City Council - Regular Meeting

AN AMAZING AND GREAT WEEK AN AMAZING AND GREAT WEEK WE'VE HAD AND IT'S ONLY WE'VE HAD AND IT'S ONLY WEDNESDAY. WEDNESDAY. THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE. THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE. I'D LIKE TO CALL THE MEETING TO I'D LIKE TO CALL THE MEETING TO ORDER. ORDER.

MAY I HAVE A ROLL CALL, MAY I HAVE A ROLL CALL, PLEASE? PLEASE? YES, MAYOR. YES, MAYOR. COUNCILMEMBER MILLER? COUNCILMEMBER MILLER?

PRESENT.

PRESENT. COUNCILMEMBER WETHRONE?

COUNCILMEMBER WETHRONE?

PRESENT. PRESENT. COUNCILMEMBER ARTIZ? COUNCILMEMBER ARTIZ? PRESENT. PRESENT. MAYOR PERLTON-F

Good evening, everyone. Let us pray. Father God, in the name of Jesus, Lord, we just come before you just thanking you and with gratefulness in our hearts. At this time, we ask for your wisdom, for your governance, for your counsel. Let us see what we might not see. Let us understand what we might not understand and let us be ambassadors as you called us to be. stewards because we own nothing, but we're responsible as elected officials, as appointed officials. Lord, so just give us the wisdom. Take care of those who are underprivileged. Take care of those who are really fortunate. And take care of all of us in between. Lord, let us not forget anybody, even if they don't have a seat at the table, that they're represented. by the people that are here to do your will in the best interest of this city. We're grateful, we thank you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.

Thank you very, very much. Okay, next item is one of my favorite things, the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, flag salute by Hannah Arriaga, Dr. Carrion Academy. Hannah is a dedicated fourth grade student, come on up, who embodies the spirit of her school and community. She is actively involved in numerous activities, including leadership club, yearbook club, gardening club, Fuel Up to Play 60, pretty cool stuff, cheer, flag football, and track and field. That's impressive. Known by teachers and peers for her kind heart and willingness to help others, Hannah is also a passionate learner who especially enjoys math. In her free time, she loves drawing, traveling with her family, and spending time with her cousin's dogs. That's terrific. We're ready for the flag salute when you are.

Please 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, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much. Don't go away. There's a swag bag full of really cool and awesome stuff from the city of Indiana. If you want to turn around.

And why don't you move a little bit over in that direction, and we'll take a picture.

Next item, city attorney report on closed session.

Mayor, nothing to report.

Okay, so now we're going to switch things up just a little bit for our friends with the Youth Advisory Council. This is like a really special evening for them. And so I'm going to ask you to give your report first, and then we'll have a little presentation. How's that?

Mayor Holmes and City Council members, my name is Viviana Terriquez and this year I served as the 2025-2026 YAC Mayor. Since you last saw us, YAC worked on two booths at Asada Fest where our members passed out and made piñata bags filled with candy and charm bracelets. We had a great time at the event enjoying the food and live music. Some of our YAC members also attended the opening of the new sports park where we passed out favors such as bubbles and foam fingers. We enjoyed seeing a new space which our community members can utilize and hopefully can become a valuable space for our community. Today, some of our Yak members attended the Indio State of the Business Community Expo and Business Awards at Fantasy Springs Special Events Center. We would like to thank Jose Vasquez and his team for helping installing a dog waste receptacle with bags at Shield Park and are pleased to present our completed PSA.

All right. Thank you very, very much.

And now... There should be a video and then I have more to report.

Terrific. Okay.

Hi everybody, I'm Viviana Terriquez.

I'm Mia Thompson.

And I'm Enrique Cáceres.

And we are part of the Indio Youth Advisory Council.

Recently we worked with the City of Indio to install pet waste receptacles on Avenue 46 at Shields Park.

If you're walking by Shields Park and you see a lovely receptacle, you just grab a bag, pick up the poop, tie it, and then throw it in the trash can and you're done.

We encourage pet owners to use our new receptacles. That way we can reduce and remove any waste that we have in our beautiful parks.

Excellent.

And finally, we had our final meeting of the year and are looking forward to our YAC senior trip, which will be our last event with our graduating class of 2026. With that being said, we have seven amazing Indio Youth Advisory Council members who are graduating from high school this year. Juliana Barcenas Hernandez is to attend University of California Irvine to major in English and Legal Studies in hopes of becoming a family lawyer. Enrique Casares will be attending Cal State San Marcos to major in Public Health to become a travel nurse or pharmacist. Julissa Cornejo is to attend San Diego State in the fall to study business administration and marketing and plans on becoming a social media marketing manager. Isabella Duarte will be attending College of the Desert to major in mathematics with plans to transfer to University of California Santa Barbara in two years to become an actuary. Leila Gonzalez is to attend Cal State San Marcos to study molecular biology to become a pathologist. Joaquin Ruiz will attend the University of California Irvine in the fall to study psychology to become a therapist. And I will be attending University of San Diego and plan to major in political science in hopes to become a lawyer and go to the Fire Academy. Thank you. That concludes my report.

That's pretty fantastic. OK. And so yes, absolutely. I would like my council to join me down on the floor there, and I would like to invite all of these graduating seniors so that we can do a proper send-off. How's that? Will you help me, Sabdi, please, Ms. City Clerk? So there's a couple of different things we have going on. First of all, we would like to give you swag bags. Because, I mean, you need these when you go to college. There you go. Congratulations. All right, you guys, there you go. All right, you got the stashes, fantastic. Great shirt. So everybody has to wear their shirt, particularly the gray ones, when you go to school.

There you go, that's terrific.

Okay, I will read the names. Juliana Barsenas Hernandez. Joaquin Ruiz. Julissa Cornejo. Isabella Duarte. And Viviana Terriquez.

and all of this to represent your city. There you go.

Yes, this is so fantastic. It's just been so great having you as our YAC team. Let me face the audience. Thank you for being such a part. Thank you for everything you've done as YAC members. You have been so totally involved and engaged in our community in every aspect. And that's just a wonderful foundation for you. We appreciate that very, very much at the city. And we wish you all the success. And I'm going to turn this over to Mayor Pro Tem.

And have him say a few words. Are we on this one? All right. Thank you. First of all, I just want to say oops. Okay.

Okay.

Walmart in U.S. just congratulations on your success and I just want to tell you all thank you for your commitment to the city of Indio and the surrounding communities you guys have done a lot of work you took on initiatives you put the effort in and it's going to show in your next chapter and I always had a saying but I'm going to change it I used to always say you spend four years trying to get out of high school and the rest of your life trying to get back in I want you guys to change that I want you to you guys to have. I want you to spend a good time in college and have the most fun you can and spend the rest of your life trying to get out of college and trying to get back in because you guys are going to be great on your next level. So congratulations.

Yeah, you know, I just want to say that it's been a huge blessing to watch you guys grow up here with us in these chambers. And we're really grateful for all the work that you guys have been doing throughout the community. We're really proud to see you guys growing into something better. And we really look forward to seeing all the great things that you'll be doing with your future in college and wherever you end up going after that. And just want to say congratulations. Great work. We appreciate you. And we're really grateful to have you guys here with the Youth Advisory Council. Thank you. Thank you.

You've been amazing ambassadors for the city of Indio. You make this city so proud. You're going to go out and do great things. All of you. Rosalva, thank you, and Nicholas for what you do and continue to support all of them. Let's give them a hand because they're really the... But congratulations on behalf of all the city of Indio, the city council, our staff, and that because you represent us well. Go have fun in college and come back to the city of Indio and do great things.

Just glad to see that our program is succeeding. Jackie Bethel, former mayor and councilwoman, is the one that started the ZIAC program. It was an idea because Desert Sands Unified School District has representation from their high schools, and it was a way to get a word from our youth. So you're representing the youth of our community when you come here, and you've learned some good skills that will give you leadership roles in our communities. You are Indio, you are our future, and more to come. Thank you.

We may want to stay here for the employees. Mayor, we may want to stay here for the next item. It's the new employees. So I've asked the incoming city manager to introduce them.

Thank you, outgoing city manager. It's still assistant city manager until next month. So because the city employee is such a great employer, we have a really good retention rate. So we only have two new employees from March to April. So I'd like to introduce Marianne Aviles. She's our permit tech one. Please come up. Where's Marianne? Earlier. She might still be working downstairs. Exactly. Really dedicated Indio employees. Arturo Leyva, Water Utility Worker One, come on up. Just hired. Also want to mention, could not be here today, Deborah Murdock, she's our Senior Code Enforcement Officer. She just started in February. And Jennifer Salinas, IPD intern. So those are our new employees for March and April. Mayor and council, if we can stay right here for our next presentation, it's a special post-executive certificate to our chief, Brian Tully. Fantastic. Law enforcement consultant at post to present this to Chief Tully.

IPD staff, why don't you join the boss?

Yeah, police staff. Police have lieutenants in the back here. Come on.

Concordia, our supervisors, ladies, Ms. Sherry, Alma, come on. Come on to the IPD family.

If I could, I just wanted to spend maybe like two minutes, get a little overview. So thank you, Mayor, Council, citizens of Indio. I just want to take just a couple minutes. My name is Matthew O'Dean. I'm a senior law enforcement consultant for the Commission on Peace Officer Standards of Training, known as California Post. Just really wanted to come here tonight and take the time to honor Chief Tully, a great human being, Absolutely fantastic working with the Indio Police Department as a consultant for the last seven years with POST. Prior to that, I was a police officer in San Diego County for 27 years. So I've worked with a lot of good chiefs and a lot of marginal chiefs and different things. So I just wanted just a quick little overview for those in the community that don't fully understand the career of Chief Tully. He started his law enforcement career in April of 94 as a reserve with the San Bernardino Police Department after completing reserve modules A, B, and C, which is almost a full academy. Then he attended the full regular basic course in February of 96 and was hired as a police officer with the San Bernardino police. He earned his basic post certificate in March of 97, which gives all police officers their fundamental authority to be a police officer. He then went on and earned his post intermediate certificate in March of 98 and his post advanced certificate in April of 2002. He was promoted to detective in December of 04. In July of 06, he was promoted to sergeant and he earned his post supervisory certificate in July of 08. In April of 2011, he was promoted to lieutenant and earned his post management certificate in April of 2013. After 24 years of service with the San Bernardino Police, on January 8th, 2018, he was hired by the City of Indio and the Indio Police Department as their Assistant Chief of Police, overseeing the Field Services Division. On February 27th, 2024, he was designated as the Acting Chief following the retirement of then Chief Mike Washburn. He promoted to Chief of Police on March 27th, 2024, and earned his post-executive certificate in April of 26th, which is what I'm going to present here today. Chief Tully attended numerous trainings throughout his career. I have a bunch listed here, but in the interest of time, I might not cover them all, but some of the noteworthy ones. He went to the 80-hour post-supervisory course, the 104-hour post-management course, 240-hour post-command college, which is incredibly rigorous and difficult to get in. very competitive and he also went to the FBI National Academy, which is a worldwide 10-week extremely comprehensive training program for leaders and police organizations around the world. So just that alone is incredibly impressive. Plus he has a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's MBA. One thing I just wanted to note, in May of 25 I had the opportunity to participate in a management study that POST provides to the NDOPD with our Management Consulting and Projects Bureau. And we went there and we had the opportunity to interview at least a dozen members of the Indio Police Department under anonymity and said, hey, we really need to get to the root of the problem. Is this a good department, a great department, a problematic department? And we solicit a lot of input from them. And I was very impressed that out of the dozen employees we spoke to, just how happy they were to work for this city. I don't know where I can pick up an application, but I need to discuss this. And then this has gotta be the nicest city council chambers I think I've ever been in. Yeah, anywhere, it's beautiful. Also on that note, I know Chief Tully was project manager and helped contribute to the building of the public safety campus, which is again, off the chart incredible. I go to 200... Police departments have met with 200 different chiefs in the last six years and I think there's only a handful that even come close to rivaling the facilities you all have in this city. Which I know impacts police officer morale and as the cops know it's nice to have a nice place to work and show that the city cares and you have nice equipment and vehicles and training and everything else just really kind of makes the job, which is very difficult, just slightly easier. So I appreciate that you guys have the commitment to providing these facilities and I see that the The police admin building is the one that's going up on the corner there, so that'll be nice for future visits. The certificate that I'm gonna give, just wanted to say congrats again. Title 11, Division II of the Code of Regulations. The certificate I'm about to present was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, Post Director Manny Alvarez, and Commission Chair Jeff Long. And just to reiterate, there's over 90,000 police officers in this state. Currently there's about 550 police officers that have this certificate, so it's a very small percentage that make it to this level. And I'm not saying the chief's old. I mean, there's a lot of, yeah, he's awesome. But there's a lot of experience and training and education and just time on and dealing with, you know, a lot of the issues that law enforcement have to face today. So again, just congrats and let me get the certificate.

All right, let's get one more.

There's one more presentation.

There's one more presentation. Ah, yes. I will recuse, and that will be the discussion that I have, okay? And this comes before the presentation or after. Okay, wow, that's an amazing night. Graduating seniors, congratulations, Chief Tully. That's quite the accomplishment. So happy, so proud to have you here, heading up our police department here at the City of Indio. Such an honor to have you here. And the next item is city manager reports and information.

I think we met, do we have one more presentation?

Well, do we do where we have youth advisory? Oh my goodness. We have 5.1, 5.2. So this is what happens when you skip around. We've got new employees posts and presentation by friends of the children, Coachella Valley. Come on down.

Thank you very much for having us here tonight. Nice to see some familiar faces. I'm Randy Florence. I'm the board chair of the Friends of the Children chapter of Coachella Valley. We are a national organization. We're going to talk about that a little bit more. Again, thank you for the invitation. We can go to the next slide. The organization was founded a little over 33 years ago. We now have 45 chapters around the country. It was founded by a gentleman named Duncan Campbell in Portland who had a very specific reason why he felt it was important to begin helping the youth of his community. And thankfully, the program that he's put together is something that has been able to be followed around the country. and we've been able to, as I said, turn this into 45 chapters around the country. We opened up the local chapter located here in Indio in 12 of 24, and we're looking forward to expanding that. As all of you know, with over 1,000 nonprofits in this community, The secret to the success of any nonprofit is its mission, but most importantly on a day-to-day basis is its executive director, and we have an amazing executive director, Carrie Schaaf. Carrie, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Council. The next slide should be a video, so we're going to do a quick overview as long as the video works, and then I'll get back to talk a little bit more about what we do.

Every child has a spark. It is hopeful and bright, but obstacles and systems beyond the child's control threaten that spark. Friends of the Children is a national nonprofit organization that helps each child find their spark and grow it into a flame through the power of relationships. Children are paired with a friend who will guide and support them through their whole childhood, from kindergarten to graduation, 12 plus years, no matter what. Friends are full-time, salaried professional mentors who work with each child on nine core assets of personal strength, addressing and overcoming real obstacles and supporting their entire family every week, every month, every year. And for over 30 years, we've seen Friends youth achieve big goals through our evidence-based model. 83% graduate high school, 93% avoid the criminal justice system, 98% wait until after their teen years to become parents, and 92% enroll in post-secondary education, serve our country, or enter the workforce. Ultimately, each child grows their spark into the biggest and brightest flame, which has ripple effects to their siblings, peers, neighbors, and also their children, breaking generational cycles. Harvard Business School Association of Oregon estimated that each dollar invested in Friends returns $7 to the community, saving the United States around $900,000 per child. Friends of the Children is growing rapidly thanks to the power of relationships. One friend, one child, 12 plus years, no matter what. Will you join us?

PERFECT. SO BEING MINDFUL OF TIME, I WON'T GO THROUGH ALL THE STATISTICS, BUT ONE THAT REALLY STICKS OUT TO ME IS HARK DID A RECENT STUDY. THEY JUST RELEASED A REALLY GOOD DATA. IF YOU'VE NEVER LOOKED AT THEIR DATA, PLEASE GO TO HARK AND VISIT IT. BUT THE FIRST ONE, IT SEEMS LOW, 3.7% OF CHILDREN GO WITHOUT EATING FOR AN ENTIRE DAY DUE TO LACK OF RESOURCES. BUT IF YOU THINK ABOUT THAT LOW PERCENT, THAT'S 3,129 CHILDREN IN OUR COMMUNITY. THAT CHOKES ME UP, TO THINK ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO EAT. SO PART OF THE WORK THAT WE DO IS TO MENTOR THAT CHILD FOR 12-PLUS YEARS, NO MATTER WHAT, BUT WE ALSO PROVIDE SUPPORT TO THE FAMILY. IF YOU CAN GO TO THE NEXT SLIDE. SO WE PARTNER WITH SCHOOLS, AND WE PARTNER WITH THE PARENTS TO REALLY PROVIDE THIS HOLISTIC APPROACH. SO WE ARE CURRENTLY WITHIN MOUs WITH DESERT SANDS AND COCHELLA VALLEY UNIFIED. WE HAD OUR FIRST COHORT OF 24 CHILDREN THAT WE STARTED SERVING IN NOVEMBER OF 24, AND WE JUST HIRED THREE MORE MENTORS, AND WE'RE HIRING AND ENROLLING NOW 24 MORE CHILDREN. SO NEXT SLIDE. That's you. I almost got excited and started talking about all the great data.

That's me. I have no idea what page I'm in, but I'm glad I've got a screen to look at. So we talked about these numbers a little bit earlier. One of the things, first of all, I want to mention this word one more time, 12, because I'm going to ask each of you at the end if you remember what the number was we talked about. It's a very, very important number that we're going to talk about over and over in this presentation. But these numbers, we are a data-driven organization, again, over 30 years of monitoring everything that we've done with every child that's come through the organization. And those numbers up there are real. This is what we've accomplished nationally. One of the most important ones to me, having had a mother at 15 years old, 98% of youth wait to parent until after their teen years. That's generational change and one of the biggest things that we're able to accomplish with our kids. Next slide.

SO THESE ARE THE GREAT MENTORS THAT I TALKED ABOUT. SO OUR COHORT ONE AND COHORT TWO AND OUR FRIENDS, CALL THEM FRIENDS, OUR MENTORS, THEY COME FROM THE COMMUNITY. THEY'VE GROWN UP IN THE COMMUNITIES, THEY KNOW THE COMMUNITY, THEY'VE WALKED THE JOURNEYS THAT OUR FAMILIES HAVE WALKED. SO I'M REALLY EXCITED. SOME OF YOU HAVE MET OUR COHORT ONE, BUT NOW WE HAVE COHORT TWO, SO HOPEFULLY YOU'LL BE ABLE TO MEET AND GREET THEM OUT IN THE COMMUNITY. NEXT SLIDE. SO EACH OF THESE MENTORS HAS A ROSTER OF EIGHT KIDS, AND THE PAID PROFESSIONAL MENTOR, THAT'S THEIR FULL-TIME JOB. THEY SPEND 40 HOURS EVERY WEEK WITH THOSE CHILDREN. SO THE EIGHT KIDS ON THEIR ROSTER, THEY'RE SPENDING TIME IN THE CLASSROOM AND IN THE COMMUNITY. THIS IS JUST A COUPLE PHOTOS, AND YOU'LL RECOGNIZE THE BACKGROUND. MANY OF OUR EVENTS HAPPEN IN THE CITY OF INDIO. NEXT SLIDE. THESE ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITE PHOTOS. SO WE HAVE COMMUNITY EVENTS WHERE WE INVITE OUR CAREGIVERS, WE INVITE COMMUNITY MEMBERS, WE GET TO GIVE THESE CHILDREN EXPERIENCES THAT THEY MAY NOT HAVE OTHERWISE HAD GOING TO ACRESHORE ARENA, BESIDES THE CUPCAKES. PRIOR TO THIS, HIS FAVORITE PART WAS THE ICE. HE WAS OUT, HE'D NEVER PUT ICE SKATES ON, AND HE WAS TOUCHING THE BLADE, AND HE'S LIKE, MS. CARRIE, WHAT IS THIS? IS THIS SNOW? LIKE HE HAD NEVER SEEN ICE OR SNOW. SO TO BE ABLE TO WATCH THAT SPARK GET LIT IS THE BEST PART OF MY DAY. AND THEN THIS LAST ONE JUST WARMS MY HEART. THAT WAS ALSO IN INDIO. SO WE'RE DOING COMMUNITY EVENTS, TWO HOURS IN THE SCHOOL, TWO HOURS IN THE COMMUNITY, FOUR HOURS EVERY SINGLE WEEK FOR HOW MANY YEARS? THANK YOU. NEXT SLIDE. SO WE ALSO PARTNER WITH THE SCHOOL STAFF. SO THE FIRST SLIDE OR PICTURE THAT YOU CAN SEE IN THE SLIDE, WE PARTNER WITH CAKE FOR KIDS. AND LAST YEAR GRADUATION, WE BROUGHT IN CUPCAKES FOR THE CLASSROOM. SO WE REALLY BECOME INTEGRATED IN THE CLASSROOM. AND THEN WE EMPOWER THESE YOUNG PEOPLE TO FIND THEIR INTERESTS. WE TAKE THEM, LIKE I SAID, TO PLACES THEY'VE NEVER BEEN. THEY'RE EARNING REWARDS AND DIFFERENT OPPORTUNITIES IN SCHOOL. THAT YOUNG MAN AT THE END, HE GOT TO GO TO THE EAGLE'S NEST BECAUSE HE WAS A VERY GOOD LISTENER BECAUSE HIS MENTOR HAD BEEN WORKING ON THAT WITH Tim, next slide.

So we touched on this briefly again, but it's not only important what we're doing on a daily and nightly basis for all of these families, but to the communities it means something. The Harvard study showed that for every dollar invested in the Friends of the Children, we return $7 to the community. And that comes through in a lot of savings. When your children aren't getting pregnant at 15, you're able to save a lot of money for future benefits and stuff for those children. So this is something that's very, very important to the community. Next slide. We have a very, very dynamic board of directors here. And you can see the names there. Happy to introduce one of them, Kenny Churchill here, who many of you may know. But this is a board of directors that has a heart for these children and wanting to impact generational change by taking care of these children 12 years guaranteed no matter what.

Next.

So what we'd ask you to do is our QR code. You can sign up for our newsletter and see everything that we're doing here. But we look forward to your support and your ideas as we look to expand this organization even more deeply into the city of Indio.

Last slide. SO AFTER YOU'RE FOLLOWING US ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOU SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER, I ALSO JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT WE'RE IN THE COMMUNITY. WE'RE OUT AND ABOUT. OFTEN WE HAVE FRIENDS WITH CHILDREN'S SHIRTS ON. WE INVITE YOU, COUNCIL, TO OUR RIBBON CUTTINGS, TO OUR OPEN HOUSES, AND I THANK YOU. AS YOU SAW IN THE SLIDE BEFORE THIS, SOME OF YOU WERE IN THAT PHOTO BECAUSE YOU CAME TO OUR OPEN HOUSE. SO I AM AN INDIO RESIDENT. I'M PROUD TO LIVE IN THIS COMMUNITY. I'M SO PROUD OF THE WORK THAT YOU GUYS HAVE DONE, AND I'M REALLY HONORED TO BE ABLE TO SERVE THIS SIDE OF THE COMMUNITY WITH SUCH AN IMPORTANT ORGANIZATION. AND THIS PHOTO IS POWERFUL TO ME BECAUSE MY COMMUNITY, TRILOGY POLO CLUB, DONATED SOME SUPPLIES, AND WE HAVE SOME VOLUNTEERS THAT COME IN TO TEACH CRAFTS AND MUSIC, AND THIS IS ONE OF THE ACTIVITIES THAT THEY DID. SO I JUST WANT TO THANK THE COUNCIL FOR WELCOMING US TO THE COMMUNITY AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT. SO THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Wonderful presentation. Thank you. Definitely. Absolutely. Any questions or thoughts or comments?

Great organization.

Yeah. Cheers. We have several programs in the Valley. Some are duplicated. I'm not a big fan of duplication because it pulls away from core programs. So you obviously bring something special. It's a beautiful addition to our community and your service. Your staff's good. I know that they benefited from a contribution to let the kids go to the lights, and that was really nice. So little things like that really sparkle their one experience in life to keep going. So thank you. Thank you for that.

Thank you for your support. Thank you for the time.

Thank you, appreciate it. What a wonderful organization. Okay, now, let's see, make sure I got this right. Now we go to item number seven, city manager reports and information. Do you have any reports, city manager, separate from 7.1, the Tamale Festival?

No, I don't, Mayor.

Okay, so we're going to roll into the Tamale Festival discussion. And I do have a request to speak, which I'm going to put at the end. I am, as everybody knows, I have a potential for a conflict of interest because I have financial interest in the downtown. I can sit through this discussion just for the record. If the conversation ensues, I will turn the gavel over to my Mayor Pro Tem and leave the dais. All right? So on that note, City Manager, please go right ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, this was brought up at the last council meeting, and there has been discussion for a few years that temporarily, due to all the constructions downtown, we had the Tamale Festival at Miles Avenue Park. knowing that now construction is winding down. There still is a little bit left for the parking lot for COD here, and we're not quite sure when that will commence. But as you have requested and long discussed, the plan is to bring the Tamale Festival back downtown to be that street festival that we're all accustomed to and fond of. So city staff had commenced the process as we had operated it before, planning it, getting it ready, And at the last council meeting, you asked for a presentation. So I'd like to yield my time to Miguel Ramirez-Conejo to explain a little bit more about what staff has been doing. We are a little bit into the process. Just before he speaks, I would recommend that should there be an alternative path, perhaps after this year, that if some sort of RFP or process that you might think of, it would just probably need to be done early in the year, probably in like a January, February timeframe of next year, if that would be an alternative delivery method. But Miguel, if you wouldn't mind, and Mayor, with your permission, I'll yield my time.

Thank you, Brian. Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. Tonight, I'll be presenting Indio Tamal Festival, bringing the festival back to downtown Indio. And so for the first slide, just kind of a quick recap for the 2026 year, we're returning the festival back to downtown Indio. And with that, we're going to host a founder ceremony. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. We want to increase the Tamal vendor participation. Over the years, we've seen it a little bit dropped off and we wanted to know why. So we started asking some questions from former participants. And what it was is either cost or they didn't know how to. A lot of the nonprofits kind of didn't really want to do it anymore because it was maybe not affordable. They didn't know if they were going to make as much funds and fundraise as much as they thought. And something that we do at all of our community events is a free kid zone activities and entertainment event. The goal is for all of the City of Indio's festivals that there is at least a free kid zone. That way anyone and any family can come and not feel like they have to spend money to enjoy the entertainment. So that has been a major focus of our department to provide events that provide something free for all families. So the founder ceremony, it's honoring the original families that started this, that had the idea to bring the community together and start this festival. And the birthplace of that was at the Old India Hotel, and we're going to do a ceremony and introduce a commemorative plaque to that to celebrate the history and the legacy that's when this festival started. So the festival will be a community first festival vision. And the priorities are, again, our affordable family experience, accessible vendor opportunities, expanding community participation, and downtown and local business inclusion. And we're going to do that by, again, making things affordable. And we've already gone through a proposed vendor fee. So tamal vendor, a flat fee of $450. Nonprofit tamal vendor fee, $250. And the reason why, we met with the health department already, and we kind of found out why some of those nonprofits dropped out. It's they have to prepare their tamales in an approved either kitchen. So an existing business that has a kitchen or a commissary. So we started those conversations early to find out why we didn't get as many community tamal vendors. And that was one of them also the cost. And merchandise vendors, $700 flat fee. The good thing is that with us, the city of India, we are here for the residents is that we don't have to make a profit. We don't have to make that. And then it kind of, Uh, it doesn't ruin the business model. But if we do make a profit, that just gets reinvested back into our events and into our community. So again, additional investments are the free kid zone, affordable carnival rides. That's one of the things that we've heard from participants in the past is that the carnival rides were a little too expensive to have a family enjoy. Reduced cost for booths for downtown businesses. So no cost for downtown businesses. We know that bringing this festival to downtown there can be an interruption to their business. So, hey, bring out a booth, bring out a table and, you know, tell them what your business is about to invite visitors to come back after the festival and still leave your doors open during the festival. And reduce interest barrier for vendors. We want the 100 plus tamal vendors. We want the recognition, the Guinness Book of World Record recognition of the largest tamal festival in the world. And we want to beat that record every year as much as we can. So existing city event staff and operational capacity, we have a veteran on our team, Mr. Jim Curtis, who has been leading the Tamal Festival in the past, and he's been an excellent help and resource of saying, hey, we used to do this, and we used to do that, and has been a real huge help in designing the layout of the event. But not just that, we just held our Asada Fest, which there was a little over 7,000 participants to that, our Barbecue Fest, which is close to 9,000, and our various other events that we do host, which is over 30 per year. So as you can see here, this map was done by our events coordinator, Vanessa Castillo, and there's a lot going on there. That's because there's been a lot of planning of where Tamal vendor booths go, where the vendors go, merchandise vendors, where the carnival goes, where the entertainment goes. So we're going to bring three stages back, a community stage, the main stage, which will be at center stage, which will have entertainment throughout the day. And then another stage will just have more ongoing music. After all, we are the city of festivals. So with multiple stages, free kid zone, it's the best use of our spaces that we have. So because we have City Hall here, a beautiful City Hall, Our Indio Business Connect Center, we could use those as either command posts, green rooms and things. It's all central to everything that's happening. And we have seen, because of our events, we have seen a growth in visitors in our downtown. Over the last two years, we went from 250,000 visits per year to close to 600,000 visits. So that means more and more people are coming to downtown, and that's why this festival is so important. So to wrap it up, bringing the Tamale Festival back to the community with the goals of highlighting tradition, supporting downtown, creating affordable family experiences, celebrating culture, and rebuilding community ownership of this festival. And I'm here to answer any questions if you have any.

Okay, and at this point, out of an abundance of caution, I'm gonna turn the gavel over to our Mayor Pro Tem and I request to speak.

All right. Once the mayor exits, I want to start off with the public comment first, and then I'll open it up to the council to speak. So I do have one public comment. Mr. Jonathan Becerra, you come up. You have three minutes, sir.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION. THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION. THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION. I'M VERY EXCITED TO HEAR ABOUT I'M VERY EXCITED TO HEAR ABOUT I'M VERY EXCITED TO HEAR ABOUT TAMALI FESTIVAL COMING TO TAMALI FESTIVAL COMING TO TAMALI FESTIVAL COMING TO DOWNTOWN. DOWNTOWN. DOWNTOWN. JUST A LITTLE BACKGROUND, MY JUST A LITTLE BACKGROUND, MY JUST A LITTLE BACKGROUND, MY FATHER WAS IN THE CITY YARD FATHER WAS IN THE CITY YARD FATHER WAS IN THE CITY YARD SUPERVISOR, SO HE USED TO TAKE SUPERVISOR, SO HE USED TO TAKE SUPERVISOR, SO HE US Very excited. Love everything you guys are talking about. The only thing I would offer, someone who worked on Tamale Festival for three years, someone who has a history in the city of Indio, I would just only recommend maybe making a local artist vendor scale for people who want to sell their local artists and kind of either knickknacks or art themselves. $700 is just going to be a steep price for them for barrier for entry, something to think about. Also, in my experience in working with... THE LAST CONTRACT WHO DID THE TAMALI FESTIVAL, A GOOD WAY TO KIND OF GET INTO THOSE VERY HIGHER END MIDDLE MIDLINER MUSIC GROUPS IS TO GO DIRECTLY TO THOSE RECORD LABELS. HAPPY TO PROVIDE PHONE NUMBERS AND EMAILS FOR THOSE RECORD LABELS FOR THOSE KIND OF VERY GOOD ARTISTS WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY THESE MAJOR LABEL FEES. SO I'M HAPPY TO OFFER ANY HELP FOR THAT. I REALLY THINK THIS IS A GREAT IDEA FOR THE CITY OF INDO TO BRING BACK THE TAMALI FESTIVAL TO DOWNTOWN. I'LL YIELD MY TIME THERE. THANK YOU, GUYS.

Thank you, Mr. Becerra. If there's anyone else who would like to speak on this topic, all you just need to do is come up, but you can fill out a request to speak later. So I'll keep that open for a second. If there's anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on it? No, okay. Well, then I'd like to open it up for council. I know this was asked to be put on the agenda. So Mr. Catrone, if you'd like to have any questions, comments, concerns.

Well the reason I brought it up is I wasn't aware that we were changing the management venue. I heard by talking that it was brought to my attention because I was excited it was coming back downtown. It was clear and understanding from the very beginning that we were using the park as a temporary because of all the development. Many years before we had tried the park before and it was a failure because the area's not leveled, you can't walk strollers, people with handicap issues And it's just, it was never suited. Taking that into consideration, we went back. The people wanted it back. The other thing that was discussed by the council at the time, it was going on a downturn, was the parade is still being asked. I've spoken to both of our high schools that have bands. They want to compete in India. They don't want to go to the, yes, there was a lot of them. I just wanted to have a discussion because Nothing against staff now, they only know bits and pieces. And I really feel that there's people in the community to have an advisory group, to come and give you ideas, and you take the good and you make them better, because I think it's to our community that we keep that alive. Because that is kind of like what's the homegrown that made Indio special and really blossomed a lot of festivals. We all know about Coachella Fest, we know what it does, but Tomah Fest will mean something to the locals. So, and guess what? Never had any major issues. What we had was tamale husk all over the place. That's what we had. The community stage was outstanding because the local talent would use that. And then obviously the professional stage, just like we did with the Salafist. That was great. I heard nothing but compliments. Of course, the tri-tip tacos were just a dream. But I think that we need to get back to our festival being the grassroots of our community, because that's what sold it. The people that come and spend their winters here from other parts, they eat it up. So I think it's important, the notoriety of the Food Network being here, the Gold of California by Hal Huser, the Food Network going to people's homes, learning how to do it, Mama's Lupus from Calipat, Arreolas, Ricon Norteño, Mexicali. We have a lot of businesses. The richest, unique thing about our city is we have some homegrown food that's done. And those are the people we need to bring out. And like you said, Miguel, we don't need to make money. We need to bring them out so we can make it what it was. And it's lost that lust, and I think we owe it to ourselves to bring that luster and notoriety back. That was my whole point, because it was like, we stamp it, we move on. No, I think we need to keep the community culture alive by really doing what we need to do. That was it.

Mr. Miller? And I concur with Mr. Gautran. I think a lot of it was just trying to figure out why we changed it, why we moved it without us knowing, considering it was a major festival for this community and trying to get it back to where we wanted to go. We keep moving around before we had Gopi for four years, and then some other people. We've got to leave it with whoever it is so we can build that consistency. So if we're going to do it, then we need to take the consistency with us and make sure that we move it forward. I like the idea of the the free fun zone for the kids because it really is about the community. We should bring in local tamale vendors. They should have some kind of discount deal to come here and make sure that they're doing it, work with Tony Romero and others if we need a commissary. But then if we make any money that's left over from that, it should all go to the charity. If we're going to really give it back, whatever's left from the tamale festival that we make should be broken up and given to charity so that it's really benefiting the community. So what we save, what we can do is great. I THINK WHAT WE HAVE LEFT OVER SHOULD GO BACK TO THE SHOULD GO BACK TO THE COMMUNITY AND WE CAN GIVE OUT COMMUNITY AND WE CAN GIVE OUT COMMUNITY GRANTS TO THE TAMALI FESTIVAL GRANTS TO THE TAMALI FESTIVAL WHEN IT'S ALL DONE BASED ON WHEN IT'S ALL DONE BASED ON APPLICATIONS AND EVERYTHING ELSE APPLICATIONS AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT GOES WITH IT. THAT GOES WITH IT. IF WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE ANY IF WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE ANY MONEY, THAT'S GREAT. MONEY, THAT'S GREAT. BUT I THINK REALLY WE NEED TO BE BUT I THINK REALLY WE NEED TO BE CONSISTENT. CONSISTENT. I LOVE THE IDEA OF IT COMING I LOVE THE IDEA OF IT COMING BACK DOWNTOWN AS LONG AS IT and that they're okay with that so that they make sure they have their storefronts and they're able to do business like they need to. If they wanna close like Yellow Mart or whatever, that's fine. But really it's gonna be a community event. City gonna take it over, then the city has to do it. If not, Pickering did I think a great job, but it's really hard for me to tell if he was able to succeed or not, because he only had one year to do it really. basically two years overall, but I mean one year of really getting it first year is usually just a trial trying to get figure out what happened before and Make the things this second year So trying to figure out where we are and where we're gonna consistently go and I do like what Ben's saying about having the parade if we're gonna do it Let's make sure that we put these items on the table as a council and a community decide and then move forward with it And then leave it where it is That's it. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem

I DO LIKE SEEING SOME OF THE CHANGES THAT ARE PROPOSED BY OUR STAFF AND GOING BACK DOWNTOWN AND LOWERING THOSE PRICES FOR OUR BUSINESSES TO GET INTO THOSE BOOTS. I THINK EVERYTHING IS LOOKING GOOD. I HAD SOME CONCERNS AT FIRST JUST BECAUSE OF THE CAPACITY, RIGHT? I KNOW IT'S A HUGE EVENT AND I TALKED TO OUR STAFF, MADE SURE THAT THEY FEEL CONFIDENT THAT THEY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO RUN THIS FESTIVAL THEMSELVES. THEY'VE BEEN DOING A GREAT JOB AT ALL OF OUR OTHER LOCAL FESTIVALS RECENTLY, BUT ALL THE OTHER FESTIVALS TO

changes that you're bringing.

First of all, thank you, Miguel, for your presentation. I think there's just a lot of passion with Tamale Festival. This is a festival that started with the community, right? So I'm really glad to see that there's a component of recognizing those folks who started it. And also, I mean, if there's a possibility for an advisory group or some folks to work with, because there's always a traditional component to this event that I think would be great. And it's also good to know that historical perspective of this event. Also good to know that historical perspective uh perspective of this event so um the advisory group would actually kind of be a good idea i i know we've all talked about the parade i think that's something that staff is going to have to go back and look there's a lot of events going on during that time kids are spread out it doesn't have to be a huge day festival uh president's day parade it's a community parade so it could be a lot smaller i mean you could have non-profits in your churches a couple of council members, but of course the kids and the families want to see that. So I think we've all wanted to see that come back. But however, with the construction and a lot of the infrastructure issues going on and moving back and forth to the park, I think we're at a point now where we can start having that discussion As far as parade 5k run. I would love to see somebody come in and do a 5k run I think there could be a lot of components to this event. It centers around the tomorrow, right? Did I get it tomorrow cuz I get that a lot. It's it's not I know I keep saying I keep hearing tomorrow I want to make sure I get that right But I think there could be a lot of components to this a 5k run the parade and other activities going on as well as the talent and of course the food and so but I think in the future growing this, I think we have the capacity to do that. And we might have the capacity in-house to do this, but it's always an option to collaborate with some folks to come in and also assist as well. This is a big event and also our community's growing, our events are growing, right? So although we're bringing it in-house this year, doesn't mean we can't collaborate with other folks to come in and assist because this is a large task. The other thing too is, how do we get past some of that red tape? This is a festival that's been in our city for a lot of years, but as it's evolved, dealing with food and dealing with different things and costs, how do we navigate that red tape? so you guys are the experts in that and we hope that you do that to get more local participation from our nonprofits our kids our youth groups our churches friends uh children friends of the uh children we love to see them have some booths here because sometimes when there's a lot of overhead costs nonprofits can't can't join us and we love to see them join us as well and so um one last thing we have tamale fest we have asada fest we have black history we have second saturday we have a lot of stuff going on downtown right which is great this is what we wanted and with over 30 events i love to see some progress on the entertainment zone and i know this is something that we've talked about but i think that we need to push the needle on this because folks have to understand you know indio is one of the only cities in the valley that actually have a real downtown And it's mom and pop, it's not corporate. And so that's something to be very proud of. Nonetheless, I don't want to put handcuffs on our businesses. I want our businesses to be successful in the daytime as well as the night. I want people to be able to come down here and be safe, be entertained, have open green space, eat and call it a night and walk back home because we're connected to the community. So the entertainment zone, I think would be great. That's something I'm very supportive of. So I look forward to seeing that coming back. I think that's all I have now. But if anybody else has any, yeah.

Given it only to like the tap house or the pizza, you know, the desert, what would we do in that situation considering we can't sell alcohol?

Yeah, absolutely. So we've already discussed that and having several. So there's kind of two different components that have going on. As Mayor Pro Tem mentioned, the entertainment zone, which you'll see here coming up soon, we're bringing back to council for formal approval. But we've been working with Chief and his staff to get some of their concerns and make sure that we do this right. So there could be free flowing alcohol in downtown during certain events. But yes, using the nonprofits to sell alcohol because we can't also sell the alcohol. the alcohol at these events and it being spread out throughout the venue. So not just leveraging our existing businesses because we want to help them too, but also having various areas. So it's not just one place to get alcohol. Since this event will take up pretty much all of what's active downtown right now, we'll have to have multiple stops there.

Yeah, I agree with the entertainment zone, too. But also, will we put a geofence around it? Is that how we're going to do this thing?

So it's kind of with the new law that got passed, you don't need to put a physical barricade on there. You just have to designate the entertainment zone and have to have signage as people walk in and out, like, hey, no alcohol beyond this point. They have to have a clear cup. We're thinking to make it easy for Indian Police Department to identify who has a cup that has been purchased within the entertainment zone because you can't bring in alcohol from the outside. It's not like Vegas where you could just walk around with a bottle or anything like that. It'll be a branded cup. We'll provide these to our businesses and anyone selling alcohol within the entertainment zone so IPD can easily identify, hey, that's one of our cups. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome.

The last one is we have a community services commission. This is the time to go to work.

Yeah, I just think right now we're kind of close, but moving forward, that could be part of that advisory group to bring that to us.

I understand that, but I mean, they're there. They can be brought in at any time. The last time we normally would start was in August.

Yeah, and that was probably kind of hectic.

And we had everything downtown. We had SMUR, we had town, we had part of Oasis, all blocked out. We had one complete circle. This whole downtown was full of it. It may be, obviously, probably you were young. That's what I remember. So I just think it would probably still work.

No, yeah, we could always bring them in. I just think right now, staff, yeah, staff could work with them or however, you know.

Yeah, I was going to chime in as the Mayor Pro Tem indicated. Yeah, you do have an advisory committee at any time, but because of the timing and so forth, I think a call out here as well as perhaps on social media, if anyone has an idea, something they can present, we'll provide a way to email us. They can certainly contact you and you can pass it along to us. It doesn't just have to be a small group. Anyone that has any good ideas, Mr. Becerra is an example where he's already shared a few. Let's solicit those and get those in as soon as we can, maybe over the next 30 days, so the team can then march forward and make this happen. Yeah, I think that's great.

Thank you for the presentation. Shouldn't be any following, so we could have the mayor join us.

I'll grab her.

Come on. I need to make friends with this microphone. Thank you everyone. Let's move on to item number eight, City Council Conflict of Interest Disclosure. Does anyone have any conflict of interest on any of the items? No? Okay, neither do I. Item number nine, city council report on meetings attended per government code section 53232.3. Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. All my committees were dark for that two-week period, but I think like all of us, we either went to a lot of the ribbon cuttings. Thank you to our residents for Measure X, Measure E, the money we were able to utilize for one-time projects, including this beautiful building we're sitting in that we did a Ribbon cutting today, yesterday we did at Bridge Avenue 44. We're getting ready to do our golf course clubhouse. We did our sports park. All that is thanks to our residents and some of the city staff for getting grant money that came to us to be able to utilize that. We'll have some more ribbon cuttings here very shortly with our golf course clubhouse and a few other amenities. So my hat's off to everyone for doing that. And then a couple of our businesses. We just had Chick-fil-A today. It'll be open tomorrow. They had a soft opening today for the new owner, a young man that's worked for him since he got out of college. And this was his working towards was his own franchise. And Chick-fil-A helped him get his franchise. He was from Redondo Beach, moving out this way. His grandmother's from Palm Springs. And he's going to be the newest franchisee owner. And I believe he's like 31 years old. So a great young man and Chick-fil-A will be open. And as you know, Chick-fil-A is amazing. We had luxury hot tubs. The mayor and I were there for that. It's a pool company there off of Showcase in North Indio. They added hot tubs and cold plunges and that to their repertoire. And they've been doing backyards and pools throughout the whole Coachella Valley. Does excellent work. So if anybody's looking for a pool, We have an excellent pool company here in the city of Indio. And the last but not least, I want to say happy birthday to the city of Indio. On the 16th of May, we turned 96 on our way to 100 here and seems to be getting better all the time thanks to the council staff and our residents for a great 96 years and looking forward to number 100 and see what we can do from there. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Just four more years. Thank you. Council Member Goutran.

Excuse me. Glenn Miller kind of covered some of the things, but obviously it was our birthday on the 16th. It's great. In four more years, it will be 100. Obviously, we had the Asada Festival. The only thing I can walk away is the tri-tick tacos are a big hit. They went down, they were awesome. They had lines. The only thing I really get a kick out of, I don't know if it was Jim Curtis or Miguel or somebody who brought that LA Dodgers fan doing churros. That guy had a land about a block long. Yeah, the whole vehicle's painted like LA Dodgers and they're cooking them and they're doing the churros right then and there. So it was really neat and he came back. So I don't know who found that vendor, but he's making bank. I want to thank all the mothers at Mother's Day. I hope everybody had a wonderful Mother's Day on Sunday. And it's always a beautiful day to celebrate mom. The Grand Open at Sporks Park, it was amazing to see a lot of our locals in the North Indio side. Just amazing how grateful they are. And it was just filled and filled of green. And it was kind of chuckling because later that night, or the next night I believe, no it was Tuesday, Thursday, they were playing soccer and the sprinklers came on. So they were playing with the water. But it got taken care of right away. The opening of the Avenue 484 bridge is one that we don't have to worry whether the channel has wiped out the pass. A lot of families that unfortunately for many months it's not the first time it's happened, at least in the 40 years I remember it's three times it washed out, but now that beautiful bridge is making a big difference. We don't have to worry about the kids crossing, going to school, the people taking their morning walks, going through the dip. It'll be well lit and apparently it's well lit well at night. The grand opening of what we did today with Chick-fil-A, we were trying to convince the franchise that we need to have everything in India. So we're trying to give Miguel some more business to maybe bring another one, would be really nice. The most impressive thing is I had the opportunity, I think, Mayor Pro Tem Furman has already had the privilege because he sits on the CVAG Law Enforcement Committee, but if my understanding, you had the opportunity, if you were able to attend, is to go to Palm Springs Police Department and have an opportunity to see that outstanding system, the Coachella Valley Real-Time Intelligence Center, That is an amazing piece. We have some of the components here in Indio now, but it's saving a lot, like solving crimes. I've known William Hutchinson for a while. He's the lieutenant that's basically kind of like the project manager over it. and speaking to Chief Mills, it was interesting that I knew his former boss that he worked for in San Diego and we shared some time but what I found out from him is the compassion he has for his community is just as strong as Archie. So I think it's something in the future we'll be looking at because it's helping making sure that those that have been victims of crime and giving closure to those of their loved ones when crimes occurred. It's something very, just, I believe, if you haven't had the opportunity, I strongly recommend you take a look at it. And other than that, that's all I have to report.

That's quite a bit. Lots going on in the city. Council Member Ortiz.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. THANK YOU, MAYOR. I KNOW A LOT OF OUR FAMILIES I KNOW A LOT OF OUR FAMILIES ARE CONCERNED WITH THE RECENT ARE CONCERNED WITH THE RECENT SURGE IN IMMIGRATION SURGE IN IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT, SO I WANT TO MAKE ENFORCEMENT, SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE OUR COMMUNITIES KNOW THAT SURE OUR COMMUNITIES KNOW THAT THEY CAN ALWAYS CALL OUR THEY CAN ALWAYS CALL OUR POLICE IN CASE OF EMERGENCIES, POLICE IN CASE OF EMERGENCIES, REGARDLESS OF IMMIGRATION STATUS. REGARDLESS OF IMMIGRATION STATUS. AND I ALSO WANT TO REMIND AND I ALSO WANT TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT WE DO HAVE OUR EVERYONE THAT WE DO HAVE OUR PARTNERS AT TO In case of emergencies, I want to make sure our residents are making plans for their families and for their properties in case of any family separation. The emergency line for TODEC is 951-388-2008, and their offices are on 6th Street in Coachella. Last Saturday, I attended the... Sorry. Sorry, I lost my place here. I attended the opening for our new sports park. It was great to see our local families out there enjoying their new facilities. I also attended the chili cook-off held by the veterans of foreign wars who raised money for the veterans wheelchair team to provide some assistance to our veterans with disabilities. I want to thank all the organizers at the VFW and the American Legion for their continued support for our local veterans. This Monday I attended the open house for Riverside County Latino Commission. I was able to take a tour and see all the services that they offer from drug rehabilitation, counseling service for individuals and families, and also psychiatric services. We also heard some testimonies from some of the people who have recovered in their residential programs, which are homes throughout the community where they house people that are going through their recovery. We heard some amazing feedback from some folks who were not successful in the shelter setting, but were able to succeed through these programs with smaller groups and more individual attention. If you know someone who needs help with mental health or addiction services, please reach out to our great partners at the Latino Commission, Ana Munro and Dr. Carrion. Yesterday, I had the chance to attend the ribbon cutting for our Avenue 44 bridge. I wanted to thank our staff for all their hard work and our construction partners as well. I also wanted to thank Congressman Reese for his help in finding federal funding for that project, as well as former Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia for his help in moving us up on the list for Caltrans to make sure that we got that project finished. I also attended our employee appreciation lunch yesterday with our staff and shared how grateful we are to have such a hardworking team here in the city of Indio and to see the strong collaboration between our departments, which has led to some great work around the city for our residents. I have one request for staff and council with all the improvements that have been happening at our parks with our new sports park. and our improvements at our other parks. I've been getting a lot of questions regarding the programming, the schedules, and the different sports organizations. I know we work closely with Desert Rec, but I think if we could have something put on the agenda as a reminder for our council and for our community on how we're working through those schedules to make sure that we have a good process for our local sports organizations, just to have some clarity for the council and for our community. That's all I have, thank you.

That's quite a bit. And before I get to Mayor Pro Tem, I wanted to see if the Youth Advisory Council wanted to escape. Can I get a thank you for being so observant? Please feel free. Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem.

I thought they were gone already. Sorry about that. So you're asking for support on the item

Yes, just to have an agenda item to have a refresher on how the scheduling is going to be working with Desert Rec and with all of our organizations, sports organizations in the community.

You can put that under city manager reports to create that discussion and information and invite them as well. Unless there's objection, we certainly won't. I think that's great, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's good, but I really do think that a lot of these things we're doing, and I think Ben brought it up, we really need to push these down to our commissions. Either that or we need to get rid of them. If they're going to do that stuff and they're part of our parks and they're supposed to be our guides and eyes, we need to make sure that some of these things are going to them. This I have no problem coming up, but I really do think we need to get them more involved with Desert Rec and all that other stuff. It really should be them taking more responsibility for it.

Yeah, and actually maybe that update should go to both the Community Services Commission as well as the City Council.

Yeah, I think all of them. Like the Public Arts, they come to us. Yeah, it comes to us, but they decide all of it. We don't force the art down them. They give us the ideas coming back. I think the other commissions should do it too.

I think the thing is that it will go to them, and they can make recommendations to the council. But if that goes to them first, I have no problem with it, as long as there's some clarity within the community about not only the new sports complex, but Davis Field, Rotary Field, and other fields. The reality of it is a lot of folks want to come to India. We're a good place. Also, working on the Parks Master Plan has also given us good direction, too, on how we move forward in the future. I think we all support that.

If there's no objection, then we can bring it to the commission, bring it back here. In the meantime, if there is any question, please contact DRD. They can certainly copy us and loop us in, but I've done it elsewhere.

Great, thank you for bringing that up. I thought about that. We had a lot of phone calls and folks are calling, so it's a good thing, right? So thank you, Madam Mayor. So I did have one committee. I had a public safety committee, and we did have a discussion on Kratom, and it's a plant that's sold legally here in different jurisdictions. However, there's some CONCERNS WITH THAT SUBSTANCE THAT'S BEING SOLD. SO THERE'S A COUPLE OF ORDINANCES THAT ARE FLOATING AROUND OUR DESERT THROUGH CVAG. AND HOWEVER, OUR CITY ALREADY HAS ONE THAT'S COMING TO US SHORTLY. ALSO WITH THE CO2, CORRECT? CO2. nitrous oxide i'm sorry and also i asked for them to add oil burners to that as well as drug pernil also commonly known as methamphetamine pipes and so the chief and our city attorney will be looking at that to bring that back to council as well we also did an overview on the coachella valley real-time intelligence center in pump springs and it's a centralized hub using technology such as gis camera and real feed to gather intel for first responders prior to arriving at the scenes. And this is great technology for our first responders out there to keep our community safe and looking forward to our city joining with Palm Springs and other jurisdictions to bring that to our city. I thank the council and the community for working with us and bringing flock cameras and our drone programs to our community. These programs help keep our community safe. It also gives our first responders an idea of what's going on on that scene prior to arrival. And so these are really good programs that we're bringing. And I'd like to ask staff if they could work with Desert Sands Unified School District on the two by two on the trip to Palm Springs, because we're looking forward to bringing this to Palm Springs responding to active shooter situations at places, our soft targets, and especially our schools. So I like to work with Desert Sands Unified School District on a two by two. And while I'm on that subject, as well as an update on their FFA program, I've been in contact with their principal. I know they recently had a board meeting, and so they're going through some things with the FFA program. And I think with our two by two, the council could be appraised of the progress of that as well. So that's my only committee. Ribbon cut-ins, right? So a lot of ribbon cut-ins and that's a great thing. And so it was spoke about this Indio Sports Park, I mean, great great great uh project the community deserves it it's been talked about for a lot of years we're able to get it over the finish line and it was amazing seeing all the families out there over the weekend enjoying that park and we're looking forward to activating it it's open now but of course we're going to be moving there's going to be some moving pieces and adding some shade and trees and more benches a lot of things but to see that park open now it's great and so congratulations to indio and we're looking forward to seeing those kids out there playing on that parks like i mentioned it's been talked about for years and in planning for a long time and we finally got it done so congratulations on that and the same thing with the avenue 44 bridge we all know the struggles with that lower crossing from our valentine's day storm to hurricane hillary and we were just talking you know right after hurricane hillary myself and council member ortiz were out there and watching that water stream and it was just Three years later, here we are. And these things don't happen overnight. These are huge, huge capital improvement projects. And so we just don't write a check and get this done. It takes a lot of work, a lot of moving pieces, a lot of brains to come together to get these things done. And of course, once this is done, everybody's, well, wait a minute, what's up with Monroe Bridge? Monroe Bridge is going out for bid soon, right? And like I said, these projects have been in the works for a long time. Sometimes the field post moves, but the city of Indio, we're like running backs. We catch up to the field post. So we're going out for bid this year and then we'll start talking about Jackson. So it's well needed and we're looking forward to that as well. Also attended the ribbon cutting for Chick-fil-A today. another good good chain coming to our city uh we're all there i'm looking forward to having them there and so um just a couple of reminders i just want to add folks um the indio app please download the indio app it's a great tool that the city has i use it when i get messages or people call me i use the indio app you log in you put your concern or something's going on You get a receipt, you get an email when it's done. You'll get a picture if it's trash, if it's whatever it is, the Indio app. If you have Apple, if you have Android, please download the Indio app. It's a lot faster sometimes than just reaching out to one of us. Sometimes I'll get an email at midnight from two days ago and use the Indio app. It's a lot faster and it's very convenient. So download that Indio app. And I'd just like to ask the council or even the city manager, if we could look at our speed ordinances around the city, especially around schools and parks. We all know it's no secret in our world we have a challenge with speeding. right and um the last thing i want to do is not do something around these schools and parks so whether it's moving flock cameras whether it's putting more striping on the on the road maybe it's putting more solar flashing uh signs um these parks i really want to look at that so i don't know what we can do but um that's something i think we need to address

City Manager has an update, yes.

Yeah, there's no objection. We do have a policy that I think would be great to bring back, and again, in a presentation mode, then you can kind of add and subtract. It's also a good mechanism, I think, to remind the residents that that program's in place when they have a speeding problem in their neighborhood. There's some steps to go through in that policy, but we haven't probably advertised it as much as we could, and this would bring awareness. If there's not any objection... the incoming city manager will be happy to bring that forward.

You're having way too much fun with that. Is that good? Thank you.

I'm going and looking forward to it incoming.

All right, terrific, that's great. And I agree, I know I had mentioned to city manager and others, the issues that we have with speeding, particularly the concerns around parks and whatnot. So appreciate us taking a look at that. We've all attended, the solid area of this council is just fantastic because we're just the best cheerleaders for this community. We are all a part of this community. Some of us, I've only been here 20 years, others have been born and raised. And yet the heart is still here. Also the Assata Fest, 7,000 people in our community, in our downtown. It was fantastic. Tri-tip, I had two or three things because they were so good I would bring them home and I ate for two or three days. So there you go. But it's just wonderful to hear the music and see the people. And I guess what I look at are the multi-generations, right? When you see grandparents dancing with the kids and the music is having fun. That to me is what we're all about. So very cool on that. I mean, where else and what other city in one week do you celebrate a sports park, a bridge opening and a city hall library and community center? I know of no other place. And these are all things that have been in the works for such a long time and all the effort that has gone into that is absolutely tremendous. But how exciting it is for the city and all of it ties back to the desire to serve our community in the best way possible. I also went to the Chili Cook-Off with the Wheelchair Olympics and tried to support our vets there. Just a great group, a great group of guys, highly competitive. It was really interesting to watch and to see and to hear. One of the guys brought out a whole thing of medals that he had received over the years in the wheelchair Olympics. So just a really neat group of guys. And they raised quite a few dollars to be able to go to that. Chick-fil-A, luxury hot tubs, just really wonderful things in our community. And as I keep saying, there is more to come. Really appreciate the small businesses that are taking a chance and coming to our community and opening their business. That's no small feat. Excited Chick-fil-A, 92 new employees. So that's really fantastic, the jobs that they're bringing to our community. So thank you to everything and everybody. I just want to remind everybody Memorial Day is coming up on Monday. There are several events around the community, namely the one at the Coachella Cemetery at 9 o'clock. So please attend if you'd like. It's a very solemn ceremony and one in which we honor those that gave their lives. And on that note, moving on to, yes?

Please. I just want to add, I left something out. I want to thank Miguel Canelo Ramirez. You know, I get a lot of folks who reach out to me. They send me these emails and things, and I'm going 100 miles an hour. And I tell them, yes, I'll listen to you. I'll meet with you. And then I send a connected email to Miguel and the city manager. And sometimes that's how things get done. You know, sometimes people reach out to us. How can I get in the city? How can I get a contractor? Maybe sometimes it's not an RFP. Sometimes it's an orthodox situation. And so I wanted to thank Miguel earlier. So thank you for always accepting those emails and talking to folks because this is how it gets done. It's a lot of collaboration. So thank you, Miguel.

Great job, and I second that. Okay, next item on the agenda is item number 10, the consent calendar. Do I hear a motion, or is there something somebody would like to pull and discuss?

I move to approve.

Okay, I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem, a second by Councilmember Miller.

My vote.

Here we go. And motion passes unanimously, outstanding. Okay, good stuff. That's how we get work done. Item number 11, 11.1, under administrative items, introduction of ordinance number 1833, amendment to Indian Municipal Code, Title V, Public Works, Chapter 54, Water, Division IV, Water Conservation, that was a mouthful, to implement state water conservation requirements and establish a cross-connection control program. Timothy Wassil. Hello.

Afternoon mayor and members of the city council. How exciting. New bridge, new city hall, everything is wonderful. So this item before you here is just an introduction of an amendment. to our ordinance to allow us to comply with state requirements. It's a three-part item. So the first part is the implementation of the portable water irrigation restriction for non-functional turf required under the California Assembly Bill 1572, which basically prohibits the installation of turf. for a non-functional, non-recreational, except of course in parks and residential areas that continues to be allowed. And yes.

That doesn't include existing ones, right? It's for new installations?

No, it actually requires us to convert the existing to something other than turf.

And is that only for city property or for everybody?

So that's for anything that's non-functional and not for recreation.

So starting January 1, 2027, it will be state and local government. January 1, 2028, it will be commercial, industrial, and institutional. January 1, 2029, it will be HOA common areas, mobile home parks, retirement communities. And starting January 1, 2031, it will be government properties in disadvantaged communities, not for residential.

OK. Thank you, Kay. So that's the first item. The second item is just a cleanup on the language itself, which replaces the water superintendent with the city manager or its designee. And then the third item, which is an item that's already in existence, but we just want to codify it, which is the establishment of the cross-connection control program. It's the backflow prevention system. It just protects the water system from contamination. So that's basically the gist of this amendment to the municipal code. And if you have any further questions, Sir Gonzalez is available. He can help me answer those. But with that, that's our recommendation to you.

Thank you for the presentation. Any questions? Council Member Gutran, I see.

I just had a question for Mr. Gonzalez. What's the status of CoverTrack? Is everything, where are we at with them? Out of curiosity.

Yes, so for CoverTrack, we actually were just awarded the grant from the state. So the only item that's pending right now is, there will be a, there needs a vote to happen for the community to allow the consolidation. So tomorrow actually at their meeting, there was a survey that was done for the community and there will be state representatives to inform them of the consolidation and to encourage all of the community to vote on it. So after that, we'll just be waiting for the vote. Once it's approved, We just need to finish the design and be ready to construct it.

Yeah. Appreciate your outreach. Tammy's done a really good job and a lot of the residents feel safe with their water service. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. Do I hear a motion? I motion. Council Member Gautron, and a second by Council Member Ortiz. All those in favor, please vote. I'll vote. That's it, sorry. Just kind of rolls off my tongue there. All right, motion passes unanimously. The next administrative item, 11.2, resolution number 10562, approving a City Council travel and expense reimbursement policy and establishing a monthly automobile allowance for local travel. City Attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. New bridge, new city hall, new travel and expense reimbursement policy. The city has a travel and expense reimbursement policy that's drafted for its employees, and typically that has been what city staff have attempted to use when applying to travel and expense reimbursement. FOR THE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. THIS PROJECT ACTUALLY STARTED LAST YEAR UNDER MAYOR MILLER. WE WORKED WITH STAFF TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS WAS REALLY CITY COUNCIL FOCUSED POLICY WORKED WITH THE MAYOR HOLMES TO GET IT INTO ALIGNMENT WITH THE COUNCIL'S OBJECTIVES OF TRANSPARENCY ACCOUNTABILITY AND FISCAL PRUDENCE. So you have in front of you, it should answer any question you may have about what is reimbursable for travel and expense on city council business that you may encounter. The goal really is to make sure that we are getting ahead of any potential issues. I think a lot of cities get reactive. They have an issue come up and then they come back and adopt the policy. Your staff has been seeing that it's very important to get ahead. have these things in place ahead of time so that we don't encounter those kind of issues here in the city of india i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have about the policy yeah it was time for us to kind of tighten it up any questions or concerns

SIR.

COUNSELOR WHEN WAS THIS COUNSELOR WHEN WAS THIS BROUGHT TO YOU? BROUGHT TO YOU? WHAT MONTH AND YEAR?

WHAT MONTH AND YEAR? SO THE ORIGINAL VERSION CAME SO THE ORIGINAL VERSION CAME FROM STAFF I THINK LATE LAST FROM STAFF I THINK LATE LAST YEAR. YEAR. WE WERE WORKING WITH THEM WE WERE WORKING WITH THEM PRETTY EXTENSIVELY TO GET IT PRETTY EXTENSIVELY TO GET IT INTO A POSITION FOR THE CITY INTO A POSITION FOR THE CITY COUNCIL'S CONSIDERATION. COUNCIL'S CONSIDERATION. I GOT SOME FEEDBACK FROM I GOT SOME FEEDBACK FROM COUNCILMEMBER MILLER I BELIEVE COUNCILMEMBER MILLER

I JUST DIDN'T RECALL THE PART OF THE STIPEND FOR THE COUNCIL. I THOUGHT IT WAS ORIGINALLY REGARDING THE ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF OF THE CITY.

SO THE TRAVEL AND EXPENSE REIMBURSEMENT POLICY WAS WHAT WAS BROUGHT FORWARD. ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF TRAVEL AND EXPENSE REIMBURSEMENT IS TRAVEL REIMBURSEMENT FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT TRAVEL. THERE'S TWO WAYS TO ADDRESS YOU CAN TURN EXPENSE FORMS AND GET THE IRS RATE BACK OR THE GOVERNMENT CODE AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL HAVE OPINED THAT YOU CAN ALSO JUST HAVE A FLAT STIPEND AND SO IT'S REALLY A POLICY QUESTION FOR THE COUNCIL. SEVERAL CITIES DO A FLAT STIPEND TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF PAPERWORK THAT THE COUNCIL AND STAFF HAVE TO PROCESS FOR THAT LOCAL TRAVEL, THE COUNCIL TRAVELS A LOT TO ALL THE MEETINGS THAT YOU WERE DISCUSSING EARLIER AS WELL AS REGIONAL TRAVEL. SO IT'S A POLICY DECISION FOR THE COUNCIL TO MAKE. I WORKED WITH THE MAYOR ON DEVELOPING THIS POLICY AND THIS WAS THE RECOMMENDED POLICY FOR THE COUNCIL TO CONSIDER.

DO YOU HAVE A CONCERN, COUNCILMEMBER, OR WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

I mean, I see the policy and I don't have a problem with the per diem, but when we go places outside of the local area, I can see us getting a per diem for travel and then reimbursement if you want. Nobody has to actually do it, you know, to put in for mileage. It's up to you to do it. I don't feel comfortable personally getting a stipend for local travel. I think it's just part of what we do to travel with it. Not everyone travels and goes to every event. I know a lot of us travel and do a bunch. of traveling to different things, different ribbon cuttings, different stuff, but it's all in what we're doing in the area, and I think that's what our actual council salary does, so I don't feel comfortable doing it. I think if we can actually turn it in if you really thought you needed to and have it reimbursed you based on travel and do this stuff, but I don't feel good about a $500 stipend to the city council. I really don't care if the leadership staff has it because they drive around. It's really a perk for them, but I think city council, we do this because we love our community, and I just don't think $500 stipend's good for me. That's my personal opinion. Doesn't mean another council can't look at it, but I'm a no.

Okay, any other comments?

Yeah, I would agree that the 500 is too high, especially, you know, we're not a huge city where we're driving long distances. When we do drive long distances, you know, I have a couple of trips where I go to the Northern California or other areas and we can submit those with our staff and get reimbursed on those. But I do think 500 is too high for the amount of traveling that we do within the city.

city car if we want to. There's availability if you go long distances to take one of the city cars.

All righty.

Well, I do, and I have a different opinion because I serve on about 10 boards and commissions, right? So I drive a little bit more than everybody else, and I don't get paid to drive. I don't get paid to go to these. I do get a stipend from the city, which, like it was mentioned, I do love what I do for this city. However, I still work a nine-to-five, so I'm okay for the most part. but for the next person, next community member who wants to run for city council, it may not be feasible for them to drive or a vehicle may not be available. So if it's 500, 300, whatever the stipend is, or we do the reimbursement, travel reimbursement, I think we should do that. It's gotta be something because That's why we have a stipend. That's why our stipends have been so low, because everyone knows they didn't need it. But that's how you kind of keep certain people locked out of these positions. These positions, anybody should be able to run, and it shouldn't be a financial burden on them. However, it's not a paycheck. Don't get me wrong. It's not a paycheck. But if you're driving and you could justify it, I don't have a problem with it. Like I said, I serve about 10 to 11 boards and commissions, right? And so I do a lot more driving than average council members. So that's my opinion on it.

Okay. Mayor. Council member. Yes, sir. I just feel, again, my interpretation was with the staff and I realized that when I read the report, I asked the city manager about some valid points. I just feel from past practice in our city that if you're going to go on a trip, and you save your receipt, then you get reimbursed. I feel that's just my opinion. It's true, some of the members of this panel have responsibilities that take them out. I've learned that there is some, elected officials that get a lot of compensation because there is a stipend pay from some of the commissions. They give them, you know, anywhere from, I've seen from $90 to $200. How they budget themselves, I don't know. I know on an average, I told the city manager right now, mine could be between 127 to 200 miles, you know, and it's fine. I mean... I don't have a problem with it. Sometimes I don't even ask for per diem for food, because if I have to eat here, I have to eat there. Those are just, I just, it's from my past experience in public service, it's sometimes I feel more better that if we're gonna go out, we submit your receipt, you get what you're owed, rather than a stipend of 500 bucks. I'm just gonna be more responsible to the taxpayer. That's it.

Terrific, and I had, just so everybody knows, I had asked for two reasons. Number one, we travel from one end of the valley to another, and if we go outside the valley, yes, we have a car. And so I thought it would be good to bring up for discussion, and as much for us, as much as for people that also want to run for council. In my thought process, I looked at other councils and Desert Hot Springs and looked at what they did as well. We can turn, if we feel fit or if we want to, we can turn our sheets and our information to the to staff for reimbursement or we could do this as an option and it sounds like for the most part at this point in time that the preferences that we look at just turning in, our reimbursements To staff and as an expense report and we can go from there. So that's what I'm hearing.

Yes, sir Maybe just right on that tone a consideration of why many cities have gone this route It's not that it's a huge burden for staff. It is a huge burden for you even if the stipend is a nice gesture of 150 $200 it does stay save a lot of record-keeping and I actually have a friend in Texas as a city manager. it's very difficult for us as staff to verify whether the council member is accurate in what they're presenting on the mileage. Anyway, in the scenario in Texas, the council member was adding miles that weren't justified, but how do we as staff know that for sure, right? They did go to the meeting, they didn't go to the meeting. So the stipend does clean things up quite a bit. If the 500 seems high, It may administratively save some money to just put it at some amount and see how it goes, if it is $150 a month or $100 or $200, whatever you might consider. Just throwing that in because there is a component for you to keep track of all of that, for us to keep track of all of that and cut checks. which is time and money, but then the risk for somebody submitting something and staff has very little capacity to confirm that it's accurate or not. The automatic allowance rate would take all of that burden away.

Okay, good information.

Question, so Steven, on this, when we're doing it, and I understand part of the way that we're moving forward this, what does people, could we even like on a salary increase for us? It doesn't take over until the next council comes in. Would this be the same way? I mean, cause really it's this compensation. It might be in the way of, of a stipend for auto, but really it's giving the city council funds.

So the auto allowance could go into effect immediately or the council could direct that it goes into effect in December following the election. That's a choice you could make. I would recommend that the remainder of the policy on the actual expense reimbursement go into effect immediately. But if you wanted to delay the implementation of any allowance until after the election so that it's similar to the council stipend, you could do that.

I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIM I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIM BEING REIMBURSED AND GETTING HIS BEING REIMBURSED AND GETTING HIS MONEY FOR IT. MONEY FOR IT. I THINK IF WE DO IT THAT WAY I THINK IF WE DO IT THAT WAY UNTIL WE DECIDE ON A NUMBER WE UNTIL WE DECIDE ON A NUMBER WE DO HE CAN TURN IT IN FOR DO HE CAN TURN IT IN FOR REIMBURSEMENT. REIMBURSEMENT. I DON'T THINK THAT'S GOING TO BE I understand staff's problem I'd rather do it that way and then come up with a fair dollar amount if we're going to do the dollar amount with the new council when it comes in obviously we're going to have one council member for sure because Mr. Ortiz has decided he's running for higher office and hopes to make it and we all hope he does but if not he's not choosing to run so we're going to have a whole new council you know at least one member so I think if we do it that way and leave it where Mr. Furman or whoever wants to can turn it in at the mileage rate that the state does for them and then once it comes maybe the first of the year we start it maybe in December we come back so my thing is the council with a dollar amount that we feels fair and if it's $500 that's $500 and it starts January 1st and off we go.

So theoretically we can take this, can we take this in two separate motions then? A motion for the city council travel and expense reimbursement and separately for the automobile allowance? Can we break it up like that?

If you wanted to consider the automobile allowance separately in the future, perhaps after the first of the year, what my recommendation would be would be to approve the resolution with the exception of the automobile allowance and simply have the IRS rate for all travel until then. So you can make that motion. It's very easy for us to modify the policy to make that change. We'll simply strike all the references to the automobile allowance. And then the first or second meeting in January, we'll work with the new mayor to put that on the agenda for future consideration.

All right.

If that's council's project.

That's my opinion. I mean, the rest of everybody's got to speak.

I'm fine with that, and I don't support it for my own benefit. I still work. But like I said, for the next person who's coming behind us, it shouldn't be a burden on their vehicles or their gas. I mean, look at our gas prices right now. I've had a day. where I've been to 11 events in one day, 11 in my own vehicle. Now, when you're on 10 boards and committees, you move around somewhere and tearing your vehicle, it's a cost, right? And so not for me, I'm fine. But for the next person coming in behind us, yeah, I think it's fair. Now, when we come back, we could decide on a number, I'm fine with that. So if that's a motion, I second the council member's motion.

Was that a motion? Yes. Okay. And so we have a motion by Council Member Miller and a second by Mayor Pro Tem. And let's go ahead and vote. Okay, motion passes unanimously, outstanding. All right, now for the fun, item number 12, public hearings. 12.1, introduction of ordinance number 1834, Planning Commission recommendations for the City Council to adopt three ordinances, updating the subdivision regulations of the Indio Unified Development Code, Plan-ZMA-25-003, consisting of, one, an ordinance repealing and replacing Article 5 subdivision regulations and residential condominium conversions, two, an ordinance repealing and replacing Article 6 administration and procedures, and three, an ordinance adding Chapter 4.28 two-unit developments. Brian Howerson, sir.

Mayor Pro Tem, members of the council, it's our pleasure to present this next item. I wanted to just start by saying we have been working on this for a little while and our goal was to make this a little more user-friendly, this ordinance, as well as streamline some of the rules and regulations and subdivisions. And then lastly, of course, meeting state law requirements. We hired a consultant to do this update, Alta Planning. So Simran Malhotra will go ahead and do the presentation at this time.

Thank you, Brian. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. I'm Simran Malhotra. I'm a principal with Alta Planning and Design. We were formerly Rameen Associates, and we helped the city prepare the Unified Development Code as well as the general plan a few years ago. So I have a short presentation for you, just Overviewing the changes and the ordinance that is in front of you for consideration. So when the Unified Development Code was adopted in 2022, Article 5 was intentionally left as a placeholder for this work effort. And there are three primary components to this work. First, we are taking two chapters, which are in the Indio Municipal Code, Chapter 156 on subdivisions and subdivisions. Chapter 163 on residential condo conversions and combining them into the unified development code as the new Article 5. The other two components of the project include related updates to Articles 4 and 6 to ensure consistency throughout the code and to incorporate SB 9 related requirements. To expand a little bit on that, the updates include the creation of a new Article 5 focused on subdivision regulations and residential condo conversions, a new Chapter 428 addressing two-unit developments, and Chapter 519 addressing urban lot splits pursuant to SB 9 regulations. And then there are modifications to Article 6 to maintain consistency and support these additions. So the overarching goal of this project was to improve the organization of the subdivision regulations, clarify review authorities and requirements by map type, and incorporate state requirements related to SB 9. Looking a little bit more closely, At Article 5, we made several organizational improvements. We consolidated all definitions into one section. We've introduced summary tables that clearly outline requirements by map type as well as review authority. The section also now incorporates provisions related to condo conversions that were previously in Chapter 163. This slide, I know it's hard to read, but compares the previous and updated tables of contents. On the left is the original structure in Chapter 156, and on the right is a new organization under Article 5. The updated format is more intuitive, beginning with definitions and review authority, followed by separate chapters on each of the different map types, and then additional regulations such as dedication and securities are organized towards the end. As a part of these updates, we have introduced a summary table that clearly identifies review authority by application type. Previously, all subdivision maps were reviewed by City Council. Under the proposed ordinance, tentative maps would instead be approved by the Planning Commission, while final maps and dedications would continue to come to you for final approval. The ordinance also streamlines review for several application types. The director or city engineer would have approval authority over lot line adjustments, lot mergers, minor amendments, and parcel map waivers. The first extension, time extension, would also be handled administratively with any subsequent extensions reviewed by Planning Commission. In addition, SB9 urban lot splits are required by state law to be approved ministerially by the community development director. All appeals would go to first to the planning commission and then to city council. We also included a comprehensive summary table outlining requirements for each project type. This is a clear and user-friendly reference for both applicants and cities and staff. Finally, the ordinance incorporates two new chapters related to SB 9. SB 9, as you may recall, was adopted by the state of California in 2022 to encourage additional housing in single family zones with some limited exceptions. There are four such zones within the city. The four zones are listed on the screen in front of you. These are desert estates one, desert estate transitions three, suburban neighborhood four, and eight zones. A little bit more detail about SB9, it has two primary components. The first is included in chapter 428, and this chapter allows for two unit developments on single family lots. In addition, ADUs or junior ADUs may be included provided the total number of units does not exceed four. The diagram on the upper right illustrates the various combinations of how these four units might be configured on a property. The second component allows for urban lot splits as described in chapter 519, enabling a single family lot to be subdivided into two parcels. Each of the new parcels must be at least 40% of the original lot and can not be smaller than 1,200 square feet. Each new lot then can accommodate up to two primary units or a combination of a primary unit and an ADU or a junior ADU. Again, up to a maximum of four units total. The diagram on the lower right shows these options. It's also important to note that once a property has been subdivided using SB 9, it's not eligible for additional lot splits in the future. If a project meets the city's objective zoning design standards and subdivision standards, the city must approve it through a ministerial review process, which means it must be approved without a public hearing. The Planning Commission considered the ordinance last month and unanimously recommended that the City Council consider this for approval. And with that, that ends my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Interesting. Well, all right. That makes us stop and think. What questions do you all have? Yeah, trying to wrap around.

I have a question for the for the subdivision maps, right? So like if you have an ADU in your backyard or division, are there any high requirements or setbacks from the neighboring properties?

So this effort did not address ADUs in general, but I can talk about that from my experience. ADU law, state law, has very specific standards with regard to what the setbacks are allowed to be. They're usually four feet from the property line. And with regard to height, the city must allow certain height depending on the configuration of the ADU.

Okay. Sorry for going out of the realm, and I appreciate your answer. Thank you. Because I'm seeing that in some of our properties, they have the ADUs, and they're a little high, and they're right up on the, you know, so I don't know if they're being looked at or monitored, but thank you for answering. I appreciate it.

I have a question about parking, but question, Council Member Guthrie.

I just had a kind of follow-up question with Mayor Putnam. Like with pools and stuff, there's supposed to be a five-foot setback. That doesn't apply to ADUs?

No. The side and rear setbacks cannot exceed. The city can't acquire more than four feet.

Yeah. So my concern with all of this is, Thank you. Okay, fine. That was going to be my question is, what about that parking? I mean, so we allow this. I understand that there are certain things that we have to do, but I'm always concerned about parking and having enough parking space. IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN WORK IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN WORK WITH THAT OR REQUIRE THAT? WITH THAT OR REQUIRE THAT?

MAYOR, IF I COULD JUST MAYOR, IF I COULD JUST QUICKLY RESPOND TO THAT. QUICKLY RESPOND TO THAT. SO WE WILL BE COMING BACK LATER SO WE WILL BE COMING BACK LATER WITH THE UPDATE TO THE ADU WITH THE UPDATE TO THE ADU ORDINANCE. ORDINANCE. AND SO I KNOW PARKING IS AND SO I KNOW PARKING IS SOMETHING THAT WAS BROUGHT UP IN THE SOMETHING THAT WAS BROUGHT UP IN THE PAST, SO THAT WILL BE PART OF PAST, SO THAT WILL BE PART OF THAT PRESENTATION. THAT PRESENTATION. BUT TONIGHT IT'S JUST A that particular ordinance doesn't address parking per se but if you are concerned with adus because you're allowed to do more and we're just simply putting into our ordinance what state law requires so but we can definitely revisit that with the adu ordinance update that will be coming to the planning commission and the council soon okay all right thank you any other questions or do i have a motion

Mayor, this is a public hearing?

This is a public hearing, thank you very much. This is a public hearing. Let me open the public hearing and see if anybody wishes to speak on this item. Please come on down. You will need to fill out a form and go through that whole process and thank you very much.

MY NAME IS, GOOD EVENING, MY NAME IS, GOOD EVENING, MY NAME IS, GOOD EVENING, CITY MANAGER, CITY MANAGER, CITY MANAGER, CHIEF TOLLEY, CHIEF TOLLEY, CHIEF TOLLEY, COUNCIL MEMBERS. COUNCIL MEMBERS. COUNCIL MEMBERS. MY NAME IS MIKE SIMURIO. MY NAME IS MIKE SIMURIO. MY NAME IS MIKE SIMURIO. I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT CITY I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT CITY I'VE BEEN A RESIDENT CITY OF INDO ALL MY LIFE. OF INDO ALL MY LIFE. OF INDO ALL MY LIFE. MY CONCERN IS THE QUESTION MY CONCERN IS THE QUESTION MY CONCERN IS THE QUESTION THAT WAS JUST BROUGHT UP, THAT WAS JUST BROUGHT UP, THAT WAS JUST BROUGHT UP THAT HAS 11 CARS, 11. THIS IS, THIS NEEDS TO REALLY BE LOOKED INTO. I'M SORRY. THERE'S ALSO A HOME THAT'S BEING BUILT IN THE BACKYARD AND IT'S A TWO STORY HOME. RIGHT BEHIND SOMEBODY ELSE'S BACKYARD. CAN'T HAVE THAT. NOT IN OUR CITY.

Thank you for comments.

I think some of this city manager you're gonna say I wonder how much of this is code enforcement and well with regard to some of those vehicles and parking on the yard all our violations that certainly should be reported on the my Indio app would be a great way to do that but as you stated mayor there are many of these regulations now that are coming down from the state that as long as certain requirements are met you can't deny these I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT FOR US TO ADDRESS THE CONCERNS OF TO ADDRESS THE CONCERNS OF PARKING. PARKING. WE CAN ADDRESS WHAT WE CAN AND WE CAN ADDRESS WHAT WE CAN AND THAT WILL COME BACK TO YOU BUT THAT WILL COME BACK TO YOU BUT JUST FOR THOSE THAT MIGHT BE JUST FOR THOSE THAT MIGHT BE LISTENING THERE ARE MANY THINGS LISTENING THERE ARE MANY THINGS THAT CITY COUNCILS AREN'T ABLE THAT CITY COUNCILS AREN'T ABLE TO SAY YAY OR NAY TO BECAUSE THE TO SAY YAY OR NAY TO BECAUSE THE STATE LEGISLATURE HAS TAKEN THAT STATE LEGISLATURE HAS TAKEN THAT AUTHORITY AWAY. AUTHORITY AWAY. ADUS IS ONE OF THOSE EXAMPLES.

Anybody else wish to speak? All right, I'll close the public hearing. And now I will ask for a motion.

I'll motion to approve amendments to Title 15 of the City Subdivision Regulations and Title 17 of the Unified Development Code and determine that the amendments are categorically exempt based on CEQA Guidelines Section 15061.

I have a motion by Council Member Ortiz. Do I have a second by Council Member Miller? Let's go ahead and vote.

Let me get there, there we go.

Well, it passes unanimously. So we have to do what we have to do. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Item number 12.2. Another public hearing resolution number is 105.63, 105.64 and 105.65 review of planning commission recommendations for the Madison Point phase one project to approve the development of three buildings on 3.71 acres consisting of a Starbucks with drive-through, a commercial marketplace with an L3 energy ultra-fast charging station with commercial battery storage and a multi-tenant retail building including circulation, parking, landscape and sign program and a conditional use permit for the approval of one limited land use to allow a drive-through restaurant and a tentative track map to subdivide 20.20 acres consisting of four existing parcels into eight lots for mixed use development located on the south west corner of Highway 111 in Madison within the Highway 111 specific plan. Mr. Halvorson, you're up again.

Yes, Mayor, Mayor Putnam, members of the council. We're gonna have Gustavo Gomez do the presentation tonight for this item, but we are both available throughout for questions.

All right, thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the City Council. For the record, my name is Gustavo Gomez, Principal Planner with the Community Development Department. And the item before you tonight is item 12.2, which is the Madison Point Phase 1 project for case file number Plan PRD 25-0018, Plan CUP 25-0006, and Plan TTM 25-0004. And I'll start off with some quick background on the project. So on November 21st of 2022, the planning commission did approve a master plan development permit for the project. And the Madison point phase one would be the first implementing project out of that permit. On June 19th, 2025, the applicant, Jim Fitzpatrick, an MSA consultant, they submitted planning applications for the architecture design review for four buildings on 4.8 acres for the Madison Point phase one project. And on February 25th of 2026, the Planning Commission did found that, so the project was proposing a car wash, and the Planning Commission found that the car wash did not meet the Highway 111 corridor specific plans vision for place making, that it lacked strong visual identity, and it was mainly more focused on auto-oriented as opposed to pedestrian. So on that meeting, the item was continued so that the applicant could remove the car wash component and then brought back for further review. On March 25th, 2026, the item was continued again to allow staff more time to review the plans that were revised and submitted to staff. And on April 8th, 2026, the Planning Commission did approve Resolution 2129, 2130, and 2131 for the planning review discretionary, the conditional use permit, and the tentative track map, and recommended that the City Council approve the Madison Point Face project. Some of those changes, I'll go over briefly what those are. So initially, they were proposing the development of four buildings, including the car wash, and two limited land use in sub area eight, and then also, a conditional use permit to allow for two drive-throughs. So since then, they have removed the development of the car wash on Pad 3, which I'll go over in a little bit more detail in the following slides. And so to essentially just develop the three pads, two along Highway 111, one on Madison Street, allow one limited land use in South Area 8, and also the conditional use permit for the drive-through. So as you mentioned, the project is located on the southwest corner of Highway 111 and Madison Street. And the project is located to the west and to the south of the existing Walgreens that's there, that's currently there. So the project comprises of a tentative track map and so they're taking four existing parcels and they're subdividing it into eight parcels, seven of them which are for to be developed and then one letter lot that will not be developed and it would be for a future retention basin. So here's just an example of where the proposed development will be as part of phase one. So they are located on parcel three, parcel four, and parcel seven. So the planning review discretionary that the planning commission approved encompasses the commercial retail building, which is, I'm sorry, the commercial multi-tenant retail building, the coffee shop, which is proposed to be a Starbucks, a general retail building with the EV charging and the battery energy storage system, and it also approved the architecture, the pedestrian circulation, landscaping, and the sign program for the project. So here are just some quick renderings of what the elevations are going to look like for the design. So the project is proposing contemporary commercial architecture. It has different colors, materials, and varying heights that create a layered facade. So this elevation here is for the multi-tenant retail building. This one here is for the Starbucks. building and this one is for the L3 energy ultra-fast charging station with the convenience store. So the proposed landscaping, the applicant is proposing lush landscaping, is proposing to incorporate them throughout the site and along sidewalks, and we wanted to show this exhibit showing that they're also gonna include an earth berm closer to Highway 111 so that it shields any headlights from incoming vehicles. THE CONDITIONAL PERMIT, SO ON THE HIGHWAY 111 CORRIDOR SPECIFIC PLAN, IT DOES CONTAIN GUIDELINES FOR AUTO-ORIENTED USES. SO WE JUST WANTED TO MAKE NOTE THAT SO THE TABLE 3.5-1, IT MENTIONS THAT THE CITY COUNCIL CAN ALLOW FOR A DRIVE-THROUGH WITH THE RECOMMENDATION BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION. SO FOR THIS PROJECT, IT WILL BE allowing for the one Starbucks drive-through. So it is the Planning Commission's recommendation that the City Council approve resolution number 10563, resolution 10564, and resolutions 10565 for the planning review discretionary, the conditional use permit application, and the tentative track map for the Madison Point phase one project. That concludes my staff report, and staff and the applicant is here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Before I open the public hearing, does anybody have any questions of staff? I have no specific to this, no public comments. I will open it in a second. Go ahead.

Just a question for staff. Looking at this map, there's a large piece of property behind it, so this has nothing to do with the applicant. Is there access to that property, and is it a different owner? I hate to see in the future a piece of property that's landlocked that would need access through another property to get to it.

So it is a different property owner, and when staff does review any new potential projects for that site, we want to make sure that there is access or some reciprocal access is recorded so that it isn't landlocked.

So we have access off of Young's Lane? That's what we're saying? Okay, thank you.

That is correct, yes, there is access.

There will be. Any other?

I don't believe we have, do we have any other battery storage in the city at this time?

Not at this time, this would be the first.

Okay. And my concern there is just that we've seen some fires in other areas with battery storage or other types of energy storage. And we need to be ready for that kind of issue with our public safety. And also, how do we ensure that these are going to be built responsibly? right with the best safety measures available. So I would like to see what our plan is for that and how do we as a city government ensure the safety of that community around there because of that new potential danger that would be around close to other neighborhoods there. Anything on that? Sorry, I didn't bring this up earlier. Something I just remembered.

If we could both kind of attack it. So we had the same concern, and what we did is we worked very, very closely with the fire department. There are conditions in this permit, Council Member Ortiz, to address that exact concern. I don't know if Gustavo... KNOWS THAT BY HEART BUT THAT IS APPROPRIATELY CONDITIONED IN THE PROJECT AND WE WORKED LIKE I SAID WITH THE FIRE DEPARTMENT DURING THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PROJECT FOR THIS PARTICULAR CONCERN THAT YOU'RE BRINGING UP.

OKAY.

ANYONE ELSE?

I'M GOING TO OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING IN ONE SECOND IF WE'RE After the public hearing, see if there's anybody to speak. All right, then I'm opening up the public hearing. Does anyone wish to speak on this topic? Any comments? Applicant, come on down, please.

My name is Paul Dipilates with MSA Consulting and we've been working with the property owner on this site for about the last five or six years. The staff mentioned about three and a half years ago we had our master plan of development approved which kind of master plan the entire property and this is the the phase one development, sort of implementing that master plan. As staff mentioned, we've had two public hearings with the planning commission. At the second meeting, we removed the car wash feature, which they had some objection to, and we think maybe the council may have had some objection to. to get the land uses and things kind of in the right position to bring forward to you. The only other thing I wanted to mention is that we did submit an owner letter to the Planning Commission to enter into the record that dealt with the IID conditions. Just clarifying the normal process that happens when we go into Final design with them as far as refining the electrical design and things like that that they have the ability to adjust conditions as needed So those are the only thing I believe you were you were given a copy of that Just kind of make sure that's in the record for the council as well That's really all I had to mention were available for questions I think there may be someone from l3 energy on the the zoom call that might have a few comments on those same conditions so I don't know if Jim Fitzpatrick is In the meeting or not

Madam Mayor.

Yes.

There we go. Hi. Excellent. Thank you so much. This is Jim Fitzpatrick for representing both L3 and the Housing Project. To address Councilmember's concerns about BESS, The the new rules and regulations that have gone into place which have been the new code which has been reviewed by fire and the conditions that you see presented to you tonight are almost verbatim from the California Fire Code. They require things like UL listed, which is not an easy achievement, and a large scale burn test. So what the. chosen batteries have to do is go into a test environment set it on fire and make sure that the one unit does not propagate into thermal runaway that you have the appropriate controls measures and safety devices To make sure that it's safe. So I I would say that historically your concerns are accurate, but in today's environment they've kind of figured out how to make make this safe. Regarding the IID conditions. One of the things I would suggest is in order to give the project some certainty, please realize and we we still have to do some work with both IID and the city on this, but the L3 energy has the option if everybody's in agreement to go off grid. And what I mean by that is we wouldn't need an interconnection if that works out. We could do onsite generation through linear generators with the battery storage to supply all of the energy needs of L3. One of the concerns is the conditions as written in a conditional use permit. There's a lot of you must and you shall. and we believe that the iid conditions as written necessarily need to change and will change and what we love is a mechanism that allows for that and it might be just something as simple to say uh unless modified by iid so that way those conditions as written can stay but if they do stay there's not a disruptive process of time and money to come back through some sort of process like a minor conditional use permit to achieve those modifications. So. That's just what I have to say on that number available for questions.

Interesting, fascinating. Very interesting. Any questions? Please.

For the linear generators, have those been approved by the Air Quality Management District for this area? I know they were being tested in Colton fairly recently, but I haven't heard of approvals for this region.

Councilmember, yes. The short answer is yes. They are low NOx. They're energy agnostic, but natural gas would be the most likely input at this point. But you could do hydrogen, ammonia, other things. We don't think it's appropriate at this time, but the answer is yes, they are AQMD approved. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions? My question is obviously you've done your best to fine tune it to come to this point. I would just like your assurance because we have a lot of special areas in our city and this is another one, is make sure the property is maintained and the expectations of the public would be pleased with what we see.

Absolutely, I mean, the last thing we want if we get people coming in or businesses coming in would be to have an unclean site. So we want to make sure it's well presented for the city and for the future tenants on the property and the public.

So specifically what Councilman Oscar Ortiz was talking about the safety of that facility and its purpose and enlightenment that it would be just as good as some of the other nice places that have been developed like in Irvine and so forth. So that's what I'm looking forward to.

Certainly, I mean, I'm not sure what you have in mind, but the plans are presented here and this is the intent as far as what would be built as far as the attractiveness of the facility. It won't be anything different than what you see on the screen here. All right.

Okay.

Oscar, are you good with? The whole battery storage? The whole battery storage and the generators. I don't have a problem with being off the grid. as long as it can be controlled and they have the safety measures to be able to take anything down that might have a negative impact.

The linear generators, yeah, I've been watching that technology for a while. I think it is a good technology for low emissions, even when it's on natural gas, the reduction in emissions is pretty impressive. And we can say that because of the studies from AQMD, right? If it wasn't safer to be around those communities, it wouldn't have gotten approved there. On the battery storage, I think one of the concerns that I've heard from other areas is who's assembling these things? Are they trained well enough? Because that's one of the concerns in one of the fires recently was that it wasn't done by people that were trained trained well enough to be installing those things that there was errors that possibly were made that led to those fires. And so would this, I guess, who are your partners when you're looking at that kind of battery installation and battery work?

Yeah, that would probably be a question Jim would be better positioned to answer. Jim, are you there?

Paul, can you hear me?

Yes, no, we can.

Excellent, thank you. Thank you, Council Member, for the question. So yeah, L3 is the former CEO of Rove, R-O-V-E, several installations and a thought leader and subject matter expert on the introduction of batteries. One of the challenges when you do ultra-fast EV charging at scale is, you're not just sticking vending machines for electrons in a parking lot, right? You're doing EV charging at scale. And one of those requirements is in order to be profitable, you need to either have in a grid constrained environment, a solution where you can trickle it in when demand is low and supply when it's high. or defeating energy pricing schemes when during time of use pricing or to prevent demand charges from spikes and things. It's just to balance it all out. It's a necessity. L3 is a subject matter expert. They have partnered with the individuals that train the fire marshals across the state as their subject matter expert to not only craft the necessary safety documents that will be reviewed by by fire but then the implementation is l3 is an epc it's itself the ceo is an experienced contractor so we agree with some of the concerns but i believe that l3 energy is a top of the food chain with Uh, one of the most knowledgeable teams regarding it, the person that will be managing this is a, uh, has experience in, in, uh, developing building and managing batteries for Amazon. So it's a team of subject matter experts. And if you need any further clarification, I'm happy to do so.

That gives you more a measure of this is an educational for me measure of, um, security comfort.

Yeah.

Okay. If I could, Brian, we have two other parts of it. So on this battery, do we have the, from fire they've ridden off on it, do we have the equipment? I mean, battery fires are a little bit different than normal fires too. Do we have the equipment they feel comfortable if something does happen, that fire is able to react to it?

Yes, they have during the pre-consultation for the project and during just conditioning and working with fire department. Yeah, they were fine with that.

Okay, and then secondly, this is technically not a real automotive use because this is an electrical charger net. They do not have the opportunity on this to bring an automotive use into this plan, I take it? I THINK THAT'S INTERESTING. I THINK THE APPLICANT CAN SPEAK I THINK THE APPLICANT CAN SPEAK ON THAT.

ON THAT. THEY'RE STILL LOOKING AT THAT THEY'RE STILL LOOKING AT THAT EMPTY SPACE, WHAT TO BRING IN, EMPTY SPACE, WHAT TO BRING IN, AND THAT WOULD REQUIRE SEPARATE AND THAT WOULD REQUIRE SEPARATE REVIEW, COME BACK TO PLANNING REVIEW, COME BACK TO PLANNING COMMISSION, AND POTENTIALLY BACK COMMISSION, AND POTENTIALLY BACK TO THE COUNCIL IF IT'S ONE OF TO THE COUNCIL IF IT'S ONE OF THOSE LIMITED LAND USES, BUT THOSE LIMITED LAND USES, BUT RIGHT NOW WE'RE TOLD THEY DON'T

Yeah, I mean, I think we heard the writing on the wall about automotive uses. So I suspect that if that were to come back to commission council, likely it would be denied. So I suspect they'll be looking at other sorts of uses to put on those properties.

Yeah, from Mathis Brothers all the way down to Jefferson, we have higher aspirations to put into that area there to bring it up to what we have like in downtown. We want to start investing there as much as we do that. And it comes from Mathis Brothers back.

Yeah. It's always obviously subject to what the market will. Very true. They obviously have criterion for what will locate where and things like that. And that's the challenge is finding the right one for this particular spot.

We're more than happy to help you.

That's right. There's no automotive uses, correct?

Before we move forward, I want to thank you for bringing this to us. We've all been looking forward to this area being developed and also working with the council, excuse me, the planning commission on the automotive deal. You know, we're passionate about that, and so we appreciate that. And the only other thing I have is... I don't want to take away from anyone's rights of freedom of speech, but when folks are coming on our Zoom, please be cognizant of what's in your living room or behind you. There's something very offensive on there, and I don't appreciate it. So let's make sure that we're cognizant of our Zoom when we come into this space. So I appreciate that no further.

All right, on that note, I want to close the public hearing. Good conversation. Council, what is the pleasure? Did you want to come up? I'll open the public hearing again. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments.

Apologies, Mayor and Council, I was waiting for him to finish. Thank you for letting me speak. I'M A RESIDENT OF DISTRICT FOUR. I USE THAT STATER BROTHERS. I USE THAT AMERICA'S TIRES. I GO TO NEAL'S. ONE THING I WOULD REALLY LOVE FOR THIS DEVELOPMENT I'M REALLY HAPPY FOR IS TO JUST REALLY LOOK AT SOME MAKING IT MORE WALKABLE FOR THE TWO NEIGHBORHOODS ON THE NORTH AND SOUTH OF IT. I THINK MAKING IT SO WHERE WE CAN JUST KIND OF WALK TO A GOOD COFFEE SHOP, THAT'S NOT STARBUCKS. THAT'S NOT STARBUCKS. I REALLY DON'T, I'M NOT A FAN I REALLY DON'T, I'M NOT A FAN OF STARBUCKS. OF STARBUCKS. I LOVE WHAT WE'VE DONE IN I LOVE WHAT WE'VE DONE IN DOWNTOWN LOCALLY INVESTING IN DOWNTOWN LOCALLY INVESTING IN VERY ARTISANAL COFFEE SHOPS. IN VERY ARTISANAL COFFEE SHOPS. THAT WOULD BE MY ONLY CRITIQUE OF THAT WOULD BE MY ONLY CRITIQUE OF THIS, BUT I THINK THIS IS THIS, BUT I THINK THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE INDIO AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE INDIO EVEN MORE WALKABLE OF A CITY EVEN MORE WALKABLE OF A CITY BY INVESTING IN SHADED SIDEWALKS BY

And at that point, I will close the public hearing. Yes, sir.

Yes. Question I have before we close the public hearing potentially for the applicant is I would feel more comfortable with the battery storage knowing that there was a project labor agreement for unionized workers that we know are gonna be well-trained to work on that facility, that I think would bring safety, a bigger measure of safety for this project. Would the council be willing to entertain that? For the batteries only? Yeah.

I'm good with that.

I'm good with that since it's the first one. If the applicant's more apt to do it, I'm good with it.

I think that'd be a safer way to move forward with our first battery facility. Make sure it's right.

Yeah.

And make sure it's just for the batteries. Yeah, just for the batteries. I'm good with that.

Just for the batteries. Yep, for the batteries.

Is there no way to vet the people that are going to be working on this instead of adding that requirement, though? I guess that would be my question.

I don't know. They'll be up to City Attorney O'Brien to see if there's some way of around it. This is just a simple way of just saying that installation would be done by professionals in the union trade for that specific matter only.

There are other professionals out there as well. So I guess, you know, I don't want to leave them out of the process either. So what would that process look like?

SO IF THE QUESTION IS CAN THE CITY COUNCIL, CAN I DRAFT, I CITY COUNCIL, CAN I DRAFT, I GUESS, A CONDITION OF APPROVAL GUESS, A CONDITION OF APPROVAL THAT REQUIRES A PROJECT LABOR THAT REQUIRES A PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENT FOR THE BATTERY AGREEMENT FOR THE BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE PORTION OF THE ENERGY STORAGE PORTION OF THE PROJECT, THE ANSWER IS YES, WE PROJECT, THE ANSWER IS YES, WE COULD DRAFT THAT. COULD DRAFT THAT. MY RECOMMENDATION WOULD BE YOU MY RECOMMENDATION WOULD BE YOU WOULD HAVE THE APPLICANT ON THE WOULD HAVE THE APPLICANT ON THE RECORD ACCEPT THAT CONDITION OF RECORD that qualified personnel are working on it, anyone engaging in the trades in the states can be required to have an appropriate contractor's license. So that already exists in theory under state law. I think that when you have a project labor agreement, you have that additional level of oversight, and I think that's what the council member was kind of going for. Okay.

All right. Mayor Pro Temo?

I KNOW. I'M TRYING TO GATHER MY I KNOW. I'M TRYING TO GATHER MY THOUGHTS RIGHT NOW.

THOUGHTS RIGHT NOW. MAYOR, THE OTHER THING WAS I MAYOR, THE OTHER THING WAS I DID HEAR SOME DISCUSSION ABOUT DID HEAR SOME DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS OFF-GRID OPTION THAT WAS THIS OFF-GRID OPTION THAT WAS PROPOSED BY THE APPLICANT. PROPOSED BY THE APPLICANT. I CAN DRAFT A CONDITION OF I CAN DRAFT A CONDITION OF APPROVAL RELATED TO THAT AS WELL APPROVAL RELATED TO THAT AS WELL IF THAT WAS THE DIRECTION OF IF THAT WAS THE DIRECTION OF THE COUNCIL. THE COUNCIL.

YOU MEAN BY A CONDITION OF YOU MEAN BY A CONDITION OF APPROVAL?

APPROVAL? SO THERE ARE WHEN I Conditions 45 through 57 in both resolutions 10563 and 10564 relate to electrical requirements and IID interconnection. And so what I understood the applicant was discussing, and this is the first time I've heard of this, so I'm kind of working on the fly here, was a request that the council consider a additional condition of approval that essentially exempts the project from those electrical requirements if they go completely off grid with the battery electric storage portion of the project. And so if that was something the council wanted to direct that we do, I would just ask that you make it explicit so that we can get that on the record and include that as well. We can do that.

I don't know if the applicants is, but I don't have a problem with being off the grid. It's going to take a while for IID to be able to get those substations up and going. We don't know how long. We have some areas that are off the grid that are able to get to power in a certain area. I have no problem with that personally because I think it's going to be a long haul trying to get the rest of these substations up. We're already behind on the one we have. It'll go up, but then we've got two more on that side before we ever get towards Madison and further down.

We're two years out, aren't we?

Two, yeah. Essentially what I'd recommend, obviously it will probably be a little bit longer, but what I would recommend that that condition do is if the applicant does elect to go off grid, that they would be required to submit revised site utility and electrical plans, with load calculations to the Community Development Director that demonstrates that it'll be operating independently of the IID service, that the off-grid design would eliminate the need for the substation expansion, feeder, line extension, easements, right-of-ways, and dedications, and that all the applicable building and fire codes and other codes will be complied with. I think I'll probably need to make that a little bit longer, but I think that's what the applicant was maybe asking the Council to consider. So maybe those two conditions, we could ask the applicant if you're okay with the off-grid option, are they okay with the project labor agreement option? And if they're okay with those, we can get those drafted and included in the council's approval.

All right, so I'll open the public hearing again and bring the applicant back up. Public hearing is open. Please come on up.

YES, AS FAR AS THE OFF-GRID OPTION GOES, I THINK THEY WOULD APPRECIATE THAT IF WE COULD ADD THAT. I'D LIKE TO LET THEM RESPOND ON THE LABOR AGREEMENT QUESTION ON THE BATTERIES. CERTAINLY WE ALL WANT TO HAVE THESE DONE QUALITY AND MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS DONE CORRECTLY. BUT LET ME ASK THEM TO RESPOND TO THAT PARTICULAR ONE.

OKAY.

MADAM MAYOR, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

YES, WE CAN.

EXCELLENT. THANK YOU. SO AS FAR AS THE OFF-GRID, ALL WE'RE LOOKING FOR THERE IS THE OPTIONALITY. As the IID conditions are written, I don't think anything gets built. I mean the the early estimates of costs are substantial as it's written and I would recommend the entire project be allowed the flexibility to have that modified without the necessity to come back for other discretionary reviews it's just that was a first draft by iid and i think everyone involved knows that it will change but because of the stage that we're in it's uncertain now so conditions of approval that say you must and you shall must and shall be followed unless modified right so that's why i say just some language for that that says unless as modified by iid i think gives the broader project the necessary flexibility moving forward as far as the pla i would be unable to commit to to that tonight that's late breaking uh hasn't been thought about from uh we're not aware of who those subject matter experts are never work with them what this is already a very costly project and don't have the ability to understand what, if any, incremental costs there were. And just would remind the Council that this has a lot of belt and suspenders associated with it. The authorities having jurisdiction rigorously vet this at so many different levels, and I would rather set the standards for safety than than require who might provide the work for that but at this stage without having any uh knowledge of some of those variables and considerations i don't think that the um organization uh i'm not approved to uh make such a an agreement at this point okay okay and you're being awfully quiet mayor protein

And so do we need to have, thank you, that discussion around whether we insist on the labor agreement or not?

That and also off the grid. I mean, he talked about, you know, hitting them off the thing with the labor. He hit us off the thing with being off the grid, too. I mean, you know, we're looking at it as a possibility for them to be able to utilize that. That wasn't something that was brought to us up front either. But we do it on the fly. In other words, we think it's a good thing to be able to do it if they can do it. They haven't told us how they would do it either. And we're talking about allowing them to do it if they can come up with a plan at work.

But I think that the caveat of having the requirements and standards, I mean, I guess I'm more comfortable with that without having to use a project labor agreement, right? Have the standards established. That would be my approach. I want to close a public hearing unless anyone else wishes to speak. All right, I think we're probably ready to make a motion. And I'm going to ask the council, what is the pleasure of the council? Mayor Pro Tem would do it.

Well, I would actually motion to table this until we can get, you know, they can go back to their team, talk about the project labor agreement, which to me would give me more confidence in the safety of this project, because we know that our union trades are certified trained and there's a lot better oversight on those types of projects in my opinion that we can guarantee a strong oversight on that type of building but also give our staff time to go look at the linear generators that they brought up and the air quality like i mentioned i wasn't even sure that those were approved here for our city i know that they've been looked at but you know if you're going to have power generation from natural gas next to neighborhoods i think our team should go back and look at that as well and have a little bit more time to make sure that these are going to be safe to be next to those neighborhoods even taking into account noise right that might come from generate power generation that close to neighborhoods there so I would motion to actually table this until the next meeting to give us time to consider some of those impacts.

All right. I have a motion to table this till the next meeting to look at impacts. Do I have a second?

You second? He seconded.

I second. All right. Let's go ahead and vote.

So, Mayor, the public hearing's closed. The item will be continued to the next meeting. That's what's on the table.

That's what the motion is.

Okay. And if he could, Madam Mayor, could Oscar clarify what he actually wants staff to do so we know that it comes back? What are you asking staff to do?

I think maybe look at what the research has been through the Air Quality Management District as far as linear generators. What are the impacts? Is there noise impacts? What are the air quality impacts? Because again, this is very likely going to be natural gas power generation. These new generators, from what I know, have significantly reduced the amount of smog that's produced when you're using natural gas for power generation. And I believe that's why the Air Quality Management District is now approving these to be used in neighborhoods. generation wasn't allowed besides emergency backup for a long time, right? This is something new, but it's also gonna, I think, you know, if we're able to move forward with this project, possibly others, it's gonna give us flexibility now. where if we know that iid isn't going to be building power in an area for 10 years or however long it is then we have another option for power generation but i do think we need to understand what are the risks and impacts with that new technology before we approve the project and by the batteries and being near the battery system or are you worried just about the noise and the actual generation the noise and the power generation. What are the air quality impacts, noise impacts, and anything else that we need to consider for that new type of technology coming into our city?

And if I might, Mayor, I think it's a great question to clarify exactly what staff's required or asked to do. I don't know if we have staff members with that expertise, but I'm doubting that we do. And so what we would likely do is rely on the analyses provided by AQMD. So it'd be more of... talking to them and not necessarily our analysis but would be theirs i just don't think we have the expertise that's a great idea i think bringing them into the conversation potentially having them you know come in and report to us as well what they're seeing with this new technology i hope i don't sound abrupt but if they don't approve it or authorize it it couldn't happen anyway so it's part of the process as it is nothing wrong with looking at it again from their perspective but If you had approved it tonight, not tabled it, and it was moving forward, it would not proceed unless AQMD allowed it. Yes. So we kind of know the answer to the question.

That's true, but there's a difference between what's allowed and understanding the impacts, right? Because maybe there's a certain amount of noise that they consider allowable that wouldn't be acceptable to us.

Let's see what they say. We're happy to ask them, certainly. And just as a clarification of the substations, I don't want to take tons of time, but we do know that the Dr. Carrion station is probably the closest and would likely serve here. But as we've talked in the past, just because a substation might be at Dr. Carrion and Monroe it would then offload a lot of areas that existing tapping into a substation that's actually closer to this Madison site. So just because one isn't gonna be built there or is built that far away, it may actually provide capacity near this. So this 196 MVA that's coming to the community over the next, call it two years, year and a half to two years, There is a cost to get to that capacity, but it's essentially system-wide. Just wanted to remind everybody of that.

Yeah, I know it's system-wide. The only problem with that is, too, if we can keep the power up in that other area. Where we're building is up on the top. There's not a lot other than the mall and some other areas down here that are going to utilize that kind of power. But up on top, the retreat, the new Syntex homes, if Peltier builds those. The rest of, if we're talking about B and H, those are all things that are going to use power up there that it'd be easier to take the power from that top spot than it would be to try and blend it all together. So that's my only concern about that. And if he's off the grid, that's it. If he can be on the grid, but just with IID, how many times has IID told me they're going to be done with something than that? And here we are today with no power except for the city of Indio decided to to invest 70 to $90 million in it. If not, we wouldn't be talking about this. So thank you.

Okay, I have a motion and I have a second. Let's go ahead and vote.

I need one more vote, Mayor. Thank you.

Okay, motion passes three to two.

Brian Overson, I'd like to say thank you for letting Gustavo present. I think this might be the first and the second. So thank you. Okay.

And on that note, we do have some public comments that I'd like to bring some folks up to speak here. The first request to speak is Bill Young and Major Neil Navarro from the Salvation Army.

My name is Bill Young. I am the vice chair of the advisory board for the only Salvation Army in the entire Coachella Valley. And we serve the entire Coachella Valley. On October 22nd, we are going to celebrate our 20th anniversary of being in the facility that we are located in. And we are looking to grow all of the programs and support that we provide to the Valley. We have a number of children's programs, social service programs, and special veterans programs. One thing I'm going to throw in here, too, is that we're looking to bring the Veterans Expo back to the city of Indio. in next year. And for those who don't remember, before the pandemic, we drew 1,500 people to the Riverside County Fairgrounds to honor veterans. So I'm going to hand out a sheet that shows you all of the different things that we do and introduce Major Neil DeVaro, who is the officer in charge. The clerk. Shine it to us.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR. MAYOR PROTEM AND MEMBERS MAYOR PROTEM AND MEMBERS MAYOR PROTEM AND MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. OF THE COUNCIL. OF THE COUNCIL. AND AS BILL ALLUDED TO ALREADY, AND AS BILL ALLUDED TO ALREADY, AND AS BILL ALLUDED TO ALREADY, WE ARE HAVING OUR UPCOMING WE ARE HAVING OUR UPCOMING WE ARE HAVING OUR UPCOMING ACTUALLY THIRD ANNUAL GALA. ACTUALLY THIRD ANNUAL GALA. ACTUALLY THIRD ANNUAL GALA. AND WE'RE JUST SEEKING SUPPORT AND WE'RE JUST SEEKING SUPPORT AND WE'RE JUST SEEKING SUPPORT FROM THE CITY. FROM THE CITY. FROM THE CITY. WE'RE ACTUALLY AND THAT JUST SPEAKS, YOU KNOW, VOLUME BECAUSE WE BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE SERVED AND WILL CONTINUE TO SERVE THE PEOPLE OF THE COACHELLA VALLEY. WE ARE CELEBRATING, BUT YET WE'RE ANTICIPATING. ANTICIPATING TO DO MORE SERVICES FOR FOR FAMILIES, INDIVIDUALS, SENIORS, VETERANS, AND YOUTH. AND, YOU KNOW, AS THE DOCUMENT IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE, I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S GOING TO BE REVIEWED RIGHT NOW OR LATER, BUT I'D LIKE YOU TO JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THAT AND JUST, AGAIN, WE WOULD LIKE YOUR SUPPORT TO, AGAIN, BECAUSE THE SALVATION ARMY WOULD LOVE TO DO MORE. JUST CELEBRATING BUT I THINK THE WORD IS ANTICIPATING TO DO MORE, MORE OF WHAT WE DO FOR THE COMMUNITY, FOR THOSE AROUND US. SO AGAIN, THANK YOU. I KNOW THE MAYOR MENTIONED SOMETHING ABOUT EARLIER HOW THIS COUNCIL WORKS TOGETHER AND THEIR DESIRE IS TO DO THE BEST FOR THE COMMUNITY. AND I BELIEVE THAT IS THE SAME THAT WE ARE AN ORGANIZATION THAT WOULD LIKE TO DO. Again, thank you for your support. Thank you for all that you do in this community. And we would just like to seek for your partnership as we anticipate the next coming years. We would actually like to have, you know, we have our 20 years, but we would like to plan five more years to see what we could do more of the many things that we are already doing in the Valley. So thank you again for your support and all that you do. Thank you. Thank you, Major.

Thank you. And I just want to let you and everyone know as well that we do have a grant. City of Indio has a grant application program. So if you go on to indio.org, you can apply for that grant as well. And that's a good way to start the process. All right. Thank you.

All right. Mayor, I just wanted to say that the Salvation Army, even though they're in Cathedral City, have worked well with our quality of life. And they've also helped us with a lot of veterans that end up at La Melinda.

We're hugely aware and a big fan of the Salvation Army. Absolutely. Thank you again. Next request to speak, I believe it looks like Jose Hines. And in what way? What your name is? It's Josh. Josh. Sorry, Josh. Gotcha.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. and I advocate for the autism community. That intersects with my job at Visit Greater Palm Springs. There, I advocate for our autism initiative where we ask businesses and organizations to take training and earn certification about autism so that they can better serve those on the autism spectrum and their families. This builds understanding and empathy to create a more accommodating, inclusive community that autistic individuals and their families feel more supported by. Once an organization gets 80% of their staff members trained, they are designated a certified autism center. Just recently, Friends of the Desert Mountains did that, so Councilmember Ortiz knows what that's all about. Earlier, Chris Pickering was here. He's done that with Pickering events as well. They have joined over 30 organizations across this valley that allowed us at Visit Greater Palm Springs to earn what's called a Certified Autism Destination designation. And that meant that we had reached certain benchmarks to have certain organizations, numbers of them, and then we earned that designation. What I'm here today to ask of you is to join us in that effort. There are other cities that have gotten their organization, that would mean all their city employees, to become certified autism centers. So that's La Quinta, Indian Wells, Cat City, I should know them all, Cat City, Palm Springs as well, and Palm Desert. So I came here today because I did this exact same thing to those cities. I just came to the public comment section and just ask you to consider doing that for your staff members and joining us in this effort to make the valley autism-friendly and accessible to those on the spectrum. And after you do that, because I'm hoping you're going to, I'm going to ask that you create a grant fund for your businesses in the city to do that, set aside, because it does cost. Set a grant fund aside. help them pay for the cost, you know, just maybe half the cost, something like that. But I'm happy to talk about this. I know most of you. I see you all the time. So I can answer questions or we can talk about it later because it's almost 745. But I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it and hope you guys will join us.

Thank you. We can have that discussion at a later time. The next request to speak is Daryl Bellows. And I just want to remind everyone for the request to speak, it's three minutes.

Thanks for having me back. I have warned this council three times since January that your plan to address federal immigration enforcement would be woefully ineffective. One of you stared out the window. The rest of you glazed over until my comment time expired. All of you refused to place data-driven community needs above your political careers. Since the passing of Resolution 10548, Indio has suffered four federal immigration detainments. I pointed out that Section 5 is a loophole that allows IPD to assist with federal immigration enforcement at their unchecked discretion and therefore a codified green light for anyone claiming to be federal agents to abduct civilians from Indio streets without question. Despite the absence of data to support a need to protect IPD officers from encounters with federal agents, you turned Councilman Ortiz's question about responding to illegal arrests into a good old boy conversation about protecting your own. going as far as expressing blind faith that this ICE lynch mob will reform itself. You all have far too much education and experience to be that naive. This council takes no issue with IPD flying a drone over our barrios at night to intimidate Hispanic Latino residents on Instagram about fireworks, with being the only Valley City to allow a detainment on a public school campus, Jefferson Middle School, with Indio's detainment total soaring toward double digits since the start of Trump's second term. This chamber is 1.6 miles away from a border patrol office that has carried out two mass deportation operations in the past century. 18 people have died in U.S. detention centers since January 1st, 2026. You're all highly intelligent and highly capable council members. Make an inference. Where do you think all this is going? Let the record show confirmed federal immigration detainments allowed in Indio by this council. and police department for the following dates in the past six months. November 5th, December 19th, January 12th, January 12th, February 10th, March 26th, May 12th, May 12th, May 12th. You've all ignored the pleas of the public in order to protect your own careers. Framed the civil rights emergency as minor inconvenience and made it glaringly clear that you see our 68% Hispanic Latino population as an afterthought. Thank you.

Okay, next request to speak, Jonathan Becerra.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council. I will also be speaking about the recent ice activity. I am a local organizer and community investigator in regards to where ice is. We like to keep track of our community to have safe routes home. The fact that we have to do that is abysmal. However, I do have hope that we all can connect with the humanity and what is going on. So that's why I look to you guys in this moment. Anecdotally, my neighbor's friend just last night was taken. Just seeing videos even of today on the Jackson shopping corridor of ICE patrolling, approaching people. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this. I really would look for you guys to really help us out here because this is going bad quick. We do need assistance. I think the city of Inyo has the ability to figure this out. I do have faith in you guys and the way you guys responded to us. Maybe it wasn't what everyone would hope, but it was better than I think 90% of the country because everyone came to the table. What came from that, you know, what is what came from it, but I think we have the ability to connect with each other's humanity on this, and I really would ask you guys to do what you can to help facilitate safer routes home, better ways for us to live our lives, which means going to grocery stores, going to school games, going to school. for people who are scared right now, because they are back and they are doing their thing. So please do what you can. That's what I would ask. Thank you.

Next request to speak, Steve Figueroa.

First of all, as an advocate for families...

Excuse me, sir, if you can introduce yourself.

Oh, thank you. Steve Figueroa. I'm an advocate for families with children with disabilities. I really like that guy, Joss, man. Like what he said. Anyway, but I love the dialogue, that education workshop on the batteries, man. WOW, I'M GOING TO GO BACK AND LISTEN TO IT SECONDS OR TIMES, BUT THOSE ARE THE SAME ARGUMENTS I THINK I BROUGHT UP WHEN I CAME ON THE GAS STATIONS, THE SAFETY ISSUES, AND EVERYTHING ELSE, AND PUTTING THEM IN THE WRONG LOCATION. I'VE BEEN TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION, I'VE BEEN WATCHING WHAT'S GOING ON, AND THEY'VE ADOPTED SOME THINGS LIKE OKAY, NOT NEAR PARKS, BUT CHURCHES SEEM TO BE OKAY, AND SCHOOLS SEEM TO BE OKAY. So you really need to put a moratorium on the gas stations and have them go back and look at it again to say, hey, some of the very same arguments you were making to say on the batteries are the same arguments that I brought up on the gas station. You really need to do that moratorium on it. And to look at, I mean, I suggested to say, if you wanna see a city done right, go to Irvine. They don't have a gas station on every corner. They don't have it. They really took time to plan and look at that. So you gotta create, it's not saying that you're not doing a great job. I mean, I've never seen a council that works so harmoniously But that is something I would really encourage just to put an outright moratorium on it. I have yet to see one person since this issue is brought up, come up and speak in favor and say, we need more blight. We need more gas stations on every corner, which I said before are basically liquor stores, right? That's where all the kids are buying their drugs and buying their huffing and the extra caffeine and causing a lot of law enforcement problems because there hasn't even really been a good safety or the AQMD, how this is going to impact this area. Because it's just going to take a couple of complaints to say, you know what, all that gas going in here, into the air, it's causing problems. So I would hope that you reconsider that and just say, you know what, we need to postpone that decision. We need to send it back and to do a lot more studying on it and continue the moratorium. Thank you.

Okay. And that ends the request to speak. And on that note, okay, come on down. SURE. GOOD EVENING, AGAIN.

GOOD EVENING, AGAIN.

GOOD EVENING, AGAIN. MY NAME IS MICHAEL ZMUDIO.

MY NAME IS MICHAEL ZMUDIO. MY NAME IS MICHAEL ZMUDIO. RESIDENT, CITY OF INDIO. RESIDENT, CITY OF INDIO. RESIDENT, CITY OF INDIO. IN REFERENCE TO THE INDIO IN REFERENCE TO THE INDIO IN REFERENCE TO THE INDIO SPORTS PARK, I HOPE THAT WE, SPORTS PARK, I HOPE THAT WE, SPORTS PARK, I HOPE THAT WE, AS A CITY, AS A COUNCIL, AS A CITY, AS A COUNCIL, AS A CITY, AS A COUNCIL, CAN GET THE, CAN GET THE, WHAT WAS IT CALLED? THE SPORTS PARK MASTER PLANT. BECAUSE I WENT BY THERE LAST NIGHT ON MY WAY HOME. IT WAS ONLY ABOUT 6.37. THE PARKING LOT WAS FULL. THERE WAS KIDS PLAYING SOCCER. THERE WERE KIDS THROWING FOOTBALL. THERE WAS A SOFTBALL GAME GOING ON. AND WHEN I DROVE BY THE SECOND TIME, THE WATER WAS HOT. SO I HOPE TO GET THAT TAKEN CARE OF AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. ON ANOTHER NOTE, BACK IN APRIL OF 2025, I SUBMITTED A COMMUNITY PETITION SIGNED BY RESIDENTS AND STAKEHOLDERS REQUESTING THE INSTALLATION OF AN ADDITIONAL NORTH INDIOS SIGN AT THE INTERSECTION OF JACKSON AND 45. WE HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY RESPONSE, WHICH IS WHY I'M HERE TONIGHT, TO RESPECTFULLY FOLLOW UP AND ASK FOR AN UPDATE. THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT I WANT TO SAY. I DON'T HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THE DETAILS, BUT WE'D JUST LIKE AN UPDATE AS TO WHAT'S HAPPENING, WHAT HAS HAPPENED, AND WE'D LIKE TO GET AN ANSWER. THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

All right.

Okay. And on that note, it is seven, I'm sorry? Come on, you get one last chance.

We have the public comment at the end of the meetings. We maybe move it to the middle or something. It's a long, long meeting. I know, I know you do. That's the reason.

Thank you. That's right. Mayor's discretion. Okay. Are you sure? All right. It's 7.53. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for staying until the end. Thank you for your patience. The meeting is adjourned.