.
All righty.
Good evening Mayor, vice Mayor
and council members welcome to
the OCTOBER 27th, 2025 regular
meeting of the City Council
successor agency to the Culver
City Redevelopment Agency Board
Culver City Parking Authority
Board Redevelopment Financing
Authority and Culver City
Housing Authority Board.
The time is now.
533 and I'll go ahead and do a
roll call by Council member
Rivera present Council member
McMahon Yeah, Council Member
Fish You're Vice Mayor Plaza
PRESIDENT And Mayor o'Brien
Represent members are present
You have a quorum okay Thank
you.
Do we have any comments on
closed session?
There are none.
Okay.
We have a motion to adjourn the
court session Please.
I have a motion by council
member Fish and a second from
council member parent or during
a closed session maybe Can
voting My motion passes
unanimously and we are
and like
that
okay I thank you.
Good evening everyone.
Welcome back.
This is the regular meeting of
the city council meeting.
City council.
I just want to report for the
record that we adjourn to a
closed session at 530 for Okay.
Good evening, everyone.
We actually do not have any
proclamations or recognitions
so I'd like to get started with
a pledge of Allegiance If
you're able please stand for
the pledge allegiance to the
flag.
I get anything I was just an
individual So maybe just be and
I'm going to read the city's
statement of land
acknowledgment to the city of
Culver City formally
acknowledges that the land that
we inhabit today is the
ancestral land of indigenous
peoples who have lived here for
millennia.
The city of Culver City honors
the Gabrielle Union people
past, present and future and
recognizes their enduring
connection to this land as its
original caretakers.
We are committed to supporting
and uplifting the Gabrielle
know people and to fostering a
deeper understanding of the
histories and identities of all
indigenous peoples in this
region.
We encourage all residents and
visitors to join us in
respecting and caring for this
land.
The city affirms its support
for the rights of these
indigenous communities and for
the preservation of their
cultural legacies and there is
nothing to report out of closed
session So we will begin with
do we have any anything from
commissions, committees or
boards or staff and none.
Okay.
Thank you much.
Have any reports or
announcements from Council
Councilmember Fish?
Hey everybody.
Good to be with you all.
I'm surprised to see even this
many folks during a Dodger game
So thanks for taking the time
to to come join us.
I think it was 4 to 2 last
time.
Yes, I checked.
I just wanted to give a quick
reminder to put in your Prop 50
ballot by NOVEMBER 4th I
believe And you have many drop
off boxes across across the
city Julian Dixon Library,
Culver West Alexander Park, Fox
Hills Park at the West L.A.
College And there are two
voting centers here at City
Hall and West L.A. College has
also really grateful to attend
the opening of the Robertson
Boulevard Complete Street
Project with Mayor o'Brien that
it's a fantastic project that
our public works team DR.
Dimitri You guys really did a
fantastic job.
It creates bike lanes or two
bike lanes one bike separated
bike path, one protected bike
lane and a bus lane on
Robertson And it's only 700ft
long but it's really
transformative and allows
people to access the station
safely easily.
And yeah, I'm hoping that we
can continue the progress that
we've made.
I didn't have much to do with
that project.
It started long before I got
here but it was really
wonderful to to be able to you
know, just celebrate its
opening.
I also wanted to share that our
first police policy
subcommittee with Councilmember
Rivera and myself is tomorrow
at 4 P.M. And that's Memorial.
We're going to be going over
two very important documents.
The first is the 8481 481
military equipment disclosures.
And the second is the Ripper
Annual reports the Racial
Identity Profiling Act reports
and that the court that our cpd
is releasing I believe they
released that a couple of hours
ago.
So if you would like to hear
about those reports and give
your feedback, please do.
And then we have the Fox Hills
specific planned community
meeting If you're interested in
hearing what is planned for the
Fox Hills community and giving
your input.
That's Tuesday, OCTOBER 28th
from 6 to 8 And just wanted to
say a happy almost Halloween.
Be careful.
Just a reminder to be careful
for for drivers especially
because it is one of the
deadlier nights for you know
for pedestrians, especially
children, you know, child
pedestrians unfortunately.
So for drivers just you know,
slow down, stay alert
especially in residential
areas.
Roll down your windows.
Listen, you know, check
mirrors, all that stuff.
Be aware of kids backing out of
driveways and things like that
and have a happy Halloween.
That's all.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Council member Mike Morning.
Thank you.
I feel so good to be back at
the dias and I just want to
lift up and acknowledge the
Berkeley Young Democrats for
having a successful I think of
all at the California
African-American Museum this
past weekend and they lifted up
a young leader Brandon Lamar,
who had been who has been doing
a lot of work around the fires
and working to support folks in
Pasadena and Altadena who lost
everything.
So really grateful to have been
there to support that.
I also want to uplift that
OCTOBER is Domestic Violence
Awareness Month and every
OCTOBER organizations and
individuals unite across the
country and a national effort
to uplift the needs, voices and
experiences of survivors For
this year the theme is with
survivors as always and this
theme allows us to explore what
it means to be in partnership
with survivors towards safety,
support and solidarity.
So I wanted to lift that up And
we know that our federal
government is still formally
shut down that impacts families
here in Culver City and L.A.
County and countless other
Americans and many different
ways and namely you know, I've
been doing a lot of airport
travel so I've been linking our
tsa employees who have been
working without pay for quite
some time but did want to lift
up and reference to snap And
our nutrition benefits.
There are mutually resources
popping up.
I know L.A. County has also
been uplifting opportunity for
folks to tap in and receive
additional support And because
we know families are being
impacted So there are community
spaces where support is being
generated and I'll be
continuing to uplift those on
my social media as well.
And there are lots of events
happening definitely just a
general plug for Culver
city.Gov community calendar
There's shredding coming up
either Halloween events and
things of that nature So
definitely want folks to plug
in on that And as Councilmember
Fisher already loved it I
remember to vote and no matter
how you vote on Prop 50 on or
before NOVEMBER 4th and there's
more information about vote
centers on L.A. Vote.Gov.
Thanks so much for the time.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Very good.
That's my pleasure.
Yeah.
Last week I attended the
California retreat for aarp to
talk about the power of local
government and how we can work
together to create age friendly
communities where everyone
belongs as shared The work that
we're doing here in Culver City
through our age friendly
initiative which was started by
former mayors Megan Sally Wells
and Alex Fish and the
importance of collaboration
between cities, community
partners and advocates And
thanks to Director Stevens and
Francisco Cassio and Parks
Recreation and Community
Services for their leadership
in this work I also attended
the 2025 Violet Visionary
Awards which celebrates lgbtq I
a-plus leaders, mentors and
changemakers leading the way
for the next generation.
The award recipients were Leah
Thomas the us swimmer and
trailblazer Trailblazer for
trans inclusion and athletes
and a Lupe who is a writer,
performer and advocate And I
was particularly inspired by
their reminder about the
radical power of self-love and
embracing all of our parts of
ourselves and how the first
step in any movement is to heal
ourselves first and to heal our
own individual trauma and pain.
I also attended the Art Walk
and Roll two weekends ago.
Congrats to the Arts District's
bid and neighborhood and all of
the organizers.
I see some of the participants
here tonight are from skate
side.
They're amazing bands
performers, vendors, community
partners and food.
So congratulations on a very
successful event.
I know Mayor o'Brien was there
as well.
And last but not least and I
know we share this information
last week but the e-waste
collection and paper shredding
event is this Saturday,
NOVEMBER 1st from 9 A.M. To 1
P.M. And it's in in said Cronin
Ball Park.
Thanks man.
Thank you.
I'd also like to yes I was at
the Robertson bike and bustling
grand opening just a few days
ago with Councilmember Fish And
at that event I also with
several members of the press
there announced our support
that we voted on unanimously
here four options four and five
for the support of the transit
corridor.
That's the which choices of
five different choices of rail
to for Metro to vote upon next
year four and five have the
highest ridership projections
of all the options and they
also stop at ucla which is
critical And you know these are
really important connections
for you know, people who work
at ucla people people who are
students at ucla and clearly
some of the statistics are
incredible.
It takes about 100 minutes with
current public transportation
to get from the west side to
Van Nuys and this will make it
20 minutes And then for cars
it's up to 80 minutes.
It can go more than that.
We all know that.
But what's great about the rail
system is that it's predictable
and in this scenario it's
actually faster than all the
other options.
So that's really exciting.
There's something else It's
exciting.
I don't think I ever talked
about it but in AUGUST we
hosted the consul general It's
called the Los Angeles Consul
Corps.
There's 93 consuls general, 93
different nations Consul
general in L.A. And 28 of them
came to Culver City and we
talked about Olympics and about
bringing business here.
And from that at that time we
knew about New Zealand coming
here for their hospitality
house and one of several
nations that was excited about
that was the nation of Senegal
and their consul general and
reached out and asked to, you
know, connect on that And I
brought together my co
subcommittee member, the
Olympics based Mariposa and the
Senegal Mat only wants to have
their nation in Culver City but
they want to have a Pan-African
Olympic house in Culver City.
So I'm asking for nodding heads
to agenda is presentation by
them Ideally in JANUARY so that
we can hear that and kind of go
through the same process we
went through with New Zealand.
So if I can get my hands on
that would be great.
Okay, fantastic.
And then two other quick points
in the at the next meeting we
will be having a couple of
agenda items that have been
brought up by the Governance
subcommittee about kind of
related and how we can
streamline our city council
meetings and if everyone's okay
with that I'd also like to add
to those items that are coming
up a discussion about how we
can streamline the process of
proclamations and recognitions
If we can add that if everyone
can agree to put that on the
same agenda I talked to staff
it's it's no extra work for
them.
Okay, great.
And then finally some sad news.
Some of you MAY have noticed
our city clerk Jeremy Bo Chino
is not here tonight.
Who?
I was notified this morning
that her mother passed away on
Saturday And I like to get you
know, vibrating heads to
adjourn tonight's meeting in
her memory, her mom's memory.
Margo Green, thank you.
And Jose, can I also can I add
to your request in terms of I
haven't Yeah And so sorry for
Jeremy's loss but also in
addition to that if we can
adjourn in honor in remembrance
of Deputy Andrew Nunez, San
Bernardino County Sheriff's
Department who was
unfortunately fatally shot in
the head today and died six
year veteran.
The department leaving behind a
two year old daughter and a
pregnant wife if we can please.
I remember them and include
them in our internment.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
In that vein, Yeah.
We also adjourn in honor of
Melanie Winter.
She was the executive director
of the River Project and
formerly friends of the Los
Angeles River.
She just gave a presentation to
the Sustainability subcommittee
and recently just died of
cancer
.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you everyone.
Okay, now we have a
presentation on the update for
the homeless emergency
including Project homekey So
camping and other housing
programs
.
Good evening.
Honorable mayor, vice mayor and
city council members for the
benefit of the public.
My name is Dan Richardson and
I'm the Human Services and
Crisis Intervention Manager and
also the supervisor of the
Mobile Crisis Team.
So we are going to present the
Housing and Human Services
Homeless Services update Next
slide please.
So firstly I'd like to provide
an update on the mobile crisis
team and the mobile crisis team
operations began in MAY 2024.
And so at this point we've been
running for nearly 18 months.
The team continued to be busy
in the community and we're
currently working with human
Resources Department to hire a
new personnel which will enable
the team to expand the hours of
operation.
We hope to have the hirings
completed at the beginning of
next year and once the new
staff are onboarded and they
complete the crisis team
training module, the proposed
new hours of operation will be
seven days a week from 9 A.M.
Till 9 P.M. So we can now play
a short video that shows the
new office space for staff and
provide some details about the
Homeless outreach request
portal going for 18 months We
have a staff of four and we are
expanding so it's great that we
now have a new space.
We still have the office at
City Hall which is our hub but
now we have a satellite office
here at Project Monkey on over
the boulevard in the heart of
Culver City and that enables us
to respond from here over to
calls on the west side of the
city and to to get there
faster.
So the team are actually in the
community and of course they
can provide assistance to to
the folks residing in these
programs right here.
So we now have this great new
tool the homeless reporting
portal which enables residents
to let us know to to go online
and let us know where there MAY
be a situation The person who
is unhoused who seems like they
MAY need some assistance having
this portal enables us to to
hear directly from the
residents and where that need
is.
We are very proud of what we
have achieved and I'm very
proud of the team members and
how they've worked to get this
program off the ground and to
provide the services to the
community.
And you know, it's all about
the quality of the individuals
that we have on the team And I
can't say enough about that.
>> Their work.
Thank you.
Next slide please
.
Okay.
This and the next few slides
will provide the data for the
programs that are part of the
Copa Cities homeless continuum
of care.
So the first slide here
provides the field response
data for the mobile crisis Team
from the period of JULY 2024 to
OCTOBER 2025 and that's roughly
15 months.
So during that time period the
Mobile Crisis team received
1364 crisis response requests
which come from a variety of
sources including the mqtt
crisis phone line, the homeless
outreach portal email or staff
requests and of course from the
police and fire departments as
a code response during that
time Mobile crisis team is
engaged with 840 individuals
and we have received 56 code
response requests from the
police department and 24 code
response requests from the fire
department.
Excellent.
So this slide gives the data
for the city's project Homekey
program which is divided into
an interim site and a permanent
housing site.
Now this is a snapshot of data
which is from this month
OCTOBER 2025.
We can see that there are 36
individuals are receiving
housing and case management
services as part of the
permanent housing program and
that 33 individuals are
receiving housing and case
management services through the
interim housing program.
Both programs are able to house
couples and allow residents to
have emotional support animals.
Next.
So continuing with the housing
program data, we can see that
in OCTOBER of 2025 the Motel
Master Lease a nutrition
program housed a total of 39
individuals divided between the
two hotels.
This program also serves
couples and families.
And during OCTOBER we have
provided 4973 meals at the
hotels and at Wellness Village.
I'm moving on to wellness
Village on the right of the
screen.
We can see that during OCTOBER
2025 we are housing and
providing services to 16
individuals which includes one
couple and at least three
emotional support animals.
I'm sorry to interject as a
strategist for the month of
OCTOBER for the entire year
2025 just the month of OCTOBER.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So I will now turn this over to
Kristina Stoffels who is our
project manager to provide
information on the progress of
the homeless plan Update.
All right.
I would like to provide a brief
update on the Culver City
Homeless plan.
On SEPTEMBER 8th, 2025, the
council approved a contract
with Jennifer Cary Swan and
Associates to update the Culver
City's 2018 homeless plan.
The consultant team will meet
with the Advisory Committee on
Housing and Homelessness on
NOVEMBER 18th to review the
2018 Homeless plan, identify
key lessons and priorities and
discuss participants for the
community engagement process in
late NOVEMBER and DECEMBER of
2025 the consultant team will
launch a community engagement
process to gather input on what
is working.
Remaining challenges and
community priorities.
They will utilize interviews,
focus groups and written
feedback offered in person and
virtually to ensure full and
easy participation from
unhoused residents.
Community members, business
owners, city staff and service
providers.
The update is expected to take
about six months and will
result in a new strategic
roadmap to guide the city's
homelessness response.
This reflects Culver City's
commitment to data driven
community informed approach.
Now I will now turn it back to
DR. Richardson.
Thank you.
And I'd like to give the
councilmembers and vice mayor
and council members an
opportunity to ask any
questions.
I'm sorry I didn't offer that
Just before I move on to the
next item.
Random questions.
That's right.
Thank you.
Really quick I know it's been a
while since you all did an
update adding go back in my
notes to check But is are we
expecting for the public to
review their public dashboard
for updates outside of the
month of OCTOBER?
Yes that data is is held on the
website that yes.
Okay perfect Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks Mayor.
I just wanted to and thank you
for the presentation DR. Dan
and Christina.
Have we moved yet?
I know part of our budget In
our budget conversations it was
determined that the mobile
crisis team would become a 12
hour.
Was it 27 days a week?
12 hours a day?
Right.
10 to 10.
Have we moved into that yet?
Yes.
That time we were not actually
doing those hours of operation
but with the new staff coming
on we hope to be having those
new hours of operation at the
beginning of the year.
So seven days a week from it's
going to be from 9 A.M. Till 9
P.M. Still to 12 hours but
slightly different.
Fantastic.
Awesome.
Thank you.
So the question is if a
question is picking up on
Councilmember McMahon's
question, the website hasn't
been updated since MARCH of
2025.
What's the frequency that it's
going to be updated?
You know, I'm going to have to
check back on that.
I can't give you an answer
right now.
I believe it was supposed to be
updated every quarter and so we
MAY be in the process of an
update right now.
Okay.
I can actually speak to that.
So typically it is updated
every quarter and it's getting
a facelift as we speak.
So we are coming I think it's
NOVEMBER 10th which is the next
meeting to provide you guys
with an update on what the new
dashboard looks like along with
the new data.
Great.
Thank you.
So now we'd like to provide you
some information about the
Foster Youth two Independents
program which is a housing
choice voucher program.
So according to the Los Angeles
Homeless Services Authority or
lahsa, 92% of homeless youth in
Los Angeles County had a
fragile social network and more
than half 57% of youth in in
the coordinated entry system
reported having had some type
of contact with the foster care
system.
So the us Department of Housing
and Urban Development hud
announced a funding opportunity
for public housing authorities
to assist transitional age
youth as youth aged between 18
and 24 years old through the
Foster Youth to Independents
program.
On APRIL 8th, 2024, the Culver
City Council authorized the
submittal of a grant
application to hud to fund a
foster youth to Independence
voucher program that will
provide rental assistance to
foster care connected
transitional age youth
experiencing homelessness or at
risk of becoming homeless.
So through the Foster Youth to
Independence Program, hud will
provide rental assistance
vouchers to five five
individuals five individuals
who meet the eligibility
criteria.
Hud is investing in local cross
system collaborative efforts to
prevent homelessness amongst
youth with a current or prior
history of child welfare
involvement.
I'd now like to focus our
attention on the video.
The organization a sense of
Home Assists foster youth to
independence participants to
independent living.
And after the video I will
introduce the director of
programs for for the sense of
home Brody Butler.
But first we'll watch the video
.
It's quite difficult to live
without any furniture or
refrigerators.
Also big thing that you have to
either eat and you can't have
anything cold like you can't
really live like that.
I was kind of staying in the
living room because having no
furniture it's like kind of
makes it more scary to be alone
because it's like so empty
Today we came out, we learned
about a sense of home.
And I thought really
interesting a hands on support
from community And when we
heard about support from the
pharmacy we're really excited
to bring our club out here to
help Cody on her journey and
our next step in her life.
>> So that's always nice to
have you and I used to be a
person that would tell me that
no matter what you know like
you feel like having a group of
people that just want to be
here.
It's really meaningful to
have
that of the name of your
organization because it is to
have a sense of home coming
from foster care.
You haven't had something to
call your own in the comfort
and security to help you and
the path you know your next
journey And for Chloe to be
able to go to school, come
home, be able to stand in a
quiet place and face actually
having something so
personalized I never imagined
that someone could get to know
me so well so quickly.
Every single thing has been
something I looked at already
online or love immediately and
everything is extremely spot on
.
So great that they were so
passionate that they have done
so quickly.
>> It was so amazing for me to
see a recipient receive
something that you've worked so
hard in putting together and
pulling the club together now
It's fantastic.
The club wants us to do more
opportunities like this and
creating something together is
so important and that's what I
does and this is such a
wonderful opportunity for us
all the more
this is important
for our club to do this and
changing lives changes here and
that's what you will do when
you start nursing and can
actually officially move on.
I can be able to focus on my
next of like two weeks of
school and and have a good
strong finish in a nice and
apartment where I can you know
use my desk and see everything
and not have to be like and I
sit there and I have to stay in
the van You're so grown up now
And then I thought this would
happen.
I never thought that you'd have
everything you've been through
that you rise above everything
and be so much better than
everyone that I know You're the
best person.
You're so smart and you're so
beautiful inside and out and
you're going to do amazing
things.
This is just the start of it
and we have all of you guys to
thank you guys for looking at
your people and you don't do
this to me and this the
incredible the simplest thing
that you talked to it and
changed her life.
I just I can't thank you guys
enough but I can't thank you
more.
It'll probably and I love you
so much I want to thank
everybody that came through
today and all these people that
I just met a few hours ago and
we all wanted to come and be
here and do all this for me.
It's amazing that you wanted to
do that.
I mean just a random day in
your life that you wanted to
come out here and do all this
for me.
I think you guys have all
really impacted I guess even
just for a few hours it's going
to forever be a memory of life
and live here and be able to
think about all of you guys
.
Thank you.
And at this point I'd like to
introduce Brody Butler who is
the director of programs for
the organization a sense of
Home.
Hello everyone.
My name is Brody Butler and I'm
the director of programs head
of Sense of Home with a
beautiful video That was that
was Chloe.
She has an fbi voucher.
The five vouchers are mentioned
previously.
She's also one of our pay
forward ambassadors.
So since receiving her home
creation just a few months ago,
she's already paid it forward.
Another member is Home
Creations which is just such a
special thing and a sense of
home.
Our mission is to fully furnish
homes and provide a sense of
community for former foster
youth who aged out of the
system.
And so as you saw in the video
,we bring in a group of
volunteers to fully furnish the
home.
And each home is personalized
to the individual.
So we really get to know them
in the intake process who they
are as a person, what they
enjoy doing, what their goals
are and be fully furnished the
home according to them.
That's really just the
beginning though From there we
provide ongoing resource
navigation.
We have a scholarship program.
This is our third year of the
program.
And we provided this year 18
members with $20,000 to go
towards their educational
journey.
We also have our pay for
Ambassador program which I
mentioned previously.
Through that they can also gain
access to exclusive events,
public speaking opportunities
that are compensated so they
can allow their voice to be
heard.
And we have other events as
well and much more to come from
that.
One of our new programs is
there for our program So now we
are working with fbi voucher
holders and something new is
that now we're helping them
getting housing in the first
place.
So it's not something that we
did previously but I have a
background in in house and how
services is of the people
concerned.
So I have experience with
housing case management in both
Skid Row and Santa Monica.
So really leveraging those
skills to navigate the housing
authority processes and working
with property managers.
And we really like to focus on
building those connections with
the property managers, not
knowing the units will come
from that.
And so because of the
connections we've been able to
develop through our Housing and
Resource Navigator we now have
access to 235 affordable
housing units for us to refer
recipients to.
And so as it relates to the f y
I program will receive
referrals from dcfs.
They'll connect us to the
recipient and to their icm us
case manager, their intensive
case manager.
And we will then work with them
to get the housing to do the
intake to receive services from
us and then they'll receive all
the same aftercare that all of
our recipients would receive.
So this has been a really,
really powerful program made
such a big impact.
Really the goal with this is to
prevent homelessness.
And so our average age of those
that we service previously was
25.
Now we're seeing after
establishing their flier
program it's going down to 23.
So we're see that we're closing
the gap there and reaching
people sooner to close the gap
of them experiencing
homelessness.
And we want to just continue to
grow and build more connections
with property managers.
We're hoping that more housing
authorities will issue more
vouchers so we can just
continue to serve more and
provide more a sense of home
and really use that using that
Maslow's hierarchy of needs to
set the foundation for them
giving them a sense of
belonging, sense of safety.
So that way they can just have
this launch pad to achieve
their highest potential.
So thank you so much for your
time today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
I've never been to one of these
before because I'm English.
So any questions Is that
typical thing you want Any
questions?
Okay.
Thank you.
I did attend the kind of
landlord meet up with the the
potential candidates for
housing the transitional Youth
18 to 26 I believe so I think
that's a huge range.
Yep.
And really great young people
And at that event I learned
that, you know, Culver City was
the first city to jump into
this program and there are many
I don't know what the I can't
remember the number but it's
not a few other cities but many
other cities have followed our
lead on this.
So it's really great that it's
impacting the region.
It looks like and also
something I don't think was
mentioned.
It's really neat is that as the
rents or as the the young
person begins to earn more
income I don't think their rent
goes up But money is set aside
in a in an account for them a
savings account.
And I want to say that the
person who was making the
presentation said that the
largest amount someone had
saved once they age out of the
program was something like 30
or $40,000.
So to have that in that account
that they can take with them
and you know, build begin that
the beginnings of independence
is huge.
I don't know how many people
who were not in foster care who
had, you know, that much money
to go out into the world with.
So it's great.
Great.
Thank you.
Thanks.
And that concludes our homeless
emergency update.
Thank you.
Thank you for all the work.
Okay, now we are on to Drake
for public comment for items
not on the agenda.
Many speakers we currently have
ten speakers signed up.
Okay let's do 90s.
90s.
All right.
And then while we get set up
I'll go ahead and read our
statement regarding hate
speech.
Members of the public have a
right to speak on matters that
are within the subject matter
jurisdiction of the City
Council.
However, this Council strongly
denounces hate speech and does
not tolerate destructive
behavior in our meetings.
Culver City prides itself on
its diverse community and
inclusion of all persons.
We are committed to creating a
safe space in the city and in
these chambers where members of
our community feel included and
respected.
And I will call on the first
five speakers.
They are Jeff Schwartz, Angelo
Mike Jeffrey Pinsky, Marcy Bond
and Lamar Betts, Jeff Schwartz
,the L.A. County Democratic
Party recently gave MR. O'Brien
an award named for Franklin and
Eleanor Roosevelt.
The legacies of our greatest
PRESIDENT And first lady should
not be invoked casually.
I don't know what your favorite
fdr speeches but mine is the
1944 State of the Union.
It's easy to look up so you
don't need to take my word for
any of this.
The speech concluded with what
fdr called the Economic Bill of
Rights.
While it has not yet been
implemented in this country,
when Eleanor Roosevelt chaired
the U.N. Committee that wrote
the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, she incorporated
it into this fundamental
document of the rules based
postwar international order.
When the nations of Western
Europe rebuilt their
governments social democracies,
they included it in their
constitutions as did those in
Africa and elsewhere as they
liberated themselves from
colonial rule.
The Economic Bill of Rights has
also been frequently cited by
American Democratic Socialists
including Martin Luther King
and Bernie Sanders.
It calls for full employment at
a living wage and protection
from business monopolies.
It declares that housing,
health care, education and a
secure retirement are human
rights to be guaranteed by the
government and that the
struggle for economic justice
domestically was the same
struggle as for freedom safety
and dignity.
As the antifascist war then
being waged in Europe and Asia,
fdr said in the speech that
quote We have come to a clear
realization of the fact that
true individual freedom cannot
exist without economic security
and independence inspired a
legacy as a gift and a burden.
This one is not trivial.
That MAY have been true as I
challenge you to take note.
Next we have Angela Mike
followed by Jeffrey Penske
.
The city Council's unanimous
vote to host New Zealand for
the Olympics was like a knife
through my heart.
That's how you all treat
homeless people.
You trip over them with a
wheelbarrow full of money not
for the benefit of New Zealand
athletes but for the
millionaires and billionaires
at the ioc and their trillion
dollar corporate sponsors.
Apparently there's nothing
urgent about people sleeping in
the cold.
We've had 50 degree
temperatures at night.
I can tell you what it's like
to sleep in that it's torture.
It's rained here recently.
I've never slept in rain but
I'd venture to guess it's
torture.
I prefer never to hear that
capitalist feelgood story about
a homeless person being
someone's kid who fell through
the cracks when you are the
cracks.
Because what I learned from
being homeless for two and a
half years is when you're
homeless you're not someone's
kid.
You're someone else's kid.
When you all voted for that ioc
giveaway, you didn't vote for
your kid to go homeless.
But the Olympics always cause
razed rents Gentrification and
displacement which will make
someone else's kid go homeless.
Nobody wants to MISS Out on the
cultural exchange and economic
boost from the Olympics and
nobody does.
That's who you are when you're
homeless you're nobody.
There's a homeless family
that's been begging outside
Trader Joe's down the street
recently and nobody works out
great for sex predators to have
a bunch of nobodies to exploit.
I can tell you from experience
you house the people love to
judge all homeless people for
what any one homeless person
does wrong.
When you're savages you're the
pimps and panders who profit
from homeless people's
dispossession all while you
drive past homeless people with
your heated seats and
entertainment centers secure in
the knowledge that you'll never
be in the position my mom was
in when she could look at a
homeless person and say That's
my kid.
It's not too late to take this
back and let's cancel the
Olympics while read it.
Thank you for your attention to
this matter.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Jeffrey Penske.
Good evening.
I'm a longtime resident of Crow
City.
I live at 5830 Green Valley
Circle which is a large
apartment building in Fox
Hills.
I've lived there for 12 years
with my wife and my now ten
year old daughter.
Since we have lived there the
landlord has not complied ever
with the nonsmoking ordinance
which has emboldened a lot of
the residents to smoke
marijuana.
The worst offenders have moved
next to us.
We have a shared wall.
It's an old well, it's porous.
If we close the windows and
they smoke it comes directly
into my bedroom, into my
bathroom to the point where we
have to flee.
We have made them aware of this
issue.
They laughed off it to a group
of young adults that use it as
their smoking den.
We have provided this with our
property manager.
They are two heavy smokers.
They're not going to enforce an
ordinance against themselves.
They really haven't done
anything but a cursory offer to
move us to another unit.
And they have read the
ordinance which I provided for
them.
They said they can still smoke
inside which is a total
misinterpretation.
The owner is not incentivized
to do anything.
We are a long time tenant.
We have a below market rent.
They want us out.
If I sue them and leave for
12,500 they win.
So I mean they're a business.
They need your permission to do
business in the city.
You can surely revoke that
business until they become
compliant with the ordinance.
I asked for your help.
Thank you.
MR. Prince.
Q Can you share information
with the city clerk and show
for that along to our code
enforcement?
Thank you.
It's been a nightmare.
We have to leave every in the
middle of the night.
Thank you.
Your time has expired.
Sorry.
I just got a message that maybe
the YouTube might not be
working, so I just want to flag
that for staff in case their
son thinks he's Prince Pastor
or information On to Tiana
here.
Thank you.
Next we have Marci Seaborn
more
than you do.
Great.
Thank you.
My name is Marci Bond.
I am a Parks and RECs
commissioner but I am speaking
on my own behalf tonight and
none of my opinions reflect the
view of the Commission.
On Saturday I went over to the
prca Halloween celebration and
as I was walking through the
park I noticed that there were
kids in the park but there were
also people with their dogs.
A number of them unleashed.
While they MAY be well-behaved
,the issue is is that you have
kids running around and you do
not know how if a kid's going
to run up to a dog startle
them, they're going to end up
biting them.
This is just a dangerous
situation.
The dogs are not supposed to be
brought into the park.
They're not supposed to be
unleashed in the city at all.
Please, please, please, please
keep your dogs on a leash.
Do not run them in the park.
We do have a dog park.
And one more thing to remind
everybody about is that the
fund is a public pool.
It is not our own personal
pool.
There is no such thing as my
lane in a public pool because
it is for everybody to use.
So if you are in a lane and you
are solo and someone wants to
come in and join you be nice,
smile at them and just let them
come in and both of you will
have a great time.
Thank you.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Next we have Lamar Betts
followed by the next five
speakers who are Melissa
standards bad Monica
Richardson, Patrick Godinez and
Michael Colby.
Right.
Hello everyone.
Hello, counsel.
My name is Lamar Betts.
I'm the co-founder and owner of
the skate side.
We run a youth skateboarding
roller skating program here in
Culver City as well as in
neighboring cities as well.
And since 2015 we've taught
over 10,000 students how to
skate a roller skate through
our program.
And although we've had students
that have gone on to be Olympic
skateboarders for Olympic
teams, we're most proud because
students in our program have
found a sense of self and a
sense of community.
And I'm here today to talk
about Skateboard fest.
The Skate Cif-ss our annual
giveback event that we do We
had 1 in 2019 as well as 2024
which was our return event.
And we also had 1 in 2025 this
year in MAY.
And thank you to the Culver
City Parks Recreation as well
as the city.
We were able to have a special
events permit grant that was
able to assist us with creating
a larger impact for the event.
And I am asking to agenda as
for a future meeting a request
for an extra $5,000 because for
2026 we want to have a two day
event.
We had over 2000 people show up
for our 2025 event.
We had a roller skating zone, a
skateboarding skate park zone
and a family fun zone.
This is a family fun event that
our participants have come out
to.
We close out all of our other
areas for everyone to enjoy the
event.
So we're asking to organize
that event for an official time
has expired.
Thank you, MR. Betts.
You're going to apply for the
grant, right?
We've applied for the grant
which the asking for additional
$5,000 since it's to the event
the commercial events
Subcommittee Vice Minister on
that Will we go through that
and decide that at that level?
So and we know you're coming
up.
Okay.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thanks.
Next we have Janine with North
Ski.
I apologize.
Melissa Sanders.
You're unmuted.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
And MR. Mike, whatever his name
was needs to realize we already
spend way over $15 million on
the unhoused and he needs to
find a new city to complain to.
I just wanted to briefly talk
about tomorrow's meeting with
the police.
Since I will not be able to
attend since I will be on a
school board meeting.
And I really appreciate that we
have our own police department.
I really appreciate that.
I can get to know my police
department.
I really appreciate that They
will come if I hear a weird
noise in the middle of the
night and appease me.
What I don't appreciate is when
people want the police to be
defunded what I don't
appreciate is when they think
that they make purposeful and
racist and other things which I
personally have never
experienced.
I have not met anyone who has
ever experienced with rc cpd.
What I do appreciate is that
they probably need more staff
than less staff.
We are five square miles and we
as a city deserve to be
protected to have the best
available to make sure our kids
and families are protected, to
protect the people who work
here, who decide to actually
shop and dine in play here.
Our kids go to school here.
All of this is important and
should be realized how
important it is to have our own
police department fully staffed
Fully funded.
Thank you.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Next we have Beth
Dear City of
Culver City members, council
members houses presenting an
update for the rent control
rules.
We ask that before any steps
are made to accept this
proposed changes that the city
holds a meeting with property
owners.
Many of the proposed changes
open a can of worms for example
forbidding property owners to
move in or senior parents or
ailing parents to a apartment
that they own.
I have personally I have a
senior parent that the doctor
said in the next six months to
a year will need to move closer
to me.
And what I'm being told by
these proposed changes the city
of Culver City will not allow
my parent to move closer to me,
closer to ucla and Cedars and
to leave my parent living alone
at risk.
That should not happen.
It creates an even bigger
problem.
Secondly is another aspect is
insurance for our rental is
going up 300 a month come
JANUARY.
Car insurance has gone up 200 a
month and that doesn't count
the cost of labor and other
costs.
So please keep that in mind
When you think about rent
control and making it even
stricter.
The other aspect is utilities
as that section is very unclear
and clear but water water the
tenants need to know how to
manage the water and they do If
they pay there's part else The
tubs are running freely.
We've had nightmare situations
I'd be happy to share with you
one on one.
The other part is roommates.
I was able to buy my place
because I had roommates for
many years and I had guns
pulled on me.
I had people bring in spousal
abusers.
I'm sorry times are okay.
Thank you.
Next we have Monica Richardson
.
Hi there.
I was a long time resident of
Culver City for 21 years and a
homeowner still for 20 years.
I own a 1950s classic house
that's 1400 square feet.
I just I've noticed a lot of
racist comments.
I guess you talk a lot of talk
about gender and race with this
council open in Culver City a
very long time.
Some of the council members
have been there just a few
years.
So it's like you've come in and
now you think you want to
change Culver City or you want
to criticize Culver City for
how it is or what it is.
We are the United States of
America.
We're not the United States of
the Democratic Party or the
United States of the Democratic
Socialist Party.
There are other people who have
different opinions from maybe
three of you.
Five people here do not
represent or maybe four of you
how other people feel.
So as United States when a lot
of people want to call certain
people tyrants and all this
sort of thing, what I'm seeing
in Culver City is a really,
really heavy shift to the left.
Left, left, left.
Like I don't even recognize it.
1991 is when I arrived in
Culver City with a newborn and
I felt safe And I want to
support the police.
We don't want to defund them.
I just want to say to you every
time a couple of you talk all
you talk about is gender and
race.
And lastly, we don't want men
in the bathroom.
No men in the shower in the
plunge.
I think you should think about
how you talk when you start the
meetings.
>> Thank you.
>> Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Patrick Godinez, give me your
Hello everyone.
I come to stand before you as a
culver City housing participant
and for the sake of the public
I also sit on the Advisory
Committee on Housing and
Homelessness.
I would like to publicly
comment.
The city has done an amazing
job providing shelter and
services to hundreds of
unhoused neighbors over the
years.
Hats off to Director Barnes
staff and all the providers
involved.
Now that the city is shifting
focus to developing more
affordable housing, I believe
it is imperative that the city
ship a portion of the
department's dollars to the
Culver City Housing Trust Fund.
Maybe $1 million a quarter.
These dollars could be replaced
by programs grants not only to
build but also for services.
For example, the L.A. City
agreed to provide 12,915 beds
by 2027 just recently.
Finally, please inform the City
Housing and Homelessness
consultant why we were denied a
$60 million grant for Julio
Village.
That way we could or they could
possibly reapply or apply that
information to another large
grant with a similar project.
Thank you.
And lastly we have a Michael
copy.
Good evening y'all.
Back a year or so ago when all
those people over Sartell and
Colbert filed complaints with
the mark moons are asking him
to enforce the city policies we
got we realized after a while
that he was going to do
nothing.
He never even sent them a form
letter, never investigated the
problem at all.
That's with 60 de facto
affidavits sitting on his desk
and written letters.
Certainly after that I got a
phone call from an official at
City hall.
It was without email asking me
if I had the time and didn't
ask me when when I picked up
the phone if I had the time
then I Mychal Bell also first
name never talked to this guy
before.
Hi Michael.
It's John Mack Bar the city
manager.
What can I do for you?
I'm calling because you're
upset with our planning manager
Mark Messenger.
Yeah.
You don't understand, Michael.
We like Mark.
We think Mark does good.
You shouldn't be upset with
him.
He's part of our team.
Oh, my GOD.
I couldn't believe what I was
hearing.
This is the city manager.
That's the guy who runs City
Hall.
I'm thinking this guy and I
have to be blunt is an idiot.
What I'm thinking at the time I
got off the phone later on I
started laughing.
My wife said What?
Who was that?
I said Is the city manager does
a.
He went on I took command of
the conversation and guys
you're getting a new city
manager be demanding, be
resolute, be cynical When you
interview.
Good luck.
Sincerely Your time has expired
.
Thank you.
And that was the final speaker.
Okay.
Thank you.
We have a motion to receive and
file correspondence
.
Thank you.
I have a motion by council
member McMahon and second from
Mayor o'Brien.
Maybe can voting
a
councilmember?
I think it's broken those so
maybe someone can come fix it.
Thank you.
All right.
The motion passes unanimously.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
We're on to our consent
calendar.
Do we have any speakers for
consent Calendar?
We have seven.
Okay.
You tell me what items c 12.14
17 for ten one.
Okay.
Thank you.
And then colleagues, you have
any synonyms and pull outside
of those kinds of things.
Oh yeah.
C five and c five and c 13
2013.
Yeah.
I asked if you could advocate
for c ten and maybe have the
speakers speak separately.
I need to recuse myself from
that item and I'd like to speak
as a resident on that item also
so we can pull that one to
discuss everything else and
then I'll excuse myself.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Why don't we start with c ten
and then actually let's let's
hear all the comments first and
save the c ten item for last
and we'll have council members
step down at that point.
Yes And the speakers are
Crystal Alexander, Marci Bon,
Melissa Sanders, Patrick
Godinez, Jacob Shaw and d
Lindgren.
Also Mayor staff would like to
pause item c 11 for an update
and update on information on
the use of funds for c
and how
much time 90s 90s Thinking.
Crystal Alexander
I'm not
seeing her online or in the
chambers so we're going to move
on to marcy bon marcy or
unmuted.
Thank you again I am a Parks
and Rec commissioner.
Anything I say is my own
opinion.
It does not represent the
commission.
Just wanted to let you guys
know I heard a bunch of
screaming from my neighbors So
something's going on with the
Dodgers game.
Anyway I hope it's good
news for all of you Dodgers
fans.
So first off, I want to just
just tell you guys how excited
I am about you guys getting to
the point where you have an
actual code change for the
donor and sponsorship.
I think this is very exciting.
I think it's going to do
wonderful things for our parks
and fingers crossed this goes
through it will vote for it and
we start getting donations So
that we can actually move
forward with our general our
parks general plan.
Knock it off.
Sorry my cats.
Then I wanted to talk about the
glue traps.
I'm concerned about that
because a lot of people and not
necessarily that I use glue
traps for animals or rats and
whatnot I would rather use the
snap trap.
I refuse to use the poison trap
because those I feel like well
the glue traps are inhumane.
The poison traps kill a lot of
other animals including hawks
and owls and all of these
important predators.
Whereas the rodents they
because they are prey they
propagate very quickly.
So please consider this whole
thing about those.
Thank you.
The traps that are I know I've
run my time out but the poison
traps please can.
Thank you.
Next we have Melissa Sanders.
She's speaking on c-10 And can
we say good bye?
I'm sorry.
I'm actually picking up my 1050
bucks on.
My concern is about the and I
think it was c four mainly that
I was unclear if this was
something to do with the
ridicule this bike lane part of
overland or if you guys are
planning to do upgrades to
Overland prior to trying to do
the grant.
Either way we stop if it's just
to improve overland the
pedestrian stuff.
Great.
I hope that works but do not do
anything with the bike lane.
Do not do anything that's going
to remove parking.
Do not do anything That is an
ada alliance issue.
Don't do anything that's going
to make living in this area any
more difficult.
Just stop.
So I apologize.
I missed some parts of things
that are not quite focused at
the moment but I assume we get
to speak on c ten separately
but maybe fix them up them out
in front of my address.
Sorry.
You know, move to the.
Yeah.
Can you hold on If you're going
to speak on c ten.
Hold on to them.
There we go.
Well so I think Patrick Godinez
.
Hello.
I wanted to comment on c when I
read the the rest and the items
for the cash distribution that
you are on.
I'll give access to the public
for you know if it's possible
if you could put it in the
departments and categories you
know as opposed to one less I
think that would be helpful for
the public to really understand
the spending that's going on.
Thank you.
Next we have Jacob Shaw
.
Good evening Council.
My name is Jacob Shaw.
I'm here on behalf of People
for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals.
And I just wanted to thank you
so much for taking on this glue
trap And just a briefly address
what one of the previous
speakers said in case there was
any confusion about this.
Glue traps actually do catch an
enormous number of animals
beyond just mice and rats.
There's a group called Wild One
or rather a data aggregation
center called Wild One that's
run by the Wildlife Center of
Virginia that keeps track of
glue trapping take from animal
hospitals and wildlife
rehabilitator around the
country.
And over the last ten years
they've received reports of 180
different species being caught
in glue traps.
So the number of actual animals
is in the hundreds of thousands
if not millions.
So I really just wanted to
thank you so, so much for
banning these traps.
They really are torture
devices.
It's the reason every animal
advocacy organization, every
environmental organization
supports banning these traps.
So one day people are going to
think how did we ever tolerate
these traps being sold and used
and they will always look back
and know that Culver City was
one of the first to act and do
the right thing for animals and
for all of us.
So thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
That's it.
Okay.
Are we going to bring back MS..
Sanders to talk?
Okay, Councilmember, you can
step out.
Will you want to vote on all
the other ones or.
I think we will.
Okay.
Yeah.
So let's go ahead and do you
want to update for item c 11
from staff?
Yeah So so let's say see ten
provides that.
Okay.
So so we're starting with c one
or these are the ones that are
commented on and then council
vice chair approves the wanted
c five and always the other one
and c 13 and then do we need to
pull any of the others for
anyone?
Okay Council member You're
going to want to see ten pulled
and so you could speak on it as
a member of the public.
Okay.
So we have a c five, c 11 c 13
and then we'll do c ten and
then
we see one or c five.
I think we're going to do c
five.
I will just say that for the
disperse the disbursement list
there's that's a standard list
that we prepare in the finance
department for all the checks
that are cut checks can be
found on the clear gov portal.
The transparency portal And
I'll make sure with staff that
we clearly point to that But I
believe that you can download
that into Excel and then sort
those items.
So thank you for that.
Sure.
And in regards to c five, I'll
take any questions.
This is our quarterly report on
the measure c, c and c sales
tax reports.
Again, because our information
comes delayed through the state
,the report that is a part of
this item is for the third
quarter of the fiscal year.
So it is JANUARY through APRIL
air through MARCH actually and
the real property transfer
taxes.
The other piece of this and
that is for the final quarter
of the prior fiscal year during
those great couple of questions
will there be any forecasts
that will include We're
expecting thousands of
residents to come into the city
within or forecast that will
include that information.
So that is difficult to
address.
I mean there's and are you
thinking that that is related
to the revenue that they will
potentially generate?
There's also going to be costs
associated with them when the
general plan was brought
forward there was a financial
report that a consultant repair
prepared specifically related
to the full build out
anticipate added in 2045 that
talked about potential revenues
and costs.
It wasn't broken down obviously
in a shorter term, you know our
forecast is only looking ten
years.
We can look at those numbers
and try to see what we can
bring into the ten year
forecast.
We're working on that right now
.
We're waiting to close the
fiscal year.
We're working with our auditors
currently and we hope to bring
that forecast back to the
council when we talk about the
contingency reserve And we're
we're hoping to do that in
JANUARY.
That way we'll have all the
data from the prior fiscal year
and that included additionally
we will include now that
measure seal has passed and we
have an additional quarter cent
it's looking likely although we
don't have complete
confirmation from cdp, tfa but
that the quarter cent is is
likely to start this JANUARY.
So we will get half a year and
we will include that as well
And that the measures they'll
be included in with all these
other reports.
And then just on that note, I
know that reports could be
coming that that ten year
forecast but with the
structural deficit with this
new measure seal and with the
possible offline end of the
wellness village and 27 ish,
how will that will that when
will we expect our structural
deficit to, you know, level out
?
So I based on the budget
forecast the adopted budget
yeah, we can see that probably
with it starts to decrease
certainly in fiscal year 2728
because that was when Wellness
Village is slated to go offline
and also then we will be
receiving the additional tax
sales tax revenue.
And so probably again not
having done a full analysis,
what it looks like is in that
fiscal year 29, 30 and 3031
things get to even write again.
All things being equal and we
don't know what what else will
happen.
Yep.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's it, Mary.
Okay.
One one additional question on
this one.
Thank you for pulling it, Vice
Mayor and thanks for the
report.
See us over the the sales tax
revenues.
I asked if they had been
inflation adjusted the ten year
and you said no and it doesn't
say it was That makes sense.
Can can we see that going
forward Because I was noticing
that over ten years it's up but
then over the last four years
it's down our sales tax
revenue.
So I was just wondering like I
want to be able to know in that
I think it'll be helpful for us
to know in that glance Like if
it's if the value of the money
is actually decreasing that
makes sense or if what
inflation you know changes that
view I guess is that easy to do
?
I can ask the consultant I'm
not sure but I will say and
then they did on the that third
attachment the dotted red line
sort of is looking at what
would be norm Mall based on a
normal projection on where you
think you would land Of course
every quarter is different
right?
The spikes in that graph are
the DECEMBER holiday quarter
which is typically when sales
taxes at its greatest and other
dips are you know the JANUARY,
FEBRUARY, MARCH quarter tends
to be low because people
basically spent a lot of money
for the holidays and then
really tighten their belts in
the beginning of the year And
you can see that the the graph
really does do that.
I'll I'll see about the
inflation.
i will just say about the last
four years there was a
tremendous spike that happened
coming out of the pandemic.
Everybody had stimulus money in
their pockets.
They were spending on things in
a way that they hadn't spent.
They they they batten down the
hatches and then they started
they really started spending.
And so the increases that you
see there are because of that.
And then as things started to
even out and open up, people
started paying for experiences
more, right?
Like they went out and did
things that they hadn't been
able to do.
We don't get sales tax on those
service says we get sales tax
on goods And so when they
stopped buying actual products
and paid more for experience
that has affected our sales
tax.
So a lot of things in the works
there and certainly the kind of
the ups and downs of the
economy recently haven't helped
either.
People are and and tariffs and
there's a lot but this this
sort of is predicted that it
was kind of course correcting
and we'll see what happens
we're cautiously optimistic for
just very measured growth
moving forward but we'll see.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Yeah, I just wanted to know if
like the increases that we're
seeing or the decreases we're
taking that into account in
case Yeah.
She said another clue.
Thank you.
Okay.
And I mean to piggyback on that
I is inflation essentially
accounted for when you're
looking at projecting costs you
know our expenditures I mean
we're those are you're
projecting yeah yeah that's how
it's in our in our costs we do
include that we doing we
included in our forecast some
measure of inflation both on
revenues and expenditures We
look at you know our model
looks at history but it also we
can adjust it based on things
that we know that are happening
that okay yeah, yeah.
This one was just about the ten
years prior not the forecast.
Yes.
But yeah.
Correct.
Yeah Yeah.
Okay great.
Next is c 11
.
Good evening Honorable mayor,
vice Mayor and members of the
Council.
For the sake of the public my
name is Travis Barnes.
I am the housing and human
Services Director.
Staff has requested that this
item be pulled based upon
information that we learn from
the county of Los Angeles.
I want to thank Council members
McMoRan and Fish for meeting
with staff as part of the
Standing Housing and
Homelessness Subcommittee to
discuss how to utilize the
funds of 257,108 that we
received from the County of Los
Angeles Affordable housing and
solution Agency or La Casa and
the subcommittee has
recommended that 20% of the
funds go for legal services
which is an allowed expense and
that 20% will be used to
supplement the contract with
pathetic and to work with
tenants who are experiencing an
unlawful detainer.
The subcommittee also had
recommended that the 40% for
rental assistance that half of
those funds are 50
approximately 51,000 be used
for emergency rental assistance
and flexible financial
assistance And they have also
recommended that the additional
other 50% go towards temporary
rental assistance for folks as
defined under the program.
And the program defines
households that are
experiencing a loss of
employment, a natural disaster
or an unlawful detainer and
unexpected events that causes
folks that are housed.
These funds can only be used
for folks that are housed to
keep folks in housing.
An additional 40% can be used
at the discretion of the
council.
So the subcommittee instructed
staff that 50% would be used
for financial assistance for
households impacted by
immigration enforcement and
they wanted the balance of
52,000 to support the city's
housing trust fund.
The county has informed us that
we cannot use funds to support
the housing trust fund.
You can only use funds for
direct client assist funds and
they want the funds that are
available to hit the streets as
fast as possible.
So Staff one wanted to inform
the body that the county does
not allow the use of funds for
the housing trust funds and we
would like to seek direction
from the council of the Balance
of the 52,000.
How will the Council like to
utilize those funds?
Thank you for that.
I would like to request that it
goes into our rental assistance
program.
That's an area of need.
This is not directly orange.
You know I'm not going to
disagree with that.
Yes.
And I think the subcommittee
was very thoughtful in their
deliberations and under the
rental assistance program they
would like to give one months
of rental assistance which is
3500, which is a good chunk to
assist folks And it's a one
time But then we there also is
a second component where they
will give rental assistance of
1000 per month per adult for up
to six months.
So staff would just need to
know which pocket do you want
to put that in?
The one time for 3500 or the
thousand per month per adult
for up to six months.
I'd like to ask the opinion of
the subcommittee members on
that.
Thanks.
And I'm happy with that.
I'm wondering if we can maybe
split that between the program
that specifically serves our
immigration and our families
targeted by immigration
enforcement and then our our
main program for the emergency
rental as directed by I'm just
saying in the temporary rental
assistance maybe we could do
like half and half.
i don't know what is my
colleague on the committee
think?
COUNCILMAN Martin Thank you
Director Byrnes You and your
entire team for your quick
action and due diligence in
getting back to us on that and
that update on what the
permissible use of the funds
would be as it pertains to what
we should do with this new
information.
I would be in favor of sort of
splitting it between the two
programs that we've identified.
Again and as I sort of always
say just kind of seeing where
the need is as as needs come in
and maybe we can make
adjustments.
I know we said we would check
back in as a subcommittee as as
things were progressing and we
were noticing you know, you
know, where the needs in our
community are and just
hopefully we can be nimble and
flexible and really support our
neighbors And remaining housed
in Culver City which I know is
a goal of everyone here in the
Dyess.
So and maybe for now we split
And again just try to be data
driven as we move forward.
Thank you, Kent.
To that end, could it be used
as almost like a contingency
bucket for these three separate
You know, it's almost like we
have three because they have
the emergency rental and
flexible assistance, the
temporary rental assistance and
then the immigration the family
families targeted by
immigration enforcement is
there like can we have this as
like council members saying
like a sort of a a bucket that
could fill where the need is
the most between those three?
The council can give staff that
direction If I am understanding
you correctly, we're noticing
that more folks are in need of
that one time rental assistance
versus say the you know, folks
impacted by immigration and
Foresman that we would then
rely upon that additional money
to assist those folks.
But if we notice that it's
trending in that way we would
convene the subcommittee to let
you know what's happening and
to see what direction you want
us to go And if you want us to
come back to the full body I'm
okay with that as everyone
else's.
Yes.
Okay.
Directions clear.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Okay, great.
No further questions on that
item.
See 13 and then we'll do a vote
on those with minus c ten.
I don't need the staff report.
I just curious how many grants
have been made and how many
participants have obtained
housing and remained in housing
And what happens if
participants leave before one
year?
So for the public again this is
tough as far as how the any
human services director Vice
Mayor Pusa is asking with
regards to the it's called the
permanent Local housing
allocation program r p l h h a
We have been awarded year
three, four and five.
Similar to our previous
discussion this money is
prescribed for certain
eligibility eligible activities
under year three Council gave
direction that we would utilize
our funds as rental assistance
for folks transitioning out of
our interim housing program So
part of the recommendation is
that we continue to use years
four and five for folks
transitioning out of our
program for year three.
We are currently still in the
process of developing a by name
list meaning that folks that we
believe can benefit from this
program and please understand
this is temporary rental
assistance.
So we really need to work with
households that can live
independently And once the
funds are removed or moved away
or reduced they are able to
maintain that housing without
that assistance because we
don't want anyone to fall back
into homelessness.
So currently we are identifying
households that we believe
could thrive in a situation and
living this independent and
we're also using funds to
provide additional years of
rental assistance.
The first iteration was just
only one year of rental
assistance which most of us
realize that's not enough.
And so with we went to the
county and said Hey, can we get
more money?
And they agreed.
So now we will be able to
provide folks with up to three
years of rental assistance to
help them transition to be able
to pay the rent on their own or
hopefully maybe find another
resource such as a Section
eight housing voucher.
So currently we have six folks
on our by nameless We are
working with them and getting
them prepped and ready to be
able to live in an apartment on
their own And of course working
with them with life skills and
money management So that way
when they make the transition
that they are strong and well
suited to do so.
All right.
And then you did ask what
happens if they don't stay for
a year?
We will just move to the next
person on the by nameless who's
ready to go.
Got it.
Thank you.
And things are going over the
program and back up.
So tonight is correct that we
talked about three rentals
assistance programs, three
different Yes we have So we
have one rental assistance for
the unhoused and that's the p l
h a program And then we discuss
to rental assistance program
through that And I'm sorry to
do this to the public This is a
lot of alphabet that what is
that the the r a okay even I am
having difficulty here it is
the rental housing homeless
prevention program the
difference between the one the
two programs one is for folks
who are housed to keep them in
their housing and the other one
is for folks who are unhoused
to get them into housing.
So the p l h a is for the
unhoused to get them into
permanent housing and then the
other two programs for folks
who are already housed to keep
them maintained in their
housing because they were
dealing with some type of
crisis.
So we are dealing with three
different programs.
Right.
Thank you, Director Burns.
And just for clarification for
members of the public because I
think there's some confusion
that we don't provide rental
assistance programs anymore.
They've been eliminated.
So I just want to make sure
that the public knows that the
city is still providing those
very important programs.
Thank you.
And don't forget we also still
have our Section eight rental
assistance program.
We're still working with that
program as well on the federal
side.
Okay.
Thank you for that addition.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
So with that thank you Director
Branch, let's go ahead and vote
on consent item c one through
17 while pulling out c ten
I
have a motion by Council member
Farah a second by Mayor o'Brien
to approve the consent calendar
item c 139 and c 11 through c
17th MAY be in voting.
Yeah I can no I still can't
vote or make motions but I vote
I thank you Council member Fish
Maybe if we can get j hours or
someone Johnny here
that motion
passes unanimously okay and for
the public council member is
going to step into the back
because he has a perceived
conflict of interest on c ten
and once the staff report is
complete and any further public
comment or comments from the
Dyess are over, he is going to
be called out to speak on the
item as a member of the public
sector chain.
All right, good evening, Mayor,
vice mayor and city council
members, this is Diana Chang,
City's chief transportation
officer.
We're here tonight to recommend
to city council to approve the
guiding principles for the
supply that connects project to
authorize acceptance of grant
funds for the Metro measure and
sub regional equity program In
the amounts laid down the staff
report and approve a related
budget amendment to appropriate
the grant funds to the project.
We also have a presentation
available to introduce the
project and walk through the
guiding principles If the
Council would like a
presentation yes please.
Thank you.
So if you can next slide please
support Our next is a mobility
project that envisions a
corridor where everyone can
move better safely comfortable
and reliably and find the
opportunity to improve people's
experience along the corridor.
This project is a community
center design effort that will
lead to the construction of low
cost meaningful improvements
that benefit transit writers
and other street users.
Next slide We're focused on
some of that because it's
critical mobility corridor for
Culver City and neighboring
West Side communities serving
many important regional
destinations such as L.A. X and
ucla and many local
neighborhood services and
businesses.
Our general plan identifies
support for that as a transit
priority corridor a place where
we prioritize improvements to
our streets and signals to make
busses operate more reliably
and to make the customer access
in waiting experience safer and
more enjoyable.
So with all our capital
projects support for that call
next we'll look to improve the
experience and reliability for
people traveling by all modes.
Next slide the Complete Streets
Design Standard Establish a set
of street design elements that
must be included when budget
allows in all key roadway
projects with the goal of
incrementally making our
streets more complete support.
Our connects is a transit
priority project at its core
but staff will look to include
other design elements from the
complete street design
standards when it's financially
feasible to do so.
Next slide.
Funding for this project comes
in part from the West Side
City's Council of Government
which has dedicated measure and
funds to build the bus priority
on three key corridors
including support for the
boulevard The West cog
supported by our staff will be
designing and implementing
quick built bustling under
segment of support of the north
and south of Culver City in
combination with our project.
These improvements will shape a
meaningful transit priority
corridor that supports our
highest ridership bus line bus
line and an important corridor
for the l.A or 2028 games.
Next slide the project team has
been working during the first
three quarters of 2025 to
develop a clear understanding
of baseline conditions in the
corridor including developing
analysis tools that will be
used to model traffic and
transit outcomes from various
design scenarios to be
developed during next phases of
the project In OCTOBER we
launched our engagement process
with our first c pac or what we
call community project Advisory
Committee and door to door
visits with corridor
businesses.
We're scheduled to hold our
first public design workshop
starting in mid-NOVEMBER.
These will support a community
centered design process that
will continue through the first
quarter of 2026.
We will return to the City
Council at that time with
design alternatives for
direction.
Our scheduled target contract
construction date will be in
late 2026 with an opening
anticipated in 2027.
Next line So in effort to
ensure a smooth design process
,these draft guiding
principles have been developed
to guide our work with
community stakeholders leading
to solutions that meet
community goals.
The following guiding
principles reflects these goals
codified in the general plan
and will be used to ensure
project design activities
uphold the city's commitment to
meeting these community crafted
goals.
These are similar to the design
guidelines we have for the
downtown corridor.
They lay out what the project
is and what it isn't and how to
resolve issues that come up
during design.
It makes sure that everything
we're doing is fulfilling the
project's mission.
Next slide.
With a limited budget we will
have to prioritize street
improvements that best align
with our general plan policies
and mobility needs.
Our guiding principles are
organized to help inform
project development in decision
decision making.
General plan policies and user
needs dictate that transit
improvements are the core of
support with our connects.
As we plan for these
improvements, the team will
seek to make travel more
reliable for all road users and
for fulfill the intent of the
bike and pedestrian action plan
by creating additional
connections within the bike
network.
These are other critical
mobility principles Any time we
make transportation investments
it presents an opportunity to
improve our community.
For kids walking to school,
people accessing local
businesses and those who spend
time on the corridor and in
adjacent neighborhoods.
Finally, our designs were aimed
to balance cost effectiveness
with quality impermanence and
now going to a little bit in
the future slides Next slide.
The content of support for our
connect is to build transit
priority infrastructure and
support that to speed up busses
and help them stay on schedule.
These improvements will be
coordinated with
recommendations from Culver
City Your way to enhance
service levels.
For those of you who are not
familiar Culver City your Way
is another initiative that's
aimed at creating a holistic
mobility services plan which in
coordination with the
infrastructure improves Ment's
will help to create more
convenient options for people
to travel in their daily lives.
We're using a data driven
approach to build bus links
where delay is more impactful
to customers.
This will allow us to consider
other types of improvements
where bus travel is and is
projected to remain reliable.
Next slide.
As mentioned earlier, support
for that is the busiest transit
corridor served by Culver City
bus.
The line six Rapid six carries
approximately 6000 riders per
day which is about 55% of our
system.
Bus ridership.
This is also a key corridor for
the Olympics connecting key
destinations and metro rail bus
riders in the corridor are
impacted daily by traffic
related delay and poor
reliability.
Next slide.
Building our network of all
ages and abilities cycling
facilities is essential to meet
our general plan goals in
meeting the intent of the b
pap.
Support for that is identified
as a North-South cycling
corridor in the bike and
Pedestrian action plan.
In support of that connect will
evaluate options to build out a
north south facility, improve
network connectivity.
Our existing conditions
analysis identified that there
are high traffic volumes
particularly in turning
movements, complex
intersections, vehicle speeds
and multiple freeway ramps and
off ramps on portions of the
corridor that are consistent
with the highest level of
cycling stress.
With these conditions our
national design guidance calls
for the highest level of
protection on corridor and at
intersections.
Given these findings, our
guiding principles provide
direction to look at both our
corridor in parallel corridors
cycling facilities It would be
most prudent to locate bike
lanes and support where traffic
volume and turning movements
permit building a high comfort
low stress facility and the
lanes will close a gap in the
existing or near future Bike
network whether it's planned or
for planned and funded network
.
Next slide The real strength of
bike infrastructure isn't any
particular corridor it's in
that network as a whole.
A network of protected bike
lanes means more people are
connected to more destinations
.
Our approach will be identify
to identify the set of
investments that best
contribute to a comprehensive
all ages and abilities network
.
Next slide We want people to
experience predictable and
reliable travel along support
of them whether they're riding
the bus and driving walking or
riding the bike.
Here's why we are focusing on
reliability.
When people have bad travel
experiences it's often because
a trip takes longer than
expected because the busses
late or because the car or a
bus is delayed in traffic.
It's what sticks out in their
memory as a poor experience.
In a growing region we can't
expect to reduce traffic demand
but we can provide reliable
travel for people making
sustainable transit in cycling
more attractive options and
tools that make transit and
cycling more predictable,
reliable and safe can also help
to improve travel reliability
for people driving and
delivering goods and can
encourage context appropriate
travel speeds improving safety
for all.
Next slide.
The project will be addressing
the corridor holistically
assuring that improvements made
on support that don't have
negative outcomes for adjacent
neighborhoods.
The team will analyze potential
impacts coordinating with the
tri square area traffic study
and consider traffic calming
measures that address current
and future cut through traffic.
Next slide.
The project will seek to
improve neighborhood
connectivity through targeted
pedestrian improvements.
This will include adding
features to help calm traffic,
reduce pedestrian crossing
distances and create a
welcoming and accessible
environment to shop, stroll or
wait for the bus.
Next slide.
We have heard a strong desire
from the c pac members and
business stakeholders for
investments that improve the
public realm along the
corridor.
The project will look for
tactical opportunities to
improve the quality of public
spaces and support the
boulevard and improve
conditions for people accessing
businesses and transit
services.
Next slide Support that is home
to many small and local
businesses that rely on access
by all modes.
Our team has surveyed parking
usage along the corridor and on
intersecting streets and we use
this data to inform design
decisions and identify
locations that require
mitigations for potential loss
of our street parking spaces.
While we note while we know
many customers arrive by car,
this project is an opportunity
to make some of that a safer
and more comfortable space a
place to access businesses and
services on foot or other
sustainable modes.
Next slide.
It will be important for this
project to balance the use of
permanent materials that our
appropriate for this heavily
used corridor with the
opportunity to make meaningful
improvements within our project
budget.
Our goal is to install
permanent infrastructure
whenever possible and to use
quick build materials only in
limited circumstances where
needed to meet time and budget
constraints.
Next slide.
So this concludes my
presentation and where staff as
well as project consultant are
available for any questions.
Thank you.
That was great.
Do we still have a member of
the public going to speak on
this?
Yes.
We had three speakers signed up
for this.
Okay.
Can we hear from them please?
92nd each.
So we have Melissa Sanders,
Lisa Lindgren and Albert Viera
.
Melissa Sanders is on line.
So I've unmuted you.
You can unmute yourself.
Go ahead.
Hi again.
I actually MAY defer to
Albertson's.
He is a business owner there
and I would like one of our
priorities to start being our
businesses.
I didn't know he was in to
speak so this is totally off
the cuff and whatever is done
in this city needs to be
thoughtful and respectful of
everyone but especially our
businesses because without our
businesses we don't have a
city.
So the exhausting list of
places that have closed over
the past few years is mind
boggling.
We all know move was a massive
failure.
It is still a problem.
So anything that will make car
travel more difficult create
less parking and less access
for people should be a
nonstarter at this point.
I have a new boss who has no
idea that I am involved with
city politics at all.
And he complains about having
to travel through Culver City
Still even though it's improved
.
So please think about that.
Think about the people who do
travel in cars who are the
majority of the people who will
shop eat, play, drink etc. In
Culver City.
So thank you.
Our next picture is Diesel in
green.
Good evening, Mayor o'Brien,
Vice Mayor pws and members of
the city council.
My name is Lisa Lindgren and I
just I'm speaking this evening
as a member of Bike Culver City
Bike.
Culver City did send a letter
to all of you but it was sent
perhaps too late for all of you
to get to see And I just wanted
to share some highlights.
The first thing is that my
Culver City is really thrilled
that the city is is beginning
the process for Snapple that it
connects.
It's as you know so poverty is
frequently utilized as an
alternative to the 4 or 5
particular during rush hour.
So everything that can be done
to improve things on Sepulveda
will be a really great benefit
to all users of that street
including those who are
pedestrians people ride bikes
and those who use alternative
transit like the bus.
We want to make sure that the
plans reflect our understanding
of the changes that can be
expected With the passage of sb
79.
There is very likely to be more
housing on support of it in the
future so making it possible
for people to live there and
not be totally car dependent
would be extremely positive.
It's very helpful to have had
the excellent presentation
shown by Diana Chang and her
department has done amazing
work and we look forward to the
ongoing process for providing
an input.
We do really want to stress the
importance of including safety
as one of the guiding
principles sustainability and
Equity hired.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Did you want to come back out
and speak on our fire?
Come on out.
Come on down.
What do you say back there?
Thank Evening Council.
Thank you so much for hearing
my voice as a business owner On
to Poverty Boulevard.
I'm extremely worried about
this project moving forward
with the elimination of parking
.
As a business owner I did a
survey about a week ago and
determined that at least 45% of
my customers are comfortable
with a boulevard.
The loss of revenue would be a
terrible loss to me as well as
every other business on So
Poveda and I decided to take a
look at seeing the revenue loss
not only in the tax dollars
from the businesses but also
the revenue loss in terms of
the parking meters and how that
would affect the city overall
monetarily.
I can do structures great but
where possible we can do it off
in support of it and maybe on
some of the side streets but
really to ensure that the
business voices are heard and
we have meaningful conversation
and some of these issues are
really addressed in a
meaningful manner.
Like I said, parking is vital
to the success and longevity of
any business So really be
cautious about how we move
forward with parking.
Thank you.
That's the end of our speakers.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any comments from my colleagues
or questions?
Director Jan Katzmaier.
Thank you And thank you so much
for the fantastic presentation,
DR. Chang.
It's clear how much thought has
already gone into this project
and the need for this before
the Olympics is so clear.
And so just thank you for doing
everything you can to make it a
reality.
Like Director Ching mentioned,
you know, this being a $100
million $100 million coming
from measure this is a regional
priority of the West Side cog
And this is Culver City Busses
most popular route from Fox
Hills to ucla.
I took it for two years to get
to to my program at ucla.
It is so crowded and you know
that bus was stopping for, you
know, in traffic or you know,
my entire ride up there.
It was not a super pleasant
experience And yet it's 55% of
our obviously ridership.
I appreciate you sharing that.
DR. Chan It's really helpful to
know So yeah, you know I
appreciate the letter that we
received from advocates in our
community who are just
concerned about us or you know
I think I really appreciate the
proposed guiding principles and
especially the revised version
that was sent.
I think on Friday.
And I'm just curious if you
know some of their concerns
were that safety as a as a
concept wasn't one of them.
And I'm wondering if we can if
these principles are something
that this council could give
direction to just incorporates
safety as a guiding principle
considering that traffic
violence is the number one
cause of death for for children
in L.A. County ages 5 to 14
according to the L.A. County
coroner.
Is that is that something that
Director Chiang that these
guiding principles could they
be amended to add safety as a
as a guiding principle?
And I do again appreciate so
appreciate what we do have here
because I think it's really
strong But I'm hearing that
from some community members.
Thank you.
And and I want to clarify that
these are guiding principles
that will help us with the
design And these are actually
not the way that it's different
than when we see goals of a
project.
Right.
And so the way to my
understanding is that the
safety is in every project that
we do And so it's more like a
goal but it's not a designed
guideline in that sense.
So but if the council wants us
to amend it we can certainly
amend It's just not quite the
intent of the guiding
principle.
Again it's it's safety is
everything that we do here
every time we implement a
capital project whether it's
you know, the street restriping
or you know, any kind of
project that touched the
roadway.
We do have a Vision zero policy
and complete street design
standards that actually focus a
lot on the safety of things and
that we actually follow.
And so that's something that I
wanted to make sure that we're
where I'm distinguishing the
difference between the the goal
as well as in this guiding
principle.
Thank you for that.
Yeah I, I am really happy to
hear that it's a you know a
goal of every project that we
work on.
I mean that's that's evident
just by the the project that we
just unveiled on on Robertson
this section the majority of it
that's in Culver City is really
protected concrete protected
and even separated bikeway at
one point And then when you see
the L.A. Portion they have a
different set of standards and
the protection is much softer,
less fortified and just less
secure and less comfortable for
people.
So I think there's for me
there's a really wide range of
of what a protected facility
bike lane or what a bus lane
could be.
There's so many examples of
different types of facilities.
So that's why I think it's
important that this document
even if it's just setting up
you know, it doesn't sound like
this is blocking any any work
or anything that we need to do
But if it's if it's here to set
up you know what we envision
this project being I think
safety should at least be a
core principle And then I also
heard I heard it from this
letter that you know equity
sustainability that those be
included and I'm supportive of
that as well.
I'm supportive of adding the
plan or the guiding principles
do reference to be pap which is
great but it would I think it
would be great considering how
much time and effort went into
the Complete Streets guidelines
if it could reference that as
well.
That was another ask from from
our community was just
referencing the work that went
into developing those
guidelines by saying this
project is intended to you know
continue to essentially abide
by the complete Streets
guidelines that were developed.
So those are the suggestions
colleagues that I'd love to
make to this document.
I don't I don't intend to to
hold this up.
So I would hope that that maybe
wouldn't need to come back for
approval if we could just give
direction to approve it with
those amendments to prioritize
those or to add those guiding
principles.
We'd love to hear your thoughts
on that because Thank you.
I wasn't planning to speak
primarily just because I'm
excited that this item is
finally here before us and
really appreciate all the work
that Sito Chang and your entire
team have been collaborating,
leading and developing to bring
us to this moment.
So deep appreciation for that
And as it pertains to the
additions that Councilmember
Fish looked at our safety
sustainability equity where did
you see those falling in the
actual principles list?
Would that be under community
or I assume safety would be
under design and I would
actually suggest that we have
it under a new section and
policy.
So I think that would be a more
appropriate place for these
areas.
So that feels a little just a
bit disjointed to have a
separate one.
Is it just to make the
distinction that the council
suggested it So no, not to make
a distinction but I think that
because some of these would
kind of it's kind of a catch
all for policies where some of
the policy MAY apply across
those different categories.
So it's it's easier to capture
them in one bucket.
Thank you for clarifying
coaching So would you see it
coming first on the list before
core or am I am I looking at
the right with my I have core
mobility community and design
for I is that the right list?
Yeah yes So policy would come
before or last on the list I, I
would suggest that it comes
before before because it's the
big picture then because these
guiding principles are focus on
the design intent.
Okay so there are lower level
they're more tactical in terms
of the project.
Okay Okay So we'll go with that
and I'm open to those
suggestions and excited to move
and this work for thank you.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate Yeah thank you so
much for the presentation Thank
you so much for the
communication and the outreach
that the Transportation
Department does assisting some
of these presentations And I
just really appreciate all that
you're doing in that regard.
I also appreciate the comment
about we're never going to I
think you said something about
you know, we're never going to
eliminate traffic but we can
provide reliable transportation
And I think that's true.
I don't think anyone is saying
that we're ever going to fully
eliminate traffic but we can
improve things especially on
the Poveda.
And the other thing a lot of
times the people who say
they're for mobility projects
or or they MAY be against
increased density because of
bus reliability because there
isn't and so I know in the
staff report it says that
busses are 20% of our trips are
running late So here we have a
project that could address that
issue.
We have a solution so things
can be working in the right
order and things are aligning.
So I'm just very excited about
this.
I do have one question but
before I get to that question I
agree with proposed amendments
suggested by Councilmember Fish
and then as is the only good we
answer Poveda or will we
possibility of you know going
on to some side streets or is
it just all be one straight
shot on Poveda So in terms of
the bicycle facilities we're
looking at both support that as
well as some of this parallel
streets.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Very good.
Thank you.
Thanks for the commenters and
including our probably from the
dais councilmember very it's
good to hear from you know
people who experience transit
on support of the you know
obviously from those in the
bike and the in the public
transportation perspective but
also from the standpoint of the
business owners along there and
I because of where I live in
Beach Park I frequent many of
the businesses along ship over
there basically from the creek
all the way to Venice And
street parking I know is a
challenge Many of the the
businesses there and we have
one, 2 or 3 onsite parking
spots so they're very dependent
on on street parking for their
business survival And another
consideration that I think
should be so it is being
addressed or it's being
acknowledged in the community
section to use parking
occupancy data to inform design
process and provide parking
solutions where they're needed
most and to consider options to
mitigate on street parking
removal.
There's also a consideration
that isn't looked at here and
it is ada and it's I've been
hobbling around on crutches for
the past three and a half weeks
and and I do know that a
frustration with folks who do
have a disability when there's
a bike or bus facility that
separates their vehicle from
the curb or makes it or a
parking is completely
eliminated, then you know, some
people can I know my parents
for example, they can't walk
more than you know, 50ft.
So what do they do?
You know, it's easy to say well
,they can just park on the
side street and you know but if
there's we need to really
consider ada.
So I would appreciate and I
don't know if this you know I
want to be cognizant of the
comments you made.
DR. Chang, about, you know,
goals versus principles.
But I if we can include under
your number seven
acknowledgment and
consideration for media
accessibility, I think it's
really important My colleagues
are minimal that and I I'm okay
with the requested amendments
or additions to the same
principles and I'll add my
support to that suggestion.
I was just curious Director
Chang Will when this comes when
when the design comes back will
there be options for the
council to review with sort of
yeah just different options
that prioritize these principle
ways I guess in different ways
right.
And we do plan on bringing back
more than one design options to
the City council for direction
.
Okay.
Thank you so much And before we
vote on this I do want to
really commend you Director
Chang and your entire team.
Culver City is one of four
members Well technically five
six if you include our
neighbors in L.A. And L.A.
County.
But when we Beverly Hills and
Santa Monica and West Hollywood
and our our projects are where
I think put in front because I
think the great work of our
Transportation Department where
we were the most ready and so
we were awarded.
So I appreciate that.
So we have a motion Mayor,
before you take a motion.
Yeah, because you're approving
a document that's very specific
And I just want to make sure
Director Chang has enough
information to articulate the
additions to the to the Guiding
Principles document and make
sure Council is comfortable
with her taking those ideas and
formulating the language.
If not, we probably should have
her read the language into the
record and make sure the
council's comfortable with
that.
So but we need to do one or the
other.
We need to either have council
approve the exact language or
give her you know, the
discretion to formulate it
consistent with the council's
input.
I feel we're clear on and
council and jump in but it was
clearly expressed that under
any policy category which goes
at the top for core addresses
the safety comment and then I
and then I'm asking to add
consideration for eight under
the maintain business access or
to actually go under enhanced
public space where I trust
you'll put it in the right
place in there under community
I wasn't sure if I really heard
where the complete streets
would go.
Yeah I didn't want to be too
prescriptive on that one but
just wherever it makes sense
because it does it does
reference the Bipap So maybe
under mobility since it
references the meet the
intended to be part maybe that
would be a natural place to say
and follow you know the
standards set forth in the
complete Streets guidelines And
then along with what the mayor
said just wanted to reiterate
that the other asks from
community members as
specifically that Culver City
was the was incorporating
equity and sustainability as a
as a tenant or a guiding
principle and that that can be
in that top section and then
get those it okay does that and
I'm comfortable with it not
coming back to my colleagues as
well Okay okay wonderful okay
We have a motion and a second
.
Thank you.
I have a motion by council
member Fish a second from
Councilmember Mcmorran to
approve this item as amended
you MAY begin voting
Members
have voted in the passes four
eyes with one recusal from
Council member Bera Thank you.
That's you very Come on back
and we're going to move on to
public hearing item number one
All right So I got a new one
here.
I'm going to announce it.
This is the time and place for
the hearing of protests or
objections to the continuation
of the downtown Culver City
Business Improvement District
And the resolution of intention
was published on OCTOBER 16th,
2025 as required by the Streets
and Highways Code and have a
brief staff report.
Yes sir.
Good evening Honorable Mayor
and City Council.
My name is Luis Gonzalez.
I am the City project manager
and economic Development for
your consideration this evening
is item p h h one the adoption
of a resolution confirming the
downtown Culver City Business
Improvement District.
The downtown Culver City
Business Improvement District
provides services for the
businesses and downtown
relative to the operations
maintenance, beautification and
marketing and that is reflected
in their work plan.
There are no proposed changes
to the dba se boundary and
there is no increase for 2026.
The ordinance was introduced at
the last council meeting on
OCTOBER 13th and is being
brought back for adoption
tonight.
That staff is available to
answer any questions.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
MAY have a motion to open the
public hearing
.
I have a motion from
Councilmember Fish a second
from Councilmember McMurry to
open a public hearing maybe in
voting My motion passes
unanimously and Councilmember
Bera has returned to the dais.
Okay.
Thank you.
Do we have any public comment
on this There None.
Oh, we do not know.
Okay.
Thank you.
MAY I have a motion to close
there Also before we close the
public hearing?
Um, I would like to report that
we did not receive any protest
for this public hearing.
Thank you.
I have a motion by
Councilmember Bera and a second
from Councilmember Mcmorran to
close the public hearing.
Maybe can voting That motion
passes unanimously.
Great.
Are there any comments or
questions from my colleagues?
No.
Okay.
Um I see a motion to adopt the
proposed ordinance which is to
approve the resolution
confirming downtown Culver City
Business Improvement District
advisory boards and or report
and the levy of the downtown
Culver City Business
Improvement District Assessment
for calendar year 2026 to
appoint the 2026 Advisory Board
is recommended by the downtown
Culver City Business
Improvement District to
authorize the city attorney to
review and prepare the
necessary documents and to
authorize city manager to
execute such documents on
behalf of the city I have a
motion by Councilmember Bera
with a second from Vice Mayor.
Pleased to approve and read by
the mayor MAY begin voting
on
my screen this somewhere so no
I yes you vote I okay I motion
passes unanimously okay thank
you.
And now
we're going to go to
public hearing number two and
this is where I announce it
This is the time and place for
the hearing of all protests or
objections to the continuation
of the bid for the Culver City
Arts District And the
resolution of intention was
published on OCTOBER 16th, 2025
as required by the Streets and
Highways Code
evening has Good
evening Honorable Mayor, Vice
Mayor and Council Members.
My name is Elizabeth Garcia and
I'm part of the economic
development team tonight Your
for your consideration is a
resolution confirming the
Culver City Arts District
Business Improvement districts
and you work on the levy of
assessments for calendar year
2026 as well as the appointment
of the bid's advisory board.
There are no changes to the
assessment rate and boundary
and there are no changes to the
boundaries of the business
improvement district for this
year for calendar year 2026.
This concludes my staff
presentation.
I'm available for any questions
you MAY have at this moment.
All right.
Thank you So you can motion
open the hearing.
I have a motion by council
member Fish and second from
Vice Mayor please are to open
the public hearing Maybe you
can voting Councilmember Fish
Right.
That motion passes unanimously.
Great.
And then do you have any public
comments?
There are none.
Okay.
Any protests?
There are no protests received
for this item.
Okay.
So a motion to close the public
hearing
.
I have a motion by
Councilmember Rivera and a
second from vice mayor please
to close the public hearing
meeting and voting that passes
unanimously.
Okay.
All right.
And I seek a motion to adopt
the proposed resolution which
is confirming the Culver City
Arts District Culver City Arts
District Business Improvement
Districts and know report and
the levy of the Culver City
Arts District Business
Improvement District Assessment
calendar for 2026 a point the
2026 Advisory Board is
recommended by the Culver City
Arts District Business
Improvement District authorize
the city Attorney to review and
prepare the necessary documents
and authorize the city manager
to execute such documents on
behalf of the city.
Thank of a motion from Vice
Mayor Pusa a second from
Councilmember Vieira to approve
That's right.
I mean maybe converting
this
Mariposa Thank you.
That motion passes unanimously
.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
On to public hearing number
three and motion from council
to receive and file the
affidavits of publication and
posting of notices and
correspondence received in
response to the public hearing
notices
I have a motion from
Councilmember Bera a second
from Councilmember Finch to
receive an email You MAY begin
voting.
That motion passes unanimously
.
Okay You have a staff report.
Good evening Marin Council Lisa
Soga Chief Financial Officer
We're here this evening to
conduct a public hearing
pursuant to the federal tax
equity and Fiscal
Responsibility Act or Tephra
Tephra requires that a public
hearing be held by the
governing body of the
jurisdiction in which a project
leaked to be financed with tax
exempt financing is located and
that the governing body approve
the proposed financing for 464c
Poveda Boulevard l p has asked
that the California Municipal
Finance Authority the c mfa be
the issuer of tax exempt
financing in an amount not to
exceed $65 million.
The proceeds of the bonds will
be used to finance the
acquisition, construction
improvement and equipping of a
multi family rental housing
project located at 44604464 Sub
Poveda Boulevard The c mfa is a
Joint Powers Authority formed
to assist local governments,
nonprofit organizations and
businesses with the issuance of
both taxable and tax exempt
debt.
The debt to be issued by the
Cafe will be the sole
responsibility of the borrower
.
The city of Culver City will
have no financial or legal
obligations or responsibilities
with regard to the repayment of
the debt.
All financing documents will
carry disclaimers that the loan
is not an obligation of the
city.
The city will also bear no
costs in the issuance of the
proposed debt.
The Council previously granted
approval of the proposed
financing on OCTOBER 28th 2020
for the approval expires after
one year and must be granted
again after a second public
hearing.
It is recommended that the City
Council adopt a resolution
approving the issuance of bonds
by the c mfa for the benefit of
the borrower.
Such adoption is solely for the
purposes of satisfying the
requirements of tephra the Code
and the California Government
Code Section 6500.
I can answer any questions And
we also have tonight with us
Jared Suzuki from the c mfa who
can answer specific questions
if you have them.
Okay great.
Thank you.
Do we have any questions from
my colleagues?
Councilmember Hahn That's one
of the questions.
All right I MAY I have a motion
to open the public hearing?
I have a motion from
Councilmember McMahon and a
second from Councilmember Finch
to open the public hearing.
Maybe can voting by motion
passes unanimously?
Okay, great.
Do have any comments or
protests from that?
Yes, we do have four speakers
sign up tonight.
Okay.
They would be men and have to
90 so they would be Jamie
Wallis, Leah Pressman, Melissa
Sanders and Lisa Lindgren.
Our first speaker is Jamie
Wallace.
Jamie, I'd I'd like to you can
unmute yourself.
Go ahead
, Jamie.
It looks like your life so
Okay.
We're going to come back So the
next speaker is Leah Pressman.
Hello.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I speak to express my support
for the approval of I don't
know if she's with me keeps
linking Okay.
Can you hear me?
Yes Sorry.
Go ahead and good evening And I
want to express my support for
the approval of the tax exempt
bonds to help finance the
Jubilee Village affordable
housing Project.
This is not a big deal.
The city council approved the
same bond issuance last year in
OCTOBER and simply needs to
renew it.
I fear that members of the
public MAY get the mistaken
impression that this will cost
or obligate the city
financially as we just heard it
does not approval cost the city
Nothing but failure to approve
these bonds could well cost the
city.
The village Jubilee Village
project is a key part of our
obligation to affirmatively
further fair housing and meet
our arena goals.
There'll be serious costs if we
fail to meet our goals.
So not approving this bond
would really hurt the project.
I think that's a bad idea If
the city if the bonds pass the
city actually gets $19,000 in
fees charged to the borrower.
That's our portion and we don't
get it.
And if we don't pass the bond,
Jubilee Village also MAY bring
in money to our school
districts Bye bye housing
families whose children will
attend our schools.
Approval of this financing does
not obligate Culver City in any
way.
Culver City badly needs more
affordable housing units and
construction of this 100%
affordable development is an
appropriate use of tax exempt
bond financing.
I encourage you to approve this
bond issue.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Melissa
Sanders.
Melissa, you're in You two go
ahead.
So here's the thing We do have
multiple other project x with
more than the 99 affordable
units the ju below is claiming
to build in the pipeline and
they are not asking for any
money whatsoever.
So I think that if you guys are
going to support this which by
the way I think you did when we
were only giving them a couple
million dollars and we could
actually afford a couple
million dollars, they put $20
million in escrow and make sure
that they repay us the $20
million that they do not
deserve.
Honestly, they needed to do
this themselves.
We should not be supporting
this project.
We have other projects going in
with no money from the city
whatsoever.
We are already making our arena
goals.
We already have other projects
that will meet our goals.
There is no reason whatsoever
for this project to go forward
with taxpayer funds $20 million
taxpayer funds and they are
taking everything of ours for
the next 20 years.
So I say don't support it
because we have other projects
that are not taking $20 million
of taxpayer funds as well as
all of our vouchers for the
next 20 years.
We have other affordable
housing already in the pipeline
that will more than cover
Jubilee Village
.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Diesel
Ingram.
Hello again Mayor, vice Mayor
and members of the City council
.
I want to commend and thank the
city staff for the excellent
staff report that does a good
job of explaining something
that is not something the
average layperson knows about.
I certainly had never heard
about the tephra and the
requirement for a hearing about
this at the municipal level but
I think the pressmen did an
excellent job of explaining why
it's so important that you
approve this.
So thank you so much for
supporting page three
.
So we're going to circle back
to Jamie Was Jamie
Let's see if
it works this time.
Yes it does go ahead.
Hey, she's bullish.
Yes.
This is actually pro forma pro
forma on state.
You guys aren't going to listen
to anything or do anything.
So I just want to take this
opportunity to remind the
council that we're spending 16
to $36 million of taxpayer
money to support one project
with no return on investment or
loan repayment wiping out our
ability to help more renters in
the future.
The developer is not even a
Culver City constituent and
even if it's nonprofit it's not
city controlled.
So in a sense you can say it's
private you're throwing more
money than other cities usually
do.
So many affordable units are in
the pipeline ready for
development without city
funding.
This is fiscally irresponsible
and puts the city budget in
worse condition than it already
was.
Thank you.
Thousand of our speakers.
Okay thank you.
MAY have a motion to close the
public hearing.
I have a motion from vice mayor
Please a second from
Councilmember Barron to close
the public hearing we begin
voting and that motion passes
unanimously.
Okay.
Thank you.
One last rounds If my
colleagues have any comments on
this.
Nothing.
COUNCILMAN First COUNCILMAN
Rick Moran comes from the
comments.
Yeah.
Thank you, Mayor.
Although this item is more
performative than than anything
really in nature I don't
support the project.
I didn't support the project
moving forward with taking $20
million from our emergency our
emergency reserve funds.
I cannot and will not support
this item And the $20 million
that number sort of comes up in
our next item Also a one which
I think I will draw attention
to it there but I can't support
this.
Thank you Mayor.
Thank you.
That's my pleasure.
Thank you.
I am going to support this but
I do want to let the public
know that the Planning
Department puts out a
projection of how many housing
projects are in the pipeline
and how many housing and what
housing we still need So with
other projects that are already
built and already in the
pipeline for very low income we
still need 750 a very low
income units.
We still need 390 low income
units and we still need 511
moderate units.
So this will go towards those
numbers.
I think this is a great
investment in affordable
housing which we desperately
need.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
So when this came up a year ago
,you know we're renewing this
essentially because it expires
after a year.
I voted for it.
I voted yes And it was because
at that time our commitment was
$4 million as a city and since
then it went up to 20 million
And as alluded to by COUNCILMAN
Rivera, we're going to hear
about it in a one it points to
our structural deficit and you
know 6 million added to the
original 4 million.
That is not a good place for us
to be putting ourselves into.
Affordable housing is important
and it's part of our our
mission.
It's part of our goals and
we're working hard on that And
we've got a lot in the pipeline
as mentioned.
But I can't support putting our
financial status at such risk.
So I will be voting no on this
But it looks like we have a
actually I'm requesting a
motion in a second and I will
read what that is towards to
conduct the public hearing
under the requirements of
tephra and the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 as amended the
Code and adopt a resolution
approving the issuance of
revenue bonds by the California
Municipal Finance Authority for
the benefit of the Community
Corporation of Santa Monica, a
California nonprofit benefit
corporation On behalf of 4464
support of Boulevard l p a
California limited partnership
or other ownership entity
created by 4464 support of
Boulevard llc a California
limited liability company its
general partner or by another
affiliate of the sponsor has
undertaken a proposed plan of
finance that includes the
issuance and reassurance from
time to time of one or more one
or more series of revenue bonds
in an outstanding principal
amount not to exceed $65
million to finance and
refinance the acquisition,
construction development and
equipping of a 95 unit
qualified residential rental
project to be owned and
operated by the borrower and
located at 4460 and 4464
support of the boulevard within
the city of Culver City.
Such adoption is solely for the
purposes of satisfying the
requirements of Tephra the
Internal Revenue Code and
California Government Code
Section 6500 and approve the
deposit of approximately
$19,183.40 in issuance fees to
the Culver City General Fund.
Thank you.
I have a motion by Vice Mayor
please and a second from
Councilmember Mcmorran to
approve that item as read by
the mayor you MAY begin voting
That motion passes for eyes and
one No from Councilor Bera.
I'm sorry I meant to Can I pull
it back to I went on autopilot
.
I like to make that a no
please.
I have to vote on rebuilding my
request to bring it back so I
can vote no on this.
Please
.
We need a motion in a second on
that I need a motion is I can
okay.
I have a motion from
Councilmember Rivera and a
second from Vice mayor please
Had to revote for item page
three as a point of order
Doesn't have to be someone who
voted for it to call it back or
it's just whoever is up here I
just want to make sure that No,
I.
I appreciate that.
Councilmember McMahon
Technically a motion for
reconsideration does require
somebody in the majority to
make the motion.
It sounds like Mayor o'Brien is
asking for a revote to correct
an error which isn't really
contemplated and rules of order
and but the city council also
has discretion to allow it if
they choose.
If not, then I recommend
treating it as a motion for
reconsideration which would
require somebody from the
majority to make the motion.
If you're willing to do that
for your colleague.
I just made the motion Thank
you.
I have a motion from
Councilmember Fish and a second
from Vice Mayor.
Please have to reconsider the
vote for item page three and
you MAY be can voting
.
Thank you.
That motion passes unanimously
so we'll revisit the vote for
item page three the motion in
the second summary Thank you
And I have a motion from
Councilmember Fish a second
from vice Mayor present to
approve that item as previously
read by the mayor and you MAY
begin voting.
Thank you.
That motion passes three eyes
and two nose nos from Mayor
o'Brien and Councilmember Bera
.
Thank you for the report.
Okay.
On to a one
and
we're ready for
a staff report please.
Okay.
And Clark is pulling up our
staff report presentation.
Okay, Good evening again, Mayor
o'Brien and City Council.
I'm Lisa Sjoberg, your chief
financial officer.
I'm here with Elizabeth
Shavelson, our assistant cfo.
We are here tonight to discuss
ways that the city can increase
public participation and
transparency in the city's
budget process.
Over the past year Council has
asked staff to return with
various items related to this
topic and we are consolidating
some of them into tonight's
staff report and presentation.
Next slide please.
So first we are going to ask
Council to consider whether to
conduct a civic assembly to
help develop strategies for
public engagement in the budget
process.
Funding was included at the
time of budget adoption for an
enhanced public process and
council directed that the
matter return for more
direction on the format The
city Council's Subcommittee on
Governance received a
presentation from Public
Democracy Los Angeles
Representatives Michelle Dennis
and Wayne Liebman about civic
assemblies.
In a few minutes the Council
will receive a presentation
from MISS Dennis tonight about
those just civic assemblies and
a recommendation to forgo a
competitive process and award
an agreement directly to
healthy democracy.
Eas The subcommittee did not
make a recommendation on
whether there should be an rfp
or a direct award.
So if Council wishes to proceed
with the Civic Assembly
process, Council should also
decide the method of
procurement.
Next slide please.
As the Civic Assembly would not
be ready to fully participate
in the fiscal year 2026 2027
budget process, MS. Dennis also
made some short term
recommendations to help improve
public participation.
The Governance Subcommittee
recommended that these be
brought forward to the City
Council for consideration.
Next slide please.
These recommendations include
changing the format and
scheduling of the two community
budget meetings that I did in
the this this current year for
the current year fiscal year
budget.
Both would become instead of
those community budget meetings
they'd become question and
answer sessions about the
details of one the mid-year
budget and to a second one to
be held later on the proposed
budget.
So it would give the public a
chance to understand these very
complicated documents and staff
would be available to kind of
answer those specific questions
and help them understand in
advance of the council meetings
.
And then there would be one new
meeting that was recommended
which would serve as an open
house with department months in
advance of the annual workplan
meetings And at that meeting
department heads would be
available to share what work
plans they've been operating
under.
Hear from the public in an
informal setting about other
priorities.
And this would be done in
advance of staff coming to the
council with those work plans.
Next slide please.
So here you can see the new
proposed budget schedule with
those meetings included the
mid-year session and the open
house with departments would
happen very early in the
process in FEBRUARY.
So the mid-year budget question
and answer would of course be
tied to what happened.
Before we come to you with that
mid-year budget and it would
allow people to understand the
changes that are being
recommended.
And then of course the question
and answer Open House kind of
setting with the department
heads would happen in advance
of us coming in the beginning
of MARCH with the work plans.
And then the question and
answer session regarding the
proposed budget would come in
MAY after we publish the
proposed budget.
But before the departments make
their presentations to the
Council.
So again it would give an
additional forum for the public
to come and ask questions and
be informed.
Next slide please.
Finally, council member
Mcmorran had recommended in
APRIL of this year that city
staff review the questionnaire
for four departments that was
used by the city of Nashville
as part of their budget
process.
We've attached that
questionnaire to the staff
report.
If council desires staff could
include a questionnaire as part
of the budget process that we
use here in Culver City and it
would be something that we
would give to departments again
in advance of the work plans
and might be presented as as
attachments to the staff
reports that we give you at
that time.
So that's really the end of
this introduction.
This is more about us as being
able to answer your questions
but maybe and we would take
these items kind of one by one
But before we do that it would
perhaps be prudent to receive
the presentation from Michelle
Dennis who's here tonight and
then we can return and have the
council address each of these
items individually.
Thank you.
Okay.
I think we take cfo server's
suggestion Have MS. Dennis give
her presentation and
City
council and city manager Before
we begin thank you so much for
the opportunity to make this
presentation tonight.
My name is Michelle Dennis and
for the benefit of the public
I'm a certified public finance
officer.
I work for 37 years in the L.A.
Area and different budget and
finance positions And at the
end of that time period I spent
20 years as the director of
finance for the city of Santa
Monica.
Following that I taught public
budgeting and finance at ucla
for 21 years and I am a
collaborator and volunteer with
Public Democracy Los Angeles.
And tonight excuse me I speak
on their behalf and I should
note that several of the slides
tonight were actually actually
prepared and by the director of
public policy Los Angeles I
have his permission to use them
tonight And I'm a Culver City
resident for 44 years.
I'm an oldie and moldy have
been around okay There the
subject of our of this
presentation tonight is what is
the role of a civic assembly in
responding to the city's budget
challenges is over the next ten
years.
Next slide please.
The city's budget for the
current fiscal year which was
adopted and became effective
JULY 1st and was recently
released by OCTOBER 1st for the
public can contains a fiscal
ten year fiscal forecast.
Excuse me one second and that
forecast shows that over the
ten year period there would be
a structural deficit of $129
million over the next ten years
and that that would use up all
of the city's available
reserves.
Now let me just clarify the
structural deficit refers to
the ongoing revenues in ongoing
expenditures.
That is what we receive in
revenues every year and what we
normally pay out to continue
our basic services and service
levels.
That forecast did not include
the impact of the voter
approval of the additional
quarter percent sales tax in
AUGUST.
So I factored that in and I use
the same projection factors
that the Chief Financial
Officer used that is that the
sales tax would grow by 3.1%
every year.
And here's what I saw.
Here are the results over the
next four years a total
structural deficit that is an
imbalance between ongoing
expenditures and ongoing
revenues of $47.9 million will
occur.
And that will require using up
the same amount of reserves
over the following three years.
There will be a rough
structural balance between
revenues and expenditures
That's ongoing revenues and
expenditures.
And over the remaining three
years ongoing revenues
outperform ongoing expenditures
by 3 to $4 million a year.
If voters approve an expiring
half percent sales tax before
MARCH 2033, the primary
implication of these challenges
is that for the next seven
years at least there is no
fiscal room other than using
reserves for government
services to expand or be added
as the city's population grows.
Next slide please.
Now responding to these
challenges.
Well, first of all, the
challenges themselves however
they're responded to.
We will significantly impact
the community.
And responding However, the
council decides to respond.
In my view will require a new
or heightened collaboration and
partnership with the community
in the budget process.
That's because however they're
responded to and maybe no
action as one spot will only
support one response will
nevertheless have a significant
impact on the community.
Currently the community can
participate in the budget
process by speaking for 1 to 3
minutes at council meetings and
planned is a budget priority
survey.
And for the community as your
chief financial Officer
diligently delineated for the
community to go to to question
and answer budget information
sessions Now these are our top
down opportunities created for
the community by the staff and
the council.
A civic assembly provides a way
for the community to say how
they want to participate in the
budget process.
And these can be bottom up
opportunities created by the
community.
Next slide please.
So what is a civic assembly?
A civic assembly is a
demographic Lee Representative
group of community members
selected by lot to learn about
deliberate upon and make
recommendations to City Council
about a public matter.
It is up to the city Council
whether or not to follow the
recommendations of the civic
Assembly.
Next slide please.
The Civic Assembly are also
known as citizens.
Assemblies have been around for
a while.
This graph compiled from data
from the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and
Development.
This is a international
organization of 38 countries
Western and Eastern Europe,
Asia.
Australia.
South America.
Central America.
Oh thank you so much
and more.
Most recently North America and
Canada.
This graph shows that you can
see in the last 20 years civic
assemblies have grown a great
deal.
A number of them.
And it presents 750 civic
assemblies in the last or
primary the last 20 years.
And if you include the last two
years of data data, we're close
to a 1000 civic assemblies.
So the world has a quite a bit
of experience with this method.
Next slide please.
So a civic assembly consists of
four parts.
The first part is council
planning.
The job of the council planning
is for the city council to
select Civic Assembly
facilitating organized action
The facilitation of a civic
assembly requires specific
expertise which has been
developed over the years and
secondly used to determine the
topic to be addressed by the
Civic Assembly.
Third determined city
demographics to be matched by
Civic Assembly participants and
lastly fourthly to choose
experts to provide learning
input to civic assembly
participants.
This learning input is distinct
for civic assemblies.
It's its opportunity to have
the participants that have been
selected by lot to hear
information from experts who
are from all different
perspectives provide
information to the assembly
participants about the topic
and next slide please.
The second part of a civic
assembly is to selection of the
participants.
So invitations would go to the
households in the city and from
those inviting them to
participate the members of the
households.
For those people who respond
yes they would be interested a
that pool is there's a random
selection of people from that
pool so that and we know the
demographic information from
the respondents to create a
pool that represents the
demographic characteristics
selected by the city council.
Then from that pool a computer
process creates multiple
combinations of the Civic
Assembly participants.
So that each combination
reflects the demographic
character mix of the city.
So later on what's being
proposed is a civic assembly of
20 participants.
So there will be multiple or
maybe 100 or more possible
combinations from that prior
pool.
And there's a selection of one
of those combination a random
selection I understand in one
city recently what they did is
they they numbered each of the
possible combinations and put
that number on ping pong, put
it into revolving drum and had
the mayor at random pick one
ping pong ball that became the
Civic Assembly.
It's important to point out
that there's comprehensive
support is provided to the one
combination of Civic Assembly
participants.
So there MAY be need for child
care, elder care and other
special needs.
And that's all included in the
budget for the facilitating
organization nexus.
Next slide please.
So the third part is learning
and deliberation.
These are the two critical
distinctions about civic
assemblies Expert provide
initial learning input from all
different perspectives on that
issue.
And the Civic Assembly invites
members of the community to
meet with them to present their
ideas.
And the way this is done is
that persons come in to where
the Civic Assembly members are
and the Civic Assembly members
are gathered into groups of
three, possibly four at
different tables.
And then members of the
community come in and spend a
given amount of time presenting
their ideas.
And then the members of the
community get up and move to
the next table.
So there's a process to make
sure that everyone's
perspective and view is heard.
And every civic assembly member
can talk to every single member
of the community who has come
in and during this process.
And this is then followed by
deliberation during the
deliberation process experts
continue to be available to
answer questions.
That's what I mean by being on
tap on top.
And there's a structured
deliberation process is
followed much like the
conversation with the community
members.
So that everyone's voice is
heard.
Every perspective is considered
and the objective in the
deliberation is to reach
consensus on recommendations.
And that's not an absolute
consensus but either majority
or perhaps a supermajority.
And that the deliberation is
facilitated by the facilitation
organization so that all voices
are heard.
Next slide please.
And the fourth part concerns
the preparation of
recommendations and then
submitting them to the city
council.
So again, a rough consensus
perhaps a supermajority is
sought to form recommendations.
The recommendations are written
by the Civic Assembly
participants.
The recommendations are
presented by the Civic Assembly
participants to the City
Council.
And as expected the City
Council would provide written
responses to the
recommendations.
Next slide please.
Now throughout this process
this question eventually comes
up Can you trust randomly
selected people?
And I want to assure you that
in the area of civic assemblies
over the last 20 years there's
been extensive experience about
this question.
And the conclusion is that when
trust is rent is given to
randomly selected individuals,
they strive to be worthy of
their trust.
As I said worldwide there have
been nearly a thousand civic
assemblies selected by lot over
the past two decades deciding
complex issues in some
processes that have stymied
elected bodies.
One key example is in the
country of Ireland the question
of what to do with abortion in
a Catholic Protestant country
stymied the National Assembly
for decades.
They decided to create a civic
assembly.
The Civic Assembly met.
They prepared recommendations.
The National Assembly adopted
the recommendations and then
submitted them to the
population for a vote.
And over two thirds of the
population approved the
recommendations.
And there's also abundant
academic evidence that
diversity trumps expertise when
making decisions.
Panels of experts are prone to
groupthink diverse panels or
not diverse panels harness the
wisdom of crowds in forming
recommendations with a wealth
of lived experience.
The convening government bodies
generally adopt Civic Assembly
recommendations.
And the public also trust those
recommendations as well because
they know they've been prepared
to be developed and submitted
by people just like themselves.
Next slide please Let me set
the scene here.
In 2022 there was a civic
assembly done in Petaluma,
California.
The city had fairgrounds, 54
acres.
And then the fair state Fair
decided not to be one of the
state Fair's decided not to
meet there anymore.
And for years the council was
deadlocked on how to use that
land.
A civic assembly was formed of
36 individuals from the
community.
And they came up with
recommendations that 80% of the
Civic Assembly members agreed
upon.
And talking with the city
manager Peggy Flynn, she said
my goodness, when you have
recommendations from the
community members that 80%
agree on, that's gold.
And there they've gone through
state and county processes and
they're just about ready to
conclude adopting these
measures.
For the 92nd video you're about
to see shows you people who
participated in that 3636
member Civic Assembly in their
own words.
So would you please play the
video as transgender please?
There's many more things I
resolved or decided through
this process and ultimately I
think no matter what happens I
feel like the public the
community will feel that they
had an avenue for their
feelings and thoughts no matter
how minor.
For a ginormous expo hall to a
butterfly garden were
represented and heard in this
process.
The block is not necessarily
the same people that city
government took to be anything
.
And so I and I like that
because I don't think anybody
on this panel will will not
participate in another
community thing ever.
You know, like everybody is
more likely to participate in
best in more invested Yeah in
that community and if that
continues to happen like how
what community improvements
will you see You know like if
citizens actually are engaged.
First thing is you have 56
people with different
backgrounds.
And most of them do know each
other and were able to work
together just the politics the
way it is or they don't seem to
want to communicate at all.
And I think this is a perfect
way to get politics not so
political
.
All right.
Next slide please.
Back back in JUNE Public
democracy, Los Angeles in
conjunction in conjunction with
Braver Angels, the organization
hosted a model civic assembly
at the city's Veterans Affairs
facility.
It was a three hour model civic
assembly normal.
These civic assemblies last for
several weekends.
The protest was involved.
So this model Civic Assembly
gave about 30 participants some
from the city, some from braver
angels Outside the city a taste
.
It's kind of like getting a
whiff of fresh baked chocolate
chip cookies.
You don't get the bite into
them but you get the aroma here
.
Afterwards we got some
feedback.
And here are two quotes.
I was surprised at just how
nuanced our discussions could
get.
And I was so floored by how it
encourages collaboration and
deep respect between people.
Next slide please.
A side benefit from hosting or
having a civic assembly is that
makes it provides benefits to
the city.
It provides members of the
community an opportunity to
create informed.
That's the learning process.
And deliberated recommendations
on complex issues and processes
.
It builds civic communication
skills to be able to sit at a
table and hear different views
and then get ask questions with
the objective of understanding.
And then to deliberate so that
your objective is to reach as
much consensus as possible.
That's a tremendous benefit for
the community.
It enables inclusivity.
Let me say that at a recent
Civic Assembly in Fort Collins,
Colorado, I'm told that they
also as 100,000 population city
they had a 20 member civic
assembly that deliberated over
two weekends And of the persons
that deliberated.
One was recognized by city
staff.
Oh yes.
That's a person who always
shows up.
19 other people had never
participated in city affairs
before.
And they were transformed.
And it also empowers the
community.
Next slide.
So I have a proposal before
you.
The proposal as follows To
approve a civic assembly.
To find out how the community
wants to participate in the
budget making process.
Retain healthy democracy for a
maximum of $250,000.
To facilitate the following
primary Civic Assembly tasks.
And various other
administrative matters.
Let me just say a chance The
staff report was also a draft
budget from healthy democracy.
And the intention is that
should the city decide to move
ahead and retain healthy
democracy, that budget would be
finalized In conversations
between the city manager and
chief financial officer on
behalf of the city.
So the first task is to select
a random panel of 20 community
members and a few backup people
by FEBRUARY 2026.
Prepare the selected community
members to participate at each
public opportunity in the
upcoming budget making process
.
That's the process for 2627
which is almost upon us.
And then activate a civic
assembly with the 20 community
member panel in JULY of 2026
then assist the Civic Assembly
community members to prepare
and submit recommendation to
the City Council in AUGUST
2026.
Presumably the Council will
have an opportunity to review
those.
And if they choose to begin to
incorporate them into the 2728
city budget process all
community members who are
selected are paid for their
participation and the amount
that they will be paid would be
subject to approval by the City
council.
Next slide please.
Contracting a sole source only
to organizations in the United
States have facilitated a civic
assembly for local government
healthy democracy and unified
America.
As I said, the use of this
Democrat innovation is just
beginning to be used in the
United States.
Healthy democracy has
facilitated six civic
assemblies over the period 2019
to 2025 and Unify America has
facilitated 1 in 2023.
So it is proposed that healthy
democracy be retained as a sole
source provider because healthy
democracy is the most
experienced and qualified.
There is a lack of multi
organized competition.
Sole source provide specialized
expertise quickly and sole
source avoids the high
administrative and time costs.
Associated with an rfp process
to be conducted by city staff.
So before we close this
presentation I'll be glad to
answer any questions you have
and the thought MAY have
occurred to you Why is this 83
year old person standing before
you at 20 minutes to ten making
this presentation?
Well, to be honest with you,
I've asked myself that question
many times over the last
several months and I kept
coming back to the same answer
.
First of all, I've lived in
city for 44 years.
I like my city.
I care for it.
And I firmly believe that
taking the recommended actions
is the right thing to do for
the city as it begins to engage
its budget challenges.
So thank you very much for
allowing me to make this
presentation and I'll be glad
to answer any questions.
Okay.
Thank you.
So
my how many commenters
around in 1315?
Yeah.
Let's go ahead and start with
the commenters and then we'll
just combine questions and
comments together.
92nd 90s was okay.
Our speakers are going to read
the first ten off Philip
Boulevard, Marci Bon Jamie
Wallis.
Stephen Jones.
MS. Sanders Janine was nasty
Who is seeded time by Jack
stealing Shane Hansen, Lisa
Lindgren, Christopher Michael
and Phoebe Garfinkel.
So our first speaker is Philip
Lowe from Clive Owen.
I'd like to you can on
yourself.
Yes.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
I submitted an e comment after
asking for this time so I hope
that you will read it But I
would still like to make a
statement because something's
happened here too that's not
expecting.
I've attended all of the
governance committee meetings
where this topic was discussed
and I like to compliment Civic
Assembly on their presentation
and the subcommittee on its
work.
But I need to address the
noncompetitive nature of this
with two two points one In
response to Bob's question at
the meeting we learned that
Civic Assembly has all of their
experience with fun projects
like planning fairgrounds and
playgrounds and has zero
experience discussing financial
matters.
They do not have any experience
doing budget tradeoffs and the
discussions that need to be had
and the results that need to be
gotten from a budgeting
process.
The second point is in a city
of 28,500 registered voters, if
you choose 20 random
participants at a budget of
$250,000, are you as a council
prepared to defend paying
$12,500 per citizen to advise
you when the public will do it
for free?
Thank you
.
Our next speaker is Marcy Bond
but I am not seeing her online
so we'll skip to the next
speaker who is Jamie Wallace?
Jamie Hammond what do you can
on yourself?
Okay.
Did it work this time?
Yes.
Okay.
And I'm so confused.
What MISS Silver describe was
current public sessions that
the public could attend and
learn about the budget.
If this is true, then where is
the need?
What does see back?
I'm sorry if I'm wrong Acronym.
What did they do?
They're great for advice.
Do you even listen to them And
yet you might listen to the
civic Assembly?
I echo echo MR. Lowell, those
comments he nailed it.
There is no rfp.
There's no looking at other
groups.
These things have been used for
small things youth
homelessness, the question of
abortion in Ireland which is a
huge issue, very complex but a
budget is even more complex.
You have to understand the
physical physical restrictions
on a city, what money can be
used for, what it can't be used
for.
There's a huge amount that they
would have to learn in a very,
very short period of time.
And if there is no physical
room other than using our
remaining reserves to pay for
government services, why on
earth would we set aside a
quarter of $1 million to try a
new procedure to get folks to
pay more attention and I've
been a volunteer.
I created the backpacks program
and I'll tell you hanging
around volunteers is really,
really hard.
They don't stay And you.
Our next speaker is Stephen
Jones.
Stephen's online.
Stephen I've unlocked you.
You can unmute yourself.
Thank you.
Residents have been demanding
change to the budgeting process
for years now but change is
slow and we understand that.
After years of resident demands
we appreciate the short term
changes that are proposed for
the 2627 budget cycle and we're
hopeful that the proposed civic
assembly process will result in
more significant changes that
can open up the budgeting
process two years from now in
the 2728 cycle.
I think it would be a tragedy
if it gets pushed even further
than that.
So please act with urgency.
I do think sole source
contracts deserve skepticism
but the city's policies treat
professional services
differently and this is a
situation where the provider is
formally recommended by a local
expert in public finance who
has significant knowledge of
the field of consulting.
At issue here it's also common
practice for the city council
to routinely approve sole
source contracts with much less
evidence than we have before us
here.
For example, in 2024 the city
Council approved a multimillion
dollar ten year sole source
contract despite the fact that
we already contract it with an
alternative source for the very
same equipment.
In no universe where they the
only source of that equipment
and its supposed evidence in
support of approving that
contract was a letter from the
vendor itself.
It wasn't even evidence from an
independent source.
In contrast here the provided
evidence is significant and it
comes from an expert source
whose independent of the
vendor.
Again please act with urgency.
Residents have been demanding a
more open budget process for
years.
This plan will result in
changes to the budget process
two years from now at the
earliest.
Further delays are not
acceptable and Culver City
can't wait any longer.
Some some commenters don't seem
to believe in the people of
this city but I know you do.
So please do the right thing.
Thank you
.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Melissa
Sanders.
Melissa I'm shocked you can
unmute yourself.
Thank you.
Where do you begin with this
insane idea?
The people yes you are as
always claim you have the best
people and then you hire people
like for the Move project who
were supposed to be the best at
what they do and they installed
an illegal traffic pattern.
The people you use for surveys
never look them.
No.
Here's the other big problem
with this at least in
particular the three of the
five of you sitting up there
you had the entire city
including the fiscal department
and the city manager tell you
do not approve the jubilee
Village project.
It will put us into fiscal
freefall and the three of you
still dead.
So you already got different
committees and different
commissions making suggestions.
You've got city employees who
that is their job and you don't
listen to that.
So this $250,000 will be
flushed down the toilet because
the three of you will still do
exactly what you want to do.
I am tired of this B.S. Fake
caring of what people say
because you don't care what
people say.
You only care about what you
think.
That is how we're going into
financial freefall Because you
decided to give 20 million
taxpayer dollars to an outside
developer because you didn't
listen to the people.
You have hired to do the
consulting.
>> So no, no, no, no, no, no.
>> Thank you.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Janine was
asking who hasn't time seated
by Jack Starling.
Do you need unlock to you can
unmute yourself.
Yeah Thank you.
I'm using a different
microphone.
Can you hear me?
Yes you can.
Okay.
I canceled to say no to this
item.
I listened carefully and this
Civic Assembly proposal is
vague.
It's costly and it gives every
appearance of cronyism rather
than transparency.
The entire $250,000 that was
set aside for community budget
outreach is now potentially
being handed to a single
consultant for this one project
with no indication that any of
it will be reserved for other
outreach efforts or public
forums.
That is not a responsible use
of the public funds.
So why are we doing this?
To what end?
It would seem to have asked
whether residents even want
this except for a shadowy cobra
group that shows up every time
and asks for more for what they
want instead of the general
public.
Civic assemblies are not
typically used for budgeting.
They are used a usually
creative or single well-defined
policy issue like abortion in
the Catholic Church and purpose
which is what the consultant
said not to advise on how a
city manages its entire budget
process.
This looks less to me like a
community need and more like a
nice project like feel good
project for a consultant and a
feel good project to train
residents.
And let's be honest about how
this will play out.
The city will send emails that
the Civic Assembly most people
will ignore them in the same
small circle They engage
Residents will volunteer again.
That is not broad community
input.
Even worse skipping an open rfp
correct.
We are choosing healthy
democracy and promoting
consulting with public policy.
A council member, MR. Fish was
endorsed by the consultant
makes us look like insider
dealing and that civic
engagement if the goal is to
build trust this is the wrong
way to start.
And frankly I do have a hard
time taking seriously a council
that spent $20 million on a
single housing project Now
suddenly claiming concern about
budget transparency and
community input.
Residents deserve real
accountability, real
transparency and real value for
their tax dollars.
Please vote no say no to anyone
and never that promise to visit
lobbying and dealings and make
everything transparent.
This is what lobbying and not
non transparency looks like.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Shane
Hansen.
Shamed I've unlocked you.
You can unmute yourself.
Hello my name is Shane Hansen.
I'm speaking in my personal
capacity and not as a member of
the Advisory Committee on
Housing and Homelessness.
I would like to speak today in
support of Measure a-1.
I think it's really great that
the city is looking to create a
more interactive budget process
for us.
I know we have a very big, you
know, budget challenge ahead of
us but I think, you know,
figuring out ways that we can
get more community input is
really important as we move
forward.
First I'm really excited by the
q&a process with department
heads for both the proposed
budget and the mid-year budget
reports.
I know I'm a nerd who likes,
you know, delving into policy
and questions of budget but I
don't think I'm alone.
I think other people might like
being able to do q&a with the
department heads as well.
Additionally, I think, you
know, engaging with the Civic
Assembly is a really innovative
and interesting idea and I
think it could really, you
know, give us new ideas as
we're trying to figure out how
to handle our budget challenges
.
I think the I also want to
thank Michelle Dennis for her
amazing presentation today And
I think it also made it very
clear that healthy democracy is
likely the most the best
organization to receive the
funding for this given their
deep amount of experience doing
these assemblies.
Thank you
.
Okay.
Our next speaker is I'm just
going to read the remaining
speakers Dieser Lindgren
followed by Christopher Michael
Phoebe Garfinkel, Cara Push Max
Clark and Alex Levy.
So our next speaker is Dieser
Lindgren.
Good evening, Mayor o'Brien.
Vice Mayor, please and members
of the City Council.
My name is Lisa Lindgren.
I want to first thank Michelle
Dennis for a really interesting
and helpful presentation.
I did read all the information
that was in the staff report
and in the agenda and you know,
I have been following this
issue.
I just really support this
very, very strongly.
We're in a time when our
democracy and democracies
around the world are being
attacked, you know, in an
horrible manner.
We do have massive challenge as
a as a species being able to
work with one another And it's
something which has also been
in evidence in our community
This really, really very stark
polarization.
So I think this is an excellent
idea.
I do think that using the
budget as the the subject for
the Civic Assembly makes a lot
of sense because it's something
that concerns everyone whether
or not people have been engaged
in civically or not to date.
And I really appreciate the
opportunity that we have to
embrace this.
I think it'll be very, very
positive for our city.
Thank you for supporting this.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Christopher
Michael and followed by Phoebe
Garfinkel.
Christopher, I've unlocked you.
You can unmute yourself.
Hi.
I just wanted to say I support
this and I think that the
budget process should be more
involved with the public and I
appreciate the budget meetings
but there's no way for
residents or anyone to actually
provide their input or have the
council decide on different
versions or even like talk
about different versions of the
budget.
So having more transparency
around that and also having the
meetings maybe available or
online or recorded so that we
can review them before the q&a
sessions would be helpful to.
Thank you
.
Peter Next speaker is Phoebe
Garfinkel.
Phoebe I've unlocked you.
You can unmute yourself.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Phoebe
Garfinkel.
I want to speak in support of
Measure a one.
I think that the council should
approve the short term
recommendations for the budget
process for 2026 to 2027.
I think that we're looking at a
really valuable opportunity for
for citizens to get involved in
the budget process and for us
to have more transparency.
The city has seen so many
budget issues and there never
seems to be enough funding for
anything And so for for Culver
City residents to be able to be
part of the budget making
process and seeing where their
money is going and what the
city what the city is providing
in the budget could be a really
great way to build civic
engagement and also just to
have more transparency in our
local government.
So I really hope that I hope
that you guys approve a1I hope
that you approve engaging a
consultant to conduct the Civic
Assembly.
I think it's a really valuable
opportunity for our city that
could bring in some really
awesome change.
So thank you.
Great.
Our next speaker is Kira Push
who's also online.
Kira I've unmute unlocked.
You can unmute yourself.
Go ahead.
Thanks.
Hi.
I just want to speak in favor
of the proposed citizens
assembly.
I think it's an awesome idea.
Many studies show that citizens
assembly strengthen the
democratic process and outcomes
through broader and more
comprehensive citizen
engagement not only with the
city but also and really
importantly with each other.
I think there's a huge value
added here that can improve
citizens understanding of and
trust in the local government.
Likewise, this assembly seemed
like a really useful tool that
Culver City would be wise to
make use of especially in light
of their current financial
circumstances.
They involve people more
directly in local decision
making potentially leading to
more representative informed
and widely accepted policy
decisions.
So all that said, I really urge
you to follow the
recommendations of public
democracy of Los Angeles and
pursue a social contract with a
healthy democracy especially
since there are only two
consultants that do the Civic
Assembly work and healthy
democracy is far and away the
more experienced one.
This will also allow us to
conduct the Assembly so
participants can engage in this
upcoming budget year and this
upcoming budget process before
giving their recommendations on
how we can improve next year so
strongly in favor of this.
Thank you.
Peter, last two speakers are
Max Clark followed by Alex Levy
.
Good evening Council My name is
Max Clark.
I'm a volunteer with Padilla
and I'm from Long Beach.
My sincere hope is that this
opportunity is not missed.
I find this concept to be so
hopeful.
The idea that we can
collaborate on a single issue
really is important to me
personally.
I have a lot of division
politically speaking within my
family and so the idea is some
of the people have expressed
that in this time of a lot of
divisiveness in our whole
society.
I think that Culver has a real
chance to try something that
could really change our
community.
And then I just want to point
out that I have 40s left and
this form of input you know I
come from like a really like
yimby pro housing guy which
some people like some people
don't.
And this format of input is
very frustrating because it
feels antagonistic.
As much as we're all like
wanting to be happy and healthy
together it doesn't always feel
that way.
And I would encourage you to
think about why you oppose this
because I think it offers a lot
of hope and especially the
people who don't like this
council.
>> Why wouldn't you trust the
people?
>> Thank you for your time has
expired.
Thank you.
Our last speaker is Alex Lee.
Hi.
And thanks Michelle for the
presentation.
I really just wanted to share
why I think civic assemblies
are so important.
I'm for civic assemblies.
Public engagement is hard.
I am someone who is politically
active and I never went to any
kind of town hall until like
the summer.
Right.
And I'm someone who actually
cares.
So put that into perspective.
It's really nice to say you can
just have a meeting and open it
up to the public.
That would be great if that's
how that works.
I make life so easy.
My background is an
international development and I
was working with local
governments and organizations
literally around the world
trying to figure out how do you
get people to care, how do you
get them to show up?
And the thing that like really
struck me is Civic Assembly.
So that's how I stumbled into
this.
I was like this is a real way
to get the everyday person in
the room not just the
activists, not just the
peddlers although we're all
great but like the real people
who have an opinion and can
learn and like figure out what
to do next.
So I really just encourage you
to think about this as an
opportunity to really shift the
conversation and to not just
depend on the activists or the
people of money but like really
figure out how do you bring in
the everyday person and like
stipends are just part of it.
That's what makes it expensive
but it's needed.
That's how you actually get the
people involved.
So yeah, that's my pitch.
Thank you.
That's the end of our speakers
.
Okay.
Thank you everyone for your
feedback and input.
So let's go around and have
both questions and comments for
our staff and for the presenter
Transportation.
Thank you Mayor And yeah, thank
you so much Michel for your
thorough presentation for all
the work that you've put into
this and just we welcome you in
City Hall any time It doesn't
have to, you know, compete for
anything at all.
We just are appreciative of
your presence and same with
public democracy Los Angeles
And I also want to just start
by acknowledging the work of
you cfo Soga and your team.
Elizabeth Shavelson.
You guys have put in so much
work preparing this and also
given a lot of thoughtful
suggestions and feedback along
the way.
And I really appreciate your
helping the governance
committee.
And then to my colleague
Yasmeen Amani McMoRan for her
collaboration as well in our
governance subcommittee and
also thank you Mayor, for being
willing to accommodate putting
this into this agenda since
it's timely.
And I'll just ask I just want
to make sure to level set on
one specific issue that was
brought up which was that this
is that civic assemblies are
typically not used for
budgeting And I just want to be
clear with the public and and
maybe staff can confirm we're
not using this or what's
proposed is not to use the
Civic Assembly to actually
impact the budget.
This is to create more impact,
put opportunities right.
I just want to make sure that's
clear for the public sake.
Well, that that is actually up
to this body.
Right.
So what the that's one of the
things we need the council to
formally determine.
I think that is what has been
proposed is that the it's not
to actually design the budget
but it's how to get more public
engagement and input into the
process.
So I think that those are the
steps that we're looking.
So on the first part of what
we're talking about tonight is
that the council consider do
they want to as a body move
forward with a civic assembly
process?
If that is the case then the
second sort of piece of that is
what is the procurement for the
facilitator?
Is it that we're going to just
take a recommendation and go
with healthy democracies or
would is there a sort of a
different procurement where we
go out and do an rfp and see
what kind of proposals we get?
Healthy Democracies is
absolutely welcome to submit
And then those proposals could
be reviewed.
And then the third question and
maybe even it has to be decided
as we move forward What is the
question?
And if that question is as
proposed, you know, we're
looking to gain input on how to
improve overall public
participation and that's a
question But it really is up to
up to the council if we're
going to engage in the process.
What is it you want to
determine?
Thank you Chair for serving.
Yeah.
So I mean I'm just sort of
sharing what I heard from from
our folks at la which was that
this is really about increasing
participation in figuring out
how folks want to participate
because I would agree a civic
assembly MAY not be the right
choice for actually imparting
changes to our budget dollars
and cents and all of that.
So that's not really what this
what I heard from the
presentation here but it's
certainly a good a good point
to bring up and I just want to
also confirm that this doesn't
change, you know, anything
about the the city's existing
process where the city manager
proposes a budget and you know
the council has to approve it
or make changes to it.
That process is not being
proposed to be changed In terms
of the city manager suggesting
a budget that is my
understanding The charter
states that the city manager
prepares the budget and then
the council adopts that budget.
Okay.
Thank you So and yeah
colleagues Oh and then finally
there was a question about your
role play Michelle So I just
want to give you an opportunity
Are you paid by Padilla?
Are you alive?
Yes.
For Padilla?
No, I am not.
I consultant I'm a teacher with
a lot of experience.
I so I am a volunteer here at
Padilla and Public MARCH in Los
Angeles Advocates for the use
of civic assemblies to improve
and provide for communities
participation and different
different sets of issues.
And so I volunteer with them.
I have no contract relationship
with healthy democracy.
I, I get nothing out of this
process.
There's nothing of value that I
get except the satisfaction in
seeing my city move ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you for that And yeah
colleagues I'll just share my
my thoughts here.
I want to I want to also thank
Sarasota.
Elizabeth's able to send
Christina Burroughs Jessie Mays
for coming to the Civic
Assembly when I was here in
Culver City when public Mike
Clay put it on here because it
was a really enlightening
experience just to be at a
table with people face to face
without knowing the politics of
the person or their lived
experience necessarily or
anything about them and just
working through a problem in
front of us it allowed us to
kind of get right down to
finding solutions and leave
some of that typical baggage at
the door that we often
experience in in local politics
and just see each other as
people and find practical
solutions together.
And it was a really really I
would use the word hope like
one of our speakers said it was
a hopeful experience for me And
so you know we've heard all
year we have a structural
deficit in the city was
identified over two years ago.
Our expenses are are outpacing
our revenues And MISS Dennis
gave a really good recap of
that And while the forecast
does look better after the
passage of Measure c l Michelle
hit the nail on the head.
I think when she said there's
not a whole lot of room to grow
as our city grows and we do
have some you know, revenue
strategies in the works but as
our population grows I think
it's going to be more important
than ever that our residents
have a seat at the table when
it comes to the document that
has such a large impact on our
everyday lives And I know we
all come from this diocese from
different perspectives But one
experience I do know that we we
all share colleagues is the
experience of campaigning, of
knocking on doors and asking
our neighbors what their hopes
are for the city.
Last year I did just that,
talked to thousands of people
who told me they needed their
trees trimmed.
They needed a speed bump on
their street to slow down cars.
They wanted their potholes
filled.
They wanted playgrounds
renovated and more accessible
for their kids.
Parents talk to me about
needing more child care
programs Summer camps and park
space for their kids to enjoy.
And then came the budget
process when it was time to
really put pen to paper And a
lot of those voices pretty much
all of them were missing And
you know, our finance
department put on two fantastic
information sessions and they
allowed community members to
get information on the proposed
budget and ask questions about
it.
But other than coming to
council and speaking for a
couple of minutes, the avenues
for residents to really
actively participate in a
meaningful way and help shape
that that document were few and
far between and for the most
impactful document we produce
each year the city budget there
wasn't a real clear opportunity
for them to have a seat at the
table.
So I you know and looking
forward to the really short
term suggestions that Michelle
and that we discussed in the in
the governance subcommittee
about having an open house and
kind of moving up some of those
information sessions earlier, I
think those will be fantastic.
And then the Civic Assembly,
you know it's a $250,000 price
tag so that represents a little
over point 1% of our $180
million general fund.
And for that I think it is a
modest but long term investment
in our city that's going to
result hopefully in a budget
that more closely reflects the
needs of the community And
that's what this is all about.
So by improving the way we
engage residents in the budget,
we strengthen trust,
accountability and ultimately
the decisions we make about how
to invest in our community.
Hopefully those decisions are
the trust in our communities
reflected in those decisions
that we make.
So the question I think like
Sevastova mentioned the big
question here is whether to
pursue a sole source or rfp.
I agree with MR. Henderson.
Like I said when he said that
our fees are generally
preferred or I think MR. Jones
said that in this circumstance
since this is a professional
services work we're not
required to do one.
But more importantly I think
healthy democracy historic I
think public democracy Los
Angeles really did a lot of
that hard work for us.
They provided us with an
analysis that's attached to a
staff report of these two of
these two providers.
So there's really a lack of
competition here And healthy
democracy is by far the most
experienced and qualified And I
think more importantly of all
is if we do an rfp process And
the reason that I personally
think we should forgo that is
we won't be able to the folks
that we put in the Civic
Assembly won't be able to
actually go through the
existing process.
So an rfp makes it a longer
process and we won't be able to
actually my understanding from
staff is that we won't have the
time to actually have those
participants go through the
existing process and happy to
be corrected if that's not the
case.
But if by doing sole source we
can have those people go
through the existing process
which is I think critical for
the success of this is people
going through the process we
already have and saying Oh this
worked this you know this needs
improvement and actually
building off what we've the
work we've already done So yeah
and I think we have an
opportunity to invest in
something for the long term
health of our city both our
fiscal health but also our
civic health.
How do we talk to one another?
How do we face each other and
make hard decisions?
And I think that is something
that's really exciting about
this prospect.
And I also want to add that
Councilmember McMahon's
original proposal of the
questionnaire I think is
another really additive
proposal here that just
enhances the work that city
staff is already doing and
enhances transparency with the
public.
That's all I have.
Thanks, man.
Okay.
Thank you.
Councilmember Horn Thank you.
Thank you to the cfo.
So bring your team and of
course the city manager's team
as well for all of the support
and the governance subcommittee
And that is a brand spanking
new committee And we've been
quite busy and you all can see
I'm very grateful to MISS
Dennis for being here this
evening and all of the deep
work that you've done to
support us being here in this
moment.
I'm really grateful for all the
comments and and I mean I I'll
I'll be pretty brief.
I've been very focused.
I mean this is my fifth year on
council.
I've been very focused on
lowering barriers for folks to
participate in our city
processes.
And as someone who did not
always feel welcome like my
voice or my opinion was and
welcomed or frequently uplifted
or centered in city discussions
and whether that was at the
school district or here at the
council level And it was
incredibly important or it is
incredibly important to me to
think about when we're in
spaces when we're hearing items
whose voice is not in the room,
what are we doing to make sure
that we are making our spaces
as comfortable as possible for
folks to be a part of them?
A part of that is how we speak
to one another which sometimes
listening to comments it's very
interesting how comfortable
folks feel speaking to your
neighbors.
We're all neighbors in this
5.2mi city and we all deeply
love and care for this
community And I always like to
root there because whether we
come around to these things the
same way or differently we're
here.
We're here in this space we're
engaging because we deeply care
about the now of our community
and the future for our children
and hopefully their children.
So I am very interested and
moving forward with the Civic
Assembly work I do you know and
again not to be repetitive I
know that the protocols to
typically move forward with the
rfp but as cited and I think
the second attachment to the
staff report and it's clear
that you know the information
and healthy democracy is very
well prepared to do this type
of work And again and this is
going to be looking and
hopefully we can fine tune this
from the Dyess but this is
looking at how we can ensure to
get more participation at
Again, so much kudos to our cfo
Soga who two years ago did the
first workshop for the city
last year did two workshops for
the city and but we're not
seeing the level of engagement
and input that we could see So
there's always room for
improvement.
That's never a knock on where
we are.
It's just an acknowledgment
that we can always do more and
hear from more voices and
ensure that our processes are
really doing and our services
are doing the things that we
hope that they do.
So to ensure that the folks who
are participating have the
opportunity to see the status
quo and that they will
hopefully also be able to give
us recommendations to move
forward going through the full
process.
So I support the waiver of lp
for their professional services
work for the Civic Assembly
process with the question
specifically being how can we
increase public participation
in the budget process?
So I would support the 250,000
allocation there and and I
would really like you know, I
hope our colleagues will agree
to and the Finance Committee
questionnaire is ten questions
And again since I've been on
the council I don't know if
I've uniformly seen the same
presentation from each
department and we do get the
spreadsheets And if you dig
into that huge book that our
amazing cfo team produces
annually and really dig in, you
can kind of see okay this is
where this department is
staffing wise, okay?
This is what their goals are
for this year.
But it's it's not like in a
clear you know, very simple,
very transparent And again we
will still have all of those is
not replacing any any of the
book but it hopefully it will
allow folks to kind of have a
you know a bird's eye view of
like these are the goals.
This is what the department
looks like.
So it's a really simple ten
question questionnaire that I
think can only add to
transparency as we continue to
move our budget processes
forward.
So I'm excited about the
potential of change.
I'm excited about the
opportunity for additional
transparency and accountability
as we always seek to better our
city services and support our
neighbors and community better
So I'm excited.
This is like a you know, really
full circle moment.
So again, grateful to my
colleague for your leadership
and collaboration that has
brought us to this moment and
looking forward to hearing from
the rest of my colleagues this
evening.
Thank you.
Council Member Thank you Mayor
.
Stand and thank you so much for
your your hard work and your
presentation this evening.
Lisa thank you so much for
everything you know and and
moving forward I want to one
commend you for you you came on
board and a lot of the things
that are in place now were not
when you came on board.
So and a lot of it is about the
participation in the budget and
how you sort of you know with
Councilmember McMahon's
suggestion about graphing
things and whatnot making it a
lot easier for residents to
really grasp what was going on
but then really your attention
in your detail and really
creating and crafting more
community participation.
So thank thank you for for
that.
In terms of moving forward
without an rfp, I'm especially
for this amount of money I know
it's up to council's discretion
but is that sort of customary i
can understand for maybe a
smaller dollar amount but for
this type of expenditure Well
normally I think both Elizabeth
and I have tried to in our our
time here to kind of hold
departments to higher standards
and get them to do rfp is
really go out on the
marketplace especially when
we're talking about large
dollar amounts.
I mean that it really is a best
practice because whether or not
there is we we don't know
everybody who's out there.
Right?
There MAY be other people who
are interested and that is our
best job at being stewards of
the public funds We we go out
and see in a competitive
process what is available.
Right.
And and I appreciate that we do
that sort of across the board
with every department And I
like that you brought that up
and I think it really is
important moving forward.
You know, there's a lot of
comments and questions made
that I don't know that I agree
with 100%.
I'm you know, spending $250,000
to pay a group of people to
come up with ideas to bring to
city council that we submit to
the city manager that is his
duty under the or their duty
whomever it might be under the
charter to craft a document, a
budget, put forward.
You know they're talking about
a q&a with department heads.
We can do a q&a with department
heads and save us $250,000.
I mean, you know and a lot of
the talks are talking about
structural deficit and how
moving forward, you know, we
really need to be mindful of
that.
But yeah, we have no problem
investing a quarter million
dollars plus whatever time
staff is going to have to spend
on this in my opinion you're
you're asked to task or do
probably the heaviest heaviest
lifting of your job is creating
the budget But yet in doing
that now we have another sort
of football we're going to hand
you and say we'll run with this
one to and how much money
that's going to cost, how much
are we going to pay them?
How much more money is this
going to cost if if this moves
forward?
A lot of it really it concerns
me.
It really it really does.
If somebody one of the speakers
is talking about there's no way
for input I think there's
plenty of ways for input And I
know during budget session we
each each one of us get
multiple emails from residents
who hey, this is what's
important to me.
This is what I want to see.
This is what I don't want to
see.
This is moving forward, you
know and you know I did
campaigning as well this this
last season and knocked on a
whole lot of doors as well.
And I don't know that any of
the conversations I had with
individuals was hey, how come
we can't participate in the
budget and to be quite frank I
think if if this item were to
come forward if I said Hey,
let's do this and this is who I
want to do it do it with a lot
of community members I'm that
would still be talking about
what the heck is going on And I
think that should just be, you
know held across across the
board.
But more importantly what
worries me is that okay great
we want our trees trimmed in
our street lights on and I
think we all can agree that we
want that.
But when you're working with a
finite finite amount of money
and your need to ensure I think
first and foremost public
safety and how we're going to
keep our communities safe and
we don't have the safe
community our businesses don't
want to stay here.
Our residents don't want to
stay here.
A school district will decline
And I worry this is just
another mechanism behind the
funding that ultimately you
know, my colleagues have no
problem saying the biggest
budget is our police budget and
how we're going to trim trim
the fat on that And I think
we're ready and sort of trimmed
it as much as we can moving
forward especially as we should
be ramping up for everything
that's coming forward whether
it's the soccer or the football
or the Olympics And to start
spending more money and
figuring out how we're going to
trim the budget And I said this
It worries me that it's
recommendations are going to
come for defunding.
Plain and simple without, you
know, putting any sugar on top
of it.
I think there's better use for
the funds.
i think ultimately we as a
council are the ears of our
community.
Those who reach out to us can
obviously have their voices
heard through us or hear or in
the meetings that you're
holding.
So if this does move forward I
urge Council to do it the right
way to do it How we sort of
hold every other item that
comes forward is creating an
rfp to do it the right and fair
way.
But overall I can't support
this.
I think we as the council are
responsible for directing staff
and our department heads on
what is important and what is
not and then trusting that city
manager to come up with a
document that makes sense
across the board.
Mayor, thank you so much.
Thank you guys for your present
.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for the presentation
and thank you to MISS Dennis
and Padilla and for the public
comments I'm really interested
in this concept overall I do
have a few questions.
Do we now I'm sorry if you said
this but do we know how much
approximate how much staff time
this would involve?
I have no idea And it is not
can't completed within It is a
concern of mine.
I have not spoken with healthy
democracies as of yet because I
don't have council direction so
it's unclear to me how much
time this will need.
I am concerned that with all
the other work on our and I
have a very busy staff where
you know especially right now
we're up to our eyeballs in
audit You all see the budget
but the other big thing we do
is the audit Every year And so
we've been working very hard on
closing the books for last year
So I don't really know how much
time I did notice that on the
attack on the budget for
healthy democracies it does say
that there's going you know,
the city's responsible over and
above the 250,000 to provide
the venue to provide tech and a
v support and to provide
additional public outreach.
I don't really know what that
looks like so I can't put a
dollar figure on it.
So I'd I'd have to determine
what that was.
I think if either if the
council decided to go that
route and award an agreement or
to have us go without a
procurement process and just
directly to healthy
democracies, I think we would
need to come back because this
would obviously have to be
redefined.
We'd have to have conversations
with them before we brought
back an item with a contract
amount for approval.
Okay.
Thank you.
What happens and did you want
to respond to that?
There is some staff time.
I would extraordinarily
strongly recommend that that
the chief financial officer of
the city be one of the experts
providing a day to explain the
budget process and and should
there be questions that we need
to go over there and answer
their questions?
That's the only staff time I
see involved.
There MAY be some staff time
looking at the recommendations
next summer from the Civic
Assembly and I'll put and at
the bottom of the proposed
budget from p from healthy
democracy is that assumed that
the location the venue to do
this would be provided by the
city the Civic you know the
Veterans Affairs location and
somebody to help with some tech
support like one person and
make sure that the microphones
and projectors and all that
kind of stuff work And healthy
democracy has extensive
experience in managing these
things on behalf of cities.
And so the assumption is that
should you choose to go forward
the city would refine this
proposed budget to work out
these details and of course
come back to the council with
that.
Right.
Thank you.
Before you go, there's a
question about Sorry.
Yes, sorry.
What if someone drops out
during the process?
How is the replacement handled?
Well, the idea is that there
would be 20 excuse me and 20
people selected at random but
also some alternate.
So if there's a illness or you
know a family concerns so forth
so that there's always 20
people that and the panel of 20
people continues to represent
the demographic characteristics
defined by the council.
Okay Thank you.
And one last question.
So last one.
So the assembly members are
going to invest all this time.
How are we going to manage
expectations?
So what if they come back?
They make recommendations.
Counsel for whatever reason
doesn't go with them or you
know, we don't want people to
be deflated.
We just invested all this time
money and energy into them.
How do we manage all those
expectations and there's a
program director from Healthy
Democracy here tonight, Justin
Reedy and I ask him to step up
and answer that question
specifically to manage
expectations
.
Thanks, Vice Mayor Fraser, can
you kind of restate your
questions So know what?
You're right.
So we're going to invest of
this time energy and money in
this 20 assembly of 25 people
and at the end they're going to
make a recommendation.
X, y, z And let's say council
goes in a different direction
or doesn't you know, thank you.
But you know we're going to go
this other way.
How do we manage expectations
of the Assembly members just to
like it MAY or MAY not
Hopefully it would be in
alignment.
It would support the way that
council is going and the way
the city based on all the
information that they're going
to receive.
Does that help?
Yeah, I think I can I can speak
to that.
So I would say it would be it's
it's pretty rare for convening
body a municipality city county
We've worked with lots of
different governments over the
years that on on these kinds of
projects for the convening body
to reject outright all of the
recommendations of a civic
assembly usually the
recommendations that are
produced by these panels of a
microcosm of the community are
really solid recommendations
that come from the heart and
soul of the community.
These people take this very
seriously, spent a lot of time,
as you say, sort of investing
in this and investing their
time and energy in this and
trying to come up with
solutions that are ones that
are very feasible for the city
to do.
So it would be pretty rare for
them for the I think for you
guys as a as a group to say
thanks we we kind of don't want
to go in that direction.
That said I think that
recognize that that ultimately
they're an advisory body to the
city council that you all are
the decision makers for the for
the city And this is really
about trying to help the the
city sort of have a better
understanding of how the
community wants to be involved
in this process And as you go
about making these kind of
difficult decisions moving
forward with respect to setting
the budget and thinking about
kind of budget priorities, how
to make sure the people's
voices is the people's voices
are heard in the process.
So I think they would
understand and respect that at
that not necessarily all of the
recommendations would be taken
into account or passed but I
would I would expect it would
at least some of them would be
but yeah.
Got it.
Thank you.
That's helpful.
I think that there so it would
be explained to them that it's
advisory capacity.
I think there's some concern
that you know what the
recommendations are going to be
a mandate So I'm glad to know
that you know that explanation
will be there and it'll be
clear for their purposes.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So I thanks for all those
answers again and thanks for
your work over the past couple
of years of support of many
efforts to make our budget
process more transparent and
accessible.
The budget Presentations Thank
you to cfo.
I'm looking forward to the
budget survey that will be
included upcoming and I do
believe that tonight's item
builds on that foundation and
this is just another tool in
our toolbox to reach more
voices in our community
especially those that we don't
always hear from.
We often hear as been said
already but we'll hear from the
same small group of residents
often not always and which is
amazing and their input is so
valuable but it doesn't always
reflect the full diversity and
perspective of everyone in our
city.
So it's from what I'm hearing
this type of civic assembly can
really balance all that out so
participants can really learn
deliberate and come together to
make more thoughtful
recommendations As I appreciate
the transformational benefits
that you spoke about civic
communication skills.
Sabar I think we need more
civics lessons but that's a
whole nother issue.
But this will be a part of
that.
We also obviously need more
inclusivity and trust and
transparency in government.
I also agree with I think there
are several public comments
that this could bypass some of
the polarization in our city
and to get some outside voices
and they will be compensated
but it won't be that I think
one public comment said 12,500
but it's going to be much less
So that is dividing that the
total amount But there's other
costs and fees but also that I
appreciate that the model
presented tonight includes
support for child care Elder
care and translation services.
So I think that that's that
type of mind as far as the
police budget or defund ing,
you know, I personally have
been, you know, quite
disciplined, deliberate and
mindful about the police budget
this year.
So I want to say right now that
this is not a foil for any of
that And ultimately this is
about trust, transparency and
connection.
And as I mentioned also this
won't replace our existing
engagement efforts.
It will enhance them.
So I'm fine with this based on
the proposal and expertise
especially considering an rfp
is not required for
professional services.
I think this is just a great
opportunity to continue to
build democracy in our
community which will just you
know, not only be a model for
Culver City but beyond As far
as the logistics that's a whole
nother conversation.
I believe so But I do also
support the
the questionnaire
for departments used during the
budget process That's at Mare
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you again to MS. Dennis
and I'll be community members
who spoke and of course we'll
see if it's over and your
entire staff for preparing this
So I heard the exact same
presentation with anecdotes and
and fun sidebars last Friday.
I'm not sure if my other
colleagues participated in that
type of one on one but I got to
know it pretty well.
I'm looking at just a lot of
different ideas here but Fort
Collins was pointed out and I
had commented when we had our
Zoom meeting last Friday that
my daughter lives in Fort
Collins and that they had they
use that as an example of a
successful civic assembly where
they had 2020 person assembly.
The population is actually
170,000, not a 100,000.
I was just doing quick
calculation.
That's that's 1/100 of 1% of
that population And I'm going
I'm following a path here The
we have a finance advisory
committee that has often said
that they feel that they're
underutilized.
It's a five person body and a
five person body in Culver City
of 40,000 is 5/100 of 1% of our
community and I think that it
would benefit us to utilize
them more And if there's a
desire to gain greater input
from our community we also have
a count.
I pulled it up while we were
going through comments here ten
committees, commissions and
boards totaling somewhere over
60 volunteers none of whom are
paid So you know to decide to
pay one body and not pay all
these other people who spent a
lot of time and effort and and
and feel that their opinions
are valued.
I'm wondering the fairness in
that And then you know, there
was some early discussion here
on the Dyess saying that well,
this isn't about the budget and
yet everyone's talking about
the budget here.
It's in the presentation here
on one of the pages it says You
know, it says here to determine
the topic to be addressed by
the Civic Assembly.
Yet we're all talking about the
budget in the context we've got
our cfo doing the presentation
and then in an earlier slide
and the presentation it you
know the heading is ten years
of budget challenges So it's
about the budget and getting
input on the budget and it's
pointed out here I didn't have
time to verify the $47.9
million total structural
deficit claim but structural is
ongoing, right.
And part of that number
definitely is the $20 million
that we are like if we did not
do a Jubilee project that 20
million would go into our we
replenish our general fund
reserve.
So that's a one time
expenditure that would reduce
this to $27.9 million And I
don't think it includes all of
our fee adjustments that we've
done across all departments and
and yet to be determined parks
fees increases so nor I, I
don't think so that number I
mean well we need to be budget
conscious definitely it's not
as bad as that works And you
know related to that $250,000
is I mean our very next budget
our very next agenda item is
talking about allocating funds
for micro grant for small
businesses.
You know the vice mayor who's
in our subcommittee looking at
film permits and reducing doing
it and doing a moratorium on
that.
We'll be looking at that and at
the next agenda.
So that's a reduction of
revenues.
So you know, certainly every
every penny needs to be
considered and 250,000 is you
know, yes we do and consent
items we sign off on to $50,000
multiple times every single
council meeting.
But those are well reviewed our
staff and needed And then I, I
truly do agree and believe the
voices of the people that are
in that video the feedback that
was you know, uplifted and
within this staff report
hearing from MR. And MRS.
PowerPoint that people really
feel empowered and they they
they feel heard and they feel
appreciated.
But again it's it's 20 people
and I just the bang for the
buck when we have we put so
much effort into outreach what
did cfo over what did we do
when we were advertising our
your budget went to one How do
we go about doing that last
year there were a number of it
was put out on social media and
I think of delivery in terms of
getting out of the budget went
to one advertisement on all of
our you know budget
informational offerings.
Yeah.
So we pushed those out as much
as we could.
We we also offered them and
asked the cfo we we solicited
questions we dusted made a
video that we posted I wish I
could say we had an outpouring
of questions We did not.
So we've been trying and and it
sounds like there's a direct
mail piece to what is being
recommended here which you know
that it has varying degrees of
success And I know that you've
got, you know, best practices
and what you've experienced in
other cities and had success
with And then I actually have a
question from our city attorney
on the Brown Act If I mean
maybe this isn't considered an
advisory body but it sounds
like an advisory body.
It kind of walks like it talks
like what is there?
Brown Act considerations here
and this would be a Brown act
body okay if it's appointed by
the city council and like one
more action which it would be
so okay so I mean that that has
a lot of implications and a lot
more staff time So I can count
votes so I know what's going to
happen here today.
So I just ask that I do think
we need the rfp.
I do We and especially I don't
know if COUNCILMAN Rivera's
delivery of his point was
really as clear as he wanted
but if other people had
relationships with a
recommended a recommended
expenditure from this council
and it was a single what do we
call it like a what's the term
No our fee.
Yeah you would just be
foregoing competitive a
competitive process.
It's not a sole source in the
technical sense is it?
It MAY not officially fall
under, you know, a conflict but
it looks bad.
It just so it looks bad.
So I recommend that we do go
through an rfp process.
You know there MAY be more
experience in this specific
niche of of community input
called the Civic Assembly here
but it doesn't mean that we
can't get proposals from others
that that you know from very
qualified organizations that
engage in in the public who can
you know provide similar better
maybe less expensive ways of
doing this.
So I just asked for the rfp.
That's all I have.
Thank you, Mayor.
Quick question.
Yeah.
Have we ever accepted letters
from the vendors themselves and
as evidence that they're the
sole provider
that usually is
not about consulting services,
that is about there are certain
entity is that are the
representatives for a product
right So we are specifying we
have a certain kind of battery
backup right that we purchase
for our traffic signals And
oftentimes those are national
manufacture laws but they you
don't buy direct from them.
They have a regional
distributor And so in those
cases we have had oftentimes
those people provide us with a
letter representing certain
that they are the sole
distributor for that particular
piece of equipment.
Is that Yeah I think that's
that's the instance It's not
something that we would do for
consulting services.
Okay.
Thanks so just picking up on a
comment that was made.
Yeah.
And MAY I ask those that's
where did you have more Sorry
not right now.
Okay.
I just wanted to ask a a couple
of questions to healthy
democracy because there is an
issue of a conflict that was
brought up as healthy democracy
endorsed any candidates or on
this diocese or have any
relationship formally or
otherwise with any people on
this diocese.
No, thank you for the question.
We do not have any prior
relationship that I'm aware of.
Just to clarify by the way
about sort of the nature of
healthy democracy, we're a
small but nimble nonprofit
organization that's based in
the Western us.
Our staff are based in Oregon
and Washington.
I myself am physically based in
Seattle, Washington.
The rest of our staff are in
the state of Oregon but we're a
nonprofit of 5a1c3.
We don't engage in any kind of
political advocacy or anything
along those lines.
We don't have any prior
relationship with with any
member of council We did We
appreciate the time that that
some members of the council
took to meet with us ahead of
this as this got closer to
consideration by the council is
that answer the question Yes,
Thank you.
And then yeah, I also just
wanted to ask when it comes to
the rfp versus sole source and
the only issue that I had with
the rfp was that if we want
folks to be educated about the
the current process so that
they could actually make
recommendations that were
informed by what we currently
do as opposed to just coming
and saying well here's a we
should use you know here are my
recommendations.
I haven't seen anything that
you already do.
So I guess maybe this is
actually a question for staff.
So if over in your view does
the sole source allow us to and
this was something that MS..
Denniss presentation said does
the sole source allow us to
have those folks participate
earlier in the process In your
opinion?
Well certainly yes.
Yes because if counsel opts to
do to not go through a formal
procurement and just elect to
go with healthy democracies we
could bring something back at
the next meeting.
We could negotiate a an actual
agreement and bring that back
right away.
If we were to do an rfp we
would put something I mean we
could put something out on the
street very quickly but there
would be an amount of time that
we would have to have that out
And typically we'd we'd run it
for a month.
We might send it to healthy
democracies and anybody else we
could We found in that space as
well as posting it on planet
bids But that would take you
know, a little bit of time.
We'd then have to review the
proposals and and and you know
so we're talking about a couple
of months so not impossible but
to get them involved in the
process but maybe they might I
also don't know how much time
it would take for any healthy
democracies or whoever to set
up the assembly itself.
So yes, it would probably would
spill over into the beginning
of the budget cycle.
Thank you for that And so
question Back back to you then.
If if this were approved this
year in theory if we were if
this were we were able to do
this, would we with assembly be
able to participate in the
budget cycle?
I think we saw in what MS.
Dennis proposed that it would
start somewhere in FEBRUARY.
I mean if if the contract in
theory were approved would the
participants be able to to
actually see how our current
budget process works?
Yeah, that's a great question
And I think so based on the the
the timeline that that MS..
Davis presented tonight that
makes a lot of sense And I
think so there's a few things
that sort of happen through the
process of a civic assembly
starting and kind of being
prepared to to take place a big
one of those is that what MS..
Dennis referred to as kind of
the selection by lot of the of
the participants We sometimes
refer to it as a civic lottery.
So this is the process of
preparing a mailing that goes
out to a wide number of
households in the in the
community And then we solicit
responses back from the
community.
All of that stuff takes a
little bit of time and so
trying to get those folks back
and then use the have the
lottery selection process
actually happen doing that in
time to have people be able to
participate in that budget
advisory process during that
kind of Mid-budget updates.
And then again at the the the
budget hearings for for the
next year's budget, it's much
more workable I think to do
that On the timeline that was
presented tonight And I just
wanted to add I think that's a
really innovative way to think
about sort of like how to get
members of the public involved
in this process.
I love this idea that you guys
have come up with this.
To be clear, this wasn't
something that we and healthy
democracy came up with.
This is a really interesting
idea.
I think for trying to get
people who are coming in to a
civic assembly more informed
about the topic that they're
they're are going to be tasked
with kind of taking on and
really involved in kind of the
city process for handling this
stuff which I think is great
and sort of improves what is
usually already a kind of a
direct pipeline from city staff
and city council to a civic
assembly and helps them kind of
helps you all have sort of an
influence on the members of the
public who are coming in to be
delegates to Civic Assembly to
help them understand kind of
the topics that they're that
they're grappling with.
Does that make sense?
So it's like a a really I think
a great way to to help prime
the folks who are coming into
the Civic Assembly to be well
prepared to tackle this this
very challenging issue.
Thanks.
That's all the questions I had
MAY 1st local council
councilmember and this might be
for MS. Dennis or gentleman
just spoke in the PowerPoint
there was and I'm sorry for
we're not asking you earlier
but it said you know provide
informed recommendations on
complex issues and and the
process is is that in regards
to complex issues facing the
city in terms of the budget or
well in the MAY I respond in
the 20 year primary use
throughout the world of civic
assemblies there's a raft of
issues that they've addressed
and they've they've been used
to address the issue of a
budget process.
They've been used to address
the issues of actually
evaluating the privatization
that the governing body made.
But what's proposed here is to
simply ask the panel on behalf
of their of their fellows in
the city how would they like to
participate after they've
actually participated in what
the current process is and how
would they like to participate
?
You see this is an interesting
issue that's really important I
think grasp historically cities
have provided it's public ways
to participate in a way that
Jack is kind of step act simply
asking the community members
how would you like to
participate in like a whole
different ballgame?
It's not asking them to make
the budget decisions Of course
it's asking how they like to
participate And I think several
people said this is like an
opening for a really true
method for people to have a
meaningful voice and to have
the experience of being heard.
Okay, I appreciate that.
I guess maybe what I'm asking
and maybe with the answer and I
just didn't get it provide
informed and deliberate
recommendations on complex
issues and processes and that
means complex issues facing the
city or facing the budget then
is staff going to provide
deliberate recommendations or
what is the complex issues and
process in terms of just an
overall budget sort of?
Well that's what's been done in
the last two decades which
proposed here is to ask that
panel of 20 community members
after they actually experience
on the ground how they are
offered to participate.
The question how would you like
to participate?
That's it.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you so much.
You know, I find it yeah, I
understand what you're saying
but I find it I'm an extremely
challenging to take a group of
individuals and try to teach
them better budget process and
provide informed and deliberate
deliberate recommendations on
complex issues and processes.
And I would make the assumption
that the means facing the city
each city I think is unique in
its issues and process and MAY
be the process of the overall
budget.
But issues facing the city I
think should come from staff
and the council and then back
on on the rfp.
I think you know if if healthy
democracy is the one that comes
out on the rfp, great least
we're doing it the right way.
It's not forego a step that we
hold to everyone else And my
understanding is there's other
providers or we don't know if
this is the sole provider other
providers that might provide
the exact same service maybe a
little differently or not but
what's the harm in doing it the
right way Moving forward?
I'm sorry to interject again
but thank you so much.
That's fine.
Thank you.
And I think digging into this
but I just want to circle back
and come back to where I so the
standards are Are you the same
Michelle Dennis who endorsed
council Our position is maybe
it's a different one.
No same person MAY I just like
I retired from teaching at ucla
in the spring of 2024 okay.
And and there was an election
to be happening in the city and
I noticed that the platform of
council member Fish was
interesting to me So I called
him We had a conversation and I
discovered lots of residents
and I wanted to support him So
I made a $50 contribution to
his campaign and that's it.
Okay.
And I think that's totally fair
And and I think ever every
citizen, especially residents
should be able to do that and
should do it.
I it's just again really you
know you're you're the person
up you're speaking and giving
the primary recommendation for
healthy democracy and that's
that's the part that I just
perceives even even if all
everything's good and fine
perception wise that's why I
want an rfp So but I'm okay So
when when someone wants to
bring a motion forward I think
the questionnaire is fine To me
what cfo over outlined in terms
of the city's does in the
interim you know in this
upcoming budget cycle I think
that that's all fine And just
in case anyone's asking and I
hope that in the motion that we
include an rfp to select the
consultant that administers
this mayor and MAY I ask a
clarifying question just
because I want to make sure
that I capture the direction
and for the quite cfo So before
we get there I just want to
clarify MISS Dennis, are you
are you proposed to be receive
any money from this process?
Are you are employee of healthy
democracy in any way?
No, I have no financial
connections whatsoever with
healthy democracy or public
democracy.
Los Angeles okay.
I just I heard you say
something like that earlier but
I just wanted to make sure that
that was Thank you for asking.
Thank you, MISS Venice.
Okay.
I apologize.
Cfo So I want to be clear that
I'm not alluding to that either
.
I just want to make sure that
in what when council crafts the
motion and maybe it's whether
it's one or separate I just
want to have clarity and in in
all the pieces what I'm hearing
and I'll take the easier pieces
first because I think I'm I
hear that concurrence from all
that the short term
recommendations that were
approved you know to bring
forward in the governance
subcommittee that we would do
for the upcoming fiscal year
2627 budget process sounds like
that the everyone seems fine
with that to move forward I
hear that a questionnaire
everyone's seems open to a
questionnaire.
I just want a little clarity
That was the questionnaire that
was attached came from the city
of Nashville obviously slightly
different city We would I want
to make sure that the council
is fine.
We would anticipate that we
would have to tailor a little
bit to our needs.
Is there anything I mean does
council want to see that come
back?
Are you okay with us tweaking
it?
I'd like to know how how that
how to shape those things up
And thank you also for the the
requested clarification.
I clearly it's not apples to
apples in terms of how the
government runs and I'm open to
you tweaking as as with that
the processes that we have here
because you know maybe a little
differently there are requests
that are made that we don't see
you know so you know there's a
question around that So hope
hopefully the essence of this
can be uplifted and if possible
you know, if it could be
attacked, if it comes back on
consent or something, it could
be attached there.
But and I defer you know, we
have the ten questions and the
overall gist of them So that's
fair And certainly I would
imagine if it's something that
we begin to incorporate it
could always change a year to
year as we as we realized we
should have asked something
else we forgot or this would
have been extremely helpful.
Okay, anything that makes sense
and that feedback like the
whole thing is you know
continuous process So I would
love to hear if there's
something maybe if there's
something that maybe there's an
open ended something.
Right, Right.
So but a lot of that gets
captured maybe in the
presentation.
Yeah, that's kind of whatever
folks want to break you know
how folks feel They want to
highlight their requests.
Okay.
So thank you for asking And if
colleagues have any other one
one other question for you cfo
So I heard two of my colleagues
talk about or expressed the
desire for an rfp.
I don't personally feel as
strongly that rfp is necessary
just based on the information
that public democracy presented
In terms of there's two
competitors one has done six,
one has done one.
You know one has a lot more
experience.
But I do appreciate, you know,
the desire to to want to, you
know, cross every t and dot
every guy Is there Is there a
world where we can do an rfp
and still get to to to address
my colleague's concerns and
still get people participate
adding like throwing this out
there We have two more meetings
left Could we put together an
rfp and make it is a selection
I know the DECEMBER meeting we
try to not put stuff on there
because it's the mayor vice
mayor rotation but like is that
doable?
I just don't want to lose that
opportunity for people to
meaningfully participate
because I'm not against the rfp
.
I'm just that to me feels like
a critical piece of this is
people knowing what you do
already understood You know we
have done the rfp is on very
tight turnaround when as an
example a granting agency
requires something but you you
have to meet a deadline We've
we've gone out on the
marketplace we've tried to to
do that so I I think that is
possible whether you know I
guess the question would be but
we because we don't have
meetings I would imagine we
could bring something back the
first meeting in JANUARY.
So you know, I don't know how
if we did that and we really
work to have everything ready
to go I'm not sure how long the
process is to select somebody.
So would they could we get a
body empaneled by FEBRUARY?
I mean it It's we'd have to
work.
Listen, we work hard all the
time.
We would have to work hard and
to make it happen and I'd have
to be proactive.
But we're good at being
proactive And you know, it
sounds like you're saying the
earliest that you think
reasonably we could get we
could make a decision on the
rfp if we released an rfp would
be JANUARY.
That would be us making a
selection from the rfp, a
selection of a vendor from the
rfp, correct?
I think so, yes.
So I guess the question is now
to Healthy Democracy and pdl.
It's really to both of you
because I feel like it's Michel
So okay I mean if that I want
to I want to feel my
colleague's concerns and see if
we can find an avenue.
But yeah, I appreciate the
question.
I do think that so if a vendor
were selected at I'm not sure
when you're JANUARY, JANUARY
8th or something JANUARY 8th is
essentially the the process of
of going through a civic
lottery takes there's there are
several steps to it that would
you can kind of compress some
of those steps but compressing
those too much you lose a lot
of the kind of benefits of
doing things like a civic
lottery So designing a mailing
that's going out working with a
local vendor by the way, I just
wanted to point out that the
draft budget that we shared
which we would obviously
negotiate you know the kind of
the details of that working
with a local vendor to design
and print a mailer that would
go out to the community giving
time for people to respond to
that So then they could we'd
have a pool of people to do
random selection from using the
stratification strategies in
consultation with staff and
council those things I'll take
I'll take time.
You want to have invitations
out there for at least probably
3 or 4 weeks.
That's just the invitation sort
of being mailed out and kind of
getting to people and giving
them a chance to get back to
you before a lot of the other
selection process work happens.
So if the if the idea is you
want to try and get people
involved in the budget review
process in FEBRUARY, that
timeline I think would not
would not work.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, I don't know if that
answers the question as well
And I you know the budget
itself is not crafted until MAY
The pieces that we typically do
we start in MARCH so not there
are new the midyear is
happening in FEBRUARY and maybe
this department open house so
that would be one item but
everything else is MARCH again
hearing that it's it would it
would be a little tight but
we're not it isn't 1st of
FEBRUARY so we're like
beginning of MARCH a lot change
your answer okay I mean I think
there are a lot of sort of like
moving pieces like generally we
tell we tell people there's
consultation with staff and
with council that needs to
happen during that process of
kind of the civic lottery and
planning kind of the details of
how that works.
Doing all of that in sort of 4
to 6 weeks is is not we would
not typically do that.
It usually takes at least a
couple of months for like to
sort of prepare for the for the
civic lottery process to to
happen and then start and then
and then kind of be done So
yeah it could be done but it
would be it would be incredibly
challenging.
I think and kind of limit some
of the process that I think is
so much well colleagues and
we've been on this for a while
so if there's no other
questions or comments I'm happy
to put in a motion to have Is
it possible to do Thank you.
Sorry get a competitive price
quote without a full rfp.
Yes, we can go to other
entities.
So as an example the one that
was pointed out in MS. Dennis's
presentation we could get a
quote from them and and and do
that and bring that back to
council on NOVEMBER 10th.
We could also staff could do a
little more exploration and see
if we came up with any other
entities.
I'd love to include that.
And then the other thing for
the motion is that when I've
agreed to this earlier this
year and the cap with for me
was at $250,000 and so no more
than that.
So I'd like to include that in
your motion please.
So just to clarify so if that
were the motion that that staff
would negotiate so that the
total cost including if we had
to have a staff or whatever
would be at 250 right.
Not that we're handing out to
50 to a consultant but that the
full cost correct got things
back to me.
Oh sorry.
Thanks I swear And I don't know
if Mayor you had more I just
wanted to ask for clarity on
the on what he suggested the
price getting the competitive
quote but not the rfp.
How does that work exactly What
is the timeline?
How would that affect the
timeline We staff could go I
mean again that would be very
quick and we could reach out to
other we could reach out to
healthy democracy and have a
conversation about what they
are providing.
We could reach out to other
organizations in this space and
see what what they're proposing
Again with a schedule or
whatever.
So at least we've gone out and
seen staff has done an
exploration of what is out
there and then we could return
to the council on NOVEMBER 10th
with with that.
So it's not a formal
procurement in terms of going
out with an rfp and and giving
that time and and marketplace
But we we could go out and and
look at entities that do this.
Got it.
Thank you.
Thanks, Vice Mayor for the
suggestion.
I'm open to that and interested
in what your thoughts are.
Mayor and COUNCILMAN Rivera, I,
I mean the facts are better
than what we got but I'm happy
with you guys going forward
with the motion and moving on.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'm taking the vice mayor's
suggestions there with the
$250,000 cap for everything,
not just what we're contracting
and then doing a quote doing a
competitive price quote I know
our next meeting is pretty
packed.
Is that do we have it's going
to be any issues with that in
terms of doing that at the next
meeting that that we foresee?
Maybe that's a question for
John or a question for the
mayor.
Yeah, we'll put it on.
Okay.
So yeah I guess the motion on
the table then would be the
would be moving forward with
the Civic Assembly with the
with the competitive price
quote to come back at the next
meeting and the questionnaire
as well as the short term
recommendations as recommended
by MS. Dennis Is there anything
that I MISS Anything colleagues
Okay.
And confirming that the the
question that we're asking is
how to garner increased public
participation in the budget
process.
Right.
So that when we're soliciting
the quotes that what we're
asking them to do that is the
remit.
Yeah The question exactly.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well said And we have a quick
comment from standers So if I
MAY
is to provide a quote to
facilitate the Civic Assembly
correct Addressing this one
question and just you know
there's a public works records
know this very well we you can
get the lowest possible price
and then you have a big
question about that
deliverables and so this price
quote should require
demonstration of skills and
experience and so forth doing
civic assemblies.
It's a very distinct process.
So
thank you for that.
I mean colleagues, I don't want
to I don't want to I don't want
to just drag this out longer
than it needs to.
So if if if we have three three
votes for the sole source
contract I'm in favor of moving
forward with that.
But if if any of my colleagues
feel like they would prefer to
support with the price
competitive price quote I'm
happy with that as well.
Okay.
Okay, great.
I would love to do the
competitive price quote.
Okay.
And I just wanted to clarify
with cfo so great the goal
would be to have those back by
the ten correct?
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
And I will clarify It's not
just competitive pricing.
It's a to get a quote to can
entertain you know, create a
public civic assembly answering
the question about the public
participation rate.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
I have a motion by council
member Fish, a second from
Council member McMoRan to move
forward with the short term
recommendations from the
government subcommittee and and
then the tailoring of the
questionnaire here to the
city's needs and and then the
competitive pricing quotes from
other entities.
I'm a cap at $250,000 and
that's to return by NOVEMBER
10th for council consideration
And the quote would be to
create a civic assembly and
answer the budgeting question
Right?
You MAY begin voting That
motion passes two nays two nays
from Mayor o'Brien and
COUNCILMAN Rivera, Thank you
.
Okay.
We are on to action.
Item two
.
Good evening again.
Honorable mayor, vice mayor and
council members for purposes of
the public.
My name is Elizabeth Garcia and
I am a project for an economic
development project manager for
with the economic Development
and Cultural Development
Department in SEPTEMBER of 2024
City Council directed staff to
gather information relative to
small business assistance
programs.
On MAY 12th 2025 staff
presented two small business
programs for your consideration
and the action was pulled to be
considered at a later date.
Staff presented two programs
which I'm going to describe a
bit.
The first program is a small
Business technical Assistance
grant program which would
mirror the sustainable Business
Program.
The proposal would be a cohort
based program that would target
up to 30 businesses per year to
receive technical assistance
such as small business
workshops as well as 1 to 1
advising for participate in
businesses.
The program would partner with
pcr Business Finance who
manages a local small business
development center.
The spdc will provide technical
assistance and an
implementation for a period of
two years for $15,000 annually.
At the end of the program the
city would have a combination
program similar to the the
Sustainable Business Program
and provide a small grant of
$1,000 for implementation of
recommendations provided.
The program would focus on
businesses in operation for
under two years in Culver City.
The second program is a permit
permit reimbursement program
which would provide
reimbursement for up to $5,000
for city permit permit fees for
new businesses removing a
barrier to entry.
This program would require an
initial $50,000 allocation for
the for the first year.
Requirements would focus on
brick and mortar businesses.
If Council wishes to proceed
with either or both programs,
the the total allocation would
be $95,000 per year for the
first year and funding would
come from the city's general
fund.
This concludes my presentation
and I'm available to answers
and any questions you MAY have.
Thank you.
Do you have any questions from
my colleagues to start?
No.
I just have one quick question
on page four of the I'm sorry I
didn't call about this prior
where it breaks down the the
estimate cost.
There's a little chart there.
It says $15,000 annually for
two years for the management
fees which mean 7500 per year.
Right.
So it would reduce that.
I mean it's a small number but
it would reduce that down to
3075 per year.
That right?
Okay.
No, I want to I want to clarify
that $15,000 per year.
Per year?
Yeah.
I I apologize.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
So the total is correct.
Okay, great.
Okay.
Do we have any speaker cards?
Yes.
We had two speakers center for
this item.
Melissa Sanders and James
Richardson.
So we'll start with Melissa.
Melissa unlocked you and
yourself.
I'm only awake because the
Dodgers are in their 18th
inning.
Still tied.
I as a previous business owner
in Culver City I will just say
anything you can do to support
small businesses because that
is the backbone and lifeblood
of any city really would be
great.
You know the $250,000 for the
consultants for the big
assembly could be better spent,
you know, uplifting our small
businesses.
The $20 million that you below
could be much better spent
elsewhere.
GOD, you could spend $1 million
in small businesses instead of
20.
So again, anything you can do
to support small business is
going to be important for this
city to survive and thrive.
That's all I want to say.
So please do whatever you can
to bring this city back to its
glory days and stop having
things close every other day.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is James
Richardson.
So you still heard not seeing
him online So that would be the
end of our speakers.
Okay.
Thank you.
Let's go around the horn with
any comments from here.
Mean really quick before we
start getting into this, I just
wanted to make a brief comment
that I did confer with City
Attorney on this item that I
can't participate And I don't
know if you wanted to add
anything on to.
Yeah we evaluated the potential
conflict for a financial
interest in a business entity
and determined that it doesn't
meet the threshold that would
require legal recusal.
So he Councilmember Vera does
not have a legal financial
conflict of interest in this
matter and can participate.
All right.
Thank you.
Thanks man.
Yeah, Concerned again.
Thanks, Mary.
I'm going to defer to the vice
mayor.
I believe this was his proposal
in SEPTEMBER of last year.
So I want to make sure that he
has opportunity to lead on this
item.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Vice Premier, once you add your
comments and people can
respond.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Councilmember Warren a mayor
I'm very proud to support this
item.
It's one I personally brought
forward because supporting our
small businesses is central to
keeping our city's economy
strong and vibrant And it's
important that we balance the
work that the city is doing
internally.
And so we need to address our
budget services infrastructure,
housing, mobility with tangible
support for the local
businesses that make up the
heart of our community.
Our sales tax as we know is the
number one source of revenue
And so small businesses are
huge part of that base.
So when we help them succeed
we're not just helping
individual entrepreneurs.
We're strengthening the city's
fiscal foundation.
So this pilot program is an
investment in our local
economy.
Thank you to staff for all
their work on this.
It provides real direct
assistance to small businesses
whether that's through the
technical support, the grants
or helping them with permitting
costs and all areas that can
make or break a small
operation.
I am confident it will be
successful and I hope it can
grow over time especially if we
see strong results from this
pilot program.
I also see the opportunity to
expand partnership with things
like cdf Eyes Community
Development, financial
Institution and which are
mission driven lenders that
provide affordable financing
and financial services to
underserved small businesses
and they provide grants and
loans so we can couple them
together That could attract new
businesses, expand access to
capital and bolster the city's
grant funding to make this
program more sustainable.
But that's a separate thing at
a core.
At the core this is really
about investing in people and
the small businesses who take
risks, create jobs and give our
city unique character.
So I'm hoping that this will be
supported and look forward to
supporting its continued
growth.
Thanks man.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's from Fisher You like
more?
Yeah.
I just briefly want to say
thank you Vice Mayor for
bringing this forth.
I, I had a company right after
college.
I know I did not go to business
school myself.
I had a marketing minor but
that was the extent of my of my
formal business education And I
would commute to Pasadena
because they had a small
business development center
with three one on one coaching
for my business and it was such
a life saver for me because I
learned so much about just the
ins and outs of of running a
small business and so the fact
that we are providing those
services that we're providing
grants but not just grants but
like full support with this
item one on one coaching and
then seminars, webinars I'm
really encouraged by what I see
here and just thanks for all
the work that's gone into it
staff and colleagues Thank you
everyone Thank you and might an
hour I'll keep my remarks
brief.
I'm super grateful to staff for
all of the work that has
brought this item to this
point.
All the research etc. I really
appreciate the Vice mayor for
bringing this to us and I'm
really excited to see what the
what kind of impact and what
kind of demand we will have for
this project.
I hope that we'll have some
sort of report backs on how
things are going, how many and
small businesses are utilizing
the program just like you know
just sort of having a feedback
loop of how things are going.
But again I super excited to
see this investment and yeah
and just looking forward to
continue growth So I'm really
excited.
Thank you.
Thank you because we're very
Thank you Mayor thank staff for
all your your effort And I said
on the subcommittee with the
vice mayor and I know you guys
really did a whole lot of work
behind it and thanks to the
vice mayor for bringing this
forward, I'm happy to support
this.
I think you know, on both
counts this will be something
that is a good investment in
our community But actually an
investment that the city can
see some sort of tangible
return on.
So thank you very much.
Thank you, Mayor.
Yeah I think you yeah and thank
you for bringing this forward
as well And you know just a
small point I think many of us
have heard it before but 50% of
small businesses fail within
five years, 20% within the
first year.
So the cohort cohort program
especially I think will be
really valuable and it'll be
great for our newer businesses
and and I appreciate you know,
the skills that can be learned
there, you know with the
marketing I think that that's a
big critical factor in
navigating city.
I hope we can promote this
early when we get those
applications in so that we can
help them navigate all the
permitting and you know I know
I've run into folks starting up
and they're doing construction
on their new business and
they're really struggling with
that process.
So I hope include that and and
I really like the permit fee
reimbursement program as well
with a little larger some that
can help businesses that might
have hit a speed bump to have
been more established So it's
great I'm happy to let the vice
mayor present the motion Thank
you.
Thank to make a motion to
approve the two small pilot
business Assistance program at
a total of $95,000 I think
that's it I a my one second
came on.
Okay There you go.
Thank you.
All right
.
Thank you.
I have a motion by Vice Mayor
Pusa in a second from Council
member McMoRan for the approval
of two small pilot business
assistance programs for two and
a total of $95,000 MAY be
converting I motion passes
unanimously.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank.
MAY or MAY make an announcement
really quick.
Yeah.
Elizabeth Garcia's birthday is
today and it's going to be over
in about three minutes so I
just thought we could wish her
happy birthday.
Happy birthday.
Birthday birthday.
Thank you.
Over with a fun way Write that
and tell you for real And so
you celebrate your birthday and
same with you for real.
Now happy birthday.
Mine's coming up in JANUARY.
I hope you.
Thanks you guys.
Appreciate a three And the
Dodgers just scored 18th inning
right Freddy homerun Oh he
needs to have yeah and he's
dead okay They played two games
in one era Sometimes sometimes
.
Let's get to the d-Day for a
rethink.
Okay.
In SEPTEMBER 2022, the city and
Rethink Culver llc entered into
a development and disposition
agreement or what we would call
a dda for the sale and
redevelopment of city property
located at 9814 Washington
Boulevard which is immediately
adjacent to the Kirk Douglas
Theater.
The purpose of the agreement
was to activate an
underutilized city owned
property, create affordable
housing and enhance the local
economic and cultural
environment.
Since the closing of Escrow
Rethink has encountered several
challenges in the development
of their project due to the
complex nature of building and
coordination with
infrastructure components
related to the Kirk Douglas
Theater, Rethink has completed
a preliminary construction
drawings for the cost to build
the project as required by the
current dda is in feasible with
their current projected
financing.
To this end we think has
requested the city's
consideration to amend the dda
relative to certain
requirements they believe will
allow the project to move
forward.
There are four categories I'd
like to bring to your
attention.
The first is the removal of the
arts related space requirement.
So pursuant to the current dda
the project was supposed to
include an arts related space
which is now currently 2000ft.
We think would like to lift
that restriction for the arts
related space to allow it to be
used for any use permitted
under the zoning cone code
Excuse me.
The original dda contemplated
that the space would be
potentially leased and
programed by the Center Theater
group which is the lessee of
the Kirk Douglas Theater.
So just for clarification, the
city owns the Kirk Douglas
Theater and leases the theater
to the Center Theater group.
The dda requires that if the
center theater group doesn't
use that space that they have
to approve if it's going to be
reallocated.
At this time ctg is open
tentatively to releasing the
space so long as their h box
system can be relocated into
the public right of way which
is something that steps are
already explored.
And we've given a conceptual
approval to And next one is the
modification of Affordable
housing unit mix.
So as outlined in the dda
rethink is required to provide
six affordable housing units as
part of the project which was
five studios and one one
bedroom.
They are now converting the
project to an all studio mix
and they would like to have all
of the affordable units be
studios which will be
approximately 390ft.
So just as a reminder this is a
micro unit project we think
would still be required to
provide two very low and four
moderate income units with a
covenant of 55 years to things
that are not in the dda but
that we think we'd like your
potential approval on is to
extend the outdoor dining area
along Culver Boulevard.
They'd like to extend it
adjacent to the Kirk Douglas
Theater but closer to their
parcel.
So just as a reminder, Rethink
owns the parcel that the Peskin
buildings on and where the
center theater group yard is
but they also own the parcel
worth cafe Vida is so that's
one of the reasons why this
project works is because you
have a developer that can build
above two parcels.
So Rethink is asking that the
city council consider doing
outdoor dining behind that area
.
At this time ctg has not
provided their support yet
because specific plans haven't
been drawn up So it's not clear
exactly what the area is as
part of it since it's not part
of the dda the city council
could also direct staff to
coordinate use of the space
through an easement or through
a modification of the outdoor
dining program contingent on
Gee's approval.
I'm jumping around here.
I'm trying to get you done on
this report I had it smoother
before.
Okay.
And lastly, the lease of
construction parking for the
project Again this is not on
the dda but this is just
something that the developer
wanted to sort of reserve which
is the requesting 30 vehicles
daily vehicle parking in our
parking structure.
They're willing to pay market
rent for that and it would be
over the course of a 17 month
construction period.
So again we could add that to
the dda or we could do a
separate parking agreement or
they can just coordinate
directly with our parking
manager.
So Rethinks indicated that if
they're not able to amend the
dda with the requested
modifications the project would
become infeasible to construct
.
If the project were to become
infeasible the city would need
to proceed with the provisions
outlined in the dda relative to
project termination and
property transfer we think is
here tonight and they and staff
are available to answer any
questions you MAY have.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Do we have any comments?
Yes, we have five speakers
signed up to speak.
Okay.
And do we have colleagues ask
any questions you have based
off of the staff person?
All your comments.
Thanks, Mayor.
I just wanted to ask the
outdoor dining space would be
directly connected with the
retail space and used by the
retail space or No that's a
separate.
The retail space is actually
located on Washington Boulevard
near the entrance of Center
Theater Group.
The outdoor dining would be on
the backside and it wouldn't be
directly connected.
There would still be a pathway
for access to be able to you
know, have access to the trash
enclosure.
So it would be a little bit of
an interrupted pathway but it
would be adjacent to the back
of the Kirk Douglas Theater.
And just curious rethink would
use that in what exact way?
So great question.
So Rethink wants to use that
space to make it competitive
and attractive for their
existing tenant So like for
instance the cafe Vita site to
be able to expand and offer
more outdoor dining So it's a
competitive advantage proposal
for cafe Yeah.
So it's for it would be used
for Cafe Vida currently or any
future tenant right Hopefully
Cafe View Yes.
Okay.
Thank you because we're on Okay
like I'm sorry Yeah I'll wait
until comments So let's hear
public comments okay.
Or public speakers.
We'll start with Megan Pressman
followed by Alicia I'd followed
by Edward Ring, Amy Forbes and
Greg Reitz.
So Megan Pressman has been
patiently waiting online all
this time.
Megan I've I've unlocked you.
You can unmute yourself.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Good morning Mayor and City
Council.
I am Megan Pressman.
I'm the managing director and
ceo of Center Theater Group
which has been operating and
managing the critical cedar for
21 years now.
I'm grateful for the
opportunity to speak in support
of the project which we do hope
is able to proceed and I want
to acknowledge Elaine Gary
Warner and her team for their
hard work support and guidance
for the many years we've been
helping pursue this project.
On behalf of the Board of
Directors and Leadership of
Center Citigroup, we carry the
responsibility to you to ensure
that the Kirk Douglas is able
to maintain robust theater
operations.
At the conclusion of this
project we are respectfully
requesting that the City
Council make sure that any
amendment reflects the
following three items one
Ensuring that the release of
the art space requirement be
contingent on the Kirk Douglas
Theater hvac relocation to the
public right of way to to
direct the city manager to
issue whatever appropriate
permits or easements to put the
Douglas Theater back in that
right of way.
And three that the amendment
include a requirement that the
sidewalk dining authorization
is contingent on center city
groups approval which is
consistent with our existing
easement.
All of this is critical to the
Kirk Douglas Theater operations
which we hope to robustly
continue in the future.
Thank you.
Thank you, Peter.
Next speaker is Alicia Reed
followed by Edward Ring.
And I was asked to speak
tonight because they knew I
would be here so I was asked by
the board of the Clover Arts
Foundation to speak tonight to
remind City Council that Clover
that Culver City is arts
facilities poor with little in
the way of city controlled
performing spaces, art making
spaces, studio spaces,
exhibition spaces and even if
ctg does not need the arts
facility proposed in this
project there are many artists
and many arts organizations in
this city who could benefit
from art spaces and we would
hope that the arts component
should remain and be added to
other development projects
especially those utilizing city
property.
Thank you
Mayor.
May I make a clarifying point?
The property was disposed to We
think so.
That's actually not city
property anymore.
It's part of there but it is
managed by the developer and
disposition agreement to have
an arts related space.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Edward Ring
who is on line Edward iv and
Locke Do you I know yourself.
Go ahead.
I think I managed to do that
successfully.
Thank you for allowing me to
make this comment.
First of all, I just wanted to
tell everybody and remind
everybody that back is playing
right now at the Katy to great
reviews and artistically it's a
phenomenal success.
We we also are very, very much
in support of Rethinks Project
having a sort of three party
dda makes navigate it with
respect to the sequencing of
the development and the
entitlements makes it a little
bit more challenging than maybe
other projects.
So we would actually request
that any modification of the
dda meets our approval in a in
a different setting with with
attorneys and whatnot.
And just to reiterate our
gratitude for at least thus far
allowing the hpc to be
relocated to the public right
of way that not only helps
facilitate the rethink
development but it makes a lot
more sense given that that we
at cdbg really do need the the
space as it's currently
configured and moving Vasey
actually allows us to maintain
the same largely the same
amount of space so that theater
operations can continue.
>> Thank you.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Amy Forbes
.
Amy, I unlocked you.
You can speak.
I'm you yourself.
Okay.
I think I've unmuted myself.
Good evening, Mayor and city
council.
My name is Amy Forbes and I'm
the PRESIDENT Of the board of
directors of Center Theater
Group.
And I actually negotiated the
lease with the city some 23
years ago when we transformed a
movie theater into a live
theater.
And it's been an obviously an
enormous success.
But one of the quirks is that
as a movie theater it has no
loading area, it has no craft
area and other things that you
would find in a regular
theater.
And that's what's creating our
need to figure out where to put
the h fac our h fac our
transformers or craft areas or
loading areas are all located
on the property that rethink is
going to build its project on
And we over three years ago
negotiated how we would end up
being able to cohabitate.
But as as over the three years
as the project has been
designed it became apparent
there's not enough space in
that area which is why we're
asking you to let us move our h
back system into the right of
way otherwise we won't have
enough space left to be able to
do what we need to do and still
have the rethink project
accommodated.
So it is it is totally mission
critical for us.
And similarly with the dining
it could constrain our ability
to load heavy trucks in and
create a safety and operational
impact.
So those are two things that
are critical and otherwise
we're fully supportive of the
request.
We just want to be included in
the dda so no one loses track
of what our needs are going
forward with the construction.
>> Thank you.
Your time has expired.
Thank you.
Our last speaker is Greg
Rhodes.
Let's here
.
Good evening, City Council.
Thank you all for being here
this late.
You just sat through 18 innings
of city council while the
Dodgers are playing 18 innings
of baseball And I feel like
we're in the 18th inning of
this project and three years in
and hopefully we get a walk off
here tonight.
We have been through one of the
most complex projects we have
ever undertaken.
It's a small project with lots
of moving pieces and this is
the last one And hopefully this
this gets it done.
So we're here to answer
questions and aid and explain
our need here.
But this is this is what we
need in order to make this
project happen And we're
excited to build it.
We're ready to submit our plans
for planning check and and get
the project done.
So any questions that come up?
I'm Greg Wright's and Steve
Edwards, my partner sitting in
the back row.
Happy to answer them.
Thank you.
Don't see any of our speakers.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Appreciate the the baseball
metaphor and see if we can get
you to walk us.
I do have I'm going to speak
first on this because I have I
personally and I know community
members regarding developments
citywide not just the reading
project are tired of kind of
like blight just sitting there
.
We see it all over the city.
A project started and there's
fencing up whatever we've got
for the old Dennis house it's
probably got all kinds of
dangerous elements to its
existence Fire risk you know,
whatever it might be.
I know this would not be a
preferred direction but I, I
think the community would
really appreciate it if at all
possible assuming that the
modified deal is approved.
If so, giving one year time
frame to demo that house and
put it in a existence where the
community could use it until
you're ready to build.
So that's an open space where
we can put tables and chairs
there, you know, whatever it
might be.
I know it's a little more
complicated than that on the
city side but I'm just
wondering if that is something
that you would be open to.
I think the community would
really appreciate it.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Great.
Let's see if you can come up
with another now I like I like
that idea and I mean hopefully
we go right into building the
project and that would be the
goal But I understand we don't
we don't like we worry about
that building being there also
So we'd like to get a get rid
of it as quickly as possible.
So if there's an interim period
between now and when we're
going to build.
Happy to get it out of there
and make some use of the the
land.
Yeah.
Okay great.
All right.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
COUNCILMAN First you have any
questions?
Comments?
Mayor Yeah.
So if I'm understanding this
correctly, Craig is saying we
we're not ready to say yes to
the outdoor dining yet.
We want to see the final plans
and is that is that contingent
is that something that we think
is acceptable?
Yeah This is Steve Edwards
That's acceptable.
We got to figure out We don't
want it to impede on their
ability to load and load out
and the restaurant our wouldn't
want it either So we'll see if
it can work.
We just want the option to look
at it for Cafe Vita and
potential future tenants.
Thank you
.
That's all I have right now.
Thank you Councilmember again.
Thank you Appreciate that this
and thank you and MS..
Warner and for your quick
overview of where we are
Appreciate all the folks who
have held on And I thought we
were getting out early tonight.
I guess from an overall I mean
I think these are relatively
reasonable course I do just as
a principle I struggle with
privatizing and you know public
space has always been something
that you know, it's you know
but but also appreciated
outdoor dining moment And when
we have that so you know and I
understand that it is a
function of space and trying to
accommodate these plans that
have been in the works for some
time So you know I know folks
are working hard and we're
trying to find a solution here
So I want to make sure that the
city is being a good partner in
supporting this project is
being done And I do really
appreciate I was nervous that
there was going to be a walk
back of the affordable housing
commitment.
So I'm glad that that is not
what happened and we're still
honoring that as we move
forward.
I so thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Thank you, Mayor.
Just to save a whole lot of
time, I agree with MS..
Pressman in terms of the items
that need to be solidified in
this moving forward that that
building I don't think can get
torn down fast enough.
I know it's and I've been
through that walkway It's sort
of a haven for rats.
I mean it's like they're
they're abundant there So and
then thank you so much for your
willingness to at least
entertain the mayor's
suggestion about, you know,
creating maybe an open space if
there is sort of a gap and
tearing down and developing.
So yeah, I'm happy to move
forward with it as as written
in here it Thank you very much.
We're I think I'm here thanks
for the staff report thanks for
the public comments thanks to
ctg you're an important
community partner in our city.
I'm sad that the prior
iterations of the part of this
project didn't work out but and
I and I'd like to see this
succeed.
I'm very sympathetic to the
loss of the art space But again
I would like to see this space
and project succeed.
So these are very reasonable
requests and I'm open to them
with the inclusion of the
mayor's suggestion.
Thank think Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay.
So again thank you to everyone
from Rethink and also from City
g.
I concur with the Vice Mayor
that you are a an incredibly
valued partner in the city
providing the performing arts
that you know a lot of cities
would be very jealous of So
what I'm hearing from everyone
is that we're okay to go
forward with the modifications
to the dda as recommended and
for for approval of City g on
the on the cited portions they
need to have the c moved the
dining needs to be reviewed by
them.
Anything else that Megan so you
and then if we can add to this
you know if construction hasn't
started a year from execution
of the dda there needs to be
the demo of the building and
made into a of an open space
and then the city can deal with
you know how we activate that
if we want to.
I just wanted to let the
council know that in the
current schedule of performance
there are next milestone to
submit to submit their evidence
of financing and construction
and in MAY which would then
yield a potential construction
date of JUNE.
So right now that's their
existing schedule of
performance work And then the
two other items the outdoor
dining and the parking as I
mentioned before, those are
actually not currently in the
dda.
Would you like to put that in
there?
Yes, please.
I don't I didn't see any But
the the outdoor dining is per
review by c City g and I don't
think anyone had any problem
with market rate parking in our
parking structure.
So yes please I submit a motion
.
We also need the motions to
approve the amendment
consistent with the Council's
direction and authorize City
Attorney to review prepare and
City manager to execute
separate motion Or you can do
it all in one but I just want
to make sure those we have it
right So approve approve an
amendment to the dda consistent
with City council direction
authorize city Attorney to
review prepare the necessary
documents and authorize city
manager to execute such
documents on behalf of the city
.
Thank you.
I have a motion by Mayor
o'Brien and second from
Councilmember Bera to approve
the motion stated by the mayor
.
You MAY begin voting
.
Thank you.
That motion passes unanimously.
All right, great.
Thank you.
And do we have any comments?
There are none.
Okay.
Do we have any last comments
from my colleagues concerning.
Thanks Mayor.
Yeah to sorry to and a question
The first is just about the
single stair ordinance that we
passed is maybe coming to the
California Building Standards
Commission on the I think it's
the 17th.
I've shared the date with staff
of DECEMBER and we were
contacted by some groups that
some some groups that advocated
for our ordinance such as a ban
on housing Los Angeles who said
that the commission it would be
good for the commission to hear
from the council as to why this
is a political priority for the
Council.
So my request is just for three
nodding heads to send a letter
from this Council advocating
for our ordinance that was
already passed five zero just
sharing the local need for our
single stair ordinance and why
we passed it and the same exact
letter being sent to the state
the State Fire Marshals Working
Group.
So I'm just seeking nodding
heads for those that letter to
be sent to those two groups.
Okay, great.
And I think Oh go ahead.
So you did something that you
would want to work on with the
we had talked about possibility
of working on it with the
housing and homelessness
subcommittee.
I mean city attorney you tell
me.
I, I don't feel that because we
provided like that sample and
Shelley is really good at, you
know, writing those letters.
I don't feel that it needs to
come back.
Okay Since it's something
that's already passed the
council as long as it reflects
you know I think that's what we
passed.
Yes, I think that's fine.
Thank you.
And I provided a sample that
the from Santa Monica that
passed a similar letter where
that sent a similar letter And
the second is just there's a
and a bill that was just passed
that was signed by Governor
Newsom last month, sb 720 that
reforms the red light camera
program and and fixes some of
the challenges of the red light
camera program.
For example, the the tickets
being extraordinarily expensive
,very difficult to have get
people to pay them and the
charges are criminal in And
instead of civil in this law
that was just signed that was
just signed allows cities to
opt into a new reformed
program.
And so I was just seeking
through nodding heads to
recommend that to them Ability
subcommittee We can talk about
that more in the committee but
it would just be exploring that
law using it and I've contacted
our key pd who runs the program
and asked for his input on it
as well.
Okay thanks.
Thank you.
And then finally is just a
quick question to staff is do
you have an idea of when the
legislative platform is coming
back for review maybe that John
or John or Heather maybe it I
believe it's coming NOVEMBER
ten.
Okay.
I think it got moved off of
this agenda and I Is that not
correct, Mayor
That would be
next time, right?
Yeah, I believe so.
I think Assistant city Manager
Rothberg said it could be a
consent item and oh, she did
that.
That's correct.
She did.
Yeah.
I'm not seeing it on NOVEMBER
10th and it's a full and on
consent either You're not
saying oh consent it we can
it's just a question So if you
if it's something that you can
find out I've just curious when
it's when it's coming back but
I don't have any action on that
.
Thank you.
Yeah thanks man.
I can't remember.
That's right.
So yes, I'm wonder if I can get
319 heads for a presentation
and exploration of using the
services throne.
It's accessible portable
bathroom There's one currently
at abc Station
for purposes
that we've kind of gotten away
for putting it on the record.
Who did the nodding head this
evening?
So let us make let's try and
get it for this one at least
seeing all nodding heads on
this one And then also and if
this aligns with our
legislative platform but
support for ab7 36 it's a bill
by Assembly member Buffett
works in support of affordable
housing bond of 2026 so b
dedicated funding for student
housing at California's public
colleges and universities.
So since we have people who go
to universities around us other
than yes so if I had many heads
and will check the legislative
platform policy platform and if
it's not in there I'll come
back If it is and we won't need
to bring it back.
Right.
That's up, Mare Thank you.
Thank you.
City attorney.
Okay.
Thank you.
I don't have anything else to
add.
I would like to read the
obituary for Margo Green and
then is there any other notes
that other the Vice Chairperson
would like to add in their
memory?
You can go first and then for
me just what I stated in my
initial comments.
Thank you Mayor.
That's right.
You know just on as I said, the
Melanie Winter she was the
executive director of the River
Project and Friends of the Los
Angeles River.
She attended a recent meeting
with the Sustainability
subcommittee with Councilmember
McMahon and I and she really
championed efforts to embrace
nature along the river saying
that allowing space for a
meandering waterway line with
preparing and for forests would
recharge, help recharge
groundwater, reduce flood risk
and allow a green oasis to
flourish in the heart of Los
Angeles.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
And I'm going to read the
obituary for Margo Green.
This is our city, correct,
Jeremy But Gina's mother who
passed away on Saturday at the
age of 91 She's a Broadway
dancer, designer, entrepreneur
with a flair for renovation
reinvention.
She died at 91.
Margot Green, whose career
spanned from the Broadway stage
to fashion antiques, interior
design and real estate died on
OCTOBER 25th, 2025 in Palm
Desert, California.
A former longtime resident of
Roslyn Heights, New York, she
was 91 gifted.
She entered the university at
16 but if anyone tried to
define her she would reinvent
herself often just to prove
them wrong With no training she
taught herself to sing and
dance 18 was on Broadway in the
original productions of Wish
You Were Here followed by
Can-Can and Yankees.
This penchant for self
reinvention and her constant
belief in possibilities would
follow her throughout her life.
Led by her motto Margo makes it
happen.
After conquering the stage she
turned to design opening a
clothing boutique that evolved
into a small streetwear line
for dancers and early
forerunner of activewear.
At 21 she married Frank Green,
also a Broadway star.
The pair relocated a decade
later to the suburbs of Roslyn
Heights where Margo opened her
antique stores, sold real
estate and became an interior
designer.
In 1998 the Greens relocated to
Indian Wells, California Or
once again Margo turned her
sights to real estate.
Throughout her life Margo was
known for her boundless
curiosity and energy and
enthusiasm for new ideas and
her belief that a thoughtful,
thoughtful conversation and
creativity could make the world
a better place.
She is survived by her twin
daughters Pamela, Larry and
Jeremy but their husbands Larry
and Frank Bertino and countless
extended family and friends
Margaret Greene will be
remembered as a talented,
dynamic woman whose imagination
and drive helped her indeed
make it happen.
In honor of Margo, please
consider donations to Cancer
Research Foundation, American
Cancer Society Macular
Degeneration Research.
Braille Institute.
Rheumatology Research
Foundation Hospice or a charity
of your choice.
Thank you.
And I think we have motion to
adjourn.
Thank you And see a motion from
Vice Mayor please a second from
Council member Mcmorran to
adjourn in the memories of
Margot Green that beauty and
genius and Melanie Winter you
MAY begin voting.
That motion passes unanimously.
The time is 12:28 A.M. And we
are adjourned.
Thank you.