City Council - Regular Meeting

We're going to call the regular meeting of the city of Cal Mesa's city council to order here at 6 PM. Today's Monday, April 6th, and welcome to all of you. Uh, if you would like to make public comment today, we would encourage you to do so. Many of you know how to do that. If you don't, you have to grab a speaker slip. These are over here to my left, your right. Fill out the speaker slip, hand it to our city clerk, and you're allotted three minutes of public comment. Uh, please do so now if you're planning to make public comment. Otherwise, city clerk, can I get a roll call? Sure. Council member Kundiff, here. Council member Garcia, here.

Council member Molina. Council member Molina is not feeling well today, so we're going to excuse her. Mayor Pro Tim Manley here. Mayor Cervantes

here. For the record, staff, our city manager is not here today. Our city attorney is our city clerk, our finance director. Yes. And our community development director. Love that title. Public works director. Our city engineer. Our deputy fire chief is being replaced here by our uh BC McCarron. Welcome. And then our uh sheriff, our deputy uh sheriff, Captain Esabel. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here. At this point, I'm going to lead us in the pledge. So, if you all would would rise and we're going to honor our nation's flag. I pledge algiance to the flag United States of America to the republic which stands one nation under justice for all.

Thank you all. So at this time we do have a presentation and a proclamation we would like to do the DMV donate life California month here. So in attendance we have Katherine Mance and so if you would give me just a minute we have something to give you and then I know you have a presentation for us. here. I know your story is very moving and meaningful. It means a lot to to us and I'm sure

serve as well. So, we have a proclamation here from the city of Calama just to honor you and thank you for the work that you want to present that to you.

Thank you. It is it is always um an honor to be here in Kamea. I grew up uh not that far from here in the other city. But uh uh for those of us who have grown up, they're all kind of one city to us. Um so first of all, uh good evening, mayor, city council, and community members. Um my name is Cat, and I am honored to be here representing One Legacy, our Oregon procurement organization serving Riverside County. On behalf of our entire community, I want to sincerely thank the city of Calamea for your continued support for organ eye and tissue donation and for recognizing this important cause through your proclamation again this year. Your leadership helps raise awareness, encourages meaningful conversation, and ultimately saves lives. There are currently over 107,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ. 20% of those live here in California. For me, this mission is deeply personal. My 11-year-old son, Christopher, became an organ donor 8 and a half years ago. And in the midst of unimaginable loss, our family made the decision to say yes to donation. And because of that decision, lives were not only saved, but families were given hope in moments where there once was none. I have had the incredible honor of meeting all three of Christopher's organ recipients. The individuals received his kidneys, pancreas, and his liver. And to stand in front of them, to see their smiles, to meet their families, and to witness the lives that they are now able to live is something I will carry with me forever. In those moments, you realize that donation doesn't just save lives. It connects them.

My son's legacy is still living on through each of them and every milestone they reach in every memory they continue to make. That is the true power of organ eye and tissue donation. Because of communities like Calame Mesa, more people are learning about the importance of registering to be donors and having those important conversations with their loved ones. Thank you again for your continued partnership, your compassion, and for helping families like mine turn loss into life and legacy. Thank you. You

Thank you. sincerely appreciate the work you do. So, thank you. Thank you.

All right, city clerk, any public comments? Okay, no public comments at this time. We're going to approve the agenda, consent calendar, and the wave full reading of ordinances. Before we do so, let me ask staff if there are any changes to the agenda or items that need to be pulled or modified. City clerk and I are looking at each other. Um, just to let the council and public know that uh there will not be a close session discussion this evening, so that can be removed from the agenda of the conference with labor negotiators as the city uh managers out of town.

Great. Okay. So we will just adjourn at the conclusion of our of our reports here. Right. We don't need a motion or anything for that. We just we we do need a motion to approve the approve the agenda. Wave first reading and and approve the consent calendar. Okay. So before we do that, council, is there anything you'd like to pull? No. All right. Can I then get a motion to approve as amended here? I can make a motion to approve the agenda consent calendar and waiver of full reading of ordinances as amended. Second. All right. All in favor? I.

Okay. That is four to zero. In favor, that takes us to our reports. We will begin with our fire chief report, please. Do we have one today? No. Okay,

that's all right. Appreciate you being here still. All right. So, now we have our sheriff uh captain's report. Please. Uh good evening, Mayor, Mayor Prom, and members of the city council. Hope everybody's doing well tonight. Um I do have uh the uh sheriff's monthly report um for the month of March of 20 or March 2026. Um, so I'm going to start with part one crimes and then I'll get into some of the activity that has been going on uh within uh within the city and some of the activity that uh that deputies here assigned have been doing. So with part one crimes, there were no homicides for the month of March. Um no uh robberies. There were two assaults uh two burglaries that were reported, two vehicle thefts, and there was a total of 14 thefts or lar larseny thefts. Uh there were no arson uh reported and um the response times did go up a little bit. I am currently looking into that and seeing kind of where as far as on the part one um or the priority one, excuse me. So that's something I am looking into. Um and I'll have something on that um at a later time. Um with that uh for the March uh for the month of March uh criminal filings for our special enforcement team, um your pop deputy um there were three uh search warrants written. There was one uh search warrant serves. There was one. Um this is going to sound pretty significant, but I'll get to it when I uh when I get to um some of the activity that they've been doing. Uh arrests and citations. So there were 20 a total of 21 arrests and there were 51 citations um uh written for the month of March. Uh and moving on to actually what what the significance of that was. So on March 31st um there were various um there was various activity where we had um the pop deputy along with other deputies come into the city to do proactive uh policing uh within the city. Um during that time frame uh and during that

proactive approach um throughout the day there was 23 citations that were issued. Five arrest warrants were served and there was a couple of homeless outreach um uh that was uh indicative of our unhoused and the homeless within uh within the city. Uh on March 19th, um just uh um another uh some more activity was our pop deputy actually arrested a subject for um being in possession of illegal drugs. And then um there's been concentrated effort on some of the traffic. So there was multiple traffic citations that were issued. Uh when I say multiple, I'm talking about 50 traffic citations that were issued. And that was um related to speeders and other uh traffic violators within the city uh during the month of month of March. And then there was also a concentrated effort within the Calama Boulevard corridor and working with the businesses and uh contacting them with whatever issues they may be having that are arising and then working with our counterparts, code enforcement and such uh to ensure that uh that they're being listened to and and those issues are being addressed. So with that said, um that is my uh that is my report for this evening. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you, sir. Council, any questions, clarification? Thank you. That's uh that's actually proactive uh good um information that you provided. At least the city is aware that you know the police is out there and enforcing the law within our community. So, thank you so much for that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. We have a public hearing and this is for WRCOG Tump amendments. I believe our city engineer and a representative from WRCOG are here to handle this one. All right, we'll welcome you to the podium.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. just a brief report and as you said Cameron Brown uh employee of the Cog is here to answer any technical questions that I can't handle which might be all of them so we'll ask him to come up as soon as I'm done um as you know council the city is a member agency of West Riverside County Council of Governments always say WR COG so I have to read what their actual title is um as in 2002 two COG did a study to establish the T program and set fees. The fees have gone up, I'll say on a regular basis. Maybe regular is not a fair term, but they do an exit study to determine what the costs are in the program and adjust the fees. On September 9th, the WRCOG Executive Committee reviewed and approved the 2024 Nexus study to set new fees. On fe on February 18th, council adopted ordinance 408, which amended the city's TU ordinance and resolution and adopted those new fees. On December 1st, 2025, the WRC Executive Committee approved the implementation of an automatic construction cost index, CCI. So, the reason we're here tonight is to allow fees as they are instituted to include a a construction cost index adjustment. So, before you tonight is an ordinance and a resolution. The ordinance, the purpose of the ordinance is to allow that CCI adjustment to be implemented without having to come back to you every year. And the resolution is to adopt the new

fees. You have any questions? Time for Cameron to come up. Um, and he and I are available to answer any questions you may have. All right. Thank you. I'm going to open it up for council. Are there any questions you have at this time? I just have one just for clarification purposes for my own edification mostly. So the way that this is structured, uh the construction cost index adjustment, this is going to be made annually and is it going to uh be based off a certain standardized projection or and how do we anticipate those rates moving forward here?

So what we've decided to do is make that adjustment to our CCI which is a annual adjustment. Um, I'm not going to say increase because we have had times where it's actually decreased. Like during the recession, our tenses actually went down because construction costs went down.

Um, but to answer your question, we're doing an automatic increase and it's tied to specific indices. One of them is a national association of national association of realtors uh index which covers um uh basically right ofway costs of what it costs to to buy land for these road improvements and the other one is the engineering news record. So um which covers the construction costs from those two we take a combined indices of the two we take the September indices of the previous year and then apply that at July 1st of the next year.

Okay. So today it's a 2.6% increase which was set in stone from September the September indices of those two indices I I mentioned. Okay. And it's capped. Oh yes. Thank you Mike. It is it is capped at 5%. Okay. That was my next question. I was going to say is this even even if construction costs go up 10 20%. I hope they don't. You never know. Um it is capped at at 5%. like also said it it could go down if there is some sort of

recession. Um it doesn't seem likely that uh construction costs are going down anytime soon. They haven't historically for over 15 years, but it could happen and we could see a reduction. Good. Thank you for that clarification. Anything else? Okay. Thank you gentlemen. Appreciate that. At this point was this um we need to approve item one and two here. Um need to open the public hearing. That is this is a public hearing item.

That's right. So I'm going to open public hearing. We had our staff presentation already. We're going to take public comments at this time. No public comments. staff. Um, is is there any additional uh comments from staff related to this public hearing? No. Okay. I'm going to now close the public hearing, ask council again. Any further questions, discussions? No. All right. If not, then council, can I get a motion?

Yep. I'll make a motion that we introduce by first reading title only the ordinance number 420 an ordinance of the city of Calama amending chapter 18.105 of Cal Mesa Municipal Code to revise the definitions of multifamily residential unit and single family residential unit purposes of the Western Riverside County Transportation WRCOG uniform mitigation TU fee program and to establish construction costs index adjustments to the Western Riverside County TU program. And number two, adopt resolution number 2026-05, a resolution of the city council of the city of Calame Mesa, California, amending the applicable transportation uniform mitigation fee t applicable to all developments in the city of Kamea.

Well said. Thank you, sir. Second. All in favor?

I I So that is 4, the public hearing. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate appreciate you. Okay, so business item number 10 and this is to award a process professional services agreement here and I think we have Motti is going to be handling this for us. Members of the council, uh, this item is a recommendation to award a professional services agreement to act in architecture for architectural and engineering design services for the city hall renovation uh project at the former bank building on Calama Boulevard that the city just purchased. Um, in January, the city released an RFP. Uh, we received 13 proposals. uh staffed reviewed these proposals and decided to interview two uh firms and um after the evaluation and interviews, we determined that Actton architecture was a best fit uh based on their approach to adaptive reuse projects uh coordination strategy and experience with civic facilities including prior work in our city for the Calama Library. Um staff uh recommends approve approval of an agreement with Act and Architecture in an amount not to exceed $390,393 plus a 10% contingency for additional services if needed during design. The attached resolution also approves a budget amendment totaling $429,432 from the administrative facility fees fund to support completion of design services. Um, with that, staff recommends that the city council approve the agreement and adopt the resolution as presented. Um, Matt Actton from Actton Architecture is also here. If you have any questions for um, him or myself, we'd be more than happy to

answer them for you. Thank you. At this point, I'm going to ask council, do you have any questions for our public's work director or our representative from Actton Architecture? anyone here. So, I appreciate the um detailed scope and methodology that was included in the that was that was helpful to just see the different steps there. And I know was mentioned that um we are approving for base services and um optional services. So, I just was going to get some clarification on what that optional services are.

Yes. So the one optional service that we did not include in the base is for the topographic survey. So that'll be for exterior work. Um we are just not exactly sure how we are going to approach this yet. I think it's going to be a phased approach where we do interior to get city staff moved in and then do exterior. So if we discover that topographic is needed um to complete the exterior um then we would okay proceed with that. So act architecture is going to draw up something for the base services but also for the optional service and then we'll decide whether we're going to move forward with that. Um am I understanding that correctly?

So the the topographic survey is um more so to figure out um like elevations and everything outside figure out if we have ADA compliance figure out if like parking lot renovations need to be uh completed or whatnot. Um, and I'm sure Matt can probably elaborate on um the exterior if we do exterior facade if um the topographic survey would be needed for that as well. Not for that part. Not for that part. So, okay. Yeah, just if we plan on doing exterior like landscape and parking lot improvements and sidewalk improvements, then we would need that. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, with that then I need to get a motion. Oh, please.

I'm sorry. Maybe. So ju just for clarification, the exterior is not going to be changed at all with this proposal. Um this prop proposal includes um giving us a design for exterior, but um when it comes to construction um it'll most likely be a phased I apologize. I meant design yet. Thank you. Okay. No, thank you. Yeah, that it's good clarification. Anything else? If not, if I could get a motion. I'll make a motion to adopt adapt adopt staff's recommendation as presented. Second, please. Second. All in favor? I I

Okay, that is 40 and we welcome your work. So, yeah, can't wait to see it. With that, we will move on to mayor and council members reporting on county regional meetings, conferences, and other related activities. So, we will start here with council member Garcia. Anything to share with us?

Uh, nothing to share. I haven't attended any um city conferences or anything, but I just do want to do a big shout out. Thank you to the sheriff's department for uh sorry Del is kicking in um for responding quick to the calls and same thing for the fire department and uh our public works department as well too. Um and um I think I said pro proactive earlier in the meeting so I didn't mean to say that productive. You guys were busy during those two days or three days that you guys mentioned um during the citations and stuff. So thank you so much for that. But again, thank you so much for all uh for the quick response for today as well. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Council member Kundiff.

Thank you, Mayor. On uh 32626, I attended our Cal's policy committee, which I'm part of the governance, transparency, labor relations policy committee. Uh there were several pieces of legislation discussed. Uh I won't bore you with all of them, but the ones that we had to vote on that specific day for Cal Cities to take a position uh was SB42 byg, which is political reform act 1974. Basically, uh public campaign financing California fair elections act of 2026. Um so to summarize what this is essentially is Cal cities took the position majority of our policy committee did anyways um to support this bill which would allow for general cities like ourselves uh to pass by vote to allocate funding for individuals running for political office. Um so it um it's an interesting piece of legislation to say to say the least. um not one that I supported. Um but I'm of the mindset and the opinion that uh people that want to run for office need to go out meet people and talk to people and earn what they can. But that's my opinion, you know, that in the mind didn't really matter. So, um but I want to let you guys know that that's something that's that's happening and coming. Um the next one, which was uh seemed like a very um no no-brainer, was AB 2134. Um ADIS. I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly, but um essentially it's absence without permission as amended um through the policy committee. And what this was going to do was clean up a bunch of verbiage for um people that were going to be off for any kind of um sick time or they could not be punished for using too much sick time. example was cited like uh somebody had cancer and couldn't you know do their job at the city or even on council for that matter and um could not be forced out because of that

medical condition. Uh so it just kind of protects th that class of of individuals. So those are the only two that I want to report on there. There's several more that I can get to you guys uh via email so that way you guys can kind of be up to date on what that's what's that's going on there. On 4226, I met with Assemblyman Wallace um where he was very appreciative of all um the projects that we've been engaged with and and um you know his support from his office on the Cherry Valley interchange and um was readily available to answer any questions that we may have had uh or any requests that we had. But uh at that time talking with Will, we didn't really have anything to to pass along. But still that he took the time to meet with us uh was was fantastic and we we thank him for that. April 4th, uh, we had our Easter egg roll at, uh, Summerland Park and, uh, Mayor Pro Tim Manley was there with his family and beautiful young children. And, uh, there was so many kids out there having a great time. And why I bring this up is because, um, I I need the public to understand and know that the amount of functions that the city does uh, happens because of our public works people and our city staff. They go out there tirelessly. they work and and donate in most cases their time to be out there and and to facilitate these events and uh so they did a fantastic job as always and uh wanted to make sure that they got the recognition that they're deserving of. Uh on 427 um we had a WRCOG close session meeting where action was taken. Uh the only reportable action that I can report on was that um decision was made to dismiss Kurt Wilson as the executive director of WRCOG. Then today on 46 uh we approved deputy director Chris Gray to be the interim executive director of WRCOG. So uh that's a well-deserving position for him. He is a very well wealth of knowledge individual as you know you

were there with him for some time and and we look forward to uh continuing to work with him and and all the great things that he offers and supplies to our city. So um that concludes my report. Thank you sir. Very informative. Appreciate that. Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you mayor. I'm going to take us all the way back to March 21st for our strategic plan special meeting. So, I just want to thank uh staff. I didn't get a chance to thank them for for their time uh being there on that that Saturday. So, that was kind of a long long Saturday. I think we got a lot accomplished. met met our objectives, I think. And we also got to take a take a tour of the soon to be new city hall after or as part of that toward the end of that meeting. Uh so, I'm excited that we were able to approve this item today and get some design. So, I'm excited to see what what that's going to look like. It's uh it's great foundation for us and there's a lot of a lot of potential there for for that building. So, I'm excited to see what that's going to look like. Uh also uh Easter for the Easter egg hunt. I appreciate staff being out there. Again, Saturday it was very well attended. Appreciate Council Member Kundiff being out there on the blowhorn keeping all these kids in line, keeping everything on on time in order. So, the kids were out there having a great time. I think 7,000 Easter eggs were out there, I think, is what I what I heard. Yeah. So that was that was great. I appreciate everybody out there and the community really came out and showed up for that and everybody was having a good time. Uh last thing I have is April 11th, so this Saturday coming up for the So that's the soft opening for our Mountain View Park. That's the scheduled and we had a little a pickup ball clinic scheduled for that. Looks like we have some rain coming. So it's possible it could get rained out. So keep her keep on the social media. They're going to post uh that as far as if we need to reschedule. We may that may get rescheduled because we got a lot of rain coming this weekend, but at some point uh we'll get that all sorted out. So, stay posted on that and that will conclude my report.

Thank you, sir. Yeah, that puts a little damper in the the opening. Well, let's uh let's hope let's hope it stays dry, but if not, stay tuned. We'll do another we'll reschedu that. So, I also attended the strategic planning workshop and had a tour of the future home of city hall. Fantastic. Um, uh, really excited about things that we're doing here in the city and how we're we're, uh, getting focused on on our goals and our vision and revamping that and fine-tuning what the city's about. And so, uh, that's going to serve us well going into the future and especially with our our new home of city hall coming um, next year. That's also exciting. Uh I attended a RCA meeting uh that was today and I will give a a report of that to council. Okay. So look forward look for that. Um, I was since Linda couldn't be here, she asked me to make an announcement that she is going to be attending or wants to to have the the blessing of council to attend uh the Cal City's annual advocacy meeting in Sac in Sacramento, which I believe is coming up at the end of the month, and she's planning to attend that. And she wanted to to get council's, you know, approval for that. and as our representative and then to um uh see if if you had anything for her to bring to that meeting, you know, any questions or anything obviously related for that. So, can I ask them if if they're okay with this at this point?

Yeah. Um I I think it'd be safe as just present that as an information item. Okay. Okay. I'm going to I am going to assume that it is okay that Linda serves on our behalf unless I hear otherwise. Okay. So, uh if I hear others, we'll just uh leave it at that. And that is all I have to report at this time. I think in lie of our city manager being absent, our city clerk is going to give us a report. Is that right? Okay. Wonderful. Fired up for this one.

Okay. First of all, um he would like to thank our community development director, Kelly Lucia. Um, our city has launched a new ArcGIS story map that provides development and capital project updates. This map will be updated as things change in projects. So, for the latest and greatest on what's happening in our major projects, we can check that out on our website. If you go to the homepage and you go to the community spotlights, it's one of those square boxes um entitled Calama Development and Capital Improvement Projects. Um, I viewed that today. It's really informational and a great tool. Also, um, Kelly and Mike were guests on his recent podcast uh, episode and so they were also able to go more in depth on the status of the projects during that podcast. So, make sure you check out that as well. Tomorrow evening at 6 in this room, there will be a community workshop for the safety element update that Kelly has um, worked so hard on putting together. So, that will be here at 6 o'clock. There you have a flyer. There's also flyers for the public on the counter. Um, and that will be six. I said six o'clock, didn't I? Okay. Um, and then of course we had our um annual Easter egg hunt last Saturday. Was very successful as always and our staff did a really great job. So, we just want to thank them. and even uh our mayor, Mayor Pro Tim's uh family helped stuff Easter eggs, so they had a good time with that. We thank them for that. Um this Saturday, um Tim Manley already announced the soft opening and we'll see if that happens or not with the rain coming. Uh but also on Saturday at 11:00 is the memorial service for Jackie Davis. Um and it will be out at the ranch at 11:00. I did speak with um Bill

today and at this point still on rain or shine so um it's covered has a covered area so probably be okay but just to let everybody know. Um and then um Monday April 13th is the Cal City's division meeting the Riverside Division. So if it's going to be in Lita if anybody's attending I need you to let me know as soon as possible so I can get you signed up. And that is all I have. say 4:13 Cal City Cities. Yeah, next Monday. Next Monday. Yep. Okay. At 5:00 at Lina Resort and I can I'll send you the information, but just if you guys know, let me know. Okay. Get you signed up.

Thank you for that. Right. With that, since our close session item was removed from the agenda, that concludes our agenda for tonight and we are going to adjourn to our next council meeting on April 20th. Thank you all for being here.