City Council - Regular Meeting

26, council meeting.

We're calling the meeting to order at 631. Our invocation will be done by my favorite pastor, Tim from High Desert Church. Thank you. And then Allison, will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. And Lord, we do come today with heavy hearts, recognizing that our community is in mourning right now. Lord, we pray for the families of Maddie Daly and Izzy Hill, as they are in the process of mourning the loss of those girls. We pray that you would give them comfort, Lord, that you would give them as much peace as you provide us, God. We pray for Sultana High School as they are still processing through this loss, Lord. We pray for Scott, the principal, Lord, that you would continue to give him wisdom and guidance and strength, God, as he navigates this tragedy. We pray that you would be with the guidance counselors, the grief counselors, and crisis counselors, Lord, as they interact with students. But, Lord, most importantly, we pray for the students. Lord, high schoolers go through so many emotions, so many feelings, and this tragedy is not something that is meant to be dealt with this young in age. But Lord, we thank you that these two girls knew you, and Lord, that they are with you in paradise. God, we just lift up this meeting today. I pray that you would be at the city council, Lord, as they make these decisions, God. Lord, that you would continue to bless them, give them wisdom. And Lord, I pray for every person here, God, that you would help us to know who you are. God, we give you this day in your name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

Please place your right hand over your heart and join me in the pledge. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Can we have a roll call please?

Mayor Bennington? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Poland?

Here.

Council Member Gregg?

Here.

Council Member Lee? Here. Council Member Ochoa?

Here.

Thank you. Do we have any corrections or revisions to the agenda? There are no revisions this evening, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Do we have any closed session reports?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. We did meet in closed session to discuss one item of potential litigation as listed on the agenda. No reportable action was taken.

Thank you very much. Moving on to general public comments.

Madam Mayor, I'd like to pull item number eight and I'll make the motion to approve all the other items.

We're doing general public comments. That's okay. But noted. Thank you. Thank you.

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 calendar items, and new business items. Comments are limited to five minutes for public hearing items. In compliance with the Brown Act, the City Council may not discuss or take action on non-agenda items or engage in question and answer sessions with the public. The City Council may ask brief questions for clarification, provide a reference to staff or other resources for factual information, and direct staff to add an item to a subsequent meeting.

Thank you. At this time, do we have any remote speakers?

We do not have any remote speakers at this time.

Thank you. Kim Jones, please.

I know this is later on the agenda, but I'm not sure I'm going to be here for the whole meeting. So I'm going to just say I'm not really happy that you folks changed the times or talked at 5.30 meeting time instead of 6.30, because I still think it's going to be hard for some of the other people that are getting off work and having to travel. So if you all gonna decide you have to do this, at least maybe any time that they have an agenda item that's gonna draw a lot of attention, that you would put it at the end of the agenda so people can still come. But really, I wish you wouldn't change the time. Leave it at 6.30. Thank you.

Velma Kennedy, please.

My first time speaking, so I don't know if this is the proper way to do this or not, but I live on Cottonwood south of Maine and that's a beautiful street. You've made it nice and smooth and it's a street where all the fire trucks and all the police go on emergencies. It's a three lane, one lane for turning. But the problem is at night the speed is just terrible. The youngsters or whoever they are, they may not be youngsters, drive so fast. We've had two hit and runs where in one morning they knocked down the light pole, big wooden pole and left the scene, broke their fence down and the pole. Another one, they hit a lady across in a cross drive and just hit and ran. The next day they came looking for any evidence of the people that hit this lady. And now we have another fence that's bent over another chain link fence. So that's been hit too. So that's, Three hit and runs recently. What happens, it's dark, and they get to speeding from either Bear Valley or Main, either direction. But they can tell if there are no cars coming, so the stop signs mean nothing to them. So they pick up speeds 70, 80 miles an hour on that street. and it is horrible. So I know you can't put any speed bumps. Stop signs don't make any difference. I'm just suggesting maybe we could have a remote camera once in a while and send some tickets. Maybe it would deter them a little bit, and when they calm down and stop doing that, we could use the cameras somewhere else. It wouldn't be wasted. So thank you for hearing my complaint.

Thank you. Gina Whelan, please.

Good evening, I'd like to begin with the animal shelter, your favorite subject. In my opinion, it was shameful that Romina Gonzalez was terminated during her probationary period and it was done out of spite by the management of the city. Many of us saw meaningful progress at the shelter when she was there. From what I saw personally, she helped bring stability, improvement, In the operations, she even walked and cleaned kennels, assisting staff in various duties. She even brought in organizations like the Paw Mission and the Lang Foundation to help our residents and animals. This was not a city management accomplishment. They cannot take credit for that. She cared, and now she is gone. It is very sad. Before, you know, she had a lot of accomplishments. Many residents still question why people we believe who are making positive changes are gone, while others remain unresolved. Concern wise, and you know the concerns that have been brought before the council. When this keeps happening, it shows the city management and council are setting up the shelter to fail. You don't want to fix anything. You just keep sweeping it under the rug and not deal with it. You really think the county is going to resolve anything? I know you're still pursuing that. It's past time to deal with the situation going on. Also, it's evident Caleb Enriquez is still involved with shelter operations and business there, low key. Yes, it is an issue. It will always be an issue. My family has been here since the early 70s, and I've watched the city through good times and bad. Today, too many residents are losing pride in the city because they don't see the same pride reflected from its leadership. Residents are tired of the ridiculous drama, excuses, and power plays that are going on, and that is both in the city and parks and rec, excuse me. We want leadership, accountability, real solutions. I also support the Hesperia Wranglers. They have been an important part in this community for decades and deserve the city's and Parks and Rec's support. Work with them, not against them. Bring back the rodeo where it belongs. Bring back the Wranglers where they belong, in Hesperia. Listen to your residents. Support the people who are trying to make Hesperia better and give us reasons to be proud of our city again. Thank you. And by the way, please fix the air at the shelter. I was there today doing transport for a rescue and the air was not working. There were dogs overheating there. Maybe the director can look into that. And also regarding item 10, the time change is ridiculous. It hinders efforts for the people who are working to come and speak their voices. And we all should be allowed to speak our voices, not just remotely, but in person. Thank you for your time. Al Vogler, please.

Hello, Council. I'm Al Vogler. In the last meeting, I neglected to thank Mr. Gregg and Mrs. Lee for their votes on the sales tax issue. In the last meeting, I mentioned the unsafe traffic conditions on Deep Creek Road. I'm mentioning them again tonight because there was yet another accident there since I mentioned it last time. I've mentioned it approximately six times in the last three years. I've never had a contact back from staff, and when I made a public records request for information, I got none. So there is a group named Consumer Affairs. They are a think tank, a research group. And they recently did a study, a nationwide study, of the most dangerous cities in the entire United States. This is not citywide or countywide, this is nationwide. Number 10 on that list was Hesperia, California. And the two main reasons they say is because of drunk driving and speeding. Somebody just mentioned speeding. So I'm mentioning Rock Springs again. There's a bad spot there where the road, which is four lanes wide, narrows down to two lanes. That's right at Glendale, and there's power poles right there. At the very least, that road needs to be tapered so that the change from four to two lanes doesn't happen abruptly because that's where the accidents are. It needs to be tapered. And interestingly, if you were coming over the Mojave River going west on Rock Springs Road, the north side of Rock Springs Road is tapered. So I don't understand why the south side is not. That's the bad side. And... I wish that somebody was paying attention to that Rock Springs Road issue. There's going to be more accidents there. One that I've mentioned before, a man hit the pole. He ended up suspended in midair in his car on the guy wires for the pole. And I don't know how long he was there, but yes, we have pictures of that. Thank you very much.

Ella Rogers, please.

Yes, thank you guys. Hello ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ella Lee Rogers, and I have been a resident in this high desert since 1943. And I am really appalled at some of the stuff that's going on. Number one, why in the world would you want it? Change the time, my goodness. You know, some people work over the hill, right? And they still wanna come to these meetings. If you change that time, they're probably not gonna get to because now sometimes it takes two and three hours for them to get home. So I implore you not to change the time, please. Number two, I had an accident, as you well know. I talked about it last time here. And the next day, by the way, a crew of two came out. Now remember, that was 19 by 14. That's how big that was. And I got stuck. I hit it because I couldn't even go around it. Remember? I want you to remember this. I couldn't go around. So I told you then I was going to bring you the bill. I took my car back. And if you think I'm trying to get something out of you, I'm not. Because on May the... On May the 3rd of this year, I had my 100,000 mile checkup done on my car. It's a 2012. And so I've got the bill that I paid then. Now I've got the bill that I went ahead and paid because that man has to pay for his employees. He has to do the work. He has to get the repairs and everything. So here's the bill. I expect to be paid before the end of the week. So who would you like for me to give this to? Somebody answer me. Bridget?

We're not engaged. We can't because it's public comment. When your time is up, I will direct a staff member to talk to you.

Okay, thanks, Bridget. Well, here. I also want to tell you about a GoFundMe page for the two students from Sultana. One of them was very close to my family. Kelsey and her started school together in kindergarten, and they've been friends all these years, and so it's been a very hard week. There's a GoFundMe page. Please, one of them, I can hardly talk about this. One of the girls just has a mother. She doesn't have a father. So they need some help. Thank you so much for listening. David Ellis, please.

Thank you.

Hi folks, so good evening. My name is David Ellis. I've lived in the Mission Crest community for the past 20 years, and I gotta say, whoever planned that community did a great job planning it. It's a beautiful layout for the whole area, and we've enjoyed living in Hesperia, that area particularly. However, our streets still aren't finished yet. There's a one to two inch gap between the concrete and the asphalt on almost every street there. So I've damaged two cars of mine, had the steering rack on them, completely ruined on those streets. because it's our way into this community and our way out of the community, and they both are bumpy either way. In the same community, we have streets that have water running down the gutters constantly. It's been running so long that there's fungus now growing on those streets on the path where the water is. So I'm not really sure why it's taking so long to fix those areas, specifically on Newport Street, Malibu, Independence, and Seaside. A few streets in the community got partially paved at one point. However, the work just stopped all of a sudden. Residents on those blocks where the streets were partially paved tell me that the asphalt is so cheap that every time they go into the driveway, they pull basically rocks and asphalt into their driveway. So we might want to look into who did that service for those streets, and that was maybe about six months ago. Years ago we were told paving wouldn't be finished until all the homes in the community were built. Now these homes are built, but nothing has changed in our community. I looked through tonight's street improvement capital plan and and there's nothing on that agenda that has those streets. So basically I just have two questions. What would it take to get the streets and Mission Crest community completed and added to a near future plan and to actually fix the water that's running into the gutters. I'm just one resident here, but I can tell you every time I speak to any resident in that area, I'm speaking for them tonight. 20 years is long enough to wait for a street paving that was already paid for. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Rachel, can we have him talk to Cassie, please? Cassie? Thank you. Mr. Ellis, Cassie, our Public Works Director, will talk to you regarding your concerns. Thank you.

Jessica Navarro.

Okay, good evening. My name is Jessica Navarro. A few nights ago, two young girls and best friends, Madeline and Isabel, were tragically killed in a car accident near Spring Valley Lake. Sadly, they were victims to reckless drivers who were street racing. Both girls had just entered their senior year at Sultana High School. As a former Sultan, this accident hit particularly close to home. Maddie was, and always will be, stepdaughter to my former classmate, Josh Wixon, from Sultana's graduating class of 2001. Both girls had so much life ahead of them. The Greater High Desert and Hesperia have a very serious problem. Our roads are unsafe. Public safety is at great risk. For decades, the leaders of Hesperia have run on better, safer roads and public safety. However, once elected to office, there seems to be little to no change. I have been attending most city council meetings for nearly two years. Aside from the proposed tax, which was shut down by council members Lee and Gregg, I have not heard any meaningful discussions on solutions. The citizens of Hesperia had the right to vote. especially after $217,000 was spent on research, which by the way, you both voted yes to spend. The $217,000 research spend was a five to zero vote. So after wasting taxpayer money to conduct the research, you both voted no to allowing the citizens to vote for themselves. I believe council member Greg even stated on the record how stupid voters are, implying that he personally was saving us from ourselves. To use the excuse that a bad council could misuse the funds is frankly very silly. What makes you two think that you make a good council is that for you to decide or the citizens? In every meeting's closing statement, Council Member Gregg reminds the city staff, the five to 10 citizens that even attend the meetings, and the few folks who may watch the stream online to slow down. Respectfully, do we really think that is working? Is that really a solution? When will safer roads and public safety become Promises, not rhetoric. How can promises be made without solutions in mind or brought to the table? I know your role as city council members is challenging, but I implore you to please, please come up with some meaningful, viable solutions to our city's major problem There have been too many accidents, too many lives lost to not act. There are too many miles of road to repair. There are too few officers enforcing speeding or otherwise reckless drivers. The problem with terrible drivers will continue and further will increase if there are no consequences for them. The citizens of Hesperia deserve leaders with foresight, creativity, and solutions. In closing, I would like to honor both Maddie and Izzy. I am deeply, deeply sorry to their families and friends. Rest in peace, precious girls. I'd really appreciate the council's acknowledgement of this community's terrible loss. Thank you.

Do we have any additional public comment cards? No more white cards. Thank you. Moving on to the joint consent calendar, I have a motion by pulling item eight. Please. We have a first by Councilmember Gregg, a second by Councilmember Ochoa. Can we please have a vote? The item passes. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm happy to answer any questions. Orlando Acevedo, Development Services Director. regarding item number eight the council at its last meeting or two meetings ago adopted similar resolutions loving and is authorizing the city to levy and assess unpaid enforcement and abatement costs upon submittal to the county however we received information that they required more explicit authorization language and as a result the The city staff have prepared revised resolutions this evening for the council's approval. No other changes to the resolutions or to the list of properties. It's only more explicit authorization language that the county only recently amended their long-standing process, and so we've provided that update this evening via the resolution, available to answer any other questions you may have.

All right, Orlando, my question is, how many residential homes and or businesses are going into collections? Roughly. I'll save the time for counting. It's around 1,100, plus or minus.

Thank you for answering that, counsel.

Whenever folks ask why I voted no for a tax, here's just one other reason for that. You have 1,100 residents and or businesses within the city that can't pay their bills as it sits. These are pretty important bills, water bill, your trash bill. Those would be pretty high on my priority list of paying. But what about the other bills that people are falling behind on? Where does $15 million magically come from? Comes from the residents within our community. If 1,100 residents, homes within our community cannot already afford their bills, What makes sense? That an additional 1% would make that situation even better for them. So it's disproportionate. For those that can afford it and can afford it. I'm kind of concerned of do we have any numbers or data from other entities outside of our purview, water and trash, of folks that are actually behind on their payments of this?

Are you asking about how our list compares to other jurisdictions?

Well, we could start there. How does our list compare to other jurisdictions, I guess?

We don't have that information handy. unless Orlando and Casey does. I don't believe we do.

It's open. It's on. So the city, with the utility collection, you have two routes. You can either do the shutoffs, which the city historically participated in prior to the state requiring, what is SB 998? SB 998. has a series of provisions where it extends the collection period for shutoffs. And so the city in 2019 ahead of SB 998 went through the property tax collection route. so it puts on the property tax collection versus shutting down shutting off the water because if if you were to shut off water and we do any bill that's over 2 000 to a home we'll go through the shut off period But they have up to a year to maintain those payments. So this here is outside of SB 998. It allows us to collect our revenue faster. As far as a comparison to other cities, I don't have a comparison. Doing a quick, we have, I don't have the number of, utility bills but the collection rate is what you would expect right around the uncollected rate right around five five percent what you would expect for our customer base okay now looking at just the water aspect of it is over over 800 000 is that close close enough eight hundred and fifty thousand councilman great

So those folks that can't afford to pay their bills, what then happens to the people that are paying their bills? Who subsidizes that $850,000 that's not being paid for water services?

So going through this process, by year five, there would be a tax sale if no one pays or don't pay their bill. We have yet to experience that. Collections right around a three-year mark is in the high 90s. So at that point, the district has collected its money. So theoretically, the rate payers, you could argue, is subsidizing short-term that cash flow, but that cash flow is collected by year three. So that 850, I would expect to have completely collected by year three, materially collected by year one.

How much time and energy from staff does that collections take of that 850? By the time it's said and done, of that 850, are we recuperating 850?

There is an admin site that we do receive that is in addition to this. As far as collections, the process is we, during the year, we will put on a property lien. So it takes a staff person to put a lien to property. That ensures that if the house or home sells during that period, that the city's or the water district's interest is protected. and through the escrow process, we will receive our funds. Once we come to property tax collection, we do send an additional letter outside of our normal statements, so there is a letter that is sent to attempt to collect. Once we convert the property lien to property tax, we have to remove the property lien, so now we've touched it three times, and then at this point, we do collect. with the property tax collector, which I will say when we were using a private collector, we were collecting about 8% a year, whatever amount we put on it, at best 8% to 10% collection versus the high 90s in year one with the county.

And this makes the most sense to me in order to preserve the rate payers from having to subsidize for folks that aren't paying their bills. One other aspect I want to touch base on is, at least publicly, people have been saying with the money that's owed from the Park District, is that also being subsidized by the ratepayers at that for their failure to pay? And how do we recuperate that money if we don't tax, lien sell their properties because they're a government agency?

We do invoice the Park District for prior years. I will say the last two years they have paid their current water usage. So for fiscal year 24-25 and fiscal year 25-26, they have paid their current usage. The outstanding usage has not been paid.

Well, it's good that at least they're up to par on their current payments. One last point I want to touch base on is that what if this property or home residence is a rental? Who's on the hook at that point?

So in the municipal code predating, and there was no change to the municipal code, the water code, it did identify that either the renter and or landlord is responsible for outstanding bills. So we do notify the landlord. They are in the business of renting the property. And at this point, if it's collection here and there is a renter, it would be responsibility of the land owner.

Land owner.

Correct.

Is there a way to separate this out, which we should because I think we have the rental ordinance now, to be able to identify, I mean, if I'm a renter or if I'm a landlord or somebody that's renting my property, I'm not gonna let it go to collections in that sense because now there goes your lifetime investment possibly, right? Is there a way to separate that out to identify if these folks are renters versus the property owners?

We do identify, since the program has started, we require a property acknowledgement form. So if you were a renter and we look and see the public record doesn't match the ID when you start an account, we do require forms to be signed by the owner. acknowledging that this is their responsibility. So we do look into that. We do send notices, statements of any time that the bill is owed to the landowner. If they choose, there are property owners that say, please do not send me a statement, but they do get the option of getting the statement. We default by sending them a statement and a renter. When we do a property lien, the initial lien, just putting our obligation onto the property, both are identified, and so is all correspondence after. I will say if it were to fall, and this was a discussion we had when we started this process with council, if it were to go back to the renters, now you cannot collect through property. You have to go through other means, and that gets us back to that 8% to 10% collection rate.

So at what point does it no longer fall to the renter on this? Let's look at this, because I think on this sheet it's mainly the property owners that we're seeing that we're sending down to collections. Is that accurate?

You have to be a property owner in order for it to convert to a property tax lien. So every person we see here, these are the owners.

So if there are renters tied to these properties, and that's the reason why they were... delinquent on the payments, does that follow the renter to where if they move from point A within the city to point B within the city, does that still follow them to where we wouldn't then start services for them under a different property owner?

If it's within the year, yes, we would have them make whole within that year. If it moves beyond the year and it's a tax lien, at that point it's through the tax lien process, that would be required of the property owner to recoup their loss.

Isn't there a way that the homeowner can put into the rental agreement that they will be paying the water and add that on on a monthly basis? Or is that not something that is legal? I don't know much about renting.

That would be between how the homeowner wants to run their business.

Right. I mean, that would be smarter than, never mind.

I mean, there's probably a lot of factors into that that we're not aware of. But the fact that it drops off after a year is a little concerning to me, is that they were delinquent. Right. Now it's the homeowner's responsibility. That person after a year can just move into another place knowing full well the process now. And they're still technically behind or maybe in litigation. It's a little concerning from that because then do we just not continue the cycle to where now it's a new homeowner that we're having to send out a levy to or putting the burden on them to try to recuperate the funds?

Can we flag a name?

I don't have an answer to that in that it's the property owner's business to do the background. That wouldn't be the city's. We do require an acknowledgement form, so they are going through that process with a renter to give them access to start of an account. As far as that business relationship between a renter and an owner and what due diligence they do before that, that wouldn't be in the city's purview.

but she just said that it dropped off after a year. So would a new rental agency or homeowner that's looking to rent their property be able to come into the city and say, I wanna know if this person ever had any outstanding delinquents for their water bill, or is that information that's privy to that?

I'm looking at Keith Chang, who directly oversees utility billing. on what information would be available.

Is a rental agency or somebody that's going to rent their property able to come into the city to verify or is there any other means to verify if somebody was delinquent on their past water bills and for what period of time?

So there's a difference between when the account's in a renter's name and then when it's in the property owner's or the management company's name. If it's a situation where there are the current tenant, they would have access to what that information is because that's the same account, but they wouldn't have access to what was in the previous, like if a customer was at a previous residence, they wouldn't have access to that.

Okay. So prior to this adoption of this new policy and process, we would have flagged the renter's credit that didn't pay that. We're no longer doing any of that, correct?

If it was delinquent, it would have went to third-party collections.

Which would probably come up on a credit report.

It would show up, yeah. And at that point, the district is collecting 8% of that outstanding debt.

So now there's no real way to mitigate that because now the debt burden is on the property owner.

Correct. It would be on the landowner, which is allowed by the municipal code, and they are the landlord. That is their business.

Okay, thanks. The only other way to attach a judgment or an amount of money owed by a debtor to a creditor is to personally go after them in court. Either based on these amounts, it would be a small claims. The difficulty would be in trying to collect once a judgment occurs. filed against them and typically if judgments are against a debtor you would file it and put some sort of lien on either personal or real property that they own and a lot of times renters don't have real property and so it would then be difficult to find personal property that it a lien could attach to but that would be the other way to kind of keep track of which renters are delinquent in their payments if any new landowner came in or if the city wanted to know a background about a renter and their payment history.

So there's really no mechanism in place to flag somebody that is behind on their bills because it's wiped off after a year. I'm guessing that that's what that is. And there's no additional way that a property management company or a homeowner that's looking to rent out their property can get that information to know if that person that they're renting to is in good standing with the water agency.

You would be required to conduct credit checks, judgment, information searches on court records. If small claims were to be pursued, that would remain beyond a year. But those would be some of the alternatives. But they do come at a cost. All of this comes at a cost, an opportunity cost at least to the city and to ultimately the rate payers, the customers, and the residents who are in essence short-term subsidizing for the non-payment of water and trash bills.

So as a renter, a lifelong renter, you know, families fall behind. And this is often a problem with people not being able to pay their bills. I mean, this is not a tax problem. This is a Economy problem is there a way because as a renter I do know that many rent landlords don't engage in ethical landlord practices such as getting permits for renting their homes and the like is there a way to then track which of these landlords are not Following protocol with the city using this system that we have and assess additional fees to those landlords.

So this is getting beyond my this behind the beyond the scope is here. I just had a question about it. Be collecting the revenue, the revenue. Bring it back.

Yeah, we could discuss that under a discussion on our rental housing ordinance.

I would like to do that.

There isn't a fail-safe way to ensure that we have identified every single property owner that is renting out a home for business purposes. Right. Along the lines of what Councilmember Lee said about – landlords choosing to add utility bills like water to their monthly rent. Many do choose to do that to avoid this type of issue. And then we've heard from landlords who have shared that they retain from deposits any overages that have been left unpaid for utilities. So if the renter has left a deposit when they move in, they will claw back some of those monies if they're able to in that way. But we can't answer that specific question in this discussion.

Thank you. Yeah, if we could bring that back for discussion at some point to discuss what protocols that we have to see what landlords are actually doing, because I know that a lot of people suffer at the hands of landlords that are abusing their power of homeownership. I'd like to see what that looks like and see if we can assess any fees on these landlords and help with some revenue stream to the city. Thank you.

Do we have any additional council comments? Do I have a motion to move forward item number eight? I have a first by council member Choa, a second by Mayor Potem Polin. Can we have a vote please?

I guess.

Motion passes 5-0. Moving on to new business, item number 10.

Melinda, welcome. Yes, thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. The item before you is more of a housekeeping item. Back on June 16, 2026, the City Council, in response to the new legislation SB 707 and the regulations and restrictions it puts on Council meetings, decided and voted to move Council meetings to a 5.30 p.m. start time, subject to a date for implementation to be decided by the Council. Staff has reviewed the calendar and we're taking the holidays into consideration. Staff is suggesting that possibly the first meeting in February of 2027 might be a great implementation date. And that's all I have for you.

Thank you. Do we have any remote speakers on this item? Thank you. Al Vogler, please.

Good evening, council. When it was first suggested that the time for city council meetings be changed, I believe that was the suggestion of the mayor. And when the mayor made that suggestion, council member Ochoa made a comment. Mr. Ochoa, if I'm incorrect, tell me so. I believe you made a comment that that wouldn't be a good idea, changing the time. It had to do with people still coming home from work. I'm sure that I don't really understand what the political reasoning is behind this. I do know that in history in this council going way back, we used to have five minute public speaking periods. And then for political reasons, a couple of weeks after a council member got elected, he voted exactly to reduce those down to three minutes. Now we're seeing something going on here that is going to preclude even more people from coming to a city council meeting. It's the time. It's all of the people that work down below now when 20 years ago they didn't. I see people from my living room window starting at 3.30 in the morning hitting the roads to go down below San Bernardino Valley, LA County, they come back if there happens to have been an accident or let's just say it was a friday the traffic is so bad there's no guarantee that those people will be able to come to a council meeting six thirty is bad enough for them five thirty does not make sense it also does not make sense for some seniors who don't drive if they have to get on the main street it 5 p.m. Now instead of 6 p.m.. Or 615 They're hitting a lot more traffic than they would be hitting otherwise So some of them make a decision a conscious decision To not go to the council meeting So let me finish by asking the question to which I may not get an answer and that is I What is the political reason for changing that time and making it earlier? Because 6.30 works for quite a few people. 5.30 will not work. Thank you.

Ella Rogers.

I will be real brief with this. I think it's an atrocity that you would even consider changing the time. Even for 630, some people can't even get here until like a quarter to seven in order to get here. We used to have very large attendance, but it's getting less and less and less. Do you just not want anybody here? Is that the idea? That's what's happening. So again, all I have to say is that please do not vote to change this time frame in here. And thank you very much. Brenda Dahl, please.

Good evening, council members. As I previously stated in the last meeting that I attended, this is a bad idea. A lot of us commute, a lot of us work down the hill. The furthest I go with my job is Fullerton. I know that when I'm in Fullerton, it's a three-hour drive home. At best, if I'm lucky, two and a half hours. Most of the other times, I can get here within an hour, hour and a half. However, if there's an accident, that causes a problem, and there's always an accident in the past. And with as many houses that are being built up here in our community, that's just going to add to the amount of traffic on that freeway. So you are silencing our voices. Now, I understand that we can call in, However, that's distracted driving, and there's already enough accidents in the past, plus with all the dead zones in the past, it's gonna cut us off, and then with the Brown Act, IT has to come in, make sure it wasn't on your side, that it was on our side, the meeting stops. Once it's identified where the problem is and it's fixed, I get back on the phone, finish my conversation. Who knows how many hour, hour and a half, 10 minutes, five minutes, whatever has already passed during that time and Mayor Bridgington, you said that you didn't wanna be in meetings till midnight. This is gonna put you in meetings till midnight or it's going to silence the community's voices and that's not fair to us. That's all I have, thank you.

Do we have any additional public comments?

No more white cards. Thank you.

Do we have a motion?

Have we implemented this already? If we have a disruption that we have to wait, has this already been implemented?

Yes, the state of California did implement that.

And we are compliant with that? Certainly. Okay, and have we had any disruptions yet?

We've had two disruptions. Fortunately, we have a very competent IT team that literally got it fixed right before, the last two meetings, in fact, right before the meeting started.

I do remember that, so that is very good. And yes, we do have a wonderful IT team. Those are the questions that I had for now.

Council Member Choa?

I just wanted to address some of the comments that were made because for the most part we're all you know we all work up here day jobs as well and it's not an easy decision to make and I know what it appears to be like that we are trying to keep people from coming Uh, trying to keep people from participating, I just wanted to point out that in the city of Atlanta, they meet on every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 11 0 AM in the morning. We're not doing that. That's right in the middle of the work day. Uh, what we are trying to do is balance out. Staff time over time. We just can't afford to pay staff overtime regularly. It's that when I'm telling you it's we're at that point, we're at that point. The political reason I just don't see a political reason and I would just wanted to address that. I myself work from 830 to 5 PM. I'm going to have to use my PTO. That's. My sacrifice as an elected official. To be here, so I'm going to have to take my own PTO instead of using it for a vacation to take my kids somewhere to, you know, for emergencies when my kids need me to pick them up from school. That's my sacrifice. It's not your sacrifices to make your, the residents, our constituency. You deserve a reasonable time. Starting an hour earlier. Yes, some people will not be able to make it. but some people will, and I hope that we can still engage. I don't believe that it's anything other than how we are dealing with our current situation with the demand from the state to comply with a law. That is all. If it's political, it's because we're being told to do it by the state of California. That's all I wanted to add.

Council Member Gregg.

I think Chris made an interesting point with working 8 to 5, you would have to take PTO. I know that I would take PTO at that proposed start time. That's fine with me, but look at how many people that are out in the audience and within our community that in order to attend would have to take PTO. We've had an established time of 6.30 for How long? People have been able to work around that schedule. The impact to the staff, I'm kind of curious because Chris brought up that point of how much additional staff time would we save by moving to 530? Do we have that report? it substantial i'd be curious to see that report as well before implement before implementing this if there is no change you have to remember as well is that staff has from the time that that the 6 30 has been which if correct me if i'm wrong has been from the very beginning that's what's been adopted within the city and has already been kind of folded into that flexibility for staff by changing it to 5 30 it's going to City Council Chambers, create a whole new set of standards that they're going to have to meant to which I know our staff. City Council Chambers, More than capable of doing, but it is a different change for them as well, so I don't want to you know passively put that off that it's it's not going to be a change for them. it's going to save the city money i can i can see that and justify it somewhat more but again is knowing that most of our community commutes down the hill traffic's not getting any better it would only make sense to bump it from 6 30 to 7 30 if you wanted more attendance within our community any other mayor pro tem poland

My only question would be, with the change in time, can we move council members' reports and comments to the beginning of the meeting, much the same as the Board of Supervisors do?

That's up to the council's pleasure, certainly.

All that should be at the will of the council. I caution against that, though, because I mean, I take lots of notes from public speaking, and I definitely want to be able to address all those things. So keeping it at the end, I think, works best for being able to address some of those comments and concerns from the community versus pushing it up front. But you can always put public comment to the end. We had that before as well. So your general public comment was at the end.

Don't disagree with you, Cameron. I think what I'm saying is we've had a couple community members ask if the presentations and stuff could be pushed towards the end. That would push those towards the end. Furthermore, if we did our reports and council member comments at the beginning, we'd hear public comment and we could come back in two weeks after we researched it with more comprehensive answers.

So we're not gonna implement this until February, is that correct, if we vote on this tonight?

So previously the council voted to implement a 5.30 start time. The decision that the council is considering this evening is when to implement that. And I do just want to add, I should have mentioned earlier, part of our compliance with SB 707 was to implement a two-way communication system for the public. So while this... from the face of it look like it will limit access, it actually expands access. So the public input software that the city is utilizing actually will, if you log in and state whatever item you want to speak on, the system contacts you and reminds you and saves your place. So it will likely increase, once people are more aware of it and comfortable with it, it would likely increase participation. And that was the intention of the law as well.

And politically motivated is your state of California. That's where that's coming from. This is an unfounded mandate that we have to implement in order to accommodate and polish the Brown Act when I am very confident that the city of Hesperia is much more transparent, will always be transparent than the state. So because the state can't follow the rules and be transparent, they push all these additional mandates on us. So that's the political... Driving behind this.

Thank you any additional council comments I Have a first by councilmember madam mayor my motion is to implement this December of 2027 where we can talk about when we actually implement again, so my my motion is to push this until December of 2027 I because we're just setting a time.

Do we have a second to push it from February 2027 to December of 2027? Seeing none, then we will go back to the original implementing this in February of 2027. Do I have a motion?

Pam. Pam, quick question. We've already decided on 530. There's no way to adopt another time?

You can revisit the item to change it. The resolution before you is, though, to have a new date of implementation because you did previously vote to start at 530. But again, you do have, as a council majority, you can choose to do a different time.

The motion camera made has died on the floor. I'd like to make a motion to revisit this, the same date, last meeting in December with a new adopted start time of 6 p.m. December 26th or December 27th? 26th, the last meeting of the year. I don't have a calendar in front of me, sorry. Thank you.

We have a motion by Council Member Ochoa, second by Council Member Gray. Can we have a vote, please? The item passes 4-1.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 11.

Good evening again, mayor and council Orlando, a development services director, and this evening I'm here to provide an update to the council regarding our development impact fee program. This item comes at the request of council member Greg. And if I may ask for excuse now, I am dealing with a slight cough and so I apologize if I'll need to take a break and drink some water. Tonight's presentation will cover the purpose of DIFs, development impact fees, what they fund, the current fee rates, recent development activity. We'll provide a quick regional comparison of the other high desert cities, and then we'll conclude with some next steps. why do cities adopt development impact fees? DIFs ensure that new development pays for the increased demand it creates. Without DIFs, the cost of new infrastructure shifts to current residents, and so cities adopt DIFs to protect the general fund and the services that it provides. Development impact fees are one-time charges on new development. They help fund the public facilities and infrastructure needed to serve growth, including police and animal control facilities, streets, flood control facilities, city facilities, and pass-through agencies to the fire district, the county fire district, to the parks district, Hesperia Recreation and Parks District, and to Hesperia Unified School District. Hesperia faces significant unfunded infrastructure needs. $1.48 billion has been identified for streets construction and maintenance, and $120 million for drainage and flood control improvements. DIFs are but one of the few tools available to help close these gaps. The 2018 NEXUS study identified over 60 eligible projects across streets, drainage, fire suppression, and public facilities. In 2018, the number identified, I'm sorry, the study identified over 60 projects totaling $675 million worth of eligible capital projects. Since 2017, DIFs have contributed approximately 28 million, I'm sorry, 28% of all capital delivered, about 15.8 million. The remaining 72% came from other funding sources such as MRRA gas tax, CDBG, and Measure I. Combined, the city delivered $56.1 million in capital projects. The last nexus study was completed in 2018 since then fees have not kept pace with inflation or the consumer price index or CPI resulting in outdated and discounted fees. Next we'll discuss current fee levels versus the 2018 maximum rates. Per the 2018 adopted NEXUS study, these are the maximum fees the city can charge across all land use categories. They represent the full cost of growth related infrastructure. In 2018, however, the council immediately discounted these rates. In 2022, citing increased project delivery costs, the city council reduced the discount rate to the current fee. And here is a comparison of those fees. Today, every category is still charged below the 2018 maximum rate. Residential fees and hotel fees are currently discounted by 30%. Commercial and industrial remain 67 to 75% discounted, as attracting those industries were the general interest of the council at that time. Next, we'll look at development activity. Over the last two years, the city has issued more than 900 residential permits. Over the last decade, 2,786 permits were issued. Hesperia continues to see strong industrial interest with 14 million square feet in the pipeline. Retail and dining activity also remains healthy with Sam's Club and Olive Garden coming soon and Crunch Fitness, Burlington, Better Buzz, and a more recently opening in the city. Next, we'll compare Hesperia's diffs and development activity to our neighboring cities. Hesperia's residential fees remain the lowest in the region, even after including the HRPD park fee of $5,461 per unit. Victorville and Apple Valley both have higher total fees. Again, Hesperia issued 2,760 permits over the last decade, more than Napa Valley but fewer than Victorville. Despite having the lowest fees, Hesperia's permit value or volume, I beg your pardon, is mid-range. This slide shows an orange trend line, and that line shows the diff rate that has changed over time. What this data shows is that the housing market is driven more by broader market conditions than by local fees alone. And so although tonight's focus is on residential mostly, we do want to provide a quick overview of the commercial and industrial fees and ours in comparison. Commercial industrial fees are competitive notwithstanding hotel fees Most cities are generally experiencing similar growth in commercial and industrial with all cities as seen in the ballpark of 7 to 14 million square feet in various stages of development And then to overview a final few points as we conclude our Said another way, impact fees are only one factor in development decisions. Site availability, infrastructure, freeway access, entitlement and permit processes, workforce, market demand, and development certainty all play major roles in development decisions. The city's strategic plan identifies maintaining a balanced budget as a top priority. Further, it specifically calls for commencing a new nexus study in fiscal year 27, 28, and reviewing diff rates following the completion of the pending water and sewer master plan updates. In summary, staff recommends initiating that mentioned NEXUS study in 27-28 to reevaluate our infrastructure project costs and the correlating DIF rate. And this concludes my presentation, and I'm available to answer any questions that council may have. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any council comments?

I have one. Well, I have lots, but I'll start with one. So the rate... on table five for the hotel, that's at a discounted rate, a 30% discounted rate.

Council Member Lee, is this the slide you're referring to, the current discounted fee?

No, I was actually looking at the one in our agenda. I will just say it. So the per hotel, hotel per room, is $13,154 per room. Are you saying that that is discounted at 30% and the other cities are at 4,600 and under 6,000 on that one as well? So we're more than double on the hotels? Okay. Correct, yes. Why are we... Why are we discounted below the 2018 Nexus study?

In 2018, the council adopted the maximum rate that the Nexus study determined to be the rate that would facilitate funding of capital projects. And that rate was actually $18,000. $18,791. Immediately thereafter, the council discounted the rate.

I was more talking about all fees. It seems like we've discounted all of them.

Okay.

So your question is about all fees? We're the shining star at the top of the hill. Nobody has any place to go. I don't... I don't know why we're discounting so much. We're worthy.

So I can talk to this a little bit since I was in the council around those times. I think the biggest thing, and Rachel, please correct me if I'm wrong here, was trying to spur the growth of more people building. At the time, I think we were kind of in a slower spurt of that. And one thing I want to point out in here is that was that only includes the recreation and park district fees. What about the school fees? And I think that that's where the tipping point really came into play to where we were. More than our neighboring cities on on a lot of this stuff.

I mean, I'm still.

So it was the City Council's choice to discount the fees, and then in 2022, the City Council chose to decrease that discount, i.e. raise the fees a bit. Again, staying under that maximum adopted rate, but making an adjustment to the fees.

How did we come up with that rate for the hotels?

That rate was identified in the NEXUS study, reference the development needs in and around those types of projects as well as their impacts, but I don't have the actual NEXUS study in front of me to reference.

Okay.

I see we have a speaker, Chris Lindum. Lindum? Thank you, I'm sorry I didn't mean to overlook you. I'm just trying to figure out my speakers here.

Yeah, Mayor, city council members and staff, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this matter. And thank you for city staff for bringing up this matter for consideration. My name is Chris Lindholm. I am working on a hotel development project in the city of Hesperia. We think it would be a great addition to the city, something that will benefit the community in a variety of ways, bringing businesses, jobs, and annual revenue in the form of TOT tax to the city. In addition, of course, through the payment of development impact fees, which will help the city continue providing infrastructure improvements, which is why we're here today. As a stakeholder, I would like to offer my perspective regarding the current DIF fees as it relates to hotel projects in particular. I have calculated our anticipated DIF fees for this project and was concerned to learn just how high it would be. and how high it would be in relation to some of the surrounding cities, as shown in staff's report, more than double. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the fees are so high for this particular project, it is causing us to reevaluate the viability of the project. It is a priority for us to be good partners with the city and the community and we understand the purpose of DIF fees and we want to pay our fair share so that the city and the community can benefit from this development. However, based on the current fee structure, it's making it very difficult for us to see a path forward. So we appreciate the city council taking a closer look at the development impact fees, particularly as it relates to hotel development in the city. We know that the city wants to encourage this type of development for all the benefits that it brings to the community. And we hope that upon further review and consideration that council will help us get over these hurdles so that we can make this project a reality. Thank you again to city staff for preparing the thoughtful report and for city council consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Ochoa.

All right, Orlando, I have a question. It's probably data that we don't have at hand. And I think I might want to bring this item back in a month or so.

This is a receiving file.

Receiving file?

Yeah, it's coming back. And when is it coming back?

In next year, right?

May? We will, outside of any other direction of the city council, this item is receiving file. We will redo the nexus study or begin the new nexus study in 2728 upon the completion of the water and sewer master plans. Those plans will inform the projects used in that nexus study. So unless the council brings this back for adjusting these fees, that's the next time that staff will bring it back.

Right. What would it look like if we... raised or lowered the fees. What's the pros and cons? What are the pros and cons of raising or lowering

Council Member Ochoa, that's a hardy question, and we could spend a lot of time discussing the pros and cons from a philosophical and political perspective, from an economics perspective. I think that would require perhaps a robust workshop, perhaps. I would say there are competing thoughts to that. There are perhaps one of the reasons why the council in 2018 and in 2022 discounted the rate. is as has already been said it was the perception of the council at the time that it would incentivize or subsidize projects that were of interest to the city or in city council at the time. And so that has generally been the prevailing interest of most councils is that you drive down costs, you drive up development activity in certain industries. We do have a slide, as I presented this evening, that demonstrated that that wasn't necessarily a correlation here at the local level. That as development impact fees increased, if I may, I'll show that slide again, regarding residential permit activity, that as the fee increased slowly but steadily over the last 10 years, and again, that fee is demonstrated in the orange trend line, we actually saw a slight decrease and then a slow upward trend, especially in 19, 20, 21, 22. We did see a slight dip in 23 as the fee did go up, but then there was a stabling and then a significant increase in 25, 26 compared to historical years, and that was when the fee was at its highest that it has ever been, if I recall correctly. And so, the slide notes at the bottom say that the activity is generally impacted by the broader market conditions. And that, again, I think is a larger economic question. I am not an economist, but it is a larger conversation that, again, I think would require more robust data. I hope I'm not dodging the question, Councilman. Not at all.

I am neither an economist or a mathematician, if I will. I do appreciate stats. I am a statistician, so I really love looking at the numbers. It helps me understand the direction that we're going in. So if I'm hearing you correctly, when it was higher, we did better.

Generally speaking, there's the other side to it too, though, and the concerning side, I think, that certainly your staff would advise you of is that as projects continue to come to the city, we do leave money on the table with a discounted rate, right? And so with a percentage discount, whether that's at, let me show that slide as well. Single family residential fees are discounted only, quote unquote, 30% compared to commercial and industrial. But nevertheless, the NEXUS study, which provides us legal standing for that fee, tells us that the fee is higher, can be higher. Again, that's the 2018 max fee, maximum fee. And so to discount it means to leave money on the table. And that is a concern to your staff as we look to the future and recognize that we have $1.5 billion in unfunded capital projects that we have to figure out a way to fund. And so this is but one measure to consider.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, lowering the discount would help us. Am I saying that correctly?

Lowering or eliminating the discount would provide more revenue in development impact fees to the city. Yes, sir. Okay.

What I would like to see is a workshop brought back to us going into this and helping us to understand The economic layout of where we're at regionally, we know what the country looks like, but regionally and what types of businesses we're drawing in and what it means and allowing an open discussion where people can come in and ask questions or make statements. And that includes our stakeholders and local businesses and perspective of an economist perhaps I don't want to say let's spend money on an economist but you know if there's information out there that we can gather and really put together a really solid presentation on what it would mean to raise or lower this death and how it would impact Hesperian our ability to invest in our infrastructure so if I don't know how long a workshop like that would take. I mean, that's a lot of work. We're looking at what, two or three months

Staff could present information to the City Council for consideration on what it would look like to both increase and decrease the discount. By end of October? as opposed to a new business item like this to allow more noticing of the item, thereby encouraging more participation from interested stakeholders, the development community, business owners, anyone interested in weighing in on the issue.

Would two months be appropriate time or would we need more time? Two months is good, end of October for a workshop?

We could target October.

Rachel, please correct me. I think that this would be a good thing to have prior to the Nexus study, maybe even leading into it. So then, I mean, you don't have a lull in time. So even if it's after October, after the new year and things like that, that may be a better option.

So, to clarify, I mean, the NEXUS study won't come back for, to even begin it for 18 months-ish. So it's up to the council's pleasure if you'd like to have a discussion and a public hearing on this sooner. We will have it no matter what later, but that isn't right around the corner. It is still going to be after we finish those master plans.

But we could decide theoretically to raise or lower the diff prior to the Nexus study.

Certainly.

Thank you. Yeah, I think it'd be worth hearing the information.

I would wait until after the new year. I mean, we have an election coming up, so you don't want to have to present this again whenever seats change and things like that. I think it's most beneficial to have everybody kind of in and step to that to where everybody's knowledgeable on it.

I'm willing to compromise on a time or a month.

I'll also add I'm not an economist, although I have an economics degree, and I do like numbers and am a statistician. So the upcoming nexus fee study for the 27, 28 year will take some time and of course once it comes back, it'll be roughly 10 years from the last time a nexus study was done. And even from today's date as of now, your discount that you're looking at at the column on the screen is actually higher than what's listed because of the fact that these are 2018 numbers. And so with the cost of inflation, especially from the 22 to 24 year being very high, your real cost of reduction is actually, I would say, 7 to 12% higher than what's listed there. So again, we're actually leaving more money on the table than you otherwise would see here. I think what would help for staff in preparing for an upcoming workshop would be specifically if you guys provide direction on what specific aspects you may want us to focus on. For example, the gentleman up there who came to speak asked to revisit the hotel diff. If we could focus on that and bring back information about the breakdown of how the numbers were arrived in the first place, you can make a better decision about what you would like to do with those rates. If you want to raise or lower the discount, raise the diff for industrial because you think as a council direction that There's a certain cost for industrial projects coming in that have wear and tear on street and storm drains and other types of infrastructure. We can focus on that as well. So if you would like us to focus on certain aspects of this study, that would be helpful.

Definitely. The aspects of the study that I would definitely like to focus on is where we can raise and lower or lower the discount Or raise the discount in certain aspects of work and help the most where it could be most beneficial. And what I'd like to see is where it's going to be able to affect the fastest. I can't make a decision. Like, I can snap judgment. Say, I want to vote on this next, you know, or bring back a vote on raising or lowering a death. without looking at numbers across the board to get a better idea of what that economic layout looks like until I can see all that information. And that's why I would like to have a workshop on it sooner than later is that we're gonna have to make really big choices next year on how to proceed economically as a city. And I want to be prepared because that, you know, It's going to be tough choices, really tough choices. So I want to make sure that we are making the best choices for our city. Thank you.

Tom Steno, please.

Good evening, Tom Steno, architect. I'm working on these projects right now, these hotel projects, and they're not making sense. For a 100-room hotel, they're $1.3 plus million. That's more than the land that they purchased to put it on. The thing we're forgetting about the hotel component compared to everything else is the TOT tax. It's 10%. These 100 room hotels are making over $400,000 a year taxes for the city. There's no other item up there that's paying back the city that kind of money. This is a huge revenue source for the city of Hesperia. A hotel is huge. So to gouge them up front and charge them 1.3 plus million dollars for a single hotel project, 100 room hotel, it's outrageous. Especially when the neighboring cities are less than half of that. So we're going to pack up their bags and go to the neighboring city. We don't want that. I don't want that. I want to see these projects in our city here. This is my city too. We can develop these projects. They're beautiful. Years ago when they started building the ones on Main Street, I thought, these guys are crazy. Why would they build a hotel in our city? We're no resort town. Who would come here? I was so wrong because they're full all the time. There's always no vacancy. People are staying at our hotels in our little city here. No resort town city. So we got two hotels. We're going to do one at a time. They're planned out. We've been pushing these things for the last year and a half. We're... amazingly close on getting these things to Planning Commission and now this has come up and my clients are like backpedaling saying, you know what? I don't know if we can do this now. This is too much money. So remember the money that you make annually off of a hotel. It's staggering compared to any other business on a payback scale. 400,000, it's over 400,000 going into it the first year. It's pushing almost 500,000. Think of that for the next 20 years. What other revenue source in the city of Hesperia, what other project makes the city of Hesperia that much money? You need to lower the hotel diff fee and get them in line with the rest of the cities. Thank you.

Council Member Gregg.

So there's a couple factors to this, kind of reminiscing on these meetings that we had. If you increase the diff rates by $10,000 per home, who foots that bill? Do you think that the builder or the building industry is going to absorb that? They might, but more than likely it's gonna get passed on to the person that's buying the home. I mean, so often we hear this phrase of affordable housing. This isn't an affordable housing. This is increasing it by whatever that difference is One thing I'm curious about is the actual impact because you know look I'm Able to admit that I would think that by lowering the diff fees We would become more attractive and more development would want to build within the city if that's not paying off then there should be some sort of adjustment to that For me, I'd rather focus more on your industrial, commercial, and things like that that are actually bringing in your tax revenue base. I think we've seen this and heard this study between all of us is that single-family residential home is going to use more resources than a commercial industrial building, and we're not even taking into account the microeconomics of that, such as the TOT fees or anything like that. So there is a trade-off in seeing And part of bringing that back, I'd like to see what could the city do better about attracting businesses if we're if we're still cheaper than Apple Valley. Why is Apple Valley getting more of sales tax-based businesses than what we're getting. So I think those are some of those highlighted points that we should focus on going into your workshop and things like that. I mean, Orlando, I think you're the perfect person to be able to provide this information to us coming from Apple Valley yourself and, you know, what can we improve on as a city to attract businesses Because it's not a lower fee, lower diff fee or anything like that that's attracting businesses. So maybe it's time to look at other factors into that. But I'd also like to remind my colleagues that if you raise prices on things, somebody's going to foot that bill. And everything has a snowball effect, and it usually ends up on your homebuyers and things like that for residential properties. And I think that that was one of the bigger reasons why we did that before. If we remove some of the red tape and be able to get our nexus fee down to where it's not costing us as much in fees and things like that, that may be a more viable option than just increasing our fee.

Any additional council comments? This is you do, yes?

Yes, I can go after Council Member Lee.

I'm

I am concerned about the difference we are charging with the per room hotel rate than the other cities for number one. I certainly wouldn't want to have projects like that want to go to a different city. When you have a hotel that comes in, you're gonna have to put some restaurants around it and other things that will draw people in and will eventually get revenue for us. So my main concern is how this number for the hotels came about and why are we so different from the other cities? And that can be brought up when we bring this back at our workshop. But that's the one I'm mainly concerned about.

Council Member Lee, if I may, Mayor, if I may comment on that and the general sentiment regarding hotel attraction. As your Economic Development Director, I would be happy to sit down with this project and work with them to find a way forward for this project. It's an important project, I think, for the city and for TOT generation, transient occupancy tax generation for the city. um and uh I WOULD CERTAINLY, I HAVE NOT HAD THE PLEASURE OF SITTING DOWN WITH MR. LINDEL ON THIS PROJECT, OR WITH MR. STINO ON THIS PROJECT, FOR THAT MATTER. WE HAD A BRIEF CONVERSATION, BUT NOTHING SPECIFIC TO THIS LETTER THAT WE RECEIVED, AND SO I JUST WANTED TO MENTION THAT AS YOUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, I'D BE HAPPY TO SIT DOWN WITH THEM AND MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE DOING WHAT WE CAN TO BRING THIS PROJECT FORWARD. IT IS AN ENTITLEMENT RIGHT NOW. IT IS IN THE ENTITLEMENT PROCESS, AND SO WE HAVE SOME WORK TO GO.

I love the idea of the workshop. I think that's a great idea. I'm excited about that. Because I know that we're leaving a lot of money on the table. And we can use it at this point. But I do want to know about that one. That one I am curious about on that. So that's about all I have on my comments. Thank you.

Any further council comments?

Not to... directly address Speaker Tom Steno, and to underscore what Allison said, I would like for the workshop to maybe give us a little bit more information on what's going on with the hotels and highlight that a little bit more. I'd like a broad overview just because I I'm a public administration geek, so I'm not going to lie. And I just want to see it. But I think it would benefit the public to understand and us and the council to get a better grasp on what's going on economically. So thank you. Those are my final comments on this agenda item.

I would encourage you, Mr. Lindholm, to set a meeting with – Orlando and you can come we can work you guys can work together on that and see what we can do as a city because We want to attract the hotels as well all of us obviously on the council, but I would encourage you to Set up a meeting Thank you very much. Okay moving on to council committee reports and comments councilmember Lee Thank you

It is very, very sad to see how many accidents are happening all over the Mojave River Valley up here. It's very, it's just awful. I hear them, cars racing down my street and... just it just makes me sick and I pray for these families of these young girls that have passed away and as Ella Rogers said that there is a GoFundMe for those young girls so if anybody can afford to put anything in there to help the costs of that I I I urge you to do so. I attended VMI on August 5th. Chris Ackerman from VBTA was the guest speaker. He did a great job as usual. On 8-15 Saturday, I attended the Second Chance Food Bank Arabian Nights Gala and Josh and his lovely wife were there and Chris was there. It was a really, I had a great time. I thought the food was good. The line for a drink was a little long. I guess one of the bartenders was sick and was just trying to get a soda. It took like forever. But I was glad because that's when the snake was let go and was slithering across the floor towards Josh. Better him than me. Sorry. On August 8th, the county held a Read, Write, and Cruise first annual car show held here at our library. It was a really, really successful event, and they are planning on doing it again. And the county also had the pet adoption trailer out, and I know at least one dog got a new forever home that day, so that was a great thing. I just want to make sure that our citizens in the City of Hesperia realize that there is a difference between the City of Hesperia and the Recreation and Parks Department. They are not one and the same. The Recreation and Parks Department is their own entity. It has been around since the 1950s, and our city has been incorporated since 1988, so If you read things, please note that there is a huge difference with that. I just want to make sure that you all know that. And I want to thank staff. You guys do a great job. Thank you for all the explanations on the DIF information. I'm looking forward to getting that workshop going. And just... Slow down. I'm stealing Cameron's thing there, but slow down. And just like my husband was picking me up on Saturday night, and he is right over here off of Willow and 5th. He said he was coming to a stop sign over there, and he's slowing down. Actually, he was at the stop sign, and the car going north and south was not stopping. He says they had to be going about 70 miles an hour, didn't even stop. If my husband would not have paid attention... he and my dog would have perished in that accident. It was horrific. So just take a minute or two or take a couple seconds at the lights and the stop signs and make sure no one's coming. I try and do that at this point because our drivers up here are a little crazy. Sometimes I get a little crazy driving too, so I'm not pointing fingers at anybody because I'm pointing my finger at myself as well. Lastly, life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving, and that is Albert Einstein. That's all I got.

Council Member Gregg, please.

All right, thank you, Madam Mayor. First off, I want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those two teenage girls that lost their life in the tragic accident that could have been easily preventable for people not doing the right thing. I do preach up here every meeting to slow down, get to where you're going safely. My colleague Allison mentioned that we have to take the extra time to be aware of our surroundings and things like that. It's kind of sad whenever you put it in that kind of perspective of the people that are doing the right thing need to be more aware of those that aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. Somebody brought up speed bumps and things like that. I think that I brought that up way back when to try to figure out if the city could do that at stop signs, and I'm pretty sure that was rejected down from law, but there's a lot of things that I think that are left on the table of trying to prevent these tragedies from happening. Law enforcement, they're our main bread and butter of trying to police that. Their hands are full. We see that constantly. Our budget is in that kind of constraint. We have allocated over 53% of our budget going to law enforcement. It's kind of hard to give them more resources and the hard work that they do in the back. I think it was brought up of every electric cycle. I think we do hear the same thing of we want to do the streets and police and things like that. Once we get up here and start seeing all the red tape that is behind that, it's not as easy said than it is done. If you have proposals for that, bring them to us. We're happy to hear them. I think we've all talked about that, is that we are regular people as well, just like everybody else. If you have an idea, I know that I'm willing to hear it and explore those options for that. Bring them up. Folks, slow down. Pay attention. Stop making life difficult for families, for our law enforcement in the back. Other than that, Madam Mayor, I don't have any committees to report on. My next VVWRI meeting is Thursday, and then I can provide a report during our next meeting.

Thank you. Council Member Ochoa.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a busy weekend. I was unable to attend a tri-agency meeting. Unfortunately, work did get in the way of that. I work in health care, and there are exciting days, to say the least, sometimes when dealing with the public. We work hands-on in our communities. I was also invited to sit with Senator Suzette Valladares for the Hispanic Leadership Advisory Committee and always an honor to be invited by her office. I was able to speak alongside assembly members that were visiting the Adelanto Detention Center. This weekend, or excuse me, this last Friday, I was invited by our community organizations and Assemblyman Juan Carrillo, and we took a stance. And whatever that means in that moment is a personal stance. And it doesn't reflect my ability to lead in the capacity of my council member status we all have our opinions about what is happening at a national level and not to not politicize this too much uh i do want to highlight that to my council here that we are going to face legislation coming down from sacramento specifically SB 1105, AB 1537, AB 1807, and SB 1257, which will impact how municipalities engage with federal agencies, specifically ICE. And there will be consequences to municipalities. for allowing ICE agents to utilize city resources. I would like to get ahead of that curve and start a conversation here at the local level of what we're going to do to prepare for that legislation That is very likely to be passed very soon before the closing of the assembly and become law and signed into law for next year. I think we need to be prepared. I think we need to understand what is going to be asked of us. If our resources are being used to assist ICE, because that will, if they are, and I don't know, can incur litigation that we cannot afford to pay. and litigation against the state is very expensive. And I don't want us as taxpayers to have to carry that burden. So I would like to agendize at a meeting in October to bring back a discussion and a review of SB 1105, AB 1537 AB 1807 and SB 1257 and how they will impact the city of Hesperia and what we can do to get ahead of the curve. Secondly, before I pass on my comments, I would like to agendize at a meeting in October the renunciation and complete rescinding of a resolution that was issued by the city of Hesperia numbered 2016-05. I would like to agendize consideration for a formal rescinding and renunciation of the city's 2016 resolution opposing refugee resettlement. I would like staff and the city attorney to review the resolution in light of current law, civil rights considerations, and the message that the policy continues to send to the immigrant communities that live in our city. Not all immigrants are illegal. And we're all neighbors. And Hesperia should be a welcoming and loving place to all the people that call it home. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Poland, please.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to echo my colleagues' comments about the two young girls that tragically lost their lives. My thoughts and prayers are with their family. Orlando, thanks for the great presentation tonight. I did attend the gala with Allison and Chris, as Allison spoke about. It wasn't as fun as Allison said when the snake was coming at me specifically. I'm not a fan of snakes. All of the animals, yes, not snakes, though. Thank you to staff, as always. Thank you to the people in the back. I also didn't have any committees. My committees resumed this week, and that's it. I yield.

Thank you. I did not have any meetings last month. Unfortunately, my... Oh, good grief, Chris. A snake around his neck. Sorry, I don't do anything that doesn't have legs that can outrun me is not my friend. I have the MDA QMD meeting coming up. I would like to thank our police and fire, all your hard work. I know you guys are out there busy, busy, busy. It seems every day there's a fire in the area, there's a horrific car accident. And also to our code and animal control and public works. You guys always see you moving and grooving around the city. You're doing a great job. And Rachel and your staff for always being prepared, able to answer our questions. All the presentations were great, very informative. I just would ask, I do every campaign season, run a clean campaign. Be kind. I also would like to say happy anniversary to my husband, 24 years today. And happy birthday to Abby Molina. She's 22. Jeez. And then also... I would like my prayers and thoughts are to the families of Maddie and Izzy. That was very tragic. Those are babies just starting their life, ending their high school, senior year. It's just heartbreaking that these tragedies happen. So I would like to close the meeting in memory of Maddie and Izzy. And then I would just say kindness is not a weakness, it is a strength with a gentle heart. Do we have any city managers, city attorney staff, or city attorney reports? Thank you. Then I will adjourn the meeting at 8.21. Thank you all for coming to our meeting. Hi, Shelby.