By E. Isaac Lee
The La Palma City Council met on Feb. 2 to discuss city matters, including the possibility of holding public events in the near future.
Those attending included Mayor Nitesh P. Patel, Mayor Pro Tem Michele Steggell, Council Member Debbie S. Baker, Council Member Marshall Goodman, and Council Member Mark I. Waldman.
The council discussed ways they could initiate public events in La Palma again. It is especially relevant given that many public events in La Palma were cancelled last year. The council is particularly interested in getting an open date for the Festival of Nations. This was a celebration of the city’s cultural heritage that was planned in 2019 and was supposed to debut on May 2, 2020 before being cancelled.
Councilmember Steggell stated that it would be unlikely that regulations would be lifted to allow public events within the calendar year.
“I don’t think we’re going to have sufficient vaccination in the county to make that plausible,” Steggell said. “I think we’re probably talking, the latter part of this year at the earliest and I think for sure in 2022,” she said.
Orange County, as of now, is still in the purple tier of California’s four-tier reopening system. The tiers are yellow, orange, red, and purple – yellow tier allows for the reopening of indoor businesses, while purple tier requires closure or limited service from all businesses. At best, Orange County would need to reach the orange tier in order to hold public events of some kind.
The council discussed the possibility of holding socially distanced concerts or movie nights in the park, with the earliest dates set for late August or September. Other ideas for increasing community engagement included a drive by event for Halloween, if social distancing wasn’t an option.
The council also proposed setting up a Free Library book exchange in the neighborhood. These are public bookcases, usually shaped like a birdhouse box, that allow people to take or drop off books at their leisure – no paperwork or late fees required.
While the council was receptive to the idea, Councilmember Goodman was concerned that the Free Library exchange would serve as a point of contact for Covid-19 transmission. The council agreed to delegate matters of safety and the book exchange itself to the city manager and community service director. They also hoped to get community members involved in setting up the bookcase as well.
One final item of note was an email from former El Monte city clerk Jonathan Hawes. Hawes claims former El Monte Mayor Andre Quintero is guilty of embezzlement from the El Monte Promise Foundation Scholarship Fund and is asking for the council’s public support. The council did not make any comments or decision on the matter, as it had no relation to La Palma city matters.
