By Mary O’KEEFE

Assemblymember Laura Friedman attended the Glendale City Council meeting on Tuesday night, Nov. 29, to give a wrap up of some legislation that occurred on the state level.

“We had a good year in Sacramento in terms of the budget and I was able to secure nearly $15 million for the City of Glendale,” Friedman said.

The funding was in response to requests made by the Council. Friedman said she was able to get funding for all of the requests but added this was typical.

Friedman was able to secure more than $6 million for the Glendale Central Library, which would be used to complete the Children’s Room and new teen center.

“With this money the Children’s Room is fully financed,” she said.

She also mentioned the $6 million in funding she secured for the Verdugo Wash Vision; in addition she secured $2.5 million to acquire open space in the north end of Glendale and $100,000 for the Glendale Fire Dept. for fuel reduction work.

She also secured funds dedicated for the bridge that is to connect Glendale to Griffith Park.

As to legislation, she highlighted some bills that had been signed into law including AB 1933, which is a bill involving Heritage Housing Partners and Habitat for Humanity, two non-profits that build housing for low income residents.

“What this will do is allow for non-profit developers who are building 100% low income projects to be able to use the same tax incentives that they right now can use for rental properties [so they can build] home ownership properties,” she said.

AB 452 is a bill Friedman said she worked on for three years that will require all school districts to annually notify parents of students about the safe storage of firearms.

AB2309 strengthens the guardianship of foster youth to be placed with family members or family friends.

AB2344 would require Caltrans to consider where they need to add wildlife crossings.

AB1909, the OmniBike bill, will remove “pretexts for harassing people on bikes, help people on bikes and people in cars share the road more safely, expand e-bike access, and legalize common sense biking,” according to calbike.org.

She praised Glendale for providing more housing “where it made sense.” She added she did not support SB 9 and SB 10.

“Do I think we should be adding housing up in the hills where there is fire risk? No and I didn’t support SB 9 and SB 10 for those reasons because I think the locality should have more of a say,” Friedman said.

Mayor Ardy Kassakhian asked City staff to do a cost benefit analysis for the phases of the Verdugo Wash Vision.

There was a presentation on the creative crosswalk projects. The streets that will be affected by the new crosswalks are Adams Street and Palmer Avenue, Broadway and Columbus avenues and Broadway Avenue and Galleria Way. The choices that were made by the commission that was tasked with the choice were not to the liking of many of the Councilmembers.

Kassakhian said he understood the design was to bring attention to the crosswalk and would be more visible and therefore a safer crosswalk for pedestrians and vehicles; however, the designs did not reflect the diversity of the City. He showed photos of creative crosswalks in Chinatown in Los Angeles that highlighted the culture of the area.

Kassakhian was the lone “no” vote on moving forward with the artwork that had been presented. The mayor said he wanted to make a point with his vote that staff should be more active and inclusive of the cultural diversity of the city in the future.

There was a debate on the appointment of one Glendale member to the Burbank-Glendale Pasadena Airport Authority Commission. Retired Glendale Police Chief Carl Povilaitis and former Glendale City Councilmember Frank Quintero had been nominated. Povilaitis had withdrawn his nomination and Councilmember Elen Asatryan voiced her desire to be appointed to this commission, which seemed to catch the other Councilmembers off guard. That led to a debate/discussion that, as Kassakhian described, became a bigger issue than it needed to be. Two callers showed support for Asatryan; however, one of the callers appeared to apply age discrimination in his choice of Asatryan over Quintero, which was pointed out by Councilmember Paula Devine.

In the end the Council voted four to one for Quintero to be voted onto the commission in a term that will last until May 31, 2025. Asatryan voted for herself.