Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

Email: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

I want to thank my fellow Monterey Park residents for their outstanding knowledge of our city laws and our collective memories on past conflicts so that we can protect our hometown.

Ordinance No. 1627 adopted February 11, 1985 that did not allow any heliports be located in our city.

Measure D was voted into law in 1998 because residents living near McCaslin Park were concerned that one of the tenants was manufacturing hazard materials that affected their health and safety. The new law changed the zoning to an Office-Professional zone.

In the fall of 2017 OneLegacy, a non-profit, spoke to our Planning Department about their desire to buy 1977 Saturn Street for their sale office, building operating rooms to harvest donated organs and have a heliport on the roof.

Staff apparently did not realize that the city had two laws on the books: Ordinance No. 1627 and Measure D that prohibited this project based on their original request.

Staff began to process this developer’s request and submitted a request for a Conditional Use Permit to the Planning Commission on February 27th.

The Planning Commissioners held two Public Hearings on February 27th and again on March 13th. They took testimony from the residents but failed to recall that Ordinance No. 1627 prohibited the heliport. Staff pulled the heliport off the request for the CUP before the March meeting when the residents presented the ordinance. They closed the Public Hearing.  On March 27 they voted to approve the Conditional Use Permit.

We residents are angry that staff failed to provide adequate documentation to the commissioners and forced a vote on this project.

On April 4th residents filed an Appeal on the issue and paid $1,576 to our city. The residents should never be required to pay for an appeal since we already pay for the staff’s salaries and attorneys’ fees.

Some of the staff members wrote insulting and possibly slanders emails about the residents protesting this project.

Thank you Councilmember Teresa Real Sebastian for your request under the Public Records Act. Now all of the project documentation and these emails are on display for everyone to read.

I hope the offenders have already met with City Manager Ron Bow and Risk Manager Tom Cody and have been counseled. They should be written up for their malice towards their employers and noted in their personnel files. Civil service employees can be terminated for cause.

They owe these residents a written and public apology since most residents are not considered public figures by California law.

Councilmember Teresa Real Sebastian saved the city from establishing an illegal land use project by locating Measure D.

City Manager Ron Bow said he is establishing a program that would locate and enter each and every Ordinance and Measure that govern our city laws on to the city’s website for all to review.

The Council needs to amend the laws about on Notices of Public Hearings, they need be written in our three major languages, they need to expand the radius to more than 500 feet in a residential area and not charge residents for filing an appeal.

Our volunteer city commissioners are not experts in our city laws.

Any unusual request that is presented to the Planning or any other departments should be review by a committee that includes our city planner, our city manager, our city risk manager and our city attorney to prevent another fiasco.

I attended the two City Budget’s Hearings on May 29th and June 4th.

The budget information is located on the city’s website for your review.

The Council is still discussing the Library’s budget that has a short fall since Measure C was closed out in April of this year and Measure LL fail to pass guaranteeing the library could remain opened 7 days a week.

Great news is the long awaiting Market Place is very busy place with the opening of Costco with a gas station on May 31st and Home Depot opening for business on June 14th.

According to Annie Yaung, Director of Management Services the city will not see our share of the sales taxes from Los Angeles County for a few months.

The Council asked her check with Costco to see if they have a dollar amount for the opening day sales.

The budget will be presented to the Council at the June 20th meeting for their approval.

I want to thank all of the voters in California for taking time to honor our military members who have sacrificed themselves for our freedoms by casting their votes on June 5th.

Our Primary Election Day was one day before the famous D-Day in Europe when thousands of young American men died for us.

The military members remind all of us that our freedoms are not free. Please remember them in your thoughts and prayers each and every day.

November 6th is our National Election Day so please choose your candidates carefully as our America’s future is in the balance. Do we continue to follow our U S Constitution and our laws? Or do we choose to violate our U S Constitution and become a liberal nation where some people may consider you evil if you have a conservative point of view?

On November 11th we celebrate Veterans Day. So remember these military members also sacrificed for all of our freedoms that include the freedom to a have a different point of view on our America.