City Council — 2026-08-11

The

city clerk, please call roll.

Thank you Mr Mayor Council members of oil. Council member middle here. Council member Alta Miranda. Mayor Pro Temp Garcia

here

and mayor Linus

here.

You have

quorum Mr Mayor Perfect thank you for that Mr City Clerk and now we'll go ahead and move on to public comment. Mr City Clerk do we have any speaker cards?

No speaker cards were submitted for the closed session Mr I see no virtual hands raised on zoom.

Okay, perfect. Okay so we will now go ahead and recess to closed session City Clerk Sarmiento could you please read out the items for closed session?

Yes sir Mr. Mayor thank you conference item number one listed under closed session is conference with legal counsel pursuant to government code sections 54956.9 D2 and E2 regarding anticipated Anticipated slash potential litigation for two cases and the second item listed on closed session is conference with legal counsel. Existing litigation pursuant to government code sections 54956.9 D1 related to one case, Unite Here Local versus City of Commerce case number 25STCP03029

Perfect, thank you for that Mr. City Clerk and the City Council will now recess to closed session.

Thank you

sir

Music playing Oh Music playing Music playing Music playing Music playing Welcome to the Council. Music playing Music playing Music playing Music playing Music playing This is a test. Music playing Music playing Music playing. Music playing Music playing

The council now will reconvene from closed session. Attorney Tapia, could you please provide your report?

Discuss item number one. There were two matters that were discussed staff made presentations on both City Council provided direction on And provide an update with the litigation that's been resolved in favor of the city's defense of the CEP that was issued and the CEQA compliance. So, that was the report in closed session. Thank you.

You have quorum Mr. Mayor

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Sovereign God. We thank you Lord for the opportunity to be gathered here today. I thank you for my colleagues. I thank you for this community which we love so much. We ask for a special blessing Lord. We ask for your guidance and wisdom in the decisions that we make today. May we always make them with our community at heart And Lord, we ask for a special blessing for the family of our beloved Tina Gonzalez. We know, Lord, that she is now resting in your arms and we just ask her special blessing for Tony and for his family, for his kids. Lord, please be with Tony and comfort his heart, his beloved sweetheart Tina over 50, 60 years of marriage. May you comfort them and may you be with this community and all those that are in mourning As we feel the loss of Tina, who was an active member of this community.

So, Lord, we just ask that you be with those that are in mourning and grieving at this time. We ask for your special blessing for the people of Columbia. May you be with those families, the families lost. May you be with the search-and-rescue team, may you give them strength. May you give them renewed hope. May you be with those that are recovering and Lord, may you always remind us of who you are and where you are in that you are sovereign and that every blessing comes to you. May you be with us today and we ask this in your mighty name. Amen.

Thank you director and council woman At this time, we'll go ahead and move on to public comment. At this time any members of the public who wish to

public comment? This would be the time to talk. That's totally fine. So good evening, Mayor, honorable City Council members. My name is Chris Ruiz with Precision Environmental, vice president. I'm here as well as Jim and Nestor behind me related to the energy facility deconstruction project So first and foremost, I definitely want to elaborate. Precision is ready to perform on this project.

We were awarded the project by City Council on June 23rd. We were the lowest most responsive bidder. Following that award, the city instructed Precision Environmental to procure payment of performance bonds, city business license The costs were incurred by us in excess of $20,000. So as a certified SMPW, small business for the purpose of public works contractor, these incurred costs are substantial and they're meaningful for a company of our size.

So, my goal for today is to remain fully capable of performing the change that was made to the bid when it comes to the monitored weld work that Jim was bringing up earlier. But for tonight I'm asking City Council to uphold the original award allow Precision Environmental to execute the contract and We hope that the city will recognize the commitment by Precision Environmental already made on this project.

And that's it. Great, thank

you for your comments Mr. Ruiz. Thank you. The next speaker I have is Mr. Nestor Reyes

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the City Council. My name is Nasser Aiz, Vice President of Operations of Precision Environment. I'm going to say pretty much same as the team. We've spent a lot of time, a lot of our effort to submit a qualified bid. I believe our team accomplished that. I believe the city acknowledged that in awarding us a letter of intent for us to proceed Thank you for your comments. Mister Reyes.

City Council, Mayor? I'm not addressing this to the council. I'm addressing my community and my neighbors. Electing Leonard Mendoza to the City Council again would be a mistake because his record shows a long pattern of poor judgment, failure to protect our people under his authority and inability to work constructively with others.

Excuse me, Mr. Sanchez if you could hold for a second Mr. City Attorney

Yeah, we don't allow public I mean political speech during our public comment. And so if you have other comments related to city business other than the political campaigns, we'd appreciate that. I'm not running. No, I understand that but you're advocating against someone who's pulled that will run. So again, we don't allow political

campaigning anti for whatever. Got it. I'll continue at the bottom here if it's okay. We need to stay

the course. As an independent voter and just as a private resident of this city, I have reached out to Michael Gates' campaign. Is this okay? And we're going to help set up a town hall on August 20th here in our city, simply because I care about commerce and the future of our community. I'm nobody special, no elected official, no political operative just a resident who believes local issues matter more than party labels.

My co-agreed to meet with me and engage with our city because like many of us He understands the real progress starts with listening to the people who actually live here and share a genuine concern of our local communities. I asked the City Commerce Council members meet with AG candidate Michael Gates because the city's nonpartisan mandate requires focusing on local interest over party labels, and Gates has demonstrated clear alignment with Congress in the casino issue along with strong record of public safety while other statewide figures have cited with outside gaming interests that conflicts with the city's priorities Gates has supported our local position. A direct conversation would let council members assess that alignment firsthand, explore practical ways he can advance commerce's interest and reaffirm the city's decision to remain grounded in what benefits residents rather than partisan calculations.

That'll be all.

Thank you, Mr. Sanchez. I do want to remind everyone that political campaigning is not allowed whether it's negative or positive. It's just something that we just is not allowed in public comment so I know that we're entering election season with something that as soon as you start talking we will avoid in the future and Mr. Legal Counsel, you can corroborate that as well right?

That is correct. So with that said, I now call to the podium Mr. Jesse Hernandez.

I'm here because I've heard a lot of people opposing, you know, a certain member trying to run for mayor. And I'm just here to support Ivan and say that hey, you know what? He's got a vision.

Sir,

sir,

I just

talked about this. Well hey,

you

want to say

my piece. I understand that but we have legal obligations and I'll defer to legal counsel but we can't campaign up here. I understand if you have support. Great or not, it's just we have to be agnostic here.

Well can I at least say what things that he's done for me? No no respectfully we cannot have campaigning during the public

meeting. It's city resources...

Okay yeah I got some balance I want to talk about that fire that went on over here. You had it on a Wednesday you figured fires gonna be off in a couple hours a day at most okay carried on for two weeks I call the city, or I try to call the city on a Friday. But I guess you guys don't have a contingency for any kind of emergency that happens on a Friday because I tried getting ahold of somebody to get some help with the fire that's going out and smoke is coming in our direction because I live on a stepchild side of City of Commerce.

It seems like we get neglected out there. And when I tried to get ahold of somebody for help, there was nobody here. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I run into Mr. Altamirano. I tell him what's going on over here. He delivered an air purifier to my house. What are you guys gonna do when we have an emergency on Fridays? There's nobody here! Anybody got an answer?

We're not allowed to engage back and forth with members of the public on comments, but we could

certainly take your comments into account. And it's something that will discuss with staff as far as the availability over the weekend. It's not the first time you've heard, you know, the Monday through Thursday schedule for City Hall doesn't work for the community. So your comments are duly noted Mr. Hernandez

Well, you know I said my piece. I just hope that things work out and people just start acting right and let that man be mayor

Thank you for your comment. I believe that concludes our speaker card, so we will now go ahead and close public comments and move on to the consent calendar. We do have items one through nine but I would actually like to call item number

seven. Mr. Mayor and I apologize, I should have mentioned that we may have a caller I did not recognize at this point. So we

do have attendees

virtually

on Zoom and so do we have anybody that are raising their hand?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So at this time if you are joining us via Zoom and would like to provide public comment, you can raise your virtual hand by scrolling to the bottom of your screen and hitting the Raise Hand feature or dialing star six if you would like to raise a virtual hand. No raised hands Mr. Mayor thank you for that. Okay

great thank you for that Mr. City Clerk so we'll now go ahead and move on to the consent calendar. We have items one through nine I would actually like to pull item number seven does the city council wish to pull any other items?

Seeing none, if there's nobody pulling any items I would move to approve items number 1 through 8. Correct? You're pulling number 9? Which one

are you pulling? I think the ones that are open are 1 through 6, 8 and 9.

I would pull items 1 through 6,8 and 9.

Okay,

so

we have a motion to approve items 1 through 6, 8 and 9 by Councilwoman Arbolio. Do we have a second? I would second that. We have a second by Councilman Argumedo. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes. Okay, so let's go ahead and

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the Council. Andy Ramirez, Interim Director of Public Works. The Public Works Department recommends that the City Council reject staff report item number 7 to rescind an award to Precision Works and proceed with the original award to Precision Works Incorporated. Following further review, the department has determined that the original base bid scope remains appropriate and that Precision's bid meets the requirements of the project. Proceeding with the original award will also allow the City to maintain the project schedule and meet funding timelines. That concludes my recommendation.

Okay thank you for that Mr. Ramirez does the City Council have any questions? Okay, I know we have a recommendation on the staff report. Personally, I feel that we should be upholding the original award with the City Council approved back on June 23rd so that will be my motion to uphold the original award that the City Council made back on June 23rd. I'll

second that.

Okay, so we have a motion by myself and a second by Councilor Linda Boyle. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes, thank you. Thank you for that. And what I'll add is, this deals directly with the CREA site and that's the site where we're looking to relocate our transportation center and it's been an ongoing project and we've received a significant amount of state and federal dollars for this project but it's also contingent on staying on a certain schedule and so we want to see this project move forward and move forward quickly because it's something that we're all excited about and of course we could all use the support of state and federal dollars just to clarify for the public.

With that said, we are now done with consent. We'll go ahead and move on to scheduled matters. And we have a presentation from the Sheriff's Department of Public Safety in the City of Commerce. And we have our sergeant, Ozzy Cortez. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and fellow council members. This presentation is the statistics presentation. Next slide. This new slide shows the comparison between Commerce and the other contract cities including the unincorporated area of East L.A., under the East L. A Sheriff's Station. From left to right these four bars are as follows. It's going to be the City of Commerce, City of Maywood, The first part of the graph shows the robberies and it you can see in comparison is pretty much.

The one that stands out next is ground theft. The first bar again is the City of Commerce, and it shows that it suffers more ground theft compared to other cities. Some of the causes of that is the high commercial area which is the city level and the commerce center along with the rest of the commercial businesses in the City of Commerce. And this being a new type of presentation, please feel free to add comment or ask questions because there is a lot of new content here.

Following that is the theft from vehicle, not to be confused with vehicle thefts. Theft from vehicle and it shows commerce has a significant in comparison to Maywood Cutting Hay but a lot less than the unincorporated area of LA. After that is the petty thefts followed by auto thefts We're going to be talking about. And aggravated assaults, this is felony assault where there was either likely to cause great bodily injury or someone did suffer a great bodily injury crime against them.

City of Commerce is pretty much along the same lines as Maywood and Cudahy and significantly those three cities are a lot less than the unincorporated area of L.A.. In comparison to the square mileage Just to remind all viewers and audience, the City of Commerce is approximately 6.5 square miles, Main Road 1.2, Cudahy 1.25, and Unincorporated LA 7.4 square miles. Why is that important? Is that when you compare the bars or the numbers to the square mileage, I'm going to talk a little bit about what happened in July.

This slide is the traditional slide that shows the statistics for the month of July. In total, there was 102 reported incidents for the month The majority of the crime is crimes against property where it's 93 out of 102. Of that, it's a low number of robbery, almost insignificant burglary. Theft is the majority which is a concern from the City Council and a lot of the residents here.

Auto theft is somewhat notable at 18 and arson zero. Next slide. In regards to theft, which has been a concern for the last several weeks and presentations. Broken down by neighborhood, which is a reporting district in terms of the Sheriff's Department, this is the following. For the area of Bristol it's two For the area of Commerce Center, it's 5. Bandini 1.

Grosewood 4. Citadel 6. And Veterans 6. And to clarify this is catalytic converter thefts by neighborhood. Catalytic converter thefts by neighborhood. Those are the numbers. Just to recap, the most suffered area is at the Commerce Center We're going to be looking at This is the requested crime trend heat map. It does have a lot of packed information in there. I'll go over it as carefully as I can. It shows that the most frequent neighborhood that's victimized for thefts, this crime trend is for thefts and it also includes the catalytic converter numbers.

In 0245 which is that hot spot right in the center, And then north of that, the other red hotspot is the Commerce Center. These two neighborhoods reporting districts are the ones that suffered the most thefts in the City of Commerce. In regards to days of the week it varies this first slide The crime trend between July 1st to July 15th. It's just too much for one slide so I broke it up into 2.

Followed by a lot less incidents happening in the middle of the week. And then crime picking up again, thefts at the end of the week, Friday and Saturday. And the one that I'm reading is these light blue charts in the second group on the left. That third or final group on the left is time-of-day crime. And as you can see it's the afternoon to the evening when during this first half of the month crime most occurs.

Next slide. The second one is the second half of the month, and again to recap at the top left corner, the area that suffers the most is first the Citadel followed by the Commerce Center. Time of the week here changes at the second half of the month or day of the weeks changes in the second half of the month. You see a significant spike in that Wednesday and Thursday group In regards to hours, it's still the same. It's the afternoon to evening hours and they're doing those off in the early morning or early morning times.

What has been happening and will continue to happen is the City of Commerce team has its schedule worked around situations like this and that's why we work the afternoon to evening shift here in the City of Commerce. Next slide. So I'll hold to this slide just to add the percentage. Year-to-date, in regards to the statistics, year-to date in crimes against person it's up 4% and crimes against property it's down 18%.

Even with those high theft numbers we are lower by 18%, this time now in July versus at this time last year overall down 17%. In regards to this slide, it's the requested CalPERS now known as the FLOC system. I've explained the FLOC system in the past. It basically takes still images and sometimes videos of passing vehicles. It captures notable specific markings on these vehicles.

And the numbers that I was able to obtain from our database is a little bit I just want to make a couple of comments. The first one is that there's been some strain in regards that it depends on how that deputy curse his call. And in regards to having a better accurate reading, I have been and will continue to brief now that our deputy personnel in the field when they clear calls regarding the flock system to add the keyword flock or other similar keywords that I can pull off of the database to get an accurate number.

But what is reported based on that database is that from January to June I'm going to give you a little bit of background on this case. I've responded to and participated in a lot more arrests regarding flock than these numbers show. But this is what the data shows from the system, and again just to move forward is addressing our deputy personnel to clear the call specifically with the term flock.

And the next number is a hot list. Same slide. So traveling through the City of Commerce are reported stolen vehicles, wanted felony vehicles, wanted for questioning registered owners and or known operators. Meaning we know who is operating these vehicles although they're not the registered owner. We're able to input the plate amongst a variety of other things that we cannot disclose to tell when I'm going to talk a little bit about what's happening in the city of commerce. And when these vehicles cross the cameras here at the City of Commerce.

For the month of July alone, the sheriff's hot list which means the entire Sheriff Department from Palmdale all the way down to Carson, Lost Hills, Malibu, all the way to San Dimas, all those investigators and special team members input information where they want Here in the City of Commerce, there was over 2600 hits for the month of July. That number also represents the same vehicle crossing multiple cameras once or twice going to or fro and so the number of hits from the Sheriff's Department looking for this vehicle is roughly 90 per day in the city of commerce or 4 per hour Again, that can also be reflected if one vehicle is crossing more than one camera more than one time throughout the day.

For the East L.A. Commerce hot list, that's the investigators and specialty members that belong to the East L. A station concerning the City of Commerce. It was 1,400 alerts, 50 a day about two an hour. So this flock system is providing a lot of information consistently every day that there are reported stolen vehicles, wanted felony vehicles The next steps. Part for that is for our deputy personnel to be I'm confident that the arrest regarding FLOC or the lead from FLOC will just increase as the deputy personnel learns how to use the system, has access to the system.

And there's also a lot of That leads to arrest and that data was requested from the detectives bureau. And it's a lot of detectives having to go through their cases to get me that information, you know, in an index presentation. Next slide. This slide represents the national night out that occurred on Tuesday August 4th. It occurred without incident In terms of criminal activity, nothing where the police had to be involved. It was a successful and stress-free crime free incident for the participants. That day, the Sheriff's Department presented arrow which is a helicopter, special enforcement bureau which is the SWAT vehicles, mounted enforcement detail which were the horses, canine, the narcotic dogs are the ones that came out Mental evaluation team, which is a mental health team comprised of the deputy and the psychiatrist.

The motorcycles. The Sheriff's Vita, the at-risk youth program. The East L.A. Explorers who were in uniform and participated and assisted in many of the booths. And the East L. A Commerce Team. I'd like to recognize East L.A. Captain Chris Kusianagi, who attended the National Night Out and was able to be on stage and present the team to this city. Thank you. Any questions?

Sergeant Cortez, thank you for the report and pulling the numbers that we had requested over the past couple of meetings. Much appreciated. Does the City Council have any questions?

Just a general comment, just to say thank you for National Night Out. I know we can say it during our council reports but I don't know if the guys will be here throughout the meeting and I just wanted to say thank you to all of you. I know that is probably the second or third largest event here in the City of Commerce where the community like all comes out and it's just so important for the community to get to know And I just really enjoy watching our deputies kind of just interact with the community. But more than anything, interact with kids and so thank you for the job that you do. I know I kind of told you guys already but I know that the community does appreciate your The work that you do and I know that the work that you do is kind of like ours, right?

Where it's a thankless job. So thank you. I know that the community appreciates you keeping us all safe so thank you for everything that you guys did to help assist with National Night Out. I know Natalie and Rebecca did a phenomenal job but I know a lot of it was coordination with you as well so thank you. It was wonderful. Thank you again.

Thank you Councilwoman. Thank you Councilwoman for those comments any other comments from the City Council? Sergeant, again thank you for the report. I'll echo my colleague's sentiments. I appreciate the work that you and the team are doing and appreciate your presence at National Night Out. It was good to see the captain out there as well in the helicopter it was great.

Of course our team did a phenomenal job but I'll save those for my council report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make sure that we're achieving results right now. I know we're only seeing 18 arrests since from January to June. Of course maybe there's a problem with dispositioning the data right which is why you're not pulling But you also mentioned that crime is down 17% year over year.

And I don't know how much I could trust that, right? Just again, I trust data but also anecdotally, I can see that the community is frustrated. They appreciate the law enforcement of course writing the work that you guys do and to my colleague's point sometimes it can be a thankless job but You know, as a city we are continuing to invest in resources and tools to make sure that our community feel safe right their property remains in their possession. And I just want to make sure that your team is working in tandem with our public safety teams and using your resources to their Fullest potential, right? Because when I look at the data for ALPRs it doesn't seem like it's worth the investment. And then I see what's happening out in the community and I have people coming to me saying hey there's been break-ins and we're We can't trust to park our cars out on the street, and it's coming from multiple neighborhoods.

It's a little disappointing. Again, that does not fall on you, right? And I don't want to point any fingers. I just want us to work together and utilize the tools at our disposal to really make sure that we mitigate and tackle this head-on because it can't continue. Listen, I know Commerce is a safe city with its property theft that we have here but it just seems to happen very often. I hear about it a lot We can just fix that, right?

Again, appreciate all the work that you guys are doing. I know it's tough. I know it's not easy and thank you for the presentation. Okay, so at this time we'll go ahead and

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. I'm Jessica Serrano, your Community Development Director and this is a request to adopt an urgency ordinance establishing a 45-day moratorium on data center development Data centers are typically large warehouse-like buildings that house computer systems and networking equipment used to store, process and distribute digital data and information. It's like the physical home for the Internet and cloud services.

Businesses like banks, hospitals, manufacturers, retail and other types of businesses lease spaces within these warehouses to house their IT and servers. And data centers Often times require excessive electrical demand, substation or transmission improvements, substantial cooling systems, backup generators, water and wastewater capacity and 24-hour operations. These types of operations may threaten public health safety and welfare through increased greenhouse gas emissions, poor air quality noise and heat around data centers I'm here today to address the city's low number of jobs and infrastructure capacity concerns.

The commerce municipal code and zoning regulations do not currently define a data center, let alone regulate them Within a reasonable time to study, consider and potentially amend the City's General Plan, Municipal Code and other applicable regulations to address whether and under what conditions data centers should be permitted within the city. At this time, it is recommended that the City Council consider adopting a proposed urgency ordinance by four-fifths vote establishing a temporary 45 day moratorium on the acceptance processing and approval of any approvals related to data center developments within the City of Commerce effective immediately upon adoption.

Also directing city manager to return to the City Council within 35 days with a written report describing the measures taken to alleviate the conditions that led to the adoption of this urgency ordinance and to schedule a duly noticed public hearing to consider extension of the moratorium for an additional period of 10 months and 15 days. This concludes my presentation, I'm available for any questions.

Director Serrano, thank you for the presentation and before I hand it off for questions or comments. I appreciate this item coming before us on the agenda. I felt it was important to put it on here because data centers have become a hot topic recently, and I think there's still a lot that needs to be learned about them. I need to know what the impacts are in having data centers in communities. So I know most of us here use AI, artificial intelligence.

I think data centers do have a place, I just don't know that they have a place around homes. In fact, I don't believe they belong there right so and I don't know what the community benefits are right? I don' t know what the impacts are you know outside of the initial jobs that are created with construction of data centers I don't know what more there is right that will benefit the community. What fees would the city collect? That's something that I would like to see on the report. Are we resilient enough with our power grid, right? They consume tremendous amounts of electricity and so do we have the infrastructure to support them? Do we have the water infrastructure to support the high usage that comes with cooling vents? I know our water infrastructure is a little bit dated, right.

And so I don't know that you can support the usage that would be required from a data center. And how does this impact our surrounding residential communities, right? You know, we have people here and we hear about the heat that it generates and the noise and those are just some things that I've heard through Other reports, articles, other cities. And so I want to learn what those facts are in order to really truly make an educated decision on whether that's something we even wanna entertain. But personally, I support this moratorium. I want to also ask staff within this time period to also look into developing an ordinance enacting a ban on data centers in the City of Commerce for our consideration before the conclusion of 45 days.

And that's me personally, and that will actually be my motion. My motion would be to approve her staffs recommendation but also work on developing an ordinance that will enact a ban on data centers in the City of Commerce.

And I would second that.

Okay so we have a second on the floor by Councilwoman Arboyo. Now we have a motion on the floor do you have any other questions or comments from city council before we put this to a vote?

Yeah. My apologies, Mayor. Yeah, the comment that you just mentioned related to the information that we'd like to gather, I believe you're asking that we include that? Correct. And ban it, right? Correct

Absolutely. I do want to be supplied with the information but I do want a ban ordinance at the ready so that the Council can consider that at the conclusion in 45 days or whenever we receive that report within that 45 day window. So we have a motion and we have a second by Councilwoman de Boyo. All in favor? Or actually, let's do a roll call vote given that this is an urgency ordinance so

Motion carries

Great thank you for that Mr. City Clerk Director Serrano thank you You're supporting consideration here. Now we'll go ahead and

Yes, Mayor. Thank you. This item is a first reading of an ordinance amending Chapter 15.13 titled Electric Vehicle Charging Stations. This ordinance was first adopted by the City Council on November 25th 2025 I would like to introduce the proposed ordinance in accordance with assembly bill 1236 which requires local jurisdictions to adopt an ordinance to create an expedited streamlining permitting process for electric vehicle charging stations.