City Council - Regular Meeting

At 06:35. Our invocation will be by Brian Greeley, please. And, Cameron, will you lead us in the pledge? Thank you.

God of grace and mercy, thank you for the opportunity to gather again in these chambers. I pray for wisdom for our council and grace as they administer the city. I pray for conviction and purpose to know the difference between right and almost right. Thank you for their leadership. Thank you for their administration of this place. I pray for our soldiers in this time of unease. I pray for safety and vision. Thank you for those who are giving their lives in service to others so we can have the freedom we do. Thank you for the opportunities afforded to us today. In the name of Jesus and the power of the spirit, I pray. Amen.

Can we have a roll call, please?

Mayor Bennington?

Here.

Mayor Perlten Poland?

Here.

Council Member Greg? Here. Council Member Lee?

Here.

Council Member Ochoa?

Here. Thank you. Do

we have any corrections or revisions to the agenda?

No revisions this evening.

Thank you. Any closed session reports?

Thank you madam mayor and members of the city council. We did meet in in closed session to discuss one item of potential litigation. No reportable action was taken.

Thank you. Moving on to public comment.

Individuals wishing to speak during general public comments on a particular numbered item are requested to submit a speaker slip to the City Clerk with the agenda item noted. Speaker slips should be turned in prior to the 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. 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, and direct staff to add an item to a subsequent meeting.

Thank you. Do we have any general public comment cards? We do. Thank you. Pastor Paul Jones, please.

Good evening, madam mayor, and to the city council. Amen. Just wanna introduce myself. My name is pastor Paul Jones. I have a resource center in San Bernardino. It's called the Benjamin e Jones Community Resource Center. At this particular resource center, if it's just me getting an echo, the resource center, we have a program called Helpers, which is helping lead people effectively to resource services. I'm interested in bringing this particular program to Hesperia. Bernardino, we have two different sites that, one at Paris Hill Park, one at, Ruben Just

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Go ahead.

Good evening, madam mayor and to the city council. My name is pastor Paul Jones, and I have a I'm the CEO of a resource center called the Benjamin e Jones Community Resource Center. At our resource center, we have a program called helpers, which is helping lead people effectively to resource services. What we do there is we we help low income families, we help the unhoused, we help seniors. Those are three areas that we concentrate on.

We have a program at Paris Hill Park every third Friday and every fourth Friday. What we do there is we give out food baskets, we give out hygiene, we give out brand new clothes to low income and the unhoused. We also invite other vendors to come. Usually, we have about 10 to 20 vendors at Paris Hill Park, which provide other services such as Sac Health, United Way, different the VA, the vets come out to help the veterans. And then, Fourth Fridays, we have a program same program at Ruben Hernandez Center, where we have anywhere from 20 to 30 vendors that come out, including Department of Probation, including the Sheriff Department that come out and just to assist.

The DA's office come out to give out to help out with expungement of records to different people that have those those items. We basically focus at our resource center on helping the unhoused with housing. We have a part we partnership with the city of San Bernardino. They've given us a nice grant to help put the unhoused into housing. We paid six months of their rent and then we take them through Chase as far as getting a bank account, budgeting classes, and different other things.

We keep up with them for over one year to make sure they're back in society. We realized one of the questions I was asked today by a landowner is, if we allow you to come here and and do this, isn't gonna bring more homeless? Well, it will help get the homeless off the street. Those that wanna get off the street, we'll get off the street. He asked me what is the percentage? We've been doing this over ten years. What is the percentage? About 40% gets off. But then there's another 60% that desires never to get off, but they move on to other places. One of the places that we're looking at is off of Escondido and Main Street.

We want to set up and put together a it's the same thing there in the city of Hesperia. We want to do it once a month, if possible. If this is something that you're interested in, we'd be more than happy to come up in here and help out with that. We'll bring the same amount of resources and everything. We'll also bring in the county who can put them into housing. I'm just looking for a spot to be able to do something else in. We've already we've been I live in Hesperia. We've been helping Hesperia out for over I had to look to see for over three years. So from the resource center, we'll get a telephone call because I live up this way. I bring the food.

I bring the clothes. I bring whatever it is for the people in Hesperia. I enjoy doing it. One of our tag logos is we give because we're blessed, and we're blessed because we give. God bless you.

Thank you. Kim Jones.

I'm sorry. I was listening. You just called me. I didn't come to the last council meeting because of the rain, so I have to say it tonight. This I want to thank the road department, the public works. They did put the dirt on my street and on the surrounding streets. I watched part of it, and it was very interesting the way they did it and dumped the dirt in little piles and they'd like a skip loader and, you know, and then they roll it out and water truck, the whole smear. It wasn't just dumping and driving. You know? And I do appreciate those guys.

I did call the place later in the day and thanked them, but I wanted to do it publicly in here. So it's on public record. So thank you again, public works, for fixing our streets. And I've seen them around off and on with their shovels or the asphalt or whatever filling the holes. And today, I've seen them at 7th And Walnut filling that out. I had to kinda slow down because they were out in the street. So, again, thank you, guys.

Gina

Whelan, please.

Good evening. How are you guys today? Good to see you. Just really quick, I have one question. Well, I know you can't answer questions, but here's one that's really important. How did an animal control truck end up in the ditch well, semi end up in the ditch by the railroad tracks on E Avenue on the twenty sixth with animals inside of it. Now, I drive that roadway daily. I know buses stop there because I have to stop there in my school bus. And people do go slow because if not, your Dukes are hazarding it. So what happened?

What caused this and was an investigation done? And what happened to the animals in that truck? If somebody could please check into that, that would be awesome. Another thing, and I'm totally unprepared because I left my paper at home. Why are there no animals updated regularly on the shelter website? This is a continuous problem. Does this have to stem from the system failure that they have all the time, constantly with their phone issues, Internet issues? Because that needs to be fixed, like ASAP. And also, why are animals that are picked up and known to be picked up not listed on there? There were two Cancorsos that were picked up from an accident back on, I want to say, the fourteenth, maybe not, but still.

And they were taken to the shelter, were not intaked properly. Any animal that gets picked up, dead or alive, has to be intaked. Alive animals get intaked, and yes, they do get assigned kennels all in the computer system, because years ago, I was allowed to go on a ride along with city approval, and the animal control officers showed me what they did during their day. So what's going on with the procedure problem? But yeah, going back to that truck issue, please find out what happened, because there's something wrong.

Distractive driving, so on and so forth. It needs to be fixed. They can't be off roading in these trucks, they can't be doing dumb stuff in them with animals on board. Also, really quick, there's an animal in there named Bane, A11779. I got reached out by their owners today. There's an issue with getting him out of the shelter. If Melinda can please check into that and maybe assist them, find out more, because the information I was given, I won't divulge over because they weren't able to come today because it was like last minute notice. And also, Caleb Enriquez is still going through the shelter. Is that part of his code enforcement job? Just asking, because he has been seen through there.

And another thing, please let there be accessibility to those non public areas. If there's a written policy, I would like to see it. There's PRRs that have been done. It needs to be shown. Because there are animals being hidden and not noticed and forgotten about. And they need to be networked properly. And I know the shelter manager says that she can handle it all. Or Romina Gonzalez. I totally get it. I know she's trying her best, but honestly, there's a lot of animals that are falling through the cracks there. Thank you.

Ken Anderson, please.

Good evening council members and city staff. In just a few weeks on April 5, we will again celebrate Easter. Easter is a marked cultural activity, family activities. People decorate Easter eggs, which symbolize new life and rebirth. Children often participate in Easter egg hunts where eggs are filled with candy and small gifts and are hidden for them to find.

Families come together and share festive meals, sometimes with special dishes and desserts. Easter also is the most sacred celebration in Christianity, honoring the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, from the dead. The bible states that Jesus Christ rose on the third day after his crucifixion, fulfilling prophecy and demonstrating his power over sin and death. This event is the foundation of Christian faith. It confirms the promise of eternal life.

Easter is not only the re remembrance of a historical event, but it also celebrates hope, renewal, and salvation. Following the sorrowful crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday, the women who had followed Jesus made their way to the tomb where Jesus had been laid. Upon arrival, they discovered the that stone had been rolled away and the entrance to the tomb was empty. As Mary Magdalene and her companions approached the garden tomb, two angels appeared unto them and shared the clarion call of all Christianity. Why seek ye the living among the dead?

He is risen. The resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday signifies the fulfillment of God's plan for redemption and the promise of eternal life. It is a day of great joy and hope as Christians celebrate the victory of light over darkness, life over death, and the triumph of God's love and humanity. Easter Sunday serves as a profound reminder of the transformative power of faith and the enduring message of hope that resonates throughout all the ages. The message of Easter centers on redemption and new life.

Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, humanity is reconciled with God and offered forgiveness. The resurrection assures us that suffering and death is not the end, but that eternal life is possible through Jesus Christ. For this reason, Easter remains the heart of Christian worship, reminding the faithful of God's love, mercy, and the promises of eternal hope. Easter in Jesus Christ helps us mend, reconcile, and make right our relationships. Jesus can heal grief.

He can enable forgiveness. He can free us and others from the things we or they have said or done that otherwise bind us. As we celebrate the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ, may the love of his grace shine brightly in your lives that day and also all the all the Easters to come. Thank you. Thank you.

Brenda Dahl, please.

Good evening, everyone. Why has the basin On Maple not been dredged yet? This is a hot topic and has been since Christmas Eve when we all know that my car ended up sideways in a 12 foot trench. We are now two and a half months away from Christmas Eve. So why has the basin yet to be dredged?

Also, can we get somebody with a landfiller or sand truck something on Mission and Oak Hills? There is literally a street wide gully that needs to be filled because the cars on that road are parking literally in the street and Iim having to dodge them. Also, would like to know, is anything going to be done to make sure that when the basin runs off that that water does not get dumped onto Maple, that it maybe gets dumped somewhere with city drainage, with the city sewer so that it's not going on a road that has no drainage system? Because I would hate to see what I went through on Christmas Eve happen to anyone else. And also, Chris Ocha loving the Miami Vice look.

But you know what? Let's be professional here. At least wear a collared shirt. Come on. And, Alison, continue to do better. Be better because, yeah, the words you said to me the last few meetings, still inappropriate. So just do better and be better. Thank you.

Thank you. Do I have any additional public comment cards?

No additional.

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

Oh, you haven't.

Is it a yes or yes vote or I can go ahead do it on my end? Yes. Okay. Motion passes five zero.

Thank you. Moving on to our public hearing item. Ryan, welcome. We haven't seen you for a while.

Yes. You. So tonight's item is an appeal of a previously approved conditional use permit to construct two industrial warehouse buildings each totaling 75,000 square feet. After tonight's agenda was published, the appellant reached out to the city and requested that this item be continued to a future date. The continuance request was agreed upon by both the developer and the appellant And the purpose of the request is to allow for both parties to have additional time in discussing potential a potential settlement agreement for this appeal application. And so with that, for tonight's item, staff is recommending that this item be continued to a future council hearing date.

Thank you. Do I have oh, I have a motion by Councilmember Gregg, a second by Councilmember Ochoa. Can we have a vote, please?

Do we have a timeframe? I wanted to make sure that we're at least being mindful of that. Do we want two months?

Two months is reasonable. I would expect that if they have not reached a settlement within that time we'll be bringing this item back before the city council. It's not a hard deadline but at this point given the length of time from when they submitted their appeal application and when this project was approved, I would say within the next two months is when we would come back to the City Council.

So my motion is to bring it back in two months unless there's an additional agreement.

I'll go ahead and take a verbal roll call vote. Mayor Bennington? Yes. Mayor Perlton Polin?

Yes.

Councilmember Greg? Yes. Councilmember Lee? Yes. Councilmember Ochoa?

Yes.

Motion passes five-zero.

Thank you. Moving on to new business, item number four, a storm response update.

Madam Mayor, can we have just a few minutes while they load the presentation and IT assists Mayor Perthem.

We're trying to get

pull in with his.

Of course. Thank you.

You make that announcement? Yes. Due

to mayor pro tem Poland's computer out, we're gonna go and do verbal roll call votes moving forward.

What you do? Are you ready for your presentation? I am. Okay. Perfect. Let's move on to item number four, please.

Right. Good evening. Good evening, madam mayor and members of the council. My name is Cassandra Sanchez. I am the director of public works and the city engineer.

I'm gonna be providing you guys an update on our storm damage and our response. This is in regards to the storm that took place on Christmas Eve starting on December 24. There was also additional storm events that occurred after this, but the largest event occurred on Christmas Eve. Public works staff immediately began working on protecting the community by closing roadways, placing signs warning of flooding, and assisting residents on detours. This was a pretty intense storm that overwhelmed natural drainage courses and damaged our streets.

Before I get too far into this presentation, I want to just give a little bit of a background on a couple terms I'll be using just to make sure everybody understands what I'm talking about. The first one being the term watershed. A watershed is a topographic kind of layout. It's determined by the high points on the land, and it's where all of the water that lands within that watershed all drains to the same common body of water. You could imagine it kind of being a bathtub.

Wherever you spray water within that bathtub, because of the high points, it all is going to go to the same drain. So that would be a watershed. The city is about 75 square miles. We have several watersheds, and they were all affected a little differently during the storm, with a few of the watersheds being hit with a five hundred to a thousand year storm event. When I talk about a storm event, another term I would like to just discuss a little bit.

This is a statistical probability of an event occurring during any given year. So we talk about a one hundred year storm event. That's what most infrastructure is designed to to be. That's usually the lifespan that a storm drain will see is because they last about fifty to a hundred years. It's a 1% chance of seeing that event.

Anything larger than that like a fifty or a thousand year storm event has a less than 1% chance of occurring with a thousand year storm event being a point 1% chance happening at any given year. Alright. So my presentation, because I'm not going to keep you guys here all night, I'm only going to focus on a few watersheds that we had, but we had damage throughout the entire city and our crews have been working very hard to clean all of that up. I'm going to focus on the H 01 Watershed first. It starts in the county area at Farmington and Coyote Trail at the upstream end.

It ends up discharging into the Mojave River, and the end of it is kind of near Choiciana and Lilac. The HO-one Watershed saw about six inches of rain within a twelve hour period. And utilizing the tables provided to us by NOAA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we can see that this ended up being between a five hundred and thousand year storm event. I used a screenshot of the of the table, just to show kind of how that all falls into that determination, looking at both the determination and the amount of precipitation we had during that time. Because it's a point one to point 2% chance of happening every year, I didn't graph it out to find out exactly the year it would be, but it's between a five hundred and thousand year storm event.

The first area that I wanted to talk about is the Bandicoot Trail and Cedar Street area, which is also a proposed County Basin location, which we'll be talking about later in this presentation. At this location, we had a concrete storm drain box that failed during the event. It became overwhelmed, ended up leaking underneath the road and washing out the subgrade. It made the road collapse, and the storm drain box itself collapsed. Repairs within this area, because most of it is within the county, will require a partnership with them.

But city staff did hire a contractor to remove the damaged portions of the storm storm drain box off of the sewer and water lines that are active utilities. They were not damaged with the storm drain box falling on top of it. We camoured them to make sure everything was safe and working. And then we also had the contractor stabilize those lines to protect them from any future rain that may hit it during those multi day storm events. And then city staff is working with the county.

We've reached out to them to try to start that partnership to get the road repaired. The next area I will be talking about includes Maple Basin and a few of the affected downstream areas. One of the areas upstream of the basin that I wanted to highlight was Maple Avenue, North Of Mesquite near the aqueduct. We saw a significant amount of sediment deposited on the roadway. Our public works crews worked quickly to clear the road and also to fill in some rutting that had occurred along the side of the road there to make the roadway safe.

There was also some rutting that occurred along the aqueduct just upstream of the Maple Basin. This was in DWR property, and they were able to go in and clean all of that up. I have a photo here. This was taken by our public works crews, during one of the road closures on Maple. They witnessed very large volumes of water, along Maple Avenue.

We know it was over six inches because there should be curb and gutter visible in that photo, and the water, as you can see, goes well behind the sidewalk, so it was a significant amount of flow that was going down Maple at the time. I've also included a photo of the basin before, so you can kind of see a before and during for comparison. After the storm event, the basin was full of sediment. The count sorry. The city will be working with a contractor.

We had a contractor come out and remove the damaged portion of fence on the north side, for safety with, for anybody that would be in that area. We have also awarded a contract, to LCR. They have signed all of the, agreements, and they are working with staff to develop their haul route and their schedule to be able to clear out that basin. Also, downstream of the basin, we had several local roadways including aspen, poplar, pinyon, olive, portions of sultana, and cottonwood that were damaged during the storm event. We worked with a contractor to get those repaired quickly to provide residents access to their homes.

Further down the watershed, excuse me, further down the watershed, we have 3rd Avenue. This is the H 01 Basin. Flows are picked up right around Walnut And Main Street. They enter into the H 01 pipes and travel about two miles underground, and then they outlet here at the H 01 Basin. As you can see, we had sediment that had settled within the basin, and water flowed over the spillway that you see there in the photo.

It went down a channel that we have towards 3rd Avenue, and 3rd Avenue eroded and was washed out by the storm event. As you can see in the photos, it was a pretty significant failure along the roadway there. And we worked with a contractor to get the spillway rebuilt. Rip wrap was grouted and placed along the roadway there, as you can see in the photos, and public works staff restriped the roadway and added delineators. And then the final area I wanted to talk about is the furthest downstream roadway that we saw some damage on as part of the H 01 Watershed, is Orchid Avenue.

There's a natural drainage course that passes over Orchid, and our public works staff moved quickly to remove the dirt from the roadway to provide access for the residents, as you can see in the photo there on the slide. Next, I will be talking about the AO 4 Watershed. This is a large watershed that travels starting from the county and then goes up through Victorville. This watershed didn't see as large of an event as the HO 1 Watershed. It saw approximately four inches within a twelve to twenty four hour duration, but that still works out to be about a two hundred year storm event, so it was still a very significant storm event that passed through the city.

We had residents that called in that saw because it was also affected by the multi day storm event, they saw a lot of the, drainage courses were full, and some of our, facilities had overtopped. And Caltrans, they also had a failure within this watershed, and that's in the photos below there on the slide. This is near the railway and the freeway, budding up to Mariposa Road. They had an outlet that became overwhelmed. It ended up separating and eating back into the slope.

Caltrans has responded quickly and gotten that repaired, and there were no damages to Mariposa Road as a result of this. And that was just a good partnership that we had working with Caltrans to get this repaired so quickly. I wanted to highlight within this watershed, because it didn't get affected as bad as our h o one, I wanted to highlight our Tamarisk Basin, which we had just cleaned earlier in 2025. This is a large 20 acre foot basin, and to put that into water terms, that's about 6,500,000 gallons of water that this basin can hold. It was filled to capacity during the storm and ended up overtopping during the multi day storm events.

But because we had had it cleaned and ready for the storm event, it reduced a lot of the damage we would have seen downstream. Because it did discharge, we did see some exposed pipes. It did push sediment onto Eucalyptus And Mariposa Road, but our public works staff was quick to be able to make all of the necessary repairs and to clear the roadways to make it safe for our residents. I will be passing on this presentation now to Rachel Molina, our city manager.

Thank you, Cassandra. Here on the screen is outlined some of the storm prep and response activities that happened, prior to the storm. The city did communicate messaging on social media to our residents, encouraging preparation and also sharing weather updates. Basins were checked and found to be dry ahead of the storm. Public works did stage vehicles across the community to be able to mobilize quickly should that be necessary.

And that is very effective in response considering many of the response vehicles that are used for storm cleanup are very slow moving. Engineering staff verified that construction sites were secured prior to the rain event. Staff did activate the city's emergency operations center on December 24, and on December 27, declared a local emergency. The emergency operations center did take over 200 calls for service and, stood up a contact us, form on our website so that residents not able to call the city were able to submit concerns or requests for service related to the storm on the city's website. Emergency contracts were executed to expedite repairs to the roadways and to address other safety concerns.

In response to requests by mayor Pro Tem Pullen at a January city council meeting, the city did create a public facing storm cleanup dashboard on the city's website, and that allowed, the community to track cleanup progress as it was happening. A storm repair assistance program was implemented to aid residents impacted. A as part of the program, the Building and Safety Department waived fees for those pulling permits to conduct storm repairs, and that is allowed due to the city council's granting of a special emergency authority to the Director of Emergency Operations should it be necessary. And so, using that same authority, fees were waived for animal impoundments for those pets that were recovered during the storm. So, for example, if someone's fence blew over and their pet got out, the city council's actions allowed for those fees to be waived.

The city facilitated the local assistance center that was hosted at Palm Street Park and attended by numerous residents from the city of Asperia as well as communities impacted in our neighboring mountain communities and beyond who were also impacted by the same storm. On February 18, partnered with the Office of Emergency Services and SBA to provide in person assistance to those that needed disaster loans. So here's a snapshot of the storm response dashboard. It really did help to aid in the city's communication during our storm response. So storm cleanup, you know, since the storm we have hauled seven fifty truckloads of dirt and removed 450 truckloads of sand and debris.

Cleanup is still ongoing. During this process, public works staff prioritize street repairs, including pothole filling and sweeping and brooming of streets. As I've mentioned in previous meetings, the priority of public works generally is to ensure access, and so as the city staff analyzed the access in the city, those streets that had challenges with access were prioritized over other areas that didn't have access issues. With respect to how we would respond a little bit differently in the future, we have amended our emergency operation plan to include a few things. And so, one of those things is the city will use San Bernardino County for assistance with private property damage assessments, and that will allow us to get private property damage assessments happening sooner after the storm.

In addition, we've added the creation and deployment of an emergency dashboard to our emergency operations plan. When Mayor Pro Tem Poulin mentioned it, it wasn't part of the plan. And so, after the comments, we were able to stand one up, but now it is being incorporated into plans moving forward. And sandbag distribution was increased from 10 to 25. I wanted to share a bit.

We've had some questions from the community about long term planning, and so this next section is going to talk about some of the projects that the city is doing and the county is doing. The Temecula Avenue Basin is a project that is being prioritized by the city of Asperia, and we've recently requested funding assistance from our congressman, Jay Obernolte, from senator Padilla, from senator Schiff, from assembly member Lackey. And this project is, I believe, on the CO2 watershed line, and once constructed, if we had a similar storm, would greatly impact the ability to collect storm water in this area. The project is estimated to cost just under 4 and a half million dollars, and we are seeking, you know, assistance from our federal and state partners in support of that. The city council has also added the Temecula Avenue Basin to their legislative priority platform, and so that further enables city staff to actively pursue funding for this project.

San Bernardino County First District has a few projects that they are planning in the city of Asperia that will be especially impactful to our ability to control storm water. The project that we talk most frequently about is the Bandicoot and Cedar Basin. Cassandra showed earlier the portion of the city and the county that was particularly impacted by storm water in this vicinity. And so this project is a massive project estimated to be about $80,000,000. The project is expected by the county of San Bernardino to be fully funded by them and their partners in fiscal year 'thirty two-'thirty three.

This investment in the City Of Hesperia is greatly appreciated because it does recognize that partnerships are needed to be able to address things like storm water. And because of Hesperia's geographic location at the foot of the mountains, we are uniquely impacted by storm water in a way that our neighboring cities are not. The Bandicoot Basin is a project that the city has been closely following for a number of years, and recently, Mayor Bennington and I did meet with Paul Cook's deputy chief of staff. And Paul Cook does continue to value and recognize the importance of this project. And, again, we are closely watching this and looking forward to the groundbreaking of this much needed project.

Moving on to two other county projects that, again, are going to be significant investment in storm water infrastructure in Hesperia, The project that they call the Ranchero Basin is located at is this Santa Fe? Santa Fe and Ranchero, and the project, again, is a substantially sized project. This project they are currently seeking funding for. No funding has been identified yet. Moving on to the final project they call the Oak Hills Basin.

This project, again, is not funded yet by the city, I mean, by the County Of San Bernardino. However, they are actively pursuing funding for this project. This project located near Ranchero and Escondido will help to knock down those storm water flows before they even enter the city limits. And that concludes our presentation. Cassandra, myself, Tammy Playas are available to answer any questions.

We have any questions from council? Please, thank you.

Currently does the city have any equipment to actually fill sandbags?

Over at the Public Works yard, we do have for our residents to use some automatic bag fillers. We during that last storm event at Christmas, somebody stole our bag filler. I don't know if they were planning on using it at home or what happened. So it wasn't there fully during that storm, but we did get a replacement to put back so that residents can use that. And then we are able to use some heavy equipment to fill storm bags a little quicker. But a lot of times, the issue with doing those quickly is they're hard to move around the city. So it's much easier to be able to fill them on-site or to fill a couple at a time for residents to take versus trying to move 200 plus sandbags at a time.

I agree.

It's a lot of weight for those. I just want to look to see if we do have any partnerships, say with San Bernardino County Fire and some of the fire stations for residents that may need that assistance. I've offered up, I mean, call us. Somebody will help within our community. I think we're a resilient community in that nature but if we have some of those tools already within the city's purview I think that we should be allowing residents to access those as well. It's unfortunate that our stuff gets stolen from no good thuggery around here but if something to expand on in the future. It rain's always gonna come, so we might as well try to be prepared for it in the future.

And then just as a note, I kinda preached it during the event. We don't have magic sand, so people can use whatever dirt they have at home if it's easier to transport, you know, just the empty sandbags and fill them at home. We try to give sand at various locations. It's on our website. But just so that people know, sometimes it's easier to take them home and fill them with a shovel with some dirt you have available.

Absolutely. Thanks.

Any additional council comments? Thank you. Great presentation. Appreciate the update. That was a receive and file. Thank you. Moving on to item five, the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six mid year budget. I see we have Keith.

All right. Good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council members. I'm Keith Chong, the Deputy Finance Director, and I will be presenting the fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six midyear budget review. The first slide briefly shows the presentation agenda. I'll go over a high level executive summary before moving on going through where we stand with revenues and expenditures.

Then I'll cover the midyear budget amendment requests. And I'll cover the general fund, the Water District and the Street maintenance balancing before finishing with the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven budget calendar. In summary, revenues through December are at 35%, which is typical due to the timing of some of the revenue sources that we received, such as the tax revenues, our development impact fees and capital projects. Expenditures are at 37% through December. Normal operating related expenditures are at 44%, which is in line with prior year's trends.

Nonoperating expenditures are at 19% due to several CIP projects where expenditures are expected to pick up later on in the fiscal year as those projects progress. As noted at the bottom of the slide, both revenues and expenditures through midyear are trending similar to the same point as last fiscal year. As mentioned, total Citi revenue through December is at 35% compared to the budget. Overall, revenues are still either expected to meet their original budgeted amounts or due to the timing of some of the certain revenue sources we receive where we've only maybe received a few remittances, it's too early to make a determination. One area to note is for water capital, in which the Water District received a onetime payment of $3,500,000 for water connection fees from six twenty five homes as part of this Silverwood development project.

The expenditure summary is broken out into four groups based upon how each department is progressing so far. Group one represents where the departments are progressing as planned. Group two shows where expenditures are less than 40%. This is where expenditures will increase later in the fiscal year as some of the projects progress, such as the County Library pendant lighting project and the golf course trails project. Group three are CIP funds where expenditures are expected to increase as some of those capital projects progress, such as the water tank recoating project at three plant sites, the Ranchero Road Aqueduct crossing, the Maple Avenue Street improvement project and the CDBG Street improvement projects.

Group four reflects the departments where expenditures exceed 55%, and this includes the fire district at 97% due to their contracted annual payment to CalPERS for the retired employees and sewer capital related to progress on the Maple sewer line replacement project. Here we have the fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six midyear budget amendments. Tonight, we have three budget amendments for your consideration totaling $2.50 $105,000 all funded through the Public Works Street Maintenance Fund. The first item is to replace a 2007 dump truck that experienced engine failure. With estimated engine repair costs at $60,000 and ongoing California diesel compliance requirement issues, Vehicle replacement is recommended.

The second item is for the replacement of a traffic pole and arm at the corner of I And Bear Valley. The signal was struck and sustained significant damage. Since this intersection is part of a joint agreement with the City of Victorville to share costs related to traffic signal maintenance and repair, tonight's amendment only includes the City of the Hesperia's portion of those repair costs.

Are we seeking costs reimbursement from whoever hit that pole?

Yes. So it is possible. So if the accident was reported and we can get a claim against the person that hit it, we can do that. But sometimes what happens is, from what I understand, is that it's not always something that's reported and something that we can identify who struck that signal at the time that it was damaged.

Do we have any information if a report was filed?

I can follow back up, but as of right now, we have not I have not been given information that claim has been filed.

Sorry to hijack. I do have information. We are working with the City of Victorville. They are trying to find out more information, but they do not know at this time who hit the poll.

Check Okay. Your neighbor's cars. It's probably messed up. I

would think so. Or a truck. A lot of times, the trucks hit it, they don't even know they hit it.

Correct. So the final Budget Amendment request is for a traffic supervisor vehicle. The supervisor is currently utilizing a staff vehicle, and the amendment allows for a dedicated supervisor vehicle to conduct inspections for field work and respond to emergencies while also restoring operational efficiencies by freeing up that staff vehicle for its intended use. For the midyear positions, there's only one position change, which is to take a vacant financial analyst position and convert it to a management analyst position. There are no proposed increases to staff or FTEs, and this change is not expected to impact the current year's fiscal budget.

Here, we have this the summary balancing for the general fund. As you can see on the slide, we have separate columns for the original and the revised budget. For the resources and expenditures, the difference between the two columns in the budget and revised is the shows the previous Council approved first quarter budget amendments with the increase in expenditures and the resources to fund them. For the estimated June 30 ending fund balance and the estimated ending cash June 30 balances, the difference between the budget and the revised numbers is that the revised column has built into it the updated actual numbers from our annual audit and our financial reports as of the end of the last fiscal year. So the revised column reflects the audited reported beginning number as a starting balance that helps us calculate what the ending balance should be.

The estimated June 30 ending cash balance is expected to be in a healthier position as the General Fund received $5,400,000 from ARPA funds during the fiscal year twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five to pay for police services as approved by City Council as part of the last year's midyear budget amendments. The next slide shows the balancing for the Water District. Similar to the General Fund, we see the district's resources and expenditures with the revised column reflecting the increases from the previous council approved budget amendments. As highlighted, fund balance is anticipated to increase from 127,600,000 to 142,800,000.0 Similarly, cash balance is expected to increase from $34,400,000 to $41,500,000 Like the general fund slide, the revised column has built into it the actual numbers from the audit as a beginning balance to help calculate what the ending balance should be. And the increase in the cash balance is largely due to the district receiving cash from the ARPA fund to pay for the Council approved ARPA projects.

For the Street's Maintenance Fund, the key takeaways are highlighted on the slide. The first is the $255,000 expenditure increase reflecting the three proposed budget amendments. Similar to the previous slides, the estimated ending balance at June 30 at the very bottom of the slide results in an increase in fund balance. And so when including tonight's proposal and the budget amendments, the increase in the fund balance is sufficient to cover the amount needed for the requests. So this slide shows the budget calendar for the twenty twenty six-twenty seven budget process.

Similar to prior years, there are two planned budget workshops during each of the council meetings in May, leading up to the proposed operating budget at the first meeting in June and the CIP budget at the second meeting in June. To note, in following the same process as last year, at Budget Workshop two at the May 19 council meeting, the city will hold a public hearing regarding vacant positions and the city's plan to fill those vacant positions in compliance with California law AB2561. And that completes my presentation, and I'm available for questions.

Do we have any questions from counsel? Hearing none, that was received on file, but we do have to have a motion to adopt the resolution. Correct? Correct. Do I have a motion?

Nope. Sorry. My screen was delayed. Council member Ochoa, second by council member Lee, and we'll have to do a voice vote. Correct? Thank you.

Correct. Mayor Bennington? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempoland?

Yes.

Mayor pro or count excuse me. Council member Greg?

Yes.

Council member Lee? Yes. Council member Ochoa?

Yes.

Motion passes five zero.

Thank you, Keith. Great job. Moving on to council reports and comments. Can you please start us off, Council Member Lee?

Yes. Thank you.

I've been a little busy, not as busy as last year, but just a little. On the February 20, I attended the US three ninety five phase two groundbreaking event. That project, pardon me, will go through 2029, and it will be adding a lane in each direction from the 15 Freeway and the 395 where they meet all the way up to Highway 18. Use alternate routes. I did attend, for the first time this year, the in person chamber coffee break that was very nice to go there and see everybody that I had good relations with relationships with last year, along with, mayor Bennington and, city manager Rachel Molina.

That was a nice morning. On the twenty eighth, I attended the VVC Foundation Alumni Hall of Fame and Distinguished Service Awards. I want to to give a a huge shout out to our very own Kelly Brady, who is a part of the panel to choose these people. And so I'm gonna read them off because I'm very proud that our our very own Kelly Brady, who is here with us tonight, got to be part of this. The Distinguished Service in Education Award went to Lee Bennett.

The Distinguished Service to Community went to Stacy Duvall. The president's award went to Peter Allen. The Young Alumni Hall of Fame award went to Shannon Dunkel, and the Alumni Hall of Fame award went to Marie Langley. It was a very lovely event, and Kelly, thank you for participating in that, and I think the choices were fabulous. We have our Monday municipal mile starting again on the March 16, so come on out to our Civic Park right behind us.

05:00, we start. And thank you to staff, the folks in the back. I appreciate all your hard work. Thank you for the updates on the storm drains. That was very informative. I I appreciate that. Hopefully, that answered some some questions, which answered a lot of questions for me too. So that was that was nice. Thank you. I will end with even a clock that is broken is right twice a day, and that is a Polish proverb.

Thank you. Councilmember Ochoa, please.

Thank you, Mayor. Very light. I went also went to the same gala. It was, awesome. I took my daughter with me. She's eight, and she had a great time, and the fireworks really, she really liked them. But then she got bored, and we had to leave. But it was it was fun. It was fun. And I always enjoy seeing all the friendly faces, all the faces from the community. It's my alma mater. I, you know, I got my AAs from there, and it's always a pleasure coming back and supporting the college. And that's it for me, Mayor. And oh, well, no, wait. Healthy Hisparia, our health fair this weekend.

Very exciting at Sultana High School, and we hope to see everyone there. And definitely would like to invite I think all the booths are already taken, but Pastor Paul Jones, if you would love to come and visit with us, and maybe we can get you a vendor spot next year.

From ten to two

From ten to two this Saturday at Sultana High.

You. Council Member Greg.

Thank you, Bridget. I had a VVWRI meeting on February 19, and we approved the assistant general manager position to Cody over there. Great guy, and he's doing great work. He's already been with the entity for a while, so that just gives Darren a little bit more backup and reinforcement over there. So other than that, there's not too much to report on for VVWRA.

I do want to remind folks to slow down as always, get to where you're going safely. But I I also want to have our community keep in thoughts and prayers for our servicemen and women overseas right now. Obviously, I think everybody knows what's going on. So great job that they're doing, but keep keep those folks in your in your prayers. So many of those people away from their families, and it's always difficult being away in a a conflict or war, whatever you wanna call it.

Our law enforcement team in the back and our fire, great job for everything that you guys do. It's definitely appreciated for our community. Can't be said enough. I wish folks would stop giving you guys such a hard time with stuff, make your job easier, but you're always there to support our community. So thank you for that.

It's nice to hear from our residents such as Kim Jones giving our maintenance crew or street crew the kudos that they definitely deserve. I don't think we give them enough credit where credit is due. So thank you to that team out there with all these floods and everything else. Great job and the rest of the staff at the city are putting in the hours and the time to make our community a lot better. Thank you for that. It doesn't go unnoticed. Sometimes it just goes unsaid. But thank you for that. Other than that, Madam Mayor, that's all I have.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Temp Poland.

Thank you, Mayor. I only have a couple of things. I'll piggyback onto what Councilmember Greg said, keep our country and our military and your thoughts and prayers. The second thing to address your comment, Gina, the animal shelter vehicle was empty, and there was no injuries. So, let's be let's be thankful that there was no injuries and that it was empty.

There was no, animals in it. I understand your concern, but just as missus Dahl has asked my colleagues to show them some grace with with their comments about accidents, I would ask you to to also show some grace that our city is looking into it. It won't go unnoticed. Regardless of what happened, it was an accident, and no one ever wants to be in an accident. I'm sure the people in the back there can confirm that. But put it on social media. So I just wanna ask you to also show some some grace to the employee that was in an accident, and we will look into it. I can assure you of that. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to talk to you. Alright.

Thank you. I have been busy doing a lot of ribbon cuttings and doing actually a lot of fun things. I did the in person coffee today. I did Read Across America at Mesquite Trails Elementary School, and they had the four kindergarten classes, and they were so cute. And they asked for questions. The teacher's all, do you wanna ask some mayor questions? I'm like, oh, no. Oh, no. And this one little boy asked he says, can I ask you, Mayor Bennington? Do you build those big buildings?

And it was just I he was so cute. No. I don't. But, anyways, that was a lot of fun. I had the kids choose the book, and all of them were the Cat in the Hat tongue twisters. So thank you, Jessica, for reading the the three minutes. I appreciate that, the brown act. I did the ribbon cutting at Quick Quack Car Wash today. And let me tell you, if I ever want to work part time, I'm gonna go there. They had so much fun.

I got to meet Quackle. We did quack quack quack quite a bit, and, just a great group of people. Very enthusiastic to be in our city, and that was a lot of fun. I, have the coffee Zoom update, this Friday. I'm going to attend BMI, and the municipal mile starts on the sixteenth. And it's not gonna be hot, so you'll probably see me there. I don't like going out when it's too hot. I participated in the Youth in Government Day. I believe that was on that was last Thursday. It was raining, but, that was a lot of fun too.

A lot of great kids. I it's just a great event, and the questions that they asked is just it's so rewarding to know that these are future leaders. They're working very hard, and it it was just a lot of fun. I probably went over my talking allotment, but there was a lot of questions that were asked. So I really, really enjoyed that.

I would like to thank staff, our public safety, police, fire, and also keeping our servicemen and women in our prayers. It's tough times for all. And in addition to council member Greg saying, be safe, slow down, how about let's stop at red lights? Let's just please stop at red lights. It is terrifying. People are are probably exaggerating, eighth of a mile away, and they gas it. That is very, very dangerous. So I would like to recognize Jennifer Stringfellow. It was her birthday. She keeps us keeps me in line.

I don't know about the all of you, but she's really great. And then also, I welcome you to the health fair, March 7 from ten to two at Sultana High School. I'm looking forward to that. And I have nothing further. Do we have any Can I add something? Of course.

I I would like to wish you a very happy birthday on Thursday. You.

Thank you. See, forgot about it.

It's her 20 birthday.

Yeah. Yeah. I qualify for some senior benefits now. So do we have any city council or I'm sorry, city manager, city attorney?

Nothing.

With nothing, then we will adjourn the meeting at 07:40. Thank you very much.

Dang it.

I forgot to