WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.950 --> 00:00:22.270 On this week's episode: the City Council votes to end a riding club's lease at Hahamongna Watershed Park, a police armored vehicle moves ahead without a council vote, and a committee hears that traffic deaths this year have already passed last year's total. 2 00:00:25.614 --> 00:00:29.254 From the City of Roses, here's your weekly debrief. 3 00:00:29.934 --> 00:00:36.254 The Olympics are still almost two years off, but they kept coming up at City Hall this week. 4 00:00:36.254 --> 00:00:46.769 Police pointed to LA twenty-eight in making the case for an armored vehicle. And construction on a stormwater project at Brookside Park won't start until after the Games. 5 00:00:46.769 --> 00:01:00.584 The Rose Bowl is set to host Olympic soccer in the summer of twenty twenty-eight. That will make it only the second venue in the world to host events at three Olympics. The other two were in nineteen thirty-two and nineteen eighty-four. 6 00:01:00.584 --> 00:01:09.919 Tuesday's council meeting also heard from young riders, among about sixteen people who spoke about a riding club that speakers said has been around for about eighty years. 7 00:01:09.919 --> 00:01:16.054 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 8 00:01:19.397 --> 00:01:29.317 Our top story: on Tuesday the City Council voted to end the lease of Rose Bowl Riders, an equestrian club at the city's Hahamongna Watershed Park. 9 00:01:29.317 --> 00:01:31.157 What kind of lease did the club have? 10 00:01:31.157 --> 00:01:48.037 A month-to-month one, since its last amendment expired. Either side can end it with thirty days' notice, and no cause is needed. City staff said the club provided little or no public benefit in twenty twenty-five and twenty twenty-six, after its lessons for kids in city programs stopped. 11 00:01:48.037 --> 00:01:51.157 Why did the lessons stop? 12 00:01:51.157 --> 00:02:12.962 Over insurance. Staff said the abuse liability coverage the city requires for programs serving children wasn't in place. More broadly, staff said the problem wasn't that the club had no insurance, but that it didn't provide satisfactory proof or the required endorsements, such as naming the city as an additional insured. So for those two summers, the city used another operator for its camp lessons. 13 00:02:12.962 --> 00:02:15.027 And a lot of people turned out to speak. 14 00:02:15.027 --> 00:02:35.202 About sixteen people spoke, and nearly all of them urged the city to keep the lease or renegotiate it. Many were children and teen riders and their parents. They talked about the confidence, community and therapy they've found at the barn. Club officers and members alleged a lack of transparency and asked why an earlier request for proposals was canceled. 15 00:02:35.202 --> 00:02:39.957 Here's a councilmember pressing city staff on how much contact there had been with the club. 16 00:02:40.357 --> 00:02:44.197 So then in the course of two years, how many times did you actually physically meet with someone? 17 00:02:44.757 --> 00:02:50.572 I physically met on-site with Rose Bowl riders about four times. Four times, two years. 18 00:02:51.212 --> 00:03:08.677 Staff said those meetings covered stable conditions, flooding in the arena and a tree that needed trimming, and that those issues were addressed. That same councilmember called four meetings in two years unacceptable, and criticized the item for never going through a committee or the Hahamongna advisory group. 19 00:03:08.677 --> 00:03:11.397 Who argued for ending the lease? 20 00:03:11.397 --> 00:03:36.947 Councilmember Rick Cole, who made the motion, among others. Cole said near-daily threats of litigation limit what the council can say in public. Cole also said the benefit people get from the site doesn't give anyone a right to occupy public land indefinitely. The staff recommendation passed seven to nothing, with Councilmember Jason Lyon recused. It rescinds the September notice and authorizes a new one, with a deadline to leave by January thirty-first. 21 00:03:36.947 --> 00:03:39.587 What happens to the site after that? 22 00:03:39.587 --> 00:03:57.412 Councilmember Tyron Hampton pushed for a new request for proposals going out February first. That proposal didn't come to a vote. But staff committed to issuing one as close to February first as they can, or sooner, and to tell the council if the date slips. Staff will also look for an interim operator to care for the horses boarded there. 23 00:04:00.836 --> 00:04:08.596 Next, the police department's second armored vehicle. It's going ahead because the council took no action on it Tuesday. 24 00:04:08.596 --> 00:04:14.561 Three weeks ago we told you about the department's annual military equipment report. So what's this one? 25 00:04:14.561 --> 00:04:35.946 It's a surplus military armored personnel carrier, a two thousand eight MaxxPro, coming at no purchase cost through a federal surplus program. Staff said the department learned on October seventh that an agency in Northern California had one available. That was after the annual report was already done, and staff said waiting until December could put the transfer at risk. 26 00:04:35.946 --> 00:04:37.386 No cost at all? 27 00:04:37.386 --> 00:04:57.086 The chief estimated fifteen to twenty thousand dollars for paint and a radio, paid from existing fleet funds. Staff said buying a comparable vehicle would cost two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty thousand. The department already has one armored vehicle, a Bearcat it's had since twenty eleven, and it borrows another when it needs one. 28 00:04:57.086 --> 00:04:58.686 What did the public say? 29 00:04:58.686 --> 00:05:19.711 Two of the five speakers were opposed. One called it a vehicle designed for war that would cost the department community trust. The other said the city wasn't following the process state law requires. The other three supported it, citing officer safety and the cost savings. The clerk reported six letters, all opposed. 30 00:05:19.711 --> 00:05:20.991 And the council? 31 00:05:20.991 --> 00:05:55.816 One councilmember said they were completely opposed to it, even at no cost. Councilmember Rick Cole shared concerns about the militarization of policing. Cole wasn't persuaded the city couldn't keep borrowing a second vehicle, and warned of a slippery slope, while granting that reasonable people can disagree about where to draw the line. Another councilmember said the item felt like a decision, not just information. And another called the Bearcat's incident-free record the most compelling argument for it, but said using such a vehicle at demonstrations was what gave the most anxiety. 32 00:05:55.816 --> 00:05:58.296 So why wasn't there a vote? 33 00:05:58.296 --> 00:06:11.156 Staff explained the council doesn't have to approve it. The council could tell staff to drop it or send it to committee, but without any action the department goes ahead. Cole offered to second a motion if anyone made one, and nobody did. 34 00:06:14.580 --> 00:06:21.540 Our third story comes from Wednesday's Municipal Services Committee, which heard an update on traffic safety. 35 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:22.900 How are things looking? 36 00:06:22.900 --> 00:06:38.835 Staff reported four traffic deaths in the first half of this year, two pedestrians and two people in vehicles. That's already more than the three deaths in all of last year. Last October, the council set a goal of zero traffic deaths by twenty thirty-five. 37 00:06:38.835 --> 00:06:40.435 What's the plan to get there? 38 00:06:40.435 --> 00:06:57.610 Staff said the city's designated safety corridors make up thirteen percent of its streets but have eighty percent of its collisions. Staff are surveying those corridors so they can lower speed limits by another five miles an hour, and hope to bring that to the council in late winter or early spring. 39 00:06:57.610 --> 00:06:58.935 And enforcement? 40 00:06:58.935 --> 00:07:20.530 Police said the traffic section is allotted nine motor officers but has run with seven for several years. It's at eight now, and drops back to seven when an officer retires December second. Members asked about red-light cameras. Staff said the city's old program cut collisions but got too costly as violations fell, and said they'll report back on bringing it back. 41 00:07:20.530 --> 00:07:22.290 Did the public weigh in? 42 00:07:22.290 --> 00:07:42.940 Six speakers did, all urging the city to do more on traffic safety, and the clerk reported two letters. Two speakers asked for quick action at Cordova and Oak Knoll, where, they said, a Caltech researcher was killed about a year ago. Staff said a traffic signal there is funded, and that a funding agreement should reach the council in the next few months. 43 00:07:46.283 --> 00:07:49.563 Now a few shorter items from around City Hall. 44 00:07:49.563 --> 00:08:15.933 The council approved the design of the Brookside Park Stormwater Capture Project, and found it exempt from environmental review. It's an underground system under a parking lot near the Rose Bowl that would catch and clean runoff. Staff said that runoff now flows untreated from about twelve hundred acres into the Arroyo Seco. Councilmember Rick Cole questioned using an exemption for a project this large. It passed with Councilmember Justin Jones recused. 45 00:08:15.933 --> 00:08:23.053 The council also unanimously gave first reading to an update of the city's rules on water waste and water shortages. 46 00:08:23.053 --> 00:08:40.883 And at Wednesday's committee, Pasadena Water and Power said large power transformers can still take anywhere from eighty to more than two hundred sixty weeks to arrive. Staff said there's no impact on ratepayers right now. The utility's general manager also said the city remains on track to be carbon free by twenty thirty. 47 00:08:44.227 --> 00:08:46.947 Before we go, a look at what's coming up. 48 00:08:46.947 --> 00:09:05.272 Next Tuesday, October twenty-seventh, the Finance Committee meets at four. On its agenda: a federal grant of about thirty-nine thousand dollars to train and certify more police drone operators, and a two hundred sixty-five thousand dollar grant for a mental health program for young children affected by the Eaton Fire. 49 00:09:05.272 --> 00:09:21.707 The council meets that evening at six. It's scheduled to take up a federal grant of nearly nine hundred sixty thousand dollars for the Sunset groundwater treatment plant, and the second reading of the water waste ordinance. The November third council meeting is set to be cancelled. 50 00:09:25.371 --> 00:09:31.771 If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on this episode's page to report it, and we read corrections on air. 51 00:09:31.771 --> 00:09:34.731 That's the news from City Hall. See you next Friday.