By Julie BUTCHER

After lengthy and extensive discussion, the Glendale City Council ended its evening meeting on Tuesday narrowly voting to return to “the old way” of selecting members of the city’s boards and commissions by rotation rather than the more recently adopted method of making the appointments by panels of councilmembers.

Councilmembers Dan Brotman and Ardy Kassakhian voted to continue appointing commissioners cooperatively but were outvoted. The matter will be back before the Council for further action in the coming weeks and could require the resignation of all sitting members of the city’s 17 bodies to facilitate the change.

The Council authorized a contract to study all aspects of parking in the Montrose Shopping Park “authorizing the city manager or a designee to enter into and execute a PSA [professional services agreement] with Transpo Group, to review, develop and update all aspects of the Montrose Parking Analysis, and provide recommendations for an update of the Employee Parking Program in the Montrose Shopping Park in the amount of $193,250.”

Bradley Calvert, director of the city’s Community Development Dept., reported on an upcoming community meeting to review proposed multi-family residential and mixed use development and objective design standards. The meeting will be held in person on Wednesday, May 22 at the Sparr Heights Community Center, 1613 Glencoe Way. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. and the presentation will start at 7 p.m. A virtual meeting is also scheduled to elicit feedback on the standards on Wednesday, May 29 at 6:30 p.m. For the link to the online meeting or for more information, contact city staff Villa Zemaitaitis at (818) 937-8154 or by email at vzemaitaitis@glendale.gov or Teresa Santilena at (818) 937-8159 or by email at tsantilena@glendale.gov.

Calvert also reported on an additional new element added to the city’s general plan. State law now requires cities that have updated a number of elements of their general plans to include a “social justice” element. The city has developed a survey www.surveymonkey.com/r/GlendaleEJ “to ensure there aren’t disproportional environmental effects on our community, be they due to demographics, age ranges, income levels, and to ensure there are mitigating measures.” The survey seeks input on these topics: access to a range of public facilities and services; the availability of safe and convenient places for recreation; access to healthy food options; housing conditions; pollution exposure and air quality; opportunities to share input on city plans and programs.

Earlier in the meeting, the council issued proclamations recognizing Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish Heritage Month.