By Roman INGUANZO

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Glendale City Council, Mayor Dan Brotman designated April 23 to April 29, 2023 as Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Week.

“The health of Americans depends upon educated minds and trained heads,” said Brotman. “Laboratory medicine is an honorable profession which should be recognized by all individuals as vital to the high standards of healthcare enjoyed in the city of Glendale.”

May 2023 was designated as Older Americans Month. The mayor also commented on the designation, recognizing the contributions of older Americans.

“The City of Glendale includes over 45,000 older Americans who contribute their time, wisdom and experience to our community,” said Brotman. “The City of Glendale recognizes the need to create a community that offers the services and support older adults may need to make choices about how they age. The City of Glendale can work to build an even better community for our older residents.”

Councilmembers then discussed several events that have happened, and are planned, in the city.

“The mayor and I were at [the] Home Again LA fundraiser, which … helped so many victims of domestic violence who are on the verge of homelessness find homes and supply support systems for all of them,” said Councilmember Paula Devine.

Ardy Kassakhian was also grateful to the number of people who supported the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, recognized at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

“The end of April is always a busy time for many Armenian Americans and allies and people who support the cause of universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide and justice,” said Councilmember Kassakhian. “Kudos to city staff, to the organizing committee, to all the organizations … all the committee members, who put it together.”

Attention was also given to mental health awareness.

“May is Mental Health Awareness Month and so I wanted to make sure to give out a national hotline,” said Councilmember Elen Asatryan. “If anybody needs mental health support, [they] can always dial 988 regardless of where [they] live.”

A new agency was established and launched on Wednesday. According to a report last year, the Burbank Glendale Pasadena Regional Housing Trust will be able to receive public funding from other agencies, fund the planning and construction of housing, and issue bonds for the purposes of funding affordable housing.

“This is a new agency that is being set up [Wednesday, May 3],” said Brotman. “It is the first meeting of that agency and I’m the Glendale representative on the board of that agency.” He said the Pasadena representative is from the office of Victor Gordo, the mayor, and from Burbank is councilmember Nikki Perez.” 

Mayor Brotman thanked State Senator Anthony Portantino for the $23 million given as capital to build affordable housing in the three cities.

“The trust is also empowered to raise additional money so it’s not just the $23 million,” added the mayor. “Ideally we will find other sources of funds such as public funds, state and local government, private funds… we can even potentially issue bonds to raise additional money. So hopefully this will be a new approach that we can all take to develop affordable housing in a region that obviously needs it very, very much.”

A new city permit portal was announced. The new portal will adopt a clean user interface that will ultimately streamline the permit process. The portal went live at 9 p.m. Tuesday night and can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/fy9ybddt.

The council then focused its attention on an ordinance amending Section 2.04.080 of the Glendale Municipal Code, 1995, pertaining to the order of business for council meetings. After much discussion, the council moved to postpone consideration of the ordinance to Tuesday, May 9.

The council then discussed a motion authorizing the city manager, or his designee, to execute a professional services agreement with Ascend Analytics, LLC to assist Glendale Water and Power with the development of the City of Glendale 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). Chie Valdez – the Integrated Resources planning administrator – and Scott Mellon – the assistant general manager of Power Management at Glendale Water & Power – conducted the presentation. At the end, Valdez and Mellon recommended that the council authorize the agreement “in the not-to-exceed amount of $245,000, plus a 15% contingency in the amount of $36,750.” (GWP, 2023) 

During the deliberation of the item, the council urged all parties involved to do their best in upholding transparency and involvement with the community, stakeholders and interested parties in the undertaking of this project. After these comments, the council approved the item.

Next on the agenda was consideration of refinement of updating sign regulation pertaining to animated (digital) signs. The motion was passed by the council.

The discussion of council districts and directly elected mayor and discussion of potential amendments to city charter followed next. Note that a final vote was not reached at this point; on Tuesday, the council was only discussing the matter. Among the arguments made by councilmembers was that voters deserve fair and accurate representation. Many councilmembers also favored compensation for representatives because the position is unpaid and lower-income residents are disincentivized from pursuing a position on the council.

“I’ve always been a supporter of districts. I think it creates fair representation from across Glendale, which is very diverse,” said Councilmember Asatryan. “I would be interested in maybe a six-member body plus a directly elected mayor. I am interested to hear about compensation. I know that there were some comments made about the median household income in Glendale. … We have an opportunity to do full time versus part time council positions. I think term limits should be applied both to the council and to the elected mayor position. And then I think, with the directly elected mayor, I would like to see different models.”

Councilmember Ara Najarian expressed concerns about council districts and a directly elected mayor. 

“Going to districts will definitely create fiefdoms,” he said. “There’s going to be one person who is elected from a region or community that is going to hold all the power in that community.” He noted that the performance of safety personnel, such as police and fire personnel, might be affected and how public works money is going to be spent, how  parks maintenance money is going to be spent and everything is going to have to go through that person.

“And I know that because that’s what I see in Los Angeles,” Najarian added. “That’s what I see in the City of Pasadena. That’s not what we want. We want representatives for the whole city. We shouldn’t see a difference between South Glendale and North Glendale, so I’m against districts.”

Councilmember Kassakhian also expressed some of his concerns.

“I don’t think any system will be ideal,” he said. “I will say that I’ve given a considerable amount of time and thought to this and thinking about how these systems of representation can be improved. One of the reasons I initially even ran for the office at that time of city clerk was because of its role in elections and opening up the pathways to democracy to under-represented groups. In this city I’ve lived and seen how groups have been marginalized or disenfranchised and what they’ve had to go through to get access to sit and have a seat at the decision. … Unfortunately, we are limited in what we can do in California. And district elections happen to be one way if we are going to move in that direction. I think it’s best for us to… control our destiny versus having to go into a system by default. And I believe that expanding this council, allowing more voices to be heard … is the right way to do it.”

Mayor Brotman agreed that there was no ideal solution. 

“I don’t think there’s any perfect structure,” he said. “There are potential issues no matter how you set up your government, but I think we’re at a size and a level of complexity that districts would allow for better representation geographically and socio-economically. I think it creates a lower barrier of entry to potential candidates. So I think we will see candidates who may not have the wherewithal to run on a citywide basis. And I think that’ll give us more diversity here. And I think diversity is good; diversity leads to better decisions. Ultimately, I … think we’ll get better constituent services if we have council members that are closer to their constituents.”

The meeting concluded with a motion to start a study reflecting six council districts and a directly elected mayor. Findings from this study, in addition to the likely presentation of alternatives, will be discussed in a future council meeting.