City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor Gregory, we're ready when you are. All right, I'll go ahead and call the uh study session for the Cathedral City City Council. It does sound different in here, doesn't it, with these new microphones? All right, I'll go ahead and call it to order for the Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, and ask for a roll call, please. Council member Gordon here, Council Member Ross here, Council Member Lamb here, Mayor Prom Gutierrez here, Mayor Gregory here. The next item on our agenda is agenda finalization. Are there any changes to today's agenda? There are no no changes, mayor.

All right, seeing none, then I'll go ahead and move to the next section. The next section is public comments. This is public comments on non-aggenda items. This is the opportunity for the public to come and make comments on items that are not on our agenda. We will limit those comments to three minutes. And remember, items that aren't our agenda we're not able to to speak about or or answer about. We can of course um get some clarification from staff if necessary. Do we have any public comments on non-aggenda items?

Mayor, we do have one request to speak. Mr. Robert McCormick. Welcome, Mr. McCormack.

Good afternoon, Mayor Gregory, City Council. Welcome, new member, Council Member Gordon. We need more politicians in this entire nation to run for office. I thank you for your service. My name is Robert McCormack. I am a decorated United States Marine Corps veteran. When was the last time a police officer or firefighter blew the whistle on one or the other for wrongdoing? What I am proposing and what I demand is a policy of speaking up, sounding off and whistleblowing from the police department and the firefighters and doing away with the unofficial policy of the blue code of silence. For 600 years, it has been the implementation of the blue code of silence. And that is the reason why the corruption, the harassment, the intimidation, the bullying continues for 600 years against the homeless and the downtrodden. The policy needs to extend the jurisdiction to NOS's, nonprofits, small business, corporations, and the upper demographic of society. This continued policy of bullying, intimidating, harassing the homeless and the downtrodden has got to stop. It is an unofficial policy of the blue coat of silence. uh the uh the Fraternal Order of Police, um budsmen, internal affairs, police chiefs, police departments have all supported this unofficial policy of the blue code of silence and it needs to

stop and it needs to stop now. In the near future, I will be generating a letter. In the interim of that, I am asking that a petition be put outside the police station so that anybody who supports this can sign it. Uh that there be a weekly uh uh pro uh performance uh letter saying what exactly is going on in terms of this new policy. My constitutional rights says anytime that there is a politician, an a government agency, a government policy, whatever is uh incorrect, not following the constitution of the United States can be changed and demanded by a citizen of the United States. That is what I am doing here. Changing the policy of the blue code of silence. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McCormack. Any other public comments? I do not have any other requests to speak forms. If you're a member of the public and you wish to comment on items not on the agenda, please raise your hand. I see none, mayor. All right, we'll go ahead and close public comments and move on with our study session. The first item on our study session agenda, item 2 A, is Cathedral City Community Center feasibility study update by group for architecture. City manager, would you like to give us an introduction?

Yes, mayor. Good evening and good evening council members. So staff were before you back in October uh providing you an update on the work that group 4 has been doing to study various sites in the community as potential sites for a future recreation center. [snorts] Uh this has been looking at both city-owned propertly property publicly or privately held property and also renovation of uh existing commercial sites. When we met with council in October, there were two additional sites that council asked us to add. One being the Northgate church property, the other being Dennis Keats Park and uh group four has and staff have studied those sites and we'll be able to report back to you on the status of those as well. What our hope coming out of tonight is uh with the additional information is uh trying to get some consensus on narrowing down the list of potential sites that just don't seem to be feasible or workable. um so that when we come back in February to um with our sort of final report uh that we can try to narrow down and maybe provide any additional information that is requested as a council tonight to hopefully narrow us down to ultimately one site that we would like to identify as the site that we will develop in the future for a recreation center. So uh this evening Don Merks from uh Group for Architecture Research and Planning. Don is a principal with that firm and has been our project manager uh working with our team and um our community. [snorts] Uh so she is going to uh go through a presentation. We will uh have Victor at the side. Uh so if there are specific uh questions or ideas uh that you have about any of the specific sites, we're

going to make sure we try to capture that so that when we come back to you um we can answer any additional questions that you might have. Thank you. Welcome, Don.

Good afternoon, mayor, members of the council. Pleasure to be here. Let's see if I can get our page down here. There we go. As Ann summarized, what we're looking for today is additional information, input, and direction on the program and the proposed sites for the community recreation center. And we also have for you new information on operational cost and would like to come back to you next time with additional refined information on capital cost depending on which site um is directed to us that you would like further information on. Uh just going over the agenda. It's really summarizing all the work we've been doing for the last six to seven months. Uh, we've got the schedule and work plan, summarizing the project engagement, looking at a proposed building and site program, looking at the site options, and then looking at the site and program strategies together as well as the financial information for both operational and capital cost and then hopefully a good discussion and evaluation of the sites. Uh the work plan to date includes the assessments, both the site assessments as well as the needs assessment, two rounds of community engagement, and I'll get in a little bit of detail on that in just a minute. Uh looking at funding strategies as well as recommendations and feasibility, all concurrent with ongoing project management task very robust on the project participation. A big thank you to the staff, the stakeholders, and all the community members who have really participated and helped guide this project so far. As you can see, lots of project management team meetings. I'll summarize the stakeholders and the focus

group meetings on subsequent slides. Uh community outreach, two rounds of community outreach, over 1,900 people participated. That's very exciting. And then the technical meetings uh technical meetings with the district recreation district staff, planning department, senior center, uh library as well as public works. We are looking at having a couple more technical meetings when we get to the selected sites that we want to refine and that'll be with public uh safety just looking at the site in terms of access and egress. [snorts] And then as Ann mentioned, coming back to you in February with the additional information to make the final recommendation. Community engagement. Those two rounds have included online surveys, self-service kiosk, going to special events in the community, going to two middle schools, going to um marcados, going to the movies in the park spooktacular, and taste and sounds of Cathedral City. Um, as I mentioned, over 1,900 participants in in the rounds that we reached out to the community and what we heard from the community is they want it to be accessible and inclusive really to be that third place where they can go, they can socialize, meet their community, do activities and programs. They want it multigenerational and making that social connection. Youth and teen focused spaces, indoor recreation, fitness and sports, arts, culture and performance, education, skills and workforce, events and rental and really covering the basic needs. Is there anything they don't want? No, I think they definitely would like it all. Um, as we look at the priorities

for community activities in community spaces, these are colorcoded um, by age grouping. So, the adults are in the lighter orange, the darker orange are non-resident adults, and then we have teen in the light green and youth in the blue. And looking at the community activities, it's clear to see what the youth and the teens uh preferred activities are from gaming and surprisingly culinary arts is right up there. Exercise and sports courts and crafts and do-it-yourself. As you look towards the orange color, you can see also culinary arts is up there, but fitness and cardio, crafts and do-it-yourself, exercise and yoga. The community spaces uh for the youth and teen, the gymnasium was of high priority. The teen zone, technology lab. As we look at the adult orange color, you can see fitness and dance, arts and crafts, community hall with the kitchen and gymnasium is is close up there as well. So really interesting way of looking at it. You can see the nice overlapping for their priorities in these interior design values. We asked for input on design values in the second round of engagement and very complimentary for the preferred ones which is playful and creative, desert inspired and nature focused. And all of these three really can work nicely together in the new community recreation center. uh stakeholder participants. Again, as I mentioned, very robust and many thanks to everyone who has participated. Many of these people participated in more than one meeting which is really helpful for us. Um from the commissioners to the library staff, boys and girls club, senior center, the school, uh tribal programs and events, performing arts and churches, as well as the financial

advisory committee. The input that we got from the stakeholders um very much aligned with what we heard from the community, the inclusive multigenerational uh responsive to hot climate locally inspired landmark joint use opportunities. And so this is something really interesting that can be further explored depending on which site option as we look at operations. Um looking at joint use opportunities with the library, the senior center and other programs, central and accessible location, flexible rental, event space with the kitchen, and then programs, maker space, childcare, art and performance, indoor recreation, fitness, and then the resiliency resource center. And so a lot of our community recreation centers are providing this community resource resiliency center as we're looking at kind of the current trend in facilities. It may be increased uh filtering on the HVAC system. It may be additional power for emergency um connectivity or uh charging uh community information distribution, resource distribution. From all that information, we developed a space use activity matrix. And so all of the different activities and spaces um are spaces listed across the top activities, programs, services along the bottom along the column and then tried to come up with a program where we could check as many boxes as possible. And this is an accommodation of spaces like the gymnasium, dance and fitness studio, cardio, weight room, lobby, multi-gen lounge, cultural arts gallery, uh community hall and catering kitchen, a

teaching kitchen, teen lounge, gaming technology room, early childhood recreation, enrichment classrooms, arts and crafts classrooms, and additional enrichment classrooms. with things like music and art studios. From that information, we develop a draft building program. And this is summarized on the right and covers a lot of those spaces. I've just summarized. We have colorcoded them to kind of like spaces for community center, classroom spaces, the teen center, creative arts, fitness and wellness, early childhood recreation, staff and support spaces. So really a full comprehensive facility that meets community needs for recreation as well as socialization and programs and services. Trying to look ahead um developing phasing options and this is all very preliminary um but understanding that you know the full center may not be able to happen all at one time just because of funding constraints. So looking at options for potential phasing, kind of breaking it down um into suggested uh current suggested phasing but totally flexible on which goes first or not depending on the site and the opportunity. So phase one is really more the community centric spaces with the classrooms, the teen center, the creative arts spaces, the community hall and then what we had broken out into phase two was more of the recreation spaces. additional classrooms, fitness and wellness spaces that includes the gymnasium, dance and fitness studio, cardio and weight room, and then early childhood recreation. The reason we were suggesting initially

that the recreation be phase two is because of the larger square footage which results in the higher cost. And so as a phase one, the community centric spaces uh preliminarily would be less cost because there are less square footage included in those as opposed to the larger recreation spaces. Additional spaces were identified as really nice to have and those were the optional enhancements that you see in that third column and those were a cafe. A lot of uh facilities of this size do include um either it can be vending machines. It can be a small cafe, a juice bar, kind of graband go food um kind of coffee bar as well as another gym. And so that 2400 square feet and the optional enhancement would increase your gym to have three cross courts. So what what's a MS main or HS main court and a JH a JH cross court?

Um so the third junior high cross court and so when we look at uh a gym having the high school be your main courts and two cross courts junior high. This optional enhancement adds a third junior high court. And what that really does is allow for additional revenue potentially for club tournaments, rentals, because you can actually have three courts. So, what is a high school court? Is that just a larger court? It's just a larger court. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Good question. Sorry for the acronyms there, too.

That's great. Um, so as we go on here, the sites, as Ann mentioned, we uh saw you in December, I believe, with the seven sites. So, the old Walmart building, the old Burlington Coat Factory building, uh, the site near the amphitheater, which is partially owned, uh, Cathedral City Library site, which is city-owned. Uh the site across from the Salvation Army which is city-owned, the site across from City Hall which is also city-owned. The Uptown Village site on Date Palm Drive which is non cityowned. And then the two sites that we've added is the Northgate Church site, the empty par of par uh piece of that parcel on date palm drive. And then also looking at Dennis Keat Soccer Park and you can see the map on the left. Um what we have also added I think based on council's good advice last time is additional blue area that is shown here is kind of the extents of the city at full buildout here with the annex sites as well. Um and you can see how the city grows further to the north. the evaluation criteria um that we're identifying. You can see the top four we're suggesting are prerequisites that the sites be available that they have the capacity to support either the community center portion of the program or the recreation center of the program or both of them together. That they're zoned or could be um changed zoning to allow the community center recreation center to be built on it. and that the cost um for the land purchase or lease, the site infrastructure,

site entitlement costs, and s building construction cost are are not exorbitant that they're within reach. Additional evaluation criteria is accessibility. Is the site easy to get to? Economic impact. Is there potential for the new community center to act as a catalyst and to promote new growth? kind of invigorating an existing neighborhood. Um adding to the city's economic goals, synergy, connectivity. Is it adjacent to other um public facilities, schools, senior centers, other spaces that will promote that synergy of shared use, shared attention kind of chain visiting as people are out going to grocery stores? Can they stop by the community center, the recreation center? Does it have a civic presence? And then outdoor amenities. One of the ways that you can really leverage indoor square footage of these facilities is by providing nice complimentary outdoor spaces where you can expand programming on good weather days to indoors outdoors and actually get a lot more space for less money because of the cost of outdoor uh improvements compared to indoor improvements. As we're looking at the nine sites, one of the things as we've looked at cost um is kind of a big a big impact on the evaluation and again we are not suggesting any waiting of these criteria right there. There can be waiting applied to the criteria as well. Um, but the one that really sticks out as we look across the nine sites is that the city-owned sites, uh, which includes Dennis Keat, um, does become much more less costly because we don't have to pay for lease or we don't have to pay for

land purchase. Um, as we're looking at the old Walmart and the old Burlington and the land by the amphitheater, the availability we have noted is potentially challenging. Um, they have been listed a couple of them and information gained on the cost of them. Um, one of them actually at the time was in negotiations which I think has actually dropped out. Yes, there was a broker looking to uh engage the Walmart building and they were not able to come to a deal and mainly that was related to the price.

Yeah. Um as we're looking at the zoning, most all of them are able to be zoned or would be appropriate for a community recreation center. And the capacity, all of them um can can work. Some of them work better for a single facility if we go two stories and we have additional analysis on the city-owned sites. Um, any questions on the site evaluation at this time? We can come back to this too afterwards. Yes, mayor. I have a question. All right.

Thank you very much. Just a couple of questions. So, are you are you recommending or would you recommend two locations as opposed to one? Good question. And I do have um maybe the next slide covers that. And so a lot of cities do um split up their community centers and their recreation facilities. But is that is that something you would recommend? Not necessarily. Um we heard from your community, from the stakeholders specifically that they preferred one location for both location. And then um one I see one of the pieces is a church property. What are the incumbrances upon us if we were to use church property land?

You know, I might let Ann answer that question. Are is at some point are we going to talk more about specific sites or is this you want to get into that now because we can uh take it any way that you'd like. If you'd like us to kind of walk through each individual site, we can do that. Um what I'm asking is that part of the presentation coming up? We have coming to the end of your presentation. for the key city sites. Uh we do go into those sites in more detail um being that they checked off more of the boxes. So we do have um and that these are the sites that we have most control over. [snorts]

Uh we do have further analysis and um sort of site options for the council to review. Um, if I I think it's been difficult for looking at things like the Walmart or the old Burlington building just because of the likelihood or the uncertainty of whether we could access those sites. Um, we have not gone further in developing what those sort of building. Sounds like this is a good time to go over the non cityowned sites because you're next you're going to get into the cityowned sites. Yeah. [snorts]

So, can you can you just and you started already touched briefly. Yeah. on the non city-owned sites and talk about a little bit about the challenges or what the discussion was.

Yes, I can. And so as we kind of focusing on the prerequisites um grouping uh the old Walmart and the old Burlington um sites together for availability. And so square footage wise and sitewise, you know, they're quite large and they have parking lots. They're kind of your typical box store configuration. And so, um, just the size of the capacity of what the city might be able to afford as a first phase based on your measure W dollars. Um, you know, that's kind of potentially challenging as we look at those sites. Um when we were looking at the one site, it was potentially just taking a portion of it initially um and renting that out or leasing that out. Um and and that just becomes challenging, right? Because you don't have control of your destiny on those sites if you go into a a lease uh like that. And we don't typically see that for public facilities. Um, and so those two sites you can see we did put potentially challenging and the cost I I do have that same financial capital cost projection slide further on. And when you look at adding the land cost for lease or purchase to your capital cost, it becomes quite high and it makes that extra dollar sign that you see on the non city-owned sites. the site by the amphitheater. Um, you do own part of that land. Um, but initial very preliminary understand discussions with the land owner who owns the land between your property have not seemed feasible. Um, and so again, the capacity of just the city- owned site is not enough. And you can see the challenging color there.

Um and then the dollar signs kind of reflect that additional cost to purchase the land. Um where we go to the village uh uptown village site and the site by Northgate. Uh the site by Northgate the availability. Um again I don't think they were interested in selling the site and so it would be building a city facility on a privately owned piece of parcel. Um and again may not have control of your destiny and your public facilities typically do last 50 to 60 years, right? I mean they may need lots of repairs during that time, but most of the public facilities we see are on cityowned sites and um a lot of our facilities we work on are at least 50 to 60 years old easily. Um and so those are the concerns with the uptown village site and the cost is the uptown village site the site you know to purchase that. Uh Dennis Keat is a city-owned site number nine and we don't we we we've developed additional detailed site analysis for all of these sites. Thought this presentation would be too long if we added those. Uh Dennis Keat is a great location by the middle school. uh if the recreation component was there, that adjacency typically is really great with recreation, gyms, programs for kids after school. Um the concern there is as further investigation was done. It was built with a grant and the funding that built your soccer fields came from a grant and there are conditions on that and so that potentially could add additional cost. If you were to take our analysis for the recreation component only on that site would it would impact

two of your 12 fields. Additionally, if we lost that uh outdoor space to the indoor facility, it would be a similar situation where we potentially have to buy land somewhere else to make up the difference if that was um allowable. But excuse me, we would have to explore further into the grant requirements to see if that's even a possibility for that site. All right. So

council, do you have questions on those six sites that are not are not city owned or technically the [clears throat] Dennis Keat is, but you would have to replace is what I'm hearing. You would have to replace anything you used with some other um property or another park somewhere else. So potentially then you'd have to buy another park to be able to use that park. So, are there any questions on those or we did with Espironza? Something like that. We buy some things. No, we didn't do it with Espiranza, but we have we do a trade. No, no, no. We have We have another one pending right now. No, I'm pretty clear on the

All right. So, are we ready to move on with with the three that have the s the stars on them on your site evaluation that say city owned? Yes, I am. All right. Go ahead.

Okay. And so as we're looking at the city-owned sites, as council member Ross just indicated, one one option for council to consider is to build potentially even in phase one to build a community center or recreation center and then when additional funding is um in place, you could look at an expansion at that center or another location for the component that you did not build initially. And so we did do analysis of the sites uh for a community center at 20 to 25,000 square feet as well as the recreation component at 25 to 30,000 square ft. And then we did the analysis of these four sites which one could accommodate uh both of them easily and isn't a good location to support them. And so you can see with the library just starting on that one it's a number four. It is a nice central location. we can accommodate uh both the community center and the recreation center on that site and having those colllocated. Um it's great location by the high school, reasonably central to the community. Um there are challenges with parking which we'll address as we get into the site analysis. uh the Salvation Army site. Uh for the community center, it's kind of less visible. And so typically for community centers, um they're not quite as destination as recreation centers. And so if you're going to the gym with your kids, you've got a class program there. It's not necessarily quite a drop in as a community center is. It's kind of more program activity oriented. And so being a little bit more embedded in a community is not necessarily as negative. So, we did put uh community center at that site uh more challenging. The recreation center uh potentially challenging but just in the medium

color. And then the community recreation center together there was not seen as positive. The site by the senior center we rated positive for the community center and less positive for the recreation component just because of its less central location. And then uh as same for the colllocated and then Dennis Keat, we saw as I mentioned potential good synergy with the recreation center there and less positive when the community center component was added there. So looking at site capacity studies, we've got these for the city-owned site. Um, and we do have it for Dennis Keats, but it's not included in this presentation, but I am familiar with it and I can explain it to you. Uh, so looking at a phase,

that's okay. I think we just wanted to go just with the three. Yes. Um, so currently, um, there's 95 parking spaces that are associated with the library. in working and talking with the library. They feel like they do have excess space that could be reallocated to the community center. And so that would be the renovation portion of this option. As

May I just ask you a question right now? So those 95 spaces are often fully taken when Big League Dreams is having any kind of an event. They take all the parking lot and the streets, you know, on the two sides because it's such a big facility. Yes, they they do at those peak use times. My understanding, I could be wrong, they do have a security guard there, and I've been there when Bigly Dreams was going to have an event and they did have a security guard kind of checking everyone and making sure the library spaces were being used for the library only. So, nobody from from big leagues could use the library that day. The library,

I think they try to control it as best as they can. Uh I think it is a challenge right now for the library on the days that uh Big League Dreams is operating, but I I I think as Don was saying that on a an off baseball days or softball days that there is more capacity than necessary for the library itself. Is there any contractual agreement with Big League Dreams that they would be able to use some of those parking spaces? Uh Kevin is uh going yes. So um yes there is so we have obligated and it would be part of their lease agreement that they have access to that parking which then cuts 95 spaces out

but that that's uh sort of current situations and and what Don will go through um kind of in this slide and the next slide is how we've tried to look at other opportunities to expand that not only to address the capacity of the community center and our recreation center but also to help address those peak times which are and I'm not trying to be demi- [clears throat] downer either. Not no I just want I just want to be eyes

wide. It's the main challenge of this site um that we've really been trying to wrestle with uh what are the options to be able to add the additional capacity but also not take up all the green space that's currently around the facilities. And I think uh Don and her team and staff have have come up with some I think interesting opportunities to explore. Uh so I will turn back to Don.

Yeah. And so, and I I just wanted to e echo uh Council Member Ross because the parking is a concern. Um when you look at the space, it's it's you know, it checks all the boxes. You know, it's a central location. It's wonderful. It's there. It's city-owned. You know, lots of stuff's wonderful about it. But for instance, over the last six years, we've been having emergency preparedness events there. So, that turns, you know, there's always some crisis at the last minute that there's not enough parking. and um people uh that need wheelchair access, it's there, but sometimes the car is blocking it and you know on and on. So, I'm very interested to hear how it's mitigated. I I you know, and I was reviewing this, I thought, you know, I need somebody like somebody HGTV to walk me through it and say, you know, here's your little closet and then you you know, 30 minutes into the show,

there's this fabulous place. So, I need to see that. So, thank you. need to see the reconfiguration. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. And so this is looking at full buildout this slide here at the site. And one of the interesting we found with staff's help is that initially Bigly Dreams had identified all of this space up here, which is kind of beyond the outfield of these uh two fields kind of on the north side as additional parking. And so just within this space and there are no trees there, it's very clear. I was walking the site and I'm like, you know, there's no backflow preventers, no transporters. It's just like, okay. And then uh I think Kevin helped us find the drawing from the original uh initial proposal for the site or it was planning department maybe that actually showed this as uh potential parking. And so there is another 125 to 150 spaces that can easily be fit um along Dave Kelly Road right here um before you get to the high school here. And so next time you're out there,

what's in that space now? Nothing. Remember we park there when we go to Big where we park. Mary, actually that usually moves aside. Where is the No, there's like tented structure somewhere in there. Where is the tented structure is down uh underneath our table here. I see.

So, this is Dave Kelly Road. The school um tennis courts are right over here. And that kind of double access road, one for Big League Dreams and one for the school, which it's a little redundant maybe too. maybe additional parking [laughter] if you were, you know, we have actually worked on sites where we've combined access roads. Um, but so yeah, there is it could be used as grass parking. Is that what I'm hearing? During you park there during No, that's not where we park. They take us down an access road and Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So, all right. the tented the the tent that has um kind of is used for the larger scale events is kind of right in the middle of the planning and building uh or planned building square footage column. It's kind of right in the middle there. Okay. Well, yeah, here's this the mayor proama showed me a map on his phone that shows shows the whole thing. All right. Yeah, these fields I'm not sure is that even what they're used for now because usually we see the other fields that are lower below the where the tented structure is in the right the correct. Yeah.

And we did we did talk to the planning department as well um potentially looking at ways to get additional street parking. you know, the high school next door typically on weekends when you're gonna have big events here will have additional parking space. And if you can come up with a managed parking for shared use with the high school, that may be an additional opportunity, which you're probably already doing now at peak use times, I imagine. No, we're not. They're not because I think we depend on big league dreams to come up with parking and they just don't do it.

Yeah. And and then without being ignorant, I just don't know this answer. You're talking about 125 to 150 spaces there. Yes. At full capacity, how much does Big League Dreams use? So, if we look at the IT and we look at kind of the code uh uh traffic engineers, uh parking ratios,

um which is appropriate. We talked to planning if that's the appropriate uh for us to use because your parking codes haven't been updated recently. Um you can see the number of spaces needed here. The second to the right, the last column there, um it's just 330 to 380. Um and then you know we've been able to exceed that with proposed shared parking to 337 to 387. Your current parking is 280 and we were looking at adding 125 to 150. Not that not that 125 to 150 here. [clears throat] Is that what you're talking about?

That's what we're talking about is potential addition for parking, but we are taking some parking away because where we're putting the new recreation center um that's actually in parking. And so our analysis is saying that you know on on paper which is not going to be your peak use weekends right we can meet what would code require for parking and exceed that um the managed parking working with the high school who has a lot of parking already you know is really best practice for those peak use events. How far is that from that driveway will be the library? Half a mile. quarter mile.

I would say a quarter less than a half mile, maybe a quarter mile. Okay, that's a that's a bit of a hike for an elderly community. It is. And that's why you always make sure you have the handicap and accessible spaces right up front. And for the big events, you can even expand that with temporary signage. Thank you. Yeah, I think oftentimes in those cases too that there's opportunity or even with a drop off zone so that parents can unload their trolleys with all the baseball gear in that and then if somebody has to park the car and walk back that and if it's really bad, you can always golf cart shuttle people back and forth. Yeah. Yeah.

What would this look like during construction? parking during construction and in the interim while we're acquiring or getting the extra parking.

So, it it just really depends. So, if you're able to if you go ahead with the community center, the expansion to the library and the renovation of the library square footage, that would have little or minimal impact on your parking. the contractor would need a lay down area and we would have to designate some area for him to work. But compared to like that first phase, it would be minimal. And then potentially what you would want to do in the second phase is make sure you add that parking before you do the recreation center, the gymnasium.

And my last question, which it probably won't be, but I'm just going to say that for now. It's um Can you show me just by pointing to what square it is? What part of this is Patriot Park? So, Patriot Park, my understanding, is over here where you have parking spaces. So, all of this green area down here is Patriot Park. Part of Patriot Park. That's not extending the full extent of the park. No. No.

And so, [clears throat] we're not counting that. there is an opportunity to relocate Patriot Park and expand parking in that direction as well. Um, planning was not fond of that idea because that's one of your main thorough affairs and lining it with parking is not necessarily the most attractive thing. Um, but that could be considered. So, I don't think we're federally certified for Patriot Park, but it is our Patriot Parking. There'd be there'd be some push back. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that opens a whole and that's and that's probably more detailed discussion. If we choose to look at a site, let's say we choose to look at the site, that could be something and it would probably not be for many years anyways. But I think that there is some discussion that at least a little bit of that park could probably be utilized because it's a bigger park than what's really used for anything. So if you needed to to to take a little bit on the one end and improve the other end so that it was more usable that you might end up with nobody to a little bit.

So well right there's a bathroom building there say so I don't think you would want to tear down the bathroom building but it's a ways into that to the thousand flags every year. So so that would just be gone. We don't put a thousand in the bathroom. No in Patriot Park. Yes. I I'm aware, but what I'm saying is that there's not every little bit of it's used every year or all the time. No. So, it isn't.

So, unless somebody's trying to draw a line and say, "Well, it's Patriot Park, so you couldn't touch a square foot of I mean, it would always be something that you could look, could you readjust, build the part that's better, that's improved, the part that's down by Dinosaur, so that it's better, and then you could potentially use a little bit of the part that's towards the library or where the rec center would be if you needed to. Yeah, that's a possibility. We don't know how. Yeah. And I don't think we're there yet, but I'm saying is

I think one of the opportunities too, if this were the chosen site, is that currently Patriot Park, with the exception of the Veterans Day, uh, flag ceremony and the flag service, there's no programming in this park. And currently, uh, I think the park itself and the parking areas by the library are often, um, challenged by unhoused persons that are, um, sort of congregating there. and uh there's some activities that are going on in those areas that are not really desirable. And I think in part it's because we just we don't have programming there. And so if there was more activity where you know if DRD is running a rec center um there could be outdoor activity with a within a prescribed place. I think it also helps uh mitigate some of the um uh problematic activity that's going on in the park currently. Very good questions.

All right, you can move on.

Thank you. Um, so looking at the Salvation Army site, we've run kind of three options for you here. One is adding a 25,000 square foot community/recreation center. Trying to be a little bit generic there depending which council's preferences for direction. than looking at the 27500 ft² one-story option. Um, if we do want to build one facility at this location, it will necessitate to get the adequate parking on this site, a two-story facility. And and so we're just kind of showing the full range here that the you know 25 to 27,000 ft² facility fits nicely with the parking, some outdoor space. As we get up to the larger community center, recreation center, it it does necessitate two stories. And there's options probably definitely between the 275 and the 53,000 that we could run as well. And then looking at the site by the senior center, uh looking at all new construction as well at this site, you can see um that we can do either the 25,000 or 27500 singlestory community recreation center. We can actually do a singlestory 53,000 ft² facility on this site as well with the parking or providing more um open um space, more landscaping opportunities uh fit the 53,000 ft²tory facility as well. Uh, I will note phasing a twostory building is super challenging unless

you're going to put the money up front to do like a cold shell on the second floor because our building codes change so regularly. what you might do in phase one thinking that you're going to accommodate a second floor 10 years out, 15 years out, the building code will change and will require um changes to what you did in the first phase. And so that's not something we recommend typically and it does cost, you know, even a cold shell is 60 to 70% of new construction cost. Okay. So, this is kind of summarizing uh the three sites here and you can see um the library site uh just because we're able to uh reuse a portion of the library, kind of repurpose it, reallocate that square footage, which does cost less money, um is showing as $1 sign. If you're going to do the full buildout, it's probably be one and threequarters dollar sign. So, it's it's all relative, but there is some soft cost savings with reuse, uh, renovation of existing square footage with the library site. And then we've shown the Salvation Army site and the senior center site. Um,

does the library just condense? It doesn't. It's not moved to a different location. It's just tightened up. It's pretty sprawling now. Yeah. And so it kind of condenses down to 15,000 square feet, which is a very typical size for a branch library. Yeah. And a lot of the spaces that go into the community center, the library can use shared use still, like meeting rooms, you know, community hall, smaller uh group study rooms. And so there is a lot of synergy between libraries, community recreation centers. So,

a question about the specifics of the library. So, when you talk about um transitioning it from the current square footage to 15,000, you're not talking about taking the away you're talking about repurposing a certain room for a specific community event and shared use like it has a community hall, it has a story uh telling area now. they have group study rooms and so those are the type and so in that workshop we had with library staff we kind of went through the different models and how they can work together. Um, yeah. Okay, good. Thank you. What did they like? [laughter]

I think they were very supportive of this site. No, no, I meant what did they like about condensing their building? Did they could they envision that? Well, they like having access to the additional space and different kinds of spaces. Right. So, and I think also the uh opportunity for um additional sort of activity around the library activation

having the library uh co-located with a community center. It just brings more opportunity for users to uh share the library resources. You know, maybe a parent goes over to the library to uh do work while their child is participating in a class or things like that. So it it brings more activation to that site and that they were uh I think very amunable to

think you are correct. Um, so we did do research on operational cost and this is new information that we did not have last time we met with you. And so working with Desert Recreation District trying to get our arms around not just the capital cost but the operational costs for the city and really great to have them provide specific information for facilities that they are operating. And so we have Thousand Palms which is about 4500 square feet. Uh Palm Desert Community Center 22,500 square ft and Indo Community Center which is 33,600 square ft. And you can see um two of these three actually have a special assessment district where they get additional funds for operation. Um, and we wanted to make sure we made that clear. And so we did provide the last line here, which is under notes item B, where we took out that special assessment revenue. So you could actually kind of compare apples to apples.

And the story here is the smaller the facility, the more expensive it is going to be to operate. The cost per square foot just rises significantly. Um for the Thousand Palms, it's $110 a square foot is what they're spending on that per year. Their special assessment is um 438,000. As we look at Palm Desert without any special assessment, the 22,000 foot facility, their operational cost is $26 a square foot. So a big range here. Um and really not surprising when we look at Indo um without the special assessment, it's again the largest one. It's $19 a square foot. So the cheapest to operate. Uh we do on the next slide kind of summarize the staffing um and how they're operated um and the hours which is also telling. Just the availability of the smaller center is only 22 hours a week compared to 80 hours for the two larger facilities. I'm just trying to highlight there's a lot of information here but really highlight what's I I think really relevant here. And then uh the program volumes is really telling as well. When you have the smaller facility, they have 20 monthly programs. uh the larger facilities uh Palm Desert has 60, India has 121 plus 65 gymnastics programs. They do have a special focus there for gymnastics and you can see the community events, large scale events, seasonal camps, additional services. I think that median age tells us something too.

Yeah. And so going back to the slide uh that Kevin here helped us develop and looking at your financial capacity. And this is uh summarizing measure W funding projections. Looking at 1 million a year for the community center operations, 1 million a year for debt service. In the current bond market, it's projected that it'll generate capital of 13 million. And then just trying to translate this to cost per square footage for renovation and new construction. Uh with just the 13 million, we are estimating new construction and renovation at the city-owned site would provide 10 to 14,000 square feet. And this is the numbers that we really want to dive in with your direction today and bring back to you in February so they can be refined. Uh new construction alone with no existing facility to renovate would be 8 to 9,000 square ft. And if we add in the purchase of land, you can see it drops to 58 to 7100 square ft and renovation and land lease is 5,500 to 9,000 square ft. So those were some of the commercial properties. A lot of small information on this and again I we showed this to you earlier and it just really shows the value if you have an existing facility for renovation is about half that for as new construction. And so being able to reuse a facility such as the library site that's only about 22 20 years old. I think it was Prop 13 library I believe. Um so um you know

renovations can be about half the cost of new construction. And then when we're looking at land lease adding in there or purchasing that's where the dollars really start to add up. Mayor, I do have a question. And it again, we've got preliminary draft on here because it's really not sight specific yet. All right. Go ahead. So, I I guess I lost something along the way here. You're not talk or are you talking I shouldn't start with a negative. Are you talking about the library being part of the community center, but there'd be an additional building as well? Right. we both be maintaining one building and and adding to it

building a separate facility. So the library option great question and I did not go over that very slowly. So this first option here is you could actually uh do about a 12,000 square foot addition to get to a 17,000 square foot community center. This dashed white line is where the existing building ends and we could have shaded this in a different color. So this is the square footage that would be renovated and then we would do an addition to it for the rest of the community center square footage and the addition is outside the little the little dotted line or it's all the orange.

But we can Yeah. The whole orange is 17,000 square feet and part of it library and part of 5,000 is repurposed library. Yes. [snorts] Thank you. I didn't get that originally. I could have covered that better. And on that same on that same slide, um when it talk Oh, there it is. It says existing existing parking spaces and it's minus 95. No, approximately 95. Okay. But in the next in the slide that you just went through, that's where the ultimately a gym. Yes. And that's the dip area right at the corner where we do So this is actually parking lot right now.

So where we put the community center, the additional community center recreation center space is actually the parking lot that you see right here as existing. Okay. Yeah, I see it. I see it. Thank you. And that's why when we go to that full buildout, it's really important that we get those additional spaces. Right. Right. I see. And it's not to say that we can't, you know, as we develop this better, we can't refine this building outline to still provide a little bit more parking over here as well. This is just we're working with bubbles at this level. Okay. Thank you. Right. And it's not to say that even before we built that if we had the need that we could build additional parking

and and because plans and readjust plans as we go. Exactly. Yeah. All right. our presentation. No, I think that we are wrapping it up right there.

And I I think if you just real quickly if you go back to the finance slide, um the one that Kevin had provided. So I I think what's important here to recognize is that additional resources are probably going to be needed to get us to any of these options. And so the 13 million really becomes the base. Uh Kevin and I have talked and you know sort of looking at just internally what resources we have and we do have some impact fees that could probably go to towards this and we'd have to sort of line that out a little bit more of what could could be um allocated to this. We have um potentially environmental funds that could be used depending on you know what materials we used and um how we uh did construction. And then additionally, uh, we are going to need to probably look at other grant opportunities or earmarks or other partnerships that could potentially help with the capital costs. So again, depending on um, I think any of the options, we're uh, going to need some some level of additional resources probably to uh, get to ultimately where we want to be.

All right. So, we're going to be asked to discuss a little little more and at the end get down to a much smaller number of sites to move forward with. Um, so, but if the count council will indulge us, I think this is a good opportunity to allow public comments if there's any members of the public that wish to comment on what they've seen. Mayor, I did not receive any request to speak forms. if you're a member of the public. I'm sorry, Don, can you put up just the the list that has the nine options. Yes. Just so for um the [snorts] discussion. Thank you. If you're a member of the public and you wish to comment on item 2A, please come to lectern. We have one. Danny Lee, come forward.

I guess I don't have to give my name anymore. Evening. Well, you didn't turn in a slip either, but okay. [snorts]

Hey, I have a hand. Um anyway, um exciting project. Of course, the city's been waiting a very long time for this. Um and a lot of difficult choices ahead, I think. Um in the foreseeable future, you'll only get one go at this. So, you're not going to be able to do another measure W in the next 15 20 years probably. Uh so, that is the the base funds that we've got. uh central location is going to be very important. So I I would rule out downtown. I think it's got to be near residential areas and most of our residences are around or above Raone. So you know uh that makes the the city library probably um the best option although I don't think it's a great option frankly. um it's uh it's easier to find smaller community spaces for meetings and so on uh in other locations and so for that reason I would say you start first with the gym recreation center and you go big because we just saw there that your um your costs per square foot are going to be lower the bigger the facility is. I guess if we made it infinitely big, we'd not have to pay any cost. Um, and we also didn't see there. Um, but another option would be to go for a 30-year bond, not a 20-year bond. So, we we might be able to do better there. And and uh, of course, there are other sources, as as we just heard, there are other sources for um, for money to go towards this project. I think it would have been useful and maybe they have the figure there somewhere to see what it would actually cost, what the fully burdened cost would be for the two sizes that were being suggested, the

recreation center and the community center. And we know that right now we might have 13 million towards it, but what is it we have to get to? That's that's the other question. So those are my comments. Thank you very much. And uh to the question, I I think if if we get some direction on a smaller list, that's our intention is to build out some of those direct costs for you.

We we got it. So, and I I because I think we understand that this this is all still quite theoretical, but the problem we have now is we have nine sites. So, to say, well, what would it cost to build this this size or that size? Well, it depends because it depends on on where we're at, but we do appreciate your comments. Are there any other public comments? All right, we'll close public comments and return it back to the council. Mayor Prom, you told me you had some additional um questions or

uh Yes. My first question will be for Kevin. Kevin, can you please come up and tell us um if the $1 million that has been or will be set aside for measure W, is that going to be how much of that is going to be for park maintenance and how much of that is going to be for a future operations of the community center recreation center or is that the entire amount to cover both?

Good question. Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Pro, City Council. Um, with respect to the anticipated 5 million, you look at five pillars and when you look at those five pillars, we have a million for fire, we have a million for roads. So, when you take that out, we have three million left. And tied to that three million left, we have a million planned for parks. We have a million planned for the community center recreation programs. And we have a million set aside or planned for that bond debt. That bond debt that we tied back to at 13 million. The bond council and the bond firm did the analysis of the 20year and the 30-year. And the unfortunate thing was 30 years we only garner about $2.5 million more of principal. So that 13 million only rises up to about 15 a.5. And so you're spending another 10 million in bond debt for those additional 10 years to only garner $2.5 million in principle. So based on the the point about a 20-year versus a 30-year when we presented this back in measure W, we did tie back to that as a potential. But does that help answer? Uh yes he does because he tells me the way uh I've grown up in in my profession is I don't go shopping for home until I know exactly how much money I make and what my expenses are and what my future income is and that will tell me and of course I get pre-qualified to make sure that I qualify but it tells me how much am I going to be able to afford how much can I do can I buy Then I don't look for any homes. I when someone calls me that they want to buy a home, I don't show

them any homes. First I do my homework as to how much money do they have saved, etc. to come up with what is their potential financial strength. Well, I think that right here what we're doing, I mean, they did an unbelievable job selecting the um sites, but I think we as council must come up with how much can we afford, how much is exactly what can we do? And then once we know what we can afford, we can start looking at sites, what's potential. We're doing this, I believe, backwards. We're going for instance, I'll flip it over to cars. I'm I'm shopping for Mercedes and Rolls-Royces. We're not looking a forward so you go where Toyota. Okay. So we need to go backwards and say okay what can we do for instance if we do any of this any new build refurbished or anything with the money that we're going to get from SU is really peanuts you can say in the Rome of things. Okay. We're all we're going to do is 5,000 square ft is absolutely nothing. A couple of bathrooms and a couple is it's really nothing. Now, if we get into the 25 to 40,000 square feet, it makes a difference. So by saying that is that if we build it, if the city builds it, okay, we have to pay prevailing wages which is double at least double the amount in expenses of what any regular property building is going to cost. Whether it's remodeling, rebuilding or refurbishing or from the ground up. One of the best options that I was thinking is this. Why can't we just come up and

uh come into an agreement with a an investor and have them build the property for us and we'll lease it from them. They can build it specifically for what we want for a certain uh payment a month per year for how many years and do at least option to buy but the end by the end of the 20 years or 25 years whatever it is we can buy it for a dollar in the meantime they can build us something almost double the size for why we as a city because we by lot have to use prevailing wages can afford to build. They can build something much bigger, almost double the size than what we can. So, I think if we play our cards differently, we can do this. Also, with $1 million for debt service, $13 million total maximum for debt service. Again, it comes down to very limited uh type of or size of a building. I think we as council might have to consider actually from the general fund actually chipping in half a million to a million dollars from the general fund to get a larger uh bond. That way we can double what we want to do

and that would be an option.

Yeah. So, and so you when you do the math and I can share with you from when we first briefed you all on this concept of the debt service, we have had three rate cuts as you all are aware with respect to the Federal Reserve and with the prior to the most recent rate cut in December when we went back that 13 million had inched up from the two previous rate cuts based on the bond market to about 13 a.5. So depending upon where life heads in the near term, the medium term, we could see even more gains with respect to what that principle would get. And you're spot on. If we did 1.5 or 2.0, we could end up with 19 to 20 million or 26 million plus. And that will allow us to actually build something because uh as is being said, we don't have that many chances first of all for another tax uh measure. We're done for 15 to 20 years. There's this going to be almost impossible to get our voters to pass that again. But um we as council, if we tighten our belts a little bit and make a decision to help out whether it's half a million a year or a million a year from a general fund towards this purpose is something that will make a difference. And if we come up with a a financing source and we determine how much can we afford, how much can we're willing to really put out there. I think that'll be beneficial. And then we can say, okay, we have $26 million. We decided to do this. Okay. Um, building from the ground up. No. Okay. How about exploring other options? uh this just opens our eyes as

to how much we cannot afford actually I mean I would like to live in Indian wells in other places but actually that's not what I what I can afford so those are those are my so mayor proamez asked the questions this is all of our finance here is assuming that we take the money that's been set aside in measure W but probably with supplemental but I'll what we're looking at for and make a bond issue and come up with $13 million or so. Is there are there other finance options?

And let me feed off of uh the city manager had an had a little bit of an intro of that and that is when um in the February meeting and coming back that's part of additional scouring to do and she mentioned impact fees. She also mentioned potentially the AB939 the environmental. So those are just supplementing it with other monies that we already have access to. Are there other finance options like you talked about would sound kind of like a design build lease back. Is that such a thing or is that just a theoretical? That is something that could be considered. We were tying back to additional funding sources on top of the 13 or 13 and a half. I

I think all of us realize that we're going to have to look for other traditional funding sources to supplement whatever. but he was talking about something completely different and I was wondering if is there such a thing and if there is such a thing have we explored such a thing.

We haven't explored specifically any of the financing options yet. Um I think I think what our hope has been is as we've narrow kind of narrow it down that we can really dig deep into establishing what the funding plan would likely have to be before we could you know move things forward. uh because we do need to identify what those either additional partnerships is it a private partner private public partnership um are there other funding mechanisms that we're just not thinking about that we can um kind of speak to consultants I think like the cosmott or others that might have some ideas and you know what are the other potential partnerships that we have with other community agencies that might either have opportunity for capital or for operational costs all of those things have yet to be vetted uh so We we know they're out there. We just don't have that answer yet.

So, it would seem Mayor Prom has a point because I think his point is we're being led to a logical conclusion here that we have very few choices, only one that's seems to pencil out partway um because of cost. And so he's suggesting that well we don't know how much money we would have for this project because there are other financing options that have been that haven't been explored. And I'm hearing oh well yeah we're aware there are other financing options that haven't been explored. So his what he's saying is well we're doing this backwards then because we don't know if we have enough money to build something on a freshly purchased site that might be in a ideal location and solve other problems because we haven't looked at it. Is that correct?

Well [snorts] we we haven't we don't have any uh current private partners uh that we have explored even trying to figure this option. So, is this something that's commonly done in cities or is this something unusual? I'm going to turn to Don to see if she has any suggestions since she's built this is our first time hearing about it and I am not an expert in this so I'm just asking honest questions. So, um I I think what the study has identified is the need in the community right for community center recreation facilities. Um there are options for lease buyback and we can assist getting connections for additional information on that.

And does that change the overall financial picture significantly?

It can my understanding and we've talked with two or three cities recently about this is the size of the project is what's going to determine that. So if we stay like on a first phase 15 to 20 20 to 25,000 square foot facility it probably won't work. Um the lease buyback are typically for larger projects beyond that and that is my recent discussion with people who are knowledgeable on that. So, which is again interesting because we've had the last couple sessions we've been nobody tells us for sure, but you present us a body of evidence that says you can only afford this much. You can only do this much. So, what I'm hearing is well, yeah, but if actually if you were going to do a whole big one, then you might there might be a financing scenario where you could you could actually pay for that. and but we haven't explored it because we've been only leading the council.

Well, it's it's not gonna it's I mean it's it's not going to be 50 cents on the dollar. I would say it's probably 85 or 90 cents on. So that's why I'm asking because it makes a significant difference because we're looking at my experience 50 cents on the dollar, but there is potentially some savings and it's 85 or 90 cents on the dollar. And I think, mayor, the focus of this study hasn't been to get into all of the um financing plan for this. The intent of the study is to study potential locations that could be viable for the center uh to

but again without going around in circles over and over again that's the mayor prom's point is we're looking at what's viable and a lot of that viability is focused on cost and he's suggesting that and I'm hearing that it may be at least partly true that some of the larger sites or some of the new builds might have other financing that might actually work. So, and this is the first I'm hearing of this in this in all of these studies we've been doing.

Yeah. And and I I'm just going to jump in here to say that um I love your point. It's a a great perspective in in looking at it at a different coming from a different angle. Um and and the um said the community priorities um and you know we get it from text messages and emails from community members um but they want court sports. So there you know one of my concerns about the library and although I think it's a great idea to you know to um refurbish it part of it as a as a community rooms because there's lots of space there that's available. Um, but it's such a a jammed little spot and there are no there's I mean we're talking about um repurposing and reconfiguring Patriot Park. Um there isn't any room for court sports, you know, I mean that's not going to happen and that's their their big priority. And I know um I had we had John Carella had and I had talked about po possibly repurposing the tennis courts on um candlewood um because they've been sitting there not used and then that didn't work out and we thought maybe the city could work in a partnership with that to make a pickle ball court and you know just to find some space around here where we can do some things and so the the library center is never going to have that. I mean, it's it's this is what it's going to be. And we're always going to have to look for other opportunities for our community to use sports courts and have sports courts because there's none here. So, that's cross that out. That's what they wanted. That's that's not going to happen.

Council member, do you mean the indoor sports courts or outdoor sports courts? Outdoor sports court. I'm I mean I I cannot say they just said sports courts here and that was beyond the scope of our study. Um, this was our study was mainly to look at the um the lack of the indoor uh right space, right? And and so it's just a just a as I'm thinking about all this and we we're considering this um looking at your point to um let's see what we want, not pie in the sky, but have a good idea of what our community needs are and then go from that angle, you know, that approach. um instead of this is what we've got. Let's make let's make it work.

Mayor, um in the past I have uh have heard that a local uh builder investor was actually interested in uh potentially looking at the idea of building such uh a facility for the city and the city leasing it from them. and they'll they will do well financially because they will make money and we as the city and our residents will benefit quite a bit from that because like I said when you have to build paying prevailing wages is more than double the wages that you would pay anybody else. For instance, if if a uh if a painter

I'm not trying to cut you off but we understand prevailing wages. So I'm just trying to think question. So it it has to do with this but it's a little bit offkilter. I'm trying to wrap my brain and I'm not a real spatial thinker. So to What's the size of this room? This is probably about about 5,000. Yeah. About 3,000 3,000 square feet. So, I used to have a 34,000 foot antique furniture warehouse and and you know, that would have been big enough to do something like this, but 20,000 probably wouldn't, you know, not to get what what it is we want, what what our our constituents and our citizens want,

right? Once you start adding bathrooms and you try and you make them uh handicap accessible and all this, the space really becomes reduced quite a bit. So the library does right now that seems like the best option, but we need to maybe possibly come up with an ad hack committee to actually explore this a little deeper or something because I think if

if we do this uh I think that uh we're doing this backwards and we can potentially do better and maybe exploring this a little bit deeper. We don't we only have one good shot at this and then later on of course adding on to it. But the initial construction or decision is going to be is going to be absolutely critical.

And and mayor and mayor prot and maybe I need to clarify. I don't think what staff is trying to do this evening is to advocate one way or the other. I think you know as Charlie had I think originally envisioned this was the idea of a smaller center with an expansion opportunity. we didn't have the data that we have that um that group four has done and I think as as Don has said tonight that you know it's we can we can look at the option of adding on later but the those costs are going to be just as as probably worse you know if we wait to do it not build it out in the first place. I don't think we're here to try to advocate for one position or the other. I think we're trying to see if there's any consensus on a location and then we can bring back options of sort of both footprints and have at least some better cost data of what what that buildout would be of a 22 2,000 foot facility or of 40,000t facility and then we can I think we're not I think from tonight I don't think the expectation is okay we're going to start into construction drawings tomorrow but maybe we can then take some time and do further research on potential funding opportunities for either type of option. So whether it is a you know if we really want to be more conservative and look at the smaller facility and or the larger facility. I think the other thing we have to consider is how much can we afford to operate and so those are the other um cost challenges I think of and why it's been helpful getting some of the initial data from the DRD to see what the true operational costs are for either size of these facilities because I think while it's still not easy I think it's easier to find ways to get the capital costs whether through bonding through grants or other mechanisms it's those ongoing operational costs too that we want to make sure we're balancing affordability

I agree because the larger the facility, the larger the operation. Even though we have $1 million for operations, that kind of tells us if you do that by uh the numbers, it's going to cost probably around 20ome dollars per square foot. Uh and that funding is also what we've been using for our parks activities right now. Obviously, if we have an indoor center, there'll probably be a lot more park programming at the center, but that's the programmatic funding that's also been used for um the park activities, too. Mayor, it seems to me like we've gotten four off the list that we said as we went along, they were

Well, we'll talk about that. I just also just I just wanted to add that uh I do appreciate the public comment that was made in the part of it where it was stated that we already have access to small meeting rooms here in the city but when we want to have something larger or for indoor sports other than I mean the school district has them and the Salvation Army may have them but we don't have anything like that that's available. So it does seem kind of not the best use of first phase funds if that's what we end up with to say well we it's easier for us to build small smaller spaces with that and then in the future we can look at building a big space because it does kind of just omit well what are the but what are the people asking for? Well, yeah, they're asking for everything, but what are they mostly asking for? And what is the the highest need? And it seems the highest need is to have spaces dissimilar to what we already have. It doesn't seem to to make a lot of sense to just build spaces similar to ones we already have alternatives for that we could probably use more, but to use all the money for that. because at the end of that everybody's going to say, "Well, we still can't do a lot of these functions because we don't have the places for those." So, I just wanted to throw that in the mix. So, yeah, I was hoping you put a big snag in this, but it's a good snag

because I was thinking, well, you know, let's be realistic. We want to move forward at some point. And so if we only have so much money and we only have so many possible sites that fall into that um then you know we should be able to limit this down quite a bit and focus on you know one I thought we might come out as focus on one primary site with maybe some backups those types of things that would we would continue to look at but we wouldn't focus on but now I'm hearing well but it depends Because it depends if we look at other financing options and it depends on whether we um even if we did look at the one site or certain sites that it might not be the suggested order of construction or this suggested order of of um use of space that we seem to be being shown that that's the way that would be easiest or most reasonable to do but not really very aspirational to do if that makes any sense. So, um, Council Member Ross, you did suggest I do think we it's cumbersome to carry nine sites forward. Yep.

And we're not going to get a lot of progress on any one site by doing that,

but you said that you felt that there were some that could pretty much just be crossed off the list. So, would you like to go over those? Yeah, it seemed to me and correct me if this is mistaken. We we found the Walmart and Burlington were difficult. They they've always they've always been difficult. That's probably not going to change. And then also the site near the amphitheater uh because that was another that potentially difficult. And then the fourth one was the Uptown Village site on Day Palm. Those four we kind we didn't really talk about because they didn't really seem to stick with us. So if I had to eliminate with given what the mayor prom said, I would say a site like the old Walmart and old Burlington might be possible under a different financing scenario where we had somebody else build.

So I would leave those on. I would take by the amphitheater off um because it's it doesn't have even the amenities that those have. I would take Dennis Keat Soccer Park off. Correct. It was never frankly the best site in centrality because it really is kind of at a corner and edge of of the city. Um and you would have to basically whatever you built there you would have to replace with like somewhere else. So that doesn't make a lot of sense. I would take Northgate Church off. It was an interesting discussion with them. But we would be leasing the land. My understanding is it although correct

talks didn't get that far that there might be strings involved you know and I don't think that that's going to serve the city in the long run and the uptown village I don't even know how it got added on there as far as I know they're going to build shops there so um it to me it doesn't add any appeal to anything else so then you so you end up with the three others other than Densky Park three city-owned sites or something aspirational if it was financed a different way is kind of what I see. Yes, mayor. And also the uh Salvation Army property, it might be a little too small if we start getting a different uh type of financing if things change. Um that I mean amenities are there, but

it could be, but the city technically also owns property behind the Veterans Village right across the street there. So you're saying you couldn't you would have to do a twotory for parking there? I'm like, well, that's not the really the discussion here tonight to get in that much detail, but would you have to? There's always other possibilities there. So, good point.

And also, we really haven't talked about the site across from city hall here, but if but if it's on the table that there would potentially we would look at something that we created having that large space might be I mean it's on a bus route. It's not neighborhood. I will say that's that site does not appeal to me for a couple of reasons. It's not central to the city and we have repeatedly discussed and even the speaker discussed that the c center of the city is actually far north of the library but it's certainly not in the cove. The other thing for that site is there are opportunity costs that you're going to be losing by going to that site because we've always felt that the 111 frontage is ideal for commercial development or expansion of the arts and entertainment district. And if you built your community center there,

you might have some spaces that could be used for that, but you it's not the you're not going to generate revenue. It's a very large. Yeah. So to me that while it's interesting to discuss that site, you you couldn't have that discussion without having a serious opportunity lost opportunity cost discussion. So if we were looking at those other two sites by the library by the Salvation Army or something using the old Walmart old Burlington with a different financing structure or technically different financing structure anywhere would be um my preference to move forward on.

Yeah. And I agree with the library and the Salvation Army and um the the Walmart and the Burlington because the the parking is wonderful, the access

um you know it it's not a cramped spot. I mean just to be able to expand and do something longterm. Um I think not want to see those. I don't want to. Yes, I agree with you and and I I had talked to the city manager and I mentioned, you know, the old like the old Marmark site. If you got into negotiations, who knows? But it's a large space in a large parking lot and those kind of things. There was talks about not having to use all of that parking lot even for a recreation center and could that be used to for to attract multifamily housing, maybe some affordable housing, those types of things. So, while it seems like, oh, that's a great big space and we couldn't possibly use it, I think if we looked at the whole picture, any of those sites in the old Burlington might very well be the same. You know, there there might be opportunities to do the recreation center and something else on that.

My understanding is those two sites have been difficult to negotiate with and maybe we'd want to send somebody. It could be, but we're we're ignoring that because we have we don't really know. I mean, it's an educated guess because they've looked at Well, the reason I said that is it might be our opportunity to go to the outside to have somebody negotiate that instead of, you know, us internally because that's a possibility, right? So, um, does that sound like a good way to move forward at this point? I think that you couldn't have put that any better, mayor. Yeah, I think it's good. All right.

So, for clarification, mayor, uh the four that we will continue to work on is the library site, Salvation Army, Old Burlington, and Old Walmart. Was the senior center site still on the list for the council or No, not for me. No, not for me. Okay.

That will that will help limit and help you move forward. But we'd also where we're adding is we want you to look at other types of financing, design, build, those types of things, those type of opportunities. And and um and we'd also I think we'd like you to for those the Walmart and the Burlington site, somebody actually have a discussion with them or what our options would be. Um, I don't know if this is the the kind of thing where the city would try to force a sale or any that type of thing, but I think we should we should probably at least have that on the table. Correct.

Because they're they're not utilized spaces right now. So, they're not doing the the the city or its residents or its visitors or anybody any good. I mean it it was I think a little clear at least on the Walmart project that there was a you know a commercial operator with you know a variety of options for that and they weren't able to come to a negotiated agreement to kind of move forward with it. But we'll we'll explore um different options on how we would have that conversation if we need to go through a broker or somebody else.

All right. Is is that at least that at least gets us off of nine sites. So that's a good thing, right? And and then also clarifying council that you're wanting to look at sort of as we look at sort of harder costs for both smaller footprint and larger footprint for I think that's correct. I but I am hearing well at least I have a preference that we look at the we look at maybe some of the priority sites program elements program elements here even if they if you you could only do some of them first and and kind of look as has been suggested by the speaker of

not prioritizing [clears throat] sites that all are already kind of exist somewhere else around the city even though we obviously could use more But a pre-built building would would be pretty awesome, too. So, you know, however, and we can look at um as Don has presented the different building programs and the kind of square foot set aside for those, we can look at sort of if we want to focus on sort of that gymnasium piece or that uh recreational piece, how we could sort of shuffle those to see how we could maximize that larger space if if we're not if we're doing the one larger with the recreation component versus the community component first. All right. Thank you.

Yes. Mr. Mayor, as we uh continue to explore this uh if coun if council will actually keep in mind that or keep an open mind that once we get all the finances in order to see more the possibilities in as to how finances are going to work. Keep in mind that um if or keep an open mind that [snorts] if necessary for us to actually assist in that development from general funds obligance.

Yeah, that would all all be part of the discussion. I don't I don't think we were going to focus on that tonight. I think it's worthwhile as you said to to discuss. There's all kinds. When you said the um one of the for example when when Don when you said that uh what one of them was a resiliency center that type of thing I'm thinking oh well I've heard of some very large grants that have gone for spaces that could also be used resiliency centers and they tend to be the larger wreck spaces maybe with a kitchen and and that kind of thing or or if it was an alternate EOC location and you needed to build a there are all kinds of funding possibilities. So, um, well, can we get some of those back at us too? Some of those suggest?

Oh, I think that should be part of the discussion. If we build, say we do build the large space earlier than later, what are are we more likely to get some of these certain types of grants for that? I think that's worth worthwhile. Yeah, mayor, because I'd rather do this right than do it fast. No, you're right. You're correct. And I would And I haven't ever been in the Burlington, but you know, we did Hall of Flowers at the other one, the Oh, yeah. No, it was the Burlington. at the Burlington and it was a great it was a great huge big space and it looked like it was fairly well cared for. All right, so let's go ahead and move on. We do have other items on our study session. Thank you very much for your presentation and city management for your assistance and finance and everyone. Uh I think it was a good discussion. Thanks everyone.

All right, our next item is the new city website reveal. City manager, would you like to introduce the Yes. Uh this is another exciting one and we didn't kick Ryan until the end of the meeting this time. Um we uh staff have been working on for a long time uh updating our city website which hadn't been really fully rebuilt since we put it into place too many years ago. And so Ryan and Matthew Levy from our IT department uh have been the leads on bringing our website into the current generation. And so I'd like to or the current century. So I'd like to turn it over to Ryan to kind and Matthew to kind of walk you through what has happened to it. And uh I think it's really exciting and staff are really pleased with the outcome of this.

Thank you, city manager, mayor, mayor prom, city council. It's good to be with you this afternoon uh to go over our new website reveal. I want to put a few caveats. We still have another round of user acceptance training. So this is a bit of a trial period as we kind of collect data and feedback. So I'm obviously interested in in any um um feedback that you have as a council, but um we are still tinkering. So if you see some things but that you know are kind of still changing. We are still actively working and as I'll get into in a later slide, websites are living documents and they're always updated. There's never a day where you get to spike the football and say it's touchdown and you're done. It's always kind of trying to evolve and make sure we stay ahead and get the most accurate information. So So strategic plan goal just wanted to mention that it's uh goal D4 leverage technology to increase and improve online services. I think we did that with our inner gov um conversion and the online services portal that we've done. And this is kind of again another way that we're doing uh that we're trying to uh manage our operational data and and improve our our overall access to public information which is important. So I think the city uh the interim city manager uh queued it up uh nicely about why update now. Um well we hadn't had a redesign since 2016. uh that was nearly a decade and our it's our first major content overhaul since 2008. So it's my understanding this predates me but in 2016 it was really more of just moving all of the content over from the 2008 iteration and giving it a facelift or or a look a new look. Um this is not what we did this time. We had uh it was a major undertaking and is still one that we're that we're doing uh actively with our departments. you don't clean up um that much over that much time, you know, uh dated information, a lot of cluttered um activity uh overnight. It's a it's a it's a really uh lengthy heavy lift process. So, I'll get into the team and give some kudos in a in a minute, but uh the job is still very much underway and one that we're taking very seriously. Uh

the previous site had accumulated outdated content, broken links, inconsistent formatting. Um and you can just see the overall look. It doesn't adhere to our branding and style guide guidelines at all. Um, and so it was just kind of a lot of different colors, a lot going on. Didn't really look modern, um, from a functionality standpoint. So, um, you know, it needed a modern platform that reflects how our residents, you know, see Cathedral City today, which is, um, what we wanted to provide. So, um, Ann Ambrose, our inter interim city manager, I want to thank her for her leadership support on this. I was the project lead, but it was certainly a mighty uh a small but mighty effort uh with our team of Matthew Levy, as she mentioned, did really terrific work as he continues to do um when it comes to helping to clean up a lot of uh broken links and going back on the back end of the site and trying to consolidate and reduce the number of clicks. you know, when we were doing heat mapping in the old site, you could just see how many times people would use their mouse and just give up because they couldn't find anything and they couldn't um they they couldn't get to it quick enough. And so, uh that was something that we took seriously. We we really were intentional about datainformed decision-m. So, what you see on the homepage is really based on what what are people clicking on, what are people really using, um and what could we have a little bit more front and center to make it a little bit easier for them as well. Victor Gomez uh who who is uh obviously in economic development and city manager's office. Want to give him uh kudos as well. He helped us immensely with content review with updates to the service finder and helping me with the style guide that we've now implemented. We've never had a style guide um that has been universal to my knowledge in the city. So that's another kind of growing up as a city kind of thing to get us in line with where we are where we should be in 2026. and uh department liaison. We're going to have a process now where uh two two individuals and employees in each department will be doing quarterly check-ins and updates. They'll be responsible for upkeep in their departments. Um you know, with the number of uh with the limited resources

we do have as a staff um you know, we're a small but might but mighty team. Um that that we really need to make sure that we have people trained in all departments to be able to make updates to the content. Um whereas um you know the the now eliminated position of of web master graphic design um was kind of a oneperson operation and and that wasn't really sustainable. We weren't really keeping up where we needed to be. So what we did uh again comprehensive content audit across all departments archived obsolete materials uh you know forms that had the old city logo things that weren't fillable. um the a lot of ADA access issues that we had to clean up. Um some new regulations that have actually come in from the state now that we needed to make sure we adhere to. So I'm really happy with how we've consolidated a lot of the content and eliminated duplicate unnecessary links. You know, when I was looking at the website conne for our traffic alerts that could that could be applicable, it was just added there. And so what that does is it just creates so many buried links when you're looking for search function in Google. Um, so we really wanted to make sure, like I said, that that the reducing the number of clicks was was a prime goal here. Restructure the site architecture around user needs and and as you can just see the homepage, you know, kind of that cream color, the the orange it is more identifiable to Cathedral City's brand and you can see it now on the video monitors view and the council chamber upgrades. Um, but we we're really trying to make sure that we adhere to to brand um style guide guidelines as well.

[sighs] So, um, actually, I'm going to leave it on that, uh, slide and I'm going to bring up Matthew Levy, um, who's going to get a little bit more into the tech side of things. So, and just kind of talk a little bit about what we what we've achieved.

Thank you, Ryan. Hello, Mayor, Mayor Prom, members of the council. My name is Matthew. I think we've met a couple times. Um, okay. So, we wanted to make this under one roof. We're running too many websites around the city. It's just becomes when we have new employees, the first thing they say to us is, "Well, we didn't know if that was your site. Oh, we didn't know this." And so, we really wanted to make sure that this is all into one municipal site, very much like other cities do. So, we consolidated police, fire, and HR all under the cathedral city.gov hood. Uh, that takes a lot of work internally to work with our police department, work with our fire department, make sure that we hit all the um cross all the te's, dot all the eyes. And what we did is we took it all into basically a folder if you look at there. Um, but we were hosting these on separate external sites, which creates spend more spend on on the IT side. It's now easier for our residents to find all the city information in one place, which we really wanted to do. Um, you could also see these mobile buttons that are built into all the pages. Um, these little rectangle boxes kind of morph when you're on a smaller screen, so it's much easier to see the data in front of you. And, um, the maintenance for staff. Um, before, like like Ryan was saying, we had one web master, we had to wait sometimes three days for an update. We now have over 20 different staff members probably that can edit this site on a whim. So, and that's what we need if we want a nice little website to run for our um future future developers. But this is basically our storefront. We need to make sure that we take it take care of it and sweep sweep the sweep the rugs every day. Um, another key feature we added on this site is what we call the service finder. Um, we also like to take a couple um off of our mission statement of moving forward. So, kind of just getting stuff done really quickly for our citizens and residents alike. Uh, but it functions like a mini app. Um, once you click it, you get access to um a whole drop- down list of things that people can do really quickly. And we link that through um sub menus to get to um to get to where you need to be. Um so, we don't want clicking through pages. These are actionable. So, once you do find what

you want, usually it's a one click away. So before we had daisy chain page to page to page to page to page removed all that rel uh made it click and open. Um the report and issue find a permit locate city services all in here. So really quickly some of the additional improvements we we also added were just like Ryan was already saying a modern user friendly interface. Again, uh it was almost when we looked at the old site, it it enraged us a little bit because, you know, it's just it was just not professional looking. And we all feel like we're very professional and we really wanted to make this one um look and feel like Cathedral City. Like all of us bleed it. Um we really wanted it to be that good. So all the colors were were deduced. Uh we we threw around color schemes on color palettes. um took in what we call ADA standards and guidelines and W CAG or um compliant online compliance um based features to make sure that our color schemes were going to be perfectly uh viewable with blacks, our creams, and our browns. Um so the mobile design will will alter to any device, whether it be an iPad, whether you go landscape, whether you go portrait, it doesn't really matter what you do, you're going to be snapped onto the grid. um our searching functionality, although right now may not be great because when you once you um remove the top of your house and all the plumbing's left, Google has a really hard time connecting those pipes back. So, we're going to get it all back in there and it's going to be really really nice. It just takes a little more time for Google to to know what we did. And about 3 weeks from now, we won't be talking about this. So, um but again, our updated visual design reflecting our city brand was was paramount in this project. Ryan did a fantastic job really pushing home exactly what we needed to do to stand out.

Is it cathedral city.gov or Yes, it is. Cathedral City. Cathedral City.gov. Correct. I know we have a lot of websites, so it's hard. We're going to be rerouting all of our other sites that are all pointing to this one main site as well. That's nice. Um, again, the Google search note, we just want to make it very, very transparent here. The site has been completely restructured, so there will be some broken links. Please bear with us in this in this um intermediary time here. Do you want us to tell you if we see a broken link? You want us to shoot you an email? Sure. That we're also grooming internally as well. Council member, no. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you, [clears throat] Council Member, to answer your question. Yeah, we're we're we're likely to see broken links um in the two to three week period. Yeah. So, during that as the as it kind of relearns how to crawl the site. Um, we were happy to hear that Granite has actually duplicated our efforts there and sent a site map as well, which um, will hopefully escalate. U, Google's not always my favorite as far as escalating and being prompt, but we are noticing um, through real-time searches is, you know, Matthew and I just pick a handful of items each day to kind of search meetings and agendas, things that are um, obviously going to be searched uh, in that. But I I think, you know, to to clarify, it is it is a search powered by Google. So what you see in Google is going to be mimicked on our our cathedralcity.gov. So we don't have an internal um you know search function. It's using it's powered by Google results. So um so it'll take a little bit of time. We we really I think it was kind of murky as far as the the divide between discover cathedralcity.com and cathedralcity.gov. discover cathedralcity.com um through the advice of our city attorney is where the marketing news site really needs to be a dot separated um site when we're promoting small businesses and doing any type of advocacy for the city. So um that that um as a news site is now pretty clear. So when you see this on the news and calendar tabs, you can see that we're keeping some articles there. We're going to try to mix it up with evergreen and and some new stuff as well on the four boxes that we have. But when you click now, it's just going to all go directly to the full article on discover cathedralcity.com. So not no more of this like I have to click three different ways to get to news and or the news looks empty and kind of sad. Um it it's all now going to be powered by discover cathedral city and that was something that drove me a little nutty um when when I first got here that we just didn't really have this way to get people straight to the news and it was confusing. What was why don't you have this on cathedral city.gov? Well, that's a good that's actually a really good question. So, um, you know, we have to, um, make sure that kind we're kind of

mimicking a news site here, but it will ultimately get you to to the discover cathedralcity.com.

So, next steps. Um, continue to hear um, user feedback and certainly have some residents that have been uh, called upon to kind of uh, look at the site as well. And I know we've received certainly plenty of feedback from Mr. Lee. Um, and so we're we're working on that. We really appreciate that though, Danny. I think that's going to make for a better site and hearing from our residents. Um and and we we thought you know keeping him out of retirement for too long we had to give him something to do. So Charlie McClendon is actually uh looking at the website as well and has provided some feedback. So again living document certainly still more work to do. I think there will always be work to do on the website. Um and it's something that just for the longest time it becomes something I think from an internal morale standpoint it it hurt our employees too because when you see that old site every day you come into work you have to update it, you have to look at it. owners, our residents, we want to make sure it's something that they feel proud of that reflects the Cathedral City brand. So, while we're still tinkering and getting rid of dated content, why not make it look like a 2026 website and bring us into the future and bring well to the current um and and so that's what we've tried to do. So, we will be doing deep dive training sessions uh first week of February and again it's a continuous improvement living document. Uh there's no uh staff recommendations just presented for information, but I will be happy to uh answer any questions.

Council questions. I have one. Go ahead. Yeah. Now, so in the past if pe if people needed to access the police department, they used to cathedral city police department.gov or whatever it was and they would do whatever business they needed to do at that website and also of course uh a regular Cathedral City website. Now, how about Discover Cathedral City? We have a link there to uh I I know there's legally uh I don't know if it's true or not or it was just something I misunderstood that you cannot put anything regarding Cathedral City on a regular website. No links or anything.

It's best practice when you're doing tourismbbased initiatives and marketing of that style that you do a versus a.gov website. And so we we created essentially a visit Cathedral City almost tourism type site with.com. Um but there are still plenty of ways that you can access that on the homepage and then through the news content now. It all just directly hyperlinks to discover that anything that's a news content item. So the police website police website's all under our roof now. Yeah. It'll it'll all be fire is integr integrated. Just have one. Yeah. Just have one. We als we also used to have an app for the police department here in which we used to we we have the uh go request but we also had the police one here.

Yeah. So the police site and the fire site are currently still active while the site crawl is underway for another couple of weeks but eventually when you do search that or if you click on a link it will now redirect all to cathedralcity.gov. Great. And the economic development ones and correct ones are all absolutely the de development dashboard all of it's under one house. Yep. Up to here. Does that also include um like like code enforcement? Yeah, they've always been a part of the do the.gov tree. Yeah, absolutely. all of our departments um are are under the condition. You can still make notes to them, you know, that you saw something and because that's one of the things they did, not code enforcement, you know, like city when you're driving through the city and what what

report an issue. Thank you. Report an issue. That's really what I meant. Yes. Yeah. So that that service finder tool hopefully makes reporting an issue easier, but it all it all is housed on cathedral city.gov all under that one site. Yes. And thank you. All right, Council Member Gordon. She actually pushed the button.

Thank you. I just want to I've told you Ryan already, but having presided over numerous website redesigns um of similar magnitude in my career, I I know what a huge task this was. And I want to commend you and the tech team and everybody for doing the audit, for doing the due diligence, and putting this together in such a way that is really user friendly. And even though there's, you know, ongoing hiccups, um, as as uh, Matthew said, in three weeks there won't be. And so this is this is really, um, I think transformative for the way that we communicate information to our our, uh, residents. And so, um, I just want to congratulate you on that because I know that this was a significant lift and it it's it looks very smooth and it looks very polished and the branding is fantastic.

Thank you, council member. with your expertise too and your background. It really means a lot. I appreciate that. I share that in uh Ann's leadership, Matthew's work, and Victor's work on the project. It was certainly a team effort. Appreciate that. Good job. All right. Thank you. Are there any public comments on this item? Mayor did not receive any requests to speak forms. If you'd like to make a public comment, we do have one. Annie Lee, come forward. So, I was reviewing your bios the other day and I'm going to set you some homework to go read it. um because um I think some of you no longer own restaurants for example. Uh so you might just want to make sure that now we've got this beautiful new website the information is actually accurate. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other comments? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close public com back to the council. Anything else? All right, that's the end of this item. City Manager, if you don't mind, and I and and John Carella, if you don't mind, we would like to move item number uh C of the study session to the end of our regular meeting so we can have a few minutes to do a close session. Absolutely. All right. So, with that, I'll ask the city attorney if he would read us in a close session.

Thank you, mayor. We have two items on your close session this evening. First is a uh public employee appointment pursuant to government code section 54957 with the position being city manager. Uh the second item is a conference with your labor negotiator pursuant to government code section 54957.6. Uh your labor negotiators are Al Ford, he's the assistant city attorney, my office and Saurin, human resources manager. The employee organizations are American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the Cathedral City Firefighters Association.

All right. Are there any public comments on close session? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and recess into close session. I had a friend Ernesto. [clears throat] Vanessa, I had a friend who just told me