By Julie BUTCHER

Newly selected Mayor Ardy Kassakhian began his comments at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Glendale City Council recalling the saying President John F. Kennedy had on his desk, “O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” Mayor Kassakhian cited the Breton Fisherman’s Prayer as best capturing what public service feels like when approached by the right attitude – “with reverence and humility.”

“Our job collectively is to serve the people of Glendale – all of them – whether you are White or Black, whether you speak English or Armenian, whether you were born here or immigrated here, whether you supported us during our campaigns or not – our responsibility is the same: to listen, to understand and to do everything within our power to respond,” Mayor Kassakhian said.

“We want what’s best for this city – and I do mean ‘we.’ We will not always agree on how to get there – that’s the nature of a diverse and vibrant community like the one we live in. What we can do, what we must do, is focus on the things that make life in this city meaningful,” said Kassakhian concluding his inaugural remarks, flanked by red and white rose floral arrangements above a patriotic bunting of red, white and blue.

Mayor Ardashes “Ardy” Kassakhian attended Glendale public schools: John Marshall and R.D. White Elementary schools, Wilson Middle School and Glendale High School (’94). Prior to his election to city council, Kassakhian served as the city’s elected clerk from 2005 to 2015. Before assuming elected office, he was the director of Government Relations and later the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region, the nation’s largest advocacy organization for issues of interest and concern of Armenian Americans.  

Mayor Kassakhian graduated from the University of California Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts in history and received his Master of Arts in public policy and administration from Northwestern University. More recently, he attended the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and completed the certificate program for senior executives in state and local government. He is also an alumnus of the Executive Coro Public Affairs Fellowship. 

Kassakhian has lived in Glendale since his family moved there in 1986. The new mayor is an adjunct instructor of political science at Glendale Community College. He and his wife Courtney live in the Pelanconi neighborhood of Glendale with their son.

Much of Tuesday’s council meeting was spent discussing an updated analysis of parking in Montrose. Consultant Dan McKinney from The Transpo Group gave an overview of the study, which was initially started in 2019, then thwarted by the COVID pandemic in 2020. 

In 2024, the study was updated and the recommendations were forwarded to the Transportation and Parking Commission and now to the council for adoption.

Parking is an important municipal asset and important in making first and last impressions, the consultant shared. The Montrose Shopping Park area has 881 total parking spaces, 660 off-street. Overall parking occupancy has decreased since the 2019 study with high occupancy continuing in Lots 2, 4, 6 and 7. Vehicles park longer than the posted three-hour limit in all of the lots and employee parking contributes to filling the highest occupancy lots. The employee permit parking program is not being utilized as intended.

Survey respondents commented on the need for parking improvements: paving the lots and adding lighting, better signage, charging stations for electric vehicles and updated payment systems. More than 100 commenters want the lots to continue to offer free parking, reported the consultant on the latest survey results.

The full report can be read at https://www.montroseparkingfeedback.com/_files/ugd/aa2001_044483ef0ef147c580dd003defa0cefa.pdf and the survey is available at https://www.montroseparkingfeedback.com/.

The current recommendations are to update the employee parking program and offer low-cost employee parking permits for designated lots; to increase the on-street meter parking rate to $2 per hour; to expand on-street paid parking on Wickham Way and Broadview Drive; to charge for off-street parking in all of the Montrose lots at $1 per hour; and to improve the technology and transition individual parking meters to pay stations offering more payment options. The cost of the proposed recommendations is $50,000 and the changes are estimated to generate $300,000 in annual revenue.

Council candidate Alex Balekian called in to comment, urging a no vote on the issue.

“The consultant report offered two options: keep free parking and beef up the time limit enforcement or charge everyone for parking and generate revenue for the city. When Mr. Golanian [Roubik Golanian, city manager] said there was unanimous support for Option B, I’d ask you to look at questions 7 and 8. The city didn’t ask whether they should charge for parking, they asked how much they should charge for parking and who should be charged. Leaving the parking lots free was not an option – you had to write it in manually as a comment.”

Balekian went on. “The city wants to make parking self-sufficient, but it hasn’t been self-sufficient for years. During the May 2025 budget session, the council was shocked by the news that the parking fund was insolvent and was being consolidated into the general fund because the parking fund had been losing $1 million per year for the past four to five years. Councilmember Kassakhian asked about the decision to consolidate accounts and was told it was an internal decision [and] not a council decision. Back in November 2018, Glendale paid $25 million to outsource parking enforcement and increase citations. At the time, the parking manager was quoted as saying that while the price tag might look high on paper the city expected net revenue of $1 million annually.”

“That was eight years ago,” Balekian continued his criticism of the parking analysis. “In November 2019, Glendale increased parking rates in the city and anticipated $700,000 per year. The November 2018 contract was neither profitable nor self-sufficient. The one person who knew about all of these losses as the assistant city manager at the time was the same person who quietly consolidated accounts without express knowledge of the city council – Mr. Golanian. On the subject of the parking rate increases in the City of Glendale, the consultants have been wrong at least twice in the past. The city manager has been fiscally irresponsible and subversive with this council and, most importantly, the residents of Glendale are already overwhelmed with costs of living. This will not end well for the City, and I urge you to vote ‘no.’”

Councilmember Ara Najarian reported he had received a letter of unanimous support from the Montrose Shopping Park Association (MSPA) and the approval of the City’s Transportation and Parking Commission. 

“These recommendations are reasonable. Montrose may be a throwback to Mayberry, but the laws of supply and demand still apply there,” he said. “It would be the hugest mistake to make parking free for everyone for as long as they want because then in front of Holiday Hats & Gowns, you’re going to have the barista from the Coffee Bean parked in front of your business, all day long.

“People are trying to inject a lot of panic into this. ‘Oh my God! We’re going to destroy Montrose!’ because we’re increasing parking from $1.50 to $2 an hour. Come on, folks – these are modest, incremental steps to make sure parking is available.”

Councilmember Dan Brotman concurred. “I also think this is a very reasonable proposal.” 

“I think you’ve done a great job with the analysis,” Councilmember Brotman called it “classic economics.” “The fact that the MSPA is fully bought in, that’s big for me because they’re not pushovers and they’ll let you know what they want and if they’re supporting this, they’re doing it because they think this will be better for their businesses, better for their customers.” 

Councilmember Brotman quoted economist Milton Friedman’s comment about there being no such thing as a free lunch and cited the landmark 2005 book by UCLA urban planning professor Dr. Donald Shoup, “The High Cost of Free Parking” and commended the consultant on providing a good example of productive community engagement.

City manager Roubik Golanian acknowledged the accuracy of some of the callers’ criticism. The potential income anticipated by the 2019 parking enforcement contract was a prediction. The pandemic could not have been anticipated. As noted when the contract was entered into, if the city was not satisfied with the results it could end the contract with 30 days’ notice. The city is now in the process of hiring staff in the police department to do parking enforcement and the contract has been cancelled, Golanian reported.

The recommendations passed on a vote of 4-1 with Councilmember Elen Asatryan voting “no.” A final vote will be taken by the council in the future.

On Tuesday night, the council adopted a proclamation designating April as Armenian Heritage Month, “honoring the history, culture and enduring contributions of the Armenian community in Glendale and beyond,” and April 24 as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

Mayor Kassakhian announced an extensive list of events commemorating the remembrance and shared a video of art created by Glendale High School students on exhibit in the lobby of city hall. Here are some of the events scheduled: https://www.glendaleca.gov/government/departments/office-of-the-city-manager/communications-community-relations/armenian-genocide-commemorative-event-2026.

The City of Glendale will host its 25^th annual Armenian Genocide Commemorative Event tonight, Thursday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd. The 2026 program will feature performances by the AGBU Choir, Lilia Dance Group, Jivan Gasparyan Jr., musical selections by students from the Sonata Music School and a short film prepared by the City of Glendale Television (GTV) team.

Councilmember Asatryan commented on the commemoration.

“It was because generation after generation did not give up on the recognition that we have this commemoration today,” she said. 

She shared that efforts started in 2015 by recognizing the contributions made by Americans through the America, We Thank You campaign, recognizing the rescue of approximately 132,000 Armenian orphans by American Near East Relief (NER), which included a paternal great-grandmother of the councilmember, and funds raised from every state in the country. More information on the historical initiative can be found at https://ancawr.org/initiatives/america-we-thank-you/.

The council also proclaimed this week National Library Week. Director of the Library, Arts & Culture Dept., Lessa Pelayo-Lozada, addressed the council. 

“Last month, 28 people at the Pacific Park Library created dynamic ocean wave scenes during our ‘Adult Watercolor for Beginners’ class. At the end of the program, one patron noted, ‘Using the crayons for our drawings made me feel like I was a kid again.’ Several attendees said the class felt freeing and allowed them to reconnect with childhood creativity,” she said.

“Libraries are associated with our youth,” Pelayo-Lozada said. “Story time, crafts, school visits are our bread and butter – the importance of early literacy cannot be understated – but our Glendale libraries are there for community members of all ages and backgrounds – often for those seeking connections and have nowhere else to find [them]; those who want to be part of the community but may not be able to afford to join civic organizations or not know where to find free resources. We are there to make those connections, there to be a free shared space where the price of admission is being yourself. We are there to provide programming our community can’t afford in these difficult economic times and to bring light, joy, inspiration and resilience to those who need it.”

Pelayo-Lozada acknowledged the day as National Library Workers Day and recognized the group of workers at the council meeting with her.

“They’d be just buildings with books without library workers,” she said, acknowledging the 48 full-time and 76 hourly workers who staff eight local library locations as well as the bookmobile – the people “who put books into the hands of those looking for stories, those looking to learn, to make sure the community has access to free Wi-Fi, free computers, art exhibits to peruse, free star gazing kits to use along with access to any of California’s state parks. Our libraries work because library workers do,” she concluded. For more information about National Library Workers’ Day, visit https://ala-apa.org/nlwd/.

The Glendale City Council is set to next meet on Tuesday, April 28 at 6 p.m.