Parks, Community and Human Services Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Parks Community and Human Services Commission at 07:04. We'll now go ahead and do the roll call. Secretary Alba? Present. Commissioner Faye Glass? Present. Commissioner Gilbert Roldan? Present. Commissioner Anna Ordonez? Present. And Chair Vailles, present. Please note that all Parks Community and Human Services Commission members are present at today's meeting. We invite everyone to please stand for the invocation and pledge of allegiance. The invocation will be provided by commissioner Faye Glass and the pledge of allegiance by secretary Benjamin Alba.

Dear gracious father, as we come before you today, we just say thank you. Continue to bless our residents, our city staff, and our first responders. This, ask in your mighty name, father god. Amen.

If everybody can join me in the pledge of allegiance by placing your right hand over your heart, I'm ready to 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.

Thank you, commissioner Glass and secretary Alba. And this will bring us to special presentations. We'll introduce community and services director Daniel Schneider.

Thank you, chair of eyes. At this time, it's my pleasure to ask mister commissioner Benjamin Albuuk to come out front so we can do the swearing ceremony with our city clerk Jermaine Key.

You place your left hand on the Bible, raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I Albo.

Do solemnly swear

Do solemnly swear

that I will support and defend

I will support and defend

the constitution of The United States

constitution of The United States

and the constitution of the state of California

and the constitution of the state of California

against all enemies, foreign and domestic

against all enemies, foreign and domestic

that I will bear true faith and allegiance

I will bear true faith and allegiance

to the constitution of The United

constitution of The United States

and the constitution of the state of California

and the constitution of the state of California

that I take this obligation freely

I take this obligation freely

without any mental reservation

without any mental reservation

or purpose of evasion

purpose of evasion and

that I will well and faithfully

and that I will well and faithfully

discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter

discharge the duties about upon which I'm about to enter

So help me, god.

So help me, God.

Congratulations.

And with that, we welcome back commissioner Benjamin Alba. Director Schneider?

Yes. Thank you. Once again, at this time, I'm gonna ask coordinator Vanessa Duran to come up. And what she is going to do is she is going to take care of item b and item c, which is to recognize the outgoing senior advisory board members in addition to introducing our new board members. No. You're totally good.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. So as mentioned, my name is Vanessa, and I'm a coordinator at the Fontana Community Senior Center. I'm here today because there are a few individuals that I want to recognize, and present to everyone. These individuals were actually voted in by our center members. They serve on the Fontana Community Senior Center Advisory Board. You are likely to see them at city events, like our Easter extravaganza. They will be at our summer concerts, or they will be hosting their own socials and events at the senior center. They make sure to keep us very busy. So, I would like to introduce everyone starting with our advisory board chair, Kathy Potts.

We have our vice chair, Fermina Hernandez, secretary treasurer Joy Keister, and members at large, Betty Sandoval and Vernon Hernandez. We have two other individuals in our on our board who couldn't make it today. That'll be Melva Basher and Carol Smith. So if you guys see them around, just say hi. At this time, I also wanted to recognize the support of mister Dale Evans, was part of our our board for the last year. He wasn't able to make it today, but we have a plaque for him that we are more than happy to give to him when next time we see him. Thank you.

If you don't mind, can we ask the commission to come up front, and take a photo with the our exceptional board? And then if we can ask, yes. If we could ask supervisor Doug to come up as well so we can get a little team photo here, that'd be great. Thank you to all of you for all your volunteer time. We really appreciate it.

Thank you all so much. Commissioner Valles, at this time, I would like to introduce our community services special events supervisor, Bianca Morales, and she will be providing you an update on all of our special events.

Good evening, commissioners. This evening, I'm here to let you know about all of the excitement that we have going on this summer that will kick off in about two weeks, and hopefully, you will be able to join us. So we start off on June 7 with our seventieth annual Fontana Days run. This event just sold out this past week, so I hope you all secured your spaces. The race will start at 7AM all the way up in Lytle Creek and work its way down Sierra where we will close off Seville Avenue for a huge finish line fitness expo.

And then our summer concert series start the following Thursday. So June 12, they will run for eight consecutive weeks every Thursday with the exception of July 3 at Miller Park Amphitheater from seven to nine. We have a great lineup of entertainment this year, the Dream Boats, Sangria, the Convertibles, Corazon de Mana, those guys' bands, the Romantics, and Dance Dance Evolution, and we will end with Dreaming of You, which is a Selena tribute. So hope you'll be able to join us out there and dance the night away. We also have our family fun nights.

We have two this year, one in June, June 14, and the other July 12. June 14 will be at Sycamore Hills Park down south, and then July 12 will be at Oak Grove Park all the way up north. We have live entertainment out there, carnival games for the kids. We have food vendors, bouncers, craft booths, lots of fun. And then we end each night with a movie.

And our fourth of July celebration is slated for Saturday, June 28, Summit High School from six to 09:30PM. This is a free event to attend. It's open to all ages. This year, we will have over 15 different food vendors. We have a great entertainment lined up for you. We have rides for the kids and other free attractions. And then our Spring Street night market will take place on July 18 from six to 10PM on Spring Street all the way from Sierra Avenue to Juniper. This event, same thing. We have over 40 vendors that come out to this one. We close the entire street down.

We have inflatables for the kids all the way from food to artisan vendors. We have a beer and wine area, live entertainment, graffiti artists. This is a great event to come out and join. And that is our summer in a nutshell. Happy to answer any questions.

Are there any questions of my colleagues? Great job, Ms. Morales.

Thank you.

And with that, we'll turn the time over to director Schneider.

Thank you, chair Valles. I'm gonna go ahead and introduce Public Works manager, Dan West, and he's going to present his presentation to you. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you, Chair Vaez. Good evening to the commission. My name is Dan West, public works manager in the public works department. I am here tonight to share some highlights from our open space and recreation portion of our CIP program here in the city. I'm going to jump right into it here. Wrong button. I'm sorry. I'm going to start off with some of what we call our carryover projects. These are projects that are currently in our approved CIP budget document.

And they are priority one projects, which means they're fully funded and they're in progress. So a few of those, I'm going kick off with some dog parks. We are actively working on a dog park, actually two dog parks in Southridge. One is titled Dog Park East, which is what you see on your screen here, and then also Dog Park West. Both these dog parks are similar in size and the amenities that are going to be put in.

They're both about 9,500 square feet. The East Dog Park is going to be located off Citrus Avenue in the Edison Easement, just South of Haroopa Avenue there on the East Side Of Citrus. The West Dog Park is going to be located off of Live Oak Avenue, again, in the Edison Easement and just South of Haroopa Avenue. We are currently wrapping up some details with Edison on the use agreement for the easement area there. We have a contract issued and a contractor ready to go to start grading for both those dog parks.

That should be happening here pretty soon. Once that's done, then we will move back in and start with all the above ground improvements, the fencing, the benches, the trees, all that good stuff. And we anticipate hopefully having or we will have these dog parks open by the end of the year, December 2025. The approximate year to date cost on both parks right now is just under $40,000 and the total project cost for each dog park is $700,000 On to the next. I keep wanting to turn off my mic.

Sorry. The next one is our third dog park project. That is at Veterans Park. We are getting ready to put another dog park in there for the community to use. This one's currently on hold only for the reason that if you've been by the park right now, Southern California Gas is doing some pretty significant improvements there on Merrill Avenue, which is just adjacent to where the dog park is gonna go.

So we have to wait for them to finish up those improvements before we can go in there and start making ours. I'm anticipating that SoCal Gas is going to be done in the next month or two, then we should get started there pretty quick also. I don't know if we'll get this one done by the end of the calendar year, but we're sure going to try. And the estimated project cost on this one is $100,000 much cheaper just because there's not as much land grading and everything involved. We're going to use the existing lay of the land there and just do the above ground improvements.

So that's why this one is significantly less in cost. On to the next project. This one's currently in progress. This is part of our San Sabine Trail master plan. The city has a master plan to extend the trail along the San Bernardino County flood control channel that runs from the north end of town to the South end of town.

We're working on the first phase currently right now, which, begins at the PE Trail on the north end of the village of Heritage Community and runs north up to Banyan Street. The improvements for this project should be completed in August, but there will still be a little bit of an acceptance period, a landscape maintenance period, and other acceptances that need to be closed out before we can open this up to the public. We anticipate that it should be open by the end of the calendar year also. Year to date cost is $9,700,000 Total project cost is capped at $11,700,000 So that's it for our carryover projects. So now I'm going to move into what is in our proposed CIP budget, which is going to counsel here soon for adoption.

This one's a pretty exciting one. This is a new project that we're presenting in the budget, and this is for pickleball courts at Seville Park. We have a plan to utilize the area where the old band shell and stage is and repurpose it to turn it into four new pickleball courts. We're going to keep the small parking area so we can provide some ADA parking and a little bit of off street parking. Like I said, four new courts, all the associated fencing, lighting, and shaded seating for spectators and players.

No expenditures to date. Once the budget gets approved, we'll start with the design process. Total project cost right now is $2,000,000 Estimated completion date is November 2026. And that does it for my project highlights. Thank you, and I'm available for any questions.

Are there any questions of my colleagues? Another great job, Mr. West. Thank you for your report.

All right. Thank you.

So this concludes our special presentation. So thank you to everyone that presented. Next on our agenda is the public communication. This is the opportunity for citizens to speak to the Parks Community and Human Services Commission for up to three minutes on items not on the agenda but within the Parks Community and Human Services Commission's jurisdiction. The Parks Community and Human Services Commission is prohibited by law from discussing or taking immediate action on nonagendized items. Madam City Clerk Key, do we have any requests to speak?

Chair, we do not.

Thank you. So with that, we'll move on to consent calendar. All matters listed under consent calendar will be enacted by one motion in the form listed below. There will be no separate discussion on these items prior to the time the commission votes on them unless a member of the commission requests a specific item be removed from the consent calendar for discussion. Do any member of the public wish to address the commission regarding any item on the consent calendar before the vote is taken? And seeing none, we'll entertain a motion for the approval of the consent calendar.

Secretary Alba, I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar.

We have a motion by secretary Alba. Mister Roaldan, second. And a second by commissioner Roaldan. If we are we voting on the iPads? We'll go ahead and cast our votes.

Five in favor. The motion passes.

Motion carried. This brings us to our new business item number one. And for this item, we'll turn the time over to director Schneider.

Thank you, chair Baez. At this time, what we wanna do is, ask for the commission to, vote in our new officers for this next upcoming year. We do have a vacancy currently for the vice chair. Currently, we do have a chair and a secretary. If there is no interest in, those positions, the, chair and the secretary can remain in that position. We would just need someone to nominate them and, make a motion for that, and then we'll second. But I'll open it up to the floor, for the chair. If, you all want to give a motion for a recommendation or nominate someone, then we'll go from the chair to the vice chair to the secretary. So we'll start off with the chair.

Secretary Alba, I make a motion to keep vice or correction, chair Vaes as the chair.

I will second that motion.

So we have motion by secretary Alba and a second by commissioner Caldones. And then we'll go ahead and cast our votes on the iPad.

Five in favor. Motion passes.

Motion carries. And thank you for commissioners for your support. And now we'll move on to vice chair, which is the current vacancy we have. So for that, we'll entertain a motion in a second.

Secretary, I'll I'll nominate Commissioner Glass for vice chair.

Commissioner rolled in. Second that motion.

We have a motion by commissioner secretary Alba and a second by commissioner Roldan. So with that, we'll go ahead and cast our votes on the iPad.

Did everybody five in favor. Motion passes.

Motion carries. Madam vice chair, welcome. So with that, move on to the role of secretary, and I motion to keep commissioner Benjamin Alba secretary to the commission.

Commissioner Ordonez seconds that motion.

So chair Vaez, went ahead in motion, and we have a second by commissioner Anna Ordonez. So we'll go ahead and cast our votes on the iPad.

Five in favor. Motion passes.

Motion carries. Welcome back, secretary Albert. So with that, it brings us to commissioner communications and reports. So we'll start with secretary Alba, if you have any comments.

As always, I just wanna thank the city of Fontana and all its employees. I'm gonna keep reiterating, the thoughts that I've always had in the last two years, which is you guys do an amazing job. I haven't been to as many as events as I'd like to, just because my family is growing a little bit right now, but I will be out there soon enough. And just the continuous positive feedback I always hear, I never hear the negative. So everybody keep doing what you're doing because it's great.

The only other thing I wanna say is Memorial Day is coming up, on Monday, and, I just want everybody to take some time out of their day on Monday, whether, you know, spending time with their family and their loved ones and remember everybody that has made the ultimate sacrifice. We are here. We are the land of the free, only because of the brave, and I hope that we remember that. So all to all the men and women that made the ultimate sacrifice, thank you. With that, good night, and god bless.

Thank you, secretary Alba. Commissioner Glass?

Just wanted to say thank you to all of the staff. I've attended a few of the events, and, the staff is doing an amazing jobs. Thank you, Daniel, and your team for everything that you guys are doing for the community. The community is out there in full force, so thank you guys so much for all of the things that you're doing. And congratulations for the everyone that was reappointed and appointed and all that stuff. And, also, for Memorial Day, like, commissioner Alba mentioned, if we could just make sure that we remember why it is Memorial Day. And good night, everyone.

Thank you, madam vice chair Glass. Commissioner Roldan?

Yes. As one of the newest members here on the commission and witnessing all of the activities that have gone on, I want to thank the staff, Daniel, as well as your staff for everything you're doing for the city. From the events that I've gone to, everything has been outstanding. Even the arts festival, which we had some sprinkles and a little bit of cold, it was still a very successful event. And I was pleased with the turnout and very pleased with the staff that was there to make that happen.

On a note to to piggyback on what Ben and Faye has talked about as far as Memorial Day, as as a veteran and military retire retiree, I want I would like everyone to take a moment a moment in silence to recognize those who have fallen comrades that paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. And, like Ben said, we are the home of the free because of the brave. And, I wish that everyone would recognize that and pay tribute to our fallen veterans. Good night and have a blessed weekend.

Thank you, Commissioner Oldan. Commissioner Ordonez.

It's always harder to be one of the last ones because everybody's already said everything. But, again, like everybody else, has mentioned, thank you, Daniel, and your staff. It's always great to see all the presentations and everything that's going on. I think until you're in in this position, you get to realize all of the hard work that staff really puts into to provide the the community great programming and events. So thank you. And, yes, you know, to echo everybody's sentiment about Memorial Day, thank you to all of our, military, personnel, those that are serving and that have served, and have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Thank you, commissioner Ordonez. And with that, you know, I echo the sentiment of my my colleagues here on the dais. You know, we thank staff for the amazing job you've done. We still are celebrating the success of the awards being, provided by CPRS. We it's the residents.

It's the commission that sees the great things that you do and being recognized at that state level also speaks volumes to the great things that are happening here in Fontana. We want to invite those that can to visit our veteran day our veteran wall memorial here near the Civic Center, especially on Memorial Day. I think walking that monument to be able to to see the conflicts that are depicted on that wall and the numbers that you see below each conflict, I think it resonates. The names of those residents that are commemorated along those red bricks as well. If you haven't done so, I invite you to do so and more so on Memorial Day.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those Gold Star families. They those individuals that have made the ultimate sacrifice, we're able to honor and commemorate, to remember, and at least echo those names that are inscribed. So with that, we thank you, and we turn the time over to staff for your communications. Director Schneider?

Thank you, chair of Vaez. First of all, I wanna say thank you for the compliments. I know it's a little bit of a cliche to say this, but I'm pretty sure all of you are aware of this anyways. But this has nothing to do with myself. I I definitely can speak on behalf of the managers.

We have an incredible manager management team. We have two that are out tonight for graduation ceremonies, but we always sit here and talk about how special our supervisors are and our coordinators and the camaraderie and the teamwork that they have. And I think you all saw firsthand at the art festival with the rain and the, you know, the cold weather and all that, and I'm getting videos from our staff dancing to the music, and they're all super excited. They have such pride in what they do, and I just wanna thank them as well. As much as you guys are thanking them, I wanna thank them because it's easy to sit up here and and get the accolades or go to see Paris conference and go to the socials, the dinners, and get the awards, but it's really our staff.

So I I really wanna make sure that they understand that. And I know it gets a little bit cliche, but 100%, I'm blessed to be called the director of this department. So I'll leave it at that. We're gonna be dark in the summer in July, August, and September. But what I did wanna share with all of you is the community services department is gonna be moving from our offices to the fire annex just out here at the building that's being built. We were scheduled to move in about eighteen months, but we have been moved up to the front now. So we haven't really talked to you all about that, but just to let you know. And if there's any questions, please feel free to reach out. But we'll give you a little bit more information, but it's gonna be a a pretty quick turnaround. We're probably gonna be moving over there in September.

The last thing I wanna do is I wanna thank you all as the commissioners. I'm really excited, and I know that I could speak on behalf of the managers. But me and Gina were just talking about this today, is we have a really good group of commissioners right now, and we're really excited that now we finally have everyone on board. But I also wanted to thank chair Vaez. What we expect and what we would really appreciate from all of you is to be our eyes and ears out in the community. Like you said, we are going a 100 miles per hour. So there's so many times where we'll get an email from you, miss chair Valles, saying, hey. Did you know this? And we're like, no. We we just we can't be everywhere.

So I really wanna encourage you all. And, please, you have my cell phone number, email, text me, do whatever you wanna do. But it's very appreciative, and I don't want you to ever ever feel that you're bothering us because, again, a lot of the times when you're texting me like, hey. Did you know this? No. I didn't. You know? And and we have a really good relationship with Public Works, so we can call Dan and Brian and them and say, hey. You need we need to take care of this. So, please, I encourage you to continue to do that.

And for those of you that are newly, elected, by all means, you have my cell phone number. Just text me, call me, do whatever, just say, hey. I noticed this when I was getting coffee or on my bike ride. I noticed this, and we'll take care of it. It's it's a huge asset for us to have you all out in the community for us, so I appreciate that. And then I will leave the rest for you. Right?

Yeah, man.

Okay. Yes. I'll leave it for Gino.

Oh, I thought I was gonna get introduced.

It's alright. It's alright.

That was the I

could I could introduce you. Community services manager, Gino.

Alright. I'll take the floor. It's all good. Congratulations on your appointments. Appreciate y'all being here.

It is summertime, so our white knuckle ride's ready to go. Everybody's been doing a ridiculous job of getting prepared for this season and to provide all of the services to the community, and now we're ready to let this thing go. We have a brought on over two almost 200 staff for the summer, including aquatics, camps, just all of the staff that we need to support all of our events and programs. And this Thursday, I wanna invite you all this Thursday, the twenty ninth, we have our summer kickoff, and it'll be at JT in the banquet room or actually in the gymnasium. And it's from 9AM to twelve.

If you guys would like to come and see and just shake some hands and say thank you to everybody out there who's gonna be giving all of their time and effort to all the kids and adults and parents to everybody who's what they're gonna be assigned to. And that'll be Thursday, the twenty ninth from nine to twelve. Please join us. This weekend is Memorial Day. I appreciate all of your sentiments for that, and, I will be sure to take my moments, to remember all of those things.

And it is the also the first weekend that all of our pools are gonna be open. So, all the staff are gonna be out there Saturday through Monday from twelve to four at each of the sites. The facility will be open for rec swim, for everyone to come and patronize, and it's supposed to be a nice warm weekend. So come out, and, hopefully, we'll see y'all out there. In couple weeks, we have the Fontana Days run, and Bianca touched on it. We are at we are sold out. We're at capacity. That's 2,100 individuals. So there's 1,200 people registered for the half marathon. There's 800 people registered for the five k, and a 100 kids registered for the kids dash.

The logistics for this event is obscene. We are talking about many moving parts, CHP, Lytle Creek, the county, the US Forestry Service, PD Engineering, Fontana Unified School District, Public Works, Community Services, and our frontline staff, the the special events staff do an amazing job of coordinating all of those moving parts and get everything ready for that event. So I encourage you all to come see the event. At least see the finish line, see how we take care of business out there, and watch everybody come exhausted through the finish line. It's a great thing to see, and we might have some extra, extracurricular activities going on afterwards.

So, hopefully, we'll see you there on that Saturday morning. That is all. I appreciate you guys' time. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, community services manager Gino Ferrer. And at this time, we'd like to adjourn the and we'd like to adjourn to the next regular Parks Community and Human Services Commission meeting on 09/25/2025 at 7PM in the Grover w Taylor Council Chambers located at 8353 Sierra Avenue in Fontana. This meeting is adjourned, the time being 07:40.