City Council Meeting: April 19, 2021

Council Meeting - April 19, 2021

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PURSUANT TO EXECUTIVE ORDER N-29-20 ISSUED BY GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM ON MARCH 17, 2020, THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING FOR APRIL 19, 2021 AT 4:30 P.M. WILL TAKE PLACE SOLELY BY VIDEOCONFERENCE/TELECONFERENCE.

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EN VIRTUD DE LA ORDEN EJECUTIVA N-29-20 EMITIDA POR EL GOBERNADOR GABIN NEWSOM EL 17 DE MARZO DE 2020, LA REUNI�N DEL CONSEJO MUNICIPAL DEL 19 DE ABRIL DE 2021 A LAS 4:30 P.M. TENDR� LUGAR �NICAMENTE POR VIDEOCONFERENCIA/TELECONFERENCIA.

Para facilitar la participaci�n del p�blico en reuniones realizadas �nicamente por medios electr�nicos, la Ciudad aceptar� comentarios del p�blico de la siguiente manera:

1. Durante la reuni�n, los miembros del p�blico pueden hacer comentarios p�blicos en vivo presentando una tarjeta de oratoria antes del inicio del comentario sobre el art�culo que se est� tratando en el siguiente sitio web:

www.cityofpasadena.net/city-clerk/public-comment

Si un orador de comentario p�blico desea hablar sobre m�s de un art�culo del orden del d�a, le solicitamos que lo indique en el formulario en l�nea (los oradores sobre art�culos m�ltiples se manejar�n seg�n el proceso publicado en la agenda y lo especificado en la pol�tica sobre las reuniones el Consejo Municipal). Los comentarios p�blicos se limitan a 3 minutos cada uno y el Alcalde y el Consejo Municipal pueden limitar este tiempo si lo consideran razonable para las circunstancias.

2.

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Si un orador de comentario p�blico necesita asistencia para completar su tarjeta, puede llamar a la Oficina del

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Despu�s de presentar una tarjeta de oratoria p�blica, �nase a la reuni�n virtual a la hora de inicio publicada con una computadora, otro dispositivo electr�nico o por

tel�fono. Debe usar el mismo nombre o n�mero de tel�fono de la tarjeta de oratoria para la reuni�n virtual de modo que se pueda ubicar y habilitar el audio para el

orador.

Computadoras y dispositivos electr�nicos pueden sumarse a la reuni�n en:

So ok, mayor, we are live. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the April 19th twenty twenty one meeting of the city council. The council did meet at four thirty pm in closed session to consider items a and b and there is no reportable action. We'll start with mr hampton leading us from the pledge of allegiance. Do you want to roll call first . Oh I'm sorry roll call first. Thank you katzenjammer hampton blessed and honored to be here. Council member kennedy here. Councilman Er council member massouda er council member riva's er council member williams vice mayor wilson here mayor gordon here there's a quorum of the council present. Ok mr hampton if you'll need it from the pledge of allegiance. Absolutely. Everyone please raise your right hand over with me ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america 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. We do have the ceremonial matter and as is our practice will draw in memory of all of those who have been affected by covid and we have a ceremonial matter with or with us today should be is showing premium present work at I don't believe she's here with us mayor folk hum. Well I'd like to recognize show your premium board chair of the armenian national committee of america the passing the chapter and we have a proclamation to present and this is a proclamation related to day of remembrance of the armenian genocide and I'll read the proclamation out loud and it will be presented to mr preneed whereas on April 24th, 1915 the turkish government perpetrated against armenian people what is commonly referred to as the first genocide of the twentieth century which continued until 1923 and resulted in the death of one point five million armenian men, women and children. And whereas since memories fade with time it is important to remind ourselves about human tragedies that have taken place and whereas those who survived the armenian genocide and their successors have had to work hard to make these tragic events known to the world battling cover ups, misinformation and denial and whereas as a community it is appropriate for us to stand together join our armenian brothers and sisters in an effort to memorialize are falling ancestors and to ensure that this horrible act is not repeated and whereas as we remember the past let us also dedicate ourselves to building a greater future as a testament to mankind's indomitable spirit. Now therefore I victor cordillo ,mayor of the city of pasadena on behalf of the city council do hereby proclaim April twenty four twenty twenty one as a day of remembrance of the armenian genocide. Yes Mr. Kennedy, I would like to simply add my brief comments to those of the mayor given that I have visited armenia and I suspect broodmare mayor gorta will do so at the appropriate time with sister cities. We stand firmly with our brothers and sisters who are armenian or armenian descent and certainly armenians have been a part of the city of pasadena for at least ninety five years could be more but certainly they are integral resident citizens, business owners, participants of all that is wonderful in pasadena and as all of you know, the city council unanimously approved the genocide memorial in pasadena. The park located at ramun in walnut memorial park. So thank you, mayor, for that. And if I May, mayor, after this discussion here, I'd like to briefly acknowledge a debt not requesting that we close or adjourn in honor but I would like to the residents of the city of that city know of this particular day. Yeah, the the proclamation is an important proclamation and it's important that we reissue this proclamation every year in order to to recognize the tragedy of the armenian genocide. Anything else otherwise we'll move on. Mr. Mayor, I would just like to acknowledge the death of one of our employees, father of the employees dennis william. His mother is jackie strong williams father is darnell williams and this family mayor, you are intimately familiar with the family. It's needed strong georgia holloways family and I just like to acknowledge just that we embrace family members in our own individual family but we have extended families in the city and certainly our employees are part of the family. This young man has lost his dad early this morning I believe there for the opportunity. Thank you for reminding us informing us I was not aware will send a letter from the mayor's office in expressing our condolences. The city attorney's reminded me that I need to announce to those in the public as well as to the council that item nine has been pulled from our agenda so that more work can be conducted in research and so item nine will not be heard this evening for those that are interested in that matter. Nexrad where I have made a request and and I pass your request on to the city manager and will we'll discuss things with the mayor. We have, uh, speaker cards on items not on the agenda when you want to move to public comment on matters not on the agenda. Ok, why don't we go ahead and do that? Ok, the first, uh, public speaker that we have on matters not on the agenda is jane ward . Uh, we did not see diane shelton. Uh and then there will be uh max cat ross will be after Miss Ward. Miss Ward go ahead. Yes. Hello. I am a resident of the pasadena area and while I believe having a civilian oversight commission is a really good symbolic gesture, my concern is that its authority is limited to making recommendations to a police department clearly resistant to change and that is not compelled to enact those recommendations. I also support hiring a lawyer to investigate police killings in pasadena and produce subsequent reports. But these reports are of limited significance if the pasadena police association keeps the report hidden from public view, the commission can make recommendations and reports can be produced that these efforts don't stand a chance against the police department as committed to obstructing justice as the pasadena pd. You will recall that the last time the pasadena city council hired the office of independent review was following the pasadena police department's murder of an unarmed black teenager named kendrick mcdade but to the police department successfully blocked the community's access to a report and the pasadena police officers association claimed that the civilian oversight report was a private personnel record. This obstruction received international news coverage officers matthew griffin and jeffrey newlyn, the officers who shot and killed mcdade were kept on patrol and never charged. Officer matthew griffin went on to later participate in the murder of another black man in pasadena, reginald thomas, who needed mental health support but was instead killed by the police who responded to the 911 call. Griffin and his fellow officers who killed reginald thomas were found to have acted reasonably by our corrupt D.A. Former D.A. Thankfully jackie lacey, my point in sharing this history is to call attention to an ongoing pattern of corruption obstruction and lack of accountability and regard for black lives that characterizes policing in pasadena and that simply cannot be resolved by a civilian oversight commission without real authority or by independent reviews that go nowhere. Instead we need to send a clear message of killer cops can and will be prosecuted and that police chiefs like john perez will not be allowed to stay in leadership if they cannot bring an end to the senseless murder of black residents of pasadena . Gordo city manager steve marmol and city council members. This is why I support the firing. Chief john perez is not being able to keep black residents safe from murder by his own officers and his time is up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It looks like we have cat ross who we will bring into the meeting. Welcome. Hi. Last week the planning committee approved plans to give five million in infrastructure funding to the palestinian police department and gave public comment there. But I was told that they were not tasked with deciding if that money is well spent and I should be speaking directly to you. So tonight my comments are responding to that plan that will shortly be coming to the city council. Last year L.A. City L.A. County voters overwhelmingly supported measure j in an attempt to convey to our leaders that we do not want to give more money to police but want to draw from their incredibly bloated budget to fund the basic needs of our community. Research shows police are incredibly ineffective at preventing crime as they respond after crime has occurred and often make the situation worse. What can prevent crime is investing deeply in the resources and supports the community needs health care, housing, mental health care programs for youth employment services reopening and reinvigorate parks and shared public spaces. These issues do not even begin to address failures and corruption of the pasadena police department in particular, which needs investigation and immediate action to show accountability for its ongoing racist policing of northwest pasadena and black men in particular what the pasadena police department needs is not more funding with which they can continue to terrorize the community but more rigorous oversight. That is why organizations across pasadena and also beina are calling for chief john perez to be fired not for him to be rewarded with an over five million dollar increase to his current budget. The community is watching. We're watching minneapolis and we're watching pasadena where the city of pasadena chooses to invest its money will send a message to the residents of pasadena about whether their elected representatives are committed to racial justice the next week or moment. Please, mayor, can one share because I'm at a loss so maybe other Councilman May be at a loss. What is the five million dollars that the speaker referenced council member kennedy? I think I can respond to that briefly since it's not a matter on the agenda the recommended capital improvement program budget went before the planning commission the other day as part of the sipri act. The police department is realigning money within its existing appropriation. There is no new appropriation. They have salary, savings and some other savings within the department's budget and they were as part of the sipi looking to realign those funds to do necessary updates and enhancements to the police building which is 30 plus years old and is in need and reinvestment. It's a general fund expenditure and rather than ask the council to dip into our limited reserves, I asked the chief to find money within his budget to maintain the building and he did just that. Will there be a further presentation that some more detail that the finance committee when we when we present a capital improvement program budget we can go into the details of any of the various projects contained within the budget that being one of them part of the vip vip. Ok, so I'm asking specifically that the five million received mayor additional attention and that we do this would be as you know, I've been one of the council members with strongly recommended that we need to do something to make that building up to date. I'm glad that we're doing that but I still need and the council needs to understand where the money's coming from. Thank you. Next public speaker the next public speaker is stephanie blank followed by bert newton followed by jill shook Mrs. Blank, you May go ahead. Thank you. It is no secret that in the united states and pasadena specifically that there are many barriers to justice when police beat, injure, shoot and kill black community members on one of these barriers is that police chiefs and prosecutors often spend months collecting evidence in these cases which gives the appearance of being thorough but also allows the police or the D.A. To drag out the investigation in the hope that the community will cool off or forget and that pressure will ease up a D.A. Like jackie lacey, heavily funded by police unions will decline to ever investigate or charge police officers. Sometimes the D.A. Will take on an investigation but drag it out for years only to ultimately announce yet again that a racial profiling that the racial profiling and use of force is appropriate. Sometimes the investigation is internal left up to the police chief himself. All of this is what happened to chris ballou, a resident of altadena in twenty seventeen. Two officers broke bullous leg and bloodied his face during a routine traffic stop as we've seen time and time again. This is not how police treat white residents when they ask questions or when there is a mild scuffle. Instead they find ways to de-escalate. But then but then D.A. Jackie lacey declined to file charges against these police officers as was her pattern and why she was voted out leaving only an internal investigation conduct by pasadena pd themselves. So we waited three years and of course chief perez cleared the officers refused to provide information about the nature of the investigation and returned both officers to street patrol . How many times does this pattern need to play itself out where we wait three years before chief for chief will we wait three four years before chief perez announces that the officer who murdered anthony mcclain was already five? Let's not wait let's stop this pattern now. Now is the time to prosecute officer edwin mclinden, the officer who killed anthony mcclain under a b three, 1992. Thank you. Speaker next speaker is bert newton newton Mr. Newton. Don't forget to hit star six to answer your telephone when prompted by joshua followed by philip ernes. Mr. Newton, you can go ahead. Yes. good afternoon mayor city council. I wanted to speak in favor of putting rezoning a religious land back on the agenda. I know it was put off onto the housing element deliberations but I don't think there's any reason this can't be decided much sooner and still figure into the housing element. There is at least one church in pasadena that's ready to go. They have already chosen a developer. They want to build 52 units of affordable housing. Housing will of course be owned and controlled by a nonprofit separate from the church. The church will get money for the groundlings. I don't know what the final amount of the lease will be but I sat in on the interview with the developer and the figure of four thousand dollars per month was suggested. That's a big savings for the developer. This is a small church, less than 50 people and when the pastor heard that four thousand figure she didn't talk about how it would shore up the finances of the church although this is a church that has been losing members due to the high cost of housing, she didn't talk about how it could help air her own salary or increase her own salary. She talked about using that money to help families at risk of losing their housing pay their rent and mortgage. This is a small african-american church in a historically african-american neighborhood that has been hit hard by gentrification and they want to build 52 units of affordable housing and use the ground money to help other families stay in their homes. But they need the zoning changed very, very soon. Changing zoning site by site can delay projects for several years and cost several hundred thousand dollars. We need to get zoning change so that affordable housing can be built by changing the zoning for churches across the city. We get the housing bill faster and less expensively and because it's less expensive we will be able to build more housing. Thank you. Next speaker. Mr. Mayor. Will this issue of the check to see agenda ahead of the findings or recommendations of the house housing task force that you have recently impaneled and assigned to a consulted with the city manager and staff that that matter has been assigned to the to the task force for a reason? There are a lot of moving pieces we talk about housing as we talked about so many issues. There's some legal implications and so it's I believe appropriately with the with the task force. Ok, mayor, I don't want to be in disagreement with you but I would just simply say this there is a housing crisis in the city of pasadena. It is not getting better. This is not an agenda item if there is any way that you can see or the council in collaboration with you can see a way forward faster, I would invite us all to do that. Thank you, mayor. Consult with the city manager in see where we are. Ok, the next us public speaker is uh jill shook but we can't find her in the meeting so we'll move on to phillip burns and I'll see if I can locate jill shook's so we'll bring in Mr. Burns. No, you May go ahead. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Council members, I'm going to speak on the same issue as the previous commenter but I would first like to extend a special thanks to mayor gado and council member lisa williams for the opportunity to serve on this mayor's housing task force. It is a great honor for me and it is also something that I am very much looking forward to as we discuss all of these issues including congregational and adaptive reuse and so many other key housing issues that are before the city of pasadena. I would like to speak in support of council member kennedy's just latest suggestion here to continue with the process that was so directed by council and the planning commission related to the congregational land overlay zone. The do you believe that the council did affirm the concept of the overlay zone late last year? And so I think that whether whether rina ends up requiring that we do a conservation land overlay zone or not, this is a this is an effort that is you know, has a lot of promise to deliver highly affordable units which are the ones that we most desperately need in the city. So I just wanted to speak in favor of that. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I do to technical difficulties shook wasn't able to join so, uh, that completes public comment on matters not on the agenda. Mayor steve Mr. City manager, the first draft of the element will be completed by one through mayor. We believe we will have the draft in May. We so work is continuing and we'll look forward to that draft coming back. Mayor, please would be inappropriate. Mr. Kennedy, I just want to make sure that Miss Shook was given an opportunity to call in as opposed to be a part of our visual meeting, if you will. I think I think the city clerk reached out or attempted to contact her, let her know that I will get back in touch with her and whatever comments she has if she submits them in writing, I will distribute it to the city council and thank you my thoughts on making sure she's able to connect next time . Ok, so let's move on to the set calendar this week motion Mr. Massouda moves your second bass player wilson seconds roll call on the consent calendar with all consent. Uh, council member hampton yes. Councilman Kennedy. Yes. Councilman Madison. yes. Councilman Massouda. Yes. Council member riva's yeah. Council member williams. Yeah. Thank you. Vice mayor wilson. Yes. Mayor gordo. Yes. The motion is approved without opposition brings us to item seven on our agenda and this is a matter involving zoning code amendments to the city's cannabis regulations. Do we have speaker carts of this? We do, mayor. We have, um, one of order I'll get to that. I just want to make a point of order takes precedence. I want to understand what's going to about nineteen uh speaker kargman me so so so so nineteenth speaker passing out now Mr. Kennedy you want to be procedural questions answered before you get the stuff? Yeah, I just want to know how many clerks become there so so let's go ahead. Mr. Kennedy, you had a historically mayor if any council member had a legitimate reason or rationale that was stated even before the actual meeting out of courtesy historically we have pulled the item I provided a rationale to you the city attorney was copy the city manager was copied in the city clerk and the reason the city clerk was copied was just to ensure as he always does assistants in certain aspects of the meetings make sure that you have actually had an opportunity to see it. This particular matter affects my district more than any other district in the city and I would think out of deference to a colleague that we had pulled this item based upon the written request that I provided you. I don't want to go into the details because I term in part my letter confidential and hopefully protected under attorney client privilege. I don't know that is if that is the case. I said in my letter that is the obvious decision for the city attorney and city prosecutor michelle deal honorees to make and stand on that. It's not a decision for me to make. She needs to lead us as it relates to my request and that's what I'm hoping will occur right now at this juncture in the city council meeting the I didn't receive your request till late in the I'm not sure I don't recall what you said to but you sent it today. I didn't see your e-mail till late the day salted with the city manager. Your do you want to state your request so the council would the staff first I'd like to ask the city attorney to inform me and the council because if attorney client privilege and confidentiality exist it would exist as it relates to all the council and the mayor. So I'd like the opinion of the city attorney first. Yes, mayor, members of the council Mr. Kennedy, with respect to your communication, it did include attorney client privilege, the information to the extent that it was referred to me for review and I am not in a position to disclose those confidentiality at this public meeting, I would note that the pending litigation etc. Is proceeding and will proceed whether this item continues tonight or not and this matter ,while it May result in some result and some solution or something with the litigation, it May not necessarily so you can certainly proceed tonight with this with this matter without it jeopardizing the city's legal position in my opinion, one of the concerns I would have if Mr. Kennedy were to make the arguments that he's made in the letter that might that me if I understand you correctly, michel causes problems in terms of attorney client privilege. Well, not everything in the letter was was privileged but so it wouldn't what I don't know what he would say something could or could not impact our position in the litigation not necessarily out of abundance of caution. Mayor, I would have the courtesy of pulling this item for at least one week for us to have conversations privately to ensure one that I do nothing that would negatively impact the litigation or the city's position related to ongoing litigation. And it isn't just one case. There are a series of cases and I think or I believe that at least holding it one week for us to have more dialog outside of this public meeting would be helpful and there could be if the mayor so chose the counsel so chose this discussion could take place I suppose no one has told me it could not in closed session but my I renew my request to pull item seven and I am not in a position to determine what in my letter is of undisclosed the and what is disclosable on that basis alone. I think I deserve at least a one week delay given I did not realize that the city attorney found the matter to be attorney client privilege given given the position it puts Mr. Kennedy in arguing for his district and not knowing not knowing what is what he can argue you can't argue. I think it probably would be prudent to to delay it and no other city attorney to advise us. Mr. Cohen. Mr. Madison, I was just going to say if you need a motion for a second to Mr. Kennedy's request, I'd certainly agree to that it is an import