City Council - Regular Meeting

Are you watching them? The bobblehead eagles. I know. All right, I will call the April 28th 26 2026 meeting to order. Close session meeting to order. City clerk, could we have a roll call?

Thank you, mayor. Before proceeding with roll call, I would like to point out that this meeting is being hosted through live stream on the city's website and by Zoom teleconference. I would like to remind the council to have their microphones turned on and positioned so the audience can hear. And with that, we'll proceed with roll call. Council member Clark present. Council member Lodge is absent. Council member Peterson here. Mayor Prom Mills, I can't hear that well for some reason. Uh yeah, I'm here. I'm here. All members are present with the exception of council member Tom Lodge. Thank you very much. We will now move to public comment. Do we have any registered speakers for close session?

Mayor, we have no registered speakers. Okay. Do we need to do the for vote to excuse Tom? I do open session. In open session. Okay. Then at this point, we will proceed to close session and we will be back at six o'clock.

Test. Test. One, two, three. Test. Test.

Please have a roll call. Thank you, mayor. Before proceeding, I would like to point out that this meeting is being hosted on the city's website and via Zoom teleconference. I would like to remind the council to have their microphones turned on in position so the audience can hear. And with that, we'll proceed with roll call. Council member Clark present. Council member Lodge is absent. Council member Peterson here. Mayor Prom Mills here. Mayor Koopa here. All members are present with the exception of council member Lodge. And do we have a motion?

Like to entertain a motion to excuse council member Clark. Large lodge. Yes. I would like to uh put in a motion to excuse council member Lodge from this meeting. I'll second. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Could we have a roll call? Thank you, mayor. We have a motion by council member Clark, second by Mayor Pro 10 males. Going to set attendance and go ahead and start that vote on that roll call. Give it just one moment. Okay, we'll go ahead and do vocal roll call. Council member Clark, yes. Council member Peterson, yes. Mayor Promos, yes. Mayor Koopa,

yes. That motion passes 4 to zero.

Thank you. Our invocation tonight will be led by Pastor Thomas King from 412 Church, after which Council Member Clark will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. Psalm 121 begins with the psalmist exclaiming, "I lift my eyes up to the hills." And then he asks a question, "From where does my help come?" And the answer is my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Let's bow our heads. Father, as we come before you tonight, we know that there is uh help from no other. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we can receive your divine help and your blessings. And so we lift up our prayer to you tonight, Lord, our heavenly father. On behalf of all who are gathered here tonight, we say thank you, Lord, for your abundant blessings. Thank you for your freedom to gather peacefully to discuss the business of the day. May we be useful to your heavenly purposes, Lord, in government, in our community, and in our families. Lord, I pray for our mayor tonight. I pray for our city officials. I pray for this assembled council here tonight, including all who participate in the events tonight. Grant wisdom that we would understand the true needs of the welfare of the people, and that we would thirst for justice and righteousness, having confidence in what is the common good. May there be harmony and peace even where there may be disagreement. Lord, tonight's agenda is in your hands, God, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Please remove your hats, place your right hand over your heart, and begin. I aliance 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. And we will now move to the city attorney's report from close session.

Uh thank you, mayor and council, and good evening. There's no reportable action out of this evening's close session. Thank you very much. We are going to do the presentation before we have public comment. So, city manager and councel, if you would all join me in front. As you're probablyware,

everybody There you go.

As you may be aware, uh our city manager is going to retire from public service after 33 years. He has he has done an exemplary job for the city of Heid and has probably put five years of work into three years. We are going to miss you, but we have your number. And if any of you want his cell phone number, I will give it to you. He is here to help. So, could you hold this while I in recognition of your time in Hammet only? This is just your time in Hemmed. We would like to present Mark Preswitch in grateful recognition of your dedicated service to your hometown of Hemtt, California. Best wishes for a long and happy retirement in 2026. And this is a key to the to the city. We're going to take a picture and then we can talk.

Want to say anything? Well, Mayor, um, this is beautiful. I think I probably spoke with Brenda Chavez about my love for keys to the city and did we have any, and she did show me that we had one, but this key looks larger.

So, we might have changed the locks since I last looked. And it has the city's brand new icon and logo here. So, this is incredible. Incredibly beautiful. Um, I am I'm grateful that uh I've had an opportunity to come back to my hometown and um provide service uh apply the lessons of my career to the betterment of my hometown. I know we've done an incredible amount of work over the last three years. I'm proud of that work. I'm really pleased to see the new logo on our um on our name plates here, the digital and on the on the uh uh updated council chambers. But uh I want to say thank you for uh to the council for your trust in me and hiring me in the first place. I really appreciate that. It was a dream come true uh to come back and work in my hometown. I I had thought about it for more than 10 years before it actually came true. So, I appreciate the opportunity to close the the chapter on my career in Hemmet, which a town which I love. It's my hometown. So, um I want to say thank you to the staff uh for working hard. Uh even if I asked a lot of you, uh uh every day, you did a great job uh with me. Uh we worked together as a team. um you helped me look good uh because of the work you did and I'm proud of the work and the and the ethics and the hard work that you did during the last three plus years. Um to the citizens uh you have a great town. We have a great town. Something to be proud of. Um never apologize for anything. We're we're a a city that's uh on the rebound from some tougher years, but we have so much good and opportunity uh for ourselves. Um, but uh I look forward to watching the

progress of the city. I'll, as I've mentioned to the council, I'm available to our staff and to our council, to our community to help. I'll always be that person for you. And, uh, I want to help. So, uh, I'll be likely in California somewhere. Just don't know where I'm going to land officially after about 6 months of slowing down and and traveling a little. So, um, thank you very much for the opportunity to serve. I really much really appreciate it. Thank you. That's very nice. Okay, with that we will move on to public hearing a public I'm sorry public comment. Um, we will take public comment on agenda items at the time that agenda item is is discussed. So, we will start with public comment on items not on the agenda but within jurisdictional matter of this agency. City clerk, do we have any speakers?

Yes, mayor. Our first speaker is going to be Roy, followed by Terry Larnett. And Roy, you have three minutes. I'm going to miss Mark. Hi, I'm Roy. I'm an 11-year uh resident of Hemet. Uh this morning at about 5:30, an article broke written by Jeff Horseman uh entitled Ontario warehouse arsonist was angry about pay. Prosecutors say, "So are others in the industry." Now, let me preface this with I do not condone what this man did. He burned down this warehouse that I believe belonged to Kimberly Clark, caused $500 million worth of damage, and all his fellow uh employees are out of a job. However, can you imagine how betrayed and unworthy he must have felt by the way he was treated at this warehouse and how he was paid. I worked for a warehouse when I was 19. I worked for Boise Cascade. It was hard work. You're carrying 40, 50 pounds all day long. All sorts of stuff going on. There's all sorts of promises made by these developers on how they're going to make us all rich. I laughed out loud in these rooms a couple of months ago when one of the people from Nuland Simpson said they were going to bring a billion dollars into hemmed. He doesn't bring in a billion dollars. They can say whatever they want when it comes to how much money they'll pay. The issue is when a city council approves a warehouse, there is nothing in there that obligates them to pay anywhere near what they promise

or how many people they promise. There is no commitment whatsoever. They lie for a living. That's how they do it. They lied to the city of Paris. Paris now has 30 plus warehouses that are not bringing any money in. Paris is also in financial trouble because of all the millions and millions or billion dollars that they were promised didn't come to fruition because they've got 30 plus empty warehouses. The warehouse wave is over. It has been over for a while. The number of warehouses that UPS and FedEx are closing is astounding. It's in the hundreds. No more warehouses. You've seen the signs. I brought 10 of them in here. I don't have any left. People kept them, but that's because they're using them. 15 seconds. They don't have to pay. They don't have to make the commitments. We still didn't get the casino from the lake. Roy Michael, I love this.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Michael. And then the next speaker is going to be Terry Larned, followed by Michael K. And you have three minutes. Is your green light on? on the microphone. Oh, now it is. Okay. Thank you.

I didn't touch anything. And again, thank you, city council. And we're going to miss Mark, but I hope Noah does a very good job until we get our permanent one back. All right. Well, I'm talking about the um the American Legion Post 53. We have a community open forum and facility tour. It's coming up on the 14th of May from 5 to 7 p.m. There's going to be refreshments. It's go located at 124 North Ramona Street. And everybody is invited for this is a community open forum and uh facility tour. Learn more about how the American Legion Post 53 is serving veterans in the local community. meet leadership, explore the facility, and discover ways to get involved and make an impact. All community members, veterans, and supporters are welcome. So, it's a it's going to be a really nice event and I encourage people to go ahead and like I say, it's going to be an open forum and it's going to be in that historic building. The post is um taking that building from March Air Force Base back in 47 I believe it was. They went ahead and dismantled it over March Air Force Base which we bought for a dollar and then we had the commissary for the PS. We bought that for a dollar. So both those buildings were taken apart and brought to Hammet for $2. Money went a long ways a long time ago. Uh anyway, you guys are welcome to uh come down and and visit and and uh can and uh participate in this community open forum. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Larned. Thank you. And next speaker is going to be Michael K. I think it might be followed by George Evans. You have three minutes.

That's Mr. Kennedy to you. Oh, I'm just just kidding. Um, mayor, um, Mayor Prom, um, just real quick, um, I'm just got out of therapy after the six-hour meeting on the warehouse a couple of weeks ago. Um, they released me on early parole. So, um, actually, I was in Washington DC, and I just returned, so I didn't get a chance to look at the agenda, but I wanted to I've only been living in HIT for two years, live out of Mweeny Farms, and I want to thank uh, Mr. Preswick for his great um vision for him. Um also for his responsiveness that he had uh with all my many questions. I really do appreciate that. Also have to call out Noah that he's responded. Linda, I'm sorry, Mayor Krupa. Thank you for your responses. Um it's just uh rewarding to see what your vision was. I think it's going to go forward and I have a lot of faith in him that it's going to continue to go in the right direction. So thank you very much. Uh, but I'm rejecting your retirement. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. Thank you. And the last speaker is going to be George Evans. And you'll have three minutes. Congratulations, Mark, on your retirement. Enjoy it. You well deserved. You have guided this city to move forward in a lot of ways, and it it it's very humbling to see that you're retiring, but also kind of sad to see you go. It was a pleasure to attend Saturday's cleanup. I was out on the uh Parkway Dangoni and uh we went from Sanderson to Surreal Parkway and then back down. We did kick up one rattlesnake. I took that over to Mayor Cooper's house. Um so she could deal with it. Um thank you.

But it was a very wonderful event to be a part of to see I met a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force out there with his family. Um, it was great to see the council members out there. Ben, where you at? Okay. And his guidance, I love that guy. Um, so I did attend a press conference on Friday. Um, there was no speaker um to hear what the gentleman was saying. It was done more on a live feed with a media group, but again, you couldn't hear. But again, where I'm going with that is you definitely see these people that say they care about Hemet, but I didn't see them out there Saturday. Um, not one sign of them to to help. I would like to see the city maybe put something in like adopt your neighborhood. You could walk around your neighborhood and clean up papers. It's all over the street. It's not hard. And maybe city can have a place where maybe they can obtain the trash bags. Um, but I think that that would be a nice program to have. Okay, now all the good stuff. But here's the negative. I know that the renewal for the food trucks is coming up in June. It doesn't help downtown, folks. It It really doesn't. It doesn't help the theater. I talked to Katie. I talked to people that are there. It It doesn't help. The food truck came into play. It was like more or less like a secret society. Okay, I'm going to have my truck at this corner. come support me. The people will go wherever those food trucks are. You know, we have all that open space out at the auto mall. I guarantee the people will go, but it's affecting the downtown restaurant businesses and you know, they're brick and mortar. They're paying tax, you know. So, again, I would really like to see relocate them. I know there's talk

and I do like seeing what's going on at Weston Park. I saw the plans at the last meeting. great designs. Um, so again, the food trucks a great thing. I'm not against them. I'm just against the location. They tie up that neighborhood. So again, council, you're doing a great job. Uh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Evans. That was our last speaker. Okay. You want to say something, Mark? Yes. So, just briefly, George, thanks for your help on project four. Uh, I just walked I just walked a little slower than you, I think, that day. And

I think I got a ride for the last half mile back. So, thanks to the police department. Um, we have two just for the community's awareness. Uh, the city has an adopt a street program. And so, we invite businesses, families, service clubs, churches, anybody to join the now about 40 different uh adopt a street uh participants. And that's a four-fold increase just in the last three years. So, we'd love to grow that um to a hundred and more, right? We have 300 miles of streets. There's plenty of streets available to for for people to adopt. And then secondly, we've started a monthly I love Hemtt project which allows anyone in the community to connect to uh a cleanup um for about an hour or two once a month. So, uh you can learn more about that on the city's website. And if you'd like to follow our news a little bit more carefully, you can subscribe to our list serve at hemttca.gov. Uh we have a we have an every other week digital newsletter called on the horizon to take advantage of our new branding and you can find that on a city update link on the city's website.

Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to the public hearing. Deputy city clerk, will you please read the pro the procedures for the public hearing? Thank you, mayor. The city council's procedures for public hearing will be as follows. Staff will provide a report and clarification of 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 the opportunity to respond. Discussion will be brought back to city council for direction or action.

Thank you. Can we get a staff report on item 15A, please? Yes. Uh, good good evening, Madame Mayor and council members. Congratulations, Mr. Preswitch, on your retirement. I'm happy for you and good luck to your endeavors in the future. Thanks for your guidance and leadership in my short stay here thus far. Thank you very much. Uh, I'm back for a weed abatement public hearing tonight. This is the next step in our process of weed abatement. And just by way of background, uh the abatement program was established in 2019 to address overgrown vegetation on vacant lots, parkways, and thoroughares, successfully reduce damage to properties in danger to the public arising from fires in these properties. Uh we encourage self-migation and that's what this process is really all about in the front end. Today is the date for our uh public hearing. And I just wanted to show you again this timeline. In March of 26 this year, we identified various properties for overgrowth. And then two weeks ago on the 14th, we uh council adopted a resolution for the first weed abatement for this year. The next day, uh the 15th, letters were sent out to various property owners in the city. And then tonight, uh, April 28th is the date for the public hearing. And it is respectfully recommended that the city council open a public hearing and take testimony to consider objections if any in accordance with resolution number 2026-046 passed by city council with the city helmet California on April 14th 2026 ordering weed abatement ordering abatement of weeds rubbish refues upon parkways or private property within the city of EMTT and I'm available for any questions if there are any. Are there any questions from councel?

Go ahead. I do. I I support this aggressive and uh weed abatement for fire prevention, but I want to make sure that the citizens are aware that we're doing this twice a year and that you know um we're sending letters out there to let them know that this needs to be taken care of. Is that are we sending letters to Yes, sir. We are. And if you look at the screen, that is the timeline for our fall abatement which begins in September. The same cycle repeats itself. Okay. Two times a year.

Two times a year. On this meeting, we were directed to look at other alternatives to add a third um weed abatement process. So, we're still looking at that as a some kind of working idea. I know council member Peterson suggested that. We're looking into that. But are we letting them know on the first weed abatement that there'll be a second one? Yes. during that year. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Okay, any other questions from council? Yes. I just want to kind of Joe, I I want this owning property in the city of Hemet should be seen as a privilege and they should be taking care of their properties. Uh, I have a Yale Street property that on last Tuesday had a phone call Wednesday evening we had a call for service for a fire in that. Um, so we need to reduce our calls for service. This is one way to let the U property owners know you need to take care of it. And it's been this way for a bit, couple years, twice a year. So, it's no big surprise. And they they really need to step up.

I'm on board with this. I just want to make sure we're letting them know it's going to be twice a year. That's all. Maybe three times eventually. I don't know. But, um, I I support this 100%. Okay. Um, I will now open the public hearing. City clerk, are there any registered speakers for or against? Mayor, there are no registered speakers. Are there any Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak in favor of or against this item?

Okay, Mr. Evans, come to the podium, please. It's great to hear this program. Um, Chief, what does the average brush fire I'll call it since it's within the city versus wildland even though we are covered? What does the cost for the city for that service for that call service say on Sanderson Avenue those fields there? Oh, I without having the detailed information could you know these costs should be extended to those property owners to pay for the service for these personnel because you're calling in mutual aid things like that for not maintaining something that we are prone to flash fuels that are mostly within the city boundaries are flash fuel fires. They're not all that big but they're costly. They tie up the entire fire department. Okay. So again, the these programs, two, three a year, that's not a problem. I'm a retired fireman. I did 25 years on the East Coast. Okay? So I'm glad to see this because this should go in effect. My town back home, what we did was they were sent a letter just like you. When it didn't get complied, a lean was put on their property and the city went out and plowed that field to limit the risk. So these are ways that cities can acquire properties in some respect too by you know putting leans on these properties for not maintaining them. So I'm glad to see that this program is being initiated. Chief,

thank you very much and for clarification. We do if the property owner does not clear their property, we the city does it and does send them an invoice for that and or attaches the property. Is that correct? That's correct, mayor. And after a a a period of a couple weeks, we go back and recheck each property. And those properties that aren't cleared, we have a city contracted uh group that comes out and cleans those properties and bills the owner. And then if it if that owner doesn't pay, that goes on their APN and ends up on their property tax at some point. All right. Thank you very much. Welcome.

Okay. I will now close the public hearing and bring it back to council. What is your wish? I would like to make a motion to um accept the weed abatement um ah wait a minute uh the weed abatement on private property and ordering abatement of weeds, rubbish and refues upon parkways or private property within the city of HT. Do we have a second? I'll second it. We have a motion in the second. Could we have a roll call vote? Roll call vote.

Thank you, mayor. We have a motion by council member Clark, second by council member Peterson. We have an active vote. If if all members could place their votes on the screen,

are we voting by please? Oh, you got it there. I'm sorry. There you go. On the screen.

Wow. And once all votes are confirmed, it'll pop up. There we go. All righty. That motion passes four to zero. Yay. We did it the first time. Okay. Moving on um to receive and file. Are there any questions or comments from council on the warrant registers and payroll payroll payments for this period? Mayor, can I say a few words?

Sure. You know my favorite part here. Um, we have been using locals. Uh, just a little shout out shout out to we used Al Kabota, Allen's Glass, Kosard Fox, F&M Lock, Hemtt Valley Tool, Hemtt Blueprint. Hadn't seen that in a while. BJ Sports, BMW Pipe, um, Ice Auto Repair, Loza Hemmet, uh, MicroMo Tire. I didn't know they were in Winchester. Napa, O'Reilly, Pacman, Tumi, uh, Himett, uh, Pins and Needles, Tier One Investment, Annad's Trophy. We're going to miss them. I think she's retiring Candy after a very welldeserved uh, she needs time on her own. Cast Castellano Towing, Curry Copy, Jesse Autoglass out of Saneno, Shine City. Uh, Sherwin Williams, superior readymix. We must have gotten some concrete or rocks. Tri-State Materials. They are over in Winchester kind of meny, but they nonetheless come here and patronize our stores. So, we need to say that. And CMS mobile tent out of Sanaseno. Thank you. And thank you for my little blurp.

Okay. Any other comments? Okay, that is to receive and file. Moving on to the consent calendar. All consent calendar items will be acted upon simultaneously unless a council member requests separate consideration. Are there any members of the council who would like to pull any consent items for separate discussion?

No. I would like to pull 17B and 17F. Anything for me, Joe? No.

Okay. 17B. Just a couple quick questions on each of these. And this is the one of two projects in that tract. Is that correct over on Fiser and Mustang? Yes, it is, mayor. The This is the track that's actually further to the east from Warren Road. Um, Saddle Point One is the one closest to Warren.

Okay. We've been receiving a lot of emails from people over in that area wanting to know who is responsible for what and since we are reducing uh some of the bond obligation on it, are you planning to have a meeting with their HOA and saying this this is who takes care of this and this is who takes care of that and if you have a problem with the city just send it to one person. I do. Um, we've reached out to Evelyn at the HOA over there and we're trying to arrange a meeting to go over the maintenance exhibit so that everyone knows who's responsible for what.

Thank you very very much. I appreciate that. And I kind of missed a few things, but I'm going to ask my next question while you're up here on 17F. 17F has to do with uh measure A funding. Yes. And it this is a question I don't think I've ever asked in the many years I've been up here. If we don't use all of the allocation in a given fiscal year, do we lose that money or does it roll over to the next year? It rolls over to the next year. Okay. Thank you very much. Then with that, I would just entertain a motion to approve the entire consent calendar. I will make a motion to approve the remaining items, including the two that I pulled and including the two that were pulled. I second.

All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar. But we have Oh, let's vote. Thank you, mayor. Please cast your votes on your screen. We have a motion by Council Member Peterson, a second by Council Member Clark, and once votes are confirmed, it'll pop up. All righty. And that motion passes four to zero.

Very good. Thank you very much. That's two in a row we got right. All righty. Moving on to discussion items. Um we have a report from staff on discussion item 18A.

Yes. Good evening. I'm going to introduce this item. Uh back on the last meeting on April 14th, you received a pretty detailed presentation on the conceptual design for Weston Park, there were a few elements identified there that needed a little bit more direction. And so we were able to meet with our ad hoc committee regarding uh those specific items, mainly the uh splash pad layout, the um stage area and some options there. and then um the palm trees um on either side of the stage area. And so um the the design you're going to see this evening has been finalized and we're recommending adoption of this design so we can um go chase some funding. So I'm going to introduce Scott Rice from Community Works Design Group to provide the uh detailed um design presentation. Thank you. Good evening, council, staff, and HIMT community. I'm excited to be here tonight to discuss the future of Weston Park as a multigenerational community gathering space and to optimize. We're here to talk about optimizing the design to align with the requirements of round five of the Proposition 68 statewide park program. And that involves an award up to $8.5 million of of state money for a park. We've actually uh with my firm have been successful in getting that full award uh most recently for the city of Paris for Enchanted Hills Park and currently with the city of Fresno for Dolores Sua Park. I've got a remote in my hand. I'm about to find out if I know which way is forward. So, a lot of this is is going to be recaped, so I'll go through it quickly. If we need to go back to it, that's great. Um,

Western Park has been a treasured space in HIT for 96 years. What an opportune time to reimagine the park ahead of it ahead of its 100th birthday. The design is a culmination of a robust community engagement process and some of the stats of of that process are on the screen. I know that uh you heard about it at the last meeting. So I may be biased but this design came out awesome. I feel it truly reflects the needs and wants of the whole community. And so Mr. Ra talked about the ad hoc committee meeting fine-tuning the design and what we have before you tonight is the result of that uh design that reflects let me go back to that last slide really quick. Um ad hoc committee talked about wanting a more flexible event space. So the design presented at the last meeting had a permanent stage u permanent construction. Uh the revised design explores using uh a temporary stage that not only could be used at Weston Park, but benefits the the community as a whole and could even be used uh as a revenue generator in certain situations. So that's that's a great approach. Unfortunately, the the grant itself won't cover the stage, but it frees up some of the state's grant money for the improvements that that will accommodate that temporary stage. Uh, another thing for the splash pad as as as shown in the previous design, the ad hoc committee talked about focusing on ground spray features so that in addition to being a splash pad, that same space could serve as uh multiple

use. One of the uses is allowing for um what we've been able to fit as a 40 by 80 uh platform for uh a temporary ice skating rink for for the winter. and that's within a fenced off area that could be controlled uh for the the sake of a temporary event. Another key point about the ad hoc committee's decisions, the playground is going to have a strong farming theme that reflects the history of him and history of the park site itself. And so that shows up in some of the graphics that you'll see next. And then as far as the shuffle board building, which we found had a strong community backing and we want to make sure that uh it receives uh some limelight. Uh the on street parking will be accommodated to have accessible parking as well as curb ramps to to access from outside the building into the building. Just just those accessible spaces will also serve the park side as a whole, but they'll be intentionally located near the shuffle building. So, looking at the design, those things are are happening in here. I don't know how well I guess some of the the screens show up pretty well, but I'm going to just kind of touch on some of the focus areas. So, I don't know if you can see it, but there's a giant tractor in the playground, and that's that's piece of playground equipment. This isn't necessarily the final design, but this is what we show the state to generate their excitement toward the final design. So, uh, the the equipment shown on the screen is true playground equipment and would definitely fit within the budget that we've allocated, um, as long as things don't drastically change, which you can't control. But, uh, this is a realistic portrayal of what the playground could be. And then another feature that was a very strong desire of the community is that the playgrounds have some sort of low

fencing to help harness the children. There's a big concern about kids being able to kind of escape Not that the parents aren't paying attention. I have I have plenty of children myself, but they do escape very quickly. And so the fencing helps to to keep the the kids in and and helps control also the people that are walking into the playground. So there's another shot. And also the the large shade shelter, the shade shade sails over the playground equipment itself just to keep the temperatures down on the surfaces, but a shade shelter that picks up some of the nuances of farm buildings. So, the splash pad, as you can see, as depicted, when the water is not on, it's it's a big concrete surface that would have the city's new logo uh in most likely a Terzo finish. And so, you you pick up the true bright colors of the logo, and it's not something that's going to fade or has to be repainted over time. Uh that same surface can be used for a variety of other activities when the splash pad's not in use. and athletic courts. So, at at Western Park now, there's a full court basketball court, but what we're showing in addition to an upgraded fullcourt facility, or I believe it's two half courts that should be a full court, but they're not for some reason. So, we're correcting that and adding an additional halfc court facility that could have an uh adjustable height backboard to open the the activities up to a wider variety of of ages and also for wheelchair adaptive use. And then who could who could do a park these days without pickle ball? It surely can't. So, instead of a massive pickle ball complex overtaking the entire park, you have a touch of pickle ball in this in this project. uh other parks in the city may be best uh suited for conversion to pickle ball if

the need continues to arise. But for the sake of of making this multigenerational space, we have some pickle ball. So two two courts are shown. There's a depiction of what the temporary stage would look like and those may or may not be food trucks depending on on what the local restaurants feel, but there's definitely the space to accommodate them should that be the desire. And so what you're seeing on these slides is a breakdown of pricing. The the park is only designed to a conceptual kind of schematic level. And so those prices are kind of setting budgets for what those improvements can be to still meet that $8.5 million threshold. Uh one of the cool features uh kind of closing out the the the design is using the backside of the shuffleboard building to display the city's logo where it's back lit. The the lettering can be changed throughout the year during Christmas time. It can be red and green colors. Uh, easy to do with the LED lighting, but it would also be powder coated so that during the day you get the the the bold colors of the logo for everyone to see against the contrast of the the more subdued building. the other walls of the building, the other facades could have different kinds of murals and that's that's up for discussion as well once the once the $8.5 million grant has been awarded to the city which we feel as as designers that have uh achieved those awards, we feel that this park is a very good candidate and is headed in that direction. So this is just some more slides showing the breakdown of proposed cost and how that that 8 and a half million could be allocated.

We can go back if we need to. So there's the big number and we're here for questions. Okay. Do we have any questions from council? No questions and comments. I like what we have here, but my concern is the homeless. Um, that liquidated by homeless and with the splash pads there, I can see them taking showers. I can see just everything happening. So, I are we going to have security out there or what are we going to have to make sure it's safe out there for kids and families?

So, I'll go back to that slide. I'm pressing the wrong button. There we go. So once you activate a space and you bring in the right type of people to use the space as intended, you'll notice that that's going to be a big detractor from making it an attractive site for the homeless. As far as showers, um with a splash pad, the the health department treats it like a aquatic facility, no matter if it's just a concrete slab with spray features. But we've uh successfully utilized uh kind of the beach style pole um showers and those can be controlled so they're only operational when the splash pad is operational. That that's also a bummer when you're trying to use it for other things. Doesn't work.

Our public works will be in charge of turning off and turning on and off the water. And just like just like sprinklers, it's automatic controls. It could be remotely controlled. It's um the the systems have definitely come a long way, but you have that that control just like the restroom buildings. You can have magnet locks. Yeah. Okay. That's not the SL. Any other questions, comments? Can we get on it? Can we get it going? Make a motion. No, wait a minute. Wait a minute. No. Do we have speakers on this item? You have no registered speakers? No registered speakers. All right. Now, what would you like to do?

So, I would like to do a motion to first of all the ad hoc thank you for doing what you did because you can tell there's a lot of work in that. Um, so I would like to um adopt a resolution for um the city to uh accept the Western Park Conceptual Design CIP 2512 and authorize the city manager or its design to execute documents necessary to pursue this grant so we can get it going.

I'll second that. Okay, we have a motion in a second. Use your little buttons up here and you can vote. Well, here we go. Where's my little X? Did you submit? Yeah, I hit it. Okay, that motion passes four to zero. Yay. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. That is a big step forward and we really appreciate it. I love it. Moving on to item 18B and we have a report from staff.

Uh yes, mayor. Uh Steam Graham, your your city attorney. Uh we have the sixth amendment uh between the city and CRNR uh for comprehensive refuge services. Uh this has been a long time in the in the making. uh looking at the services that the city uh has been receiving um from CRNR uh since the franchise originally went into effect in 2011. Uh looking at the evolving regulatory environment coming out of Sacramento. Uh used to be you just picked up the trash. Uh now now it's a little bit more complicated uh than that. Um listening to the constituents and to the the council members and what you're hearing, what are what are the concerns? what are the what are the services that the residents of the of the city would like to see um from our solid waste franchise. Um and so, you know, putting those things all on the table. Um the first time I I called Alex uh from CRNR and said, "Hey, we want to talk about uh a Sixth Amendment." Uh he he said, "Okay, here we go." and and I just started listing all the things that the city, the residents, the council had brought up and and Alex was was a fantastic sport um uh because he he listened to all those. He took them all very seriously. We looked at ways that they could they could be implemented. And so what you see here is not a single tweak to a specific part of the program, but really a comprehensive refresh um to how how the services are provided uh to the city of Hemet. I I do know that that Alex is present and and has a presentation. Alex, I don't know if you want to come up and maybe walk the council uh through uh the ways that CRNR is going to be uh upgrading the services provided to the city uh through through the sixth amendment. Uh they they listen to me enough. They don't get to see you uh all that often. So, welcome.

Uh thank you, Stephen. Um before I get started, I want to congratulate Mark on his retirement. Um it's been a pleasure working with you. Um I've worked with a lot of city managers over the years and uh you are the cream of the crop. So thank you very much.

Appreciate it. So tonight I just wanted to go over um what as Stephen said we've been working on with staff for the better part of the last year, year and a half. Um we've been focused on uh trying to get the best agreement um to address uh the city's city's needs. Um and tonight what I'd like to do is go over a few of those contract highlights with you. Uh first I'm going to touch on the history of uh CRNR and then I'm going to touch on what staff really drilled on us throughout this whole process which was how do we improve the quality of life in the city of Hemtt uh through our agreement and there's a number of uh things in this new amendment that uh Stephen alluded to u and I'm going to try and touch on each one of those um and if there's any questions by all means uh let me know. So CRNR was founded in 1963 uh in Stanton, California in Orange County by Mr. Cliff Ronenberg and his brother Gary. They had one truck back in 1963. Uh today CRNR is a large uh what we call a regional organization in our industry. Um very well known for being a very innovative company. back in the 80s, they were the one of the first to uh build what's called a material recovery facility for recyclables. Uh and just a few years ago, in 2017, we opened what's called an anorobic digtor, which is a uh facility that takes yard waste and food waste and converts it to two products. One being um renewable natural gas. That gas is then put into the SoCal gas system and we use it to fuel our vehicles. And the other

is a high-end compost that we share with all of our jurisdictions um as well as farms in the area. Uh all of this is meant to meet state requirements, state regulations. Um so today, uh CRNR is still a family-owned company. Uh we operate through out southern California and also southern Arizona. Um and we focus on waste diversion, not waste disposal. Uh our company was founded on recycling and we always try to look at ways to divert trash from the landfill, not put more trash into the landfill. So CRNR began serving the city of Hemet back in 2011 uh through an RFP process when the city back then was doing their own trash and recycling services. So as I mentioned earlier, Hemet's quality of life improvements is what we focused on throughout this agreement and I'm going to touch on some of the new services that are going to be coming as part of this agreement uh in an effort to address those quality of life issues. First, what we heard loud and clear was we want our streets to be cleaner. And you guys have done a lot of work, invested a lot of money repaving streets, cleaning up that part of of of your uh overall uh you know, city and we want to help in that regard on an ongoing basis. So, currently street sweeping is done bi-weekly. through this agreement uh we are going to sweep on a weekly basis and um that's going to make a huge difference throughout the city of Hemtt. We have cities where we do weekly street sweeping. We have cities where we don't do weekly street sweeping and I could definitely see the difference and I think you will as well.

um that service will start within 18 months or sooner. And the reason we need that time is because we need to order the new sweepers. And uh street sweepers these days take a long time once you put the order in uh ever since the uh pandemic. Um the supply chain issues are still there. Uh not as bad obviously as they were during the pandemic, but they're still there. So, the soonest as soon as we can get those sweepers in is when we're going to start the uh the new uh service and the frequency. Um all new equipment will include GPS technology and it will allow us to um enhance the tracking of our trucks, where we were, where we weren't. Um and will also allow the city staff to view those trucks on an ongoing basis every day on their own computers. There's also some new quarterly reporting requirements that we'll have as part of the street sweeping services. Um there's also a very cool component and this is Mark brought this to our attention. um he uh found a company that um uses AI uh to be able to enhance the city's ability uh to minimize light uh to minimize any concerns out in the in the uh in the community. The way it will work is CRR will purchase cameras to install on selected trucks. These are AI cameras. Um, if those cameras identify whatever area of concern or blight they might identify as they go through the routes, uh, that information will then be sent up to the cloud and then down to your code enforcement officers. Uh, so code enforcement can address those issues uh, on an ongoing basis. So every

week, every route will have these cameras on there. Uh, as I said, the information will be sent to a secure portal and shared with code enforcement. Um, and the city will then evaluate and take any necessary action fleet. Um, what we've agreed to in this agreement is a uh set age requirement on all of our vehicles. Uh the new contract requires a minimum uh average age of fleet of seven and a half years as a whole. No truck can be older than 15 years. And as a result of that, we're going to order uh and purchase a minimum of 13 new vehicles to comply with this minimum age requirement, which is about a $6.1 million investment into the city of Hemet. All trucks will be powered by renewable natural gas, which is the gas that we produce at our anorobic digtor in Paris. Uh mitigation payments.

Yes. Just one note on that. Uh it's a maximum age, not a minimum age. So we're not looking for the sevenyear-old vehicles from Newport Beach. Um we're looking at a fleet age of no more than 7.5 years on average. And today we don't we don't have any limitations in the contract.

Correct. Correct. Um mitigation payments. The city will receive two two.5 million payments, $5 million total over the term of this new agreement. And the second payment will be adjusted for inflation as well. The city may designate those funds to mitigate various physical, environmental, and aesthetic issues in the city. Uh, for example, if the city would like to um implement the enclosure uh trash enclosure program that they've been talking about for the last few months, um this money can be used as seed money to help spur that on and get that going. Um the city will authorize where the funds are invested. City CR will only supply the funds, but the city will direct where those funds go. Uh, illegal haulers. There's a provision in the new contract that contains stronger language regarding enforcing the exclusivity of the agreement. It mitigates illegal hauling in the city and author uh by unauthorized haulers and also uh allows for up to and including the impounding of illegal bins. illegal haulers operate under the radar with no guard rails and contribute to illegal dumping issues throughout the county. So what we get what we have seen especially after the uh the pandemic is a huge number of what we call illegal haulers operating throughout the county. This is just not Hemet this is throughout the entire county. And so, um, folks, uh, you know, buy a truck, buy a couple containers, and all of a sudden you start seeing them operate throughout the throughout the city. It's it's not a good thing for the city. It's not a good thing for us, obviously. So, this new language will help strengthen our ability to u minimize that.

And then, uh, Alex, if I could just chime in, it it's not just the concern regarding the franchise. these unpermitted haulers was a pretty significant threat to travel in the ride ofway. We've had several incidents with traffic collisions involving the improper placement of these bins in the ride ofway. So, we we've been talking a lot about uh the safety of the streets, the safety of the sidewalks, and liability minimization. This is one of those areas where it's really important that we make sure that if these items are being placed in the right way, they're being placed in the in the proper manner. That's what CRNR is is licensed and trained to do.

Thank you. Uh we are also updating the annual rate process and parcel charge options. Um we're updating the current rate adjustment process uh to account for both disposal and labor costs. The new agreement sets a maximum and a minimum that the rates could be adjusted each year. And it also allows us to implement residential billing on a parcel charge if we should choose to do so. We would have to bring it back to city council for that. Um and it also if we do go to a parcel charge, it would eliminate the annual delinquency tax rule process. Uh that and requires trash services to mitigate illegal dumping as well. Another aspect of the new agreement is that it protects and extends the city's franchise fee payments. Um there's a uh exhibit within the agreement that outlines what the uh annual um franchise fee payments will be on a monthly basis and it includes adjustments for any potential annexations down the line if the city were to annex uh anything outside in the county areas. Um also adds a periodic adjustment to existing liquidated damage clauses. what updates the current liquidated damages to account for inflation. So every five years uh we can go in there uh and the city and the hauler can sit down and uh adjust those liquidated damages for any inflation. Uh under the new term of the contract, it will add 15 years plus an optional five-year extension at the end of the existing term. Uh the extensions are needed to advertise the costs of the new equipment and other city benefits. Uh all in all uh we're expecting to invest between 20 I'm sorry 12 and $16 million

into the city of Hemet uh for this new agreement. On the rate side, uh the new residential rate effective 71 of 26 would be $3648. The existing rate is 3114 which is an increase of $5.34 per month or $123 a week. Uh the 3648 and the um I'm sorry 38648 per month uh is still one of the lowest utility costs that currently exist and lower than surrounding communities. So we made sure that the rates are still competitive with the surrounding communities. Uh if you look at trash collection, uh it's one of the most cost-effective utilities we have. Comparing it to water, electricity, natural gas, cell phones, uh you know, for 36 $36 a month, you get three vehicles that come by your house every single week. Uh it's a very cost-effective service. uh commercial rates would increase by about 7 and a half% as well effective July 1, 2026. That concludes my presentation and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Very good. Thank you, Alex. Any questions from council members? Yes, go ahead. I have a couple. You answered actually two of my questions. is I wanted to make sure we had access at the city with the cameras to make sure that these routes are taking place and uh you know they're not being skipped or anything. Uh the other one was uh can't even remember. But anyways, my my concern is that $5 million. Now once this contract signed, do we get the initial $2.5 million once it's signed? Yeah. So the way it's set up is the city receives $500,000 a year for the next five years. Ah, so it's only 500.

The first two and a half thou two and a half million and then the other two and a half million kicks in in um 2030. What was that again? At year 15, I believe. Year 15. Yeah. So at year 15, you get the other two and a half spread over five years. Okay. 500,000. Okay. Can we get the uh 2.5 up front? We we tried that. Hey, we got it working. We We have money we have to bring in. So, all right. Well, I guess that's a no. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. I have one question. Um, on the AI technology, you said it's on selected trucks on your slide,

but then you said it was on all trucks verbally. It'll it'll be on all of our recycling trucks, residential recycling trucks that and those visit every house every week. Okay. So, yes, there'll be every house will have those cameras on board. Good. Thank you. There will Okay. With the with the rate increase that's going into effect July 1, when will when will the notices go out to the people? 30 days prior. 30 days. All righty. Okay. Any other questions from council? Not really question as much as you when you gave me my tour.

I was absolutely floored and we are very fortunate to have what you have there. And I wanted you to make sure which you did to say you're running your vehicles off of that gas. andce is also benefiting. So we are. So I'm excited for this. I am excited about the AI because a lot of people I never get my garbage picked up. I never get that. And while I'm sure it's very true, it'll help be the grounding for us to be able to say, well, let's look into it. But CRNR is a pretty cool facility and seriously that was an awesome Both Tom and I went. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

I I just have one more comment. Go ahead. Okay. Um so so we're raising at $5 and something, but the public has always said we need to clean up the city and this is an excellent way to do it. So, not only are you getting newer trucks because there's been complaints in the past about them dripping oil or whatever, um there's weekly sleep sweeping instead of twice. Um code enforcement tool will help you know all of our citizens and the trash enclosure program. We've been working on that for two years and uh that was one of our goals a couple years ago and uh we we ran into a lot of stumbling blocks with manufacturers and that and you are helping us with that and I really really appreciate that and we are going to see a difference not immediately because it's going to take a while to get all the trucks and everything but a year or so I think it'll be a tremendous change. So thank you. You will definitely see a difference. And as I said in the beginning, Mark and his staff were focused on how to make the community cleaner, how to make the community better. And that's what that was our entire focus from day one throughout this process. So kudos to Mark for keeping us on track.

Okay. Any other questions from council? Is there any public comment on this item? There are no registered speakers. Okay. Thank you very much. So, can I get a a motion? I would like to approve the resolution approving the sixth amendment to the exclusive franchise agreement for comprehensive refuge services between the city of HMT and CRNR incorporated. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Thank you. We have a motion by Council Member Peterson, second by Council Member Clark. And you can go ahead and cast your vote on the screen and once they're confirmed, there we go. We have four zero pass. That was fast. Yes, it was. We're getting Thank you very much, Alex.

Moving on to items 18C, approval of grant fund recommendations for the city of Hemtt kitchen program. Get a staff report, please. Beautiful. Good. Well, very nice. This This is much louder than the other one. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, city council, sir, city manager. Great to be here this evening. Ben Sandaval, the economic development director for the beautiful city of He and truly your horizon is here and this is why this grant was really established. The Hem

test one two and tonight they wanted to make sure I was paying attention. So tonight will be for the Hemmet kitchen grant and I'm going to go over a little bit on how we got here. What were some of the variables and and how we came down to the decision- making here. So just kind of get into the city strategic plan. Um this really covers all five of the of the points here. Quality of life partnership. I won't get into it, but you're going to really hone into why every single category is covered here. It's going to bring e economic opportunity. We talked about leakages. We're going to cortel that. That's that's for sure with this particular grant program. The purpose, you know, it's part of the HMT rides strategic plan that was approved here by city council two years ago. We had over 20s something items. One of those items was regarding bringing restaurants into the city of Hammond, bringing in the downtown or overall the whole city and we were able to write this grant and more importantly come out of the Hammet rises and it's truly quite simple. We want to uh cultivate culinary destinations here. We mentioned earlier streamline business development. We want to make sure people come in here and it's a a throughz process, Disneyland fastpass. One of the biggest things that we've noticed from social media interaction is nightife. Where is the nightife? Where can I find nightife here in city of Hammet? Well, again, your horizon is here and you're going to figure out that some of these uh applications offer that type of nightife that we're desperately looking for. and the night life. Just just to give you an idea, I don't have the exact number, but a place is giving me over a hund00 million dollars lost on nightlife experiences. We want to bring in uh tourism. It's funny, we're talking about tourism, bringing in people from LA County as we're able to bring in new Chargers, EVs. This will only help us, but we want to have the infrastructure for that workforce. That's a big thing in our valley. We want to bring the household income up from 58,000, enhance quality of life, and more importantly, revitalize the Hemet restaurant scene.

That's one of the biggest things, particular all of Hem, not just on the west side or southside, but also on the we uh east side if needed. I won't get into all of these because you've already seen them through the downtown kitchen grant, what's allowable, what isn't. But one thing that I do want to add that was added in here is that last bullet point other similar items um based on the items we we received on applications. Some of them may have not been on this list but they were related to a kitchen or they were or a kitchen item to be able to produce or manufacture or make food. The timeline here's kind of the the talent that we did about a year ago actually maybe less than that. and I came here to city council to present on the first Hammet kitchen grant and then I came back and did another one and all in all with the two presentations council appropriated a million dollars for all of the K uh kitchen grants the program was launched and we did it it sounds like a fast uh turnaround two and a half weeks but we had people waiting ready to go and we felt that we were going to have more applications that funding could support targeted strategy I want everyone uh council also to understand that we did send us to the 100 top visitor locations that our residents leave here to. So the BJ's, the Olive Gardens, the Texas Roadhouse, Round One, all those Top Golf, we send it to them as well so they can see, hey, here's an incentive. We like to invest in the city of Hemmed. We got some inquiries, one or two to apply, but nonetheless, we were able to send it to 100 destinations so they know that he is alive and really trying to bring in this type of um hospitality. We took the application process and we had 14 highc caliber applications with one relocation request and then we were able to bring in all of these applications with our business ad hoc. And I want to um make sure I highlight those two business ad hoc

members, Vice Mayor Joe Mouse and Jackie, Council Member Jackie Peterson. Thank you for assisting and really you had a very tough job. So, thank you for the guidance on that. Here is where the the beef is at the beef and potatoes. These are all of the applications that we received u starting from the Hammet Adventure Park, Carlton Steakhouse, Harvard Social. All of these were uh presented to the city council in your uh council packet along with some of them offering art renderings, conceptual items, what it can look like along with conceptual menus as well. Um some of these were requesting grant funding that it um were over was 300,000. As you can see, some of them were requesting 700,000 800. But something to take note very very key sometimes we look at the total grant request but it's also good to notice the total private investment that would come in here. So the city would invest give or take I'm sorry let me rephrase that the grant application we had close to $5 million of grant requests but look at this over $10.5 million would have been is being presented as private investment after we had a great conversation and we really went down to the weeds on what I want to make sure I I highlight this what does a city need right now what are our residents asking for right now and that is where the business ad hoc recommendations came into play and these are the five recommendations by the ad hoc. As you can see here, we have the rendevous coffee, we have the share tea, rebel Irish uh pub, the sports restaurant, ENTJ Steelhouse for a total of 750,000. Uh the PowerPoint was updated, but I see the the current version wasn't presented, but it would have shown you right next to it all of the total investment from these five, which would

have equaled over $1.5 million of investments. So these are the five that the business ad hoc recommended. A Mia Copa, it would have also showed the overview of investments, but that would have been close to $ 1.5 million. How do I get there? Going back here just to the previous site, you can see that Rendezvous Coffee is willing to invest a total of 183,000. We got the Irish Pub at 650,000. The Sports Bar 432,000. And then we have the G uh EJ Steelhouse, which is a um place where you'll be able to mingle, grab some uh adult beverages, and have assorted selection uh vendors to get uh get uh food from. That's an investment of 146,000. So that is where we got the the number here. And then we were going to have pictures here, but not all of them had them. So we had we did pull those out. But I'm here for any questions. I did go fairly quick because we have received this item before through the downtown kitchen grant. And for the most part, I feel council has a good understanding, but I'm here for questions along with any for the city manager. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation, questions and comments from council. I have questions council or comments mostly. Um I read every single one of them. A lot of things requesting for things like doors and windows and so again this is clearly outlined the different portions. So um people that didn't get it, you need to look at your grant first of all request but I feel we have missed with Carlton steakhouse. These two individuals have shown that they want to invest in him. Um, we have challenging situations in certain portions of the city. I believe they have landed in a area with a very good landlord who is very invested in the community also. And if it's possible, I would rather see one of the others get pulled out or we award additional monies to them, but um I I don't agree.

Can I respond to that? Mhm. We still have $250,000 that because of someone backing out. So, we don't have to pull from what we have here if we decide to go with that in that um direction. So, good because I really feel like they have shown their investment wanting to stay with him. These are challenging. I'm not going to go into it, but they have landed in a really good spot with a good tenant or with a good landlord.

And I believe we held back on that because of the switching from one uh landlord to another then to another and and it was a little complex. So, we kind of like held off on that. But I'm I I hear you. I you know

Yeah, I think it's coming from all our We know what challenges are in this location. And the original kitchen ground was only downtown to begin with, so you didn't have a whole lot of choices. When we opened it up, I really felt like we needed to maybe assist and I that's my view. Thank you. Any other questions? I I have a question. If you go back to the slide that shows all of the grant applicants, there's three of them on there. Well, maybe it's it is that slide that have the same address. So, Carlton's the sports restaurant and I guess Carlton's on there twice. If if this goes back to ad hoc for consideration for Carlton's, what happens to the sports restaurant which is in the same location? You can't have two Well, maybe you can have two restaurants in the same building. I don't know.

Great question. And we have also the property owner here, but it would be two separate businesses and I believe there's room for for two of them. Um, there might have been I'll look into the application if the address was submitted twice with the same address, but I know for a fact there's two properties there, mayor, where it'll be two separate businesses, and we do have the property on here as well to be able to highlight that. Did you want to say something, Mark? No, that's that's accurate. There are a couple of units that are available. Did you want to say something? I I I was just going to say, mayor, I'm familiar with that building. Uh, it's a it's a large commercial building. I believe it has five large seats uh was my understanding. And are they all empty or are they

um that's a great question. Right now there is the Taekwond do place. We have our subdivision Hemet PD and there's three or four vacant right now that would be available ranging from 1500 square ft to 25 give or take but they're pretty spacious back there. And and which one is uh which suite is the one Carlton wants to go into? The 25 or the 15 or That's a great question, Vice Mayor. I don't have the the the uh map on top on top of my head, but it's one of the two buildings. And I I can relate to the property owner when it's time for open discussion. Okay. Thank you. Great question, though.

Okay. Um since we have questions on this. Okay. That all open for public comment, I should say. Yes. Public comment on this item.

Yes, we do have registered speakers. We're going to start first with Jason Strain followed by Jessica Ellis Wood. And Jason, you're going to have three minutes. And you make All right. Good evening, Mayor, Council members, City Manager Preswoods, uh, economic development director Sandival, members of the business ad hoc committee, city staff. My name is Jason Strain. I'm here tonight uh to express my sincere appreciation for the staff's recommendation to support the um Rebel Harp Irish Pub at 123 North Harvard Street through the city of HIMT grant program. First, uh I want to say thank you. Thank you for taking the time to review these projects carefully. Thank you for uh taking a look at the bigger picture and thank you for recognizing that downtown uh HMT's future depends on real investment. Um, the Rebel Harp isn't just a bar or restaurant concept. It's um intended to be a true downtown anchor, a place where people gather, eat, listen, uh, celebrate, um, and spend time in the heart of Hemet. Uh, Real Irish Pub is about hospitality, and it's about community. It's about creating a place where people feel welcome. That's the energy we want to bring to uh, to Harvard Street. This project represents a major private investment in downtown HMT. The grant recommendation helps close the gap on the most expensive and most important part of opening a food service business. It's the kitchen infrastructure. Um I also want to acknowledge the city's goal with this program in keeping the uh dining dollars here in Hammet. Too often residents leave town for full service restaurants and uh a night out. So, we want to keep those people uh uh staying

and entertaining here and in downtown. And um we'll be proud to have some uh place where people bring friends and and family into the downtown. This project will support um the construction activity. It'll create jobs and improve uh an underused space, strengthening nearby businesses. So, I respectfully uh ask the the council to approve the staff's recommendation and uh we're grateful for the partnership and we uh we're ready to do the work and help make downtown HMT a stronger, more attractive and inviting place. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker is

Thank you. Our next speaker is going to be Jessica Ellis Wood followed by Koko Lockshman. And Jessica, you have three minutes.

Hi everybody again. Mark, congratulations. Sorry to see you go that excited for your next chapter. Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Jessica Ellis Wood and I'm here tonight regarding the downtown kitchen grant and the relocation request for Carlton Steakhouse from 123 Harvard to 3570 West Florida Avenue. First, I want to sincerely thank the city for the leading in this project and for awarding us the downtown kitchen grant. We recognize that these funds are an investment in both the local businesses and the future of downtown Hen and we do not take that responsibility lightly. Our goal has always been to bring a successful long-term restaurant business to Hennet. One that creates jobs, increases foot traffic, supports neighboring businesses, and contributes to the continued growth and revitalization of our community. Unfortunately, after our initial move approval and during our due diligence and planning, we encountered an unexpected issue with the lease execution between Carlton Steakhouse and the property owner and Mr. Simon Chu. despite our good good faith efforts to move forward at that location. Circumstances the honor of control created barriers that made it impossible to proceed responsibly there. I have detailed all of that in a letter to Mr. Sandival which is attached to the staff report for this evening's agenda online. Rather than abandoning the project entirely, we worked quickly to identify a location option that would allow the business to remain open, continue serving the community, and fulfill the e economic purpose of this grant. The FTHO's new location in Dr. Koka's building provides a stable and reliable landlord relationship, which is critical for the long-term success of any restaurant business. Having a strong landlord partnership gives this project a much greater opportunity to succeed and protects both the business and the city's investment. Our request is not to walk away from the commitment. It is to reserve it. Preserve it, excuse me. We are simply asking for fairness, flexibility, and the opportunity to complete the project

in a way that protects both the business and the city's investment. We remain committed to the opening of a quality establishment here in Hennet, investing in this community, and being part of the longtime success of the city. We I respectfully ask for your support in approving the relocation request, even if it's a partial funding, and allowing this project to move forward successfully. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Speaker is going to be Koka Lockshman followed by Tosha Tate. You have three minutes.

Honorable mayor, council members, city manager, and Mr. uh Ben Sandaval himself here and all our city leadership. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Um, I tell you, we moved into this town a little over 21 years ago when our son was 21 days old and we called this home and this is home to us. Uh, no matter what we do, where we expand, this is still home for us and that's because of the wonderful people of this valley and the leadership that we keep getting and we keep improving. Um, one of the things that I'm really truly impressed is what you all are doing. I think the investment that you are making as a businessman and especially a management specialist. I cannot help but admire what you folks do. There are times that I get frustrated thinking maybe I should also move along with some many of our friends who are moved. then you guys come and do something amazing and holds on to us here. Um I mean we are a small town right and look what we did a week ago. You brought the fast pitch entrepreneurship to this valley to this town. Where else do you think you can come up with something like that? Being from a little town, you have an opportunity to excel and then go on to the county and to the national all the way to win up to a million dollars. It's not something that you could be should be talking in a town of 100,000 or less than 100,000 people. Th those are the things that really impress us and keep us here. And that's not just the only thing you look at when you brought Mark. I don't need anything from you, Mark. I know you're leaving. So, but I still got to tell you and you

you have been an amazing to this city and I want to compliment the the city council for bringing such an amazing person to this valley and genuinely you have made a huge difference and I agree with pretty much everybody's sentiment. We will definitely miss you and um hopefully what I heard was that you would go around do your retirement gig and come back and settle down here. So, Florida versus EMTT. I say Hemed. Uh, you know, I I really feel Heid is no longer a um a small town. We are becoming a gateway to much bigger opportunities. I'm impressed with what this grant is doing because you want to bring in strong quality businesses into this valley and restaurants is a huge thing. When you look at the tax leak dollars, the biggest money that goes out from our city is going to places like Tmacula, San Diego, Crossband, and on and on. Thank you, Koka. Thank you. Our last speaker is going to be Tosska Tate and that'll be our last public comment. The Tosska or Tosha. There we go. Thank you. Three minutes.

Close. I don't want to. We need to turn her microphone on.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. Thank you so much. And Ben as well. Again, my name is Tusca Tate. I'm representing Boyer on behalf of Al Cubane. Al Cubain hired me April 8th, 2025 as his consultant because he want he he is so passionate about that rest about Boyer. I encourage you guys to visit him. He has the all the p boy which is located on Carmelita Street in the heart of downtown him right across the street from the police station. Um when when he when I sat with him and he showed me pictures the restaurant started basically 1930s. However, if you Google it, it says 1953. And it started, I can't exactly the restaurant was named Merles, but then it came on to Boy's Burger, which Al um has had for 12 years. With that, like I said, he hired me to because he want to enhance the restaurant. He wanted to grow the restaurant. He wanted to be he wanted preserve the restaurant in its history. So, that's why he hired me. And then when I saw the grant opportunity and read about it in regards to the kitchen, it was exactly what Al was looking for in regards to revitalizing and preserving and um it's in the heart of downtown him. So I'm like, what a perfect match. And um all we're asking is if you approve um funding for us to um preserve Boy'sburgger. Um

we have visions to um improve it and make it and bring it back to life like it used to be. And and if you I again I encourage you to come visit, have lunch, I'll be happy to show you the historical pictures of the restaurant and its history. So I thank you and just please reconsider and um that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much. And mayor if you allow we have one more public comment. Can I have Isaac? Is it Petra? Three minutes. Hi, good evening everybody. Uh my name is Isaac. Um did apply for the Hemet grant uh kitchen grant for a the Hemet Brewing Company uh which we proposed that I believe is 225 the old uh strawberry bicycle shop.

Um we didn't get it, but we're here to if we can get a second chance with the remaining funds. Uh, Henry Brewing uh, company is a proposed small batch craft brewery and kitchen designed to serve as a welcoming community focused destination in our city. Our vision is to create space where families, friends, and visitor visitors can gather to enjoy high quality craft beer, thoughtfully prepared food, and meaningful local experiences with a focus of on collaboration, community engagement and responsible operations. EMTT Brewing Company will provide will contribute sorry to the rev revitalization of the local economy while enhancing the social fabric of the city. Our concept uh will operate out of a three and a half barrel brew house allowing for small batch but high quality beer production with frequent rotations and innovations. Our hours potentially would be from 12:00 p.m. to 900 p p.m. Sunday through Thursday and Friday through Saturday 12:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. As far as uh our uh economic impact is positioned to contribute positively to the local economy uh by creating approximately 8 to 15 jobs across brewing, kitchen and hospitality roles. generating sales tax and business tax revenue, supporting local suppliers, farms, and vendors whenever possible. Hammet currently has a growing population of over 94,000 residents with continued steady growth in the next few years. This presents a strong opportunity for new locally rooted businesses that keep spend spending within the city, which

all everybody's been talking about. you know, we don't have to leave town to have a good beer and dinner with our families. Uh, community integration is a foundational pillar of the Hemet Brewing Company. We will implement a community collaboration program including partnerships with local organizations such as the fire and police department, special collaboration beers that support charitable causes, monthly collab, sorry, monthly fundraising nights benefiting schools and local nonprofit organizations. And to close out, uh, we are designed to be more than a brewery.

Thank you very much. Any other speakers? That was our last speaker. No more speakers. So, who wants to speak up here? Either of you. Yeah, I'll say something. Um, I'd like to make a motion if I can for reconsideration. Um, but I want to speak with Ben first. Ben, on the $250,000 we have left over, did the other company just say forget it is we're not moving forward with it or is there a potential? This is off right now. Can you hear me?

There we go. Much better. Yes, we did a very extensive um two meetings with with the 250 you're referring to and unfortunately no it um it is not in the cards not even not only here but on in the um nearby city both of them are being pulled it's not going to happen anymore. Okay. So it's not just he it's both locations and there's different variables to that. So it is not going to be utilized 100%. Okay. Thank you. Also, if you give me a second here, that's a lot of money. 37. What's the question?

Okay. I would like to make a motion then since that money's there and it's going to be sitting there. Carlton was one of my favorite restaurants. I wanted to see that up. I I was hoping it was going to go up in the downtown area. I know it's going to be on the west side. Maybe we need it over there. But if we can if I can make a motion in order to give Boy's burgers their 37,800 to fix their burger place and give the remainder of 212,000 and or $212,000 uh and two or 2002,200 to um carlton's is that right? Restaurant. Carlton's restaurant. Yeah.

Am I saying it right? I just Sorry. Finish your motion. Okay. So, I'd like to give Boyers their money because it's only a 37,000 um deficit right there. But that rem that leaves $212,200 for Carlton's if that would help them. And that way we utilize all the money and get the grant um finalized with restaurants, more restaurants um in helping. I think see Mayor.

Yes, sir. Uh obviously it's your prerogative. If you want to give direction tonight, feel free. Um I would recommend that if you are looking at proposing um a grant award that that has not been recommended by the ad hoc that perhaps you if you're good with the current ones, perhaps approve those and submit your recommendations to the ad hoc for review. Okay. One of the things about about uh Boy's Burgers was in looking at their application, it did look like they had some ineligible expenses in their proposal. Okay. And so sending it to the ad hoc might give them an opportunity, maybe they can shuffle their expenses around.

I'm good with that. I just didn't want to hold up the other money. So if you're telling me we can approve that and then take it to the ad hoc, that that's great. I'm for that. My recommendation might be to if you're good with the the ad hoc funding recommendations perhaps approve those tonight and then you could send Carlton's and boy burgers to the ad hoc just to clarify what would their application be that 250 that's left and then that could come back to the council for we can do that. Okay. And we could you saw with the conceptual plan if the ad hocs are available we can turn these around pretty quick. Okay. Perfect. Then let's do that. I I recommend No, you make a motion.

That I make a motion. Uh, let me get this here. To approve the ad hoc committee's funding recommendations for the city of Hemtt kitchen grant program in the amount of $750,000 and authorized staff to administer the program consistent with the approved guidelines and also create a hawk committee boyers and Carlton hawk committee for boys and Carlton steakhouse um or a future meeting yet. That's That works. Okay. Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Oh, I'll second it. I thought you said you second it.

All right. We have a motion and second. Um, thank you. We have a motion by Mayor Prom or I'm sorry, by Mayor Prom, second by council member Peterson. If council members could please cast your votes and then once they're confirmed, they'll display on the screen.

That motion passes four to zero. Thank you, council. Congratulations to those who just received that grant funding. Get busy on your restaurants. We want to be able to eat at different places downtown or wherever they are. We just want food. All right, moving on. Whoops. Uh here we go. We have a staff report. Staff report uh approving the city of Hemtt remote participation and technology disruption policy. I assume you're doing that.

Uh yes, mayor. Uh I'll I'll be handling this one. Um this is a policy that the city is required to adopt pursuant to SB77. Uh the legislature as we we've talked about before uh adopted SB77 which is an update to the Brown Act. Uh one of the requirements is effective July 1st uh 2026. The city of Hemtt will be required to have two-way audiovisisual participation from members of the public. One of the reasons why we did the significant uh tech upgrades uh in the council chamber uh that that we're uh working with today. Um, and one of the requirements under SB77 is to adopt a policy for what we're going to do when the technology doesn't work. Now, we've we came over here early and we've spent the last several meetings working out all the bugs with the technology um so that that doesn't happen on July 1st. Uh, but just in case it does, uh, we are required under state law to wait up to an hour. Hopefully it gets fixed faster than that, but we have to wait at least an hour while we try to fix whatever the technology outage is. Um, if we are unable to fix it within one hour, then the council can make a decision to either continue the meeting to the next regular meeting day or another day when the technology is presumably corrected. Um, or to make a finding that the public uh interest lies in continuing the meeting uh in person only uh so that a decision can be made on whatever item we're dealing with. uh we opted to take a light touch with the policy. This is consistent with other cities uh in Riverside County um preferring to have flexibility while complying with the state mandate. Um so you you have that policy in front of you. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have about it. I apologize. I wish this could have been on consent, but the legislature told me I wasn't allowed to do that either.

Okay. Questions or comments on more regulations from Sacramento? Nope. Nope. Nope. Any public comment on this? Have no register speakers. Thank goodness. Okay, let's have a motion in a second. I have a motion to approve adopting a remote participation and technology disruption policy. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion by council member Clark, second by council member Peterson. If council members could please cast your votes, and once they're confirmed, they will display. That motion passes four to zero.

Look how good we're getting. We are so good. We are getting good. Okay. Um Okay. Moving on to the next one. Um staff report on approval of memorandum of understanding with Riverside Transit Agency for development of the Hemet Mobility Hub.

Thank you, mayor. This will be a combined uh shared staff report and I'm going to begin in August of 2024. Um there were several high-fives exchanged in my office uh between at least the um public works director, city engineer, myself, I think we had others in the office. Uh but we were awarded the the city in partnership with Palm Communities, uh the Riverside Transit Agency and um some additional projects were awarded $35.5 million under the uh affordable housing sustainable communities grant. I believe we were one, if I recall correctly, I believe we were one of 18 agencies across the state of California that received this uh coveted grant. Uh the Palm Communities project is advancing. Uh they have submitted their project to our staff and are considering expansion of that project. Uh the initial phase would be 157 affordable units. We issued a press release on August 27th. So that I think this elation probably occurred on the 26th to the 27th. Uh it was a real home run for the city. It probably frankly was a grand slam. Uh in that press release uh it noted that the grant will also finance a series of sustainable transportation improvements including the construction of a multimmoal bike lane and lighted pedestrian walkway along the railroad corridor from Menllo Avenue to Acacia Avenue and the development of a mobility hub in partnership with the Riverside Transit Agency. These enhancements will provide safer, more accessible transportation options for residents and improve connectivity across the city. So today, um, we're bringing you theou, the memorandum of understanding in partnership with the Riverside Transit Agency. And I'd like to invite their CEO, Kristen Warzinski, to provide an overview of what that project uh will

look like in the city of Hemmet, the amount of the investment, and uh uh some context on the broader project, and then we'll transition to the city attorney for elements uh related to theou. All right. Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Koopa and members of the council. As was said, I'm Kristen Worinski and Before I start, Mark, you were very brave to give me a microphone on your last day because I've got some stuff. No, I'm just kidding. You are awesome. We have loved working with you. This project has gotten farther under your leadership than it had before that. So, I really appreciate you and all of your help on this. Um, it's an honor to be here with you tonight. He is a wonderful city. I grew up in Bumont, right over the hill, and I used to come over here for everything because there was nothing in Bulmont back then. I would come here to eat. We would come to the mall. We would come here to play all of our soccer games. We only had one girls soccer team. So, I've spent a lot of time in HMT. I love this city. Um, and I'm really excited about this project. So, this is the project site right now. Um this pro uh conceptual plan for this mobility hub started way back in 2017 and we've come to the council various times throughout the project through the different phases and gotten approvals. So it's not the first time that that we've talked about it or brought it forward. Um the idea for the location of the hub actually came out of the downtown specific plan that the city had, the 2017 downtown specific plan which identified that area as a transit oriented development or TOD area. Um, this is on Devonshshire and you can see it probably right out there if you look that way. It's right out there. It's close to the public library, the police and fire departments and um connects into the downtown. So, we went through our conceptual planning and that was quite a process. Um, we had over 40 community meetings. We met with individual business owners all around the hub. We met with business owners throughout the city with

different um public service groups with members of city staff and this is what was approved by the council and what we came up with. It has 8 to 10 bus, shelters, solar lighting. Um it's going to include a traffic signal to help with the the bus emerging back into the flow of traffic. So a traffic signal at Devonshire and Carmelita. um storage staff, restrooms, and a security facility with 247 security guard and high quality cameras. Our cameras actually um have been newly upgraded and they now have weapons detection software as well. So, we're really excited about that. Something that some other transit agencies are using and I think it will really help. Um it will also have public art elements that will celebrate the region. That was something that was really important to the community. Um the community picked the colors, they picked the trees, um all of that type of thing. We had multiple votes going on and we we really got out there and tried to make sure that this was something that people could feel proud of. Give you a little bit of an idea of what a mobility hub looks like in real life since this is just a rendering. I have a before and after for our Vine Street hub which we recently constructed in Riverside on Vine Street across from the Metroink station. Um that hub was funded in part using this same affordable housing dollars that this um city got and uh included housing projects, two different housing projects that I'll show you as well. So this is what the Vine Street Mobility Hub site looked like before. Um, and it had a lot of trouble. It was vacant land. It had security and safety issues, encampments, um, some issues with buying and selling and using of drugs, that type of stuff. So, there was a lot going on at the

site. And this is what it looks like now. Uh, it's a beautiful facility. We actually won an award last year for design of this facility. And I'm really proud of the greenery and the character. I think a lot of times with transit facilities, transit agencies tend to like build it, it functions for us, and we're going to move on and they don't make it a place. This, excuse me, I talk with my hands. Um, this has had personality and character and place. It had colors like that was really important to us and to the community that it was built in. We didn't want to create a concrete structure that no one wants to be at. So, here's another view. and then some of the main features of it. Um, this is larger than what we would need here in Hemtt, but at least it gives you an idea. Um, in talking about the public art aspects, one of the things we did that was really cool, and you can kind of see one of the infographics there on one of the polls, um, we actually put out information about the city of Riverside's rich agricultural history and where how it started with citrus and all of that. And so there's infographics when you walk throughout the hub that talks about the history of Riverside. There is also a lithocree that runs down the middle of the hub which is like for lack of better term sparkly concrete and it's got blue and and it looks like water flowing down the hub. Um and there's actually an aquaor underneath the hub. So it follows that aquaor and kind of mirrors that but it kind of tells the story of the area. There's also a veterans memorial, something that was important to the board that we put in there, and it's a really beautiful facility. So, that hub we were able to to leverage and partner on two different affordable housing grants for the city of Riverside. And this was the first one that they built. It's called Mission Heritage Plaza. It's in downtown Riverside. It is a beautiful facility. I

think some of you toured that facility. We did the bus tour and we went and saw it. Um, it's very active. They have tons of families, young families living there. They have the civil right institute on the bottom floor which is a really cool feature for the public that was funded as well. And then this is the other one in TRAA. This is a an east side project that's over near actually near our RTA facility. It's on Chicago. And um another really beautifully done project that we're really proud that we were able to to help the city build um along with the developer. Included in the affordable housing grants are also street and bus stop improvements, travel training, which is where RTA staff goes to the housing communities and teaches people how to ride the bus. A lot of times you'll find out um that some of the barriers to transit are that they just don't know how to read the ride guide. It's very intimidating. They don't understand that there's stops in between the ones noted in the book. So we teach them how to do all of that. Um and that's funded through the grant and free bus passes for all of their residents for three years. So we're encouraging them to ride transit, one per unit. Um the affordable housing grants require a large greenhouse gas reduction component. And if you don't have that in your grant, you won't be competitive. Transit is a really good way to get those greenhouse gas emission reductions, which is why RTA is becoming more popular on these grants, and we've been trying to help out as as best we can throughout um our service area in trying to get these funded. Uh with that, I'll turn it back over. Thank you. Okay. Any questions for Kristen? I I will add that she's now the CEO of RTA, but when we did this study, she was the planning director that Jennifer Win

now or the director of the ship that Jennifer now has. So, um, congratulations. Congratulations. So, city attorney,

uh, yes, I was just going to, uh, run through the high points of the agreement that the council is being asked to look at today. Uh RTA is going to be funding $13.8 million towards the transit portion of the hub. 7 million of that is going to be coming from the grant. RTA is going to be responsible for the design, engineering, construction uh of the hub. They will be seeking all uh relevant city uh permits. Uh they are going to provide public bus transit uh service at the hub. Uh they are going to be handling the maintenance uh and the security which is listed as 247. um they're going to be providing the required insurance. Um if for some reason uh the cost exceeds 13.8, uh the agreement requires that the parties work in good faith, meet and confer, um on how to address that. Um for the city side, we're going to be handling uh we're going to be the lead agency uh for SQA and NEPA purposes. Uh we are going to be licensing uh the site under a 40-year license um to RTA. Um that is the minimum useful life under the federal uh transit guidelines. Um we are going to be waving approximately $12,573 um in fees. Um and uh we have agreed uh to initiate the formation of a community facilities district, a meal district um within five years uh of the beginning of the hub operation. uh and we will be uh looking to create that uh CFD in order to cover at least 50% of the ongoing maintenance and security costs um of the hub. If for some reason uh we as the city uh revoke that license or interfere with uh the hub use um then we are going to be required to reimburse RTA uh for the costs that they forwarded in the creation of that transit hub. and we've agreed on a straight line depreciation model uh for for dealing with if that potential eventuality. Um one of the

things that obviously we have a fantastic working relationship with RTA. They're one of the uh best public transit agencies that I get to deal with um in in my city attorney practice. Um we we did u address something that is making city attorneys nervous uh throughout the state. Those are changes in state law uh that may provide transit agencies with extra zoning powers uh within the cities. RTA was uh very uh easy to deal with on that particular issue. So we put some explicit language in the agreement where the city maintains its police zoning and regulatory powers um over the site and uh RTA expressly disclaims any that it may get through current or future state law changes. So very good.

Those are the highlights.

Very good. Uh when when we went through the the design on this with the public uh and the downtown specific plan, we had talked about security and crime and and everything else in the surrounding area. I thought we had added in there that there would be a small location available for HMT Police Department to to actually be on site. Um, is that still in the plan? I mean, they're they're across the street, but we had talked about maybe a a room where officers could could spend some time, do some reports or whatever and and just have the availability and visibility of a police car and a uniformed person. Is is that still viable?

Yeah, we we have a small security structure that we'll be building and it'll be for the security guards, but really they should be always out roaming. So yeah, it would be available for the police as well. Okay, any other questions or comments? Who brings in the security guards? You or us? We do. You do. Okay. And who controls the day-to-day operations there of the security? The security does.

Um we the day-to-day operations, it's a mix. Um the security guards are out there watching everything and then it's our bus drivers who have constant contact with our dispatch. Um and then we also have our HIMT facility here where we have um operation supervisors which are used to go out and help out in the field whenever there's anything going on and they help the drivers and support them. So they would be coming out here as well. Will this hub be working 24/7 or just from certain hours to not at this point? I don't see it working 24/7. I think we probably have service 4 to 4 a.m. to maybe 10 p.m. here right now. And so after that, no security there.

Yeah. Okay. What happens if ridership is low? I mean, if we don't get the wrership that you're looking for, we um we need this based on the wrership we have right now in this area. We're taking minus dialide, we're taking like 33,000 trips. Um that was March's number. And so we we've outgrown them all. That's part of how this all happened is that we have too many buses to be able to lay over there. There's no place for the drivers to be able to quickly run to the restroom. It was just um we've just outgrown it. We need some place that's more organized that we can control.

Okay. Thank you. And also benefit um of this location is that there's the availability of the metro link to come right right through. So, it would definitely be a downtown mobility hub with everything. I mean, bus and train, and trains are never out of style. So, I'm pushing for that. Can I push you to push that?

I'm pushing I am pushing it. Uh there's more funding right now for trains than there is for anything else. Although there's a lot for also for busing for pedestrian paths and equestrian paths and things like that. They just seems the government governments higher than us don't like automobiles and trucks. Yeah. So um any other questions or comments? Yes,

I do. um will you consult us sometimes about routes if you want to move things around or um I'm a big proponent to get our youth to MSJC and so to see a very um consistent to and from um will you ask us sometimes what we want?

So we have uh you have a spot on the board and anytime that we make any sort of service changes, it goes through the board of directors and they have to approve it. It goes through a public process. We have we're bound by title six civil rights. Um so there's a very strict process for when we do make changes and you definitely will be able to provide input. Very good. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Any other questions or comments from council? Are there any public speakers on this? No register speakers. All righty. What is your pleasure? Make a motion. Oh, you're gonna go ahead. No, go ahead. Do it.

No, go ahead. I move to approve the memorandum of understanding between the city of Hemet and Riverside Transit Agency for the development of the Hemtt mobility hub and authorize the city manager to ex execute the agreement and any nonsubstantive uh amendments. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. All righty. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion by Mayor Prom May, second by council member Clark. And if you could please cast your votes on the screen. Once confirmed, they will display to vote. Joe, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm getting over an illness.

That motion passes four to zero. All righty. Thank you very much. Moving on. Um, can we have a report from staff on item 18F?

Uh, yes, Mayor. Uh this is an item that we uh initially broached back in February of this year. Uh the council asked us to take it back, do additional research into the item uh and come forward uh once we we had a greater handle uh on the matter. Uh I have to say this at the at the beginning what we are talking about is uh two different variations of being a general law city council manager form of government. We are not talking about a strong mayor form of government that you would see under a charter. Um all we're discussing is how the mayor of the city of Hemet would be selected. Uh the powers, duties, responsibilities uh would essentially remain uh the same. Um, as you see in the staff report, we we analyze the current structure, uh, which is five districts, five council members elected by their district, and then once a year, typically in December, uh, the city council selects one of its members to be the mayor uh, for the next year. Uh, sometimes that has uh, rotated among different members. Sometimes it's been the same person for for two years um, in a row. It maximizes district level representation. you you have five districts. Um what it doesn't provide uh however as I mentioned in the staff report is a single identifiable city leader that is accountable to all the voters of the city uh which some value uh for regional advocacy, intergovernmental relations uh and ceremonial functions. Um, an alternate structure uh that the council uh may want to discuss is instead of having five districts uh with the council selecting the mayor would be have four districts with one citywide um elected mayor. Uh you would need to have a discussion as to how often the council would want to elect that citywide mayor.

If this is the direction you want to go, the two options under state law are every two years, which means every general municipal election the mayor would be up uh or every four years uh which means it would be on on alternate general election cycles. The other uh point for potential discussion here is if you did want to go down this path, how would you like to implement that change? Um there is the an option under state law uh to submit that question to the voters. It's a little clunky. There's mandatory questions that we have to ask. We and one of the things that's really frustrating for me is the first question is pretty easy. Shall we have a citywide elected mayor? Okay, great. The second question is shall the term be two years? Yes, no. And then the third question is shall the term be four years? Yes, no. Um, I thought it'd be easier just to say, "Shall the term be two years or four years?" Two or four. Uh, but state law doesn't authorize us to ask the question in that way. So, you ask three questions and two of we'll just have to see which gets more votes, I guess. um an alternative and this is under the California Voting Rights Act. Uh the legislature ha has put language in the California Voting Rights Act is notwithstanding any other process or procedure that exists under law. The city council could adopt an ordinance uh that provides for five districts or four districts with an atlarge mayor. Um, the only hook for that one is that we would have to show how that how that ordinance would further the purposes of uh the California Voting Rights Act. And so, like I said before, you know, having that citywide uh uh accountable individual who would also perhaps uh be a voice for the city on regional issues and and intergovernmental issues. I think that would be primarily the way that if the council direct us to go that

way, how we would demonstrate compliance with the California Voting Rights Act. Um, but ultimately, I know I've thrown a lot of sort of talking points and and and questions for you. I think it goes like this as a decision tree. Do we even want to do this? Yes. No. You want to explore it? If you do, uh, do you want to send it to the voters or do you want to have it done by ordinance here by the council? And if you, and if you do that, what term length essentially do you want? Um, I would say that, you know, if you go the way of doing the ordinance, you save on a city-wide election in the sense that we don't have to have a city-wide election on this topic. Um conceivably, uh the city council could make this transition occur for the 2026 general election. Uh as you uh have uh an opportunity at this point uh to eliminate one district, there might be someone at the stasis whose district would make logistical sense uh uh to eliminate uh at this time. So that may be a thing that you would want to discuss. Um, but I would say is if you do go that ordinance direction, I think my recommendation would be to give us direction to draft the ordinance, but also to immediately begin working with the demographer because uh I believe three of you were on the council the last time we did the census

redistricting and it's a relatively simple process, but you have to have several public hearings. you have to do a lot of of the work. Luckily, we we would likely be able to reuse the services of our demographer last time. We're using the same data sets because the it's the the every 10 years. I think that it's the cenial every 10 years. 10 years.

It's every 10 years census. Um and so it's the same data set that we'd be working with. You would just have to figure out a way to convert five districts to four in a way that maintains uh community continuity. End of staff. Very good. Questions or comments?

I would like to see the city of Hammet elect a mayor. Right now, a lot of people don't even know who the mayor is. I was mayor last year. For a couple of months, I had staff calling me the mayor, and I wasn't the mayor. I was city council. So, even our own staff cannot keep track of who the mayor of Hemmed is. So, for that reason, I think if people see a name on a ballot and they're going to vote, they're going to choose wisely hopefully and they will probably follow that person and they'll probably get more involved with what's happening in the city. And that's what we want, you know, we we want community input. We we want to have um you know, people's voices heard. Um, another thing is for continuity. You know, we if you have a mayor one year that's working beautifully with the city manager and uh department heads and then you get somebody coming in the next year, totally different personality. You know, it could be um a newer member of the council that the city manager and the department heads haven't worked with before as closely and they may butt heads. You know, there's pros and cons to two years and four years. I mean, if you get a good one, you want them for four years, but what if what if you don't like the mirror, you know, then you're stuck with them for four years. So, but you know, it would save on costs um and again for continuity and and um knowledge, then people I think would know who the mayor is for several years. So, I would like to see us do the ordinance and go forward with it and um

have the people elect a mayor for four years. Any other comments? What's the cost? For which option? The ordinance that she want she's

uh so the ordinance is basically free. Uh I I write it. I'm under the retainer, right? Um you any either path you go, whether you go the ballot path or you go the ordinance path, if you want to move to four districts and an elective mayor, you're going to have to pay the demographer to do the districts. Um we estimate that cost based on the last time we did it. Last time it was about $50,000. So we think it'll be about the same. there's probably going to be some significant cost savings because it's the same data set that they've already worked with. We're going to try to use the same demographer. So, we we see there'll be some savings there. However, we did this two, three years ago. Everything's more expensive than it was two, three years ago. So, I figured those two things would probably balance each other out and it would end up being roughly the same cost. And it so if we do the ordinance, we don't have to send it to the voters or we do have to send it to the voters.

So you you have two options under state law. The council can adopt an ordinance that transitions to the atlarge mayor with four districts or you can send it to the voters. Okay? Just like you can pass an ordinance yourselves or you can send an ordinance to the voters. So we become you have that option. We become at large then or just the mayor. The mayor would be at large. Okay. Because Okay. I I don't believe the demographics of the city would support five at large council members for plus mayor that I think we could support that because I know we were in large in 2016 and it got changed. It went over to a district but my research states that you can't go backwards. You can only go one way.

So we would not be going back to council members at large. Okay. Just the mayor. Right. So the the 2016 change happened because of the California Voting Rights Act. Okay. This is the law that authorizes you to adopt this the ordinance I'm talking about. Okay. So why not? That's a policy question. Yeah. What was your question for you? Oh, I'm just saying that's all there is to it. Just for the mayor and then we just have to get who? A demographer. Demographer. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I don't see why not. I mean, I have a motion. I have reservations.

Uh, first of all, you know, I spend a lot of time over at the police and the fire, and they want to know why we would spend extra money for something that's not broken. A lot of people don't um really care who the mayor is to have it be so pronounced for this city. They love the fact that one one person said to me they loved the fact that it was someone different each year because that person brought so much to the table. Like you were an awesome mayor too. You know I worked under you. I didn't work under Joe and I'm working under Linda. But I felt like you did a really great job. And then we moved on to Linda, who's doing an awesome job, too. And I think the personalities are what makes this group so unique. And I just have a hard time when we're asking to, you know, count our nickels and our dimes to do something that's working fine right now. That's my view.

I have a couple questions. It doesn't cost anything for the city to pass an ordinance. However, if there are this this would be basically three people on a ballot every two years or two every four years, which that wouldn't cost anything because that we do that now. We do two year two people and three people in so it depends on the term length that you select. If you choose the fouryear term length uh that would be one less election we're having um every four years. Um so you would have two council member elections every um two years

every two years. Every general municipal election you have two council members up. If you did four years terms, every other election, you'd have the mayor up in a citywide election, which there it there's more money. It costs more money to do a city-wide election than it does to do a district election.

It it does. Um so there there would be an increase in cost there. These elections are consolidated with this the statewide general elections in November, which is the time where you get the most bang for your buck. uh where we really run into significant costs are when we call special elections and we're the only ones holding an election at that time. Um so there there would be a potential cost of having additional uh citywide elections. Um you would however also be having one less council member election every cycle. So you know you'd have to balance that out. Is there a delta between a citywide election and a district election? Yes. But but I think that you know when you're talking about the overall costs it exists. I I don't think it's going to be that significant in the long run.

My personal feeling on this is that I think it's excellent excellent training and opportunity for everybody to have the benefit or the choice of being the mayor when they're on council. I know a lot of people don't don't want it. You don't have to be the mayor. It's just one of those things. Some people do, some people don't. Um, but it it it seems to work the way we're doing it. Um,

when do we have to vote on this and when's our last day? Do we have like another meeting where we can like table it till the next meeting or do does it have to be done now? If you're going for the ballot option, doesn't sound like you are, but I'm saying if you were going for the ballot option, you have until the uh meeting in August, I think. Oh. Um, no. Oh, is that

you have the first meeting in July uh to to make that call. We'll make it easy on you. Um, if you want to do the ordinance path, you can pass the ordinance at any time. The question is only would we have the capability to do the necessary demography and the public hearings in order to set up the districts in time for a forthcoming election. I think we're very close. So it and because keep in mind we have to hold four public hearings, right? Uh one of those is before the maps are drawn. So that one's a gimme. Um, but we have to get those maps drawn very quickly. We have to have a lot of we have to give it a lot of opportunity for community input. And those maps need to be finalized by ordinance, right? Because our districts are in our municipal code. We have to uh finalize those by ordinance in time for the nomination period, which be is early July. People need to know what district they're running for. You have some experience with districts changing.

Oh, yeah. Under you. Um so um you know if if it was the ordinance path my recommendation would be that your direction to staff would be to begin immediately take all necessary steps to implement this as soon as possible um so that we could get that demography done we can get the ordinances put together and we can bring them in time uh to to essentially uh be in advance of the nomination period in July. Uh my concern right now voting on this tonight is that Tom is the one that brought this forward and Tom is not here. We need to we need to do a vote when Tom is here. All right, then let's take

I mean that's just it would it would not be here if it hadn't been for Tom. So I don't know if we have any I don't I don't know when he'll be back. If we continued this to the next meeting, would that still give enough time if if that's the will of the council at that point to go forward, would we still have enough time to do all of this?

I think it's really challenging. Um because you know sorry I I think that if the council so I guess what what I would say is if you gave us direction to begin drafting these things you don't have to approve them. Is that going to cost us any more money? It is going to cost you more money. It's the the truth is it it's not the ordinance. I can copy and paste there. I could do the ordinance while you talked right now and it would probably be okay. I'd like a little more time, but we could get that done pretty quick. It's the demography. We need to start very like as soon as possible if that's the direction the council wants to go.

How many demographers are there in this uh in Riverside? Uh that are legit. Uh we did an RFP for demography. I think we got four responses, but our preference would be to go with the one that the city has already already utilized because they already have all the necessary data sets for the city. So, what we'd go to them and say is you drew five districts now draw four using the same data that you already had. But they have to do that and it isn't, you know, isn't as easy throwing into a chat GBT and say draws four districts. They do have to do some science. Once they draw these districts, do they have to submit it to the state to get not to the state, but to the residents?

Oh, to the So, it still has to go into vote. It's a public hearing. No, it's got to be a public hearing. Okay. Got it. And and the rules are, you know, we have to do one before we draw the maps. We have to do one on the weekend. We have to do one uh after working hours. So, there's a lot of restrictions on that. It can be done. But if you're saying don't do anything for two weeks, can it still be done? I don't know. Can I ask why we're doing this so dang quick? I mean, we are not doing this dang quick. We've been talking about this for two years. But I I've been here less. Two years we've been talking about this. We don't need any more time.

Seriously. Well, I I I don't know. I don't You know, I I I I live in Four Seasons and I'm I'm I'm told that we have some of the highest propensity of voters in the city and I talk to people all the time and they say, "Yes, we want to vote for a mayor. If we would approve this tonight, we have four public meetings. We could hear what the public has to say. So, if we get the demographer, that's the main thing to start. We'll have the public hearings and we can hear what the people say.

Okay. I am going to make a suggestion we do a brief recess and get Tom on the phone and see what he has to say. Can we legally do that? Yes. So, without getting into privacy concerns, uh, the council member does have a valid medical reason for appearing remotely. Uh, so we can go through the process under state law to bring him in remotely. And I also believe that he has a valid reason to not appear. uh audiovisisually. We could have him appear audibly only and participate in the conversation and if necessary the vote just I would recommend you take a short recess chance to set that up. His his input he's the one that brought it forward.

Yes. Okay. We are recessed for five minutes. Five minutes.

We have council member Lodge on the phone. So I would ask for a motion. How do I do this? To allow him to participate via Do we still have you? Yes. So the motion would be to allow him to participate remotely and based on his medical reasons to allow him to participate by telephone only. That's the motion. I'll second. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. We do a voice v voice vote on this. So, all all votes need to be roll call votes. Okay. While he's participating remotely, I'm so sorry. Can I hear the motion in the second again? I made the motion. Thank you.

I second it. And Connie second. We have a motion by Mayor Kuba, second by Council Member Clark. We'll do roll call. Council member Clark. Yes. Council member Peterson. Yes. Mayor Promos. Yeah. This is to have him. What are we What are we voting on to have Tom for Tom Lodge's remote participation? Remote participation. Oh, for Tom to be on. Oh, yeah. Sure. Is that legal? That's legal, right? That motion pass. Yes. There we go. That motion passes four to zero.

And then, uh, Council Member Lodge, can you please identify if anyone 18 years or older is in the room with you and what your relationship to that person is? Okay. And you can you can hear us just fine. Okay. Mayor, back to you.

Okay. Tom, we are on there. Okay. We are uh discussing item 18F which is the analysis of current rotating mayor and five council district council structure versus a directly elected mayor and four district council structures. Um we basically have set our piece here. Uh what is your opinion on that and then we will go to a motion. So your opinion is to put this on a ballot which is going to cost us a whole bunch of money. Okay. So the the the options here are to to go to the people

with a ballot or to do it by ordinance, which does not cost us any money there, but it would cost the money for a demographer to redraw the the council structure lines. split. We are split. That's why that's why we're calling you part.

Well, we have one speaker for and one against. And I I I looked at the cost factor and Joe made comments. So I guess what we need to know is do we want to do this if it's going to cost us money or do we want to do this if it doesn't cost us money? Okay, we can go. May I say something?

Yes, you can. So, so Tom, um you you must have gotten some feedback from some people or else you wouldn't have put this on the uh agenda. Are you there? So your your whole object of bringing this forward was to put it out to the people for a vote, not to do it as an ordinance internally. So, are you okay then? We need to we need to have a motion one way or the other. If you want to propose the motion, please do. Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. We have a motion by Tom Lodge and a second by Connie Clark. Thank you, Mayor. We have a motion by Council Member Lodge, second by Council Member Clark to withdraw the item from the agenda. Uh, Council Member Clark,

yes. Council member Lodge, yes. Council member Peterson, no. Mayor Prom Mails. I am truly undecided right now. H I know we don't have the money but I believe this should be done but oh my god tell me again how much the cost's going to be uh for the demographer over the full course of their work we estimate it'll be approximately $50,000 15 or 50

50 how How much how much does it will it cost to put this on the ballot for November? Uh unknown at this time. Um I think historically ballot measures of this type have cost between 75 and $100,000. And if it passes, you would still have to hire the demographer. It's true. To do it. So if if you're moving if you're going to change the number of districts this city has, whether by the voters or by the council, you have to hire the demographer in order to defend the creation of those districts. Yeah. So the question is only if you want to move forward with this, the question is only do you want to do it now with an ordinance

or do you want to send it to a vote to the people? And you have both options. And I just wanted to also let everyone know uh we did receive a report that for some reason even though everyone here could hear Tom, the stream was not picking him up, but we have placed a microphone next to a speaker. I believe that'll work for these purposes. I check.

Um and I I think that everyone got the gist of what he was saying based on your responses. Um but I just wanted to let everyone know that. So, Council Member Lodge, if you hear me, if it's important to you that the public uh hear what you had to say, feel free to say it again for the record. Okay. So that so your vote was to remove this from the agenda at this time and

I took that essentially as a motion to table. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. So you still have to vote, Joe? Oh my god. So we're talking about $150,000 cost attorney. Only 50 or something. No, it's not only 50. If we do the ordinance, it's only 50. Where did the $100,000 come from that he mentioned going to a vote of the people? So if we just do the ordinance, it's 50,000. What's What is the other What did you You said something about a h 100,000.

Yeah. So there's the cost of the demographer which you're going to pay whether you do an ordinance here at the council or if you send it to the voters and they pass it because you have to redraw the districts to go from four five council members districts to four. Right. Okay. The 100,000 75 to 100 that's an estimate. This thing changes constantly. Sometimes it goes much higher sometimes it goes a little lower. Okay. That is the cost of a citywide election on a ballot initiative, which is essentially what this is. Keep in mind, we're asking three questions, right? And we get charged per question.

The first one's more expensive. There's an additional cost for the others because they do have to count those and tally those, right? Um, so there is it's three essentially three initiatives that you're sending out. So we're paying 50,000 for the that that person that guy demographer. Then we're spending 75 to 100,000 to get it on the ballot in November. That is an estimate. If it comes in higher, I don't want you to be mad at me. I'm the city attorney. I'm not the finance director. But that is that is an estimate based on the past election costs the city has had. The the last time we talked about this, our city clerk, John Mayer, said it would be about $70,000 for the three questions. The last time we brought it up,

and that was, I think, for the June uh statewide election is when he was looking at it. And this is general. They ch they're different. They they they can be cost again. It's an estimate. So we're looking at 150,000. Not if you do the ordinance. No, because you still have to put it on the ballot. No, you don't. No. If we do an ordinance, it's done. It's done. We have to pay for the demographer. That's it. If we put it on the ballot for the people to vote on, it's going to cost us the additional 75 to 100,000 plus the 50,000 for the demography. So the ordinance is only 50 and that's the route we're going to take. Right. That's what we're voting on.

That's what you're voting on right now. Right now the motion is to table which is take no action. Yeah. So yes means take no action. No means discussion continues. Discussion continues. So, we haven't voted then on You haven't voted. I just want to be clear because I you you bring 50,000 and you bring 100,000. Let's back it up a second. Where do you want this to end up? If we're going to do this, I don't want it to be past 50,000. I don't want to pay more than 50,000. So then you would probably vote against tableabling this. Okay. And I'll vote no. And then Mayor Koopa,

that's a good question. I don't like any part of it. So, what did you say? So, I'm, you know, Tom brought this forward and he wanted it to go to the vote of the people. We cannot afford that. I am going to vote yes to table it. to table it

because that I don't think Tom and I'm not I don't want to put words in your mouth Tom but you wanted to go to the people to find out what the people of Hammet wanted whether they wanted to vote on a mayor or not vote on a mayor not for us to decide what was going to happen exact motion passes three that motion passes then so we're removing it with a vote of three to two. Is it 32 or 41? 32. 32. What did What did you vote? One, two, three, four.

Oh, four. Okay. Oh, 41. All righty. Okay. With that lively discussion taken care of, and I'm sure it will come back. Uh we'll move on to number 18G, approval of interim city manager employment agree agreement with Noah Ralph. Could we have a staff report?

Yes, mayor. Uh you should have in front of you a copy of the interim city manager employment agreement between the city of Hemtt and Noah Raalo. There are public copies available uh up here at the dis if any of the member of the public would like to have a look at it. Um the city council at the last meeting in close session conditionally offered no row the position of interim city manager uh subject to a successful contract negotiation uh that was led by the mayor and assisted by myself. Uh I would am very happy to say that that was a very easy uh contract negotiation uh with Mr. Ralph. Uh as public works director, he already has an existing uh employment agreement um with the city. Uh so uh while he's the interim city manager, this agreement would take effect. Um the essential provisions of this are his employment as interim city manager begins on May 5th, 2026. It terminates uh on December 31st, 2026 unless earlier terminated. So for example, if you were to appoint a permanent city manager uh at that point, Noah would return uh to his position um as the public works director. um all of his benefits uh health benefits, vacation leave, all that is remaining the same that he currently has as public works director. Uh the one significant change is um as interim city manager, he would be paid the salary that has been set by the compensation resolution for the city manager position uh which is a annual base salary of $315,588. Um in terms of you know oftentimes for a city manager agreement you may have something like severance. This is an

interimm agreement. Uh so there is no severance that is offered uh to Noah and in fact unless he's terminated for cause and those are listed uh in the agreement and those are the pretty standard reasons for cause. Um he he simply reverts back to the public works director position. Uh he's also free uh to return to that position of his own valition. um at any time uh during the uh time period. So uh encourage all the members of the public to be nice to Mr. Ralph uh for the next few months uh while we recruit for a permanent city manager. I'm happy to answer any questions that the council has. Uh thus concludes the mandatory oral report on executive compensation required under the Brown Act.

Okay, Mr. Ralph, would you come to the podium please? I was going to ask who is Noah? Who is Noah Ralph? that. Can we turn his microphone on? There we go. Okay. One last time. Are you okay with this? I'm going to do my very best and I am honored that you've uh taken the vote of confidence in me and um I look forward to working closely with all of you. Okay. Because this is your last chance. Okay.

We have a motion. I would like to do this motion to approve the intern city manager employment agreement between the city helmet and Noah row and I promise girl scouts to be nice. I'll second it with the girl scouts with girls scouts. I promise to be nice. I promise to be nice. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Thank you. We have a motion by council member Clark. Second by council member Peterson. We'll do roll call. Council member Clark. Yes. Council member Lodge. Council member Peterson. Yes. Mayor Promos. Yes. Mayor Koopa. Yes.

That motion passes 5 to zero. Congratulations, Noah. Thank you so much.

Yes. All right. We are now on to reports. Hi. I really need to get this in because I um should have done it quite a while ago. Um as you know I'm on the WCOG uh committee and on Friday, so I missed uh Mr. Beamster's grand opening you all went got to go to, but I was in a uh close session for WRCOG. And so here is the um uh report.

Here it is. Here's the report. Yeah.

Um Friday 3:2726. Brenda Denstat at the conclusion of today's special executive committee meeting. The committee took action in close session to dismiss Dr. Kurt Wilson as exe executive director of WRCOG. This action was effective immediately. Per law, the dismissal was reported out of the conclusion of the meeting. I've needed to officially let you all know that since March. Um, and so I'm going to let because I know tonight has been long, but that was my biggest

Thank you for doing that. Yes, that was necessary. So Tom, do you have anything you want to report?

Well, you take care of yourself and prayers are with you. All righty, Jackie. Uh we had an investment oversight committee meeting last week and um we have decided that we will reconvene uh shortly in the next couple weeks and talk about maybe uh reallocating some of our funds to a different investment. So we will have an upcoming meeting. Um we've been saying for two years now everything is in flux. It's like everything is uncertain. you know, nobody knows where where the market's going or anything, you know, so but we're going to look at some things and uh maybe juggle a few things around in in the very near future. Um want to tell you all Ramona Bowl, there's one more week of Ramona play. I looked at the 10day forecast and it looks nice. So buy your tickets and go see the Ramona play. It's wonderful. Um, also the Ramona Bowl is going to have um concerts under the stars will be on May 9th and it's from 6:00 to 10 and they're having four harder rock metal bands. So, um I have one yes in the back there. Uh the Ramona Market is going to be on uh Saturday, May 30th from 4 o'clock to 9 o'clock. So, come support the Ramonable. That's all I have. Thank you, Joe.

Well, we had a great showing at the annual Bedrock Valley Run uh hosted by the city of Hammet. Cow Cities had their Riverside Division meeting at the city of Linta. Met with the city of Bulmont leadership on a potential, am I allowed to say that one? Animal control JPA with the city animal control services. attended a CCE Valley substation tour with the Santa group in Romoland. Uh we had uh fire chief interviews, attended the fast pitch entrepreneur event at the library. We had our uh tour of the real-time information center and also looked into a bigger facility for the center. Attended the special city council meeting that took place in the library uh from 8 8:00 in the morning till about 11:30. attended a ribbon cutting at the McKenley mental health office for their grand opening. They had a beautiful building there. Attended the ceremony for the kickstart of the Hemtt beautiful event and that's it.

Very good. And I I'll add to that that most all the council members join Joe on all of those things we all went to. We are definitely a busy council. What I do want to report on is um uh Yes. Let's see, today's Tuesday. So, it was yesterday at the Western Projects uh committee meeting of RCTC. We approved um we we approved the three segments of Interstate 15 to uh express lanes. I found out learned the difference between design build and progressive design build. And the difference is that progressive design build you have to have all your money in the pot before you can start construction on that. And and design build or is it the opposite way? I'm I'm looking at you two back there. Uh but it it's it's it's one of those things. This this project was that went to to the EIR in 2002. The EIR was approved in 2024. Now we're approving the first design of and it's not like it's a brand new road like the 79 is. This is adding a lane on either side for express lanes and it's going to cost over a billion dollars to go from Cahalco to central in Lake three segments and so we do it's $83 million for design build on the first on the first segment. So then when that gets done then we go to design in the

second seg segment because then we'll have the money here and then this pot and then this pot. It may get done in another 30 years but it's absolutely insane what you have to go through in the state of California. So that's about it. Uh, I will say today also good news. Groundbreaking on the 60 Petero interchange in Bowmont and construction on Mid County Parkway is wonderful. The uh from Ryder to Noeo. Uh they are doing a lot of grading and they've got all of the equipment in to to make the bridge six lanes or eight lanes, whatever it's going to be. Um, so things are happening, but they happen so slow that none of us will be here by the time they're all complete and that

you will you're planning. Oh, well, city manager is too. He's got this idea that it's this new AI type body that he's going to get and I'll let you report on that. So, city manager, your report.

Uh, mayor, I just want to take an opportunity to say um how grateful I am for the opportunity to serve the city of Hammet. Um, it's been an honor of a lifetime. Um, I deeply appreciate the key to the city. I'm going to treasure that and display it prominently. I want to uh provide a special shout out to the city manager staff um in my office uh for their help and support. uh we meet weekly uh before our executive team meetings and um they have been very great uh people to work with and I really appreciate all of their work. I want to make a special shout out to uh Brenda Chavez who helped me transition into this role here. Uh she has helped keep the trains running on time and so uh thank you Brenda for all of your help uh with my transition into the city. Uh, I want to say a special shout out to our executive team who I work very closely with and all of our employees um who help get the job done. I encourage everyone to keep working hard as hard as they can possibly work. Um, I think I want to also credit the city council for their selection in Noah. He's a terrific individual. He's an amazing department leader. he will serve you um with uh his full efforts and uh I'm grateful for your selection and I um will follow your success moving forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And I I would like to make one announcement that also on May 9th there is a murder mystery which will be held on the second floor of the library. Um several community people are in it. Valerie Vander from the city of Santa Centro. Um me, the mayor of Hemet, and a lot of our community members. And it is a fundraiser for the Hemet Sento Valley Chamber of Commerce. Tickets are $20. I think I have two left. So, the next two people that come up here, you you know, pay me the money. Uh but also, uh coming up pro, can I announce this? Probably tomorrow, we will have flyer out. Uh we are going to have a community celebration of Mark Preswitch up at the Ramona Bowl on May 22nd. Um so it will be an RSVP. The flyers will be coming out like I said tomorrow. I believe they're going to be ready and uh first come first served on that one. But it probably will be testimonial and roasting because we do have a lot of stuff on you.

Yeah, you. So, it'll be fun. And seeing no further business, Tom, thank you for joining us in this tonight. We appreciate that and we look forward to seeing you in person. There being no Okay. There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned to the next city council meeting on May 12th, 2026. Thank you for joining us. We are adjourned. Kathy, I'm taking this on May 2.