heights. Miss City Manager is there is report from staff for this item. There is this evening's presentation will be given by Andrew Ho, Director of Community Development. development. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Wang, part of the City Council's 2024 strategic plan, the Council wanted to identify incentives for commercial uses on the ground floor, utilizing mixed use development, goal 3.7, and wanted to revisit building heights goal 3.9. Since both of these goals are interrelated revisit building heights of goal 3.9. Since both of these goals are interrelated with the Council's strategic plan 6.2 to promote citywide mixed use development, we thought we'd package everything together and provide it to the Council for consideration. Couple of incentives for mixed use development that we've researched over the last year kind of fall within three categories of tools. As a baseline right now in the city, in the CBD zone central business district, the Commercial Use CMU Zone, and the East Main Commercial Zone EMC. Property owners are able to develop the properties three ways. You can build 100% residential, you can build 100% commercial, and you can do a hybrid of the mixed use. With some of the recent 100% residential projects, the council wanted to explore how the city could incentivize property owners to submit mixed use developments instead of 100% residential developments. Three options, the council could consider, include adopting more flexible development standards. These would incentivize property owners to build ground floor commercial. Some of these additional design standards that the Council could consider would be increasing building heights, reducing parking. And if there's support for that, we would develop some more flexible design standards and run that through the planning commission for their consideration before returning back to council. Another tool that cities use to provide incentives would be granting additional density above and beyond the base zoning standards. Currently, the densities in the EMC zone is 30 units per acre. In the CMU zone, it's 48 units per acre, and in the CMU, the CBD zone, it's 64 units per acre. Granting additional density to a property owner gives them additional sources of revenue, which they can use to help finance the construction of the ground floor retail. The third industry practice would be to streamline the approval process for some of these developments. In Alhambra's case, it would be to eliminate the residential plan development permit process. This would eliminate public hearings and public notices and provide property owners with some certainty and clarity in that if a development proposal is submitted to the city and meets all of the development standards, then the project would get approved. This topic aside from mixed use, the council wanted to review development heights for the East main zone. When the matter was brought before to the council in November and December of 2023, the council adopted a 35-foot three-story height requirement in the EMC zone. That was about 20 feet lower than what the Planning Commission recommended of 55 feet and four stories. The end result of that was a project at 801 main, which is on the slide on the screen. That project was originally designed at 38 feet and as a result of the lower height, they redesigned it at 35 feet and eliminated the ground floor restaurant retail component that they had proposed. And so part of some of the building heights necessitating higher ground floor retail, we generally hear is about 18 to 20 feet to achieve that larger higher building heights would be necessitated to get more of those quality restaurants and cafes in the area. And the image before you shows the two development, the same development, the top screen, the top image shows what the development was designed at prior to the new code. It was a mixed use development with the three stories and 38 feet. And as a result of the new code, the project was reduced to 35 feet and ended up being 100% residential development. Should the council direct staff to make any changes to existing development standards, please give me direction and we'll run through code amendments through the planning commission before returning to the council. If the council does not wish to change any of the requirements, you can receive and file. And this will conclude my presentation. What's the request? Thank you, Director Hall, for the presentation. Before I open up public testimony portion of this item, I just wanted to give a very quick clarification on this item. I know that there's a lot of concerns from the community. And as I understand it, the council has already voted on the building height for East Main corridor and along with a comprehensive zoning code. It, I was on the planning commission when this was all discussed and I know the planning commission has advocated for storefronts along our mainstream business corridor and because of our compliance with state law and HCD, we ended up choosing to allow 100% residential. So when we voted on that, we still remains the city's goal to want to attract business to our mainstream. So because of that, I think tonight this item is staff bringing back options for the Council for all of us to look at to see if we would like to make some tweaks in order to attract quality business restaurants retail on our mainstream corridors. So as Director Ho has stated that we do not have to take any actions. We're not revisiting the building heights, but if we wanted to provide incentives for commercial corridors, then there's options for us to consider. So with that, I'd like to open up public testimony portion of this item. And I do have a stack of speaker cards. First I'll bring up Bernd. Followed by Jennifer in. Hello Madam Mayor and City Council. My name is Bert Eng. I am a resident of Elhambera, 203 South Cordova Street. I am also one of the Historic Preservation Commission members, but I'm speaking today as an individual. And outcome of the comprehensive zoning code update which took into consideration a lot of great input, like best practices in public comment and input, it was decided that Max Height for the East main corridor was set to 35 feet, three stories. We have in front of us today a discussion on incentives for commercial uses on the ground floor of mixed use buildings and options that could potentially impact the already approved building height on the East main commercial zone. EMC, to be clear, I support incentives for commercial uses on the ground floor of mixed use buildings. I also support the Direction City Council already approved for height on the East Main Commercial Zone. These two points are not diametrically opposed, and there are absolutely adjustments that can be made to both without throwing out all the public input, all the hard work, and all the deliberation that took place during the comprehensive zoning code update. We can have commercial development on the ground floor without unnecessarily increasing the heights dramatically on the East Main Commercial Zone. Based on the information staff provided, the reduction of height from 38 feet to 35 made it impossible for the developers of 801 East Main to have commercial on the ground floor. That's a difference of three feet. Continuing with that information provided by staff, increasing the height from 35 feet to 38 feet would make it possible to have commercial development on the ground floor. Just to be overly clear, that's a height of 38 feet to allow for commercial development, not 55 feet. Regarding incentives for commercial on the ground floor, I support flexible development standards, which includes increasing building heights to 38 feet, which is a height supported by the information provided by staff as possible for commercial on the ground floor. To even contemplate 55 feet is unnecessary and is turning our backs on what the community has stated as an issue for them over the last six plus years. I would caution the elimination of the residential planned development permit, which would eliminate any public hearings and public notices. Public hearings and public notices are cornerstones of healthy development within the city. It ensures the public and their needs are heard and considered when there is development in their community. Sure, at times, it's messy. It's confusing, but it's always worth it. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. Next, Jennifer In. Follow by Lula McCammon. Hi, my name is Jennifer In. Thank you again, Madam Mayor. And I'm sorry, Madam Vice Mayor, I forgot to read you earlier and our remaining council members again. My name is Jennifer Aing I am a resident of Alhambra and a Monter Design Review Board, but speaking for myself as an individual I think birds spoke to a lot of great points. I know we have a lot of speaker cards. I'll try and keep mine a Little brief here, you know, you need to consider all the public comment that's been heard over, I don't know, it's pre-COVID that we all started talking about heights on Unnie's Main Street. So don't just remember the people here, here in the room tonight, remember the years worth of comments that you've heard about this. I appreciate that staff gave you a lot of different options. It's hard work to kind of manage and get all this to go together. But one of the things that was left off that the neighbors did support as we were going through zoning. I know Lou spoke about it as lot as well as others is where the separation is between EMC and central business district. Right now it's at Chapel. If you move that two blocks east, that brings us to El Manzer. If you drive down East Main Street and just look around at the buildings, you can see that's more of a natural break. So if you want to get a little more extra height on the EMC, just chop a little bit of it off. There's not a lot of community pushback on that, and that can get some heights on the other side, but we really do want to keep our hearts manageable on East Main Street. With eliminating public comment, this council has been more supportive of public comment than any other council I've known in the 13 years that I've been here. I really don't think that's something you should even remotely consider eliminating. It's just to me as a person that's just unacceptable. I know we have some of our areas of town that they're very quiet and you don't get a lot of feedback from them, but look what's happened in those sections of town. We've lost You know the stories that we want to remember to tell the developments gone so wonky with so few guidelines But nothing kind of matches itself. You don't have a cohesive design for for areas of town And I'm very happy that we will be getting that and that staff has moved ahead to try and get design standards on commercial buildings. I think that's going to help a lot. So, height, potentially another option is moving and dividing line to Elmanzer and public comment is extremely important. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we have Luma Kemen, followed by Cody Corbet. you Good evening again, Lumi Kaman 105 North Cordova Street. The items I passed out to you, one is what you've already seen on the screen. The two images of Ada One East Main Street design submitted by Intercorp Holmes. The other one is correspondence back and forth between myself and Paul Talbot this last weekend. and Paul Talbot this last weekend when we saw this item on the agenda. I wrote him a sentiment email there with some information about the item and everything and just wondering if there was any intent on the part of Integral Homes to go back to their plan one Plan one had actually been a builder's remedy application. And we're talking here about one of the options of being reducing parking. One of the difficulties with that, it was certainly something we were willing to look at, and I have been engaged with him for several years, several of the VPs of intercorpoems at Paul Talbot had met many times over the years. And as I pointed out to them, one problem was the commercial retail on that first project, the total number of designated parking units set aside for those retail spaces combined was a good round number zero none it was not gonna work who was gonna buy these spaces what kind of tenants were gonna go in there if there were no parking spaces whatsoever set aside I talked to them about some options. I said, well, look right across the street, right across Main Street to the south of you, is a, where the old city bank was. It's now American continental bank. It is the only bank I have ever seen and I don't have, where nobody goes in and out of it. The parking lot is almost vacant there. I haven't seen anybody else seen anybody go in and out of it. So I said, why don't you make a deal with the folks right across the street to use some of that parking space? Well, then you get difficulty too. That restaurant was gonna be situated in the corner of Cordova and Maine and this one, the Miran Connell Bank is right across the street also Cordova and Maine. Is there a crosswalk across the street? No. Is there a street light to get you safely across? No. You know, and there were other options on Grenada down there just south of the CVS is a big lot, which is just chained off, used vacant for parking. Maybe the old Buick Allen people still on it. I'm not sure who owns it. At one time it was rented out to park Amazon vans and stuff, doesn't serve the community. Most of the time it's just vacant. There are options here. There are options other than these. I know that both the community, the planning commission and this council all want to see commercial development here and want to see it done right. So that's something we're all together on about how to do this. And I know that all three of these entities also want to see the residential plan permit process continue, whether our hearings, I've heard them many times. Splitting up the EMC into zones makes a lot of sense. We've discussed it a lot. If you go back and look at the tape online of the November 13, 2023 meeting at which the height limit of 3 stories 35 feet was adopted, you'll find a tons of input, comments, lots of hour and a half of discussion back and forth before the vote was taken and everything. The initial draft of the zoning code put forth by the planning commission, by their staff, actually from Grenada to this Angabra border call for two stories, 25 feet, to help support an old town concept down there. And notice that the size of the lots were very small. There's not much you can really do with them and everything. Go back and look at some of that stuff again. But at any rate, I'm up against my time limit. And I'm sure this is going to come back again to us in some form. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we have Cody Corbet, followed by Andrew. Thank you for your comment. Next we have Cody Corbett, followed by Andrew. Good evening, esteemed residents. I'm Cody Corbett. I live at 217 South Granada Avenue. And I'm actually speaking on behalf of Marisol Greer tonight. She regresses, she cannot be present this evening due to international travel. She says, I want to acknowledge all the residents of our vibrant community in Alhambra. The term community reflects our commonality and unity. And it is this unity that defines us. I sincerely thank everyone for demonstrating solidarity. Together, we have voiced our concerns and participated in elections, leading to the appointment of our new council member, Mayor Noya Wang. I am perplexed that we face a potential revote on the height regulations for East Main Street after our collective efforts. There is no compelling reason to change the zoning code, nor is there a logical basis for this revote, especially since we have not addressed the other storefronts or developed a specific enhancement plan for East Main Street. Furthermore, we need to establish a buffer between commercial and residential areas. We cannot put the cart before the horse. The city must also address parking, increase traffic, and pedestrian safety. This change seems to benefit only one developer, which is not sufficient reason to undo the progress we have made. I implore the mayor and city council members to honor your constituents and uphold the previously endorsed height limits. The vote passed and reversing this decision would undermine our commitment to our community. We all seek a better Al Hambra where we can safely raise our families and enjoy a quality of life. Please remember the voices of the residents you represent and uphold the past vote and state sanctioned regulations. We seek transparency from our council and a commitment to disclose all matters through in-person meetings and accessible transcripts. And also I do walk up and down Main Street almost a few times a week. And one place I do pass by on East Main Street is the Chinatown Service Center that was just opened. And I was watching it as it was being built. And I noticed there was that space out front for a coffee shop or cafe. And it was for lease long before the project finished and it has tall ceilings inside. It's still for lease and the place is opened and it's still for lease and I kind of see this up and down just all of Main Street. I, whether it be a newer building or something older where the high, the ceiling height inside of the retail unit or restaurant unit is tall enough, it seems, but they just sit vacant. And then on West Main Street, where the 300 and 400 blocks are, which is where Pacific Plaza and Main Street collection is, there are some spaces in there that were vacant and they've started to fill up, but for example, I noticed like the Chase Bank is long gone, still vacant in that area. Some of the early restaurants that open there, such as I think Al's Italian beef and Nancy's pizza, those are long gone and they kind of sat vacant and they got replaced. And in that space where the super A market was, but of course now Pacific Plases there, there's been two markets that have failed there. So all of these places I think have tall ceiling height. There are quite a few of them, but still it seems to be like a revolving door of businesses. And then the other thing I notice is that there's so many gyms on Main Street. I mean these spaces that have these tall ceilings seem to be occupied by gyms. We have three of them, so I just kind of fear that we would get more of them. But thank you for listening to me, and that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have Andrew, followed by Marie Lopez. Good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor, Council Members. My name is Andrew John. I live on 32 North Almanza. And I personally think to urge you guys not to give any leeway on the height, I think, just from my own perspective, the building that I live in, we drive off of the road down a driveway, down about six feet in order to like access our Garages and I think when a developer tells you it can't be done We need three more feet. It means it's too expensive and it's not that it can't be done because I like I can envision you So they're taking three feet into the ground, building some sidewalk brushes, fences, couple steps into the community to sort of like make it like very personal space. And that could be done, and you'd still be under the height restriction. So I think we just asked our developers to be a little bit more creative and smart about what they're building there. And the other thing that I think is taking community out, put out of the process is it sounds nice, but I think what ends up happening is we end up running around with a lot of rumors in the community. There's no way to clarify except to come to council meetings and planning meetings in us. The city council to go to the developer in us, then to clarify it and becomes like this huge mess and we're just back here all the time trying to do something that could have easily been handled with the community. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. Next we have Marie Lopez, followed by Olga Michaels. Marie Lopez, hello, I'm in, sorry, I'm a park district. I've been here for what, the two years that East El Hanber residents, I tried to support them by showing up and they fought very hard for that 35 height. And so I just don't feel like we're doing enough for small businesses. That the research that I've found, the mix use buildings, running out the bottom, actually the rents are generally very high. And you do see a turnover over and over again of these businesses, or empty buildings like the gentleman's set. But I was asked to read the following. State zoning approved for 35 feet on Main Street should be kept. Commercial businesses are dead throughout Main Street. The CSC across the street has a vacant coffee shop for months as part of this downtown El Hambra. Forty feet is not cohesive to the predominantly surrounding single story homes. And Old Town, El Hambra, East of Grenada, can start a quaint, low profile commerce that is far more inviting. So I hope you will consider that. I mean, I don't think, well, I know for decades living here, they've done nothing to valley boulevard for small businesses and East Maine, all of Maine Street, even where I'm at. It's just horrible. There's just no small businesses. And with this new administration, what I have learned, there's gonna be a lot of funding for small businesses. And I think we need to go back to that, encourage that. And but respect the residents who worked very hard, the ones in East Elhambera, to get this approval for 35 feet. I hope you will respect that that because you voted for it. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. Next we have Olga Michaels, followed by Brad Michaels. I'll hand out for you guys to kind of put it in the 40s. Yes. A adjacent to a single family home. You guys can kind of get an idea right there. In a way that 801 building is going to, there's, there's, uh, where Lou lives and that block, there's predominantly single family homes right there. One story. Okay. Now, good evening Council members and thank you for your time. We've been here a lot. First it was we want all residential and now we want all we want commercial. I don't know what is on confuse now. Since 2018 we've been fighting height in a predominantly quiet single family neighborhood that overlooks majestic mountains on the East Main corridor. So 55 feet or 45 feet is not okay. 35 feet is too high as you can kind of get, imagine right there. Once a variance is given for 40 feet throughout the property against the wishes of the surrounding neighbors, so other neighbors will follow, so other businesses will follow. Also, do not be fooled on the three-story building because of the height they are imposing is a four-story kind of building and you know the picture before you. The state of California approved 35 feet maximum height requirement throughout the East Main corridor. And I hope your committee supports and abides by that decision. 801 intercorp says that their heart isn't supplying the neighborhood with commerce. We have commerce and smart and final CVS and surrounding shopping centers that are struggling. In fact, the CSC across the street has been advertising a vacant coffee shop for months. So now it's like throwing objects in a dumpster fire. A small retail store stores an 801 will not make a big difference, but a 40 feet will will with their profit margins, which is why we are here today. If passed, we are left watching a Levant of a building that stands out from the rest of the predominantly single family homes. I watched a program in California stating that it is slowly losing its landscape by big developers who are destroying it for profit, such as being set forth today by a Canadian-based developer. But all of you can halt this by doing your part and preserving the integrity of California and our neighborhood by abiding by the 35 feet restriction that was already approved by the state of California. Adele Stradler wonderfully implements in the start of council meetings that we acknowledge Native Americans who took pride in preserving our beautiful California, mountains, valleys, and landscapes. While we want the same, in addition to keeping our neighborhoods walkable, safe, and peaceful, there's a saying in the Bible that says, let your yes, be yes, and your nose, be no's. So I'm hoping council members to vote with the people to keep the height in the East Main corridor and stand by your word. Please abide by the height restriction on 801 and focus and establishing mixed-use commerce by creating an old town east of Grenada where it's more quiet, low profile, and is far more appealing. Okay, so I'm hoping that you stick to your word. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have Brett Michaels, followed by Lawrence Marquis. Good evening everyone council members mayor. Thank you for your consideration 807 Linda Raxe Park. I'm just right behind 801. Boy 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 25. How many years has that been? We've been pushing for a height limit. Years and years, meetings and meetings, hundreds of people showing up. I just want to encourage you all to take a position and support the residents and the years we've gone through this battle in regards to trying to maintain the feel on East main corridor in regards to a residential community and not a bunch of structures that just don't blend in Eight of one just seems like a gift that keeps on giving and it's getting a little frustrating. So I would just like to say that our goal initially was 25 feet and we went to 35 feet and okay, we compromised there. But now to give a let's give a mention they want a mile. So I would say if any developer wants to get more height, then why don't they go down as a gentleman said earlier. Why don't they take a down five or 10 feet? Another thing too is, you know, it's kind of, it's a family joke, but it's kind of sad in that when we drive down Main Street We see businesses with the same computer box in it for the last 25 years I mean Can we can we have some type of ordinance where if a no one or doesn't have business or Maintains a business that they vacate or they sell the building because honestly I mean I'm in the retail business I have a I operate three franchise locations in other cities and this that Main Street does not attract businesses because it's a cemetery folks I'm just going to be really blunt. I would not want to put my retail store where there's dead businesses with the same computer box from the 70s. So I really would like to, if you want to talk about business incentives, the incentive is have thriving businesses that attract other thriving businesses and becomes a synergy of business. So anyhow, thank you very much. Thank you for the comment. Next we have Lauren's Marquis. Hi folks. I speak up here. So, but so I'll keep it brief. So here we are, six years plus and here we go again, 801, 801, 801. You can call it whatever address you want. It's still there. You've all come in turn neighborhoods and you smile and you greet us and then some of you turn around and vote against us. Jeff. Hi Jeff. And we must keep 35 feet that we fought for. I mean, like Brad just said, we just, we compromised from 25. And we went up to 35. And we were all sitting here waiting like 11.30 at night for that last vote of 35 feet when Adele slowly raised her hand and we all thought we were gonna, you know, jump up and down for joy. So I think that the state zoning, obviously, has approved 35 feet for East Main. And basic commercial is dead on Main Street. There's at least 17 empty spots from Garfield to Granada. And like Brett said, the same computers from the 70s are in the window of the store. So obviously the Chinese Service Center across the street, which I went to the grand opening, turned out beautiful. You did a nice job and they've got a restaurant space, coffee shop space that's been sitting there. While it was being built, it's still vacant. And I mean I don't like to see that. I would like to see it filled, but it's still vacant. So once again, we must keep the height at 35 feet. That was approved by this council. Not 36 feet, not 38 feet or anything else, but 35 feet. Thank you folks for your attention. Thank you for your comment. Do we have anyone from Zoom wishing to speak? Madam Mayor, we do. We have a raised hand from Ari Gutierrez-Arabila. Go ahead Ari. Hi, thank you so much. You know, my baby sick, I'm at Children's Hospital right now, but I think that this is so important that I am calling in. The work that the community has done to get the 35 height limit has been recorded. Many, all of you were there at some level. You know all about it. It really is disrespectful to the community, to your constituents, to come back with looking for incentives, not for the community, not for the city, but for the developer to change what you have already decided, what has already been decided at the state level. It's not going back to do more affordable housing. It's not coming back to infuse the community as a whole. It's not coming back to figure out how to do increased transportation options. It's not coming back to figure out safety on the streets or figure out what the parking and traffic situation is going to be, but instead it's going to be how can we do things better and make it more palatable to an out of country developer. So I would reconsider that from the standpoint of the, what the staff is recommending and try to turn the tables and start to think more about what the incentives are for the community. Now, I am aware that in terms of incentives, other cities, Pasadena in particular, have done programs where a developer might get more credits for affordable housing should they invest in a property next door or even off site somewhere else. So technically, this developer is more than welcome to help infuse the business on East Main Street for the benefit of their future residents by infusing that the business in those empty storefronts that are right there, as has been discussed and as we all are all very well aware. So I think they're in terms of incentives. Let's talk about business development. Let's do a study. Let's do a grant from the county or the state. All these things happen all the time. Let's look for best practices from that standpoint, in terms of how we can benefit the city as a whole. From an economic standpoint, increased jobs, increased quality of life, and increased the incentive for that developer to sell their properties once they build them. So that's my big two cents. Please listen to what the community is saying. Please respect the work that we've done for the benefit of Alhambra and please help us. Please help us develop that area in a way that's beneficial to all. Thank you, please, file this and ask staff to come back with real incentives for economic development in that Hall. I'm going to continue with the speakers on Zoom first and then we'll go back to the speaker cards. The next raised hand on Zoom is from Ibeth or not quite sure. Ibeth, thank you. Please go ahead. Hi, good afternoon. I was there at the City Council meeting earlier with my two young children. Unfortunately, we had to leave because they were getting tired. Something that it should be recognized is the fact that when we first started fighting 801, my youngest child was in a carrier. I still remember having her in a carrier and speaking in front of City Council regarding this. I still can't believe that I'm here once again and we're talking about it still. This was voted on. We had all agreed to 35 feet. It wasn't what ideally as residents, what we wanted, as Olga pointed out with her picture. These, what's going to be built is already going to be towering over the single story homes. But for the City Council to even consider now going up, even if it is an inch from 35 feet, it's just so incredibly disrespectful and a slap to all the residents that have taken so much time out of their daily lives throughout all these years going to City Council meeting planning commission meetings trying to get our voice heard on this issue and Now the city wants to change it again. I just I hope you I hope you don't I hope the chapters closed on this Another consideration is parking. I said I have two young children. If there is going to be commercial, there are no parking spots. So where are these people going to park if they do go to these businesses? On the streets and then that goes into our single family homes, our residential areas for parking is not very safe. Traffic is another concern. The height, any increase at night is even more, even less cohesive with the current area that we live in. It is a primarily single story family homes. And what really alarmed me and the reason why I jumped on Zoom, even though I should be putting my children to sleep right now is the fact that I heard something about streamlining the process so that us, the residents, those who will be directly affected by situations like this in the future, wouldn't be allowed an opportunity to speak. That is terrifying. We live in the United States where I thought that, you know, as residents, as taxpayers, as constituents, we could have our voice heard when it comes to issues about our local area, especially buildings and development, because that affects our day-to-day life. So I really hope that that's just completely nullified and not even on the table at all for discussion. In closing, I hope that we can finally close the book on this and stick to the 35 feet, stick to what we already have and move forward so that we don't have to continue to spend more time. I would not like to be, you know, speaking once again in my daughter, be a teenager now. My six, my now six year old, who was in the carrier, be a teenager and we're still talking about 801. So thank you very much for all your time. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Do we have anyone else from Zoom wishing to speak? Are there any other raised hands on Zoom at this time? All right. I'm going back to the speaker cards from the city chamber. Next we have Bertha Reverb with Erra. My good evening, Madam Mayor and Council members. You know, I'm heartbroken that we're back here again discussing the same topic. I don't want to see a big slab of concrete like over a base state and Monterey, okay. Those buildings there are ice sores. This is El Hambra. This is the city that I came to retire in. I worked here. I've lived here for over 50 years. I've raised my children in this community, and I want to continue to stay here. If I get up and move because of this monster that wants to be put on on Main Street. I'm going to be leaving not only a wonderful community, people that I so love, people that I respect, and I don't want to move. But if I have to, I probably will, because we have no need to have that building any higher. We want to continue to keep this community as a preservation. We want to keep this community for the recognition that it is. Please, Council members, look to your constituents. We are the stakeholders here. And please keep it as it is. Let's keep this little town like it should be. It's a wonderful place to live. Nothing's perfect, but this is a wonderful place to be. And I'm glad to call El Hembro, my home. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we have Burnus or Tega. Good evening, everybody. My name is Prinice Tertaca, and I've been a resident here in November since I was born. For many years now, I think we all have seen many changes in November and not all for the better. The project that 801 is already 35 feet. That's the zoning for that area. Now, I don't know how this got this far, but isn't there a time or place where the applicant says, I mean, it's information to the applicant about zoning and all that stuff? Shouldn't they have seen that that's only 35 feet? Why do you want to put something that you know, you're over 35 feet? Why wanna build right there? I think because we all know the answer, because I think they wanna change the zoning or make a amendment to it so they could get what they want and most of the time they do. So since the zoning from the state says 35 feet, we shouldn't change it. That's in the businesses. I thought for sure we were gonna get a restaurant across the street at the Chinatown Service Center, but I thought for sure it would be a nice place for a coffee shop, but it's still vacant. The businesses on the Monterey, that project right there, they're all empty as well. You know, what are we going to do? They can't have it. You know, we need 35 feet. We don't need over. And that's what we want. As it is, 35 feet is way too high for us. But anyway, I think it should stay that way and I think the council should respect what we want. We've been here a lot of times and that's how it is. Thank you. That concludes the public comment portion. I'll move to the City Council. Deliberation. I'll start with vice mayor Lee. Thank you, Mayor Wong. I'm disgusted. I've been this 801, you see me ever since I, I like to 2018, six years, I'm with you. I'm sick of this. I'm motion for 35 free maximum high for Eastman quarter last year. I was sitting right here. You guys were here. Why is it back? I didn't do it. I made a promise last year, 35 feet maximum height for Easton and corridor for very good reason. We talked about it, the council discussed it. You were here, you spoke to a five minutes each. Why are we here again? Very frustrating. I'm keeping my promise. I will vote this down every time it comes to me. It better not come back again. That's all there is. It's not incentive. I looked at the two options. You could build a very beautiful building that makes use with 35 feet high. There's no excuse. In fact, the photo that was the rendering that was made for 35 feet is actually more more preservation feel. It's more subdued. If it's right in with the old talent hamper scheme, I am disgusted. You've never heard me say this word before. I'll say it again. Better not come back again. It's a no for me. Thank you. So, number one, thank you all for coming out, for voicing your concerns, your opinions, thoughts again. You know, I'm hoping that I can clarify what I see happening here. You know, it's, I think, good intention, you know, maybe misunderstood as something that it's not supposed to be. So I think in our strategic planning session about a year ago, we said, you know, what can we do to incentivize businesses on Main Street? So we instructed the city staff to come back and give us some options. And this is what we're seeing today. I don't think we've heard about this in the last year. Until a few weeks ago that we heard, you know heard it's coming back as an item on our agenda, we're going to look at some possible options. But in no way I don't think anybody up here is considering making any changes. I know again going back to the meeting that we had a year plus ago, we've heard the residents, we know what the specific area wants, we know what we want and basically it was at 35 feet. It's that simple. You know, I do want to clarify, you know, things get misconstrued in the public. You paid in thoughts. Somebody brought that up earlier that there are rumors and we need to clarify that. I can tell you that I myself as a council person, I'm always available to each and every one of you personally a lot of you have myself on Number you're welcome to text me call me anytime weekends evenings I'll always meet with you always take your call and always be receptive to your thoughts opinions. But with this it's simply Council's direction to staff to I sent and incentivize the area. You know, we want commercial. We all know that. I think that East Main is a very special area. It's very specific. And it does not fit certain commercial spaces like other parts of the city does. And so with that, I remember when we were talking about this over a year ago, I specifically said, you know, something very similar to what Miss Ang set earlier, why don't we can, why don't we specify a certain part of East Maine, maybe the portion between chapel and almanzer to fit certain heights and cut it off at that, cut it off at almanzer and don't go any further east than almanzer. You know, I still see that as a possibility. I think that could work. That is a very specific area that can hold and sustain certain heights. Maybe as high as 55, even 75 at heights, because there's nothing densely residential behind it. But again, anything east of El Manzer is very different. There's a lot of residential R1 that directly abuts these areas. So with this, I think it's just a very sincere intention to do something good for the community. It's being maybe misinterpreted. I don't think anybody wants to change the zoning for the community and it's being, you know, maybe misinterpreted. I don't think anybody wants to change zoning or the heights. I specifically don't think it's got anything to do with Ada Onee Spain, at least not in my book. I'm not looking at this. I don't think the city's looking at this in order to change. Ada Onee Spain, I hope it stays as they submitted on the second round. 35, no hire, and that's it. Now with that said, we also have to consider, you know, what are the options for commercial at 35 feet? They're limited. And so be it. I mean, if they are limited, you know, we'll see what happens with that space. You know, hopefully it'll work out as all residential. And if not, we have to accept the fact that you know we have very limited options for anything east of El Manzer going forward for commercial. I know that one of the things that we've all heard the residents say is you know we'd like an old town and that would be great and theory we'd love to see an old town a walkable area where we can have coffee sit down you know pastries etc, with these limited heights, that may be challenging, you know, but we will see going forward. Time will tell. But again, you know, want to, you know, communicate to the public that I am here personally to take your calls, your opinions, text, whatever it may be, and be receptive of all those opinions. But again, you know, want to give credit to city staff for, you know, basically following the city council's direction to at least bring something to council, you know, to incentivize commercialization in that area. Other than that, I think that is all for me. That's pretty much all for me. Open to hearing with the rest of the council. I'll say thank you. Council Member Maloney. Thank you Madam Mayor. Excuse my voice tonight. As far as I'm concerned and maybe Mr. Hoke can confirm, this is nothing to do with 801. He's main, I think that project is submitted, it's done, it's over. I think many folks would have liked to see them put in residential on the ground floor, including myself, and I think the council as well. But I'm sorry, residential, I'd say residential, I'm a commercial on the ground floor. But they made it very clear after the zoning code was adopted last year and approved by the state and it went into effect that they weren't going to do it. They didn't pencil out for them. Andrew's right, they could do it, they could go underground, they could do all kinds of stuff, but they're not going to because they have funding and they need to pay off their loans. And it doesn't make sense if they have to go underground. So that's the issue right now. They can go 100% residential and that's what they're doing. Nothing we're even discussing as anything to do with 801 as far as I'm concerned. I would not support a change specifically for that project, so that's done. So I hope that does make it clear because it is not part of this discussion. Councilmember Lee did ask the question, why are we discussing this, why are we discussing this, and Councilmember Mazza made very clear is that we discussed this at last year's strategic planning session. It's very important. I think it's the most important council meeting or meetings of the year because that's where we set the agenda. We have it at the library. I know that Lou McCammon was there. Others have come and participated in the discussion. It's a very important thing because we have an open into discussion. It's agendas about all sorts of topics. And one of the topics I think it came up right after 801, the developers of 801 said, we can't do commercial on the ground floor. There's not enough height. Whether or not I believe them, or we believe them as a side the point they said, if we had three more feet, we could do it at 35 feet, we're not going to do it. So they're not doing it, it's their choice. So we were thinking, geez, how do we incentivize commercial on the ground floor in these projects, especially in East Maine with a low height limitation? So we directed staff to go back and look at different options and bring it back to us. That's why in this staff report it says mixed-use buildings, goal 3.7, and then including the building heights and 3.9. That's why we're here. With all due respect, Councillor Early, you weren't there. At either one of those meetings, there were two strategic playing sessions and you were not there. I don't think that should be a reason for me to say anything just because I wasn't there. This doesn't mean that I agreed to it. Lace, Mayor Lee, I'm willing toullet. I don't like that at all. I know you didn't agree to it. I know you wouldn't agree to it, but you weren't even there to discuss it. That is what I'm saying. When we approved it, the point is that we approved it. The council approved something. The zoning code was done. The housing owner was approved. And we're going to give the floor to Councilmember Maloney right now and when he's done, we can go back. Thank you. We did not tell them to to re to undo the height limits. We didn't tell them to do anything of the sort. It's right here in black and white. What we asked them to do is look for incentives to get commercial use on the ground floor. That's a perfectly reasonable thing. I think if you were there, you would even have agreed with that. You may have said your piece, but I think you would have agreed with that. I think everyone here would say, yes, the council should be looking at ways to incentivize commercial, vibrant, commercial uses on the ground floor of mixed use, especially in East Maine. When I first met with the East Main folks. It was in Olga and Brad's living room or dining room, I believe. Marisol was there, I think Lou was there. And what I heard from that meeting, and I still think about it regularly, is the height limit, you want a 25 feet. You wanted very as little residential as possible. I think folks are very concerned about having a lot of residential and Main Street desiccrating the neighborhood. I think a lot of folks were seeing that early on in this process. And we are for lack of a better term. We're kind of stuck with residential now. The state put it on us and that's why we had the zoning code update and this housing element. So we are stuck with that. But what I heard also was that we wanted to create this old tunnel hammer with vibrant commercial spaces on the ground floor. My point of looking for incentives, not to undo the height limit, but for looking for incentives to encourage commercial use on the ground floor, is not that, you know, I don't live in a fantasy on that. We're going to have, move or not, you just, you force these developers to do something or create an incentive. And all of a sudden, we're going to have old-time Pasadena, right? It's going to take a long time. But once those projects are 100% residential from the ground floor, gone. No retail, no commercial ever, or at least the next 50 years. There's no chance with an incentive with allowing for the possibility of commercials pasting ground floor, even if it's not least immediately, at least that preserves that option. If they go 100% residential, I know this is a big topic at planning commission, which we were also responding to, because they recommended a 55 foot height limit, which we did not agree to, with big incentives to encourage commercially used on the ground floor. I think going to 55 feet was one of the theories was that that would allow for them to easily, more easily, build commercially on the ground floor because they'd make more money. So we're trying to find that balance. It is not trying to undo any height limit. And I think we need to put this in context of what we're actually trying to look at. We're trying to look at creating a vibrant commercial retail corridor along East Main. I hope that we all want that same thing. I know that there's vacancies there. We have been addressing some vacancies. I think at one of the previous meetings we talked about a potential vacancy tax if something was vacant for too long and landlords were not doing anything to lease those spaces out. I think we directed staff to create a registry of vacant storefront so we can speak to the owners and say, hey, you got to get moving on this stuff. So we recognize that. You can't expect a business, you know, as much as I appreciate CSE that shines on service center for creating that space there, you can't expect it to be an island and all of a sudden someone's going to create this wonderful space. You have to create a critical mass along that stretch there of commercial retail spaces that are vibrant. People want to go there. So that's my vision and I know that it's not easy but I hope we don't just give up on it because because some of the because we have vacancies far there west and because the CSC hasn't least out their space yet. We've got to keep trying. We've got to look for ways to get this done. I am not interested for the record. I'm not interested in raising the height limit from 35 feet. This is the lowest height limit in the entire city. So, the rest is sure, folks. We've listened to everyone who's spoken to us about the height limit on East Main. My suggestion, and of course, you know, I'm biased, but I still think it was a decent suggestion, is if a developer wanted to go in and put in commercial use on the ground floor. The incentive would be if three extra feet, like literally three extra feet of height, to allow for those bottom floor. If the community and the council doesn't want that, that's fine. I thought it was a nice way to go. They don't have to do it, but if they wanted to, they could get three extra feet that would allow them to this commercial space on the ground floor. So if that's not an option, I'm not looking to re-reliate all this stuff and fight these battles over and trust me, I have no desire. We're so relieved to be done with the Housing Element and the Zoning Code. We're just like you, trust us, please. But we're looking for ways that we can create a community win. How do we get these commercial uses on the ground floor? How do we create opportunities for commercial and retail and restaurant use on East Main. I think it's a wonderful community. I love it over there and every time I drive by, I think, so much potential here, it could be wonderful, but we can't just sit back and do nothing. So, I'm going to keep trying to think about ways to get that done. I'm going to respect the wishes of the community and my colleagues on the council that we don't want to monkey with the with a high limit. You know, if there's a outcry for my plan of creating a Center for Commercial Space for extra three feet, then I'll listen. But in the meantime, I'm not looking to change. It is what it is. I just hope we aren't cutting off our noses despite our face in this place here because we all think I think we want the same thing but we're kind of concerned about how to get there. So I want to continue the discussion as a community. This is not sort of a secret attempt a try to end around to do anything, especially related to A01 that is done and settled. But as a community that whole corridor, there's a long future the development is going to happen over a period of time, and we're going to, we want to make sure we have that formula just right. So I'm open to tweaking it, I'm open to suggestions for anyone, and I hope that everyone participates in these discussions. I imagine the same thing will come up for our strategic planning session again. I hope all the council's there. I hope the community comes. It's not easy to get there during the weekday. I know I have to take off, take time off work myself, but it's on March 4th, which is a Tuesday. Maybe you can do the presidential pool system and appoint someone to go and monitor what's going on and report what the community would like to see or hear. I'm open to it, but I think we've got to keep trying. I'm not willing to give up on that stretch of our town. I think it's worth it to keep fighting for it. And I do appreciate staff coming back with this at our direction. As everyone should notice that this is a receiving file or provide directions and staff. So it's never agendas as an action item. We're not taking any action necessarily. So as far as I'm concerned, we've heard from the community, we've heard from our staff, we've heard from our colleagues, so I'm comfortable with a receiving file, but let's continue the discussion. You all have my number as well. Can I also remember on Dready's Soutler? Yeah, I'll be brief because obviously, Council has spoken and said so many things that I could, you know, echo. And we understand that, you know, we want to encourage businesses here to come into Alhambra. We have so many vacancies. And those are not great to look at, to drive by and see so many vacancies on our, especially on our main street, which is supposed to be our special street there. You know, El Hambra Mix Use is something that has been around since I think 2000 and it really took off because of the multi-family housing that was being built alongside it. And a lot of millennials are looking for places to buy, purchase, they don't necessarily want land. And they want things close by them. And so mixed use is not an unequal idea of anything. It's a very progressive idea where the future. However, some of the things that I've been reading about mixed uses that they are so much more successful and vital to a city when they're near transportation centers or they're near airports or monuments or big tourist attractions, even hotels and hospitals. This clearly is not mainstream, you know, any of these things except potentially the transportation center. But I don't see that happening too much sooner. I'm also reminded in the height change we fought for that. We hear you loud and clear and we ourselves live in Alhamdra and understand that those heights are not the most attractive thing. Part of the city. Boy, all you have to do is drive down Main Street and look at fifth and fourth and between fourth and sixth street to the south and see how those towering housing units look over the fields of Ambrae School and they block out the sun. I mean, they're just not, they're monstrosities. They should have really thought about when you are going to build there, who is around you and who you're building for and how is that going to work out in the in the future. But this is a beautiful, beautiful rendition of a mixed use or a 100% residential. It is gorgeous. It looks like it's going to fit right in without any problem. It has the height requirement. It is, I think, something that we should look at in the future for any kind of building to maintain that height. So that being said, we do want to encourage our businesses to come in. I just don't know that the mix use in this area is going to work. So that being said, I too stick by what we voted for initially, which was to remain the height. That is it. So. Yeah, thank you so much for all the comments. I have a couple questions for our staff. I know I've heard from my council colleague that East Main A01 is no longer relevant. I just want to, for the record, I just want to hear from our staff to please confirm that in the staff report on this item we're just using A01 East Main as an example to illustrate the difference between 35 feet and 38 feet. And it's not the project is not pending the decision we may make today tonight. And the project has already moved on. That's correct. The project at 801 main has been approved and they're in the Almost permit issuance process and it's been designed at 35 feet And it's a hundred percent residential correct Thank you, and then my next question is Regarding the mix use and how it works with the state law. I know when The planning commission suggested that we wanted mixed use our business corridors and that didn't work well with our with the housing element and the state law. So I wanted to just understand from staff that if we incentivize mixed use, how does that work with the HCD and all the requirements that they have. A mixed use would still be in compliance with the HCD regulations, the density on the property regardless of how much commercial or residential would be there would still be required and be compliant with HCD. The only caveat there is that if a city were to incorporate mixed use, the HCD regulation is that 50% of the floor area had to be residential. In the current phase of how mixed use is developed, usually there's more than 50% residential in all mixed use development. Okay, understood. Thank you so much. That was my questions. So on this topic, I just want to share my thoughts. I understand that there was a whole process that we went through. And I really want to respect the decision that's already made by the City Council and our community was very involved in that process and we heard you and heard what we would like to see and I don't also don't intend to revisit this topic or change anything that's already decided by the City Council at that point. So what I'm not willing to change is the story hide, I'm sticking with three stories. On the building hide, I do appreciate, you know, staff presented this example really nicely with configurations and I just want to share a little bit of my perspective on this. So in a mixed use building, the ceiling height for residential floors are 10 feet. So we have two floors of 10 feet high And then for commercial space a standard ceiling height for commercial is 12 to 15 feet So if you add them up 15 feet 10 another 10 that's 35 and that's standard commercial space now with a lot more trendy business and retail and restaurants, you guys probably see that there's a lot of trends that people started to utilize open ceiling. So when you increase the ceiling height, it's more desirable for some type of businesses. So like for example, retail and showroom, where they want to make a memorable impression, and that creates openness for commercial spaces. And also when you have a higher ceiling for commercial, you can utilize larger windows and not utilize this more natural light for the business. So I can see that there is a reason why for some businesses, it's more desirable to go just a little bit more beyond 15 feet. So and you can see in this example that 38 feet versus 35 feet does make a difference. And I wanted to say that you know three feet of a difference is not, it's perceptible to the outside, but it does make a difference for the type of interior design that we can bring to our hampera. I just want to say that, you know, I think it's we can all agree that we want to see commercial space on the ground floor that we don't, we want the street to be walkable, we want to see business, we also want to see creative, nice business, quality businesses. So I don't want to, you know, rule that out. So I think hearing everybody's comment and also comments from my council colleagues today. I wonder if a compromise here is that we could, we stick with, through no decision that needs to be made tonight, we stick with 35 feet high and three stories. If we have a development project, it's similar to Council Member Maloney suggested if we have a project that we're the developers saying we can bring a lot more quality business to the ground floor than we consider that we consider flexing our development standard on a case-by-case basis if I think if that's an option I'm willing to support that. Maybe we can have staff if staff is not ready to respawn we can you know have staff looking to this and maybe we can discuss this at a later time or have staff bring back an update at a later time. Mayor, if you don't mind. So I think we've heard and I appreciate the explanation I think that kind of clarifies why they need for higher ground floor heights. And that's very true, especially with any big box stores, let's say as an example, a North-Strength Rack, whatever the case might be, not that we're looking to have something like that on East Main, of course. But they're looking for the higher ceiling heights, maybe upwards of up to 20 feet in some cases. I think we've heard from the residents, as I said before, I think East Main, specifically Almanza or East to the city limits is a very unique area where it's going to be tough to anything bigger, higher than what we've approved already. I think we should leave it as is, but where I would be open to that being a possibility would be as going back to Miss Aing. Anything chapel to El Manzer, which is kind of fitting for the area, I would still have left a CAA, a more in-depth discussion, and maybe even staff bringing back some options on that, but specifically between chapel and El Manzer, I'd be very open to that possibility. Well, I think it'd be very fitting. And then going back, I wanted to also, since I've got the opportunity here to speak, wanted to clarify something here just for the record. Mr. McCammon, I think you shared with us a letter, some communications between you and Mr. Talbot over the weekend in which he responded. I know that both Council Member Maloney and myself are mentioned in that letter as trying to find a compromise at that one point in time. But I just wanted to clarify, at least for myself, and I'll let Council Member Maloney speak as well. I've had absolutely no communication with inter- Corp with Mr. Talbot, at least regarding that subject in the last probably 12 to 18 months since this came up for discussion. So it's wanted to make sure that we clarify that. And also, it's the gentleman and I respect your comments on that that mentioned that sometimes we come out, we smile and then we vote against the community I appreciate that you know I would put myself well, you know I don't think we do you know, I mean at least for myself I can tell you that whatever I tell you It's sincere and I'm gonna stick by that hundred percent of the times All of my decisions are based first of all is that I'll have a resident for 46 years, not a council member. I put myself in your shoes, you know, that if I were to live, you know, anywhere just south of Maine, just north of Maine, behind any of these possible projects, I'd feel the same way that you do. I wouldn't want them in my backyard either. So just wanted to clarify that, but I respect the comments, and again, open to any future thoughts and opinions that you might have. But again, open to the possibility of having that discussion of raising the height limits between chapel and all-manager, specifically those areas. Thank you. Councilmember Maloney. Thank you, Councilmember Maloney. I did talk to Paul Talbot, I think think after the zoning code thing went through to see hey in each And she has still be willing to build commercial on the ground floor and he said no that was my conversation with I think the compromise That he was referring to was what I offered during the discussion which is that if they we gave Project came in proposing commercial we would give the extra three feet, but that didn't that didn't go through either So that was that. I was still trying to see if there was a way to get it done, but there wasn't. I do want to offer the floor to vice-marily one more time. If you have additional comments, I know that you wanted to say more. No, I think I said enough. I didn't hold back to my true feeling. It's just a matter of this council needs to know that if we approve something, in this case, there's only update that involves entire city. We ever entertain another item that changes what we approved. We have no respect from the residents. Our credibility totally goes down the drain. That's what I'm trying to say is that we should not even entertain item like this. We need to be very careful. And notice this item is going to appear later on in our strategic plan. I wasn't there, but it doesn't matter. I expect the council, even though I wasn't there to understand that our people, our residents depend on us to be ethical, responsible, and credible. If I ever go back to my promises, my reputation is down the drain. You know that. You guys know that. Elected officials or politicians, whatever you call us, we have to make sure that we're being respected. There are too many corrupt politicians out there. Too many politicians out there saying, once they turn around and say, then do something else. I'm sick of it. And I'm not saying that this council is doing that. I'm just saying that this council is in danger of doing so by even allowing this item to be on the agenda and bringing the residents back again. I'm disappointed. Of the six years I'm on the council on this diocese, the first time I'm very outraged. I could be angrier by holding back. I'll be talking about the strategic plan in the next item, the same thing is in there. Now, what I'm trying to say is that there are other incentives that we can entertain and look at to bring developments, not the height. I know the height has been thought. I know there are people that are trying to get the height back, increase back this way. And I don't allow that. So yes, I'm being very harsh tonight. Councilmember Maloney, I apologize for coming to talk back to you, but I don't agree that you used the fact that I wasn't there. It is true, but I wasn't there. But the council needs to know that it doesn't matter who's there, that we all have the responsibility of holding our promises to our residents. Thank you. So if there is no motion, I'd like to just receive and file this item and move on. All right. We'll receive and file this item. Thank you, everybody. The next item on the agenda this evening is the consent agenda item number 6 through 16. Do we have any speaker cards from the public for any of the consent agenda items? Madam Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for the consent agenda. Do we have any speakers? We assume that we should speak on any of the consent agenda. Do we have any speakers? We assume that we should speak on any of the consent agenda items? There are not any raised hands on Zoom at this time. I'll move the consent. I'll second. Can I just make one comment on item 12? Excellent work by staff for identifying a potential new source of funding from adjacent city and I really appreciate using other people's money. I did it. I was about to pull that item and say the same thing so yes absolutely thumbs up on that. Thank you. Oh echo with that comment as well. So with motion in a second we have roll call please. On Dr. Raddy Sadler. Yes. Lee. Yes. Maloney. Yes. Maaza. Yes. Wang. Yes. Right, motion passes. Next, we have the continuation of public comment for non-agentized items. Do we have any speaker cards remaining from the beginning of the meeting that we're not able to speak? No. I'm sorry, excuse me. No, Madam Mayor. We got through all of the speakers that had submitted cards during the initial public comment period. Just for your information, I am seeing a raised hand on Zoom right now. All right, let's go ahead. OK. The speaker on Zoom is Ari Gutierrez-Arabila. Go ahead, Ari. Hi. Thank you so much. I wanted to suggest either through strategic or through community meetings to discuss ideas for economic development of East Main Street in particular, but certainly from downtown East. And what ideas the community has, what development, or rather what best practices might be from other communities, And basically be part of the team in helping achieve the goal that has been stated was the initial purpose of the recent agenda item. My point here is not to talk about that one, but to suggest that we agenda, that we request an agenda item on economic development of East Maine through community engagement. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Do we have anyone else on Zoom wishing to speak? No matter where there are any other raised hands at this time. All right. Next we have council communications. I will start with council member Maloney. Yes. I don't have too much. I just, you know, everyone's still kind of reeling from the effects of the fire and the fallout from that. So I do appreciate the community and all the efforts that people put in recently. And we talked with the last meeting as well. I do want to say Councilmember Lee, I apologize. I didn't mean to, that wasn't intended as an attack. It was just you were wondering where that item came from. And I did want to let you know that it wasn't some staff coming in this on their own or the developer proposing something. It was a council directed thing. And I look forward to really robust and productive conversations at the next strategic planning session as well. It was good, we had a nice meeting tonight. A lot of good things going forward. I'm really excited about the Community Center and I appreciate staff just continuing to turn out items that are on our strategic plan and keeping us moving forward. So thank you. Council Member, I'm Jody Stoutler. Sure. Thank you Mayor. Thanks for leading a great meeting and I appreciate all the comments made by our residents. Both here and online. I wanted to let the council know as well as others that I attended the San Gabriel Valley Housing Trust Cog Meeting, which was my meeting last week. We voted to support the second supportive housing project and moving that into the, with the change in who was going to be directing it for us. And I think it's the East Los Angeles Foundation, is that correct? This is a Cesar Chavez Foundation, I'm sorry. And the Cesar Chavez Foundation has had successful sites in both Baldwin Park and Pomona. And so we're looking forward to having the tax incentives being granted a little bit easier with someone who is inside and understand how those incentives work to move this project forward. So I was glad to be there. We have a couple of new folks that are now joining of the COGS housing trust. And I look forward to seeing other projects come about within the San Gabriel Valley. So thank you for your trust in placing me in that spot. In addition to that, I was, CalTrans reached out to me, and I know Councilman Mazza will be interested in this. CalTrans reached out and actually reached out to quite a few folks, but we're hoping to get a jump on this. And they have a designation for a cleaner California community grant and a designation. And I looked at it really really you know how Skag and also Cal trends and so many of our Big utility folks they have opportunities for cities to to do things and and it looks as though our community Already does quite a few things that fits under their description. So if I could get a support from the council that we move forward as being a California, or we're going to try to anyway to apply for clean California community, which will be a campaign for us and for them, for the residents and for our students, to be mindful of picking up where you see something that is trash or related to litter. I know you and I have been unundated with all kinds of emails over the years that we need to do something in this direction. So I'm hoping that the council will go with me on this. No, absolutely. Thank you for taking the lead on that. Absolutely. You know, welcome by me. And I know it would be welcome by all of our residents. You know, we're always, you know, bugging our city manager, you know, putting we here about, you know, residents needs are concerned. So definitely appreciate that and definitely support it. Thank you and that's all for me, except that with all the fires and everything that has transpired over the last couple of weeks, boy, January just started and it's almost done. We didn't get a chance to thank our Parks and Recreation for the Rose Parade was such an incredible time. And I want to thank Director Macias for helping do that work. You know, over time to get us all involved in that. I look forward to the years to come under that. But we were so proud. And I think we won an award. One of the, remind me again, the name of the award that we won, the mayor's award. So, oh, I know what I wanted to let you know that once we got the mayor's award, we quickly ran to the Riggly Mansion to go look for mayor of Pasadena thinking that he gave us this award. But we had an opportunity not only to say hello to him, but we also met the president, who was a solution. Oh no, he's a cathedral, I think, graduate from high school. And his student, his school, actually, his high school, actually had the band in there and they performed, the marching band. So it was a real family. We took pictures with them and we really had such an enjoyable time. But thank you, Mr. Masea. Thank you to the city manager for making sure we are all attentive and being grateful for this opportunity that we have to reach out to our communities because they're proud to see our little mighty little city still there as a tradition, a tradition that should stay with us long after we leave. But I wanna thank you, we didn't get a chance to thank you because of all the fires and everything else that transpired after, so thanks again. Thank you, that comment. I'll go to councilmember Mazah. Thank you, actually, no other comments? Actually, just one quick comment. Thank you, again, Mr. Macias, for all the work and all of your staff and volunteers that turned out such an incredible float. And as councilmember Rondraadi said, we were fortunate to get into the Trinidad Verose House looking for coffee at that morning actually to warm up, but you got to meet some incredible people. But you know, you always run into people that live out of state and all over the world. Come back and say, I've got, I lived in Alhambra, I've got a family member of the Los Alhambra, They're so proud to see the float. So I want to appreciate staff for the support, the Chamber of Commerce for the work, and the support as well, and hope that we can continue having that float on at parade for many, many years to come. Thank you again for all your work. Nice meeting, Mary. Yes, thank you, Mary Wong. Yes, I still remember the roast parade. It was really great to be on there and to see the crowd, really enjoying the event. Some of you will sacrifice your sleep time just to watch it live. I've never done it. I don't know why, but I was having fun with all the council members. That said, I wanted to bring up an issue that I had a conversation with our city manager that we have a sign posted out there. There might be more. Right outside this door, this door of chamber that I think all person belong subject to church. And I wasn't sure about our whether we have a program set up or a system set up to search bags and persons and we'll have you for weapons. And the reason I bring that up is not because any particular incident that triggered my thought is more of the fact that I was an educator with AUSD and we know that there have been campus shooting around the country, unfortunately, but I'll tell you something, California is actually one of the safest states because we immediately after first shooting, I remember it was Columbine shooting, that AUSD had a media lockdown policy and to protect our students and staff in general. And I'm not saying that something that happened here, but I'll tell you something. Let's not let our guard down because this is a public facility. People can walk in anytime. We have two front doors right now that are not locked, I think. And I want to protect everyone here in this room, as well as the council, all the staff. And I think that it is really to our best interest that we actually have a program searching for weapons. The slides posted out there and Jessica and I walked over there and we read it. I forgot the actual words. Do you remember the actual language is right out there? But does this say anything about searching for weapons, Jessica? I don't recall. We could have somebody go out and take a look. Okay, and she can't it is. It doesn't say or she or goes back. Does it say anything about searching right right there at the front door? So you're right. It says all persons, packages, briefcases, and containers of all descriptions are subject to search while in this building. So it's subject to search. I am assuming weapons are one of the first things that we're searching for for safety. And I do want to ask the council to put this on our next agenda whether we have a programming place. Because I personally have never observed the search. It doesn't mean there's never a search. I'm just saying that I have an observed one personally sitting here for six years. But I'm not saying that it has not taken place. But if we have a sign out there posted, then we need to follow through. Just like whoever our parents, you know that you have a room in the house, you better follow through with consequences, right? And so I want the public to feel safe in here. There's nothing to feel. There's no immediate fear. It's just a matter of falling through with our policy. If we have a policy that's posted in our building, we need to have an implementation of that policy. So I'm asking the council right now to put this discussion on our next meeting's agenda. And to discuss whether we have a system of searching or we're going to set up a program so that we actually have a systematic search to follow through with our policy. Thank you for the comment. I would like to say that I wanted to thank Council Member on Dready Stattler for bringing up the clean California campaign. Mayor Long, Sergeant Dr. Jo, I'm asking for the council to put what I raise on the agenda so I'm going to ask the council to say yes or no. So if I understand our process clearly that when a council member brings up a topic that we want to see on our future agenda, and this is the first time it's raised. And then at the next meeting, we get an opportunity to discuss it if we have consensus. So the process is, if there's an ask, if all five of you want to see that on a future agenda, then you can just agree right now. Just nod your head and agree or give a signal to staff. If we don't get five nods of the head, then the next meeting this will appear under Council Communication listed under Council Member Lee's name and she can again make their request. At that time you can decide if there's a majority of you that want to see it on a future agenda, then it will become well gone a future agenda. If there is not a majority at that time, then it will not it on a future agenda, then it will become, we'll go on a future agenda if there is not a majority at that time, then it will not go on a future agenda. So right now the only question is, are there five of you who are willing to see this on a future agenda based on what you've heard so far? If not, it will come back at the next meeting under Council Communication, under Council and Release, or vice mayor Lee's name. So, do we have five? Council member Maloney? Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. I can't say that I'm 100% comfortable with us kind of jumping and instituting a search policy for the general public coming into meetings. I know we have, I know we reserve that right, but I am concerned about message that would send to the community about, you know, whether or not they're welcome here. You know, people have different ways of looking at something like that. And I, I think your councilman really is a hundred percent right that we should always be concerned about our safety, safety of our staff, safety of the other public that comes to these meetings. I don't necessarily want to jump to a searching regime at this point. I just maybe I'm being naive and I hope that we don't need to do that. But what I would like to hear maybe before I make that decision, would be a briefing from Police Department, maybe Chief Kennedy could explain to us what his folks do for these meetings, the safety procedures that they go through, you know, maybe recommendations as to how we could improve the safety and if searching every person that comes in is one of those, then I'm willing to consider it. I just want to make sure we're actually considering all the different options and all the different factors involved here. So if you would accept that, I would love to, I would support a briefing from Police Department. I think that's fine. I think I'm not really looking for a particular structure, structured search program. I just want to know it could be a presentation. I just want to whether we have something in place. I want to know why that sound was even there in the first place. So historically, I can share some insight on that. There was an incident in the city where a rest was made and explosives were seized from a private garage. Subsequent to that incident, the individual who has arrested after they were released appeared at a council meeting and had a briefcase. And that made council members nervous. So subsequent to that, council was advised if you want to reserve the right to search people, police feel it's appropriate, you should at least post a sign outside. And that was the impetus for the sign that's outside. To my knowledge, I'm not aware of any searches that have taken place, but the sign is out there and the police have the right to search if they have a suspicion of something or a concern about something. That's the origin of the sign. Councilmember Maasa. Thank you. You know, I too would be open to just a very short presentation by police staff. And again, if appropriate only, I know there's certain police protocols that may not be appropriate shared with the entire public. We're safety reasons, but I would definitely be open to a brief presentation. Councilmember on Juddys Seller, would you like to chime in? So he is the, he would, if the our chief would be the person to speak to us regarding all of that. So I think it's appropriate for us to have anything with respect to safety and the safety of all of that. So I think it's appropriate for us to have anything with respect to safety and the safety of all of us that it come from him in his office. Sure. All right, sounds like we have consensus to just have our chief candidate to bring back a very quick brief presentation to Council and just inform us what you guys do and how you guys enforce in that space. Okay. So going back to my remarks, I wanted to just say that I also support the Clean California Campaign. I think it's a great opportunity for us to pursue potential grant fundings. And I know that the community really appreciate everything our city, city staff does to keep our community safe and clean. That's a huge quality of life improvement. So I would like to support that as well. And going back to the public comment made in the beginning of the meeting, I do want to address some of the things that I heard. And I want to thank Lou for providing us with materials here. And I see that there's a lot of meeting cancellations in the recent couple months from the planning commission. I know planning commission has always been very busy with a lot of projects. And I just wanted to offer staff an opportunity to maybe share with us what has been going on from staff perspective in terms of a lack of business for planning commission meetings. Madam Mayor, members of the council, thank you for the opportunity. From a staff perspective, we've been seeing the slow down start as early as to 2024 in terms of less applications being submitted. Some of that is attributed to the economy and some of the uncertainty about the November elections. Now that we're past that, there will be a little bit more certainty, but some of the interest rates and borrowing rates are a little high right now, so maybe investors are holding back a little bit. Other than that, there's, you know, we process applications through the Q as they arrive. Over the past couple of weeks, we've been hearing from the community as well about, maybe it's the new zoning code that's been the problem and that staff's approving a bunch of stuff that would have been going to the planning commission. That's incorrect. I think we've approved one minor use permit since then and that was for a business. the commission didn't wanna see as well and I've had that conversation with the commissioner about that and so hopefully the economy turns up a little bit. Hopefully more investors will look into our hammer. I know we are at a staff level working hard. It may not seem like it based on some of the community comments, but we are working hard to bring in businesses. We're trying to fill vacant storefronts. We're trying to get absentee property owners to maintain their properties. We are working hard. Thank you so much for sharing that insight. Some of the other public comments that I heard that I just wanted to share that we have our strategic plan session coming up. I do plan to address some of these comments, not I'm not going to ask staff to bring back any items immediately, but during the session I plan to raise some of these questions, and one of them is to how do we increase public access for some of our commission meetings? I know that some of the meetings have a big, huge public interest, and how do we make it easier for the public to attend these meetings? And I know there's causing involved so maybe that's something that we just needed to look at more closely as a you know bigger ticket item there And Then I also wanted to say that I was just so happy and relieved and I know our city manager feels the same way to see rain this past weekend. And I think that really helps with what we have been seeing with the air quality. And I just want to take this opportunity to thank our city staff. I know all of our staff has been so busy working, especially after the wind storm. And I know some of our staff actually have been displaced and they continue to come into work every single day to serve this community. So, thank you so much for all the work that you did in this time. There's so many trees that fell and there's just a lot of things that needed to repair. So, it didn't happen because of magic, it happened because of city staff artwork in making it happen. So thank you for all the work and the leadership from our city manager in that. And last but not least, we have the Lunar New Year festival on Saturday to celebrate the year of snake and it's going to be Saturday, February 8th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There's a lot of delicious food. There's unique booths. I know our chamber has been working really hard on this. So we're hoping to have a lot of public attend and we're hoping to bring a lot more for our families and children, the seniors in our community. So come check it out Saturday, February 8th, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. And then don't forget to sign up for our Hamburg's emergency alerts at www.cityoflhambra.org slash alerts. Or you can text our Hamburgbrassca to 38276 and please do not disable your emergency alerts they're vital for staying informed and safe and that's all I have for tonight. I will adjourn the meeting and thank, everybody. I'm going to make a little bit of a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. you