City Council - Regular Meeting

health and are like what is Carbon Health? Carbon Health is the home of good health. We are here as an urgent care primarily. We have three providers that work in this clinic. We try to make sure that our teams are pretty fluid so that way everybody can do everything. School physicals, work physicals, pre-employment physicals, workers comp. If the employer needs a drug screen ahead of time, we do that as well. Vision, hearing, weightlifting, whatever physical needs. And then Carbon Health gives us a lot of the good resources in order for us to do a good job. Um, I feel like I have a lot of good tools here.

Their goal is to try to make Corona a happier, healthier community. And so we work really hard to try to make sure that we are as connected in the community as we can be. Carbon Health is working very hard to try to make healthcare accessible to everyone. With the app, you can do everything with your healthcare here at Carbon Health. I think that by itself sets us apart from everybody. So, we're hoping that we can draw our patients from Corona in instead of them going outside of Corona for their care. The idea behind the name is that we are all carbon life forms. Every carbon life form needs help. Carbon health. The green alley is composed of 34 alleys that were picked to be repaved. This grant was targeted by CALR to improve the quality of life of disadvantaged communities. It brings a lot of improvements to the city, including the ability to absorb water and uh recharge our local water table. It's considered a green technology. When it's really raining hard, this porous pavement will soak the water in. Whatever water was here has infiltrated into the water reservoir that's underneath the 6 in of asphalt. This is like a long-term good technology so that we're more resilient to handle drought seasons because we'll be capturing water that will stay here

locally and will serve the city well. And the green alleys probably provide the most volume or area to capture rainwater. So the alleys have multi-purpose. You know, everybody would use them. The cars, the bikes, whoever wants to use an alley as a less congestion pathway to navigate the city. You're improving the community for sometimes communities that don't get a whole lot of improvement. The community has been very happy that we improved their neighborhood. Beautiful alleys. Our white lion flavor this month is good. Do you want to try a sample?

And it comes with chur and it's pretty good. LA, it looks so good. La, it looks so good. I like it. I love it. I want it. So good. Grandma. I like it. I say hello.

Cooking. I love to cook. You guys need the menu. My name is Sergio and we are in Torres in Aaloa, city of Corona. Torto is 44 and it has four meats. Tortas are the number one sales in this place. We do like 4,000 tortas a month. This is Sinaloa special and this is a Kubana. So we have such a big menu, but we have barbakcoa, we have carneasada plate, we have burritos, we call the breakfast rancheros, omelets. Carneasada is one of the favorites. Yeah. Three tacos. Every single product and item from this place is homemade cooking. Yes. My wife in tortois in Aloa, she's been in the company for 20 years. She's makes every single day. She makes all these fresh waters. And we also have fresh juices. You can order whatever you like. I'm the one that's do every single recipe in this place. It's a homemade plan. Yeah. We do it like maybe four times a week. Mexican dessert. I've been cooking for 45 years now and this 2025. But when I came and opened this to Sinadoa, I learned about the community and the very kind people, very nice. Yeah, I love the people from Corona. So, I put so much effort and hard into it. We are in 152 West 6th Street and we in the shopping center.

Hello, Corona. City of Corona. You guys ready? All right, here we go. We're going to get you on that dance floor. You make me want to shout. Throw my hands up and shout. Hold my head back and shout. Kick my sh. Are you having a good time so far? I feel good to be wise. All right. What a beautiful summer night. Thanks for joining the city of Corona and getting together for all these concerts.

Thank you, CORONA. Get If you want to get arms like me, you need to come in here and get in the weight room. I'm Marcus Williams and this is MW Athletics. As an NFL superstar, coming back to my community is really what I wanted to start MW athletics for. You want to do kettle bell swings? We'll get you right in here. I'll just do one of these with this.

That's all you need. Footwork, speed, strength, fastest, most explosive athlete. Come in here ready to work and you'll get to where you want to get to. And if you don't grind, you don't shine. And if you don't shine, you don't eat. the mission and vision behind MW athletics to create the fastest, most explosive athlete in any given sport that they choose to be in. Whether it's high school, college, or professionals, we are able to help them get the little details right so that they are able to go out there and perform at the highest abilities that Hallelujah. Welcome everybody. Could you please grab a seat? We're going to go ahead and get started. We'll welcome everyone to our city council meeting. Uh Corona resident Don Fuller is asked to give the invocation tonight. Mr. Dr. Fuller, come on up.

Howdy. No, everybody sit down. Not going to be a prayer. It's okay. It's just going to be a simple invocation. Not going to be a prayer. Wow, what a big group tonight. A big crowd. A lot of you are probably here because of uh Bobby Spiegel and his recognition. My name is Don Fuller. I'm kind of a regular city council meetings. I just offered to give the invocation. It's just going to be a simple little welcome to the meeting. I want to welcome all of you to an evening of participatory democracy. I'm glad you're here and I hope that you take the chance to participate. I want to introduce you to some of the main players here. These are your city council members. On the left is Miss Jackie Casillas. She represents district number one, which is basically kind of the northeast portion of town. Next is Tony Dario. He represents district number two, which is basically kind of the northwest portion of town. Next is Mr. Jim Steiner, who represents district number four, which is basically the southwest portion of town, and he's been the mayor for the past year. This city does not have an elected mayor. The mayorship passes around among the five council members. So, the mayor position has no more power than anybody else, but he runs the meetings and so forth. I think this is your last evening as the mayor. And next to him is Mr. West Speak who represents district number five which is generally the southeast portion of town and that's where I live. So I'm one of his constituents which means absolutely nothing whatsoever. And then the last over there is Mr. Tom Richens who represents district three which is generally speaking the center of town and it includes the Grand Boulevard circle and the outlying areas around that. So those are your five council members. The two people up on the dis on the one on the left is Mr. Jacob Ellis. He's a city manager. You can think of him as kind of like the ranch foreman. He's the guy that kind of runs the ranch

on a daily basis. And next to him is Mr. Dean Derlith who is a city attorney. He keeps all of us out of jail. And two more people you need to know about. Right over here we have Mr. Brian Young who is the fire chief. So if your house is on fire, he takes care of it. And over here on the end, we have Mr. Robert Newman, who is the police chief. So if the reason your house is on fire is because it was arson, he takes care of it. And you'll notice that Mr. Newman, Chief Newman always sits near the door. So he protects us that way. And there's always at least one other police officer in the room and that gentleman's over there by that door. They will always be up and down on that side, not on this side. They're over there doing their protective duties. So, I just want to welcome you to the meeting and just give you a few little insights on that. There's one other little thing. If you want to participate, you have to fill out what's known as the blue card. You get the blue cards at the desk in the back. You fill them out. They're very easy to do. And then you hand it to the lovely people over here at the clerk's desk. Sylvia Edwards is the city clerk. She's an absolute treasure. And so, hand it to her and be nice to her also. And if you don't know how to fill out the card, I'm in the back of the room. Joe Morgan is in the back of the room. He's one of the best citizens in town. Uh, usually Mattie Paxton is back there with me. I don't quite see her tonight. So, anyway, we'll help you fill out a blue card if you need to know how. So, that's the end of my invocation. Welcome to the meeting. I hope all of you stick around. I hope all of you participate in the meeting as it goes on. So, that's it. That's the invocation. And now Mr. uh Steiner has said I'm supposed to lead you in the pledge of allegiance. So now you can all stand. And so you're supposed to uh place your hand over your heart and we say ready begin like they do in the Cub Scouts. So

ready begin. I pledge allegiance flag the 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 and welcome to the meeting. Thank you. See something new every every meeting here. No. No. Okay. At this time, I would like to call the meeting to order. Miss Edwards, will you please read the special instructions?

Yes, mayor. Individuals wishing to address the city council are requested to complete a speaker card and deliver it to city clerk staff prior to the item being heard by the city council. Please observe a threeminute limit for communications and once called upon to speak, please state your name and city of residence for the record. Mayor, there was a revision to agenda item 6.5, exhibit 6 was revised. And then also for those needing Spanish interpretation for agenda item 10.1, listening devices are available and copies of the pres presentation are also available. Please come see city clerk staff for the listening devices or a copy of their presentation. Also, if you would like to provide public comment during this item, staff is available to assist with interpretations. Okay, we have one recognition this evening. And I'd like to call Bobby Spiegel. Come on up. So Bobby is the CEO of the Corona Chamber of Commerce and he's finally decided to retire. Congratulations. Don't run for city council when you're done. All right. So this recognition says, "Whereas since 2001, Bobby Spiegel has served as president and CEO of the Corona Chamber of Commerce, leading its team in advocacy, economic development, member services, communication, and

community programs. The chamber represents more than 720 members and over 40 45,000 jobs across western Riverside County. After 24 years of service, Bobby will retire on November 25th, 2025. And whereas a graduate a graduate of the waist academy and the waist stands for western association of chamber executives. Yes, I have cheat notes. Um academy and an accredited chamber executive. Bobby has held leadership roles with both waist and SCACE which is the Southern California Association of Chamber of Commerce executives. In 2025, he was recognized as waste executive of the year. Under his leadership, the chamber had has repeatedly earned the waist president's award and was ranked California's top three chambers by the California Chamber of Commerce in 2025. Very impressive, Bobby. Whereas born in Kodiak, Alaska in 1955, Bobby moved to Corona in 1958. He began working at 14 and owned his first business, the flower shop. by 18 later managing companies in retail, construction and service industries before joining his family firm Corona Industrial Electric Inc. Whereas Bobby's leadership journey began with the JC's where he had numerous positions and ultimately served as the 59th president of the California JC's. He was named Corona citizen of the year in 1990 and has in since earned honor additional honors including recognition from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation 2009, the Congregation Best Shalom Legacy Award 2011, Father of the Year from the American Diabetes Association in 2012, the Unforgettables Foundation Award 2023, and and the Way Steve Rose Memorial Scholarship Award 2024 and proclamations from state leaders in 2025. And this is the last one you guys. Whereas he remains active with

Congressional Bash Shalom, Rotary, the USO, the Riverside County Workforce Development Board, and March Air Force Reserve Base. Bobby and his wife Karen have been married for 40 years and are proud parents of five children, a daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren. And this actually I could have gone on for probably five or six more pages, but we already know this is going to be a long night, so I had to cut back a little, Bobby. All right. Now therefore, be it resolved on behalf of the city council, we hereby great gratefully acknowledge Bobby Spiegel for his dedication he has shown and the manner in which he has carried out his duties as the CEO of the Corona Chamber of Commerce, as well as for his commitment and service to the businesses and community. Best wishes for a long and happy retirement, Bobby. And I just want to thank you so much for being a friend for so many years and always having my back. So, thank you. say a few words.

I do, but now Sure. I just got to get my cheat notes. Okay. It's going to be a long night. All right. That was not my design. I didn't put that on the No, but I still got the hook.

Okay. So, mayor, council members, and the incredible business community, thank you. Thank you so much. And to my beautiful wife and our family, thank you for standing by me. You are my rock and you allow me to do all the things that he mentioned in that proclamation. Receiving this proclamation is an honor and I will cherish it the rest of my life. For 24 and a2 years, I've had the privilege of serving this city I love. Working alongside remarkable leaders, dedicated volunteers, and businesses that truly define the spirit of Corona. Every achievement of the chamber has been a result of partnerships, collaboration with the city, our schools, the nonprofits, military partners, and especially the hardworking men and women who invest in this community every day. And mayor, I can guarantee you're going to hear from some of them tonight under 9.1. I am deeply grateful for the trust that you've placed in me, for the friendships built, and the unwavering support you've shown me throughout the career my career. As I pass the baton, I do so with tremendous pride in what we've accomplished together and immense confidence that Corona's future. My official retirement date is Tuesday, November 25th. In the audience is Dr. Tim Grahamlin, currently the dean of JAB School of Business with uh at CBU, who will assume the role as president and CEO beginning this coming Monday, November 24th. Tim, would you please stand? Let the audience see who's going to be the face of the chamber. Thank you, sir. I am totally confident that with with Tim's leadership alongside our professional staff, our exceptional board members and if any staff are here, any of our board members, if you would stand, let the people know who who is representing the business community. And to our many dedicated volunteers,

the Crona Chamber will advance and accomplish even more in the years ahead. I want to say thank you again for this honor and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve this extraordinary community. God bless you guys. Thank you.

Yes. Miss Edwards, are there speaker cards from the public for the recognition of Mr. Spiegel?

Mayor, yes, we have two speaker cards for this item.

Okay, come on up, guys. My name is Don Fuller. You met me a few minutes ago. I'm going to tell you something about Bobby Spiegel. I would guess that Mr. Spiegel and I disagree on a lot of things. We probably have se He's nodding his head. Yes. There are several things upon I'm sure we would adamantly disagree. But there is one particular area that has occurred to me over the years that he and I are in lock step. Absolutely in lock step. And that is that each one of us I am convinced about this about myself. I'm convinced about this about him. Each one of us is absolutely without question ferociously in love with and devoted with and protective of our wives, the princesses who make up our lives. Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit what that means to me to give you a background for him. My wife and I have been married for 58 years. I met her when she was 18. We got married shortly after she turned 20. She has lived recently in the late stages of Alzheimer's. She lives in the best long-term memory care facility of which I know. She's been there for 3 years, 9 months, and 11 days. Not that I'm counting. She's in a wheelchair. She needs to be fed with a spoon. I visit her three days a week. I get there in the mornings and at lunch I feed her with a spoon. And I love her ferociously.

And so I know what that's like. And I know how I can spot that with Mr. Spiegel. And he and I might disagree on a whole bunch of things, but I'm certain that we agree on that. that the love and the devotion and the protection of the magnificent princesses who we have been so fortunate to live with. I know I married so high up high depot don't make a ladder high enough to measure how up I married and I bet you feel the same way and I think you should know that about Mr. Spiegel. So I'm going to tell you a story he might think is a little embarrassing but to hell with it. One night in a city council meeting, I was back there in the back someplace and he was back there as well. And I forget exactly the details. His charming wife was a member of the city council and somebody I forget who it was. You probably remember, you know where I'm going with this. Somebody came up and insulted his princess from the back of the room. He yelled out and offered to go outside with him and punch his face out. Now, as it turned out, there was another fellow back there who I don't know, but the other fellow and I both went outside with Mr. Spiegel and kind of got him calmed down a little bit and he agreed probably wouldn't be the best thing to do. But some people might think that's kind of barbaric. I find it highly commendable because that's exactly the same way I would feel if somebody talked like that about my princess. I would wrap a chair around his face. Don, thank you, Don. Yep. These are council meetings.

Joe, can you grab the mic? Thanks, Don. Much to say. Um, I just I just want to say I I I considered Bobby. We we're probably unlikely friends, but he from the moment I met him, he's been a decent guy to deal with. and and and the dude's got a big heart and and and I've never thought for one second that he was, you know, was was being disingenuous about something. We could agree or disagree on anything, but he's he's a good dude and and you know, when he says something, I think he means it. I've never he's never he's never said anything to me that that I thought he was saying fake or was lying or, you know, was, you know, saying something that was convenient. He just he is who he is and he believes what he believes and I'm going to miss him, you know, because like I said, we I do consider him my friend and uh so it's I'm going to miss seeing him around. So, thank you very much.

All right. Thank you. Okay. No other speakers on recognition. We will move on. So, our consent calendar, all items listed on the consent calendar are considered to be routine matters, status reports, and or documents covering previous city council action. The items listed on the consent calendar may be enacted in one motion. With the concurrence of the city council, a council member or any person in attendance may request that an item be removed for further considerations. Would my colleagues like to pull any items for discussion? 6.8. Tony 6.8. Okay. Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public on pulling any items?

Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for the consent calendar. Okay. Can I get a motion for all items except for 6.8? I'll move 6.8 and that passes 50. I'm so sorry. Everything but 6.8. Now we're going to talk about 6.8. Tony.

Yeah. I just wanted to highlight something about this agreement. Um, for for those of you that uh get a water bill in the city, I think it's the water bill you if you pay $5 on the on the water bill, um, it goes towards if you need emergency transportation ambulance or something along those lines. And that's kind of like what this is with our wildlife wildland protection agreement. Um this is a payment that we make to the state in order to get the air the necessary air support that we need when these these massive um wild wildland fires um occur. And uh the chief and I had a long discussion about this and and uh to me this is a really good thing. I just wanted to highlight the fact that, you know, the state's being a good partner with us and that our chief actually and his staff went around and and we're getting these agreements for several parts of the city so that if we need fixed wing uh roto rotor or the big tanker drops, it is immediately approved and we get that we get that asset and that that help right away. So, thanks chief for explaining this to me and making sure that I understood it correctly, but also, you know, getting all these agreements in place so that the state can help us. Appreciate it. And with that, I'll move.

Okay, I'll second. Please vote.

No one pulled it. Please vote. Okay, that passes five. I have nothing. Communications from the public. Persons wishing to address the city council are requested to state their name and city of residence for the record. This portion of the agenda is intended for general public comment only, which means it is limited to items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council that are not listed on the agenda. Please note that state law prohibits the city council from discussing or taking action on items not listed on the agenda. The city council will appreciate your cooperation and keeping your comments brief. Please observe a threeminut time limit for communications. Miss Edwards, how many speaker cards do we have from the public?

Mayor, we have 18 speaker cards for communication from the public. Okay, so you can stay in your seat until the podium's uh empty or you can line up behind it, whatever you feel comfortable with. And whoever wants to go first, come on down. Good evening.

Good evening uh honorable mayor, city council members, city staff and fellow cronians. Uh my name is Yusf Ghani. I live in Corona from last 26 years and also run a nonprofit organization called For the People Task Force. I'm so glad we have a full house. So what I'm about to announce will go and will address to everyone who's in need. for the people task force actually held the first food drive in November on November 1st. We did the last one on last Sunday and we're doing another food drive on 22nd of November where we are planning to give out between 300 and 400 turkeys along with all the other items for the holiday meals and some other stuff. So if you know someone who needs help who's in for whatever going on, please see us at Corona High School. is going to start at 9:00 and we're going to be there until we run out of everything. So for that u please spread the word. Uh second thing unfortunately one of our vendors who promis us 100 turkeys we kind of he backed out. So we're still buying all the turkeys but it's just putting a bigger hole in my pocket. So if anybody wants to participate in it uh you can actually go on our website on our Facebook page and donate. Let's help those who are in needs and that's how we can celebrate holidays together fortunate unfortunate and we can make corona better. Um one more thing I want to talk about is this that I have I don't come to this meetings very often but I want to thank each and every one of you who sit on that podium. I know it's not an easy job and you guys here it's a thankless job. So you guys only hear that you did this, you did this and you did this but I want to thank each and every one of you for everything which you guys doing and Corona is a better city today just because of all the work you have done. So thank you very much again for every one of you on the podium and all the city staff. Thank you very much.

Thank you. See you Saturday. Hi Tammy. Sorry, I don't have paper today. I have my phone. I'm not used to reading from my phone. Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Tammy Friedrich. I'm a resident of Eastville, formerly Corona. Um, and I am here today in response to the disturbing actions that took place in our community on Sunday. That day, many families were gathered at the old civic center for positive and peaceful events. Sorry. A play, a basketball game, a remembrance ceremony, and more. It was a place of community and connection. Yet at the same time, ICE and Border Patrol used the city hall parking lot as a staging area to target and detain our residents. Just steps away on Ventia, a person walking down the street was tackled to the ground just for walking down the street. Families witnessed violent enforcement actions and no war with no warning and no respect for our community. What makes this worse and that is that city property was used to enable this aggression. Agents showed disrespect not only toward our residents but toward our public space. One was even seen urinating in the bushes in the parking lot of which I have evidence. This is unacceptable conduct on public land funded by the people of the city. We must take concrete action to protect our residents. I urge the council to one adopt a due process ordinance similar to those passed in cities like San Diego and Vista to ensure local resources are

not used to facilitate facilitate immigration enforcement operations. And two, explore establishing a mutual aid fund to support residents who face unexpected detention, legal fees, or family emergencies revolting resulting from these actions. Our public spaces should not be staging grounds for fear. Our community deserves dignity, dignity, safety, and due process. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening everyone. I'm Zoe and I've been a resident of Corona for 13 years. And I want everyone in the room, including the council members, to think. How much do you value our lives and our protection and our safety? I say this as previously mentioned, Sunday there was a massive ICE raid, these dashing goes, and this is my third time talking about this. I don't know how many times we have to come out here, plead for protection. It's getting worse. I was running errands and I see this silver van run a red light. These people, these federal agents do not value our safety. We don't feel safe running errands. We don't safe. We don't feel safe walking down the streets. How much do you guys actually value our lives? We just want you to think, to take action. This is long overdue and it will keep getting worse and we won't stop showing up until there's actual change.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, council members. Maddie Paxton, 33year resident of Corona. The first thing I was going to talk about was the um for the people task force food drive. You've already did that. I just want to thank them because they always go out of their way to help the citizens of Corona. Thank you very much, Miss Edwards, for that. Um, I'm going to move on to something just real quickly is I want to bring up the topic of ebikes and motorized things. um two times this week we have it got dark very early and I had two people I don't know kids or whatever um dark clothes no lights running in and out of the streets by centennial on the sidewalks somebody's going to get killed one one was like a motorized scooter it wasn't a it wasn't an ebike but um we're going to have problems if they don't if parents can't understand that their kids should not be doing this they need to respect cars and other vehic vehicles. Okay, moving on for um community activities. The first thing I want to talk about is the police department's uh kids and cops, which is Sunday the 13th. If you went in the main lobby, they're taking the donations um and registering for people that um have needs. Um it's 12 years and younger at at city hall and they need to have proof of residency. Um so see the dates and they're also accepting um unwrapped toys to the police department off Kota. The second thing is about the fire department. Our fire department is having their next blood drive on Wednesday, December 17th from 8:00 am to 4 pm at the Corona Fire headquarters. And to sign up, it's www.lstream.org CFD, Corona Fire Department. And then lastly, the Corona Fire Department is doing the Spark of Love toy drive to bring um they're accepting donations of unwrapped toys through December 24th to

drop off at all of the seven state fire stations and fire headquarters. And all toys will be given to the Corona Settlement House and distributed to local families in need. Thank you. Thanks, Maddie. Welcome, Kelly.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council members and staff, my name is Kelly Montalvo and I'm a Corona resident. I'm here tonight to thank the city of Corona for co-sponsoring a beautiful day that we had on Sunday called World Day of Remembrance, a day in which we honored road traffic victims and first responders. We're very grateful for the day. We had a wonderful turnout and I thank you all for that. I would be remiss if I didn't also add that I did witness the ICE operations that evening and on a day in which we were honoring our first responders and victims of road traffic violence. It was disturbing and sad. Coming from a blended family myself, I hate to see my sons or my husband be victims of that type of racism. I'm not sure what the answer to it is, but I had to express that. Again, I thank you for World Day of Remembrance and I hope to continue to grow that event. Thank you.

Thanks, Go.

Hello, my name is Jazzy. I have been a resident for Corona for almost 5 years now. I have a deep love for this community and after Sunday witnessing what ICE was doing to our community, it's completely unacceptable. They are attacking people randomly in the streets. We're now I've seen that there's maybe almost eight people that were kidnapped on Sunday from our city plus the raid a couple months ago. That's now almost 15 people that have been there are family members. They're workers of our community that are being taken. The federal officers right outside these doors were literally pissing on us, on our city. What is this city going to do? They should pass legislation just like Chicago and other cities that have stood up to the federal officers and not allowed them to use our land to attack our people. It's completely unacceptable. Thank you. Thank you. Evening.

Good evening, Corona. Um, I my name is Bill Burer. I have been a resident of Corona for a little over 30 years. I have seen most of you, if not all of you, at different Corona events. I am Santa Claus. I am a bunch of other things in the city. I know it's shush, but I'm not here for any of that. I'm here to remind us what our vision is. The city of Corona will be a safe, vibrant, familyfriendly community. You belong here. I am good friends with a retired immigration officer. All right. Customs and enforcement, we call them ICE. And most of the new ICE agents are woefully trained, poorly motivated, highly aggressive, armored, masked, unlabeled, and taking our citizens. They do not belong here. In contrary to our vision, they are definitely on the naughty list. Um, I have been married for 33 years. My lovely wife of Irish descent was overseas with her parents being born in Tehran, Iran. A well-trained IC agent would not rob me of my wife, but I have absolutely zero confidence in these new ICE agents. And if you could imagine wrapping a chair around somebody's forth

threatening their wife, Santa is not happy with the fear they currently live in with a person whose passport says place of origin tan Iran. I want to make a distinction yet again. A well-trained ICE officer poses no threat to me and my family. But until we can make a distinction between those well-trained IC officers and the ones who at sight of somebody who looks like they could be from Latin America tackles them on the sidewalk while walking next to our ourh fast food place. Um, I don't feel that Corona is safe, vibrant, familyfriendly, or that I belong. Unless I can hear at some point in the real near future, my city back me up on these things. I don't want them to be welcome. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. My name is Linda Olava 23 years ago. My husband my husband and I purchased a home in Corona. We live in the fifth district. This is my first city council meeting and therefore my first time addressing this body. My statement, the statement of the city of Corona is to cherish our past and to protect our future. Corona citrus farming and packing was built largely on Mexican labor. As borders go, we should remember that California was a part of Mexico and as a result of that, our state is rich in Mexican culture. In the US and around the world, people who want power and to control the masses prey on fears and angers. These people creatively use these emotions to manipulate and motivate people to turn on fellow citizens. Politicians and special interest groups such as large businesses and wealthy ultra wealthy use citizens angers and fears to direct anger at the newest immigrant population or people who don't look like us. This has been going on since the dawn of our nation. Historically, this country, in this country, we've had problems with regulating this. Wealthy land owners, enslaved black people. Our government rounded up natives, intentionally giving them blankets infested with smallpox, and those that survived were put on reservations. We implemented programs against the Irish immigrants employment by creating nenina negroes and Irish need and apply in the 1800s. Italians in the early 1900s were lynched in Colorado and Louisiana because they looked black. Germans during World War I changed their surnames so they wouldn't

be persecuted by their neighbors. And during World War II, Japanese Americans on the West Coast had their businesses and businesses and homes confiscated and they were put into camps. In post 911 America, olives skinned people from the Middle East were all assumed to be terrorists. Seikhs of Indian ancestry were targeted and killed in Arizona and elsewhere. Our history in this country is not without its faults. Failed ICE operations in Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago prove that these sweeps are ineffective. They are being ruled illegal and in my opinion, they are morally corrupt. I was in Leon, France, excuse me, and in Poland last year. The resistance museum in Leon took oral histories from survivors of the Nazi occupation. An innocent French 15-year-old boy was sent to town by his mom and was swept up in a Nazi purge. He was sent from camp to camp to do manual labor with little or no food. Somehow he survived it. I know I'm out of time here, but I just want to say these raids don't work. ICE is counterproductive. We're sending people who are US citizens to seek hot. We're putting them in prisons. Our California legislature passed laws saying that these

Thank you, Linda. Thank you.

Welcome. I actually have a presentation this time. Thank you. What's your name, man, for the record?

Victoria Hibbert. Lived here all my life and this is my third time talking about ICE, but actually this time it was CPB, which was essentially an invasion of our city. Um, yes, they did stage at city hall. That is their transport van where they use undercover vehicles to snatch people and then bring them to that transport van where they were taken to Los Angeles. Um, and it is true that somebody did urinate. Um, it was not an agent. It was actually someone they had kidnapped and because there was no bathrooms, they had him urinate on public property. Um, there is a video of that. I didn't want to show that because that man has already gone through enough. Um, I just want to let you know who we are. We are a community group that has been tracking these kidnappings. Um, we're not armed. We don't pose any threat. Um, but we did realize that Border Patrol agents are racially profiling our community and they were literally picking people off Sixth Street. just anybody that essentially couldn't either answer their questions or didn't give them information when they asked if they were um a legal citizen. Uh and honestly that day was very very rainy and they were driving insanely running red lights, illegal uturns. They could have killed anybody, anybody. Especially on Sixth Street where we have the hawk lights. I mean, so this is one of the videos. This is outside of uh the KFC. And you can see um a car that's about to run a red light to get into the KFC parking lot to back

up. So that's what happened on our streets. That's what people witnessed. That's what people were calling in for. Can you go to the next one, please? And this was the initial first um you know, kidnapping at the Home Depot. They only took one person cuz we were able to thankfully warn them when we heard the convoy was coming to Corona. Um but yeah, they just took whoever ran. One guy ran, they chased him, and uh they put him in that van. They did question some of the other day laborers who did have documentation, so they left him alone. But they came back a second time, including a uh ICE agent or CPB agent that's well known goes maskless and is known for being highly aggressive and waving guns in people's faces. Thank god we didn't have any guns waves in her face that day. I just really hope we can pass some type of legislation similar to Santa Clara County and Chicago where ICE would not be allowed to do any type of enforcement on our public grounds.

And you're right, it got worse, Jim. Thank you.

Welcome.

Hi, my name is Jennifer Ward. I've been a resident of Corona since 1998. First, I want to thank all of you who work for our city. Thank you for the time and work you put in. Thank you for the support you give as you show up to so many events. It is appreciated and doesn't go unnoticed. So, thank you. I'm here tonight to share with you the exciting news that for the first time, two giving machines are coming to Riverside County, specifically the Galleria Mall at Tyler located at the inside entrance of Macy's. You're probably wondering, what is the giving machine? Instead of purchasing a candy bar or snacks from a vending machine, a giving machine is where people buy goods and services to those in need. It's a machine that enables a person to give rather than receive. 100% of each donation goes directly to nonprofits. Since 2017, the giving machine has raised nearly 50 million in donations. This December, giving machine kiosks will be in 126 cities, 21 countries, and six continents. Now, I'd like to share a brief clip of how the giving machine works.

There will be five local charities benefiting from the giving machine here locally. Those charities are Meals on Wheels in Riverside, Megan's Wings, Katarina's Club, Path of Life, and US Vets Inland. There are opportunities to donate locally and globally, like purchasing a goat for a family. So save the date, November 28th through December 31st. Round up your loved ones, your neighbors, co-workers, take a trip to the mall, make your selection, and help make a measurable impact locally or globally this holiday season. Thank you. Thanks, Jennifer. Welcome.

Hello. I am so excited to be here. So excited. I've never been this involved in politics in my life. This is my first meeting. My name is Christy Markwart. I live here in Corona and I have since 2021. Um I wish I didn't have to be so involved honestly and I wish love would prevail. I wish empathy would prevail prevail. But right now, Corona should not support and contribute to making it easy for ICE to kidnap, detain, put fear into our communities. Our community is suffering and the law-abiding people are scared. I spend my free time, though I work a full-time job, doing patrols, making sure my neighbors are safe, checking online and sharing resources to make sure that my community is safe, which is like something the police should be doing, I feel like, or you know, other city officials. But I'm out there, I'm exhausted, single parenting, a teenager. Do you guys know what that's like? He is 16 with ADHD. This is craziness. But I'm out here because his dad is an immigrant. My child is half immigrant. And the fear that we feel daily is palpable. And I don't think you all understand. I demand that you pass a resolution condemning these ICE raids and advocating for more removal for their removal from the city. I also demand officers arrest ICE when they mask themselves, do not identify themselves and stop the and kidnap people without warrants. They are very brutal and I would even love to categorize them as a terrorizing entity. They are not government agents. Government agents don't behave this way. They brutalize and terrorize peaceful people. I married into a Mexican family

because they are the most beautiful, loving, kind, not to mention the amazing food. My neighbors make me the best food. The best. By controlling these ICE activities, it does a few things. It shows our council and our city cares. You can empathize. You listen to the community and you will hold ICE accountable. And any lawbreaking and suffering they have committed, it exposes ISIS cruelty, their dehumanization tactics. They must follow the law like everybody else. They are not above the law. We are holding you responsible to pass any kind of provision to protect our community and to hold ICE accountable. There is no mistake that ICE is a terrorist organization acting above the law and it's unacceptable. Your silence is complicity and you doing nothing will count in the next elections. Your seat is depending on what you do now.

Love. Welcome back, Bobby.

Thank you. Uh Bobby Spiegel, Corona Chamber of Commerce, 904 East 6th Street. I just want to take a moment to thank the Corona Police and the Corona Fire. This last Sunday, we had one of our own members, uh the restaurant owner of Silver Dollar Pancake House was in a horrific single car accident. And if it wasn't for the police department arriving first and doing first aid until the fire department arrived moments later and what they did, the surgeons uh on Robert Hernandez basically said if it wasn't for what they did, he would have lost his arm. Today he had his second surgery or yesterday he did on his elbow and um it sounds really promising that he he will be uh discharged on Friday with full recovery anticipated. But I just want you all to know how much we appreciate our public servants, the police department, as well as the fire department. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Hello. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Uh my name is James Ford. I'm a resident of Riverside, although I was raised here in Corona. Um I want to begin by acknowledging our gathering here on unseated territory of the Tongva, Akachean, and Pyam Kawich people. May their enduring connection and stewardship to this land be honored forever and inspire us to do better. Uh, next, I'd like to share some important data to directly contradict the lies that are flying from our federal government. Uh, kidnapped individuals, also known as detainees, to the government grew by over 20,000 to 61,200 people as of September 2025. Of these, 71% have no criminal conviction. And of the 25% around that do more the majority of them are minor offenses such as traffic violations. So when the government is telling you that they're going after the worst of the worst, they are lying. They are completely lying to us. And additionally, 23 people have died in federal custody thus far this year. This is compared to 24 people who died over the past four years. So we are seeing a very sharp increase in violence and death both in uh the facilities and out on our streets. Uh these numbers do not even include Sio Viegas Gonzalez, the father of two who was shot and killed in Illinois by an ICE agent. Nor does it include Haime Alanis Garcia who was killed in a raid up I believe in Ventura. Carlos Roberto Mononttoya IOS Castro Hivera who were both killed on freeways fleeing ICE attacks. Um I use the word attack with intention because I do believe that word choice matters. These are not just raids or targeted immigration operations. We have masked gunmen roaming our streets, speeding and running red lights and unmarked cars, pulling brown people off the streets with no probable cause, zero warrants, and complete disregard for our community. They actively instill fear in our streets. They wave guns, threaten, and even arrest US citizens under trumped up and fictitious charges. Uh this past Sunday, as was mentioned in the presentation, around eight of our neighbors were kidnapped off the streets and as you saw those videos as well. uh

they are forced into unmarked civilian vehicles and they then enter a broken system of privately run prisons. Corporations like Geog Group and Core Civic have made billions off of these attacks. I would invite you all to put yourselves in the shoes of the people who are being taken. Imagine going to work, getting groceries, waiting for the bus, or just walking down the street and you find yourself on the other end of an assault rifle with mass men here shuffling you into a car. um they whisk you away with no access to your family, no access to a lawyer, just for being brown or just for speaking Spanish. That's the reality faced by your constituents today. Uh this isn't the America we grew up in. And yet it is. The US government has been terrorizing black and brown communities for hundreds of years. And it is time we say enough to Washington and demand that they cease the racial profiling and cease their attacks on our communities. And it is imperative that we come together as a city to put a stop to these. We cannot shine alone in the darkness and we need collective action. When I see tonight the turnout for this, it does bring me hope. It brings me hope that people and the community are ready to answer the call. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Marta.

Good evening, mayor. Good evening, city council. Um, I don't have a long speech. I just have an ask. I ask that you protect our community. How? I don't know. I'm not naive. I know there's not a lot that can be done against federal agents, but we can do something. Even small things like someone mentioned creating a resolution and approving it stating that we are not going to allow them to use our public um land public um parking lot here in the city. in city hall. Um, we have to start somewhere and it can be something small. Our community is hurting. You might not see it, but I see it. People are scared. I know they're not people who vote because they can't, but they're still part of the community and they're a valuable part of the community because they work and they're they spend their money here. People are terrified. Um, I am a citizen thankfully, but never ever did I imagine that I would consider carrying my passport around to prove that I am a citizen because I don't want to be detained and kept in a facility for days or weeks until they can, you know, investigate and see if I really am a citizen just based after being stopped and apprehended. or kidnapped because it is a kidnapping when they're doing it, you know, with their faces covered and no badge. That is a kidnapping. Um, you know, after being apprehended for the color of my skin. So, Corona is

almost 50% Hispanic, I believe. Is it higher than 50% less? And let's be clear about it. It's the community that's being targeted. Whether they're citizens or not, we are being targeted for the color of our skin. And I ask you, Tony, Wes, Tom, Jackie, and Mayor Jim Steiner to do something about it. Start with something small. I know we talked earlier, mayor, and it's difficult to come up with something, but we can start with something small and then work from there as we learn. Please take that into consideration. I beg you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening, mayor, council, um, city staff. My name is Timothy Wyn. I'm the chief program officer for Mercy House. We operate a whole system of care in the city of Corona for the homeless uh that are here. Uh and I'm here to express our sincere gratitude uh for the city's continued partnership and support. Because of the city of Corona's commitment to meaningful results driven solutions to homelessness, Merc has been able to make significant impacts in the lives of some of our community's most vulnerable residents over the last fiscal year. With your support, our emergency shelter program, the Harrison Hope Center, has provided 13,698 bed nights of safe, dignified shelter in the last fiscal year. This is uh provided to individuals experiencing homeless homelessness from the city of Corona. That's more than 13,000 nights of rest, safety, and stability uh for the people who would otherwise have had nowhere else to go. Our average length of stay was 61 days, giving our staff the time needed to build trust, connect our clients to services, and help them to make meaningful steps towards stability. In addition, your support for the tenant-based rental assistance program has been a cornerstone of our homelessness prevention and rehousing efforts. Over the last fiscal year, our program prevented or ended the homelessness of 227 individuals in 119 households. Those are families who remained housed. Uh seniors who avoided displacement, individuals who were able to move from crisis to stability because of the city's investment in proven housing focused solutions. Remember, this only accounts for our most recent fiscal year, the year ending in June 2025. Uh if we were to include uh the the people we helped from our entire partnership, which started in 2023, uh that would be even higher. Uh but more importantly than the numbers, uh this represents real people, neighbors, parents, children, uh whose lives have

been changed by the work that we're able to do together. Uh none of this would be possible without your leadership, uh without your commitment to collaboration and without your dedication uh to the working alongside uh the work from your city staff and and our teams uh every day. because of Mercy House, our staff and and the hundreds on behalf of Mercy House, our staff and the hundreds of Corona residents whose lives have been directly impacted. I just want to thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your trust and thank you for your unwavering support. Thank you, Timothy.

Good evening.

Evening council. My name is Brianna Wilcox. I live in Corona. I was born in Riverside. I've lived in this area for my entire life. Um, I want to acknowledge where we're standing on unseated Tongva land. And I want to just remind everyone that no one is illegal on stolen land. Migration is a human right and borders are just another way for state enacted violence to be perpetrated against people on both sides of the imaginary line. When I first started thinking about getting involved as a citizen here, I started asking people like, "Hey, what's the city council like? What's the vibe? What are what are the members like?" And I was told not to go. I was told not to come here because this was a place where apparently like um richer, older white people would complain about pickle ball scheduling conflicts. Apparently that was an issue at some point in the recent past. um and that like maybe discussions around slightly he heftier matters like people getting kidnapped maybe would not be heard. I don't think that's a fair assessment. The few times I've been here so far, you've shown to be very thoughtful, very considered. You asked very detailed questions and you thought about how could this go wrong, how could this go right. Um it's really encouraging and I don't think it was a fair characterization of you. Corona is currently in a crisis. You've seen the evidence. We have unmasked and identified people running crazy in the streets, violating traffic law, amongst many other laws. And each crisis is an opportunity to do not only the right thing, but to show to the people that you are willing and able to provide meaningful leadership. You have the ability, you have the heart for it. um maybe just not the right optics or the right PR if people somehow think that it's not worth talking to you. So um my invitation is this.

Show to the people of Corona who maybe haven't been involved before, maybe didn't think it was worth answering the survey that um your professional surveyor tried to put out. We couldn't get many people to respond, right? Show them that you're willing to take action, get results, and then publicly and transparently communicate those results to the people here, right? People need to know what you're accomplishing for them. So, we can start with the basics. Um, instruct the Corona Police Department to enforce traffic regulations. So, when people claiming to be ICE or running reds, maybe they could be there. If they're claiming to be feds, maybe confirm their identification because we do have a lot of impersonators. If they're running around with no plates on their cars, that is technically legal if they submitted the correct paperwork to DHS. Now, multiple media outlets have asked DHS to provide this paperwork as evidence of like, oh yes, they we are going through the process. We are legally running around without plates. DHS has not been able to provide that paperwork. So, we know these people claiming to be agents are doing this illegally. I am here if you have any questions. Our community is here. We know who we can point you to for concrete, simple steps that do not risk you, that do not ask you to be brave. We just ask you to lead.

Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome. Hi. Um good afternoon. Um the reason for my visit today is I just want to bring awareness to a topic that's very important to me.

What's your name, ma'am? For the record. My name is Flora. I have been a Corona resident for the past 5 years. I'm a volunteer with the animal corona shelter and I wanted to bring attention to the babies that will be housed there throughout this cold winter. I'd like to start by saying the shelter officers and volunteers are wonderful and we all work very hard and diligently to care for these innocent animals. However, there are limitations to the efforts made to keep the animals safe and healthy. Today, I want to bring attention to the unfortunate fact that these fur babies will spend the cold winter outdoors. I'm hopeful that we can come together as a community and raise enough resources to install covers or shades in an attempt to keep these babies warm and dry through the holiday season. At the very least, I'd like to remind our residents to not forget that there are several animals at the Animal Corona shelter that are in need of loving forever homes. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoe, you already spoke, so yeah, you just get your three minutes. Hi, Chris. Chris McCoy, uh, District 3, 9th in Howard. Um, the first thing I want to do tonight is I just personally also want to thank Bobby. Um, I remember when the tragedy of the Turpent kids happened and the community came together and tried really hard to find a way of helping those kids and Bobby and the chamber stood up and showed how much he cared. He tried to coordinate all those efforts to make sure that that money got to those kids. what's happened with the county since is not on Bobby, but I really appreciate everything he did and um we had a really heartfelt talk one night about that and I I was very impressed with his knowledge of it and what he did and how he was he's always been willing to step up for community issues. Um the other thing I want to bring up which is going to dovetail into 9.1 but it's not about 9.1. I'm we are the city is the landlord for the hub. We have heavy rain coming up Friday and Saturday. We have a brand new business there which is the windown just opened. Tam Green, you've all met her. Everybody from the city and staff was there during the grand opening that she held. Um this last weekend the roof opened up like a civ. She had leaks. She had to close on Saturday. She's talked to Joel and the city. They had some guys come out and repair on Sunday. They gave her a bunch of reasons why it wasn't a complete fix and things need to be done and a new roof needs to be done. She has not heard back since Sunday night, Monday, and we're coming

around the bend now. We're coming around to the point where um she's going to have to, you know, she's going to have to try to stay open in rain with leaks in her roof. She just doesn't have the resources to do that. and she doesn't know I'm here. She hasn't asked me to do this. Um I just if the city is going to act as landlord and if we're going to move forward and do all these other things, we need to walk before we run and we're not doing that for her right now. And I I'm I'm up here because she won't come up here. She's a very kind and nice person. But we need to support these new businesses that we're putting in to the hub and we need to make sure that they're taken care of. And when she's not getting any communication back and we have another weekend coming up for her, that's a big deal. And then finally, a discussion about making these agents who are I I don't even want to call them officers, making sure that these people when they come in, they have a badge number on and they have no mask on. So there's at least a minimum of accountability. We can require that. Other cities have done that. There's no reason why we can't do that. That's the bare minimum. happily uh said I was going to speak because I didn't bring my cheat sheet but I brought the me and my wife and uh people behind us they helped us but seeing things that the people that came over to to the event for their service and I didn't bring my cheesy but my heart like I said so we don't have to help us out to feel what we're going through. Um, I could see asking you please help us out.

Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Alan Vargas. I not only live in this city, but I put into words the amount of concern that went around our community. Got 19 calls for service, which we serve this community proudly. And like many of our commands, we could try and fail. We are seeing our neighbors consistently afraid do this, we can't do that. We can do something and hand to your city attorney to look at to finally start taking action to protect our neighbors in our political process. If any if if my presence here means anything is public service means more than just being an elected officials. All of us who are a part of migra watch are public servants because we are serving our community with with being harassed by ISO accountable one of these days if it's not this administration watch he proceeds to tell me oh I know you ain't talking with your hair looking like that is the type of individuals that are that are are that we are paying for and pepper spraying children including a ICE officer even kidnapping a law enforcement officer if our law enforcement officers our fire department is not safe from the terror that's being inflicted across this nation, then no one is safe. So, I am ready to work with y'all to get this done. Now, the question is, do you have the willpower to do it? Because I am now kicking the ball in your court because we now have an item here that is actionable, that can be done. So, now it's on y'all. So, let's get to work because we got some work to do, especially for the hundreds of people who live in our city who are afraid to go out right now. Will you sir, will you hand that to the city clerk, please? Thank you.

You're up, Harvey. Hello. Hello. Welcome.

Guys, all been holding your breath for about a half hour. Um, my heart's just pounding. My name is Harvey Van Eggman. I own Harvey's Auto Tech in Corona. Uh, lived in Corona for 27 years. We've had an auto repair shop for 34 years inside the circle. Uh my concern is uh the conversations that the city has had for numerous years about revitalization. There's a property directly across the street from me that 15 years ago I tried me that 15 years ago I tried to buy for $800,000. I offered the guy that money. Um he took that offer to the city. The city paid $1 million for that property and they paid $300,000 for the guy who was renting to get out of town. Since that time, the last 151 17 years, that property has been vacant. Nothing has been done with that property. Now, there's a lot of conversation about the wonderful things that Corona is going to do with the properties, and I know there's going to be a conversation about pushing a lot of us automotive businesses out of town with no recourse. I take the example of the property across the street that has been vacant for 15 years. Nothing has been done with it. There has been no tax collection for that property. How is that good for the the citizens of Corona? It's been vacant. There have been couches dropped there. There have been homeless people leaving trash. Um that gives me great concern about the plans for the rest of Sixth Street for the dilapidation of the downtown. Corona so far hasn't done anything for that property and nothing for our community.

Thank you, sir. Um, and and also I want to make one other point. I've got a little time. Um, I'm not scared to walk downtown. Um, I think it's still a thriving area. I think there are a lot of business people here that I've already seen that I know. I've got customers that have come here tonight as well to talk about it. I'm not scared of downtown Corona. The only thing I'm scared of, let me make this point. The only thing I'm scared of is that walking guy. I see him everywhere. I don't know if I don't know if you guys see him, but this guy is everywhere. He's got the white hat and the white shorts.

That guy scares me. Downtown Corona doesn't scare me. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm Don Fuller. Uh Sylvia has a piece of artwork she's going to put up on the screen and they have a separate copy of it to hand out to each one of you up on the dis and this is a subject that I should have brought up before the city uh years ago uh but it just occurred to me about a couple of weeks ago and it concerns the north mall. So, I'm going to change the subject from other people been talking about it. And I have a suggestion that the answer to fixing the North Mall and all of that is to straighten Main Street. And I'm passing out a map that I have made up and it's up on the overhead right there. And I've gone down and looked the area over and you can see I made a map out of what I could get from Google Maps and drawn some stuff all over it. If you bite the bullet and straighten Main Street, all of the other things just start to fall into place. On the south end, you would have to do something about the bank building and about half of the building that has the wine down in it, but that was just recently started. On the north end, you'd probably have to do something about the building that has Baker's Dozen in it. The other stuff, you decided you're going to run a bulldozer through that anyway. If you straighten Main Street and put it back the way that it was, it makes everything else fall into place. Furthermore, the people getting off of the freeway at the 91 at Maine, they turn south and go down Maine, it becomes an entrance to the city. So, you see on this diagram here, I have a couple of places for some pedestrian bridges. The one over Main Street could be designed to look like a crown, say Corona, Circle City or something on it. So, it looks like you're entering the city. Looks like you have an entrance to this place. And the development doesn't go just on

one side of the street, which is what the North Mall Project has been talking about. Development goes on both sides of the street. So, you have an entrance to the town. You have a gateway to the town. And when you get off of the freeway and look at that going through that bridge uh up up ma up which is south uh you have this vista that goes up before you. It has a nice big wide main street all the way up. Now I admit this is kind of late in the game to bring this up. And I admit that I do not know how to run a bulldozer. so that other people would have to do this. But I contend that if you bite the bullet and you straighten Main Street, it makes everything else much much much easier and you end up with something that you can then show to your grandkids because several of you have talked about wanting to leave a legacy for your grandkids. So all I'm saying is bite the bullet, do it right, and the rest of it falls into place. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Don. Welcome. Good evening. Joe Morgan, 2063 Ren, I've been saying straighten it back out, fix it. Somebody else, somebody broke it in the late60s, you should fix it. Um, so and I'll say the same thing I said at the last meeting. Um, I am concerned about ICE activities in Corona, uh, targeting minority, uh, residents. Um, but I'm equally concerned about the city targeting minority residents and and you know, so you don't have a problem picking on the Padillas and the Cortezes or Raj. You don't have a problem with that. You don't you do it regularly. You don't mess with Calvert. You want his building so bad. You want that building at Corona Mall so bad so you can build another couple hundred apartments. But I don't see the tractors pulling up to

that building. I don't see you lighting fires next to that. So, you you guys are doing the same thing. You're doing the same thing. It is shameless. Which brings me on the topic of shameless. I want to talk to the official city weasel. Uh Mr. Ellis, um I remember when Tony got on uh council, you fought to have uh future agenda items and draft agendas. we were on the same side of that. Um so that people could know what's going on ahead of time so that we'd have we'd have ample notice and you'd have ample notice as well. So I've been hearing about how oh you guys are like oh my gosh look at this 9.1. Oh would you look at that? Would you just look at what happened to just pop up on the agenda? We didn't know anything about it. Okay. So, two things cannot be true at the same time. That you guys just popped up that you just saw it just like that. It was like, "Wow, look at that. The agenda. I've I have no idea what's going on." Or that you didn't sandbag the council with this. You're a weasel. I believe you had your usual hub and spoke meetings with them. I think that, but I think it's on the council here to put a flag in the ground to either confirm that you in fact sandbag them and put that nonsense on there or that you guys did know about it cuz the two things cannot be, you know, you either you either basically uh were derelictked in your duty and irresponsible and a sneaky little weasel. Like I said, I the the uh previous the previous uh future agenda items thing, never never happened to mention it. City facilities free of charge uh housing units approved by the city uh exploited legalities or requiring cups.

Elsto pickle ball. Hey, that's on the agenda tonight. But you couldn't bother to put that the the taking businesses away from 40ome businesses. You you just stealing property rights from people. You couldn't. Yeah, that wasn't significant enough. You're a weasel. You're a weasel and you need to go. And you guys need to plant a flag about whether either you're lying about not knowing about it or that he's a weasel. Thank you very much.

All right. Okay. Let's move on to public hearing. Ordinance amending various chapters within title 15 of the Corona Municipal Code and adopting by reference the 2025 California Building Standard Code, California Code of Regulations, Title 24. Does any council member want a staff report on this item? No. Miss Edwards, the city clerk received correspondence on speaker cards from the public regarding this item. Mayor, we did not receive correspondence or speaker cards for this item.

Okay. Thank you. The public hearing is now closed. Any comments or questions from my colleagues? Seeing none, do I have a motion? Move to approve. Second. Vice Mayor and Councilman Richens, please vote. Oh,

we didn't get Wes's vote. Okay. For with council member speak absent. Okay. We're going to move on. I'm going to move a couple things around here and I'm doing it because I want to do the mobile home park first because they've spent the most time in this room for the most amount of years. So, I want to get them up and get them out of here. Get them home to bed. So, does any council member want a staff report on this item? No, Miss Edwards on the speaker cards on this from the public on this item. Mayor, yes, we do have speaker cards for this item and we also have somebody on Zoom for this item.

Okay, let's go with the speakers first and don't let me forget the Zoom. Speakers for agenda item 10.0. Here comes one. Welcome. Thank you, Mayor Steiner and members of the city council. My name is Benjamin Kelly representing MET Manufactured Housing Educational Trust and as a represented representative of the Corona mobile home community owners, uh, MET remains opposed to the proposed rent control ordinance before the council for consideration. Met and other organizations, including Corona Mobile Home Park owners, have submitted lengthy factual documentation opposing the need for the adoption of rent control, which does not support the findings outlined in the proposed ordinance. The ordinance finding findings that state mobile home park owners uh or mobile home parks provide a significant pool of affordable housing for very low uh low and moderate income families, senior citizens, and disabled residents in the city is at best misleading. Mobile home parks make up only 2.2% 2% of the housing stock in the city, including only one senior park. Hardly a significant pool of affordable housing that justifies ultimately spending millions of dollars implementing rent rent control for people who are not income qualified and needing of any uh form of rent subsidy. Furthermore,

mobile home parks are not incomerestricted affordable housing. Lowincome applicants do not qualify to move into mobile home parks and pay market rents. Uh current residents who live in parks qualified uh qualified to move in and in most cases are not in need based on uh any measurable means tested instruments or qualifications. supporting this uh is the fact that there are no mobile home park residents uh receiving section 8 rental assistant and only one family receiving a monthly rent subsidy from the ME rental assistance program. There is no demonstrated need to provide below market rents to all mobile home park owners. If there is need by some, it would be far more appropriate and responsible to be addressed on an incomequalified basis. Those in need receive help. Not everyone who happens to live in a very small uh special interest group who happens to have chosen the mobile mobile home park lifestyle. We urge the council to not adopt rent control, but to refocus on ident identifying if there are truly needy families in the parks

and happy to work with you. Thank you,

Joe Morgan 206. Golly Gosha, thank you for thank you for trying to educate us on how uh how mobile homes work. You guys had these these people had their chance for years years to come up with something to work and they only, you know, really started really seriously whining about it or worrying about it just as of recently, you know, these many years down the road when you guys are putting an agenda or you putting an actual ordinance in place. Um, so you really can't believe anything those guys say. Um, they're been very disingenuous and very dishonest. Um, and you could you could just tell by the the sincerity in that guy's voice as he's reading from the script, you know, explaining to everybody that it's not deed restricted low income. Like pretty much everybody in this room knows what that means. So, we don't really need the patronizing nonsense. Thank you very much.

Welcome.

Hey, good evening. Steve Husner, 777 South Mezcoll Street, Corona Linda, space 123. Um, this wasn't written down, but in God we trust, but 12 years ago, so I do believe God, this is God's will, and I thank all of you for having an open heart and really helping us. Um, I'm a resident of Coronal, and first of all, I want to start by saying thank you. I know I speak on behalf of all my neighbors when I say that the 3% rent increase cap will help us stay in our homes without the worry of whether we will end up on the streets. Um not all of us but some people that's how important it is um in our park that I know. But in addition to being here to thank you, I'm also here to beg you please do not sabotage the rent stabilization ordinance by allowing a fair market increase on the sale of our homes. My home is the only real asset I have. I have invested a lot of money into it uh to keep it livable and I you know I'm not going to list everything I've done but um the park contributes nothing to our place and um yet when I sell my home for every $100 lot rent it increase the $100 lot rent increases lowers my home's resale value by $10,000. So allowing for unspecified fair market rent increase defeats the whole purpose of stabilization. Who decides what is fair in in the increase? It can't be city staff. The RSO already established that fair is 3%. It can't be me. I don't think any increase is fair. So it is the board of realators. The park owner. I claim conflict of interest. The only fair amount of increase at the sale has to be

3% in my opinion. Um, if the fair market is set at 10% within a short time, the city has allowed lot rent to become unaffordable after uh people try to sell their home. If I can't even sell it at that level of increase, this creates instability and an unpredictable real estate market. Please set the allowable increase at the transfer of 3%. Um currently our park um Corona Linda is charging way more than 10%. That's why there's mobile still for sale low lowering the price and these people are you know living week to week and they're they have to keep lowering the value because when new people move in it right now it's way over 10%. So with the 3% at transfer of sale it is a win-win situation. the park owner makes an extra 3% on the rent and the mobile homeowner gets to sell and the person selling the mobile gets to sell their mobile home without taking a big loss. So, my wife asked what I wanted to speak on and I think that's very important. If you could please give us the 3% transfer, I'd appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Hello, my name is Marge Betetti. I didn't expect to speak. However, there is an item on the agenda about rent stabilization for mobile homes that uh hits me deeply. I've been a resident of Corona for 25 years and um after um losing my husband and found a recourse of moving into a mobile home, I've lived in that mobile home for five

years and um have seen my space rent go up $3,000 in that five years. That that is quite a jump. And since I am retired, that's that's not an income that you can go and manufacture quickly. Thank you for your consideration on this. Thank you.

Hi Eugene. Good evening council members and I am Eugene Physique from Green River Village. I have lived there for quite some time. I lost my job at Walmart on a medical leave of 25 years before and then right now I'm growing older and getting wiser and I don't have relatives that can support me on my old age. So, my only income or ability to live in this community, if I can't afford the mobile home prices, then I will end up losing my home to the park management. And it's unfortunate that uh you lived there a long time. And as much as I paid to that park, I could have owned a piece of property as big as your ranches. So in the essence that if you pass this ROS and give them the regular rate of fair market, then I will have a hard time selling my home because maybe they like my home and I gave it a good price, but when they look at the fees that the park owner wants and for the amenities that they offer and then take away from us, it would put me out of business and on the streets and that isn't what I'm looking for. So, I I I hope the city council doesn't fail to pass this and then actually the park

owners end up only taking the only assets I have. So, please don't let us down by showing this loophole to sabotage what often times off otherwise would protect us from park owners predatory tactics. And I thank you again for all your work and efforts for this city council members. Since the past ones, which I stated in comments before of 2015, we've been doing this, but I want to give you recognition for helping us this last year or two. Thank you.

Thanks, Eugene. Hi Don.

Hi folks. Don Full Armor, a resident here. I have a question for the fellow that represented the uh owners association, whatever the name of it is. My question is uh what's your billable hourly rate? I'd be interested to know that. You see, I uh used to work for what at that time was known as the biggest PR firm in the world. and we had a pretty good billable hourly rate. And I spent about 25 years working as an expert witness. I had a pretty good billable hourly rate on that. And I've done a lot of video work, working for video companies, doing training videos. I had a pretty good billable hourly rate for that as well. So, I'm familiar with that. I don't think you're here out of the goodness of your heart. I don't think you're here for free. I think you're getting paid something. And these folks here who are speaking up tonight, these are folks who are having trouble making ends meet. They're having trouble making ends meet. Inflation keeps going up. The price of groceries is going up. The price of beef and everything else is going up and uh medical expenses are being uh subsidies are being cut for the at the federal level. So these folks are having more and more trouble making ends meet and you have the audacity to come in here and give up some facts and figures and stuff like that. I just wonder how much you got paid to do that. One other little thing,

please talk to us and not not the audience. One other little thing. He really could work on his delivery a little bit because it's awfully dry and boring. He needs to kind of pump that up a little bit. So that's all. I just wonder how much he's getting paid to be here because he ain't here for free. Thank you very much. Thanks, Don.

All right. Is there one more speaker?

Good evening.

Good evening. Uh my name is Beatatric Nunes. I've been living in Corona for 20 years. And uh when we first my husband and I moved um out here in 2005, our goal was to purchase a home, but at that time the homes were so high and we ended up live um finding a home in Via Corona Park on Rampal and Magnolia. I just re lived there for 20 years. We just um finished paying our mortgage, which I'm excited about it. But now I'm paying I'm going to be paying uh to put have my home there $1,400 coming this year. For the past three years, they raise my rent $100 each year. And I think it's so sad that I've lived there for 20 years and next thing I know they send me the envelope saying, "Oh, as of January the 1st, you're going to be paying this much more money." I don't get a thank you for being a resident. Thank you for, you know, for living here for 20 years. I love the park. It's a really nice park. And I just think it's so ridiculous the the way that they're raising the rent in our space. $1,400 I'm going to be paying. I could be paying that for a home or something if I would have bought a house 20 years ago. That's just ridiculous. And I really hope that you guys could help us with all this. This is my first time here speaking. I'm a little bit nervous, but I felt like I needed to say something and I'm here representing everybody that's going in this it's in the same situation that you know that I'm in. Thank you very much.

Did a great job for your first time. Beatric, real quick. I have a question. Beatric. Sorry. Real quick has a quick question for you. Real quick. It's um So, you're going to pay $1,400. How much of an increase is that from your previous No, it's going to be 1,400 starting January 1st. That's the increase or that's No, no. $100 increase. Yes. So, $1,400 I'm gonna be paying and I just finished paying my off my home. Congratulations. I paid 20 years and now for me to be paying that much. I wish I could get out of the park, but I can I can I can't afford anything else. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. No other speakers? Nope. Here we go.

Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Alicia Lumis. I'm from Countrywood Estates. What she just said is really, you know, hits home probably for a lot of us. So, she did just finish paying off her mortgage, which is awesome. But the problem with that is that she's probably getting near retirement age at some point and she'll have a fixed income to live on. like a lot of people in my park and that that leaves such a minimal amount of you to buy food, to pay your utilities, um any health care needs. So, all of that is in consideration of what what we're asking and I appreciate so much everything that you guys have done that you're continuing to do, that your minds are open, that you're engaged in this, and just ask that you vote yes. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Hi, Annabelle. Marbel,

there's always confusion. Annabelle, Marbel. Hi, everyone. Uh, Marbel Nunes with the land power tening union and IECT and here supporting the mobile home park residents for this item. Just wanted to reiterate um to keep the the rent cap for 3% uh you know ditto to everything people have said making sure we have clear definitions uh and se uh looking at the differences of capital improvements and passroughs. I know that's something we're working really hard in the city of Hoopa Valley um to separate the the bill uh because a lot of it could be inserted within the rent. So I don't know if I saw too much of it in the ordinance. So, I really encourage to have conversations with Hoopa Valley as well. And then in regards to the rent increases, you know, um I know some of the parks or residents that live in the different parks had mentioned that they usually just get a once a year rent increases. So, I think majority of the parks residents are homeowners are okay. But as we're looking at this transitional phase, April 2nd to June 30th, I wonder if there's any way to kind of do um u a moratorum on rent increases just to make sure because I think we are we know there's some good actors on mobile home park owners, but then there's not some good actors. Um so if there's a a way to explore the idea of a rent increase moratorum through through this transition so that we don't have um exuberant uh rent increases as we're getting and phasing in into this um rent increase. And in regards to the gentleman that spoke about the that's from Met that talked about the rent increases. I kept looking at it and it's there's a lot of requirements to qualify for their their MET rent incre you know rental assistance. You have to be like 50% AMI to qualify. Uh either be 62

years or older, have a family of two or have someone in disability. You have to be 40% housing cost burden. It goes further than HUD. HUD for you to get section 8 you know you have to get 30 you have to be 30% of your you know uh housing cost burden so they go beyond what HUD is asking so it's a it's a very high criteria and maybe that's why there's only one person I guess he was saying that qualified so I think that's why we need the rent increase to to open it up for more people to to be able to uh to to continue affording um living in these mobile home parks and so and they're very beautiful but um so yeah we're all about, you know, um equity and fairness for seniors, low-income families. We're hearing about ICE rates. So, I think more than ever, we need to keep costs down. Uh whether you have papers or not, as you all know, whether they can register to vote or not, they contribute in our communities, they pay a sales tax, they participate in the community. Uh so, they contribute a lot to the city, and so let's help all communities. Thanks so much.

Yeah. Welcome back, Maddie.

Give you a head start that there's going to be a third time you get to see me tonight. Um, I just wanted to say a big time thank you because this has been in the works for a while and I know a lot of effort has been put into it on so many people's parts and the biggest thing is you finally heard you finally realize that this is a big issue for a lot of us and as I've said in the past yeah I used to live in the big house and I get it things happen and I am fortunate that I live in Villa Corona which is definitely the nicest park And something I've taken for granted is that I did s I did sign a long-term lease. So when I discuss talking about it only being 3% and then every 5 years they raise it by 10% that that doesn't apply to a lot of people. So please understand that. Um, the thing that I need to make sure is that there's no way that this that they can do something sneaky, the park owners can do something sneaky and do a rent increase before this goes into effect and then turn around and do it again. I just want to make sure that is in there. The second thing is um retribution. I don't know about some of these park owners if there's going to be the ones that have spoken out against it. if there's going to be something where they require extra um things to be done to their homes or some some way of making it difficult for people to live there. Bless you, Council Member Wes. Um the um and I am one of those people living on a fixed income and what the gentleman said isn't really true because we don't take into account that it's just rent that increases. Everything increases. So, it really is a burden. I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to get a job to be able to support just a basic standard living and you know at my age which is old it's kind of hard to do. I don't know that I have the stamina. And

the last thing that I just want to mention um as I've seen done been part of in Riverside is just rem a reminder that this is might be hopefully the first cut and that we do get the opportunity once it goes gets implemented that um we might have the capabilities if we see how it goes that we still have that capability to do revisions. Again I can't thank you all and I know I shouldn't be talking to somebody in the audience but I will. Miss Roer, I can't possibly leave her out of this, so sorry about that. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you. Happy birthday, Maddie.

Welcome, Lydia.

Hi, guys. Lydia Hisner from Carella Linda. As usual, I'm advocate for all the residents of mobile all most residents of mobile homes. Um, my heart is very grateful for every one of you, especially Jackie. I really appreciate all that you have done for us and all of you for for supporting us and listen to us and meet with us through the years of this fight. Um, we I did send an email to every one of you and um, Jackie was the only one that respond, but I'm assuming that every one of you have the time. And if you haven't, please take the time to read it because there are some loopholes on on the um RSO right now that will really affect a lot of our residents. Um and um like I mentioned before, you know, I'm here to fight for those that cannot. Um I'm here to be the voice for those that are not able to be here for many reasons. Um but the need is real is there is vital and um a lot of residents at a high risk of losing their homes. We have lost a lot of residents through the years ever since we started this fight because of no rent control. So um again my heart is very grateful and I wish um the best of these holidays and all these big issues that our city is going through. My heart grieves for those people and I didn't realize you know I'm Latina. I need to be careful and I I didn't realize how bad it is cuz you know I been here for so many years and my I'm a US citizen so I don't have nothing to worry about. But now that I hear all these things, it's

like it's very scary. And I hope that we as corona community can come together to put something together to help our community to be safe and to have peace again and to be a happy community. I've been here in this city for over 20 years. I've been at my home for over almost 25 years and I really looking forward to for you guys to consider our concerns. Um and um we're trying to be fair. I don't know if you have noticed that but we're trying to be fair. We understand the business is out there to make business but um you know the greed is just too much and it will be more if you guys don't stop it. And I really looking forward to see that you guys give us a rent moratorum um because April 1 is still several months before that comes in effect and we might be affected by some of these predators. Thank you for letting me share.

Thank you.

All right, seeing no other speakers, mayor. Yeah. Oh, we have a Zoom. Thank you for not letting me forget for this item. We also received two emails for written comment in opposition of the item and the council received copies of those emails and they'll also be part of the record. And we have two people on Zoom for this. Okay, let's hear from them. You are muted. The host would like you to unmute your microphone. You can press star six to unmute. Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? You are unmuted. Hello. Oh, hello. Yeah, I got you. Go ahead.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Hi, it's Julie with the WMA. I wanted to make one clarification before I get into my comments. Um, there was an allegation at the last meeting that the uh park owner at Green River scheduled a meeting at the same time as the council meeting and that didn't happen. the gentleman that was attending the council meeting ran the resident meeting earlier, so they weren't at the same time. So, I just wanted to make that clarification. Um, we understand the goal of supporting residents in Corona's mobile home parks, but the approach taken in this ordinance creates serious unintended consequences that will ultimately harm the very people it aims to help. The ordinance sets an artificially low cap on rent increases that cannot keep up with the pace of inflation. Every year this falls below inflation. Um it reduces the park owner's ability to maintain and improve their communities. Over time this leads to deterioration closures for sales or steep special rent increases none of which benefit residents or the city. The requirement that residents must approve capital improvement passroughs is equally unworkable. In rent controlled environments, residents al almost never vote for increases on themselves even for essential safety and infrastructure projects. This guarantees that guarantees deferred maintenance and declining conditions affecting both the parks and the surrounding neighborhoods. The 36-page ordinance will also push out your mom and pop owners who have served Corona for decades. They will be overwhelmed by the regulatory burden and risk that is now corona. That is not how corona traditionally treats long-standing local businesses. Finally, uh your own business and housing leaders, the chamber of builders, realtors, and apartment owners are united in opposition. Um and this should tell you that uh tell you something important that Corona had alternatives, but this ordinance is not the right one. So for these reasons, we respectfully

urge you to reject the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Paulie. Got one more.

Hello.

Good evening, council members. Yes, my name is Veronica Garcia and I serve as the housing practice group director at Inland County's Legal Services. We provide free legal services to incomequalified residents of both Riverside and San Bernardino counties. And I just want to be clear that I'm not here to advocate for or against the ordinance tonight. My purpose is to simply share some information and observations from families and individuals we serve, especially here in Corona. And over the last three years, ICLS has assisted nearly 550 households in Corona with specifically landlord tenant issues ranging from notice to vacate, habitability concerns, rent increases, and the risk of displacement. And a significant portion of those households include seniors on fixed incomes, individuals with disabilities, multi-generational house households, and of course, mobile home residents who are some of the most vulnerable to this housing instability. And across our case load, we see some of the same repeating themes. Um, tenants who are unsure about what different notices mean, particularly in mobile homes, whether or not they did something wrong, how much time they have, and whether or not it's a no fault or at fault situation. And these are consistent issues and the confusion around notice rules or coverage can escalate conflicts that might otherwise be avoided. And we found that clarity, whatever the rule may be, can reduce conflict and misunderstandings, and the goal would be for notices to be easier to follow, fewer misunderstandings that require escalation into legal action. And it brings residents to better outcomes when they have to transition to new housing, and will allow property owners more confidence that they're complying with the laws. And I think this is true regardless of any specific details of the ordinance. Um, but we do see that certain types of protection, such as those that apply across all rental units

and include mobile home parks, can make the rules easier to follow and for the community to understand. Um, in many communities, we also see the importance of relocation assistance, especially in no fault situations. Um, the cost of securing new housing right now is unattainable for most families. And with the first month, security deposit, moving expenses, it goes far beyond what seniors and families on fixed incomes can afford. And I hope that's something that's taken in consideration when you weigh in the pros and cons of this ordinance. And in our experience, amounts minimum of two and a half times the rent provide a more realistic buffer that will help to prevent homelessness and allow some stability. Finally, across Milan Empire, we have seen an increase in homes and mobile home parks purchased by investment groups or equity based owners. And many of the long-term residents have received no fault notices, moving out, and then they watch the home remain vacant for months while it's renovated for resale. And this can be extremely destabilizing and create a lot of confusion again for any of those long-term residents and particularly seniors. So when we look at local housing rules, we hope that they're clear, easy to explain to clients, and hopefully will result in fewer emergency moves, fewer last minute crisis.

Thank you, Miss Garcia. Okay, no other nobody else on Zoom. Mayor, we have one more person on Zoom for this item. All right, let's hear it. Hello, mayor. Members of the council. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

Good. Uh Vicky Tally for the manufactured housing trust, mayor, members of the city council, just to clarify things you've heard this evening. mobile home park residents, particularly long-term residents who own their homes free and clear are not at risk of losing the uh losing uh their home. They own a very valuable asset. Mobile homes in the city in the city's mobile home parks have increased well over uh 70 180% 50 180% as an example. a home sold in um 1990. Mobile homes sold in a park for 45,000 in 21. It resold in 23 for 125,000. Additionally, mobile home park owners have been incredibly generous in providing rent subsidies to any needy residents in their community. And that's why we encourage you to provide needbased assistance rather than blanket assistance. You even had speakers come before you this evening that said, "No, they don't need the help. It's everybody else they're worried about." At any rate, it's important to also recognize that mobile home parks have owner occupied mobile homes in them. No outside investors come in and buy up those homes and lease them. That just doesn't happen in the mobile home park industry. The mobile home parks industry provides incredible resources including free legal counsel and any other for anyone in a mobile home park complaining about any issues. So I think that I will reiterate what my colleague Benjamin Kelly we tried to reiterate earlier. We oppose the proposed rent

control ordinance. We support needbased assistance and I note that you do that in your tenant-based rental assistance pro program that that the uh organization providing that um thank you for. So I know you're familiar with that type of a of a need-based program. We urge you to re-evaluate that and not cost the citizens of Corona millions of dollars to administer a program. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else uh trying to chime in? Sylvia mayor, we do not have anybody else on Zoom.

All right. Thank God. All right. Um any questions or comments from my colleagues? Jackie. Yes. Yeah. First I I uh have a couple of questions. Um, and maybe the team can can help me out here. There was a question about the rent increase, like the timeline, the before April and the after. Um, can can we talk about how the timeline of the policy implementation and what will be allowed before and what can be allowed after? Please. Um, sorry. Sure. I should direct that to you. That's okay. Sorry.

Um, we can address that. So, somebody asked for a moratorum. The rent control ordinance is essentially a moratorum. So there's nothing in between now and the day it becomes effective uh in the beginning of January because it takes two readings and then 30 days for it to become effective. There's nothing that we can adopt to further restrict rent control or rent increases between now and then. The other thing to keep in mind is they can't if they do adopt one, if they send out a notice now, I believe it's a 90-day notice they have to give before a rent increase goes into effect. If they do that, they won't be able to then do another CPI rent increase under our ordinance for another 12 months after that. So, it's not as though they can get they can sneak one in right now and then do another one soon as the ordinance goes into place.

That's helpful for folks to hear. That probably lowers um the trepidation. I appreciate that. Can you also speak to the cost of the program? We heard millions of dollars. Is it going to cost us millions of dollars to implement this that one? I think I will turn over to Karen uh who will be her uh department will be administering it, but I I'm it's safe to say that millions of dollars is a bit of an exaggeration if you can imagine. And I I and while she's coming up, um I I did want to know there was a comment about passroughs that all passroughs had to be voted on and that's not that's not what we agreed to. So I want to make sure that's you can clarify who or from you if Dominique does either one. Hello Dominique.

Good evening. Um so to answer the first question about the cost um it's not going to be millions of dollars. I mean, unless you're talking about hundreds of years potentially. Um, but if we're talking about on a on a year basis, most of the costs are going to be covered through fees that are administered to that'll be collected from the park owners and the homeowners. So, it'll it will not be 100% revenue neutral, but it will be very close is the intent. And then the second question about passroughs, can you remind me of what the question once Oh, yours was. Yeah.

Yeah. it was that uh and I think it was somebody on the on the Zoom call had mentioned that all passroughs would be have to be voted upon and that was only for for new amenities versus Okay. Right. Um yes, thank you. So I think the issue there is about the capital improvement rent increases. So we said that there will have to be a vote of homeowners for new capital improvements. So, if a park is adding an amenity that did not exist in the park before, then they have to pull the homeowners if their intent is then to pass through the cost to the homeowners. But if they're just trying to um rehabilitate something that already exists, a homeowner vote is not required.

It's also important to point out that a capital improvement and somebody asked for definitions. I believe we have 40 plus definitions in this. So, I think we've more than we've overdefined things for sake of clarity. And one of the largest definitions is what is a capital improvement? And it's important to remember that a capital improvement doesn't include their standard maintenance and repair. So if they're letting it become uh deteriorated, it's because they're not uh they're not doing proper maintenance and and repair and that's not subject to the capital improvement.

One more question, Mr. Derlith. Um like all ordinances once if this is voted on in pass can revisions be made in the future? Always. Thank you. Any other questions? And those are the it for questions. I just have some comments but I don't know what order you want to take them in.

Why don't you take over with your comments since you're already talking? Well, I just want to say, you know, that the goal from the onset was always to build the Corona specific policy um that provides protections for residents who have been asking for assistance since before any of us were on city council. Um this has been a really long process. It took an entire year to research and establish the foundation that Corona had the uh right to essentially the grounds to pursue rent stabilization. And then it took another year on top of that. Um that you know included an ad hoc committee with myself and council member Speak, it included numerous workshops with both mobile home owners and mobile park owners and their representatives. And ultimately, um, while I understand that not anyone can say that they got 100% of what they wanted, I'm really proud of the balance that we struck because we really wanted to have again a corona specific policy that kept the cost down, allowed for this program to be managed inhouse because there makes no sense to pencil res stabilization that then um increases your monthly fees. Um, I'm proud of the 3% cap and I'm just proud of this ordinance and again if we see it in practice and there's a huge uh issues um those can be addressed in the future. Um so I'm I'm in support of of this ordinance and I appreciate all the work that has gone into it. Thank you.

Any other comments? Would you like to make the motion? Yes. With honor, I move to approve. A second. Jackie and Tom, please vote. Uh, mayor, if you don't mind, we do have an ordinance, so we have to read the proudly. Oh, there it is. You're right. Mhm. You got it, Jackie. Um, where's the word? It is. Uh, right here. Okay, got it.

Oh, it's actually quite short. Introduced by title only and wave full reading for consideration of ordinance number 3422, first reading of an ordinance adding chapter 5.47 47 to title 8 of the Corona municipal code establishing mobile home park rent stabilization provisions. Thank you. And is everybody voted? Passes 41. Council member speak opposing. Okay, we're going to um knock out 9.2 real quick then we'll get to the big one. Um pickle ball at El Crito Park options update. Miss Fch, community service director will present this item.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. I'm here tonight with an update on the pickle ball at Elserto um park project. And our ask of the council tonight is that you provide direction on your preferred option for CIP um FC 202605, which is the pickle ball facility at Elserto Park. So, um just to go over some of the background, a lot of this information is um kind of just similar to refresh your memory on what we had presented back when this item first came to council in August. So, as you may recall during that presentation, we talked about the growth in pickle ball that has um been occurring over the last mainly the last five years that we've noticed here in the city. Um overall, pickle ball right now is up 43% in usage uh from between 23 and 24 and then over 300% in the three years prior to that. In our park and wreck master plan, it was identified as one of the top four key outdoor features that residents would like to see in the community. Um, with the others being splash pads, dog parks, and pump tracks. Our parking McMaster plan calls for a total of 23 pickle ball courts throughout the city to meet our level of service guidelines, which is one for every 7,300 residents. Currently, we have 17 pickle ball courts. um 12 of those are dedicated to pickle ball only and an additional five are multi-use courts. Um so that leaves about six courts that we would need in order to meet that threshold of 23. Uh here's some additional background on tennis. Demand for tennis is also growing. It's up 8% according to USA data. Our park and rec master plan calls for 18 tennis courts in the city and we are there right now with 19 courts. Those are located at seven park sites um throughout the city which achieves our desired level of service guidelines. The location for these tennis courts are at Elserto Park. We have two there. We have three at Eagle Glenn Park. um an

additional four tennis courts at Mountaingate Park, four more at Kellogg Park, two at Mangular Park, three I'm sorry, two at at Prominade Park, and two at Auburnale Park, which are in the process of being um rehabilitated with a uh CIP project that we have at that site. Now, um just as a reminder, the courts that are at Eagle Glenn Park are approximately 1.8 miles away from the um proposed project site, which is Elserto Park. And then this just gives an overview of where our pickle ball courts are located in relation to the tennis courts. So, uh, to give a background on this project as a whole, um, as you know, we proposed new pickle ball courts at Elserto Park in the FY26 CIP budget. Um, this project involved replacing two tennis courts with pickleball courts and building four new courts um, at the vacant site across from the tennis courts um, which would give a total of 12 courts. and the project cost was 1.1 million roughly. Uh in June of 2025, during budget adop adoption, the city council voted to pause this project. Um in July of 25, the council, council member Richens asked to reconsider the project. So it was brought back to council on August 6 for reconsideration. The original alternatives that were presented at that August 6 meeting include um option one, which we have before you, which is to do nothing, leave Elserto Park as is. Um option 2 A, which is to convert only one of the tennis courts at El Certo to pickle ball courts. That would give a net of um four new pickle ball courts, but a net loss of one tennis court. Option 2B, it would be to convert both tennis courts at Elserto to pickle ball, which would have a net court of eight uh pickle ball courts, but minus two tennis courts. Option three is to convert just the vacant parcel across from the tennis courts to pickle ball, which would give

a net gain of four pickleball courts and no net loss to tennis courts. Um, option four is the original CIP as I discussed earlier in the presentation. And then option five, which was the recommended option, which we called the compromise, which is to add eight pickleball courts to Elserto Park, but retain one of the tennis courts and bring one tennis court back to Border Park. This would have a net gain of six pickle ball courts and um no net loss of tennis courts. This is an overall um summary of all of those options with the pros and cons. Sorry, let me go back to that. With the pros and cons as well as the cost of each project. Um the pros and cons vary based on each project, but overall the pros um for the options with the tennis court version is the cost. Um tennis court conversion is the cost. This is more economical to convert tennis courts to pickle ball courts um than it is to construct new courts on vacant land. The cons are that these conversion options um would remove one or more tennis courts from Elserto Park. And of course, all of these projects are um either within the budget or close to the budget of 1.1 million for the CIP. So the feedback um that was received during that meeting, this is just a recap. Um there were differ different views provided both in support and opposition of the proposed projects from the tennis and pickle ball communities. Um the council also expressed varying levels of interest for options three, four, and five. And at the end of the meeting, the council asked us to go back and um continue to pause the project, evaluate the impact of new the new pickle ball courts that were constructed at the Eagle Glenn Golf Club, identify any alternative options for the project, which include utilizing the space in the northwest corner of Elserto Park and returning um Border Park back to tennis courts. So, uh, for one of the items that the council asked us to look at, which was the impact of the Eagle Glenn Golf Club,

um, new pickleball courts, we did have staff go out and evaluate the activity at the border pickleball courts. Um, just to give a little refresh of this project, back in September of 2025, Eagle Glenn Golf Club um, opened 17 new pickleball courts at their site. This is a pay-to-play site. Um, so it's not free courts, but they are 17 brand new courts that are over there for the pickle ball community to utilize. We did have staff go out and do actual player counts um at Border both in July prior to the opening of the Eagle Glenn courts and again in October after the courts opened. Um staff went out for three weeks in July and measured uh participation on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings and then they went out again for another three weeks in October um to measure participation and actually we found that participation in October had actually increased. So there was no reduction in activity at border. Um the average players for Saturday went from 55 players on Saturdays at 9:00 am in July to 64 players um in October and on Wednesdays it went from 59 players in um July to 62 players in October. So for the new options again council asked us to evaluate some new options. Um before I get into what those options are, I just wanted to provide an overview of the Elserto Park site because the options that I'm going to be discussing um do look at uh varying levels of activity at each of these areas that are highlighted on this slide. So, um area number one is the northwest corner of the park. Area two is the potential additional parking site. Area three is where the existing tennis courts are at Elserto Park. Area four is the vacant parcel. And area five is where the current basketball courts are. So our new option number six would be to construct 12 new pickleball courts at the Elserto Park tennis courts and

vacant parcel which was the original site for the proposed project for the CIPs which gives which gives 12 courts there and converting six pickle ball courts at Border Park back to two tennis courts um which is what the site originally was. It was two tennis courts here. There is an option for where those remaining four pickle ball courts are at Border Park um to retain those courts, those four pickle ball courts, or to convert that back to ba basketball, which is what it originally was before it was pickle ball courts. Um this option would provide a net gain of two to six pickle ball courts depending on what the council decides with that um area where the basketball courts were previously located and a net um there was no net loss to tennis courts. would be just basically moving those tennis courts from Elserto Park over back to Border Park. The new option number seven is to construct the 12 new pickleball courts um at the original project site, which is the tennis courts at Elserto and the vacant parcel across from it. Um this would also entail relocating those two tennis courts to the northwest corner of Elserto Park. So there would still be tennis at Elserto Park. It would just be in a different section of the park. And because this would add a new amenity to that park, an an additional amenity, um there is a a option here to add additional parking, which we believe could provide up to 50 additional parking spaces. Um over in the northeast corner of the park, this option would give a net gain of 12 pickleball courts and um no no net impact to the tennis courts. New option eight is to construct 11 new pickle ball courts on the vacant parcel at Elserto Park and the adjacent basketball courts. Um because we would be constructing pickle ball over the basketball courts, it would be proposed to move those basketball courts up to that northwest corner of the park. Um

and then construct that additional parking because again there would be an additional amenity added to that park. This would have a net gain of 11 pickle ball courts and no net impact to the number of tennis courts. Option nine is um taking Elserto Park off the table altogether and looking to Butterfield Park. Um Butterfield was selected because our park and rec master plan um requires that pickle ball courts or recommends that pickle ball courts be constructed a minimum of 350 ft from homes or ideally 500 ft from homes. We do not have any park sites in the city other than Elserto and Butterfield that provide that distance from homes. So, um Butterfield was proposed as another location for pickleball that meets those those distance requirements from residential areas. This option would give um a net gain of 10 pickle ball courts and it would have no impact to the number of tennis courts in the city. So this slide here just gives a um overview of the pros and cons and the costs for each of these options. Um just to go over this briefly for option six which is to construct the 12 pickleball courts at Elserto and then convert border back to two tennis courts. Um the the pros for this is that this is the closest to the budget um due to the conversion of the tennis courts. The estimated cost is about 1.2 million. Um, Elserto is the preferred location for pickle ball by the pickle ball community. It maintains the current number of tennis courts in the city and it alleviates the pickle ball impacts on the border neighborhood. Cons are that there could be some potential impacts to parking at Elserto Park. Um, it's a heavily used park and adding a a popular amenity like this could impact the parking there and it also removes the tennis courts from Elserto Park. Options seven and eight have um very similar pros and cons for both of those. Um costs for both of these are significantly higher due to the

construction of the uh parking area that is part of these two options. But the pros for these are that the conversion um of tennis courts for option seven would save a little bit of money over option eight. Um both options provide the preferred location for pickle ball for the pickleball community and it m they maintain the current number of tennis courts and keeps the tennis courts at Elserto Park. Um cons are that it adds another use to a very highly programmed park and there could be impacts for that. Sorry, let me go back. And then option nine um is the butterfield option. Again cost for this is above budget. We have 2.3 million just over that estimated at the project costs. Um pros for this option is that it does not impact any other park uses. So um going to Butterfield, we do have the space to be able to build pickle ball there without impacting any other amenities at the park. Um it maintains the current number of tennis courts in the city keeps the tennis courts that we have at Elserto Park and Butterfield provides that distance from the homes which I discussed earlier. Cons are that this is not the preferred location for pickle ball by the pickle ball community. Um they have expressed dissatisfaction with the site. So this slide here just gives an overall um comparison of the costs for each of these projects. Um going through options one through five which were presented at the August 6th meeting. As you can see the costs for these are much lower because they all involve conversions of existing courts. Um, when we get to option six, again, that one is is within the range of the budget, but options seven and eight are significantly higher. We have the breakdown here of the actual court construction costs as well as the parking costs. Parking being um more than half of the total project costs. And then Butterfield again is higher than the budget at 2.3 million. And then this slide just shows the

overall um cost per court comparison. Again, when you convert the existing courts to pickle ball, we do have a significant savings there. The options that have the higher cost per court are areas where it is uh proposed to construct courts on vacant land. So, if council were to consider any of the new options presented tonight, options six through nine, there is a funding gap for each of these. Again, option six is the closest to the budget with just over a $100,000 funding gap. Uh, but when you get into option seven or eight, that gap gets significantly larger. Option seven having over 2.8 million in funding gap and option I'm sorry, option 7 2.8 million and option eight 2.9 million. The gap does drop a little bit for option nine, but it is still at uh just over 1.2 million. So, if the council were to consider those options, um we do have some potential projects that we would ask for some direction on to be able to potentially reallocate those fundings or that funding. Um these projects are listed here. Uh it includes the Auburnale Park amenities improvement project which we have 1.5 million currently budgeted for that. Uh the improvements at Prominade Park are just over a million dollars budgeted. We have several park playground replacements um that are budgeted at 850,000. River Road Park improvements at 550,000. Prominade Park field lighting at 475 and park shade installations at just over 400,000. So, uh, again, this is the presentation with the updates. Our ask is that the council provides direction on this project.

Thank you, Miss Vance. Miss Edwards, any speaker cards from the public on this? Mayor, yes, we have five speaker cards for this item. Okay, come on down, Joe.

That just straight up rude. I can't believe you you'd do this. I mean, these people you you could sit there, the last pickle ball discussion took two, three hours. You got nine alternatives up there about pickle ball. No, nobody gives a about pickle ball. These people are here. They brought everybody together and waited. I can't wait for something that's been up here for 10 years. But you could put this in order and handle it with a respect. This is the just the example of the disrespect and dismissive nature of this city. This is a consequential issue. You want to take these people's property and take these people's livelihood and then you kick it to after some nonsense about pickle ball. Nobody gives a about pickle ball. I would say Joe that you are absolutely wrong because we had two hours of public comment from pickle ball and tennis community last time and they've been coming and coming and coming and they've been working hard behind the scenes. So, yeah, I thought and I knew it would be quicker tonight. Sir, go ahead.

All right. I'm talking about livelihood. Um, hello council and mayor. My name is Antonio Naya. I live directly next to the Border Park pickle ball courts. I want to be very clear. This has been an ongoing issue for over a year. I've sent multiple videos and recordings during this time, including one recently I sent to each one of you showing the constant yelling, the non-stop popping of the pickle ball paddles, and the crowds parking all over our homes. This isn't occasional. This is a every single day occurrence. Our neighborhood has been patient. I personally reached out many times hoping something would improve. But honestly, nothing has changed on our end. The noise still hits our walls. We still lose parking to non-residents. and the disturbances start early and run all day like you said 9 in the morning and now the city is building more pickle ball courts in other areas but this one hasn't been relocated. Pickle ball is growing fast and that's fine but it was a mistake to put a hightraic high noise sport right inside a quiet residential neighborhood full of people who work all day and deserve peace when they come home. Tennis never created anything like this. Pickle ball is loud non-stop and draws large group groups. It simply doesn't belong in the middle of homes. We're not asking for anything unreasonable. We're asking for balance and relief. Please prioritize relo relocating these courts or enforcing real limits so our homes are actual lives are disturbed every day. I sent you guys lots of videos. I'm at home literally like right here and all I hear is just paddle boards all day long. I live directly behind it. You guys are talking about making distance of making new courts or whatever. Why didn't you guys uh do that with this court? We live in a really really crowded neighborhood. There's a school. There's parks. We don't need non-residents coming into our area and taking over our parking, taking over our homes, yelling.

I want to go home and relax after a long day of work, not come here. But it looks like this ain't going to be my last meeting. Thank you. Thank you for sending that video, too, by the way. I appreciate it. Good evening.

I'm I don't have much of a voice, but um my name is Alice Wagner. I've been a resident of Corona since the mid60s, so I've been around a while, and I'm one of the dreaded pickle ball people. I after hearing all of the serious things you deal with, I know pickle ball is very low on the totem pole, but it brings a lot of joy and social interaction to people of all ages. I empathize with the gentlemen from the neighborhood and that's why we're trying to find a more rational site for pickle ball. Uh, I also want to say Larry Buril, our Corona Pickle Ball ambassador, was unable to be here tonight, but wishes he could have been. Um, and that's all I'll say. Now, I'm going to try to talk really fast. After considerable time, energy, and money were put into developing a parks and wreck master plan some two plus years ago, we're finally moving forward on pickle ball facility for Corona citizens. The options being considered include Butterfield Park. Due to frequent windy conditions there, it's not conducive to daily pickle ball play. It would be money and effort wasted to build pickle ball courts there. All other options proposed involve repurposing tennis or basketball courts at Elserto Park, which adds to the cost of replacing those courts elsewhere in the city. 18 P tennis courts are apparently in our uh our city. But let's see what those look like. Photo one shows a court at Mountain Gate, perhaps our busiest tennis site. It has looked like this for years and is just plain embarrassing. Photo two is a court at Auburnale Park. Those courts aren't suitable to walk on, much less

play tennis on. Finally, photo three is Mangular Park. Is this what we consider adequate playing conditions? No wonder the tennis players are concerned. What they have now isn't great, and they certainly don't want to lose any decent courts. Have all possible sites in Elserto Park been considered? Are there other options besides tennis or basketball courts? The heavy use of this park for soccer and football creates a very crowded venue and a parking nightmare. With or without the addition of pickle ball in this park, these overcrowding and parking issues need to be addressed. Please slow down and consider all possible option options for the master plan's pickle ball facility before before voting on options that are only repurposing tennis or basketball courts. Thank you.

Thanks, Alice.

My name is Mike Wagner. I've been a Corona resident since 1961. Seen a lot of changes and we're undoubtedly going to see more. I would like to first off uh thank Donna and Moses and their staff, all the work they've put in, the research they've done. Uh they've done a great job putting up some options as to what we might or might not be able to do. Secondly, I would like to disagree with the gentleman who said there's just no one that gives a about pickle ball. There are a good number of people in this town that give a about pickle ball and that's why the other gentleman was complaining about all the noise. There's a lot of us and it is a noisy game. Um, as you heard from the proposal tonight and its various options, I want you to please keep in mind a couple of things. First of all, no one is looking to take amenities from one group to give them to another. Most of the options you saw tonight involve repurposing tennis courts to pickle ball courts in one manner or another. Several possible combinations were shown. If tennis courts are converted to pickle ball courts, there will likely be new tennis courts built to replace the lost ones. That means more cost to the city. This can triple the cost of the project. not a fair reflection on the pickle ball community, nor fair to tax players. We are the fastest growing sport in America and we deserve our sports amenities just like all other groups. What about a different approach? One that is not included in tonight's proposal. Rather than concentrate on only court space, let's look at any possible open space. If the undersized soccer field at Elserto were to be repurposed as a pickle ball site, several advan advantages may arise.

Replacement tennis courts are no longer needed. No demo is needed. Minimal grading at the site because it's already flat. Minimal electrical work as stadium lighting already exists. There's room for 12 to 14 courts and 30 more parking spaces in a heavily impacted park. No tennis courts were taken. But wait, did we just steal a soccer field? No, we repurposed an open space to create the pickle ball complex the PRMP says we should have. The soccer and football programs can simply modify their schedules and move those games or practices from this field at uh Elserto any of any number of Corona's other parks. Many of them have days of little or no use. Some lights are turned off while Elserto Park is busting at the seams. This can be done without losing facilities. Simply make better use of what is out there. Pickle ball wins, tennis wins, soccer and football play on. Isn't this worth a look? Can we maybe wait one month and have this option checked out? We all deserve that.

Thanks, Mark. Thank you.

Welcome.

Hello. Thanks. Um, got a resident of Corona. I have kids that play tennis. Um, I play tennis. uh we you know it's limit there's limited resources to go out there and play tennis and you know we go where we can to find courts and um so I go to lots of different courts and then we try to get in there and play and one thing you guys not considering is a tennis court can be overrun by pickle ball players and you could fit maybe four times the amount of pickle ball players in a tennis area but it only takes like two or three people that want to play pickle ball to take up the entire face because there are tennis courts and I can I could play, you know, pickle ball where there's tennis, but I can't go and play tennis where there's pickle ball. So, we need to error more on tennis court sides. Think about what's going on here. I mean, this is think think about the games it's playing. Think about that dynamics. I mean, I don't think these studies are working out too well. They're not really like empirical. People don't know what's going on there. So, so many times I want to go play tennis, big old giant area that could support 12 pickle ball players and there's two pickle ball players taking up that entire space because they can play tennis and they can play pickle ball on a tennis space and they're always doing it. And so if you're going to make pickle ball courts, put them right next to the tennis courts. That way when I go to play tennis and there's people on the pickle in the tennis courts, say, "Hey, there's pickle ball right there." So it's a little bit more obvious. you know, don't overrun and take up 10 times the space you need. So, I don't have any space. You know, they need to think about different options. And then I think the pickle ball court should be right next to tennis courts. So, you can say, "Hey, don't take out my court. Go right there cuz it's right there." So, it's a little bit more obvious. It's It's really a pain in the butt. I mean, it's really rude for somebody to come play and it says on the signs tennis shoes only. Nobody listens to that. Nobody. So, that that's just my piece.

Thank Thanks for letting me talk. Thank you. Hey, Sylvia. I thought you said there's only five speakers. Hello again,

Lydia again. Um, I'm a pickle ball player and I play a border and I'm a very happy senior and I really really wish and pray and hope that you guys don't take away your border uh courts. Um I think that um corona seniors have the right to be happy and to feel young again. I do. Um due to fibromyalgia, I have a lot of physical limitations, believe it or not. And people sees me and they don't know. But God and I know how hard it is for me to move, especially in winter. Cold is my enemy. And um I really enjoy playing at border. I'm there three times a week and you know I can understand what the gentleman was saying. Um I'm there at 8:00 in the morning and we wait for 8:00 so then you know we don't disturb the neighbors. But I think that there's a good option. Um I heard about uh no sound peop balls or something like that. So maybe we can do that. You know, I I heard it before and um I haven't done any research on it, but let's let's let our seniors in Corona be happy and feel young again. Um you know, I never heard of this ever. And now that I have the opportunity or that most of seniors or people retire with disabilities have the opportunity to enjoy life and to enjoy our elderly years. Um I think it's something to consider. Um there's a you know a crowd that that are

younger than us. But then you know the point is I don't want to lose my pickle ball cords. I really don't and if there's a solution um I would like to be part of it. Um thank you. Thanks Lydia. Hello.

Hi. Good evening. Um my name is Mike Munoz. Um just to give you some uh context here before I I get in if you indulge me for a minute. Um my parents moved to Corona in 1973. So I've I've been a product of Corona and um in 1977 my parents started CYTL Corona Youth Tennis League. It changed into Corona Youth Tennis Foundation uh simply for the reason why I didn't have anybody to play tennis with back in back then when I started playing tennis. And so they started that league so that I would have someone to play tennis with. And that league has since grown. I think now in 2020 it it kind of went away and it was at Kellogg Park. Um the other thing I want to let you know is that um I am a product of Corona School District. I'm a product of these tennis courts and something that hasn't been brought up tonight is that there's actually been a net loss of tennis courts in this city. Um Border Park because I actually used to practice my serve on those courts. Those were tennis courts originally. They went over to pickle ball, which I'm all for, by the way. And by the way, I love both sports um quite a bit. And I do believe that um Mr. Wagner spoke earlier and quite eloquently, I might add, about solutions. So, I'm I'm really happy to see that I think there's a middle ground to be had here. I think that we can make both communities quite happy. But I am approaching this from a different standpoint in that um I'm also the head coach at Santiago High School and I have seen hundreds and hundreds of kids that come through my program and uh Corona tennis as a whole, not just Santiago but Corona High School has had a CIF championship. Um the various schools within our area have gone to CIF quarterfinals year after year after year and that's not in a vacuum. That's

because um we have places like Elsto Park. You know what I'm advocating for this evening is keep the two courts. Um if you want to move them within Elrio, fine. But our Santiago players, many Corona players, what they'll do is they'll warm up on those courts and then head off to Orange County and head off to these tournaments. And they're representing Corona. They're representing all of us. And a lot of these young tennis players, they will someday convert to pickle ball at some point. I play both sports. Um, pickle ball not as well, but I'm trying. Um, so I'm open to all of it. So I think that there is middle ground to be reached here. I hope you consider that. I loved option eight and I loved possibly moving the courts at Elsto, but keeping them at Elsto. So to be clear, I'm advocating for keeping two courts at Elserto um and finding a way to um help the pickle ball community. And also one fun fact, the USA is trying to reach 1 million additional players by 2030. So yes, pickle ball is a growing sport, but so is tennis both so much. So thank you for consideration. I appreciate your time and I'm out. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike.

Welcome.

Hello. Um, my name is Carlos Dehadis. my third time speaking at city council. I'm here representing the tennis players at Elsto. Tennis has been a huge part of my life. I wouldn't be the person player I am today if there weren't sufficient public spaces available for me to play. I worked my I worked my way to captain of my high school team. That wouldn't have been possible without public courts. I wouldn't have gotten a scholarship at USC if it wasn't for me playing tennis, making it to captain. If it wasn't for public courts, it's one of the most popular sports in the world. The United States has the most players in the world. That's about 25 million from this last year, 2024. Our courts is just as crowded as the pickleball courts. Um, if I'm not waiting for tennis players to get off the court, I'm waiting for pickle ball players to get off our courts. It's the same issue. On Elsto, I currently train with some of the Sant Santiago High School kids. You'd be taking away these courts from one of the best teams in Riverside County. If it's not the best team in Riverside County, it's one of the best teams. These kids work hard to do the same same exact thing I did. get to captain, be good at tennis, get a good scholarship at a good college. Um 50% of those 25 million in the entire US of total tennis players use public facilities as their main place to play. It costs about $3,000 to have a to have a country club membership. Okay, so 58% of all those toilet players are under the age of 34. We know tennis is a young man sport. I'll do the math for you. That's 15 million players in the US. 10 million of those 15 million are under the age of 25. Most of those younger people don't have the money, don't have the resources, their parents don't have the resources because they're paying for their college, their kids' college tuition to pay for private facilities. Um, public tennis courts, as the um lady from pickle ball said earlier, are already poorly maintained. And the fact that new pickle ball courts are getting built, it just doesn't really sit right with I don't think that sits right with

anyone. I I don't know how that looks. Um you're driving good tennis players away from Corona. Um again, we have the most we have one of the best high school tennis teams in all of Corona. You're going to try to make them go to Riverside, go somewhere far to have to play. This is right. you're going to add more traffic to the area from the pickle ball that I can tell you right now. There's already barely any places to park in that park because of the soccer games, because of the baseball, because of the football, basketball, everything that goes on there. It's already a very busy space. You would definitely need to add parking just to make that feasible. Um, there's plenty of extra space at Elso. Talked about that. Add more parking. Um, I don't know. Just in conclusion, you shouldn't pit. You shouldn't pit pickle ball and tennis people against each other. We're both a good community. Like like the last gentleman said, a lot of tennis players go to pickle ball. A lot of pickle ball players play tennis. This is both of our issues. You shouldn't be pitting us against each other. We should all have our own public spaces to work out. And I know that's your guys's job to figure out. So, thank you.

Thanks, Carlos. All right, looks like our last speaker maybe.

Hello, my name is Wyatt Williams. I'm a passionate tennis player and these courts have made a huge difference on my tennis career. I plan to play for the Santiago tennis team in the spring. I practice on these Elsto courts anywhere from three to even five or six days a week. With the absence of these courts, it could significantly affect me and my future teammates. It would give us less of an opportunity to practice, which could also affect our season this spring. If these courts end up being removed, it would make the other courts more crowded. And these other courts also only have a 45minut time limit to practice if uh they're being used and they're full.

This is not nearly enough time for any of us tennis players to practice as I usually practice for hours at a time. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening. Uh my name is Solomon Perez. Um nice to see you again. Uh, but I just wanted to come up here and kind of address just um the imbalance here. I feel like you guys are really listening to the pickle ball players when it comes to their complaints and their concerns about how they want to play and how they want their courts. But have you really considered the tennis players and how we want our courts? about how we want to keep them because it feels like three more options got added and we're back here what couple months later the exact same thing and for what for more money to be spent but um I also just want to bring up the school the school next door um have they been contacted have they been talked to uh because obviously we hear some residents in the border courts complaining about the pickleball courts so have you contacted the school because that's going to be a noise complaint for the school if pickle ball courts are placed there. Um, if anything, I want to definitely keep the two tennis courts there at El Certo. And if you know you feel inclined to put pickle ball courts, place them way off in the corner, uh, closer to the freeway, away from the school, away from residential areas. And just really keep that in mind because kids education is important and we don't want them being disrupted by the noise. um or else you'll be getting them coming in complaining instead of the residents of border. So, thank you.

Thanks.

Harvey Harvey's Auto Tech compelled to talk about pickle ball. 20 seconds. East 6th Street Park. Build pickle ball courts. Build tennis courts. There's enough room there. Done. Solve the problem. Okay, I have a solution. Put the pickle ball in the back. You already need parking, so that really shouldn't be added to this. And leave the tennis players alone. I live near there. I'd love to see all the the activities. Let's bring some more activities, but leave the tennis courts alone. Okay. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. All right. See no other speakers. Um, let's see. Where are we at here? Any questions for my colleagues? Questions, comments.

Go ahead with your comments. Thank you, mayor. Um, you know, I've been pretty steadfast about wanting to uh fix this solution and I'm I'm glad that there was a bunch of speakers here again today. Um, yeah. Or yeah. Well, the the proposal I think um there's a couple things missing here, but most importantly, this can be achieved without taking something away from a different community, right? So, we don't need to take away from tennis to give to pickle ball or more importantly, we don't need to take away from some of our spaces for some of our other field sports. I'm baffled that we're we've got eight options at Elserto. This is already a very busy park. And you add pickle ball to this, it's going to be a parking nightmare. Options one through eight are parking nightmare is the con,

right? It's not going to be good.

Yeah. So, I I think that one of the things that we have to look at is we all have to take a look at at a lesson from our own personal finances. When you want something, you have to save for it sometimes. And while we we have set aside about $1.1 million, I think the problem is is we're trying to shove pickle ball at a park that it doesn't belong at. We've we've had a couple options to or couple times that we've now built pickle ball courts. They've been rushed and they haven't worked out well because they haven't been thought through. And so what needs to be done here is we need to have more time to come up with an actual solution. Pickle ball deserves great courts. Tennis deserves great courts. Residents deserve not to have to be bothered by the sound of pickle ball. So there is a solution. Option number nine, putting them at Butterfield. We can mitigate wind. But I am not advocating at all to take away from some of the other parks that were listed in this presentation, some of the some of the upgrades that we are doing to some of these parks. The solution, I think, is twofold. Number one, we need to save the amount of money to build an actual pickle ball facility. And I think Butterfield is a great option. I think we can mitigate the wind, but staff needs time to figure that out. And I'm sure they could work with is it USA pickle ball or whoever the whoever the organization is that that you know uh oversees pickle ball and come up with a good solution on how to mitigate any perceived win challenges. That's option number one. And option number two is in order to do that we have to save money which means it isn't going to happen anytime soon. and to help the residents at border because I don't want to take away those courts until we have something built. We need to institute the silent paddles. Not everybody is going to be happy, but

that's a compromise that at the end of the day makes a win-win. I would like to see beautiful courts built at Butterfield for pickle ball. If you put pickle ball at Elserto, then when they're built, we're gonna have droves of resident res residents coming in saying parking is a nightmare. I'm not willing to deal with that. Not willing to take away from somebody else. Let's put it at Butterfield. Let's save for it and let's institute quiet paddles at Butter or at Border. That's the only win-win that I see. Those are my comments, man. Wes,

uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you everybody that spoke and for how many times you guys have come back and um I uh I when this first came up at Butterfield, I was the one that said this is not going to work because it's windy. I I have grew up here. I I played baseball. Mine went to my kids softball games there. Unless you're building a building, there's no way to avoid the wind. And uh if that's the case, you're talking, you know, millions more. Um I thousand% agree with you. the parking at Elserto is is a nightmare and if you're going to add something, you're going to have to take something away or move it somewhere else. So, I do like the idea of finding a way to to either move um you know the soccer field to a different field in the city. There are we have other fields that are not being you know fully utilized. Uh I I think I've talked about that in another time. I I do think that the folks that that live next to Border Park need some relief and I don't want to keep putting that off. I I think that they've they've suffered enough and whether or not people use these paddles or use the balls that don't make noise, who's mitigate. I mean, who's going to be um you know, doing anyway? I I think the the solution here is I I like the recommended compromise ex with one exception, one that we move the the tennis court to the empty lot so that gets its own court kind of away. Um, and then you have all the pickleball players playing together. Um, and then that that court that's next to the homes, either that goes back to basketball, um, or or goes to tennis. So, I I'm in favor of option five with the option that we find a way to either um, study additional impacts of what the what the parking would be at Elserto. Um, whether that's moving, you know, moving soccer or doing something else there. You're you're you're right. I mean, I' i've driven by there on a

Friday night, it's a it's a mess. Um, and if you're adding in, you know, pickle ball when we're talking, you know, 64 players at a time, there isn't 64 parking spaces. So whether that's expanding the parking at um El Certo or or finding another solution, but I do think we need to move forward in some ways just so folks get, you know, some kind of relief and we've been promising pickle ball additional space. ly do not want to take away from from tennis. Um um and I I like the idea of having tennis courts in different parts of the city like we always have. Thank you, Tom.

Thank you, Mayor. Actually now have questions because of these two yahoos. Uh Donna is uh is is staff currently looking at reprogramming uh El Crito Park to be less congested? Is that something that's taking place right now?

It is not. So, we did some um traffic counts at Elserto. The peak usage is really Friday nights. That's when the um Friday night lights group is out there. They use that park heavily for soccer, I'm sorry, for football. But that is not a consistent use that we see at the park throughout the week. It's it's Friday nights where you see a huge spike in in participation. So, if uh pickle ball were to be recommended for that site, we have talked to the pickle ball community about potentially uh not doing organized play for pickle ball on Friday nights because that's where we would have significant impacts where we believe significant impacts would be for traffic, but the other six days of the week are more manageable.

It's much lower. Yes, it's much lower than Friday nights. Okay. And then uh my other question, can you put up option five again just so I can see it? That's kind of where I'm at. So, for Elserto Park, you see how there's the four pickle ball courts on the left. Can you take the four pickle ball courts on the right and put them where the tennis court is and then the tennis court where the where those four like switch them?

Yes, we could do that. Isn't the tennis courts going east and west now? And that's a problem for tennis players. It would be going east and west. Why would it be a problem? The sun. Sun.

Okay, never mind. Um, yeah, I didn't think it through with that. Uh, I'm I'm option five. I also agree with Tony. I uh I think when you buy a home, you have a reasonable expectation of some peace and quiet. And so I would like to see quiet paddles instituted as well. And uh those are my comments. Thank you, mayor. All right, Jackie.

You know, when um I was in favor of the Well, first of all, thank you so much for your continued engagement. I know this is your third meeting. their numerous hours that have been invested in uh educating us and sending your public comment in emailing in reaching out and um you know it's all part of uh democracy. So thank you for for doing that. Thank you for for being here tonight and I really appreciate your engagement. I was in support of the pause because I wanted to see the impact of the Eagle Glenn courts on the use of the pickle ball courts and it seems like there it hasn't made an impact. My main concern is budgetary. Um and so since it hasn't made an impact clearly um you know the I I'm in support of moving forward in in in continuing our pursuit of the parks and recreation master plan. So this is a a a a really um intentional document that took a lot of time and a lot of work to assess the needs, the spaces um where we wanted to be in the future. And so that's the guiding document and the guiding document says, you know, these are how many courts we need and that's that's where it's all coming from. So I wanted to be very clear about that. So since the use has not uh gone down, I'm in favor of, you know, no longer pausing on this and delivering on the parks and wreck master plan. That being said, I am not in favor of increasing the cost of this um project and um and of the options before us, I'm actually in favor of option six um which would give the border community their the courts back to tennis. And I would be in favor of seeing that empty space maybe converted back into a basketball court. Um, I'd

want to know what the where the parks master plan lies on um on our the quantity of basketball courts. Are we short any? Are we are we over? What would be the best use of that graded out spot? So, Park and Recre master plan says that we need one additional basketball court.

There you go. Multi this this option serves everything. It stays It keeps us on track for the park's master plan. It gives the pickle ball the border community back um their their park, converting it back to tennis, hitting the goals for the basketball court and it gives us the the necessary courts in Elsarto hit the parks master plan for pickle ball and it does not break the bank. I'm in favor of option six. All right. Thank you. What was the cost of option six? Sorry. $100,000 more. 100,000 more. Okay.

Yeah. So, the pickleball leadership of their community has have uh been very involved with some of the discussions and um yeah, Border Park or I'm sorry, um Butterfield, that would be great if if it wasn't that windy and I don't know what the the wind options or I don't know how they could be mitigated, but I do know that the pickle ball community said there's no way in hell that you could do pickle ball there. Um, I uh I like option six as well because it it's cleaner. It um solves the noise issue at Border Park. Yes, you could do option five and and keep a court at Elsto, but then you're getting into the quiet paddles, which the pickle ball community hates quiet paddles because it's just not the same apparently. Um, but yes, you could do a quiet paddle pickle ball court at Border Park or quiet paddles during this time frame. I don't know how it would work as far as enforcement. I think that's probably the the challenge. That's that's why I think it's just option six is a clean. No one no one loses anything. Yes, the tennis players at Elserto will have to go to border and yes, the border players, pickle ball players will have to go to Elserto. But um Donna, so but with um option five or six, is parking going to be something that's or is it just a Friday night thing that we can somehow try to control?

We believe Friday night would be the evening where we would have the biggest impact. And again, we have talked to the pickle ball community to see if there's willingness to um not to organize play on that night. Um they have expressed some openness to that so we can continue those discussions. I mean, I don't know how we police that. I mean, can we lock the can we lock the courts on Friday nights from like 400 p.m. on? If that's the direction of the council, we could do that. I'll uh I'll go to option six. I'm I'm down with that. And I do like the idea of of pausing on Friday nights. Friday evenings or we could see what happens first.

We're not going to see let's let's not kid ourselves. They're going to continue to play and at nights on during the during the year where it's lighter, darker, they're going to continue to play no matter what the word is. Lock the gates, call it a day. We're already taking away from the tennis players. They're they're going to they're going to continue to play and they're going to jam up parking. It's going to be a nightmare. Okay, I like that. I support that. Option six. Six. six with um with with the pickle ball ports being closed on Fridays Friday night. Friday, Friday evening when there's when there's an event or something at the soccer field. Okay. Make that motion.

I I'm I'm not in favor of that option. I'm sorry. I stick to my my option six um with with the tennis with the basketball court. I'm I am not in favor of regulating the time. Be clear. So, if that's the motion, I just want to be clear about my vote. No one else has anything to say. Okay, then let's go. So, the motion is go six with um that gray spot turning into a basketball court, but you want to lock the gates on on pickle ball in El Certo on Friday nights. That's the motion on the floor.

Yes. And then there's a first and second for that. I'll make the motion. Second. Okay. Please vote. Let me get back to my screen. Mayor, we're going to need a voice vote for this item. Council member Dario, no. Council member Speak, yes. Council member Richens, yes. Vice Mayor Casillas, no. Mayor Steiner, yes.

And the item passes. Okay, let's move on to 9.1. All right, so this is um so obviously this one is very controversial and amaturization is um this is the first I've heard of amortization on Thursday night. Um and I I think that's the case with all of us, but I wanted to I wanted Let me look here. I wanted to first have uh Mr. Joel Belding present this item to us.

Yeah, you can sit down. We got a few minutes, guys, so you're not standing the whole time unless you want to.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. So, just to preface this, this the spirit of this presentation is really just to talk about a tool that some cities have used to accomplish changes in their downtown mix or in land uses uh overall within their cities. It's just a tool that city governments have uh to to better guide the development of their cities. So the specific ask before you tonight is simply to hear the presentation and then provide direction as you feel appropriate to staff uh on this topic. No specific recommendation to implement or to start a process at all. Uh so the 2022 downtown revitalization plan which is really sort of the foundation for a lot of the work that we do in the downtown area in addition to the overall citywide strategic plan that's uh built on tremendous public outreach has provided a lot of guidance to staff and ideally to the city council as terms of focusing our our daily efforts to make sure we're all pointed in the right direction and accomplishing the major goals that the community is really expecting uh to see from the city. So, there are additional tools outside of there's about a dozen that are listed in that downtown revitalization plan. That's a list right there. Catalyst projects, which we have, fixing the zoning, which was done at the end of last year, enhanced safety, sense of place, uh funding, additional housing, and in addition to a couple other elements there. But there are additional tools outside of that downtown revitalization plan that we thought might be helpful just for the council to understand going forward as ways to assist or amplify or uh alter what's happening in the downtown over time. So one of those items is amortization and looking at just a select range of uses that are in the downtown today. Uh some auto repair vehicle rentals those are those are the most prevalent uh of these types of uses. They're considered non-conforming. So the zoning today does

not allow them to be a new auto repair business to open within the downtown area. And that decision, it's not a recent decision that goes back 26 years with the adoption of the very first specific plan for downtown that really sort of chartered a new course of shifting it from sort of an anything goes downtown to a really a focused downtown development plan focused on revitalizing, bringing back that active downtown that serves the residents, that provide shopping and dining, employment opportunities, the types of things that we're actually close to accomplishing now between the South mall, the North Mall, and then a lot of the other projects that the city's working on today. So, these are targeted simply because they are not permitted by zoning today, and they've not been permitted by zoning for more than two and a half decades, but we still have those uses in the downtown. So, this amortization process is a way that the city could look at to address some of those. So those uses when they were originally pulled out of there, it's based on this dis this understanding that certain uses are impediments to new investment. So if you want to bring in new employment, new housing, the adjacent land uses are really as important as the new development on the specific site in terms of creating cohesive neighborhoods, cohesive downtowns. And so the when the city council two and a half decades ago decided to remove those, it was under that conscious decision of certain land uses are inappropriate for the direction that we want downtown to head in. There are also other two other uses that are listed, massage and hotel. I can't speak to the particulars in this city, but in some cities, uh, short-term stay motivity, additional calls for service, as are massage parlors. And so that's probably why those particular land uses were at some point removed by a city council from this downtown area simply to address uh overall uh potentially blighting conditions. So auto repair

that's the most prevalent of these non-conforming uses within the area. We have 14 sort of spaced evenly across the core of Sixth Street, which is really where we're focusing city efforts with the street modifications and with some of the catalyst projects. That's really the core of the city activities. the focal point for city activities to revitalize downtown. And so if these uses are impediments to new investment, then looking closely at how best to remove that impediment or clean those uses up is a tool that could be valuable for the city to examine. Auto sales also another this is more limited, but we still have these. Again, the city council two and a half decades ago decided that these were inappropriate and subsequent city councils every time the downtown specific plan came back had that chance to reopen the books declined to because I think there's a consistent understanding that certain uses are inconsistent with the overall future of downtown that we're hoping for. Car washes too. That's there's one very close to the center. And then again, motel, there's a number of motel string along Sixth Street where there could be additional calls for service. there could be some problematic elements or activities happening at these motel that could deter uh new uses or new development coming in. So, there's a couple ways that non-conforming uses naturally transition. So, one is just land value market conditions. There's customer support. If people stop going to a business, it'll close under the current st zoning standards. It would then transition to some other allowable use under the downtown specific plan. There's direct acquisitions. If the city had extra money, they could go directly purchase some of some or all of these uses and then expedite that transition to a fully conforming uh downtown from a zoning perspective. Or you could entice private development to come in there and start acquiring some of these sites to help that transition. Amortization provides that third category of tool where the city could recognize that these businesses still have a useful

life, but set an established time period, a predictable time period to start that process of phasing them out over time. And again, this is a legal tool. It's a zoning tool that every city has access to. It's something that's used nationwide. There's plenty of examples of cities in California using this for targeted uses either in downtown areas. Uh a city of Culver, the city of Culver City, for example, used it to eliminate oil wells that were present in their downtown area that were really impediments. Uh it's also been tested in the courts. It's a it's a known a known and understood tool that could work. So I'll walk you through various components. Um, it's a very targeted approach and you have to go through a lengthy process to understand each individual business that you're including in this amortization process. It's not a one-sizefits-all sort of agnostic program. You have to understand each business, whether it's owned or leased, the how much investment they've put into the building, how old the building is, how much further productive life you have in that building. And then you have to understand and sort of establish a case as to why these particular uses are some in some way harmful to the downtown or to the overall operations for the area. And it's really case by case for each business. It's a very localized understanding if you do move forward with this. And then there's various components that are required within these ordinances to be effective and to be implementable. There's an established time frame. There's an administrative appeal process where individual businesses can come to the city council and explain why they should be exempted or be given additional time. And there's also I I just want to point out so the non-conforming businesses today under the current zoning standards and this is really a universal thing that cities view if a business let's say there's an earthquake a building is significantly damaged there there are provisions where they could not rebuild. If there's a fire that significantly damages a

building, they again would would have to cease operations. Please guys, let them talk. You'll get your chance.

And then if there's also if a business closes, let's say it's uh searching for a new owner, an auto repair place closes, it's closed for 6 months and one day, it loses its non-conforming status and then could not reopen as an auto repair. it would need to convert that land use would need to convert to something that's allowable within the downtown specific plan. There's also uh at the end of the process assuming where where cities have implemented this and set a time frame. There's a an established time an established process at the end of that amortization cycle where you're providing notice. Uh there's a recorded document that goes against title so if it does change hands all future buyers are fully aware of this amortization process that has started. There's enforcement tools that the city could use for businesses that then refuse to close after at the end of that amortization cycle. So, there's a list of pro and pros and cons. Again, there's lots of cities that if the city council wanted to explore this, there's lots of cities to uh where we could interact with to understand how their processes have worked, what they would change if they could start it again from fresh uh to really learn and craft a particular program that works best for Corona here. And again, the the point to really highlight here is it's not an it's not an ignorant process. It very much involves working with every single business to understand their particular needs, their particular investments in their site and their long-term plans. The cons here obviously would be legal challenges from the individual businesses that are included in that amortization process. And it does have a direct and negative impact to those businesses because it forces them to leave their sites. That's something that's there's no hiding that fact. It is a direct impact. Uh and then it's also a long-term process where this city council would say hypothetically start a 10-year period to amortize these out. Then some future city council would then have to deal with the actual closing of that amortization process

where individual businesses could be here 10 years from now arguing for their uh delays in their amortization process. So if the city council ever wanted to consider this, they would provide direction to staff on which uses would be included in that and then things like how long the time period be should be. And it's not a one-sizefits-all time period for each individual use. You could establish separate time frames. There's triggers for immediate termination where the city could after year two could approach a business and directly buy them out if they didn't want to wait the additional eight years for them to close. Uh, and then there's appeal procedures that you would set up to to understand if a business has some particular issue that requires special attention. The city council would have the ability to modify the process just for them to recognize that use. So, I'll skip over this. I don't think we're at the point where we're requesting direction from the city council, but I've sort of touched on the highlights here. I know we have a lot of people that are uh interested in speaking about this. And again, this is just presented as an idea, a potential tool that the city council, it should be aware of as it moves forward with the overall downtown revitalization. So, I'll conclude my presentation right now, but I'm certainly available for any questions that you might have.

Well, I just had um one for now, but so this agenda item is only intended to see if we want to further explore to understand this more. That's correct. And it was really and I know certainly circulating in the community, I've gotten a lot of uh questions about, well, what are you going to do? you know, people are very interested in what's happening in downtown, they recognize that there are certain uses that are not consistent and so that a lot of the time I hear what can we do about these types of uses and so it's sort of circulating in the community and certain se segments of the community

and then so it's just there are other tools that are available outside of the tools that we're using today and that are contemplated in the downtown revitalization plan that we're just here to make the council aware of. But how is the public supposed to know the difference when they see the agenda item come out on Thursday night that this is just to see if we want to learn more about it versus we're going to implement it tonight?

Sure. So this was present the staff report it the it was really sort of a cover memo. It wasn't designed as a typical staff report that had a specific stack for recommendation. The recommendation could have been direct staff to start this process. So we structured it as just provide your input and that the staff would be me would be providing information to the council about this particular tool. And so I ideally it read much different from the typical agenda item and then certainly through this presentation. Uh I I hope that it's clear that this was anformational item only for council consideration rather than specific request for direction. No, I I understand that just this happened a couple times it seems like where everybody gets worked up prematurely. They might get worked up at some point, but it seems prematurely if all you're asking us is do we want to learn more? That that's not the way that I I really take it. But let's hear from my colleagues real quick and then we'll go to the public.

I I'll you know, I want to say about the um the tools, you know, we've been hearing about um for instance, there's a a a methodone clinic that's downtown And it's um you know, this is a tool that is uh that folks use when they're battling substance abuse. And I get that it's essentially it's it's technically a medical it's a medical use and it's in our medical zone. I mean, it's down the street from or not even down the street. It's a couple doors down from the hospital, but it it is also a couple doors down from our library. And so I know I have personally asked um the city manager and staff to ex to learn more about the tools that we could use as a council um because right now we don't have anything to address something like that. The methodone clinic is is a medical use in a medical zone. Um, but we need to know all the tools that are available. And I appreciate the clarifying questions. Um, mayor, because we're having a whole lot of difficult conversations and there's a there's a lot of um um there's a lot of uh rightly placed sensitivity around changes that are occurring. um but also changes that have been asked of this council and previous council for um areas that have been ignored for four decades. Um so um I I I appreciate the clarifying questions. I I don't have any more clarifying questions, but I did want to piggyback off of your comments to share that, you know, we've we've we've gotten questions about what are you guys doing with that, and we're like, we don't we don't have a tool to address that. So, can we learn more about what's out there? So, I appreciate it. And to be clear, you're presenting, you're not

recommending. So, I appreciate that. Thank you, Tony. Anything? Mayor, I'm sorry, I'm a little confused. Are you just looking for comments at this point or are you looking Do you have any questions of him before we go to the public? Questions or any do you have any thoughts on this? Well, it's the first time we've heard this the first time I've heard of amortization. Yeah. Okay. So, I don't know what the hell it even means, so I'm I'm trying to figure that out. Yeah. I don't I don't have um specific questions, but I do have some thoughts on this. Um but I I I would imagine that we You can wait if you prefer. I just ask if you had a question or comment. I have I have comments and some thoughts, but I'm really interested to hear what the community has to say. Okay, Wes, anything?

I don't I don't have any questions. I I you know, I had never I knew this was a thing. I didn't know that we were talking about it here. First time I heard about it was on Thursday. Um, and I've done a little bit of research, so I don't really have any questions. I think I have I have actually have a lot of questions about the the land uses that are in the that are listed in the table that for the the downtown um revitalization specific plan and how it's been applied over the years and I know that we've been pretty good about like if there's an automotive use I think there was a oil change place was at the the car wash that they went out and somebody else tried to go in and and establish something else and the city said sorry you they closed for 6 months you can't come back um and but at the same time it says you can't have veterinarians and I know that we've put new veterinarians on sixth street and so somehow that squeezed through and the fact I think in the 1998 we said no more towy yards and impound yards in the city and we still have one of those too. So, you know, I I have a lot of questions, you know, in in related to a how the the 98 plan, you know, where what we've done in the meantime, and I agree with Jackie that I think that there are some opportunities for us to look and see how this would work. But at the same time, the folks are in this room are they're naturally I I would be here, too. I would be sitting in that audience right now if I had a business on Sixth Street that was potentially non-conforming. But I will say they, you know, as I thank you for pointing that out in the beginning here, those uses have been non-conforming since 1998.

So, you know, I I think now is a time for us to explore what this really means and and and find out non-conforming. Maybe there's a way to be conforming without running someone out of business and and, you know, kicking them out of town that that offer a great service to to the to the citizens of the city. So, that's it. Thank you. You have anything to tell?

Yeah, I have I have a question for you, Joel. And you if you don't know the answer, just tell me you don't know it. Under amortization, um like take the car repair people, right? And I'm sorry if I butchered your names, but uh under amortization, can you reszone another section of land for them to move to? Do you know if that's a possibility? So to another part of the city certainly.

Yeah. So I'll give you an example. Over by Sixth Street and the 15 freeway there's vacant land over there, right? So if you if you're going to tell people they need to wrap it up in 10 years, can you reszone that land so that they have a place to go to? Would and can would that fall under the rules of amortization? So that would be outside of that amortization process. That would just be a zoning decision. Okay. But it's possible, right? Yes. Okay. Oh, go ahead. I'll wait.

I just I I wanted to point out that we I looked in the 98 plan and there was amortization plan in 98, but it was only for signs and the city was providing providing $1,000 to to those community if if those folks change their signs within five years. M um so it there's a there's a process and there there was a um an incentive to do so. So sorry I just wanted I forgot to mention that. I was going to bring that up was thanks a lot. Page 281

on page 281. The my uh my other comment is is I I took a deep dive into amortization this week just to study it not just for the city of Corona but for cities across the United States. And I've I've learned and it's a very effective tool. It's uh from major cities such as Boston, New York, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, they've all used amortization to improve their cities to smaller cities. The the most recent cases I found in the last couple days was uh placenta used it in their downtown. Probably the most effective use of uh amortization was the city of Series up in Northern California. They really u I don't know who those guys were, but they did it right. So, but with amortization, it's it's with amortization, people walk away upset and people walk away with their livelihoods um either relocated or gone. I mean, that's that's just a cold reality of it, right? And that's why a lot of people are here tonight. And it would be foolish not to recognize that. And I'm proud of you all for being here tonight. You're you're stepping up as you should. So, you're commendable there. I uh I just don't feel that in the progress of the downtown revitalization that we're there yet. I don't think this is a trigger that we need to pull. I think we need to come out with renderings of what the north side's going to look like. I think we need to show the citizens abroad, not just you guys, but all of Corona citizens where we're going with the north side a little bit more progress in that arena and then start the process of looking into amortization. So, those are my thoughts.

All right. Thank you. Let's go ahead and go to the public. I know you've been waiting and thank you for being patient.

Thank you. My name is Lisa Sanford. I moved to Corona. bought my first house uh 16 years ago. And when I came here and I was looking, one of my colleagues said to me, "Well, I hope you like churches and parks because there's lots of them there." And I thought that sounded great. Um what I didn't know at that time was that Corona has a very, very strong car culture. And what I mean by that is that we started off with our circle originally and 20 years later, 30 years later, we started with the Corona road races and we started having racing and auto afficionados be populating here as the citrus industry kind of moved out and and that kind of thing happened. I used to sell auto insurance down the street here. Um, I can't tell you how many households have collector cars. How many households have grandfathers, fathers, sons, grandsons that all work together to rebuild or restore a vehicle, but they don't have all the tools they need. They don't have all the services available to them. And it's really important that since we are a car culture community that we support that. The one thing that I found since I moved here, I came from Orange County. Um, I've been driving for 44 years and I got to tell you, I've never had a car less than three years old. I've I've always had cars that have needed help and I have really struggled to find an honest mechanic. Well, when I got here, I had somebody refer me to Harvey. I started using him with my cars and I can't begin to tell you how refreshing it was for Harvey to drive my car around for three days and go, "Lisa, I don't know. You just it didn't happen again." And for the next 10 years, that same car didn't happen again. But Harvey wouldn't take a dime from me. And I think it's really important because he's

instilled those values in his children. His children are here tonight. His grandchildren are here tonight. We're all here to try and keep Sixth Street kind of the way it is. Absolutely, we could beautify it. Absolutely, we can pretty it up. He's painted his building. People have put plants out. You know, there's lots of things that can be done to make it the aesthetic that we're looking for. But the idea of kicking a business out after 34 years, somebody who's built his life, setting it up so that his family could take over, I it's it's crazy to me that that we would even be considering that. So, I know that this isn't an ask right now. I know this is you guys trying to just figure out, do we even want to know about this? Think about the fact that the communities only flourish when there's variety and there's availability. People need to live where they work and work where they live and support the community. pay the taxes. We need different types of people. We need different types of businesses. And to say that an auto business is not going to help, that doesn't make any sense to us. So, just um consider that when you think about this.

We will. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good night. Hi, Chris.

Hello again. Chris McCoy, Nathan Howard. Um, there's uh the old saying about walk before you run and this is so far out. I'm going to ask you to just say no to this tonight. There's no reason to explore this. There's no reason to look at this. This is a tool agreed, but this tool is a sort of damocles that you're going to hang over every single business's head. And they know that there's a deadline. We can't even keep the roof from leaking over a local business that we just installed in the hub. We still don't have an air conditioner. Okay. We We have to fix the air conditioner at at the at the Circle City Tavern. We're We are nowhere close to being able to walk down and do these secondary opportunities, which by the way, I want to make sure that it's clear. That's what this is all listed as in the downtown plan. in the downtown revitalization plan. I read that whole thing today just to look through it to see if amortization is listed anywhere and it's not. There's one sentence that mentioned zoning when it's talking about the core when it's talking about the hub in the north mall. Then there's one section that says any businesses when it's talking about these secondary opportunities down six where it says economic development is going to work with these property owners and talk to them to help them get loans, help them find developers, help them do all these pieces to develop. That is a long process. By doing this, you're basically saying in 10 years this is going to be done or you're going to be out and if if not, we're going to condemn your property. Basically, there's there is no that this is absolutely a threat. This is not friendly like it's in the revitalization plan when we all were like, "Hey, this is great. This is what we're doing. This is awesome as a city. What this is is if you authorize this tonight, then you know damn well what this what the what the schedule is going to be on this. In 3 months, they're going to come back with a report or less. And then they're going to ask you for ideas and they're going to move forward with that. And then they're going to move forward

again. And we're going to have an ordinance in six months to a year. And then you're going to have 10 years and these folks are out. when we can work with them, our economic development can work with them and we can do what's already in the damn plan, the plan that you all approved already. This is a tool that is not necessary and it's a tool that is a threat to every business on 6th because they didn't mention restaurants, but they're talking about fast food restaurants in the staff report. Go look at it. That's a big concern. There are five restaurants down there for those of us that actually live downtown. So, what's going to happen? Are we going to decide that those are all not aesthetically pleasing? Are we going to throw those out? And I Tom, I talked to you about this. What's next? Well, I want to put in more 50 over1 so I don't find single family homes aesthetically pleasing. That's the only requirement on this. It's ridiculous. I'm going to ask you to put a pin in this for 2 years. Let them show you that they can develop the actual properties they have first and then we can come back and look at this. Right now, this is a ridiculous ask. Absolutely ridiculous.

All right. Thank you. Welcome.

Photo number one, please. My name is Paul Enulo. I am the business owner for Bear Complete Care located at 927 West 6th Street. May I please have photo number one? I am here today opposing the proposal to armorize the automotive shops on Sixth Street. I am here today representing my employees, our customers, the landowner, and lastly, myself and my family. Photo number two, please. Bear was established in 1955. This year marks our 70th anniversary. Our business on Sixth Street has been serving the Corona and surrounding area for over 60 years. Today, we have served over three generations of Coronins. For me, it is a great privilege and an honor to have young members of our community come through our doors and tell us that their grandparents used Bear, their fathers and mothers use Bear, and them themselves as you young drivers use Bear for their vehicle service. I have been employed with Bear for over 24 years. A business like Bear is never sold to investors. It is handed down through family and employees. Just under three years ago, Tim O'Donald handed the business over to to me to carry it forward. Our business, be it small, is mighty and thriving today. Our projected total gross sales for this year end will surpass 3.2 million. If this proposal passes on day one, it will cause employee turnover because after all, who wants to be employed at a business with no future? The auto repair business is not a get-rich business. We

share our earnings with our employees. And for myself being a new business owner with little capital, this proposal would force me at the end of 10 years to either close down or in a haste move to a location that may not be adequately suitable. 10 years comes like tomorrow. My belief is that the automotive shops on Sixth Street can coexist with Corona's renovation efforts. My plea to the board members, please help bring relief and peace to me and all my colleagues here today by voting against this proposal. And if this proposal should move forward, I ask that the 10-year deadline be changed to 25 years, giving new existing business owners like myself adequate time to start a savings fund to finance a search for a suitable facility that could meet our current business needs. Thank you for your time. May God bless all of us here and may God bless America.

Thanks, Paul. Hey, Paul. Well, I just uh wanted to say I don't know if it was you or if it was Tim, but thank you for the restoration of the bear sign. It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for that. Welcome, sir.

Yes. Hi, my name is Tim O'Donnell, and I am the owner of that property. Excuse me. And I I'm sure that he's said everything I was going to say. Uh but because of my hearing, I couldn't hear him. So, if I repeat him, uh so be it. But I just want to reiterate the importance of the specific location because you see people come to us because their parents and their grandparents told them that they could trust us. And not only that, they came to us for nostalgia in the in the iconic bear uh repair shop that's we're probably one of the only ones left. And so they come there and they can reminisce about their grandfather getting their 62 Chevy repaired there. And so in 1955, as Paul said, and in 1968, I came on board. I was a ambitious 20-year-old, I was mentored by Corwin Jones, as you saw, sitting down in that one graphic. And he mentored me, and uh uh I I admired him. So in 1976, he gave me the courage to open my own shop in Norcco. I also then in uh 8086 I took over the Corona breaking wheel on sixth street and changed the name to bear alignment and break. And so here we are on our birthday, 70 years. And the important thing is is not only the customer uh likes our work of course and and uh

but it's the nostalgic part of it where they come to that specific location. And uh the one thing I might say about the city of the circle, I came here, it was a beautiful little that is the most iconic historic circle in all of California. And I know we get kind of progressive and and trendy and want to make a awesome corona, but we cannot forget our history. And about an hour ago, some guy talking about straighten out. Yeah, that's for me. Thank you, folks. Thank you, Timothy.

Welcome.

Good evening. My name's My name's Tom Ceiling. I'm uh you're my councilman. Good. Now I know who that is. Um I have been in Corona since 88 and I worked for the Coronora Independent and the Corner this month magazine and which time I interviewed Harvey when he first opened his business and I've been a customer ever since. Um the mayor said uh we may be getting ahead of ourselves. Well, yes, we are. We don't even know that the uh the downtown Maine is and I'm I'm in supporting of it. Downtown Maine is going to work as as you know, we haven't even gotten past the first stage yet. So, we need to not even think about expanding out east and west because I've seen literally North Maine. It got stalled for what since 2006 and it finally broke ground in 2016. My wife lived here since ' 63. So, the whole Corona Mall was going to be the downtown. The center of gravity is is east and south in Corona these days. And yet, we don't know that this is going to work the way we want it to. So, we shouldn't really be going ahead and planning for moving down East and West Sixth Street because that's never been downtown. Downtown has been the center inside the circle. So, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Um, I want to say that, sorry, I'm doing I'm doing speedrun unnot. Um, we have middle class success stories that are adding to the tax base that it's kind of specialized buildings. can't move them any just anywhere else. I mean, we're not going to put them up Maine. We're not going to put them down Third Street. We're not going to replace the old city hall with a with a with a mechanic because, you know, even the cop shop that we just took down. It doesn't work. Um, and these businesses are not oil wells. So, it's not a this looks ugly, let's get rid of it sort of thing.

These are active parts of our community. Um, so there's a lot of couldas that are used that these could require extra service. These could well the downtown revization could be a success and I hope it is. But we're we're planning three stages down. We haven't got the first stage done yet. So it's almost to quote uh Dr. Ian Malcolm, it's as if they were so focused on that they could do it, they're not didn't even bother to think whether they should be doing this. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Tom, good evening.

Good evening. My name is an Ben Eggman. I'm co-owner of Harvey's Auto Tech. I have lived in Corona for the last 27 years. My husband and I have raised uh six children, most of whom are here. You guys could stand up. They're like, "Please." No. No. Your children, too. Welcome family. Uh we have six grandchildren, one on the way. Are they here, too?

So, we are a growing family. Uh my father passed away last November at the age of 89. While he was still alive, he traced his ancestors to the ship that came over right after the Mayflower. My ancestors were part of the American Revolutionary War and my dad was proud to join the group, the Sons of the Revolution. When I was in fifth grade, we had to do a speech on his an historical character during the Revolution. That was probably the last time I did a public speech. I chose Patrick Henry and ended my speech with his famous line, "Give me liberty or give me death." What is liberty? What did our forefathers fight for? private property rights for one, the right to make a living and to do so on your own land. The government doesn't have the right to come in and take your property for your own use. If they can do it to us, they can do it to each one of you.

We already fought and won a war against a tyrannical government. What the city council is proposing or at least the ask before to do to the local businesses is theft. We have lived under the threat of eminent domain for years, but this is something much worse. This is destroying our livelihoods with no compensation. It is unamerican. My husband has worked 34 years at an auto repair shop in Corona. He employs 11 people. He services thousands of cars in Corona. He keeps people safe on the roads. He has worked six days a week for over 20 of those 34 years. He's put in countless hours to build a business, a legacy that should be passed to our children and possibly our grandchildren. And the city of Corona deserves to have an alternative to the dealerships.

Thank you, M.

Good evening.

Good evening. I'm going to ask that Miss Edwards please enter into the meeting minutes. I did wear a collared shirt tonight. My name is Rory Connell and I'm here because what you're discussing tonight isn't just exploring policy. It's changing a whole corridor within our city. The stretch between Lincoln and Elsa Bronte is more than unusable land. It's functioning, thriving automotive corridor that keeps the city moving. 34 automotive businesses. 34 businesses that are automotive based are on the Sixth Street corridor. You see national brands like Big O Tires, AutoZone, Jify Loop, brands with big expensive attorneys. And then you see small people like Harvey's Auto Tech, Raj Emit, people that I went to school with who have thriving independently owned businesses here on Sixth Street. But what you're doing really is erasing more than just businesses. Corona has an automotive culture, one that's built in our DNA that we've earned. The first vehicle to go over 100 miles an hour happened on the circle in Corona. One thing I'm very proud of is that I got to ride around the Corona circle with Carol Shelby and a Shelby Mustang. Brands like West Coast Customs had TV shows here. Barry Speed Shop had TV shows here. We are known for our automotive culture. Global brands like Ibach Springs, Curry Enterprises, Gibson Exhaust reside here. Corona has a foundation that's ris rich in automotive culture and craftsmanship. These brands build and bring people from these shops into their manufacturing facilities. The businesses in this corridor are part of that legacy. They've invested their lives and their livelihood in supporting people and keeping them safe on the road at affordable prices.

At a time when the economy isn't great, right? It's not easy. These brands still survive and they still thrive. They're still serving this community. And I'm asking you to please take a look at the impacts that this has on the community. This is very important. Corona is the automotive center of the universe in my world. I live and breathe cars every single day. I have traveled the world because of what I've learned to do with cars in Corona. I ask that you respect not only the history but these people and their businesses. Please take a look at what you're doing. This is very, very important to our community. You're asking them to leave before asking them to conform. None of you, I imagine, expected this when you ran for city council. None of you. Prove yourselves first at the mall, then explore how we can clean up the rest of Six Street, but ask these people to work with you before you ask them to leave.

Thank you. Hi, Bill. Hello. How are you all doing? Oh, fantastic. Can't you tell?

Two weeks ago, I came here and I talked about transparency or lack of it or perceived lack of transparency. Year ago, you went to one lane each way. And I asked you, Jacob, and others, have you interviewed all the property owners, the business owners on Sixth Street? Because I had had property owners that told me they were never contacted. But I was looked at and treated like I was an idiot. Like, of course, we talked to all the homeowners, trying to make me feel like an idiot. I don't believe all the all the business owners have been contacted. I don't brag about this much, but I retired from Hughes aircraft satellites. When you build a 400 million to $600 million contact and you hit a launch button, there's a plan in place. It's not herky jerky. It's not make a turn here, what are we going to do here? We got a problem here. How are we going to fix that? There's a plan. It doesn't look like there's a plan here. If you talk to all the business owners, did you tell them that this amortization was a possible result? Was that left out intentionally? If you have a plan to make that a walking street, and I've talked about this, a lot of people don't want to walk by a tire shop or a repair shop. Is that the environment for a walking area? No, it's a business area. So if you disclosed it to all the people that own businesses a a year ago that this was a potential, their opinion might have been a little different. Or

did you really not talk to everybody? I think that's what the deal is. Fixing this street, the downtown is the equivalent of a satellite to the city of Corona. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of involvement. And it's a lot of labor. It's a lot of decisions. But it sure looks like the plan is halfbaked when you have this many people show up. They're concerned about their living, their employment, and their businesses. This gentleman worked on this this week, spent some city funds. Was it done at the direction of one of you or was it at the direction of the city manager?

I think if it was a city manager, why did you do that without talking to the council first? I don't understand that. We did, Dale. I did mention that we wanted to explore ways to address like the methodone clinic in the downtown. Okay. Did that didn't address the car dealers? I guess I don't have anything else to say except Laguna Beach. I consider that a nice downtown. And there's some car repair shops on Pacific Coast Highway. There's some car sales place on Pacific Coast Highway. And thank you, Dale. Appreciate it.

Manny,

good evening again. Um, it's getting late, so please excuse me if I don't make a whole lot of sense with this. Um, the first thing that I thought when I started reading this is, "Yeah, it would be kind of nice to make it a little bit prettier." But then all of a sudden, I heard this voice screaming in my head. It was my mother's. And she's yelling at me saying, "Would you please finish one project before you start something new?" And as a reminder, we have five huge ongoing projects right now. Let me remind you, we have not finished with the McKinley Street yet. We have not completely finished with the hub. We definitely have not finished with the mall. We have not finished begun or started with the city park. And I've heard rumors that we're going to be bringing North Gate back also to Maine and sixth. Those are huge. And what have we done? We've also um limited our lanes down from two to one. I'm thinking in my head, Mom, you're right this time. Um, I I just can't see the fact that we're going to take on something new. My suggestion is take all this hard work and put it on a nice shelf somewhere and visit it again down the line. Let's take at least a couple of these off the table before we start something new. That's my personal opinion. And it still comes back to I've been asking the vision. I know the vision for the city is you belong here, but I want to know who the target audience is because who do we want to attract? I mean, all we're doing is re renovating. And I do understand that it's nice to renovate cities. I used to live in Santa Ana and had the um privilege of going down there recently and their downtown used to be really bad and it looks nice, but they have preserved a whole lot of the way it originally looked. So it was modern and it was also cleaned up but preserved the

old. So I'm we to my opinion is I don't know where this came from but not now later. Let's get something accomplished first. Thank you. Thanks Maddie. Welcome.

Hi. My name is Michaela. Um I live in district two. Um, I'm born and raised in Corona. My mom was born and raised in Corona. Um, I've seen the city change a lot. Um, I remember when there was, uh, baseball fields over here and I played te-ball here. Um, those logos did not exist when I was a kid. Crossings did not exist when I was a kid. Um, and and I mention all that uh because as a person that's proud to be from Corona, I've seen it change. And uh over the last I guess couple years I've realized that I am supportive of the change that's happening um in our downtown the hub. Me and my friends, you know, now we're talking about, oh, we're actually going to go out and dine here. There's cool stuff happening. Um and I'm seeing all the cool stuff the city does. Um but then I realized that um I actually have never come to council and said how much I am supportive of those efforts. and and and I'm going to get to the point here, but I feel that's important context here. Um, so I saw this item today and to me I read it as and and I had to keep reading it throughout council uh cuz if you walked in you would have thought that we are voting on some sort of plan today and we are not. Um it it sounds like you all are are voting to explore a process a plan of a plan and um you know I you know unpopular view in here but I think that's that's worth pursuing. I think it's worth seeing what's possible having a discussion about it. Um and I maybe it's foolish of me to think that the city council can walk and talk at the same time. I think we can, you know, work on the hub and the downtown and all these other cool projects we have going and explore other plans for the future. Um, and so I I hear what the businesses are saying and and I agree that's that's frightening. You see this on the council

agenda, I'd probably be here too. Um, you know, but I think it's worthy to ask staff to be creative to see what's possible. What are ideas out there? what are other cities doing? How can we ask council to do great things if we don't even allow them to ask staff to look at other ideas? Um, so I I do support the council voting to to look at what this might mean, what a what a plan for immortization may be. Um, and I hope they get input from businesses and from other cities and they bring it back and we have another discussion and we have the businesses here again and you have hopefully maybe people like me coming to you and and giving their perspective. So, um, thank you all and um, yeah, you guys are doing great work. I love what I'm seeing in my city and I think um if these changes continue um you know it'll give folks like me a reason to actually spend our money here right and that's tax dollars coming here so we can have great parks and pickle ball courts and all that stuff. So thank you.

Thank you Michaela. Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Lyanna Cruz. I've lived in Corona for about the last eight years. So, I'm not a 30-year resident. I'm not a 50-year resident, but I have lived here for eight years. And I can tell you, I love Corona. And one of the things I absolutely love is where I live, my granddaughter and I can walk to three different parks. And so, thank you for committing to green spaces. Thank you for committing to finding ways to revitalize. Thank you for having places that we can, as Michaela said, we can go and eat and sit and enjoy. And it's amazing to see the potential. And all I want to say, I'm not here to tell you look into amortization or don't. I'm here to tell you thank you for listening to the community. Thank you for really seeking to hear what is needed and being willing to make hard decisions with the input from the community and finding a way to be progressive and move forward and still honor the history of Corona and ensure that we have many many local businesses. So, thank you.

Thank you, Miss Cruz. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Robert Vargas Jr. Uh, I've lived in Corona my entire four years of existence. I'm a third generation born and raised in the city of Corona with my great-grandparents coming here in 1915. We've seen a lot of change in the city of Corona. I personally over the last 40 years like Michaela said, played ball here in the fields. Um, we used to play around in the orange groves behind Albertson's. Um, we played where Santana Park is before it was a park. Um, I'm here today as uh not a automotive equipment or not an automotive shop owner, but as the owner of a company that services the equipment in automotive shops. Uh, a lot of these shop owners here at some point in my career, I have helped them out, whether it be relocating lifts, um, new equipment, servicing, anything like that. Um, I really hope that we make a wise decision not to amortize uh the downtown or the outside of the downtown area. And we do look at other cities that have done it. Um, the city of Orange in their circle, they've done a lot of building there. They've done a lot of um reconstruction and they currently have some automotive shops that sit outside of the Orange Circle. Chapman Automotive and Snow's Automotive are two just to name. nothing was changed in that area outside of the circle. So, I'm asking please, let's take that into consideration and keep these people's livelihood in in place. These aren't chains. You know, I I understand American Tire Depot is on Sixth Street. They are owned by a private equity firm and their whole goal is to buy shops, get equity in them, and sell them off. These are people that live in this town. My kids go to school with Harvey's

grandkids. These are people that we see every day in town. So, let's keep them in let's keep them in business. Let's find a way to factor them into revitalization much like we could have done or what we should do with Cortez. Let's factor them in to the revitalization. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Jackie McCrae. I'm here because I heard what was going on tonight. I've worked in Corona for 44 years, although I live in Riverside. Uh my brother-in-law owns Jerry's Breaken Wheel and it was owned by a a customer of mine before they passed away and he bought it several years ago. As I was sitting here listening to this gentleman talk about the legal stuff and the things, you've already figured out that when you go after the business owners, if they don't cooperate, what you're going to do. And as he was speaking, all I could think about were the women and the men that came up here and spoke about the terror from ICE. And right now, the way you guys are running Corona, that's what I look at. You may be starting out with the automotive businesses on Sixth Street, but what's going to keep you from going after beauty salons, nail salons, restaurants because you don't like the way that they look? Shame on you. I hope that you listen to everything that everybody is saying and take into consideration. You would not like anybody to give you a 10-year notice on having to move out of your house, would you? Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Evening. Tony Finaldi, longtime Corona resident. Okay, so quick story. um back in the early 90s. So I've lived in in South Corona in the area where Santiago uh High School is for a long long time. There was a neighbor of mine there. He owned a 5acre parcel. It was a packing house. It had a railroad spur that went in front of the place. Wes, you're shaking your head. So you know the facility. And it's just weird that all of a sudden California bisected it. So what did the city do? And of course I don't think any of you were here at the time. So it's not none of your's fault. But history repeats itself. This is the problem. So what happened? California bisected it. So what did the city do? Of course, eminent domain. They split the property into two parcels. One of them's houses now. They finally built those last few houses uh 10 years ago, maybe less. The opposite side is the lower part of the ball field for uh Santiago High School. Um anyway, that poor old guy, Warren Desper, he that's all he had. He was a truck driver. He retired. That's all he had was that 5 years. Yeah. The building was ugly. That's why they took it. And I didn't think too much of it at the time. Maybe 10 years ago, I finally spoke to the city engineer. You know, the gentleman used to sit where Savat is. Not Savat's fault at all, but he used to sit there at the time. Guess what? They purposely, the city manager purposely made California go through so they could take it under eminent domain. That's what this is. It's no different. Yeah, it's worse because at least that poor guy got 300 and something thousand, which was not even a drop in the bucket compared to what the property was worth a year after all the houses went in. Think about it. You know, this is wrong. These are your neighbors. These are your local businesses. Whoever came up with this idea, forget it. Fire them, whatever. I don't care. But it's wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. All the way around. Please.

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Amit Kumar. Um, born and raised here in Corona. Um, so been here for over 40 years. Um I would like to start with a little story you know um my father came to this country um early 80s and he set roots here in Corona. Um for people that have been here long enough will know my father and our siblings since we have all grown at our um gas station and auto shop right here on Sixth Street. My parents worked day and night, seven days a week to establish what they have now today. Um, our old childhood was just there watching them on the hard work, you know, the lessons that we learned that, you know, the work the work ethic that we got from them. Um, and now we have switched hands. It's come into the torch has been passed to us and our dream was always to keep passing that torch. We, you know, we have a few gas stations with uh auto repair shops in Corona. We've been in the community for so long. We've given so much to this community. Corona is our home. You know, my siblings, myself, like I said, we were all born and raised here. This is home. We've given everything to Corona. for this to come in and now the the way that it came in too, you know, it was just so like just sneaking and to jeopardize what our families, all of us, you know, be it minority owners uh and everybody else that's here, how much we've worked for just to get the rug pulled from underneath us, you know, it's it's very disheartening. So, I just hope that this doesn't pass and

you all just rethink this through that you know the history uh what's here you know the the relationships uh and just the livelihood of not just us but all the people that we also employ you know um a lot of people also uh uh depend on on these jobs and the way that the market goes now or the way things are you know it's very tough to find a job too and a lot of these people are very grateful that they have something to go to. So, I just really hope you guys think this through and not let it go through. Um, and just remember, too, that most of our businesses on Sixth Street that are falling under this, when COVID happened, we were essential businesses and now you guys are considering taking some of these essential businesses away. So, that's another thing that I hope you guys really think hard about uh before you guys make any moves on this and I'll end right there.

Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. Um sorry, I had to take a few little cliff notes here because I had not planned on coming tonight

until I saw what was going on. Um so, mayor, council members, and city staff, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am a 34 year resident of Corona and I retired after 24 years with the city. Um, this potential for the amortization proposal presents serious concerns of fairness to me. These are long-term owners decades. they've invested their life dollars into their business and going going forth to even consider this proposal would cause forced shuttering of businesses or you know if you went through with that um large cost to relocate. The locations were legally set up at the time and later the rules have changed and now they're being penalized for that. Um business these business owners contribute support to the community. They the they sponsor little league teams or school teams. Your kids may have played on one of the teams that they sponsored. Um they provide trusted service after shortly after living moving here. Um we needed car work done and I was referred to Harvey's. Thank you Harvey. they've left, but they they um they came through and they did the quality work for me and I feel I felt I could trust them based on their reputation and never along the years have they let me down. Multiple vehicles. Um, I value doing business with uh businesses that have longevity and reputation because they are successful in what they do and that should not be uh ignored as well. Um, do I agree that the businesses along Sixth Street, not just theirs, but a lot of them need a little uh facade improvements? Yes. But I think a better option than doing the amortization and

cancelling out their businesses 10 years down the road would be to maybe sponsor a program with the city like they've done before with the signs somebody mentioned. Uh sponsor uh a program that will help them to revamp their site to be tolerable and pretty enough to walk by. I don't mind walking by them, but um anyway, uh maybe instead of giving them a 10-year death sentence, you work, you know, if you decide to go forth with this whole procedure, you work as a buyout at fair market. And um these people have placed their life savings in their businesses. As a family member of a family-owned business, I can tell you firsthand when that business is forced to close, ours was due to a large rent increase, it affects the economical status of all the employees and families combined. Um, I mean, our home took a six-f figureure income hit a year. That was a huge hit. But anyway, these people deserve better than what this is.

Thank you, ma'am. What was your name for the record? I'm sorry. Denise Burns. Thanks, Denise. Thank you.

Hey, Chad.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, your friendly neighborhood chamber chairman, Chad. Say that 10 times fast. Um, I'll I'll be brief. I just wanted to share you guys are in luck because as the chamber chair in our chamber, we really do support their downtown redevelopment and we love new businesses coming in, unique eeries and restaurants, things like that. So, we're excited about that. On the same token, we're excited about the businesses behind us who are here tonight. Um, and you you heard so many great things I don't need to repeat, but I can tell you that as a chamber, we we are here to support them. And as I hear this, you guys did a we had a presentation earlier of so many options for pickup ball and tennis. There's got to be more options. So I don't fault the anyone here for looking at options and what tools uh if I were in your place I'd want to know all the tools available and some like this may not make sense but some that we we find may make sense. So I understand that this is part of the process of looking at those options and I think some folks behind us might have some options. When I think of the categories of people as a business owner our family has chosen to start and exit businesses. there might be a group of people or business owners who might have an extra they don't have an extra strategy or a succession plan and they may be wanting to to move elsewhere. So there might be some folks who would be interested in something like this. Then there's the the middle category where maybe they they haven't thought about it or they don't think think that there's a an option or an opportunity um and maybe they would consider it if they were given options to pursue or follow. Then there's the group that this is a legacy and they have no intention of le leaving or closing and that they'll fight tooth and nail to stay. And I would imagine they would get that support from I know everyone in this room. Um and I think that there's probably an opportunity for a strategy many strategies based on each one of those buckets. And there's

probably another bucket out there. I just wanted to um let you guys know that we're here for you as well. We have great relationships with a lot, you know, people in this room. Um, and we're here to help you as well as great partners. So, there's got to be other tools that may have not been pursued and we have a great interest in pursuing those. With that being said, I'm excited to share Bobby kind of stole my thunder to introduce our next presidency over our chamber, Dr. Tim Grahamling. He'll be speaking next. Um, so I'm excited to bring him up here and allow him to speak for his first time, which is pre his official capacity, which starts next week. So with that, thank you very much, council. Thank you, sir. Welcome aboard, Mr. Garling.

Thank you very much, your honor. Greetings to the council, city manager, council, and others that are present here tonight. As you can tell, there's clearly a lot of concerns, and what I wanted to do was make an appeal directly to each of our council members. There's an amazing thing that happens in this community particularly which is when we look at solving problems together. One of the things I'd stand ready to do and would ask is that the council would you be open to the chamber facilitating perhaps coffee with folks like Raj Kamar and Amit to talk about what's happening in the service stations what the needs are now and what a plan might be in the next 10 to 20 years would you be open to the chamber facilitating perhaps sitting at silverd dollar with Mark Fogle and talking about what a plan might be and where there might be some opportunities. Um, revitalization is always very difficult and I understand this council is determined not to be the council that let it go to another council that pushed the can further down the road. I understand that and this chamber stands ready to partner and I hope you would be open for us to facilitate these conversations that can help us find solutions together. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tim. Hi, Kathy. Hello. Welcome. Thank you so much.

Good evening, council members. Council members, um, Mayor Jim Steiner and staff. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Kathy Armstrong and I'm here to urge you to reject the amortization of non-conforming properties, especially those that include longstanding mechanic shops and other automotive businesses. I grew up in an auto shop. My father started started with one small garage working late nights with nothing but determination and a deep belief in serving his community. Over the years, through hard work and honest service, he grew that single shop into multiple auto shops and eventually a car dealership. That experience, that experience shaped my entire life. People often talk about mechanic shops as if they're dirty, unwanted uses. But I saw something very different. I saw entrepreneurs, people who followed their passion, learned a trade, and used it to build a life for their families. I saw dignity in the work, pride in solving problems, and the value these shops bring to a neighborhood. My father was able to provide for his family of six and so many others who were employed by him, including all the teenage boys. They were cute that that were that were living in our neighborhood. That sorry, that um upbringing influenced my own path. Today I'm an entrepreneur and a co-founder of a successful manufacturing plant here in Corona on Maple Street. I chose that path because I saw firsthand the meaning of productive work. The smell of factory or the noise of machinery doesn't bother me because to me it represents jobs, opportunity, and the heartbeat of a local economy. Amort amortizing these properties

doesn't just remove buildings. It removes livelihoods livelihoods. It removes the very types of small businesses that built people like my father and ultimately built people like me. Instead of pushing out longstanding shops and industries, we should support them, modernize them, and allow them to continue contributing to our community. Please consider the human stories, the economic value, the spirit behind these businesses. They deserve a better future here in Corona. Thank you, Kath. Good evening, Grace.

Good evening, mayor and uh council members. Thank you so much. My name is Grace Clark. I am a longtime resident of Corona, although many of you, including Bobby, have told me I'm a newcomer. I moved to Corona in 1980 because I could buy a house for less than $100,000. And so I have owned two homes in my lifetime. Both of them here in Corona. Uh 10 years ago I had an opportunity to start my own business. And where did I choose to do it? Here in Corona. I could make more money if I went into Orange County, but who wants to sit on the 91 freeway for three hours a day. So consequently, I opened my business here. and I have the pleasure of living of working well kind of living in your one of your revitalization areas sixth in Maine in the Horvath building. I employ six people by trade. All of you know I'm a CPA. So that's how I'm going to speak to you is as a CPA. So when you look at at putting these businesses out of business through a revitalization and through an amortization program, have you taken into consideration the uh sales tax that these businesses collect that you will no longer get because now they will probably be forced to either go out of business or uh relocate maybe to a neighboring city like Riverside who will then get the sales tax that you'll no longer get. And my phone went blank with my notes on it. Uh you say that you've spoken to uh the residents that you want to listen to the residents as to what we want. I've been here for 45 years. None of you have ever asked me what I wanted and I've not been part of any focus groups to find out what you want. I have had lunch with uh Jacob. I appreciated that very much. And I've met many of you through many different times, but nobody's ever asked me what I wanted to do in the downtown area. Uh you say you've talked to the property owners on Sixth Street. Well, they just said that they were never asked what you

what you were going to do with Sixth Street. So, you know, I wonder, well, who did you ask? Uh, it's not re easy to relocate these businesses. You're talking about heavy equipment that has to be moved, especially these are uh buildings that aren't easy to put up. This is a very expensive proposition to ask them to move. It just there has to be a better way. there has to because you guys are you guys are bright people and I know that there's a better way to do this. So, thank you very much for listening to Grace.

Welcome.

My name is Dles. Everybody knows me by Andy. I own a business in Sixth Street Nunes. I've been there for 42 years. And um the reason that I that I was uh I'm there, you know, up to this day is because and um when I was 26 years old, I'm going to be turning 70. I was renting a a place uh that later became my place was owned by a mayor of Corona. And um as soon as I became the owner, a ordinance was passed that I had to tear down the building and put it put it up to code. It took me several years to do so. But by the time I did so, I mean I was not allowed to do uh my aostery business because the zoning was wrong. And today now we're facing this new proposal. I mean it's been my livelihood. I raised my kids, five kids. Um, I have employees that uh I mean that are uh I mean supporting their families thanks to the business and I consider this very unfair. I don't want to use a word that I would like to use but uh uh this is absurd to to try to do this to us. You know uh some people are talking about not being able to walk to Sixth Street. Well, it's not because of the business. I came here uh in Cor to Corona in 1970, March 3rd, 1970. And I knew Corona and I know Corona from the very beginning and how he has it built. I mean, Six Street has been the same businesses out of business, mechanics and small shops. And now proposing this is uh talking about displacing us without a option. Now thinking I had the

honor to uh meet the mayor. He went to my shop um some time ago and I asked him what plans do you guys have for small businesses and he invited me to sit down with him one day and talk. But I mean I want to take this time to just to uh ask you to really consider the unfairness of this proposal. I mean coron um the street could use some improvements. I mean there improvements could be made but I mean taking all of us out of business without a choice. I don't think this is fair. So I ask you to consider this matter and really think deeply and think like you're in our place. Thank you so much. God bless you.

Thank you. Good seeing you again. Good evening.

Um my name is Jesse Nunes. I'm one of the five kids he mentioned earlier. Uh, I'm also hoping to be the next owner of Nun's Upholstery and Corona. Um, like he said, he's been in Corona for 42 years. He's already dealt with this something like this before. Um, whether you guys know it or not, we are actually a big part of the community. Um, if you're a police officer and your seats ever been torn, we've repaired it. If you're a firefighter and you need repairs on your seats or any of your, we've repaired it. If you're taking your car to a dealership for any sort of upholstery issue, there's a good chance that we've repaired it. Um, something like this will definitely uh impact us in a negative way. We're not this big corporate shop who could afford to buy a new a new building in a new location. Um, it just really sucks that I know it's not it's just a thought, but the fact that it's a thought really bothers me. Um, it's a tool that we could use, but a nuclear bomb is a tool that we could use, too. But we try not to do it right. Um, I plan to keep this business going as long as I could. Hopefully pass it down to one of my kids. Um, but with proposals like this, it really does scare me for the future of businesses like mine. I would have never found out about this if it wasn't for Paul, if it wasn't for Harvey telling me on Monday.

Um, no one, none of you guys, him, I don't know what he does, has ever spoken to us directly about anything going on on Sixth Street, the one lane highway. None, no one has spoken to us. So, I'm trying to figure out who you're speaking to cuz it wasn't us. I mean, it's I mean, if you're speaking to owners, it's either my pops or myself. Um, but I have not seen no memos. I have not seen anyone come in, talk to me, shake my hand or anything like that. Like my dad said, we've done work for you, mayor. Um, and it is disappointing to, you know, hear that this is a thought that could put a lot of business like myself. I get it. Our building's not nice. I always refer to the little ugly shack in the back. Um, but just because our building isn't nice doesn't mean our work isn't good and doesn't mean that we're less important than anyone else. But yeah, that's it. Jesse, you are important to us in this community.

The purpose of tonight was to get our decide if we're going to decide if we want to even think about it. I understand. That's when they go after we decide that's when they would go to the businesses. They haven't gone to them yet. There's no reason to because they didn't know if we were going to this forward. But for me, this is super short notice. Just know that you guys do great work. Harvey does great work. I've used you guys. I've used a lot of you in this community. We do appreciate you. We we don't hate automobile places. That's one of several that were listed as non-conforming. So, we're just we're talking through this, man. You guys are making great sense, too. So,

100%. I understand. Like I said, this was a last minute thing for us. Um, and I'm glad you guys clarified that it's an idea. But again, I hate the fact that it's even an idea. It's an idea in the industry. That's all it is. I get it. And I had never heard of it before. So, thank you. All right. Good evening.

Evening. My name is Gary Ksky. I've lived in Corona since 1990 and this is actually the first time I ever come to any meetings. So, it was that important. I know I've known Harvey for pretty much since I moved here. Um, he impressed me the first time I met him as being a man of incredible integrity and honesty. And one of the things that drew me to Corona and it's kept me here all this time. I'm retired now, is that that feeling of community and that feeling of honesty and integrity within the city within the police officers that are here with the business owners like Harvey. You don't find that in other places. And I've worked a lot of different cities and worked other places, big cities that have a lot more money and they don't come close to what's here in Corona. And I think that's the thing that people are saying here is that basically I appreciate that you're looking at those things, but um progress can never replace propriety. And propriety dealing with the integrity of the community at large and what I and others here as a resident can uh avail of ourselves is really important. And like I said, I've known Harvey for a long time. There's many times he's told me, "Look, don't do this or you can make this repair yourself." I mean, where do you get that kind of business or go to this guy over here or if you need this, go to here and talk to so and so? You can't get that anywhere else. So, it's I like the idea and I understand that you're looking at these things, but that's what's one of the nice things about Corona. It really is, is that it's still a growing larger city, but it's still a small city. and that homeiness and that connectivity is really important. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening. Oh, this picks up well. Hello, council members. My name is Michael Van Eggmmont. I am son of Harvey Van Eggmond uh of Harvey's Autok. I didn't come here with a speech planned, but I just wanted to share a couple of my thoughts. Growing up in Corona, um, going to different businesses, going to the grocery store, it is crazy the amount of times I've been recognized and people have gone, "Are you one of Harvey's kids?" And I've gone and they've said, "Oh, he's a great guy. I've known him longer than you've been alive. Um, you know, yeah, what a you know, I love Harvey." And I'm just like, "Cool." You know, I've always liked him. I didn't have a choice. But um the more I've worked at his shop, the more I understand um I understand why people like him. The number of times I've had people, you know, complain about dealerships or or you know, complain about what else is out there. And um the number of times I've seen my dad bend over backwards for a customer or for someone calling in. um you know and uh and hearing on Friday about this proposal that threatens not only the business that of course my father worked very hard to build um the businesses all along the street that I know they've worked hard to build and that I've I've met plenty of them myself and and they're upstanding guys uh the ones I've met anyway but um but also I believe is the detriment to thousands of citizens who would be forced to find business elsewhere, most likely outside of Corona, ending up in Riverside at dealerships. You know, again, probably we have hundreds of customers

that have been customers for 30 years. And I I just can't believe I read a proposal. I understand it's just a it's just a thought, but to read a proposal that says, "Hey, we think that these things are ugly and you know, I painted that building myself." So, I think um I I don't think Sixth Street is the prettiest. I think nobody here would uh would disagree with that. But I think that ways of um you know of holding businesses accountable and um you know having their sons paint their businesses too I think would be a better solution. Um so that's my take on the matter.

Thank you Michael. Welcome. My name is Jonathan Van Eggman. You know who I am. Harvey's my dad and I got to start off with, you know, Jim, what you just told Jesse is a load of crap. Really? Hey, this is my time. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. You can speak when I'm done. You're right. Yeah. I'm sorry.

What you told Jesse is that you care about the opinion of the small businesses in the downtown. I don't believe that one bit. You just said that you would wait until you've made a decision on this type of proposal and then you would discuss it with us. If you cared about our opinion, you would ask us before considering to pass a proposal like this. You just told my dad on Monday that the downtown is a hole. I did say that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not because of our businesses. It's not because of the automotive businesses.

It's because of the vagrancy. It's because of all the businesses you've already kicked out of our town. If you think that businesses are going to want to develop in our city, then don't turn it into a wasteland that they can see. Hey, where did all the businesses go? Oh, let me ask why. Oh, they were booted out of town with no compensation. That's not right. And yeah, of course, who cares for you guys? If you pass something like this, yeah, 10 years down the road, it's some other council's problem. Well, you don't want that weighing on your conscience because I'll be thinking about it the rest of my life. They did something like this back about a hundred years ago in Russia when the Bolsheviks played out their communist revolution. It appears that not much about government has changed except that their methods are a lot more slippery and sneaky now. They don't do it with a violence. They just do it with economic destruction. So, I urge you and Jim, I hope that you know, you can take it personally, sure. But I hope you look yourself in the mirror and say, "Am I really doing what's best for the loyal citizens of this town who have invested their time and their efforts for decades

and made promises to the people of this town that we could use this place to live and grow our families? And what? We're supposed to just wake up one day and have to move on in place of what? Some trinket shops selling useless garbage that nobody even needs, most likely shipped in from China. You want economic growth in this city? Keep the businesses that provide real American services that are based in the history of this town. Build a museum. you know, lean into the automotive side of this business. That's what we have going for us. Why would you kick us out to create a cookie cutter 15minute city? Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Come on up, Harvey.

Harvey Vanman, Harvey's Auto Tech. Um, I first want to say thank you, Jonathan, for holding back. of how you really felt. Um, I appreciate that. Um, I was planning to toot my horn, but um, I've something I've found out I've learned a lot tonight. Um, and it kind of knocked me down a little bit because I've been wondering how much business Paul does and I've heard he does more business than me. So, I'm coming for you, Paul. Okay. Um, I appreciate what everybody has said. Um, I do have a couple of comments I want to bring into this. Um, all of our kids have worked with us at the business. They've learned a lot. My wife homeschooled the kids, but she also had them at the schools in town. Um, she homeschooled them. I've worked schooled them. Uh, my wife and I have been running this business uh for many years. Um, I want to talk about all the other businesses. Okay. 30, 40, 50 years worth of auto service businesses. You've seen these people. They've been on Sixth Street. They continue to serve Corona keeping families safe. These businesses are thriving and growing. And we deal with the trash, the vandalism, the homelessness, and the graffiti on a daily basis. Okay?

Who's down there Monday morning when there's graffiti on the side of my building painting it? I am. My kids are. My employees are. Okay? We're keeping it clean. We're keeping the weeds off of the property. We're keeping these buildings from being boarded up. Um the attitude that we are the downtown problem automotive, that's a slap in the face. Okay. To many who work here, run businesses, and live here. Okay. We're the ones that are keeping it decent. Okay. Um, in addition, the city, as people have said, the city gave absolutely no warning of this elimination proposal. That in itself is disgusting. I welcome the idea of downtown revitalization, but I have been hearing these conversations for 25 years, as long as I've owned this property. kicking out businesses with no plan with only will only turn the downtown into boarded up buildings, graffiti covered, weedgrown properties, and a ghost town for those businesses left behind. Instead, guys, give us a design plan, okay, to beautify our businesses with a vintage automotive feel like Norco, Horsetown, USA. How many people have said Corona, Circle City, Race Town, but simply kicking out hardworking businesses is bad for business owners, property owners, and the community of of Corona. If you guys, and I've talked to all of you guys, I didn't talk to you, Mr. Ellis. I guess you're almost the one I should have talked to because none of these guys knew anything about this. Okay? I've talked to all of these guys. Um, we need to take a stand against this. We need to come up with a better plan for everyone.

Thanks, Hermy. All right. Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening. Uh, my name is uh Sean Shakar. I am the owner and operator of Best Auto Sales. I am the dealership located across from the city park. To kind of give you some backdrop, we're a family operated business that's been in operation since 1996. My brothers are in the background right here. My father started this entire operation. It's been handed down to the to the sons at this point. We specialize and focus on commercial type of vehicle. You may have driven by that uh strip. We focus on commercial type of vehicles and we sell these type of vehicles to various businesses within the precincts of Corona and abroad and internationally as well too. And we have when we have clients coming into our facility, they generally stay at a nearby hotel, visit various restaurants, including the famous Silver Dollar Pancake House down the street, and also patronize various business establishments here as well too. Our dealership is putting the city of Crona on the map. We are the we are generating the image that we are the center of commerce. But this proposal, I know once again you're you're merely thinking about this idea, undermines all of this and it more importantly it destroys the trust in the business community, particularly here in the city of Corona. Many of us have been invested into this downtown for well over 20, 30 years. I spent the majority of my life here. I graduated from Centennial High School. I've been part of this community for a very long time and I share the concerns that you have about downtown Renault. We are at the front lines. All these businesses that have spoken tonight. We're on that strip. We've been there for a significant period of time. We share the concerns that you have and we want to be part of the solution. We're not the problem here. We see what's

happening every single day and we're invested just as much as you are to see the success of downtown Corona. And what we're asking here tonight is not to consider this idea whatsoever. This idea is disastrous. But rather give us the opportunity, engage the business community here, work with us, empower us, give us the tools and resources and the manpower to change the downtown. We are ready. All of us are ready. But we're not ready to step down. We're here and we want to be here. We want to see the success of Corona. We want We care about Corona and we want to see this work all together. Thank you so much. Thanks, Sean.

Welcome.

Hi there. Good evening. My name is Larry McCrae. I own Jerry's Break and Tire Pros on Sixth Street. Um, from 2000 to 2006, I owned half of the Big O tires there. I bought Jerry's in 2006. Um, it's familyowned. Not a big speech guy. There's a couple things. My my building when I bought it, it's a one-use building. I had to pay double the down payment to the SBA because it's a one-use building. It has a lift in it. So, when you consider trying to sell it or turn it into something else in 10 years, I mean, unless you guys want some indoor pickle ball courts might be on your guys' deal, something over there, but it's a one-use deal. So, I don't know. Other than that, everything these guys said has been great. I'm really grateful for what you guys did here tonight because I know a lot of these guys, but you just brought us together and you want to fight, you got it.

Welcome back, Marta.

Good evening again. I know it's late. We all want to go home, so I'll be short. I already put up my hair, so that means I'm ready to go home. But anyways, I asked Joe to go before him because I don't know what he's gonna say or if he'll remember anything I say afterwards. But um anyway, so I think everyone has pretty much said what we all feel. And even though my business is not on the chopping block, unless you decide there's too many Mexican restaurants on Sixth Street, um I'm here to support my neighbors. Harvey is my neighbor. Nunes is my neighbor. I know Paul, you know, they're we're all part of the same community, the downtown community. So, I hope that you take this idea, put it in a box, lock it, and throw away the key because I really don't think that this is a good business model. pushing out businesses that have survived. Um, this whole period of nothing being done downtown and now that something is being done and they they could be a part of it, we could all be a part of it, they're getting pushed out or they might be pushed out. So, please just get rid I mean fine, you explored it. Not a good idea. Get rid of it.

Thanks, Mark. Thank you. All right.

So, before Harvey's was was Harvey's, uh, I worked at Hamburg Ford. We used to eat at Eduardo before it was Eduardo's. Okay. What's clear to me about this discussion is you don't know anything about a local economy, a local service economy, or the community. And I'm really sick. I'm sick, sick, sick of being talked down to and gentle parented by you, Miss Casillas. It's scary. I realize there's a lot of changes. I know, friend, you're feeling big feelings. You need to stop with that. You need to stop with that. And with a little smirk. Okay. You're disrespectful. Jim saying that the the downtown looks like a piece of You're going to call him a liar?

No.

Yeah. Stop it. It's disrespectful to the people that are down there. It's nothing but a bunch of South Corona, Orange County transplants like most of the council that didn't grow up here. Yeah, you when did you come here? You're the oldest one here. You're the one You're the one with the most tenure here, Wes. Right. But but everybody lives in South Corona or Sierra Deloro looks down to Sixth Street and every Hispanic female is a prostitute and every Hispanic male is a drug dealer. Most of the problems that happen on Sixth Street is because of you guys on the council. You blighted the place. You pulled all the big businesses out. You as the city. And then you're strafing the people into lifeboats that survived the sinking. And you don't have to examine whether strafing people in lifeboats is a good idea. You don't have to examine that. It's unethical. It's wrong. Killing businesses. Tony, you were all over the fact that we might possibly just in the slightest possible way discomfort Gal and the use of their private property. But the fact that you're willing to explore stealing these people's businesses with no compensation whatsoever is frankly disgusting. The fact that you can't say clearly right now, "Stop this Stop it." And and Jim, I can't be more disappointed in you that you're like both saying out of one side of your mouth, well, you didn't really need to be here. We didn't really need to tell you. But I'm really glad to hear what you have to say. The weasel guy over here didn't want anybody here. And I'm frankly disappointed in Joel here. You know, I was talking to our mutual friend yesterday or today about whether they've used this in Riverside or not. He said, "Well, they did something similar, but they actually offered relocation money. We don't have any place to relocate." That's another thing you guys don't seem

to know about the automotive trade. There are no other places to locate. Sixth Street is the commercial corridor. So, railroad is full up. There are no more shops. There are no more places for shops in Corona. It's and Sixth Street is zoned to be apartment. So, what you're doing is you're spraying you're spraying Roundup over the survivors and it's it's nothing to get to just build more five fivestory apartment buildings just like downtown Anaheim. Thank you very much.

It's always such an adventure to follow my good friend Joe Morgan. Um, my name is Don Fuller. I'm a resident here in town and uh like uh most of these people here in this room, I too have earned much of my living with cars. Probably not in the way they have, but uh that's how I made my living for most of my professional life was just cars somewhere or another, but that's sort of irrelevant. And uh what kind of business it is, I think, is kind of irrelevant. And how long you've lived here. I've been here since the year 2000. I think that's kind of irrelevant. What I see here as irrelevant is this fundamentally wrong. This is a fundamentally wrong thing to do. Each one of you up there, Mr. Dario, Mr. Speak, Mr. Richens, Mr. Steiner, Miss Casillas, when you ran, you ran for the office and the people came in and voted for you or against you. And they voted because they wanted you to do the right thing. Title of a Spikeley movie. They wanted you to do the right thing. Going for this is the wrong thing. You know it. I have no idea how this abomination ended up on the agenda. If I would have been in the meeting when it was proposed, I would have said, "Fuck no." And it's not the right thing to do. It's a simple matter of what's right and wrong. And there is something fundamentally wrong about this. It's not going to be fixed by waiting another 10 years. It's not going to be fixed by painting up some of the buildings or putting some pretty flower pots. This is a fundamentally wrong thing to do to tell other people what they can do with their businesses, what they can do with their lives. Try to pick up and move an auto repair shop. Try to do that. I

never had to do it because I was self-employed. Try to do that. You can't do that. Try to move the AAA uh animal hospital, which I use. Try to move Eduardos, which you better not because it's only my favorite restaurant in town. Right. This is a fundamentally wrong thing to do. My guess is, and this is just my guess, that this did not originate with the council. My guess is it came from someplace else and it is a fundamentally wrong thing to do. So do the right thing. You know what that is. Thank you very much for your time.

Thanks. Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Sammy Messiah. I own a business on Sixth Street and I have been in the business for the last three 35 years. I built this business with my sweat, my hard work, take time from family, take f time from fun and going to business sick or or good. I have to go to business to take care of the business and customers and my workers. And that was my dream and is my dream. I want to leave a good legacy for my kids. And couple of days, Mr. Harvey called me. He says, "Sammy, there is a council meeting because they're trying to take the business away from us." I says, "What you talking about?" I was not prepared for that. I came today to say one thing and please be compassionate and understanding and thoughtful about what I said. When you work hard all your life and you have a dream to accomplish and you get to accomplish this dream and someone comes said, "Hey, we don't care about you. We didn't care about your hard work. We didn't care about your dignity. No, we're going to take this away from you. You can't do this work somewhere else. You can do this business somewhere else. How could you do that? How you can do that? How could you accomplish a business that's been doing it for 35 years and you go start somewhere else? People knows us and knows all these people sitting here by name and be their reputation. They know them and they get used to it. They come and their eyes closed because they know where they are and what we are doing and how we honor their business. I don't understand that. Please make sure that you say no to this proposition. Please. That's all what I have to say.

Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome,

council members. My name is Joel Nadic. Um, I've been a resident of Corona for the last 14 years. I grew up close to it, rode motorcycles in the hills where Corona, where Costco was and all through those hills going back. Um, I look at these people. These are my clients. These are my friends. And there's two points that we haven't looked at or haven't addressed in this whole topic. Nobody's talked about it. The mental health of these people, their employees. They go and they put their head on their pillow at night and think about you wanting to close their businesses. And it's just not automotive. There was a whole list of things. Where does it actually end? You know, I traveled in in my previous career. I traveled three weeks out of the month to all over the country, many other countries. But what I noticed most about going to all these other cities and you'd ask somebody, "Hey, is there a great Italian restaurant in town?" They go, "Yeah, there's an Olive Garden." and you're like, "Man, I just kind of wanted something local flavor." You drive down the sixth street. It's not the box stores that you drive through. Every little city or every city, there's, you know, a borders bookstore. There's a, you know, everything is all the same. It's all cookie cutter. You could pick yourself up and put drop you in any state and go through a downtown area of a city and they all look the same. They're all the box stores. That's the unique character of Corona. that what makes it different is these people that have spent their lives building a business that's unique to themselves and and you really got to think as I said the first part the mental anguish it's not the mental anguish of these owners you go okay 10 years kick it down the can I remember what 15 years ago when it was 55 years at at at Bear Automotive and they were doing alignments for $55 because it was their 55th year in business that was 15 years ago that 10 years is a blink it goes and We're right back to to to wherever this may be in 10

years. It's going to happen quick and it's not going to stop with automotive is going to keep going. They're going to kick the can all the way down. And I may not be the brightest guy in the room by a long shot, but that's just my opinion. Thank you for your time.

Hey, Woody. I'll get there. Give me Give me time. My name is Woodro Harpole. I'm with 63 West Grand Boulevard, Calvert Real Properties, and I'm the property owner of 1212 and 1210 East 6th Street. We've got seven good mechanics there. They're all friends of mine now because I take my cars there and I refer my friends to them. So, I want you to think hard about this before we get rid of the hardworking mechanics in town because they do they serve a purpose and uh you're welcome to come to my office and talk to me. I won't stagger around too much. Okay, any questions?

No, sir. Thank you, Woody. Okay.

Good evening, Bobby Spiegel, Corona Chamber. First, I want to say thank you to you council for not shortening the time for each of the speakers. We had a lot of people that wanted to share tonight and you gave them every all of them the three minutes. Some went a little over, some went less. Secondly, I think that we need to bring back to what my replacement of Tim Grahamland has offered. We're here to help. The chamber has always been a partner and wanting to help. Third, I want to go back to about four years ago or five years ago when some of you were new to the council and you would talk to me and say, "Why do you come at the very end when there's a problem? Why didn't you come at the very beginning?" So, I just want to say thank you for bringing this tonight because this is the beginning obviously because none of you knew this on Wednesday or Thursday until Thursday night when you saw the agenda. And I just want to extend the challenge to you. Maybe this is all about communication. Had this been just worded differently on the agenda, all of these people that are going to be getting up in another six hours to go to work to provide income for their employees to do the things that need to be done, they would have been in bed already. So, we're here to help. I'm going to say thank God it's my last council meeting that I need to do this with, but Mr. Grahamlin will be here on a regular basis and please take him up on his offer to help coordinate and do whatever we can. There is a solution out there and I believe someone was incorrect with saying that you're the longest citizen here. I believe Jackie was because she was born and raised here. And if not, we'll go on percentages.

I'm just a little older. That's all. That's the only reason. She was born here. But thank you. Thank you guys so much. appreciate you.

All right, seeing no more speakers, let's go to my colleagues. We do have somebody on Zoom for this item. And I also want to note for the record that we did receive written comments. I'll send those to the full council tomorrow and they will be part of the meeting record. All right. Thank you. Let's hear from the Zoom. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead, please.

Okay. Yes. This is Randy Fox. Um, it was good to see everybody. I haven't seen many of you in seven years, I think. Um, but everyone's aging very well. And congratulations to Bobby on his retirement and it was good to meet Dr. Gambling. I wasn't able to stay till the end here. Um, just from my standpoint, uh, I am an Orange County transplant and live in South Corona. I was treasur and city councilman years ago. Um, when I first moved to Corona and even when I was thinking of connecting with the city like I did to run for office, it was the automotive uh history and and industry that kind of that that's what gelled with me and um you know the first parade I was in I was standing on rumble seat of a Model A and that's how I I made the connection and then getting into the Cars and Coffee and Steve Saline and the Tom Bay family and all that. In other words, this this to me from my perspective, it's it's cherishing our past, you know, to just deal with the automotive industry like this, like it's just um dispensable. It it's to me citrus and automotive is what Corona is about. And I think trying to instead of just get rid of it, cherish it. I mean, um turn Sixth Street into Radiator Springs or something. I mean just really that you have a good emphasis here already a good history and um I you know I compare it to Oldtown Orange which I was involved with when they involved from a very crummy neighborhood to being the jewel of the city and it was a very organic you know thing that took place. It was a a growth that, you know, it wasn't just advertising, just putting to death, you know, the the businesses. It happened on its own and the the people really rallied and and did it themselves. So, um, I I don't know. I I just you got a

good thing going here with your automotive past and these guys I think who are really the living legacy of that in their various fields. The unsung heroes um they should be honored and and certainly listened to and and and valued. Um yeah, it can be cleaned up. It could be cherished. You can maybe combine, you know, lube and latte or something. I don't know. But you can but it's just really don't give that up. Um, and I know several of you really do care about the history and the road race and all that and you're having the event, which is is great that's coming up in March. So, just wanted to to say that I I I really appreciate these guys continuing on with that automotive emphasis and um and Sixth Street is really important to everybody um for those of us that have fossil fuel cars. So, that's my my two cents.

Thank you, Randy. Good to see everyone. Take care. Thank you. That's it. Right, Sylvia? Yes. Okay, now I want to bring it back to my colleagues for comments and questions. Tony, start with you.

Thank you, mayor. So many comments. Um, really appreciate everybody coming out. I've had an opportunity to to speak with a few of you guys. Um, and uh, you know, all of the folks that came out in support of their their businesses. I'm having a little bit of a flashback. 40 some odd years ago, my parents owned up their own business and they contracted out with a guy by the name of John at Golden West Tire who's still in business in Fullerton. It drives me crazy because every time my mom goes over there, well, whatever John says, I'm going to do. Harvey, you've got that type of clientele. So, I applaud you. It sounds like all of you guys do. That's that's a great thing to have. Um, and I don't want anyone to think that we were targeting um automotive folks. Um, y'all just happen to be the biggest group of businesses on Sixth Street. Um,

no, because I I wouldn't say Target because the massage parlors aren't here. Neither are the hotelier, I think it's, you know. Um, so I don't want anyone to think that it was it was targeted. And I want to clear a few things up. You know, we have I don't know if it's over yet, but we had a grant program for people to do facade improvements that some of the the building owners took advantage of, not so much the business owners because they didn't own the building. So, we we had grant programs for that for facade improvements. Um, a lot of folks mentioned other communities, one in in particular, uh, City of Orange, they pushed out antique stores and they continue to push out antique stores. That's what made the Orange Circle the the the viable community that it is. Um, but I agree on a couple of things. one, we this this council um is doing quite a bit. We I think Miss Paxton talked about it. We've got the McKinley grade separation. We've got the North Mall. We've got the South Mall. Um we've got downtown revitalization happening. It all of this is actually happening. It's not just talk at this point. It's actually happening. And so I agree we should um really focus on getting those done right. And I think when those are done or far enough along, I think the revitalization is just a natural next step. And um part of that is planning for that. So this was an ask to start looking and thinking about planning those next steps because what you don't want to have happen is you don't want to get there and then not know what the next steps are. Um,

you know, I I would imagine that some of some of the business owners here um built the business and then didn't just say, "Well, what do we do next?" You know, add another lift or add three more lifts or something along those lines. They were thinking about that as the next second and third step. So, that's what we're doing is we're thinking about what are the next steps when what we believe happens happens. And you know, there was some there was there was some talk about, you know, finish one thing first. And and I I like that idea. There was also an idea that was thrown out tonight that I I didn't think about, but I also really like, which was leaning into our automotive history, and I I I think that that idea has a lot of merit. A lot of the folks that came up and and talked tonight also talked a lot about some of the uses that are going on in the downtown currently that they didn't like, like a methadone clinic right by our library. And this council posed that question to our city manager. What are some of the tools that we can look at to prevent things like a methodone clinic right by our library where our children and a lot of the vulnerable um members of our community utilize as a safe haven? Well, this is one of those types of tools, right? So, we have to consider a lot of different things. I will also agree that this came as kind of a surprise to a lot of folks and we needed to do a better job of communicating what's going on. And so I I also like one of the things that in the conversation that I have with with Harvey uh what that I had with Harvey that came out of that conversation which is you know if you guys are revitalizing and you guys are doing everything that happens. I hope that somebody comes and offers me stupid money for my my building and I can go retire on a beach somewhere or whatever the dream is. I hope that that happens. I hope that that happens for all of you guys that you

guys are posed with a question that somebody has offered me stupid money to leave. I hope that happens for all of you and I and I hope that you guys do what's right for you, but I hope that you guys have the option. So, I think where I'm landing on this is these are all tools and I want to know about all of the tools that are available to help move along the revitalization of our downtown. But I think the first things that need to happen is we need to start to build that momentum in the downtown so that folks are seeing what's going on and we need to know about the tools that are available to us. So I I'm not I'm not opposed to the idea of learning about tools. Um and that's all that this is was just the idea of learning about tools. And so I think that we we should do that once we're a little bit farther along with our downtown and so people can see it. I see it and I think my colleagues see it as well and sometimes some of you folks don't see it. Um and that's okay. But we had we had one of one of the residents come up and start rattling off all the things that are happening right now. Um and it's not just talk, it's things that are happening right now. So, um, that's not coming from us. That's coming from someone out there, right? Um, and I think that it's true. Those things are happening. We're not just talking about it anymore. So, we got to do a better job of communicating with some of the some of the folks uh in our downtown revitalizing area. Um, you I value all of the all of the folks that are here because small businesses are are the backbone of any community. So, I don't want you to think that you're not valued. I personally value, and I I believe all my colleagues do as well. I'm not going to lie, there's some uses in our downtown that are going to be a problem for a true revitalization. I

don't think automotive is one of those uses. Um, I think that some of the some of the uses that were listed in this presentation are going to be a hindrance for a completely revitalized downtown. So, uh, I appreciate everything that you guys do and I'm looking forward to learning about more of the tools and I'm looking forward to working with all of you guys and thank you for bringing some of the ideas that I didn't think about. And I really like the one about leaning into our automotive history. So, I think that there's a way that we can learn about our tools, um, work with our businesses that are here, communicate with them. There was some great ideas that came out of it and and and that wouldn't have happened if we didn't have a conversation. So, thank you guys for coming out. It's uh a little bit after 11 o'clock, so thanks for hanging out with us later than any of us wanted to be here. Thank you.

Uh

thank you. I I'll I'll be quick. I I I what I said earlier is I'm going to just keep it short and sweet. Um I don't think any of you should be should be run out. I think amortization for for the businesses that that you all operate in the city have long brought I' I think I've used every single one of your businesses over the years. I' I've lived here since 1980. My parents drugged me kicking and screaming here. I walk Sixth Street. I've I've been all over the place um in that area and I'm not afraid of Sixth Street in any way. I do think that there are and I Harvey and I had a discussion on on Friday. There are some things that that that could look better. Um, and I'm fully open to have that conversation with every single one of you and to finding ways that we can we can coexist. I I love the bear the bear sign. I think it's absolutely incredible and you guys invested in that out of nothing other than you took pride in the way it looked. You could have replaced it with some, you know, plastic piece of crap and you didn't. You you you you put something back that meant something to you and to this community. So, I appreciate that. I think from a from a policy standpoint, I think we need to step step back. There are 36 uses on this list of of uh things that are that are now non-conforming. And I think we should go back and look at some of them and say, "Yeah, I agree with you, Tony. I think there's some like, you know, I don't want to see massage parlors down on Sixth Street." And and nor do I want to see a motel that gets, you know, the PD is at five times a week. Um I think there's a a deeper conversation that needs to happen. I think that we have some current, you know, rules right now with non-conforming businesses. If we have a business that closed down, they get six months to reopen and basically that's a property owner that's selling to somebody else or renting that space to somebody else so they can give it a go. Right now, we give them six months. I think that number should be a lot less. I think we should give a little bit of a shorter lease. The folks that have been

here a really long time and are very successful and do great work. Fantastic. You should stay there. We should work with you. I think we should find a way to to fund our facade program again so we can get folks to some money. I mean, the city did this before. They did amortization for signs. They they gave $1,000 for folks to to change to change their signs out. Um, and if they didn't do it in five years, the city came and took them out. I'm not advocating for that at all. I think there's an opportunity for us to to find, and I think that Dr. Gramling said it perfectly. There's an opportunity for us all to sit down and and talk about what are the goals. The goals aren't to push you out because we don't think you're, you know, as Jim said, we don't think you're we are valuable. I've used all your businesses. Hell, I I grew up across the street from from Majes. I I worked across the street at at U-Haul and he would come over and give me a hard time about the propane prices and went over and got snacks and, you know, I like I said, I spent plenty of time on Sixth Street. So I think there's an opportunity for us to take a step back um see what we can do how we can work with the businesses to you know us do revitalization together and and find a way to to you know take your investments that you guys have done in this in the city of Corona and and really double down on going forward with something that meets all of our requirements. Thank you

Tom.

Thank you mayor. Excuse me. I uh I align with Tony, Council Member Dario. I uh I I I really feel the citizens of Corona deserve a revitalized downtown. I think it's been a long request of all of Corona citizens that they want to revitalize downtown. I think you know it and I think they know it and I think we know it. I I think in order to go forward, you have to have vision. As business owners, many of you are as business owners, you don't succeed unless you have vision. You don't go forward unless you have vision. I'm I I really feel that's what needs to be done with the downtown. I do think amortization is a tool. I just don't think it's the tool that we need right now. This is where Tony and I agree. I think we need to prove our colors. I need I think we need to start building the North Mall. I think we need to show the citizens of Corona that we mean business and we deliver a good product. I think we uh we we get momentum if successful from the North Mall from the from the street improvements from uh um this the South Mall the hub. I I think we're on our way. I do believe that we've done more as a council, as a city than in the past. I also believe uh as one who studies Corona's history. The downtown has always been changing. It it there the one thing that's consistent with the downtown is it's never not been changing. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Mr. Fuller, whoever thought it was a good idea to put a crooked curb in Main Street should probably be shot. But they're probably not here anymore. Anyways,

um I a a freeway over a a bridge over the freeway instead of under the freeway at at Maine was wrong. There there's been many missteps. Putting the 91 freeway through a circle was was a misstep. there there's been many things that have gone wrong and I think there's many people and many citizens that want to make it go right going forward. So I think vision is important. I think success and and success creating success is important with what Wes said. Um there's there's some places that just don't fit in the downtown. I'm not convinced the automotive doesn't fit in the downtown. I I would probably want to see more options. I think uh I was talking to Harvey pretty much told everybody that he talked to all of us, right? I Harvey and I talked about the Firestone tire shop on Maine and how cool it looks. It looks very iconic. It looks beautiful to be honest with you. Maybe maybe that's a pathway forward for automotive industries is to revitalize themselves, but that would have to be studied out at a future future time and date. So that's where I'm at. I' I'd not to use the cliche, but I'd like to kick the can down the road for the time being.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, thank you. Um, I want to start by thanking you all so much for being here. I know you heard me say it earlier, but this is this is democracy, and I appreciate you participating in it. It's late. I know it's late. I you I'm used to not getting sleep. I have a 19-month-old, but but it's late, and I know we all want to get home, but thank you. Thank you for being part of the discussion and thank you for sharing your thoughts. Um, Bobby, I think you're right. I think that um we we've probably gotten here through some miscommunication and misunderstanding. Um, I I also think it's important to mention that this is the space that the council has to explore ideas. Um, the people's business must be done here in these public meetings. And so you get to hear these presentations when we get to hear these presentations and you get to see and ask questions as we get to hear and ask questions. Um someone said you know I understand that this is part of the process exploring all the options are necessary. Um and I completely agree. Um we have asked for tools to address the sticky tough issues that we um are being asked by our by residents to address. Um, you've heard me mention the methodone clinic, but there's also the massage parlors. There's, um, you know, some motel in the downtown. And so, um, but I but I understand how how this landed and I really want to apologize for that feeling. Someone mentioned the mental health toll that this takes and I and I don't want to discount that. It does it. I mean, listen, it there's no we are impact. This is our community. we are building and moving forward and there's nothing that is done that is not um we're living we're choosing to live here together. These things have impact and so I want to apologize for the negative impacts that this have made um on your mental health and on your the stresses that it has

caused um it was not intentional and um I know that that sometimes maybe doesn't feel genuine but like I we are your neighbors. It's not you know I'm I'm raising my family here too. I'm born and raised in the circle like I can't stress enough how much like I see you as my neighbor so it doesn't land flat. Um anyhow, um I just wanted to to to share that because sometimes people think that like um that that it isn't the case that these things are happening before us and that we're asking these questions. But I do want to share that we have stressed on staff that we we want to know what's out there. We we want to know what's possible. Um it it has been 40 years of a blighted downtown and and like someone else said, you know, this council is determined to be the council that doesn't kick that can down the road. Um and and and not the can you're referring to, but the can of of you know, addressing um you know, the the stagnation. Um you know, we need to uh reinvest in our community. And so anyway, that's that's where I'm coming from. I know that my share my colleagues have shared that um and I I feel comfortable saying that that's where the intention lies. Um you know I wanted to get into a list of the misconceptions but to be honest it's it's neither here nor there. That's part of the that's part of the it's part of the business. It's part of what this is, right? Um and so we, you know, I choose um the way I choose to conduct this business and the way I choose to um to to address you all um it's you know it's it's it's like I said it's personal and I understand that

sometimes there's just there's frustration and it kind of it just it comes one way and um I signed up for that and that's all right. Um but you know the misconceptions sometimes um are are are quite a bit but anyhow um I I agree with what my colleagues have said which is um you know there are exploring tools are necessary. There are businesses in the downtown that are probably not consistent with the vision that um we as a community have been clamoring for. And so we need to know these tools. Now it does is that encompassing of the automotive industry? Maybe it maybe it isn't. Maybe there's a pathway to you know again beautifification to meeting this standard so that we can all work through this together. And I'm open to these conversations um with the chamber. I'm open to these conversations with the group um to build a downtown that we can all be proud of. Um, and I don't mean this in a condescending way. I I mean it genuinely that these are tough conversations and we're having them in an open space and that just cranks up the temperature. Um, but you know, I I'm I'm being open and honest with you when I say that I that you know, I I come to these conversations wanting to find solutions and you have my commitment um, you know, to continue to battle, you know, Corona's challenges, but not battle the residents. That's not where I want to be. And I want us to stay focused on the goal. And the goal is to deliver a downtown a thriving downtown that we can all be proud of. So, I'm in I'm in agreement with my colleagues. I don't think that this is um the tool for right now. I do want to see some more successes in the downtown before we pick this topic back up. So, I'm in agreement there. Thank you.

Thank you. And then Council Member Dere, you had one more comment. Yeah. You know, I I have to disagree a little bit with Tom. I actually don't want to kick the can down the road. I want to This isn't the right This isn't the right tool. We need to explore more tools because we need to have our next two, three, we need to start thinking about our next two to three steps because we're going to get to damn it, we're going to get to the revitalized downtown and I don't want to be sitting there going, "Well, what's next?" Right? I I don't I don't want to be there because that's a lack of vision. So let's start vision planning second third steps and I don't want to kick that can down the road. I maybe I didn't say that clearly or in that way but I want to be very specific.

So you want to go forward with amortization. No no no no no that's not what I said. I what I said was I want to not kick the can down the road. I want to understand what our options are. This isn't the right option. Continue the conversation. Let's continue the conversation. We've got very we've got very invested residents here that obviously that y'all said it in a public meeting. You want to be part of the process. So when we put things out there, be a part of the process. I think that's this is called the speak plan is what we're calling it.

Well, no, no, no. I'm just I'm just they they they sign they're signing up for it right now. They're signing up to be part of the process. So when we put it out there and and it's out there, if you're not part of the process, then y'all are are to blame at this point forward moving forward. You signed up for it. So let's let's let's engage. Let's start talking and thinking about, you know, the second and third steps because we're going to get to revitalization. It's going to be a beautiful downtown in a small nucleus and it's going to have to spread and there will be there will be private investment that that comes in and does that but these folks need to know what what the next steps are going to be and they need to be part of that process. So, welcome to now being a part of the process. Y'all signed up for it.

But I I'm Did you say then that you want staff to develop a a mortization process or or not? No, no, no, no. There are multiple tools. Correct. We talk about a tool bag. I'm just trying to say tool bag. I just want to because ultimately staff's going to say where do you all want to go with this? And we need to have at least clear amization whatever. I can't even say the word at this point is not the right tool right now. So what other tools are there?

It could. Right. We we talked about we don't want I talked about I don't want massage parlors. I don't want methadone clinics. I bet you some of these folks don't want those things either. have the conversation with them. Let's talk about what other uses are out there. Maybe amortization is appropriate for certain things. So, if I understand you correctly, you would like the economic department, city managers, possibly chamber of commerce to meet with the automotive industry and discuss it out, right? No, I didn't say automotive industry. I said the downtown businesses. It's not just automotive. They happen to be a big section of it.

I'll amend my comment. You want all of the businesses currently in the downtown to meet with city managers, economic department, and possible chamber of com.

We have to start talk. We have to start thinking about the next steps. We have to, right? Whether that's an ad hoc or whatever that I'm I'm telling them they need to do something. They need to bring ideas back to us. They brought an idea. Thank you. There's more ideas. Figure it out. Come back to us. include the people and let's let's do it together because we're going to get there in two or three years. It's going to be really far down the road and we don't want to be sitting here going, "Well, what's next?" We don't we need to start thinking about it and talking about it now. And it's going to be scary because sometimes we come up with dumb ideas, but you have to come up with all of the ideas and have to have the conversation. Let's do it. There's nothing wrong with that.

All right. Thank you. All right. Well, I will say that I know no more about amortization tonight than I did six days ago. I am curious, you know, what are the different levels of amortization? Can mom and pops be excluded? Can businesses that are going to pass their business down onto family members be excluded? What does the data show? What does our community think? Um, residents and business community. I want I'd like to know all that, but I don't think this is the right time. I think we we're we're drowning right now. I feel like in so many things going on, nine different project areas that are major and I do want to see us um complete some of these things. So yeah, you've all said it. So we can say, "Yeah, okay, we we did it." You know, the the thing that would be horrible would be if there's another um recession or a pandemic and and we've gone down this amortization, you know, that direction and then next thing you know, something like that hits and you have bordered up businesses all along Sixth Street because of that decision that you made. So, I very much believe that let's let's finish some things. Let's get an idea if we're even going to be successful with downtown. We don't even know that for sure because things could happen.

But but let's see. I I hope so. I pray we will. But let's wait and see. So, while I still want answers to those questions that I asked about amortization, I think those questions can be answered sometime down the road once we see something going on with our downtown. And um I did tell Harvey we we had a very uh respectful back and forth. There was there was nothing bad about our conversation. And I did mention I go, you know, Harvey, what I'm hearing from the residents because I hear that's that's like the number one thing I hear. Corona or downtown's a hole. Clean it up. I can't even let my family go down there. Blah blah blah. That's what I hear. So I said that to Harvey. I did. I own that. And I didn't mean to say every business on Sixth Street's a hole. I meant say overall it looks like crap. And I believe that. I do believe that. Um, but that kind of takes me to a couple other questions that I put together a couple days ago. Just I think our code enforcement does a really good job in uh enforcing the codes and correcting violations throughout our city. But I didn't know could we modify some of those codes that could potentially help minimize some of the clutter that you see at some of the businesses or minimize the crime that are occurring at some of the businesses. Is there things we can do? I don't know that answer. That's what I would pose to staff. Is there things we can tighten up? Can we also have direct communication from staff with some of these businesses that will help give property owners some ideas on how they could improve their curb appeal. That seems like that could that could be a healthy discussion. Maybe maybe there's things they haven't thought of and we say, "What if you just did that? Then that might take away the people saying all this stuff, you So, um I I do I want to come up for air. I want to hold off for a while and just see how things

develop. Um there'll be new council members up here, but uh so I and I I feel like uh from the general consensus is we want to hold off on the amortization, but there there will likely be at some point where we're going to want to have answers to some of these questions as we've become successful and start Yeah. like you said, kind of start working our way out. So, is that does that sound right? Yeah. I think Tony and I are are thinking about that. I I there's nothing wrong with with starting a conversation about how to how to make things look better. And that's not starting down the

I know, but there's so much going on right now. Let's just time out. I I'm I'm fine with that. I think it's up to staff to tell us if they have time to do that. if they if they don't if we were going to proceed down the samarization route. It seems like that would be pretty complicated, too. But I'm okay with pausing right now depending on what's what staff's got on his plate. Well, I I mean this is a majority thing, right? So I I I think that if staff I agree if staff brought this to us and then they've got the time to start thinking about what what do next steps look like? We're not asking them to go out and plan. next steps are let's get some of these new businesses open first. I

I don't disagree, but we have a whole bunch of people here that want to be a part of the conversation and I want to strike while the iron that too. That's fantastic. And I I just think that at some point we're going to have to start thinking about phase two, phase three, phase four and it involves these folks. So if if we could give staff direction to start thinking about how they want to go about that process. Mayor, if it would be helpful any motion that the council would like to entertain to give us direction, we're happy to to take whatever that direction is. Well, it might come in the form of a motion so that we make sure that we got that clearly. We want to go.

I'll make the first motion. It probably won't be the last, but I make the motion that we table this for now so we can so we can prove to the community and ourselves that we can develop a nice north and south mall and postpone this discussion until after we have been able to do that and and and if it's talked about again, these are the type of questions that I would have and I'd want to answer. There's a ton of questions. So, what would there's so many so many, but right now, um, my motion is we take take a chill pill and work on our downtown and we can address this down the road. That's my motion. Is there a second?

I'll second it. All right. I I have a question. Is there Is there a third? There's an alternate motion. Yeah. Question. Tony, you'd said um about continuing the conversation um and like you had mentioned like an ad hoc and formalizing is is that something that

Yeah, I I think that in trying to think about it in in the way that it makes the most sense, I would like to empower staff to roadmap what a workflow looks like, right? So, we have to start planning. Does that planning include like what does the outreach look like? Thinking about what does the outreach look like? What are what are the areas that we want to focus on? Do we want to go one block at a time? Just start thinking about what the next steps are going to have to be so that they can understand their workflow moving forward. Right? They could research tools. They could come back to us and say in a year and a half and say, you know what, phase phase one is underway. Phase two looks could look like this. Phase three could look like that. because I I just don't want to be caught with our pants down when we're so far along that we're like, "Okay, now we got to start thinking about what's next."

I I just I don't understand like I guess I'm not very clear about what that looks like. So, here's maybe help out a little bit. I think one of the reasons this this popped up is that, you know, we have people that are interested in downtown.

You know, we're they're seeing what we're doing. We're we're making strides. We're getting people in there. there's there's interest in properties and people look and go, "Well, yeah, I'd really like to be there, but I don't want to be next to something that looks like crap or something that's not maintained or, you know, whatever." Um, so I I I think Tony's idea and I think is where where you're going is that if we, you know, did an an ad hoc meeting with the chamber and a representative, you know, any businesses that wanted to contribute and then we came up with some some ideas that we could bring back here over a period of time, not anything right away could take time because again, as you Jim's pointed out, we're not in a condition to to pursue anything major any the ask or the the ask the idea was for us to see if there was an opportunity for us to proceed in looking at where this could go because I I looked at like national cities the way that they did amortization and they did a whole ranking of businesses and and tax revenue to you know how much you know public services they absorbed how many police calls came I mean there was a bunch of things that went into it I'm not talking about going that far I'm just saying

what if we did what if what What if we try to bridge these? What if the idea is a six-month pause, which gives us an opportunity to have um more uh businesses go into the hub and um the process um for the North Mall um entitlement keep moving down the line? I'm fine with that. And when we pick it back up, we pick it back up in the form of an ad hoc and with the chamber and the businesses on Sixth Street and we start those conversations. So it's again it's not picking back up the discussion on immaturization per se. It's picking up the conversation about okay we're all going to be part of this. How do we make Six Street better?

And so what are the tools before us? And then that working group can start setting um you know benchmarks. But I think in 6 months we'll be in a better spot with the hub and we'll see where things are moving with the entitlement process in the north mall. Land the plane, Jackie. Land the plane. That's my That's my motion. I'm good. I second it. So, you already have a motion on the table with my motion. But I don't think six months is I think that's too soon. I don't think we might not even have one more business open in six months. But I I mean it's six months to start the conversation, right? Six months to get this the ad hoc going. All right, let's hear your Let's hear your motion. That was it. Don't make me say it again. Say one more time.

Amen. motion is to to pause for six months and then form an ad hoc that includes the chamber and our downtown businesses to talk about forming a you know working group on on how we go forward with improving the look and the feel of Sixth Street, embracing our past. How's that? That's and exploring the options. I second it. I don't know who made the motion. It was a combination of of the two, but I second it and I I would volunteer for that ad hoc any day of the week. Do you have your direction? uh vote on it. So if everyone wants to vote on it, be clear. Silia, yes. And I'm going to need voice votes for this item. Council member Dario. Yes. Council member Speak. Hi. Council member Richens. Yes. Vice Mayor Casillas. Yes. Mayor Steiner.

Yes. And the item passes. Thank you, Mayor.

All right, let's see where we're at. You bring your jammies. All right. Um, reports from boards and commission. We have our library board of trustees. Receive and file the library board of trustees report update for October 28th, 2025. There's nothing from planning and housing commission. Nothing from parks and rec commission regional updates. We got update from Vice Mayor Jackie Casillas on the Western Riverside Council of Government's general assembly meeting on November 3rd. Um, yes. Thank you. Actually, I I want to make sure that the record shows that this was not a general assembly meeting. This was a regular WRC COG month monthly meeting. And um I just want to share that um what was shared at the the meeting is that um um we the uh executive director um we have our deputy executive director um taking over business right now. He's he's running the WRCOG um agency. Um and so any questions about the agency um should go to um Chris Gray. Um and we are coming up on the end of the year. We'll be having uh discussions um we normally would have a discussion about the strategic plan in January and the committee has chosen to put that off um for a later date. And so there's just some conversations happening with the COG about um future direction and more to come when I can share more. And the next one's mine as well. So, uh, on the November 10th, we had our last I had the last, um, League of California Cities Riverside County Division meeting as president. And, um, it was really great

uh to to wrap up the year and shed um, one title. Um, it but it was it was really a very quick year. I shared with the full group my um top five uh proudest moments from this past year as president and I want to share them with you all real quickly. First for the first two are really the same thing. We we had a collaborative meeting um my number one was we had a collaborative meeting with the Inland Empire and Mountain Division um to discuss the importance of Prop 36 and it was a um these are joint meetings. you get all the electeds from one county and then all the electeds from the other. And it was really um an incredible um uh incredible to see and it took a lot of um a lot of collaboration and a lot of um um operations to get it done. Uh number two is we had a very similar um meeting. We had a joint meeting with Imperial Division and we talked about the importance of environmental issues around the Sultan Sea. This meeting was um uh had a legislative update from Assembly Member Jeff Gonzalez. And so my top two out of five was the fact that we were able to get our entire group together with their entire group and there was some cross-pollination there of ideas and successes. Number three is that we had a very successful lobbying day in Sacramento where we had over 15 leaders from Riverside County Division join um in the halls of Sacramento to lobby for local control. My number four was that we added two um meetings. Um we had in-person city manager meetings as well as an in-person city clerk workshop and that was a first ever. And the last um thing that I'm most proud of is that our division is ending the year with a surplus. And that's something that we never had before. And that is allowing us to put together more thoughtful

meetings and um ideally have um you know more resources for our local electeds and our local cities as they get together for these um convenings. So, it was a a a a fast year, a very um big year, and I was very I'm just I was honored to lead the division. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. All right. Council member Speak, you got a SCAG update? Nope. I will be I'll send you guys an up I'll file with the clerk um for both. What about RCTC? Both. Thank you. All right. City attorneys reports and comments. Mr. Derith. Mr. City Manager.

Mayor, just two quick comments. Despite the lane the rain last Saturday, we had a really good bulk trash, e-waste, and paper shredding event with almost 600 cars that came through our parking lot. Uh, in total, we collected nearly 30 tons of waste. So, I just wanted to thank and give a shout out to our utilities team, waste management for, uh, just a great job keeping the traffic moving and great event overall. And lastly, I just want to take a moment to welcome a new team member, Kobe Cataly, uh, who is our new planning and development director. Uh, Kobe brings a wealth of experience to the role. We look forward to Kobe's leadership for the in the months and years ahead on our team. So, wanted to welcome him. Thank you very much. Any of my colleagues have any comments? I I'll postpone until the next meeting. All right.

Hey, just two things. One, I want to say, you know, uh, keep uh, uh, former mayor Haley in your in your thoughts. he's he's not not uh not feeling very well and and so just uh if you have a couple extra moments and you feel so inclined, you maybe say a little prayer for him. And then second, um I got another 19 minutes to wish my wife a happy anniversary. He got married three years ago. I want to thank the mayor and the vice mayor for marrying us three years ago. Um and she's a saint of a woman because she's not mad that I'm here. So thanks.

Just one mayor. Uh last week we had the the veterans memorial dedication and it was uh hugely successful. Staff knocked this project out of the park. It so many veterans showed up. So many people were happy. If you haven't had the opportunity to go by it, please do. Please pay your respects because it's a place of solemn reflection and it's just a very beautiful memorial. Thank you. Jackie, did you have anything?

I just I wanted to acknowledge the vet memorial, too. That was really wonderful. It was very special and that was um the culmination of a great team, our our our in-house team, Tracy in particular, picking that up after our assistant city manager um abandoned us. Just joking. He moved on to become a city manager. Um, this is a it was it was just a a really thoughtful project and just another thing that um I'm very proud that um has been accomplished.

Thank you. Yeah, I got great feedback on both the shredding bulk pickup slash uh e-waste event and the veterans veterans memorial. I just wanted to remind everybody uh our state of the city is tomorrow night. So, if you haven't got enough of me tonight, um, tomorrow night at 6 o'clock at the

civic center um, in the theater, please uh, please come. And we have one last item, future agenda items. Remember, we move these forward to put staff to work only if a majority of the council wants to do it. The item tonight, we um, have a new agenda item that's being requested by a member of a council for us to consider, adding it to the agenda. That agenda item is an online resource for forprofit leagues to reserve fields. And council member Dario, will you please introduce your request for consideration?

Yep. Thank you, mayor. Um, you know, we the the staff has done a great job of working with our our everyone plays leagues and, you know, working on getting allocation. But it has occurred to me that after all of the the the uh the everyone plays, which is the high highest priority teams have all of their allocations, there will be random availability. And, you know, every single one of these uh for-profit leagues says, "Oh, we'll pay. We'll pay. We'll pay. Well, let's look at a way for them to go online, see that there's something open, and make a reservation. And I really And everybody said the same thing. Well, they're just going to do that, and then they're going to go play. Well, we've got rangers, right? So, let's let's come up with a way that we can charge them for it and then enforce it if they're if somebody is trying to take the field for free because it's a great way for us to help subsidize our field programs if they want to pay for it. and there's a random Thursday at 9:00 that's open. Let's let them pay for it. I I think that there's a way that staff could figure out um a system that can be used within our system. I've already confirmed that and let's see if we can make this work to help subsidize our field allocations, our field uses.

Thoughts? I I think you you called it. I think the the issue is is then the rangers are going to be running around checking to see which ones I and we don't have that many. So they would just be running around checking fields and as somebody who spent 21 years next to Santana Park, people did what the hell whatever the hell they wanted. I mean there was a gate that we put fences up. would break the fences down and go play and and and so I'm a I I do see the the idea behind it, but I do worry about the it being used nefariously, especially when we can't be at all 44 parks or 43 parks. 443 34 3

I don't know. There's a lot of them more than rangers. So I I'm You're interested in learning more. Is that what you said or no? Yeah, I guess I I mean I I Yeah, I mean I think Are you interested to learn more? Sure. I'm skeptical on it. I I'm not a fan of for-profit leagues nonetheless. I've watched them get kicked out of Corona Parks and I watched them come back the very next week and I I'm just not a fan of them, but I'll entertain the idea, but I hope staff doesn't spend a lot of time on it. Thank you for entertaining me. Do you have any thoughts on it? Yeah, I'm skeptical, too. I really am. I am too. I I'm skeptical, but if we're all skeptical, do we want to put staff through any staff times? I do. You do? Yeah.

Yeah. I The only reason I would I would say that if there was some some stiff punishments if he found some in the field, but then then we're chasing people for money and more stuff. Yeah. It's the enforcement piece. Let's not add more to our plate right now. I'm sorry. Just now. Let's Where's that chill pill at again? I I like it. I think I think it's doable, but I need two other people to to want to at least learn. I I said yes, but minimal stuff. I entertained it. You're a yes, Wes. What are you?

I I think just some parameters. The it's not creating it. The idea, but we already know what we already know what the issue is. So, yeah. Sorry. We know I think we all are skeptical. So, yeah. No. Okay. So we will not be pursuing that and uh the next meeting of the city council is December 3rd. This meeting is adjourned

way to get everybody involved. The city is so focused on getting everybody's input because this is a place that's going to be a city community center and making sure it's the right fit for everybody I think is important. So I love this company. It's just exciting to see this new changes that are coming for all your hard work. City park, we want to see it look beautiful. This park was actually our introduction to Corona and all of us are moving here. It's very exciting to see