City Council - Regular Meeting

All of you, if you wanna make public comment, please fill out a speaker slip. Looks like this, you can get it over there by our deputy. Fill it out, hand it to our city clerk and you'll be allotted three minutes to make comment. If we could get a roll call please.

Council Member Cundiff. Here. Council Member Garcia.

Here.

Council Member Molina.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Manley. Here. Mayor Cervantes.

Here. For the record, our city manager is here, city attorney is present, city clerk Curtis, our finance director Reid is here, our community development director, Lucia, public works superintendent, Alcone, welcome. All right, and we have our city engineer, there he is, present. Our deputy fire chief is not here, Shaw. We have our battalion chief in place, welcome. And then our sheriff captain is also present, Escobot. So, council member Cundiff, would you please do us the honors?

Stand. Remove your cover. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, to the republic, which stands one nation under This will be end of justice for all.

Already have two speaker slips for general communications from the public. So, at this time we're gonna call Joyce McIntyre.

Is this on now? Oh, is. Thank you. Okay, council, mayor, staff, thank you for letting me speak tonight. Joyce McIntyre, Douglas Street in Kalameza.

I'm also the Acaipa Valley Water District Board of Director for Division Five, which is Kalameza. I'm here tonight to talk about our flag and our reservoir. The Aucaipa Valley Water District's staff, public works staff, had a wonderful idea for America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. They decided to hang a large American flag on the Cuyahoga Valley Water District water reservoir on Bryant Street in the city of Calimesa. We have had many comments and thank you for doing that.

We also had a nice comment and thank you from your city manager. He called the general manager Joe Zoba and thanked him for that. I appreciate that. See that wasn't so bad. I'm very proud of our staff. This reservoir is in Kalamazoo and it's for all to see when they drive by. So if anybody hasn't seen the big flag up there on the reservoir, please drive by, take a look, day or night, and I hope you will do that. Thank you.

Thank you. I agree. It's a great sight to see and I hope it remains even past the two and fiftieth anniversary. It'd be great.

I

hope so. Okay, next is Crystal Cherpin.

Hi, so thank you guys for letting me speak. This is off agenda stuff, but I heard through the grapevine that the plot on Douglas Street have been purchased. So I would like a follow-up to that. I am a resident on Douglas St and we moved there for peace and quiet and so we're really concerned about what's going to be in that plot and I think in the future if you guys plan on doing something with it, the residents on that street need to know before a decision is made so that we can come over here and discuss the ramifications of putting something big there. Whether it's, well not weather, but infrastructure, we sit on two stop signs.

People already use that street like the Autobahn and but in the interim, it's very quiet. There's not a lot of people there. My kids can go up and down the street and nothing gets stolen. So that's one of the big things. So just to follow-up on that. Okay?

Thank you. Yeah.

So that's referring to the vacant lot on West, the West Side of Douglas Street. There was a purchase of there, but as of right now, staff has not received anything formal as far as plans for that property as of now. So we believe that'll probably be a long process. There'll be a lot of, plenty of notice that would go out on that. And depending on the type of use that's proposed, it'll follow the municipal code, whether that means, know, how that goes to the Planning Commission Council and what have you, depending on the ultimate use and what the municipal code says as far as how that is to be treated.

So we'll follow that. Thank you, sir. But like I said, because we haven't submitted anything yet, we don't anticipate it'll be anything anytime soon.

Okay with that we'll move on. Staff is there any revisions modifications anything need to be pulled

no mayor

no council anything you'd like to pull. For consideration?

Yeah, like to pull, I'm froggy too, item six.

Okay, we're gonna pull item six per council member Molina. Anyone else pulling anything? No? All right, can I get a motion?

Yeah, I make a motion that we approve items one through nine with the exception of item six as presented and waive the full reading of the ordinances.

Second. All in favor? Aye. All right, that's five zero and I'm gonna hand it over to you, Councilor Rommelina.

Yeah, I just wanted to thank staff for this clarification on travel and meeting policy. I think it's really important for us as a unit, all council members, to understand our travel policy and that helps us in networking and the more information you have in advance, the easier it is to plan who goes to what and what's the best use of our time and funds for the city. So I just wanted to thank staff for that.

Okay, just wanted to clarify too. This is just the policy itself for like documenting travel. There's an item later on the agenda that we'll talk about more what you're referring to. That's item number 12. So Right,

but I will just wanted to thank, I just wanted to pull it for that as well.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

So I'll move to approve item number six. If I

can get a second. Second. All all in favor of approving item six. Aye. Aye. Okay, that's five oh. Thank you for those comments. Okay, at this time, we're gonna have our Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce report.

Well, thank you for allowing us time to each month to share with you what's happening for the Cal Mesa Chamber. We are currently have some new chamber staff. So we're pleased to announce the two new additions to our chamber team. Andrea Reeves is our new executive assistant and Katrina Chudi is our social media manager and website designer. So, if you go to our website, it's been the work has begun.

It's pretty it's pretty good right now. I'm I think Katrina's probably got some more stuff that she wants to add to it. But it's exciting to see this stuff actually getting taking place, you know. And then I want to introduce to you Stacy Boyserank. She is our new president of the chamber board of directors.

So it's exciting to have Stacy there. She's got a lot of background with the chamber and with planning and and events and so forth. So we're looking forward to her leadership there. It is helping me in the fact that this month, I was elected second vice district governor for the District 4 L 5 of the Lions Club. So, I will be hopefully stepping back a little bit from chamber duties to allow me to the next three years to become governor of our District 4 L 5.

Really excited about taking that role and looking forward to the education and and training that I'll be getting from Lions Club. Their combined efforts, our new strengthen will will strengthen our communication organization and digital presence which is really what I'm excited about with our chamber as a new digital presence there communicating to all the businesses that were out there supporting them. Our membership outreach and website improvements with our new staffing structure, we initiated a full outreach effort to pass and current members to update contact information. We're getting back a lot of response from that to where we're up so we can update all their webs all their information on our website also. It's been very successful for the renewal and the application now is directly through the website which is significantly improving getting members.

Our chamber breakfast. Yeah. Give you a little update on May 12, our chamber breakfast. We were honored to have mayor Jeff Cervantes as our guest speaker. He was very informative and it was a lighthearted great presentation.

We also wanted to thank council member Eric Condiff and city manager Will Cobalt for attending along with Yeza who's always in the background somewhere. And then the state of the city, the date was decided upon. Thank you for that. With Darlene and the mayor got together on it and and decided we were going to do September 17. It's a Thursday and we're going to I think we're going to try for an evening event and there's a lot of stuff that we're looking at planning into.

So, the city hall and the planning of the event planning coordinators with the chamber are gonna get started on that. I think on year of May 21. Yeah. So, this Thursday is the first meeting for that. That's great to hear because that gives us plenty of time, you know, to make this thing the event that several of you council members in the last meeting shared that you would like to see this improvements on.

We look forward to that collaboration with the city as always working together in partnership. The News Mirror quarterly ad here they have they continue to do a quarter page advertisement. We're featuring our newest member this week, the Tropicana Supermarket located on Catalonia Line Road in Kalamazoo Boulevard as you're aware recently had a ribbon cutting. So, that that was exciting for that and then our scholarship tea, our foundation scholarship tea is May 20. That's a Wednesday from two to four.

You guys all have the flyers on that. Hopefully, we get some representation from the city for proclamations for these young students that are getting their awards for scholarships. Be nice to see all of you there. You can have a big table, You know? And I'll I'll put the beer in the back for you so that you don't, you know? But I hope to see most of you there. But that's I think oh, there yeah. There's actually a second page. This is amazing, right? Second page.

Our events committee is actively developing new community and business focused events. We will provide details as they come around. We're like really excited that this stuff is happening for us again. So, any questions for the from the council for the chamber?

No? No. Thank you, Tony. As usual, very thorough, complete lot going on.

And next month, Stacy will be presenting because my wife is dragging me to Europe. So I'm just so sad. I won't be here for you guys, but that's okay. I'll forward to Stacy. I'll have a German beer for you though.

Yeah, there. Please.

Thank you very much.

Alright. Good seeing you, Tony. Okay, so we are moving on to public hearings. Item 10 be taken by our city clerk, Darling Gurtis. Do I need to open public hearing notes?

Yeah, so you'd open the public hearing. I apologize, I don't have your

script. Yeah, I don't have my

It's not sitting on my desk.

Notes here, so I'll need some prompting for that, but we're gonna open the public hearing and I'm gonna pass it on to our city clerk.

Great, thank you, Mr. Mayor and council. Effective 01/01/2025, AB 2,561 added government code section 3,502.3 to the Myers Milius Brown Act, which is the body of law that covers collective bargaining and labor relations at the local government level. The law requires local government agencies to comply by holding a hearing at least once per fiscal year and prior to the adoption of our fiscal year budget. And to present the status of vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts, and to identify if any

It's a big thing. So yeah, big shout out to the Columbus Unified School District for that.

Yeah, it's a good partnership and it's been, I've attended it in the past. It's popsicles in the park the kids love it. Yeah, yeah, how many years have we been doing this now? It's been Well, pre date?

Longer, longer. I think it's 2017. I think it was the first time that we participated. Yeah, so '9.

Well great, so we need a motion here. If somebody please. I'll second that. Is that sufficient? Gonna read the title?

No, no, just take the vote.

All right, all in favor? Aye. Aye. That is 50. Okay, so city manager, I'm gonna hand it back to you for item 12.

Thank you. Ms. Mayor, this item is for, to discuss the city council travel and budget allocation. And so this item was first discussed during the April 27 council budget workshop at which time the council directed staff to bring the matter back for further discussion, which we're doing today. Historically, the city has budgeted travel funds by individual council member with slightly higher funding allocated to the mayor.

While the city budget itself is not formally distinguished between council members the city clerk's office is always tracked travel expenditures separately by council member for administrative purposes. And for reporting purposes we report on a monthly basis to the council. As part of the proposed fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven budget, staff has updated the total council travel and conference budget to $15,000 which would increase the allowance overall. This item is before council tonight for discussion and direction regarding how the council would like those funds administered for moving forward. Options could include continuing the current practice of allocating funds by individual council member, designating attendance for certain conferences or events, creating a shared pool approach or another method as directed by the council.

Staff has also provided a list of common events and conferences historically attended by council and the approximate cost for those events for reference as part of your discussion. With that, staff is available for any questions or direction from council. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I am going to open it up now for council discussion. Who like to make comment on this item first?

If you can bear with me. Oops, sinus.

Appropriate for you to open our discussion since you brought this item.

This is an important aspect of the work that the council does. It's very important that we network and get to know other organizations and attend and have Cal Mesa be seen at different regional events. And in the past, not many people attended events, but, you know, State of the City, the normal, they're all listed here, all the annual events. And so it's important that we do that and I think that by spelling it out, I know I've talked about maybe having some items be taken out of the individual travel budget and be just a regular event that the city covers. But it, I mean, gets paid no matter what, whether we attend or have it in our individual budgets or in the city budget.

But I'm happy to see that it's, that we're all actively, you know, going to these events and representing the city. It's important for us. We're a small city and we're penalized and blessed by being a small city in so many ways. But I think getting out there and networking and going after whatever dollars we can is very important. So, as well as getting to know the other electeds in the county. So however we do it, really don't have a personal choice other than I'm glad that everything you spelled out here and they're all important events.

Funding somewhere else for it, right? So to try to alleviate that, if there's some way

Bring the total budget amount so that there is a little bit more to be allocated.

Yeah, I don't see any reason, you guys can let me know what you think about that, that

the mayor should necessarily have more funds. Maybe it should just be more Just something to keep in mind when we go forward. So we make that adjustment, know, it could affect what the numbers look like on the bottom line.

Maybe we could look at it on an individual basis where if something should come up that would be beneficial for our city to attend, that as long as the council is in agreement, funds are available, not so much a specific amount?

Well, I was gonna make a

big

recommendation of maybe doing like a hybrid approach, Separating out the large events from the small stuff. And you have a small kind of discretionary stipend amongst each one of you to attend like the local events because you can see in that chart, right, there's a big difference between those three large events and the rest of the events, right? There's a big, big gap. And so if we want to maybe budget a certain amount for those individually and then when registration comes up or is about to come up for those conferences, we can agendize it for discussion, Council can decide at that point who is able to go, who would like to go, and just kind of do it on an ad hoc basis at the time because then that alleviates Councilman Manley or Mayor Proton Manley's concern about trying to schedule things too out in advance, but we can still get in and register things on a timely basis. It does also give clarity and direction for staff because then we know exactly who to register, who's registering and all of that stuff in advance rather than trying to scramble at the last minute because we find ourselves doing that sometimes on those things.

And then that way the council can discuss it on a per event basis. And we'll just maybe allocate, we'll just do the equivalent of the high amount maybe for, you know, two people per those events or maybe three. And then have a small amount, per person for just the small events that could come through. I don't know if that's maybe something the council would want to consider.

Comments on what was just shared?

I got something. I think what you recommended, Jeff, I think it's actually pretty good. I'm doing some numbers right now. Of course, each council member is not gonna exhaust their budget. There's a lot of us. Well, I'm gonna speak for myself. I won't be able to attend all of them. So I might just probably spend like $600 for the year. But I'm doing some numbers right now. We have, let's say $4,000 per the council member.

I divided that by month. It's actually $330 per month, which will equal to 4,000 for the year. I was trying to do the number for you and let's see 5,000 divided by 12. 5,000 divided by 12 is actually $416 per month. Again, you break it down into months, it's not bad because we're talking about the whole budget based on the fiscal year, which is from this, what is it, July to July or is it June to June?

July to June.

July to June. So kind of breaking it down like that, it's not, the numbers are not high. I know we're talking as a whole, 4,000 sounds like a lot, but once you break it down into twelve months, it's actually way less. And again, myself is not gonna even exhaust the $4,000 And then if let's say if Eric or Linda or yourself wants to attend the exhausted morning, it was, you can come back and say, well, we have funds. We can definitely provide some of my funds to you so you can attend more meetings.

I think that's more of an idea that I can probably see how we currently have it right now. If somebody exhausts their funds and somebody has funds, we can come back and say, well, I can give you some of my funds so you could attend the next meetings that you guys Sure.

Yeah. Thank you for doing that math for us. Mayor Pro Tem.

Just wanted to ask council member Garcia. So was it 4,000 per person? Is that the totals? I was trying to keep track of the numbers you're throwing on. And then 5,000 for the mayor, is that?

Yeah, I just did, I just kinda, there to nearest 10 was 5,000 divided by 12. It came up to $416 or 66¢. And then for, for council wishes, I did 4,000 divided by 12 was $3.33 with 33¢ each month, which a total divided by 12.

Just throw one more number out. I'll throw one more number out here. So to come down, guess off of 20, I'm gonna go to 18, bring it down to 18. That'd be 3,500, if I did my math right. And then 4,000 for the mayor.

If we go with around 20? 18. 18, yeah, okay. Was

concerned there, dropped a couple thousand.

That's fair.

It's down to 3,500 each and then four for the mayor.

So it'd be 35 times four and then one at 4,000? 45.

Is four even for the mayor, 3,500 each, which is I guess 3,000 over what's in the proposed budget currently.

I think that's a nice incremental step. What do you guys

My focus I guess is just the information that we are able to go out and bring back to our city.

Absolutely.

That's the valuable piece.

It's key, bringing back the material for staff, you know, something that maybe you heard through chatter and talking to our regional partners. Right now, everything is regional. All funding is regional. That's what they're looking at is regional applications and so I think if we're out there and bringing that information back to staff, that's the most important thing And so that's really my focus on the travel. It's very important that we're out there and we're seen. We weren't always out there. We weren't, know, has changed. All funds are coming out of the state and the feds are, it's all regional. So

Yeah, these vacation dollars. We're using this money to work for the city.

And yet, you know, have to be careful how we spend, you know, the public funds. And so I think having this discussion is great because it shows that, you know, we're really cognitive of how much everything costs we're not just taking vacations. I don't think any of us do that. And we're reasonable people and I think it's important for us to do that. It's part of our job, our role.

If I may, if we're gonna continue to allocate by a council member, one of the issues we always kind of run into closer to the end of the year is if someone's allocated their funds and sometimes we're asking for money after the fact. I think that one of the things that we maybe need to do a little more proactively is if attendance at another conference that you're gonna go to is gonna set you over, at that point we bring that item back for a council discussion before the person is registered so that we get permission from the council for them to overage and how we're gonna handle that before it happens rather than after the fact. Yeah. So that would be my recommendation with that just to make sure that we keep those costs ringed

in.

That's great. That speaks to your hybrid approach you were talking about Yeah,

please. Good discussion. So I liked what Will had to say as far as his hybrid approach. That last bit of information is pretty important, but in the event that there is not enough time, I don't foresee that happening, but what if there was not enough time for somebody to get registered or something like that once they realize that they've exhausted their monies? I was trying to avoid any of that by one, the schedule, know what we were doing ahead of time if we did something like that.

And two, having some increase or some pool of funds that we could spend responsibly for the city. You know, and and that was my belief and approach to this was, I don't think we should have buckets of money at our disposal to go to all these in every different meeting that's out there. But to Linda's point, when we go, we bring back the information that's pertinent to us that we can share. I get Councilmember Garcia and Manley's, Mayor Pro Tem Manley's point that we don't wanna limit or make it so that somebody can't go, but my perspective is at the same time, I don't think it's necessary to send all five of us, you know, to every conference out there. So, So I think, you know, maybe staff can come up with a couple options for us, maybe.

One kind of with Will's suggestion of a hybrid approach that we can look at that and then one with Mayor Pro Tem Mr. Garcia's kind of outlined and go from there.

All right, could do that. I was also gonna say, you know, to your point and Council Member Molina's point, you know, when you report back, that's actually a government code requirement. So AB twelve thirty four and our ethics rules, anytime that we expend funds for you to attend any kind of meeting like that, that's the time of that we do because the city council reports and that covers that requirement under AB twelve thirty four as you learn in ethics training. So, that is an important thing because you know that the state recognizes also that we need to make sure that anything that we're attending is providing value to the city and so that's the mechanism we use to ensure that.

So I think what the direction is, what I'm hearing from council and you chime in if this is incorrect, is that we want to come up with a few options that involve coming up with a hybrid approach where we can discuss in advance some of the big conferences or workshops that are gonna be attended to see who's planning on attending those, what those dollar amounts might include, see where people's travel budgets are at the time and get allowances in advance of attending those and see who is attending. And then if we could get a few options that set maybe the travel budget at various amounts, maybe $15.18, 20 and see what that looks like.

Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, so I think that brings about four or five different options altogether And I can bring those back. It'll either be the first or the fifteenth, June 1 or the June 15. So I'll try to

get one of Sounds good with council.

I think what we're gonna, I do wanna say though one more thing. At this point, we're gonna leave the budget where it's at because the budget's documents pretty much already prepared. Fiscal year. And so if depending on that direction, we may ask for a budget amendment. We'll keep an eye on the budget. Maybe there's things, monies we can move around from other accounts to make it a balance without having to ask for an appropriation at mid year. But what we'll do is we'll keep an eye on that and address it at mid year if needed.

Okay, Council Member Garcia, one final point.

Yeah, see and if we can do an additional, as well to look into having the option to increase the budget and then scheduling the calendar, like providing us with the calendar so we can book it in with your pilot program with it as well too. So we can get an idea if we go over. And then the ones that, like for me, I might not even attend morning too. Then we can allocate those funds to a different council member or to the seating mayor as well too. That way we can kind of pregame it, plan it ahead, because we already have the calendar itself as well.

And then we can allocate transferring funds, so we increase our funds if somebody else exhausted their funds. Another thing too that I do wanna kinda touch base as well too, I know some of these conferences the city managers are able to attend or city staff are able to attend those conferences as well too. So it's not we have to attend those conferences. The city staff can attend those conferences as well too because we're working daily at the operations of the city. And they're actually well rounded and more informed of what's going on on the daily basis of the operations of the city. So that's just one of the other things that I wanna include with that as well too. Thanks. Thank you, sir. All right,

yeah, we can incorporate that as well.

Mayor, I had one more thought too. Yes. On the multiple day conferences, if you're, if like for instance, if you're, like we're on policy committees, Eric and I, maybe out of a two or three day conference, a policy meeting, we don't have to stay for all three days. We could go like for our policy meetings on a particular day, maybe another council person would want to go the next day because of the sessions that are being presented. So that's another way of cutting down costs and spreading the opportunity for attending these conferences. Because again, the networking that's just as important, but that's also something else to look at.

There are some conferences that offer like one day or partial entries versus full conference. So not all of them have that option, but some of them do. Yes, that is true. And also we can customize it also because some of the, if they're in Southern California or closer to buy, if you want to just drive each day like when, for example, when Cal Cities was in Long Beach, rather than stay down there I just drove back and forth every day because of where I live, so it's a little more convenient for me. But that's also, you can always use that.

That's how you can kind of use your discretion too. And it kind of plays into the item six that you approved earlier which is the policy itself that does talk about the most economic form of travel and all that kind of thing. So hopefully those policies also help us kind of stretch our budget dollars a little bit more too.

Yeah. Well thank you everyone. That was a productive, constructive discussion and we'll look forward to seeing the options at a later date. So that brings us to our final business item, item 13 and that again will be our city manager.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. So this item is to discuss the pickleball hours at Mountain View Park. So we do want to talk about the you know since since the opening of the pickleball courts at Mountain View Park. We've seen consistent community use and staff has received requests for some users to consider expanding the current operating hours.

So currently pickleball courts are open daily from 8AM to 8PM. And while the city's municipal code establishes general park closure hours from 10PM to 6AM, the courts currently operate under more limited posted hours. So staff recognizes the importance of balancing recreational access With the quality of life considerations for surrounding neighborhoods including concerns related to noise, lighting, parking and activity levels near nearby homes. Before and during construction of Mountain View Park expansion staff was in communication with surrounding neighbors regarding the project and park operations. In addition notices were mailed to neighboring properties advising them of tonight's discussion and inviting public input.

This item was brought forward at the request of the city council for discussion direction so potential options include maintaining the current hours expanding warning or evening hours implementing seasonal or trial hours. Or providing other direction as determined appropriate by the council. So with that, staff is available for any questions. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. And I'm gonna open it up for council discussion.

Anybody want to Well, I guess I'll get this started. I was one of those who asked for this to get on the agenda. Currently the lights are set to turn off at eight p. M. And so I think that's a little too early.

10PM closely aligns with the city's general park closure rule, I think, as we saw in the staff report. I think making a separate time for the pickleball courts just seems unnecessary. I think by setting it at ten, it just gives our working residents and families more evening recreation time. It supports the city's investments in the lighting that we've made, significant investments there at Mountain Park. And just to create a stricter time for the pickleball courts as opposed to just the park in general, it just seems unnecessary to me.

So I'm gonna open it up for discussion, see what you have to say and think about those comments and those options as presented by the city manager and we'll go from there. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanna confirm that we didn't get any communication or nothing written from any of the neighbors back? Okay. I did have, I guess, one question for the mayor. What about the, did you have anything proposed for the morning session?

Yeah, no, that's a good question. That'd be a separate discussion because I think the part time is where ten p. M. To six a. M. Is when our municipal code says that our parks are closed, and currently it's set at eight a. M, right?

So are you proposing essentially just keeping it exactly the same, six a. M? I would like

to just keep a standard open and shut time for our parks.

I'm not opposed to that at all. I think maybe if we could do a, maybe a check-in on it and just open it to, you know, it's our standard hours per the ordinance. And then maybe just check-in on it with it being early and later to see if there's any issues after a number of months. That'd be my

That's a good suggestion.

But I think we should definitely just roll back to those hours and take it from there.

Other comments? Yeah.

I got some.

Councilor McFadden. So,

park hours from 6AM to 10PM, I would agree with your statement that if the park's gonna be open, think the amenities should be available to the citizens to use. Every time I've driven by the park with the new pickleball courts in it, various times of the day, there's people using it. And that's fantastic that they're utilizing the equipment that the city put out there for them. So there may be some that if they have the opportunity to get there early May before work or get there after work. And to that point, I would also agree with Mayor Pro Tem Manley's suggestion that if we do change it to six to ten, then we reevaluate and see if it's interrupting with neighbors and residents around that at some point to see if that was a bad decision.

But for the most part, I think I'm in favor of doing it from six to ten.

Council Member Molina.

Yeah, was just going to ask if we extend the hours, if possibly citizen patrol, I don't know how many, many, call them, I can't, my head's all full of fluid. COPs. Yes, Citizens Patrol. If how many

Shifts.

Yes, thank you. Good get a word, thank you. If that would be something that we could recommend, maybe give them something to do, go by the parking. I'd be curious to ask public safety if they see that as an issue as far as keeping people safe. I don't think we've had many issues, but I don't know, what do you think?

So as far as my experience, the extended hours, if those are the park hours, then they should be able to utilize the parks as such. As far as a public safety standpoint, as far as issues with any type of criminal activity, I don't see an issue We with

see our patrols are pretty regular. I think everybody in the community sees that and is comfortable with that. But I just thought maybe it's something citizen patrol might be able to take advantage of and throw an extra shift in there or something.

Well, that's a good consideration. Thank you. Council Member Garcia.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. And then kind of following up and see what the neighboring neighbors, if they have anything to say. Well, you're pretty good. You're an expert on lighting on the parks. Will there be any concerns or issues with the lights? Because I know there's some homes around.

Well, don't know if I'm from the neighbors.

Sounds good, thanks Will. And touching base with what Linda was saying about security. If I can recall, there's gonna be discussions for cameras in that area as well too, right, with the company that we move forward with Summerwinds?

Yeah, so our budget does include funding for that for next year. So that's something we will look at.

And I'm not sure with the rest of my colleagues here, but there's gates to go inside those gates, the doors. Would it be possible to kind of make it more like for CD staff not to go there and lock it to have those automatic

They are automatic already. The ones that's at Mountain View Park are automatic gates. Only the ones at Summerwind are manual gates. We've been actually looking at that and I know this is not really on topic, but it's a little more problematic at Summerwind just of the way that's set up and power and stuff. But the park was designed from the beginning because 4th Street Park as it was originally built had a gate, an automatic gate. And so we just kind of mirrored that on the other side when we designed this park. So those are already on timers and so those timers can be adjusted for whatever hours we set.

Perfect, thanks. Maybe we can do this as a compromise then given some of the feedback from Mayor Pro Tem and other council members. We can set the time to ten p. M. For closure as a provisional period, maybe from now until our first meeting in September. And if you could collect any complaints we get from now until then and we can review those complaints and then revisit this topic at our first meeting in September and then make a final maybe determination then. So we'll kind of do it as a provisional period until then. Is that level of the council maybe? Does that sound like a good compromise?

Yeah, we don't need to make a motion for that, right?

I would be more comfortable if you did.

All right, I make a motion that we alter the park hours for the Pickleball Court from six a. To ten p. M. And keep it provisional until our next meeting in September or council meeting in September to give you time to gather any complaints or any data that would cause us to change your mind on that. Second.

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Thank you. That's a fair compromise. Okay, so council members reporting on county and regional meetings and conferences. Council member Garcia.

Didn't attend any meetings. I do wanna do a big shout out to Riverside County Sheriff's Department for, you because you guys are all part of the team with the big thing that you guys did over there. I I think it was a total of fifteen six offenders that you guys arrested Way too close to home, there's a few that were around our cities. And so I just wanna give you guys a big shout for all the hard work that you guys did, especially with the investigation that goes behind it. And then one last thing too, two of my boys' birthdays are coming up. So I just wanna say a big shout out to Luke and Eli, happy early birthday. Thank you.

All right, Council Member Cundiff.

Thank you, Mayor. On 05/07, I attended the SCAG event in Palm Desert. Not to read too much with what they were trying to indoctrinate us with on some of that conversation, but there was comments made by some of the guest speakers that cities needed to do more to build homes. And I found that kind of ridiculous as we're not the ones that build the homes, we're the ones that

allocate

through Reno numbers and the like and try to make it a desirable place for them to develop. But that seemed to be what they were pushing on that one. But for the most part, bless you, most of the topics that they discussed had to do with the Olympics, the upcoming Olympics and the amount of revenue that Los Angeles and Orange County were gonna get, and they were even projecting it coming out to San Bernardino County and Riverside Counties, which I thought was kinda odd. But it's really what they were talking a lot about. The one good thing that did come out of that was a meeting that Councilwoman Molina and I had with the Southern California Contractors Association and it was nice meeting to be able to talk with those guys and see if there was ways for their information as far as specs and the like as far as projects go for all cities to kind of be uniform with that.

So we'll see what they come up with, but one of the issues that they cited was like high speed internet or high speed cables. There's companies that'll go out and say, hey, we'll put this in your city for free, but they'll only really go down maybe two or three inches or four inches in the road. They'll carve out the road and do that. And then when the road needs to get repaved, end up tearing up six, seven, eight inches or more of road and then you damage the cable. So those are potential problems that this association was trying to, you know, make cities aware of.

So it was good. It was overall a good meeting. And then on 05/12, I attended the chamber hosting that and chamber does a good job, you know, getting guest speakers and stuff there. That's all I have.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Council Member Molina.

Yeah, I'll piggyback on Eric's comments on the Contractors Association. When I first joined Cal Cities, I knew there was another organization that was pretty similar and that was the Contractors Group. They're mostly representing Los Angeles. And so, always thought that they're a competition to Cal Cities. But once I got to, I went to a meeting and met a couple of people, They're mostly contractors.

They represent contractors, and so that's good information for cities. And so, they're known for being associated more with Los Angeles business, but they're expanding. They mentioned that they're coming out to Riverside County and other counties. So, I thought it was interesting. I'll start with my other comments about the SCAG General Assembly.

You know, we have to appoint a delegate and Erica's our delegate to vote on issues. But I mean, meeting, the annual workshop is the big, the pump and circumstance is the sustainability awards where cities, know, make nominate their city's accomplishments and then they have an award ceremony. So that was really interesting. The keynote speaker as well was just, was good. That was on May.

On May 6 I attended RTAs, I chaired the administration and operations committee and their main, it's mostly routine information, but offer their vehicles whenever their vehicles reach their life cycle as far as miles per the feds. They put those vehicles on a wait list and cities have the opportunity to write in and request certain from RTA, not recently but has in the past. And so they basically get applications and then add those names to the wait list and then as your city comes up, you get those vehicles. That was on the sixth. On May 13, RCTC, their regular commission meeting, their main focus, and then not really a lot of it pertains to us directly, except that their twenty six-twenty seven budget was they opened a public hearing for discussion and comments for their budget.

They opened it on May 13 and it runs through June 10 when they will decide on their budget. It's like a $1,300,000,000 budget, something like that. On the twenty second, RTA had a special executive committee meeting. It was closed session. And then on the twenty sixth, again, special meeting.

It has to do with funding for transit entities. Right now, transit, rail, bus is in a turmoil, not a turmoil, is in a budget crisis because ridership has not bounced back since the COVID period. And so, fares are low, people aren't riding, and so you, with public transit you have to ride it or you lose it. And so there's discussion between Metrolink and bus systems that they support each other that is in crisis right now. So, a lot more information is gonna be coming out about that.

So we don't have a transit system. So we're out of that battle, but it impacts us because you go to other cities. So that's all that I have to share.

Thank you for that report. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I did not attend any regional meetings and that will conclude my report.

All right, thank you, sir. All right, as already noted, on May 12 I attended the chamber breakfast. I kind of had to onto that one. Just had to talk about myself a little bit, my least favorite topic, but talked about myself and give a little update on the vision and mission of our city that we had during the recent strategic workshop. On May 13 the next day, I got to go to what may have been a real highlight certainly of the week.

I got to go to Kalameza Elementary and talk to a first grade class about our city and about what the mayor does. So that was a real privilege and honor. Shared some fun facts with the kids about the city, talked about what the mayor does of course, then I shared some fun facts with them about our city. Told them that we incorporated 1990, asked them how old I was in 1990, some of them said I was 50. I said a little less than that. They said one, you know, so, you know, some somewhere in between. I told them that the population of Calimesa you know, asked them what was the population of Calimesa? One kid, you know, thought they they knew 100. And I'm like, a little bit more. Another next kid, a million. No. No. A little less. You know? So that was fun.

I I had them, you know, give me some feedback on what they thought the the the park hours should be, the pickleball court hours. Most of the kids, they thought it should be, you know, 12:00 at night, 01:00, and let them know that's a little probably too late, but, you know, thank you for their feedback. No, it was a lot of fun though. They they were fun and I wanna give a shout out to our staff, they made little goodie bags for all the first graders. So Chrissy, Patrice, Yeza, thank you so much for that, the kids loved it.

May 15 was Crafton's graduation, so just a shout out to those graduates, congratulations, of which my daughter was one of those, so finished her AA degree. So good job Abby. And I just wanna remind everyone that Monday is the Memorial Day event at the Desert Lawn Cemetery for the, there's gonna be Veterans Memorial Day event. Forget what the exact title of it was, but yeah, that is ten a. M.

At Desert Lawn, so you wanna come out for that. And that concludes my report. I'm gonna hand it off to the city manager for his report.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I just wanna say you look very, very good for 86 years old.

Thank you.

Just a quick comment. We had announced previously that there was a comment period for the environmental document related to annexation down along Cherry Valley Boulevard. That period closed at 05:00 today. We received a few comments. Probably the comments we received were expected.

So those will be addressed and then the next step on that process would be bringing it forward for public hearing for the planning commission and then ultimately to the city council. Again, like to remind the public, we're not proposing any new uses down there. It's exactly, it is proposed to be exactly the same. It's just a process that we have to follow in order to bring those areas into the city. We're talking about an area of approximately three forty acres altogether. So it's not, we're not anything all of Cherry Valley, it's just a little bit apiece close to the 10 Freeway. And that will conclude my report. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have no closed session items tonight, so that will adjourn our meeting at 07:20 p. M. See you at the next meeting.