Pasadena City Council meeting preview.

Transportation issues are on the agenda tonight for Pasadena. First the city is looking to alter two MOUs to allow it to continue working on projects that have an end date for when they can be funded. The first MOU is for federal funds the city has received to offset the extra street traffic it receives because the 710 Freeway has not been completed (money South Pasadena also collects, which may be another motivating reason for it not wanting the freeway complete.) The city has been using the money for transportation projects, but because of a vague staff report, I am not sure exactly which ones. Whatever they are, they are not yet completed though, since the city wants more time.

The second is for the North Marengo Bicycle Boulevard, a bike lane expansion which is paid for mostly with state grants. That project was supposed to be completed by spring of 2009, but complications with a storm drain that needs to be altered have delayed it. The city wants until spring of 2011 to finish it.

The city also will look at approving using MTA grants for a real time vehicle arrival system (used to track bus routes, perhaps? not a lot of detail on this) and to buy some new vans for the Dial a Ride program.

Elsewhere on the agenda, the city will also be looking at the Topflite janitorial contract. There are some city employees that are concerned about a change in management- they showed up en masse at a meeting earlier this month to raise their concerns. They were supposed to get a chance to meet with new managers since then, so we will see tonight whether those concerns have been allayed or not.

The city will also have a public hearing on creating a zone along North Los Robles Avenue where density requirements would be changed to allow more multi-family residential units. The new requirements would be above the state standard, but would be legally permissible as long as the city used the extra apartments to build affordable housing- which is the city's intent in creating the zone in the first place, according to the staff report.

There are a few other routine contracts, and landmark building matters on the agenda as well. Also the city will discuss urgent care clinic properties in closed session once again.