City Council - Regular Meeting

right let's get started uh this is the city of desert hot springs regular meeting of the city council city council serving as a successor agency to the former redevelopment agency board for tuesday june 16th 2026 roll call please council member gardner council member pitts president council member pie president mayor pro tem boss president and mayor mattis present i don't see anybody audience no public comments i'm assuming We'll go to the city attorney to announce closed session.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. We have two items on. Number one is conference with legal counsel, anticipate a litigation, initiation of litigation pursuant to paragraph four, subdivision D of section 54956.9. There's one matter. Number two, conference with legal counsel, anticipate a litigation, paragraph two, subdivision D of section 54956. 956.9, significant exposure to a litigation based on the receipt of what appears to be a claim pursuant to the Government Claims Act or some other written communication which is on file for public inspection pursuant to section 54957.5 of the government code with the city clerk.

All right. We'll recess to closed session. all right it is 5 30 and we're going to get started with our presentations we have one presentation tonight it's going to be by the mojave desert land trust and i believe you're the gentleman that's going to present just come on up if you want to press that button right there the microphone will turn on ladies ladies okay can you hear me yes great

And do I start it by just pressing the button?

Gerald will start it in a second. Oh, okay, great. Thank you. Do you want to introduce yourself first?

Sure. Chairman and council members, my name is Gary Hund. I'm with Mojave Desert Land Trust, and I'm here tonight to talk to you about the proposed wildlife crossings over State Route 62. And it's something we've been working on for a number of years. And we obtained a grant from the Wildlife Conservation Board to do this project. So this is a picture. I'm sure you recognize it. It's the grade going up to Morongo Valley, not too far from where we are right now. So in February of 2026, we received a $5.4 million grant from the Wildlife Conservation Board, and we subsequently received $512,000 in matching funds from the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, for this project and I want to take a moment to thank Councilman Gardner in his role representing you with the Coachella Valley Conservation Commission and Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy was very helpful in guiding us when we were trying to obtain that grant and also to enlist the Coachella Valley Conservation Commission as a local agency partner. So we're pursuing with Caltrans to complete the planning phases for these proposed crossings and upon completion the crossings will be viewed as shovel ready. So Caltrans requires local agency partners for transportation projects. And so we reached out to the Mojave Desert Resource Conservation District for the proposed crossing near Yucca Valley on the Morongo grade. And we reached out to the Coachella Valley Conservation District for the Morongo grade crossing. And they have both agreed to be local agency partners. Desert Hot Springs is the closest city to the Morongo Great Crossing. It will provide a gateway to your community and to the high desert communities. The construction of the Highway 62 bisected the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains. It increased traffic development and safety improvements have made it increasingly difficult for wildlife to negotiate the crossing. As recently as April, a mountain lion was killed attempting to cross. So two reasons for the project. One is public safety because there have been a number of collisions by motors with large wildlife, but also to protect those animals and to maintain the quality of the open space that surrounds the city and the valley. So you can see that before the highway was built, there was a seamless connection between the two mountain ranges and the protected areas on either side, including Joshua Tree National Park and the Sand to Snow National Monument. So in response to citizens reporting wildlife mortality on the highway and Caltrans' maintenance crews seeing that happening, Caltrans commissioned a study of wildlife connectivity between where Highway 62 meets the 10 and the town of Yucca Valley. You can see that in about one year's time, 232 carcasses were found in surveys for roadkill along the highway. This included a number of large mammals, including mule deer, bighorn sheep, black bear, coyote, gray fox, bobcat, and mountain lion. So a lot of different animals of all shapes and sizes attempt to cross between the two mountain ranges because they always did before there was a highway there. So what was found in the study is that there was a complete barrier to wildlife movement on the Morongo and Yucca grades. And this is in part because of the large concrete medians in the center of the highway. The study found that large mammals were coming up to the highway, but they were not attempting to cross. And other animals that attempted to cross were killed. So they recommended that two highway overpasses be built. This need, though, was identified as far back as 2005 in a study that was done to determine where the habitat linkages were of greatest value between the two mountain ranges. So in recognition of the impacts of the highway to wildlife movement, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has a statewide database where they identify highways that have the greatest, present the greatest barrier to wildlife movement, and this area was designated as one of those areas. They also studied where wildlife were moving and determined that where the two proposed crossings are going to go are in areas that are considered irreplaceable and essential habitat linkages. So species and ecosystem health. The reason why we need connectivity between large protected landscape areas is because habitat fragmentation reduces genetic diversity, making it difficult for wildlife to adapt to changes in their environment. It makes it harder for them to find mates, which can lead to inbreeding. Species can be lost and that loss can affect the entire ecosystem. Mountain lions are perhaps at the greatest risk from the loss of connectivity between the two mountain ranges. The Eastern Peninsula Range and San Gabriel-San Bernardino Mountains populations, which meet in the vicinity of the highway, were listed as threatened by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in February of this year. The two populations are estimated to be at such low levels that they are not expected to persist without improvements to connectivity and other conservation measures. The loss of top predators, such as the mountain lion, can cause a domino effect in an ecosystem. Think of it as, you know, when you tip one domino and all the others fall and the reason for that is that predators regulate the number and population of predators and prey that they feed on in the food chain resulting and when that's lost there can be explosions of smaller predators and herbivores, grazers and browsers, that can cause disruption to ecosystems. For example, increases in herbivores and the absence of predation by mountain lions could lead to overgrazing vegetation, which species depend on. This could result in local species extinction, increased runoff and flooding, and less carbon sequestration. So a case study in Yellowstone, a very famous study, showed that the return of the wolf in Yellowstone has revitalized the park's ecosystem. Before the return, elk and deer became overpopulated, leading to the loss of vegetation and erosion, especially in the rivers. This caused beaver populations, a species which depended on the habitat, they created to decline. Even bear numbers were reduced due to fewer berries to forage on. All of this was reversed when the wolf returned. They reduced the numbers of elk and deer and changed their behavior, pushing them out of the stream and riverside habitats. The vegetation returned and increases in beaver, bear, and other species followed. Even the course of the rivers changed in response to the wolves' return. So it's hard to grasp sometimes that a top predator like a mountain lion could have such a wide ranging effect on an ecosystem, but they can. And the ecosystems that we have right above Desert Hot Springs that bring so many people to our communities to visit and spend tourism dollars, the things they come to see could be lost. So another reason why these linkages are important is climate change. The effects of climate change in California have been greatest in the deserts. In the Mojave Desert, the average temperature has risen 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Wildlife must be able to move up in elevation or north in latitude in response to short or long-term changes, such as warming and drought. Droughts now are becoming longer and more severe. Sometimes they're followed by very heavy rainfall, which produces a lot of growth again, but then that growth can die out the next year and a drought can follow, which really raises the potential for fire. That's another reason why we want our herbivores to still be there. There is excellent climate connectivity between the mountain ranges, including a 10,000 foot elevation gradient. If you look at the pictures that I put up there, one is at Lost Palm Oasis, all the way in the south end of Joshua Tree National Park at the very end of Little San Bernardino Mountains. And the other photograph is from the air when I was flying in from Sacramento after we got the grant. And you can see that San Gregorio environment is very, very different than our desert environment. And everything in between provides resources for wildlife to thrive. So protecting our conservation investment and heritage, you can see that the Coachella Valley MSHCP and NCCP has acquired over 100,000 acres. We have world-class natural resources and open space that bring people to our communities to visit. And this is protecting an investment in our open space resources. So, tourism. I know you're very familiar with that, and open space and wildlife significantly contribute to tourism by attracting visitors who seek unique experiences in nature, which generates substantial economic benefits for local communities. Nature-based tourism supports jobs and livelihoods. You Know All This provides tax revenue, business and job growth, infrastructure improvements, support for small businesses, and in the case of Desert Hot Springs, reading your materials on your website, it helps with hotel and spa revitalization to receive those revenues. So land ownership, you know, that's the question. We want to put these over-crossings in, but, you know, will we have permission to build them where we want to build them? Well, our organization has been planning for this probability for years, and so we have been acquiring property, and we acquired sufficient property on both sides of the highway for the Yucca grade crossing because there were some private parcels there. and then much of the land is publicly owned. For the Morongo Crossing, it's Bureau of Land Management on both sides, and we're already talking with the Bureau of Land Management about obtaining a right of way to put these bridges partially on BLM land. So this is a rendering of one of the crossings. that is currently underway in the planning and construction process at Pacheco Pass in California north of here. And you can see what beautiful structures they are because they actually, we recreate the natural habitat on the approaches to the bridges and right over the top. You can even put vegetation like Joshua trees at the upper crossing on the crossing itself. So they make for beautiful portals or gateways to communities. And I think for desert hot springs, it provides you an opportunity to kind of adopt the Morongo Overcrossing and add it as a very nice feature for a gateway for your community.

Is that the one in LA?

What's that? The one that I showed? No, that's not the one in LA. So I really appreciate your time and your interest in this project. We're grateful for your consideration of support for this project and for your participation already in helping us obtain funding. We really look forward to the possibility of working with you going forward. This will be about a three-year planning process. We're about four months in. And then we should have a shuttle-ready project at that point and we'll be working before that to start to seek grants and other funding from donors and endowments to actually construct the crossings. And at some point, if you would consider a resolution of support for the project i'm going to be meeting with all the city councils that will let me bring the presentation and it would very be very helpful to us when we get to the fundraising side of this to have the support of our local cities so thank you very much yeah thank you for coming out and giving us uh bring us that information

I know you're at the very beginning stages and it's going to be a long, long haul to get to the point of construction. Right. I sit on CVAG and the Transportation Committee and just building an interchange these days are $180 million. What's your target goal, do you think, for each crossing?

Well, it's really difficult to know, it really is, because they have to do all the geotechnical work and they have to design it in place. And I just want to give that caveat. You know, we have a fault running up that valley, so they're going to have to make deeper footings. Right now, right now, the kind of gross cost estimates, and don't hold me to it later in a few years because it could change, but they're in the ballpark of maybe $35 million a piece versus the $100 million plus that was spent for the Annenberg 101 crossing. Of course, that crossed an entire freeway, and it also had to go over the top of service roads, so it was a much more expensive project than these will be. Also, the military has special requirements for clearances, so we'll have to build them a little bit higher than we would for normal traffic. We do have a letter of support from the base, from the Brigadier General, so they know about the project and they support it.

That's awesome. Yeah, I started years ago on the Transportation Commission when they started talking about Monroe at $80 million, and now Monroe's interchange is $130 million. So I hope the cost can stay down and get you to where you need to get, Gary.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Gary, for coming. Sure. I've sat through this presentation like four times, which is fine because it's a wonderful project. And I have great faith in MDLT and their partners on this. We were very happy. to partner with them at CVCC, which I chair, and to give the grant from CVMC, which I serve on. And it's an exciting project. We love our deserts here, and that's what makes this space special and unique. And the success of our multi-species habitat conservation plan, which allows for a balance of development and conservation land. But what we have going up to 62 in that very narrow little canyon with those jersey bearers in the middle, I think we've all seen dead sheep and other critters there on the highway, and this will be a great addition if we can do it. People have asked me all the time, well, how does the wildlife know to go across the bridge? They're not really dumb. And if you put it in their natural travel paths, they will look at that and go, would I go over this or do I want to walk across the road there? They're not dumb. It works. It works in Canada. We've had great success from them up there, as well as Washington State. And so it's a long process, and I would like to see if there was an appetite of the city here to do a letter of support for MDLT to help them in their process, because I do see a benefit. I see coming down that grade and that wildlife cross-staging, and maybe we can even have it stamped in the concrete. Welcome to Desert Hot Springs. So I think this is a very worthwhile project. It's very early in the stages, and I think the right organizations are pushing it, and whatever I can do, I'll be happy to help, and hopefully the city too. So thanks, Gary.

We'll follow the process and see if we can get your resolution. Daniel, anything? Anything else, Dirk? Thank you so much for coming out tonight.

You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. We have no other presentations tonight. The open session will start at 6 p.m. Good evening, everyone. This is the City of Desert Hot Springs regular meeting of the City Council. The City Council serving as a successor agency to the former Redevelopment Agency Board for Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. This is our 6 p.m. regular session. Roll call, please.

Councilmember Gardner.

Present.

Councilmember Pitts. Present. Councilmember Pai. Present. Mayor Potem Voss. Present. And Mayor Maness. Present.

The invocation tonight will be given by Mayor Potem Voss.

All right. Please all bow your head. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask you for great thanks for all that you provide for us. We ask to bring good leadership and provide good leadership for everybody here. We ask that you give us good guidance on decision making and for what's best for our community. We also ask that you help lead us into good paths together as a group and our community as a whole. Uplift our community, uplift those that are in need, and help us provide the services for them. We ask that you give us grace where it's needed. We're not all perfect. At the same time, we look for your guidance wherever we can. In your name, amen. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please place your hand over your heart and join me. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam City Attorney, would you report on closed session?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of Council, we have no reportable action.

This time, we're going to approve the agenda. At this time, city council may amend the order of the agenda, approve the consent calendar, remove items from the consent calendar for separate discussion or inaction, and add urgency items. Is there anyone that would like to pull any items? I know there's one comment on a consent.

I have a comment, Mr. Mayor, on item 12.

Did you want to go ahead and make that comment now?

Yes. Item 12 is the notice and call of general municipal election to be held on Tuesday, March 3rd. November 3rd. November 3rd.

March 3rd is already gone.

Okay. So anyone that is interested in running for District 1 or District 3, it's all contained in the consent calendar on how to do that. And that's all I wanted.

Anyone else have any comments on items 12 through 19 or want to pull one of those items? Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak on items 12 through 19 before we approve it?

All right.

Motion has been made by Mayor Pro Tem. Is there a second? Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right. We're going to move to the public comment portion of the agenda at this time pursuant to the Brown Act. Any person may comment on matters of general interest within the subject matter jurisdiction of city council not listed on the agenda. Under the Brown Act, the city council shall not take action on or discuss matters raised during the public comment portion of the agenda that are not listed on the agenda. speakers may not yield their time to others without consent of the mayor all comments are to be directed to the city council shall be devoid of any personal attacks members of the public are expected to maintain a professional courteous decorum during their public comments this is the item that if you're here to speak on any items that are not on the agenda you may do so i do have a couple speaker cards and i'll get through those If you're here for other items on the agenda, you do not have to fill out the blue speaker cards. You'll be called up during those items. Ellen Finnan, you wanted to speak on the Snyder development, which was a Planning Commission item that's not on our agenda. You may speak on it in public comment.

OK. Thank you very much. Well, as a resident of Desert Hot Springs for 22 years in the Mountain View community, I'm very concerned with the Planning Commission's approval last Tuesday. My concerns center on the impact of the Snyder development on the health of our residents. I moved here to avoid the warehouse culture of the Ontario Harupa Valley world because of health concerns. The dangerous mix of fines, the minuscule fine particles with sand and diesel created toxic brew for asthma, COPD, and emphysema, as well as cardiac events. In the middle of 2000, when I arrived here, you could see the Milky Way from my backyard, right above. 20 years later, we can't. The developments have changed this. The disruption of the desert crust in the Palm Springs Wash, the installation of the five generation wind turbines, the establishment of the cannabis corridor, the energy peaker plant off 62, all contribute to change in air quality. Now, there's nothing we can do about them. They're already gone. They're here, and we live with them. But to establish new areas of concern is very concerning. Yet surprisingly, the project that was talked about last Tuesday made no mention on the environmental health. residents furthermore no current environmental impact report was issued as of 2025 that's according to the Sierra Club I read their report and according to them they there isn't one this project will generate twenty four thousand three hundred and eighty six MTC o2 per year that's twenty almost twenty well twenty four and a half of carbon dioxide. The state recommended threshold is 3,000 a year. That's eight times greater than the recommended. So the Sierra Club's analysis also noted, and I went through some things, no evaluation of the transportation impact as the cargo was loaded and unloaded, no evaluation of the vehicular miles and their impact on the air quality, no mention of renewable energy resources as they may be phased in, no commitment to local hiring. Well, last week we heard promises, promises to hire locally, promises to not lease to Immigration and Custom Enforcement or ICE, promises not to lease to a data center for further environmental degradation.

But what we know is- Ms. Finnan, you're three minutes

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Joshua Hendrick.

Good evening, Mayor and citizens of DHS. I'm here tonight to update everyone on the illegal surveillance that the city has been conducting and the response they've made thus far. Last month I was here on the 5th, objecting to agenda item for the approval of the military equipment report for 2025 and objecting to the current and ongoing ALPR facial recognition and drone use currently illegal under state law. Well, the city scrambled and did put some things together and have kind of a lexical template that was posted to the city website literally six days ago, which introduces a new social media policy, a completely new facial recognition policy, a new honestly legally bogus policy that requires 90-day notice of any written challenge to any policies in the police policy manual before any litigation can be led to correct any issues. All of these things have been the kind of random quick responses that the city has made to these issues. They've scrambled and they've put data centers on the report for tonight, which is great, but instead they're focusing in their closed-door meetings on the potential litigation threats against the city for the ongoing years and years of illegal surveillance conducted, And then standing here today, giving you guys something to dig your teeth into, which is an important issue, and I'll be speaking on that later. We absolutely do want to have a permanent ban on data centers in the city of DHS. They're just incompatible with the fabric of our people, of our valley, of our power, et cetera. But right now, there are no current data center projects. This is a temporary moratorium on nothing. We need a permanent ban on data centers, and we need to demand appropriate transparency from our leaders sitting in front of you today. When I spoke on the agenda item for the 2025 Military Equipment Report, the board sitting before you, the five members right here, are required to review and approve, not just simply rubber stamp and say we've seen it. They all had been emailed a week before the meeting and knew that there were major deficiencies. I stood before you and read into the record the deficiencies and you unanimously voted to pass that. I for one am very disappointed in our city leadership. It's great to see that some good engagement has clearly come out of this and I'm looking forward to the city, myself and the other residents here getting more transparency from our city, making sure the city is headed in the direction that we all want to see and bringing all the citizens into the room to see what transpires in these meetings. Thank you.

Donna Wardeen. Donna Wardeen is my last public speaker on non-agendized items. If you're here to speak on non-agendized items, please see the city clerk.

Good evening. I am Donna Wardeen. I'm a resident of Desert Hot Springs since last century. I love it here. Not everybody can say that. Just a short thing is that on all of the events that we do at Veterans Park, I try to be there. I usually am. And I noticed that we need to revitalize our Veterans Park. And I look around, and I look around. We have a lot of dirt there yet to be filled. We used to have bricks carved with people's name and service, and we're not doing that anymore. And I understand that there's some difficulty with the person or the business, rather, that was doing that for us. that they're no longer in business or we're no longer going to use them. I'm not sure which it is. However, the Air Museum down the street at our beautiful Palm Springs Air Museum, they've solved that problem. They have someone doing carved, engraved bricks. And depending on how many words and how many lines you want, the price varies. and it's all donations to the museum. So I would like to, I've agreed actually to go down there and open that door that I walked through once before and see if I can't find out who their resource is for bricklaying that we can revitalize our Veterans Park. With your approval.

Thank you, Donna.

anyone else like to speak in public comments on non-agendized items all right we're going to move to the city manager's report thank you good evening mayor city council uh first i'd like to have jeffrey buckheim our administrative services director provide some financial updates

Yes, thank you, Mayor and City Council Members. Dora, for fiscal year 25-26, for the General Fund and Public Safety Fund, as of May 31st, 2026, our revenues are over $28.9 million, which is actually 74% of our amended budget. Last year at this time, it was $27.3 million, which was 77% of the budget. And two years ago, we were at $23.3 million, which was 71% of the budget. As for expenditures, we were at $33.6 million, which is at 86% of the budget. Last year at this time, we were at $29.8 million, which is at 84% of the budget. And two years ago, we were at $30.4 million, which was at 88% of the budget.

Thank you, Jeffrey. Next, I'd like to have Christina Newsome, our deputy city manager, provide a few updates.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Since our last City Council meeting, Animal Care and Control has had one adoption, sent five dogs to rescue partners, and reunited 11 animals with their owners. This evening, you might have trouble seeing her because she's itty-bitty. I'd like to introduce our special animal guest, Selah. She's an affectionate seven-year-old Brendel French Bulldog with a charming personality, sure to warm 22 months and 15 days.

Staff recommends that the City Council adopt the urgency order.

And then after that, I think the drop-dead date that I got from the City Clerk was August 6th. It would be very, very difficult.

Okay. Second, data centers will draw upon our aquifer and possibly increase our electric rates. Is that true?

So that's part of why staff is bringing this item forward. There just isn't enough information that staff has to be able to properly provide that type of information to council.

OK. The other is if this is true and this is for the LA Times Interruptible load youth uses electric grids are built to meet absolute worst-case demand Late afternoon on the hottest summer days the rest of the year sustainable portions of that capacity sit idle a data that country country contrarily agrees to throttle down or switch to on-site battery storage during the 100 hours per year of peak demand, allowing utilities to spread. Is that true?

I'm not sure if that statement is true or not.

Thank you. Infrastructure costs a large base which lowers the bill for every other customer. But is that true about Desert Hot Springs?

Again, I'm not sure.

OK. I'm asking questions now. At the end, we are to discuss things. And I have answers to that if you don't have them. There are community benefits to data centers through property tax for the general fund. But we have, as a body, have not discussed this. Is that true?

That is true.

Data centers are warming the area around them. Is that true?

Again, I'm not an expert in data centers, so I do not have that information.

That's my only questions.

Thank you, Mr. Pine. Mr. Voss, anything? Mr. Gardner.

I have one on the process. This is a temporary moratorium that can be extended out to roughly two years, all the way through there. It's not a ban or an outright ban. That is a separate process. What is that process?

So first and foremost, just to be explicitly clear, this today is a urgency ordinance for moratorium. It would last for 45 days. And then there's the option to extend, as I mentioned in the staff report. If council wanted to proceed with a ban, it is a land use process. It would need to go to the planning commission, be heard by the planning commission, and then move forward from there, depending on action from the planning commission.

Thank you. Mr. Pitts, any direct questions? I just have one. What qualifies this as an urgency item?

So staff has had many prospective developers inquire about data centers and the process for bringing data centers forward. And as I mentioned in the staff report, when staff dove into this, the actual current regulations and municipal code is absent any regulations as it relates to data centers. And staff needs further direction because there are several projects that have that risk actually putting in submissions and applications. And we need to understand from council what policy direction is on this item.

I have another question. So with this 45 days, we would have to meet when?

So if this item were to pass tonight, we still have one more meeting before the city council goes dark. So if council chose to proceed with an extension of the moratorium, we would be able to bring that extension back at that next meeting. But that would be, obviously, we would wait for direction from council on how to proceed. But that would be the process to extend the moratorium and then await further direction from council.

Within 45 days. Correct. OK. And if this is not passed tonight, then we have the potential for data centers to come because we don't have the ordinance correct at this time.

That is correct.

Thank you. And then I just need a qualification, too. One of your comments, you said there's several inquiries. Is that true?

That is correct.

All right. We're going to go to, where's my agenda? I flipped a page here. Where did it go? Alright, we're going to go and open the public hearing again. Each speaker will be given two minutes. I have some speaker cards that were handed in, so I'm just going to go through those real quick so those get done. And then as the last, I say the last speaker card that did get handed in, you don't have to hand in a speaker card. So as the last speaker on the card, I have four of them. I'll say last speaker. As you see their time start to end, feel free to stand up behind them and get ready to make your comments, and we'll move forward. All right, we're going to open the public hearing, and I'm not going to take them in favor, opposed, or neutral position. If you want to state your position up there, you may do so. We're just going to take all the comments all at once before we close the public hearing. Ellen Finnenan, you were the first one. I'm on the top here.

okay well I'm just going to say I'm against data centers and I'm for a moratorium on figuring out what's going on because of Coachella Valley and the fact that they're in a moratorium right now or not necessarily a ban I'm not quite sure what's going on down there they voted for a moratorium I think we should step back until we find out what the ramifications of all this are especially in terms of our water which is world renown right but won't be if we have a data center so thank you thank you Donna wording

Josh Hendricks, you'll be up next.

Thank you. I am Donna Wardeen. As proposed and passed by our planning commission, the 1 million square foot warehouse is approved to building. It was approved. I was at the meeting. It was approved to the builders, who then will sell it to the users. We need to look into that and make sure that that detail is covered. I was here at the meeting. I heard it. I hope that the city will have some say in the approving process to limit for the purchasers or users. Was the proper homework done by the Planning Commission? San Bernardino County, the largest county in the state of California, will not, will not, except a new warehouse in countywide period. So we should not be approving them here either. It changes the land. It changes the critters. It changes the weather. And us being at the top of the air flowing down valley, we become the bad guys again. We become desperate hot springs instead of this wonderful city that we live in. Thank you.

Thank you. Joshua?

Joshua McCray, you'll follow Joshua Hendrick. Thank you, council and citizens here tonight. The other end of the valley has already done their due diligence. They found council members scheming behind the backs of citizens, getting the city on the hook for $10 million of fees that can't be recuperated because they got that far down the ballot or down the issue. We have the opportunity here to get out ahead of things. As I mentioned in my earlier comment, there are currently no projects in the works. We have the chance to actually intercede before these proposals are vetted by our planning commission and have the rules that are fit for our community. We need to show up every day, every meeting, and demand that the city takes our interests into account. I'm a tech executive. I know what data centers are. I use them every day. I know that they're an important part of our economy, but they do not belong here. They should be built where there's a power surplus, where they're not creating heat islands in an already nearly unhospitable environment, increasing the utility rates on families that can barely scrape by as it is. There is a time and a place for these. We need to decide where that is, and we as Desert Hot Springs need to say, this is not the place for data centers. Thank you.

Thank you. Joshua McCray. Again, would ask that you don't disrupt this meeting, please. Joshua McCray.

My name is Joshua McCray, and I'm a resident of Desert Hot Springs. I oppose the building of these data centers, and I am for a moratorium and later for a a permanent ban. So good evening, mayors and council members in Desert Hot Springs. My name, I am a homeowner in this community. I'm here to express my sincere concern about any proposed data center in Desert Hot Springs, specifically its long-term impact on our water resources, our infrastructure, and quality of life. Our region depends entirely on groundwater. The Mission Springs Water District currently pumps about 8 million gallons per day to serve roughly 30,000 residents. That system is carefully managed under the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to prevent overdraft and protect our aquifer for future generations. Aquifers cannot be repaired, and once they're emptied, they're destroyed. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a single medium-sized data center can consume up to 110 million gallons of water per year, while larger facilities like the ones that these tech giants desire to install in our valley can use as much as 5 million gallons per day. That's comparable to the daily needs of this entire town. We are not a water-rich region. We are a desert community that has already faced groundwater overdraft in the past. When aquifers are depleted faster than they can recharge, the consequences are severe and irreversible, such as land subsidence, permanently reduced storage capacity, rising water costs, degraded water quality, and the collapse of fragile desert ecosystems. We do not have unlimited water to give. We are also told that these projects bring economic benefits, but the evidence does not say so. So I'm looking at a city that since I've lived here has been growing and been getting beautiful, and just imagine that water being taken away from us. Everything that we see green around us is going to go away. all these efforts to make our cities safe and make our our citizens safe would be for not so we ask that our council member and that our city protect us and allow us to not be destroyed by these data centers thank you thank you josh next speaker next speaker

Hi, good afternoon. I am actually a resident of Sky Valley, outside of the city of Desert Hot Springs, but the data center and these issues, wherever they're built in our valley, are an issue for all of us. to consider putting something that would increase brownouts and blackouts through the summers that would take our already stressed water resources where we're asked to conserve water, don't water your lawn, et cetera, et cetera, and something that will put out more heat. I just think of all the places for this not to be, the Coachella Valley is one of them. The other question that I have is if this moratorium is adopted, does it cover the Desert Hot Springs sphere of influence or just the actual city boundaries? I had a few people that live in the outer lying areas ask that question. So I would ask that of you. And I'm was so pleased to hear that you were considering even though it's temporary at least it's enough time to get the information and i hope make the right decision which is to ban them permanently so yes i am opposed i say thank you to you all for taking the time and um make the right choice thank you next speaker

Hi, everyone.

I'm sorry. Just when you do come up, and I didn't mean to startle you there, just please state your name, and you don't have to give an address or anything. Just state your name for the record and then go on.

Yeah. My name is Stacy Gallegos, and I'm a lifelong resident of Desert Hot Springs. I graduated in Desert Hot Springs High School, went off to Azusa Pacific USC. Right now, I'm currently at U of A for a doctorate. I'm not the greatest at public speaking, but here I am. and wanting to respectfully oppose the construction and expansion of data centers and other high-intensity industrial developments, industrial hot springs. My concerns are rooted in public health, environmental justice, and the lifelong term, long-term well-being of our community. especially here in Desert Hot Springs. Growing up, as it was mentioned, it was known as Desperate Hot Springs. Everyone always talks about Desert Hot Springs being the bad side, the dark side. But just given seeing how much it's grown and how much it's developed and changed, I think Bringing in data centers would definitely just steer us back. I think the plots of lands that we do have, we could bring in things that are needed. From my experience, I've noticed that in our public school systems and just everywhere that I've worked, we have a necessity. Children with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, we don't have the accurate

services the appropriate services within our city limits and many of the parents have to leave now data centers are just going to make it a whole lot worse and it always centers and staff needs further direction because there are several projects that have that risk actually putting in submissions and applications and we need to understand from council what policy direction is on this item

I have another question. So with this 45 days, we would have to meet when?

so if this item were to pass tonight we still have one more meeting before uh the city council goes dark so uh if council chose to proceed with an extension of the moratorium we would be able to bring that extension back at that next meeting but that would be obviously we would wait for direction from council on how to proceed but that would be the process to extend the moratorium and then await further direction from council within 45 days correct okay and if this is not passed tonight then

We have the potential for data centers to come because we don't have the ordinance correct at this time.

That is correct.

Thank you. And then I just need a qualification to one of your comments. You said there's several inquiries. Is that true?

That is correct.

All right. We're going to go to, where's my agenda? I flipped a page here. Where did it go? We're gonna go and open the public hearing again each speaker will be given two minutes I have some speaker cards are handed in so I'm just gonna go through those real quick so those get done and then as The last I say the last speaker card that did get handed in you don't have to scan in a speaker card So as the last speaker on the card out for them I'll say last speaker as you see their time start to to end feel free to stand up behind them and get ready to make your comments and and we'll move forward. All right, we're gonna open the public hearing, and I'm not gonna take them in favor, opposed, or neutral position. If you wanna state your position up there, you may do so. We're just gonna take all the comments all at once before we close the public hearing. Ellen Finnenan, you were the first one, I'm on the top here.

Okay well I'm just going to say I'm against data centers and I'm for a moratorium on figuring out what's going on because of Coachella Valley and the fact that they're in a moratorium right now or not necessarily a ban I'm not quite sure what's going on down there. they voted for a moratorium I think we should step back until we find out what the ramifications of all this are especially in terms of our water which is world renown right but won't be if we have a data center so thank you thank you Donna wording

Josh Hendricks, you'll be up next.

Thank you. I am Donna Wardeen. As proposed and passed by our planning commission, the 1 million square foot warehouse is approved to building. It was approved. I was at the meeting. It was approved to the builders, who then will sell it to the users. We need to look into that and make sure that that detail is covered. I was here at the meeting. I heard it. I hope that the city will have some say in the approving process to limit for the purchasers or users. Was the proper homework done by the Planning Commission? San Bernardino County, the largest county in the state of California, will not, will not, except a new warehouse in countywide period. So we should not be approving them here either. It changes the land. It changes the critters. It changes the weather. And us being at the top of the air flowing down valley, we become the bad guys again. We become desperate hot springs instead of this wonderful city that we live in. Thank you.

thank you joshua joshua mccrea you'll follow joshua hendrick thank you council and citizens here tonight the other end of the valley has already done their due diligence they found council members scheming behind the backs of citizens getting the city on the hook for 10 million dollars of fees that can't be recuperated because they got that far down the ballot or down the issue We have the opportunity here to get out ahead of things. As I mentioned in my earlier comment, there are currently no projects in the works. We have the chance to actually intercede before these proposals are vetted by our planning commission and have the rules that are fit for our community. We need to show up every day, every meeting, and demand that the city takes our interests into account. I'm a tech executive. I know what data centers are. I use them every day. I know that they're an important part of our economy, but they do not belong here. They should be built where there's a power surplus, where they're not creating heat islands in an already nearly unhospitable environment, increasing the utility rates on families that can barely scrape by as it is. There is a time and a place for these. We need to decide where that is, and we as Desert Hot Springs need to say this is not the place for data centers. Thank you. Thank you. Joshua McCray.

Again, would ask that you don't disrupt this meeting, please. Joshua McCray.

My name is Joshua McCray, and I'm a resident of Desert Hot Springs. I oppose the building of these data centers, and I am for a moratorium and later for a... permanent ban um so good evening mayors and council members in desert hot springs my name i am a homeowner in this community i'm here to express my sincere concern about any proposed data center in desert hot springs specifically its long-term impact on our water resources our infrastructure and quality of life Our region depends entirely on groundwater. The Mission Springs Water District currently pumps about 8 million gallons per day to serve roughly 30,000 residents. That system is carefully managed under the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to prevent overdraft and protect our aquifer for future generations. Aquifers cannot be repaired, and once they're emptied, they're destroyed. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a single medium-sized data center can consume up to 110 million gallons of water per year, while larger facilities like the ones that these tech giants desire to install in our valley can use as much as 5 million gallons per day. That's comparable to the daily needs of this entire town. We are not a water-rich region. We are a desert community that has already faced groundwater overdraft in the past. When aquifers are depleted faster than they can recharge, the consequences are severe and irreversible, such as land subsidence, permanently reduced storage capacity, rising water costs, degraded water quality, and the collapse of fragile desert ecosystems. We do not have unlimited water to give. We are also told that these projects bring economic benefits, but the evidence does not say so. So I'm looking at a city that since I've lived here has been growing and been getting beautiful, and just imagine that water being taken away from us. Everything that we see green around us is going to go away. All these efforts to make our cities safe and make our citizens safe would be for naught. So we ask that our council member and that our city protect us and allow us to not be destroyed by these data centers. Thank you.

Thank you, Josh. Next speaker. Next speaker.

Hi, good afternoon. I am actually a resident of Sky Valley, outside of the city of Desert Hot Springs, but the data center and these issues, wherever they're built in our valley, are an issue for all of us. to consider putting something that would increase brownouts and blackouts through the summers, that would take our already stressed water resources where we're asked to conserve water, don't water your lawn, et cetera, et cetera, and something that will put out more heat. I just think of all the places for this not to be, the Coachella Valley is one of them. The other question that I have is if this moratorium is adopted, does it cover the Desert Hot Springs sphere of influence or just the actual city boundaries? I had a few people that live in the outer lying areas ask that question. So I would ask that of you. And I'm was so pleased to hear that you were considering, even though it's temporary, at least it's enough time to get the information and, I hope, make the right decision, which is to ban them permanently. So, yes, I am opposed. I say thank you to you all for taking the time and make the right choice.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi everyone.

I'm sorry. Just when you do come up and I didn't mean to startle you there, just please state your name and then you don't have to give an address or anything. Just state your name for the record and then go on.

Yeah. Um, my name is Stacy Gallegos and I'm a lifelong resident of desert hot Springs. I graduated in desert hot Springs high school, went off to Asusa Pacific USC. Right now I'm currently at U of a for a doctorate. Um, not the greatest at public speaking, but here I am. Um, and wanting to respectfully oppose the construction and expansion of data centers and other high-intensity industrial developments, industrial hot springs. My concerns are rooted in public health, environmental justice, and the lifelong term, long-term well-being of our community. especially here in Desert Hot Springs. Growing up, as it was mentioned, it was known as Desperate Hot Springs. Everyone always talks about Desert Hot Springs being the bad side, the dark side. But just given seeing how much it's grown and how much it's developed and changed, I think Bringing in data centers would definitely just steer us back. I think the plots of lands that we do have, we could bring in things that are needed. From my experience, I've noticed that in our public school systems and just everywhere that I've worked, we have a necessity. Children with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, we don't have the accurate services the appropriate services within our city limits and many of the parents have to leave now data centers are just going to make it a whole lot worse and it'll look into epigenetics it'll impact future generations i know i'm at time but it it'll have not just environmental but genetic impact too good job and congratulations on your education

Hello, my name is Brian Boyer Hoffman, and I'd like to speak to my personal experience of, I've been to some of the Coachella meetings, and I listened to the data center representatives, like Stronghold Enterprise, They speak with honeyed words and they have crocodile smiles when they tell you that it's a closed loop system and it doesn't use water. Or they say, oh, the e-waste is just like a cell phone. It's not a big deal. Everything, all the information speaks to how horrible they are. And when the council in Coachella decided on their permanent ban moving towards it, they were looking at a moratorium at the moment and they did whatever they could to change that after seeing the outreach of the public. When I was traveling through Arizona, I saw one of these centers being built, and it had just an enormous amount of cranes overhead. I mean, it was the most dystopian thing that I've ever seen. And I really think that there is no world where these data centers belong anywhere in our valley or anywhere, really. I think that they're a disservice to us all. So definitely I encourage you to be curious about what the impacts are in any studies that have already been out there. I could speak on all the things I've seen and they're very terrible. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please.

Hello City Council and community members. I'm here as a concerned member. My name is Carla Rocha and I am a native of Desert Hot Springs. I was born in Rancho Mirage and I've lived here my entire life and I know how special this sacred Cahuilla land is. I was also part of the Coachella Valley meetings and unfortunately they learned the hard way, right? These companies come in, giving the best lingo, telling you that you're gonna get this revenue, but at what cost, right? And unfortunately, once those things are signed, we cannot go back. I am in agreement with this monitorium, and I hope that, and urge you after you do some research, you will become terrified of what is happening in cities who have already accepted data centers. and I encourage you to do your own research because you will find out that you also oppose this because we love Desert Hot Springs and I know we all love Desert Hot Springs. These data centers will ruin our city and our health. I work as a hospice bereavement counselor now and I've been doing so for the past four years. The amount of respiratory issues our elders already have the amount of cancer that we already have, the children already have high asthma rates, this will only worsen those implications. Not only will it ruin our health, it will ruin our sacred water. Mission Springs has the best water in the world, right? That will be ruined. And for what? for a contract, these people are coming here to scheme, sign the contracts, and as we see in the Coachella Valley Council, they are going to owe a lot of money to be sued by Stronghold, right? I don't want to see our city lose this. I feel like we're barely at the brink of our uprising as a city. I've seen us become something beautiful from what we used to be, and I would hate to see that ruin by the acceptance of a data center. Thank you.

Next speaker.

My name is Elizabeth Humphreys. I am a resident of Indio, and I'm also a local realtor with a lot of clients in Desert Hot Springs. So the supporters of data centers will tell you that there's enormous economic benefit to having one. However, Good Jobs First found that per job created, each data center took a subsidy of about $2 million from their local taxpayers. That same Good Jobs First study also found that a typical hyperscale data center, so those are the ones that are over 100,000 square feet up to a million square feet, only employ on average 50 people per hyperscale data center. So that's about the same as a mid-sized warehouse which only uses a tiny fraction of the resources consumed by data centers. so it is that those very resources are why everyone in the coachella valley and all of riverside county is urging their local government for a moratorium and ultimate ban data centers especially hyperscale data centers need three things water power and low temperatures low temperatures because of the heat islands they create up to 16 degrees for a six mile radius and if they are going to employ air cooling systems the air has to be cool This makes them unsuitable for any location in the Coachella Valley or Riverside County, and certainly in Desert Hot Springs. UC Riverside also recently published an assessment for the health cost. It cost California $155 million in health costs in 2023, and that number is expected to rise to 266 million by 2028. Allowing a hyperscale data center in Desert Hot Springs would be squandering precious resources at the expense of local health on a promise of economic benefits that do not exist in reality. We care about the reality of how these developments will affect us, not the empty promises of tech billionaires.

Thank you. Thank you. Next comment, please.

Hello, my name is Selena Flores. I am a resident and homeowner in Desert Hot Springs. I'm also an educator in the city. I'm currently leading my master's through the school district. And I just want to say that I am strongly in favor of the moratorium and I hope that you do push for a ban in the future because if there's one thing I know it's the students in Desert Hot Springs have many dreams and the young woman that came up earlier to speak I think is it a testament to that and I think when we put things in the city like data centers we're telling the students that we don't see a future for you we want you to be impacted negatively by these things. So yeah, I just think that for the future of our students, you know, kids are 20% of the population, but they're 100% of the future. And so when we put warehouses, you know, we're saying these are the only jobs that you guys deserve. And I just, I don't want that for them. So yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Raymond Urena. I'm a resident here in Desert Hot Springs. I'm originally from Florida, South Florida, Broward County. I've been here in the valley for nine years. I'm a United States Marine Corps veteran. I've been in 29 Palms. I have traveled from 29 Palms and settled roots here in the Coachella Valley, starting from Salton Sea. I have worked my way up, ended up making my way to Indio, stayed there for a little bit, and now I'm here in Desert Hot Springs. The reason why I'm here is because, and being an outsider, I see this beautiful vision for the city. Now, I'm not to see Desert Hot Springs. I see the Temecula version of the Coachella Valley here. These beautiful hills, these beautiful mountains, these beautiful layouts. When I went to Temecula a couple years ago, I think like two years ago, I was stunned at the greenery, at the beautiful vines and everything, the tours. There is no way... There's no way I'm going to allow people to come in here, an outsider as an outsider, to come in here and put up these data centers when I know this beautiful valley can be flourishing just as Temecula, even better as Temecula. We have the waters here. We have these beautiful trees. We have these systems that I myself have even gone to College of the Desert for almost two years from 2019 to 2020 during the pandemic for agriculture and horticulture. So I have been in the fields. I also have these certain plants as Moringas that I am advocating for in Desert Hot Springs. Last week, I stood here to talk about no data centers, plant Moringas. The following day, as y'all approved this warehouse, I took myself to the Dollar General Marketplace, and y'all look at the work I did over there. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please. Anyone else like to speak on data centers, on the moratorium?

Good evening. My name is Barbara Boyer-Hoffman. I wrote my thing to be exactly three minutes, so I'm going to try and paraphrase. So first of all, I do want to echo some of the comments. I really appreciate the city council and the mayor being proactive in even considering this and city staff. Again, we've kind of learned our lesson. I've been following closely, going to the Coachella meetings and seeing how that played out. And it's very refreshing to see this kind of proactive conversation happening. You know, I can definitely, we have so many eloquent speakers speaking to the harms of data centers, so really kind of what I can kind of paraphrase it down to is what really struck me is I really do hope that you move forward with the moratorium, because if you haven't had the opportunity to research data centers, to please do that. There's no lack of information of how harmful they are, truly. But the other thing is I really hope you take that time to reflect on what is being asked of you in this moment. Because we're in a time and place where we're really not being protected by our federal government. The state government isn't protecting us from data center development. The county has not issued a moratorium and that's really leaving very hyper local government like you to be our defense. And that's a really extraordinary And I mean, it's an enormous task that's being asked of you. So I do want to acknowledge that and hope that you take that time to do the research and reflect on that this is affecting everybody here in the Valley and nationally and globally as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Al Rogowski. I actually live in Morongo Valley, but Desert Hot Springs was my first home here in the desert. And all of the bad reasons why these, all of the reasons why these data centers are bad are out there. You know, everyone has spoken to it already. But I also just want to say this is such a beautiful place. We have such a unique location here that you can see out across the entire valley from some of the hills here. It's beautiful. Nobody in the valley has that view. And to think about Like getting up on those hills and looking out and seeing this massive building that's just pumping pollutants into our air. We have a lot of elderly people that live here. We have a lot of young people that live here as well. We already know asthma rates are going up among teens, like children. children in towns that have data centers. People are turning their faucets on and brown water is coming out or no water is coming out. Electric bills are skyrocketing. When I lived here, my electric bills were $500 to $700 in the summertime each month. And I don't think a lot of residents here can afford higher electrical costs. And I think somebody else also mentioned these data centers, these companies come in with really pretty words and they come in with a lot of money and a lot of promises that they don't keep. They hurt our communities and I love Desert Hot Springs. I'm here all the time. I still have a lot of friends here. I shop here. I love coming down here for all the events you guys put on. I would hate to see the city backtrack 20 years and lose all the progress and beauty you've put into this place. I'm getting emotional because I really love it here. And data centers really screw all that up. Also, fuck flock cameras. Get them out of desert hot springs.

Thank you.

Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to leave for your language. Thank you. Yes, sir. You're next.

My name is Andres Marquez, founder of New Earth Creator. And basically, I just want to echo what everybody else has been saying. It seems that there's not a lot of facts, as Jan was discussing with the city manager, Doria. It seems like there's not a lot of feedback she could give, except in the property taxes, right? And as we're all finding out, you know, attending more of these things, finding out more for ourselves, we find out a lot of things. And everything I found out has been nothing but bad. a lot of testimonies, a lot of reviews. Um, we see all the promises they make. We've seen that nothing's actually panning out exactly how they've been promised in these different cities and states and everything. So I just think that you guys should take this moratorium time and see all the, what all the residents here are saying about the city of desert hot springs, what they feel is important to it. Take all that consideration of why people are here and then figure out if the data center is something we want here. If it has a potential to pollute, increase the air, you know, we rely on our aquifer, right, for revenue, for everything. It's why people love it here. It has a potential to disrupt that aquifer. It's already hot here in the desert. That's one of the aspects people don't like. So they come down and they leave during summertime. But if it has the potential also to increase the temperature, you guys are kind of like, uh, Messing up both ends here. What people come for and what people leave for is going to make what people come for leave just altogether. And then you look at the City of Desert Hot Springs sign. I see all nature on there. I don't see no technological. I don't see a building. So you know what I mean? If you guys are all residents, you guys are all born around here, you guys know that the desert's not dead. It's a live being. Our water's alive, and we should treat it as such. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Last call. Anyone like to speak? Oh, here we go. Would you like us to move the microphone down? Gerald, would you assist, please? Is that going to work for you?

Hello. Is it working? Yeah. Hi. My name is Ezekiel Felix. And I would just like to say three quick things. Based off my research from the data centers, The three things that it mainly affects is one, the electricity prices spike. As it is, I'm paying like $250 a month and I don't think I can afford anything more expensive than that. Secondly, the water quality really diminishes. I've seen videos of people having to store their water in water bottles in gallons. The water comes out like dark and murky. Um, that is from the data centers, just absorbing all the water that should be for us, the citizens. And the third thing is the taxes go up as well from, uh, the data centers. So I think none of us here can afford, um, any more, uh, price increases as it is. Everything is getting expensive. And I think that data centers moving in would just make everything more difficult for everyone as an average day citizen. And that is it. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Next speaker. Hello, I'm Cynthia Stillman. Thank you.

Cynthia Stillman, I'm from Desert Hot Springs. I so far haven't heard any good thing about these data centers. And let's just call it what it is. It's a mass surveillance center to keep an eye on us, I guess. uh we we know that consumes enormous amounts of water electricity health health concerns additional strains on local infrastructure generates constant noise from cooling systems and can poison the surrounding area residents deserve transparency regarding environmental impacts resource consumption traffic and long-term community costs before additional projects are approved The public should have access to clear information and meaningful opportunities to participate in decisions that affect their quality of life, especially if we are paying for it. Our city will embrace innovation, but not at the expense of residents' quality of life, privacy, safety, and access to essential resources. I ask the council to prioritize the interests of the community and always keep in mind, does this benefit the people? Thank you.

Thank you. Any more comments?

Hi, I'm Christina from Thermal, where all the dates are grown. And I just wanted to echo what that gentleman with the sign, plant moringa, not data centers. I think that's brilliant. Dates. not data centers for sure, all day long. You know, we have the date festival, we certainly don't have the data center festival. It's just, it's so obvious and I'm sure this is like an easy job for you because we all, want the same thing. Desert Hot Springs has also historically been known for health and healing. And I just really want to speak on behalf of all the sensitive people here, who I think a lot of us are in this room. If you check out especially the sound the data center makes 24-7, 365, Just that alone, I definitely would flee from that. It's just not good for anyone at all. I just lost another friend from cancer earlier this month, and I think a lot of us have witnessed that, too. All of these things are happening, and they add up to nothing good. So there's a big movement of people going to farmers markets and growing their own food at home. That's what we really need to focus on. And I think we all know, obviously, it's just obvious, clean air, water. food is really scarce for some reason. So we got to make it abundant again. And that's the future we're stepping into. This is the great awakening. So you could all be early adapters. And California has always led the way. So we're going to just prove that again, I'm sure, in this case. So again, dates, not data centers. And we're still growing plenty of dates. So thanks.

Thank you. Next speaker, please. Final call? Donna, you already spoke on this.

Can I just say one?

No, if I open it up again for someone, I've got to open it up for everybody.

Would it be okay if you can speak? Yes. Okay. No, no. Can I allow my time? I just want to say one sentence, though.

We don't usually allow time, but since Ms. Sanchez came in and took over my meeting and allowed you to have her time, go right ahead.

How can you turn her down? She's great, isn't she?

Yeah, sure.

I just want to say to you, to you, to all of you, Desert Hot Springs is the last remaining resort town in the greater Coachella Valley. Don't mess it up.

All right. Final speakers? All right, we're gonna close the public hearing at this time. We're gonna go to council member comments. And we'll start with, who wants to start? Why don't you go, you have a whole bunch. Perfect.

All right, so, I really appreciate this item to be up on our agenda here. I not only just support the moratorium, but I also support the ban. You know, we're the gateway to Coachella Valley. You know, realistically, if you looked at, looking at this objectively, if you looked at within our city boundaries, there's really no compelling place where you could actually put a data center without some form of negative impact being part of that. Unlike other people that haven't studied the issue, I've studied this issue quite extensively. I started studying this issue when it began becoming a problem in Tucson and Chandler, out in that area. And then I studied it when it went into Imperial and what the impact was there. And now, you know, Imperial County, um, you've got six cities now, if I believe correctly, they've got a, they're banning these or have already done a moratorium with a band. Um, the impact on what's there, um, in reference to, we'll just talk each kind of topics such as the heat, The Arizona State University did a study on the heat. What they found was as little as four upwards of nine degree difference depending on what might be in the path of that heat. So maybe if there's grass and trees, it's a little less. And it was within the typical distance that most of these have been from residential and that. So I'm not a farmer, but my family are farmers. So I contacted them in Nebraska and I asked them, I said, hey, if I added seven, nine degrees on a corn farm, what would happen? It did dry it up. Now, we don't have that agricultural aspect here. They do in Coachella, and they were dealing with that. However, when I'm looking at where our available land areas are, I'm looking at residential, I'm looking at conservation area, I'm looking at areas that we have designated as commercial retail areas and to give you an idea you know along highway 62 you know we did a moratorium on warehouses because the best possible use of that land there is for retail commercial housing and the like not additional warehouse stuff so if you put one in that area it impacts those those areas right there you put one down over by the freeway it impacts there's a residential in that area We also are looking to build 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 homes in some areas, right? So it has that impact. So when it comes to the issue of water, it's true. Even if you do the closed loop, even if you do recycling systems like they have in Vegas, there still is a tremendous draw. The difference with our city is that our city is the only city in the Coachella Valley and probably all of Southern California that I well know our peers in Marietta would say otherwise. But we have mineral hot spring water. We have mineral spring water. And we advertise ourselves as Spa City. We've promoted all of our TOT and other programs with that, as that's what we have. Now how much this would draw, I'm not an expert in that, but all the research that I have found that it would do, it would be a substantial impact that could negatively impact the end users, including our homes, that we need, including potentially the spas, depending on however MSWD does their work process with that. Now in reference to noise, it's true. I was raised in Long Beach. I was raised a block away from the 405 freeway. So I heard the traffic all the time. But it was up and down. The difference with data centers is a constant hum. And that constant hum has already proven itself to cause mental health issues. in which it does. And that's a fact. Matter of fact, that's a psych op procedure that's used in psych operations and they'll use that. And it's been proven already, uh, friends of mine and Chandler who are dealing with this issue and surprise and others that are having this problem with this. And so when I see that and I think, well, this isn't what's there. And then you have just the vibration aspect of it. Now, Certain things you can mitigate and what have you, I'm sure. But nonetheless, you still have this impact there. And then you have to ask yourself, what's the compelling benefit of this project? What would be there? So we have a general plan. We have a zoning ordinance. And then what we have is what's called the best possible use. And we have to manage our limited land space with what's best possible use. And I will say this. Our city council has done a superb job with that. We have an industrial zone. We have other industrial zones. When we grow out in cannabis, we have our spa zones. You know, we have preserved areas for commercial and retail. Every single day when I ran for election was, when am I going to get, you know, a WinCo? When am I going to get a Northgate? When am I going to get a movie theater? Whatever it may be. And those areas would all be negatively impacted by this. Large land developers not going to want to build next to a data center. That's going to add seven to nine degrees onto their development that's going to be there. So we're going to, so we have that. So we have to look at this. What is the best possible use? Now, when I look at what's happened in Imperial County, again, you know, you, you looked at, um, they brought it in there, uh, with the County did Imperial city or the city of Imperial has already filed a lawsuit on that. And so others, you've got six cities that have done the ban with that. When I followed what was happening in Coachella, And the same thing with that, and I've seen what's happened in Banning where a lot of misinformation has happened over a warehouse project. And you look at this stuff, it's best for us to do what some of the other cities have done. So Indio, for instance, has done a moratorium that is going to go to a ban. Palm Desert is going to be doing this. Cat City, Cathedral City is going to be doing this. Palm Springs is going to be doing this. Cities like La Quinta probably won't because they don't have the land mass available. So there's really no reason Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage, there's really no reason for them to bring something like this there. But our strategic plan, though, is very detailed in it. And it says, and many of you read that, that we're trying to get a new on and off ramp like Little Morongo. We want to bring water to service the area between Little Morongo, Palm, Dillon, and the freeway. And that's all we've ever asked for, by the way. We never asked for any of that stuff to go up Sky Valley. We just asked for a service agreement because Little Morongo is the borderline between two water districts. And east of Little Morongo is Coachella Valley Water District and they don't have sewer there. That's where we're looking to do retail in those things. And so with this, we want to focus on those type of things. So regarding this, I don't find that there's really compelling reason to really even ever have this issue on our zoning. Are data centers necessary? I'm sure. You know, I have my phone. Others are paying $10 a month or $9.99 as I was corrected the other day. We're doing that. So I'm not an expert on if we need it. My personal finding when I saw in the research that I did is I really believe that the data center issue is going to be taken away by the federal government and they'll be the permitting agency at some point. That's just future goal, or not goal, but future insight that I think is going to be there. But all that I found continually, though, were all these continual negative impacts. And yes, they'll throw a couple million dollars as community benefit to your city. That's nice. That's great. But what's the long-term effect? What's the long-term mitigation effect? And so for that, there's just no way that I can support a data center in our city. And when it comes time to make a motion, I'm going to make a motion to do the moratorium up to a ban. That's all I have to say.

I'm a little different. I don't care what the other cities are doing. I care about Desert Hot Springs. And we are not desperate. I ask the city clerk when she brings this, bring something that I can hang my hat on. Bring something that my constituents can bring their hat on. And I did do some research. Monterey Park, they did a ballot. We cannot do a ballot right now because we don't have proper ordinances. We can't do a little bit now and then find out we did the wrong thing. We needed to do something else. So that's why I brought up Monterey. Data centers. According to what I have, per Cambridge-led researchers, and this was June 11 in Al-Azir, AI data centers rise the temperature 3.6, which can be surrounded by six miles. Also, it can raise the temperature 16.2 Fahrenheit. What kind of weather do we get? It's not sustainable. Property taxes, yes, there are a lot of property taxes. But there's other ways for us to get property taxes. And I will not support a policy that we do to do just the taxes for this. There are things that are happening with data center but not enough for us. Some of us talked about how long we've been living here. I've been living here 26 years. I tell you, we are not desperate hot springs and we're not going back. As an addition, I talked to Mission Springs Water District, and I also talked to Southern California Edison, which told me they're not against it, but DORA, they have some information on things that we need to do with respect to ordinances. I will give you that information. A large data center, uses 1 to 5 million gallons of water per day, which is equivalent to the consumption of a small city of 10 to 50,000 residents. Annual usage for a single mid-sized facility can reach 110 million gallons. approximately 337.5 acre feet per year, enough to provide water for approximately 1,000 homes. I don't want to do it like that. We have stuff that is coming in. The mayor often talks about everybody's driving across the freeway rather than here. I want the homes to be here for what we're doing. OK. 70% to 80% is lost to evaporation. A small portion is returned as wastewater. Wastewater from data center may contain PFAS, forever chemicals, that are costly to treat and would require extra treatment prior to discharge into percolation ponds. We don't want that either. I raised all those things with questions to come back to the discussion.

Eight years up here, I can't think of another time where we've had this much public input, and it's nice to see. It is interesting to watch a lot of times in this environment with social media, disinformation spreads faster than a California wildfire and it's hard to cut through all of that. I think all of us up here and I'm sure all of you or a lot of you out there recognize that we need to have data centers. We all like our Amazon showing up when it shows up. We all have our phones. We're all living on social media. I see social media posts where people say, we don't need to have a data center, and they've used AI to generate a picture of a data center. So there's a little bit of a disconnect, I think, with that. That being said, I concur with my colleagues up here and with most of our speakers here today that I don't think data centers belong in the desert for a simple reason. I don't understand quite why a developer would want to put one here when you have a building that generates nothing but heat and you're spending a lot on electricity and a lot on air conditioning. Why would you put it in a city that gets 120 degrees in the summer? Your air conditioning bill has got to be 10 times more than what it would be If you put it elsewhere, when I lived in Washington State and they were building them up there, they built them along the Columbia River where there's a lot of water and there's a lot of very cheap power and it doesn't get above 70 degrees. So I think we recognize that we need them in places where it's appropriate to build them and I don't think that it is here. That being said, we're passing, hopefully, we'll see, a moratorium that will develop changes and give us the time to develop the regulations and the zoning and to look at whether or not they could ever be built here or not. And you look down through the course of history, the original IBM computers were as big as this room. generated 10 times the heat and didn't have the computing power of the phone that you've got in your pocket right now. And over time, things will change. And I fully suspect that over time that technology will change to where data centers can be built in other places, but still, again, not here. So I, for one, am going to support our motion to approve a moratorium. And I'm looking forward to what staff and the rest of us can dig into and see where we can go and whether it leads to a full ban or a bunch of regulations that keep them out in their current form now and see what happens in 10, 15 years from now. That's all I've got.

Mr. Pitts? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I want to say thank you to everyone who's come out today and spoken of this. And this is such a great opportunity to come out and speak. And there were a lot of many things, actually, that were said that were great. And I also want to concur with both Mayor Pro Tem and also Council Member Gardner. And my position is the same way. I want to support voting for the moratorium. I also do not feel that moratoriums or put a moratorium vote in favor of that. I do not believe that data centers has a place in Desert Hot Springs. So I'm voting in support of the moratorium.

So first, I appreciate you all coming out. Everybody's opinion is very important, no matter which side of the aisle you sit on. It looks like everybody's on the same aisle for the most part out there today. I was born and raised here in Desert Hot Springs. I am now 55 years old. I've seen the city go up and down, and there was a small blip in the city at one time that caused that desperate Desert Hot Springs to start, and I wish people would stop using that because we are not desperate. We are a leader in the Coachella Valley. We've led in homelessness. We've led in crime being reduced. We've led in a lot of areas that we can prove over time. And we've led in development in the City of Desert Hot Springs on planning properly. There's a lot of misinformation out there. There are going to be warehouses built near the I-10 and Indian Corridor. That was planned years ago, and those are building now. Those warehouses that are there, that's misinformation being put out, that they can change to a data center like that. That's not true. Most of them have a specific plan in their logistics centers and or whatever they were going to be. Lots of truck traffic, and that was an issue pretty years ago. So let's stop that rumor right now. So that warehouse that was approved last time is a logistics center, and that's what it would be for him to go back through the process and get approved. He would have to go through CEQA. and get the city council and the planning commission to join him on that. So a lot of steps to have that happen that would be years down the line, and he's not planning to do that. Now the other specific plans out there, who knows what they would want to do in the future, but we have a buffer in that area. So it looks like a very large industrial area between Palm Drive, Interstate 10, Indian Canyon, and Dillon Road. And it is a very large area, but over 40% of that is multi-species habitat plan. It's already planned. It'll never be built on. It's a corridor for wildlife. It's going to stay there. It's not going anywhere. There was deals done for over 20 years to try to make sure that everybody was on the same page and all the species and everything was memorialized so that they could have their corridor. And so there will be some industrial that will butt up against that, but it's buffered in a proper way that was planned very, very right. City Desert Hot Springs has planned that area for logistics because it is coming and it is needed. And it doesn't butt up to residential areas. It's buffered by the multi-species habitat plan and commercial development, so it fits that area very well. Now when it comes to data centers in the future, what does that exactly mean? There's not enough information for me to want to support a moratorium today, but maybe there is once we get to more discussion here. The reason that I'm A little upset with this coming as an urgency item is I don't think the politics of the Coachella Valley, the state, or the federal government should dictate the politics of Desert Hot Springs. We've been a leader. We will continue to be a leader. Even though we've had several inquiries, there's no one building today, and if they started tomorrow, it would still take them about two years to get to full construction. So let's make sure that we don't put any panic out there. There's no building. This isn't Coachella. There isn't a project approved, and there isn't a developer waiting for his final approvals to start construction here in Desert Hot Springs. So with all that said, I did do some research. If you show up here and you serve your community, you serve your constituents as long as I have, I don't want to show up and not have some sort of research. I wouldn't have done it this way. We, again, have been a leader. I would have sent this to the Planning Commission to put together an ad hoc committee. The reason I would do that is these reasons, is that our water needs to be protected. We have two water agencies that oversee two very priceless aquifers interests. One is a hot water one and one is a cold water one. Some of the best water in the world, right? If you haven't drank our water, who came from Thermal? Stop and get a glass of water, it's great. DWA oversees the replenishment of, that's Desert Water Agency, oversees the replenishment of the aquifer, the main aquifer, and then our fault lines have our hot water aquifers. And Mission Springs Water District oversees the delivery of the cold water and the protection of that hot water. So I would have put together a planning commission ad hoc committee because I trust our planning commission. I don't think we should overrule them. I don't think we should go right to the city council and say, stop this. the state of California put a process together, which includes the planning commission on development review for a reason so that the developers had an opportunity to, to give the city that they're going to build in or the County, the opportunity to see their project and have a plan built on their project. And no one trusts government. I get it. Our planning commissioners get a whole $100 when they show up for their meetings. So people think all kinds of things about those individuals. But the five people that sit on our planning commission are very smart and dedicated to our community. And I would have trusted them to do this. Let's see. What is the tax revenue? It's not a lot. I mean, warehouses, if you build 10 of them, that would be a significant amount to our cash flow. But it's not a lot. If you figure 1% of whatever the value of that building is, out of that 1%, 80% of it, I think, goes somewhere else. So special districts, State of California, Riverside County, they all get their piece before we get ours, and we're the last one to get it. So saying that they're going to come in here and sweet-talk you and throw a bunch of money on the table, it's not going to help the situation here for me. There are some one-time fees when they do first develop that will go to roads and infrastructure. And there are usually a lot of construction jobs. So that's got to be considered, too, because our construction industry and our labor industries are important. So what does that come down to? It comes down to the proper study, the proper work, If I was to support a moratorium tonight, it has to be not a we're going straight to a ban. It has to be a study that's going to show real information that Ms. Pai, who's asked questions now and done some of her research, and the questions that I'm asking are answered. And it's going to take some time to do that. So we have, technically, if this moratorium goes through, we have up to two years to figure that out. In 2013, 12... 2012 I think it was I was a council member not the mayor of the city does our hot springs and I sat on a very split City Council and There was a whole group of individuals that started talking about this green weed that grew out of the ground and could medically heal you. I'm joking. Cannabis. So they brought it to the city of Desert Hot Springs. There was a lot of cities out there that were looking at it, but no one was really making decisions. And they thought, because I was a conservative member on the city council, there's no way he's going to vote for it. So we're going to tell him that if he doesn't vote for it, we're going to get him out of office. which was fine, but I listened to all the research, and when I made my vote, it was for yes, because I saw the benefits that it was gonna have for Deseret Hot Springs. We had a very dilapidated industrial area, a very small industrial area, way off the freeway of just a few buildings, and I thought, what a great kickstart to an industrial area. Now, at the time, there were quite a few opponents to it also who said it was going to drain our resources, our natural resources. It was going to drain our electrical grid. It was going to possibly use too much water. And those things came up. And we did the research. And we found, yeah, the power was an issue. It really was. But the water was going to be recycled. Don't think the water was going to be that big of an issue. What we found over time is within two years, the power was not an issue anymore. They would be able to, as soon as the industry exploded, there was technology that beat that. So what does data center technology look like in the future? So the reason I bring that up is Detroit has been talking about this. Very big city, not really comparable to Desert Hot Springs, but still one of many cities in the nation that are going through this exercise. And they did approve a moratorium, six to two, they have a very large city council, and they sent it to the mayor. And the council member that led the efforts, he wanted to see a stakeholder group put together of organized labor, elected officials, business representatives, utility leaders, sustainable advocates, for a very large city that's probably a pretty good ad hoc committee. I don't know if we need to go that big. But I'd really like to see the real data. I'd really like to see the real outcome of what it would do for, what resources it would drain in Desert Hot Springs. I would like to see the impacts of desert hot springs, desert hot springs, because you could have some out there, say, logistics centers, there's too many trucks on the road and we're breathing all their carbon, and then data center only produces small traffic. But then it has, as has been said today, a lot of humming and it's causing mental health issues. So again, my point to this is Detroit's taking it step by step and at least doing the study and doing the work. Should we be the leader in the Coachella Valley and do that work during our moratorium? I think so. I don't think we should just do a moratorium in the effects that it would go straight to a ban. Once we have the data, whatever that moratorium time is 45 180 days a year and we were able to do the research might come back and be the same thing we're talking about today. Sucks up too much water, takes up too much power and it's going to cost too much for our residents. And at that time, I think that's the decision that would have to be made on whether these types of projects would be warranted for the City of Desert Hot Springs. And honestly, I kind of read the tea leaves here. It looks like we're going down a moratorium path. What will happen in a year? Will those logistics centers be built and there won't be any more space for data centers? Possibly. We don't have a lot of space. Again, don't look at the whole big picture because a lot of that is already protected in the City of Desert Hot Springs. There was a question about the sphere of influence for the City of Desert Hot Springs. No, we have no power of a sphere of influence unless we actually annex that area. So if you do live in the sphere of influence or right outside city limits, it would not be a moratorium that would protect your area at all. But most of our sphere of influence doesn't have industrial buildable land, so I wouldn't worry too much on that, especially if you live out in the Dillon Corridor there.

Let's see if I got all my, I'm just a real big,

component on doing due diligence before making decisions and not making politics lead our decision making. I don't think this urgency item was necessary tonight. I think we could have led a discussion straight to our planning commission that could have had the ad hoc committee and trusted them. I don't think we should bypass them, but it sounds like maybe if we put this moratorium on, maybe the city council would give direction to send this back to them and put, and put that more ad hoc committee together and produce the information that we're looking for. That's it. That's all I got. Any other comments, questions to staff?

Are you making a motion to add that to the motion?

I'm just making a comment.

So I'm ready to make a motion. So I'd like to move that we adopt, what is it, item number three, the urgency ordinance moratorium. Come back in 45 days, and then the moratorium is, what, two years? So we'll do a two-year moratorium. At that point, I don't have a problem if Planning Commission wants to take it on. I don't really think that it's something we could require. It's an optional thing. I don't see the need for it. I know enough about it. I've done my research. I don't see a need for it. So I'm not going to put that in my motion.

I want to hear everything the council member is saying, so please restrain yourself.

So I think, though, as far as the compromise here, because I can see kind of where some of the different comments in here. So my compromise would be is that we have the two-year moratorium. If at some point during that time after we take a breath and we want to do an ad hoc committee or some sort to do a little more research, we can do that. But at the moment, I want to get the moratorium in. People take a breather. Get it off our table. We have more important things to deal with right now that we have to deal with. And I think this is an issue that we can, if we feel a need, we can do that. But I'd like to just make the motion that we do the moratorium. We come back in 45 days. And then 45 days, it's a two-year moratorium.

second that and I'll add I want to just add on to what the mayor was saying and hopefully and I know our staff listens very closely as we take this breather over two years I really do want to see and I don't know what the formalized process of that would be and miss pie brought up a lot of questions of her own we all have a lot of questions of our own and that staff really take the time to do a deep dive into this and bring back recommendations. And perhaps the recommendations are, as the mayor said, that it's not gonna work here. And I tend to believe that it probably won't, but I don't have enough of the information to make that firm of a decision right now. But we're gonna give ourselves a two-year pause to figure this out and see where it goes. And I tend to believe, I tend to concur with Council Member Voss, Mayor Pro Tem Voss, that it's doubtful to me that it will get there. But I do want to see the end result data. So I'll second the motion.

So there's a motion and a second on the table. I'm going to open up the comments, Ms. Pai. No, I just want to get it done. The only comment I'm going to make is you downplayed the fact that we don't have the power to direct the Planning Commission to do this. If we have the power to overrule the Planning Commission in the process of development, then we do have the powers to ask them to do an ad hoc committee. Any final comments? No, I agree with that. Thank you, Ms. White. All right. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously. The interim urgency ordinance goes into effect immediately.

All right. I know that you're not all here to sit here for the next three hours with us, so we're going to take a five-minute break. Well, actually, we'll come back at 22.

I almost thought about getting one of them.

I guess there was something important, more important. All right, we're gonna call the meeting back to order and we're gonna move to item four, resolution updating short-term vacation rental permit fee. Ms. Palmer.

Yes, thank you. Uh, before you tonight is a resolution updating the short-term vacation rental permit fee. Uh, in June, 2022 city council approved a short-term vacation rental permit fee of $1,241 and 81 cents based off a nexus study that considered staff time compliance programs and an external security firm to provide after hours enforcement due to user fee increases. This fee is currently at $1,314 and 88 cents. Since that time, our internal processes have changed significantly on March 30th, 2026 city council approved the purchase of open gov tax and revenue, which streamlined internal processes and reduced overall cost of the vacation rental program. We also no longer use an external security firm to provide after hours enforcement. These major changes prompted staff to conduct a new nexus study. The proposed adjusted fee of $675.65 more accurately reflects the current cost of the operation of the vacation rental program as defined in the updated fee study, which considers staff time, compliance programs, and new transient occupancy tax software. If the adjustment to the vacation rental permit fee is approved and adopted as presented, the total amount received for this fee would decrease by roughly $175,788 annually. This decrease would better align with recovering the actual cost associated with this fee. Staff recommends adoption of this resolution to update the short-term vacation rental permit fee. Thank you.

All right. We'll entertain questions for staff. Any questions? Yes, Mr. Gardner.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Assuming this is adopted, when does that fee go into effect? So people that renew in, you know, by the time we do our two-week second reading, blah, blah, blah, all of that, Like September? The people that are up in September for their renewals?

No, I believe that fee goes into effect automatically.

So this is decrease in fees. It's a resolution. I would assume that it would take effect immediately. That said, I don't know how long it would take a city to actually do that. This is not an increase. Increase takes effect 60 days.

Okay. So there's a distinction. But we still have to do a second reading on this in 30 days after we don't? No.

This is a resolution.

Okay. So it would go into effect immediately. Yes, in the internal process. Okay. That was just my question is when this triggered. So thank you.

Anyone else?

All right. We'll open the public hearing at this time. Take any testimony in favor, opposed, or neutral position. Would anybody like to speak on this item? Where did everybody go? I don't see anybody coming forth. We'll close the public hearing at this time and we'll go back to city council discussion or adoption.

I know we don't have any comments here, but I believe Gerald got them after the date or after the time. But I do know there have been a couple of positive feedback, uh, emails from, uh, from short-term vacation rental owners. And as, along with my colleague, Mr. Pitts, as the housing subcommittee, this is something that I think will help our short-term vacation rental owners survive in a struggling market. Just wanted to also clarify that this does not increase the number of short-term vacation rentals. It doesn't have any effect on the distance between short-term vacation rentals. It just aligns the fee with what the city is costing the city to do the regulatory framework, uh, for short term vacation rentals because we are not allowed to make a profit on fees. So I think this is good. This is, this is probably a historic occasion. I mean, I don't know when's the last time we lowered a fee, you know? Um, but I would, uh, I would, uh, move that this, uh, be approved and, uh, wholeheartedly recommend it to the rest of the council.

We have a motion to adopt the resolution. Do I have a second?

A second.

There's a second.

It was the, uh, Councilman Gardner? Councilman Gardner, it was the cannabis retail tax. What's that? Cannabis retail tax. Oh, that's right.

We lowered it. That was a tax, not a fee.

Well, it still is a tax.

We lowered some. We're leading. We're always leaders. All right. Please vote.

I just wanted to make a statement. Thank you very much to staff for doing what you did to lower it. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Item number five is a resolution adopting user fee increase for a CPI adjustment of 3.1%.

Mr. Buckeye. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. This is a hearing to adjust the city's user's fee for the inflation of the Consumer Price Index for Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ontario counties. The Consumer Price Index for Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario... Ontario?

Dude, I got stuck the other day with a word just like that, man.

You know, a place with the airport. It increased by 3.1% from March 2025 to March 2026. The city is increasing its user's fee by 3.1% to cover inflationary increases in cost in providing services. The adjusted user fee schedule has been sent to the Desert Valley Builders Association as well as other interested parties and the DVBA had sent a letter in support of the proposed increases. This increase will go in effect July 1st, 2026.

Thank you, Jeffrey. Any questions for Mr. Buckheim? All right. Open public hearing. Take any testimony in favor, opposed, or neutral position. Would anybody like to speak on this item? I see nobody coming forth. We'll close the public hearing at this time. Open it back up for discussion or a motion to adopt the resolution.

I'll move the item on the B.

Motion by Mr. Gardner. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Pitts. No further discussion. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right. Item six is an extension of urgency interim ordinance adopting a moratorium on the issuance of any license permit or entitlement for dollar stores as defined located in any commercial district in the city. in the city. That ends right there. All right. Ms. Wilms.

Thank you. Good evening again, Mayor, City Council. This item is a proposed six-month extension to the interim urgency ordinance that established a moratorium on new dollar stores, and I want to make that clear, new dollar stores within the city's commercial district. The original urgency ordinance was adopted on May 5th, 2026 in response to residents concerns regarding the need to have higher quality retail and service options in the city. Desert Hot Springs currently has approximately five dollar store type businesses serving a population of roughly 33,000 residents. As a result, this council determined that additional study was warranted to evaluate potential secondary impacts, including concerns related to litter, loitering, graffiti, aesthetic impacts, and the long-term economic vitality of the commercial corridors. This moratorium aligns with the city's strategic plan, which prioritizes economic development, tourism, beautification, and attracting higher quality commercial uses. approval of the extension would continue the temporary suspension on the acceptance processing and issuance of permits licenses and land use entitlements for new dollar stores in commercial districts for an additional six months this would provide staff sufficient time to conduct further research evaluate regulatory options and return to the city council with recommendations As required by state law, the extension ordinance includes findings regarding the current and immediate threat to public health, safety, and welfare, and a report written has been prepared describing the measures taken since adoption of the original urgency ordinance. Adoption of the extension requires a four-fifths vote of the City Council and would become effective immediately upon approval. That concludes the staff report. Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for staff? open the public hearing take testimony in favor opposed or neutral position would anybody like to speak on this side see nobody coming forth we'll close the public hearing the only comment I made and I didn't make it in the last moratorium conversation because I just didn't think it was relevant but I don't think any individuals will understand this we can't be seen as a city of moratoriums moving forward some of you might want to be very hypersensitive to the politics of the county, the state, or the nation. But what we have to be hypersensitive to is the development of Desert Hot Springs in the future. And what I mean by that is developers watch. If we talk about the Skyborn development, Lennar being one of the biggest home builders in the country, they watched us for years, came to the community, decided it wasn't right in the early 2000s, came back in about 2015 and started looking at the community, then invested in our community so if we're a city that continues to put moratoriums in effect on everything that we don't like what will they think about developing in desert hot springs it's rhetorical don't need to answer all right any other comments questions before we move to a motion to adopt i do i agree with you but we have five

And Mayor Fulton, boss, and staff went to Isis to try to get something different. And if we become a population of dollar stores, we're not going to get anything different, particularly if we're trying to get people to stay here. So while I do agree with you, I believe this one is important, and there is a better way for us to do this.

And just to clarify, I don't think this is a bad thing, this moratorium. I really don't. But we have four moratoriums that I can think of. Four? Three? Four moratoriums? Two? No, we had one on 62.

62, and then the one earlier today.

And then the one in the third one. didn't we have a moratorium on the downtown development to Pearson? So my point is we've had multiple moratoriums. I was going to make another point. Darn it. I'm getting old. How old did I say it was?

So just a quick comment. So, um, when we were at our commission banquet thing in Palm Springs, the commissioners on the airport commission, one of them asked and said, Hey, didn't you guys just do the moratorium thing on the dollar stores? I said, yes we did. And, He goes, well, how many residents do you have? And I said, yeah, 35, sometimes 40,000, depending on the season, that kind of thing. And there were four different people on that table that said, that was a great thing that you did because you already have too many for your population numbers. I don't know what the numbers are for how many dollar centers per thousands, but that was their perception, that we have too many and that it was a good thing. And then one of the gentlemen went into a discussion and made a comment that, you know, many of their friends from outside the area are wanting to move into the Coachella Valley and Palm Springs is a little above their price point. And so they're starting to look across the freeway and now he's got a discussion piece that he's able to talk to with them. So I understand the builder aspect of it. I haven't heard it from any of the builders that I know on a regular basis, but nonetheless, I think getting that kind of community feedback is important from other communities because it's very, very real. And that's one of the great things about us is we have people coming to our town who couldn't find property that they maybe wanted to get in Palm Springs or Rancho Mirage and elsewhere, but they say, hey, I want to come here. Instead of going down valley, they come to Desert Hot Springs because we're close to that proximity. So it's kind of a balance act. I mean, we don't want to discourage developers, but we also want to maintain

better quality of what we're looking for in retail and commercial development so remember my point so moratoriums I don't want to see a bunch of them because of my opinions I just talked about there's other ways around this our Planning Commission is very smart my Planning Commissioner that I appointed had made a decision a couple years ago not to support a dollar store in our community that was being built and i overrode his decision when it came as an appeal to the city council and now i feel terrible because his opinion was probably right because that dollar store is not taken well care of in our community my point to this is we have a process set up where the planning commission and development goes through the planning commission the planning commission is smart enough that they can make sure that we're protected as a city so that was my point anyways moving forward is there any recommendations thank you

motion passes unanimously the ordinance goes into effect immediately item seven is the landscaping lighting maintenance district number one levy and collections of assessments to fund improvements for fiscal year 2627 mr buckham yes thank you so this hearing it will be to collect levy and collect an assessment and all parcels in the city limits for the land landscape and lighting maintenance district number one the assessment will provide almost 575 000 in revenue to be used for the maintenance and repair of the city's parks and landscaped areas. However, the assessment will not be enough to cover the estimated $1.8 million in costs for the district, so the general fund will have to subsidize the district by about almost $1.3 million.

Entertaining questions to staff? Yes. Yes, go ahead.

Can't do it now. How do we remedy that? That's a...

It's rhetorical. Don't answer it. Any more questions this time? All right, we'll open the public hearing this time. We'll take any testimony in favor, opposed, or neutral position. Nobody coming forth. We'll close the public hearing at this time. And my comments are the same, is that we've got to find a... Eventually, someday, we've got to find a way to get the voters to approve... to fix this gap. It's getting bigger and larger every year.

All right.

I'll echo that, too. In looking at all of these and the several items that follow dealing with the sub-district landscape lighting and maintenance districts that some of you will have to leave on, and you look at how each one of those is funded and they were originally funded by the developer and then that's where that fee has remained and some of those actually have a lot of money to fix their stuff and some of them have nothing and requires the city to do it that is not sustainable so that is something we and i know staff knows this too we need to really start a process of figuring out what each one of those little sub-districts needs, and what each one of them's gonna take, and we're gonna have to start a process, because we just can't keep sustaining this with the general fund. It's just not gonna work.

Are any of us not supposed to vote on this?

No, no, this one's okay. No, the one's coming up. They're all the same, but they're not. This is the city-wide. All right, is there a motion? I'll move it. Is there a second? Anyone? Anyone?

Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Items 8 and 9 will ask the City Council to take both those. I will announce them and then give the meeting over to Mr. Voss after I recuse myself. Item 8 is Landscaping and Lighting Maintenance District Number 2, Levy and Collections of Assessments to Fund Improvements for the Fiscal Year 26-27. And my conflict on that is I live within a certain radius of one of those districts, so I cannot vote on this. Mr. Pitts, I think you have the same conflict. Correct. Correct, yep. And then item nine is the drainage and assessment number, district number one levy, Jeffrey, see what you did? Levy and collections of the assessments of fund improvements for fiscal year 26-27. Same conflict, Mr. Pitts? That is correct. So we ask city council that you take eight and nine. Mayor Pro Tem, it's all yours.

Very good, so item number eight, landscape lighting maintenance district number two, levying collection of assessments, 26, 27 years, staff.

Yes, so this hearing is to levy and collect an assessment on residential properties in 18 zones in the Landscape and Lighting District 2. The assessment will be used for maintenance and repair of common landscape areas within each zone. The assessments collected in each zone can only be used for the expenses in that zone. There are four zones projected to have a negative balance at the end of fiscal year 26-27, and that negative balance would be subsidized by the other zones in that district until the negative balances are eliminated.

All right, very good. Any questions, staff? Do we have an open public hearing? Do we have any public comments? Mr. City Clerk? None, seeing none, then we'll close the public hearing. Any council discussion and or motion?

I'll move the drainage. If this is the drainage, this is the land. This is LMD 2, so I'll move that.

Second. We've got a motion and a second. And we'll call for the vote. Motion passes unanimously. Perfect. All right. We will now move on to item number nine, drainage assessment district number one. levying collection of assessments to fund 2627. Staff report.

Yes, so this hearing is to levy and collect an assessment on residential properties in 16 zones for the drainage assessment district number one. The assessments will use for maintenance and improvement of drainage and street features in those zones. The assessments collected in each zones can only be used for the expenses for that zone. There are three zones in the district that are projected to have a negative balance at the end of fiscal year 26-27. Those negative balances will be subsidized by the other zones until the negative balances can be eliminated.

All right, any questions? No. Okay, no questions here, no? All right, then we'll open the public hearing. Any testimony, Mr. City Clerk? Yes, no, none? Right. Okay. We'll close the public hearing. Any council discussion and or motion to approve?

We'll move the drainage assessment district one levy.

Okay. Got a motion?

I second.

We got a second?

And we vote.

All right. Motion passes unanimously.

All right, we'll move to the administrative calendar. Resolution of intent to form an enhanced infrastructure financing district, EIFD. Ms. Garcia, or Mr. Garcia.

I'll do a quick intro. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. In an effort to look into various funding and funding options to construct much needed improvements in the downtown area and in the freeway corridor, staff applied and was awarded two projects for grant funding through the SCAGS 2.0 program grant funding. One project was the completion of a feasibility implementation plan of a tax increment financing district, or a TIF, or also known as Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, EIFD. On September of 2025, City Council awarded a contract to Cosmont Companies for the completion of this plan. Cosmont has now completed this plan and is ready to move on to the next steps. And we have Joseph Degas from Cosmont Companies that will present the details. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. Joe Diego is here from Cosmont. We've been privileged over the last 16 years or so I've been with the firm to provide different sorts of real estate, economic development, and public finance advisory services to the great city of Desert Hot Springs. A practice group that I lead within the firm is all about infrastructure. how to pay for water, sewer, roads, parks, all these sorts of things. And as Mr. Porras outlined, we've been leading this charge for the city for the evaluation of a different type of tool, so-called Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, or EIFD. can be misleading. We're talking about a tool that's called tax increment financing. Despite starting with the word tax, it's actually not a new tax. That's usually a point that we make very clear in our public meetings and hearings. I'll talk more about how it works. But very importantly, not a new tax. So the whole thesis here, Mr. Poore has covered. You've got areas that are set up for potential private sector investment, whether it's housing, whether it's industrial, different sorts, but there is a clear need for infrastructure investment to catalyze getting those shovels in the ground. This type of tool allows or would allow the city to essentially earmark a piece of future property tax revenue that would come from that investment for reinvestment into that core infrastructure to help fund those critical infrastructure pieces. A punchline here is under various scenarios, which I'll cover at a high level today, the funding capacity is up to about $190 million in present value funding capacity. And I'll talk about how those dollars are accessed or how they could be accessed over time. It's a tool that the city could implement on its own without another partner entity. It's also a tool that you could partner with another entity, such as the county of Riverside, if you so chose and if the county agreed. So we'll talk about potential partnership scenarios. The action before you tonight, it's a non-binding action. It's called a resolution of intention, but it's an important signal that the city is interested in potentially going into that next phase, into that implementation phase of work. very importantly, the SCAG grant that staff obtained. It covers both this kind of study, the look under the hood, does it make sense, under what scenarios could it make sense, but also if you do decide to move forward and implement and get the district formed, that same grant covers that work as well. So I mentioned I'd try to cover in a bit more detail how these things work. So for folks who worked with the old redevelopment agencies prior to 2012, a lot of it is the same. Not all, but a lot of it is the same. The idea is you designate some portion of the community. A map is drawn. We'll share a draft map today. And within that boundary, we're not changing anything about the way property tax revenues today flow. But of the potential future growth, as shovels get into ground, as properties turn over and value increases, what the district allows you to do is say, some piece of my future property tax paycheck within this boundary, I'm going to put it aside. It's not going to go to my general fund. It's instead going to go to a restricted fund that could only be used for infrastructure. And most of the cities and counties that do this are not taking all the growth, just some piece of the growth, maybe 25%, maybe 50%, maybe more, so that you're sort of feeding both the general fund to keep the lights on day to day, but also putting aside this money in the so-called sort of infrastructure retirement account. That potential county partnership, we often liken it in that retirement account analogy to like an employer matching an employee's retirement account analogy. I'll talk more about what we've seen in this county and other counties across the state in terms of partnership. The reality is they can say yes or they can say no. They don't have to say yes. And we've seen different trends, different levels of receptivity in counties across the state. Just a couple of the key highlights I'd like to reiterate. It's a long-term district. They're up to 45 years from the first bond issuance. These districts don't have to issue bonds. Many of them will as a way of accelerating cash flow. But the maximum time frame is 45 years. uh from that first bond issuance it can be shorter if a city so chooses a new entity is set up to govern the thing so it's different from the old redevelopment agencies where city council just adjourns and convenes as a new body it's actually separate entity the public financing authority its composition actually varies if the county is your partner then that board is actually comprised of both city council members and at least one county supervisor An interesting point in this law is you also have at least two members of the public that are appointed alongside those elected officials to serve on this body, this public financing authority. Because it's not increasing anybody's taxes, there's no vote. There's actually no vote to form this thing, no vote of landowners or residents. But what there is is a series of public meetings and hearings prescribed by the law. They've got to be set apart a certain number of days from each other. And at that last public hearing, while there's no vote, there is an opportunity for folks who own property or live within that boundary, the specific financing district boundary, they can protest. They could protest anything, the plan that gets drafted, the infrastructure financing plan. They can protest the process by which the thing was formed, really any aspect of it can be protested. And then just to be very realistic, as soon as we tell people that it's not an increase in tax, we really don't see protests in these that have been formed across the state. The types of things that can be paid for, there's a list in the EIFD law, it's like 21 bullet points, and it starts with the words, including but not limited to. So we always say it's infrastructure and affordable housing, but the law actually delineates lots of examples. Water, sewer, flood, you've got, parks, childcare facilities, libraries, affordable housing, broadband internet, wildfire prevention, various types of improvements, and then to the far bottom right, one of the more recent additions in the law were facilities used by small businesses and non-profits. That's a new addition, things like facade improvement grants potentially. Two common themes we're seeing across the state for cities and counties going down this path. Number one, it's just return on investment. We're not seeing any city or county do this unless they believe their general fund's gonna be better off for it. That you're not getting shovels in the ground that wouldn't otherwise be there or perhaps be there as quickly or as intensely than they would be otherwise. And with that investment bringing net positive So revenues net of new expenditures, net of that sort of carve out of the new property tax. So bottom line, net, net, net, we're not seeing cities and counties go down the path unless they're seeing a positive number at the end of that, at that ledger. And then aside from that, we're seeing common themes of job creation, housing production, certainly housing, affordable housing production. A big part of why SCAG is funding this work is they have a big emphasis on affordable housing. The second point, less obvious, we think, you actually score better for grants. Cities and counties that do these, you explicitly get more points on scoring, especially from state grant programs. It started with state housing and community development. They have some of the most well-funded but also most competitive grants, and so they use something called the pro-housing scoring rubric, and that rubric actually gives explicitly, I think it's three more points to a city or county that has one of these financing districts in place. So it's not only about that revenue stream, but it's about being more competitive, quite frankly, for other people's money, especially state grants. So a quick snapshot of progress across the state. We've got about 38 of these formed. Lots of these are cities going alone. You've got many counties that do these in unincorporated jurisdiction. So far, the county of Riverside has three of these formed in unincorporated county jurisdiction. And then of those 38, you've got 10 partnerships. Partnerships mostly between cities and counties. We've also seen partnerships between city and fire districts. But most of the partnerships are between cities and counties. None yet in Riverside County. I wish I could tell you that we had a partnership between a city and a county in this county. We've not seen that yet. So this areas that were studied so far within Desert Hot Springs, you've got kind of two, you got a pink and a purple, I use pink and purple, kind of a downtown focus area and a freeway oriented focus area. The first thing I should say with these districts is you don't have to only spend the dollars within the boundary. The whole process of trying to draw a boundary that makes sense is to focus on areas where the investment is sort of being targeted, your lowest hanging fruit from a development perspective. you don't want to put your whole city in because then we'd say you're over encumbering future property tax revenues that would otherwise be in your general fund just for the day-to-day to keep the lights on. So the idea is generally to have some level of focus on where investment, whether it's housing or commercial or industrial, is coming in. And as far as where you can spend the money, there just has to be some tangible benefit to the properties within the boundary. So in our work across the state, sometimes you're paying for like a water treatment plant that may be outside of the city entirely, but it treats the water for the properties within the boundary, and that sort of checks the legal box in the EIFD law. So that's the test. If we add the downtown and the freeway-oriented sites, we're at about 4,200 acres. In terms of acreage, it's just shy of 28% of the city. In terms of the existing assessed property value base within the city, it's about 37% of the city within this potential boundary. So far, through the SCAD grant, there's been certainly a lot of discussion between the consultant team, staff. There's also been four public workshops, two virtual and two in person, March 19, April 1, May 4, May 26, trying to get out to the community. Two of those are virtual. One was at the rec center. One was at the library. And so we've been keeping an ongoing list of things brought up for potential funding. At the end of the day, city council is largely the body that will determine what ends up on this list. We're merely sharing what's come up so far. Utility capacity enhancements, arts and culture, potentially Sunline bus transportation infrastructure, roads, parks and open space, affordable housing, and other infrastructure that supports housing. Those are common themes. None of tonight's action would be somehow limiting the list. Usually at this stage of the process, you're keeping the net cast as broadly as possible. The detail or the refinement typically comes later if this moves forward. when you draft that business plan, the so-called infrastructure financing plan. Again, not an item that is nailed down today, merely trying to make the point lots of scenarios were evaluated. I mentioned that of that growth above the baseline, a city can choose how much of that growth am I going to put aside in this quote unquote infrastructure retirement fund. Is it a quarter? Is it a half? Is it three quarters? Is it all of it? We're typically not suggesting all of it because you need to feed your general fund. so a through d are just different letters levels of city only participation e through hr what if we do get a partnership with the county if you want that what if they say yes we think it would be most feasible to get a percentage match typically counties do the lesser of a percentage match or a dollar match in this case we think the best you could do is a percentage match and we look at different levels e through h of what could that look like and then Moving left to right, what does it get you? How many dollars do you have to spend in those scenarios? I'll just pick one. Letter E, if the city allocated a quarter of its growth within, of property tax specifically, growth within that boundary, and the county sort of matched you on a percentage basis, what does that get you within five years? That means what trickles in over five years, and what if you went out for a bond in year five? What's the total amount of dollars you can bring in for projects by year five? About 5.4 million. Time goes by, more development essentially goes vertical, gets assessed. You can bite off a bigger chunk of those dollars. That letter E, again, 10 years down the line, you're at $17.5 million. Growth continues beyond year 10. It's a long-term district. So if we sort of add up all the revenue potential over a 50-year district lifetime, we sort of discount it back. What is that worth today adjusting for inflation in that letter E row? That's at $58.8 million in present value terms. Column to the far right kind of ignores inflation. We don't like that column because it creates unrealistic expectations. So if you ignore the impacts of inflation, what's the total nominal dollar amount? That's that $150 million number. We don't like to focus on that number at Cosmont because it ignores inflation. Just a couple more slides. So a big reason for doing this, there's got to be something in it for, obviously, the community. So the law actually requires you to quantify why do it. What's the return? A number of different ways. So housing is important. Jobs are important. We also quantify the wages associated with those jobs. But to be honest, we spend probably most of the time just dollars and cents. Is it a good use of public money? for the city, for the county as a potential partner. So we quantify what can be brought in in terms of net new revenues. You net out expenditures, because development comes with expenditures as well as revenues. So net those out. That's that positive we see over the long term, $124 million in this for the city. For the county, they would partner. They see less of the revenues within the city, so their number is smaller. That's that $37 million. And that's putting aside non-general fund revenues that would come to the county, such as through the transportation and homelessness sales taxes. That's that $23 million number. All draft analysis, no deal terms are certainly being set. So far, we've just done analysis. Nothing set in stone at all. Same point, I won't belabor it, the idea is don't do this if you're not better off. So if you just stay out of it, don't do the district and stuff's gonna happen on its own, just leave it alone. But if you can catalyze sort of a higher or faster level of development and with it a better picture for the general fund, only in that scenario are we seeing cities and counties go down the path. So if the green's not looking better than the blue, why bother? Just to put it bluntly. So there is a roadmap. We're kind of still at the beginning. We're in really letter C. Letter A and B is just studying the thing, crunching numbers, doing some outreach, which has been funded through SCAG. Here we are in letter C, where the first action coming to you as a city council is this non-binding resolution of intention to at least say, it's looking good so far. Let's continue. Perhaps let's approach the county now as a potential partner. Beyond that, if it moved forward at all, are these letters D through I, all prescribed in the law. The theme is you're drafting a plan. You have to say, what are you going to do with the money? How much money? What's the timeline? And you're having to vet that plan quite publicly over a long series of public meetings and hearings, everything, again, through letters D through I. They've got spacing between them at least 30 days. There's mailing notices. There are newspaper notices culminating in that letter I. Final public hearing. where, again, residents and property owners within that boundary can protest if they don't like any piece of it. The SCAD grant would cover all of that if you did move forward with it. We think it's feasible if you did move forward December of this, you know, end of this calendar year would be possible. The question mark there, honestly, is if you go for the county, how long do you spend with them in the kind of negotiations and figuring out whether they're in or they're out? That's where we end up spending a lot of time in our work across the state. especially for a county joining a city for the first time in that county. So that's it. There's appendices available we can get to if there are questions on assumptions and things like that for tonight. It's the first time we're briefing you as a council. Appreciate the opportunity to do that. We'd love to get your questions, any initial thoughts. The action before you is this action, non-binding resolution of intention. If you are so inclined as a council to make appointments to the body, that's certainly an action that you can take today. And then we think, subject to your direction, a good next step would be at least talking to the county. at least make the ask if you're comfortable with that. They can say yes or they can say no, but often we find it's at least worth asking. That will be up to you. Thank you for bearing with me. I'm happy to answer your questions.

Thank you. We're going to open up the public comments. I don't have anybody in the audience, so we'll close the public comments. What we're looking for is an adoption of this resolution of the EIFD and the appointment of three council members, technically four because we need an alternate, I cannot participate so I understand that miss I can't participate because of work I just have too much on my plate right now miss pie would you be the alternate I understand the other three members do want to be pointed would you be the alternate to them if the other three council members are appointed to this thank you all right questions comments

This is really an exciting opportunity for the city, I think, for our long term growth and our long term success. It's an innovative process. I'm really quite surprised that we haven't seen any other Cities in Riverside County go down this path. So once again, we'll be trailblazers in this. But the benefits that will come to this city if we do this right are going to outlive all of us. I mean, if this stretch is out 50 years, none of us are going to be here in 50 years. But this program will live on and will, I think, definitely prove a lot of benefits to the city. I was really intrigued with the joint With the county process on this, it would be nice if the county jumped in on that. Whether they will or not, I don't know. But because we are so completely surrounded by county land, I think it would behoove the county to do that, including the donut hole, which we all know needs some infrastructure in there, and the county is ignoring it. and all of those areas where we have split roads with the county and the city. I think this is a great way to get the funding that we need without impacting our general fund, and so I really highly recommend it. I think it's a great project.

And there's people who live to 105. I could be around here another 50 years.

I mean, these are a lot of young people here. Well, you know, I mean, because of our wonderful mineral spring water, thanks to Mission Springs Water District, I'm expecting to last into perpetuity until the good Lord says it's time. Who knows when that will be. I'm tickled to death to see this because I worked in redevelopment and economic development and city stuff for years. And to see this and to be able to be a part of this and do this, I'm like a little kid right now because I'm all excited about it. And then when I saw the map of the location, specifically the lower half, of course downtown, but even more in the lower half and things that we've talked about, you know, for what our residents have looked for, there's so many different reasons. I'm all for it. This is awesome.

Any other comments?

All right, well, I'll move then that we adopt the resolution for the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District. What's that?

You're going to name the council members as well?

Do we need to name them in that?

Three council members would be Mr. Voss, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Pitts, and the alternate would be Ms. Pye. Is that okay to put that in your motion? All right. Please move, second. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

Item number 11 is the budget adjustments for 26-27, fiscal year salary schedule 26-27, and GAN appropriations limited for 26-27. Mr. Buckeye.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Here we are, the fiscal year 26-27 budget adjustments. The lines of strategic goal number 11 for financial operations. For the fiscal year 26-27 budgets, these are updating the cost of day-to-day operations for the city for the coming year, forecast revenue and expenses for the next year that are based on updated information. It includes changes in delivery services costs and local revenue. That's for the general and emergency repairs, maintenance, and capital improvements. It also accounts for changes in capital improvement projects and account for events that were not anticipated at the time of the development of the two-year budget. For the general fund, for revenues, we are actually expecting a $1.5 million increase in revenues. Most of that is in sales tax, and that's the Measure P transaction and use tax. We expect it to come in at a million dollars more than we anticipated for the budget. We have a small decrease in the cannabis retail tax and another increase in triple flip. We have an increase in development fees for $118,000. It's fire inspection fees, general plan maintenance update, and like the technology surcharge. We expect interest earnings to about $200,000 as we have additional revenues. We've been moving more money into investment, and therefore increasing our investment revenue. And then we have some smaller increases in revenues. We have about a $1.5 million increase in expenditures for the general fund, and here we can see the changes from the departments. We have some increases and some decreases. The general fund fund balance are estimated at the end of June 30th, 2025. Our fund balance is $9.1 million, with about $4.3 million in the marijuana reserve. At the end of this fiscal year, we expect to have $9.2 million in the general fund fund balance, with $5.2 million in the marijuana reserve. At the end of 26-27, we are requesting to use about $300,000 of the reserve for future capital purchases to purchase a new financial ERP system. And so we are expecting to have about an $8.9 million fund balance for the general fund with $5.6 million estimated to be in the reserve. For our restricted funds, not a lot of changes. We have the new public abandoned vehicle abatement fund for $35,000. Public safety fund has a $692,000 increase in revenues, only a $617,000 increase in expenditures. We have a new fund called the Hawley Trust. That is from a trust that was donated to animal control, so we have like $671,000 that we can use for animal control items, and some smaller items for cabots, the county service area, and the housing authority. The citywide lighting and landscaping maintenance district, we're actually having some decrease in some of the expenditures, but it's still requiring an over $1 million subsidy from the general fund. So any questions, we are also including the updated salary schedule which includes the MOU COLAs as well as the 26-27 GAN limitation.

Any questions for staff? Any public comments?

Is there a motion?

There's a motion, is there a second? You okay over there? Yeah. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

We have no other items on the agenda. No items pulled from the consent calendar. No other public comments. Everybody left us. The City Council will meet on July 7th for the last meeting before the break. We are adjourned.