By Roman INGUANZO

The Tuesday night meeting of the Glendale City Council opened to a full house with attention reserved for the newly-named mayor of the City of Glendale Dan Brotman. Outgoing Mayor Ardy Kassakhian led the flag salute followed by a poem by Poet Laureate Raffi Joe Wartanian.

Following the poem, the outgoing mayor made the following comments:

“I have had the privilege of sitting here for a year and using this authority vested in the mayor to be able to speak – sometimes for a lot longer than some people wished – [than] I’m sure even my colleagues wished – so tonight I’m not going to make any long comments other than to say simply: Thank you. Thank you to every single one of you. Thank you to the residents of Glendale, thank you to the staff, thank you to all our board members and commissioners – some of whom are here tonight who work tirelessly without any compensation serving the city. I want to thank my colleagues for making this year as productive as we were able to make it through this collective work. Thank you even to my critics … you kept me on my toes. What can I say!?”

Newly appointed Mayor Brotman then offered these comments, which were said with a smile sparked by unmistakable joy:

“This is such an honor. I want to first thank the voters of Glendale for believing in me (twice) in 2020 and again in 2022. I want to thank my colleagues here for putting up with me. I also want to quickly acknowledge some dignitaries [who] are with us in the audience – State Senator Anthony Portantino, former Mayor Frank Quintero, our city commissioners, my parents, and my beautiful partner Michelle.” 

Dan Brotman’s mayorship will be defined by various ambitions that include increasing affordable housing development, increasing subsidy funds, incentivizing paths for youth to accumulate wealth, making streets safe for everyone and rapidly developing clean energy infrastructure. 

Next the council addressed consent items, which centered on a construction contract for the Brand Park Motorway Improvements Project, an amendment of funding for Elderly Nutrition Program services, and a contract for the Glendale Transportation Center Renovation Project.

There were two requests by Councilmember Asatryan to agendize reports and discussions on family leave policies for city employees including adoption, fostering, bonding leave, lactation accommodations and menstrual leave policies. Motions were made to agendize these items for future city council meetings. Following these requests, the Glendale City Council meeting was adjourned.