I'm going to go to the Roll call please. Mazah. Here. Maloney. Here. Wing. Here. Maloney. Here. Wang. Here. Andraide Stadler. Here. Lee. Here. Our only item on the agenda this morning is the City Council's strategic planning session. Mr. Cali, would you like to get us started? Good morning. Good morning, Mayor morning, Mayor and Council. The agenda says this is the annual review of your strategic plan. So following public comment will go through the document. Dr. Gelser. Following public comment, we will then begin the actual discussion of the plan with the City Council and staff. So Madam Mayor. Thank you. Do we have any speaker cards from the public for this item? And I have one two four speakers. The first one is Mr. Victor Dorado. I'm going to start with the first one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with the second one. I'm going to start with attendance along with many, many who can't be here and those that are online. The meeting today, I want to share my deep concern for the havoc county and the state continues to undermine and you serve the authority and autonomy of cities. SB 677 is only the latest version of that and I know that this is not really about that this meeting isn't. But I wanna urge the Council, city manager and others to consider funding some amounts to support other cities that are opposing this bill. It's not yet passed. It's only passed I think the Senate or it's been introduced. I think February 25th. While SB 677 is not the focus of this meeting, and will nobody doubt be the subject of many other meetings. I applaud the City Council's decisions in the past to maintain the 35 feet and three story restrictions on East Main Street and East Main corridor. I also want to leverage the subject and sentiment around opposition to SB 677 to strongly urge you council to resist efforts to erode our communities desire to reinforce height limits and other aesthetic desires of the community. While we cannot revisit development decisions made in the past that have impacted livability, aesthetics, and the future of our city, we should exert control over future use, height, and architectural aesthetics. The recently approved zoning code has in many ways made it possible for administrative approvals of projects that here and to for would have come before the planning commission and perhaps your oversight. I'd like to advocate that more visibility around projects proposed and in flight be made available. The city website has that information, but it's kind of difficult to navigate. So city officials, I would urge you to make that more visible. And so we prevent kind of meetings in the future where folks get kind of upset by decisions that have been made or whether administrative or not. I understand that the law is just and requires that by right and other ways we need to approve things. However, the city does get impacted so the community does need to know and have better insight to that. A hammer is the most densely populated city in the San Gabriel Valley. In some ways by far. I urge you in the strongest terms possible to resist the kinds of development projects that would undermine the community's desire around limiting development. Yes, we need sales taxes. Absolutely. That's important. Yes, we need tax revenues. Yes, we need to revitalize older structures and replace them. Those those goals are not antithetical to the community's interest in preserving the character in charm of our city. The city is blessed with highly trained and competent professional staff. However, those in the most influential positions do not live in our city. As a consequence, the results of their proposals and advocacy around strategic plans and development plans may not always align with the community's desires and wishes going forward. I urge you to maintain independence and continue to respect, listen to and heed your constituents input. Yes, community input and advocacy can be messy and passions can sometimes express themselves in unvarnished ways. But many of us have lived for decades in this fair city, and were attracted to and remain in Alhambra because of the historic reputation for charm and its neighborhoods that foster a sense of stability, safety, and livability. While these are not monetarily quantifiable, they can and should be influenced. They should influence your decisions to maintain and enhance our city. I plan to live here a long time. I plan to die as a resident in the city of Ahamra. Please preserve and this distinct care. I don't plan on leaving any time soon but I certainly would love to see our city continue to be really the gem that it is. Please maintain that by the turnout here and the past. Mr. Arado your fireman is just in the police finish 30 seconds please and the passions expressed in other meetings around the height restrictions of 801 East Main Street. You have a very strong sense for how the community would respond and react to staff and other proposals on project advocacy. Please anticipate those concerns and proactively resist changing decisions. You may have already made or will make in the future. I urge you not to compartmentalize my comments or those of others to specific districts. This is a Elhambera-wide comment that I'm making here. Thank you for the extra time. The next speaker is Mr. Lewis I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. Thank you. Good morning and thank you. Good morning and thank you. The items have passed out the first item there in your packet, the chart, the colored chart, is something you just reviewed a few weeks ago at your meeting the Community Opinions Survey. But the City of Alhamber prepared by true North research and this particular document. I've reproduced there one page out of that document this was a study that was a random sample, an interview, a random sample of 635 adults between January 10th and January 18th of this year in English, Spanish, and Chinese through a variety over the phone, the internet, and so forth. And this is what it kind of came down to about what resident service needs are focused on. And you notice that number one aligns with something that you agree is very important. This just reinforces the importance of that. Facilitating the development of affordable housing is of all the items listed here, number one. As far as not meeting needs severely, not meeting needs moderately, not meeting needs marginally, and so forth. Frank, I wouldn't grade the city with as bad a grade as the public has on this. I think you've been doing a good job. And I think, but it just shows that we need to keep focusing on that. We've got the project open of 103 North Chapel. We've got the one working on second street there that's now with the Cesar Chavez Foundation. And we need to move in that direction. The problem is all those were built on city-owned property and we're running out of city owned property to do these kinds of projects. So we need to move forward on that. Keep that very high on your list. The second item is there was a discussion back on May 13th, 2024 when the annual plan for 2024, 2025, the year. So, I think it's been a long time for the year. So, I think it's been a long time for the year. So, I think it's been a long time for the year. So, I think it's been a long time for the year. So, I think it's been a long time for the year. So, I think it's been a long time for the year. and review that on the video, that meeting between about points 44 minutes and 50 minutes, particularly on the video and you extended beyond that, about the Housing Rights Center. It does very good work, but it's a rather small organization. It has about 40 staff. What I've included here for you are some of the results of their work. The number of people they've worked with in El Hambra during the first nine months of fiscal year 202-42025. Even though this was generated in February 18th of this year, somehow it didn't include the four- during the first nine months of fiscal year 20242025, even though this was generated in February 18th of this year, somehow it didn't include the fourth quarter totals. But you'll notice some of the people I serve there at the bottom, extremely low income 55.72%, very low income 19.93%, low income 11.81% and the rest moderate. These services provided, particularly in most cases to tenants, people with severe housing issues in some cases facing eviction or who have been evicted. The difficulty was not with the types of services provided but with the ability to reach them. And there were a lot of suggestions that came from Sasha Perez and I remember Jeff Maloney also discussed that. Maybe we need to do something more so that our people can get through in a timely manner. Because many times when they call the number there, they can't get an answer for over an hour, they can't get an answer at all, they can't get a timely call back. And there was some suggestion that maybe beyond the limited federal funds that we have, which only paid $25,000 a year for this service, maybe we need to do something more with city staff so that there can be a more active timely response. We're limited on the committee bill and the that funds is to how much we can spend for services. So it might be that we have to find out your five minutes just ended. Please finish. Thank you very much for taking a look at that, keeping those things in your mind as you develop that today. Thank you. Our next speaker is Joanna Vargas. Thank you. Good morning. Councilmember City managers and staff. Thank you for allowing us to share the progress and division of downtown November. My name is Alison Morena and I'm the owner of Vita King, and also the president of our downtown Alhambra Business Association. I am excited to share our highlights of a recent effort and future aspirations that enhance our vibrant community. We would like to share with you what our a half-central business district association has been working on for the past few years since 2020 and where we are planning to go from here and we would like to foster a strong strong relations with the city and our city council members like yourself so that we can create a strong downtown community and build a condition to those who shop, live, and eat here in our downtown Ahembra. Currently, downtown Ahembra is a thriving hub of activity, culture, and commerce located in the heart of our city, and it serves not only as the destination for shopping and dining, but also for gathering place for community events and celebration. We hope you have attempted to at least some of those. And in recent years, we have witnessed a tremendous resurgence, revitalizing the downtown area that enriches the lives of the residents and visitors here. Thank you, Allison. Good morning, City Council. And everybody here at staff. My name is Joanna Vargas. I'm the Director of Downtown Elhammer Business Association. Thank you for having our team here of business owners. We just wanted to share some of the things that we've been working on in the last, I would say maybe four years. Working on an artwork of one of the utility boxes in front of 38 degrees. It's on Main Street. Street, it's almost, so really excited about that. And the artist is from Nucleus Art Gallery, which is a downtown. We also have Instagram and TikTok page, and we get over 60,000 impressions a week. So we're really promoting downtown. And also think in, we started a new Valentine's Day event. It's a passport event where passport and business. So we were bringing out people on Valentine's Day because we saw that it was a little bit more quiet on that. We are also celebrating our 14th annual Saint Paddy's Day pub crawl. It's already been 14 years. It brings over 300 people every year and it's led by a real bagpipe player. So we're excited for that. And we just locked a new Alhambra Main Street market. And we just celebrated our first month, first Sunday, every month. And we've already grown 150% in three months. And it's phenomenal. And most of the vendors are from Alhambra and the San Gabriel Valley. And then this year we're celebrating our 12th annual Alhambra Pumpkin run. It brings 1,200 runners to the downtown Main Street in second, 10,000 in attendees. And last year we had over a thousand trigger treaters. That was just the kids because that we gave around a thousand pieces of candy. We have our annual tree lighting ceremony. 300 families take photos with Santa. And then there's about 3,000 attendees that come the Renaissance. So for moving forward we're just afraid that we're out growing that corner and it's something to think about in the planning that we might need to move that tree lighting ceremony. And also in the future we are working on a best stuff down to Nilehambra where community members can vote on their best and favorite business like That are different categories. We're excited for that. We're gonna be launching that soon Good morning everybody. Jonathan Gutierrez. It was born and raised here in Alhambra Also a local business owner a video production and company here, and I am also the secretary of the downtown Ohambra Business Association, and I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the new businesses that have been contributing to the dynamic atmosphere of downtown Ohambra. Some of the newest additions are three fields coffee at 12 West Main Street, Kauai Klaas at 214 West Main Street, and fun fact, the owners and operators of Kauai Klaas are actually a Hambra High School alumni. Also, Kauai Klaas Klaas Klaas Kauai Stahl at 19th Garfield Avenue, and there's a new Dollar Tree opening up at 69 East Main Street. They're opening up soon amongst a few other businesses as well. And all of these businesses in one way or another helped to contribute to creating a lively and more diverse downtown Ohambera. We'd also like to share a little bit about some of our plans for the future of downtown on Hambra that we would love the assist of the city council for. We'd love to improve the lighting infrastructure for better visibility and for safety. We'd like some clear wayfinder signs that will be established for not only local businesses but also for the parking lots to ensure that newcomers and visitors to onembra know exactly how to navigate the city. We'd like to, as you mentioned earlier, expand the tree lighting ceremony to help it grow and accommodate more visitors. And we are also committed to fostering a more sustainable Ahembra and downtown community and to ensure and a seamless transition for future leaders by working more closely with the city of all hambra as well as with the all hambra chamber of commerce. Thank you. Does anybody has any questions? Our next speaker is Shirley Totsuno. Good morning. Good morning. Oh, little closer. I just don't hear myself, which I normally do. But anyway, um, uh, good morning again, Mayor Lee and City Council members. I just have a few comments. I'm sure you share my concern about some of the businesses that have left. I'll handbrae like marketplace big lots and right aid and I'm kind of wondering because I don't see the signs for lease. I'm wondering if they're leased and then of course our other big lots and Party City and now we have Joanne's that are closing, you know, and I've shopped at all these places Over the years and I could see because office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I know a lot of people are interested in having. And I would love to have a Monari Park as two of them. And now that we have all these, I wish they would open up here. And it's interesting, because I was gonna talk about Main Street also. You know, I've been going on Sundays afternoons, and I can see the difference from a list of Garfield to a west of Garfield has still eating and walking around but then on the side. There's hardly anybody walking around. A couple of times I've been doing this and they don't have many restaurants. People walk in there. And I said to the vendors that the hub was commenting that people that they leave. It's going to the parking lot and they just leave. You know, and I just don't see much traffic there. So I wish there were, you know, something at the hub too, I think, if they had something that would really entice people, something, I don't know what, but they need something to, because I feel bad for the vendors, any vendors, craft people. And I wanted to talk also about, gosh, let me get my notes here. I've also gone to the first Sunday craft show. And I went there because I wanted to think about a few things, I bought a crocheted top and a dress. But it's kind of sad that the person that was selling the dresses, and she lives there now'm they're kind of pricey, but they're sustainable, they're caught, they're really cute. So I really like it. I just, it wasn't they don't think they had the right people going there or more people should be going there or that would be interested in that, but she wasn't there the second time. So I want to talk about some of the Dollar Tree, about the historical posters that are there now. I hate to say this, but they're not very well done. And it's sad because we don't have much art in public art and fun pictures of themselves. It's nice on the corner there. Fourth. This is awesome, of course, because I really love. Wow. Okay. Thank you. Okay, thank you. All right. Next speaker is Mr. John Query. A good morning members of the last year's strategic plan. I would encourage you to be more bold in the future. I would encourage you to be more bold in the future. I would encourage you to be more bold in the future. I would encourage you to be more bold in the future. I would encourage you to be more bold in the future. I would encourage you to be more bold in and beyond, I would encourage you to be more bold in the actions that you're taking. While they are very effective tasks that you identified last year, I think there's an opportunity to take bolder action to move the city forward in the direction that all of you have stated that you'd like to move it. I know that requires sometimes financial investment but also sometimes it's about policies and positioning not just money being spent which allows for you to position yourself as Al-Hamber the city as one of the leading cities in the San Gabriel Valley. To that end I would encourage you to reimagine goal number three instead of just creating a strong, that actually might be split into two different to goals, but instead of just creating a strong financial base and strong economic base to actually say that our goal is in the next year to probably realistically three to become the most business-friendly business city in the same Gabriel Valley. If your goal, we can all work in rally behind you and staff to make that possible. It's a very clear and direct statement to the business community that's here and the business community that we seek to attract, that we mean business and that we want your business to locate here. It addresses a lot of comments that the previous speakers had mentioned both from the Downtown Association, but also residents who are seeking different kinds of mix, et etc. And I know and you know that there's a challenge always in trying to make the exact mix that every resident and stakeholder would like but in fact by making a statement that we are going to be the most business friendly city Gabriel Valley which is what 31 cities we could definitely lead the list here. The audience participation there, I think that's something we could strive for. Additionally, in order to do that, I would offer a couple suggestions of programs or policies to consider that build on the success that your community development department has been leading in the last couple years that we've been partnering with them. One is consider establishing a micro grant program that allows for physical improvement of businesses across the city based on specific criteria, but that allows for, you know, 2000, 3000 or even up to 5th, and I wouldn't recommend more, that could be allocated during each fiscal year to allow for improvements to onings and signs based on demonstrated need and business commitment to the community. I also think that in light of our recent fires that we could take action now to establish a business relief fund so that when the next disaster happens we are ready to go and can lead in the region around with supporting small business especially there whether it's uh... some fire for individual business in one location an extended power out of the windstorm and earthquake that we actually have those mechanisms in place that actually doesn't cost anything to set up and just have in place and then it can receive funds in the in the moment of need i think uh... looking at uh... shop local uh... program uh... that is funded by the city, we see Monterey Park, we see Arcadia and others funding these programs and there's new designs of these programs where you actually can track people spending in the city and then give them incentives, whether discounts or a reimbursement of a certain percentage to spend in the city and specific businesses that sign up to participate that. A establish a business recognition program, what if once a month, once a quarter, the city is actually recognizing specific businesses for their commitment to the city or other notable opportunities. That cost a lot of money to do that. The city council could establish an economic development committee of the city council. I know it's not been the practice of this council to actually have committees, but around us that Alhambra means business, by establishing two of you as an economic development committee that can meet monthly, look at issue, I'd input, for back to the council recommendations on policies to support businesses is a great signal that that we're invested in and committed to our business community. Looking at developing and implementing in hand and service and hand and hand and hand and my holding it wrong. Enhanced customer service standards and create opportunities that again demonstrate the city's commitment to facilitating and this just built on this accessory already there, working on to help businesses open or expand or whatever the case may be. And finally, establishing and funding a business accelerator. An incubator is great, that's when someone has an idea, but an accelerator is, you have a business and you want it to grow. If we want to see ourselves fill in vacancies, attract new businesses, attract new jobs, an accelerator has the opportunity to take existing businesses and grow them locally. Instead of trying to find someone to come here, we actually owe businesses. I appreciate your commitment to our business community and look forward to working with you on these items. Thank all the speakers so far. The next is do we have any speakers via Zoom that we should speak on this item? Madam Mayor there are not any raised hands on Zoom at this time. We have now complete the item on today's agenda. We are now adjourned. Okay, Mr. Your turn. Mayor and council. All right. Uh indicated this is the annual update of your strategic plan. The papers on the wall behind me and you all have copies, the audience have copies. Last year you developed a very, very aggressive, very aggressive, multi-year. It isn't just a one-year plan. You have projects going out for multiple years. In my interviews with each one of you, they went from large topic discussion, you'll hear discussions of things like that. But we can't discuss metrics today. That's not the goal of the meeting per se, but I think a lot of you had comments about certain items on the list and I encourage you to bring them up as we go through the list so that each one of you can hear each other's ideas, comments, and philosophies. We do a stop today by noon. So we need to go through a very detailed discussion, even in a short time bit. So there were no suggestions to change the goals. Goals 1, enhanced public safety, goal 2, improve infrastructure and mobility, Go three, create a strong financial base and strong economic base. Number four, enhanced transparency and open governance by the most inability and six improve housing opportunities. And as identified, there's a column here for time frame on each one of these projects. Some are short, mid and long term or more importantly ongoing. So let's go to goal number one. 1.1 is to work on recruitment of police officers and retain officers. Goal 2 is public education between the police department fire Community Academy, cert and safety fair. Let me stop right here for council comments or discussions Madam Mayor Any comments and from our my colleagues Thanks. Madam Mayor, I have some comments right here. I think these are really good goals and really strong goals. And I just wanted to comment on 1.2 that, you know, I think it's really reading the, you know, staff status on this that we're doing outreach in multiple languages and we're trying to host all these community meetings. It's really awesome. And I like to see how we can better quantify our efforts. If we say this is a goal that we have, and we want to do more public outreach about public safety, education, and I think it's a goal of mine to expand our neighborhood watch programs because that's a way for our community to stay connected. And when we know our neighbors, when we watch out for each other, that's a very effective way to deter crimes. So our police department is out there doing their job, day in and day out, but we as neighbors and residents can also do our parts to, you know, stay connected, keep a night out for each other. And when we communicate with each other, that's how we can keep a night for each other and deter crimes. So, and that's one part. The other part is, you know, emergency preparedness, right? When, you know, our community, if we're here, we're not threatened by wildfires, but two days ago, we had the earthquake. So that's a reminder that we're living so well. There's a big one. And how do we, you know, kind of prepare for that as the neighbors? How do we make sure we don't leave out, you know, the seniors, our street, the children, the families that have special needs, and that requires a community effort. So that's I'm hoping to achieve all that through neighborhood watch and maybe also I like to for us to also think about maybe there's a rebranding for neighborhood watch instead of a neighborhood who watch, that's very specifically for crimes and for our PD to be involved. Maybe it's a neighborhood support group or maybe it's a community core or something. Some ideas out there to kind of think about expanding the goal of that. But the ultimate goal is to create that connectivity in our neighbors, in our residents, to come together and to keep our community safer. So in this goal, I just like to, I think we already have a neighborhood watch program. And I wonder if we have some data already available, like maybe a list of block captains, a list of neighborhood watch and if not that's okay we can start now and I want us to be able to track the list and set a goal for us to say okay this year we're going to try to target maybe each district we're going gonna try to target X number of neighborhood watch programs. And we have a goal to work towards and everybody knows how to get there. So that's kind of the quantification I'm looking for. And I know that the city is trying to offer serve programs and serve is basically training for us to get more, to provide us with the skills to help other people in emergency preparedness. So setting a goal for, let's say, we already have a number of certs issued in the city. Let's set a goal for how many we would like to see this year and in different languages, or how many cert we want to, maybe a percentage increase from the last year or something like that to quantify this. So I'll leave that to see if my colleagues have any comments on this one. Mayor, thank you, Mayor. And thank you to all the guests who came to speak to us today. Your opinions are valued by the council as well as staff. And thank you for the continued work that we do. I would just echo the same thing that. Councilman councilwoman Wang mentioned regarding the neighborhood watch. We get all kinds of information weekly about certain things that are going on crime and crime that is housing crime or crime that it has to do with robberies and things like that's what we do get some information and that sort of propels us to want to have to have our neighborhood watches because our police department can't be everywhere. So by having our neighborhoods prepared to talk to each other, I know we do on our street. And it's a great thing because not only do they help us when we see somebody who shouldn't be in the neighborhood or looks a little unusual in the neighborhood, but also in an emergency. So, you know, we have a lot of retirees who are skilled, really skilled. I'm married to one. He's electrician and so he's always helping our neighbors. This is what he's doing now. So it behooves us to not only use the neighborhood watch for that, but in addition to that, connect them to our safety plans and stuff. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. It's fine. Yeah, I would agree with the sentiment, I think, first that what we're doing that's down here is great. I know that a lot of people enjoy the certain programs and the services the city offers. But I think I've seen and heard is maybe more of a desire from the community to hit that middle ground where it's not someone volunteering for a certain program that's a larger commitment or an occasional safety pair or something like that. I think that using the neighborhood watch model is really good. And especially after the recent fires and the, of course, earthquake should always a reminder, I think this is becoming kind of the broader sense of public safety rather than just kind of watching crime. Just as an aside, I did attend a our neighborhood watch meeting with PD a couple months ago and it was great. There was a small group there, but the team did an excellent job of informing the community, the neighborhood of what was going on, giving statistics, it was really positive. What I've heard more recently is really a desire to be more plugged into disaster preparedness and what the city's plans are and just being informed. So I think using, taking this new subject matter, which I think we should be doing and using the existing structure of the neighborhood watch is probably the way to go. It's not reinvent the wheel, but I agree, expanding the scope of what maybe neighborhood watch does. And I don't know. Frankly, I don't know what the city's involvement in organizing neighborhood watches right now. I don't know. I mean, in our area, it's just people sort of say, now I'm the captain, and then they set things up. And that's fine. If you have an active neighborhood, but what about the neighborhoods that maybe don't have someone that does that so how do we engage them how does the city. Do we lead on that do we make it easier for them to lead I'm not sure I think this probably needs more discussion and more feedback from people who work in this field but I think there's a need there and I would support the idea. Thank you. So I do want to, the thought and idea of just re and improving, I guess, upon the neighborhood wash programs that we have, I think it's been said, definitely want to support that in hoping that the police department can also do, you know, a little bit more than they already have to make that program better. But in regards to that, my comment is regarding 1.1. I know staff, city, you know, with the sometimes limited resources that we have, have done a great job in maintaining the salaries for the police department competitive. But you know, just kind of reinforcing that, making sure that we do what we can to stay competitive amongst other cities to kind of keep that same quality police department that we already have. You know, I think the culture whether the police department seems to be wonderful is it's the feedback that we get from the community. But with that, we want to be make sure that we keep our officers that is limited and that, again, we just stay competitive with regards to wages. Thank you. I thank my colleagues for your comments. I listen to all of you and I think the comments thread I've been carrying over and over is, seems to be the neighborhood watch groups that we have right now that we can utilize, continue to use utilize that process to expand upon emergency preparedness. I think I heard I'm not quite sure about that. I think I attend a neighborhood watch groups before long time ago, soon and also just recently attended onone couple months ago for area one. The attendance world was really good and it was particularly focused on burglary so within the counter complex, on op-emission. But my thought is that my suggestion is that keep the neighborhood watch groups as is for public safety issues only. I know that everyone's concerned about emergency right now, especially about fire earthquakes, which is how one lot I think last night. My suggestion is that start something different away from the neighborhood watch group because I want them to focus on public safety only. For emerging preparedness, I'm thinking maybe having a video done, simulating a situation, or multiple situations, and put a video on what on a city website so that our resident can view it at their leisure. And then we can start from there, if someone wants to attend a search training. And I think the fire department has already done Mandarin. I remember the fire department where it has done search training in Mandarin. So I really like that. Thank you very much, Chibe, Berkusa. And if we can continue with that in other languages, because we have a lot of immigrants or people speaking second languages, we really need to be trained on that. Now, when it comes to disaster, I, people cannot be prepared enough. I thought I was prepared enough. I couldn't not find my flashlight at the last minute. So that's it. That wasn't really funny. But then it's not because we always think that we're prepared. People don't really know what to prepare for earthquake, fire, those two particular events. So my suggestion is going back, reiterate that maybe, produce a video on different situations, of what the fire department will do and what our police department will do. Any other comments on goal one? I saw the staff taking a lot of notes. So that's the goal. I just maybe more a procedural question. I mean we've had the 1.1 on there and I agree 100 percent. It's a priority, but if something is just sort of baked into the overall pie, like we're always trying to do that. I mean, does it still a strategic pray? I don't I don't want to take it off, necessarily. I just want to know how we do that. I think for public safety, it's particularly challenging. I had this conversation with a councilwoman weighing yesterday. It's not like we can hire a temp for police and fire. And so I think we would probably bring this back to recruit and retain quality public safety because we did see recently this past year where Glendale came and took 25% of our firefighter paramedics. That's huge. And because it has such a huge cost implication, the requirements of having minimum staffing, having to hold people over on over time due to shortages in staffing, really push it, make it incumbent upon us to be streamlining the application process and testing so that we, if there is an individual who's interested, we can move them at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking at the process and we're looking the other side, yes, offering attractive salaries and benefits in order to help retain our employees. They are definitely expensive with the overall CalPERS cost and everything else that bakes into public safety, but really very critical to our operation. And so from that standpoint, they're very different than the other staffing. And while of course it's our objective to always recruit and retain qualified staff, public safety, or that's a very big ticket item for us. And especially these last couple of years. Mayor and council, I'll be doing this as a city manager and I retired for a long time This will never change It in one sense it really shouldn't be a goal anymore. It is every single day So with the council's permission we should probably strike that is an ongoing activity It's not gonna go away ever not if not next year or five years ten years It's how are we to the council? I mean, I don't want to communicate to our own staff or the public that it's not a priority anymore, but maybe as operationally, it's not a goal because it's sort of like, pay your bills, make sure the trash hits picked up, paves the streets. We're not going to put all those things on there. We know we have to invest in public safety and recruit personnel all the time. So I don't know how we... And with your past goal and as this has been on the plan, we have internally taken that as a priority for the human resources department to work with our safety groups. Like I said, streamline the application process, the testing process, we offer lateral bonuses with your permission under this goal. We have fully developed a plan. It doesn't mean that it will always stay the same as far as lateral bonuses and other things to make sure that we are competitive. But if you wanted to strike it, that would be fine. We would come back to you. I guess if we had had any changes to make to any of those internal programs. You know that with LA Times has 101 best restaurants every year and some restaurants were on there every single year, so they created a new category called the Hall of Fame and they bumped those up. So maybe this could be in the Hall of Fame strategic plan. With Council's permission that I just crossed it off. It's just ongoing forever. Moving on to goal two, improve infrastructure and mobility. This is the largest set of projects you have. 2.1 is the short term project, expand the ACT bus system. 2.2 evaluate space for dog park at short term, funds are in place and we're committed at the end of last year. 2.3 is developed plans for the Humbert Community Center, mid term, to grant project. You're receiving a report. The environment analysis. Actually probably I did it already. 127 25. 2.4 planning and outreach for the 710 projects long term. You're waiting for approval from Cal trans. That's measure M and measure R. 2.5 is complete city wide bus shelter study. It should be, notice it biting bids this month, March 2025. 2.6 secure funding for installation of bike head plan. Long term, you currently have funding from Metro and measure R and grant money. 2.7 just to improve the nine city bridges over the UP Railroad long term. You have some funding coming in from the county. It's still a long term project. You have a city match. 2.8 expand green space throughout the community. That's a midterm ongoing. That's paid for by grants. There's two projects there, the Story Park project and the Burke Park project. 2.9 is to explore the acquisition of the International Extrusion site, but hopefully get a portion or the Emory Park. It's midterm. It's still under study with a potential developer that has arrived yet. 2.10 is to create marketing centers midterm. You're working on Alamanser, Granada in a hamburger park. A contract is underway. 2.11, she would dress traffic concerns and look into a traffic calming policy. It's midterm. A consultant was hired or a presentation occurred in October of last year. Staff's right now working on a policy. In 2.12 is to improve visibility crosswalks near schools. Midterm is in the budget and it must be ongoing. It's near completion. So council comments on goal number two. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for presenting this so clearly. I would just want to, I know we're in the works of having a second consultant for the AC bus. I just would like to say that we were looking at having it free. We were looking at extending routes and perhaps in each district, one that would go with respect to the routes to parks. It would help our sustain, it would help across the board. And having it free would really be helpful. I've spoken to many students and they're taking the, I call it the RTD. Okay, I'm aging myself there. Joe knows what that is. But MTA and they're taking that and they're paying for it and they're not getting the tab cards because if they get the tap cards They got a pay for it. So at least from what I understand And so this is a small city. We're not huge and Students kids from Fremont should be able to take a if they now go to El Hanper High They should be able to take the act bus and I know they do But they should be able to take it for free. It is city money it's our taxpayer dollars and we should extend the routes to include park. I have space evaluates space for park we're on plan the community center please let us know what we need to do to make expand. I know the dollars will give us a very basic at this point. So whatever we can do to help encourage more dollars to go towards the projects to make it a little bit larger and provide a lot more for our community. I would be helping I would be willing to help with that. The planning for the outreach of the 710 project we're always waiting for CalTrans. There are much better taking the sand off the stub than that working on this. So, if CalTrans is listening or MTA, please help us move. And then in addition to that, help us move that that project along so that we can make things safer and we can target our calming strategies for our traffic. A complete city-wide bus shelter yes we got money for it, prop A funds we also have money from the federal government, crossing our fingers it's still ours and on the our site, secure funding for installation and bike and pedestrian plan. You know, we have, we still have not gotten that 14.4. What I'd like to see is maybe, since we got 14.4 authorized under a measure R to move to move it from measure R's other plans. We might want to leave that open to be able to do more things inside El Hambra rather than outside El Hambra. I know we've already got the freeway plan. We've got that, you know, off the stub plan and the on and off ramps. But if we're not moving quickly enough, maybe we need to look at something that we might be able to do that's internal inside rather than outside. Does that make sense? So in other words, this 14.4 is actually going to support the traffic needs, the traffic improvements, just like measure R is supposed to be spent. So maybe those measure R dollars can be looked at once again to go to help things that are we're not able to provide like the wide stripe sidewalks, like the lighting, like all that other kind of stuff, which promotes safety, but also promotes transportation movement. I know that's kind of outside, but I wanna say it. Thank you for the bridges, expanding green sprays throughout the community. I think we're doing a pretty good job on this. We're trying our best to utilize every spot. So I appreciate the staff and the city manager knowing that this is a goal of ours. At this time, it's a difficult time I realize, you know, there's not a lot of, not a lot of money that's going to be available for us. At least I don't think so. So, um, but and we don't have a lot of land. So maybe land needs to be looked at to not just build housing, but to make sure that we're building green space, because I don't know that so much if we need to build to have more people come in. I'm sorry, but our population is over 83,000. So if you're asking us to build affordable for people who are here, I get it. And I love that idea. But affordable to reach out for others to come in. I would rather support the folks that are here right now, because we need a lot of assistance. They need a lot of help. Reaching out to include more makes it more on our plates. High visibility costs, that's without money can be spent. I'm spent on gladison budget. We need it done right away. Developing economic development action plan. I'll, my jumping ahead. Okay, I'm sorry guys. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I think I, that was it. Huh, no, wait. Yeah, I think that was it. I'll be said a lot. Okay. Thank you. Oh. I think that was it. Probably said a lot. Okay, thank you. Oh, not done. Traffic calming strategies needs to move on. It needs to move up on this. I just, this is huge for our community. Every, every one of us have heard from our residents that traffic and Alhamma was planned that way. So and we didn't get the 710. So we have to really make this a big priority for us. That according to the chart, the council, where am I? Has received a report and staff is now crafting a policy. Is that correct? That's accurate. And the policy will be coming back to the council on April 14th. And that's including the agreement that we were gonna drop the speed limits on certain streets and all of that, including all of that, right? The reductions of speed limits, I believe, was done with our traffic survey late last year. I can double check for you back to the signage hasn't changed. Okay. We'll be simple to you for free, Ma. Okay. Thank you. So with regard to go to infrastructure and mobility, first of all, I like to say that I feel like going through all these goals that realize a lot of them have been completed or even near completion. So, Ray job staff that's, you know, it's not easy to get a lot of these goals done, but we powered through and we did it. So I just want to say a big kudos to staff for completing a lot of these goals. My comments on, so first one, expand ActBus to allow for better citywide connectivity. I like to see ActBus going more, there's more coverage on the south side of the town. I think we're already working on that. But the bigger question here is when we embark on a task like this, we hire a consultant, bring them on, they do public outreach, we spend money trying to make it better. What, there is a bigger question to ask here, how do we measure success? This is our existing system, and after all of our efforts, staff putting so much effort and then consultant worked on this, and we have a new system here, are we successful? Is there what we want? So I just like to suggest that we have a matrix to measure success that way when consultant finished the assignment, bring it back to us and say, look, our existing system has a ridership, perhaps it's a ridership, perhaps it's other things. But it's a way for us to look at this and say, okay, we increase our ridership by 20%, 30%, we're successful. It's just a way to indicate that effort is not wasted, that we achieved something instead of just going through this assignment to do this. So just wanted us to think a little bit about how we measure success, how do we even define success in the first place? What are we trying to achieve when we go about, you know, all this effort that goes into improving a system? I guess that would apply to a lot of our goals. How do we define the objectives very clearly and define the metrics to measure the success? If I could just talk for a second. Yeah. I think that's under 2.1. There's a study due to come in May from a consultant on I think what you're talking about, the ridership analysis and things of that nature. So it is coming. Correct. Yes. So my comment is for the consultant. We want to, as a city, we want to make it very clear when they take on an assignment that we want to see that kind of metrics in the performance. The next one is regarding the 7 10 projects. I know that the city has gotten measure our money and it's ongoing and we have done already a lot of working outreach and we have a consultant working on this. I'm just getting a little concerned with all the delays with this because I'm looking at construction dollars. Every year, the cost of construction is going up by 10%. So the more this is delayed, the less our money can buy for us, the less we'll be able to do. So I just want all of us to kind of, I'm also thinking about this. I just want all of us to think a little bit more strategically about what we can do to advocate. I know there's entities, governmental entities involved, there's larger organizations involved. What can we do strategically to make sure our projects are not delayed? What kind of advocacy can happen? What kind of representation that's needed regionally for us to expedite projects and making sure that our tax dollars that's allocated for us, CBL, and we can use it to the maximum potential possible. So that's my thought there on the 7-10 projects. And then 2.7, I was just really happy to see this on the strategic plan that we have to secure funds to improve nice city bridges. This was put on the strategic plan before I even get on board. But it's such a big priority. I like to see this elevated because, you know, infrastructure failure could be catastrophic. And we know a lot of these bridges are built a long time ago. And I just wanted to flag this. This should be a priority. It's infrastructure. I also understand that funding source can be uncertain here. If we decide as a council that this is a priority for us, then let's think a little more creatively about funding source. Let's not be dependent on, I think staff are continuing to look for grants available. But let's think more about how we can actually take care of this item because it is a public safety priority and what other funding sources can be available to address this. And then one more comment on this is I'd like to expand this to critical city facilities to undergo seismic strengthening because we do live in Southern California. We're due for a big one. And I would love to see our city facilities, especially the facilities that we have a lot of city staff. And that serves as a EOC. I like to see that we're resilient in our facilities that we can quickly recover after Northquake. So that's the expansion I like to see on that goal. And then last one is the traffic concerns and looking into a traffic calming policy. And I understand that we're working on that traffic calming policy. I want to echo my colleague, Councilwoman Andrade Stettler's comment about this is such a big concern in our community. There's just so many people are concerned. I know that, you know, city has ongoing efforts to address this. So every day our staff is looking at ways to address this. So I am aware of you know the past programs and projects already done to try to address these issues. There's we have a pedestrian safety plan that was already in implementation. I would like to just make a comment that you know know, if we have a program that's already done, you know, and then we continue to hear concerns and things may or may not be working out. I think we should have a mechanism or at least a mentality to think that, okay, we did this is what we did. And let's try to understand if it's working out for us. Maybe it is, it worked really well. Maybe it's not quite. It's, things are done, signs are put up, but we're still experiencing ongoing issues here. So let's continue to work on this. Let's continue to explore and not to say, we've already done this and this is already done this and this is, you know, in the past. So that's, that's kind of my comment on this is the ongoing issue and, you know, I, I hope that we can revisit some of these plans that's already already being implemented and taking to consideration. A lot of the concerns that are brought to us. And I'm very looking forward to the traffic calming policy that will be brought before council. So that's all. And I just, again, wanna say, kudos to staff for implementing the high visibility crosswalks near schools. Children's safety is such a priority. And I just so, so happy to see that one is near completion. It's wonderful. So thank you so much for all that. Several items on this in goal number two that are complete or near completion. I wonder are we are we going to be looking at maybe moving some of these from strategic priorities? I mean, like the dog park is in, I mean, we're going to start building it soon, right? I mean, we're going to same thing with a couple of high visibility crosswalks. There's a couple of things that I think maybe can shift from strategic priorities to something else. I don't know. Just because we're already doing them. I'm always mindful of what you point to is a dog park is a council to get rid of it off. There's no log of strategic you're doing it. It's going to be done. Right. I mean, we're not going to stop. Right. The community center, I mean, that is still there's a little strategy involved there, but but that's still sort of similarly in the works ish right. I don't know if we want to cross it off. So I think that the community center as councilwoman Andrade stadler alluded to in her comments that you know we still are very actively seeking additional funding. It would be helpful to keep it on the plan in that one. We are sending letters to Senator Sasha Renee Perez and asking for $10 million to expand the size of the community center that we're able to fall back in that and other grant for grant funding sources to say it is on the council's strategic goal, it's a goal under their strategic plan and that is very important that we do aim to have the biggest community center that we possibly can. So just one more year, will you indulge me and leave that one on? No, that's of course, yeah. I mean, I'm sensitive to having a million goals on here and staff wondering what is the priorities. So, but I agree with that never heard of this senator Perez, but I take your word for it. That easy, easy. So let me see. Okay, starting from the top. I think they act bus. I'm looking forward to seeing what the report comes back with. The dog park we talked about, the community center we talked about. I do think the 710 step is a long term strategic priority. I share the concerns about delay and costs and all that stuff. I don't know how to get around that. I mean, it's just, it's almost completely out of our hands right now because it's going through such a long, I mean, not completely out of our hands. I guess you want to give it like a 30-second update on where we are with that? Sure. We're in the process right now with our consultant going back and forth with CalTrans. We had submitted the package that we brought to you previously and it says in here when and we brought it. It's been a long time. How about that? It's been a very long time. It's been with CalTrans. We submitted it maybe more than a year and a half ago, yeah, 2022. And they sent it back with some additional revisions, which it was supposed to be ready to smooth sail through and get into the EAR and the data studies that the community had very, very, you know, loudly asked for. And so we anticipated getting there. We are not. We continue to push at CalTrans. We sent letters. We've met with CalTrans management. And we think we're at the, you know, the one yard line we hope. So we continue to work on that and work with our advocates as well as trying to make sure that we are moving this project forward. I mean, maybe that's an area where our legislators, either both are former, both former Alhamber residents or current Alhamber residents, I mean, maybe they can help us kind of push CalTrans a little bit because ultimately they control CalTrans per strings. I don't know if we want to use that leverage now, but it might be a good time to maybe light a little fire there. The bus shelter, I'm looking forward to seeing where that comes. I think I heard that there's a, we determined that there's a number of stops that are appropriate to do bus, bus shelters, right? So that's great. And we'll be doing notice inviting bids this month. Again, is that a strategic priority? Or are we sort of in the works enough that we can, we can move that? It depends on how much money you want to spend. When we bring it back to you, you could decide it's something that is in advance of your sustainability plan. So providing shade covers and other facilities to promote the multimodal options to our residents is something that is all across all of these items. And so that item just happens to be one that we identified funding for and we can spin that off early in advance of the other sustainability options. We talked about this a lot in previous sessions, so I don't want to necessarily take it off before we're there. If there is still, if we want to put a priority on it, so that's okay. Bikingped plans. Another is the question about the 14 million upfront. Can you just walk us through why we have that figure and where that comes from? Is that part of the measure? Are funds? What is that? Sure. That $14.4 million was appropriated to a project on freemont. That was a directional lane. We brought that lane forward to the city council. And as a group, we decided that we didn't want to move forward with that. We let Metro know and they allowed us to flip that money into undertaking the pedestrian portion of your bike pedestrian plan. And so we are waiting for the funding agreement from Metro. As soon as we get that funding agreement then we'll be able to go out and solicit proposals for the implementation of your pedestrian plan here in those seven or nine priority zones that were identified in the bike plan. So we're just waiting for Metro right now. That's correct. Okay. They approved the Metro Board approved it. We're just waiting for the paperwork from Metro staff. So we anticipate that here very shortly. We know some people on the Metro Board, right? So maybe. Question, Chaudet, we now change the short term or not? I think the bike plan portion of it's still longer term, but the the ped portion, maybe it's a short term slash long term. I leave that to strategic planning experts. I think the bridge's item is good. I support the idea of looking at, you know, expanding seismic review of all, you know, core city facilities. I don't know quite sure how we do that, but I think it is something we, you know, it's an avid ability at some point we got a plan for. So 2.8 I think is linked with 2.9. We're doing a good job using the existing green space we have rethinking some of those areas to make them hopefully better. I think we will. I think that pocket parts are a nice project. I do think we have an opportunity under 2.9. We don't have much open space on developed space in the city. I'm not quite sure what Charles company agreed to or verbally agreed to. But if you look at that site, there is kind portion of the property that is behind the buildings that front on Fremont and it kind of goes up Meridian, I think that is and meets up with the Emory Park there. We're never gonna get an opportunity like we have now to potentially get some of that property either through a discretionary approval or even a purchase. And I would be, I think we need to put some thought into whether or not we go off and be look at an acquisition, combination acquisition, and maybe a conditional dedication of some of that property through permitting process. And I think that there are funding sources available right now. There's, we passed Prop 4 and November provides at least $20 million to the two state conservancies that overlap in this area. Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, I know some people there. And the rivers and mountains conservancy as well. We happened to fall in the overlapping area, which I think for a long time meant that neither conservancy got involved, but I think there's an opportunity to get both of them involved. The State Wildlife Conservation Board also got hundreds of millions of dollars from Prop 4, and they are looking to focus on more developed or urban and suburban areas. So I think there's an opportunity there. And we have some folks on that wildlife conservation board that are Singapore Valley residents or have worked in the Singapore Valley for a long time. So they'd be familiar with what we're doing. I think we should, I think I'd like to see us take a hard look at this and see what we can do there. Because I don't think the stars are gonna align like this for a property of this size in the foreseeable future. I love that this traffic coming policies going back in April and I love that the high visibility crosswalks are near completion. Did we talk about maybe taking that off if they're near completion? The high-visibility crosswalks, if they're actually near completion? Sorry, I'm pretty much done with that list. I did have a thought in it. I don't know where it belongs. So I'll talk about it here. Particularly the the place making issue kind of jog my memory a little bit. So driving around the city and someone alluded to it earlier about way finding signs signs. Was that Joanna talked about that wayfinding signs in the city. We also have, you know, we have the signs that say city of Alhamberns is, you know, auto row this way, city call that way. We have, we have historic neighborhood signs. We have a variety of signs in the city. I think, especially with like historic preservation and maybe just the need to upgrade some of that infrastructure, I think it's an opportunity for us to perhaps come up with a cohesive brand, like an imaging branding of the city. I think it would give the community a sense of place and some of those signs are just they're old and they probably can be redone. I mean I'm just throwing this as a larger idea out there. I don't want it to be too uniform because I want to allow for different ways of portraying the community. I think about the neon signs that are fantastic but I don't know if that's our brand or if we could go for something else. I just think it's worthy of a discussion at this point and I think that's sort of a thing that belongs on the strategic plan if the council agrees to look at that. Council comments, is there a consensus on that way finding sign study? Yes, support that. Can I just add to it? It's OK if I jump in. I totally support this idea. I think that will be a great way for us to kind of brand our hamburger and create that community pride. And we want our community to be engaged. And everybody takes their part you know maintaining their properties, maintaining their fine yard and contribute to making the city greener, prettier, cleaner. So we want everybody to join this not only our residents or businesses and everybody. So I think that would be a great place to start and maybe we even do a campaign for you you know, along with our branding to help create that right for our community, to engage in everybody contributes to it. Thank you. Maybe make a way finding branding study or something like that. So we're clear on that. I always think about like not Toby's compare ourselves to Pasadena, but they have a variety of things. They lean heavy on the rose theme, but they have some really cool, you know, rot iron signs when you're going in different neighborhoods. They have historic signs that are pretty cool. They have, you know, on their bike path, they have, they call it the rose way, and they have, so it's a theme and it sort of connects every time you see it in different contexts. They're not all the same, they don't look the same, but it's sort of a general theme and you can feel it. So. All right, so I don't wanna go through these, one at a time, I think a lot of what I wanted to say has been said by my colleagues. One of the thanks staff for being so active and really just making these happen. I mean, I, I, none of these have sat on the back burner. None of these have sat idle for any period of time. And I think that's why we're seeing things like the dog park, the community center, the bus shelters basically happen and come to fruition. So thank you for that. I also wanted to bring up the point of removing some of these items like Councilwoman Meloney said and you know, we're okay with where they're at now. The one thing I wanted to add, and I've been trying hard to make sure that we're not adding any more objectives. I know that the city staff has a lot of their hands already, but I think this would be the spot for this item. And it would be just a little bit more cleanliness of our downtown area, our parking structures, maybe even the downtown sidewalks. I do know that we are limited from conversations that I've had a few times with our city manager in regards to environmental limitations, rules, laws, etc. But I think that this is something that we really need to put in here and make it a goal to make sure that we have, you know, moving forward, cleaner parking structures, sidewalks, et cetera. It's been brought up by a number of business owners to me in the past residents that visited or people that visited the city. I don't know if this is something that we can do. Well, we can do. I know that we're addressing some of it already. I think we've hired some consultants, right? And some some vendors to do this, but maybe you can give us a little bit more. Sure. We currently have a contract for for power washing the sidewalks and keeping the structures clean in the downtown area, Along with our partnership with the Downtown Business Association, my understanding is that they are working in tandem with our staff to make sure that we clean, I think we clean like every quarter, but I'll get you updated information on that just to be sure, and then we're making sure that their cleaning doesn't come one week after ours. So we're trying to make sure that we're spacing that out. I wanna to make sure that we're working together with them on that. That's something that we want to see in enhanced marketing campaign or additional services render to that. We could look at it and put pricing forward as we move the plan forward if that's the desire of the council. Thank you. Yeah. No, I definitely like to see something coming back just as a possibility. I I mean, we they may not be enough resources to do it. But if so, I think this kind of leads into economic development and the efforts for some of that as well. So definitely would like to see something coming back to us. Other than that would not be an objective. It's a clarification of ongoing activities. How do you want to plan expansion of the program? Yeah, I mean, I guess it would be an objective just to kind of keep the downtown area sidewalks, you know, structures, leaner. Yeah, an expansion of the program, exactly. Can I ask we have a, um, is there an assessment in the downtown area? What is that? what's the amount, what does that pay for? I'd have to get back to you on that. It is part of the business license for the downtown businesses. And with some communities have the business improvement districts where they all, they, you know, it's, I guess, an assessment and it pays for security and cleanup and, you know, sort of cleaning. I don't want to put additional costs on our businesses, but if funding this is an issue that we should be creative because it's an investment in our community. I also support that goal by Council Member Masa, and it's very important for our and to attract people to for businesses. I just want to expand that to valuable of our as well and to include valuable of our along with downtown. I agree yeah just the the higher visibility areas. Yes. Valley main you know parking structures etc. I think the area that's been brought up a lot is the area between, specifically between Garfield and Atlantic, both North and South sites. So whatever we can do there. Hi to agree. Thank you and appreciate valley Boulevard not being ignored. We need to make sure since we rezone it. It has to step up. We have to step up. Thank you. I'm very happy that goal number two, I see multiple object is matched our resident service needs based on our survey. At least one, two, three, four, five. So we are focusing our residents and needs in terms of strategic planning, where we spend our money. I'd like to look and go to point one, right, it says, expand, act bus. And based on residents, service needs, it also includes ASR, believe that's our senior, right? Is that correct? ASR, what does that represent? No, the consultant for expansion of the act bus is only for the green and the blue lines of the act bus. It does not include senior right. Right, so the resident service needs based on our survey that was presented to us includes ASRR. The resident overall placed on the top, I guess 15 needs providing local transportation services like ACT or ASR. I assume that's senior right. Yeah, I'll hand her senior right. So can we add that to 2.1? The consultant is already working on the Act bus study. If you wanted to add an additional item for the senior ride, we could do that. Okay. I like to ask the council that we need to look at senior ride. The demand could have increased during certain hours, but I believe we're contracting out the service or no longer use our own employees for senior ride. Am I correct? That is correct. We do have a contractor who operates or provides the drivers for both the act bus and for senior ride. We own the buses. And based on our city manager's conversation with me that the funding for senior rides is restricted. I forgot what was proposition. I believe we use proposition A and maybe some prop, prop C as well. So I'm also going to ask that we keep track of the demand based on appointments needed and appointments denied so that we can better serve our seniors in the city. I think this city has this groan in terms of our seniors who live here. There are multiple seniors, residents, residents is in District One, one above Denny's, one on Chapel and one, two on Chapel, I believe. So we do wanna look into the seniors and easings, particularly in this case senior rights. So I'd like to recommend that we actually track the appointments made, increases from prior years, and also appointments that are denied or have to be rescheduled. And 2.2 are ongoing. So I'm looking forward to the grand opening of our permanent dog park. Can we center is also moving forward. So I'm really happy with that. Seven turns is forever. Hopefully is a challenge for district five. So I'm looking forward to making sure that we keep that moving. Citywide shelter, bus shelter study. I know that what I have been receiving, even through Facebook, you know, people took picture of people waiting on bus stops are under, he under the 100 degree heat without any shelter. So we're moving forward on that. I just wanted to make sure that if we can, as much as we can to construct more as many bus shelters as we can, especially during at the locations are much more well used by residents. And go number 2.6. That's moving forward. That's also a residents need based on our survey. 2.7. 9 city bridges. I'm not aware of all the bridges are in our city. These are the bridges that that admission that go over the UP right of way. Do we know if that being used? Every day. Every day. That's good. Green space and over again, that I like, I still like us to explore pocket parks as much as possible and also asking our developers to provide green space somewhere on their property. And that would be the, under the, sort of the planning commission. I'm going to go ahead and skip to 2.1 to high visibility crosswalks in your schools. I definitely is very, very important. But there are particular locations throughout the city that might need more a second look, making sure that they also have high visibility crosswalks, especially at night. One particular that I travel quite a bit is mission and chapel. The lighting over there is very dim at night and multiple times I was waiting for to make a right turn there people actually crossing the street on Across mission on chapel and it's very difficult to see them Especially when they're We're in dark clothing and I think that particular location needs to be reviewed and making sure that we have Better visibility at night for crosswalks if we can take a look at that And I think our consultant have already identified multiple locations. I don't think that one was included So I like to see we can add that to the to the list and If nothing else and this is it for goal number two. Thank you. Goal number three, create a strong financial and economic base, 3.1 develop an economic development action plan. 3.2 is complete now, which is the process for new businesses. It's we request to take a break. Five minute break. Your meeting matter, madam. OK, if I'm in a break, believe me, thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Okay, thank you. We're going to start again. We're going to change the structure a little bit. Otherwise we'll be here until tomorrow. I think we're waiting for one more council member to come. I'm so sorry. I didn't see you over there. I didn't need to push you. I just didn't see you in or the room. Okay. Okay. So the goal now is to not each one of you comment on each item. We'll deal with anything you want to change on these charts. So we're now at goal three. There's 10 items. Is there any council member who has something to add? I do, you're gonna be upset at me, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I wanna go back just to one thing that Councilman Maloney mentioned about potential acquisition on 2.9. I wanted to make sure that you put that down because that's critical change. It's marked. Thank you. Goal three. Thank you. Any proposed changes? I'd like to add, based on the residents' service needs, there is a need for maintaining, let's see. Keep keeping public buildings in facility clean and attractive. So that could be under. 3.1 I think. Well, actually, no, I'm not sure we've added another objective. I'm not sure what's. City property clean. Yes, because we do have public parking structures on Main Street. I think we listed that on the bottom here about City property maintenance. Right. That my panman. Is that under goal number one? No, it's goal two. Go two. So I like to see that's actually go three is much more poor, appropriate. It has to do with attracting businesses. And an attractive. So it's not only clean but attractive. So that sounds like the resident want to see more attractive landscape. So I think it should fall under goal number three. It could one point. It could be under the economic development. That can be a sub element at 3.1. That's right. There actually is a study that's already underway for the economic development action plan. And so we will see as they as the consultant finalizes their study and brings it forward what ideas and options they have for implementing their their goals under that plan. Okay, that's where that your comment would go. Council other council comments on goal three. I would just. Mayor if I can. All of three, right? Yes. So 3.4 can be moved off. If I'm not, if I'm not mistaken, didn't we just vote to raise it to 20? Okay, 30. We went from 20 to 30. Yes. I'm going to have that modification. So we can probably move that off. I love 3.5. Ready for it. Attract more jobs with livable wages. So it says that staff continues to look for opportunities to engage with other businesses. But I'm new work with the I'm sure the chamber to do that our industrial area has the largest space is or some such things like I'm hearing that we are now making our own. What is it we are making that was given to China to do for us before. And so we have moved into the area of making our own. Well, the EBT cards from the county, there was a big theft. And so they have that little, what do you call that little silver thing that you put on cards, the chips. So now that we would be make the United States will be making their own chips and there's companies that do that. And so we have an industrial area. I'd say let's look, let's think big, you know, and let's think about what other items or what other things are moving are important and that would employ a large number of people qualified who would be receiving livable wages because they're so skilled, right? So we're hearing a lot of that. I think we need to really look into how we can connect with that. And I don't know if that's through the, I remember with the chamber, we used to go to these regional meetings for businesses that were abroad businesses that were coming in from other countries. And now that that's kind of gonna look a little different for us, how do we, who do we engage with? It might be the federal government, I don't know. But certainly, I know, certainly the industrial area could be the one to house something large and productive. I see the staff writing that comments. comments three. Thank you Madam Mayor. I will start with 3.3. So I just have a comment on this one. I think this is a great goal that we streamline some of these processes. I just wanted to add a comment that once we have a process very well defined, I like to see us creating some infographic. That's very easy for residents to understand. I've heard over the years, I've heard a lot of the residents are having a hard time just understanding the process of taking something through the city and all the steps it takes. So I like to be able to provide that kind of like a flow chart infographic for residents to kind of understand, have the whole process laid out in front of them. This is step one, two, three, four, five. And this is all the fees that's going to occur multiple steps of the way so that at the very beginning of the process, they have a clear understanding of how much is going to cost them throughout this process, how long it's going to take and what kind of work is required in order to go through the steps. So that's just the comment that I think it can apply to other permitting process, just making it easier for people so that it also makes our staffs work easier that when folks understand what is required, then it helps both ways. That's a comment on 3.3. And then 3.5, more emphasis on economic development, valuable R.A. I feel like our main street is doing really well and I know there's always improvement that can happen. Valuable of R, it needs a lot of attention and we've lost businesses. I like to see how we can better define the outcome here. I I do know this is being worked on and wanted to see if, as we set up our objective, can we maybe define the outcome a little bit better? Are we targeting, you know, a certain commercial occupancy rate or any other kind of economic growth indicator to like set a goal for us and then along the way we can also track our progress that way. Let's say we set a goal and then you know next year when we sit back here and discuss this item again, then we know hey we're getting closer or you know what? It's not we're not getting closer and let's re-evaluate our strategies that way. way. So it kind of gives us that metrics and that indicator to see how well we're doing, right? I think part of the strategic plan session is also to look at all the goals that we have set in the past and evaluate what's working, what's not working, and if it's not working, let's take a look at it and re-strategize. So instead of just ongoing effort, like to see more granularity in this goal. I also echo with council member Maloney about consolidating some of these goals. I do see a lot of these are completed. So maybe we can have like achievements achievements maybe we move some of these items instead of dropping them we move it to like council achieve diversity of Alhambra achievements goals instead of putting on the strategic plan. I think we should have a very clear, consolidated plan to clearly indicate these are the items are working on. So that's Let's stop. That's my comments for now. Thanks. Any other council members have comments? I'm just going to say one thing. I'm sorry, councilman. I just 3.7. One of the things you and I talked about was incentives, yes, for ground floor, but not so much for mixed use. Maybe we can look at giving incentives to existing businesses that have not come back. Have we reached out to them? Do they need incentives to come back? Is it something we can look at instead of just always attaching it to something that's going to be developed? And so this supports more housing as well because you don't have to have the mix use all the time, but you could, you know, so you could have the housing to the ground floor. But if we give incentives for some of our, maybe some of the, if we look at some of the vacant properties who have been with us a long time who have had issues starting back up after the pandemic. I'm not talking about people with the vacated for years and years and years and have just bought and store stuff there. I think those folks really need to be you know and really that needs to be addressed differently. But in a, you know, a building that might have, for example, there's a couple of restaurants that are not open, un-vallable, abard, and we need them. And I think that they may need incentives to get started up with bringing it back. Rather than I would know we talked about attacks and getting rid of them. Because a tax is going to force them when maybe it's the money that we need to support. I see we're looking at incentives for commercial use on ground floor for mix use. But I would also like us to look at the vacant properties. Tom, it noted. Thank you. Anybody else? Yeah. I think these are all pretty good. I wanted to ask about 3.5, the circulation of flyers to property owners on volleyball have heard about the new developments. Do we do that? Do we get any feedback? I believe community development has received several inquiries. And the property owners were grateful that we let them know that their designation had possibly been modified. And some of them were watching through the process as well. So I think as we start to see some of the projects actually materialize, it will raise awareness with the other property owners as well. Good. Yeah, I think that if they didn't know about it, then it's just going to be when they decide to make a change. That's when they'll find out as opposed to maybe the change will help them make a decision, Michael and not going forward. So that's good. I think, so 3.7, 3.9, we did have the discussion in January about this. So I feel like this can be like removed or maybe consulted. What I'd like to maybe propose instead of those two things, Men list their ongoing studies into incentives to do mixed use, which I think is a good thing. But we had a pretty conclusive discussion about the height limits, so that can come off. But particularly the area of, we're talking about east of Garfield in the downtown area, and I think that the commercial buildings of the same type kind of go out to Mancer, right? So where's the old YMCA building is on a Mancer, right? So yeah, those are not, I mean, those are, it's sort of on that buffer zone. And I think that that area probably deserves a little extra attention. So maybe an item can be morphed into focus, like a focused study on that. Those couple of blocks there from Chapel 2L Manzer, because there's giant buildings there, there's giant parking lots, there's buildings that are already over, you know, probably close to 50 feet there. So it's just different character than farther down on the east, which I consider that sort of area settled. And that's, you know, the height limit over there. But it does seem like that area there, there's a couple of blocks is in a little bit of a limbo where the gym is and dog house and that, that old plastic surgery place that I wish would go away. So, I mean, there's There's some things I think we should probably should focus on there. So maybe staff can take those comments and we can rewrite some of these goals, including the phrasology of staff is starting or what we're doing. Get it more specific. Yeah, I mean, yeah, just there's some particular things there that I think we should not be caught off guard if things change or big, one of those tenants in that giant shopping center goes away, and there's room there. I wanted to, something that the Chamber and the Downtown Business Association talked about was issues in the downtown main area. And we do have this business improvement district in the form of an assessment. I think it's old. I think it probably has been updated in many years. I think it provides some valuable revenue. But I feel like we should circle back to that and look at how we, the city and the business community can work together to utilize that to do some of the things. Like we talked about under number two, which is cleaning and power washing and providing other services things that attract businesses down there in a way that would serve everyone better. I think it's probably time for us to look at that. And then kind of connecting with my last comment too. I don't know if the geographic area of that includes everything we need to cover too. So maybe we could expand even the bid, the assessment area or do something. I just think we should squarely put it as a goal here. Not to leave out valuable or because I think that whatever we're doing on main can be a model for the future on Valley. I mean, there's things that are there on Valley now, which probably need our support. But if the property owners take advantage of the new zoning code and start to see some smart development down there, they may need something like this. I don't know if we can, we want to replicate the same model or what, but I think that probably needs its own sort of focus, you know, a very specific focus on how we're going to avoid some of the issues that we've seen on main when we see development on Valley. That might... I think that was it for me. Have we solved the city's pension liability problem yet? I wish. If you found a money tree with $176 million on it, then yes. I mean, it's been on here for a year. Come on. Sure. I think that's a public statement to try and work on. It's like least recruitment and fire recruitment. It's not going to go away. You want to leave it on or not? I think we'd like to, well, we could ask the council that. And specifically two items. We talked to you at your meeting before last about the city's reserve policy. And if you would like to, as to focus on raising your reserves to 30%, if you'd like to remove it, that's fine too. But if that's a priority, then we'd like to continue working towards that. And then also looking at our large pension liability, that's something that is up to the council. It's not going to go away. It's going to be a goal forever, what should it take forever for a long time? It is, but the strategy and how important it is as a priority for the council can vary. If we have surplus at the end of the year, it is incumbent on you all to tell us that you want to put that into reserves or to pay down the pension liability. Or if we have surpluses, you want to expand services. So that is where it lies on the council to tell us, what is your priority for these items? You want to comment on that, Jeff, because I like to make sure that if we can look, if we are looking at, bring up our reserve as to 30% what's the likelihood of that go beyond 30% because I want to make sure we pay down our pension liability, either with our reserve or with creative methods of investment vehicles or whatever it is. Because that's what the county sanitation district did. They used, they exchanged your investment vehicles to pay down the pension liability. I was there to vote on it. So I'm not sure the council, I think we should try to decide more or less today, or even not later on that. Should we use our reserve to pay down pension liability or use another method? Because 30% is a lot. There's no requirement of our city reserve by the state or at any point, right? The state at one point was listing cities through the state order controller's office that you are high risk if you didn't have sufficient reserves. What they looked through a bunch of different criteria and said, you know, based on liquidity and pension liability and all these other factors, how you would find yourself on that list. Think somewhere mid-pandemic, they quit publishing that list. We've continued to try to make sure that we, if they reinstated that we don't end up back as a high risk on that list. But we will be back your reserve policy as we move into our budget workshops at the end of April beginning of May. So as far as right now deciding whether you want to move a surplus or not, we're, we don't have a surplus sitting at this moment for you to consider. But in general, is this a strategic priority that you want us to continue looking towards paying down the pension liability, which is $176 million? You have $20 million in your reserve. So we're a far cry from being able to pay off or, you know, but pay down as we move forward, that's a, that could be a priority of the council. 3.4 and 3.10 are interconnected, basically. They are. And I, I like to see sort of, I'm sorry, I'm just responding to your face. So the reserves are how much money we actually have here On hand and if we pay down the pension liability You're taking the cash that you have on hand to respond to an emergency and we're paying that to Calpers And we can never get that back so They are interconnected but we have more You know more options in the event of an emergency with your emergency reserve. Then if we pay down the pension liability just because then those funds are no longer with us to be flexible in the event that we need that. I think that it's this issue has been going on for years. Just like we pay down mortgage interest as much as we can. If we, if there's no requirement for 30% reserve for the city or any city, then there is a trust set up to pay down the pension liability, but there's zero funding for it. There's no dollars in there. The trust was set up. I remember with presentation a couple years ago. Well, the council look at putting a little bit of research into that trust and eventually be able to pay down the pension liability because the interest is so high it prevents us from using our general fund to do anything else. So it needs to stay on the strategic plan. It does. Getting into the details of how you want to move money around. I think the consensus is to leave them both on the wall. Okay. You can discuss what you're going to do with another meeting. Does everyone agree? Leave both on. I like to add one more thing. Sorry. I forgot to add this to goal number three. If council agree. Mr. Query recommend a several multiple things for businesses. I like to see the council would like to put on this or do you plan about about a shop local program which Monterey part have introduced has introduced and I'm not sure it still exists. I think it's offering discount some type of incentive for our resident to shop locally. And I think that's really important. I've been trying to do that myself and I actually has worked out, I even use our own insurance agents in our city. I'm tired of the long distance called to New York or Ohio and Then give the council agrees I'd like to add that to goal number three, shop local program offering discounts or incentives or other viable options to incentivize our residents to shop locally. There might be a reward if you can show proof that you purchased certain things or doing business with our local businesses. Just as we can go be built into 3.1. Is that plan moves forward? I'm not sure what the consultants would be advocating for in 3.1. So if we want to add this at some point we can consolidate it down the road. I'm at Nooded Health for future. Thank you. So I want to touch upon the. Upon 3.2, 3.3. Councilmember Wang brought up a good point. To have city staff community development create some type of a, you know, workflow, the process checklist, maybe that's easy to understand by the public. And all of this I have to say is a lot easier said than done. I mean, I use a lot of other community development departments and other cities and what I do. And the process is so easy. You've got staff at capacity already, then you've got the customers in a sense, the public demanding and wanting things to move faster. So it's tough. It's a very tough position to be in, but I think what can happen is to have that flow chart basically checklist that'll tell people, these are the steps, one, two, three, four, and five, just easy to understand. And hopefully that will just enhance the process and make it, you know, just a more expedited process. But I know that staff has been working on this for a while. I'd like to see that happen for both businesses again and for the, just process, for ADUs as well. I'm not sure what the current turn time is on getting projects approved. I know a lot of it has to do with the people submitting plans, architects, customers already, how quickly they move. But if we could make it maybe like a 90 day approval process, I think that'd be excellent. So just a comment on what we already have 3.2, 3.3, maybe kind of expanding 3.3 to say, hey, let's make it a 90 day approval process by means of providing the public with a very concise checklist of what needs to be done to make that happen. I had a comment right 3.4, but I think we've already addressed that. With a comment made by Councilman Brendrotti's tether for 3.6, attracting more jobs with livable wages, I think that's super important. I think you brought up a very good point with regards to the industrial area there. I think there's a lot of potential there if the area can be just reimagined. I know that would take a lot of effort by city staff. Probably we need a stronger partnership with the Chamber of Commerce more so than already has been done. But I think there's a lot of potential there. We'd have to look at attracting jobs with livable wages on a grander scale. I mean, it can't be the new restaurant in town. It can't be the new gift shop in town. That's not going to provide a livable wage. We know that. So it has to be done on a grander scale. But with that, I think we can also open the doors for success of projects like the villages if that ever happens of just expanding the southwest corner of the city. District five, Valley Boulevard, I think that if we establish a solid area there in the industrial sector, I think that'll open doors to so many other opportunities along Valley, Fremont, etc. So with that, I don't know how we expand this particular objective to look into those possibilities with the industrial area, but I think that would require a partnership again with the Chamber of Commerce as well. And with that, I want to say that I'm very grateful for the partnership that we already have with the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Dissociation for all their diligence and work that they do to keep things strong with our businesses. see here. Same thing 3.7, 3.9, and Senate's for commercial use and review of development for Spain. I think we may want to cross those off. I think you know, staff did a great job in breaking back some possibilities earlier in the year, but I think those, you know, we kind of all know where that went. So do we need to have 3.7 and 3.9 still on there? No, those two can be removed. I guess my only suggestion was to maybe combine those two and then the suggestion was to focus on the East part of the business business district the downtown area Sure, so if you want to combine them how how did you want that to read? You know this this issue with the the Main Street the business improvement district Maybe it belongs under there. Maybe like it's a new item that focuses on particularly the businesses there, how we can expand the assessment to address the concerns of the businesses there with a particular focus on the area between Garfield and what is that I'll man's were over there where Where the church is and the healthcare, the HMO building. But yeah, I mean at least 3.73.9, don't belong on there as written. Oh sure, sure. So yeah, and I'm sorry, my apologies. I thought you wanted to morph them, but we will come up with some ideas on a focused study. Pull out the old economic feasibility study for that area. See if there are any comments. See what may come out of that. We'll have that for you at our meeting next week for sure. Let's move on to number four. We have about 35 minutes. Number four is to enhance transparency and open governance. Council comments quickly. Council, thank you, Mayor. I would just say a couple of things. I appreciate the connection with Cal State LA. I think it's critical and very important for us that that's an option or large, maybe other activities, things that they're doing there, maybe medical field, you know, things like that might work out for the industrial area. So we want to keep Cal State LA with us and supporting them. I do want to say in this fits under commissioners. I know there's no item here for commissioners, but it should be under governance and transparency. So I would just ask that we have a uniform way of conducting the meetings. And what do I mean by that? Very similar to how we conduct our meetings here. I don't think we're using Robert's rules of order. I think we use the... Rosenberg. Oh, we're using Rosenberg, which is just sort of a shortened version, I believe. That's not very nice to Robert's, but it is what it is. And And so I'm maybe I can ask you, is that what is currently being used for our commissioners? We're just not everybody's complaining. There's just a few that feel like they're not being a part of the process any longer. So specifically the planning commission. And also, yeah, that would probably be it. be it, maybe the planning commission and also, yeah, that would probably be it. Maybe the planning commission. Are they under the, are they under their under Rosenberg's as well? Similar to the council and and are all our commission commissions run through. Through Rosenberg is a Rosenberg. Excuse me, my recollection is when the council adopted Rosenbergs for the council, you also adopted it for the commissions. Okay, so and everybody knows how that works, correct? All commissioners, maybe. Well, I can't make that assumption. I know. So maybe is there like, I know it's is not as big as Roberts rules of order. So is there, I think you gave us like a couple of page or they can even Rosenberg is about three pieces of paper, double space. I mean, a double sided. It's not very long. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can do that and provide those for the each commission, not just the planning, but all commissioners so that they know and as long as all of them are running under those rules I think it sort of helps dictate how it moves and we have less you know commissioners being frustrated or upset about things as billboard to our city. Digital billboards. Yes. I think I spoke to you during our one-on-one session. If you'd like to see you again add digital billboard to our city. Digital billboards. Yes. Could that be part of the way finding informational process, not branding, separate? It will be under open governance. Council direction. Transparency. I have a question. Is there a reason why we're aiming for digital boards, specifically? Because I'm also thinking the same idea is bulletin board. Like we can have bulletin board for information sharing. But is there a reason why we want to? It's about the visual impact, digital billboard on the street, especially Valley, Freemont. It could be whenever space available that it will allow the resident, you know, just on a daily basis knowing when the next council meeting is or major city events, because we still have residents who are saying to me that they're not using social media. And so they rely on the email or paper. So I think the digital bill will basically enhance city communications to our residents. It will fall under transparency. Multiple cities have that. As soon as you exit off the freeway, I think I can't remember what city of Whittier or somewhere. I'm sure we've all seen it because of the size and the visibility, the catchers your attention as people drive by. Fremont, for example, Fremont Valley, that corner right there where the roses are, people exiting 710, it's a great place to let the residents know what's the next event. So I think that will be, you know, with funding available, it'll be a good way to communicate a new way to communicate. Council. I'm not sure I'd like to see a digital board in the Rose Garden. It's just an idea the concept. The idea of the green spaces to allow it to be a place where you're come in and you sort of come into the city and it tries to set its its tone. I get what you're saying. I have a question for Mike Macias on this. Do we have computer classes and parks and recreation? I think we do have computer classes for seniors, right? Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry for reaching out to you and not going to. So, you know, I hear what you're saying. I just don't know that I'm going to agree to where you want to put them. Yeah, we the location is just an example, but I do believe that we still have a lot to do. A lot more work to do for in terms of transparency. Even down to the next city council meeting, farmers market, whatever it is that we, that will help the city to communicate to our residents. There's still a logical resident who don't understand who the mayor is with the council members, all the basics information, all basic version are not being communicated. So that's something we need to, really need to focus on. Council directions is this topical or not in terms of going on the list? I think there's a good really good idea there. But I don't think I would support billboards in the traditional sense. And we just turn one down on the freeway the other day, or we decided not to pursue that I think the visual impacts light, we've seen all these different issues. But maybe there's an opportunity to do that, you know, you have monitors at the library and parks and other facilities, even if we, you know, this is getting a little crazy. But some cities do have like the little display at the bus shelters, you know, people are waiting for the bus. They just have a thing that kind of rolls over. So I would definitely support us looking into some sort of a digital monitors at public locations in a way that's not obtrusive and is going to ruin the view or shine it as someone's home at night. But the idea of that when you go to public place, you, maybe you're waiting in line to check books out over here, and there's a display up to the side, and it cycles through different city announcements, upcoming council meetings, sustainability, you know, things like that. Maybe our AC bus and our senior ride. Yeah, and then at the parks, you know, and at different places, I think that's a really good idea. So I'm fine with that. The monitor will probably be that size. So it's lower to the ground. Monitor your time by the ones there. I mean, I think it. The rest of it could be, you know. Appropriate for that the location situation. I leave it to someone smarter than me to decide how big the monitor is going to be. As long as the council is willing to look into the options, I think the monitor is acceptable is lower to the ground so it's not intrusive. So I totally support this outreach effort and I think I agree there's a big part of our community who don't go on social media, right? And I like to offer an alternative. I feel like I've been very, very pleased by, you know, our city's graphics. Like we make such amazing flyers. And can we maybe build upon that? And, you know, for every single thing we do in the city, we actually have amazing graphics, really good flyers. Maybe it's, let's maybe consider like setting up bulletin boards, physical boards instead of digital boards at parks in our community, you know, different areas in the city. And then we just put the flyers on those boards. That way we don't have to, you know, spend money on the digital boards, but I'm open to digital boards. I just want to see the visual. I want to see what it looks like, the size and the visual impact. For now, I think alternatively, we can set up bulletin boards and then just have flyers. We can do it at playgrounds. Also, we can extend it to our business partners. I know Starbucks on Atlantic and Valley, they have bullet bulletin board there. So we can maybe put some of our city flyers there if the business owner is willing to partner with us. So I do like to see that for our reach to our community, just not sure. Maybe when I see the visual of the digital board, I will reconsider that. If I could make a suggestion, could that be part of the way finding signage, et cetera? It's all about communication, whether it's an entrance sign or whatever, at least make it a sub-element. I think it's more appropriate for a gill number under transparency, because that is not so evident. You're talking with the sign makers That's not the same as what we're talking about here Is what I'm just waiting for counsel direction. I think either way. I mean either way I think I think this is like serving a different purpose, but it's still you know communication signage But purposes to let folks know who may not be on social media or on the computer To know what's going whether that's the physical flyers or digital signs that change I can see benefits of both And maybe they're both appropriate in different situations. I feel like maybe it doesn't really we don't want to want to shoot into the branding way, finding area, but maybe there's a connection. We also have a round Elhamber, which is goes to every household. I think we maybe need to think about them a little bit differently. And I would probably already doing it. But I would venture to say, maybe we need to make print bigger. I like big print. I'm not making fun of anybody. I need a bigger font all the time. Thank you. So yeah, I wanted to make that point also about the Randall Hamburg. I mean, that's something that everyone sees. I don't know, you know, any residents that don't, that some point go through it, you know, sections of it. So, maybe partnering with John and staff to bake that a little bit more, you know, sections of it. So, you know, maybe partnering with, um, John and staff to make that a little bit more, you know, concise to that effort, um, of just transparency and maybe the community calendar. I think I've seen or perhaps had seen in the past community calendar in there before, but if there is in one, then maybe something like that, you know, when council meetings are in happens for community events, I also see that there's a digital board already at the Jocelyn Center, which I haven't seen in person. But you know, with things like this, I mean, you know, if they're there, people don't know how to use them. They're intimidated by them. I think, you know, things get lost. And so maybe, you know, allocating a little bit of staff time. I mean, you've got some great people there at Josson Center that can take seniors and say, hey, let me teach you how to use this. I don't know if this is an interactive board or if it's a touch screen, but I would support maybe some type of a, I mean, technologists come so far where you have these larger digital boards that are a touch screen, like, I mean, like when you're ordering at a McDonald's as an example. You know, so something like that, but you know, you'd have to have staff teaching senior studies. So other than that, yeah, I like the notion of the thought of it, would love to see digital boards at the library, senior center, ARCs as well. Maybe I can ask that, how big is the digital board at Jocelyn Center now? Wow. Okay. About the size of this small event, okay. It's on the list. We'll back to staff to bring back something for you. Perfect. Thank you. We now have 20 minutes left. Sir, are we all five? Are we done? I was just speaking to the digital bill board thing. But I had another idea for four. And this is something that I had spoke to you about Bill the other day is I think several years ago we had the Alhammer app that was you were able to do certain things with it. I think it maybe is enough. It's still around, but it's not as heavily used as you know we'd like it to be. I think we're in a different we're kind of over the hump now with apps and people being familiar with it. I know we just kind of a discussion of folks that might not be familiar with technology, but there's a lot of people out there that expect to be able to do everything with clicks on their apps these days. I think it would be a good idea for us to revisit that and to come up with, I mean, you go to these CalCities conferences and there's lines of vendors that are like chomping at the bit to do this kind of work for cities. I think we could probably look into this. So something that, you know, instead of calling and leaving a message on, on the public works for the graffiti line, bring it up on an app shopping cart, a bandage shopping cart on the app, report a water like, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe we can even build on that and if people have more specific issues, or I don't know if we can integrate the permitting, anyway, I do think it's probably time for us to revisit that so we can have one consolidated app that allows us to access all sorts of different things. And of course, when you plug into that, that's a perfect opportunity for community calendar to pop up in your face. Remember, there's a meeting tomorrow night, you know, so I think if we do that, we do it right, and we push it out there, I think it's great, and I think it gets to the heart of transparency. Council, okay. Okay. I will support that, and I just have one comment. I think there are apps that other cities already using so not re-venting the wheels and just looking to that and see, you know, there's two functions that the applicant assist. One is external. So communicating with our residents. Our resident can, you know, submit requests on the app and there's also the internal operations that the app can also assist. Right. So it residents submit a request to, you know, fill the pothole on this tree. And then, you know, if our staff is working on this and then there's updates or potential delays or challenges we're working on, it's already in the app and then the resident can just get an update so that they are in the loop. So this helps with the transparency and also communication as well. Sorry, thank you. I forgot this kind of this all-through would be, you know, when someone reports graffiti, maybe there's a function to take a photo of it and shoot that in or just report the location. But think about if a resident that reported that, they may not visit that location for another two weeks. But if the next day they get a photo showing that graffiti gun, I mean, that is gold. That's really fantastic. No, I mean, that's good, but that's all, you know, you have to do it. But if this is, it pops up on their phone, update on your report. Oh, the graffiti's got like that. We do that. Why not tell people and show people that we do that. you know it wins us you know huge points. Is that anything else? Okay. Oh, so know, huge points. Is that anything else? Okay. Oh, I just want to just let you know, if we don't make it through all these items in 20 minutes, we can reconvene with your approval next Thursday and wrap up. So I don't want to rush you through these items. I can go to 1230 in 20 minutes on transparency. Sorry. Before we move on to sustainability, which I like, I just want to add it as an objective, but I do want to just say that let's remember when we are doing flyers and public notices to make sure that, you know, other than like the tiniest universe, there were always putting it in language for folks. We're passing out flyers and as people look at it, especially like the Lunar New Year festival, there's a couple of things that we were doing that it wasn't in Chinese. And I think it was an opportunity for us to really lean into that kind of stuff. And just remember that should be second nature for us when we're doing city announcements. Goal number five. That means you have no questions or comments. I take that as no comments. It's still sex. Sorry. Crazy enough. I think that is no comments. So six. Sorry. Crazy enough. I think we should fold 5.2 and 5.3 under 5.1. I think a lot of these things can and should be addressed under the sustainability plan. It is intended to be comprehensive. And I think it might be the water a little bit to have two items focused on EV and that there's only three items in there. So if we're gonna, everything else seems to be under a comprehensive sustainability plan. I think we should put those in there too, unless there's anything outside that, I don't know, I think comprehensive is the idea so everything would really would be under there. Any council objection? Otherwise it will be done. Okay. Yeah. The EV chargers in the parks were only pulled out separately because we're moving on those with money that was what was given to us by assembly member Mike Fong. And so again, in they're moving in advance of the entire sustainability plan. But they are also complicated. But they are on the short term. We were using those as leverage for additional EV chargers that have been frozen due to federal funding questions. So some of them are frozen, but then the state ones are still moving forward. So that item will be done here in the short term. Chris, will we work this? Yes. Goal six. There were eight. There's now all six. I have a comment on goal five still. Just a comment on EV charging stations. So I know that we're trying to put, create EV charging stations in the parks. And also I just want to share an idea that I have. I know more and more people are driving electrical cars now. And one way, and this is teasing to our economic development as well. So if we can consider potential spaces and lots to create EV charging stations along our business corridors, and if we can be strategic about our pricing, that could entice people to come, park their car, charge their car there, shop and die in our restaurants, in our stores. And that helps us with our tax revenues and just our economic development in our business corridors. So just want to add that thought there, that's something we can, as we think about EV charging stations, that we should look at business corridors as well. Comment noted. Number six. I'll take number six. I'll take a swing at number six. I'm going to ask that we remove 6.46.5 and 6.8 because we've already have done those? Is that is it right? 6.7 we'd like to remove, but 6.8 we'd like to keep staff will rework that we'll be bringing back the option for the council to consider a TOT ballot measure to address short term rentals that came out of our short-term rental conversation this year, or last year, sorry. Thank you. How about 6.4? Is it appropriate for us to remove that? Yes, 6.4, 6.5, and 6.7. And then also, yes, those, and then maybe just some direction on 6.2. So I did want to bring up something 6.2. Well, I didn't put that one in so I'll let whoever put that in, but I do want to address and this might be the federal government that is responsible for the HUD calls the call center, which is under HUD funds, right? And we don't have a call center. They need a call center. And I'm wondering would it be us that puts a system in place to be able to count the drop calls or the calls that are not going through, or would that be the actual housing center? So we contract with the housing rights center. We just completed a five year contract with them. The contract has two one year options. And the housing rights center sent in a letter to us requesting to renew for one additional year at the same rate that they have been paid for the last five of the contract. So, I'm not aware of dropped calls. I'm not aware of those things. We certainly can reach out to them and find out, but they do have individuals who are available to answer the phone five days a week that has not changed, but they are here physically at the library on Fridays for the first four Fridays. If there's a fifth Friday, they aren't here. Yeah, I was aware of that and their visibility in our city. And when I've called them, I've actually called the LA, which is a larger the larger hub, or this is the hub, and that's a larger center. But there was an issue with, I remember hearing one of our residents say that, but with the, but I think it would be their system would be able to tell us that we just don't know if they're gonna tell us that their calls are dropped. It's something that the county does for benefits, for families, if they get dropped calls when they call in. So hopefully there's a system in place and we can ask them maybe to do that. Just because we don't want people to be left out. I think that's probably it, just to continuing the affordable housing. Thank you. Any other council comments on goal six? Yeah, I've got a comment regarding 6.2. You don't mean there? Okay. So I think this is something that definitely needs to stay on here. You know, especially because I think it's important to try to kind of isolate some of these developments to our major thoroughfare. I mean, that's really the only place for them really, but just try to protect and continue doing what we can to protect our residential neighborhoods. To kind of, if we need to meet our reigning numbers, make sure that those numbers mostly happen on along Valley, you know, Atlantic, Garfield, Maine as possible, but to try to keep protecting our residential neighborhoods from things like SB 9 SB 10, you know, whatever we can. And with that said, yeah, just just promoting that. I mean, I think we've got a tremendous opportunity there in that section that council member Maloney mentioned between chapel and El Manzer, a lot of possibilities. There are a lot of, you know, kind of empty space, underutilized space there. So I'd like to see this stay on going back to 6.1 real quick, if you don't mind. So just encourage and facilitate the building of affordable housing. So Councilmember, Adraadi Stadler made a mention in one of the other goals. And this was, you know, we want to encourage affordable housing, but we want to make sure that it helps primarily people in all of Hamburg, you know, why build, you know, additional density when it's not really, you know, helping people in the city of all of Hamburg. So, you know, how we do this, I don't know because I know a lot of these, the funding for these programs happen, and the restrictions that come with funding for these programs is that, you know, residents come from all over the county, not just the city of Alhambra. So just the comment regarding that and then I think we've removed all the other items that have been done. So thank you. Council, I think you've been through what, three hours now of discussions. So what happens now with... have been done so thank you. Council, I think you've been through what, three hours now of discussions. So what happens now is the staff take all the comments, all the suggested changes, and come back to you next Thursday morning, is that right? For the presentation from staff on how the plan will be changed accordingly for the next duration. So thank you for participating. Madam Mayor, your meeting. Madam Mayor, do we get another window for public comment? I know we have folks that's been sitting here and after they heard through all of the discussion, I wonder if they have any comments they wanted to offer. So meeting adjourned. Lies.