Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Fax: 626-307-9081

Happy New Year!

During the December 16th Monterey Park City Council Meeting three agenda items caught my attention.

Agenda item 4-A 234 North Chandler Appeal for subdivision of air rights for a two-unit development.  The units were approved under our PUD-Condo overlay that only required two covered parking spaces per unit.

Mayor Pro Tem Mitch Ing and Councilmember Teresa Real Sebastian filed an appeal since each unit would have four bedroom, five bathrooms with an additional study room the size of a bedroom.

The developers would only be required to build a two-car garage for each unit regardless of the number of bedrooms.

Our zoning laws on single-family residents required more covered parking spaces based on the number of bedrooms.

They addressed the issues of the limited parking spaces as well as the possible that these units could be used for boarding houses or illegal hotels.

Assistant City Attorney Karl Berger reminded the Council and residents that this appeal only addresses the air space and not the parking issue.

I addressed the Council on my concerns with this condo project, as each unit will house four bedrooms and five bathrooms with an additional study room the size of a bedroom.

Each unit is a very large house that would qualify as a five bedroom / five bathroom house in the real estate market. It also could be used as an illegal boarding house or hotel.

Each unit should be required to have a three-car garage or more with additional guest parking required by our city law.

I believe that these property owners and developer are trying to bypass our laws for their own personal benefits and profits.

Their project, as presented, should be denied.

The property owners and developers should be required to meet our guidelines on houses with four or more bedrooms.

People who do not live in our hometown have long over developed Monterey Park.

They are crowding our residents out of town with their large lucrative projects.

Are these developers paying us an impact fee to cover the costs of our public safety services, water and sewers services, our library services and our recreation and park services?

The Council had a lengthy discussion and asked the architect several questions on the project. He said the two property owners (not related) just wanted larger homes for their family and guests.

The Council did request that the staff develop new zoning laws for larger homes that will be built under the PUD-Condo overlays. They should be required to have more covered parking.

The Council majority (Chan, Lam and Liang) voted to uphold the Planning Commissions approval of this project.

Agenda Item 6-D Ordinance entitled Oversized Vehicle and Trailer Parking in residential and business areas.

This new ordinance would restrict residents from parking their RVs, boat trailers and other oversized vehicles on our public streets.  They would be required to apply for a street-parking permit before parking these vehicles in front of their homes. The three-day permits would be issued for the purpose of loading or unloading their RV. It could be issued for repairs to be made on the vehicles.

The permits will be issued at the Police Office located at City Hall to Monterey Park residents.

I stated that this Council being mindful of the residents’ request for transparency should have posted this ordinance as a Public Hearing.

I agreed that this ordinance would be beneficial to protect the health and safety of the residents and business owners in our hometown. This new ordinance will affect all of the taxpayers in the city.

I suggested that staff notify the public on this new law before they issue tickets.

Police Chief Jim Smith said his staff would be issuing warnings for the first 30 to 60 days before they issue tickets.

The Council voted to approve this new parking ordinance. They asked staff to educate the residents on the city’s website, in The Cascades newspaper and on the city’s television station.

For more information on the permit requests please call the Police Department at 626-307-1311.

Agenda item 6-E Solar Energy for Municipal Facilities – Authorization to Release Request For Qualifications

Staff requested the Council to approve their request to release a Request for Qualifications for a company to design and construct a solar photovoltaic system for city facilities.

Mayor Pro Tem Mitch Ing had to abstain from this discussion as his wife works at Southern California Edison.  Edison was mentioned in the staff report.

The Council and I agreed that this is not the usual Request for Proposal and needed additional information.

City Manager Paul Talbot said he and staff should have educated the Council on this new type of request for services.

Staff explained that the designer would also build the system for the best results.

The Council had a lengthy discussion on the issue before they understood why this process is different.

Councilmember Teresa Real Sebastian was concerned that staff would choose the designer without Council’s approval based on the staff report. She did not want our staff choosing any contractor without the Council’s approval.

The Council majority (Chen, Lam and Liang) voted to approve this agenda item.

During the January 6th Council Meeting Mayor Peter Chan, Councilmember Stephen Lam and Fire Chief Scott Haberle showed videos of their visit to Hong Kong and China.

Mayor Chan was honored in his family’s hometown with a wonderful celebration.

Councilmember Lam and former Mayor Anthony Wong also enjoyed the visit.

Fire Chief Haberle spoke about the extensive training of the firefighters in Hong Kong.  He also provided video coverage of firefighters training under real life disaster scenarios.

It was interesting to everyone in the audience.

I spoke at Oral Communications:

For this New Year I would like to suggest our city staff better explain to the Council and residents any new laws or procedures to be voted on by this Council.

At the December 16th meeting staff asked Council to approve them sending out a Request for Qualifications on the proposed solar system for city facilities.

Reading the staff report and listening to the discussion it was clear to me that the Council and residents were not sure about this new request for qualifications.

I am glad the Council decided to be the responsible parties in choosing a designer and builder of the solar products.

I hope the Council can confer with some our of solar engineers before picking a

contractor to develop this new project.

I also suggest to this Council and staff change our zoning laws that currently allow less covered parking on projects with a PUD-condo overlay.

The new PUD-condo housing projects should be required to have the same number of covered parking spaces as a single-family home.

Currently developers are using our PUD-condo overlay to squeeze in larger homes without providing realistic off street parking.

I also suggest that the city manager and staff provide us with their promised developer impact fees report since more mini-mansions and hotels are going to be built that will over crowd our hometown.

Has the staff informed residents who have RVs about our new laws that require them to get permits to park on our public streets?

I thanked Peter Chan, Stephen Lam and the firefighters for sharing their adventures in Hong Kong and China with us.

This meeting had two agenda items that caught the attention of parents and students who swim in our Barnes Park pool.

6-I Installation of two water heaters for the Barnes Park pool and 6-J Resolution Authorization applying for a grant from the State Land Water Conservation Fund to rehab or rebuild the pool and current building.  This would be a 50/50 match program.

A dozen students and parents asked the Council to approve both of these agenda items as the pool is 60 years old and needs repairs to fix the leaks, the loss of water from the pool, the cold water and the bugs in the shower rooms.

The students and parents agreed that this pool is a jewel in our city and they have benefited from belonging on the swimming teams.

The Council agreed with them and voted to approve both agenda items.

The installation of the water heaters would be completed soon.

Staff would request the grant from the state for two million dollars or more. It would take time, maybe up to two years.  The city would have to raise the additional two million dollars or more to match the grant funds.

This grant would be similar to the library grant from the state that we were able to match the funds because we had a library tax on our property tax bill.

It was wonderful to see the children and their parents fill the Council Chambers for this meeting.

We are all proud of the students who requested the Council approve the Barnes Park pool agenda items.

We are also proud of the students and family members who supported them during this meeting.

Now I have “Faith in the Future” of Monterey Park and the United States of America.

I want to thank my writers and readers for their longtime support of The Citizen’s Voice newspaper.

Wishing you and yours a Happy, Healthy and Blessed New Year!