City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good afternoon. I will call this uh regular session meeting to order. Uh and I will call it to order at 401. Can I get a roll call, please? Council member Laura here. Council member Fen here. Council member Martinez here. Mayor Pro Tim White here. Mayor Boy here. And uh city attorney, can we get um well, do we have excuse me, do we have any public comments for this meeting? I have no written requests, Simone. Do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time. All right. And Mr. Pinkney, can we get a readout of the items for discussion and close session?

Yes. Item B1 will be conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. Um and that's a workers comp uh matter and the case number is listed in the agenda. Item B2 is conference with legal counsel regarding potential initiation of litigation, one potential case. Item B3 is public employee performance evaluation. The title is the interim city manager. And then item B4 is conference with labor negotiators. The city designated representatives are Mike, Laura, and Julio Martinez. The employee organizations are listed in the agenda. Item B5 is conference with labor negotiators. the agency designated representative Henry Garcia or his designate and the unrepresented potential employee is the city manager and then item B6 is public employee appointment employment and the title of that position is city manager.

All righty. Thank you for that and we will adjourn adjourn to close session at 402. Um,

All righty. Good evening and thank you for the patience everyone. Uh we apologize uh for being a little bit delayed today. All right. Um we are returning from close session. So I'll call this regular uh session of the city council meeting to order at 6:55. Can we get a roll call, please? Council member Laura here. Council member Finn here. Council member Martinez here. Mayor Prom White here. Mayor Voit here. And um Mr. Pinkney, can we get a report out on close session?

Yes. The council met in close session. Item B1 was conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation a workers compensation case. The case number is listed in the agenda. There was no reportable action taken. Item B2, conference with legal counsel regarding potential initiation of litigation. One potential case, no reportable action taken. Item B3, public employee performance evaluation. The title, interim city manager, no reportable action taken. Item B4, conference with labor negotiators. Uh the city designated representatives Mike, Laura, and Julio Martinez. The employee organizations are listed in the agenda. There was no reportable action. Item B5, conference with labor negotiators, uh, the agency designated representative Henry Garcia. Uh, the unrepresented employee, potential employee, city manager, no reportable action. And item B6, public employee appointment, employment, and the title of that position, city manager. There was no reportable action taken in close session. And that concludes the report out.

All right. Thank you. If you guys would please join me in an invocation. Um, you can stand if you'd like. Right. Dear heavenly father, Lord, we thank you so much for this time that we can be here together, Lord. Lord, we just pray that you will um bless this council with discernment today, Lord, and that you will continue to be with us as we push through um in your will, Lord. Lord, thank you for this time together. Thank you for all those here online and those that are with us in the audience. And Lord, be with this meeting today and in the weeks to come in Jesus name. Amen. All right. and council member L.

Please put your right hand over your heart and repeat after me. I pledge 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. All right. And do we have any adjustments to the agenda or conflicts of interest to disclose? We have none.

All right, seeing none, we will move on to our announcements and recognitions. Um, we have uh I believe somebody here for our 2025 transformative corridor connectivity project of the year. Yeah. Hi, mayor. I'll take that one.

All right. Excellent. On January 22nd, Inland Empire chapter of the American Public Works Association honored the Second Street Extension Project uh with the 2025 Transformative Corridor Connectivity Project of the Year. APWA recognizes public work projects that excel in such uh areas as transportation, structures, and environmental improvements. This award highlights the collaborative effort to create a safer, more connected Bulmont. Uh we also thank Congressman Dr. R. Ruiz for his continued support uh including a $1 million award in federal funding for this project.

Yes, absolutely. Great job you guys and congratulations. So we have the uh larger than finance award right over there. several of my members, uh, my staff members in the audience, including a representative from Raw Reese's office. Great. Excellent. Do we want to get a picture? Yeah. Come on up. Like a plaque? Yeah, we got a plaque. Robert. All right. Just making sure you could come down to the front. Have some others with us and Lily as well.

Yeah, that would be good. And two of you on either side. Lily, we'll put you in the middle.

A rose between two thorns. Just want to say thank you to the team for the quick work that happened with that uh road and the access points that has given us and thank you to Congressman um for the funds in order to get that going. I know that that is definitely a road utilized by many all of the time and I'm looking forward to the street light that will be added at the end of that as well. So that will help with those turning left. So thank you guys. That is uh awesome. All right. And then I think we have one other recognition might be yours as well for the county of Riverside certificate of recognition to the public works department.

All right. Thank you. Uh so we're proud to share that the uh Riverside County Board of Supervisors has recognized Bulma for our involvement in the youth community core program which supports the communities across the fifth district. Uh we would also like to take take a moment to recognize Ashen Buer uh who served as the public works intern during that time uh and took part of that program in the summer of 2025. Ashen showed impressive professionalism, uh, initiative, and a strong commitment to public service. During his internship, he contributed to several important projects, including the CIP dashboard, land development and surveying effort efforts, permitting process, and street maintenance. His initiative and problem solving skills were a great asset to our public works team, and he went above and beyond his assignments. And I thank you to the public works team for taking on uh interns and the youth as well. It's nice to see continued pipelines for public servants and so we appreciate you guys with the work that you do with that as well. All right, we'll move on to item F, public comment period. Any one person may address the city council on any matter not on the agenda. If you wish to speak, please fill out a public comment form provided at the back table and give it to the city clerk. There is a threeminut time limit on public comments. There will be no sharing or passing of time to another person. State law prohibits the city council from discussing or taking any actions brought up by these comments. Nicole, do we have any public comment?

I do. I have an in person. Uh Jennifer Freight. Okay, sorry. Uh, good evening, mayor, city council members, and staff. My name is Jennifer Freighus. I am first vice regent and service to America, chair of the Highland Springs chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. I also happen to be a longtime employee and citizen of the city of Bumont. Our do our D chapter is launching two community projects this spring that highlight the nation's founding. are our city's his or sorry our city's story and the important contribution of local historic women some of which have familial ties to the revolutionary patriots. The first is the Highland Springs Chapter NSDR geocache trail celebrating America's 250th anniversary. a free educational trail that will guide families and youth groups uh to key historic sites in Bowmont such as city hall, the Bowmont Library, and our historic bario are in uh tying these locations to Revolutionary War events and themes providing approving how the past and present are impactfully connected. The project is zero cost to the city and some locations will feature a especially made QR code markers like I have here. Um that uh making the experience interactively engaging. The project is designed to support education, tourism, and community pride as our nation approaches its semiquincential. The second initiative is our Wonder Woman of the Past area project for Women's History Month this March. This rotating display will feature stories and images of notable women from the past area whose leadership, service, and everyday courage have strengthened our communities. Our goal is to place these

displays at various locations throughout the pass. So far, our display will be featured at the Banning and Ukipa libraries. Uh we are actively working to secure a dedicated location here in Bumont Bont Library. They're under construction. So, um, we would be grateful for any suggestions regarding city or community venues that might be a good fit. Both projects grow out of D's mission of education, historic preservation, and patriotism, and we hope that they will offer meaningful familyfriendly ways for residents and visitors to connect with our shared lineage. Thank you for your leadership, for supporting community initiatives, and for everything you do to make our city a great place to live and serve. I welcome any thoughts or informal support from our council or staff and my contact information is available through s the city clerk. Thank you.

Thank you, Jennifer. Awesome education opportunities and um we'll get some information and see where we can help house it. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time. All right. Are there any? We'll move on to consent calendar then. Are there any items to be pulled for discussion? All right. Do we have any public comment on consent calendar? I have no written requests. Simone, do we have any callers on the line for consent? We have no callers for consent at this time. All right. Then I'll entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the items on consent calendar. Items G1 through G8. I'll second. Can I get a roll call, please? Council member Laura, yes. Council member Finn, yes. Council member Martinez, yes. Mayor Prom White, yes. Mayor Voy, yes. And that will take us to our youth council report. Uh, no report tonight, Mayor.

All right, moving right along. We'll head to our public hearings. And we will start with um our item I1, a public hearing to consider the approval of tenative parcel map 39066 to subdivide a 15.01 acre site into two parcels and can uh it looks like Jillian you are here to give us our staff report. Okay. Good evening, Maro Council members. Jillian Fountain, planning staff. The item before you is a public hearing for tenative parcel map 39066, a request to subdivide a 15.01 acre property into two parcels located at the southwest corner of Highland Springs Avenue in East First Street within the Senica Springs Pacific Plan area. The site includes vacant land on the northern portion of an existing medical office and an existing medical office on the southern portion. No new development is proposed. The subdivision is for finance and conveyance purposes only. Although the property has two county APNs, it is legally considered one parcel. Approval of the tenative parcel map would correct this discrepancy and bring the property into compliance with the subdivision map act and city regulations. The proposed subdivision is consistent with the general plan specific planning zoning and applicable development standards. Both resulting parcels are of adequate size and configuration to accommodate existing and future uses. Staff recommends the project be found exempt from SQA under section 1515315 minor land divisions as it creates fewer to fewer than four parcels, requires no variances and meets all exemption criteria.

Public noticing was completed and no public comments have been received as of the time of the report preparation. Oh, sorry. On January 14th, the planning commission voted 4 to zero to recommend a and forwarded an approval of the project to the city council. At this time, staff recommends the city council hold a public hearing, adopt the findings of approval for tenative parcel map number 39066, approve tenative parcel map number 39066 PM2025-00005 and direct staff to prepare notice of exemption for the applicant to file with the county clerk recorder. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions and the applicant is on the phone as well. All right. Thank you. I will open the public hearing at 7:09. Uh Nicole, do we have any public comment?

Yes, I have an in person of Greg Cochran. Good evening, city council. My name is Greg Cochran and I live at 732 South Shinikok Drive, Banning, California. Make sure we get that clear. I'm within the,000 ft of this project. And uh I'm here since I think I'm the only citizen here representing the citizens of the city of Bowmont because I got this letter and I think there's many many items that the citizens are entitled to know about this split that aren't in this letter. And if I I I say I called Jillian, spoke to her on the phone, very pre professional, very nice, very everything. But sad to say, the the planning commission didn't ask any of the questions that don't pass the smell test for the citizens, if you're really working for the citizens. Okay. One is I I said what do they want? What are their plans for this split property? I was told they don't have any plans. Doesn't pass the smell test to me. They bought one property a long long long time ago. Okay. And now all of a sudden they they just figured out I was told they thought it was two parcels

then. And I also was told some people here at the city thought so too. Doesn't pass the smell test. Okay. They have plans. They've been talking. They the people have a right to know these things. And so there's other smell tests. I don't have time to get into them. I got a minute and 20 seconds left. Okay. But um the citizens have a right to know things about this property. How can they come here and speak intelligently about this if they don't know these things? And I I uh ask each and every one of you council people to deny this tonight and get some of this information that the citizens are entitled to get. I got a letter cuz I'm within the district. I'm not even a citizen of this city. But I'm here for those citizens. They have a right to know these things because this kind of of doesn't pass the smell test things happen in my city. And your your council or excuse me, your attorney person here today represents us, too. So, he he knows these different things. Okay? So, I'm just asking you do what's right for your the people of your city. They're they're entitled to information now. They could say, "Well, not at this part of it," or whatever, and I'm I'm sorry, it just doesn't pass the smell test. They have plans. They're We'll

We'll know that they have plans by how soon they come back to you for another letter getting sent to me to explain things. Okay? We will know. Okay? But we should know those things now. The citizens have a right to know those things now. So I implore you to deny it and make them answer the people's questions so they can come here if they choose to and talk intelligently about the the item. not find out later that you know we're getting you know what. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome. Thank you. Nicole, do we have any other public comment? We have um on the line Bill Brooks from Rick Engineering um for any questions by council. We also have Dave Sanders, the attorney representing the project as well available on the phone for any questions. Okay, great. Um, I will go ahead and close the public hearing then at 7:14 if there's no other public comment and I will open it up to council discussion. Council member Lara.

Yes. Thank you very much, Mayor Julian. Um, just to be clear, the what it sounds like and what I've read is that the assessor had this down under one assessor's parcel number for for both or with the county there was two separate parcels for the one lot. Two separate parcels for the one lot. Two, sorry, two APNs for the one lot. Okay. So, it it in when you look at Mattmy County, when you look at the records, it does show two parcel numbers. Um, so they are now they're coming in to do the legal splot or legal split. Okay. To just come into conformance with those two opinions. The I'm sorry.

The boundaries of the second lot were not identified because both parcels were covering the one larger parcel. Do I understand that correctly then? So this is defining the boundaries of the second parcel. Okay. So when you look through the conditions of approval, you don't see any conditions that identify road improvements or signal lights or anything like that because at this point in time the property owner does not have a facility that they intend to put on it. At this time we have not received any proposals of um development.

Okay. So once we do receive a proposal, the as the owner property owner said who might appreciate being here this evening said that the letter will go out. Um but at that point they'll they'll actually have a project to discuss and know exactly what is there. And so if there is opposition to whatever project A is or whatever that is then they would be able to voice their opposition at that time and council would be able to hear those oppositions to that project. Um, so let me So that that helps a lot. The other my last question is is the zoning for this is there is this is this zone for commercial retail?

So it's in with it's in the specific plan for Senica Springs which allows for commercial in that area. Um, no warehouses in that area, just commercial. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thanks, Julian.

Right. Thank you, Council Member Lara. Council member Fed. Um um Council Member with Laura covered most of my questions, but um could you um just explain just briefly what that process would be with it being just one parcel coming through? Would would this be on a on a um public hearing or would it go to planning commission first? What would be the process so the public can understand and know what to look for in coming back? So if the if somebody comes in with a project for that parcel that's um going to be split now that is empty because currently the southern portion is developed. So the northern portion port portion if it does come in um it would come to planning and the first step would be to go to planning commission for their review depending on the entitlement type. Um so if it's a plot plan it would just go to the planning commission and the notice would be sent out again for public hearing.

All right. And then would that need to come back to council for approval or can it just be the governing body would just be the planning commission? Yes. For a plot plan it would just be the planning commission. But it's okay. And I appreciate you you pointing out that public notice would go out again. Yes. Thank you. Council member White. Um if a prospective project because we've had this happen a lot where we've you've asked us to do a plot plan or these tenative parcel map splits. um and there was no project in in mind or at least we did not know of any project. If the project came back and it was it fit the zoning that was already there, would it ever come to council? Would it need to come to council?

No. If it's if it's consistent with the zoning and the code um and they're not for asking for any special provisions, it would stay with the um planning commission for approval. So, but still if it was, you know, you said it was zoned for commercial retail, right? Yeah. Okay. So if if there was an appeal to the planning commission's decision, then you guys would see it, right? If the planning commission turned it down for whatever reason, but if it's comes in as commercial retail and the planning commission is comfortable with the project, then it would never even come back to us. Correct. That is correct. All right. Thank you, Council Member Martine.

Yeah, just to follow up on that. Thank you, Mayor. Um the and the planning commission can only follow what what the entitlement is anyway. So, they don't have the ability just for public knowledge to say we don't like that or we want this better. Correct. if it's entitled for that and it's commercial uh I'm not entitled but if it's zoned for that yeah if it's meeting all the zoning requirements um they could ask for special things but if they are meeting the code then it would stick with and I wanted to point that out because a lot of times there's misconception in the public that we have the ability to say yes or no to certain types of commercial and so forth and I just want if it's in the code and it's allowed by right then yes they Man,

thank you for clarifying. Thank you. Just to note, council, um the zoning code identifies all the uses that are permitted either by right or by conditional use permit. So that is something we can share with the public. Uh so if they're concerned about certain uses that are sensitive coming in, the code is going to be clear on whether they're allowed or not. And that is public information that you can get off the website. Correct. That is correct. Would it be would it be possible to give Mr. Cochran a list of what absolutely of what are approved for that yes that current zone. Okay. Thank you.

What one last comment mayor? I'm sorry. Um I know staff has been very good in if there are suggestions and uses potential uses we are very open in sharing that with potential developers for that for those areas. is that so I mean if there's ideas or suggestions that that come in uh share them with staff. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that. And I do believe that we have I think the attorney you said for the property owner. So um excuse me if I could just verify with you guys. You currently do not have any plans for that property or any projects in the works. Are they there?

We have to transfer them in. Okay, give me just a minute. Simone, can you transfer in? Um, Mr. Brooks, please. Transferring now.

Thank you. Mr. Brooks, can you hear us? This is David Saunders, the attorney. Would you like to speak with

either the attorney? Yeah, that's fine. Mr. Saunders, this is um Mayor Voit. I have just a question or point of clarification for you. We've been notified by our planning staff currently that there are no projects in the pipeline. I just wanted to confirm that with you. Yes. Um I can confirm that. Um let me confirm that uh this property. Yeah, that's fine. Mr. Saunders, this is um Mayor Boy, I have just a question or clarification for you. We've been bying staff currently that there are Mr. Sanders, you're going to need to mute your YouTube uh feed. We're getting a We're getting the feedback.

Okay. Um this is Dave Saunders, can you hear me now? Yes. Go ahead.

Okay. Um the question was, is there any current plans for this property? Absolutely not. When this prop parcel is created as a separate parcel, this property will be put on market uh by the owner Lom Melinda University and whatever um that purchaser has in mind, that purchaser will follow the procedures of the city of Bumont to determine the approved use, the zoning, any conditions of approval for that use. But there are no we do not have any purchasers. Um, we so we simply cannot even guess what might occur at that property in the future.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. And do we have any other discussion? Otherwise, I will entertain a motion. Mayor, I'll move that we um hold a public hearing, adopt the findings of the approval of the tenative parcel map number 39066. approved tenate tenative parcel map number 39066 PM2025-00005 and direct staff to prepare and notice um of exemption um to the applicant to file with the Riverside County Clerk Recorder and the public the public hearing was just held. Oh yeah, sorry. I'll second.

All right. Can we get a roll call, please? Council member Lara, yes. Council member Fen, yes. Council member Martinez, yes. Mayor Pro Tim White, yes. Mayor Voit, yes. All right, that will take us to our action items. Um, and we will move on to J1, classification and compensation study. Um, and I believe Carrie uh Mendoza, you have our presentation. I do. So, thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, I have Michael Mesro uh on Zoom for you this evening um to prepare and give you the final results of the classification and compensation study. Um, and it's a receive and file at the end of it. So, Michael, if you're there, we will turn it over to you.

All right. Thank you so much, Carrie. I appreciate the introduction. Again, my name is Michael Mrai. I'm a project manager from Evergreen Solutions, and we've been working on the compensation and classification study for the city. Uh, I've got a presentation I'm going to pull up right now. Let's see. Okay, you guys are able to see this. Okay. Yes, we can see it.

All right. Perfect. All right. So, I want to take you through a few items. Uh, first I want to take you through what were the overall goals of the compensation classification study. Uh, next I'll take you through what were the overall project phases and where we at in the overall timeline as we sit with the recommendations today. and then uh touch on the major findings both from an internal perspective on your current compensation and classification structures as well as our external findings on how those structures are comparing against uh other organizations right now and then lastly take you through where our recommendations stand today. So as far as the goals go for the process any compensation classification study really has three major objectives. uh the first objective is to do a comprehensive review of what you have in place today place today now vive your compensation classification structures. So understanding how are they designed uh what are the policies uh that govern them how well are they how effective are they at meeting the needs of the organization and just how well are they designed from a function standpoint right now the next major point would then be the external comparison. So understanding what's the prevailing practice and the prevailing rates uh related to compensation out in the marketplace right now and how do the rates offered by the city compare to that. So establish an overall competitive position with peer organizations across a variety of jobs that you have at the organization essentially and see how far ahead or behind is the organization across a variety of jobs as well as in an overall context. And then finally, the third tenant of this project is really to provide recommendations back to the city to bring you closer in line with where you want to be. So for us, uh we consider ourselves uh you know here to aid the city in getting from point A to point B on and helping you identify where do you want to compete, where do you want to see yourself philosophically as it relates to

compensation, how can we help you get there and close the gaps we identified from where you are today. As far as the overall project phases go, there's really four main phases. The very beginning was a project initiation. Uh this is when we met with HR and really set the parameters for the study and made sure we had a good understanding of what the scope would be. Uh this entailed us doing a lot of uh homework on the organization and getting understanding of what is it you all have in place today and how does it all function. Uh this was also a lift on the HR team to provide us a variety of data points um and a variety of uh items that we request at the very onset of the study. The next phase was the internal review and this involved us actually coming on site. We had four team members come out to Bumont and meet with uh the majority of employees across the organization. We had employee what we call employee outreach sessions which consisted of two different types of uh in-person sessions. We had orientations that let employees know what this process is all about. Kind of a town hall and let them ask us questions about the study and as well as set fair expectations for them for the process. In addition to that, we also held focus group sessions which allowed employees to provide us feedback on how they are perceiving things are working right now as it relates to things like compensation classification. In addition to that, this also set up uh for us conducting the job assessment tools with the employees. These job assessment tools are essentially a survey where employees can provide to us uh updated job descriptions uh based on what they're doing today at a at a individual position level. they get to weigh in on what about their job description may not be fully up to date or fully relevant to what they're doing right now. Then the third phase was with the external review. This is where we identified who we were going to be surveying through this process. Uh and you know what organizations would we be comparing your compensation and benefit structures to ultimately you the whole total rewards package and we went out and conducted that primary survey. So this was us uh collecting data for specifically this

study uh as of this fiscal year reaching out to those peers HR departments and gathering all that information and then synthesizing it and determining where do you guys sit right now and then lastly uh the recommendation phase is where we're at now at the end of the study. uh we've identified an updated classification structure uh new compensation plans for the organization as well as we've provided some recommendations as it relates to it uh system administration or maintenance of these plans moving forward should you adopt what we're proposing. So on the internal review component, uh what we found when we met with employees in those focus group sessions, we asked them a variety of questions uh related to topics about the study, you know, what do they see as the strengths and weaknesses of all these different topics. We found that overall the big items that employees cited for us as strengths of the organization were that the job security and the stability. That's what really drew them in and what kept them here. Uh they also cited health benefits and retirement. Again, things these are all typical things that we would see in most level local governments. Uh we get responses of this nature pretty commonly. The third bullet though is not necessarily one we get as common was that employees really cited the work environment and the culture. Some organizations we hear that some we don't hear that so much. It's a good sign that we heard it as much as we did uh when we did uh meet with folks when we were out there. However, you know, we're out there to hear for concerns as well on the on the weaknesses side of things. uh employees cited their number one concern being high workload levels. Uh this was the probably the biggest thing we heard across all the different groups and we met with all the various departments and different uh employee classifications that workload was a major concern across the organization. Additionally, there was concern if competitive with the local market. Uh and then lastly, uh and again it's something we heard come up over and over again due to the size of the city concern about limited career progression opportunities that there's not a lot of

ability to continue to promote up. There may be one promotion in their future uh but there's not too much down the line ultimately and you can feel stuck as we did our internal review or assessment of your current organization. Uh these were the major findings that we had about your current structure. So from a classification standpoint, we found that overall the classification structure was pretty well designed and it seems to be appropriate for the current reporting structure. Uh we felt that the positions were relatively appropriately lined. Uh however, we did find that there were some job series that had uh leveling concerns where there were multiple levels of job series where the type of work really being done was essentially the same. So for some of your job series, there's a true differentiation between who's a level one and a level two. And this was hardline certification requirement to be across level one and level two. For some of the other job f job series, that's not the case. And there was a much more blurred line between what was a level one and two. And in some instances, you don't even have anyone performing at that level that level one function as well. In addition to that, we did find that there were some jobs that needed some titling convention updates. This is very common to see in organizations especially local government where the concept of who's an who's an assistant who's a specialist who's a coordinator gets blurred and what is really the difference or the hierarchy across those jobs and uniformity of their use. It's something that gets out of you know off out of tilt over time. So and then lastly uh we found that there were some minor updates that we're going to be re recommending to job descriptions to update to reflect you know current requirements and task and this was based on what was identified from the employees and the supervisors during that job assessment tool process. On the external review or the market survey uh when we looked at how competitive you were on your overall compensation in at your overall compensation structure both for uh salaries as well as benefits. These were the peers that were included in that

overall uh survey. It is a mix of both local market peers who are very much within uh commuting distance and some that are a little bit further a field that are but are uh very comparable to you from an operational standpoint. Now, you'll notice we did include some transportation and utility agencies on there as well to make sure we had better representation uh for transit and uh uh your your wastewater department as well because not every single one of your peers necessarily has those functions. So we had to include some additional specific peers to make sure we're having appropriate volume of matches for all the various jobs you employ. As it relates to the overall findings of uh the comp the market survey is a few things that are going on here that I want to contextualize. One is that when we talk about these market peers here uh we know that some of them are located within the same county as you and some are further a field. What we were able to do though is use a cost of living adjustment so that all of the organizations were looked at in terms of the dollars spent within your your immediate uh market within Riverside County essentially. And so if someone was over in San Bernarda County or another county altogether, we were able to adjust for their regional cost living differences. So when we talk about the results here, that does incorporate that regional cost of living adjustment. And what you're seeing here is a comparison of a few things. So the the numbers under the minimum, midpoint, and maximum columns there, that's referring to the salary ranges. Uh the way we arrived at these figures was by looking at the comparison of a salary range for all the various benchmark classifications that we surveyed. And we established how far off the market average was each of your salary ranges versus the market average salary range. When we aggregated that across all of the positions that we surveyed, we found that overall at the

minimum of your salary ranges, you're about 8.3% behind the market right now. You're lagging the market by about 8 and 1/2, you know, 8 to 8 1/2%. At the minimum of your ranges, at the midpoint of your ranges, that's about 9 1.5% and at the maximum of your ranges, that's about 10 1.5%. When we looked at this from a total compensation perspective, when we looked at the benefits comparison, that number was closer to about 4 to 4 1.5% behind in terms of the benefits and then the total compensate the blended total compensation number would then be about 7% behind the market. Now, there are a couple of things that are really critical to understand about particularly the benefits comparison there. One, when we talk about benefits comparisons, it's not nearly as straightforward as looking at something as structural as salary ranges. Uh benefits, we assume employees are extracting the maximum value of the allotted package since we has no way of knowing what employees utilize what or how much they value a given benefit versus another, not only within your organization, but employees at other organizations. And so, as a result, we can only compare maximum value to maximum value essentially. In addition to that, um, one of the things on the benefits package is because, uh, the city just recently adopted adjustments to its cafeteria plan, we have reflected that in these results here. However, what we don't know is if your peer organizations have also made adjustments to their cafeteria plan in this latest cycle. So, we are showing you guys as gaining ground from a total reward standpoint based on that adjustment. prior to you making that adjustment, we found you were about 10% behind in total compensation directly in line with where we were seeing uh your salary ranges. So essentially the benefits were a wash uh prior to this adjustment and it's potentially you may have gained some ground but we don't know that for certain until we would see what your peers have done in the last couple of months and the you know in terms of when things get published.

So as far as where our recommendations stand today, uh overall we are recommending some minor classification changes. Uh again this is to really uh bring things in line with a couple of our findings there as it relates to the leveling concerns on some of the job series as well as the title conventions and bringing them to be more uniform and more evenly applied across the organization. The second piece uh is additionally related to the classification structure. It would be that we would recommend a review of the job descriptions and some updating of those job descriptions based on what we identified through the job assessment tool process as well as um re uh we've made recommendations for the FSA uh status of the various positions based on the job content we found as well. Uh again, not anything particularly large on these two. These are a little bit more housekeeping items as it relates to the classification structure. The bigger piece though is getting to the compensation structure. So, one of the things that we noted about your current compensation structure was that it has a little bit different step design than your peers. Um, while uh we have while the step plan uh design that you have isn't completely out of line with what your your peers are doing that it's a step-based structure. It is a unique way that you have it laid out where you've got a you know a large number of steps and all positions are assigned to this giant uh you know database of steps. Essentially most organizations work from a step and grade system instead where they have a grade that has a set number of steps within it and then positions are then subsequently assigned to grades. We're recommending you move towards something like most of your peers and most local governments use which is a gradebased system. Um and we're recommending that you go to seven steps. Uh right now I've got on the screen at 4.8%. We've been going back and forth with the city between 4.8 and 5. Uh I believe we've landed at 5% is

probably the best way forward. So this slide's a little out of date. Uh what that would mean is that there would be seven steps for all of the various pay grades uh that we're recommending and there would be a 5% progression between each of those steps uh across those seven steps. That would bring you in line with what the majority of your peers are doing right now which is giving about a 5% increase between steps and most have around seven steps presently. So the design of the structure itself would be brought in line with what your peers are doing. In addition to that uh we would be th this new structure is aligned to the market average. So we have set it up from a philosophical standpoint to align with the average of the peer data that we received back on this survey. So trying to close the gap from where you stand today. And we do that by not just designing the structure to be in line with the average but by assigning positions to pay grades that are aligned with market average overall. So trying to minimize the gaps on individual positions and how far off the market they may have been. Now given that we ha we do have recommendations for what you have to do next. So in order to adopt the structure it means that uh you have we had to have gone through and assigned all the positions to their pay ranges. And then once we've assigned them to pay ranges the question becomes how do you transition employees into those pay ranges? And so we have modeled a few different options for your consideration. Uh we do think there some of these have uh better alignment with the city's phil uh compensation philosophy than others. Uh but these are essentially different pathways on how to place employees in the ranges we're recommending. The very first one is what we call bring to closest step. This is essentially a baseline approach. What this does is it looks at an employes current salary. It looks at the range they've been assigned to uh and it looks for their salary versus the step values in that proposed range and it simply takes their salary and rounds it off onto the next highest step within the range they've been assigned to. So, uh

what that means essentially is it does put everybody on a step within the new plan. It does make sure that you activate the plan uh but it does not create any realignment and it does not uh create any spacing between employees uh than where things were today. it simply rounds folks off. The downside of the the upside of this approach is that uh it is very simple. It's very straightforward. The downside is that it can create compression where there was not compression previously or it can exacerbate compression within the structure because you're essentially not uh you're increasing the salary floors to catch yourself up to market. Uh but you are not realigning against those floors in any way. You're simply rounding folks off. Uh the next three options however the class, hybrid and tenure parody options try seek to solve that problem of compression uh through the concept of time and it's just a matter of these different parody options vary on what time basis they're considering. Uh a classification parody tries to do this adjustment or placement of employees uh salaries against the steps based on how long they've been in their current classification. So, what that means is if we have seven steps, if somebody's a five-year accountant, they would be placed on step five. And that's if that's their current role, they've been in the role for 5 years, they're placed on step five. The tenure parody uh conversely looks not just at how long they've been in their current classification, but how long they've been with the city overall. So uh if we take that accountant who's been with the city for 5 years if they had spent 10 years as an accounting technician previously uh under the 10-year parody they would get the 10 years of credit as an accounting technician as well as the 5 years of credit as an accountant. So they would be maxed out at the very end of their step plan. Uh under the hybrid parody option uh that would be a little bit different. So it wouldn't simply give only the five years as you know the accountant. It wouldn't uh give all of the time straight. Instead, it would give full credit to the time spent your

current classification and partial credits uh at 50% rate given to time spent in any other classification at the city. Essentially, the last option on here is a comp ratio. This is a different pathway altogether. uh the compar ratio is the uh is basically the idea of looking at what is the salary progression employees have achieved today and transferring that progression from their current ranges into the new range. So an example would be if somebody makes exactly their midpoint today or the mid-step of the range right now, they would make rough, you know, the midpoint or the closest you can get to the midstep of the range in the new plan essentially. And so that it is a direct uh look at what is the salary progression I've made against my current range and receiving that progression transferred over to the new plan. This can be very appropriate for when catching up to market um you know uh when adjusting from uh one plan to another and really trying to close the ground on market because this does not create any new compression. This does not realign salaries. This really keeps the same hierarchy you've already established. Uh the only downside of a comp ratio particularly for an organization that has found itself to be behind market is that if there have been times where you've been placing external hires more aggressively more recently because you know your ranges are behind uh the comp ratio would essentially continue to move that advanced placement they've achieved at time of hire. They would receive that same advanced placement in a range that now is market competitive. And so uh there can be a little bit of a disconnect between policy and structure depending on if that if that's been a past practice or a concern at all. Um so that's is one of the drawbacks of the copper ratio approach potentially. So beyond adoption of the compensation structure itself uh there are some other uh system or maintenance recommendations that we have. We would recommend uh the

city continue to pursue conducting small-cale salary surveys on an ad hoc basis. These could be done completely in house. This does not necessarily need to be done with an outside consultant. Uh but that this continue to be looked on and this is something the city has been doing and is has provided examples in some of the work they've been doing the past few years. We simply recommend they continue doing what they're doing. Uh in addition to that, we would recommend a comprehensive study be looked at every three to five years, probably closer to the fiveyear marker unless there's a lot of or changes or a lot of staffing changes where the work has really changed at the organization. But on a 5-year time frame, it's good to do a comprehensive review of all the job duties and responsibilities as well as checking in on the market. And then lastly, we do have a series of recommendations in our report uh that will cover uh recommendations to revising uh various practices and policies as it relates to the compensation and classification structures so that should the county uh should the city adopt what we're proposing uh your policies are in align with the new structure that we're recommending. So, an example would be uh making sure you're looking at an appropriate hiring placement uh policy that you have uh that aligns with the new steps should you adopt them. And that's everything I have for you right now. Uh Carrie, I will hand it back to you.

Thank you, Michael. So, council, this is before you this evening is just a receive and file. I think I have direction to move forward with um negotiations with various units based on the data received. All right. Well, before we move forward, let's see if we have any uh public comments. I have no written requests. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time. All right. And council, do we have any discussion? All right. Then we Yes, you do. Yes. Quick question. Um could you just review? You lost me on the um the cons of the comper ratio.

The compat.

Sure. So yeah, it's a little in the weeds, but it is something that we do see especially with organizations that are in your particular position. So let's take an example today. Um let me come up with one quick here. Let's say you had um a salary range for a position that right now you offer 60 to 80,000, but you could only really get a candidate if you offered something much closer to that 80,000 right now because your range is behind where your your your peers are. So ideally, you wouldn't be hiring candidates so close to that maximum of 80,000. But if that's, you know, you have to hire them at 75 because that's the going rate right now, you're hiring them at a very advanced rate inside their range. uh simply to be competitive with market. So they're pretty far progressed. Their comp ratio percentage would be very high because it's a it's about the percentage of the midpoint which in this case would be well above the midpoint we'd be hiring them in at. So under this example, you've hired somebody in very aggressively uh far into the range. There's not a lot of room left. Then this study comes, we find that this range wasn't appropriate, that it was behind market. We're going to fix the salary range and we're going to shift it. So instead of it going 60 to 80, now it's going to go 70 to 90. And that number that you offered them uh now is firmly in the middle of the range. It's not so close to the end of the range, but the comp ratio would assume that their placement in the range was appropriate. And so it would still give them the same relative progression. So they would stay if they were 3/4 of the way through the range before they'll be 3-4 the range in the new range even though the dollar amount you just offered them um you know maybe a year or two ago would have been market competitive but you you hired them in more aggressively. Does that make sense?

It it does. So in your example then um they wouldn't come in at the mid-range. they would the range would be adjusted and then they would come in sort of at the same percentage of the range that they had had achieved before we started looking at this. Correct.

Yeah. So that that's what the comp ratio does. It's simply it's it's a very black and white. It looks at what percentage have I achieved so far and it maintains that. Now for new hires, it doesn't propose pose any new challenges. That's the one of the the upsides of adopting the new range is that new hires would have an an appropriate range to be reviewed upon and placed in. It's simply a concern for if you've had to get aggressive with your placement at time of hire. And that's and that's an if. It's not necessarily that you've had those instances. Um, but that if that's occurred, you may want to consider that as you potentially adopt this option. It's not saying you couldn't go this route. It simply means you may want to put some qualifiers or some caps or some contingencies on this option to make it more appropriate. And and that goes for all of these options. I'm kind of describing them in their purest form, but it is not unusual to put some qualifiers on these options to make them more appropriate for an organization. And I I'll give you another example. A lot of our clients we work with consider one of the parody options. A hybrid parody in particular is something that's pretty common or fairly popular amongst our clients. But some organizations will say we don't want to adjust all the way up to the maximum of the range. So they don't want to go all the way to step seven when they're looking at potentially realigning folks. They may say we'll realign people up to say step four or five and we're comfortable with that. We don't want to cap people out at the point of, you know, point of implementation. We want there to still be some room for some growth to occur. So that's a consideration as well that these options can be amended to best fit the needs of the city of course.

And then do you do a does a city make a decision to go with one of the options across all uh grades or is it sort of uh you adjust based on different grades, different uh positions?

That that's a really good question. So I I'll give you two answers. One is most of our clients do elect to have one-sizefits-all approaches and they'll just tailor the approach to try to fit the needs of all these different scenarios. Uh some employee some organizations we work with though will adopt different uh implementation options for different employee groups. Sometimes they'll adopt one for a non-union and then they'll negotiate something different with the union. Some will do something different for public safety than from general employees. there are different options there. There there is the possibility to do that and it's not inappropriate at all. Uh that's we see that from time to time and it's just based on the organization, the design of the structures they have for their different employees and a lot of times the bargaining status sometimes too.

Okay. Thank you. That helps. Thank you, mayor. Absolutely. Any other discussion? All right. Carrie, you have your direction. All right. Thank you very much. and we will make that a receipt and file. All right, we are going to move on to J2 which is our update on the Cherry Festival 2026 planning efforts and uh the staff report is by you guys. Uh yes, that's correct. Okay, very good.

Well, thank you mayor and council. This is uh just a brief update on what we've been doing as staff uh along with the Cherries of the Past Foundation the past few months on uh coordinating the 2026 Cherry Festival event and Ari from the foundation is here as well I think. Oh, there she is. Hello. So, uh wanted to give you just a brief update. We've been meeting on a bi-weekly basis um and identifying the various aspects of the site plan uh getting everything ready, talking to PD to uh traffic control, identifying an RFP that we might be looking to do pretty soon for traffic control. Uh and overall looking at public outreach with the help of Julie um identifying uh how the city is going to be promoted throughout uh the outreach for this event. um but also looking at the costs overall uh for public safety, fire uh traffic control, etc. So, tonight we just wanted to get direction from you uh whether to proceed and go forward with the application uh for rental facility or provide another option. So, I'll just open it up to you. That's all we have to provide. We also have, like I said, re to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you. We appreciate that. And Nicole, do we have any public comments on this item? I have no written requests. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time.

All right. Very good. Well, um I just kind of wanted to start off this discussion um with regards to it. First off, I want to say thank you to staff. I know that you guys have been working really hard with regards to this um and for the partnerships that we have. And really today, what my hope for is this discussion here in open session is to be an honest, transparent discussion um about where we want to see the Cherry Festival going for 2026 and what that looks like um and to provide clear direction to the staff on what that looks like. So, um I appreciate all that we have here in the audience and I thought that maybe I would start off um and kind of have a a quick discussion with regards to my feelings and my thoughts um and what I kind of see as a potential option moving forward. So, when I think about the Cherry Festival, I think about an excellent event for our community. I think about a long-standing event. I think about something that my family enjoys. I think last year I made the comment that it's one of the things that walking around the carnival is so fun uh for our families and for Addie and I to be able to go and of course um hearing the entertainment and things along those lines. As we look at the partnerships that we have continued to build for this um and that we continue to push towards, we consistently hear um that this is a city event, a city event with the cherries of the past as well. And over the last couple weeks, that has continued to ring in my head consistently and to kind of think about long-term plans, future plans, see see what we can do. Um, you know, and for me and in speaking with um, Council Member White, who also um is the liaison to Cherries of the Pass, um, and I am the liaison with the parks district. Um, as we kind of began to have some discussions and further strategies, we thought about alternates. And so my goal

in bringing this forward today is is really to think about what options we have and what options I would like to see. Um, I don't want to be the one that kills the cherry festival, obviously, and I think we've all said that. Um, I don't think any of us do, and nor do I think that that is any type of intention. um especially because as I stated this is such um an important event. But I do think that as we are continuing to support the event and put forth money towards the event that often times there's ways to look at it to get creative um and and to think about those long-term aspects. So one thing that I did discuss in full transparency as I started that um my discussion off today is is there another place in the city that we can hold it? Now, we have been um having discussions with moving forward with an application with um renting Noble Creek um from our partners at the parks district and we have also previously held this event at Steuart Park, which we all know currently can't be held at Steuart Park. So, as I thought through this process in my mind, really trying to to come up with other options, um, our current property that we own on Bulmont Avenue, which is a vacant piece of property, um, which is potentially our future site for the police department. Um, I started to think, is this an option? It's an open piece of property. Um, it's a it's fairly flat when you drive past and you look at it. It has good access from Bumont Avenue. it gives us the opportunity uh to be on a main street. And so I proposed that option um and I had a conversation about it and we continued to kind of have a discussion about it. I asked staff if they thought this was a doable circumstance and if we were able to do it and I would like my thoughts were that we bring that discussion forward and really my thoughts behind that is is this

something that the city continues to push forward long term with? Do we continue? I think right now based off of theou that we currently have, the city will be putting forth around $250,000. Is this even something that the council has an appetite for? And I really felt like it was important that we have this conversation openly. And so that's kind of my lead into this um conversation um and really to kind of hear my counterpart's side of things. Um, since I really can only have a conversation with one other council member, um, I think it's important that we, you know, bring forth these discussions and these items transparently. So, um, that's kind of my little pitch. I I'm not taking Noble Creek off of the um, consideration. I I want that to be clear. I I don't think that that's not an option either, but I do want to make sure that we're also having some other discussions as well. So, yes, Council Member Fed.

Uh, just quick question for staff. Um, so a little bit of his, you know, so we can understand a little bit of history from the, um, the city's point of view. How many years have we contributed financially to the Cherry Festival outside of providing police and fire support services? Well, I'm going to turn that over to um, Ari, would you know the answer to that? How how long you've been getting donations? if you could come up here. Ari,

good evening. Um I am not a 100% sure. I've been a part of the cherry festival um planning um for I think this would be my fourth year. Um so um since then at least uh but I believe council member or sorry mayor prom white um had kind of a brief idea also about when you've been contributing or for how long. Um well I know as long as I've been on council we we have always been approving the police um and the fire. Um I would think what about seven eight years ago we started doing the additional 100,000 for the entertainment

because I knew we were doing it since I was here but I didn't know how long prior to that and I've been on the council for five.

My understanding is that it was long before I was on council as well as far as as far as the process would was that the police uh or that the cherry festival association would come to us and ask us to contribute um police services. And I, as far as I can remember, as far as I've been involved with the city, that's been the case. I think one of the points that we're struggling with here, and this is um is that our our move from Steuart Park showed that we were contributing a lot more than just police and fire because we were contributing the location. We were doing stuff like

uh transportation. Um, and so I think that is the struggle that we're having right now, moving from Steuart Park to another location. Um, I hope that answers your question. That's helpful. Thank you. Okay, I'm good for now, mayor. Did you have anything else?

Yeah. Yeah, let me go a little bit further on that then. Um, so it has been my my hope to I I've always felt that the uh regional park, the Noble Creek was a was a perfect location for this and um it was it was a struggle the first year or two because we were just everyone was getting our our our footing. We didn't I don't think we I know I didn't, but I don't think the council realized how much we were we were subsidizing it. um because we owned the property. And so I think it's been a struggle um to recreate the same experience that we had at Steuart Park to Noble Creek. Um, and I think, you know, my hope was a couple years ago, the hope was that we'd start to get this ironed out and we'd be in a position where we knew what our future was going to be and that we wouldn't be where I think we still are, which is we really don't know what 2027's going to look like and as we struggle through the working through the three primary associations, the parks district, the uh cherries of the past and the city of Bowmont that um I don't know that we're making any progress. I don't know that we're in a position where we can say what's going to happen next year. And I I don't want to be gifted a shirt that says uh I killed the cherry festival. Um so I I think we've got to find a way to do it. I think the suggestion of looking into um the Cougar Bulmont Avenue property gives us some options to look at. Um I think from our general early discussions, it's clear that it would require a larger

investment from the from the city if we if we took on the role of the landlord as what the parks district is doing. Um, so but I think we really need to get to a point where we are moving forward and and we're not every year at this point where we're, you know, we're we're we're still in a position this year that to make a change is going to be difficult because we've run out of time again. And um I I'm hoping that we can come to some kind of uh plan to continue to move forward. And I do think we need to consider all of our options. And right now, as far as my as far as I'm concerned, there's only two options on the table. And that's Noble Creek with the parks district as the landlord or uh the Bulmont Avenue Cougar property with the city as the landlord. And um so that's that's why both uh the mayor and I wanted to bring this open to an open discussion to see the rest what the rest of you think. Thank you, Mayor Prom. I think this probably leads us to a good time to have a discussion is really the is this feasible, right? I think that's ultimately the question that we have on the table and I think that there's probably quite a bit of things that we have to consider with regards to that. So, um, Mr. Vestal, I'm going to, um, kind of ask you some quick questions and maybe ask for you to elaborate a little bit more on some of the investigation that you guys have been doing. So obviously I think the most pointed question that we can have is is it safe to grade a field and roll it and hold a festival there? Uh um what are the considerations for power, water, um restrooms,

um security, fencing, um traffic, parking, um and what does that logistics look like? Um and I would like you to also elaborate on cost um and what you have what your preliminary research um has shown. Sure. I do have an exhibit that shows the 2024 cherry festival kind of overlaid onto the 30 acres. If that would be helpful, we can show that at that time,

please. Is this the 24 or the 25 festival? Uh 25, I'm sorry. 25. Yeah, 20 25. If I can have it uh show my monitor. I can see the baseball diamond. I don't know how to make this full. full screen.

All right. If you click on the X for the bookmarks, that should expand it. The X by the bookmark to the left. Right there. That one. You should be able to close the one on the right with the right arrow on the on the side panel. on the left hand side of the side panel. You guys are making me feel Yes. Go over to your uh to your left a little bit. Nicole to the rescue. Thank you, Nicole. If we can get Blue Beam, he's an engineer, not it. Yeah.

All right. All right. I may need a reminder of some of the Absolutely. questions you had. So I think you're answering the question on it is to a certain extent is this feasible and what does the parking look like or you know obviously this is a rough draft and a suggestion but if you could just kind of give us an overview of what what the thoughts are here.

Yeah absolutely. So I'll start with what I'm very comfortable at which is not adobe uh the parking lot and laying out. So this is 30 acres. The parking lot is assumed to be or proposed to be in 10 acres. With 10 acres uh providing for um fire lane appropriate fire lane widths of 28 ft or larger, we can fit approximately 13 exc uh 1,320 stalls on a very conceptual basis. Of course,

the thought process here is that Bulmont Avenue would be the primary entrance and exit. They would enter on the north side of that 10 acres shown by the black arrows. They would exit uh uh patrons of the site would exit on the southerntherly part. This configuration would allow the most stacking in Bulmont Avenue and sufficiently spaced from the Stater Brothers commercial center to hopefully avoid a lot of interference from them or interference to their service. And there's no residential entrances here in this vicinity as well. Bulma Avenue would be striped for three lanes, a dedicated stacking lane for the event, and then a bypass through lane in both the north and south directions. Uh traffic control would be provided by a consult uh contractor, excuse me. Um and then Cougar uh coincident with the event would be closed to through traffic. However, a the traffic consultant would permit buses, emergency vehicles, and uh potentially VIPs to access Cougar. that would really be locked down and not not open to um every other type of traffic. So, you can see that the event from 2025, thank you, Council Member Lloyd, Council Member White, excuse me, uh fits in there. The efficiency of this site is uh significantly better than the Noble Creek just in terms of the configuration. You could probably fit about 50% more activity or or general

area there. Um Mayor, your first question is it safe? So staff would have to invest um several resources into making this site safe. It's a vacant field right now with kind of a meadowy grass. The idea would be either we keep that grass or we remove that grass and disc till uh drag and then compact the the dirt into a appropriate compaction that that satisfies our building official and makes this site uh relatively ADA accessible. We still would have to verify that paths to specific events, um, specific areas were sufficiently flat to avoid like tripping hazards for carry sanity. Uh, there are several methods to do this. I kind of listed a few. There's also an optional soil uh soil binder that we can discuss, you know, at any time to to help with dust control. However, uh I do not feel that that is a mandatory option. It would just be a um option the city could use to to minimize dust. In terms of water, Bulmont Cherry Valley Water District would provide the water. There's a fire hydrant that we could pull water and store on site. Uh, I'll get in the cost at the end if that's okay with you, mayor.

Yeah,

the site would need there is no electricity there. So, the site would need to run on generators. It's my understanding that the carnival or certain elements bring their own generators. However, gener other generators may be needed to support ancillary functions or other functions not covered specifically by what the the carnival brings. Uh the parking lot will need lights and generators and we do have an estimate for that that again I'll discuss as part of the uh the cost. The site would need security fencing. Um staff feels predominantly on the west which if you could see my cursor would be this property line here and then the south. that would prevent um off-roaders or other people trying to enter the site from the field side of it. Staff also feels that uh we could barricade Bulma Avenue sufficiently to you know prevent people trying to jump in in between the diodor trees.

That was going to be a question. Thank you. Yeah. And then like I said, Cougar will be shut down. So there should be no traffic flow o other than the buses and emergency vehicles, security guards. Uh we have we do anticipate the need for security guards. This is a vacant uh property kind of remoteish. So while equipment is out there, I do recommend that security guard is provided. I will need a um

I think uh the only other concerns I think I had outstanding um fire concerns um I think we we discussed the ADA compliance, we discussed the electricity, we discussed the water, the lights, um the security guards, the fencing. So I would think just in regards to fire mitigation or concerns with it um you know being around in an open field.

Sure. So if if the grass is green um that should help a little bit but if it is dead part of the site preparation will be to remove that dead grass. The tealing the compacting of it should mitigate that. Uh we there are fire hydrants nearby. I I I'm certainly not an expert on fire and I don't want to speak with them, but they've looked at it tentatively and they I believe that they feel that the site can be used um appropriately for this event.

And then um I know that we do have the school situated right across um and typically this event has been a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday event. So, um, you know, do we have any thoughts on the timing or the time frame? I know that that's also been a discussion. I don't know if the dates have been solidified. Um, but I know that and I'm not sure if Ari from Cherries of the Past or Gus if you can speak to that or if we know.

Yes. Um, so historically and what will be happening this year as well. Um it falls uh the festival falls the week weekend after uh Memorial Yeah, Memorial Day. Um so this this year it will be May 28th through May 31st. Um on Thursdays and Fridays we do not open our gates until 5:00 p.m. So it will be uh after school hours. Um, so there shouldn't be any traffic around that area um for school being in session. However, I'm not too sure if the school district has any um events after the fact. So, that's something that I'm I haven't discussed or or confirmed with the school district. Um, I would say the only the only conflict of time um where there would be um activity um in on festival grounds and during school hours would probably be that Monday after the festival. That is when everything is cleared out um from the carnival. Um, so if we're able to not use Cougar Way and just have all of our Carnival um trailers being pul be able to be pulled out from Bulmont Avenue, then that might be able to um not conflict uh with the traffic.

Okay, very good. I appreciate that. And then I know that there um egress I guess um and maybe this is a fire question also but ensuring that we have multiple points of exit. Um are there concerns around that? I I know that I believe previously the parks district in order to meet compliance did have to add in some gates I I think if I remember correctly. So is there any concerns around that?

No. One of the good things about this location is that the spacing in between the diodor trees offers plenty of entrances and exits. So, we would just have to mitigate or uh move the barricades in the event that there's a an emergency or uh to enhance the operation of it. All right. Very good. I think I hit quite a few questions for now. Thank you, Robert, for all of that. Um, Council Member Fed.

Yes, Mayor. Thank you. So, if we were to try to pay um require, you know, pay for parking um to help offset some of the additional costs, um would is is there a thought in there on how we would stage that so it's not backing up cars onto the street? Is there room for that? It looks like you took advantage of trying to do every possible parking space, you know, available. Is that number of spacing really needed? You know, for 1300 cars, I don't know what how how many parking we had last time or how many people took the bus, but I think that's something should we do that. That's they'd have to get onto the site off the street, pay for their spot, and then be able to to find a spot then to park.

Sure. So, last year, I believe there was approximately 1,300 stalls uh at the Noble Creek location. So, this is comparable. Okay.

Uh I think additional thought should be put into this layout if we are going to have a uh pay um paying for parking. the throat on the entrance is long enough that we could we could have the pay portion at the very westerly portion of that and reroute the cars in a um so if you so if your map was pulled up they pull in from the right hand side and the the little toll booth we'll call it would be towards the left and then they would then head south and go park from there. We just have like a little rope up or some some something to to to keep them in line so they don't cut left, you know, before the the toll booth, right?

Yeah. AB. Absolutely. Certainly, this is just a a concept drawing, but we would put the intent would be to get them off the street onto the site and then take care of the paying and parking and all that. Yeah, absolutely. I think it is doable, but probably not in its ex the current configuration. Understood. Okay. Thank you. All right. I think I'm going to hit you with the looming question, which is overall cost. So, if you could kind of drill down into the cost um on, you know, what what this would cost.

Sure. There are several components and it it's kind of laid out um in separate columns, I guess. So, we have what what council has invested last year, which was approximately $250,000. I think that that money and Gus, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is still applicable. So, you'd start with the 250,000 commitment you made last year. The elements that we described I described just now the new elements would add an additional cost of 161 $162,000 to this event. That's not with the optional soil binder, but it doesn't seem like maybe that's not an option

without soil binder. Yeah, without Could you go into that just a little bit because I know you did kind of briefly speak about the dust control. Can you just elaborate a little bit on that? Yeah, absolutely. So, we got a quote for a soil binder that would be a topical treatment for the dirt. It's like a glue um coagulant for for dust. It just keeps it it keeps it settled. Um it's not perfect, but it just it's a topical treatment that'll help uh help the dust. uh it'll break down over time and unfortunately the cost is significant and the benefit may not be okay. You know

with the the binder what was the cost for the new the new task? the the cost was 325,000. 825 is not just the soy binder. Not just the so it is it is the traffic control, sight water, uh parking lots, sight fencing, security, and the optional soil binder.

And just to keep in mind, the soil binder itself is 163,000 of that. Correct. That's correct. And the traffic itself with the 250 that you had last year that was around 36 37,000 or so this new traffic would be 25,000. So that is accounted for in the 250 that we paid last year. the traffic is. So what I'm hearing is that in order to do the site improvements alone um so being so discussing the fencing, the security, the lights um uh it and I'm trying to think of what else we have in there. Fencing, water, lights, security, and is there anything else included in that?

The discing. The Oh yeah, that's right. The discing and the tilling would be 162. That is correct. Yeah. Okay. And what was the uh the rental cost for the for Noble Creek? Do you know that that was 55,000? Was that correct? I'm sorry. What was the question? The rental price for Noble Creek, it was 50,000. 5050. Yes. Council member Laura, sorry. Thank you. And it's okay.

Yeah. So, do we know is this going to be 50,000 again this year or has that gone up? Uh, the cost has not been discussed. Um, I believe that that would have been um considered uh a customized um rental cost once we turned in the application, which we have not done yet.

Thank you. Um, so I I like the idea. I I don't like the cost as much. Um, but obviously it it's an investment in in this event. uh looks like we'd be up around 300, a little over 300,000 if we put the 50,000 into the the 162 or whatever where we look at at doing that. Um, I would like to get a little bit more information on uh fur further information from staff on um seeing if what our police officer or chief police chief thinks about this as well as our fire um marshal. looking at the logistics of the the facility and the access to that facility as well as looking at the logistics of potentially charging for parking to offset some of the cost to help bring that down and put us closer to what we spent last year. Um are those items that we could consider if as we look at this?

Does anybody else have any questions about that? I mean, I I do think that we need to get that obviously weighed in. I know that um Gus, I don't know if you have any you you were having some discussions with staff. I know you guys had discussed this. Um did you speak with the police chief? Did you discuss concerns? Um and then, uh the fire marshal. Um do we have any update with regards to that?

Uh yes, both with uh fire and police. Uh we had this discussion. Uh ultimately, we're not looking at additional costs from last year. If anything, I think we'd have some savings. Uh, so last year, if you recall, part of the 250,000 was police and fire. Uh, so ultimately, I believe we were looking at about 70,000 or so between police and fire. So that looking at this site would not be any additional. And I think the logistics of it too make it easier for fire and police because you don't have the obstructions that you would have at Noble Creek. Um, you know, there's a lot of trees, fencing areas where people can hide and so forth. Uh, so we think the logistics are better at this site.

Okay. Um, and then what I would like to do is have staff also reach out to the school district to let them know what the what the uh what days we would be there and what our cleanup day would be just to make sure that we don't um impact the district as far as getting the students to and from or in and out of the school. Um those tend to get a little crazy from time to from time to time. So, um, just as I' I'd like to do that, too, just to make sure that they're on they're on, uh, the same page as we are moving forward. We'll do, sir. Council member Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so, a change like this is going to require some more discussions with the um, cherries of the past as far as, you know, kind of a change of logistics and so forth. For instance, if I take a look at $162,000, um, if we were to say that, well, the Cherry Foundation was was going to pay 55 to the parks district. So, if it came back to the city, let's just say, then really we're looking at about 107,000, I guess you can look at. Uh, or 270 depending on the binder thing. Um, what I'd like to look at, um, can you pull the map back up? My question is, if we're doing something this big and there's a potential to do this in the future and and start something new, then I'd like to to talk about that site to see if little by little we can start doing things that are a little bit more semi-permanent because I know this is supposed to be the future fire uh police station, but we still have a ways to go on that quite a bit. I mean, we have funding and there's a whole bunch of issues. So, what do you 101 15 years out? Um, I would I would assume. I don't know for sure, but you know, I'm looking at the L and can you remind me where the the police station was going? It was going in the parking lot. So if we can start looking at perhaps in the future if we're going to be perhaps using this and it might be a great idea then what can we start doing to to this area now that will help us move so we're not just using you know 160 one time one time one time because that's very costly. But if we start thinking about, okay, 160 this time, but next year it might be, you know, 250 or something, but we're going to start putting something more

permanent on there, whether it's asphalt or whatever. Um, then I'd be more prone to to going in this direction because we know that we're just not throwing a high number away, but we're actually making it a place to where we might have it in the future. and we haven't really went into that discussion, but what I'm getting at is if it's something that we can use as a future location, then I'm willing to give it a try this one time, even though the price is pretty steep, but to see if all these logistics are going to work out. This is all in preliminary planning on paper, but you know, I do have concerns with a lot of things, but I'd like to see if it works and I think it could work. Um but if we if we do this one trial and take a look at it and things work out the way we hope it would then we can start looking at okay this is really feasible and not only just for for what we're doing for the next few years but perhaps in the future. So you know that's what I like to look at kind of a long-term thing using perhaps this year as the trial. I agree with council member Lara there has to be a discussion between us and the school district because I'm very concerned about that June 1st Um, I don't think the trailer is going to be able to come through those trees and so forth. I don't know. Um, but you know, that whole idea of having school, like I said, the Mountain View is under construction, so all the staff is parked on that on that street and, um, some of them are even in the dirt lot over there. So, that's a big logistical thing that we want to make sure that we iron out. Obviously, we'll probably still need shuttles and stuff to help mitigate the the thing, but those are all little things. Um, you know, it goes back to the price on it. And you know uh again if if I can feel that this is something that we're going to move towards and if we see the bigger picture is yeah I can see that working

then I might be willing to say okay it's it's a little quick on that price tag and I would have to know if between the city and the Cherry Foundation if this is something feasible you know then I would be willing to support that. But there's a lot going on pretty fast. And we've done this before. Um having to do things last minute. But you know, we want this as a success. That's the overall thing is we want it successful. We want it safe. We want it enjoyable. So if we can say, "Yeah, Cherry uh Foundation is on board. We can do these little changes here with Mus or whatever it is in order to make certain things work and we're okay with uh you know, the money and the price tag. and this is something that we might go in the future if it works out this first time then I'd be willing to support that you know so it's it's definitely not a no for me even though you know me when it comes to the price tags uh I do have a question for Jennifer for Lisa so we've allocated the 250 in this in this fiscal budget so obviously we're looking at perhaps another um up to you know 325 yeah 325 if we do binder So, is this a budget adjustment then? And how are we looking on numbers?

So, um, good timing. I'm bringing the midyear report to the next meeting. There you go. Looking at numbers just recently today. Uh, so remember a balanced budget is where revenues exceed or meet expenditures. So, um, at the beginning of the year, we we passed a budget that exceeded. So, um, but with the midyear budget adjustments that I'm getting in now, you're getting closer to where there's going to be more of a balanced budget. So, there will have to be discussion of where the money will come from. Okay. Um, and that's the 320 that you're looking at for the money because we we've got numbers already and you know the numbers now. So,

this is I I yeah, I have not looked into this specific um so this is above and beyond what I'm already looking at currently. Okay. So, if we figure 325, let's just say extra beyond our 250 commitment, there's not enough, there's not money in the budget to support that.

Okay. So, we'll have to do some moving around and so forth to get there. Okay. Um, I appreciate that. So, again, we just want to make sure that we we understand that something of this big commitment um could have a great purpose, but it is does go down to money. So it it just that discussion between the past foundation and and our committee. It's like can we make that up anywhere? Parking can do a little bit of course and you know all these kind of things but surely not going to equal anywhere close to that. So are we willing as a council to make that commitment this time to see if this idea is going to work to the tune of 200 grand or or is this not the time? That that's my discussion to you. I'm I'm open, but again with me, you know, those numbers, I don't like going over um especially since we haven't discussed the the budget yet.

Yeah, absolutely. Council member White. Um yeah. So, one issue, Ari, the insurance cost for the cherry cherries of the past. What is your insurance cost now with the Noble Creeks uh solution? Um we currently don't have Yeah,

there we go. There we go. Okay. We currently do not have a price um for our insurance yet. Do you know what the cost was last year?

The cost was around 38,000. Um that was for a special event insurance uh for one and $2 million policy. Um, and the other question I have, I don't know if it's for you, Robert, or for you, uh, Mr. Roma, the, um, time. Can we get this done? And so let me let me preface that by saying I think what we're all asking for up here is some more hard numbers, an opportunity to speak to the charities of the past and start talking um and then bringing something back that we can actually look at the numbers. Um when you said the next meeting, are you talking about the 17th? Okay. And if we could if we could bring it as that part of the discussion, um, do we still have time to get this done?

I believe we do. We've talked about this, but one of the reasons for bringing you the update this time around is because we needed to get some direction. Ultimately, um, we've been talking with, for instance, traffic control um, internally with staff to see if this is a feasible option. We believe it is. Uh but again, time definitely is not our uh friend right now. Um the Cherries Foundation was going to be ready to submit the site plan to DRC so we can start looking at that. Now there's a little bit of a delay in submitting that because they need to redo their site plan to see if it's going to be here or continue in the uh festival. The other thing to keep in mind, you know, as we were talking about this and as council member Martinez was bringing up future events, if we prepare this site, there's a possibility that this site could also be rented out to a private party if they're looking for an event. And now all of a sudden, you know, there'd be additional rental income coming in to support the costs that you that that have been incurred. And you know, I think we have to also consider the time if we can't get this done. So, where are we in the process? I know there's the process that we're now I think we're part of as far as the rental contract with the um Noble Creek.

We have the application ready to submit. Um initially when Ari went in to submit um the issue came up of co-lication uh but I think that was resolved. Uh so the application has been completed. Uh we can sign it this week and submit it if that is the direction or we would hold off. But of course we need to secure those dates. Right now they're not secured at Noble Creek. Uh they've been waiting for us to submit the application.

That's all I had. Thanks, Mayor. Council member Martinez, do you have anything? No, I just thought about it. Um, I assume I just remember we're going to have to have a different place for our fireworks too this year. Could this be a place where the fireplace could work as well? Trying to get the most out of our bang for the buck. Oh, no pun intended. Pardon? Yeah, you got Yes, actually that is um what we're planning to do. Oh. With regards to locating the fireworks there. Doug, would you like to say something on that? Just trying to maximize an investment. That's all. Sit down. that might feel more comfortable if we're getting more use out of it. You had me bang for the buck there, Julio.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes. So, we um when we came in and asked for the bigger bang for your buck fireworks show, uh one of the requirements was a larger fallout zone. And so, the fallout zone that we were going to use was going to be this 30 acres. Uh so, we're going to project the fireworks from that location. And the viewing areas will be from the sports park and or uh we're also going to request to use the field at the middle school across the street. So there'll be two different viewing areas on the 4th of July. So yes, thank you.

I did have one clarification, apologize. The cost I provided did include traffic control. So the 160 should be reduced to 130 and then the uh 324 should be reduced to 293.

Apologize for that. 250 that we already have budgeted at this time. So, if you're looking at it from funds that are not budgeted, um that would be where it's at. Now, I do think that with regards to time, I think there's a couple, if I'm summarizing what I'm hearing at this point is we need further clarification from police and fire that this is a viable option. Um we want discussion further on charging for parking and what the logistics would look like and we need discussion with the school district. I am hearing from Gus that excuse me Mr. Romo that um time is of the essence um if we are going to make this decision and once again I do want to highlight that we do not have the dates at Noble Creek currently. So if somebody else comes in, we may not have that property at this point because we have not reserved it from what I understand. So I I just want to make sure that we understand that as well. Um with regards to timing. Um and so at that point at this point um we probably need to decide are we comfortably uncomfortable with waiting until the 17th um or is this something that we're ready to give further direction on? Um, I do see council member Finn's light on. Do you have

Yeah, thank you. I'm going to question back to to to Doug. Um, is there any site prep that needs to be done for the 4th of July that by doing this ahead of time it would accomplish that or or is it just remain a vacant field and you just launch from there?

No, that is a great question. So, we will as part of our event, we will have to fence it and secure that area so that people can't light it for us and and whatnot. And so we would prep the we would have to do that preparations prior to 4th of July. Uh so that's going to be one of the costs that we were going to absorb as renting a fence for that day. And then um we were going to work to clear the site. We would have had to do weed abatement which it's that property is already on my uh weed abatement list. So it's part of the thousand or so acres that we we deabate in the city and so it's going to get weed abated. was just recently done uh last month and it'll probably get done again um towards the end of spring early summer uh for its annual bianual um weed abing um process would be done at that site as well

and you'd probably have a much smaller fencing area it would have been imagine correct it would have been a smaller a smaller fencing area wouldn't have been the whole entire area but um for the night of we do have to secure that area so we can't have anybody blocking into that fallout area. Um, so we would have to keep people off of it in some way, shape, or form. And it wouldn't be the same fence that goes up for the cherry festival because it would be they need to pull down, return that, and then come back again for that. So that's

it could be if we wanted to leave it up, but I mean, we technically could leave up that fence and it would be a way to secure that site if we wanted to do it that way. Um we could it would be um probably very safe and and overly sufficient uh for it but um we would do that and then we would do the the weed clearing and we were going to work with fire to confirm a few things as far as the type of weed abatement we would do and then if there was other some some other clearing uh options that fire might perform out there prior to the event. Okay. Thanks Doug. Thanks mayor. So, um, Doug, is it safe to say that there is some cost absorption there that would have been had from the Fourth of July, uh, weed abatement at that point? And

I do think the weed abatement, um, and I, um, in speaking with Robert was estimating like I think we I gave him a note 13,000 or something of what it would cost me just to do those parcels, which was going to happen already. Um, and then I do think that some of the fencing would be beneficial to to keep in some way, shape, or form. Um, even if it was a little more than I needed, it would still make the site even more safe. Do you remember the number for the bleed abatement? Yeah, I it was $14,000 for just to rehabate that site. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Uh, do we have any other public comment or anybody else that would like to speak? Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time. I'll speak.

You could just tell us. Are you okay with them just stating who you are and go for it?

Hello, council. Christian Linman, one of the uh directors with the uh our we'll use our new name. So, it's the uh past recreation and parks. So, um, we want to move forward with the cherry festival. That's one of the things that we have been planning and, uh, Councilman White, you came to our meeting last month or excuse me, uh, yeah, it was last month and, uh, it was we had a pretty frank discussion, which was pretty good. I appreciated that. Um, I think we all did on our um, on our board. And our big thing is this is a community event and we just want to move forward. That's why we've been saving the dates and we've been holding the dates without having the discussion. We've been trying to have the open frank discussion about it. We've had uh the cherry festival on our agenda, every agenda that we've had, even our special agendas since July and we want to move forward with it. One of my big things on our original planning that we did two years ago was we need to have planning done very very early and I proposed it. Oh, I got the three minutes now. I proposed um to our council that or excuse me to our directors that we start planning for next year with a possible extended agreement in uh April of this year is when we want to look at it before because this is a very very large event that requires lots of planning.

Um so let's see there was a couple other things I want to say but we just want to move forward with it. the park's available right now, but I mean it's obvious to me just with the discussion you guys don't want to use the park. Um, Mayor Pro Tim White did say was the best location for it and you always thought it was and you always thought it would be. So, I mean, I don't think he's changed his mind on it, but I understand you guys are looking at your different options, which I would completely expect you to because I'm a member of the uh city as well and I pay my taxes. At least most of them I try to, right? But um no, so with that, I'm I'm very happy about that. I think you guys are underestimating what it's going to truly cost and what it's going to be. It to me it's going to be I mean at that time we don't always have the June gloom. There is a lot of dust and you have no shade. So that's just a few things. But um if you guys want to move forward on that one, that's completely fine because we do have we have had other entities try to get the park for that weekend and we've basically politely told them no. And that's one of the big things on that and it's this is I know our staff and your staff have had some meetings and this is kind of you know brand new to us. We're just now hearing about it. That's why um two of our directors myself and uh Mr. Hughes came and along with our general manager. So I mean that's just where we are. if we I think that's about all I have to say on that unless you guys have any questions for us that I might be able to answer or anything like that. I don't think you do though. So, but um that's all I got for that. Thank you.

Thank you. And we appreciate you guys being here and and listening to the discussion. As mentioned before, we want this to be as transparent as possible and evaluating options. And we we definitely do appreciate the park and all that it entails. I I don't think that we take that lightly by any means. So, thank you guys um for those sentiments. Yes, council member, I have a question. I don't remember what became of the co-licant thing. Is it right now? Is it just the city or is it with the cherry? So, the pass I believe at um one of the meetings it was discussed that they would accept it as a co-licant. Okay. So, we were back to the co-licant. Okay. Thank you.

Correct. And I and uh you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I I think some of the concern was insurance related um which we have verified and and Carrie, I'll let you speak to that that way that it is out in the open. Um but we do have a letter from our insurance carrier if you'd like to speak with regards to We do. We have the certification already in place per the requirements.

Great. So, we you know there were some um you know with regards to that they needed the insurance they needed to we needed the final ruling on the co-licant um and then as Ari stated um they're ready to go to submit that application. So essentially at this point we are ready to move forward to submit to um Noble Creek you know and and to reserve that application. I do think that as part of that application discussion um that the parks district has um you know within their prerogative to make sure that we meet their requirements as well just as if we um you know requested them to do that and I think that there could be some negotiation or discussions further um if there are things that they would like to see with regards to that but it is still you know as I mentioned in the discussion at the beginning it's still a viable option it's still a ready to go option so I don't want to um discourage that conversation either. Um it's definitely still a conversation.

Carrie, I have a quick couple questions about the insurance. Absolutely. So Cherry um of the past is looking 38,000 last year. What was our uh cost to cover the gap last year? Um there was no cost to us because we have a larger umbrella policy that covers the limits. It was just a matter of review and understanding of what the requirements were, what the event is. We did spend about 14,000 on a special event enhanced rider, but that was it. That was always better. So, this year, if it was on our property, would the cherries have to contribute 38, whatever the number is that they would contribute at Noble Creek this year?

I would still recommend being partners with them that they have some sort of liability insurance provided. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so that brings us to the direction for staff. Are we at a point where we're ready to give direction or do we want to bring it back for the 17th? Are we ready for that? Do we want them to continue forward with Noble Creek? Um I think at this point we've got to kind of iron out some of those discussions. Council member Martinez.

Well, I wouldn't be able to support the move without the numbers from Jennifer and that discussion. So, if that if if we needed to make a decision because of the time and so forth, then I would have to say we'd have to stay with Noble Creek. I just can't make that decision without seeing the numbers. Um, if we want to risk the date and you're willing to do that and we end up getting having to do it there by default at our place, then we need to be prepared for that if we decide we're going to wait. Right. So, um, that's where I'm at. Council member Finn.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm I'm for keeping it at Noble Creek. I'm I'm not sold on the extra cost at this point. Um and especially with the budget the way it's looking. Um we don't want to mess that up. Um so that's where I'm holding at the moment. I appreciate that. M pro Tim White. Um I agree with uh Mr. Martinez that we should u we need to have a full accounting of the numbers. We need a good timeline, but I think we need to commit to make a decision on the 17th one way or the other if if we do bring back the numbers. Council member Laura.

Sure. I would um I I agree. We we need the hard numbers. Um I don't know if the district can can wait uh two more weeks for an answer. Um I guess that's a chance we'll have to take but uh definitely need the hard numbers based on what uh Mishu station has indicated this evening. Okay. Uh Ari uh if you have an opportunity um you are a partner in this so you have a say as well um as to your time frame and I think it's only it it's only fair that we hear your side of that as well. Um

so I on behalf of the foundation um they were interested in carrying on the the direction of using the 30 lots or sorry the 30 acre lot. Um it we reviewed uh our finances um and we reviewed uh the pros and cons um shading dirt things like that um but with the full confidence that the city would be able to support and um just support us mentally. I don't I don't know the other words. I'm so sorry. I'm nervous. Um ultimately it's it's not up to us. We we do not have the financial stability to be able to come to these decisions alone. Um so we are I guess just in support and whatever the city um and the council members decide. Um but we we were very interested um on behalf of the foundation to entertain the the lot.

Okay. Mayor, if I could add, um I know of my discussion with Ari, you know, uh earlier, uh and I think what you're looking for is the moral support. Yeah. From the council, the one

um I I know that they're looking at this year, but they're also looking at future years, what that looks like. Um so, if the event were to happen at the 30 acres, what would that look like for the following year and the year after that? Um so, I know Ari had brought that concern up to me. All right. So, I'm hearing three that would like the numbers to come back. Um, I will add as a fourth that would like those numbers to come back. So, um, if you guys are okay with moving forward with the direction to come back on the 17th with some harder, faster numbers, um, I think that would uh, allow us to make the decision. I do want to to make sure that on the 17th we are making a decision though. I I think I we we cannot afford or or continue uh to push it on any further. So that discussion um you know really if you think of any questions throughout this time frame, you know, we really need to make sure to get those back to staff so that we can I just want to ask mayor that um that includes meeting with the cherry of the past to get their numbers because what I'm interested is what's already booked, what's not booked, what's their numbers look like. Perfect. um because I need to know if there's again going to be gaps and is that number is going to go up, you know. So,

yeah. So, uh I know that u Mr. Romo does have bi-weekly meetings with cherries of the past. We may need to up that. I don't know. Um but to get those numbers so that we can make a a more informed decision. I agree with you. Um and to really understand that and then um kind of move forward. All right, we will You have enough direction? I do. Thank you very much. Can Can I throw one last thing in? Um, a good point was raised by um um Christian. Oh, Christian, sorry. Um is there can we look at some kind of temporary shade um as as an option? Another option as well?

Yes, absolutely. I mean there will be a lot of tents out there but yes we can look at larger tent structures. Okay. Have you already looked at shade? No I believe Ari with cherries of the past just mentioned that they had that discussion. Okay with their board. Thank you. You know it it may behoove us to to even look at what an what asphalt cost costs to go on that back side of it. I can find an AED, I'm sure, in case something happens. Just to clarify that the a asphalt would cover what area?

The not where the parking lot is, but where the actual um event would be and then where we are shooting off fireworks. It leans into council members, council member Martinez's discussion about future events. Um, I'm sure it's much more expensive, but gives us something to further discuss.

Okay, very good. We will be moving on now to item J3, professional services agreement with Props AV LLC. Can we get a staff report by Julie Van Hook? And thank you all. Good evening, uh, mayor and council. Um, tonight I'm here to present a professional services agreement, uh, to you with Props AV. Um, and as you may recognize, um, the name and, you know, with McKay and team coming um, on site to film um, and do um, certain productions over the last several years um, such as State of City and some economic development initiatives. We have some growing communication needs um and we're proposing a um PSA today to formalize our expanded relationship um to include monthly video updates to the public. So this will be like quality of life initiatives as well as updates on major projects within the city such as Steuart Park. And then there's some recruitment and outreach content for the police department that's also um in need as well. And so um the expanded scope and the anticipated expenditures exceeds the 75,000 um over the CM authority. So that's why it's here tonight for your review um and for council authorization. And so with that, I'm available for any questions.

All right. Thank you, Julie. And Nicole, do we have any public comment? I have no written request. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time. All right. I will open it up to council discussion. Mayor, I'll move to approve authorization the issuance of a purchase order to Props AV in the amount of 55,300. I'll second. We can get I get a roll call, please. Council member Laura, yes. Council member Finn, yes. Council member Martinez, yes. Mayor Prom White, yes. Mayor Voy, yes.

Yeah, we did public comment. Yeah, I did public comment, right? Yes. Thank you. All right. Item J4 to round us out for our action items for the evening. Approve of preliminary plans to expand the animal services facility. Staff report by Miss Sarah Lowour. Yes. Good evening, council. So, for your consideration today is our request to convert a portion of building E to a local animal shelter. As we're well aware, the city is lacking in an animal shelter and additional services we could offer to our pet population. um with while a wider regional solution is underway, this offers an interim solution with the opportunity to grow.

All righty. Great. Um do we have any public comment, Nicole? I have no written request. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time.

All righty. Sarah, I will start us off. Um, I know that within our current staff report, there's a discussion about building E, which is uh the northernmost building here on our um, city hall campus. Could you go into a little bit more detail about that? Um, and just what the the kennels that would be in there um, you know, and and what other services that we would be providing um, and how long you think that we would be occupying this space in an interim time frame.

Right. So, the building itself is about 22,000 square feet. Um, we're proposing at least a phase one for the current time where we would occupy about 5,800 square ft in the most northern section of that building. It would lend itself to a lobby area, a small clinic, and two areas of dog kennels. One is a general population area, and the other one is a quarantine zone. Um, it does include an outside fenced area for animal socializations as well as any kind of more unusual animals outside of dogs um that we would be able and prepared to house those in. Um, the general population area does consist of two runs that are about 10 kennels each and a quarantine zone has four. Uh the quarantine zone is used for um sick animals, maybe behavior um based animals that are safer away from the general population. Um the services we're looking to provide is animal adoptions primarily. um being able to intake um treat the animals as an add an additional evaluation um make sure they're safe and treated and able to be returned to their owners after being kept for the um legal hold times and potentially put up for adoption for the clinic areas. Um I know the city in the past had done like lowcost um vaccine clinics. I'd like to get back to that and that would offer space for those.

Great. Thank you. Um I appreciate you guys bringing forward um you know a a proposed solution interim solution. Um as we all know we have uh theou with some surrounding cities. So it's nice um that we have uh something for the interim as we work on a as a long-term option. Um I do have some questions just with regards to is there a noise consideration um for the surrounding areas.

Um the animals would be inside. Um so there is noise abatement that should happen inside um just for reverberating sounds in there. Um for outside um there is some residential in the area. um directly across the north. I think there are some complexes and um generally noise abatement is not the biggest concern since the animals will be housed inside. Great. Thank you. I think that's uh it for me for right now. Council member Martinez.

Yeah, just to break down. So, uh from the 460,000, is it 300 that's going for the renovations? Yes, it's about 298 that's estimated for the renovations and the kennels and inter internal for housing the pets is about60. Um that's the current quote that I have which I did have to cut a little off of that already just for this plan. So that quote could go could go down. And does that include that u temperature climate control and all that? Yes. Okay. And then this is only construction. Where does personnel cost come in? is if we're going to be expanding, it sounds like we're going to need more personnel and so forth. So, is that a part of this or is that another ask that you'll be coming back?

Operational costs are not part of this figure right now. This is to set it. Our ideally our goal is to kind of build it and they will come as the form of working with a nonprofit organization that might be able to help us establish operations. Okay. But in the event that that doesn't happen and we have to infill it ourselves, is there a plan B? I mean, is there kind of numbers set somewhere where they'll have to come in a mid-year budget or Yes, we're setting our sights on that. I don't have figures on that. Okay. Presently, though, could we expect something with the midyear budget review coming up in next a couple of weeks or is this the 17th that I'm hearing?

So, I'm just asking. Yeah. So, we're looking the next, right? I'm ahead of myself then. Okay, I just I'm on it's a money day for me. Thank you. We tried to hit you all at once. We're we're trying to increase our odds. No, I'm just kidding. Council member Lara, I appreciate this idea and the option uh for us to be able to do this. Some of the concerns I have um in the estimate that you prepared, does that include architecturals for the tenant improvements as well as repairs to the I'm sure the heating and air conditioning the HVAC and

Yes. Yes, it does take all that into consideration. I worked close with um Robert Festl's team on that. Um, as with any construction project, there might be some unknowns until you get started, but we did take everything feasibly into account at this point. Okay. Um, and then my other questions were similar to Council Member Martinez in regards to staffing. Um, if we contract this out or we have a volunteer, we would still need staff, our staff to oversee that. Would Correct. So would that do you know at this point if that would require the hiring of like a individual or two individuals or I believe there's plans underway for that car.

Yes. Chief does have plans to bring forward at least one position next fiscal year as it relates to this project. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have right now. Mayor Mayor Promway. Uh so the rest of the council I don't think had the advantage that the mayor and I did to visit uh the um facility down Wdemar I think it was where it was and to see what a nonprofit managing a JPA's um animal control center and I think if you could just give a brief overview because you can see that the big concern is the staffing and if you could speak to a little bit about what what that involved at the facility we went and visited?

Yes. So, the facility you speak of is the Animal Friends of the Valley. They serve approximately six cities in their area. They work everything from field service all the way to clinics and their shelters. Um, from what they have, it feels very welcoming. It almost feels like very high quality daycare. Um, if there's a comparable, except it's for pets. It's very clean. It's very much a model shelter organization and you aren't offended by any smells or any noises when you walk in there and we're trying to emulate that feeling and what they offer. Um what they also offer is creative ways to staff. So a lot of the times they have their own staff, they have a fleet of volunteers and they also work with some other organizations that bring in help. I think there's um volunteers through school districts or universities, especially with vet programs that operate some things and then they even have like a workers release program that comes in and does some of the the more unattractive work with the animals. Um so it's very I guess out of the box kind of staffing.

It was um I was very impressed when I went down to visit it. I had no idea we we would see what we saw. Um it's just um and again I think that was pretty much staffed almost 100% by the uh they're not volunteers by the nonprofit. The nonprofit or the agency is Animal Friends of the Valleys. That's the nonprofit. And then the facility, do you remember what it's called? I think it's the same name. Okay.

Yeah. And I I think just to add to Council Member White's sentiment, um it's definitely a viable option and I think that um you know, we had a volunteer group here who came and presented to us from Four Seasons that has their own volunteer um and I know that Chief has also um been in touch with another group um that would like to help in in similar aspects. Um and so I I do think that it's a viable option. um for the volunteers and I definitely see this as the opportunity to solve an immediate problem um that we have within the community and that's um our seven kennels is just not enough. Um and so we do need to to expand on that and I think that this probably helps to solve one of um you know our our biggest um concerns right now. The other thing to mention is that it is uh absorbable within the budget. Um, so that's nice to see as well. Um, and I appreciate that we had the kind of forethought to to think about that as well.

Ask is building Empire. It is not empty. It's used for storage and surplus. The portion that we're proposing to utilize first is predominantly empty. If there is anything there, it can be just relocated elsewhere in the same building. Mayor Poten White. Yeah. And could we um expand a little bit on the building size? Um this is only doing how much how much of the square feet of the building is this project? It's 5,800 almost. And how big is the overall building? 22,000. Okay. And the rest of the building besides what we he just asked you about is being used for storage primarily?

Yes. I know. Um I believe is it um custodial uses a lot of storage. a lot of furniture surpluses there. Um, some document purging could probably take place. There's quite a bit of that in that location as well.

What what excites me about this opportunity that that we have here is that because of the size of the building, this could become more of a permanent solution. We could expand it to a permanent solution. Um, we could also expand it to a permanent solution and then be able to offer services to the others that we're trying to work with Calama Banning. Um, and so I I think that the fact that we can do this within budget and we can at least it would how long would it take to get this up and running? I believe we had a long term of nine months.

Okay. So, I think it's a it's a it's a great opportunity to really test it. So, I I do want to thank you for all the work you've done on this and Oh, you're welcome. This idea um I had no idea it was coming after all the work we've done, but um I think it's a great idea. I appreciate the questions and the council's openness. Thank you, Council Member Laura. Okay. Next. Um yes. So, Mayor Pro Tim White kind of touched on it. So, at this point is strictly for the city of Bulmont. Um, and the kennels obviously typically are like chain links. So, they would be removable because this is one of the facilities or buildings that is a part of the downtown revitalization plan as well that would be used for I think

a civic center. The civic center. So, um, but I think it gets us out of a jam. It is just strictly for the city which is a desperate need of a of a facility. So, um, okay. Thank you very much, Council Member. Good work. I just want to echo a lot of the comments that were made. I think it's a fantastic idea. It solves an immediate need. There's a lot of members of the public that are frustrated and so my only ask from here is let's get the word out, you know, and and share that plan and what we plan to do. And I I I'm in full support. So, thank you and appreciate all the work that went into it. Absolutely. Thank you.

All right. Well, I'm hearing a lot of positive things, so I will entertain a motion. Mayor, I'll go ahead move to approve the proposed preliminary plans to expand animal services facilities for sheltering of lost found pets, authorize the police department to coordinate with public works department to develop a CIP and renovate a portion of building E for animal shelter purposes. Second. Can I get a roll call, please? Council member Laura, yes. Council member Finn, yes. Council member Martinez, yes. Mayor Prommo. Yes. Mayor Voit.

Yes. And I would like to say that this is um awesome to see and I want to thank Sarah as well. This is a labor of love and I know that you are emotionally invested in it and I appreciate it. Yes. All right. We'll move on to Okay. Legislative updates and discussion. We do not have a legislative update, uh, mayor, but we do have an economic development update.

Okay. Very good. We will move on to economic development update. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Just a couple of things to point out. Um, as you know, we are working um staff is working on developing a um updated economic development strategic plan, citywide plan, and our consultants, TIP Strategies, will be in town tomorrow and Thursday. Um, we are having two community visioning workshops. Um, one is tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. here at the gymnasium of city hall and another one tomorrow evening, Thursday, uh, I'm sorry, Thursday evening at 5:30 to 7 p.m. Um, we invite um the residents, business owners, and community partners to participate in that. We've had pretty good um response so far, but we could certainly accommodate more. And so on the city's website on the face page tonight, there's an opportunity with some information there and to register if anybody in the community or if you'd like to share it with anybody further, there's the opportunity to register for one of those. And if somebody has an interest and is unable to attend either one of those uh sessions, we do have an opportunity for a virtual option on February 11th at 9:00 a.m. And if that doesn't work, there's also the opportunity to fill out a survey that would take a couple of minutes. So, lots of um opportunity there for the community to participate. Um, also wanted to point out for you that Bowmont is again going to be or is in the latest edition of Inland Empire Magazine and it's hotelbound edition. Uh, the second year in a row we've done that. Um, the public information office provided some written um material for that, highlighting growth, available land and business opportunities showcasing Bumont as an exciting place to invest, visit and call home. And so that is out as well. Um, I do want to give you a little

bit of exciting news. We don't have a lot of details yet, but I did find out late last week that the roughly 20 acre site at six and Zena has been put into escrow by a legitimate commercial developer. Um, they have not come to talk to us yet, so I don't have any details, but um, that is uh, good news. Now, that's that's escrow opening. It hasn't closed, but which corner was that? Uh it would be on the south um between the freeway and Sixth Street. Excellent. The swap. So the southwest. Yes. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. So we stay tuned. We'll bring you more information as soon as we can. Great news.

All right. And we will move on to our new uh planning commission actions and updates. Thank you Stephen for this new report. Uh there are two items. Good evening, madame mayor and comm and council. Uh on which your planning commission acted in January and I'm available for questions. One of which you heard tonight and the other you'll hear in May, March.

Very good. I do want to just note that um after planning commission meets, we will be having this report on um our agenda. The nice thing about this report is to be able to get it out to the public as well as for us to be able to see it. So, I really appreciate the work that's gone into this. It's nice to have it in front of us. Um, and I appreciate the transparency. So, thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh, we will move on to city treasur report. No report. All right. The city clerk. All right. City Attorney.

Yes. I'm going to request that the council uh return to close session at the end of the agenda to go back in to discuss item B2 which is conference with legal counsel regarding potential initiation of litigation one case and also B6 public employee appointment employment and the title city manager. All right, we will be returning for close session for those items immediately following and city manager report.

Uh yes, mayor. We have a billboard survey update. As you know, this billboard survey has been up for the last uh I believe couple of months. So, uh Julie Van Hook will go ahead and be giving us an update. Great. Thank you. I have been seeing it on social media. Uh so, that is exciting. Hopefully, we've been getting some responses.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, so surveyy's been open a little over a month. We're going to extend it um two more weeks. Typically, a survey is about 6 to 8 weeks um in total um to kind of garner some more like last minute responses. Um we have close to 200 so far, which is pretty good. About a 90% self- selection rate of a Bowmont resident. So, we have some visitors um in our survey. Um and the survey, as you may recall, was directed by council to kind of garner some community attitudes and opinions towards billboards, whether that be the the um you know, upgrade of a billboard or the replacement type model that was discussed. Um just an overview as we're 5 weeks in, um most respondents, um so about 70% of those are um either neutral or in support of using billboards for community messaging. So that's pretty pretty positive. Um as well as for revenue. Um and only about a quarter strongly oppose that. And so there's there's kind of a key element there. Um along with that was some normal concerns, things that you would probably anticipate. So proximity to to neighborhoods was a concern. Um brightness and then driver distraction or visual clutter. And so I don't think that's surprising, but that was of um the most concern of of all the survey respondents. And then lastly, the majority um supported replacing the billboards are allowing a limited expansion. Okay. Um public comments. So we did have an open-ended um um part of that survey, which is to kind of allow the respondent to give their own feedback in their own words. Um, and so public comments emphasize just minimizing visual impacts, protecting, uh, neighborhood character, and then maintaining safety, which is that visual distraction. So, um, we're going to leave it open for another week or two to kind of get that

six to seven week mark. Um, and that is all I have unless you have any other questions. Great. Thank you. Can you repeat the percentage of the initial respondent uh that was in favor or neutral? 70 neutral to supportive. Neutral to supportive. Yeah. Thank you. And then uh Mayor Poten White, you know, I didn't look at the survey myself. I try to stay off of social media. I learned that eight died years ago. Uh was it specific to electronic billboards? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Great. Thank you. And I do want to say thank you, Julie, while we have you up here. I I think that our responses on social media I have seen increase uh and the interaction. So it's been wonderful. It's nice to look uh sometimes on Instagram and see the the views and things along those lines. Good. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. Sure. All righty. And with that, I will move us to any future agenda items. Okay. Um then sorry, mayor. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

I I don't think that this has to be a future agenda item. Just think it's something that we need to keep an eye on, which is um concerns over AB1421, which is the mileage tax. Oh, yeah. It's going through a study right now, so we we may be ahead of it. I'm not sure if it's the appropriate time to send a letter of opposition or um so we can have um staff let us know when that I don't think it needs to be an a future agenda item. I just thought it'd be a good time to bring that up. Thank you. Maybe a legislative update. We will keep an eye on it, sir. Absolutely.

All right. We will move on to our council reports and I will start with Council Member Laura. Thank you very much, mayor. I have uh attended WRC COG yesterday. Uh just a quick reminder, we have our general assembly which will be June 18th, 2026, and Tony Hawk will be the guest speaker for this year's general assembly. That's all I have. That's fun. Uh Council Member Finn,

thank you, Mayor. Uh on the uh 22nd I attended RTA Riverside Transit Agency's board meeting um Saturday the 24th um MC again for our veterans expo and so we appreciate the council and staff support to make that happen and then um for that committee that put it on um on Thursday we're going to have a return and report you know meeting and see how we can continue to improve that event. But it's very successful and very appreciative of all the work that goes into that. On the 26th, I attended our own finance and audit um committee meeting. Um we have a new chair and a vice chair. So, Ricardo Forbes is our chair and Dennis Garcia will serve as the vice chair. And so, um council member Laura and I serve on that and we were encouraging public uh participation and they rose to the occasion. So, we appreciate that. Um on the 28th I attended the regional water alliance um and they pretty much kind of just gave a 2025 um year review and what was nice to see is um particular in the for the past water agency is they brought in a lot of extra imported water to the region and the um storage accounts with the with the the water basin and so forth. things are looking very well that we can continue to to support future growth in the area and so forth where that same conversation 5 to 10 years ago was where's all the water um and so they're doing fine with that so it was good to hear and then I also attended on a Zoom meeting um with the consultant and staff for the economic strategic plan interview and so forth and look look forward to the the event tomorrow morning so thank you

great and council member Martinez thank you mayor Um so I attended the Kell city's environment quality committee uh meeting and uh we discussed our work plan uh for the year which is going to concentrate on emergency preparedness, energy, utilities and water. Um and we revised uh reviewed some of the environmental bills and positions uh that Cal Cities is taking and uh listen to some speakers. I did suggest um looking at Cal City's policy for water. Um some of it dated back to 2008

and um I thought it was just a bit outdated for for what's happened since then. So I suggested to the chair and the committee that Cal City perhaps um do a task force which they had done way back then uh to look at some of their policies on water to perhaps update some of that and to look at some of their metrics um that they were supposed to look at in 2015 and I don't have any report on that. So I'd like for them to go back on that. So, they're going to take that back to the board and see uh if the board will approve a a task force or at least do a round table, I guess at the minimum. Um RCA I attended, we approved our um a feed credit request from Hills specific plan. Uh we had a state and federal update on the budget. Um from the budget, even though the state budget isn't looking very good, there is no proposal to cuts for uh that would impact RCA. So, that's good um good news for for the agency. And from the federal um budget, the appropriations uh actually they lobbyed in Washington uh not too long ago and were able to get language in appropriation bills that directs the US Fish and Wildlife to finally fund some of the habitat conservations uh areas in our um in our area. So, that was that's nice to see. Um and then I attended Veterans Expo. So, good job, Mayor Council Finn on that. And um and also I attended one of the Zoom uh meetings for economic development and the there's another vision workshop coming next week.

Right. And that's all. All right. Great. Thank you. And mayor prom white.

So unlike the um COG, we don't spend 100,000 on speakers for our events. So we had a uh our annual workshop out in Palm Palm Desert this uh last week and a lot of interesting topics came up. Number one, which was I felt the most interesting piece was um the RCTC has put in place for about 5 months now a a new technology to catch cheaters on the 91 express lanes. because if you go into the HO lane, it's um it's free tolls once you go into the HO lane.

And um the numbers are are amazing. Um I think the total amount of money um was close to half a million dollars in in fines and fees. Um, and it was interesting because um they showed us how some of the cheaters tried to cheat, but you find out later like one um had a a mannequin head right next to the driver's head hoping that it would see too. The way it works is um infrared.

There's a camera that that looks at it and if it thinks there's it's questionable, it sends it to the um individuals. We have three people who then look at it and then they apply a um they charge them a full toll and they apply a $5 fine. They kept the fines low because and they also didn't make this a big um public awareness policy because they wanted to we wanted to iron out all of the bugs before we start going further. So that is going to be developed a little bit more. Um then we had a CV rail discussion. We were at phase two, I think, or phase three of the environmental. They needed approval on it. It's um I believe it's a $70 million um environmental study that um will focus it it gets a little more detailed than the $30 million phase two. And in this one, what it's doing, the primary or one of the primary focuses is looking for station locations. And um it's it's clear there will be a station in the pass where in the past no one knows for sure. Um and Robert, you'd be proud of me cuz I asked them, "Well, when's this going to be done?" And they said 2040. If everything goes as planned, they will open um they will have it uh ready for for use in 2040. Um, and I don't believe that. But anyways, they there was over and under bets on that and there was not a whole lot of people going going under on that.

Um, doubtful.

The next discussion was the um they have a partner a partner program which Bowmont is a is a partner with and um they showed the projects they they are actually working on. I think they're coming to staff of all the different um cities to put together a partner policy. Um so partner policy is is I'll give you an example. We have um found a way to fund some money coming from RCTC, the Petrero interchange. That's a partner project that we're doing with the um with RCTC. A lot of the commissioners weren't aware of how that worked and how much they want to know how much RCTC is paying for Petrao, things like that, how much we're who's paying for the staff to get this done. And then they showed an example of they had four partner policy um projects that they showed. One was um Petero, one was Highland Springs, one was Pennsylvania, and I forget who the the fourth one was. Um and then they followed that that discussion right after that with there's a couple a council member in um Lake Elsenor that wants to RCTC to take a role in limiting the logistics industry throughout the county and um and this was right after they talked about all the projects that we're putting together and um you could tell RCTC Aaron was not real real excited about jumping in on this And of course I had to give a few uh words of um wisdom and um I think basically everyone understands and even Aaron brought this up at the end that it's a local government land use policy issue and they want they want to stay out of that. And then the last discussion was um the sales tax revenue. Um, we got some

polling results back showing that um, as you start the beginning questions uh, in a poll and then after you get their first answer, you then give them a little bit of education, then you get their answer again. Maybe you give them a little bit of negative um, information. And basically what they came out to was that with education it's possible to get the um percentage up to about 2/3 which is what's required if RCTC does the sales uh tax initiative. Um, and if if we decide is if RCTC decides we can't get to that number and we decide not to do it, if a a citizens initiative comes in and does it um and it gets the the uh signatures for that, it would then become a 50 plus one. Uh, which is which seems to be a definite if you're at 2/3 um and then you just have to get a 50 plus one. Um I think we've sent them to go back and consider two options. One option was to measure A expires in 2039. And so the option was to put a sales tax measure that says we will continue the halfsent sales tax from 2039 on with no sunset. Um that's one of the um issues we wanted to get and that actually came out at about 80% um approval in the original poll. Um and then the other one which was about 68% was the idea uh of a full 1% sales tax that'll take place um uh before the the other one expires. If you remember, we had this the uh presentation on the traffic relief plan and that required a budget of about $33

billion over the next 30 years for all the projects we had. A lot of big projects, a lot of pass area projects were on that. And if if they decide to go something other than what the traffic relief plan was designed for, then there would have to be a new discussion cuz then projects would have to be taken off because if you do the if you do the sales tax policy, you have to list which projects you plan to complete in the next 30 years. And if if they go with the the extending the current one on, instead of 33 billion, it's more like um I think it was like 24 25 billion. So, we'd have to find about seven or eight billion dollars of projects that would have to be pulled off of that uh traffic relief plan. Um so, we are under under the gun. I think that um to put it on this year's ballot, it needs to be we need to give it a go um I think in June. So I think that you know that's important and and during that discussion I you know brought up the fact that other jurisdictions may be looking for doing their own sales tax measure and you could see a lot of heads nodding. So there's a lot of cities that are you know looking at their own um sales tax measure. So I thought all of what I just told you was pretty pertinent to what we've been um talking about. I usually don't have her really long. Um, but again, who's the speaker?

Tony Hawk. We didn't have Tony Hawk. So, yeah. Finance is all covered with donations though. So, WRO would not be looking for a tax.

All right. Thank you. I will attempt to keep mine brief, although I doubt it will be. Uh, thank you for your work, Council Member Finn, on the Veterans Expo. Very nicely done. Uh, nice attendance as always. I um always love seeing everybody there. All right. On the 22nd, I went up to Sacramento to attend the Cal's taxation and revenue um committee. While I was there, uh we voted on the uh sales tax uh sharing measure um with regards to the Bradley Burns tax that we um that our e-commerce currently pays into. Um there was a sales tax working group, a city manager sales tax working group. Um which we did have some representation from Riverside County um and in their recommendations they had given five recommendations um to push forward during the discussion. Um unfortunately the minority was muted to a certain extent. Uh we were not allowed to speak up as much. Um and I definitely you could feel a bias within the room. Um this uh tax measure that they are or amendment that they are proposing going forward. Um is based off of 2021 data. Uh there's nothing updated. There's no nexus studies. Um and so it's um it was definitely skewed. But I will tell you what was proposed and what will be going to the board of directors. So, um, there are six points that are moving forward to the board of directors. A 50/50 split of the Bradley Burns tax. What that means is that the ecommerce, uh, such as an Amazon distribution center that delivers directly to a home, uh, the jurisdiction where it leaves from, so for example, um, Bowmont, and let's say

it goes to Banning, Bowmont would get 50% um, of the allocation and Banning would get the other 50%. there was no nexus study on that 50-50 split. Um it was what they this working group felt was fair. Um in their proposal they also recommended uh 10% flexibility on either side of that 50%. So um it could swing either way based off of the legislature that picks up the bill and how it's written um for them to then propose to the House and the Senate. One thing to note about this is it does require a constitutional amendment. So it would go to the house and to the the state senate um and then it would go to the voters. Um so it is a pretty heavy lift uh to kind of move this project forward. Um they did modify the 10% to be 5% on either side. So for example it would be 5050 or 55 and 45. Um so not too much leeway for us to kind of play with there. Uh the other conditions of the motion um were any tax sharing agreements that are currently in play or would be at the time of implementation would be honored. So what they recommend what they recognized is that um a lot of people who have attracted this type of business have put in sales tax sharing measures. So for example, you attract um this type of uh e-commerce, then potentially you pay back the sales tax to them for coming to. So any sharing measures that have been in play would be honored. Um it would be a 5-year phase in post um uh the California Department, I can't remember any tax and finance authority, I think is what it's called. Uh thank you. Um, so it would be a 5-year phase in for that implementation and then at the last minute they threw in something called val volatility

bands. These volatility bands which were not written down anywhere um will be applied uh to make this somewhat fair uh in in their minds. um which would be that if anybody was going to benefit more than 20% of their revenues that um it would go to those that had greater than a 20% loss. They had no idea how the implementation would work. There was no operational discussion behind it. Um and in fact uh the CDTFA told them they did not see this as a possibility of being even implemented that they they would have no idea on how to reconcile this. One thing to mention also is that the tax sharing agreements to be honored they have no reconciliation process for that as well because they don't know what the jurisdictions have done. So they they could not give an implementation. They they could not talk to that whatsoever. Um the one thing that uh us on the no side of things were recommending was to strike down those first five and just move forward with number six, which is that all outofstate tax. So currently our outofstate tax from ecommerce is directed into a pool. That pool is a county pool currently. Um, and all of that money goes into a pool based off of our sales tax percentage of the county as a whole. After the county uh keeps their portion, uh, then we get a portion of that. So, what we felt or what I felt was fair was that we pushed that forward that it no longer goes into a pool, but goes to the jurisdiction to which it's being delivered. So, for example, Wayfair, let's say, is out of South Dakota. They ship um, I don't know, they they ship some patio furniture to you. If it lands directly in Bowmont, then you would get all of that out of state tax. Currently, all of that out of state tax goes into a pool and then we get our our share. So, that is moving forward. One thing to

note about number six is that it does not require an amendment, a constitutional amendment. It can go through the regular legislative process. So, that was the recommendation uh and the motion that I seconded was to strike one through five and to move forward with six on its own. I felt it was a fair option. every city benefits from it across the board. It's a it's a fair and equitable discussion. Um and so uh they chose not to do that and so they will be recommending this to the board. So one thing that I have as a recommendation for this council is that we consider our relationship with Cal Cities maybe moving forward. Um and then the other thing is uh this will be discussed at the board of directors meeting that is on February 19th and the 20th. We do not know if it will be on the 19th or the 20th. Um so uh I the recommendation is that uh the mayor and the city manager fly up there to have a discussion um in public comment. So we will be um arranging to um plead our case in public comment uh to the board of directors with regards to this. The city has put in significant infrastructure um for this type of business. Um, and this could be, you know, somewhere around a nine to 12,000, I think, or 12 million, excuse me, um, cut in revenue for the city. So, this is, um, a significant impact to our operational, um, budget. So, it's definitely something we need to fight for. And that's my update.

Wow. Questions, discussions? Was it informative? Hopefully. Okay. Very good. I learned so much in this meeting, I have to tell you. I did. I did. I sure did. And I wrote all of that down for us today so it could be a little smoother. All right. We will adjourn to close session um at 9:40. Okay.