Charter Review Committee – February 6, 2025

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the February 6th meeting of Glendale's Charter Review Committee. Item number 1 is roll call. Committee members Durham?

Here.

Flower?

Here.

Garibayan?

Here.

Haroutunian?

Here.

Karpetian?

Here.

Menasarian?

Here.

Megradichian?

Here.

Miller?

Here.

Meek?

Here.

Povilaitis?

Present.

Smith?

Present.

And you?

Present.

Item number 2, regular business agenda. Report of City Clerk, reposting of agenda. The agenda for the February 6th, 2025 meeting of the Charter Review Committee Was posted on January 31st, 2025, on the bulletin board outside of City Hall.

Oral—

item 3 is oral communications. Discussion is limited to items not part of this agenda. Each speaker is allowed 3 minutes. The committee may question or respond to the speaker, but there will be no debate or decision. The Charter Review Committee lead may refer— or chair may refer to the matter to— may refer the matter to staff for investigation and report. And committee members, we have one in-person comment card and one phone call. Which would you like to take first?

Can we start with in the room?

Sure. So we'll take Herbert Milano.

Thank you. Before I start, I was wondering if you can pass out around the document that I prepared for each one of the committee members.

Please, sir, could you speak into the microphone?

Is this working? Hello? Yeah, it's working now. Okay. Thank you very much. My name is Herbert Molano. I've decided to put before you some of the topics that I felt would be relevant for this committee to take in your future meetings. I figure that 12 meetings is kind of like insufficient to really tackle some of the most salient and problematic issues that I have experienced in basically being very active in the last 24 years with the City of Glendale. Some of you are new and you probably are aware of some of the issues that have occurred in Los Angeles and you maybe use that experience as a way of saying let's make sure that we don't create in Glendale the situations that have occurred in the City of Los Angeles, for example. I'm referring to corruption. But there's also inefficiencies and problems having to do with waste of money, waste of resources, and significant impacts that impact your quality of life. Most of you don't know that today every household in Glendale owes $18,000 roughly on what is the pension obligation and what is the bond obligation and the infrastructure deferred maintenance on our infrastructure. And I think the number is probably much higher than that. It impacts you how the city runs, how the finances are done, how we do, uh, how we oversee The way the city performs should be part of the discussions of this committee, because simply changing the chairs on the Titanic, in my opinion, is not going to really fix the problem. We need to create guardrails to the way the city council performs, to the way the city performs after the city council is elected. 3 city council members can direct the manner in which the city is going to perform. So the management of the city is completely dependent on the quality of the thinking that goes with each councilmember and their ethics, but also in the manner in which we create the guardrails so that they don't overextend those bounds. It is my hope that in addition to looking at the way that the elections are conducted, that you look carefully at some of the issues that I presented here because they merit your attention and may encourage you to request additional meetings to discuss them further. How much time do I have? Very well. I'll talk later. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um, is there anybody else in the room, or is—

okay.

Anybody online, or—

Uh, we have one speaker on the phone.

Okay.

Okay, Beth Brooks. Uh, this is the Charter Review Committee. You have 3 minutes.

Thank you so much. Yeah, this is my first time, uh, speaking to this committee, which I think is actually very important. First of all, uh, your agenda document online— I don't know if this is a violation of the Brown Act, but it doesn't even include a phone number to call so that the public can make comments. Uh, given that— I have a couple of comments. Given that the City Council may be the only meeting where the public gets somewhat involved, why isn't a Charter Review Committee meeting, which seems to be very important, included as an announcement in the City I think you— the city council needs to do that, to announce these meetings, because that's not exactly transparent. Um, I'm interested in the makeup of this committee. I mean, who exactly you guys are and how you're chosen. And if one of the issues in, you know, that's coming up is discussing the idea of council members, uh, being voted on per district, Does your committee equally represent those districts? Because I would think they should. And I'm interested to know how many members on the committee are renters, if any, and how many are low-income individuals. So, uh, and I'm also interested to know when you're going to make important decisions about the charter, uh, where you're getting this feedback from, especially given, as I said, as my first point, you don't even include a phone number for the public to call. Uh, so I think that this is just broadly speaking a problem with Glendale in, in general, uh, the Glendale government, that it doesn't do proper outreach at all. If you look at Pasadena, you should take a look at what they're doing in Pasadena. It's incredible. Because I want to, uh, copy what they did with rent control. So I've been looking at their website and it's, and it's outstanding. So I think that somebody should pay attention to that, uh, to remake what Glendale is doing as far as lack of outreach to the community. So that's, uh, those are my comments, and afterwards I'll speak on 5C. Thank you so much for letting me speak.

Thank you. Speaker, we have no more callers.

All right.

Briefly, the selection process for this committee was very transparent. All of our— all applicants' resumes and applications were posted to the city website, and I believe There were maybe about 30 applicants. 12 were selected. And I think those applications and resumes are still on the city website.

Thank you. All right.

Item 4.

Um, 4A, approval of minutes. These are the minutes from our meeting of January 16th, 2025. Is there any public comments on the minutes?

No, there are not.

All right.

Seeing none, Anybody on the committee have any changes or corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Motion to approve.

Motion from Meeks, second from?

Miller.

Miller.

All right.

Thank you. Roll call, please.

Committee members Durham?

Yes.

Flower?

Yes.

Garibian?

Yes.

Haroutunian?

Yes.

Karapetian?

Yes.

Menesserian?

Yes.

Megreditchian?

Yes.

Miller?

Yes.

Meek?

Yes.

Popalaitis?

Yes.

Smith?

Yes.

And you?

Yes.

All right, motion carries. Um, next item on the agenda is 5A, selection of a vice chair. Um, there is a seat empty next to me. I don't know if anybody wants to put themselves forward or put a name forward. Now is the time.

I nominate Carl Povilaitis.

All right.

I second that.

Okay.

Um, Ms. Povilaitis, are you willing to serve? Okay. Um, are there any other nominations? All right. Um, can we just, uh, do a voice vote? Anybody object? Um, all in favor of Mr. Provolidis as the vice chair, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, congratulations. Come on.

You can stay there.

No, I'm gonna stay here. Okay.

I've unpacked.

Yeah.

All right, um, item B, uh, resolution of the Charter Review Committee establishing a regular meeting schedule. Do we have a staff report? Anyone want to go over this real quick?

Uh, Chair Flower, Vice Chair Povilaitis, members of the committee, you have before you the resolution referenced in our last meeting establishing your regi— regular meeting schedule, including the day, time, and place of that meeting. You may recall, uh, during your last discussion, uh, staff proposed to you meeting on the Thursday after the first Monday of every month. Staff took that back to determine GTV availability as well as meeting room availability and determined that there were schedule conflicts. in securing staff's assistance with IT resources and ensuring a consistent meeting place. So we have brought back to you a resolution for your consideration to meet on the first Thursday of every month rather than the Thursday after the first Monday of every month. I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

I have a question. For instance, looking at the calendar, I think in July, the first Thursday is the 3rd before a long holiday weekend. Do we need any language in here about the committee rescheduling meetings if we have any conflicts or people think they won't be able to attend, or is that unnecessary?

Thank you, Committee Member Durham. I think that's something you can take up at the meeting prior to an anticipated meeting where there might not be a quorum. to determine whether they can be rescheduled. Typically, if a meeting cannot be held due to the lack of a quorum, for instance, the committee members have schedule conflicts that preclude their attendance, there's nothing that precludes you from rescheduling by adopting this motion or adopting this resolution.

We can call a special meeting to replace a lost date for—

You can do that as well.

Okay.

Have we determined yet if there will be a Zoom option For example, the first Thursday in April, I know I'll be traveling as I do every year for a conference. And I would certainly call in from that location, but I'm physically in another place.

Certainly. So, Member Miller, anytime there's an— there's a committee member that cannot attend in person, you can attend remotely provided we comply with the teleconference rules of the Brown Act. If you know you're not going to be able to attend in advance, it would be helpful to let us know, and then we can, you know, secure putting the teleconference location on the agenda so that you can participate via— we usually do WebEx, but we can certainly make that happen.

Any other questions? Any other concerns about the schedule or the resolution? I will thank staff for correcting this. Originally said 6 o'clock. It now says 5 o'clock. And I believe one of our members raised that issue in advance. So I forget who that was, but thank you. All right. Hearing no further comments, do I hear a motion to approve the resolution?

I'll make the motion to approve.

All right, um, motion made and seconded. Um, roll call.

Committee members Durham?

Yes.

Flower?

Yes.

Garibian?

Yes.

Haroutunian?

Yes.

Karpetian?

Yes.

Manassarian?

Yes.

Megreditchian?

Yes.

Miller?

Yes.

Meek?

Yes.

Povilaitis?

Yes.

Smith?

Yes.

Yu?

Yes.

Okay. We are just trucking right along.

Okay.

Item 5C, substantive here. Composition of City Council, at-large versus district elections, number of City Council seats, appointment versus directly elected mayor. This is carried over from our last meeting. There are 3 sub-items listed, so I will let staff tell us what they have in mind here.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we will go through each of these items. The committee asked for an update on some of these or some new information related to the agenda item 5C. And I will start and provide an overview of the CVRA, California Voting Rights Act, and then I think Mr. Israel will discuss items 2 and 3. This is the request for additional information that the committee asked for. And then we can, you know, at that point the committee can continue its discussion regarding the item related to the composition position of the council and provide any further direction you desire. With respect to the CVRA, again, I would just note we're providing this as background because the CVRA has been the impetus for a lot of cities recently to change from at-large to council districts. So it makes sense to provide you this background. But again, what the council is considering this as mainly is a, is a issue of policy, whether it makes more policy sense to have districts.

Thank you.

versus at-large, an at-large election system, and— but happy to go through it. Can we get the slide deck up, please? Next slide, please. So, the California Voting Rights Act, which was adopted in approximately 2001, essentially, in a nutshell— thank you— prohibits at-large election systems that impair the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or influence the outcome of an election. And I'll kind of go through all these different elements briefly. So, a protected class is a class defined by race, color, or language minority group that's protected by the Federal Voting Rights Act. So, you know, it could be African American, Hispanic, Filipino, but those groups that are protected by the Federal Voting Rights Act. So in order to establish a violation or a cause of action for a violation of the California Voting Rights Act, an individual or a group of individuals would have to establish that they're residents, that they're members of a protected class, that this— the city or the jurisdiction has an at-large voting system. And if you recall from the prior discussion, an at-large system could be where The elected members of the body are elected at large by all the residents of the city and can live anywhere in the city. Also includes some jurisdictions that have a mixed system. Anything that's not by district where members have to live in the district and be elected only by members of that district, anything else is basically an at-large system. The plaintiffs or potential class of plaintiffs would have to establish that there's racially polarized voting. And I'll discuss that in a second. And then that racially polarized voting dilutes the votes of that particular protected class from electing or having the ability to influence the outcome of an election. So, racially polarized voting, as defined in the California Voting Rights Act, is where there's a difference between the choice of candidates preferred by the protected class versus the rest of the electorate. So, there must be cognizable differences in the electoral choices preferred by the voters in the protected class and in the choices preferred by the rest of the electorate. And the— in the— what I would describe, I guess, as the cottage industry of CVRA litigation, this sort of racially polarized voting analysis occurs through expert testimony provided— providing statistical analysis of how members of protected class vote in elections of a particular jurisdiction versus the rest of the electorate. That's way too broad for this topic, but I'm just trying to provide that additional background of how that occurs. In addition, in order to establish a violation of the California Voting Rights Act, Um, the, uh, a group of plaintiffs would have to show that under some alternative voting system, and it doesn't have to be districts, but some alternative voting system, alternate to an at-large system, that minority group would have the potential, either on its own or with the help of crossover voters or coalitions, to elect its preferred candidate. Um, this is a fact-based inquiry looking at how the elections occur in that particular jurisdiction. Uh, and again, uh, a court might rule, even if there is racially polarized voting and there is vote dilution, They might find a remedy other than districts, such as ranked choice voting or limited voting or other other mechanisms available to it. The fact that members of a protected class are not geographically compact or concentrated doesn't preclude liability under the CVRA, and that is the main distinction between the California Act and federal law, and and the prime one of the primary reasons why. CVRA litigation has led to many jurisdictions transitioning from at-large to districts. And then with respect to this fact-based inquiry, one of the facts that is often looked at is the number of candidates likely to run in district elections and the percentages that would be necessary for a candidate from a protected class to win. in that election. And just to give you, by way of background, Santa Monica, in the Santa Monica litigation, the plaintiffs were able to establish that in one particular district, Hispanic voters would have, even though they're dispersed throughout Santa Monica, would have the ability to have a district where 30% of the voters were Hispanic, citizens of voting age population were Hispanic. At the Court of Appeals level, the court had ruled that wasn't enough to establish a CVRA violation, and the Supreme Court remanded it back to the trial court to determine, well, with that 30%, could Hispanic candidates with crossover votes, with coalition voting, be able to utilize the district system to increase their chances of getting voters of their preferred choice elected to city council?

Thank you.

Next slide, please. And then members of the committee asked what has been the result of some of the CVRA litigation, or what has been the transition. And as you can see, prior to the 2001 effective date of the CVRA, 23 of the 483 cities in California were districts. Some changes between 2003 and 2015, and then as litigations started to proceed, first really in Northern California and then down here in Southern California, you could see a significant amount of transition occurring from at-large to district systems. And right now, 3 cities that we're aware of are currently litigating: Santa Monica, Burbank, and Huntington Beach. And so with that, that is kind of the summary of the CVRA and how it's impacted— not Glendale, I wouldn't say Glendale because again, We received a threat of litigation over 12 years ago now, or 11 and a half years ago. There was no follow-up from that threat. And the current discussion that we are having regarding transition to council districts is motivated by policy implications and policy desires that council wants to explore this as a mode of its governance. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions regarding CVRA before we move to the next couple of bullet points.

Thank you for that.

That's very useful. Are there any questions from the committee on this topic?

Mr.

Chair, a couple questions.

Paul, go ahead.

In terms of the— The switch to districts, do I understand it correctly that switching to districts in and of itself is not a— and I know this isn't the impetus behind the review, it isn't— a court can still find that there is polarized voting going on in the future?

In Glendale, or—

Yes. Should we change to districts?

Well, if we—

you can only file a CVRA challenge if we have an at-large system. You cannot challenge our district system under the CVRA. It could be challenged under the Federal Voting Rights Act, but if there is a district system in place, that would not be challengeable under the CVRA.

Okay.

That's it.

Thank you.

And the federal act is only enforced by the federal DOJ, right?

Correct.

Or private plaintiffs.

Fair enough.

So what are the key differences between the CVRA, which I get, okay, so if you have districts, whether it accomplishes the goal stated or not, you're exempt from a lawsuit. Have I got that part right?

If you have districts, correct.

If you have districts, whether it accomplishes the goal of In other words, you could have racially polarized voting within districts, and under the California law, there, there's no standing for, uh, for legal action.

Under the CVRA, correct.

Under the CVRA. So, I guess, what's the difference between the Federal Voting Rights Act and the California Voting Rights Act that would get you into, potentially into federal court, but not into state court?

Uh, again, I think that the, a plaintiff would have to, and generally would have to establish that whatever voting system is in place is diluting the votes of minority voters. And it's hard, it's difficult to do in a district system unless you have evidence, for example, that a district is drawn to exclude or include a particular racial group. And you may have read in the news recently, there are some cities that it's been alleged that the district system has been intended— has been— districts have been drawn to preclude or include a particular racial group. racial group or ethnic group, and that may or may not violate the Federal Voting Rights Act. But just in terms of the primary distinction between the Federal Voting Rights Act and the California Act is that under the Federal Voting Rights Act, to challenge an at-large system, you have to establish that that minority group would be able to establish what's called a majority-minority district, meaning they could establish at least one district where the minority group on their own could elect a candidate of their preferred choice.

So, does that mean 51% or having watched something else, is it some other number less than—

Essentially 50%.

50% under the federal law, but other voting systems, I saw a whole thing where it's like it could be 33% depending on the number of seats open?

Correct.

Okay.

Mike, if the City of Glendale does get sued under the CVRA, I've forgotten the code section number, but I think there's a government code that the city council really has the option at any time to, by I think just majority vote, to go to a 5-council-district form of government. Of course, that wouldn't take effect immediately. It would have to, you know, be staggered with elections. But I mean, they do have the option to do it on their own, don't they?

Committee Member Durham, correct. Whether there's a threat of litigation or a lawsuit or not, our view is that the council would have the authority to go to a 5-member, utilizing a provision of state law, 5-member council districts without the charter amendment. But again, the council has been very clear that if they were ever going to go to districts, whether it's 5 members or something else, that they want to pursue the charter amendment route. And I would say the only— and that's— I would leave it at that.

Do we have any more? Oh, sorry.

I just had a question. If they get sued and then they do an action, the litigation before the action will stand in any case, right?

Which action?

For example, if there is a litigation and then they decide to do any changes, the date of the litigation will be— right? It will not—

It won't necessarily affect it. That's your answer, correct. But I would note that there is a provision of the CVRA which is kind of a safe harbor. So it allows cities or any jurisdiction that's been threatened to Within a certain amount of time declare that it's going to transition to districts, and that sort of limits liability that public agencies would have. They can make that determination. They don't have to necessarily go to districts within that time period, but they can say, we declare we're going to start the process and move forward.

Sure, but that's in the case if there is no litigation yet. There has been some discussion, but there is no real litigation.

Yeah, we've— no, there's been no litigation involving the City of Glendale.

That's correct.

Chairman Flower?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, thanks.

Uh, so first of all, I want to commend whoever put this summary of districting discussion timeline together with the timestamps. It was very helpful. Um, but in, in terms of us revisiting this matter, uh, as a— not in terms of the CVRA, but in terms of, uh, policy, as a policy choice, if I understand it correctly. I'm trying to understand the impetus of the desire to change policy, given the electorate, you know, voted in 2015 pretty resoundingly, almost 2 to 1, to not change. Is there any more color we can get as to why We're revisiting this.

I think it's a great question. My I would ask that we wait and discuss that after we've gone through the three discussion areas that have been put forward right now.

But make sure I come back to it if I yeah, it's it's not directly CBR.

No, no, it's it's it's it's central question.

Yeah.

But yeah, right now I'd rather my preference would be to go through these three topic areas. And then see where we are. Just make sure that everybody has the questions answered that they want on these topics since we asked the staff to bring these back. And then we can turn to the broader discussion if that's all right.

Thank you.

I have a question.

On the CVRA?

Yeah, on the protected classes, I guess. Is income level a protected class?

I'm sorry?

Lower income level?

Income? No.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have a couple of questions. And really, this is more just out of curiosity. You mentioned, Mike, that you can even have mixed at-large systems, and that you can challenge that under CVRA?

Correct. So, if you had a— and some used to have this, where if you had at-large seats and district seats, That CVR treats that as an at-large system.

But they don't treat a separately elected mayor like that?

No, right.

As long as that mayor— and that's a very good question— as long as the mayor has some additional duties beyond just being a council member. So that's the distinction.

But if you had 2 just co-equal members of the council that were elected at large and then 3 districted, treat that as at-large?

Correct.

Okay.

And Chair Plower, we have 2 speakers for this item.

I'd rather get through the items, and then we can let the public chime in. You mentioned alternative remedies. And again, this— since we're not facing a suit, I hate to bring it up, but it just caught my ear. You said limited voting was a remedy?

Yes.

What is that?

So good question. Limited voting is where— and one city in California has it, and I can't remember which one it is— where you actually give less votes based on the number of— less votes than there are council seats available in an election. So there's 3 seats up, but you only have— you give 1 vote. And that— so the idea is that that vote will count a little bit further. Okay.

And, Chair Flower, it's San Luis Obispo, and it's adopted for 2026.

Right.

Okay, well, that'll be interesting to watch.

Chair, could I add something?

Sure.

There, according to the city's demographer Doug Johnson, there are other alternative voting methods. Ranked choice, where it's complicated, but the county, Los Angeles County, cannot process ranked choice voting at this point. So, and they do the processing for our elections.

You'd have to run your own election then.

But there is cumulative voting, and Doug Johnson said there is potentially a way to establish cumulative voting and have the county process it. Cumulative voting is when, if there are 3 seats up, you could use all 3 of your votes for the same candidate, or you could split them among 2 candidates, whatever.

All right. Any other questions on CVRA before we move on to Election Code applicability? All right, let's dive into the Election Code.

Committee members, we're bringing back to you a report on the California Elections Code and its applicability to elections here in the City of Glendale. And this discussion was prompted by a question at your last meeting regarding the extent to which the city could establish residency requirements in the city charter. And so perhaps this discussion isn't necessary to dispense with that question. The answer is that California courts have found that residency requirements exceeding 30 days are unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, we were asked in light of that question to what extent the committee should be closely familiar with the Elections Code, and for the reasons that we'll discuss. Our thoughts are probably not very, but there are some key tenets that you perhaps should be aware of. The California Elections Code applies to all municipal elections except where the Constitution of the state or a charter city charter— a charter city's charter provide otherwise. I do apologize for the face mask. I have 2 toddlers, 3 and 5, so I'm kind of in a perpetual state of sickness and don't want to get any of you sick. The Constitution of the State of California, Article 11, Section 5, says that charter cities are empowered to provide for the conduct of city elections, and they have what's termed plenary authority, or complete authority, to determine the manner in which, the method by which, the times at which, and the terms for which Their compensated municipal officers shall be elected. Practically, what this means for your consideration, uh, is that charter cities can determine in their city charters whether their mayor is appointed or elected, how many seats are on their city council, and the method of electing the members to their council subject to the Federal Voting Rights Act and the California Voting Rights Act. If a charter city is considering adopting a charter, these could be considerations that they undertake in the first instance. If a charter city is considering them anew, they would require charter amendments. Turning to the Glendale City Charter, the reference to the California Elections Code is somewhat circular. We go back to state law. The charter says that all elections shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Elections Code as it exists or is thereafter amended for holding of municipal elections so far as the same are not in conflict with the charter. So the charter circles back to the default of the Elections Code unless there is a conflict between the Elections Code and the city charter. And that has less to do with the considerations that you are currently undertaking, a directly elected mayor, council districts, the size of the city council, and more to do with the conduct of elections. So the, the Glendale City Charter does specifically address the dates of municipal elections, the procedure to call for them, and provides that there shall be no primary elections for city office, the canvassing of election returns, which is tallying of a tallying of votes, a notification of successful candidates, and then the terms of elective officers, commonly known as term limits. Otherwise, generally applicable Elections Code provisions, we don't have to go through the sections. I don't think that they're particularly pertinent, but the Elections Code does address for all municipal elections the manner in which candidates are nominated, How ballots are cast and received, conduct at polling places, canvassing of ballots and returns, and emergency elections. So by way of summary, the topics that the council has prioritized for your consideration— the whether to have a directly elected or appointed mayor, size of the city council, and the manner in which city council members are elected. are within the city's plenary authority to determine within its charter by amendment. The provisions of the Elections Code that we would look to beyond those sections of the charter that specifically discuss dates, calling for elections, canvassing of returns, we would revert back to the Elections Code. Again, those are procedural. They have to do with the conduct of elections. And they are more procedural than the primary topics that you've been charged with discussing. Happy to take any questions on the Elections Code that you might have.

Go ahead.

So, in the conduct of an election, just where does— where does this fall? So, if you were looking at something like ranked-choice voting, Or one of those different voting methods, is that a charter issue, or is that a municipal code issue?

That—

Elections code.

Or elections code or muni code. In other words, hypothetically, very hypothetically, if the city was going to leave it at large but wanted to do ranked-choice voting, hypothetically, does that have to be addressed in the charter, or is that addressed by City Council and by ordinance, or either?

The former. It would fall within the context of method of election.

Okay.

Which is within the city's plenary authority, subject to the California and Federal Voting Rights Acts.

And then the interplay between the Elections Code, the way we have our charter written, or just the Elections Code itself, does it allow for, without it being in the charter, does it allow for ranked choice or some other method of voting? Or would we have to specify that in the charter? I'm not sure if that one's clear or not, but—

If I understand the question, it's within the power and contemplation of a charter city to determine its method of government.

Okay.

So we would look to a charter provision to determine whether any applies. If there is no default, we'd go back— if there's no specific charter provision on point, we would default back to what's in the Elections Code. But I think the most direct answer to your question is we would look to what's in the charter to address that issue.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments on this topic? Okay.

Thank you.

One more slide? We're on the topic of cost? We have a few more.

We have a supplement to bring for your consideration, but one more in your packet.

Okay.

I think I got everyone excited there.

Yeah, you did.

It's like director's cut. We also received a request to bring back to you costs of transitioning from a council in which all members are elected at large to an expanded council in which members are elected by districts and potentially a directly elected mayor. Staff anticipates a one-time cost of approximately $150,000 to include, but not be limited to, an office space allocation or build-out, furniture, equipment, including IT resources, and supplies. Staff also anticipates an annual cost of $750,000, again, approximately, to allow for staffing of the expanded council of 7 members, including the mayor.

Thank you.

Would that $750,000 include expenses as well as salaries?

I believe it was, uh, it was put forth as an all-in, as an all-in figure for the staff.

And is that because you got to hire more staff so that each council person is going to have dedicated staff, or it's just kind of just an approximated general cost as you expand the council? There's just that much more staff time that's required generally.

I think it could be either, Chair Flower, and the city attorney could chime in if he has any additional thoughts on the question. But as the committee members may know, the council has recently discussed staffing models to provide them with administrative support, policy support potentially. A lot of that support now comes from the city management— city manager's office for management services. It could be staffing through management services, or it could be staff assigned to the individual council members.

And I will just add to that, in the council's discussion regarding staffing, although they didn't provide any direction to move forward on changing the current staffing model based on what we're operating now, they left open the possibility/likelihood that it would change if Well, it's hard to say because the council does not have their own staff. They're staffed through the city manager's office. So it's the city manager's budget. Correct.

And does the $750,000 amount, is that at the current council member salary? which are fairly low right now. But I mean, it probably does not include any anticipated increase in their salaries.

So his question is, is this estimated cost, the annual cost, based on the current salaries? Because as noted, I think, by Mr. Durham, one of the options is to adjust the salaries for the councilmembers and a directly elected mayor if we go down that road.

It must have been, because we wouldn't have anticipated or assumed what their salaries could be if it was approved. So it takes into consideration their current salaries plus the cost of the benefits, and they do get medical benefits as part of their package.

So just a point of clarification, the, the cost of $750,000 annually is for the 2 additional, so it's the incremental cost above the 5, or is it for 7?

My understanding was the incremental cost, but knowing that there'll likely be staffing costs that will increase with the—

Yeah, that's my interpretation of it. I find it hard to believe that all 7 or 750. I think I view it as the incremental 2 additional seats.

Well, 2 additional seats, but again, noting that likely would be additional staffing model. There'll be a different staffing model for it by district council than we currently have with our at-large council.

Got it.

So said another way, that the total— the gross cost of operating a 7-person council is north of 750.

7-member by district?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thanks.

Denise?

Are there any— are there any costs? I assume that if we went down the path of districts, it has— it goes before a vote. And are there any costs associated with it being put on a ballot that were not addressed here.

Uh, uh, Committee Member Miller, uh, that because we'd be putting this on our general municipal ballot election, there is an incremental cost, but it's— and I'm not sure if it's included. It isn't. It is not included, but it's, it's, it's not significant, uh, because it's just adding maybe one ballot measure or two ballot measures. There's— you— the county charges you by line. I don't have the exact number, but we can provide that to you. But I wouldn't say it's significant.

So it's not calling a special election that would cost considerably more.

Right.

Okay.

I have a question about the staffing issue. That's not— that doesn't seem like a charter issue. That sounds like something that could be just done now by the council. If they wanted to change the staffing, they can change the org chart, right?

That's correct. Yeah, 100%.

And I don't recollect that necessarily being part of our charge. I'm not saying this information isn't relevant. I'm just—

Yeah, we just wanted to provide you the full possible expansion.

So a charter amendment is not necessary to discuss the staffing or the salary?

Correct.

Okay.

Although with the council salaries, that will be— that is part of the—

That is part of it. Okay.

That will come later.

That'll come later.

Okay.

Anything else on council costs? All right. What I'd like to do next is move back to just, you know, reorient ourselves around the general issues about districting and at-large mayor and so on. Jeff, before we do that, I was gonna—

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Oh, that's right.

You have special slides.

Please.

The magic slides.

Yes.

I'm reading the script.

We did receive one other request in the context of your discussion Yes. We did ask each of the city council districts in the last meeting to bring back to you information regarding voter turnout, and that's the supplemental information that we've— we added sort of at the 11th hour to this meeting. We had to reach out to the county to get that information. Again, as was noted earlier, they run our elections and then process that information. So we do have some points of comparison. I would offer a caveat to this information that we— I believe we discussed in the last meeting looking at the Glendale Unified School District Board of Trustees and the Glendale Community College District Board of Trustees as points of comparison. The slides before you don't include the GCCD elections. They redistricted in 2021. There were no seats open. on the GCCD board in 2022. There were only 2 seats open in 2024. So we could not provide you a complete picture of voter turnout because any information we pulled from before the redistricting would not be a fair point of comparison to voter information after the redistricting. The same is true of the GUSD board. They also redistricted in 2021. But all 5 seats on the board were up for election either in 2022 or 2024. And that's the information that we're gonna present to you tonight for your review. So looking at voter turnout in GUSD elections, what you're looking at here is Trustee Area A. That's the pink district in the far north part of the city. There was no election to that seat in 2022. In 2024, there were 30,433 registered voters and 13,412 ballots cast. That's in Trustee Area A, the pink district. Trustee Area B, that's the green district to the west. In 2022, that seat was up for election. There were 26,097 registered voters and 9,322 ballots cast. Trustee Area C, that's the blue district in the center. C was also up for election in 2022. There are 26,227 registered voters, 9,716 ballots cast.

They—

that seat was not up for reelection or for election in 2024. Trustee Area D, that's the yellow district to the southeast. That seat also up in 2022. 24,121 registered voters, 7,686 ballots cast. And finally, finally, Trustee Area E.

Okay.

District E, that is the purple district to the southwest, no election in 2022. In 2024, 21,873 registered voters, 6,603 ballots cast. I'm happy to attempt to answer any questions that you may have about the voter turnout data. Again, this is the county's data, and we've provided what we think is at least a full picture for, for one of the boards. that have trustee areas in Glendale. So with that, I turn it back to you, Chair Flower. Okay.

I have questions. Does anybody else have questions?

Yes, I do.

Okay. I'll let you go first.

I had requested a breakdown by precinct for the last 3 elections. Was the county able to provide that information to us?

We do have raw data, Committee Member. We have— We only have the data in its raw form, and we can circulate that data among the committee members. It has not been reviewed or analyzed by city staff.

Okay.

It's a start. Thank you. Kudos for just getting it.

Any other questions?

In your research, did you find that having that additional days to vote has increased votership? Once that changed?

You mean early voting?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

We did not look at or consider that issue.

It's not a question, it's more of a comment. It looks like less than 50%, 30% voting in— yeah. So, that's—

Yeah.

I was gonna do it later. I just wrote down the numbers.

What's interesting, it's pretty consistent. It's about 30% across the board.

Yeah, I noticed a couple of the numbers where I had to look twice, like, wait a minute, those are the same numbers. Um, I had a question. The distribution of the districts, is it based on population? It's not based on students, or it's not based on—

Population, yes.

Okay, that's, that's what I assumed. So, um, okay, because students could be just distributed wildly differently than the population.

So you'll notice some of the voter registration is lower in some districts than it is in other districts.

Yeah, um, okay, um, that's interesting. Um, I, I don't have any more questions. Anybody else on this topic?

Is that a normal turnout, or does that seem large or small to Do you have any idea?

I don't know that we can opine on that. We can— I mean, we can ask the— inquire of the clerk and see if they have any information on what the voting patterns were, but—

Were they general elections?

Were they—

did they coincide with the general elections, or did they have—

The city—

Yes.

Yeah. The primary election.

Statewide primary.

I have a question as well. Obviously, this is this can be catered more towards parents. Do we look at data on something else that's not student-driven on the votership?

No, committee member. And this information kind of follows directly on the committee's last conversation in trying to identify voter turnout in Different parts of the city? Exactly, in geographically specific areas. So, looking at— we didn't look at broader elections like an assembly or a Senate district or a supervisorial district, for instance, because we were attempting to address the committee's questions regarding voter turnout within the City of Glendale.

Just an observation, and I don't want to overstate this, but it's kind of interesting that, you know, The turnout is fairly similar across these districts, even though it's— they're voting on different offices for different purposes. You might expect to see some variation, but it's pretty consistent. Sadly low, in my opinion, but, you know, pretty consistent. Anything else on this before we move on? We can come back to this.

Yeah, just a curiosity question, because I don't remember the number, but Those would have coincided with City of Glendale general elections also?

Yes.

At-large. Was the turnout on the citywide basis also in the 30% range? If you don't know, it's not something we'd asked ahead, but I'd just be curious at some point whether, whether there's a difference between the district and/or at-large turnout. Or if people are splitting around each one or not. Or people splitting, did they vote for GUSD? But I'm just curious what the voter turnout looked like for the city in its current at-large election and the same ones that we're looking at for him.

You'd be surprised if it varied.

So would I.

But I'm curious.

And Vice Chair, that information would be available in its raw form from the county's information that we are going to disseminate to the committee members. So that's something you'll be able to take a look at.

Will that same information at an at-large vote also be— will we be able to see how it's divided up amongst those, what those so-called districts were within the school districts?

I don't think we're currently—

Not exactly, no. I think that the county's data, and I don't want to speak out of turn, but I believe that the county's data does show by precinct. There's no exact— there's no mapping supplied with it. There are no geographic coordinates supplied with it. So, it would require some analysis to look at where those— where geographically those precincts correspond. But no, it wouldn't overlay with the GUSD trustee areas.

And the context of my question is really to be able to do a comparison between voter turnout. And so, while it wouldn't be exact, if precincts were provided, one could perhaps get to some sort of idea how close an at-large voter turnout is to districts. That's really what I'm going for, and I can do the math.

And we'll provide you what we have in its raw form from the county, free of any analysis.

So, I would point out that we were previously given links to some of the older reports on this issue that went to council, including the various maps that were considered. And if you look at the charts that are associated with each map, it includes voter turnout for these districts. And so the information— now, these are proposed districts in very different forms, but you can see that that sort of data for these proposals, and it includes both, you know, 4, 4, uh, districts, 6 districts, 7 districts. 5 districts in various forms. So you can get at least a rough approximation of whether or not there is a variation in that. So, um, I only just started looking at this, so I haven't really drilled down, but, um, it sounds like the information you're looking for, at least in a modeling form, would be there. Is that right? Anybody?

That's correct.

It's there.

They probably are not—

they're probably not The school districts, uh, districts are not there. There's a couple of the maps I think that— I don't say mirror, but approximate. So you might be able to get a sense in that regard. But certainly, like, if you want to see, there are some districts that are exclusively South Glendale. There's some that are drawn like the ones up here. And so you can see, like, how do the votes— how are the votes based on the geographic area of the city? How did they vote? You'll be able to see that. You'll be able to see population, citizen voting age population, registration, and actual turnout.

Could I add one thing about those maps? Every— you know, anybody was able to submit maps, and the demographer had certain maps he proposed. But on each— on the data sheet for each map, you'll see whether it actually qualifies. It may say not population balanced, and so ignore any maps that the demographer said would not work. And that's stated with— for each map.

Good point.

I'll also add, because I spent a lot of time watching videos, um, uh, those, those maps that were created at least, uh, and discussed at council in October of '23, um, they were, they were prepared and reviewed through the lens of CVRA, um, for, uh, for qualification, if I'm not mistaken.

In terms of whether they complied with—

Yeah, in terms of whether they would develop districts that— not just for the sake of making districts.

Right.

I think what they do is they provide— each one of those data sheets will show what the For example, Hispanic population would be in each of those districts, voting population compared to the other districts. That's correct.

Yeah, there was a lengthy discussion about the threshold and a whole bunch of other interesting stuff.

My only point in pointing towards the map is that we have— it gives you some reference for how voter turnout might vary by different areas of the city, which is what we're lacking.

Yeah, it's a good shortcut to get some data.

Yeah.

Okay, um, if there's no more comments on this directly, um, I was going to invite members of the public to speak, and then we can move on to our, uh, or back to our general discussion on this topic.

Do we have anybody?

Chair Flower, we have one speaker in person and one caller.

Okay, take the person and in-person speaker first.

Herbert Milano.

Thank you. I'd like to request the chair, if I may have 5 minutes. May I have 5 minutes?

Uh, we'll keep it to 3. If we have time later, maybe we can revisit some issues.

All right. The question I want to ask is, will it make any difference with regard to policy direction? Is the school district today, with all the districts providing now different policy directions to these areas? How about the GCC school district? I mean, district, the college district. If you don't know if it's actually benefited, if it's simply a numbers of votes, then it makes no difference, this particular exercise. What matters is what is the city doing for that particular area or for that particular ethnicity? Because we have a significant problem that I can tell you that begs for districting, and that is parkland. I mentioned it before, but here is the planning document from 1996. It's almost 30 years old. And in here on this page, it says that we are short 25 acres. And even though I presented this multiple times to the city council, they never took action. Even today, they're not willing to even give 1% of the total distribution of general— of the funds of Glendale, right? The appropriations. Not even 1% for additional parkland for an area that needs it. It has the highest density. So you said, oh my, this really begs for districting, right? So let's assume that we have districting. We have one person now being elected against the other individuals. Will this pass? Will this deficiency be taken care of? It doesn't. And also, you have another problem is the gamemanship that takes place. You know that you could have voted for John Kennedy about 16 years ago, because it's a name that was placed on the ballot to basically draw votes from somebody else. When I ran for office, there were another 2 Spanish individuals that I never heard of, never saw on City Council, never were activists in any way. And when I asked them, can I meet with you by the council chambers? He says, where is that? They never attended the council chambers. In other words, they were placed in there as a way of manipulating the vote by putting a name that was similar to mine, And basically to remove votes from me. And do you think this is not going to happen under districting and even worse? So how do you fix that problem? How do you address a problem with an election system that has changed? That's the question I want to pose to you.

Thank you.

Told there was one caller, but— We've lost our staff.

Hello?

Caller, I apologize. If you can hang on.

Oh, we do.

Hello?

Just a moment, please.

Hi, Beth Brooks. You have 3 minutes. Thank you.

Hi, thank you. Regarding the, you know, districting and the changes to the makeup of the City Council where we clearly need more people. I mean, we had 3, 3 council members vote yes on a $230 million bond. That's pretty insane. Uh, I'm assuming that this could just go on the ballot and let the people decide. I'm hoping that that's what I'm actually hearing, because if not, I don't see how a committee decides that fact. It has to go on the ballot so people decide. And which Last time it was on the ballot, there was a lot of misinformation. The way the ballot, uh, uh, the way the measure was worded, I would like to know also who writes that, because the pro and con was clearly very, very skewed. I mean, I was a proofreader and editor, and I'm a writer, so that was, that was, that was very unacceptable. Uh, and my other question regarding, again, this committee I was just told to look up resumes. As far as I can see, I can't find any resumes. Number 2, there's no addresses. So I can't tell if you're a renter or not. So I would appreciate on video memorialization, if anybody on that committee right now can please respond whether you are a renter or not with your name, I would appreciate that. Otherwise, I can't find that information out. And I think I'm entitled to that information as a, as a resident of Glendale, to find out whether I am represented at all on this committee and by how many people. Uh, and my other point is regarding all these issues that you're talking about, as far as makeup of the city council and, and districting. When we make comments to you as a committee and nobody responds, I understand that, even though you have plenty of time to respond. And I should think, hopefully, you had the interest to respond to the public, but apparently not very much. It goes nowhere. How do I know that my concerns were addressed anywhere? How do I get my questions answered? How do I— you know, we make comments to these committees and to the councils, and it just goes into thin air. The man who just spoke twice, how does he— where does he get his answers from? What's the recourse here? So, you know, before you guys leave, I would really appreciate it if you could call out your names and tell me whether you're a renter or not, because I'm very interested in this. I know nobody in the city council is, uh, because I think districting— I know according to the Civil Rights Act, you know, the Voting Act, that it has to be racial, but I think it's really an income and class issue here, which goes into race. But that's really what needs to be represented, the people who are not at the top echelon of this city. So that's it. That's my comment. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Chair, those are all the speakers.

All right.

Thank you. I just want to respond briefly to a couple of points that were just raised by the last speaker. One, The addresses are redacted from the documents that were released to protect the privacies of individual members. If any individual member here wants to go ahead and disclose, they can do so, and they can do so here or anywhere else. We're all residents of the city; that was the primary qualification. Secondly, now I'm just going to leave it at that for now.

Oh.

So if there's no other public comments?

No.

Okay. So it seems to me like we're back to the big question, and we've gone around it again. So I've been trying to think of how to kind of more systematically take on this question of— that's kind of all mixed together between council districts, separately elected mayors, and the number of districts. So I'd like to kind of get a sense of where everybody are on some kind of key questions that I think are kind of necessary to answer before we move on to the next topic. Um, so the questions I, I kind of thought of for myself are like, am I, am I willing to consider moving to districts, or am I adamantly set against it? Because if you're not— We're If the group as a collective whole isn't willing to consider districts, we're kind of done. So that's kind of a threshold question. And then after that, if we decide that we're willing to consider districts, without getting into number, are— do we want to consider a separately elected mayor? Yes or no? And if not, well, that question is settled. And then we're— And if we do, we can then talk about what powers does that mayor have? And then we get to, if we're still on this path, how many districts they should be. And I presume that's part of the charter amendment, would be the number of districts.

Yes.

Okay.

And so, step by step, we get to these questions. But if we— if the group doesn't wanna go down this road, let's just figure that out first.

Okay.

Can I maybe just a question, maybe, for a comment? So I think what we would like to know as a staff when we present it back to council is even assuming that the committee is not in favor, wouldn't be recommending transition to districts, I think the council would still want to know, okay, but let's say council decides regardless, they still want to know how the committee feels about a directly elected mayor and what the size should be. So I would just offer that as a suggestion that they still want your input on that regardless of whether you think—

So the recommendation is don't do it, but if you do—

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Um, fair. Thank you for pointing that out. And then, and the last question I had, um, and I don't think that this is in our mandate, is to discuss how the districts would be drawn. Um, we obviously would not be drawing the districts. I don't think that that is something I signed up for. Um, but are we to ultimately get to recommending that the charter say something about how the districts should be drawn, because it doesn't necessarily have to be done by the council. There are independent committees set up in some jurisdictions to do it.

Correct.

Either ad hoc or permanent or however. I just didn't know if that was something that the council had asked for us to consider.

Ms. Stratton, to be frank, I don't know that they got into that level of detail.

Okay.

But certainly if the committee has a feeling that it should be a district committee versus the council, you know, going through the process every 10 years. And that's— that can be part of the committee's recommendation.

Okay.

So yeah, just, just from the standpoint, if the committee wanted to go there, let's say the committee doesn't necessarily want to go with districts, hypothetically, should council be larger than it is now? It's been 5 for a number of years. So does— yeah, so hypothetically, would 7 at large resolve any of the potential CVRA issues that might or might not materialize.

It might exacerbate it.

Could. As I said, I don't know the answer. As I said, and I'd be curious on thoughts going, you know, while we're talking about districting, but I think one that's kind of missed in there is going, hey, even if, if you don't go to districts, we've grown as a city in a number of, number of years, you know, in order to kind of keep representation and access workloads and all that manageable, should we consider an increased size of council?

All right, good addition.

For the list, I'm not advocating just—

Oh, I, I understand. Um, I'm, I'm not either. These are just logically, I thought, the questions that we're going to have to get to at some point and that we ought to take them in some order. And, um, and this isn't about making final decisions. This is a discussion framework is how I see it. So I'm curious what people think, I mean, of that ordering of the questions. Districts, yes, no? Separately elected mayor. Does— here's a question I thought. Does the issue of whether or not the mayor would be separately elected change how you would vote on the issue of whether there should be districts? Because you could have a separately— could you have a separately elected mayor without districts?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I thought. So, does the issue of a separate elected mayor change how you feel about districts? I think there's been a presumption running throughout that if we go to districts, we would want a mayor. I did notice that one of the maps drawn was like just 7 districts, and I presume that means no mayor. So any thoughts on the order of questions, or should we just start talking? I saw Elizabeth's hand first.

Steve, I, I really think that's the, the route we need to take. First, we need to know really, we really— do we want to go with district? I think that's the main question, and I think that that's important for us to resolve before we go to the elected mayor. And I thought they went together, they had to be together, but I'm glad that you clarified.

Related, but not like one's not exclusive of the other.

Yeah. So I think I love the order and I go for that. So thank you.

I'm going to go—

Rachel had— Before we get into all these details, I still have a question about like, why are we considering changing this like new election system? Like, what problems are we trying to solve? solve. Unless I know the issues, I don't know whether this system is better than the other. And one thing the city attorney mentioned, are we trying to protect the city from the litigation? Or last time we talked about, you know, nobody has— it's been 20 years since somebody from the South has been represented. Are you trying to help somebody from the South to get elected? What is the issues we try to solve? I think that's something that we have to discuss first. And then we can discuss what's the best way to address that issue.

Well, I had a similar question, but I'm going to follow up with another one. What are the benefits that we are seeing in even going to districts? Because if there are not enough, then it might not be even worth considering.

Okay. I think those are both absolutely necessary points of discussion. To me, they sound like we're already in the first question. We are discussing whether or not there should be districts, and the, and the discussion is why would we want districts? So, um, Of course. I'm, I'm opening the floor for that question. Are there people who have thoughts on why we would want to go to districts? Or reasons that they do not want to go to districts? Alan?

Well, I liked your first suggestion where, you know, we could hopefully go around the table and just canvass people. Are you willing to consider districts before we start debating the pros and cons of districting? And it would give us a preliminary indication of just in general, and you don't You don't have to have decided, and you don't have to have all the data. It's just, are you willing to, or is your mind already made up?

Yeah.

Um, would people be comfortable with just your preliminary thoughts, your first instinct? Um, I, I—

my, my opinion is that that's a bit of a litmus test, and I don't think that's a constructive way of approaching it.

Okay.

Um, I think, uh, I think for us to be here, we should all be here with an open mind, first and foremost. And, you know, for me, I'll speak for myself personally. If something is going to make government more responsive to the electorate, if something is going to improve the operations of the city, if something is going to, you know, protect the city and improve the city, that's— those are the questions Whether it's districting or whatever, whatever the issue is, for me. So, you know, because if you came to me, my answer would be, does it meet these criteria? You know, whatever the issue is, whether it's districting or hiring a dog catcher.

Well, let me ask you this. Do you have any thoughts on whether or not districting serves any of these interests?

My initial thought is we've already put it to vote and the electorate has said no. So, I'm still going back to my original question from half an hour ago, which is, what's the impetus behind the policy change? You know, I mean, it's a pretty significant policy change. So, there's got to be a pretty significant reason to do it. And I've watched hours of videos. Like, I even made a binder. And I'm, like, still trying to find the reason. Like, no one can articulate clearly, cogently, succinctly, here is why we need to do this. I kind of started to get there with the CVRA, kind of. And then I went down the appellate court's remand— the Supreme Court's remanding to the appellate court decision. And then I actually read the opinion. And I'm not a legal expert, and I think it's basically we just got to wait to see what happens with the appellate court's decision.

So—

and the city's not even considering that. So I table that, right? So that's gone. So now I'm still left with, well, why? Can someone please just tell me why?

Mike, you want to say something quickly?

Well, I know because—

In response to Paul's point.

Yeah, because Ms. Karubas made it— his request in terms of providing color. I'll do the best I can. So when this was last put before the voters, it was 2015. We have all new council members since then except for one. 3 of our council members, and I'm, you know, this is all public, you know, they, when they ran, they ran and one of their platforms was they felt that a district form of government would be a better form of government. The slide that Sylvia put up last— the last meeting about the pros in terms of constituent services, having a council member that directly represented an area, some folks feeling that it was more— it could be more beneficial to residents in South Glendale. All the reasons that we're staying there are the reasons that have been put forth. As to your comment and question about what's changed relative to that 2015 election, The only thing I'll say, what the folks who are pro have said is that when that was put before the voters, it was just, should we go to districts or not? There was nobody there. We hadn't drafted draft maps. So some of the folks who are supportive of districts have stated, and I've heard this from the beginning, the voters really didn't know what they were voting for. I'm not saying this. This is what people say. The voters didn't know what they were voting for 'cause they didn't know what the districts were gonna look like. This time we have some draft maps. The idea would be that the council would put one of those maps and give it to the voters so they could see what they're voting on, and the outcome will be different. And again, I'm just explaining what the argument is. So that's kind of the— that is the change. There's just—

It's also been a decade.

Yeah.

I just moved here. I think I remember voting no because I— but My perspective 10 years later is different. And, you know, there's new people in the city. It's been, you know, that's 10 years is like half a generation, you know. So people's views can change, the people can change. So I'm—

I, I, I, I, I, uh, thank you, Mr. Garcia, for explaining that. I think, um, for me, um, a decade is definitely a long time, um, half a generation.

It—

I'm still I'm trying to understand, is that a significant enough change to completely rearrange the way elections are done in a city? And just, I guess, the point I'm getting at, I haven't met that threshold personally.

Fair enough.

I'm open to it. I'd love to discuss it. I'm here to debate it because I'm— I just haven't— I can't grasp it. I can't really feel it.

Let me go over to the side table for a bit.

Okay.

Denise?

Just isn't what— what's before us to really go down the path of looking at districting and also equally to look at not districting and then truly just to present that to council recommendations? I mean, is that the fair and balanced way to do it regardless of what we think? For them to look at a policy change, does it make sense for us to do our due diligence on both arguments and see where we land? Or on recommendation, you know.

I think absolutely that's what we're here to do, is we're here to consider the question. And everybody's here to consider both, you know, both sides and hear everybody's perspective. But I think ultimately the onus is on us to make a recommendation one way or the other. Now, not everybody may agree in that final recommendation, but that's why we vote.

Okay. Then to answer your question where I'm at today, I wouldn't be able to even say— I wouldn't be able to give you a definitive yes or no.

I'm not asking you to.

Because I see arguments of both sides. I've had I have personal preferences myself in looking at it towards not districting, but I've also equally have listened to people who are for it. And I'm— so to your question, I'm willing, yes, to explore that. And I don't think it really personally matters what I think. I think the evidence tells us where we're at.

I care what you think. And I'll just come back to something the city attorney said, which is regardless if this group decides collectively, the majority says we do not recommend you go to districts, we would like to keep it at large. The council apparently would like us to say, but if you do go down the road of districts, what do you think about a separately elected mayor? So say that, you know, the voters go ahead and disagree with our recommendation ultimately and they approve districts, what sort of districting scheme do we want to see if that's what the voters choose? Because we don't get to decide whether or not there's districts. Everybody's clear on that. It's going to go to the voters. That's what the council wants. That's what we heard from the members of the public. So Let's entertain the idea. If it does happen, what would be our recommendation? Mr. Meeks.

I have a few comments. Quickly, I wouldn't want a strong mayor system. I would— and our system that we have now, the mayor is, generally speaking, just a council member who gets to conduct the meetings and be a representative at different events and things. Going back to districts, I live in South Glendale, and my neighborhood has talked about a lot of different things. One of their major concerns was that their neighborhood, our neighborhood, is not heard by city council. If we had a district, that person would listen to the concerns that are unique to that area. Also, they've mentioned several times that the likelihood of getting someone who is a renter elected to city council would greatly increase. The representation for the South Glendale seemed to be a strong issue for those who wanted it. Also, the second one would be the cost. It would be less expensive to run a campaign for 30,000 people than 200,000 people. So those are the things that I've been hearing from my area.

I'm going to go to Elizabeth and then I'll come over to Linda.

Just very quick.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, actually, you wanted to speak earlier, please.

It's okay. Oh, thank you. I think this is already a discussion, like you said, because the thinking process takes us where we can or we can't, or when we think and discuss, we find out what's missing for us to even consider any topic. Like Rachel said, that what are the issues? The issues can be because it's currently happening in the city with the council members, or the issues can also be what's happening in the neighborhoods and people because of other things. So I think when we know the issues, then we kind of try to see what the picture is and Like Paul said, is there a benefit to even think about it like you said or not? So knowing the issues, what obviously the council members had their own internal concerns or thoughts for us to be here to consider the changes, but also to know are there any other issues that have been happening, for example, for the last 10 years. A lot of things change and that also has to be considered. of any changes that happen because the changes also bring different types of thinking and maybe the need of the change or not. So for us to kind of go there to even see what we want or we think we should do in terms of bringing up the topics.

So after watching hours of video, just like Paul, and trying to decipher some of this material, and also looking at which Attorney Garcia presented regarding the California Voting Rights Act, I believe that's one of the impetus, one of the things that kind of started this whole thinking about districting. So, I'm always coming back to the original question is, are we— have we violated or are we in violation of any of this law? Are we in— has any, like, a large election may not be imposed or applied in a manner that impairs the ability of a protected class. Has there been a protected class that has—

No.

Not been, you know, served before. Like some of these questions to ask as to why are we continuing to look at the voter— California Voting Rights Act if we have been within the rights? And why are we even considering the lawsuits? I mean, is there a possibility of that?

From my perspective, not as an attorney in this moment, I have no idea whether or not we've been violating it, but I surely hope we're not. But I don't think we are. I think the point of having the discussion was to educate members of the committee to understand why it has been an issue in California generally amongst our fellow cities. and why it's not necessarily the driving issue here, which allows us to kind of free up and have the conversation that we've been having about the more policy choices. I know I was kind of curious. I remember reading a while back that the city had received a threat, and I didn't know how it turned out. I thought it— I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it didn't. And I thought, wow, Mike's a really good attorney. Because everybody else is losing. But so I wanted to hear it for my own edification. And I'm glad we got that. And I'm glad we have this baseline. But I think going back to what Paul said, I think we can put that aside. You know, you know, we're not going to decide whether or not we need to do it to avoid a lawsuit. It's not really our purview. But it is good context to understand why we're having a different conversation than our neighbors are.

Yeah.

Chairman Farah, I just want to add, The information that city attorney provided to us regarding the transitions that have happened since 2015, I mean, my takeaway, what I took from that, is that probably a majority of those cities that changed, changed, would not have changed but for receiving a letter or, you know, trying to avoid a potential lawsuit. I can't prove that. There's no— I haven't done the research, but the circumstances lead me to believe that. So that kind of leads me to, again, back to what's the benefit? You know, if other cities would have stayed the way they were, but for the lawsuits— the lawsuit is not something that we're trying it's not something that's being applied to us, then there's gotta be something else that we need to articulate as to what would drive a change.

One thing I keep coming back to is geography. Because I'm— there are cities that were districted long before the CVRA was enacted. I mean, Pasadena's been districted forever. But I've seen even smaller cities that because of their geography, the different areas of the city have different interests, particularly with driving land use decisions. But just, they have different populations and different needs. And I think you can just look at a map of Glendale and see that. I mean, we have visibly different areas of the city that are widely separated by things like the Verdugo Mountains.

Yeah.

South Glendale, North Glendale. vastly separated. And I'm not saying that makes them vastly different people, but they have different interests in their day-to-day lives in terms of where they live.

And I'm glad you brought that up, which is why I wanted to see the data at the precinct level, because I think that will illuminate that, you know, the hunch, right? Either there's something there or, you know, the data will tell us something different. Certainly the GUSD data Although, not exactly what we're talking about in your case, but you see the participation is relatively consistent across the districts. So, you know, I'd really like to see the precinct-level data.

Well, the thing about the districts that— I used to not be a fan of districting for cities. I thought that it does promote, you know, ward politics, and for, you know, in the worst-case scenario, sort of balkanization. But I always thought school districts made sense because you have services being delivered that should be equal services delivered to all parts of the city. And if not all parts of the city are represented, then who's watching the school down there and making sure that it's just as good as the school that's over here? And that seemed to not be as important when it came to city services. But I think we had— public comment earlier about parks. Parks should— everybody should have equal access to community parks. And if there's nobody representing people who live in one area of the city and they don't have enough parks, there may not be enough political pressure to actually get people to build those parks. There are services that should be delivered in equal measure to different parts of the city.

I think that's a great point. And in that specific issue, again, pure speculation, I feel that would probably lead towards a balkanization were there districts. I think you would see one district who is in need of parks and there's 4 or 6 other districts.

Yeah, but the decisions at the council aren't made just one issue at a time. You know, they're working together on a multitude of issues and you're going to get coalitions that build. between people from different districts for different issues. And you can call it horse trading or you can call it democracy. But I think that— but at least if there's somebody representing a district that's underserved on Parks, they can make the argument that wouldn't be made if nobody was there.

I had a question, Steven. Is there a district that is underserved right now? Is there a way— I mean, we're talking about a district that's not being represented.

Senate.

So I truly want to know if there is a district or an area, a particular area that feels underserved. Because I feel like we have in the— for example, in the south, I go play tennis in Maple Park. And they have a phenomenal park. They have a phenomenal complex. So it's like, is there a district that truly feels that they're not getting the services that because they don't have— I think that's a great question. a person on the council? Because I feel like the council members have been— they're deciding together for services for all the city, not just one particular area of the city. That's just for my own edification.

I just want to know. I can't speak to any particular complaints. So I'll turn it over to the staff or members who have heard things from their neighbors.

I have a couple of comments.

Oh, can we go to Alan first real quick?

This is just my experience, particularly before the 2004 election at City Council. There was a— she ran for a council seat. She was a regular, Karen Kwok, at City Council meetings. And she had quite a bit of support from South Glendale. And, you know, they claim to be underserved, particularly because they're renters rather than homeowners, and don't feel that they have enough representation on council. I'm just repeating what their arguments were, but they've definitely made it clear that the renters in South Glendale feel that they're not properly represented, whether that's true or not.

No, that's okay. I just was reminding. Um, all right, so after watching the videos like everyone else, um, I ended up going and checking the cities since 2018 that they ended up districting, basically, uh, Daly, Santa Monica, Redwood, Salinas, Fremont, all of them. Majority of them, the reasoning was— I mean, some of them are small cities, 85,000 population, 90,000, 100,000. And after looking at them, most of them were, uh, mainly focused on the neighborhood not being representative— represented, and that was the reason for districting. However, with that being said, I'm also an engineer and we say, if something is not broken, don't fix it, don't touch it, basically. So I like to have that mindset as well to evaluate things before jumping into changing something. And that's why I asked about the expected benefits of it.

Because if—

and I have my own pros and cons here. I mean, it's the representation, localized government. I don't know, increased voter engagement, if we are expecting to see that, if it's going to change it, I'm not sure. I feel like usual voters are the ones who always vote, and we rarely get people who are just not voters just change their mind and start voting. However, there are some cons that I see as well, which is I don't want to see our city in a divided— as a divided community. That's concerning to me. I don't want the focus to be on basically smaller issues versus the broader issues that the city is facing, which I think that could also cause it. And also, one main concern that I had probably was the reduced pool of candidates that we might have because we might not get enough candidates from some districts, and then we have to decide what we are going to— the council is going to do, and if the council is going to appoint someone to that district, then how is that district even being represented? So that's one of the main concerns that I had and just thought I should share it with everyone.

I'll throw in the perspective of someone who's a little newer to municipal politics. I thought we were district-based. Like just being, you know, kind of a silly, bright-eyed younger guy in politics. I was like, oh, my councilperson, my district. So then hearing all this, I was like, oh, we're not? We don't have a mayor or we have rotating mayor? And like even talking to my friends and stuff, sometimes it comes off as a surprise because I think there's kind of an ideal expectation of what it was. Obviously not saying that the system doesn't work whatsoever, but the pros that were presented, the cost to enter the race, smaller, more responsive districts, representing South Glendale as a proud South Glendale renter, these kind of things. These intangibles are very important. And I think, as everyone's saying, oh, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Sometimes these ideals, these little intangibles of going for better representation, more accessible politics, feeling more represented on the council, those— are important, and you might not find, you know, hard evidence that they're gonna be fixed, but they're important to pursue. So, throwing my hat in the ring, I'm kinda interested in districts.

I just wanted to add something. So, I started to look into— one of the rabbit holes I went into was the cost of running a campaign. And, well, yeah, what I found was that And it's— I don't think it's scientific, but the costs for running a campaign are actually going down globally. And, you know, anything that touches the internet is inherently— you know, it's like an inherently deflationary effect. It brings the cost down. You know, you're not printing—

Well, yeah.

You're not printing mailers. You know, mailers are not as effective anymore. You know, it's social media, it's things that really cost a lot less. So, I just— I tried to have a thought experiment of, is this really, you know, is running the cost of a campaign the issue? And are we trying to level up, like, is that what, you know, potential policy benefit? Because this is a policy choice.

It's—

Um-hum. And I came away with, no, I don't think so. I don't think it's— We're trying to bring down the cost to make it easier for the little guy, because I think the internet is taking care of that already.

But I will say, it does feel much more accessible to try— when you, oh, maybe I could get involved in politics, to have to reach out to 2,000 people, internet mailers, knocking on doors, versus going in and trying to—

The door knocking is—

Yeah.

Dollar-wise, maybe not so much, but— Influence, accessibility, even encouragement representation.

It's a cost, even if it's not a dollar cost, you know, the number of people you can get to knock on how many doors. And if you have to canvass the entire city, try to find those voters, it's just a lot harder.

So, the irony to that is, if you're— will the more dense areas, which are more efficient door-knocking areas, are they gonna be disproportionately ahead of it? You know, are they going to be better served?

I don't know. I would suspect, though, if we actually got that kind of level, precinct-level turnout data, those are low-turnout areas. People aren't knocking on those doors.

Yeah?

That would be my— that would be my suspicion. And I can't argue it, you know, factually, 'cause I don't have the facts. But those are the areas that keep coming up as being underrepresented. are the places where people could knock on doors pretty readily. They can go because there are more dens. All right, there's— I thought I saw a hand over here.

Um, I actually have— I'm gonna—

with—

I have the same comments as Mr. Durham regarding what I've heard from the public about districting and South Glendale not being represented, renters versus homeowners. Um, so just concurring there, but I have a question regarding the slides that were presented. The transition to districts, can you say that number again of the total cities? Was it 300 prior to— of all the cities in California?

Sure.

Was it 400 and something? Was that the number you called out?

483 total.

483 total. So since the districting, 209. That's almost 50— it's just under 50% of cities that have gone to districting. Since, uh, from 2003 to 2015 or '26.

And we would note, and I think it was one of the— and it wasn't the slides, but the data that we presented at a prior meeting, of the cities that are 96,000 or larger, a vast majority of them— so the larger city, more likely they are to go to district. I think the smaller cities, maybe for policy reasons, they figured it's a little bit easier to handle at a large rate, but also due to the fact, I think, that the larger cities were the bigger targets for the CVRA litigation.

Thank you.

I think, you know, all of the pros and cons, or almost all of them, you can flip them. You can flip a pro to a con or a con to a pro. I mean, on the basis of it's a— districting is a more democratic system, more representative. I think that depends on the councilperson in your district. At large, I've got 5 people to go to.

Mm-hmm.

And believe me, not all 5 are responsive or willing to hear your concerns. If that person, if that councilmember is my elected councilperson, I'll be— I mean, I feel that I would be disenfranchised compared to now for 4 years until the next election. And, you know, If there was an elected mayor, then that's somebody at large you could go to. But personally, I don't feel I'll get better representation by having a single councilmember because there's no guarantee that councilmember is going to represent what I think are my best interests.

I'd also add, um, a lot of the issues are not strictly Geographic in nature, and because when I heard Alan speaking, that's what came to mind. You know, there's there's people who don't necessarily live near me who have the same issues, and people right near me who I don't agree with on certain issues. So it's it I I think issues span geography, and it's an oversimplification to say. If you have a district and there's somebody in your district, they're going to represent you better.

Not an argument, but even the issues that the city doesn't take—

everything—

I mean, most of the services— building permits, trash pickup, police, fire—

I think—

yeah. I totally agree.

I've gotten great parking.

Are those—

Thank you. Um, I don't see that in other neighborhoods.

Well, I, I think the, um, again, specifically parks, um, it's, it's tough to build parks in, um, dense areas that have been developed prior to, um, other areas. So it's It's not an active act. You know, it's really— you're trying to unwind something that was established a long time ago. And it's— I'm trying to articulate that. It's a difficult thing to unwind because of geography.

It wasn't a problem that any of us created. I agree with that.

Can I weigh in on that one a little bit?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's been said— Glendale's been quote unquote underparked for a long time, and especially in the southern part of Glendale. But I think you've hit it on the head, is you have a lot of development, you have high-density housing in that area, there's not a lot of open space. On the other hand, Maple Park has been redone. The Pacific Aquatic Center, the pool was built, the Pacific Edison project was built. But short of going in and removing somebody's property, it's going to be difficult to put parks there. So as I said, Glendale I think has a unique challenge in that we're pretty much— other than those big mountains in the center, we're pretty much a built-out city. And interestingly, having been around the city for a while, every neighborhood does have some unique things, but I think this city is much more tied together than I think I've seen other cities in terms of its need for services and the responsiveness of city departments. I am kind of curious when Because I think it's an interesting concept that the government feels responsive if it's districts. You have a person to go through. But then I guess the other question I would put on the side of that is, what's your expectation of that? If you have a planning problem, are you only going to your council member? Is that council member then expected to go do something with planning? And as I said, somewhere policy that councils do meets government that needs to actually get the work done. And ideally, you have a set of priorities. So I guess in theory, a council should act as a body. It needs to have a majority vote in order to say a policy and provide some direction. Does that break down and balkanize it under a district system where it's like, if it's a together system, an at-large system, you've got to consider that? And you've got to consider the needs of the whole city as you put a budget together, as you put services together, as you decide where you're going to locate a park or a fire station in terms of how that provides services to everybody, not just a particular district. I don't know, someone— I think sometimes we get in trouble when we see a program that's somewhere else and go, hey, that looks great, and you try to put it into another city. Someone once told me a long, long time ago in a different life, when you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport.

Mm-hmm.

They all, in essence, do the same thing. You know, you get on a plane, it takes you somewhere, you know, it moves luggage. They all do the same thing. But if you walk around this country, the way that happens in different places is very different. I think city governments and city cultures are also that very different. So what works in Glendale does not necessarily work just over the hill in Pasadena or Arcadia or Los Angeles. What works in LA and everybody goes, hey, it's wonderful, I don't know that that necessarily translates to being—

Everybody says that about LA.

Yeah. Well, there's a whole thing there because when you start talking about the potential with fiefdoms and how is city policy set and how does it work in this district versus that district, that becomes problematic when you're trying to be— when you're the person who's trying to deliver those services. So if you're the city manager or a department head or somebody in the department, it's like, where am I going? Am I going left or am I going right? You would ideally like a direction. Just to be clear, I think Glendale has done a really, really good job for the challenges that Glendale has. It's a good place to live. A lot of people want to, want to come here. So I'm not sure I'm at the threshold yet, but I'm interested in, in where it goes. And I'll also say, kind of to Mr. Garcia's point, I would like to take the CVRA stuff off the table. It's good information to have because I think what we want to talk about is what's good governance and what we think is good governance. However, if we end up saying one thing is good governance and we end up in a lawsuit and we end up having to go someplace else, hypothetically, it's probably good to have a plan in your back pocket to kind of go that if we are told by the State of California, because my read on this with the CVRA is Basically, you have— if you have districts, you're exempt from a city lawsuit or a lawsuit under state law no matter what those districts do, whether they're effective, ineffective, whether they help a disenfranchised group or not. They can file a lawsuit and Mr. Garcia and his group are going to go in and say, sorry, we have districts, even though they meet the mapping requirements, we're done. I don't know if that's good governance for us, but We're done. Whereas there might be other alternatives that it's like, hey, if we're talking about trying to get more people involved, does an alternative voting method or something else accomplish that while still keeping a citywide view? With that, I will stop.

I really liked how you brought a couple of those points back because I, I too am curious about ranked choice voting and other alternatives, but I don't know if we have that charge to even consider those as alternatives. I mean, I suppose that if we have a strong feeling that we— that's something that the council should consider, I think we—

I spent time watching videos, or maybe listening more than watching.

Yeah.

So it brought up an interesting—

Have it on background screen.

So here's a tip. You can change the speed. So play it at 1.5 and—

That means I have to walk faster.

be bearable.

So other than the parks and like fire station, other service that comes to, comes to my mind that affects everyone is utilities. And this year, like GWP rate hikes like affected every single person in the city of Glendale regardless of whether you're a renter or homeowner. And I think renters are kind of Unfairly affected by the hike because they don't have any other means to kind of lessen their burden. Like, for example, if you have an EV, if you're a homeowner, you can install your charger and the city provides a lot of incentives. They give you a voucher or the permit processing is faster. And then if you charge at home, the rate is a lot lower than charging at a Supercharger. But if you are a renter, you have no choice but to go to those charging stations and pay high fees. There's no way for you to get any vouchers or any subsidies from the city. So we all have the same issues. But because whether you're— based on whether you're a renter or homeowner, you have very different choices and you have a bigger burden. So I think if there were a city council member who is a renter, I think these kind of things have been discussed and thought out before the city rolls out all these programs to help homeowners who has an EV to get better incentives. So I think in that way, district can be a role model.

I really love this point. And if I could attempt to broaden it, I think what you're saying is there are cert— we have problems that the city could help us with. And depending on where we live or how we live, We may need to be solved in a different way. And there may— the people who rent or live in multifamily housing, on the EV issue, they have the same problem as somebody who lives in a single-family home, but they need a different solution. And they need the city to recognize that and not treat us as one-size-fits-all. And that you might be better off with representation that reflects the people, you know, who have that sort of problem.

Thank you.

I'm not saying that people who live in single-family homes aren't capable of empathizing with people who don't, but it doesn't occur to you because we know how we live and we see ourselves in people who live similarly.

There's a very helpful tool that the state has come out with. It's called CalEnviroScreen 4.0, and it indicates any environmental hazards that a city may have, and there's 21 indicators, and they basically help decide if a city has these disadvantaged communities, what they call them. And Glendale has plenty in South Glendale, and those are the facts that we may be missing here when we're not talking about South Glendale. So it's a really good tool to take a look at. I know that we're working on an environmental justice element here because that's something that this requires you to do. So if you have disadvantaged communities, it's required, and we have them. Um, so South Glendale is definitely a place where we need representation, in my opinion. Um, but Glendale in general is a desirable place to live. So just because you live in South Glendale doesn't mean representing South Glendale as a whole. So if we are not incentivizing future council members with higher salaries. Um, someone that's working 2 jobs, for example, cannot choose to become a council member even if, like, we give them that chance. And in general, like, just because you're a renter doesn't mean you're making less money than a homeowner in Glendale. Rents are extremely high. So I just wanted to bring those up.

Can you say the tool name one more time, please?

It's called CalEnviroScreen 4.0. It's an interactive map. Um, you have to go in and put LA County first and then Glendale, and it pulls up the whole Glendale map, um, instead of like viewing all of California.

Okay, where are we at? Yeah, but I've— I for one have enjoyed the fact that we have generated our own discussion here and figuring out what we think about this very basic issue. I'm not going to ask for a straw vote. draw a vote, show of hands, who supports districts? Because we don't have to decide that right now. But, um, I think we have enough to proceed, at least with the, um, theoretical discussion that if there were districts, what do we want that to look like? Do we need a mayor? Do we need a strong mayor, weak mayor? How many districts might be good? Um, I think we've at least answered the question that we're comfortable, even if we don't know where we stand as a group on the issue of districts, we understand what the issues are and therefore can take that to the next question. I guess the question is then, since it's just past 7, do we want to go to the next question? And does staff have a recommendation on that point?

Whether to move forward or—

Yeah, keep talking tonight? I mean, I don't know. We're not— I don't think we're making decisions tonight. But I know we also have other things down the road we need to address. This seems like the big one, though.

But—

I agree. And then— but it's truly up to the committee whether you want to continue. Again, I just want to— A note, just in terms of the strong mayor versus directly elected mayor.

I overspoke.

Yeah, that part of it is we obviously want the feedback on directly elected mayor.

There hasn't been discussion— More mayor, less mayor. How about that?

Right.

Fair enough. But certainly up to the committee how you feel, if you want. In addition, is there more information you want between now and the next meeting on these issues?

That's a good question. Anybody have any particular open questions where they think that staff can help us bringing some facts back?

I, I really just have a question if salaries are considered if we move forward with the districting and if they're going to make it like a full-time job.

So, uh, one of the, um, Questions that's before the committee is whether to— 'cause the charter establishes what the salaries would be basically just by incorporating state law. But the city has the authority by getting voter approval to amend the charter to basically establish its own salaries. And that has been one of the subjects that the council is exploring. So obviously they want the committee to explore. I don't think the idea is to— I think the idea is The charge and the direction was not whether it's a full-time versus a part-time, but whether that salary should be adjusted. And we've provided data to the council that when we get to that discussion point, we will provide that to you. So you'll see what some other cities do, how they handle it. There's a wide, wide variety. So that will be a subject that will come before you at some point.

Okay.

I'll go first. I'd like to get the data on the precincts just for my own nerdification. And I'd still like to continue this discussion personally. I think there's—

I don't think we're going to leave this discussion until this committee is finished.

I hear you. I probably couldn't shake it off if I wanted to. But I think— I'd like to just continue this until we— until next time. If it's already 7 o'clock, but—

Yeah, that's, that's what I was asking. I mean, we've kind of been wrapping up around this time. So if people want to, you know, table this and come back to it, my suggestion is that we all next time come, come prepared to talk about mayor and how we feel about a separately elected mayor. And think about, you know, go back over some of the reports we've had previously about, you know, how that can be structured differently. Are they a full voting member? Are they, you know, what authority do they have? And, you know, keep in mind that does this affect your decision about whether or not going to districts? You know, for example, I became more comfortable with the idea of districts personally. when I thought about the idea of a mayor being elected by the whole city as a counterbalance to the regional interests of an individual district. So to me, that made me more likely to support districts. That's why I brought up the question, because people may feel otherwise. So let's pick it up there would be my suggestion. And then anything else, staff thinks we need to—

Chair Flower?

Yeah.

I have a question for you, if I may. So to the public comments, point earlier. I just was wondering, is there— how does the public communicate with us? Is there an email system? Is there— do we— is there a formal process or is it an informal process in the neighborhoods?

I imagine it's like any other body. I mean, people can come to the meeting, they can call in, and I would like to see the number. If we're going to allow people to call in, we put the number on the agenda. Is that possible?

Yeah.

For sure.

Um, and then if they want to communicate with us in writing, I, I personally don't need any more email directly in my inbox, but I would be happy if they sent it to a point person on staff and then they could distribute to all of us separately.

I'm fine with either way. I just didn't know if there was a formal process, if they can email staff and staff would bring those comments to us, or just for a record, or if we have emails.

We'll confer on We have—

sorry, we're trying to read each other's lips and it's not working from across the way. That's a great idea. We can certainly go ahead and designate a point person in our office. It will likely be Greg Katsou. I was asking if the website— if this body actually had a website. I'm kind of embarrassed. I'm not really sure. But if not, we can set something up on our city's homepage.

It has a webpage.

It does. And we'll go ahead and have that link there. Greg will receive them and distribute them to our committee members.

Could we also ask, just as a follow-up, is it possible to ask that it's announced at council that there— when our next charter review meeting is, since more people perhaps watch that, if they would like to?

We can do that. I mean, we probably would announce at the council meeting most you know, right before the next charter review. That way people hear it and are aware. And we can—

However, yeah, just to add a question regarding the videos that we received, Garcia, I think there was mentioned the pros and the cons of elected mayor. There was, there was a lot of information. There was some information, right, about the mayor.

Correct.

The elected mayor. Is there— maybe it's asking too much— is there any way that maybe his staff can, can point that out, like those minutes? Because I have to go back and now look at it.

Can the next staff report reincorporate specifically the information you asked for?

Specifically for that, or is that too much to ask?

Sure.

Just because—

just get that information.

I keep everything, but that's my own paranoia and packrat-ish.

So just from the prior council reports and the prior report to the committee provide information on directly elected mayor.

Would that be okay?

That would be awesome.

Yeah, not a problem.

I don't think you have to recreate it, but it would refocus us to have it back in front of us.

Thank you.

I don't, I don't know if this is too much work, but I really like the reels that the city's been making on Instagram, and I was wondering if we can do some something similar explaining what a charter is and what this committee is about. Because some generations don't watch city council meetings and this may be a way to like get them involved.

Why not?

Some generations?

I'll talk to Ms. Sotomayor and we'll talk to our communications staff about putting something together.

We seem to have moved on from item 5 and that's fine. It looks like we're somewhere between between 6 and 7. I don't know if there was anything under reports or information, um, but, you know, I, I'm, I'm happy if, if anybody has— if moving into number 7, things you want to see on a future agenda or other issues like the, the reels, I think that's great. You know, floor's open just for a moment to, to, to, to ask that, not for discussion, just to ask if you have requests of staff.

One request on agendas, um, uh, I have a question. Basically riffing off of what Ani mentioned. So notice provisions, the way the public is notified of city business, I think it's put it on a bulletin board in City Hall, something like to that effect. Is— can we add to our agenda a charter amendment that would take notification to the, you know, It's required by state law. Right.

It's already required to be on the city's website. It's not stated in the language of our agenda.

Can we explore things beyond just the website?

We do. I mean, it goes through all our— You don't need a charter amendment for that.

Just call your council members.

Right. And it does—

Call all 5 of them.

Luckily, I got 5 to talk to.

Yeah. We do use, I mean, the social media.

Or just one that's yours.

Everybody gets one.

Yeah, we—

oh, sorry. Okay, um, Denise, you were saying something. I think, I think I cut you off.

Okay, um, just if we move off from agenda item 5, we have to go to the public before we do.

We, we had public comment at the front. Oh, we're not having it at the Oh, did we not have public comment after—

I thought we did.

As part of item 5? I thought we did these at the end of the list of topics and then—

We had regular order of business.

I'm sorry about that.

All right.

No, that's fine. Obviously, I lost track.

We did. We did.

Who am I?

Who am I? I think it's time to go home.

How about you all?

I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Okay.

I'll second.

Motion by Elizabeth, second by Steven. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Abstentions? Good night.

Thank you.