City Council - Regular Meeting

'32. Our invocation will be done by Cal Hicks from the River Church. And then council member Chua, will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Thank you.

Can you hear me? There we go. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful to you for life and that more abundant. We thank you for the opportunity to serve you and to serve these people of this great city. I pray for wisdom and courage to make radical and tough decisions that will set this city apart from any other in this county. And I thank you for the leadership of this city, Lord, for the agenda that they will entertain tonight, God, for any tough decisions that need to be made, that they would do what Matthew six thirty three says, to seek first the kingdom of God and your righteousness. And then all of these other things that pertain to us will be added. We thank you for your precious promises. We ask for your presence to permeate this room even now.

And I thank you for a council that still sees the need to seek your face before doing any other business. We ask that you would honor this time tonight with your leadership and your presence in this place. In Jesus' name, we ask it. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Please place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for

all. Thank you. Can we have a roll call, please?

Mayor Bennington? Here. Mayor Pro Tempoland?

Here.

Council Member Greg? Here. Council Member Lee?

Here.

Council Member Marcella?

Here. Thank

you. Do we have any corrections or revisions to the agenda?

No correction no corrections this evening.

Thank you. Are there any closed session reports?

Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. We did discuss, five, matters of existing litigation as well as, performance evaluations of the City Manager and the City Attorney and no reportable action was taken on any of the items.

Thank you. Moving on. It's so light in here. It's great. I just did this with the lights. Moving on to presentations and announcements. We have two, if counsel would like to join me up, join in front of the dais. Our first one is a presentation of city hall employee of the quarter recognition to Viviana Gonzales, senior warehouse technician. It would be by Robert Orby. Excuse me.

I'm losing my voice. Fleet warehouse supervisor. Come on up, please. Sorry.

It's

okay. Jillian's coming down to assist.

Thank

you.

On behalf of the city council,

city of Hesperia, you are employee of the quarter.

First for 2026.

And

and yes, please. So Robert, if you would like to brag about this young lady.

I was just gonna say a few words. Viviana started in with the city in June 2023 as a senior warehouse technician. Some of her duties include working with CityWorks, which is a asset management program that the city uses. And also she distributes mail to all the divisions between city hall and public works. But her primary duty is ensuring the accuracy of issuing and receiving warehouse parts, which are used to repair and maintain city infrastructure.

And then these parts can go any or anything from, you know, PVC pipe to stop signs to water meters. And from and the one thing I'll make a note of is since she's been here, the inventory count each year has been perfect. There's been no variances. And from the time that Viviana first started, she's always has a strong work ethic. She wants to learn new things.

So she's been out in the field and she'll be with like distribution of pipeline, learning how pipe goes together, how fire hydrants work. She'll be looking at parts on the internet to see how things function. And the other thing she does is she's involved with the employee activity committee, which raises funds for the annual holiday party and gift cards for other functions. She has actually I'll make a note of this that she spends her own time outside of work. And she's actually used her own money to make sure that some of these activities are successful, like the burrito lunch or taco bar.

And I will say that also that she would make a good salesperson because she has got a lot of people to participate in these functions who ordinarily would not. And I will conclude by saying that she will be successful in anything she does. She has done a great job in everything that she has done so far. And we are lucky to have her working with us. And I just want to congratulate her again on the Floor of the Quarter.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We appreciate all your hard work. Can you grab me my talking points, please, for the next presentation to Silverwood? Probably not.

There we go. I tried. So, second presentation, and I'm very proud of this. I was somewhere reading some newspaper and on the news that Silverwood was mentioned. I'm like, what? Silverwood? That's really in Hesperia. So I am so proud that you came to the city of Hesperia. You have a beautiful project going. I haven't been there for a couple months, but when I do go, I'm in awe of how far you've come, the opportunities for the residents that are going to move there.

It's just a great project. So, I would like I'm proud to be part of recognizing Silverwood named the Master Planned Community of the Year in Southern California. I'd like to take a moment to recognize some great news. At the twenty twenty five SoCal MAME Awards, Silverwood was named Master Planned Community of the Year. The MAME Awards are one of Southern California's leading home building industry award programs recognizing excellence in community planning, design and leadership.

In addition, John O'Hanion, General Manager for SilverBoard received Industry Leader of the Year. These awards were selected from nearly 300 entities, which makes a recognition especially meaningful and competitive. Silverwood reflects the progress taking shape across Hesperia as our community continues to grow. Congratulations to John and the entire Silverwood team on this well deserved recognition. Thank you so much.

And what an honor. John is just he's a great developer, great leader, and a great friend to our city. It's just every time he's always smiling, always smiling. And when we and when we we go, I would encourage you to go tour the Silverwood development if you haven't been there. Just what you've done just in the past year is just amazing. It's gonna be such a beautiful project, and it's I'm just so proud to be proud of it, to be part of it, and thank you so much. We appreciate you. Thank you. If

you're gonna take pictures, why don't you all come up?

Yes. The

silver wood team. Come on up here.

Of course. No, of course.

Need a microphone. Now, don't worry. Here, do mind?

Thank you so much.

Of course. We appreciate you.

This has been a cooperative project, so I wanted to make sure we recognize the city of Asperia for their contribution to this. We've been working at this together now for, was it fifteen years, fourteen years, Rachel, to get where we are today. And the group, Rachel's team has been phenomenal in getting us to the point of being able to actually achieve the vision. And so I just wanted to thank all of you. The city has been a blessing.

And Cassie, Beth, Ryan, I don't know if Edgar is here, Andy, I mean the whole team, just amazing group of people, really worked hard, really captured the vision and had a willingness to try to help us make sure we achieve that vision within what's good for the city and also good for us too. So it's just been a blessing. I appreciate all of you very much and it's really neat to be working together for the next, what, twenty years. So I'm going to get a walker and we'll be just fine.

And I have to say Silverwoods fight their fertile grounds of Joshua trees. We won that battle. Their fire was heading that way, we won that battle. So just keeping going, you know, whatever's kicked them down, they just keep moving forward and not only beautifying their community, the plan community, but building a strong committee, community and a friendly community. It's just great.

When you go there, you walk in and there's a fireplace that you can relax before you go look at all the model homes. It's just a beautiful, beautiful planned community, and I just have no words about how proud I am that you are in Hesperia. Thank you. Moving on to general public comments. Individuals wishing to speak during general public comments or on a particular numbered item are required requested to submit a speaker slip to the city clerk with the agenda item noted.

Speaker slips shall be turned in prior to public comment portion of the joint agenda or before an agenda item is discussed. Comments will be limited to three minutes for general public comments, consent calendar items, and new business items. Comments are limited to five minutes for public hearing items. Excuse me. In compliance with the Brown Act, the City Council may not discuss or take action on non agenda items or engage in question and answer sessions with the public.

The City Council may ask brief questions for clarification, provide a reference to staff or other resources for factual information. Sorry. And direct staff to add an item to a subsequent meeting. I see we have some general public comments. We'll start with Kim Jones. I'm going to lose my

Looks like somebody doesn't know her own strength. I'm sorry. It reminded me driving a school bus one time when I pulled the gear shift knob off. That wasn't fun, believe it. But, anyways, the reason I'm asking or talking, y'all know the Stater Brothers between seven or between eighth and ninth is gonna close pretty quick this week, if I remember twenty fifth. I've lived here since 1999. I've gone to that store, and many times I've walked to it. It's it was seven minute walk. And now that that store is gonna be gone, it's a long way to walk the times when my truck is down, either to the Valara store or the one across the bridge, you know, the other big staters. And I've done a lot of times.

I know it ain't legal, but I've walked under the bridge and crossed the railroad tracks. And I just wondered, is there any way the city can make it legal where we can cross those tracks? Y'all try walking up on that bridge when the cars are going 45, 55, 60 miles an hour, And I have seen accidents. I've been on the bridge when accidents and cars come like that. It's scary.

You know? But that's my concern. And the other thing is I'm glad that I called the city concerning the rumor that the city bought an Italian restaurant. I just talked to mister Miller back here, and, you know, the city also told me that there was a power department, and he told me what they was gonna do with it, and that's neat and everything. It's just convincing the people over at the library that the city did not buy an Italian restaurant. You know? And the other thing is I wish the code enforcement would be moved back to the police station so that whole facility could be used for the dogs and the cats and the other animals. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Robert Davy, please.

Had a couple items I wanted

to address today, but so little time. I left you guys some pictures. I'm not gonna go over each picture, but it proves what I'm talking about. The Maple Basin is still mostly full. The bubbler is still full. That pipe should empty after a storm has subsided. And where is the water supposed to go? And why hasn't it? Just last week, Sultana, as you know, mayor, was wet again on both sides, and where did that water come from? Appeared to come from the bubbler.

Someone needs to take responsibility for all these home and property owners that have suffered loss due to the failed inch infrastructure. If the Bandicoot Basin isn't gonna be built for many years down the road, then the county at the very least should take and be held liable due to the overfilling of the Maple Basin with mud and debris. You can see on those pictures, that's the south part of it is completely full coming out of the aqueduct that runs between the two subdivisions. It's completely full of mud. Where's another storm? I was told last week, well, we're hauling 40 loads of dirt out of the city still. That's great. That's great. And there's no storms in the forecast. Well, we have a small storm coming Thursday, but why do we wait?

Why are we not dredging that out? And I can tell you with my own two eyes, and I and I wrote my integrity is is what I pride myself on the most. When people tell me, I've seen some reports, that that basin hasn't been dredged very much, that's a lie. I've lived there for twenty three years. I've seen that basin dredge so many times, more than I can count.

Every time it used to rain before the houses were there, the mud all slid off into the basin, and they had to go in and dig it up. So where are all the records for that? Anyhow, not gonna have time to go over all that. I had to miss a couple meetings when I was sick, and so you guys approved to decorate the traffic control boxes while I was while I was out, and I had to give I wanna go on public record as a complete waste of tax money's dollars. I get the I get the principle behind it.

You wanna make Hesperia look good, But when we you're gonna spend that money, why don't you put the money inside the traffic control boxes? We desperately need left hand turn lanes on Topaz, on 11th, on Cottonwood. Let's put the money inside, the hardware, the software, whatever we need to get left turn lanes. Or, you know, those boxes are a constant target for graffiti. So what are you gonna do when the when you got a wrap on it, and now they graffiti it?

It's gonna cost another 3,000 to put another wrap on it? Well, at least when it's paint, you can just go cover it over with more paint. You know, the area where I live, Topaz, Maine, it's a haven for taggers. I just recently got tagged US Bank, price drop, the barbershop across the street, that whole area. SCE, the substation on Topaz. Topaz up and down is constantly getting tags. So you're just asking for trouble when you're if you're gonna decorate and spend $30,000 on a complete waste of tax money's dollar or taxpayers' money. Thank you.

Virginia Sudan, please.

Good evening. Actually, it's Sandeen. That's okay. I I'm just here to say I know you guys have had a big task with the rain and the mud, but I'm just asking a small task because I live on Mauna Loa between Timberlane and Peach. Right there at that corner on Mauna Loa and Lemon.

It gets I know you guys know you you do it every time it rains, but it's been neglected only because you guys have been so busy, and you've done great work on 3rd Street. So I was just wondering if that could be done and then the front of my house because the mud collects there, all that dirt, washes down. If you could just clean clean that and just put the dirt on the parkway there. The the you know, that's going into my driveway. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Hesperian News and Politics, please.

Good evening. Give me one second. So the man I'm going to talk about today is someone who's actually retired. I found this out, thank you to mister Casey for telling me. But I think it's something we still need to look into even though it's not technically an agenda item because this kind of regards all the screwed up roads we have in our town. So let me begin. Hi there. I know some of y'all may know me, but just in case you don't, my name is Rihanna Navarez, but most know me as Nana. If I said all the things I want to complain about, it would exceed the time limit. So let's just focus on the two things I feel I should address on public record.

First is your buddy, Larry. After the floods in 2025, I caught Larry Bachner doing what looks like one of two things, confirming the city ignores our roads, or two, he was trying to mock citizens frustrated after record flooding during a storm. I actually created a little thing. I have the evidence too on my phone if you need it. So we had a citizen, I'll show for everyone too, that basically commented that the council only fixes their streets.

And one of the first people to reply, that was Larry. And Larry said, that's a few better than none. And for anyone here who doesn't know who Larry Bachner is, that's the guy who has been our plans examiner for the past twenty years until he retired recently. So this guy was basically going on there, kind of saying, hey, you guys pick and choose what streets you actually wanna fix versus the ones that actually need to be fixed. So we have that. And then secondly, there's something else I need to address before I run out of time. Why is the Park and Rec excuse me. Why is the Parks and Rec department ignoring my public records request and the ones of others? Is it because they're using a private investigator called the JL Group to investigate your political opponents? I think the city is making Parks and Rec investigate Chris Ochoa.

And that's my theory because when I posted political commentary of your meeting, many of your supporters falsely accused Chris Ochoa of having a domestic violence record in an attempt to slander him. That was false. Okay? And when I confronted that, some of your supporters told me that he cheated the election because he got elected in three weeks. So if you're not hiring an investigator to investigate Chris, then why are you hiring one? I also ask, will the city look into who suggested this private investigator? It seems we need more details on this because Kelly Greig and his family, they run a security business. And when you put all this together with a private investigator and security company and all this, it just seems fishy. So if you don't feel like commenting on those or investigating this, like, behind the scenes and trying to fix it, that's fine. We can just vote you out instead.

So either way, thank you for your time. And regardless of what happens, I hope you all have a good night.

Gina, please. Gina Wiedlin. I was corrected by mom.

Oh, I'd be so happy. Excuse me. I'm a little crackly today. Oh, better not touch that. Okay, good evening. How are you? Well, it's been almost a month, guys, since a raging river flowed through mine and my neighbors' whole actually, the neighborhoods, houses, backyards. I still have neighbors that are, you know, had to relocate because their house was still being worked on. Ours is still a mess, I lost a lot of stuff, did everybody else. I know you guys did a review of the city manager.

I'm sure it will probably end up positive again for her, which she did drop the ball. That basin has never been retrofitted, nothing's been done. It always overfills, goes all over the place, causes floods, causes ravines by the roadway. I mean, this is like an ongoing issue. No accountability. I mean, there's nothing. And I have to say, County did an awesome job of taking care of the Hesperia people. They actually had a lot of empathy for us. So think about that. Where was the city manager when all this was happening?

Because I highly doubt that she cared. And another thing, she didn't go out there and have somebody go out there and make sure that basin was ready to go for the big storm of the century, the thousand year storm. Okay? That's one thing. Also, I would like to thank Tammy from the city.

My neighbors, well, one's in a wheelchair, her husband is, and we had, because of the river flowing in front also, big gorge going in front of the mailboxes. And he was out there in his wheelchair with a shovel, trying to shovel it so his wife could get the mail. They had called the city a few times, no luck, I was going to come by after work one day. Then I called the city and sure enough, I guess city was doing a tour with some other individuals in our neighborhood going to the houses that were affected, as in flooded. She happened to be there, and she went and actually spoke with my neighbors.

And I know that she got public works involved, and they came out and fixed that area, she could actually walk to her mailbox. So thank you very much Tammy for taking care of that. Oh, and she did call me back. And I didn't expect that, and I really appreciate that. Really quick, the animal shelter, it's a hot mess. Why am I continue to be denied access to the non public areas with an escort? Okay. There are animals in there that need help. I got handed three kennel cards for animals that I I was told that needed, you know, prompt attention, but I can't even go get video. You're short staffed.

They just let a staff member go who was awesome, in the front counter, by the way. And, you know, it's ridiculous. It's getting old. I go there to help. The staff with that are there can't do everything. You're running them thin. Okay? Stop hiding animals. Let me go in there and help. That's all I ask. And I'm not going to stop with that issue. My videos do help, and my pictures. And the staff knows that I'm there to help too. So uppers, please let them that they can walk me through those areas.

Brenda, thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate your time to speak here. On Christmas Eve, approximately about 11:30AM, my daughter and I almost lost our life on Maple and just before Muscatil, where the roadway gave way, my car went sideways into what turned out to be a 12 foot trench. What I would like to know is why is the water from the aqueduct overflow being diverted to Maple where there is no drainage system. We are in the desert.

There is sand underneath the road. I never lost traction with my car until the road underneath us gave way. And as soon as that road gave way, my car went sideways, almost killing me and my daughter. Now, thankfully, there were two men in the right place at the right time that got us out of the car, but at the same time too, I instinctively took the keys out of the car. My son showed up, asked his girlfriend to get the keys from me. I handed them to her. She walked to the edge of the road. The road gave way on her, pushing her into the water, almost killing her. What is the city going to do about fixing the roads? I've lived up here for almost five years.

Maple has always been a hot mess. The road is never being cleaned. The road has never been repaved. It and especially, why is the runoff for the aqueduct being diverted to a road with no drainage system? You have a new housing complex right there on Muscatil that is on city sewer that has a drainage system. So why is the water not being diverted there? Why are you putting water on a road that has no drainage? And then on top of that, my son almost waited eight hours for a tow truck to come get my car once they pulled it out of the trench. Not one city worker showed up to close that road. Now I wasn't the only one who was in that situation on that day.

There were plenty of other cars that got into that mess. So what is the city going to do to fix this problem? Because I should have never been put at risk. I would also like to know who I can contact to talk to the city about the damages that were done to my car because of your irresponsibility. And, yes, I am angry. I am mad. I am a little pissed off because you guys cost almost cost me and my daughter my life and her life, and that should have never happened. So what are you, as city council members, going to do to fix this situation? That's all I have. Thank you.

Do we have any additional public comment cards?

No more speaker cards.

Thank you. Moving on to joint consent calendar. Do I have a motion to move the consent calendar? I have a first by council member Craig, a second by council member Lee. Can we have a vote, please?

Motion passes five-zero.

Thank you. Moving on to new business item number four, consideration of annual update of the city council procedures. Do we have Jessica, will you be giving the report on that? Yes. Thank you.

The item before you this evening is the consideration of the 2026 update to the city council procedures manual. This year's draft manual was given to council by Memel in December, requesting any kind of comments or contributions counsel would like to include in this update. The changes this year are mainly housekeeping items. The changes include updates to reflect Senate Bill seven zero seven, which amends the Brown Act's open meeting laws. It basically aims to increase public participation and accessibility to public meetings.

The other addition is Senate Bill eight twenty seven, which requires local agency officials to complete fiscal and financial training every two years. Counsel has provided a copy of the manual with all the recommended changes shown in red font to review. That concludes my presentation. I am available to answer any questions.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any counsel comments? Cameron?

No. I I don't think there was any there were there were there were not any changes from us on that. I I think they worked out the last year or so. I don't have any concerns with that.

Thank you. We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Poland and a second by Council Member Lee. Can we get a vote, please?

Motion passes five-zero.

Thank you. Moving on to council committee reports and comments. Can we start with Councilmember Lee, please?

Alright. Just wanna shout out to the employees that worked very hard to do everything in their powers during our storm in December. On January 7, I attended VMI. Great event as usual. It was nice to see everybody.

Mayor Bennington was there with me. On the fourteenth, we did the VVTA ribbon cutting for the new hydrogen buses, and I just want to remind everybody that they are teal and black. Well, today was just teal at at our meeting this morning. We didn't we asked about the green. They didn't say that.

They just said teal, so I'm gonna go with teal. We did have our VVTA meeting today, and I'm sad that Nancy Goff has announced her retirement on June 30, so the board will be working on, her replacement. Liz Becerra is the new chair, and I am the new vice chair for BBTA. And I heard today that we had a new transit operations division that is gonna be located in our sheriff's department here on Smoke Tree Street with so that's exciting to hear. And what else did I have to talk about?

Mister Davy, we have we we did vote to, cover the boxes. The boxes are gonna keep the equipment inside cooler, and they are also easier to clean the graffiti off of. So I was very reluctant to do that, but with those two things being pluses on that, I think that it's gonna be a good idea to to do that. I don't recommend driving into any stormwater out there, and I want to congratulate our employee of the quarter, Virginia Gomez and Robert Warby, Also, to congratulate Silverwood community and John O'Hanian and his team. Beautiful, beautiful community.

I I love going down there to see it every single time there's something new and beautiful. I tell everybody to go down there and look at it and buy a house, so I love it. And let's see. My quote is happiness is found in three things, letting go of what was, enjoying what is, and having faith in what will be. That's all I've got. Thank you, city staff.

Thank you for the update. Councilman Ochoa, please.

I don't have a lot to report. I went to a ribbon cutting last week to celebrate a friend's three year anniversary of their amazing business, Love Your Best Life. They do a lot of great work in the community. It was a pleasure being there, and I look forward to many more years of service from their organization throughout the community. And that's it. That's all I have to report.

Thank you. Council Member Greg.

Madam Mayor, we had a VVWRA meeting, a special meeting on the fifteenth, and the only agendized item for that was to reschedule our regular agenda meeting instead of on the twenty second to push it to the twenty ninth, which Madam Mayer is gonna be filling in on me for that. It should be fun and exciting. I know you'll do good over there, so I appreciate that. That's the only, meetings that I had to report on. I wanna kinda go down the list and address everybody that spoke tonight.

Kim, miss Jones brought up the the Stater Brothers closing over there. Unfortunately, the city has no say in whether or not the Stater Brothers stays stays there or not. You mentioned yourself that it's been there for for a very long time. So, you know, I'm sure that we'll get another grocery store within Hesperia that's gonna be updated and and have a lot more resources and stuff inside. We can look forward to that. Again, we don't have any control over. I will say that we would have control over if that site becomes vacant and becomes blight. I'm pretty confident saying that the city would step in and make sure that it doesn't become another Kmart situation. Mr. Davey, you mentioned the boxes.

I had that same concern with spending that money. We're gonna see how it goes. Seems like the graffiti is gonna be easier to clean off there. I'm all about preserving the the electronics inside. It's a trial run. If it doesn't work out, I'll be for the first to tell you, man, Rob, mister Davies, you were you were right, and we'll learn from it. Right? So moving on to to miss sun Sundeen, over there on Mauna Loa area. I know that our crews have been out and about. I know we're we're trying our best to get out there. Do we know if there's been a report already in our system? Or is this do we have active crew members going out now? Can we get a report on that?

Certainly. There is staff working in the area, but there is no request for service for that item. It was created based on the resident's comment tonight. So, and staff will also be reaching out. I have the contact information for the resident to get more information.

Awesome. And I know that we're in a state of being reactive right now. So if that time ever changes to where we're able to be proactive, if the crews are out and about on the streets, if we can just get them to to hit that stuff or have somebody out there evaluating what areas need to be addressed from crews because not everybody knows who to contact within the city, where to go to talk. Know, we get council meetings every two weeks but that that time can be, you know, cleaned up, I think, with that. So, the Speria News and Politics, Nana, if I'm not mistaken.

Parks and Recs business is Park and Recs business, two separate agencies. If your foyer requests aren't getting answered over there, talk to them. If they're not being answered here, you're in the right place. I would hope that if if any resident has made foyer or anybody has made foyer requests that those are being answered in a timely manner. Gina, as always, I hear we're trying with the animal shelter as best we can.

So we'll keep on plugging along there. And then Ms. Dahl, unfortunate situation. I hope that some staff are able to reach out to you and make sure that you're at least pointed in the right direction for that. Other than that, I do want to request an item be brought back for us in the next couple months.

I want to know what the actual cost is and fees and permitting to build a home within the the city of Asperia. We see so much talk on it. You know, we have a housing crisis, a shortage, and all this stuff But I know that it it's a substantial amount of money before you can even break ground. So I wanna actually get down to the bottom of that of that and see if we're able to cut any red tape, reduce fees in any kind of capacity to actually make it more affordable to build a house, which in turn should make it more affordable to buy a house. Other than that, folks, slow down.

Get to where you're going safely. We see the accidents happening all the time. So other than that, that's all I have.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, Poland.

Thank you, mayor. Like Chris, pretty slow week or a couple of weeks. Had a couple SBCTA meetings. I do wanna thank Rachel and staff. I know they've been under a lot of pressure from the community and ourselves up here, and you guys are doing a good job.

I would, what I would address to our residents is I can assure you that all of us were reaching out to county, state, and federal elected officials to request assistance and work on assistance for our residents throughout the city. So I can assure you we're all working on that, and hopefully, we'll have some answers soon. And with that, congratulations, John and your team. Outstanding. And congratulations to our, employee for employee of the quarter. That's it.

Thank you. I attended the VMI. It was New Year, new rules and regulations on the human resources side. It was very interesting and wow. Just wow. That's all I can say. I attended the coffee break update via Zoom where we gave updates on what was going on in our city, and ours was kinda like the flooding. We were devastated by the flooding. Heart My heart is broken for the flood, people that suffered damages from the flood. But, luckily, by the grace of God, no one was killed.

We did have five inches of rain. I live on the West Side of town, and my husband has a rain gauge. And we did not capture the amount of rain that truly fell on the West Side of town because of the winds that were blowing. So it wasn't instead of going into his rain gauge, it was, blowing horizontally. So there was a lot of rain. I did attend the ribbon cutting for Love Your Best Life and what an amazing person. She has helped our community. She's helped a 150 families that would really not have received the help as far as parenting. They don't call them midwives anymore. Doulas.

And just the love that was at that ribbon cutting, it was just amazing. It's it's nice that we have these opportunities for our residents in our community. I did the ribbon the ribbon ribbon cutting for Victor Valley Transit Authority. It was a great event, and they're running the buses on hydrogen fuel. So they said they have cut down their emissions in in the High Desert. Was it 83%? It was just a crazy number. And the bus the new buses and new logo are beautiful. I didn't wanna ride on it because it was so pretty. In person coffee break, I'm going to be attending that this Friday.

I have an MDA QMD board meeting, and I, council member Greg is being very kind because I showed up at the meeting the wrong day, but I will be going to the twenty ninth. So I did get a great opportunity to see how he runs the Victor Valley water reclamation. And then also next Friday, we have the Desert Mountain Division, Cal City's meeting, which will be in Atalanto. I did receive a letter from the seniors regarding the the Stater Brothers. And when I first moved up here forty four years ago no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I just did

the

math. That was the only Stater Brothers here. I I bought my baby diapers there for my first daughter, and

it is

sad. Unfortunately, I had heard that it's because of the rent increase that they had tripled their lease payments. So at some point, Stater Brothers had to make a business decision on not keeping that location open. I do understand the convenience, but hopefully, we can get another, food store there. I also miss Nibara ditto what Cameron said.

The Parks District is a separate entity. There was some talk about, positions here that were appointed, and we are in districts. So appointing positions and saying certain people should have been appointed instead of the right people, we are in districts. We have five districts. So perhaps I appreciate your comment, but maybe you should do a little bit more research before you speak because Parks District, again, is separate.

And we take enough we have enough issues that we deal with as a city that we don't wanna take on the Parks District nor can we. And, mister David, that bubbler was cleaned out. We received over five inches of rain. There is only so much we can do. And, yes, I live on that side of town, and I was I can't say I was stranded, but I chose not to go out that day because of the water running down Sultana.

And, yes, the tow trucks were not available because there were many people stuck. I have been up here for over forty four years, and I have never seen that much rain fall in such a short period of time and that much dirt that was running through the city. So thank you to our staff, and Rachel was out there doing damage assessment. So in addition to getting the phone calls, I know I was reaching out to her as a council member, and I'm sure we all were reaching out, finding out what was going on. So I appreciate you going out, our staff going out and, doing the damage assessment.

Yes. We were reactive in what we were doing. But, again, we knew we're gonna have a big storm, but you never know the actual amount of rain that we're gonna get. So it was very it was heartbreaking because we have made great strides in making our city safer. And just in twelve hours, that was pretty much demolished. We were completely underwater. I text Rachel, and they said, how are we doing? Quote, unquote, the city of Hesperia is underwater. So it was very heartbreaking. Our emergency crews were out.

We were tapped out emergency crews, public work crews. So, unfortunately, we have lessons learned. Mayor Pro Tem Poland has asked for an after action report, so we will share that with the count as a council and come up with some plans for hopefully, that doesn't happen in my lifetime again. That was terrifying. Miss Dahl, I hope that you put your address on our public on your public comment card so we can look into that.

Congratulations to our employee of the quarter. And I say from the bottom of my heart, I am so proud of our Silverwood development. It's great. It's just a beautiful community. And I believe that is it. I would like to thank staff for their efforts, their hard work. It seems to be we take one step forward and five steps back, but we are moving towards a better community for our residents. So with that being said, do we have any reports from the city manager or city attorney? And I believe, council member Lee has a birthday soon. Next Tuesday.

Happy early birthday. So happy birthday to, council member Lee. And with that, I will adjourn the meeting at 07:22. Thank you. Happy birthday.