City Council Meeting: May 22, 2023

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PUBLIC COMMENT INSTRUCTIONS

INSTRUCCIONES PARA COMENTARIOS PÚBLICOS

AGENDA

CITY COUNCIL AND

THE SUCCESSOR AGENCY TO THE

PASADENA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

MAY 22, 2023

Dinner Recess: 4:30 P.M.

Public Meeting: 5:30 P.M.

Public Hearings: 5:30 P.M.

Council Chamber, Pasadena City Hall

100 North Garfield Avenue, Room S249

DINNER RECESS

– 4:30 P.M.

PUBLIC MEETING – 5:30 P.M.

ROLL CALL, PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, AND CEREMONIAL MATTERS

PUBLIC COMMENT ON MATTERS NOT ON THE AGENDA

Public comment will be limited to a total of 20 minutes at the beginning of the meeting and will continue at the conclusion of the meeting, if necessary. Comments are limited to 3 minutes each, and the Mayor may limit this time if reasonable under the circumstances.

The City Council may not discuss or take action on issues not on the meeting agenda, except that members of the City Council or staff may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by persons exercising public testimony rights (Government Code Section 54954.2).

CONSENT CALENDAR

(The Consent Calendar consists of routine items which will be approved by one motion and one vote unless removed for separate discussion. There will be one opportunity for public comment on all consent items. Comments are limited to 3 minutes each, and the Mayor may limit this time if reasonable under the circumstances.)

City Manager/Executive Director

1. APPROVAL OF PASADENA ASSISTANCE FUND GRANT AWARDS FOR PROGRAM YEARS 2023 AND 2024 (Housing Dept.)

Recommendation :

It is recommended that the City Council:

(1)

Find that the recommended action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA") pursuant to State CEQA Guidelines per Section 15061(b)(3), the “common sense” provision that CEQA only applies to

projects that may have an effect on the environment; and

(2)

Approve the Pasadena Assistance Fund grant awards in the total amount of $100,000 for program years 2023 and 2024, as described in the agenda report.

2.

AUTHORIZATION TO AMEND CONTRACT NO. 31699 WITH DIXON RESOURCES UNLIMITED TO CONDUCT MORE OUTREACH AS PART OF THE CREATION OF A PARKING STRATEGIC PLAN (Transportation

but we're out enfundai isyo pll entire incident to be well investigated also their office stands by the use of force and foot pursuit being out of policy and as we've seen chief harris has continued what chief peress saying in regards to the dia report using the report as basically a legal protection to completely evade holding their department to their own policy . So in the end this is still your time timetable. They basically ok, I'll wrap it up. Thank you. They they basically are continuing to say well because it was legal what he did it doesn't we're not going to give like a thorough analysis of the policy because if it's legal it's within policy. But really contradicts their policy which is thoroughly documented in the review and and pretext stops. Thank you. Thank that that completes public comment on matters now on the agenda. Hey, so next we'll turn to the consent calendar. I'm going to recuse from item eight as I do work for liuna and so I work for and so I will recuse myself and allow the council to handle that matter separately. I'll turn it over to vice premier williams. Thank you, sir. Is there a motion on the consent calendar? We're just doing item eight only doing ok is our motion so move second. Ok motion the second all those in favor say ay ay any opposed . Ok so that passes unanimously. Ok so is there a motion on the consent calendar? Are there any public speakers. There are no public speakers but there is a letter that I report out for item five c clerk's office received a letter expressing concerns without with how much money expressing concerns with the staff recommendation and how much money has been spent on outside consulting services. That letter was distributed to the council posted online as part of the record for item number five. Is there a motion to approve the remainder of the consent calendar all second there you go. MAY or seconded ok do we need a roll-call vote? No, you can just hear ok so if there are any opposition perfect content calendars past that opposition for the record seconded that in the interest of time. What else was moved forward. Ok um next we'll move on to item we are on item fourteen fourteen this is the hearing to continue the this is a public hearing this is a time and place for the public hearing a technical amendment of the schedule of taxes, fees and charges for fiscal year twenty twenty four on MARCH thirtieth APRIL 6th and APRIL 13th. The public hearing notice was published in the passing a press note correspondence was received by the city clerk's office regarding this item and again this is a fairly routine matter and we can do a quick presentation and then move along. Thank you, mayor maddox for director finance for the city. With me is volkova naggar, analysts with the budget division before the council tonight is a public hearing to adopt the schedule of taxes, fees and charges for fiscal year twenty twenty four. I think it's important to clarify that we will also be coming back on JUNE 5th with the general fee schedule so the only items on this are the tax schedules which increase by cpi . There are no new new taxes proposed in this schedule nor are there any deviations from the normal cpi increase in this schedule. So as you noted earlier, it is a routine thing that we do each year. Beanca can give a presentation if that's all the council or we can just respond to a question. I mean we we looked at this last week correct on unless my colleagues want to have a presentation I'm willing ready to move this ok and close the public and close the public hearing. Sorry about closable. It was a regular item of the council last week and then it has to be a public hearing the following week. It's unique california and so that's why this is back. If you're feeling a little deja vu, it's it's exactly that. So with that there's emotion. Is there a second second to close a public hearing? Yes. And now on the merits, do you want to announce is there anybody in position to close one? Oh yeah. Anybody opposed to closing the public hearing? Ok, you know so public is closed now on the merits a motion to move for a second again moved and seconded any any opposition? No. So the matter is approved. Thank you. Wonderful presentation. Thank you very much and again so the public understands that this was the matter that was before us last week and this is now the public we have to prove it in a public hearing, not a public hearing. The schedules next we'll move to item fifteen and item fifteen is another public hearing. Another public hearing. Mr clarke, thank you. This is the time and place for the public hearing on approval of the annual action plan. Twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four and related funding application for the community development block grant home investment partnership act and emergency solutions grant on APRIL 20th twenty twenty three and MAY in 2023 the public hearing loss was published in the past the journal no response was received regarding this item. Thank you mr mayor. Members of the council this is a an annual item that the housing department brings to the committee. This is to basically to approve the annual action plan for the coming year for the expenditures of city funds and just as importantly maybe more importantly to submit the city's application to hud for for funding under the three entitlement programs for which we receive very important dollars including the community development block grant, the home investment partnership act funds and the emergency solutions grant programs. With that I'm going to hand it over to my colleague randy matheson who will walk through the powerpoint presentation. Thank you. Good evening, mayor. City council MS. Randy mattson's program coordinator for the housing department go to the next slide . Thank you. Uh, this presentation is regarding the submission. Thank you. Submission of the uh two thousand twenty three annual action plan for projected uses of the community development block grant emergency solutions grant and home investment partnership act. This is the fourth year of the uh, fourth year plan to address the efforts made towards accomplishing goals in the city's five year consolidated plan. Uh, the public comment period started APRIL 20th. To date we have not received any comments. Uh, we are eleven project proposals for use by city funding totally just uh totaling just over two point two million dollars. We have six public service projects and four city projects including masche and ada improvements at villa park for home. Uh which is our affordable housing program funds. We are really excited to relaunch our single family rehab loan program in SEPTEMBER . Uh, the home enhancement loan program provides up to one hundred thousand dollars at one percent simple interest with deferred payments for twenty years next we have our uh, homeless programs to provide shelter and homeless prevention services totaling over one hundred eighty seven thousand dollars. Yeah, this table shows the goals for each program category related to the five year consolidated plan. We plan to rehab seventeen owner occupied single family houses uh at least five persons through the public services. Forty six persons through homeless services and over nineteen thousand passantino residents look to benefit from our plan to infrastructure and public facility improvement projects. This table shows a breakdown of the funding available for these specific projects. We have our normal annual allocations and a little extra we're taking from city big program income and unspent home funds from previous years totaling three million three hundred fifty four thousand four hundred eighty three dollars. The recommendation uh recommendations have no direct fiscal or indirect fiscal impact. The funds are considered as revenue in the proposed fiscal year. Twenty four operating budget for the housing department. His review of the recommended nations and we're open to any questions that you MAY have. Thank you, MR. Madison. Is in the queue. MR. Madison. Thanks, mayor. I appreciate the presentation. This is something we do every year and I just have to confess this year I was surprised and it MAY not be it MAY be my failing that I just haven't noticed the trend. But what I remember traditionally is that we're used to a number of nonprofits in the community and it looks like this year there are only three and it accounts for five percent of the allocation and it looks like most of the money is going to the city and maybe again maybe this is just a trend that that has been occurring over over time. But I do want to make sure that we're being transparent about that and that you I think also there's and I know you know, I yield to nobody in my support of this department and the great work that you do but I think is just as a matter of process if a department comes in and presents on a on our rich federal program, I know it's not as rich as it used to be and it seems as though most of the money is coming back to that program. You should just make sure that we're giving a full explanation about that. Thank you, council member. Basically you're correct. Randy can talk about the the service versus hard projects use. Yeah. So the regulations allow us to allocate up to fifteen thousand dollars I mean fifteen percent of our annual allocation we do uh issue a notice of funding availability to the community and they do submit applications this year we had uh four uh nonprofits that were selected uh that uh submitted eligible applications were selected and reviewed. Uh we are uh setting aside fifty thousand uh to contribute to our fair housing program which currently there our rfp out now for fair housing. This is something that we in the past haven't contributed public service to um because we normally use our admin which is capped at uh I think we usually send about fifty thousand dollars for uh fair housing but we need to increase that amount due to the increased responsibilities from the housing element. Um so it is based off of the applications that we do receive from the community. Yeah maybe I if I MAY MR. Mayor, I want to ask my question about the staff. Go ahead. Yeah, I um because I had a follow up on there. Well yeah I mean because normally we see the organizations that have applied and then the ones that have been chosen and do we have that information? Uh, no we don't normally submit that information but we can provide you all the applications that we did receive eligible applications and the ones that were selected again, I want to be fair here. Maybe I just can't recall that there was some point in the past where we changed the way we do it but I definitely remember, uh, when we would approve this action plan, we would see all the applicants and we would have an understanding of the the priorities and the choices the staff made. So yeah, I seem to recall that as well. But that was quite some time to go and I looked at staff we finished well I just I haven't really got an answer to my question about, you know, how is this a trend? I mean I guess I'd ask the staff is this if we look back to four six years because most of the money just come right back to the city council member madison. I can't say that it's a trend intentional trend. Our experience has been that when we when we rfp the block grant dollars every two years the number of applicant have have come come down over the years. So that might account for your perception that fewer dollars are going to nonprofits and more to to city capital projects. Why would that be like I know the nonprofits are thirsty for resource size and you know we could probably each name five as we sit here that used to receive cdg monies and could use those moneys. So I'm just curious why that would be uh the conversations I've had with some nonprofits that did not apply for that. They uh have less capacity uh these days with employment, uh, getting good people and uh actually administer the program was a factor that was contributing to the the lack of applications that were received by my recollection. MR. Anderson is at some point in and I think that was a number of years ago we made a conscious decision as a council to to fund differently and in part it was also in response to some of the nonprofit saying look, you know, the the amount of money that's available to these grants, the return on investment, if you will in terms of the work that needs to be done under the federal guidelines one apply and then to or respond to the rfp and then to the monitoring requirements. We just didn't make sense to to many. But you're there was a point in time where the council would have public hearings right here and all the nonprofits would show up and lobby and it was it was tough to make those decisions for the council at the time because you know, you're right. I mean we have a lot of nonprofits. All of them are doing good work in one area or another. but it was I do recall it being a conscious decision to fund housing using these dollars and also just the number of people who were applying has dwindled over time as well. Mayor, again, how do we not how do we make this judgment without even knowing who the other applicants were who were not being recommended by staff ? These applications that were received go through an evaluation, a scoring committee with the housing staff and also selected members of the committee. But do we have that information? That's all I just think if we're going to approve that process we do not have the list of the applications that we receiving at this moment. And how many were there do we think how many nonprofit there were seven applications eligible patients that were received and we approved three of those four of are you counting the school district with me? Yes. Ok, so other than the school district there were three boys and girls club armenian relief society and reading partners of los angeles by the way there in pasadena. Just note to the board maybe change that name. You know, kind of hard for me to sit here and approve, you know, limited dollars to reading partners of los angeles . Right. We make sure that the the clients the monitoring are passing in the residence. So then it sounds like there were only three that weren't recommended for funding. Do you recall who they were? There was a coffee with a course uh flint rent-a-center which uh did receive a grant on a consent item from the pasadena assistance and I cannot recall the last one. Ok, know I mean I'd be I'd feel better approving these choices. You know, in a world of limited resources, every choice to do something is a choice to not do something else. So I certainly feel better if we at least have that in the record. And then I had one specific question about the section 108 loan repayment just kind of doing mental gymnastics of getting money that we're going to use it because I like that section when I was a hud program as well. So we're using this money to repay money that we received under a different program. The section went away loan is basically a hud chebeague block grant program. We're using cdg dollars from hud to pay on a section one only loan at that we use to to do the read jackie robinson center improvements. So was that always how we intended to find those improvements there? There were a number of funding sources for those improvements but the section one we went away was a very significant one the loan yes, the section. But then was it always our intent to repay the loan using cdg that's the way the program is set up. The section 108000 requires municipalities or jurisdictions use its chebeague entitlement annual entitlement dollars to pay down the debt service on that section one waiting room so there's no other way to repay a section want to loan other than not that I'm aware of no. The section when a loan is actually in advance of funds um and so we use that time to pay back over the 20 year period. Great. Thank you ma'am. I think that one will come back year over year because it's a long term commitment that we made on robinson park and so we'll see it again until what's the point of twenty thirty eight it's a long amortization period. Yeah, I have no doubt we would do it again today but we should be sure to call that out when we're making those commitments because that will represent a significant in this case it's a significant percentage of our available funding. So do you mean call it I think at the time we discussed it but you mean in this report? Well, no. I mean when we make that commitment that it should be made clear to the community that the way this works is now we're obligating a future stream of revenue funding revenue from chebeague that we won't be able to use for other things. Again, I want to be clear I'm sure we would have still done yeah. No and I think we had a long discussion about it. It was a long yeah. Well I was here when that happened. It was for the pool and I think we thought it was important that we had a pool in the area and of course the council member kennedy at the time was advocating for the pool as well as myself and I didn't I think it would have been nice to know like we use the cdb dollars that means that some of the other organizations like you that you mentioning you know the list because there was a long list it was a pretty extensive list that we were supporting and that these dollars would have dried up for those uses that were a little easier to work with because from my understanding those dollars were not as regulated as well. They were still regulated, just not as regulated as the dollars that they're applying for now they were the same but we were, uh we did maintain the public service use what we did take out from going to the public was the non public service dollars from non-profits which was being eaten up by these three payments. So in the past we gave out money for a nonprofit facility improvements which we no longer do because of this larger repayment. So it wasn't for services, it was for capital investment in our own in our own facilities to and I do recall it was was for the fall specifically we had a shortfall of about four million dollars for the recreation renovation. yeah. And we had a shortfall of about four million dollars million dollars. Yes. Six ok and we this was one way to dedicate dollars for facilities to our own municipally owned facility in a desperate in a town in a part of town that desperately needed this service. The swimming pool. And by the way, I'm happy to report that it sounds like the swimming is going to be open seven days a week and you know ,that's that's I'm looking forward to seeing that happen. Ok, but to MR. Madison's point, I think, you know, while we while we debated it then and and made the decision then it's probably always helpful just to even have a footnote. You know, the the why we set it aside just as a reminder, ok, motion to close the been moved. Is there a second second, second it and motion on the merits any opposition to closing the public hearing seen none on the merits. Some of them moved and seconded any opposition to the motion on the merits. See none of that matters approved. Look at that record time the just a brief report we had the rboc and today that finance committee and part of the report was it's a very upbeat report but we saw a tremendous event two events and some swift movement on the part of rboc and its staff. MR. Madison, did you want to report on the on the events in the arroyo? yeah, I mean it's it's almost on some level laughable, you know, with these wonderful music festivals we've had the just akhavan festival was just terrific around the board we got a few complaints about noise and I think I'm certainly not a sound engineer but it seems as though because of weather or other reasons, you know, like linda vista we didn't get I don't think any or maybe one complaint but we got complaints from eagle rock and from altadena, you know, from further away and truly I live in the neighborhood and I was listening and so there's something about the way sound travels especially with a cloud cover. Right. And and then with cruel world again terrific festival that was making its way toward the finish line. And then we had this certainly by my lights a very unique weather event and there are some amazing videotapes of the artists performing in lightning, you know, being so close it looks like you can reach out and touch and I tell you as a sometime golfer you would have to leave the golf course if you were playing golf and there were lightning that close. I think it was within maybe three miles think so the decision was made to first evacuate, take shelter and or evacuate and then to terminate the festival like literally pull the plug and then the decision was made to resume last night which was not the original plan. but my understanding is it went went down without a hitch again I got one noise complaint from eagle rock last night and some people have asked well what about displacement events and you MAY have covered this this afternoon but it falls within already approved number of displacement events for the music festivals of aeg which I believe is ten and this would bring us up to seven. So we're still within that approval and you know these things happen. But I think it was the right thing. A good I know you and I were consulting mayor with the rboc staff and the city manager. I think it was the right decision to do. It's always obviously MR. Hampton, his constituents are impacted again on this one. I think all of our constituents potentially you know but you know, it meant a lot to the promoter that we did that and I think saved some financial duress all the way around by being able to complete the festival. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I know we were in constant communication. I know MR. Hampton knew MR. Madison, the city manager myself and MR. Wagner at the rose bowl and I think with the input you know, it's it's never an easy decision when it comes to large events like that, you know, but certainly safety is first. But there was an opportunity to to move forward last night and you know, I just want to thank the public for being patient with us and allowing the rboc in the city to bring the rosebowl back in such a big way. You know, I think the biggest kouros goes to the residents who live in and around the the rose bowl in districts one six three and and we we ought to say express our gratitude and say thank you for for their patience and willingness to to carry the weight in mayor. If I can also just echo that gratitude. But MR. Weiden was here and talked about it and expressed his thanks to the fire department in the police department who did an extraordinary job. I just wanted to add one more. That's public health. They have to make sure the food that served is all in compliance and they had to come in on a sunday and extend the permits and make sure and they did that this food was safe for everyone. So it's a big team effort. Lots of good work done by all. So thank you. Ok, with that we will all entertain a motion to adjourn and that's the first motion to adjourn. I want to see if you guys are paying attention. I had to second the motion earlier. Well thank you. Without up without no objection. We are adjourned.