Loading...
11-12-1973 - Special 2 Meeting - MinutesMINUTES OF ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL CITY OF WEST COV.INA, CALIFORNIA NWI NUBR 12-, 1973. The adjourned regular meeting of the City Council called to order at 4:05 P.M., in the West Covina Council Chambers by Mayor Jim Lloyd. The Pledge of Allegiance was given. ROLL CALL • Present: Mayor Lloyd; Councilmen: Young, Shearer, Chappell Absent: Nichols Others Present: George Aiassa, City Manager Lela Preston, City Clerk H. L. Perry, President,-.W.C. Chamber of Commerce George Strachan, Mgr. - " " " Mike McDonnell, Staff Reporter - S.G.V.D.T. Ken Larson, Administrative Analyst, Jr. Harvey Krieger, - Advisory Board Member Phil Wax - Advisory Board Member Mayor Lloyd stated the purpose of this meeting was to have a joint meeting with the Advisory Board of the West Covina Chamber of Commerce, and for easier communication between the Council and the members of the Chamber of Commerce the meeting would bi held upstairs in the City Manager's conference room. Motion by Councilman Young, seconded by Councilman Shearer and carried,.to recess the meeting at 4:06 P.M., to the City Manager's conference room. JOINT MEETING WITH ADVISORY BOARD BUSINESS ADVISORY (Joint meeting reconvened at 4:12 P.M.) BOARD REPORT Mr. H. L. Perry I am President of the Chamber of President Commerce and the Chairman of the W.C. Chamber of Commerce Advisory Board; and I am going to have Chairman to say I think this is all new to all Advisory Board Committee of us and we may have to play it by ear. I think it does state the Advisory Board, within the ordinance created by the City Council, that the Executive Committee will act in this capacity,..also the agreement states we should meet at least once quarterly and report the activities of the Chamber of.Commerce and.. the progress made in the implementation of the various programs. Of necessity we apparently have to wear two hats. There is a report submitted by the Chamber of Commerce which -I believe all of you have received.a,copy of and it. does set down in rather complete form the activity report of the Chamber of Commerce.by division and the accomplishments and' the purpose,',' of accomplishments for the year. We are open for questions, Mr. Mayor.., Councilman Shearer: Was there any recovery from the circus with regard to the $500. you committed, or,was. • that just lost money?. Mr. Perry: I would have to say that most of this was a complete loss. Much of this.was the circus promoter himself suffered some loss and we did also because of advertising in advance which we were not able to recover. - 1 - • r CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING Page Two CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 11/12/73 Mr. Wax: I would like to add that it was an excellent program, unfortunately somebody confiscated their funds and equipment at an earlier stage prior to our event and we were concerned that they would not be able to cover the cost factors on their part of the bargain. The Chamber spent three days trying to determine and find out if •there was any guarantee that it would go off the way we planned it and we couldn't get the pieces together in time for the date we .were shooting for so rather than losing more money we decided to cut it off. Counci4an Shearer: I assume if any advance ticket sales were made the money was refunded? (Mr. Wax answered eyes".) Councilman Young: Mr. Mayor - this is almost an aside - on the County Fair exhibit - there was some little flap on the Council owing to the position I took on that with regard to the exhibits - I was in opposition to approving things project by project. It is.a lot more fun to sit back and shoot major cannon balls then sit there with a beebee gun. In any event during the course of the County Fair my back fence neighbor told me "what a perfectly horrible exhibit The City of West Covina had" and I said "don't tell me about it I struck out on that, write the Chamber of Commerce or somebody..." A few days later my partner, who is a far more severe critic of me for example than my wife is, said "I saw the West Covina exhibit at the County Fair and I thought it was pretty good." I didn't look at it myself but I thought you would be interested in those two opposite points of view. Mr. Perry: Personally I would have to say the same thing. I think anything out there, even the one that won the first prize, you had mixed emotions when looking at them.depending on who was looking at them. I would say the Chamber would always be.shooting for something better each time. We are in an enviable position in that we have a choice spot in the middle and then again is it so enviable when it comes to be the worst one in utlizing the full area that is assigned to you. You get it from all four sides. If you have a nice side one you can look good from just one side and as you probably noticed those. that did take first prize have only one exposure. Councilman Shearer: I observed the exhibit myself and I thought it was a vast improvement over last year; now whether it was worth the difference in cost from that of last year I don't know, but I was very surprised when I alked around and looked at the others and found we had only gotten th place. Last year we got 3rd. I don't know who was judging this year!. Mr. Strachan: Actually there were five prizes. The one that got first place shouldn't have in that category. These were cities of only 50,000 to 75,000 and the first prize went to a City of 125,000. We called them on it and they said they.were sorry about it, that it was a mistake they shouldn't have been in there but it was too late to do anything about it. And another thing, ours wasn't quite finished on the morning of the judging. There was a considerable amount of work done on it over the weekend and those that viewed it from the third day on saw a considerable difference in it than on the day of the judging. I would say if the judging had been done legitimately on Friday instead of on Monday we would have done better., Mr. Wax: There are two philosophies in this Fair think- ing. Some Cities start an exhibit and add to - 2 - CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING Page Three CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 11/12/73 it each year for four or five years and keep adding dollars to it until they may have $10,000 or $12,000 in it and they start off with $2,000 or $3,000. We didn't want to go that.route. If we were able to got an indication the first year maybe'then we would went to add to it, but if not we could scrap it and start all over again. Does the Council think we should be adding to it or scrap it? That is another proposal that is open to us. •Council an Young: My response would be to kick it right back to you. I just refuse to become an expert on Fair Exhibits and on so many other things that you do. You have the collective wisdom of the Chamber of Commerce members, which is so very broadly based and for me to say you should stick with it or not stick with it, I think would be improper. You have a budget and if the Chamber says "let's add more money" or they say "abandon it", well I am not quite ready to sit here and be critical of any of those positions that you might take. Mr. Harvey Krieger: Mr. Mayor, I think that is a good point of depature for this meeting. It has been commented already that this is the first and I hope it is the first of mane meetings in the guise of the Advisory Board and this is an illustration of how I feel the Advisory Board, as.created by the ordinance, should pro- perly operate and that is the same as any other Board here in the City. I believe it is the function and responsibility of the Advisory Board to come to the Council at one of these meetings and recommend to the Council as any other Board or Commission of the City would as to these types of programs andI don't see the County Fair Exhibit as. being any different. So I am agreeing with your comment, Councilman,Young, that I believe it is our responsibility to come to you at the appropriate time and say now last year this is what was done by the Chamber of Commerce, not wearing our hats as the Executive Board Committee of the Chamber .of Commerce but as the Advisory Board of the Council and say as the Advisory Board of the City Council on these types of projects we do or do not think it should be perpetuated or should be.changed in certain respects in particular. And elaborating beyond that the ordinance provides that the Advisory Board will advise and recommend to the City Council.on the implementation 'of the ordinance. It has already been done informally in terms of the budget considerations and figures submitted to Council.. I know the Chamber and therefore the Advisory Board is still in the process of evaluating certain of these programs and projects for the course of this year. I am hopeful that there will be a substantive rather than a procedural content to these meetings(in the future where the Advisory Board actually functions as an Advisory Board looking at these functions and projects that have been undertaken by the Chamber of Commerce and advise and recommend to the City Council on their success or failure or modifications. The report attached to the Chairman's letter is a report from the Chamber of Commerce to the City. It is not a report from the Advisory Board to the City Council but we thought at this juncture inasmuch as there has not been a formal report from the Chamber to the City that it would be an appropriate time to have a formalized report from the Chamber of the City as an attachment to the cover letter from the Chairman of the Advisory • Board and I think it is the responsibility and purpose of this Advisory Board to take a look at those Chamber reports as submitted in the future and comment as well, not merely submit it. Mayor Lloyd: I would concur. I think we are in the process of establishing the relationship of this Board to the Council. I know we - 3 - CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING Page Four CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 11/12/73 have been under some consideration and even criticism for quote "spending all this money", but very much like the man with the new horse running in the race, before I get too critical about the price I think we should wait for a few races to be won or lost, and then make a determination as to whether the purchase of the horse was a good one or not. And with that analogy I think we ought to give the Advisory Board its opportunity to perform with those implements available to it to get the job done. .Certainly a judgment based on whether or not we got the first prize at the County Fair is a shaky method of determining whether the overalll program is effective. And number one, I am not really sure I concur with the decision of the great judges as to what shall or shall not be the first place or last place. What I would really like to see is how many people walked by, took a look and saw that West Covina was represented and that what they had was good or.bad, and did it do one other things - which was attract attention to the City of West Covina, such that maybe somebody.would be favorably impressed to move here with a business or be involved actively in some way. That is the kind of performance we are looking for, not a blue ribbon one.. Therefore, I would concur with the remarks of Mr. Krieger. Councilman Young: I think we should certainly have a perspective on what we are discussing. I don't think the County Fair Exhibit per se is worth the amount of time we spend discussing it since we are talking about a $2600. project out of a $751000 upwards budget. I would view this aspect of the discussion as purely illustrative, it is a simple example. If it was viewed as anything but illustrative it would be Parkinson's Lawto the ultimate extreme - here we are on a $75,000 budget and we zero in on $2600. I don't think any of us really. intends that. I am interested in the overall concept of retail trade promotion and I know we all are, particularly with this method f financing the Chamber has a greater responsibility than it has ever had before in the area of overall retail trade promotion and this responsibility is owed to every segment of the business community, and certainly of the retail business community in every geographical location of the City. I have managed not to be as prepared as I would like to be tonight, I just sew the material now, which is my fault and no one else's, but do we have programs either underway or under consideration that are going to have some meaning for our businesses in the.Galaxie area and the Woodside Village area, and north of the freeway, and along Azusa, and along Glendora avenues - = do we have things in the mill as a result of this program that have meaning to all of these segments of business within our community? That would be my question., Mr. Perry:. I would have to say that if we relate then on those areas - well we don't have programs for all specific areas. The overall program I would say - yes. We are talking about sales promotion which would cover the whole city, but the one area not covering probably as well as some of the others, is the Fiesta Days. This is underway presently and is just one of several. I would say we are all aware and watching very diligently the expenditure of this money to see if it is being • well spent. I am sure each of the members of the. Council are also looking at it in the same way, so when we set down a program of work ... and the fact is we have only been really from July 1 on this, so we.. are only three or four months into the program and we feel by the time we finish our contractural year we will have good programs underway for all and some completed. 4 - CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Page Five 11/12/73 Councilman Young: I think if a program of the kind of scope I refer to and that you are pointing toward can h@ d@v@lop@d in a matte of a y@ar'a tile, 1 would canaid@r that a miracl@ if you could hav@ a functioning organization that would satisfy evary PartiCUlar n@ed that we Wbuld wart satisfied from this program. -You don't do something like that. over night. If in a matter of two or three years we see positive •results, if that result for example if a motel or a convention center or whatever, some successful enterprise say in the Galaxie area, which is of course now right across the street from the City of Industry and that big shopping center, then the intent of this legislation is being carried out. I just say that to assure you that I wouldn't be looking for an overnight result on something like this. Mr. Krieger: Mr. Mayor, may .I elaborate? And this is strictly in the capacity of the Advisory Board. I.think there is an immediate benefit which one can realize beyond specific projects, and that is the fact the Chamber of Commerce is in a new role as far as the entire community is concerned. Historically, and I.don't think this is unique to West Covina , there were certain establishment::.areas.*.Within the Chamber of Commerce, and I know for a fact the attitude existed although I don't think it was that prevalent, but the attitude existed for example in Woodside Village, or Valley'Boulevard, or some of the smaller commercial centers on North Azusa or Orange, that oh the Chamber of Commerce is a Plaza undertaking. If they were really unknowledgeable they said it was an Eastland undertaking and between the Eastland and the Plaza it was a Plaza undertaking even though there was an Eastland Businessmen's Association and a Plaza Businessmen's Association and then something called the Chamber of Commerce, but depending upon where you were located in the community it was somebody else's undertaking. Well every licensee in the City, wherever located now know their monies are being used by the Chamber of Commerce in this program .for the promotion of the retail trade activities and therefore they have a vested interest in the program and I think they have manifested that. Before they felt they were on the outside looking in and didn't want to come in anyway because their attitude was.such that if they did they would have little fact or effect. On the other. hand it has caused the Chamber of Commerce to look on the outside for members and to look to these other areas and we do have a: responsibility for Woodside, we do have a responsibility for .Valley, Orange, Merced - and the entire community. I think there is a tangible and immediate benefit from the.program-.in that respect alone. Councilman Chappell: One thing we have noticed, and I think I say this because I was on the Chamber and on the Board of Directors and active in those areas, and it.seemed that these people were all sitting on the same committees and now you are up to 174 participants, so that can't help but have some good effect. If these meetings are productive these people will come back and you will continue to grow. That is what I am going to be.looking at from where I sit is the interest these various Committees have for the business people. If you start with 16 and they end up with 4 or 6 men, then you can be sure there is nothing of interest in that Committee for them. So I think that is where the Council can look to see how these Committees continue to act and react. I think you started out when I was on the Committees with a few and now you got large numbers on the Committees in comparison to what you used to have sitting on Committees and to me that is important because you are. involving these other areas. You have to be or you.wouldn't be getting.`that many people working. Today, I am very pleased with what is going on. From time to time I do talk to the various committee members and - 5 CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING Page Six CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 11/12/73 p the Chairmen of these Committees and I am impressed with their goals and how they are going about accomplishing them. Mr. Perry: I would like to make an observation following up Councilmen Chappell's remarks. With regard to the number of people participating and naturally we would like to have more, but also when we talk about these other areas we would like to have more people from the Galaxie Area,the North Azusa area, etc.,. and sometimes we find volunteers there and that is how we accomplish things through volunteers. We find i4 we have a concentration of volunteers.from any given area that it will appear that we are concentrating our efforts in that 4rea because that is where the volunteers come from, so we would like very much and hope to expand our participation by members from the Galaxie Areal and we do, have some members from there that are active but we would, like more because the more we get the more activity we will have in those areas and this is what we are shooting for. At times it might appear that we are concentrating on a particular area but it is because. the volunteers are coming from that .area at that time. Mr. Wax: I would like to add to what Mr. Perry is saying. The further you go to the outskirts the more Poppa and Momma type stores you find and as much as they would like to participate they can't leave their stores to participate because they don't have enough employees to do so. We do have people -asked to sit on the Board of Directors and we try and cover all these areas to make sure each area has representation on the Board and hopefully.that.they get involved in the committee work. Councilman Young: A further comment, and one that I am somewhat reluctant to make because I don't want to be in the position of being on that Committee but I would think some consideration might be given if not already done so, to some Chamber of Commerce enactment of a Recruitment Role in the areas that don't show a lot of participation. I know that Mr. Wax had a committee going, maybe it is still going,... one on Land Use, I believe seven areas in the City were delineated as priority type areas for land use purposes, largely commercial, and the same groups of subcommittees might arise out of Area IV for. example, which is probably Galaxie. A Subcommittee that could meet right there. It is just a thought, it may not be a worthy thought, but I just throw it out. Mayor Lloyd: Yes, I think they are seeking involvement at every level.It is a difficult thing to get people to participate, particularly in the Mom and POp operations. You know you reach a saturation point. It is not like the Gas Company or other large businesses, they.have availability of resources, which is just not available to a little person. I note that there are several of us around this table who happen to be Mom and Pop type operators, so apparently there is possibilities for these people to participate and have quite a meaningful involvement. So strangely as it may seem those involved in the little operations seem to be as greatly involved if not more so than those who come from the bigger businesses. Harvey has been the Mayor and now he is back again giving his time, energy and effort to the Chamber, and it is true through his efforts that this very economic method of financing came to pass. So it shows you that the "little people" are really the ones that get things done. . I think the opportunity is there and we have to communicate this to our community. I think this is exactly what Bob is trying to say, he wants those who would participate to have an opportunity to participate and I know that you do this. The Chamber !W.IM CITY COUNCIL JOINT MEETING. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Page Seven 11/12/73 of Commerce and you aa'tho Executive Board, know this because 1 havo heard you all say it = - it is always the same guy that does it and that is true. If you want something done go to someone that has done it already and you get it done. Those of us on the Council have had some bitter lessons when we tried to have people work who have not been involved in the community and the job was horrendous on the part of the -people involved, they did a fair job but it would have been better if we had people who had been involved in that arena before. If I may summarize a bit, I think what we are talking about is we do want everybody in West Covina involved in the. Chamber of Commerce, and they can be involved. Particularly those that are paying their entrance fees, they have to understand that in paying their entrance fees the only thing it allows them to do is come inside the main tent and get a broom and shovel and go to work. But for them to have paid and be excluded - and I know this isn't happening but I think we have to make that kind of an effort to let them know, even if it is with letters saying you know you are helping to pay for this Chamber so why don't you become a member? I realize also playing that way in the past was not possible when we had to have specialized people that did nothing but membership, but we are relieved of that at this point, so I think there is a requirement to encourage people to participate. TPke Valley Boulevard, if those merchants down there had a West Covina Day or something like that, maybe.the Chamber could be of assistance to them.to help them help themselves. It isn't very meaningful if you have to gather up the old timers right out.of the Plaza area and say okay we are going to do something for you people, down in the Galaxie Tract, and then run these people down to .that area in which they really aren't involved in the first place..So it is kind of a give and take situation and I honestly don't know in my role here on the Council how to make that thing happen. I am at present doing my level best to get the youth of the. City involved and don't know that I am doing such a great job on that. Councilman Young: Mr. Mayor, do you want a motion to receive the report of the Chamber of Commerce to the Advisory Committee? (Answered: Yes) So moved by Councilman Young, seconded by Councilman Chappell and carried. ADJOURNMENT Motion by Councilman Young, seconded by Councilman Chappell and carried; to adjourn at 4:55 P.M., to 7:30 P.M. in the Council a Chambers. APPROVED: MAYOR ATTEST: CITY CLERK