>> we're going to call the study session meeting to order on june 2nd,
2025 at 4:34 pm. Mr. Domer, roll call, please.
>> thank you, mr. Mayor. Council member crosby.
>> here. >> council member johnson. >> present. >> council member lau. >> present. >> mayor pro tem kashifalghita.
>> here. >> mayor hepburn. >> here. >> all present, sir. >> thank you, mr. Domer. Welcome, everybody.
we've got one individual in the room. We've got everybody else staff,
so we are ready to roll. Tonight for the study session, staff will present a second overview of
the proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2025/26.
mr. Domer, can you please call for the staff making the presentation? >> thank you, mr. Mayor.
this is going to be led by finance director christy lopez,
all the department directors will be part of it, and then I'll speak on a little bit of it myself. Christy.
>> thank you. Good evening, mayor and city council.
tonight, we will be presenting the budget study session,
which is the second study session that we're having, and this is going to go over the changes that we've
had since the last study session on may 5th.
tonight we will be looking at the most recent updates that we've had to get us to this point,
the most recent updated version. Each department will also come up tonight or today and present their department's budget,
including looking at the services that the city provides within those departments.
then we will also be looking for your direction to prepare the final budget,
which will be presented at the next council meeting. Now I'm going to pass it over to ken briefly to go over this slide.
well, or [inaudible]
>> thank you, christy. First, I do want to apologize
for getting the presentation to you about seven minutes before this meeting.
this budget has been one of those where again, in prior descriptions, it's so tight that everything has been changing.
going forward, I've already talked to christy and to all the department heads,
that from here on out, the budget process, we've done, pretty much in the same format,
we've done for years and years and years, but the information that we've been putting into the budget is changed greatly.
I was looking at the online budget just fiscal year 21/22,
and the information that was in it, mostly the information was not in it,
it really doesn't convey a lot of information for pretty much three line items.
when you look at the budget presentation that's in draft or the budget book that's in draft,
there's line items spelled out across. We look at actuals from prior years,
a lot more information into it. But we're also very much more lean than what we were in the past for many reasons.
that's going to be the theme going forward.
because of that reason in trying to get a number, that number was elusive that we can bring before you saying,
here's what the recommendation is and here's where we need to get your direction in order to bring the structurally balance,
or to understand that there's going to be a point of time where we're going to have
to draw on some reserves or have some authority for drawing on reserves,
not knowing if we're going to need to touch those reserves based on some of the different issues in the budget itself.
regardless of the actions tonight, the clear picture is that from here on out,
we have to absolutely recognize the cost of providing services.
I want to give credit to all of our staff for stepping up and if not embracing,
but understanding the change that they have seen over the last several years, and there has been a lot of change over the last several years.
but I think every one of us recognize it's so vitally important to continue to serve this community,
and in order to do that, we need to have a budget that is structurally balanced moving forward.
we are not alone in this issue of struggling with a balanced budget,
if you read a lot of the articles that are out there. Unfortunately, there's not,
because of the state of news cutback news industry. You don't hear all the different cities
that are struggling financially, but they're out there. The cost of providing public services,
not just for public safety, it continues to rise, and the demand for services continue to outpace that ride.
I've said it before, but our biggest budgetary hit is something that this council and past councils have actually taken solid action for,
and that's been to address the pension crisis.
the funding of the pension obligation bond, the caring of different benefits have all been very, very helpful.
but again, as we see with our current fight, it hasn't been enough.
even with our pension obligation bond, we need to provide further cuts in order to stay structurally balanced.
our unfunded actuarial was about 11,000 a year ago.
this current year, it's about 900,000. In the fiscal year that we are debating right now,
it's going to be about 1.75 million, and that is money that we have to give.
we have no choice. We don't have
1.75 million of revenue that is covering that requirement.
that's truly the biggest anchor that is preventing us from moving forward and doing bigger and better things here in the city.
but in discussing what I led in and started,
once the budget is approved, there's no six month break before we start next budget process.
it's that next day. All of us are going to need to seek ways to control expenditure growth.
we're going to be looking at the increases, trying to get more increased retail opportunity here in the city to get more revenue.
during this time, all of us here in the room, including under your direction,
are going to have to live within our means, being able to support services that we're giving.
you're going to hear from your department directors about the services they offer, what they have done to get us to this current point and
list out tiers of further reductions. Some of it will require direction from you,
but the goal as we started out, we were at $3.6 million as we initially identified.
that was based on the departments and the directors coming forward and saying these are what we need to
do from our understanding of our roles and what the service requires in order to do what we need to do.
we've had to cut. We went down to about 2.8, we went down to about 1.7,
and then down to 1.1. I believe now we're down to about 240 or 265,000. Around there.
then the last bit is what we're looking for. Of course, at any time as we're talking about some of these items,
to get us down to that number, you could say, well, I really want that,
and then during these next two weeks, send us back to the drawing board.
but we really believe again, getting down to a point,
whether it is a $300,000 authority
to use reserves for a structurally balanced budget going forward.
we know that if something pops up during the year, we'll be back here explaining it,
asking for authority, or telling you what we're going to do to try to remedy the issue.
but we are that tight.
you will hear that from your department directors. With that little overview,
I'm going to turn it back to christy.
>> thank you. Following the strategic planning workshop
that we had on may 17th, the rest of preparing for the remaining
of the budget we did take those priorities into consideration. Even though it was preliminary and there has been no formal direction,
we just kept them in mind as we were going through.
well, this is the process of where we were. As ken stated, in the beginning,
we had identified about $3.6 million was our original deficit.
the last meeting that we had on may 5th,
we've gotten that down to 2.8.
again, the 2.8, this is just a visual representation of the budget showing you the breakdown.
on the left hand side, that's the revenues by resources, so the different types of revenues that we receive.
then on the right hand side, those are our expenditures broken down by department.
this is a review of the overall full time authorized positions.
we do have historical information in there for fiscal years 23/24,
the current year that we're in right now, and then also 25/26.
you can see that there was an adjustment down from
193 authorized positions to 192 for the next fiscal year.
then we do have a breakdown in other funds.
those are positions that are either partially in the general fund or
are funded in the general fund but do have other revenue sources that come in and provide support for those positions.
with that $2.8 million, what we did and we did preliminarily review this at the first study session,
but we went through and identified what one time sources we could utilize in order to bring that $2.8 million down,
because it is a very large number. We identified that there were interest surplus
in excess of what the actuarials identified for both the opeb,
which is the other post employment benefits or retiree medical, and the 115 pension stabilization trust.
we've identified over a million dollars of interest that we didn't
really anticipate just because the markets were doing so well that we're recommending to be used.
there's $75,000 that would be recognized from the fire department training account,
which is currently a restricted account within the general fund. We would recognize those to pay for
the anticipated overtime costs related to training for fire department personnel.
the $71,000 of reserves, that is the firefighter that
council agreed to continue to support while they were on military leave,
and we are recommending since that is a one time occurrence to pull back from reserves.
then the last part is shifting $600,000 of
general fund operating street maintenance over to non general fund transportation sources.
that would be measure r, measure m, prop a and c. Depending on what is eligible,
we would shift those in order to relieve some of that strain on the general fund.
that would bring us down to that $1.1 million deficit that ken discussed.
once we identified that we did have that one million dollars and we could not find,
by the way, any other one time sources, we had looked at all of our revenues, unfortunately,
we got more bad news from sales tax that it was dropping in between the last study session and today.
with all of those changes that happened, ken went to the departments and asked them to look further.
what we did is we took that $1.1 million, and we did a weighted average based on the department's overall budgets.
when we did that, we did take out, for example,
in public works, we run the waste management or refuse service through that.
we took that out since that has a corresponding revenue, and really it is just a pass through.
we didn't want to inflate their portion by that much money.
it's a large account. With that, we identified and sent this to
departments to have them continue to look further into their departments to see where else they could either
shift services or defer something for next year,
which, of course, that is a deferral for some of those items, or possibly even cut items that they
identified that maybe they didn't need anymore or could live without.
as we go through this, just to give you a brief overview of what the departments are going to review,
they're going to review their services. Then they're going to give you a brief roadmap of how they got to this point,
what they've already cut even before this step,
and then they're going to give you both tier 1 and tier 2 options. Tier 1 would be,
we can cut this item or we've
identified revenues to fund this or we can shift it to another fund.
tier 2 would be we can do this, but it's going to have impacts in our services,
and they will discuss how those impacts are going to impact the department.
then at the end, we will give you a review of what the total is so that you can see what that total cost would be.
>> when they go over the tier 1, if they're taking it from a different fund,
are they going to also say what was not being used in that fund?
>> for example, I'll give you one of mine. I'm planning on shifting some of
my audit cost over to the successor agency who does not cover some of that cost.
it's a shifting of funds for some. Others it's pulling revenues to cover some of those expenditures, if possible.
they will be discussed and we'll have the fund information in there. >> my question would be,
what could have those funds be used for that we are not be able to use for now?
like if you take them over from fund a to fund b,
but now fund a is less, what are we going to be missing out there?
>> exactly. That's a great question. For the $600,000, for example,
what I anticipated to shift over or we recommended to shift over
from the general fund for street maintenance into measure r measure m,
that would impact our street funding. >> it could reduce the ability to do some projects or delay some of those projects.
those items have been looked at by each department. But yes, we will give you that additional information.
>> council member and members of council, on that item in particular,
what the city hadn't done in the past, measure r, measure m,
sometimes prop a, prop c, are all transportation related items do allow costs to be used,
for example, with r and m, the street personnel who actually work in the streets and do
potable repair or other type of repairs can be paid for under those funds.
but traditionally in this city, we haven't done that generally. That's what we're looking at to make sure that in the situation,
we're putting a little bit more into those special fund to cover the staffing costs that are actually doing.
of course, we have to follow eligibility. The other items that kristie mentioned are one of the items
on moving audit costs into the low and moderate-income housing fund.
we do have plenty of funds, and we haven't been using that for a lot of those admin costs or eligible costs.
for example, we've moved some funds that pay for evon on
unhoused behavioral health homeless services because there's been two state laws that have
changed the ability to use those funds for prevention and outreach engagement.
now we've been using 250. The cap is now increased 500,000.
ultimately, there's no more funds going into that affordable housing pot,
but I do believe we have our four million total and unfunded.
we're not always going to be using the full extent,
but we want to be able to maximize our ability to use it that time specifically because it's one of the only funding sources right now
for our use for unhoused in mental health services until rey
gets flushed out a little bit more or some of these other regional collaboratives that we're working on get put into place.
but yes, there is an offsetting for everything that.
>> good evening, mayor, city council. Thank you to mr. Domer and finance staff for
going through this budget process and making it as transparent as possible,
and involving everybody in additional staff. A special thanks to aaron filestein and andrea blockinger for being more
involved in the city manager's budget compilation this fiscal year.
this is just a slide that shows some various programs and
services that administration provides, administration,
covers cost centers 1,000 for city council, 01,200 for city clerk,
01,300 for city manager, 01,500 for it, 1,600 for non-departmental,
and 1,700 for city attorney. Some of the programs and services covered under
these areas are city council support and agenda preparation,
support for the city manager's office and oversight of all city departments,
human resources, including recruitment, employee benefits,
regional collaboration, legislative tracking, along with advocacy and grant coordination,
it infrastructure and cybersecurity, risk management programs, and general liability claims processing.
this slide shows a budget overview of the city manager's budget.
in general, the budget for this year, the requests are pretty much status quo.
there are some adjustments related to employee merit step increases, and then the unfunded liability that kristie was talking about with pr's costs.
for operations, a significant majority of the roughly two million dollars is shown as part
of 100 subscriptions for it-related support software and applications.
this includes things like the city's recruitment platform neogov, contracted it services that city council has approved with sdi,
cybersecurity related software, sim cards, and internet connectivity to all of our vehicles as well as brick and mortar facilities,
financial and enterprise resource planning systems, public safety communication and license plate reading systems.
in things like our office 365 licenses that we use on all of our computers,
and even the ability to live stream and zoom, our city council meetings.
for capital outlay, the requests include standard computer replacement needs,
where we've identified the end of use of all of our different computers,
and then also the mdcs, or the mobile digital computers that are in the patrol cars of our police department.
then this is a slide that talks about some of the unfunded or deferred requests.
election costs were removed with the changing of the timing of elections.
that was in the original requests that the city had done. Our team has also postponed or found alternatives within
existing areas for it equipment and software where possible. Then we've also reviewed costs related to our contract with sdi
to reduce the overall amount plan for the next year compared to previous years.
this slide breaks down a little bit more of the tier 1 versus tier 2.
tier 1, we've been able to identify savings to fund the mdcs out of this year's budget,
realized with some of our costs with sdi that we put in the agreement,
but that they've come in under budget. We'll be able to fund those ndcs out of this fiscal year.
then also removing the assistance from townsend public affairs that
helps provide legislative or grant-related services that we've used this past year.
on tier 2, the multi-factor authentication
provides enhanced security for accessing city systems and provides better cybersecurity.
then there's also training services that was on there,
but it looks like either it got taken off or not under consideration,
but there was also a $4,000 just employment employee training that we have. It was in tier 1.
>> there we go. >> that's it for city manager's presentation or city manager's budget presentation.
happy to answer any questions. >> again, just to reiterate,
tier 1 or what we are recommending or what I am recommending be removed at this point to get down to lower.
the tier 2 is going to get us down that we'll summarize in amount that either we cut at this time,
we could look to utilize curves and have
authority up to that amount because we do believe that as lena's our budget is,
we're so tight that again, that change in one program could bring us a little bit of different news.
we can get an updated figure from hdl who provides us our property sales tax,
but it could change everything by 25-50,000, but you're going to see by the end of this.
ultimately, we're getting down to that level of, we'll be seeking about 260,000
in authority for use of reserve for those tier 2 to continue them.
but with the understanding that as things go during the year,
we may not pull the tier or may not use those funds for the [inaudible].
>> just one bit of insight into how our area looked at it,
that 10,000 for multi-factor authentication, we're leaving in the funding in our budget requests for the highest risk.
folks that could use that multi-factor authentication. But we reduce,
we believe that the lower risk, that's why we put that in tier 2,
is an item that could be considered. Ultimately, we need that eventually,
and that level of security is something that sdi or contract it firm is suggesting we have.
but we've looked at it that if we needed to cut an additional 10,000,
that would be an area that we could do it and not necessarily have the highest risk people still exposed.
>> before I move on, I would be remiss if I did not thank
my staff or thank staff of the finance department who have been
working nonstop to get this done up until probably 17 this afternoon,
trying to get everything finalized. I appreciate everything that they've done.
thank you. Here's the finance department budget.
finance does provide a lot of actually,
the majority of our services are internal, including all of the accounting and financial reporting,
any financial analysis, the departments will contact us.
we also provide accounts payable, so we pay all the bills, we take in all the money.
then we also provide
payroll support and labor negotiation support as well, and grant administration.
we also are the contact for fma, so anytime we have anything,
we do process all of those applications.
externally, we do provide business license services. We do take in water payments or garage sale permit.
we process regulatory permits. Then we also do all of the public financial reporting.
the annual comprehensive financial report, and we also provide fiduciary services to two agencies,
which does provide about $300,000 to the city in revenue.
our budget is also status quo. We have a minor reduction that was due to not needing a contract,
but otherwise, our status quo and the majority of our budget is
personnel with about $130 related to professional services,
which really is two contracts it's our audit services,
and then is our property and sales tax consulting.
as discussed with ar, or in along those same lines.
this is what we identified during the budget process that we could cut back on.
we are reducing for the professional services, which was a one-time consultant,
and then we've identified that we no longer need to print the budget,
everything's online, so that saves $1,000 a year. Then we could cut back on some of our legal notices.
our share of that $1.1 million was $28,000,
which was a large portion that would impact
our operating items because the majority of our budget is based on staff or personnel.
but we've identified in tier 1 that we could cut the measure lb report,
which is not required. Right now, we our audit firm takes the information that we have.
they have they look at our agreed upon procedures and make sure that the way
that are we are doing that analysis is in line with the guidelines.
with the shift that that council is reviewing right now for the finance committee,
we're hoping that that could shift over to the finance committee so we wouldn't have to pay the measure or pay
the audit company $4,000 to basically take our information and then put it
on a piece of paper because it isn't a requirement.
it is something that we've decided to do to make sure that we're transparent.
but having that finance committee could provide that service.
we are suggesting to move roughly $10,000
of both the audit and some of the hdl portion to the successor agency,
which does take in property tax, that would be valid to move some of
the property tax consulting services over to the successor agency.
then for tier 2, $10,000 cut from meetings and staff development,
and certifications that would take my staff development down to about $2,000,
not ideal, but if we needed to make those cuts, we can do that.
then $5,000 cut from office supplies and postage. We are planning to do
a large a collection of business license emails during this next process,
and we are hopeful that we can shift a lot of the communication with the businesses and sending them their licenses through email.
that is going to be a process, but that is what we are hoping to accomplish.
we could hopefully save money in that area.
with that, I believe I'm going to hand it over to eric. I'm not positive.
>> good evening, mr. Mayor, and members of the council. Thanks for this opportunity to present community development budget.
I also like to thank my staff, kendace bokock, nare hyatt, and isabella guzman from finance for assisting with this preparation.
these are the programs and services that community development are responsible for.
on the internal side. We do, I'm just going to highlight a few of the major ones.
our code updates, our general plan, and zoning code maintenance, things that we need to do internally that aren't coming from an outside request.
obviously, the housing element implementation and compliance has been big this last year and I expect it to be the same going
forward where we've had to take a lot of time and effort to make sure that we remain
compliant with our housing element to make sure the state's not going after us on different things.
we just recently got final signed off on our rezoning, which wasn't really rezoning,
but the state basically gave us the all clear letter, which is good. We were happy to see that.
also, our internal gis, mapping radius maps, those things,
our staff does internally. On the external side, code enforcement,
which was added to our department two years now ago. That's now the responsibility for our outside support,
as well as project review, economic development, historic preservation,
liaison to the chamber in the old town liver and business improvement district, last association.
obviously, public counter assistance that's something that all of our planners do a lot every day.
then we do public hearings and notices for the divid meeting,
our develop review committee meeting, our planning commission meetings, our staff does a lot of city clerk work for
the preparation of those and hosting those meetings.
>> our total budget in our department is 1.7. Similar to finance, most of our costs are within our personnel costs.
we're service agency. There are no changes or requests that are different.
we are status quo for personnel. In terms of operations, the major portion of that is related to architectural and engineering.
what that really is is tied to the building permits. As you know, we contract out building permit plan check and inspection services.
those are direct costs that we pay as a portion of the permit fees that we collect.
part of those permit fees also then support internal staff in their support for building permits.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in the next slide. We do contracts for outside planning services.
a lot of those ultimately can be paid back by the development applicants as they are deposit,
so they're responsible for paying for the cost for processing their applications. If there's this internal city project,
sometimes those fall to us to fund. Our subscriptions are mainly related to technology,
such as the gis system, our online building permits, which are now fully in place,
as well as a co-compliance software.
then the $47,000, that's really acts as our economic development investment
every year as our support to the chamber. The 47,000, what was projected,
and you'll see in the next slide, there might be a change. Normally, a reduction of expenditures is a good news,
and that's what our goal was for this is but unfortunately, for our operations, this is actually a bad thing.
this means that we're projecting less building permit expenditures,
which means less overall revenues. Typically in a good year,
I'm coming to you saying that I'm over budget on my expenditures, but that means that we are also
over budget on the revenues we collected for those permits,
because again, a portion of those permits do pay for internal staff.
when I'm telling you that we're reducing our permit expectations for expenditures next year,
it means that we're expecting a lower year building permit activity
than what we've seen probably in the last 15 years or so. I would say right now,
we're about projecting 60% of what a normal year would however,
and that's based on major large projects that we try to do our best to anticipate when they would be obtaining those permits,
and that's always very different. We do our best based on what we know is what's going on,
but especially in the economic uncertainty across the country of the world, a lot of those projects, the developers don't know what they're doing.
what I could tell you and what gives me hope is that we always are very conservative when we do these budget estimates.
I did an analysis over the last five years, and from what was budgeted to what we actually
saw in building permit revenue, on average, every year, we were collecting over
$300,000 more in building permit revenues than what we had originally budgeted for that.
sometimes things will just pop up that we didn't know, something that the city manager alluded to is that we're such a razor thin that we do our
best and we always try to budget conservatively so we have good news for you at the end of this year.
it's the same for this year. Even at mid-year, we thought we were going to be under what was budgeted for revenues for building permits,
now it looks like we're going to be over what was budgeted. Those are just things that we try to be conservative,
but usually we have good news for you. That's what I'm hopeful for for this next year, that whenever the ultimate pull on the reserves,
hopefully, some of that can be made up by increased building activity that we're not expecting.
community development budget deficit share is $35,000 roughly.
what we have in tier 1 is $17,000 transfer for the payment for
the san gabriel valley regional housing trust to be paid by affordable housing dollars.
that's accurate use of those funds, but it's not sustainable.
right now, we have about 1.9 million in our affordable housing funds.
we don't have any projects that we have identified to use those dollars towards in terms of developing physical affordable housing units here in la verne,
but this is an annual commitment that the city has by being
part of the gpa for the san gabriel valley regional housing trust fund,
and this is the city's fair share payment towards that fund on an annual basis. Past years we did pay for it with general funds dollars but because of where we're at,
we are looking at redirecting that to be paid out of affordable housing dollar.
then lastly, 5,000 new reduction in the chamber of commerce agreement.
city manager and myself have already met with the chamber and indicated that about two years ago,
the council increased the contract amount from 40,000-45,000.
I showed 47 because there's a little bit extra that we helped to pay a portion of new members membership,
so that's around $2,000 what's kept in that agreement, so that's why it's up to 47,
but we have already indicated to the chamber board that this year,
we would be only funding for 40,000. That agreement still needs to come to you at your next meeting,
but that's something that we've discussed with them and they're accepting of. Those two changes in tier 1 are pretty easy for us at this point.
tier 2 would be more difficult. One is to not rejoin the san gabriel valley economic partnership.
this last year, we were not members, and one of the directions from council was that to
rejoin that at a $6,000 cost for the annual membership due, so we had pled that back into our budget to
rejoin but that is something that's not required for us to do, but it is part of the council's direction for economic development.
further work on that so this would be that. Yes, sir. >> do they help us,
though? That's our biggest thing. I've been involved in that for quite some years now, especially on the cog. Do they really help?
>> there's opportunities. I can't point to a specific financial help where they've been helpful their resource.
>> we've had this discussion before, and it's my concern is, do we get part value for that?
obviously, one great development, obviously, the $6,000 is great, but at the end of the day, what does it provide us?
>> right now, one of our planners is in a training system that they just started.
it's a pilot program. Not necessarily economic development related,
but furthering staff leadership. That was a relatively low cost for being part of that.
they allowed us to join even though we're currently not members, but with the expectation that the city would be rejoining come july 1st.
there's not a lot that I could point to that I could say this is the benefits.
they're more access for when we need their assistance. They do have online service called the powersite,
which allows potential businesses to find a lot of demographics based on a location that they might be looking at,
a site that might be available. It'll tell them a lot of things that our website can't tell them in terms of spending power within mile, five mile,
things that professional real estate agents have but most small business owners don't have to give them
maybe where a good location is based on the customers that they're looking for,
that's one of the options that are things that they provide. But again, we put in tier 2 because we knew it
was potentially one of the council's desires to get back into that program,
but we were not in it in this last year. >> it's cheap, only six per.
>> yes. That's part of it. >> the thing is that it works. I do like the fact that if we're part of that membership,
they click in and say, hey, this is what our area provides. This is the service we have currently,
which I think is great, but they were doing that years ago. >> yes. >> I guess a follow-up to that is we're new businesses,
how are we advertising that, I guess, or potential new businesses to use that tool to
hopefully find a site within our city as opposed to san dimas, or claremont, or whatever else?
did we do anything to help drive this? >> we did. When we were part of it,
and we had more direct links on our website. We don't have access to it now since we're not members this year.
but we did in the past. The other thing is if these centers have leasing agents,
this is their full-time job is to go after businesses and to try to attract them.
those businesses typically have real estate agents that are trying to do the same work for them.
I don't know how many people are falling through the cracks where this is how they get the info, there's not other.
usually, if a business is trying to locate in any city, they already have access to those through
their professional services that they're paying for. That's usually we don't even hear about
them a lot of times until they've already signed a lease agreement. We didn't know that business xyz was already in
negotiations on the space until they've already basically finished negotiations.
it's hard. It is a service, but the overall value, I don't know.
>> because we've got trader joe's came, we weren't part of that. We've got some businesses relocating open box store,
they're just relocating just for the fact that they're looking, so like you said, there's people out there looking for our city for what we can offer
with our base and our salary base, I was just curious because we don't want to hinder anything for economic development,
but I think if it helps, that's great. >> lastly, $7,000 in staff development.
this is all my memberships or professional memberships. This is my entire budget, so this would be basically not paying for staff memberships
or doing any staff development next year because just like finance, our operations are so lean,
I don't really have anything to cut that I don't have otherwise obligated through an agreement or some other thing that we have to pay for,
that's why it's tier 2. That's all for me. Let's just further questions.
>> just real quick question on the staff development and the memberships. Are there any licensing
or certification things that they have to hold in order to keep their job? >> not that are required to hold the jobs.
>> okay. >> I'll turn it over to chief nigg.
>> you're just.
>> good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to present
la verne fire department's proposed fiscal year '25 '26 budget. Tonight, I'll provide an overview of our services,
detail our share of the citywide deficit, and outline both the response reductions and the value we return to our community.
I too would like to thank isabella, who is our liaison to the finance department and incredibly helpful and strategic,
along with our senior management analyst jennifer, who just works wonders in that front office for the fire department.
the la verne fire department delivers a full spectrum of public safety services.
these go beyond emergency response. They represent direct investments in life,
safety, risk reduction, and community wellbeing. Our critical services include emergency medical services,
which includes bls and als, so basic life support and advanced life support, and the ambulance transport,
often serving as the first and sometimes the only medical contact for many residents.
we provide obviously fire suppression and rescue, which protects over 3.7 billion in community property value, wildfire prevention,
which is obviously a top priority given our proximity to the wildland urban interface,
and then fire inspections and code enforcement, which reduce structural fire risk or overall risk reduction
for any natural or man-made disaster before the emergency ever occurs.
our community engagement services, while not mandated, play a vital role in building trust and resilience.
programs like cpr classes, which we had today, by the way, our explorer program, our ham radio registry,
all strengthen community preparedness. Initiatives like public outreach station tours and
medication drop-offs connect our department directly with our residents.
these services, both critical and non-critical, form the foundation of a well-rounded prevention,
first public safety model that yields measurable community return on investment.
the department's total general fund allocation is
roughly 15.39 million allocated as follows,
13.42 for personnel, reflecting contractual obligations, merit adjustments,
overtime, and a $655,000 unfunded accrued liability or ual payment.
1.94 million for operations, which is actually pretty common as it relates to personnel versus operations,
covering equipment charges, contract services, general supplies, and insurance.
$25,000 was our original capital outlay request,
which was designated for essential fire hose replacement. I'll touch on that here in a little bit.
our lean budget reflects strategic investment in emergency readiness while avoiding growth in non-essential areas.
in a proactive and responsible approach to budget balancing, our department identified $71,700
in savings from non-core expenditures such as legal services,
telephone services, and subscription, various dues, and certifications.
these adjustments are the result of a thorough internal review. In several cases, we identified services no longer in use,
such as outdated memberships and underutilized support contracts, and responsibly remove them from our budget.
these are not reductions to needed services.
they reflect our ongoing commitment to eliminating inefficiencies, control spending, and redirect funds where they provide tangible value to the community.
as part of the citywide $1.1 million general fund deficit,
the fire department share is $365,390 or 32.6,
the second largest departmental portion. To help close this gap, we proposed a two-year reduction strategy,
as did all departments. A tier 1 for us, well,
originally was 300,000, it's been changed now, so a little over $250,000 in adjustments.
that would be $160,000 from a revenue transfer from our 216 or what is known as the cfd 90-1 fund.
that effectively was redirecting money from
our portion of the 90-1 fund to the general fund to help out with the deficit. Then next to that was $80,000 from deferring station painting.
it was external painting. The eaves, as I understand it, shifting costs from the general fund to the fire equipment fund.
we were originally going to help cover that cap project by what we call our 250 fund,
which is our oes revenue funds from all our deployments,
and all of our personnel helping out up and down the state. In turn, we will have more money in that account to help with our equipment needs,
reducing the impact of the general fund. Then our tier 2 or our critical reductions equate
to almost $130,000 in reductions additional to the original.
that would be $40,000 from deferring carpet replacement in station 2,
which is much needed. $25,000, a one-time savings from delaying scheduled fire hose purchase.
I am well aware of the fact that fire hose was an issue in the past,
that is not the case anymore. I'll get to that in a second.
then finally, a $60,000 transfer to the general fund from what we call our sac training reimbursement.
we have a partnership agreement, a training agreement with the rancho santiago community college district,
and for every hour of training, all of our personnel we receive $303.50,
so it brings us in significant revenue and obligates us to stay current with osha regulations, etc.
the community impacts, tier 1 impacts are more visible, but less critical, delays in carpet and hose replacement do not currently impair service levels,
but cannot be deferred indefinitely at risk. Tier 2 reductions are administrative and operational shifts, yet more critical.
it is important to highlight that continued deferral of facility upkeep may lead to larger infrastructure costs in future years.
lvfd has embarked on a five-year endeavor to replace stockpiles of decades-old fire hose.
as such, we have achieved full complements of safe and operationally sound hose at all three stations.
while not done entirely, we have plenty of front-line and backup hose for all applications to defer for the time
being with a caveat that when we do our annual host testing as required by nfpa,
if we have any that burst or need to be replaced due to damage,
we would need to do so at that point, probably around mid-year, but at this point, we can defer that for now.
>> closing, laverne fire remains focused on delivering essential public services while maximizing cost recovery,
revenue in the community's return investment. I welcome any questions, and look forward to discussing the adjustments in further detail.
>> thank you, chief. We want to make sure the equipment of the stuff,
and I know we're way beyond that now. If we have something that tests wrong, we get rid of it, throw it away and get another one,
not replacing the whole. Hopefully, sequentially, in two or three years out,
we come and test, and we're good. We get rid of two or three sections of hose,
and I think that's what you're doing now. What about the carpet in station 2? I've been up there before.
it's sold really old. Can you use that other fund to pay for that?
>> which fund? [overlapping] >> you're shifting monies around, it looks like. Can you still can get the carpeting done?
>> we will get one. >> you can do it with another fund. >> correct. If we stick to the tier 1,
the plan is to move forward with the carpet placement station 2 because if you from a tree outgrowing perspective,
a more critical project that we needed to get done. That's why it was in tier 2. >> what about the painting? It hasn't been painted since originally, is that 75?
>> plan to do station 2 and station 3. Station 3 was opened in early 2000s,
and then as I'm told, the exterior, more specifically, the trim painting of station 2,
yes, has not been done since the 70s. Albeit necessary when it comes
down to brass tacks and our ability to be response ready to the community for emergencies,
pining our trim is not top priority. >> no, but it's also maintenance. If you don't maintain, it's going to destroy.
it's going to cost you 10 times as much to replace it especially now. >> agreed. Yes.
>> thank you, chief. >> I'll hand it over to chief gonzalez. Thank you.
>> good evening, mayor and city council, and members of the public.
before I begin today, I'd like to take a moment to honor the life and service of
baldwin park officer samuel ross who was tragically killed in the line of duty on saturday.
officer ross was a fellow san gabriel valley officer, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family,
baldwin park police department, and the members of law enforcement community affected by this profound loss.
at this time, I'd ask that we observe a moment of silence in his memory.
thank you. At this time,
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the finance team. Each year, our collaboration improves and this year was no different.
use is always awesome. He's all the way in the back.
a special thanks to yasmin potts and captain tibbets, both who've stepped into the budget process for the first time,
they embraced the challenge and contributed significantly to where we are today.
I want to also acknowledge my entire management team. This is truly a team effort,
and we couldn't have got to where we are without everyone's input and dedication.
being the fact that the police department is roughly 32% of the city's overall budget,
I think it's important for me to add how we got to where we are today. As we continue to communicate our department needs,
guided by number of state and federal mandates, this year's budget was assembled a clear focus on the community's needs and goals.
this current fiscal year presented our department with the largest staffing gap in recent memory with nearly 25% of our department,
unavailable due to injuries, family leave, or open or vacant positions.
in order to maintain uninterrupted service to the community, we relied heavily on overtime to fill shifts,
which is represented in today's overall budget discussion. Special thanks to the ongoing communication with finance,
we identified early that our overtime expenses were trending over budget,
and in late 2024, the department began implementing implementing targeted spending reductions to offset these costs.
professor [inaudible] go back.
I'm done. The other way.
please put it back. Thank you.
now we can go on to programs and services as everyone has discussed.
I want to start this conversation by highlighting the distinction between the services that were
legally required to provide versus those that invest in the community safety and well being.
the following our core. I won't go through all them because there's quite a few there, but I'll go through the core ones that are essential to public safety and compliance.
some of those include patrol and crime response, dispatch services, investigations and case follow up,
parking enforcement and citation processing, school resource officer and crossing guards,
live scan fingerprinting, and ccw permit processing, as well as alarm permit administration.
these are all foundational responsibilities. These core services are for to
every police department and must provide to ensure compliance with state and federal mandates.
but just as important, are those programs that we are for a while, not required by law are a measurable value to the public,
which include the bacr program, coffee with the cop, citizens academy,
national night out every 15 minutes, various school outreach programs,
neighborhood watch, and public safety open houses, including our leap and homeless outreach team,
our partnerships with each of those k9 unit, community events, and traffic safety programs.
these programs, build trusts, engage our residents and help prevent crime before it occurs.
they are an essential part of modern community and focused policing. Thank you.
>> I got it. >> the police department's total general fund budget is
just over sixteen and a half million dollars.
this budget reflects a 12.4% increase in personnel costs,
largely driven by inflation and market pressures in areas such as salaries, health benefits, and retirement contributions.
of course, we have our ual amount
of just nearly half a million dollars which we have no control over.
we're also investing in our cadet program, which has become a proven pipeline for full time hires.
in fact, we are proud to share that when our former cadets will graduate from the academy on june 12th.
this program continues to show its value as our department's farm system for future officers and personnel.
in operations, roughly 2.5 million dollars.
you'll see a modest increase of 2.7%, significantly down from last year's 9.5%.
this decrease reflects our strategic response to the economic conditions that we're all facing.
the 925,000 listed in fleet,
and equipment is tied to rising vehicle costs, and we are actively working with fleet maintenance to reduce costs,
including field conservation measures like reducing idling times.
contractual services, such as jail booking, parking enforcement and our agreement with axon totals 413,000.
and notably, we successfully negotiated with axon to avoid a $60,000 increase this upcoming fiscal year.
we've also budgeted $412,000 for our portions of the insurance costs,
be 146,000 in training both post reimbursable and non-reimbursable tolling across all departments.
training holds valuable to the department succession plan to ensure our personnel ready to take on new roles.
finally, the 147,000 is dedicated to maintaining uniforms and safety equipment across all divisions.
below there, in cap outlay, the figure of 925,000 would have been about $48,000 higher,
but thanks to our k9 foundations generosity, the cost to outfit the new replacement k9 vehicle
is being covered by donations from the k9 foundation.
in this slide here,
are the department identified budget adjustments that we did to get where we are today.
again, we recall the matrix report. Some of the recommendations was to add additional personnel,
and we deferred a police officer and one clerk.
we also sought administrative reductions of $71,000.
we included reductions of outside investigations, employee awards, subscriptions, safety equipment.
it's important to note that two lieutenants have been trained in handling
internal affairs investigations now
furthering the necessity of hiring an outside investigator. Some of the deferred equipment requests we held back,
62,000 in equipment purchases such as radios, breaching tools, and access control repairs.
we also had a vacancy savings of 118,000 for unfill positions,
which is used to help cover other overages. This slide depicts our share of the 1.1 million dollar deficit.
in tier 1, we propose 100,000 from asset forfeiture funds to offset overtime costs while able,
these funds come with restrictions and are typically used for equipment, so this trade off must be considered.
we're looking at also proposing delaying a lieutenant promotion.
we've also delayed a sergeant promotion, which is not factored in here as well.
we've confirmed upcoming retirement this september,
given us the opportunity to delay this promotion by six months. But this creates a gap in
oversight and management personnel which also impacts administrative functions.
in tier 2, we identify programs that while not legally required are vital to our community,
25,000 in community events, which I mentioned earlier,
including coffee with the citizens academy, national night out, every 15 minutes, and other engagement efforts.
also included in this report as 50,000 for the backup program.
if you recall is originally created through a redirect and council election funds
to strengthen public safety and businesses in the community. Lastly, $8,000 in reduction in external investigations,
which we aim to internally manage when possible.
lastly, in closing, the expenses tied to public safety recruitment, homes outreach,
community engagement, and training are all reflected in the annual budget presented here today.
happy to take on any questions that you have. >> thanks, chief. I have a question about the tier 2. Can we go back?
>> there [inaudible].
>> good. When you're talking about the 25,000 for community promotion events,
does that mean we wouldn't have any of those activities, or is it a reduction in the size of the activity or event?
>> that would eliminate it all. >> it would eliminate it.
>> thank you, chief. >> thank you. >> can you put that clicker down, please.? [laughter]
>> good evening, honorable mayor and council members. Tonight, I present you the parks and recreation budget.
we're proud to announce that this fiscal year, the community services department will effectively
transition to the parks and rec department. This name change more accurately reflects the scope and
identity of the department aligning with the services and facilities we oversee as well aligning with
the parks and recreation commission that mends this fall, I hope.
again, like everybody else, I'd love to thank my staff,
chad peterson, in particular, that helped me with this budget, as well as the finance department in particular hisses like pd.
he's our man. He's helped us along identifying
some savings and offsetting some revenues,
but me I don't want to do the same thing. Oh, my god. So far I'm good, though.
some of the programs and services that we offer are listed above. I'm going to go through some of these parent and me,
swim lessons, water tots. Last year, I stated we partnered with
regional center in offering these classes to those with special needs.
anytime anyone registers through that service,
that's guaranteed money for the department, but also helps our community and those that don't
typically have these opportunities to take classes. Our staff is well trained and well versed in
all the things that we're able to do with those with special needs. I wanted to make sure that I pointed that out.
in terms of that as well, so we're always looking for cost savings. I know we're looking to save,
but last year alone, we transitioned from the credit card fees for registration
from the commune services department onto the participant. We saved over $40,000 last year alone in the commune services department.
I wanted to make sure that I pointed that out as well. Some of the things are no cost to the city that we offer our senior golf league,
senior strutters, and trail checkers, they're all outdoor volunteer groups.
they just check in. All we really do is add their information to the center and it's an amenity to the community at no cost.
some of the contract classes we offer are soccer, tennis, and pickleball.
right now, not many know, but the way that works is whatever the set fee is from that instructor,
we tag on $10 for administration fee, but the cut is a 70-30 split.
we are looking in the winter to do a 65-35 split.
we're trying to come to a middle ground in making sure that we're also doing our due diligence.
it's common in recreation world. I will let you know where I came from from the park district 10 years ago was 40-60 split,
so it's not uncommon to be the 35. I can't do math right now, 65-35.
we're looking to do that as well. Special events. A lot of the special events that we offer are free or low cost.
sweetheart dance, luau dance, halloween dances. Sidewalk coloring contest is free to the community, seasonal celebrations.
winter wonderland, we do charge a fee. We don't charge a fee for extravaganza, excellent adventure.
concerts and movies in the park. I just want to let you know, shout out to the poa.
they do support our movies in the park and help us offset some of those costs.
there are a lot of donations, especially for the concerts.
we solely rely on the donations, and that's upwards of to $7,000-$8,000.
in order for us to put that on it is budgeted in the general fund,
but at the end of the year, that is based out of donations. We still budget it, but it doesn't necessarily come
out of the general fund. Community center. Aarp just wanted to point out this year,
it's a service we provide the community, and we save the community members over
$63,000 in tax preparation by offering this service at the center.
we do adult social dances, facility rentals at oak mesa, we currently have one of our preschool programs.
one of the newer things in our sports community, and you guys heard this a couple of months ago,
we are now starting to charge our user groups in terms of ayso,
lvgsa, little league. Lvgsa and little league are the first ones.
it's not much, but we did collect $3,000 for them. As we look at this and wait for our parks
and recreation master plan and see what that comes out to be, we are starting to charge those user groups as well.
veterans hall, we do offer gymnastics, tumble bears, and park and facility rentals.
this last fiscal year, we started to do a non-resident resident rate for park shelter rentals.
eventually, we will move that on to classes, but it's a first step, and I'll tell you right now,
the majority of people that our facilities are non-residents, in terms of the park shelter rentals.
I want to give you that information as well.
>> our budget is pretty much status quo. Just increases are normal to the regular merit step increases.
nothing new there in terms of operation. Part of that operations, we did oversee lutheran property,
so we had to budget that as well, but the revenues offset the expenses with that property.
in the current budget, that is budgeted for through january 1st of next year.
depending if the developer moves forward with that or not, we may do a mid-year adjustment,
but I'd like to let the council know that we do offset it by revenues. We are doing pretty well renting that facility out there.
also, we are responsible for our contractual maintenance for facilities.
we're the only other department other than public works that oversees contract services,
and that includes opening the restrooms, friday, saturday,
and sunday at all parks, and we close restrooms 365 days a year,
so that money is actually budgeted out of the community center. That's what accounted for in there.
we also pay our own utilities, water, gas, and electricity out of our budget, that is budgeted within our facilities,
excursions as well, but that's offset by revenues. We do utilize prop a and c funds,
so it's not that expensive for our residents, but we actually make money off of the excursions.
one of the other items we project code are concerts in the parks,
like I said earlier, senior programs and veterans memorial, and special needs dances. It is budgeted, but it's not at the end of the year,
taking out of the general fund, but we do budget it. Especially for senior funds, not many people know,
but the senior funds and senior programs is solely based off of donations.
it is not part of the general fund; it is budgeted there, but we don't spend what we don't have,
so I wanted to make note of that. The only capital outlay this year is the pool covers.
that's part of our agreement with the university of la verne in the high school,
and that's two-thirds of the cost is offset by sharing that.
honestly, it's $8,700 for us at the end of the day after we get reimbursed
by the university in the school district. Next slide.
personnel requests. We did originally request an analyst specifically for the unhoused and homeless.
that was covered 30% would have been general fund,
and then administrative clerk promoting a part time to a full time, and that was about 65% covered,
not from the general fund. In totality, the general fund would have supported,
for those two positions, 47,000, so we did remove that as a cost savings.
before that, we also reduced part-time hours within preschool and the community center,
that would not affect any revenue. It's something that we were able to just reschedule some of those positions.
that was also a savings within the preschool and community center, and those would not affect any of the revenue thus far.
our deficit share for the parks and rec department is roughly $54,000.
tier 1, I didn't ask for anything other than the positions that we removed,
but we would begin to close the center as of july in order to do a cost savings every friday.
that's the only reduction that we're able to do that it does not affect revenue.
what you see here, beginning in july, we would close every friday.
what I started to do the last two years, and you don't really notice it, is that we close in december for two weeks,
and that has been a cost savings to us. We tried one week, it was great.
we came back that second week, no one really came through the center, so we close the second week, and it was perfect.
most people go on vacation, they go visit family, so it didn't really hurt us in any way.
but with these budget cuts, I do have to be innovative,
and that's the only thing that we can come together as staff that would not affect any of our revenue.
that would be closing the center every friday. The other things that we did do is savings of a reassessment of water.
I'll let danny talk more about that, but it won't be effective soon,
so we're able to have a cost savings in that. Those additional cuts would include anything beyond this tier is staff and programs.
anything I cut off beyond this is going to affect revenue as well as staff.
something we also have to consider at least for my department is unemployment costs as well to budget,
because if that came down to it, we also have to pay those unemployment costs, and service levels would go down.
but other than that, we'll continue to look at ways to save. Again, we saved over $40,000 in credit card fees last year.
we're always trying to be innovative and look at ways to increase revenue or potentially charge events.
this budget right here would not remove any of the current special events.
just to let you know, we also utilize measure a funds. We save money from park development and use measure a funds for
something like the oak mesa playgrounds and other projects coming through.
that is my budget for the council tonight, and I'm available for any questions.
>> just a real quick one. On the closing on fridays and then thanksgiving week.
obviously it's $10,000 cost savings because there's not a lot going on on fridays?
>> there are items going on on fridays, mostly mt. Sac classes that are free to the community.
there are facility rentals. Those would remain the same because I have a separate budget for facility rentals,
and we generate revenue through that. Those would continue, but we just wouldn't be open as a public facility on fridays.
we would be closed, which will reduce part-time staff on fridays.
>> anything like that in the general vicinity, ones that they do on friday also,
common friday being closed except for rentals? >> most centers are open all the time.
they're even open saturdays, we are not. We are also a full-service city,
something that we have to consider too. Other cities are contract cities, or they don't have their own police and fire, one or the other.
most centers are open. We have reduced hours from 8:00-4:30.
also, during the week, we used to close at 8:30,
which we still do if there's a rental, but we close to the public at 5:30 now.
we've been looking at ways to cut. We have cut. But friday for me,
there's nothing else other than closing the facility unless we eliminate all special events.
>> what kind of foot traffic do we have on fridays before we close? >> decent foot traffic.
not as much as monday through thursday. A lot of it is really because city hall is closed,
the library is open, so we do get some, but not a ton.
>> thank you, yvonne. >> sorry about the question. What about the summer lunch program?
I know the unified school district last year was able to help facilitate the funding of that.
are we still going to continue with that? >> they weren't able to facilitate any funding last year.
they were supposed to facilitate funding for this new fiscal year, they did not, so there is not a summer lunch program this year because
they were unable to fulfill that promise.
>> they weren't able to fulfill a promise? >> no. They were mistaken about the monies that they would receive is what we were told.
>> thank you. >> you're welcome.
>> the only thing I would add on that cash is we're going to have staff at the park to see if we can redirect
people to other services if there are those that are coming to participate in the summer lunch program,
because there's other resources that we can try to help point them to. >> one other thing, is there any other county resources
that we can get to help the senior citizens? Maybe there's some funding there,
or other resources that the county can provide, or the state, other than the summer lunch or the seniors?
>> we have that with the cdbg, but you're talking school lunch program that funded by whatever.
I'm surprised. We can probably go into that later to figure out what happened there, but yeah. Thank you.
>> good evening. Honorable mayor, mayor pro tem, and council members.
I'm pleased to present the public work department's general fund budget request for fiscal year 2025 and 2026.
I also want to acknowledge and thank director lopez and her finance staff,
particularly, ellie, for all the work that she provided in helping our department put together our budget.
I also want to acknowledge my public works management staff sitting in the back,
most of whom who helped pull the budget together prior to my arrival.
I do want to acknowledge joe vera, public works deputy director; colin purdy,
manager of maintenance; ryan ciotti, our manager of utilities;
and our two senior management analysts, nicole houston and kristie sanchez.
like the other departments, this is a slide that presents the different public services that the department provides.
public works plays a vital role in keeping la verne safe, functional, resilient.
we plan, design, build, operate, and maintain the city's physical infrastructure,
including streets, parks, facilities, and water and sewer systems.
our department ensures that residents have reliable access to safe streets,
clean water, and well-maintained public spaces, as well as right-of-way.
public works provides a wide range of services listed here.
just to name a few, we provide street and traffic system maintenance,
parks and media landscape maintenance, public facilities upkeeping and street sweeping, waste recycling services,
and environmental compliance reporting, graffiti removal, water and sewer utility operations,
and fleet and equipment services. We also oversee the development of the city's capital improvement program,
which I'll cover in my next presentation. Just as importantly, our public works crews
serve as essential emergency responders, clearing roadways,
securing infrastructure, and supporting police and fire during natural disasters,
water main breaks, and other urgent events.
in terms of our department budget overview,
our 2025-26 general fund request reflects a careful balance between fiscal discipline and service reliability.
key priorities include preserving core service levels in our park and facilities maintenance,
even with the lean staffing and rising operational costs.
investing in preventative maintenance to extend the life of assets and reduce the long-term costs,
addressing deferred maintenance of aging infrastructure that poses increasing operational risks,
and maintaining regulatory compliance for water quality, stormwater management, and environmental reporting.
therefore, our '25-26 budget request totals approximately $10.3 million,
which is approximately about 6% increase over the council's adopted budget from last year.
this amount includes $1.7 million for personnel,
including the salary and benefit costs, and it's mostly status quo in terms of staffing levels,
which includes 47 full-time staff.
our ual share is $55,000,
and our operational costs total about $8.5 million,
which includes $5.8 million for contractual services,
including our waste hauling service contract, street sweeping, tree trimming,
traffic signal maintenance, and other maintenance services. As director lopez mentioned earlier,
the waste hauling contract, which is approximately $3.5 million, that's a pass-through amount,
so that's also reflected in part of this 5.8 million.
$1.3 million includes our city utility costs for electricity and water costs,
and $364,000 for construction materials and supplies.
in addition, we have a request for $51,500 in capital outlay purchases,
which include replacement trailer for pavement equipment and supplies,
a new lawn sweeper and thatcher, which will provide more frequent lawn mowing,
and miscellaneous computer equipment and furniture purchases.
prior to today's budget presentation, the department had already made budgetary reductions and deferrals totaling 867,000,
including 535,000 in capital outlay items that included the transfer of
the facilities conditions assessment to the cip account to be funded with general fund capital dollars,
as well as the public safety hvac chiller project was also
transferred to the cip to be funded out of the general fund capital fund.
we also had reductions made in our operating expense totaling $332,000,
and that included fine-tuning our contract maintenance service agreements,
reductions in materials for street signs, and it equipment for the street division.
the department's share of the $1.1 million budget deficit, total is $158,000.
our tier 1 proposal was working with finance to recalculate
the water costs because the water and sewer rate increase has been postponed to january of 2026.
that results in a realized water savings
which accounts for the six months in the postponement of the rate increase.
that total is about $220,000. Happy to answer any question.
>> you've heard from all the departments, and they've given you some details on the tier 1 and tier 2.
this is a recap of all the departments,
and you can see in tier 1, the total cost that departments have identified that they can either defer,
or cut, or move, there's different situations, is $840,000, and then the tier 2 amount would be $246,000 that
would impact their departments or their operations based on what they identified in their presentation.
next, we have put through three different options.
this is how those different options would impact the reserves.
what our estimated amount of reserves is on july 1,
again, we haven't finalized the year, but we are anticipating that at the beginning of july,
we will have roughly 13.4 million of reserves in both committed and assigned,
which would based on the current estimated budget for
'25-26 result in roughly 26% of reserves.
if council identified that they don't want staff to implement tier 1 or tier 2,
and that would result in utilize or using $1.1 million plus the
$71,000 that we have identified for the firefighter who's on military leave,
that would result in 12.2 million of reserves resulting in 23.8%.
>> if you identified that you were supporting that we
moved forward with tier 1 and kept all of the tier 2,
so you did not cut any of the tier 2. That would result in ending reserves of 13.1 or 25.5%.
then if you identified that you did not want to move forward with tier 1 or tier 2,
and you wanted us to cut all of that, then you would have the 26%,
which only changes a small amount due to the $71,000 for the firefighter that we are recommending.
before I move on, do you have any questions about this
slide? This is the final slide for the budget.
what we're looking for is direction on really how comfortable council is with us
utilizing reserves this year with the percentages in front of you of how tier 1,
tier 2 would impact. >> I think we're going to do is we're going to open up public comment first.
we'll come back to the open up public comment and we wish to speak on this item.
just in general. More so on the tier 1,
tier 2 situation right now, but budget overall. >> good evening, mr. Mayor.
council. I'll try to make this short. One thing, watching this and I've watched it before.
I'm not sure how the ot is addressed in here.
we're spending maybe two million, but well over a million dollars every year in overtime.
it'd be interesting to know how these projections affect that because it's killing us.
the overtime is amazing. I would hope you would agree.
let me look at this. What is ual?
I'm sorry. Unfunded first.
>> unfunded first.
>> each budget it says increases related to normal merit.
is that a percentage? What is that? Each each one has one.
>> when we wait to her down then, she's got it, so any other question. Christine [inaudible]
>> a long those lines when it talks about the merit. Is that the cola increases?
because if I understand it right, and I think I've had this discussion.
there's two issues as far as increases in wages.
you have cola raises, cost of living increases,
but they don't count as raises, and then they negotiate for their mous for actual raises.
it's a two tier raise system, is it not?
maybe that's addressed in one last thing.
then did I hear in the public works
that the deficit share in tier 1,
said 220,000 savings in reassessment of utilities and that was factored in a rate increase.
did I hear that correct? If that's the case, what rate increase was factored in,
or maybe I heard that wrong? What percentage? >> got it.
>> thank you. >> thank you. Christie. You've a green a line there.
>> yes. The overtime is definitely an issue.
we did discuss in more detail in the first study session,
which is available on the website for review.
but once we have direction on where we're going to go from here,
we will be releasing the preliminary budget, which will provide details of the overtime.
but in short, we understand that our public safety is a full time service,
and we have to have that coverage. We've tried to as discussed in the last budget study session,
we are trying to better prepare for that and budget for that in the future for this current year.
but more of that will come out after. As far as the merit increases.
>> on the overtime. As we discussed last time,
the fire overtime was really looked at with
vacation and sick time and then looking at several year average.
what we realized because we've had to the last two years based on the new deployment that the city has gone to.
we've also now included into that factory developing in a budget.
any injury. If a firefighter is out based on injury and there's a backfill,
mandatory backfill on that, we plug that in, and then admin leave for any reason firefighter is out.
that is separate of the back fill or over time that is caused when there's a fire assignment.
that's separately track that's reimbursed by the state. For that, the firefighting over time has increased in our budget.
the more tracking that we're doing and the more careful, there is an item on tonight's meeting,
that is looking at addressing that by adding three firefighters to compensate for that,
and we'll discuss that at the meeting tonight. Then similarly trying to better look
at overtime in the police department and how we remedy that. By tracking and addressing these issues and reducing injuries on duty,
which is a primary factor, we also have police chief, we talked about this.
we had several maternity and paternity leaves that caused backfill situation police department.
we are being conservative and budgeting for probably increased over time in backfill.
again, if there's not that over time need over the next year, we'll see a reduction.
hopefully, we've looked at the top and we'll have savings,
which will then be able to reflect a year.
but we don't want to have to come back and ask for more money in that.
hopefully we're addressing it through better protection.
>> then as far as the merit versus the negotiated increases.
each year, we do identify a salary schedule.
on that salary schedule, each position has identified the number of steps that each position has.
the majority of our positions do have five steps. If an individual starts at step 2 or starts at step 1,
when it's time for either they're off
probation or they get moved up because they had a good performance evaluation,
then they would move to the next step. That would be the merit. Step as far as the negotiated contract amount,
those negotiations impact the salary schedule. As those negotiations go through,
if there is a 2% increase that is negotiated,
then that would increase the actual salary schedule, which would then result in an increase to the employee based on whatever step they're at,
and that would be the 2% increase. They're not necessarily connected,
but they are connected, that's the merit and the cola or the negotiated increase.
>> the public works with the rate increase to the customers.
>> mr. Mayor on that. Knowing that we're going through a water and sewer rate increase,
we projected what that could be. Some of the factors that we're going through based on the rate,
I think the highest that was present, like a 45% increase.
we took that highest level to factor in to any increase.
most recent increases are below that that we've seen from the water and sewer rate committee. That's a good thing.
but also we had looked at originally a july 1 implementation of that rate that has been kicked back now to a january 1.
we took that 45% increase, which we believe is going to be high and not the actual rate and then
reduce that to not be a july 1, but a january 1.
if the rate does come back in less than a 45%,
then there'll be some more savings in that area. That's how we developed that.
but again, we didn't want to say, it's going to be 25% and have it come in at 32% because then we'd be coming back saying,
we need more money. We looked at the highest that we saw at the time based on the information,
the sewer and water rate ad hoc committee. That's why at 45%,
but we do believe that men.
>> thank you, christie. Any other public comment? I think we get that one.
we're going to go ahead and close public comment, bring it up to days. Mr. Crosby.
>> sorry, I have a lot. >> how about you first?
>> you see the frustration on my face and what I've said before.
I know, mr. Domer, you apologize about the lateness of today,
but I believe sending this out to us at 3:47 today to a 4:30
meeting is not sufficient for us to really go through and to gather our information.
I really do appreciate all the staff working, and I know how hard it really is to get this together because I do this as well.
but having a drop deadline of time
previously stated so that we can go over this information so that we can ask appropriate questions.
I don't believe I have all the information I can to ask those deep questions,
to really get a budget really to go through this.
I asked in the very beginning, if they're moving funds,
what are they going to be taken away? Nothing that has been said, and that's really frustrating,
not only for myself, but for the public as well. The true transparency to our public when they're
going through this really needs to happen. When we come out with our agenda
for everybody in the public to be transparent this should be out there as well,
and then we can go through that. Starting from the beginning.
it says the positions, you use last year's positions only,
and to this current year, which we're still in may, the 24 25,
I know we have hired a large amount of positions in the last five years.
that is not in the budgets. It looks like, wait,
we're all status quo. We've added only three positions this current year,
but over the last five years, I know we've added extremely a lot more than three positions.
that loan would have been a question right away to show us to show the public.
it's right here on city wide in the very beginning.
then going on to the first balancing options of the 25 26 budget,
the use of one time money for ongoing cost. I know the opeb.
we weren't supposed to be able to use this. I know we had larger returns from this and that's why the use of this,
but we weren't going to use this until 2027 '28 or 2028.
now using it now puts us in a deficit going back later and really puts us behind the eight ball,
not this year, but years coming out. The 115 pension stabilization trust as well.
using this money before we were talking about using it too.
that alone is slightly $1,006,000,
but that's $1 million that we are taking out of future issues,
and that scares me that we are already using that money when we've been planned not to.
then the movement of the street maintenance to non general fund transportation sources,
$600,000, very generic going over it. What specifically are we now not going to be able to do because we're using that.
then going through every single department,
there were very similar things that
really each department was under 10 minutes discussing this,
which I get it's a lot of detailed information. But again, if I got this a little earlier, those questions,
I know I got to spend a long time with you last tuesday to really go over this.
this is what people have elected me to do, and people put me up in a dias to make sure I spend extra time because in this time here,
it's not enough to really go through it. If we had that,
when we got these books, then these questions could have been really specifically got out so
that I can ask those questions and then I can inform people what's happening. We're now I don't know.
I don't know what the fire going through and using the fund 216 cftd 91.
that's all this stuff when we're using other funds so brushed over.
I couldn't tell you what it is. What they would have been using before.
my frustration now this and I'm sorry if I've been on a soapbox, but my frustration is that I cannot
say where this is coming from to be used and what to cut or what not to
cut to really help out and give a detailed information
to really give my point of view,
what my residents have elected me for, and that's what my frustration is really about.
what has been talk about our reserves right now or at 26.
I know when coming in, they were at 29. What were they were they last year? How much we have to dip in the reserves each over
the last five years as well? Where are we looking? When we came out a month ago and talked about the $3.6 million,
we'd move down to 22% reserves. That's what was stated in four years, our reserves would be gone.
we need to make sure that we have a sustainable city,
and I'm afraid where we're going right now. Think about if I had to vote on a budget,
it actually be no because I don't have the information I need to be on.
but we need to do cuts, and we have to can't have
a structural deficit in spending our reserves down or our one time monies.
>> thank you, mr. Crosby. Mr. Johnson.
>> I know we're in a very difficult time, but have to hear with rick receiving this in such an untimely manner,
it makes it very difficult to have confidence.
>> we're going in the right direction. [inaudible] thank goodness. Hopefully, between now and when we do have to vote on this budget,
we'll have more information and feel better about improving.
>> thank you, mr. Johnson. Councilwoman lau. >> first, I'll start off with,
I do appreciate the information from rick's point.
I do still have questions, and they're not going to get covered in the next 10 minutes before we have to start our regular meeting,
so that is of concern. But I do appreciate that this brings a little bit more clarity.
it brings more questions, but it brings more clarity than I think I've seen in past budgeting discussions,
so that is helpful. But I would like to have the opportunity to have a further discussion.
I think, further to rick's point, the public hasn't seen this at all yet.
if they are, they're just looking at it now. If we were to come back in two weeks to try to vote on it,
there's no opportunity really for a discussion on this. We're hunkering down for a very long meeting and discussion.
I don't know what opportunities we may have to have this additional information,
if that means scheduling, god help me. An additional meeting, that's maybe off our normal cycle,
in order to further discuss this. Maybe it gives us time to write down whatever questions we
have that we can discuss them at a further study session. It gives the public enough time to really digest some of this.
I was going to mention this early on. I know we use a lot of acronyms. Sometimes we are so deep in it that we think everybody knows what things mean.
for instance, like ual, just because we're used to having talked about it all the time,
doesn't mean the public is aware of what that means and what our restrictions are about that.
to the point that we've said, there's nothing to do about it, some people may not understand why can't we do anything about that?
why has it increased from x amount to this exponentially ridiculous amount over here that we can't control?
I think if there is, mr. Domer, you can let me know. Is there a way for us to have the opportunity to discuss this further,
because I don't know that coming back on june 16th, that would be 14 days from now,
without further discussion, is going to be beneficial. Or fruitful, I should say, not beneficial.
>> we can always have a special meeting at any [inaudible].
>> mayor pro tem kash. >> thank you, mayor. Just in the sake of time, I concur with my colleagues, and hopefully we can get back so we could discuss
this further because I know I was trying to get some clarification about some other programs that weren't discussed,
so I'll leave that for next time. >> just one other comment. I know I made this at the last study session,
and I know it's not necessarily part of this budgeting, but I don't want us to lose sight of what are the opportunities for revenue.
I know right now we're deep in the discussion of cuts. I brought this up too, there's an alarm permitting fee.
I know that's so silly to be like wendy, that's 50 bucks a household that has an alarm,
but if you were to ask every person who owns a home in la verne, who's paid their alarm fee,
that doesn't get built out, that is revenue. I'm interested as we progress past this step of figuring out this budget.
I don't want us to lose sight of what are our opportunities for revenue. I don't want to lose sight of,
I think the mayor and I were talking, like, wait a minute, we didn't charge for credit card fees for how long?
everybody else charges for credit card fees, wherever you're at. If you buy something at a store,
that fee is encompassed. Nordstrom is not taking that on for themselves.
nobody else is paying for that. >> [inaudible]. >> they're really nice, but no.
I think there's been a history, which is great, of us doing really nice things for our residents because we want to,
and we could at that time. Is that sustainable in the future? We have these amazing low-cost,
no-cost programs which I don't want to get rid of, but we may need to look at what are we doing to
price out some of the things that are bringing revenue? I don't want to say everybody's got to pay x,
maybe there are special circumstances, etc, but again, I just don't want to lose sight of the creativeness and the innovation in terms
of the revenue generating as much as folks have gone through and done the cutting,
to figure out where we can cut. >> first of all, I want to thank everybody.
this has been quite a process, but I'm going to concur that with mr. Crosby,
we're headed for a fiscal cliff if we don't get it under control, and we're all doing the job right now, don't misunderstand me.
but the last couple of years has been frustrating.
I know for kristie, your staff, you put your staff on, and also for our different departments,
and our city manager, frustrating at best. Because we don't know, we know, we don't know, we know.
I think now we nail this thing down, we give some more time. We need to put some time where we go one-on-one.
because I have questions about credit card purchases. I have questions about the 115 trust.
the overtime is a big, huge umbrella that's killing us right now, and it's not sustainable.
we have a police department that's understaffed right now. We need to think about that.
here we have this fiscal thing, and we're going back to every department to ask for help, which I think is great.
this is very important. The teamwork that you guys put in is extremely important right here.
but at the end of the day, we need to know where we're looking. Nuts and bolts. I looked at the credit card bills this month, it's $29,000.
I have one department that's $12,000.
I have one department that's $675. I'm not understanding what's going on here,
but we need to understand what's going on. If we go into our reserves, there's got to be a real good reason for that because
our reserves are exactly that, financial. We only have these much reserves, and we've spent years putting those together, as rick stated.
we got $29,000,000 at one point. At 115 trust,
understanding that the ual, the unfunded liability on our pensions, is crazy. We can't control that.
at the end of the day, we don't want to keep using that because that's going to go away real fast. Until we reach that curve where it comes down with our ual,
that we're actually putting money in there, and we're saving money. But I think at the end of the day, everybody is talking about, we're not ready for this.
I think we need to have a one-on-one with everybody to go over these things, to understand these funds.
what are these funds? Where are they coming from? Are we for our community services or the new name,
what you guys want to be called, our parks and recreation. We offer to our residents these amazing services, and that's what we're known for.
we have great police, we have great fire, we have great public works, but our community services department does a lot of stuff that we don't see,
and these residents are used to it. If we cut that off, it's like, what are you doing?
I think we need to really sit down, look at all these. I can't make a decision on tier 1 and 2. Okay, tier 1.
well, we probably need tier 2. But at the end of the day, I think we need to get together with you guys.
let's have it offsite, not a meeting, and really go over these, have each department look at these things one by one.
it's going to take some time, but I think we need to reset right now. This is a reset for us. I think we're at that close precipice right now,
where you guys have done a great job. Now let's kick it over and figure out what we've got,
what we're looking at, and really look at what we can get rid of. Like you said, you increase some things on subscription,
$74,000 worth of things we didn't need.
I know councilwoman lau, myself for the big one. We've always done it this way.
during the fiscal cliff of the mortgage-backed securities in 2008,
my company was an abyss; it was a black hole. Everything stopped. I think it stopped for a lot of us.
at that point, I took everything and figured, what do you need, and what don't you?
what's going to cut services, what's not going to cut services? That's what I did. The only reason I survived is the fact that we're doing this now,
we have that little cost here, and you guys are at 95%. I think you need that other 5%,
get it back to our council. Let's discuss it with every department, with you guys,
and then we can make an educated decision, and also transparent-wise,
bring it back to the residents to say, this is where we're at. Have another discussion. This is where we're thinking
of cutting this service here or this service here. I think that's where we're at. Council?
>> can I just ask what is the timeline? [overlapping] >> what is the timeline? What do we need to get this started?
>> because if we need to find another date for a meeting, I'm not suggesting that we all plot
our calendars in the two minutes before the regular meeting, but I want this council and I want the staff and
the public to know what time frame we're having to figure out to make sure that we can get a balanced budget approved within the time period.
>> also, get it out. What are we looking at? >> basically, we have to have a balanced budget approved by the council by july 1st,
so entering that new fiscal year. It's june 2nd.
this was meant to have an overview and to bring back
on june 16th some different options,
and where would it be. There's been a lot of comments,
and what I would suggest is that we have another special meeting set prior to that june 16th,
or again, we can use that june 16th and then have a special meeting set
for like june 23rd or even june 30th.
>> we're going into that weird time. If we don't get this early. [overlapping] >> absolutely.
>> the sooner, the better, even if we had to have a different session.
I don't want it attached to a meeting. This is way too much information. An hour and a half just doesn't cut it on millions of dollars of reductions,
we need more. What do you think?
>> I would suggest that we look at a special meeting sometime next week to put all your information together.
I do agree with councilmember crosby that, based on that,
having a set date when all this information is,
so there's a good 3, 4, 5 days of knowing when it is.
again, I do believe that if we want to have a final vote on the 16th,
or if we use the 16th as are we there yet?
then set for a time after,
in that week of the 23rd,
just on the budget. >> we have the proposed budget ready,
our preliminary budget ready, that was the big budget that we sent out.
we can definitely post that on the website so that the community can look at that,
along with this presentation, since that budget does identify that we have a $2.8 million deficit.
but that budget, along with this information, and the first study session,
which in the first study session is where we went in detail of a lot of the information.
we went over the funds, we went over a lot of the special revenue,
we went over the details of the overtime. It was more in-depth,
and we were really attempting to build up to this point of an overview.
but I understand that not having that information out to the community and giving them time to look at it
is something that we need to review and look at in the future to make sure that we have that out sooner.
but we can do that now and give them the opportunity to look at it, again,
along with this information, which would have to be used in conjunction.
but that would be all the information. We have gone over in very big length,
all of the items, and really, we're coming down to
identifying what our core services are and what we can and cannot provide.
similar to that to the slide that ken went over,
is it would be great if we could provide everything, but we can't.
I believe that we're at that point and getting there by june 30th,
if we release that information and have those one-on-one meetings with you guys so that we
can answer any questions that you have, would be my recommendation because we are getting close to
the end of the year and having to have a budget adopted by june 30th legally.
>> I think that's a good idea. We put everything we have out to the public right now,
but we do need to schedule. I don't know, what do you guys think about individually?
to get all our schedules together is going to be really tough right now before the 16th. What do you guys think?
>> or we can do two meetings with two of you. [overlapping] >> I have a meeting with them.
the meeting I did last week. >> I think it would be easier for us individually to meet with just to go over these different items.
>> absolutely. [overlapping] >> why don't we do that? We'll schedule it off-site.
>> on the 16th? You want all of us to meet with individual department heads by the 16th?
>> no. With kristie and I. >> ken and kristie.
>> I just want to make sure it's clear, this isn't kristie's budget, this is mr. Domer's budget.
>> [overlapping] yes. >> meeting with mr. Domer about this because he is our city manager that oversees.
>> no, I get that. I know. [overlapping] >> just so the public knows. >> but we're talking about between now and the 16th.
I just want to be sure that we feel confident that that's going to be able to happen.
>> again, these budget study sessions are to bring the information to you.
it is ultimately my responsibility to bring to you a balanced budget.
these budget workshops and the budget study sessions are steps in that process,
so that on the 16th, there will be a structurally balanced budget
presented to you so that you have the opportunity to say, yes, this is what we want to do.
between now and the 16th, we can meet, and by we,
I mean me, kristie, if you want to meet with any of the department heads,
that's what the point of this meeting was, is to start getting more of that information and more questions from you.
between now and the 16th, we can set that time to get additional information or questions from
you to provide you the additional information so that by the end,
I'm looking at my calendar, the 16th, what we look to do is put out a budget and all the information,
or an agenda with all the information, so the budget for the 16th that would be a decision
would be put out to the public by tuesday the 10th.
what we had looked to do is generate the questions that were raised tonight,
schedule some meetings with you one-on-one or two-on-one this coming up week,
so that by the 10th, we could have that information put into
an agenda item so that on the 16th, there's that information.
>> does that work? >> we can figure it out. I'm worried that means the staff
would have everything out ready for the public with all of council's input,
questions, etc, by the 10th. Which means really, this week is the week that council would have to meet with you and not next week.
>> correct, yes, this week. >> council is on at tuesdays. >> that's what I'm saying. I'll speak for myself only,
but I'm out of town from the 6th through the 8th. Unless we can find some time to carve out in the next three days?
>> yes. >> just make sure that we make it available, that way we get this done.
>> starting tomorrow morning, we will start looking at what time you have available.
again, it's not like we are behind.
I think we're right where we need to be because we just need
you to feel comfortable about that budget that we put before you,
and that would be on the 16th. We will start calling you guys tomorrow morning to figure
out what time you have available, two hours, three hours.
it is at this point where we need to do it.
>> we do, and we can push it, but we do have the capital improvement program that we haven't gone over,
so we can extend that to the 16th.
>> let's push it out. >> I just want to make sure. >> yes, absolutely.
>> there's no action items I missed. For better discussion, we're going to recess at 6:36.
if you guys don't mind, we're going to take, like 10 minutes, and be back out, so make yourself comfortable.
there is water over here under the desk. Not sleeping, comfortable.
good. Good evening, everybody.
welcome. We're going to start this meeting at 6:54 pm on monday, june 2nd.
thank you for being patient with us. We had a very lengthy budget session and a lot of information,
and we ran over as usual. I know that we have mayor don kendrick in the audience,
we have councilman dan harden and councilman robin carter. Thank you.
you guys understand that these things never go as plan, do they?
but we have great staff, we have great council, and we're working through it, so thank you.
I want to remind everyone that for the city's rules of decorum, all speakers, members of the audience, and council members are to conduct themselves with decorum and to not engage
in conduct that interrupts the orderly conduct of the city council meeting. Also, public comment through zoom will only be
accepted for the agenda items listed within the consent calendar, public hearing, and the discussion calendar section of the agenda.
general public comments will be accepted at the meeting by those physically in attendance and at the appropriate time.
tonight, we are extremely pleased to have army veteran phil ramirez to conduct the pledge of allegiance.
mr. Ramirez, please come forward.
>> I would like to have all veterans, all members in uniform render a hand salute,
others place your right hand over your heart. Let's begin.
>>
>> you may be seated. >> commander, if you can stay there, please.
>> here we go, airborne.
here we go. I wanted to take this time to actually thank you.
thank you for your many years of service. I understand this is your last month being the vfw commander of post 120.
>> in deed. >> well, in deed right now. I talked about it at memorial day, I remember that.
but I wanted to take this time and give you that time in acknowledging and thanking you for your countless years of service,
both with the army and here at the vfw post.
I applaud you, my brother, soldier. I thank you from bottom of my heart,
my family's heart, and all the community members. I want to take this time for you, give a special shout-out, let you know.
thank you. But please few words. You last city council.
>> thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It's been four hard years.
it's not easy being as commander. We still get inspections,
and we still get audit reports, and we have to make sure all the veterans are taken care of in all their needs.
a lot of them have mental health issues, we transition them back into civilian life.
when every time our veterans in need, we are there to help them. If you know any veterans,
feel free to send them our way, we're more than happy to help them out.
this is a memorable moment, though, real quick.
it's nice to be recognized this way. A couple of weekends ago,
I was fortunate to go on the honor flight. I don't know if many of you know what our honor flight is,
but they sent veterans who were in the vietnam era,
world war ii, korean war, and they sent them to washington dc to see all the memorials.
I told my members that I was a little emotional coming off here because when we got on that plane going to washington,
dc, all the veterans started singing leaving on a jet plane by john denver.
if you listen to those words, you know what they really felt,
what they really went through. After that, everybody was quiet.
but it was a memorable moment. We went to baltimore airport. The whole airport stopped to stand still and welcome us.
we came back from lax, the whole airport stand still and welcome us.
that we never had in our days. We were spit upon, we were shun,
we were denied entry to restaurants because according to them,
we were baby killers at the time. But veterans in that era went through a lot,
and they did this for us so we can forget what happened in those years,
and we would have this new memory to remember all the way through our lives.
believe me, I will remember that. I thank everyone.
I thank this council and mr. Mayor, for helping the veterans as much as all of you did.
I really do appreciate it. Thank you.
>> the city of la verne certificate of recognition presented to phil ramirez.
this certificate is presented on behalf of the la verne city council to army veteran phil ramirez with
sincere gratitude and appreciation for a dedicated service to our country airborne [laughter]
I like that. Please, come on up.
>> some of you may not know, this is [inaudible] she is our first female commander [inaudible]
>> how are you doing? [laughter]
>> [inaudible]
>> mr. Domer, roll call, please. >> thank you, mr. Mayor. Council member crosby.
>> yeah, we're taking that certificate back. We're going to get you a bigger one. >> council member johnson.
>> present. >> council member lau. >> present. >> mayor pro tem kashifalghita. >> here. >> mayor hepburn.
>> here. >> all present. >> thank you very much. Tonight, we have three presentations.
first will be the pride month proclamation. Pride month is the time to celebrate the identity,
rights, and inclusion of lgbtq people and advocate for their inclusivity.
I would like to call the casi committee members forward and whoever else would like to come.
everyone.
we got them back. No. We'll get to them about 9:30.
anybody else wish to come up?
the city of la verne proclamation. Whereas the city of la verne stands with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
and queer community as they declare their pride in who they are and whom they love;
and whereas pride month is celebrated every june to honor and commemorate their historical path,
travel to gain the rights of liberties of lgbtq+ people in america,
and whereas the lgbtq+ community, which makes up over 9% of
the united states population continues to inspire inclusivety and diversity in our nation;
and whereas, lgbtq+ americans have achieved significant milestones against often difficult challenges,
with the hope of future generations of people in the united states may enjoy a more equal and just society,
and whereas the city of la verne stands with the lgbtq, community in the struggle for equal treatment and embracement
of lgbtq+ rights as human rights so that our city is a place where all people,
regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression are treated with dignity and respect.
now, therefore, be it resolved that the city of la verne hereby proclaims the month of june 2025 as pride month in support of the lgbtq+ community, and that we,
the council members of the city of la verne, who hereby proclaim our shared values of culture awareness,
social inclusion, compassion, equity, and diversity.
we encourage our local community to also commit to these values dated the second day of june.
we're presenting this to the casi group. Don. Would you like to say a word?
>> thank you, mayor hepburn,
and thank you, city council in the city of la verne.
I want to talk about me,
and not holy about me, but I want to let you know about why I'm receiving this pride month proclamation.
I'm receiving it as a supportive ally, especially someone who I have close friends and family in the lgbtqia+ community.
I've seen the courage it takes for people I love to come out,
to live authentically and to navigate a world that hasn't always welcomed them.
this proclamation is a reminder of how far we've come, but how much work still lies ahead.
the history of the lgbtqia+ movement is one of bravery in the face of injustice for decades.
lgbtqia+ people have fought against discrimination,
criminalization, and erasure, from stonewall uprising and the aids crisis,
from marriage equality to ongoing battles for trans rights. Progress has always been led by community members pushing against the odds.
these were never easy wins, they came through grief, protest, and persistence.
today, that resistance is most important as ever.
across the country, we are seeing an alarming rise in anti-lgbtqia+ legislation,
especially targeting trans and non-binary youth. It's painful and frustrating to watch,
especially when you know the people that are being targeted. These aren't just headlines,
they're real people with real lives, they are our friends, they are our neighbors,
they are members of our family and members of this community. Alongside these challenges, there are strengths.
there are communities forming support networks, like here in our own area,
pomona valley pride, glendora pride in the foothills, and the cultural awareness and social inclusion of la verne or casi.
pride month is a celebration of love, visibility, and self-expression, but it's also a call to action.
as an ally to this community, it means using my voice, showing up,
and making sure that the people I care about and the broader lgbtqia community know that they're not alone.
this proclamation is a small, but important affirmation, you belong, your rights matter, and you are seen.
>> thank you.
>> next presentation is the introduction of the vfw post 12034 commander.
maria mckinney. Come on up.
that would be the first woman vfw commander in
the history of the band of brothers 12034, is that correct?
we have to work on that name, don't we?
>> sir. Let me first get started by saying once again,
please another round of applause for my former commander phil ramirez[applause].
he has truly kept the ship afloat and taught me basically everything I know at the moment.
[laughter] but it is not only an honor and a privilege.
it is always great to be working with our veterans in our community. I cannot say enough about the necessity that it is to recognize all of our veterans.
any campaign, any war, you reach out your hand and say thank you because if it weren't for them paving the way,
I would not be here standing here today. That's number one. I have always been a la vernian all my life.
my parents moved here in 1975, and born and raised here in la verne,
went to the military, came back and bought a house on the same street I grew up on,
and I graduated from ulv. With my benefits, I do.
always, I do not leave my three mile radius.
it's perfect. That's it. I worked for a great organization here in la verne,
leroy haynes and now david & margaret together, helping our youth in youth and probation and getting them to
graduate high school in our foster care system that we have in our organization.
everything I do, I try to think about two things;
how can I help that organization, and how can I help the community to be aware about how they can help as well?
that's very important to me in my life, and I think that hope that translate to everything I do here in la verne.
but I cannot speak enough about this group of individuals that
have welcomed me and let me take a little bit of control,
a little bit of lead. A little bit. >> little bit? >> little bit, but I hope that I'm here
for the long run and to them to teach me and me to teach them and work it out together and make sure that we
continue to help our elderly veterans, especially and open up the doors for more opportunities so that you all, as a community,
can see what we do and join us in many of the more events that are coming our way.
I thank you very much. >> what branch of service.
>> states air force. >> air force. Smart one.
>> I would panic. >> join the air force.
I appreciate [laughter]. >> thank you.
>> thank you, and welcome. Anything you need from the city, let us know. We have a great relationship.
whatever you guys need, we're here to help and let some women touch on these men, would you, please?
thank you very much [laughter].
behind every man, there's an amazing woman, and don't ever forget that. There you go. You learned that a long time ago, didn't you, phil.
thank you all very much. Our next presentation is the recognition of those that contribute to the making of
the veterans memorial at vets hall come to fruition. I'd like to call forward.
I know dan harden had an issue, his mom had an issue, so he's not going to be able to make it, but I would like to call him.
not dan harden talking. Dan keesey.
he's only 10 foot taller than all of us, but that's okay, dan?
I'd like to call forward dan harden, don kendrick, robin carder. As I said, mr. Keesey can't make it tonight.
please come on up. They just can't leave.
there's pizza in the other room if you're hungry [laughter]. >> there's somebody still here.
>> just a sneak peek of our little presentation here. For those that at the memorial this weekend for memorial day
was basically a ribbon cutting for the female soldier,
male soldier, and then a wounded war veteran and the bronze statues.
there's a place for working military dog,
too, but to say it's incredible is an understatement.
it was amazing. It only happened because of a few individuals
and opened up a whole bunch of pockets and with the affiliations that they have,
along with the city, but it's these people here that made this happen. With that, is an honor
to stand before you today as we recognize the incredible collaboration, dedication and I also want to say public works too,
and mr. Keesey, so we're getting to that. The installation of the three bronze statues at the veterans memorial at veterans hall.
this idea was first brought forward at the may 6, 2024 city council meeting when former councilmember dan harden presented
a proposal to enhance our memorial with these powerful symbols of sacrifice, courage, and gratitude.
in response, the city council unanimously supported the initiative and directed
the city manager to reconstitute the veterans memorial committee on an ad hoc basis to help bring this vision to life.
today, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the members of that committee for their guidance and leadership through the project.
that would be mayor kendrick, councilmember carter, councilmember dan harden
and the previous public works director dan keesey. A round of applause for these people.
your dedication to honoring our veterans and preserving the dignity of this sacred space has made a lasting impact.
thank you for your time, your wisdom, and your unwavering commitment to this effort. In addition, the city manager appointed
key staff members to work alongside this committee to ensure the successful implementation and long term stewardship of the project.
our public works director and community services director, along with their teams played essential roles in making this vision a reality.
a very special thank you goes to the city street department who were entrusted with the installation of the statues.
the task was extensive and required detailed coordination, especially considering the nearby preschool
and the need to minimize disruption during the work. This project was far more than a simple placing of statues,
who worked with precision and care. You guys did an amazing job.
I saw all the work and the pre-work and the electrical work. I love those lights. Thank you.
not to say the least, which was relocation of irrigation system, excavate,
and regrade the site, form and finish elevated concrete pads, install electrical conduit.
thank god for electricians. Transformers and lighting, finish new walkways,
and finally install the statues with the reverence they deserve, and they are gorgeous.
throughout the entire project, the team balanced the intensive work with their ongoing street maintenance duties.
they alternated shifts, adapted to evolving needs, and consistently upheld the highest standards of quality and professionalism.
they didn't stop it good enough. They went above and beyond repairing
existing walls and ensuring every detail was polished. Everything was painted.
every weed was gone, and it was in pristine condition.
they went above and beyond repairing walls and ensuring every detail was polished so that memorial looked as absolute best for memorial day event.
I remember was a year or two ago, and I was talking to mr. Harden. He said, this place is getting a little worn,
and we had said, we'll probably do something about it, and I know that grace napolitano was gracious in
giving a nice chunk of money to help that, but we take a lot of pride in that as you guys do.
we make sure that that stays nice and clean and wonderful for our previous and present veterans.
we're incredibly proud to recognize the following individuals for the dedication, craftsmanship and pride in the community.
as that call your name, please come up. Brad stock, dustin whitebear, toby paddock,
antonio guerrero, romero nunez,
gabriel rivera, jose jimenez, miguel crespo.
pick him out of the crowd.
your work not only reflects your skill and professionalism. It reflects your deepest respect for our veterans and
your commitment to honoring them in the most thoughtful way possible. On behalf of the city of la verne,
thank you for making this project true source of pride for our community.
this memorial now stands not only as a tribute to those who served, but also as a powerful reminder of what we can accomplish
together with dedication, unity, and purpose.
thank you all very much. It looks amazing. Thank you. Round of applause.
>> they just asked me if I was going to speak, and here it is. >> [inaudible].
>> I brought my speech with me[laughter].
listening to commander ramirez reminded me way back when we started the memorial.
he was speaking of what happened to people returning from vietnam and korea,
japan, the philippines, taiwan. When we got off the plane and walked through the terminal,
no one said, thank you for your service. If anyone said anything, it was disparaging.
when the war in iraq began, we had this feeling about,
I don't want anybody coming back, experiencing that, and we wanted to create a memorial that welcomed them back.
I think that we've accomplished that. The most significant part, we did this here in la verne because la verne has such a history of supporting veterans.
we can go back to world war I where we see the building that we share with the city,
that was built by veterans. There was a sign posted in the park about world war ii personnel that served.
there's the rock there that has the kias from world war ii.
we skip through korea and vietnam, it's time to do something and we decided the iraq war was the appropriate time.
you can see things that the city of la verne has done over the years, banner program,
the memorial itself, honoring veterans as they come into this building,
and recognizing what they've done for this country. Now we have the memorial.
the memorial we see as a growing memorial. We're not finished.
we're going to come back to you and ask you about more. There's things that we can do to make it even more welcoming to veterans,
particularly veterans in la verne, but the significant part, if you look at the pavers,
there's veterans from all over pomona valley. Some from very far away.
we're very proud of that. We're especially proud to have city, staff,
public works help us with this because we're there for a couple of days during the year.
they're working on this all year round, keeping it pristine, make it beautiful, make it inviting.
thank you also very much. You're an important part of this, and certainly we couldn't have done it without you.
ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your support.
>> but you can still donate, is that correct? Ms. Carter.
>> ask my husband, I know how to ask for money. [laughter] we were overwhelmed with
the outbursting of donations for this first area that we were raising money for,
and it was close to $100,000 that we raised in six months.
everyone cares and supports the veterans.
now with our next step, the military dog, we need to raise money for this dog,
and so we want it to be able to go in for veterans day.
please, if you want to talk to rami, we are the co chairs for the fund raising.
we are raising money, if you know of anyone beyond you that have given to give more, we'll take it.
but if you know of others, please pass the word. It's very important.
now, I do know that at memorial day, I had mr. Chovin,
who was daughter's teacher at ramona. He came up to me he said, I really want to donate,
but I don't know how, and I didn't get any form. I would love if we could give you the email and you could send it out to your members.
would that be okay? Anyone that could please help us with fund raising.
we want to get this done and get moving on it, and it will look so beautiful.
everyone's excited about the dog coming in. Thank you very much.
>> again, one more round of applause. This couldn't happen without them.
one thing about our city is the fact that, teamwork.
it does not happen without teamwork, whether it be a budget like we were doing before, we may argue, we may fight, we may discuss.
but at the end of the day, it takes all of us together to make things happen. This is just a perfect example between our people that have an idea to make it happen,
but we also have our people that are talented and excellent craftsmen
that'll be able to put this stuff in and make it look so amazing. Again, thank you all very much,
and we'll get that dog funded. Do you have a website at all? You have the email address.
if you give that to us, you have the email address, you can go on and you can donate online,
or is that to be mailing a check or we can just bring gold bars to your house or whatever?
if you could bring the forms, that would be great. Then we can I'll copy those,
and we'll send them on social media. There you go. Thank you guys very much. I think we need some pictures here.
>> to exit stage.
thank you guys.
we're going to now move on to announcements of upcoming events.
I'd like to call the first name, which would be adrian romero.
>> good evening, mayor, council members and staff. I would like to introduce a few events taking place this month at laverne library.
on june 11th, we'll host a magic show. The performer will be christopher t. Magician,
who will share his favorite children's books and bring them to life with fun interactive magic.
on friday, june 20th at 2:00 pm, manga author,
stan sakai will give a presentation on the manga connection to old japan.
during this program, teens from ages 13-17 can learn about the history of
manga and then be given the opportunity to create their own manga character.
attendance is limited for this event and registration is required. It could be done in person at the laverne library or online at lacountylibrary.org.
I want to mention that this event was funded by friends of the library.
on wednesday, june 25th at 5:00 pm, we'll be holding a stem program about structures for children ages 5-12.
during this event, children will learned about rule breakers in architecture, and they'll be given a chance to build their own stick structure.
throughout the month of june, the friends of the laverne library will be holding their summer library book sale,
where people can find a great deal on books for all ages. Funds raised by sale are used to purchase new books for
the collection and fund library programs. Thank you.
>> thank you, adrian. Appreciate it. Again, thank you for your service, too, sir.
jerry best. The team is up.
>> get ready. [laughter]. There's this vanna white.
jerry best and kathy colosi with the laverne historical society.
I have a couple of updates and announcements. First of all, one week from tomorrow,
a group of the woodworkers in laverne are converging on the maintenance yard,
and will be picking up approximately a third of the carob tree wood,
which has been cut by ruben cuirado, and will be taking it over to cne lumber,
and they have agreed to strap the wood, cure it, and store it for us,
which is almost a two-year commitment which they're doing as a gift to the historical society in the city of laverne.
I want to thank everybody at the maintenance yard who's made this possible.
ruben, who has been there with the chainsaw, every possible day that he could be and the members of
the woodworking group who are going to be bringing their trucks so we can get this wood taken over there.
it's going to go over in batches and eventually it will get turned into
beautiful functional reminders of a wonderful tree that came from coons park.
thank you, everybody who made that happen. I want to announce a couple activities of the historical society.
we are sponsoring two events in june. But I'm going to skip ahead a little to june the 9th,
which is a week from tonight, where we're hosting david allen at hillcrest at 7:00 pm.
he's going to talk about his newest book, and this event is free and all are welcome.
he's a good speaker and a fun draw, so I do recommend all of you attend and enjoy yourself.
then backing up to this saturday, june 7th, we're sponsoring what I'm calling
a blowout vintage sale from 10:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon.
bring a friend, bring your wallet. That's very important.
what's in your wallet? Make a donation for jam,
jelly, marmalade, books, and t-shirts. We're almost done with this year's run of all of our preserves,
but the peach tree will be very knits fruit and ready to go in about a week,
we'll be into the peach mango jelly or jam.
a new infusion of treats are coming. Of course, bring your friends to this event.
to wet your appetite for our wonderful sale,
we have a donation gift to mayor tim hepburn. Will you come forward?
this is a really interesting gift.
go ahead and take it up. Dig around in the bag there, tim.
there you go. That's how we do it at christmas.
this is a genuine camp david pristine condition robe.
you are inheriting a camp david robe that was originally from david dwyer.
cool stuff happens at this. You agree that you would put this on and put this on with your bow tie?
yes. That's correct. Sling that on, and very nice.
perfect. Yes. I know.
there. Don't know if it's going to tie in the middle, but it's going to go over the shoulders.
who's got a camera for this event? We got to get a picture of our model here.
very nice. Kathy, you got your camera?
>> if there's any way we could hand the camera to watch patty's face on this would be great.
>> very good. Nice job.
the historical society newsletter runs a feature article that's called every picture tells a story.
guess who's going to be on the front page of the newsletter coming up in june. [laughter] thank you so much.
>> tell them where the vintage sale is. Give them the address.
>> the vintage sale is at my house, 3949 bradford street.
you can look for about 15 display tables, seven or eight canopies up,
and tons of stuff.
we have spod, we have waterford, we have linux.
we have garden art, we have fine art.
we have two beautiful framed posters from
the gold line that were donated by john blickenstaff.
we have a number of wonderful items. Come, have a look.
we're open from 10:00 until 4:00 pm at 3949 bradford.
we're going to try to make up for getting rained out of the community art sale and two days of unbelievable heat at the la county fair.
we've got to recoup our revenue here and get that truck done.
thanks so much. >> thank you guys very much. Any other announcements for upcoming events? Yvonne.
>> thank you. Just a couple of announcements. We are having a cassie meeting tomorrow at 5:00 at hillcrest at the citrus room.
please feel free to join us. I also want to talk a little bit about what cassie is doing as far as events,
in case anybody is interested in joining us, come to our meeting.
we are going to be doing the little libraries again for pride month. We're starting a book club.
the book is called the genius of women. Those are just some of the events that we're doing,
and encourage everyone to come to our meeting or email cassie.laverne@gmail.com to find out more information.
I also want to talk about the love winds pride festival,
which is happening in downtown pomona on june 14th. It goes from 5:00 to 9:00 pm.
there's going to be entertainment, stages, dozens of vendors.
it's a full evening of community celebration, visibility, and pride. Cassie will have a table there at
the love winds pride festival which is sponsored by pomona valley pride. >> is that the old ymca?
is it around that? I know they have market there. >> where the artwork is. In that area there.
lastly, I don't know if it's really a community event, but I do want to say that I went to the laverne police department lobby this past week
to go buy my pink patch project, t-shirt, hat.
I didn't have enough money for the hoodie but I'll be back. Just a reminder that they only take cash and check.
if you go by your pink patch merch, make sure you have some cash or you have your checks,
and they're so pretty, the design is very nice. I'll be proudly wearing my pink patch t-shirt around.
they also have the patches. They have hats, t-shirts, hoodies, and the patches. That's it. Thank you.
>> thanks yvonne.
>> I wanted to remind the residents tomorrow, june 3rd, 9:30 am,
la county board of supervisors meeting. There are three items on the agenda,
number 70, number 71, and number 72, that all pertain to the probation and the juveniles.
number 71 is the report on the status of adopting a global plan for the probation department halls and camps,
71 is report on the status of the probation department itself.
then 72 is report on the proposal and timeline to depopulate los podrinos,
which had a court order and was supposed to be done within 30 days,
which june 15th is that deadline. Just to give the residents a synopsis,
the juveniles that are at los podrinos are scheduled to go to dorothy kirby.
paige residents will be sent to afflerbaugh and camp rockey while they do structural repairs.
then once those repairs are completed, they will then be relocated to paige.
this fight is not over. Please make sure you let your county board of supervisor,
your comments or attend the meeting and give your comments live.
you can also do a zoom or listen through the telephone. Thank you.
>> thank you, danita. Any other announcements? We'll close announcements. I appreciate that, danita.
our staff, our city manager, our police chief, and also mayor po tem cash met with
the director of the probation department and his staff up here at the city hall.
just to discuss that very thing and they were assured that while camp paige is depopulated now,
and they've moved some of the youth over to afflerbaugh,
and they are making minor repairs and adjustments.
but those minor repairs and refurbishments are nothing to do with
an sytf or 707b offenders going to afflerbaugh paige.
we've been assured of that. But we want to make sure that
we're going to have communication lines open between zebellar,
he's the camp director. Then also with mayor pro tem cash's boss,
the director of probation department, to monitor this very closely because,
as we know in the past that we were threatened with having heinous offenders up there and that's not going to happen.
I know the council is behind this, I know that the city's behind this, but also with our mayor pro tem cash,
and the probation department is watching it very closely and we do get information pretty quick.
it is a concern of ours, it will always be a concern of ours because camp paige was supposed to be closed many times now.
that still is their global plan to close camp paige and turning into something other than what it is,
but I appreciate our c staff, also our police chief, and also our mayor pro tem cash.
this is important to keep an eye on this. Just an update on that. Thank you, danita. I appreciate that.
with that, we move on to the, do we have any other announcements, mr. City manager?
nothing. Then we move to consent calendar. Thank you for sharing your announcements.
move on to consent calendar. All items on the consent calendar retainer will be enacted by one motion unless a member of
the city council or member of the audience requests separate discussion or just wants to make a statement on one of the items.
council, I request to pull an item. City manager, were there any request to pull items on the consent calendar?
>> there were not. >> do I have a motion for approval? >> motion.
>> have a second. >> second. >> vote, please.
>> consent calendar, motion by casal fagita, seconded by crosby, approved 5-0.
>> we're now move on to public hearings. There's one item tonight,
the old town laverne business improvement district affirming the annual court and laverne assessments.
community development director share, please report on this item. >> good evening, mr. Mayor,
members of the council. At the council's meeting on may 19th, you approved the annual report
for the old town laverne business improvement district for 2024, 2025 by adopting resolution 25-28,
which also declared your intention to levy an annual assessment for the fiscal year 2025,
26 for those businesses located within the district. You declared a public hearing date of tonight's meeting.
the boundaries of the district and the assessment formula have been unchanged since the district was first established in 1986.
there are no proposed changes at this time. Per the california street and highways code,
an annual public hearing is required to be held, accepting any protest of the intended levies,
and then after be declared the time in place for such a hearing at the previous meeting.
with that, staff is recommending that the city council conduct the public hearing this evening,
accept any protests, override any such protests, and adopt the attached resolution affirming
the annual report and the levy for the annual assessments. I'm happy to answer any questions should you have any.
>> counsel. Thank you, director share. I'm going to go ahead and open up public comments. Any public comment on this item?
seeing none, we close public comment. Any comments, and I will ask for a motion.
>> motion. >> second. Vote, please.
>> that item was moved by castel fagita, seconded by lou, and approved 5-0.
>> thank you all. Now move on to the discussion calendar. There are two items tonight.
first item is the request to initiate a pilot project adding three firefighter position to improve staffing efficiency,
support strategic operational readiness, and address overtime requirements.
I think we would have fire chief nig on this one, is that correct, sir, mr. Domer?
>> unless you'd like chief gonzalez to come up and report on it. [laughter]
>> I would have him come up but his clicker was having some issues at that particular one. I think we need to stay with chief.
>> that's an advanced skill. He's not signed off on that. Good evening again, mayor and council members.
good time to have this discussion in light of our previous budget study session this afternoon,
this evening, because that has to do with an innovative way to address the ongoing overtime issues in the fire department.
again, thank you for the opportunity to bring this forward to you this evening.
I do come before you with full support from the ldfa. They are actually excited about this opportunity,
not only to help increase some operational capability, but also to be a part of the broader conversation about
how we can help the city more fiscally sustainable. Tonight, I respectfully request your authorization of the hiring
of three additional firefighters for the laverne fire department. This two-year pilot program is driven by
a clear operational needs as identified in our standards to cover and community risk assessment,
and it presents a strategic opportunity to improve service reliability while reducing long-term costs to the city.
if you remember in 2022, our department conducted a formal standards to cover analysis which examined call volume community risk deployment capacity.
that analysis concluded what we see daily. Our current staffing levels are meeting minimum needs,
meaning that we are as lean as possible. But are increasingly relying on mandatory overtime
to fill vacancies and maintain daily operation. A two-year historical review indicated that on average 259 days out of the year,
a backfill firefighter was required to maintain an nfpa-compliant response-ready workforce.
our proposal to hire three additional firefighters one per shift,
would allow us to reduce projected overtime by a minimum of approximately $53,811 annually.
the way that it would work is we would hire an additional bls firefighter,
non-paramedic to fill the four seat on engine 2. When nobody takes a day off,
none of the lower-ranking firefighters, we would have an additional firefighter now on duty to a total of 12,
including the battalion chief that's on duty. Which would allow for a full 18-person response to any critical incidents such as a structure fire.
if you remember, nfpa 1710 requires a 17 person response. It would provide us better redundancy in our own department,
less reliance on our outside agencies. When a firefighter takes a shift off,
what we have been doing, especially when I first got here, and we had tremendous workforce issues,
we basically just needed somebody to fill those because we needed people to be able to respond to emergencies.
that included anybody across the floor including higher ranks and they would work down on
those lower-ranking positions and they would make their time and a half overtime at their current rate pay engineers,
captains, whoever was working this. That's been a big part of our problem.
this extra person for the first person who takes that day off,
the first lower-ranking firefighter, this additional person would go and fill that seat, depending where they're at.
they would essentially be a floater, if you will, for lack of a better term. As long as we have the two-person paramedic coverage that we need on
every als apparatus, that would determine where they go.
after that, it would be our normal backfill staffing for the usual.
obviously, if this works, there would be opportunity to expand upon that further down the road.
but again, this is a pilot program for two years.
this would not just result in an operational benefit.
it is also a fiscally responsible solution. Permanent staffing is less expensive than paying existing personnel at time and a half,
especially those higher ranks, like I mentioned before. By investing in stable full-time positions,
we mitigate the budget volatility caused by backfill overtime and reduce wear and tear at our personnel,
which is another issue because we have an overabundance of mandatory or force higher overtimes on the backside too,
which is wearing on our personnel. Operationally, this ensures that we meet baseline staffing without overextending current employees,
maintain our specialty response capabilities, improve our capacity to manage
simultaneous or complex incidents while potentially reducing our reliance on outside resources.
the request offers a service expansion and a stabilization strategy ensuring we
deliver on our existing commitments in a manner that is safer for our personnel and smarter for our city's finances.
in conclusion, our standards to cover and community risk analysis clearly support this need based on industry standards,
increasing call volume, and public expectation. We estimate a minimum of $54,000 in annual overtime savings,
almost $110,000 for the two-year period, which offsets a significant portion of the historical annual backfill costs,
and we improve both the predictability and sustainability of our fire service budget overall.
I respectfully urge your council to approve this request and authorize the hiring of three additional firefighters for fiscal year '25 '26.
it's an investment that enhances service, supports personnel, and protects the city's fiscal future.
I'm available for any questions. >> any questions for chief before we go to public comment?
to the public comment. Thank you. Anita.
>> good evening, council. I don't know if this is a question for chief neg or maybe christi lopez,
but you discussed the savings that would be annually at approximately 53,000.
but what are the costs to the city for the retirement that has to be funded for them?
when you factor that in, what is the savings after retirement is factored in?
>> shall we continue public comment or close it?
anybody else from public comment on this side? Mr. Bowen?
>> good evening again. Council, mr. Mayor, I applaud the chief for trying to address the overtime issue.
if you look at transparent in california and right now,
the most recent years is 2023, we have roughly, and I didn't even point out the whole thing,
close to two million dollars in overtime. That's amazing. To think overtime, remember,
it's only two-thirds of the time because they're not working 10 hours,
they're working six and two-thirds hours. We're spending all that money at reduced hours.
that's got to compound the issue. I hope that the savings,
there's some way that we can come back and I saw your proposal hope there's some way we can come back and
see a definitive reduction
in that overtime when we're making this commitment because as we just said,
you hire people, there's pension, it costs us a fortune.
there's got to be some savings, especially when you look at the meeting we just had,
seems like two hours ago. I applaud your efforts.
I hope there's some measurable. One other thing. I keep hearing that when we send people out,
that we get reimbursed, and I've actually asked this for probably two or three years.
is there a line item in the budget that shows that reimbursement?
because we sent a lot of people out, we spent a lot of money in overtime to send to these fires,
which was duly needed, obviously. But where is the reimbursement?
where is it coming from, and is there a line item to show that? It would be very helpful to see that in the budget. Thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Bowen. Public comment?
>> you said you're going to save $54,000 a year on overtime.
how much overtime do you pay out now? [overlapping] this is my first meeting [overlapping].
>> address to us and what they're going to do. Once we finish public comment, I'll have the question. >> but I'd like to know what the cost is of three new hires.
you had a lot of veterans in this room today. How many of them will be veterans when you hire from the fire department?
>> thank you very much. Any other public comment?
what is your name, sir? I'm sorry. Lee. Thank you. Any other public comment?
go ahead and close public comment. You just want to come up and answer those multiple questions quickly.
>> finance director lopez, will address the financial and fiscal concerns.
she was heavily a part of the calculations, and I'll talk to the hiring practices.
>> what's included in this would be the normal cost for the employee.
we don't have the unfunded cost for these employees because we don't know what that would be.
it changes based on the actuarial. However, these two members would be new members.
I'm sorry. Three members would be pepra.
pepra is a lower cost than classic.
I believe it's 14% is the normal cost and that cost is included in there.
>> that's included in the 361,000. It is included in. [overlapping]. >> that's the 35.
>> correct. Current overtime, I'd have to get an amount,
but it's roughly 1.5-$2 million a year.
it just varies on activity.
as far as the fire assignment,
that is tracked in a separate fund, not in the general fund.
it is tracked in fund 110 or 110 for fire assignment,
and that has been in the budget, I believe for the past two, three years.
you can easily identify that as a line >> but there's many line.
>> it's under 110. >> 110. >> yes. >> but it is spelled out on the [overlapping].
>> yeah, it says fire [overlapping]. >> cost and reimbursement or how does it line it? >> yes. It does show resources and expenditures,
or revenues and expenditures. >> we've had $100,000 for which go on said, which is wonderful.
we need to be compensated for at that small percentage level in there to cover our other internally.
>> right, it's also presented by itself
in the acfr or the annual comprehensive financial report, which would show your actuals.
because when we do budget, we are just getting an estimate and we don't want there to be a lot of fires,
but we're giving an estimate, and so we would estimate 500 or $600,000 a year,
and that's going to be in the back of the budget book and special revenue funds.
>> if we could highlight that. [inaudible] question.
>> mr. Mayor, real quick. Christi and her team have done a great job of digging into the whole fire assignment and the overtime.
[overlapping] we do have that and this little bit of a primer on
the new versus classic under the pension reform system.
basically, if you're a classic member, so it means you've been employed by the city or another entity prior to january, 1st,
may 13, you are paying 9% of your salary towards hers,
so that's your normal employee cost. The city, unfortunately, because the safety pension is so much
is paying upwards of 27% or more on that,
and that does not include the unfunded actuarial. For a pepra or a new member,
that normal cost is split. The pepra employees actually paying 14% of their salary towards their pension,
and the city is paying about 14% of their formula to the pension.
because the system is set up differently and it's new, the unfunded actuarial liability is a fraction of what the classic amount is.
there still is some generated, but it is much less than what your classics though.
that's a good thing, but I just want to give a little bit more action. Thank you.
>> just to expand a little bit further. When I got here, one of the things that we did do and we're very
intentional about was separating out all of that overtime. This has been a problem really at every city I've worked out.
the word overtime in the fire service is always going to be the bin of our existence.
it's very complex. We have very, very strict constant staffing models for all the reasons that you can imagine.
but when we do deploy out to help the state, and the state gets it.
if they weren't fully reimbursing to the penny, nobody would get involved and nobody would come help.
they're very diligent about reimbursing. >> we are very careful to ensure
that all of our costs to the penny are being reimbursed, are very accurate in our annual salary survey that we provide every july to cloes,
and that includes calculating out an administrative fee on top of all of those reimbursements.
the city is, in fact, reimbursed to the penny for every cent that it puts into
it with a 23% administrative rate on top of that. In fact, we are so good at managing this that departments up
and down the state and this county reach out to us and ask us how we do it.
not naive to the fact that it would gripple our city if we were, in fact, bringing them back in.
to answer the gentleman's question, we don't necessarily have any dedicated components. I don't believe the city does.
I can't speak for pd as far as veterans go, but would absolutely love to have
veterans come through our door and be a part of our department. We have two right now, and in fact,
one of them is deployed overseas, but absolutely top-notch individuals, and we're so proud.
>> let the gentlemen know that we also have paid that person on his leave, the firefighter that had to go on leave,
we're paying his pay salary. That's what we do here in the city. Yes.
>> the right thing [overlapping] >> yeah. The city went above and beyond.
>> above and beyond. >> yeah. We're doing our part. >> actually, you have a several veterans. One of them is a air force veteran.
>> yes. >> I was fortunate enough to run on the last 4th of july parade.
I [inaudible] for being there, air force is just something that we, as veterans, love to do. I remember his dad was the first time seeing him on that.
there are several veterans that are there. >> we just trained him up to be a full fledged paramedic, and he's a top-notch employee.
>> thank you. >> mr. Mayor, real quick. Just as it was mentioned, this is a pilot project.
we are going to be looking at the reporting, making sure that it actually does work out for the city.
we'll be reporting back on that regularly. >> was that you said pilot for two years?
>> it's a two-year pilot, and the intent is to obviously demonstrate that there are savings and then expand the program if there's opportunity to do so.
if for whatever reason, it doesn't materialize in the savings.
we are expecting a number of employees to attrition out, retire out, and so we would have the room.
there is no intent whatsoever to let anybody go in this program.
>> my question was about the pilot, because of the cost, making sure that,
and our meeting that we had this afternoon about our budget.
also, is there any innovative ways when someone comes on covering someone else's shift?
the normal shift is 24-hour shift, correct? >> correct. Back to back, so 48 hours.
>> forty-hour shift? >> correct. >> then someone's overtimes automatic that 48-hour shift.
>> I'm not following. >> I'm assuming someone's overtimes are covering for someone.
>> correct. >> then it's also 48 hours that that person's doing. >> they're broken down to 24 hours.
>> twenty-four hours. >> if they're covering for somebody it'll be for 24 hours if they take their whole shift off.
>> that is a long expansive time. I just didn't know if there's any innovative ways to think about doing
overtime at less than the 24 hours so that it still have the appropriate coverage,
but that we are making sure and covering our city by doing it as a fiscally-sound way.
>> they can take two hours off, an hour off, six hours, eight hours.
they're not confined to the 24-hour period. In addition to that, this city, much like almost every city that I'm aware of, offers trades, the city
is entirely removed from it and it allows employees to just trade days.
>> but worried if someone's working constantly multiple days in a row and it is exhausting,
I want to make sure our firemen are always at their prime,
and that would be concerning just to be on vacation for five days without taking vacation, working long periods of time,
then that puts our residents in concern as well. >> we do have measures in place to ensure that they aren't working too many days.
>> then my question is about the reporting the data.
I know it says in here that it's there will be monthly reporting, but is that monthly reporting to christy?
when can council maybe receive an update? Maybe quarterly, just to let us know where it's looking.
we don't need you to come back every month about it, but I know that you're going to report monthly, I'm assuming again to christy or to ken,
but if you can come back maybe quarterly and let us know how that's going.
>> we'll be tracking that, and I think quarterly works better. The other issue is that we have to hire the folks. Right. We probably have some folks in
line and queue to get in there so we can do it pretty quickly, but we'll have to get the system up. There will be a small training academy
for them as a normal recruit coming in. >> every department does an internal academy,
just to bring everybody up to speed on our policies and how we do tactics and whatnot. We're anticipated to start. We were already doing a recruitment
for new medics that we're bringing on board for the holes we have in 1st august.
the goal is to capture that group in this because we have to take a captain off the floor to be dedicated to a 40-hour work week for that process.
by capturing this group altogether, we'll, again, save the city money, so that's the goal.
as far as reporting goes, we will obviously be in contact with finance regularly.
we run all the staffing reports. We have a digital staffing program that
we can very easily figure out who, when, where, why, all that stuff people are taking. So quarterly, great.
>> I think this is a great idea. My problem is we went overtime already.
really blew our budget. That really put us where we're at right now. Understanding the situation, we have to separate fire crews that went out, obviously.
if, christy, we separate the fire crews out on what they did, what was the actual?
was still $1.5 million to tow m8illion dollars of overtime, even respective of that; is that correct?
we're looking at basically hiring three full-time firefighters at 361,086.
our savings, looking at 53,811 per year.
that's just per year. Out savings of 17,000 per individual.
that return on investment is pretty poor. I understand where we're at right now,
but we've already spent 1.5 over our budget million dollars for only really our roi,
is a long haul. Is it an escalation of that?
>> my gut instinct is that it will be better than the minimal numbers that you're seeing because there's
more to it than just filling these positions. We're also reducing the higher ranks filling these lower positions,
and there's some ongoing conversations that are going on, I believe, with jr and lvfa. Again, the labor group, lvfa,
is very motivated and interested in sitting down and having conversations to work through the city's current fiscal situation.
that would add to this number as well. >> mr. Mayor, real quick.
>> I'm looking at numbers. What we spent, what the roi is. It's not there. We have no roi. It's basically changing a model that we have been doing.
obviously, this is to ramp up, a lot of issues, but our fire departments functioning extremely well right now,
especially our [inaudible] program, but my issue is that return on investment
has to return that curve and bring it back.
>> if we were to expand this, there's still a seat on engine 3,
and the goal to meet that staffing standard per our standards to cover as well,
and then we'd be looking at potentially filling two seats a day. >> mr. Mayor, members of council,
the numbers are conservative because the 17,000 per the 53,000 total,
we do hope to exceed that amount, but we had to somehow put a projection
in much like what we do on a lot of things we do. I do appreciate the lvfa stepping up and working with us on this and some other items,
but again, that's why it's a pilot program because we are taking a risk here.
we've identified this problem. Again, going back, for several years,
we did not identify the potential overtime costs, and now we have a pretty good feel for it.
reintroducing this program and looking at it, we believe it will generate better savings in what we list, but if it doesn't,
then we'll come back to you and we'll attrition to stop it.
>> I'm cautiously optimistic. I trust you explicitly, chief.
it's just that as a businessman, I just look at it and go, we're hiring three more people,
and it's going to add to our overall budget. It's going to add the 361,000,
but actually, with the credit, it's going to add, actually,
306,000 to your budget as far as manpower.
that's all I was looking at, but obviously we have to start somewhere. You're going to watch our overtime issue very closely. [inaudible] is watching
you all the time, christy over there, so I know that she's going to keep an eye on you as she is with the police department and all the other departments.
>> we have definitely reined in non essential training and all the things that contribute to that.
or just now on the backside, if you guys will remember when I got here, this department was entirely defunct.
entirely. There was a lot of required training that wasn't happening.
I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole, but the reality was we had to get up to an industry standard level,
and that required a lot of training and getting our people out qualified to be able to be functioning out of professional fire service level.
we've crested that hill. We're on the back side of that hill, and so we've been able to rein in a lot of those ancillary overtime costs.
really what's contributing to a lot of these large numbers is vacations and sick time,
administrative leaves, long-term injuries. Those things are a heavy burden on the fire department overtime.
>> that's a physical job. >> it's a very physical job, of course. Then vacancies as well,
whether it's people retiring or whatever is going on. There hasn't been a year yet that I haven't been plagued with one of those,
if not multiple of those. The reality is that for all the reasons that you know,
when you dial 911, we need to have people to show up and do the work. We have to have somebody in those seats.
we have our firefighter that's deployed right now. We've got another guy that's currently in medic school
because we need to make sure we have appropriate medic staffing, and that in and of itself is 20 overtime shifts a month.
we're doing everything we can to ensure that, optically, we're trying to find solutions and then obviously, tangibly have some fiscal restraint.
>> I think that the flsa standards are important. We try to get as close as we can to those.
sometimes it's not reachable we even get close, but I do also appreciate that the organization is willing to work with us. We need to work as a team.
>> I agree. They have been absolutely wonderful. Current president, captain dave bonanno,
has been just absolutely willing to have conversations, and I applaud them for that.
>> just one point on the data. I'm hoping that what I'm hearing is that we're going to see good savings and
I understand what the mayor is alluding to in terms of making sure our roi is there,
but I think I just want to highlight something that you said earlier about the well-being of the firefighters in general.
when they are working overtime, that's taxing on them.
I'm hoping that with this addition of people, it's going to contribute to, hopefully, just lower injuries on duty,
lower issues because you're not overtaxing the same people over and over.
hopefully this will help spread that out. If there's a way to make sure that that data is
collected too so that we can see what's attributed to what, and I know it can get hard to strictly define,
but I think it would be good to look at that when we do come back for reporting. >> I will say there is plenty of data out there that supports
that in our industry, better rest periods.
the amount of forces go up, for whatever reason, the amount of injuries also go up.
there's a direct correlation that's there. Jpia does an amazing job at tracking all that.
that's not something you're going to see overnight. Probably a year. >> plus the wellness program.
> yes. We do have our internal health wellness program, which we have already used a bit, and it's been very beneficial,
but the reality is people need to go home, they need to be with their families. They need to disconnect for a second.
I spoke to that when I came here, a better quality of life. This is also a part of that, making sure that people aren't constantly here all the time.
>> we trust you, chief. We just want to make sure that when we're putting out more money, we want to make sure that the return on investment first,
and the safety of the personnel as councilman lau said, but also, flsa standards,
but also, to make sure that this is really working and it's really taking people off
the overtime shifts and not taxing and more injuries and stuff.
>> I promise you I wouldn't come to you with just a handout when I got here, so there'd always be some type of approach.
>> I saw that side. I'm lost in my pages here somewhere.
>> we're done here. >> we're done. Actually, we need a motion for this.
>> motion. >> actually, we already closed public comments, sir, I'm sorry.
>> sir, we already did public comments. >> you can ask chief afterwards when we're done at the end.
I appreciate that. Thank you.
>> motion to approve. >> second?
>> second. >> vote, please.
>> that item was moved by kashifalghita, seconded by crosby, and approved by all.
>> thank you, chief. >> thank you. >> thank you, guys. Thank you. Next item is the request for recognition of
a new employee associate in la verne fire middle management association. City manager domer, please call forward
the staff member who will be, thank you, reporting. >> I'm going to bring forward jr ranells.
>> I'm already here. The city of la verne currently
recognizes four employee associations for the purpose of labor representation,
in accordance with meyers-milias-brown act, also known as mmba,
which governs collective bargaining rights for public sector employees in california.
on march 4th, a group of fire management employees submitted a petition to the city manager's office requesting
the information and recognition of a new employee association called
the la verne fire middle management association. This group seeks to represent management level fire personnel and classifications,
including deputy chief, battalion chief, fire marshal, who are currently unrepresented,
or not aligned with the unit that adequately reflects their management responsibilities and unique working conditions.
the mmba allows public employees to organize and be represented by
employee organizations of their choosing subject to employer policies adopted under local resolutions,
such as, the city's employer-employee relations resolution.
the next steps for the city based on compliance with
our eerr would be formal recognition by the city council.
second, it would be a city will issue a formal 30-day notice to allow
other recognized employee organizations to submit any challenge or claim of overlap.
meaning if there's another association that already exists that thinks that these employees should be represented by them, they could challenge.
if no challenges are received during this period, the employer relations officer,
which is the assistant city manager will issue a formal recognition determination in accordance with
section 4a of resolution number 76131. That's the employee-employer resolution.
upon completion of the notice period and formal recognition, the city manager's office will initiate the meet and confer process with fmma,
or the fire middle management association, to develop a memorandum of understanding regarding benefits and
terms and conditions of employment within the scope of representation.
there are no immediate fiscal impacts associated with the recognition of a new employee association.
however, subsequent meet and confer outcomes, including any negotiated mou,
may have future budgetary implications, but those would be subject to formal council approval would be brought to a public meeting.
>> the recommendation would be that the city council receive and file this report and direct staff to proceed with
formal recognition of the proposed la verne fire middle management association
as a new employee association representing deputy fire chiefs, battalion chiefs, and the fire marshal.
I'm available for any questions. >> thank you, jerra.
>> just clarification to. >> yes. >> we have this same as in the police department.
we have a middle management in the police department? >> correct. There's a police middle management association
that incorporates our lieutenants, as well as our police captain position.
>> there's no fiscal impact yet. It's more of an organization to have representation.
>> the action tonight does not have any immediate fiscal impact.
the mou that will be negotiated, you've had to guess what that might contain,
but you, as a body, as a council, would approve whatever those terms are.
>> what time frame we're looking at if we approve it or go public on it?
>> it's a 30-day window first for that challenge period. Then an mou.
I mean, you have negotiated many of those in your time on the council. It depends on what the group is seeking.
>> we'll bring it back to us before all that, just to make sure if [overlapping] >> yes, sir. >> financial implication.
>> what we would do, at that point, it would go under closed session for negotiations,
and the new identified group would be the melean by association. >> thank you. I'm going to go and open up public comment,
and we wish to speak on this item, anita.
>> good evening, mayor. Mayor pro tem, council members, city staff, and members of the public.
I'm here to express my high level of concern regarding the proposed formation of
a new employee association specifically for fire departments' middle management personnel.
while I fully support the rights of employees to have representation, I believe that creating a separate association in this case is both unnecessary and
potentially harmful for the effective operation and unity of our fire department.
currently, the la verne firefighters association already exists to represent the interests of fire department personnel.
this association is well established and capable of advocating for the needs of all of its members,
including those in middle management roles. Creating a new separate association would not enhance the representation,
it would fragment it. A key strength of a fire department lies in its unity.
fire service is inherently a team effort. When we divide representation,
we begin to separate employees by rank into different bargaining units.
we risk creating silos within a department that functions best when working as one.
fragmentation could lead to internal conflict, disjointed communication, and misaligned priorities during negotiations.
chief nig has worked tirelessly on creating a true fire department,
filling position where there was no employee and helping to repair the low morale that existed within the department after the fiasco lawsuit,
which caused separation amongst firefighters as the money from the lawsuit was not dolled out fairly and eventually led to many leaving the department.
additionally, from a city management perspective, negotiating with multiple associations increases the complexity,
administrative workload, and legal costs. It opens the door to conflicting mous,
inconsistent work conditions, and competing agendas. These outcomes don't serve our firefighters, our city staff,
or the residents who depend on an effective and cohesive fire department.
we must also consider the precedents it would set. If middle management forms its own association today,
who's to stop future attempts by other subgroups within departments from doing the same?
we risk opening the floodgates to excessive segmentation across city departments.
the concerns of middle management are valid, but they don't require a new association to be addressed.
the existing firefighters' association can and should provide a structured space for all voices within the department, including supervisory staff.
subcommittees or dedicated roles within that association could focus specifically on middle management needs without the downsides of the division.
I respectfully urge this council to consider the broader impact on department unity,
as well as the fiscal responsibility and considering the city's current financial landscape is more than ever in long-term labor relations.
let's work together to strengthen what we already have rather than divide it. Thank you for your time for listening.
>> thank you, denita. Any other comments on this item? Mr. Bowen.
>> back again, mayor, council?
I guess my one-word response is no. If you look at tonight's agenda at the end of this meeting,
you meet with five groups. It looks like, including unrepresented groups.
you're meeting with them with groups all the time. The earlier presentation today says we have 192 employees.
we're going to have five groups plus unrepresented.
this just gets silly. I don't understand. Two of the individuals have just been hired.
they're relatively new. The deputy fire chief and the fire marshal.
another one is recently promoted to these positions.
I had the chance to have some back and forth with one of the battalion chiefs,
and he talked about equity and fairness. He just got promoted.
he talks about equity and fairness. I asked him, quite frankly, I wish he was here.
are you not being treated fairly? You took a promotion.
did you not understand what the rules are and the payments,
and all of the things that go along with that promotion? Less than a year later,
you want to come back and say, we're being treated unfairly. That's his words, not mine. I don't get it.
you've got two brand new employees, they've been here, I think less than a year,
maybe barely over that, and now they want to form because they need special treatment.
it makes absolutely no sense. We are a town of 32,000 people.
how many negotiating groups can we handle?
we just saw a budget earlier today, says we're upside down.
we're in trouble. It blows my mind to tell you the truth.
I hope you guys look at this. Jr, I'm not sure in the wording is do you have to do it?
does the california law because they've requested, do you have to let them form a group?
I'm not quite sure of that. Maybe the lawyer can answer that,
or can the council say, no, you've been hired,
you have a group, you have a contract. Especially the new guys.
I'm sure they negotiated when they came here.
if they didn't, I would be shocked. So they came here knowing what the job is.
they came here knowing what the perks are. They know their responsibilities,
and a year later, they have to form a group so they can be treated fairly.
makes no sense. Thank you. >> thank you, rick. Any other comments?
I'm going to close public comment. Chief nik, I know there's a number of questions,
would you like to answer some of those regarding. Just clarify a little more on reasons why?
>> so I appreciate you having me come up, trying to where to start here.
the big elephant in the room, obviously, was the fact that across the hallway, the police middle management group had a bargaining group, if you will,
for lack of a better term of voice, for very operational, specialized requests, that type of stuff.
I'll put it out there, be very transparent. I fully support this move by my middle management,
all of my chief officers for for the very same reason.
there are some very specific requests and needs that they have, not necessarily just pay benefits,
quality of life issues. It covers everything. So this particular group of
chief officers currently from the deputy chief all the way down, including the fire marshal.
they are part of an unrepresented middle management group that already exists,
but they get lost in that minutia. When there's some very specific operational needs that they have,
it's hard for them to have that voice and work through the good faith bargaining process, if you will.
they can request and reach out to hr jr, and hey, this is something we'd like.
this would bring us up to parity for whatever that reason is
to either southern california standards or la county operational area standards, whatever that may be.
this will allow them to actually not only have a voice, have an identity as a group,
but also have the ability to work through the good-faith bargaining process back and forth.
I absolutely have the utmost respect for tanita and rick, and I applaud them for being engaged in paying attention.
this is a good thing. This is an industry standard, quite frankly. Every department that I was at in the past,
my two departments at camber and orange county, all had fire middle management groups, if you will.
it is very uncommon. Very uncommon for fire management staff to be a part of
the broader fire associations because there's an inherent conflict of interest there, if you will.
if there happens to be some litigation or something around discipline, they're effectively paying the attorneys that are fighting them.
there's some big problems there. This is very common in the industry.
I fully support it, and I think it actually is a good thing for my staff.
>> chief, a real quick question. Elephant in the room.
is this have to do with pay parity with firefighters that are making more overtime?
then say one of your upper management people?
battalion chief, if firefighter was working, let's say,
out on fire crews and making overtime filling shifts, making more than a battalion chief or a deputy fire chief.
is this the reason when we get into an mou, that I know that they're saying there's no financial deal here,
but the point is that they wanting to get parity with the rank and file when they're already management,
and do they want to have the opportunity to have overtime and be paid more than the people that they they're serving under them?
did I make that clear? >> yeah, chief, I don't know. I think the city attorney would like to answer about the legality
of the item and the request,
and whether we have to honor it or if we can say no, and what would happen. Before we discuss any negotiating items or anything like that?
>> I'm just asking the questions, so that's what we have you here. >> hi. Thank you.
mr. Mayor, members of the council. Yes. When the associations properly petition under the mayer mis brown act,
we are required to grant them the group status,
subject to the right to protest of other groups who believe that there is appropriate representation already given.
as the chief pointed out, they're unrepresented currently.
as he also pointed out, it is very common to have environmental management have its own group separate and apart
from the line employees as to what they may ask for.
I think that's a matter we should discuss in session.
when it's properly agendaized.
>> but we do open the door for that. >> I'll just leave with this. A lot of this is being driven by
the battalion chiefs because there's a lot of confusion in that particular office, whether administrative versus operational,
and what their role is in the organization. That's not germane to tittleburn.
that's industry-wide. Again, just allows them the opportunity to have a voice and have discussion.
>> I appreciate that. I have to ask the question. >> got it I understand. >> mr. Crosby, thank you, chief.
>> no, I appreciate the dialogue. As a person that negotiates and with unions,
I've been many a times where new unit members were put members were put into the unit.
not necessarily wanting them to or why they were doing it,
but it's something you have to go through, negotiate with.
that is just part of our laws that we have to abide by.
>> mr. Johnson.
>> it's a no-brainer if it's a legal requirement, and we need to recognize them as a group.
what else is there to say? The law is the law?
>> but we don't have to. >> we do? >> we have to now. We have to vote on this either well
[overlapping] stephen file I'm voting on. >> they have met the requirements. [overlapping]
>> they've met the requirement. We're going to allow this to happen, and then it's going to come back with us in a 30-day purview,
and then we're going to go to then mou would be formed. And then we will be in close session to discuss the mou and west?
>> yes, sir. >> then that's easy. >> to be clear, within that 30 days,
if there are other employee groups that believe that this group should be subsumed under them because there is an overlap,
then that would be their time to speak up. That would be the next course of action if there were to be a course of action.
>> just a closing on that, and I know we've got to watch what we're saying.
that would be my only concern. Is the fact that still,
and I think the world of all your staff as you know that, and I've supported them long the way.
just that I would suggest caution moving forward as we move forward to.
>> well, no different than any other bargaining group. City has the opportunity to approve or not approve,
and negotiate out of my [overlapping]. >> got you. Thank you for that.
>> thank you. >> the explanation. We really appreciate it. Then we receive and file. Thank you.
>> do we need a motion for receive and file? That's what it says here.
well, let's go ahead and do a motion for the [overlapping] motion to receive and file. Do we have a motion?
>> motion to receive the file. >> thank you. There you go. That was silly.
cross that off of there, mr. Domer. It's already been received and filed. No.
>> second. >> that is right here. No. We're not voting.
there is no other business tonight. We'll move on to public comments. Is the time set aside for anyone wishing to
address the city council on items not listed on the agenda, but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council.
the brown act prohibits the city council from engaging in discussion on any item not on the posted agenda.
your concerns may be referred to staff or placed for discussion at a later date.
there's a three-minute time limit possibly we are getting half a closed session, so we'll try to keep them in line.
first, sonya de la garza.
>> good evening, council members. My name is sonia la garza.
I am a resident of laverne. I'm here to discuss a reoccurring court violation
that is impacting my neighborhood in quality of life.
in may of 2024, I submitted a complaint regarding an rv park in the front yard of 1073 alondra circle.
unfortunately, there was no meaningful follow-up or enforcement at that time.
now, less than a year later, a boat is parked on the same front yard,
which I believe is a second clear violation of the pre-code.
sorry [inaudible]. This is an ongoing situation,
and it is not only unsightly but it also degrades the appearance
of our neighborhood and may negatively impact property value.
we have city codes in place for a reason, and when violations go unchecked,
it sends a message that enforcement is inconsistent or optional.
what makes this worse is how it began. The same neighbors removed
the chair binds and fins that provided us with private green space.
this significantly impacted our privacy and out the ambience of our property.
it's been going on for a while since 2023 and may of 2024,
I addressed this issue, and the person that I spoke with he said that he actually mentioned our fence,
which has already been destroyed on the other side.
it exposed wood that obviously, when we bought the property, it was already there.
we bought the property like that. It had fence, it had a chain link fence.
I had a portion of wood, and it had also the granity that was throwing in there.
honestly, when I went to see my house that we purchased in 2015,
that's basically what got my attention on my house. We beautified that area,
we make it look green, and the people that were living in that area at that time on that 1073 around the circle,
they never complained, they never said anything about the fence. We took care of it on our side,
and they took care of their side, like they supposed to.
when these people moved in in june of 2023, a month later,
they cut it off, and then that exposed our privacy because they live in a cul-de-sac.
now we have spaces in between, and from that moment on,
we didn't have peace anymore. We didn't have our privacy from our backyard,
and eventually became a problem. Then when we discussed this,
we started having arguments, and we noticed that they had an rv park right in front of their yard,
which we know if they can do it, then anybody else can.
if that's a code violation, then it should have been taken care of in 2024 when we mentioned it.
now they have a boat, and the reason why is because they got away with it.
they can get away with anything else. We just don't know how to deal with this anymore.
we never been part of this, and it's been amazing to me because I've never been part of these meetings.
but I am glad I came, and trust me.
it takes everything out of me because I'm not a public person. I don't know how to speak in front [overlapping] >> you are doing just fine.
what's your address? >> 3335 damian avenue.
thank you for your response by the way. I sent you the email, and you send it to them right away,
and I really appreciate your effort.
>> I will have staff look into it immediately. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. Appreciate it.
arza. Oh. Hello.
>> how you doing? First time here too, and I did know.
I'm a union member, and I applaud you there trying to split the unions
and make their own little unions out of everything. Same issue.
I spoke with ron. I don't know his last name, dele sandro.
I think that's the same. About a parking issue with my neighbors more than a year ago. At that time, he informed me that we'd like to
give our residents vern time to correct an issue. Well, it's been more than a year at 1073 a landra circle.
a fence has not been built around this property, around this rv.
they put a cement slab down, which is great. Now they have a boat.
they have a boat parked on the front lawn. It just it looks trashy.
it's parked on lack of a better word pavers, I would say.
I spoke with ron about this issue, and he said it's fine to be there.
I said he obviously he doesn't know the code. I'll read you the code now.
no person shall park any motor vehicle, vehicles, cameras, trailers,
or vessels as defined in the california vehicle code, for any purpose without prior written approval.
about unless you have a development director or designated approval.
I feel wrong here with 22 years of service with the city.
I told him he was inept at his job.
eric, your employee was courageous over the phone.
however, in person, when I came up to him about this compliance issue,
he told me about compliance issue on my property. I spoke to you today and he told me that there no issue existed.
eric, this has been a year. I forgot. I don't know how to say your last name, eric. Sheva?
>> shear. >> shear. Eric, this has been a year.
laverne is starting to look like a city in the desert, and I know that because I'm an engineer for the railroad.
I look at property through the desert for 24 years I've been running up and down coho pass.
laverne is starting to look like a city in the desert with boats parked on the property,
grass not taken care of. It's starting to look like a desert trashy city that we're in.
may I remember shaking your hand when you ran for that position. I hope you can help us with this.
the community looks like trash. I've had to call the police department several
times about issues parking on the sidewalk.
because I have an autistic nephew. He has trouble crossing the street. He has trouble going from transitioning from
a sidewalk to blacktop and back onto the sidewalk.
to go around a vehicle, it's sketchy.
I don't know if you passed the budget or hiring the three I couldn't hear it.
the three new architects. Did you pass it? >> yes.
>> yes. At that cost,
you said it's costing $361,000. I'm sorry. I'm switching this. I was done with my first one.
it's going to cost $361,000. >> you're out of your three-minute time frame right now.
I got your first one in, but I'll give you [overlapping] >> thirty more seconds. >> there you go. $361,000 to hire these three new cadets.
that's 3.75% at 53,000 at $1.5 million.
that's like flipping a toenail off a dragon. It's going to take you 6.8 years to recoup that money.
that's not without paying. I hope you rethink your issue.
I hope you table it. >> thank you, sir. Any other public comments? Miss gabaldon.
>> I'm just going to go through a laundry list. So sb79 has been pushed up.
so we must reach out to senator mcguire,
wahab, certo, derozo, and wiener.
the ender mines affordable housing goals makes the housing element eliminates public input and local control.
as the surpus land act, and it also ignores all local concerns. This week was also designated cost-of-living week,
granted that was by the republicans of california in sacramento, and we need to support aca 14,
which is a bill that they're going to try to put through on the transparency concerning taxes,
rates, and fee increases. With that said county of la has posted this week a fact sheet on their situation.
it's probably the best way to say it. They're cutting their ncc,
their net county costs by half. It was 560 million in 22/23.
this year, it's going to be 230 million. Are there grants, etc,
that we could be losing? Also note they're going to be letting go 60 da employees and 226 probation employees,
and I think that needs to be looked at. California's $12 billion in the red.
how is that going to affect us? With that, there's always people looking for more money.
today, also, the california republicans brought ab12 to the floor,
which got stopped, and both harbdan and rubio voted against this.
this was to put a pause on the 65-cent gas tax that's coming in less than 30 days.
our gases are going up $0.65. Then the usc report,
which was published 45 days ago, they think $8.75 cent gas will be here by september,
and it's when the one last valero.
yeah, gets shut down up north, we'll be at 875, 873. Who's watching for the voters and the taxpayers?
I missed the budget meeting today because I had to work. But who's watching out for us?
because we can't afford any tax increases. We can't afford any more fee increases.
the seniors that I'm with all the time that joes with all the time through meals on wheels.
nobody can afford any more increases. So maybe we need a union that's for the voters and the taxpayers.
we talk about all the other unions, but never us. It's just getting ridiculous. I work for cities.
I work for a lot of cities. A lot of people having problems, but there are cities who cut,
they figured out ways to cut, and they're not raising fees, and that's what we have to do here.
lastly, because there is more, aqmd is rearing its head. On friday, there's a vote to approve the rules par 1111 and 1121.
this is going to require retrofits of every single home in california for no more gas appliances by 2029.
I have a lot of friends in the ac industry, talk to them all, about a half a dozen of them,
two of them are retiring this year, but if this gets approved, they can't do their business anymore.
the average cost to put one of these special, not free units in is $47,000.
how is the average homeowner going to afford that? How can most people afford that?
on top of that, it has to get calibrated every year or quits working,
and then you're out of compliance. If you don't want to do this, you can pay a $2,000 fee a year to be in compliance with the aqmd.
nobody has money like that. We need you guys. It's friday morning, 9:00 a.m. At the aqmd offices in diamond bar.
it's also online. We need people to speak out? We've got to stop this.
then the other last thing about june, this is global, and it's been around for 100 years, 200 years?
june is actually the sacred heart of jesus month, and I think that takes precedent over everything. Thanks.
>> my last trip up here, four hours and 15 minutes.
>> I just came back from texas, paid two dollars and 50 cents for gas. What does that tell you?
first of all, I want to offer my condolences to kash,
the loss of his father. I didn't see it on the adjournment for the last meeting,
but I did see it in the newsletter, so sorry to hear about your loss.
also want to send condolences to the hunter family.
heard that gary hunter passed away. Certainly always enjoyed his comments and his observations.
yeah, he is a very good guy. Just for the record, june,
42 years ago, I moved to laverne. So to see the changes that have occurred
positive and sometimes not so positive certainly have a history.
I also want to stand with our police, saluting life at baldwin park,
pd officer samuel riveros,
murdered over the weekend, showed up, was shot in the head, killed.
criminals need to be removed from our neighborhoods. Let's stand with our police, all police,
and particularly our lvpd and protecting us every day in the jobs that they do.
I also want to mention the terrorist attack this week in boulder, colorado.
it's not laverne, but it's amazing when you hear this thing.
this monster should rot on hell. Pardon me.
remember that he set people on fire because of their religion and their beliefs.
please remember that the next time you see a free palestine or a anti israeli protest.
this is shame, should not be happening in america.
lastly, as you celebrate pride month this month,
I hope we all support the efforts to keep biological men out of women's sports.
it's unfair and it's ridiculous. It should not be happening and I hope you saw the cif finals this weekend.
a biological male took most of the gold medals.
that is an absolute shame and it's a disservice to our girls.
a couple of questions. In late 2021, we were notified about a potential move of youths to aferbok page.
we heard about it. We got together. There was 200 people up at oak mesa.
I think this is a huge issue for us and we need to know about it.
we haven't heard much about this one. I would hope that maybe this is an agenda item that pops
up every meeting until we know what the hell is going on up there.
these are not youths. They're not kids that were put in there for smoking pot.
these are bad, bad people. My understanding is they're up to 25.
they are not youths, and they are criminals, and some of them ardent criminals.
they should not be in our community.
also I'd love to get an update from the city manager on the effort to put in
the fiber if that's scheduled for northern laverne as we still have lousy service up there,
and I know you've authorized it, but it would be nice to know when we might see that happen.
lastly, I've asked the city a couple of times certain people to sponsor quarterly town halls.
there's a lot of things that cannot be addressed at these meetings.
I've brought that up many times before. Actually, I was told that that was probably
a pretty good idea and somebody would arrange that, but I don't see it as an agenda item.
I'm asking one of you to put that as an agenda item next time so we can have town halls.
we can have you. We can have the management, the managers of the different departments come and let citizens ask them questions.
things that cannot be or will not be addressed in
a form such as this where it's comments and not q&a.
I ask that again and I hope that is something you will commit to.
I appreciate it and have a good night. >> thank you, greg. >> any other public comment? I'm going
to close public comment and bring up the desk, mr. Crosby.
>> thank you. It's been a long evening. I've been here since 4:30. Please review the study session that we did earlier about our budget.
lot more to come on that of really working out our budget to make sure
that we have a balanced budget going into next year.
graduation, congrats to all the ulv graduates.
benita high school. Sorry. Benita high school is this week.
ramona is on wednesday and then benita is on thursday.
just really appreciate all of our staff and how hard they worked on the budget.
I know it is always ongoing process and thank you for doing
that and we will get to a point where we can all work together and make sure that our residents see that as well.
but appreciate the hard work that you are doing. Thank you.
>> mr. Johnson. >> it was my pleasure to be at holy name of mary to
recognize laverne's first eagle scout female.
a very good friend of your daughter.
she had been recognized here at a city council meeting prior and awarded
the same peter plaque right of laverne.
>> right of laverne. >> right of laverne. That was a special evening saturday night.
>> thank you for being there, mr. Johnson. Council member lau.
>> I know a lot of you that were here earlier heard about the memorial day event.
as they do every year, it went off beautifully. We have brian anderson,
who is the wounded warrior who is represented in the memorial statues.
he was in attendance, and I believe 10 years or so ago, he did come and speak at another memorial day event.
but if you haven't had a chance to go take a look at the statues, I urge you to do so. If you haven't had an opportunity to donate and would like to,
I would encourage you to do so so that we can get that canine up before the veterans day event.
thank you very much yes, ulv did finish their graduation this past weekend.
we had ben aramia, who is the ceo of feast foods as one of the commencement speakers for the undergrads and
then congressman gil cisneros was the speaker for the graduate student.
it was a really good day, really hot, but really nice for everybody to be able to celebrate.
just wanted to also share and I know commander phil ramirez brought
this up earlier about the need for mental health services for our veterans and how important that is and I know that post 12034 has spoken
with and worked with tri city in order to talk about the services that veterans will need or may need.
I urge you to look at the services that are available in that respect if you have veterans in
your life or if you're a veteran yourself and are in need of any of those services.
but I also want to advise that tri city mental health is launching their mobile crisis care launch and wellness fair on june 26th.
it's going to be an introduction into the mobile crisis care team as well as provide wellness information for the community. It's a free event.
there will be raffle drawings and giveaways and it's taking place at cathedral, the union on gary in pomona.
that's again, june 26th. I believe more information will be posted on our website and
via our social media once tri city shares that on social media, but it is on their website presently.
then coming up, we have father's day. To all the fathers, since we won't be here until the day after father's day.
happy father's day, hope you have a good one. I know I've got a good dad. I'm sure a lot of you do too.
as always have a good week and be kind to one another.
>> thank you, council member lau. Mayor pro tem. >> thank you mayor. God bless each and every single one of you came here
today and hopefully you guys had a great time at la county fair. Was over.
hopefully everyone had that opportunity. Congrats to all our grads,
include those at ramona middle school. They graduated the eighth grade onto their new journey in high school.
for those that are graduating this week at benita high school,
ramona as well, good luck to you. I'm trying to find out, but I believe somebody in swim.
I was getting some information from damian high school was possibly one of the winners of cia.
I'm trying to find that out and see if that's something that we can be able to recognize that amazing individual for their hard working achievements.
>> you float? >> no. I use flores and I cheat when I play my son water polo.
that's it god bless america and god bless city of laverne. >> thank you, mayor pro tem kash.
first of all, thanks for everybody being here and also thanks for staff. We threw a curveball,
but it's important that we know what we're giving out to our residents. Kristi you're doing an amazing job.
we're so far ahead of where we were over the last many years and even though there's a deficit,
I think we together as a team to reduce that and I do appreciate that and we'll get that to us.
we do have anything in the back of the agenda, you can find out what's going on in our neighborhoods,
but there's some big stuff coming up. We have our glendora station dedication for the aline gold line.
that's this thursday from 1:00-3:00. Then on saturday, we have the san dimas station opening from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm.
that's this saturday. Then fast forward, we have on the 21st which is the laverne gold line station,
the 21st of this month, june.
this is all june. The 21st of this month from 10:00-12:00, the laverne station opening,
and then we have what was the other one we got?
we have the pomona station on friday the 20th from 1:30 to 3:30 pm.
we'll post these up on our website on the city website, but it's a lot of fun,
a lot of people there. The stations coming. You probably won't see the station opening until maybe august,
maybe late july, maybe september. Director shar around there.
we don't know yet. But this is [inaudible] metro is the one that pushed this as far as the openings.
we're all going to be there, but the trains aren't going to be working yet until we notify everybody.
but you'll know when they start working. The bridge actually.
that was a very good question. We the san valley council of governments has approved that.
they're basically going they're actually cutting a contract, so I'll bring more information on it as we come forward.
also this last week, I was in sacramento on wednesday for the kalka,
which represents 41 cities throughout the state from northern to southern california, the mexican border.
just on regional issues, most of them are on greenhouse gas emissions,
ring the numbers for the housing elements, and carb, and all these things that really affect us all in the long run,
but more to follow on that. It's real technical, but at the end of the day,
it basically says that less cars on the road,
less fossil burning fuels, more electrification which a lot of it as we know and we've seen,
is not working well, so more to follow on that, but very concerned with what's going on with that.
as far as we want a clean state, we all want to have a clean state, but again, we have to afford to live here too,
so that's more information to follow on that.
gold line station, I think we're good there.
city attorney hall barlow. We're going to recess in a closed session.
would you please read the closed session items for this record and let us know if there will be any report and afterwards. One more quick question.
as we stated, there's lots of graduations right now, please slow down and pay attention.
our grade schools, our middle schools, the college. Lots of things are being cleared out at the college level.
people are leaving campus, our high schools. Please slow down and pay attention.
lots of families, lots of kids, lots of stuff. >> mr. Mayor, members of council,
city hall will close 4:00 pm on thursday. >> that's because of the graduation of benita high school
because you couldn't get out of here if you didn't get out [laughter] >> I'm talking about.
>> thank you, mr. Mayor. The closed session items for council discussion
this evening with a conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6,
negotiators are city manager, assistant city manager, and city attorney.
the employee organizations are laverne city employees association, laverne firefighters association,
laverne police middle management association, laverne police officers association,
and all unrepresented employees. Then we have conference with legal counsel,
existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9d1.
that is workers' compensation case number wcab adj 19755035.
I do not expect any reporting out this evening. >> thank you very much. I want to adjourn tonight's meeting in memory and honor of
baldwin park police officer samuel riveros who was killed in the line of duty on saturday night.
officer riveros of pasadena was an avid dodger fan,
had served baldwin park for nine years and was a dedicated police servant and a public servant.
he is survived by his mother and sister. My he rest in peace.
this has got to stop, as mr. Bowen said. This has to stop.
unfortunate, very unfortunate. Our next regular city council meeting will be monday,
june 16th at 5:30 pm. As a reminder upcoming events and meetings were posted on
the last page of the city council meeting, we are recessed in a closed session at 9:00 pm. Thank you all for being here.