City Council Meeting: June 16, 2025

We are live. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the JUNE 16 twenty twenty five meeting of the past the city council. We will start with the calling of COUNCILMAN Rockhole present COUNCILMAN Hampton blessed and honored to be here. COUNCILMAN Jones here, COUNCILMAN Lying here, customer medicine here, husband massouda here, vice mayor riva's here. Mayor caught gordo here. There's a quorum the council present ok, MR. Cole, if you'll lead us to the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Rise and join me. 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. Thank you, mayor. Ok, let's start with public comment for a moment where there is one ceremonial matter. Mayor, did you want to report a closed session? Oh, we did take up the closed session calendar and there is no reportable action. MR. Madison I believe was recused and recused himself for item he or item medicine. Did you want the city of pasadena versus southern california edison? Right. MR. Madison recused due to a potential conflict of interest. Thank you, MR. Edison. You had a request to adjourn in memory. i did, mayor. Thank you. I would ask my colleagues to join me in yourself in adjourning in memory in honor of betty jane kirwin hanna also known as bj curwen hanna who was a real giant in our community. She was a lawyer who attended an ivy league school initially penn and then transferred the university of california at berkeley graduated in 1968 and one of my many regrets is that I never talk to her about being berkeley in 1968. She then got her law degree in 1971 from bulle which is also of course the berkeley law school great law school clerked for a federal judge here in L.A. And then started her law practice at a time when there were very few women practicing law at all because of sexism and especially in what is referred to colloquially as big law, the big law firms of the you know, financial districts of america the like. But she plunged right in and distinguished herself ultimately becoming best known for her long career as an environmental law partner latham and watkins in los angeles, a firm that's universally held in in very, very high regard and she tirelessly promoted the role of women in the law and was a great mentor to many, many young lawyers, men and women. She was emblematic of one of my favorite expressions which I know you've heard many times which is if you want to get something done, ask a busy person and among her I can't include them all but she served on governor schwarzenegger sierra nevada conservancy board epa secretary linda adams is blue ribbon unified environmental commission california chamber of commerce governing board chairing the environmental subcommittee served on the westridge school for girls board the sandy land protective association. The beach club chaired the john douglas french alzheimer foundation board but I mostly knew when she was the longtime board chair for planned parenthood of pasadena and san gabriel valley also a longtime member of the valley hunt club where her memorial service was late last week she was tough and smart and loving and a real role model for so many of us in our community is the worse off for not having been here with us any longer. And I'd like to extend condolences to her husband jay terrance to her children and grandchildren. So thank you, mayor. Thank you, MR. PRESIDENT. MR. Another example of the great residents there their background, their willingness to fight for rights to fight on all sorts of issues and contribute their talent here in our city. And so the record will reflect your request and we will adjourn in memory of B.G. Curwen and thank you with that . Did mayor did we wanted to well, I'll make an announcement for consideration of a statement on federal activity and community reassurance in pasadena that was posted as part of an addendum to the regular meeting and there was a posting issue. This item will not be heard tonight and will be agenda for city council consideration on JUNE twenty third, 2025. So the special item a that was part of the addendum is not going to be heard tonight. Thank you, MR. Clarke. Sure. So we'll move on to a public comment for matters not on the agenda. The clerk will call out a series of names you hear your name please form a line in the middle of the room and we do have we want to get through every everyone and be fair. Thank you. We do have twelve speaker cards. The two minutes will be allotted for each person cloud morgan clark are you here? Great. Come on forward followed by old denim than allen shade and iris chen than jennifer geese your name please step forward go ahead. But go ahead and speak. Good evening council members. My name is clode waring clark. I'm a rising senior at thurgood marshall secondary school and I'm here to ask that the council agenda is divestment from caterpillar, chevron and boeing in the fire and police retirement system fund on JUNE 9th israeli forces boarded a boat called the freedom flotilla aid ship in international waters. They kidnaped eleven humanitarian aid workers and one al jazeera journalist in a clear violation of international law. This continuation of many such violations that israel has committed since it began its lives through genocide of gaza in OCTOBER of 2003 is of great concern. On saturday I firsthand witnessed thousands of palestinians pouring into the streets to oppose the systemic state violence committed against immigrant friends, classmates and our community members among the sea of flags of mexico, america and many south american countries. Protesters also bore cathia and carried palestinian flags because these crises do not exist in a vacuum, american imperialism and settler colonialism not only cause these issues but are the reason that I'm standing here today on stolen land before you with this knowledge I do not stand idly by and allow my city to invest in genocide and war crimes. I will speak up. I will use my voice. Thank you. In denham followed by shade and iris chen and jennifer ghys michael ulbrich and remember when I ring the bell you have thirty seconds left. I was look when I ring the bell you have thirty seconds left ok ? I don't try to make it real quick because I'm not going to go the same old stuff I did. I understand having a safety meeting wednesday which I will be there and I'm hoping we will be able to honestly discuss what happened and how this thing happened at that time and because it needs to be I looked at this report, this report that memorandum that was put out it's got so many holes in the bucket it wouldn't hold water but I am concerned with the fact that this meeting this meeting that you're having this is a non action meeting now we're going to find some things we'll find out some truth to when we there. But why is this going asking me to because I'm going to find out some things we don't want to find out something they still can't do anything about it. That's the problem right now. We haven't been doing anything about it and I would like to have this meeting be an actionable meeting thing. Thank you, alan. She followed by iris chen and jennifer michael albrecht and jennifer fully tolbert, welcome. Thank you. Mira gordon, city council members and coming before you as I normally do hoping that this city council can demonstrate a systematic way of hearing the voters, the residents and their voices. This room is filled with people who've come in here every week asking yes, ajin dies in item MR. Dana has asked for five years that we agenda and get it through without it being council. I have come before you and ask that you jenise police oversight in the power behind that because it's not going to be enforceable unless you give those oversight committees power. It's just not going to work. We're going to do the same thing over and over again. You see this over and over again with the room being full of people just asking you to jeopardize an issue if you, mayor bordo, instruct your council members to vote for your direction and that's what happened, so be it then you'll be held accountable that end result. But these individuals here are saying to you as our mayor follow the process, have an agenda and make sure they're heard. Thank you. Iris chen then jennifer geeslin. Michael albrecht and jennifer folie tolbert chen. Welcome. Hi my name is iris chen. I was born in pasadena and I'm a resident of district one. Thank you to mayor gordon and city council members who came out to the protest this past week that called for ice out of pasadena in a speech that mayor gordon gave at the saturday protest he spoke about being a child of immigrants and how he would always stand for protecting families and children. He recognized that ice presence in our communities is causing harm. But does the council know that since the early 2000s many ice officers have trained with israeli military and police forces? Do they know that ice learns from the idf expertize in racial profiling surveillance, deportation, detention and attacks on human rights defenders? What is happening here in our cities is connected to what is happening in palestine as families are being targeted, separated, criminalized and worse by urging palestinians fire and police retirement to divest from companies that feel racist. State violence in israel. This council can make our own communities safer. Pasadena city council urged the retirement fund to divest in the 80s over apartheid south africa. I'm asking you to follow this PRESIDENT's agenda is this item today. Thank you. Thank you for followed by michael albrecht. Thank you for joining me. I just want to be clear I'm the son of immigrants but also an immigrant myself. Thank you esteemed council members. My name is jennifer geese. I am a member of humanity, a citizen of the world, a resident of west covina and a recently returned witness of the atrocities being perpetrated against palestinians in their own land . Pasadena is a sister city to adso I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Armenia, which is another culture that was very horribly attacked by the ottoman empire around the time of world war one they were subject to deportation conscription, starvation, massacre these things and more are happening to palestinians and it's just atrocious. The opprobrious injustices happening in palestine, both gaza and the west bank are fueled by chevron, by boeing, by caterpillar and I implore you to agenda and implement a policy of divestment from these companies. Thank you for your time. I'm sorry. I'm kind of it is very recent that I returned and I met so many beautiful people when I was there I witnessed bullying by soldiers of little girls that only wanted to cross the street. I witnessed racism, apartheid and other atrocities. I was staying in a place where we could hear the planes going over when the cease fire was broken and the palestinians would just respond with somebody is going to die in gaza today. You can help change that. Please do. Thank you. Michael albrecht followed by jennifer foley tolbert followed by brian and reverend darryl myers. Welcome, sir. Good evening, MR. Mayor. City council members and staff my name is michael albrecht. I have a one five zero los altos drive in district six and I come here tonight to talk to you on behalf of st. Mark's school. it's actually pretty good to see most of you from saturday as well. So thank you very much. Our request on behalf of st. Mark's school is to allow the school temporarily located on the campus of a pasadena high school to operate it in the school village without the burden of the fire sprinkler systems that are being required on the portable buildings which are being used for a temporary campus. I'm asking the city council to use the emergency powers granted by the governor from the fire to allow for exceptions to the current of municipal code if possible I'd like the city council to take this up this evening but if not to put this on the agenda for the JUNE twenty third meeting and most importantly I'm here to ask that city treat all the schools inside the boundaries of city possibly and equally by way of background st. Mark's school schools a preschool through sixth grade originally founded in altadena and on JANUARY 7th it burned to the ground from the fire the preschool's temporarily located at a church in san gabriel and the decay through six is in a village as previously stated at a high school here in pasadena there will be a couple of people behind me to finish with the comments. I'm not able to get to the village was designed by architects, a firm that specializes in school design. Pj understood the village will be temporary or would be for temporary occupancy which is defined as less than three years. As such followed the design codes the vision of state architects to allow for quick is design and implementation of temporary buildings. The dsa specifically allows for temporary buildings on a school site to be built without any type of mr olbrich time is expired. Thank you very much. Lastly I asked the clerk to circulate a document prepared by the architect that verifies saying thank you. We have to thank you mayor. I don't think we can take this up tonight because it's not on the agenda but I wasn't aware we've some of us on the council I think of an interest in this issue. I wasn't aware of the state legislation that public school campuses are exempt from the requirement that's imposed on an independent school. So can can we get the city attorney to analyze that? And I'd be willing to support a similar exemption if that's the case. We can certainly look into this issue tomorrow at edtech there's a discussion of some of the various emergency remediation we're taking around building permits and fees and the like. Do you think someone could take a look before the committee tomorrow? We can look I don't know that we'll have an answer, ok? That's all we can do is ask the bank harder issue because there are a lot intricacies, especially when you look at school district property versus other property laws. Understood. Thank you. Yeah I and it's different for fire safety code versus structure and architecture and so be interested to see what staff comes back with you. Jennifer folie tolbert followed by brian wholely followed by reverend darrell meyers then michael flynn welcome. Thank you. Good evening MR. Mayor. City council members and staff my name is jennifer foley tolbert. I work at one five zero five e howard street where I serve as the head of school at st. Marks. Just to clarify, the dsa specifically allows for all temporary buildings on the school site to be built without fire sprinklers so long as each of the buildings has been approved by dc and the site plans separates the buildings in a way approved by the dse which includes a fire safety review and we provided a handout as michael referenced earlier as far as the pasadena code is concerned currently pasadena municipal code does not differentiate between temporary and permanent structures like the state code and other cities an unintended consequence of not providing this differentiation is the assumption that all structures are to be built in a permanent manner in times of crisis like this one, this lack of differentiation does not make sense to us. The fire chief has stated that it is the city council's prerogative to change the code whether on an emergency or a permanent basis to allow for temporary buildings to be exempt from fire sprinklers on the financial impact as we all know, the eaton fire has been an enormous burden on everyone affected by the disaster both directly and indirectly. St. Marks has already had to spend over one point three million dollars to create this temporary village in addition to donated services and materials from countless individuals and companies. In addition, we're all well aware of the difficulty that individuals and entities no different than st. Marks have had to endure in receiving insurance funds for their losses. The installation of a fire sprinkler system would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the design and installation all for something that is intentionally designed to be temporary. That estimate assumes that there's an adequate water supply to tap into for any system and if not there would be additional completely unknown expenses to increase your time has expired. Thank you for your coverage MR. Obata stobart unquestioned. Oh you go back to the mike who was watching her. Thank you very quick your preschool is in san gabriel. Are you also in temporary structures here we are. Well, we're in we renovated a couple of classrooms there that we're able to use and an underwritten world preschool facility was the requirement the same in san gabriel? No, because it's a permanent structure and so we joined an operation and all existing preschool. Thank you. Thank you, brian followed by reverend darryl meyers followed by michael flynn and billy payne. Katerina guia, MR. Walsh, welcome. Thank you very much. Good evening, MR. Mayor. City council members and staff my name is brian wolly. I live at one four six eight north chester avenue. MR. Cole's district and I'm here tonight to talk about on behalf of st. Marks I am the board chair at st. Marks. I will be brief given that MR. Albrecht MRS. Tolbert has already given a lot of the information. At the end of the day we're asking to be treated equally. We're asking to be treated equally to other schools in pasadena. We're asking for relief from a code that as applied does not make sense in our current situation and it's hard to imagine that it is safe for one set of students to attend classes in a temporary building that does not require fire sprinklers but it is not safe for another set of students in the exact same situation. The end of the day my job fiduciary responsibility in long term planning and strategic planning for st. Mark's school and I very much appreciate all of you taking this under advisement. Thank you very much sir. I don't want to belabor this because it's not on the agenda but I had planned to at least raise the issue for us to pursue when we talked about the waiver of fees because I later on in this meeting this is the temporary location is in my district. Talk to the fire chief. I understand his concerns but I also think that the administration of the school are just as committed to the safety of their charges as our chief is to making sure that we protect kids in our schools so I join COUNCILMAN Madison and hoping that we can take this up and hear both sides and make a decision. Reverend darryl meyers father michael flynn followed by billy payne then katerina guia who's just being virtually smyers. Good evening, MR. Mayor and city council. Thank you very much. I'm here as a presbyterian minister, retired after 40 years and in southern california and campuses as well on behalf of speaking for divestment from companies enabling the decades long oppression, human rights denial and frequent attacks on palestinian people both christians and muslims in what we call the holy land. And for the last two decades our general assembly has called for divestment from such as caterpillar and israel bonds. Decades earlier in south africa they had this problem the apartheid system and finally there were calls for divestment and that system finally failed and there was freedom once liberated from that apartheid system, archbishop desmond tutu spoke out having visited the occupied palestinian territories and he said quote I've been to the occupied palestinian territories. I've witnessed the racialist segregated roads and housing that reminded me of much of the conditions and we have experienced in south africa under the racist regime of apartheid. The situation in the occupied palestinian territories today is much worse. And since he said that it is much, much worse. I urge you the grace of GOD divest these companies that are causing this terrible human calamity to the people of palestine. I've been there 27 times including six times in gaza who are wonderful people, wonderful people despite our media. Please, please for the sake of GOD have a humane spirit toward these people and say we don't want any part of investing in this tragedy. Thank you. Michael flynn followed by bailey payne by katerina here. MR. Flynn, welcome. Thank you. My name is michael flynn. I am a graduate student at caltech and I'm with pessina for palestine divestment coalition. After my statement I will be delivering this letter in response to last week's comments to the city via the sergeant at arms last week the city council said that the city owned no investments in boeing, caterpillar or chevron. This is incorrect. The city's fire and police retirement system is invested in all three of these companies and others profiting off of genocide in gaza. These investments are made through the vanguard institutional index fund of the t. Rowe price institutional large cap growth fund as of SEPTEMBER 2024 when the data was reported, the total investment in boeing caterpillar and chevron was one hundred six thousand dollars 600 106 100000 dollars 625. If our issue is agenda we are prepared to provide a strategy for divesting from these particular companies without impacting the pension systems overall investment in these index funds. The council also stated that the fire and police retirement board are independent entities from the city council. This too is misleading. The city council appoints and controls a majority of the board if they refuse to divest the city council has the authority to remove and replace members with people who will. This is exactly what the city council threatened to do in 1988 when the police and fire department pension board refused to divest from apartheid south africa. The council can also pass resolutions recommending divestment which the city council did in 1986. We are simply asking asking the city council to act with the same moral clarity as they did in the 1980s. Then it stood against apartheid south africa. Now we ask you to take a stand against apartheid and genocide in israel and palestine. Thank you. Daily pain followed by katerina gear. Well it was one thing if you've heard your name please step forward katerina's oh ok. Ok thank you. Hi I'm bailey payne district three. I'm a graduate student at fuller seminary two blocks that way and I'm a member at first up as pessina two blocks that way I'm here to request to the council make a recommendation to the board of the fire and police system to abide by its own ethical investment policy and divest from companies that are profiting from and enabling the genocide in gaza. A brief recap of what's happened in gaza recently. Four months ago israel blocked aid and food from getting into the bombed out and fertile ground of gaza almost a month ago they started allowing only a organization that's backed by the us and israeli forces to distribute food. The un had to refuse to work with jeff because they said that he knowingly cannot meet the territory's demands and is using aid as a weapon. Sadly, this morning is the most horrific case of this so far as for gazans who are starving coming for food were shot down and killed by israeli soldiers just this morning jeff, again that is the U.S. And israel or aid organization says that the problem isn't that they just don't have enough food but you and I know that if there's money for bullets to go through bodies, there's money for food to go in bellies. So the question I have for you as in whatever responsibility or power you think you do or do not have is would you rather continue to place the moral injury upon our city's employees by building a retirement on bombed out bloodied and starved shriveled up gazan bodies or would you rather recommend that the fire and police retirement system place its investments elsewhere in generative socially conscious investments? Katerina hi this is katerina here. Can you hear and see me? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Greeting city council and mayor . My name is katerina haya and I'm a resident of pasadena district five. I am here to ask that the city agenda is the divestment from caterpillar, chevron and boeing and the fire and police retirement system. I am the pastor of pasadena mennonite church but today I speak to you as a new mother and if my video were on you could see my infant daughter on my here with me when I nurse her I pray for the mothers of gaza who have no milk to feed their children children in gaza are starving while the us continues to invest in their destruction. According to pbs news, more than 9000 children have been treated for malnutrition as of MAY. That's just this year and food security experts say that tens of thousands of cases are expected in the coming months. Nearly seventeen thousand pregnant and breastfeeding women need treatment for acute malnutrition. A friend who arrived as a refugee to our area from gaza still has family members who are trapped there and she tells me that her son spends all day looking for firewood just to cook a handful of lentils. She says that her grandchildren cry out to her over her cell phone pleading for bread. Her daughter is dizzy from malnutrition and suffers from daily nosebleeds. She says that going to a food distribution center is badly just shared means risking their lives. So I want to ask you today whose life has more value the life of me and my child as pasadena residents or the lives of mothers and children in gaza whose life matters more decisions about where we invest as a city, our moral decisions about whose lives have value and I want to live in a city that refuses to profit from genocide and apartheid and that upholds the lives of all children from palestine, from palestine to pasadena. Thank you. That completes public comment on matters not on the agenda. thank you. We'll move on to the consent calendar. Is there an alternative is we motion the consent calendar. We did receive a couple of letters related to consent items five and six one letter advocating for the city council to not authorize contracts that will not decrease the city's ghg emissions and provided comments on the matter one letter advocating it's the same letter and they commented on both five and six. So that letter was posted online distributed to the council as part of the record for those two items. Thank you. I'll move the mayor later. The mood I like to pull five and six votes separately so we'll all five and six. MR. Cool, I'd like to speak to one or two three and six. Ok, I guess we're holding the consent calendar so is there a second and the remainder so hold on a second. What's yes. So two three six and two three five and two three five and six are held the remainder and that was by COUNCILMAN Massouda second time. MR. Madison, are there any objections? See none of the consent five and six mystikal number two. Thank you, mayor. I'll be brief to three and six are all contracts that I substantively have no concern about. The fact is we need the materials and the bids appear to be responsive. But in all three cases we have a single bidder that's different from a sole source where there's only one bidder who can deliver a service that can be controversial but this is a case where anyone theoretically could bid and we had only one bidder. I'm concerned about five and seven year contracts where you have only one but we're basically locking in a contract with people some of whom probably already are doing business with for an extended period of time. I think when we have only a single bidder we should shorten the window of time. But I understand the staff because I raised this beforehand. I understand the staff has an explanation for why we only have one bidder. But just as a policy matter I'm uncomfortable at a time of extreme fiscal constraints committing ourselves to essentially a monopoly contract with a bitter for as much as five or seven years. I would be comfortable with moving forward on these for a shorter period of time but I think we should probably hear from the staff member and let's hope changes don't scare off our single vitters. Let's let's hear from the staff . Good evening, mayor. Vice mayor. My name's greg dominque. I remember city council my name is greg to think the public works director I can talk to items two and three. The other is in public works but the items for those two contracts they pretty much are in one case they're the only vendor available to do that work in the state and the other one is the sole source supplier for the the products that serve our trash truck. So they do labor and parts any other competitor would still have to get their parts through them. So I think that kind of encourages them not to bid. It's a little bit the way our agenda reports are written. We list how many people pulled the plans and how many people bid and that I think is a little confusing because pulled the plans the vast majority of them are not qualified contractors are bidding the work. There are people interested in tracking contracts, monitoring labor advertising. So in both these cases it's not unusual. We have only one proposal and I do have thanos, our deputy director who is much more intimately familiar with our solid waste contracts, who can speak more in detail of these two vendors. They do have a long history serving our solid waste and street sweeping equipment. One of them is parts and labor for repairs and the other is for lubing the trash trucks. We've had experience when contracts have lapsed and we've stopped those services and it led to much higher increases in broken parts in the inside the the packer blade and the arms that left the trash cans. So we do need these services and if you have specific questions as to why there's only one thing I can address. I actually think mr doing that as responsive again I have no concern about the substance of these contracts but I do have a deep concern about being tied to a single bidder forever and expecting that we're going to get a competitive price, a reasonable price just on the basis that well they're the only people that exist and I raised the same issue about some of our software contracts where we have entered we've bought a certain kind of software and then if we want to have any kind of work done in conjunction with that, there is only one authorized regional vendor that's allowed to do that in a free enterprise system when you are at the mercy of a single bidder for years at a time that is not a recipe for getting good prices and we're talking here on these three contracts about three million three hundred and twenty thousand dollars and that's over several years admittedly. But I'm not going to make a stink about these so much as I want to make it clear. MR. City manager, I would like to see us before we issue bids to buy trash trucks or fire trucks or software to wonder are we going to end up having to pay that company for decades? An exclusive contract on services and parts and labor because if we are I think we ought to take that into consideration when we're buying fire trucks and trash trucks and what have you and that's really my concern. And again, it's not criticism of your professionalism or your work. It's a criticism of being stuck with having to pay potentially through the nose because there's only one bidder out there and we're at their mercy. So I hope I've made my point again. My goal is not to question you or these particular contracts but this is serious money and when you look at how this pattern I've seen this pattern over and over again now especially on software and I think we ought to take into consideration as we have tight budget times as we're going to be talking about later on this meeting that we need to be thinking about ways if there's a way to get a trash truck that doesn't have to go to one single bidder to to fix it and that's the kind of trash trucks we ought to think about buying. Thank you. These are issues we've struggled with in the past. I understand the the issue. MR. Marquez, thank you. Mayor and customer michael. I agree with the concern. You know, procurement is tough . It's difficult. I used to oversee a procurement department. I can assure you that we do go to conferences and talk to our fellow jurisdictions about all of these challenges. I think largely it depends on the market. Sometimes it makes sense when there's just a single bid to accept it depending on the market. Sometimes we reject when we get a single bid if it's out of line and you know, I think it's absolutely right if you're running yourself in a way that you're dependent on one vendor, they're going to have the bargaining. So we're well aware of that. But I think, you know, as a rule it just depends on what's out in the market, what the best procurement methodology and length of contract and all that might be and we'll do our level best to do the ultimate outcome that we're talking about here which is the same dollars and we're contracting for services. We hear that loud and clear and we'll continue to work. Let me make just a suggestion and again my goal is not to to hold of the meeting or to question these particular contracts but I would be more comfortable if we developed a policy that where there genuinely is a sole source. Right. We're stuck. Let's not go through a complicated bidding process that's really for show and not for anything realistic. And let's bring forth the sole source and let's not enter into these kind of contracts unless there's a genuine reason for sole source for more than four years that would be and I'm not expecting we to us to to apply it to this issue. An rfp for five years. We can abide by that. But I would like to not decide tonight but I would like you to come back and see if there aren't policy issues where we can better protect ourselves and be more proactive at trying to discourage us being painted into the corner of being at the mercy of an individual contractor or exclusive provider. With that I yield. I think it's always a healthy discussion to have your procurement policy review. Maybe it's something we can take up a finance committee in the first instance but you know, it's it's complicated particularly when you're buying equipment that isn't generally purchased by the the public and it's specialized equipment. You know, not everybody's running around buying trash trucks as an example of fire trucks and so often you end up with single bidders or sole source bidders in these situations. So what we can bring up at finance and review the procurement policy. So that's the are you moving to me? I'm happy you're happy. I am prepared to support these contracts despite my reservations. So that's emotion. So moved there. I just had a quick follow up question so the city doesn't have a sole source contracting policy? Oh no it does. It just disappears to be essentially a sole source. That's what we're being told. Ok, we received a single bid. So in the procurement world there's sole source where you're deciding to pick a vendor for a particular reason. There's a single source where you're saying there's only in the world one person who can deliver this and then there's a single which these are examples of where we did an rfp and only received one single bid as a single bid. Yeah, correct. That's why we put it out competitively and that's what I was what I was saying and I'm not sure whether you're clarifying the staff or me but but if if we know that there's only one bidder out there it's going to bid and that's I think what we're being told on at least one of these contracts essentially that is a sole source. Yeah. Mayor MR. And I brought these points up before and so I appreciate the COUNCILMAN Will go on a lot. A lot and I was happy to bring it up tonight and I'm glad he bought it otherwise I'd be, you know, targeted for speaking too long but very quick as quick as I can be. I do think that we need to start looking at the materials and equipment that we purchase, whether it be software, whether it be trucks etc. And look at the proprietary equipment that is connected to it because we buy a trash truck, a fire truck etc. That has proprietary it is essentially a sole source. It's just at this point we're just now just going through the motions and saying ok, we're going to do a bid so it looks for the general but it's proprietary equipment. We can't buy it from anywhere else. So we should look at the the trucks that we purchased and see if there's any equipment on it that is open so that everybody has a fair opportunity to bid on these maintenance etc. Or even trucks you we just a couple of seconds sorry if I MAY for just a couple of seconds. We actually made these purchases for these trucks because we know that we have a warranty vendor that covers the body and the chassis and we have four different vendors, two different style sees two different style bodies and they're all in southern california. They are local in a sense that they're in whittier, the manufacturer of ringaskiddy service is technically the only distributor and warranty repair for the body style that we are seeking to have a five year contract for which by the way happens to be the second best body in the refuse industry. The first best is crane carrier and they are in monrovia so without you could probably go to another vendor. But if he's going to buy all the material from ray gasc_n and mark it up whereas ray gasc_n only works on new way bodies so that is sort of the sole source type mentioned in that particular agenda report. Thank you for that clarification. Ok, I didn't hear the motion I'm sorry I was brief to to read we did not discuss number six that's police department vehicles but so two and three is the motion two and three. that's what I do want to add to that. MR. Hamdard separate questions. Ok, so COUNCILMAN Cole made the motion COUNCILMAN Jones, this is for item two and three for the staff recommendations. Ok, any objections seen on those matters approved as it relates to five and six, mr hampton? Perfect. Thank you. And go to item five. So are we increasing the amount that was originally purchased? The staff report doesn't say how many were original. Hold on a sec. Thank you gary peters and civil matter boston police department support services division. So the what we're asking is to increase the amount of the original purchase order which was listed on there by two hundred thousand. So the vehicles are already purchased at this point we're just paying more for the outfitting of vehicle vehicles are leased leased. I'm so sorry that they're already here though. They're already here. Vehicles are leased. The this lease started in twenty twenty so this is a replacement of the first batch of leases because that was part of that five year contract. Ok, um in moving the first batch of leases to the next batch leases we had to take equipment from one car, move it to the other and that presented quite a bit of problems for the outfitters but before that the outfitters we were having a problem getting an outfitter. so there were a lot of delays that came up with this process that pushed us into six months extra of having hanging on to the original bachelor leases which is where the two hundred thousand dollars came from in the leases. So the cars, the lease cars we already have. Yes, this is only basically for the outfitting no not just the outfitting. It's for also the paying for the leases that we have extended for six months. That makes sense. Yeah, definitely that clarifies it a lot. But it does say that these vehicles are nonenforcement vehicles. That's correct. They're not the black and whites. They're not patrol cars so they're not enforcement. They're usually driven by the other non enforcement areas whether they're admin services, other management positions that maybe within the police department and you mentioned in the staff report that there were some vehicles lost due to the fire we lost to durango to the fire. So they're all parked up at the range. Have they been replaced? Not yet in those two durango since we will be replacing those domingo's and those are non enforcement vehicles do that's correct. Since they're not enforcement vehicles, why are they out of there are not it is because in the original contract that we piggybacked from the twenty twenty you're twenty twenty. We were limited in the options that we could choose from because the contract listed specific vehicles these were not listed in there when we go to do the new lease contract later this year or later on in the next fiscal year we're definitely listing evey's as vehicles we can choose from. Perfect. Thank you. Those are some of the questions that I had prepped for item six . Oh ok. Thank you mr motion. Thank you commander. It's not I think there's still questions on item six. No no no questions. Ok well because they're not on ivs I voted no on these originally and I will continue that so whoever wants to I can vote on it motion. All right. That completes the circle. I'll second your MR. Harris that he's going to vote again. Thank you to that once MR. Cole years ago but well history always repeats. Ok, I'm a no on it because I'm not so MR. Hampton makes a motion I look forward to the next list. DR. Cole seconds in and objection. What was paul little who did that? Yeah, it was paul little so it MAY be so easy to confuse us so we have yeah he he was MR. Hampton's making motion so so MR. Ham to make some motion and are there objections right now MR. Hampton objects have to make all in favor of except for MR. Hampton. Right. All right. I think the difference was MR. Little seriously wanted the motion to pass when you started blocking at some point later he argued you vehemently argued for ok so that that consent the consent calendar and we will move on to item thirteen there because item twelve is related item fourteen. So we'll take those up together and so we're doing the public hearing for bungalow seven actually mayor, I'm going to recuse myself on this I to say on property within bungalow heaven I will step outside for this item. Ok, thank you. Thank you. You just used left and it's samir. This is the this is the time and place for the public hearing on approval on an application to amend the bungalow having conservation plan on JUNE 2nd twenty twenty five one thousand twenty seven postcards were mailed and two hundred and two copies of the notes were were posted sorry I was looking for my sheet. Here we go. The city clerk's office received two letters in support of the proposed amendments to the bungalow having conservation plan and providing comments on the item. Those letters were distributed the council posted online are part of the record for this public hearing. Do we have public we have a number I was going to ask if i may have seen the staff report that this necessary one. Listen to the public comment. We have fourteen public comments speakers maybe we should have the presentation at I'm not sure if they're in favor or against I think that the are in favor the speakers are in favor. Well, but well maybe we should go to member whose district it is for school. Um well this at first could we understand why this is quasi judicial or legislative just I think it's legislator that's my understanding. So this has gone through multiple reviews is relatively innocuous certainly has been overwhelmingly non-controversial and so I don't know that we need to have 14 people support it if if their only concern is that we are not going to be supportive ourselves, I certainly I am supportive of it. Um and so I I think we could move through this relatively quickly. But again I respect dissenting views from the public if there are such but this is gone through a and exhaustive process. Do we need a full presentation or should we just ask that the public why don't we see if there are dissenting views and if the council has questions? Yeah, mayor, just remind everyone it's fine to signal but we should give people the opportunity to speak. Sure. Maybe we can ask those in support and who submitted a car to step forward if you would like to make a statement and if you were not in support, certainly step forward or are or wavelet or or maybe we have a one or two speakers who will speak on behalf of olival so I could call the names and then if you just say you're in favor and don't want to speak you can say that or if you want to speak then please step forward just glover for follow by aaron glover john ripply annette ason ,lysa billington, mark clifford, jennifer fox denvir miller mike sackett, nicholas giovanna's martin is anybody going to step forward on behalf of the group? Yes come on come on down. All right so just come forward and say please if you heard your name and you wish to speak justin glover we support great waves in support for the aaron glover waves in support john ripley I'm here to speak for the applicants but if you don't need to hear that a little presentation I can I can pass on it. You're in support. Absolutely. Ok, and that jason jason. Hi. I'm just here to of course support and to thank everybody who has spent two years exhaustively working on this, especially the uh the conservation amendment committee of the bungalow have a neighborhood association which was john eppley, tina miller, juan de la cruz and kripalani. I think that they deserve so much of our gratitude. Thank you. we the council joins joins you and thanking all involved particularly the individuals who you named lysa billington. I support mark clifford. I support jennifer fox. I support the great denver miller solely because I worked with them. You sure denver mike sackett I support also supports nicholas giovanna's german nazi sorry I apologize also supports martin rateliff on carol polanski I support all just supports jessica richards and tina miller for that completes public comment on this item. MR. Mayor, if for for the record everyone's name who was called signaled and stated that they are in support MR. Cool MR. Mayor I think it would be helpful just for the staff to simply say the three things basically that that are here that I'm prepared to to close to a public hearing. Ok, bullet points the slide up as well. Sure. I mean just fast forward through this. So in summary, the three proposed amendments as part of this application include extending the period of significance to nineteen fifty six. Originally the period of significance was marked as turn of the century through the nineteen thirties which we presume to be nineteen thirty nine. So extending the period of significance would include buildings up to nineteen fifty six that would include minimal traditional and ranch style bungalows that are representative of the third wave of development of this neighborhood. The second proposed amendment includes language updates to the conservation plan to recognize the 2004 expansion of the district and to align with the twenty twenty one revision to the historic preservation ordinance and the last amendment or I guess addendum is includes providing a formal list of contributing and noncontributing properties for the city to reference and the public to reference based on the updated period of significance. So with that I'll move we close the public so thank you moved and seconded and again thank you to everyone involved. Are there any objections to closing the public hearing? See, non public hearing is closed on the merits. MR. Cool. Thank you MR. Mayor. I'll be brief again. We've heard from the brief public comment and we would have heard from our staff this was an exhaust of process not only in terms of the length and the depth of study but also in terms of the public outrage when when you're talking about people's homes they immediately want to know how is this going to affect me, my neighbors, my community and the un will have a neighborhood association. The people that have been named our staff of the commission all went the extra mile to inform and dialog with folks. The fact that we have 14 people here speak in favor and none who are opposed I think is indicative of just how careful and thoughtful process this was . This was our city's first historic district. The law was passed really assume that some of the ones with the more grand architecture in the south and part of our city or in the around the arroyo would be the first to step forward. But it was the modest homes built mainly for working families and middle class families in the twenties, the teens, the 20s in the 30s and now as we as we recognize into the fifties um and this neighborhood has a unique sense of not the most famous national architects but a very coherent um, set of of architectural gems that were meant for ordinary people. And so I'm proud to support this and I move that we make these amendments to the plan so moved and seconded see no one else in the queue again let me just say thank you. This is consistent with what we set out to do in creating landmark districts and as someone who lives in the orange heights landmark district, I really applaud all of you for taking the steps, setting the tone for the rest of the city to do the same in so many other landmark districts have been born after bungalow seven again after bungalow having set that tone and it's part of what makes our neighborhoods great in our city even greater and an example that many other communities not just in california but throughout the country in the world look to so thank you all very much and we have emotion in a second and why don't we have a roll call? COUNCILMAN Mccall. COUNCILMAN Hampton. Yes, COUNCILMAN Yes. COUNCILMAN Lyon. Yes. Comes from madison. Yes. COUNCILMAN Masuda yes. Basically reavis is absent due to recusal. Mayor gordo yes. Motion is unionize unanimously approved. Good job everyone. Thank you. Next next item oh do we have the so now we're going to do items fourteen and twelve I guess concurrently this is the opening or reopening of the public hearing on the city manager's recommended operating budget be given a bit of a script and I'll try just to make it brief the staff report point presentation on this agenda item will be divided into several sections. First staff will provide a presentation on the city's operating budget following that presentation after answering any questions from the city council, the council will then take public testimony on this public hearing item after the staff presentation for public comment, city staff will seek the council's approval on the operating budget by way of segments and this is due to recusals by a number of council members in order to ensure city council members do not participate in making a decision for which they have conflicts in adopting the operating budget. The operating budget will be divided into three segments and that's following according to the segmentation rules provided by the npc. So the recusal of the first segment will involve the mayor, mayor gordo and council roehampton related to the approval of the rent stabilization department budget mayor gordo and COUNCILMAN Hampton will be recusing themselves at that point and and will leave the dyas recusal of the second segment involves council member jones involving measure w. Funds and COUNCILMAN Jones will be recusing himself along with the mayor and with customer hampton during the first segment. During the first segment all three will recuse out and then according to the rules of the npc as their segment is acted on then the council member that was recused on that segment if it's approved then can come back MR. Jones will come back after both those two segments and then there will be a adoption of the overall operating budget and then approval of the resolution can just open up the door and get me I will. I was looking for you by the way several pages. I brought that down to a smaller amount. So mayor, we have open the public hearing. We don't have any new correspondence. All the correspondence that we've reported out has been distributed to the council posted online and part of the record with this public hearing we're going to need a traffic control agent in ok, this is this has been a matter of discussion council committees and here at council and we'll turn over to MR. Marquez for thank you. Thank you, mayor. I'm going to make just a couple of opening comments to let the council know that I'm pleased to put forward this recommended budget for your consideration. It is a balanced budget which in today's times says something of itself and also to note that it only makes very modest increases only where necessary. You know, we have about a billion dollar operating budget and really we only had about one point three dollars million as you'll see in the detailed presentation that's to come before you to really try to meet so many needs that were far greater than one point three dollars million. But it was a budget that I want to emphasize is subject to great uncertainty out in the economy, out in our federal partners, with our federal partners and frankly with our state partners. There are some changes that have been coming about in the state side would you know discussions between the state legislature and the governor about how to finance the state's piece of what they're doing and how that impacts us? That's that's all subject to uncertainty. So you know, I've done many, many, many budgets at this point in my career but this was one of the toughest because of you know, we were able to find a way for this year's budget. But I think about it in a difficult way because we can see what's coming in years to come. We've talked a little bit about this before but I just want the council to understand that while we're putting before your recommended budget that's balanced, it has more modest increases. We also anticipate the need throughout the year to come back as this uncertainty becomes more certain over time and we'll have to pivot from time to time to make ends meet. But with that I'd like to turn it over to our finance director and acting assistant city manager matt foxworth will provide a very succinct but comprehensive review of our finances. Thank you. I appreciate that. Good evening. Mayor, vice mayor and city council. Some of these slides are slides that you saw at the beginning of MAY when we open the budget so I won't spend time diving into them but as MR. Marquez noted, we started with a one point three three dollars million surplus forecasted and as we presented in MAY we have not made any modifications to our recommendations. So there are some modifications to the fire budget and two hundred fifty five thousand for three quarter time health officer in the public health department public works was one hundred sixteen thousand for partial funding of three full time equivalent positions for stream or feed supplies and then independent police auditor contract that was a total of one point two million and changes which left in operating income forecast of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. This is a chart that I put together a number of years ago and we've brought it out a few times and my almost ten years here with the city. But I think that for us and the people that we talked to have done community presentations presenting it this way sometimes helps bring our three hundred and fifty to sixty million dollar general fund budget down to a human scale because three hundred and fifty million is of course a very a lot of money. But what does that mean on a per person or per department basis and so the numbers and the colors represented in this donut chart are the amount per month that goes to each department per person based on the population the current population number so that is little over two hundred and twenty dollars per person in the census per month or a little over two thousand six hundred and fifty dollars per year. And this is actually something that helps us to staff when we're looking at proposals and services and ideas when we talk about efficiency and scale and cost or whatever it is that we're implementing, this helps to quantify those things. And then on the right we've had some conversations during this budget process about comparative numbers over the years and so this is foia nineteen. It's the percentage of the general fund to each function and then the proposed fiscal year twenty six each department and that provides some context to what portion of the budget as a grown or has it shrunk or is it remained about the same for each function. There's one thing I wil note on here that stands out a couple of years ago we transferred to the park maintenance function from public works to the parks department and so you'll see that tre's a pretty significan sht in thos two departments and that's because we took a big chunk of puic works and moved it to parks a so so as a whole they're pretty eql. But you just looked a the comparon and rks wentrom four and a half t eight point to publicworks at the opposite way eig point seven do to fou point six and thas largelyecause of that shift in parksaintenance not a purposeful funng decision to greatly increae funding for one department ornother. And th reason why weo it I percentages it also hel show us how w MAY behifting priorities even on a sll scale over te to dedite more funding. But understaing that the budget dollars hav grown even ough a particur deparent's budget MAY he shrunk I mean sorry a particula department's amou MAY have gwn. The percenta of overall allocation hasshrunkso opportunitiesfor oneime revenue and ues again I'm not goin to spend a bunc of time on this becau this is the ame presentation tt we prented in MAY fire parks, housing the are the items that aed up to a littl over ten million dolla that we proposed earliern MAY which I lieve you are a familiar with and then some of the things tt we committed to comg back to having conversatio about with the council f tonight so feder funds a risk this s been put together with thestaff in the various deptments or fedel lobbyists. So the biggestone is section eight hoing vouchers note hre the propod reduion of forty three percentone t bignknowns is that on of the proposal by theresident is to tur this ino a block granthat's administered b the state. But perhaps mre importantly th it would establish a two yea time limit on renl asistance right now section eight can b ongoing ando the idea tt we could help seone t them into secti eight, lp them perhaps get them on eir feet or getob training or whatever I might be but it would turn in a vy limited term progr which is a complety different shift I progr delivery. So not onlys it a large dollar reducon proposed but it's also shift in poli and programdministration sectn eight loan arantees. It's a very sma component of our feral funding we do he a sectionne two eight loan thennual debt service of tha loan I 420000. We do have a debt reserve of approximatelyone year. So at thisf chebeagu was cut then we would lose our funding to make this dt service payment and then th city would be on the hook to me the debt service paent from another source o city funds. We puthese next three int the same categoryecause the federal proposalas the same recommendions. So I put theames of the grant and the acronym here bu it's a propose3 percen ruction. E proposal is toonsolidate all of these grant ograms against establhed two year time lits and thenere is some rerence the amount that's atstake e continuum of cre is th largest at just shy six millionollars for thesehree programs e hoppa andontinuum ofare home vestment partnersh that ogram is propod to be iminated in totali commuty developmentlock