City Council - Regular Meeting

Evening. Uh it is let's see what is it about 5:08. This is the city of India city council Indo water authority meeting for Wednesday the 18th. Uh council chamber third floor. Let us do a call to order please and roll call. Council member Miller present. Council member Wethron present. Council member Ortiz present. Mayor Proton Ferman present. And Mayor uh Mayor Holmes present. All present accounted for. Okay. Item number two, invocation. Pastor Williams.

Good evening, council, and everyone that's here. It's my honor once again to pray for our wonderful city. So, if you join me, let's just pray. Dear gracious Lord, we just come before you humbly, Lord, just acknowledging who you are and just thanking you for our protection, for our provision, for our unity. Lord, we just ask that you govern this council with the wisdom that they need to do the great work that's set before them. And Lord, let us be selfless in our endeavors, esteeming those who don't have a seat at the table, but recognizing that everyone in our city needs to be served. They need to be safe. They need to be met with dignity. So Lord, in your word, you remind us as we serve the least of them, you remember us. So Lord, let us not be forgetful about the least of us. And Lord, protect our police, protect our first responders, protect our children and our school people, Lord, our educators, Lord. Lord, let uh no sickness be rampant. Let no things that need to be undone be undone, Lord. We just ask you just to protect us, to shield us. And continually, Lord, favor us because we are a great city that's on a hill. You love India just as much as we do. We thank you for that. But now, Lord, we just ask that you take over the meeting, that you be in charge, and we know all things will go right. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Dr. Kerrion Academy is here to do the pledges pledge of allegiance. Come on up and let me read a little bit about Alexi Carmona. Alexi Carmona is 10 years old and a fifth grade student at Dr. Kerion Academy. She is a proud member of her school's volleyball team and actively participates in the leadership club. Fantastic. In her free time, Alexi

enjoys building Legos and playing video games. When she grows up, she hopes to become a zookeeper so she can care for animals. Yay, animals. And make a difference in their lives. That's phenomenal. Thank you so much for that. Go right ahead. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God.

Oh, how wonderful. Stay right there. Congratulations. Thank you so much for doing this. All right. Next is item number four, Youth Advisory Council. Cool jacket.

Good evening, Mayor Holmes and council members. My name is Jimea Murio and I am a member of the Youth Advisory Council. Recently, we volunteered at the Black History Month event. We were able to pass out bracelets, bookmarks, and coloring pages for those who attended. After our most recent meeting, we distributed 30 Valentine's Day care packages to a local elder elderly community at the Christensen Apartments. We would like to thank Jessica, Myano, and Miguel for providing our Yak publicist, Jalissa, the opportunity opportunity to job shadow marketing and learn more about the field she hopes to pursue in the future. The job shadow opportunities have allowed Yak to explore the the work city staff does to keep the city running smoothly. Looking ahead this Saturday, we will be attending the Coachella Valley Invitational. That concludes my report. Thank you.

That's it. Thank you so much. All right. Next number five, city manager reports and information. I'll report at this time, mayor. Thank you. Okay. City uh city council conflict of interest. Does anyone have any conflict of interest for the agenda? I do not. And item number seven, city council report on meetings attended for government code section 53232.3D. Council member Miller.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. All my committees were uh dark, so I didn't have any uh commission meetings, but I was fortunate enough uh when I was mayor uh Mr. Gutron and myself uh were able to reach out to the Mexican consulate out of uh Inland Empire and they were able to come down and and meet with us. We were at uh Buzzbox. A lot of the products that that Buzzbox utilizes comes from Mexico. And so I'm going to leave it to Mr. Gutron since he set up the meeting uh when I was mayor to be able to talk about it so he has more depth on what what we were going through. Uh want to thank Mr. Ferman for being on our fair board. As you as you saw, the the fair was here and and open till uh March 1st. Uh great opportunity. The parade was there. Uh great opportunity for our families to get out. Really nice uh improvements being done by the county of Riverside and Pickering uh events. Uh being able to not only bring back dates, there's 40 different products now that have dates in it because it was towards the date festival. They've invested in bathrooms. They've invested in other stuff. So, if you haven't been out to the fair, please go on out. great opportunity for your families to get out there and and our fair board's done a great job of working with Pickering and the county of Riverside to improve it. So, please go out and then um hopefully we can get the queen and their court back if we can look at that. I know it's a sticking point for people, but it's been part of our history for many years and a lot of amazing young ladies have have been the queen or their court and I think it'd be great to be able to to help them and support them to come back. And then obviously the parade if we could add some more. I know you're working on some stuff Mr. Ferman. So uh and I I agree with you on the military. If we can bring some more people back that'd be awesome. And then uh little opportunity for for myself and that the Destiny Church hosted Tim TBO in the foundation for there was 87 uh disabled uh individuals uh from 13 years up. Usually

they're mostly like a desert arc. They're they have to be adults. They have to be 18 over. was actually 13 uh to to any age. Uh there was 87 of them and 200 caregivers that were there either their family members or people that take care of them and they were separated basically volunteers from Destiny Church. There was 200 uh volunteers and they had to cut it off that were there to help uh chaperone the disabled individuals. And then the caretakers went in another part of the church and they were able to uh relax, listen to fellowship, talk about uh what they're doing, had a meal by themselves and they didn't have to worry for one day to be able to do it. And my hats off to u Nate and Paula Kton and then also Oed and Lette Martinez who are the pastors of the church for raising not only the $35,000 but also to get the wherewithal to bring all the people in to help it. And the first thing that you saw when you got there and it was really exciting was our fire and police department were there with uh lights flashing and the flag the American flag hanging from uh one of the ladder trucks there and so on. Those those individuals just enjoyed that. The families enjoyed it. So just a neat thing. They are coming back next year. So, I if you can, I would recommend that you all go because it was not only tearjerkering, but very very entertaining in terms of watching them enjoy themselves in a way I don't think they they have in quite a while. So, it was really a great night and uh my hats off to everyone. That's it, Madam Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Gotron. Well, it it's been an interesting week uh or two weeks, but I had the uh privilege of participating with about 90 plus of our former members of our city police department, retired, humble, retired, and those that started a career here, ended it somewhere else. They came from seven different states as far as Alaska, as far as New Mexico, as far as Hawaii to spend one evening uh remembrance of their days in India. Our oldest officer from 1963 is Courtney Winty, the family head, the Courtney Ranch, which is now Shadow Hills Lake. Um, so a lot of history from a lot of people, diverse group of individuals, from dispatchers, police officers, and support staff, but it it's really nice to see them. Uh, we we were fortunate to have it at the Big Rock Club, and it was beautiful. Everything was positive. They were impressed with the growth of the city. They spend here about a day or two. They're looking forward to coming back next year. But it was nice to see how proud they were. And they were also proud of of what I I gave Wayman Ferman the credit because he wanted to see a public safety campus. And I said, if you thought that's good, you wait to see how headquarters is going to be. It's a big investment. We every single nickel and dime of that investment was supported 100% by this council, but more important by your community. And so they still have very proud and they are going to go back to where they live and brag about it and come back to see that facility built. And so you couldn't get any better marketing because it didn't come from money. It's going to come from their heart. So um the other one that was important obviously we mentioned that uh the mayor at the time Glenn Miller wanted to meet with Mexico consulate and I've been fortunate to have those

relationships with the past six consulates assigned. Um currently Dr. Um, Salvador Prescarte is the current member of uh assigned by the president of Mexico for a fiveyear term. Normally they're three or two years and there's a lot of turnover and obviously I've been dealing with that office for various reasons in my prior career, but now it was a relationship builder and they're willing to embrace the relationship with our city. They enjoyed the visit. They enjoyed looking at uh Buzzbox because Buzzbox, one of their main products is imported from Mexico. It's it's the base of their tequila is imported there and is used for their mixed drinks and a variety of mixed drinks based on that. And so it was a really interesting tour and seeing a state-of-the-art facility in India and their growth. Uh obviously the tour was done by the CEO Rod and his staff and they did a really outstanding job. And then we gave him the privilege at the direction of Glenn at the time as the mayor to come and visit the campus and they were extremely impressed and the relationships and the welcome and friendly environment we are to everyone. And they're looking forward to not just stopping there. I just spoke to them this morning. They're coming back to the fair to recognize some of the acts the fairgrounds of artists that are coming from Mexico and recognizing the fairgrounds for their effort. And so that'll give credit to the fair board and everybody else for their events. Um and they want to create another sister city. And so I will come back hopefully with something that the council will support. um they had one we had one at one time but things like everything else we get rejuvenated and so it'll be it'll be a great opportunity to build those relationships and everything was positive. Um, the other thing that was really good for me is to attend the the second annual event of our police commissioners lunchon here. And I think

it's it's great of staff and everyone of an opportunity to thank our commissioners that volunteer their time with small compensation, but and I think it's important that obviously most of them work during the day. Then we might look at an evening or a Saturday morning event maybe um because a lot of them do work. And so I thought I'd bring that back. But overall it was very positive experience. Like it was really nice because they had the opportunity to be here in the open patio deck of the third floor and they they obviously some of them had not had that opportunity to see it and they really enjoyed it as far as their views. Um I had the opportunity with my six-year-old granddaughter Sophia being uh the third generation we to attend the fair. Um and it's really nice to her. She loves the the pig races. She got a really kick out of that. She enjoyed the interaction. Uh all of you took time to say hi to her and she really, you know, understanding how things work. Was really impressed. But it's nice that our fair is bouncing to where it should be. Uh grassroots involving I had an opportunity to speak to the the association of our model train. Most of them are India residents and they take great pride of that and great great pride in us supporting the museum especially with that brand new rail car. They had just a plent of of ideas to come about. But it's nice to see the fair bouncing through its grassroots. And uh today the mural was outstanding. It it was a great visit. Um and it's nice to see our community come out and support it and you and new faces new faces that are involved and we're we're energizing the interest in what the city's doing. So that's really nice. And lastly, um just two things of importance. Uh, unfortunately, Super Bowl Sunday was awesome for those that were rooting for their favorite team, but life goes on. And unfortunately, we almost lost one of our own. We almost lost one of our frontline officers to an

accident at the results of a potential DUI. And thank God my hats off to the fire chief and CalFire and the paramedics and the support of the community. So, we he is hopefully chief will be in recovery. Um, but we almost lost somebody and it kind of makes you think about we take things for granted. Life in general can be gone in a second and so and we're hoping that with the support of the community and obviously support of our HR team there make sure that he gets well and gets back to work because that's what he wants to do. So, and the other one was a passing of a very special person, Robert Luna, who was a barber at Armando's Barber Shop. All three barbers have now passed. If you remember Ephine and if you remember Armando himself, they're very strong from the Luna family and Robert I've known since I was a kid and his wife Priscilla um who had the bridal shop downtown. Unfortunately, passed away a week ago.

She did. He did. Robert passed away. And so I just for those of you that knew him, u those like me every two weeks getting a haircut. Um it was more than just the haircut. It was the community people going in there and getting their haircuts just as much as Joe's Barber Shop and all those other special places that we have in our city. But I'd like to just to take the time to remember Robert and respects to the family long long-term family members. The Luna family is in our city between here and Coachella. That is my report. Quite a report. Thank you so much, Council Member Council Member Ortiz.

Thank you, Mayor. Last week, I attended the Coachella Valley Energy and Sustainability Committee. We had a great discussion regarding the air quality in the Coachella Valley. A few updates from the air quality district. One is the CV dust monitoring camera network. These are cameras that are put at high points around the valley, most of them up on the mountains that are tracking the dust movement so that we get a clearer vision of what's going on during our dust storms and what the problem areas are. They also have additional PM10 monitors. There's seven additional additional ones coming to the valley. These are not official regulatory monitors, but lowerc cost options, but they'll still allow us to get a better picture of what's going on uh throughout the valley, and they're being calibrated right now in Mecca. There was also some discussion regarding the health studies used by the Riverside University Health System. An old older health study from the 1990s came up as having some very thorough health data. So, we're going to go back and look at that study and compare with our current data to see if we need a more thorough uh study going for the going forward for the present air quality impacts on health conditions in the valley. Uh today, we also had the mural unveiling for our for the our life mural on Jackson and 45 by local artist Adam Enrique Rodriguez. It was great to see our local students, car clubs, and families out there enjoying this new mur mural. That's a great representation of the culture and community of the city of Indo. I also attended our commissioner lunchon. Many of them took take a lot of time to study our projects and provide valuable input to our staff. So, we would like to thank them for their efforts and their service to our Indo community. I also attended the President's Day parade which went really well. We had a lot of people come out uh this year. So, want to thank our partners at the county as well as our staff for helping us with organizing that fun event for our community. Lastly, I want uh I went to the Black History Month event in downtown India. I want to thank Council Member Ferman for all of his efforts in organizing and keeping that event going for the past few years. Congrat congratulations to

all of our awardees. And thank you again to our staff for prov providing another great family event in downtown India. And that's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much, Mayor Portan.

All right. And good evening, everyone. Um most of my committees were uh dark, but I did attend some outstanding events in our community. Um like it was mentioned previously, um I did attend the Indo Black History Celebration. Um I worked behind the scenes a little bit to uh help uh ensure that that went smoothly, but I got to give a lot of credit to our staff. Um Miguel and his team and the city manager, the chief um you know, just thank you for the support. Um, you know, every time I think we're, you know, at a place where we're comfortable, um, Jessica or Vanessa comes out with another idea that's amazing. And, uh, so it was a really great event. Uh, Pastor Tony was there on one of the panels. Um, we had youth panels and, uh, there was some entertainment. And then after the celebration, we had the ENTJ movement uh, perform. So, really good night in downtown Indo. And of course, lots of food. And so, um, I also attended the Palm Springs Air Museum Gayla. Um, that event is phenomenal and it's a also a tearjerker. You know, they, uh, celebrate our veterans, um, for from our country who served. And the theme this year was 50 years of the ending ending of the Vietnam War. And just hearing some of the stories of the veterans, you know, it's just amazing that some of them what they went through and how they persevered and their outlook on life is so positive, you know, and it makes you look in the mirror and say, "What am I worried about?" You know, and so um it was another great event uh to go to after the Black History Celebration. So I went home, changed uh comb my hair, and then went out to Palm Springs for that. Since uh council member control was talking about haircuts, I that was my haircut. [laughter] And uh I also attended the Riverside County Fair National Day Festival grand opening. Um another great traditional event in our community and we talked

generations of kids, a lot of us who attended that ceremony. Uh thank you to uh Supervisor Perez and his staff, uh the Pickering family for uh you know, having such a great event. And uh you know I talked to a lot of folks about the Day Festival and uh we all look at the Day Festival through different lenses, right? um from elementary school to going to see your art exhibits and wanting to get that that ribbon, you know, and then you're in middle school and high school, you're hanging out with the the football team or the cheerleaders and you're out get riding rides and and uh then now as a as a parent um I go eat and I watch the little kids run around and I'm I have the honor and privilege of being on the advisory board. And I say that because I tell people to chase your nostalgia. Go find your nostalgia, you know. Um it it might be different than when we were kids because we were kids, but go find your nostalgia and make some new memories, you know. Uh it it's it's a fun event. It's great to go. And uh it's here until March 1st. And you know, and growing up to a lot of folks, this was our Disneyland. You know, not not everybody has the the privilege to go out to Disneyland, Magic Mountain, and the amusement parks. But I tell you this, um, this this is gonna make memories, lasting memories, and it's right here in our backyard. So when you go, you not only support the day festival, you support all the organizations and the students that they donate to. There's a lot of scholarships involved in the day festival. There's a lot of programs from 4 to FFA, um, you know, Future Farmers America that support our youth. So just think about it as well as when you go, you're invested in your community. So I strongly advise everyone to go. We had a great time at the President's Day parade. That's fun to a lot of us. We all attend as kids. Now we have the privilege of being in it. Uh I walked the parade this year with Indo High School ASB and so I'm still recovering

from that. Nonetheless, another great experience and thank you to everyone who came out. Thank you to our car clubs and I mentioned it earlier to the mayor. um since I'm on the advisory board hopefully with next year we uh get some soldiers to march in the parade with us and we're working on some some more uh cool ideas. So um looking forward to that as well. So that will conclude my uh report. Madame Mayor,

thank you. That's everybody has had has quite a report. Everybody's out there in the community. Everybody's heart is here in the community of India. I I thank you for all you are all such an inspiration to me. Um well I guess I should probably start with the one meeting I had the formal meeting and that was a Coachella Valley um uh mountains conservancy. We uh we purchased another 10 plus acres in the thousand palms conservation area and we are are slowly but surely just trying to to create areas of open space for people to enjoy and to preserve. Unfortunately, that comes with a price tag and uh and there's a lot of there's a lot of dumping and a lot of challenges out there. And so, we talked about and we received a presentation um about the uh uh uh Ranger program and and there's just so many pieces to it and I'm going to say thank you council member Gutron for volunteering to help. If you're if you're in this ranger program, they want to be able to site in some way people that are are just really sort of decimating our lands that are dumping that are dumping cars because it's not just dumping things. It's it's dumping things that are toxic into our lands into our water system and and having the ownership of these lands. Uh it's it's incumbent upon us to become um good stewards of those properties and be able to keep them clean. And that's a much larger project and than we even realized. Um I had some I had some numbers here uh at the end of the day just a whole lot up north of Desert Hot Springs wherever uh in in some of the county outlying county areas that feed into that. So we're looking at a ranger program to just keep everything clean, neat uh and and keep you know the lands pristine as they should be. Black History Month was outstanding and every year like everything else in this city,

it gets better and better and I really appreciate Mayor Pertam. Um your desire to keep the culture and the history of our city and our community going. It was a really wonderful event. The awards were wonderful. The people I came back and and saw some of the music that was going on. It was fun. People were having a good time. You know, I've noticed a theme in this city and that theme is wherever there's food and music, there are crowds and there are families. And I think it doesn't get any better than that. And I'm looking to our amazing staff to continue that because um they're always coming up with great ideas and and wonderful ways to integrate this community. Uh I something that was fun to do. I met um there was an insurance group that came from out of out of state called High Street Insurance and they wanted a special project to do. And so they um they contacted the city Jose and said where can we what can we do and where can we do it? Well, they did a mural. So, tremendous amount of back u background work on the part of staff to prepare this mural for the this group after they were here um actually at the Hyatt before the fire. They were here at the Hyatt um um having their meeting and their function and whatnot. And about 4:00, 3 or 4 o'clock, uh they came in mass, I mean, one bus after another pulled up. There were there were actually probably about a few hundred people there to go over to Avenue 44 to paint a mural. So, if you haven't seen it, the mural is absolutely beautiful. We thank them. That was part of of the program, something they wanted to do and give back to our community and um and we are happy to have them and and work with them. Let's see. Uh I with Mayor Prom and I think you were there a little bit longer than I, but you had a really great opportunity to attend uh students in government uh college of the desert. You know, to see young students have an interest in in government is just so refreshing. It's so wonderful. It's so energizing and and I'm sorry it was yes

by the uh put together by the YMCA and it was just really wonderful to hear them give speak speeches. Um they were they were uh running for president and vice president and so they had timers. They had their their speeches all set up. They were um wanting to be uh compelling. They were just so poised, so confident um and and just so adult. And those are our future leaders like you. and we are very very excited um to have them and and Wayman um if you want to jump in because I know you got to spend a little bit more time with them and it was just very exciting.

I I think you captured it but I was just I was impressed uh with this young group of kids. Um you know they're out of the YMCA. It's a youth government class and um they met here at the College of the Desert. myself, the mayor, city manager uh attended and uh we got to listen to um you know their meeting and things that social issues that we're dealing with. We got to hear from their perspective from both sides and um it's real important to listen to our youth and and get their perspective on things and I walked out of there uh very you know comforting that our future is going to be in good hands and I was very impressed by their decorum as well and the next day they were leaving to Sacramento um more of like a competition trip but to to meet up with other youth groups just like theirs and so you know seeing our our youth be so engaged and we have, you know, our our Yak and our ASBs and our our church groups and our our youth groups. We have to continue to support them and so um they were they were excited to see the mayor and city manager and myself there and I stayed a little bit to talk to them and asked them what can we do better, you know, and you know, one of the things they said were, you know, can you lower gas prices? I said, "Well, that I'll talk to some friends, you know, but um issues like that that we're dealing with, that's on the forefront of their minds." So, it was great to attend. So, thank you, mayor, for that.

Absolutely. It just so fresh that the ideas and and their perspectives. Also attended the ribbon cutting and the opening for the fair. I've been to the fair at least three times since that day. Um, it's just so great to see uh a renewed effort on Jet Dates, on our agricultural community, on some of the things that made our East Valley and Indo so so special. Um, Pickering Events is just doing a great job of lifting that fair up of of doing different things. And it was interesting a comment that one of us made there. Um, so they have a luau for those of you that haven't been to Hawaii and there are probably a lot of people in our community. So they have um a luau stage now where they have actual Hawaiian dances at night. They have uh and and food and they have um the fire dancers in the evening and it is authentic. It is it is absolutely authentic and it's quite wonderful and I just love the thought process. It says what can we bring um to this fair so that it becomes um a local Disneyland as the case may be. And uh so it's really great. It's really wonderful. It's just everything is new and clean and and I know it's just going to continue to grow. So, if you haven't been, you have a couple weeks to go. Please do. And oh, by the way, check out the cinnamon rolls. They're the best. And um I also attended the commissioner appreciation lunch. We are very thankful for our commissioners and the time that they they put in and helping us carve, learn um and really go through all the plans and the arts. And as a result of the arts commission, we now have an amazing and beautiful mural in uh in in our in our city that's just enormous. It's huge. and it really depicts the culture and the beauty of our city and it was quite an event um this evening or this afternoon. So that was much appreciated and uh gosh there's so many things going on in the city. It's such a great time to be a part of this community and on that note I am going to thank everyone for listening and move on to item number eight which

is the consent calendar. Does anyone wish to pull anything or do I hear a motion? I'll make a motion. 87. Okay. Any other items? All right. Um, go right ahead.

And the only reason I did, it's not that it's a challenge, is it's a big deal for the neighborhood of cover track. Uh, I had the privilege of being assigned by the mayor to lay on and work with the county supervisor. And, um, I just I had spoken to the city manager and I've spoken to some of the water staff. It's a big deal for those residences. You know, it's not the first acquisition we've done as far as a water service. We I think to my memory, this is probably number six or seven for the city because as the city's been growing, but it brings quality water that our city is able to provide those residents and they were in a really bad jam and the county is putting a lot of money into that neighborhood. Um it it unfortunately like many other areas of the county because it's so big, but the streets have been improved. Uh the mayor was there with me not too long ago. They're putting in street lights. There's still challenges with alleyways and whatnot, but for them to realize that they're going to get the quality service that our community has and take over that big burden and the benefits that the state's going to give. I just wanted to make sure that the staff was aware of reaching out. They're going to do a good job because I've been there three times and our and our water department has done an excellent job and the ability also because they have a lot of staff that speak Spanish and I think it's just important that we continue that. Um we we will be the vendor providing a water service and and but we're they're going to have a responsible vendor and and a vendor is going to be quality service and I just wanted that to be a note.

Perfect. Thank you. Okay. May Yes.

Yeah. I just wanted to echo that. you know that that's a great project that we got going there for Carver Tract in and being able to provide that reliable clean water for the next couple of decades, right? Or and the other two that I wanted to mention was the uh acceptance of the payment and performance bonds for JFM villas. There's two different ones. One is for family uh apartments that are coming in for affordable housing. The other one's for senior affordable housing. So, I think that's going to be critical, you know, here at this time for our families, for our working families to be able to have somewhere affordable to live. So, thank you to our staff for working with Coachella Valley Housing Coalition on that project there. The other one that I wanted to bring up was the um the landscape contract which we're increasing uh by about $400,000 and that's to to make sure that we're able to maintain the new projects that we have going on around the city. So, thank you again to our staff for that planning ahead of time to make sure that we're able to take care of the sports park, uh the new c uh the new um the new medians that we have around the city and other landscaping projects that have come up recently. This will be able to cover those and make sure they're well maintained. So, thank you.

Okay, Mayor Pro Tim, you made a motion. Motion and council member Oscar Ortiz second that motion. And I know that there is a special so everybody sees it except me. It's just not on my screen. So, upper right hand corner. Yeah, I Let me refresh it. Mayor, I'm special. Apparently,

I do not. No. No. You. No. All right. How shall we do this? Yeah, we can do roll call. Whatever. Do roll call. Mayor, let's do roll call. Okay, Council Member Miller. Oh, wait a minute. We got it now. I pressed enough things on the screen. Okay, let's go right ahead. There are three more. Yeah, let's try it. Let's Let's go for it. Thank you.

Okay. Yay. Yay. We're good. All right. love technology. It's wonderful. Thank you, Sabine. [laughter] Oh, thank you. It [laughter] Okay. Um item number nine, administrative items 9.1, resolution number 10548, restating and clarifying policies regarding cooperation with federal immigration authorities and reaffirming commitment. Uh and that's a a strong word. I want to take a moment reaffiring reaffirming commitment to public safety and community trust. City attorney um Steven Pacificico.

Uh thank you mayor. So this was a council initiated item at the last meeting. Uh we we drafted uh the resolution working with with the mayor and with council member Ortiz. Uh like like you said, I mean I think the title says it all. It it reaffirms the city's commitments to comply with state law and to uh to pursue local priorities uh with local funding. I'm happy to answer any questions the council may have about the specific provisions of the resolution. Um I actually wanted to turn this over to the chief. We had some extensive conversations about this and I know he has some very strong emotions about um about about how this is rolled out and our role.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh, Chief Brian Tully. I oversee the police department. Definitely, this issue has been a complex and and concerning issue with our community. The Indo Police Department has had a longstanding interest and engagement with our community. Our community includes everybody. We have a diverse community. We have undocumented people within our community. They are part of our community. I want to reassure not only you but our community that we definitely do not uh and cannot uh be involved in the immigration enforcement process. We have always cared about our victims and we come no matter what when you call 911. We will respond. We will assess the situation. We will address any uh crime. We will address the needs of our victims and we will arrest suspects. It doesn't matter whether they are documented, undocumented. That's our job. That has always been our job and we will continue to do our job. We care about our community and we will be there for our community in every sense of the word.

Thank you. I think that's that's important to reinforce. I think we can't say that enough. Council, any comments or um a motion to approve? So move. Sure. Uh motion. Go ahead.

Sorry. Wanted to bring up, you know, ju just some recent um events that highlight why why this kind of messaging is so I've been talked to them. I asked, "Are you police?" And they said, "Yes, we are." And the people inside the guy out outside the car didn't have anything law enforcement related, right? He just had a plain clothes. there was an undercover sheriff. The sheriff's inside the car had the sheriff's shirts on, right? So, I was able to tell if they were sheriffs and we had a conversation there and I let them know, you know, people are freaking out right now because they think that you guys are ICE. And they said, "Okay, well, let them know. Is is it better if we move to a different location?" I said, "Yes, please. If you could, you know, move to a different location, that'd be helpful." But at that point, the whole neighborhood was, you know, on lockdown and people were really panicked. They didn't know what was going on. And that's the kind of issue that we're seeing, right, where regular law enforcement activities are now deemed to be a danger to our community and it provides um a a distrust, right, an issue for our law enforcement where people may not be willing to talk to our law enforcement when there's real issues in our community. Another one that came up just this morning, I got another message from somebody who had a code enforcement issue and they were afraid, you know, this is a DACA recipient, so they are legally here, but they were still scared to meet with our code enforcement because they were worried that they would call immigration on them and that even though they were legally here, there could be some issue there and there was fear there. So, we were able to reassure them just like this uh resolution is reassuring them that they don't have to worry about that. That they can always come to our police, to our code uh code enforcement, to our staff, to our city hall, and they don't have to worry about that. They'll get the right services just like everybody else. They'll get treated with respect, with dignity, and we're going to be here for them. So, I think that's, you know, one of the reasons that I think that this resolution is so important. Um the second part of that is, you know, the fact that we have uh video that is captured sometimes either by police or

city staff or city buildings and making that publicly accessible in cases of where there may be questionable uh enforcement, right? Um possibly unlawful or unconstitutional uh immigration enforcement throughout the city and folks being able to access that camera footage and being able to use that um for any um court cases or anything like that. I think that's going to be extremely valuable as well. Thank you. We have a motion by council member Gutron and I'll second that motion and a second by Mayor Prom. And let's do let's vote.

Fantastic. That's good. It's good to see. Thank you, Chief. All right. Next item. Uh item 9.2 fiscal year 202526 midyear budget report. Ruby Walla you're on.

Yes. Good evening Mayor Mayor Proam city council Ruby Walla finance director for the city of Indo. Um we've prepared a presentation for you this evening um to complement the staff report and the uh midyear report narrative that's included in the agenda. Um we have a few slides quite a number of slides but really um a lot of good news going on to share in this midyear report. Um so moving forward. Okay. So this evening we will be covering um the adopted budget just an overview talking about general fund revenues uh budget versus actual um how we're looking looking at expenditures as a whole. I will share that probably not going to do a whole lot in expenditures as I will do in the revenue side in terms of performance providing m multi-year projection and a look at fund balance um an overview of the water fund also taking a look at authorized positions as well as the classing comp uh compensation schedule for your consideration and then what this does is really kick us off into the to our budget season right so as we move forward into the 26 27 U budget preparation. So, a brief recap um as we entered into the 2025 um investment commitment to the city for in um investment commitment to the city for infrastructure improvements and we're continuing to 459 million all in that includes also operational internal transfers including capital and across all funds your general revenue funds, capital funds and your water fund as well. And continuing with the recap, this is just on the general fund and p

perception of what we had 129 million in expenditures with 123 of of of revenues. And of course with that consideration is that we were um estimating of 6.9 million as carryover that we would be ending the fiscal year um in 2324 to carry that over that we recognize a salary savings um uh projects that not had been completed. inclusive of uh 800,000 and then city council giving the direction to allocate funding of a half a million that they can view. Um but this is just a snapshot of general fund and what we're looking at. So overall 123 million as provided in the summary in the prior slide but tonight um projecting to have an additional six million in additional revenue which is very detailed and outlined within the staff report um in terms of what are those uh shifts that we're seeing yearover-year comparison what did we look like last year what are we looking like this year and how are we trending again when we talked about budget um initially for this this budget for 2526 in preparation we talked and considered the flattening of revenues which we were se seeing primarily neessarily in sales tax and measure X dollars. And if you may recall at that time we were projecting up higher and then with our partners HDL we have those conversations. We decided at that time it was better to scale back because based on what was being seen is that we were seeing um a reduction in sales tax uh dollars both general sales tax and as well as the measure X dollars that we received. So with that conservative approach, um that's why we ended up at 123 million and now we're asking for an additional six or seeing an additional

six and we'll be asking for city council's approval to authorize those. So I'll walk through some of those in the sense of transient occupancy tax. We had a great presentation earlier on tourism. Um that's a driver and what that is one. It's volatile in the sense that we benefit from the tourism aspect. Not just India in terms of a destination place for India for festivals and activities, but throughout the Coachella Valley, we capitalize as well with our um neighboring cities. So if tourism is doing well, we're doing well. But we also rely on the festivals. Correct. Depending on their um their success, if they succeed, we succeed. the lineup and every all those driving factors and that does have a domino effect but we are seeing an increase in in toot but most significantly in STRs and we talked about that uh in length somewhat in the study session but that's where we're seeing that revenue generation especially the income that we're receiving from the various platforms from Verbbo and Airbnb um and so that's where we see that split and that split in tot primarily is about 7525 um on actual that we're receiving more 75% of STR versus our uh hotel toot. So that's doing well. So th that adjustment is reflective of that. And then we have our property tax in L for um that we just got received our first payment and we'll go through there's a slide specific to that which we'll talk a little bit more as we go through. And then the other recommendations are ambulance services that's just been trending well. And we have here other services that we also see and the following the the ones that follow are primarily those that we received additional revenues that we did not budget for and those are all detailed out. Um and I'll take you to

the column in terms of actual through December 2025. what you'll see there in like most of our activity. It depends on timing. So those are revenues that just have not been captured. I just talked about the property tax and loo that comes in February. We just received it. So when we're doing a midyear comparison, we just don't quite have those numbers yet. And that holds true for the music festival services that has not occurred. So therefore, we don't have any of that revenue recognition. And again, if there are any questions along the way, please feel free to ask. So I'll go through a few slides which highlight some of the most significant revenue sources that we have with the city primarily uh focusing on taxes. So here we have have measure X which I highlighted um which were trending better than anticipated um our current budget is 8.2. However, we are not proposed an amendment. And when I prior to drafting um after drafting this report, we actually met with our partners at HDL and talked about what we're seeing and a trend. And so, actually, although we're not proposing an adjustment, we are propo we are anticipated to do better than than projected. So, we will anticipate an increase there. Sales and use tax, the same story holds true there. Um we are trending well. We have an an increase compared to the prior year. We're still staying consistent. There's no recommended proposed amendment here. Um and continuing on and you'll see the forecast here. The I did talk a little bit about that kind of went forward. Um but that's where we're seeing a lot of the change. And in the report I outlined, although I'm just requesting an 800,000 um increase on a budget amendment just to see how we're trending. Um year-over-year, um it looks like maybe 17 million might be our new baseline. But that's where I draw the caution a little bit before we

get too comfortable there is let's see because that's what's the beauty in these charts that this one's a great one because we go back to 2021 and you see that spike and I know it took probably took the city a while to understand is that a real spike is that a real number is that something that we can live with and be comfortable in and it took a number of years I think before we got to that point and so that's what we're seeing now is where it is flattening as you can see but where are we trending but that's why you see our projections still being conservative, not rising up to that full capacity because again depending on tourism and activity, we might see those it can shift up or down at any time. property tax in Lu I did talk about that and that does have an a budget amendment associated with and based on an annual 2% increase and so that's trending with that and that would just keep us in line with what we're anticipating property tax revenues no proposed amendment here and that's uh trending on target um with the increase and year-over-year we do have about we've had the city of India experienced a five five to six% increase in property in property tax. Any questions on revenue before I jump into expenditures?

Yes. Uh Ruby, I have a question. Um our our recurring revenues and expenditures were in the general fund. Where where are those at? Where are recurring ones that we could count on that are that are there?

Well, all all these revenues are recurring. Um, oh, sorry. Okay, there we go. So, all of these revenues are reoccurring. So, the ones that you would um primarily be concerned about are the ones on the bottom, right? Miscellaneous revenue, grants and reimbursements. Um, those fluctuate. Um, those primarily were be would be like the inconsistent revenues because you're unsure. And those are some of the ones that we would propose adjustments to because we budget those either don't budget at all for some of those categories. Um depending on what's in uh if it's unexpected revenue, we'll get that in basically like reimbursements, settlements, uh claims um reimbursements uh of that nature is what you would have in there. Um but license and permits is reoccurring, but that's where I caution as well. license and permits and other service charges because those talk to city service fees and right now we're building right and we're doing well and we have that momentum of growth. So that's a other place where we um will budget conservatively there because we are trending uh more than anticipated. some of the the year to date we're at 60 to 90% of uh budget versus actual so consistently go ahead

I just say maybe the slide helps answer the questions well just to add to what Ruby's saying the slides with one of the graphs you just take VLF for example or um yeah I I wanted to go back to those two because the the reason why I say is that I mean these are very conservative approaches right and

they're they're they're kind of bottomed out but when we look development and you know the upgrade in our our power infrastructure. Um, I actually appreciate this because we're not it seems like we're just staying there, not getting too wild with spending and and bottoming out, especially with our TOT and our measure X. And um, you know, I think that's important. You know, um, we we had a pandemic that we weren't ready for. Even though we did good in the sales tax, you just never know when something might come up. So, um, that's why I asked those questions and I was going to go back to those graphs because we bottomed out. However, I I still think that we may still be trending up, but I appreciate this more to uh be more of the conservative side of of spending. So,

well, that's very well said. So, I would say that the trend line that she's indicated here is the most conservative way to say what we believe is recurring. It's possible. In fact, it may even be likely we're more on an upward trend. But to your point and to the council's discipline in the past, let's be conservative because we never want to have recurring expenditures exceed our recurring revenues. This kind of flat trend line is ultraconservative, but it's safer. So, I if I were to answer the question, I would say that is our recurring revenue projection, but we'll likely do better. And then that's good news. uh rather than have the opposite occur because if we took that trend line and we kept going up maybe there's another slide maybe the uh uh sales tax might be an example where uh if we went too aggressively and then it didn't become recurring meaning we hit that tough time uh the ones that you're mentioning uh mayor prom I think are important uh for all of us to remember is the development related revenues could be more one-time less recurring at the high levels However, we mentioned when we finally bring on these new substations, we will likely see that growth you're talking about. I think that will be sustained and it'll be up to you when we come back to you in May whether you want to be a little more aggressive, a little less aggressive, or more conservative. And that line will just kind of tip this way according to your direction. Now, if we are a little more aggressive and we hit those numbers, we'll be able to get more done. But if we miss, then we'll have to pull back,

right? Right. And so Bendy gives us that opportunity to provide you with that update and to to evaluate how we're looking and what's trending at that time. Great. Thank you,

Mike. You've done an excellent job explaining it. I think what I'm looking at is what is that total number that we're going to be conservative. We know what'll come in, but like like ambulance services, never a guarantee. License and permits depends. People come and go. more businesses come in, but also people leave. Fines and forfeertures. Well, that depends on how enforcement we are and what we're doing with forfeertures. So, I think I would like to know what that total number what that total pie is. We're going to have to be just careful. Of course, if we do well, then we'll reap the reward later. You know, we invest today, we'll see what happens later. So,

right. And I can answer that in in terms of what that conservative is is been about around the 1201 123 um million in terms of revenue in in anticipating that that's the conservative that's the baseline is you're trending over 120 123 to be realistic um 123 million.

Yeah. that that's the reality and then we would come to you in terms of revenues in terms of this case if we're seeing it could it could go up or down in terms of we're seeing trending about six and to be honest because we are still being somewhat conservative it probably will be higher on the revenue perspective but we aren't just we aren't dialing up that high so that to answer your question in terms and also u mayor prot is 120 123 for the general fund is basically your baseline at this point.

So Ruby, you're you're talking about the onetime rollover. So it seems like the last couple years we've been in six million right around that area where we've gone over because of savings from personnel, haven't spent money and other stuff, but it's I think it's pertinent on our part to stay at that to be at that level because we can always change it midyear. This the city and the city council hasn't gone for want over the last few years when we spend it wisely. If there's really something we need, we can always go back and reach into to bring the money forward if we need an extra position or anything else. But if we don't hit that numbers, then we got to reverse everything, go backwards or start to look at a reserve fund. I think it's pertinent that we stay about where we are to make sure that we're always making our numbers. Then we can readjust as we're going through. That way we don't have to worry about the the 20 million we have in reserves or the other money we have for our PERS and and uh and the other retirement benefits for medical because I mean that's this is exactly what we're supposed to do. I think you've done a great job of of making sure that we're in that numbers and the same with staff but there really isn't anything I think this this council hasn't gone ahead and bought that we needed with what we have. So

because of the discipline nature of have you proceeded and a great point that the council member makes because that 6 million that's kind of been our cushion as a percentage of that 120 123 is less than 5%. So it's it's not a huge uh barometer but when it is good then you have choices. If it's off a little bit no problem because we have cushion. We have that little cushion.

Beg your pardon? That leads me to my question, which has to do with reserves. I mean, that's something that that has been so important to us since I've been on council, which is 15 years now, is making sure um that we have a robust uh reserve. And so, I wondered if you could um walk us through what those reserves are and what the percentage of. If you don't mind, I I can jump ahead to the to the slide that provides some of that information to give some kind of visual.

Terrific. So here in this slide with the multi-year uh projection but I'll go one more sorry let me go back this one and then we'll go to the multi-year. So this is your fund balance history and this is the this is the beauty in what we're seeing in terms of how we're ending for fiscal year 2425 which will be coming to city council with that um financial audit for their review and adoption acceptance. Um and so what you have here is uh the way our ending fund balance at 75.68 68 million. And how that's broken down is that 4 million that you see there is a restricted in 2425. That is uh your pars pension trust. The commitment that city council has made to funding uh for the future as far as for the unfunded liability and to pay for that cost to prepare for the future as an additional reserve in concept. That$ 18.5 million that is your rainy day fund. the emergency reserve. The city council has also been strategically um disciplined in the sense of contributing to that rainy day fund and and putting funds towards that half a million there, half a million um currently. And then you have your assigned fund balance and that's the most significant and that's the one that will fluctuate and you'll see fluctuates year after year. But that balance there as you see between 2425 and 2526 it goes to zero because there's an assumption that what that is is that is commitments there to the capital plan um to secure that the funding that we've come forward with in that capital FL plan that for general fund obligations may it be measure X or general fund that we do secure that funding to ensure that that capital plan can continue and that

we secured those resources also in that is we set aside funds to make your next year contribution to your PERS your PARS contribution your OPB trust contribution which is the uh retirey medical portion that we're contributing to which I can say currently based on our recent investment report um both balances are at 5 million so that is securing those funds so what what that net effect is is the reality that 6 million also that we're talking about that we were anticipating to close the year with is it it absorbed everything that we're committed to moving into the next year, but now we have an additional $5 million to move forward to make those decision in terms of how we move into the next year. Um, and actually makes us a little bit more solid as we move into as we're in 2526. So that is the continued commitment and and I'll go back uh sorry trying to adjust here and this screen um and this uh page really tells what are the decisions that council can be faced with what are the choices moving into the next uh fiscal year. So um there's a lot of lines there but you see that I'll take you to the center of that where it says onetime projects and contributions. All of that funding there is approximately $11 million as you move out three years because we have debt service that will be increasing um in the next year. So that will reduce that from 14 million to 11 million. But that's discretionary funding that council will have uh the ability to decide what they would like to do with that. But in their uh staff were making uh adjustments and recommendations and assumptions that we will continue to fund the contingency the um appropriations for contingency that we've had consistently that we're going

to continue the emergency reserve. And what that numbers uh reflects there is what meets exactly the 15% of revenues in accordance with with our policy. Now, out council discretion, if you want to exceed that and contribute more, this is where we would just adjust the numbers. Um, here we're assuming that we're going to continue with our 1 million PARs contribution. We're going to continue with the 1.5 million OPE contribution on a year-over-year. And what that leaves is at the bottom we have um what you have remaining of measure X dollars. Currently, we obligate 5 million for streets and roads. And then that leaves us with another about three million or so for other projects. And then again, that's still assuming conservative revenues. And what you see here is that um you're still within your your fund balance and you're operationally considering all your commitments are doing fine. Does that give you that perspective or any [laughter]

that's fantastic. Thank you. Just um Ruby to piggyback on on that since you're in that arena. Um will those those accounts will that help us with our Kalpers and our retire retirey health liability?

Yes, those identified as PARS and and uh OPED. Yes, they will because that that will be a choice. Right now you have the ability they're only um committed for and you can only spend those PARs can only be on your pension. We only have a pension fund with PARs currently and then OPIP can only be for retiree medical. So it would be in the sense of if there was an economic downturn or we were strained in some way, our performance didn't trend as it should, these will be resources that you could actually draw from to make those unfunded liability payments. But it is to get us to a funded status because we do have significant unfunded liabilities currently for both of those. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Go right ahead. Thank you.

I will take a step back. Um we were going to go over appropriations. Um like I said earlier, not a lot to highlight here. Um but really to commend staff. Um we've done a lot of uh different changes implemented new processes. Um, but what I would like to call your attention here is is you see an adopted budget, but you also see a revised budget. And what that displays is that we're working within the mean with our means. We're working within the originally adopted budget. So, we do have the ability to they've made some changes. Maybe it would be within categories, you know, salary savings to get some contracted services and so forth. But what this is displaying is that we're not coming back to city council to ask for additional money because we recognize that we can live within our means and make the necessary adjustments. And the team really goes back to evaluate their budgets uh to determine if there is a need, an unplanned need, how they will uh move forward. And so our goal is always if we're going to come to city council with a request, it's because we really have a need, but we're really making the effort to live within our means. So that's what I want to highlight. Um staff is doing an amazing job all collaborative and uh reflection here. And so this trends overall at 34% at midyear where you know we would some cases be 50 55 60 and it it just depends on um the activity but this is reflective of what we're seeing the year-over-year uh savings that we that we achieve.

Good. And this is just to categorize how the budget is uh expanded. And I always like this slide and I share this with leadership groups and so forth whenever I talk about INDO, but it it's significant. Um, what this tells between your percentages between salaries and benefits and purchase services and all your activities is that I've seen pie charts like this where a lot of your compensation and benefits are the meat of your budgets where you're looking at 70% and so forth. And what that sometimes tells a story is that you're investing a lot in just staffing. But this is a well balanced graph in terms of the chart tells you we're have our staffing but we're also doing the work because you're investing in the community. So this is what this is I really find this interesting and I a true story a true telling telling story of the city doing what it's supposed to do and really investing in the community while balancing with the with the resources that they need. My only comment and I appreciate that is I don't want to be a learning organization. I want to be a pro organization. In other words, we need to start hiring talent that comes with the talent that is from those areas that has the knowledge instead of us teaching because we've become a great teaching ground. We need to be the opposite. It needs to be more than just a teaching ground. We need them to know locally. We need them to understand our communities when they're coming in because it's getting competitive obviously and you invest a lot in your teams with all the departments and I know that HR has done their best and talked about the turnover rate but I still see the young faces they're learning but we also need to an organization's perfect with 5050 with knowledge and 50 to learn and the the 50 that have knowledge teach the 50 that are going to learn to keep on That's an

investment we have to make. Otherwise, we'll go back to the turnover. We we we have excellent people that have left this city in the last 10 years with really good upping jobs because they learned here. We need to help retain what we have. So, I hope that's one of the key points

because without it, there's no future. I think in um you know in the last half of those 10 years my observation is as a result we are we are seeing this economic um strength of our community and and largely that's part of part of the um our staff and the strength of our staff and the education of our staff and and uh and and moving us forward. So I I guess from my perception there's got to be a balance of both and I I really see a strong um capable staff uh that is really responsible for for this this kind of um positive budget. So thank you. Any other comments? No.

There we go. you're, you know, you're both absolutely correct and um I I think right now we're in we're we're in [clears throat] a great moment um to attract uh more folks whether it's here or the PD um you know we become an attractive city not just um from the aesthetics but internally right and so um you know we we have the the honor and privilege to travel throughout the state and sometimes out of state to talk about how Indo got to where Indo's have from previous years and it starts with leadership and it's council but more importantly is the trust of the community and that's something that we see right now there's a lot of trust in the community I mean we talk about measure X and measure E you know that's that's from our community and uh we've been very fiscally responsible with our our community dollars and so I thank the community for that as well but um I think we're in a a great moment now to be attractive to other other uh talent and local talent and and work with our local College of the Desert and have other other opportunities to keep our our talent local. Not only that, we're also competitive wage-wise, you know. Um we have people coming here. You know, our HR is busy. He's quiet back there, but he's busy. So, um you know, um I'm I'm very pleased of that. um you know, especially with our PD. You know, um in our world, it's it's hard to hire law enforcement, and I think it's going to get harder, but we still are sending people to the academy. Not everybody has a ability to do that, and that's great. So, hats off to our our leadership and our city manager and your staff for uh making our city that attractive. So we talked about any more questions on this slide here. No talked about the fund balance. Um and then we talk about capital. I did talk

about that. Um as we talked about the fund balance summary there. Um so we have a robust capital plan of 205 million of comprised of various funding sources. Um but of that what I talked about was 70 70.9 million of that is uh general fund commitments local local dollar commitments. And so we have secured that funding and we have that assigned um fund balance that we talked about where the proportional share sits within the general fund as far as our capital funds. And what we've done this last year is actually um create a separate fund for our measure X dollars so that we hold those separate and not coingle them. They do come in through our operating account, but we do now for dollar fordoll transfer them over to a um capital fund that holds those funds so that we retain that commitment for all the capital needs and then those get distributed out that way. So, with those uh three buckets that we have, we ensure that we have that $70 million commitment. And as we move forward in the budget process, we'll evaluate what we need um what we're carrying forward and and bring that number back to you, of course, as far as what is that general fund need and how does it fit within our our budget moving forward.

[snorts]

So that covers all of the general fund and then I do have a a brief summary as well for India water authority. Um this is quite smaller and significant in terms of uh the budget to actual. Um this is all timing again because it's the relationship between the city and the India water authority. So there is a timing aspect there. But this budget of 36.7 million is all inclusive of capital funding and operations. Um and we have about 15 million total in capital needs that are addressed here. So the total operational budget is is 21 million for the water authority. Um and what in your in your report and what you have here is uh talking about the revenues and so there are proposed uh amendments there budget amendments on the revenue side and as we came to the prior meeting with to move forward with the water bond refunding and as we worked through the water bond refunding we did evaluate the financials also looked at with the recent rate study adoption when we adopted the budget we didn't make any assumptions in terms of revenues on the impacts of the rate study and moving forward. And so we've taken a step back, evaluated all of that in connection with the rate study and the bond refunding and therefore we are making um adjustments to water sales. But what you'll see here as well is and as displayed in the rate study, you do see a decrease, but that was an assumption that was um built in as with the adoption of the rate study, there was a rate restructure that that took place um with consolidating tiers and adjusting rates to um streamline those. So that's why you see that here but very consistent still very strong and as we displayed at the prior meeting um well meeting debt service coverage um three times. Any questions here?

And then we move on. Also included um in your packets are the authorized position listing and the class classification and compensation schedule for your um consideration for approval. Um the one highlight is that we are requesting through this um through this item is an approval of an additional comm community a community beautifification worker to classification um in connection with the uh residential rental inspection program. So that is for your consideration um overall just adjusting our full-time uh positions from 298 to 299. And lastly, um part of that is the class and comp schedule, and that's to reflect any um new salary changes in connection with anyou changes that uh took effect. Um any contract changes or any position changes. And then on the horizon, um this really kicks off our our next budget process as we move forward. What what do we look out look like now moving into 26 and 27? So, this is a summary of our uh budget schedule. Um staff will start working here come in March. We're already doing our work in the finance um team and then April, we have those discussions with department requests and discussions with city manager as he formulates uh his recommended budget as well as we prepare for study session in May. And then dependent on how those study sessions go, we look forward to uh presenting you with the recommended uh budget for adoption. So this evening we are asking that the city council and the India water authority board approve the recommended budget amendments. Um also approve the authorized position listing as well as approve the current citywide classification and comp schedule. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

So in you know you mentioned the projection is that we'll have $6 million over budget right in additional revenue but yes that would that would be that would be on the revenue side but we would anticipate if we continue to see the trend that we're doing on the expenditure side we'll also have um some savings there. Gotcha. And so uh for those addition for the the six million we're how much of that is programmed into the adjustments that you're putting in now?

So the total so the total budget adjustment I'm only asking you to increase revenues to align with what we're anticipating. There's no additional appropriations being requested at this time. So we're still living within our means in terms of the budget that we've originally adopted. Gotcha. So there's no change in our um appropriations. What about the additional position that's being mentioned there? Additional position would be absorbed within existing um with the existing resources. We have do we do have um identified sources to cover that that addition and a new revenue source that will pay through the rental program.

That's right. Okay. And maybe to add just a little bit to the the answer that six million once it becomes a part of the fund balance. Uh some of it could be recurring. Back to the discussion on the mayor prom's question. So it's new revenue. We don't consider it recurring yet. It hits the fund balance. So if there's a consideration of an expenditure uh for that 6 million, it shouldn't be a recurring expenditure but at one time and will be we be discussing that during the budget session.

Yes. In fact, that a great question because you see, okay, there's 6 million. Council member Miller brought this up. If you saw a need, it could be addressed now, but to the calendar that Ruby just presented, we're less than two months away essentially from where we can put that money into the pot. And you all decide what are the priorities. Some I've mentioned to some of you that have asked, um, we hope to receive the phase 2 grant on the sports complex. that grant different than the first one for phase one for example requires a 100% match.

So we're going to need to find hopefully we receive the grant. It's a $7 million grant. We will need to find $7 million. Uh we know that Monroe we think is very close if not completely funded but Jackson is only funded by about two or three million. We only need another 150 uh there. So there are plenty of needs for those but that's up to you. Uh while some of that could be discussed now in the larger budget sh session uh you'll see all of them because anything in isolation kind of looks well that's a great idea that's a but you have to compet it against all the other ideas.

Yeah. Gotcha. No well you know I think I want to just say thank you to first to our council for being conservative on the spending but also to our staff for doing such good work with our businesses and our workers out there in the city to bring these revenues and ensuring that we have money to work with at the end of the year right and that we're not having to pull back on these projects. So, I think we're all working really well here within the city with our staff, our our small business owners who took a huge risk on downtown, right? That's going really well right now, increasing our revenue balances. So, we really appreciate all the efforts from our local artists and our workers and everybody out there who's working hard to to bring money into their families, but also investing into our city here. One thing, you know, Mr. with thron you mentioned how we may need some help in in some different areas of the city right with retention or with um attracting certain types of talent and so I think as part of the budget report if we could get a a summary from uh from staff in saying what are the areas in need at the moment where we're not being able to attract certain workers or we're not being able to retain workers and how can we make some strategic investments there to attract that talent or retain that talent as part of our new budget.

Good point. I just I think that I'm jumping ahead of the council. No, I just didn't know. And okay, so

so my statement is I appreciate that because coming from the front line and understanding how and the budgets the other thing I'm always concerned about I think it's just more a matter of saying it. We're paying all our bills. We are going to meet our commitment of every single position we've approved. If there's vacancies, we're going to fill them. And if we don't, then it's because we just can't find that right person. And lastly, that we're taking care of business. So, as long as that's assured right now, then that's great because we don't want to hear, well, we didn't mitigate, we're not going to fill it, or we're not we're going to readjust our budget because we can't do it. You know, we approved them, then we're moving forward. So that's that's

uh yes, I think it's a great suggestion and it is typically part of the budget process, but we can bring more attention to a specific analysis of of where we're at. Uh you know, I've been here about 5 years now. Uh we finally are in a mode based on your conservative approach and the success of the city where uh the employees can count on the team members can count on a cost of living increase. They can count on reclassifications. There have been more reclassifications and steady colas in the last five years than those of you that have been here in memory. So the one of the fabulous components of what's going on is there is a lot of growth going on. There are a lot of new public facilities, improvements, roads and parks. And we've been able to provide these greater benefit packages, steady colas and reclassifications. And with all of that and all that going on, we are in better financial shape today than we were five or six years ago. So there is a great steady steady trend. We're getting more applications for our positions than we ever have. Uh there might be an area or two to your point where we need to target a little bit better, but we receive for some positions 100. We have to stop at 100 application. We can't even process those. So fortunately people want to serve here and almost all of them and the PD is a perfect example. The recent hires of the PD are local folks that we are sending to the academy and they're coming back and serving where they grew up and serving where they live. It makes a huge difference. Huge difference. So, I know I might be preaching to the choir and there a lot of nodding of heads, but as a resident of India, I'm glad where we're at and we need to find those areas where we can target and improve and we'll bring that to you uh here in May. So, May is the the plan for the early budget sessions and then in June is where you really get into the meat of approving the next year's budget.

Well, thank you for that, Mr. Montgomery. But the other the other thing about it, too, is that if they're homegrown, they're not worried about buying a They're not worried about coming into an expensive market right now. No matter where you come from, you know, with the rate of interest on a house and that it's difficult for some people to move and leave where they are to come here, if they're homegrown, they're not having to worry about some of those other expenses that we can't really help them with. But on I want to get back before we get away, we were talking about the grant for the park for the 7 million. I don't think there's anybody at this DAS that would not spend the 7 million to get 7 million, especially in park money. I mean, I know the bridge is coming, but when you're talking about a $7 million grant, if somebody told you they'd match you dollar for dollar in your retirement fund, you'd do it all day long. So, I don't know how you wouldn't be able to do it. So, I think we are going to need to if we get that grant, that 14 million in that park will make a big difference. And I think that commitment from us gots to be there, even if it comes from Measure X over a period of time or something. But when we get back to the budget, I just want to go over a couple things that I want to see before if we can uh initiate into the budget. I I do believe where Mr. Gutron talked about the janitors. I think that's something if we look into the budget, I consider I wanted not having built the budget without some of the input. I think we need to look at hiring these janitors in house like you're talking about to be able to have them here so that we can control them in terms of where they go, how they go, and where they're they're doing the maintenance in our buildings and that, especially with the brand new ones we're going forward. And we've talked about this for a long time, but I would really like to see two individuals that work for public works that go around and just clean the city. I know we have we have other people when we have a problem of Excel, but if you really go through the city and what makes a different city look neat and clean is that they have people going out and maintenance. There's people that people are dropping bags all the time. You can't have Tim drop somebody go off and do something. If these two individuals, whoever they are, are in a truck with stuff, they can do stuff. Call Birdtech, have them pick up the big stuff. But you know there's and I always say this the sidewalks they got if you

go down Madison Street there's nothing between uh the houses in Santa Fe and that area Madison thing all the way up to Miles Avenue. The weeds in the sidewalk are a foot tall. And that's something that those guys could come out and do. Cut down those weeds, clean it up, spray the thing, pick up the bag of trash that goes through the tires you see out there. Pick them up. Do the stuff. those people going across our city when there's a problem going be so much more beneficial to us than it is to have us call Tim or do something pull somebody off or by that time somebody dropped a bag of trash or somebody dropped something out of one of the landscape trucks and then that by that time it's been run over six or seven times and now it's all over the place instead of having these people come out through our city and that and I think it would help Tim so he doesn't have to pull the people off the parks or do the other stuff just to go through there's shopping carts here there's trash there's this there we need you to go out and do the weeds because we're going to have the the prey go downtown. Could you look at town real quick for us and just, you know, spruce that up to make sure it's there. But at the same time, it's a second set of eyes. So when there's stuff around the thing that they can't handle, they're helping us take the picture and know what's going on. So they could be that eyes and ears. And if you're talking two people making $7500,000 a year, that $200,000 will come back in property values and other things. So much more. And when people come and see our city, when you walk through it, it it'll be so much more clean and neat. So, I think it's something we really need to look at and invest in ourselves because you don't see that in some of the other cities and they have that. If you go to Ranch Mirage, they have a group that just doze out and does nothing but cleaning and it's not who's responsible for it. It's let's get it cleaned up or let's figure out there and let's call code enforcement and have them go out and do this stuff. So, just my two cents on that. And then the last thing is the golf course. Uh, I know we got the beautiful clubhouse in that that clubhouse is now going to make the golf course look horrible. And I know we've got a plan and work. I mean, it's in great shape, but when you see a top- of- notch clubhouse, it's like when you had

Indian Wells, Ruby knows that. Well, the the golf course did not match the clubhouse when they first did it after they cleaned it up. And now they've had to reinvest in it. We haven't invested in our golf course and other than the clubhouse and anything inside of it in like the last 20 years. So, it's something we need to look at. the halfway point bathroom that's out there. That's in bad shape.

Yeah, that's that's one of our the next priorities certainly. I Well, I I I didn't have much to anything really to report in the city manager reports, but the council member mentioned something that the mayor noted. Thank you to the community. We had a huge turnout for the parade on Monday. The roads were clean. They didn't leave their trash behind. They they picked It was beautiful. I think the nicer we make things, the more they want to keep them nice. pride, you know, and I took pictures of it.

Um because for the first time people got out my people were sitting and of course my shop's on Miles Avenue and so that's where I was and and people were and they're telling their kids go here go pick up that rapid go pick it up. There was not one bottle cap or rapper in that street. And for the first time that I've been here in 20 years, um there the pride that people have in Dolindo, the pride that people have in their community and striving to to make it better, to keep it clean, uh is is just really wonderful and heartwarming and fantastic to see just how we have.

Everything's important, but Town Street's the main avenue of this facility and the library and the college. So, I think, you know, it needs a sparkle. It it it needs a little bit there few few spots, but that was pretty impressive. But my hats off to everyone. I mean, it's good though. It's just positive reinforcement. The city council is has been very conservative, but it comes with good leadership and a good staff and our city residents. I mean, it's it's a combination of everything to make this work. It's a tremendous effort

and it's in a good place to be. I mean, you know, there's a lot of people struggling right now and yes, we have our challenges, but it's on the way on the way completely up when you're talking about not worrying about money and you're not worried about trying to do what you need to do. Obviously, we can never be enough money, but a lot has got done. And it took a lot of of courage at the time to to donate and and to work into what I classify donate from our residents into our measure measure uh E and measure X because they, you know, we hadn't had a good track record of spending money and then they saw what you we were able to do and then invest in downtown and it just it's it's been a transformation over the last 20 years. So, my hats off to everyone. Yeah, I I echo everyone's uh comments and um support everyone's uh uh um questions they had. Um you know, it's a lot of numbers, right? And if you're not a from the accounting background and a lot of this could could be real confusing, but I I want to say Ruby did an excellent job uh presenting this and if we had questions for her, uh she answered them and so it made really good sense. But to the folks who may be in the audience or may be watching online to sum it all up, you know, Council Member Gatron had a had a great comment about taking care of business and where we're at. Um, out of a scale to one through 10, 10 being the best. Um, where we at right now, what do you think? And if we need to make any changes, I I wouldn't say uh uh give us those changes now because we're a couple months away. But um Mayor Pro Tim Ferman could be very ambiguous with things in the city and you know looking at the future and it's it's all out of excitement. But with that being said, from 1 to 10, where do you think we're at right now? from a one to 10. I think uh from I mean

your question in terms of moving forward in aggressiveness or overall economy that the city how the city's doing. I think just financially

well financially I think the the city's doing well. I so I would do 9 10 and and the reason I do that is because I still you know stand on the side of caution in terms of you know I know the aspects of the tourism aspects. I know the the building I know but we also have challenges right with some of that that come with it but I I believe that we're we're solid I mean completely on the high end the high scale there and so it's I continue with the path and that's why I I bring forward to council you know with these commitments and these big commitments looking at the sports park how does that trend and really working with our public works team um as far as our water team as well as for what their project commitments are to looking like how we can do that because I've shared that with city manager and everyone else is I don't want to be that person to come to you one day and say we can't finish that project or we can't move forward in that sense again keeping our operations solid and making sure that we have uh the things that we need to move forward. So in terms I would just rank us up at high end as a as a 10. We're doing really good. We're meeting we're meeting our needs and and moving forward and having additional resources to make decisions moving forward. Great.

And before I say any other final comments, I think first of all, thank you to our community for measure first measure X and then measure E because we couldn't accomplish this without that. I just did a little bit of digging and history because I don't know one Sunday I didn't have anything better to do. And I looked at the uh the general fund revenue starting at fiscal year 1718 um up to now and it increased 67% in less than 10 years from 74 million to 124 million. And I just I I think that is really a testament to um our direction to to a council that has been stable and strong and conservative and and to a staff who is just laser focused on this community, on this city, on making it the best that it can be every single day. Thank you. Um, thank you staff for the extraordinary job on on on walking through a whole lot of detail and making it understandable so that everyone can see it. Thank you for your conservative approach and and thank you. Everywhere I go, people walk up to me and I know everybody feels the same way to talk about how wonderful the city of India. It's great. Oh, and I saw this. Oh, and I saw that and I want to go there. And now they're asking, "And what's next?" Um, thank you staff for that energy. I appreciate everything everybody does. It's a pleasure working with each of you here on this council. So, if there are no further comments, I'll take a motion. I'll be happy to make that motion that the city council and Indian water authority board approve the recommended budget amendments as outlined in the fiscal year 202526 midyear budget report attachment A. Approve the updated authorized position listed on uh exhibit A and approve the current citywide classification and compensation schedule for fiscal year 202526 exhibit B.

I'll second that. Okay. I have a motion by Mayor Pim, a second by council member Oscar Ortiz. Let's go ahead and vote. nifty voting mechanism. What a tremendous vote of confidence in our community and our staff. Thank you very much everyone. And now we are going to go back to our agenda which is here somewhere. And the next item has to do with public comment. And I believe it's item number 10 for public comments. And do we have any public comments? City clerk? I think we have two uh two cards, madame mayor.

And do you want to call? The first one is Sensei Tamara Canedo. Nice. Nice to see you. Welcome,

council. I'm Madame Mayor. I am of Senjoku. Um, I'm kind of choked up just driving up here because I am raised on Oasis and Miles. My father was a Shihan locally that had a dojo for a very long time. My first steps were actually taken in his dojo and um we don't come to this side of town often because it's a little hard. We lost him to dementia about nine years ago. And so walking into the city was mesmerizing for me to see buildings looking the way they do. Congratulations to the beautiful city of India. Um I'm born and raised in the city of India, but for me my biggest pride today is being a DT girl as in downtown. Um my roots are back here, but to come in today and be able to reflect on where we are as an organization, I am so proud. Um, as of last year, we have grown our nonprofit to be officially the largest parak karate program in the country and I was also appointed par karate coach for team USA. It was a very big accomplishment because as you may know um I am in a fighting industry. it is predominantly men and um I am only 2% of the women and also only 2% that's teaching parak karate on the country in the country for par karate as a whole with USA karate um as of last week I now am at 172 parak karate athletes and with the new contract that we just collaborated with we're now predominantly um the majority is residents of India Indo. So for me being a girl raised in India, I'm now a woman. For being a woman raised in India and being able to have that caliber of growth in our town,

it's just quite overwhelming and to be quite honest, I'm very proud of it. Um, I am hosting a pair karate tournament March 7th. It will be at the High School. We are hosting the tournament March 7th, 9:00 am to 100 pm. And I wanted to personally invite you. As I said earlier, not only am I a downtown girl, but also um the majority of our residents now come from the city of India. And I do service individuals with autism, down syndrome, cerebral pulsey, blind and wheelchair athletes. For us, it's incredible and it is the largest par karate tournament in the country. So, we have individuals coming all the way from Salt and Sea to Sky Valley to make it to our event. I have sent out an invitation to Madame Mayor and the city council to have you at our VIP table if you would, you know, give us the honor. Um, and honestly, I just really wanted to share where we're at as an organization. A couple of years ago, I left the finance industry. um Gloria Fron and Nyla Tatum I don't know if any of you are familiar with them believed in me when I didn't believe in myself and today to be able to sit in front of you and just to be able to invite you is just honestly a blessing so I did want to say that before I get kicked out [laughter] everybody has a great evening and hope to see you at our event.

Thank you so much and and I'll be there and if I can just share a great um memory of your dad. So when I first came to town and and this was just a little, you know, um sort of the little engine that could downtown, we created this little the heart of India little group and and it it was your dad that was helping us make, you know, with the cars and making a little float for the um for the parade, you know, we had and I still have pictures of it um of the uh date festival parade and the little float and there was about six of us at Maid and he worked together and he was so excited. He was a wonderful man and and just a wonderful influence. So, thank you for sharing that.

I appreciate it and thank you for all that you guys have done to the city. Hope everybody has a great evening and thank you for the memory. All right. Thank you. Okay, that was wonderful. Thank you. The next uh next is Rudy Morales.

Please speak to the microphone. Okay. Good evening, mayor and city council and city staff. My name is Rudy Morales and California Care Force coming back once a year again sponsored by Golden Boys. Every year we come out to India and provide free medical, dental, vision care for the community across the Coachella Valley, including City of BL since they're losing a hospital. So we're trying to try to get that together. But I want to make sure we invite the city council, city staff, come and check out the residents, come and see what we do. Every year we have volunteers across uh of the Coachella to join us. But what we don't have is many doctors and dentists and autotometrists from the desert. Most of them come come from out of town LA um San Francisco and they drive in there. I hope that if you have any if you ever need a doctor who's a doctor, an MD, a dentist, autotometrist, please sign up and because we need you. You know, it's a shame that we don't have that many local doctors here volunteering. We do have some but not as many. And so I want to make sure I say that on TV. So whoever is hearing this can if you're a doctor in India, please join us. We need your help.

You know what I mean? So uh we start Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. all three days. And we have we provide free dental which means clean your teeth, extractions, we have dentures, we got state plates and um and and and braces if you qualify. And then we have medical. So if you never seen a doctor because you don't have um many of insurance come and see the doctor we have to to look at your temperature your your when you're diabetic um your sugar low high anything anything with medical attention and the vision is which is free because you get free eyelasses we got Versace Prada Ray Brass and of course frames are expensive so come out and get and come and get them Indo if you need help come and get them we have there's no ask questions s no immigration status is required from anyone and everything's free and um we also have um we also have testing for HIV testing breast cancer testing and other good stuff for the medical community that needs services and I hope everybody comes out the city staff city council hope you can join us call me you can hear to see the doctors and and come out and see what we do it's it's a wonderful event and I'm very Happy to be part of this event.

Thank you. Go a share. What date is? It's It's Friday. So this day short, this month is short. February 27th to Sunday, May the No, March the 1st. So this the end of the month at the Polar Grounds. We're going to say that. Oh, Polar. Yeah, Polar Grounds. India Polar Grounds. And um line begins at 5:00 in the morning. Patients do get fed morning and lunch. All sponsored by Golden Voice and thanks to Paul Tolette for making this happen for us. Very philanthropic soul. Thank you very very much for letting us know. Mayor, I handed the flyer to her to Sabdi. Oh, fantastic. Received it. We'll get some.

So, it basically does say Friday, February the 27th to Sunday, March the 1st, 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Empire Polo Grounds. Great. Thank you. If you'all want to volunteer, come out. Come on down. Come on down. We need help. Rudy, this is for the the whole Coachella Valley, right? They don't not only Indo residents. All Coachella Valley, including Ble was being held at the county fair. Fairgrounds. That's right. Then they just relocated to the Polo Grounds. That's great. Have a beautiful facility. I figured you wanted too much money. Yes. [laughter]

All right. Thank you. Uh and on that note, I I would like to at 6:50 close the meeting in honor of two people. Mr. Luna being one. I remember seeing him and helping his wife Priscilla when he she was uh had the store across the street from me. But we also lost someone else rather unexpectedly. For those of us that spend time at Yellow Mart, you know that when you walked in, there was always somebody, somebody with a smile, someone eager to help, someone to carry on a conversation. His name is Matt. Passed away a couple of days ago. I know. It was heartbreaking. It was absolutely heartbreaking when I heard they closed the the the people just had to grieve. And um for any of us that were around, we saw that the business was closed. Uh this man had worked there for well I've been here 20 years and he was there for most if not all the

I'm sorry. He worked for the freestands before he worked

even there. He he was he was a staple, but he was nice. He was the person you saw outside. He was the one that greeted you. He was going to help you buy a gun or buy a pair of jeans or a hat. He um he just had such a wonderful constitution. And what another tremendous loss in our community. I feel very badly for his family. And so on that note, if we could just offer a a moment of silence for Matt and for Mr. Luna and then we will close the meeting. Thank you everyone. The meeting is now adjourned. Live long and prosper and we'll see you all next time.