WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.031 --> 00:00:11.071 This is CivicFM, with the week at Pasadena City Hall. 2 00:00:11.671 --> 00:00:28.146 The City Council accepted a federal grant to train more police drone operators, with its debate over drones as first responders still ahead. Plus, a grant for the mental health of young children affected by the Eaton Fire, and the Planning Commission rethinks work-live units. 3 00:00:28.146 --> 00:00:35.031 This episode was produced with AI from the public recordings of the week's meetings. Links to the sources are in the show notes. 4 00:00:38.349 --> 00:00:59.844 Our top story this week: on Tuesday, the City Council accepted just over thirty-nine thousand dollars in federal money to train more police drone operators. Back on October second, we told you the council had limited the police drone policy to SWAT operations, on a seven to one vote. This grant raised the question of whether it opens that door any wider. 5 00:00:59.844 --> 00:01:20.639 The money comes from the federal Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program. City staff said SWAT is the only unit in the department using tactical drones now, and the training would add people to back up SWAT's tactical response. At the Finance Committee, staff said the grant pays for training and certification and needs no matching money from the city. 6 00:01:20.639 --> 00:01:40.259 On the council floor, a councilmember said they had contacted the police chief beforehand, because they shared public concerns about what the money would pay for. The councilmember said they're comfortable with SWAT using drones, but not interested in expanding to what's called drone as first responder. The council still expects to take that question up. 7 00:01:40.259 --> 00:01:50.624 Staff noted the certification isn't limited to SWAT. Trained operators would be certified for either SWAT or first-responder drone use, though the training right now is for SWAT functions. 8 00:01:50.624 --> 00:02:11.949 So the councilmember asked whether the money could go to other officer training if the council decides against first-responder drones. Staff said that as they understood it, the grant pays only to train drone operators. But even without first-responder drones, they said, new operators could take over flying the drone from a SWAT officer, freeing that officer to deploy on the scene. 9 00:02:11.949 --> 00:02:29.429 The councilmember concluded that accepting the grant doesn't change the council's pending discussion. The grant passed with the rest of the consent calendar, and the Finance Committee also backed it Tuesday without objection, before Councilmember Tyron Hampton arrived. No date has been given for the council's discussion of first-responder drones. 10 00:02:32.906 --> 00:02:50.231 Next, the youngest children affected by the Eaton Fire. On Tuesday, the Finance Committee and the full City Council both approved accepting a two hundred sixty-five thousand dollar grant from the L.A. Care Health Plan's Wildfire Relief Fund, for an infant and early childhood mental health program. 11 00:02:50.231 --> 00:03:07.236 City staff told the committee the two-year grant would pay for one full-time, limited-term coordinator, and serve up to twenty-four children and families affected by the fire. Under the staff report, a consultant and trained interns would work with children up to age five, their families, and their educators. 12 00:03:07.236 --> 00:03:21.181 The cost drew questions. One councilmember added the grant to the city's in-kind support and came to about three hundred seventy-eight thousand dollars for up to twenty-four children over two years, and argued the administrative cost looked high. 13 00:03:21.181 --> 00:03:24.396 Is the city spending new money on top of the grant? 14 00:03:24.396 --> 00:03:48.171 Another councilmember said no. As they understood it, the in-kind amounts aren't new money but dollars the city already budgets, counted to show the granting agency the time spent overseeing the grant. Staff added that the person hired will be a licensed social worker or mental health clinician who provides services directly, and that working with families and training educators reaches more than twenty-four children indirectly. 15 00:03:48.171 --> 00:04:08.666 The councilmember who raised the cost said they weren't fully persuaded, but would support the item, and it passed without objection. Staff said the office will keep looking for money to continue the program after the grant ends, and the councilmember who answered on the in-kind amounts said they'd ask staff about scheduling a presentation on the Office of the Young Child's work. 16 00:04:11.984 --> 00:04:25.539 Our third story: on Wednesday, the Planning Commission was asked to recommend looser rules for work-live units, which combine a home and a workspace in one unit. It voted for a different direction. 17 00:04:25.539 --> 00:04:43.664 Staff proposed cutting the minimum unit size from twelve hundred fifty square feet to eight hundred, letting the living area take up to half the unit, and setting one parking standard citywide. Staff said the city committed in its Housing Element to review these rules, and has to report its progress to the state. 18 00:04:43.664 --> 00:05:03.299 But staff also explained that work-live was created when most commercial zones didn't allow housing, and most of those areas now do. Staff said the city has at least three known work-live developments and expects little demand, and that research found many work-live developments elsewhere had converted to fully residential use. 19 00:05:03.299 --> 00:05:12.234 One commissioner called the amendment cleanup that isn't pressing. Another suggested the category may be redundant now that mixed use is widely allowed. 20 00:05:12.234 --> 00:05:39.104 The commission voted seven to zero, with two commissioners absent, to have staff drop work-live as a separate use in mixed-use zones, with definitions adjusted so work-live-type uses can go in the commercial part of mixed-use projects, and to follow the staff recommendation in zones that don't allow multifamily housing, where staff said work-live is the only housing allowed. Staff will come back with a summary of revised recommendations. No date was given. 21 00:05:42.901 --> 00:06:05.276 Now a few shorter items from around City Hall. Last week we told you the council gave first reading to updated rules on wasting water and on plans for water supply shortages. On Tuesday it adopted that ordinance, eight to zero. One letter asked for a landscape exemption district to preserve the landscaping on Orange Grove Boulevard, at the city's primary entrance. 22 00:06:05.276 --> 00:06:44.211 The Planning Commission voted seven to zero, again with two commissioners absent, to suggest three studies for the city's capital improvement program: a concept study of complete streets and streetscape in the Northlake plan area, a look at where public open space could go along East Colorado Boulevard between Allen Avenue and Sierra Madre Boulevard, and a similar concept study for the new Fair Oaks Orange Grove Specific Plan. One commissioner said the commission has approved more than a thousand housing units in areas where open space was waived. City commissions review the program in March and April, and it goes to the council in May. 23 00:06:44.211 --> 00:07:13.411 Commissioners also heard an update on the city's first Environmental Justice Element of the General Plan, which state law requires. Staff said the number of Pasadena census tracts the state counts as disadvantaged rose from one to five, all in the northwest, mostly because of new indicators and better data. One commissioner worried outreach was reaching too few people, and another urged going through churches and food distribution sites. Staff hope to have a draft in fall and winter of next year. 24 00:07:13.411 --> 00:07:32.956 At the Finance Committee, a report counted one hundred fifty-four active city grants worth about four hundred ten million dollars, as of June thirtieth. A councilmember said the format doesn't show each grant's status or how much has been spent, and committee members are to meet with staff on what to add. 25 00:07:32.956 --> 00:07:46.181 And the Planning Commission will meet just once in November, on Wednesday, November eighteenth, because of Veterans Day and Thanksgiving eve. On the list: a study session on safe parking and a public hearing on data centers. 26 00:07:49.499 --> 00:07:57.259 Before we go: if you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on the episode's page to tell us, and corrections are read on air. 27 00:07:57.259 --> 00:08:00.219 That's the news from City Hall. See you next Friday.