Regular and parking authority meeting of Tuesday, May 20th, it is a little after seven and we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Can I have Kobe? Please come up and give her. We'll get us in the pledge. Please stand, put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you very much. This evening we're going to begin with some presentations. So we're going to start with a moment of unity. And did we want to do roll call? Oh yes, we do want to roll call. All right. City Clerk, if you could please call roll. Council Member Wells. member Korman here council member Friedman here vice mayor Mirage absent and mayor Miseric Nazarian here and now for the parking authority director Wells here director Korman here director Friedman here vice chair Sarah Mirosh is absent absent and Chair Nazarian. Here. Thank you. All right. Now we will begin with a moment of unity. This is something that we do at the beginning of Council meetings to celebrate the rich heritage and different cultures that exist in the beautiful city of Beverly Hills. This week, in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we are delighted to welcome some of our Beverly Hills high school students, so welcome everyone. And yeah, we could clap for them. So I would like to invite students Lindsay Moreno of the Korean Language and Cultural Club and Sersaka Suriyasat of the Chinese Culture and Majang Club to please come up. Tonight we pay tribute to the generation of Asians and Pacific Islanders who have been instrumental in America's history and are essential to its future success. The Asian American Pacific Islander, or AAPI, umbrella, is a vast and diverse group of people representing most of the world's population. People from every Asian and Pacific Islander nation have found their way to the United States bringing their language, culture, and food with them. They have educated and enriched our beautiful nation beyond measure. Right here in our own Beverly Hills High School, two student groups have formed clubs to connect with each other and share their culture with fellow students and I am absolutely delighted to be able to welcome you. Hello, thank you so much. My name is Lindsay Moreno, president of Korean Language and Culture Club or we also it's also known as Clack and Clack has around since COVID in 2020, and we teach Korean language and culture through reading and writing. We discuss pop culture and music and have so many fun lessons and meetings together. We also raise awareness for North Korean refugees, and we are partnered with Liberty in North Korea to donate all of our funds to. We've hosted and raised over $2,000 since 2020. And during school outside of fundraising, we've been bonding through practicing Korean conversation and sharing folklore about our cultures where or just end up playing games during lunch. So, and in order to expand our influence, we've partnered as well with Chinese Culture Club for Chinese New Year's and paper folding club to donate some of those origami. With each lesson at event, it's grown to a huge community filled with not just Asians, but of people with ethnicities, such as Russian, Israel, African-American Thai, like Spanish, so much more, it's become a huge community and you'll always see us just yelling and shouting to join our club and have fun with all of us. A quote from one of my members has said how CLAC made me feel welcome in a space where we learned about culture and bond with our other members. I thank you so much for the opportunity here at City Hall to advocate for a club for Asian Pacific Asian American Pacific Islander Month. We hope to continue our tradition of uniting not only Asian culture but other groups to spread peace and unity amongst our local community. Thank you so much. Wonderful. We're going to take a picture together in a minute. Yes. We have two presentations. Okay. All right. We're going to come down and take a picture with you. No, we're delighted to recognize you all. I'd also like to give Councilmember Wells a moment to to share a few words I brought a prop so Well, I want to thank you for honoring a API heritage month as a Japanese American who's married to a Jewish American. This month of May is always a time of celebration for me and my family because we get to celebrate both our cultures and our history, especially here in the United States. So it's really a treat for me. I brought with me my grandmother's autobiography. And my grandparents came from Japan in the early 1900s to California, and my grandmother lived well into her late 90s, and she wrote this autobiography, and really, in it, it contains our family history in Japan, as well as the Nakhai family history in the United States. And I brought it because it's really a testament to how important it is for us to share our stories with each other and as well for generations to come. So for me, many times I've read this book of my grandmothers at different points in my life. And each time I read it, I learn or find something different that I didn't see before because I'm in a different place in my life. So what I do find every time I read it is her wisdom and her inspiration and a connection that I feel to her even though she's been gone a long time. And so for me it's justestement for my grandmother. I'd like to honor her tonight and recognize her, Tameo Akui Nakai, for writing this autobiography for not only me, but for generations to come. So thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you all for being here. All right, so let's take a quick picture. I know Chinese Culture Club isn't here right now, but I've been a member as well as partnering with Chinese Culture Club, but they've been an excellent community where we play majong every lunch and we learn how to play all the different rules. There's a bunch of different rules when it comes to different countries uniting together to try to play one game. But at the end of the day, everybody has fun, and we're able to teach other people who don't know Ma Zhang or the Chinese culture. And it's a lot of fun to be in these Asian communities, even if it's not just Asians, but just everyone at the school. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is the next one. I have a basement. Okay. Well, your basement. Oh, very good. Okay. All right. So do you guys want to help me? You're ready. Okay. So, you guys want to help me? It's ready. Okay. Like, leave them here and then just open them. Yeah. All right, so. So you guys want to help me? Ready? Okay. Like, leave them here and then just do, just open them. All right, so, next. Tonight, we are recognizing members of our incredible Teen Advisory Committee known as TAC. Woohoo! So the committee is compiled of six through 10th graders from the Beverly Hills Unified School District Schools and Beverly Hills residents attending private schools. The our tech members were closely with our community service team to generate ideas, suggest new recreation programs and create events that inspire our youngest citizens to engage with their community. The year 2024-25 was very productive for the TAC members in honor of Earth Day TAC members collaborated with Master Garden George Pessine at Raystone Mansion to restore two garden beds, well done. They hosted the first teen development day where members participated in a college readiness workshop receiving professional headshots. That's pretty cool. And engaged with a panel of career professionals from various industries. In another milestone, the committee presented its first ever intergenerational excellence award at the Beverly Hills Spring Arts Show, highlighting the value of cross-generational community connections. The evenings were re- sorry. This evening we are recognizing 27 members of this year's 2024-25 committee for their exceptional service for teens interested in participating in our 2025-2026 class. I want to let you know that applications are open at Beverly Hills dot org slash teens applications close on June 30th. So all of you please make sure to let your friends know to apply and tell them how fantastic this program was. And I am going to call you all up to receive your awards. So here we go. Thank you. Camden Forster. Congratulations. Cleopal. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Daniel Burrowdin, did I say that right? Hello Lee. Hello, Lee. I'm going to go on bright. Congratulations. Grace Hinden. Congratulations Grace. Haley Schiller. Congratulations. Hannah Davis. Congratulations. Isabella Zahabian. Congratulations. Jack Sherry. Congratulations, Jack. Jacob Darvish. Zhang Zhong. Congratulations. Justin Kim. I have such a good, helpful group. Congratulations. Katherine Barberian. Congratulations. Congratulations. Kyler Adams. Congratulations. Madison Rustestamy. Congratulations. I love the name. He is. Maria Sosancho. Sounds good. Congratulations. Naomi Chong. Congratulations. Naomi Yasui. APPLAUSE Graduation. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Natalia Torres. APPLAUSE Congratulations. Savannah Tate. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Vivi Schaimbro. All right, and there you have it. Congratulations. These are all of our fantastic teens. We appreciate all of you. We're going to try to take a quick picture together. I'm sure you're going to have to come a little closer. And I want to also invite recreation supervisor Malik Diggs to please come up as well. I just say first thank you Mayor Council members for your support throughout this past 10 months. Incredibly proud of what TAC has done. Every challenge, every task. Anyway, we try to push them. They rose to the occasion. And honestly, what you see today here is a culmination of their hard work. So thank you, TAC. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to our RPC, who just supported for these past 10 months. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, are we ready? We're not ready. for these past ten months. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are we ready? No. We're not ready. We're almost ready. It's still working. Yeah. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Right on the side. Thank you. I need these drivers in there. You can come in Both of you. And that's a clear one, one, two, three. Good. And then, one, two, three, four times. And, one, two, three. I'm going to do a couple more. Ready? Ready? And a couple more for you guys. We're excited. Thank you all. Remember to sign up for the innovation circle too. All right did you know that it's public works week? Thank you for joining us as we recognize National Public Works Week. Taking place may 18 through the 24th. This year's theme, people, purpose, presence highlights the dedication and impact of our public works team who are the backbone of our city, the unseen essential workers in our everyday lives. They deliver our water and remove the trash, they maintain our roads, our water quality, parks and trees and public spaces. They manage traffic flow and show up to support every city event. Today we're proud to recognize several public works employees who were selected by their peers for their achievement in 2025. Raymond Lara of the Solid Waste Stormwater Division won the Individuals Award. Come on down. You won the Individual Award for Service Exceeding Expectations. And our Water Distribution Team, Howard Hayes, Harold Stain, Roy Perez, David Ellison, and David Hillier, won the team award for Service Exceeding Expectations. Welcome, everyone. you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and commitment. We celebrate this week and we appreciate you and everything that you do. As we are lining up for this proclamation, I'd like to invite Shauna Epstein, our Director of Public Works, to please come up. Congratulations. Thank you. So we're really, we're honored to serve this city and the support that we get and the gentleman and lady with me tonight really work so hard every day and just a few examples of the shining people in public works. They really are the backbone of our community as a public works former public works commissioner I was I had the privilege of seeing that and we're so grateful for your service and everything that you do. Thank you very much. We also have a Public Works Commissioner here too. We do. We have two commissions. We have our chair, Norey of Public Works Commission. We also support the Traffic and Parking Commission. And we have Lisa K. Schwartz who's a Commissioner there for, so thank you for coming. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be going to the next. And we have Lisa K. Schwartz as a commissioner there you very much. Thank you for your service. You appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I see you. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service. You appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I see. Thank you very much. All right. So many of you know that our commissions serve as the eyes and ears of the council. And today we have two incredible commissioners who have dedicated so much of their time and of their energy and their wisdom and their knowledge To our community and we're so grateful. So I'd like to acknowledge our first departing city commissioner, Mayor Lurie, to please come up from Reckham Parks Commission We're so grateful for your service and everything that you do in the community. Is it say her name? Yes, it does. Yeah, so we're so grateful for everything that you do in our community, everything that you've done, your past rotary president, your active, your former commissioner for the health and safety commission, and most of all, your great friend to everyone who knows you. So we're so grateful for your service to our community, and I'd like to invite you to say a few words. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Council, very much. Thank you, Lester. I just wanna thank you for this beautiful recognition and for the opportunity to have served on the Recreation Parks Commission. It was absolutely an honor, a privilege, and a joy for me. And all of our commissions are important, but this one I always felt spoke so much to me because as we had somebody's, I don't know who, oh my goodness. That sounds like my favorite Instagram. As I was saying, there's so much great stuff that happens through the Recreation Parks Commission and our purview is beyond just parks. I don't know how many people people know, but we also oversee things like the youth groups, the adults, the active adults, the gray stone, our farmers market, so many things, and of course, pickleball, which is something we heard a lot about, which is a very big passion here. But I really feel that those places in those venues are so important to us as a community because those are the places that we come together, we bring our kids to the playgrounds, we bring our parents to the senior activities and that's where we really join together, become a community, create our memories and really forge our friendships that make us a community. So I feel very, very grateful to be part of that work. And I also wanted to commend our city staff and we saw public works and especially the ones in community services, which who I think do so much from the top, from Stephanie Harris, who's the director all the way to everybody who works at Roxbury Park, all the parks, the people who are the park rangers. Every one of them that I have worked with over these years brings such a degree of professionalism in such a dedication to our community to really make it the best possible experience and go the extra mile. So I truly appreciate that. Also I'd like to say how much I appreciate the staff's dedication to our commissions in our commission structure. And I know there's been a lot of discussion about the commissions recently. And while I know it does take a lot of effort and a lot of resources as we prepare for commission meetings, I'm also so grateful to have had the opportunity, as you said, to be the eyes and the ears of this city and of the council. Because truly, I believe the people in our community rely on us as commissioners as sort of ambassadors. When they want to know what's going on, when they have feedback, when they have complaints or different kinds of input, we are sort of a league of ambassadors for the city. So I'm very grateful for that. And also I'd like to say I see some of my fellow commissioners here. This has been such a joy. Amy Sherry, Tara Riceberg, Alisa Rosten, Debra Termay, J.R. Zubak, Julian Jivore. I think those were the ones I worked with. with and also I want to just say a prayer and thanks to the good work of Susan Mischler, who we recently, unfortunately and tragically lost. But our fellow commissioners were a joy to work with. You guys were so dedicated, and are so dedicated, and bring so much intelligence and collaborative, supportive, productive work to all that we do. So it was truly a joy and I already miss it. I miss all aspects. I miss the judging of the cookie contest and the pickle contest especially, but everything else as well. So thank you very much for this opportunity. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going to give you a hand. I'm going the family like I'm going to go to the next floor. Hold on, hold on. Let's have our commissioners come up there. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. We have to hurry up a little bit. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. He's out. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Congratulations. Congratulations. We're sharing our way today. You got your bag of goodies too, Mark?. Next we have a second departing city commissioner Mark Schwartz from the community charitable foundation. Mark please come up. We're so grateful for your service and for everything that you do for our community we're you were on a different kind of commission that served as part of the charitable foundation, which is actually very important. We're doing a lot of work with that right now and we're grateful for the service that you provided in your wisdom and a lot of the information that helped to guide some of the work that we're doing now. I'd like to give you the opportunity to share a few words. Well, thank you, Mayor and City Council members. Love Beverly Hills, love serving, love helping. This is a really unique opportunity to help supplement the city's finances by taking advantage of a 501c3, a charitable organization to raise money for capital expenditures. And it's really been very helpful to the city. And I'm sure it's going to continue and even be more successful. Thank you to all the people that have made Beverly Hills so great. And thank you to the Council for your tireless amazing effort. We are in such great debt for all your work. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you're a family that gives back to the community. So I'd like to invite Lisa to come up as well. Thank you. Come on down. All right. gives back to the community, so I'd like to invite Lisa to come up as well. Come on down. All right. Thank you all for being here. And that doesn't mean you have to leave. You could stay as long as you like. Thank you. Oh yeah. All right, I'll ask right now. Alright. All right. So you can text BH at text messages on any city related topics. It may be sent to 310-596-4265. City staff will acknowledge receipt of the text message within one business day. However, resolutions of issues may take longer. If you would like to receive updated text alerts from the Beverly Hills Police Department, please text BHPD Alert 2888777. Text alerts will keep you informed of any police activity within the city. If you have any oral communications you could call in at 310-288-2288. Members of the public are invited to listen to the meeting telephonically or share oral communications on this line and you can also make any kind of audience comments. Do we? Do we have any items that need to be pulled? I'd like to pull 10 and 12. All right. So we will start with the parking authority consent calendar. Director Wells, if you could please. Okay. I move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows. Number one, consideration by the City Council of the minutes of the parking authority meeting of April 22, 2025. Number two, third amendment of lease with Johnson and Johnson LLP at 439 North Cannon Drive Suite 200. Second. All right, great. Thank you. Can we have roll call please? Director Wells. Yes. Director Corman. Yes. Director Friedman. Yes. Vice Chair Mirish is absent. Chair Nazarian. Yes. All right. So we're going to- Can I also pull number five please. So council member Korman if you could please read one through 11 omitting five and ten. I move the adoption of the consent agenda as follows. Number one, consideration by the City Council of the Minutes of the adjourned study session meeting of April 22nd, 2025. Two, consideration by the City Council of the Minutes of the adjourned regular meeting of April 22nd, 2025. Three, review budget demands paid, covering dates April 14, 2025 to May 12, 2025. Four, payroll dispersant report, covering dates April 14, 2025 to May 12, 2025, resolution of the Council of the City of Beverly Hills, adopting a list of projects for fiscal year 2025-26, funded by SB1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. Approval of seven, agreement with Collinson Greco for Special Council Services. Eight, the great elephant migration art exhibit exhibition in Beverly Gardens Park in July 2025, except the donation of the artwork and way of revolvings associated with the installation and authorizes city managers who to execute an agreement with coexistence story Inc, DBA, elephant family, USA Inc, for the, installation, maintenance, operation, and removal of the great elephant migration exhibition in Beverly Gardens Park. Number nine, a amendment number one to an agreement with Burke Williams and Sorenson LLP for litigation services. Number 11, approval of a purchase order to Winner Chevrolet for a total not-to-excitement of 130,187.43 for the purchase of two police department, supervisor vehicles, and authorize the city manager to approve purchase orders to various vendors for the necessary hardware, software, and related IT equipment in the not-to-excitement of $60,000. And I'll second. We'll call please. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Korman. Yes. Council member Friedman. Yes. Vice Mayor Marisha Zapsent. Mayor Nazarian. Yes. All right, we're gonna go to number five. Would you like to? Yes. So I support number five. I think it's something we definitely need to do. I had a discussion with the city attorney earlier today about whether we should add something to the prohibited actions and specifically five dash, 13 dash tobe. And did you have some additional language you wanted to add? Yes, all the way. Yes, all the way. Added is subsection C. OK. And a new addition to it. And Councilman Recurman was saying that he felt that there should be an objective standard in addition to what we already had and preferably a distance standard. And I spoke to the police department about what would be an appropriate distance and they said 200 feet would be an appropriate distance. So I added a subsection C which says no person shall operate an unmanned aerial vehicle including a a drone or any other device, so that the unmanned aerial vehicle flies within 200 feet of a law enforcement drone. Yeah, that sounds good to make, thank you. Guys, would you like to make that motion with the amendment? Yes, I move we adopt the ordinance of the city of Beverly Hills prohibiting interference with law enforcement drones and penalties for violations and adding chapter 13 to title five of the Beverly Hills municipal code first reading for introduction. As amended. Second. All right. We'll call please. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Cormin. Yes. Council member Friedman. Yes. Vice Mayor Mairra Shazazzen and Mayor Nazarian. Yes. All right. Number 10. Councillor Member Wells. Yes. I just wanted to, I support this as well, but I wanted to pull it so that I could ask if we could just go over the different amendments. Since this is a second amendment for this, if we could just go over the amendments this year and I had a couple specific questions with regard to the recent amendment. Can we ask now? Yes. Okay. So that second amendment is to do an assessment for, I'm assuming like wear and tear in the alleyways and streets and to assess a repayment for. Yes. For that. So let me explain that. Yeah. OK. So currently about $500,000 from the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund each year is given to the streets, 195 capital improvement project. We haven't assessed that probably in 2006. So we wanted to reassess that so that we had basis to do so. And so that's what this amendment is about to look at that and see are we charging enough, are we charging too little and making sure it's the right balance between commercial and residential customers. And where does that get charged back to? Is that to incorporate into the solid waste rates? And then it's and so then it goes into the solid waste enterprise fund and then the enterprise fund transfers the money to to the general fund. Okay. So for example, if commercial is picked, if the commercial is being, the trash pick up is through Athens right now, right? They don't get that assessment. That's an assessment that you put on separately for the rates. It doesn't get incorporated into that. No, but they have certain payments that they've paid us. Okay. And then just kind of an overview of where we're at in terms of assessing the other amendment and why we're doing it now at this time. Sure. So just I want to give some perspective of how we've been here just from background since there's some new faces. When we renewed the agreement with Athens, some perspective of how we've been here just from background since there's some new faces. We, when we renewed the agreement with Athens and moved forward, we had, they raised rates about 61% to us. We did not pass that straight through to the customer. We soften that over time and use reserves so that that rate would not be as burdensome onto our customers as we move forward. So we knew that after that five year window was over that we would still have to continue to raise rates to maintain our reserve as well as to go with as the costs raise. So this is this amendment is really about doing those rates. The last amendment and going the next five years and so we're in that process right now. And at the same time we're also in the process of evaluating what kind of service to continue moving forward. Thank you. And I feel like this is not just our city where a lot of the cities are facing the same very issue in terms of the rates and the changes that are coming down in the future. That correct? Yes, very much so. And we'll be able to start giving you those presentations in the fall. Our goals is to go to the commission this summer. Okay. Anybody else have questions on that item? Please. So as I recall five years ago, plus we started having a discussion similar to this one at the end of the last waste contract that we had. Is that right? Yes, and actually we hadn't, when we raised rates the last time for the five year period, we hadn't raised rates for almost 11 years prior to that. So we'd really been able to hold the rates to our customers for a long time. And that's why we kind of soften, as I recall, we softened it over a period of time because had we done it from the first year of the new contract, it would have been shockingly a higher amount. We might have filled the room. Thank you. All right, great. Councillor Member Wells, can you please make the motion? Yes. I move the amendment number two of the agreement of HFNH Consultants LLC for solid waste consultation and approval of a change purchase order in the amount of 25,000 for the total not to exceed amount of 259,000. And I'll second it. Roll call please. Council Member Wells. Yes. Councilmember Korman. Yes. Councilmember Friedman. Yes. Vice Mayor Maira Shazavsett. Mayor Nazarian. Yes. All right. Moving on to number 12. I need to recuse myself so I'm going to pass the gavel to Councilmember Friedman. Yes. I live within the vicinity of this item. So I think it's a thousand. It's item number 12 and I had some questions about this as well. Yes, so we'll. Can't do this without the gap. Good evening. I'll try and keep it calm. Thank you for coming up. I had a few questions about this because I'm this in New York Council. We've talked about this and I know that this, the subject of around about this six- six way intersection at Lomita's Canon Beverly has been discussed for over many years, I would say. But the last meeting was March 23rd, March of 2023. And when I was looking at that, it seemed like the discussion about the roundabout. When I read that, I mean really the data really shows that it's safer with a roundabout at that intersection from a safety, from a traffic control, for safety not only for driving, but also for pedestrians as well as bicyclists. So as we are looking right now at doing just crosswalks, are these the same crosswalk design, crosswalk design that was proposed with the roundabout back at that time? And by doing the crosswalks now, would that preclude us from adding the roundabout in the future? That's a very good question. And actually they would be in the same location as they would be with a roundabout and there would just be slight Design differences, but it wouldn't the work in this contract wouldn't preclude a future Consideration or an installation that was my main question because I think as we look at roundabouts at in other areas of the city I think compared to 2023 when people were talking about each time we talk about people get a little more familiar with roundabouts. I think that perhaps in the near future we'll be able to talk about putting around about at that intersection because just when you read the data, they talked about how many accidents are in that intersection and I understand people think, oh, there's not that many accidents, but when it talks about 200 near misses within an hour, that's what I experience in that intersection, because I go through it multiple times a day. And it is crazy, it really is. And it's not just people who just stop, they kind of, it's like a game of chicken. And I think that also makes the pedestrians, as well as bicyclists nearby, it makes it an unsafe environment for them because people just, some people just are erratic and they gun it and they may not be in accident but there are, I agree with that the data that was reported of the 200-year misses in one hour and that's all day long. So I would like our council to review it and reconsider the roundabout at that intersection. I think it would make a huge quality of life difference and it's just me so nonsensical that we don't have it now. So I'd like to hear from my other council members. So councilmember Cormick, any comments? Yes. So I recall this discussion back in 2023 and the overwhelming majority of respondents did not want around about there. While I understand that statistically there may be 200 near misses per hour, it depends how you define near misses. I don't think there are, near misses would be how close cars come to each other. I don't know if there are 200 near accidents every hour. So although I understand your point with the data, I think that a lot of the residents have spoken that they don't want around about there. They like the intersection the way it is. It's not really unsafe. So I'm not really inclined to revisit this at this point, but if residents think we should revisit it at some point in the future, I certainly would be open to it. Okay, and my comment is that having gone through this previously, I think this was a first step that we wanted to take. Certainly, if this is going to go into effect, and if we feel a year from now or whatever an appropriate period of time is after the crossbox of put and put in that there is still a significant issue then of course a council at that point in time can make the decision to look at it again, get public input, et cetera. So I think I also recall a discussion when this was brought up that one of the concerns was street takeovers that intersection and certainly around about might help that but I don't think that's been a problem with increased law enforcement in the area so just a consideration. Right but I don't think that street takeovers is what prompted the question about that intersection because I can certainly tell you that there's many people that do go through that that anyone that lives around that area not necessarily just within 200 feet but that drives that on a regular basis can express that it is an unsafe area and I would I think that the planning commission at that time had recommended it. So I would like to read address it at some point so my main question was I wanted to make certain that Putting the crosswalks now was in investing in the infrastructure in a way that would not make sense later to add the roundabout. So if that's the case that we were able to do that in the near future, I'm okay with this. Okay, without further comments, I will read it. Award of a contract to the low, for suppose there any public comment on this item? I don't know if we asked for that. We don't have any. Okay. So I move for the award of a contract to the lowest responsible bidder, E&M constructors, Incorporated for construction of pedestrian crossing improvements at the intersection of Lomitas Avenue, Cannon Drive, and Beverly Drive within the City of Beverly Hills, California, in the amount of $522,300 and $300 and one cent have to get that one cent in there. And approval of the plans and specifications, therefore, with respect to design criteria and approval of a purchase order in the amount of $574,530 to E&M constructors for the project and pursuant to the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA. The City Council will also consider finding the project exempt from further review under sequa. I'll second. Director Wells. Yes. Director Corman. Yes. Oh I'm sorry this is not parking the toilet start over. Council member Wells. Yes. Council member Corman. Yes. Council member Friedman. Yes. And vice mayor, Mayor Shazapsent and Mayor Nazarian recused herself. Hey thank you. So with that we will ask for our mayor to come back. I will ceremoniously hand So we're going to go to F1 public hearing to comply with the legal obligations under Ensembling Bill 2561 regarding vacancies, recurment and retention efforts. May we please have? Yes? This is the time and play set for public hearing to consider public hearing to comply with legal obligations under Assembly Bill 2561 regarding vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts. Let the record show that the notice of this hearing was published as required by law. The records and files of the Human Resources Department and the report of the Human Resources Manager concerning this matter shall be entered into the record. Now, Amy, may we have a report from the Human Resources Manager, please. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Eric Ranky, Human Resources Manager. So we're here before you tonight for the first time on this topic and presenting via this public hearing toom signed assembly bill 2561 in two law to amend the Myers-Millius Brown Act, also known as MNBA. This creates a new obligation for agencies to publicly address the status of their vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts. So the legislation requires a few things seen on this slide. First, at least once per fiscal year, hold a public hearing before the city council. At the hearing, the city shall present information regarding the status of vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts and identify any necessary changes to policies, procedures and recruitment activities that may lead to obstacles in the hiring process. Second, allow the recognized employee associations, regardless of the vacancy rate, to make a presentation during the public hearing concerning vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts. The employee associations have been informed of the hearing this evening. And then last, if vacancies with an a single bargaining unit meet or exceed the 20% of authorized full-time positions upon request of the Recognize Employee Association, the city must provide additional information during the public hearing, including the following, the total number of vacancies, the number of applicants, the average time to fill positions and opportunities to improve compensation and working conditions for employees in the bargaining unit. So this slide shows the vacancy data as of March 1st, 2025 for our nine full-time employee groups. So the legislation is not specific about what the measurement period should be. But we did find that some agencies are defining the measurement period by the calendar year, which would have been calendar year 2024. But in the spirit of legislation, we thought it would make more sense to have the hearing take place closer to the budget study sessions and the budget process. We determined that a measurement period as of March 1st, provided more current data than the calendar year. It provided sufficient enough time to prepare and plan for the hearing this evening. And it was also enough time ahead of the budget study process that is beginning in early June. We are happy to report as saying on this slide that our vacancy rate for full-time positions as of March 1st is well below the 20% vacancy threshold and it's 10.91%. So it's also worth noting on this slide that we are actively recruiting for current vacancies continually looking ahead and planning for future vacancies via succession planning to keep the vacancy rate as low as possible to continue to provide excellent service to the community. As mentioned, we are continually looking at our hiring process and always looking to improve our reach, quality of candidates, selection process and time to hire. Additionally, we have competitive salaries and a robust benefit package, and we highlight these as part of our recruitment efforts. In addition to the benefits package, we offer wellness programs, professional development opportunities, employee recognition events, tuition reimbursement, signing and referral bonus programs, and we have a higher local focus where the HR team attends local events to promote openings in the city and can speak to the Beverly Hills experience. So part of the legislation also requires agencies to identify any hiring obstacles. at this time though we have not identified any immediate hiring hurdles. However, when they do occur and are identified HR works with the city manager in the executive. we have not identified any immediate hiring hurdles. However, when they do occur and are identified, HR works with the City Manager and the executive team to identify possible solutions, some of which are brought forward to the City Council for approval and as you may recall recently, we brought forward a police officer referral incentive program for your consideration which you approved. So in conclusion, at this time we do not have any recommendations to amend any policies and procedures and no council action is needed at this time. Again, we are regularly reviewing and updating our practices as we adapt to internal and external challenges which may impact that crucial 20% vacancy rate. Thank you for your time and continued support. Great. Thank you so much for the report. Are there any public comments of any form? There are none. Great. Thank you. So this is just a report. There's no direction required but I'm going to go to my colleagues for any questions or comments. Council Member Wells. Well no questions or comments except to say thank you very much for preparing this report and that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the report. I do have one quick question. So under the police office association category we have a 141 budgeted positions of which 16 are vacant. That means we have a 125 sworn offices at this point in that in that in that association In that 1205 I know it takes a while for offices to go through training training. Any of the 125 officers in training or is that a different category? So that would be slightly a different category and we do have an updated vacancy rate as of today, because this measurement period was March 1st and so the vacancy rate for the police officers' association specifically is 9.22. So it went down which is better. So we do have people in the academy who are training and they've come on board. Exactly. And do we anticipate that will continue to be the case where more hopefully people will come on board from training and so they don't get out even further. And so we as I mentioned you just approve employee referral and centiprogram and that is just occurring. We're starting to inform employees of that, so hopefully that will be a great tool for us as well. Okay. All right. Thank you, that was my question. Councilmember Friedman. Thank you. Our most senior member on the council today job today. I resemble that remark. I did have a question. I just did. What was the purpose of the love of AB 2561? What was the issue that they were trying to address or why were they trying to address the issue? That's a great question. We have been in contact with our peers, just also just grappling with A, what we have to comply with, but also B, what is this trying to achieve? And I think it was assembly member McKinner who brought this forward. And so the point was public servants are maxed out. That was part of the sentiment of the legislation initially, but to maintain vacancy rates and make sure that agencies aren't contracting out and doing things of that nature and doing things to retain their public employees. So was a perceived problem then? That's a great question. I think Beverly Hills were fortunate because we don't perhaps share the sentiment that is happening at the, you know, at the level that this was brought forward. But I think it's again maintaining the level of public service that exists in the entire state. So in other words, perhaps some other agencies were not, were having positions that were budgeted and weren't filling them. Is that kind of what it is? Yes, I believe that's fine. And then if they're budgeting them and not filling them, why are they having them? And I guess they decided a 20% threshold was a number that the state legislature could live with. Right. They thought that was appropriate. Yeah. And I can't speak to whether or not they did any, you know, investigation prior to this. But this is the first time all agencies are dealing with this. That we're all reporting on it. There aren't a lot of agencies who have gone before us. We're all asking our neighborhood agencies. When are you presenting? A lot of people are waiting closer to budget, but there have been agencies that have presented already. Okay, so as a note, at least I'm, it's of interest to me, perhaps to my colleagues, when we are here next year on this, perhaps we should look and see where we stand with other agencies The matter of curiosity I have no other questions great. Thank you very much So I think along the same lines there's some talk that we have a lot of vacancies and certain areas the number For the vacancy threshold is 20%. So we clearly fall well on that. Correct. We're doing well. Right. And you mentioned that there are steps that are being taken to fill the vacancies. Absolutely. And I noticed that you're also utilizing social media. Are you utilizing LinkedIn as a platform? We are. We're trying to harness that more and more every week. I think that's a really strong one. People are really looking to that, especially for filling a lot of these positions. Is there a timeline that could be associated with, especially filling our police and fire fire positions or public safety positions that are vacant? So I think we're working really closely as we set with the city manager and police management. I see our chief getting up. Did you like to speak, chief? Which chief? Oh, well, I mean, I can speak to fire because the vacancy rate as of June 2nd will be close to 2 We have a new we have a new a class of firefighters coming on June second So the number you see here will be you know this is fluid. So it will be close to maybe like 1.99 2% that's pretty remarkable all right excellent All right, and I know that you mentioned you have succession plans in place as well. I know that's something that's important to a lot of our police and fire service providers. So thank you for continuing that. All right. Those are all my questions. The hearing is now closed. Are there any other comments from my council colleagues? Okay, all right, well thank you very much. Thank you. All right, moving right along to F2. An ordinance of the City of Beverly Hills amending the sign regulations of the Beverly Hills Municipal Code to allow portable signs and blade signage subject to certain criteria on commercially zoned properties and finding the ordinance exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act sequel. May we have an announcement from the city clerk please. With the prompts. This is the time and place set for a public hearing to consider an ordinance of the City of Beverly Hills amending the sign regulations of the Beverly Hills municipal code to allow portable signage and blade signage subject to certain criteria on commercial commercially zoned properties and finding the ordinance exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, SEQUA. Let the records show that the notice of this hearing was published as required by law. The records and files of the Community Development Department and the report of the principal planner concerning this matter shall be entered into the record. Thank you, Mayor Nazarian and good evening, council members. This item is a draft ordinance to create portable and bleed sign regulations. The temporary open BH program allowed the use of portable signs which were not previously allowed under the city's sign code in order to help businesses during the pandemic. At the end of the open BH program, there was interest from the business community in continuing to use these signs, as well as direction from the city council to allow these on a permanent basis, after which staff began to develop this ordinance. As a quick reminder, a portable sign refers to a free standing movable sign that can have one or two legs and are typically placed on the sidewalk adjacent to a storefront, while a blade sign is a sign that would project out from the building facade typically over a store's entrance and is also known as a projecting sign. The ordinance has been developed over the course of more than one year and shown here is a rough timeline noting the outreach milestones, which included study sessions with various commissions, online surveys of both business and community members, and a presentation to the small business owner's task force. As a result of this initial outreach, a joint ad hoc committee was formed to develop the proposed regulations, which was comprised of architectural and designer view commission chair Meyer, and vice chair Pynos, and the planning commission chair Kaplan and vice chair Wolf. And one ad hoc committee meeting was open to the public for participation, and several members of the business community were in attendance. Most recently, the Architectural and Design Review Commission reviewed the draft regulations and provided suggestions that the Planning Commission ultimately incorporated into the version of the draft ordinance presented today and recommended to the City Council. In addition, staff presented this item to the Chamber of Commerce to increase awareness of the pending ordinance. And the proposed regulations have been drafted based on the direction and input provided by the commissions public the ad hoc committee as summarized here. The ordinance would allow one portable sign to be used by restaurants, retail stores, exercise clubs and private training training centers that are located on the ground floor in commercial zones in addition to signage already allowed for the business. These sign would have to be placed on the sidewalk adjacent to the business storefront and may not be placed within 20 feet of road-to-drive, except for one way finding or directory sign for a multi-tenant business on Northrodeo, such as the Rodeo collection. And the allowable size would be based on the sign type and location with minimum and maximum dimensions noted here. Additional height would be allowed if the sign has one leg in order to accommodate the frame and also if the sign is located fully on private property. There would also be separate limits for the sign face versus the structure size for signs with one leg so the advertising portion of the sign is not too large. And signs with one leg would also be required to be weighted to prevent tip over without a separate weight. No illumination or LED or acrylic or plastic signs would also be allowed. And a 6-foot path of travel between the sign and measured perpendicular to the storefront, a one-foot clearance between any curb edge and fixed sidewalk obstruction, and a two-foot clearance measured from the edge of the storefront would be required. And if the business has parklit dining installed, no portable signage would be allowed. Signs would need to be maintained in good condition and shall only be used during operating hours, and the business must maintain liability insurance. And finally, the sign would be approved through an over-the-counter permit under a pilot program that would be reviewed within approximately one year of commencing. The ad hoc committee also discussed allowing blade signs as an alternative for businesses along narrow sidewalk areas that may not accommodate portable signage due to the required clearances. Currently, these signs are only allowed in the C5 zone within over-the-counter permit, but otherwise would require a sign accommodation in other commercial zones. The Jaff ordinances would also allow blade signs to be used by restaurants and retail businesses located on the ground floor, with frontage on South Beverly Drive, Robertson Boulevard, and South San Monica Boulevard. And this would also be in addition to any signage otherwise allowed for the business and would be per the dimensions required here. And the sign would also be approved through an over-the-counter permit and would be part of the pilot program. This item was noticed in compliance with all requirements and staff also provided courtesy notices to the list of interested parties from the OpenB program, the Roe Deo Drive Committee, and the Chamber of Commerce, who were also notified throughout this entire process. And comments submitted were generally supportive of allowing portable signs, especially from the business community, including the comments submitted tonight. And so staff recommends that the City Council waive the full reading of the ordinance and introduce it by title only and find this action exempt from CEQA. Thank you and I'm available for any questions. Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any public comments? We do. And the first we have in the audience Tara Riceberg. Hi, welcome. Okay, I can start. Yeah, three minutes. Oh, getting me. Okay, so I thought Chloe was gonna talk about some findings. I went out after presenting to the architectural commission before the planning commission. I walked every street in the triangle and South Beverly, trying to address concerns of the architectural commission before going to planning. And one of the findings that residents are having is that the sidewalks are too busy. What I determined is it's not actually the signs that are the problem, but sidewalk clutter, like brochures, stands, cafe tables, clothing racks. So at Planning Commission, when we presented this, we said we need code enforcement out, we need to clear the sidewalk clutter. They've already gone out. They've already done it. The clutter is gone. So I literally as I walked every block and you guys can look at this. I don't know if you have this, but I tracked every block, every sign, the material, the placement, and there is not one block in Beverly Hills I know I'm crazy. There's not one block in Beverly Hills that has more than three signs. So in April, my findings were 64 sidewalk signs for 56 businesses. So obviously that's a violation for a few businesses that have two signs while our proposal is only for one. Of the businesses, six were salons, 16 were food retail, 23 retail stores, point is there's not a lot of signage, but I did a little homework before coming here and there happens to be eight new signs. Of the eight new signs since April, four for new businesses, which I predict was sidewalk signs should say, high were open, I exist, I'm the new lobster or sandwich shop. Two were in violation because they're upstairs businesses and a real estate agents. I think with the permit, we're going to control excess signage. In the five, yeah, five years since we've had open BH, allowing us to have sidewalk signage with no standards, we haven't had any injuries. Nobody has been, nobody's tripped over a sign for the most part, almost every business owner puts their sign next to the building. Obviously, I'm in favor of this pilot program and honestly more than anything if anybody's listening get involved in the city. The small business task force empowered us to say, look, we can make a difference to the business community. Being a commissioner, I know it's a volunteer position. I did not want to burden architecture and planning with my problem. So I got out there myself and did the homework and the legwork to actually track all the stuff to see the real numbers. To watch this process over a year in action, Beverly Hills is a small city with a big heart and retail is the heart in the backbone of our city. I mean, I have come in contact with so many fire refugees in my store, tourist every day. The signs help to connect people. It's driving business. The business, my sales puts money back into the city for fire and police. We still need the support. What started as COVID, I have new challenges. I have tariffs. There was a writer's strike. There will always be a challenge for retail. And as much support as we can get, we need the help. Because honestly, it is a pleasure and a privilege to be a retailer in Beverly Hills. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other comments? We don't have any Zoom comments but we have some written comments. Yes please. So the first one is from Blair Schlechter. From the Chamber of Commerce. Yes. The Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce writes to you in support of the proposed draft ordinance under your consideration, which would permit the use of portable and or blade signage for the restaurants, retailers, and exercise clubs on commercial streets in the city under certain criteria. The Chamber in partnership with the City of Beverly Hills has operated a small business task force which consists of businesses primarily retailers and restaurants across different commercial areas of the city to get input on various topics affecting the business community. After considerable discussion, the work of the task force identified that these businesses would benefit from having the ability to display a frame and or blade signage to increase the visibility of their establishments and other potential customers. A draft ordinance has been vetted by the city's architectural and design review commission and planning commission and is now under your review. The chamber understands and agrees with the need to avoid sidewalk clutter and to ensure safety, including minimum clearances and to maintain the aesthetic of the city. Therefore, the chamber agrees with the creation of a number of criteria identified in the draft ordinance that would accomplish these goals and create a pilot program to evaluate how it is working. The second comment we have is from Tiffany Davis. I want to be clear that I fully support the pilot program for portable signage in appropriate business zones. As I do believe that sidewalk signage can improve customer traffic for retail businesses. And I have been a very vocal proponent of supporting our local businesses. I have one concern that I ask Council to consider and address with this program. And that is the issue of monitoring the content of these signs. To ensure the content is appropriate for all ages and maintains Beverly Hills standards. There is a cafe in town that regularly displays portable signage that has been offensive to residents. The messaging that has been brought to my attention includes, quote, copy, cocaine, croissants. We've got two of the three, unquote. Another quote, I've got a dick big. You read, you that read wrong, you read that wrong again. Again, quote again, we may not have baby oil, but we definitely have pumpkin spice. End quote. The last message is a direct reference to the current sexual abuse and trafficking case against PDD. It refers to his alleged use of large amounts of baby oil discovered at his home for the purpose of lured sexual acts, including those involving minors, which has been highly publicized. These types of messages are clearly not in good taste and are not what we expect of a Beverly Hills business. I would ask that we have some assurance that the city will reserve the right to revoke a permit for inappropriate content whether in text or visuals. I hope you do approve the pilot program while taking my concern into consideration and put forth and enforce criteria for content. The third public comment, written comment we have is from Sherry Andrews. It is with gratitude and appreciation that I want to thank City Council for the consideration of adoption of the proposed amendment to sign regulations which will allow portable signage and blade signage in Beverly Hills. I agree with the criteria and regulations that were unanimously recommended by the Planning Commission to City Council. approval instills confidence and support for small businesses in our community and inspires future entrepreneurs. I am in full support. And the last written comment we have is from Sean Sadian from Beverly Hills Market in Delhi. He writes, I am writing on behalf of Beverly Hills Market in Delhi to express strong support for the city to move forward with a pilot initiative allowing expanded outdoor signage for small businesses. This initiative is long overdue and could make a meaningful difference for our local business community. The pandemic taught us valuable lessons about flexibility and adaptation. Outdoor dining, remote work, and creative use of space all became vital tools for survival. We believe outdoor signage is another powerful low-cost tool that can help businesses like ours attract new customers, increase foot traffic, and contribute to a more vibrant street level experience. For small businesses in Beverly Hills, visibility is everything. Thought will design outdoor signage would allow us to highlight promotions, share daily specials, and create a welcoming presence for both residents and visitors. The benefits extend beyond business owners more customer engagement leads to a stronger sales tax revenue and a lively commercial environment for the entire city. A pilot program would give the city an opportunity to test guidelines, gather feedback and make data-driven decisions while providing much needed support to the merchants who are working hard to serve this community. Thank you for considering this important initiative. We appreciate your leadership and commitment to a thriving Beverly Hills. And that's the end of public comment. All right, thank you very much. All right. Now we're going to go to council members for any questions that you may have starting with council member Wells. Thank you very much. Sorry, sorry don't interrupt. Let the record show so they vice mayor merrishes here now. Welcome. Thank you for this report and I know that this has been worked on for quite some time and a lot of discussions and this has gone round and round and I appreciate everybody seeking with it and really trying to get to this point. Because this is a pilot, have we identified how we we are going to what the metrics will be for evaluating the program in a year? So a great question. I think we would generally report back to the city council how many businesses have applied for permits. Potentially how many businesses have been cited for violations of the regulations and any other relevant reporting that of information related to how the program implementation is going. Okay. And is there a way, I think there's an issue around trying to control the messaging on the boards. Let's go speak to that a little bit. Larry, can you fit to that? Yes. The first amendment of the United States Constitution doesn't really allow us to control the content of the signage. So we really, we certainly speak to the shop owner in question about the content of his signs or her signs, but we cannot regulate that. So you can't use a sign as a business logo, as opposed to having a message on it, so that it's more visible. If the number one goal is to increase visibility from the sidewalk, is it possible that they would be limited to just the store logo or what the business is? That would probably not be appropriate. Okay, understood. Thank you. Those are my questions. Council member, pardon. Sure, thank you. So a lot of people put a lot of time into this thing and I would greatly appreciate it. I'm not looking to make any real changes. But do you have some questions about some of the contents of the report? So first of all, in the ordinance, I know we've did a carve out for the Rodeo collection. But looking at the language, you would also cover two-row dayo, wouldn't it? Because it talks about notwithstanding the foregoing, one portable sign consistent with the size requirements for portable signs on private property. For the purposes of wayfinding and providing a directory of tenants is permitted on the private property of a multi tenant retail facility visible from the public right of way on North throughout Rodeo Drive. That would include to Ro, I think, as well, right? That's correct. And we did contemplate whether to Rodeo would be included in this. And they actually do have a directory sign that's permanently installed. And so we figured that they probably would not take advantage of this. But we still wanted to allow businesses along to Rodeo that are more than 20 feet away from North Rodeo Drive to be able to use portable signs if they would like to. The other business tenant area where potentially they could take advantage of this would be Annerton Court I believe it is a multi tenant facility but right now it's only occupied by one tenant. That's a good point. Right now that they're only occupied by Givenchy, so that wouldn't apply. Okay. Then, looking at on page 11 of the draft ordinance, you talk about clearance required. And the way I read this, and correct me if I'm wrong, as long as there's a six-foot pathway for pedestrians, the sign could either be next to the building or next to the curb, right? As long as there's a, as long as if it's next to the curb, it has to be away from the curb, the staff, the required foot or whatever it is, and then also require a way for many other obstructions, trees, things like that. But it could be essentially on the curb side of the pedestrian walkway as opposed to the business side, right? That's correct. And in some instances, it may make more sense for it to be located closer to the curb face. For example, if there's a tree well, and that's already kind of not within the path of travel for pedestrians, it may make sense to place it there. In some instances, certain business storefronts have an inset, and it may make more sense to place it there. So I think generally we do see that businesses will locate it out of the main path of travel in the sidewalk and we wanted to provide that flexibility for businesses. And then with respect to the blade signs, from what I gather, they are currently available in the commercials on the C5. It's just it's not a ministerial proceeding, it's a permit proceeding, they have to go in front of either. Do they have to go in front of the architectural commission? Yes. Okay. But it is available because I've seen them up and down, little Santa Monica and other areas as well. Okay, those were my questions, thank you. Councilmember Friedman. Okay. Thank you. So I want to bring everyone's attention. I don't know if the video people can catch the two props that were brought in if they haven't caught them already now would be an appropriate time And I guess I should start with that. I, both of these sample signs are brought in examples of what would be permitted. I mean, would W-O-U-D, not W-O-O-D. The sign to my left would be permitted. The sign to my right would not be permitted. This is the height around the height that we originally contemplated allowing and then when we took a look at what would actually look like we thought that might be a little bit too large and we also took a look at the signs that are already out in the business community. They're generally around this height maybe a little bit taller and so we this one would be allowed and then also I don't know if you can see there's a real estate sticker sign there that we've placed so you can get an idea of what that required sticker would look like. Okay so and that was my next way that looks like underneath may in fact be a real estate sign which would not be permitted correct not be permitted in the. Correct. Okay, but the sticker is the type of sticker that you're talking about and a person is going to be able to get that at our permit center on the first floor of City Hall. Correct. At no cost. What do they have to bring in in order to get that sticker? So they would need to bring in a plan showing that the proposed sign meets all the requirements. So the dimensions, the location, next to their business, that it would meet the clearances there. And then the sticker itself would be issued when they obtain the permit for the portable sign, the cost that we anticipate that could apply for that would be the $175 fee for an architectural review exemption at the staff level. And no sign permit fee would be required because no installation is generally required for a portable sign. And so we believe that would cover the cost of the sticker as well. Okay, so there is a permit fee in order to be able to display it, and that's really for a cost recovery I suspect for our enforcement and review of it as time goes on, is that right? Correct. Okay, and how long does that sticker good for? Is it a one year period, a two year period, forever period, or what? The real estate sign stickers are a little bit different, so that's why that has the year on there. But for this type of sign, we anticipate it would just be that you obtain the one permit for the sign, and it's good for as long as you keep that sign. And then if you were to change out your portable sign and have a new permit, we would issue a new permit with the sticker as well. For an additional cost or an additional cost. So in essence that sticker is for the sign that is up there. If somebody wanted to pull out the graphics part of it and still use the same stand they would need a new sticker because it's a new sign even though the sign post is the same, is that right? That's a great question. In the instance where maybe it's a sheet of paper that's slipped in and out of the sign, I don't think we would require that they would come in for another permit. They would just probably need to find a way to adhere the sticker to somewhere on the structure of the sign so that the sign face that's being changed out isn't affected by the sticker. Okay, so let me give you another example. There was like a picture frame where you can, there's a little tab and you can pull the insert out and put the insert back in. That sticker would be on the outside acrylic part and there wouldn't be any additional charge for that, right? Correct. Are we able to mandate the similar to what we have with the parklets where we have a format that has to be followed in terms of construction, etc. Are we able to regulate that? Not the content, but I'm talking about having a model of what an A frame should look like. Are we allowed to do that? Yes, I think we generally could and the architectural and design review commissioners did express an interest in regulating the materials and as well as the size. And so we do have some guidelines as far as the materials. So you can't have acrylic or plastic. And then we do regulate the size structure of the signs based on whether or not it's in a typical a-frame sandwich board sign with the two legs versus the one structural leg. So if it's, I think I have an example here, if it looks like the one to the top right there. And so there are different ways of regulating it, but mostly it's through the the size and the material. We don't have a kit of parts. I think that's what you're thinking of. Yeah, I mean, what I'm concerned with is the aesthetics of having signs that are not as aesthetically pleasing as others cluttering the streets. So these are all examples of types of signs that would be permissible. Correct, except for the real estate sign on the top left. And the reason the real estate sign is not acceptable is because of the content or because the fact that it's a real estate sign or the frame work of it is okay or not. The actual frame of it would be fine, but for this portable signage ordinance, we're only allowing retail businesses to utilize and that would include real estate. question if a store has a ground floor business but they also have a second story business and they want to advertise the second story business that's not permitted correct. That's correct. The ad hoc committee actually did discuss this topic and debated whether or not we should have some sort of allowance for second floor businesses given that they may not have as much visibility, but the concern of sidewalk clutter and limiting the overall number of signs that we see out in the commercial areas was brought up. And so we landed on the one for the ground floor business. So I'm particularly asking about a business, let's say that is a retail store and they happen to do that store does an ancillary business on the second floor. That they still couldn't advertise that second store ancillary business if it's different than what's on the ground floor, correct? They would not be allowed an additional sign for that second floor use but I believe if the Mossow wants to crack me if I'm wrong but if the business was on the first and the second floor and they're related we would allow them to have one portable sign and they could use that signage to advertise either of the uses. Yeah, like in one ground floor, each ground floor business is allowed one sign. If that ground floor business did go into the second floor, they would be allowed one sign. So let me give you a more concrete example. If ground store is retail exercise equipment, but on the second floor, they actually have exercise classes. Can that business put an a frame advertising the exercise business? We would treat that business as having ground floor frontage. And yes, we would allow for the sign. Okay. Okay, so it says on page 11 under number seven looks like D. No plastic or acrylic signs are permitted. Isn't the piping on that PVC? Isn't that considered plastic? Why is that the example and is that permitted? Yes, sorry, this example, meaning the dimensions of the sign would be allowed, not the actual materials would be allowed. So that is not, it would have to be something other than that PVC or whatever the letters they use for that plastic art. That's not an example of a full sign that could be used for many reasons. The real estate portion as well as the fact that it's plastic. Yes, that's correct. So go back to my example before about an insert in a that could be pulled out. That probably wouldn't be permitted either because it's acrylic on the outside. There are some that, yeah, like the example shown here at the top right, I believe the frame itself is some sort of metal and I believe the insert could be some sort of like cardboard or paper and so that would be permitted. So I'm talking like on a picture frame sometimes you have the frame and then you can pull and the outside is plastic, not glass and you can pull that insert in and out but that outside is plastic. It's an acrylic. That is permitted then but it says here no plastic or acrylic signs are permitted. Yeah, no, I think that's a very good question. And yes, I mean, the idea of having an insert type sign and having a clear material on the outside, we could modify the language a little bit to allow for that. Because the idea was to allow for people to have sort of temporary messages, you know, be able to change out stuff for sales. That seems to be a type of use for these types of science. Okay. So, that may need some new verbiage, maybe. Those are my questions. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. So just to clarify, no moving images. However, they're there. I mean, it's projected onto it, onto permitted materials not allowed, correct? Correct. No elimination or LED. Okay. Or moving images. Or moving. So Larry, you say we're not allowed to monitor content, but can't we have the requirement that we're allowing this that it needs to be reasonably connected to the business? Because if not, you could have someone who is allowed to get a sign and he sells it to eat at Joe's. Or he sells it to, you know, buy a car outside at Beverly Hills or visit beautiful Miami. Or he could maybe make political statements. He could, you know, put racist statements there. There are various cases regarding advertising on site businesses versus advertising off site businesses and generally that's not considered content regulation. So we would be allowed to have some sort of rules that they must be because otherwise, hey, this is Prime Beverly Hills front. I wouldn't recommend getting into non-commercials content. What do you mean? You said they could have political signs. You're asking what if somebody does that? Can you limit it? So what I'm saying is if so you could say it has to be reasonably connected to the business there. Yes, onsite. It's generally for to is advertising on site. So that they couldn't you know the Miami tourist board couldn't say hey we'll give you a hundred bucks a month if you put visit beautiful Miami Beach there. Correct. What about the political content that is not related to? I don't think you should do that. So basically, they could sell. A political party could come and say, hey, not visit Miami, but political messages. or some we saw what happened in Beverly Hills yesterday. Some anti-Israel group could come and say, hey, let's put, you know, here at a store that is selling, I don't know, dresses or something. Let's put, you know, that Israel's committing genocide there. I'm not down with that, no way. I'm not willing to allow our city spaces to be used for that sort of thing. So I'm not going to be supporting this if there's no way for us to deal with that. Hey, Jempern. Yeah? Couldn't we limit it to commercial speech? No. Cannot limit commercial speech so then forget it I mean you're you're really opening the door to people coming and using our city sorry yeah that's I think that's what we're opening the door to people coming for money and we see people will do literally anything for money we see that or a plane or whatever and people could use that not related to any each business they could go to them and offer them 500 bucks a month or whatever to put cares messages out there or to the Islamic Republic of Iran propping end of there or something. Knowing that we have a large Persian community they could we, we're not allowed to limit it, they could do that, correct? Yes. Okay, thank you. Yes? Yes. Couldn't they do that in a window of their business right now? Yes. It could, but the whole point of this list is to give more exposure. And unless we have some sort of control, they can do it in a window, but they can't do it on the street. And now you're opening it up to people doing it on the street. I don't think a business would do very well if they posted something in the city. Can we not restrict the speech to at least speech connected to the business in which the sign is in front of? If it's commercial speech, it can be restricted to on-site advertising as opposed to off-site advertising. But I don't think you can limit non-commercial speech in that way. I'm not, I'm saying so if we have a restriction in the ordinance that requires the sign to be connected out of what the right language is, but be connected to the business, in which it is in front of and advertising, would that be permissible? That would involve a lot of commercial speech. But it doesn't restrict non-commercial speech, but it does limit it not based on the content of the speech, but the connection to the business. I'm not sure what you're saying by imply. If you say, commercial because it's a business that's in front of, but the most important thing is it has to be connected to the business that's being let's locate in front of, it's supposed to about anything under the sun. Right, that's the one. No, I think that if you have, if it's a commercial, if it's commercial speech, you can relate it to the onsite. But once you have a sign, the non-commercial speech, that's gotta be proven. But I thought they're only allowed to have the sign to promote the business. The sign itself is to allow them to have additional exposure meaning commercial speech, needs to be reasonably connected to the business. If they're, if they're adding this is the point of my memo that I gave you that was a confidential memo. Okay. This is a public discussion. This is a public discussion. All right. I'm going to go back to do you have something you wanted to ask before I go to my questions. Let me just go through that one more time. So right now if a person can I do that? Yeah do you go for it? No, you can go for it. And then all of a sudden. When a business right now can put either, right now, on a window front, put non-commercial messaging on that window front. Yes. Yes. So our what is what we're really doing is extending by having a sign ordinance that you can put on the sidewalk. Are we really just extending whatever the rules are to that, on that window, now making it available to anyone on the street? Yes. In essence, it's the same, the rules are the exact same. Right. Okay, those are my questions. Okay. Those are my questions. Okay. Where's the memo? All right. So, a few questions. How was the community, was there any community outreach regarding these signs? Yes, initially we sent out an online survey and it was targeted towards community members and then we had a survey targeted towards business members. The participation for the business member survey was higher than the community member, but we did- How many? What were the numbers for business and for residents? We received 16 responses from the business owner survey or business community survey, and then four responses from the community member slash resident survey. Okay. So I was proud to serve on the small business task force when this was brought to us, And so I was in support of exploring it with our commissions. I went to go walk on Beverly Drive and there were a lot of signs much smaller than both of these. What are those signs that are out there? So a few of those might be shown here. Generally we did notice that signs out in the commercial areas are typically narrower than what you see here. So this is the maximum width that would be allowed the 24 and then the maximum height would be 40 inches. So I do think most of them are around maybe 20 inches wide and 33 to 37 inches tall. And then obviously with an A frame sign like this, you can, the height is adjustable, depending on how far you move the legs apart. The height is adjustable. If you were to measure. If you were to measure. Or I just mean that if the height regulation is for the actual sign frame, but when it actually sits out and is adjusted based on the leg distance, the height measures from the ground might be a little different. So there's no continuity or any people could put all different kinds of signs up. There's no uniformity in the design or in the aesthetics or what the sidewalks look like. Generally, there's just these size requirements and the material requirements for design of the sign. I think what we see out there looks pretty consistent with the ones shown here, not a lot of deviation. And you know we had our commissioner Tara speak about the clutter. I noticed the clutter too and I actually was concerned about it is with regard to the six feet that we're space wise even on certain wide streets it still felt a little cluttered and I have we thought about any type of liability trip and fall catching on that what are what are the thoughts on on that topic. So I did reach out to our risk management team to see if there were any claims or incidents related to the use of these signs after the temporary and during the temporary open BH program. They didn't find any claims specifically related to the use of these signs, but we would require if the sign is placed at all on a portion of the public right of way that the business would maintain liability insurance to the extent that the risk management team requires. So right now there's there's a lot of signs, mostly that big that are out in our sidewalks. And we don't enforce anything, is that correct? Correct, during the time period between the end of the OpenBH program, and now while we were developing the ordinance, we didn't actively enforce the use of portable signs, so we allowed people to continue using them. Okay, so we weren't really keeping track of that. How what's the plan to enforce the signs now? Somebody going to go out with a tape measure or what are we doing to? I discussed this with our enforcement team and they generally do patrol our commercial districts on a regular basis. The enforcement procedure would be, they would check if the sign first has a sticker to show that it was a permitted sign. They would be able to check the clearances on the path of travel. And they also be able to reference the approved permit, which would show the plan and where the sign would be allowed to be placed on the sidewalk. And then generally they would provide a verbal warning to the business owner for trying to obtain voluntary compliance. And then if they needed to cite a violation they would do so. And there's no limit as to how many signs are on one little area of the street. That's correct except that the sign would have to be placed in front of the business store front. And then there's also a two-foot clearance required from the edge of the store front. So that's designed to give adjacent businesses some sort of spacing between the signs. I have an example of what that would look like. That's an example of where it could be placed. They would have to, each business would have to maintain that two foot clearance. All right. All right. All right, those are my questions for now. I know that Council Member Wells had some more questions. Do you want to hop in? Thank you. So, a couple of questions with regard to the portable signs that are out. Did you consider making a standardized sign so that they're all the same size and maybe as smaller range of materials that so that there was more uniformity with regard to the signs? Was that considered? There was some discussion regarding the desire to maintain a balance between Creativity for the business and flexibility and especially if a business already has a portable sign And we wanted to allow them to continue to use that sign after the adoption of the ordinance We wanted to maintain a good amount of flexibility There's definitely some split opinions on whether or not there should be tighter regulations for design. And when a sign is placed closer to the curbside, how do we address if there is parking on the curbside that it's not blocking the ability for somebody, especially someone in terms of ADA accessibility, their ability to open the door and be able to come get in and out of their car on the curb side. Because if the sign is there, even if the street is 10 feet wide, if it's at the curb, you'll have trouble getting onto the curb. There's the requirement for the one foot clearance from the curb edge, as well as foot from any fixed sidewalk obstruction so that could be a parking meter or a tree well. And so I generally I believe if the parking meter is close to where they're parking it would have to be offset in that area and hopefully would give enough space for someone to open their car door at least one foot but to, I mean, I think whether depending on the size of your car, if you had a passenger and you needed to open the door all the way and help someone out of their car, it would be a challenge. I don't necessarily like the idea of it being on the curb side just because of that because we have already so many things that impede. you can find parking that's curbside especially if it's people that are challenged and need assistance, it's hard enough as it is. So I would consider that. The other question that I have and I just don't understand so maybe you guys can enlighten me. When you have a store front and you're a new business or a business and you wanna put a sign for the name of your store, isn't there regulation around putting that sign for that identifies your store? We do have regulations for business identification signage. I think that's what you're referring to. This would be an allowance beyond what a business is already allowed to have for business identification. And so that was an idea to allow all businesses to take advantage of this opportunity to utilize a portable sign? Could you have a portable business identification sign? Yes, you could. But then just like the business identification sign that's in front of you, that's on your store, there's limitations about that that the city has. Can't you apply those same limitations to a sign that's on the street that's a secondary business identification sign and that way you can limit what the messaging is, what it looks like and how the same rules that you have to abide by for your business identification sign that's on your building or in front of your store. Can we do that? I think that may be a question for the state attorney's office. It's like when you look at the blade signs right now that you have in your example, they're really business identifications, right? So if that's what was all you either could have it as a blade sign or you could have it as a secondary sign that's one of the portable signs, but you limit it to business identification, that way you're addressing any messaging issues. Is that a possibility? So you're saying, can it, can the... Portable be a secondary business identification sign, not a messaging sign. So for example, if you look at this one on... You can draft it that way. So you could. So that's a way that we could solve the problem that... No, that wouldn't solve the problem. I mean, you can't regulate content. That's the point. But you can regulate the sign that the business identification sign that's on your storefront, the city limits that, right? You know, maybe we should have- Maybe we should- Come back with that. Yeah, and we can revisit the memo that I wrote. And then we can discuss this. Well, my question is, if you have your, that your store identification, your logo, whatever that is for your store sign, it's in front of your, your identification at your location. It's, if you limit it just like how this is on the blade, if you limit that secondary sign as just the name, the identification of the store and not a message. So, still limited. Okay. Okay. Okay. Our city attorney, and I thought it said, the hearing is closed at this time without any other questions and I would like to go to comments. I'd like to make a motion that we table this for further discussion and review the information that was provided to us and then reconvene us. Okay. Okay. Can I second that? If we do that, can I just state what my concern is and hopefully we can deal with that if everyone agrees it's a concern that this is a slippery slope that there are unintended consequences. A lot of you may have seen yesterday on what was a Bedford drive, what happened. There was a woman there who... There's a motion on the floor, sorry, and there's a second. So we're gonna, I'm gonna call a role, and then we could, we could come to this when it's on the other side. Well, you're normally after there's a motion, you ask if there's any discussion. But there was already a... But John, it should be limited to the motion. I don't think we should discuss that with all due respect. So you know, I would like for you to talk about this. They should not be swept under the table. Can you speak about it during, I'm not sweeping it and I think it's important and you should speak about it. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do if someone has a sign that says, I hope you get cancer like this woman said to Jewish people. What are you going to do? We're going to discuss that. Okay. Call roll, please. Councillor Member Wells. The question on the table. It's a table. It's a table. It's a table for now. Yes. Councillor Member Corman. Yes, yes. Council Member Friedman. Yes. Vice Mayor Marish. Yes. And Mayor Nazarian. Yes, thank you very much. Moving right along to G1. May we have an oral report from the Arts and Culture Program Associate. There's a request direction for the repainting restoration and reinstallation of Carole the way. Sculpture on the original cement. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Hi. You're being here. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. I am Brandy Scott. I'm the Arts and Culture Program Associate with the Community Services Department. Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. I am Brandy Scott. I'm the Arts and Culture Program Associate with the Community Services Department. This evening, I will present a report on Carole Bovese's sculpture I.O. And see Council direction on the future of the piece as part of the City's Fine Art Collection. A little about the artist. Carole Bovese was born in Switzerland, now resides in New York and received her formal education from NYU and Yale. This slide shows a very small snapshot of Miss Bove's impressive resume. The top photo in the left margin is from her 2013 exhibit along New York's Highline. Six of her original pieces were installed in display for the year leading up to the completion of the Railways conversion to a public greenway. The bottom photo is from a 2016 exhibit at the contemporary Austin Museum in Texas. Her work has been exhibited in MoMA, the Whitney Museum, and she boasts having her work included in prestigious collections, such as the Guggenheim and Princeton University's Art Museum. I.O. was selected by the Fine Art Commission through the 2014 Fine Art Priority Exercise. This piece was installed in Beverly Gardens Park on the corner of Beverly Drive and Parkway in 2015. The steel glyph is painted white with a high gloss finish and was originally mounted on a flat cement plinth, six inches above grade. Next you see a slide showing additional angles of the two parts sculpture. At the time of installation, Ms. Bové was represented by David Sornor Gallery with standard sculpture as her preferred fabricator. Sorry. Shortly after installation, the piece showed signs of damage in the form of scratches and black scuff marks which can be seen in this slide. Standard sculpture dispatched a preferred vendor to perform a light cleaning but the marks reappeared almost immediately. It became evident that the damage was most likely caused by public interaction. With no warranty in place, staff engaged all parties and rigorous discussions on possible remedies to what appeared would be an ongoing issue. Recommendations ranged from increasing the maintenance schedule to monthly, which was cost prohibitive, to installing an alternate base, to relocating the sculpture to a site with less accessibility by the public to returning the piece to the gallery for a refund minus an artist design fee. Ultimately, at City Council's direction, the Fine Art Commission worked with staff to find a reconfigured base that would deter public interaction. Mia Lair and associates were previously contracted for work on the Beverly Gardens Park Restoration Project, and were once again enlisted for this project. In 2018, I.O. was deinstalled, stripped and repainted by standard sculpture. The piece was then reinstalled in 2019 on six 12-inch pillars, surrounded with landscaping that would eventually grow dense and cover the pillars to simulate the appearance that the piece was sitting atop of the plants. Shortly after reinstallation, the city received legal correspondence from the artist with the request that the sculpture be deinstalled and returned to the original flat cement base as the pillars were not in keeping with her artistic vision of how the sculpture should be displayed. In August of 2019. Shortly after the second installation staff noted peeling of the gloss top coat and informs Werner Gallery and Standard Sculpture. A chain link fence was installed around the piece in January of 2020 at the artist request, pending the resolution of the ongoing issues of the base and the failing paint. From there is Werner Gallery, Standard Sculpture, and City staff discuss timelines and options for restoration of the piece at the fabricator's cost. In 2021, Standard Sculpture's West Coast Office closed. Zwerner provided a list of artists to prove local fabricators for restoration work, which included the city's contracted conservator RLA conservation. In March of 2024, Gugosian Gallery, Carol Boves' current representative reached out to the city to resume the conversation on the future of the piece. Staff is seeking direction on whether to restore this sculpture and original base and reinstall the piece in Beverly Gardens Park or restore the sculpture in base and relocate the piece to a less accessible alternate location to be determined by City Council. It should be noted that any expense incurred during the completion of this project would be charged to the Fine Art Fund, which is a restricted fund and can only be used in service of the fine art of fine art related projects, such as acquisition, maintenance, promotion, and restorations. That concludes my presentation. I'm joined today by senior members of the Community Services Department and I'll be happy to take any questions or comments you have at this time. Thank you, Randy, for the report. Is there anyone who would any public comments? We do not have any public comments. All right. I'm going to go to my colleagues for any questions that they may have. Council Member Wealth. The cost to refurbish it currently is 77,000 is that what it was? That is correct. And the overall size of it in terms of height and length. It's 100 inches by 100 inches and it's about five feet tall. I know a beautiful roundabout location where I could go. We would really be featured nicely. I don't have any question at this time. Thank you. I'm not sure the artist would approve that location. Pretty much. So I have, thank you for the report. I have a couple questions. First, in the report, it indicates that the Gagotian Gallery offered to take the sculpture on consignment and pay the city of the current appraise prices. Is that not still an option? No, unfortunately that offer was rescinded. Why? Did they say why? No, we weren't given a reason. That came from that discussion that we had in March of 2024, and I think they probably had conversations between then and now and decided that they no longer wanted to offer it. Okay. Do we know what kind of paint was used to fabricate the piece initially? Yes. It is a four-part Matthew paint system. That's the Matthew's paint system. Yes. And was that also used in 2019? Yes. And that lasted how long? In 2019. In 2019, the blistering or peeling, sorry, became evident within a month, within weeks. Just so everyone, if anyone doesn't recall, the Matthews paint was what is being proposed for the Trinity sculpture that we've been discussing, involving from Judy Chicago. This is one of the guys concerned. I've been raising all along with that piece. So anyway, okay. Those are my questions, thank you. That When we first purchased the piece the purchase cost was how much to 200,000 That excluded the base and the installation and the transportation I believe that is correct How much do we pay for the the collectively for the base? the transportation I believe. That is correct. How much do we pay for the collectively for the base, the transportation and installation? That was $229,135. So now we have the first time after it's installed and we have to redo the piece. How much did that cost? In 2019. Was that the first one? The first time it was refurbished. Yes. That was $99,783. And we had a second time that we refurbished it and how much is that? It was only made, so in 2015, when we saw the marks, it was just fixed. Yeah, so the initial time that it was maintained, it was done with part of the onsite, it was part of the warranty. And then when we had it deinstalled and redone at that point, that's when we paid the $99,000. Okay, so. And right now the piece is where? Currently and it's location behind the screens that you see there. So we have a chain link fence up with green screen blocking it. So and that is what the at this point in time the artist has asked that we do something with it? So yes they had asked that we maintained it covered so that it was not being shown on the pillars because that was not in original agreement and the way that we were first to display the artwork. To further distract or deter people from interacting with the piece we have covered it and we have maintained coverage. Now the gallery has reached out to us to inquire what are next steps because they don't want it behind the green screens and neither do we. Okay, so they're the ones that would like to push us along and their solution to the problem is one of two things, well it was three things but they've taken one off the table. So they want us to do what again? They want us to- So the gallery and the artist would like for us to either de-install it. However, if we de-install it, I'm assuming we would have to store it somewhere. But they would like it restored, is there preferred? I also believe that is what our Arts and Culture Commission is also seeking as restoration so that the fencing can come down. Do we have an estimate of what the current value of that piece is? Yes, our brandy does have that for you. Thank you. So yes, we did have it appraised earlier this month and it is $500,000 as is. Once restored, it's anticipated to be $650,000. We don't have a buyer at either $500,000 or $650,000. Those are best estimates. Yes, that is correct. That's fair market value. We do not have any interested parties at this time. And have we, those numbers are based on a, an appraiser, not necessarily a buyer who has said that they would buy it for $500,000. That is correct. Fair market value from an appraisal agency. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Will. All of that up, please. I seed my time with the, with the mayor's permission. I seed my time. So, so when they, when they gave the appraisal, first of all, who gave, who gave us that appraisal? Jacqueline, Silverman and Associates. Okay, so frequently they'll, they'll, in an appraisal of a piece of art, the appraiser will also refer to comps. Other pieces by the artist that were sold at auction or some publicly available informational sale did, and typically at least two. So do they provide some comps? Yes. So the last glyph, this is part of a series called glyph. the last glyph that was sold was in 2023 and the amount was $228,600 Yes, that's the one that I saw you're right. I found it online. I actually had to subscribe to an art praise all thing I'm gonna get emails for the rest of my life from them Um, then the second one which is not part of the Glyph series is a dressing room and that sold in 2022 for $787,500. And I found that one too. So I don't think that a praise all is accurate because as you pointed out the other Glyph sculpture, there's actually some other glyphs which are smaller but they're completely irrelevant. But that's the closest comparable I think to this and that's sold for 228,000. The other one is an entirely different image. It's a different series, different image, it's more desirable. I don't think that is something you can use to estimate what our pieces worth, I think our pieces worth closer to the $228,000. I don't think it's worth $500,000. That's just my opinion. So that's because I have some experience with the appraisals in the art world. So I just wanted to get that go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. We do have an option, but we're not very well versed in this, so we would need to do some research to work you in the city attorney's office on that. Would we be allowed, for with a museum or something to trade it you know for something else? That is that something that would be allowed? I mean I think we could structure an agreement where we could you know do something like that. Maybe we would look at it. So who's going to now, now the business that originally fabricated it went out of business. So who's going to be paying for the restoration now? So based on the agreement we had, we did not get a warranty. So any restoration work is going to come out of the city's fine art fund. We were provided with a list of preferred fabricators by the artist. One is which who we have on contract to do our current restoration and maintenance of our artwork. And that is the quote we've obtained to restore the piece. So we would need to restore it through that. So the artist probably has been made aware that being on the ground, their skateboarders, their people, that there's an issue with that, and yet she doesn't want it somewhere else. So how does she propose to stop people from destroying her work of art? She talks about her vision. Surely it can't be her vision that there's skateboard scuffs on there and dense and that sort of thing. So it's by understanding the vision is for it to be on the ground. I think the artist and their representatives do believe that a less public space would be ideal, so not in the middle of Beverly Gardens Park, which we hear often. So I know that in 2014, I believe it was, or 2019 when they were discussing this at some point, there was discussion about the City Hall campus where Judy Chicago is originally proposed to be located, to relocate Carol Io to that space. Being I get it, everyone wants to be at City Hall, but what would stop people from, it's also public, it's not behind a fence. That seems to me to be wishful or magical thinking. So what other, it should be on the ground according to the artist. But it should be at a place that's less accessible, which would mean that fewer people would see it. You would think an artist would want a lot of people to see their work and to enjoy it. Did they have ideas about putting a fence around it or something like that the way we did with Kusama? Or did they say no? That's also not allowed. From unless you have a previous experience, I don't know that that's been discussed. I believe we did discuss that back when the Werner Gallery was representing Miss Bove and I think at that time they felt it would obstruct the view of the piece. Before we go further, I would simply say, I would ask them because they're offering us a couple of options, neither of which address the core issue. We're going to be back to square one before we know it. If we just restore it and put it back, then there's every reasonable expectation to believe that the same sort of scuff marks are going to happen. So there are two things. One is the active damage done by people interacting with it, skateboarding on it or whatever. And the other issue that Craig pointed out is maybe using materials that are not that robust. And that's a separate problem, but it's also a problem. So I would love to hear from, because the artist is saying, you know, this is her vision and this is what she wants. And again, I can't believe that the artist's vision is to have her work destroyed. This is not a piece of data art or something like that. And so my guess is that she wants people to see it and enjoy it, but not to have it destroyed. So I would be interested to hear what their solutions are because as as said, if it's going to be at a place where no one sees it, I'm hard pressed to think that that's something that she would really like. Prominent space in a sculpture garden like we have, you would think would be something that artists would appreciate. But at the same time, there needs to be something to avoid us from having to have ongoing costs each every couple of years of $99,000 or more to restore the peace in an ongoing cycle of vandalism or destruction and that's not a good thing. I have a question. When somebody purchases a piece of art, does the artist go to their home and say where they are allowed to position it or where they're allowed to display it? Sometimes. That was my question. What does the contract say? So the contract does indicate that we have the right. However, when we purchase it during the exercise before we enter into the agreement, similar to what you guys have just gone through with us with Judy Chicago, we do negotiate a location based on the artist's desire and the commission's recommendations that goes before the City Council. Didn't we pay for the piece? Yes, yes. I don't understand understand was it donated to us? No, we've not. So why don't we why do we have to ask somebody's permission as to where it's displayed? It doesn't make sense to me. So the agreement at the time it's a little it's a little murky. It referred to a an image that attached to the agreement, if I remember correctly. And the image that was attached had the piece laying on the flat concrete pad in Beverly Gardens Park. And as a result of that, the gallery, this Warner gallery, not Gagosian, but this Warner gallery, threatened to take legal action because we changed the, we raised the piece up. Now I mean, we never, you know, the legal claim never went anywhere, I guess, I get in my lay terms. So whether that would have held up over the long term, that sort of thing I don't know. So I'm just gonna walk through this because maybe I'm not understanding something about this. First of all, when we write contracts, I think it's important for us to have legal language to protect the city so that we have ownership of the piece if we purchase it and we're paying for it somebody else shouldn't have the ability to tell us where to put it. I don't know if that's generally your an art guy. Is that generally the way it's done? No, but that could be an adjunct of a public display as opposed to a private display. It's a matter of contract, really. Okay. Well, that's my point. So I think that next time we write our contracts, first of all, one of the things that we've changed for our contracts now is warranty. We didn't have that in place before. I remember when we discussed that, and so now that's put into place. This is another thing that should be put into place. The city should have the ability and discretion to do what is appropriate with the piece because when we have skateboarders on the piece, even if the artist wants it to be displayed in a certain way, it's not feasible. Yes, and I believe at the time we asked for a warranty, I believe, and the gallery was not willing to provide any sort of extended warranty. And we now do get discretion to move the pieces. Yeah, because what if the location changes or something happens, we need to be able to have movement. Now, with regard to, I heard this a couple of times, that it's coming out of the fine art fund, that's still city money, in my opinion. And, and as I'm looking at this, so we paid $200,000 for a piece and then with regard to the base installation and transport it was an additional more than the the price cost of the pieces. Is that right? 229,000 dollars. $29,000 was for the Anzalary cost. So the base and the $29,000. So total is $229. Got it. OK, thank you. Thank you for that, as I was about to. All right. And then as is, we got an estimate for 500. But you're saying that is not even close to that. It's $228,000. It is a questionable appraisal in my mind given the comp. Given the comp, it's $228,000. The closest comp is $228.00. The comp got to $500 as an average between that and another comp, but the other comp was a different piece of a different series that has a different appeal. So how long have we owned this piece for how many years? Since 2014. Okay, and so basically it has been appreciated. It's appreciated what, $28,000 perhaps? Well, it's hard. There's some other issues. I'll get to it in a minute, and lurk in the back right here. So unfortunately I can't speak to that. We enlisted a appraisal company to provide us that information and so I'm only able to provide that to you all about it. So are they asked are they giving us the option to give it back to the artist. So I haven't entertained that conversation because that would not be anything that I would have authority to do without the five of you giving me direction. I don't know that the city has actually ever offered up any of the work that we have paid for. So since we own it and we have an appraisal of it saying that it's worth 500,000 potentially or 650, I would not have thought to ask that question. If you would like us to, we could go ahead and have that conversation, but I would assume you would want to sell it back, not hand it over. I didn't mean hand it over. Okay, just check it. Just to clarify. Okay. I meant sell it back. Okay, that's the current market value. That's a great clarification for me. Preferably the higher amount. So do we have signage and cameras and things around our public pieces of art? It's a fantastic question. So as you know, the city has amazing CCTV coverage throughout many areas including our parks. There is not cameras specifically stationed on a variety of our art pieces. Sometimes you can see them through the existing camera. We do have signage. I will say that not all of our signage is really abide by by the public. We have seen an increase in respect to the artwork. We have a large piece that is next to a bus stop, and that was being utilized as a bench for a long period of time. We have put a large a frame, so you can't miss this sign. We had started with discrete signage around the art piece, and now we have a large a frame next to the Tony Smith playground. That is right here on the block. Yeah, Santa Monica. So that's working. We would assume that on some of these pieces, we're going to have to put larger, more robust signage to help really showcase that they are meant to be looked at and not interacted with. Right. I mean, I think, you know, violators will be prosecuted or whatever it is so that people understand that this is your smile, you're on camera. And this is city property. It's not a toy. Whatever information needs to be written on the sign, I think, would be important. Now there's one other aspect that I'm equally concerned about. And that is, I remember when we were purchasing the Judy Chicago, one of our main concerns was the maintenance because this Kusama had had to be repainted and we were worried about the paint quality and the upkeep. Here we are looking at a piece where we used that same paint quality and it's already chipped. So what is to say that... And is the Judy Chicago fully approved? Yeah, so I'd actually like to just, if I can, give you a couple things. Kusama's paint is different. What I will say is, during the entire Judy Chicago discussion with the commission, with the liaisons, which you were one of, we had the conversation and we kept perverting back to the issues we had with Bové. So, the gloss finish, the public interaction, this was the piece that has kind of scarred everyone along the process that we continue to go back to. We are still working through the Judy Chicago agreement to ensure that we get the warranties that were requested by City Council. So that entire agreement will come before City Council to review. We are not going to approve it until it comes back to you all. Okay, and is that part of the money that's in the fine arts fund? You said that there's two million in there. That's part of the money that's in the Fine Arts Fund? You said that there's $2 million in there. That's part of the Judy Chicago. Judy Chicago's part of that. It has not been appropriated. Got it. Yes, okay. Yes. So one other question about the contract. I'd like to see the contract, just to see what kind of claim this is Werner's gallery was making whether it was, whether they were blowing smoke or not. But, and I'd like to say, I think we should all see it before we decide what to do with this piece. But is it also have a artist's resale rights provision in it? So sometimes the contracts will have resale rights where if you sell the piece, they will get piece of your resale on the basis they still on the copyright. I don't believe that's in that contract. I don't have it in front of me so I haven't checked it but I'm fairly confident that that's not in there. Draw more out. Yeah. Yeah, right there. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well anyway, I was just curious because that would obviously reduce the everything and And then, unless we have a ready buyer, you have to, right there. Same thing. Is it in there? All right. Well, anyway, I was just curious because that would obviously reduce my appetite. And then unless we have a ready buyer, you have to auction it off. And then if you auction it off, you have to pay a premium, typically a commission. A buyer will pay a lot of it. Maybe you can negotiate with the buyer. It's just a buyer's premium. These are all things you need to be negotiated if you sell the piece of art. So... Go ahead. So... me them but these are all things you need to be negotiated if you sell the piece of art. So, as I recall and I may be mistaken but part of the negotiations of the actual price of the item considers the ability of the artist to help select the location. So that could be reflective in the price that we paid, as opposed to paying a higher price where the artist doesn't have a... I don't know if that's true in this one, but I know that that... Well, that would be their argument. That was the consideration, right? That would be our argument. Yes, but the point is that the artist is selecting a location that doesn't make sense and is putting the piece at jeopardy to get damaged again. I totally agree. I'm just saying that. Again, that's the more reason we should protect ourselves on future contracts. So would we be willing to pay an extra $50,000 so that the artist doesn't have that right? And I'm not saying that's the amount, but I think that's part of the consideration. But anyway, that's a side link. I think that if you look at the, yes, and I think that that's something that we should look at, when we look at how much we're paying to restore this piece and the amount of money and time and resources and staff time that we're spending having to do it, it would be worth it to have to perhaps pay a little more, but I don't even understand why we would have to perhaps pay a little more, but I don't even understand why we would have to if you purchase a piece for your home or for somewhere else, you have the right to position it as you like. I have a question. Yes. When the piece was very briefly installed in the second manner where it was up on the, I forget what you called them, the blocks, but did you find in that short amount of time that it kept people from interacting on it? I mean, I think it was pretty short lived before we had to cover it because of the peeling. So I mean, it went in and within, I wanna say it was two weeks is what I remember reading the peeling began and so we started to cover it to prevent further damage. So the fence went in immediately after it was installed. So there isn't enough time to see if that did any sort of protection with it being raised. And then we also went into the pandemic. And so unfortunately this has taken a really long time to move along because of a variety of different reasons. I'm just wondering if maybe a solution, if we feel comfortable with how it's refurbished in terms of the paint, if the sticking point would be the negotiation in terms of how we would display it. So maybe that's the piece that we really should focus on. If we are comfortable with how we refurbish it and with the longevity of that could be. So maybe it's on a higher platform, even if it cement but flat but In a way or whatever whatever the solution is but maybe that's the sticking point for how we would move it forward Okay councilmember Friedman Do it least own the fence are we renting the fence? That's a really good question and we're renting it We're renting the funds. Oh my goodness. All right. We may want to consider a buyout of that fence. Well, it's probably too late. All right. So what I'm hearing is there's a lot of questions and not enough to make a decision. So it looks like we have to table this yet again. And I just got Ms. Harris, hand me the agreement. There is no artistry seal rights. We have the right to transfer it and keep the money. Can we explore, though, the notion of trading it or something like that? But also, is it OK if we, as I had suggested, we asked the artists, well, what do you propose to do so we don't get into a vicious cycle of damage and spending $99,000 each couple of years to deal with damage that would be avoidable? And, Vice Mayor, we had that conversation again, this was quite a while ago. And the recommendation was to provide monthly maintenance of the piece, which I think at that time I can't remember. Sorry, our job is not to, you know, if someone is so, she may be a great artist, but if someone is so impractical that we should just allow it to be damaged and restore it and allow people to do it, you know, that's not going to work for the city. I'm afraid. So we can engage in conversation to see what she proposes or her representatives propose. We will also see if they are, I mean, we understand that they're recommending to relocate it so we can look at if they have other proposed sites and we can bring that back to our arts and cultural liaisons. But other proposed sites where it will not be damaged. That's the whole point. Yes. So we will start those conversations. We will come back to our council liaisons before we come back to the full city council. I have to give you just a little piece of this. This is one thing happened in our favor. So we have no contractual right of I mean there's no contractual right a resale right for the arts fair The arts probably because there used to be a California resale royalty act It was in effect the time we bought this piece which was struck down by the 9th circuit in 2018 Excellent So they were relying on the probably probably relied on the California law for their resale right at the time And then that was that was that was nullified by the Ninth Circuit But our contract doesn't have a similar provision But isn't re isn't resale just that they get like a small let's say we'd sell it for whatever they get a small percentage It was 5% and another California California law Interesting Okay, I'm going to make a motion to move the matter To be continued to a city council meeting at a later date second. Thank you. All right call roll please Council member Wells yes council member Korman yes council member Friedman yes vice mayorish. Yes. And Mayor Nazarian. Yes. All right. We are going to go to reports from the city attorney on closed session items. There is no report from closed session this evening. All right. Report from the city manager. Nothing this evening Mayor. And before we move on to council member comments and reports I'd like to just make a couple of comments after more than 35 years of public service. Beverly Hills City Manager Nancy Hunt Coffee announced today or actually on May 15th that she will retire in June 2026. as the first female city manager in the history of Beverly Hills, Nancy leaves a legacy of respected leadership, superior institutional knowledge and humility. On behalf of the Beverly Hills City Council and our entire community, we thank Nancy for her tireless dedication to making Beverly Hills a better place and wish her and her family the very best in the year ahead. Nancy was hired from the city of Glendale in 2008 as assistant director of community services. She later became director in 2016, leading the city's recreation and parks, library, human services, and administrative support division. I was actually on the Human Relations Commission when she had that position and we enjoyed working under her leadership. In 2019, she was appointed Assistant City Manager before being named City Manager in 2023. And for me, watching Nancy is sent to the highest level of leadership within our organization has been a pleasure to witness. We thank you very much for your service and dedication to our community. And City Council will be meeting at a later date for a replacement. But we wanted to thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Now, I'm going to go back to the meeting. I'm going to go back to the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right. Now I'm going to turn it to my colleagues. Council Member Wells for any City Council committee reports and comments. Thank you very much. Since we last met for our formal council meeting and May the 9th council member Friedman and I had a newspaper advertising liaison or ad hoc committee meeting to talk about this next year's contract with regards to our display and legal advertising and I think that that went fairly well and that will come to the council. or made 10th and May the 12th, actually May the 10th was the fire service day, which was fantastic. And again, it couldn't have been hotter that weekend, but I think that the firefighters, even in all of that heat, just they delivered. And it was really energetic and fun for all of the families and neighbors that that came out for that event and for me it's always fun to see that firefighters and their families there as well So that was wonderful with regard to May the 12th again Councilmember Friedman and myself had public works Commission interviews and We're really excited about that We had mentioned this earlier, we've had a lot of wonderful qualified candidates that are applying for the commissions and that was the case as well with public works and we're excited to bring forth those recommendations. And then this past weekend, we had the art show at Beverly Gardens Park as well as public works day at the farmers market. And both of those events were really fantastic. Our staff worked all weekend long and I appreciate their work so much. I mean, we had everybody from traffic, police, fire, all of our staff from community services. There and public works making these events happen. It it was wonderful because we had the, on one hand, we had the art community and all the people that came out to celebrate art. And it was such a wonderful, diverse crowd that was out at the art fair and all the different groups that support the city as well and all of our different organizations that also had booths there. Even the high school had their booths which I think is so fantastic for our students to be able to, or the BHUSD had their booth, which is such a wonderful opportunity for them to display their art at the Beverly Hills Art Show. So I thank them all for that. It was really fun and I council member Korman and I got to hand out some of the awards and it was really fun to just Walk up to the different artists and they were just not expecting it at that very moment and introducing ourselves and telling them that they won so that was really fun and That is it those are my my meetings to report on but I do want to say to Nancy Thank you so much for this past year that I've been on the city council and for all of your years of service. I certainly can say that in this past year I have watched you get so much done and so much preparation really you're making so many organizational foundational changes and you have a vision for the future of the city and setting the city up for the future. I have learned a lot from you and I appreciate your mentorship for me. I just thank you for that. I look forward to having another year with you. Thank you. Um, so, uh, so to be in with the S. I was the art show too. And, uh, Councillor Mourwell's and I did have the, uh, the honor to give out some of the awards. And that was a lot of fun because, you know, you walk up to people. They don't know who you are. You know, uh, and, uh, you introduce yourself. No, they don't. They're just, you know, then, And they introduced themselves, and then we tell them they won the award, and some of them were like, really? No, come on. You must be punking me. But it was a lot of win. And I especially wanted to call out Christian Benoit, who won Best in Show. He had only recently become an artist. He's an architect. And his works were quite good and quite interesting. So that was great. And then we, Councilman, remember, Friedman and I had also had a commission interview session for traffic and parking, and we had a lot of good candidates that we talked about earlier. And Michael Kaseck, it was the nominee, and I think he's gonna be a great addition to our commission. Then Mayor and his Aaron and I had a real estate ad hoc committee meeting where we discussed some of the two of them. Yeah, this track. It was track when you had me fun. Yeah, we had two of them. We can't really talk about some of the stuff we talked about, but we did have the meetings. And then, a council member Friedman and I also had a community security ad hoc committee which was interesting because we were presented with an offer to monetize some of our video that we have in the city and no decisions were made about that because we weren't sure about the offer and made a lot of questions. But that was it. And then I also, too, want to offer my congratulations to our Intrepid City Manager for her retirement. And I know you're going to have a lot of fun in your time. And thank you for all you've done for the city, for all you've done for the council, for all you've done for me in the last year. It's been great working with you. Fortunately, you're not going anywhere anytime soon, but we wish you well, obviously, in whatever your future endeavors are. Thank you. I'm trying to think of a Yogi Berra statement about I'm not gone yet. And you're here and you're not going anywhere. There's a lot of work to be done in the next 13 months and look forward to it. Everybody's ready to say what we've done during the week, but I just want to go back a bit with my meeting Nancy. I was not involved in city government, but my wife Simone was and she was on the Recreation and Parks Commission and Nancy I believe at that time was where I just appointed the Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation and my wife said that they made a mistake that she should have been subsequently should have been elevated instead of the choice that had been made and time bore that out. But I always heard what a wonderful administrator Nancy was and then I got lucky enough to be elected to council and to be able to work with Nancy as a director and then as as a assistant city manager, and now a city manager. And, you know, it's, I have always felt that people who work well in our city are the ones that should be considered for jobs. And we really hit a home run with Nancy, hit a home run with George. And I really thank you for all the work you've done. I think that the city is better because Nancy Hunt coffee was here. So I thank you for that. Sure, sure, sure. Nancy didn't, they said it was an assistant director of community services. Were you mainly the librarian, the chief librarian? Yes, when I was hired, we had a director of community services and then we had two assistant directors at that time. One was for the library, so I was the, that's what, and you focus really almost exclusively, that is correct. And that's what you had done in Glendon too. Yeah, exactly. Director of libraries. So library. Yeah, no library is still one of the most important aspects of our city. It's beloved. And yeah, it goes to show you all out there that you stick with it, do a good good job and and any no and then any no no anything can happen you know but as we all know you know because they're back in the library if you want to ask anything to anything ever Nancy or say anything to you she whips out that notebook and starts taking notes and she knows exactly the answer later it the answer later. Absolutely, it's great. We should institute for counsel maybe like a dewey decimal system. Something like that. So yeah, we heard a lot of what happened, sort of alluded before that many people probably saw online and it went fairly viral, a person who I think is probably someone who's mentally imbalanced, but still, who was on our streets in our city on Bedford, who was harassing people and harassing them for being Jewish and driving with someone with a car, with anti-Israel statements and going up to people and high-hitlering them, doing the Hitler salute, which is, you know, people who say, oh, we're just anti-Zionist, we don't hate Jews, yeah. So I think this is probably someone who is mentally ill, but nonetheless, it was someone who was dressed up in, you would say, Islamic garb, but had a dog, probably didn't know that dogs are herm in Islam. But who was then approaching people who were visibly Jewish and said they were Jewish. And when one of the people said, and this is you can go online and see, this one of the people said that prays for her peace her response was she hopes that he gets cancer I mean in our city so we understand that there is a tsunami of anti-Jewish racism and Jew hatred and it's unsettling to say the least when it comes to our city, knowing who we are and what we are as a community. And I just want to express my sadness about it happening in our city and obviously solidarity with the people who were affected and impacted by that. and it's free speech. Hate speech is allowed. As Larry will tell you in this country, and you're allowed to do that, you can't make violent threats, I believe, but you can. I'm guessing wishing someone cancer is protected speech. And that's very, very sad. And it's just something that the mayor's initiative never again is now, it's true. We see it. And tomorrow, there is, and the mayor will talk about it, an event here. But when I see something like that, and it happens in our city, I take it very personally. As everyone knows, I've also taken it personally that we have the consul general of a country that is doing terrible things and that we now recently have seen even more terrible things that they're doing. Qatar has offered to give the president a flying palace, a $400 million freebie of a $747 that they used and this just goes to prove there are no lengths to which they will not go to try to bribe their way to influence. They also during the visit of President Trump to Qatar, which I wish he'd have gone to Israel instead of Qatar, I know he's been, but they were able to orchestrate the release of the remaining American citizen hostage, Adan Alexander. And to me, that proves that something that we've said for a long time, that Qatar is the key to getting the hostages released. The Qatar proved that they are the ones who have the ability to get hostages release, which is what they did to Aidan Alexander as a quote unquote present to President Trump. They actually wanted, had the hoots, but to want him to go to Qatar to thank the Amir in person and thank God he didn't do that after what he went through. But the fact of the matter is there are still hostages and captivity. And if Qatar wanted to, Qatar could snap its fingers and get those hostages released. We here now in this wave of anti-Semitism, does Israel have a right to exist? And I think the better question is, does Qatar have a right to exist? Here you have a country with fewer citizens than Long Beach, California. And it's a country that exports LNG, which is unearned wealth. These people are not Smith Barney. They didn't earn their money. And their other biggest exports, much bigger than LNG, are G-Hadi Islamism and Terrorism. That's what they do. So from my perspective, I propose that we declare a state sponsor of terrorism, that we sanction Qatar, that we freeze its assets, and use them to compensate the victims of Qatar finance terrorism, and that we ask the State Department to expel the Qatar consulate from Beverly Hills because terrorism supporters and Jew-hating racists have no place in our city. They are not welcome whether they are unhinged people on the roaming the streets attacking and harassing our residents or a state entity from a terrorist slave state like Qatar. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Since our last meeting, it's been very active and there's been a lot going on. Many of the items my colleagues have already mentioned. I attended the annual meeting for the Friends of the Beverly Hills Public Library, speaking of libraries. It was very informative. Chief Stainbrook spoke at the EDC meeting and shared cutting edge technology as it related to drones in our police department. We have had several ribbon cuttings since then and that includes royal lobster as well as as the rooftop of Lermitage. So I invite you all to visit them and go check that out. During the month of AAPI month, I invite you to visit our numerous Asian restaurants and learn more about the culture. And I met with Yael Arad, president of the Israeli Olympic Committee. A lot of groups are starting to come and meet with us, regarding our position and ways that we can engage with having a house for some of our Olympic committees. And I also met with a Consul General of Italy Rafella Valentini and her staff about future collaborations. We had our rodeo drive holiday party and special events liaison meeting with Councilmember, I'm sorry, the Friedman. This one. And we'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I for a smoke-free community and that's something that our communities has worked tirelessly on. I attended the senior prom with our active adults and I got the chance to crown our king and queen. Prom king and queen was really probably the most adorable thing. I met with his Excellency Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Yakhil Leiter. And his story is so compelling. If you don't know enough about him, I really recommend just learning more because it's just so moving. The experience that he said. This past weekend weekend I was in New York for my son's graduation from Columbia University. Thank you. And while while I was there I had the I met with Governor Cuomo, which was quite an interesting experience. Yeah, it's a mayoral candidate and I think he's a front runner right now. So today is day 590, and for 582 days, we have been waiting for the release of our American hostages. We are thrilled that Idan Alexander has finally been released after 582 days in captivity by the terrorist organization of Hamas. We are grateful and still eagerly awaiting for the release of the remaining 58 hostages in captivity. And we pray for all the children who are the victims of this conflict and above all, we pray for peace. With that said, as the Vice Mayor mentioned, tomorrow night I invite the community to intend one of my mayoral initiatives, which is never again is now as we stand up to hate discrimination and anti-Semitism. And we highlight the diversity of the Jewish experience. It's going to be on Wednesday, May 21st, at 6.30, at the writers' guild, refreshments will be served, and there is an incredible panel that you don't want to miss, doors open at 6.30 at the writers guild. Refreshments will be served, and there is an incredible panel that you don't want to miss. Doors open at 6.00 pm. I'd also like to invite the community to join us on Friday for our Memorial Day commemoration at Roxbury Park from 11 to 11.30. It's gonna be a great way to highlight and commemorate Memorial day. On May 28th, we have a new Fire Map community meeting with our fire chief and the Fire Department. It's going to be from 6 to 8 in the municipal gallery. I invite everyone to come and learn more information. Our next City Council meeting is going to be on June 3rd and the day after that on June 4th, we're going to have a spotlight with Sharona with our local businesses on South Robertson. And I invite everyone to attend that as well and put it in their calendars. This is a way that we're trying to revitalize and bring awareness to South Robertson and Robertson and Robertson area. So with that, this meeting is adjourned and our next City Council meeting is, as I said, scheduled for June 3rd. Thank you all for being here and we appreciate your time.