City Council - Regular Meeting

Super. City first.

I will call the uh start over. Good evening. I will call the February 24th, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. Deputy city clerk, may we have a roll call? Thank you, mayor. Before roll call, I would like to point out that this meeting is being hosted through live stream on the city's website and by a Zoom teleconference. I would like to remind the council to have their microphones turned on and positioned so the audience can hear. With that, we'll proceed with roll call. Council member Clark, present. Council member Lodge, here. Council member Peterson, here. Mayor promises promises here. Did

Mayor Kupa here all members are present. Thank you very much. The invocation tonight will be given by senior pastor Larry Diggs of the Light of Hope Community Church. And after that, Council Member Peterson will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. Good evening. Let us pray. Eternal God, our father, we are thankful to be in your presence with purpose. We're mindful of your word that reminds us if my people that are called by my name will humble ourselves and pray and seek your face, turn from our wicked ways, then you will hear from heaven. You'll forgive our sins and you'll heal our land. how we need you tonight like never before. And Lord, we just thank you for allowing this gathering here tonight as we pray for the leadership of this city, the intellectual knowledge you have provided. We seek you for wisdom from above. Uh we live in a nation Lord that is hurting on so many levels. But we're thankful for the people that come together with purpose. Thank you for your son Jesus who have made a way for all of us that we God now can have peace what truly passes all understanding. Our eyes is on you. Only you can lead and heal a wound that is so deep as this. Thank you for all the presenters tonight that you will move on their hearts as we in this city of HMIT. Lord will recognize your perfect uh presence in this town in the cities around us. And so we look to you tonight. Thank you again for this gathering. This I pray by faith in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. I ask you to remove your covers and hand over your heart please and begin. I pledge algiance 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 everyone. We will now move on to the presentations. Our first presentation, uh, Council Member Clark will be presenting the proclamation for Riverside County Arts and Culture Month to Malcolm Lillianthal. And who else did I see? Shirley. Cheryl Cheryl Kulie, you can come up, please. And anyone else here from the Hemet Art Association. Seeing none, please come on up. Oh, there's one more.

Everybody's getting run over. You're sorry, Charlie.

Stay there. You're all there. You're all members of of what we're doing tonight. Hello. I don't have to yell.

Okay. This is Riverside County Arts and Cultural Month. Whereas Riverside County has emerged as a leader in arts and culture and the encouragement of local artists and the steadfast support of the arts community are deemed essential for elevating the quality of life in Riverside County and fostering economic stimulation through tourism, arts, and innovation. And our vibrant arts and culture scene has been cultivated through extensive partnerships with local nonprofits, private corporations, cities, and strategic allies, collectively contributing to Riverside County's leadership in the arts. And whereas a cultural landscape that bolsters the art and culture community in Riverside County is crucial not only for promoting tourism through the county, but also enriching the lives of our residents. And the ri the county of Riverside values a dynamic atmosphere that fosters innovation, education, and outreach within the local art community. recognizing these as vital components for the success, health, and advancement of our county. Now, therefore, Linda Krupa, mayor of city Hemtt, along with the Hemtt City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2026 as Riverside County Arts and Cultural Month and encourage all citizens to engage in the arts in our communities and in the region. Would you like to say something?

I was not prepared for this. No pressure. Arts are such an important part of our community and the Hemet Valley Arts Association is so pleased to be a part of that. Um, we're growing. We're we're getting new new energy. Um, and it's it's, you know, it's all part of what the community is doing.

So, from our our chair, she said she's the CEO of um, her name is Jennifer Al Farerrell. She's the the CEO of Healthy Valley Foundation and she's speaking she's um, she wanted me to share this with you guys that we're supporting the arts and culture as a vehicle for community belonging, well-being, and economic development. all indicators of advancing health. She wanted to express personally her support of the art in public places program that we have tonight and underscore how this initiative aligns with the city's goals of enhancing public spaces, fostering community identity, and inviting deeper interaction with places we live, work, and play. The arts and public places ordinance is designed to enrich our city's visual environment, support economic development through culture, and celebrate the diversity and aspirations of our residents. These are important priorities that research, data, and case studies show will advance him residents quality of life and well-being. Healthy Valley Foundation is committed to investing their work and resources in expanding public art and they are excited to share a current community arts activation that is already underway in the city of HMT, the valley's first community-led public mural project. This mural will be co-signed by local artists, residents, the HTT Valley Arts Association, Riverside Arts Council, Alura Credit Union, Healthy Valley Foundation, and city partners. The goal is to elevate local voices and reflect the shared heritage through a mural that belongs to the people of HMT. And we want to encourage everyone to save the dates. The deadline to apply as emerging artists, March 13th, 2026,

community brainstorming session, March 28th, 2:00 p.m. to 400 p.m. right here at the local library. These events are open to everyone and represent meaningful opportunities for all artists of all ages and backgrounds to participate in shaping the future of public art in our community. This mural project is not just about paint on a wall. It is about storytelling, belonging, collaboration, and civic pride. the compliments and exe all of this compliments and exemplifies the art the intent of art in public spaces the program by creating authentic communitydriven art that reflects our history values and aspirations and I encourage everyone and the city council to continue supporting the development of policy and programming that amplifies resident creativity and strengthens him he himmit's cultural presence

thank you Lori Venor Marsdale and I I am on the board at Healthy Valley Foundation. I'm also a part of the arts and cultural committee and the Ramona Bowl who is here tonight. Uh I can say that I think that a arts and culture make you happy and a happy community is what we're looking for and we'd like you to participate in everything that's going on as far as arts and culture in the valley. And soon to come up is the Ramona pageant which is a 103rd anniversary year and that is the last two weekends in April and the first weekend in May.

Hi, I'm Tracy Anderson. I'm also with the Hammet Valley Art Association and I'm just going to say ditto to what my colleague Cheryl said.

Thank you all. Did Kathy, did you get pictures? Okay, thank you. Okay. Uh, the next presentation, uh, Council Member Peterson and I will be presenting a letter of recognition to Ari Williams Jr. So, Ari, please come up. I could do it. Okay, I'm going to do this just a little bit different tonight because I know Ari and I've got some great facts for him. So, first we're going to do the letter of recognition and then if you bear with me, I'm going to tell you what a great guy this is and a wonderful wonderful um asset to our community. So, the letter of recognition is on behalf of the city council of the city of Hemtt, California and the mayor would like to express gratitude to Ari Williams Jr. In recognition of Black History Month, the city of Hemet hereby honors Ari Williams Jr. for his selection and swearing in as commander of American Legion Post 53 on Wednesday, January 25th, 2026. Commander Williams' appointment marks a historic milestone as he becomes the first African-American commander in the history of Post 53, reflecting the continued progress toward inclusion,

representation, and equity within veteran service organizations and the broader community. A dedicated veteran leader and community advocate, Commander Williams has demonstrated professionalism, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to service on behalf of veterans in the cities of Hemet and Santa Cinto. His leadership embodies the spirit of Black History Month by honoring the legacy, contributions, and ongoing impact of African-American service members and leaders who have strengthened our nation. American Legion Post 53 has long served as a pillar of support for veterans, youth programs, patriotic events, and community initiatives. and Commander Williams's leadership continues and advances this proud tradition. Through this recognition, the city of Hemmet celebrates both his personal achievement and the enduring values of service, unity, and opportunity that enrich our community. Signed by our mayor, Linda Krupa. She's got Okay, now I'm going to brag on him a little bit more and just tell you who he really is. So, Ari Williams Jr. is a dedicated veteran, community leader, and family man whose life reflects a deep commitment to service, faith, and country. He proudly served in the United States Army from 1989 to 1999, completing 10 years of honorable active

duty service. During his military career, he advanced to the rank of staff sergeant serving as an airborne ranger with a military occupational specialty 11B infantry. His assignments and deployments took him across the globe in defense of the nation, including two combat deployments, one during the Persian Gulf conflict, and one during the Iraqi conflict. Two tours in Korea, two tours in Cuba, one tour in Hawaii, and one tour in Alaska. Following his Army career, Ari continued his lifelong dedication to service through the American Legion, where he has been an active member since 2022. In just four years, he has served in multiple key leadership and service roles, including honor guard member, chaplain, first vice commander, interim commander, and current commander. Your leadership within the Legion reflects your unwavering support for veterans patriotism and community engagement and we thank you. So, thank you, sir. We are very, very proud to present this to you tonight. And thank you for what all you do for veterans and the community. And now it's your turn.

Not to me. First of all, I thank the Lord for this recognition. Um, I thank my post for allowing me to be their commander and I thank also all the councilmen, the mayor of the city of Hett for allowing me to stand here before you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to God and country. Be blessed.

Wonderful. There we go. Okay. Um this forward. That will conclude tonight's presentations for items 7A and 7B for public comment. We will be taking speakers for the items listed on the agenda as each item is presented. The public comment period for items not on the agenda will occur after the discussion calendar. So, we will now move on to the public hearing. Deputy city clerk, would you please read the public hearing procedures?

Thank you, mayor. The city council's procedures for public hearing will be as follows. Staff will provide a report and clarification for items presented. The public hearing will be open for comments for those in favor of or in opposition to the item followed by rebuttal to any comments made. The public hearing will be closed and the city manager may respond to any questions raised by the public. The public will not have an opportunity to respond. Discussion will be brought back to the city council for direction or action.

Thank you very much. Can we get a report from staff on item 8A? All right. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, staff, and members of the community. My name is Nathan Mren. I am the assistant planner here at the city of Hemet in the community development department in the planning division. I'm very excited to be presenting this to you tonight. I grew up here in the city of He went to school K through 12 here and always wish there was a program such as this. I'm going to be presenting to you tonight. So, it's I'm very excited, a little nervous, but very excited to be presenting this to you. Nathan, you want to bring the microphone a little closer?

Yes. Okay. So, the applicant for this zoning ordinance amendment uh 26-001, which is the public the art and public places program is the city and this is a city-wide initiative. This program uh meets the strategic plan integration goals one, three and four. Uh in addition to that, it also meets item number 13 for the fiscal year 2526 for the uh strategic plan action items. This meeting was publicly noticed on February the 12th uh with at least a 10-day notice and we reached out to Riverside County Airport Land Use Commission as well and they said that this proposed zoning ordinance amendment is also um meeting the 2017 ALOC plan and we have received some comments from the the public in support of this as well. nothing uh not nothing not in favor of this. So the authority of the city council pursuant to section 9041.4 is that the planning commission is responsible first for the review and recommendation for this zoning ordinance amendment which they have done so on February the 3 which is why we are here tonight. Uh the city council is responsible for the final review and approval of a zoning zoning ordinance amendment uh which we are at the first reading tonight. And C the zoning ordinance amendments or uh shall become effective 30 days after the second reading of approved.

So, brief background to how we got to where we are tonight. Uh, last year the city council created an arts and culture ad hoc committee uh consisting of Mayor Krupa and council member Peterson um in efforts to help strengthen partnerships with local organizations um community members um and cultural organizations to help make bring more arts to the community. The ad hocet committee has expressed an interest in advancing public art and establishing a funding mechanism to support public art. And to do so, we are proposing this um arts and public places program and ordinance. On July 17th, 2025, the cities of Heid and Sosinto uh joined together for a joint arts and cultural community meeting uh here at the public library in this very room for that matter. Uh the result of that was the an image you see before you on the screen there which was the Sans Nove cultural assets map which highlights resources such as our uh public art, cultural practices, organizations, events, places, and trails here in the Sosino Valley. Uh we've also had several community events over this past year. uh notably the third annual chalk art festival here held at the public library by our very own Kathy Kanes uh as well as the second annual Junth celebration at the Mary Henley Park as well uh to name a few. Um to kind of bring a short recap to this, January 20th, the the planning commission received a work study which they had the opportunity to hear this ordinance for the first time, make recommendations and suggestions that were then added to the ordinance and amended and then they were presented the changes that they presented on February 3rd and then they voted a 4 to approve this for city council to um bring this

to adopt. Um, but this brings me to the Arts and Public Places program. So, this program aims to create an inclusive and culturally rich environment that reflects Hemet's history, current experiences, and future aspirations. Uh public art fosters community identity through placemaking, creativity and the human experience. It enhances public areas making them more inviting and stimulating and also contributes to a more livable city. Public art ex can be experienced in both indoor and outdoor settings. Uh it impacts property values, the local economy and the city vitality as well. It highlights community diversity, history and future goals and supports economic development. uh through a vibrant cultural presence. The goals as shown before you for this program are to enhance livability and visual appeal within the city in live and public spaces, making them more welcoming and engaging. Foster deeper interactions with the places where people live, work, and visit. Uh illuminate the community's diversity, history, and aspirations, and to contribute to economic development by enriching the public realm with art and culture. So the pro the program will apply to all new non-exempt construction activities including significant tenant improvements uh and existing site modification projects uh which have a valuation of at least $100,000. Uh this program will also apply to public projects such as roads, schools, hospitals, parks, and water systems as well.

Uh there was a a memo prepared for you. Uh we did make some adjustments um to the exemptions list. We did add individual single family residential rehabilitation or expansion to existing properties. Uh originally it was that there was a minimum $100,000 threshold that had to be met and then fees would apply. In this case, we exempted that entirely. So there's no longer for those types of uh building permits. Uh but other exemptions that do apply are single lot single family residential developments. This would be such as your, you know, I'm a personal resident. I want to build a home and I'm not building a large tracked home development, just building a single lot because I want to have a, you know, my own home on a single infield development kind of project. Um, additional exemptions to this are accessory dwelling units, uh, interior improvements, emergency work, um, affordable housing specifically that's 100% deed restricted but no less than 55 years. So if it is a component where it's less than 100% it wouldn't necessarily be exempt and any other legal um preeemptions as well. So options for art contribution here uh for the non-residential development um it can be fulfilled in three different ways. Option one is you can install a permanent artwork with a long-term maintenance agreement and then again this is based upon the uh assessed building valuation or project valuation rather for the building permit. Um you can donate existing or commissioned artwork to the city's collection or to be future collection. Uh and also third option would be to pay an enla fee at 0.5% of the project valuation prior to permit issuance. Um originally the city the planning commission was presented with a

0.25 and a 0.5% but through some discussions decided to make it a 0.5%. Um just for your information. Uh as for residential developments this um there's two options for this one. They can opt to do an alternative placement plan. So if they did want to say contribute a sculpture or a mural, they wouldn't be doing this at their residence or on a in a single family track, they could say, "Oh, I want to contribute art on this mural here in the downtown or somewhere, you know, in a place that's negotiated with the city on a case-byase basis. Um, the second option would be to pay in leaf fee of 0.5% of the project valuation. Um, that's part of the permit issuance as well. This originally was uh recommended at 0.5% and this one was upheld by planning commission. Uh shown before you is a uh chart I prepared showing what the average um in lia percentage fees are for some of the cities known for public art here in Southern California. Lagouna Beach is kind of on the extreme end of that being at 1.25% and Palm Springs is on the much lower end at 0.25 25 for residential and 0.5 for non-residential. As you can see, we're we're definitely on the much lower end of this of what we're currently proposing at 0.5% for both residential and non-residential. Uh prepared a sample of um projects that we might be looking at uh in the future. Uh the top one is for heavy industrial. This would be more like a very very large large industrial development with several thousands of square feet of of space. Um the valuation would be for.5% 1% as I showed you there. The tenant uh improvement commercial project would be more so for like a building that's

already existing. Maybe it's around 20 30,000 square feet and they're doing some minor to moderate improvements. And the new commercial project would be something such as like a car wash as an example. Uh for later discussion I did prepare these additional calculation breakdowns if you wanted to see how the fees were calculated showing for 0.5 and also the 1% as well specifically for the new commercial project. Um prepared also was a sample for residential projects. The single family residential is valued at 350,000. This is more so for your your bigger developers like your Dr. Hortons kind. This is um from records about an average range for a single family uh development in a large tracked home. And so showing the 0.251% that would be your fee estimation per lot in a large track home development specifically. Multif family shown before you is more so um a ballpark for about 200 plus units at a $50 million um cost estimation and again showing the 0.25.5 and 1% what that might look like and I did prepare for single family an example of the fee breakdown how it's calculated for a 0.25 25 the 0.5 and also the 1% as well. So artwork installed under this program uh must be publicly accessible and available for the enjoyment of all city of Hemet residents and visitors. um acceptable locations for installation um however will be on a case-byase basis. Um civic buildings could be potentially

allowable for that such as the Hemet Library as one example. Um but the the site selection will be you know it'll be depending on the site conditions the media selected for the public artwork. Um, another example of this built into our ordinance, uh, that's brought to you tonight is we wouldn't necessarily want to bring an art project to a a high fire severity zone that has highly flammable materials. We would want to have materials that are fit for that location properly, which again gets back to the case byase basis. Uh the definition of location um is can really be expanded based upon the artist's vision and um locations can be places such as building exteriors, retaining walls and bridges to name a few places. Uh this program would allow for our various art forms and media encouraging imaginative, interpretive and potentially interactive uses. artworks be made of varying mediums and take various forms. Uh these projects can incorporate artist designed features such as gates, fountains, tiles, doors, uh railings. Um and to be specific, these aren't necessarily like your your your typical inclusion items built by the architect. These would have to be that the architect finds an artist and then designs these with an artistic kind of outcome. Um, they could also use public funds to enhance that budget. Uh, eligible components could include things like sculpture, murals, earthworks, uh, fiber works, glass, uh, mosaics, prints, just just to name a few. Um, and eligible artworks can include, but are not limited to artists design amenities such as lighting, benches. Um, so think of like, you know, bus benches or park

benches. These could potentially have art put upon them. This brings me to the cultural heritage theme criteria. Uh at the planning commission there was a lot of discussion about that this program should have a theme to it. Um we through discussions just talked about you know if we have a a specific theme it might be a little bit too narrow but if we have a broader theme it might allow us to touch on our our past, our present and our future. Um so specifically as well uh the ad hoc committee met on February the 9th and they suggested a theme called the where heritage meets progress which would incorporate ideas such as our history from like the Ramona pageant to the Hemet stock farm or even our prehistory to like mastadons and giant sloths and everything from thousands of years ago. Um so uh I did prepare this for you showing goals and policies of 2030 general plan. This program per chapter 10 is something that we have had on our to-do list so to speak for for years and we specifically per goal one to promote art and culture as a means of improving the quality of life for city residents was to create an arts and public places program. Um other things are have a downtown focus as well. Um and incorporate specific plans and public spaces and facilities into his kind of a program. Um and within the ordinance, these kinds of things are are considered as well. Uh goal two was to encourage art and culture as a means to stimulate economic development in the city. Uh with this we

can promote tourism which is one of our policies. Um economic benefits such you know there could be potential um property tax increase uh or you know property value um improvements uh public outreach community events and partnerships. Um and this ordinance specifically lays out opportunities and encourages opportunities for us to partner with local organizations such as the the Black Voices of the Valley. um as as one example. Uh goal three was to support the art and cultural opportunities offered by the educational and nonprofit organizations. Um things such as our community facilities like the EMTT public library or the Simpson Center. Uh also youth participation. Um planning commission stressed the need that we should incorporate our our K through2 students to help with public art as well. and our uh general plan calls it out as well as local organizations and citizen involvement per goal three. So, I'd like to say that many many cities in Southern California have adopted a public art program and ordinance um such as this one. Uh a good example of that would be the city of Riverside, known as a city of arts and innovation. You go to the downtown area and you just see murals and sculptures everywhere. what this program is proposing is to bring that kind of opportunity to our city here. And I I just think that's great. Um but yeah, this program will it will enrich the lives of the community members. It will help inspire civic pride and support economic development through a vibrant cultural presence. Uh the recommended action for this evening is for respectfully recommend

that the city council find that this project is categorically exempt from SQA in accordance with the California public resources code section 211080.17 uh specifically under SQA guidelines section 15061B3 which is the common sense exemption as it can be sent with certainty this would have no possibility that the proposed ordinance would have a significant effect on the environment. Uh two, receive a report um proposing the zoning ordinance amendment number 2026-001. Uh and three, to introduce by first reading an ordinance of the city council of the city of Hammet, California um adopting this ordinance. Um uh as you might have noticed in the staff report, um there was a little typo. um that was put in to show that this was under article XV III III and XVIV. It actually needs to be XL I III and XLIV as a little minor u thing needs to be fixed on that. But uh that's my presentation and thank you very much.

Thank you very much Nate. You did a good job. Thank you. So with that uh we will open the public hearing. Do we have any speakers in favor or against this item? Um, mayor, we do have registered speakers. Do we have a Cheryl Culie? Is Cheryl still here? Speak. Come up to the microphone, please. Cheryl.

Cheryl, you have three minutes. We all know that art makes a difference, that the arts make a difference. They have a lasting impact on how we see and engage with the world around us. Art honors our past by creating a record of what we have done. The arts provide a look at the good and the bad and say the things for which there are no words and they inspire beauty. They help us breathe. The arts bring neighborhoods together and and I can't read and propel us into the future with new experiences. We at the Hammet Valley Art Association are excited to see a new vision for and a practical approach to creating public art in our community. We endorse the proposed city of Hammet art of public in public places program and look forward to being a part of making Hammet a better place to live. Thank you.

Thank you, Cheryl. Next speaker.

Thank you, Cheryl. Our next speaker is Lori Van Arsdale and the speaker of that is going to be Malcolm Lillianthal. Thank you, council. Um I am very excited to be a part of this committee first of all and it's um its growth and it's morphed into something that is real now and this is the reality which is this ordinance up here. Um, one of the things I want to also say is something that came out of this committee uh, and is being take is being moved forward is the community calendar which allows all organizations to put their events and what's happening on on that calendar. And uh it is something that we tried to do uh Linda and I tried to do it years ago when she was on the chamber and I was on the city council. That's how long ago it started with that idea. And I very much appreciate the fact that that has come to fruition and that will be implemented. I believe it kicks off in March or the end towards the end of March. So, there are so many things that can come out of this uh besides just thinking art and events and culture and and things that go around town. Um, as far as the the I almost wanted to say decorations, but it's not decorations, it's actual actual art. Um, and I appreciate the uh thoughtfulness that the planning commission had, but I would I would recommend the 2.5 or 0.002.5% on the on the one portion of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Lori. The next speaker is Malcolm.

Good evening, mayor and city council. Um, I just want to encourage you guys to vote in favor for this. I represent the human relations council as the president. Um I'm honored to still play a role in something meaningful being a part of the arts and culture um committee and I think that arts and culture appears to be the heartbeat of a thriving community and it also shapes our identity and brings people together and I think it does it in ways that no other thing can when you when you bring arts and cultures together. So, I believe that when we invest in creativity, we invest in unity, we invest in the health of our community, and that's why I encourage the city council to vote in favor of this. Thank you.

Thank you, Malcolm. Great. And mayor, that was our last registered speaker.

Okay, I will close the public hearing and bring this back for council comment. Whoever wants you want to start down there, Connie? First of all, I love this. I like to create things myself. And there's nothing better than to walk away. And it may not be what someone else envisions, but it's something that I'm proud of. So, I really, really like this. I think we need to incorporate incorporate kids, children's centers, all of these things where we can enrich color. Color is a very good learning tool for kids. It's very interpretive. So, I love it. What are we going to do? Does this take care of the problem for the mural that's downtown? Will they be able to comp this will be a compliance sort of thing that mural down there?

Say that again with the maintenance. Will it will it be will it comply then? We there's no modifications. They don't have to do anything of what's already down there. Uh, council member, if you could uh maybe clarify which mural you're music store. Yeah, the music store. Music store.

Okay. Um, so if if the council wants to have a So, the primary portion of this ordinance relates to funding the public art program. Um, there is language in here that relates to um approving murals in general. If if the council wants to have a more robust review of existing murals, especially ones that the council believes are unpermitted or were not created in compliance with these standards that they've come up with, we can absolutely explore that. I would just request that the council make that part of the motion and we can come back at the next second reading and give the council report what the anticipated effect would be on the on existing murals. And I think it'd be probably wise to have that be a more general response as as opposed to a specific mural in particular.

If that makes sense. Yes. And um on Menllo, a family member commented, "Oh, we've got some graffiti on a building." And then when I drove by it last Saturday, I don't think it's graffiti. I think it's art. And but it might be a cultural art.

And so if that's there and they're wishing that is this going to I mean I thought well it kind of looks like a sign like signage that it's um here is something I couldn't I was driving so but that's another question. are we? Because I thought there was quite a lot of controversy on the music stores mural and so I would like to see us speak to that so that that closes a chapter for a lot of people that are passionate about it and um maybe speak to things that are already in motion too. You know that that's a

Yeah. So um you know to bring us back to to this ordinance.

So this ordinance addresses funding um as part of the development process. It's essentially a development standard that can be met through an alternative process the inloo fee. Um there's also if you look at uh section four of the draft ordinance that relates to city initiated art. So that's city sponsored murals. Um the language of the ordinance does not attempt to address those existing private murals. And so we can we can absolutely work on that additional language and give the council a a report on that. Um but I think it would be best because you know we don't we want to make sure we're sticking to the legislative side of this and not sort of the quasi judicial side. I think it would be a good idea to bring forward a discussion about what the city council could do to regulate those private property murals and art um and what the effect of that ordinance would be on existing murals and art and I can we can bring that at the next as part of your second reading.

But the fee schedule that is proposed would that apply to things like this? Uh so the fee schedule applies to new construction and so um the building valuation is based on the construction costs. So this is essentially when you're pulling building permits, new construction, that's where the funding is coming from. Yeah. What about renovations? So, renovations were originally um going to have a fee assessed against them with a um exception for under 100, but staff sent out a memo yesterday that recommended moving renovations into the exempt category.

Good. I didn't see that. Yeah, that I think I think staff was reviewing that as it was coming forward and and realized that that that actually probably didn't meet the policy objectives of the council as stated. Okay, Tom, nothing. Just bring back for the second. Okay, Jackie, I'm looking for one thing.

I have something. We we we had a change in the agenda and I'm looking for it after it got rewritten. There's one thing I can't find, but there is one thing um I can address right now. So um on page 15 it talks um m it talks about a co-qualified artist means a practitioner in the visual arts who is recognized by critics and peers as a professional artist of serious intent and ability as evidenced by a consistent history of professional exhibitions, public commissions or gallery representation and has demonstrated experience in the design, fabrication and installation of permanent public art of a scale and complexity comparable to the pro proposed project. So right now we are wanting to do a mural and we have invited our youth to participate in that. So they don't have the name the experience that a lot of people do but they might be really really talented. So, I would like to see a change in that um paragraph there of M to somehow incorporate um if they're screened or you know if they're approved by somebody because that's what we're going to do with this mural. You know, they're going to apply for it and there's going to be a committee that would uh select the artists that are going to do the first mural in town. So later in in the um article here, it mentions like if they're in a a community group and then it talks about youth, but right here that would be a contradiction because it says they have to be highly professional and well-known and all that. So that's one thing I would like to see rewritten a little bit.

Mayor, could I could I maybe take a stab at this one? Yes, please. Um so that that was uh an excellent recitation of the definition of qualified artists. I didn't realize it was quite that long until you put it there. Um the the use of qual So I think the definition of qualified artist the definition is good. I think the question is how do you use it? Right. And so you know to to your your point council member um and I would I would recommend uh looking at page 47 of 130 if anyone wanted a few seconds to get there. Uh that's section 90-1533 uh selection method for city projects.

And so you know for example here I mean and this is entirely within the discretion of the council. Um it it gives you different selection methods. So you can have an open call which is a solicitation to all artists. It doesn't limit it to qualified artists. Um or you could do a limited invitational. you could send it to a predetermined list or the council if it wanted a piece of artwork from a very specific artist, the council could solicit a proposal from a specific artist. Um, and so you see in in none of those um methodologies for the city procuring art is it limited to the qualified artist. Where the qualified artist limitation comes into play is in art that is primarily being donated by developers to the city. Um and this is essentially a way to ensure that the art that is being donated has significant significant artistic value. Um because um while I I absolutely agree that there's there is value in communitydriven art and one of my favorite projects in in my career was um having a local elementary school come to a park and literally paint the park and it was amazing, right?

Um the cost of having that done uh doesn't really have the same nexus to the building valuation uh that that the program is kind of looking for. And so I think that's the issue. Um so if the you know council's direction was you know bring us back uh at the next meeting amendments that ensure that the council has the ability uh to bring in community groups, children, schools, the school district. I know that when we did the mural on the fire station, I think we teamed up with the community college. The college. Yes.

Um and they did an amazing job. Uh, so I think that we could make sure that we have that flexibility, but I think primarily what our concern was if we were getting art donated to the city and that donation is being used against um the the art requirement for the development. We want to make sure that the city's getting something noteworthy. Okay. So you don't think they're contradicting each other then? Because in one place it it says that they have to have like a name and you know they have to have demonstrated experience and then in another part we say well we can have a a youth group come forward and they would probably have no experience but they're talented.

I I I think that you know the goal is to make sure the council has flexibility. So, you know, one of the instances I think council member where where it does have that qualified artist versus community group um is the utility boxes program. And so I think for that specific section, I don't know it off the top of my head, I'm sure I could find it. It it says, you know, you could have it through a qualified artist who's going and painting utility boxes or we could team up with a community group, right?

Um and obviously you're going to get two different products. uh both beautiful, both very meaningful. Um but I think that it gives the council that flexibility. You know, what kind of project are you looking for? I I don't see it as inherently contradictory, but I could see how um that it may cause some confusion. So, we could we could certainly clean it up if the council would like clean it up. Okay. Thank you, Joe.

Yeah, my problem is um adding additional cost to housing to buildings. The buildings I'm not worried about the commercial buildings but the housing people can barely buy houses now and the costs are just so high. We had WR call come in here last year and raise the t fees which added cost to the housing and now we're adding what.5 or we bringing it down to 0.25 25 or point what are we bringing the housing portion down whatever we want as presented it's 0.5 but it can be wherever the council

I'd like to see at least lower that at 0.25 25 because I we just keep adding cost to everything we build. And I mean, is this going to drive developers out or to another city? Are they going to want to build here if we keep adding different costs for art, for this, for that, for everything else? So, um I just have a problem with the cost. You say it's it's not a tax, but it becomes a tax because it raises prices. Your leases are higher, your housing prices are higher. Um I just have a problem with that.

Okay. I think if you look at the chart uh of the cities surrounding cities and and a lot of them are down there, but I know Paris and Marino Valley both have they they most all of our surrounding cities have an art and culture fee that they attach to development. So we're we're not the only one. Well, I'd like to see a list of all the cities that do that. Sento. Can you pull that one back up? I know Sento does. Um, so a lot of them, a lot of them do at various limits. Sento does. I haven't seen any art over there.

They have several murals. They have some metal work along uh Ramona Boulevard. So they they do have it. I have a question in in that. Where does the fee structure reside? Is it something that is a development impact fee that get can get changed when the city does a study on all development impact fees or is it tied specifically to this ordinance? So, it has to be amended each time we do something. So, I want to be really clear, really clear. So, um from a purely legal perspective, it is not a tax. From a purely legal perspective, it's not a development impact fee. Right. Okay. Okay. its own individual.

The city attorney is doing a little dance and we're all going to do it with me. Okay. Uh it's a development standard. So, in the same way that we require landscaping and sidewalks and streets, we also are going to require that development offset the aesthetic degradation that it causes. There you go.

You know, we've we've all had public hearings. People come in and they talk about big ugly buildings, right? And so to offset that we are requiring that you create some art to make hemmed beautiful, right? If you don't want to do that, you can pay an inloo fee. So that is a voluntary act in choosing to pay that fee. Um so this is a development standard that would get changed like any other development standard. Uh which means it would come through the zoning process, the development code amendment process. Okay. All righty. So do we we should decide what we want that you should development standard fee should should be you should we should and it's it's it's there. Yeah.

Okay. I do have a couple other questions. Uh you mentioned work a public projects you know I I can understand that if we're building a building and we want to put some artwork wherever. What about a street? Give me some examples. And I can even see water towers. If it's a water project, we can put a mural on water tanks. Water tanks. All of them. And uh what what would we do? I mean, a suggestion I'm trying to come up with if if we pave a street or build a new street, what would we do? What would be a public art?

So, it' be my understanding is being that there would be a building permit to do these alterations. The assessed value on that permit would be the art value. and using our our fund reserve that we have, we could potentially use that to then contribute for an art project. So, it could be a piece of a sculpture of something in the rightway. That's where I mean it can't go in the street potentially because Yeah. And again, it's a it's a a case by case basis and then Okay. So, if we put a median down any side streets, we could put public art in the medians possible,

which would help because they're ugly, too. I I think one of the the best examples I saw that mayor was if you take the 10 uh into LA, there's a bridge that the Metroink takes and they added basket decorative concepts to the concrete uh to sort of turn that into an artistic element. That's certainly one way to do But I don't think I don't know how you do with the street, but Well, actually, we we had a couple suggestions when we were we were doing the valley uh march of the mastadons to have mastadons marching down Harvard Street and then going under Florida because that's a state highway and then coming back up on North Harbor. So, I do understand that now right there all the time. Another Sorry.

You want to make any comments? Nope. Okay. Um, where else did I have this? Does any of this bring in the up lights or down lights on buildings? Is that considered art? I'm not familiar with up lights. Are you talking about lights that are shining onto different colored lights on buildings? Cathedral City has has their city hall and their police department that has lights going down and up of various colors and they change color that can be considered artwork. Are we I

So I I have seen lighting incorporated um into artistic elements. So um I've seen murals that react to black light at night and it's one way to have one mural during the day, a different mural at night. Um I I have seen, you know, we were talking about benches. I have seen like lighting incorporated into benches. So lighting can absolutely be incorporated in a way that would qualify as art, but you know, it it would definitely be something we'd want to review and ensure that it's not a other otherwise applicable requirement project.

And the section in here that says it all has to come in for review and approval is going to safeguard us on all of these issues without spelling anything else out. That's the goal. I I mean, as you can tell, it it is it is very long. It's gone through numerous people. Um yes, it's 130 pages long. It's you know, it's one of those things where when you're trying to describe what is art, uh it ends up taking it's in the eye of the beholder. Um so the goal is to have a lot of that review coming to the city so that we can be that safe.

Okay. And to to go back to Jackie's point, uh, one of the things we talked about in the ad hoc was a graffiti wall in a park that kids can not only kids taggers of. Some of this stuff is really good. Some of it is garbage, but some of it is really good. And it's self-expression, especially of younger people. And that we might call it a temporary street art all wall. Okay. Yeah,

we'll come through it because I mean some of it can get out of hand, but we need to do this. So, okay. Uh, any further questions from anyone here or comments? Then, um, can I have a motion to approve with whatever changes you want to bring up at the second reading? Mayor, could I could I ask that motion include staff authority to correct any minor typos? So, obviously, we have the Roman numerals issue. There was a couple. I think there were a couple of just numbering issues that we might want to clear up. Yes. Well, I recommend we bring this back for a second reading with the changes. But we have we have to approve it before we can bring it back for a second reading.

So, we need a motion to approve it. I'll second it. So, you're moving to approve it and then bring back any corrections and typos in the next in the second. Yeah. You got that? Thank you. I have a motion by Council Member Lodge, second by Council Member Peterson. I'll do a roll call. Council member Clark, yes. Council member Lodge, yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Promos, no. Mayor Koopa, yes.

That motion passes four to one. Moving on to item 8B. Can we have a staff report on zoning ordinance amendment ZOA25-3 thank you may mayor members of the city council Monique Alanise Flater community development director um this is a continued hearing um from the February 10th 2025 city council meeting uh to uh repeal and restate the accessory dwelling unit ordinance as well as including uh junior accessory dwelling units. So um the ordinance was to amend um our current accessory dwelling unit ordinance to also include all the provisions in accordance with state law that would also include junior accessory dwelling units. And at that meeting on February 10th, the council um um recommended continuence to allow additional amendments related to height requirements uh for the detached accessory dwelling units in a manner that provides more flexibility to property owners, including criteria for privacy and design complaints. So, with that, um, in your packet, you do have, um, the amended, uh, ordinance that includes provisions that would allow for, um, the ADUs to have garage, um, an ADU over a garage. Um, it was also, um, included to, uh, address the maximum height for that.

uh there was setbacks included and the illustration here shows a couple of diff different examples of what those modifications to the code would include. So essentially you would be allowed to uh construct a new ADU over an existing garage. If there's new construction it would be a minimum 10 foot uh side and rear property line setback. However, um if the underlying zone um allows for a less restrictive um garage setback such as the downtown specific plan or any other zone in the city, um they could um construct the uh ADU over the garage existing garage or construct a new uh ADU um in accordance with the underlying zone. Um, with that there was also clarification that if you have an ADU that's attached that it could exceed um it or it could be the maximum height according to the zone. Um, and that was the extent of the uh code changes in addition to privacy and design criteria compliance in accordance with section 90-315G of the HMT municipal code. There are uh two I wanted to point out two um corrections that I wanted to um address this evening. Um section 90-3215 A um B I would like to change that uh it indicates transient. It should be transit oriented height. Thank you. Apologize. And the um maximum also on line number 21 the um maximum height uh of 18 um it should not be a minimum height it should be a maximum height uh limit for

one-story detached ADU. Um if if it's within a half mile of a public transit or high quality transit corridor. That concludes my presentation. Um it is respectfully uh requested that the council take action on the environmental uh determination a squa exemption as well as um as approve the ordinance as amended. Okay. Thank you very much. I will now open the public hearing. Do we have any speakers for or against this item?

Thank you, mayor. We have one register registered speaker. It's going to be Scott Garrett. We have Scott Garrett. three minutes.

Uh thank you. I um I think I support this and I just want to uh uh say uh that from what I understand that it would uh I think it makes common sense and I'd appreciate your support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. There are no further registers. Is there any anyone in the audience that would like to address this issue? Okay.

My name is Ann Smith and I live Hold the microphone down please. Thank you. Is that better? Yes. Much.

My name is Anne Smith and I live in the city limits of Hammet and I am vehemently opposed to this. U let me just address the aesthetics of it, never mind anything else. We already have a pretty complex housing situation that have uh we have a lot of new developments which is great and they're behind locked gates and I don't know just how I don't know how well educated our new residents are in terms of city government and city council and stuff like that. Um aesthetically I don't know how you can do this. You know, we we have some beautiful homes and we have some older homes which were probably valued uh well, they were they're greatly valued, but at the time they were built and purchased, they had more value to the community than they may have now because possibly the residents who live in those homes um don't have the cash flow to make the improvements. I don't know. Um, and then there's the secret thing. Again, I I mean, I don't see how you can get around that. Um, we have a really complex issue going on here, and it's all based around homelessness. So, if people can't afford an apartment, how in the world are they going to afford this? Not only that, I'm I'm going to be very blunt here. We have some beautiful neighborhoods and we have some really skunky neighborhoods. Really skunky. Um, I don't know that that's anyone's particular fault, but I just think that personally this is going to add to it. Unless I'm misunderstanding this whole thing. I just don't think it's a great idea. Uh, there are a lot of things wrong with this and I don't want to spend all my time on it. I just wanted to let you know that's how I felt about it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Can I add something on that? Okay. And we're doing it because it's state law. So, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to council. Any comments from council? Go ahead. I've got I've got nothing. Go ahead.

I think the planning commission um our little entourage in Santa Rosa really spoke to a lot of things, including this. This is this is not us. This is just us going through the motion because we have to regardless of whether we like it or not. I have a problem with single family residences and ADU's invasion of privacy that I don't like and I'm sorry. specifically. These are homes for me myself when I was a firsttime home buyer that needed to buy. I found the home I could start with. And if an ADU was right next to me and my young kids running around in a backyard that is mine and I've got someone peering down, I won't buy that house. So, I'm sorry. I don't like this. I don't like the privacy that's being taken away. Um, and it is a money grab in a lot of respects, placing these things in places so we can get as many people into one location. I get it. We've got homeless problem, but I think this is going to be the future's problem. When somebody wants to buy a home and there's an ADU sitting there and they don't really like it and they don't want another person living there, they're going to have to take it out. And can they take it out? So that's my firm feeling about this. It is basically a rubber stamp. This is what we get to do.

Yes. Any other comments from council? This just to make us compliant. This is to make us compliant with state law. All right. That's all it is. Okay, I'll make a motion. We may not like it, but

let me say one more thing. No, so I said this two weeks ago, so I disagree with some of this because we we have a poor economy in the city of Hammet. And I think this is an opportunity for people that have enough money to put an ADU in their yard that they can raise their standard of living because they will get the rent. And to what Connie said, I mean, if if you want to buy a house, you're you're you're going to know who's living behind you. So just don't buy that house, find a different house,

you know? So, I I I like the idea because I think it'll help uh the economy of um our residents. So, okay. Anything else? Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve it. I'll second it. We have a motion in a second. Can we have a roll call? Thank you, Mayor. I have a motion by Council Member Peterson, second by Council Member Lodge. We'll do roll call. Council member Clark. Yes. Council member Lodge, yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Prom Mills, yes. Mayor Koopa,

yes. That motion passes five to zero. Thank you very much. Thank you for the presentation. We will now move on to receive and file. Are there any questions or comments from council on the warrant registers and payroll payments for this period? None. None. Okay. Seeing none, we'll receive and file those reports. And now we will move on to the consent calendar. Are there any registered speakers on this particular item? We do have one registered speaker. Could I have Ann Smith for your remaining time? It'll be one minute.

Hello again. Same person I was before. Um I don't understand why we're using measure A money. This looks to me like a money grab by the developer. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm not seeing something that you all are seeing, but that's what it looks like to me. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. I think we should be using Measure A money for other things. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Okay. Um there's Anybody want to pull this item? No comments up here. Okay. They have a motion to approve item 10 A. I make a motion we approve item 10A.

Do we have a second? I'll second it. We have a motion and a second to approve item 10A, consent calendar. Thank you, Mayor. I have a motion by Council Member Lodge, second by Council Member Peterson. We'll do roll call. Council member Clark, yes. Council member Lodge, yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Tim Males, yes. Mayor Koopa. Yes. That motion passes 5 to zero. Okay. Moving on to discussion items. Item number 11A. Can we have a report from staff, please?

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, tonight we are presenting to you a resolution uh to approve an interim appointment of Jane Hollstead to the vacant position of city clerk. As you know, we recently had a vacancy at this position. And uh Miss Hollstead is the re most recently uh retired as the city clerk from Marino Valley uh but has a a robust career spanning more than 30 years um in primarily clerking type of roles and uh having to introduce her tonight uh to ask her to briefly introduce uh herself. uh this is required to be presented to you on the discussion calendar whenever we appoint a retired annuitant and there are uh some very significant Kalpers limitations on appointments like this. This is the uh essentially the same action you went uh through recently when we appointed the interim fire chief.

Thank you. Sure. This would be great time.

Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Jane Hollstead and I like the city manager stated, I have 30 years of experience plus uh 15 years, well a little more than 15 years of experience as a city clerk from a small city to a large city. So I've done various uh the f my first city was a city of u myetta and my last city was a city of Marino Valley. So if you can you know the a small one to a large one every city is unique and it's very interesting to come like even today I have never been to a city council meeting for city of Hammet and it's very interesting how things are conducted and everything goes along like it should. So, I'm elated to be to be part of this group and uh I thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you very much. Don't go anywhere. Yeah, don't go any. Do we have any public comment requests on this? You have no register speakers, right? We need uh we need a motion or comments and comments from council. Oh, do I have comments? Oh, you want to ask them first? Go for it. Go for it. I just you have comments. Yeah, I have comments. Okay. You know what my comment is? Why wasn't Elodie promoted? As soon as she got

Okay. All right. But anyways, I wanted to ask you a question. And I'd seen your um I believe resume and I noticed a lot of jobs that you had and they lasted like one year, two years, one year, two years and there were a lot and I think the longest job you had was seven years and I'm just wondering why so many turnovers.

Okay. I think I I sent the resume that I probably should have condensed it. That was my whole career. Uh so I think the first one that I had listed there was for school district. I was there for like nine nine almost 10 years. Then moving to California I came and I was employed at a water district for four years. And then from there I decided to go into city local government and I was there for um uh well I obtained a position with the city of Maretta and then I think I was there for 18 months if I remember correctly and there was a promotional opportunity with another city. So, I went there and you're always trying to climb the ladder of success and I went to the city of Marino Valley and I was um deputy city clerk there and then I was promoted to city clerk after three years. So, yeah, there's been progression through the years and I've had promotions.

Let me just tell you the only reason I say that I'm old. I mean I mean I'm old. I'm I would say the stupidest thing, but I'm but I was raised in a time where where your resumes were, you know, they were really people looked at them and and my dad used to always tell me stay at a job more than 5 years. That way it makes it look like you, you know, that you did a good job there. And I used to always move around just like you said and get promoted here or go to a better job. And and my my dad just always told me that's not good. You know, you're too many jobs. you have to stay somewhere and and at least give them a few years there. And yeah, and

to add to your point there, there was a couple of jobs I did as interim for the city of San Bernardino and city of Corona. Yeah. And I did that between jobs. So it was, you know, and they only lasted like months or Yeah. Yeah. I read it. I've seen that. Yeah. That's okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. No problem. Yes. All right.

I'd just like to say that I thought that your resume was impressive and I like the fact that you started out as an admin person and and just went up the ladder like you said and um we didn't get your resume immediately when the agenda came out. So I researched you and um Supervisor Gutierrez gave you very high marks when you left and that's good enough for me.

Thank you. He was um when he started out with the city of Marino Valley as a council member, I was so impressed by him. You know, even to this day, the work he does for the organization, it's just amazing. He did wonderful things with Marino Valley and I see that as supervisor, he's doing amazing things. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other comments or can we have a motion? Make a motion. I will m make a motion to approve approve Miss Holstead as our interim city clerk and and approving the employment agreement. I'll second it.

Okay, we have a motion in a second. We have roll call. Thank you, mayor. We have a motion by council member Peterson, second by Mayor Prom Mills. We'll do roll call. Council member Clark, yes. Council member Lodge, yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Prom Mills, yes. Mayor Koopa, yes. That motion passes five to zero. Thank you very much. Now we will have a staff report on item 11B. Yes. Oh, by the way, not him. Be nice.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, city council, city manager, sir. Good evening, Ben Sonoval, the economic development director for the beautiful city of Hemet. And what a pleasure it is to be here tonight. Uh today I'll be presenting the vehicle and automotive tax sharing program the actual agreements. I know this is something I had presented with the city manager last year and we've done a lot of progress since that time and today we're going to go a little bit on where we were and how do we get here this evening. So, as you can see, part of the strategic plan uh didn't want to be too aggressively, but for right now, it meets two of the five, but it could uh meet more. And one of them is partnership collaboration. And before I start, I do want to welcome also uh the Mr. Tim Moran from the Tim Moran Group. He's here. He'll be saying a few words a little later today along with the owner of Heid Toyota, Kevin Odari, and one of the general managers out there, uh we win for Heid Toyota as well. and one uh economic opportunity. I'm sure we've seen the past year the great cultivation, partnerships, and more importantly relationships that we build through a multitude of inaugural events. And that wouldn't be uh possible without economic opportunity and building relationships. I also do want to recognize um a land owner that holds three parcels, Mr. Don McCoy. Thank you for being here, Don. A lot of your properties helped us have a lot of great events, particularly the Fourth of July drone show. So, thank you for being here this evening to support the item. Um, moving forward here, what is the purpose? You know, earlier today we heard about where heritage meets progress. I believe Nathan presented that item and that's where kind of what this is. The um auto sales is not new to Hemet Valley. I believe they used to be scattered through the the east side and then it was a great idea that bring everyone together at the Hemet Auto Mall and that is where the heritage is going to mean progress. It's great to have it

there, but how do we keep it there? And how do we continue innovating it and being competitive where our smaller children to the west of us, city of Manife, Marietta, tend to graduate? We're the founding fathers of the valley. We want to make sure that we're known. So, some of the purposes is to support job creation. Um, this is going to be very big and targeting high growth sectors. The more jobs, the more it is to pitch our story, our message to developers. increase public service. As we continue to increase our public services, that's going to be something immediately. So, expansion of these types of automos that yield higher tax revenue to the city will be important. Uh remaining competitive again as I mentioned, we have cities to the west that are expanding and they may also be looking into creating a a auto mall. That is again one of the biggest tax revenue items when it comes to city revenue. uh also preserving the local character. It's not too often that cities are able to create something like this and if they do you you hear it even from miles away. We hear Certo's Auto Square for example that's that's over 90 miles but we still hear it out here. So these are just some of the ideas where we want to keep the local uh character supporting entrepreneurs as you're going to see the amount of job investment that's going to be created and retained will promote a local ecosystem which is what we're talking about here. Our current leakage according to Placerai on a yearly basis when you add in all sectors combined we're over $ 1.5 billion dollar on leakages when you combine all revenues all sectors. So bringing in these types of auto sales is really going to help us bring down one of the higher percentages that we saw on the top 20 businesses that leave our valley. One of them is to a competitor that we have here in the valley. We have one of the dealerships but they're going elsewhere. And that's something that we need to cortel and keep local dollars, but at the same time bring in new

dollars. So, we're not sharing the exact same one. And it's part of the economic rises plan that all of you here uh approved when you were on on um when the item was presented and it's really presented on working with our automo. We've had some great stories to tell. We had a beautiful ribbon cutting um not too long ago and that's what I'm going to get into. So the analysis portion um as as stated here this is wasn't just born out of nowhere. In 2024 I was very privileged to be part of the initial meetings with the uh city manager who lent the meeting with all of uh the seven um auto dealerships and what a great experience as well. City attorney was there as well to see everyone coming together and seeing for the first time what an association looks like, what can it become and where can it go. So that's where we started and then from hearing these types of meetings we were able to hear directly from the head he himtt auto mall association directly what are their wants what are their needs what are some pain points new signages maybe exploring a Florida entrance there was all kinds of variables explored and we're very excited of what the future has in store and then we presented the item in council in 20 March of 2025 and when approved we did a lot of outre outreach not only did we do outreach to our local hemmed autom and exploring if they were interested in expanding or even bringing in a new brand. We reached out to other major vehicle brands such as Kia, Genesis, Tesla, Rivian, and also other uh automotive or vehicle uh producing uh tax revenue uh such as RVs, boats, and other auto dealerships that are currently in the val valley such as VIP Autos, and I forget the name of it, but it's right on the corner here in downtown uh HMT. So, we reached out to them. We had several inquiries, a couple meetings that the city manager and I were able to host. One of them was a potential Kia dealership, but unfortunately there's one in Paris. So,

the trade area might be too close, but as the population increases in our trade area, that's key. Sometimes we get um these types of questions. Well, why isn't there um let me bring out a Sam's Club or a Costco? Well, they not may not necessarily be, and I don't mean to go on sidetrack, but there's a point to this. They may not necessarily be just mapping out Hammond. It's a trade area that includes Homeland, Rumboland, Sosinto, Sage, and parts of Northeast, Meny, and Winchester. So, we received from all these we uh it was open for 5 years, and wouldn't you know it, we we got one I think less than half a year. We got not one but two, which was pretty impressive. and the Tim Moran Auto Group out of the Hyundai brand submitted a proposal along with HeMT Toyota and we received them, we reviewed them, we we had even preliminary meetings assisting, hey, is this going to be a good project? Is this truly what the grant I'm sorry, the tax sharing program was written. And this is what we have here in front of you today. two agreements between the city of Hmed and the uh Timaran Hy Honda group and I'm sorry Timaran Group for Hyundai and the Hammond of Toyota. Uh this is just a quick little uh flyer. We did other kinds of marketing uh materials to really get the word out there. Place was a really good tool to really hone in on types of sales that are leaving our valley and we under and from there we did learn that hey Kia is a popular brand that people are leaving it. So it's something to explore in the near future for our amigos that are here. So moving forward and I'm almost done here. Uh the application number one as you can see is from Toyota of Hemet the request and uh I'll go a little bit uh quickly on how this is going to be broken up at the very end on regards to uh sharing but they are requesting $7.5 uh million under the tax sharing program. You're going to see a little

bit after what they're proposing, but it's going to be construction of a new slashexpanded service bay. We're talking jobs, jobs, jobs. We talked about earlier on the purpose. This will be creating a an additional 25 to 30 jobs. These are great jobs. These are career jobs. These are jobs that people can move up and the um the owners here will not have an opportunity shortly to really hone in on what that means. This project based on the the type of project will take about one to one one and a half to two years and that's to go through the whole entitlement process from start to finish. They've already submitted plans and 115 jobs will be created. This particular art might be a little difficult to to view here but as you can see on the bottom leftand corner you can see the proposed expansion on the service bay. This is very imperative to know because um one service bay can service anywhere between two to five cars an hour. I can be wrong on on the number. It could be more or less, but it gives you an idea on the turnaround. These are high service uh maintenance. You know, they range. We've all service our cars. We know they're not cheap. So, these are re new tax revenue for the city that we'll be able to have along with remod uh remodelization of different two areas which I'll I'll let Mr. Nadari talk on what that looks like, but you can kind of get an idea of what they're proposing. An expansion of the uh service bay along with solar panels and a little bit of renovation interiorly. Moving forward to the application number two, we have the Tim Moran Group out of the Hyundai dealership. They are requesting $7.5 million as well. This would include a new showroom, a remodeled parts and service operation, and installation of a solar panel. This one's going to move a little quick, more quickly. The plans have already been submitted. We're going through entitlements, and currently they're

looking at about 18 months to be completed. This will create 35 new jobs and 65 jobs will retain. Um, as you're going to see, this is a a pretty big one. Aesthetically, it's going to change the game. is really going to bring in um the particular the Hyundai brand to 2026 standards. As you can see there, they'll be separating from the Chevy dealership and modernizing it to look 2026 again aesthetically pleasing. Making sure that people are no longer just coming for a car, but it's an experience. And I want the the owners here to to talk about not only is it just about selling cars, it's about an experience, about building relationships. And I can hone in. They're not in the business of of building partnerships and and I can attest to that. Partnerships is hey come here Monday through Friday 8 to 5 and we'll pick up. But I've spoken to these gentlemen on Saturdays, Sundays and we're building relationships and they're here long term for the community and I can attest they've donated many books to the Unified School District. So it's looking very well here. So that gives you an idea on regards to the project reimbursement. Each agreement um will be reimbursed on half a percent of the Bradley Burns. This will not I want to make something very clear. This will not touch any measure you funding. Um and it would just touch half a percent of the Bradley Burns. So all in all, just for those two, we the city will still take in 75% of the yearly sales revenue. But the long-term impact of the jobs creation, the incind and indirect incind services that we will be getting will far outweigh on the 20ear span that this is proposing. 20 years or 7.5 million, whatever comes first. And once fully completed and we're doing the ribbon cutings and we're passing out certificates and we're so excited. We projecting that on a yearly uh annual financial impact report. We're projecting anywhere between 750,000 to $1 million per fiscal year. It could

change. These are just draft numbers, but uh for the most part, we do project. But I just something I want to just hone in on that the city will still take in 75% of what they would be bringing in on sales revenue, but the long-term job creation. And I think this is something that the valley as we're trying to bring in the the the bigger corporations, the conglomerates, the costs, the Sam's Club, they may have standards or variables that we need to meet. One of them can be the average household income of 86,000. We may not be there right now, but with these types of investments, these types of creation, job creation, we can get there. Not in the next 10 years, but possibly in the next 5 years. So, I thank you all for listening. I'm open for discussion to follow, but before I I pass it over to council, mayor, would be okay if I call up the two owners to say a few a few words. Thank you, mayor. Mr. Moran and Mr. Nardi, may I have you step up, please? Perfect. I'll pass it over to Mr. Moran first.

Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Ben and council. Great to see most of you again. I' I've had the opportunity to meet all of you, I think, uh, in in the past. Uh, first, let me just say I I'm not only honored, but I'm very very happy to be here today. Uh, We've been the Tim Moran Auto Group for only 18 months, but my connection with the city is approaching 20 years. Um, I worked for Eric Gosh for almost 20 years. she hired me as a as a store manager um for one of the dealerships and over five years um had the opportunity to become the manager for all the stores and then another five years after that I became their partner Eric and Mark's partner u in all six dealerships and we made the decision to sell the company a couple years ago and I was fortunate enough through the the hard work that I've put in and the generosity that they provided to now be the sole owner of the group. So, um I got here through really pulling up my bootstraps, blood, sweat, and tears, and it's just great to be here. And, uh the investment that that I am looking to make into the Hyundai dealership. I know we talked about just having uh the showroom, but it's essentially it's building it's it's taking the old Toyota dealership uh that was utilized before we built it where where Kevin now resides. Um, it's the old Toyota dealership and we're essentially tearing it down to the studs and building it about twice its uh size that it is currently and then expanding the service department and the parts department. it will generate um organically we're seeing about a 5% growth annually right now but with the uh the the increase of the size of the location and the capacity we will see really what other Hyundai dealerships have been seeing about a 40% increase the between the first and the second year. So a 40%

increase will what that really means is an additional 25 to 30 jobs and an additional 8 to10 million in revenue in in in just car sales and service and parts. So uh really appreciate the the council and the city taking this uh agenda item and I really look forward to working and staying here another 20 years. So anybody have any questions for me? Quick one. Yes, sir. What's going to be the uh square footage of the new showroom? The new showroom itself will be about 10,000 square feet and there will be another 10,000 square ft of office space. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Moran. Mr. Nadair,

good evening all. Mayor, council, it's a pleasure to be with you this evening. Tough act to follow. A lot of energy here. I'm here in support of the measure. Um we chose to invest in the city of Hemet about two years ago. We made a substantial investment and we're thrilled to be here. Um we have expanded our operations organically in our current footprint to their maximum size at this time. We can offer the community much more than we currently are right now. You have a significant number of commuters that reside in our community that need support for their transportation. They are taking some of that business elsewhere. a s it's a substantial amount actually. So the upside in expanding our capacities in the Hemet Auto Mall are significant. Um I won't go into detail. You do have some of those details if you'd like to have them. Our proposed project is specifically to expand our service capacity. It will double the size of our service operations. Estimated increases in revenue at about $3 million. Um estimated job creation in highpaying, high-skilled, long-term jobs. You saw it there as 20 to 35 jobs. These are for technical staff. Um in addition, we expect expansion of sales roughly 10% per year organically beyond that. Um if you have any questions, I'm here to answer them, but I would tell you thank you so much for considering this.

Any questions from council or comments? We appreciate you being here, too. Thank you all again. Thank you. Thank you, council. Um, that concludes my presentation. I'm here if you have any uh comments, questions, and I'm I believe the city manager is as well. Thank you. Okay. Also available for questions. Any questions? Yes, Connie.

Okay. So this is 7.5 million that we need. The city needs the money. 15 million total. So I'm not a Debbie Downer. Okay. this. Um, I would have liked to have seen a 7030 with the city retaining a little bit more money than 5050 for 20 years. The city and our business community need to be very close. We do appreciate the drones. We do appreciate the toys and all of the things that have been given. In return, they have also received first time and premium over a lot of streets that we needed to get fixed. Theirs got done completely. I get it. This is an income source for the city. the loyalty thing. Any dealership that has been given what we we have been given and then choose to leave that loyalty is not there with the city and we lose that. They've got Winchester, they've got Myrietta that these places are situated in Hemet and Hemtt wants a good relationship. So, city needs income. Could we make it a

little less of a ghost town on Sundays and a little better landscape and a little less parking problem? Maybe some aesthetics. I have driven there on Sundays and it's like a ghost town. Sunday is a day when people have a lot of times have off, not everybody. So I get this expansion and I am going to support it. But I do want to be it very clear. I expect loyalty. I don't want to see another dealership leave or threaten to leave because we are investing in them. I like the jobs. I was at the Gosh opening originally when Jack had it. Yeah. And he could remember

my mom and dad's first car that we bought from him. That's the relationship that I'm talking about. So that's what I expect in return for my support. Thank you, council member.

That's it. And if I'm able to add a comment to I fully taken what you've stated and the loyalty portion is something that has honed in to me and that I've been with the city manager support been able to make sure that Mr. Nari and and Mr. Moriran are aware this is not just hey here you go and if another city offers us a better deal by no this is long term and I can attest um that Mr. Nadari and Mr. Moran, on top of just doing the the the little things, you know, that the toys or the giveaway, they're continuously asking, is there anything that that the city needs that wherever it is that you need, just let us know and we want to be a great community partner.

Absolutely. And that's what I'm asking is that when we have a need, we've given freely. We've given them some really nice streets that I can tell you a lot of people in HIMT would like to have. It's true. Yeah. And not that I don't support it and I don't want to be like I said a Debbie Downer, but I want to make absolutely sure that we acknowledge the fact this is a lot of money not in our pocket. That's it. Thank you, Council Member. But it's over a 20-year period. Correct. It is on on a

I can speak to that a little bit more. So, uh, what what the agreement does is it shares 50/50 the Bradley Burns portion of the sales tax, right?

So, uh, that's a 1% tax, uh, the city's measure U sales tax is an additional 1% for a total of two. Um, this essentially means that the city continues to receive 1.5% of the two for those types of transactions. some transactions will simply be 1% just depends on um this will typically always be a two for the for the folks that live out of town. Um, what I think is important is we tried to strike a balance in analyzing the, you know, the program could have a $100 million cap, but if if the if the cost share um adjustment was off, um, it might be a program that really only allows for a reimbursement of a half a million or a million. So we did a lot of analysis uh by looking at all of the dealerships uh all of the brands understanding um the range of performance and this is proprietary information that only the city manager and the and the administrative services director uh are authorized to look at. But we tried to strike a balance between the range of the revenue production and find an average. um and we made extremely conservative estimates. So what we did not do in estimating the impact financially annually to the city is um we did not assume any revenue growth and I we to just heard revenue growth of 5 to 10% and perhaps more with the expansion opportunities but we assume zero growth just for conservative purposes. What I expect is the the the the revenue share does not begin until they complete their project. So, we're really 1.5 to two years away from the actual revenue share. Um, but as you heard tonight, they're going to have expanded service bays, expanded

showrooms. We expect that that performance will grow. Um we did model the the current sales and um I think what we've done is strike a balance that um may not even it depends on their performance. It actually motivates the the design of this program motivates the auto dealer to sell more and to provide more services because if they don't they may not be fully reimbursed for the cap on the program that the city council's established. So in some in a in a unique way uh this program is set up in a way where they can get there but they have to perform they have to um continue to sell vehicles and they have to continue to provide services and I think um when I when I uh analyze the the two dealerships um I I recognize that there's a balance and I think the other thing I want to mention is that when we think of the two dealerships, when we first crafted this program, uh we've shared with you uh that until a new dealership is built, a brand new one that is added to the portfolio, uh we would recommend limiting these type of expansion and renovation um incentives to no more than three. Uh I think after analyzing the revenue uh we should pause uh with these two at this point and uh wait to see what that performance looks like for the first 6 to 12 months of u the new arrangement when once these um dealerships uh move forward. If a new dealership arrives and wants to build, uh, then I retract that statement because that's going to be new revenue that will really truly offset the the, um, the, um, city's sacrifices moving forward. But, um, this is a competitive market. Um, these dealerships are not new. They've they've

been here for basically 30 plus years now. Uh, we need to stay competitive. I've watched cities across the state of California. uh they they sometimes begin to rest on their laurels. Uh but consumers uh will uh gravitate to the newer uh fresh businesses and we have to stay competitive and I think in some of the other comments uh particularly about the commuters and also the new residents that are nearby the de the dealerships recognize that they have a brand new clientele immediately west of us. They are working together to reach out to those. I think that's going to be related to some of the growth and uh there are a lot new a lot of new residents that are moving into this area. So I think there's a lot of upside for the city to position help these uh brands position themselves to be extremely competitive against other options that um our residents and nearby residents have in the region.

Mayor Go ahead, attorney, please. Uh could I could I just address um the partnership and the the the loyalty comments that came from from the council member? Uh so I I I believe in partnership and loyalty. I also believe in enforceable contractual obligations. Uh so uh you know what what we've negotiated with the dealerships and you can find that on page uh I think 12 uh of of the backup. Page uh 339 total of the backup. uh section 9D um if the if the dealerships cease operations and it's not excused. So, you know, there's

provisions for natural calamities and things like that. Um or if there is a 25% decrease in taxable economic activity, uh the dealerships are obligated to return all of the amounts that we have shared with them plus interest. Uh so we would commonly refer to this as golden handcuffs uh for each other. And you know, we're not talking about a new dealer that's coming in that doesn't have a history with the city. We're talking about two established businesses that have a long economic history with the city. And so uh that that type of enforceable obligation I I think uh adequately meets that that need.

Okay. I I have one comment. Okay. Two. Um, okay. So, so Ben mentioned the leakage. Okay. It is amazing how many people do not shop in Hemet. Okay. So, what we're trying to do is promote shop local, support our local businesses. And we know Winchester's coming this way. We know they're going to build out the West End of Hammet soon. So, this is really important for our city to have this kind of an economy because they are our biggest tax providers for our city. And um Kevin, were you on the business connect with Ben recently? Okay. So, that's what I thought. So, I I was in on this uh monthly meeting that Ben has um by Zoom and we have some really good conversations on that and uh one one of the comments that Kevin said because I asked about EV stations and he said, "Well, we really don't have a market for that." I'm like, "Well, if you had EV stations, maybe we would have a market for EVs, you know, so I would really like to, you know, me personally, I like a hybrid. I'm I'm not a real big fan of the total EVs, but I would really like to see us get some kind of an EV car here and more EV stations because we are losing business in town for people to go out of town to charge their cars. So, we need that.

No, thank you, Mayor. Sorry, Council Member. Um, if I may just add, I've actually connected with with uh Kevin and M Mr. Miranda as well. They actually own a a parcel there that that's vacant right now and they're thinking of all different creative ideas from I won't mention too much but one of them is our charging station and that doesn't become a reality. They they've pledged to help work with the city in bringing in some sort of type of EV charging stations and we've even had a meeting with one of the assembly members to see how we can bring in the infrastructure here into he

that's a very and and one more to the earlier question to council member Clark's uh comment um I have made them very aware that that hey if you bring in a new dealership look at uh the pot as well so Mr. Moran Mr. They've actually are aware of the brands that we don't have and are actively seeking how to bring in the new brands in the parcels that are available with Mr. McCoy's uh property there and he owns the three empty parcels as well. So we want to bring in together to see if we can make that happen the next one to five years. Okay. Any other questions from council? Okay. Is there any public comment on this item?

Uh we have one speaker. We have Lori Van Arsdale for a remaining time of one minute.

I just want to imp I'm always doing history lessons, but I just want to tell you a just a quick brief on what that auto mall was created to do. Uh years and years ago, even before I got on the council, that auto mall was formed by the city. and that had tax incentives that they gave before I was on and also while I was on to get them to move out there. And I'll have to say that the Jack Gosh, the Gosh Auto Group uh was one of the first to get out there, which meant that the tax leakage that we had in East Hett often people thought that was Hemtt's tax dollars, but it wasn't. It was the county. Gosh Auto going to that mall was huge, huge. And Tim, you were part of that too, I think, or you came right after they got there. But that was very important. And so that incentive was always anytime we gave incentives, it was paid for well ahead of our projected time. So I encourage you to approve this. And I also want to say that that um certainly Tim growing up with them um was was a good commitment as far as somebody who knows what's going on in this valley and that they were very generous supporters of the Ramona Bowl and many other organizations throughout town uh in this last number of years. We we miss Eric Gosh. We love the goshes deeply, but I think you've done a good job of carrying on that tradition and thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, council. Um, entertain a motion. I I'll make the motion. Okay. I move to approve the two vehicle and automobile tax sharing program agreements between the city of Hammet Hemmet and the Tim Moran Group Hyandai and authorize execution of the agreements in accordance with the program. Do I have a second? I'll second it. We have a motion then a second. Thank you, mayor. We'll do roll call. We have a motion by Mayor Prom May, second by Council Member Lodge. Council member Clark, yes. Council member Lodge, yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Prom Mills, yes. Mayor Koopa, yes. That motion passes 5 to zero. Thank you, council.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben. Okay, now we are going to move on to item C 11 C. And can we have a staff report on this item, please?

Mayor, happy to provide a brief introduction of this item. Uh before you um tonight is a recommendation from um Mayor Krupa and Council Member Peterson who both sit on the board of directors of the Ramona Bowl uh association. And as you know um this is an iconic uh community asset that uh the city of HMT has um a more than 100year relationship with. Um I'm proud to let you know that um the board recently provided me with a strategic plan uh that I was um very interested in receiving and had suggested uh probably um more than a year and a half ago. Um it's my um observation that the board and um its directors and leadership um has struggled to move beyond um a point in time where uh the organization struggled. And I think what we see in the the strategic plan that I've reviewed is a a strong commitment to finding new ways to uh provide services to the community. Lift up the Ramona Bowl which has experienced a decline in membership. I'm sorry decline in attendance over the last couple of decades even though the community has grown. um and stabilize the the asset uh by also seeking new revenue streams to uh uplift the the uh the bowl. Uh it's my understanding that they're also seeking um more than $30 million of funding concurrently uh for capital needs. That's different than uh what is recommended tonight, which is a $50,000 annual contribution to the uh Ramona Bowl for programming and services and um the community engagement and commerce

that comes from that to support the these operations. As you know, uh some of the actors are paid in the play. uh and it it's um uh with ticket sales declining, there's a need to uh for other funding sources to be provided in a consistent manner until these new revenue streams can be advanced. So, um, tonight I believe we do have representatives of the bowl, uh, and the board of directors who are, uh, available here, and I'd like to invite them to speak to you about, um, the, um, funding request as well as a little background on how they're, um, approaching the operations today. So, um, okay, we'll start with, uh, the dire the chair, uh, Joe Grind Staff.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I have two. I think that microphone needs push on. Got to have the green light. It's not on. Now the lights on. The lights on.

So I'll say for everybody to hear. I have two Toyotas and one Ionic 5 and I'm very happy with all of them and I actually get them all serviced there and bought them there. So that's great. So I'm happy that the auto mall is going to continue hopefully for a long time, longer than I live. So I I just want to say thank you very much for putting this on the agenda. We have uh been putting together. We did a strategic plan which we got completed last year got adopted by the board. We've made significant improvements. You may have heard we are we have scheduled 16 concerts this year. We have now a marketplace that comes once a month uh uh the farmers market in addition to the the boo at the bowl and to Ramona the play. So we've made significant progress. We expect to make significant progress but we need this assist to help move us forward. So thank you very much and I'm not going to take I promised your clerk that I wasn't going to take more than a minute. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. And uh my name is Chuck Champion and I'm somewhat embarrassed to be standing here in front of you. Is that light on? It's on. Okay. And you're usually telling me to shut up. Now you're telling me to turn it on.

No. My embarrassment is is that you know as I look um at the deis and I look around this room I realize I am truly the newcomer u to this great great community and to a great event in the community. Uh for those of you who don't know me, I I spent 50 years in the newspaper industry and a number of communities in Chicago and Philadelphia and Boston running large papers and in Santa Clarita running small papers. I have never been involved with a more dedicated group of directors in all of the 35 uh boards that I have served on. They are committed to the community and they are committed to the play Ramona with a 103y year history. Plus, um I'm very proud to stand in front of you as the interim CEO of the poll. My job is to help um rejuvenate um and to help u bring in additional revenue sources. Um gentlemen, don't go too far. I need to talk to you before you get out of here. And I'm sorry, I only have one Toyota cuz I'm not as rich as this guy back here. But seriously, what you're about ready to do, or at least what I hope you're about ready to do, is to help Ramona take that next step, the pageant's next step to to bring it back to what it once was in this community where we ran. Maybe we don't get to run cattle down Florida like it we once did, but there's no reason why we can't bring back some of the traditions that have made this community great. And not only for the community itself, but for the region. Um, people don't really understand who we are here in EMTT. And I say we because even though some of you know I live outside the city limits in

unincorporated Riverside County, my mail comes to HMT. And it was reminded to me the other day that we are all part of Hemtt and we need to come together around that. And we can come together around this play because this play is all based on one thing, the differences that exist between peoples and the ability to resolve those differences. So I I am excited about being here, but as I said, I'm somewhat embarrassed because I am the new guy. I've only been here for a couple years. I'm hoping to be here for a lot longer. And you can help my tenure by the way by agreeing tonight. So it is with my hope and and uh my sincere thanks um to all that you have done and hopefully all that you will do. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Any other do we have any other public comment? No additional speakers. Okay. Mayor city attorney wants to make a comment. Uh yeah, occasionally. Um I I did note, you know, in the staff report it mentions that both yourself and councilor Peterson are members of the board of directors. Um I wanted to make sure we had it on the record that that service. So I know for council member Peterson that's ex officio. So that's because you are the city's representative on the board of directors and that comes with no additional compensation. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. And then mayor, is that also correct for you? You serve it's an all volunteer board. Correct. It is an all volunteer board.

Okay. So then under the political reform act and under uh 1091.5 A8 uh you would not be prohibited from participating in this discussion or decision and you would not be required to recuse yourself. So I just wanted to put that in the record in case there were any questions. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Council comments. I would like to make a motion to approve the annual contribution of 50 thou 50 beat 50. Wow.

50,000 to the remotable Amphitheater association for fiscal years 2025 to 26 through 2029 to 30 totaling 250,000 over five years. And to authorize the city manager to execute any necessary any necessary agreements or amendments to facilitate the contribution and direct the city manager to include the contribution in the upcoming budget cycle. And I second that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call? Thank you, Mayor. We have a motion by Council Member Clark, second by Council Member Lodge. I'll do roll call. Council member Clark, yes. Council member Lodge,

yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Promos, I wanted to make a statement prior to this, but I'll make it afterwards. But I'm I'm a yes on this. Mayor Koopa and in light of perception, I will abstain. Okay. And that motion passes. Board is zero with uh Mayor Kuba abstaining. Thank you very much. And Mr. Mails,

uh you were mentioning that ticket sales were low. Whenever we make a a sharing agreement, attorney, city manager, is there any way we can implement something where we say that for all your employees, you have to buy 100% tickets for the Ramona Bo or something? I mean, have some type of incentive where where at least Ramona Bo or somebody wins on this. This would have been good negotiation direction beforehand. Yeah. Uh but we can certainly look at uh you know working with our partners on that. And I have two Hyundai and a Toyota all bought in Hammet.

Okay. If we're going down that road, I have one Ford and a Porsche in my garage. So there we go. I got two Fords. What did I say? Oh, and a Versa. Only Hyundai and Toyotaas can. Okay. All righty. That passed. Um, now we are going to move on to public comments of items not listed on the agenda. We are getting to you. Thank you so much for staying here and listen going through what we go through every week or every other week. So, uh, city clerk, are there any registered speakers for count or comments on non-aggenda items but within the jurisdiction of this body?

Thank you, Mary. Yes, we do. We're going to start with Maryanne Duran and after that we'll have Roy Michael. Good evening, council. Here I am again, two weeks later, still bringing up the same subject. I have not received any information about the permit that was for $429. Uh, which I feel is a little outrageous for just replacing a bathtub. I did go to Saneno and I went to their city and I asked them what they charge to replace a bathtub and they charge between $150 to $200, no more than $200. So, um I did get a email saying that my permit was ready to be picked up, but there was nothing said about the cost. And also too, that your office is only open from 9 to 12 and I work from 6 to 1. So, that doesn't help me out at all if I needed to come and pick up my permit because that's the email that I did get. So, um, could you please someone reach out to me and let me know because my bathtub is on hold at the moment and I would like to get this done before summer. So, um, please let me know uh what it is going to cost me. However, I do feel that $429 is a money grab at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. uh briefly the the staff did provide me the answers I was looking for regarding uh this comment and I have not called her back so I will call her back uh with the feedback. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker and next speaker we have Roy with donated time from Terresa Malone. Is Teresa Malone still here? Thank you. We'll have six minutes.

Good evening city council. It's great to see you guys again. Um it apparently Nuland Simpson has reared its ugly head again. Uh in regards to it, their environmental report was a disaster. It was totally discredited. The traffic situation would be a total mess. Why will build a White House a warehouse right next to an established housing community? I understand that bringing this project to another vote is due to a threatened lawsuit from a man that threatened to build a prison on the location if we did not follow his demands. Is he thinking a detention center for im immigrants? I don't know. I believe he also threatened the same uh in a lawsuit against the city of San Diego. He lost that one. Let's let him lose again here. Now, the tenants that are supposed to be going into Newand Simpson are the same tenants that are supposed to be going into Acacia Kirby. So, early this afternoon, I drove around through the parking lot of Acacia Kirby and counted all the personal vehicles there. Came to 18. Now, they had promised us what 500, 700, a thousand employees. Now, unless these 18 cars are clown cars where you can have 40 people jump up out of them, uh I think they're falling far very short. They're falling as short as the 30some empty warehouses in Paris where they were promised all these employees, uh all this money coming in and they're sitting empty and they're for sale, you know. um they make promises about this stuff, but none of it is in the contract. There's no contract saying there's going to be 500 or a,000 or 1500 employees. Um it's just like with uh

the lake back way back behind us. They promised us in their paperwork a casino and big sports event areas. I haven't seen a casino there. They got a trail you can hike on. All right. So, we have to be real careful on what what is on the paper, but what not is guaranteed on the paper. Now, some of you are not going to be here next year. Some of you are leaving. Some of you are, you know, whatever it's, you know, I wish the best for you. Let's not let Nuland Simpson be your legacy. Thank you. Thank you.

And the next speaker we have is Jean Fenza with donated time from Alda Pit. Aldit. Thank you. You'll have six minutes. Hello everybody. Mayor, Mayor Prom, Council, City Attorney, city manager, and LOD. Thank you for your help today. Appreciate that. And also I'd like to make a public acknowledgement for the police service today since we saw a threat to something about the Newand Simpson project in the warehouse to blow people's heads off. We appreciate it. Thank you officers. You're great. We appreciate you. Um, last October I came to the city and spoke that I had heard from someone in the city about this threatened lawsuit that this developed landowner was proposing to the city of EMTT. So, it's obviously occurred. We know that from the disclosure from the city attorney on February 10th. Um, saddened to hear it. He obviously threatened and intimidated. He was sending emails to the no votes in the city on the city council. Um, that's what I was told. He's now sending me emails, calling me personally as well. I won't be intimidated like you are. He can't get anything out of me. I have a right to my first amendment rights. I received a phone call on December, excuse me, February 11th with two witnesses. I showed them my phone, Greg Lancing. They also heard what Mr. Mr. Lancing said he told me he had found my personal disclosure of my purchase of my home which in it said that we've we know we acknowledge there may be industrial development. You may have noise, you may have dirt, you may have this, you may have that. I reminded Mr. Lancing that his property is owned mixed use in the general plan. So it has nothing to do with industrial property. He's asking for a general plan amendment. He knows

what he's asking for, a zoning change and a height variance and one other thing. I think it was a road right of way or something. Don't remember the fourth change. Perhaps you all do. He told me he had spoke to you, city attorney, as well about this. So, I'm assuming if that's true, you would know that. Um, he's clearly searching me on public domain. I got another Instagram from him today. I've also received a text from him and an email since that phone call. you have copies of everything. He doesn't intimidate me. He's constantly telling me he owns all this land. I have a thousand employees. He told me that in the call. He told me that he was going to sue me personally for the civil lawsuit because I'm opposing the project. A little bit about me. I grew up in Connecticut. I'm from a very Italian family. I was taught it's my civic duty to be publicly engaged. It's one of your first things in the general plan. What do we want? Public engagement. So, I don't believe that my public opposition to a project that I think is going to hurt our city is really something he can sue me for personally. Nor does my attorney think that. So, he also said that I called his admin a bull in a china shop. He clearly does not know the definition of an idiom. I can also be protected by hyperbole and my opinion under the first amendment. Um, we all know his his admin is not a bull. We all know she doesn't live in a china shop. Any reasonable person would understand that when I say it's 100° out, I'm melting. Does not mean I'm melting. Right? So, this guy is bullying not only you but now your residents. Is this the type of person you want here in Hemet? In 2014, he sued the San Diego County.

He lost that $100 million lawsuit under similar pretentious baseless claims. It's ridiculous. I also think it's ridiculous that 40,000 constituents from District 1 and District 3 have now lost their voice by being recused, by recusing self-reusal. You've walked away from representing your constituents. I don't I don't see that as something that our our council members should do. Um he told me poke de told me seen my social posts sent me a text you have that telling me he recom he told me that day on the phone to take him down. Of course I said no and then he sent me a text recommending I do take them down. Of course I'm not going to do that. I have a right to speak up. It's my civic duty to speak up on this project. So, I will also talk about a little bit about the project. We've got the new art thing that would generate $885,000 from that fee. If the project was originally built out, fully stabilized, they had said $177 million. It was going to be the value. Do the math. Fasis point. It's $885,000 to the art. Um, the roads. Constantly hearing about the roads tonight. The roads are atrocious. The value of a city. We know of a city. It's well known in real estate. Anybody that is in real estate, city ma, city manager, you know this. If the roads are in disrepair, the city is typically, they think, mismanaged financially. It doesn't always mean that. But we can't seem to get it together to fix our roads. We fix the dealership, which I understand. We need people to feel like they're going into a place that's good and the roads are good and we're not damaging our cars. But geez, I wonder what they'll think when they see tractor

trailer trucks going by there all day long. I really wonder what they will think. Are they going to go to that dealership or one that doesn't have that type of traffic? Are we going to get people from Winchester here with that monster on the corner of Dominagoni? I also know from Riverside, Riverside County, multiple projects have been presented to them to build warehouses on Dominagoni. Is that what we want? We know Lancing's proposed a few. They've shot it down. Others have proposed as well. Can you imagine what's that going to be? Those are my six minutes. Yep. Anybody want to give me more? Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Jean. And Our next register speaker is Carol. Is it Valad? Valade. And with additional time donated by Jim Valade. And Jim, are you here? Thank you. You have six minutes.

Hello, council and mayor. My name is Carol Valade. I live in district 4. I'm here to discuss my concerns about your most recent decision to settle the threatened lawsuit by Mr. Lancing, the landowner for Newman Simpson project, forcing the recusal of council members Lodge and Clark and granting a third public hearing for a project which has been previously denied by the planning commission and the city council. Mr. Graham stated the primary reason for the settlement was that a lawsuit would drain our city of drain the city's general fund causing a serious loss in vital services. The decision seems to be prudent. However, for me, your decision has been muddied by the whistleblower claims that Gene Fanza spoke about at the council meeting on October 14th. She reported she received a call from a whistleblower. She was told that two council members were being pressured to recuse themselves and the council was being meeting in private with Mr. Lancing in order to secure a third public hearing. And in fact, it appears the whistleblowers claims have been substantiated. The two council members have recused themselves and the Newand Simpson project has been granted a third public hearing. This gives the appearance of bias in favor of the developer by this council and the city attorney. Allowing a developer to whine and dine you creates a serious conflict of interest. It gives private access and privilege that is not granted to the public. Will this action set precedence for other developers to run rough shot over the city by threatening to sue unless they get their way? If we operate on a fear that we are one lawsuit away from financial catastrophe, we run the risk of a very poorly planned city. If we are truthfully one lawsuit away from general fund depletion, doesn't that put us at

serious risk? Does this mean development that no other city wants like junkyards, pawn shops, massage parlors, etc. can come to Hammet and demand approval or else? Mr. Lancing owns other properties in Hammet. Will he be given the same kind of access and influence with the city council? And now because of the recusal of two council members, two entire districts in our city will not be represented in the upcoming decision for this project. When a body of government when any body of government shuts down the right of people to have their elected representatives speak on their behalf, it's a tragic injustice for us all. These kinds of actions create mistrust and cynicism in our elected officials. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Harriet Brunner. Is Harriet still here? And then Harriet has donated time. Do we have a Charlene Schneider and Richard Brunner? Thank you. Have nine minutes.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Harriet Bruner. I'm an opponent of large warehouses of any kind being built and he near residential properties. I have many concerns about these mega warehouses, but would like to focus on the toll that the large trucks and truck traffic will take on our already compromised streets and roads. Introducing large trucks on a daily basis into the city of Hammet will overburden streets already in a state of disrepair with hundreds or possibly thousands of potholes. This is a fact. There is no disputing this statement. It could conceivably cost our city millions of dollars to repair repave these streets. Estimates for the state of California for road paving or repair currently run from 1 million to $5 million per mile. In addition, California has stringent environmental regulations. So permits and regulatory fees can range from 50,000 to $200,000. Equipment is another huge expense. Rentals of pavers, rollers, milling machines can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 per day. Skilled labor, union labor, runs 50 to $100 per hour. Any revenue Hemet hopes to generate by allowing and permitting these warehouses will be swallowed by the cost to repair our streets. The noise and pollution spewed into the air by these trucks will be spread throughout our city. And that doesn't even take safety issues into account. I'd like to share an experience I had three weeks ago. Come I was in my car coming out of Seven Hills where the golf course is on the opposite side which is Kirby right to that point. There was a large

18-wheeler in the far lane who wanted to make a turn onto Stson going west. When we finally got the green light, he had to wait for a car coming directly across Kirby into Seven Hills before he could even begin to enter the intersection. Then he finally had to come all the way into the center of the intersection. And at this point, there are three vehicles in a left turn lane go hoping to make a turn onto Kirby. And those three vehicles had to back up to allow this truck just to make the turn. Now, I'm going to assume that we won't see that on Kirby much longer once the egress ingress egress is transferred to Sanderson. But because this had happened, I went and looked at the intersection at Sanderson and Stson and it's the same size. The same size. You've got two lanes going north and south, two lanes going east and west, all the directions, and they all have one designated left hand turn lane in each of those directions. So, what I saw there at Kirby and Stson is going to be played out at Sanderson and Stson all the time. Mega mega times. Okay. I'm glad it's said I the intersection at Sanderson and Florida is actually a little larger has an additional lane going both northsoutheast west but those challenges are still going to present themselves. I'm glad that I don't have to be on the

road at rush hour and god forbid anybody need an ambulance or a fire truck. The developer sees homeowners in West Hammet as opponents. This is incorrect. We would love to see retail or light commercial on that property. My husband and I have been waiting for it since 2009 when we bought our home and were told that those businesses were coming. We have repeatedly been referred to or categorized as old folks afraid of change. Not true. We embrace change and applaud forward thinking. After all, our generation was the first to have microwaves in our kitchens, a wireless remote control, and best of all, disposable diapers. We embrace change when it is appropriate. Nuland Simpson warehouse project is not an appropriate spot for a mega warehouse. We are older. We are experienced in the ways of business and government work. We are not afraid of bullies, nor are we intimidated by men and women in business suits with slick PowerPoint presentations. They're just doing their jobs. We did ours. We've earned the opportunity to relax in a beautiful neighborhood. Daily truck traffic, increased pollution, and noise will undoubtedly cause a devaluation of our property values. It's as simple as listing pros and cons. Do that honestly and without bias and you will realize that there are a lot of possibly, hopefully, maybe conceivably situations on one side and a lot of definitely destroyed roads needing constant upkeep and repair. Undeniably increased truck tra and congestion and categorically increases in pollution and noise. on the other side of your list.

Protect your residents. Protect your legacy to this city. Don't cave to the possibly, hopefully, maybe scenario. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Martha Bazison and Mr. Cruz. Martha Bazan. And the last speaker will be George Evans. Good evening. Good evening. Uh, pull the mic microphone up so we can hear you.

Good evening.

Thank you. in the groupupa miles Steve uh city manager Mark I here to denounce uh harassment by code enforcement manager Sarah Kelly two weeks ago she threatened me with police show drones animal control and a warrant to enter my pro my backyard property I have cars They are not visible from the streets. She forced me to sign a consent form under a co coercion. This is for amendment violation. Sarah Kelly admitted the hostility is a retellation because I spoke with her supervisor. I inform this situation to Tiffany Barnett because Mr. uh Mark was absent and also I informed the situation with Major Krupa and also I informed the situation with Monique about these threats and no nobody stopped her and already mailed exhibit A to city attorney Steven Graham and I demand the investigation into this actions of Kelly and and I legal drone surveillance on top of my house under my house. Previously I have 10 years ago permits to have my cars and the city lost the notes back then the city officials they're gone now and it's you administrative negligence that

they are not finding these documents. I still have my my uh the permit that I pay. And I'm I'm shocked. Besides this matter, I do still have problems with my neighbors. I have restraining orders and police. It's been uh they don't want to help me. It's been five years and the harassment and threats continue to happen and I wonder I'm requesting if it's possible if I we can have assistance for the sher departments to help this situation and my situation.

Thank you. Mayor, can I ask the address? 622 South Thompson. Thank you. Did you've received my email? I'm going to look for it right now. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And our last speaker will be George Evans.

Good evening, council and your prospective positions. Um, one I'd like to first say I'd like to commend council member Clark for her meet and greet. I had the opportunity to attend and I hope that all council members do that in their districts. Mark, I was very impressed with your presentation and your vision in the future of what's going on and what's moving forward in the city. It was very informative. Thank you, Council Member Clark. Uh the new Newland Simpson project, I hope you think with your heart. We don't need a warehouse in Hemet. We need other ideas and other opened items to look at to enhance our city. All right, we have a beautiful diverse city. All right, but warehouses aren't the answer. All right, they've fallen off. Okay, and just like you see, but to have a developer that intimidates a council to go to its third and tell two of its council members that they can't be a part of the vote. That right there should is a red flag to me and should not be allowed. These people were elected. Okay? And they have a right to vote and they have a right to their opinion just like every one of the other council members. Just cuz some of you may be for it and some of you may be against it, that's the decision that should be made in the meeting and by the vote, not to eliminate two council members and take it down to three. All right. So again, there's a lot of things going on that you spoke about of the future of this city and I commend you on it. All right. But another warehouse that that warehouse that's on Kirby is totally ridiculous. All right. It's not needed. It shouldn't be there. What really frustrated me with that whole thing was that pine tree being removed. And I really don't know how they got it because birds of prey are a protected species. All right. And that bird of

prey was in that tree for the 22 years that I've been here in Hemtt. I have hawks in my trees at my home and they've been there the same amount of time. All right, so warehouses aren't the answer. I know you're looking for funds. I know you're looking for ideas. All right, but warehouses are not it. Look into recreational items. you have so much land just like it was brought up about the Diamond Valley Lake and all the promises that were never capitalized or delivered. These are things that you need to open up and go after. Again, I know it's a water district and I know there's things like that, but there's a lot of open land here that can be developed for recreation which then would draw. Our neighbors in Idle Wild are right up there. Coordinate with them. You got the Paris Railway. You got the railroad track coming here. Have a steam locomotive. Look at what other towns are doing. We are a small town that wants to be a big town with big warehouses that aren't needed. So, please think with your heart, council members. Okay. Warehouses are not the answer. All right. So, I thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you. That was my speaker. Okay. Then we will move on to um move on to council and staff reports. So council council staff reports. It's on you. Okay, I'll start. Okay, go ahead.

Um I attended both the Riverside County Habitat Conservation Agency and the WR COG. Um, nothing to really report other than other cities and things that people are using or seeking to get from these um facilities or this money source. Um, WR COG has a lot of really good things going on. Um, all right. C DBG. That's like CDBG. That's like a tongue twister. Yesterday I said

CDBG CDBG G or I don't know. So we

before the B. Um, uh, Council Member Mails and myself, uh, sat down with Carara and our, uh, consult for the list that we want to give for the grants. A lot of really, really good ideas. I kind of think we decided to investigate one of them just to make sure it's what it is. And we were so pleasantly surprised when we went and visited this one. And in fact, I suggested that she come and speak about where she's come from because I think there's a lot of ears in this um community in this room on this council that may be able to help her. She really has um done some wonderful things and she's working hard. So that will be coming out soon. Um downtown theater ad hoc we had met had some really good um discussion. We also had um Commissioner uh Hill there and he was very very informational with his some of his perspective. And then finally the investment oversight committee were doing very well for us couple of uh suggestions and we worked on it and I think we've even acted on one but the money invested is doing well

which is nice and that's it. Thank you this evening. Very good, Tom.

Well, there's a meeting coming up on the 2nd for the Hemet stock farm. Um, we have to talk about um but the big news, the only big news that I have is um usually there's people here in the library to help you with your taxes. We don't have anybody this year, but they are doing it at our lady of the valley church. Um, and they have all the information over there. You can call them and they will give you the details on Tuesday and Thursday, I think it is. Yes, Tuesdays and Thursdays they're doing it over there. Um, and that's the only place in the valley that uh will help you with your taxes this year. Tom, is that located on Buista or where is that located?

Our lady devel street. Straight state and u Johnson Whittier. Whittier. I'm sorry. Whittier. Yeah. Um and it's on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So if you need help with your taxes like I do, I suggest you stop by and make an appointment. That's what I got for now.

Very good. Jackie, um I attended the uh Riverside County Habitat Conservation Agency and there is one big change that might be forthcoming. Um there was a nexus feed study for the Stevens Kangaroo Rat Habitat conservation plan. So, they did a draft nexus uh feed study proposing increasing the uh rat mitigation fee from 500 to $900 per acre based on updated imple implementation costs projected development and one 28-year lapse in inflation adjustments for all development with two exceptions. So, they hadn't raised this in 28 years. So, they were way behind the curve. So there's no change for the large lot single family home which is very uh economical or the agricultural development. And the study concludes that the RCHCA needs $1.9 million annually to implement the habitat conservation plan with approximately 1.6 million of that needing to come from mitigation fees after accounting for other revenue sources. So the board authorized the publication of the nexus fee study for public review and that is the beginning of the formal adoption process. So that was the big thing that came out of that. Um and the kangaroo rat and the burrowing owls and all the other little critters out there are doing just fine. So um the Ramona Bola update um the documentary that was done um Juan Diego is showing in Idle Wild International Festival of Cinema on Tuesday March 3rd at 11:00 and it's a wonderful documentary and it tells great history and uh personal stories and um if you can by if you can get off and go

I highly suggest just you viewing this documentary. It's wonderful. Um, so we are going to have 26 concerts this year. I think I heard earlier.

16. 16. I knew there was a six in there somewhere. Okay. 16 because I was like even that's like pretty ambitious. But the first one is a Seattle grunge fest and it's a tribute to Pearl Jam, Allison Chains, and Sound Garden. And that's on Saturday, March 7th. And the concert is 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. And I'm doing this in chronological order. So Ramona Market is a free event and um that is on Saturday, March 14th and it's 1:30 to 8:00 and it's a great little place where uh there's local vendors and there's u food and just good camaraderie and it's a beautiful scenery up there. So um it's been really successful so far. So, we encourage the public to go up there if you have a chance. And then the next uh concert would be Saturday, March 21st. And this one is a little bit more my uh era. Uh it's called The Glam Slam. It's an 80s tribute to Bon Joy, Poison, Tesla, and Cinderella. So, it says, "Big hair, big anthems. Experience the glory of 80s hair metal with tributes to Bonjovi, Poison, and Tesla live." So, come support the Ramona Bowl. They need your support and it's a wonderful, wonderful venue. So, and I have several meetings coming up and um looking forward to those and we have a lot going on in the city. So, um it's nice that we have all these other committees to um help out everybody. So, that's all I have. Thank you,

Mr. May.

Okay. Uh we have the business outreach ad hoc committee on third one. One Thursday, some back in February, as a part of of our continued effort to support local businesses, a District 4 business walk was conducted in the Stson Avenue and State Street Shopping Center. This outreach was allow which allowed us to meet directly with business owners, hear concerns about operations and permitting, strengthen relationships between the city and our small business community. CDBG ad hoc committee. A site visit was conducted at 322 South Ramona Street with staff and committee members Connie and Carara to review one of the nonprofit organizations receiving community development block grant assistance. The purpose of this visit was to verify program performance and determine whether funding was justified. Based on the on-site evaluation, the services being delivered met the intent of the program and the use of funds was com uh confirmed to be appropriate and beneficial to the community. Cleanup graffiti ad hoc committee. Uh work continues to focus on beautifification, rapid graffiti removal, and supporting community-led cleanup efforts that improve neighborhood pride and deter uh blight. Um, if you want to know when this is, it's on the last uh Saturday of the month from 9 to 12. Uh, we don't have a location now, but we usually get it on the website. If you go to the city website and uh, type in the search bar I love Hemmet project, it'll bring you to it and give you the location where we're going to meet. What's that?

It's on the Stson Shopping Center.

Oh, it's going to be in the Stson. Okay. They don't have it on this one right now. Uh the homeless outreach ad hoc committee coordinated with service providers and regional partners uh remain ongoing to connect in individuals to housing support services and long-term solutions while maintaining accountability and measurable outcomes. Veterans Memorial Ad Hoc Committee efforts continue to support to support uh preservation and enhancement on of our veterans uh memorial spaces to ensure proper recognition of those who served our country and and maintain these sites as places of honor for the community. um also participated in a Zoom meeting featuring creative presentation highlighting hemmet focus on community image outreach and opportunities to better showcase the city's strength. Attended a special city council meeting on governance uh which lasted approximately four hours and included an in-depth discussion regarding the city's governance structure and future considerations. uh recently attended a a SRC meet and greet with state assembly member Jeff Gonzalez providing an opportunity to strengthen regional relationships and discuss legislative issues affecting housing, real estate, and local economic development. And that's it. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you very much. Um, I want to announce that the friends of the library are having their $3 a bag book sale on March 7th upstairs, downstairs, downstairs in the conference room and also to be a part of the emerging team artist application which is I believe on our city website now. Yes. So uh and this is the project for the mural that will the first mural that will be coming along through this program. So you can sign up for that. Um other things the we had a water master meeting yesterday and uh the main thing we did at that was that we maintained the administrative assessment at $30 for this coming year. Clarissa Sanchez but uh mayor prom of Santa is a new board member on that board. RTA the writership continues to increase. They're almost to precoid levels which is very very exciting. And let's see the attended a few different things. uh adopt a street for 412 church. Went to the real estate thing with doc um Jeff Jeff not Joe Jeff Gonzalez. He Valley Art Association had their uh open house. I believe it was last Thursday which was well attended and very good. And what else? I have one more thing. Uh we have had a request and I don't know if you got it to support AB632 uh which is in reference to the 602 letters that our police department uses uh to inspect private property when there's no one there. And the bill coming through at a AB1632 is that it would change the requirements for notary

to no not being notorized and extend the period of effectiveness to three years. So police department, you guys can weigh in on that one and send letters to Sacramento also. And that is all I have. City manager.

Uh just two items. Uh first we're going to publish another city update and uh for anyone in the community that would like to learn more about active events and um uh events and issues with the city these can you can sign up simply an email address at hemttca.gov and I believe I misunderstood your question. I think that u event will be published in the city update later this week. And then secondly, uh we have an open kitchen grant uh application process right now. We've received five applications to date. Uh this is going to be open through mid-March and we're looking we've we know that there are probably a few more on the horizon and we'll keep you updated on that. Thank you.

Very good. Uh seeing that there is no further business, this meeting is adjourned to the next regular city council meeting on March 10th, 2026. Thank you for being here tonight and we are ajourned.