City Council - Regular Meeting

just because we have to start with our city our city. He's going to read out a close session, please. I'm sorry, mayor. I couldn't hear you. Did you say close session report? to read out of close session.

Be happy to do that. We had two items on our close session. Uh during the study session part uh the first was a conference with the real property negotiators. You did give direction on that item. There was no other reportable action on that. You also had an item that was added as a uh item of subsequent need. Uh that was a matter of existing litigation. You heard a report from the city attorney gave the city attorney direction. There was no other report on that item or no other reportable action on that item. And that concludes our close session agenda for the day.

Thank you very much. So that brings us to the regular meeting 5:30 call to order I for the September 10th 2025 Rainery City Council meeting. We're going to start with the pledge of allegiance. But once you're standing for that, will you please remain standing for then the invocation?

Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and this as we come together today we pause to recognize a leader whose presence has been a cornerstone of this organization with vision integrity, resilience, and a steady commitment to others. He has guided, mentored, and inspired. His leadership has not only helped us navigate challenges and reach milestones. It has also cultivated a culture of trust, respect, and excellence. From the strongest vines springs the most robust new growth. And it's clear that the work, wisdom, and values left behind will continue to grow and shape our future. With gratitude for the path that has been paved and optimism for the journey ahead, let us begin. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So, we have a special recognition for our city manager. And oh, I'm sorry. I missed our roll call. There'd be I'm already standing so you know. Council member Konovali here. Council member Lamb. Council member Gutierrez here. Mayor Prom Gregory. Mayor Ross.

After and countries. Well, I I'm certainly uh I'm certainly kicking it off. Uh we've got a lot of people that uh want to address um the city manager in his 11 years here uh for the city of Cathedral City. And as staff, uh we wanted to put together um a video tribute. So, we came up with the concept of one word to describe Charlie McClendon. And uh it was really great to see all the answers there. And um also, we had um some executive level staff and people who've been with him a little bit longer. tenure too to give some more personal anecdotes. So, um without further ado, I'll queue up the video and uh hopefully this is a tribute worthy of of Mr. McClendon. So,

give me one word to describe Charlie. One word to describe Charlie McClendon. Um I'd say class. Professionally, personally, across the board, um just the highest character. I'd say class. He's inspiring. I would say charismatic and he's very easy to talk to. Inspirational. Love a day. Comes around and greets everybody every morning. Friendly, welcoming, personable, confident, classy, welcoming, fair, class, professional, transformational. Seeing Charlie and all the impacts he's done over the years, um, that's that's the word that describes Charlie.

Energetic, positive. Charlie's always smiling, digging, approachable, thoughtful, iconic, colorful, fashionable, stylish, dapper, dapper. Charlie is a snappy director. Charlie is rocking a killer haircut.

And I say that because Charlie has a real quiet conviction in his leadership. He he doesn't take the spotlight, but I do a second word for Charlie, and that's people. Charlie is the only city manager I've ever worked with that comes and says good morning to each employee, and not just good morning by name. So, you can imagine how many employees are here at city hall and he knows all our names and he says good morning. Charlie has impacted me personally. I have noticed throughout the years that every morning he comes down to city hall and greets all his employees personally by name. So, a man that is able to memorize everyone's name and always comes in with a smile, goes around each and to everyone's cubicle says a lot to me about him. He's a great guy. And his sense of uh style, he's also very fashionable and I appreciate that also. But for the public, I I want to say that when he first came on board, he made changes to the operating hours at city hall to accommodate the residents and business professionals. So there they are able they were able to come in and do business with the city. So professionally um wanted to meet the needs of the public.

Well, hello Charlie. I'm Dave Fessle. I've been in the engineering department here off and on since 1984. I've worked for eight different city managers over those years and I congratulate you on your retirement and for the fact that in those in all those years you've been here, I've never heard one bad word said about you. I think that's amazing. When Charlie came on board, I was the president that asked me and although we may not have agreed on all the issues, it was he was very compassionate and understanding and it was clear how much he cared for his employees and fire administration. I'm so impressed with all the growth that has happened under his leadership. Cathedral City fire has never been so dynamic and that's something he should be really proud of. But above all else, I want to thank him for the greatest legacy of his tenure, and that would be to introduce me to the uh wonders of the espresso martini. That is definitely something that you passed on in your legacy. Cheers to you, Charlie. Charlie, first of all, I want to say thank you for your leadership. Your interactions with residents, staff, and city council have been truly inspiring and educational for me. I'll miss our Fridays, your fashionable outfits, and dressing up with you to represent city admin. And remember, when you retire, if you want to make a public comment, make sure you turn that in by 2 p.m. Hi, Charlie. It has been a privilege and a pleasure working with you over the last 11 years. I will be forever grateful for you pulling me out of that lonely office in the hallway over to the other side. I will also miss our one-on-one meetings where we discuss city business first and then talked about the dogs and the kids uh after that. I appreciate your support both professionally and personally over the years and I will truly miss you. I wish

you all the best in your retirement. You deserve it. Charlotte, you've left a legacy with the city. You've created an exemplary model of leadership for all of us to follow. In your model of leadership, you've granted trust all of staff to do their best work and to rise and shine to the occasion. I appreciate everything that you've done for all of us. Thank you, Charlie.

Hey, Charlie, it's Kevin. I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the past 11 years. Here's an anecdote. When you came here, our fund balance was 17 million plus. You leaving here were more than double. We're about 40 million. So, you've been a strong leader. You've been a financial advocate and we appreciate what you've done for us here at the city and I'm sure that people here at the city are closer appreciate anything that you've done for them personally. Thank you.

Charlie's impact on me has been personal and unexpected and I'm chuckling at that. It came through his bold approach to professional attire. He truly pushes the boundaries with colorful shirts, bold socks, vibrant ties, and even distinctive shoes. Hence the tie. Watching him confidently express himself through fashion gave me the confidence to explore edgier, more expressive styles on my own, including socks, shoes, ties that are definitely not your standard Brooks Brothers fair. With that, Charlie's impact on me professionally has been significant. He's given me the space to grow here at the city, encouraging me to make decisions, explore new opportunities, and develop my department without micromanagement. His leadership style na style naturally inspires a sense of ownership, builds a strong connection community and most importantly helps me love what I do for the city, for the community and for myself. Bye, Charlie. Love you. Charlie gave me an opportunity. He gave me an opportunity to live my dream, which is to be a fire chief, right? And little did I know at that time really what it entailed. Uh but total responsibility for the city. But again, he gave me a little kid's dream, right, which is to run a fire department. What he's done during that time, what I've seen is really just a testament to what we all know Charlie and his 40 plus years uh in public service. You know, when I when he hired me, uh he had one one goal, one mission. Go out there and build the best department possible so we can serve the citizens with the highest level of service. He is literally the poster man for service and what it means to be a public servant to a community.

So with over um almost 11 years of leadership here at Cathedral City, he has uh been at the helm of our city during um some of its most transformative years. I think his legacy is going to live on well beyond him. Charlie has definitely set the stage for um our future development, for our future growth, and I uh am honored to have had the opportunity these last almost 3 years to be able to serve um as assistant city manager. He's a compassionate leader. Uh he cares about uh his team. He cares about this community. Uh he has a very positive relationship with our city council and he has outlasted every other city manager out here. And I think that's a testament to uh what a professional he is. Charlie, um I want to just say thank you. Thank you for your leadership here. Thank you for your decades of services to other cities. Uh enjoy your well-deserved retirement and we look forward to continuing to see you around town and hopefully continue to keep us accountable uh to keep uh the progress moving forward.

I came out here to work for you in 2014. I came back to work for you in 2020 and I'm pretty confident I'm the only chief of police in your career as a city manager that you have sworn in three different times. We've been through the pandemic together. That led us into budget cuts which you were able to manage. Then we went into civil unrest and from there we moved on to a tropical storm in the desert. I thank you for your leadership and professionalism and the opportunity to work for you directly and for this community of Cathedral City. On a personal level, I enjoy our discussions about SEC football. Knowing you're a Tennessee fan and I'm an Auburn fan, I want to leave you with we're damn evil. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Applause] around you.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's more on the You have other speakers, right? Or is this We'll do ours first.

Ours first. Got it. Yeah. Well, I wanted to give a huge shout out to to uh Parker Gaunt uh from Code Compliance for helping me, Michelle Molina for helping with the scheduling, but we do love you, Charlie, and we're all proud to serve under your leadership. So, thank you. And you are an icon. Absolutely. What? Now I am not the council of the city of proudly commend Charles Clinton for his outstanding dedication to our community. His leadership strengthens the foundation enriched culture and it lasting contributions to the benefit weller retirement all future.

[Applause] And as crazy as that was, maybe we have With gratitude for your visionary leadership, steadfast commitment and unwavering dedication to success, you have given the key to cathedral success. Congratulations. [Applause] You lost. Especially for you.

All right, let's hold everything up last.

Now, are you going to put this back so people can eat some? It's for you to take home. Okay. Almost.

All right. Well, I don't have I don't have much to say. Um that that was really a beautiful um video and we probably don't have any fun balance left now after they had to pay all those people to say it. That's why I picked that. But it's um you know, it's been great. Um I came here not knowing um how long I'd say sort of to to finish out my career here. And uh that was 11 and a half years ago now. And um it's been great. And the things we've accomplished together um I will always remember. You know, I don't do any all that stuff they said. I don't do any of that stuff. Um without leadership from the city council, my job is only to implement the policy decisions they make. They make the decisions. This council, the previous council, Shelley Kaplan is here um from that. Um, so you know, I do what they the the policy that they put into place and I don't do any of that without all the department heads and the employees from from every level in the organization, many of whom you saw in that in that video. You know, I can say all I want to about what we need to do, but nothing gets done if they don't do what um they're charged to do. And that's why I'm so confident leaving the organization. Um, and I think you're going to has in front of the city manager tonight and that's an excellent um decision. She'll do a great job and all the department heads know what to do and all of their employees know what to do and you know a few months from now by going Charlie who really because the organization will move right on and actually that is when you know you've been successful is when the organization can move right on without you. So thank you so much I won't blavorver it when we have when I when I when I have a a retirement party

and we have a few cocktails. Maybe I'll have a espresso martini with Sandy.

Then we'll talk a little bit more. But thank you so much. [Applause] I think this my husband Brian who who got me every Wednesday night when there was a council meeting went and got pizza for us so that I'd have something to eat when I got home no matter how late it was. [Applause] Yeah.

Do you want to go ahead and call?

Okay. No, we'll be really quick. So, um, so I'm Vick I. This is Jeff Corbin. We run the city Senior Center. And on behalf of our board of directors, our staff, our members, our volunteers, our donors, we are honored to present to you a lifetime membership, our squar club for both you and Ryan. And Jeff will explain what the Squares are most distinguished supporters. Charlie, you know, one has done more personally or professionally at the city over the past decade to advance the center. Bingo. That's expecting you tomorrow.

Thank you. No, your uh your leadership at city hall and your friendship does community left a lasting legacy and because of you the center is stronger and you will always have a home. And the folks at El Jewers have designed a special Thank you.

Thanks very much.

I know you've 11 and a half years. We started a lot of things together. I don't heard what the staff said about you and as a business person in the city 40 years dealing with eight city managers. You're the number one guy. You brought the staff into the community to do all the events, not just work for the city, but being involved. You're involved in every event. And I brought you a little That's 2015. Yeah. The very first year. Ryan, come take a look at yourself. Yeah.

Look at Mark Connor, people. [Laughter]

Let me also make you something for 11 years. You know, it really means something with me for for me for Richard to say nice things about me because he doesn't say anything just to be nice. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] So that's for the presentations, but we do have individuals that would like to speak. So, if it's okay, I'm not going to do the threeminut rule for these. So, we'll we'll we'll allow you to speak. So, we'll have um uh Alan Carvalo come up first.

Charlie McClendon. Um, first of all, we all know how much the city had moved forward when you entered the family circle and it was I affectionately called 2014 team dream team 2014 because you were brought in. Chris Parmman was brought in. We had three very competent gay men on council with an incredible group of and the entire council was extremely caring and loving. We had Mark Carnivali, Stan Henry, and so much was accomplished with your vision and your encouragement. And I remember you saying coming here how much of it how much of a dream it was to be on on board with a council that was critical thinkers willing to take chances bringing 40 new restaurants into the area between 2014 2018 getting the amphitheater in line getting the CV rep to take over the IMAX theater. I mean this is what councils do. You may not see what you're doing now, but it's the impression you're leaving for future generations and you have left such an incredible impression and the fact that you're not leaving our city. I actually don't remember you getting our permission to leave. I I just I don't get that. I mean, when you get Chris Parm, you've got the phenomenal George Crumb who came in not once but twice, which is amazing. This is truly a legacy you should be proud of. So, I want to say thank you from those of us that hadn't had the time to come come up here and speak. And um I'm just I feel so thrilled that we came to the city when we did because there you are. And there we here we are. Thank you so much,

Shelley Kaplan. Charlie, this is all obviously about leadership and the wonderful leadership you provided. Charlie showed up at his um interview uh for council. None of the council members are still here, the ones that were there yet. Uh, and he showed up in a very bright green suit and he was described to me when by someone from the council after the fact as a very large leprechaun. Um, I think the council at the time hoped he was going to bring a pot of gold and he he didn't bring a pot of gold, but he did uh even more uh in terms of uh the success over the years. Um I look at 214 when I wound up on council, the city budget was a little over $30 million. It's now nearly 70 million a year. Uh the staffing at the time had gone from 240 almost 240 staff down to 160 because of the cuts from 2012 the economic downturn. Uh the staff is almost back to 240. At this point there were no businesses being developed in the city and yet over the last 11 years we probably have hundreds of new businesses in the city. the roads were falling apart and

we now have a tremendous pavement management program. Uh we have money actually from the state and from others and we're actually working our way through uh getting the roads in good shape. There was no housing under construction in 2014. This is when Charlie came in and now look at what's going on in the city in terms of housing. We had no events. There was no event program going on. We had no recreational program for our kids. We had downtown was all empty lots. Uh now we've got CV Rep. We've got the casino. We've got development on the 13 and a half acres. All of that has happened under your watch, under your leadership, under your hiring of excellent staff people. Um, we developed a strategic plan, uh, which has been crucial. Uh, there are dozens of other changes that I could mention. The senior center just being up here when I was on council, you helped me with the other council members get them a loan to actually keep their doors open. Without that loan, the senior center would not be in existence today. So, I guess I just want to express my real heartfelt thanks. I really loved working with you. Um, and you had to do all of those things while working for five different bosses. Something which is not always an easy thing to do. So, I just want to say thanks. [Applause] So, mayor, I don't have any other um speaker forms, but if there is anybody

else here that would like to speak on this pres uh special presentation item, please feel free to raise your hand and come forward. And then if not, we will move on to the next item, which is public comment. So, Oh, yeah. Mayor, we'll go ahead. We do have one individual that would like to provide just general public comment. Um, so, uh, Danny Lee, you can come forward. Just please remember that you will have, um, three minutes to speak.

And when you head back, you did drop something right. Good evening, council. Um, well, at risk of being Debbie Downer here, I actually wanted to speak about another issue. Although I think like everyone else, I appreciate the work of the city manager. Um, what I wanted to talk about is is something that's happening locally to my own home. Uh, I understand the environmental conservation fund is being used to pay for numerous monument signs on roads leading off land. I've asked many residents and none of them recall any information being sent out about the project. None of them understand why the signs are being added. Who will be helped by these signs? Certainly not the emergency services. Certainly not visitors, delivery people, trades people, and residents already know where they live. Um, so why was Lando Homes and Lando Manor given these subdivision signs? It makes no sense. The monument design is a large irregular shaped block of sandstone. It's not particularly attractive, but aesthetics aside, at least one of them now creates a traffic hazard, blocking the view for motorists trying to exit from Vega onto Lando. We're not just wasting money on signs that no one asked for. In that one instance, we're making life more difficult for residents. I've been unable to obtain a cost estimate from staff for these unnecessary signs, but whatever has been spent could probably have been used to much greater effect on other services in our community. Thank you. I I don't have any other request to speak forms, but if there was anybody else here in the council chambers that would like to provide public comment on any item not on the agenda, now would be the time

and I don't see anything. Will you please read the state? Oh, we just did public comments. I No need to do that. So, we have council reports. Okay.

Well, you know, uh I'm not going to say anything about what I've done. I'd rather just say a few words to Charlie that I put together, you know, cuz a few things were mentioned about COVID and budget cuts and everything, but you know, uh, we came on about the same time and I remember I was down on Perez somewhere and that's the first time I met you and there was a bunch of angry people there and and I'm and I'm watching you and watching you and you're handling them so great and I thought, "Wow, this guy's all right, you know." So, uh, I don't know nothing about being a council member back then. I'm going to admit it, right? And uh and I think the first time I did something really stupid, I had the city attorney call me in and Charlie's going, "You really can't do this, man." You know, I went, "Well, what did I do?" So Charlie and I got together, we we talked things out. But you know, working with this man all these years and uh when Greg passed, I saw the true Charlie, he he has ice waters running through his veins cuz this whole city was just like freaking out. And Charlie, you you kept a very cool demeanor. you you you you stayed focused, you kept the city going and uh I was really impressed with that. That meant that really changed my uh my whole thoughts of how you operate. I mean, there was a very emotional time, but you didn't show the emotion. You kept focused on the city, you know, and that was it's very hard to do so. But uh I normally make notes and uh and just read them uh and come out live. But I wrote this and I'd rather read it as I want to make sure you uh I'm speaking from the heart and and and on myself and and the community. I'd like to thank you for the many years of dedicated service as city manager of Cathedral City. Your leadership, professionalism, commitment to our residents have la have left a lasting mark on our city and you really really have. through your guidance, Cathedral City has achieved significant progress. Have you heard so many people said already and get us through the challenges and we've had, you know, a few challenges, nothing really too

critical, but we got through them and uh assuring our community to and continue to grow stronger, which you heard Alan Kaval and Shelley talk about the growth in in the past 11 years that we've all accomplished here. and uh you've you've not only uh improved the quality of life for our citizens, but the foundation of the future of Cathedral City. Uh now that you're ready to retire, and I hope you don't get another job. Everybody retires and they go find another job doing something. We'll see you at Walmart or something greeting or something, you know. No, don't do that. You know, uh I congratulate you on on a milestone, you know. Uh, may this next chapter in your life be pleasurable, enjoyable with your loved ones and family. And Charlie, from the bottom of my heart, it has just been so awesome working with you. And, uh, it's going to be weird looking over here, not seeing you there. You know, I already have a problem looking over there. I don't see another bald head with the chief there, you know. So, uh, the next city manager, we're going to make sure we got the same style. But Charlie, from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, council member.

Well, thank you, mayor. Well, Charlie, when I first came became a city council member, I had no idea what government was about and you were there to actually guide me and to introduce me to what city government was. And you didn't just didn't teach me that. You I learned from you how to treat other people. Uh little things that people say. For instance, when they talked about what was one word to describe them, that was very special because one of the first things that when I arrived as a council member, one of their number one complaints was a certain council member would go down there and didn't even acknowledge them or say hello. And as a matter of fact, you've been doing this all along. We as city council members had no idea about it. and the impact that you have made to every single employee. Just a simple good morning, hello has come a long ways and it just shows the kind of person you are. One word that can describe you is being unique. you're just very special and we as city council are very very happy to have you and you are going to leave some big big shoes to fill and I'm very proud to have been uh a council member under your leadership. So, thank you and happy retirement. Enjoy the cake,

Council Member Lamb. You know, I I I think about leadership um and what it means and um you know, we've had lots and lots of examples of great things that you've done by saying hi to everybody in the morning and and but but to take an entire city to have an entire city on your shoulders, I just think is a it's a crushing responsibility. Um, and the first time I really understood and saw um, the way you interact with people was during the short-term vacation rental brewhaha because it was tumultuous and it hit every member of the community from kids in school to parents that parents and who neighborhoods were affected by it and business community members and vacationers that were coming in and thought, "Oh, Oh, no. I can't get my house again. And everybody was invested. Um, and the structure of it with town hall meetings at the library and in here. Um, that was just structure. But the way you handled it, um, by having five residents and five business leaders and everybody getting their opportunity to share, um, graciously and kindly as you always do, you always do. Um it was it was really an unbelievable, you know, occurrence. I didn't know how it was going to unfold. I mean, we had our ideas. Um but you never really know how a big um uh energized community is going to fall, you know, on one side or the other. Um and and and I was just so impressed. And one of the things I I learned years in in just in the in management school and they talked about

um if you don't have these three things as a leader, you're in big trouble. And the and the community that you're leading is in big trouble um because you're not really leading them. And it's character um and compassion and competence. And you have all those exponentially um and I you know for me to to see it and to be the beneficiary of it. My husband and I are longtime residents of the desert and 25 year residents of the city. So, I benefit always, you know, I benefit by learning how to be a part of a team. Um, recognizing what the community needs and how to interact with them and being a happy resident in a happy neighborhood because we have happy leadership. Um, so thank you so much for everything and and I think back on this um there's this wonderful quote at the end of this documentary. Um, it was like on the Sudin. I mean, it was I watched lots of crazy things, but they said, "If you want to go fast, go alone. And if you want to go far, go together." Thank you for all you've done and have fun.

Yeah, that was beautiful. [Music] [Applause] Mayor Prom,

so I've been employing the psychological tactic of just that Charlie's retiring so I haven't yet so much as they talk about things difficult difficult it is to keep that balance that's necessary and everybody talks about balance but there's no there's no way to to mathematically spell it out because it just you have to tactically maneuver react to change, be patient, be fast. You have to know when to do all of those things. And Charlie has always been great at keeping that balance and doing it in a positive way. And as my colleagues have brought up, when you I you think back at even the short time that I've really been actively involved with the city, which is a subset of the time that Charlie has been here, there were things that were daunting. There were things that were impossible. and Charlie led us in a positive way to success in those items. And so many have been listed, but I can throw out things like Roadrunner Motors. I can throw out um things like improving our parks, the dog park. I mean, when I came on council, that was impossible. Um um there's just there's just way too many. So, I'm not even going to try and I and I am going to recognize that this is not Charlie's last day. He's going to be with us and I'm going to savor each day as I have um each day he has with us still. And um

I will say coming on council is when I met Charlie and um I had some experience in government management before and so um as I've tried to be helpful with that but I I think I also have a critical eye with that and Charlie are a true gem and I don't know how we're going to be able to nearly replace you but I am very pleased that you'll remain in our community and that uh um hopefully as time unravels, you'll continue to enjoy the works that you did here in this community and people will continue to recognize just how valuable your dedication has been. So, thank you very much, Charlie. and we still have a few more days. So, I will I will um hopefully with a maybe a drink or two have a chance to thank you again.

Well, they have said such nice things that I feel like I should probably say a bunch of nice things, too. I did have something written. It started with there once was a man from Nantucket. And that probably didn't go the right way, right? So, so I'm I'm going to tell I'm going to share with those that are here and with you probably what I thought was the most profound time we had together. And that was during Tropical Storm Hillary. Our people were in danger. Their homes were being lost. The roads were being washed away. We had trouble getting our fire engines places. I it was all of the things you don't want to happen to your city and they happened all at once and that was a skillful maneuver to get us out of that. People were mad and people were sad and people felt lost and none of them were good feelings. And you know I think all of us who have been leaders probably everybody in this room we know the importance of when you are overseeing somebody you need some happy times too. I mean it's okay if there's things that are wrong but then you kind of need to be able to to regroup with something happy. There was no happy there was no happy happening and yet you just kept taking one step in front of the other. And I admired that and I still admire that greatly. and you'll have um difficult shoes to fill and later I'll tell you what happens to that man from Nantucket. Thank you very much. Okay, that's all of us. So, will you please city clerk read the consent agenda items for us?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. Item It's It's a long one. Yes, I know.

Yes. So, item number 4 A is to wave full reading of ordinances on agenda. Item number 4 B is to receive and file the commission or committee member attendance record. Item number 4 C is to approve the August 13, 2025 study session and regular city council meeting minutes. Item number 4 D is to receive and file the check demand of August of 2025. Item number 4E is to approve the employment agreement with Anne Ambrose for the position as interim city manager. Item number four uh F is to adopt a resolution designating holidays on which the city shall be closed to the public for calendar year 2026. Item number 4G is to adopt a resolution designating Mayor Nancy Ross as the voting delegate and Mayor Prom Raymond Gre Gregory as the alternate at uh v voting delegate to represent Cathedral City at the League of California City's annual business meeting. Item number 4H is a resolution authorizing the city manager and the financial services director as the official design for the emergency management performance grant, the EMPG, and state homeland security grant program, the SHSP. Item number four I is to approve the city's community development block grant fiscal year 2024 2025 consolidated annual performance evaluation report also known as the caper for submittal to the US department of housing and urban development. Item number 4J is the amendment number two to the professional services agreement with ZNK Consultants Inc. for the highway safety improvement program cycle 9A project traffic signal improvements at 12 intersection intersections and that's the capital improvement project number C08752. Item number 4K is an amendment number one to professional design services agreement with Verde Design Inc. for the

Espironza Park project which is capital improvement project number C07021. Item number 4L is amendment number one to the professional services agreement with Kim Lee Horn and Associates, Inc. for design of the highway safety improvement program, which is the HIPP cycle 11A project. Um 18, unsignalized intersection upgrades, which is the capital improvement project number C08754. Item number 4 M is amendment number one to the professional services agreements with STC traffic inc for design of the highway safety improvement program cycle 11B 11 C and 11D projects and those are the capital improvement projects number C 08755 C08756 and C08757. Item number 4N is uh the service agreement for the RIAZ improvements for the Cathedral Cove Center uh PUD number 21- Z001. Um item number 4 is a service agreement for RIA's improvements for the Grove Street Apartments and that's DR number 23-001. Item number 4 P is the purchase of one 2025 Ford Mustang Mach E electric vehicle from Ken Grody Ford in Redlands for 45,829.74. Item number 4Q is the purchase of four 2025 Chevrolet Tahoe police pursuit vehicles for 396,40212. Item number 4R is the purchase of a 2026 Chevy Blazer PPVE from Jessup Motors for the police school resource officer. And item number 4S is a resolution accepting the California Highway Patrol California

Traffic Safety Fund Grant Program award of 124,56163. And that concludes the consent agenda. Well, that was more than a mouthful. Thank you very much. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on any item on that consent agenda?

So, I have two um comments to make for the record that were provided from Sunshine Herrera. Um, one item is uh 4E and she indicated that she is in support of the appointment of Anne Ambrose as the assistant city manager. And she also provided comments for the record in support or for item 4G and she indicated that her support um of the appointments as recommended by staff. And both of these comments will be put into the record as our policy. Um, and they are also available to council and the general public at the entrance of the chamber. And that is all that I have for this. I did not receive any other requests to speak for any of the items on the consent agenda. Um, however, if there's any member of the public that would like to provide comments on any of the consent agenda items, please raise your hand. And I see no hands raised. Mayor,

thank you. Do we have any comments from council starting down at year end? No comments. No. I'll move approval of the consent agenda. I'll second. So we have a motion by Mayor Prom Gregory and a second by Council Member Lamb. Yes. Please vote. [Music] Live meeting or D. Oh, there it is. Thank you. And the motion carries all eyes.

Thank you. Next is public hearings, but I don't believe we have any public hearings. So, lucky for us, we get to move on. Next is a legislative actions. It's the interview application for the mobile home fair practices commission and considering making appointment to fill a vacant seat. Mr. City Manager, will you please explain that interview process?

Thank you, Mayor. We uh we do this is one of the commissions that requires an interview before the entire or an appointment made by the entire council. We do have an applicant who has expressed interest in being on the uh mobile home fair practices commission. You have material uh related to his um application. And what we will do, we don't have to worry about the order because there's only one person to do this time. So if uh Mr. Castillo will approach Yeah. and thank you for sitting here through all of the festivities tonight um just come up to the podium there. The council members will um do a round robin, ask you a few questions. You can um explain your interest in the position and based on the questions that they um ask you and then they will um consider your appointment. So um mayor Thank you so much.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for having me here. Can you tell us a little bit about why you'd like to be on this board?

Yeah. Uh, well, first and foremost, my name is Erikica Steel and I just want to say it's an honor to be here and, uh, congratulations to you on your, uh, retirement here. Uh the biggest reason why I'm interested in participating on this committee is because I'm someone who strongly believes that the biggest issue facing our community, whether it's at the city level, the state level, or the national level, is one of housing unaffordability. Um and mobile homes and manufactured housing is one of the last forms of affordable housing that we have left in this country and uh in our city. And I think it's extremely important to make sure that we keep that housing affordable for the working class of our community to ensure that our city remains accessible to everyone. I think it's really important work and um a little bit of a personal backstory. The very first home I can ever remember living in was actually a manufactured home. And both my parents are immigrants to this country and were and are still farm laborers and it was the only home that they could afford to put a roof over our heads. And I've had very a very close family member of mine who was a victim of um domestic violence who was only able to escape her situation because she was able to move into a mobile home. So from a personal perspective, I think there's also a little bit of a uh personal tie there. So that's those are the reasons why I'm interested in participating on the mobile home fair practices group.

Thank you, council. Um starting down at this end, we have our I'm sorry. We have our names in order on Oh, I don't even have that. Can I just have it? No, because I have to ask the question. You borrow it for just a second here. Names in order. I don't seem to have one. Well, I don't think it really matters. It's going to be I don't know that it's in there. It's in there. All right. He's so smart. It's

So, the first person who's going to ask a question is me. There we go. And it's just thanking you for your interest in the mobile home fair practices commission and that you told a little about yourself. I just want to share something about myself before we move on. I live in a mobile home right now. My husband and I when we decided to move down here, we just wanted a vacation home. So, we bought one because it was reasonable and we could pay cash for it. And we've never left because we really like where we are and we like our neighbors. And so, I hope that if you are appointed, you will find that kind of welcoming from the communities that you will be serving. So, next will be Mayor Prom uh Gregory, please.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for applying and for coming here and speaking to us today. So this is a little bit of a test. Um what do you understand to be the primary purpose and responsibilities of the mobile home fair practices commission as established by ordinance and how do you see you being able to fill your role in those responsibilities?

Yeah. Um the primary purpose um as far as my understanding goes about the committee is to ensure that we are protecting mobile home residents from uh unconscionable rent increases um while at the same time ensuring that we are ensuring the right of mobile park owners to receive a just and reasonable return on the fair market value um of their properties. And there are clear guidelines for what sort of responsibilities um our committee has. And so just making sure to reference those and ensuring that I'm staying in line with um what those outline our duties to be is what I would adhere to and how I would plan to ensure that I'm serving the committee um and the community and the matter that the ordinance um uh envisions.

All right. So let me just ask a little followup. So, um what would act what what would happen that would cause the committee to actually meet and review um an item? Uh one instance would be if a mobile park owner, for example, were to submit a um rent hardship increase. So this would be a scenario where their operating expenses for their mobile park have increased to an amount that brings their level of profitability um on their property below a certain threshold and it would be our responsibility to meet on a case-by case basis such as that to review the case. All right. Thank you. Thank you mayor.

Thank you council member Gutierrez. Thank you mayor. And my question is, how would you approach a situation where the interest of the mobile home park owners and residents appear to be in direct conflict?

Yeah, I think the purpose of having this committee is because oftent times the interest of those two parties tend to be at odds. Um, and I think one of the most important characteristics of someone who should be in this position is one uh of empathy. Um, you know, now is unfortunately a time where costs are rising for just about everybody, including the uh two parties that you mentioned. And so I think being able to have empathy and put yourself in the shoes of someone who is potentially uh encountering an unjust rent increase is something that we must do. But also putting ourselves in the position of a park owner who um is suffering from the same environmental uh consequences that I think the rest of us are facing, and that is increased costs. Um, and so for that park owner, the way that looks is in the increased cost of operating that park. And I think it's important for us to be empathetic to that as well and respect their right to receive a just and reasonable return on the fair market value of their property.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lamb, please. Hi, Eric, and thank you so much for your willingness to serve on this commission. My question is, the commission may hear disputes between mobile home park owners and residents. Can you describe a time when you helped resolve a conflict fairly and how would you apply those skills here?

Yeah, I think it's a really important question. Um it's hard for me to think of an exact time where or example of that but something that I would share with you is that um in my current role as a a sales professional it really is my job to work cross functionally with a lot of different departments and uh even though we are on one team interests are not always aligned in every single way shape or form and just ensuring that I have the communication with all parties and just really making sure that I I I'm someone who listens And as someone who is a sales professional, I think the the stereotype for us tends to be one that we are talkers. And that's not one that's that's untrue, but the mark of a really successful sales professional is above all else is one that that listens. And I think when it comes to resolving conflict, listening and understanding is the piece that's most important. And one thing that I would also add is that conflict, although is often times viewed negatively, it's actually a very a very positive thing. And there are such things as positive conflict that produce um really important and productive outcomes. And some things that I think any member of a committee should do to ensure that conflict is positive or is it achieving a positive outcome is ensure that we are I think one assuming positive intent from each other and then making sure that we are uh communicating with respect as well.

Great. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. So you have Okay. Thank you, mayor. Uh, hello, Eric. Uh, commission members are expected to remain impartial. How would you ensure that your personal views or experiences do not unduly influence your decisions on the commission?

Yeah, that's um it's a great question. I think especially because it's it's human nature to come into roles or any situation with a certain level of of of bias. Um, I would not have come here and put my hat in the ring for this if it wasn't understanding the ultimate duty of the committee. And the duty of the committee is really to ensure that we are serving both parties here involved, whether it's the mobile home residents um or the park owners. And again, just ensuring that I am taking the steps to put myself in the shoes of uh whichever party is there um just as I would expect that same level of empathy um from from anyone else who I encounter. And so just making sure that I'm adhering to the rules um of the committee and just making sure that I am approaching both parties uh with empathy.

You know, thank you for that. Eric, I want to ask you one more question. You know, you've answered these questions eloquently and uh I feel really good about you here. Would you be interested in the future if the another position on planning or another commission or committee comes available? Would you be looking to do more than just this here? cuz this here is going to take a lot of time, a lot of your time, but would you be interested in moving up or moving aside?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm someone who I think uh long term would really love to serve my community and um a greater way and so yeah, I'm I'm absolutely open to other roles and other positions. This was one where I kind of saw as one that um the the stars just kind of aligned. The opening was there. It's something that, you know, I feel is an important cause. Uh, but my interests are definitely um tend to be all over the place. Maybe in a good way or a bad way, but I I love to learn. Um, and I think the opportunity to be a part of another uh committee or opening is absolutely something that we got a new family member here, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So, since we just have the one applicant, is there somebody here who would like to put him forward for this position? I do. I move to approve him. I think he's a great candidate and uh his answers were great. Thank you. You answer him really well and I approve. Yes. You seem quite prepared and thoughtful and I have confidence that you could be fair and balanced which is important in these positions. I appreciate it. I'd second. Second. All right. Then we have an option to vote which is happening right now.

You can't see it. We can, but you'll know the results in just a moment. Our lovely city clerk will let you know. The motion carries. All eyes. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome to the team. [Applause] Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay. So, our next item is to the updated Cathedral City Emergency Operations Plan, the EOP. May we have a staff report, please, city manager? Thank you. This is a great moment for us to have the the emergency operations plan come forward. That's something that we've been working on for some time. Chief Contrarus um and uh other staff and the city work to get grant funding to pay for this project along with the local hazard mitigation plan which I think is coming on your next u agenda for approval. So without further comment, I will just introduce Chief Contreras who will Thank you, Charlie. Uh, honorable mayor and councel, this is about three years in the making. Um, we I'm happy to announce uh that this is about the emergency operations plan, but yes, we were notified last Thursday before we could get it on uh this week's agenda. Our local hazard mitigation plan has been approved by FEMA also. So, at the next council meeting, I'll be bringing that forward for your approval also. Again, we've talked about

It's okay you split it up because it's a lot to read.

Um the this we're going to talk about the EOP. So, um what the recommendation tonight is for you to adopt it uh so that it becomes the official document for the city and it aligns with state and federal requirements to have um emergency plan um in place. If we go back to last year, uh, November 13, 2024, the city council awarded the contract to Jacob Green Associates. That's the main, uh, vendor that I've been working with. They, uh, you awarded the contract for both the LHMP and the EOP. We've been doing these simultaneously in what I would say almost warp speed to be doing two documents. One's 500 pages and the other one's 300 and some pages. So, we did get them completed uh with close to each other. Uh like Charlie said, it was not only myself but other city staff and as as it says it was required by the municipal code. Um when you put these together, they did have to be approved or within the framework of Caloes and FEMA. So, we we do need to follow some guidelines. Uh and that's probably u tied into two pieces. not only the document but how do we exercise the document and I'll talk about at the very end what we're going to do there. Uh it does allow you know part of the training and having a document like this is not to wait until the disaster comes. to exercise it. And that's what this will allow us to do, not only regionally, um, but by having oversight by state and federals, the the terminology, all the things that we use that go into that document, they're all consistent. Um and anytime we are using MU master mutual aid which is the state system to bring resources in or the

county system we need to uh use um that plan to identify those. Um what this what we did we added two different what they call risk profiles. So two other things that we may have to deal with here. Uh it again lines with state and federal guidelines. I think probably the biggest thing is it brings it up to date. Right? That was the the one that one one of the things I learned through this process is you really got to be careful of the rubber stamp. Right? You just take this one, you change the date and you move it over to this one. Um this was a comprehensive from the ground up review of everything we did and how we do it. There's no fiscal impact. I do have the next slide. It's going to show the breakdown, but it was all this this entire project was funded through grant funding. Um, adop adoption leverages the existing resources and strengths. Um, and again, that's what we already do. Um, the it's uh tied to the five-year strategic plan, safety, specifically action E4. So, this is a this is one we can finally check off of the strategic plan. Here's a breakdown in case you wanted to see it um of each of the um documents. And here's the final year. Like I said, there's no fiscal impact off of our bottom line because it was all covered by grants. The request is the adoption ensures that Cathedral City remains prepared. Recommendation is the city council adopt the updated emergency operations plan. And before I open for questions, um, one of the things that both having both of these documents completed is the exercising part. So we do have two, um, actually if you tie it together, three, there's going to be a review of Hurricane Hillary. So for a lot of the staff that has never been through this

before we just do the training, we're going to actually do a review and here's what it actually looked like in Cathedral City as we were going through it. Um then we will do the initial training of this is what ICS is this is how you know these are the seats these are the vests all um the computers just kind of the the touch everything that and then that's two days of training then in uh the 28th and 29th we will do that again because not everybody can make both trainings and then we will finally do a six-hour drill where we will have a simulated event that hits the city. um really going to stay away from flooding be one of the other ones uh that's not so real to us who had to live it live through it and then that will be the completion of the um not only the grant but the uh the contractor's deliverables. So we're almost there. Uh and I'll take any questions you have.

Question. Yes. Uh I do have a question. Thank you chief for your presentation. My question is as part of your preparedness program, does it include for instance if there's some sort of shooting in which there's multiple victims and you need to go in there and actually assist whether it's 10 or 50. Does this also uh consist of of the emergency?

This project would not, but we work with the police. We have um I hate to say it, we train on it, MCI protocols, mass casualties. Um we have active shooter drills. Uh I think we just had a couple weeks ago and we've got one I think we're looking in December. So that's that's unfortunately in this day and age, it's more ongoing training versus this specialized plan that we have. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I have a question. Just one quick question. So, do you review this yearly or bi-yearly to upgrade? So, the EOP is every five years. So, this will work for five years, correct?

But would it be necessary if something new comes up? Anyway, there was CO, there's obviously storms. We're ready for that. But, uh, so you don't find it necessary to redo in a couple years or

No, unless something crazy happened. I can tell you we we didn't have as much as we wanted would would have liked, but we did have some external stakeholders come in. We uh held an open house and we listened to what every everybody had to say. Um obviously those who you know live and work in Cathedral City. You we're dealing with winds. We're dealing with flood. Right. Okay. So those probably aren't going to change for this. What what is required by OES and FEMA is that you do a review of it. Right. and and that the big part for that is to qualify for any federal assistance if you do end up getting uh some disaster like we had like we had what allowed us to apply for the those funds was having both a local hazard mitigation plan and an EOP. You have to have both.

Thank you, Chief. You're welcome. Council member, uh just to add on to the chief, so the local hazard mitigation plan will identify some of those kind of risks. So, I'm sure uh we have um pandemic uh in everyone's plans these days. There's 15 in there. 15 that we say are specific to this area. Gotcha. And then this is how under any of those situations, how we'll work together internally, how we work with our external organizations to address whatever that risk is and whatever that problem is. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Protemp, I was happy to see you aren't going to go necessarily go section by section and summarize this. It's a big document,

but and there's a lot in here. So, that that leads me to ask though, and you spoke a little bit to this, but it was almost like we've got to do these three things and then we'll be done. And this loses its value if it if you're ever really done with it because it's too late when the disaster occurs to say, "Oh, we have a plan. Let's pull it out. I haven't really read it." Not you necessarily, but others cuz this involves everyone. So, you spoke of some tabletop exercises, which is important. Um, in my own experience, I was involved with different organizations within under the umbrella of the law enforcement agency and some of those were cities and some, you know, would periodically do their mock activation of their emergency operations center and have people come in and and it was very enlightening because people that had important jobs didn't even know what their jobs were. But the good part about that day was they would learn a little bit about what their job was and then a year later or nine months later whenever it got active again and they might forget a lot of it but it was happening you know and people change too in an organization um as far as you know new hires and changing of positions. So is that the plan is to continuously not on a a too much basis. This is one of those balance things, right? But enough that you would have people get some familiarity and put on their little vests, right? And get the forms that they're going to have. All those things are probably still part. I saw some of it referred to in here. Are you planning to actually do that or wait till a disaster comes?

So, this is something Charlie and I had talked about, right? When you're taking because I've actually activated, I think six or seven EOCC's in my career. it and you don't exactly what you said. You want to wait until the time is is there. So what my plan is and if you guys remember you the council approved 25,000 this year 25,000 next year we got a $16,000 grant. So we I don't know if it's going to be enough but we are completely revamping the EOC. It it will look different when we get done. We're upgrading it and the goal with that will be as long as I'm chief we're going to be doing quarterlys be because again we we went through it we had prepared um but but it was for Hillary it was because you know we did with the mayor at the time we did shot videos we did sandbag we did a lot of prep things that made it a lot easier. Um, but the okay, who's going to do what and where, that's the part that it's just like working out. It it's a muscle and you have to exercise it. So, what my goal is is that every quarter, uh, we're putting a lot of effort and time into in all department heads, making sure that we have multiple layers deep, that we don't just have the department head,

but we have somewhere between four and six below. So, that's what we're doing. I I would anticipate we will have 50 plus personnel throughout the city in different roles, but they all will have had to have a chance to physically go do this. Correct. Ahead of time, and that's why we're doing two trainings, right? We're going to do this one if and if they don't understand it and they want to see it again, we'll do it again. You know, we have two opportunities and then my goal would be quarterly. Uh we would do some activate. It may not be a full activation, but you call everybody. Okay, everybody down.

Come to EOC. Get in your position. Maybe a 1 hour. Get in your position. Get your materials. Sit in your seat. Act. Get your computer turned on and you're ready. We're going to give you a scenario in the next five minutes. Right. Give everybody time to get there. This is what's happened. What happens if the phones are out? Who's your communications? You're going to do this and we've got finance. What are you going to do

exactly? And then that might be the drill. You know, it could be just get your stuff out, let's talk about it. What would be your first one-hour concerns? Right? This first one hour, what's on your list? How would you do it? Right? And again, my experience has been you do a couple of those and people don't feel good about how it is. Guess what happens all of a sudden? You you you get that preparedness, right? It doesn't have to be these eight. Everybody wants to do these big. It doesn't have to be eight hours. It needs to be enough. And if you break that into chunks, you end up with every year you're doing an actual full drill because you do a couple hours here, a couple hours there. So that that is the plan and that is why we are completely revamping the EOCC.

That sounds like a a great plan. I know many agencies use the great California shakeout because you know probably the most likely I mean is a big earthquake and it will be big. So you'll would probably activate all of your sectors all the way down into some of the subsectors. So I know that sometimes that's a good one to at least every get everybody familiar with their role and where they would go and what would you do if communications are disturbed and those kind what if they can't get to work and what do you do in that scenario?

And so where would you fill in if you end up having to do a couple of sections because the other people can't get here that type of thing or can't get here sometime. Those would be kind of down the line. But like I said, if we can get everybody just to be comfortable to sit in the seat and wear I mean it sounds funny, but sit in the seat and wear the vest and they're comfortable with that, right? That would be a huge win. That is that would be a huge improvement. Yes. Thank you so much. So I was surprised going through here. I never heard of about the disaster council that apparently you have with the mayor and and that. So that would be something I would be curious to to

first I heard of it. I was say you will be I mean because there is a governing I mean the the city manager is the the head of it but in a in an earthquake where you're where you're going to be establishing some policies and stuff how we how we're going to operate. I mean we've got 15 firefighters on duty. If there's an earthquake it it's which is why we do the C right we're making a big push on right. So, and then I I would like to at some point we're going to bring the council down there and the council can see what's going on, see how it um how it operates because I think you you know in you know the mostly fires and those type of thing ones what I've dealt with. But you get the council in there because you're going to get the questions. We're going to be too busy working it. We're you're going to get the questions and you're going to they're going to come back at you.

Yeah. I think it's important for us to understand So not necessarily we would be active in a in that portion uh in a disaster but so that we can continue to support both the training and any equipment needs those types of things. So there are some interesting things in here like I didn't know that if I mean this would be worst case scenario that if enough of the council

perished and you couldn't constitute a working government that there's each of us is supposed to have three pre-approved replacements on file with the clerk's office. Clerk, do you have a list of the my replacements if I Okay. So, I think there's there are some follow-up things that we need to do and a disaster council can also meet ahead of a disaster to recommend policies and ordinances and those kind of things. So, I'm hoping you're making a list as you go through here and saying, "Yeah, there's some things we're supposed to have on file that nobody's ever heard of before." And we probably if we either individually or have the disaster council meet and make some recommendations as to how that should be handled and how maybe some ordinances that need to be drawn of it or resolutions or whatever needs to be drawn up ahead of time so that we actually they're not just words on the paper that somebody says, "Oh crap, we were supposed to have this on file before the disaster and the big rocks fell on three of the council and we only have two left. So, you know, what are we going to do?" The plan says for at least for the immediate action, you're supposed to be able to, you know, temporarily pull in these people. And I don't know how that works with the with the uh with with the uh legal part of it, but I think we that it needs to be ironed out ahead of time. Not that we would hope that would ever happen, but you know,

no, we we have to and the consultant and I can't believe I'm going to say it's consultant already has 23 things that we need to deal, right? We're doing it in. There is a list of things that was just I'm sure there say I I caught a few especially things that that referred to council but I suspect that there were other things that you're going to be working through then in the next few months. I I would say that that as much as I thought this is three years truly an LHMP and EOP, it it it's constantly being worked being exercises and I don't think it's any secret that there was parts of this that were rubber stamped. They were just we just they took it from that previous version, they moved it to this version. And so that's why this needed to be a complete rewrite from the bottom up for a lot of those things. And I would imagine we're going to end up which is we were going to try to squeeze everything into this year. We just ran out of days because we he got up to 23 and he he believes that we will be and it may be signatures on the cover page right there. There's some that won't be much. He thinks we'll have up to 50 action items once once you approve it, it's submitted, then we're still going to have to do these things.

Okay. I'm glad to hear that. Yes. So there's a plan again that it doesn't just say, "Oh, we got it submitted and approved and we're done." And then when we go to use it, we're either not familiar with it or

there are some parts that if if they should get called up that we didn't finish. So I'm glad to hear that you've got that on the list. So we and some of those may require us to act. So yeah, we may see more on this plan again. So all right. Thank you so much for the answers and for your your work on this and your continuing work on this. Thank you, Mayor. When I was 13 years old, I was a candy striper at Emanuel Hospital in Portland, Oregon. And the hospital decided it was going to do a plane hit the hospital. And how would you how would you do that? I'm just a kid, right? So, I'm just doing whatever I'm told. But we practiced on where would you put the dead bodies and then where would you put the live bodies and all of this, right? So, I was part of the group that was ambulatory and we could get ourselves out to this grassy area. And so I got out there and they marked my ankle as broken. And about 20 minutes later, somebody came by and marked me dead. So, so that was sort of the day I realized, hm, we probably need to practice this more often. I don't think my ankle would ever kill me, you know, kind of a thing. So, I I appreciate um I appreciate what it takes to to make an emergency less urgent.

We're going to do our part. Thank you, sir. And I just had one.

You may. And I just just because I had a chance to review view this ahead of time obviously, but on page 30 um because that's my thing, community preparedness, I really want to commend you um for really formalizing the training that we give to our community members whether it's at the library or um you know, Ago Elementary School or St. Lewis because, you know, it says here, you know, having the go bag checklist and and um emergency preparedness sessions. I mean, the community really responds to that and they feel better. You know, how many of them I haven't taken a survey. How many of them have actually um taken the next step to prepare their household, but it's a first step and so I thank you for that because it's in English and Spanish and we do it twice a year and it's something that we can count on. Appreciate it.

Well, thank you. And again, I I thank the council. We're making a big push as you know, emergency preparedness month. You're going to see our um you see them on all our fire vehicles say emergency and it's got a QR code to scan right to sign up for CIR. We're also going to put them on the Sunbus shelters just like we're going to try to use the same thing we did for the 4th of July, the big poster. They can QR code it and then go right and sign up for. So, we're making a big push uh and we're buying trying to take the time from National Preparedness Month to I think it's the first week of November to the CERT. We're get we're we're going to do everything we can because at the end of the day, that's where people can really be self-sufficient. the the C program and and block teams and and neighborhood uh group C groups. That's that takes it from okay, we're doing CPR over here all the through preparedness to now we're self-sufficient. We we we can take care of our neighborhood um or our uh mobile home park. We we can do it all by ourselves and that's that's where we're really going to put our effort to take this all the way through. Thank you. So, are there any other questions from the members before we move on? Are there any comments um from the from the large group we have here?

I do not have any request to speak forms on this item, but if you're a member of the public and you wish to provide public comment, please raise your hand. I see no h Thank you. No hands raised. Do we have a motion? All right. I move to adopt the plan. Second. We have a motion by Mayor Prom Gregory and a second by council member Lamb. Please vote. You can't see it, but the motion carries. All eyes. Thank you.

So, next we have item C. Council chambers and study session conference room audiovisisual system upgrade. Well, we've even had a few examples tonight of the need for that. Um, this is something we've been needing to do for some time. It's been 20 years since the, uh, original AV equipment was installed with here. So, uh, Jan Duzman, our chief information officer, is going to go over this with you. Um, it will require, um, vacating the chambers for a while. So, we'll talk a little bit about the plan for that as well. Jen,

thank you. Uh good good evening uh city council. Um I'll do the presentation for council chambers and study session audio video upgrade. The background was uh 2005 uh we did the full uh remodel full upgrade of the audio video for this system. So the meat and potatoes is about 20 years old. Uh ongoing issues uh we just replace repair just bits and pieces. A couple years ago, um we did the IT master plan eval. Uh the vendor came over here and take a look and recommending uh uh a full upgrade of the AV system. June 12 is when we posted the RFP and the goal is to ensure high quality audio and video for all attendees and participants and improve public access to government broadcast channel by utilizing the latest AV technology. So the funding since this is related to public government access uh broadcasting our cable TV. So it's going to be funded by uh PEG funds. So for audio system uh provide high quality sound for all areas upgrade audio systems um that's the audio processors that's the brains of the audio speakers microphones uh LED equipped microphones for all the DAS and lect turn so you can mute mute it um unmute from directly from the mic instead of your you know it's not good right now when you do it from the computer. Uh wireless microphones will be replaced. We're going to have new assistive listening and translator devices. We're going to integrate this with the phone system. So, we no longer, you know, point the microphone to the phone. City clerk can dial somebody for conference uh conference calls. For video displays and signage, we're going to have uh two big uh 4K displays,

high quality displays, like big TV screens. So, the facilities department, they're going to use the contractor to do a full remodel of this projector rooms. And this is where we're going to uh install the TVs. Uh we're going to replace the uh broadcasting with high quality 4K system for web streaming, video recording. We're going to we will replace this cameras with a 4K cameras. They're going to provide us with a backup hardware for uh video recording. We will have displays outside for overflows and replace the uh speakers. It doesn't really work well back there. Uh we will have a wireless display uh device system. This is where uh we can display the our iPhones, Android, uh tablets, mobile laptops wirelessly to the uh big TV screens because this room is not just for meetings. Uh it's being used for training as well uh and special meetings. Um those plates will be replaced with uh electronic name plates so we can see it back there and we can see it better on a TV. Digital signage will be uh displayed outside the meeting rooms to show the meeting information. For system integration and control, full integration across all rooms and systems. There will be graphical user interface controls for controlling the audio, video, lighting, name plates and any related uh systems for broadcasting display video sources. There will be two uh system controls, one for back there and one for the city clerk and a soft softwarebased speaker timer as a backup for the uh one meeting system. For conference rooms, um there will be two. The closed session conference room back there and on the first floor which is the study session conference room.

The closed session conference room. They will be uh replacing the speakers, putting controls in there so we can control the uh audio study session room. uh they will be replacing the uh audio systems, the speakers, microphones, wireless uh putting a larger TV screen because the TV screen right now you can't really see at the back when there's a presentation and that room is being used for special meetings and and also training and during special meetings we need to broadcast it to local channels channel 17 or web streaming. So it needs to have a integration between the study session and the council chambers and enable remote conference room video capabilities. Study session room. This will be the temporary council meeting. Um for council and commission meetings approximately 90 days to complete. Tentatively uh we're thinking about the last week of October. Maybe it will go to the uh first week of November. That means the council chambers will be closed. So all the meetings will be at the study session room. Uh what we're going to try to do is um before we close this down, we're going to try to upgrade the study session first. So that way when you guys move uh downstairs, then we could, you know, do the recording or broadcast it to uh channel uh t uh channel 17 web streaming. If that doesn't work, our backup plan will be uh using our communications uh department uh to do the video recording. And for close session, we're thinking about uh using the uh community development um conference room. Uh that could change, but that's it. It's just on the first floor. Bid proposals, the raiders, um we have five raiders. We arrated the western

audiovisisual and security. They met all this uh criterias and uh they basically mirrored their response on on the RFP. Fiscal impact the total project cost is uh 329,932. Uh this is the breakdown for the contract is uh 281. uh and then you add the 10% for the unknown to cover the unknown that's around 20 28,000. The projector rumor remodel is around 20,000. So the total is at 329. Um we adopted a uh a budget for year 202526 uh for PEG fund which is 175. So the budget amendment uh that is needed is 154,932 under PEG funds 5-year strategic plan. This is part of D1 under uh inter information technology master plan initiatives. D4 leverage technology to increase and improve online services improve access to public information. Staff recommendation award a contract to the Western Audio Visual and Security in amount of 281,757 and 5 cents for the council chambers and study session conference room audio visual system upgrade project. Approve a 10% contingency of 28,175 to address potential unforeseen conditions during the project. authorized the expenditure of 20,000 for the construction of a project projector wall remodel to be completed by the

city's facilities uh division. Estabi establish a total project cost of uh 320 329,932 and finally authorize the city manager to execute all necessary documents. That's it. Any questions? Thank you. Questions? I got one. Whatever. Go ahead. Okay. What type of uh support do we have with this? I know electronics. Yes. With with the contract we added the two years two-year support. So are they like 24/7 they come out and repair anything that

I mean um ba based on the agreement it's it's on business hours but um if it is uh like um after hours there's like additional charge but basically when we call them they will uh remote in okay all right thank you thank you and I have just a comment um I I know nothing about this I it's all a miracle and it happens so it's I have no questions but My question was for the channel 17 the government access and you may not know may or may not know this. Do we do we pay for that or is that a public service that they offer to the cities to to run our through a channel? I just thought of that. I mean so how

that's part of our franchise agreement that we get public access channel. I see. Okay. Thank you. Got it. Council member and I do have a question. My question is uh regarding the uh audio audio translation, how does that how does that work? So uh if we have a um um like um Spanish speaker for example, we have guest with Spanish speaking and we need a translator. So basically we need to uh get a um uh a consultant to come out here that can speak Spanish. They they will be sitting over there and then we're going to hand out some uh mobile uh listening devices.

Oh, okay. Well, thank you. Pro.

All right. From this from this side of the dis maybe I left it on too long or something. I don't know. I don't know. Needs to be replaced. from this side of the dis. You mentioned the microphones will be different. Yes. And so we'll lose that having to keep and find that little box with the turn. That's really difficult for you guys. Sometimes uh when the software crashes, you can't really Well, if there's three or four things on the screen, often one will lay over the top of the other or minimize. So it will be le and then you touch it and then um it will mute or unmute. All right. Will the uh if if somehow we forget, will the clerk also be able to turn those on like they do now? That's correct. So, as part of the project, they will they will have a separate controls.

Okay. So, what else will be different back here? Will there are computers be different or the computers are new? So, we're not going to replace that, right? Yes. Can we get slip covers on the chairs that the fluff are coming out? Oh, that's that's separate. We'll talk we'll talk about that separate. So that's all I have for technical questions, but but to me the big issue is we're not going to be in this room for 90 days or so, which looking at the calendar is could carry us over into January, end of January,

that is what we're thinking. So, and while the the group that's here right now would probably fit okay in the study session room, it wasn't very long ago and they'll be back probably to see us. The cannabis people are here and we have other meetings. So, what are we going to do when we have a meeting that we know is not going to fit into the study session room? Uh, that's something we're going to have to talk about more. It's on the agenda to talk about at our department head meeting tomorrow with uh the city clerk's office and with staff too.

But I'd like to have those plans in especially if I may be running some of those meetings. I'd like to have those plans worked out ahead of time so we're not like a day before a meeting or something and oh my god and let's start thinking about where else we could have it. I'd like to have that worked out and of course the clerk would too because they have to post and all those kind of things ahead of time. So, and we did at times have a hundred people,

right? And there are options. I mean, in this building, I think it's pretty limited the options, but we happen to be in an area of a complex that there are theaters and other perhaps meeting rooms that would be suitable. We would there would be issues to be worked out with the electronics and the audio and the video either recording. I mean, I don't know if you'd be able to stream or not, but you at least be able to record. But those would be things I think we would want to work out well ahead of time. Um, if it's if the weather's nice, maybe the amphitheater would work. I know. I'm just I mean, we I think we need we do have meetings on a regular basis, particularly in season, unfortunately, where we do have things like that and and unfortunately there are things that we don't even know about that could happen and become an issue. um even in that 90-day period. So, I would urge us to make sure we have those plans in place.

We'll do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll swing right back by. Any other questions? Are we good? Do we have anybody from the audience who would like to comment on this?

Good evening again.

Good evening. Um so uh of course I welcome this upgrade which as the current city manager says is well overdue. Um unless there's a contentious topic being debated meetings are spar sparsely attended by the public which means highquality archival recording and live broadcast are fundamental to modern political discourse. And I I might say perhaps the city council should consider adopting a policy that says all agendaized meetings will be recorded for the public and many are but some are not including our strategic uh planning meetings in in January. The proposal continues the availability of of translation services. They've always been available in this council chamber. There's a little panel over there where the connections are hidden. Um, but they're rarely used. And I've listened to public comments from Spanish-sp speakaking residents who've had to employ a friend or a council staff member to provide translations for commission members. But there is no service providing in turn translation of the English language um for those attending. The reason cited is always cost. Having a translator at every meeting is very expensive. So I I have to ask then why is that being included in this in this rework? There are new services emerging. Kudo for example is uh a new service. Um it's AIdriven and they provide uh instantaneous translation from the auditorium direct to attendees phones using an AI system. I don't know the costs. You'd have to investigate that. But such services will grow rapidly in the next year and it may be of more value to look at such a service than to pay for translation

equipment and translators. Um and if if if we continue this system then it's never going to be used because you just don't know if somebody's going to come to a planning commission meeting and say that they want to object to something um we can't phone out for a translator. So we need something better. Uh, I also see that links to YouTube streaming are included. I'm glad about that. I I've mentioned to several city staff that the current archive solution provide by Granicus is poor. Using video standards that make it harder for residents to download video footage. Granicus meeting software is deficient in many areas, including their refusal to allow commissioners access to archives when they're visiting another country. This is completely ridiculous and we are being led by a company who's a vendor than than getting our own um business done. So I hope the YouTube interface in this proposal will continue to support archiving on that platform which is user friendly and more effective than granas. Thank you.

Thank you sir. One more time around anybody? No. Then do we have a motion? A second. We have a motion by council member Lamb and a second by Mayor Prom Gregory. Please vote. I want to vote. I really do. I'm voting one. Mayor, do you go to Right. Right. This one. This one. This one.

Third one. There we go. Three is a charm. I don't want to make that go away. I just want The motion carries. All eyes. Thank you. Okay. Next we have item D. Riverside County Transportation Commission agreement for SB821 bicycle and pedestrian facilities program funding for Aanita Maravilla class 3 bike routes project. Good evening.

This is another successful um grant application that uh we've received for bicycle and pedestrian upgrades. This time on Avanita Maravia and Armando Baltison our city engineer is going to present this item. Thank you, city manager. Good evening, council uh council members, mayor, mayor proterm. I'm going to be presenting the funding agreement between the city and Riverside County Transportation Commission for the Aanita Maravija class 3 bike route that is with funding under the SB821 bicycle and pedestrian program facilities program. to provide some background. In 2023, the city council accepted the active transportation plan that was funded by the Southern California Association of Governments through the sustainability program. This active transportation plan, laid out a communitywide network for pedestrian and bike uh travel, and also identify high priority projects. One of those project was Aanita Maravija class 3 bike routes. In February 2025,

Riverside County Transportation Commission issue or release

the fiscal year 2526 SBA 21 bicycle and pedestrian facility programs with the authorization from council. staff submitted in April uh one application and in June of 2025 RCTC approved the projects that are going to be funding with this uh program. Aida Maravia class 3 bike route project uh spans approximately 2.5 miles uh from Rammon Road just north of uh Vistachino. Aanita Maravis is a two-lane collector road with on street parking and serves as a connection for local neighborhood schools and parks. The project will designate a class 3 bike route which means that the road is going to be shared with vehicles and bicycles along will also include uh the project will also include payment markings, weight finding signing, bicycle detection and intersections and some speed uh signage. The project estimated cost is 800 a little under $832,000 and that includes the design, construction and administration. This was the estimated project submitted in our application to Riverside County Transportation. Under the funding agreement, Rio County Transportation Commission will uh will uh contribute a total of 50% of the project estimated cost in the amount of $416,000 and the city will provide a matching 50% contribution for the same amount for the total amount of $832,000.

Uh with this the term of the agreement give us 36 months to complete the project and the agreement also reflects uh reflects or formalizes the city commitment to fund the project and provide local magic to receive grant reimbursement. We have identified in the fiscal year 2627 two uh funding sources. One is the SBA21 fund in the amount of $416,000. The other one is the traffic safety fund in the same amount in the same amount. With that, this project aligns with our strategic plan in the goal B community investment. And in closing, the staff is recommending the city council to approve the agreement with Riverside County Transportation Commission for funding under SBA21 bicycle and pedestrian facilities, the design and construction of the Aanita Maravija class 3 bike route and authorize the city manager to execute the agreement. That conclude my report. Back to you, mayor.

Thank you so very much. Questions from council? Questions? No green at all. Am I on? Okay, it still shows red up here. So, we really need to get this fixed. Uh, Janer, we should look into that. Thank you so much. So, I'm curious in your presentation, you mentioned something about bicycle detection at intersections. What is What is that? Bicycle detection at intersections are the cameras still the cameras that we have at at intersections that they will will check also with

Okay, good. I didn't realize that that was part of it. But that makes that makes sense if you're going to try to to make a bicycle lane that can be shared. I don't know if there's a lot of Well, there is on Vista Chino and uh Maraveia, right? There's a light there and also at Ramon. So,

yeah. So, that would make sense. So, thank you so much for that. Um, I'm especially excited about I don't know about the sharos. I mean, it's part of the program, but um, the speed signs I think are very helpful. The improved intersections with the ADA access would be will be great. So, I'm very excited about this project. So, it's scheduled for 26 27. So, it wouldn't be wouldn't be this year, but it could start next year on July 1st or there thereafter. Is there a plan to get it done in that fiscal year? The plan is to start before the end of the fiscal year uh of the next and the pre-planning parts of it and then that the design part and then the construction move forward too.

That's excellent. I know we have and I'm not there are many reasons why this happens but in the consent agenda we approved some fortunately no cost continuations on some very one of them was very old um you know what HS sip cycle like from 2018 or something like that so there are many reasons I'm not trying to be critical um but I'm hoping as we get these grants you know we continue to move them forward as timely as we can not because I don't think construction construction costs will go down and I think that's part of the problem sometimes if they don't get moved forward and I I know it has a three-year window to get it done but I I'm hoping that our plan is to get it done earlier in the cycle. So this these projects come with the probably the HSIP program has an extended time.

Yes. To spend the funding. Yes. Remember that there is some that they come with uh contribution from the city. Some were 100% some where exactly 10%. The other thing is that you need to have the funding to to do it for reimbursement and also you need to follow if they are federal funding that they have a totally different process than the state funding. And these projects are funding locally with Riverside County Transportation Commission. So they have a deadline and probably the requirements are similar to the state and federal, but they are more projects that we can move faster than than the other.

Exactly. And some of those other ones were very complex and there were changes made and so additional funding need to be requested and those kind of things. That's why I said I'm not being critical. I'm just saying it as an example. We do have sometimes where we get grant funding and many years go by before we actually see physical changes and that's just the way it goes sometimes. But I I was hoping with this one since it seems more straightforward that the plan was to try to get it done next fiscal year. So all right, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Do we have any members of the public who would like to speak on this? I have no request to speak forms for this item, but if you're a member of the public and you wish to provide public comment, please raise your hand. I see no hands raised.

Mayor, the council for any follow-ups and may we have a motion. Move to approve. Second. We have a motion by council member Gutierz and a second by Mayor Prom Gregory. Please vote. And the motion carries. All eyes. Thank you very much. So, I knew you weren't too far away. The next item is E. A construction contract award to Union Pavement Services Incorporated and procurement of K71 Ballards for the SB821 Perez Road CL. Easy for me to say.

Mayor and Council, this is an additional um bikeway project on Perez Road. And as you can tell, Andrew Lee is going to present this item. So, I think I'll just let him take it away. Thanks so much.

All right. Thank you, Mr. City Manager, honorable mayor, mayor promp, city council members. Tonight, I'll be presenting the recommendation to award a construction contract and to procure K71 Ballards for the SBA21 Perez Road class 4 separated bikeway project. Starting with background, in 2023, city council accepted the Cathedral City Active Transportation Plan, which was funded by Skagg. And this was this set the impetus for the city to pursue grant funding for active transportation projects. And so in 2023, the city submitted two projects for the SBA21 program. And we're awarded awarded funding for both projects. The project in discussion for tonight is the Perez road class 4 separated bikeway project and the total funding is shown here on this slide. $680,000 with 25% coming from the city funds. In 2024, the city council awarded the design to did a design contract to STEC traffic in the amount of $35,000. And in 2025, on June 18th, a community meeting was held at Mr. Zebras, a local restaurant on Perez Road, and attendees were in support for the project. Going over the project overview. This project is on Perez Road from Cathedral Canyon Drive to Dayal Drive. It's about half a mile and the and the scope of work will include protected bike lanes on both sides of Perez Road with a physical buffer separating vehicular traffic. So proposed improvement shown on this slide. As mentioned, the K71 ballards are the green ballards. You'll see that at the ends of each ballard sections where there are entrances to driveways or side streets, the ballards will have a yellow

reflective on band on top and a white on the bottom. And the ballers in the middle will just have two white reflective sheeting. That's to uh signal to the drivers that you know there's uh bicyclists in the areas and to watch out. That photograph appears doctor. Did you do that with AI right there? Is that how you're It was doctor. It was docked, but it does give us the idea. So, thank you.

The bicycle right route signage are also included and the rubberized emulsion aggregate slurry will be used to rehab the pavement. So, there's two parts to this agenda item. The first part will be the construction contract, which we'll cover right now, and then in a few slides, we'll go to part two. So starting with part one, the invitation to bid was first published in the desert sun on July 20th and again on July 27th. The plans and specifications were advertised in the Cathedral City website from and planet plan room from July 20th until August 12th and the bid hope opening was held on August 12th. city received three bid proposals and Union Pavement Services from Yurupa Valley was the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. Just wanted to make a note that All American Asphalt, the second lowest bidder, submitted a bid protest, but the after review of the bid protest um with the city attorney, the city engineer rejected the bid protest due to lack of merit. Shown on this slide is the total construction estimate which includes Union Pavement Services bid and a proposed 25% contingency. Now moving on to part two, the K71 Ballards. So, city staff conducted an informal bid process to procure the K71 ballards. And this was done to save money on contractor markup fees and also to store some extra ballards um on hand for maintenance. And want to make a note that the bid price from Union Payment Services includes the price to install the K71 Ballards. On July 11th, three quotes were received for 330 K71

Ballards. Here we have the list of the three vendors that submitted proposals and Zumar from Tacoma, Washington had the lowest quote. So now moving on to fiscal impact. The total construction budget includes the construction cost which includes the 25% contingency. The price for the K71 Ballards bringing the total construction budget to $379,250 and68 68. Here go showing showing again the breakdown of the grant funding and the city city funds. This agenda item aligns with goal B uh aligns with our five-year strategic plan goal B community investment and staff recommends the city council to award a construction contract to union payment services. Approve a 25% contingency for unforeseeable construction costs. Authorize the city manager to execute the required contract documents. Authorize the city engineer to request bonds and insuranceances for the project. and authorized the city engineer to execute a purchase order for all necessary documents in the amount of $67,250.68, thereby bringing the total project budget amount to $379 $379,000 and $25068. And with that, that concludes my presentation. I'll hand it back to you, mayor.

Thank you very much. Are there any questions from council on this? I do. I have a question. One, two, three, four. Thank you for your presentation. My question is uh the ballers are they going to be installed in an area that will not minimize the two lanes on either side? Yes. So there's um about 10 10 ft 7 ft for the bicycle lane itself and then four feet for the buffer space and so the ballers will be placed within that four feet. Okay. So the two lanes traveling in either direction for vehicles will not be impacted.

Uh no the vehicle lanes will not be impacted by the vehicle lanes. No

I I just had a question. I was not able to attend the community meeting at Mester and Zebra. We had community support but there is still um there's still uh curb curbing along um Perez that's not red. So, there are still there are cars that are parking this this morning. There are cars that are parking in the space. So, I'm sure that will be addressed at some point because that curbing will have to be painted red and the patrons of those businesses somehow are going to have to know that there's ample parking as you turn down H or I or any of those streets. There's lots of parking there, but right now they don't know it. It's just convenient to roll up and park your car and run in. Yeah. So, that was actually one of the or a couple of the topics that were covered at the community meeting. So, first to address the red curbs,

I believe the city painted all the curbs red and when the property owners replace curbs for maintenance, they didn't paint it. I see. Um but to address that uh because the ballards will be in the buffer zones it will be very hard for a vehicle to park next right okay thank you and to address the parking issue uh we that was brought up at the community meeting and we evaluated the available parking for the plaza and there was there was sufficient parking yeah okay good thank you so much Andrew Mayor Pro.

All right. Thank you. Um, thank you for the presentation for moving this forward. I will note this is only like two years, so that's that's pretty good. You're you're getting into construction. So, you showed us some pictures of the Ballards and and of course Mark talked about the yellow and the white and they are green ballards. So, these the ones that are being purchased will be these green ballards, right? So, I'm okay with it council, but when they go up and somebody says, "Oh, who put the ugly green ballards there?" Don't we don't want the council to say I don't know I didn't know anything about green ballards. Yeah, you can say Raymond. No, I think Andrew Andrew did them. So remember that's Andrew did it. The green ballards. But is is that is that a standard for this type of uh facility?

Typically green striping is used for bicycle lanes and so it's a alternative. We didn't have any green striping in our city. All right. Thank you so much. Okay. So, do we have any comments from we we have our our mobile home man who's joined us. He could be the only one. So, so I don't have any request to speak forms for this item. But if any uh member of the public would like to comment on this item, please raise your hand. And I see no hands raised. Mayor, do we have a motion to approve? I move approval.

Second. So, we have a motion by Mayor Prom Gregory and a second by Council Member Lamb. Please vote. And the motion carries. All eyes. Thank you. Well, last but not least this evening is a discussion on future agenda items. And council can come forward if they have something they want to discuss in the future. And I'll start down at this end. No. No, we already said we can't do an unretirement of a city manager. So, I can Well, I don't know. We could vote on it. That would work.

I move that approval. Yes. All in favor. So, that is uh that is it. We are adjourned for the evening. We don't have any closed session items. We have nothing to discuss for the future and we'll look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Tomorrow somewhere. We'll be coming in, I'm sure. All right, Mark. What's going on tomorrow? Go to conference tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. I will say, but it's got to go to conference. You're going to conference? Yeah.