City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to City Council meeting for September 15th, 2026. I'm Mayor Patricia Sock-Dawson and I will call our meeting to order. And we will start our meeting with public comment. But I did want to announce we are having some issues with our voting system still, I believe. Isn't that correct? So Council, we're going to have to do, I think, raise hands or roll call. And the city clerk will prompt us when it comes to that point. Yeah. Well, no. I think your speak button I can see still. And now it wasn't? OK.

I can see it, but you can't see it.

Yeah. So now I got, Philip, did you put yourself up there for just to test it? No. Okay, all right, good. I'm going to clear that then. So we've got, so just stay tuned on that. We need to get that fixed, and it's coming, but we will start our meeting today with public comment, and this is for items in our closed session and any matters within the jurisdiction of the city council.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right, thank you. We have a few requests to speak in chambers, so we will start with those. First, I have Ruben Greg Soto.

Good afternoon, mayor and City Council. It says it states in the Bible, all evil done to me turn to God's good. Child support. How many people in California don't pay their child support? Exact number for total individual. People in California who do not pay child support are not officially published as a single headcount by the state. But, however, state records are reporting to show that massive scale of debt surrounding unpaid child support, the financial impact of unpaid debt, total debt owed, California parents owe an outstanding balance of roughly $18.4 billion in overdue child support. Old debt, more than $11 billion of that total is considered old backlog debt. Who the money is owed to is about $11.6 billion to owed directly to families, while other $6.8 billion owed to the government. Okay, now, all the abuse, why am I paying child support? Why am I so fucking special, excuse me, so special? Okay, somebody ain't doing their damn job. Now in the Bible it says about incest, they say Adam and Eve are distant parents, mother and father. So it's against the law to have incest and it's against the law in the Bible to have incest. So I told you I would rip that Bible apart and these Christians, what they did would be kicking me out and being mean to me. It's abuse nowadays. I'm not Jesus. I'm a human being. So now they get their payback. We're all having incest. Adam and Eve, they say, is our parents. So be it. Enjoy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Soto. All right, next I have Errol Kosiewicz.

Hi guys, nice to see you again.

Can I use the overhead projector, guys?

I wanted to go through some purchase orders today, guys. I had to get some new bifocals to actually look at you guys now. Stealing all this money makes me go blind that you guys have done. But I'm going to go through a couple purchase orders up here right now. We purchased 18 interceptors for over a million dollars. I actually want to see these trucks. I'm gonna be asking for to see these trucks That's how bad it is. We we have so many problems here guys. I actually want to see fleet services where these trucks are and And what you guys are doing with them. I mean, when you write up a contract, I can read the contract off. It's going to fleet maintenance, wherever it's going to. I mean, it's just the contracts that are written up and the purchase orders are written up. Somebody has to be held accountable for this. And then you approve this purchase order. It's just insanity. Okay. Can you flip the second page? I only got three minutes, so I wanted to go through this. Now, these are credit cards that you guys have purchased to your city employees. Now, I want to go through this because I have over 700 of these purchase cards that you guys have received. This is the first one I got. Well, I've got back a lot of other ones, but this is the first one that I've got back that I've looked into, actually. Now, we provide city employees to travel throughout the United States. I got that. I got that. I got that. But to provide $800 on a credit card, for National Recreations and Parks Conference is crazy, okay? Another $800, and I have 700. I'm going to be asking for copies of every city employee with these credit cards. And I have, I think it's over 700 of them. So I'm going to be asking for that pretty soon. I got nothing to do right now. I'm more pissed off than anything. Just looking at all this money, it's made me mentally ill, guys. We need to have some accountability. Government employees aren't better than the taxpayers that pay them. You guys made this kind of personal with me, and this is insanity, okay? That's all I want to say. A government employee should not be like this, and the people that pay for this is down here on the bottom, the way they're treated, okay? $800, this is one credit card for one month in a conference in Virginia. It shows it right there, you guys. It's right there. I have over 700 of these I'm going to ask for public records for it. We have a lot of problems here. I'm asking for my president to look into this.

Thank you, Mr. Cox. You have a good day. All right, next I have Marcella Cook.

Welcome, Ms. Cook. Thank you. I have my new passion, which is riding e-bikes. So I was really sad that you guys might consider removing them from the river trail.

Are you commenting on the e-bikes item? Yes. Okay, that is not until a little later on.

Okay, didn't know that because I've not done this before.

So this is for general public comment, any items within the jurisdiction, and then also closed session items as well.

Okay, so when can I speak?

I actually think that item is going to get pulled. Is it? It's going to get continued. Okay.

So I just need to watch for the next council meeting. Yeah.

I think it will be continued so you can pay attention to that. Okay. We haven't made that decision yet. Okay. I'm just saying. I'm here, right? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Cook. We appreciate that. Is it at 615? We'll be considering it tonight. Okay. Let me see. Do we have any speakers online? Okay. Do we have any speakers online? Okay, so we have no more additional requests to speak, so we'll close public comment and move on to item number two. This is our council member and mayor communications. So I'll start, as I always do, with Council Member Falcone and an update from Ward 1.

Thank you, Mayor. Last week, we completed a town hall tour where we had six town halls in 12 days, and it was a world win. And I'm happy I came out alive on the other end of it. And I want to thank, in particular, our Fire Department Chief McKinster and Battalion Chief Reynolds, who came and joined us for one of them. And Chief Gonzalez was that one. So they were well attended overall. No shocker, the best attended one was one on. historic preservation that is what ward one cares about so that was our best attended one and thank you scott watson for being there and being our our support staff um there are several upcoming neighborhood meetings we just want to highlight one that's i think most important even though it's still a couple weeks away it's on september 29th is our south main street uh complete streets workshop which is in relation to main street between 60 freeway and third street reimagining that through grant funding i think secured by the mayor and congressman tucano so that's at 6 p.m at the salvation army i will not be here at city council next week um i will be at a historic preservation conference so i won't be joining you all um and wanted to just give that notice ahead of time thank you mayor

Thank you, Councilor Falcone. Ward 3, Councilor Rogelard.

Thank you, Mayor. Wanted to give a quick shout out to the Mission Inn Foundation. I enjoyed an evening of a history on the rocks with my team. We brought our spouses with us. And great to visit some local restaurants and learn some local history. And if you guys are very interested in it, it's a great way to go to a restaurant, You get served a drink, an appetizer. You're going to learn a little bit the history of the restaurant, but also the the building that it's in. And they finished the mission in and it's a great couple hour experience to have a good way to burn some time with some friends. Secondly, I want to thank Councilmember Mill for hosting the inaugural Inland Empire Labor Day parade last week. We had some clouds for most of it, so it wasn't too hot in the back of the truck, but it was a great experience celebrating the laborers in our community. Also had a good morning Riverside last week and the 9-11 Day of Remembrance, the 25-year anniversary of that. And it was really cool to see the community come out and still, 25 years later, how much of that impact is still living with us today. I also attended the 4th Air Force Assumption of Command. We have some new commanders over at March Air Force Base, new generals, and there's a lot going on at March Air Force Base, and we're proud to be partners with them here in our community. And finally, met with... James from Senator Schiff's office yesterday at the Riverside Airport. There's a lot of stuff that we're working on at the airport, including getting a new air traffic control tower. And Senator Schiff's office has taken a keen interest in helping us to achieve that. So great to have his office out there and looking forward to updates in the near future. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Conner.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, the 9-11 on last Friday was very emotional. I've been working with these families for 25 years, and it doesn't get any easier. It's still a very emotional time, and I want to thank Chief McKinster and the Fire Department for hosting that over at Station 1. The parade, as he said, was...

It was good.

It was little raindrops at the end, but it kept it nice, and I appreciate all the effort that Councilmember Mill and the Labor Council put in to get that done. And this past Saturday, we had our 51st Annual Military Affairs Committee Picnic up at the base where we served about 5 000 dinners or lunches to family members the military and their their children um mayor was there she'll talk about it i'm sure but i really want to thank uh on the chamber nick adcock of course but uh young lady laney chirigo this is her first time in the chair as we said at running things she did fantastic albertsons bank of america altura credit union all the about 250 volunteers we serve those 5 000 meals pretty darn quickly and we have four lines going and It's just a chance for us to say thank you to all those members at Marchia Reserve Base and what they do on a day-to-day basis to keep us safe here and around the world. So to the Chamber and all their staff that did it, to Dimitri and Brian and Liam and Kiana, all the staff, thank you very much, and it was a great day. Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks, Councilmember. Councilmember Vilsack?

Thank you, Mary. As some of my colleagues have mentioned, we had the very first ever Labor Day parade here in Riverside. A lot of folks don't know that outside of Los Angeles, the second highest number of union members in the entire state of California reside in the Inland Empire. And every year, those folks get in their cars and they drive to Wilmington. And I want to thank my office and my team for coordinating with the Inland Empire Labor Council, our friends from the building trades, the Teamsters, everybody working really hard to bring it here because let's keep these guys home. Don't make them drive down the 91 and go to Wilmington. Let's keep them here in Riverside. Though I did have to question whether we were in Riverside or somewhere in the deep south that day. The humidity that day, it was like we were in a swamp. But there were about 400 or 500 people came out to White Park for a barbecue. You know, we had the third highest ranking Democrat in D.C. was in the park in Riverside. We had three congresspeople. We had TWO COUNTY SUPERVISORS, WE HAD STATE ELECTED OFFICIALS. THEY'RE COMING TO RIVERSIDE. WE'RE GOING TO BRING THE POWER TO RIVERSIDE SO WE CAN BEAT UP ON THEM AND TRY TO BRING HOME SOME OF THAT BACON. EVERY LABOR DAY WE'RE GOING TO HAVE THEM HERE IN RIVERSIDE. SO I WANT TO THANK MY TEAM AND ALL THE FOLKS FROM ORGANIZED LABOR HERE IN THE INLAND EMPIRE FOR MAKING THAT HAPPEN HERE IN OUR CITY. You know, the very first Labor Day event in Wilmington, 60 people showed up. 60 people. Today, thousands show up. So this year, we had about 400 people out at White Park. Next year, hopefully bigger. And as it goes on in 10, 20 years from now, you know, we'll have the biggest Labor Day event in Southern California. uh this past saturday uh we had a boxing show at vegas park amazing we had 20 20 different fights uh young young men and women from across uh across our city and and across our region we're out there uh just getting in the ring and it was just just just a great time packed house as always uh And, you know, I just got to brag, the kids from Casablanca showed up. They walked home with eight belts that day, eight of the 20 fights. They weren't in every fight, but they won pretty much every fight they were in. So very proud of the young men and women from the boxing club here in my community. And, actually, one of our kids took out a kid from Arlanza. So, you know, just saying, just saying. I think he took out the kid from Ward 6 or 7, so, you know, I'm just saying.

Ouch.

No, there's no, you know, no rivalry here. Also, I just want to say thanks to Chief McKinster, as Chuck said, about 9-11. But what was really awesome, and, you know, I look at Councilmember Robart, his dad Larry was there, and Larry was one of the volunteers that went to 9-11. And talking to him about his experiences with that, not to mention talking to our firefighters that were there after 9-11 happened there, Very humbling, very humbling. And knowing that people like that, heroes walk amongst us. And heroes don't always wear capes. A guy like Larry Robillard, guys like the firefighters that we met the other day, they're really heroes. So thank you, guys. I have Town Hall at Arlington High School Thursday at 7 p.m. I'll be in Anaheim representing the city of Riverside at the League of Cities next week. We have National Night Out at Vegas Park September 29th. And then the big National Night Out will be at Hunt Park this year on October the 6th. And then our annual fall festival will be at Vegas Park 4 p.m., beginning at 4 p.m. on October the 10th. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I had the opportunity to attend several meetings over the last one or two weeks. One of them was the TCC community meeting, the Transformative Climate Communities Grant meeting hosted in the Arlanza Community Center. It was great to see the public come out, ask questions, get informed about the benefits, the potential benefits. of the grant, and there's always next year. And then I also had the opportunity to attend the Vision Zero community, Ward 6 and 7 community meeting with Steve Hemingway here, Councilmember Hemingway, and it was great, again, to see the public come out, get informed about the Vision Zero project, and just to interact, have them ask questions, And then I want to thank Chief McKinstry and the firefighters for hosting the 9-11 commemorative ceremony they had there at Station 1. It was beautiful, and the museum there is so nice, too, just to be able to commemorate all the first responders who were there and took part in it. And then some of the upcoming meetings and events is the Keep Riverside Clean and Beautiful taking place at Saturday, September 19th at 7.30 a.m. to 11. And that's going to be held at Bryan Park. I encourage people to come out and I'll be there cleaning up with everyone. then my first town hall will be on September 24th at 6 p.m. or at the Atlanta Community Center so for those of you who are in Ward 6 or neighboring wards please come out and hear updates and ask questions thank you

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Hemingway.

Thank you, Mayor. Just two quick things. As Councilmember Hernandez mentioned, we had a great turnout at our community meeting last Wednesday to share the Vision Zero Action Plan. Think about safer more walkable streets. So I want to thank our public works team. They gave a great presentation Councilman Hernandez gave some updates as well as Ward 7 office did as well and we had a great turnout So thank you all that made that successful The next thing coming up, we just want to pass along that Alvord Unified School District is having a community update meeting. It's going to be at La Sierra High School on September 24 at 5 p.m. And it's for anyone and everyone. You get together and hear about... What the new plans and exciting plans are for the school year and share some exciting work happening throughout all the schools in the district So we invite you to look for that September 24 at 5 p.m. At La Sierra High School, and that's all thank you mayor

Thank you, Council Member Henry. I love it that you've all said you've had town halls and met with people. So many opportunities to connect with your council member, not only through these town halls, but this is the least of the ways to do it here at City Council Meeting. There's so many opportunities to really be able to connect. So I appreciate you all doing that. So thank you. Just a couple things. Yes, Chuck, I did attend the Military Affairs Appreciation Picnic, and I slowed down the food line because I was really slow giving out those condiments. So I'm not super good at that. But Michaela Cruz, my chief of staff, and I attended. Yes, thank you to the Chamber because it's a great event, and thank you to the 5,000 service members and their families for coming out and letting us express our appreciation to them. Thank you again to Riverside Fire Department for organizing this Day of Remembrance that we had on September 11th, and Councilmember Mill and the Inland Empire Labor Council for our Labor Day Parade. And then last but not least, this last week, we launched our Crosstown Showdown between Cal Baptist University and UCR as they will compete all year long towards a Crosstown Showdown trophy. And the first matchup, the first competition will be women's soccer. And that is on September 26th at 1 p.m. And I will be there. It's up to you who you want to root on. But they will compete for a sum of points the entire year, and then someone will be named the champion. Okay, we have a couple committee meetings coming up. Safety, Wellness, and Youth Committee at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, September 16th, and the Economic Development Committee at 3 p.m. on Thursday, September 17th. Okay. All right, we are now at our city manager's updates. City manager, would you like to give us an update today? Thank you, Madam Mayor. No report tonight. Okay, thank you. All right, council, any declarations, conflicts of interest, ex parte?

Yes, I have one disclosure for the record. An applicant associated with item number eight previously made a $1,500 contribution to my campaign. Upon becoming aware of the potential conflict on September 3rd, I immediately directed my campaign treasurer to return the contribution, and the full $1,500 has been returned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Just want to mention about item six coming up that I've had conversation with both the developer, the community and the staff here, just as we've been wanting to make sure everyone was on the same page and hear input from the community. So just want to share those those communication efforts in our ex parte.

Perfect. Thank you. All right, today's presentation, department presentation, is with one of my favorites. I can't say it's my favorite, but one of my favorites is our library department, which I use on the regular every week, if not every month. And here today to do the presentation is our library director, Aaron Christmas. It is Christmas.

Well, thank you, honorable mayor, council members. I'm very excited to be here today to present about the library department and give our overview and recognition of our library employees of the year. Our department's mission is to be the cultural and learning center for the community, encouraging the joy and wonder of reading, the wisdom of diverse ideas, and the power of lifelong learning. This January, the California State Library surveyed library customers in Riverside and across the state to learn more about how they felt when they used their libraries. The survey found that 93% of visitors in Riverside indicated they felt welcome when they came into their library, and over 80% planned to return to the library after their visit. On this slide, you can see some of the feedback that they gave regarding our library staff during the survey responses, and there were many other additional positive comments as well as some opportunities for us that were provided by the community members that took the survey. Data from last year also showed that 970,000 people visited the library online and in person, and 87,000 people participated in over 2,400 programs. Customers checked out over 890,000 items, which includes physical and digital items, thinking of Libby and Hoopla, and public computers were logged into at least 57,000 times. Since we were here a year ago, the library has been incredibly busy, and I'm thrilled to share some of our highlights. First, and perhaps most exciting, library staff hosted the Specialist Jesus Estoran Eastside Library Groundbreaking at Bobby Bonds Park last September. This was an incredibly fun day with both a formal ceremony and activities for families to participate in. Working with the Chamber of Commerce Leadership Riverside Class of 2024, the library created and launched our first tool lending library at three locations, including Maine, La Sierra, and the Lara Casablanca Library. Cassandra, Alexis, and Yvette, who are in this picture here, are the ones who took the lead on the library staff team to make that happen. Staff this year suggested that we needed a new fun library card for the under 12 set. And so what we did is we developed an incredibly successful library card contest design program. And these are our three selected winners. And so you can get one of any of these library cards at the library. And it's just a reminder, a little shameless plug for the library. It is National Library Card Sign Up Month. So be sure you get your library card if you don't already have one. The team led an incredibly successful Riverside Reads program where the author was interviewed in the Riverside TV studios, and based on community feedback, programs were hosted around the city, which encouraged even greater participation. All library locations became certified as Blue Zone certified work sites, and the library had a community celebration in Los Sierra to mark the occasion. As part of the Blue Zones process, staff participated in several wellness and leadership opportunities, including adding mindfulness kits at each location's break room, blenders to encourage healthy snacks for staff, and an Enneagram session. And all of these activities were sponsored by Blue Zones Riverside. The Lara Casablanca Library team had the opportunity to work with Councilmember Mills' office to create the Ojos del Tiempo Corner to celebrate Chicano literature and art in the Casablanca community. This exhibit has also led to complimentary programs that encourage the local community to participate in art and get to know our artists a little bit better. Staff hosted another incredibly successful summer reading program. This year's theme was Plant a Seed and Read, so everything was nature-based. This program saw a 48% increase in participation from last year. Adult and teen participants read over 669,000 minutes, and children clocked in with over 30,000 books read in the nine-week program. So we are a community of readers. Additionally, over 7,700 lunches were handed out at the Lunch of the Library programs. For the end of 26 and into 27, the library is looking forward to creating a new teen and children's space at our Orange Terrace Library that is funded by the Library Foundation. We're looking forward to completing and opening the Duran Eastside Library in spring, which will include $100,000 in new books, which is funded by the Friends of the Riverside Public Library. We're also looking forward to celebrating, at the end of this year, the 50th birthday of the La Sierra Library Branch, and we're excited to do that. And part of that, we're installing new carpet at La Sierra and Arlanza. And we're launching new software to help track our customer incidents, and we're focusing on continued staff training.

Here is the 2026 library team at our recently held all staff training day.

And we have a few staff in the audience today and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for all they have done this year and will continue to do for our community. These are the people who are providing the services to the community members at each of our eight locations. Can we give them a round of applause? And this year, we had two employees of the year. Carlos Fuerte Gaspar was a library technician at our main library. And he was recently stolen by the IT department and is now working with our IT team. And we have Francisca Aguirre. She's a library assistant at the Arlanza Library. Carlos provided excellent internal and external customer service related to all things technology at the library. And Francisca is a superstar in children's programming, offering an incredibly popular bilingual story time at the Arlanza Library on Friday mornings. Please join me in congratulating both of these individuals. And they're both in the audience today, if they could stand up. And I want to thank all of you for this opportunity to review just a small bit of the department highlights from the last year and giving me an opportunity to brag about this awesome team. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Director Christmas. And I have to say for folks that somehow think that the library is arcane and not necessary anymore, I think it's visited now more than it's ever been. And I have to give you a lot of credit for that. You've really brought us into the 21st century with a lot of your innovations and ideas So I appreciate all that you've done and a big shout out to all your staff too. Thank you guys for keeping the turnstiles moving. Yes, thank you. We do have a couple comments from council, so let me turn first to Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Christmas. I think the world of you and of your department. And it was particularly educational for me when Director Christmas and I, I had not been to all of our library branches. Of course, I'm a Ward 1 creature, and I stay in my little neck of the woods. But I had not been to all of our branches. So Director Christmas and I, she took me on a tour. of all the libraries and it was very educational and it was great to meet a lot of the team. I'm still biased. I love the archive at the main library, Ruth and Glenn at the archive, very appreciative of their work. But it was just a great thing to see all that and how much and how creative the team is of finding funding sources for things in partnership with the friends and other, but through grants, through so much. And we see it on our consent calendar so much. of the grants that you all are bringing in that funds so much of what the residents get to benefit from. So I think there's a great success story in that, too. So thank you for what you do. It's great community work.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Mill.

Thank you, Mayor.

I remember as a kid, the library, and for you guys over there, it was before the internet, before everything was on the phone. But the library was our second home. As a kid, the librarians were basically the people who watched us after school. We would go there. They'd have all the newspaper, all the magazines, everything. And we'd spend our afternoons after school there. I so appreciate what you guys do for the community. The library was a place where you could go and you read a book and you escape from your life, from your reality. You could go anywhere. You could be anything in books. So thank you for doing that. And I remember shortly after I got sworn in and you came in my office and I told you I was – He said, I was out in Casablanca at the library and I was disappointed because I felt that the young men and women, the boys and girls in Casablanca couldn't really see themselves in the library. And I told you I have this vision of what I would like to see. That same evening, after we had that conversation, I went to dinner, and I was sitting with Jose Medina, our county supervisor. I didn't really know Jose at the time, other than just, you know, we know who each other are, but didn't really know each other, and started a conversation. And from that conversation, it was our love of Chicano literature, Chicano art. And we started, it was through that conversation, through your conversation that you and I had, and the conversation I had with Jose, ojos del tiempo. And of all the things that I've done on this council, that may be one of the things I'm the proudest of accomplishing. I've heard from so many people in their community they're so thankful they go in and we made sure that the artwork was a reflection of their neighborhood some of the people in the neighborhood donated items to be part of the exhibit it belongs to them and being there that day for that ribbon cutting there was just a sense of pride from the people in the community and I'm so grateful to you and your staff for helping make that happen and as you said it has all evolved it's grown we bring the artists out now that people are getting to meet with them and my goal was for these young the young kids to go to the library and be inspired Now they're getting to meet the authors, getting to meet the artists who have painted some of the pictures. And Jose and I, I picked the artwork. I personally picked the pieces. And Jose and I sat down and we concocted the list. all the books so we are incredibly proud but it would have been possible without your help so very very thankful for you bringing that and as I said at the time I want to bring that to other libraries around the city because I think it's important that when our young people go to the libraries They see themselves. They see their story. And prior to this exhibit, people from that community, I asked, I went to the, I said, where's the Chicano section? And they pointed me. I said, no, those are Spanish language books. Those were books written by anybody but translated into Spanish. So I want our young people to see themselves, see stories about themselves here. And thanks to you, it's there. So I'm very grateful. Thank you to you and your whole team. The librarian was always one of the most important people in my life as a kid. And I hope, thanks to you and your team, librarians are very important people in the lives of all of our young people in the city. So thank you.

Well, thank you, Councilmember Mellon. It was our honor to work with you on that project. And we are creating pullout sections at all of our library locations for our Chicano literature. So those sections will be easily found. We're going to group the books in the same area so everyone can see them and find them so they can see themselves easily represented in their community.

Very cool. Council Member Robillard.

Thank you, Mayor. I did, in fact, use the library growing up. And La Sierra Library was my home library, and I remember there was a clown that used to read story time when I was five years old, and it scared me to death. Fair, fair. Clowns were a thing in the 90s. I don't know why, but clowns were a thing, yeah.

Are you sure it wasn't Council Member Mill? I'm trying to...

The big shoes. I can recognize the big shoes. But I remember I used to use it for the VHS rentals because Blockbuster was too expensive. Couldn't get any new releases at the library, but my favorite movie that I discovered there was The Attack of the Killer Mutant Tomatoes. If you're looking for a very, very campy 80s movie – It is hilarious, and the tomatoes eat everyone, and it's a fantastic movie. Thank you for that recommendation. Yes. You should check it out if you can ever find it. Probably not. But I think when people talk about the libraries, it's like, yes, there's books there. And I was like, well, who reads a book these days? Well, guess what? It's not just the books. It's everything else that happens in the library. And I think people need to understand libraries as community centers. And recently, we go to the Marcy Library. That's our local library now for my family. Um, my wife walked in to sign up for my, uh, my son for swim lessons and they looked around the corner and there's lizards and snakes and they had the, uh, the animal guy there. And my wife is deathly scared of lizards, but my son wanted to get so close to it. And, um, My wife braved it and took my son to touch the lizards, and I had to hear about it for two weeks. And so that's one of the things that's cool opportunities that people just don't realize about libraries is so much more than just checking out books. It's a community place to enrich every part of you, not just your reading. And so congratulations and great job. Thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember. And I'm with your wife. I try to hide when those characters come out. Wow, really?

Snakes are a little...

Yeah, the one thing that wasn't mentioned that we the proud members of the older generation remember is fighting over the encyclopedia Britannica when we all needed to get the damn T or S volume and everybody else had it and we would try to do things. You remember those days. So that was another thing we did at the library. We spent a lot of time there and it was a babysitting thing at times. So thanks.

You're the much older Jenny.

Oh, wow. Well, thank you again, Director Christmas, and congratulations to the Employees of the Year, you guys. Thank you very much, and I appreciate all you do. Thank you. All right. We are at our first public hearing this afternoon, and this is... I think this one is you, you referred this. This is a planning case PR 2024-001711, and this is a tentative track map planned residential development and design review of a planned residential development. So we will open public comment for this item.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

And I think we are tag teaming between Judy Aguez and Philip Nityama, right? So we'll kick it off with Ms. Aguez and good to see you. Thank you.

Good to see you all. Thank you. Good afternoon. Honorable Mayor and City Council, Judy Aguez, Senior Planner. The case before you this afternoon is a tentative track map, planned residential development and design review to facilitate the construction of a 56-unit planned residential development. On July 26, 2026, the Planning Commission approved the proposed project for a 56-lot planned residential development. The Planning Commission's recommendation included incorporation of a condition of approval to construct a median opening on La Sierra Avenue at the project entrance. After Planning Commission's action, staff received a request to refer this project for consideration by City Council. Actions by the Planning Commission may be referred to City Council. The 9.88-acre project site consists of six contiguous parcels located on the southwest corner of La Sierra Avenue and Alhambra Avenue and is developed with three single-family residences. Surrounding land uses include semi-rural single-family residences that allow animal keeping to the north and to the west. a small lot planned residential development and loma vista middle school are located to the east across la sierra avenue and to the south is a single family residential subdivision la sierra avenue along the project frontage frontage is constructed with a raised curb median with landscaping and with no turning breaks from francisco place to alhambra avenue the nearest marked crosswalks are located at arlington and la sierra and at cyprus and la sierra This slide shows the existing conditions of the project site. Photos one and four show the site from La Sierra Avenue and photos two and three show the site from Alhambra Avenue. The project site is split zoned. The northern portion of the site is zoned rural residential and the southern portion of the site is zoned single family residential and livestock overlay zones. The zoning designations are consistent with the general plan land use designations. The project involves a tentative track map to subdivide 9.88 acres into 56 single-family residential lots and lettered lots for private streets and common open space. Lots will range in size from 3,555 square feet to 20,064 square feet. The proposed project has an overall residential density of 5.7 dwelling units per acre, which is consistent with the general plan land use designation and the density transfer permitted under the planned residential development standards. The project proposes two distinct residential types within the same subdivision. So the four semi-rural residential lots on over 20,000 square feet are proposed along Alhambra Avenue and are highlighted here in orange. These lots will facilitate single story homes that are more consistent with the homes on the north side of Alhambra Avenue. Vehicle access to these residences are from Alhambra Avenue. The remaining 52 lots will consist of typical residential lots ranging in size from 3,555 square feet to 7,397 square feet and include two-story detached homes. Vehicle access to this portion of the subdivision will be provided from La Sierra Avenue. The project includes three residences for very low income households and has requested waivers for project perimeter setbacks, wall heights, and open space in accordance with the state density bonus. So now I'm going to pass it on to Philip, city traffic engineer, and he'll be discussing the traffic portion of this presentation.

GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS. I'M HERE TO PROVIDE THE PRESENTATION FOR PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT FOR THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT. MY NAME IS PHILIP TAYAMA. I'M THE CITY TRAFFIC ENGINEER. AS PART OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION APPROVAL IN JULY 16, 2026, THEY ADDED A CONDITION TO PERMIT A MEDIAN BREAK OPENING AT THE PROJECT DRIVEWAY, AS YOU CAN SEE IN THE SLIDE HERE. SUMMERVALE DRIVE AT LA SIERRA WILL REMAIN A RIGHT IN, RIGHT OUT ONLY DRIVEWAY ACCESS. The proposed project driveway shown on the lower right, it will have right-in, right-out access plus a new left-in access. Left-out access will remain restricted. We did work with the applicant's traffic consultant to prepare a new traffic memo that determined the design for this left turn with a 50-foot minimum storage length and 123-foot deceleration lane. and that's to provide clarity based on the planning commission's condition to open the median break this particular slide is a zoomed out view of the project the red circle there is where the new median break will occur to provide ingress to the new project driveway as you can see on here there's a raised curb median with landscape and trees spanning from alhambra all the way to francisco lane So the proposed new left turn will ultimately remove some of the trees, about two to four trees on there, and they'll have to reconstruct the existing curb driveway. THIS PARTICULAR SLIDE IS A SECOND CONDITION OF APPROVAL BASED ON COMMENTS FROM THE RESIDENTS AND THE PLANNING COMMISSIONERS AT THE INTERSECTION OF LA SIERRA AND ALHAMBRA THE PROJECT WILL BE CONDITIONED TO CONSTRUCT IMPROVEMENTS SUCH AS A MARKED HIGH VISIBILITY CROSSWALK NEW ADA RAMPS MODIFICATION TO THE EXISTING MEDIAN AND RECTANGULAR RAPID FLASHING BEACONS This is to facilitate the existing backside access to Loma Vista Middle School as well as pedestrian crossings for the existing RTA bus stops on both sides. The project is actually located on the lower right on this exhibit. It's touching the northwest corner of Alhambra and La Sierra. It will also provide additional pedestrian infrastructure improvements for the project when they want to cross the street at La Sierra. That concludes the traffic portion of the presentation. I'll hand it back to Judy. Thank you.

And in summary, the project is consistent with intent in the goals and policies of the general plan and the zoning code and is compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods. The proposed housing development will also contribute to the city's RENA numbers. Based upon the referral, staff is recommending revising condition of approval number 65 as follows. prior to the issuance of certificate of occupancy the applicant is solely responsible for preparing design plans procurement and reconstructing the existing landscape meeting along along la sierra avenue to install dedicated northbound left turn lane with a minimum 50 foot storage length and 90 foot taper for ingress only movements at the new project driveway as recommended in the la sierra residential focus traffic assessment memorandum dated august 5th 2026. staff also proposes adding condition of approval number 66 as follows prior to insurance of a certificate of occupancy the applicant is solely responsible for preparing design plans procurement and installation of a high visibility crosswalk per standard plan number 640 at the south leg of the intersection of alhambra avenue at la sierra avenue including three double-sided solar powered rectangular rapid flashing beacons and advanced signage and associated pavement markings as recommended in the laciera residential pedestrian hybrid beacon warrant analysis and flashing beacon application memorandum dated august 10 2026. And with that, staff recommends that the City Council review the decision of the Planning Commission, revising and adding the conditions of approval as previously discussed, determine that the project is exempt from SECO pursuant to 15183 and the Common Sense Rule, and approve the project based on the findings outlined in the staff report and subject to the recommended conditions. This concludes staff's presentation. We're available for questions, and the applicant is also here if you have any questions for them. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Aguez and Philip Mitayama. We do have a request to speak on this item, so let's take our first caller, please.

Hello, this is Adrian. I do want to make sure I get my full time to speak. I have a comment on this agenda item. But before I do start, I just want to make you all aware I'm sending you all a cease and desist letter in regards to taking away some of my artwork. I've given you plenty of time to fix this. And going back to, let's say, the library presentation, like you're talking about Chicano art. BUT YOU'RE TAKING AWAY ART FROM THE LATINOS IN THE COMMUNITY.

CAN WE PLEASE MAKE OUR COMMENTS ON THE ITEM NUMBER SIX, PLEASE?

BEFORE I CAN COMMENT ON THIS AGENDA ITEM, I'M JUST PROVIDING THIS BECAUSE IT ENTELLS WHAT WE'RE DISCUSSING. It's not okay for you to be taking artwork from local artists, from local businesses. I think that doing so with AI, it's not AI's fault. It's your staff's fault for not doing their research. Or in this case, I do think they had a very good knowledge of what they were taking.

Sir, I don't see what the relevance are, so we would like to move on on public comment, please, if you are not going to address item six.

I want to be able to finish my time, ma'am, please.

Well, if you speak to the item, please.

So it's for anybody who's listening that's yelling, just imagine the city taking away your artwork and presenting it as their own. I think that it's out of line for the city of Riverside to be doing that to Latino artists. Please discontinue public comment in the back, please.

Thank you. That was our only request to speak, so we will close public comment and come back to council. Council Member Hemingway.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I refer this item, as was mentioned, the Planning Commission did approve this project and did make some... suggested conditions of approval and so we just want to take the time to get those right and I felt like it wasn't quite clear so I asked that to be referred to the the City Council just so that we could get very focused on what those conditions would look like and to make sure that it was the safest possible space if we are going to have to make a median break and And for a crosswalk, and it looks like city staff did a phenomenal job with that and worked with the developer to come up with a plan. So I think we've accomplished that goal, and I'm happy to move staff's recommendation.

Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the item. I'm going to turn it over to our city clerk to conduct the vote.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ward 1? Yes. Ward 3? Ward 4? Yes. Ward 5? Yes. Ward 6? Yes. Ward 7? Yes. No for the record. Motion passed unanimously. Ward 2 absent. All right. Thank you.

All right. We're going to move on on our agenda to item number 7. This is case number 202600796. This is a resolution amending our public safety element of the general plan to comply with AB 2140. So we will open public comment for this item.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right, with that, I would like to please invite Clarissa Mangus up to give us a staff report. Mangus, sorry. I do this every time. I'm sorry, Clarissa.

Mayor, I don't think the microphone's on.

Go ahead, try it again. Okay.

Oh, okay. All right. Good afternoon, honorable mayor and members of the council. Clarissa Mangus, assistant planner, here to present a general plan text amendment to maintain the city's compliance with assembly bill or AB 2140. Okay. AB 2140 allows local jurisdictions to become eligible for additional state funds to finance FEMA-led post-disaster public assistance projects if they comply with the bill's requirements. Typically, federal funding covers 75% of the cost of these projects, while funding by local jurisdictions covers 25%, as shown on this first pie chart. When the California legislature passes a bill allowing it, state funding can cover 18.75% of that local cost share through the California Disaster Assistance Act, or CDAA, while local funding would cover the remaining 6.25% of the cost as shown in this second pie chart. Jurisdictions that are compliant with AB 2140, however, could see their entire share of the cost of these projects covered by state funding, as shown by the third pie chart, which could be of great financial help during disaster recovery. So how do local jurisdictions become compliant with AB 2140? They must first adopt a local hazard mitigation plan or LHMP every five years. At the same time or later, they must also adopt the LHMP into the public safety element of their general plan. And lastly, they must submit the revised public safety element and resolution adopting the LHMP to the California Office of Emergency Services or Cal OES for approval. The City of Riverside already adopted its most recent LHMP in 2025 and we are now adopting it into the public safety element. We adopted the previous LHMP into the public safety element by embedding a hyperlink to its location on the City Office of Emergency Management's webpage into the element text. The proposed amendment then is to replace that hyperlink with the one for the current LHMP as shown in blue in the right hand text box. With that, staff recommends that the City Council, one, determine that planning case PC 2026-00796, general plan text amendment, is exempt from California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA review pursuant to section 15061.B.3 general rule of the CEQA guidelines. Two, approve planning case PC 2026-00796, general plan text amendment, based on the staff report, and three, introduce and subsequently adopt the attached resolution amending the public safety element of the 2025 general plan. That concludes my presentation, and I am available for any questions, as is a representative from the Office of Emergency Management.

Thank you. All right. Thank you, Ms. Mangus. Let us see if we have any public comment on this item. Okay, we have none in the chamber, and we have one caller. This is the caller that was the same caller from earlier. Sir, if you are going to speak to the item, we would love to hear from you. But if you're going to not speak to the item, we will mute the mic. Go ahead and unmute, please.

Hello, I am speaking in regards to this item, and all I have to say is that for Mayor Dawson, please reach out in regards to taking away this artwork. If you claim to be for the Latinos, but you're stealing their work, I think it's very hypocritical.

I'm sorry, this is not with respect to Item 7.

I hope that you can start moving forward.

So please mute the caller, please. Thank you. All right. Council, we have no other requests to speak, so we'll close public comment. We'll come back to council.

Move a staff recommendation.

All right. We have a motion and a second. City Clerk, please conduct the vote.

Ward 1? Yes. Ward 3?

Yes.

Ward 4? Yes. Ward 5? Yes. Ward 6? Yes. Ward 7? Yes. Motion carries unanimous. Ward 2 absent. All right. Thank you.

Let's see. We are now at item 8. This is an appeal of a planning commission denial regarding establishment of Jazz's Wine and Spirit Shop. We will open public comment for this item.

public comment is now open for this item available in both english and spanish call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language to request to speak press star 9. you can also join via zoom the meeting id for both languages can be found on the agenda

All right. Thank you. We have a staff presentation from Brian Norton. Mr. Norton.

Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and members of the Council. Brian Norton, Principal Planner. The case before you this afternoon is an appeal by Jazz Patel of the Planning Commission determination for a conditional use permit, design review, and public convenience or necessity determination to establish a new wine and spirit shop, a bar, and an exterior facade improvements to the existing commercial building. For context as to why the entitlement was in front of Council this afternoon, the Planning Commission denied the project at the April 9th Planning Commission hearing. Based on an over-concentration of off-sale licenses, the applicant subsequently appealed the determination to Council. The 1.86 acre project site consists of two contiguous parcels developed with a multi-tenant retail building and surface parking lot. The site is part of the larger Midtown Commercial Corridor, which includes the Brockton Arcade, Riverside Plaza, and Sunnyside Drive. Photos generally depicting the existing developed condition of the site. The multi-tenant building includes three tenant spaces. Unit A is occupied by Big Five Sporting Goods. Units B and C, which are vacant, were formerly occupied by Allen Party Supply and a beauty salon. Project site is located within the Mixed-Use Urban Village, or excuse me, the Mixed-Use Urban General Plan Land Use Designation and is zoned Mixed-Use Urban. Establishments providing off-sale and on-sale alcohol are permitted subject to the granting of a use permit in compliance with site location development and operational standards. Project is also located within the Magnolia Center District of the Magnolia Avenue Specific Plan, which is intended as a sub-regional retail and business center serving the surrounding community and visitors to the area. The applicant is requesting approval of the following entitlements for the establishment of Jazz's Wine and Spirit Shop and Bar within an existing 40,791 square foot tenant space. Conditional use permit to permit off sale and on sale beer, or sorry, off sale and on sale of alcohol, a design review for site design and building elevations, and a public convenience or necessity determination to allow for an over concentration of alcohol licenses in Census Track 311. Although the proposal went to Planning Commission as a multi-phase project, should the project be approved, the applicant has committed to start construction on all components of the renovation, which includes interior and exterior modifications to the building at the same time with the phased opening as follows. Phase 1 opening includes the establishment of the wine and spirit shop, which would offer a range of specialty high-end wine and spirits, including limited releases and collector-oriented inventory. The establishment will also offer a small market and coffee shop with grab-and-go food, specialty cheeses, chocolates, and other items commonly paired with higher-end wine and spirits. Since the planning commission meeting and based upon community feedback, the applicant has requested to modify the closing hours of operation from midnight to 10 p.m. Phase two opening will include the operation of a bar and tasting room. On-premises consumption is anticipated to focus on educational wine and spirit experiences. Since the planning commission meeting and based upon community feedback, the applicant is revising the hours of operation for the bar, tasting room and educational experiences to close by 10 p.m., not midnight as originally anticipated. As part of business operations for both phases, the operator will provide security measures including surveillance cameras, alarm systems, security staffing during peak periods, and storefront lighting. All staff members will be trained in emergency procedures and conflict resolution training as required by ABC and the Riverside Police Department. Subject site is located in Census Track 311. Per the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, there are nine existing off-sale licenses within the track where two off-sale licenses are permitted and 28 on-sale licenses where five on-sale licenses are to be permitted. A point of clarification and correction, the staff report indicated 11 off-sale licenses exist in the track. One of those licenses was mistakenly captured in an adjoining census tract to the south, and the other license owned by the former right aide in the Magnolia Town Center was recently surrendered to ABC. To facilitate the business as proposed, the applicant is requesting the following ABC licenses, a Type 21 general off-sale license for the commercial store and a Type 48 general on-sale license for the bar and tasting room. The request for a Type 21 license would generally be replacing the off-sale ride aid license that was surrendered. The request for a Type 48 license would increase the number of on-sale licenses in the census tract. However, the applicant has shown the request serves the public convenience or necessity findings required by the zoning code as follows. The operator of Jazz's Wine and Spirits has submitted a request to operate under two alcohol licenses and will agree to all conditions of approval and conditions placed on the application. The proposed wine and spirit shop and bar is compatible with surrounding land commercial uses and consistent with development in the census tract. The proposed use will enhance economic vitality and improve consumer choice in the surrounding area. And the wine and spirit shop and bar includes a security plan including 24-7 surveillance footage. adequate site lighting, trained staff, and on-site security during peak times. As such, the proposed use will not increase the severity of existing law enforcement or public nuisance problems in the area. Additionally, the project is located in Midtown, a major commercial hub characterized by a concentration of community-serving businesses and services. This established destination serves not only the surrounding residential population, but also residents and visitors from throughout the city. Consistent with this established commercial pattern, higher concentrations of licenses are more appropriate in destination areas such as midtown and downtown, where a mix of restaurants, bars, retail, and other services benefit from and contribute to the area's overall activity and accessibility. The project meets all minimum setbacks for the sale of alcoholic beverages. Exterior facade improvements are proposed to enhance the building's appearance, including revitalizing the front facade in a distinct mid-century modern architectural style that will provide a cohesive look for the project. It should be noted since the Planning Commission meeting and based upon community feedback, the applicant has committed to updating the architectural facade of the commercial building at the same time as the interior modifications as previously mentioned. After publication of the staff report, staff received 12 letters of support and two in opposition for the project. Letters in support discussed activating the vacant store, while letters in opposition generally discussed the over concentration of licenses in the census tract, which was discussed earlier in the presentation. As proposed, the project will activate a large vacant tenant space and complement Midtown's diverse mix of commercial uses. It will provide a unique shopping experience for residents and visitors while supporting the continued vitality of the area and meeting the applicable development standards of the specific plan zoning code and citywide design guidelines. Prior to the recommendations, and since the applicant requested to modify hours of operations, staff would like to request a modification to the conditions of approval by adding in a condition that the business will operate no later than 10 p.m. seven days a week. With that, staff recommends that the City Council determine that the project is exempt from CEQA for section 15301, and uphold the appeal by Jas Patel and approve planning case PC's 2025-001785 based on the findings outlined in the staff report and summarizing the attached findings and subject to the recommended conditions of approval. This concludes staff presentation. Mayor, if you will, the applicant team has a presentation that they would like to give to council.

Perfect, thank you. And the applicant has 10 minutes, I believe, to present.

GOOD AFTERNOON MAYOR COUNCIL MEMBERS MY NAME IS JAZ PATEL AND I APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK WITH YOU TODAY THE PROJECT IS ABOUT BRINGING TWO LONG VACANT SPACES BACK TO LIFE WITH FULL RENOVATION AN EXPERIENCED OWNER OPERATOR A BUSINESS THAT WILL IMPROVE THE MAGNOLIA CORRIDOR I have spent more than 25 years in the wine and spirit industry. I operate El Cerrito Liquor in Corona, which we have built in a respected destination for specialty wine and spirits. I understand the responsibility that comes with this business, and I have a clean ABC record. We have listened to the community, emailed information to everyone within 500 feet, met with Chamber of Commerce. Me and Mark walked the neighborhood twice on separate weekends. We heard that the people want this vacant space occupied. and maintained and active. We took their feedback seriously. We are committed to closing at 10 every day and added a coffee and a fresh juice and accepted the recommendation operation conditions, including securities, cameras, lightning, and responsible service. This is not a typical liquor store or late night venue. It is thoughtfully designed specialty wine and spirit shop. with a small bar tasting experience operated responsibly and personally by me. We respect and ask you to uphold the appeal and approve this project. Craig will now walk you through the project details and community outreach and safeguards. Thank you, Eric.

Thank you. My name is Craig Frey and I'd like to thank the council for hearing us and Ms. Mayer. I appreciate your time in this. First of all, I'd like to give an overview of this. I want to make sure that we're all understanding what this project brings to the community and really what it is. This is not a bar. This is not a typical bar that you would go into. This is going to be an educational facility for people who are going to learn about the spirits, how they're made. It is an opportunity for the community to learn of how a spirit can be brought into the community in a positive and effective manner. One of the things that we learned since our hearing with the Planning Commission was that they did not want a typical bar. And again, this is not. This is going to be a convenience store. One of the concerns was that the hours of operation. We actually were going to suggest 9 o'clock because We did not want this to be a speakeasier type of thing. The community came back and said, no, we'd rather have it at 10 o'clock because as we come home, by the time we get changed over and get out there, 9 o'clock is really going to be too early for us to even go to your convenience store.

So we listened to that.

Again, the Planning Commission was worried about our outreach to the community. We went real hard with that. We reached out to the council offices to make sure that they understood what we were doing. We walked the community. We handed out flyers. And as you'll see in some of the public comments, we got really good response back from them. Kate. Again, it has to be clear in its intent, this is not a bar-first operation. This is one where a person will go and be educated, where businesses can bring their employees to learn about this, have meetings, have some conferences there, and that's really what our goal is in this. Almost like if you went to a winery and had that educational experience that you would have in there. Okay. We listened to the hours of compliance. We did drop it from our original purpose of 12 o'clock. We went to 9 o'clock and now we're looking at the 10 o'clock because the community asked us to do that. I think it's important you understand who Mr. Patel is. It's just not him. Him and his family have been in this business for over 25 years. It started with his grandfather in the 1970s. His father took it over in the early 90s. And now Jas Patel has been running this. He is a very, very responsible individual. He has run numerous successful operations. He's committed to this project. I'm just going to tell you he's committed to over $11 million in bringing this storefront and this area back into that operation. He has been successful in his his ventures. He stated earlier that he has been in business for over 25 years and never once has been cited by ABC police fire for any type of violation that shows a commitment that he's going to bring to this community. I'd like to go into the presentation and show you our concept of what we're gonna do and what we've worked with with the different, your staff members. And again, I gotta really compliment the staff at planning. Really worked hard, worked with us, listened to the community, and we've come up with what we think is a great concept. Okay. What we're going to do is, hold on one second. One of the things that was important to understand is the idea of over concentration. We are not bringing in any additional. With the Rite Aid losing theirs or surrendering theirs back, we are now going to keep the status quo of a number of licenses that are in that area. What we'd like to do is take each of the slides, discuss where we are, and answer any questions as we move forward.

I just want to do a time check for you. You have three minutes and 41 seconds.

I'll hurry up as soon as I can. One of the things that we're doing is, like I said, Mr. Patel is committed to taking an old 1980, 1970 shopping center and bringing it back up into a modern state and, again, making this as a destination for people to come to. we're going to be doing a new facade it'll be approved by staff building a safety planning one of the concerns was the staggered building up this will be done at one time and again bringing employment into the city it's important to understand that he's going to be hiring locals people for this job for this business and bringing over twenty to thirty jobs back into the community if you take a look we'll look at the different units you have unit A and B and again just to emphasize the importance of this is not a bar it's not going to be its main emphasis the bar is less than two point five percent of the building and the rest is going to be either retail shop and or educational We call it a library of bottles. Again, we're going to be working with the manufacturers, bringing in their specialties, showing them how it's made. We'll have the coffee and juice window and the specialty grocery that will be available to the community. Unit C is the same. Again, the bar and the tasting rooms. Now, we have Owner-operator, 25 years, great reputation, worked hard with his community. We have three generations of his family being in this business. Clean licenses and 25 to 30 jobs that will be brought in. Off-site and on-site sales. We will be working, our hours will remain from 7 in the morning to 10 at night, and the reason we go 7 is because of the coffee bar. Now, we will have security. We'll have people in uniform security as well as people that will be in plain clothes just to make sure that we do not have, this is not going to be a party place. We're not going to have people showing up for that. We are willing to work with all the conditions that the council has asked and that the planning department has provided us. And again, he is looking at being a part of this community for years to come. And now we're ready to answer any questions or comments that you may have for us.

All right, thank you. And when you talk about spirits, I assume it's not the spirit of Halloween, which is in there right now. No, no. Thank you. Okay. I think what we'll do now, council has moved to public comment, and then we can come back and answer questions for the, ask questions of the applicant. You have to fill out a card, please, and bring it forward. Thank you so much. Okay, first I have Dave Lanham. Welcome, Mr. Lannan.

Thank you, Oliver, Mayor. Thank you all for the fine comments about our Labor Day parade. I saw most of you there. Sean, thank you. Steve, thank you all. I'm not here speaking as a member of the operating engineers, though. I'm speaking as a local resident. I'm opposed to this project, this facility, and I urge the city council to deny the appeal made by Mr. Patel. In my submittal yesterday via email, I said that there is no public necessity for this project. As pointed out in my testimony to the Planning Commission, the census tract for number 311 is oversaturated. And the fact that the gentleman just made a comment that we're keeping the status quo regarding ABC licenses, if you're oversaturating, you ought to be reducing them, not keeping the status quo. The surrounding community residents have not been fully informed. I don't believe. I've walked the neighborhood twice, like Mr. Patel says he has. I talked to over, I visited 150 homes, and not one person said they were in favor of this project. Yet people did say they want to see something there, but none of them said they wanted this. I wanted to also comment that the other gentleman kept saying that this is not a bar. But even today's agenda calls it a bar. So if it's not a bar, quit calling it a bar. I wanted to comment, too, on the consulting firm that Mr. Patel hired. The company called, I think I have this correct, Mr. Patel, Hospitality Design KPHD. I think that's who you hired for the planning commission presentation. Part of their documents said, I quote this, the proposed model is intended to fill an underserved market gap, end of quote. They go on to say in these documents, this, I quote now, this project addresses a market need in Riverside, end of quote. I just want to know when does a market gap or a market need, perceived market gap, market need, override the neighborhood, the community well-being? This is some corporation that's all of a sudden created this market gap, market need. I know my time is running out. I did want to mention that I did walk the neighborhood. I found nobody that was in support of this project. uh mr robillard you mentioned uh recusal and i appreciate that i understand there might have been an issue there with one or more of the council people so i believe you said september 3rd was when your date so i appreciate that and with that uh i'll close thank you madam thank you mr lanham all right next i have michael white

Hello, thank you. Yeah, I am actually, if you see on there, it says I'm from Redlands. So I graduated from La Sierra University. I've spent a lot of time in Riverside. One of my best friends and his wife live in Riverside, so I come here a lot. And what the gentleman just spoke to about needing something here is we want good stuff. And unfortunately right now in Redlands, I drive to Corona. I drive through your city and spend my money somewhere else because Jazz helps me pick out special stuff. He helps me make sure that i don't waste my money i've been in total wine we have a total wine in redlands i've stood there and watched them sell their walcott crap for 12 dollars right it's horrible and they get a kickback on that jazz doesn't do that i've been there one time when he's telling someone to buy stuff that's cheaper because it's better he's not overselling so i think the the difference is um i've got to know him over the years is that um just going back and forth that He's a great family guy. He's got three kids, wife. He's not trying to be here and pump it up and sell it. He's going to be here for a long time in your community. He's going to likely move from Corona to Riverside. He wants to be here. He could go to Orange County. He's not choosing to do that. And so I think the high-end spirit people, the people that come there to the shop, they will go to Orange County. They go to High Times. They go down to somewhere else. over time you see that if you go to his spot right now there's boxes on the floor and you know there's some worry about is it gonna no he's already buying inventory for the new place and so I think that if you get to know him you'll understand that he really wants to be embedded in this community and he's changing for whatever you guys wanted to do and I think you guys are doing a great job with all the other stuff that I've seen from going to La Sierra when you used to be dirt fields to now what you guys are doing now so Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. White. Next I have Doug Momberger.

Good afternoon. Thank you, council, mayor, and staff for your dedication to the community. I also live in Redlands. I'm a friend of Micah's and a friend of Jazz's. I've known him for several years. And I'm here to speak on his behalf because, as Micah said, Jazz is a family man. He's a community guy. We try to recruit him for Redlands. Alas, he will not come to Redlands. He wants to be in Riverside. He loves this community. He wants to be here. He loves this location business-wise. It's central. I can come in from Redlands. People can come in from Rancho. People come from Orange County and from Corona and from San Diego, and they will because you can't find what jazz has anywhere else in Southern California. And anyone who collects and is an aficionado in this area knows that. And so you really have an opportunity here. I wanted to point out that you have an opportunity to attract a real gem, something unique, something you won't find anywhere else. And I don't want to take any more of your time. So thanks very much.

Thank you, Mr. Momberger. I have Aaron Sasse. Aaron Sasse. Welcome, Ms. Sasse. Nice to see you.

Good to see you as well. Good afternoon, Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is Erin Sasse, and I'm here today to speak in support of the appeal by Jas Patel. I will note for the record that I did submit some public written comments because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it today. Both my home and my husband's business are within walking distance of this location. I believe this proposal represents an opportunity to bring new life and activity to an underutilized and outdated commercial center. As someone who lives nearby, I want to see this center thrive. I believe bringing in a business that already has an established customer base can help accomplish that. I am a customer of the owner's business in Corona, and I know people drive from communities, not just these individuals, but I know that people drive from communities throughout the region specifically to shop there because it carries products they cannot easily find elsewhere. If people are willing to drive to Corona from throughout the region to patronize this business, it makes me believe that there is a real opportunity to capture that economic activity here in Riverside. The current condition of the commercial center also has a direct impact on nearby residents and businesses. Because the property has remained underutilized, I have personally witnessed illegal dumping and junk being set on fire at this location. I have personally witnessed inexperience, sorry. My husband's business has experienced disruptions from people urinating in his parking lot. I have encountered individuals using drugs on the sidewalk. in the middle of the day just a block from my house, and I've had individuals try to open my door in the middle of the day. It is disheartening when you do not feel safe in your own neighborhood or your own home. I believe an active, successful business can help change that. It brings customers, legitimate activity, jobs, investment, and greater attention to the property, creating positive improvements for the surrounding neighborhoods. This is about revitalization, economic activity, and making this part of Riverside a destination where people want to shop and spend their money. I would much rather see Riverside capture the customers, jobs, spending, and economic activity that this business can generate than see those customers continue to drive to Corona. For those reasons, I respectfully ask the city council to uphold the appeal and approve the proposed entitlements. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Sasse.

Next, I have Eric Eichenberger. Welcome, Mr. Reichenberger.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Yeah, I'm from Rancho Cucamonga.

Um, but I always, uh, go to Corona because all the other stores don't do what jazz does at his store. Um, I'm like a collector, a fishing auto, but travel all over the country. And the more I read about what jazz is planning for this spot is going to be like nowhere else in the United States between all the educational stuff, um, bringing in master distillers and winemakers and having tastings and different things you're going to learn about different terroirs and everything from different areas and how to incorporate that into cocktails and different things. It's something that you will not find anywhere else. So bringing that, this will be a destination across the whole United States. People will be flying in just to go here. And so that's why I'm just in support of this, because the more I keep reading about it, I can't wait to be able to assess it. I also like to shop for old vintage bottles that I can only find on auction. But if I haven't tasted it before, I got to take that risk of spending a few thousand dollars on a bottle where if I, this place is approved and I go there, I can buy it for the half ounce for 20 bucks and decide if I want to spend that money. So it's just a different total experience. He's going to have vintage bottles and everything that just can really help the community and it'll be a destination for everywhere. I mean, even internationally. So I'm excited about it every time I think about it. So, but yeah, that's my time.

Thank you. Becky Watley.

Welcome, Ms. Watley. Thank you. I'm a downtown resident, and I'm one of the underserved. So let me just share that I'm wearing a T-shirt that says, Call Me Old Fashioned. That's a whiskey cocktail for those of you that don't drink it. I have another t-shirt that says, in whiskey years, I'm delicious. So if you drink whiskey, you'll know that. I have a Blanton's bag right here with my cork. I didn't bring my whole collection. Didn't think the security guard would appreciate all of these coming to you. This is just to show you that there is, I'm just one person, but I have a lot of friends that do the same. There is a market for this. We do want this type of thing in Riverside. To let you know, I was introduced to Blanton's, which I'm sure Jazz and some of the others are laughing at me, but at a whiskey tasting that I attended many years ago in Nashville. And I've tasted whiskeys locally at the State and Prohibition, to name a couple of my downtown places. It's nice to do, it's enjoyable, the bartenders can usually give you some good information, but you don't get a real education, and you don't get to purchase a bottle of what you like. Now, we used to do that with a place called Forgotten Grapes with wine. If you knew Chris Kern and his store, it was many years ago. That was really fun to go to. You didn't go there to get your drunk on. You went to go learn something. And yes, it included drinking alcohol. Maybe some of you don't like whiskey. Maybe you like gin or tequila. Or maybe you're a teetotaler. Maybe you like tea and you know the difference between Oolong and Earl Grey. The point I'm making is that there are a lot of preferences for as many people as we have in Riverside. You're gonna find people that are gonna want what Jas Patel is offering us, and we don't have anything like that here. It would be terrific to have a high-end retail experience curated by an experienced retailer who knows his stuff. I don't think that any of you maybe had time to watch the Planning Commission, the video of it. It was long, and they had a lot of good ideas, and I see that the applicant has taken some of those great ideas. I don't mean to bag on the Commission, but they were overemphasizing the word bar. They kept stumbling over that. They were stumbling over the number of liquor licenses, which we just talked about. There seemed to be some judgment about having alcohol. Alcohol is legal. This isn't prohibition anymore. This is not the kind of place that you go to to get your drink on. It's about learning and purchasing things that are different. And I would think that the elected officials who are here trying to get some good ventures in town, bring new revenue, new ideas, new opportunities, a new business guy right here coming in, that you could maybe think about this differently than the Planning Commission did and overrule what they denied. Go ahead and support this appeal and get us this business in Riverside. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Whatley.

Nick Adkonk? Welcome, Mr. Adcock.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. Nicholas Adcock, President, CEO, Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce. I'll come right out with it and say that on behalf of our Magnolia Center Business Council, I am here to testify in support of upholding the appeal of Jazz is One in Spirits, and we look forward to welcoming them into the Magnolia Center area, Midtown, as it's also known. uh it's important to note that uh many of you many of all of us are familiar with this property and know that it has had some challenges know that its past has been been plagued with some difficulties in terms of homelessness in terms of graffiti in terms of trash and litter and this is a unique opportunity to have somebody from industry invest in this property and really truly elevate it not just in the sense of the property itself but in the surrounding area And what you have in this situation is also an operator that is invested not only in being a successful business, but also in elevating in the surrounding community. Our Magnolia Center Business Council has had, I think, three to four different opportunities to sit and discuss this project and meet with the operator and to discuss how they plan to really make it a successful contribution to our community. And I think that's also reflective of how Mr. Patel is seeking to be a good actor and a good operator, somebody that wants to hear from others, somebody that wants to hear from not only industry, but also the residents. Of course, it's been noted the outreach was done to the neighboring community, and I can speak to some of that because I'm a property owner just a block and a half from this property. And so I know what this property has had to deal with in the past, and I am looking forward to what this property will be moving forward. And so with that, we recognize, of course, there are concerns about overconcentration in that area, but I think what you're seeing is an operator that it's going to be focused on quality, not just quantity. And so with that, on behalf of the Magnolia Center Business Council of the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce, we urge you to move this project forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Adcock. Natalie Park?

We have your card, Ms. Park. Hi, my name is Natalie Park. I live in track 311, and I also own a business here. So when we talk about this proposed jazz location, we're not talking about something abstract. It's quite literally in both my front and backyard. I'm an architect, though I'm not jazz's architect. He already has one. When I look to understand an issue, I start researching and look for data. So in the concern about over concentration, I've tried to understand how many comparable destinations like Proposed Jazz's exist in California. That's places that offer specialty wine and spirits, rare and collectible bottles, new and exotic selections, a temperature controlled cellar, and on-site tastings. What I found was striking. There's actually only 11 premium destinations that exist in California. When I ran the search, I ran it many times to make sure I wasn't missing any data. There was a few outliers that didn't meet the criteria, and I reviewed them. And then I reviewed the information on the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage regarding these 11 locations and their on-site allowances and found that all but one of these 11 were already in over-concentrated areas. and more than half of these locations are in tracts that are even more concentrated than tract 311. In other words, this business already succeeds in similar regulatory environments. The issue is not simply the number of licenses, it is the kind of business being proposed and the value it brings to the community. Then, looking at off-site allowances, the numbers are not applied consistently across comparable areas. For instance, some tracts with smaller populations are permitted substantially more off-site licenses than ours. That matters because when treating jazz is the same as a convenience store, a pharmacy, or a standard liquor outlet, that misses what this proposal is different about. Imagine Riverside welcoming new international investors that we're trying to go after, visitors, residents, and being able to offer them something exceptional, a rare Japanese whiskey from their home region, a highly sought-after Korean micro distillery release, or that elusive chartreuse needed to make an experience the last word cocktail. Today, these experiences are difficult to find locally. With jazz, they could happen right here in Riverside. I had the opportunity to visit three of the 11 locations that I found on Google. And what stays with you is not simply the bottle. It is the experience. You remember where you were, what you tasted, and who you shared it with. That is what creates a destination. That is why people would come to JETS. So I respectfully ask you that we not miss this rare opportunity to support a truly premier destination in Track 311 simply because it's being measured against ordinary retail outlets like the two 711s, the Walgreens, and the CVS that we're counting it against. This proposal is different, and Riverside should have a chance to benefit. Thank you, and yimpy yes to my backyard.

Thank you, Ms. Park, and thank you for your patience regarding our public comment process. That was our last request to speak in public comment, so we will close public comment, and we will come now to council. And council, I need to step out for a little bit. Council Member Robillard is now the default mayor pro tem because our current mayor pro tem is not here, so good. Falls back on him as the previous one. So I'm going to just hand it. Oh, here she comes. All right. All right. So our mayor pro tem is here. Apologies. Yeah, okay, welcome, welcome. So let me switch places with you. So Council Member Cervantes will take over the meeting from here, and I will gather my things. So Mayor, or I'm sorry, Council Member Robard, why don't you start with your public comment, please, or your council comment.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm thankful for Ameriproton to be here so I don't have to pull double duty right now. So I just wanted to start off that this, I am a neighbor of this property. I live about a three minute walk from here. This is a part of my daily, well, not daily anymore. I get home too late, but I, you'd be my wife and my kids. We walk this neighborhood and this is part of our walk home and it is been empty for a long time and it's been an underused asset here in our city and I was very curious to find out you know when Allen Party Supply went on a business I was really interested who's gonna take this property who is going to do something with it and so I was following it very very closely and uh, waiting to see what would happen. And, um, one of the things that I've, uh, I've shared many times is when we're addressing homelessness or crime in the area, the best way to reduce that is to have more people there. Um, When you have people walking around enjoying something, shopping, having entertainment, that's how you get people who are looking to do crime to keep them away because they don't want to be seen doing that crime. And one of the factors that was affecting the Magnolia Center area was was a lack of businesses that are open after 5 o'clock. So many of the businesses, you go through there, it's 5 o'clock, it's a ghost town. And guess what? Everyone who's looking to do bad things comes right on in and takes advantage of the vacancy and no eyes seeing what they're doing. And so having options that are open past 5 o'clock is... helpful to reduce that element. After the planning commission denied this project, I met with Jazz and I was very direct with him. I told him, if you want people to be supportive of this business, you need to show them. You need to do more than just say, it's going to be great. Trust me. You got to do the work because for a lot of people, this type of business is something foreign to them. Most people are not going to be the high-end wine and spirit buyers, so they don't understand that business. And so just trying to explain that business to somebody who's never experienced it, it's going to be kind of a difficult sale. So to his credit, he listened. And what he did is he hired a new designer, really fleshed out the design very well. and was someone who was not afraid of criticism. He went to those who were the most vocal critics of this project and knocked on their front door and asked them, what are your concerns? What can I do to address these concerns? Walking on the weekends in 100 degree heat, knocking on doors, that is not someone who is looking to extract from the community, that's looking at someone who is committed to the community. And I think the biggest issue is when people hear wine and spirits store, they hear a tasting bar, they immediately jump to the worst case conclusion. And they're asking what happens when this becomes a bad operation? What happens if my worst fears are realized? And that is 100% a reasonable, legitimate concern is we want to prevent having bad operators who come in who are not keeping an eye on the facility, who are not operating best business practices, and are not really adding to the community. And so that is the biggest concern. That's something that I had pressed upon the applicant and his team to make sure that they address those concerns. And we heard a little bit about that this evening. Something that I just wanted to say is he literally has his name on it. He's going to be operating it himself. As a business owner, if you're talking about, for example, Total Wine or BevMo, there is nobody who cares about the product. There's nobody who cares about the facility. It is just a nine-to-five job for those people. This person is putting his name on the building and saying, my name is going to be associated with the quality of this business. And if you're trying to sell high-end wine and spirits and you have people spending thousands of dollars for that product, you better have a good name behind it. And so I think that is addressing some of the concerns. And I'll just say that... As somebody who literally lives a couple streets away from this property, has seen it empty for a long time, and the ghost of Halloween spirit stores comes every Halloween, I would much rather see this used there and move with a staff recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Next, we have Councilmember Falcone.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Temservantes. A question, Brian, if it's for you or for the applicant related to landscaping, if landscaping for the parking lot in this site is in phase one or phase two.

We can discuss with the applicant, but we can condition for that as well to come in.

It's one phase now, so it's all together. I would be the last to go in, but it'd be part of phase one or the only phase as it may be.

Thank you. Thank you. And just want to express appreciation related to the mid-century architecture. It's, of course, the character of that particular neighborhood. It makes sense. You're across the street from the most iconic mid-century dive bar in town, the Sire, with its awesome neon sign and mid-century architecture. So I appreciate that homage to the character of the neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Condor.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I knew Jazz Patel before I knew Jazz Patel. And that's because I have friends in Corona, in Norco, in Western Riverside, that when we would have events, I might ask where they got it. And they went to Jazz's in Corona. It just kept happening. And when I met him, I said, oh, you're Jazz. I've heard so much about you over the years. And then I started getting calls from two of the council members in Corona. They called me before I even could call them. And one of them was extremely upset that Jazz was coming to Riverside because they wanted to try to keep him in Corona, and they just couldn't find the place. And they kept saying, you have no idea the good guy you're getting. He's a family man. He's a good man. His reputation is undeniable. I know Jazz goes around the country. He goes out of the country finding special products, having things made to his specifications. And, again, if you're into the world of the special and higher-end whiskeys and things, this is the guy to go to. And, Jazz, I just appreciate it. You have no idea how many people have come to me and said, when did you get that, Jazz? When did you get that, Jazz? I didn't know what that was at the time. until I had a chance to meet you. So I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this location. I will definitely be there to visit you. And I thank you for choosing Riverside and to my council members and Corona. Sorry about that.

Thank you, Council Member Mel.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Well, as somebody who is, I guess the word was a two-totaler, I don't drink, don't particularly care for alcohol, so I wouldn't know what's good whiskey or what's rot good. I don't know. I mean, it's all, I have no idea. But what I did do was I went over to Corona and talked to people that live by your store and asked them and actually got a lot of good feedback. The name Jazzy's Bar, it kind of stood out to me too. It's not a bar. And so I understand where Dave, my friend Dave is coming from, you know, like, you know, calling it a bar kind of just like, I know it's not that big, and I'm, hey, it's your business. You can call it what you want. I just, for me, it stood out because when people say, you guys are going to put a bar in over there, when I got some phone calls about this, and I was like, well, it's not a bar. And he said, well, it's calling itself a bar. So just wondering why you're referring to it as a bar if it's not a bar. Come to the microphone.

So we're not putting a bar in the back is just going to be Jazzy's. So Jazzy's Wine and Spirits and Jazzy's. So there is no bar in the back.

Okay, I just Yeah, again, I'm, I'm having a conversation with people. I said that that's not a bar. It's a kind of explain what you were doing. So they're calling it Jazzy's bar. So it was just kind of confused. So I was just wondering why? Why?

It's the Jazzy's wine and Jazzy's basically a tasting room. Basically, that's what got it. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. You know, I just want to confirm with, this is, the number of licenses are going to remain the same. This is just, we're going to be transferring, well, if this is approved, it would be the license from the Rite Aid transferring over to this location, so it would be the same number?

Council Member, thank you for the question. It was going to be a transfer of a license. We learned last week that ABC updated their information. That license was surrendered to ABC, so we are down to nine licenses now. So regardless of where he gets the license, we will end up with ten licenses, the same as what's there now for off-sale.

Okay. And for me, you know, overconcentration is an issue. It's a big issue to me. I mean, when they wanted to put all the marijuana dispensaries in Ward 5 at one time, I was concerned about overconcentration of dispensaries. So, I mean, and they're clearly, I mean, just looking at it, there's clearly an over concentration of licenses in this track. But I want to ask you this, you know, can you explain why that concentration exists? You know, particularly given the presence of we have Riverside Plaza there, we have the Brockington Arcade, we have restaurants, other entertainment uses, and whether the raw number of licenses accurately reflects the character of the area? Or is it just, that's where the restaurants and whatnot are there?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember. I think you hit the nail on the head with that. Generally in destination areas like this, you're going to see a lot of places for local residents or people coming from out of town. So much like Midtown, downtown is the same thing right at the destination point. It has an overconcentration of licenses because it's just a pure number of restaurants or bars. or grocery stores in this census tract there's four grocery stores that have an off sale so ralph's fawns trader joe's um there's two um convenience stores walgreens and cbs um in here as well so those aren't necessarily downtown downtown's a little bit different with the destination but this serves a different commercial destination need for the city and the region

But just looking at raw numbers, if you're just thinking about like, wow, 11 liquor stores in the area. But we're talking about Ralph's. We're talking about Vons. We're talking about Trader Joe's. We're talking about major grocery stores in the area. So that adds to the number.

Major corporations. The other thing that you have to keep in mind here is that a large chunk of track 311 is actually developed as commercial. And ABC bases the number of licenses on residential population in each one. So the more commercial development you have in a census track, of course, the lower number of off-sale licenses are going to be offered by ABC. So generally, again, that's why you see we have large concentrations of commercial and over-concentration of licenses.

And then I've written one other question before I came. What specifically distinguishes this proposal from simply adding another liquor store or bar to an already over-concentrated area? And what conditions and security measures give us confidence that approving these licenses will not create additional public safety or nuisance problems?

So we can start by the differences there. As we just discussed, a number of licenses for off sale on this track are actually grocery stores, so they're going to be much different than what Jazz is proposing here. The security features here, there's a security plan put forth by Jazz's team as reviewed by a Riverside Police Department and accepted. There's a number of conditions as well that he has to operate under. In addition to that, off-sale and on-sale, in this case, require a conditional use permit. So if there are issues, we can revoke the use permit as well.

As I said, I spoke to people in Corona about this. I'm not a big fan of liquor stores, your traditional liquor store, just like I'm not a big fan of smoke shops and things like that that attract folks. So I talked to the people that lived in Corona, and they're like, oh, no, that's not what it is. In fact, everybody I talked to that patronized the store, spoke very highly of it um i was blown away when this gentleman came and he said oh i'm going to get a a little sip for 20 so i don't spend thousands of dollars on a bottle i'm just like wow this is like it's pretty high-end stuff it's not going to be your your traditional where i'm going to go buy my uh 40 of st ides and uh go hang out on the on the bus stop so this is i mean this is kind of high-end stuff um you know i heard uh council member uh robard speak about it is in in It was something I always said, and I talked about the Magnolia Corridor, where I represent. Before I took office, that area had the highest level of vacant retail and commercial in the entire city, right in that area. Thankfully, today it's dropped to a much lower number. But at the time, we saw a huge vagrancy problem. And I always said vacancy breeds vagrancy. And this particular property is an eyesore because there's just no activity. But as Council Member Robillard pointed out, when you have activity, things go away. Just like at Arlington Park, before we had those successful pickleball courts there, we had a lot of problems there. Now we have activity all day, so, you know, we aren't seeing those same problems. So as much as I do agree that there is an overconcentration of alcoholics in the area, I think you've explained why. You actually explained why the number is lower, because there's the number of residents in the census tract. So I appreciate that. And I'm going to defer to Council Member Romo. Is there a neighbor? Outside of 1,000 feet. by the way. But he's there. He is there. This is his community. And I've spoken to him. He's confident this is a good thing for the area. I've spoken to folks in Corona. They've talked very highly of Jazz and his store. And I appreciate your explanations regarding the over-concentration. And thank you for, I just hope you don't have to sign Jazzy's Bar on the building. I mean, I'm not telling you how to design your building. I'm just saying, I just don't want the community thinking we have a new bar in town. But that's all I have. Thank you.

Council Member, if you don't go for the alcohol, you can go for the coffee and the tea then. Yes.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Member. Perfect. Seeing that we've moved through, we're going to now think, we had a motion from Council Member Robillard, second from Council Member Condor. And just wanted to, it looks like we have to do a roll call vote. Council Member Piconi?

Yes.

Council Member Robillard? Yes. Condor? Council Member Condor. Council Member Mill? Yes. Council Member Hernandez? Yes. Council Member Hemingway? Yes. And then I'm respectfully going to abstain since I came late. I didn't get to be here for the presentation and to hear the applicant speak, but wish you all the best of luck. Thank you. It looks like you got all the votes you needed. And now moving forward we have the next item up for discussion Is going to be council Robillard recommending establishing an ad hoc committee regarding artificial intelligence Strategy and policy and looking really quick to see I was gonna say who is our presentation that we have George Khalil here with us So now we will go ahead and open a public comment and if we could go ahead and play the recording and we will Presentations gonna be council member or okay. Perfect turning it over to council Robillard. Thank you. I

public comment is now open for this item available in both english and spanish call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language to request to speak press star 9 you can also join via zoom the meeting id for both languages can be found on the agenda

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and get it started, and I'll kick it over to our Chief Innovation Officer, George Khalil. The reason I wanted to call this together is artificial intelligence is going to change the way we work, the way businesses operate, and the way cities provide services. I don't think Riverside should wait for those changes to happen to us. I think we should be intentional about how we prepare for them. That's why I'm proposing the creation of a city council working group focused on artificial intelligence. I want this group to look at AI comprehensively. That includes how the city itself uses AI and what safeguards we need around privacy, transparency, cybersecurity, and human accountability. but it also needs to go much further. We should be looking at what AI means for our workforce, our education institutions, how we prepare local businesses and residents for a changing economy, what opportunities exist for economic development, and how we responsibly address the infrastructure that supports AI, including data centers. My goal is not to start from a predetermined position that AI is either good or bad. The goal is to bring in experts, ask difficult questions, learn from what other cities and institutions are doing, and develop a Riverside-specific strategy. Ultimately, I want Riverside to be a city that doesn't simply react to technological change, but helps shape how that change benefits our residents, our businesses, and our community. And with that, I'll go ahead and hand it over to our Chief Innovation Officer. Thank you, Council Member.

Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor Perotem, Council Members and colleagues, George Khalil, your Chief Innovation Officer. So as Council Member Robillard mentioned, he requested in the last meeting to bring this forward. And truly, artificial intelligence is going to be a transformative opportunity, similar to the steam engine, similar to electricity, similar to flight. And it's going to change how we're going to function for the next 100 years. So, as requested, we're bringing before you the consideration for the Council to evaluate forming a three-member committee to evaluate municipal AI governance, policies, ethical, safe consideration, and the transparent use of AI, economic and workforce development, critical infrastructure, land use, cybersecurity, and data privacy, as well as educational and local economy transformation to partner with educational institutions. So with that, we recommend that the city council approve the establishment of an ad hoc three-member city council working group. And we were also informed that the working group under the city charter is a Brown Act governed body. So that would be, if there's some clarity, our city clerk and city attorney can help me out. And for the council to also consider appointing a three member of the City Council to serve as a working group Directing him to return to the full City Council within 13 months with a comprehensive policy and recommendations for AI strategy framework And with that I'm happy to answer any questions Thank you so much and we're gonna go ahead and go to the phone lines and see if we have we don't have any public comment cards here in the chambers for this item seeing if we have anyone online and

We have one caller. We'll go ahead and take the first caller. Caller, go ahead.

Hi. I was the lone voice of logic and reason over here hearing all this discussion about all this education of spirits and alcohol. It's kind of a joke. It really is a disgrace that this is even being brought up. It's like 1930 all over again. You guys are setting yourself up for moral turpitude and failure to handle your shared duties. That's all I have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, sir. We have one other caller. Go ahead, caller.

Yes, this is Adrian Oroz in regards to the AI discussion. I ultimately approached you initially to be pragmatic. One of the things that I want to make it clear is that my statement is not anti-AI. AI is very important for our national security. It's important for government to support AI in every shape or form, from the ecosystem all the way to its application. So initially, I had came to the city employees for some needed discussion, and that is that when you use AI, it should be used responsibly. That doesn't mean that when using AI, your employees should not research accordingly, and that is still very necessary. So it is important that when you do use AI that you're not plagiarizing, that you're not taking away from the people's work. And in this case, my work was taken. I had a character that I developed, took a lot of weeks. I hired people for it. I was in control of every little pixel. Whenever I do anything, any of my characters, I do vast amounts of research to ensure that nothing is copied from the community. Because ultimately, I don't want to have to market a product and then for someone else in the community to be able to benefit from that. So I always create unique things. So going back to the AI, usage, it is vital that your city employees make sure that they do their research and that they're not unknowingly copying. The character that I brought into question is copied, I would say, very clearly. I sent a very clear list of things that were copied. Again, just because I do the research myself, just because I'm in control of every little pixel, I know when something is copied from my work. So again, just because you accidentally copy somebody's work doesn't take away from the mistake. It does not take away from the damage that you caused. So I just want you to really consider how you use AI. This is not against AI. AI is beautiful. We're very glad that our AI producers in our country are working day and night to win this race on the world economy. When it comes to using it, you need to use it responsibly. So this is not an AI thing. This is how you use tools at your disposal in the city of Riverside. So, Adrienne, I hope you can really take some thought in how you use AI. And thank you to everybody in the industry that's really allowing our country to be dominant and continue to be dominant on the world stage. That's all I have to say.

Thank you, caller. And we also have, we do have a common card in the chamber, Nicholas Adcock from the Greater Chamber. And then we'll see if we have any other callers online.

Thank you, Your Honorable Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. Nick Adcock, President, CEO, Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce. Just in general and concept, we support the formation of this working group and look forward to any outcomes from its discussions. Just if we had any kind of recommendation, we certainly encourage this working group to engage as much as possible the wide variety of stakeholders in this discussion. As you might imagine, and as you all know, AI is truly found to be a transformative tool and to the impact that it has on communities, on industry, on academia. It really creates an opportunity, I think, for a full conversation on it, one that can, I think, be productive towards positive outcomes. If I have any recommendation that the council, I would ask you all to consider is to certainly engage broad stakeholders to make sure that your conversations can certainly reflect the wide variety of ideas out there. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Adcock. And let's see, do we have anyone else online? One more caller. Go ahead, caller.

Good afternoon, Melissa McKee-Cordtree. Looking forward to higher-end spirits and what I normally buy at Costco. I strongly support Councilman Robillard's suggestion for a working group. I'd love to see more working groups on specific substantive areas, but this is a great opportunity because AI ranges the gamut from how this is going to affect city employees, our budget, and all the way to data centers, and they're not all the same. If I had any suggestion, I would say that 12 months is probably more realistic. Everything is moving so fast. I do work for a government agency. We use AI, have grappled with many of the kinds of issues that I'm sure your employees are thinking about. As a long-term practicing lawyer, glad I'm not a first year associate any longer because AI is truly incredible in terms of providing the first line of information. And it has increased productivity and efficiency, including my own, in a way I could never have anticipated. So I hope we do this, but a year is more realistic, the way things are moving. I think that by then there will also be quite a number of additional policies at the federal and state level that will apply to us. And again, I'm really glad, forward thinking, There's going to be lots of job opportunities. Hopefully, this is something that will really help us economically. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon. Bye.

Thank you, Ms. McKeith. I just think if we have any other callers. Okay, no other callers. We're going to go ahead and close public comment, and we're going to start off with Council Member Mill.

One question I guess it would be, uh, I don't know who, who directed to, but my question would be, uh, how are we determining the, uh, makeup of the, uh, of the council committee?

I was going to make a recommendation, but I'm also open to other recommendations.

i mean that's that's the thing i mean we had a full discussion amongst the group through government processes i don't know how you normally just i mean we're how we're going to draw it up that that's really my my concern is it i mean are we just going to select the folks or is it going to be you know have there been a discussion about whether this goes to mayor's dominating screening committee for maybe initial discussion recommendation or if it is a submission of council members who have interest or

So the basis of it was similar to how we did the Inspector General Working Group, where we selected amongst ourselves at the dais of who was interested in kind of doing off that. Since this is a working group, not a standing committee, I don't think it really applies for, you know, this is not an ongoing assignment, so to speak. And so I think if we added a committee to this, it would really screw up the chair, vice chair, member breakdown, because then we'd have... people that would be serving twice as chair, twice as vice chair, et cetera. So I think I'd kind of keep it the temporary working group kind of thing.

Okay. So then my other question would be for meetings, is it as determined or is it going to be a particular?

The goal is to do it once a month. That's why it's a 13-month time frame. And have it on the same day at the same time once a month because it's just scheduling. It's going to be complicated. And that just is easier for everyone's schedules to do it that way.

And then is that something – question for the – so is this something that would be agendized through you? I mean, will we – is that how it works? Yeah.

Yes. So this will be, although it's an ad hoc committee, it will be a standard Brown Act body, which would consist of the Brown Act requirement and the Sunshine Ordinance requirement, and it will be a public meeting.

Okay. And I would disagree. The Inspector General was like, we just picked on the people that we didn't like the most and put them on there.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Okay.

Yeah, I think there was a, you know, it was interesting how some of us decided to step up and volunteer to do the Inspector General Committee. Well, I see we have Council Member Robillard on the board, so Council Member Wright, I don't know if you had any suggestions or recommendations, and then we can go to Council Member Falcone.

Yes, I do have some recommendations, and I wanted to suggest that I've suggested these council members out of a perceived diversity of opinions on AI and interest in AI, so that is not a dominated by one side or the other. And so the people I'm suggesting is myself, Councilmember Hemingway, and Councilmember Falcone, who bring different opinions and kind of notions on AI so that we are able to talk about more than just one type of thing. And because it's also a 13-month long commitment, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem Cervantes. That is also part of the consideration as well. Thank you.

I won't lie. I figured I wouldn't be considered for this given my term ends soon. But no, I think that's great. Thank you for the recommendations. We'll move to Council Member Falcone and potentially Council Member, okay.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Temservantes. Typically, I'm not in support of additional committees and working groups, unlike my friend who called in on public comment, mainly because I believe in, as I've showed this with the clerk before, the committee of the whole. I think we should all be together and we just workshop stuff and we don't need to have all these council committees and all this stuff. But I think for this particular topic and the fact that we don't have a committee of the whole, that we kind of have no other option, I appreciate it. I talked to Council Member Robillard about this. I appreciate his suggestion. i would be interested i need another committee assignment like i needed a hole in the head but that's okay um i'm i would yeah it's for a good cause the fact that i'm i'm authoring this this data center a topic i think it makes sense um because they go hand in hand and there's a correlation there uh so that would be that connection but um i think that this is necessary despite my hesitation towards additional groups and more bureaucracy thank you mayor pro tem thank you councilmember councilmember hemiway

I'll just say I'm happy to serve if it's helpful, but also if there's others that have a desire, I'm open to that discussion as well.

Great. And just, I guess my only two sentences, I feel, you know, we were able to serve on an ad hoc committee with the Inspector General, and sometimes it's helpful and necessary to be able to work through some issues. And I really actually love the breakup of east side, mid, and midtown, and then the west side of representation across the city. But again, unless there's other interest from some council members, you know, that may want to be a part of this, we can open that up. Or if there's anyone who wants to make a recommendation, yeah. I will say I would have interest in serving, but again, I know my term ends soon, so I don't want to have to create a shift, but I look forward to the work that the committee will be doing to have this important discussion. Yes, so I don't know if there's a motion.

There's a motion by me. I make a motion to create the working group and to nominate myself, Council Member Hemingway, and Council Member Falcone to be the three members of that group. Second.

Great, okay. Do you want to do the roll call, Clerk? Okay.

Ward 1?

Yes.

Ward 3? Yes. Ward 4? Yes. Ward 5? Yes. Ward 6?

Yes.

Ward 7? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem, Ward 2? Yes. Motion passes unanimous.

Wonderful. Thank you everyone for the discussion and look forward to more to learn in the future. Great. And now we are going to adjourn and go to closed session. Looking to our city attorney if there's anything to report out.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I just want to basically refer everyone to the written agenda, which has a description of all the closed session items. However, in addition to that, I would like to read out for items 14A, B, and C some additional details. For 14A, we'll be instructing the city's negotiator, Tom Hatch. related to the terms and price for 670 Iowa Avenue with Lee Chang, negotiator. 14B will be instructing the city's negotiator, Tom Hatch, regarding terms and price for 3790 Van Buren Boulevard, and that's to my negotiator. And for 14C, we will be instructing the city's negotiator, Tom Hatch, regarding price and terms for 9501 Indiana Avenue for Daniel Friedman, negotiator on the other side. And with that, we'll go into closed session and come back to report any reportable actions.

Thank you so much. And we'll counsel a return at 615 for evening session. Thank you all.

Good evening. City Council's returned momentarily from closed session. We'll be reconvening back in closed session to begin the evening portion of our meeting, our public portion of the meeting in open session. So we will start our 615 meeting. We will call the meeting to order. And I will call on Council Member Condor, please, to lead us in the invocation and pledge.

Thank you, Mayor. Please, if you wish, pray with me. Dear Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to gather in friendship and harmony once again. Help us in unity to make this meeting a successful and effective one. Heavenly Father, help us to remember that freedom, like faith, needs our attention and our cooperation. Lord, be with us now as we meet. Be here to strengthen us, to keep us, to protect us, and to direct us. As we work together tonight, guide our thoughts and our actions to stay focused on what is important and to make good decisions for the betterment of all of our citizens. Lord, we ask that you bless our first responders who are on duty tonight to protect us and bring them home safely to their families. We bring before you our military members serving around the world, putting their lives in harm's way to protect freedom across the world. Protect them on their missions and return them safely to their families. Lay your guiding hand upon our doctors and nurses who work so hard to heal the sick and injured, and be with our government workers, helping them work to make our city, our state, and our country shining places to live and raise our families. You're a great and glorious God, and we thank you, and we ask for your blessings tonight on these, our prayers. And together we say, amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance, please join, ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

Thank you, Council Member Condor. Yes, ma'am. We will open our meeting now with, this is general public comment. This is not for items on the agenda. This is for the consent calendar and any matters within the jurisdiction of city council. So if you want to comment on the consent calendar or any matters within the jurisdiction of city council that is not agendized, please feel free to comment. Let's open public comment, please.

public comment is now open for this item available in both english and spanish call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language to request to speak press star 9. you can also join via zoom the meeting id for both languages can be found on the agenda all right thank you i have fred bonuelos

It is most likely going to be continued We would speak to the continuance if the continuance was on the agenda, but not to the item it's a little different Sure

Hello, guys. Hello, everybody. I'm embarrassed. I'm disappointed in the situation that I'm going to talk about. It's unacceptable. Where's the timer at? There it is. Thank you. On 9-11, the United States of America flag is supposed to be at half staff. Unfortunately, fire station number 13 on Sycamore Canyon Boulevard was at full staff. I made calls to 3-11, fire administration, talked to Lisette, and made contact with the firefighters there. It was like an act of Congress to get the flag at half staff. There's a no-brainer. There's four days that you should take the flag at half staff. 9-11 Patriot Day, National Firefighters Memorial Day, Peace Officers Memorial Day, and Memorial Day itself. On Memorial Day, we reserve the morning hours to mourn the more than a million who lost their lives in service. At noon, the memory is raised by the living who resolve not to let sacrifice be in vain, but to rise up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty. It's embarrassing that the firefighters can't lower the flag at half staff at their own home, Station 13. I don't get it. Make it make sense. Whatever the problem was, it needs to be fixed. And I hope that you guys get back to me on my phone number or email to let me know how you're going to resolve it in the future. Let's go to e-bikes. Menifee, they have a great ordinance. You guys need to check it out. It makes everybody happy. It has to do with speed limits, and I'll just leave it at that unless I can speak later on today, or I'll come back and speak, but I wanted to get that out there. Menifee has a great ordinance. I also will say that the e-motos, That's the main problem, but those of you that have state connections, we need to try to get them a track in your city so they can ride or in the state level, Lake Paris. I'm pushing for Lake Paris to get a track for those e-motos so they'll have a place to ride because they're not going away. West of the old 215, your side, there's a vagrant problem. People are in tents. Please come and clean that up. There's also an area, I'll call it the little island of Riverside just west of Day Street. That's an area you need to clean it up, make it safe. If you'd like, we could get the city of Moreno Valley to come and clean it up because they do a great job of cleaning up things. But then in exchange, can you give us the businesses over there and the tax revenue? That'd be a great thing to do if we go in there and clean it up. Santa Ana, they did a great thing in Santa Ana. The mayor, as far as vagrants, go look it up. You guys should do that in your city. With the help of Orange, they got that done where they cleaned up the vagrant issue in Santa Ana, Santa Ana. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bernal. We have a couple of requests to speak online. Let's take those.

Good evening, Melissa McKee. A couple weeks ago, Councilman Mill mentioned a trip he took to Montgomery, Alabama, where he visited a church and learned about the efforts that that religious institution was engaging in to help with homelessness in their community. In relationship to that, Temple Beth-El is having a community conversation on the 23rd at 6.30 in the evening with all four of the remaining candidates in the Ward 2 and Ward 4 elections for November 3rd. It's going to be facilitated by Rabbi Emeritus Suzanne Singer. And the purpose is not to have the traditional debate we see at the chamber or other places, but to really have a dialogue about how we can avoid some of the problems we're seeing at the national level come to our city. The division that's caused by extremism an increased distrust of government, which leads to an erosion of democracy, and how we can develop ways for all of us to work together with our government to make Riverside a stronger community. And thankfully, we start with a really great foundation. For those of us who have lived here, when people say, why would you live in Riverside? IT'S HARD TO EXPLAIN THAT WE ARE VERY CONNECTED AS A COMMUNITY AND WE HAVE A RESPONSIVE CITY COUNCIL AND MANY RESPONSIVE PEOPLE IN CITY HALL. IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING, IT'S NON-DENOMINATIONAL. WE ONLY REQUIRE THAT YOU RSVP AT RSVP AT TBERIV.ORG. RSVE at TVERiv.org. For security purposes, you will have to show identification. That's the 23rd of this month, 630. There'll be refreshments. You'll have a chance to talk to the candidates afterward. If you're not running in city council races, but you're a candidate for something else, you are welcome to attend and speak to people informally or put out information. Thank you, Councilman Condor and all the other candidates. And I'm hoping we get a good attendance next week. Good night.

Thank you, Ms. McKeith. We have another caller, please. Let's take our next caller.

Good evening, Jason Hunter, Ward 1. Wanted to talk about two things. Number one is item number 49 on the agenda. It's the request for an emergency response. Purchase order for helicopter rotor blades for $246,000. You don't have to pull this item, but maybe just briefly respond to my question, which is, what happened? You read the report, it just says there was an incident. Well, I mean, that's a pretty expensive incident. I think that maybe some people on the council know what happened. Maybe you don't. The public would like to know. $246,000 for something, and we don't even know what it is. It's just an incident. So anyway, that's number one. Number two is I would like to see, I think it's number 32 on the agenda poll. I really question the report on the adoption of the foreign direct investment strategy for economic growth. and the authorization for international travel for elected officials. That has all the markings of a giant boondoggle program. At least that's how it looks like to the general public. And I think that should be pulled. I think it should be discussed. And I think like how much money is actually going to go towards this where, you know, quite frankly, if you want to see the world, maybe join the army. Okay. Armed services. Like maybe the city of Riverside isn't the best place to go see the entire world on the taxpayer. I think those, some of the economic analysis I saw on there is absolute, it's dribble. It's dribble. It's not believable. You know, 55,000%. Return on investment. Give me a break. Whatever it was, some extraordinary number. I think even before we start dumping tons of money into foreign direct investment, what are we doing for local firms? And what are we doing for firms and companies inside the United States? And because a lot of that money in the form of profits, I don't know about foreign firms where it ends up. My guess is a lot of it ends up back overseas, at least with a lot of the companies here locally particularly. And then from the United States, the money and the profits stay here. It's not just about the jobs it provides and property taxes. It's also where do the profits go after? And do we restrict some of these investments to publicly traded companies? Do we allow private companies to come here and take their profits and repatriate them? Do we allow government-sponsored entities from other countries to come over here? I mean, I have a lot of questions about what are we doing. I'm not saying we shouldn't have some sort of program set up to perform direct investment. But, man, this just doesn't look all that well thought out. I think there's got to be additional discussion on it. And I want to see us focus on what are we doing for U.S.

Thank you, Mr. Hunter. Thank you. That was our last request to speak for item 22. We will move on on our agenda. And we are now at the presentation portion of our agenda. this Tuesday we're going to present a proclamation to Latino Network for in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month which is September 15th through October 15th and I do have a proclamation here for Alex, but I want to let him give us a presentation from Latino Network. And please welcome Alex Cortez.

Thank you so much. Good evening. And honorable mayor, esteemed council members, and dedicated city staff and fellow citizens that are joining us this evening, my name is Alex Cortez. I'm officially here in my capacity as president of the Latino Network, but also accepting on behalf of the Spanish Town Heritage Foundation through my role as a committee member on the Tamale Festival Steering Committee. I also stand here on behalf of our many other sister community organizations that do a lot of great work in the Latino spaces here in the city. I think more importantly, I'm here as a community member of Mexican Roots, a proud parent of a daughter with mixed Latina roots. She's also Nicaraguan. So while might be the only person accepting this evening I really grasp the whole magnitude of what it means for our community and and really all of us so this is for all of us and that are here pursuing that American dream in this city I commend the city of Riverside for this proclamation It is a very empowering gesture that recognizes the contribution of our community at a time where even the national temperature may not be as welcoming and supportive. So we feel seen and appreciate that. We appreciate the support and partnership on the many different initiatives that we work and collaborate with the city to benefit and protect our community. And we hope we can continue to do that. For Latino Network and in the spirit of the collective, We're honored to receive this proclamation, let this celebration serve as a reminder of our obligation to ensure a better future for our children. Muchisimas gracias and thank you again.

Thank you, Dr. Cortez. We appreciate you being here tonight. I'm going to read a little bit of the proclamation, if you don't mind, and then we'd love to have you come down and have a little picture with us. I'm just going to summarize some of it. Whereas the character of Riverside from its beginning reflected a diverse population of people of many ethnic cultural backgrounds, Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Week, which is now expanded to month, was established in 1968 to recognize and celebrate the heritage and culture of Latinos in the U.S. Whereas the objectives of Hispanic Heritage Month are to create a greater awareness of Hispanic contributions, whereas the U.S. Census Bureau estimates Hispanic population to be at 19.5% of the population, it's the largest racial ethnic minority group in the U.S., And whereas Riverside's population comprises estimated 54.7% of all residents, larger than the Hispanic share of the population in California, we're special here, with a labor force participation rate of 67.4%. Whereas Hispanic entrepreneurs are a powerful economic force, owning more than 4.7 million Hispanic Latinx-owned firms in the U.S., and whereas beyond their economic contributions, Hispanic and Latino communities enrich the U.S. with language, traditions, art, music, and a shared commitment to family and community. So now, therefore, I, Patricia Lock Dawson, do hereby proclaim September 15th, 2026 through October 15th, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the city of Riverside and encourage the people of Riverside to observe this month with programs and activities that celebrate the contributions of Hispanics in the city. So thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Would you take the proclamation on behalf of the Spanish Heritage Foundation as well?

OK, wonderful.

All right, Councilmember Cervantes, I know you wanted to say something.

Thank you. Yes, just want to say thank you to Professor for being here today and for your hard work and contribution to our community and echoing the same to the entire board, Latino Network, as well as to Spanish on Heritage Foundation. And there are so many unique contributions that each of your nonprofits and groups do to support and uplift the stories, the culture, the heritage, and just the power of what we've been able to see in the contributions of our community today. And so it's really special to be able to work with you all throughout the years. And there's so many different things just to share that these groups do to donate, to contribute, to give back. You guys have your sponsors, your scholarships for students that are going in high school and college and supporting even other mural initiatives we've done in the city as well to uplift and do storytelling and helping small businesses. supporting the Cheech, the Mali Festival. I mean, we could go on for days. So I just really want to thank you for being here today and commend you all for the hard work and what you contribute to our city here in Riverside and even to uplift and to make sure that as we're in some challenging times, making sure that our communities feel safe and helping to find other ways to make sure that we can protect each other and keep each other safe. So deeply appreciate both of the groups and all of those that you work with. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Cervantes. Council Member Hernandez?

I'm honored to be up here on the council when this proclamation was brought forward to mark the recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. As the first Latino elected to represent Ward 6, it's deeply meaningful. It's a celebration of our vibrant culture, our resilience, and the contributions of our community. I just want to thank Latino Network and the Spanish Town Heritage Foundation for their deep commitment to their deep commitment to just making sure that our history and our culture are on the forefront and are remembered. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member. And thanks, Alex. We'll let you get back to your life. But I did want to say, just in general, thank you for your leadership on Latino Network. I think you've done a fabulous job steering it and taking it over in the past couple of years. And it's always a delight to work with you. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, we are now at item 24. And this was going to be a public recognition of Poly High School's athletic trainer, but I have a note here to pass it over to Councilmember Robillard for some comments regarding this presentation.

Yes, unfortunately the athletic trainer who is needed at an athletic event. It is sports season right now and is unable to be here with us to receive this recognition. Rather than recognize her in absence, we would like to postpone this item until a later date after the completion of the athletic season so that we can properly recognize her and the staff who were involved. This recognition is especially meaningful because their quick thinking, training, and immediate response played a critical role in helping save a student's life. And I look forward to bringing this recognition back once the season is over. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Hernandez, did you have something you wanted to say?

Okay.

Your name popped up again. Okay. We are now on to item number 25. This is our Ward 7 Riverside Prosperous Success Report. So, Councilmember Hemingway gets to talk. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. It's always exciting when we get to... share about a person or an organization in our city that is doing amazing work. And I will say this started, I think, or at least when I got a firsthand glimpse was when I was invited about a year or so ago to read in the classrooms with the kids at La Granada Head Start. I was invited by Miss Patricia who does a phenomenal work over there and is it's always so fun to turn up and see all the you know activities and things happening so we thought well what better than to share a bit about that since I was so impressed with the amazing and attentive kids and all the work that was going on there. So we're gonna talk about La Granada Head Start. The Head Start program, and we can go to, I think, slide two. The Head Start program was founded in 1965 as a summer project. Since then, it has evolved into a full-length program that has served more than 40 million children from the low-income households. The comprehensive program is designed to meet the emotional, social, nutritional, and psychological and health needs of those that qualify for the program. It also provides support for their families by offering access to various resources including social services, job training and employment assistance, medical and dental services, nutritional assistance, adult education, and ESL classes and GED classes. And there's one thing to note as well. For those that might qualify special needs, 10% of the applicants are held aside and the income requirement is waived for those that would qualify for special needs. So it's a it's a great program to really help those that can benefit from from getting an extra a little bit of a boost there So let's go to slide three The head start program strives to ensure that every enrolled child is fully supported as they prepare for school the curriculum helps the child develop their learning skills emotional development language and literacy math and science creativity and motor skills and Slide four, this is the cool part. So when we walked into the space, it was like you were walking into a home because the design of the classrooms to support the program goals, they do that by recreating a home-like environment. So you have a kitchen space, a family dinner-style eating area, toothbrushes, classroom chores, and nap times, which I think we all would benefit the most from at this point if we could get that into our council schedule. It helps the children, by doing all this, it helps them develop these positive habits, both at school and at home, and they also learn to socialize with their classmates. They form friendships and they develop healthy communication skills. We'll jump to the next slide here. This is what we want you to take note of. It's currently preparing to open the Early Head Start program, which will expand their services to include children from birth to three years old. So they're expanding the program because it's been so successful. And so we're just grateful to recognize the amazing work there. And I'll read the we're going to offer a certificate of recognition that says the city of Riverside commends you on your success and extends a heartfelt thanks for your valuable contribution to our city. Your dedication and service have made a significant impact, enriching our community and enhancing the lives of our youth. So thank you so very much. Patricia, if you'd like to come up or the team and share a few words, maybe how people can learn a bit more about it as well, and if they do qualify, how they could get involved. So please, and thank you for that incredible work. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Hello, Mr. Nieto.

Hello, hello.

How are you?

I'm doing well. Good to see you. Good to see you. So good evening. My name is Joe Nieto, and I'm the Executive Director for Early Education Programs with the Riverside County Office of Education. On behalf of Dr. Edwin Gomez, Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, we would like to thank you for highlighting our amazing Head Start program. As we say in the field of education, it takes a village. It takes a strong community to prepare our youngest learners for a bright future. It takes all of us. It takes our wonderful families, our dedicated staff and teams, and it takes strong partnerships like we have with the city of Riverside. So thank you so much for highlighting our programs and appreciative to be here. Thank you.

Wonderful. So you're the success, so you go down.

So any other comments, or should we take a picture? Well, how about we take a picture down here, if that would be all right?

Oh, sure.

And I will say, Mr. Nieto also started the Dad's University at RUSD, which I have to say was an amazing program.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Thank you, Council Member Hemingway. I couldn't think of a better recipient for that success. I appreciate you bringing that. Okay, council, we are now at our consent calendar. So we will go through now and ask our city manager and council if they have any items to pull. City manager.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I am going to pull item number 32, the foreign direct investment strategy item from the agenda, and that will be coming back in a later date.

Okay, thank you. Ward 1? Pass.

Ward 2? Pass. Pass, but I do need to recuse myself for 42-43 due to real property within 1,000 feet. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Ward 3. Pass.

Ward 4.

Pass.

Ward 5.

Item 26.

Okay. Ward 6. Pass. Ward 7.

Pass. Move to approve the balance consent.

Okay. Second?

All right. Yeah.

Yeah. Ward 1. Yes. Ward 2. Yes. Ward 3. Yes. Ward 4. Yes. Ward 5. Yes. Ward 6. Yes. Ward 7. Yes. Motion carries unanimous as amended.

All right. Thank you. So now we're going to go to Council Member Mill for item number 26. He's pulled. So let's open public comment for item number 26.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right, thank you. Council Member Mill, I'm going to turn it over to you to ask your questions.

Thank you, Mayor. I didn't really have a question. I pulled this item because I want the community, I want people to understand what's going on here. This is a continual, you asked me, waste of taxpayer money. Now, I'm just going to, not all the outside council, I'm going to highlight one case and then it actually adds up to three cases. We continue to spend money going after Tony Platt. And just in this report alone, it's all fruit of the poisonous tree. That then leads to a lawsuit involving Councilmember Condren and former Councilmember Adams. Then I would argue that that leads to another lawsuit involving our former city attorney, Phaedra Norton. So we're looking at $336,000.61, I don't want to forget the 61 cents, and outside council fees as of June 30th of 2026. That's not all the fees that these cases have cost us over the years. This Platt case has been going on since Chris McArthur sat in this seat. And we're now... I don't even know how many years we've gone on. This is absolutely ridiculous. At some point, we need to figure out what we're going to do here. But This is all over a hanger that was going to be torn down at the Riverside Municipal Airport, and now it's cost us $336,483.61 in legal fees. That doesn't count all the other money that we've spent. This is absolutely ridiculous. This is money that should be going to filling potholes, trimming trees, and doing good work in our community, not being wasted on a vendetta against Mr. Platt. then Condor Adams, and then Fader's ridiculous lawsuit against us. And I don't have any questions. I just want people in this city to know that we continue to waste money on frivolous lawsuits over a hangar at the airport that was going to be torn down. It's absolutely ridiculous.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Mill. Before we vote on this item, we'll need to take public comment. We have a couple callers for this item. Let's take our first caller, please.

Well, here, here is what I would say to Mr. Mills' comments. I'm glad he pulled this. I'm glad I was actually here and listening to this council meeting so I could comment on it. Mr. Mills even forgets that before we went to outside counsel on this case, the city attorney's office sent Mr. Platt and his co-defendant on the case invoices for $2 million. of work that they had done internally, $2 million for all over a $200,000 hangar that was destined for the dump that he actually took a liability, Mr. Platt, and turned it into an asset that the city generates revenue off of to this day. We've got to end these, I think they're Hatfield and McCoy vendettas. And I think it's not even, I don't even, I'm not even sure I blame the council members anymore. I think it's a staff more concerned in the city attorney's office of being right than doing right. And it's the council's job, fiduciary responsibility, to end that, to stop that before we spend another, who knows, million dollars over this ridiculous situation that has gone on for far too long. Secondly, I want to point out, because I pointed it out once before and you guys kind of ignored it and you didn't fix the problem. So we've got a city manager coming on board. I think an inspector general coming on board. We just hired a city attorney and we kept these terms in the contract, which is it allows our ex-employees to sue us after we've given them a severance based upon firing people without cause, which is what Ms. Norton, Phaedra Norton, our former city attorney, has done to us. I look at that we've appropriated $715,000 to that case. We haven't spent that much, but we've authorized the spending of that much. I mean, all you have to do is fix the damn contract and the terms within the contract to make it so that if you want your severance for six months or 12 months or whatever you feel is the appropriate severance for being fired without cause, not with cause, without cause, then you give up the right to come back and sue the city, okay? We need to fix that. We need to fix it now. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's have our next caller, please.

Good evening, Melissa McKeith.

I also want to thank the councilman for pulling this item. I hadn't even read it on the consent agenda. I do not believe our city attorney's office has traditionally had a culture of trying to resolve issues in advance of litigation. In fact, recently when I had a claim denied based on not having my irrigation water for a year, which was required through a settlement agreement, the last time they didn't want to actually resolve things, I was told, we will not tell you why we are denying your claim. And when I said, hey, is there anyone who could mediate this dispute, which is roughly $10,000, litigation alone in the first six months would probably cost collectively well above 50 to 100 000 i was told no you have to file a lawsuit now i have seen this over the last decade where instead of reaching out to solve problems trying to get ahead of issues trying to acknowledge that there's more than one perspective on an issue trying to help our community not end up in a lot of conflict. Our city attorney's office, for whatever reason, is passive. Now, this could be left over from when Greg Priamos ruled the roost. We haven't had a really good track record. I am so hopeful that our new city attorney will at least look into having somebody who is a designated mediator, trained as a mediator, to try to resolve these issues and save all of us money. Because unfortunately, most of us don't want to file litigation against the city. And some of us suspect that staff wants us to file litigation because that makes us the enemy. That means we don't sit on committees. That means we are the other. That is an unhealthy situation that a lot of people on council have acknowledged, not just this council, but the last council needs to come from the city attorney's office. it would save us a lot of money. I don't know a lot about the Pratt litigation, but I know we've spent a lot of money on it. I do know some things about Phaedra Norton, and we're spending a whole lot of money as it relates to her. Money that could pave our streets, money that could subsidize programs for the homeless in our city, spending it on outside counsel, huge, huge waste of my money. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. McKeith. That's the last request. We had to speak on this item, so we'll close public comment. Council, back to you.

I'll make a motion to approve the item. Again, to our new city attorney, just wanted to put it on record for you. You're a new guy here, but no disrespect to you or your office, but I'm a little tired of it, and I'll make a motion that we approve.

Second mayor just to add just for council member to mention. We are going to be bringing back the case regarding mr Platt and Condor soon to close session for discussion and I'm I do hear you and I look forward to hopefully getting this to a close in the near future.

Thank you I'm gonna recuse myself on the item.

Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion in a second with one recusal city clerk

Ward 1? Yes. Ward 2? Yes. Ward 3? Yes. Ward 5? Yes. Ward 6? Yes. Ward 7? Yes. Motion carries, 6 affirmative, 1 recuse.

All right, thank you. Council, we are now at, I believe, item 50, yes? Okay. So we're now at item 50, and... Councilmember Condor or Councilmember Mill, I think you wanted to say something.

Yeah, Mayor, with the agreement of the council, we are going to continue this item to next Tuesday, the 22nd of September. There's some cleanup language that we need to get back in. We want to do this right the first time. We've worked hard for many months to get this to be right, so I will make the motion that we push this on a continuance until next Tuesday, the 22nd.

Okay. Do we need a second? I'll second that motion. Yeah. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to continue, but I'm going to open public comment now. But this is to speak to the continuance. This is not to speak to the item. So it's not to talk about the value of e-bikes or what we're doing with e-bikes. It's whether or not you want to see the continuance. So that's what the comments are. So we'll open public comment for that.

Public comment is now open for this item available in both English and Spanish call 9, 5, 1, 8, 2, 6, 8, 6, 8, 6, and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language to request to speak press star 9, you can also join via zoom the meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right again public comment is to speak to the continues in the continues only Fred bond with us.

Hello, everyone. I'll make this short. I got to go to my city to do the El Grito, but I'm sorry. I love that you're continuing it because there's something that you guys are finding that needs to be peaked and tweaked. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bonwell. I appreciate that. John Arnold.

Well, I'm glad to hear we're going to continue with this. So I just think just really quick that I think we should maybe form some kind of a committee, something that maybe we can all talk together somehow, some way to get more attention, maybe from the bike shop owners, different people in public have been making comments. Maybe get together and have something to talk that we can carry. This is a future. It's not going to go away. We've got to find a solution. All right. Thank you, Mr. Arnold. I'll see you back on that date.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, guys. All right. Council, I have no other requests to speak on this. So please vote on the motion to continue. Item 50. Ward 1? Yes. Ward 2? Yes. Ward 3?

Yes. Ward 4? Yes. Ward 5? Yes. Ward 6? Yes. Ward 7? Yes. Motion carries unanimous.

All right. Thank you, everybody. Council, we are now going to go back into closed session because we have additional items that we'll need to take care of. And we will come back out to adjourn after closed session items are finished. Thank you.

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We are back from closed session and I will call on our city attorney please to report out on closed session items.

Mayor there's no reportable action.

Okay thank you. Council anybody have any items for future consideration? Okay. All right, thank you.

Madam Mayor, can I just note for the record that item number 50 will be revised, well, item number 50 will be added to the September 22nd revised agenda.

Okay, thank you. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.