[0:31] And everyone, and happy new year to all. I am calling to order the special meeting of the Glendale City Council for January 2nd, 2026. May we have roll call? Council Member Alcindria?

[0:47] Problem in here.

[0:49] Garpetian?

[0:50] Here.

[0:50] Busoccan?

[0:51] Here.

[0:51] And there in the giant.

[0:52] Here.

[0:53] May we have your report?

[0:55] The agenda for the Friday, January 2nd, 2026, Special Public Meeting with the City Council

[0:58] was posted on December 31st, 2025, on the Bolton Board outside City Hall.

[1:03] And the first item, please.

[1:05] See the attorney regarding ratification of the proclamation of the Director of Emergency

[1:09] Services, declaring a local emergency related to 2025 late December storms, A. Resilble

[1:15] In conclusion, ratifying the proclamation of Director of Emergency Services, declaring a local emergency.

[1:20] Mr. Rilania.

[1:22] Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and Mr. City Council, Happy New Year.

[1:27] Thank you for agreeing to meet on this emergency special meeting this afternoon.

[1:34] Just to let you know that starting Christmas Eve, the eve of Christmas, we had because of the atmospheric

[1:43] river situations, a series of them, extensive damage to several of our facilities, sidewalks,

[1:51] roads, debris basin that included damage at the western electric substation that resulted

[1:59] in outage to 7,000 residents. Thankfully, and I wanted to extend my appreciation to the

[2:08] crews and the engineers, the Christians who came in that evening, Christmas Eve, worked

[2:14] around the clock to be able to bring the substation up to operation and reinstated, reinstalled

[2:24] the equipment that were damaged and the 7,000 residents were able to get their power back.

[2:30] Christmas Day. We had a water main break just on Maple, East of Central Avenue. I was a major

[2:39] damage, again, folks from our waters division of our GWP water and power department were out there

[2:48] in the rain. Took a few hours, but they were able to fix it, bring it up into operation as well as we

[2:56] We had water intrusion, a first floor of our police department building that damaged

[3:02] some equipment, computers, and etc., that our facilities section of public works department

[3:10] were able to fix and do the complete repairs.

[3:16] The governor on December 25th, I believe, issued a state of emergency and hence I was asked

[3:27] by our city attorney to also sign the declaration of emergency and today will be presenting the resolution

[3:37] for you to ratify so that we are able and qualified to apply for potentially federal

[3:46] and state funding as the time comes. Currently, we don't have an estimate of the damage,

[3:55] but it will be upward of $2 to $3 million staff in public works, in parks, GWP, obviously a fire department are working on putting together that cost estimate for submission.

[4:10] Chief Brooks is here, if you have any questions, as well as obviously our city attorney who put together this resolution.

[4:18] Do my colleagues have any questions?

[4:22] Mr. Carpetje?

[4:23] No, I don't.

[4:24] Oh.

[4:24] Thank you.

[4:26] I just want to say one thing, it is my New Year's resolution not to be on social media

[4:33] as much as I had been before, but before the New Year chimed in, I was in social media.

[4:41] And I'm really dismayed at some of the residents.

[4:45] I understand there was a power outage in New Year's Eve.

[4:48] Actually, me, Christmas Eve, many were left without power, but the, you know, the bitterness at some of these residents attempting to turn it back onto the City Council, it's a failure of our policy, it's a failure of our infrastructure, it's totally false.

[5:07] I don't know if people are trying to manufacture campaign issues.

[5:11] This is an unforeseen occurrence that resulted in a fire, that resulted in crews being called

[5:18] back, our fire department as well, our GWP water electric workers on their Christmas Eve

[5:27] also, in tough situation in the rain, with fire and electricity, very difficult situation.

[5:33] and they did their darndest to get that particular calamity resolved.

[5:41] So I do want to thank all of them and, you know, everyone just accidents happen.

[5:49] It's not always the fault of the mayor, let's say, usually, or anyone on council,

[5:56] or anyone for this type of thing.

[5:58] Kudos to Chief, your men and women who are involved in that, as well as all the other issues

[6:04] that you prepared for during this week of heavy rain, which may continue I guess in the

[6:10] next day or two, so I don't know if that's, I'm sure I'm speaking for my colleagues

[6:17] to just, everyone relax, and let's get on with that.

[6:27] Just responding to those, but

[6:30] taking an opportunity to say thank you to all of our staff from when no water and power to fire to public works.

[6:37] To RPP, who was overseeing the streets because the lights were out and it was dangerous driving conditions.

[6:44] There's a reason why we have a state of emergency and

[6:49] times of emergency bringing unfortunate events like this, so thank you, man, and thank you to everyone.

[6:56] And I'll also just say that in light of the tragedy that happened in Switzerland at that bar where a number of people lost their lives in the fire.

[7:09] Let power outage and the inconvenience that comes with that be the most of our worries during a situation like the one we just went through.

[7:16] So I think all of the staff, I think all of the residents, everyone who exercise caution while driving under pretty difficult conditions and took extra care to make sure they're safe in their neighbors are safe so far we've made it through the worst of it, but I'm sure there will be other atmospheric river events or these super storms and hopefully we'll be prepared because we have very dedicated good people on the job. Thank you.

[7:46] Thank you, colleagues.

[7:48] Actually, if I can use that one.

[7:51] I know part of that conversation was when the lights went out, the streets were so dark.

[7:57] It was difficult for people to actually drive and our PD was having issues.

[8:03] I don't know if you're as you go through maybe lessons learned looking at maybe public works

[8:09] when things like that happen in certain subsections for there to be some sort of lights placed

[8:14] on the streets that can have some signage or whatnot that gives some light for individuals trying to go through lights that would have otherwise been there, but I know that I ran into some of our officers on the street and they were saying it was a very scary thing that just to watch because there was there was no light but people were driving.

[8:36] Okay, will someone make a motion?

[8:40] I move the item.

[8:42] Second.

[8:44] Roll call.

[8:45] I don't remember I said they're in it.

[8:46] Yes.

[8:47] Broadman?

[8:47] Yes.

[8:48] Garpet hint?

[8:49] Yes.

[8:49] Kassakian?

[8:50] Yes.

[8:50] Mayor Negerian?

[8:51] Yes.

[8:52] What is our next item?

[8:53] Our next item is a closed session item.

[8:55] And we will be recessing.

[8:59] We don't need to return to adjourn.

[9:01] How do we do that?

[9:03] I'm actually going to ask you to report one item out related to that, so we will be returning to report out.

[9:12] Okay, so will you please read item two, the closed session item.

[9:16] A closed session conference with the council anticipated litigation, significant

[9:20] exposures, litigation pursuant to subletters D2 and E2, other government closed section 5, 4, 9, 5, 6, one potential case.

[9:27] And as a city attorney stated, he does anticipate that we will report out.

[9:31] Now, if I may just for the record, the item of significant exposure is a threat of litigation made by the owners of the property of 236 or central to a 1 and 2, 12 West California, known as the Sears site.

[9:44] Okay, and

[9:48] we have canceled our meeting for January 6th, so everyone, all those who are ready to start the new year with a bang that will have to wait.

[10:01] The next meeting will be one, Mr. Galania.

[10:03] January 13th.

[10:05] And that'll be a regular meeting in chambers.

[10:08] Okay.

[10:08] And with that, we will recess to close session.

Special City Council - 1/2/26

Transcript