City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome. If we could get a roll call, please.

Council Member Cundiff? Here. Council Member Garcia? Here. Council Member Molina?

We're going to excuse Council Member Molina. She's having challenges with her foot still.

Okay. Mayor Pro Tem Manley? Here. Mayor Cervantes?

Here. For the record, we have our city manager. Our city attorney, our city clerk, community development director is here. Finance director is not, but our city engineer is present. She's not here either, public's works director. Okay, but we do have our deputy fire chief and our sheriff, Captain Mesquite. Welcome everyone, thanks for being here. Good to see you all. If you wouldn't mind standing with me to honor our nation's flag, I'll lead us tonight in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, do we have any communications from the public? Okay, no communications from the public. If you would like to make a public comment, please do so by completing speaker slip and handing it to our city clerk and we will. I'll let you three minutes. So at this time, we are going to approve our agenda, consent calendar, and the waiver of full reading of the ordinances. But before we do so, let me ask staff if there's any changes to the agenda or items that need to be modified or pulled.

No changes, Staff Mayor.

Thank you, sir. Council, any items you'd like to pull, modifications?

No, sir.

Okay. Do I have a motion or approval?

I make a motion that we approve the consent calendar with items one through 11, waiving the full reading of ordinances as presented.

Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. That is four to zero. Takes us all the way down to, I don't know if we're going to have a chamber.

There's nobody here tonight. And I believe Tony reported last month that he's going to be out of town. Okay.

So we will move on to our public hearing. Adoption of resolution number 2026-21 and I will hand it over to our city manager for the staff report.

Thank you, Mayor. So this or if we maybe we call the public hearing to open the public hearing. Thank you. We're going to open the public hearing and now we'll turn it over for the staff. Thank you, Mayor. SO THIS PUBLIC HEARING IS FOR CONSIDERATION OF AN UPDATED MASTER FEE SCHEDULE EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 1, 2026. THE CITY MAINTAINS A MASTER FEE SCHEDULE SO THAT THE PUBLIC HAS ONE COMPREHENSIVE DOCUMENT IDENTIFYING THE VARIOUS FEES, CHARGES, AND DEPOSITS THAT APPLY ACROSS CITY DEPARTMENTS. The current fee schedule is based on the user fee study that was approved by the City Council in April 2024. That study recommended that the City complete a full update every three to five years, but also apply an annual update in the interim using a published economic factor such as CPI, so that fees continue to reflect changes in the City's cost of providing services. For this update, staff applied the 3.2% CPI increase for the Riverside-San Bernardino region, TO MOST FEES EXCEPT WHERE FEES ARE SET BY CODE OR DEPOSIT BASED OR OTHERWISE REQUIRE A DIFFERENT COST RECOVERY APPROACH. WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS THE PROPOSED SCHEDULE IS INTENDED TO REMAIN ALIGNED WITH FULL COST RECOVERY WHILE FIRE CONSTRUCTION PERMITS ARE SET AT 85% COST RECOVERY. Originally, that was 75%, so we're bumping that up to 85%. There was a lot of fees when it was originally adopted that were increasing quite a bit, so we kind of wanted to ease that in. So we're just incrementally increasing that closer to 100%. There are two main substantive areas of change beyond the annual CPI update. The first is related to fire inspections and annual operation permits or annual fire operation permits. Since the April 2024 user fee study, the City has shifted staffing and service delivery changes in this area. So rather than relying on a combination of City staff and supplemental CONTRACT SUPPORT. THE CITY HAS ENTERED INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH CHARLES ABBOTT ASSOCIATES TO PROVIDE FIRE INSPECTION AND ANNUAL OPERATION PERMIT SERVICES. BECAUSE OF THAT CHANGE, THOSE FEES WERE REANALYZED BASED ON THE DIRECT CONTRACTOR RATES PAID BY THE CITY PLUS THE CITY'S 20% INDIRECT ADMINISTRATIVE COST RECOVERY RATE. The second area is park facility rentals. The city has significantly expanded its park facilities with Summerwood Park and the recent addition to Mountain View Park. Staff has also seen increased use of fields, pickleball courts, and pavilion spaces. The proposed fee structure gives residents and community groups a way to reserve those facilities for organized activities and events while still allowing the city to preserve open use time for the general public. The proposed effective date is September 1st, 2026, and the fiscal impact of the fee update has already been considered as part of the adopted 2026-27 budget. With that, staff recommends that the City Council receive any public testimony, ask staff any questions you may have, close the public hearing, discuss amongst the Council, and finally adopt Resolution 2026-21, approving the updated Master Fee Schedule effective September 1st, 2026. That concludes my report.

Thank you, sir. I don't have any public comments in front of me. Do we have any for the record? Anybody wanting to speak on this item? I don't see any, so we'll move on to council questions. For staff, any questions? I do not. No? Okay, we're gonna close public hearing. Any discussion? Anybody see anything that needs to be discussed? I do not either, so if... There are no questions, no items to discuss. Then if I could get a motion.

Go ahead. Okay, I'll make a motion to adopt resolution number 2026-21, a resolution of the city council approving a master fee schedule effective September 1st, 2026 for the new park reservation fees and updated fire inspections. Second.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. That is 4-0, thank you. Business items, item 13. So this is an item that we began discussing at our last meeting, city council travel and budget allocation, follow-up discussion, and I will hand it over to our city manager to get the ball rolling once again.

Thank you, Mayor. So at that last discussion, the council talked through several issues, including the importance of regional representation, the value of conferences and professional development, the need for equal access among council members and the desire to avoid the after the fact budget issues when a council member is already registered for or attended an event. Since that discussion, staff reviewed several policies from other cities to identify different ways this can be structured. So I do want to clarify at the outset that tonight's discussion is not really about the reimbursement rules themselves. The council has already considered and approved the citywide travel policy, which addresses the procedural side of travel, such as eligible expenses, documentation, receipts, and reimbursement procedures. So tonight, the question is narrower. How should council travel funds be allocated amongst council members and when should council approval be required before travel or conference attendance occurs? So I also wanted to give you some important budget context. While council discussed the possibility of increasing the travel allotments, the city has not historically had a major issue with council exceeding the total travel budget. So in fiscal year 22-23, Council travel expenditures were approximately $12,479. In 23-24, they were $13,562. 24-25, $13,577. In the current fiscal year, our expenditures are approximately $5,500 to date. And so when we are near the end of the fiscal year. So the adopted fiscal year 26-27 budget includes $15,500 for council travel. So that's already higher than the actual expenditures from the last several years. So with that context, staff is presenting three general options for council consideration. And of course, if the council has other ideas, you guys are free to discuss those as well. So option one is the individual allocation members. So this is closest to the city's current approach. Under this option, each council member would continue to receive an individual travel allocation with the mayor potentially receiving a slightly higher allocation. Council members would retain the flexibility to determine which events they want to attend with their allocation. If a council member is going to exceed their allocation, that would come back to council for approval before the additional expense is incurred. This option is simple, familiar, and provides the most individual flexibility. The downside is that it does not do much to improve advanced planning for larger conferences, and it can still result in budget questions late in the fiscal year if one council member's allocation is used more heavily than others. OPTION 2 IS THE PREAPPROVED EVENTS MODEL. UNDER THIS APPROACH, THE CITY COUNCIL WOULD ANNUALLY APPROVE A LIST OF ROUTINE LOCAL AND REGIONAL EVENTS THAT COUNCIL MEMBERS MAY ATTEND WITHOUT SEPARATE COUNCIL APPROVAL, PROVIDED FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE. THIS COULD INCLUDE THINGS LIKE STATE OF THE CITY EVENTS, CHAMBER EVENTS, LEAGUE OF CALIFORNIA CITY RIVERSIDE COUNTY DIVISION MEETINGS, WRCOG, SCAG, RCTC, AND SIMILAR RECURRING REGIONAL MEETINGS. Larger conferences or travel requests would still come back to council separately. This model creates more administrative clarity and reduces the need to bring routine local events back to council. It also addresses equal access by identifying in advance which events are generally considered appropriate for city representation. The downside is that the approved list would need to be reviewed and updated annually, and there may be some judgment calls about whether specific events fits within the approved category. OPTION 3 IS THE HYBRID CONFERENCE APPROVAL MODEL. THIS IS SIMILAR IN CONCEPT TO THE CITY BANNING APPROACH AND GOES A STEP FURTHER BY SEPARATING ROUTINE LOCAL EVENTS FROM LARGER CONFERENCES. COUNCILS COULD PREAPPROVE ROUTINE LOCAL AND REGIONAL EVENTS BUT MAJOR CONFERENCES WOULD BE CONSIDERED INDIVIDUALLY BEFORE REGISTRATION. This could include discussions of which council members are interested in attending, estimated costs, available budget, the value of the conference, and whether there are cost savings options such as one day registration, partial attendance, or driving rather than staying overnight when feasible. This option provides the strongest advanced planning and budget oversight and reduces the likelihood of after the fact coverage overage requests. The downside is that is more administratively involved and would require periodic council discussions before major conferences. So the major difference between options two and three is that option two creates an annual pre-approved list so routine local and regional events can be held administratively. while major or unusual travel only comes back if it falls outside the approved list or exceeds established limits. So you basically approve a list of conferences for the entire year that council members could attend. You wouldn't necessarily make a determination on individual attendance. With option three, it does go further by requiring that each of those conference come back individually and each of those has an approved attendance list of the council. So that's the major difference between options two and three. Staff also included potential budget scenarios for council consideration. So again, the fiscal 26, 27 budget is $15,500. Council could leave that amount in place or it could consider higher total amounts such as 18,000 or 20,000. Again, however, based on the recent spending history, staff does not believe a budget, believe a budget increase is strictly necessary unless the council wants to provide additional flexibility or intentionally expand future conference participation. So ultimately, what staff is looking for as far as direction on two primary questions. First, does the council want to continue with individual allocations, move towards a pre-approved event list, or use a hybrid model that brings major conferences back for individual consideration? Second, does the council want to maintain the adopted $15,500 travel budget for fiscal 26, 27 or direct staff to prepare a future budget adjustment for a higher amount? And I will note that a major driving factor in Banning's decision to require approval of every individual attendance is because of their budgetary challenges that they have. They're trying to really tighten the belt in any way they can. And that is one of the areas that they're trying to utilize to do that. So that's one of the reasons, that's one of the driving factors for that particular approach. So staff is available to answer any questions and we can return with any necessary policy language based on the council's direction from this discussion. And that concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate that review. Now I'm going to open it up for council comments, questions, questions for staff, discussion. Who wants to get us started?

I'll go ahead.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Council Member.

Mayor, thank you, City Manager, for giving us this overview and these options. My thoughts on this was initially we wanted to try to be as fiscally sound with city money as possible and not find ourselves overspending and sending multiple council members to the same event if it was unnecessary to do so. Oftentimes, there are things that will require that, and I think we understand that. That was the intent, was to make sure that we're being fiscally sound with the citizens' money, the city's money. Looking at the fiscal year increases from 2022 to 2025, it doesn't look like we've had a significant increase that would warrant us looking to go to $18,000 as what was listed in option one. But rather, I believe you've increased it already to 15,500. So if we kept that and stayed with option one, then we would still, I think, be within our financial planning, so to speak, for various expenditures on these different, you know.

I believe so. I don't think we've really had a problem with having to make a choice as to who attends conferences. I don't think that's never been an issue from a budgetary standpoint.

Yeah, and I can't speak for Councilwoman Molina, but I do know that that was my concern is that we would be sound with the finances that were allocated to do this. So I would be in support of option one and with keeping of the 15-5 model for now and see how that goes. That's my concern.

so just just so just for the council's edification as well we did break down those about recommended levels for each individual council member um based on that 15-5 budget so it's a little bit of an increase over your allocation today um so that would put the mayor at thirty five hundred dollars and the council member at three thousand yeah i think that's good those are all the comments thank you for that sir anyone else

Sure. I agree with Council Member Cundiff. I think just keeping it as is. There is, like City Manager mentioned, the small increase that's already there. If we haven't had an issue, I think it gives us the greatest flexibility, and we're trying to find a way to make it the most efficient. But I think just to keep it as is is probably going to be the simplest way to do it. That's all I have, Mayor.

Makes a lot of sense. Council Member Garcia?

I agree too. For me it was just more of everybody being equally treated based on going in their conferences and stuff without getting the majority to vote for them to move or get approved for those conferences. So if there's not gonna be any changes in maintaining how we've been having it in the past, I will agree by saying the option one and the budget as well too. I know we discussed last time we were kind of roughing around the 18,000 budget. So thank you Will and thank you for the team as well for getting those numbers together for us. And option two as well too, that's more, I think that's what you mentioned about kind of pre-planning it for the year, correct?

yeah it would just basically it still wouldn't it's still up to individual council members it would just say hey here here are the eligible events to attend if you want to attend it you can attend them it wouldn't necessarily require any individual um you know it wouldn't require council approval to say who's attending what just whoever wants to attend could attend um so that would probably provide it provides the most flexibility in that you don't have to have council permission to attend to an event but it does limit you in that These are events that we know of and maybe there's events that maybe are still important that we haven't necessarily identified at this time. So the approach that we take today still maintains the most flexibility. It's just going to be incumbent. I think we're going to formalize the policy more to ensure that as far as individual council members, like, hey, we're going to flag it if you want to attend a conference and it's going to put you over your allocation, then that would come back to council for discussion to maybe adjust those allocations.

Yeah, no, I definitely like option two just because it's kind of pre-planned and it kind of tells us what's going to be coming in within the year or the following year as well too. So I think, yeah, option one and two is good for me. And even with the budget being at $15,500 and we agree what we agreed last time too for the $18,000. Yeah, that's all I have. Thanks. Ms. Mack.

I have one more question. Mr. City Manager, so option two and option three, if we went with either of those, would they increase the cost that staff, the hours and time that staff would have to go through and keep track of everything and put more work in? Would those two options be more costly?

Option three probably would be the most in terms of staff time, just because we'd have to put a staff report together every time a conference would come up. There would be a little bit more with option two, just to put together a staff report to come to you for consideration. Then there's some horse trading bargaining about what all of the different events we're gonna list. Option one is probably the, you know, The only administrative burden on that is we still have to maintain the report that we have today, which is, okay, you start with 3,000 or 3,500 for the mayor, and then we deduct off of that. So we continue to prepare that report on a monthly basis. So that would continue under this, under option one. So there are some administrative costs in those, but administratively, option two would probably be more upfront and then less during the year. Option three would probably be the most administrative burden.

and then overall one would be the less burdensome to staff?

It would be the same as it is. It wouldn't be any more than it is now.

Okay.

Good feedback, good comments. So the way I see it too is there's kind of two, issues circling here there's the first is setting the the limit i guess the budgetary limit on the amount and there's kind of a secondary issue of wanting um council representation at some ensuring we have adequate council representation at some of these key events so to the to the first point i'm in agreement that i think 15-5 is probably sufficient. Looking at past numbers and expenses and having already increased that amount a little bit, I don't see the need to really do any more beyond 15.5. So I think I'm in agreement with that. So maybe we take, sounds like option one is the cleanest, it's the easiest, but maybe as a small proviso onto that, we can just, um talk about having a calendar right putting together some sort of thing about these big events like the cal city event that's coming up in anaheim you know um the skag event maybe the rt rctc wr cog general assembly assembly and we could have some sort of calendar come out at an appropriate time and make sure we're ha that council members are going to be attending those events right what do you guys think about that secondary idea um That's a separate issue to me than setting the budgetary

I think what I'm understanding, Jeff, so stick with the budget of the 15,000, and it sounds similar to option two for the EVAS, right? Yeah, it's kind of a hybrid between one and two, really, is what I'm posing. Yeah, I agree, too. That's what I was kind of looking at it, too, based on the budget. If we don't increase it, I myself don't even exhaust what the, based on the conferences and stuff, but... Yeah, I agree with the remaining the $15,500 with the option two, so we can kind of know what's going to be in our calendar.

Well, $15,500, I mean, we stick with, yeah, how we want to word it, I'm not sure, but we can stick with the $15,500 that's specified in option one. The key of option one is it's therefore at council's discretion to attend whatever they want within that budgetary allowance. But my idea is if we just come out with like, it's more of like a planning idea just for our purposes so we could see, oh, who's planning to attend that? Okay, we're adequately covered for that. So I guess I don't really need a plan to attend that one or, oh, no one's attending that. So maybe I should step up and go to that.

I think we can do option one, continue to do that and just add, you know, I can put a calendar together annually as these early events. I might not have all of the exact dates, but we'd have at least those events. And then as people sign up, I can send out information to who's going, who's not. And then that way you can decide whether you would, you know, attend or not. So that's doable staff-wise.

I think that's perfect, Darlene. That would be wonderful. And we could maybe just go off with approximate dates from the previous year.

Yeah, they typically happen roughly around the same time every year, so they're pretty predictable in that way.

Okay, well, if there's no further questions or issues, or if there is, please speak up now. Otherwise, we'll take a motion. Entertain a motion.

I'll take a motion for option number one, and we'll keep the allocations as is, the same. Is that sufficient?

Are you saying based on the allocations that we presented in the staff report?

Per the approved budget, so the $50,500.

Right, so $3,500 for the mayor, $3,000 for each individual council member?

So, yes.

that the total dollar amount is. We just wanna make sure that we bring back something that, because we wanna formally adopt a policy. I think that's the cleanest way to do it. And so we just wanna make sure that we integrate that correctly. So we will bring that back to the next meeting for adoption approval. Probably, since it's already been discussed, we'll probably just put it on consent.

Okay. Yeah. So the allocation as is in our staff report under that, yeah, 15,500, it's allocating 3,500 for the mayor, 3,000 for the council.

I second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Is that a sufficient motion? Does that work? Yep. We have direction and we'll bring that back.

Thank you.

And so will this take effect for the next fiscal year then? um well as soon as the council as soon as we come back and adopt the policy then it'll be effective but you know your budget's available starting july 1st all right moving on to business item 14 we are going to review senate bill 707 and the staff report will be handled by our city clerk okay thank you mr mayor members of council

SB 707 was brought effective, well, it was brought in 2025, but it has to be effective by July 1. So the purpose of the policy is to establish procedures for handling technical disruptions during public meetings of the City Council. We have to, effective July 1 at our meetings, have to now allow either audio or visual participation from the outside, so people can't come to the meeting, they can at least call in or do audio-visual. I think at this point we're just gonna do the call in and not worry about audio-visual, so we're still working on getting all of those particulars set up for any meetings after July 1. But the disruption policy we have to have in place by July 1 and that policy requires us to do certain things. So let me get into that. The policy statement, in the event of a service disruption, which means loss of live stream or the audio isn't working, somebody's trying to call in, the phone's not working, those kind of things, we have to have a policy of how we're going to handle that. And so we wanna make sure that they're able to attend one way or another and if they are not and that it's disrupted, then we have to adjourn our meeting. So in the event of a service disruption, the city council shall recess the meeting for up to one hour to attempt to restore. And so a good faith effort must be documented before resuming or adjourning. So myself as a city clerk and any of our IT staff, which we don't have, that's the clerk or the city manager. Which is also the city clerk. We have to attempt to fix that. So it says, for each meeting subject to this policy, the city clerk shall ensure that the meeting agenda clearly identifies the available remote access options. So on our agendas, it'll have a list where they can go in and click the link and know how to call in or to leave public comment for the meeting. They already know how to stream and see the meeting, but we will have to give them that option. So the agendas will have to have that information on there as well. Instructions for accessing the meeting and providing public comment and contact information for reporting technical difficulties during the meeting. So the procedures are detection of disruption. If the mayor, city clerk, city staff, or city council member becomes aware that a technology disruption is occurring, such person shall notify the city clerk or the mayor. The mayor shall recess the meeting and make an announcement that one, there is a disruption or other technical issue that has rendered the platform non-operational, preventing the public from participating in the meeting remotely. Two, a recess will be called in order to evaluate and restore service to the platform. And three, the recess may last for up to an hour or until service to the platform is restored, whichever occurs first. During the recess, the city shall make good faith effort to restore telephonic or internet service to the platform. This includes but is not limited to contacting technical support, troubleshooting any issues impacting connectivity, switching to backup systems, et cetera. If the city is successful in restoring service with one hour of when the recess was called, the city clerk shall inform the mayor that the matter has been resolved. If the city is not successful in restoring service within one hour of when the recess was called, the city clerk shall inform the mayor that after making a good faith effort to restore service, that efforts to restore service to the platform was unsuccessful. Any technology disruption and the time and duration thereof shall be reflected in the minutes of the meeting and the city clerk shall provide the mayor with a written description of the efforts made to restore service and whether the efforts were successful. If the technological disruption is resolved within one hour of when the meeting was recessed, the Mayor may reconvene the meeting and the meeting will resume. If the disruption is not resolved within one hour, the Mayor shall reconvene the meeting and inform the City Council and the public that the City's efforts to restore service were unsuccessful. Thereafter, the meeting shall only continue if the City Council finds upon motion approved by a majority thereof that good faith efforts to restore the telephonic or internet service has been made in accordance with the policy, and two, the public interest in continuing the meeting outweighs the public interest in remote public access. So the mayor or presiding officer shall call for a motion, ask for a second, and ask the city clerk to take a roll call vote. If the motion fails, the meeting shall be adjourned. So the mayor should be responsible for declaring the disruption, announcing the recess, and overseeing compliance with the policy. The city clerk should be responsible for ensuring the policy is publicly available on the city's website, recording and documenting any technical disruption and restoration efforts, and recording any motion and roll call vote required before the meeting is resumed. City IT staff shall be responsible for restoration efforts and providing a technical report. We will also review this policy periodically to see if any updates need to be made. And again, this will have to be effective by July 1. So before each night is a resolution that adopts this policy. And I am available for any questions.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, any questions? Council members? This has to be in effect by July 1. Now, we have to have the policy implemented and adopted. Now, do we have to have our procedure fully fine-tuned and

Yeah, we will have to have our first meeting in July, you know, until July 20th because we canceled the first meeting. But we have a planning commission meeting July 13th.

Yes, that's true.

Sorry. So implementation will also have to happen by then? Yes.

And so by the planning commission meeting of July 13th, we'll... Do you have a clarification on that, though?

Under the terms of SB 707, it applies to, quote, eligible legislative bodies. That applies to the City Council. It does not necessarily apply to the Planning Commission. If you were to implement the ability for the public to call into Planning Commission meetings, I would recommend you follow the same policy, just for consistency.

So just hypothetically, I wanna make sure I understand what this is saying. If we're in the middle of a city council meeting and it comes to our attention that our YouTube live stream goes down, we have to call a recess for our meeting and attend to that service, try to get it up and running. If we learn that it's a service provider outage, hypothetically, and nothing we can do about it, We still have to adjourn the meeting?

We have to recess. Recess the meeting? Sorry to interject.

I was gonna say, so on the subject of when the disruption occurs, you either, you know, you work to fix the problem. If you can't fix the problem within an hour, either because of your own, the city's own technological problems or a problem with the platform that's outside of our control, you can bring the meeting back to order and continue so long as you make the findings that are specified in the policy. The other clarification point we wanted to make is, this doesn't necessarily apply to the YouTube stream, because that is not in a two-way audio visual or just audio platform. This would be something like YouTube or the telephone. Or not YouTube, Zoom or the telephone.

There are a lot of cities that use the Zoom webinar-type platform to even do their meetings. Ours is a different platform. We don't do that. And so I think that's what they kind of meant when it comes to that because a lot of cities use that where they call in on that same thing or... And the meeting is streamed on that as well.

Have we ever had a problem with this before? Has this been, I know this is not coming from us, it's coming from the state, but.

Well, we've never had the ability, well, I guess during COVID we did. We had the ability to, we had to have the ability for people to call in. That was under emergency requirements that were temporary. And so SB 707 basically brought back those requirements on a permanent basis. So, you know, that was before my time, so I can't answer as far as that. I do know, however, that a lot of cities struggled early on with the platforms with Zoom bombing. I think you may have heard that term.

Absolutely.

And so the city I worked in before actually did have a minor incident. It wasn't necessarily anything close to some of the, you know, xenophobic, homophobic type of things that others have seen. But yeah, I think that, I will say that the platforms have made it a much, they've done a lot in the last few years, because that was kind of, it was never designed for that. And so with COVID and all the teleconferencing that happened, the technology has advanced quite a bit to minimize the risk of that. But just like the council can with a live public speaker, if they're getting outside the subject matter jurisdiction of the city, if someone tries to zoom bomb on public comment through the same methods, you still have that same ability to do that as well. That doesn't necessarily address the question about whether we've had issues or not. this will be kind of uncharted water with the way we're gonna do it now. We have a new audio system in place, and so Darlene and I will be working very diligently in the next month to make sure everything's up and running and ready to go for the next meeting. Thank you for that.

Any further questions, comments?

Yeah. I know the team, because the team is very small, Like right now, you know, they're working on, you know, televising through YouTube and stuff. So that's going to be more workload for the staff as well too. I just want to, I'm sure you guys already have something planned out, but of course that's going to require more hands-on to monitor both platforms. So I just want to...

yes yeah that's actually a great point that's something that we've talked about a lot this is what we refer to as an unfunded mandate um so all city not only are we going to have to pay additional for the platform itself but yes we will incur extra staff time as a result of this that is absolute that is a hundred percent effect yes that's a very good point monitoring yeah absolutely

And the interesting part about this also is it says any cities under 30,000 population don't have to do this unless you're in a county of 600,000 or more.

So where does it put us? So you'll have city, there'll be cities that are larger than us population-wise that don't have to do this because they live in a smaller county. They're just located in a smaller county. So apparently you have less resources in a bigger city if your county's smaller. I don't understand that. We don't understand that concept, but it is what it is. Right. Yeah, so. We'll be that in May.

To say we're really happy about this is, yeah, no.

Yeah, right.

Well, we're stuck with it. I will say, though, it's not because we want to lack transparency or anything like that. That's not the point. The point is that, to Council Member Garcia's point, we're already a small staff, we have a small budget, and it's another thing that we have to do with strained resources.

To that point, can I get a motion?

I'll make a motion to adopt staff's recommendation.

Second. Second. Second. Okay. Council Member Garcia, all in favor? Aye. Aye, that is. Yeah, all right. All right. Protest. 4-0, reluctantly. Now, joint city council and successor agency to the Cal Mesa redevelop agency, item number 15. Do I need to open this? Success, convene it? Okay, we're gonna convene the joint city council and successor agency here. And this is in relation to the sixth amendment to the amended and restated agreement for legal services. And our staff report will be handled by our city manager.

It's really reefy. So this is an annual increase that we bring to the council every year. So the amendment simply applies the annual CPI adjustment provided for an existing agreement. So for fiscal year 26-27, that adjustment is 3.09%. So the new rates will take effect July 1st. The adopted budget includes funding for city attorney services and staff believes that that cost can be absorbed within the existing budget. So in addition, a portion of legal services is offset through developer deposit or fees. So anytime that they work on anything development related, the development or the applicant pays those costs. So staff recommends approval of the Sixth Amendment.

Thank you, sir. Any questions, comments, or anyone want to make a motion?

Make a motion to adopt staff's recommendation.

Thank you, sir. Can I get a second? Second. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That is also 4-0. Short and sweet. Next is mayor and council members reporting on county regional meetings and conferences. Council member Garcia, I'll start with you.

Thank you. I've got nothing to report besides thanking staff for our Friday event at the Summer Wind Community Park. Passed by there and there was a lot of our residents and the Beaumont residents as well too, and our remissing team to our fire department and our staff as well too. So thank you for that. I know we have what, four more remaining for the, or three, I think, right? And then our Popsicles events as well too. So thank you, team, for that, and that will end my report. Thank you, sir.

Council Member O'Connor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On June 4th, I attended the regional T-NOW, Transportation Now meeting in Beaumont, and just a few things to report on that. They are having, RTA is having 25-cent rides all summer long. That starts June 1st until August 31st. It doesn't really affect us too much in this city, but if our citizens wanted to catch that at another location within the County of Riverside at some point, it's 25 cents for them to utilize those services. I did inquire as to the Beaumont Transportation currently has a route that stops in Yucaipa at a location I believe close to the college down there, and then continues on to San Bernardino. And so they're looking at a study to see if it would be feasible to include a stop in Cala Mesa. So I inquired to that and they're looking at that. So should have some information on that at some point. As well as a pilot program that was being conducted over in San Jacinto which included the microtransit. You may have heard Councilwoman Molina talk of the microtransit a few times, and this is something that I inquired about again at our last TNOW meeting, and they assured me that they were also looking into that. RTA is aware of that, and they're exploring options for our city for that. We are growing, our city is growing, and public transportation is something that if warranted, we would like to be able to bring and provide to our citizens. as we once before had it in our city, but was not feasible. It just didn't have the rider share participation, so it went away. So that's the update on the transportation now. On 6-14, which is just Sunday, we had a Flag Day ceremony. I attended at the Elks Lodge on Second Street in Yucaipa. And it was a beautiful ceremony, Flag Day ceremony. I gotta be honest, it was the first one that I've ever attended, but very patriotic. And many of our citizens from Cala Mesa were there in attendance. And so I wanted to share that with you guys. Today, Councilmember, or Mayor Pro Tem rather, Manley and myself attended the safety ad hoc, and I will defer to him some updates onto that, but it was a very productive meeting, very good meeting. A lot of different things were discussed, and some good things are happening. Our Sheriff's Department, our deputies, and their command staff are... abreast of all the issues that we're going through and are making some good inroads to take care of some of those things. But I have Mayor Pro Tem elaborate on some of that. And then lastly, what I'd like to bring up possibly for the city manager to put on an agenda item at some point for us to discuss possibly next meeting or the meeting after would be our participation in the SGMA Water Board. So we can have a discussion on that and discuss the pros and cons to that and make a decision if that's something that we want to do or not. And then in conjunction with that, as Flag Day came and went, the Boulevard, you may have noticed, had lots of flags. kind of sporadic at times, it may seem. And how the Lions Club puts those out is different businesses will pay for a spot. It's about $35, I believe, is what they were telling us for the year. And it not only goes up for Flag Day, but it also goes up for Fourth of July and for all the holidays that, you know, weren't posting the flag. And so there was, I was surprised at how many businesses were not participate in that. And the reason that was given was those businesses don't want to get involved in any kind of, whether it be political or not, or whatever their reasons for abstaining from it, just didn't want to get into it. So it's $35 to essentially pay for a flag to be put up you know, several times throughout the year. And I would like us to have a discussion on that as well to see if we can make an allocation at some point to maybe bolster the Boulevard and other parts of our city so that we're supporting that event as well, you know, to remember all the different events, you know, 4th of July and Memorial Day and Labor Day and all the things that should take the time to remember our servicemen and women and others serve the country. I would just throw that out there for a discussion for us to have at another time. And lastly, thanking staff, of course, for all the great work and hard work that you guys all do, every one of you. Thank you so much. And to city manager, welcome back from your trip to D.C. And I would like to say hi to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Duang, John, Ryan, and Duang in Tennessee, who watch our city council meetings every two weeks. So thank you guys for watching. And that's all I have.

Very cool. Thank you. So just for clarification, council member, you want to add two things to future agendas was the first one was the, uh, I missed it. This is Sigma, the Sigma, the Sigma. And then the second one was just for clarification. Um, any funding that we may funding for to participate in for flag day. Okay. We get those two items. City manager.

Yes, sir. I'm a, I'll have something in my report. I was just looking on my phone right now. So yeah, we're monitoring something right now.

All right. You're up, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. Today, I attended the Sheriff ad hoc meeting, and so we covered a lot of different topics with Council Member Cundiff. So I appreciate the Sheriff's Department and some of their personnel. We had a lot of people in the meeting because we had, I think, a lot of stuff to cover. So I think one of the main issues that have arose lately that staff and the Sheriff's Department have already been doing with some of the uptick in some of the homeless-related issues that we've seen and some complaints have come our way. So we've been dealing with that ongoing, but we're able to sit down and kind of talk about that a little more collaborative effort with the Sheriff's Department and with our staff, because we know that the issue is is a complex one, so we're trying to get everybody involved to tackle it from any angle that we can. So we're able to identify some of the ongoing issues, so we're on the same page. We talk to them about some of the issues that they're seeing out there on the street from the Sheriff's Department, and what's our code enforcement, and what the city is seeing out there, so we can kind of put our heads together to better identify this problem and then we're able to put together a plan going forward. So I think it was a productive meeting. I think we get a handle on it and we know it's an ongoing challenge but we are doing everything that we can and then we're gonna do something we'll stay on top of. That'll conclude my report.

Thank you gentlemen for your service on that ad hoc. Since our last council meeting, I have not attended any county or regional meetings. I plan to attend the WRCOG main event, general assembly on Thursday. but I think I'll just leave that at that this time. So that will conclude my report and I will yield now to our city manager's comment and report.

All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So staff is monitoring right now. There is what is being called the shore fire in San Timoteo Canyon. It is based on looking at watch duty right now. It's still south of the 60. But there are some areas, there is one area in Cala Mesa that's under a kind of an evacuation warning. It's not a populated area at this time. So it's in the Cienega Preserve is the area that it's covering. So nobody in Cala Mesa is under a watch. There are a couple of communities in Beaumont that are currently under an evacuation watch. And then the fishermen's retreat down in San Timo Canyon is under a mandatory evacuation. So maybe I can have Deputy Chief Shaw give an update from the fire department's perspective.

Excuse me, the only thing else I can add is fires burning southwest of Cala Mesa currently no threat to the city in the near future or even forecasted future. It's being managed by Cal Fire Riverside Unit. That's 500 acres, and there's no current structures threatened, destroyed, or damaged, and no injuries to civilians or firefighters or any casualties at this point. There are some evacuation areas out there, as City Manager said.

Thank you. And staff has put a map of the current situation right now. So you can see that the start of it, it's blowing in a southeasterly direction. So parallel to the city, still quite a ways out. But as Chief said, CAL FIRE is on top of it. So there's... I would just, you know, obviously we're going to continue to monitor that and if things change and if there's threats to Cala Mesa, staff will inform the council of that. So, and that does, oh, I also want to remind, you know, actually this is a good reminder. We do have July 4th coming up. We're not going to have another meeting until after July 4th. And, you know, obviously it is America's 250th birthday, so it's going to be a much bigger celebration than normal. But I'd also like to remind the public that we are in a high fire danger area. So, you know, this shows you that we're still under the threat of that. So, you know, be safe out there. Be responsible. Don't do anything stupid, I guess is the message. So, but also we understand though that people want to celebrate America's 250th birthday. It's a very big milestone for our country, very significant. So we understand that, but we just, we just implore people to act responsibility when doing that. So with that, that concludes my report. Thank you.

Well, thank you for that reminder. That's a very important one. And also- We have a quick question.

Yes. I'm just kind of following up on the fire. I know I spoke to Chief right before our council meeting. Can you tell us a little bit more about the ashes falling? Because I know I brought it up to you when I stepped out the door right before our council meeting. There's a lot of ashes falling from the sky. Just for our residents to feel a little bit more ensured that the fire is completely out of our zone.

Certainly as of now, it's southwest of St. Tiptoe Canyon.

You just turned a little bit, there you go. I think that'll probably work, yeah.

Okay, sorry. Southwest of San Timoteo Canyon Road. And if it approaches that, which is not burning that direction, it's burning towards Beaumont at this time. So the left flank of the fire would in theory threaten San Timoteo Canyon Road. So unless there's a significant wind change, it's not gonna, in theory, overtake San Timoteo Canyon Road. So it would have to burn north to do that. But the upper level winds are gonna throw ashes dozens of miles out ahead of it. And that's what residents will see. As City Manager said, we're in communication with Riverside County Cal Fire Unit, and if it becomes a threat to us, we'll advise a corner light.

Yeah, I really appreciate the live update. That was really helpful and informative for us and as well as for the residents, I'm sure. Okay, any other questions in light of that? Okay, so we are now going to go into closed session, and we have one item on our closed session agenda, so I'm going to pass it to our city attorney to announce that.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The council will now go into closed session to discuss the one item on their closed session agenda. It is conference with labor negotiators. City's negotiator is City Manager Cobo and Deputy City Manager Gerdes. Representing employees in this situation are the California Professional Firefighters Association. Cal Mesa Professional Firefighters Association. My mouth is faster than my eyes sometimes. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you all for attending. We will just conclude this section of our meeting and be back to adjourn after a closed session.