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04-21-1976 - Regular Meeting - MinutesMINUTES OF THE ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF CITY COUNCIL CITY OF WEST COVINA, CALIFORNIA APRIL 21, 1976. The adjourned regular meeting of the City Council called to order • at 5:04 P.M..by Mayor.Nevin,8rowne in the City Manager's Confer— ence Roam. ROLL CALL.' Present: Mayor Browne COUNCILMENf Miller, Shearer, Chappell, Tice Others Present: Leonard Eliot, City Manager Lela Preston, City Clerk Michael Miller,'Public Services Dir., Bill Freemon, Staff Reporter — S.G.U.D.T. West Covina Chamber of Commerce: George Strachan, Manager John Q. Adams Joe Riordan Alex Goodman Bernard Bregman__ . Jan Ripley George Zartman Bob Weinreb John Gunn Mayor Browne informed the group that Assemblyman Lancaster had just advised him that the City of West Covina had just been granted $980,000 from the Department of Transportation.to bomplete the free— way landscaping; that the.project would be done in two increments. Project.to be started .in either December of January. PRESENTATION BY THE John Q. Adams, President, advised Council CHAMBER OF COMMERCE that the Advisory Board members were RE THE BUSINESS present tonight to bring the Council up— IMPROUEMENT TAX todate on their projects that they have PROGRAM completed, programs that will be carried;' out and studies to be made during the coming year and that Council has received a packet containing these reports and after the presentation Council';. will also receive a written schedule of the Chamber's work program and studies for next year. George Strachan, Manager, summarized briefly what was done in the first six months of the year: For the first time we did couple a citywide trade promotion with the fire— works show which was an extremely successful event. The Thanksgiv— ing Day Promotion for the retail trade also was a very successful one, One of the primary things that we are very happy with every time we throw in $3,00.0/4,000 it generates about $20,000 in promotion funds from other sources of advertising, special editions of the paper, radio, etc. So from our $20,000 we are getting at least • $75,000 a year spent on the general promotion trade for the City of West Covina, At the County Fair we won our First Prize for a City of our size; the Christmas Tree Pageant is also covered in here as part of our Promotion Program and this also was a first. Each year we hold a Hockey Tournament between Christmas and New CITY COUNCIL - Adj. Reg. Mtg. Page Two PRESENTATION BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 4/21/76 Year's which we presented trophies and encourage it, make arrange- ments for motel accommodations etc., for the people that come from as far away as Calgary, Canada, and other parts of the United States. You have a report in here from our Business Development . Committee touching on the new businesses and redevelopment activities that have taken place and the things that we are doing in the commercial areas. Highway/Transportation activities is covered in our report and in the first six months we hope to implement these activities. We have had a meeting with Cal -Trans, SCAG, etc., getting the necessary data together. Economic Statis- tics are in here. Our Public Relations Committee put out copies of the City Directo4 - 15,000, and we are getting continually requests for more. The booklet is distributed to all the newcomers in the area and we think it is doing a good job in getting people to shop in West Covina. Youth and Business Activities: We have been working with the businesses and schools to establish better communications and job opportunities for our youth up through the college level. Membership Activities:. We show a growth of 20% for the first six months and since then we have had a similar growth pattern. Our Bicentennial Project is moving right along. And our Long Range Planning conference which is held in October and two of the Councilmen attended last year will be held again this year. This is just a cursory coverage of the first six months, it is not a detailed report and it is not meant to be. It just gives you an idea of the activities that have been going on and whether they have or have not been successful. Jan Ripley (In summary) . During the -last six months Committee Chairman the first promotion held was the Christmas • Trade Promotions Promotion and it was very well received by the people of the community. We had a-65' Christmas Tree wishing everyone that passed the tree a Happy Holiday Season; also the tree lighting ceremony and Santa Claus was present. Santa Claus was in all the different shopping areas of West Covina. People appreciated having such a beautiful thing here, we got a lot of compliments on it. Our next promotion was the Spring Promo- tion/Circus Days. We had q'lot of things going in the community, a parade at Eastland, a cocktail party at Imperial Savings, the circus was here for 6" days, coupons were distributed for the 14 trips and we had about 60,000 coupons returned in 6 days. Today we had a meeting and the Committee has adopted to join with the fireworks show and we will be giving away trips to Virginia - bi- centennial type trips. Alex Goodman: I would like to add a comment - it was stated we spent $3,000 on the circus promotion and we generated about $20,000/ 30,000 in advertising money. The circus itself spent $15,000 on TV two weeks prior tq:--coming to town and the money put together by the community for advertising totalled -about $15,000. So the $3,000 we spent was just seed money to get other people to advertise West Covina. So I think we got a lot, of mileage out of that $3,000. • Mayor Browne: With regard to the Trade Promotion Pro- grams, I happened to be involved in some of them and I have nothing but compliments towards the initiative of the people that worked in them. I think this is borne out by the return of 60,000 coupons in 6 days. So thanks for a job well dons:!, - 2 - CITY COUNCIL-- Adj. Reg. Mtg. Page Three PRESENTATION BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 4/21/76 (fir. Strachan: In taking a sampling of the addresses on the returned coupons we found that almost exactly 50% were from West Covina and the other 50% from other areas; Covina was the second highest, followed by LaPuente or Baldwin Park, and the balance were scattered for a radius of 20 miles. • George Zart man (In Summary) Reporting on new business Chairman development is kind of hard to do when Business Development_ you can't name names or places until the Committee plans are consummated and generalized to the point where we can let information out. I can only assure you there are many things in the mill and working right now. We are looking at new office buildings for West Covina, talking about hotels, bowling centers, shopping centers and auto centers. We have developers right now looking at the old center area for a complete redevelopment there. I don't want anyone to get the idea that next week we are going to bull doze all the stores down and start all over again, but down the line we have plans. We are talking to developers who would like to come into that area and rehabilitate it completely. We know there are at least six foreign car dealers that would love to be in the Center in West Covina and we think the old center area is a prime location. This would be on the west side of Glendora taking in everything from the freeway back to State Street. We do have two developers looking at that right now and developing plans that they can present to us, city staff and the agency staff to get more concrete things going. In this regard I want to tell you the Chamber is highly pleased with the coopera- tive attitude we get from.,city staff and agency staff; they are all very cooperative. So you will hear more about that area as time goes on. • On the east side of Glendora as most of you know, we are trying to update the fronts of the buildings. Plans will be finalized next Tuesday morning to get the property owners together with the tenants and try and come up with a refacing of that side of the street to make it more in keeping with the theme of the whole downtown area. When talking about redoing and replacing buildings in the old center we recognize that down the line we also have to find a place for some of the businesses that are there now and not face what we did during the -Fashion Plaza tear down where some people had to move their stores out of town. So we have asked the developers to look at other areas in the West Covina Plaza to see if we could fit stores.that would have to be relocated, or in other areas. We are looking at Glendora/Christopher and all vacant properties in Project #1 as possibilities for the relocation of, businesses, if necessary. You know what is happening at Eastland. I have nothing.concrete to report but plans are going on for an up- dating of hat center:` fkan-to'the east of that there is vacant ground that we are talking.to at least two developers about adding restaurants, highrise .bui1,ding,s1,.,c,onvention center.,.- etc. Mr. Strachan touched on the Transportation . Terminal. We are working with SLAG, RTD and Cal -Trans studying site locations and the feasibility for a Transportation Center. If we can get a terminal somewhere in the West Covina area it will be a plus for us. - The Fashion Plaza is fairly well complete now, there are some 20 vacant spaces in the mall and many are already - 3 - CITY COUNCIL - Adj. Reg. Mtg. Page Four PRESENTATION'BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 4/21/76 on the drawing boards and within the next year.they will be almost fully occup,',1ed. There are still many problems with the parking, signing and traffic circulation. This morningwediscussed this and I believe.the Fashion Plaza people will be getting together with Fischer to study the traffic circulation and come up with better • signing recommendations to move the people around in the mall and mainly to utilize the parking structure which cost a lot of money and is not too wisely used. To us that was the drawing card to get people to shop in West Covina.rather than the surrounding regional shopping centers, the convenience of parking so close to the tenter. So I think we have the people in the mall enthused about doing something in the way of advertising its use. I have been on vacation once or twice in the last month'or two and it seems likd(.�every time we are scheduled to meet with a developer I am away and unable to meet with the developer and Mr. Strachan gets the action there, so he is really closer to''it then I am. .. . V_ Councilman Shearet: A comment and it is not a criticism, but I hope that when your.committee is look- ing at the Transportation Center for West Covina that. we don't get -the wrong idea. I go through a Transportation Center twice a day now in El Monte and if that is what you have in mind,for West Covina - well there are very few bene'fits I 'am sure to El Monte because most of the people go throug.h:on-their way.,to someplace else. So if that is your idea please give it a second thought.. Mr. Zartman: We envision a Center where all the buses from all over congregate moving people on to other places, not a huge storage • parking lot. Mr. STrachan: That is correct., In our discussions it has been establishedthat we would hope to have a 5 acre parcel for the collection and dispersal of people for all modes of transportation, including the shops and commercial activities connected therewith. What you are really referring to is a park and ride collection area or a maintenance area and we have talked to RTO as well as the others and they are looking at -a site actually on the other side of Kellogg Hill which will be a ten to fifteen acre parcel for a maintenance yard. We are talking about a true Transporta- tion Terminal.- We would even be looking at the possibility of a helicopter service and this is the reason for a feasibility study. First the location will be determined by feasibility,, economics and otherwise. The two preliminary areas are one at the east end of town which seems to be more acceptable to the RTD and a couple of the others because it is a little.fUrther away from the El Monte Terminal". The joint studies made indicated a Transporta- tion Terminal as an important factor for the City and it could be located in the general business area --;:.or east of. the general Eastland area. I think i'f-RTD were -to put -money into it they would look more seriously to the east en-d of town because of the terminal in El Monte. We visualize it would be similar to the terminal in San Bernardino. • San Bernardino has a 5 acre terminal which is a collection for all buses, rental cars, taxis, etc. Mr. Adams: Mr. Mayor, the concern Mr. Zartman express- ed in the Fashion Plaza - this was spelled - 4 - CITY COUNCIL ~ Adj. Reg. Mtg. Page Five ' PRESENTATION BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 4/21/76 out to Council in e letter on April.7 and again we uouId,offer our help.to Council and staff on this matter. Mayor Browne: We have tentatively agreed to meet with - the Plaza Plaza merchants and discuss the pro~ ' blom° Phil Wax I think Mr. Zartman pretty well covered Chairman in the follow up work the areas that the Land Use Committee Lend Use Planning Committee reviewed in their studies. Wetry to keep it working - together and if we have any problems we try and make the proper in- put. I think it is a very fine committee,, they are not high key people but people of good solid thinking. I enjoy working with them . and staff is doing an excellent job. We have no problem whatsoever-, The work of this committee is reflected now as it is being packaged, the developers are showing the interest that is necessary to make things really happen and I think we will find out that everyone will benefit from that type of approach. Mayor Browne: I receive the minutes of the Land Use Planning Committee and find them very informative on what they are doing. Ber n a rd `. � �bVe some preliminary financial data Chafrman' We the first 9 months - July l» 1975 to Financing Committee March 31, 1976. The activities of the Chamber are in two sections: Business Improvement and Special Promotional Projects. In the Business Improvements Section, which is the general operations of the Chamber, there has been some $62,000 of receipts with expenditures of $64,000° In the receipts of $82°000 is included about 970w000 representing the.funda coming for the entire fiscal year through the 8msinessLinmmso Program. So substantially the r000lpto for the -entire fiscal year have been made in the. first 9 months; anticipating a disbursement of about $6300�e month there should be a further expenditure of $lg»OOO in the final throe month period. � In the Special Promotions Project divi- sion we reood `no6l6,OOO and spent $l&»OOO° The budget for the year was $20tOOOin receipts and $20»000 in disbursements. The planning for some of the events to occur in the latter port of this ye.ar 'should account for the balance in both receipts and dis- bursements. So,io total we are within reasonable balance of tne projected budget for the entire year. Bob Ueinr-el� As you know this is a special year - Chairmen this will be the lqth year that the Special Events Programs West Covina Chamber of Commerce has put on an annual fireworks ohomv but being the bicentennial year also it will carry the theme of Happy 200th Birthday America. It is a pageant with musical fireworks. The pageant will pprtray the founding of our ountry from 1776 to 1976 and depict all the great inventions in th^ period. (Explained) This will be illustrated through music end scenery. .he primary music will be produced by the Lon ' Junior Concert Band. The production itself is in the rghoorsaI 'stage and there isn't �^'h' -'I can ..�^ +'�. toll you that you won't see because you are all invited to the show -- as usual. Our fireworks show will be truly fantastic this year, completely in the air and synchronized to munio, (Explained further) As far as the promotion in connection with' - the fireworks show I will ask Miss Ripley to comment on that. 15- CITY COUNCIL - Ad'. Reg. Mtg. Page Six 4/2l/76 Jan Ripley: We just touched on it briefly today ,and _ have hothing finalized as yet. We planned on probably four or five trips to Washington, D.C.t and Virginia and hope that the people that go will be guests `at the White House also. Alex Goodman: The promotion will start on Jung 30th anc and on the 4thof July and the drawing will be on Tuesday after the 4th of July. Tho�e will be close lia�mon'botueon the fireworks committee and " Jan'� a committee on this. Councilman Shearer: I 'zesume the pageant is a package deal because I know someone will ask me how come the Long` dc'bBand and not the Uoat Covina Band.. ` (It was explained that it was o package deal and the West Covina Band will also participate but all the music you will hear with the fireworks will be taped previously and -played book on tape through their " 'ntoro°) Mr. Adams: We have two other ongnta ~ Miss West Covina contest scheduled for May llth and next Thursday night* April 29th* our Bicentennial night ~~ Claire Deckers continues to chair both of these events and she is not present tonight because she in out of the country. Alex Goodman: Miss West Covina - this year we have 20 contestants and they are all vary nice looking girls. There will be a great deal of advertising done by the sponsors in connection with this event. Our Bicentennial 1776 is coming to the San Gabriel Valley on the 29th and tho_tiohet sales are going very well on this. We have advertised in the San Gabriel Valley Tribunev the L°A° Times and other papers. Unfortunately the community itself is not selling the tickets, the groups in the Bicentennial Associa- tion have not sold any tickets at all* the tickets have been sold by Janos committee which we call the 1776 Committee. We feel very confident that we will have a great crowd at this show. Jan and her oommi.ttge of about 6 people have done o lot of work on this. (Explained further) Mr. Adams: One other activity is our Citizen of the Year event. We had over 200 attending the last one and I think everybody had a good time. This is one of the highlights of the year to give recognition to those who have served our City. ' Our second Planning Seminar will be hold soon. You will all be invited again - the dates are May 15th and / 16th in Son Diego. The objectives are quite similar to what we did ` before. We felt that seminar was e Very worthwhile effort and we are looking forward to another opportunity to get together again as a group and hope we -have participation from Council. We will be having a new look at the Chamber of Commerce through Joe Riordan'o efforts. We will be getting new signage" We have had the same problem a lot of the businesses have had by people trying to find the Chamber office. CITY COUNCIL— Adj. Reg. Mtg. PRtSENTATION BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Mr. Riordan: It is the we expect to next meeting of cooperation between the architects Company but it all wound up well. Page Seven process of assembly now and have it installed before the in San Diego. It took a lot of the mall and the Broadway M�" Adams: In brief summary I would say we have had -- 14 new businesses open from January l to the middle of April; four meetings and seminars; four booster breakfasts; sixty new members. We feel this is of mutual benefit and the programs we will and are doing are all of benefit to the community. I also think we had a Very fun ''function and worthwhile effort on the "Take o Cop to Lunch" - 2I5 attended. Those that were there I believe enjoyed the program. This again will be an annual owgnt° I might briefly give you our schedule: Storting May IDth our Executive Committee will begin its budget studies and considerations and also o Program of Work for next ygar» starting July I° These studies will be brought to the Board of Directors for discussion by the end of May. Prior to that time we would certainly solicit from you gontlomnnany comments that you would have with regard to things you might like us to be consider- ing or doing next year. Stan Smith will be the President and with his energies and abilities we know it will be a bigger and better year, W� will be back to you about the end off. June with the budget and Program of Work; we will keep you advised of meeting times and plooes and if you have any comments or suggestions we would like to have them. Councilman Tice: I certainly think the members of the-' Chamber of Commerce have done an excellent job,, as,uaIl as staff,, in this past year. - I congratulate o� you. Councilman Shearer:' Two things I uOuld like to comment on° I think thoChamber*io doing o fine job. I do just want to pass on one thing to you, it is not a'criticism and not new. A few people have asked ma and I find it a littlo difficu-It to answer* the inquiries go like this ~^ the Chamber gets $70^000/1609000 a year from the City» the purpose is to promote retail sales in Qgat Covina» and I recognize we don't all buy everything in West Covina, but then the question comes out rg thg Citizen of the Year Dinner being out of town. I these t f activities am sure there are good reasons but l think eoo ypoeo ac v os ' we ohould,askouroglwes sort of like the preacher's kid _ he is differentbecouse he is the preacher's kid and maybe more is expeotad of him unjustly - so when you do your planning`for aotinitlosplee-e keep that in mind because if there is enough dissatisfaction by citizens that would not otherwise be concerned it oould,oauao a problem* ` Councilman Chappell: In'the past few years we certainly have soon the enthusiasm and growth of the Chamb�gr not only i aize but in the activities and involvement muohas the to get new people out, and thg sales promotion aotloitlom° -Z am neryancouragod° As you remombgrq'it uao`a split vote when we started out on this trail but I'doh''t think it'wouId be a split Vmta if ug�had to vote over again today~ So T am really thrilled that the decisions made � several years ago are really paying off in the perspective we thought they uould^ . /\Il of you here should be commended for your efforts, as well as all the other business people that work on your Various committees and although city staff works on them too, it is a tremendous amount of work and the team effort is needed for the - 7 - CITY COUNCIL -Ad'. Reg. Mtg. ^' Page Eight PRESENTATION BY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE a/2l/76 � . betterment of the community. I know the Mayor and City Council � is very happy to see the way it is going and encourage it to con- tinue. Being in the community angry day I see the parti'cipotion of the various businesses in your sales promotion activities and you can feel it bubbling and when you report onthe new businesses coming into the City and they are not all coming just into the Fashion Plaza, that to me is a good sign. So I say keep it up and we are with you and we are here to help anytime we -possibly can. Councilman Miller: I commend them for their good work and the reports that come from your Committees and the interests you have shown in your promotions. Mayor Browne: ' I thank all of you for bringing this information to us and I am fully cognizant of what you are doing in the community because I have the opportunity to converse with different people in the Chamber almost every day» officiating at some of the openings as well as getting,into some of the problem oraaa° Coming up through the years as West Covina grew so did the Chamber of Commerce and the professionalism that is being exploited here in your promotions im.an example of good heads getting together and clearly thinking things out before starting activities - all of this is indicative of the operation of the Chambervn intent and the course they wanted to o't° I am glad to hear Mr. Zartman say you are getting the full cooperation of city staff to their fullest satisfaction, to me that means that the gears are set and mesh and the City Coun6il* City Staff and thoChambar are all work- ing in the same direction. I think we have all taken great pride in Qoet Covina in applying redevelopment in its true intent. One of the things indicated ~~ let's make provisions for those people that will be displaced to move into a store or building to retainthose businesses and people in the community. I know we are cognizant of the efforts you are expending in this area and hopefully we will see . them materialize in the near future. Everything is now starting to dovetail together and I think we have to keep on it otherwise we might lose some of this to other communities. At present we are the focal point in the Valley and we have every surrounding city vying for businesses to come into their community after seeing the success of.Qeot Covina. I know we are not going to drop the boll now, we are going to keep it rolling and attain everything we have set out as our objective. Speaking 9or.myseIf° and I am sure the Council as has been indicated, you have our Pull cooperation. And Mr. Adamov I thank you very kindly for the presentation, it was very enlightening. Mr. Adams: Mr. Mayor, just one -comment regarding�: Courioilman Shgarer's comments. We have also reoeiVaduommonts similar to that and I know yesterday Mr. Stranhen spent probably o half hour responding to questions like that. So we areaonoitivg to thos�e kindo of things and before we do it we do gioo it full considera- tion and there o any reasons why we do this occasionally. Again we would invite you to participate with us in the seminar on May 15th and 16th, ' . Mayor Browne: Thank you for that invitation. T assure you I uill. be there..- ' • • CITY COUNCIL - Adj. Reg. Mtg. Page Nine 4/21/76 RESOLUTION NO. 5228 The Mayor presented: ADOPTED A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE- CITY OF WEST COVINA,CALIFORNIA, COMMEND- ING WAYNE SLAVITT ON RECEIPT.OF THE WEST COVINA COORDINATING COUNCIL°S AWARD AS YOUTH OF.THE YEAR. Motion by Councilman Shearer to waive full reading of said resolu- tion; seconded by Councilman Tice and carried. - Motion by Councilman Tice to -.adopt said resolution; seconded by Councilman Chappell and carried on roll call vote as follows: AYES: Miller, Shearer, Chappell, Tice, Browne NOES: None ABSENT: None PROCLAMATION Mayor Browne asked if there were any objections to proclaiming April 25th through May 2nd as Campus Life and hearing none, he so proclaimed. AT 6:10 P.M. THE CITY COUNCIL WENT INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION WITH NICK COUNTER III ('LABOR RELATIONS CONSULTANT). ADJOURNMENT Motion by Councilman Tice to adjourn meeting at 7:20 P.M., seconded by Councilman Miller and carried. ATTEST: City Clerk APPROVED: MAYOR - 9 -