City Council - Regular Meeting

What sets us apart, I think, is our overall environment, atmosphere, kind of aesthetic, having a new spin out here in the Inland Empire. But I think also coming in and getting a great customer service, really welcoming feeling is something you kind of don't get all the time. But I feel like our staff makes everyone feel super welcomed and really engaged. So everyone leaves here having just like a great overall experience and enjoys the atmosphere. Since moving here, a lot of people have kind of came in multiple times who maybe live down the street or just a few miles away. So I've definitely seen an influx of people coming out regularly and stopping by even when it's like within the same week. The advice I give to other entrepreneurs is just to go for it and do what feels right for you and your business, despite maybe not feeling like it's the most perfect decision or just being unsure. The best you can do is just try and you'll never know if you succeed if you don't go for it. So just hit the ground running and keep going.

We are here because we're brewing up business. Chino is absolutely a phenomenal place to be. Multi-generational city. We've been here over a hundred years and very business friendly. You're gonna love Chino. As far as businesses are concerned, I personally want to see something for everyone. I want our kids to be able to stay in town, have entertainment places to go. I also want all kinds of entertainment for every age group. We need to stay here, we work here, we live here, and we play here. So I'm looking for businesses that are going to fill any void that we have.

So welcome to the Business Roundtable. This is the Broker's Edition.

I was first elected in 1984. Chino used to be very, very heavily agricultural, and over time we have evolved into something for everyone when it comes to housing stock, which is wonderful, and also businesses. We're growing by leaps and bounds. Very, very proud of our community. Multi-generational, so we have grandparents, parents, kids. So Chino's a wonderful place to be, and I'm very, very proud to represent it.

Community support since we opened was pretty good, very incredibly supportive. What I understand from the city part, the mayor and all the people around the city was very helpful since we started operation of construction and then fully operational opening in December 2023. Our business sets apart, I would say, being a Marriott hotel, we more focus on service as well as local community, what we support and more hospitality, I would say. So it's not only just a basic room and, you know, guests can come and sleep, but we focus as a whole hospitality, more warmth and welcoming. That's what our goal normally we follow. business grown every year pretty much I would say since opening December 6 2023 right now we are at about one and a half year plus but every year we see significant growth this year is much more I would say 10 to 20 percent more than what we were in the first year and surrounding area what we see a lot of opportunity still considering our location and one of the biggest location i would say about the baps swaminarayan temple that helps a lot a lot of weddings and a lot of Events happening there, guests do come and stay here. Besides that, we do get a lot of teams. That gives us a good growth opportunity, and we are still seeing a lot of opportunity around the businesses in the area, which we are trying to explore too.

Well, interestingly, I opened up the very first LA Fitness that was the very first ground up they'd ever built here in Chino in December of 96. and I just had become a new yoga teacher and decided I wanted to open up my own studio and Fit Body was nice enough to let me sublease space from them and it grew from there. About 11 years ago we opened up the space you see here behind me and this weekend we celebrate our 14th year anniversary and this just has become my home community. Most of our advertising is simply word of mouth. And so the fact that people continue to tell their friends to come here is something that we're eternally grateful for beyond words. Not only do we have yoga, but we have heated kettlebell classes where people do barefoot kettlebell to good music in hour-long heated room. And we have ice bath classes in the backyard where people come together and get into the ice. We have sauna and lockers and showers. But I think really what sets us apart more than anything is this vein of mindfulness that we try to thread throughout our offering. You know, to go from a small boot camp spot, subleasing behind Sprouts to this large 4,000 square foot space with lockers and showers and two big yoga rooms is beyond our original vision and literally a dream come true. We're just super grateful that the community continues to show up for us. As long as they do, we're so excited about continuing to show up for them. Continue to persevere. Grit, work ethic is something that goes a long way when you own your own business. We're just super grateful to be here. So I would say more than anything, just the sense of humility that the challenges have brought created this grit and gratitude for what it is we do.

Chino has both modern side and countryside charm. My husband, he likes the countryside. I like the modern side. He loved eating here. He'll even bring his clients here. And when it was up for sale, he took the opportunity and we bought it. And we're very happy because we get to eat food here more often for free and I don't have to cook as much. First, I really need to thank Larry and Shelly. They're the ones who started the Avocado House, and they're the ones who made this a Chino favorite. When we took over, we kept the same recipes. We just upgraded ingredients, switched oil to the avocado oil, and added new menu items. The support from community is awesome. Police officers, city staff, residents from Chino and all around cities, they come and support us, so we're very grateful.

What sets your business apart?

First, food. It's homemade food made with love, like grandma would. And that was Shelly's motto, and we really like it, and we're keeping it, too. And second is the high-quality ingredient, especially the avocado oil. It costs us $3,000 more per month to use avocado oil instead of canola oil. But we made the decision to do it because we care for the health of our customers, our employees who eat our food every day, and for our family. If you want cozy countryside warm feeling, you could eat inside the restaurant. And if you want to like a more modern feel, you can eat at a veranda and the backyard, which is everyone's favorite. It's like having a picnic. You can relax and enjoy, you know, nice Southern California weather. We're very grateful as we continue to grow. So we plan to increase ours and we're gonna open for dinner. So, you know, people can now enjoy Avocado House all day long. We started a coffee shop called Rabbit and Bean in La Habra and it's really doing well. So we wanna open a second coffee shop here. So, you know, customers enjoy specialty coffee and matcha. We're very excited. First, you know, don't focus on money, profit, but just focus on giving joy and happiness to your customers and employees. Always serve, you know, high quality food that you would serve your own family. People will notice and they'll come back and also take good care of your employees because they'll take good care of your customers.

So my dad came like 45 years ago to the city of Chino. He thought the city of Chino was a good opportunity to open a new business, and he was right. First of all, I want to thank the community of the city of Chino because all these years they support us and they love us and I want to say a big thank you to them. Quality, the good quality for the products, the good customer service and I think they love what we're doing for that. So we opened the first location four years ago, and now we moved like two years ago over here with a bigger, nicer location, and we drive through. Because it was the first project for us, it was a little bit hard at the beginning, thank God we made it. With the help of the city of Chino, the help of the people of Chino, we are here now to serve them.

We knew Chino was in demand for more restaurants, but we also knew that the location that we were gonna be going into, that there was a lot of growth and there was gonna be a lot that was gonna come in. But we also knew it was gonna take time to get there, but still just with it, like how it is right now, we're still doing really good. Like we knew coming into it, we were gonna be busy right off the bat. It seemed like a great place for the second location for us to grow and, you know, make our name bigger. The customers, you know, have been awesome with us. You know, we've been busy. It's been a year and we've been busier and busier every day. You know, we've sponsored a lot of the youth baseball teams, football teams. We know customers on a first-name basis and, you know, we have a good set of regulars. So, you know, the community has supported us tremendously and they're keeping this place open. They're keeping it going. We always knew that this is what we wanted to do. Both the owners always wanted to own their own restaurants. I knew them closely. I wanted to own restaurants as well. And that was just the goal behind it was, hey, let's turn Kenwoods into a household name. We love when the kids that come in here, hey, we want to go to Kenwoods. That was the goal to be the next big thing. I would say what sets us apart, one thing is we are a scratch kitchen, so everything is recipe-based, everything is made fresh, everything is made fresh daily. One thing that we really preach is giving the best service possible. Again, it all falls back to, you know, you can have great food, which we do, and a great atmosphere, but at the end of the day, the customers are coming back for the experience, for the service part. And we try to teach our staff every day, hey, make each visit count. Put a smile on someone's face. Get to know them on a personal level. When that customer comes in, we want them saying, hey, is so-and-so working today? You know, we have a lot of good things going on, live music, we do a taco special, we have a brunch, we have a happy hour from 3 to 6, Monday through Friday. So as, you know, the community, you know, hears about us and finds these things out, we just continue to grow. My name is Matt Mraz. I am the general manager of Kenwood's Kitchen and Tap in Chino, located in the Preserve Shopping Center off of Chino and Main.

Thousands of baseball fans from across Southern California gathered on the Chino City Hall lawn to celebrate the grand opening of Oral Hershiser Chevrolet. The day kicked off with a procession down 7th Street from the dealership to City Hall, followed by a ribbon cutting with Mayor Eunice Hulot, the Chino City Council, Oral Hershiser, and his team. Fans enjoyed live music, DJ entertainment, food trucks, and a live broadcast with ESPN Radio, along with appearances by some of the biggest names in baseball and professional sports, creating an unforgettable day for fans of all ages. Oral Furshiser Chevrolet is sticking with the reigns of longtime local dealership M.K. Smith's Chevrolet, which has served Chino and the surrounding region since 1941. It was a memorable day for Chima, welcoming a new chapter for a legacy business and celebrating the kind of community pride that makes this city special. Welcome to Chima, Oral Purchaser Chevrolet.

Chino is an absolute beautiful community. My husband and I are from Los Angeles. And so we were trying to get closer to family. We have a little toddler and in LA there's wellness bars on every corner. Whereas here we kind of noticed that there was missing link. You know, there's lots of big corporations and franchises. And so we decided this would be the absolute perfect location to bring a little bit of that here. The community in Chino has been the most important part, I think, of growing this business. Word of mouth in this community is so major. Everybody knows somebody and it's such a tight knit community, especially in the wellness world. And so it's just been incredible to, you know, grow with the community. You know, there's smoothie bars everywhere, but do they truly, you know, care about the ingredients? What's in it? Are they organic? And so really, I don't think there's anywhere here in the area that really brings that to the community. So that's truly what sets us apart. And the aesthetic, of course. Sana in Arabic means brilliant praise, and in Spanish it means healthy or healing, and mana is the bread that God made rain, the nourishment, God's nourishment. And so altogether it means praise God's healing nourishment, which is really just taking it back to the root of how he intended us to eat, not the processed foods, really just nurture our bodies with whole food ingredients. And then really the intention behind Sanamana, there's such a bigger picture with the community and how we want to grow. This is our first location and we have exceeded what our expectation was within the community. And so it's so beautiful to see. Stay rooted in faith. Stay rooted in your beliefs. And when it gets tough, keep going because there was tons of times where we wanted to give up. But just stay true to your calling and what you believe in your vision and you'll succeed.

Hello, I'm Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa. Chino is a community where everyone belongs. We work hard to ensure everyone who lives here feels welcomed, supported, and included. That is why I am excited to announce the third annual Inclusion Community Celebration happening on September 26th at the Neighborhood Activity Center. The Inclusion Community Celebration is an exciting block party exclusively for the special needs and neurodiverse community and their families. In partnership with local nonprofits, Adrienne's World Incorporated, and Chasing Seven Dreams. We're bringing all sorts of fun activities to the NAC, including face painting, a petting zoo provided by the Chino Mounted Posse, a special sensory room, free admission to our beloved Chino Youth Museum, and so much more. The Inclusion Community Celebration truly represents the heart of our community. Registration is open now and spots won't last. So I encourage you to sign up today at the City of Chino.

Check, check.

Oh, the back's there. Oh, the right one. Good evening and welcome to the September 15th council meeting. Please note that all council members are present. We have a special presentation this evening. I'd like to call up PAC 205 led by Arrow of Light Tyler Doty to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you'd please stand.

Thank you for inviting us to the City Council meeting. May I please invite the rest of PAC 205. All in uniform, please salute. All others, place your right hand over your heart and follow me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

You can be seated. As you may have noticed, this room is adorned in pink ribbon and decor in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which begins October 1st. Breast Cancer Awareness Month serves as a reminder to raise awareness, promote early detection, and support those affected by breast cancer, whether survivors, those currently in treatment, or the loved ones we've lost to this disease. I'm honored to begin tonight's meeting by proclaiming October 3rd, 2026 as Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Day here in the city of Chino. I'd like to call up Ed Zappian, event co-lead for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Ed, will you please join me?

And we have a proclamation.

Whereas the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer program is the largest network of breast cancer awareness events in the nation, uniting communities with a shared determination in the fight to end breast cancer. Funds raised through Making Strides Against Breast Cancer enable the American Cancer Society to save lives from breast cancer by funding groundbreaking breast cancer research. providing free, comprehensive information and support to those touched by breast cancer, and helping people reduce their breast cancer risk or find it early when it's most likely treatable. And whereas participants of Making Strides Against Breast Cancer joined together to celebrate breast cancer survivors, pay tribute to those lost to the disease, and raise funds to end breast cancer once and for all, Now, therefore, I, Eunice Emulo, Mayor of the City of Chino, do hereby proclaim October 3rd, 2026, as Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Day in the City of Chino, and encourage citizens to help save lives from breast cancer by participating in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of the Inland Empire Walk at Chino City Hall on October 3rd, 2026. Would you like to say a few words? Thank you.

we would like to thank you the city of chino this is our home yeah this is our fourth year being here and we love being in this city and we love that you back the you yourself back us 100 and that's comes from janet myself and julie and nadia and all of our staff and the city council thank you guys very much for backing us 100 let's give them a hand

All those interested, please come out on October 3rd and join the walk. Okay, we have a special recognition this evening, retirement of Mr. Pat Loy. It's my honor this evening to recognize someone who has made a lasting impact in our community, Pat Loy of the Lewis Group of Companies. Pat and Patty, would you please join me up front? Pat started with Lewis in 1988, and his career spans multiple generations of Lewis development, from the Lewis home building era to the company's evolution into Lewis plan communities, developing large-scale master plan communities throughout the region. Pat was instrumental in developing neighborhoods that have become a vital part of the Chino fabric, including Cypress Park, which was one of the first Lewis developments in Chino in the 1990s, and the preserve, which has grown to more than 7,000 homes with the preserve-specific plan allowing approximately 11,725 homes at full build-out. reflecting Pat's role in helping transform the area into one of Chino's largest master plan communities. Throughout his career, Pat has attended countless city council meetings, planning commission meetings, and other public meetings as a representative for Lewis. He's helped move the preserve through decades of planning, entitlement, development, and construction. Integrity has always been one of Pat's core values and he is known for being honest, dependable, and committed to doing the right thing in both professional relationships and the communities he has helped develop. Outside of his work with Lewis, Pat has been married to his wife Patricia for 40 years, having met when they both attended USC. They have three children together and he's an avid golfer and a devoted USC football fan. Pat, on behalf of the Chino City Council and the entire city of Chino, we thank you for your decades of service and partnership, and we wish you nothing but the best in well-earned retirement. I'd like to give you this plaque. And it reads, Pat Loy, Vice President, Regional Plan Communities, Lewis Management Corp. City of Chino Council, on behalf of the citizens of Chino, wish to express our appreciation for your many years of dedicated partnership, collaboration, and commitment to the city of Chino.

Thank you very much.

And now you can say a few words. All right.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor and members of the council. I'm truly humbled and honored to be here tonight to receive this recognition. And you acknowledge my wife, Patty, of 41 years. So she's the force behind me. And then I'd also like to acknowledge my colleagues from Lewis that are here tonight, Erin O'Leary, Darius Fatakia, and Jason Wong, they're here. It's truly been a blessing in my career to work for a great company, Lewis Plan Communities, to work in a wonderful city, city of Chino, and to work on fantastic projects, which the preserve. We just got that started, and many of you that are in the room have all had a hand in that. So our partnership is really important and special to us. And in my career, like I said, I've truly been blessed because not only I get to work on great projects, but with great people. And I'm privileged to be able to work with Chino. I've had professional and personal relationships with many of you for decades, and I really, truly value that. So it goes beyond, like you said, you're building places where people are going to live. And if I didn't live in Upland, I'd be honored to live in Chino. But I spend more time here in Chino than I did in Upland. I might spend a little more time in Upland. But, again, thank you very much. I truly appreciate this. And on behalf of all the Lewis folks and Lewis family, we love working with Chino. So thank you very much.

You know a little bit about Pat. Patty is an avid gardener. And Pat helps her a lot. One time Patty needed, well, sometimes, Patty needed fertilizer for her garden. And so my husband took a trailer full of horse poop from our house all the way up to Upland, dumped it, and then Pat had the privilege of helping Patty Spread it in the planters. But seriously, he's a great husband. He's a great dad. He's a great grandpa. And we're going to miss you, Pat.

We'll miss you, too. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome.

Appreciate it. Let's get a picture. They even put tape on the floor for us.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next for our business of the month, our business of the month for the month of September is one of our residents, one our residents know and love. For the month of September 2026, I'd like to congratulate Cary Out Burgers and Breakfast as one of our businesses of the month. I'd like to call up Cary Burnett and any guests that are here with you, Cary. The Cary out story is one of hard work, determination, and community. It was formerly known as Easy Burgers, and Cary herself had worked there since 1998. She purchased the business eight years ago and has continued to serve our Chino residents since. Customers praise the large portions, the delicious food, but they make a point to praise the Cary's team for their outstanding customer service. The restaurant also purchases produce from local vendors and makes shopping for supplies in Chino a top priority. When Ask Why Carrie's is located in Chino, Carrie explained that she's lived in Chino since 1975 and loves her community. Please join me in congratulating one of our September 2026 Business of the Month recipients, Carry Out Burgers and Breakfast. We have a congratulations plaque for you. Would you like to say a few words?

I want to thank everybody, all the policemen, the firemen, the city of Chino. You guys are all awesome. This is the first time that this business has ever been recognized, and I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you. Keep the good work, finally.

Thank you. Let's get a picture. Stand on the mark. Okay.

They told me all about this.

All right. On three. One, two, and three. okay prior to our council meeting starting we had a closed session i'd like to ask our attorney to read out any action that was taken during that meeting

met in closed session as just described by the mayor and held the discussion as to the following items as listed on the closed session portion of the agenda item one conference with late legal counsel one item of existing litigation the matter of Robert Cologne versus C of Chino City Council received an update provided direction and no further reportable action was taken City Council held a discussion on item number two, conference with labor negotiator concerning the various employee organizations listed on the agenda and previously announced before recessing into closed session. City Council received a briefing, provided direction, no further reportable action was taken. Finally, on item number three, the City Council has not had an opportunity to discuss that item and will reconvene after

open session to hold that discussion so it would be appropriate to provide any report following that adjourned closed session thank you that concludes the report city manager do we have any agenda additions or revisions no changes mayor okay within our packets this evening is the external agency report for september uh please access via the internet Next, under Public Notifications, first, September is National Prepared Month, where we highlight the many ways Chino residents can stay prepared in the event of an emergency. One way to stay ready is to sign up for Chino Notify, a reverse 911 system that sends you critical alerts by phone, email, or text, so you'll be among the first to know when an incident occurs. To sign up, please visit cityofchino.org forward slash Chino Notify. And join us for our annual Chino Cares Emergency Preparedness Fair happening this Saturday, September 19th, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Chino Police Department. The fair will feature a variety of exciting activities, including emergency preparedness demonstrations, touch-a-truck displays, informational booths, giveaways, and more. For additional information, please visit cityofchino.org forward slash CCPF. Community members and business leaders are also invited to our second informational presentation on Measure F, also known as the Business License Reform and Small Business Protection Measure, on Tuesday, September 22nd at 6 PM at the Park House at the Preserve. The city will explain the proposed measure, how the updated business license structure would work, and what voters will be asked to consider on November 3rd. Attendees will also have an opportunity to ask questions. For more information about Measure F, please visit cityofchino.org forward slash Measure F. The community is also invited to waste management's cart monitoring workshop on Thursday, October 22nd from 6 p.m., 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. at the Chino Police Department located at 5450 Guardian Way. Beginning in November, waste management will begin educational monitoring of residential carts for contamination and overfilling as part of requirements under SB 1383. also known as the Short-Lived Climate Pollutants Organic Waste Methane Emissions Reduction Law. The official CART monitoring program will begin January 1, 2027. This workshop will go over the law and what it means to you, and how you can ensure that you are putting the right items into your carts. For more information, visit home.wm.com forward slash chino. Next on our agenda are the reports from starting with our department directors. Do we have any directors with reports?

good evening madam mayor and the members of the council i have two of these for you and this would be something that public might also be interested in knowing as you know i've been talking about um put the microphone more closer to your mouth there you go Can you hear me? Yeah. So we've been talking about El Nino Prep last couple of months, and we had our first meeting with all of our partners, and we had about 25 people show up, and we include our Chino PD, our Chino Valley Fire, Inland Empire Utility Agency, and Chino Men's Prison and Women's Prison. And we want to make sure if there's any flood emergency that we are partners together in helping each other in whatever incident there may be. So we are preparing and we also have contracts ready with our local partners for emergency generators and traffic control devices to make sure that we are ready at all times. And another quick update, I want to bring it to your attention. Another one that I've been talking about last six months or so is the MS4 permit. It's the municipal separate sewer and storm system permit that where county is the primary permittee and that we are co-permittee under it. And last Friday, they held a meeting in Orange County and the Water Board actually adopted the permit. What that means for us is that It's another unfunded mandate without saying so. So we are now gonna be forced to report all of our reporting directly to the state board. And also we are required to monitor water quality coming into the city and monitor water quality exiting that includes potential for, that includes even like birds. that might have bird droppings or even human droppings, and we are supposed to monitor that, and they haven't even given us a numerical value on what the requirements are. So this is something, it's gonna be a huge financial burden, not only to City of Chino, but everybody in the permit. There's about 58 agencies that are part of the permit, and unanimously, 58 agencies have requested that they take time to develop a plan on how we could comply but the water board decided to actually adopt the permit as is which will have a separate financial impact to the city so we'll keep you updated as um more of these uh plan development or permit developments occur and what that really means for our city operations thank you hey jen

I don't see any other directors with reports, so next is our Chief Menson.

good evening madam mayor members of council i just wanted to take a minute to thank everybody that came out this past saturday for our first annual charity softball game where you had your public safety coming together to raise money for a very good cause down at ayala park we had oral herscheiser throwing out the first pitch i think uh it was there was a lot more people there than we even expected had our the police officer association was selling hamburgers and hot dogs it was a very very good community event so i just wanted to take a minute to thank everybody for coming out

And what was the score?

I wasn't going to bring it up, but since you asked... And who was counting? I think it was 29 to three, the police department one. 29 to four. Oh, 29 to four.

So, Chief, was there a special donation that may have been made by maybe another chief of another entity?

So there was, but because the money was going for a good cause, both of us went ahead and made the donation. Oh, that's nice. And all the proceeds, they went to the City of Hope, the pediatric cancer care unit. So a very good cause. You had members from the hospital. You had families that were there in attendance. So it was, like I said, it was a very good Chino community event.

It was fun. Yeah. It was a lot of fun.

That concludes my report unless you've got any questions.

No questions. Next we have Fire Chief Williams. Chief Williams.

What can I say? One butt whooping deserves another. We'll leave it at that. Yeah, we got it handed to us. The only thing I have tonight is just on October 3rd is our open house. I know it had moved from what it was the prior year. So for the community members, please come out and see us 9 to noon at 5092 Schaefer on October 3rd in our open house. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Well, it's going to be fun to see what the next competition is going to be. So we had the boxing competition that you won. and the baseball game that Chino very, very heartily won. So what do you think is next?

Well, I've been trying to process this, and I'm a little bit confused. You know, we get made fun of sitting in chairs. So the sport where you're expected to be assertive and take care of business didn't go so well, and the other one where you're supposed to be playful didn't go so well for the other side. So we'll just have to wait and see.

Okay. Thank you very much, Chief. I just love the competition between the two but it's so healthy and it's so good for our community. Okay, next is public communication. This is the time and the place for the general public to address the council about subjects that do not appear elsewhere on the agenda. Due to council policy and Brown Act requirements, action will not be taken on any issues not on the agenda. For speakers addressing items under public hearings or new business, you'll be called to speak during that agenda item. Before we begin, I wanted to address public comments for this meeting. Due to the number of people that we have here tonight and in an effort to ensure the business of the meeting progresses efficiently, public comment speakers will be limited to three minutes each. Speakers will also be encouraged to avoid providing duplicate comments. Also, since we have more than three persons who speak to address the same agenda item, I'll establish a maximum time period not to exceed 30 minutes for all persons who wish to address the same agenda item. I have one written request to speak under general communication, and that's Pastor Joel Pickett from Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. He's gonna lead us in invocation. I invite all of you who would like to join us to please stand.

Thank you for having me. Let's pray. Father in heaven, We thank you for the day that you've given us. It is a gift from you. It is the day, Lord, that you've made, and we will choose to rejoice and be glad in it. God, we thank you for the city leaders and how you've blessed the city over the years. Lord, in many ways, it has been, Lord, that city set on a hill, Lord, to be a light, and we pray that it would continue. God, we thank you for our mayor and the council, and we ask that you would give them, Lord, continued wisdom, Lord, to lead us as Lord, they have been appointed ultimately by you. God, we pray, Lord, that you would give them insight into the issues, that they'd be able to handle, Lord, the responsibility well in a way that honors you. And God, we just pray for this meeting tonight. Lord, I know there's lots of things on the agenda. And Lord, lots of people here because, Lord, they're residents and they care, Lord, about the city in which they live. And that's a good thing. That's what your word tells us to do, to pray for the peace of where we live. And God, we pray for wisdom on these issues. We pray for unity of mind. We pray for solutions. Lord, that the ultimate conclusions, Lord, for the city would be ones that would honor you. Lord, for we know when we're a city that, Lord, stands for what is right and what is good. Lord, we will be blessed by you. And your favor has been on this city, and we ask that it would continue. Lord, we thank you for, Lord, our police department. We thank you for all of our first responders out, Lord, in the community right now, keeping us safe. Would you bless them, or would you keep them safe, and would you bless their families as, Lord, we're in here to talk about these important issues. And, God, we ultimately tonight, we thank you for the person of Jesus, Lord, that as good as Chino is, Lord, we know that heaven will be even better, and we thank you for the blood of Christ that will get us there. And so, Father, we commit this time into your hands and pray just for an effective response Great meeting we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you, Joel Natalie do we have any remote speakers this evening? Okay We'll move on to our consent calendar do any council members wish to have any items pulled I Seeing none, we have a motion from Mayor Pro Tem Burton. Second from Council Member Comstock. All those in favor state aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Consent calendar passes unanimously. Next, under public hearings, item number 18, introduction of ordinance number 2026-012, East Chino specific plan amendment PL 25-0119. This is a request to amend the East Chino specific plan to allow homes to front onto loop roads, allowing on-street parking on Amsterdam Avenue and Aguirre Avenue, and reduce the minimum front yard setback in the RD 4.5 land use designation. Okay, now I have received more than three requests to speak. I will be limiting each of the speakers to three minutes. I'd like to declare the public hearing open and ask for a staff report from Andrea Gilbert, city planner, and Dennis Rawls, our city traffic engineer.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. The applicant, PLC Communities, is requesting approval of PL 250119, an amendment to the East Chino Specific Plan to allow homes to front onto loop roads, allow on-street parking on Amsterdam and Aguirre Avenues, and to permit reduced front yard setback of 15 feet for homes with swinging garages in the RD 4.5 land use designation. The proposed amendments are to facilitate a larger project Are the slides not working? Next slide. And next slide, thank you. The proposed amendments are to facilitate a larger project that is generally located north of Edison Avenue between Amsterdam and Cypress Avenues. This project includes a site approval PL250120 and tentative track map number 20845 to subdivide 12.42 acres of land for the development of 55 single family homes at a density of 4.44 dwelling units per acre. Next slide, please. The project was originally heard by the Planning Commission on June 17th. At that meeting, residents voiced opposition to the project, primarily due to the configuration of 10 homes fronting onto Amsterdam Avenue, which is classified as a loop street for the East Chino specific plans, and the impact that those 10 homes could provide on the surrounding community. At the Planning Commission hearing, the residents suggested flipping the site plan so homes would front onto Cypress Avenue, which is permitted by the specific plan. After hearing public testimony, the Planning Commission voted to continue the item to the July 15th Planning Commission meeting so the applicant could evaluate the feasibility of flipping the site plan. Next slide. At the July 15th Planning Commission meeting, the applicant informed the Planning Commission that flipping the site plan would result in the loss of one lot, reduce the number of single story homes that could be built within the community, require additional sewer and storm drain utilities to be sold in Cypress avenues and add over $1 million to the cost of the project. Next slide. This is the approved site plan. Next slide. Changes the applicant did propose at Planning Commission included allowing parking on Amsterdam and Aguirre avenues to address the concern nearby residents had regarding parking within the surrounding streets of the existing neighborhoods. The updated design allows for eight on-street parking spaces on Amsterdam and 15 spaces on Aguirre. Next slide. Street sections were modified as part of the Planning Commission's recommendation to safely accommodate a bicycle lane with the on-street parking. This results in additional dedications of right-of-way along both Amsterdam and Aguirre Avenues. The Planning Commission approved the proposed site approval and tentative track map by a vote of 7-0, recommending the City Council approve the amendments to the East Chino specific plan. Next slide. Notice of this hearing was mailed to all property owners and occupants within 300 feet of the project site, and notice was published in the Chino Champion. In response to public notice, staff has received several letters in opposition to the project which were attached to the staff report. Since the staff report was published, staff received an additional letter of opposition and several letters of support. Next slide. In conclusion, staff is recommending that the City Council approve introduction to ordinance number 2026-012, amending the East Chino specific plan to allow homes to front onto the loop roads, allow on-street parking on Amsterdam and Aguirre Avenues, and reduce the minimum front yard setback to 15 feet for homes with swinging garages within the already 4.5 land use designation of the East Chino specific plan. This concludes my presentation. If you have any questions of staff.

Thank you, Andrea. Okay, I have several written requests to speak. First, Derek Webster.

Good evening. My name is Derek Webster and I live in the 6300 block of Chipola Court. I'm a retired police captain with 31 years of law enforcement experience, including six years as a collision investigation expert, followed by five years as director of security for a 420 bed trauma hospital where I overhauled broken traffic and parking programs. The East Chino specific plan is nearly 30 years old. It was established to manage land use and protect neighborhood identity. Its guidelines have legislated development to this point. But now we're down to possibly the last loop road in East Chino, Amsterdam Avenue. You're being told this document is old and it's fine to approve three damaging amendments. One, front on housing. The ECSP states side on dwellings, dwelling plotting shall be encouraged contiguous to the loop Paseo Street system. Rear on configuration shall be discouraged Front-on units are prohibited along loop roads. It's being proposed to change the prohibition to where appropriate front-on configurations are permitted along loop roads. The ECSP didn't even want homes backing up to loop roads, but now it's proposed to build 10 homes fronting the narrow loop road. Two, reduce setbacks. It's proposed to reduce the required 25-foot front yard setbacks to 15 feet. This will look jammed and out of character with existing neighborhoods. Three, prohibited parking. The ECSP states in part, the characteristics of a loop road include neighborhood identity and cohesion, and on-street parking will be prohibited along the loop road system to reduce potential traffic conflicts. If widening the road in front of the houses to the south is allowed, it will create merge friction and traffic flow problems. Furthermore, while there has been boasting about three-car garages, in reality only eight homes have them, and five of those are tandem garages. We all know tandem garages are rarely used for parking because stacking one car behind another is inconvenient. Many people don't use their garages for parking at all. The real reason for building on Amsterdam Avenue is the ease of tying into an existing sewer line that doesn't exist on Cypress Avenue without trenching. Approving this signals that developer access to underground utilities matters more than the citizens and neighborhoods above ground. A planning document does not become disposable just because it is inconvenient. The ECSP is still valid, it's still specific to East Chino, and still meant to protect neighborhoods and roadways from exception-driven development. Resolution PC-26012 relies on these amendments being consistent with the General Plan, but the ECSP, as written, is the implementing tool of the General Plan. specifically prohibiting houses from fronting loop roads, prohibiting parking on loop roads, and prohibiting the reduced setbacks. Madam Mayor and council members, please honor the ECSP's original intent and vote no on the proposed amendments in PL 250119. Thank you.

Next written request to speak is Mike Burney.

Dear Mayor and member of the City Council, my name is Mike Burney and I am a resident of Pepperdine Street of 14 years and 25 years in Chino. Thank you for the opportunity to allow me to speak today. As a local real estate agent, I welcome the new homes of our community and I even look forward to hopefully selling one of those new homes in the future. My concern is with the current design of the development. Although I live on Pepperdine Street, my family and I access our neighborhood through Amsterdam Street, which is a very small and narrow, quiet street. Building and orienting garages, driveways so they face Amsterdam, Amsterdam Street would bring much more daily traffic and parking, affecting residents on both streets. I believe there's a reasonable solution by reorienting the homes to reduce those impact while still allowing the project to move forward, and I do support responsible growth and respectfully ask the council to work with the developer on the change. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. Diane Boudreau. Diane Boudreaux. I haven't seen you for a while.

Evening, Council. It's a pleasure. I don't live anywhere in that neighborhood. I do drive through it and I don't live anywhere in that neighborhood. I do use it to go to work and I do not live anywhere in that neighborhood. We're all concerned about high density. We're all concerned about setbacks, whether it's this project or another project. Putting too many in that limited space, the developer can go back to the drawing board Years and years ago, when Borba sold that land by the police department, they wanted it to be apartments. And we came to this chamber and we said, we already have plenty of high density. No. So they made it single family and they made it cramped. They didn't make it apartments, they did adjust it. So hopefully you can make that amendment. The setback to 15, oh man, that's a nice area. Why would I put setbacks to 15? Thank you.

Next is Debbie Nee. Debbie Nee.

Good evening. I don't believe that this is the project that I wanted to concern about. I'm not familiar with this particular project. You put down the wrong number?

I'm more concerned about the project on Riverside and Mountain.

Which one, Debbie? Riverside and Mountain. That's not, that was the last council meeting. Yeah, it's not on the agenda. No, it's not on the agenda tonight. Then we're fine. Okay. Next, Willie Morataya. Hope I said that right.

Very close. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Council. My name is Willie Moritaya. I'm also really close friends with Derek back there, and he did cover a lot of things that I don't want to repeat, but I do want to say I've lived at Amherst Court for the past 26 years, and the neighborhood has always been fantastic. It's a beautiful neighborhood. It seemed like it was perfect. perfectly planned and the folks who came up with the specific plan about the loop roads really had something to make the city and if they would follow that concept it seemed like all neighborhoods would look so amazing. The problem of, I have line of sight with Amsterdam. I can see the traffic all the time. I walk my dog all the time on Amsterdam. And I do get concerned because also as a police officer, I've responded to many, many traffic accidents involving children and pets, and just seeing a lot of the problems that the traffic being able to go through. I understand that they do want to put stop signs, At the end of the day, there's an old cliche. If it ain't broke, why try to fix it? If a developer's going to come in, I think they should come in and just do the right thing and keep the community as perfect as it's been. Bring it in. more houses that are going to be facing Amsterdam, it's just not going to look the same. It's going to throw the whole community off. And when we have visitors that come in our community, they always wonder, like, if it's HOA because it's just so perfectly planned. And why mess up perfection? And that's my main reason why I'm here. I just want to try to maintain the neighborhood the way it looks and use like the chaplain said, Wisdom and you guys have a big decision to make and I thank you for it and I hope We have a chance to keep it the same. Thank you. Thank you Mark Thomas

Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and the City Council members, my name is Mark Thomas. I'm with PLC Communities and we are the applicant. We have been working with staff here now for over a year and we've gone through five separate design review committee meetings with planning and engineering and early in on that effort, staff was very supportive and saw the logic and merit to allow homes to front onto Amsterdam. And more importantly, what we recognized is that increasing the number of homes facing Cyprus was creating an unnecessary safety hazard as traffic along Cyprus can be very busy at times, especially during school drop off and pick up times. And as you are aware, there are two elementary schools just three blocks away from the project, cattle and roads. And these two schools generate a lot of traffic at peak hours. So during the peak hours, planning commission process i had many local residents come up and tell me in person that speeding along cyprus is not unusual and that there's no way that they would want to purchase a home that backs on to cyprus our request to amend the east chino specific plan makes sense for the community safety and for the project As Mr. Dexter pointed out, the specific plan is old. It's actually 40 years old. A lot has happened during that time, both in Chino and in this neighborhood. The specific plan is a living planning document that's been amended over 20 times. A handful of those amendments, as you know, added density to the overall plan, to my count, six or 700 homes. And these homes generated more traffic, some of which are on Cypress. But additionally and most impactfully, the city approved the college park specific plan for over 2,500 homes immediately south of Edison, just of our project. And that East Chino specific plan or our East Chino specific plan was approved in 1987. The College Park Plan was approved in 2004. The traffic analysis and street section recommendations in the East Chino Plan did not consider the fact that elementary school students generated from College Park would be attending Rhodes Elementary. As you know, there was a site dedicated within College Park for the College Park kids. Now we have 2,500 residents who are taking their kids up to roads, and many of them go along Edison.

Excuse me, sir. It's been three minutes. If you could wrap up, please.

All right. Well, I'm sorry. I thought as applicant I had more, but I respect your decision. May I have more time? Can I give him? Okay. Thank you. So the fact that That's why you're here. You're making these decisions because things change. And the fact that that College Park community is taking their kids to roads right past the project is the reason why, the big reason why we are trying to reorient the project so homes don't face on Cypress and that we don't create that traffic hazard. It hasn't been discussed, but in the process that we went through in working with the neighbors where we actually shrunk the backyards of our project in order to dedicate more room for the parking pockets, the six feet in additional right of way. We did that to allow them not just the clear parking pocket and the clear traffic lane, but also to have their four foot bike lanes that come down Amsterdam and would continue all the way through the project to Cyprus, and those are two four-foot bike lanes on either side of that street. And so that continues to be part of our proposal, that those bike lanes are going to continue and be the same as they are now. So staff has already addressed the negative side impacts that we have if we were to have to flip the site you know we've gone in with existing density and we're not asking for density bonus we're not doing any of that we love this community we're we're putting in really nice homes that will enhance the community And we think that the site plan that has been put together by staff over the last year and engineering is the right plan. And we ask for your approval of the specific plan to make that happen. Thank you.

Okay, those are the only written requests I have to speak. Are there any other speakers in the audience that would like to address item number 18? Okay, seeing none, then we will close the public hearing. Council discussion. Any comments, questions? No? Then I would entertain a motion and a second.

I'll start. I'll start the comments. First of all, Mr. Thomas, thank you very much for coming up and giving your presentation. I also think they're nice homes. I looked at everything on paper and it looks really nice on paper. You're to be commended for that. And you're also to be commended for going back to the drawing board and trying to make some modifications to this project that should have never been put down on paper the way it was originally because of the specific plan. You had mentioned that There was some logic and merit to the project, and I think there was some logic and merit that were put down initially in the specific plan when they came up with the whole plan, the whole neighborhood down there. There's a reason why there are homes that face Cypress Avenue. from the 60 freeway all the way down to Pepperdine. It was planned that way. The roadway is wide enough to facilitate the amount of traffic that flows through there as well. I was a police officer in this city for over 30 years. And I'm very, very familiar with that neighborhood. I watched them build it. There was a reason why they built it the way they did, with the roadways, the way they flow very, very nicely. if in my opinion if there are homes that are going to be constructed along amsterdam i think that's going to create a very very dangerous situation for people down in that area because of the way it's laid out up on the north side as far as the two schools that you were talking about um there there were plans for those schools to be dealt with, I guess, as far as the traffic is concerned when they came up with a plan in the first place. So in my opinion, I think that it would make more sense if you were to go back to the drawing board and to put the houses along Cypress Avenue the way they were intended to be all the way from the 60 all the way down to Edison. so again i appreciate you coming up i appreciate everybody's comments on this project i just think that that you need to go back to the drawing board in order to be able to facilitate something that'll work in that neighborhood so that's my comments there okay any other council comments thank you mayor

When I read this agenda item, as coincidence would have it, I'm presently a resident at 4208 Denali Lane, but I happen to be a resident at 6358 Dalton Avenue for a long time. That butts into Amsterdam Court, so I'm familiar with this area. I lived there for quite some time, and prior to me living in that house, my aunt lived in that house, so I watched those houses as well, along with being a Chino police officer, be constructed. and my aunt was the first owner of that home there before i owned it so when i read this item and the appeal it wasn't surprising to me that some of the residents that live over there have concerns about this these houses facing on the frontage to amsterdam And I do understand it. I also want to thank Mr. Thomas for coming up today. I understand probably the intent of what he was trying to accomplish there. But to Mayor Pro Tem Burton's comments, there is a reason. that cypress avenue i believe is constructed this way from the 63 way down this would be the first patch of that section that it would be different and very different for the residents that live there on that housing track over off of amsterdam into that looping room the looping road which mr webster so articulately stated I really, I am also, if you know me on this council, I'm not often in favor of specific plan amendments unless there's really a logical reason for it, just like I'm not a fan of zoning changes, unless there's a particular reason for it. And in this particular case, I don't agree with it. And I see why the residents would be concerned about it. So Mayor, I'm inclined to not support the staff recommendation on this. And that concludes my comments. Thank you very much.

Okay. Mr. Lusehill.

Yes. So this... This kind of reminds me of a vote we had when I was first elected to the city council. It was the first major vote that we made. And it was a project called the Francis Estates that took place on the north part of the city in the county area. And when that developer came, that development was gonna be all single story homes. It was gonna be less homes, and they were actually gonna provide a park for the residents to have their kids be able to play. But the community came out overwhelmingly and said, we don't want this. We think this should be different. And so, of course, we said, okay. And we denied the project. They appealed the project, came back a couple years later, and now there is no more park. There is two-story homes instead of single-story homes. And there's more houses there. And so... I can guarantee you everybody that lives up there would have rather wished that we gave them the first project instead of the second project. So when you look at this and you see a development coming in at 4.4, and I don't know if a lot of you are aware of this, they don't build this anymore. This is very, very rare that a developer is gonna give you the same thing that you have currently. Everybody else seems to be building a higher density. How high a density can they go in this area?

Hang on Andrea.

I was told to be patient. I'm not a patient person. If the applicant were to use state density bonus law, there's percentages that they could increase depending on the amount of affordable units they're providing. So while I don't know the number off the top of my head, it could be significantly increased over what's being provided by the applicant today. Then with state density bonus law, the applicant would be entitled to waivers and incentives. so at that point the specific plan amendment may not even be necessary they could request a waiver to supersede requirements of the specific plan under state density bonus law and the city would be required under state density bonus law to grant those waivers

To the extent they offer a percentage of affordable housing, the density bonus law would require those concessions, both in additional units, density, as well as, as Andrea mentioned, relief from setbacks and various other rules, landscaping, open space, et cetera.

Again, the city council, we listened to what you're saying. We did also get letters from people that live in this neighborhood that were in full support of it. But be careful what you wish for. You can send this developer back that's giving you a project that matches your neighborhood, and he may come back, and then we have no alternatives but to grant it if he comes back with state density bonuses, and this project can look completely different. So I just want you guys to think about that when we make this vote, because if that's truly what you guys wanna do, be careful what you wish for. I'll just end with that.

Chris? Yes, thank you, Mayor. So I guess unlike some of our council members here, I have never lived in that area, so I don't know what maybe some of you guys are feeling in terms of that project coming to your neighborhoods. However, I do hear what the thought process is, and I agree with them in who am I to say, hey, this is a good project for you or this is not a good project for you. There are a bunch of letters that we've received, many in support, many in denial. And so I'm just kind of weighing my options here, hearing what the rest of the council has to hear. But I will say, as the developer was giving his presentation, he did bring up density bonus. And as soon as he brought that up, I just thought back to a couple other projects that have come before our tables before, and some of them we liked, some of them we didn't, but the one common factor we had in all those projects is we had no control. We had to essentially approve those whether we wanted to or not. I'm sort of along the lines of what council member Lucy was talking about. I wasn't on the council when that Francis Estate project was approved, but I was here for the aftermath, and I just remember going through that experience and hearing what the council at that time while I was on had to say about that project and how it was an unfortunate, I guess, decision at the time because we essentially lost control for that project. I think the only difference is that at that time, that specific project was... in the county area, so when that project was taken back to the county, they went through the county as opposed to going through the city, so it made that much easier for that project to potentially go through and get approved how it is now. That is my fear, however, that if we do send this project back, according to many of your wishes, that this project can't come back, and whether there's 100 people here or 15,000 people here in the crowd, one common factor in that situation is gonna be we will not have any control whether to pass that or not. So I don't know how I'm gonna vote here. I think I'm more inclined to, I'm not sure, I can't give you guys that. I just wanna hear maybe what the mayor has to say, what maybe she opens up, comments back up to the public. I'm just kinda weighing my options right now. It's a hard decision to make because I don't wanna look back and say, we told you so. And I'd love to kind of, yeah essentially grant ultimately the the wish that many of you have but i don't want to be in that position two three years from now when you know there's a lot of affordable housing in that site which many people feel 50 50 about and yeah i'm not sure i'm not sure but anyways with that being said mayor that concludes my comments andrea revealed for us um

The development on this project, it comes out to approximately 4.5?

Yes, it's at 4.44 units to the acre, so they are within the range that's allowed in this land use designation.

Okay.

Is he exercising bonus density? No, there is no request.

None. So there's no affordable homes proposed in this project?

That is correct. None are proposed.

What, if this project is rejected, what could be the developer's option on this piece of property? What could he go for?

The project's been approved by the Planning Commission contingent on the specific plan amendment being approved tonight. If it's not approved, they could go back to Planning Commission with an alternative design on the project. They could request a density bonus. They could request additional units, alternative types of units, rather than the traditional single family homes on the site. So it could be a whole new development out there.

So it could go to what I call stack and pack.

The specific plan requires single-family homes within this land use designation. However, there could be deviations with that with the density bonus. So there could be a request to deviate from lot sizes pursuant to the specific plan to facilitate development of the lot. So it could be smaller lots, smaller units. It could be all two-story units out there on the site.

How many one-story units are proposed?

I don't know off the top of my head, but I do know they were exceeding what is required per the code. I can try to count that really quick for you.

So he's actually providing more single-story than what is required?

Yes, I believe it's around eight being proposed on the site as is.

The rest are two-story?

Correct.

Well, as Chris has said, this is one of those difficult situations where, because of the state of California, we don't always know what we're going to get. And if a developer chooses to exercise the freedoms provided to them by the state of California, it takes away a lot of our control. which I don't know if some of you have driven around, but one example would be on Benson Avenue south of Mission. It's not in the city of Chino, it's in Ontario. I think it's still the county. But next to single-story homes on one acre, a developer bought one of the lots in between two single-story family homes and built three-story high, looks like probably about 40 units. So these people have single-story homes looking up at a three-story building, which is just tragic. But that's what the state of California is pushing now is very, very high density. So this is one of those sticky situations where if we could be guaranteed that the developer would provide you with what you're asking for, which is nothing fronting on Amsterdam. and perhaps orienting the homes on Cyprus to front onto Cyprus instead of backing onto Cyprus. We could maybe ensure that you would get what you want, but there is no guarantee. And you could end up with something a lot different. like Francis Estates, where now those people, the backyards are like three feet from their block wall. It's just, it's a mess. And they're going for 1.25 to 1.45 million. I don't know how anyone affords homes nowadays. Any other further comments? Karen?

Yeah, Mary. Yeah, Mary, I think the issue here is is the compromise that you just talked about. I think everybody says that this is a very nice development. I think the last time we built anything close to like 4.5 density in the city, was probably north of heritage park so there is a market and i think you know those residents would like to see that type of development i think it's just about getting our staff together with the developer and preserving the the loop street feel of that and having the frontage come out back out onto cypress and it's not like it can't be done it's just i think another one of those details i think preserves the feel of that community while having a nice development in there. I'm with all of you guys. There is some risk in sending it back, but I think what we're asking for is preserve, keeping those cars off of Amsterdam, like for preservation, people like to not have that frontage and know that type of activity on that street for how it's going to serve that community moving forward so it's not about the project i think the project's beautiful i um you know i don't believe that that project if i'm not mistaken is actually designated as one of our overlays right it's not a it is not within the overlay it's not an affordable housing overlay but there are some other things that could come our way for that you know through housing mandates but it is not an affordable housing overlay so i don't think i mean the development could look different but it's not it could i don't think it would look like an affordable housing overlay that we designated so the density could be a little different but maybe not as severe as we believe but mark and chris make a good point but i also understand the existing residents that have been there wanting to preserve that that the looping street fill and the frontage to the exit of those houses on Cypress. So what I'd like to see is our staff and the developer just get back to flipping it. Those are my comments.

I would agree with Karen, and it is a risk that we run into. And my very first comment to Mr. Thomas was it is a very nice project. It's something that you don't see anymore. I love it. I think it's a great location for it. But I really wish you could go back to the drawing board, sir, with our staff and to make some modifications so that it faces Cypress. It just makes so much more sense. to the development and to the area. There's a reason there's a specific plan. And I just think it works out really, really well if you would just have those homes face Cyprus rather than Amsterdam. So thank you.

Well, Kurt, facing Cyprus does not take the homes away from facing Amsterdam.

It does. Question is staff when you were working with the developer on this to not have homes face Amsterdam Was there an alternative design?

there was an alternative design that was presented at the planning commission with that design the applicant lost one lot within the units that were there and they had the other issues that were mentioned before that added cost to the project as it relates to providing the utilities to serve the homes facing Cypress Avenue. There are also challenges with grading the site. With the way the site's situated, it drains towards the south, so naturally the drainage is going to head southwest. So with the homes were flipped, there were additional improvements for drainage that were required as well. And I did find the number of single-story homes, Mayor. I was off. There are 16 single-story homes. 16? Correct.

That's a lot. Okay, Mark? No? Chris, any other comments? No? All right, well, we have staff's recommendation to approve Ordinance Number 2026, Stats 12. You've heard the public opposition. You've heard the developer's position on this. So with that, is there a motion for approval?

of um ordinance number 2026-012 okay there is no motion to approve so can i make an alternative motion yes is it permissible for me instead of like um the motion failing asking for to make a motion for the for this project to go back to staff and the developer for some additional consideration?

If I may, Mayor, yes. In response to Councilmember Comstock's question, that's certainly an option that can be offered. My suggestion is that you ask the applicant if they concur with continuing this and further suggestion of providing some directive i did hear that there's the suggestion of flipping the orientation so the houses are at cyprus rather than amsterdam and any other suggested areas for staff to work with the applicant on okay so i need to reopen the public hearing If you'd like to continue it to a date certain, yes.

Well, but to ask Mr. Thomas a question.

To ask for the consent, yes.

Okay, I'm going to declare the public hearing back open. Mr. Thomas, would you please come back up to the microphone? Okay, you've heard council comments regarding fronting the homes on Cyprus and having them not front on Amsterdam. It's been suggested that we send this back and for staff to work with you. Are you amenable to that, continuing this hearing?

I think. we uh as a company need to decide how we're going to handle you know the increased potential cost and and just reevaluate the project um so i guess i i would i'll take not having a denial but um But it may not be us who is up here next time with the project. And I think that you are very wise in your thoughts about what might come next. And we don't know yet. We really need to sit down and figure it out. But I really do wish and hope that you might reconsider your position, approve the project that is in front of you, The amount of traffic that goes up and down Amsterdam is not much. It's a fraction of what it is on Cyprus. There are reasons why we're asking for homes not to back up on Cyprus. I am disappointed I didn't have people who have told me how impactful it is and how fast people drive up and down that road and it's like i don't want to sell a home that backs up the cypress and i don't want to put you in a home that would back up the cypress i don't think you know so you know two wrongs don't make a right i do truly appreciate the effort that went into the specific plan but things change and that um you know college park specific plan and the fact that this that the Elementary school didn't get built and people really do use Cypress up and down and speed along Cypress It's it's a big deal. And so You know another analogy might be it's the lesser of two evils and maybe that's What I'm asking you to vote on but I do I would like you to reconsider and vote in favor of the project You would rather

let the motion die or you would rather, like the original question. I mean, because you kind of took it back to like, hey, you need to reconsider your position. But our question was, would you entertain the alternative motion?

I don't think, the alternative motion is what, ma'am?

Pardon me? The alternative motion would be that this item go back and request that you work with staff. We would not out now deny this, but ask you to go back.

And we'll come back again at some point? And we'll apparently come back again. Okay, that's fine.

Yes. So the mayor, I will make that motion. Okay, I'll close the public hearing then again.

Actually, I guess the question is how long it would take to do that and whether you'd want to re-notice it or continue it to a date certain. If so, then the suggestion would be to keep the public hearing open and continue it. I guess I'd defer to staff about how long do you think that process, could we commit to... I suspect not the next meeting, but the one after.

We would need to know from the applicant how much time they need to go back and take a look at the project to figure out a date to continue the item to. Definitely the next meeting would be too quick. I'm not sure if we would be able to work this out within a month. I don't know if the applicant has any suggestions on a date that would be feasible for them and their team to be able to

take a look at what needs to go into these changes okay we meet twice a month as you know um so it would be either the first or the second meeting in october or first or second meeting in november and you're asking me to pick one yes

mean does it have to be a 60-day period here can we give them you know you know 90 to 100 you know 120 that you know well fred's asking first yeah i know but if it's not date specific we would need to re-notice the project which is always an option too if you continue the item and leave it open-ended without a date tied to it there would just be a noticing tied to the project coming back to city council which i think the residents would probably appreciate the additional noticing okay

So one last point I understand from your city clerk that there are other folks that now would wish to speak again now that you've reopened the public hearing. I don't know if the issue remains relevant in light of this discussion, but I do see.

Okay. Thank you.

If given the date, I would rather have the soonest date. Pardon me? The soonest date. Did you offer something? In early October?

Possibly. We do have another lady who would like to speak.

Yeah, the first and third Tuesday of the month.

Can I make a comment?

Yeah.

So, Mr. Thomas, in regards to your comment again about traffic out there on Cypress, just for the record, I live directly across the street. That's District 2. I know that area very, very well, and I have owned my home out there for over 30 years. I've watched that area develop. I've watched the traffic patterns in and out of there. I don't disagree that there's a lot of traffic out on Cypress, and it goes really, really fast sometimes. But my thought is, and what I've seen on Amsterdam, it just is not a street that's able to facilitate the amount of homes and the traffic patterns that you're suggesting. We also have a tremendous police department that is able to go out there and handle traffic control if they do see we have an issue out there with traffic. But I do appreciate your comments.

Okay, we will hear the next speaker.

Hi, thank you for letting me speak. It was exactly what Curtis just mentioned about the traffic.

Can you pull this down just a little bit?

I feel that the traffic is dangerous on Cyprus, and I don't think the traffic would be as bad on Amsterdam. Cyprus has gotten so busy in the years. I've lived there my whole forever, and another neighbor and I were talking how busy Cyprus has gotten. That's just my comment, that I think having the homes on Amsterdam would be safer.

Thank you. Thank you. You already have spoken, sir, just very quickly, okay?

I agree, the police department is fantastic. I love our police department. The speeding keeps coming up, and roadway keeps coming up, but the speed limit on Cypress is 25. If it's an issue of speed, it's an enforcement issue. It's not a speeding issue. The speed limit on Amsterdam is actually 35. So you can drive 10 miles an hour faster down Amsterdam until you get to the wavy part where it becomes 25. But it's not a speed issue. And the fact that you're thinking that 10 houses are gonna negatively impact two schools, it's a minuscule amount of homes. 10 houses are not gonna negatively impact The roadway as it's built is wider on Cypress. There are 160 homes from the 60 freeway all the way down to Pepperdine. There are zero homes on Amsterdam. And Mary, you helped do the ECP. You built the ECP to preserve these homes in our neighborhood the way that they are. Everybody bought homes in that neighborhood because the ECSP protected them, and they thought their houses were going to stay protected like that forever and live out their lives there. And now we're talking about changing it because a sewer is convenient down Amsterdam. That's the only reason. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, hi. My name is Charles Butler. I live in Dalton.

And yeah, so I just don't understand why we can't, as homeowners, be included in the planning process or in the notifications so that we can work with them. I mean, it'd be great to have those homes there. We just wanna make sure that we monitor the traffic, as Derek is saying, and which, again, I think Cypress is a better option anyway, because it's there. So can we just be included in that? That's my answer.

Thank you. Thanks for your opinion. Okay, now Fred.

So your options, counsel, are you can continue it to a date certain, in which case... keeping the public hearing would avoid re-noticing it however if the council believes providing separate notice with the date when it's finally determined is preferable then you close the public hearing and it will all be re-noticed with new notices sent to the public i think with the number of people involved in this we need to do a separate notice so i would like to close the public hearing so that it's noticed again when it comes back okay

So I will close the public hearing.

Now, Karen, do you want to propose your alternate?

Yes, I propose the alternate motion as stated earlier in accordance with the direction from the city attorney. Okay, is there a second?

And just to clarify, that's a motion to continue indefinitely to allow staff to work with the applicant to explore opportunities to reorient the housing units towards Cypress.

Yes, there's a motion from Council Member Comstock and a second from Council Member Lucille. All those in favor state aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, this item then goes back to staff. Okay, item number 19, appeal of Planning Commission action denying the Dirac battery energy system This is to appeal the Planning Commission action denying the direct battery energy storage system.

If I could ask you to please have your conversations outside so we can continue. For 19, okay.

Okay, once again, we're on item number 19, appeal of the Planning Commission action denying Dirac battery energy storage system. We have many requests to speak, so once again, I will initiate the three minute each speaking limit. I'm going to also encourage you to please not repeat what another speaker has already said. and be considerate of our time here this evening and also your fellow attendees. I'm going to declare the public hearing open. We have a staff report by Kim Lee, our senior planner, and Swati Mersham, our director of development services.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. The item before you tonight is an appeal of the Planning Commission's action on the Dirac Battery Energy Storage System, BEST project. The appeal involves PL250085, Special Conditional Use Permit, and PL250086, Site Approval. The City Council is also being asked to consider a development agreement between the City and Dirac BEST LLC. The project consists of a 400 megawatt vest facility on 13.89 acres located between Oaks and Benson Avenue, north of Edison Avenue. The site is designated general industrial by the general plan and zone general industrial M2. A best facility is classified as a major utility use and is allowed within the M2 zoning district subject to approval of a special conditional use permit. The project is also located adjacent to the existing SDE Chino substation. This slide before you shows the overall project site plan. In addition to the battery storage system, the project also includes an operations and maintenance building, an on-site substation, and a 230 kilovolt generation interconnection line connecting the project to the SE Chino substation to the south. The facility would receive electricity from the regional power grid for storage and deliver that electricity back to the grid when additional electricity is needed. On July 15th, 2026, the Planning Commission conducted a public hearing to consider the project. Staff recommended approval based on its determination that the project is consistent with the general plan, zoning code, applicable development standards, and required findings. during the hearing residents raised concerns primarily regarding fire safety proximity to residential areas potential off-site impacts associated with best fire and previous fire incidents at other best facilities following public testimony and commission deliberation a motion was made to approve the project and recommended the city council approval of the development agreement the motion failed by three four votes As a result, the special conditional use permit and site approval were denied, and the Planning Commission made no recommendation on the development agreement. On July 24th, the applicant filed a timely appeal applicant identifies three primary grounds for the appeal first the applicant contends that the planning commission denial is not supported by the administrative record second the applicant identifies the role of battery energy storage is supporting california statewide energy goals and third the applicant contends that newly proposed best facilities are subject to updated and comprehensive safety requirements Regarding the first ground, staff evaluated the project plans, technical studies, environmental analysis, regulatory requirements, and conditions of approval. Based on that review, staff determined that the project is consistent with applicable general plan policies, zoning requirements and development standards and that the findings required for approval can be made regarding the second ground the proposed project would provide up to 400 megawatts of energy storage capacity and would connect directly to the existing electrical infrastructure at the chino substation to the south while statewide energy objectives provide context for the proposed use staff's recommendation is based on the project's compliance with the city's general plan zoning code, environmental requirements, development standards, and required findings. The third ground for appeal relates to fire and life safety, which was a primary issue raised during the Planning Commission hearing. Newly proposed best facilities are subject to current fire and life safety requirements, including the California Fire Code, NFPA 855, UL 9540, UL 954A and CPUC General Order 167-C. These requirements address matters including equipment certification, thermal runway and propagation, unit spacing and separation, fire detection, emergency response planning, and continuing operational oversight. Staff safety evaluation is based on the specific design and operating characteristics of the proposed project, which differ from some earlier generation BEST facilities. The project would utilize lithium ion phosphate batteries, LFP. LFP is more thermally stable battery chemistry than older battery chemistry that were used in some of the older BEST facilities. project would house the batteries in physically separated outdoor enclosures this differs from some older best facilities where a large number of batteries were housed together within within one building the use of separated outdoor enclosures provides physical separation between battery units and is intended to limit the potential for an incident involving one unit to propagate to other units in addition to these design features Fire detection systems would be installed throughout the site and within each enclosure. Each enclosure would also have a battery management system that continuously monitors the condition of the battery cells 24 hours a day. The system can detect abnormal conditions and automatically shut down an infected unit. Each enclosure would also include a fire alarm control panel. capable of identifying the specific unit involved and notifying first responders. The Chino Valley Fire District reviewed the project and provided conditions applicable to its construction and operation. Final equipment specifications, engineering plans, hazard mitigation measures, and emergency systems would remain subject to further technical review during subsequent permitting. In response to the concerns raised by the Planning Commission and members of the public, the applicant requested additional safety conditions be imposed into the project. First, the project would be required to install and maintain continuous real-time carbon monoxide detection and air monitoring within each best enclosure, and at strategic locations along the site perimeter. Second, the applicant would provide annual third-party best emergency response training for fire district personnel at the applicant's expense. Third, any future use of an alternative battery chemistry would require prior written approval from the fire district, supported by an independent third-party safety testing and technical analysis. And fourth, the project's emergency response plan would be coordinated and distributed to the fire district and the Chino Police Department, with updated copies providing following material changes. These requirements have been incorporated into the revised fire district and planning division conditions of approval. Based on the project's design, applicable regulatory requirements, technical studies, fire district review, and conditions of approval, staff determined that the required findings related to public health, safety and general welfare can be made. Assembly Bill 205 established an alternative permitting pathway through the California Energy Commission for qualifying clean energy projects, including best facilities. Under the CEC's opt-in certification program, qualifying projects may obtain state certification that supersedes required local permits. The applicant elected to process the project through the city's local entitlement process and negotiate a development agreement directly with the city. If the appeal is denied, the applicant may elect to pursue the project through the state's process. Under that process, the city would not have the same ability to negotiate the development agreement currently before the council. The city council is also being asked to consider the associated development agreement. Under the agreement, the applicant would provide two $3 million community benefit payments. The applicant would also provide $600,000 for fire suppression and emergency management and preparation. The agreement also guarantees that the city will receive at least $4 million in combined project sales and use tax revenue and development impact fees. Collectively, the development agreement provides a minimum of $10.6 million in community and fiscal benefits to the city. The applicant would also make reasonable efforts to target local residents for employment opportunities associated with construction, operation, and management of the project. Regarding environmental review, the project has been determined to be within the scope of the previously certified 2045 General Plan Update Environmental Impact Report. A focused evaluation was conducted pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15183. The analysis determined that the project would not result in any new or more significant environmental impacts beyond those identified in the certified EIR. Accordingly, no additional environmental review is required. A 10-day public notice was mailed to all property owners and occupants within 300 feet of the project site, and a notice was published in the Chino Champion on September 5th. Correspondence received prior to the posting of the agenda was included with the City Council agenda materials. Since the agenda was posted, staff received five additional letters regarding the project, including three letters in support and two letters in opposition. These letters have been provided to you at the dais. i would also like to note that the chino police department's conditions of approval were inadvertently omitted from the attachments to the staff report the conditions of approval have been posted to the city's website and provided directly to each member of the city council in advance of tonight's meeting the police department's conditions of approval remain applicable to the project and are included as part of the conditions before the city council for consideration this evening In conclusion, based on the administrative record, project plans, technical studies, environmental analysis, applicable regulatory requirements, and conditions of approval, staff determined that the findings required for approval of the project can be made. Accordingly, staff recommends the City Council grant the appeal approve the project entitlements, and approve the associated development agreement. That concludes my presentation. Staff, Chino Valley Fire District, and the applicant and their technical team are here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to start with the written request to speak. We have one that's going to require a translation, so I'd like to call up Laura Rodriguez. Yes? Oh, you want the applicant first? Okay, applicant is welcome to come up first.

I just want to confirm the timing. We confirmed 10 minutes as a standard practice. You have 10 minutes. Okay, thank you very much, Mayor. And let the clock start. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and share more about IPA and this project. My name is Aaron Branham. I'm the Senior Vice President of Development at IPA, where I oversee all of our projects in the Western United States. I'm here tonight because Chino needs one of these projects, and we've spent nearly two years working with the city of Chino on this one. In July, this council and residents told us what they needed to see, and tonight I'm very grateful to show you how we've responded. But first, a little, first, a little bit about IPA. Since 2017, we've grown into North America's leading battery storage developer and operator with one mission to build a stronger, more reliable grid. Today, that means 42 operating projects and 77 in development or construction across 30 states. Much of that is here in California. We're proud that our projects represent over 500 union jobs here in the Inland Empire. And we're also proud of the strong safety record we've achieved, earned through our work with local fire districts, councils like yourselves, and the many authorities who oversee our projects. This is how we've approached Chino. Listen to the feedback from this council, from the fire district, and from the residents, and build it into the project. And now, why we're here tonight. DIRAC is a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility under long-term power contract with a California utility to deliver power when the grid needs it most. To put 400 megawatts in perspective, that's enough to power up to 400,000 homes, which may seem large until we remember that Chino has grown nine times since the 1960s. That's faster than California's statewide pace by a factor of four. This project sits on industrially zoned lands and is surrounded by all industrial uses, including the 30-acre Chino substation. Everything about this site and every change we've made since July comes from what this council and residents told the Planning Commission we needed. So why is DIRAC needed now? Well, California has a serious power problem, and that is getting worse. Energy storage is the answer. Keeping the lights on requires us to add 52,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2045, and we're barely a third of the way there. At the same time, almost 10,000 megawatts of natural gas will be retired by the early 2030s. For context, it would take 85 DIRACs to bridge that gap. It's a long way to go. and that's why the state approved DIRAC's utility contract in February of this year to meet the shortfall that begins in May 2028. DIRAC has to be online. There is no backup. Here in Chino, that's not an abstract concept. The local utility recognized 25,000 outages last year alone, and San Bernardino was the most affected county. When people come home from work on a hot evening, they need to be able to turn the lights on and hit the air conditioning. That is a public service, and that is what DIRAC is here to provide. Again, in July, we heard from residents that no one had explained why this project was needed. That was fair, and we've spent our time since correcting that. But we also heard their questions about setbacks and safety, and I'm happy to share with you how the project answers those questions. DIRAC is designed around the people who live nearby, around Ayala Park, and around what residents told us they were worried about. Let's start with distance. NFPA 855, the National Fire Code for Battery Energy Storage, sets a 10-foot setback minimum. We are over 1,100 feet from the nearest home. That's 110 times that standard. We're 900 feet from Ayala Park. That's 90 times the standard. but we also added a layer that no code provides. We put a concrete wall blast rated around the entire perimeter, ensuring that in the rare event of an incident, it will stay contained to the site. We also heard concern about our plume modeling. We heard about the Santa Ana winds and the extreme conditions that they could create, so we modeled those too. And still, we found that no hazard in the event of a fire extends beyond the property line. Perhaps most importantly is that Chino's own independent 290-page environmental review reaches the same conclusion. It tested every fire, toxic gas, and health question, and each cleared safety thresholds with a wide margin. In July, community members in the Planning Commission also raised priorities for our project, and we are proud to say that each of those priorities is met, locked in by nearly 150 binding permit conditions. The matrix on the screen shows the layered approach we take to meeting every single priority. The permit, the development agreement, the local, state, and national codes, all of them are enforced over the life of the project. And if we don't meet them, this city, Chino Valley Fire District, or numerous other authorities can stop the project from operating. 21 people spoke against this project in July. Not one concern they raised goes unaddressed in the materials before you tonight. And in several, we've challenged ourselves to go beyond what those conditions require. For example, residents wanted assurance the men and women on the front line were engaged early, had the right plan, and the right training. Well, we've worked with Chino Valley Fire District since the start of this project and the earliest engineering designs. And in July, we held several working sessions on the site-specific emergency response plan. That plan will be finalized with the city and with the fire district sign-off before the project can ever turn on. We also held five battalion-wide training sessions led by third party fire experts. These covered utility scale batteries, but also electric vehicles and e-mobility incidents that they are used to seeing already in Chino. Chino Police, Chino Public Works, and members of this council all took part, and that training will be provided every single year at zero cost to the city. It's a permit condition codified in writing. Two other priorities were raised, the hazard mitigation analysis and emergency notification infrastructure. Both are addressed in the materials before you. But we heard loud and clear, do more, more is needed. So we made a safe project even safer. We increased required spacing between battery containers up to 50% further than standard, reducing the risk of fire if one occurred. We expanded air quality monitoring to 24-7 automated sensors around the full perimeter of the site. And we established a $600,000 emergency preparedness fund for Chino's first responders to support readiness for this project or any safety priority this council identifies. Now I know Moss Landing is on people's minds. It's the fire that always comes up. But DIRAC is a fundamentally different project. It's built outdoors in separate containers that are sealed from the elements, spaced far apart with the most stable lithium ion chemistry. Based on these designs and the required safeguards, our team believes the risk of an event like that here is zero. We also have experts from Fire and Risk Alliance who conducted those trainings here if you have additional questions. But before I hand it over, In addition to safety, we heard other concerns. And this council asked specifically, how do we benefit if we host this project? Well, over its life, DIREC will pay $132 million in property taxes. 70 million of that comes right back to the Chino area, to Chaffey Community College, to the Chino Valley Unified School District, and to the Chino Valley Fire District. Another 13.9 million goes directly to the city. But staff took us to the, they put us to the challenge and they negotiated a heck of a development agreement. And we're proud to say that that development agreement adds $10.6 million minimum. It could be more. And that is paid before a single electron hits the grid. It's great to have money up front. It's also worth emphasizing the project brings 168 union jobs to this community. And that means workers on this site can get home in time for dinner. Something else was clear after July. The community was unaware the project was going forward, and we are accountable for that. Since then, outreach has been our top priority. Our team went door to door on the hottest month on record, asking residents, or excuse me, to nearly 2,000 residents around the project, including the apartments closest to the site in District 3. Among those who engaged us, 95% had no concern with the project. As people balancing work and life ourselves, we also conducted four open houses, three of them in person, running 12 hours from 8 to 8 on weekdays and weekends. We held a virtual webinar, and our project website is updated in multiple languages and has been live throughout. This is our commitment to Chino and the one that will persist through operations. So the priorities we heard were centered on project safety, first responder training, and response infrastructure. All are addressed in the materials before you. And so I'll close where I started. We met residents where they were, we listened, and we have incorporated all of that into the project. Chino needs this power, but they need it from a project that's safe, built with community priorities in mind, and one that gives back. That project is DIRAC, and I hope that we will prove it tonight. Thank you.

Okay, once again, we're going to start going through the request to speak. I do ask that you not repeat each other. There is a huge stack of people who would like to speak this evening. The first one.

Do you have questions for me, Mayor, or should I be seated?

Sure. No, can we ask questions right now? Yes. Sorry. Yes.

Aaron, thank you very much for coming. Can you hear me? I appreciate your presentation. You guys did a fantastic outreach throughout the community, and you're to be commended for that. You answered every question, I think, as well as you could. I look back and I remember the questions that I had during my initial presentation with you folks as well. You talk about 24-7, 365 real-time monitoring. Can you explain that? What is that? Does that mean computerized? Is that cameras? Is somebody going to be boots on the ground at the location? How does that work?

I hear your question about operations. And so if I can roll your question into the broader staffing of the project, would that be OK? Sure. Great. So I want to start off by saying this is not a set it and forget it project. We staff these with four to seven full-time staff. That means seven to four every Monday through Friday, and weekends and holidays as needed. Those staff are typically within 45 minutes to an hour of the site, so they can be there at a moment's notice. An hour isn't that far in LA. Secondly, is the systems that you talked about. There are over 20 metrics in each container being monitored at all times by a remote operations center. That remote operations center is both a computer and a person. There are people that spend their time there, and usually there is a member there 24 hours a day. So if there is an alarm, not only can the computer respond to it autonomously, or and it will notify those staff members but you will have staff there within 45 minutes to greet the first responders and make sure they are aware of the site and to support them in the event of an incident and as an if there were an incident as soon as it happens the fire department is put in touch with our remote operations center so they have communications literally from the first second

so if if an emergency occurred at three o'clock in the morning when there was nobody there you're hoping that your power will work well enough to notify your folks correct we don't hope we have multiple redundancies well the redundancy and i apologize my question is if you're you're saying that there will not be anybody on site in the evening hours, in the early morning hours to be able to physically observe things going on at the location. So if there were a fire or something that went on that typically burns out power, what's the answer to getting the fire department there or your personnel over there?

Sure, so I want to be clear that as part of the site-specific emergency response plan, the notification protocol will be set by Chino Valley Fire and the actual first responders, which are the Chino police. However, the battery, using your example, if at 3 a.m. an incident was detected, that alarm automatically can shut down the unit first, so line of defense one. It will automatically wake those individuals off-site and notify the on-site individuals at our remote operations center. So there is a person always watching, and they're literally watching because all of our project sites have cameras all around them, including IR and thermal cameras. So we're not just watching the physical picture. We can see deeper on what is actually happening with temperatures at the site. So I want to assure you that no matter when an alarm were to occur, An automatic notification will go to a person, and if Chino Valley Fire Department requires that to go to them, they can have it done as so. But they set the standards on notification protocol, and we will follow everyone that they desire.

Okay, and you had mentioned that this plant can power over 400,000 homes. Is that correct?

That's correct. The facility could power up to 400,000 homes for four hours.

And where does Chino stand in line there? Do we get first shot at that power or does that go out someplace else?

It's a great question, and I think it gets to the point of how the grid works. So if you'll forgive me for just one moment, California only has one grid. It's like a big bathtub with generators putting electrons in and homes and businesses draining them out. The grid operator keeps it at the exact right level to make sure the lights stay on and nothing fails. But when that power doesn't magically go to our houses, it goes through lines, and those are best thought of like a pump, or excuse me, like a water hose. If you're at the beginning, you've got great pressure. But if you're at the end, you've got nothing after a bunch of people have tapped it. Well, this battery in Chino acts not only like a pump in Chino, making sure you have pressure or that you will have power when needed, but it also acts like a water reservoir, continuing our metaphor, so that you have the actual thing you need available. so that is how it serves chino and chino as the host the physical location of the facility will receive the benefits of this project okay thank you aaron thank you any other questions before i continue so so i attended the training at least one of the training days um and i guess one of the things that i learned at the training was

You guys, when testing these batteries, you intentionally try to set them on fire. And out of, I think, I believe there was eight tests that were done, only one of those batteries ever caught fire. The other one just blew out steam. And just to confirm, if it's a gas being released, how far away before it dissipates and it's no longer poisonous to people?

So that's why we performed the plume study. We modeled the gas, and all of those studies, both in normal conditions as well as the Santa Ana wind conditions, show that those gases never reach the property line. But just to make sure, that's why we've committed to having monitors around the full perimeter of the site. So if any gas is detected, according to the notification protocols set up by Chino Valley Fire District and the Chino Police, the public can be notified immediately and we could take action. But I want to reaffirm, this modeling is used throughout multiple industries, it is very accurate, and it has shown that no gases in an event, which you are correct, we modeled an event that was 10 times greater than the actual event, no gases ever reached the perimeter of the project. And if I could touch on your testing question, you're absolutely right on the way that testing progressed. And in fact, the battery manufacturer that we have chosen for this site, I think is another testament to our focus on safety because their testing could not actually start. They were never able to get the battery to go on fire. They actually have to physically force it on fire. That product has also not, that has had zero incidents in its operating history, and so we chose that manufacturer to be the product we deploy in Chino. And that's just a part of our commitment to safety first for this city. Did I answer your question completely, Councilmember? Yes.

Chris.

So you currently have 42 operating sites, right, 77 construction or development.

the 44 operating have you had any incidents with those and if you have what would that look like what was the outcome yeah so ipa is i think it's a great question and it's the one that hits to the heart of what mo with this council and i think most residents are focused on And IPA is very proud of our zero incident rate across our entire utility scale fleet, which is the same kind of project we're proposing here in Chino. And that means our projects comply with local, state, and federal fire codes and safety standards, including California's rigorous battery storage fire code, which is the hardest in the nation to comply with. It's a great code. And I touched on how we approach safety first by selection of our vendor. And I think this is equally important. So I won't repeat myself, but these are all the steps we take. We look at the manufacturer, we look at how the site is laid out. Safety is the top priority.

And a follow-up question with just improving technologies and AI and everything of that sort. As years go on and technology improves, Do those get implemented to not just perhaps this project, but other projects, or does the technology stay behind until the agreement ends, or can you just touch on that?

I can see you've been reading some articles about battery chemistry, so I'm happy to touch on that. The bottom line is that this council, if approved, has dictated the most stable chemistry for this project, and that's lithium iron phosphate chemistry. uh we have heard some talk about sodium ion batteries for example and i want to be clear other technologies may come about and we will always be looking at those because we always want to get better we always want to get safer but the bottom line is that sodium ion batteries are not proven they're not commercially viable and they're not financeable and ipa doesn't deploy experimental chemistries So again, that's why we're using lithium ion, which is the most stable chemistry this industry has decided on. And again, I just want to highlight the manufacturer we've chosen has never had an incident with the product we will deploy here. And I think that's a great start for a project safety record.

Any other questions? No, thank you.

Yes, Karen. If this project were to be approved, what is the life cycle of these batteries and can you please explain how you go about after they're installed or were they installed in other locations, what do you expect the life cycle to be and how they go about being replaced and how often that occurs?

I'm very happy to answer that question because I think there's a lot goes on during the life cycle. So we will install the original capacity, the 400 megawatts proposed here, and then every five years we will do what's called augmentation because just like the battery in your cell phone, you know, it charges a little less every day. And so we will supplement those batteries or exchange them in the racks with newer, fresher batteries. That happens roughly every five years.

And when that happens, when you supplement or augment those batteries every five years, if the more modernized technologies available in the lithium, are you using those?

We will examine them, but I want to enforce that lithium iron phosphate is the chemistry that industry has decided on.

Okay.

It is the one that is deployed on almost every modern utility scale project. And so it's unlikely that we will shift away from that. But yes, we will always be looking for something that's better and safer. And if it is, if we find something, we will come back to this council and ask for your permission to use that chemistry instead.

Thank you.

Yes, Fred.

We did receive some comments that spoke about a data center in relation to this project. I just wanted to say that comments related to a data center have no relevance to this project. I know the argument is that this would be some precursor to a data center. The council doesn't have any authority to consider a data center. It's not before you. Certainly people could speak on that at public comment periods before the beginning of a council meeting, but it's not a relevant issue for testimony tonight.

I appreciate you bringing that up. This is not a data center site, and so no comments about data centers would be appropriate this evening. All right. I'm going to try to go to public communication now. Again.

Should I be seated? Thank you. Thank you.

Our first speaker is going to need a translator and her name is Laura Rodriguez.

Good evening.

My name is Laura Rodriguez. She's been a resident for more than 42 years. She's not in agreement with Project 19. She's concerned of the safety for the residents, the youth, the seniors, and the community. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, this next speaker, there's no name. It's IBEW. So whoever is representing IBEW. Come on, Pauline.

My name is Mark Strickland.

What is your name again?

Mark Strickland. Mark, okay.

Yes, I apologize for that. I didn't put my name on there.

Can you lift your mic up? Oh, excuse me.

Can you hear me? This is my first time. I'm just putting in the support. I think that the numbers... Can you hear me? I just wanted to say that he already said everything about the numbers. I hope everybody takes into consideration about the safety of it because he already put everything in display of what would happen in the future and what's already been done. As of right now, the grid that we do have, you guys understand that there's a lot of things that goes on in that department that we do use as far as Edison and all that, right? So if you look at the energy that we do have now compared to what we will have in the future, it would be best because people look at solar and look at things that they get in the house. I hope I'm making sense when I'm talking about as far as it goes with the energy being saved. If not, I don't want to confuse nobody about it, but I just want to say I'm in support of it, and I hope that you guys do just take into consideration. I'm starting to get nervous. I apologize. I will come up here again in the near future with some notes to be able to speak in the five minutes and be more concise with my words. So I thank you. Thank you.

TONY AVALOS.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. MY NAME IS TONY AVALOS. I WORK FOR COOPERTINO ELECTRIC WHO IS BUILDING MARICHI BATTERY STORAGE IN CITY OF INDUSTRY. AND WE WOULD ALSO BUILD DIRAC. Cupertino has been around since 1954. I myself have just hit my 30 year anniversary in construction. 30 years is a big feat. I still have many more years in me. I've been 15 years in safety. I'm the lead safety manager at Marichi, and I would be the lead safety manager at Dirac. All our people are qualified. Like I said, we've been around since 1954. The pros is that this would be good for the state, for Chino, for everybody. My son lives in Chino also. I used to live over by Skate Express. But yeah, I love Chino. I would love to come back. But yeah, we're qualified people. Companies qualified to build this. I have helped build over 10,000 megawatts and over 100,000 acres of solar, battery storage, and substation. So that's all I got.

Thank you. Jace Sumner? Are you scared? Oh, you forgot your notes.

Good morning, Mayor, council members. My name is Jay Sumner. I'm an IBW 477 member. I'm here tonight regarding agenda 19, the direct battery energy storage system appeal. I want to start by saying something important. The residents who raised the concerns about fire safety, emergency responses, and locations of those projects deserve to be heard. Those are legitimate issues, and nobody should have missed them. He pretty much covered everything, every aspect of that. I want to repeat it. I got it all right here. He did a very good job. They pretty much eliminated it to a zero risk factor. I kind of want to finish off with a As an electrical worker, I also know what the projects like this could mean for skilled tradesmen and apprentices. Large electrical infrastructure projects can create opportunities for skilled construction workers training in our region. So tonight I'm asking the councils to look carefully at the evidence, listen to the residents, require strong enforceable safety prosecutions, and consider the appeal based on the complete record before you. Thank you for your time and consideration. Jake Sumner with IBW 477.

Thank you very much, Jace. If you lived in Chino, you'd be a rival for Councilman Burton here with your voice. Next is Matt, is it Arnswell? Arnswald?

Arnswald?

Good evening, Council. My name is Matt Arnswald. I'm a 27-year union electrician. I've been a member of 477 for 23 of those. I have over about 17 years of experience on big energy projects. I've built everything from co-generations to solars. I've built all types of solars, the mirror projects, oil projects, and photovoltaic. I'm with Cupertino Electric. I'm an on-site quality manager. What we do is we make sure everything is done right before the inspectors even hit the site. So we quality our own stuff. I've been on two projects with IPA. We've had zero incidences, both in safety and productivity. I just want to say that if you do the research on all this stuff, the safety stuff that he is talking about is out there. It's what we install, and we install quality work. And it's going to bring a lot of good energy for the community and a lot of good work for local people. Thank you.

Thank you. Ben Pratt.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thanks for having us all here tonight and listening to us speak. My name is Benjamin Pratt, and I'm the president of IBW Local 477, and I couldn't be more proud to have my brothers and sisters here in support of this project tonight. The IBW represents about 2,000 power professionals here in San Bernardino, Inyo, and Mono counties. And since the inception of green energy, the IBW has been at the forefront, at the cutting edge of that technology. Our apprenticeship program is unparalleled in its training. The journey level workers that we turn out of these apprenticeships are skilled and trained to the highest level. A large portion of their training is focused on battery storage, solar generation, what have you, green energy standards. So we are the right men and women for the job. You know, sometimes when we speak on behalf of these projects, people will come up and refer to our jobs as temporary jobs. I would like to frame that like this to you. About 30 years ago, a city council up in the, I guess it was a town council back then of Atalanta approved a project that gave me my first temporary job. on an IBW project up there. And from that first temporary job, I was able to provide for my family. One of my sons is in the audience today, who is also now an apprentice in the IBW. I've been able to provide a type of life for them and earn a middle class income with great benefits I never would have had. So one project like this is not a temporary job. It's a catalyst for a career. The IBW has given me everything that I have. And Because of that, I feel an obligation to give back to it by delivering top-shelf projects to top-shelf communities like Chino. Our standards are unparalleled. To kind of lift up some of those projects, I would just like to list a few that we've done. with our journey level workers and our apprentices. We have the Condor project that we completed recently in Grand Terrace. Incident free 200 megawatt battery storage with 160,000 man hours. The Daggett storage project at 450 megawatts, incident-free at 290,000 hours. Circle City in Riverside, smaller one, 85 megawatts, which still generated 60,000 man-hours. Alamitos out in Los Angeles, 300 megawatts, 120,000 hours. Those are just a few of our projects. And in closing, I would just like to say that We wanna be your partners here in Chino. We want to employ your high school kids and do outreach in this community, and I'm here to help facilitate that, whatever the case may be. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Okay. Tigran, you can say your last name for me. I have a hard last name. Your name is harder.

It's not too difficult. My name is Tigran Agnayan. I'm here on behalf of Breathe Southern California to voice our support for the DIRAC project. Breathe Southern California is a century-old public health nonprofit dedicated to promoting clean air, healthy lungs through research, education, advocacy, and technology. Central to our mission is accelerating the region's transition to clean energy, as this will reduce harmful emissions and improve regional air quality. Battery energy storage systems are critical for California's clean energy transition. By storing renewable energy when it is abundant and discharging it during periods of peak demand, projects like DIRAC will help reduce the region's reliance on older, polluting fossil fuel power plants. This transition is essential to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce localized air pollutants and air toxins that harm community health. When the grid is short on power during a heat wave, utilities are forced to fire up highly polluting peaker plants and businesses turn on diesel backup generators. This project acts as an insurance policy for public health. By storing power and discharging it directly to the local substation when the grid is maxed out, the facility keeps AC running and protects our most vulnerable residents without releasing nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, or creating ozone. There's no time to stall on projects that will reduce the reliance on dirty fuels. Thank you for the opportunity to share our support for this project.

Thank you very much. Claire Lazzarini.

Hello, I'm going to defer my segment to Louis, my colleague, because he's actually from Chino. And if there's time, then I'll share mine.

Good evening. Madam Mayor and city council members, my name is Luis Gomez and I am the Vice President of Development for Rexford Industrial. We are the property owner of the property on Vincent Avenue. And although I am here representing Rexford tonight, I do wanna say that I am someone who was born and raised in the city of Chino. I graduated from Chino High in the 90s, and my parents have been here since the 60s. My mother just turned 93 this year, and she still lives in the home I grew up in. I have four brothers who live in the city of Chino as well, and their families are here as well. So for me, this is a very personal project. I wanna make sure you're aware of that. And I wouldn't be here tonight if I didn't wholeheartedly believe in what we're doing here with the battery storage facility. After graduating from Chino High, I earned a master's degree in engineering, and I am a licensed professional engineer. So I am trained to look at facts, look at the data, and really evaluate risk. And based on that, I think that this is a safe project. It serves an important purpose for the city, and it will provide meaningful benefits to the city. And for that reason, I am in full support of this project. I understand why people have so many concerns. When public safety is involved, people should have questions. And I appreciate everyone who stayed engaged in the process. Thanks to the community, we've had all this extra eyes and look on the project to ensure the safety of the project. I think it's important, however, that we do separate facts from fear. Residents have the right to ask difficult questions, but public decisions should ultimately, I think, be based on sound engineering principles and not on speculation. according to the development agreement the city does stand to earn a minimum of 10.6 million dollars which i think are going to be great for community purposes such as public parks roadways any improvements that you choose that are necessary that are more important to the residents and let's not forget why energy storage matters just last week We had a heat wave come through, which led to blackouts in the area. Reliable power is not just a convenience, it's a must for hospitals, businesses, for seniors like my very own mother, for people who depend on medical equipment and air conditioning to stay safe during these heat waves. Facilities like this will help strengthen the electrical grid when energy is needed most. I'll leave you with this. I routinely carry this cell phone battery.

So I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up.

Oh, I'm going to wrap it up now. I'm sure many folks have one as well. The bottom line is I plug in every day with this thing. This is just common sense. This project is the same thing, just on a regional scale. So I hope you guys support this project tonight. Thank you for having me.

Thank you very much. Grandma Hurtado. Is grandma, oh grandma Hurtado.

Good evening, Council. My name's, what my grandkids call me, Grandma and Granny. I've been in Chino Residence, and we still own the same house that I grew up in since I was four years old. We've been here 70 years. And to me, my thing is, I hope and pray we do not get this battery warehouse in Chino. Chino has come a long ways. We have stood for family and kids, and you guys built the Yala Park, which my grandkids and great-grandkids come out, and I take them to play ball there, practice soccer, and all kinds of things, and it's been a healthy thing. You guys have said, too, the police department, the fire departments, we always gather together to help our children, to help the people. You guys have built the thing for low housing that I know you guys sometimes struggle with the police department getting it straight, but we've come a long ways and we've come a long ways with our electricity. In all the 70 years, I don't see how many times we have gone without power for a long length of time where it's really affected us to be these things. And I know we have to go on, but we've been like Little House on the Prairie. We've come a long ways, and I know that we're gonna get to where we need to be with electricity, but solar panels and that. But let's keep our children safe the way we have all, you guys have all done for our children. And my great-grandchildren, I had three additional great-grandchildren just from February. And so I bring them over to my house and I dread that they'll be outside playing and something forbid, they can't guarantee something may not happen. And they're 45 minutes away to get to the location and stuff. And if a fire goes on and the fumes are in the air, because they're not going to stay below the brick wall. It's not covered up. So the smoke is going to go into the air and who knows how far. And if my grandchildren are on our plane at 2, 3, 2, because it can happen at any time and they're affected, no money in this world. can give me money for their lives and for their health and for our seniors that have been here. My seniors around my home, we've been there for, my seniors around our home have been there even longer than my mom and dad. They bought that home in 56. My husband and I, that got married in 73 and I went back with him to North Carolina. He served as an 82nd Airborne And so we've been together for a long time, so he knows how Chino, the cows, and blah, blah, blah, how it was here. But we have come a long ways, and I think we still can continue going a long ways without this battery warehouse. So thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you very much. Eugene Berger.

Eugene Berger.

Madam Mayor, City Council, I don't know your name, but you actually asked a question I was gonna bring up, so I'm gonna address my comments to your question. But about myself, I've worked 45 years in information technology, and of those 45 years, 43 was in leadership, and just about all of them was running data centers. My last job, I was Chief Information Officer at West Corp Federal Credit Union, the largest corporate credit union in the country, serving 1,100 credit unions. Prior to that, I was Director of Network Engineering and Design at Experian North America. All of that was my responsibility. To respond to your question about how the command center works. I looked through a bunch of documents and with the exception of it runs through a command center and it's got access controls, which means what, user ID and password? I don't see anything where due diligence was done on that command center. In a world that is populated with more hacks and more companies have been compromised and municipalities than ever before, in the past year, hacks to companies have gone up by 56% and the average cost to mitigate those hacks is going up by a million dollars. It's up to six million dollars per hack, probably ransomware. And if you think this is out there and it would never happen here, I don't know if you guys are familiar with a city called Suzanne City. They're up north. They were hacked on August 6th of this year. They took out all of the communication systems in the city. Police department, fire department, 911, they were all taken out for multiple weeks. City council didn't come back until a month. If this command center has not gone through due diligence to determine, do they run penetration tests? Do they have intrusion detection? What do they do to ensure that that center won't be hacked, that that center won't be compromised? Because all the magic that they say will happen with this system is all based on that. And if bad guys get that, they could make every one of those batteries go into thermal overload and turn into a fire.

Sir, it's been three minutes. I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up.

Okay. Just give me one minute for my closing one. very quick this company no longer works for blackstone is that correct did that work in that part of bradford sir you have to i have to direct it to him no you can't you can't talk to him you have to talk to us according to the websites they were acquired in july in july by bradford Now, the thing about Bradford is that the Prime Minister of Canada came from Bradford. He was the chairman of the board. And how he got there, I don't know. But what I do know is that we're in the middle of a trade war with Canada. A serious trade war. We got two high-powered business guys on top of that, gonna duel it out with each other as to who's the better businessman. Donald Trump or Mark Carney.

Okay, you're kind of off subject. I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up. This is it.

Why would Chino want to put themselves in the middle of that war? Why would we want to do that? Why would we want our government to accuse us of deciding to do business with the enemy instead of us?

I'm going to have to ask you to please stop. We're out of time. Thank you. Thank you very much.

next is daniel madrano good evening mayor and city council my name is daniel madrano i've been in chino for over 26 years I'm totally against the proposed project, and I have some questions that I hope can be answered tonight. So who does this benefit, this project? It appears that this arrangement benefits Southern California Edison and the corporation that's building the facility. The corporation will charge Edison a premium to use it, the stored power, and Edison will pass the higher cost to the rate payers. What is in it for the residents of the city of Chino? Well, they did mention something about we're going to get $10 million. That's a lot of money. So they have to charge more than that and make a lot more money than that in order to give us $10 million. Does the city of Chino have priority over other cities during the blackout? The gentleman mentioned that yes, since we're at the beginning of the pipeline. But do the residents have... priority over businesses. Like who determines that? The power goes to Edison. Edison just puts it out on the grid, like he said. So we have no control over it. What contractual guarantees does the city of Chino have with Southern California Edison and the corporation that they will honor such priority? What contractual remedies such as liquidated damages are contained in the contract to ensure the city is made whole if the priority is not complied with. Since the residents of Chino will be directly impacted if there is some type of battery leakage, are the residents getting some energy discount for the electricity that is being used during the blackout? And has Southern California NSN been made aware of such arrangements to ensure proper charges to the rate payers? I also have some safety concerns. Has the new battery storage technology ever had a leakage? If yes, how many times in the past five years and in which states? Has our fire department been fully trained on the new battery storage technology and does it feel confident that way they can handle and contain such an environmental catastrophe? How many hazmat specialists does our fire district have? corporation should reimburse the city or the fire district for any training which i believe he said they do this should not be a tax burden on the residents if the corporation is so sure that they will not have a leakage accident then they should put be willing to put their money where their mouth is by establishing a specific amount in an interest-bearing escrow account that the city has no access to if such accidents occur, not in a performance bond and not insurance because you'll only get 10 cents off the dollar for that. This should be a tripartite agreement between the city.

Sir, Daniel, you're up, your time is up.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Albert Duarte.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the Council and staff. My name is Albert Duarte, and I'm the Executive Director of the Riverside San Bernardino Building and Construction Trades. And we're your partners here in the city. A couple of months ago, we've had a career fair for the Second Chance community. We intend to continue to be that community partner for you going into the schools, but my main job is to make sure that our members, the members that you see behind you, have work through community workforce agreements like the DIRECT project is providing. But really, it's the community benefits that we negotiate outside of that. with our local hire, hiring people within this community, within our high schools. What's happening in LA and Orange County, we're getting inundated here in the Inland Empire by people just moving into our area. We've got a flood of workers that we have to hire. They're coming out of high schools. They're coming out of prisons. They're coming out of the community colleges, and we have relationships with all of them. We wanna continue, and this project's gonna do that. Construction's a nomadic industry. We jump from one job to the next. It's short term, but I came in in 1989. I'm still working. I came in as an iron worker. You have electricians, you have carpenters, you have laborers, you have a number of cement masons, 14 different trades and crafts within the building trades. 15 in all. They're all gonna work on this project. So this project's vital for us and we're here to support it and we hope that you would vote in support of the project. Thank you.

Thank you. Amanda Shade.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. Really appreciate that you're actually really listening to everybody. You have a hard job. My name is Amanda Shade. I first entered the construction industry as a mechanical engineer almost 20 years ago. And when I pursued my engineering degree, the first engineering class that I took was engineering ethics. And that's when they challenged us for the rest of our careers not to just understand how we can do something, but even more importantly, if we should. You know, We're listening to the group today. I don't doubt IBEW can do anything. They're so good at their jobs. Engineers, brilliant. So many solutions and IPA or the project applicant is saying that they can offer benefits like grid resilience, economic benefits and more, offering their own safety studies. Similar to the 400 megawatt plants and industry in Irwindale, which are very different cities than Chino. They do not have the residential density that our city has. as residents first relied on the planning commission for that should element and they said no to this project so now we look to the council for that should which is so important so when you evaluate that please keep us in mind that this really the question is should this project go through for the sake of chino not should this project go through for ipa iepw or others who may benefit A few of the things that I request as a resident is independent studies, wherever applicable, not necessarily relying on the studies provided by the project applicant. I also have not heard of operational facilities of this size and type in equal or lesser distance to recreational and residential spaces. I know we heard that there are zero incidents, but. and that Moss Landing is very different, which it was, but Moss Landing was built, the first phase turned over in 2020, the third phase turned over in 2023, and that big fire was the beginning of 2025. So as we evaluate new technologies and try these new projects, it's important to know that things can happen very quickly. So for me, what specific failure scenario would overwhelm the proposed mitigation scenarios? What's the evacuation strategy considering a large-scale event at Ayala Park 900 feet away? What consequences, short-term and long-term, if the layers of safety fail? Contamination potential. Who would pay for extraordinary response costs, equipment replacement, cleanup, long-term remediation, proposed decommissioning, Bond, would that cover worst case? And also even the minor stuff, the cumulative impacts with noise, how is that gonna affect our residents? Are they gonna be uncomfortable? Forget the safety for a moment. So the issue before the council is not whether battery storage has benefits, it does. The issue is whether the specific 400 megawatt facility at this specific location has demonstrated through independently verifiable evidence that it's foreseeable fire, environmental emergency response, noise, and long-term financial risks are adequately mitigated because just because we can doesn't mean we should be the first city to put 400 megawatts next to our residents.

Amanda, you're out of time.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Johnny Escobedo.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, council members. My name is Johnny Escobedo, and I'm a business agent for Ironworkers Local 416, representing approximately 3,000 ironworkers. A lot of the topics that have been touched tonight on is safety, local community workforce, and everything else. But one thing that has not been touched on is the home building that is required in California to sustain our homeless problem. We need to look at that and look at everything in conjunction that comes with that. More homes means more electricity. How are we gonna build our infrastructure to keep all these homes going and allowing all these houses to be built? We need to get everything to work in conjunction. The ironworkers are the forefront leaders of infrastructure, and we will be on these jobs, as we have been in the past. The developer has committed to local hire. He is also committed to doing this project to allow new apprentices to come into the trade. We're getting older. I was a 27-year ironworker. Now I've been in my seat for five years. and I'm here asking you to please move this project forward to help the future generations be able to have some type of opportunity that has pensions, annuities, medical benefits, mortgage-paying jobs, and most importantly, something that'll keep our members and the future members close to their homes so that they don't have to travel four or five hours in a day to be able to get to work. So I plead you to please move this project forward and approve it. Thank you. Thank you.

gabriel bencomo good evening um gilbert vancomo i'm 416 ironworker i've been a member of the union for 25 26 years and i just want what's best for my community and what's best for my family And to have a job close to home will be great, but that's not what I'm here for. I'm more of a family member, what's best for my family. And I just want to say thank you for your guys' time. And I appreciate you guys, and thank you.

Thank you. Jonah Henry.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Jonah Henry. I'm a volunteer organizer with the Sunrise Movement. We're a youth-led advocacy organization fighting to stop the climate crisis and develop a more equitable economy. We represent hundreds of active members in the SoCal Edison service territory, including in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties. I'm here to voice our strong support for this project and to urge City Council to grant the developer's appeal. This project will stabilize electricity prices in Chino and throughout the SoCal Edison service territory. It will enhance grid reliability, and most importantly for us as climate activists and Generation Z, it will reduce SoCal Edison's reliance on the gas-fired peaker plants that are causing climate change and releasing toxic air particulates into fence line communities. I also wanted to address a comment that a member of the public made that really resonated with me, which was about how expensive electricity prices are. My organization and several other progressive climate organizations have run several campaigns in the past against SoCal Edison. We think it's morally reprehensible that investor-owned utilities can earn record-breaking profits by jacking up their rates while working class people are struggling to afford to keep the AC on, like people are literally dying of heat in their homes because they can't afford electricity because rates are so high. But the solution to that is not to stop these projects. Stopping these projects, obstructing or delaying these projects only exacerbates the shortage of electricity on the grid, which enables the companies to raise their rates even higher. And so as demand for electricity is continuing to increase, continue to increase supply while the state and various different organizations are coming together at sort of a broader long-term level to pursue real structural change in the state's electricity system that will ensure long-term affordable electricity prices. So I just wanted to conclude by saying these large utility scale battery storage projects are the best tool we have right now to equitably and rapidly accelerate the renewable energy transition. And I really hope that you will say yes to accepting one of these facilities in Chino. Thank you.

Thank you, Jonah. Louis Lopez. Sounds like you're the fan club.

I just have the Lord on my side. First, I'd like to give Aaron from IPA a hand of applause. That was a great presentation. I'd buy life insurance from Aaron. But good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, staff, community. Again, my name is Louie Lopez. I represent the Ironworkers Local 433. And I know a lot of my brothers and sisters back here have already kind of spoke on labor, so I wanted to kind of do it a different direction. I was taking notes out there, back there. One of the things is, it seems like every quarter, we're getting more electric cars on the road. One thing I haven't seen or heard here yet is the environmentalists who are always kind of pushing back on projects because of truck transmission and all that. We're currently transitioning into that with the truck fleets now going electric, especially with the diesel prices right now at about $7, $8 a gallon. Also, one of my brothers mentioned about home building. Most of the homes right now are transitioning from gas over to electric. Everything from electric heating to appliances to even the dryer in the home. So there's a lot of transitioning to the needs of electricity. Also, we all know the state's mandate by 2035 is 100% dependent on green energy. So we're also looking at that. Again, IPA is, as they shared, they got the number one battery on the market that they're willing to put in this project. And as you see here tonight, they also got the number one skilled and trained workforce with the electricians and the iron workers here. So with that, we know that they're willing to deliver the best product to this city. We touched on local hire. I know Brent Pratt, president of... The electricians, 477. Forgot to mention that he served the Marine Corps just as myself, proudly. And every trade here has a direct connection Relationship with Helmets to Hardhats, so the men and women that are coming back from serving our country, just as me and Ben and I'm sure more here, didn't know what we were going to do when we came back. We have that direct entry right now for those men and women coming back into a well-paid, what benefits, a job opportunity because they get a direct entry. So I ask tonight that unanimously that this project gets pushed forward for the city of Chino. Thank you.

Thank you. Paul Griffin.

Good evening, Council. Good to talk to you all again. This all works out in my head, so I hope I can say it correctly. I want to talk about ordinances. As an aside, I've lived in Chino for 48 years, almost 20 of it in the Aventine apartment complex. And when the 711 was built, I didn't come by to talk about ordinances, and I should have, because you probably heard me complain about the wall height before, where on the other side, the wall height is about shin high. and Paul are you going to be talking about ordinances of the battery yes okay I'm just doing a parallel so if I had been here to talk about that I wouldn't have dumpster divers coming over into our apartment complex but I do want to thank the police department here because they have lowered that from frequent to rare but the reason I say this is because The last thing that the head of the planning commission said in their statement was that we have no ordinances for any type of power plant of this nature. And that was a bit surprising to me. She said that we should adopt some formal set of ordinances before we go forward. Had I been there to ask for that four-foot wall on their side, the dumpster divers would be zero. With respect to the applicant, I'm sure most of everything he said probably works out well, the experiments have gone well, but even the Titanic, it's unforeseeable catastrophes that we want to avoid. And so we want to have redundancies upon redundancies. We have these types of redundancies on nuclear power plants because we know how dangerous and catastrophic it can be. And money should not be something we're trying to save when it means the cost of people's health and lives. So there were three proposals that I put toward the Planning Commission that I would love to still see adopted by the applicant. One is that if the applicant has made it clear, at least to my understanding, the gas, if it were to be emitted in a plume, that gas is too heavy to normal air that it would settle. If that's true, then why not have a subterranean vacuum that would trigger should one of these things catch on fire and we start a plume. It at least sucks it down into the ground, or well, into an underground facility with filters. And that way anyone coming on site, as well as the people manning the station, are not in danger of the smoke and the particulates coming from it. As well as to, I'm gonna run out of time, but if I can get like 30 more seconds. The solar, why not have solar panels?

You are out of time.

Yeah, can I get 30 seconds?

No, but you can wrap up quickly.

Okay, so yeah, that's some covering just to protect it from the heat and maybe even some fans installed if it does plume up that the fans can blow it back down. That would be everything. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we have hit the half hour mark and we still have about 13 requests to speak. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask if there's anyone in the audience that has a written request to speak that has something different to say than what's already said. Okay, but before I do that, I'd also like to ask very quickly, all those in favor of this project, please raise your hand. All, wait, hey, hey, hey, hey. Stop, stop. Put your hands down. All those opposed to the project, please raise your hand. Quit, stop, stop, stop, stop. Okay, now, okay, put your hands down. So it's almost equal. But what I'm gonna ask you to do now is, for those that have written requests to speak in front of me, and you know who you are, if you have something you need to say, I'd like you to come up and tell me your name so I can pull your card. But if you're just gonna repeat what's already said, please do not come up. Okay, Diane?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, council. I cook with gas. I heat with gas. I've come before this council before. You put a tortilla on a gas flame. I'm still pro-gas. I can heat my house in the winter gas. Most people cannot turn on their air in the summer because it's prohibitive. This does nothing for cost analysis. It is a wonderful project. Right project, wrong place. Project labor agreement, 100%. Love the workers. They're going to go where the investor says is their next site. Their next site is going to be somewhere close to a station, a SoCal Edison station. But it will not be in the density that we are. It will not be 900 feet across the street from a park, which is nothing. So... We want the project labor agreements, we need them, but after the project labor agreements go, you're stuck with the rest of it. And it's a right project, wrong place, based on what everybody said. Thank you.

Anyone who has something unique? Ma'am? See, I had your name before, right?

Claire. Claire.

Don't worry, I scratched some sections out for speed.

My name is Claire Lazzarini. I'm the director of tenant relations for Rexford Industrial, and we strongly support this project. Thank you for having us. Rexford is a real estate investment company that exclusively owns industrial real estate in Southern California. We own about 400 properties, none of which are data centers, and serve about 1600 businesses who occupy those buildings and employ 33,000 people, including several here in Chino, of which you received a few letters of support from. As a highly scrutinized public company, we had similar concerns that this community is expressing about battery storage. As owners of the property, we performed extensive due diligence and concluded that the use is safe and does not pose a threat to our property nor the community. I think it's important to remember that IPA also has the right to proceed with this project at the state level. similar to the project that was just announced before. And if they do proceed with that, the city loses authority over this project. We are excited that IPA has selected our property on Benson Avenue in Chino to build this facility. Not only do we look forward to working with a reliable company like them in our portfolio, but we look forward to the battery storage project because reliable power in the region allows us to attract more businesses to our portfolio. My job is essentially economic development for my company, and I work to attract businesses, keep them, help them grow here in SoCal, similar to Chino's econ dev department, who tries to attract businesses to the city. In that role, I talk to different businesses across the industrial sector every day, and the number one factor that businesses are focused on right now is power sufficiency and power reliability. I also meet with cities across SoCal, and they ask the same question, how do we attract businesses to our city? And it's the same answer to them. We need to have sufficient and reliable power. So IPA's battery storage project provides that critical piece of infrastructure that allows businesses to locate and succeed in this region. That is why we support this project and we hope you do too. Thank you for your time and consideration. Ma'am.

No, sir, I called on the lady in white.

Thank you, Yanis Ulloa and council members. I do have something different. I was kind of late. They wouldn't take it. But if you'll allow me just a minute. I do have something different. Totally different. One minute. Yes, please. That's it. My name is Aira Ulloa. We're not related. But one of the reasons why I made the choice to move to Chino for 26 years ago was to raise my four kids. I'm so proud to say that Chino helped me raise four wonderful kids here. My oldest son should take our business next year. My second daughter graduated x-ray technician. My third daughter just opened her business across the street from here. And my fourth daughter should graduate from law school this year. So this tells you how Chino helped me raise my kids here. It made me make the choice of moving to Chino, because it's one of the greatest city to raise your kids. So just keep in mind that I'm not saying that they're wrong. They're putting money over our families. And my choice was to look for my family good, not money. And you have a good project, but take it out of our city, please. Thank you.

Okay, you have to have already filled out a slip, okay? Sir with the white hat. and you have to have something unique. Otherwise, we'll never get home. Name, sir?

I just want to emphasize that it's, my name's Art Valencia. I'm a Chino resident. I'm not sure if we're all Chino residents here, but I am a Chino resident. So I just wanted to make this statement that community input is imperative To have this this this plan goes through it's imperative and mayor You're making it sound like hurry up and don't repeat yourself and go on and that's that's unfair. Okay, so you I'm talking about a pack now they want to come across with the the notion that There is a failsafe Zero risk assessment, which is which is not true. It's not true. There's always the risk assessment There's always a chance that something could happen. I'm going to wrap this up because I know you want to throw me out here after a while. But what I do want to say is that if you can picture this, in 2024 and 2025, there were three incidents in relation to lithium ion battery storage facilities. San Diego and up north in Monterey County. And if you can picture this, I'm sure there were meetings just like this one back then, and they were talking about the same information, the same chances that were taken by having this plant put over here in Chino. And look what happened. Look what happened. I think the worst was, I think it's been mentioned, the moss incident. People had to hunker down for weeks. Kids couldn't go to school. I'm not sure if the drinking water was affected, but all these factors have to come into play. And my last statement is the gentleman that owns the property where the facility will go, he made a statement that I have to say, that he said, listen to the data that they're presenting, the slideshows and the impressive resumes that they have. And he made it sound like the community input was nothing, like we didn't matter. We do matter. And we're not talking about just putting the facility. That's not what it's all about. It's about human lives. It's about families. It's about children that go to the park every weekend. And I think it would be atrocious to pass this plan. I really do. Thank you. Thank you.

The guy in the dark blue shirt standing.

Name it.

Good evening. My name is Dr. Jose Sandigo. Thank you, Madam Mayor, council members. Last July, the Planning Commission, her testimony from over 20 residents, reviewed the technical record and voted unanimously to deny this project. That was not a rushed decision. It was considered a judgment of the body this city built specifically to make it. APA is now asking you to overturn this judgment on the same record, and I'm asking you not to. Three things in the appeal packet that I want to address makes this ask harder to grant tonight. The first one is trust. A Chino business owner by the name of Michael Chavita, whose office sits across the street from this site, wrote to the council that two IPART representatives, including the applicant's own project lead, showed up uninvited at his house. He had only ever shared his business address, never his home. If this applicant is tracking down the home of addresses of residents who oppose it before this project is even approved, that is not a company this council should be extending trust onto questions of public safety for the next several decades. Second is distance, and I'll be sure on this one. APAL's own appeal letter now states that the park sits approximately 900 feet from this site. That's a lot closer than the community has been told throughout this entire process. All I ask is that the residents deserve to know that in plain terms what's going on and not buried under six letters of appeal. Third is the decommissioning. I've read the conditions of approval attached to this appeal. None of it, noise is addressed, chemistry is addressed, but there's still no financial assurance requirement for removing those batteries at the end of life. That gap existed in July and it continues to exist tonight. This isn't the first time a community has looked hard at an IPA project and said no. I want to make it clear that last year over 100 residents over in Hamilton County, Indiana, showed up at a similar hearing and the zoning board denied IPA's project unanimously. Chino's Planning Commission already reached a similar conclusion. This council can reach that again as well. So lastly, I wanna say that the Planning Commission looked at the record and said no, and nothing in this appeal answers the questions that led us to that vote. It just asked a different body to overlook them. I'm asking the council to deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's decision.

Thank you. Thank you. The guy standing up.

Thank you, Council Members. Chris Chavez, Deputy Policy Director at Coalition for Clean Air, and we support this project and the appeal in item 19. Southern California has the smoggiest air in the nation, with the Inland Empire being among the most hardest hit regions in the country. Battery energy storage is part of that solution. It reduces reliance on peakers, which others have mentioned, peaker power plants, but also makes sure that any additional electricity that we need actually is not being generated. It's already been generated. The energy has already been stored. It's just using that. So we're making sure that we're not putting more pollution in our air. And cleaner air means less kids with asthma. It means seniors who have health vulnerabilities are not exposed to continued oxides and nitrogen, smog, things like that that are poisoning our air that's causing health impacts. So ultimately approving this project, approving this appeal, is a step in the right direction for public health in chino in the inland empire in southern california so we urge you to support this project thank you yes sir

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. This wasn't the real reason that I came up here to speak. Louis Hernandez. But I decided to speak on this item as well. You didn't fill out a slip? Yes, I did. Louis Hernandez.

Okay.

so um i live two miles away from the proposed project and i oppose the project because i don't believe that this is risk-free there's many scenarios that can happen that could potentially cause the facility to go on fire so i think for this particular project i think the risk outweighs the benefits especially for the residents And besides being an issue close to my home, one of the second reasons I really oppose the project is I don't think this is going to reduce my electricity bill. Right now, I can tell you that the charges that I'm getting from Southern California Edison are transmissions charges, distribution charges, nuclear commissions charges, conservation incentive adjustments, public proposed program charge, new system generation charge, and pretty much I've got about a $600 bill this past month. Can you guarantee that my bill is not gonna go up because of this project? I don't know if they're gonna be able to guarantee that. Obviously, cities benefits, but do the residents benefit? I don't know if you can convince me of that. That's it, thank you. Thank you.

Okay, one more, lady in blue. No, the lady in blue. You're a man in green. There's a difference.

Good evening, everybody. Well, my name is Mary Jane Sotelo, and I'm a resident of Chino. So a lot of things here. One of our concerns was resale of our homes. That is one of our questions as far as and concerns regarding this type of project coming here to Chino. Earlier it was spoken about that project on Cypress that people don't wanna buy a home because of everybody speeding. Our concern is also are we able to sell our homes if such a big project is gonna be there no matter how many pretty plants you put there. I don't even know if, in fact, I'm going to probably try to get a hold of some real estate agents to see what they say. And as far as energy, as far as electricity, we never lost, we didn't have any blackouts, if that's what APA is saying. On my street, I live on Vicenta Street. It's probably just one mile away from this project. Our neighbors, we usually contact each other right away if we lose power. Nobody lost power. We kept our AC on pretty much on and off, cycled off. If this project is being taken care of remotely in another state, my neighbors and I, we wanna know is, if it can be taken care of in another state, why can't it be in another state? So, thank you. Or, and if it can't be in another state, why can't it go to the desert, like Blythe or 29 Palms? Why here, why with us? So, and as far as our electricity bills, my fellow residents, I wish I could have a representation like the union workers do, which I'm pretty impressed with the union workers. I don't know where my fellow residents are at. I wish I could have everybody stand up. But remember last time, the first meeting, they told us. You need to address us, not them. Okay, we were told, sorry about that, we were told, and I believe his name was Matthew, big, tall, young man. He said that he thinks our electricity bills our power bills would go up and think is not a a definitive word we want to know yes or no so he wasn't even sure so our power will go up we will be paying more so it's a no for a lot of us residents i'm going to do my best to bring more neighbors here thank you okay i'm gonna call it now um

I'm going to close the public hearing. I think we've heard all the different arguments.

Would the applicant an opportunity to respond if the applicant is interested?

Okay, applicant. We have to follow procedure.

And that's exactly what we'll do. Thank you. So I want to start just by saying thank you to everyone, whether you're in support or opposition. Because the challenges put on us, that's what forced us to make the project better. Community engagement is how we learn to respond and bring an improved product every time. And I'm not going to rehash because we're not allowed to repeat, but there were several improvements we made to this site that are real physical changes and materially improve safety beyond the standard we were already meeting under the California Fire Code. And so I want to just answer a few questions, starting with, is this the right place? Yes, because this is where the California grid operator said it needed to go. You cannot build enough transmission from the desert to bring power into LA and keep the lights on. You don't have to believe us. Go to the CAISO website, C-A-I-S-O. It is full of information. The other question they will answer is, does this reduce peak power prices? Yes, and that directly affects every single resident. Again, C-A-I-S-O dot com. That is the grid operator. You don't have to believe us. The data is there for taking. The other important questions that I want to answer, is the fire department trained? Yes. I already spoke to the trainings we started. The site-specific trainings would be between now and operation, and those trainings will continue every year. Will residents experience noise? No. We studied this. The project is inaudible. It's like 35 decibels. It's very, very low at any residence. I would challenge anyone at Ayala Park to stand there and hear anything other than traffic because we did that. We went out and we saw the site. The other thing, and perhaps most importantly, and I'll close, Will the city of Chino pay for an incident? No, it's written into the permit conditions. We have insurance for this project and this insurance extends to the city indemnifying them in the event of any incident. And I have to credit the city staff because they negotiated a rate for insurance that is twice what a normal project receives. So there is credit to them in providing that further insurance. And I guess last, I'll just close with, are these projects safe? I think the record speaks for itself. Zero deaths and only four injuries to four firefighters at a project that was built inside a building. That's it over the entire 15 year history of this industry. That is data we can rely on. So in closing, I appreciate everyone's engagement and I appreciate this council for considering the project tonight. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have that persist, but otherwise, I wanna close with thank you.

Okay, I have two questions that were brought up. I have two questions that were brought up from the speakers. One is the question about due diligence to prevent hacking. into this system?

Sure. I think anecdotally we can see power plants don't get hacked around this country. And the reason why is because they have to meet NERC and FERC standards. Those are the federal agencies that set exactly what I.T. conditions every facility was must meet. And that's exactly why these plants do not get hacked like businesses or other groups that the gentleman brought up.

Second question, what is going to happen to these batteries at their end of life? Are you required to remove them?

I am very glad that you asked that question. It was actually one I had wanted to hit, but I was trying to keep my time short. And the answer is an absolute no. We own the project, we are required to remove the facilities, and that is codified in the decommissioning agreement that we have already completed with the city. That will be backed by a financial security that will be updated every few years to ensure that the amount is equal to what the current estimate for decommissioning is.

Okay, and Mr. Councilman Lucio had a question.

It was brought up that

That this is the only facility that's 400 megawatts that's built next to residential homes. Is that accurate?

That's not true. Our Marie chief project is 400 megawatts and it's 100 feet away from residences. That's actually not limited to our project. SCE has a project that's 10 feet away from homes in the 100 megawatts scale. So we're always aiming to exceed those by significant margins like we've done here. 110 times the standard for homes, 90 times the standard for areas people inhabit like Ayala Park.

And another question. Have you guys already appealed this to the state in case it doesn't pass today?

I'm sorry, I couldn't understand.

Have you already appealed this project to the state if we don't pass it today?

We have not appealed the project to the state. IPA always believes in being a local developer first. It's why we spent the last two years working with you and this city to bring this project to fruition. However, because this project is a reliability, a grid reliability asset, and has been confirmed by the state, it is in the California plan to be online by June of 2028. Because of that critical reliability need, if we do not receive approval tonight, we will be forced to consider the state path.

So following up on that, if you do not get approval tonight, please don't talk in the audience. You will go directly to the state to get permission to build on that site.

We will meet tomorrow and we will discuss our options, but again, this is a grid reliability asset. It is meant to keep the lights on and the AC going in the heat. We will talk to the state and discuss the project with them if we are not approved tonight.

So they could override, if it does not pass tonight, the state has the power to override and allow you to build it anyway?

That's correct, they do, and I think the other consideration is that the development agreement that we've worked so hard with staff to negotiate that is a record setting amount that IPA has never paid before will be reconsidered in the context of the state process. It is not guaranteed.

Well, ignoring the money part, there are a lot of requirements in that development agreement. If you go to the state does that mean you would not have to comply with the training and the safety and the extra monitoring and all of that that is part of this development agreement?

That is correct, however, we would look at the entire project and incorporate as many of those standards as we could because we're still a responsible developer. But you are correct in that the state will issue its own conditions and those will override all of the conditions put in place by the special conditional use permit and the development agreement.

Go ahead.

And some of the things that have been brought up as far as the plumes or smoke or the gases that are emitted from these batteries, Have they been tested and what is the distance that they say will dissipate in the air and at what range?

Because I have an expert from FRA, Chief Brian Fink, with me tonight, would you be okay if he answered that question? Because I think he is best suited to do so.

Sure. Yes.

I'm gonna invite Chief Fink to the podium, please.

Good evening, I'm Brian Fink. I'm a retired New York City battalion chief. I spent 38 years with the department. I retired four years ago, and since that time, I've been training firefighters on these type of facilities. So to speak to the plume, even the EPA talks about plumes. Their recommendation that came out in 2025 said fire departments should consider an exclusion zone of 330 feet should there be some sort of thermal runaway event. That's a starting point to see if there's any contaminants that would harm people at that level. If they're not there, they can start moving closer to the project. So the data that we've seen from prior events have never made it to that 330 foot mark. particularly with outdoor storage, where the scale of an outdoor project One battery container is so much different than say a moss landing event where there's thousands of racks of batteries that are in thermal runaway at the same time versus one container of batteries that could have a thermal runaway event. So the scale is really the difference in these projects. That's why outdoor projects are far safer than indoor projects. I won't even work on an indoor project. Did that answer your question?

Does council have any other questions for the developer or the fire expert? Chris, do you have any questions for these two gentlemen?

Yes, I have a question.

Mayor, forgive me in advance, this may be out of the scope, but I just feel that it's right to at least ask this question maybe you have an answer maybe you don't but one of the last comments that was brought up was with regards to the possible the possible um value of homes around the project from projects you've built before i mean can you talk can you touch on that and again i understand it's outside of the scope of what you guys have going on what you know this agenda item is about but just some general thoughts on that

Yeah, and forgive me because I'm going to expand a little bit, but I've been building these projects for almost 20, or wind, solar, and energy storage for almost two decades. I've built 50 operating projects, and this is a claim I've heard at every single one. None has panned out. And what I would remind everyone of is this project sits adjacent on the north side directly on the north of a 30 acre substation that moves gigawatts through this community. It is in character with the surrounding businesses, all of which are industrial, some of which use chemicals. So when we look at where the project is, it is sited in a place where it is consistent with the character, and it meets the zoning requirements. I think that was discussed earlier. So I understand that claim. I'm a homeowner and would want to know the truth, but fortunately I have the experience of seeing this claim has not played out over and over at any of the 50 projects that I have constructed.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions for the two gentlemen? Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you very much, council.

Now can I close the public hearing, Fred? Okay, so the public hearing is closed. So now it's open for council member comments.

Karen, you wanna start?

First thing, First thing I'd like to do is I'd like to thank everybody on both sides of this project, whether you agree with it or not, for coming here tonight. I'd like to thank the labor trades for coming out. I'd like to thank our residents for coming out and expressing their concerns. When you have a project of this nature, it's natural for it to draw concern, and this project, I can assure you, has and deserves the public scrutiny that it has received this evening. For me, when I look at projects like this with my background, I come from a, what I would say, a risk versus benefit review. And operating the Chino Police Department for 34 years, I guess really as the chief of police, if I really didn't want really any risk, I would just tell all my police officers to go inside the building and never come out. because they carry guns and bad things can happen when they go out there. And there's a lot of risk involved in this project. But there are benefits to it. And one of the things that struck me tonight is where we're living in the city of Chino. We do have a big, large Edison grid that has gone through our city for many years. And like everything else in the city, from our prison to the Edison Grid, we have chosen to develop around it, into its backyard. In fact, some people would say, well, we were here first. No, the Edison Grid was here first. In a lot of cases, even our prison was here first. So when I look at that, we have chosen to develop in a manner that has put us close to those things, but we have learned to become neighbors with those things as well. This gentleman from IPA referred to an acronym called KIPO. And I had to study like everybody else did and become a layperson's understanding of what we're actually even looking at here tonight. Well, KIPO is just basically short for the California Independent, basically system operator, I believe. And the California Independent System Operator, which helped us operate our grid, has identified, naturally, an Edison asset to put battery storage. Battery storage for us, really, even though I would like to believe it would be true, isn't about really, for us, probably reducing Edison costs at the local level, even though I would like that. What it's really about for us right now is producing reliability. Reliability that we're gonna need. A week ago when I went out to take my dog at one in the morning to the bathroom, it was 87 degrees outside. And I can't imagine not having my air conditioning on because I'm fortunate enough to be able to run it and to be able to afford to run it right now to help cool off my family. My parents are elderly. They need their air conditioning at night. I would say anybody that doesn't think that we need refrigeration probably really hasn't ever lived in the Inland Empire. So when I look at some of these things, I look at them now, there is risk involved with them, but sometimes I see that this should also be viewed in some asset as a community benefit in the fact that we're gonna be able to provide electricity. And somebody mentioned it tonight. There's a big push to go away from gas. We have decommissioned nuclear power in this state. We're seeing a trend in water and hydroelectricity because of water shortages that we're not be able to produce, not just in here, but in other nations. And one of the things that the state has decided is that battery backup storage is one of the safest and quickest and most reliable ways for us to bring online to the Edison grid to help us provide power when we need it the most. And it's not good for us to wait till the power is out to decide that we need additional power supply. The action that the state has taken is they've asked us to put battery storage in strategic locations to provide power backup when needed on demand. There's a lot of things that I don't agree with, that I have concerns with. But I would say that one of the reasons we have these community meetings with companies that are proposing this development is so that we can get information from them and they can mitigate as many of their concerns as possible. Mitigate isn't eliminating them. DIRAC's never gonna be able to eliminate every single concern that we have here tonight, many of which I share with you. But I will say that in their efforts, I believe that they are putting forward one of the most know projects with some of the the largest setbacks and some of the most mitigation in order to bring a project to chino because we care about chino too if we're going to have to get one of these these projects and make no mistake we're going to get one because of where we sit and where the edison grid is we're going to get one it's just will it be dirac or will it be somebody else And now, just like we talked about earlier, if we send the project away, this state can be approved by right. It doesn't need really our support. but the state has asked, commissioned these companies to come forward for these meetings right here, what you're participating in tonight, for public input, for public feedback about concerns, for them to show us that they're going to be responsible, for them to come up with plans for commissioning and decommissioning, for us to come up with plans with our local public safety in order so that we know that we're prepared once some of these systems come online. To Grandma Hurtado and the housing, to people that are here, my family has lived in Chino since 1976 as well. There are things happening in Chino today that I couldn't believe. You're gonna see trucks go down the road being powered by electricity. There's driverless cars. Hey, I'll never get in one, but people choose to every day. That's beyond my mind, right? But I will say that we have had very smart professionals, including these people from DIREC, who have, I believe, made an honest effort. There will be people in here that we will never convince of that, right, that their efforts aren't genuine or sincere. They've been mandated by the state to go into these communities, take their public bath with people not liking them. They're standing here, I believe, in good partners with us. I would hate to see... them go away and somebody come in who's less than willing to work with us and less than willing to put in some of these larger setbacks that we have required. You've heard about some of the setbacks tonight that they have put in different communities. That alarms me. But I would say even our smart professionals in public safety as well as our staff, I have confidence in them. I have confidence in our staff. And I have confidence in our staff and our chief of police and our fire chief that they would say, oh, heck no. You don't want one of these things in here and you need to do everything you can to fight to get it out of here. So that being said, I... I understand everybody's concerns here, but there's no possible way we can mitigate every single concern out of this. And in the end, we need our power. We need our water. We need our resources. And we can't wait till we turn on the tap and there's no water. We can't wait till we want electricity. We don't have the ability to provide for it. The time is now. And the state has identified that. The state has identified that we're pushing so much towards electricity, which I don't agree with either, that we better work to support the grid by providing battery backup and power in these assets so that we can provide for that demand. Somebody said here tonight that they want more affordable housing, they want housing here. Guess what? We're getting to the point in addition with water that with power we're not gonna be able to have the ability to provide housing in the future because we're not gonna be able to provide water. If we wanted to say desalinize water because we live next to an ocean where we can, Guess what, we probably couldn't do it because we probably don't have enough power because they require so much power to desalinize water. We've got liquid gold sitting next to us, but we don't have the power probably to generate most of them. So it's a wicked problem that we're facing in the balance of really needing to provide power and water and resources and also saying, hey, there's a risk involved, but there's a lot of risk involved in things that we do every single day, including just getting in your car and driving. I do believe that this company has shown significant efforts in mitigation and in being a responsible partner and wanting to come to the table. And I think that they're saying, we're so confident that our product is superior and safe right now, that that's why they're betting on themselves. We're gonna come in and say, and prove to you that we're a good company. Maybe I'm a little... rose colored lenses on this because i have to tell you when i first heard of this project i had it confused with other projects as well and i had my own concerns about it and you know i have also personally put these guys through the test about hey what are you trying to bring to our project i thought they were just bringing it here willy-nilly i didn't really realize like how chino aligns and lines up also with Edison and the California Independent System operators are in the grid as to why we have identified naturally as a target for here. And it's not realistic for us to put it into a community 75 miles away and then trench all that way through different communities, right? And disrupt all their communities when we have a safe landing zone for it right here. And they say, okay, well, we'll just bring all that electricity through other communities so it can land here so that it can go someplace else. That's not realistic. So I think we can all agree that we need power and we want our power. And we need it in this community, in the Inland Empire, because we probably just lived in one of the hottest summers that we had, and there's more to come. And I think that the council should seriously consider this project. But I do see that there are concerns here, and I think that IPA also listened to the concerns that you, the community, raised tonight. And I believe that this provider will also be willing to do whatever it takes to mitigate most of... mostly all the concerns that were here tonight aside from molding and trenching and other things that don't seem you know obviously realistic to me but I think this company is showing like hey you know we know we know we have to get into communities and provide reliable power this is the cleanest most effective and safest way to do it especially since we've basically moved away from all of the power sources in the state We better get serious about helping to electrify the grid because we can't wait until it's out because we're going to be very, very disgusted and sorry with ourselves. And then it'll really get expensive because everybody's going to want it online now and yesterday, right, instead of preparing for it today in anticipation of needing it, you know, two or three years down the road from now. So that concludes my comments, Mayor. Thank you very much for the time.

So I also think this is an incredible project. Aaron, you did a great job. I mentioned that before. If you ever leave IPA, I mean, we'll find you a job here in Chino, because I think you'd do real well here. But I know there's a lot of concern, and I have concerns. I live downwind from this project, not too far away. If something happens, if a fire occurs on this project, there's gonna be smoke that comes up and I can guarantee you the way the wind blows in the afternoon from the ocean eastbound that my house is going to be affected as my neighbors are and many of my neighbors have voiced some serious, serious concerns about the toxins that are going to be in the smoke. They talk about the plume and how all that operates. I'm not a scientist. I don't get a lot of that. But I do know that when there's fire, there's smoke. And when the smoke blows, there are toxins in smoke. That's just the way it is. the city of chino there's certain areas that are more likely to get that smoke than other areas we're one of those areas my my household and my neighbors as well as ayala park and you know some areas that are really densely populated you know i i uh I appreciate the hazard mitigation, the safety systems, the safety framework, the safety features, the supplemental safety conditioning, on and on and on and on. But do you think that Moss Landing did that too? Do you think that they really, I mean, you know, I see your head shaking, but seriously, don't you think that they went out and they did everything that they could do to make sure that they were providing and going to be putting out the best possible product for their neighbors in that area? I know they were. They weren't just going to go in and allow something like that to... you know, go off and not have already done their science behind it. Yeah, we've come a long way since that. But, I mean, is this the end all here? Is this project going to be the project that won't be a project that gives us any issues? I don't know. It sounds good. It sounds good on paper. But realistically speaking, I mean, if one of those containers starts on fire, hopefully the systems don't fail and somebody's alerted because there's not going to be anybody on the site. There will not be a physical body there to visually inspect that plant 24-7. the way I think it should be, because when you have eyes on a project, that's pretty helpful. If systems are in place electronically, that could go out. They just can. Do we put our trust in that? I don't know. It sounds good, again, on paper, but do we allow that to happen? Systems fail. We've discussed that. We've heard that several times throughout the evening. Public health issues are going to be an issue. They're gonna be compromised if the smoke goes out there, if there's a fire. Again, it sounds great. The project sounds great on paper. Other power plants had hazard mitigations. We've discussed that as well. I have a serious, serious concern about this project. I don't want to be the test location to determine if this project is going to be safe in Chino. I just don't want to. Put this project someplace else. And to Councilmember Comstock's point, I mean, this is probably the best location that it could go in. Yeah, it is. There's an Edison plant right there, folks. And Aaron, you guys did a great job. You found a great location for it. But do we want to be that test site for something like this to come into our city? Well, what was already said to us from our staff and from Claire out there, I think her name was Claire, and from Aaron, it really doesn't matter whether we like it or not. It's going to happen because it's going to go to the state if we deny it. Right? I mean, you all heard it. So whether you like it or not, it's gonna come into this city. So the fact is is that we need to make sure that we voice our opinions, and if it does get denied here tonight, and it goes and it's appealed to the state of California, and if they approve it, then we need to deal with some things differently, right? First of all, we need to change our leadership in Sacramento, which we've needed to do for years anyway, But the fact of the matter is we need to do what's right for the city of Chino. And I do appreciate everybody coming up, whether you're in favor for it or you're not in favor of it. Thank you for taking the time to come and voice your opinion. Once again, Aaron and Ipa, you guys are amazing. I appreciate the partnershipping that you did with the city and the staff. I think you went above and beyond. I really do. I appreciate it. But those are my comments, thank you very much.

Mark?

Yes, first of all, I wanted to tell everybody thank you for coming out. I really appreciate all the comments for and against. You know, I had a lot of concern about this project. So I did what they offered was I attended the training class. So I was in there with all the fire department, a couple police officers. Listen to what they had in place so How is this project different than the one that we keep talking about up north? Well, it's outdoors. So they learned from having an indoor facility. One thing caught on fire. It was a different type of battery. And it started spreading to other locations because it was indoor and it continued to get hot. And as you know, you can't put out battery fires. You just have to let them burn out. So the whole building went. And on top of that, they had sprinkler systems inside, and the sprinkler systems started shorting out everything else, and they continued to fire, and that's why it burned so hot. And that's why they had the catastrophe they had. the reason they switched over to outside storage was because they could isolate that. So what I learned there was that it has several different safety features. So if one, and like I said when they tested this system, they saw that out of eight different times that they tried to set these batteries on fire, only one caught fire. So is there a possibility they catch fire? Yes, there is. Is it more than likely gonna happen? No, more than likely what's gonna happen is it's gonna emit gas. And so then my other concern was, well, how far will this gas go and how long will it burn? Well, what I was told was, depending on what the charge is. If it's not fully charged, it'll burn less. If it's fully charged, it will burn over a longer period of time. The way that this system's set up is that if one of them catches fire or starts emitting gas, the whole system shuts down around it so that it doesn't lead to the other systems. They also have cameras that would, once that sensor goes off, they would have the ability to look at it with a camera and be able to determine what's going on because what's gonna happen if that continues, if for some reason this is the one that burns, the fire department's not gonna go in, they're gonna stay out, and they're gonna just wait until it burns out. And so what they also did was they tested this at mass capacity. They set a whole trailer on fire. So one of these racks, they set it on fire, and what they found is that some of these things If they blow, they blow the doors off. So what they did is they surrounded it with a block wall in case any of those walls ever blow, or a door blows, that it stays contained within the facility. And then the other, so my question to them was, well, what if that door flies and hits another container, would that be able to penetrate and then maybe affect another battery? Well, the answer was no, because the steel that's around these batteries are thicker than a steel, basically like an 18-wheeler. So what surrounds that, each one individually is contained within the thickness of a container, which is thick enough that it would protect it from anything blowing. So then my other concern was, well, how far will this, if it burns, and let's say, one, if it burns, how will that affect it? Two, if it just emits smoke or fumes, how far will that go before it affects people? And the answer they've told you is basically it wouldn't reach the walls. So these are all concerns I have because I also have an emergency management background. So these are some of the concerns I had. And so I didn't wanna sit there and assume that these were the things that were going on or these were the things that might happen. I wanted to sit there and I wanted to listen and I wanted to sit there and I wanted to hear what the fire department had to say, whether the fire department had concerns. whether the fire department thought maybe this was something that they wouldn't be able to contain. And I got nothing from that during the training. They were fully confident that if an incident occurred, they would be able to contain it, that it would not go beyond the location. And I, too, I live right across the street. I live in College Park. So right on the other side of Ayala Park. And so these are all concerns that I had. And I'd love... for the chief to come up and address whether or not your staff has any concerns with any potential situation occurring there, whether or not, whether you guys are prepared for it and whether or not you guys think that this is something that you guys can handle and maintain.

There we go. Yeah, certainly we're, IPA has been good to us, been a good partner. They've provided this training. We feel very well trained for any incident that's gonna come in our community. Obviously, you hear the concerns from the community members, but from a public safety standpoint, we feel very well prepared and trained. We have a very robust HAZMAT department, the HAZMAT team with over 30 department members, in addition to the additional members of our department, which are about 150. I don't have any concerns again. We can't forecast every potential issue that may arise But we did receive the training we have been taking the EV and the electrical that are occurring out there very seriously. We know that it's a new thing that we're gonna have to contend with and we've been sending people, additional people to train to come back and do train the trainer and again, can you forecast every incident? No, but with what we know, with what I see, we feel very well poised and prepared to handle a situation that would arise at this facility.

I appreciate it, thank you. Chris?

Thank you, Mayor. No questions for you, Chief. Thank you. So as the rest of the council has mentioned, we appreciate everyone who's come out, whether you're for the project or against the project. I just want to point out a couple things. Number one, it's been asked whether this project will reduce my bill or not. I think it was addressed specifically that it will reduce peak arbor prices. But frankly, from my position, when I hear a question like that, what I gather from that is, well, if it does reduce my bill, then I'm okay with this project. And when I interpret it that way, I think, okay, well, the whole health and safety issue really isn't part of the issue. The battery removal, I think that was a great issue that was brought up and I think it was overcome by that challenge that it will be removed in the situation that IPA does decide to up and leave the city of Chino or whatever the case may be. Someone mentioned that they've never experienced power loss in their community. i think that's amazing but i've heard and i've seen and i've been a part of at least my community where we have had power loss and i have been in the situation where you know i have two dogs at home and they're very furry and you know when this happened it was quite the experience because i just couldn't be with them inside so i literally almost have to spend the night outside with them because we had no power in our home so i'm happy for those who've never experienced the power loss but I know residents and neighbors and friends who have experienced that. The home values, that was a great question. I didn't think of that before, and again, it was answered, it was overcome. I mean, just the fact that we do have an Edison site here, and they've been here long before, as Council Member Comstock mentioned, prior to a lot of us moving into the community. I'm more inclined to support this project, but what I would like the community to know that, and although I do respect our unions and this, as was mentioned, this may be just a temporary jobs in the community and they're gonna up and leave. My inclination to support this project is more than just the jobs that it's gonna provide, but just the benefit that it will provide the city of Chino for reasons that were mentioned before. Right project, wrong place. That's another objection I heard. And one of the least things I like about my position, quite frankly, is that over the past six years, I feel that many times it's been, well, city, if you don't support it, the state is gonna overrule you. If you don't support it, the state is gonna overrule you. So it's like, what authority do we really have on the council Not much. I mean, the state just comes in and almost does what they want. But nonetheless, I mention that because there have been projects where we've seen that in the city of Chino, and the state has, you know... Overridden this. Overridden this many times. But not just in this community, but we've seen it and we've heard about it in many other states. And again, I don't like being in that position because it's like, if you don't approve it, guess what? They're going to... And... To the developer's point, I felt that you answered that very modestly because you don't want to do that. You guys don't want to do that. And by not doing that, again, number one, we appreciate that. There's a lot of community benefit that comes out of this. And again, to the community, it's just a crappy situation to be in because I... And part of the issue too is that if this is denied, just the whole timing issue, I don't know how long it's gonna take for the state to approve it, whether that's a year from now, two years from now, 10 years from now. We do know because that city of Chino was a site location that was, again, located, right? That was specifically chosen. We know it's gonna come to our community. It's just not a matter of if, but a matter of when. But with that, Mayor, that concludes my comments. Thank you.

Okay. Well, we've had a lot of testimony tonight, a lot of pros and a lot of cons, all very well thought out, very sincere. You've heard the council comments, so I'll just kind of briefly wrap up my feeling. We all up here have had concerns. We all had an opportunity to meet with the developer at different times and voice our concerns. And my personal experience meeting with them is every objection I threw out, everything I asked for, to have them explain or to mitigate, they were more than willing to cooperate. I have to readily admit I was very, very impressed with their willingness to openly and honestly address the concerns that the council has brought up. They did some studies that I thought they wouldn't have to. They did a wind study to show, especially in Santa Ana, which we all know we get the Santa Ana winds and they're pretty strong, if there was a fire, if there were fumes, where it would go. And all this is based on scientific data. And none of those winds brought any of this, would bring any of this to homes. The homes are 1,100 feet from this facility, which is just about as far as you're going to get when it comes to something like this. Negative, you've heard, the state already has identified this site because it's near the Edison plant, so it's a logical place to go because they don't have to run the lines very far. And it is a big power plant, we've dealt with that for years and years. They are gonna have a big wall around it, a 10-foot perimeter wall, similar to what's around the Southern California Edison site now. One thing that impressed me is that these batteries will be in individual containers. So if there is an incident, it isn't like that one that was in a building where the whole building goes up. It's contained to that one particular container. And I don't remember the details, but there are safety measures in each of those containers to ensure that it cannot spread. By 2024, this state and our leaders in Sacramento have decided that all buses, all trucks, trains have to be electrified. And we can't support that. We can't even support what they're demanding now. And so they're going to be pushing these kinds of facilities even more so that they can meet their own personal goals. You hear us talk every once in a while that we wish the leadership in Sacramento would change. And we do, sincerely, because they, little by little, are taking away local control everywhere you look. when it comes to how homes are built and where they're built. We used to have the ability to zone neighborhoods so that we knew that neighborhoods would stay of a certain kind, whether it's 4.5 or half acre or one acre or whatever. They're little by little taking away all local control. They don't want us to have a say. They don't want you to have a say. They think they know what's best for everyone and that one size fits all, which it doesn't. So I'll get on my bandwagon just for a second and tell you all, I hope you really, really pay attention to this election and think very seriously about who you elect. elect because it counts up there. And look at their voting record. Anyway, back on this facility, knowing that the state is going to allow this facility to be built, the positive thing about us approving it is that we have had a degree of control in the development agreement, Yes, there is going to be some money coming to the city of Chino, but it's pennies compared to what it takes to run this city. I mean, to me, $10 million would just, I can't even imagine what I could do. Oh, yeah, I can imagine. But to the city, $10 million really is a drop in the bucket, and it doesn't last long. So while it's nice that they're offering some benefits, That is not a major deal. That is not what is driving any decision here in community benefits like that. It just, it isn't. So don't think that when we make decisions, whether it's this project or another one, that it depends on the money coming back to the community because that is not the driving decision. But the good thing about us making a decision is that we do have a say. If we deny it and it goes to the state of California, they don't have to build the 10-foot wall. They don't have to put in all the mitigation measures that we've asked for. They don't have to do the training. They don't have to do any of that. But they have volunteered to do that because I honestly believe that they really care about this community. And I think they really want a facility that's going to showcase their ability to build safe facilities. So with that, we do have an action before us, and that is to adopt Resolution 2026061, granting the appeal and approving PL 25-085 with special conditions. And so I would entertain a motion in a second or further council discussion. Don't everybody speak at once? I'll make the motion, ma'am. Okay, there's a motion from Councilman Flores. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Second from Councilman Lucille. I think we should do roll call vote.

And if I may read the ordinance title.

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor. Before the council is ordinance number 2026-013 entitled an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Chino, California, approving a development agreement by and between the City of Chino and DIRAC Project LLC and making findings of general plan consistency. And that's being read by title only and waiving further reading. Thank you.

Thank you, Fred. Natalie?

Council Member Lucio?

Yes.

Council Member Flores?

Yes.

Council Member Comstock?

Yes.

Mayor Potem-Burton?

No.

Mayor Ulloa?

Yes. The item passes four yes, one no. And I do want to thank you all for coming out this evening. It's very important. Thank you. Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.

Okay, are you guys ready?

I'm ready.

Okay, we're gonna reconvene the council meeting. Go on onto new business item number 20. Establish a new capital improvement program project ST273, Edison Avenue Ultimate Improvements and Cypress Creek Trail Extension and award a professional services agreement for engineering design services. I'd like to call on a staff report from Michelle chapman our cip engineering manager and hygen lee our director of public works

Good evening, Mayor and Council. This project is returning to you with a new name and an updated scope. You may recall that on June 2nd, it was introduced as Pavement Improvements Zone 2, Edison Avenue and Chino Avenue. Tonight, I will provide a brief history of our efforts and outline how we arrived at the current scope for project ST273, Edison Avenue Ultimate Improvements and Cypress Creek Trail Extension. The city maintains 250 miles of roadway with annual pavement improvement projects programmed by Zone. In the summer of 2025, while Zone 1 design work was underway, residents raised concerns about deteriorating pavement along Edison Avenue between Cypress Avenue and Euclid Avenue. Staff evaluated the corridor, confirmed significant pavement issues, estimated repair costs, and elevated this segment as a priority for Zone 2 paving. In fall 2025, staff pursued external funding and applied for a Cal recycle grant to support the rehabilitation work. In winter 2026, the city received a $138,125 CalRecycle grant, with $73,000 dedicated specifically to Edison Avenue. In spring of 2026, the city solicited for engineering design services and selected H.R. Green as the top-ranked consultant to prepare pavement and curb ramp improvement plans. On June 2nd, 2026, during the fiscal year 26-27 budget workshop, staff introduced the Edison Avenue pavement improvements project, highlighting it as a nearly half mile project limit, accelerated delivery schedule, and its role in maintaining a key corridor in the city's roadway network. At the June 2nd, 2026 city council meeting later that night, staff presented the proposed project area shown in red on the screen. This includes improvements to address deteriorating asphalt and upgrades to existing curb ramps to meet ADA requirements. After reviewing the proposed limits, Council directed staff to discuss these boundaries with the Infrastructure and Streets Committee before bringing the project back to Council for formal establishment. staff reviewed pedestrian connectivity questions raised by council and shared where existing gaps exist to the infrastructure and streets committee on july 6 2026. as represented in the map the green segment symbolizes a missing link of trail between edison avenue and the starting point of the cypress creek trail beginning about 1200 feet north of the intersection The orange segment represents an expanded Edison Avenue pavement limit scope to meet Cypress Avenue intersection as requested by council in June. The area shown in yellow indicates where curb and sidewalk currently does not exist. The committee requested staff expand the project scope within the context of the future six lane corridor with parkway and pedestrian facilities to be added where they currently do not exist. Staff noted that the yellow areas will require right of way dedication and land acquisition directly impacting approximately five properties fronting Edison Avenue. A further look at those impacts are shown in the following slides. The existing right of way on Edison that is already at ultimate width is represented in red. The black line represents existing property lines in conflict with the ultimate widening of Edison Avenue. The expanded scope of design services does not include preparation of legal documents for real property appraisals, nor does it include fee negotiations with property owners, as this would require council action before proceeding and general fund appropriations. Currently, the right-of-way needs reflect a gap of 11 feet to 22 feet of right-of-way on the northwest side of Edison. Yellow again here represents missing sidewalk connectivity. we have a vantage point looking eastward on edison from cypress avenue where property lines conflict with the ultimate roadway width similarly on the southeast segment of edison avenue property lines exist within the remaining 22 feet of ultimate edison avenue right-of-way I wanna bring up that a typical way in which these properties are addressed to meet ultimate right-of-way needs has been historically when development comes through. And so these properties, although they look unique in comparison to their neighbors, have not been developed in more recent years or redeveloped. Right now, this is a view looking at the southwest corner of Edison Avenue at Euclid Avenue, where property lines conflict with the ultimate roadway width. This is a view along Edison Avenue approaching Euclid from the eastbound direction where property lines conflict with the ultimate roadway width. To support Infrastructure Streets Committee's request for an expanded scope, staff requested an updated proposal from the design consultant to reflect both the original pavement and ADA limits of work along Edison and now within an ultimate six-lane facility footprint, showing right-of-way needs, traffic signal upgrades at the Cypress Avenue intersection to allow a north-south crossing on the east leg, and connectivity to the Cypress Creek Trail approximately 1,200 feet north of the intersection. Residents continue to request status updates regarding Edison Avenue pavement improvements originally scoped and highlighted in the budget workshop as a paving project plan to complete construction in June of 2027. As design progresses, staff anticipate an updated schedule shown on your screen right here. We anticipate returning to council in March of 2027 with an updated cost estimate, pavement treatment recommendations, defined acquisition needs, and recommendations for next steps. Due to the nature of the expanded limits of work, the construction timeline will require further review and updates as design continues. To ensure we are still able to utilize grant funding and meet our goals of maintaining our city PCI average, ZAP will evaluate options for phasing construction so that the project does not also become cost prohibitive. Because project ST273 now extends beyond the approved pavement improvement program strategy for rehabilitation, additional design funds outside the RMRA program are needed. Measure I funds are eligible for design work related to the expanded pedestrian improvements and traffic signal upgrades. Staff recommend establishing CIP project number ST273 as Edison Avenue Ultimate Improvements and Cypress Creek Trail Extension. appropriating a total of $370,907, awarding a PSA to H.R. Green, and authorizing the city manager to execute all necessary documents. This concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the council on item number 20? Yes, sir. Please come to the lectern. Are you Luis?

Yes, my name is Luis Hernandez and I'm a 29 year resident of Chino. My house is right behind a section of Edison which has extremely deteriorated pavement caused by the heavy traffic that passes through the area every day. I would like to emphasize that the priority of this project should be on repaving Edison Avenue as soon as possible because every time a freight truck passes through my neighborhood on Edison, there is so much ground shaking, vibration caused by the deteriorated pavement that trucks can, sorry, vibration caused by deteriorated pavement and trucks that I can no longer use my bedroom facing Edison to sleep in at night. The issue is so bad that there is at least 20 homes experiencing the same shaking and vibration problem which I have confirmed by the support letter that I have submitted to the council members today, which includes signatures from 20 of my neighbors. The section of Edison between Fern and Cypress Avenue has been patched up so many times throughout the years that this is a very uneven and rough, and it is now overdue for full repayment project to address the constant shaking vibration of the homes north of Edison that we have experienced for the past several years. Back in July of 2025, I initially contacted the Public Works Department, and I was able to reach Ms. Chapman, Mr. Dennis Rawls, and Ms. Jean Lee by email. At the time, Ms. Chapman had informed me that the project could possibly be completed by June of 2027, which would be approximately two years from my initial complaint. When I reached out to Ms. Chapman last month for an update on the project, she indicated that the project could be delayed even longer due to the additional request to add ADA compliant sidewalks and possibly adding additional lanes to Edison. After discussing the proposed project with my neighbors, I can confidently say that the residents living next to Edison Avenue on Sugar Pine Street and Sugar Pine Court are tired of waiting for the city to take action on the pavement problem. The neighbors would greatly appreciate if the council members could approve the project in phases in order to prioritize the most urgent issues. Therefore, the residents in my neighborhood would agree to the following. We will support the Edison pavement project between Fern and Cypress Avenue as phase one priority plan starting in 2026 to resolve the vibration and shaking issue as soon as possible. Number two, we support adding the ADA compliant sidewalks where needed on Edison as phase two as a part of the plan to address the nearby residents that would request the need for ADA compliant sidewalks. The project could be further studied or to minimize impact on when Edison Avenue repayment project can begin. We would oppose the expansion of Edison Avenue between Cypress and Euclid Avenue, since there's no real benefit to the neighborhood by adding more lanes in our residential area. I believe the expansion plan should be postponed or considered separately in order to avoid further delays with the Edison Repavement Project. Finally, as a separate item for future consideration for the city, the speed limit on Edison between Cypress and Euclid Avenue needs to be reevaluated by the city to consider reducing the speed limit from 45 to 35 miles an hour in this area. Currently, the Edison speed limit is posted at 45 miles an hour, but traffic going through the area is usually going much faster, possibly reaching speeds up to 60 miles an hour. This is a real safety issue the city should not ignore because the area there are many children crossing Edison when going to and from Rhodes Elementary and many residents driving out of the neighborhood trying to merge into Edison from the side streets. As stated, I've submitted a letter of support signed by 20 of my neighbors that I've submitted to that who live next to what is an avenue and who are being negatively impacted every day by the poor road conditions. and also by the heavy traffic and the constant shaking and migration in our homes. If I may, I would like to play the audio from my home, what I hear every single day at night in the mornings, in the middle of the night. Hopefully the sound will come out to the speaker.

Actually, you're out of time, sir.

Can I? We believe you.

We know that it's noisy. May I? We believe you.

Okay, anyways. Thank you. The issue is please prioritize the payment of the project. Thank you very much.

Natalie, is there anyone online now?

Because there was a call, correct?

Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to address the council on this item? Okay, quick question. When do we think we will have the ultimate right-of-way improved on Edison?

If I may present that image on there just to give you a perspective. Let's go back a couple. So I have a project timeline that understands that there is some complexity associated with that ultimate right-of-way needs and that that could be in the range of an extra year, year and a half of negotiations and conversations with those property owners. If we do not acquire that right-of-way through negotiations, it would have to be eminent domain for those properties to be able to be widened or for the right-of-way to be widened into those properties. Due to that complexity of timing, We have suggested a phased approach at approaching this where the ultimate conditions exist currently, which is just shy of Cypress, and continuing that on to just shy of Euclid. So within that span, we would be able to phase the improvements desired for the ultimate pavement improvements, and then have an opportunity to phase the right of way acquisition for those pedestrian access points, as well as the traffic signal upgrades at Cypress and Edison, and then the trail connection and extension.

On the north side, are there going to have to be some poles underground or relocated?

On the north side of Edison?

Yeah.

So the north side of Edison here where we have the SCE poles, the intent is that we would be able to design it in such a way that the parkway would have those Edison poles. If that is not the case and it can't be fit within that, then that would be another factor that would delay the project.

Well, you know, we've really been strict on developers on undergrounding when they improve things, and I really think we need to be just as responsible. So if we can, and if there's any grant money or whatever, I really think we need to be as responsible as we require developers to be in underground if we can possibly do that. But I think acquiring that property and doing ultimate right-of-way improvements can be very expensive. Any questions?

I appreciate Mr. Hernandez, you getting up and letting us know what's going on out there. I live in the area, so I know exactly how loud it can become. I've actually felt the ground shake myself just by walking down in that area with the big trucks. I would like to request that staff really take a good look at phasing these projects or this project to expedite it. It's obvious that the quality of life of not just Mr. Hernandez, but several of his neighbors is being affected negatively to where he's actually had to move into a different room because he can't sleep at night. So if we can speed this up, that'd be great, just so that these folks can have some peace of mind and their quality of life will improve. If we need to make some adjustments on the timeline, that's fine. as far as i'm concerned uh so long as these folks can can get back into the peace that they they deserve in their neighborhoods any other comments questions

So I know we're talking about phasing this, but when we talk about the ADA, because this is gonna be a major overhaul to the street, we have to do the ADA, right? There's no way that we can do the road without having to do the ADA, because then we're out of compliance.

The original scope included ADA improvements. It did not include adding pedestrian sidewalk that did not exist. That is not a requirement of paving of the roadway, because there is not a curb that exists in those locations either.

Now, I know that's a heavily traveled truck route. Correct. And some of the things that we did on Euclid because of how easily the street gets torn up as a result of the trucks stopping and then starting. Are we gonna do any of these signals with concrete so that when the trucks stop and then get going, they don't just rip the street up like they have in the past?

So part of the scope is a geotechnical study which will determine what the correct thickness of asphalt or concrete should be appropriate for this location. We have within our current engineering standards that for a truck route, asphalt is an appropriate section for our arterial streets that have trucks. I believe for the question that you have specifically, Euclid has turning movements that Edison would not be having with the semi trucks at those specific intersections where you're envisioning the wear and tear of the turning. What you did bring up was the stopping and starting at those intersections. Absolutely. Our geotechnical consultant will evaluate the best methods, the most cost-effective way for us to deliver an appropriate section out there. And we'll return to you with that pavement recommendation. Our plan is to return to you in March with the recommendation of the cost and the improvement type.

Okay. Because I don't think, I mean, I understand what you're saying as far as Euclid, but I think the majority of the intersections, just all the intersections where the trucks stop, they do them in concrete just because of the weighted down truck, and once it starts going, the tires end up bringing up the asphalt, so I think that happens even without the turrets just going straight, and I think that's why our streets are so beat up, because it's constantly being beat up with all those signals that are so close together that these trucks stop, and then they start, then they stop, and they start, and it's constant every day, day and night, as he says, So I think that's something that we, I mean, I understand that we'll talk to a consultant, but the reality is I think we needed to concrete there so that our street lasts longer. Otherwise, we're just gonna, we'll be back here in a couple years and it'll be all tore up again.

I do want to give you some assurity. The pavement that is out there today was constructed in 1999 from our asphalt. So it does give us some assurity that it has exceeded its life. So it's typically about a 25-year life, and it's gone beyond that at this point. So there is longevity to asphalt-constructed streets, especially for carrying arterial traffic. and we absolutely will have the geotechnical recommendations for the appropriate treatment with all considerations of sound, of impact to the community, of construction schedule, because we obviously don't want to be completing intersections at a point where we're impacting traffic and delaying that community even further.

Okay.

Any other comments, questions?

Karen? If I may add, on Euclid Avenue, 30% of all all traffic is trucks, whereas Edison is about 8 or 9%. So there's a scale of how many trucks are driving on Euclid Avenue versus edison avenue so when the geotechnical engineer is going to be designing the pavement section they will consider all of those and make the recommendation that's best suited considering our not only the engineering section but also the cost what percent did you say i don't think it's going to be eight or nine percent eight or nine percent yes on edison

Seems like it's more than that.

Yeah, and not only that, but you've got more warehouses going on the other side of Euclid, and they're going to be utilizing that because it is a truck route. So I think, if anything, it's going to continue to increase.

I have some comments.

I believe, and maybe someone in our traffic, that on Ontario's side, they changed the truck route off of Edison. Is that right? Does anybody know? I think they changed it, because if we're talking about the trucks coming from Ontario to our side, or our side to Ontario, I think they changed the truck route.

Right, so they'll come our way.

Mm-hmm. Good evening. Yeah, Dennis Rawls, City Traffic Engineer. Yes, the City of Ontario has changed their truck routes east of Euclid. Edison Avenue, which becomes, I believe, Ontario Ranch Road, is no longer a truck route from Euclid to Archibald. That has moved to Eucalyptus. and so they've done a dramatic change uh complying with ab98 and the subsequent senate bill that modified their truck routes to move them away from sensitive intended future sensitive land uses like parks and residential units so we're working on how that affects us and them and how we coordinate that

Mayor, this came to the Infrastructure Committee, and for the residents' information here, thank you for sharing tonight. Great job by our staff. I like the phased approach, but one of the reasons we decided to establish, bring it back to the council, and asking for permission to establish a capital improvement project is because of everything we're talking about right here. We do need to get in there, hopefully fix that intersection because of the truck route, the choking that occurs there and hopefully alleviate some of that. So I have a lot of confidence in our staff to do a phased approach to hopefully alleviate some of the concerns there, but we get that same complaint any place we have a truck route. We get also a long riverside drive because the trucks are heavy and they're loud. But part of the problem that we have recognized that we have and that is changing as well is some of our paving standards were obsolete and older and we have staff that's working on improving them to helping them not only perform better but to be quieter and to what the council said here tonight look at the construction of intersections so they'll last longer for us so we believe that we're asking a little bit more patient here to help us because we want to get a good a good end product there right so we'll get it phased in the right way do some improvements down there that just don't move cars can help people you know walk there, cross safely there if they need to, do a bunch of different things that hopefully can clean up that area and also make it more functional for cars and people in the future. So thank you for your patience, but we know what needs to be done there, and that's why we're trying to establish this capital improvement project so we can get the most bang for our buck. And also, like, one of the complaints we get is just not going back to the same location. Hey, you just tore it up to do that. Why didn't you just do it all at once? Why can't you do it all at once? It doesn't seem, it seems too redundant to go in there and keep doing it over and over. So having a process that gives us the most value for the taxpayers' dollar. So that is also what we're trying to focus on there as well. So I just wanted to make those comments. But thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, any other comments, questions? And I would entertain a motion and a second. I'll second. Motion Councilman, Councilmember Comstock, second from Councilman Lucio. All those in favor state aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hey, item passes unanimously. Item number 21, establish a new capital improvement program project as T272, pavement improvement zone two, Chino Avenue and various streets. Staff report once again from Michelle Chapman and from Haygen Lee.

Good evening again. This project is returning with a revised name and an updated scope. At the June 2nd, 2026 meeting, staff proposed creating a new CIP project to repave both Chino Avenue and Edison Avenue. Council requested additional discussion regarding the extent on Edison Avenue and advancement of the Chino Avenue portion was paused pending this conversation. Tonight, I will provide a brief overview of the proposed scope for project ST272, pavement zone two, Chino Avenue and various streets. which supports the city's annual pavement preservation goals. You've seen this image many times before. The Public Works Department oversees the pavement maintenance of approximately 250 centerline miles of roadway. That's inclusive of Euclid Avenue relinquished to the city in May of 2026. The pavement improvement program includes planning, design, and construction oversight for treatments ranging from slurry seals to full-depth reconstruction. as well as restoring pavement surfaces following utility work. In 2022, the city retained a consultant to assess street conditions, assign them a score, and evaluate the overall state of the pavement network. These assessments are updated annually by city staff as projects are completed. At the time of evaluation, the city's average network pavement condition index score, PCI, was 70. We are currently at an average pavement condition index score of 72. As the Edison Avenue scope has an extended timeline, as we just discussed, staff recognize the importance of maintaining the city's PCI average of 72, and we request establishment to proceed with the design of an annual paving project within Zone 2. The project is identified to include improvements on Chino Avenue between Magnolia Avenue and Cypress Avenue, along with various other streets necessary to sustain the city's average PCI. The scope includes payment rehabilitation, as mentioned, of Chino Avenue and various neighborhood streets, with consideration for slurry maintenance and ADA curb ramp upgrades. On the screen, you see the limits of zone two. This is part of our CIP zones. We have one through four. We are currently in construction with zone one paving, and now we're in zone two. Chino Avenue in 2022 received a slurry seal. However, a segment shown was omitted at the time due to a utility project with a similar footprint. Chino Avenue has a PCI average in the low 50s for this 0.3 miles length. The omitted segment is now included in the Zone 2 design scope here before you tonight to receive a grind and overlay for pavement restoration. Two corners on the south side of Mount Avenue are also included in the scope to bring up to ADA standards. The Chino Avenue limits are also included in the CalRecycle grant mentioned in the prior presentation. The CalRecycle grant for Chino Avenue represents about $18,000 of rubberized asphalt material costs that reduces roadway noise and aligns with city and county standards for roadways of this type. I have before you now the project timeline. To ensure timely use of grant funds and continued progress toward the City's PCI goals, staff recommend establishing project number ST272, Pavement Improvement Zone 2, Chino Avenue and various streets. Following project establishment, staff will procure professional engineering services to prepare ADA compliant curb ramp designs to pair with the City's in-house design of pavement improvement plans. The anticipated timeline of advertising for construction bids is March to allow for construction award of contract in May of 2027. This timeline is accelerated because it relies on in-house staff performing pavement improvement plans. Staff recommends establishing CIP project ST 272 as pavement improvements zone two Chino Avenue and various streets. appropriating $60,000 from Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Fund, RMRA, for engineering design services to aid in designing updated curb ramps to pair with our city-initiated pavement improvement plans, and authorize the city manager to execute all necessary documents. This concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Okay, any comments or questions of staff? Any comments or questions from the audience? Anyone online?

I'd like to say thank you to the staff and the infrastructure committee for getting this along. The people that live out there on Chino Avenue between Cypress and Magnolia have been very, very upset about this project since it began when we went out and took the dip out at Mountain and Chino Avenue. It should have all been done at that time, yet we realized the fact that there were utilities that were located in the ground that we needed to go in, that the utilities needed to go in and make some modifications. and some movements, but it just, this project has taken so long. Like I said, it's been over, it's been four years now, at least five. Okay, thank you. And it's way overdue. and the people, as I said, are not happy that they live in that area. They're going to be very happy now that the staff is finally getting on this, and it'll be done by May, or actually, it looks like under construction by May of 2027, and then hopefully completed by September. So I just want to say thank you very much to staff and also our infrastructure committee for getting on that, because it is a priority. Thank you.

I have a question. Right now, we're running the water line down Phillips to connect to a reservoir. And I think from Vernon West, they're going to improve the pavement because they have to cut it up. But what about Vernon East to Benson? Are we still ignoring that?

that location is not a part of the pavement restoration as impacted by the water project. The water project in and of itself, pavement restoration can only be completed where the pipelines are being included in the street.

I know it's not part of the water project, but that poor street has never had anything done in like 50 years. And it's also, because it was county when we annexed it, it has never had curb and gutter except where our new little park is now and where that parking lot is. And if we ever acquire that house, then of course that little tiny section will be improved. But if you were to go north on Vernon and turn right on Phillips, that strip between Vernon and Benson is horrible. So it really needs something done to it because it's continuing to deteriorate really badly. We're going to have to take it all the way down to the dirt and rebuild it. And I know half of it's county. But still, now we're going to improve from Vernon west but then still the east side is just in horrible, horrible condition. And it's probably, if you were to give it a grade, it would be zero, I'm sure.

We'll take note of that. Thank you.

Mayor, maybe we can, with the direction of the city manager, ask that to be sent to the Infrastructure and Cruise Committee so we can take a look at it sooner rather than later. That needs to be. I'd be happy to take a look at it.

I mean, I know we're never going to probably do curb and gutter because I don't think any of those homes are ever going to change enough to do it. And then that one section on Benson, the west side of Benson that's still all dirt right there, the street is wide enough to where nobody drives over there, so no one complains that much about it.

but that section of phillips is really bad i just have another comment about the project now i just want to tell our staff thank you um dennis jesus agent sorry your name is slipping my mind right now michelle sorry about that michelle thank you for seeing the bigger vision and what it is we're trying to accomplish and um thank you for understanding you know something we can go out thank you for bringing it in-house with some of our staff so we can get it done more quickly uh thank you for understanding like the larger perspective. I know sometimes it may cause us to do a little bit less, a little bit more here when we do some of the concrete work with it. But I see just real positive coming out of all of that from all of you. So thank you very much. And your reports are always very good, Michelle. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay, with that, I would entertain a motion in the second. Motion from Mayor Pro Tem Burton. Second. Second from Council President Constable. All those in favor, state by. By. Any opposed? By. The item passes unanimously. Item number 22, intersection improvements, Moonspinner Street and West Preserve Loop. Advertisement of bids for construction of intersection improvements at those two streets. TR 271, same staff report. People.

It's me again. Good evening again. The CIP project, this CIP project was established through the fiscal year 26-27 budget adoption. Tonight, I will provide a brief overview of how this project came to be and staff's recommendation to proceed with construction advertisement for the current design of project TR271 intersection improvements, Moonspenner Street and West Preserve Loop. I'll start with some background. The photo on the left is drone imagery from the vantage point of Pine Avenue looking north to West Preserve Loop. The residential development in construction on the northeast corner is TriPoint Homes. TriPoint Homes began public improvements in mid 2025. They were conditioned to widen West Preserve Loop to its ultimate width, which included adding a raised median consistent with the preserve's specific plan. After constructing the median, but before finishing the final pavement cap of the east side of West Preserve Loop, the developer approached the city regarding a mutually beneficial expansion of their paving limits to capture deteriorating pavement on the west side of West Preserve Loop. After reviewing the developer's proposed rehabilitation limits, city staff then requested an extension of the resurfacing work approximately 200 feet north of Vic Moore Avenue to address additional pavement deficiencies. The aerial image on the left here on the screen shows how access conditions were from 2008 in its establishment to mid 2025. Following the developer's work with the ultimate West Preserve loop limits, you'll see the image on the right with the current conditions. After the developer installed the raised median, residents on the west side of West Preserve Loop contacted the city with concerns about the change in access. Although the preserve-specific plan had anticipated a median here, it differed from the access conditions in place since the neighborhood's establishment in 2008, when left turns at the intersection were allowed. at the october 28 2025 infrastructure and streets committee meeting public works staff recommended asking the developer to modify the median for a left turn pocket and upgrading of curb ramps to ada standards before final resurfacing the committee supported this approach and the developer initially showed interest ultimately the developer determined the additional work was too costly and because these improvements were not part of the original project conditions the city could not require them Neighborhood access points. What you see on your screen here is a visual representation of the neighborhood access points. Current access points are bound by West Preserve Loop, Mill Creek Avenue, Bickmore Avenue and Pine Avenue. The red arrows represent right end movements and that exists today at all three locations. The yellow arrows represent where left turn access is allowable today. Left turn access is now only possible via Bickmore Avenue and Mill Creek as shown. Now we're looking at a concurrent versus proposed intersection improvements. The timing was not in alignment for the developer to complete the work. However, city staff still recognize the need to program these improvements into the city's CIP as part of the fiscal year 2627 budget. Current conditions are shown on the left with proposed improvements depicted on the right. With the project adopted as TR 271, city staff evaluated options to improve pedestrian connectivity while removing a portion of the median at Moon Spinner Street and West Preserve Loop. In July, 2026, staff conducted engineering assessments to determine the appropriate placement of a marked crosswalk. Consideration for an all-way stop and assessing whether a pedestrian-activated rectangular rapid flashing beacon would be suitable. Based on that criteria and the California MUTCD, an all-way stop is not warranted. Staff also reviewed the approved TriPoint Homes site plan and its traffic analysis. The development does not add a new vehicle access point on West Preserve Loop, and projected traffic volumes both at build out and in 2040 remain below the threshold for an all-way stop at this location. The developer's internal sidewalk layouts direct pedestrians primarily to the south side of the intersection, creating a clear and consistent pedestrian pathway. The project design is further enlarged in the graphic provided to see a pairing of the CIP project adjacent to the neighborhood development site plan. The project design is complete and the plans include upgrading the north-south crossing to current ADA standards, restoring left turn access for vehicles and bicycles with a median break, and installing a new ADA compliant east-west crossing with an RRFB, which is the rectangular rapid flashing beacon for pedestrian safety. Prior to advertising for construction bids, engineering staff brought this item before infrastructure committee as an update on July 28th. Following staff's presentation, the committee discussed the number and placement of marked pedestrian crossings. Staff explained that crosswalk locations are determined through engineering evaluations and must comply with the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, also known as the California MUTCD. This governs how official traffic control devices are designed, installed, maintained, and evaluated. The committee expressed disagreement with the engineering evaluation and requested that the plans be revised to include a second marked crossing approximately 40 feet north of the proposed consolidated crossing. Staff advised that adding this additional crossing is not recommended as it conflicts with engineering judgment and state and federal MUTCD requirements. Staff also emphasized that outside of stop-controlled intersections, engineering standards call for consolidated marked crossings to better align with pedestrian desire lines and reduce conflict points between pedestrians and motorists. It's important to note that during that discussion, it became very clear that presenting a site plan showing both the future neighborhood access points and the proposed crossing would help the committee better visualize the overall layout. This information is included here. However, it was not included in the infrastructure streets committee conversation and discussion. For TriPoint homes, neighborhood circulation has no vehicle access via West Preserve Loop. Pedestrian access is consolidated to the southern point of the Moonspinner Street at West Preserve Loop intersection. While the California Vehicle Code governs vehicle operations and roadway rules, it does not dictate the design or application of traffic control devices. Installing devices that do not comply with federal guidance and engineering standards exposes agencies to legal liability and compromises public safety. Staff recommend to you today channelizing all pedestrians through a consolidated crossing location that aligns with the pedestrian access point of the neighborhood on the east. This consolidation coincides with standards and best practices for reducing vehicle pedestrian exposure frequency and vehicle pedestrian conflict points, focusing on safety for all road users. For these reasons, staff recommends advertising the design plans with improvements as depicted in the graphics provided. I wanted to give another similar application of a consolidated crossing as an example of something used in the city of Chino. In this image, we are looking at a similar configuration at the T intersection. We're looking eastbound on Market Street with Hellman in the distance. The city's application of marked crosswalks is consistent with MUTCD established requirements adopted federally and at the state level. The construction budget is supported by two funding sources, Measure I and General Fund. No additional appropriations are requested at this time with this presentation. We have the project timeline before you on the screen. With Council's approval to advertise as designed, the project timeline is anticipated as shown. September 2026, we would advertise for construction bids. November 2026, return to Council for an award of construction contract. December, January is when the contractor would procure traffic RRFB materials, so procurement of materials. And in February, they would begin construction with anticipated one month of construction completed in March of 2027. Staff recommends approving the plans and specifications for construction as approved by the Director of Public Works, authorizing the solicitation of construction bids for TR 271 intersection improvements, Moon Spinner Street at West Preserve Loop. This concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Any comments, questions? Then I would entertain a motion. Okay, motion from Councilman Lucille. Oh, you have a comment?

i'll try to make this quick the community needs it because we put a center medium there and we cut off access to the community that was already there so i would say that this is other than stubby bar being at infrastructure street committee meetings this was the only time we actually had residents show up to talk to us about this I really would rather have the two intersections, I mean the two crosswalks, but I don't want to delay this project anymore because I think the community wants it. But I do want to say I think it would be better if we put those crosswalks there. I'll give you an example. My kids go to Rhodes. I go drop them off. There should be some crosswalks there across San Antonio at one of the streets there. And for some strange reason, we decided not to put any crosswalks there. And then they changed the laws. There's no such thing as jaywalking anymore. And you got parents that cross the street with their kids and they run across the street and there's cars going up and down. And at least if they would have had some crosswalks there, at least it would have given them some feeling that there was some safety there or they didn't have to go all the way to the end of the block. So instead they just crossed in the middle of the street. So pedestrians are gonna do what pedestrians are gonna do and we can say that it's not safe to put a crosswalk somewhere but the reality is With the laws changing now and people can cross anywhere they want. I Really wish we would have another one on the other side, but I don't want to delay this project anymore I'll just say that openly But I'll make the motion

Okay, Councilman Lucio makes the motion. Councilperson Comstock makes the second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item passes unanimously. Okay, I'm going to quickly go to the reports because we don't get to go home. We have to recess back into closed session after the reports. So I'm going to forego my report. Mayor Pro Tem Burton?

I will also forego my report, Mayor.

Councilmember Comstock?

Aye as well.

councilmember flores councilmember lucille city manager no report city attorney okay we need to recess back into closed session hopefully for a very quick meeting hopefully

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