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RRA - 02-26-02• At i.RO V EU CITY r R SEMEAD DAT Oa' MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETINGy G D~ ROSEMEAD REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY FEBRUARY 26, 2002 The regular meeting of the Rosemead Redevelopment Agency was called to order by Chairman Imperial at 7:10 p.m. in the conference room of City Hall, 8838 E. Valley Boulevard, Rosemead, California. The Pledge to the Flag was led by Agencymember Vasquez. The Invocation was led by Agencymember Clark. ROLL CALL OF OFFICERS: Present: Agencymembers Clark, Vasquez, Taylor, Vice Chairman Bruesch, and Chairman Imperial Absent: None APPROVAL OF MINUTES: FEBRUARY 12, 2002 - REGULAR MEETING Agencymember Taylor requested that the Minutes be deferred to reflect his three reasons for voting No on Item 6. Approval of Just Compensation for Acquisition of Temple City Boulevard. 1. RRA RESOLUTION NO. 2002-04 CLAIMS AND DEMANDS The following Resolution was presented to the Agency for adoption: RESOLUTION NO. 2002-04 - CLAIMS AND DEMANDS A RESOLUTION OF THE REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY OF THE CITY OF ROSEMEAD ALLOWING CERTAIN CLAIMS AND DEMANDS IN THE SUM OF $474,961.27 AND DEMANDS NO. 6625 THROUGH 6646 MOTION BY VICE-CHAIRMAN BRUESCI- SECOND BY AGENCYMEMBER VASQUEZ that the Agency adopt Resolution No. 2002-04. Vote resulted: . Aye: Vasquez, Bruesch, Imperial, Clark, Taylor No: None Absent: None Abstain: None The Chairman declared said motion duly carried and so ordered. RRAMIN:2-26-02 Page # 1 • 2. APPROVAL OF PROPOSAL TO PROVIDE ENGINEERING SERVICES FOR THE ROSEMEAD BOULEVARD RELINQUISHMENT STUDY VERBATIM DIALOGUE STARTS: AGENCYMEMBER TAYLOR: I have a couple of questions as far as this is just a survey to see if the State is going to repair everything before they relinquish it? FRANK TRIPEPI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: If I might. The State would like to relinquish the portion of Rosemead that is in the City limits. We wouldn't mind having it. However, prior to accepting it, we'd like to have a thorough study of the infrastructure and the condition of that street done so that we know how much money we should ask for to come with the street so that we don't get stuck with an exorbitant amount of repair work when we assume the street. Because, if they relinquish it and we do accept it, we are then responsible for all the maintenance of that particular street. Since they want to relinquish, they will do so, probably with some money. So in order to determine if we want to accept it with the amount of money they want to give us, we're proposing that Willdan do a complete study of everything out there so that we know about how much it's going to take to put it into a condition of the roads that we have under our jurisdiction. TAYLOR: What control would they have, if any, over Rosemead after this? KEN RUKAVINA, CITY ENGINEER: The only control they would have would be at the off and on ramps for the I-10 Freeway because of the signalization there. They would have control of the signals because they want to make sure that their freeway ramps are.... TRIPEPI: That's the freeway meter ramps, correct? RUKAVINA: Right. But everything else would be... TAYLOR: The rest of the signal controls up and down would be ours then? TRIPEPI: In our City limits it would be. We can time them any way we want. TAYLOR: Well, we've got them tied in with that L.A. Country Flow Control and the Colorado Satellite System and I'm sure they've got their fingers in all that. The other thing ...the railroad undercrossing, those retaining walls and the guard rails up above... they're in a somewhat deteriorating condition. What happens? It's not on the list here - that's why I'm raising the question. I'd like that clarified. RUKAVINA: What we would do is...the Willdan staff will obtain all the existing as-built records for Rosemead Boulevard and we'll look at all the infrastructure associated with that. If those walls are within the Caltrans right-of-way and part of Rosemead Boulevard, that is RRAMIN:2-26-02 Page #2 something we would assess. That would be something that we would determine if it is in need of repair or not. TAYLOR: I'm glad you're taking a close look at that particular item because the handrails up above in some sections, are broken, out with steel piping... RUKAVINA: If it turns out it's the railroad then we'll be able to contact them and make sure that they'll repair it. TAYLOR: Would they have control 200' down from the tracks? RUKAVINA: Possibly because of the fact that it's a grade separation, but unlikely. My feeling is that it's Caltrans. VICE-CHAIRMAN BRUESCH: I have some questions. Number 1, some of the questions that other communities have faced with the relinquishment process is that who gets the State money for that highway? We should save this lump sum for taking care of State Highways. Will they relinquish that money to us or do they keep that money and give us the road? RUKAVINA: No, they would... the past experience that Willdan has had with the cities that have done the relinquishments, the City acquires possession of the road along with a check that is deposited into the City's account to draw.... BRUESCH: My biggest question is, is it ongoing? RUKAVINA: No. We get one lump sum. TRIPEPI: The State gets the gas tax, Bob, just like they do now and they can just appropriate it to be used on other State Highways. We will not get any money for that maintenance any more than they don't get any of our shares of monies on streets that are in our jurisdiction. BRUESCH: Designation would be still be designated as Highway 19. RUKAVINA: It would no longer be a State Highway. BRUESCH: That begs the questions whether communities along the whole corridor, are they all going for this or is it going to be one section of State Highway and one section of city, one section of the State Highway? RUKAVINA: That's what is happening now. There are cities down in the south end of the Route 19 that have already taken over control of it, Bellflower, Lakewood has. Same thing with Santa Monica Boulevard, which was the old Route 66. RRAMIN:2-26-02 P.v s3 C 0 AGENCYMEMBER CLARK: There are some that are refusing. RUKAVINA: There are some that are refusing to take it. They're not interested in taking it over right now. CLARK: So, this route will be in... BRUESCH: Patchwork. RUKAVINA: It is a patchwork. But Caltrans goal is to ultimately.... TRIPEPI: Is to get rid of all of it. RUKAVINA: Right. When I spoke with Caltrans, they want to only own freeways. BRUESCH: The third questions is wires. Being that that is the one section of a major highway in the City that has yet to underground its wires. Those poles are not in good condition. Would that be part of the study? TRIPEPI: No. That's Rule 20A, those are Edison facilities. They don't belong to the State. That comes under the Rule 20A program. TAYLOR: Where did we get additional money as far as we've done Garvey twice as far as the Redevelopment Agency a while back. And, San Gabriel Boulevard, we've done Valley and such... this becomes quite a chunk of money as far as if we have to really do some maintenance work on there. I can't imagine what Caltrans is... until you get your study. I haven't seen that highway repaired in...I can't even remember it ever being repaired. TRIPEPI: No. It probably hasn't been. It's just a patchwork kind of a thing and they fix it as needed and fill the potholes. As you know, the largest improvement that's been done on that street in many years has been the center median islands, which we paid for. We landscaped it on Rosemead Boulevard. You're absolutely correct. And that's the reason for this study, Gary. Before we accept that street, we want to know what kind of a financial liability we're accepting with it. We may be able to get Caltrans to agree to pay for much of it upfront. In other words, as Ken said, you'll get the relinquishment statement along with a check attached to it saying that it's your problem now, it's your headache. If the check comes in at $300,000, if you decide that what to do costs more that $300,000, you're on the hook for it. It's your responsibility, not ours, we're out of this thing. That's how it's going to work. But, nothing happens until we get the study back and you'll look at it and make a decision as to whether you want Caltrans to relinquish and you want to accept ...based on how much it will cost and what Caltrans is offering to put on the table. TAYLOR: You get to a certain point where the concrete curbs, for example, that does deteriorate and start to break down. RRAMIN:2-26-02 Page #4 0 0 TRIPEPI: That's all the stuff that they're going to look at. TAYLOR: You won't necessarily see it now, but it's kind of an accelerated pace. If it's sixty years old now, in 70 years and 75 years, it rapidly starts to deteriorate. In Caltrans, they'll keep the money as far as gas tax goes, they get the money, we get the liability. TRIPEPI: That's correct. TAYLOR: I'm thinking 5 and 10 years down the road even ...it's too open-ended. CLARK: I really don't think this is a good idea at all. I don't see what the advantages are compared to...with the storm water regulations that are coming down, we just lost big time in Sacramento last Monday. With zefo trash TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load), they made it a mandate instead of a goal which we asked them to'and therefore, we can be sued for every little cup that they can trace back to our City. This highway has a lot of storm drains. TAYLOR: That's a very good point, I hadn't thought about that. CLARK: We're taking on liability. Not just the trash. That's just the first of the... the TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads). I heard this morning at a meeting I was at that there is going to be 90 TMDL's, with metals and things like that. We're taking on...yes, bacteria, whatever... dog feces. We're taking on a huge liability. We're going to have a big enough problem with just the streets we own. I don't know if this is worth even making a study. I think Caltrans sees the writing on the wall because at SCAG we've had meetings with Caltrans on the storm water issues and they want to work with us. Which I think is a good idea, but they know they're getting into a big boondoggle, and they may be wanting to get out as much as they can. TRIPEPI: I can only give you what your advantages are. We put this on the Agency for discussion so you hear what your advantages are. CLARK: I can't think of any. TRIPEPI: When you designed the center medians, it took you almost a year to get the plans through Caltrans. They told you what kind of signs you can have. They told you what kind of landscaping you'll have. So, they basically controlled that project. You paid for it. You designed and you built it. They control the timing on your signals. You have local business people complaining about No Left Turn time off Valley Boulevard because Rosemead takes too much green time. You'll have the ability to control that from your business people's standpoint. That's probably two of the biggest issues that this Council has had in the past with Caltrans - is getting plans through. A third advantage is when you have a sign down or a signal, or a pothole, you don't have to go through Caltrans to get those fixed. You just use the same local contractors and/or people that we use right now to fix our local streets. Your response time is better. Are there any other advantages, Ken? aRAMIN:2d602 Page #5 0 BRUESCH: We get a chance to underground the wires. They refused to allow us to do that. TRIPEPI: If you have the money to underground the utilities, you can underground them. RUKAVINA: Caltrans would let us underground the utilities if we had the money to do it. TRIPEPI: What else do you have, from an advantage point. RUKAVINA: One advantage is if you're going to be doing any development on Rosemead Boulevard, the developer doesn't have to go to Caltrans to obtain permits to put in driveways, or to do anything within the right-of-way right in front of that site. TAYLOR: By and large though, I haven't seen them flatly turn down businesses for improvements. TRIPEPI: Gary, please don't misunderstand. We're not saying that they turned it down. It's a longer and a more drawn out process to go through Caltrans for your permits than it is to just come to the City. TAYLOR: A lot of these things are superficial. Undergrounding of the utilities, we should still be able to do that. TRIPEPI: They don't care, they'll let you do that. TAYLOR: What Maggie was referring to... the discussions that I've heard about all of the catch basins and the inlets and what has to be done for those. She's right, they do see the handwriting on the wall, and the less responsibility they have, that just puts the liability back on us. MAYOR IMPERIAL: I keep thinking about the signal, the left-tum signal on Valley Boulevard onto to Rosemead Boulevard. When we first projected a price on that, what was it... about $80,000? I think it was about $80,000 as I recall. By the time we got approval I think it was $140,000. That's what we're talking about dealing with. That's something we have to consider. BRUESCH: It took us 7 years to get to that signal. TRIPEPI: It's for the Council to weigh. If you... it's difficult... unless you want to make the decision based on what you brought up, Maggie, the NPDS, stormwater requirements and what not. It's really difficult to objectively weigh whether you want to take it over or not until you really know what's out there, what's required, and how much money you're going to have to spend to fix it up. CLARK: We're not going to know the stormwater stuff at all. RRAMIN:z-zoos P.v n6 • 0 TRIPEPI: No. You're not going to know. That's what I said. Unless this Council feels like that's the only reason they need, then just deny it. Don't even do the study. But, if the other circumstances come into play, then you do need to do the study because until you get those numbers, we really don't know how much it's going to cost and how much Caltrans is going to give up. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman. As far as the urgency of this particular item with the things that are going on in Sacramento, I don't see Caltrans giving us... say where you have two years to decide, or three years to decide. Some of things are coming to a head now in Sacramento... the things that are being shoved down our throats. I think it's just risky right now. It's not something that we're going to lose out on. It's just a postponement. IMPERIAL: Gary, I don't know if you remember or not, but I made about three trips that I can recall to Sacramento, to the Governor's office on that very same item. Never got any satisfaction on the thing because that's a "sacred cow" in Sacramento. This is something that we need to look at very carefully. They play games whenever they want to play them. BRUESCH: Mr. Chairman. In my opinion, State Highways in urban settings, they don't serve the purpose that they were originally established for 50 to 60 years ago - which was to provide direct access from Point A to Point B - long distances. Because they pass through so many jurisdictions and so many different types of refinements in the lights, they don't serve the purpose anymore. What I'm afraid of is that as more of the people accept this relinquishment and the State Highway becomes more of a patchwork, we're going to be seeing more delays in these types of things that we've been talking about - permits for development, left-turn phasing changes. We've got a real problem with the left-turn phasing at Rosemead Boulevard, it was off time. The internal mechanism was all messed up. It took us numerous months, about half a year to get that timing fixed because we had to go through Caltrans. I think that as they relinquish more and more of these urban State Highways, it's going to be harder and harder to get them to respond to different things because they don't want to respond. They don't want the highways, they want the cities to take it over. I think that the only thing we can do is to find out what the cost is and then make our decision. I think we would be penny-wise and pound foolish not to have this information at in our hands. COUNCILMAN JOE VASQUEZ: Mr. Chairman. I make the motion to approve the engineering proposal to do the study. BRUESCH: I will Second that. CLARK: Mr. Mayor. I plan to vote No on this. But, if the Council majority votes Yes, I would ask that the study include the cost of all of the best management practices that have to be paid on each curb cut and an estimate of the possible liability of the lawsuits... IMPERIAL: In otherwords, you want this all in detail. RRAMIN:2-26-02 Page #7 • 0 CLARK: Absolutely. For all of the TMDL's, not just trash because we're facing this down the road in the next 10 years. IMPERIAL: Any other questions? There's a Motion on the floor and a Second. BRUESCH: I call for the question. Vote resulted: Aye: Vasquez, Bruesch, Imperial No: Clark, Taylor Absent: None Abstain: None L Verbatim Dialogue Ends. 3. STATUS REPORT - NORTHEAST CORNER OF VALLEY BOULEVARD AND TEMPLE CITY BOULEVARD Frank Tripepi, Executive Director, stated that most likely that location will not be getting a supermarket. Mr. Tripepi continued that in order for that to occur, basically the Agency will have to condemn the 7 '/2 acres of property, then turn around and hand that parcel to one of the supermarket developers for practically nothing. Mr. Tripepi, referring to the colored radius map, stated that supermarkets do not want to build in that location because there is a large industrial base of buildings there, and they do not feel that area is marketable. They are looking for areas with high density housing. `Agencymember Taylor asked how much time does Ralph's have on their lease? Mr. Tripepi stated that Ralphs signed a five-year lease extension. However, they can sublet that property out at any time should they elect to close the store. Agencymember Taylor stated that the Ralphs across the street seems to be the more reasonable choice for a supermarket. Mr. Tripepi stated that the Agency has a better chance if they condemn all the leases across the street and demolish the buildings. That way, Ralphs can build a new supermarket on that pad. Mr. Tripepi stated that the chances are better to get a supermarket in the existing location than at Valley & Temple City Boulevards. Chairman Imperial stated that Ralphs is substandard, and that property is going to be under new management. RRAMIN:2-26-02 Page #8 Vice-Chairman Bruesch stated that moving the radius map circle to the west to across the street on Temple City Boulevard would result in a more residential area. Mr. Bruesch asked about the possibility of building a small commercial area for the Ralphs lessees to relocate to. That way, Ralphs could use the entire pad across the street to rebuild. Chairman Imperial stated that that market may move out in about one year. Mr. Imperial stated that the only recourse would be to condemn the property. Vice-Chairman Bruesch stated that if Ralphs is interested in building a new stand-alone supermarket on that pad, instead of paying relocation costs for the existing businesses, they could move to the small retail area at Temple City Boulevard as he discussed. Mr. Tripepi inquired that instead of paying relocation costs to each of the businesses, the Agency should purchase that land and build a retail center? Vice-Chairman Bruesch stated that this could be done in tandem with the businesses. Mr. Tripepi stated that the Ralphs property is for sale, but it hasn't been purchased yet. A new group of partners want to buy the entire shopping center. Mr. Tripepi stated that a letter of corrections has been sent to the current property owners to make improvements to their deteriorated property. That may have delayed the sale of the property. Mr. Tripepi stated again that the chances of getting a new full-size supermarket across the street is better than at Temple City and Valley. Mr. Tripepi stated that according to Redevelopment Law, the City has an obligation to relocate the tenants anyway. Agencymember Taylor asked what problems did J & R Properties have with Ralphs at Temple City and Valley? Mr. Tripepi explained that Ralphs/Kroeger turned them down. They were not interested in the site. Mr. Tripepi stated that a developer is not going to build there without a major tenant or an anchor tenant. Mr. Tripepi explained that should a new stand-alone market be built across the street, the small businesses would not want to be relocated to a small retail center by themselves. The only reason they exist across the street is because of the traffic that Ralphs market draws in. Mr. Tripepi stated that ethnic supermarkets are interested in that property. Agencymember Taylor confirmed that at this point we are waiting for responses to letters sent out to interested parties for the Temple City and Valley property. Agencymember Clark asked if the Agency has an option to purchase the Ralphs property. Mr. Tripepi stated that the owners will not sell it to the Agency. The Agency will have to condemn it. Vice-Chairman Bruesch stated that the property at Temple City Boulevard has less value than the property across the street. If the Agency condemns the property at Temple City, then RRAMIN:2-2co2 Page N9 works with the owners across the street to do a land swap, we'll have a bigger piece of property. An ethnic market can be built there and a large Ralph's can be built across the street. Chairman Imperial stated that the area at Temple City and Valley has been nothing but a problem area for years. Mr. Imperial stated that a major market built there would need security. Agencymember Clark asked if Ralphs is interested in building a new larger building across the street? Brad Johnson, Planning Director, stated that he does not know if that has been proposed to them. Mr. Johnson stated that site may not be large enough for a 60,000 square foot modem Ralphs. That site only has 3-acres. Agencymember Clark asked if that encompasses the entire property from street to street. Mr. Johnson replied that the Universal Bank is a separate parcel. Mr. Johnson continued that inclusion of the bank would only result in 3 '/2 acres, and that supermarkets require 5 to 6 acres for their big stores. Chairman Imperial asked how much more acreage would be gained by condemning the properties up to Rosemead Boulevard with the exception of I" American Bank. Mr. Johnson replied approximately another 1 or 2 acres would be gained. Agencymember Taylor stated that the recourse at this point is to wait and see what the developers response is. 4. MATTERS FROM OFFICIALS - None 5. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE ON REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY MATTERS Juan Nunez, 2702 Del Mar, Rosemead, asked what the cost of maintaining Rosemead Boulevard would be should the Agency decide to take over Rosemead Boulevard from Caltrans. Mr. Nunez stated that he does not think that would be a good idea. 6. ADJOURNMENT RRAMIN:2-26.02 Page # I 0 • • There being no further action to be taken at this time, the meeting was adjourned at 7:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted: Agency Secretary APPROVED: CHAIItMAN RRAMIN:2126-02 Page #11