City Council - Regular Meeting

Good, good evening everyone. Um, this is the city of Desert Hot Springs and this is our city council meeting, but our city council meeting doesn't start till 6. Uh, we like to have presentations before our city council meeting. And I know all of you are not here to listen to us talk business, but we're really happy you're here tonight and we've got a lot to talk about. So, with that said, I'm going to give it over to our police chief, Chief Shaw. All right. Great to see this crowd here tonight. So, we're going to start tonight. This is uh to do some recognition. This is really something near and dear to me. I know it is to the mayor. Uh and this is our explorer program. And so, we brought back the police explorer program in 2025. This is our first graduating class of the Desert Hot Springs Police Explorer program. Uh and before I recognize these uh young men and women, I would like uh to introduce and have the explore adviserss uh come up and stand up here with me. So we'll start with the uh sergeant in charge of the explorer program, Chris James. We got ex uh advisers uh Detective George Bailey. Um, Officer Marlene Huerta, Corpal Gus Ramirez, Dispatcher Annabel Terzus. Um, I'm looking I'm looking around the room here to see is officer Pauline Tuscano here.

No. Okay. officer Jessica Corona and so and his cso Gabriella Kamacho. So those three other individuals are also part of the the program and stuff. So these these individuals when we started the program uh we started from ground up. U it's been a while since we had an explorer program I think about 10 years ago or so. So, it was a lot of redoing our policy, the explorer manual, putting together uh a six-w weekek training program uh for these young men and women uh and then planning out, hey, what they're going to what they're going to do as an explorer. So, little background on the explorers. If you not if you're not familiar with them, uh it's an opportunity. It's designed to introduce local youth to all aspects of law enforcement. So when they went through the police explorer program, um they learned about things such as patrol operations, crowd and traffic control or dispatch center, record center, radio operations, defensive tactics, community policing, and they even had them do some physical fitness. Uh they spent 6 weeks on their weekend uh coming uh in the morning at 7:00 in the morning, I think it was, spending all day with us and learning these. Uh so these young men and women should really be commended uh for their efforts um and their civicmindedness that at this young age they're involved uh they have an interest uh at least in law enforcement or some aspect of law enforcement. And our hope is that uh they continue with that interest uh and maybe someday find a career path uh in law enforcement whether it's as an officer or dispatcher or some of our professional staff that worked very hard behind the scenes. So with that, I'm going to have them come up. So our first recognition goes to Emily Agiri. Congratulations. I'm just going to have you stand back here with these folks.

Joseph Fonca Congratulations, Joseph. Alexa Garcia. Congratulations, Jose Gonzalez. Sienna Classen, Sienna's proud brother, standing back there in uniform also. Clarissa Lurma, Christopher Martinez Rodriguez. Vladimir Perez, Rosalie Raundo and Leslie Tapio.

Congratulations. So, again, they've gone through a lot already just to get to this point, but I think we should all be proud uh of our community of Desert Hot Springs, and this is the future of our country. These are these are good Americans that are out there, serve their serve their country and serve their community. Uh so, just another round of applause FOR THESE FOLKS. DC, CAN YOU COME UP? DC, CAN YOU DO a real quick picture and we'll just take a real quick picture? And Craig, if you just want to corral us council's going to stand in the back. Everybody just kind of probably bunch in a little bit. Get together. Get together.

There we go. We're going to take a couple of them. Okay. One, two, three. One, two, three. Take one more. One, one, two, and three. All right, my partner. There we go.

All right. And and for the family, if you guys want to wait after the all the presentations, then we'll be able to do some individual photos and stuff. Uh, but we want to keep going. So, thank you guys. You can have a seat back here. ALL RIGHT. UH, next is another very exciting time for the police department. We haven't done this in a in a long time. Uh, is to recognize some promotions that we had just recently within the police department. So, uh, on February 7th, uh, we promoted two new sergeants and two new lieutenants within the police department. So, tonight, uh, we're here to congratulate them, recognize them, and do a reaffirmation of their oath of office. So, we are going to start with Sergeant Chris James. And then pinning Chris's uh badge tonight will be his wife Kelsey. So Kelsey, if you can come up here. All right. Sergeant Chris James. Chris began his law enforcement career in December 2017 after spending 14 years as a public safety dispatcher. Chris has distinguished himself through a strong work ethic, sound judgment, and a calm, methodical approach to problem solving. As a patrol officer, Chris was a field training officer, officer in charge, and served on the major accident investigations team. Chris's work ethic has continually demonstrated his belief that leadership begins with accountability, consistency, and example. Chris's investigative aptitude

and discipline ultimately led to his assignment as a detective where he has worked for the last three years handling major cases including violent crimes, crimes against children, and homicides. Chris has worked closely with law enforcement throughout Riverside County and has developed close community relationships which have all attributed to his success as a detective. Over the course of eight years, Chris James has developed a reputation as a dependable investigator, a thoughtful leader, and a steady presence during high stress events. His career progression reflects both earned trust, and a sustained commitment to professional growth. Chris's promotion to sergeant represents not only personal achievement, but also a continued dedication to leading with integrity, mentoring others, and serving both his department and the community at the highest standards. Congratulations, CHRIS. All right, this is for you.

Congratulations. We'll do photos afterwards. CONGRATULATIONS.

All right, next up is Sergeant Gregory Elias. So, pinning pinning Greg tonight is his wife Toshi. If you can come on up. And then we're going to do a shout out to Greg. Uh he's got his children, Tyler. Tyler, raise your raise your hand. Tyler. All right. And Samantha. All right. And then Greg's parents, Ray and Nancy, are in the audience tonight, too, with us. So, welcome. All right. Greg Elias is a dedicated and accomplished law enforcement professional that has been with the Desert Hot Springs Police Department since June 2015. Greg has built a strong career marked by progressive responsibilities in patrol investigations and specialized task forces. Greg has been assigned as a detective with the Coachella Valley Narcotics Task Force, the Cannabis Regulation Task Force, and the postrelease accountability compliance team. Greg was also the department's first homeless liaison officer. Greg's experience extends to major traffic collision investigations where he has served on the major accident investigations team since November 2018. While in patrol, Greg has also served as a field training officer. Greg holds an advanced post certificate and extensive specialized training. Greg has received notable recognition including officer of the year, detective bureau of the year, the award of merit, and awards for vehicle theft investigations. Congratulations, Greg. Good job.

All right. Next up, Lieutenant Cory Coransza. And then pinning uh Lieutenant Kuransa tonight is his wife, Ericelli. If Eric, if you can come up. And then I want to do some shout outs. Uh their children right here. Monnique, where are they at? In the back there. Toku and Isabellia. And then we've got his grandson, Henry. Where's Henry at? He's not here.

Okay. Uh his Cory's mom and dad, Gil and Melissa. We've we've also got some special guests. We got u a longtime friend, Nick from Redlands PD. Nick, thanks for joining us. And Adam from Colton PD. Thank you for joining us, Adam. Their two dogs tried to make it, but they couldn't. Cenino and Cinnamon Roll, so I know they're here in spirit, so all right, here we go. Corey started with the Desert Hot Springs Police Department in 2015. Prior to joining the police department, Cory served in the United States Marine Corps and the and the United States Army. Corey is a combat veteran of both military branches and has been awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with Valor for his bravery and actions while in combat. Cory attended the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department Academy and served as class president for his academy class. Cory has served in the positions of police officer, police sergeant, and police detective sergeant. Cory has also been a field training officer, member of the major accident investigations team, and was a member of the Coachella Valley violent crime gang task force. Cory has extensive experience in use of force, gangs, firearms, traffic collision investigations, and DUI checkpoints. This expertise has contributed to the department's operations as an invaluable resource. Cory has served as the department's range master and use of force instructor since 2015. Corey has been the training coordinator for the department and has contributed to the development and instruction of over 10 postcertified courses for personnel not only for our department but throughout the county. Corey is a graduate of the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute and has also received awards throughout his career, including Officer

of the Year and six consecutive Mothers Against Drunk Driving Drivers awards. With his promotion to lieutenant, Cory will oversee the department's patrol operations division, which includes patrol, traffic, school resource, field training, and the mate team. In his spare time, Corey works out, enjoys working out, going to the range, talking about watches with his buddies. All right. And taking his cars out for a drive with his wife Urseli here tonight. And we already recognized the folks here tonight. So, Cory, congratulations to you. It's okay. It's not as easy as it looks, tell you.

All right. Fantastic. Quick. All right, Lieutenant Chris Sier. Who is it? All right. Otherwise known as Sauce. Oh, all right. Let's see. Pitting uh Lieutenant Sashier tonight is his daughter, Aubrey. Aubrey, can you come on up? All right. And here in the audience tonight is also his wife, Alyssa.

Alicia, sorry. Where you at? And then Haley. Haley is daughter. Is Haley here? All right. There she is. And then I I should have mentioned this gentleman earlier and I apologize, but Chief Randolph from Fontana School Police Department. So, welcome, sir. Appreciate you being here. All right. Lieutenant Christopher Sas Saskier. So Chris is a California native, originally from San Diego, which is why I like him. He moved to the East Coast and started his law enforcement career in 1999 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Chris worked as a police officer for for a municipal police department as well as a college police department before returning to Southern California and joining the Desert Hot Springs Police Department in 2014. Throughout his career, Chris has worked a variety of assignments, including community policing, bicycle patrol unit, field training officer, detective, and is a traffic collision reconstruction investigator on the major accident investigation team. Chris has also worked task force assignments with the Riverside County Child Exploitation Team and the FBI joint terrorism task force. As a detective, Chris focused on major case investigations involving homicides and crimes against children. In 2017, Chris was promoted to sergeant. As a sergeant, Chris has supervised patrol, the detective bureau, the drone unit, and the mate team. With his promotion to lieutenant, Chris will oversee the department's special operations division, which includes the detective bureau, drone team, community response team, and task force officers. During his time at the Desert Hot Springs Police Department, Chris has received several awards and commendations, including the Medel of Valor, Life-Saving Awards, the Award of Merit, Officer of the Year, Detective Team of the Year, and several CHP awards for the

recovery of stolen vehicles. Lieutenant Sauier is looking forward to this new role and continuing to learn all aspects of law enforcement leadership. In his time off, Lieutenant Sauier enjoys quiet relaxation with his family. I've never known him to be quiet, but maybe at home. Maybe at home. Congratulations, Chris. All right. And normally we would we'd make them come up and give you a speech, but because of time tonight, we're going to continue on. So, Mayor, I relinquish the floor. All right. I know everybody's here for the Sunline presentation now. Are you ready? we're going to do is Sunline is here to give a presentation, but what we're going to do is I have a proclamation for our engineering department and I'm going to do that and then we'll allow you to come up and take pictures and then we'll as you funnel out, we'll get to Sunline and and have their presentation so you don't have to sit through all that tonight. But I love football and you forget about the kicker sometime, right? But the kicker is very important. It's the one that kicks the field goal at the end of the game or punts the ball to the 5 yardd line. And so a friend of mine started a fantasy football league and it was called uh uh don't forget the punters or don't forget the kick

kickers. So when it comes to engineers and city staff, sometimes they're forgotten ones because they're behind the scenes and you don't really need them until you need them, right? So I'm going to invite up our engineering staff today. Our deputy city manager Daniel Pors is going to accept this proclamation. I'd like the rest of our staff that works in the engineering department to come on up. So this is engineers week or engineers week has already passed but this is the first council meeting to our engineers. Um all the staff you're all important engineers

I know but you if it wasn't for you they would never get their job done. So this is a proclamation. Whereas engineers use their scientific and technical knowledge and skills in c creative and innovative ways to fulfill society's needs. And whereas engineers face the major technical challenges of our time. From rebuilding towns devastated by natural disaster, cleaning up the environment and assuming safe, clean assuring safe, clean and efficient sources of energy to uh designing information systems that will speed our country into the future. And whereas engineers are encouraging our youth math and science students to realize the potent the the practical powers of their knowledge. And whereas we will look more than ever to engineers and their knowledge and skills to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Now therefore, I Scott Mattis, mayor of the city of Zahash, do hereby proclaim February 22nd through February 28th as engineers week. And on behalf of the city council and our city staff and all these people here for you, happy engineers week. I just want to thank you to the mayor and our city council. Um, we do have a small team here, but we accomplished a lot. So, I'm very very proud to call city hospital engineering team my team and it's awesome. We do accomplish a lot. So, thank you guys for all your hard work. Thank you.

I was on a very important call. So, I'm not going to be as good as her. Do the shuffle. Hey, you move. I'm just joking. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to take a break till 6 o'clock. If you want to take pictures, we're going to come back at 6 o'clock for the Sunline Transit uh presentation. So, if you're really bored and want to hang out, you can at 6. Can I Where you go? Yes. I forgot. We forgot to do the oath. So I need I need I need the sergeant to psych. You don't get the position. We can make this official.

That's my bad.

All right, gentlemen, raise your right hand. Repeat after me. I state your name. I do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California in the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of California and the Constitution of California that I take this obligation freely That I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation

or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that I will well and that I will well and faithfully and faithfully discharge the duties discharge the duties upon I'm about to enter upon I'm about to enter.

CONGRATULATIONS. UH, Mayor Council, can we do a quick photo with you guys up here and then get you guys out of here? All right, the chambers are yours. Congratulations.

Congratulations. Congrats. Congrats, Chris.

if I could get the city council and city staff back. Is Dirk back there? All right, we're going to we're going to get back to our presentations. Looks like most everybody's off the dis here for for presentations. Gerald, can you fix the microphone there and Well, I'm I'm sorry, everybody left the room. We thought they we we really thought they were here for you, but um

Daniel was pumping you up the whole time. All right, I'm going to give you the mic for your presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Mattis and Mayor Prom Voss. Uh and I want to acknowledge our Sunline board member, uh Director Pittz, and council members. Thank you for having me today. Um I appreciate the time. I I'm here because I want to talk about an initiative that Sunline is doing right now called Sunline Rides Reimagined. And in a nutshell, basically, it's a process that allows us to reimagine our transit system, rethink how we how it's designed with help from the public. And so, um, but before I talk about that specifically, I wanted to just give you an overview of Sunline. Um, you probably all know Sunline already, but if there's anyone tuning in who needs more information, I thought it might be helpful to say a few things, but Sunline Transit Agency is the public transit provider for the Coachella Valley, and we've been your public transit provider for over 49 years. Next year, we celebrate our 50th anniversary, and we're very excited about that. We're a joint powers authority. are made up of the nine cities in the Coachella Valley including Desert Hot Springs as well as the unincorporated area uh areas of Riverside County. Um all of which are represented by Supervisor Perez. Our service area is over,00 square miles. So it goes from the salt and sea in the east northshore Mecca thermal all the way out to San Bernardino to the west. actually um we run so going as as far as going out to San Bernardino, we do operate a commuter route that connects with Metroink in downtown San Bernardino which then would allow folks to connect to the greater Los Angeles area and our other partners like Riverside Transit Agency and Omnitrans. But more importantly, our route 10 takes our students, our college students from the Coachella Valley all the way to Cal

State San Bernardino. We we provide two buses every morning to take kids to school and each bus is full. I had my staff check the wrership today. We carry between 70 and 100 people going east or going west in the morning to school. Um and um and so we're we we play a critical role in helping helping folks get to school. In addition to our commuter route, we of course operate our local fixed route. So that's the big buses, the 40ft buses that say Sunbus on the side. We carry about 2.7 to 2.8 million riders every year on just that bus system. In addition to that um we carry or we we offer paratransit complimentary paratransit. It complements our fixed route. It's called sund dial. And by complementing fixed route what I mean is that for those who can't take the fixed route system. They don't have they they may have a cognitive or physical disability that prevents them from taking our fixed route buses. Sundial is for them. So they can call us and we will go and pick them up where they are and take them exactly to where they need to be. In addition to that, we operate Sun Ride, which is our version of microransit, sort of our version of Uber and Lift. So you can use an app or you can call a phone um number and you can book a ride for $3 and it'll take you anywhere within the geoence. And here in Desert Hot Springs, we also provide sunrise and it's actually a pretty well utilized uh system here as well. There are places in the valley that do not have any of those services. Um, and to make up for that, we provide subsidized taxi service. So, in addition to being your public transit provider, we're also the taxi regulator for the

Coachella Valley and we partner with our taxis to provide a subsidized taxi voucher program. So, anyone over the age of 60 or over or if you have a qualifying disability and you can go online and and see if you might be qualified, www.ssonline.org, you can get subsidized taxi rides up to $75 from us. So, for every dollar a citizen will put into a taxi ride, we will put in another dollar up to $75. So, collectively, it's about $150 worth of rides each month. It's a very good benefit that not a lot of transit agencies provide, but recognizing just how vast our service area is and the fact that we can't run transit service everywhere, we want to make sure that we do our best to meet the mobility meet needs of this valley to the greatest extent possible. And so we provide that full menu of services. We carry about 3 million people again um on all of our services and about 15% of our fixed route writership are school kids getting to high school. So we ma we carry a lot of kids parents kids they depend on us to get to school every day. And so um so that's a little bit about Sunline. I'm going to go ahead and jump into the Sunline Rides Reimagined process. And up on the screen here you'll see the process. Essentially, we're still in the beginning of the process. So, we're still at the stage where we're collecting public feedback. You Desert Hot Springs is my very last presentation. I've been doing presentations since since January. I think it was January, end of January. And I've hit every single city and almost all uh unincorporate councils um that represent unincorporated areas in the county. And I've done that in partnership with my team here who is joining me. So, we are collecting surveys. We've put boots on the ground. We've had people stand on bus stops to collect surveys.

And at the end of the presentation, you're going to see a QR code. I'm really bummed that I missed probably an opportunity to get another 100 surveys done tonight. That's my fault.

That's okay. That's okay. Um, but Desert Hot Springs, actually, your response rate has been fantastic. Yeah. Top five out of all, you know. So, um very pleased. There are a lot of folks who are very interested in public transit. And actually, another um tidbit of information, your wrership is actually the fourth highest in the entire county or in the entire valley. When you look at the wrership on Sunbus um from Palm Desert actually going west up towards here to Desert Hot Springs, that makes up close to 70% of our ridership. So there's a lot of folks who depend on the services that we provide to move them within the valley. So um we would love to get feedback and so that's what we're doing right now. And I encourage anyone here to please complete complete a survey and tell us what you think about us. Tell us if we're if we are doing something well. Tell us if we're not doing something well. Tell us if you don't even take the bus. Tell us why that. Tell us if you don't if you don't feel safe. If you feel like we need to put more shade structures out, more seating. Those are the things that we want to know as we go through the survey process. It will really help us design a better system for the community. So once we close the survey process, and we're going to do that about a week after today's meeting. So we want to give everyone more time to go online or do a paper complete a paper survey. and we actually put some paper surveys in the back in case there's anyone here that wants to take a survey and there's instructions as to what to do with it on the front of it. Um, we are going to take all that feedback and start looking at alternatives, how we're going to look at ways that we can provide service. Do we do it with the bus in some communities? Do we do it

with taxis? Do we do do we do it primarily with sunrise? And what how should we deploy the service? Should we focus it more in dense areas or should we provide more lifeline service that goes out into the the um the depths of the of the valley so to speak and serve everyone to some extent. There are tradeoffs with each, right? If we concentrate the service in more dense areas, not everyone is going to see the bus. If we spread the buses out, not everyone's going to see the bus that often. But that is those are the conversations we're going to start having with your staff here. They we have we have stakeholder meetings and we have other technical or other meetings planned with technical staff. And then um and then um once we get all of that feedback from technical staff and we're going to get down to what streets we should be traveling on, where we should make left turns, where we should make right turns, where are all the sidewalks so that we can put bus shelters. We're going to be looking at that at that detail between now and about May or June. When we hit May or June, what we're going to do is take all of the work that we've been doing and create service scenarios and we're going to go back into the community. So, that's public that's phase two of public engagement. And we're going to share what we came up with and we're going to ask them if we heard them right when we did our outreach in phase one. We're going to get all that feedback on the service scenario. So, basically, we're going to present two maps to the public in in May or June. And then we're going to go to the Sunline board and we're going to ask the Sunline board to give us their preference on which service scenario they want. Or they might say, "We don't like any of them. Maybe we want you to mix the two." So,

that's the feedback we're going to ask from the Sunline board in June or July. And then once we finish that and we get the feedback from the board, we're going to go back out into the public with a draft final plan that reflects the preferred scenario. And that preferred scenario will eventually become the final scenario um depending on um and pending any feedback from the public that requires any changes to that scenario. And that is what my staff is going to use to make service changes for the next five to six years because this is such an involved process. We only do something like this 5 to 6 years. So um so that is and we make service changes three times a year and we're constantly looking for money. So this planning work that we're doing kind of tees us up to compete for money as well. So so that's why this process is critically important. It's very important that we get feedback from the public. That's what gives our work credibility. And so, um, so that's with that I I'm going to go ahead and and continue through here. Uh, actually, we we have a project update for you. We're going to build a a transit hub that will support future growth here in the city. So, we're excited about that partnership with the city and we look forward to more partnerships with the city because Desert Hot Springs is very ideally situated for more opportunities to serve, especially along I 10 where there may be greater employment opportunities and more opportunities to gain more transit writership. So, we look forward to that. And working with your staff has been wonderful. Just want to let you know they're some of my favorites. And so with that, I want to thank you for your time. Um, Mayor Mattis and council members, thank you very much.

The QR code is up here. I encourage whoever's here left to point your phones up there and take our survey. It's in English and Spanish. And again, there's printed surveys in the back in English and Spanish. But thank you very much and I'm happy to answer any questions. All right, I'll open up to questions. Uh, Mr. Pittz, do you have any comments before we get to questions? They took it off the screen and these guys were trying to do the survey, Gerald. Just joking. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just have some comments. I was going to say thank you Mona so much for updating the council this evening and uh you know as we thoughtfully are shaping and looking uh to forwardinking transportation um and as we prepare for an influx of visitors and residents to our beautiful Coachella Valley and different modes of travel and how we're going to move people efficiently. Um, I also want to say it's an honor to have served and to serve with you on Sunline board and to watch this incredible transportation agency grow and thrive under your leadership. You are a visionary and a forwardthinking leader. We truly are fortunate to have you at the helm during such an important and transer transformative time.

That's it. Okay. Anyone else have any questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Ross. Uh first off, I want to thank you for coming here and your rest of your staff members for being here as well. So I on Friday, I went to the Coachella agricultural tour and I got to experience the the tour bus which was quite nice and what I thought was was kind of extraordinary really and I'm not sure if it's a common thing, but following us was a safety truck because of the heat and that kind of thing. if somebody were to have issues or whatever medically related or feel extra tired or something like that, they could take off and do what they have. And I thought that was nice. Um the drivers were super friendly and nice. Thank you.

Um and matter of fact, as a group, we ended up having them come in the picture and kind of just become a part of us, right? And and that was fun as well. But I thought that was nice. I didn't know that you offered that. And so seeing that you offered a tour bus type of environment as well, that was nice. Uh was kind of refreshing as well. But, you know, this is really important and and I mean, you know, we're looking at gosh, you know, in the next 10 years, another quarter million people possibly, however many are going to move into our city. You know, I'm on the airport commission. They're looking at, you know, 6 million ridership coming in the next however many years. They're preparing for that and in the convention centers remodeling and doing what they're doing. So, you know, I see the, you know, you had some good variety options here and I think it's, you know, there's only so much space that's out here in our land and what we have available. So, hopefully, you know, with in this discussion that there's all kinds of alternatives being spoken about,

such as, you know, we have the u the CV rail which is coming in, but those people still have to be um, you know, delivered to the locations where they're at, you know, which, you know, encompasses some of the programs you talked about. and then including things like elevated transportation and different, you know, busing routes or vehicle routes. And so it's exciting to see that all these options are going to be in this pool of discussion.

Yes. And and we're so the one thing I do want to add in our in our final report, we're going to also um pair we're also going to include an unconstrained scenario. So in addition to the prefer to the the preferred scenario from the board, the unconstrained scenario will lay out alternatives and options like the the elevated transit system that you referenced, something like that. Um or other it could be other things, right? It could be BRT along Highway 111. It could be other things that move people faster as there's growth. What that unconstrained scenario will allow us to do is is consider other ways to serve the community that would encourage mode shift because as there's growth is going to be really hard for us to live if the growth is is paired up with a proportionate number of cars. So, so to the extent that you know we get to a point and and we might want to you know at some point we will start asking ourselves what is that point? What is that threshold when we need to look at, you know, dedicated right of way and what kind of transit might travel along a dedicated ride ofway outside of traffic so that we can move people faster through the valley? That that will be something we'll think about and that will be considered in the unconstrained scenario. So, as more money comes in, as growth happens, we can use that as a reference to ask ourselves questions about what should we do next.

Sure, there's going to be a lot of discussion. Uh, Miss Pie, I like how you think. Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Do you have a comment, M?

Yeah. Just real quick, as a um occasional Sunline user, um I really do appreciate the service and having traveled quite a bit and uh often use public transportation when I travel. Um I have to say that what we have here in the valley for an area of our size is exemplary. and you guys do a great job. Um there's always room for improvement, right? And absolutely. So that was why I was zapping the survey. So, uh I'm gonna take a take a few hours tomorrow and and and send you some thoughts of mine, but won't go into it now. But, uh at any rate, you do run an exemplary service for a for a community of our size and it is easy to use. Um used it twice last week myself. So, um it's really good. So, I want to congratulate you on that.

Thank you very much, Council Member Gardner. really appreciate the presentation tonight. I know there's be a lot more discussion on this. I'm going to do my survey tonight also. Thank you so much. We appreciate it, mayor. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Um if you do have a few minutes to hang out, there's going to be a public comment on Sunline you might want to hear. Um all right, with that said, I am going to call to order the city of Desert Hot Springs regular meeting of the city council and the city council serving as a successor agency to the former redevelopment agency board for Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. This is our 6 p.m. regular session. Roll call, please. Council member Gardner, present. Council member Pittz, present. Council member Pie, present. Mayor Promvos, present. And Mayor Mattis,

present. And we are honored tonight to have Dr. Jerry Johnson, Senior, here with us from the Lily of the Valley Worship Center for the Invocation. I echo what the young lady said from uh Sunline. I hate I missed 125 people that I was here to pray for. Okay. Dear Lord Jesus, as we invoke your divine presence in this council meeting, we want to begin by saying thank you for guiding the mayor, the city, council men and women and staff through the success of 25 and the beginning of 2026. Thank you for dispatching your guardian angels to cover our first responders and we are praying for those that are in Iran. Thank you for allowing us to disagree without becoming disagreeable. I pray for this council meeting tonight. Give the council members wisdom and guidance as they deliberate on the items before them. May every decision be righteous in your sight for our benefit and for your glory. As we work together in unity and by your guidance, our aim is to be better servants for the people of our community. In the blessed name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, sir. Bless you. Thank you. Miss P, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Madam city Attorney, we did not have close session tonight, so I don't need to call on you, do I? The approval of the agenda is um the two items that we have on the agenda. There are items on the consent calendar. Does anybody want to pull any consent calendar items? Hearing none. Is there a motion to approve the um consent calendar and the items on the agenda? Second.

Please vote. Is there any comments on the consent calendar? See none. Please vote. Council member repl.

Yes, she said yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right, we're going to move to public comments at this time. Uh we'll take public comments. If you're here to make a public comment, there's blue cards in the back. We only have one right now. Um, Alex Cruz.

Uh, before I start my speech, can I hand out some material? You can give it to the city clerk and he'll hand them out. Thank you. Just a moment.

Okay. So, um, this one is for council member All right, your three minutes will begin.

Okay, good evening. My name is Alex Cruz, resident of Cathedral City and lifelong resident of Coachella Valley. I am here to talk about the muchneeded upgrades on the bus service in and out of Desert Hot Springs and also the long overdue route to North Palm Springs, Amtrak, Flicks Bus, and Greyhound on Indian Canyon Drive. Right now, we only have one route that brings us in and out of this city, and it is not enough. We really should have three. Indian Canyon, Palm Drive, and Varner Road. Currently, our only route zigzags to downtown Palm Springs first before going down Raone Road into Cathedral City. But a lot of people don't need to go downtown. People from DHS go to other parts of Palm Springs or generally to Cathedral City and beyond to Palm Desert. The issue with our routes is the way they detour all around other places instead of just going in a straight line to the end of that main street. For example, if I go up Day Palm um if I go up Palm Drive, the bus should end up at the end of Genotry Trail in East Palm Springs where the car dealerships are. If I take the Mountain View Drive and Varner Road, I should end up at Day Palm Drive in downtown Cathedral City. Same with Indian Canyon that can be a part of the 111 route which we already have extended to end up at Mission Lakes Country Club and going through the Amtrak and Flex Bus stops. Actually, if you see the maps that I provided, I linked that to be its own line, which we don't currently have, but we used to on Fel Drive passing the DMV. So, it could start at Fel Drive and Palm Canyon Drive, then up Racket Club Drive, then turn right onto Indian Canyon and go to Mission Lakes Boulevard because those streets in Palm Springs are also not being serviced and they really need

a bus there, too. For too long, we have had this issue of catching Amtrak, Flick Bus, and Greyhound buses in North Palm Springs. Despite repeated requests to the Palm Springs City Council about Flicks Bus, the issue has been ignored. The demand for the Amtrak stop has persisted even longer. Each main street needs its own route so that it goes straight all the way through instead of zigzagging, wasting people's time, and that we have a grid-like system where we transfer easily to another bus on that street in less than 10 to 15 minutes. That's what we should work towards, a grid system, because that's how our cities are built. It's all a grid. Please give us public transit access to this area. We got a whole community there in North Palm Springs. There are plenty of homes. There's Del Taco, Wendy's, Motel 6. These workers cannot afford to uh a car with those wages so they can finally stop relying on others for a ride. All we need is that route. It is very sad and disappointing to live life relying on co-workers for a ride home. The Mountain View and Varna Road route is critical, but the access through Indian Canyon Drive, stopping at the Travel Center for Flicks Bus, Amtrak, and Greyhound is more important. And if we take away anything from this Sunline reimagined, that for sure has to be a part of it. We really need to at least have that. Please and thank you.

Thank you, Alex. I have no other public comments cards. Does anybody would like to speak to the city council? This is the time. All right, we're going to close public comments and we'll go to city manager report. Good evening, mayor, city council. I'm actually going to let our presentations from earlier today speak for for the um city staff. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor and council member comments. I'll start with Miss Mr. Pittz.

All right. Good evening, mayor and city council members. This is my city council update for March 3rd, 2026. On February 24th, I had the opportunity to participate in a tour of the Palm Springs International Airport um alongside several of my city council colleagues and city staff members. We explored the grounds of this impressive international airport. Got up close looks at airplanes and uh being um being boarded at the time and then also watched air aircrafts take off and land. And then we went behind the scenes. This is this part was really cool to see the operations including expansive baggage claim area and the airports control center. Thank you to Mayor Pro Tim Dirk Voss for facilitating such a fun and informative tour. It was really cool. Okay, in exciting economic development news, on February 25th, alongside our mayor and fellow city council members, I was proud to officially cut the ribbon on our city's new Amazon facility right here in Desert Hot Springs. This new 635,000 square foot site is expected to create more than 2,000 jobs for our local community, representing a major investment in our city's economic growth and workforce. This project marks continued progress and opportunity for Desert Hot Springs and will look forward to the positive impact it will have on our local families families and businesses alike. So, in other news, on Sunday, March 1st, just a couple days ago, your mayor and city council members took to the runway to be models for a great cause. So, council members Jan and city manager Doria were professionally styled by Kimble's boutique, while the mayor, Mayor Pro Tim, and myself proudly sported our own fashions. This was part of the annual Desert Hot

Springs Women's Club fashion show and fundraiser hosted by special guest and local TV personality Patrick Evans. It was a wonderful and well-attended event and proceeds, this is the most important part, and proceeds from the evening will fund scholar scholarships for Desert Hot Springs High School seniors. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And that concludes my update. Thank you, Mr. Gardner.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, how great uh was it to see all those police explorers from that new program that we revived come in and the graduates and the promotions? That was that was really cool earlier. That's if you didn't see it, uh, go back and watch it on video. It was just really an amazing thing to see all those young people taking steps towards a career in law enforcement. um along with the rest of the council and thanks to Mayor Pro Tim Voss uh we toured the Palm Springs International Airport and a nice behind thescenes look at how things work there. Um also had a chance as we said to uh tour the Amazon warehouse as part of the ribbon cutting. Uh it's a great addition to our employment and tax base for the city and we look forward to a longlasting and good relationship with folks at Amazon. Council member Pi and I attended the DAP Health Chase Awards dinner. Um we were fortunate to have DAP operating three facilities here in our city. The urgent care on a coma, the women's and children's clinic on Palm, and the dental clinic uh at the health and wellness center. We'd love to see DAP expand more into the city and hopefully we'll have a nice uh relationship with them in the future as well. And lastly, um, as I, it's I guess appropriate because it's engineers week. Uh, the Hosienda improvement project phase one is starting to wrap up. There's still a lot of work to be done towards on the west end there a little bit. This should be done by the end of the month, but I wanted to uh thank the team and the public works department for installing a new four-way stop sign at Cactus and Hosienda. That's something that that community uh in my district has been really asking for for a number of years and we've always been hesitant to do it with traffic studies and we but this turned out to be the perfect opportunity to put that stop sign in and uh it's uh it's great to see that. So, uh residents uh you also need to be

mindful of that new sign. If you're not used to it, don't go blowing through it. Um, I'm sure the chief will have people sitting out there to to watch, but uh, that's going to be a great stop sign to get people across uh, Hosianda at Cactus right there at the park. So, we're glad to see that. So, thanks to public works staff. It's all I've got,

Mr. Boss, sir. Appreciate. Thank you. Um, so on the 18th, I participated in Mission Springs Water District's uh, blood donation drive. They do that about every two months. and Miss Scott with the water district there makes sure to schedule me. So last year I donated four times over there and I'm already probably on her list to call for the next one. But they do that every couple of months and they have the um live stream group come out there and it's usually like from 8:00 a.m. to noon and they have the whole setup down there. So it's kind of nice that they do that. um on the 18th as well attended the desert regional grand opening for the cardiology center and presented a certificate of recognition on behalf of our city there. Uh so that was exciting to see and being a person who's had a heart attack in 2023. Uh it was actually kind of nice to see some of the people in the cardiology place who were there that helped me after and then also uh to be there and to kind of give the certificate of recognition. So, there was a little tie-in with that as well. Not one that I would encourage, but it was also one that was nice to be there. Um, the same same thing that day on the 18th. This is a really busy day. Uh, attended the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce government relations mixer, which was nice. They had a couple different guest speakers of local businesses and just kind of what they're doing for the Hispanic community and some of the grant funding and health outreach things they did. And one of those health outreach occurred this last weekend. That was in India at the Polo Fairgrounds. And in talking with their president, they had over 2100 people show up there where they could get dental work and free eyeglasses and these things. And interesting enough, uh, Desert Hot Springs had almost 400 people show up there. And so because we had they've been sending the information out and posting it and doing what was

there. So that was really good for as well. Um, on the 24th we had the airport tour. Uh, I was excited about it because obviously I'm on the airport commission. So, uh, it was great to see uh, fellow council members and staff show up there and the feedback we got from the staff over there is they really enjoyed actually putting a face to the email and to interacting in that way and and doing that. The the executive director just he didn't give me the approval yet, but I'm working on it. I I suggested that we get yoga mats and we go ride the um you know the baggage terminal thing. I and later that day, interesting enough, they had a greater Coachella Valley chamber had a mixer at the airport. I was kind of hoping after a couple beers he might approve it, but it didn't work quite yet, but we'll see what we can do with that. I thought that would be fun. But it was good. And what I really took out of it as well, which was very interesting, is is that we are the first city in the Coachella Valley that actually had both council members and staff do a full tour of the back. They've had commissioners do it independently, but they've not had a city come and do this. That they felt was very important. and they've actually asked me to bring this up at the next commission meeting encouraging the other commissioners it's time to step up and do it because they really, you know, like to see uh they want to see us advertise in the in the airport. They want to see us, you know, talk about the airport. So, that was really good. Um, also on the 25th attended the uh Amazon ribbon cutting uh which was u a beautiful building. Unfortunately, I had to leave a little early, but you know, just from some of the pictures and everything and some of the feedback and if I'm correct, I think they said something about right around 85% of the employees are Desert Hot Springs employees, I think. Yeah, pretty good amount. So, that's exciting. Um I

attended the uh Desert Valley Builders Association business lunchon and uh the city manager Lita gave a presentation on some upcoming projects and like which on uh madame city manager at our next meeting I'll present some of those to you. I thought they were kind of kind of exciting we can kind of bookmark on some ideas that we've kind of talked about as a group. And then Friday, which I briefly mentioned during the Sunline tour, is the California League of Cities and the city of Coachella sponsored a agricultural tour. And they went to the Riverside um the area of the universities where they do a lot of their research center and stuff like that. and they kind of talked about what they research, how they research different styles of vegetables and fruits that grow better over there, how they re research uh different type of bugs and fertilizers and all these things that work better in the desert. So, it was kind of interesting. And then we went to another farm area that was really good. And um it's just amazing what we grow in our valley. I don't think most people realize this. I mean, collectively, I think there was probably a mixture of around 25 26 different fruits and vegetables that we do. Some of them were pretty amazing that you did. And with that then uh we uh had a presentation by CBWD about the canal we and how where the water comes from. And then we visited Ocean Mist which has the cold storage facility and spent some time over there. So that was really informative. Surprisingly, again, um there wasn't a lot of representation from other cities, but um I think it's important because it's part of our Coachella Valley and a lot of employees and the like work down there and what have you. So, that was good. And then lastly, on Sunday, yes, as Council Member Pittz mentioned, we got to strut our stuff and dance to our music and show our cool clothes and look pretty

cool, but I think the ladies beat us cuz they had the stylish stuff. Yeah. But it was fun though. I enjoyed it. Look forward to next year. And that's it. Miss B.

Since our um agenda isn't that long, I'm going to talk for a while. Kid win. Um it was at the high school. And kid win is it's kids and it's the win. It's the video. um elementary uh no uh middle school and high school did wind machines and it was very interesting. I'll let that finish. That's how many kids were there was um middle school and high school students and it's I think it was the first time it was at the high school and there were six each um judges and I know nothing about wind tur whatever I can't even pronounce the name. Um however there were others that were in the industry. So, one, I just told him I don't know anything about this, but when you have um a wind turbine like this, which you've got all of the stuff in the back, you need to turn it this way and explain it to me. And so, that's part of what I did and what the others did. Talked about science and and what have you. We

started at 8:30 and ended at 3 and we gave awards to the various uh middle schoolers into the high high school and it was a it was a good thing and I did learn something. Um, also, okay, on the 26th it was the heart awards. It was the Coachella Valley Communication Health Survey. And what help what HART does, it develops data regarding the whole Coachella Valley. and I and Miss Hernandez, I can't say her name correctly, we uh went to it and I was thinking this was very good because she was she was going and it's good for the city to get all of the things that is necessary um for grants and other things. I have been with it since the beginning. And so I was really proud, but I didn't say anything to Mr. Hernandez and all of a sudden she was asked to stand up and we find out she's a member of the board. So I'm thinking all this great stuff and I'm glad I didn't say anything to show how stupid I was. Um on the 26, uh Ron Odin, who's a trustee of COD, um he started something where there are students that are left by the wayside and not um going to school period or actually graduating. And there was one person that there was there that is a

trustee of the Palm Springs Unified School District. And he has a high school student. The high school student doesn't know how he's going to get scholarships. The trustee doesn't know how he's going to get scholarships and he's a trustee for the Palm Springs Unified School District. Um we had several uh people there and uh we had two students and the instructors we got really deep on what was happening at Cood and we decided that we're going to do a strategic plan and try no we are going to do uh get things better for for the students and I'll come back with the strategic plan on that. Um, on the 25th, what I enjoyed about the Amazon ribbon cutting was it was safety was the major priority and the health of the um employees was most important. They had um exercise rooms for when people need to stretch then that was there for them. also for mental health. They had um faith um what I would say undenominal faith um units and you could go in and if you're Jewish or you're Christian or whatever but you needed a break then you could go in into that and their machinery you c there was only one machinery that was just by itself but all of the others

you could not use the machinery without a human being involved. And so that was good because they're not really replacing anyone. Um and after that then I went to city hall for the community workshop. Um and it was about the traffic study and that was good because the consultants went to uh various groups. They went to the boulevard for one on a hall on Halloween night and they talked to the residents. It will come back to the council and we will make the decision. But I found out that a lot of a lot of the residents are happy about what we're doing. Um they like the boulevard. They like the uh activities that we're putting out there. And with respect to transportation, there was a group of kids with their parents who they decided this is the way I want to go to school and this is better for me to go to the um to the park. And so for me it was good to hear that and I don't have to make up what's going to be happening and also we did do the right thing again and this was with Raven Goo Guzman and he's at Winsloff Education Center and Fabian started at the school at the beginning of the school year. After missing a year of high school due to extenduating services, he now excelling in school with all A's and B's. He has perfect

attendance and only misses classes when he is out for medical appointments. Fabian has been struggling with some issues interfering within his eyesight and preserves within the classroom setting to continue to pass his classes with A+es. He is ranked number one in the class and plans to attend College of the Desert in the fall where he wants to pursue degree in culinary art. Fabian Fabian is an amazing young man with a great sense of humor and I know he will succeed because he makes an effort to always do the right thing for himself, his family and his community. I attended and also Chief Shaw attended for this ceremony and soon uh do the right thing will have a um celebration at 849 restaurant for all of those who participate. I have only been to only I have been to everyone except one because there were no Desert Hot Springs students there. Um but I try to go to everyone. One more thing, give the right thing is happening now and it's part of the rap um project and you see here they uh already have received $490 thou uh $90,000 and there's 8 hours and 18 minutes left. And what there is there's an opportunity drawing and you give as much as you can

or they also talked about you can just do $10 and there's a list of people. There's 141 nonprofits that you can apply to and the lottery is they will make a drawing and uh ex uh and the nonprofits will get 5,000 each uh during beginning um they got um it was close to 50,000 in the very beginning and this um uh CB giving day ends on March March 31st. And Mr. Mayor, no, one more thing. Sergeant Skirt Hazen did a press release and one of the things that he said, it was a press release regarding DUI checkpoints and he mentioned that drivers were doing their part by not being impaired while driving. There were no arrests for DUI. He ended this on February 23rd. There were five citations and two vehicles towed, but our citizens did the right thing this time. I'm done.

Thank you. I did attend the Amazon ribbon cutting as most have spoke about today. It's a great opportunity for the city of Desert Hot Springs to have a large warehouse facility here to produce jobs. It's not a distribution center where there's a lot of tax revenue that comes from it, but it's 2,000 jobs. Um, when we were able to get a tour, there's 15 miles of conveyor. Uh, he said if he was to stretch it out straight, it could go from that center all the way to Bowmont or Banning. There's a lot of conveyor system in there. Um, it was state-of-the-art. Um, they have just over 1500 hired and they plan to hire just under 2,000 um, workers um, full-time. So, uh, it's it's a great opportunity for Desert Hot Springs as they grow their their company here. Uh, as Mr. Pittz talked about, we were runway models. Um, it's not my funnest event I do out of the whole year, but it is for a great cause. And Miss Py asked me, and you can't say no to her. Um, you can try, you can't. And so, uh, we were kind of the entertainment, Mr. Voss and I and and, uh, Mr. pits in between the ladies getting changed. Um, and uh, Mr. Gardner was a roadie for uh, his partner Eric uh, who did the music. But it was a great event. The reason I like to talk about it is to embarrass myself, but also to let people know that they give thousands of dollars every year to uh, local students here in Desert Hot Springs with their generous contributions uh, for education. So, thank you to the women's club. And lastly, Desert Hot Springs High School girls basketball team. and we're going to have them in to do a little celebration. If you have not heard, uh our girls basketball team started the season off with no wins and eight losses. And then they went 13-1 to win the championship uh at the Sun Valley League here in the valley. There's multiple different leagues that have split up over time. But they not only won the league here 9-0 in their league,

they went to the championship game, the first uh city to represent in their division uh from the Coachella Valley in a long time. Um they did fall uh at the end there, but it was a great experience for them. They played at uh I wrote down here Pacific University on last Saturday at 10:00 a.m. and we'll have them in to congratulate them. I did some search on AI just to see how many schools have actually done this and their division being a small school. Comparably to all the different divisions through the Coachella Valley and the lower high desert here, Yaka Valley, 29 Palms, the last school size to win this was in 1986, Yaka Valley. So, it's been a long time since we had representation from small schools in the Coachella Valley and congratulate to congratulations to them for doing what they did to get there. And um one other quick comment, I did drive the new roadway on Hosianda as Mr. Gardner had stated the new stop sign at Cactus is great. We have new stop signs along. So, please be aware of that. Uh it is a great opportunity to make sure that we have uh pedestrian safety covered, bicycle safety, I know it's going to not make everyone happy as they travel through that roadway, but it makes me happy knowing how many accidents we have had on that roadway and how safe it is today. So please look out for those new stop signs. All right, we get to city business now. Our administrative calendar, first item on there is the Desert Hot Springs Police Department 2025 annual management report. Chief Shaw.

Thank you, sir. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City Staff, and Desert Hot Springs community. The department has completed its annual management report for 2025. And tonight, I would like to give you some highlights from that report. I'm pleased to report that we continue to trend down in those areas we want to go down in, and we're trending up in those areas we want to increase. Overall, crimes against persons were down 1% for 2025 compared to 2024. There's 17 different categories that we capture uh crimes and crimes against persons. Some specific crimes such as homicides were down 33%. Aggravated assaults were down 1%, robbery was down 25%. Uh we did see an increase in rape cases quite a bit of 275%. To put that in perspective, we had 15 rape cases in 2025 compared to four in 2024. All 15 of those red cases were investigated by our detectives. Um 11 of those cases were determined to be unfounded and then the other four cases the victim stopped cooperating with rep with police or declined to pursue prosecution. None of those rape cases were stranger rape cases. So it's important to understand that about it. Uh in our crimes against property uh categories, there's 12 different categories. We were down 10% in 2025 compared to 2024. Specific crimes such as burglary was down 15%. Larseny was down 4% and vehicle theft was down 25%. In other areas, overall traffic stops were were actually down 4% from 29 2,993 stops in 2024 to 2,883 stops in 2025. And while over all stops were slightly down, officers actually issued 15% more

citations in 2025 compared to 2024. There was also an 8% increase in arrest in 2025 compared to 2024. This increase in citations and arrest is a direct reflection of the increased proactive work being done by officers um and due to our increased staffing. It's also a direct reflect of the formation and the work done by our CRT team. Other areas of note within the department include our property and evidence division that saw a 10% increase in property and evidence taken in and processed in 2025. Our records division processed over 4,600 police reports in 2025. And our records division achieved state of California nyber certification with an error rate of less than 03%. which is a fantastic accomplishment by them. Our dispatch center continues to operate at a very high level. Our dispatch center answered 18,955 911 calls and 32,437 non-emergency calls in 2025. And keep in mind, this is all typically done with two dispatchers on duty at any given time. The department made significant progress in the hiring of sworn officers. In 2025, we hired nine new police officers in 2025 and recruited and hired a deputy police chief. On the professional staff side, we hired two additional community service officers and a police dispatcher. And finally, our volunteers. They continue to have a significant impact, positive impact on our department operations. Our citizens on patrol gave just shy of 1,700 service hours this past year. In addition, three new cops joined the program in 2025. Our department chaplain, Paul Miller, volunteered over 500 hours to the department, and our property and evidence volunteer, Barbara, gave 167

service hours to the department. In our records division, we have continued our partnership with Desert Hot Springs High School Public Safety Academy. Students from the PSA assisted records division with organizing and filing police documents. PSA students contributed almost 100 hours of service to the department. And finally, at the end of 2025, we launched the the Police Explorer program. Earlier tonight, we recognized 10 young men and women who completed our Police Explorer training program. And I'm excited to say we already have an additional six young men and women who have signed up for the program. Lastly, I have to give a huge shout out to the men and women of the Desert Hot Springs Police Department. I shared a lot of positive information with you tonight, but is only made possible because of the hard work and dedication of the women and men on the front lines and behind the scenes of this police department. I want to thank them for their dedication and hard work to this department and to this city and my recommendation is that you receive this report uh for the police department's annual management report for 2025 and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Very impressive. Chief, do we have any public comments on this before we take council member comments? Don't have any public comments. Um, I'll start down here. Mr. Gardner,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, Chief, unbelievable um to watch the growth and the improvement in this department over the last few years. Uh, you and the team have done an amazing job um for our residents. He just gave you the 30,000 foot view. If you really want to get into the numbers, uh you can go to the uh city council agenda on the web page today and and read the full report, which is is is really something. And on that line, I'd like to suggest humbly that the city publicized the hell out of that. We need to post that as a PDF. We need to mail it to every resident. We need to send out a press release on it. We need to crow about that is something to be proud of because we all know that the reputation of this city as unjust as it is throughout this valley is that we are a high crime city and we are not and we have not been for some time. And the best way to get that information out is to publicize that. Those statistics are amazing. So for those of you watching on TV before we get a chance to really get that out, you want to look at that, go look at it on the city agenda. My kudos and congratulations to you, chief, deputy chief back there in the corner and the whole staff. You're absolutely amazing. You're rock stars. The number one thing cities are supposed to do is protect our residents and you're making it sure that that happens. So, thank you, Mr. Spitz.

Yeah. I just want to say again, thank you so much for your efforts and for serving and uh one of the best things the city could have done was to put you at the helm. and we're seeing so many amazing things happening. Um things that we've all wanted to see as as council and that actually goes in tandem with the strategic plan of wanting to hire more police officers and uh I know we we still need more and we're going to try to get to that. Also more vehicles I'm hearing about. We're going to try to do that. But we're seriously thank you so much for um serving in this role as a chief and under your leadership. and he's correct. We're seeing a turnaround. We obviously we go to different cities and we interact with different electeds and and it's not the way it used to be as far as what we're hearing. It's not negative anymore. It's positive. And so those are your efforts and those are the police officers, the day in and day out, the officers helping to to turn this around. And so I just I thank you. I thank you and your department for this.

Miss Pie. I'm overwhelmed and thank you very much and the uh sergeants that you did today. Usually when a person is promoted, I do a dance. I didn't get to do a dance today, but I'm going to do it anyway. Thank you very much. I'm not dancing, but I feel the same way. Mr. boss. Sure.

All right. Thank you. You know, when I first got elected, one of the thing or during the campaign time, one of the things people spoke about was is we didn't they didn't see enough officers. There wasn't enough police. Uh and yet the they worked a lot of overtime, a tremendous amount of overtime. And and there was a point when we even had, you know, officers saying, "We're working a lot to where they're maybe consider going elsewhere because they were getting burnt out." And we made that change through our strategic plan and through the leadership. And you know, you took that and you did you exceeded the expectations that I think we as a council and especially with me what I you know thought um it's I look at what we look and I you know when the explorers were up here I I remember my my stepson was an explorer and there was eight eight boys and two girls and I counted today there were six girls and four boys and it really just goes to show our young young teenagers, young adults, I'll call them. Um, it goes to show you now that the the recruitment and when we look at the ones that we're hiring, uh, we get such a broad range of staff and which really makes that department much more complete. It's it's very, you know, satisfying to know that we've gone from two officers and one sergeant to three officers and a sergeant. Soon to be the four officers and a sergeant that we'd like that we are actually doing overhire, which is a very commonplace thing in in police departments when we're doing that. Uh the explorer program, the nine new officers we had, and then you know the citizens on patrol, which uh having new people, you know, involved in that as well. Um the the other day I was I told Dory or Madam City Manager, I mentioned to her on Monday, you know, on social media on one of the neighborhood groups, somebody had made a comment and said, "Is there something going on in town right now because I'm seeing a lot of police and there wasn't. It was just we're out

there." And that's a great thing to hear, you know, so be prepared and watch out for the new stop signs on Hosienda. uh cuz I've had a number of people have said whoops. I said hello Mr. Stop sign as I drove past it. So uh you've exceeded the expectations and I think you're a great leader and and we're very lucky to have you and we appreciate everything that you've done. You've promoted from within really solid people that were within that department. You know, I think the average had 12 years or so with the department. So, you have a good management team that makes me as a council member uh rest at ease knowing that we're led properly. And thank you for that.

Again, very impressive. Thank you, Chief. Uh there is a recommendation to approve this report. Would someone like to make a motion? I'll move that second with stars and asterisk and a wholehearted approval. When it comes up, please vote. What' you do? Darl, spent a lot of money not to be able to use the system. So frustrating.

Can you take a roll? Are you? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Item number two is the approval of plans, specifications, and engineering estimates, and authorization to advertise for construction bids for the line C-1 storm drain project, city project 603. Mr. Pors, Mr. Mayor, actually Timson, our city engineer, will be taking this.

Good evening, honorable mayor, city council members. Uh, this is the approval of plan specification engineers estimate for the line C1 storm drain. Uh continuing with the uh engineers week theme, this is a flood mitigation is very important thing that the uh engineering staff and the public works staff work on here at the city. Um to that end, a master drainage plan was created and then uh projects identified such as the one we're talking about tonight. Uh it's a joint project with the that is uh funded by Riverside County Flood Control and Conservation District. uh they are paying for the design, construction and uh ma maintenance of the main line of the pipe. The city's obligation is for bidding and administering the construction phase which is uh what we're doing tonight. Uh the engineers estimates um for the project is $6.2 million. Um and um the current co-op agreement with the uh with the county or with Riverside County is for 3.8 million. However, the county has identified $8 million total for this project. And so, uh while we when we bring back the bids or before then, we'll update theou with the county to um reflect the additional cost. Um there are several there's three uh construction and permanent easements needed for the project and we're currently uh talking to those property owners and they've they're on board with the project. The construction period uh uh is estimated to be around um May, mid-spring through the end of the year and maybe into the part of the beginning of the year depending on um if we have any time delays or any uh any changes to the construction schedule um that um you know might come up during during the uh project being

out to construction. just to give the council an idea where the project is taking place. It starts the north end is at the top of the screen here. Um Diodora and Red Red Red Bud A Drive are at the top of the screen. That's where the inlet is. continues down uh down uh Red Bud to Hosianda, then comes down uh Cay Amipola and then finally to Panar Panorama Drive where it actually connects to the existing storm drain outlet structure. The pipe size in the current is is mostly 48 in. This this project will increase it to 60 in which is actually a significant increase in capacity. Um, we're also upsizing the catch basins along the way as well as the laterals to actually exceed a 10-year storm. The the pipe size itself, though, will at least accommodate a 10-year event. Um, so that's quite a bit. It's probably close to double the capacity that you currently have. I've circled one part of Hosianda here just to show you, um, if you weren't around during one of the recent rains. This is looking north up the um up the channel uh where the water breached and and came across. One of our public works staff took this this photo. So, it gives you an idea. This is um you know why we're doing this project. It's about 4,800 linear feet total of storm drain that we're replacing. Already mentioned the 10-year capacity. Uh new pavement on all the alignment that you saw there in blue. Um, and so that's really what the project's about and um, what what it'll entail. So tonight, um, we're asking the council to approve the plan, specification, engineers estimate,

and then authorize staff to go out for construction bids for the C line C1 storm drain project. That concludes my staff report. Be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Do we have any public comments on this item? See nobody coming forth. Any comments from city council? There's a recommend recommendation on two on a motion there with two parts. Anyone? So moved. We doing two motions or one? One motion. Second. Um Mr. Voss doesn't have it up on a screen anymore. Take a roll call. There's a motion by Mr. Voss. Council member Pittz. Yes. Council member Pi. Yes.

Mayor Promvos. Yes. Council member Gardner. Hi, Mayor Mattis. Hi. Motion passes unanimously. All right. We have no items pulled from the consent calendar. Um is Yes, ma'am. I have one more thing I think is very important. Floor is yours, madam. Pardon me. The floor is yours.

Desert Healthc Care District is doing a survey. It's another survey, but it's a very important survey. Um, Gerald has the code for it. We need to uh fill this out. I for one don't like having to go to date palm to get here or further because I can't use um Indian Canyon. We need a real emergency uh situation here. We need a clinic here. Um Desert Healthc Care District has money now. They're doing a strategic plan. They got it from Desert Regional uh Medical Center. And if we don't do this survey and tell the healthc care district what we need, we're going to have little kids that fall and can't get to the emergency room. We're going to have older people that fall and can't get to the emergency room because we're not telling them what we need. So, please take this survey and let Desert Hot Springs be loud and clear about what we need.

Thank you. Is there any public comments? If anyone didn't get to speak at the beginning, would like to make public comments now. See nobody coming forth. Before we adjurnn, just let you know the planning commission will meet on March 10th, the public safety commission on the on the 12th, and the city council's um discussing the 17th at this time. Nothing further in front of us, we are adjourned.