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11-29-1972 - Regular Meeting - MinutesJOINT MEETING OF THE WEST COVINA CITY COUNCIL, PLANNING COMMISSION AND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE PLANNING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE NOVEMBER 29, 1972 40ayor Young called the meeting to order at 4:30 P.M., in the' West Covina ouncil Chambers. _ROLL CALL resent: Mayor Young; Councilmen: Shearer, Nichols, Lloyd, Chappell PLANNING COMMISSION Present: Chairman Browne, Commissioner Adams Commissioners: Jackson, Mayfield (arrived late) Absent: Commissioner Cox Others Present: George Aiassa, City Manager. George Wakefield, City Attorney Lela, Preston, City Clerk George Zimmerman, Public Service Director Leonard Eliot, Controller John Lippitt, Acting City Engineer Richard Munsell, Planning Director Bert Yama,saki, Acting Planning Director Ross Namma.r, Administrative Assistant Jeff Schenkel, Staff Reporter SGVD Tribune Claudia Luther, Staff Reporter _ LA Times City Clerk: Mr. Mayor, you do not have a, quorum of the Planning Commission. Mayor 'Young: I don't believe we really need it - we have a quorum of the Council, we can proceed, I think, without any difficulties. Councilman Shearer.: A point of order. It is not really a joint meeting then; it is just a meeting of the Council. Mayor Young: I don't think there is any problem, but it can't be a joint meeting if the Planning Commission is not legally constituted, if one of the "joints" does not have a quorum. Mr. Wakefield: Mr. Mayor and members of Council, you do have a, quorum for the City Council meeting and it may pro- ceed and if the Planning Commission quorum arrives, then it will be joined by the Planning Commission at that time. Councilman Nichols: In other words, the rest of them have to keep quiet unless they get a. quorum? Mr. Wakefield: That is right. Mayor Young: The agenda calls for some introductory comments by myself. Frankly, I have been so involved and scattered about the last couple of days that I have not been able to give it the planning and thought that perhaps it should 've. 'I have had the privilege and pleasure of participating with the Rommittee over the past several months. I have been to most of the meetings. A Committee of the Chamber of Commerce Planning and Business Development Committee and I don't know if it has been that entire Committee but if not, at least a subcommittee, and I see several of the participants here in the audience this afternoon. Mr. Phil Wax, has acted as Chairman of this Committee. There have been some very thorough and in-depth considerations of the desirability of doing some planning now for what we hope to see in the future in this City so far as economic development is concerned. I think the Committee is at the CITY COUNCIL MEETING Page Two Introductory Comments 11/29/72 ointfthat some staff time is eeded to carry this program forward, in vestment nvestment otime �, t¢�i�191 ...'investment of money. I thank one of the major purposes of our meeting this &fternoon is to bring the Council up-to-date so you will all be -as far along as I am, at least. Phil Wax is here and I believe he is prepared to summarize the activities up to this time - is that correct? Mr. Phil Wax I hope it is not a summary, but I would like WChairman to take a moment to thank everyone for parti- hamber of Commerce cipating, especially the.Council and the Planning & Business Planning.Commission for making this opportunity •Development Committee available to the Chamber Committee. At this time I would like to take a moment to introduce the members of the Committee who worked for two months and the intent was to get a mix throughout the community of the different elements that make a good package. I believe each one of you gentlemen have a list of the people but I would like to acknowledge their work. Mr. Phil Fimple of General Telephone Company; Mr. Pat Bowen of Grubb and Ellis; Mr. Tony Garnier.of Suburban Water Systems; Mr. Ken Dietz of Suburban Water Systems; Mr. Bud Perry of Southern California Edison Company and ex officio members Mr. Richard Oldenburg, of Wells Fargo Bank and who is the Chamber of Commerce President; and Mr. Andy Bogis of Eastland May Company Center, Ge®rge,. Styachan, Qhamb r ofom ec"ViP edet i a rsp tat°vet were Ma "or". Youn 6h-�Petti r =, ai m. o ft "ri l 6 asidn' along..:4it Ci°�.l.. Stiff ...r 3 e � tatibri: _ �,, ,,a.a c � George Aiassa® _City Manager; Leonard Eliot, Controller; Richard Munsell, -Planning Director; Bert Yamasaki, Acting Planning Director; Ross Nammar, P,dministrative Assistant and Chester Yoshizaki. I would like to thank everybody for their cooperation and the work that they put in. We compiled some documents and sent them out in the form of a packet to all the Chamber members involved, also the Planning Commission and City Council. So rather than be repetitive of what is in the packet I hope you gentlemen took the time to look it over. I would like to say that the urgency is really now, competition on our perimeters are just waiting for the moment they can either steal something from us or do something better than we can. In 'the past seven or eight years we have made some tremendous progress, our new Civic Center, the Redevelopment Agency, Wickes - all of the things which lend credit to the community and also add dollars to the coffers, which is important to the business people as well as to the City and to the residents that would like better services. So with this in mind I would like to introduce Mr. Richard Munsell, whoc was tremendously helpful in putting together most of the information you have in your packets. Thank you, gentlemen. Mayor Young: Thank you, Mr. Wax. Mr. Munsell..... Mr. Munsell: Mr. Mayor and members of Council, Planning Commission and Chamber of Commerce, as Chairman Wax has indicated the Chamber of Commerce has put together a program for its business and community development committee which is aimed at trying to insure that the balance of the City is not left adrift while our major efforts are currently involved in the •Central Business District. Efforts were trade at the Chamber ldvel to take a look at the various commercial areas of the City and try and establish where some effort should be spent immediately to insure that the total community is involved in a program which insures • financial support and the economic viability of this City Government as well as the business community itself. One of the major. s for this generated out of the Redevelopment Program, in that, b.ur_ Economic Report from Develop%ent--'c Research and Sid Williams, made a very strong point - 2 CITY COUNCIL Page Three Planning & Business Development Committee 11/29/72 Presentation - Cont'd. that this regional commercial center is going to be facing some very stiff competition with the centers around and with our existing Eastland Center and to have a:.really viable thing (and with what we are building we will solve a number of problems), but to have something better that attracts,that additional regional type uses are going to be essential in this area. The Wickes Furniture Store is a regional type use. This generates certain activities around it that like to feed off that particular kind of market. Also Pier I • Imports which we will be seeing shortly and other things such as auto dealerships and things of that type. So there was a definite statement made much as in 1966 when Real Estate Research did an Economic Study and said if you don't do something you are going to be in trouble by 1970. Essentially, Development Research said here's what you have to do to become an extremely viable center that you will make all of this effort for. Within :t;his..process'uth n(�otths 'Committee sat down and looked at all the various portions of the City and established seven priority areas. The first three priorities are: the immediate vicinity around our Phase I redevelopment area, and for obvious reasons - we are having growth here. We need some standards, we don't want to push it across the street and redevelop it next year. 2: - the Eastland Shopping Center, which both Eastland people have contacted the Chamber and the City and have indicated an interest to work with us to upgrade their Center along with our new redevelopment program. So they are not going to be left in the bush either. In addition to that we have long discussed other areas in the community: the Orange/Merced Plan as an Industrial Park. It is time to take a good look and see if we can attract whatever is required to get something off the ground there. 3: �._TheoSduth Glendora area, an area immediately east of the CBD area, which will be -affected when we start regenerating everything here. And we have West Covina Parkway that travels along the Wash as a future .,.id6a�_andc.the Core Area for higher density uses to support this thriving metropolis of the Headquarters City. We also have to look at the Galaxie Area. We have just done a shift in boundaries with the City of Walnut. We have a commercial area at Puente and Nogales, and an existing one at Valley Boulevard. Then we have a lot of residents and unincor- porated County territory which very shortly should be interested in annexation to the City and very shortly we may be able to serve it adequately because we will have roadways, with Nogales and Amar through, to get Police -and Fire units down there without driving out of the City. We still have+major commercial entities _along_ - Glendora and North Azusa. .Ayehues 9 :-b6th df vwhidh_.have plah§ion ¢ -I- that we a.re : imple�e t�.4g .at tb t Vim® s and;,wbeB-.ypq �At`itP: pr*ora t�i_eq _. six and seven;; they grp a lea `day -_down:,the line an �t.hey: ready for another fool wsee when we get to that . In your packets I believe you found an analysis of the first three priorities as to what it will take to accomplish them and how much time. This, of course, becomes the case for discussion here in terms of if it is determined that the goals of this Committee are correctly defined, and that is to identify what •we can do and then with this identification generate through the Chamber an aggressive program to contact developers, to promote the new development by hustling brokers, developers, etc. If this •is a good device then what is it going to cost to do` it? Some analysis was done. It takes threei::man years to get 'to a certain point on the .first three priorities. Do you want to hire one man and do it in three. years or do you want to hire three men and get "it done in one year? Is there enough staff available to do it? The other mlterna.tivq is using consultants. Currently the feeling of staff (and I see the ,, 3 - CITY COUNCIL Page Four Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 City Manager is gone and I am going to be out on a limb pretty soon here) and I think the recommendations really should come from Mr. Wax, but the determination is that staff currently, both Planning and the Agency staff, are working at a point where they really cannot absorb this additional work without assistance and there is even a problem if we look to a consultant, because we yet have to see a •consultant that doesn't consume half the staff time to gather the information and put it in writing for him to put into a report. If you have any questions on the priority area,j Would be happy to talk about those. I think the priority areas were discussed and moved around as to which should be looked at first. Councilman Shearer: A comment, Mr. Mayor. Unless we offend North Azusa and the other lower priorities, I would assume if we had a"ho,t''L-custoder.cthat came in and he wanted to do something with North Azusa or down in the Galaxie area which might affect the priorities as stated now that we would not be in a position,�to have'' to say 1—well 9 since that is number seven on the priority list and you don't come up into number two we are not going to be able to help you - you are not proposing to tie us into where the City is attempting to dictate which areas should be developed before other areas? Mr. Munsell: That is a very good observation. Wh1leCthe1Committee did discuss this at length and it was specifi- cally expressed that as an area to look at and do intensive studies without having a program at hand that it was essential to be able to react say if General Motors comes in -and says we are going to put in a.dealership and for example if we get five dealerships, :.one -located in an auto center, that they would take priority. Mayor Young: One thing too discussed at some length was that there is a fairly recent North Azusa Plan and a fairly recent South Glendora Rlan and these plans are reasonably effective' and current in the terms of streets, uses of land, traffic patterns, etc., and as you stated that is why they are dropped down in the priority list for.i.mmediate study and perhaps by the time we finish,the other priorities for immediate study purposes those plans will be a little bit stale and may dictate some need to look at again'in a more intensive fashion.. Mr. Munsell: That is correct. Both are of 1968-69 and we have just revised the North Azusa Plan because of development. It is easier to keep that one -going -and c°ur,Teentwid_revise ­_t39V,_requi±e&.wit11 very'little };Work, However, when you have seven priorities and the first three take three man years and if each one takes three man years, as a case in point we are looking at a fairly substantial attempt here to make sure that we don't forget anybody and make sure if they have a need they are on the list, but we have to recognize we are looking even if we got the maximum staff that could do the job quickly, we are still looking at a two or three year program. And assuming that our staff needs will have to be somewhat less than the ultimate the program can stretch out. We obviously in the CBD area, priority 1, have a • crying need at this point in time. People like Wickes who have come in we have had to handmake the design standards for their development. It has been a very interesting.experience but very difficult for the developer. It takes a lot of time and no matter how agreeable everybody .is he doesn't like to have that extra harassment. If we can solve those problems ahead of time q,it, can be a lot easier. It is also important to indicate that many of the members of the Committee did establish a desire to take some 4 - - CITY COUNCIL Page Five Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 field trips with the specific intention of looking at the kinds of things we are doing here. The first field trip was taken in Orange County and it included regional shopping centers, Town and Country type shopping centers, neighborhood shopping centers, with specific emphasis on what kinds of regional uses locate near regional centers, what kind of SuupPl"ntar,y_'_ things and S additionallyA because of our California Triangle involvement, what kind of buffers are provided when commercial areas are adjacent to residential, and what kind look like they are successful. I think Orange County is probably one of •the locations where you can spend a half a day and find the largest number of relatively successful centers of this sort. We then, through staff, visited the Deil,­_Amo Century City Center, VMr. Yamasaki_.just came back from up north and looked at Palo Alto and the San Jose area and we have a few slides. If convenient to you gentlemen, we would like to quickly run through them. Obviously we can't show all of this to the fullest extent but perhaps we can illustrate the things.that have been done successfully. I see Mr. Bowen has not come in yet and he is on the agenda and is probably one of the more informed of our group in that he deals with this kind -of thing. He is the partial owner of the Bank of America complex within the Center and is a commercial real estate broker also. If he does show uppI hope he would be able to explain more of the packet information that you have - what our competitors are doing and what are the prices and why can they do it and why haven't we done it. Mr. Wax: Mr. Mayor, just to follow our agenda a little bit. I asked the Utilities people to express some of their views on how they feel, why their involvement at this stage and how important it is for them to have specific information that we hope to gather for them. So I would, ask Ken Dietz of Suburban Water Systems to speak and following him Bud Perry of Southern California Edison Company. Ken Dietz Gentlemen, in a Redevelopment Project such Suburban Water Systems as what has been proposed and what you are going to do,, Ui �� t i ibe �pda�stpe�;%ad ] y:'•_ :. . water utilities, are going to be confronted with some unusual problems in that integrating of existing facilities into a new project will take a lot of time and coordination with the other utilities and the establishment of special design criteria that would be required by the City or any other agency involved. So I think the major point I want to make this afternoon is we are all going to need a lot of lead time, a lot of information and a lot of coordination to carry it off smoothly. We are ready to cooperate and ready to go. Thank you. ,Bud Perry Mr. Mayor, members of Council and the Southern Calif. Edison Planning Commission, and Chamber members, Company I don't believe it is necessary to repeat what has been said by Mr. Dietz, because we share somewhat of the same problems. We do need time. We are overhead and he is underground but this would be one of the things in planning where we could plan possibly into the future and get some of those facilities .underground, and tying them into our undergrounding districts. As a corporate citizen of the community • we are naturally interested in the development of the City and we want to work with everyone but we do express. the desire to get a -little lead time. • Mayor Young: Thank you. I would like .to comment that Mr. Dietz and Mr. Perry, both attended every -one of these meetings which were on a weekly basis starting at 7:30 and 8 in the morning and going on until they con- cluded. So the pant-iCU ti,04 here is a short summary of the contribu- tions made up to this point. Mr. Wax..... H&SE CITY COUNCIL Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentatim Page Six 11/29/72 Mr. Wax: Thank you, very much. We will now have the slide presentation. Mr. Yamasaki is going to do that job. Mr. Yamasaki: 'As Mr. MMunsell mentioned earlier these slides are the result of field trips that the Committee took and Mr. Yoshizaki and I took, and some while • I was on vacation up north. We want to show you three major areas. The Committee was interested in getting a better insight into better uses, satellite uses, that would'assist the CBD rather than standing separately. So we were trying to look for those type of uses at the various shopping centers. We also examined various neighborhood centers that were successfully done. In doing so we also looked at development standards, the buffering of adjacent uses, landscaping of parking areas, treatment of the loading and unloading areas, sign control, building materials, designs and colors, street furni- ture, as well as access and parking. These slides are a result of some of these concerns and what we found out in the field. (Slides shown and explained of the various centers. A slide shown of a loading area at Century City resulted in questioning by Councilman Nichols.) Councilman Nichols: We are just building a big complex right now with an enclosed loading area that is supposed to solve this problem. Did you look at this and talk to anyone why trucks were on the street loading and unloading? Mr. Yamasaki: TtiereLlistaaneting unique about this one. Apparently the retail sales of this market afire phenomenally high .and the turnover of merchandise is very high. When we visited that locationy.it$appeared the trucks were parked there an unnecessarily long time and it looked like there was no unloading activity. Those two factors were our basic reaction to this problem. Councilman Nichols: Do we face.that possibility with Wickes - that there are going to be multiple arrivals of vehicles and vehicles stacked up on exterior areas waiting to unload? Mr. Yamasaki: According to their traffic projection and+'schedu]e and the number of trucks which we have control of for loading and unloading - this is controlled by the City and the streets and the number of trucks anticipated will not permit this type of situation to happen at Wickes. Mayor Young: Welly*if the retail sales are so phenomenally hig11 that it works out that way - so be it9 That would be wonderful. Councilman Nichols: Not to belabor the point, but do you presume that the problem there is because of multiple suppliers arrivingA whereas Wickes, so I assume, will be bringing in their own merchandise. • Mr. Yamasaki: Yes, and recently the Planning Commission approved the use of a small semi -truck which is easy to load and unload which will I assume • ease the situation. (Continued the showing of slides and explaining the various shopping centers.) (Commissioner Mayfield arrived.) Mr. Wax: At this time I would like to say that -Mr. Mayfield, Planning Commissioner, has arrived, so your ® 6 CITY COUNCIL Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation Page Seven 11/29/72 Planning Commission now has an official voice. I would like to ask Chairman Browne, who has attended the meetings, if he would present his views. Nevin Browne As Mayor Young indicated we have both been Chairman in attendance on the Business Development . Planning Commission Committee and as a consequence I think we have considerable input from association on this Committee. I would like to go back about a year to the incept,ioh`:..c=:- of the Redevelopment Agency. The Planning staff as well as tfie Planning Commission became immediately cognizant of the necessity of separate studies in this field. We felt the need of separation from the Planning Department and Planning Staff by instituting a Redevelopment Committee or Agency would be the means for accelerating the implementation of this project and over the period of one yeara,now?I believe we are totally convinced of this fact. The Chamber of Commerce has very graciously put together this Committee to implement the studies which the City could not possibly put through in the time that the al1ouati6ns::;will allow. You gentlemen recognize the fact that our staff is undermined at this time and that the input :the Chamber has in this development, /,fiat staf and the Agency itself can lean upon it for valuable ifiiformam tion.' The ongoing of this Committee will depend entirely upon the results that you gentlemen feel you can see the benefits of. The outline as given by Mr. Yamasaki indicates some of the areas that the Commission and the staff is very grossly interested in. We would like to see the implementation of our shopping center somewhat along the lines you viewed today. During the course of studies and now that the bonds are passed, I feel this should be greatly accelerated and I am sure the input from the CommisStion and the help of the staff will tend to try and put this well along the road of progress. The problems involved I am sure you are well aware of and I can only say this that any actions we take cannot come too soon. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Wax: I would like to now introduce Mr. Pat Bowen. Pat Bowen Most of you probably don't know me. Phil put me Grubbs & Ellis on the Committee with the Chamber because of my activity in Real Estate in three areas. I am involved as a passive investor, as a .real estate developer and as a real estate broker. We own property in the Plaza, which is going to be left standing and therefore I will have to become an active developer to keep it up with the new regional. I am also a Real Estate salesman with the Grubb & Ellis Company, the second largest company in the State. I think Phil hopes I might review some of the nuts and bolts reasons why the planning _is,:irrrpott�Lnt i.to thb:; City and developer and real estate brokers and investors in general. The basic reason obviously i:s thAt w th.-goodi plainning, things go:;a:long:.-more,-,Smojoth13n9 and if they do go along smoothly., opportunities exist for the developer and those opportunities are more timely if things go easily. If zoning is adequate, if planning can be reviewed quickly on plans when submitted, and, obviously an adequate staff that can review these things quickly is an important • feature of this. ' If we have the three areas that I am supposed to be representing then the passive investor is someone that looks for •risks as low as possible and at a lower return. The developer comes along and will accept only the higher return maybe at a higher risk but Ifor him fmaybe not a higher risk because of his knowledge, he knows how to put a complicated package together. The real estate broker has very little risk except for his time and consequently he relies on the input of the developer and eventually the resale to the investor. - 7 CITY COUNCIL Page Eight Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 Or else he is not going to spend his time. Therefore, if the planning cannot be processed quickly the developer will not get involved because there are other cities that provide alternatives for him with proper and adequate processing times. So assuming that staff is undermined at this time, and our Committee is told it is, then I would say we would need additional staff so the plans can be processed more quickly which will encourage the developer and with the developer will come • the real estate broker who will help to lease those spaces and also resell the property to the investor. All of this provides an active real estate community. Thank you. Mr. Wax: I think that you gentlemen can see we have a well balanced Committee. We tried to select people that are realistic and know their business and I think this can be a .very successful program because the enthusiasm' among the Committee has been very high. We have two gentlemen that have come from sick beds today to endorse the program and this indicates a great deal of interest to me. Before opening this up for discussion and comments and action, that this Chamber of Commerce Ad Hoc Committee would be recommending to the.City Manager ® Mr. George Aiassa, who in turn would be recommending to the Planning Commission and onto City Council, and if the request for staffing is approved it would be estimated that possibly six months should identify the entire CBD area, just from the identification standpoint, and the additional six months would probably complete the remaining six projects spelled out on the map as priority areas. I think at that time it would possibly be fair to maybe change the Ad Hoc Committee and pick up the new role that would come from the information that would be gathered through the efforts of this particular Committee. So my recommendation, and I am sure the entire Committee's recommendation, is that you see it in that light and we hope we can start as soon as possible because time is very important. Our presentation is final and discussion and action is up to you gentlemen as'to how far you want to pursue it. Mayor Young: Thank you, Mr. Wax. One of the major areas of discussion that kept coming out at the meetings of this Committee is the absolute optimism on the part of the various members of the Committee, who of course represent some Very important industries like the utilities and financial industries, that with the widening of the -freeway this is more accessible and with the foresight that is evident within this City from, the.CBD development that we are well launched into that these things among many others will Vf courses tend to attract more and more commercial interest to the City and part of the study is to bring this interest to a head and bring it in in an orderly fashion and place it about the City as far as possible in a manner that,is compatible with good planning and good economic foresight. The floor is open. Councilman Chappell: A point of clarification. Mr. Munsell said something about three man years or if we had three people for one year and Mr. Wax just mentioned a year would accomplish all eight • phases. Mr. Munsell: The outline that you received includedsabbttan® tially more than what Mr. Wax commented on in • terms of what would be six months to do the CBD and do a specific study. There is a follow through then with the Chamber of Commerce and with developers which would'be more involved. What Mr. Wax is saying is ® let's get the first part of it done, move the first phase of the entire project very quickly and then move on, from there. Butithex'6i(is. nbt a conflict in terms of that. If you look CITY COUNCIL Page Nine Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 at the first three phases and you want to do them exclusively in the first year you can involve the three men entirely in just that. If you want to do the first part of it and pick up the other seven phases on a,very quick review, such as North Azusa, then that can be done also. Councilman Lloyd: Mr. Munsell, ii.'ias:.beealluded, Mr. Bowen alluded to it and you have touched on'it, and Mr. Wax touched on it, so I gather there is a consensus of opinion of this group that there is inadequate staffing to accomplish the things we are talking about. Is that a true statement? I don't want to put you on the spot, maybe I should start out with Mr. Aiassa? Mr. Aiassa: Yes. I think at the personnel session Monday night I explained to Council the anticipated program of projecting the staff and personnel usage was taken into consideration', not the maximum program but a good part of the program. Councilman Lloyd: I understand from what you were saying that in your opinion there is adequate staff to meet the demands of the man hours that must be expended not only in the Redevelopment Area but in the overall business development plan of the whole City. Mr. Aiassa: There were two plans, which I explained to the Council. I would say in dollars that I think we can start the program and get a good start on it for the new fiscal year of 1973-74. Councilman Lloyd: Mr. Aiassa: Councilman Chappell: In other words what you are really saying is that the Planning Staff is adequate to meet the planned programs currently anticipated - is that correct? Not at the high maximum peak because when they talk about that it is about $40,000 extra. What Mr. Aiassa told us the other night was strictly in house and CBD. Nothing, else. Nothing on the seven plans. Councilman Lloyd: That is what these people are saying. They are going to make additional demands on staff and that the staff will not be capable under the current workload with the number of people we have to meet those demands. That is exactly what these people are saying. Mr. Aiassa: These people are saying if we took the existing staff that we now have and are working here in bodies it would not be sufficient, but what I proposed to the Council at the Personnel Session, we are going to be able to bridge this and I am not going to try and resolve this tonight.i.n detail because there are factors I have to study with regard to budget, but as I indicated to Council if :::this ca,ssreferred to me I could probably work out staffing and the funding to get the • program underway. Mayor Young: Within the existing budget? • Mr. Aiassa: Yes. Councilman Chappell: Starting when? Mr. Aiassa: Starting January 1. 9 - CITY COUNCIL Page Ten Planning & Business D.ev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 Councilman Lloyd: Okay, then I would like Mr. Wax to come back. Within the explanation the City Manager has just given and knowing the problems as head of this Committee, do you feel that the staff will be adequate to meet the demands that you people will be making upon it? I don't want any misinterpretation of what I am saying. I am not saying the staff is not doing their job. I am only saying there is no staff under any given circumstances that I couldn't overwhelm if I gave them sufficient amount of work, so what you are intimating is that the workload may be gre'A*f6r than what Mr. Aiassa is talking about in the two specific areas of the CBD. Do you envision that type of workload where we may have to consider additional people being added to the staff? Mr. Wax: Wellpthe make up of this Committee is unique in that we each serve in the manner that we can best project _and- recommend. If you look in your packet fI assigned Mr. Eliot and Mr. Yamasaki to work out the needs of the Committee as far as manpower goes. Now if they are satisfied with the arrangements of the City Manager -�I was not at the Personnel Session so I don't know what was recommended - but if they are satisfied that we can proceed,then I am satisfied. All we are saying is we have a program and we want to start as soon as possible. If the economics of the manpower is satisfactory: -under what the City Manager is proposing, whether it is tonight or within the next few days - just so we can proceed. In other words if we had action approving this program we would probably have another meeting within a week or so to get use started on the first priority for January. Mayor Young: One thing,.while Mr. Wax is here. There was dis- cussion of staffing in the Committee and it was put out in a rather elementary fashion - if we can, get three men on this we can do an accelerated program, but if we can 'only get one man on lit and I don't think we considered that as a. fatal problem. We can do something with one man but not as much as, soon. Mr. Wax: The only problem about the one man would be, as was brought out, if a priority request came in from an organization, and right now West Covina is hot and with the passage of the bonds your action will be starting very shortly. It is now a reality that you are going to go into construction for redevelopment and many people will come in and make inquiries because this is attractive to many outside people. If we get stuck in that kind of trap and one man cannot pursue into the areas necessary to•move our program forward ..... Councilman Lloyd: Let me clarify the questions I am asking so everyone is clear on this. I am.not asking these questions to place anyone in an embarass-- ing position. I am really trying to ascertain the needs of this City® This group has come in and has indicated a demand which I was not really attuned to when we were talking in,any'.session, but all of a sudden in listening to this presentation I can see a demand which is imminently greater than what we have talked about. One of the major areas left out and maybe I am being arrogant as a result of my profession, but there has been no talk whatsoever of public relations development just with nothing else of doing something to •advertise and aid the people who are going to be doing business in the "redevelopment area. And I will state quite categorically and it has been proven in the area of Montclair, San Bernadino and these other areas that the people such as Penney's, or Broadway, or Bullocks, are not competent, and I use that word "competent" and I know exactly what I am saying, to do this job as evident by the fact that instantaneously they hire people to do this one specific job'over and above what their own people are doing.' So therefore we have to anticipate that such thing would occur in West Covina. 10 - CITY COUNCIL Page Eleven Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 So what I amtrying to find out is do we need it in January, or July, or next January a year from today? I really don't know the answer to that. But I think you are alluding to the fact of having this problem and in addition to this you are now talking about a generation of a much higher interest, which means it is a generation of greater demands on the staff. As a matter of fact one .of the problems we face is that businessmen that come to this City have expressed a reluctance to come •into the City, they feel they are already being slowed down on the thing. We are now running into a position, using an engineering situation, maybe we have a 4" watermain and we need an 8" main to carry •the load. I honestly don't know but I think it merits consideration and I guess I am back again to you, Mr. Aiassa. Mr. Aiassa: Council has to realize that up until this week I have actually leaned heavily into the Planning Department to subsidize the CBD staff. My first priority and my first solution to solve will be the Planning Department itself, to bring it back to its original operational capacity. Number 2 is the development of an Agency that will be confined to the Redevelopment project and function on that basis. In this Agency is the program that these gentlemen are expounding on which will be the instrument which will be coming forth to utilize and expand and build on. As far as I am concerned and as far as the City staff is concerned and the operation is concerned, we are talking three different things. 1: - the immediate needs now within the Planning Department, because we did borrow two persons from planning; 2:-- the development of a new Agency which will supplement those people that will be functioning in the CBD development project itself; and 3: - if and when we think we have dollars enough to supplement the CBD group to augment phases of this project. I am not in a position tonight to say it is going to be $40,000 or three men. I don't think there is any one here that can tell me that it will be exactly three men. I have been to school too many times, it is always easy to throw -dollars and figures around, but I:think the program they have instrumented and the program they are working on has merit and it has to be tied in with the CBD development agency and that will be a separate agency with its own staff. I explained that somewhat in outline to the Council, showing you where the funds would come from and how it would be financed. I am not right now going to give all the answers to all of this because my first responsibility is to the Planning Commission, which we have drained for about six months because we did not know whether we had a go on the redevelopment agency or not, but now that we do I think we have ample funds that we can transfer back to the Planning Department to refurbish the Department to what it was so that the Planning Commission will receive the reports and the needs they have. At the same time I have to create the.second Agency which will be the CBD Agency and the outlines by this Committee will be in the CBD Agency. Councilman Lloyd: Are you talking about a CBD Agency or a Redevelopment Agency? Will it be distinguished from that Agency? Mr. Aiassa: It will be known as the Community Redevelopment Agency. Actually this is Planning for steps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for the next five or seven years, and • it is going to be determining how much manpower we can derive and how much we can afford to put into it, but I think we will have to have at • least enough to implement the program. Councilman Lloyd: All I am saying is there appears to be a greater demand than that which was alluded to. Maybe I just plain misunderstood. Mr. Aiassa: The greater demand - welljif I had 50 men I can do a job in 10 days but if I have to do a job in 12 months with two men then it will have to be expanded to 12 months. - 11 CITY COUNCIL Page Twelve Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 Councilman Lloyd: I understand all those facts and figures and that is well and good, but what I am saying is,we are all of a sudden in a locked time base,,: which is instantaneous. You borrowed money and we have the money and now we have to start producing for it. I don't know really what the require- ments are and I don't expect you to have the answers tonight, I don't think we have done that kind of a study yet, I know I haven't. I •think we must as both the Agency and the Council, and the Planning Commission, focus on the fact of how many horses is it going to take to pull this load. We have had estimates and talk and all the rest •of it but you also have indicated and very rightfully so that one of the major problems we faced all the way through has been not knowing whether we were under' -may or not, and as of today we are 9.5 million dollars underway so there is no more time now to say well let's plan for it. I think the plans we do have have to come out of the mill. The question I am asking, and I know you do not have the answer but one I am trying to bring forward, we must look at not only what we are doing right at the present moment which is the normal workload of this City - and I have heard some comments as we have gone along in the last two years which have flat out said that the City is not really responding in the way the businessmen like to be responded to. Now maybe that is justifiable, I don°t know. I voted right along with everybody else so I assume the responsibility for that, but it indicates a negativism that has occurred. I think the negativism was a result of making the decisions, getting ourselves involved, competing with other cities and other entities for many of the things, specifically the Redevelopment Agency and redevelopment of the area. Now we have solidified that and there is no one that will take that away. We are now in direct business,competition with Montclair, with the proposed area in the City of Industry, and no matter how I feel about it we are in a foot race. Using another analogy - like the guy with the Rams "I really don't need a quarter- back with a sore shoulder, I need one that can throw a ball because the game is on." And I don't know how much time we have. I know one. thing we can't sit back and look at twelve months at this point. We have to get going and if we have to consider additional funding, additional staffing, within the realm of reason I think that ought to be done. As I stated before I know you don't know those answers but they will be revealed to us and rather quickly and I think that is what these people' are alluding to and I think this Council, this Planning Commission, the Redevelopment Agency,;this Committee and others in the Chamber who have a very deep interest in the success of this development program now have to pay attention and if we are not filling the holes then we may have to either shave or give up other programs, make concessions, but this thing now takes on, as far as I am concerned, takes on a priority situation where something else may have to slide a bit. I don't know that I am right on that, I may be yelling fire when we haven't even got a match lit yet, but I think it is getting awful hot. Councilman Shearer: I was a little confused with some of the terminology used with regard to the unit that might be set up to handle the CBD and the project. Let's don't call it an Agency, that is sort •of an agency or unit within the City. Call it something separate and apart of the City and Council. I think in general the report of the Committee is good. I think the concepts are fine and I don't want to get into the details now. I am also aware of the fact that anytime you embark on something of this nature it is going to cost something in the way of money and we were advised Monday night that there would be needed manpower for the additional "agency"o as well as restaffing or refurbishing of the Planning Department. - 12 - CITY COUNCIL Page Thirteen Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 I do think it is something that should be done inhouse. Mr. Munsell alluded to the fact we could hire consultants but what finally happens; when you hire consultants is they start banging on the door of the City and the city staff gathers data. If possible this is something that should be done inhouse. One last comment. I think there is a great • potential here. I hear figures from other locations. I saw one shopping center that I am somewhat familiar with as 1 am acquainted with the Mayor of that City,"Cerritos Center" I asked him the • other day and they have a population of about 35,000 and an estimated sales tax income of 2.5 million. A City half the size of ours is getting almost twice what we are. So the potential is there. Covina, with half the population we have, has close to 70 or 80/ of our sales tax revenue. So the potential is there and that is the way to go. My parting comment would be, and with tongue in check, that the Chamber of Commerce does do things other than have dinners and do provide worthwhile help to the City., And perhaps our action of Monday night is not quite so bad as it might have seemed to some. Councilman Nichols: My conclusions are that the Committee has con- cluded and the momentum is established and the fruits of that momentum are upon us and that if we don't take advantage of that in the coming period we will lose those advantages. The City Manager is already making arrangements to restore to the Planning Department those services which have been sorely missed by the Council and the Planning Commission of necessity, and he is providing by an additional recommendation.to the Council those personnel necessary...fot'.implerrienting redevelopment. At this time we have not had a recommendation for the implementation of the ri�commendatiorr of. this Committee, which 'would:be_ to continue the momdntum or•'gain the fruits. ;Obviously, to me,_the lo'giEalpoint is for .the,.Coiinc.i.l to commend. this Committee for their efforts and refer this report in detail to staff to analyze it and , look at it and come back to Council recommending a schedule of implementation, perhaps in varying degrees, the 3 men in.whatever time and the one man one year, etc., and indicate to the Council`what we will need in the way of manpower to implement that and what the costs will be and bring those facts to us and we in our wisdom can make the decision as to what we can afford to put into these recommendations. I would offer a motion that Council refer this report to staff and request these sort of recommendations back from management. Seconded by Councilman Chappell. Mayor Young: I think the motion is well taken, I think it is the only action that would be reasonably expected here this evening at this particular time. Mr. Aiassa, of course, has had a lot of background on this, he has the benefitof our discussions. So I think we can have a recommendation back at the next regular meeting of Council? • Mr. Aiassa: Yes ,o I am trying to set our goal for the implementation of all programs on go for January 1. So it will probably,be through the month of December that you will receive the bulk of changes. Councilman Chappell: I would like to say that the City Manager has been working his you know what off, getting the show off the ground and I thought he probably would have a day or two to relax, but I think he will have an hour or two to relax before getting on.•this, because ® 13 - CITY COUNCIL Page Fourteen Planning & Business Dev. Committee Presentation 11/29/72 this is something that is urgent. It appears that the five Councilmen are in favor of this program and that Councilman Nichols' motion is in order and I was very happy to second it. Motion carried, all voting in favor. Mayor Young: Thank you, very much, Mr. Wax. Mr. Wax: Thanks,gentlemen/and congratulations on the • acceptance of the bonds. I think that is something that we were procrastinating on to other merchants as to when we were going to get off the ground and we now have something concrete and final to tell them. C 0 Mayor Young: Thank you. We also offer our thanks to all of the businessmen on the Committee and to members of staff that have helped get this thing to this point. We are very grateful. ADJOURNMENT Motion by Councilman Chappell, seconded by Councilman Nichols and carried, 'to adjourn meeting at 5:50 P.M. - 14 -