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01-19-2021 - Public CommentsMark Perez From: Lisa Sherrick Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 10:51 AM To: Mark Perez Subject: FW: Jan 19 Council Meeting Lisa Sherrick Assistant City Clerk City of West Covina 626-939-8414 From: Jay Meader Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 20219:45 AM To: Lisa Sherrick <LSherrick@westcovina.org> Subject: Fw: Jan 19 Council Meeting CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when opening attachments or clicking links, especially from unknown senders. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android ----- Forwarded Massa a ----- From: "Jay Meader" To: "Letty Lopez -Via o < o ez-via o westcovina.or >, "Dario Castellanos" <dcastellanos(a)westcovina.org>, "Tony Wu" <tony.wu(cDwestcovina.org>, "Brian Tabatabai" <btabatabai(a)westcovina.org>, "Rosario Diaz" <rosario.diaz(o)westcovina.org> Cc: Sent: Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 10:47 PM Subject: Jan 19 Council Meeting West Covina City Council Hello, my name is Jay Meader. I am a resident of West Covina and have been since 1977, my wife Cynthia and I have four grown children that all went to schools in the West Covina Unified District. I would like to welcome the new members of the City Council to the Council and thank the existing Councilmembers for their efforts on behalf of the residents of West Covina. As you probably have guessed I have some areas of concern that I would like the Council to be aware of, I will keep this short and to the point since the basic subject matter is well known to all of us: Because of the precarious financial situation we find ourselves in, I would suggest the best path forward would be to pull all items from the Jan 19 meeting agenda that require budget amendments and/or deficit spending. The State Audit has raised issues that cannot be ignored any longer and necessarily are items that are number one in priority. These problems must be dealt with before we are committed to any more spending programs. I do understand several of the agenda resolutions are either deferred maintenance items or issues that have been needed/discussed/promised for some years and not delivered but at present, we do not have the money nor will we 'find' the money in this present confusing economy. I am confident that this new Council makeup in concert with concerned residents and the Finance and Audit Committee will find ways to emerge from what seems like insurmountable financial and public trust issues and make our City whole again. Another area of concern I would like to highlight is the discontinuance of emails being read aloud during the Public Comment Period of the Council meetings. For several reasons, many residents are more able, comfortable or willing to become involved in City affairs by way of this method and now that is lost to them. I would hope that the Council and Staff could come up with a way to deal with the email blitz campaign that lead to the discontinuance of the email comments being read aloud during the public comment period. Reinstatement of this avenue of communication would go a long way in instilling confidence in, and engaging with, our City Council. Good Luck To Us All Ja Meader City of West Covina, Mayor Letty Lopez-Viado, City Manager David Carmany. Oral Communications... The last two city council meetings has caused me much stress and I have become angry as to what had happened at these last two meeting. I personally attended the last meeting as there was a rotation of councilmembers and two new councilmembers being sworn in. Mrs. Letty Lopez-Viado would be sworn in as our new Mayor. She had her family there for the swearing in ceremony which included her 14 year -old son and her young 8 year -old daughter. Sadly, what should have been a day which her children should always remember as a proud day for them, it suddenly turned into a horrible` "traumatic event" when during oral communications, a Mr. Armando Herman and quickly turned this day into a day of sadness that her children and others will never forget. Herman acting agitated quickly started using vulgarity towards the councilmembers and staff where he repeatedly used the "F" word over and over again. In my opinion, this was also a verbal sexual assault towards the women inside the chambers as we all know this word has cross meanings. Using "God" in expletives as well as making racial and homosexual comments. I myself got up and asked that this man show a little respect and he replied angrily. The mayor asked me to please go back to my seat. I did, but I couldn't believe that he continued on in this manner in front of all of us, including and especially in front of those young children. He did not care. As it was, I became angry that nothing was done about this at our business meeting. I guess the council and staff are afraid of violating a "Free Speech" issue. Excuse me... this is a business meeting with oral communications availability for city business. This is not an "open forum for public speech" as this would be outside of city council chambers. This depressed me as I continued to think about what happened. His dangerous demeanor has obviously caused me some mental anguish and emotional destress. I have had a lack of sleep as I have become agitated because of the negligence and/or intent of the city council to not being able to stop what was occurring and Armando Herman for creating said issues with me. I feel I am to the point that a possible civil action is in order for damages do to the emotional destress that I am going through. Whereas, I am now taking Fluoxetine, Bupropion HCL to deal with the psychologic effects as well having to double my Lisinopril for blood pressure issues that have increased. I, nor anyone else should be subjected to this hostile dangerous situation during a business meeting for the city of West Covina (city council meeting). This is a business meeting where oral communications is in place for those, such as residents, business owners and those that get involved with the city to come forward and discuss various different issues. This is not a "public forum" where people feel that they have a "Freedom of Speech" application to say anything they damn well please. The "Public Free Speech" is to be done outside the chambers were people can elect to leave the area and are not compromised where they are "forced" to hear or listen to something they don't want to be around because it is offensive be that it may be vulgar language, racial or discriminatory comments by any said persons or individuals. We should not be locked in place, such as this business meeting where we can't control what we hear, we would be forced to be part of this. If we have to leave because of this, then we are denied the right to attend such meetings if one had to leave to divorce themselves from such offensive activities. Mr. Herman has had a long going hostile reputation a various council and county meetings. He was arrested in ;014 for sneaking in a deadly weapon and recently he had an issue in January 2020 where he arrested on April 25, 2020 for assault with a deadly weapon. He will be going back to court for this if February of this year. In my opinion, he is a dangerous individual for all parties in the council chambers and very well could be a danger to himself. We don't know if he is going to flip out and hurt someone. I feel I can't attend city council meeting because of this individual because what he does to me psychologically. In fact, I can't watch it on the broadcast station. I feel this has been taken away from me. Other cities have challenged this man had they have come out of top as the courts can't declare the "Freedom of Speech Protection" in a business meeting. He has had restraining order(s) issued against him. For the record. The City of Los Angeles filed a workplace violence restraining order against Herman under Civil Code §527.8, which provides, in part: "Any employer, whose employee has suffered unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence from any individual, that can reasonably be construed to be carried out or to have been carried out at the workplace, may seek a temporary restraining order...." This worked. Respectfully, George Ogden of West Covina.