City Council Meeting: October 23, 2023

Ok, welcome everyone to the OCTOBER twenty third twenty twenty three meeting of the pasadena city council and the successor agency to the community development commission will start with a calling overall. COUNCILMAN Hampton blessed and honored to be here. Councilor jones here. COUNCILMAN Lyon here. COUNCILMAN Madison here. COUNCILMAN Asuda, your customer service will be joining us shortly. Vice mayor williams here. Mayor gado here. There's a quorum of the council PRESIDENT. MR. Hampton, if you lead us in the pledge of allegiance, everyone stand please right hand over your hearts ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under GOD indivisible with liberty and justice for all. You MAY be seated. Thank you. Thank you everyone. And we do have a packed agenda this evening with some substantive matters. Let's go ahead and turn to first a brief report on closed session. The council did meet in closed session. There were no reportable actions items a and b were discussed with regard to the you want to do about the matters now. yeah, let's go right public of for matters not on the agenda. I have a ceremonial ademir oh I apologize. Madison does have a ceremonial matter. Thank you and I really appreciate it mayor I know we have a busy agenda and we usually have busy agendas but we have amazing young people in our community and I wanted to celebrate one of those tonight with you all and I would ask william goliath's to come forward to the lectern and also if lisa cavalia and lee from boys and girls club could come forward as well. And at the risk of embarrassing william, I just want to share with you that this is one of these remarkable young people that we have in our community. William is graduated from high school last year but has deferred college and taking a gap year before matriculating at cal berkeley next fall and you know, outstanding academic and sports, you know, background in high school and all. And he also got into this thing called the internet. But you know, guys my age I've heard about and he but it wasn't sort of the typical content that you see on youtube. He actually really got into this thing called minecraft which is essentially what's called a sandbox game where the user can essentially be creative and learn very important digital skills as one as one sort of improves and come to find out now he is ranked number two in the united states for followers in the entire gaming niche. William has about ten and a half million followers on his minecraft again which is not just sort of fluff. It's it's a very real skill and all. But even that's not the reason I wanted to come here and what I wanted him to come here tonight is because during this gap year he is spending countless hours volunteering for our boys and girls club in pasadena. And you know, as I read about his accomplishments and learned about pasadena now actually covered william earlier this year in connection with the donation of of twelve high capacity laptops to the boys and girls club that william was able to leverage through these relationships that he's garnered from his is minecraft work. So he's a real role model for all of us. He's the kids boys and girls club love him and we've got big problems in this world today. But when when we encounter somebody like william we have reason to be very optimistic about the future. So I'd like to come down and present william with a certificate mayor, perhaps you could join me and lisa, would you like to say a word about williams contributions? Sure. Thank you. This is an extraordinary young man who we met and who has just given us time and things and when the kids are listening to him when william is presenting to him we've never seen the kids more attentive and quiet and it's just been a really great joy to have him in our building and doing things with our kids and he continues on now during his gap year and very deserving of this honor tonight I we don't have much of a budget for these things, I'm afraid. But it says city of pasadena certificate of recognition of william vallejos for his extraordinary contribution to the boys and girls club of pasadena and of course much, much more so. William, thank you very much. Yeah, just pulled down it here . Ok, thank you. So do you want to say a word? Um yeah. Thank you so much for this amazing award lisa. I appreciate a lot. Um the councilmen and mayor up . Um yeah. When I first stepped into the boys and girls club of pasadena ,um I really didn't know what I was getting into. Um, I was met with a lively spirit, tons of amazing young kids and decided that I was going to use whatever relationships I had from my minecraft content creation experience and what I've learned not only with community building within the game and connecting with other youtube's tech docker's um but really making a difference at the boys and girls club and introducing a technology program for the students and kids to be able to collaborate and work together. now we're developing an esports branch of the club, uh, working with coach who is my I guess direct supervisor and there we've been doing a lot of great progress and venturing into for fortnight where we've been focusing on clear communication skills and collaboration. So thank you so much. Thank you everyone keep up the great work. Thank you. Now we'll move on to public public comment for matters not on the agenda for speaker is yadi uh we have an eleven clades two minutes. Yadi, are you here will offer two minutes unless somebody wants to wait to the end of the meeting for to use the full three minutes but that way everyone gets a chance to speak at the beginning yachties he's not here. So carlos roebling's, professor hey there. Great. Followed by david schimel followed by gabrielle pozzallo bobzilla so if you hear your name you can start to line up on the side. Professor riblets go ahead. Step to the podium. You have two minutes. You're welcome. I'm grateful to the council for their policy of carbon free energy by twenty thirty. My concern for this issue stems from my work as a marine biologist and ecologist in the nineteen eighties I was studying short populations in southern california especially mussel beds and trying to ask to answer some very academic theoretical questions. i was aware of the problem of climate change but that seemed like a serious problem that was generations into the future. But by the 1990s those populations were declining and by 2000 some of them had disappeared completely from southern california and it was clear the cause was the warming of the ocean and the decline of ocean fertility. The example the muscle-bound is just one of dozens in the marine environment we know of now and the same thing is happening on land as well. Many examples of species retreating upward mountainsides and being replaced down below by more desert species and so forth. Some of these are economically important species. You MAY have heard this week about the collapse of the alaskan snow crab fishery which is also the result of the declining ocean fertility. So what I would like to emphasize is these effects negative effects have been going on under our noses for decades and they're accelerating the time to act is now and thank you for the action you've taken so far. Thank you. Uh, gabriel mazola followed by joel habour. Oh I'm sorry david simmel sorry. David schimel was next david schimel here no ok, go ahead gabriel followed by joel habour followed by lucien werner hello city council members and mayor minimum's gabriel and I'm a software engineer at cal tech where I work on climate models before joining caltech I was an astrophysicist. I worked on black holes and I studied fascinating objects out there in the universe. But at some point I realized that the climate is real and it's severe. I saw it with my own eyes that ecclesia I used to go as a kid disappeared in the italian alps, disappear over the past twenty years I felt compelled to switch career and this because this is not an isolated example. This is a symptom of a systemic and large scale change. So I felt compelled to switch careers and contribute my skills to the fight against climate change and this is instead of exploring the mysteries of the universe and the cosmos. I care about climate change because it threatens a way of life of billions of people and I want 100 percent carbon free energy by 2030 because there's overwhelming evidence the burning fossil fuel is accelerating climate change. And honestly I also want to feel proud to live and work in a city that leads the way in climate action. So I thank you for passing the carbon free energy resolution by 2030 resolution and I urge you to continue along this direction by choosing a plan that meets that goal through the ip process. So thanks again. Thank you mr next speaker joel goldhaber for by lucien werner by malcolm teesdale than old and dunham welcome you here name please step to the step forward in the room. Go ahead. Hi morgado city council members my name is joel haber. I'm a resident of pasadena and district to I'm a scientist with my doctorate in chemistry and I came today to say thank you and you got it right nine months ago when you passed the climate emergency and directed pwp to develop a plan for carbon free electricity by 2030 . The nine months since you passed that resolution, the climate and weather data have really enforced the urgency of acting now not later. You know, thankfully california has not been hit very hard by extreme weather or fires this year. But other places in the world have been the the the list of natural disasters accelerated by climate change is too long to go through it go through but there's been freak torrential rains that have flooded cities around the world record hot oceans and rivers have caused mass die offs of wildlife and tropical diseases have been expanding ranges northward JULY ,AUGUST, SEPTEMBER and now OCTOBER. Our have shattered global temperature records in such an extraordinary way that one climate scientists describe them as gob smackingly bananas . Yeah, so I hope that the the yeah. So you know I feel very concerned by the current situation with climate change. It's clear that the situation is going to keep getting worse . We're continuing to admit record amounts of climate changing pollutants into the atmosphere. So in the weeks ahead as you consider pwp proposal, I hope you'll remember that there's much more at stake than just the cents per kilowatt hour. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Lucien werner by malcolm teesdale than old and denim and then alan shey. MR. Werner go ahead. Hello. Thank you counsel. Thank you mayor gordo for inviting me to speak today. I'm a computer scientist and a postdoctoral scientist at caltech. I have my ph.D. In computer science and I've had the good fortune to work directly with pwp and important stakeholders in the city and energy community over the past three years on operationalizing some new technologies that I think we all believe are going to be critical to addressing the challenges of climate change at some of the other speakers tonight have have spoken to I agree with all of them that this is it is an emergency and a lot of ways however, the perspective I want to advance in front of you is that there are a lot of exciting technologies that are there that can solve the problems that we face and I encourage the leadership in pasadena to to to advance the deployment of these technologies in practice. that's something we've done on the research side r&d side working closely with pwp and their caltech leadership, their facilities department. I also want to point out what I'm sure a lot of us in this room are aware of that there's a lot of funding available for deploying these new technologies that are capable of addressing the challenges that high amounts of renewables and clean tech a clean energy economy bring. And so I want to also encourage pursuit of those opportunities that are coming from ira and the federal government. Thank you. Thank thank you, MR. Tesla. MR. Werner, malcolm teesdale is their son zoome ok, we'll bring him malcolm black malcolm teesdale then followed by aldan and then ellen shay go ahead MR. Teesdale city council members and mayor my name is malcolm teesdale I'm a student mechanical engineering at caltech also living district seven. I support the council's goal for one hundred percent carbon free power by twenty thirty because drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to avert climate crisis. There's also another reason achieving this one hundred per cent goal will benefit pasadena residents directly. Combustion of methane gas at glenarm in magnolia risks harmful pollutants. The formation of ground level ozone and particulate pollution increasing potentially increasing rates of childhood asthma, respiratory illness, disease and preterm birth and defects burning methane in densely populated areas like glenarm has been shown to increase hospital attendances anywhere from 10 to 17 percent compared to zip codes without fuel fired power plants. Please consider that there are eight schools within a one mile radius of glenarm and 17 schools within a two mile radius. Caltech included. I implore you to avoid any plans that expose our residents to the harmful byproducts of gas combustion to generate electric power. Thank you. Aldan denim by alan schaefer by josh fisher than david whitehead then sure. Were you paying I believe yadi just came into the room. Go ahead MR. Denim. Well do I want to beat everyone to respect hello and whatnot. I wish I had time to greet each and every one of you. I got short time I got to two things that I will do across the table right now. One is I'm appreciative of the fact that we're going into negotiation and hopefully to change the charter and I'm wondering who's going to stand up for the fight to change the charter to give you guys the power to do what you know I want you to do I want you to have the power to be able to get rid of bad cops when we got them. We haven't been able to do that because you don't have the power and I'm glad we're fighting that battle to get that power because I think you guys really need it. I don't really know what each and every one of you stand who's standing for who's fighting for it. I would love to know you know, especially the people of my neighborhood and in fact I have so many people asking me who is justin? Justin, you've been out about in a lot of not older people like me who yes. And I and I know your credentials are great and everything I can do no say good things about you but I don't really know who you are here. I don't want to I don't want to know if you're going to be that fighter somebody is going to fight for us if you fight for us but we'll fight for you. But the other thing that I want to mention is supposedly passenger has been on this journey with this affordable housing I've been on that battlefield for myself and it's a shamble. It's I don't know how to describe it. I've put my put my my name in the hat many places here and blanket and I'm in there supposedly about people who have been in pasadena passing the residents get priority low income and my income started six of this fifty fifty six years so my social security is a whole lot I don't make sixty seventy thousand dollars a year and that's what it cost to live in some of these places you call unfordable which I think is limited to the amount and even in one specific one and I'm I'm really shook up about is the harvest is harvesting on fair oaks and whatnot is going into the heritage other is going into the second phase and a lot of us put in our names on the first phase blah blah blah so on and so on. I came back I must've been number eleven hundred or something. So for the last months I've been trying to find out is that there was that list still going is that list still good? Are we still the people who signed up for it on that list. Good so I worked my way up the ladder and I finally did get a chance to talk to jim to jim troy and I talked to him and I was asking him about it and when it came to the point asking them specifically about this, he did tell me that that that the list had been thrown out but he also couldn't tell me how to get on the list of who had the list and I'm thinking who do I go to when I asked is this supposed to be the top man and he can't tell me how to get on this list that I was on before. This is a lot of other crazy stuff but I can't go into all of that right now. But I'm having unsuccessful hunt to get affordable housing and I'm not MR. Dan, if you could read my time and I went with the housing department here I thank you for the time that I had thank and alan followed by josh fisher followed by david whitehead. I believe me that's a story that we hear often that the difficulty of housing not just in passing but in the region in the state it's and it's getting worse as seagrass go grivna city council members and mayor cordeaux as you know, I make this a weekly journey to come before you. I was disappointed last week that a lot of the city council members had stepped away the time that public comments was made some three hours after which I thought was absurd. But based on your urgency of getting your votes in with the active members here, you felt that a position had to punish the speakers because that's what it was. So with that being said, I believe again we need to demonstrate leadership starting with the respect that should be served upon the residents vote you in this office. You should have the power to make the necessary changes whether that's dealing with oversight committees for police officers who have five cameras to show that there was no gun by anthony mcclain by housing regular actions which I know for a fact by being on the northwest commission to formulate housing the heritage square and to make sure that those residents in that zip code should be able to get housing and they're not able to do that. And on the affordable side, which is the operative word it doesn't apply to black people who are trying to get the housing. It doesn't it applies to everybody else as a means to get building done and make it sound a plausible to make it happen. But it's not directed for the residents of northwest and for those of you who are district council members of nw, I beg you guys to really take a hold of it because we've seen gentrification in its effect. We've seen what it has done the power and how much they respect the residents northwest especially the officers, especially even mayor gordo. You have to show something and it's not happening so I hope that the leadership really steps up and last but not least ,give us an update on where we are with the charter position because the last time we talked about it it was thrown up in the air to sound like it was going back to staff or whether it was going before the oversight. Where are we with it? Thank you. Thank you, MR. Shea. We're making the appointments this evening for the charter reform task force next speaker josh fisher followed by david whitehead five by sharu ping and then yardie MR. Fisher. Hi, my name is josh fisher. I am a professor at chapman university. I'm a climate scientist. I was at jpl for over a decade, launched a mission to the international space station focused on climate change in terms of local impacts to pasadena. The two things that come to mind are water on fire. Obviously we have a lot of wildfire smoke impacts. We're running out too much water. a few years ago we had one year of surface water left in california. This is going to come up again very soon in our lifetimes and we know it's because of burning of fossil fuels and the solution to not burn fossil fuels and go renewable. It makes historic sense that pasadena which was founded as a destination of health would be a leader in in in climate solutions and technology driving job creation, identity ,pride in and so on. It's also an environmental justice issue. People of color and low income communities face a disproportionate brunt of climate change, especially with urban heat and public health impacts. So I applaud you and encourage you to continue to support stepping up in leadership when it comes to the climate crisis. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Fisher. David whitehead by shrew paying who's on virtually and then yardie you. MR. Whitehead, welcome back. It's been a while. Thank you, MR. Excuse me merry-go-round. Yes it has been a while. Good afternoon. Go out and city council members I'd like to take just a moment to address the issue of accessory dwelling units typically referred to as use. I have an appreciation and a request first I'd like to thank the city planning department staff for their hard work on this issue. In JUNE the planning department held a community outreach meeting to discuss the residents concerns and suggestions regarding 80 years planning department staff guided conversation and genuinely listened to the concerns being expressed on OCTOBER 11th this past OCTOBER 11th, department staff made a thorough presentation to the planning commission for the of their recommendations for amending the city's ada regulations. Thanks also to the members of the planning commission who unanimously approved the planning department's recommendations. I suspect those recommendations will be landing all of your desks shortly now for the request one of the main concerns raised by the public in the JUNE outreach meeting was regarding impact fees as well as permitting fees. The planning department noted that any proposed change to permit or impact fees requires specific direction from the city council or the city manager and would likely involve a fee study. So my request to you is exactly that. Please consider directing the appropriate departments to study reduction or elimination of the impact fees relating to construction of accessory dwelling units. Thank you for your time, your attention and your consideration of my request. Thank you. What is the timing for the ada regulations amendments coming to council? Do we know? I do not know but I can find out in the sun the note to council to uh surely paying is on virtually allow a city council members and mayors my name shray and I'm a graduate student and a kaltech today I have to stand with a hundred and one actionable plan towards one hundred percent carbon free energy by 2030. So I personally work on climate change in the oceans is warming and fast enough around the globe and in some local areas is causing actionable and real real time changes. Currently we have a course at caltech that study oceans and we have a field trip to do that click on it and so imagine the island is gradually eroded by the ocean warming and the some specific locations these islands are served as a guard for the local communities and why we have strong enough ocean warming and erosion like this on those caused lots of damage to local communities and there's really big uncertainties in this climate trend in the oceans and we are working on this trying to beat down these uncertainties. But I think it's also pretty important for us to do try our best to get a carbon free energy by a point like 20 30. So I really want to point out that and thank you for considering for passing this carbon free electricity by 2030 resolution. Thank you so much. Thank you. Welcome welcome. jtac reinforcements and bringing her up hydroxyl. I don't want to implicate her in the crimes. How much time do I have? Two minutes. Minutes. Okay I'll try to make this really quick. So my comment is about government transparency and specific to regards to surveillance equipment so I've been asking for a lot of public records from the city about the use of surveillance equipment and you know, the the documents I get back are a little bit lackluster. So nargeolet did an awesome story on shotspotter and this is the documents that they got. I asked for the same documents and this is a document that I got on shotspotter. It's a little bit difficult to analyze the effectiveness of it with that information. And earlier in the spring I had brought before you a letter from yaf aclu about the legal violations of the use of the license plate readers and I also submitted a public records request to get the response to this demand letter and it's still outstanding though as far as I know we're still in violation of two laws there and then finally is cell site simulator which I've submitted several public records requests over the last couple of years and haven't gotten any responsive documents that seem to align with the information that's being provided later today about the acquisition of this outside simulator. And I also want to bring to your attention that letter was not in public comments that was submitted by oakland privacy saying that the acquisition of the celsi simulator will be in violation of more us. But I will say that in JANUARY I did get one response from pasadena pd that says they do not possess this outside simulator and therefore did not have any responsive documents for this request. So I'm not exactly sure what's the rationale for purchasing a cell site simulator but that's the that will be my comment for that agenda items. So just to conclude right now pasadena is violating sb thirty four california values act and ab twelve forty two for the use of the license plate readers sb seven forty one california electronic communications privacy act for the use of this outside simulator if it is in use currently and under ap for eighty one the annual report does not meet the criteria that's listed under the reporting guidelines which I'll go into further later and as I still have outstanding public records requests. Um you're also in violation of the california public records act so we hope that we can remedy that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Speaker is cashel wilkins are you here ok keisha sorry keisha wilkins I'm apologize MISS Welcomes MS. Wilkins welcome. Hello. My name is keisha wilkins and I am actually here. I did a proposal for a street name change after the group r and b group troop there from pasadena. I'm actually a burn survivor so I am friends with these guys. These guys help uh kind of me with my recovery. So when I got burned and I I was in the E.R. And the burn unit for like a month and when I got out I used to call the radio stations and you know, request their songs and that help uplift my spirits. So these guys, you know, spoke me and my kids through all of my recovery and my baby boy was was applying for college and he got into berkeley behind listening to what steve from troop and what alan mcneil from troop were speaking into his life. So he got into berkeley, got into intel, salesforce and coinbase. So for me it's really personal. The street name change what they've done for the city of pasadena I know because I'm from west covina and me and my girlfriends were singers and artists and dancers back then. So these guys like you know, traveled in our circles and performed and there was like dance named after them their grammy award winning artist, you know? So I am just here for that proposal and I just wanted to be by her side for historic purposes. Both of these are mia and alumni's so it would be great to have some musicians. Yes. Join forces. They all are from pasadena as well. i remember stevie and I went to high school with steven pasadena high maybe seven. So I'm nervous so I remember them ok so I'm really nervous so excuse my shakiness but yeah they helped me overcome and when I say I got thrown from the top of my head to my knees I got burned from the top of my head to my knees so thank you. All right. That completes public comment on matters not on the agenda. And if I MAY just quickly respond to vice mayor williams question. I'm being told that the 82 to the council is scheduled is on track to come back before the mid-DECEMBER. So one of the next few meetings before the end of the year. Ok, that completes public comment on matters on the ok, so that completes public comment for matters not on the agenda. Thank you everyone. Did you want to go to the special why don't we did you want to you quickly do become any member of the council? We have speaker cards on items 14 and 16 on comsec and I have some correspondence to report out one well let's let's go to the special item that ok, so this is a special item involving the san gabriel valley council of governments and an update by rikki choi, director of government and community relations detroit welcome. Good evening. Mayor members of city council my name is reggie choi. I'm director of government relations for the valley council of governments. She joined me here tonight with my colleagues kitty ward mckenzie bougere as well as dungey providian. We're honored and grateful to be here today. We're grateful to have the city of pasadena as a member agency disagreeably kog as one of our member cities. So tonight I just just want to come here to provide an update hopefully a brief update about the kog programs initiatives and then also highlight some of the the work that we're doing and plans for the upcoming year . But first I want to take the opportunity to thank mayor gordo for serving as a delegate on our governing board and I believe a city staff is very active with a number of our committees. They serve on our transportation committee, our homelessness committee and there's also environment, environment and energy environment and natural resources committee and they also participate in our public works committee direct public works working group and our planning director is working group. So I appreciate the support in the evolvement as well as the input that you'll provide. And of course we're very grateful for the city of pasadena for serving as a member of the central valley regional housing trust. The kog serves as a unified voice for the region for its member agencies and works to maximize resources and advocate for the regional and member interests to improve the quality of life for the nearly two million people that call the central valley home. As you MAY know, the kog is a joint powers authority created in 1990 1994 represents 31 cities in central valley including two to L.A. County supervisor supervisorial districts estie 165 as well as three municipal water districts . So what do we do? The kog is a subregional government agency that works closely with our central valley cities to foster cooperation and collaboration on a number of different issues and key challenges that face our region. And so we collaborate on projects of regional significance for consensus on a number of different issues that impact our member cities and everything from the areas of transportation, homelessness, housing, the environment and water. And so we achieve this by managing and operating a number of different programs that's ever serve our member agencies with the goal of meeting our common needs, providing local answers, improving the quality of life and putting our neighbors first so meeting our common needs. The kog provides funding and really technical assistance to develop a number of regional solutions and implement programs to help cities address a number of complex issues. We had the kog really emphasize implementing regional solutions that support our unique and diverse communities and so our programs maximize local dollars for the effort of helping each of our cities comply with a number of laws and regulations that perhaps MAY not have the resources that go to support its implementation. And so we find innovative ways to meet those needs for the cities in our region. And so the is focused on bringing cities together, pooling our resources and really maximizing dollars to help cities comply with these state mandates in terms of regional transportation initiatives and investments and priorities, the clock has worked in partnership with the L.A. County metro and other transit and transportation agencies in our region to really focus on supporting state and federal funding on on central valley transportation priorities including supporting the metro gold line extension to claremont and eventually to montclair. We're also currently conducting a singer valley transit feasibility study which is focused on really improving mobility and transit in the region and gentrifying and building that infrastructure to support the transit needs of the residents in the central valley. And this is our goal of implementing local answers we understand that each community is different and has its unique needs and so the kog provides innovative solutions and support to meet those needs. Part of it is working with our and securing seating federal resources to support a locally based solutions to these regional challenges. And what you see here are essentially three examples this past year the federal and state funding that we've been able to secure for our sgv works workforce development program and that program is really focused on providing supportive services and on the job training for at risk youth and those persons experiencing homelessness as well as for our sgv care mobile crisis response program which is a pilot program that provides alternative mobile response for law enforcement, for individuals who are experiencing homelessness and have mental health or experiencing mental health crisis. Moving on to the goal of improving the quality of life for the residents of singer valley and that really means improving the safety health and livability for the central valley region. One example of that is our program via sgv and we conduct extensive wildfire outreach and community education and in response the bobcat fire in 2020 a number of cities in is spearheaded by the kog came together and agreed that you know, express interest in coming together to participate in wildfire prevention planning program and collaboration to to conduct outreach to the community to mitigate wildfires and to and to plan for you know, to conduct evacuation planning. and so that's one of the programs that that when we just want to quickly highlight I would be remiss to to if I didn't mention that this sunday morning the cloggers cohosting royal fest made possible by metro which is an open streets event from seven A.M. To 11 A.M. And it is the seven mile stretch of the 110 freeway is going to be closed where people people can walk bike, skate and scoot their way from I avenue 26 in the city of los angeles and ending in glenarm street in pasadena. So it's been 20 years since there has been a royal farce situation such as we've closed the 110 freeway for an open event like such and so I appreciate the partnership and cooperation of the city of pasadena for making this six to say schoolmistress event possible. And finally the concept of putting our neighbors first and that's really helping to ensure that our neighbors, especially our most vulnerable neighbors have the access to homes, to jobs and the care that they need. And so we're currently conducting a broadband's assess needs assessment, a strategic strategic plan for the entire for the region and the purpose is to really facilitate the the possibility of high speed broadband infrastructure projects to close the digital divide underserved and underserved areas within the central valley for the hopes of ensuring digital equity in the region so that everyone can have access to high speed internet service. And so I just want to really quickly also highlight some of our accomplishments this past year we've been really fortunate to have support from the federal, state and county partners and we've been successful in securing seventy five million dollars this past year and funding support our projects and programs that that serve our members cities. We're also very proud of the number of our accomplishments in our programing this past year. Some of the key highlights include serving over to any 800 regional clients through our regional homelessness programs a city pilot programs we've also had relaunched a bike share program go suv and we partner with over a hundred we partner with our local cities to create over one hundred and five units of interim housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness. We also broke ground on a project called the fitzsimon confluence project that improves safety and mobility in the states worst in the nation seventh worst truck bottleneck in the eastern side of the singer valley and a few months ago we also completed the very dry great separation project and that's in the city of industry and we're on the heights and that's helping to improve and better connect the single region and improve railway safety. Russell, very excited about a number of our programs that we're planning for this upcoming year. we're looking to continue to improve safety and mobility in the region with the construction soon of the turnbull canyon road, great separation project and that's in the city of industry and hacienda heights as well as the montbello corridor, a great separation program. We also work with we also plan to be working with a number of our nonprofit partners and hopefully establish three additional food recovery hubs to reduce food insecurity in the region and feed our our neighbors in need. And so we plan to complete a number of energy efficient programs as well through our sgv efficient suv program to help residents be more energy efficient and reduce their energy bills and also expand or suv care mobile crisis program to three additional cities. And then we also will complete the construction of the time a golf course that's part of the srs 57 project and very soon be able to reopen that golf course back to the public. And just with that I just wanted to again thank the mayor and city council for having me here today. This was a very brief overview of our colleagues programs and initiatives. I just wanted to express our sincere appreciation to the council and the staff and we look forward to continuing our partnership to enhance the quality of life for the residents of it really with that. My email is on the screen. We'd like to reach out if you have any questions or have any ideas for future collaboration but with that I'll take any questions you have things like thank you MR. Troy. One of the slides that you have on there deals with quality of life and one of the quality of life issues that we've grappled with particularly here in the foothills and and I know the corgies focused on deals with coyotes and we have a coyote expert on the council here who you MAY want to recruit to serve on that committee. MR. Madison has been MR. Anderson is both a coyote expert and a pit bull expert and could have lots to offer and so I would ask that we we connect we connect the two of you. Sure. We have a neighborhood coyote program and we'd love to speak with council member medicine and staff to to follow up. Thank you, mayor lecoq is doing terrific work. I'm proud that pasadena is once again involved in the kog. I've learned quite a bit about the various subjects and I've watched the kog work together with the 31 cities and 29 school districts and the over two million people that we represent collectively. And so thank you to the staff all of you do a great job. You know, we do have differing opinions at times within our cities but I think the staff does a good job of the staff, does a good job of bringing balance and allowing for thoughtful and deliberate discussion. Thank you. thank you. So give mayor I appreciate all of the partners and regional agencies coming in and talking to us and so we learn more about their services. One request that I had was for the vector control district to come about all of the mosquitoes. We have a lot of questions about mosquitoes and it would be great to understand how we work with them and what they do and if they can spray more please, you know and as we do that, let's keep in mind that we used to have vector control vector control function within our health department in pasadena and went instead with the vector control group. Yeah, we went into that and I always thought we should this would you know, would be a few years and then we could measure the effectiveness of whether we want to bring that function back to within our own health department, whether it might be more effective than I don't know but it's something that we should revisit. Ok, and that's vector not victor control. That's that's right. That's right. Two very different things some would they both needed. Ok, now let's let's move on to the consent calendar. I'm going to ask that we make a sweep motion and hold items one six and eight are being deferred six through eight I'm sorry six through eight are being deferred to the ten to next week's meeting. Ten thirty twenty three meeting items 14 and 16 we have speakers so if there's a suite motion with the x that excludes items one six eight 14 16 six seven eight six seven 14 and 16. Thank you. You're welcome sir. I'll make the ok made by MR. Massouda second I will MISS Williams and are there any objections before we move forward I just want to commend the police department on item number five to increase training as it relates to de-escalation in the less than lethal manner. I mean also supporting the local business here in pasadena. So item five I just placed thanks to the police department for that. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Hampton. And and I echo your statements as I know we all do and with regard to six, seven and eight again those are pooled let's turn to items fourteen sixteen . You just need to call the vote. Oh, we don't we need an actual vote. Everyone's in the room. Everybody is. But just you didn't say oh any objections? See, none of those matters are approved. Thank you. Let's go to 14 and 16. We do have speakers so we have speakers. We also have correspondence submitted for item fourteen. We received city clerk's office received three letters in opposition to the staff recommendation and or providing comments related to the lack of oversight of privacy rights concerns with the use of cell site simulator's in the city submitted speaker khaja for mike sorry for yardie is in person and then mike cates lacob look maybe maybe gute hey uh I'm sorry um, just to reiterate the pasadena police department is requesting at the pasadena city council approved the acquisition of a satellite simulator which is a form of surveillance technology that works by exploiting network security of cell phones and other electronic devices to access communications and private data of the public that's going to cost over a million dollars even though it's going to come from asset forfeiture fund. That doesn't mean that it gets to circumvent the proper oversight and guardrail process . I think mike is going to speak a little bit more on that. However, there's really no reason to be purchasing cell site simulator and as I mentioned earlier in the day, it seems that pasadena pd is not in possession of any records that can validate, validate or verify the use of satellite simulator. How many times has been used up? There's a use policy privacy policy I'm going to call it the unicorn policy because that the public safety committee meeting it was said that it would be referred to the police oversight commission but no use policy has been furnished. So it's something now we're all talking about but doesn't seem to exist and it's actually a requirement under the law to have that in place in order to purchase this equipment and using asset forfeiture funds is really problematic and it's oftentimes used to purchase military equipment and other surveillance equipment and you know, it's been referred to by law enforcement as pennies from heaven but it's really just used as a slush fund to just keep purchasing a lot of terrible equipment. So despite the claims that ppd has made the presentation about being having privacy protections and guard rail against surveillance, tech by definition cannot be also privacy protecting. And there was a report by the inspector general of the homeland security that said that law enforcement agencies often use outside simulators without obtaining the appropriate search warrants so um, I just want to state like I said in APRIL again that it would be reckless and negligent for the pasadena city council to allow the purchase of this equipment without appropriate guardrails and before seeing a use policy and a privacy policy thinking. Thank you then my cat lochaber come virtual. Good evening, honorable mayor members of city COUNCILMAN Name is mike castle today and I'm the director of research for oakland privacy. Many of you or all of you should have received over the weekend a letter from our organization expressing our opposition to the approval of a cell site simulator. The main reason we oppose it is because if you do so you will be in violation of california government code section five three one six six which states a local agency shall not acquire cellular communications interception technology unless approved by its legislative body by adoption at a regularly scheduled public meeting held pursuant to the brown act of a resolution or ordinance authorizing that acquisition and the usage and privacy policy. As you will note there is no usage and privacy policy that is part of this agenda item. That's again again agenda item number fourteen. So for that reason we would oppose you going forward with this purchase approval of this purchase today. In addition, the residents of pasadena deserve an opportunity to learn more about the privacy invasive technology before the police spend more than one million dollars. For example, did you know that the use of this technology can interfere with nine one one cellular communications? No, probably not because that is not one of the things that's been covered. In addition, in the interests of transparency we recommend that the usage and privacy policy when you eventually get to it include an annual report requirement so that the residents of pasadena can be informed about how often the technology is used and in what manner. thank you very much for your time. I appreciate your consideration of our comments. Thank you. Sorry for the mispronouncing your name that completes public comment on this item. Thank you. Is there a motion to of mischievous thank you. MAY I add one quick question and did I hear countermovement have to also have a question on this topic or different one? Ok, it was ok. Yeah my my only question is just to confirm that this did not go through the community oversight commission is that correct? I don't know for certain but let me ask the police department is here maybe they can respond to that question. MR. Members of counsel I believe we went to public safety but I have our our resident expert here who will come up and answer any questions for you from a robbery homicide division will be sergeant edgar sanchez and I. Were you asking the cps to public safety career the police police oversight commission it's a procedural question. Did it go through? Just want to know if it did I my understanding is that it didn't and I wanted to confirm that was correct. It sounds like I got it. Ok, thank you. The answers and the answer is not we do not sir. Ok so that leads me to my question. We did suggest that it would go to the cpac for the policy piece of it as you guys are formulating the policy according to the public speakers she's basically inserting a notion that we MAY be out of policy by purchasing or MAY not be legally I guess maybe we're not complying with the state statutes if we purchase this without having a policy along with it is that there is a policy. Could you speak into the microphone, sir? Thank so there has been a policy identify yourself. Sorry lieutenant gomes, pasadena pd I'm in charge of the violent crime section as part of the process we did construct and vet a department policy it's policy six twenty that was also reviewed by command staff and verified with members from the state that governed flexible. So there is there is a public policy ready to go if the purchase is approved and then that policy will also go to the pcc that was the request from public safety expert. Sorry I'm going to say this is too many acronyms in pasadena but I need a dictionary of acronyms right in front of me so and I think we can stay consistent simply by moving forward and saying bring the policy for to cpac so that they're familiar with it. Yes, we have no problem being transparent about the policy or what we're buying and what we're doing. Ok, mayor, if I could just I actually did have questions. Go ahead. Go ahead, MR. Line. thank you, mayor. So I had a question for the city attorney which is a you we got sort of a paraphrase of the statute from the public comment but it made it sound like the approval of the purchase and the approval of the policy needed to travel in tandem under the state statute. Is that correct? I would actually defer to the department and what I'm a my understanding is that they are going concurrently and he's suggesting that the policy will be implemented along with this if this is approved. Right. But what I heard the caller to say and again I don't have the statute in front of me is that our approval needs to bring those concurrently and if that's correct, we're only doing one of those here. So I would like advice on that before we move forward. In other words, this is the council that approves under the statute must a council approved policy can seek action to approve a policy together with the approval of the purchase? That's the question and to be clear what I heard to make sure that we understand there is a departmental policy that's going to be a policy that doesn't come before the city council so the question would be a legal one under the statute which I too am not familiar with is is it sufficient to have a departmental policy? Do you have to have any policy or does it have to be a council approved policy and I would have to defer to the lawyer my office's out of the office today or was and I don't know if the police department has that answer available, but I don't I don't know that. So I'd have to we could either continue it and continue this for next week. Yeah. Edgar sanchez supervised robbery homicide unit I believe the answer to that is concurrently uh if if I'm understanding with public comment was but also reading that um that statute is that the governing council uh uh does approve the acquisition of this also simulator along with the policy. Ok, so as a general rule the council does not approve the police department policies so we would need to look at that and bring it forward with this . You know, we typically don't weigh in on on police department policies and if there's something in the statute that says to concurrent act on the part of the council to approve approval any policy we should do that the way that has happened with the other cities that have used the celsi simulator is to simply say that there has to be a possibly a policy that we have governing it at the time of purchase. We do have that policy. It is enumerated in our department policy under six twenty and I know that the council doesn't typically approve those policies but I think that and we're going to find that the section says that we just need to ensure that there is a policy at the time of of the purchase and so there is that policy we have enumerated it it is in our flexible policy and therefore exists under the conditions necessary to make the purchase . Is there any reason, chief, that I'm given given the question is a procedural statutory question we don't seem to have the answer to at the moment is there any reason we couldn't hold this off till next week? No, we can hold it after next week and we'll we'll get clarification from the city attorney's office. Ok, thank you. Thank you. And mayor, if if it does come back next week, is there a way that we could see what our the privacy policy is even if we're not approving gestur just as background thanks. You have the ability to see whichever policies you like. Just let us know. We'll make sure that we bring all the necessary documentation with us and I guess next week when it comes back it we did in public safety say that the of the cpac was going to also review the policy and give their feedback for updates things but not not necessarily approval just at some point. At some point yeah. That was yeah. Public safety. Right ok just so where were that the cpac and the public safety will get consistent opportunities to review those policies certainly with the advent of an annual report that'll make it certainly annually reviewed by you folks by public safety by cpac. But at any interval that cpac decides they want to see it, we want to be open and transparent about policy policy changes, any additions, redactions etc.. Thank you chief. Ok, so by consensus this item will be held for one week until next week. Thank you. And that brings us item one mr jones item sixteen oh sixteen item sixteen. So item sixteen we had thinker andrew good good welcome. Uh there's a lot to actually hopeful for on housing and homelessness. I really appreciate um how much progress is going on and a lot of that's been covered. I wanted to to express my continued support for port and I want to thank you guys for supporting it as well. It's a really important program and I want to urge you all to think of it as critical city infrastructure because we are in a housing crisis as the mayor said earlier tonight, it's not going to get better. So this is something that you know, I think a lot of major cities have looked at and it's just part of life now and something we need to have to help people find stability their lives. Um, and I also wanted to emphasize that this is public safety spending the situations that we create when housing is unaffordable leave a lot of people fighting for survival on the street. All the pathways that we provide to earn their trust and get them to shelter makes a huge difference makes everyone safer in the end. So thank you for that. Thank you. That completes public comment item sixteen mayor. I don't know if the if andrew was at the finance committee meeting today but we did discuss the city looking for potential long term funding for port so we don't have to do this every single year. So I'm hopeful and um you know, the governor's made dollars available recently for housing and particularly for housing of people with mental and or health challenges but also for programs such as porked. So that's something that we'll ask the staff to report to us on. Ok, motion their motion move item sixteen moved and seconded any objections to item sixteen sinan the letters crute approved now item one item one mr jones so out of an abundance of caution I will recuse myself from this item because this is a agreement between the city and my employer in the county of los angeles. I think governmental exception rules should apply but well and this is his particular department I just a county employee. Ok, all right. Thanks for bringing that money to us, justin. That was a joke that emotion you know, but the even though it is it his department it's still you know, there were both government agencies and so we should probably clear that up at some point. well, yeah, there isn't an exception he addresses got it in particular. Ok, so we need a motion on no one. So I think I heard mr hampton with many things and a second any objections see none that matters approved so that completes the consent calendar neglected to note and you all have it in front of mr jones can come can rejoin us. Item seventeen had two letters of correspondence that were distributed to the council are posted online part of the record for that item I just did not had a chance to report them out. They were expressing concerns with the rose bowl operating company's recommendation for the due to various unsafe actions of attendees at the OCTOBER 15 soccer game. So that was part of that item. Ok, next we move to old business nineteen item nineteen. This is a brief report the chief. Welcome back. It's been a while. Thank you for having me back. Mr CHAIRMAN Of the council for this particular item we've brought our chief adjutant lieutenant medical care to provide the report to the council and field any questions. Thank you lieutenant. You're welcome. Good evening mayor and city council. So I'm going to talk about the military equipment annual report and renewal so we can go the first page. so I'm going to do a presentation overview of a few things. We're going to start out with a recap of us the assembly bill four eighty one the military equipment definition military equipment categories and requirements of the annual review. So a recap baby four eighty one this was introduced to us last year twenty twenty two assigned to basically ensure their safeguards including transparency, oversight and accountability measures in place for the equipment that we have in use. The primary purpose of the equipment is for de-escalation and preservation of life so our requirements under 481 were to obtain approval from the governing body related to funding acquisition or use of military or military style equipment which we did. We adopted a military equipment use policy by ordinance and now we are required to do an annual reporting of military type equipment which that's what I'm here for tonight and then we're supposed to post the policy on the agency's website for as long as the military equipment is in use and just for the public just so they know it is on our front page. If you look under our training video it's right below it says ab for anyone so anyone can go into and access what we have next page so the equipment definition so when ab forty one was introduced to us and we signed off on it it created the government code seven seventy through seven seventy five. so those items are considered military or under that particular government code seven seventy it's verbatim and they're pretty much what I have on my screen so it's any surplus equipment received from the department of defense and military so a lot this equipment is considered industry standard or tools of the trade. The majority of the equipment is considered non-lethal equipment and again I already reiterated this that the equipment is designed specifically for de-escalation during violent incidents and to minimize the use of lethal force and to reduce injury to either suspects or officers. So most of our equipment is sourced through direct purchases and seizures. So I've been here thirty years. I know I know a lot of these things on the equipment list have not been used or or have and used many times through the years as technology has increased we've we've acquired a few items like the drone or the robot but they're rarely used in but we have them available because we're such a big city. We we host such big events they're quite necessary for those those times so a category so there's sixteen categories under way before anyone or I should say government code seven seventy and those sixteen we have nine of them so the first one we have which is verbatim again number one is unmanned remotely piloted powered aerial vehicle also known as our tactical robot that we have and our unmanned aerial system which is the drone we also have category two which is a mine resistant ambush protected. This isn't a big word amref and also known as the bearcat which I looked up there is it it's actually an acronym for let me tell you a ballistic engineered armored response counteractive t