The Glendale City Council on Jan. 2 unanimously approved a resolution ratifying the director of emergency services' proclamation of a local emergency stemming from late-December 2025 storms, a move city officials said is required to qualify for possible state and federal disaster assistance.

City attorney representative Mister Villanion told the council that storms beginning on Christmas Eve caused widespread damage, including a failure at the Western Electric substation that "resulted in outage to 7,000 residents," a major water main break on Maple east of Central Avenue on Christmas Day, and water intrusion that damaged equipment on the first floor of the Police Department. "It'll be upward of 2 to $3,000,000," he said, describing the preliminary damage estimate and saying public works, parks, Glendale Water & Power and the fire department were preparing a formal cost estimate for submission.

The ratification, Villanion said, follows a governor-declared state of emergency on Dec. 25 and is intended to preserve the city's eligibility for state and federal funding programs tied to declared emergencies. He noted Chief Brooks was present for questions about public-safety impacts; council members raised no substantive questions.

Mayor Nejoyan thanked emergency crews and city staff for their response during hazardous conditions and pushed back on criticism on social media. "It's totally false," the mayor said, disputing assertions that the outage reflected policy failure and urging recognition of crews who worked in difficult conditions. A council member recommended scheduling social-media messages to thank Glendale Water & Power, Fire, Public Works and Police rather than engaging in defensive responses.

After brief discussion about damage assessment and potential lessons learned — including a suggestion to consider portable lighting or signage for dark streets during outages — an unnamed council member moved to approve the resolution and another seconded. Roll-call votes were recorded as: Council member Alyssa Durand — Yes; Brotman — Yes; Garpetian — Yes; Kosakian — Yes; Mayor Nejarian — Yes. The resolution was approved.

Next steps, as described in the meeting, include completion of formal damage estimates by relevant departments and submission to the appropriate state and federal agencies to pursue reimbursement or disaster assistance. The council then recessed into closed session; no further public report-out on the emergency item was recorded in the transcript.