City Council Meeting - Regular Meeting

I would like to call to order the meeting for Fontana City Council. We'll start with our roll call. I'll start with mayor pro tem Garcia.

Present.

Council member Philip Cochran.

Present.

Council member Sandoval.

Present.

And council member John Roberts?

Present.

Can you all join us as we stand for our invocation given by John Roberts? Will be led by our pledge by council member Catheryn.

Let's bow our heads. Heavenly father, we, thank you for the many blessings you provide in our community. Father, we ask for your guidance and wisdom as we deliberate the matters before us today. Father, be with those public safety and military service. Keep them safe. We ask this in

your name. Amen. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. 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.

You may all be seated. That brings us to

our closing report close. Yeah. Sorry, madam mayor. I saw it wasn't in the in the in the paper. I apologize. I was trying to I was trying

to jump again because I forgot something.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member Roberts for our invocation, and thank you council member Cawthon for the pledge. Now city attorney, you can talk about closed session.

Thank you, mayor. This afternoon, the council met to consider the items that are listed under closed session agenda. They considered each of those items and received, briefings from staff and provided direction, but there is no reportable action. Thank you, madam mayor.

No problem. Thank you. At this time, we'll go to public comment. Good afternoon and thank you again for attending the meeting of the city council of Fontana. The brown act provides that members of the public may offer comment on any item or interest within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council.

And on any action item including items on the consent calendar. What this means is that the council welcomes and encourages your input on issues of city business. And on action items on today's agenda. Issues of city business do not include personal attacks on city officials or city staff. While we acknowledge your right to comment on our actions or activities with respect to city issues and business, we will not tolerate purely personal comments not having to do with official performance of city duties.

Please do not use profanity, name calling, or any other behavior that would disrupt the proceedings this afternoon. Speech or other activities such as yelling from the audience, that disrupts the early business of the council, and it will not be allowed. After a warning, continued behavior that disrupts the meeting may result in you being asked to leave the meeting. That brings us to public communications. City clerk, Key, how many cards do you have to speak?

Mayor, we just have one speaker, Michael Hefman from Bertec.

Please come forward, Michael.

Good afternoon, madam mayor, mayor pro tem, members of the city council. Michael Huffman from BERTEC. Here just to take a couple minutes of your time to talk about BERTEC's latest education and outreach activity packet that you should have in front of you. It's a BERTEC school activity packet all about waste and recycling. As many of you know, senate bill thirteen eighty three requires that 75% of all organic waste is diverted away from the landfill, and education is a key component to achieving that goal.

So with that in mind, Vertex has developed this school activity packet specifically designed for grades t k through second. And so if you take a look and open the packet, what you'll see on the inside cover is an actual lesson plan to help guide teachers through the information that's available. On the inner flap of the inside packet is a QR code that allows parents and teachers to go to Vertex Kids Corner where activity sheets and posters can be downloaded, and they could seek more information. As part of the education packet, we have our illustrated storybook, Barrels of Fun. In Barrels of Fun, in the storybook, our three main characters, the black barrel for trash, the blue barrel for recycling, and the green barrel for organic waste, talk about what goes into each container, what happens to the containers once they're picked up by the Burtech trucks.

In the case of the blue and the green barrels, once they're processed, what new materials they become when they're recycled. There's also activity sheets that teachers and parents can use with the kids that include coloring pages, word searches, other thought provoking exercises like seek and matching. And then we have some posters included as well. Posters that could be used in the classrooms or in the hallways, in high traffic areas that just remind students and teachers of what goes where in each of the black, the blue, and the green container. And so we've partnered with Fontana Unified, the superintendent's office in the district, and we BirdTech has provided at no additional charge one packet to each classroom in grades t k through second throughout the entire district in Fontana.

We've partnered with them, and we've shared approximately 300 packets with the school district. And we'd just like to take a moment today to share with you what we've been doing and some of the education and outreach that we're doing in the community. So thank you for your time.

And Thank you. Any more cards to speak?

That concludes our speakers, mayor.

Okay. That brings us to the consent calendar items. And to my knowledge, there were none pulled.

May yeah. May I like to pull item q and item r?

Item q and item r. What is it you'd like? You just like to have a report on them or a question? Report q and r. Okay.

So item q I'll I'll provide the the reports real quick. Item q, for members of the public, this is authorizing operating funding for the Stage Red Enterprise Fund. So as you're aware, we're revitalizing the downtown area. As part of that revitalizing is to bring entertainment to the downtown area. So we move forward with Stage Red, which is currently operating. Stage Red has kind of a a a stand alone budget,

and

the general fund is is providing a loan to that budget so it could continue the operating. And for this year, the request before the council is an infusion of $500,000, which again will be paid back to the general fund once stage red continues to operate and we get more folks attending that venue. So that's item q. Do you want to take separate actions out or do you want me to give you also the staff report for item r?

No. So so we're not really making a return on stage red that we had to loan another half 1,000,000?

No. Currently, it's it's operating in a in a in a deficit. But I would also, in my experience, typically art and entertainment venues, typically, they're heavily subsidized by the agencies. So if you look at the La Mirada Theater or you look at Lewis Operative theater in Ranch Cucamonga, the the the agency typically subsidized those venues. But that's correct.

Okay. I I just you know, I I see this as, our second loan with loaning them. And, you know, other agencies I work for did the same thing and pretty much went bankrupt or building deteriorated so that someone else can buy us. Yeah.

Mean,

other hear Yep. Okay. Yeah. So, like, other agencies that belong to they've done the same things, and they keep on putting money, keep on putting money, and then they go bankrupt, so they have to sell the building because they put so much money in to get the money back. I just wanna make sure that we don't continue putting x amount of money and, basically, need to stop the bleeding before it gets bad. So I just worry about loaning another half 1,000,000 to something that I haven't seen. I'd like to see a return in the future, but, you know, this is another half 1,000,000.

Yeah. The objective is to break even in any additional funding that we get above and beyond the operating cost that'd be used to continue to be infused into stage red. But that's a policy decision from the council. But I just historically, if you look at other agencies, it is a subsidy. It's kind of like a loss leader for the downtown area. But your point is taken, and and the purpose of this is just to continue to track the accounting on this.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I just seen it happen.

So but yeah.

You know, early on when we decided to partner for Stage Red, we knew that we would have losses because it's a first startup. But I think what I'm seeing over with the management of that particular facility, that venue, will be okay. It is really starting to pick up, and they have so many different shows, and the community is really appreciating having things close to home. Are there any more comments or questions?

I think mentioned last time that this is like a change order or basically it is asking for another loan. I'm just not really into a lot of change orders, especially this amount of money. I mean, yeah, hopefully, there won't be a next time. I hope we can stop the bleeding now and make sure that we're gonna make some type subsidy or money back to to make sure the city is staying balanced with this menu. Or if not, we need to do so.

My my opinion is need something different. But, yeah, like I said, I don't know if my rest of my colleagues have through it, but I I've been through the city where they bought a facility, and it went downhill, and it didn't go anywhere. So I just wanna make sure we're not gonna go to the same way that other cities have. That's all.

And and just to be clear, this is not this is for operating expenses. It's not for additional capital.

Madam Mayor, if I may? So I agree with my colleague as far as monitoring the funds and making sure it's all appropriately funded and as well as spent to every dollar that the city is allocating towards this. But at the same time, while I agree it's continuing to grow, I also look to this as an investment into our downtown. If the city's not taking the step forward first in showing businesses that we're putting more money where our mouth is and actually bringing entertainment and actually showing kids that we are investing in their future as far as options for them to have music calls or places that they wanna aspire to when they grow up to play. I mean, could you imagine if Sammy or if Travis had some place that they wanted to actually have a home in their own city, where we would be at today on the city of Fontana side of things.

So having people that come from our city, that they can have their own place, and that a child that's growing up that wants to play drums or guitar can say, I wanna come back and I wanna play at stage red. I mean, $500,000, yes, it's not a small chunk of money. I mean, that's more than I paid for my first house here in the city of Fontana. But at the same time, what are we investing into the lives of our youth at this point? And that's how I'm looking at it. And I'm hoping that one day it's going to get returned back to the city, but at this time, I think it's a worthwhile worthwhile investment to continue pursuing this, trying to get our arts and culture back into our community that we so desperately need. Any more comments?

And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying that I'd like to see a return some way or the other, maybe not this time, but, you know, this is a half $1,000,000. There's other things that I mean, we could spend it on. I mean but if this is president wants to see a result. Right now, they don't see a result.

They see more money being poured into this menu. I mean so if it's, you know, I don't wanna be not here in the next five years or two years or three years, and this is still going on that we're still loaning money to to the stage red, and it's only one thing in the whole city. There's other things in the city city that money can be spent on. That's just wanna make sure that this is hopefully, this will last, and there's nothing future. But I just wanna make sure that the residents that talk to me know that the money is being accountable and why we keep on pouring money back into something, especially a half $1,000,000.

You know, that's wanna make sure it's it's going to the right place and it's being productive. That's all.

Okay. The next item?

Yes. The next item that was pulled was item r. Item r deals with the agencies in which the council members are assigned to, such as Omnitrans, SCAG. Some of them are by the bylaws of those other agencies, those regional agencies, delegate specifically that the mayors serve in that capacity. Also, and we look at this annually. For the last couple years, we haven't made any changes to those assignments. And so, therefore, what you have here is to retain the status quo as far as the assignments that the current council members have with our regional bodies, and that also includes the mayor pro tem assignment.

Okay. So this who who put this on the agenda? Staff?

We put this on the agenda agenda every year. Correct.

Okay. So my issue is that you in the past, we've in the past, we've been able to nominate people to different positions. And this time, it's just on the consent calendar, which if no one understands the consent calendar, just something that's voted in the past and people don't know what it's about. So I've been here thirteen years now, and I've never seen on this item that we already appointed the mister Garcia as the mayor pro tem without even a vote. He's on the agenda to be considered for mayor pro tem.

Everybody else is the same. Other people don't have an opportunity to ask if they could be nominated to the other agencies. So I just wanna know why was it put on the consent cal because it's a consent calendar instead of like it usually does at the end, and people get to nominate and vote for the positions.

It was it was placed on the content calendar because it we haven't seen change for the last two years. And certainly, if the council wants to discuss it, you can pull that off and make those nominations, and you can approve it with those conditions if if that's the desire council. But we haven't seen changes for the last two years. I

like to see it pulled off in nominations because there's some of them that I like to be nominated to, but that's what I like.

Are there any other questions or concerns or comments? No. Okay. Thank you. At this time, I would need a motion to approve the consent calendar.

Move approval.

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. Please cast your vote.

And and for the record, I won't be supporting q, r, and also e.

You have the option

of e e e as in Edward. Okay.

When you it it was e. City clerk, please note that. Thanks. Consent calendar, we are voting on the but it's showing only motion in progress for one.

We have two votes, mayor. We just need yourself, mayor Pro Tem, and council member Sandoval.

Okay. I didn't mines did not oh, you

know what?

Here it is. I'm sorry. I'm looking at the big screen, and you were too about the motion. Yeah. Okay. Did you get that now? Yes. Now

Motion passes with council member Sandoval voting no on items e, q, and r.

Okay. Thank you. Motion approved. Okay. That brings us to our city manager's communications.

Yes. Thank you, mayor. First of all, I wanna thank all the staff. Many of them are in the audience. We've obviously transitioned from our former council chambers to this location, and we did it in record speed. I appreciate people's patience as we kinda work through the the technology here. But I think staff did a phenomenal job of setting this all up, even building the DEAS. And so I give kudos to the public work staff and all of our IT staff, Kefon. Actually, it it's FXN. That you've done a phenomenal job, and I appreciate everybody's efforts to to do that.

Also wanna make sure everybody's aware that we will not be meeting on January 27. Our next council meeting will be held February 10. And finally, as I I recognize we're transitioning our council chambers to this location. Those that need to do any financial transactions or visit with the city clerk's office, we've established a temporary city hall in in place of the old Community Services Building, and that's located at 16860 Valencia Avenue. It's on the Northeast Corner Of Valencia And Nuevo.

And we've seen a lot of activity down in that location, and you'll see a lot of staff walking between our campuses. But kudos to staff for this whole transition. You've done a phenomenal job, and I appreciate that. That concludes my reports. Thanks, mayor.

I really appreciate everyone's patience today. This is our first meeting in this facility, so we have a few little hiccups. But before I go to my colleagues for their comments, I wanted to announce that we will be adjourning our meetings in memory of Victor F. Reeves, Senior, a longtime Fontana resident, and Rowena Renee Ramos, who is the mother of assemblywoman assembly member James Ramos. So, those, we will be standing in silence today in their memory. With that said, that brings me to our city clerk, Jermaine Key.

Had some difficulty turning on the mic. Just wishing everybody, hoping everyone had great holidays and happy new year to everybody and beyond. Oh and a happy belated birthday to my granddaughter who was 11 years old going on 40. So, to happy twelfth birthday to London Bratton.

With that said, we have two birthdays up here today. We have both council member Sandoval and council member Cotton's birthday. After our city treasurer's comments, we will be all singing happy birthday. So tune it up, John.

Thank you. I just wanna wish everyone a happy new year.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. We wanna sing happy birthday to these two gentlemen. So, John, you're the song leader.

Okay. Okay. All you members of the audience out there, you're invited to participate as well.

Look at Suzanne. She can't wait.

Alright. Here we go, mayor. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Jesse and Philip. Happy birthday to you.

Let's give them a big hand, everybody. What's the chances of having two council people with the same birthday? That's pretty cool. Okay. We will start with one of the birthday people. We'll start with council member Sandoval.

Thank you. Happy birthday to my bookend over there. But also, I'd like to thank all the staff, all the public safety for keeping the city under control while we were all on holidays. The community appreciates that. Public works, community service, police department, fire, you all did a great job out there making sure everybody had what they need. I imagine you guys got all kinds of phone calls here and there, but, you know, thank you for all that. And I wanna wish you a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. God bless you all. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Roberts.

Wish you all a Happy New Year.

Okay. We're gonna start with mayor Brotem Garcia.

Thank you, mayor. So I was here several years ago when we had I was on the planning commission at the time when council and the planning commission held our meetings in this Steelworkers' Auditorium. And I'll tell you the staff this time did a phenomenal job of putting things together, the cameras, the the dice up here, and everything. So, yes, just what Matt said, I I wanna thank all the staff for for doing a great job in putting this together and making us comfortable here and making public comfortable in this forum. So thank you for that.

And other than that, I hope everyone has a has had a happy New Year and everyone has a great year this year. So thank you.

Thank you. At this time, council member Catherine.

Thank you, madam mayor. Happy birthday to my other bookend on that side of things. Both of us were born on January 24, same year if you believe it, that side of things. But happy new year to everyone. We have I always count on you for laughing every single time. Every time. I appreciate you guys and all of staff. It's been quite an endeavor getting all of City and Fontana employees out of City Hall and to our new temporary locations for the next couple years while we are doing renovations to make Fontana a little bit better place for you guys to do business as one location for everything, you're not driving around the entire city, as well as expanding the opportunities and the services that we provide you here to make sure that Fontana is a great place for you to call home and will be for many years to come. So thank you to staff for all of the hard work that they've done these last couple weeks in the background. It doesn't go unnoticed.

We see it every single day that we're here and we're working, and we appreciate it very much. That's all I have. Thank you, madam mayor.

Thank you. I have to echo my colleagues on the great work that our staff did to put this all together. And our new city hall, I was over there the other day visiting Christina and her group, as well as the ladies that are and gentlemen that are at the finance department when you come in for your business license. People were pretty happy. They felt like they were getting their service, and that's what they cared about.

And so, special thanks to that. And then, thanks to all of our staff that had to be relocated. You guys have been smiling at me since we came back so far, so I think everything's going okay. I'm sure you'll let me know when you've had enough. But right now, we're having some moving issues, but they're not bad issues. So I just want to thank you for your cooperation. We had a really special holiday this year. We had an opportunity to really bless others in our community that really needed help. I just want to recognize a couple of programs that happened. I really want to thank Edgar and Arroya Herrera.

They're the owners of Sonora Smog, check, and auto registration. They stepped up, and we had almost at least 200 some cars or more during the course of the day bringing toys. And we collected so many toys, we were able to make sure every child in Boys and Girls Club was blessed. We even had extra toys left over to help other organizations. So, I just want to thank Fontana for coming up and showing out that day and really bringing toys.

And, boy, we had a great car show. It brought back memories. And when we go to the parks over in Southgate and those places, everybody's car was amazing. Then I wanna also recognize our great city of Fontana housing team. Thank you all so much, our staff members. You put together a great Christmas blessing to the people at The Path. For those of you that may not know, The Path is our opportunity to help our homeless population, and we have families there as well as single individuals, and they got a Christmas that they will not forget. Everyone had presents. There was great food. Special thanks to Schapeli restaurant.

They provided every meal free. And what was really special about them, the owner brought all his kids so that they know how to give to others. So it was really special. But there were so many other people a part of that path. I just have to name them. First, I wanna start with our dynamic housing department manager, And I want you guys to give her an applause. Valerie Gonzalez. I know she was happy that I got the memo right this year. Last year, I grabbed that little email she sent out and sent it to the world. And she didn't choke me, but I did get that look because it was just for the staff members to participate, and we had bags coming in from everywhere.

Sorry about that. This year, I behaved. Then there was also our great dynamic Fontana host team. They were there, and they helped. We have KCP management and the Patel family. These are people that just didn't show up and help but donated to make sure this Christmas was special. We had the Semba Center, MDG Consultants, Final Touch Construction, Pursuit three sixty Strategies, Chappelle Mexican Grill, and our great county supervisor, Jesse Armadares. All these people came together with our staff members to donate. So, just want to thank them. So, let's give everybody a big hand, everyone.

Now,

we have an upcoming date that we want everyone to know about, and that is the point in time count. And what is that? That's when we count all of our homeless population. And this is so important. We wanna make sure we touch everybody in this community that is homeless, that is on the streets or hiding under places. Wherever they are, we wanna get to them and count them so that we can make sure this city gets the funding and also the resources for what we need to do to eliminate homeless in our community. Last year, I understand we had only about 60 volunteers. We're well over a 100. And we need more. We want you to participate.

It is on January 22. Now, it's going to start at 5AM, and it will be concluded by 10AM. And we're going to be in small teams. You'll be safe. Our officers and the host team, they do a phenomenal job making sure where you're going, that it's safe, that you're okay. But you have to take a mandatory course. And you can take it in person, or you can take it online. Just go on our website, fontanaca.govhomelessness. And also, we have so much advertising on our social media explaining how you can sign up. You have to sign up through Eventbrite.

And let me tell you, it's worth it. You know, it's one thing to say I wanna help, I wanna volunteer, I wanna be a part. But when you're out there that morning and you see the condition, it just breaks your heart. But it also drives you to understand why this is so important. And I'm not sure if there's an age. I think you have to at least be over eight years old. Someone asked me that. But we can find that out. And then if you have any questions, you can always email me. But I want us to have 150 people out through this community, counting everyone. And I will be out there with too. So please join us. I'm not going to say you're going to have fun. Let me just say you're going to be enlightened. Those are my comments.

And as I stated earlier, we were going to adjourn our meeting in honor of Victor Reeves senior, longtime Fontana resident. And you can see his picture above right here. Can we leave that up? I think I see some family out there while they're taking their pictures. And then we have Rowena Mina Ramos, and she is the mother of assembly member James Ramos.

And let me tell you, big, big heart. I always look forward to seeing her at time and change with Kim Carter. She never miss that program to help. So if we could all stand for a moment of silence. I adjourn this meeting to our next regular city council meeting on Tuesday, 02/10/2026 at 2PM here in our Steelworkers' Auditorium. Council meeting is adjourned.