City Council - Regular Meeting

So there's a sense of pride that kind of comes with working and serving the city that I grew up in. I wanted to be a cop when I was really young actually, but I still explored like other educational avenues. So I ended up going to college and playing sports. So I think the team atmosphere and like the structure and like having brothers and sisters like outside of your family is just like a really good feeling to have. And being able to all like work hard for like the same goal has always been something that I feel like I've needed throughout my life. People become police officers to kind of give back to their community. Even if it's not the community you necessarily live in, there's always a good sense of [music] pride that comes with doing the right thing for people and helping people who can't help themselves. The city of [music] Corona is pretty unique in the fact that our community actually really likes us and they support us. Pretty much anywhere you go, you're going to have somebody thanking you for your service. Just that reassurance on a day-to-day basis is good motivation [music] for especially the negative times or the negative calls that you might come from. It just kind of lifts your spirits and keeps you motivated. Well, without us out here, I think it'd be dark. It'd be a dark place, literally. Um, my name is Francisco. Um, a lot of people know me as Poncho. I work in the street maintenance department and I am the street light technician for the city of Corona. Um, I handle the maintenance and the repair of street lights in Corona. We have approximately around 12,000 street lights and yeah, this is where I do my work. Um the favorite part about my job um being able to see my work afterwards

and knowing that I'm lighting up this city. I'm the one that maintaining them or repairing them and with the help of my my teams and my co-workers of course. Yeah. No, I enjoy I love working for the city of Corona because one I've been here for so long already that it's kind of my second home. Love the res the residents are great. I can see how the city and the employees take pride in in what they do for the residents. Hold on, guys. Um, our seniors deal with a lot of problems physically, mentally. To me, it's very rewarding to be able to provide those services to them. Come on, guys. Um, I really don't know where our seniors would be. Like, I think they would be so so depressed. I kid you not. It's like depression in these seniors. It's it's it's something that really is happening on every day, you know, and and just them having that connection with another senior is it's crucial to them. You know, my name is Jacqueline Wilson and I'm a senior community service leader. Our seniors deal with a lot of problems physically, mentally. To me, it's very rewarding to be able to provide those services to them. This center creates a family atmosphere. The first thing that you feel once you enter these doors is just people smiling at you. You know, you feel you just feel family. We want you to be here, you know, and we want you to take advantage of what the city is providing for you. Lunch programs, activities, you know, for your mental health, physical health. But I enjoy the most to see transformations. I've seen seniors come in with tears in their face and then a year from now you see them and they're line dancing. They're attending our parties. They are all

dressed up, you know, with big smiles and and that's the most beautiful thing I can witness. I have grown a lot. I feel like I have more patience now. It makes me see the city I live in a different way. I love where I live and work. [music] [music]

Hello. like [music] [music]

Hi, I'm Ashley Saragoza. I'm with the city of Corona. The city of Corona recently toured Latitude 36 [laughter] foods. They're a Corona food manufacturer that took the Live Work Corona pledge which shows their commitment to hiring local. Here in Corona, we do have about 80% of our workforce that works and lives here in Corona. And so that's very very exciting for us. They get to, you know, work here and then go right back home, you know, just a couple exits away from the freeway. And so that's very, very exciting for them. They didn't have to worry about commuting longer distances which in California can be quite an odyssey. It also helped keep retention. So it was important to our leadership team to keep the business here. And again it just demonstrates our commitment to continue to grow the business right here in the city of Corona

throughout the transition from one location to another. [music] We had a very successful partnership with the city of Corona themselves and and a lot of support when it came to you know moving to a whole new home. And so that was really exciting for us and we truly appreciated the support from a structural standpoint.

We appreciate everything the city's done for us as well. Again, you guys have made yourself very available to us. Again, we actually engage with the city on a few occasions to [music] really help us navigate cuz there's always some new regulation that comes up. Uh definitely having someone that's uh wellversed in those rules and regulations has really helped us uh smooth the process out a bit for us. So by by taking the pledge uh we actually got a lot of other resources [music] right that came in with that partnership. They help us with remarketing right feature us uh when it comes to you know their website because it really does open up ourselves to different talent you know people that maybe haven't heard of lot of 236 foods and they're able to [music] uh show them what we do here locally. So I would take the pledge and I would encourage every other company to do so because again there's a lot of resources available with the city and the city is a great resource and has been a great resource for latitude 36 foods.

So take the pledge today or contact us to learn more.

Good morning everyone. We're here at City Park. We have our first six street cleanup of 2024. We had about 50 volunteers come clean up the city as well as paint the skate park. It came out really great. It's good to help our community. I encourage everyone to volunteer with us in the future. Our next cleanup event is going to be for Arbor Day at City Hall on March 16th from 9 to 11:00 a.m. We'll see you there.

Most people look at carbon 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 [music] 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, [music] 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 [music] community. And so we work really hard to try to make sure that we are as connected in the community as we can be. At Carbon Health is working very hard to try to make healthcare accessible to everyone. With the [music] 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 alleys is composed of 34 alleys that [music] were picked to be repaved. This grant was targeted by CALR [music] 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 [music] 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 [music] 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 [music] most volume or area to capture rainwater. So the alleys have multi-purpose. [music] You know, everybody would use them. the cars, the bikes, whoever wants to use an alley as a less congestion [music]

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 Do you want to try a sample? It looks good. [music] It looks so good. I like it. I love it. And it comes with churo. And it's pretty damn good. [music] It looks so good. It looks so good. [music]

So good. Grandma keeps asking us. [music] [music] I love it. I want it. Oh, wow. Say hello. Look at Look at that.

Cooking. I love to cook. You need the menu. My name is Sergio and we are in Toras in Aloak, [music] city of Corona. Torto is 44 and it has four meats. Tortas are the number one [music] sales in this place. We do like 4,000 tortes a month. This is sinaloa [music] special and this is a kubana. So we have such a big menu but we have barbakcoa, we have carneasada [music] plate, we have burritos, we'll call the breakfast rancheros, omelets. Carneasada is one of the favorites. Yeah. Three tacos. Every single product and item [music] from this place is homemade cooking. Yes. My wife insinawa, she's been in the company for 20 years. She's makes every single day. She makes all these [music] 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 as a homemade [music] plan. Yeah, we do it like maybe four times a week. Mexican dessert. I've been cooking for 45 years now. And this 2025 when I came and opened this, [music] 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 [music] and heart into it. We are in 1520 West 6th Street and [music] we in the Gulma shopping center. If you want to get arms like Okay.

All right. All right, good evening everyone. Let's get our regularly scheduled program going. We're still having some tech issues, but we're going to get the meeting started and hopefully um that works out in time. Let's get started with uh an invitation from Elijah Kums. Can you join us? Thank you.

All right, let's pray. Dear heavenly father, we thank you so much for this day. Thank you for another opportunity we have to breathe, to live life, Lord. And I pray that as we get into this holiday season, we don't just forget about the opportunity to give thanks every morning, every day for what you do. And I pray that the busyiness of life, we'd stop and take a moment to acknowledge you. And that's what we're doing right now, Lord. We're taking a moment to simply acknowledge you in your presence, in the conversation that's had here today, Lord, in our spirits and in our attitudes. I ask God that you would get the glory and the honor for all that takes place here this evening. We love you and thank you for your goodness, your grace, and your ultimate sacrifice in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you, Elijah. And then um vice mayor speak. Will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. At this time, we'll convene open session. Miss Edwards, can 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 three-minute limit for communications and once called upon to speak, please state your name and city of residence for the record. Mayor, I do want to note a revision to the agenda. The date for the future agenda, item 5.1, city park final design has been changed from January 7th to January 21st.

Okay, thank you so much. Moving on to item 5.1, we're going to have a presentation, a volunteer update. I would like to invite Madeline Black, our program coordinator, to the podium to provide a presentation.

Hi, Madlin. Hi. Good evening. Good evening, city council. So, is the slideshow work? There it goes. Okay. So, tonight I'm here to provide you all with an update for our volunteer program. So, that's the ask. So, for you to receive an update um and see what we're doing. So here pictured is our Arbor Day celebration this past March. So I'd like to get started and uh tell you all that it really is a we this year. Um we have uh been able to hire our first part-time support for our volunteer program. Um if I wanted to give a shout out to my amazing protege as Moralda Figueroa. If you haven't met her yet, you will if you attend any of our Corona beautiful community cleanup events. She's helping me host those all. Um so what do we do? So, here within our volunteer program, we've centralized our recruitment practices. Um, we know how each department likes to work with their volunteers. I'm here to connect staff needs to volunteer service goals, bringing personalization to every request we receive. We offer long-term and short-term opportunities. We recognize our volunteers for those accomplishments, and we're providing resources, communication, and support to staff and volunteers. So, how can someone get in contact with the city of Corona to volunteer? We have lots of different ways you can do so. So, the first that I'd like to talk about is our online web um based interest form. So, this is um where you can sign up u register for all of our single day events, find out how to get those next steps for our long-term commitments. Um you can call me, you can email me. Um we have a centralized email box too that you can reach both me and Esmeralda with. Um, you can walk in to find us at city hall as well. We're always willing to take visitors to talk about our volunteer opportunities. Um, so I mentioned one of the easiest ways for someone to get in contact with

us to find out how to volunteer for the city is our online web-based volunteer interest form. So, an individual fills one of these forms out and it shows up in my inbox. Um, and I curate each response to connect them with the resp with the opportunities within the city. Um, last year I created the same chart and I created it again to show you the impact we've had in this last year. Um, last fall I shared that we had 613 referrals. This year we're proud to say that we've referred 1,175 volunteers to our opportunities. And this is how those referrals broke down. So connecting individuals to how to volunteer.

Battle, really quick, can you go back to that slide? I just want to make sure I understand that. That means that 1,175 people contacted us, said, "Hey, I want to volunteer." And you um directed them to the right place. Correct. Which is double the the amount of people that we had in 2024. That is correct. That is awesome. Thank you. No, of course. Happy to help. [laughter]

Thank you. Yeah. And you can see the breakdown for each type of request we receive there. So, um, now that we have, um, a little more information about who's requesting to volunteer as well as who's actually joining our programs, I have some fun statistics to share with you all. So, we've [snorts] noticed some of these trends. Um, I mentioned that that web-based interest form, I get to ask a few more questions. So, the why people are volunteering is very important. So um although many people come to us to verify um service goals for educational merit, middle school, high school, college students, um we al the bulk of our volunteers are here for the fun of it. So we really are building community with our volunteer program. An additional fun stat I'd like to share with you tonight that the youngest resident that submit one of these requests was four years old. So um I mentioned who's asking to volunteer. now who's actually joined our long-term commitments this last year. Um after providing candidates with those next steps, some of them do choose to commit to an opportunity and that's something 6 months or longer. So um here you can see the breakdown of where those 287 volunteers ended up in our services. Um and something else that we noted within our um volunteer trends is we're h we're providing a service that's in need in our area. Um here you can see that we are having participants coming in from Eastville, from Riverside, Wdemar and Norcco and I have the breakdown of those numbers if any of you are curious. So what does that look like? So here's a few of our long-term placements in our facilities. Here you can see um Mike, one of our park ambassadors, Linda, one of our animal socializers, our youth sports volunteers, our senior center volunteers, all doing great work within our facilities. But not only are we um working with volunteers inside of our facilities,

we're also offering um lots of different ways for them to give back on their own. Um we offer a variety of types of single day volunteer opportunities such as our Corona beautiful community cleanups, which you can see pictured here on the bottom left. Um and we also have have had a great year with our cleanup kit program where you can request your own supplies to make an impact independently within the community. um or one of our partnership opportunities such as our adopt a park commitments or a closed group request. Um any organization can request to work with us for a day of service. Um also pictured here at the bottom is Crossroads Christian Church High School um coming in for Butterfield Park. I also really like to highlight the importance of our program's visibility on the city social media platforms. Our volunteers love seeing themselves represented on the content we create. Um, here are a few of our most popular posts that the city shared this last year demonstrating the impact that we have. To demonstrate our rate of growth, I created this year-over-year comparison for you all last year and added to it this year. Um, this actually represents our most active volunteer program since that stat statistic I shared with you all last year. Um this represents the community services department single day and long-term volunteer commitments. Um how many participants we have and that's individual participants in single day or um coming in on a monthly basis for our long-term opportunities as well as the spike we've had in service hours within our community. And that's all of you guys there with me. So, Corona's hard work and investment in its volunteer program was recognized this last year by the California Parks and Recreation Society or CPRS as we all know it. CPRS is a nonprofit organization that um unites professionals within the parks and recck

world um through in the state of California. As the recipient of the award of excellence in community building, we now have a means to actively engage our residents and help foster a culture that makes the city truly feel like home. I also had the honor of sharing our innovative approaches at CPRS's annual conference for professional development this past March. But recognition is also a really big part of what we do. So how do we recognize our team of volunteers? Each facility or program ha had likes to host their own general on-site parties such as the animal shelters potlucks or the ice cream social event that we hosted for the community services department. But we also have our formal recognitions. So, um, for 20 service hours, someone gets an invitation to our annual, uh, volunteer recognition dinner. Um, at 100 service hours, they begin to receive certificates of recognition that some of you guys have helped me sign off on. And, um, at 500 hours, they get a customized name tag that features their facility and lifetime service hours. We update those every 500 hours, and we do update them. We have volunteers that have several thousand hours of service. And it's also now become a tradition for me to share the next calendar of Corona Beautiful with you all at these updates. Um here's the first half of our events in 2026. Um the first event for 2026 is now open for registration if you'd like to join us for a planting and cleanup on Manddale Street on January 24th. All events are on Saturday mornings from 9 to 11:00 a.m. In 2026, of course, we will keep going strong with our partnerships and current programs such as our workability partnership with the Croninorco Unified School District that offers paid work experience to adult students with disabilities. We are also hard at work at developing new opportunities through the city's trails and trails master

plan. We have a goal of establishing a system of volunteers for trails to report maintenance and concerns to staff as well as help us get some cleanup going out there. Um we also have some special events on the horizon. Uh we have the Corona 5000 that we'll need a lot of volunteers for and our music and arts fest which is a very great opportunity for our volunteers to participate. These last few years, I've provided you all with an inkind uh contribution uh a monetary value to represent the dedication of our outstanding team of volunteers. This last year, our team of volunteers provided the city and its residents with over 28,500 hours, which equates to about $991,500. That's almost a million. So, I want to take this moment to thank our team of volunteers to tonight. And a few of them are in the crowd tonight. So, thank you, Doug. [applause] Okay, and that is my update. So, my ask tonight is for you all to receive an update on what we've been doing with our volunteer program. Thank you all so much for your time. I'm available for any questions and providing my contact information as well. Thank you.

Thank [snorts] you, Meline. You're doing a great job. Thank you. We appreciate it. Okay. Um, my computer's still not working, but we're going to just roll with it. Uh, moving on to um Oh, Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public on this presentation? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards.

Sounds good. Let's move on to item six, consent calendar. All items listed on the consent calendar are considered to be routine matters, status reports, or documents covering previous city council action. The item listed 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 consideration. Would my colleagues like to pull any items for further discussion? 6.3. Okay. No. 6.4.

6.4. And I had what did I have? 63 64. Sorry, let me just find my agenda. Okay, those are it. So, um, Miss Edwards, were there any other speaker cards from the public on consent calendar items? Mayor, yes, we have five speaker cards for agenda item 6.2. 6.2. Okay. So then um do we have a motion for the consent calendar uh for every item except for 6.2, 6.3 or 6.4? So moved. Second.

Wonderful. First and second. Um I'll have to submit my [clears throat] vote. Um I'm a I [snorts] council member Richens. Hi.

Just me and Jackie Bowden.

I don't see the screen. Oh, I got it. Approved. Five to zero. Uh, let's move on to uh 6.2. We have five cards on item 6.2, Miss Edwards. So, um, folks, you can come up to speak on the item. Um, don't be shy. Anyone who submitted a speaker card for item 6.2, feel free. Good evening everybody. My name is Don Fuller. I'm a resident here and I am glad to see this thing eventually uh finally make it through the system. I I guess it's

kind of done. I'm not really sure how the whole process works. Uh there was one thing I wanted to comment on was people uh representing an association or something. Um and that brought up a couple of times the idea of uh treating of not doing the rent stabilization ordinance, but treating things on a casebycase basis. Uh if that comes up anymore, uh you should put the gibash on that right away. That's simply another way of saying divide and conquer. Uh I can see how uh casebycase basis would not at all work. I can't imagine a single case on a case-bycase basis getting passed. I can imagine say uh a single mom. She got a couple of kids. Maybe she's looking at going to nursing school, trying to move herself up the economic scale a little bit, trying to make the rent. And uh the father is a deadbeat dad who's a year and a half behind in his child support and he's in jail in Wyoming because he was watching TV and uh caught a T-Mobile commercial for 20 line two lines for 30 bucks and thought it was a good deal on cocaine. So uh I think we ought to leave the idea of the case byase basis uh out in the trash can where it belongs. And I'm glad to see this thing eventually making it through. I remember years ago we'd have crowds of people coming in here and given everything they had. So that's all. Uh it doesn't affect me. I don't have a dog in this fight, but um for those people that do, I just want to see this thing get finished. So if anybody's taking a vote, I'm on that side. Everybody get home safe.

Thank you, Mr. Fuller. Maddie Paxton, 33-year resident um of Corona. [snorts] I don't even have words to say thank you all. This has been something that's been in the works for quite a while. We've had a lot of issues back and forth. I know a lot of work has gone into this. Um can't begin to thank you all and Mrs. Roer back there has definitely been an integral part in all of this. Thank you so very much for those people that this will really impact. Um, you have no idea what this really means to them and I just want to thank you for all the hard work that's gone into it. Thank you. Um, can't wait to start the new year's knowing that this has been this is in effect. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Paxton. Okay, [clears throat] there were five speaker cards. So, who else? [clears throat]

I think mine's part of the five mix. Not for sure, but can I try? [laughter] Hello everyone. Good evening. Uh, first just want to say congratulations to Mayor Casillas. Excited to be here today. Um, but my name is Clarissa Cervantes. I serve as a Riverside City Council member and I just wanted to come tonight to also put in um just to say thank you. Thank you to the council for your leadership on your mobile home park rent stabilization program and ordinance. Um I I just commend you for again the hard work. I know it's not easy for us to sometimes have to work on things like this and to address and tackle some really challenging issues, but with the work you are doing and what you've done with this is phenomenal. It's going to have a huge impact uh to keep people housed here in the city of Corona and beyond looking at generations. So, I just want to again say thank you personally for the work you have each done to look into this. Um, and congratulations on doing all that you can to again uplift and protect our community here in Corona. If there's anything I could do to ever support the efforts in this space, uh, this is something we obviously work on in Riverside as well. But just thank you again for your leadership and look forward to working and serving with you in different capacities.

Thank you, Council Member. Appreciate it. Hey Eugene.

Good evening. My name is Eugene Physique and I congratulate all the new council members and their new positions. And I wanted to clarify one thing. when one of our managers mentioned about uh we have to qualify to get into the Green River mobile home park. Yes. But we didn't have to go through several outstanding increases where they force you out of your home so they can take it over. They don't tell you all the real things that they're doing. So, I would honestly hope that this new organization in the city council will allow us this rent stabilization in accordance to what our demands and needs are and not for the profit of a billion dollar corporation who don't care about any of us. And each and every one of us are going to be in that shoes someday. We can make it today and tomorrow we lose everything. So it's something to think about. We're a team. We're a community. And yes, volunteering work. If you don't can't get a job, volunteer because that's a good recommendation right there. And thank you very much.

Thanks, Eugene. Hi everyone, Lydia from Corona Linda. Um, again, thank you for all your efforts, all your work. I know every one of you work really hard and get all kinds of stuff from us, good or bad, nasty or nice. Um but um I'm here because um it's extremely important for us to have a cap on the sale of our homes. right now. I did a little bit of research and um in my park there's over four or five houses that are been on sale for quite some time, almost a year probably, and they're not selling because the rent increase is a little bit over 10 uh%. Um so then, you know, when a person comes to buy it, they they just don't because it's too much money. And so I please beg you beg you I beg you please put a cap on the uh rent increase on uh the sale over homes. Um these people they make a lot of money. Trust me they do. I have done a research and they have they way way well off. And we need your help and we trust you. We believe in you guys and again thank you for all the hard work but I do beg you please to do do put a cup there. It's not on the RSO right now. I know because we went through it with our advocates and everybody else that is backing us up and um also you know the um the reduce of

rent for reduce of services. Um, I can show you pictures because I've been in this park for over 24 years. And I can show you pictures of items that were um taken away, never replaced, yet every year they raise on rent as much as they want to. So, please help us. Thank you. Thanks, Lydia. [applause]

Hi, everyone. I know it's been long overdue. We dream about this, right? Miss Moment would come. Thank you everyone. Thank you the uh council member or mayor Cazillas and Wes and the ad hoc and the rest of the city council being very supportive in a lot of our recommendations. Um we really thank the 3% rent cap, the 51% rent um uh resident vote requirement. um and then just working immediately so that this goes to in effect so it doesn't impact um additional rent increases over the years. And I did also took some time to look at the ordinance and appreciate the multilingual um notices and documents so that it's you know equity for everybody. Um they're you know communities whether they speak English or not they're part of our community. So thank you so much. Um, I wanted to really also thank you for the monthly billing statement to include, you know, the more uh more details, the the rent, what the rent's going to be, um, the homeowner rent adjustments, the additional monthly charges, right, that we will see. As you may know, the pass through is a broad definition that covers a lot of different things. So, I think let's see how it works out with that. Um, just a general way of saying, hey, additional charges, you know, if there's extra additional charges, put that, you know, you're asking the home uh the park owner to put that in their bill statement. Um, because there's still um utilities that are also being built. Uh, depends on different parks, right? And then the parks are the ones that are uh setting meters. Um, and so, you know, that doesn't always work really well. Um, I don't know if the park owners are equipped to do the metering on utilities. So, I think it's a good start with that monthly billing statement just to see how uh how it plays out and how things are itemized. I

would really make sure we revisit uh and if if need be. Um, what's the other thing? Um I think that the the resale of of the different looking at market rate I want to reiterate again that that's something we would want we have wanted like maybe if you wanted to look at Hupa Valley they look at the top three um highest um rents in a particular park and then they average it out they don't do market rate for resale uh so just let's let's see you know like as Lydia mention it's been hard to sell some of those new homes because it's too high. So, that's something to kind of list. Hopefully, we could revisit that. Oh, the other thing I wanted to thank you is thank you for um uh any added title or immediate family members that they say they have the same rent amount. I know there's going to be a lot of education that needs to happen there as well, but yeah, I think this is a good start and I look forward to working next year and see what we can do to get the education and get uh transparency on those monthly bills. Thanks so much.

Thank you. [applause] Are there any other speakers on item 6.2?

Hello, my name is Virginia Kitty. I've lived in Corona for 44 years. I remember when rent stabilization first came up because I think I was at that meeting. And thank you all for what you've done. I get emotional sometimes, huh? Um, for rent stabilization for the mobile home parks. I remember this one young man was a high school student and he went up to the microphone and said, "For all of you to hear, but you weren't here at that time." He said, "I went I go to such and such a high school." He says, "Please help us. We're poor." How many high school students do you know would come up here and say that and not be embarrassed? but he did and you have been doing that. So, thank you.

Thank you, Virginia. Okay, seeing no more speakers for item 6.2, I will make the motion. Um Oh, we have one more. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Come on down, sir.

And [snorts] and folks, don't forget to put in your card with the um with the city clerk. Thank you. Hi, my name is Barry and I am a mobile home park uh resident over in Riverside and um we've been having quite a battle over there as far as getting some of the things done and Clarissa has been really leading our pack and trying to get things done. I don't know if you understand how the dynamics work with mo mobile homes. Um we can't just pick up and leave the mobile home, you know, we can't take it someplace else. Uh what happens is we're kind of in a captive situation where um the owners prior to the owners that we had at our park, it was a family a family that had orchards and stuff like that and they were very reasonable with their tenants and there's like 250 um units where I'm at or spaces. So when we go to sell our property, what happens is that uh they try to adjust their their base rents or whatever they're doing, but they're not really comparing it to anything. There's no comparisons. So consequently, we're very very vulnerable as you know, my rent right now is $900 a month, but that conceivably can go up double to that. And that devaluates my property of my mobile home. So for every $100 they increase on the rent, it devaluates my property by $10,000. So it's very inhumane. I mean, you know, um, a lot of the a lot of the people that are there where I'm at at the park are senior citizens. And I have been involved with one eviction and the gentleman lost like over $100,000 and he's displaced. And, you know, I'm trying to get involved with all this, but there's so many moving parts and trying to get the parties together to be able to talk

about this is extremely difficult. We see it from their side and their side is to increase the rents and then [clears throat] what happens is that money that gets increased the rents doesn't come back to our city. It goes to wherever they're from the investors. So I urge you to be able to put a cap on the resale of 3% or look at something, get creative because it's taking money out of our pockets. And when I first moved there 20 years ago, this was not even an issue because they were going up incrementally. Now they're trying to double the rents and stuff. So, something needs to be done to protect the people in our city. I thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Um, Miss Edwards, I forgot to ask if there was anybody on Zoom. Mayor, we do not have anybody on Zoom for this item. All right. So in that case, I will move to approve item 6.2. Is there a second? Second. All right,

Council Member Richens, can I get your voice vote? Uh, yes. I guess mine isn't working. We're having all sorts of issues. Okay. [clears throat] So, that item passes 4 to one. Okay. So, um congratulations you all. [laughter] It's been a long it's been a long long road, but um but there you have it. [snorts] Okay. Moving on. Item 6.3 was pulled by Council Member Dario. Floor is yours.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. I just had a couple questions, so I was hoping that Miss Roer could answer some questions. So, I know that this is our this is the first amended um pass at this at this agreement, but I'm just kind of curious, what metrics are we using to to measure city net with? Yeah, thank you.

I didn't see that in the presentation. So we report to your city council on the strategic plan performance metrics every quarter and we take the cityet data along with the mercy house data. Some of the cityet data is standalone so you get to see how many outreach and engagements. You also get to see how many shelter bed nights have been provided both from cityet and mercy house. How many permanent housing placements have resulted. We report on how how many firsttime homeless. We report on because of the cityet uh outreach efforts with um our police department hope team and working with our parks department how many hundreds and hundreds of cubic yards of encampment debris that we clean up. It's every quarter we report to your city council.

Okay. And then so we're we're looking at metrics that say we housed x amount of people. Does that same metrics tell us how many people we didn't house? So what how many opportunities we missed or anything along those lines? Do you mean opportunities because we were at capacity or people who were in shelter that didn't go to housing? All of it. We report on how many shelter bed nights we provide. Y and we also report on on how many housing placements. So that gives you kind of a perspective of the large number of people that are sheltered and then the number of people that go into housing. So we do report on that.

Okay. And is that's that's our total system though, right? It's the whole system. Okay. So if we're thinking about specifically about city net as a partner with the city, how are we measuring what looks like success with them? It's the same thing. We just roll it all up so you see a picture of the whole system. If um your council wanted to see some breakdowns in the future and get an update on the pieces of the system and how we're performing, we'd be very happy to provide that to you. Is that data that we already have or is it something that we would have to create?

It's data that we have. We we require both city and mercy house to collect and maintain a large number of data metrics. Most of the information is um input into the county's homeless management information system. So we're connected to a much larger system across the whole region.

So I also serve as the chair of the continuum of care. So we like to look at those data metrics across the system or in certain parts of the county. So there's all kinds of opportunities to look at how the system is performing in the region, how it's performing in the city and then even by provider. I would uh want to mention that some things are not within the control of the provider and it just happens to be the challenges related to the people that we serve. Sure.

So just as an example, sometimes people have been uh on the streets for a very long time. They have really bad credit. They have uh they might still be living with drug addiction or mental illness. So they're dealing with a number of challenges and so sometimes getting them placed into permanent housing might take a bit longer and there's different models of housing. So sometimes the housing market can be challenging because the costs of rent are really high when we're going outside of our own housing system. But even with the challenges that we face, we've been able to achieve a number of successes. But I will tell you it's it's a challenge.

Okay. So, let me ask you another question about City and and by the way, I I'm asking these questions because they were asked of me and so the easiest way for me to do is in a public setting. Um, is there is cityet like a sole provider or is there other companies that do what cityet does? So I can give you the big picture perspective for the region because I serve as the chair of the continuum of care and I will tell you that there used to be an organization called SWAG that did uh similar services like City and they were kind of half and half across the region and now because of the capacity issues um and also the quality of work that is provided city has systematically been moving to almost all the cities throughout the region and They are kind of like Mercy House because Mercy House is in 68 different cities and two states, right? So, uh it's the same thing. There's because City does it all. They don't just do street outreach and engagement. They also manage our motel program for families. They provide case management. They know how to get people document ready uh to be able to get them to be referred for permanent supportive housing. They know how to do rapid rehousing and working with landlords and leasing. So, there are multiple skill sets in terms of the capacity and the services that they're able to provide for us.

Okay. Well, I had some questions about the metrics and and I'm satisfied with it and and the folks that are watching, I hope that you that they are satisfied as well. So, Miss Roer, I don't have any more questions and with that, I'll move. Thank you. Um, council member uh Miss Edwards, are there any speakers for this item? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item. Okay, then we have a motion on the floor. Can I get a second? Second.

Okay, moving on to the last item on consent to discuss. It's item 6.4 and that was pulled by Vice Mayor Speak. Floor is yours.

Uh, thank you, [clears throat] Madam Mayor. I just had a question on this one just because I the wording didn't quite match the numbers and so uh Mr. Alice, I just I don't need a full report. I just need a little bit of a narrative because I understand that we only have 235 trash capture devices installed right now, but we're awarding 1,200 per quarter and I know that we're trying to get to,200, but what's what's the delta there? Because I I when I do the math, it comes up to more than 500,000. What I don't want is for you to have to come back to us and ask us for more. And I know that Mr. Dario hates that. So, um, just a little bit more of an explanation would be great. Yeah, we've got Jav Luna here who can speak to that item.

Thank you.

Hello. Hello. Sorry, first time. So, good evening, Madame Mayor, fellow council members. Jav Luna. So, right. So, the the way this agreement was set up was because as you mentioned, we do intend to complete the 1,200 installations. The,200 Yeah, 1200 uh installations. And so with that, that's why we have this agreement for a four-year span because in those four years, we will complete those installations. So far, as you mentioned, we've installed 235. We already have a plan for next fiscal year to do a nice big chunk of that. I know it's outlined as as the way it was outlined in the contract. It was going to be like a it was compounded as we will get there by that year uh 2030 of the,200. But again, we were hoping that as we get there and as we do our projects move forward with the momentum that we have that once those um the cash bases are in then what we do is uh come back and then in the budget cycle for operate uh operations and maintenance then request that additional funding and as we add the storm capturing devices then we will continue releasing or or I'm sorry requesting that operations maintenance uh funding up to that 500 $4,000.

Okay. So, you don't anticipate having to come back to us for any more than that 504,000 through 2028. Is that correct? Because this is three years with two-year extension. Uh, four years with two years. Four years. Two years extension. So, six years. Mhm. Okay. Great. Thank you. Awesome. Uh, Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item. Okay. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move. Moved by council member Richen, seconded by council member Steiner. And that motion passes 5 to zero. Okay, we've made it out of the consent calendar. Moving on now to 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 threeminute limit for communications. Okay, Miss Eders, do we have any speaker cards for public comment?

Mayor, yes, we have eight speaker cards for communication from the public. All right, eight speaker cards. So go ahead and whoever would like to join us at the mic first, come on up. I'm going to do this now because I want to go home.

Um, I have everything written down on my phone because if I look at you guys, I'm probably going to start yelling. So, I'm going to try to remain calm. My wife and I moved here six years ago from Missouri when she accepted a life-changing career opportunity. We sold our property, we sold our home, and we bought a house in Corona. Now, I've lived in California on three separate occasions, but I never had a need to drive east beyond your Belinda. So, when my wife sent me photos of the house we were buying, I was fine. Uh, hey, pay attention. There are three qualities I expect from local government. Competence, accountability, and honesty. And unfortunately, this city, your staff, administration, where you at? There you are. At least and at least two of the council members have failed to meet these qualities after spending close to 30 years working with andor for governments at various levels all the way from the federal level to the city level to the county level. I stepped away two years ago because I couldn't handle the incompetence any longer. Frankly, I no longer um tolerate incompetence and that's the reason I'm here tonight. Um nearly two weeks ago, I contacted animal control for assistance in rescuing five dogs off of Palisades. An hour passed with no response. So, I called back. I was told another call had come in and that I was next in line. I made it clear that I would remain on scene until someone arrived. 3 hours later, no one showed up. Given my background, I know how government is supposed to function, and I also know when I'm being ignored. My frustration grew because your staff put me in a position where I had to be heard, where the only way to be heard was to escalate the situation.

On my final call with dispatch, the conversation was much less pleasant than the first two. Ultimately, fortunately, two police officers did come out because animal control only had one individual working. That individual called out sick and there wasn't anybody to back her up. That's ridiculous. Today I've been out there every day for the last two weeks, three and four hours at a time. Sometimes I'm out there six hours crawling around through that freaking wash down on Palisades. And today is the first time an animal control officer came out there. I'm not sure why I expected a different outcome. Like I said, I've spent plenty of time in government. Um, but this is the same city that can't seem to time your traffic lights. You can't communicate scheduled road work to residents and you can't maintain your storm water channels. So, I look forward to what you're going to do with your basins. Um, I've reached my limit and I want some action. This is utterly ridiculous for a city of almost 200,000 people that you don't you have one animal control officer working. What's wrong with you guys? Now, on to one more topic and then I will get out of here because I know my time's up. We're almost up. Um, and that's the wash. Now, I can't do anything about reporting you all about animal control or traffic light problems or road problems, but I'll be damned if I

Thank you, sir. We didn't catch your name either for the record. Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. I'm going to finish what I was saying and sir, storm water channels, thank you, are very, very important to maintain clean. Yes, sir. Mess is ridiculous. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. And let somebody Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Good evening. Joe Morgan, 2063 Ren. It's really fascinating after that last meeting with that the item the we're just looking at tools thing. How did that even come out there? you guys all sort of seemed to back away from it. Well, at least most of you did. Um, but the fact there was no outreach and really no respect given at all for the people that work down there, the people that live down there, uh, no outreach at all. That's kind of a pattern in practice of the city manager. We've seen that how many times in here with no outreach, nobody no outreach of the people that have have offices at city hall and who use city hall. you know, there was no there was no outreach there. There's never any outreach. You know, the only reason the city ever looks out for something is when they're, you know, they've got answers or they've got a survey that they already want the that they already know the answers for. It's just very disrespectful. So, you can kind of tell who's from Corona and who gives a crap about Corona and the people that don't. It was really disgusting. Um, but at least Mr. building actually said the quiet part loud for all the people that think that you're going to get, you know, all these little artisal mom and pop shops or it's going to be some vital downtown. He did say the quiet part loud that the real reason that you want to purge all these businesses out here because it's going to get in the way of the apartments. I challenge anybody in this room to go look at the general plan. The entire circle of Sixth Street will be mixeduse residential. It will be metro from East Grand to West Grand. Look at the general plan. It's right there in writing. And so you want the shops out so you can make room for apartments. The city broke Sixth Street and the city is responsible for the problems down there. They've made bad rules. It's been too restrictive. You haven't been supportive of supportive of the businesses. You've purged the businesses from Sixth Street. And then then you're like, well, in order to well, it's a little devil a little devil's bargain that's gotten

made that you don't want to have highdensity housing in South Corona. You don't want to have it, you know, where all the transplants live. You want to have it downtown. And downtown has been historically underrepresented on the council, you know, which and still really underrepresented on the council because nobody really say anything about turning North Corona into an apartment ashtray. and and further the the just utter lack of respect and then the fact that you you you have enough cojones to try to link people pooping at the library from the methodone clinic to well you want us to get rid of that that's that mafiaesque behavior that that I speak about often and then when people get mad about that to then complain about a lack of respect or lack of understanding for your, you know, personal outreach. You have, if you have the timmerity to threaten people's livelihood, then you ought to be able to say it with your full chest. Say it loud. I want to close you down and push you out of town. Say it loud. Don't don't hide behind, well, it's just a small change. It's just a little tiny thing. It's not a small thing. And the lack of disrespect, the lack of respect is disgusting. Thank you. Next speaker,

Eddie Paxton, um 33year resident. I want to talk again about some holiday activities here in the city. But before I do, I want to give a shout out to our public works director. I don't know if any of you noticed that when they put in the 71 on the 91, it still kept the right lane must exit sign. And I was driving home one night and I saw a big rig suddenly veer over to the left. So I want to thank them for contacting CALR and removing the sign. And we don't know how many accidents we prevented. Important. Um, next thing is the holiday lighting celebration is this Sunday at 7, I mean December 7th from 4:00 to 7:00. There'll be the snow, the pictures with Santa, spark of love toy drive, entertainment, crafts, food, and vendor toy drives that we have coming up. the police department is kids and cops accepting new um unwrapped toys to the police department off of Kota on and it will be Sunday the 13th at 1 p.m. for kids 12 years and younger. Registration is required because they are assuring that they are living in Corona proof of uh Corona residency required. There's also the fire department is doing the spark of love toy drive and they're accepting donations of unwrapped toys through December 24th at all the seven um fire stations and fire headquarters. And I'm told that all the toys will be given to the Corona settlement house and distributed to local families in needs. And last but not least, something that's really important is the um fire department's blood drive, which is Wednesday the 17th from 8:00 am to 4 pm. It's at uh Corona Fire Department headquarters. And to sign up, it's visit www.lstream.org cfd. Happy holidays.

Thanks, Maddie. Appreciate it. All right, who's next up? Good evening. Um, congratulations, um, Madame Mayor. Thank you, Jim, for all the work you did for last year. And congratulations, um, vice mayor speak. Um, I'm just here to give you update on our November 22nd food drive. I want to think thank each and every one of you on the podium up there. You all showed up as the concerned citizens of Corona, helping the community. So, thank you very much. Along with you, we had CNUSD, we have Kona Fire Department, 75 volunteers, 28 pallets of food, 450 families, 375 turkeys. It was nothing but blessing. So, thank you everyone who came and help us and who did go out and put the flyers out for us. So, thank you very much. Um, also we have a next one coming up on December 20th. I already have secured 12 palace of toys and things, but I'm working on food. So, please join us. We do not send invitations to anyone to come and volunteer in our food drives. We only put this out and ask people to join us. We don't say no to any volunteer. If you care about the community, come join us and we will do it together to help those in need. So once again, thank you very much for that. Last but not least, November 21st uh for the people task force was picked as a nonprofit of the year by uh Senate District 31. They have 10 cities in their district. One of them is Corona and we were honored as a nonprofit of the year. So I just want to share this with everyone because it was not us because we are for the people and by the

people. So award belongs to everybody in Corona. Thank you very much.

Congratulations for the recognition and thank you for the work you do. We appreciate it. Okay, who's up next? Hi, [clears throat] Don Fuller again. First little thing, the door in the back of the room needs to be fixed. It does not shut properly. So, whoever is in charge of that can remember that. Uh the city clerk's going to put up a little diagram. I hope I'm here again tilting at windmills. Uh my cause has become straightening Main Street. I brought this up at the last meeting and I'm going to bring it up again and I've had contacts with some people and every single contact I have is 100% behind straightening Main Street. I know it's late for this. I know I should have been doing this a long time ago. I know you people are chuckling. This is never going to happen. But I do have a few numbers. Uh a few birdies have told me that the subject of straightening Main Street has come up before. Uh and the cost was seen to be somewhere north of $50 million. I've heard a number of 54 million. I've heard a number of 60 million. I also have heard numbers of around a hundred million or more to redo the city park. Now then, I think I could do a pretty good job on that city park for less than a hundred million. But people have been talking about their legacy. What's going to be like 50 years, 100 years from now when your greatgrandchildren are looking at that and seeing what uh great granddad, great grandma, so forth did. If you were to take that hundred million or so from the city park and instead use it to straighten Main Street, you'd still have maybe 40 million bucks left

over. City park's going to be there a while. It ain't going anywhere. The Sixth Street repair job, it's going to be there a while. It's not going anywhere. You get one chance to straighten those abominable curves in Main Street. You get one chance because once you start building other stuff in there, that's glued in for life. And 100 years from now and more, those curves are still going to be there. And people are going to be wondering, why in God's good name did they leave those curves in Main Street. This is your chance to fix it. You can fix City Park three years from now. You can do that some other time, but it ain't going anywhere. You could throw 10 or 20 million bucks at city park, still be a pretty nice city park. This is the one chance you get to straighten those curves in Main Street. So, uh, that's the windmill at which I am tilting. Uh, everybody have a nice night. Get home safe. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Thank you, Don. All right. Who's up next? There were eight speaker cards and we've had five speakers so far. Okay. Hello. Welcome. Please be sure to share your name.

Uh Jordan Campbell, owner of Winter Circle Athletics. Um played high school football here in 2007. My dad graduated from Norco High School in 1988. Went to Arbor Mill Middle School. uh went to USC, played in the NFL, been contacting a lot of you guys. You guys gave me awards to the city multiple different times. Uh created multiple differentmies here in Southern California. Um helped over 500 kids earn scholarships to college and about a thousand to the top private schools here. Julian Sain, who's up for the Heisman right now, and Barry Bachmire from uh BYU, kids that attended, you know, our program here in Corona, California, and um represented our city very well. Um, the city shut down my business using the 2020 uh, the 2022 California building code definition of group E occupancy. I'm asking for one clear answer. What is the city of Corona's official standard for determining when a business becomes a group E school under the law? Is the building considered the school or are the children considered the school? I'm not asking about enforcement on any other business, only the city's own definition and the criteria you guys use.

Thank you. We'll be sure to get you in contact with staff. I can't

I'll continue to go then. Um so with my water being power turned off and the power on November 18, 2025, fire department inspector team came to our facility and issued a written statement showing zero violations and that site passed inspection. Later the same day, we received a written violation letter from Deputy Fire Marshall uh Baker stating that we are a non-compliance. I'm not here to say anyone is wrong. I only want to say that a small business, you know, is being affected when different divisions give different written interpretations. It becomes extremely difficult um to run your business. On December 1st, they put a red tag on our building without even inspecting the building after the November 18th. um you know, violations that we pass 100%. Um there's a lot of other programs here in Corona that are promoted by the city chambers, whether it's NW athletics that you guys supported, whether it's APC hopes that you guys supported, uh whether it's through the CUP that you guys did with them as well. Education, you guys have it all over the website. So, what is the interpretation of being a school um versus being a program like Circle City Center, the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club um that does primarily, you know, athletic training after school, boys and girls club, things like that. In your guys's opinion, I've emailed you guys multiple different times. This case has been open for 5 years since 2021. I dealt with Jacob in 2021 via Zoom meeting. multiple different people here that I've met with about doing and building an academy off of Cahalico. Not sure if you guys remember um you know it's been five years that we've been you know communicating and for this to happen after 10 going on 11 years in my building being shut down and over 300 plus kids that are left with nothing to do, nothing to train, it's pretty devastating

and no replies from emails from pretty much anybody on city council. I hear you, Mr. Campbell. I know this is a highly technical uh issue and I don't have the answers that you're seeking at this moment, but I know that staff is ready to speak with you. So, please connect with um Miss Schmidz. She's right here in the second row. Um and and thank you for being here tonight. Okay.

All right. Who's our next speaker? Hello, my name is Harvey Van Eggman uh with Harvey's Auto Tech and an auto repair shop in town and also have children and grandchildren all in uh Corona as well. Um I want to say thank you for um all of you. I've communicated with all of you, I think. Um, and a couple of you a couple of times. You've given me the time to talk about some issues. Um, I've gotten together with Joel Belding last night. We had a good conversation. Hopefully, it'll uh go somewhere. I I'm expecting at this point I feel good about how it's going. I am going to be getting together with Jacob in a couple weeks. Um Joel and I have already had a conversation about one shop downtown. You know what we're talking about, the automotive uh businesses that are on the downtown area. Um there is one shop uh the the Raj group, the father and the sons. Um Joel has already been talking to them this morning, I hear. I appreciate that. Um, I think efforts are already being made to do some of the renovation, revitalization ideas they have. They've had a little struggle with um, planning department, but with conversations I've had with a number of you, it sounds like you people are the ones who can help move things along and Joel. So, I'm excited about that. Um, I appreciate you guys taking an awful lot of beating through a lot of this and hopefully we get some progress um over the next few weeks and months. Um, I am pulling a

coalition together of automotive uh related businesses on Sixth Street. Had a lot of conversations with a number of them already. Um, I think with uh changes that hopefully some things can happen quickly with what Joel and I and and uh one of the gentlemen have been talking about already. if some things can happen uh in a good way, a positive way, um I think we will see that things are happening um that you guys do care and that progress can be made and then I think we'll be able to have much better conversations than the kind of conversation we had two weeks ago. And again, thank you.

Thanks, Harvey. Appreciate it. Okay, who's our last speaker? No one wants to claim that last card is Oh, okay. And is there anyone on Zoom? Mayor, we don't have anybody on Zoom, but I do want to note for the record that the city council did receive an email for written comments regarding winners winner circle and the minutes were the comments were sent to the council and will be part of the meeting minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Edwards. And um I want to address the conversation that we had at our last meeting about amortization on Sixth Street. Um, many people felt blindsided and I understand why. Um, and that's not how we build trust and trust is essential if we're going to successfully revitalize our downtown. Um, when I moved to table the discussion for 6 months, my intention was to slow things down so we could engage with businesses and not delay engagement. So, after reflecting and speaking directly with business owners, I've realized two things. First, we should start the stakeholder convening now, not six months from now. And second, amortization should not be part of the early discussions. Even the idea of of it creates uncertainty for business owners. Um, and that's not the foundation that we need for collaboration. Uh, so tonight I'm asking us to reset the process. I would like this item to be brought back at a future council meeting sooner rather than later ideally um so that we can revisit our action and instead direct staff to immediately begin a stakeholder engagement process with six street businesses, the chamber um and community partners without amortization on the table unless community brings that forward. Um downtown revitalization is too important to start off on the wrong foot. So, let's move forward together transparently and collaboratively and rebuild trust as we do it.

Did you want to quick comment? Go ahead.

Um, I thank you. That that was very clear. I I do think I kind of revisited what we all said and I you're spot on. Our six month was basically us convening the five of us. I mean, we have talked about an ad hoc, but basically being council involvement. I don't think there was anything in there that delayed or prevented. In fact, you know, Mr. Belding's already met with a few u a few folks. Uh I don't think there's anything that precludes that measure from going on. I don't think we need to bring this back for us to talk about. In fact, I think if anything, it's makes things a little more complicated. So, if anything, I think if you know um it was there's I mean, right now, we didn't have to give you know, Mr. building building um permission to go meet with folks and we certainly that would be something that I I wouldn't see would be out of character for what we what we uh what the motion was at the time. So I'm not I'm not against your motion but at the same time I think we're fine with moving forward and and frankly having a discussion with the businesses and then coming back in six months with um you know what what they would want to see and then we can contribute at that time. But I think in if we bring this back to have another discussion folks in the room and we're going to end up in the same position, which is really we want staff to engage with um with the businesses downtown.

Thank you, Mr. um um vice mayor. [laughter] Um I received direct guidance um from both legal and city manager that since it was a motion, it was voted on that we needed to um uh bring back an item to give clear direction for staff. and I've stated what the intention was. I want to make sure what the intention was. I think um folks understand that. But because there was given direction for an ad hoc to revisit the item, I want to clarify that it's that it's I don't want to talk about amortization. I want a convening of the stakeholders to talk about b how the uh sixth street uh revitalization including the businesses in the chamber because they have a niche perspective and um and so that's what I want to be clear about and I've received guidance that it needs to be on a future agenda item. So, okay, thank you all so much for that. Thank you for the public comments. Let's pick up our agenda where we left off. We're moving on to item eight, public hearings. We have none. Let's move on to nine uh item nine administrative reports 9.1 overview of the 2026 legislative platform and financial priorities. We have Dr. Amina Mirs, assistant to the city manager will present this item.

You earned that doctorate. I'm calling you doctor.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. So, good evening, madame mayor and council. Um tonight, I am joined by U. on Sharon Gonzalez of CPPG and we will be giving an overview of the 2026 legislative platform and financial priorities. And then we will also be bringing this item back in January of next year for final adoption. Next slide. So tonight the ask is that city council review and provide feedback on the 2026 legislative platform. our financial priorities and policy areas. And we also need council to appoint two delegates for our future legislative advocacy meetings. So council, as you know, our platform is a tool um that is used for uh staff to basically um advocate, support or oppose both uh state and federal legislation that benefits or impacts the city. Our platform uh consists of 13 sections. All of these sections are carried over from uh 2025. So we do not have any uh significant changes. However, we do have two statement additions to sections four and six. Um I do have Sharon on the line and she wants to jump in so she could talk about these two sections uh briefly.

Great. Thank you. [clears throat] And good evening. Um the two additions that we wanted to add um under section 4 housing reform opposed legislation that adds new procedural requirements to the SQA process. Um wanted to add that because this past year there was some pretty um some pretty jarring SQA reforms that were passed through the legislature via a budget bill. meaning it did not go through the normal policy committees and there was not an effort to not an effort or an opportunity really to make amendments to um the bills that they had presented. Um that being said, a number of members voted for it and supported it with the understanding that there would be amendments taken um come 2026. So wanted to make sure that the city's platform covered anything that might um be covered under the that cleanup legislation, making sure that it does not impose any additional burdens to a public agency. And then um section six under municipal finance opposed legislation that promotes investment and violates a fiduciary duty to manage risk effectively. wanted to include that one because we've been we've had some con conversations with the um police department, the police chief as well as Kalpers on some conversations about divestment and having that become more political rather than a fidiciary responsibility. So as that moves forward, we've been following the CalPERS meetings very closely and we wanted to make sure that that was also included in this year's platform.

Thank you Sharon. So moving on to our 2026 financial priorities. Our priorities also remain the same since 2025 platform. Um we have four focus areas and these areas include community services which has four priority projects. Our public safety has one priority project, utilities has three priority projects, and public works have one uh priority projects. And again, these priority projects are um spillover from the 2025 priorities. And these projects are lifted are listed, excuse me, in staff recommended ranking order. So, with that being said, does council have any feedback on our 2026 financial priorities? No, I just I want to make certain um that these numbers are are revisited uh frequently in the annual and the and the reason I say this is that sometimes when there are opportunities to secure funds from our um representatives, it's it's we have to have it's not shovel ready, but you have to have the current cost. We've seen how if we don't stay on top of what a what the estimates are, we can end up requesting a certain amount and um it's it's not enough. So, [snorts] I want to make sure that these numbers are reflective every year as we're revisiting um these um priorities and we're giving um a real figures to our representatives. Yes, they are uh revisited and we also do uh make sure we revisit them before we meet with our uh legislative delegation as well.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Do my colleagues have any feedback on this? Any questions? No. Any um Miss Edwards, any speaker cards? Yes, mayor. We have one speaker card for this item. Thank you,

Dr. Garling. Good evening, madame mayor, vice mayor, entire council, city manager, and city attorney. I wanted to stand and express my gratitude to you as a particularly the city manager staff and the council both for recommending and considering two particular items. To give you some context here, the priorities for the chamber of commerce coming into this year are three when it comes to legislative affairs. streamline rules to grow jobs in Corona, make business affordable in Corona, make tax dollars count in Corona. I was delighted to see the recommendation regarding SQUA uh because that speaks directly to streamlining rules and making business more affordable and the chamber stands in support of this idea of opposing legislation that makes things even more complicated and secret. It may perhaps be the most complicated regulation to comply with in the nation. Next, in terms of making tax dollars count, I was equally delighted to see that what this staff has put forward is $3 out of every four in the financial priorities for the city regard public utilities and transportation, which make it clear this council's continued focus on making business more effective in the city and making residential life more effective as well. So, I want to express my gratitude and thanks for your priorities both on the legislative and financial standpoint and know that the chamber is very supportive particularly of those two items. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Glad there's alignment. We appreciate it. Okay, Mr. Morgan.

Joe Morgan 206. I'm I'm I'm inclined to just feel like I don't have to obey the Brown Act because I just saw the most blatant blowing through of any of the guidelines, guide guard rails, laws, customs. The the wholesome discussion about how to revitalize Sixth Street and and how you would approach amortization was not on the agenda tonight. you guys made a mess last meeting or your your boy did made a mess last meeting and you guys are in damage control mode and you just figured that you could have a discussion about that and you shouldn't have you should not have been talking about that you could say hey we're going to put it on the agenda for a future thing and go this is the definition of becoming a mess in policy I saw persuasion between council members you were you and Mr. speak. We're having a discussion about, you know, it was mostly led by you. You [snorts] know, you wanted to explain what you were going to do and what you thought we should do. That's the definition of the things that you shouldn't be doing on an item that's not on the agenda. So, I I really am, you know, just the fact just you guys use the Brown Act when you feel like using the Brown Act and you ignore it when you when you feel like ignoring it. And that's why nobody trusts you guys. That's why

all these discussions that people are talking about well you know I know there's been discussions about this and that and the all those discussions should be agendaized and be in this room. That's how the process works. That's how it's supposed to work. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mayor, if I can just correct the there's no Brown Act violation that you just committed. I know

you had a public member comment about the conversation from last time. You have the absolute ability to ask for clarification, to respond to that, to ask to have something put on the agenda. You did that. Council member speak or vice mayor speak asked for clarification. Do you think we really need that? Because I think and came to a conclusion that no, we think we need to put put it on the agenda again. So staff now has that direction. Absolutely no violation of the Brown Act in that situation.

Thank you, Mr. Turn. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Derlith. Are there any speakers who want to speak on the legislative platform and financial priorities? Okay. Seeing none, then do I have any questions or comments for my colleagues? Seeing none, then I will make the motion to um approve. Oh, I think you need two folks to nominate, right? Yes. And and there's a little bit more to Oh, you have more. Okay, go on. You're right. So, we're going to move on and I'm going to have Sharon rejoin us and she's going to talk about our policy areas.

Great. Thank you. Um, so just real briefly, um, looking at next year, um, at a glance, 2026 will be the second year of a two-year session, meaning that any bills that were held in its house of origin in 2025 is eligible to be heard. So, we will be having policy committees and potential uh floor votes um come the first week of January. So, um, that being said, in addition, the governor will be presenting his January budget for, um, outlook. And I will say that the legislative analyst office did release their fiscal outlook and are estimating about an $18 billion deficit, meaning that that'll kind of be the overarching theme for next year as we look at legislation and programs that are funded through the budget. Um, and then really, you know, I know this council is very familiar. March through June, we're focused on policy committees as well as getting the budget done. The legislature takes a break. They go back to their districts for the month of July. And then we come back in August to wrap everything up so that um by August 30th, they can be done and sent home. And it'll be heavy. It'll be a really interesting campaign year. And um that's what the focus of next fall will be. And that's around the same time that we start to revisit our platform um for 2027 which is crazy. And then if you could go to the next slide please. So when we look at our priorities and things that we look at sponsoring and really being the face of um I do want to say congratulations on the RSO because that not long ago was a part of this conversation that we're h we're having but um the items that remain are surplus lands act remote meetings and teleconferencing truth and tolling as well as the public records act. Can you

go to the next slide please? Just to give you a little bit more um idea of what we're talking about within surplus lands act. Um we've been looking at you know exemptions for the downtown area. Um this administration as well as several authors in the housing space have been really adamantly against any kind of amendments to the SLA that'll take away from housing. That being said, this administration next year is their last year. We have some key members that are turning out and moving on. So, it's a great it's been this year's has been a great opportunity to really engage some members who are going to be here long term who also have an vision of um various tools for economic development. uh remote meetings and telecom community. Um really teleconferencing, being able to participate in public meetings, looking for ways to we continue to work with our partners to find reasonable modifications to the Brown Act that allow for remote participation while also maintaining the integrity of public meetings. Uh truth and tolling, looking at providing drivers with real-time information on rates and travel times. And then um looking we've been working with the municipal clerks association as well as the um elections division within SEESAC to really look at what reforms could be made around the public records act to um abuse what the act is originally intended. Okay, next slide. Kick it back over to you Amina.

Oh sure. So, would the council like to pursue any other sponsored legislation? I I think this is a pretty ambitious. Um, [laughter] always have a list. I know I know Wes always has a list, but, you know, I think we could probably uh do better with a with a narrowed focus. So, I don't have any other ideas or recommendations for sponsored legislation. Okay, [clears throat] we'll move on.

Yeah. The the only thing I just I I had a couple things I brought up, but I'm totally fine. I agree with you. This is a lot. I know that uh talking to I think three different chiefs now about um that we have to respond. CHP gets paid to respond to the toll lanes. We should get we should get uh paid to respond to the toll lanes. Um, and right now it's, you know, you can ask the tolling agency and of course they're going to say no because no one's forcing them to. Um, so I almost worse the toll agencies charge the fire engines to respond. Oh, no, they don't. Not well, not RCTC. They they've exempted them a few years back.

Okay. Um but um and not that I'm only look looking to add that but maybe at a future item for us to identify maybe there's a way for for agencies that have to respond to those to tolling issues that they get paid for it. So or we get paid for reimburse for it. All right. We'll keep that on the list. We'll explore it. Thank you. [snorts] You didn't ask for the two folks. Are you going to ask for that? Right at the end of this I'll conclude. I can already tell you who's it going to be. Okay. [laughter] Nobody else wants it. So, back to you, Sharon.

Okay, we'll wrap up really quickly. Um, so as we look to 2026, um, as Amina mentioned, we'll adopt the 2026 legislative platform. There is new leadership in the Senate. Um, I will just, you know, really quickly divert and say end of session was a disaster. So much so that there was a call to change leadership sooner rather than was originally planned. Um, we continue to collaborate with your regional and statewide entities, specifically the um, organizations that your staff is a part of, such as Cal Chiefs, CMU, and Caled as well as Cal Cities. And then, as I mentioned, the continuing decline in state revenues will just have this overarching um, kind of cloud as we move into 2026. So again, we're asking council to provide feedback only. So not to adopt, but just to provide feedback only if you have it for the 2026 legislative platform, financial priorities and policy areas and then to also appoint the two uh delegation uh representatives.

Okay. So we've given you feedback. I can tell you that I will self-nominate as one of the two delegates and I think my partner in crime here uh vice mayor speak will self-nominate and I doubt that any of my colleagues will have an issue with that [snorts] okay so there you go your two delegates thank you yeah thank you okay so um and no we've done questions comments okay let's move on to item number 92 a resolution approving a recognized obligation payment schedule and resolution approving successor agency administrative budget for the period of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027. Does any council member want a staff report on this item?

No. No. Neither do I. Okay, you're off the hook, Miss Sitten. Um [clears throat and laughter] um Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public on this item? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item. All right, then. Do we have a motion? So, move.

Okay. moved from vice mayor speak. Who was the second? Okay. Uh um Dario second and let's take a vote. And that item passes 5 to zero. Okay. Moving on. Item 9.3. Receive and file the auditor's reports related to the fiscal year 2025 annual financial audits, auditor's communication, annual comprehensive financial report, development impact fees annual report and annual report on voter approved debt for fiscal year. Um, miss it and um will you please present this item?

Thank you, Madame Mayor and council members. Uh so the item before you tonight is a receive and file uh item regarding the audit and all the associated reports for fiscal year 25. The preparation of the annual financial report is mandated by state law and it must be audited by an independent auditor using generally accepted government accounting standards. So while there isn't a legal requirement for us to rotate our auditing firms, the Government Finance Officers Association does recommend that we change audit firms every 5 years. But if we continue to stay with the same firm, we must rotate the lead audit partner um after six years per the California government code. Local agencies tend to change audit firms about every 5 to seven years. And our current auditor, the PUN Group, was selected through a competitive RFP process in 2021. So the fiscal year 2025 is their fifth year doing the uh our audit. Um and we have extended for one more year with them.

That is the greatest name ever for an auditing [laughter] fund group. And uh we do have Francis from the pun group here to uh to provide you with any additional information or answer specific questions that you may have. I I that's the question I had. I wanted to know how often we um um seek new auditors and who what the laws and rules were on rotating that. So I appreciate it. Um any questions or comments for my colleagues? No. Miss uh Edwards, are there speaker cards? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item.

Okay. Then this is a receive and file, so it doesn't require a motion. Thank you. We'll move on to item 9.4, resolution declaring the properties at 106, 1114, 122, and 138 East 6th Street, identified as assessor parcels numbers 117-191-01. uh 117-191-00002 and oh 117-191-003 and 117-191-004 are exempt surplus land um Dr. Mirrors with assistance to the city manager. Will you please present this item?

Yes. Thank you, madame mayor. Um just have a brief um explanation. So this item requests that city council adopt a resolution uh declaring these city- owned properties at 10614 and 138, 142 E6 Street as exempt surplus land under the surplus land act. Um, these parcels are no longer needed for uh city purposes and this action will allow staff to proceed with the appropriate steps for their potential disposition in accordance with state requirements. Um, should you have any questions, both Joe from economic development and I are here to answer those for you right now.

No, I I I don't have any questions, but I did I wanted to highlight an item on on 9.4 for um because we haven't um been able to I want to pull it up. Do you have the staff report? Joel, can Joel speak to you know what I'm about to say?

Really? Yeah. So, the genesis for having this item before you is it's twofold. So, first is we're getting very close to being able to lease a couple of the suites. uh which is exciting in and of itself, but I think most exciting is the resolution of probably about two years worth of conversations with the Cortez Jewelers where we've reached a mutually beneficial agreement to keep them in the downtown to move them from the north side of Sixth Street just to the south side of Sixth Street in the new hub and really keep them as uh one of the centerpieces for the exciting uh retail and uh overall lifestyle type offerings that we have. And so suite 114, one of those four listed up there is will be their new home. uh we're selling them that suite so that they have a permanent ownership footprint within the hub and uh I think it's great. They'll have I think better visibility and uh they'll have great customer exposure as a part of that new the new center that's developing.

Yes, they will. Thank you so much. So glad to see that um finally come before us. Um okay. Uh Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item.

All right. Any questions or comments for my colleagues? Just really quick, I wanted to I just I I'm because I'm a nerd like um like council Dario says and uh I found a picture from like 1970 of um Sal Cortez, the the father moving stuff from his truck into their new suite to where they where they are right now. So, it was kind of cool to just find that when when we're finalizing this and I wish them all the luck and happy that we uh were able to work this out. Yeah, agreed. Okay, so uh I'll entertain a motion for this item.

Moved by Vice Mayor Speak, second by Council Member Richens. Let's take a vote. That item passes 5 to Z. All right, moving on. Item 9.5, resolution adopting the city of Corona position uh library and compensation plan and repealing all prior plans including resolution number 2025-104. Uh [snorts] Lori Cassoon, chief talent officer will present this item. Thank you, mayor. Um very briefly tonight, the resolution before you um adopts a new updated position library and compensation plan for the city. Um, the position library is being modified to adjust salary ranges effective January, excuse me, December 27th, 2005 in accordance with memorandum understanding and compensation and benefit resolutions with our confidential management and executive employees as well as an updated employment agreements with the city attorney and city manager. All of which were approved by council in December of 2024 as part of three-year bargaining cycle. So, this new position library simply implements those changes that were made last December. No further changes are made here that are substantive.

Thank you very much for clarifying that. Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item. Okay. Any questions or comments from colleagues? I'll make a motion. Okay. Moved by Council Member Richen, seconded by Council Member Steiner.

All right, that item passes 5 to Z. Um, legislative matters. Item 10, 10.1, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Corona, adding chapter 9.23, downtown entertainment zone to title 9, public peace, um, morals and welfare of the Corona municipal code to establish an entertainment zone pursuant to California Senate Bill 969. Um, I want to report on this. So, [laughter] Mr. Building, thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor Casillas and city council members. So, this is a follow-up to a discussion that we had in July about taking advantage of a relatively new state law that allows for outdoor alcohol consumption in sort of atypical areas. So, we've crafted that resolution. We've worked hard with uh we've worked closely with the alcoholic beverage control offices in San in Riverside as well as our police department to make sure that the rules are the right fit for this area and for what it's intended to be. Uh so the state law just allowed for a little bit expanded freedom uh still with some very close regulations and still with the oversight of ABC as well as the city for uh outdoor alcohol consumption. So we're rolling that out. The thought is to use the parking lot for special events. Uh the hub will be a relatively high concentration of uh eeries. We're expecting a fair number of those to want to serve alcohol. There's some shared spaces within there that we've built in. There's the patio space in front of the wind down. There's the backyard space behind Circle City Tavern. Both of those will be covered through some separate operating agreements with the ABC. But then that parking lot could do uh a number of things. It could be really be a focal point for downtown activities on a periodic basis when we have enough parking to be able to accommodate that type of activity. And this would simply allow that parking lot to be used for if you wanted to have a beer garden in there or a concert and have alcohol sales in conjunction with that. These rules would create a little bit more freedom to do that. But we've built in uh a certain number of provisions within this new ordinance to make sure that it's not a free-for-all. The city will still require uh special permitting for each particular event. There's still security fencing that's put up around the perimeter of the site uh for each event. You'll have wristbands. There'll be uh clear cups to be able to easily identify what types of beverages are being consumed. Each beverage uh cup will be branded with a particular provider. So, there's layers and layers of protection to allow for uh both the on-site security that we'll have just as

a part of the standard operations for the hub as well as our law enforcement officials to be able to walk through and very easily read conditions to know whether they need to uh dig in a little bit deeper with any particular consumer out there. So, the general uh provisions will just sort of open the door to this new type of activity, but then again, there's layers of protection built in. And then as property owners and landlords for that center, if the city ever sees a problem, we can outside of these regulations impose additional requirements, restrictions, or simply say no to any proposed activities that the property manager could propose. And so again, sort of multiple layers of protection built in. So this is the first reading of that ordinance. Uh if you're agreeable to this, we'd recommend that you move forward with this. We'll come back with a second reading and then in just a little bit, we'll be ready to go out there.

Thank you, Mr. Balding. Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public? We do not have any speaker cards for this item. All right. Do I have any questions or comments for my colleagues? No. I'm excited for this, Mr. Balding. Thank you so much. Um, okay. I'll entertain a motion. So, moved. Moved by Vice Mayor, seconded by Council Member Steiner. Mayor, the motion needs to be read. There you go, Wes. I didn't see it on the next It's the next page. [clears throat and cough]

Okay. So introduced by title only and wave full reading of for consideration of ordinance number 3424 first reading of the ordinance amending title 9 peace public peace morals and welfare of the Corona municipal code to add section 9.23 downtown entertainment zone establishing a SB6 sorry 969 entertainment zone designation to the hub commercial center. Thank you vice mayor. Everyone vote. That item passes five to zero. All right. 10.2. Revisions to Corona Municipal Code sections regarding pro prohibited conduct in parks and recreation areas. Does any council member want a staff report on this item?

Bless you. No. Okay. You're off the hook, Miss Finch. Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this item. This is pretty straightforward. Um, okay. So, you guys didn't want a presentation. I imagine no one has any questions or comments on it either. Okay. Motion. Please make the motion. All right. Nope. Please turn on your mic. Yeah.

Got it. Haven't done that in a while. All right. Introduced by title only and wave full reading for consideration of ordinance number 3423. The first reading of an ordinance amending sections 12.24.030 12.24.040 and 1 12.24.060 060 of the Corona Municipal Code regarding prohibited conduct in parks and recreational areas.

Okay, everyone cast your vote. That item passes 5 to zero. Okay. Reports and board from boards and commissions. Uh library board of trustees has none. Planning and housing commission none. Parks and recreation commission none. Regional meetings. I uh want to provide an update on the last um Bedford Cold Water Groundwater Sustainability Authority meeting of December. It's December 1st. Um oh shoot. You know what? I will submit those um to you um Miss City Clerk. Uh because my notes are not pulling up. I'll do the same for um WRCOG meeting. Okay. All right. Moving on. 114 11.4 4C update from council member Steiner on the Riverside Transit Agency board meeting of November 19th.

Thank you, mayor. Uh first off, I was elected chair of RTA for 2026. Um RTA RTA's comprehensive operational analysis has officially started. We are planning the next 10 years of transit improvements and the RTA wants to hear from you. One first step is gathering community feedback on transit needs. Um, you can visit www.riversitransit.com for more information. RTA is proud to finish another year with an unmodified clean audit from Brown Armstrong CPA. The agency continues to be a good steward of public funds. The agency is proud to launch the newly rebranded writership code of conduct uh designed to clearly and consistently communicate all rules and expectations to passengers. The code aims to create a safer, cleaner, and more positive environment for all passengers and coach operators. And finally, uh, RTA is offering free rides on all fixed route commuter link and go micro buses on New Year's Eve starting at 2:30 p.m. And mayor, that completes my report.

That's great. Um and update from uh Vice Mayor Westpeak on the Riverside County Transportation Commission RCTC Western Programs meeting of November 24th. Uh thank you very much, Madam Mayor. I I don't have a whole lot. We uh we did uh vote on a few things, but they're going to come back to the full commission, so I'll just put it off till then. We did award uh about $524 million worth of worth of uh transportation projects, but I'll report that uh when we do the final vote. Thank you. Okay, Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards from the public uh for the regional updates? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for the regional updates.

Okay, moving on. Item 12, um, city attorney's report and comments. Mr. Darl, do you have any comments? All right, city managers. Mr. Ellis, do you have any comments tonight?

Uh, yes. Mayor, it's hard to believe, but we're at the end of our year, and so I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to uh give a shout out to our team. I know that this year's kind of blown by. It's been a whirlwind of activity, but we've gotten so much done. And I just wanted to express appreciation to the council for your leadership and and helping uh keep us on the right track. I'm grateful for our community for the so many supporters that have come out and helped us with so many projects and for our outstanding team that we have, many of whom are here tonight, some of them some of them aren't here, but uh want to say thank you for all of the work that's been put in over a very busy year. So, just wanted to express appreciation for that before we wrap up. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Council member reports and comments. Do my colleagues have any comments? Starting off over there. Thank you, mayor. Um, really quick, I always go I always flip back and forth. My two favorite events of the year, the holiday lighting and the Fourth of July parade. And unfortunately, this year I cannot attend the holiday lighting. I am somewhat devastated. Um, so please represent well for us. Make sure you put in a good word for Santa. I've been good all year long

for the most part. [laughter] Um, and uh to our community, thank you for another great calendar year. Uh, happy holidays to you all and your families. May you have a safe and enjoyable holiday event. And all of our staff as well here at the city of Corona. Appreciate all of your hard work this year. Happy holidays to you and your family as well. And I guess happy holidays to you guys too, I guess. [laughter] Right. Thank you, Council Member Council Member Richens. Tony took all my talking points, so I will say ditto, but I will be at the holiday tree lighting and it is a great event and strongly encourage one and all to go. Thank you, Council Member Steiner.

Yes, thank you. I just wanted to thank all the citizens who came out to the state of the city event at the HCC uh 13 days ago. Um it was very well attended especially on a cold rainy night. Uh so thank you very much and also thank you to staff. I know how hard you guys work putting together that video and and basically over the entire year working together to make a nice product. So thank you very much report. Thank you council member.

Uh just two things. One, thank you again echoing what um what the mayor and recovery said. Uh great job by the staff putting that together. That was great. The event was wonderful. It was great to see new business like um Circle City Tavern there serving some of their uh non-alcoholic um but really fascinating drinks. So, I'm really really excited. Had a good conversation with those those folks and they're they're pretty happy that they were there and that they're in the city corona. But I wanted to take a moment to um to thank uh flood control um especially Helio Takano. Um he is the um one of the directors over there. I've been in contact with u with Mr. Takano for months and months and months about a um a flood control uh area that's on on Cleveland and it had just a simple um metal rope that goes across it to kind of keep people out. Well, that didn't keep anybody out. Lots of places to hide. Residents have been complaining about it for frankly years. And um I threw a couple of ideas at uh at Mr. Tano and asked him and said, "Look, will you guys just sell it? sell that that access or have some other block there or find a way to put up a fence. And he wrote me back um within about three days and said, "Uh fence crew will be out there in in a week." And they were. And they put up a fence and it's great and the residents are really appreciative because it's stopping the kind of narrow walls that go down there and do the things that I used to do when I was a kid um and the the washes around Corona. So, I was really happy to see that and just wanted to publicly thank um Jason Ulie, the the uh the director over there and uh Helio as always being such a uh a great response to citizens comments, questions, and he's on the on the on the dot. So, just wanted to publicly say thank you and that was it. Thanks.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um I I we have a very special person whose birthday is today and she chose to celebrate by being here with us. So, I want to say happy birthday to Miss Edwards. Um, I I we you are a joy and I I don't I don't think many people would stick around for their birthdays to to be at a city council meeting. So, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. And um I I'm looking forward to the holiday lighting. I'm also looking forward to the break ahead. I'm wishing you all a joyful season and really a restorative break. I'm I'm excited for the year ahead. I'm I'm eager to make it the best one yet and uh you have my commitment to stay focused and um we've got a lot to get done. So, let's do it. Um with that, we will adjourn this meeting. City council meeting of um December 17th has been cancelled and the next meeting of the council will be on January 7th right here. This meeting is adjourned. Development standpoint that is what makes our cities thrive. with the South Mall, we call it the hub, you know, not only