City Council Tackles Range of Issues on Monday Evening, From Election Results to Street Design Guide

The Pasadena City Council will officially acknowledge the winners and the runoff candidates of the March 7 Council Primary Nominating Election, during its regular meeting on Monday night.

According to the official Certificate of Canvass, City Council District 3 candidate John J. Kennedy, and District 5 candidate Victor M. Gordo received the majority of votes cast for their respective races and have been re-elected as members of the City Council.

A resolution declaring Kennedy and Gordo as re-elected members of the City Council for full terms of four years each will be adopted at the meeting Monday.

The resolution will also declare that Phil Hosp and Andy Wilson, who were among five candidates that ran for District 7 in the Council, received the highest number of votes in the election. Only their names will be on the ballot for District 7 when Pasadena holds its General Municipal Election on April 18.

The canvass showed none of the five qualified candidates for District 7 received the required 50 percent plus one majority of the total votes cast. Wilson got 1,492 votes (42.5 percent) and Hosp received 1,451 votes (41.3 percent).

Also at Monday’s meeting, the City Council will now officially adopt the City’s New Street Design Guide as the implementation mechanism of Pasadena’s Complete Streets policy, upon the recommendation of the Municipal Services Committee.

The guide was prepared by City’s Department of Transportation and was presented to the Design Commission on January 10. Joint community workshops were held on January 26 and February 9, and the plan was also presented to the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and the Pasadena Playhouse District Design and Physical Enhancement Committee on separate dates.

With comments received from the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition incorporated, the Guide was unanimously supported by the City’s Transportation Advisory Commission.

Once adopted, the New Street Design Guide will be part of the General Plan and will help meet the City’s desire for transportation safety and mobility. With added emphasis on the safety of most vulnerable roadway users like pedestrians and bicyclists, and the community’s desire to reduce pedestrian fatalities from vehicular accidents, the Guide will assist City departments in determining how to balance trade-offs among travel modes and among the mobility needs of different members of the community.

The City’s Council’s Public Safety Committee will report out on its recommendations about adopting policies for the operation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems – aerial drones – at the meeting.

After receiving inputs from a Drone Policy Internal Working Group, which includes the Pasadena Police Department, the Committee will now recommend that the City Council direct the City Attorney to prepare a draft ordinance regulating the operation of drones, above or near critical infrastructure, and over permitted special events.

The draft is expected to be ready in 60 days.

As an information item in the agenda, the City’s Planning and Community Development Department will be presenting a Predevelopment Plan Review about Kaiser Permanente’s plan to establish its School of Medicine on property located at 94 South Los Robles Avenue.

The proposed facility will be a fully accredited medical school for future physicians of Kaiser that would provide curriculum and teaching methods that focus on the latest in technology and patient medical care.

Currently, the project site has a three-story, 16,700 square-foot commercial office building standing on it, and a surface parking lot. On Kaiser’s behalf, the project applicant, Skyler Denniston, plans to demolish the building and the surface parking lot, and build a new four-story, 80,000 square-foot structure to the house the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine.

A three-level subterranean parking garage with 226 parking spaces will also be built on the site.

After Monday’s presentation of the plan, the Design Commission will schedule public hearings for the project, as well as an environmental review to make sure the project is consistent with the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The Council will also conduct a second public hearing on a new ordinance to preserve a 1% fee assessed on cable TV and video revenues to help support Public, Educational, and Government Access (PEG) capital expenditures.

The City Council meeting opens at 6:30 p.m. at the Council Chamber, Room S249 of the Pasadena City Hall.