Save Our Community was founded in the movement to resist Wal-Mart's development in Rosemead, California. Now, it has become a general site for news, information, gossip, talk, and blogging about Rosemead. We also have stories about South San Gabriel, San Gabriel, Montebello, and occasionally about Pico Rivera, El Monte, South El Monte, Alhambra, Temple City, and other nearby communities. Your host is Todd. If you want a blog just sign up, get approved, and start writing. Good posts will be moved onto the home page.
Chicken?
Actually, no. The meeting was held in the RCRC big room, in (accurate) anticipation of a large crowd. The video camera was up and (i assume) running, but since the RCRC is not yet wired for streaming - something for a future upgrade, perhaps - they could not go live. I would expect it to be posted to the video archives within the next week or so.
As for the meeting itself, CAL Poultry (CALP) was out in major force, comprising at least 3/4 of the 200 - 300+ people who came. I didn't count, but would guess about 25 or so people spoke, including myself. Most were pro-CALP. Maggie ran a relatively tight ship time-wise after letting CALP's lawyer say his piece, so they finished up with that portion around 9:30ish, if memory serves.
But here's the catch. Apparently the notice for the original Planning Commission meeting was sent in to the Trib, but the Trib screwed up and didn't actually publish it in the paper, so it had therefore not been properly noticed. Staff discovered this while in final preparations for Tuesday's meeting. So the Council was therefore prohibited from taking action, and had to refer it back to Planning, who will presumably re-consider it at a near-future meeting. This means at least three more meetings of fun (one Planning, two Council).
Little Naive, Brian
How long does it take to upload a video file? If they wanted this up, the meeting would have been posted by now.
Same thing with the SGV Tribune: If they liked the outcome, it would have been on the front page of the Tribune today. Instead, it's like this meeting never happened, and 200 people did not turn out to the city council meeting to save their jobs or save their local source of fresh poultry.
Little Paranoid, R.O.
I was mainly commenting on why it wasn't available generally. The "week or so" comment was allowing time for going from the camera to the computer to editing (removing the dead time between CDC and CC if no one thought to turn off the camera) to the Website, for about three hours of video. And if they're going to include agenda item jumplinks as is done automatically for meetings in Chambers, those would have to be entered manually. Those are processes that are not normally necessary, and which would have to be done in between Aileen (or whoever)'s regular work. Two days does not a conspiracy make.
If one were intent on finding such things, there are other things one might look at that could more plausibly be questioned.
I don't believe I mentioned the Trib in my post, but as I don't recall seeing Rebecca there, that six-sentence factoid was likely all they could write. I'm inclined to assume that if we see an actual article at all, it'll be right around the time the meeting gets posted and Rebecca can watch it. Either that, or it's just taking a little extra time to figure out a way to put that special "Trib Spin" on a meeting that was decidedly hostile to the council they so approve of.
You make time for what's important
That's a truism in life, journalism, and politics.
Another truism in life, journalism, and politics is that most people do what their boss or benefactor wants them to do. Nothing paranoid about that, and a little naive to think otherwise.
My thoughts
The following is my comments at the meeting, notwithstanding a bit of on-the-spot editing....
Good evening Mayor, Mayor Pro-Tem and council members. I do not envy you your position. You have a very difficult decision in front of you.
I have very mixed feelings about the issue, myself. As someone who works in the environmental field, and on code-related matters, I find its recent track record of violations in both areas disturbing, not to mention the odor issue. But on the other hand, CAL Poultry is a thriving, locally grown business - not exactly common these days, unfortunately - that serves many Rosemead residents and people from surrounding communities, and contributes to our sales tax base.
Even so, the problems with the site need to be addressed. But sometimes the way you do something is as important as what you do. Looking at the near future, going down this road will make a certain number of your constituents happy, and could well resolve the immediate issues, but it will also make many other constituents unhappy, and could expose the City to an expensive lawsuit that it may not win. In looking at the long term, however, I believe you need to think very carefully about what kind of message you would be sending with this action.
As we all know, Rosemead has not had much success attracting commercial development over the past couple of decades, both in general and compared to neighboring communities with similar demographics. For whatever reason, developers and major chains were largely passing us by. But the new General Plan (GP) and mixed-use design guidelines developed in 2007 and 2008 sent a very clear message to developers and prospective businesses that things were different. However, that GP is on the verge of having its centerpiece gutted and most of its zoning reverted to way it was in the old GP in something of a bait-and-switch. And now the City may be about to aggressively act to shut down a locally grown, successful business. From progressive to regressive, to shutting down businesses. What are these actions going to communicate to businesses and developers of all kinds who were considering coming into the city?
Rather than this approach, I suggest that you consider a jointly-developed pathway to compliance - with benchmarks - that will allow and require the business to make necessary modifications to eliminate the issues…and with a failure to attain those benchmarks acting as a trigger to amortization.
In closing, I would also like to suggest that in the future, to forestall sticky problems such as the one we’re faced with tonight, you may want to consider directing staff to develop some type of “amortization ordinance” that would require all legal noncompliant non-residential uses to comply over time with certain code standards or face amortization.
Good comments
It really puts me in a rational frame of mind, which feels good :)
On the other hand, I think there's plenty of other kinds of politics involved. Racial, class, old versus new, immigration.
What do developers want: a fair, even handed process with predictable laws and enforcement... or something else? Do they demand favors? Do they want an environment stripped of signifiers of immigration?
Do CALP's owners live in Rosemead? If they survive this, they should move in and protect their turf.
Thanks...rational was the idea.
Yeah, there are plenty of politics in this...certainly all of those, at least, and on both sides. That's part of why I avoided those and focused on the larger potential effects; ideally, if you avoid the hot-button issues, those who are capable of it may actually listen to you.
To your question about developers...yes. To all of those.
The point I was trying to make was that the new General Plan sent a message that, whether or not they even cared about mixed-use, this was now a different city with new ideas and new ways of doing things; it was *not* the same Rosemead they've been mostly ignoring in favor of our neighbors. Moreover, it had a coherent plan and a vision for the future. But then turning around and gutting the core concept in the Plan while simultaneously shutting down a successful local business...? Gosh, what a confidence builder *that* would be....
They live in Arcadia, as I recall. Should be in the first half-hour of the newly-posted video if you want to watch it.
Video of the Jan 26th City
Video of the Jan 26th City Council meeting has been posted.
There's another city council meeting this Saturday (Feb 6), at 10am. No agenda posted on that meeting, yet.
Meetings
Glad to see that it's up now.
Not sure why the Saturday "meeting" has no agenda posted. According to the last agenda, it was set for "Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. at the Rosemead Park Swimming Pool for a tour of facility as well as the Garvey Park Swimming Pool and aquatics facilities in neighboring communities." I'm guessing the plan there is to show the councilmembers the (very bad) condition of our facilities, and compare with some of what's been done by our neighbors, as a part of the Strategic Plan and Facilities Master Plan.
Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the info.
You're welcome...
...though I have to say that it came as quite a surprise to me to learn that Fontana is a "neighboring community."
(That's what's on the agenda....)
man, what a video!
man, what a video!
Link to January 26 Rosemead
Link to January 26 Rosemead City Council meeting video. The poultry issue discussion begins about 16 minutes into the recording, the staff presentation about 22 minutes into the recording, and public comment begins about 24 minutes into the recording. You can drag the little marker below the video screen to jump forward.