La Verne City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 21
Where: City Hall Council Chambers, 3660 D St., La Verne
How to attend: In person, via Zoom at LaVerneCA.gov/zoom, or by phone by calling 1-669-900-6833 and enter ID 852 8238 when prompted.

🔗 Sept. 21 City Council Meeting Agenda Packet

It's a lighter agenda than some recent meetings—no public hearings this time—but it includes one item that could shape how new development looks in La Verne for years to come: a proposed Public Art Fund.

Closed Session at 5:30 p.m. This session includes a conference with the City's negotiating team (the city manager, assistant city manager and city attorney) under Government Code section 54957.6, covering contract talks with three employee groups: the La Verne General Unit, the La Verne Firefighters Association, and the La Verne Fire Middle Management Association. Nothing here requires a public vote or comment, and the City typically won't report out unless a final agreement gets ratified.

🗣️ Public Comment Opportunities

Want your voice on the record before the gavel drops? You can email the City Clerk's Office at cityclerk@LaVerneCA.gov up to noon the day of the meeting—these comments become part of the public record and are shared with the council in advance.

Prefer to speak live? Show up in person and fill out a comment card, or raise your hand during the item on Zoom. Every speaker gets three minutes.

Visit LaVerneCA.gov/zoom or call 1-669-900-6833, enter ID: 852 8238; raise your hand to request to comment

Public comment is allowed:

• During the Public Hearing
• On Discussion Calendar items
• On Consent Calendar items if pulled for separate discussion
• During general public comment for items not on the agenda

Presentations

The council will proclaim Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 as Hispanic Heritage Month, recognizing the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the city's history, culture and community life.

✅ Consent Calendar

Items on the Consent Calendar are routine and typically passed as a package unless pulled for individual discussion.

Council minutes and demands—The council will approve minutes from the Sept. 8 meeting and a register of audited demands totaling just over $2 million for the period of Aug. 23 through Sept. 13.

Cleaning up the development impact fee code—This one sounds bureaucratic, but here's why it matters: the City has spent the past year updating the fees developers pay to help cover the cost of things like police, fire, parks, and roads that new development requires. Right now those rules are scattered across several sections of the municipal code. This item doesn't change any fee amounts—it consolidates the existing rules into one new chapter (3.18) so residents, developers and staff can find them in one place, and creates three new dedicated accounts to track how the money collected is spent on city administration, police and fire facilities separately. The council unanimously approved introducing this ordinance on first reading Sept. 8; Monday's vote formally adopts it.

Why it matters: clearer rules mean more accountability for how development-related fees are collected and spent—money meant for police, fire and public facilities can't get lost in the shuffle of the general budget.

Updating the conflict-of-interest code—Every two years, state law requires the City to review which positions must publicly disclose potential financial conflicts of interest. This update mostly reflects a department reorganization—the former Community Services Department is now Parks & Recreation—along with several other title changes across departments.

➡️ See pg. 49 in the Sept. 21 City Council Meeting Agenda Packet for more information

Why it matters: this is part of the basic transparency plumbing of local government—it determines which city employees have to disclose outside business interests that could influence their public decisions.

📢 Public Hearing

No public hearings are scheduled for this meeting.

Discussion Calendar

🗣️ Want to comment? Speak in person, raise your hand on Zoom, or email cityclerk@LaVerneCA.gov by noon on Sept. 21. You'll have up to three minutes.

A Formal Framework for Public Art

This is one to watch. Since April, city staff have been developing a proposed ordinance and policy to create a more structured, proactive approach to funding public art throughout La Verne—building on a Public Art Fund that's already supported past projects around town.

Here's how it would work: new commercial, industrial and other nonresidential development, along with new multi-unit residential projects (accessory dwelling units and two-unit projects would be exempt), would be required to either install public art on-site or pay an in-lieu fee into the City's Public Art Fund—0.5% of a project's valuation for projects under $500,000, and 1% for projects at or above that threshold. Developers could also do a combination of both, subject to city approval.

City staff would use the fund for things like commissioning or maintaining public art, with priority given to civic buildings, parks, gateways into the City, and historic or culturally significant areas. Larger, fiscally significant public art projects would still need City Council approval; smaller implementation details could be handled administratively once a project is greenlit.

Monday's vote isn't final adoption—the council is being asked to review the draft and give staff direction on whether to move forward, and how.

A brief history: The City already has a public art requirement, but currently it only applies within the Arrow Corridor Specific Plan district. The staff report explicitly says the new fee percentages "are consistent with existing requirements for projects that require public art within the Arrow Corridor Specific Plan district." So the ordinance up for direction would essentially take a rule that already exists in one part of the City and extend it citywide to all new commercial, industrial, other nonresidential, and qualifying multi-unit residential development.

Read more about City Art around La Verne in this La Verne Magazine article from 2017

➡️ See pg. 58 in the Sept. 21 City Council Meeting Agenda Packet for more information

Why it matters: this would be a new cost line for developers building certain projects in La Verne, and a new, more predictable pipeline for public art residents see in daily life—at parks, gateways and civic buildings. If you have a stake in either side of that (as a developer, an artist, or simply someone who cares about how the City looks and feels), this is the moment to weigh in before the framework is set.

Looking ahead

The next council meeting is Monday, Oct. 5, with a study/closed session at 5:30 p.m. and the regular meeting at 6:30 p.m.

Upcoming Dates to Note

Tuesday, September 22 - Health & Resource Fair and Flu Shot Clinic, La Verne Community Center, 9-11 a.m.

Wednesday, September 23 - Senior Seminar Series, La Verne Community Center, 10:30 am

Thursday, September 24 - Waste Management Support Services, City Hall, 7:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday, September 30 - Candidates Forum, La Verne Community Center, 6-8 p.m.