City Council Meeting: June 20, 2022

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THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING FOR JUNE 20, 2022 AT 4:30 P.M. WILL TAKE PLACE SOLELY BY VIDEOCONFERENCE/TELECONFERENCE.

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LA REUNIÓN DEL CONSEJO MUNICIPAL DEL 20 DE JUNIO DE 2022 A LAS

4:30 P.M. TENDRÁ LUGAR ÚNICAMENTE POR VIDEOCONFERENCIA/TELECONFERENCIA.

City Council Meeting Policy:

www.cityofpasadena.net/city-clerk/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/City-Council-Meeting-Policy.pdf

Para facilitar la participación del público en reuniones realizadas únicamente por medios electrónicos, la Ciudad aceptará comentarios del público de la siguiente manera:

1. Durante la reunión, los miembros del público pueden hacer comentarios públicos en vivo presentando una tarjeta de oratoria antes del inicio del comentario sobre el artículo que se está tratando en el siguiente sitio web:

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Después de presentar una tarjeta de oratoria pública, únase a la reunión virtual a la hora de inicio publicada con una computadora, otro dispositivo electrónico o por teléfono. Debe usar el mismo nombre o número de teléfono de la tarjeta de oratoria para la reunión virtual de modo que se pueda ubicar y habilitar el audio para el orador. Su llamada telefónica a la reunión del Concejo Municipal se grabará como parte de la reunión del Concejo Municipal. Al permanecer en la línea y hacer comentarios públicos durante la reunión del Concejo Municipal, está aceptando que se grabe su llamada telefónica.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the JUNE 20th. Twenty two meeting of the palestinian city council and we'll start with the calling of the world. Thank you, mayor. COUNCILMAN Hampton blessed and honored to be here. Kazmaier county here. COUNCILMAN Madison here. COUNCILMAN Asuda here, customer rivas here. COUNCILMAN Williams here. Vice mayor wilson is absent. Mayor gado here. There's a quorum of the council present. Great. And uh, let's see MR. Clark, will you leaders in the pledge of allegiance. Sure. Please stand place your right hand over your heart. Ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under GOD, indivisible liberty and justice for all with liberty and justice for the uh ok. Um well so again welcome everyone to the JUNE 20th twenty two meeting of the city council. I'd like to begin by recognizing juneteenth in the importance of the juneteenth date. As we all know, PRESIDENT Biden has declared it a national holiday. The state has yet taking the action. But I do think given the importance of due juneteenth in our history and the importance that date and what it represents to so many and to all of us in this country, I do believe that the city council going forward one well one we recognize juneteenth. It was approved in JUNE. I believe of twenty twenty one and I do think it's important for us to consider going forward celebrating juneteenth as a holiday here in pasadena and even leading the way for other municipalities and the state of california to do the same thing. And so I hope that we can take that action up sooner rather than later. I'm going to ask the city manager to work with staff and work with my office to figure out the appropriate manner to bring that forward for the full council's consideration. It does take action with the city council to declare a holiday in the city of pasadena and so we will work together and bring that matter forward. If any of you my colleagues have any suggestions on how to bring that floor, please let your city manager let me know and we'll be happy to take that into consideration. MR. Kennedy followed by MR. Hampton over the weekend there were a number of celebrations in reference to juneteenth. One of the celebrations took play at robinson park and I would like to commend all of the staff under brenda harvey williams for putting together the celebration that took place there. It was informative, upbeat and it begged for local recognition as the mayor has already articulated, that program was something that for years parks and recreation and participated conducted even before PRESIDENT Biden rightly named it a national holiday. I'm looking forward to an action by this council that locally it would be a holiday in the south. Further elaboration, a wait for the agenda report that will come back to the city council and its staff would like input from me. I'd be more than happy to provide whatever input that I can and calling that agenda report together. Thank you mayor for the opportunity. Thank you, MR. Kennedy. Um, MR. Hampton. Thank you, mayor, for your acknowledgment of juneteenth significance not just a passing but what america is for 300 years with free labor america was built so there wouldn't be an american without the workforce that put this built this country just to give some perspective of juneteenth and the significance I've celebrated since I kid and I probably recognize recognize the significance of it when I was in my 20s just because we just used to celebrating that and and recognize that we celebrate juneteenth in my household my parents household more so than we actually celebrated the want to do it now we did so the fourth of JULY but it's just more festive at our household because that was when african americans or blacks or are descendants of slaves were given their freedom in this country and actually years a year later so to give some perspective of this, I just told you about how I celebrated my great grandfather was born a slave. My grandfather worked as a sharecropper and his young age to the point where he was able to purchase land and have a family. My father's generation and my you I'm 40 years old, a minority 40 years, some 40 years but I'm as proud of myself up where we're still surprised that your 20 my father's generation fought for education and fought for civil rights and for us to be here in this room collectively with amaia from mexico two to three african american city council members, women on the city council, african-americans and also japanese no member of the city council black people this and not only did they fight for this, they lost their lives for it. They believed in it so much that they were willing to die dog sit on them assassinated and so it is very important that we recognize juneteenth in this city and I just am saddened this was just overlooked and maybe we just thought it was a national holiday just supersedes everything kind of like our building code is being superseded by the state at this point but we definitely have to do better and we have to recognize because today at the airport commission meeting that I was at I mentioned it and it just reminded me of how juneteenth came about. It was after slavery was abolished that texas recognized it later. And so I don't want to recognize the national holiday later. I'm glad that we're recognizing it now. I'm glad that the city is always as no kennedy has mentioned has always been at the forefront. But now it's time for us to recognize as a holiday no matter what the state of california does. Other states have already recognized it as a state holiday. But our city should be leading the way and recognizing this is a state holiday. So mayor, I appreciate your comments earlier on in the meeting and I appreciate you guys giving me the time to to speak on on this and what juneteenth means to america and america's history. So GOD bless you guys and thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Hampton. Very nice comments and we all appreciate the history. You know, it's your personal history and your family's history. It's so easy for many to think ,you know, this is so far in our past but it's not really that far in our past. I mean it's it's within the lifetime of family members that all that juneteenth sought to correct occurred and so I think it's in an important reminder for all of us to keep in mind that, you know, it's it's it MAY be history but it's not all that distant history and we have to recommit ourselves from generation to generation because what would happened in american history is not something that people are born with. It's learned discrimination is learned. I firmly believe that and we have to work hard to ensure that it's not learned in by future generations in the only way to do that is to recall what did happen in american history, acknowledge it and denounce it and we in the city of pasadena certainly do that and we will do that again when we take the matter up as a city holiday. MISS Rivas. Oh, I'm sorry MISS Williams. I'm sorry I didn't see MISS Williams was in the queue. I have to fight between the screen and then you hear MISS Williams have a virtual hand. Thank you so much, mayor, for your comments. I'm glad pasadena will be leading the way in this. I also want to thank council member hampton for bringing up at the airport commission meeting today and also members of the public are writing in and reminding us of the importance of this day. So look forward to a holiday next year, a city council meeting but glad we'll be leading the way in this. Thank you. thank you. Uh, MISS Reavis. Yes. Thank you very touched briefly on something else ever happened said about potentially being overlooked other cities or jurisdictions taking this action and we haven't yet. I work for another company that has recognized all holiday and I have the day off and I was disappointed to see that we work with them but I am excited to hear and grateful to hear that we will be addressing shortly. So thank you. Thank you. MISS Was so with that we'll move on to the next matter and this is a ceremonial matter and it involves the naming of our new water and power department general manager department his general manager is the appropriate assistant assistant I'm sorry assistant general manager promotion already looking into the future. Our assistant general manager is takiguchi will turn it over to MR. Kurtz to introduce her. Thank you mayor. I wanted the council and the community to have an opportunity to both meet MISS Takiguchi as well as here a little bit about her background. I can't imagine a point in time where it's more important to have a really steady hand leading water in the city of pasadena and a takiguchi was appointed as the assistant general manager for water after a national search as the home of water she is responsible for all aspects of passantino water system services which include resource engineering, construction operation and water quality. She's experienced in water planning operations and engineering. She's a leader with more than twenty years which is hard to believe looking at you of continued water supplier reliability, sustainability and resilience for the region. Prior to joining pasadena she worked for the metropolitan water district of southern california for fifteen years in various capacities including leading regional drought action planning efforts and prior to mwd she managed innovative stormwater multiuse projects at the county of los angeles department of public works. It's a well-rounded background and exactly what we need. Stacey is has a bachelor's degree from tulane university and is a licensed engineer in the state of california. I'd like to welcome you and given where we find ourselves in water in southern california in california, I'm sure we will be seeing a lot of you. Welcome to pasadena. Hopefully more of you and water to thank you. Did you want to singings? I do want to say thank you for this opportunity. I am extremely excited to be here and honored to serve the past in a community in this role and I look forward to what we can all do together. So thank you very much. Well thank you and congratulations and you have an impressive work history so congratulations and it is hard to believe that you've served that long. You and MR. Hampton look younger and younger. Uh, ok. I think that takes a spring brings us to the next ceremonial matter and that's an acknowledgment and if I can have the clerk turn oh, there's no legal I can have edgar and jos\ from the conservation corps of california joined me here at the and we just wanted to express gratitude to the california conservation or for clearing forty three acres of dry brush in our city and you know, we we're all aware of the dangers that dry brush can create when it's not properly addressed and and cleared. And in pasadena we have multiple neighborhoods that are potentially affected by dry brush and this year the california conservation corps at no cost to the city um uh lent us a hand and cleared a lot of the brush and we just want to recognize your efforts and that of the california conservation corps and all of your staff for the assistance to the city of pasadena and our residents. Thank you. Well, thank you for having us. Uh, really great. Uh, pleasure to be here. It was a great project for akamatsu to be involved with. Uh, they were able to get familiar a little bit with the city of pasadena those that we're not familiar with. But all in all it was a great endeavor. We were able to do great work for me. Uh, yeah, just about forty forty some acres with a combination of the los angeles office and the pamona office together um and um looking forward to hopefully continuing the relationship and uh working next year and other projects around the community. So thank you so much. You do see 40 acres where you promised us forty three much. Thank you and again please thank your your crews and your colleagues and thank you for taking the time to attend tonight's meeting. Uh, yes. MR. Kennedy. Um, we're in the twenty first twenty second or whatever century and it seems to me there's there's a difference. Yeah. Things to me that we will be able to I know have a sound system where we don't get oh really. Yeah no when you're speaking even at the podium sometimes you go out or the person speaking goes out for a number of second and you can't hear them. Yeah that needs to be resolved. It's resolvable. There is pollution that exists in the city manager and her team need to figure out because it's embarrassing. It's not about just me hearing . It's about the public record. So I hope that there's an effort afoot to address and solve the issue. Thank you, council member kennedy. I know that the department of information and technology is working on it. They've ordered some component . We're looking at some of the issues that are occurring here and some of the supply chain issues and other things have contributed to the sort of the delay in getting it addressed. We're hoping to get it addressed soon. I have an update with the department of it next week and happy to involve the city manager's office as the department of it works under her supervision and oversight. So we're definitely going to we are working on it. There has been some work to get this resolved in the intermediate but the long term fix is a little bit more complicated and it's going to take a little bit of time. But your points are well taken . Yeah, and our apologies to the public if we're cutting in and out and and to members of the council, it's it's it's equally frustrating for us to to learn that we've gone through that we've made comments that were not heard. So thank you, MR. Cavaney. So next we'll move on to the consent calendar and start with asking comments or public comments submitted on these matters. Currently we do not have public comment on the consent I do have correspond to report out and I can do that now the city clerk's office received one letter in support of items one and two for the staff recommendations for both of those items and for item 18, the city office received one letter in support of the staff recommendation citing public safety concerns that this would address and then one letter expressing concerns in opposition to the staff recommendation citing constitutional and second amendment rights issue issues. The correspondence has been posted online, distributed to the council and as part of the public record for each of those items there are calendars by any item that the council would like held at member kennedy is an emotion just been moved by house speaker. It's motion and second to approve the consent calendar roll call council member hampton yes casamayor kennedy yeah. COUNCILMAN Madison yes. Cast member siddha yes. Cast member riva's yes. Cast member williams oh is absent sorry she stepped out uh vice mayor wilson's absent mayor yes. Motion passes without opposition and that brings us brings us to item twenty two and so this is a continued public hearing uh that uh was reopened last week. I would only report that the city clerk's office received nine letters advocating for the city to request additional funding for the arroyo link, which is a proposal which is a proposal to create a multiuse path from downtown pasadena to the arroyos teiko utilizing measure r and put it in recommending it to be put on the measure our project list. those letters were distributed the council posted online are part of the public hearing record ok and mayor. Yes, MR. Hampton just brief measure or allocations will be coming back to us and in another meeting is that correct or can I have an idea that is correct, city manager kurts yes that is correct. It will probably be thirty or forty five days before that list comes back before the council. Sixty days at the outside. But you will be seeing that as a specific standalone agenda report with recommendations from the staff at the council then can act on ok thank you um MR. Addison. Thank you mayor. Yes I was just going to chime in and say as part of that process I would expect that rail link would be a strong contender for funding but that'll be a discussion we'll have you know, at that time hopefully we will be in a position to redeploy substantial measure our monies . Ok, thank you. And in terms of the budget and the resolution, this is the action that brings us to conclusion on the budget and I would like to say that I think I stated last week a week early but we did undertake a new process and I just like in the new process was intended to give us a deeper dove through the committees with jurisdiction over various departments. I think we achieved that but I'd like to understand from the city manager's point of view how it worked from her perspective with the departments and I'd like to also hear from my colleagues at the appropriate time whether tonight or going forward what your view might be and whether this process achieved the intended goal and what if anything we can do to improve improve it. It's not set in stone in any way but it is an attempt to allow the public allow the council a deeper dove into our budget. And I would also invite comments on the public and staff to inform the process and let us know what if anything we can do to improve upon it. The city manager thank you mayor. This year we allowed more time for the budget through the council committees we took all the city departments and city offices and distributed them through what I would consider sort of the home committee the committee that typically sees policy and budget recommendations before they come to the full council. We're really pleased with the amount of time that the council was willing to spend. We know that we probably doubled your time in meetings for the month of MAY but it was certainly very valuable to the staff. I was asked by one of the council members did it make a difference? Did the staff make changes in the budget or were the changes that the the committees made and there were a few and there are three of them that are laid out in your agenda report this evening for adoption. But I'd say behind that we have several pages of follow up items most dramatic programmatic not financial and I believe that was the council's intent to look at what the departments are doing, how they're doing them and what it was costing not to go line item through the budget and make adjustments to that. But we will be coming back to each of the committees because we had items from each committee with those follow up information reports. Some of them are what would it cost to do x, y and z so there'll would be future budget amendments that MAY come from that as well. In looking at this process, it's hard to get your arms around a budget. I can I can say even though I've done a lot of budgets it was hard to get my arms around the budget in just a few months or just a few hours. Thank goodness for matt and it really needs to be something that's continued if the council is to continue to give us guidance on programs and you do look at the budget quarterly, I believe that would be a good pace and if we might bring some of those quarterly reports or bring those quarterly reports back through the committees that saw the original budget in the committees will be able to take time on their agendas to do that I think you would over time get more and more involved in the programmatic questions and what things are costing the city to do and you certainly would see what is happening with both inflation and others. The problems we are having with delivering services, some of which our city clerk spoke to tonight regarding the sound system here in the council chambers. We would be very interested and maybe we will do this at a committee level c or from the council in a hearing whether you you did get the information you needed to adopt a budget this evening and what you would like to see going forward. But there will be follow up to each of the committees based on the questions that were posed to us during those hearings. Thank you. I do think at least from my perspective it allowed the this allowed more opportunity to understand the programmatic expenditures that we make and I do think that continuing the quarterly reviews to the committees that reports to the council will help us going forward to better understand I'd like to thank mr hawksworth and his staff for providing that support to every one of the departments and to all of the committees. I know a lot of work mr hawksworth and for finance and for all the departments here but particularly for finance provides that support. Before I turn to mr hawkes worth mr kennedy mr followed by mr have one quick question in approving the budget if we approve the budget tonight. Well all the operating company be included in that approval. Yes. is it possible that we could vote on the rboc separately? I want to give as much contemplation part in the next minute to three minutes on voting on that and I suspect it will be unanimous but nevertheless I'd like to vote on it separately if possible. Ok mr mr thank you mayor. I just wanted to commend you mayor as council member gordo you are always complaining about the budget starting too late and and we we started much earlier and it was a lot more thorough so I just wanted to thank you for that and let everyone know that because of you we were able to talk about the budget a lot better and got it done and thank you for that . Well thank you mr was good. I appreciate that. I think it was definitely a team effort and all of the committees contributed. I appreciate your comments very much mr hawksworth. Yeah. What did you have in comments. Oh I'm sorry MISS Rebus I apologize MISS Rivers then we'll turn it over to mr hawksworth. Thank you mayor. Guess you can briefly about the process this year again I have one other year to compare it to but I did really appreciate that people were tired at the committee level. I think starting earlier it's better to allow us to really dig in and fully understand the entire budget. I think I've really come to appreciate the process two years now is just how much work each department does and how it works and how it when it comes to us at this level, you know, it's hard to make huge changes and we've made a little changes around the margins and are identified in the staff report. But something I'd I'd love to see more important I think it probably would tie in or dovetails nicely with hiring managers perhaps having a discussion a couple of goals or a more philosophical discussion about what we want to highlight or prioritize for the year. And so I look forward to hopefully doing that with all our colleagues moving forward. Thank measure I think with the council and in the community being joined by new city manager will be a good opportunity for us to have that that high level discussion maybe in the format of a workshop or council workshop where we all ask that everyone set aside or dedicate a day where we can have that conversation together with the public and set some revisit our goals and set some priorities as you say from the thirty thousand foot level and so we can all expect to have that conversation. Mr madisen. Thanks, mayor. Yeah, I want to commend all involved as well. I think our budget and I've seen a number of them as you all know has become increasingly complex and larger. It's the nature of municipal services organization and I certainly I was one of those council members I MAY not have been the only one that did ask about whether you know, the process really does result in change. You know, so much of what we do is defined by the scope of our services and this was described programmatic. So you know, it's good to know that we do have the ability to do redirect, if you will, even if it's you know, out