City Council - Regular Meeting

632, our invocation will be done by Pastor Diego Ferrero. And Council Member Ochoa, can you lead us in the flag?

Salute.

Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Loving God and our Creator, we come before you with grateful hearts, and we begin this session at the Hesperia City Council. We thank you for the blessing of living in this beautiful community, for its hardworking people, and for the opportunity you gave us to serve one another. Today we especially ask for you to pour out your wisdom and grace upon this meeting. We pray for our mayor and for each of the city council members. Grant them understanding, clarity and thoughts and discernment to make just and equitable decisions. May their discussion be filled With mutual respect and leadership, always be motivated by the well-being of the families in Hesperia. Bless also all the other officials, directors, and city employees. We recognize that their tireless work is the engine driving Hesperia crowd. Give them patience, strength, and spirit of excellence in their daily task. Lord, may this meeting be conducted in a spirit of unity, collaboration, and peace. May everything discussed and decided today be for the progress of our city and for the common good of all its residents. We ask all this with faith and hope in Jesus' name. Amen.

Place your right hand over your heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God.

Thank you. Can we have a roll call please?

Mayor Bennington?

Here.

Mayor Potempolin?

Here.

Councilmember Gray?

Here.

Councilmember Lee?

Here.

Councilmember Choa?

Here.

Thank you. Do we have any corrections or revisions to the agenda? None this evening, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Do we have any closed session reports?

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. We did meet in closed session to discuss four matters of existing litigation as listed on the closed session report, as well as performance evaluation of the City Manager and City Attorney, and no reportable action was taken on any of the items in the closed session.

Thank you. Moving on to announcements and presentations, and it's my honor that we are presenting the City Hall Employee of the Quarter to Ruby Arellano, and it's going to be done by Orlando Acebo.

You both may come up. Good evening, mayor and council and community. I'm Orlando Acevedo, the director of development services. I'm joined by Beth Hudson, community development manager. And this evening, we're honored to be standing up here to present the employee of the quarter for the second quarter of the year to Ruby Arellano. Arellano? and Ruby is our community development supervisor. She's been with the city for eight years, four years in her present role, and Ruby is an invaluable asset not only to our organization, but to the community and to our customers as she strives to move projects through the permitting process as painlessly and quickly and cost-efficiently as possible. Now, Ruby was... recognized for this award, nominated for this award by her own staff, who wrote, and I quote, Ruby is one of the best supervisors I have ever had. Despite having countless tasks and projects to manage each day, she always makes time for every permit technician, whether it's to answer a simple question, help solve a larger issue, provide guidance, or even offer personal support when needed. Ruby makes it a priority to ensure her staff is happy, confident, and well taken care of. Ruby embodies all the qualities that needed to run a successful department and maintain a cohesive, motivated team. Everyone in our department holds her in high regard. She is respected, admired, and viewed as a true role model. I am grateful to work under her leadership. Now, these words remind me of a quote I just recently came across while watching the classic The Wizard of Oz, where the wizard turns to the Tin Man and says, a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others. What sets Ruby apart is not just her tireless, dedicated service to our community and her hard work, but that she is a leader who is loved by her staff. And I think that's something for us all to recognize this evening. So thank you to the council. On behalf of the city, Ruby, this is a well-deserved recognition. Congratulations. And I believe we are supposed to stand here and take a photo. Oh, there you are, there you are.

Thank you so much and we appreciate your service and obviously you're very well loved. So congratulations. Great job done. Moving on to presentation of our 2025 annual water quality report by Jeremy McDonald.

Tonight I'll be presenting to you the Hesperia Water District's 2025 annual water quality report. During this presentation, I'm going to go over a couple of statistics regarding 2025 the results of the report and our plan for 2026. So the Hesbury Water District receives all of its potable water from 15 active wells, same as last year. We currently have 14 reservoirs totaling 64.5 million gallons worth of storage. What's not included in there is an additional reservoir that's used for recycled water and that has a capacity of 2.5 million gallons. In 2025, we saw our demand go up. We produced approximately 4.6 billion gallons of water. When you deal with such a large number like that in the water industry, we typically refer to that as an acre foot of water. And to put that in perspective, if you can picture one acre of land filled with water one foot high, that would be equivalent to one acre foot, which is approximately 325,000 gallons. Typically, an acre foot will supply two to two and a half homes per year. During the year, our busiest day, we had produced 16.6 million gallons worth of water. This number is actually down a little bit from the previous year where we had produced 17.6. Our average demand, though, did go up. We went up to 12.6 million gallons per day on average, whereas in the previous calendar year, we were at 12 million gallons. Again as I mentioned we do supply recycled water to 3 customers in 2025 we pervade 69 million gallons worth of recycled water to our 3 customers, which includes the Hesperia Community Park, the Hesperia golf course and also irrigation just across the street from City Hall on Spruce and Smoketree. Our form of disinfection remains the same. We currently utilize calcium hypochlorite, which is a solid granular form of chlorine. We add water to the solution. We make a solution with the granular and then inject that into the potable water supply. The three most common units of measurement found in the water industry is a part per million, a part per billion, and a part per trillion. To kind of put that in a time perspective, one second in 11 and a half days is equal to one part per million, where one part per billion is equal to one second in 32 years, and one part per trillion is equal to one second in approximately 32,000 years. This page here lists the inorganics that were sampled for, I shouldn't say sampled for, but that were detected in 2025. There are several other constituents that we do test for. However, they're not listed because they were not detected in our system. The one item I do want to point out on this slide is fluoride. Just want to point out that that is naturally occurring fluoride. We do not add that to our water system. This slide here goes over the results from our microbiological samples. So throughout the city, we have 25 locations that are tested on a weekly basis. Those are tested weekly and tested for coliform bacteria, which is an indicator organism. Our sources, the 15 wells that I spoke of, those are also tested on a monthly basis. We took approximately 1200 samples in 2025, and I'm happy to report that none were detected for coliform bacteria. We do, again, inject chlorine into our water as a form of disinfectant. We have to maintain at least 0.2 parts per million. We averaged 0.5 during 2025. In 2025, we did conduct our triennial lead and copper sampling. What changed this sampling period compared to the previous sampling period is our population has increased. So therefore, since we exceeded 100,000 citizens, we did have to increase the amount of samples. So in the previous period, we had 30 samples taken. This compliance period, we upped that to 50. And I'm happy to report that we were non-detect for lead in all of our samples. This next slide here is regarding contaminants that currently do not have a maximum contaminant level, but that doesn't mean that the state could enforce a maximum contaminant level in the future. So we are required to report these findings to the citizens. And finally, concluding the results from 2025 are our secondary substances. These constituents do not pose any health effects. However, they just pertain to the aesthetics of the water, such as taste, odor, and color. And we did meet all federal and state standards. In 2026, this is our plan for water quality analysis. We've already conducted radiological testing for radium 226 and 228. We'll continue to test for disinfection byproducts on a quarterly basis. This month, we are testing for synthetic organic compounds. The reason why you didn't see any synthetic organic compounds listed before is because the previous compliance period, we did not detect any, and I anticipate that to hold true. And then we will also be testing for PFAS constituents on a quarterly basis to comply with federal standards. This concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do we have any council comments? I would just like to say thank you to you and your staff for your due diligence in providing our community with great drinking water, safe drinking water. Great job. It's not an easy task and I appreciate. It's my privilege.

Thank you.

Thank you. We are privileged to have you, Jeremy. Thank you. Moving on to general public comments. Jessica, would you mind?

Individuals wishing to speak during general public comments or 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 counter 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 remote speakers for public comment?

No remote speakers at this time.

Thank you. Moving on to Robert Davey, please.

I have three items I wanted to try and get to. First off, it wouldn't be a meeting with me without Maple Avenue, right? So Maple, between Mesquite and Ranchero, appears to be a relatively finished product. I just want to caution that it's got problems, it's got issues. They're getting ready to stripe it. You've got pictures of it right now. Drove it up several times the last two days, not on purpose, just because it's on my way home. And it's bumpy, it's got problems. It reminds me of Oakwood before Oakwood got finished. Oakwood's turned out to be a pretty nice street, but it took them a little while to get there. This seems to be the same way. What just concerns me is, you know, we're doing from Ranchero to Main Street, I'm just hoping that we're going to get a better result as it moves up. Because that section, I understand that where it first comes up, it's not completely done yet, right at Mesquite, but a little bit past the park to Ranchero, it's not a good furnished product. So we've got to stop wasting the money. We have limited resources. We can't just keep the chips still and all this. We just can't keep throwing good money away on poor streets. So that. Animal shelter. We've got to find a way. No accusations. We've got to just be proactive. We've got to have TNR. We've got to have spay and neuter for our citizens. You know, we can't afford to take a pet to a place like a vet on Main Street and pay $500 to get a spay and neuter. It's just not practical. I've done it a couple times, but it's just not sustainable to do that. For the average citizen, they just can't. So we've got to look outside the box. First off, we need a full-time vet. We've just got to somehow, someway, whether it goes to veterinarian school, There's got to be ways, but we've got to get spay and neuter. Paw Missions comes up here, what, we get one day a week, but that's for the shelter animals who have been adopted. That's not for the public. We're being penalized as Hesperia citizens for living in Hesperia because you can get spay and neuter cheaper if you live in the unincorporated county. That just doesn't seem right. San Bernardino County has a discount program if you live in unincorporated, so... And TNR, near and dear to my heart, because I have ferals that come to my house every day. When we trap, get them in a trap. You can't leave them in a trap for more than, I won't leave them for more than the night to the morning. Then you've got to try and find a vet that's going to take them in, and then you've got to go pay $500 to get them spayed or neutered. It's just not practical. We've got to come up with some way I understand there was two litters of cats that came into the shelter today, just a bunch. The cats are prolific. You know, a four month old cat can have babies. Cats can get pregnant twice at the same time. So I don't know, a lot of people don't realize that. So we've got to do something about it. I'm out of time, so we'll leave the third one for next time.

Thanks. Donna, please.

Hi, I live in Hesperia and I'm here because I've been treated differently than my neighbor regarding enforcement of the city's fence ordinance 16.20.072B, and I'm asking for a written response explaining the basis for these decisions. Several years ago, I had built a six-foot wooden fence in my front setback. Code enforcement ordered me to remove it or reduce it to city code of 36 inches. I complied. In August of 2025, my neighbor adjacent to me built the same type of six-foot wooden fence on his property in the same location that I had previously had my fence. Code enforcement initially agreed. Several times it violated the municipal code. A few days later, however, an email stated the case should be closed because of a clear sight triangle. This property is not on a corner, lot, or side yard, and the city's own photographs show that. The records then changed again. Engineering approved the fence to remain at five feet. I requested records through the Public Records Act, the engineering approval, any minor exception or variance application, proof of payment. The response I received stated there are no records, no file, no paperwork supporting the approval. I am asking tonight for an explanation of how the approval was made if those records do not exist according to the city clerk. I walked into the city building on June 17th. spoke with Bethany and Ryan. I asked if I can build a six-foot wooden fence in my front setback. I was told I'd have to fill out an application and pay a fee of $411.40, then it would have to be approved for a minor exemption. I asked Ryan if he could check to see if there was a record of the neighbor's application and fee paid for a minor exception. He said there was nothing on file, no paperwork. I also sent the letter to city manager on June 1st. I have not received a response. I'm renewing that request tonight. If my neighbor's fence was legally allowed to remain, if I feed, where's the application? Approval documents and fee records, the city staff themselves said should exist. If these records do not exist, on what authority was the fence approved? I have requested records from multiple departments and have repeatedly been told there are no records based on the pattern of events of the different treatment. Of my property compared with my neighbors, I believe I have been subjected to selective enforcement. I reduced my fence. My neighbor's fence was allowed to remain. There are no files, no paperwork, no payment. That would allow a minor exception. Selective enforcement violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution under 42 U.S.C. 1983. I am not asking for special treatment. I'm asking for equal treatment. I'm asking the city to explain the basis for its own records that were sent to me. Thank you.

Kim Jones.

I think it's really great you got sign language interpreters in here. There's somebody that used to drive a school bus for the special needs people. I really appreciate that. Also, I know they've been talking about possibly changing the time of the city council meetings to like five o'clock. Personally, I'm not in favor of that. It really wouldn't bother me. I live fairly close, and I just have to cross that demolition derby called Main Street to get over here. But there are people that work. And they, you know, they go on the freeway or they drive a distance and stuff. And with the traffic, it would probably affect them. I know people that work the swing shift and graveyard would always have trouble coming here. But the day workers, I think it's more convenient for them to be at 630. And also on my street 6th and olive on the corner. I know it's least it's been three weeks that there's a big puddle and I thought the city was aware of it because I've seen one of the city cones there. And the cone is gone, so I don't know if it's one of the houses that's causing that big puddle and it's continual. But anyways, that's all I have to say. And thank you for your time.

Al Vogler, please.

Good evening, Council. I'm Al Vogler. Since December 2025, I attempted to gather information about the sales tax survey paid for by Hesperia with $217,000. The original amount was quoted as $50,000 to $100,000. The inflated contract price was to hire Team CivX to conduct the survey. They did not. Team CivX hired True North Research for the survey. Surveys of this type are often not random. They are conducted by selecting populations of taxpayers who fit the intended survey profile, and then a survey is conducted. The results along with the presentation by True North was not done in person by Mr. McClarney. Instead, a small circle on the TV screen showed his likeness and we could hear a voice at times not understandable. The Hesperia City Council knew ahead of time of this arrangement and approved of it. Mr. McClarney's absence did not allow for direct questions to be answered, nor could we ascertain his actual ID by physical characteristics. How unethical. We asked Hesperia for the answers. Hesperia responded that the information was proprietary, meaning secret, and advised communicating with Team Civics. We did so and got no response except the proprietary advisory to contact True North Research. True North was contacted, including text, telephone, and email. No responses. Three different certified mailings went to True North. They did not claim the first two. The third was picked up, but not signed. We did not receive the green signature card back. Later at the post office, the clerk showed and gave me a copy of the signature card, which had nothing more than a large crude X for a signature. It is important for the public to know that at least 217,000 was spent and questions were not answered. Under free speech, there should have been a method to acquire information. A public records request was not successful. True North claims 606 survey responses, but would not reveal how many taxpayer contacts were made. That equates to less than 1% of our 100,000 plus population. Hardly an unbiased scientific sample. The large expenditure is representative of the city council's tax and spend attitude. The city should never knowingly have entered a proprietary contract. Please do not approve the measure and the resolution. Thank you.

Brenda Dahl, please.

Thank you, council members. I have two things that I would like to discuss. Number one, Greg Cameron, I appreciate you and the support that you have with all of us that have to travel down the hill. And changing the meeting time and silencing our voices by making it 5.30, 5 o'clock, it's not cool. I almost didn't make it tonight because, yes, I did have to travel down the hill today. And we deserve a voice. We absolutely deserve a voice in these meetings. And I hope everyone recognizes that. And you as city council members need to understand that. And by changing the meeting time, it silences us. And that's not cool. Also, I would like to ask why are the stop signs over by Del Taco and Raising Cane's, why are they faded? My daughter door dashes at night. I oftentimes go out with her and can't tell you how many times we almost get hit by people who run the stop sign, even though you can tell it's a stop sign, but it's faded, it doesn't say stop, but yet, Why, what do we need to do to get them fixed? Thank you, that's all I have.

Brandon Lane, Athens, please.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Council. My name is Randen Lane, and I serve as Vice President of Government Affairs for Athens Services. But before I continue on that vein, I will say on a side note, I had the privilege of serving as an appointed or elected official in the City of Murrieta for roughly 17 years. So I always like to say thank you for your service, which is essentially your volunteer service to your community. But back to Athens. As you know, Athens Services, under contract, manages the five landfills and nine transfer stations here in San Bernardino County. I have no ask this evening other than I would love to meet with you to be able to answer questions about the work that we do, the landfills that we manage, and the transfer stations that we manage locally. Athens Services manages those landfills. We also provide valuable import into the county, which allows you to maintain your low rates for your WDA, which you recently approved your WDA rate with a dollar decrease, which is quite frankly unheard of in the industry. But we'd love to have the opportunity to meet with you to answer any questions that you have. I will be sending each of you an email with my contact information. My cell number is 951-830-3485. If any of you or your community has questions that me and my team can be of help with, we'd be more than happy to meet with anyone, answer questions, and that's all I have. So thank you very much for your time.

Chuck Wolf, please.

I deferred my time to Mr. Al Vogler.

He's already spoken. Thank you. Are you not wishing to speak, Mr. Wolf?

I wish to speak? Yeah, I've got some things to say.

Then you're welcome to come up to the podium and you have your three minutes.

Start. There we go. Thank you very much for allowing me to go ahead and speak. I didn't intend to do this because I wanted to defer my time to an issue or several issues that Mr. Al Vogler had. One of them is raising the sales tax in this town. We don't need to raise the sales tax in this town, and that's where I stand. I guess that's what I wanted to say. I said it. Have a good day.

Do we have any additional public comment cards?

No additional comment cards.

Thank you. Moving on to our joint consent calendar. Do I have a motion to move the consent calendar?

Madam Mayor, we have public comments on items number four, five, and seven.

Oh, I don't see that. I don't see those. I'm sorry. So withdraw the motion.

I keep my motion to withdraw those three. Or I amend my motion to include those, remove those three is what I want to do.

So the motion on the floor is to approve items on the consent calendar with the exception of item number four, five, and seven.

Is that correct? That is correct.

I have a first by Council Member Choa, second by Council Member Gregg. The item passes 5-0. Moving on to consent item four, public speakers.

Robert Davey.

You guys don't describe what the item is first or no? All right. It's item four is for the adverse weather emergency repairs to accept that. Maple and Muscatel Basin. I would just caution you before you vote on that. If you have all the information, I know you guys do, council members, you do have a lot of information that we as residents are not privy to. I understand that. But for those of us who live by that basin, we can tell you for 100% it is not even close to as deep as it was originally when it was constructed. So if we get another generational storm, It is not going to hold it. And we're going to end up with the same problem we had before. It's not even close to deep. And what are the rocks all about that come off the wash? I don't see the point. And the same company that dug that out, I understand, is doing Maple Avenue now, which is concerning. But it's not deep. If you have the statistics, the engineering diagrams, I'd like to see him, but before you vote on it, just don't vote and say, hey, it's done, we accept it. Those of us who live by it, we know for 100%, it is not dug out. It's not even close. So we're setting ourselves up for failure there. We know what happened on December 24th when it breached. There's a lot of residents here that probably still have problems in their house. I know my good friend Gina Whalen had much damage at her house because of it. So just be cautious when you vote on that one that I would not, if I was in your shoes, I would not vote to accept that. Thank you.

Are there any other comments on this item?

Not on this item.

Tina and Cassandra, would you provide some clarification regarding how this project was rehabbed?

Yes, the Maple Basin was taken back to its original grade per the engineered plans. The rocks that are in the basin, that is an engineering item. It's called riprap. Those large rocks are meant to help slow down the flows and capture sediment. This helps reduce erosion overall in the basin and it was something that was added. The first time that the basin had originally failed, they went back, re-engineered it, re-looked at everything, added that riprap, and so it is an important component to the basin. It does play a large role in helping to reduce the velocity of the flows, which helps to reduce the erosion. The storm that we did have, as Mr. Davies had mentioned, was a large storm. It was a 1,000-year storm event. We had received six inches in 12 hours, so it did overwhelm that basin, but that basin is meant for a 100-year storm event, and it has been taken back to the original engineered grade.

Thank you. Do we have any council comments?

Hi, Cassie.

I don't want to assume that you probably already know what my question is. Do you accept this as complete and we're pushing forward?

Yes.

Thank you.

For item five, public comment.

Ella Rogers.

Good evening cabinet. Hello. My name is Ella Lee Rogers. I lived here on the high desert since 1943. And I have a major problem on a little street called Jacaranda Avenue, which is two blocks long. The other day, I left my house, going up to my daughter's house. And we have it like this. And I was not driving fast at all. And a dually was coming down toward me. And all of a sudden, I hit. And there was a hole. in the middle of the road. There still is. It's this deep. Okay, I have a picture on my phone if any of you would like to see it. And it's this wide. I request that that be taken care of tomorrow, please. Also, by the way, right after Mother's Day, I had a complete checkup on my car. I drive a Maxima and I had a front end alignment done. Well, on my car, you have to have everything taken out from under to do the alignment and it cost $900. I now have to have it done again. If it hadn't been for the man in the dually that stopped to help me and two of the neighbors, I guess we would've had to got a tow truck to get it out. So I intend to send you a bill for the realignment of my car. I only think that's fair and I think we're not taking care of our roads the way that we should. This slurry stuff, my little two block was done a year and a half ago and now it's got ruts all through it. and there's not a lot of big traffic goes on my street. So I don't know who's engineering these things and why you're spending money on just on slurry instead of putting together good roads here in Hesperia. I have lived here for a long, long time. I will soon be 85 years old and I hope that you guys will listen to me a little bit because I'm not the only one that has this problem here. So thank you very much for your time. You have a blessed day.

Item seven, Robert Davey, please.

Kind of along the same lines I've been talking about. That would be... I know on 7 without more information. Hopefully you have that information. What we're left with on Maple Avenue is a mess. I don't even drive it from Sultana to Main Street because of that still. For what she's just talking about, I traded in my truck last year with the suspension destroyed from driving on Maple Avenue. So if the job underneath the road surface looks, on the sewer, looks like what they left us on top, That's concerning. Now, you may have information, pictures, diagrams, engineering diagrams that show that a good job was done. Maybe they're just not good at repairing roads after they dig a hole in the road. But what we were left with is just another mess, and still is to this day. So I'd be careful. I'd want to have more information before I voted on it. Personally, if I was in your shoes, hopefully you have that information to prove that what's underneath, what they left on top, is better than what's on top, because it's a mess. Thanks.

We have Council, Cassie, can you explain to Mr. Davey about just approving the sewer replacement?

Yes, so the sewer replacement was done and completed and we actually went back and videoed just recently now that it has been flowing full to make sure that we haven't seen any issues or problems. The pipe looks beautiful. We are very happy with the way the pipe is. The intent of the street repairs was a temporary hot mix because we knew we were going to be coming back with this paving project that we're currently working on in Maple. So it was just to repair the trench that was there with a temporary hot mix until we could do the street repair and do a final complete street. So it was never intended to be anything long term. It was a temporary repair before the project we're currently working on.

Thank you. So the intent to approve this consent item is just for the sewer line, not the roadway.

Yes, this was the removal of the sewer sag that had been a maintenance issue and the replacement of the pipe. And with recent video, it all looks beautiful.

Thank you very much. Do I have any further council comment?

Yes, you go ahead. With this being a critical infrastructure need, is there any kind of warranty provided from the contractor on this for any kind of period of time?

Yes, the contractor provides a warranty on this. That's why we went back and we re-videoed it once it had been flowing full for a while, just to make sure everything looks good. Sometimes when you have underground pipes, if there starts to be a failure, you don't see it till it rises to the surface, and that's why we wanted to make sure everything looked really good before we brought it to council.

Awesome, so on that topic... And please correct me if I'm wrong, that warranty aspect of things is relatively new. There's so many projects that I've asked that same question to, to where there was no warranty. So have you been diligently, you know, kind of telling these contractors like, hey, what kind of warranty are you offering for your services? Or has this kind of always been in play?

It's been in place for quite a few of our projects. But yes, we have a great project management staff that stays on top of that and works very closely with the contractor.

Awesome, so that's great news and I appreciate it. And just like the last project, you would say this is good to go?

Yes.

All right, thank you.

No, we're not gonna take any more public comment cards. We need to move on because we have a very important item before us. So do I have a motion? Is it on item seven? We don't have to take further comment cards.

I would say in the interest of we're on it.

Okay, we're talking up here. Thank you very much.

I would say in the interest of we're on it right now. We haven't voted on it. We allow her to speak.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Kristen Guidry, I'm not sure if the sewer line is part of the bubbler, but the bubbler on Sultana and Maple has water bubbling out of it constantly, daily. On Father's Day, we happened to drive by it and there was so much water pouring out of it that I actually contacted Robert and I'm like, dude, there's water coming out of the bubbler. So if you guys are saying that the sewer is good, why is there water coming out of the bubbler? There's constantly water running down Maple in front of, basically in front of the, what do you call it, the drain ditch that they just fixed in front of Poplar, but the bubbler literally has water pouring out of it daily. So is that part of the sewer or not? That's what I wanna know, thank you. Can you please address that, Cassie?

The bubbler is not part of the sewer system. The bubbler is a storm drain system, and it will collect flows. It can collect flows for a variety of reasons, including sprinklers, people draining pools, but usually it's meant for storm flows. But that does not have sewage. It's not meant to have sewage, and it's not tied to the sewer line.

And I live on Sultana and there's water running there frequently and I do call in and it's people's landscaping, draining their pools, nothing sewer related. Thank you. Now, do we have any further public comments? Moving on, do I have a first? I have a first by Council Member Gregg, a second by Council Member Ochoa. Can we have a vote, please? The item passes 5-0.

Thank you.

Moving on to our public hearing item. Casey, welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight, the item that I'm going to be speaking on is the ballot measure for the transactions and use tax or the sales tax. So here's tonight's agenda. We have nine items to work through. And the way this presentation is structured is each item is self-contained. So I'm telling you that. So if questions come up, please interrupt me. Let's have a conversation as we move through this workshop. And then once at the end of the presentation, I'm going to pass it over to Pam, who is going to discuss the legal aspects of the resolution as well as the ordinance. So starting with item number one, council action requested. This is the staff recommendation on the staff report. And basically it boils down to this question. Should the one cent or 1% sales tax be placed on the general election ballot? And so it's important to know this vote will, if council decides to approve it, require a four-fifths vote. And it allows the Hesperia voters in November to make the ultimate decision. Should council approve the ballot language, it does not increase the taxes tonight, and nor is it a personal endorsement of a sales tax. Simply, it's continuing the conversation. So why now? And there's two main thought processes on why a sales tax is being discussed now. The first is the continual general fund slippage. We had a lot of discussion during the budget workshops in May on the fact that the general fund expenditures exceeded revenue due to unanticipated police contract services increases and insurance increases. And this general fund had to use its reserves or savings of 500,000. Now, that use of reserves, While it impacted our savings, our savings currently is $28.5 million. And so I'm gonna go into a five-year projection next, but the second item is to invest in Hysperia. Invest in items such as infrastructure, public safety, storm drainage, and beautification. So what I'll do is I'm gonna talk about the general fund projection, starting with this chart here, and then I'll go into the investment. So here is a five-year projection of the general fund, both the revenues, expenditures, and then the ending fund balance. We have our fiscal year 26-27. You can see at the bottom that $500,000 amount that I just spoke about, as well as the topic of discussion during our budget workshops. And again, that was due to police costs increasing faster than anticipated, especially in the insurance arena, and the city's own general liability insurance increase. In fiscal year 27-28, or actually for the projection going forward, we use trend analysis, so we look at what our revenue increases, our expenditure increases in the past, and we apply that trend analysis going forward, because again, this is just a projection. When we actually prepare the 27-28 budget, we'll go through every single revenue account and every single expenditure account as the city employs a zero-based budget, meaning we wipe the budget out and then we look at what is needed this year. This year is just a projection to kind of set us up for the next fiscal year. So using the trend analysis, as well as any items that we may know at this time, and the sales tax, we have built in an increase for commercial activity that's occurring. And the property tax, year over year is a 10% increase. This is to capture any large development on the I-15 corridor going into 27, 28, and then every year thereafter is just a statutory 2% increase. Police contractual and expenditure realm, we have a 6% increase based on the Schedule A anticipated increase to insurance should it happen again. You can see the year over year, that's a million dollar change. And then our normal trend analysis on other expenditures. You can see in fiscal year 2028, Again, this is just a projection. It's $2 million, and then as you go out to 32, 33, it reduces to 600,000. This does not include any sales tax enhancement. This is just looking at our revenue today based on trend analysis.

So one thing I want to make sure that we're all clear on is that the police contract aspect, we see the increase, but that doesn't add additional services from them. So they're already tapped, and correct me if I'm wrong, they're already tapped out. This is just to maintain the service that we have now, and additional people, we would assume additional people would move into the city, would become even more burdensome for the police contract in that aspect, right?

That is correct, and in fact, in a couple slides, you'll actually see where we maintain our ratio, and it speaks to that point.

Casey, does this property tax account for the increased valuations that the county assessor just did?

Yes, so it actually is higher. The projection is 10% for the next fiscal year. All right, thank you.

On that note, Casey, just for those hearing in, I don't know if you know this figure, but I know that we have a captain in here with us tonight. But on any given time, how many deputies are on duty on the beat patrolling the city of Hesperia?

That question I would have to defer to the captain. I have the total, which is 62 sworn officers. I don't have the allocation on any given time in the city. Any given time.

Thank you.

Captain, would you mind addressing that? Oh, from the back. You have a loud voice. I can hear you loud and clear.

I'm sorry. My request would be to come speak because we do have Zoom.

Record it. Oh, I apologize, Captain.

Good evening. So at any given time, our minimum staffing levels is five deputies per shift. We run some shifts a little heavier depending on call volume and anticipation of call volume. So we have anywhere from five to seven deputies per shift generally. All right.

Thank you, Captain Allen. We appreciate your service to our city.

So now we're moving in. We talked about the general fund slippage. Now we're moving into the investments. Again, why now? Let's focus on infrastructure. There's 1.5 billion, billion with a B, needs in Hesperia. And as for enhancement of storm drainage, you can see at the bottom, a needed 185 miles is built into that 1.5 billion. The city does maintain 498 miles of roadway, as well as 66 miles of storm drain. councilman mcgreg this was speaking to you the law enforcement so the city historically going back to 2010 has maintained a deputy ratio of 0.6 per thousand residents the city has added deputies just to maintain that ratio the goal is one deputy or one sworn officer per thousand and in fact in 2024 the national average was roughly 1.2 sworn officers per thousand nationally But here in Hesperia, it has been historically 0.6, and that's what it is this year. So in 2010, just a snapshot of the last 16 years, there was 57 sworn officers to 91,000 residents. That gave us a ratio of 0.63. In order to get to that one per thousand, you would need to have added 34 deputies for a cost of 9.3 or 9.4 million. Fast forward to today, a residence of 102,000. We have grown the deputies by five to 62 to maintain that 0.6 threshold. In order to get to that one per thousand would be 41 deputies, $11.3 million. And that's personnel cost that doesn't include vehicles or any other items that are needed for the deputies. Continuing with enhancements or investments for the city, during the statistical polling, the participants were asked open-ended questions on what they would see the sales tax be used as investments into the city. And as you can see, number one was fixed potholes at 90%. Number two, paved and maintained streets. Mutification was at 89%. Repairing infrastructure, 84%, all the way down to law enforcement services at roughly 80%. So these were questions asked of the participants of the polling, and this was the results back. So now transition, we talked about what the sales tax would be used for. What is actually being discussed tonight? What is being proposed? Our current sales tax is 7.75%. 6%, as we know, goes to the state. 7.75% goes to the county, and that leaves 1% here in Hesperia as local control, and that's where we get the 7.75%. The proposal and the ballot language, the way it spells out for percentage-wise, is not doubling the tax to 15 or 16%. It's increasing it to 8.75%, and the real change is focusing on that extra voter-approved enhancement, doubling the 1% that stays in Hesperia, so it goes from 1% to 2%, giving you a total tax rate of 8.75%. So what does that mean? First, for a general tax, it requires a voter approval of 50% plus one. The effective tax rate would move if the voters approved for it from 7.75% to 8.75%. And the local control monies, and this is based on current year budget, the 1% share is $14.4 million. And if the 2% were enacted, it would be $28.4 million based on this year's budget. And each year would change depending on the allocation since sales tax is variable. So what is the impact to residents? For every $10 of taxable goods purchased, it will increase the cost by 10 cents. However, that 10 cents stays in Hesperia for Hesperia investment. For every $1,000 of taxable goods purchased, that increases $10. Again, that $10 is local controls staying in Hesperia. Essential items are exempt, such as groceries, prescriptions, diapers, and hygiene products. So those are exempt, and those will continue to stay exempt with this enhancement should council approve to put it on the ballot and the voters approve the measure. Now transitioning, we talked a little bit, but focusing on local control. The current tax rate, as I mentioned, is 7.75%, yielding $14.4 million. And that's money that is here in Hesperia, invested in Hesperia. The risk, and there is a risk, is currently the ceiling for a tax is 10% without legislative approval. I know there's talk about increasing that, but right now the focus is 10%. If any other taxing agency, such as the county, were to enact a county-wide sales tax measure, and it gets approved, that would reduce the amount that Hesperia could tax that would reduce the amount that the Hesperia could tax and thereby reduce the local control. So if another taxing agency, such as the county, were to approve a sales tax, that money goes to the county and would not stay in Hesperia, yet Hesperia pays that tax. And again, briefly, the impact that local control is growing the local monies from 14 million to 28 million. So we talked about sales tax. What I want to transition to is the Hesperia all-above approach. What have we looked at elsewhere before we started talking about sales tax? And as most people are aware, in 1988, the city was incorporated with this property tax rate of 1.59%, meaning for every $100 that a property owner paid, the city general fund received $1.60. And in the early 2000s, City of Hesperia negotiated with the county for an enhanced 7% rate along the freeway corridor. So now that $100 will yield $7. In 2018, with the annexation of the fire district, Hesbury was successful in negotiating an additional 1.5% for the citywide property tax share, bringing that 1.59 to 3%. So the city has negotiated over the years to enhance property tax. This is a redistribution of property tax with no impact to the property tax payer. This was a county negotiating, gave up some share, increasing.

Increasing the whole city, that's a lie.

So continuing on, it reduced the county share and increased the Hesperia share. In 2020, the city did a study, commenced a study on looking at new development coming into the city, residential development in particular. And in that study, it determined that annually, each new residential development had a general fund negative impact of $130. And this was based on the amount of revenue and property tax, sales tax and property tax that each household would pay compared to the services that they use, police services, road maintenance, so on and so forth. In order to remedy this, the city enacted community facility districts for road improvement or street maintenance as well as police service. Starting in 21-1 or CFD 21-1 is a residential CFD and any project with four or more units or doors Each house is charged $840 for police services and roads. 22-1, that's an industrial CFD, so each of the large industrial buildings is assessed at .15 or 15 cent square footage CFD. And then lastly, the Silverwood CFD is $400. So each new resident coming in or new development coming in is assisting in paying their fair share, whereas prior to that, it was costing the general fund $130 each year for those developments. The next step in Hesperia's all above approach is looking at fee recovery. In 2024, the council adopted the strategic plan, which identified 11 top strategies, and that one of the top 11 strategies was conduct a regular assessment of approved fees to ensure costs are recovered. And that has been ongoing each year since the approval of the strategic plan, starting in December of 2023. and then annually we'll look at the fees and we bring it back to ensure that any service provided, we're recapturing those costs. So the last thing in this section, I wanted to read this paragraph. The recommended ballot measure represents one component of the city's long-term fiscal strategy, building upon previous efforts to strengthen revenues, recover the cost of services, and reasonably manage expenditures. So looking at expenditures, looking at the revenue, whether it's fees or the property tax, it shows that the sales tax is one of the last strategies being presented to council. So now back to sales tax. The conversation with sales tax really started in 2023. We had a sales tax workshop. We looked at taxes of all types, whether it was TOT, utility tax, and sales tax. In 2025, almost a year ago, we revisited the topic of sales tax, to which the council agreed to continue the conversation. Since that time, two polls were conducted. One of the polls was presented to council during the April-May timeframe, and then I have the results of the poll, which I'll share on the next slide. Two mailers went out to all registered voters in Hesperia, and finally, city staff has conducted three, had three booths at the farmer's market where we're able to have the conversation with Hesperia residents on this very topic. So the second public opinion poll was conducted in June, during the second week of June. And as you can see here, let me back up, the June polling included the elevated gas prices that everybody is paying, as well as the current state of the economy. So this is relatively fresh data. But again, a polling is a snapshot in time. So in June, these are the numbers for June. The initial ballot test, and this is would you support a sales tax, with really no context, came out at 61% approval. And then the second test, where you give all the positive arguments, grew that approval to 67.5%. And finally, the third test, you give all the negative arguments to see how far the approval rating will drop, and it dropped to 61.2%. And what's interesting here is there's a .2% gain on the negative test over the positive test. So the negative test, after hearing all the negative arguments, had more support than the positive test. Of that, the sample size was 488 completed, and it gives you a 4.4% error margin on a 95% confidence rate. You will have an opportunity to...

Excuse me, sir. I'm asking you to let us finish the presentation. If you'd like to do public speaking, please fill out a public comment card. And I'm asking you to be quiet so we can continue on. Thank you.

So now moving into fiscal oversight and accountability. And here, this is how expenditures are reviewed or revenues are reviewed. And it really focuses on the darker square. First, there's six public meetings in which the budget is discussed. It's November for first quarter, February for mid-year. And in both of those, we're looking at the status of the budget as well as planning for the next year's budget. Then in May, there's two budget workshops, one for the operating budget as well as one for the capital budget. And we lay out the plan for the upcoming year as well as finishing the last few months of the current fiscal year. In June, there's two budget adoption meetings, one for the operating budget and then a detailed CIP or capital improvement project budget. Also in April, the city staff presents to the city council the audited financial statements. These are done by certified public accountants where they're making sure that we're following all internal controls and there's no material fraud. And not listed on here are a couple aspects I do want to point out. The city has a financial transparency portal, meaning that any citizen can go in and look at the city's financial data as recent as 24 hours old. It takes 24 hours to come from our financial system into this portal. So if you're looking today, you would be looking at Friday's data. And they can generate any report, look at any expenditure, any revenue coming through. Also, the city has over 20 years of budgets available on its webpage, as well as 20 years of audits. And then the last area is contract control. Just as consent calendar showed, any expenditure project over $50,000 requires the staff bring a staff report to council for approval, and that staff report has to justify the project or contract, as well as identify the appropriate budgeted funds that were adopted by council in June. So now I'm getting close to the end. We have discussion basically next steps. So tonight, July 21st, is the discussion of the ballot language that requires a fourth vote. If approved, that language would be included in the October 2026 ballot. And then the election would occur on November 3rd, 2026, where all residents would be able to vote on the measure. So lastly, tonight's action, three main items will occur. One, a vote on the ballot measure does not increase the tax. As I said in the beginning, it does not increase the tax tonight. That goes with the number two, it places it before the voters. The voters have the ultimate say. Number three, it's a little bit redundant, but the Hesperia residents, such as myself, will be able to participate in the conversation on whether the enhancement should go forward. So with that, that concludes the presentation on the sales tax itself. I'm going to turn the presentation over to Pam, who will speak to the legal aspects.

Stop interrupting this meeting. We have business to conduct. If you interrupt again, I'm going to ask the deputies to remove you from this meeting.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council, and thank you, Casey, for the very thorough presentation. I would like to continue to discuss the legal issues about this sales tax measure. And if you've seen your staff report, currently the sales tax rate in the city of Hesperia is at 7.75. And it indicates that of the 25 cities in San Bernardino County, 12 of them have already adopted a transactions and use tax that's being considered tonight. That leaves the remaining 13 that have not. But if you look at your list for those that do currently have a 7.75% sales tax rate, There are several cities on that list that are putting on their ballot in the upcoming November election a 1% sales tax, and that would include Adelanto, Chino Hills, Grand Terrace, Highland, Loma Linda. At least, and the other ones are potentially maybe doing so as well if they have not already. So we would be in the very minority if this does not get put on the sales tax measure in the November of 2026 election. The reason a lot of cities are doing this at this time is because a lot of the infrastructure needs are coming at a head where a lot of existing infrastructure in several of the cities, not in just the county, but all over the state have reached their end of life cycle and do need to be replaced. A lot of the infrastructure here in the city is in the same position. And in fact, what casey had presented and what a lot of the community members have already experienced is that the infrastructure is not there to begin with and that is what a potential sales tax measure would be going towards with a sales tax measure again it does require two-thirds of the city council to place it onto the ballot for november of 2026 that means Four of the five council members need to vote in favor of putting the measure on the ballot in November. Again, what that does not mean is that does not mean that you are in favor of a tax. It does not mean you are not in favor of tax. What it means is simply that you are putting this measure to the voters for them to decide and for them to exercise their voice as part of the democratic process. That is what is up for consideration today. As a prior council member had stated in prior council meetings, this is not something that you are necessarily in favor of, but you are going to let the voters provide their opinion, and exercise their vote. Whether the polling results are accurate or not, you may be able to see that if this goes up on the ballot in November. And If the measure does get put on the ballot, it is for a one cent sales tax that will bring in an estimated 15 million on an annual basis to do what the city currently needs. And you heard the public speakers tonight about some infrastructure needs and desires out there for the community. It is a general tax, which means it needs a majority to pass, that's 50% plus one, and it can be utilized for any general essential services of the city. That will be up to the city council to consider. If you want to specify where the tax is going to go, that would be a special tax and would require two thirds voter approval. But this is a general tax which would only require 50% plus one. The council can then earmark an annual basis what to do with the money and the funds that come in and what expenditures it wants to prioritize that can be done via resolution and you as a council can decide what priorities you want to really implement as part of your strategic plan and we can bring that resolution back if you decide to do that. And of course, you can make your priorities known via majority, or you can indicate in the resolution that you want a super majority for adoption. But I'd be happy to answer any additional questions you have on that. But I did want to point that out, that it is a general tax, but it can certainly be earmarked on an annual basis by city council consideration and approval. I think, I don't know if it was included as part of the presentation, but generally speaking, when you look at the amount of taxes that are being collected, roughly half of that, 50%, typically comes from those that live outside of the city. So they are contributing to the wear and tear of the streets that they're using when they come shop here. That's their fair share of contributing to what services the city provides and in that way a sales tax does allocate funds for people to use that don't necessarily live in the city because we all know that people shop in different cities and the cities that they don't live in. And that's a way of outsiders contributing to the wear and tear of the infrastructure needs that the city has. If you break this down, 50% of the $15 million being provided by residents outside of the city, that's roughly $7.5 million, which means roughly the other 7.5 is paid for by residents. And on a per resident basis, that boils down to $73 a year. a little more than six dollars a month. So if you think about that, it's six dollars a month to pave your roads. Is that worth the investment or not? So in terms of what you're doing tonight, if you choose to put this on, there will be a timeline with respect to an impartial analysis that needs to be written as well as arguments in favor of a sales tax measure and arguments against a sales tax measure, those are included in the resolution. Arguments in favor and arguments opposed would be the deadline to, if you choose to put this on the ballot, it would be by August 17th. And then rebuttal arguments would be due August 21st. And after that, What the city council can and cannot do is basically provide information to residents. The city cannot advocate or take a position for or against the measure if this does get adopted and put on the ballot. We will take a neutral position to provide information to residents and community members.

Can I ask a question? Yes, please.

Go ahead. Pam, I have a couple questions on that. As far as not taking a position that would only be applicable after the vote, so I can- kind of say my disdain or support of beforehand?

You can certainly provide your opinion as to whether or not you are in favor, not in favor, and as well as whether you want to put this on the ballot for or against. And even if this does get placed on the ballot for November, you as an individual and a citizen can certainly make your opinion known. But in your official capacity, to take a position one way or the other, there is a limitation on what you as council members can do in your official capacity to advocate for or against a measure, whether it's a sales tax measure or any other type of ballot measure.

Makes sense. And then my other question for you is the wording, if this does get put on a ballot, who decides the wording of that ultimately?

Currently, the wording of the proposed ballot measure is included in the resolution, and that ballot question is under Section 3 of the resolution. It's in that box, and that's what will be included on the ballot if you choose to approve this for November.

So that wording has already been approved?

Well, you can change it, but that is the suggested wording to take a neutral position on the that's been written by the consultants and approved by our office.

I would like to add that that wording has been tested with the statistical polling both times, that exact ballot language. And so the last polling was at 61% or 61.1% approval.

Thank you.

Do we have any additional council comments? Thank you. I will open up the public hearing at 7.52. And we have some public speakers. Anthony Archuleta, please.

Archuleta, I have been a born resident of Hesperia, California since 1983. I have spoken at multiple city council memberships here in the high desert, whether it includes NGO money or money looking for your city while it's growing. It almost seems like the city's not looking into money from the government to help grow the city. which is very disturbing to me. I had to go have the same talk with the city of Victorville looking for that Yucca Loma money. Had the same talk with the city of Victorville looking for their homeless money that the city helped build in the state of California. And why isn't the state of California promoting the homeless center in the city of Victorville as a prodigy to the state of California for homelessness? It's not. And you all know why. And if everybody back here decides to go do their homework, they'll find out why. I helped uncover what was going on from LA. And so the same conversation that I'm gonna have with the city of Victorville is the same conversation that I'm gonna have with you. What is the median income to the people here in Asperia? Because I didn't see that up there. Please tell me. You're the man that made the statistics. You don't got an answer, do you? But that answer should be up here. For every citizen that is in the city of Asperia of the median income, Because at the point you decide to make a sales tax onto these people's proposition of how much money they make, you don't realize how much money you make. I'm going to break this down like I did at the city of Victorville, all right? This was in 2009. Actually, we're in 2000, what, 2016 now? Man, do you know what the median income is here in the city of Vesperia? Please, any of the city council? The man that made the statistics, please tell me. None of you can give me a statistical proposition of what the city annual median income is. Do you know what that is? Anybody here in this room? No, we don't. It's $45,000 freaking dollars a year. Do you know how much out of that $45,000 a year those people have to pay to go drive down the hill? Or pay to go to Lancaster? Or pay to go to Fort Irwin, Barstow, or Edwards? Because 80% of this workforce in this city has to drive to go to work. Not only is the state putting an 11% sales tax on us, they're putting a gas tax on us. And you're going to add another percent on us? Wake up. At what point are you going to ask the state for money? At what point are you going to ask an NGO to wake up in the city of Asperia? The city council has that power to create an NGO. Please tell me where the community goes to work out. I'll tell you, the Novak Center. You know how far kids have to drive to the Novak Center? To have a YMCA center to go work out? Do you know parents don't want to take their kids to the Novak Center? Do you know Mrs. Novak and Mr. Novak from Victorville, California would be ashamed of that? That was the whole point of the Novak Center. So that children could get to a center where we could grow. And now, you're taking away. More and more as the state keeps taking more and more. And here we are in a precipice of just keep taxing, it's all gonna work out. No, let's have financial fiscal responsibility. You know what that means? The median income of the city should be the median income of the city manager, should be the median income of everybody on this council because that's what you deserve. Our city is only made off the people that create it. And if we don't have the money to create the city, how do you expect us to put money in the city? We can't. We can't go out and eat. We can't go out to do sports. We can't allow our children to do the things they need to do if you guys keep taxing. What needs to happen? the city needs to come together we need to make programs like cities used to we need to ask the city to ask the state for these programs that we used to have but you guys keep taking all these programs away from us and then you have all these kids running amok creating crime creating all these things because they got nowhere to go And then you're talking about another 1% sales tax. Great, it's not much. It isn't much. But how much is it on the working class family?

Thank you very much. Robert Davey.

It's a tough act to follow. Well done. A year ago, when this was proposed, I came up here and I said I'm in favor of this tax with the caveat that it goes to Rose and it goes to public safety, not realizing that I was going to take a 67% vote. So I want to go on public record today and clarify that I'm 100% opposed to it. Because you can't earmark it. We're at the mercy of the council. This council, as it's now constituted, or any council moving forward, as it's reconstituted, you can spend it as you wish. Okay, so first off, $217,000, you know what that would have done for the animal shelter, for the underserved in this community? Go out on a Saturday morning and look at the people lined up at our food banks. It's sad. I was in that position the last two years. My wife's medicine was $2,000 a month, not covered by Medicare, out of pocket. People are making decisions between food and medicine. There's a lot of people in this city that are going hungry, seniors, underserved, children. They're out there. Just look at our food banks. That money could have gone a long ways to do a lot of different things. We've got to stop wasting the money that we do have, like I talked before. You know, throwing a chip seal on this bad money. We've got to be better stewards of the money that we do have. That's bad timing. We just had a gas tax, 2.5%, on July 1st. That's going on the backs of all residents who happen to have gas cars. So another thing on the wording, if you do vote it in, and I assume you're going to, This one cent, 1%, is very deceiving. You're trying to trick the people. One cent tax is not equal 1%. One cent on what? One cent on a dollar? Yeah, that's 1%. One cent on 100? One cent on 1,000? So at the very least, take that one cent out so people are not going to be confused on what this tax really is. So anyhow, 100% against it because you would have to have a special tax would be 67% affirmative. Even Apple Valley, when they approved theirs a year ago, got 62% approval. The sad reality is if you put it on the ballot, people probably will approve it because they think they're going to wake up the next day and the roads are going to be repaired. That's not necessarily going to be the case. So let's stop wasting money. Bad road repairs. $32,000 on traffic control wraps? You know? And most of them are not even, if you want to have an art where you bring the people in, let's have their art and give them awards, great. But do we have to spend all that money on traffic control wraps? A lot of them don't look well anyway. If you want to look at a traffic control wrap that's a job gone wrong, go to 11th and Main by Flagstar. Take a look at that one. There's just a lot of people that this money could have been so much better spent on that survey. 1% may not seem like a lot, but it's a deterrent to businesses. It's going to be on the backs of the people that just can't afford it. Like he said, the median income is not that high in Hesperia. Why do you think we don't have a Whole Foods? Why do you think we don't have a Trader Joe's? Because our median income won't support it. We'd love to have those two stores up here, but they won't come. So anyhow, just so the clarification, I have a flip-flop. Last year was important on the caveat, roads and public safety. Well, the realization that's not guaranteed, 100% against it. Thank you.

Kim Jones, please.

I know this vote is what you're going to do is just to put it on the ballot and that's what we're supposed to be talking about. I'm not for that. And I wasn't for the study and the money that was used for the study. I mean, I pay taxes. I'm on Social Security. So you want folks want to know what it's like? Try living on Social Security as your only income. I worked minimum wage driving a bus all my life until I got hurt. So my Social Security is not very big. And I know what it is to pay taxes. I know gasoline taxes. I'm driving the same dadgum vehicle. I've had it for 49 years. So I know what the gas taxes is. It won't run on anything but premium. I know it has nothing to do with what this is. So I understand what these other folks are talking about. All the different taxes this state and all this takes out. Several years ago, when the fire department was contracted out, I was involved in one of the candidates running, and I got copies of all the candidate statements. Funny one in there. We have voted, or we have paved 10,000 potholes in one year. That was from a former city council candidate. So I know all about all this stuff. I understand all that, you know, that you folks want to get a different income. But everything's being taxed. Ed Gummett, you go into the thrift store. That stuff's already been taxed. And it's still being taxed unless it's something like the Salvation Army, Leisure League. You go over there, you've got to pay taxes. You go to the feed store or the tractor supplier or even the grocery store or Walmart to buy dog food, cat food, or any of this stuff. That's being taxed. Those of us that have animals, we have to pay taxes to feed them. Unless you're raising an animal to consume them, which I would never do. You know, so I'm just not for another tax. Please, I know what you're trying to do to get an income. And the state is wasting so much money. The big government in Washington, they're wasting so much money. They're giving all these weird programs and all these weird... Things, giving money to other countries and stuff like that. Why doesn't it stay here to help some of our people? We got a lot of people that are in needs. We got a lot of poor people. We got people over in the Appalachian Mountains that are living in shacks. I mean, goodness. Why give it around to everybody else? Keep it here. But please don't put this on the ballot, though I think you're going to do it. And if you do put it on the ballot, I'm voting no. Thank you for your valuable time.

Elbow glare, please.

Hello, Council. I'm Al Vogler. In any presentation like this, it concerns me more what hasn't been said as compared to what has been said and what I'm going to say. The importance of the City of Hesperia's desire to suppress double the sales tax income information is evident on the agenda. The very last item, number 15, is to increase sales taxes. Placing it with such low importance has been done in the past as it was in December 2025 when the sales tax was being discussed and during the holidays when taxpayers were occupied with other matters. Originally there was posted, I believe, an item for the sales tax on 7-7-26. That meeting was canceled with no explanation. Of course, that meant one less meeting during which the council and the city manager did not have to discuss and explain the tax. We are baffled. Which is it? Is it a sales tax or a transactions in use tax, TUT, or a general tax? In various documents, you referred all three. You have also referred to the TUT as being the one cent TUT. One cent based upon what dollar amount? You don't say what that relates to. Yes, I have the documents. You don't mention it. Your one cent TUT amounts to 14 plus million dollars. Even referring to the one cent will confuse some voters. The Hesperia Council and the manager could easily have asked for a one quarter or one half percent increase, but they didn't. Historically, the same team attempted to pass a tax on 200 parcels for approximately $600 each parcel each year, but they were advised that the issue would fail, so they dropped the attempt. Now they are advising a much larger tax amounting to 14 plus million a year instead of the significantly smaller parcel tax of 120,000 a year. Needless to say, my thoughts about the documents are that they are designed to confuse and discourage voters from participating in any election. A TED tax has disadvantages. It places a repressive, regressive burden on low-income households as they spend a significantly larger portion of their income on the taxes compared to high-income learners. The use tax applied on goods applies to goods, not services. As economies rely more on services, the TUT base erodes. For those high-income city employees who suggest the TUT, the suggested tax will have very little impact. TUT will have other consequences. As consumers are seeking friendlier shopping venues, it will gravitate to other areas. Consider this, how many more liquor outlets, vape tobacco stores, and car washes do we need? Families thinking of moving to Hesperia are discouraged. The confidence of the taxpayers has been eroded in part by thoughtless presentations of city business taxes and what the city council and the manager have allowed to be placed in writing. The confidence further eroded when the mayor insisted on earlier city council meetings, an unfriendly move to working commuters trying to drive home on I-15. How will they ever attend Hesperia City Council meetings? In question is the expense also to the city when real estate that is not needed or expenditures decorating city streets are done. The first tax list had five or six towns and cities who have the 8.75% sales tax rate to demonstrate why Hesperia needs 8.75 also. The latest list has 11 and has 12 towns and cities with 7.75%. Hesperia did not reveal, however, that the state of California has 137 counties, towns, and cities that have a 7.75% sales and use tax rate or less, less than 7.75%. We asked the Hesbury City Council to vote no to place the tax resolution measure on the ballot. We suggest to any council member with liberal leanings that the TUT tax will hurt low income families the most. The state that could support streets You state that the tax could support streets and fixed potholes. That is the problem. Could support is no assurance of anything. You failed to mention the tax could support public safety. Thank you. Your time is up, Mr. Vogler. Thank you.

Sophie Steno, please.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council and staff, legal. I wrote a letter, so I'll just highlight the brief points and then dive into other matters. I'm writing formally to log my opposition to the proposed measure to place a 1% sales tax increase in the November ballot. The highlights would be to Find other alternatives by stop compounding the financial burden of rising city fees. Prevent disproportionate hardship on Hesperia families, particularly those low income or average income. And protect local businesses from competitive disadvantage. And lastly, demand fiscal accountability and internal restructuring first. So I did a little research with regards to ever increasing fees. It seems that municipalities and governments find loopholes and ways to, when they can't tax people, they just increase fees. From 2024 to 2025, our business license fees increased by over 40%. Went from $117 annually to now $157 in 2025, and now $164. What are the fees are increasing at such a dramatic rate that the city is gaining benefits from? Other measures that have passed before and been brought to the people to vote, like Measure M, have severely put a restraint on potential new development in the city of Hesperia. Particularly in the last years, the denial of extending track maps deadlines and extending their deadlines has put the city in many major lawsuits. So our tax dollars are going to fund those lawsuit fights. where they could have been bringing in revenue and more development, more housing as critically needed to the city of Hesperia. Although I value all of our public safety personnel, I did a little research and with Casey's numbers, I am a little confused. So we have 62 sworn officers in the city of Hesperia today, 57 unsworn members, We have a total of $57 million of our general fund, of which 25% goes to support our police. But yet the captain says that only seven officers out of the sworn 62 are ever on duty. At most, policing our streets. Well, that would be, if you have three shifts a day, that'd be 24 officers. What are the other officers doing? If I take a little math, and I'm a little, I probably need some help from Casey. If we spend 53% of our general fund on police alone, that equates to Let's say we're spending $25 million a year right now. That equals to $113,000 per police staff annually. But yet out of 62 sworn officers, we only have 21 working in a day across three shifts. What are the other officers doing? I did a little comparison with Newport Beach. budget, they have a total of 149 sworn deputies and 84 sworn, unsworn personnel supporting police activities. They do pay their police officers more on average. A total of See, I did my math here. They do pay them more. So I don't want to beat up on the police because I know they're very important. But if you take a... Our total resident numbers are 102,605 people. If we have 62 sworn officers, that's only one officer per 1,655 people. So I'm not sure why we're seeing that we're providing one officer per 1,000. So if there are little discrepancies in just this budget item, what other discrepancies are there? Thank you.

Ella Rogers, please.

Yes, my name is Jill Rogers and I'm a resident of this city and I'm very concerned about the mathematics that's going on. Now I'm an English teacher, I'm not a math person. However, I do realize that I'm older than all of you up here and most of you weren't even born when I was still in school and starting teaching. The thing about this is that most of our population do not realize what a zero-based budget is. That's number one. Number two, we have more consultants in this city than anybody else here. What's up with that? We pay our employees really good money. You guys work hard. I know what it is to be on. I was on school board for 12 and a half years. I know what you have to go through. I understand. However, most of our population cannot afford to even live any longer. The housing has doubled up. They have three and four families per house. They don't get to eat the food that everybody else eats. They have to eat the lowest and lowest and not name brand food because they don't have the money to do so because the taxes are higher than anything on everything that we have. Now that's nationwide. And we're responsible for that because we're the citizens of the United States. But we're supposed to be taking care of each other. I don't see that happening, period. I don't see the people out there working to take care of the population in our town. My uncle was on the very first board up here, Percy Bacher. You may have seen his name on a building or two around here. And you may have seen my name on a building or two around here, but that's not why I'm here. I'm here because we can't afford what's going on. We can't afford another tax. We need to cut some of this extra spending, and I believe you can do it if you want to. I believe you can sit down and make some cuts that are appropriate. and let everybody do their job instead of just, well, we've got a consultant for this, and we've got a consultant for that, but we pay you $98,000 a year, and we're going to pay a consultant $178,000. I know how that goes. I've sat on these boards long enough. But you all need to get your act together because we can't afford it. I'm not going to be here forever. And we do need our police. And we do need to take care of our children. And we do need to make sure that we have food for everybody that's edible. Go in a grocery store sometime and just stand around and look and see what some of the older population is buying to eat. Take a look. Not like my refrigerator. My refrigerator has some steaks in it. And it has some good... food in there. But not everybody has that. And I am really appalled that you all would and are doing such a poor job of taking care of our city. I know every one of you all up here. And you, I've known since you was a baby. And Bridget, you too. I've known you forever and ever. Amen. And Rachel, I've known you for a long time, too. I think you all are doing a poor job of what you're doing. I really do. And I think this city deserves better than that. And I think we could do it if we really opened up. And what is all this about? Put it in there if you're going to have roads. Say roads. That money is going to go for roads. If it's going to go to help our poor population, put it in there for crying out loud. What's wrong with you people? I mean, I'm through. I thank you for your time. I know that you guys have work that you can do. I know that all of you sitting up there have pretty good brains, but you're not using them, guys. Thank you all. Have a best day. Chuck Wolf, please.

Chuck Wolf.

All right, folks, it's about time we rip the mask off this. How do you say non-transparency? Okay, first of all, that that survey that was taken, we need to examine that guy's background and his credentials. At the bottom of some of these things, you said there was three CPAs. Who are they? I wanna know. Who are the certified public accounts that approve these numbers? Number two is that you're looking for a general, let's say a general vote that'll only take what, 50% plus one vote. That's pretty easy. Okay, I've been promised roads. I've been promised curbing. I've been promised streetlights, sidewalks, and even an equestrian path. I've been here since 1982. Still don't have them, folks. Okay? Plus, I also run another business in this area. I've been here for 42 years. So when it comes to us being fiscally responsible... I think I can call you to question on that. You people are necessary. You're our leaders. But you're not leading. You're getting us down the road of raising our sales tax. And the fact is, a gentleman just gave you the statistics on the mean income. We're below the poverty level, folks. Have you looked at that? We're done. If you're going to look and spend money in this town, look at it with some... Well, first of all, look at it with, do we need it? And that's one thing we should do, is on this proposal, make it more specific. And if you haven't got it done... And we can hold you to it. The other thing, too, is I've never seen a sales tax or any tax in this state, and maybe we can be the first, to have a sunset to it. If you need the money, how long do you need the money? What are you going to spend it for? That's what we need to do. We deserve some accountability out here in the gallery. We're asking you for it. We're asking for some better leadership. Thank you.

Do we have any remote speakers regarding this item? No remote speakers. Thank you. Do we have any council comment? Any council comment?

All right. I will go ahead. If y'all want someone to blame, I propose this agenda item. I'm a working poor person. I know I'm put on a suit and I get up here and I have a role that I play, but my net income without my city council stipend and my part-time job as an Uber driver, I net $37,248

I live paycheck to paycheck.

I am not wealthy. I don't own a business. I don't have any special interests. I rent a room from my mom and my sister in our generational home that was left to us by our grandfather who came here from Mexico and bought 10 homes when he worked as a railroad engineer and invested in real estate. I come from very humble backgrounds. It is by a fluke of statistics that I am here in this seat. But while I'm here, I want to do a decent job. In that decent job, I am also now just obtained my master's in public administration. I use the numbers of this city to work on my projects. The reason why I agendize this item is because I believe that it's our only hope right now based on the decisions that have been made to this point, not to speak any ill about my colleagues on the council. They've done a good job up to this point. Moving forward or essentially going to run out of money. If we were a family, every Christmas is getting smaller and smaller every year. So, and if we were to cut back, those Christmases, those Thanksgivings, those birthdays, are all getting smaller, and the family gets less and less. Can I have your opportunity to speak?

Council Member Cho is speaking. Can I rebuttal that speech? No.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. So the Census Bureau has a per capita income of about $30,000 per resident in the city of Hesperia. The average medium income in the city of Hesperia is $72,160. What's the average salary of an employee?

Okay, you have had your opportunity to speak. It's Mr. Ochoa right now that is speaking. I'm asking you to be considerate and allow him to speak. If not, I'm going to ask you to leave the council chambers or have you removed.

Thank you very much. Not wrong, because

While I have the opportunity, while I have the opportunity, I'm going to close the public hearing at 826.

Can you please remove this gentleman so we can continue on with our business?

Hey, we are conducting business. I'm asking the public. We're going to take a five-minute recess. We are taking...

I didn't come into this seat to get reelected. I came here to do a job. If this idea, which is my idea, which is what I agendized, gets me recalled or voted out of office, that's fine. I'll walk away knowing I did and brought the best idea I could bring to the table. It may not be the most popular idea. but it's the one I think will do the best good for our city over time. What we leave to generations to come, our children, our grandchildren, I'm raising my family here, my mom's retired here, and wherever my mom is, that's where home is. And I just want to make sure my mom has safe streets to drive on, good police response time if she needs to call the police or the paramedics, and fun things for our kids to do. That's what I'm trying to do. I think that's what we're all trying to do. I think that's what everyone in the community is trying to do. I see the faces that go to all of these special events, the fundraisers, the church events, and we all are giving people here in the city of Hesperia. I see it in us. Yes, we can do it together. It's been close to 40 years. I think we've exhausted the ideas. That's all I'm saying. That we've gotten as creative as we could get with the resources that we actually have. And they are diminishing year over year. The only way I can see a path forward is through this. And maybe I'm wrong. And maybe a future council changes it. Maybe it doesn't go past this point tonight. I don't know. But this is the best I could do. This is just my idea. It is a simple idea. It is metrical. It is business, governmental business. Yes, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to the public. This is a bandaid on a much bigger problem that we have. It's $150 billion. It is not the fix. It is just a solution for today. I also just want to point out that I understand that our city is impacted by the economy. I know that. Again, I net $37,000, less than what Mr. Archuleta proposed as the medium income for the city of Hesperia. So I understand what it's like to pinch a penny. to make Christmas happen for two kids, to birthdays, nieces. I know what it's like. It's hard. Life is hard right now. I can see how one side can say double this, double that. These numbers aren't correct. I get it. I see that. Part of this involves a little bit of trust in the democratic process. If you don't like the job we're doing, you can fire us. If we mess up and mishandle this opportunity, you can fire us. If it doesn't work out, run. I encourage people, every time I speak with young people, older people, people my age, get involved. Come to your council meetings. Go to your special district meetings. Go to your school board meetings and get involved and learn. There was a discrepancy that was seen by a citizen here tonight involving our personnel. Take that deep dive. Look at it. Ask the questions. And I know with confidence, with confidence, because I've gotten to know a lot of the staff members here, I've gotten to know my council members here, that we are doing the best we can with our due diligence. Is it perfect? No, we're all human. We all make mistakes. Again, that's where the safety guards in our democracy and our constitution that we the people can choose who does this periodically. So that being said, look, I'm just a guy that moved here because I couldn't afford to live where I was born. And here I am. So I encourage you to get involved and I encourage you to participate and continue asking questions. Thank you.

Any additional council comments? Council Member Gregg, please.

All right, I think everybody up here knows I'm pretty into speaking and opinionated on almost every agenda item, so I won't stop that here. You know, what's difficult for me is that this is really a crossroads moment. I am in no way in favor of a tax. Ms. Jones pointed it out flawlessly. Whenever you buy something that is already paid tax on, you're taxed again. Where does it end? I guess that's my question to this. Does this end at a 1% or are we back on the table like Victorville was trying to do, asking for another 1% from their residents? Personally, I'm going to vote no on this if it does get to the ballot. And this is where I'm talking about that crossroads. I'm up here to represent not just one side of this argument within the district or the city as a whole that we all try to take care of. But whenever we continuously get taxed, on and on again it never ends i mean chris you just said that you couldn't afford to live in a city that you were born in you want to take a while guess why probably taxes is a big player into that you know so that's one aspect of it the other aspect of it is is look i'm guilty i shop in apple valley you know why because hesperia doesn't have a home depot I can't get everything that I need for my home at Ace, so I have to go shop in Apple Valley for those items. So many of us do it. They're at 8.75%, so we're all guilty of it. How many of us... take that into a large account of our spending habits. I mean, I buy all my gas in Hesperia, usually, unless I'm on a road trip. But do I sit there and look at the tax of that at that moment? Or instead of putting $40 or $45 in there, do I say, well, I need to put $50 now? No, I usually just put what I would in the city anyway. It's a really difficult decision to sit up here and try to propose something to be put on the ballot, and at the same time, knowing that it's not me voting one way or another to have it in the diplomatic process of everything, because again, I'll be a staunch proponent of No tax on this every day. I think I've said that from day one of my Council stuff up here. So what do we do? I guess that's the question to my colleagues is do we send it out to the voters? For them to make that decision and the hope would. My hope would be that it would be voted down. Does it come back up later on? I mean, each of us are going to have our own own individual individualized opinions on this. But maybe a question for Pam is that if the vote, if this does go out to the voters and they vote no on it. Does that pretty much stop the this from going out to them for any meaningful amount of time again? Or is this something that can continuously every election be brought back up depending on who the Council is?

It certainly can be brought back again based on the needs of the city and changing circumstances. But if it's consistently clear that it's going to be voted down, it's more likely than not that a future council would likely not put it on the ballot. But I'll say that there are a lot of cities out there that are currently facing, you know, insurance issues and legal settlements or, you know, they're just competing with the state and the county. And before the state takes it and before the county takes it, they'd rather say, I'm going to let's keep it for the city, because if we're going to pay taxes, we'd rather pay it to the city than to the county and to the state, because we know that if we pay it to them, it's going to disappear. So it really is dependent on the circumstance of each individual city. But to answer your question, yes, it can come back. But if it's consistently voted down, it is more likely than not that a council in the future would not want to bring it back.

Right, because they'd be voted out. So there is those checks and balances in place. And, folks, I'm here to tell you that we are in dire straits within the city. There's really no doubt about that. We allocate, what's our budget for roads every year? It's minuscule in the amount of roads that we actually have to pave within the city. Is that an excuse? No, but people mention that, well, you need to cut more and live within your means more. They've done it, folks. We've been doing this, I've been doing this for the last eight years. And staff has made cuts. We see that. Our roads, they're not getting paved as quickly as they were before. Our folks in the back, they're not getting additional support because the money's just not there. Now, Mr. Davies brought up the fact that if we were able to earmark this for those specific things, he would have been for it, or he was for it at the time, right? That's my major concern, is that if this money isn't earmarked, what happens if you get a bad council up here that just decides to spend money frivolously? Well, we have a city manager as a stopgap. Rachel has done a phenomenal job at being that stopgap. She has no problem telling us, at least telling me, like, hey, that's not a great idea, Cameron. So I have that confidence in the city manager now. How do you secure that for the long term, though, right? Well, the voters. Potential resolutions to where it would take... at least a super majority of the council to change how those monies are being allocated. This goes into our general fund. Right off the top of that, I know that our folks in the back are going to get a little bit more resources that they need because that's where their funding comes out of directly. Fifty-three percent of our budget is what Council has allocated to that originally. Well, if we're adding an additional $14 million to our general fund, not to say that that money will stay there, but a big portion of it will, and then allocate it over to the street funds and everything else. Everything is very transparent through our financial team. It's all online. But it's really going to take the community coming together, speaking up, if they start seeing things are going astray. So I'm curious to hear what my colleagues have to say on this because right now I'm a little torn of which direction this proceeds down.

Yeah, I'll comment on it. I think we were all voted in to make the hard decisions. And I think both Cameron and Chris pointed out some really impactful things. I am in alignment with Cameron. I don't support personally a new tax. But I also look at what the city staff does and how hell lean they run this city. There's really nothing left to cut. You saw it, there's a $2 million deficit coming, and that worries me. And I think maybe I don't make it another two years, maybe Cameron and Bridget and Allison don't make it past this year, right? I don't know. So it's difficult to sit up here and tell you guys, like, listen, I don't support this tax, but at the same time, I have to look at public safety in this city. I have to look at roads. I think our road budget annually for potholes and everything is $2 million, correct?

Not including CIP projects, the annual street improvement project are $2 million, and there's other maintenance monies budgeted on top of that.

Right, and how many roads do we have to repair?

We have about 500 miles of paved roads and about 40 miles of dirt roads.

Okay, so my next question would be, and how much does it cost to pave one mile of road?

The cost to pave an arterial in the city is about $1.25 million for an arterial road. Per mile? Per mile. So the cost to pave an interior road, a residential street, we would get more than a mile for that cost. Right.

So that in itself worries me. We're just falling further and further behind. But do we put that on the backs of our residents? I struggle with that. I'll be honest. I've flip-flopped back and forth in my head based on who I've talked to, city staff, my colleagues, whoever in the community. I've kind of flip-flopped back in my head, and I'm still struggling with it right now. But ultimately, I think that we each... We're given a mandate to make the difficult decisions, whether they're liked by all, liked by none, liked by everyone. And I think we have to look at How do we make this city safer in potholes? How do we make this city safer with public safety? And how do we manage the resources that we have going forward? Looking down the line, a city council 20 years ago wasn't gonna know what we were gonna do. And we're not gonna know what a city council is gonna do in 20 years. And I don't know that it's my responsibility to worry about that city council in 20 years. As much as I would say it is my responsibility as a resident here in 20 years, but if I'm not on the city council, it's my responsibility to vote the city council in that's going to manage this city correctly. And it's your guys' responsibility. If this sales tax does make it to the ballot and it goes through, it's your guys' responsibility to tell us if we're doing a good job with it or not. Also, it's difficult. So with that, I'll leave it at that.

I guess it's my turn. I'm going to agree with my council members up here. This is a hard decision. I personally don't think it's the right time to do this. But then on the other side, I think it is the only time that we can do this because our governor is trying to put in... Governors trying to put in another 2% sales tax on other areas in California It's hard we had just had a 2.2 cent gasoline tax that That was implemented on July 1st You know, we're a commuter town it's hard I Making these decisions. To put this on the ballot. To go out to the citizens to vote. I myself have flip flopped. I don't think it's the right time. It needs to be done all of it. But in the end. If we put this on the ballot, it's up to you guys. To vote. How you want to vote? Yes or no. and I yield.

Thank you and everything has been said. I agree with everyone sitting at this dais. Unfortunately, we are. We've been put up here and we are put in the position that we have to make these decisions and it sucks. I struggle with this. I know many that are on a limited income, including myself, And it's hard. It's very hard. Groceries used to be $50 a bag. Now I cannot walk out of the store less than $150, $200. And that's buying fresh fruits and vegetables. That's not buying ice cream cookies. Those are treats at our house anymore. But the storm that we had in December, we had to pull out of our reserves in order to make the road repairs correct.

Yes, that's correct.

And interestingly enough, we applied for FEMA funding and were denied because we did not have enough significant damage, correct?

They said we had enough in savings to be able to cover that cost.

So there you have it. So I've heard go after the state. We have gone after the state. The state ties our hands. Almost every decision we make at this dais, the state comes in and ties our hands. There's mandates that we have to implement. We don't get funding for that. we don't get funding for that our staff is we're lean lean lean our staff has always been lean since the time i've been on council and cameron says council member greg i'm sorry i've known him forever it's hard to change over but Our staff does a good job. Everybody's saying, fix your budget, fix your budget. Our budget cannot be fixed any more than what it already is. We have the tightest budget. It's hard to work within our limits, and I'm very proud of Rachel and her staff that do work within the budgeted limits. We don't go over budget. We stick to our budget. So I don't have anything further to say. I appreciate the public comments. Some of them got a little out of hand, and I apologize to the audience for that. But if nothing further, I don't have anything further. Any further comments? Thank you. Then we will take a vote. I don't, we don't have our voting buttons.

Is there a motion?

A motion, oh, sorry. A motion by Council Member Gregg, a second by, I mean Ochoa, and a second by myself. Can we have a vote, please? Okay, moving on to council member comments. Can we start with council member Lee, please?

All right. On 7-20, I attended my VVTA board meeting, the first one with our new CEO, Rod Goldman. It went very well and smooth. On the 14th of July, I attended the 10-year anniversary ribbon-cutting for the Second Chance Food Bank, food donations from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was an amazing event. Chris was there with me, and that's an amazing, amazing event. Facility and will for the second chance food bank there. They're just a wonderful organization Don't forget we have national night out at Civic Plaza Park on the 4th Which means our meeting will start at 3 in the afternoon as it always does on national night out I also want to say that for as long as I have been on the council I The first meeting in January and the first meeting in July have always been dark. So the meeting has not been canceled, but it's always been that way since I've been on the council, and this is my fourth year. I've been to the movies in the park on the 11th and the 18th here at Civic Plaza Park. This Saturday evening is the last one of those. And to Ms. Rogers, our city has an app that you can report potholes to. I have used the app myself. I took a picture and sent it in on a Saturday afternoon. And by Sunday evening, that same pothole was filled. I did have something else. I can't find it. I guess I don't need to mention that because he's not here any longer. He was kicked out. I will end with, if you want a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things. I want to thank our staff for all of their hard work that has been done with this agenda and everything that has gone into, especially this ballot measure. Tough decisions. It's tough decisions. So, and the people in the back, thank you very much to that. I yield.

Council Member Gregg, please.

All right. First, I just want to congratulate Ruby again. Amazing staffer within the city. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to our city. I do want to... the water leaks within the city, they do keep coming up. I'm understanding that those funds aren't coming from the general fund, that should be the water fund. Is there any way that we can get a report at our next council meeting on how many line breaks there were and how many have been repaired between the months of May and July. Just wanted to make sure that we're, I know that staff is over inundated with them throughout the city folks and they do get to them as fast as possible. This will give us a metric to work off of there and see what we can do and try to shuffle some stuff around if we can try to. Regarding the ballot initiative, I truly believe that there's more to be done in order to get funding from the state, the feds, and things like that. Our staff really are working within a very tight margin with this stuff. But for me, enough is enough. And I know that our residents, at least majority of them, share that same position. I couldn't consciously live with myself knowing that it would be perpetuating the same thing over and over and over again. We know what would happen if it goes out to the ballot. It probably would get approved by Congress. the genius voters of California that love to tax themselves year over year, election over election. This was an opportunity to maybe stop some of that chaos. Things are going to be tight. I know that there's a lot of tax measures on the ballot coming before us that we're going to see. One more wasn't and isn't the solution to this. I do want to thank Bridget for filling in for me on VBWRA. I hope you had a great experience over there. It's a really good group of folks. Shouldn't have been too controversial or anything like that. So I look forward to my next meeting over there. Other than that, I don't have anything to report. We weren't here any other meeting in July. Fireworks really, yeah, they're bad, but they really didn't seem as bad as I have experienced in the past here. So definite kudos to the folks in the back who's already strained and policing those folks up. Other than that, folks, slow down. Get to where you're going safely. Avoid the potholes. If you do see them, I mean, our city is not the only one facing it. I got a bent rim driving down in Riverside, so it's not just our city that's dealing with shortcomings on potholes and things like that. So stay safe, folks. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Ochoa.

Thank you, Mayor. I had the privilege of attending the ribbon-cutting for the High Desert National Second Chance, it's a great program. I utilize it all the time with the people that I serve in the region and my day job as a community health worker. So I'm always directing people there. It was a pleasure to be there and watch them celebrate their tenure. in service to the High Desert community, and it was just a joyous celebration. I got out on the dance floor, per usual. I mean, you can't keep me off that thing. So they were playing some oldies, so I don't say no to that. On last Friday, I had the privilege of being invited by the Inland Empire Caucus, who was here visiting us from Sacramento, It is a nonpartisan caucus that is comprised under the leadership of Assemblymember Juan Carrillo who is the chair of that caucus and members such as Senator Suzette Valladares who was also present and so were other electeds from the region. We were discussing a lot of the critical infrastructure needs and demands that are facing our region. and some of the accomplishments that we had thus far, especially with securing our water and water use for generations to come here. Overall, I'm disappointed by the outcome tonight for the potential measure. There's always next year. But we'll figure it out. I think that's what Hesperia's been doing for the last 38 years plus, is figuring it out. I would like to see a discussion at some point, I don't know, I wouldn't at this point try to, well maybe we can, now we have a little bit of free time, staff time. But maybe a workshop or discussion with the community of what programs they would like to see cut. because it's that time. We've got to come up with about another $2.5 million to get back in the black. So I think we need to start looking at that and asking hard questions about what we're willing to live with and what we're not willing to live with and where we find that extra cash from. Hopefully there are federal resources and state resources. I think they've been exhausted. They come up annually. I know that we have grant writers and a team of people that seek those things out that's what we pay them to do our staff is amazing at doing that and thank you for the many many years of hard work to keeping us afloat i know that i've only been here about six and a half years living in the city i'm a newcomer and it's it's been a you know a pleasure living in this community that's why i serve this community in my day job and why i do it in my capacity as a council member. I love this community and I continue to serve it. Yeah, but we need to start exploring those options as a team because we're about to hit a wall. So let's see where we go from there. Overall, I look forward to the next month and all the exciting summertime activities. I know next month we have our early council meeting and national night out, and I'm looking forward to that. And with that, I yield. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Pullen.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, difficult night. I do want to thank the residents, all that were here tonight, commented, all that we saw in the community commented, all that reached out to us via email, text, phone, whatever it was. We'll get through this. I think we have a pretty sharp city staff, city manager, city attorney, everybody I think will get through this. We're obviously going to have to tighten up in certain areas, but that's fine. I personally am not interested in seeing this come back next year, Chris, or the year after and spend more money on it. So that's where I kind of stand on that. But thank you to everyone for all your hard work on both sides, the residents, the staff, everybody. At least we have participation, so I'll take that from this. And I think that's the positive in it. As long as our community's participating in it, that's what we're looking for. So I yield.

Thank you. I believe Mr. Davies has left, but I just want to say I live off of Maple. I drive Maple. It is a beautiful roadway right now. I'm not too sure what he's talking about, about the inadequate... Uh, layers that's been done on maple. So I just don't know what he's talking about. But I think staff, I think you staff are going after the grant and also to city staff to able to match the grant. So we could get a maple repaired. Also, the stop signs that are not working, you say they're faded, I encourage you to use the city app. I use it all the time for illegal dumping and call into the public works and let them know that the stop signs do need to be replaced and they will be out there and do it. You have my number, reach out to me. I don't mind doing that on your behalf. Also, Maple and Muscatel Basin, I have full confidence in Cassie that that has been repaired. And let's see. And then we haven't accepted Maple yet. It's still under construction, correct? So again, Mr. Davey's comments about accepting it as it is, that's not going to be the case. We are going to make sure that they don't have to come out again and repair it, so we will not accept that street. It's been in bad shape for many, many years, and we're not going to accept it until it is completed. I've had a couple meetings. It's been kind of a slow couple months. I did do MDAQMD on June 22nd, and then I attended the VBWRA board meeting. I think it was the shortest board meeting in their history, but they are a great group. The whole, the board, and everybody works very well together. So I do thank you for the opportunity. Council Member Gregg, I did enjoy that. Our next meeting is August 4th, and it will be at 3 o'clock to accommodate National Night Out, which is always a fun event. Also, I would like to thank staff for all your hard work. I too am very disappointed in how the vote went on the tax, but we will get through it. And we will, I don't know how much creative financing we can do, but I have every confidence in the staff that we will get that done. And I just would like to thank everyone that sits on this council with me. I'm very proud to serve with you. We all work very, very well together. And I just would like to close the meeting In memory of a very dear friend of mine, Gary Whited, he passed away on Sunday. He was a two-tour Vietnam vet, and he was a wonderful man who served our country and served our community. His heart was... He was a wonderful man. And also happy birthday to Jeff and my friend Melinda that's sitting in the audience. She's going to give me stink eye right now. So I have nothing further. Do we have any city manager or city attorney comments?

Yes. I wanted to say thank you to my staff. You do a good job here. You do a good job for the agency, for the city council, for myself, for our residents. It's easy to... tell someone else they don't do a good job. It's harder to hear it when every single day you show up for the residence. And a lot of us are long time employees. A lot of us are also long time residents who grew up in Asperia. We genuinely love the city. I thank the City Council for their leadership and their support, for their recognition of the contributions of our staff, for their recognition of the contributions of our deputies and our sworn officers. They do miraculous work for our residents every single day. We are blessed to work here. It is a privilege every single day. Thank you so much.

With nothing further, we will adjourn the meeting at, my watch went to sleep, 909. Thank you. See you August 4th.