City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. We're going to call the city council meeting and the India water authority meeting to order. Our regular session at 5:00 on November 19th. Can we have roll call please? Council member Rethornne present. Council member Ortiz present. Council member Ferman present. Mayor Prom Holmes present. And Mayor Miller

present. If that we can stand up for, if you would all please for invocation with Pastor Tony Williams from the Love of Christ Community Church. And then we have a special person to do our flag salute. Pastor, it's my honor to be here once again. Let us just pray. Lord, we just thank you, Lord, for for being who you are, for being a good God, a merciful God. Lord, we ask for wisdom from the council. We ask for safety for our law enforcement. We ask for our teachers and our educators to write to have the right heart and to do their work with the best of their abilities. Lord, we ask that you just continue to protect every citizen. Give this council wisdom that they may govern as great stewards that are concerned about the the most things and the least of things. Concerned about the person that's homeless on the street and the person that's tucked away well nice and wealthy. And Lord, as you've given them this opportunity, let them understand how powerful they are, how important they are, and how much they need to be subjected to authority so that they can do things right. And Lord, we just thank you that this city is great, that this city is wonderful, and that we're all proud citizens of this city of Indo. So we thank you for all things, and we turn this meeting over to you. In the name of Jesus, we all pray. Amen. Thank you, Pastor M. We have Sam Marinez, who is a very special person to do a flag salute for us. He's from Dr. Kerion Academy. Sam is a fifth grader at Dr. Kerrion Academy. He enjoys playing video games, spending time with his dogs, and playing baseball and flag football. Sam hopes to become a professional baseball player one day and plans to attend Stanford University. Sam,

please lead us in the pledge. Uh, place your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Amen. Don't go away, Sam. We got something for you. Come on down.

Yep. Come on, Sam. We got a little swag for you. And just so you know, our council member Oscar Ortiz is a Stanford graduate. So, [applause]

[applause]

Thank you. You're welcome. All right. With that, we'll move on to item number four now, which is the city uh attorney report on close session. Mr. Graham. Uh thank you, mayor. There's no reportable action out of tonight's close session.

Thank you very much. We'll move on to item number five now, which is a a presentation. We have a presentation 5.1 by the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce. They're giving us an update on what they're doing here in the city of Indo and through the Coachella Valley. Please come on up. Okay. Thank you very much, council members. Uh my name is Rafael Oscal. I'm the chair and the president of the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce. And then we are so glad today that they give you the opportunity to present for the first time in the city the Hispanic American Chamber. The chamber born in 2002 and then chess empowered the business right here in the valley. That's what I looking for. Uh working with everybody, not just with the Hispanic. that the reason the name is Hispanic American Chamber we try to work with all the communities and then that's the introduction only this is Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and then we have addition the our foundation we are the only one who has right now the foundation in the in the chambers so that's we are very proud of that so from there I going to pass Karolina who is the treasurer and the the the one who guiding everybody in the chamber so she's going to continue with the presentation. Thank you.

Um, yeah, the most important thing as a Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce is that we are here to meet everyone that is not only Hispanic, we are here to work and to conserve our roots. And some of the things that we do are very important because besides only doing networking and events, we are also more on education of the informative legislatives that are going on and in our cities. We do programs and trainings to educate mentoring. We do certification. We do business resources. And the one of the things that we like a lot is that to work together in communication. Our communication is bilingual in espanol, but we work together with the media. So they can be also informed of what we do. And we have a strategic partnerships with local governments over here in the Coachella Valley who usually sponsor our community and our organizations that we work with. So, some of the things what we do, we have here Rudy just to talk a little bit about it.

Good evening, mayor and city council in the audience. My name is Rudy. I'm the VP of government affairs. As you may know, I was born and raised in India. I live in LA and Palm Springs. Now, regardless where I live at, what I do, I represent the Hispanic community across Southern California. I'm involved from LA to India, different events. We do uh we do the Jeff Gonzalez breakfast every quarterly. Uh we're launching on um Senator Oshawa Bo Latin Latina conference. Um the last time we had a Latina conference with Bonnie Garcia when she was in office and we're doing so much programs for the community throughout the Coachella Valley. We're the only chamber in the Coachella Valley working with the immigrant community. We're providing services with ACLU the different attorneys that we worked from from New York to LA making sure that the community that is driving a lot of business in the especially in India lost 30% of their employees no longer here anymore they're unemployed we have I I took documents we have a lot of them that are got deported and they still have family here and they're bringing up families regardless how we feel what's going on in Washington we're here to making sure the community is thriving thriving, working together, unity, and making sure that division is not occurring and making sure everyone has the American dream and making sure that we participate in a in the in the social justice system that we have here. And and we're working with different um throughout the Coachella Valley. We do work from Palm Springs to Coachella and we're in between. We're having mixers, breakfast throughout the nine cities. So, we're not just in one city, even though we're based in Palm Springs, but we we work all nine cities, all tribal governments, county territories, and we're making sure that we represent the Coachella Valley. We're not just one desert, but we're entire Coachella Valley. We're united as one.

So basic um what we usually do we we do a lot of cultural events and the cultural events is to inform everyone about our roots and um some of the events that we have done involve not only the cinco deayo fiestas patrias we also get involved with keeping the roots of the sound music and entertainment that our Hispanic culture is is all about. We want to be happy. We are happy. We want to work hard. And everything we do is fun to learn more and always keep our culture and educating our youth. And our and our chamber is not just it consists of of Puerto Rican descent, Puerto Ricans, Cuban, Nicarawa, Mexican, Saborenho, Bernig, Argentina. So that the Latin culture has over 15 different cultures, not just Mexican American, Puerto Rican America, Cuban America. We're a multicultural organization across the board. You know, we have we have a Cuban we have a Cuban Secretary of State in the in the White House. So we work everybody across the state making sure that all Latin cultures are inclusive and work as a team. So now one of the things that are also um new for us is the foundation and we have Raphael that has worked really close on the foundation that is a nonprofit organization that helps the community. Just a little things. Um the focus of the foundation is through the training the students try to give you more education to them. Uh helping the families and need and everything. That's the main point of the foundation. That's the reason the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce is tying right now with the HHC Foundation. That the reason we are the only one right now who had the

foundation because we working together with the support of the California Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce to the the USA [clears throat] Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. They are the support for us right here in the Coachella Valley. So from there I think we are set and and then do you want to say something about the calendar? We have it.

Yeah. for 2026. We have um these are tentative plans for 2026. We have the leadership breakfast with the Chip Gonzalez in January. We have four of those. We have a gala dinner scholarship ceremony and we're going to name that. We're going to name the scholarship um ceremony under Waqin Dado who was the founder of the first Mexican-American restaurant in Palm Springs and we're going to use the Dado family to be part of our network. We have NBC who'll be joining us as well. We have a Cinco de Mayo at at the at the same time we'll be have we'll be having business lunchons partners working with international cultural affairs working with many entities throughout the Coachella Valley and the state and the state as well and the county

and thank you. If you have any questions please Yeah. And then also in the presentation you can see over there the overview and the key moments we have it during the during the 2025. We didn't thought this a lot we doing these years being the new Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce in the in the Coachella Valley. We're doing a lot of right now especially for kids we mean working with the kids right now because we try to bring it up one of the best sport over here. I know right here in Coachella they have one of the best sport but we got we try to bring it right now this soccer who is uh one of the mayor tournament in LA we try to bring it over here and then thank you everybody for pay attention to uspanic [laughter] chamber of commerce Any questions? Mr. Gutron, see your lights on?

Yeah, I just wanted to know how long have you been established in the valley when you started and two, how many members do you have from the city of India? Number one, we started in 2022. Approximately now we have about 20 or 25 um angel businesses in the in so far and total in the valley that you total valley we have about six no almost close to 90 I'm sorry so 25 of those of the 90 just the the indo alone okay

yeah they try to leverage right now all goal right now is to be at least between 15 to 20 business a month to get all goal in the year in that case we the most we can help him the most. We want to do as a matter of fact we try to invite everybody. We're going to have the turkey drive this coming Tuesday that we're going to give you away turkeys because this one another thing the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce is going to do is to be right in the moment with the the necessity is right there. So right now we we know that the families are struggling right now with the foods and everything. So that's what we're going to do on Thursday. uh we're going to give you the flyers to you in that case you can put it right there in the in the it's going to be right here in India too.

Okay. Thank you Mr. Ortiz. Sure. Yeah. First I just want to say thank you for all your services. I know it's extremely important to have bilingual services for our business community out here. So appreciate that. I really appreciate the work that you're doing with ACLU as well and getting that kind of support to our community at this time. It's much greatly uh needed. So we appreciate that work. And then also thank you for all the work that you do in bringing, you know, the the free uh backpack drives and the free food giveaways and everything that you do out in the community. We see that effort as well. So just want to thank you for all that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pompe.

Congratulations. Very very wellreceived. I've attended some of your events and will continue to a great organization you are. You reach out to to the Hispanic community and beyond. um your events and your functions are just outstanding and they really hit to the core of what we need here in India and in the Coachella Valley. So, thank you for all the hard work. Thank you, Mr. Furman.

Yeah, just uh thank you for your presentation. I have attended some of your events and I really appreciate the work that you do in the community, but I think something that's really important now. This is a chance to collaborate with the city and support um our Hispanic uh business uh uh folks here in the city as well. and collaborate with the city. You we have some pipeline programs that work with residents to uh get get their businesses going or get their nonprofits [clears throat] going. So, I think this is opportunity to really collaborate with our staff and see how we could do more work in the future and also um continue to be present at our events. I think the the more exposure and the more word that we get out um you could get more people in our city and you're able to support more people and so folks also understand that uh the services that you provide are readily available but I know from working with you all that you just don't provide services for business you are community oriented for this valley and so I appreciate that so thank you

thank you thank you and that's what I will try to do it's just working with the community all the time that the reason the two last events in December is going to be right here in India, the two of them. So that's we are very proud to do it with the city of India. Thank you everybody and thank you everybody for pay attention to. Thank you.

Before we leave um um in January we're having the state of the district which means we're having all four elected officials from Padilla's office, Senator Bunch Bo, Greg Wallace and Jeff Gonzalez. They're all going to be on it's the first time we're having four state officials and we're gonna have a lunch. I call it the state of the union state state of the district and they're gonna and we're hopefully that you can join us and of course mayor as I said last time you're going to welcome everybody to India in January. So and hopefully um we're ready to rock and roll. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation and your support of our our small businesses and our Hispanic and regular businesses also. Thank you very much.

THANK YOU. [applause] WITH WITH THAT, WE'LL MOVE on to our youth advisory council.

Good evening, Mayor Miller and council members. My name is Enrique and I'm a member of the Indo Youth Advisory Council. Recently, we have volunteered at the barbecue fest where we enjoyed ribs, steak, and ice cream. We we also helped out at the veterans 5K and it was great to see everyone supporting and celebrating the veterans who served this country. At our most recent meeting, Mayor Miller was our guest speaker and he shared valuable advice as he spoke about his life experience. Looking ahead, we'll be participating in the annual treelighting event next month and volunteering at the Tamalei Festival the following days. Also, I'd like to thank everybody for the happy birthday wishes. And that concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you very much. [applause] Which uh would you like to stay for the rest of the meeting? Would you like to be excused? Okay. Thank you. Uh with that, we'll move on to the next item which is the uh city manager report. Mr. Montgomery.

Thank you, mayor. Uh as mentioned, a very successful barbecue event and coming up we've got our tree lighting as well as the tamalei festival. So an exciting time. It has been very exciting for city staff and I'm honored and pleased uh to report that we've moved out of the former old city hall and we're in the new city hall. Appreciate everybody's patience uh both from the customer as well as as all of the team. Uh the city council chambers is not quite done yet, but expected to be by the time for the next meeting. It looks like we might need that extra space. Um, but we again appreciate uh all of the the residents that come and do business here at at city hall and have had some adjustments. Uh, we have some parking yet to be constructed, so things are a little bit constrained. Uh, but that herculean task of still operating on a day-to-day basis and finishing up a move is now complete. Mayor, that's my report.

Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Thank you, you and your team for all the hard work you do every day for the residents [snorts] and the council. With that, we'll move on to the city council conflict of interest. Does anybody have anything they need to talk about or recuse themselves from? Okay. Then with that, we'll move on to the city council reports on meetings attended for the government code section 53232.3D. Mr. Gutron,

thank you, Mayor. Well, a lot of things going on. Uh on Thursday, November 6, we we had the annual public safety support services dinner in the city of Indo. It's an opportunity for all valley public agencies, fire and police and sheriff's office and ambulance and that is celebrated throughout the nine cities in the county area in the Coachella Valley. And this year the host was the city of India police department and it's those folks that you meet at the front counter. It's those folks that you get data from. It's those folks that maintain our property evidence. It's all the support staff that that helps the front line. So, it's a really was nice event at Heritage Palms Country Club and it was really nice to recognize everyone's good hard efforts to keep the public safety moving and you can't do it without the support staff. So, that was really eventful. On Friday, November 7th was a di Mertos in the city of India at our famous Coachella Valley history museum. If you haven't been there, you should because it represents the history of not just India but all the valley communities. And it's celebrated on Muertos which is traditionally a moment in time in Hispanic culture to recognize those that you loved and those that you were special to you. But it's a good celebration. It's always well attended and all the funding collected goes back into the Coachella Valley History Museum. So if you haven't visited there, you have the 1909 schoolhouse, the Deep Museum, the Adobe House, the Smiling Dr. Tyler uh was home, and also upcoming is the infamous now currently being worked on is the railroad dining car and that's going to be just a masterpiece when it's done representing the history of our community specifically in Indo California. So I really was excited about um on Sunday um November 9th it was the American Legion, our veterans, our veteran riders which is all those folks that love riding their

motorcycles. They took an opportunity to recognize recognize our veterans on that day and supporting all their efforts by having a really nice car show and classic cars and hot rods and whatnot and it was well attended. Um, obviously if you haven't been to the American Legion or how many of you are veterans and you live in India, you should stop by because it's a great benefit to supporting our veterans. Um on Monday, November the 17th, um I had the uh privilege of representing thanks to the appointment by the mayor and the support by the mayor Pim is our Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy Board, which helps protect all the desert lands that are currently being protected and the wildlife and what really makes the Coachella Valley. And there's a lot of growth that the conservy is is gaining just north of us off Dylan Road. again the challenge of protecting our our local native plants and animals and so forth which Oscar Ortiz is very fond of of doing that. So it's really nice to see the efforts because we wouldn't have a beautiful valley if we don't make those efforts and and then on Wednesday the 19th today was very special because we had the all valley public safety recognition of all our law enforcement the front line and it was really nice. It was well a well attended event and I'm really happy to say I saw fire chief white here. Where's the fire chief or did there are so many people he's on the back side right now. So anyways uh it's really nice to recognize obviously we have a contract with Riverside County Cal Fire but it is our fire department and we're proud that this year's firefighter paramedic is Nicholas and he was recognized today. And then the other thing with Chief Tully who's here is our department uh from the police department was a detective drawer on justice and he's a a detective who did very well in solving a lot of crimes and everything. The special thing for me is he's homegrown and a graduate from India Ohio and along with our

professional staff that I mentioned earlier is our property evidence room. All that stuff that during investigations or anything that's held in evidence that we have a beautiful brand new warehouse and it was a uh basically it's our property evidence. That's what it looks like. And the two young ladies that are working there, Jessica and Elizabeth, have done a great work. I can't say enough words that the chief has already mentioned, but you should know that everything that involves crime and is evidence is well safe and taken care of because it's there to prove people have done bad or those people that need help. So, um, with that, other than the barbecue festival was wonderful, but I'm excited because we're celebrating the tamalei festival the first weekend, and I've been at it with the tamalei festival since I was a kid. I can't wait for it to go back downtown because what happened with barbecue, we'll be swinging tamales next year in 2026 in that same location. And that's what we're looking forward to. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Katron. Mr. Ortiz,

thank you, Mayor. Uh last time last night I attended the Sunrise Rotary Law Enforcement and Veterans Recognition Dinner at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission. I want to congratulate Detective Geron Justice on his award for this year for the India Police Department and congratulations to all of our other awardees as well. I attended our second annual Veterans Day 5K. I want to thank our staff for a great event. Um and thank you to everyone who joined us to support our veterans and their families. Also attended the Veterans Day ceremony at the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery. I want to thank the staff there at the cemetery district for having us as well as our American Legion for helping us out with the ceremony and hosting their lunch afterwards for our veterans and their families. I attended the ribbon cutting for the new Lake Kawa Veterans Regional Park with County Supervisor Perez. Definitely encourage you all to check out the new improvements there, including the pool, which is back up and running. And it was great to see all the families out there again. I also attended the barbecue festival, which was great. Huge crowd and great food as always. So, thank you to all of our vendors who came to share their amazing food with us here in India. On Tuesday, I had a meeting with representatives from Calire and Council Member Benitron. We went over some of the costs that are shared between our local governments uh for fire protection and we went over some of the current challenges including new challenges such as new battery systems and homes and illegal fireworks. And we invited them to bring their new hires in for recognition at our future council meetings. I also attended the Inland Regional Energy Network. We discussed Assembly Bill 39, which would require government agencies with more than 75,000 residents to begin adding energy plan sections to their general plans. This would require cities to identify how they're going to meet future needs for energy uh for their community. And this would include the city of Indio since we are over 75,000 residents. So, we'll need to start that process by 2027 and submit our first energy plan by 2030. We also covered our IN business plan which will we will submit by February

and that will cover three sectors which is the public sector codes and standards and workforce education and the training sector. Lastly, I would like to report back since our last meeting about requesting data on all immigration enforcement operations conducted in the city of Indo through the freedom of information act request. This would help us bring some transparency to immigration enforcement so that we can clearly understand who has been taken, how long they're held in detention centers, and what exactly they are charged with. It's also important to understand things like social and economic impacts to the city. We need to know how many of our youth are being left without parents, how many families are being emotionally and economically impacted, and how much we can expect these enforcement activities to affect local revenues for the city, for our schools, and for small businesses. The information I'm requesting is already clearly communicated at the local level in our jails and it can be legally obtained by at the federal level, but it requires action through the Freedom of Information Act request by submitting what is known as the FOYA request. Uh I talked to some of our Border Patrol officers and they said that they have an office that deals with these requests and that the best place to address this is to the Department of Homeland Security and to the Department of Justice to cover all the possible enforcement activity. I would like our our city request for the year 2025 following the example of the city of Santa Ana and Ansenus who have received some limited information back from the federal government. I would also like to begin submitting foyer requests on a monthly basis in 2026 so that we can have a steady stream of data coming in through the future. I've been told by local organizers and by border patrol officials that these requests coming from the city rather than from an individual may speed up the process of receiving this information from the federal government. In my research looking for successful foyer requests from other cities, I found that uh those who receive responses to these foyer requests mostly receive aggregate

data not including personal information. So my suggestion is that we only request general data that would include a few things that include dates of enforcement, location, type of action, agency conducting the operation, reason for arrest, charges against detained individuals, immigration status of detained individuals, time held in deta in detention, and case outcome. We need to understand what this enforcement means for the city, for the future of our city in terms of human rights, in terms of social impacts, and in terms of business impacts. Immigration enforcement is quickly increasing and we need to prepare for that in our city planning. It's legally required that the federal government provide this information, but we have to ask for it. And asking for it on the city level makes it much more likely that this request will be answered by federal agencies. My request is that we bring back an action item at our next council meeting to consider this foyer request for 2025 as well as monthly foyer requests for 2026 so that we can inform our community and be prepared for the social and economic impacts on our local families. That's all I have. Mayor.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ortiz. Mr. Ortiz is asking for this to be brought back. I personally don't feel comfortable getting engaged in something that we have no jurisdiction over. uh it should be the work of our uh congressman, congressman Ruiz, that's his uh foyer of be able to come up with that information with homeland security and then can pass it on to not only our city but other cities. Uh, I think our resources are limited to what we can do and I don't think it's in our jurisdiction to be able to dictate anything and if we're going to get basic small information, that's not anything that the uh, individuals or their family members can't get. And I know uh, council member Ferman talked to Homeland Security or Border Patrol and talked about it, but I don't feel comfortable. I'd have to see what the rest of the council would like to do.

Do we have three votes on bringing this back? Well, I mean, I I I do support it, and I'll tell you why. Um, you know, we we talk a lot about serving our city and serving the people who lived here. Um, whether you were you were born here in America, whether you're born here in Europe, or whether you're born here in South America, we have a lot of people in our community um from Canada as well who call India home. And those folks work in our hospitality industry. They work in our healthcare. They work in our casinos. They work in our restaurants. And maybe even do some of our landscaping. Um, I think we owe it to some of those folks and their families to provide resources where they could go to get assistance and also gain citizenship if that's the ultimate goal or if that's the issue holding them up. Now, I I get what the mayor is saying. This is a a bigger issue. It's a federal issue. And I also want to add to this um or just add in the conversation um we as a council and as local governments in our valley um on a broader level need to communicate with our federal representatives that we need comprehensive immigration reform and that should be the ultimate goal. But for the start, I think requesting information is a scheduled email that our attorney could schedule for 12 months or six months to see where it goes and come back later on and say, "Hey, this is the information that we've been able to obtain. If our residents want it, we have it available." Um, it's an email. It's you can schedule an email for six months and whatever information we get, we can make it available. It's

not a resolution. We're not asking for action. We're not going against the federal government's uh enforcing laws. Everybody has a mission. We all don't have to agree with everybody's mission and we understand that. But in the course of that, um I think we have an obligation to support taxpayers in our city. So, uh that's WHAT [applause]

Thank you. Uh I you know this is one of those heartfelt situations where we certainly want to help and and [clears throat] lend a hand to those in our community. However, I just have a different approach to doing that and I think we need to go through our congressman's office. I think he needs to be able to provide whatever the information that we have. There are several uh organizations in in our city and beyond that that work with immigration that can help the process and perhaps we can work more closely with them, [clears throat] team with them to try to provide some information, but I I I don't uh agree with with going after or the Freedom of Information Act. do uh I would like to see us work more closely with Congressman Raurice to capture that information and um and then disseminate it as appropriate and and uh see how we can aggregate um the services that we have in our community and beyond.

Just out of respect, mayor, before I um I just want to add to that um I've already requested the information as well to see if the system actually works. So, I'm taking it a step beyond personally to try to obtain that information and if we come back to the council, whether it's a report to the community, um, at least we'll be able to see what we're we're able to get. So, I just wanted to add that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Mr. Gron, any comments?

Well, from our last council meeting, I when council member Ortiz brought it up, he made a statement that caught my interest, even though I only heard it secondhand. Cathedral Cities started a process and I asked that we get more research. Uh I was the last one because the mayor asked me what what's your position? I want more information because I want to know what path everybody else is doing. And yes, believe me, I understand the Freedom of Information Act very well. Okay. Um and I think it is the public's right when you send something to get a response. What I don't want to do is start an effort believing we did something and it failed. I want to make sure that when we kick that door down, we're going to get information if we're not going to do it. So, I took it a step further. I contacted Congressman Reese's office and folks, their staff, and I also contacted Calbert's office. Calbert said, "We're following what was being done." Congressman Reese's office says we're referring all our representatives that are asking questions or constituents and referring them to a list of resources that are assisting them that are currently available throughout the valley. And I asked for that list so we can reiterate that and have that available for the public. I've yet to get what I requested because I was approached on it from our staff and I checked and I still don't know. I does staff have a report on what Cathedral City is doing?

Sir, uh I I talked to Mayor Nancy Ross and she mentioned that she was actually told don't even bother with the foyer request because you're not going to hear back. And so what I actually went and looked at different examples of people who did hear back and I looked at those how they filed those requests and what information they got back and those examples are Santa Ana insanas and the ACLU and they did get some information back. They couldn't get personal information. No names are being attached there but they are getting data. Uh when we talk about using city resources for this like council member Ferman said this is an email that can go out automatically. It's not a huge lift on our staff when we're talking about going to the congressman's office. Look at how how the relationships are going at the federal government right now. Um the the congressman might not hear back either. And what our order officials are saying is if you file this as a city, it'll be more urgent and you might actually hear back unlike a lot of the families who are going through the congressman's office and aren't getting any any information back at this point. And so that's why we're going this route. Um, you know, if nobody else is doing the job of providing transparency, but we have the p position of power here to provide a little transparency with minimal effort, I don't see uh what this what the issue is with that. It's federally it's legally required by the federal government to be provided and we owe it to our residents to have transparency on what is going on in our community. We're getting told certain things at the federal level and some of those things I don't believe are true. And so the way that we check if they're true is providing more transparency and we can do that at the city level through the Freedom of Information Act request. [applause] Now I just want to back Mr. Garner. Are you in favor of this? Just

I still wanted more data. I haven't gotten anything back from staff and even though I'm not disproving what council Martineis says, I've just there's other topics that are Those are not being addressed. And if we're going to do this right, whether it's a letter, email, whatever purpose we're going to move forward on it, I want it solid. M Mr. Thronone, if we bring this back as an agenda item, we can get more information from our staff. Okay. [clears throat] But we need to bring it back. No, no, just it's a yes or no. That's that's the risk debating whether it should be done or not. The question at hand, should it be on the agenda? At which time?

Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you for clarifying and yes, I want it back with more information than I wanted on the agenda for the next meeting. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. So, just to clarify because we will put on the agenda whether or not such a request will be made formally from the city. Then you would vote on it, debate it as you've kind of already started now. Uh and then you'll give us that direction. Then it might be further research, it might be the foyer request. You'll tell us then what you'll want us to do. We'll have it on the agenda.

And excuse me for not understanding. It's not that I'm not hearing you, but I thought we took care of this at the last meeting where we had a consensus to go research and bring it back. And if we didn't weren't clear, I have a whole bunch of people that are hearing me right now. Yeah. I I I won't play the role of the city attorney, but since it's not it wasn't on the agenda last time, it's not on the agenda this time. It's to debate whether it should be on the agenda, not the matter for which you're debating. It's the item itself. So that's what will be on because I there's consensus now to do that. At that meeting, you'll be able to provide whatever direction you'd like. Thank you. Sounds good. I just I feel our resources are limited. So Mr. Ortiz, we'll we'll bring that back. Is that okay with you? Anything else, Mr. Ortiz? Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Ferman.

Yes. Uh thank you. Good evening. Um we'll start off with some uh ribbon cutings, right? [laughter] Uh India's moving forward and moving fast. So, I attended a ribbon cutting along with the mayor at our new Starbucks on Highway 111 across the street from the courthouse. Um, you know, if you need coffee, come to downtown India, right? And so, uh, we have some more ribbon cutings coming. Another coffee place, Cigaro, an Oasis, is coming up as well. And so, um, that's always great to have a new business here. I think it's 20 20 employees that are going to be employed there, um, here locally. So that's always a great thing bringing some more employment uh to our community. Um I also attended the ribbon cutting um um for the Alour credit union here on Highway 111. And so it's over at the old Robbo Bank. Um another good thing, you know, um you can't have community without a bank. That's a good thing to have another bank in our community. And um they're also a good partner um with our local organizations and supporting our nonprofits. So um we really appreciate uh um our tour credit union committed to our city. Um another uh ribbon cutting um that we attended was the CV link ribbon cutting here in in India. And so very exciting that is a monumental uh occasion and a uh transformative uh uh effort. Um you know I like CV Link. I can't wait to really activate it and I know our staff has some great ideas. Um, CAG did a great job uh bringing that to us. However, um, that CV link project started years and years and years ago, correct me if I'm wrong with uh, Supervisor Bonoid and a lot of other folks, some people who are not even here with us anymore. So, um, hats off to them and we really show our appreciation to them because CV Link right now um, some people may look at it and say, "Well, that's that's a lot of concrete going through our city and going to

other communities." However, um if we look at future uh transportation and getting from place to place and also keeping our pedestrians safe as they travel through our community and getting them out of their vehicles and onto uh their bikes or electric scooters or however they walk, um it's a great thing and it's also promoting health and wellness in our community and one of the things I'm very very proud of in our community is the investment that we have in that area. So, we have with two stops of uh CV Link here in India. We have one right off of Madison, which is another great location, but we have one and off of Jackson and North India. And so, um I say I'm very proud of that because for years, you know, that community has been underserved, but this council has invested in infrastructure. We've invested in uh activities. We have the sports complex coming to that area. Um we invested in our public safety there. So we have really really invested and gave a facelift to that area. New uh lights uh sidewalks, roads, Avenue 44 bridge that is decades in the making, right? And in the future we have the Monroe interchange expansion. I think we all understand the need for the MO interchange uh and also the Jackson. So there's a lot of movement going on and and in the middle of that we do have the CV link. So um that just another great project not only in the city of India but in the Coachella Valley. Um I also attended the Veterans Day 5K run. It's the second annual uh at Empire Polo. It was a lot of folks there. I think it was 500 plus uh people there. And uh you know thank you to Empire Polo for being a great partner and really activating that area not just for the festivals but for more events to come. And uh you know it's it's a 5K run, but we had people on bikes, we had some people I seen in some wheelchairs, we had uh babies in strollers, and uh you had Council Member Ferman walking because that's about all

he's going to do these [laughter] days. So um but I loved it. It the weather was great. And we were also um able to give a donation to the Hunter Lopez uh Foundation. And so I think that really uh puts the icing on the cake for that event. So, thank you to our staff and everyone who uh put that together. And uh I also attended the law enforcement support services. I think did we do that one last? I don't know. But uh nonetheless, that was another great event uh put on by our police department and our support uh services. And so, um hats off to our chief and his staff for putting that together. We had a lot of agencies come to Indo where we could, uh uh um show appreciation to support staff. So, another great event. And the one uh board event that I had or should I say committee was Southern California Association of Governments uh community and economic human development committee and uh that meeting is held uh once a month in downtown Los Angeles. Um sometimes I do travel to LA, sometimes I'm able to do it on Zoom. Uh, nonetheless, during that meeting, we had an item where we had an organization by the name of International Downtown Association who did a um presentation along with the city of Lancaster on revitalizing uh downtown Lancaster. Well, the buzz during the meeting was you guys need to check out Indo, right? And so, um, I was on on deck to speak and I was able to share a lot of the great things we've been able to do in our downtown area from public safety, infrastructure, uh, entertainment, restaurants, open green spaces, and a lot of what we're seeing now, the construction. And so um today myself and the city manager and uh Miguel Ramirez uh we we also met with the international uh downtown association to share more of what's going on in India and how we could collaborate with that association

and also work with other cities not only in California or southern California but internationally to share how we got to where we are in India. So our journey uh is great. Um, every city has a story and Indo has ours and we love to share it. So, thank you to our staff. Thank you to this council and we're looking forward to uh continue to grow in our downtown, but it's just a catalyst in our city. I think it's going to spread. It's spreading all over the city. Um, there's there's construction on all corners of the city and uh I think our trajectory is going skyhigh. So some of these challenges that we may talk about um advocacy leads to greatness and I think we're on a great path. So that concludes my report. Mr. Mayor,

thank you Mr. Ferman. Mayor Port

advocacy leads to greatness. Okay. So somebody needs to like put that on a front. That's really really profound and put your name to it. That's excellent. You know, I just wanted to go back to CV Link because I was I remember the early conversations I had with with uh um John Benoy. I mean, the vision of that really also included people that could use that CV link to get to work. It it was um a way to generate tourism, right? People like to do um biking, hiking, etc. So, there's that component. There's a component to where it's set up so that people can safely get to work and and be able to take whatever off-ramp there is or exit um to get to their destination a little safe more safely and and more quickly. But certainly the benefits of the C CV link are many. So it's exciting to have that open. I want to go back to uh the commission the one commission I had which is the Coachella Valley Conservation Commission. One of the things that we uh supported and voted on was the purchase or acquisition of 10.77 acres in what they call the upper Mission Creek. This is near to Desert Hot Springs, Big Morango Canyon Conservation Area. And this was 10 acres that fills in other areas or where we have um conservation around that area. And and people say, well, you know, what's so important about conserving and and that particular piece of property? Well, you know, we want to really want to preserve some portion of our lands for our future, for our future generations. Um, it protects native species. It protects plants, animals, buring owl, owls, etc. And it keeps some portion um of our greater Coachella Valley pristine. So, that's something I enjoy being on. And it was nice that that passed unanimously. And you know what? We were all at probably at many of the same places. barbecue festival that was an outstanding event. It was I think what I

like most about the events that we have here at the city of India is it's all about family. It's all about culture. It's all about being inclusive of everybody. So what you saw were every age, every kid, every everything. At this barbecue festival, we had music, we had different kinds of music, we had games, we had golf, we had bounce houses. Um we had we had everything. And I think the benefit to me, there's nothing better than seeing our families enjoying our events. Ultimately, that's something we've desired and wanted for many years. It's nice to have it come to fruition. Veterans Day 5K was fun. It's amazing how many people get up and they're out and there um by 6:30 before 7 o'clock in the morning, it was a fresh day. and and I I think what it was just a great example of people of pride of community of supporting our veterans of recognizing the important role our veterans have played in the formation um of our country and it was great to see so many support uh let's see what else um I really had a wonderful opportunity I was invited to Indo High School and they have a career technical education program what they call CTE and they're really focusing on six key areas. Uh, egg sc agricultural egg science, health academy, engineering, manufacturing, networking, and impact. And really the focus is to prepare students um for careers, real world careers. Some are going to students are going to go to college, but that's not a track everyone wants or needs to take. Others are going going to go into other fields and look at other opportunities. And so, uh, there were several of us from the community and and I joined and was part of the manufacturing program. And it was just really wonderful to see these kids so involved in learning and try wanting to learn a trade as it were, wanting to

be engaged, wanting to be involved and and there was a half a classroom of kids there at six o'clock at night. And I that I just I think that was the best thing I came away with after that evening was the passion that these kids have to learn a skill or a trade um and to be able to graduate high school and that prepared um with something to then go into the workforce. We did the ribbon cutting at the cantina there at the Elorado Polo Grounds. It is such an outstanding place. Yes, it's a great place to the food is exquisite, the views are outstanding, and it's really a wonderful place to go to bring your family, to bring friends, to bring people from out of town. So, highly encourage that. Uh, let's see. Gosh, I was there with the Rotary Club last night. Um, council member Ben Gutron as well. Council member Oscar Ortiz u recognizing the public servants across and police and fire sheriffs um district attorney's office from across our valley. Um that's always a very I'm going to call it sobering event just recognizing the number of people we have in our community here to serve others. Uh let's see had just had fun. Magic of lights is at Empire. They have redone it this year. It's new. It's larger. It's the designs are really outstanding and I had the opportunity to to be with the mayor and we got to flip the switch. I don't know. It was the first time I did that. I thought that was kind of fun and and it was certainly fun um doing that with the mayor and being able to celebrate another function, another event. Again, there was something for everyone there. We had um uh they Empire, thank you Empire had uh had mariachi's there. We had all kinds of music, all kinds of events there. And what we saw were kids and adults and grandparents and people just uh community gathering and having a good time. And that's my report.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. All my committees were dark. A lot of uh these events a lot of us all go to. We were available to go to a lot of uh ribbon cutings and other things to recognize our businesses. But first off, I'd like to do the hats off to our uh staff and for our barbecue festival. over 9,500, not including kids that don't have cell phones, which is probably a very few these days, but uh you know, almost 10,000 people downtown and and our our staff handled it with grace, making sure that everybody there enjoyed themselves. There was music, there was food. Uh and that's really what that downtown space was supposed to be, our center stage. We made it to be a focal point of our downtown. And as you continue to see it grow, you'll continue to see all the ribbon cutings that we have. You heard the cantina you have CV links. And for those who don't know what CV links is, it's a it's a trail that goes from Coachella to through Lita, a concrete along the war. Yeah, there's an arm war, but uh but there's a trail that goes through and you bike riding, you know, walking, uh electric cars. It was a way to be able to get people out, not only to walk, but to get from point A to point B without being on the main roads. and it goes all the way up to Lita and it'll eventually go through our music line which will go all the way to Coachella up that part and to the cove on the back side. It was a brainchild of uh our late uh supervisor John Benoy along with Tom Kirk and a few other mayors and different people from all over. And it's come to fruition. 40 plus miles of it. 4.6 of it is in the city of Indo. And so if you ever want to be able to go, there's a couple points. One's North Jackson Park. Uh there's a one in Lintita by Home Depot that you can get on and go through the city of India and see how beautiful the area is. So my hats off to all the ribbon cutings. And then uh I was able to uh speak to the youth advisory council. If you haven't noticed, we have a great group of young adults that are coming into their own and they're supporting our community. They're the eyes and ears of our youth that give information and support to uh city council and our staff so that we

are able to provide them with the opportunities or the things that they feel they need. And so I was there to listen, talk to them about my uh role as being the mayor, but also how I got there and how it's so different than when I was a a child. And they were absorbing it all and talking about what their plans were. And it's great to see our youth looking at the future instead of worrying about today. So, I was very impressed by them. And as you see, the magic of lights, uh, the Empire Polo Club's a great partner with us. Not only the concerts, the largest lacrosse tournament in California, largest, uh, field hockey tournament in the United States, dog show, art park, Magic of Lights, uh, polo matches, you name it, it's there. Uh, not only with the concert. So, our our thanks to all of them. And then lastly, I was able to welcome 15 of our National Guard soldiers into Fine Food Bank. If you haven't seen Fine Food Bank is struggling with trying to get the amount of food out, not only because of the shutdown, just the sheer amount of food now that they have their new warehouse bringing out over two and a half million pounds a month of food goes out to 150 organizations that then distribute it from Arizona River up to Banning Bowmont and then all the way down to uh the Sultan Sea. And so 15 of our soldiers, four of them who have been here before during COVID, were able to uh now work two-mon shift to be able to help support uh find food bank, not only in the packing and that, but also their distribution. So my thanks to uh the governor and the National Guard for coming out and helping us because uh their ability to work and do things in a in an orderly fashion and they're there just to work where find us looking at volunteers, but think about that. 2.5 million pounds of food a month they distribute out to those in need. So there is a great need and without their support I don't know if they'd be able to do it. So thank everyone for all the committees. Yes. Go ahead Mr. Ferman.

People volunteer.

Yeah everybody can volunteer at find food bank. It's kind of like the city of India. If you need to know anything you go to indo.org and you can find out anything about the city and anybody need to. And find food bankbank is the same way. Findfoodbank.org is a part of it or find.org I believe it is. uh you're able to uh see the support they are. You can sign up for a shift to be able to help. You can help distribute. Uh so they're always looking for anybody that can help them with their mission and that is to pack food and get it out to those who need it. So with that, I will move on to the next item which is the consent calendar. And before anybody does anything and move, we are going to pull 10.1 10.11, excuse me, per staff. Uh we are not going to look at that. We're going to get more information and we will bring it back. But the rest of the items 10 uh.1 to 1010 and then 1012 to 1014. Uh is there anything that anybody wants to pull off that agenda to look at or talk about?

108. I'd like to pull a 1014. 108 10:14. Anybody else? Okay, Mr. Gratron. 108. I just wanted uh since the city attorney prepared this to kind of Sorry. Thank you. My apologies. I would like the city attorney to go over the ordinance of what we're doing and then I had some comments. Mr. Graham.

Uh yes. So, the city council held a uh workshop on the protocols uh back in August. They had three main items of feedback. Uh the first one was a 90-day blackout period before elections regarding using city resources for things like town halls. Uh the second one and the third one relate to each other. It was mostly what is the order of precedence for members of the council when the mayor's unavailable either for community events or for media relations. Uh we took the feedback that the council had on that as well and uh put a a specific order of precedence so that everybody knows who's going to be representing the city at those events. Uh I have the new version of the protocols attached uh and a red line was provided to the council as well. Happy to answer any questions that the council member or others have about it.

Mr. just had a just a couple of things. Uh if I can refer you to section 5.2 real quick. Um notes the only thing I had to offer in thinking about it is is you have here the close to the last paragraph. The mayor retains the direction to review, defer, and prioritize such items to maintain effective conduct of the the council business. Otherwise, directed by the majority in the vote of the council. So, you're looking for a vote rather than a consensus because normally it's been a consensus to put something in the agenda just like we just did a little bit ago. Uh so, you know, we took that as three affirmative votes uh of the council. Uh normally you're right. Normally consensus is is what guides uh placement of the items on the council. But sometimes we don't have consensus and so we need to have a vote from from the council.

So would it be either or? Yes. So we take consensus as the unanimous direction of the council because for example what what council t said did earlier thinking you're just having vote. Whoever interprets that later is not going to know that they're going to have that option. Uh I I think when when we the way we understand consensus is that it's the unanimous consent of the council to take action. So we we'll list that.

Uh well if if you would like us to revise this further and and add that we can. I don't think it's necessary for it to operate the way the council has been operating. Uh you know 5.2 I actually think the way it's written is how the council operated today. Um and that was the goal for most of the protocols is not to create a new process but to document the existing practice and process of the council. Well, there was some changes made because the mayor since he's been mayor has been saying I direct the agenda and I think that the the goal was to document what the expectation of the council was. And so

so there is an update to this agenda to what we're doing though. Uh I I again the the goal when we talked about it in the study session and now the intent of these rules is not to change how you operate but it is to state how you have been operating historically. Historically the mayor has exercised a great deal of control as the presiding officer of the agenda of the council. That isn't necessarily how every city operates but it is how this city operates. And is that in this uh it is here. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that.

Okay. And so like you like you saw earlier, the mayor had did not want to place something on the agenda. The council voted and and it will be placed on the agenda. Okay, one more real quick if you don't mind. The next question would be 8.22 the use of city letterhead and seal and logos. So what I am asking is it doesn't again change what we want to ensure to continue the existing practice that we're doing um and being able to place the logo in or seal on clothing or what we currently allow. Right. Am I understanding that correct?

That's correct. So we you know one of the things that we talked about in the study session is that there is state law on these particular issues. There's also the municipal code which is city law. Uh and then there's the protocols. And one of the things that you had brought up specifically, not in relation to this one, but another section was are these identical requirements, right? Are they identically stated? And they they are meant to exist in harmony. The protocols is supposed to be an accessible recitation of the general rule. Um I mean we we could have on use of city logo simply put a reference to the municipal code. Um but the goal was to state it in a way that's easily accessible by everyone. It it is harmonious. they they do achieve the same goal. Uh the primary concern with 8.2.2 is to ensure that city logo city seal is being used for official purposes and not for personal purposes.

And I understand that and that's been my thing since I started. We're using the logo a lot but there's conversation that that's our city seal. Yes. That's what established the city. The what we do to market which is very nice doesn't really represent the city officially. that does. And I I think that, you know, if the council wanted to have a discussion about when to use the seal versus when to use the logo uh for, you know, city documents, official official presentations, I think that would be fine. I don't think you need to I don't think 8.2.2 addresses that. What 8.2.2 is attempting to make very clear is that that seal and that logo are for the official use of the city, not for personal use.

I appreciate the clarification. Absolutely, sir. And when you say personal uh use, what do you mean by that? Uh so, you know, for example, uh someone couldn't use it and place it on uh their own clothing to sell, right? That' be their own personal commercial use. Uh you couldn't put it on campaign mailers. That it it gives individual the impression that this is an official communication from from the city. And so that's the distinction. But any council member here, if they're doing official city business to introduce themselves with another body or doing government affairs representing the city, they'll be using those items. Sure. So, if if you're writing an official communication from you as a council person, you can use the the seal or the logo on your letterhead.

Your business card is a council member. Yes. But, you know, if if you were sending, you know, a a personal letter of recommendation for someone, you would use your own personal letterhead. I just wanted clarity because I don't want to abuse the privilege, but I want to know I could use it for official business. Of course, sir. Thank you. Uh any questions? City clerk's office is well versed in this. So your city manager and myself. Yeah.

And I might add on that one. There is this is this is the code referring back to the code. When we talk about branding, it is a whole other topic. And if that needs to be brought back, we we could do that. But uh it's an example might be if you have a football team and everybody's going to wear the same uniform yet somebody wants to modify it in some way. Are we is that authorized or not? Right. So that's a whole different branding discussion different than referring back to our city code saying this is why and how it can be used. So that sounds like it might be a future discussion not this protocol. My thing is you authored the document. I'm asking the questions. Thank you sir. Absolutely. Anything else on that? No, sir. Thank you for the time,

Mr. Ortiz. 1014. Yes, 10:14. Uh, wanted to see what the previous cost was for last year's drone show. It was about 60,000. 60,000. And so we're going up to 105,000. And so I guess what's the reasoning there for the increase or Well, I think it was discussed not just by the mayor but others that the show could be expanded and be more dramatic. Um Miguel might have some more detail, but the idea is we're being an example in the valley to not use the traditional fireworks, but use the drones and maybe every year make it a little bit better.

And what is the usual cost of the fireworks before we started the drones? Any any idea there? Did we ever do fireworks? Uh, Miguel, all I can tell you is the last time I saw fireworks in our city, we did it at the fairgrounds. Before that, we did it at the polar grounds. Before that, we did at the golf course. Well, price tag was about 29,000. They're they're expensive. I know Fantasy was spending over 100,000 for theirs. We haven't done fireworks in over 19 20 years. Shed some light on this. Yes. Miguel Corno, director of economic development. Uh we haven't re reached out to receive proposals from that from other cities. I know the city of Riverside is about $150,000 for fireworks.

Yeah, I just wanted to bring that up because I I think it's a pretty large increase. So I wanted to see what the council's thoughts were before we approved this one. I'm good with the personally I'm good with the drone show and I think it was very wellreceived. I think the the biggest issue with the drone show is everybody by the time they got in the park and everything else, it was like 10 or 15 minutes and then it was over. So, I think the idea behind extended it was so that it was at least a half an hour or so. So, when people fought their way in to get in, remember how it was difficult that that it would go a little bit longer than what it did. But, I'm open to something else. But, I think the drone show is very well done. So,

and I was just going to say again, it's it's beyond just for me it's just a drone show because it's all about the community. I I was amazed at the um the grounds were packed with people, kids and families that got there early with picnic blankets and picnics and and again families, you know, kind of getting together and having fun. So I I I looked at the cost and you know, I've looked twice at it to be perfectly honest with you. And then you just look at everything it becomes. It's not just a drone show. It's what it brings to our community and it brings our community together. And uh and I remember the same you know, people were coming in to see the drone show and and before you knew it, it was it was over. So, if we're going to bring, you know, thousands and thousands of people in for an event such as this, I think it needs to have the the quality and quantity that um you know, that that that people want to enjoy.

Okay. Anything else, Mr. Ortiz? Mr.

Yeah. No, I I I appreciate the the question because we always want to look at um things from a financial standpoint of view also. Um nonetheless, I I just want the folks in this room and the folks who are watching online um to be on the lookout for the next one. Um this event is going to be special. Um it's going to be more people this year. Um first time last year um we're going away from the fireworks. I think um that benefits everyone. Um it's a safety issue. It's also a quality of life issue with a lot of folks. Um, we have folks in our community who have PTSD. We have folks who have animals. And what that also does, it opens the floodgates for illegal activity, which we don't want in our city. So, we want to give folks a place to congregate and have a good time. And, uh, this event is going to do that. Um, I I think the 100,000 105 is is worth it. I'm looking forward to this event next year and uh I hope it expands. You know, like we talked about numbers of some of our other events. Um if you didn't go last year, please go. Um I went to a recent u lead California city's convention in Long Beach and uh this company was there and they were showing the drone show in India. um at that event, you know, they had it on their screens and I stopped and talked to maybe five different cities and they asked me questions about what we did in India and um that's also one of those events that activate the polar grounds and shows our our relationship with them. So I do appreciate the the the uh concern but I think it's worth it too.

Okay, Mr. T, anything else? Uh yeah, so I saw I know it's going from 500 to a,000 drones, right? So I saw that increase. Is it also going to be increasing in time?

Yes. Uh what what's going to happen is that in order to expand the time because drones only have a limited amount of uh time they can be up in the air, we will do 500 at a time and then a next show we're calling it will happen right after that. The first half will be a little more celebratory, a little more party, get everyone pumped up. The second half of the show will be very patriotic with patriotic music to close off the show and Grizzly Entertainment. Uh they do an extremely good job of using our logo, putting our go logo on there, take center stage. So yeah, it it's essentially a 20 20 to 25 minute show. Total of a thousand drones, about 500 up in the air at a time. Okay.

Yeah. And I think it's part of our 250th birthday for the United States of America. And so it's going to be just not only the drone show, but so many other things we have planned that we haven't brought back out. This is just a piece of it. Yep. Exactly. We do the sealing. All right. Okay. No, I'm good with it. Okay. So, would somebody like to make a motion for the consent calendar? 10.1. Mayor, if I can interrupt. Yeah, sorry. Down here. Um, staff needs to also pull item 10.7 from the consent calendar. That was placed there in error as a second reading. The first reading was not approved at the last council meeting. Okay. This is on the building code. The uh council wanted to do a little more research and outreach to the BIA on that one.

Thank you. But before we do that, I also have some uh William Sullivan. Did you, sir, want to still speak on 1011 even though we're not going to do it right now? You're more than happy to come speak if you like. If not, we can fill our next time. We don't know when it's going to be coming back. The staff has asked it to be pulled and to be reviewed. Okay. We'll we'll set that up between the things. So, with that, if we could get somebody like to make a motion to 10.1 to 10 uh six, 10.8 8 to 10 and 9 and then uh and excuse me 10.8 to 10.10 and then uh 1012 to 1014.

I'll make that motion to approve. I'll second that. All those in favor please vote or say no passes unanimously. 50. Thank you. With that and we'll be bringing back 10.7 and 1011 at a later date. With that, we'll move on to the administrative item, which is number 11. 111.1 is the introduction of ordinance number 1827, amending the title 3, administration, chapter 1, city council, division 3 meetings, section 1.30, regular meetings of the Indial Municipal Code. Mr. Pacificico, are you handling this, sir?

Uh, yes, I am, mayor. Uh, so this is a uh cleanup item. As you uh know, this is our last meeting, a city council meeting in in the current chamber. Uh and our municipal code has an address in it uh of where we're going to be holding uh our our city council meetings. Uh and that building over there has a different address than this building right here. Uh so this is an ordinance that will uh clarify that. We did add a little bit of additional flexibility. Uh if the council at some point wanted to hold a regular meeting somewhere else in the jurisdiction, they could hold it whatever address is listed on the agenda itself. Remember under the Brown Act, uh all meetings of the city council have to occur within the city of India. Um almost all of them will occur at your new council chambers. Uh but it would give you that additional flexibility. Mayor, happy to answer any questions you may have about the uh ordinance.

Just a clarification. Anybody have any questions of this? Okay. Somebody like to make a motion. So move. First by council member drawn. Second by council member Ferman. Please vote. Passes unanimously. 5-0. Just just for the question counselor. This is 150 civic center. Uh we are currently in 150. And that is 100. And that's 100 for the public. And this, you probably know the history of this more than I do, but this is 150 Civic Center Mall. Yeah. And that's 100 Civic Center Drive. M went out the window. And I've really tried to figure that one out, but I haven't yet. There you go.

Okay. With that, we'll move on to item number 11.2, which is staff research and planning commission recommendations regarding gas station developments in the city of Indil. Mr. Halverson, are you handling this for us, sir?

Yes, I am. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tim, members of the council, Brian Halverson, community development director. I'd like to start by uh just giving a little bit of research and how we got to where we are today. So, back in April, um the city council heard an appeal because the Maverick gas station was denied by the planning commission. that appeal was reversed and um or that appeal was honored by the council and the plan the gas station the Maverick gas station off Golfer Parkway was approved by the council. As part of that meeting, the council had given some directives uh to staff to come back to the planning commission, study a variety of issues which included just getting general input from the planning commission. Um looking at how to make uh gas stations clean. They also wanted to look at uh making gas stations more attractive, look at how to reduce um some of the impacts like for example the emissions. Um there are other things that were brought up as well regarding EV chargers. So I'm going to talk about some of those issues tonight. Um as part of that kind of study with the planning commission, we also had our economic development director do a a gap analysis as well. And so we had a total of three meetings with the planning commission to study gas stations and then come back to the council. So here we are tonight. So the first thing was the gap analysis. I was just going to really quickly I don't claim to be an economic expert by any stretch of the imagination. So that's why I brought the economic development director to the meeting. Um the presentation is actually attached to your staff report. But after giving that presentation to the planning commission, it was conveyed that there's still an unmet need for gasoline sales here in India to the tune of 18 million. Um it was kind of interesting because in that

presentation it also talked about market trends. Um what they do to attract gas stations which is not zoning and it's not even location. Um they have their own site criteria. Sometimes they share it, sometimes they don't. But in general there is a an expanding market for the city of Indo because obviously we have the I 10. We have a lot of vacant land and the demand is supposed to continue to expand over the years. So in summary that was what was conveyed to the planning commission. Uh there's been a lot of talk of how many gas stations do we have in India? Well we have 30 and as of yesterday we received another application for a gas station. So 31 as far as uh either proposed, existing or entitled. So this is just a map of the city showing those that are approved. Open means they're just they're they're open for business. Um pending review is not there per se. Uh but we did just get one yesterday that's proposed off of Jackson and Avenue 44.

And and who is that? It is um gosh, I'll I'll think about it later. It's a new company that I actually haven't heard of. Um but I will probably look at my notes. Beyond Thank you. Beyond fuel. Thank you very much, John. Okay.

So, kind of continuing this uh the data that we collected, the research we did on gas stations. Uh one of the things the planning commission wanted to do is compare India with other cities. So you look at the nine valley cities, Indian Wells does not have any gas stations. At first I I didn't realize that as as we started studying. You can see India has the most, but at the same time we're also the largest city in the valley. So it's kind of expected. You can see Palm Springs is second, then Cathedral City, and then Palm Desert. And then off to the right, they wanted to see how many we have um per thousand residents. You can see a deal is 31. So for every thousand residents there's approximately 31 gas stations. And then you can kind of see the spread. The planning commission wanted to see how we compare to others. Now even though it looks like NDO is um you know the less second least amount of course we're the larger population and these other cities like Lintita and Rancho Mirage is smaller population. So of course their numbers are going to be are going to go up. But they wanted to to get those numbers. Uh, also what the planning commission, this wasn't necessarily the city council, but since the city council directed to study it at the planning commission level, they wanted to see how the gas stations overlaid um onto the disadvantaged comm viral screen. So, it's kind of hard to see, but essentially that area that's in orange are the is a dis two disadvantaged tracks that um have five of the 30. So, approximately 16% of the gas stations um are in that orange area, which is the second highest score um from a disadvantaged community standpoint. So, they wanted to look at that as well. But after looking at the map, the planning commission uh realized that the general plan doesn't necessarily prevent a gas station from going into those tracks that have disadvantaged communities. So at the end

of that meeting, they didn't make any recommendations to restrict gas stations in those areas. But I do want to say that when they denied the Maverick gas station, that was one of the findings they made is that was in a disadvantaged community. So that's why they wanted to look at that. Another issue is regarding EV chargers. um that was brought up by the council as far as potentially requiring more EV chargers at gas stations. Um look at the requirements in the green building code, discuss it with the planning commission. Uh essentially um they didn't want to require any additional EV chargers based on there's certain areas of the city that might be limited in power. So essentially, even though we gave them the green building code requirements, um, and you know, based on a certain number of parking spaces, you would have to do an EV charger, but they were concerned that because of our sometimes limited power that they didn't want to require any additional EV charge, uh, EV chargers. They also wanted, the council wanted us to look at landscaping and the possibilities of requiring more landscaping at gas stations. So we did uh find the urban greening guide which is what uh approved uh document uh by seag that lays out native plants, native trees and it's attached to staff report but it's kind of nice because it actually shows certain u landscaping could reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the community. So improved air quality, reduction of greenhouse gases as I already said and carbon sequestration. So, um, but even after reviewing the guide, they didn't necessarily say they wanted to adopt the guide or do everything in the guide, but they did mention that they more want more shade trees in the city. I'm a strong advocate of additional shade um, especially through trees. So, we already are doing that with projects. When other projects come in, we analyze the landscape plan and we require additional

trees. I tend to a lot of times um, recommend and working with the staff larger trees like a 24inch box. So at the end of that pres at the end end of those three meetings the planning commission made some recommendations that they wanted the council to have considered tonight. One is a moratorum. Um they uh felt like there was too many. They wanted to pause and they wanted to study gas stations and they came up with a moratorum. They also realized that if there was a moratorum they would want to study gas stations in the city of India. So that would give them time um or the city time to study you know what is the market demand even though we have Miguel and his team you can only do so much we would have to hire a consultant so I think I put a timeline in the staff report could be several months could be 20 30 $40,000 that's just an estimate we don't have any bids at this moment but taking that in consideration the staff also wanted to put out some additional options that could be considered because in our research we also looked at all the other cities in the valley. [snorts] So another option could be amending the code um amending so have uh stricter standards for architecture. You could also have a land use buffer in some of the valley cities not a lot. They sometimes would restrict gas stations at intersections for example no more than two. Um and there's also some spacing. There are some at least a couple that have a spacing requirement for gas stations. for example, a 500 foot uh space or gap. Um but none of the cities had a a cap. So we don't have a cap. No city in the valley has a cap on the number of gas stations. So and then of of course last is you can do nothing, no change. Just continue to allow the zoning to take place, the free market

demand, which is what we've done. That's why we have the 30. And so with that in mind, I wanted to conclude my presentation by just reiterating these are the comments and the recommendations we got from the planning commission. I'm available as well as other staff if you have any additional questions regarding this research or the recommendations by the planning commission. Thank you. Brian, quickly on on a new gas station, don't they have to have a CUP under state law to Well, it's under UDC, mayor. Um the UDC does require a conditional use permit. So um they need basically go through design review that comes to the planning commission. So um it's already baked into our code as well

and if they want to have a ABC license we also have the control over that also more than likely it's saturation. So without the the ability to sell beer and wine and that that most of these convenience stores which are the big draw between a lot of this wouldn't be able to function. I take that correctly. I I think I agree with you, but obviously it's speculation, but I think I agree that is a huge component for the convenience store that goes along with the gas station is the alcohol sales. Absolutely. So, we have this here. We also have one person that'd like to speak. So, we can either discuss this among ourselves first or have her come up and speak. Which would you prefer?

Miss Jackie Lopez, would you like to come up on 11.2? Good evening, Mayor Mayor Pro Tim and council members. Jackie Lopez, a long longtime resident, former planning commissioner. I'm here tonight because this is this decision will shape health equity and the future of Indo for the next generation. And the information before you simply isn't enough to justify moving forward without a pause. The staff report states India has 30 gas stations and one pre-application. But the verified number, the number that matters is 31. 25 open, five approved, and one pending. This is not a small error. When you assess saturation, environmental impacts and district level burdens, even a single miss facility can shift the entire picture. And the bigger issue is when the what what is what the report does not show it does it gives you a city-wide count but never tells you where these stations are are located. So I I completed that analysis myself. So in district one council member Gron you have three stations. Coming at number one is council member uh Ferman. You got eight stations. Uh for second place, a tie for council member uh Mayor Pro Tim Holmes and and Mayor Miller. You got seven stations each. And third is uh six stations with council member Ortiz. These numbers matter because our districts are not the same. District 1, for instance, has 45% of the residents that are seniors. District three, four, and two are majority Latino with families and more children walking, biking, and going to school. These communities have different vulnerabilities to pollution, traffic,

and benzene exposure. Yet, none of this app appears in this report. The staff report mentions Cal and viral screen only once just to say five stations fall in disadvantaged tracks. There's no map, no list, no health analysis, no understanding of cumulative impacts. These are the most vulnerable neighborhoods and they deserve more than a single sentence. Then there's the question of unmet demand. The report states that there is 18 million in unmet unmet gas demand uh stations demand. But it never answers the fundamental question. Where are we going to put these gas stations? Not in disadvantaged communities, not in the neighborhoods already carrying the heavy saturations, not in senior corridors, and not in family corridors. We are truly under supplied. If we are truly under supplied, then show us the map. Show the public where these additional stations could responsibly go because right now there's no answer and silence speaks volumes. A moratorum is not a shutdown of business. It is a call to gather complete information. It gives the city time to study environmental justice, district level saturation, corridor capacity, and the future of fuel demand as California moves forward to 2035. It ensures fairness for seniors in districts one and five and young families in districts 2, three, and four, every neighborhood in in between. Tonight is a chance to leave with clarity, responsibility, and for the people who who live here. So I urge the I urge I urge you to support and adopt the moratorum so we can move forward with accurate data, complete analysis and a and a plan that truly reflects India's values and its future. Thank you.

Thank you, MR. LOPEZ. [applause]

ALL RIGHT. WITH THAT, what's the uh thoughts of the council? Anybody want to comment on any of this? I just have a quick question. I I know I've heard the conversation about moratorum and the concerns, but we have a cup process in place. So, I guess they have to come through planning commission and council. Maybe they come directly to council, but we can guide and direct that without a moratorum. I guess I that those two things just seem polar to me. Yeah.

If the planning commission is the one that's getting these cups now and they're the ones recommending the moratorium. So they're saying stop bringing us so many gas stations and bring us other projects. uh on in my personal opinion, we do have places that are saturated. I think we all see them around town. We don't need any more gas stations in those neighborhoods. It there's a saturation there. And a lot of times those neighborhoods don't want any more gas stations. I can drive about two blocks in four different directions and get to a gas station. I don't need anymore in my neighborhood. Uh is it convenient? Yes, it is. But are we missing out on other opportunities? I think we are. And so I think that's why the planning commission is bringing it out to us. I I think we should look at what areas do we want gas stations in so that we can spread out that concentration. If we're going to keep going, right? Let's not keep saturating these areas that are already saturated. Let's not keep doing that and let's look at other areas that they can go in. But in the meantime, if we're going to be considering that because we already have five more pending, six more pending. So, we're at 25 and you have six more already coming in. That's where the moratorium comes in because you say, "Hey, let's stop. Let's put a pause and re-evaluate before we have more than these six that are already coming in and let's figure out what we actually want to do to be more strategic about where these gas stations are going to be going into." That's my thought sticks.

Thank you, Mr. Ortiz. Mr. Ferman, Mr. Katron, anything?

Mr. I um you know this is a concern that I had and um you know we we could talk numbers all day but um the numbers don't speak to health and wellness of our community and uh we're growing. You heard a lot of information about us growing and we're raving about that and uh but we got to grow smart too. Um and we also have to plan for the future. Um, I I think a pause is not saying we don't want any more gas stations in the future. I just think it gives staff more time to bring us more uh data and education and also educating the community. Um, I do commend Brian and staff for getting us this the information that you did in this this study, I mean this uh uh item because those were some of the questions I had. Um, nonetheless, I still think there's still still some questions that need to be answered. And one of those concerns I have is where should those gas stations go if we have more gas stations, right? Not saying we we can't take anymore, but when you have that conversation, then you start to get a rush of applications, and that's what we we we don't want, right? And um, we have to listen to our constituents as well. And we we talked about 8 point I mean $18 million in unmet demand. um you know, we're we're operating okay and that doesn't mean because we're going to get more gas stations, we're going to get $18 million more dollars, right? And um you know, no city in the Coachella Valley has a cap on gas stations, including ours, but Indian Wales doesn't have any gas stations, right? So, they may not have a cap, but they don't have them. And and I I do listen to that cup process. I understand it's the up process, but if we get 10 applications of uh gas stations and we go through the process and we deny them, I'm not an attorney, but I think we could be looking at some litigation, right? So, I think pausing for a while and getting some more data um won't hurt anyone. Um and so, and plus it takes time to implement these

new ideas and things. So, as we move forward with some of these projects, um I think a pause and I appreciate some of the options that we have as a council to look at. Um we're not we're not talking about uh moratorium for 5 10 15 20 years. Um it's just pause so we could get more more data and uh that's it. Mr. Mayor, thank you Mr. Perman. Mr. Katron, do you have any comments on this? Ryan, can you confirm how many applications we currently have? How many businesses actually spent money and followed the process and they're on they're on your desk to move forward? Good question, Councilman. So, um, the ones that were shown on the map, I don't know if we can pull that up.

I think it would be good to have that because those on the map are either existing or entitled. So, like LG Market entitled, but they just haven't gone and built it yet. So, they have to keep that alive. That's So, they've already invested money to get to this point.

Oops. Here we go. I don't know if we can get over there too. Um, so all of them have invested money through the entitlement process, through acquiring the land, you know, hiring professionals to do the drawings. So the only one that's really just pending is the Beyond Market. Now I realize that it's right there. Um, so the Beyond um the Beyond Market, Beyond Fuel they call themselves, they just submitted an application yesterday because they've been kind of following what has been going on. So, it hasn't gone to the planning commission yet. Everything else is either in operation or it's entitled already. And that's five um entitled. Yeah, like LG Market. I just heard Councilman Leman mention

Yeah, I believe I believe that's correct. But yes, but the thing is is those ones, you know, want to keep their entitlement. They want to move forward, but for some reason, whether it's the financing or other factors, they just haven't built it. But they've given money to this point through our process to the city. Absolutely. for staff to work on it, spend time and all. Absolutely. Absolutely. So tax dollars have already been used to accept an application and they've already paid money. Yes. Some of them have already well all of them have paid for the entitlements, but some of them haven't gone and like Walmart was just approved a few months ago. So Walmart is going to go through the building permit process for their fueling station.

And the reason I'm asking that is that I see both sides of it. I'm concerned as to having too many gas stations. Like our cities, unfortunately, we didn't know what's going to happen with drugstores, but now we have four vacant drugstores and we overdid it. And then we had thrift shops in downtown and we overdid it. And I see this as obviously the health side and protecting our environment, all that. But we have five businesses that have already invested money. Staff's already got it. I'm concerned as to what actions we take forward. Anything beyond that, I think yes, we do need to look at it. I do agree that we need to pick locations that best suit the needs of the community from both sides that we're talking about. And my other question is, Mr. City Manager, what's your opinion on this since you have oversight of everything we're doing right now?

Uh, thank you. Yeah, based on the council's direction since the day I arrived here, it has been working to encourage find ways to encourage business to invest into India. We have not spent much time trying to research how we might discourage businesses from investing in India. So that has been the focus. This map alone just a long as you gave me the floor you can see the citrus citrus ranch area which is the north east area of the community uh the northwest area of the community the southern part of the community. There is a dir there is a lack of service in those areas. I think it's a pretty quick view that these five eventually will build over the next four, five, six years. There will need to be fuel in those other areas. That's my opinion.

And my last question, council, at this point, if we have a consensus because we're not prepared to take action is for them to come back for staff to come back with something. Correct.

Yes. So if the if the obviously the council always has the ability to take no action and things continue as they are which is a conditional use permit process. Uh if the council did want a moratorum uh I would recommend that you give us direction either by consensus or by a vote to prepare a moratorum and bring it back. And one of the questions that I would have for the council uh you know we have this with the mini storage as well. What do you want us to do with the um applica the pre-application uh applicant that we have? Uh do you want us to stop and freeze all applications where they are uh or would you like staff to continue processing or would you like that cut off to be any applications that are substantially complete as of the day uh of the adoption of the moratorum would continue and any new applications would be uh paused. So, that would be one of the questions I'd have. Um, but yes, we'd be looking for council direction. If you want us to draft and bring you back a mortorium at your next meeting, we're fully prepared to do that. And just to clarify, the pre-application turned into a full-blown application as of yesterday. So, there's my apologies that it's labeled preapp, but that's the one that just came in and it's a full application now. Hasn't been deemed complete yet, though.

So, this is my statement and then I'm done because obviously the rest of council has to give input. Those that have already spent money in the city of Indo and it's been processed through the front counter and we have staff that have spent hours behind their computers trying to work on this kind of stuff. We need to move forward. Anything beyond that they're thinking about it. They haven't hit the front counter and submitted anything with money and that's something different. I'm not looking. I want to know what staff comes back with a plan. That's it. Let them go do their homework. Get it done quick since it's a priority because I guess I'm trying to make sure everybody's happy. But I also understand everybody because I guarantee you there's people that I see right here don't want a gas station in the back of their house and it has nothing to do with environment. They just don't want one. And so because people are that way and I've seen what other cities are doing. So come back with a plan that's fair and tries to save everybody.

But are you willing to put a moratorium? I'm willing to come back to come with a plan, sir. Before the mortorium. Yes, sir. before. I want a plan that comes back and if that's where it leads to that, then they're going to have to come back and report it back to us. I'm not going where to put a horse in front of it, we don't know where we're going. I want to know where we're going. Okay, go ahead. Uh, so let's say we direct staff to go back and bring back options for a moratorum. You're going to have two weeks where those applications are still going to be accepted, right? and and so that if we get a rush let's say five applications before the next meeting do we have to entertain those?

So so you you could the language of the moratorum could direct us to not process even applications that have been deemed complete as of the day of the moratorum but you're going to have two weeks between now and that day. I understand that's that's why I think it's important to get the direction from the council now. If the direction is Mr. city attorney bring us a moratorum

that uh would pause any future applications but would also pause applications that are in progress as of the day of our approval. I think that would prevent a rush to city hall. Uh I'm not recommending any action on the already approved items. They they may have vested rights to develop. I don't want to go through an individual analysis on each one here at the dis. But it would be only the ones that are in application that I' I'd request direction on because that way your moratorum will come forward. It'll be what you expect. But again, if you're saying they they stop when they're approved, that means they're they'll stop on December 3rd, right? So the I think we're we're mixing up two things.

Uh there's applications that are deemed complete. So that means they filled out all the forms. They have all the information as of today or as of December 3rd. as of December 3rd. Okay. As of today, there's no moratorium. Someone can come and file an application. Counter is not open right now, but they can come in tomorrow. It isn't until the council changes the law. That's how you do it by by a moratorum. Yeah. Uh that would affect how we process. So if the council's direction was bring us a moratorum, it would pause it could pause all applications even those that are deemed complete.

Is there any are we have any options to stop those today? so that we don't get a rush from now until December 3 of applications. Uh I mean I think the direction of the council on how to draft the moratorum would send that strong signal. So it wouldn't legally prevent it. If adopted in in the first meeting of December at that point it would freeze those applications and so people would know the council directed to bring back a moratorium. It would freeze our application. There's no point in spending a bunch of money on consultants to throw an application together. right? Because we're going to get frozen, but they they won't be able to get it in within those two weeks.

I think the easiest might be if there's some consensus here, there's no moratorum in place. If someone comes in with before December 3rd, I can direct staff myself to say we are not accepting any applications until after December 3rd. So, we won't even receive any. We won't spend any time on them. We will just tell them you need to come back after December 3rd because this is something that will be discussed. I mean, if that's the the decision.

U so I wouldn't worry about that. The city attorney's right. Even the location and the eventual construction of these, it's so market driven because they're so expensive. These are millions of dollars. I believe the Maverick estimate was 5 million. They will not put a gas station in if they don't think they're going to make money if the market won't bear it. So maybe I sound a little bit too free market. We don't have that information. even the consultants that you might direct us to hire won't know as well as the people that are actually going to write a check for $5 million.

So, I think between now and then, if we just tell them we're not going to accept it, they're not going to waste the time and money to submit it because they might just be a waste. U but I will say even if you impose a moratorum, we're basically telling them we know better. We essentially are telling you even if the market would bear it, you're not going to be allowed to build. Um I'm not sure that's the best approach to be the best businessfriendly uh community, but that's up to you guys. Um and I don't think so I don't think on the agenda tonight is to discuss the more be to put it on that. Yeah. So anything else, Mr. Ortiz? I mean if uh sorry time or No, that's it.

Okay, Brian. So the the six stations we have now, they're already pre-existing. I mean you got Walmart, you got the Beyond one you talk about. Um if we were to look at and I was here when we put the moratorium on drugstore because we had the drugstore war and the first actual uh drugstore that went down was the one on the corner Dr. carry on in Monroe which is now the Kaiser Permanente building and the reason we put the moratorium on is because they were putting one on every corner cannibalizing the thing and now we have five of them that are down and we have to find a way to utilize them and then we did the same with storage units because it oversaturated but we allowed those five or six that were in the pipeline to go through and they've been able to do it. If we were to do a moratorum, how long estimate do you think it would take you to come up with a plan to find the locations that would actually bear it? I mean, would actually be of of uh success in areas that we need it.

Yeah. So, mayor, that our staff can't determine, you know, how they're going to be successful. We use the zoning and then the permitting process to say you can or cannot put a station there. So, um, it may or may not be good to do a market study, but I I'm just going to say right off hand that one way of restricting them, and it's pretty common, is to come up with some development standards so that you're not seeing three or four at a corner or, you know, standards where they're not next to residential, you know, additional things in the code so that you're not seeing them everywhere. you could restrict them in other areas as well. But as far as telling you um you know where it's going to be successful, where it's not or where we think because we don't have that expertise where stations should go, it's kind of a stretch because that but but the development standards could be very powerful as far as an easy way to just do some surgery on the code and bring it back to when you consider what is the plan or we hire a consultant. Yeah, I was getting that at going down that road, but you know, at the same time, um the amount of money that the gas stations and that bring into our economy and that and LG is the prime example. have been a long long time business in the city of Indo and now they're willing to invest5 to7 million dollars to put a station down by the corner uh where they have their fruits in and then expand their their flowers and fruits and vegetables and everything else they have to make it into more of a a market that's viable for the whole community to have more products and everything else in. So I think it really varies depending on what asset they're willing to bring to the table. Some have restaurants, some have EV chargers. I don't I don't know how you stop these areas because when these gas stations go in, they're investing millions of dollars and it's like everything else. It's not any different than a restaurant that comes in and we say, "Well, why won't Chili's come into India?" Well, they have standards. They have to be able to make money. They have to be in a certain spot. They have to be farther way away from other businesses that might compete with them or they're not going to come in. As much as we say,

"Well, we'll all go Chili's and we probably would." It's the same with gas station with the market bears. Somebody is not going to put in a multi-million dollar business that they don't think will be successful. And if we change the standards, which I agree with you, to have fruits and vegetables, have different kinds of landscaping, buffer zones, put it in certain locations, I think we can achieve our goal and at the same time be able to be businessfriendly. So, I I'm I'm with you on that part of it. But how do we appease some of the other individuals that are worried about in the meantime, they're all going to come forward and start putting gas stations in every corner they can because we don't have to entitle anybody. The planning commission can tell just like they did Maverick. The answer is no. So, I mean, a chance of getting one by it by the planning commission is how they feel, I think, would be minimal. And then the only way they would be able to get around it would be able to appeal it to the city council. And then it would be up to us to decide yes or no. And there isn't any legalities to that is our our right as a as a council.

Yeah. Mayor, the the the only issue we've had on this topic with the planning commission is that the question of whether to have gas stations question, that's the council's prerogative, right? Uh the planning commission should be applying your the code that you've adopted as the projects come in. If the planning commission was to say we're just not going to adopt or we're not going to approve any because we don't think that we should have them at all, then they're not applying the code that you've adopted. So that that's the that you know council member Ferman kind of addressed this and so that's the that's the only caveat I would say to that. Okay. Well I don't feel comfortable

shut moratorium putting shutting it down until we come up with an idea of plans and of of opportunities to make sure this works uh the design standards amenities whatever it might be because if we get another like Tower Market's a prime example which is a great asset to to a lot of the area. Not only is it clean and neat, but it brings food, has fresh fruits and vegetables. Uh it's always, you know, wellliked from the the amenities they have inside, and it's clean and neat. So, I don't see having them on one of the corners being a disadvantage to us. The gas tax it brings in and not only the the revenue from the the stuff they sell inside is, you know, substantial. And when we have $1.2 2 million in in fire coming forward in the next uh year. We've got to come up with opportunities to pay that off or we're going to have to look at how we change things. So, my opportunity is to kind of leave it like it is and and work around the standards that you want to set. But the rest of the council decide

I I think there's there's a I'm going to play a little bit of the middle of the road, although I will say um council member Gutron really said it well. I I think that we need look at those areas of satur saturation. I mean there there there is some question and some concern um in those areas but I really don't support a moratorum. I'd like to get more information. I'd like staff to provide a little bit more information because there are areas outside of where the center of the city where we have the bulk of these gas stations um where we can where a gas station can survive not just survive and succeed. I think the devel, you know, the development code and and really encouraging them to look like a tower market. It's clean. The outside looks like a nice building. The pumps are sort of hidden in the back. Um, it's a it's a place for everybody. I mean, LG's is the same thing. You you go in there, you buy breakfast, you buy lunch, you're there on the weekends buying things, produce in the case of LG's, although there's everything over there at Tower Markets. So, I I would like more information. I don't want to squaltch that um development of gas stations and the potential revenue that they bring in. I think perhaps we look more closely and more carefully at it. Um but I struggle with a moratorum at this point. Uh I just think we're shooting ourselves in the foot given everything that we're we're looking forward to doing. And as you mentioned the fire, that's just one area where um there needs to be an economic balance. So that's that's my thought. So, we've t talked this back and forth. What does somebody want to call the question order or comments?

I I have another comment. Okay. Um, you know, we we talked about leakage into other cities and you know, things that with this $18 million, you know, our neighbors next door just opened up a gas station has 50 pumps more, right? So, um, that's hard to compete with. The other thing is too is um would it hurt us for pause for two years

a year? Would would that hurt? Not going to hurt us. Um you know I I I I will challenge folks to do this. Um next time you're driving around even when you leave here or if you're going to get gas because I probably drive more than anyone in here. Um when you go to your next gas station, see how long your pump your weight time is. It's no wait because the eye tests. I mean, um, there might be rushes at different times, festival season maybe, but other than that, they're they're empty. So, it's okay to pause and reassess. And I I I really appreciate the the higher standards. I think we should have higher standards. And I think we should take time to look at where any additional gas stations can go. But I just think that that we're okay right now. And to say that they're going to make money in our city, that's what they're looking at. Look who's coming. It's big corporations that are coming to get to pick up money in our city. And yes, we have the I 10 that drives through our city and I understand that. But it's okay right now. If you look at our look at the map on those freeway, those those exits, we have gas stations there. And um they do compete with each other. And also in our neighboring cities, um they could put a gas station right across the street from one that we already have as well. So a moratorum is is not a bad thing to stop and pause. It's kind of like looking at liquor stores. I don't think we want liquor stores all around our houses. We don't want storage facilities around all of our houses. And gas stations are one of them. It's not nimi. It's not where people are living at. It's gas, right? And in some of these instances where we have these large gas stations, where we have semi trucks, it brings other issues. I live north of the freeway. I live by Walmart. I live by some of those other places. And it does bring a different element because some of the gas stations welcome them to hang out overnight and things happen. So it's okay to pause, reassess and look at the standards and raise the standards. I brought up Indian wells earlier. The reason why they don't have them is not

because you know they have money over there but the standards a little higher. It's okay to raise our standards a little bit and require more for gas stations. So a moratorium will do that. Indian [applause and cheering] Wells. Indian Wells has a whole lot of toot. They have a whole lot of nature resorts and that that is one way that they bring dollars in and that is one way that we can bring dollars in by can't put a dollar amount of health and wellness.

Can't put a health and and so I guess I'm struggling with health and wellness. If we were to consider a moratorum, I when we look at it for two year two two years that was mentioned that seems really long because then you got another few years by the time you go through the process to to put a gas station uh in. So I I you know I don't want a moratorum. I suppose if we did a study I I could do a short term a 45 days or a 60-day moratorum that we but um but but a two-year moratorum I would struggle. No, I I didn't ask for a two-year moratorum. I asked for a I did that at the last meeting. We need to look for a pause to bring back more options, which I do like these options, but pausing for a while to get more information is not going to hurt us.

So, so Mr. Ferman, so we can kind of clarify this, what is it that you're asking? If you're not asking for a more time for long, you said pause. What What is your What is your thought on a pause? What pause for new standards locations? Like we don't allow gas station or any more automotive uses on Highway 11.

So, that area is out. So, what what's your thought? Okay, my thought is we need to study and see where these gas stations should be going. Um, we have already, it was already brought up during the analysis that gas stations usually congregate by each other so it could bring down prices. They could compete. So, we want more gas stations across the street from each other so we can have lower prices. The majority of our people go to Arco Amp, but we do have 76 in these big gas stations who are just sitting there. Do we need any more right now? I don't think so. Anyone else?

I think we should put them all next to Trilogy. No, I'm just kidding. [laughter] Ah, there we go. You guys want them next to Trilogy? Ah, there we go. See, my neighborhood feels the same way. My neighborhood feels the same way. And we have a lot more gas station than Trilogy does around their neighborhood. Right. Please.

[cheering and applause]

Please, [laughter] first off, we don't allow comments from the audience. If you're going to come up and speak, you need to speak at the mic so that people in the audience, people on TV or on YouTube see who's talking and it's not coming from anyone else. So, please respect the system.

One of the things I'd like to mention is right now the city of Coachella lost a lot of money when that new big gas station came in. They lost a lot of money and that's because there was an over reliance on that gas station money. We could have the same issue happen any time and then what's going to happen with all these properties that have gas stations there that might get abandoned, right? It's not easy to rehabilitate uh those areas. Um the wait time I think it's a good it's a good point. I I think the moratorum isn't going to be a year or two years. We just want the moratorium until we find out exactly as Mr. Ferman said, where do we want these to go in? Where do we want these allowed? And I think as long as we're not uh going in and going into these places that are already saturated and adding more and more into these neighborhoods, I think that's my goal with this moratorum. Let's look at it. Let's see where should these be allowed so that we're not concentrating them so much in certain parts of our city and then you can open it back up to the market and say, "Hey, these are the areas that you can go in because these are the areas that aren't saturated yet." I don't think that's too much to ask.

Mr. Kan, you see your mic on? Well, council Artiz covered it. I just want to plan back in two weeks and I want to know what our options are and it they've already heard all our comments. I don't feel that we can take an action on a moratorum right now. So, because that's a misconception that's going out and I'm looking at the attorney and he better start acting like an attorney because we can't have a moratorum decision right now. So, so I want I would like to see information to come back. Are we are we good with having uh Brian work with trying to figure out standards and things. Are we talking two weeks? We talking a month?

I I think next week we should have the moratorum that opens it up for them to have the time to bring us that data back. I think that's what makes the most sense at the moment because I think two weeks might not be enough time. Everybody's still moving into the new city hall. People are busy. Um I'm not sure. If they do have a plan by then, great. But I think we need to have the option there to have the moratorum start on December 3rd so that we can evaluate which which sections of our city still would should be open to guests.

That that's going to be a longer that's going to be a longer issue to be able to come up with that because it's not only going to be our staff, it's going to be consultants and it's also going to be going through the planning commission. So it's going to be a little while. You want to bring back Mr. Gutan, you asked to bring what went back. I want to wrap this up. So what what do you what do you ask? Our city managers heard the council and I think there's a plan that we do want to look into this. Bring back the plan. Now, council Martise wants it sooner. Whatever you feel legally we can do. I want the moratorum so that they can have time to do the study because I'm I understand that that might that study might not be done in two weeks. So, let's do the moratorum on December 3rd and then give our staff time to bring us back all the information.

Well, he can bring back the moratorum, but we have to decide if we allow the moratorum. So we we would have to vote to see if it's there. So it's a possibility that we might not go that way either. So that's what we're trying to So what we're trying to do, we got two, right? They're asking for to bring back a moratorum or or you've heard of the the will of the council. Basically, I'll make a motion. I'll call for the vote. Okay. Because I think we've talked. So I'm calling for the vote. And so here's my action. Okay. And then if somebody wants to add something to it on my second, feel free. We have a lot of people waiting.

Yeah. And obviously uh they like what we're doing but they obviously have a purpose here. So and next council meeting by the third I would like information on our options whether it's a moratorum that they're bringing forth or any other information that would help us make a better decision for the city of India regarding gas stations. Second I'll I'll make that I'll second that and require that one of those options be the moratorium that we can take that action on December 3rd. Okay. Yeah. All right. So on that summary, are we good with that? I am. I am. Okay, Mr. Ferman. Okay. So, we're just giving direct way. You vote on that. Stephen, are we giving directions? We're not voting anything.

When I meant this like the options, things that you could direct us to do because if it's to bring back options at the next meeting, that's not a moratorum unless you're specific. I think what we're talking about is bring back an opportunity for moratorum. That's we're going to pause it e and then we will decide if we're going to pause it or if we're going to keep going forward and we'll take those options what it is. So the standards will be do we vote on the moratorum to give staff more time to look at these options or whatever else they do or do we still go full go full speed ahead and not worry about it and still work on certain items. So it's on the moratorum. So we'll draft a mortorium. It'll be on your next agenda. You can vote on it at that point in different mounds of time. So we can go back to the map. The first uh uh version of the mortorium is for 45 days.

Okay. Okay. The map. All right. So that just to clarify, mayor, if it if it helps as well as we bring that back, this is not a lot of work, not a lot of science here, but you see the dots, right? We could draw get our our Crayas out and we could draw areas where just visibly it looks like there's not saturation. That that would take very little time. Um perhaps the moratorum would not relate to the areas where it's obvious there are nothing there, right? But the moratorum could relate to the areas that might by the map appear to be saturated. If that's an option we could bring back, you could debate that at that time as well. Yeah. And that that also gives the residents opportunity to chime in as well. So I appreciate we're good with that. All right.

You got your directions, Brian? You're you're clear? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and thank all of you for bearing with us on this. It's an important issue we have to do. So, now we're going to move on to public comments. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's fine. Excuse us one second. We're going to do a a fivem minute recess. Blame the guy that wanted to have you guys do it. The youngest guy needs to go to the bathroom. [clears throat] We just got to make sure we get it done right. Let me eat your candy.

I I think I think where we

Council, will you please come back up to the dis so we can finish our meeting? That's right. You know, you know, [laughter] we ready.

Okay. All right, we're going to continue our rest of our meeting. We're on the public comments section now of items for not on the agenda. We have quite a few people to speak right now. We have Curtis Pickering coming to talk to us about the International Tamalei Festival. Mr. Pickering mayor city and my fellow Indo residents. My name is Chris Pickering, CEO of Pickering events, and I'm pleased to share an update on one of India's signature cultural celebrations, the 33rd annual Indo International Tamalei Festival, taking place December 6th and 7th at Miles Avenue Park. This long-standing community tradition continues to be recognized as one of the top food festivals in the nation, holding the Guinness World Record for world's largest tamalei festival. and it remains a powerful showcase of India's cultural heritage, culinary talent, and economic vitality. This year, we are building upon that legacy with even more tamalei vendors, a new Santa's village, and a fun-filled lineup of entertainment designed to welcome families from across the Coachella Valley and beyond. Over this free admission and free parking, and free shuttles, two-day festival, guests will enjoy artisan merchants in the Marcato, a vibrant carnival, and headline performances by local act Kala and Outlaw Mariachi, a crowd favorite. We are also proud to highlight community focused elements including youth dance groups, local nonprofits, and opportunities for small businesses to connect with new audiences. And as we did last year as well, offering that $100 discount to any Indo businesses or Indo residents. This year's programming includes luchador wrestling matches, strolling mariachi, escaramus horse exhibitions, magician Arty Lon, and the return of last year's favorite, Megan the Bubbleologist. Truly, there is something for all ages. New this year is Santa's Village where guests can admire community decorated Christmas trees, take their picture with

Santa, tour his workshop, and donate unwrapped toys that will be delivered to the children of local migrant farm workers. The Indo International Tamalei Festival continues to serve as an important economic driver for Indo, supporting local businesses, creating seasonal jobs, and attracting international visitors to stay, dine, and shop in our city. If you've passed through the Palm Springs International Airport recently, you'll have seen our ads playing on the luggage carousel. On behalf of our team, we thank the city of India for its continued partnership and support now in our second year as stewards of this cherished event. We look forward to welcoming the community to Miles Avenue Park on December 6th and 7th for a safe, festive, and memorable celebration of culture, cuisine, and community spirit. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. PICKINE. [applause] SO, the rest of these I see are for Zenda and Las Palos. Uh, is there anyone that's not in this that wants to speak on a different subject? If there is, I would like to them to come up now. If not, I can't convince one of you speak for five minutes and the rest of you to hold up your hand to agree.

Okay, then where we go? Uh Susan Mendoza, please come up to the mic.

Good evening, Mayor Pro, Mayor Proim, Council members, and staff. Um my husband and I purchased our full-time residence in India two and a half years ago. Uh we uh spent many years in a vacation home part-time in Lita and we were aware of the three weekends of the Coachilla and stage coach festivals and knew that we'd have some noise those three weekends. We were blindsided by the Zenda Los Palos uh issue and after we moved in. And just for a frame of reference, uh my house backs up to a wall that separates Trilogy from Zendelos Palos. Um I work full-time Monday through Friday. Uh my weekends I really enjoy my backyard. um you know, dinner outside, especially this time of year. And um the last uh I believe it's been six weeks in a row now. Um I've gone out into the backyard in the evening and on a Saturday night there's competing um bands, uh DJs, um mics, you know, that are that are loud. Um, and uh, it's really um, disturbing our peace and quiet in our retirement neighborhood. Um, I would go so far as to say I would love to invite you all over to my backyard on a Saturday night when there's a when there's a Zenda party. Come come see and hear what we're what we're dealing with.

Excuse me, ma'am. One second. Please everyone, if you want us to listen to what you have to say, please allow the information to get out because there's other people that are listening to this and they want to hear it. And if you're clapping, Palace properties are not residents. They are commercial operators in a residential zone. I don't understand why the city of India continues to approve TUPS week after week with noise, traffic, and crowds disturbing our retirement community. TUPS when I read them have noise restrictions, hours that they can have music and uh loud um microphones, but nothing's enforced. Um I can hear them loud and clear in my backyard. I don't necessarily um the music is not what is bothering me. It's like when I want to go to sleep at night, the music's still going. The DJ's still on the PA mcing the the wedding festivities. And our residents really want to partner with the city, come up with a resolution we can all live with, but we need your help. My last comment is the meeting began with praying for wisdom from council to do the right thing for our residents and that's all I ask for. Thank you.

Thank you.

And for everyone here, please understand that during public comments like this, we cannot respond. So, we will not be responding to your your comments. We will take note of them. Staff will hear them and then we will work on that. but we cannot respond to your your ideas and thoughts with it. So, Miss Kim, good evening, Mayor, Mayor Prom, and council members. Thank you for allowing us to be here and speak with you tonight. Um, this is my first city council meeting that I've ever been to and it was actually a good meeting and it was very interesting and you all spoke a lot about community, how important it is for families and how important that is to you all. And I didn't know until um just recently that each of you only represent a certain little area within India, which I find quite interesting. I've never heard of that before and it concerns me a little bit because if we're not in your area, maybe we're not that important to you. And I would hope that you would all pay attention to everything for the entire community, not just for your areas. So for my concern, and I know you can't speak to it now, but personally, I would really appreciate if perhaps we could get on your agenda so we could have conversations and get some answers from you about what we're concerned about. First of all, the two properties that are there, they are working as commercial. They do corporate events. They do weddings. They have parties. And

it's my understanding that that area is all zoned residential. How in the world I'm a realtor and I know the difference between commercial and residential. How in the world could these properties get permitted as commercial property when they're in a residential neighborhood? That just is beyond me how that could happen. Second of all, now they've been approved. They've spent millions of dollars and now they come to you and they ask for permits to perform and to not perform, but to do this. And you're making money off of that. I understand we're looking to make money in the whole town or city, but how are you permitting giving these permits when they're commercial properties and you know they're commercial? Your zoning states that and you continue to give them permits. Week after week, we talked to the city. We've gone as far as doing multiple things to try to get you guys to communicate and work with us and we're not getting anywhere. So, I would like to request that we get on your agenda and we are able to have this conversation and figure out something that we can do so that we're not having to deal with this and you understand more than just a bunch of old people complaining, which I'm sure that's what you feel that that's not the case.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Dial. I hope I said that right.

Hi, my name is Dial and I do live in this the Trilogy complex and I've been there since 2017. I'm an owner and a full-time resident. I'm here tonight to express my deep concerns regarding the ongoing issuance of the TUPS for events near our residential community. These permits are being issued on a frequent basis, resulting in a continuous cycle of events near a home. This pattern raises questions about the criteria and process for granting these permits and whether sufficient consideration is being given to the communive impact on our neighborhood. The events by the events enabled by these permits have brought excessive noise, increased traffic, and potential safety risk to all of us who live in Trilogy at the Polo Club. These disruptions negatively affect our quality of life and our peace of mind. I have concerns about whether the permits issued comply with existing zoning laws. The repeated issuance of the TUPS may be in conflict with the intended use and protections afforded by India's zoning regulations. I urge the council to suspend or deny event permits near our homes and Trilogy until there's been a thorough review of their legality and the full impact on our neighborhood. We deserve peace, safety, and consistent enforcement of Indo city regulations.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Joti Briggs.

Good evening. My name is Joet Briggs, a nine-year resident of Trilogy at the Polo Club. We are here today as your constituents to protest the assault you have unleashed upon our community evolving into five nonresident occupied commercial party homes built for the sole purpose of constant short-term rentals in major TUP events. More commercial construction has been approved to the detriment of our sensitive 55 plus community. There is only one remaining owner occupied family residence in the entire Zenda Los Polos enclave. [clears throat] Why does this matter to me and the other 1,076 homeowners in our community? Number one, our HOA funds are being depleted from repeated damage to gate arms, damage by tailgating party guests, vendors, and Uber drivers who do not respect our property, costing us thousands of dollars.

[clears throat]

Number two, party attendees and the vendors brought in to support the event ignore our 24 MPH speed limit and largely blow through stop signs posing a danger to slowmoving residents who are simply taking a neighborhood walk. Party revelers are often observed under the influence, exiting our streets, driving erratically. Number three, our home property values are adversely impacted by the stigma of litigation with you and future assessment fears due to road damage from excessive non-resident traffic. Consider these questions. Number one, why does every weekly TUP state the event will not disturb our neighborhood when everyone does? Party guests and their multitude of support vendors drive through private Trilogy roads and gates hundreds of times per day per event. Number two, why do you not enforce your own TU rules and issue citations? You don't measure the music DJ sound decibels. You do not monitor actual attendance numbers or promised event end times. Number three, permits are a privilege, not a property right. Why does this city keep granting privileges to these commercial businesses with no regard for the quality of life of our 2,000 plus polo club constituent voters? I know India loves their reputation of being the city of festivals. Well, based

on your failure to solve this conflict, a more truthful slogan should be India. We value revenue over residents. Thank you, man. James Ble, B O C K E L B.

Good evening. My name is Jim Bachl and our city's motto is now I can see it. We provide outstanding public services to enhance the quality of life for residents, visitors, and businesses in our community. Residence is rightfully first in my opinion and you put it at the top of the agenda of our meetings even here. So much has already been said, but I'm just going to mention there are over a thousand homes in the community and there's over 2,000 of us who live there, more than half of us full-time. And we aren't really respected. Even the people who go to Zenda do lots of posting on Facebook. One of them recently said they had to drive through this old people's gated community with drab cookie cutter homes. Gee, poor them. They don't live here, but they fly in and pay money to go to these things. And it's a big disturbance to us. And it just seems like uh if you got money, it's like the same old same old. The elites with power are kind of overriding all of us here and people like us who are just trying to live a decent retirement life in a great city of India. Thank you.

Thank you sir. Vicki Kabinski.

No, she left. Okay. William Sullivan. Good evening. Um, first of all, I'm a resident of India and I didn't realize till tonight I grew up in or bought a house in an underserved community in 1978. This is my third house and my comments are citywide. They're not uh even though I live in Trilogy today, these issues to me are silly citywide in every district. Um, the question really revolves around it and staff hasn't been able to answer this. Perhaps that's a question for the city attorney, but on a citywide basis, are TUPS and short-term residential permits exempt from SQL? Uh, is it exempt from the general plan? Are they exempt from the unified development code, including the zoning ordinance and map? uh can uh tups and uh single uh term residents, excuse me, permits uh supersede all the other laws in uh state, including state laws that are on the books already. Uh the tups uh allow appeal, but we only get notice of it after they're approved. Normally, if there's an appeal process, which is in the city code, you're allowed at least 15 days notice and then file an appeal and the appeals heard. Uh, and that's not being done. Uh, other than that, I love living in India, but this is really, and you can hear it from all my neighbors, is out of control. And best point, come visit us on one of the weekends that this thing goes on. Uh, it's unacceptable to anybody that would live in that neighborhood. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Uh Sheila Merritt. Hello. Thank you um for letting me speak. I'm a full-time resident of Indo. Um I've been here for 14 months.

Uh I knew about Coachella. I knew about stage coach. I did not know about Zenda and um my property taxes just came up. It's 20,000 this year. I pay my taxes. What I'm health care professional is my mental health as well as sleep. In terms of mental health, if I try to sell this home right now, uh I will not get what I paid for it. So I can wait two years, three years. But what's happening right now next door to us is making it such that the values of our homes are not as viable as they were. That is a concern for me whether I am a retiree or not. And it just seems very inappropriate that these houses that are single dwelling units are able to have parties every weekend without any kind of repro without any kind of um supervision and uh very concerned about it. Um and I thank you for your time and hopefully you'll be able to address this in a transparent way for all of us. We'd appreciate that.

Thank you, ma'am. Uh Cindy Rivera,

good evening and thank you. Um the biggest concern is I this is my first council meeting and you all really care about the community. So I was surprised and impressed. If you're not aware of Trilogy, this Zinda was landlocked. So they have to come through our property. I work for a water company. I did planning. I did mains. If I landlocked somebody, I wouldn't be retired. So they landlocked them. These people come through. You people say it's a single family residence. Well, um, a big mechanical bull coming through with trucks and trailers and people is not a single family and you're allowing the permits. So, what's happened is like everyone said, we know about stage coach. We know about um, Coachella. It brings money. We're all happy. We leave during that time. This is right up against our community. The problem is everyone kind of just pushed it aside and thought, "Oh, it will it will get better. It won't keep on." Oh, it got worse. I was walking my dog. The people walk through the second gate. They're so drunk waiting for their Ubers. There was glass all over. I didn't realize my dog had walked through the glass. Had to pick him up, go home, fix his paws cuz he cut him. come back and clean it up. And it's just we are retired and it is a health issue for people who've had heart attacks, high blood pressure. It really is. And I am all about bringing

money to the community. This man lives 140 miles away. You think he cares about India? He doesn't care. He cares about the money. You people are receiving property tax only $80,000 from this man. He's getting 300,000 a pop during Coachella. So who's he making fun of? You and us. He's making bank. He doesn't care what's happening. So if you're going to do it, make him commercial. Give him a zone and make him quit by 10:00. Go by what is on your website because this is commercial. Uh properties that he is doing big large events and I don't know he's making fun of you guys because he's going to the bank on it. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you ma'am. [applause] Uh Peter Brown.

Thank you. Um, I can't add much more flavor or color than what has been described already. What I'll do is this. I was a attorney for years in LA, financial attorney. And when things didn't make sense, I followed the money trail and then things would get clearer. So, I don't know what the city manager and his brethren are doing, but they're approving TUPS uh like they're going out of style. Doesn't seem any limitation to them. They're raising fees. They're collecting money and they're feathering their nests in my opinion in so far as it pays their salaries. It pays for their raises. It pays for bonuses. It's money on top of fixed money that's coming in through property taxes. I don't trust them. Whatever they're doing to collect these fees. They don't care about the 2,000 people that live at Trilogy. There's a half a dozen flipping property owners at the Zenda paying big fees to the city. The city managers uh uh showing a black line of a healthy profit, getting his raises, getting staffed up, earning significant amounts of money. Why? Because I think he's doing it off our backs. And it really pisses me off that 2,000 people are being compromised for the benefit of a few private individuals who, if you go bother to go to their websites and read the flipping Airbnb advertisements, you can see that these are hotels. They are running them as hotels. And I'm telling you, we're headed down uh, you know, a very bad road. People have talked about property uh, values. I walk around at night with my dogs. You're bringing in these are full-on party events, fullon drinking and drugging events. You are bringing hundreds of cars into our community every bloody weekend. Is it unreasonable to think that 5 to 10% of those drivers are completely inebriated? I've seen

them. They are. They don't even know the direction they're heading in. They're going to kill somebody. They're going to damage houses. Things are going to get out of hand. And when they do, we're going to be going to the courts to get them to clarify what our rights are to put a monetary amount of damage that the city of India has caused us, the city manager and his brethren, cart blanch these t these special permits just to collect the damn fees. How can six properties control thousands of people in a community put us all at risk? Our health, our welfare, and our property values. It's beyond my comprehension that this can be allowed to continue. And if you guys don't do something about it, well, the courts or the regulatory authorities at the state administrative offices are going to do something about it. [applause] Um, Mr. Steve Klein.

Steve Klein. Nope. Pamela Brower.

Good evening. Thank you very much for your time. Um, I'm Pamela Brower and I've been a full-time resident of Indo and Trilogy at the Polo Club for the last 10 years. I'm here along with many residents and I know you've heard our our conversations, our comments, our um woes, but this is something that is truly impacting our life every day. Um I would like to share with you our deep and what has been already shared but are deeply concerned about the frustration and the changes being allowed in our community. We would like to understand why the city of India is able to implement the changes without consulting the people who actually live here. Our neighborhood is a single family community primarily 55 and older residents and the decisions being made directly affect our safety, our property values, and our quality of life. I'd like to ask you to consider this personally knowing that uh some of you don't live within our zones. I know that it doesn't directly impact you, but I'd like to ask you personally, if these conditions were in your neighborhood, how would you like to live there? Would you be would you repeatedly want buses, portaotties, large crowds, speeding cars, loud disturbances, and trash discarded throughout your streets brought by the people who have no regard to the residents of the Trilogy at the Polo Club? We certainly don't and I don't think you would either. So I'd like you to really think about that and see the and realize the impact that it is making. I would urgently request you to stop issuing the permits allowing these permits to take place. Take into account the real impact and decisions to have that they have on our residents. I thank

you for your attention and time and I really do appreciate you looking further into this and making some concessions. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Mike Wales,

mayor, uh Mayor Protown, city council members, staff, thank you for uh you've heard from my neighbors, you've heard about from me a few times on this issue over the last few years, and it has progressed where it's gotten worse. Uh the conversations haven't gone anywhere. Uh a couple things I wanted to point out is uh Councilman Ortiz, uh the Freedom of Information request. Uh request something from the city of India. Very unlikely you're going to get a response because I've been requesting information about these issues and they just go nowhere. So I'm not going to hire an attorney like you would suggest the city would hire an attorney to get your information request, but it would be nice if we got the information. So we'd have more facts, but I guess there were facts that maybe that would not want to be shared because maybe would be suggesting some things that you don't want to hear. Pedestrians. Councilman Ferman, you talked about pedestrian safety quite a bit. You've heard quite a bit. It is dangerous with these drunk drivers going through our neighborhood at night when I'm walking my two dogs. We have to get out of the damn street because they're going past us too fast and they're going right into that gate. Listen to constituents. Advocacy leads to greatness. I think you're hearing a lot of greatness tonight. You're going to continue to hear some greatness. One of the things that was interesting, city manager, is you said you can tell the staff not to accept applications. That was something you said about gas stations that are be going to be governed under a conditional use permit. Hey, no problem. We will stop accepting applications. We've been asking for that here. We had a great attorney working on this project. You relieved her because part of the thing that she was saying was, "Let's not have any more permits. Let's have a moratorum." You guys killed that by relieving her from duty. And that would be the city man city attorney and the city manager. She was doing a

fantastic job of bringing consensus and possibly a solution to this. And that was stopped dead in the tracks. the TUP order that I've been asking about. It was a kind of a it's been a a chase to track down information. We've gotten a peace meal over the years. Then you can say, "Oh, go look at this. Go look at this." So, I got the TUP. Brian McGomery sent me the thing. So, I read the whole thing. One of the things it says in the existing TUP ordinance, there can only be an event every 30 days. It says there in the ordinance. you can confirm with the city attorney. You can write it read it yourself. It isn't being followed. So, it kind of goes back to why do we go through this process? Why do we have laws? Why do you have things if you're going to arbitrarily decide what you're going to do and not do? Because that's what we're facing right now. Thank you very much for listening and I look forward to hearing the other comments.

THANKS, Richard Zizian. Good evening, council and staff. My name is Richard Zizzy at Trilogy Polo Club. You all know you all know me and you know I am here. For the past three years, I have asked the city council to help our community to no avail. You have done nothing and in fact you've made the situation worse by allowing the proliferation of 100% commercial event businesses to be built within Zinda Laspalo's enclave with building permits, rentals, and short-term TUP permits. More are being built as we speak. We were hoping that the date farm uh would be done as a single unit. It appears that there may be plans for three homes going in there to be party rentals on the old date farm. So our idea that 11 homes may be built is maybe going to be 13 party homes in there. So code enforcement hears our complaints almost every weekend. If you actually issued citations over the past three years, all of these operators would be out of business under your three strike rule. But you don't issue citations. Is that coming from the authority of the city manager, the city attorney, the police chief, or code enforcement? I don't think you've ever revoked a permit for somebody having three violations. You have to enforce your own laws. That is the problem. You have laws on the books today that will eliminate these people that are disturbing our lives. You're not allowing that to happen. To me, the most outrageous part of the permit when you read it, and this comes

from your staff, and it's knowingly false, and I'll read what every permit says. staff has determined that the proposed use will not unreasonably affect adjacent properties, their owners or occupants or their surrounding neighbors and may in another way constitute a nuisance or be detrimental to the health, safety, peace and comfort and general welfare of persons residing or working in the area. That is patently false. Everybody here is complaining about that. Yet every permit, sir, that you allowed to be issued, it states it right up front. And that just so violates everything of you what you folks are doing up here. It's a lie. You're leading your permits with a lie. And that permit is a privilege. Why are people spending 58 10 million dollars on properties over there on the gut call that you're going to give them a privilege? So I worked with Elizabeth Martin to come up with a plan. It was called the Trilogy Sensitive Neighborhood Amendment. And I submit it again to the clerk tonight for you to look at it. There is a way to solve a lot of those issues immediately until this is resolved. And it's going to be resolved in the court. I tried to find any case in the country where a city has been sued for five commercial businesses operating in the residential zone. There is not one. Why? Because you're the only city that does it. Thank you, [applause] Mr. Miles Warner.

Hi everybody. Um, thank you for the time. Um, I only have three minutes. I can't address everything that's been said. There are a number of misrepresentations and issues here. I wish that I could explain to you all all of the elements, all the things we do, all of the code enforcement that we have to deal with. Come on, please.

I do. I really do. I wish I had an ability to talk to you guys. I don't. The truth is that when I I tried for 18 months to meet with your board to try to work this out and they refused for 18 months to meet with me. Finally, I threatened to sue them and they agreed to meet with me and their attorney screamed at me and bullied me. We came up with an agreement. Six weeks later or less, the agreement was, "You guys quit the agreement." Every time I've tried to have a conversation with anybody to try to make this better in Trilogy, every single time I get shut down, there is nobody that I've met in Trilogy that that's on that board or that has any power to talk to me that will actually engage me and try to make this better. So, you guys sued us and you sued the city and you're losing. You might win, but right now you're losing. And the judge Bammani almost two months less than two months ago said that we have a right to use that easement for commercial use. That's what he said. And he gave us a judgment of 5 $5,100 which your board has yet to pay us. Okay? That's what's really happening here. There's a lot of things that you guys don't know about that you're not being told. There's a lot of other things going on that you guys are in the dark about.

Miles, could you address us, please? Yes.

I It is very It is frustrating to try so hard to do things in a way that is respectful and engages the community in an earnest attempt and to watch all of the kind of like misrepresentations and lies. So many times when they think the sound is coming from my house, it's coming from Barcelona or it's coming from the mar the the rancherero that likes to play mariachi music till 2 in the morning. We we we had a sound study. Okay. You guys commissioned a sound study and they they did a sound study on three events. One of which had 180 uh guests and a live band by a thirdparty consultant. and the third party consultant said that there was not that it I don't I don't remember the exact language but it was within it was a it was a reasonable volume. I understand why these people are so upset. I would be too if I was being misled and if I didn't have access to what was really happening. I wish I offer you this crowd. If any of you want to ask me questions, I will tell you the truth. As long as you are civil and respectful and treat me as a human being, I will tell you the truth.

Thank you, sir. I own the Zend state. No, we don't take questions from the audience, please. Please.

So, we have finished our public comments for the items. Obviously, we've heard your all of your comments. City manager and staff have written it down. Uh we will allow them to look at it and if there's some feedback, it'll come back from our staff to to all of you. As you know, uh Council Member Gutron is your representative. you know, he's always available if you need to talk to them or you need to talk to us, but we cannot meet more with more than two of us at a time. So, you know, we'll let staff look what they can do. We appreciate everyone coming. Uh we are going to adjourn this meeting at uh 7:50 and we wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. Uh we'll have a tree lighting coming up soon and we'd like to adjourn this meeting in the honor of Mark Carnival. So, have a great rest of your night.