GLENDALE CITY COUNCIL MEETING WRAP-UP

MORATORIUM EXTENDED

The City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend the city’s existing moratorium on wireless communications facilities an additional 120 days as stakeholders continue to draft regulations to address aesthetics and other neighborhood concerns.

The City Council adopted a three-month moratorium on all new cellular facilities in January after northwest Glendale residents organized against a proposed T-Mobile antenna in their neighborhood.

The moratorium, which is set to expire next week, was to allow city officials enough time to draft a set of city regulations that would govern the scale, size and aesthetics of future neighborhood cellular antennas in residential zones.

Federal regulations sap most discretionary review from local agencies when it comes to communications facilities, but city attorneys have been working to craft regulations that would exert at least some control over how and where they are built, especially within residential zones.

WHAT IT MEANS

Attorneys and various stakeholders will continue to hammer out the draft regulations while meeting with the community.

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RIVERWALK SET

A $1.61-million plan to revamp Glendale’s frontage along the Los Angeles River got the City Council’s blessing Tuesday, even as parks officials wait for a majority of the project’s state funding to be unfrozen.

The California Resources Agency had awarded the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk Project a $1.1-million grant in August, but the state’s fiscal crisis has tied up the funding.

Phase I of the Glendale Narrows project would introduce a 12-foot-wide paved path along the Los Angeles River Channel and revamp landscaping to include interpretive signs and better access for walkers and bicyclists.

It is the first part of a larger regional plan across two counties to connect all of the jurisdictions along the river, from Glendale to Long Beach, with a consistent, revitalized river walkway.

Negotiations with DreamWorks Animation LLC over gaining access to a 15-foot strip of land on the studio’s southernmost edge along the river are being finalized, removing one of the last hurdles to the project.

Tapping into the frozen state grant could take weeks as officials try to work through the morass of the $41.5-billion budget passed Thursday.

The state Resources Agency won’t know the status of its bond-funding abilities until after the Pooled Money Investment Board meets to decide when the money will be available, said Sandy Cooney, a spokesman for the agency.

The investment board isn’t scheduled to meet until next month. The rest of the project’s money — including a $173,000 grant through Los Angeles County Sup. Michael Antonovich’s office, $110,500 in city funds and $235,500 from the project’s nonprofit administrator Northeast Trees — is all secure, he added.

WHAT IT MEANS

In approving the project Tuesday, the City Council authorized city officials to enter into an agreement with Northeast Trees to accept the state grant once it is released and carry out the Riverwalk revitalization.

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PUBLIC NOTICING

The City Council codified a revised set of guidelines for notifying the public of upcoming projects, meetings and events.

Legally required procedures, such as listing relevant information to those living within a 500-foot radius, will remain intact, but city officials are recommending a number of additional measures, including greater use of electronic media.

Public notices would also be translated into multiple languages and disseminated at least two weeks prior to the event under the proposed policy. Interested stakeholders who sign up in advance would also be contacted through a “mass phone communication system.”

WHAT IT MEANS

City meetings and proposed projects will now be disseminated across a broader cross-section of media in order to reach more affected residents after months of periodic complaints of insufficient notification.