City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Welcome, welcome everybody to our agenda for our regular meeting and our special concurrent meeting of the Alanto City Council, the Alanto Public Financing Authority, the Alanto Public Utility Authority, the Allan Community Benefit Corporation, and the Successes Agency Board. Today is September 10th, 2025 getting started here at 11:00 a.m. Virginia, can you lead us in a roll call, please? Yes, your honor. Councelor Evans, present. Councelor Mesa, here. Councelor Upgrove, noted is absent. Mayor Potim Ramos, present. Mayor Rig here. Motion to Y. All in favor? I I and then uh Celvocation and amput.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Father, we just want to thank you and praise you Lord. We thank you for everything you've done for the city and pushing us forward. We ask that you continue this and help the city growth. Please help us with the right decisions for our residents and all of our community. you Lord. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Put your right hand over your heart. Repeat after me. I to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

City manager, any deletions or uh additions to the agenda? I have none, your honor. All righty. I move that we approve the agenda. I'll second. All in favor? I. City manager. Announcements or reports?

Yes. Yes. Uh good morning, Mayor Reyes, Mayor Proterm Ramos, city council staff, and members of the public. Um this morning we have a presentation from uh Captain Lutz from our sheriff department. on uh on behalf of the city council, I want to to thank uh thank you Captain Lutz in advance for the uh many years of service and for the way you have represented the city of Adalanto. Thank you for that. Uh the agenda item that Captain Lutz will bring before you this morning, which is a a crimerevention mitigation presentation, reflects his passion, his dedication, and commitment to our residents. It's a project that uh he and I have uh talked about for for quite some time. Uh we look forward to his presentation and uh the city council's support. I want to I want to further emphasize that uh the project uh being introduced uh the project it's the hardware uh was purchased uh through the sheriff's department's uh search and seizure program which means there is no upfront cost to our city's general fund again demonstrating uh cost savings for our taxpayers. In addition to uh Captain Lut's uh presentation, we will also hear from uh Alta Alta regarding the uh city of Adalantos safety action plan. At our previous meeting uh or at our previous city council meeting, we emphasized uh the importance of community involvement to help us secure these muchneeded uh grant funds. This plan is focused on preventing pedestrian and auto accidents by creating and introducing several

safety devices and mechanisms including stop signs and other traffic calming signage uh citywide along with a safe along with a safe well-lit walkable and bike path along Highway 395 uh connecting the north and the south end of our Alta will will be providing an update on their findings and uh we'll be requesting your support as well um as we approach the state deadlines for uh this project. Uh we look forward to their presentation uh as well. Moving on to the next topic. I am pleased to announce that phase one phase one of our second our second new park located on Balfflower Street between Chamberlain Way and Lee Avenue uh has been completed as far as the design work goes. Uh this project will soon be advertised to receive construction bids uh with a groundbreaking anticipated by the end of this year. We look forward to the uh Yes, we uh we look forward to the um the uh park completion and grand opening by the end of u early early next year. So, we will have a new park uh for the new year for our residents. In addition to securing grant funds for the installation of um of a new traffic signal at the intersection of Ranchel Road and Bflower Street, the city has also received funding to improve uh Bowflower Street between Ranchel Road and Cactus Street. It's where that curve is located. I'd like to kind of show you where exactly uh what it is we're exactly talking about. Can you uh briefly bring that uh photo up on the screen? Um, Adam, please. Thank you. So,

you have Rancho Road right in this area here, Highway 395, Rancho Road. This is the entire section as it curves between Rancho Road and um, Cactus. So, this whole portion is going to be paved as well. So, that's very exciting news and and very much needed as most of us take this road to get to and from city hall in order to sometimes avoid highway 395. So, that'll be brand new and we will continue to connect it uh a bit north from Rancho to Air Expressway. So, we still need to work on this piece here. By this time we will have an entire new road of uh which is valour something that uh we've all been working on since 2018. All right, moving on. Uh our wastewater treatment plant, the optimization project. This project remains on schedule for completion by the end of October. The installation of uh the new blower and lift station upgrades is anticipated to be completed by the end of this week, enhancing the plant's capacity to accept additional flows as a city continues to grow. Moving on to Senica Road, Senica Road, the design work has begun for Senica Road, stretching from Highway 395 all the way to Aster Road. The design is expected to be completed by mid November with construction anticipated uh to deliver a brand new road, safer road for its residents by early next year. In closing, in closing, we uh would like to to welcome Pacific Communities, a wellestablished homebuilder in the process of constructing 45 new single family housing pro uh units within the city of Adalanto. The planning

department approval has begun and has been granted construction for the 45 new single homes on Dusty Way between Raccoon Avenue and Steven Street. The project is currently in the design phase with plan submitt anticipated within the next two weeks. The groundbreaking is expected to follow shortly thereafter. And this concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you so much, city manager. Councilwoman Evans. Um, the regional steering committee meeting was cancelled, so I actually have nothing to report. Thank you, Counciloman Ma. Good morning, everybody.

Good morning. Let's go. Wake it up. Full of energy. I had too many grapes this morning, so got a sugar rush. Um, this weekend I was uh pleased to represent us uh Cal Cities in California contracts in uh San Diego, California. I met with a lot of representatives from assemblymen to senators over there. Um, one of the projects I wanted to talk about that's coming to the city of Atlanta is um a $9 million grant. I don't I don't believe it's part of this one. Um, talked with the engineers. They're talking about getting new streets and signals also for around our schools uh for our youth. So, I was really excited for them to be putting that in. There is a deadline on that as well. So, they're trying to rush those things in. So, trying to work with them because the safety of our kids. I asked them if they want to come up, I would want to give them a tour around the times where our kids are getting out so they can see how our kids are walking through the deserts out there. And even though it's normal for the kids, you know, it's not normal in normal life. I want to make sure our kids are are safe out there. So, I thought it's an exciting project that's coming. Um, and just want to talk to on city manager report parks, houses, streets. I mean, this is the promises this this council brought and and we're making everybody right for for doing what they did and choosing us to do this. But this team right here is moving along really fast. We got new roads, we're talking about parks, we're talking about housing. Uh just just a great update, city manager. So, I just wanted to highlight those three things that that that you're doing and the team's doing. Um I wanted to give out another shout out to the fire department. Um, I don't know if you guys know, there was a a brush fire on Holly Road in Jonathan last night and they were out there. I got an alert on my phone. Um, I have a alert that kind of gives me the fires. I kind of pay attention for that for our surrounding areas and boom, right by my house there's there's a fire breaking out and they're they were all out in force and um started by homeless. So, we got to

make sure our homeless are are put into a location where they're not affecting our other residents. These are all brand new houses on on Jonathan and Holly, and that fire could have really hurt all of our residents um in that community. So, uh I'm going to be looking at ways that we can help our homeless and also make sure they're not affecting our residents, building fires because the cold season's coming and they like to build fires everywhere. Um, so we got to figure this out pretty quick before it starts affecting all of our residents and brand new housing and everything like that. So I wanted to go out there and make sure that um it wasn't close to my house, close to our houses. Um, but the fire department was well on it. So again, thank you to the fire department for getting out there and doing that. Um, again, I've been working a lot with the schools. I've been in the schools constantly. Um, one thing I wanted to bring up just just so we're aware and that maybe we can work as a community. Um, so I've been in the youth programs for a long time and we always bring snacks for our kids. Um, we we switch off by parents. Parents take one week, another parent takes a couple weeks. Um, but these kids out there are are not getting fed for long periods of time. Um, and it's not it's not no one's fault. It's just an oversight that I want to make sure that our residents understand and families understand of all these residents. Uh, these are all our children, right? So I I go over my daughter's volleyball game. They have lunch like around 11:00 and then at 1:30 they get on the bus and they go to their event. Their game starts at 3:00 and they have to stay for freshman JV varsity. So they're not getting back home till 8:30. Okay. So that's over 9 hours of not eating anything. And some of these places um a lot of most of our world is digital and all these girls have cash app or Apple Pay. No one really carries cash anymore, but when you go to these places, they only want cash. So, and I I didn't bring enough cash to feed all of them. I was able to

feed the girls freshman team. All my my daughter's teammates, I wanted to feed everybody, but they just didn't have card or anything accepted like that. So, um I got with New Leaf and I said, "Hey, what something we can do?" So, they supplied me with a bunch of oranges and chips and stuff like that. So, I want to start at least taking care of all the girls right there. But that's just one time, right? So, I want to encourage all the families that have kids, you know, go go pay attention, not just go watch the game, but kind of see um your kids out there and our our babies are hungry out there. So, I'm going to try and work and it can't just be this one sport, you know, it might be all the sports. So, I want to kind of work with the school boards and kind of seeing a program to feed our kids. Even if the games were at home, it's the same hours and same time period um that they're out there and not eating. So, that's something that I'm going to be working on. And I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention that this is we don't want our kids starving especially when they're at at the high school all day. You know what I mean? So those are programs I'm going to be working on. So I just want to bring that up and that's my report sir.

Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Great morning everybody in attendance and online. Um busy couple of weeks uh for myself. Tuesday, September 2nd, attended my uh SCAG uh EEC briefing. Uh that was got some good information on that. We discussed what our agendas for the rest of the year will be looking like looking looking like and what the energy and environment committee's push is going to be for the rest of the year. Um happy to report back that we are going to be making a strong push for water and fire resilience um as well as fire prevention. Uh so that's that's something good. You'll you'll be hearing some more reports back from me on that. Later that day, Tuesday, September 2nd, uh had a meeting with uh with mayor, myself, and Mr. Jim Hirs with our amazing senator uh Senator Violatis and her team. Uh we presented our 395 access agreement hurdle that we're facing with Calrans. Um just so that we can get some some continued support, much neededed support from our senator. um and pleased to report back that they will be supporting us with not only um letters but calls to the state transportation committee chairwoman as well as a newly appointed uh CALR director, director Dena Alawanzi at the Sacramento level. So, thank you to Senator Viadis and her and her team. Thank you, mayor, for uh uh for setting that meeting up so that we can, you know, pitch to her what what we've got going on and and you know, looking forward to to closing this deal once and for all. and start to move forward with this de much much needed development on Highway 395. Wednesday, September 3rd, attended our monthly SBCA board of directors meeting in San Frernardino. Um, couple things to report back from there. You guys were going to see in our region here, we're going to see a lot of upcoming work on Bear Valley Road and on Palmdale Road, there's going to be some some widenings on in certain areas um here in the region. Uh September 13th, for those of

you that might be in the Sanernardino area, September 13th is the official day where uh Sanino County Transportation Authority will be launching the first hybrid hydrogen fuel cell battery electric passenger train, other known as the Zemu. Um it will be officially entering service September 13th. So if you guys are down in that area, please stop by the station there and take a ride on that all electric passenger train. Um after my SBCTA meeting, I attended my SCAG delegates briefing at SBCTA headquarters um to get prepared for our SCAG regional council meeting that following day. Um after the uh the SCAG delegate meeting, I headed I drove down to downtown LA where I attended my SCAG executive administrative committee meeting at SCAG headquarters there. Um to couple things to report back from there. Adilanto motioned to create a proclamation in support for uh a declaration of October 1st being the official California clean air day. Um so basically what we're going to be asking is October 1st is going to be the official clean air day in the state of California. We're asking uh anybody that's moving around take, you know, use public transportation as much as possible. Your Ubers, your uh your your your your lifts, anything that has to do with with us driving. Let's try and get less vehicles on the on the road. Um, so that was cool that for Adilanto to be able to uh to motion that. Um, coming up in October as well. I wanted to bring this up to the council. Skagg is I believe October 3rd if I'm not mistaken, but I'll get I'll get the exact date to you guys, the right date. The demographic workshop. I know um Councilwoman Evans has registered and will be attending that workshop. An amazing workshop. Uh I I've been attending that workshop for the last two years. It's really really great information on the demographics, right? What kind of people are moving into our areas so that we can build to what those people like so that we can, you know, attract more individuals here to the

city and not only attract individuals but keep them here, right? If we have if we have a lot of seniors, if we have a lot of, you know, millennials and we want to build, you know, things that seniors want and things that millennials want so that we can keep them here. Thursday, September 4th, attended my SCAG uh energy and environment committee. uh we had a presentation on urban greening and creating ordinances within our city that require developers to plant more vegetation, plants and trees to help create uh healthier, more sustainable and resilient environments. Um we also discussed the ICT regulation which is the innovative clean transit regulation which require requires transit agencies to publish uh what they call a ZEB roll out which is zero emissions bus by June of 2026. So, we're going to start to see beginning of next year more buses in our area that are going to be zero emissions, right? Which which ultimately leads to cleaner air for us. Um, after that, after my EEC meeting, attended our SCAG regional council meeting, uh, we approved the mobility program for the 2028 Olympic and Parolympic games. Again, you're going to start to see a lot more information coming across uh, uh, the DAS here when it comes to um, not only the Olympics in 2028, but the World Cup and the Super Bowl coming in 2026. And in 2027, believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, even though those those those events are taking place down in the LA area, it will affect our region with the amount of traffic, commuters, um, and people that pass by our areas here. So, we we definitely want to keep up to date with those reports. Friday, September 4th, we had our last uh planning call for the Kid of Parts demonstration to finalize everything for the Skag Go Human Pop-Up event that will be taking place here in the city uh this coming Friday in conjunction with our movies in the park. I'm excited, Mayor. I know you're excited. Uh again, we can't thank SCAG and OTS, the off office office of tra uh traffic safety enough for this grant and for just coming out here and

really demonstrating what what collaboration and partnership can bring to a city, right? Uh Friday, September 12th, the event starts at 4 pm over at uh by Desert Trails uh John, how do we say

Desert Trails Park, right? The John M park off of Senica and Balflower. Um, come on out, ladies and gentlemen. We need your support. Come on out to see what it's like to have curb extensions in our city, what it's like to have parkletits, what it's like to have artistic crosswalks, what it's like to have uh uh medium refuge islands, right? We want to be able to walk on these things, sit on them, visualize them, so that, you know, city manager mentioned we got a new park that's in that's that's going to be breaking ground here uh soon. Maybe we can have park uh curb extensions there. Maybe we can have artistic crosswalks leading to that uh uh uh uh park, right? But we need you guys out there so that you can see for yourself. There's going to be surveys that we want our residents to fill out to give us feedback. Do you want to see these things in our cities? Right? Uh so come on out. Uh we're going to be giving away to the first hundred residents uh uh b kids bicycle safety helmets, right? So first come, first serve. And then the movie, our movies in the park, which is Jurassic World Rebirth, uh, starts at 7:30 PM. Again, that's this Friday coming up, uh, September 12th. And then Friday, September 4th through Sunday, September 6. Had the pleasure to attend alongside with Councilman Mesa the 2025 Contract City's fall educational summit. Um, networking and sharing ideas, ladies and gentlemen, is always my favorite part. However, a couple key takeaways from this event uh were um housing trust initiatives and hearing that they actually work and we absolutely need to be a part of one, which we are for the San Marino County Housing Trust. So, thank you um city manager for all the work that that we're doing with that trust. Um thank you to Senator Suzanne Rubio from Senate District 22 uh for sharing her blueprint, right? for sharing her blueprint about, you know, what we need to do to make housing trusts work and how we need our senators to really back us on these trusts uh when we're when we're going after the dollars for it.

So, thank you, Senator, for for uh for giving us your blueprint. Um, also, thank you to uh Senator Assemblyman, Assemblyman Jose Luis Solace from Assembly District 62, I believe, uh sharing firsthand knowledge on what funds are available and how we go after those funds in Sacramento. Do not fall for the the we don't have no money line. Right? That's a lie.

It's a flatout lie. I'm here to tell whoever says we don't have no money, you're lying to us, right? You you might not you might not have money for us, but you have money. Money is available. That was made clear to us by multiple state legislators down in Oceanside. Um the problem is we're not showing up enough to ask for it or we're not properly asking for the funds, right? Um so thank you, Assemblyman Solace, for for really just solidifying the fact that we need to get up to Sacramento more often, right? The once a year, twice a years, it's not it's not enough, ladies and gentlemen. We have to be there once a quarter. It's only five and a half, six hours up the road to get that facetime with our assembly members, with our senators to ask them for the dollars, right? To ask them for the dollars. Not only to ask them for the dollars, but to let them know what's going on and what kind of projects we have going on and what kind of projects we want in the city of Ailanto so that they can s they can understand that, okay, that takes money, right? So, city manager, mayor, um you're gonna probably see some more some requests coming from MPT. I would suggest city manager that we start to to to blueprint, strategize, and brainstorm more trips up to Sacramento so that we can get in front of our amazing assembly member and our and our amazing senator so that we can present to them and keep them up to date more often on what we've got going on and what kind of funding uh we need. Lastly, uh 911 is coming up tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, please take a minute to reflect and uh and remember and thank uh uh everybody that you know, well, not thank but remember everyone that lost their lives and thank all the brave men and women in our military service that are standing to watch and that went out to respond for the 9/11 attacks. With that, that wraps up my reports. Mayor,

thank you. Uh good morning. Yes, it is still morning uh to everyone. Uh just really quick, council member Mesa and C Mayor Pro Tim kind of uh touched on things that we went over. The one that I will elaborate is on the fourth. I did have my SCAG transportation committee meeting and um a lot of just the presentations things that they're wanting to do. One of the the big projects they have going on is like a main street rehab program. They selected four different streets in very one in each county uh to be a part of this program. One of the biggest issues um that they had on the reason well the reason they gave that we couldn't have more was because of restrictions uh to some of these main streets. A lot of the main streets are controlled um by a government entity that we are working with right now. Um so don't want to talk too much about those restrictions. Um, but what I will say that came out of that, one of the council members that was there made mention on uh some of the same struggles that they experienced that that we're experiencing right now with our main corridor. And uh what they recommended for the cities to do that do want to be a part of this main street program is uh to have legislation written and uh now they have full control over their over their roads and over their intersections in their communities. Right. So, I know that uh I want to say thank you to our our senator for uh her and her staff's time on hearing from us and helping us uh work behind the scenes when it comes to uh the access agreement for Highway 395 and to our assemblymen as well. But one of the things that seemed very promising as well was to just get them to jointly write legislation to give access back to the cities, right? So, it was good to hear that other cities have done that and that that is a viable option that we can reference to uh if for some reason or another uh we come across any other issues with with Cal Trends. I hope

everybody had an amazing Labor Day uh a couple weeks ago. Uh I will be reporting out in our next meeting for VBTA as I have that this upcoming Monday. But please, please, please come out this Friday to Desert Trails. It's going to be a great time. It is our Movies in the Park series. Uh Mayor Portim mentioned it's Jurassic World but the work that Skagg is trying to do and bringing awareness to to this go human program. It's pretty cool. We saw some of the markups uh if you are available uh we will be setting up Thursday and Friday right for this for this action here. And please keep an eye out, ladies and gentlemen, there will be some uh rather new things, right? So while you're going around desert trails, just um proceed with caution so that nothing gets damaged, right? Um you know, we're all h we're all creatures of habit, you know, and I know when I make that right, Uncle Belefflower, I just sometimes, you know, we we we we forget. So with that being said, um going to keep it going. We have our presentations to that we're looking forward to. So, uh, we're going to go ahead and get started here with our community input request for citywide roadway safety action plan. Um, are we going to have SA join us from the voice in the sky?

Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. That's going to be representatives from Alta presenting this morning. Are they on the line, Adam? Thank you. Hello. Hello.

Okay, I think you have our presentation ready. Excellent. And um Saba did say that she wanted to provide an intro, but I don't know if she's attending. Good morning everyone. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Um, good morning everyone. Um today received a grant from Federal Highway Administration FHWA to do the safety action plan for the city of um uh it's a citywide safety action plan to identify the uh safety needs on our roadways uh within the city and we hired uh Altra planning and design to do this uh plan and this is one of the requirement and uh to apply for some of the transportation grants. So, it's very essential to do this plan. And um uh with this one, uh I will hand it to um Caitlyn unless someone has any question for me. Uh she's uh from Ala Planning and Design and she is our point of contact and the project manager on this uh uh project. Uh hopefully this should be done by early next year and uh that will identify um safety related uh transportation project or the priorities for the city so we can pursue for different uh upcoming grants. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Can go to the next slide. Um yeah, so this this project actually sounds like it's coming at a really exciting time there. I'm hearing a lot of great projects coming up um or in progress and I think this is right in line with all the great work that the city's already doing. So, I'm excited to provide a little update um and hopefully talk through some ways that you can all give us some input over the next few months. Um so, as Saba mentioned, the Adalto safety action plan is funded by a US Department of Transportation grant program called Safe Streets and Roads for All. Um and this program really aims to address rising levels across the country of serious crashes. Um so crashes resulting in injuries and fatalities um that have really disproportionately impacted people walking and biking as well as disadvantaged communities. Um so Adelanto's safety action plan will really aim to improve roadway safety for all road users including people walking, biking, taking transit as well as drivers. Um the the project overall will combine public input with crash data to identify traffic traffic safety issues and the right strategies to address those. Um so we're creating strategies that are unique to specific scenarios in the city. Um, and really the the ultimate goal is to create achievable projects and strategies like Saba mentioned that are aligned with these upcoming funding sources so that you can keep building um exciting roadway safety projects that you're you're already you've already gotten started on. Um, and overall we hope these efforts will help prevent the the life-changing consequences of those serious crashes and improve quality of life overall for all your residents. Next slide. Um, so this project started earlier this year in February. Um, and as Saba mentioned, we'll be wrapped up um, early next year in February 2026. So, it's a pretty short project. Um, but we're

moving right along. So far, we've really been working on the back end um, doing a lot of data analysis, but also gearing up for the public facing engagement items. Um, so I'll get to I have a section a little bit later in the presentation to go over some of those opportunities um for you to provide input. Um, but one thing I want to touch on is over these first few months, we've been analyzing existing roadway and traffic safety conditions data. Again, building on all that work that's already been done in the past, but also that's that's happening concurrently. Um, this data combined with what we hear from you during different um, outreach opportunities will really help inform the development of specific safety strategies and recommendations for making things safer and and hopefully more enjoyable. Um, later this year, we'll be developing methods for the city to also measure and communicate roadway safety updates after this project um, ends in February. Right? We want this to carry on into the future. So that'll be an important part of of this project coming up with um implementation strategies and opportunities for funding as well as um measuring that progress over time. Um so and then these activities will feed into an overall safety action plan document which will provide um a lot of different strategies as we've rec as we've mentioned um as well as specific funding sources that are coming up soon um as early as next spring right after this plan is hopefully um adopted. So it it's really timely and we're excited to um be moving into sort of the the the busy rest of the project to come up with some great projects. All right, next slide. Um, I wanted to mention that a good foundation for this project is this safety task force that we've formed. Um, it's an important oversight group that helps guide the plan development as well as its

implementation after the project ends in February. Um, so the safety task force includes your mayor and mayor prom and city staff from the city of Avalonto, but it also includes representatives from SBCTA, the county. um transit providers, the sheriff's department, uh your local chamber of commerce, commerce, school districts, um local community organizations, and more. So, really, the point being, it's just a really diverse group um of voices that can help at a higher level make sure we're um really meeting the needs and expectations of Adalto in addition to the overall public input that we hopefully receive from residents. Um so, this is just a group to provide really vital technical input. Um, as we work towards these shared goals towards roadway safety, next slide. Um, I mentioned the product timeline. Over the past few months, our team here at Alta has been analyzing available roadway safety data. Um, we've been looking at the most recent available data set, which for Adilanto is between January of 2019 through December of 2023. Um, we can look at more recent data than that to get a good sense, but that's those are complete data sets. So that's what we want to um focus on to make sure it's the most accurate. Um this includes really digging into what what are the primary causes of crashes here in Adalanto. So getting down to the nitty-gritty, what's specifically happening on your roadways? Um and some of the trends we're seeing are the most common causes of crashes are speeding, which is probably not is something that you'd expect to see. We've heard a lot already from people that speeding is one of their top concerns and that is reflected in the data. That is one of the that is the top um cause of crashes here um for yeah has accounted for almost a third of all crashes over the last several years. Um besides speeding there's also um a lot of trends showing drivers failing to observe traffic

signals or signs or failing to yield to other vehicles, you know, when they're merging into lanes or or other um scenarios like turning right, um which I think was mentioned earlier. Um so really I won't get too in the weeds here. Um there will be opportunities for you to to dig in if you want to. Um but we have a wide range of tools um that we can collaborate with the city on to address these different kinds of behaviors that are causing crashes. Um including the way that streets are designed or in addition to the way that streets are designed. So, it's not just focusing on design projects, but also kind of starting to think about like um the human the human side of things. Um and hopefully helping to change behaviors so that we're all respecting each other and creating a shared community of of roadway safety. Um okay, next slide, please. Um and of course, one of the most important parts of this project is hearing from from you all. Um so, there are several ways that you can learn more about the project and provide input at at key points. Um, I'll go into more detail over the next couple of slides, but in general, we're hosting inerson workshops and setting up booths that um for some popup engagement events so we can get you in passing. Um, in addition to asking you to hopefully show up for a dedicated meeting, we're also working closely with the city to share out updates about engagement opportunities, but also just overall project updates through um the city's social media channels as well as um your regular newsletters. So, keep an eye out for those. Those will be increasing over the next several months. Um, we have a few tools that you can use to share your input through the project web page which I think I go over on the next slide please. Um, so we worked with uh city the city to um develop a project specific web page. So a web page that's dedicated just to this plan and this project. Um, but it's on the city's official website. So hopefully you're familiar with that.

And um we did include this short link if you want to take a quick look there, but um it's on the main website, so you should be able to go there, search for it. We included a snapshot here so you can get the full name there. But this is a really good just basic place to learn more about the overall project goals and stay up to date on key project um deliverables, documents, um as well as upcoming events. So, we're going to continue to update this um over the next few months as we are starting to build out um our fall and winter engagement events and tools. Um and then later at towards when we have like actual recommendations that this is where we can upload those so you can take a look at them. Um the web page also has a link to a survey which is in English and Spanish. That's an excellent way for you to share your input about roadway safety uh in your neighborhood or near places that you um frequently travel to in town, places you'd like easier access to or other concerns and ideas you might have about uh the streets in your city. Next slide. We're also working on adding an online mapping tool to the web page which should be up in the next couple days. This will allow you to click on a specific location on a map of Adalto to tell us exactly where you're having either, you know, uh, roadway safety concerns or you've faced barriers, um, or if you have ideas for improving things. So, you'll be able to actually drop these little dot pins to show us, like I said, specific loca lo specific locations. You can also um you'll be able to draw lines to show us routes where you want to either um have more access to let's say biking um or walking or or driving even. So this is a really simple tool that will give us data that we can then turn hopefully turn into recommendations or identify ways to um address these ideas and challenges. Um, so for more information about how to use

this tool, once that map is uploaded, there will also be a recording from our first workshop presentation, which was a few weeks ago. The recording is pretty brief, but it does include um we added on a tutorial of how to use this map showing where I shared my screen. So, that'll be up soon and you should be if you have any trouble navigating the tool, hopefully not. It's pretty straightforward, but the how-to in that recording will go like step by step and show you exactly how to do it. Um, so we're going to keep that tool as well as the survey that I just mentioned open for the next several weeks. So there's plenty of time for you to still provide opportunity. We haven't started making any recommendations yet. So now is the time. We want to hear from you. Um, that's really why uh we wanted this opportunity today. We we would love input. Also, your input not only feeds directly into the projects in your community, but helps um really shine a light on Adelanto and all the exciting work being done and your voices help make a grant application um more desirable to people that are choosing who to fund.

Oh, Saba, you're unmuted. Um okay, next slide. Um, so we I I just mentioned we had done one um, you know, workshop just to really introduce the project, but we do have more in-person opportunities coming up. We don't have any specific dates planned yet, but um as soon as we've identified dates for additional an additional workshop and pop-up events, we will make make sure they're on that project web page and also work with the city to promote them several times through social media, the newsletter and other sources. Um so that hopefully you all hear about them. So the next set of events will really be focused around these draft recommendations. Um, so I already put out the call to action for you to do that survey, get on that online input map so that we can hear from you right now. And then what we're going to do is work on those draft projects based on your input and the safety data and then come back to you and present those and make sure before they're finalized that we've um included anything we may have missed that we hear from you um in this next round of engagement. So that'll be also really critical. Um, and then after that next set of um, in-person events, we'll also be working on the full draft plan, which will mostly just be a technical document that I think Saba mentioned is required for the city to have, but this will be a great summary of of all the data, but also the recommendations. And you'll have the chance to view and comment on that as well. um we can provide updates on exactly how to do that when it's a little bit closer. But essentially that we will create a sort of PDF that you'll be able to anyone in the city will be able to comment on directly so that we can see exactly where in the plan you have um any input which will be really helpful. Um so more coming soon on that. Um and with that if you want to go to the last slide this just has my contact information at the bottom here. uh my

full name at altaggo.com um as well as Saba. I encourage you to reach out if you have questions or input. Um I am happy to take those those comments directly. Um but also I can send out information about the survey web map or web map if you have any trouble with that. But um yeah, I'm happy to take any of your questions or anything. Thank you so much Kaitlin.

Thank you Evans. Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you, Caitlyn, for the presentation. I'm excited to see this come back. I know y'all have been working on it for a while. Um, but it's been years in the making, right? Because we did something similar back in the day. So, I'm excited to see this come back and hopefully this time come to fruition so that we can actually see the changes implemented. So, thank you for that.

Thank you. That's actually a great point. Um I didn't I I wanted to keep this presentation brief, but to your point, yes, this builds on several years of amazing work that the city has led and we've worked with you before on um an overall active transportation plan that focused on biking and walking and then safe routes to school plan which focused on school safety. Um so this is continuing that legacy um and hopefully pushing it into more specific projects that can get funded. And that's really the goal here is keep keep your momentum going because you got a lot of it. Thank you so much. Uh how much is this grant possibility on on collecting?

That's a great question because we don't have specific projects yet. We haven't costed anything out, but the I I can't recall what the upper limit of. Um for example, the safe streets and roads for all grant has another cycle coming up. um I believe in spring right after this plan is wrapped up. Um but I would it's not unique to see projects that range from you know hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars and get awarded. So there's a lot of opportunity. There's also the active uh the sorry the states of California's active transportation program opens up in uh I believe March or April of next year. So perfect timing. Um and we hope to get some really exciting projects. Both of those grants are looking for safety focus. Um but the active transportation program is also just looking for that um the kind of momentum that you guys have the storytelling side. So I think this is a very opportune project.

Yeah. Um thank you. Um my second question is oh can you guys mobilize fast to get a pop out because we have this event Friday. I know. I wish we had heard about it sooner. She's like, "That sounds exactly like what we would have needed." I don't think this Friday is going to be a possibility, but um Saba, I can actually share with Saba um if she doesn't already have we have like fact sheets and fly like things that could help at least promote the project. Yeah. Sorry, I don't think we're going to make it out this week, but Okay. Cameras. Can cameras be on that as well? We were talking about speed improvements, amenities. Are cameras also involved?

Absolutely. that can be part of the the sort of toolbox that we're looking at. Okay. And that's all I have right now then since there's no information. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh Caitlyn, thank you for for the presentation. Again, thank you for all the uh the work, time, and hours that you guys are putting in to this. We're we're definitely uh excited to to see it through. Um just a couple comments. you you know for those of you that were able to see the presentation the the primary cause uh of crash speeding guys let's let's slow down right Captain Lutz I see you nodding your head over there slow down we got 395 that runs through the heart of our city um and I see it every day whether it's Mojave whether it's Bellflower uh whether it's Sica whether it's 395 slow down please right it makes no sense to speed around somebody to just meet them at the stoplight right you're just rushing to get to a stoplight so just just slow down and potentially save a life. Um, I wanted to point out to the residents that we continue to see the fruits, right, of of of us getting out and getting involved with these other organizations that are outside of the city of Ailanto that have the resources that have resources that we can bring back to the city and help our city grow. So, thank you Alta for everything that you're doing. Um, and lastly, resident input, please. Right, you heard that come up multiple times, right? Whether it's a popup, whether it's reaching out to anyone on this council, to mayor, to to our city clerk, uh, uh, social media, right? We want to hear your input on what you want, on what you don't want, on what you like, on what you don't like. That way, we can bring you guys, you know, what you're wanting. So, we don't have to hear later on down the line, oh, wow, it was mayor or MPT or council member or council woman that that wanted this stuff. So please when you see an opportunity or have an opportunity to fe give us some feedback or give us some input, please take advantage of it.

Thank you for the presentation, Caitlyn. Uh one of the things that I think that we can do with the short notice for this Friday is um we're already going to be out there giving out information in regards to go human with SCAG and a couple of other things. if you and Saba could just coordinate and see if we can get an expedited um little postcards made with a QR code where we can just hand them out to all the residents that are there and just push for their engagement. Um I think that's probably the best that we can do right now. My question was where where's the link or where can we push to have the community give their feedback, right? We have our senior center that's open. We have our post 229 that's going on. Um, if you need the community feedback, I don't want to depend on town halls and uh and those type of things to to be the voice of of something this big because my wheels are just spinning, right? We can do a lot of different creative things. We can start enforcing, you know, the big rigs from driving on our residential roads and and eliminating that. We can again just with with your open answer to council me about not knowing how much money is available. I think it's really going to be dependent on how many projects it is that we're going to try to get done at one time. If we go after one project then we're talking 200 $300,000. But if we really go broad and we really get the community's feedback and engagement on this, we can potentially go after a couple of million. That's ultimately the goal um on what it is that we're seeking to do, right? So um you're you know you're dealing with um new members of the council and we're all all of us are engaged in our community on different on different levels and different as uh different aspects, right? So, if you need community engagement, if you need uh surveys fulfilled, if you know those t those type of things done, please get it over to our city manager as quickly as possible so we can get it over to our our IT department and we can blast it on our social medias, blast it on our

newsletters and and and as council as we're out and about, get it to our constituents so that we can get their feedback to really make this a tremendous success. I know we started this with um Ryan Wolf, right, was the first one, right? All right. And I know the city manager has already presented a couple of the actions. So, let's keep the momentum going. Thank you so much. It's a great presentation. Um, but just get us that that link ASAP so we can get all over social media and into our constituents hands. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, moving on to our next presentation. And if we can have the man, the myth.

See, see, we I didn't have to say nothing else. He just got up, right? So, he already knew, right? There's no 121 days. Stop it. Is that in the contract or does that got to get approved? Uh, if you can unmute, Kelly, tell you the contract.

Okay. Uh thank you uh council persons for that warm reception and uh the audience in the city of Ivanto. Um I really appreciate the comments from Mayor Prom earlier when he mentioned uh we don't have the money because I'm coming to get some money and that. So we uh um yeah,

oh I'm talking about you. So uh in in the budget you have a line item which is asset seizure. Uh those are monies that when law enforcement in the city has done uh cases on criminal activity and we receive cash during that investigation whether it's a um narcotics investigation or recently I also have a division called the real crimes task force. They've been going around the county working on uh I'll just say chicken fighting groups. um they've recovered over a quarter million dollars in the last couple two months. Um that money once the case is adjudicated comes back into the law enforcement groups that investigated and prosecuted those crimes. Luckily in that case, none of those were within the city. So, um bad part is you're not going to get any of that money. But from prior investigations, the city's got a little over $40,000 in that fund that is to be spent for crime prevention in law enforcement within the city. So, um, last month the city of Atlanta lost 11 vehicles that were stolen. Of that, we show that one was recovered. Now, I don't know if it was one of our 11 that was stolen or from somewhere else. One of the tools that we are proposing is going to be the Flock program, which Kelly is online from Flock. He's going to give the technical aspects to this. But basically, our sister cities, including over on Air Express at Gateway, they have cameras mounted in the system. They read the license plates when they go through. It merges in with the state systems that if one of the license plates going through is in the stolen database, it automatically alerts our dispatch system. Dispatch then comes over the radio and says, "Hey, Atlanta, Victorville, Hisperia, whoever, this vehicle is traveling at this direction, in this lane of travel, this description, and this license." That's live time. If we just take a report, it goes into the system and unless we happen to run behind a car and the deputy remembers, hey, this car was

possibly stolen and they run it, we don't know that a car is going through. Also, like the other day, we had an Amber Alert hit all of your phones. We don't always keep that in our mind. All the alerts, those are all in there. So, if an Amber Alert vehicle goes through one of these, we get that alert immediately, and that could be saving lives. So, I identified a uh system that is going to, I think, improve some of our uh public safety in the city. And Kelly's got up on the uh screen there. Kelly online. I love the music.

Wasn't Kelly's. Kelly, you there? Does he have to hit star n Can you hear me? Okay, now we can. Okay, my apologies. Um, great. So, you can hear me? Yes.

All right. Thank you. Um, good morning, mayor, council members, community members. Uh, thank you for having me and thank you for that introduction and kind of laying out that foundation. Captain Lutz, I would like to just second uh the comments made by who I believe was the city manager regarding just expressing appreciation for you. As RI retired law enforcement myself, I have a particular, you know, uh level high level of respect for our men and women in law enforcement, especially those that have long and distinguished queer careers such as yours. So, thank you so much for your service. I appreciate that. Um, I am here today by invitation from Captain Lutz and also on behalf of Flock Safety, which if you don't know, Flock Safety is a mission-driven public safety company partnering with cities such as Adilanto all across this country. Uh today, this morning, I will help show you in this slide deck how Flock can help you and your city eliminate crime, increase officer efficiency, empower your commun community, and doing all that without adding staff or, you know, putting a drain on city budgets. So, let's start with this slide here, which kind of addresses our national footprint. Flock Safety Today protects over 6,000 communities uh across this country. We are attributed for um participating or helping solving over 2,800 crimes per day and about 15% of all US reported crime is solved using flock and that's based on a methodology from a TCU study. And I just share this as proof that the technology works and it works at scale whether it's a large metropolitan city uh all the way down to a town such as Adilanto. Um importantly I believe this council

um and Flock share the core mission which is eliminate crime and build safer communities together. Uh can you hit next slide please? So fluck isn't just about replacing people in instead rather it's a force multiplier. It gives your police department smarter tools to do more and do them faster and safer and with greater precision especially for a growing city with you know limited staffing. Flux technology can empower your officers to solve significantly more crime again without increasing headcount. Uh next slide please. So privacy is often the biggest concern and we completely agree and that is why Flock is built with privacy by design. Uh your agency owns the data. Let's be clear about that. Flock never and I repeat never sells data and we don't allow private users to access government systems. data is generally autodeleted at 30 days. Although agencies do have the ability to extend retention in contracting and then every search is logged, audited, requires a case number or search reason and ultimately if you wish we can provide a free transparency portal which shows the public exactly how the system is being used. So we don't just promise accountability you know we help enforce it as well. Uh next slide. So our core solution and the solution that we discussed with Captain Lutz and his team and the solution we're proposing for Audilto is license plate recognition technology and these are solar powered wireless cameras that require no city infrastructure. They capture detailed vehicle data and trigger real-time alerts such as when a known suspect vehicle enters your city like Captain Lutz provided as an example. In fact, just this morning, I

actually received an alert or a notification rather of a I believe it was a one to two year old in the city of LA that was abducted who was swiftly recovered and rescued a short time thereafter in Flagstaff, Arizona. And that was attributed to a flock safety alert. So, it's not just about detecting vehicles that are wanted, whether it's for human or sex trafficking investigations or drug investigations, but also to help uh locate missing persons or silver alerts, amber alerts. Flock cameras help agencies intercept stolen vehicles. They identify suspects and violent crimes and locate missing persons. Our tech includes night vision, AI, and free form searching, alerts tied to NCIC, which is an FBI database, Amber Alerts, and custom hotlets. Uh, next slide, please. So, what's important is this is not just a data of a license plate. We flock safety is incredibly innovative. In fact, we are listed by Forbes and Inc.com as one of the most innovative companies and fastest growing actually in the country today. Apply by applying AI and machine learning, we can help uncover critical details such as our vehicle fingerprint, which is like a searching a make, model or color, or even some more unique features. Maybe it's rust on a ve on a vehicle or a bumper sticker on a vehicle, which is great. And then also by investing into Flock Safety, you are joining the largest LPR national network. We have over 130,000 assets nationwide, more than 20,000 just in Cal the state of California alone. Uh, next slide, please. So often a suspect vehicle doesn't

necessarily have a plate or even at times it's unreadable and that's where our vehicle fingerprint comes in. You can search and receive alerts based on make, model, color, bumper stickers, decals, toolboxes, roof racks, and more. Even temporary tags and state specific plates. And so this reduces blind spots and improves lead generation. The officers can now find that needle in the hay stack, so to speak, even with minimal info. Next slide. Unlike traditional city tech, which can age sometimes quickly, flock is never obsolete. We use a subscription model and with that you get hardware, software, LTE connectivity, installation, permitting, maintenance, free lifetime updates and support. So in short, you're just never going to need uh no additional budget surprises for budget or cost for major upgrades are going to come along with flock safety subscription. Instead, this is a fixed cost future ready solution that can grow with the city of Ailanto. Next slide. The Flock offers more than just cameras. It's a fully integrated safety ecosystem. Devices communicate and share intelligence. AI and machine learning power every layer. You can search across all feeds instantly. And you benefit from nationwide evidence sharing. So whether it's traffic, crime, community alerts, everything works as one system. Next slide, please. One of the great things about Flock is we're, you know, of course we provide technology to city uh local, state, federal government, but we also empower public private partnerships. So this approach is especially valuable for growing cities, schools, HOAs, retailers, hospitals, they can all opt in and they

can share their cam camera data with your agency and do that in real time. And so what this does is it widens your coverage net and fosters greater community ownership. Next slide please. So this is an example. This actually is not an example. This is the deployment plan that I built out with Captain Lutz and his team. You can see that uh primary focus was made on the major ingress egress points into the city and that would include Bartlett A at Delicious Street, Chamberlain Way at Madron Street, Chamberlain Way at US Highway 395, Air Expressway and Adilanto Road and El Mrage at Koala. Uh next slide please. And that would actually conclude my presentation. I know I've shared uh a decent amount of information here, but of course I'm happy to take on any uh any questions or comments that this uh council or community has for me.

And I'll turn it back to Captain Lutz if not Captain. Okay. So cost this where it comes down to mayor and mayor prom. So to install them and our first year of operation is going to run $33,000. I've got over 40,000 in the asset seizure budget. So zero cost. So can we use the other $7,000 for expl,000 to explain it to the community like at next year's harvest fest? Well, the other 7,000 because we will have a continuing cost every year of $15,000.

$15,000. So the initial is for the installation subscription, all those things. And then we would have a $15,000 annual. So we have enough money in there to install them the first year, get the program going, pretty much cover all the costs for next year, and then that's where it would be the ask out of the city council that it become a recurring cost within your own budget of 15,000. When you consider an average deputy costs over hundred some thousand dollars a year, this is a pretty good investment for us to be able to continue with crime prevention at a low cost rate. So that's what uh the presentation is is to let you know I'd like to spend all that money.

So So that's what we're doing with this. Um we'll work out with the city. Now, one of the problems is as the mayor mentioned is this nice highway that goes through us. I would love to put cameras on the highway, but we're not allowed to put them on CALR equipment, lights, or anything like that. The city's infrastructure, Edison, is phenomenal. Um, so we could capture a lot more um criminality if we could get them on 395, but currently none of the cities are allowed to put it on there without exhausting. We own our sign, don't we? Pardon me? We own our sign, don't we? Uh the uh sign at the stadium.

Welcome to Alanto. that sign. I don't think it's in the right position to actually put a camera on it to be able to read the license plate. Correct. But we do have the partnership with the folks that have the digital signs and those are right up against and that may be something we can do to add to this program. Um the ad is once we get it in the ad is a future captain's. So I want to start off with the the 40,000. Okay. How do we get that in there? First of all, that was money that has been collected prior to actually me coming on board on criminal cases that were done here in the city of Atlanta, right? Um, now do these cameras because of their usage, do they generate an ROI? Would they generate money? Would they?

No, there's uh no generation of uh income from that because it's something that we actually can't generate income from our law enforcement activities other than That's what I'm saying. So like has there been any data on that? like we pulled over so many cars and this was found in them and this is it's not used for that. It's only used for stolen missing persons, things like that. That's what the data is automatically generated. Um we can use uh well you you talked about people that are fleeing your suspects. So if we put in a wanted vehicle um warrant for it basically. Okay. Yeah, we we can get some data

in that that we can use for investigative purposes, but we don't it's actually when a warrant is put in the cars put in the stool and system or the wanted person system, that's what it clicks off of. Okay. But there is other capabilities, right? That other capability is I'm wondering if we can say if anybody's enters this zone, it kind of takes a picture. Um because we have some hot zones for dumping, right? So I'm thinking if they automate you're trying to use it for more than one instead of this, right? Yeah. Well, that's what you said. There's AI capabilities and more things that we can use it for. So, that's kind of what I want to see.

Kelly, would we be able to if we put that on because I do have a trailer that I was contemplating. Could we put it on one of our portable trailers and collect the other data for like illegal dumping?

Yeah. No, I I love the uh I love the the thought track here, right, which is okay, this is valuable technology, right? how can we use it to leverage to maybe address other problems that the city is experiencing today. So if I'm hearing you correctly, there's an illegal dumping concern as well, right? And so, for example, some one of those AI tools we have, which is free form, you literally don't even need to have a make, model, color, or license plate even. You could just say query, for example, hey, show me a truck with trash in the back bed. Yeah.

And our AI tool will scrub all of the detections and of course produce likely results for you. So, theoretically, yeah, the short answer is yes. Could it be used for other, you know, enforcement efforts? Uh, short answer, absolutely. So, it's going to probably be as effective as the um as the uh as creative and uh as the user behind the computer running it is. That That's kind of what I'm thinking. If we can come up with ideas to generate ROI with these, it pays for itself and then adds more to your budget. I mean, that's that's where I want to Well, it's not going to be his budget no more. He said,

"Well, I know he's going to donate to the harvest fund with it." That's what I was trying to get out of it. So we can that was a comment I did have with city manager about potentially taking the old traffic trailer and maybe installing a couple of cameras on that that is portable that we have. Yeah. Um at a maybe a more economical than some other options but that would only be one but that's something that we want to look into also. Awesome. Got to be careful. Um Captain Lutz, can I can I make one clarification please? Sure. Sorry. So, just to be clear, actually, the quote that was provided to you and your team, it actually has year one as $18,250. Let's get to

all in, not not counting tax, of course, that um is separate, if it even applies, and I'm not sure if it applies to your agency. Um, and then the the 2-year subscription total was 33,250. That's how you came to that number. And then the annual recurring Yeah. So I just want to clarify that because it's actually less than the number you you had shared. But additionally, if this is seizure funds that need to be spent on um you know uh law enforcement purposes, you know, we can add live view cameras to any of these uh LPR devices. Just keep that in mind. It's a very minimal cost. So I'll just let this body know that.

Thank you. Can any cameras in the city be logged? Can be connected to this system as well? So if we have existing cameras, can that be added to this system? Yeah, sort of. Yes. So, it would be a different asset, but yes, we have what's referred to as Flock OS, and we can ingest virtually any uh camera, whether it's a community-owned camera, maybe a gas station owned camera that can be connected through an API link. It could also be connected through a a hardware asset like a gateway device that gets um that gets uh installed at the location of the VMS or video management system. But in short, it can be done. Yes. Now, it's just separate from this project we're talking about.

Yep. I just want to know the total capabilities. Thank you. Yeah. So, it sounds like we can continue expand the available data that we can collect. I know the city has some cameras in the parks and things like that. So, Kevin, anything else you want to say before I open up for questions? I guess that's all I have. Okay. Awesome. Councilwoman Evans. I'm

good. Empty. Um, two. So, cap. So, the the the um that budget that you spoke about, the crimes detective budget. Yes. that you so that will ultimately cover first year potentially second year maybe actually year and a half it looks like it'll cover two years plus uh going into the third year. Got it. So um and then so then from there on once that is exhausted then then the ask is for the city to pick up the 15k yearly ongoing. Yes. Um got it.

Okay. And then um we just got to be careful about asking it to to pick up or or detect any truck with with trash in the back of it because it's going to detect every truck with a Green Bay Packer sticker. That's true. Or Raider sticker or Raider sticker or something like that. Okay, that's true. 121 days. Um

how do we determine those locations for the camera? our intel division to find out where the largest number of Grand Theft Autos were occurring or recoveries and they were using that data. We added on Koala because it's a gateway from Los Angeles, right? Not to pick on our brothers to the west, but um it was a gateway, so we added that on and we can add on additional if you look in uh like around the mall at uh in Victorville, the cameras are up there already and a lot of it most cities put them in all the gateways into the cities, right? And things like that.

That's I was just curious why we didn't do like um Mojave, right? And then Pondo because uh Victorville's already got those covered and I wanted to capitalize on their money. Mojave 395. Yeah. See, man, I don't care what just says 121 days. You're right. 181 days, right, C? 181. 181 days. 21. Yeah. I was when we looked at these like we were thinking on putting one on Adelanto uh or uh Air Express. Yeah. Victables are already covering it. Why put my money into that? Right. So, I was utilizing the other cities.

Brilliant. I'm I'm good. Um, we can't veto that whole little 121 days thing. No. And and for the public, I know you've been hearing this. I am officially retiring from the sheriff's department on January 9th. So, he says, "Oh, no. I'm gone." Yeah. I got a doctor's appointment this afternoon that's gonna help me testify to that. MPT said you had a question. No, you answered. Okay. Um, thank you. This is a great great presentation. I know that uh if we do decide to move forward with this, it would be something that uh we can most definitely utilize to assist on other needs. Yes. Um look at you coming in for the close. I've got backup. You got backup. I got backup.

Um I just love the creativity. I love the the the openness. And I would just say for the Flock team, um get ready for some outside of the box usages and uh you know, creativity. And what I mean by that is we've gone seven years or six years. How long have we been doing this? Since 2018. Uh on trying to find creative solutions to help move the city forward. So get ready to find up some come up with some creative solutions for for for flock as well. Yes, that's great. I appreciate that. We're up for the challenge.

Okay. And I have one other item for you. So we all know Stacy Buchanan. Stacy Parks was our public information officer. She retired recently. Uh I'm glad to announce that Amber Hutton, she was our office specialist in our field station. She has been promoted to service specialist and will be taking over our public um events. The uh your thing on Friday, your upcoming event, um movies in the park, uh National Night Out, she'll be handling our media and our community contact and outreach. So, I just wanted to introduce her to the council. See her coming around. Welcome. Welcome. Work her hard, please. Any questions? She wants to say anything. Give her

um She That's why she sat back there. She's really I'm trying to get her inner flower out. Somewhat wallflower. Well, being in the public, that's going to change. Thank you, K. Okay. Happy to start. We'll be there on Friday at the movies in the park taking pictures. All righty. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great presentation.

All right, going to go ahead and move on with public comments. Uh, open that up at 12:15. Members of the audience that wish to address the council, please grab a yellow speaker card um or raise your hand on Zoom, YouTube, or or whatever our third streaming service is. Yeah, we got YouTube now. Moving on up. Kicking it with We're going after Mr. Beast. Miss Magda, come on down. You've been selected for the prices ride.

Good afternoon everybody. Mark the Terrellis, 11 and 1 half year resident here and also a business owner. Um, who took the button away from me for the uh entrance? There's a was a button there kind of let you guys know that I was ready to kick the window so I can get through. There used to be a button there and it's gone. So, please, you know, um I'd like to know how did we come up with lunchtime to have these meetings? I think I asked at the last meeting, never got a reply, but uh I don't come because I'd rather go to lunch. Uh and uh these meetings are important, but uh feeding my fat cells is just as important, too. So, uh, you know, can we look at a little bit later time because, you know, maybe you'd get more people because they too have to go to lunch and they do want to, uh, or or get off of work later or what have you. There's a bunch of reasons. We won't go into that. Um, I I just want you guys to know that there is one thing about uh you can have all the lights and all the traffic this and that that you might want, but if the people aren't trained, if there's not enough money, uh, you know, there's a whole lot of things with all these cameras and things that are coming in. Um, it's kind of like you notice the LA uh cops with their body cameras. Those things always break down when they go after Hispanics and blacks. Same thing with some of these cameras. And I'll tell you what, shipmate, the traffic and running as fast as these people do in their cars will stop when they start getting tickets because that's what the uh city of uh Irwondale did. They had officers all over the place nabbing these people that were go speeding and doing a lot of illegal things when they were driving. And

people did one of two things. They either slowed down and drive safely or they would just go around the city. But all this all those accidents that they were having with the children, the elderly, the women, etc., it almost ceased. Um, I kind of want to know too, Victor, uh, the VBTA, when and where are they having the meeting? Because I intend to be there this time up. Um, there was something that was kind of bothering me. I I don't understand when they give awards, do you all get involved in voting for awards or just one person decides whatever? because I was appalled to hear that Gina Brown with all the hard work she does for that uh Samoan flag day, she didn't get any kind of recognition and she did I would say 90% of the work. So, um who decides who gets those awards? Cuz she should have been accommodated for all the work that she puts in, all the effort. Uh, I'm to a point where I'm going to join her club because I guess Oh, and then that's another thing talking about, you know, recognition, whatever. It appears to me, and I want you guys to know that it bothers me that it seems like people from Victorville are heard and uh helped more than residents here in Adelanto. And uh that's that bothers me. you know, there's uh some rumor over at uh well, a particular military veteran center that uh so and so is told, "Hey, go tell the mayor this, this, and that. Uh we need this, this, and that." And the guy's not from our resident, but you

know, they look at him like he has some kind of authority here. And uh he doesn't, and it's just not right. Um, oh gosh, I had to touch on something very important, but I guess it's going to have to wait two weeks. Um, the thing at the park, did you ever get a hold of that fellow that was here about a month ago that has that truck with the food? Um, I hope he'll be able to come. Great. And, uh, I'm looking forward to that. Thank you. Thank you, Magda. Adam, anyone online?

All righty. Going to go ahead and close public comment here at 12:20 and uh move on with the consent calendar on our regular agenda and our special concurrent items are considered all routine in nature non-controversial and be acted upon in one motion unless we wish to pull for discussion. U motion if we don't pull I'm sorry. Um yeah, I'd like to pull six from the regular calendar and two from the concurrent. six on the regular and two from the concurrent. All right.

And if you want, we can if I I just have a comment to make on two. So, we can still vote on that and then come back to six. Um, Captain Lex, I don't know if you know, but I majority of people that sit here um know that every chance I get to vote on a sheriff's contract, I vote no. Defunding. And I'm very clear. Defunding. He thinks it's for that. Although the word should be speak reallocation, but we'll talk about that offline. Um, I've always been very clear as to why I vote no.

And it's not for defunding the police. It's not because I'm not for police. It's not because I hate the sheriffs and not for any of those reasons. It's because I asked for two very specific things that our contract as it sits, we did not have the power to force you guys to do. One was positive policing and the other was body cams. Sir, I can't thank you enough for implementing both of those issues, right? I wasn't here when you did it, but I was so happy to hear that it happened. And while I took a whole lot of mess for asking for that,

what you did is you proved that I wasn't crazy for asking for it. You proved that it wasn't impossible and you've proven that it does change the relationship between my residents and your sheriffs. So, thank you very much for that, sir. With that, mayor, I would like the honor of motioning moving to approve the consent calendar without I already motion, girl. Oh, well then I'll second. Second that one. I'll second. But I just wanted to be on record for finally not going to be attacked for voting no this time on your contract. I just wanted to be on record that I believed in you and that's why I voted for it and I knew you were going to get it done. So, we didn't need to hold it off. There you go. All in favor? I.

And then Yeah. Item number six. Yeah. So, I have questions on six. Um, in reviewing the the contract, um, I see that the address that now that these services are being provided are at the the um, mobile home park here on Chamberlain.

I want to know where is the food being stored and how often are we giving those resources out? And then also in the in the use of funds, everything is going to personnel. So I'm assuming that's salary is nothing is going that that I can see that's listed is going to services. So if I can just have those answered. Yes, good afternoon everyone.

Okay. Um yeah, we had to move from the location because of the glass crystal. Everybody knows about that. Um we are we have a facility that we partnered up with the church in Hisperia. So we have containers there that we utilize. We partner up with him. He's got a forklift and everything. So everything gets stored there. So every week we're able to take volunteers and bag food up and bring it out to the community. So we use the personal vehicle to bring it up here and that's how we give it away every week. So we serve about 20 to 25 families a week and then for other occasions if we have extra stuff we bring other things out. That's how we do our community reach. And then we go through the schools for referrals. Anybody from cities the city here referrals we get contact those people too. Regarding the personnel um we had asked well we had asked for 24,000.

Mhm. But the generosity of everyone here when they voted they gave us the extra. So that will be used for fuel and liability insurance. Okay. So all the money doesn't go towards salary. Awesome. Thank you. Right. That's it. So a motion item number six. I'll second. All in favor? I moving on with the new business policy for vacant land properties. Counciloman Evans.

Thank you. Um as y'all know, I've been working on this for some time. I'm gonna hand you guys these. Um there's two packets for each one of you. Um what you have there and I apologize for not getting to you sooner. I was literally doing finalization this more. Don't Bro, they were organized neatly for y'all to um so there should be two staple packets for each of you. So just take take the top two. Yeah.

Anyway, one will be the ordinance and the other will be the legal standing. Um so you'll have two different or legal justification. Um, what this basically is is what I I'm dubbing the workaround to the measure that we've been putting up for the vacant land tax. Um, give me one second. I'm going to pull up my notes. Um, the main the main difference here and what we have, and I hope Todd's online, he should have a copy of these as well, is we've been using the word fine, like fining people for things. Legally, the word penalty changes that the the cap on how much we can charge folks or penalize residents for things, right? When you use the word fine, it's a $1,000 cap. No matter what our administration fees are, when you say penalties, those fines that when you say penalty, that alleviates that cap. You can now penalize whomever for how whatever it is as long as you have some key points, right? So, California code, government code 53069.4 expressively authorized administrative penalties for municipal code violations. Um, so we can impose these penalties. We have to to do so we have to establish an ordinance. Um, the ordinance must provide written notice of violation, a reasonable period to correct the violation, and an opportunity for a hearing to appeal, a hearing and or to appeal before an impartial body, i.e. the city council. Um, the ordinance that I have placed before y'all for it's clearly just a draft and we can go ahead and edit how you see fit. Um, I'm just going to break down some of the Where's my presentation? Here we go. break down some of the main points here and then it's there you guys for in totality. Um but the problem that we have is that we have vacant land and or properties that are often left unmaintained. The issue

has created illegal dumping dump dumping overgrown weeds fire hazards vermin infest infestation and reduced property value. Um our current fines are capped by state law. So in my opinion they're not strong enough to deter the neglect. The solution is to adopt the new administration penalty ordinance, stronger enforcement tool, which is a stronger enforcement tool than the traditional fines. It's a clear process for notice, compliance, and penalties, and ensures fairness with due process and hardship protections. Um, key features here for the ordinance is that uh certified letter will be sent to the land owner at the the address listed with the property, I mean with the tax assessor, the county. the penalty after this and they'll have seven days to cure whatever the the violation is. After the seven days, they'll implo in they'll incur a $1,000 penalty. Then they will have 30 days to cure. From there, after that 30 days, they will have 60 days and the 60 days will be charged at $1,000 a day to cure the proc the problem. After that, the city will place a lean with the intent to foreclose on the property. Then we'll hold quarterly auctions. um to then sell those properties back out because we're not a real estate agent. So, we'll do like we do with our any other um excess property, put them out for auction. The auctions will be for the proper the current property value plus any of the fees and and the $60,000 or $61,000 if it may be that um in penalties. Then the due process and fairness. So, there's a hardship waiver for folks that can prove and there's a process in there for that. There's an appeal appeals process. They can come before the council. It does leave room in the ordinance for city manager Flores. If someone just needs an extension, you know, I'm trying but I can't. It gives uh the city manager the ability to extend their time. If they just need I need a few more days, I need

a month or whatever. Um city manager Flores will have the authority to extend the time. But anything about I can't pay, I don't want to pay, I don't want to change it or um anything like that, they would need to come back before council. Um, then I give the legal authority that's in the ordinance. Um, and then the benefits of doing this would bring back the and and kind of help with the things we've been working on. Cleaner neighborhoods, safer environments, increase property value, reduce costs from fire, dumping, and nuisance, um, and create accountability for absentee land owners. So, that's pretty much it. Thank you. Um, before I ask council questions, uh, Todd, are you there? Yes, your honor.

Uh, I'd like your feedback on this, please. So, I got a couple questions for you, but after yours. Do you have any feedback?

Oh, I'm sorry, mayor. I thought you were uh talking to someone else. The um it well, it's definitely a a creative and well thoughtout um set of materials. I got it about 10 minutes before the meeting um from the city clerk. So, I looked through it and I haven't been able to verify all of the various rules uh and um stuff in here. The the general rule is I think as the council woman mentioned, we can assess criminal penalty penalties, but they are limited to certain amounts and we have to follow certain procedures. Whatever we call anything else, whether we call it a penalty or if we call it um a fine or or something else, it's going to be looked at in the rubric of whether it's truly a tax. And a court's going to look beyond the words to see what is what is actually going on. And in order to assess any type of penalty, we have to have state statutory authority to do so. So I would have to track down whether there is a separate other than in criminal world ability to impose something like this. Now we may get some benefit of the doubt because we're a charter city. So I would have to look at that as well. So, um, I think before I gave a full legal answer as to yes or no, I it would behoove me to look at some of those issues to make sure I was correct. That's my that's my initial take on it.

Okay. Um, thank you, Council Mesa.

Agree. We We need more time. I think this should be pushed for the next You know what I mean? So, I don't want you to I I really want to dive into this. The only thing that pops out of me that I don't like because to me there's two separate issues. There's uh beautifification and then there's people like you said that are absent land owners that are just waiting. So, I don't want to have the same rules for our residents where it looks like we're trying to grab their houses from them because at $1,000 $60,000 fine that could occur and then we're putting a lean like I don't want to be that guy who's like we'll go help you clean up your house. I don't want to put that on our our residents who are actually living in our community, right?

I do want to put it on these land owners who are absent and not caring about their sites. So, I'm all for people to have sites and wait for the right investment and do all that, but you also got to keep up your investment and make sure that your property is clean while you're waiting for that property value to go up. So, I am for that part, but just the wording on the owner part and just like again, me skimming through it. Um, I don't want to feel like any of our residents feel like they can get their house taken away for something that we don't like and we're voting on it. And I just don't like that perception. Uh, so I just want to get that cleaned up and make this more about land use and not about uh beautifification. What what I would call beautifification from our residents and homeowners.

Uh, great job. Great job on putting it together first and foremost. Definitely what I agree with Todd, you know, uh, thought out. um definitely want to get more time on on dissecting it. But what I do like is that this can be the beginning foundation of something, right? I keep asking myself, what if what if we don't pass? What if a measure doesn't pass? Right? What if we keep putting up a measure, putting up a measure, putting up a measure for whatever reason, you know, it's not translating to our residents and and hypothetically we can never pass this whatever measure, right, on what we're trying to do. So outside of a measure, what other ways can we get done what we're trying to get done, right? And I think I think with with with this is just the beginning um of doing that, right? I I agree wholeheartedly that our fines suck, right? A lot of these land owners, they have a little bit of money that they're probably sitting on. So, the $100 fine and the $250 fine, they'll take it all day long, all day long and and and they'll pay it, right? We need to get to the point where we're really going to hit their pockets 100%. Right. But you're right, Councilman Mesa. you know, let's make sure we're we're distinguish distinguishing clearly on beautifification or is it, you know, uh um somebody that's sitting somewhere in a different country and not caring about their land and how it looks like and it is affecting now our residents, right? Because it brings their property value down. Um so I would say Todd, yeah, definitely, you know, look into it. Um find out what we can what we can't do. Is there that big difference when it comes to penalties and fines? But definitely a great a great uh foundation to start looking at other ways besides a measure to get done what we're trying to to get done ultimately.

Well, I think yeah uh thank you for that. I would can I before can I address that um before you before you move forward? Um I agree right and I I think that the way we mitigate that is in the definition um which are listed the definitions are listed and I think that changing that nuisance condition to be more of like abandoned buildings or abandoned properties as opposed to vacant which was I think it says vacant right as opposed to lived in regular my weeds are growing right and so I think the word so you're right we don't even change it because vacant land well change the land to or vacant property properties um would just Oh, it does say just kidding. It already says or vacant properties, right? Is different than I live here,

right? And there's blight, right? Right. Yep.

Yeah. Because BL is blight and that's something that I think we already we already have established. I think what we have let's let's go back to the original reason why even we proposed the vacant land tax measure, right? It wasn't just for vacant land. That was one of four issues that we were trying to address, right? That was one of four issues that we're trying to address. Um, we can go about right now and site all these land owners, these vacant land owners, and and go about the process and have potentially um code enforcement or public works or hire a third party company to to do the work and and and and this and the third. But what happens is it just gets added on to the property as a lean

and that lean doesn't get taken care of until it's sold and that could be for the case in Alanonto we can wait 20 30 40 years from now right um the the the part that is concerning for me um is I feel that this is a creative way to invoke imminent domain Right? Because if we're going to be finding people and then doing an auction, well, the only way that we're going to have the authority to be able to do that as a municipality is that we're going to be finding them with the intent of taking their land because there's leans that are owed. And if there's leans that are owed that are owed to by the city, how do we as a municipality own all this vacant land for us being the ones that are setting the fees? The only way that we're going to be able to assess the fees is by taking and being owners of the land. And the only way that I know of legally that we can be owners of land is imminent domain if I'm not mistaken. If there's other ways

or we purchase

or we purchase, well, how do we purchase it if we're the ones that are assessing the leans for the debt, right? So, and and again, there could be other ways and I'm perfectly fine with there being other ways. I just don't know of other ways. I know that if we do want to go out there and have our staff pick up the illegal dumping and address all of those things, we we can, but that's just taking staff away from what it is that we're trying to do. Right. The the initial thought process of this measure was to address capital improvements um to address uh parks and reccks department to get more funding for for first responders and um address the illegal dumping because that would generate a fund for us to be able to handle one of those four issues. Um, if we do decide to um be specific on the verbiage, I wouldn't um I would want it to be specifically what it is that we're going after, right? Like if it's going to be vacant land, I don't want to have the interpretation of of words or what they could mean to someone else's understanding. I think that's um let's just be transparent in and what we're doing. if it's vacant land, if you know vacant land is vacant land and just give because as a resident, if I were to feel that this is coming towards me, um I would 100% have have an issue on the beautifification side of things. Um I don't know what other way we can go about and I guess that that would be a question for you Todd, right? Um, I know you got to look into this whole fine and penalties because the fines can only be to cover the administrative costs, right? So, anything outside of that, um, we would need to get clarity. But, yeah, I think Todd for sure do a lot more due diligence um, on this and research it

and figure it out if it's something that we could do. But um but um yeah, the second half of the beautifification I'm I'm for sure against because beautifification typically falls on the residents or business owners or people who are living and doing business in our community and I I wouldn't I wouldn't want that to be something because the code enforcement is already doing and handling that and we already have something established for for code to go there. So I maybe I'm missing where y'all are getting beautifification from.

Well, again, it's open to interpretation. I when it says owner right right there. I mean, you can read the definition, but just the fact that it says owner, right? Um where did I put it? Hold on, council members. While you look for that, city manager, unfortunately, I have to go. Um can we do a a quick recess so I can excuse myself? I have uh a hard 1:00 doctor's appointment that I have to get to. Um can we just have five minutes and then MP can you take over the meeting? So not

Yeah. All right. Welcome back. Time is 12:48 and um I think we're ready to wrap up this this discussion. So, are we good council with No, because I asked the question and Mesa was gonna council me Mesa was going to answer. What was the where y'all are getting beautifification? Like the the intent is not beautifification for me with the ordinance. That'll be the impact but not the intent. Got it. Just about um putting leans on the houses. Um let me see. I tossed it. But sorry, like we said, we just want Dang, that's how you feel about my ordinance. Damn.

Yeah, I already filed it. [Music] property owner, right? So, I just wanted to be more specific to land make like land owner instead of properties because when I hear property, I hear houses. So, that's it's just cleaning that up. Again, we don't want to open to an interpretation. You don't know what we get it. But the next council who now takes over in 10 years, 20 years, oh, we can start doing this. We have this ordinance that we can attack people with properties and then so So, just add more words just Yeah. just so we we know exactly what we're going after. Yeah. And not leave it for interpretation of the next

councils or anybody else to say, "Hey, why this?" So again, that way we don't hear anything back on that. Um but graffiti is not really on vacant land, right? So then graffiti could be said, "Oh, your house has graffiti. This is part of that." Right? Well, because it lists there um vacant land or property. So, vacant property uh abandoned house, right? But again, it doesn't say vacant property owner vac or you know something that when it comes under owner want to add vacant land or property owner. Correct. Okay. Those kind of things is what I'm looking for. Just so we're zeroed in on those. No, no, that's fine. Thank you.

Because we do have a lot of houses that are burnt down and so I agree with that totally. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, we're going to open it up uh for public comment here at 12:50. Nobody in Oh, we got somebody in the audience. All right. How long you've known me? Miss Magna Terrellis, come on up.

Yeah, boy. I'm the lone wolf here. All right. Um, please put in mind that uh, you know, pe some of us are about ready to lose our homes because the mortgage have gone up a lot and and you should all know cuz you probably have the same problem. Mortgage, the uh, insurance I can't paint my place because a 33 gallon not gallon but five gallon of paint is now $110. And now you want to come and give these people fines and whatever. Now, here's another thing. There are uh groups here. We have a lot of organizations and there, you know, who they are because they're the ones that have those fire stands. Their job is to help people in their community before you start giving people find out, you know, are they really able to clean this and do this and fix that? Do they have the money? Do they have the uh manpower? Then you go back to these organizations and say, "Hey, we've got so and so living here. That person needs help. Can you help them?" So, look at that kind of uh thing. And yeah, I I'm telling you, I'd love to buy and I've tried buying that property right across the street from my rentals and that lady has not right back to people, but uh that thing's been abandoned. In fact, I remember you guys knocked it down. Did you ever get the money for all that? And there's tons of weeds on that place. Tons of weed. And uh nothing has been done or said about it. And they had a fire there once before when it was an actual house. And now with that weed, if someone throws a cigarette and it hits the wrong place, that's it. Now, let me tell you, this is successful. Extremely successful. How do I know? City of Bowwin Park, where I was the housing commissioner, was hot and

heavy on that and we didn't have problems with owners and and what have you. They even went after people that allowed the graffiti on their sidewalks and the side of their house, etc. They were responsible for that. So, yes, it is a good thing. It will keep this place ship shape. Um, let's see. uh maybe you might want to look at housing commissioners. One of their jobs was not only making sure that money was divided evenly with all these organizations that were asking for money, but they went around, we went around and looked at houses, make sure that it wasn't black or anything, lighting was good, nothing was, you know, glass or or anything dangerous going on. So, um you might want to look at having a housing commission. Um, but this is excellent. I I hope this goes through. Do think about it, but you know, make sure that you get the help that we need to get this these people that can't do the job uh fixing the place, cleaning, painting, you know, even get together with Home Depot to see what they can offer. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Adam, do we have anybody online? Okay, we're going to close public comment at 12:53. bring it back here. Counciloman Evans, anything to add?

Yes, thank you. First, I want to thank Magna for her um insightful um comments. I want to thank the council for hearing um and giving your input as well. I think that what we just witnessed here is what we've witnessed both times we put the the measure up. Right. Her first statements were not at all. Respectfully, Magna, please. We good. You want to yell at me, yell at me later. Right. her first statements were not at all what the ordinance is doing, right? And that's the issue that we have with the measure and getting and Magda being someone that is wellversed in what we do here on a bi-weekly basis. If she can't get it sitting here, that proves why we aren't able to get the right messaging out for the for the measure. again proving why we need to just find the workaround because it's too hard to educate those that aren't well versed in what we're doing on a daily, right? And so if if it's confusing for those that are with the laws around legislation and how we can market and and promote and or not promote measures that we're putting up, we're not going to ever be able to get a measure passed. So, it's up to us to make the language what it needs to be so that like he's saying, I don't plan on sitting here forever, right? So that the the people moving forward know what we meant when we said what we said and then we find a way to approve it without having to try to explain to folks that may not be able to understand.

In addition to that, we have the opposition exactly jamming false information into their other ears millions of dollars. They're really confused. Council me, can I just commend you again? We've been trying to bring this up in different ways. We've asked for other ordinances from other states and seeing what they're doing. That's how we came up with harder penalties and once we when we do catch you dumping in our city to uh put it fines on your um registration for your car. So, the conversation needs to keep going till we have a total res resolution for this. So, appreciate it. Again, not to say it in a wrong way, this is a great skeleton for us to kind of work work and for all of us to put all of our input on it and then all of us to bring it home across the finish line. So, appreciate it.

No, absolutely. Whe whether it's whether it's through an ordinance or whether it's through uh uh you know, a measure, I think the job of this council is to figure it out and get it done because at the end of the day, we know it's going to bring good to the city and to our residents. So, uh great job on on coming up with the bones of it. Uh, I guess direction for city manager staff, uh, Todd, our city attorney, is to, uh, take some time now, look into it, dissect it, chop it up, cut it up, and, uh, um, create something of an ordinance that you can bring back to the council to present for for further review at a later date. If I can we put that give y'all a month

time next month, can we bring this back? Todd, what do we time-wise? Todd, what do we what would you suggest we're looking at? Yeah, if that's the council direction, I serve at the pledge of the council. I think I can have something to you in a month. It may be just um it may not be the ordinance and final form, even though I will definitely strive for that, but there will be an analysis of what we can and cannot do at a minimum by that time. Perfect. Thank you, sir. All right. Item number two, city vehicle policy. Council member Evans,

it's me. Um, I want to bring come back to this. Um, I see that there has been some changes to the ordinance um, from when I was here before. I think in addition to adding back in or figuring out a way to work the transparency and or it's just and um feasibility of the mileage, the gas, those things. I think we need to figure out how to work back in the gas cars being assigned to the vehicle with council members having some sort of code. I know that when I worked for another agency, I had to when I drove their cars, I had to put in my code when I got the gas, right? It asked for the mileage. It asked for my code. Um because what's happening right now to my understanding is that and and I I hate to use MPT, but he's the one going all over the place all the time, right? So, I'm going Sorry, bro. It's you. Um he's got to go to Skagg today and SBCTA tomorrow and then back to Skagg the next day or however his calendar works it because I couldn't get the calendars. Y'all said that that wasn't I wasn't privy to people's calendar. So, I don't know. But however his calendar works, he's there for multiple days. My understanding is that he has to gas up here. He has to call city manager. City manager then has to deploy an employee to go meet MPT at a gas station, fill up the car with their gas card, which should be assigned to their truck, put their code in, and then MPT takes off. And then if MPT needs to fill up while he's gone, then he's got to fill it up, put in a reimbursement. It's just it's way too much stuff. And I I mean, I'm just going to be honest. I don't know how much money y'all think we have. But I don't have and not that I've even checked out a vehicle since I've been back on council, but I don't have

the the funds. If if I had MPT schedule, I wouldn't be able to fill up the Lincoln multiple times a week and pray that y'all reimburse me at some point in in time, right? plus my personal vehicle to get my kids to and from practice and all things I got to do in my personal life. So, there needs to be some sort of process policy where it's not one not taking away from staff time to come and fill up the vehicles for council to use. And two, it also will hold council accountable for the gas they're using. If MPT Ramos's calendar says or he what what what his his events say that he has to go here, here, and here. He has to be in LA, then back to Sanino, and then back to LA, and he's got to go to Skagg, wherever that is, and then he's got to go to Palm Springs. Cool. We now have his calendar that says he had to do all these things. If someone wants to question that, we can do the mileage. Okay, he had to go here, go here. The mileage for that is 300 miles. The Lincoln can probably do 300 miles. It's supposed to be a hybrid. I don't know. Right. So he should only did Philip one time. But MPT Ramos, this is hypothetical just so we're prefacing. I want no problems. No problems because right now he got to get somebody to come put the gas in. Right. But um MPT Ramos filled up three times. Right now, the way this reads, we have no way to track that, nor to justify it or to there there's no transparency here and no way to verify why he had the vehicle, how long he had the vehicle, and then what he used the vehicle for, right? In pulling the um the tracker, which is listed as that's supposed to be the way that we stay transparent and how we have the vehicles. The last entry on the tracker from the date that I pulled it. So that that was

a few couple weeks ago, right? The last entry on the tracker was July 25th. I've purposely driven by the council when my kids were playing for heat. Every day I'd come all the way out and drive by the city hall and the vehicles are not here. So I I don't understand why there's no entry from January 25th if that's to be our transparency and keeping us accountable. So I So again, all of this is to ask one that there's a some sort of policy put in here for how we track the gas and the mileage, and two, there needs to be some sort of enforcability because I've seen council people with cars that don't appear to be on city business. And I and I I preface I my my assumption if you will of that is because when we come to council and we're reporting out we're not reporting out that we've been doing city business. Respectfully what we do what what I do for Haven's future what I do for my business even if it benefits the city is not city business. Right? if Haven's future holds a food drive or we do whatever we do that doesn't that's not city business so I don't get to use a city vehicle for that so we have to be mindful um and I think separating separating city business the city sent me to do this or my business that benefits the city two different things so I don't know what that looks like and as adding more language to the ordinance I understand that there was some reason why Todd felt we needed to take out um the gap ascard language before. So, if you can get me some case law or or something on that, Todd, that would be great. Because as this sits, there's no

accountability for what's happening with those vehicles. That's what I got. Thank you, Councilwoman Evans. Counciloman Mesa, I got nothing.

Awesome. I do have um one quick question, Todd, if you if you uh if you could answer um if we need to look into it and definitely understand. But there was a a point in time, I want to say last yearish, maybe beginning of this year, but I want to say last year when we did have um the council did have individual pins uh appointed to them so that when we did have the vehicles that had their own prospective gas cards, we could use um the gas card, put our own pin in, it would be track traced back to us, save the receipt, turn it into Virginia, or we'd keep it in the vehicle. Um I think that happened that lasted for about a month, two months and then we did we did away with that. Um is is are we not allowed to do that? Are we allowed to do that? And if we are can we bring that back or or what do you what do you suggest?

So the current policy was recommended to us by our risk management group. I think there were uh issues pertaining to the use of gas cards in the past and having the requirement that unless it's a multi-day trip in which obviously the person driving the vehicle would have to use the use a gas card to keep it operational that it would be both more efficient and more um um have more city control of it if the city itself uh filled the vehicle at the yard or wherever. So the issue of whether gas cards can be used or issued or not is a policy decision, but that's why it was done in the past. If it if the council believes that it is best to have gas cards and the pin system, that could be put back in the policy, but that's why it was removed in the past, I believe, if my memory serves. Maybe Brenda has a better memory than I on that.

Got it. um see suggestions or how you feel in regards to the gas situation, gas cards.

Yeah, thank you for the question. Uh Mayor Prom Ramos, as as um as Todd indicated, this is a a policy decision that uh needs to be discussed amongst the council as to uh what direction you want to go. I feel that there should be a gas card assigned um to the council when they're going about their duties and responsibilities, when they're attending their commissions, they're attending their their committee meetings that are uh on record assigned to the council. Um there as of right now there's a a checkout form that Brenda has in her office as you all know when uh you need to check in and check out the vehicles. Um there's also uh going to be a time and date for a internal workshop for the city council as to what is their duties and responsibilities and what they can and cannot do by our risk management. As you all may know, we have a new insurance company that is very um very proactive with ensuring that um our policies and procedures are being adhered to. But going back to your question, um, in your case, for example, for example, um, you're attending multiple meetings a week, uh, Mayor Prom Ramos, and, um, I think there should be a card assigned, uh, to this vehicle, the the the specific vehicle, or that card can be, um, um, held uh, by our city clerk and assigned to that specific council member that's going to that meeting. And then that card gets brought back with the receipt, turned back in. Brenda can can

uh jot down where you went or where that council member went to and from. Um so that's that's what I think. If I can make a statement, sir, please. Yes. Um the city vehicles do have their gas card. It is not for an individual. It is for the vehicle. Correct. So I I think I think the question is more so not not a car having a card, but it's the council members having their own individual pin numbers to utilize the cards, right? Because that's what we had in the past and then it was it was taken away if it was because of policy or if it was because it was something illegal that we shouldn't have done.

The risk is what scared everybody just the insurance companies what it So, but at the end of the day again, you know, it's it's it it does get a little frustrating where where we go to gas up. We have to call the city manager. He has to stop what he's doing because he's going to answer our calls because that's what he does, right? And then now he's got to call, let's just say, one of the public works guys, we're out there patching potholes, right? they're going to have to stop doing that. Drive over to AMPM, gas us up, and and again, sometimes they're using their cards for their vehicles. And there is that's a transparency issue right there, right? Because now they're not using it for the proper vehicle,

or in this case, for example, day before yesterday when when Jerry came out to fill up the SUV,

his card can only give $75. So now that's only, you know, half three4 of a tank of gas. And if I got to drive down to Sanino and then back up and then tomorrow, for example, I have to go down to the Mobility 21 Summit in Ammonheim here, I'm calling for gas again. And it's just more transactions when it shouldn't have to be that way. So, I'm I'm thinking that I'm feeling that the solution would be for each individual council member to have their own PIN. then we don't have to call and bother the city manager or public works and then they can track that PIN number to the person that used that that vehicle.

Wow. My my only concern is um Jesse's wording on um going to certain things that were on commission for any city work that we do within the city limits or or surrounding city minutes is city work as well. Um so I didn't want to close it on that window. So, if I'm doing something with the school board, if I'm going to something for BBC and you know, like it's not a committee, but I'm trying to I don't have the time, some of you guys have to do these things, but I want to be doing my role and my part and working with communities as well. And it's like, well, you can't use a city vehicle for that. You go use your own car. And it's like, wow, that kind of sucks. You you know what I mean? So, that's kind of where I've been when I do use it. It's for those kind of things as well, even though I'm not on a lot of committees as the first chair on it. So it's that's where uh I don't want to box us in on that.

So So on that note, thank you for that uh the clarification. I agree. So for on that note, uh Todd, uh can the council members use the vehicles for city related matters outside of their commissions and committees that they are obligated to attend? Okay. So, what what's been then if that's the case then then what is the issue other than just having your individual So, right now the only concern is having your individual cards. Correct. Is that what it is? Yeah.

Yeah. I I would say I would Yes, sir. to your Yes. to your question. I would say a couple things, Todd. If we can if we can immediately move forward with sending out um our our vehicle instructions to all the council members. Um I know you've done that in the past. It's been about a year or so, um, year and a half since you've done that. So, if we can do if we can get that sent out to all of our council members, um, can we look at assigning PIN numbers, going back to assigning PIN numbers, individual PIN numbers to the council members so that we can you track when they're using the gas. Um, schedule as soon as possible the internal workshop with our new risk management team. Um, and I don't know if that's got to be a 221 or if that can be in everybody, but you know that I'll leave that up to you, city manager. Um, and then just reinforce the the checkout form and in and and for that um Virginia's here and and maybe you could pass this on to Brenda. If there's times when there's multiple events when we're staying, right, we can just email you. if we're not able to come in to actually physically sign it out, fill it out, fill out the form, then we can email them, you know, the dates and times and where we're at so that maybe you guys can fill that out when you guys come back.

You could also just put that on the checkout, right? You know, that whatever that three days thing is that you go to every month, right? I check out on Monday, let's say, and I'm not going to be back with this car until Wednesday night. Sure. So, I'll turn it in Thursday morning or what you know, you that can already be, but if there's a case where you get stuck, there's been that too, right? where it's like, I wasn't intending to have to be done here till tomorrow morning, but here we are. Then that's when the email would be appropriate. But if you know ahead of time, it should be blocked out for that window. Okay, I'm going to open it up to public comment 112. Miss Magna Turales, come on up. I should just sit up there with you guys.

We got no good. You're good right there. I'll sit on your lap and that's for Daniel. Come on. mate.

Now, being a homeowner, I am paying the taxes for this gasoline. So, yes, I have something to say about it. Um, yeah, if you need cards or whatever. And wow, I can't believe that these people have to stop what they're doing to go, "Oh, come on. Whose idea was that? That is asinine." But uh I've got a question because remember I was a lieutenant with immigration and I had officers that had to use our cards, our vehicles. And how do you know these people are not using their cards for their own personal use when they're not supposed to? Do you keep tabs of how much I had one individual and I was watching because I have to look at these tickets that come in. uh he was putting more gas in his vehicle, a van, than what uh uh you know was ex what it would fill up to. I think it was like 25 gallons, something like that for a van. Anyway, he's doing like 35 uh gallons worth. Come to find he was taking a uh gas tank into his vehicle, filling it up, and then filling up his car.

Damn. Yeah. and other people using the card for their own. I had one even buying sodas on it. So, you know, uh do you have a way of checking on all that? Now, I also had the option of calling the office of professional management and they would send an officer to tag these people, watch them. So, do you have anyone you can report this to when they're not abiding by rules and rigs of using a vehicle? Thank you. Uh, Adam, do we have anybody online? Yeah, awesome. Brenda, go ahead.

Oh, I just wanted to let you guys know that I did hear uh everything that was talked about. Uh, there was an issue previously um where um the vehicles were getting filled up and we weren't able to keep track of that. I believe that's why the pins were taken away, but if it's the direction of the city council, we can certainly uh reissue pins. And then uh just want to make sure when you're not on city business, you need to turn the car back into the city and then when you have more city business, you can check it out. I know Mayor Prom is at meetings all the time. Um and that will be tracked on the vehicle tracker. Awesome. Thank you, Brenda. Uh, back up to council. Councilwoman Evans.

Thank you. Yeah, I think what Magda is talking about is exactly what I'm what I'm trying to say. I think that um there is tracking, right? And it may take a little bit more. Sorry, staff, right? Whoever does our accounting and checks and balances and making sure things are balancing, but if I've turned in a receipt for the Suburban probably is probably a 25 30 gallon tank, right? I turn in a receipt for 35 gallons, 40 gallons, that's a problem. Yeah.

And that should be flagged. But it goes to your second point which is what I asked is what is what where's the accountability? What is the process for if we find that this is not what's happening? Because it sounds there's a reason why Ris said stop doing that and it wasn't because it was working right and I wasn't here. I don't know what the situation is but if we can't like what who who holds us accountable, right? who who says, "Okay, there is 40,000 or 40 gallons when it's a 30- gallallon tank." Then what? You know what I'm saying? So, that needs to be spelled out just like it's spelled out in any other ordinance as to what is the ramifications if this doesn't happen. Um, so I agree. I think that um I I don't understand why and I'd like to see if there's a memo from risk um from the insurance or whatever um to understand why they felt like it was safer to not have Councilwoman Evans track her gas specifically.

Why is it safer to then mix my gas usage with a public works gas? How is that safer in keeping me accountable to using what I'm supposed to use for what I'm supposed to use when I'm supposed to use it? Yeah.

Um I think also just being mindful of local and far things. I get it. You know, don't use you don't want to use your personal vehicle. I understand. But it takes more time like Mojave air quality right is right here by on Civic by Victor Valley or by you know Victorville city hall. It would take me more time to come here, go to Virginia or Brenda, check out the vehicle, get the vehicle, leave my car here, go over there, do that, then come back, get drop off the I don't know if we need to add in some sort of mileage reimbursement for if you want to take your own vehicle because that's ridiculous to have to go through all those steps. It's part of it already. I didn't see that in here. I'll go through it again.

We had talked about it even using an Uber at the time that if you use a Uber, you can get reimbured for that, too. So, if I can see that policy, that would be great. um because that that's that also I think could help reduce the risk of city vehicles, right? Um and then again just hold us accountable for what we're doing. So that's all I got. Awesome. Thank you, Councilman Mesa.

Again, we're putting a lot of walls on ourselves. I just want to be careful, right, that we're not enclosing ourselves and then something else pops up. I'll use the mayor for an example. When is he not the mayor when he steps out of his house? that. So there's you're always in in in doing something. You're you're always who we are, right? So I I like to attend a lot of the the youth sports that are in the city. My kids are not even playing in there. To me, that's showing our showing up for for our community. Events that are at the the high schools, events that are for nonprofits. Those are all things maybe you personally don't feel that are important but other council's members do. So as long as we have that conversation um because when I know I go to those events the residents are happy to see see us there. Oh fin there's someone here from the city that cares. I get that a lot even if it's at the senior center. Oh wow. Look it the city council members came in to have lunch with us. Um, and that makes a big deal to our residents when they when they feel like we care and we're showing up. Um, and that's that's where I see a lot of the I don't want to be enclosed in those kind of things. Again, some of those things are the only things I can do to to to show that I'm in the community, that I'm doing something. Um, when it comes to I don't have a nonprofit where I can and I agree with what you're saying. If you're throwing a nonprofit event, that's your own nonprofit event, right? So I I I get that aspect, but if I'm going to go support you, I'm I'm not supporting you as Angelo. I'm supporting you as council member came to your your event, right? So you might not appreciate it, but some of the other nonprofits do. And that's that's what I'm saying. Um the churches that that are doing their events, the stadiums that are doing their book bag giveaways, I mean, there's some people here that are really upset at us for not showing up to their events, right? So yesterday there was an event at the I didn't even hear about it till I drove

by which was at the school board. They had a big rally over there last night. Right. So I stopped by and and you can just you know there were they were adamant about the teachers and and keeping them here and and and everything. So there's there's plenty of work to do here and get involved so that way we come up here and come up with ideas to help our community and you never know when that that um may arise. So yeah, I think all those those events, you know, warrant and are covered under that that umbrella, right? If we head out to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to present an award or receive award if we go there Friday to the gala, right? Like those are I mean we are

coming out as a city. I'm not coming out as Daniel Ramos. I'm coming out as mayor prom Daniel Ramos from the city of Adilanto. Um so direction has been the list of directions been given. Todd, I would I would ask if we can maybe just um uh skim through the ordinance, see if there's any other verbiage we can add. Um I do recall the conversation we had about, you know, the Ubering and the lifts and being reimbursed for that. Um gas mileage reimbursement as well. Um see if maybe we can clean some of that up or add some of that up and then present back to the council at a later date. Have two months on that on that. You got 72 hours on that Todd because half the work's already done.

I serve at your pleasure. And if I may, we do have a it's outdated, but we do have a travel reimbursement policy and I will make sure I get that over to you guys and perhaps we can clean that up as well. Another uh key thing is that the vehicles need to be um serviced. Yes, they may need new tires. They may need oil change, gas change, or not gas change. You know what? I don't We do getting gas change. Yeah, just u maintenance on the vehicles. And then again, just reiterating, if you guys aren't using it, it's sitting at your house, um please make sure to bring it back and then you can check it back out. You guys know where the form is.

You got it. And then uh city manager if we can and for council if we can have our list of questions ready for that internal workshop with with our risk management team I think that'd be a great time to to post some of those questions to them as well. So noted. All right. Moving on. No items removed from the consent calendar. Future agenda items. Councilwoman Evans. I have none outside of making sure that we bring back the um vacant land and property tax. Vacant land and vacant property. Maybe put vacant. Maybe we say vacant twice so that they understand. Vacant land and vacant property tax. Uh, no, not tax. No. Good lord. Fine.

No, not that either. Penalty. Penalty policy. Okay. Can we bring back the vacant land and vacant property penalty process policy? God. Bring some back in regards to what we presented today. T that. Do that please. And at the first meeting in October. Can I get a second? Thank you. I second that. All in favor? I council me.

Yeah, I got a few. Um, the sheriff's department have been working great all over San Bino County and I've noticed uh when it comes to homelessness and they are moving a lot of the homeless to Victorville um in their facilities. So, I want to get on board and see what we can do to partner with the sheriffs to they can do a sweep and clean up in our city. Uh especially again with the fire that just happened yesterday. I want to make sure our residents are protected. So, what can we do to work with them? Um, kind of some guidance on that um where um they can uh help address us as well. I'll second that. All in favor? I

um I asked before for Landwin count and the county to kind of partner up um to see if we can county was willing to pay land to put cameras in the county areas of for dumping areas. So, I wanted to see if we have any progress on that if we had that conversation yet. um for LandWIN to build out a map of the county area um and then see what the cost would be and then that cost we can present it to county to say hey you you know you got a dumping problem in your section of our city this is what it's going to take to police it without you doing anything um and kind of present that to the county so if we can get that moving I'd appreciate that I'll definitely second that all in favor I

and then sheriff's had a great presentation. So, I want to make sure their project gets on our our board. So, I would like for us to get that on the docket as well for us to go over the sheriff's proposal and for us to vote on that on the license plate on the license plate reader. I'd like just like to amend your motion to um have that be on the next council meeting. Which one? The the last the sheriff. Yeah, I agree. I'll second that. All in favor? I that's all I got.

Okay. Thank you. The only one I have council staff is if we can please bring uh soon as possible future agenda item to make a day in October uh national arts and humanities month um regarding art and uh and uh mental wellness. Mental mental wellness. Okay. Mental wellness is good. Yes. National arts and humanities month. Can I get a second on that, please? I think we have public comment. If I may, for clarification, are you asking for a proclamation? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Can I get a second? A second. All in favor?

That that wraps up. Hey, Mayor. Uh, Mayor Prom. Yes, sir. I apologize. Yeah. Did we, and this is a question probably for Virginia, did we approve the concurrent agenda as well, consent calendar? Yes. Yes, sir. We did. We did. I didn't. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Our next regular meeting of the city council will be held on September 24th, 2025 at 11:00 a.m. Motion that we adjourn. Can I get a second? I'll second. All in favor? I