City Council - Regular Meeting

Why do we have extra copies of the ordinances? Hey, Darren. So I get this, the resolution, because of what it says. On these, Austin had mentioned that you raised the question of whether there were severability clauses in the ordinances. But there actually are already. I just wanted to show you. Oh, okay. And then on the other one, which is the, that's the short-term model. And then on the e-by-conveyance, it's actually... It's actually in the meat of that ordinance. The other one is sort of... These are sort of the covers that say, we're hereby adopting this law. And what you want to be concerned about is, it won't be so much this that would

All right, good evening and happy Tuesday the 1st of September we have officially entered the Burr months that means I can start drinking pumpkin spice lattes now. I can't do that in October because that just doesn't feel right. So you guys will get to hear this again. I'm practicing. All right. I will call this meeting to order at 5 p.m. Can I get a roll call, please?

Council Member Lara?

Here.

Council Member Fenn?

Here.

Council Member Martinez? Here. Mayor Pro Tem White? Here. Mayor Voigt?

Here. all right and um can we do we have any public comment for closed session i have no written request simone do you have any callers on the line simone can you hear me do we have any callers on the line sorry no we have no callers at this time thank you all right excellent and mr pinky can we please get a readout for the items for discussion

Yes, the council meeting closed session. Item B1 is conference with legal counsel regarding potential initiation of litigation. That involves three potential cases. Item B2, conference with legal counsel regarding significant exposure to litigation, one potential case.

All right, and we will adjourn to closed session at 5.01.

member laura the second was by mayor pro tem white and the vote was as follows mayor voight was yes in favor of the motion mayor pro tem white in favor council member martinez in favor council member fenn in favor of the motion and council member laura was also in favor of the motion the other item that the council met on in closed session was item b2 conference with legal counsel regarding significant exposure to litigation

one potential case and there was no reportable action on that item and that concludes the report out all right thank you sir and if you um would please join me as we bring up mr bologna for our prayer this evening followed by the pledge of allegiance by council member white thank you let's bow our heads forward to prayer

Dear God of all faiths and of no faith, we come together today in gratitude for our city of Beaumont and the people who call it home. We thank you for the gift of community and for the opportunity to work together for the common good. We ask for your wisdom and discernment to rest upon our mayor, city council members, and city staff. Will you grant them clear minds, compassionate hearts, and the strength to lead with integrity and fairness? Help everyone in this room to listen well, respect one another, and seek solutions that benefit all residents. Bless their discussions tonight and guide their actions so that they build a stronger, safer, and more united community. We pray, amen.

and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And that will take us on to our announcements and recognition section. And for that, we will start out with E1, our National Senior Center Month, and bring up Mr. Story and Ms. Starr.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to bring staff up to talk about National Senior Center Month to share some highlights and some great things that are happening with our senior.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. TONIGHT AS WE RECOGNIZE NATIONAL SENIOR CENTER MONTH, I AM EXCITED TO SHARE WITH YOU THE TREMENDOUS GROWTH WE HAVE SEEN IN PROGRAMMING AT OUR SENIOR CENTER OR WHAT WE REFER TO AS CLUB 55. SO IN 2022, 23, WE HAD OFFERED EIGHT EVENTS AND FIVE PROGRAMS FOR OUR SENIORS. TODAY WE OFFER 23 EVENTS AND 20 PROGRAMS DEDICATED SPECIFICALLY TO THIS AGE GROUP. THAT'S A 231% INCREASE IN WHAT SEEMS LIKE WE'RE ADDING SOMETHING NEW EVERY SINGLE WEEK. Our participants range in age from 55 to 85 and beyond, which is a tremendous span of ages, experiences, and interests. So we work hard to provide a variety of opportunities that fit people in every season of their lives. These range from wellness classes like aerobics to reliving activities from their youth like attending prom or summer camp. to learning more about their community through our tour programs or destination walks at our parks. We have done speed dating, sing karaoke, create works of art, learn about new technology, dress up for every holiday, and have had intense chair volleyball competitions, just to name a few. One of our more recent and exciting expansions is our ASB, our associated senior body. So you may be familiar with an associated student body in a school setting. Well, we decided that our seniors deserve one of their own. The group of individuals I have with me here tonight volunteer their time and energy and creativity to help us advertise and promote the senior center to both current and potential members. And our growth does not stop within the walls of our facility. Our staff and ASB members have also begun outreach efforts in the community and with other senior centers. Just last month, we hosted Sip with the Senior Center in conjunction with Coffee at the Cop at Panera. We also toured the Banning Senior Center and are scheduled to tour Cala Mesa and Yucaipa very soon. The goal of these outreach efforts is to build a stronger network of resources and opportunities for older adults, not just in Beaumont, but throughout our entire region. Some of the wonderful events we have happening in our senior center this month are our Red, White and Boots Senior Dance on September 11th. And on September 22nd, we're hosting our Senior Health Fair, featuring more than 30 vendors, providing information, resources to help our residents live happy and active lives. And on September 22nd, we'll be hosting a talent show for our amazing group to show off their skills. And we want to thank you, our council, our staff, especially our recreation specialist Alma Frosto here, our community partners, and all of our seniors for helping us shape what the future of senior programming looks like in Beaumont and for making Club 55 a place where fun never gets old. So thank you.

And thank you, and thank you, ladies, for your time and energy and all that you have dedicated to the community. You know, when I first was walking for campaigning for city council, one of the things I heard often was, we don't have our own designated senior center, but let me tell you, you guys have designated this as the senior center, and it's amazing to see all the activities, and I love to watch all that you guys do and participate in what you have. I think we had a bingo night recently, didn't we? Yes.

We did, Mayor, and I had a chance, an opportunity to call a bingo game.

Yes.

It was a big M, you know, for Mike, but I, you know, I digress.

I was looking for a big W for, like, winning, right? All right, well, thank you guys very much. I believe we have a proclamation.

We do have a proclamation.

I think maybe just a photo with the ASB would be great.

Sure, absolutely.

Come on up, and we'll take our photo.

Go for it, lady. Mm-hmm.

Are you ready? Three, two, one. Thank you.

All right, and that moves us to recognizing the City of Beaumont's Finance Department through their Achievement in Excellence in Procurement Award. Miss Lisa Leach.

Good evening Madam Mayor and Council. Tonight I am proud to recognize the City of Beaumont Finance Department for receiving the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award from the National Procurement Institute. This distinguished award recognizes public agencies that demonstrate excellence, professionalism, transparency, and accountability in their procurement practices. Receiving this award reflects the dedication and hard work of our finance department and purchasing team, as well as their commitment to managing public resources responsibly and serving our organization with the highest standards. The city of Beaumont is among only one of 93 cities and a total of 251 public agencies nationwide. As interim finance director, I am incredibly proud of the team and grateful for their continued dedication to the city of Beaumont. Please join me in congratulating them on this outstanding achievement.

And we have a nice little award. Excellent. Thank you, guys. And it's always excellent when we get to present financial awards and the stewardship that you guys have towards all of that. So thank you, counseling.

You still have room on the wall for that?

We're adding a lot lately. Well, very good. Come on up and let's get a picture.

Okay, ready? Three, two, one.

And moving right along, that'll bring us to our public comment period for items that are not on the agenda. Any one person may address the city council in any manner not on the agenda. If you wish to speak, please fill out a public comment form provided at the back of the table, excuse me, at the back table, and give it to the city clerk. There is a three minute time limit on public comments. There will be no sharing or passing of time to another person. State law prohibits the city council from discussing or taking actions brought up by your comments. And do we have any public comment this evening?

Yes, ma'am. I have an in person of Douglas Emery.

Good evening, Mayor Voigt, Mayor Potem White, and council members. I'm here just to say thank you. Thank you to the City of Beaumont for your support of the Beaumont Cherry Valley Rotary Club and everything we do in the community. I want to say thank you to Laura James who came to our club meeting on July 30th, talked about the great development in the City of Beaumont, what's happening here, and that was very educational for our Beaumont-Cherry Valley Rotary Club members. Thank you for Christopher Beaumont, city manager, coming August 20th and sharing his experience and what's happening within the city. I think, Chris, we put you on the spot a couple of times, but he did a great job in responding and supporting our club members. Last Thursday, I want to thank, we had the canine program from the city of Beaumont. So thank you to Police Chief Christopher Ramos, Lieutenant Jeremy Harris, and Corporal Taylor and Corporal Lynn. They brought their two canine dogs at the Chattanooga Center, and we had a great presentation about the canine program. So that was exciting. And I also want to thank, oh, she's here, both Ashley Star and Doug's story. As you know, we meet at the Chattanooga Center, and it's a great venue, great team that they have, and we couldn't have our successful growing Rotary Club meetings without Ashley's and her staff and everything they did and Doug's story. So I just want to thank you, Ashley and Doug. FOR EVERYTHING YOU SUPPORT OUR CLUB ON. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A LUNCH TOMORROW CELEBRATING THE STAFF. SO THE OTHER PART IS INVITATION. AS YOU KNOW, WE HAD AN EXCELLENT PIECE POLL UNVEILING AT THE CHATNEY CENTER ON A COUPLE MONTHS AGO. AND THANK YOU, MAYOR VOIT, FOR COMING AND SPEAKING. THE WEATHER WAS BEAUTIFUL. I KNOW LASTLY YOU MISSED THAT BECAUSE YOU WERE ENJOYING SOME VACATION TIME AND ALL THAT. BUT WE'RE HAVING OUR SECOND ONE ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH AT 11 A.M. AT THE RENOVATED BOMAUT LIBRARY DISTRICT. Thank you for Mayor Pro Tem being our guest speaker. And I'm going to hand out the flyers to the invitation. Hopefully council members can attend that event, Chris and Lauren, others as well. We're looking for an exciting, peaceful and veiling event at the library on Friday, September 18. So I'll pass these invitations over. So thank you and we'll see you then.

And thank you. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time. No other speakers.

All right, very good. That will move us on to our consent calendar. Are there any items to be pulled from the consent calendar for discussion? All right, seeing none, do we have any public comment for our consent calendar?

I have no written requests. Simone, do we have any callers on the line? Simone, do we have any callers on the line?

We have no callers at this time. All right. And seeing no public comments, I will entertain a motion.

Mayor, I'll move that we approve consent calendar items G1 through G8. I'll second.

Can we get a roll call, please? Council Member Laura?

Yes.

Council Member Finn?

Yes.

Council Member Martinez? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem White? Yes. Mayor Voigt?

Yes, and I just do want to make a comment for G5 as just a thank you for the grant specific to traffic enforcement. I know that that is always a big topic throughout the city. So it's nice to see when we're able to enhance our opportunities there. So thank you and yes. All right, that will take us to our youth council report.

Yes, Mayor, just a quick report that we have concluded our application process for the Youth Council, and our first meeting will be on the 8th, and we'll be going over all of the bylaws and such, and we'll be presenting the council to you on the 15th, and I'm not sure, what was our final count, Nicole, it was 18? 18.

It was 18.

So we'll look forward to that. Wow.

Is that more this year than last year? Or about the same?

Pretty steady? About the same. But that was good. I was really impressed. And it looks like a nice blend and balance of grade levels. So look forward to that.

Great. Always looking forward to their inclusion. Okay, and that will take us on to our public hearings. We have our first public hearing to consider the adoption of the 2026 Beaumont Sustainability Plan. And for that, we have Mr. Jones for a report.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor, Mayor Pro Tem, and council members. This evening, we are pleased to welcome Sammy Taylor from Alta Planning and Design, who will present the city's sustainability plan, prepared as an update to and modernization of the 2015 Climate Action Plan. Ms. Taylor.

All right, let me just get sorted here. Is it presenting?

Here, let me see. There we go.

Sorry, everyone. Bear with me one second.

Yeah, do we have that option?

With your notes, huh?

Yeah. I've got my computer. We can. No? We're going to give you notes.

That's OK. We can. We're flexible. and adaptable. OK. Do you need one? Oh, OK. Sorry, everybody. We just have our hands up. Look. Oh, we did it. Fantastic. Are you able to see the slides? We're ready.

Oh. It's still giving the .

All right, sorry everyone for that delay. Are we ready? You can see the slides, yes?

We can see the slides, but we have your notes on there.

Ah, OK. We will get this sorted. OK, we'll do it this way. There we go.

All right.

OK.

All right, well, sorry for that delay. Let me introduce myself. Good evening, Mayor Boyd and council members. I'm really excited to be here tonight to present the 2026 Beaumont Sustainability Plan. I am with Alta Planning and Design. We are the consultant team who has been leading the development of this plan. So a brief overview of what we'll cover tonight. We'll give an overview of the sustainability plan development process, greenhouse gas emissions in Beaumont, followed by natural hazards and climate impacts in Beaumont, as well as the sustainability and resilience measures to reduce both of those issues. So moving right along. Sustainability, the city of Beaumont is committed to providing a more livable, fair, and economically vibrant community. These three components, the environment, people, and the economy, make up the concept of sustainability. Sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In Beaumont, this means creating a thriving, healthy, diverse, and resilient community for this and future generations. So some of the benefits of sustainability include cost savings for families, improved health outcomes due to less air pollution and more active lifestyles, less traffic congestion and safer streets for biking and walking, and more trees and increased access to nature resulting from healthier ecosystems and cleaner watersheds. Additionally, while not shown on this slide, another important benefit of sustainability is improved community resilience to climate hazards and natural disasters. So the Beaumont Sustainability Plan updates the 2015 plan with new implementation-focused actions to advance environmental sustainability. It is a short-range plan with a timeline of about five to 10 years, and it builds on Beaumont's existing plans and policies, most notably the general plan update. It aligns with recent state laws and charts a sustainable path forward to continue implementation as resources and capacity become available in the city. So in addition to the full plan, we created some collateral materials, including a comprehensive and standalone executive summary that is more accessible and distills the plan into its most important parts. Additionally, for those who want to take a deeper dive into the topics of the plan, we developed focus area fact sheets that detail the measures within each section that enhance community sustainability and resiliency. So how did we get here? The plan development process has followed the sequence seen on the screen. We started with background technical analysis to understand the underlying conditions in Beaumont, including updating the city's greenhouse gas inventory and conducting a vulnerability assessment, which I'll touch on the results of those coming up next. The technical analysis creates the foundation to develop the measures which are really the meat of the plan. And these lists of strategies reflect the city's unique characteristics, priorities, and needs. THE SECOND STEP THEN IS THAT MEASURE DEVELOPMENT PHASE, AND THIS WAS AN ITERATIVE PROCESS THAT INCLUDED COLLABORATION WITH STAFF, PARTNER AGENCIES, AND INCORPORATES FEEDBACK FROM THE COMMUNITY. FINALLY, WE WROTE THE PLAN, RELEASED IT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT, AND ARE MOVING THROUGH THE FINAL ADOPTION PROCESS. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOU CAN SEE HERE AT THE BOTTOM, COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT HAS BEEN A THROUGHLINE OF THIS EFFORT. So community input has been incorporated throughout each step in the development process. We utilized different methods to engage different populations in the city. We conducted two rounds of focus groups with stakeholders, including representatives of the business community, residents, the youth commission, seniors, and cyclists. We gathered feedback on the measures via an online community survey. and attended events like Beaumont Nights. We also distributed executive summaries to the Chamber of Commerce, and finally, like I mentioned, released the plan for public review and comment. So we heard a lot of things, received a lot of different comments from stakeholders throughout the process, and this is a small collection of what we heard, but mainly there is support for creating a more livable community that is resilient to the natural hazards, has clean air and safe access to walking and biking, and more dependable utilities. To be sure, the community did express concern over the cost to themselves and to the city of implementing these sustainable lifestyle changes. AND ALL OF THESE COMMENTS HELPED US DRAFT MEASURE LANGUAGE THAT PRIORITIZE ACTIONS AND PRIORITIZE ACTIONS THAT MAKE THINGS FEEL MORE ACCESSIBLE AND CATER TO THIS COMMUNITY. So next, I'll explain the results of the foundational technical analysis, including where Beaumont's greenhouse gas emissions come from. And understanding where our emissions come from help us to focus efforts on where meaningful reductions can take place to improve our environment. And this technical analysis informs measure development. And we look at emissions because they also help us, when we reduce those emissions, help reduce the impact of climate hazards, which we'll get into next. So moving back to 2022, total community-wide emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, were about 376,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is how we measure the suite of greenhouse gases. We use 2022 because when we did this analysis, that was the most recent year for which complete data was available. On-road transportation, so that includes driving cars and trucks on our roads, was the largest contributor to emissions at 63%, followed by residential and non-residential energy use, including both electricity and natural gas, which accounted for 28% combined. This distribution aligns with many cities across California and shows us where the biggest opportunities for reductions lie, which again is that energy and transportation sectors. SO WE ALSO COMPARED THESE RESULTS BACK TO 2018, WHICH WAS THE OTHER INVENTORY THAT WAS DONE FOR THE CITY, AND EMISSIONS DID RISE BY 11% FROM 2018 TO 2022. THE BREAKDOWN BY SECTOR DID REMAIN CONSTANT, BUT THE PER CAPITA AND PER SERVICE POPULATION, SO THE TOTAL NUMBER OF JOBS AND PEOPLE IN THE CITY, DECRASED BY 6% AS COMPARED TO 2018. SO THAT SUGGESTS THAT EMISSIONS ARE NOT INCREASING AT THE SAME RATE THAT THE CITY IS GROWING, WHICH IS GOOD NEWS. So moving on to the natural hazards. So Beaumont currently faces a range of climate hazards such as extreme heat, wildfire, flooding, and severe weather. Most of the community feedback that we heard was about people's experiences with these natural hazards. We also use natural hazards and climate hazards somewhat interchangeably. Climate exacerbates many of these hazards. And that's also why we look at reducing emissions to avoid the greatest impacts of these hazards. So in terms of heat, we're expecting more extreme heat days and warm nights and hotter average maximum temperature in the future. For precipitation, we're not expecting to see a great change in total precipitation. However, there will be more variability and extreme weather events. And the next two are kind of related to that. Flooding may become more frequent and extreme. and drought on the flip side may become longer and more intense. Finally, wildfire, we're expecting to see more area burned, wildfires that burn more intensely, and increased impacts from wildfire smoke. So these hazards have impacts not only on the environment, but on our community. Children, older adults, low income households and renters face greater risks and have fewer resources to recover after an event. Additionally, buildings and infrastructure can be damaged, leading to disruptions in daily life and business activity. And furthermore, continued environmental stress on our natural systems can reduce their ability to function and recover after a disaster as well. So like I mentioned, all of that background analysis that has been done helped to inform measure development. So the measures included in the plan have been vetted by staff, including the departments responsible for implementation to ensure capacity, partner organizations, including Riverside County Fire, as well as CAL FIRE, and the community, most importantly. And based on the feedback we received, the measures have been designed to incentivize action rather than mandate it and leverage existing external resources. LIKE EXISTING REGIONAL PROGRAMS AND UTILITY REBATES. WE'RE ALSO BUILDING THESE MEASURES OFF OF ONGOING CITY EFFORTS TO BEST FIT INTO DEPARTMENT WORK PLANS. SO THE PLAN FOCUSES ON THINGS THAT ARE WITHIN THE CITY'S CONTROL AND UNDER ITS DIRECT INFLUENCE. So the plan contains 37 community sustainability measures focused on buildings and energy, transportation and land use, solid waste, water and ecosystems, and community accountability and activation. By taking steps to support sustainable development, we can lower energy use in our homes and businesses, make it easier to travel by different modes, reduce waste, and protect natural resources. The measures included in the sustainability measure section were selected based on their benefits to the community, local priorities, staff capacity, alignment with the general plan and state goals and legislation, and the availability of resources for implementation. So the city also worked on developing a suite of 21 community resilience measures, and these ones address the climate hazards that we just talked about. And so they are designed to increase the resilience of residents, natural resources, critical facilities, and infrastructure and services from the impacts of climate change the actions in this plan section focus on preparing for emergencies maintaining essential services and supporting quick recovery when disruptions do occur with particular attention to residents who may need additional assistance the benefits of the measures contained in this section include improved air quality lower risk of property damage improved habitat quality JOB CREATION, AS WELL AS STRENGTHENED INFRASTRUCTURE, EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEMS, AND COMMUNITY READINESS. AND THIS, OF COURSE, ALL CAN IMPROVE OUR PUBLIC SAFETY, REDUCE DAMAGE AND DOWNTIME AFTER AN EVENT, AND SUPPORT LONG-TERM STABILITY FOR RESIDENTS, BUSINESSES, AND CITY OPERATIONS. So we took the draft plan to Planning Commission earlier this summer, and these are some of the thoughtful questions that the Planning Commission asked us in our responses. I won't go into detail now, but we can certainly return to any of these if needed. And so there's a second slide of those questions. And so today we're asking you to discuss, ask us questions. I have Shannon George from David J. Powers on the Zoom who is available to answer any questions related to the environmental review. And with that, we hope that we recommend that you adopt the 2026 sustainability plan. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you for that. I will open this public hearing at 638. Do we have any public comments?

I do have a written email public comment that I can read into the record.

Sure.

This is from Sergio Perez. It says, hello. As a longtime resident, I would like to first and foremost express my appreciation to the city council for its work over the years. I do believe the council has the best intentions in mind for the development of the city, and I very much appreciate the particular emphasis placed on revitalizing the downtown core. I do believe there is still room for improvement with this revitalization plan. However, there is simply a lack of density for people who want to come to downtown. I believe Beaumont lacks middle housing today. There aren't enough duplexes, triplexes, or multiplexes, or vertical housing developments that offer a middle ground between single-family housing units and mid-rises, especially for young adults and single adults who would like entry-level housing. The downtown core could be revitalized if some of these projects were to be initiated. One particular solution could be vertical two- to three-story mixed-use property where the ground floor could be used for commercial space such as a cafe, restaurant, or retail, while the above floors would be designated for residential use. I would strongly suggest looking into this concept and seeing if the feasibility of it This would not only offer housing in the heart of town, but it could also create new job opportunities while simultaneously making downtown more attractive for residents and visitors to each as well. We can even see neighboring Redlands developing similar concepts on a large scale, like the Transit Village Specific Plan and the Tennessee Village Mixed Use Project. On the corner of Edgar Avenue and East 5th Street, there is a fairly sizable empty lot next to the newly refurbished past area biz hub. I think this could make for an ideal location to consider developing into a multi-story, mixed-use property and would make for an effective use of land. I strongly suggest an inquiry be made into this lot along with the mixed-use concept so we may see a stronger revitalization plan for downtown. Thank you for your time and consideration. And I have no other written comments. Simone, do you have any callers on the line?

We have no callers at this time.

All right. Thank you. Seeing no further public comment, we'll close it at 640 and I will open it up for council discussion. Mayor Pro Tem.

Hi. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. Adopting this plan is a state mandate, correct?

It is.

It is. And the states provided financing for us to have the study and sustainability plan created.

There are grants available, but for this particular project and sustainability plan, there's been no state funding.

OK. And then how were the emission numbers calculated, or where did those numbers come from?

Sure. So the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and forecast were calculated using the US Community Protocol, which is a very standardized approach to how all of these inventories are done across both the US, and then there's a global version of that protocol as well. and it's based on real data. So we collected real data, activity data is what we call it, from Beaumont including energy use in kilowatt hours as well as therms from both our residential and non-residential customers, real vehicle miles traveled which we used from the general plan update to align with that forecasting as well. We looked at solid waste haul data, all these real data that then we apply WHAT WE CALL EMISSION FACTORS TO. SO THERE IS AN EMISSIONS INTENSITY ASSOCIATED WITH EACH OF THESE DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES, SO WE APPLY EMISSIONS FACTOR TO THAT NUMBER TO GET US OUR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS. SO IT'S KIND OF AN AMORPHOUS TOPIC, BUT IT'S BASED IN REAL BOMONT LOCAL DATA.

So when you calculate the amount of electricity used to generate the electric vehicles, that adds to the emissions too, correct?

Yes. So how we do energy, for example, is we get a report from the utilities. So we got data at a high level from SCE and the gas company about total emissions or total, excuse me, kilowatt hours in therms consumed within the community. by residential and non-residential customers, we can't tell exactly how that energy was being used. So if it was being used, you know, to heat your home using a heat pump, we can't tell the difference between those kilowatt hours and kilowatt hours that are going to charge an EV, for example.

Okay. And when you're using these protocols to sort of, I guess, basically you're taking averages or comparisons of other cities?

So we, no, so this is all like based only on Beaumont. And so these are a standardized set of methods and data sources that we use to then, you know, make this inventory and all cities who are complying with the protocol do it the same way so that we can look across jurisdictions and compare apples to apples.

So do you, so apples to apple comparison, do you take into account that the interstate 10 goes right through our city?

So no, so that's a great question. So when we look at vehicle miles traveled, we don't count pass through traffic. So anything all travel that doesn't, um, either originate or end in Beaumont is not considered because it's not under the city's control to do anything.

So even if we do everything that we need to do in the plan to curb our emissions and we can't do anything about I 10 corridor going through our city, um, how much should we pay for the, for the sustainability plan?

close to 300,000. Okay. Thank you. That was what was budgeted for the plan. I don't know that we've spent that much yet though. Okay.

If there are no other comments, I'll go ahead and make a motion.

All right.

I'll move to approve the adoption of this plan per the state requirements. I'll second.

All right. Can I get a roll call, please? Council Member Laura? Yes. Council Member Finn? Yes. Council Member Martinez? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem White? Yes. Mayor Voigt? Yes. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. All right. That will move us on to our public hearing for our short-term rental program and ordinance. And we will have a staff report by Mr. Usher.

Good evening, mayor and city council. Tonight's item we are bringing forward is the first public hearing for the city short-term rental program. The action before council is to introduce chapter 5.2, one adopt the related fee schedule and establish a framework needed for beginning the TOT collection in January of 2027. This is the next step in the discussion council has had over the years with staff. in the ordinance reflecting direction council previously provided to move forward with this program. So this item has been brought to council several times in the past by staff, first beginning this discussion in 2023. In 2025, Council asked staff to return with additional information on the number of short-term rentals in the City of Beaumont, regulatory operations, program cost, and of course, TOT, which is a transient occupancy tax. By April 2025, staff had identified more than 50 short-term rentals operating in the City of Beaumont. In March 2026, Council directed staff to move forward with a short-term rental management software option. and prepare TOT implementation beginning January of 2027. Tonight's ordinance puts that prior direction into enforceable local framework. What is being proposed now is an ordinance that creates an annual licensing program for short-term rentals and establishes clear operating standards. Each property and each dwelling unit that is used as a short-term rental would require its own license. Applicants would provide basic ownership, operation information, insurance, a floor plan, parking information, and TOT registration to the city. The ordinance would also require local responsible party, whether that's the owner or a manager, to provide information that is available 24 hours a day and a response time within 60 minutes if there's a code violation. It establishes standards related to occupancy, parking, quiet hours, life safety, trash, property maintenance, and advertising. And it requires that the city have the short-term rental license number appear on the listing. So the proposed fees, as you see on the screen, are intended for cost recovery, not for the sole purpose of generating revenue. The annual short-term rental license is proposed at $250 with $100 compliance inspection or reinspection fee, $100 late renewal or appeal fee. And then operating without a license would require or would follow the city's existing administrative citation tier, with the first tier being $100 for the first violation. 200 for the second violation, and 500 for the third and any other violation afterwards. Failure to display the short-term rental license would carry a $250 penalty. The program would be administrated through community development in coordination with the city manager's office using the council selected software model that was approximately $16,000. Code enforcement would conduct the initial compliance inspection and respond to violations as needed. Inspections would not automatically occur every single year. The overall goal of this program is to allow short-term rentals to operate while creating clear local accountability, protecting neighborhoods, and ensuring that operators are compliant with TOT requirements. Staff recommends that council waive the first reading, adopt the fee resolution with any council-directed changes, and we'll bring it back for the second reading at the next available council meeting. Once the program is operating, staff can also return to council if the experience shows that the fees or penalty structures need to be adjusted. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions.

All right. Thank you. And I will open that up to public comment at 649. And do we have any public comments?

I have no written requests. Simone, do we have any callers on the line?

We have no callers at this time. All right, and I will close the public comment period at 6.49 and open it up for council discussion. Council Member Fenn?

I'll defer to Mr. Martinez to get his light on first. Oh, very good.

Well, thank you. Just clarification on the noncompliance. Can you put that back up? It looked different than it did in the staff report. So... Here we have a proposal of 250 plus 100, so 350, correct, for your license and the inspection. And then noncompliance we have at one, two, and five. I thought the report said 500 for first offense. Am I reading it wrong? It says establish amounts of 500 for operating without a license and 250 for failure.

so the 500 was referenced to the highest tier so the administrative citation has multiple tiers and so it is just an error in the report where it's just 500 it was supposed to state one two and 500 for operating without a license because i have a concern that it's too low i mean your violation is is cheaper than your license so i mean

I mean, I understand we're starting and we don't want to come in with very large because we're getting everybody used to it. But on the other hand, I'm a strong believer if you don't have a noncompliance that's going to give a little bite, then it's really ineffective. So I was hoping that we were going to start with five, not the third violation, but if we started at five, and then 250 for your no license number, because they're not going to have one if they're not compliant, then that pulls to a 750 violation versus the 250 that they paid if they would have gone through the proper procedure. So it's a little, it's not thousands like the other one, but it's a little, you know, significant more to, you know, if you're not complying with the license. Am I making sense? Yeah. Okay. So that's my suggestion. to bring it up a little higher to have more of an effect.

I just want to clarify, too, that is a fine per day. So every day that they operate without the license.

Oh, I didn't know that. Yes.

I don't know if that materially changes your thought on that. Did I miss that?

No, I think it just states a flat rate. Maybe in the ordinance it's different.

In the ordinance it states, it specifies per day. Okay, so it's per day. Correct.

So we're going back at 100 per day. Yes. Okay, well that's different then. So I'm okay, we'll discuss that, but that's different than the 250. So I'm okay. If it's a per day, then, I mean, still though, it's... IT'S DIFFICULT FOR ME TO HAVE A FINE THAT'S LOWER THAN YOUR FEE. IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME, BECAUSE IF THEY GET A FINE AND THEY COME IN AND PAY IT, THEN IT WAS, YOU KNOW, THEY STILL HAVE TO GO AND GET A LICENSE, SO THEY'LL HAVE TO GO BACK AND PAY THE 250 AND 100 ANYWAY, RIGHT? SO THEY'RE PAYING THE FEE, AND THEN THEY'RE COMING BACK AND PAYING FOR THE LICENSE AND THE COMPLIANCE INSPECTION.

WE CAN CERTAINLY ADJUST THE FIRST TIER VIOLATION TO BE CONSISTENT WITH THE LICENSE AMOUNT, AND THEN WE COULD TIER TO 500 AND 700 OR 750.

IT JUST SEEMS TO ME THERE HAS TO BE, FOR YOUR FIRST, HAS TO BE HIGHER THAN NOT, BECAUSE IF NOT, THEY'RE GOING TO PLAY THE ODDS, YOU KNOW, AND THE ODDS ARE IF I GET

you know hit all hundreds hundred bucks yeah i don't know that's my suggestion but i'll hear counsel of course thank you but i again i just want to also just i guess and city attorney has brought up a good point so with those tiers the the first violation of a hundred dollars is for the first violation so that's day one so that the second violation of two hundred dollars is the set is for the second violation which is day two in a calendar year okay The third violation is $500, which is technically day three in a calendar year.

So let me go back then because I'm still not quite following it. So if they're fined, so they don't have a license, they're fined $100 day one. They don't come in on day two to pay that, then it goes to $200? That's my question.

So basically what this is saying is technically they could be fined $300 for operating two days in a row technically they could be they or they could be fined $800 for operating three days in a row without a license or three days within a calendar year So it's every day. They're operating every day. They're operating. So if they operate if they have if we if we confirm a violation for three days AT ANY POINT WITHIN A CALENDAR YEAR, THAT'S $800. IT COULD BE THREE DAYS IN A ROW. IT COULD BE THREE DAYS SPREAD ACROSS THE YEAR.

WOULDN'T IT MAKE SENSE THAT WE WOULD FIND THEM A FLAT FEE FOR NOT HAVING IT AND THEN FOR EVERY DAY THAT YOU FOLLOW? BECAUSE TO ME, IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE LICENSE AND YOU'RE OPERATING AND YOU CLOSE, THAT WAS ONE DAY, SO WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO PAY, $100? for one day operating, that was all?

Yes, one day if it's the first violation or first offense within a calendar year.

So then what was the incentive of not paying the $250? To me, maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but it makes sense to me. If you have $250 for a fee and you got caught and you didn't have a license, then you have to pay something higher than that $250 for not doing what you're supposed to do. And then if you continue to operate, then whatever that number is, council decides. you know, if that can be done. But to me, the first initial hit has to be, hey, you were caught. You didn't have it. Here's your fine, higher than what it was that if you would have just come and complied. And then if you go on, then that's another story. But that's the way I look at it. I'm just trying to see, we want people to comply. But if you don't put a sting enough on there, then they're going to play the odds and say, well, we'll just see if we get caught or not. And to me, that doesn't make sense.

council member fenn okay thank you i've got a few questions um first on the violation and the license is it by property or by property owner because there's a high in my opinion there may be a high probability that that somebody owns more than one property and you know if they've

It's by property.

Okay. And so then do they need a license for each property?

Yes.

Okay. All right. And then how is the city staff going to go about informing the current ones that are out there?

So if council moves forward with the adoption of this program, the city manager's office and community development department would work with communications to have a campaign notifying the current short-term rentals because the software that we purchased that we're onboarding right now has the address based on the listings that they have on Airbnb and all the other short-term rental websites, and they have the contact information for them. So then we can contact them directly with letters that we're already drafting. But then, as I mentioned, we can do a campaign with our communications division so that it's on social media and it's available for everyone to know that we're going to start implementing this program come January 20, 27. Okay.

And then after the program starts, if we had a new listing pop up from someone that was a brand new short term rental, is there a grace period for them to be? You know, would we reach out to them and say, Hey, I see you just listed your property for the very first time. We have this ordinance. Do they have a grace period? Do they have a certain number of days to get on board or it's no, you immediately get fined because you didn't follow the rules. My thought was if somebody new came in after all those notices went out, they may not know this exists.

SO AS OF NOW, THERE IS NO SPECIFIC RACE PERIOD. SO AS OF NOW, THERE IS NO SPECIFIC RACE PERIOD. HOWEVER, IT'S SOMETHING THAT WE HOWEVER, IT'S SOMETHING THAT WE CAN ESTABLISH IF COUNCIL WOULD CAN ESTABLISH IF COUNCIL WOULD LIKE A SPECIFIC TIME FRAME. LIKE A SPECIFIC TIME FRAME. THERE IS GOING TO BE A TIME THERE IS GOING TO BE A TIME PERIOD BETWEEN WHEN A LETTER IS SENT PERIOD BETWEEN WHEN A LETTER IS SENT OUT TO THEM AND OF COURSE WHEN OUT TO THEM AND OF COURSE WHEN CODE ENFORCEMENT CAN GO OUT AND CODE ENFORCEMENT CAN GO OUT AND VISIT THE PROPERTY TO MAKE SURE but our software also checks the websites to make sure that if a listing pops up if there is no short-term rental license number which will be assigned once they purchase one then they will be sent a letter saying hey you need to be in compliance and purchase a short-term rental license okay so then what so fast forwarding let's say we're in the month of february now and this has been passed and a new one pops up you see it advertised online reach out to that property owner

at what point does that property owner need to get that license or they're looking at fees? Are we just catch them hopefully while it's just listed and not rented out yet? Or is the fee kick in once it's been rented and they've actually used it? You understand my question?

Yeah. So the software runs weekly reports on when a short-term rental license is listed on the website, and it scans through all the websites online. Now, once one is listed, they are sent a notice or a letter stating, hey, you need to be in compliance with getting a short-term rental license. then they have 15 days in between each notice okay and then once they receive the first notes it's just a hey you need to get a short-term rental license after 15 days then they'll get their forced warning and then that's when the citations end up kicking in

And we've got an automated system that is currently doing that so we don't have to wait on human intervention because they missed it.

And I just want to add, we wouldn't penalize somebody if they didn't receive that initial notice. We would make sure they get a notice first.

Okay. All right. Thank you. And that 15 days is what I was looking for. Thank you.

Council Member Lara?

Thank you, Mayor. And I agree with Councilmember Martinez. I think maybe the initial fee may need to be higher. And then maybe what you do is you give a 15-day grace period in order to obtain that license. Because what I've seen that can happen is if you do it By the day, staff will lose track. And then it ends up being $100 or maybe it's $200 or $300. But it's difficult to track the number of days, I think, in some instances, especially if you're busy with other items. So it might be easier to do a $500 and then wait 15 days If they don't comply within the 15 days, then it's another 500 or it's another 200, whatever that next level is. But that may be something to consider or to look at. The other question I have is if you go into the draft ordinance under Section B, or excuse me, C, subsection.

It's under Section 8.

Oh, Section 8, excuse me. And then C. And then C. And then subsection B goes into any person violating the subsection may be ordered to immediately cease short-term rental operations. But those fines are $1,000 for the first violation, $3,000 for the second, and $5,000 for the third. So they're completely different than what we're talking about on the proposed recovery fees.

So the attachments that were on the dais were the updated ordinance that was in correlation with our current administrative citation. Now, this is an option that was from when we did a survey of surrounding cities that had short term rental license as well. They did have higher amounts. But what the ordinance is on the dais is the correct amount based on our current administrative citation. As you guys stated, if you want an higher fee, that's something that council can direct staff to incorporate and then we can bring that back. However, the current amount is the 100, 200, 500 based on what's currently in the code.

Okay. And here does not reference the number of days. Is that somewhere else?

It's under Section C.

Right below each calendar day that the unlicensed operation can use can constitutes an additional violation under C Okay And then it aside from the fees what are the the penalties once we get those worked out Just for clarification it's under section C subsection C and Correct. See, and that kind of goes to my concern, is that how does staff verify that that is in operation for those calendar days? Because they can say, oh, we stopped, but the advertisement is still up. Because you'll see that the website will stay up so that they can continue to make reservations, but they can tell you, well, nobody's been here.

You'd have to validate it.

So you perform a site visit and I just yeah I'd like to try to keep it and at least in this initial rollout make it simpler for staff That's just my thought on that and then We we looked at contracting out. It sounds like we're we're gonna purchase software and then roll this out and see how that goes and I'm assuming it's gonna be OUR FIRST YEAR IS GOING TO BE PRETTY DYNAMIC OBVIOUSLY WE WE COMPARED FEES WITH OTHER JURISDICTIONS WITHOUT BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO A NEXUS STUDY ON AND SO I THINK MAYBE AFTER A COUPLE YEARS WE'LL SEE HOW THIS OPERATES AND AND GO FROM THERE

Yeah, so the initial agreement with the software company will be one year. It'll be one year from last month, and then we will bring it to council with results. We'll have tangible results based on number of listings, revenue that's received by the city, and then, of course, the TOT tax collected. And then we'll bring forth a multi-year agreement if council decides to move forward with continuing the short-term rental program.

Okay, thank you very much. That's all I have.

Mayor Pro Tem White?

Yeah, I have a couple questions. I noticed that in that same section, I believe, no, it's down below operational standards, the occupancy is limited to two persons per approved bedroom. I know every time I've gotten an Airbnb, it always has one bedroom that has two bunk beds in it, so you've got four people there. How do we deal with that?

That's going to be, so some of these provisions in here, Our provisions were stating to create limitations, but in practice, they're hard to monitor and enforce. So, you know, theoretically, you could get an inspection warrant and go in and see four bunk beds in a room if something really escalated to that level. But definitely in practice, it's going to be a difficult thing to monitor and enforce.

I would think if they have a license, we know how many bedrooms they have. And if they're advertising, it sleeps 10. And the other question I have, again, my experience with Airbnb or what they call short-term rentals, is there's also usually a fold-out in the front room and that kind of stuff. I think my bigger question is, is it really worth it to try and enforce all this? I mean, I could see where we could have things that we can enforce, and some things are in here like noise, parking, some of those things without having to go into the house. I mean, sure, we can go into the house if they want a license. I'm just wondering how much it's going to cost for staff time to do all of this when it may be easier to maybe have higher dollar amounts and only focus on the kinds of things that we can point to and take a picture of and say, look, you've got five cars in your driveway and you got a party in the back with 50 people. Those kinds of things we can monitor a lot easier.

So number one, I agree with you. The main reason to create an ordinance like this in a city is to deal with how short-term rentals could become a nuisance or an issue. That's the idea behind it, is having an active monitoring mechanism with parameters in place and expectations in place with how they operate. It's not a revenue generating tool. It is an administrative burden. and that's one of the reasons why staff presented a recommendation to council earlier this year to have this third party help us with this, and staff was supportive of that. For clarification, are you suggesting that rather than having a system or an active monitoring mechanism, we address permits on a case-by-case basis when we get a complaint on a prospective short-term rental?

I don't know. I'm a big proponent of regulating in some way the short-term rentals. I know that it can impact neighborhoods. It can impact higher cities and countries that have so much short-term rentals that kids in their 20s and 30s can't find a place to rent because it's much more expensive. It's a better investment for a home to turn it into short-term rental. So I understand when you try and put 10 people into a home that has three bedrooms. I've been in those homes. And they're really not that bad. I mean, you're not expecting a Taj Mahal-type home. But I think this is going to be a big issue when the Olympics come. And I think that we need to address it some way. Now I'm more interested in what you're talking about as far as a third party doing this, because I think that's something that they're going to do it in a way that is profitable for them, and that's going to give them a little more direction, and we're not spending a lot of staff time on these kinds of issues. And then the other question I have for you is if somebody in a lot of the other things that the ordinances that we have, there's always an appeal process. So if someone comes through and says, wait a second, I didn't have two bunk beds in that room and you're charging me X amount of dollars and does it then go, I think in here it talked about an appeal hearing person. And then if that hearing or that process is not satisfactory to the person who's bringing it forward, then does it then come to council and we're sitting there deciding these kinds of issues at that point?

What I would say is it would revert to the standard code enforcement process that can't be remedied through this fine tier, which does include other remedies for addressing an issue. And sometimes these do resort to that. So I guess what I would say just going through the course of some of your points, number one, I think the idea behind utilizing this particular software product that I think is 16,000 a year is it automates identifying, noticing, and monitoring rentals. That's the main advantage of it, and it takes most of the administrative burden off of it. The portion of the administrative burden it doesn't remove is having to investigate a situation and then follow up on the violation part of it. I think the software is a good starting point for us to begin the program and see what we have and then we can revisit it in the future to evaluate if that is a good approach, if that software is worth it or if we should retool. And I also think that, you know, when we come back later, we'd probably also have a better perspective on if some of these fine amounts need to be further tweaked. And I certainly, you know, I agree with everything the council said tonight. And I think adjusting a fine amount to be equal to the first tier or more of that license makes a lot of sense. But I do think we'll learn a lot that first year and we'll be able to come back and further evaluate.

And that answered my next question, which was when you say come back later, you're saying after it's in place for a year as opposed to coming back with some of the changes that we've talked about up here?

We can make the changes now to the fine amounts. If the council would like, we can, you know, with your direction tonight, we can adjust the fine amounts to equal whatever you suggest, $250 for the first fine, $500 for the second fine, $750 for the third fine, or a different amount if you suggest a different amount.

I really like the 1,000, 2,000, 5,000. That's fine. We can do that too.

We can do that too.

I want to be clear here. I appreciate the work that's gone into this. I think this is an issue that has got a lot of issues with it, a lot of problems that I see going forward. And I think the easier we can make it to identify the issues we're finding them over, and increasing the fine amounts, that makes it a lot, I think it makes it more palatable for me. I think we need something. So again, unlike ADUs, this is a place where we can actually restrict parking, correct? I mean, we can say, and that's another question, if you have a home and an ADU, how does that play into it? I'm sure if I'm a short-term rental person with a home, I'm going to put an ADU on there for sure and now increase the amount of people and amount of cars that can be in there. So I don't know what the answer is. We need something.

Well, why don't we seek for a couple points of clarification? So let's start with the fine amount. Go ahead.

I do want to mention accessory dwelling units are not allowed to be used as short-term rentals per this ordinance. I just wanted to mention that. Sorry. No, thank you.

No, that's OK. All right, so if we want to address the fines, let's figure it out. What seems to be a reasonable fine that we would like to see here? Is it double so that it stings a little bit? So if 250 is your license or are we seeking for compliance? For me, I would be seeking for compliance. So I would think that the 250 would be reasonable. I get your point though. It's not really, but I think we're trying to seek for compliance. So for me, it'd be the same as, um, that first tier. And I would suggest 250, 500, and then a thousand. Cause if you don't comply, I do like, um, council member Lara's discussion about 15 days. So you get your initial warning. That's your two 50. You don't pay it. Your next one's 15 days later, we send you a notice. You're paying 500 on top of the two 50 and then, um, kind of compounding from there.

I like either 350 or 500. And the reason I say that is because if somebody follows the ordinance, it's 250 for the license plus $100 for the inspection. So they're out 350 to begin with. And so there's got to be, in my head anyways, a benefit to following the ordinance as opposed to not following. So that's why I would say 500. And then 15 days to obtain your license.

You know, I look. make an analogy here. When you're driving on the freeway and you see an HOV lane, there's no one around to stop you from going in there. When the sign says it's a $450 violation or $500 violation, I'm not going to even think about it. So I think if we can, if the fines are a deterrent, because even at $100, $250, we're not regulating how much they can charge for rentals. So they could charge a rental 1,500 for a night, and then they have to pay a $250 fine if they get caught. I think if we don't have a fine structure that is a deterrent more than a cost savings or a revenue ‑‑ I know it's not a revenue process, but I just ‑‑ I think I don't know. I've never rented a short-term rental for less than $500, $600. Not a night, but you know what I'm saying?

I do want to add, I have had quite a bit of experience with this, and the ones that tend to be nuisances tend to rely on booking many days of rentals. They end up, they're reliant on continually booking out their rental. So I think you definitely, and again, I'm not advocating for any particular dollar amount, but there's a lot of ability the city has to ramp up fines quickly when there are repeated offenses. And we can validate them. I mean, they do happen during the week too. It takes staff time and work, but it is something that can be validated.

And I'm okay with a small first one. I'm okay with $100 for the first one. But then it really needs to go up after that. Because the first one is like, someone's like, well, oh, shoot, I didn't know about that. And then they say, well, maybe I won't pay the $100. Well, now it's $500 tomorrow.

So one suggestion might be $500 for the first offense, $1,000 for the second, and $2,000 for the third. And each individual offense constitutes a separate violation.

What does the council think about that?

I'm good with that.

OK. Looks like we have an answer. You're good? All right. Check that one off the box. I love checklists. OK. What did we have?

OK. So I just want to make sure I understand. The $500 fine, the initial fine, when they're operating without a license, is that $500 per day or $500 and then they have 15 days to get a license?

I think the way I recommended it is 500 for the first offense, which is day one, 1,000 for the second offense, which is day two, and 2,000 for the third offense, which is day three. Now, we don't have to apply it that way every time, but we have the ability to, and when there's a repeat offender, you know, it would ramp up to the 2,000 very quickly.

I'm still good with a low first day, just because some people, I mean... We talked about a grace period for new short-term rentals, but short-term rentals that are in operation right now and maybe we don't catch on to them until two or three months from now, they're probably still not under a grace period. But I think the $100 says, hey, please don't do this again. It's only $100 this time. If you plan to fix it, if you make arrangements to fix it, it won't be $500 the next day, but

councilmember martinez the only the only concern and they will they will get noticed first i just want to make sure you yeah they're going to get a warning everyone so to be clear everybody's getting a warning yes and then you're coming into compliance if you get a second notice that is day one that is your first fee i was under the impression that we would um so after the warning if you got the fine 500 and then i thought there'd be a 15 days to come and get it settled before it hits the thousand

So the council did bring that up as an option. In practice, though, and we could do that where we have 15 days in between violations. The only caveat is they could theoretically operate 15 days, book for 15 days, then get another violation, then operate for another 15 days, and then get a third violation. That's the only caveat.

So would you do 500 and then 100 days for every day they haven't come in?

And it would be 500, 1,000, 2,000. Right.

They have one day two, day three. They have already had a warning.

And in practice, we don't have to apply it as $2,500 for a three-day run. We could give them, if they ignore it the first time, we could give them $500 for the violation and then let them give them time to comply and then wait until the second to charge them the $1,000. But this gives the latitude if there's a really significant offense, for example, to apply a greater fine amount.

Well, to me, having the 500 in the beginning, to me, again, like I already stated, it's above what there's paying in the first place, so that's your first deterrent, plus the fact that it would, to me, it's more work on staff. If you keep it low, then they have to kind of keep going back and checking, but if they have a higher or at least equal, like a 500 one, then their chances of coming in and getting that taken care of is easier for staff to deal with and not having to keep following up and so forth.

And if you wanted to pause between it, you could say per booking instead of per day.

I mean, to me it appears that the city manager is recommending that we do a one, two, and three to give latitude for us to then use it at our discretion, essentially. But that puts it to the strictest, if I'm understanding.

It gives us the tool basket to do that, yes.

Five, one thousand, two thousand. Five, one thousand, two thousand.

I'm okay with that latitude. The concern that I would have is Homeowner A gets $5,000 fines in three days, and homeowner B gets $1,000. And so there's no consistency in regards to the fines. And that's where I would have a concern, because they're just arbitrary. Or they can be. I shouldn't say that they would be. But that would be my concern in that regard.

And the code right now states similar language for a lot of offenses in the code, a lot of nuisances. And in practice, the way it's applied is based off of, you know, there's a number of factors. So for example, with short-term rentals, maybe somebody's hosting a commercial wedding at their house and it lasts two days or three days and we've talked to them and they're still holding it. You know, that might be a situation where, you know, it's determined a greater, you know, more significant application is necessary, especially if we're validating every consecutive day. Okay.

Well, and then I like the booking idea as well. So however you think is the easiest way to be

And just so to be clear, for someone who is following the rules, the initial fee is?

$500 after a warning.

I'm saying no warning. They come in and they say, look, I don't want to deal with any of this. I'm going to follow the rules. The initial fee for the license, I guess, is?

$250 and $100 for the inspection.

And then, so it's $350 for the year?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Correct.

Okay. Yes.

I've got a concern that these are absentee owners. And if we try to do it per day, I would think nearly everyone's going to have, you know, $3,000 or so by day two or three. That I like the idea of a timeframe in between those, you know, the fees increasing. So I think of maybe a bigger fee initially for not having the license. But I think there needs to be a time frame in between. If you've got an absentee owner that's on the other side of the country, depending on what time of day you contact them, they've already lost a day. And so I think that we're getting to a point where then it's gonna get, everybody's gonna be looking at really high fees and it's gonna just, not to say get out of hand, but it's gonna get very expensive on them. And they'll probably come back to say, I responded as soon as I could. And now I would think a 48 or 72 hour response time would be reasonable for somebody. But then if they're looking at a $3,000 fine because it was the weekend or they were gone or a family emergency or they were in Tahiti or whatever, that it would be troublesome. So I think that there should be a, I like the idea of a 15 day window in between each increase.

Yeah, how are noise disturbance is dealt with currently. So if you get a fine for a noise disturbance and then you have it the following day, how do we currently rectify that issue? Is it each day it's compounding?

It's dependent on how it's served. The citation is served. So if it's served in person, then it can be applied immediately. Well, usually there's a period. There's a 15-day period of correction if it's served in person and typically a 20-day if it's mailed. um however there's a caveat in the code that if it has to do with health safety and welfare you can apply it immediately so you know and if you want to be consistent with that and based off the council's comments then then you could you could add a 15 days especially considering a lot of these probably would be mailed in the ordinance they are required to have somebody that's responsible 24 7 and that person can be the one that pays the fee if an owner is

on the ball is going to have that person be able to take care of that. So I think that that's on the owner to make sure that that happens.

OK. So.

One more comment, please. Yeah. This is a first reading, right?

Yeah.

I think there's too many unknowns and too many different ideas up here that we should bring it back for another, you know, you take into account what we're talking about, try and find something that sort of addresses what we're concerned with, and then we bring it back for the next one as opposed to approving anything tonight.

Can we narrow down the concerns first? So I know it's the fees. What are the other concerns?

I think we've voiced all the concerns, and I think you guys normally what you do is you go back and review the video and look at I think you have a good sense of where we're coming from. We're not in that kind of a hurry. I mean there's nothing urgent that makes us have to move forward with this tonight without getting some of our concerns answered. Maybe you won't answer the concerns of each one of us. But if you put it more in a way that I know what I'm voting on, right now I don't really know what I'm voting on. Because even if we give you a list of things that you're going to put into this and it comes back for a second reading and we're at the point now where we need to approve it or start over, that's my concern. And that's, I would... I don't want to table it. If I need to table it, I'll make that motion. But I think we can address that in a second reading, can't we?

No, and I concur. I think based off of some of the comments, especially if we're adding the gap in there, it would be good for us to have some additional time to work on the language. I would say continue it to the first meeting in October, and we can bring it back to you with some revised language.

So not just as a second reading, you'd like to continue this first reading?

First reading, correct. So I will move to continue this to the first meeting in October.

I'll second.

All right, can I get a roll call, please? Council Member Laura? Yes. Council Member Fenn? Yes. Council Member Martinez? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem White? Yes. Mayor Voigt?

Yes. All right. Well, we will go on to our next public hearing e-bikes and e-conveyance ordinance. Also a staff report by Mr. Usher.

Good evening, mayor and city council. The items on the dais are the correct versions. With this ordinance, they're just adjustments in the formatting. So there's no adjustments or changes to the final amounts. It's just the formatting. So tonight, council's first review of a comprehensive local ordinance addressing bicycles, e-bikes, e-scooters, and other electric conveyances. Staff is asking council to review this ordinance, adopt the fee-related schedule, and establish a clear framework for how these devices may be operated and enforced within the city. So why this ordinance is needed now? The use of e-bikes, e-scooters, and similar devices has increased significantly, both for transportation and recreation. With that growth, staff has seen more concerns involving excessive speed, reckless riding, conflicts with pedestrian and motorists, and the use of motorized devices in parks and other areas that were not designated for this specific activity. We're also seeing high-powered electric scooters off the highway and sometimes even driven on sidewalks, which does not fit neatly within the rules most residents associate with traditional e-bikes. The purpose of this ordinance is to give riders, parents, and enforcement staff one clear set of operational standards. The ordinance focused primarily on unsafe operation where these devices can be used. It prohibits riding against traffic, unsafe passengers, racing, stunts, wheelies around pedestrians or vehicles, distracted riding, operating without required lighting or helmet, and operating on sidewalks or unnecessary or prohibited areas. Sidewalk riding would be limited to five miles per hour or a lower speed when conditions require it, and riders must yield when entering sidewalks or roadways. E-conveyances would also be prohibited in city parks, recreation areas, athletic fields, landscaped areas, or similarly public spaces unless the city specifically designates those areas for that use. So the ordinance also specifically addresses electric off-highway motorcycles. Unless they are lawfully manufactured and registered for on-highway use, they would not be permitted on public streets, sidewalks, parks, paths or trails. The ordinance preserves ADA mobility devices use and exempt for first responders performing official duties. Helmet requirements are already within the code, which is why it's not mentioned specifically in this code. For minors, a parent or guardian may be held responsible for these violations and limited empowerment authority would be allowed if a device is to be taken for safekeeping when an unaccompanied minor is operating in a manner that creates an immediate danger for themselves or the public. The proposed penalties on the screen, as you can see, for our first violation offense of any violation of this code is $500. And there's an error. It's supposed to be $2,000, not $200. The second violation is $1,000, and the third violation is $2,000. And that is correct in the ordinance, just on the presentation. So there is a comparison with the city of Akaipa, which is what we heavily base this ordinance on, where every violation is a $2,000 fine. Now, the city of Menifee, they have similar to our standard administrative citation, which is a $100, $200, $500 tiered amount citation. So this ordinance is intended to provide a meaningful enforcement tool, but education and clear notice are also important. Community services and staff plan to update park signage after adoption, and the city manager or their designee would have the authority to designate additional no-ride, dismount, or restricted areas within the city specifically to address any safety concerns. staff recommends that the city council waive the first reading adopt the resolution and return and staff will return with the ordinance for a second reading at the next available council meeting the goal of this is not to discourage e-bike use is to create predictable rules so these devices can be used safely and responsibly without creating unnecessary conflicts in the streets sidewalk parks or other public areas that concludes my presentation and staff's available for any questions

Just want to add to there actually is one mention of helmets under ten thirty nine zero two zero five refers to chapter ten point three five and actually we're recommending that that that a subsection five be removed Just because it's duplicative and already in in chapter ten point three five of the municipal code, which is our helmet ordinance You don't feel like it needs to be restated twice. I

Also, the helmet issue is already covered in our existing ordinance, and it's also raised again in 10-39-050-BNC. So we'd recommend approving it with those provisions deleted because we feel like it's adequately covered.

All right. Thank you. I will open up the public hearing at 731. Do we have any public comments?

I have no written requests. Simone, do you have any callers on the line? We have no callers at this time.

All right. I will close the public hearing at 731 and open it up for council discussion. Council Member Lara?

Thank you, Mayor. I had brought this up last year, so I just want to thank staff for getting on this so quickly. And my concern at that time was I was coaching little kids on the soccer team, and we were in the park practicing, and there was a bunch of e-bikes terrorizing the park. Since then, though, there's been a lot of e-bike issues in regards to accidents, hospitalization as a result of those accidents. Kids riding, I mean, you see them riding all through the town without helmets and And they're traveling at a high rate of speed. So it's good that we've got this. I think the timing is right. As the school liaison, I did reach out to the school district because I think we need to, I really like the ordinance, and I think I'd like to try to, obviously if council agrees, to partner with the school district on some type of an education campaign for this ordinance. and if possible, to do some type of training for these kids that are using these e-bikes because they go a lot faster than they appear. I got on one and haven't been on one since. That could be just because I'm old but I don't you know, I don't want to go that going down that road But I think this timing is perfect. I appreciate the efforts that have been put forth by staff. I Like the ordinance. I just want to make sure that we get that word out and let folks know that there is Ordinance that we have that we're looking at.

Thank you mayor Absolutely Councilmember Fenn

Yes, thank you, Mayor. So I know that there's some legislation that's being proposed or maybe even recently signed in reference to e-bikes and so forth at the state level. Is there anything that's in process on that that would impact what we're trying to do tonight?

So I have a ledge update coming next council meeting that will address those concerns. However, there are a few bills. I think it's about four or five bills that address it. Some do include education. Some include speeds and even the types of vehicles that are allowed to travel based on the speed that they have. So if a vehicle is in excess of a certain speed, then it requires educational. And then the state will then come out with how we're supposed to enforce that and the timeframe for it. But I'll have more information during the ledge update on the 15th.

Okay. Thank you.

Piggybacking on that just a little bit, do you feel confident that this ordinance will meet those if any of those do pass or get signed into law?

Yeah, so drafting this ordinance, we had it in mind that these were going to pass due to, in contact with our legislative consultant, all these bills have been flying through the committees. So none of them look like they won't pass, but we've made sure that the ordinance is compliant with those bills, making sure that if they do pass, we wouldn't have to change anything. Okay, great.

Thank you. Mayor Protem?

First of all, I like Mr. Lara's idea. I think partnering with the school because I think who we really have to reach are the parents who are going to have to pay these fines. My question here is in the definitions you talk about, where is it, it's an off-highway motorcycle. We're talking about an electric vehicle that drives as fast as a motorcycle or we are actually talking about gas motorcycles?

So all of this isn't related specifically to electric vehicles. Now there are electric motorcycles that go just as fast, 60 miles or even higher. And so the whole point of this is specifically as some of those are ridden off on the sidewalks, on the side of the street and in parks in some instances. So it's in hopes to regulate those specific vehicles.

I have two concerns. Number one is I think Mr. Finn can attest to this, but you drive up and down or go for a walk on Oak View, and there are gas motorcycles going on the sidewalks. Do we have an ordinance for that? Do we have a way to penalize that?

So that falls under the vehicle code and what's allowed and on streets and highways This further finds that so off-highway vehicles as defined from here. It would be Essentially a bike without pedals. It's a motorcycle an electric motorcycle So there's a vehicle code California vehicle code definitions for this and I'm happy to call Chief or his designee up because my you know, my concern is Especially with what you guys just said is that

Gas driven motorcycles are a vehicle violation, which means the police are involved. Are they involved with electric bikes or is that something that a citizen can file a complaint? And then the other question I have is there is an area right in front of my development where I live in Stetson. It's a good-sized area that is a required natural area the city owns and maintains. And it's turning into a motorcycle track because the kids are going out there both with e-bikes and with mainly gas motorcycles. And they're not kids. They're in their, you know, I would call them kids, but they're adults.

So they're my age?

No. Thanks. Sorry. Thanks.

I couldn't get it. I couldn't.

But if we're not addressing that here, I know that in here it talks about these vehicles cannot, these rules and restrictions are based on being on city right-of-way property. And so again, I just wonder if there's not a way to make this apply to kids on motorcycles, because they're all over Oakland. Yeah, so anyways, that's just my two cents.

Yeah, just to address, the question is, yeah, those that are riding in the field as well as on, as the city manager said, when it comes to the gas motorcycles, anything on the roadway has to meet the same as the DMV for blinkers, for brake lights, and so on and so forth. So we have that ability to, they would have to have a license that meet the requirements as well as, have a valid driver's license we could sign them for that impound the motorcycle impound the vehicle and we do that as well with some of the e-motorcycles um as well that uh as mr usher mentioned when it comes to the um that do reach up to that 60 plus miles an hour and treat them as as vehicles on the roadway and have to have licenses accordingly so the ordinance would strengthen that or give us another option to enforce when it comes to It's nice to have multiple options out there and hold accountability. Sometimes at the local side we have that more in our grasp to deal with than through maybe the court system. So it gives options.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Is that? Okay.

I, too, want to just thank you. I think that this adds to the tool in the toolbox that we have to enforce some of these things. We have a local neighbor that rides up and down the street doing wheelies every day, and I think Addison screams and yells at him every time, you're going to die, because she, too, is concerned for this kid as well. Additionally, I think that the education campaign, if we could coordinate through the PIO and communications office, I think would be absolutely vital, specifically for the younger generation. Um, who are writing these, maybe they're writing them when their parents aren't home or are working. Um, and they don't even know that their kids are on them out during those timeframes. So, um, thank you for the work on this. I think that it, um, you know, the goal is compliance once again and not revenue and that it is a true public safety concern. Um, I am back in the hospital now as a nurse and I can't tell you how many of these, um, I mean, we call them auto versus auto at this point, right? Or auto, they're not auto peds because it's not hitting a pedestrian. This is truly an auto versus auto traffic collision for us now with the impacts. And they have much less protective gear on and the speeds are essentially the same. So the injuries are significant. So I truly thank you guys for the work that's gone into this because I know that it was collaborative. So with that, if there's no further comments or no changes, I will move to waive the full reading and adopt the recommended action.

I'll second.

All right. Can I get a roll call, please?

Council Member Lara? Yes. Council Member Finn? Yes. Council Member Martinez? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem White? Yes. Mayor Foy?

Yes. All right, that takes us to our action items, and we will be moving on to item J1, Memorandum of Understanding with the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce for Fiscal Year 26-27 Sponsorships and Determination that the Sponsorships Provide a Public Benefit. And for that, we have a staff report by Julie.

And Laura? Good evening, Council. I do that every time. And actually, Laura will be joining, too, for tonight's presentation. So before you is an MOU between the City and the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce. And in the audience today, we have Executive Director Crystal Leeper with us here tonight to support. The MOU in front of you is just under $40,000. The amount was already approved in your budget allocation back in June. THE AGREEMENT ITSELF BEFORE YOU IS JUST TO ESTABLISH A FRAMEWORK BETWEEN THE CITY AND THE CHAMBER WITH A PRIMARY FOCUS ON PLANNING AND PRESENTING THE 2026 STATE OF THE CITY. HOW THE MOU IS WRITTEN, THE CHAMBER WILL TAKE LEAD ON HOSTING AND SUPPORTING THIS YEAR'S EVENT WHICH INCLUDES A COUPLE THINGS SUCH AS COLLABORATION ON THE EVENT PRODUCTION, SOME MARKETING AND COLLABORATION HERE WITH THE CITY, AS WELL AS ENGAGEMENT WITH OUR BUSINESS COMMUNITY. The city will provide some leadership content highlighting accomplishments, video production, information on our current projects, programs, and future initiatives, to name a few. So the other half of the agreement also provides a structure for other community and business initiatives throughout the year that we do with the chamber. And so at this point, I'm going to hand it over to Laura to talk a little bit about that.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you. So as Julie said, the main focus of this MOU agreement is regarding the State of the City event coming up. That's $30,000 of the proposed $37,350. 7,350 of this MOU agreement covers other events that we traditionally do in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce throughout the year. Those are listed on the final page of Exhibit A in your packet, and they include the one sponsorship of a Good Morning Beaumont breakfast, $300 the community-wide business egg hunt sponsorship which is an event that the chamber organizes and the city supports that gets the community going out and visiting different businesses all throughout the city and that we split the cost of in half so it's estimated that that costs about will cost about $700 this year And then the Chamber's annual recognition night. The City has traditionally provided whatever the top level sponsorship. And on some of these you'll see a range. This says $3,500 up to $5,000. That's because the Chamber has recognized that some of their sponsorship prices need to increase a little bit this year because the cost of putting on events has gone up quite dramatically. So the first numbers there that you're seeing are kind of what they've historically been, but the projected new amounts for this year are those higher numbers. And then the final one is our chamber sustaining membership, which we get lots of great recognition for at $1,350. So those events combined make up the remainder of this amount. And in total, as Julie said, it all falls well under the initial $40,000 that was allocated in the budget.

um so we are happy to answer any questions either julie myself or crystal all right great thank you all right do we have any public comment on this item i have no written request simone do you have any callers on the line we have no callers at this time okay we will open it up for council discussion all right seeing none i'll entertain a motion

Mayor, I'll make a motion to move and approve the memorandum of understanding between the City of Beaumont and the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce authorizing sponsorships for fiscal year 26-27 and further determine that the sponsorship provide a public benefit because they help support and further local businesses within the community. I'll second.

ALL RIGHT. CAN I GET A ROLL CALL, PLEASE? COUNCILMEMBER LAURA? YES. COUNCILMEMBER FINN? YES. COUNCILMEMBER MARTINEZ? YES. MAYOR PROTEIN-MOY? YES.

And that will take us to J2, consideration of a relocation agreement between the City of Beaumont and Lamar Advertising Company. And Mr. Steven Jones.

Yes, good evening, Your Honor. Again, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members. Assistant Planner Cady Preciado will briefly present key details for tonight's council consideration of a proposed relocation agreement. Ms. Preciado.

Good evening, council members and mayor, planning staff. The item before you tonight is a request to review and consider the resolution and the billboard relocation agreement between the city of Beaumont and Lemoore Central Outdoor LLC. The project was approved pending a relocation agreement with terms that are agreeable to the city. The proposed relocation agreement is subject to the council's discretion regarding parameters. The request is to convert the southern face of the existing static billboard located at 174 Beaumont Avenue to an electronic billboard with a digital display. Lamar Outdoor Palm Springs submitted a sign permit application to the city prior to the draft billboard ordinance. Therefore, the application is not subject to pending regulations. The existing static billboard was originally constructed in 1989, but in March 2007, the city passed provisions prohibiting billboards, making the billboard nonconforming. On July 22, 2026, the Planning Commission unanimously approved the billboard. The existing billboard is located in the community commercial zone and has a general land use designation of general commercial. The billboard policy in the Beaumont Municipal Code allows existing billboards to be relocated through a relocation agreement with the city. The proposed project would deconstruct and remove the existing south-facing billboard face and construct a new electronic billboard in the same location with a slight change in orientation. The north face is proposed to remain static, but the south-facing display would be converted to a digital display measuring 9 feet 8.25 inches by 32 feet and maintain an overall height of 28 feet 10 inches. The applicant also proposes to install a decorative support pole that incorporates City of Beaumont identification. proposed relocation is subject to council's discretion for parameters the staff recommends that city council review and consider the resolution and relocation agreement and if terms are not agreeable direct staff to make findings for subsequent council action this concludes my presentation we are happy to answer any questions that you might have all right thank you for that do we have any public comments related to this item yes i do i have a couple in person

First one is last name of Fisher.

Mayor Voigt, members of the council. My name is Ethan Fisher and I'm from AMG Outdoor Advertising. We would urge the council to reject the relocation agreement We understand that the Planning Commission next week is going to be considering a comprehensive ordinance to regulate all digital signage. And we feel that you should establish a coherent policy governing the number, location, concentration of digital billboards before allowing additional conversions. We spoke about the signs being legal non-conforming. Once these signs are up, they're impossible to get down. The city's got to pay to get them down. We're concerned because we're spending about a million dollars to construct a Welcome to Beaumont sign on the 10 freeway. It's supposed to reach 140,000 cars a day and try to bring people into the city to shop and spend money here. There is a limited advertising market, and the investment we're making requires that we be able to sell advertising at certain rates. Lamar is one of the largest companies in the country. They have signs in 45 states. I think they have 100, let's see, actually, 360,000 signs across the United States and in Canada. This is a minor deal for them. This is a major deal for AMG. We're a local company. This is a sign we care about. We're going to maintain. We're going to try to promote the city. We're going to offer discounts to local businesses. When we have this kind of competition, and we're not concerned so much about fair competition, but this is going to be oversaturation. You don't have to remember these signs. Each one of these signs has eight slides on it. So this one sign becomes effectively eight signs on one side, and the static sign remains one sign. So you're adding eight additional signs or seven additional signs to the city. The advertising traffic in this area already can't support this. So it's going to mean that we're going to have less money for maintenance, less money to provide discounts for local businesses and free advertising to the city. And just generally, it's not a good idea. What you want to have is you want recognition of Beaumont. You want people driving through here to know that they're in Beaumont and to want to stop here. You don't want oversaturation of these signs. In particular, we want the Planning Commission to consider how much light pollution you want, how much of these glowing signs you want at night. One sign is a nice feature to tell people where they are, but you don't want a forest of these things. We've encountered this sort of thing in other cities, and it just is not economically viable. The South Bay curve in Los Angeles or in Long Beach area is a good example. It's just run down because there's no money for the advertising and the structures are not maintained and so forth. if there are any questions that we have to answer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have one more speaker, Leslie Locken.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council Members. It's good to see you all again. Lamar, first of all, I want to respectfully disagree with the comments ahead of mine or what I have to say. Fair care competition is something that exists in every market. And one comment I want to address is the oversaturation. This would be Second digital billboard and I would not consider that over saturation of digital billboards the Location that we proposed is a gateway to the city and We we feel that we chose this location because of the gateway to the city and the benefit that it has to the city with the decorative sign and the identification and welcome to Beaumont and My comments are to address the alternative recommended by staff or suggested by staff. Lamar respectfully asked council to approve plan 2026-0042 as recommended by staff and by the Planning Commission without imposing the takedown alternative described on the last page of the staff report. The alternative should not be adopted for four reasons and with legal input provided by our council as follows. First, the alternative is inconsistent with the very draft ordinance it references. The draft DBOD ordinance under council's consideration would require a three-to-one takedown ratio only for new digital billboards approved by a major sign permit within the Beaumont Freeway digital billboard overlay district along Interstate 10 or State Route 60. The Mr. Taco site is on State Route 79 and is not within the proposed overlay. More fundamentally, the draft ordinance expressly accepts from the three to one ratio any project authorized through a relocation agreement under section 17C08040M2, which is exactly the path Mr. Tako follows. Even if the draft ordinance were adopted tomorrow, it would not require a three to one takedown for this project. Second, applying an unadopted ordinance to a pending application is contrary to California law and to basic fairness. Under settled California land use principles, an applicant's rights are determined by the ordinances in effect when the complete application is filed. Lamar submitted its complete application in March 2026, and staff has expressly determined in the staff report before council today that the subject application has been evaluated under and is consistent with the city's existing regulations. The alternative will layer on a requirement that staff in its own professional judgment did not find necessary or applicable under the rules that actually govern. Third, Lamar has been working on this project with the city since 2024 in reliance on the rules then and now in effect. Through Lamar's initial inquiry in 2024, I received an email confirmation from the city that this location would be acceptable and that Lamar could move forward. Since that time, Lamar has expended substantial time, resources, including engineering, application fees, entitlement work, and attorney work. Changing the rules at the final approval stage based on an ordinance that has not been adopted undermines any applicant's ability to rely on published city codes. Fourth, the alternative would establish a precedent that harms every future applicant in Beaumont. If council can impose the terms of an unadopted ordinance on pending fully vetted applications, no applicant can plan, invest, or process a project through Beaumont with any confidence in the standards that will actually govern approval. The city's own interest in an orderly and predictable entitlement process cuts strongly against this alternative. We are prepared to move forward immediately and with the modernization of this site as discussed. And we believe this agreement represents a balanced, reasonable path forward for both Lamar and the city. Lamar respectfully requests approval as recommended by staff and by the Planning Commission. Thank you for your consideration.

Simone, do we have any callers on the line?

We have no callers at this time. OK, very good. I will open it up for council discussion. Council Member Fenn?

Mayor, I have a point of order question. Could we give Mr. Ethan Fisher another minute or two to respond, given that Leslie went over the three minutes?

Yeah, we can. Thank you.

I would just point out that this is a discretionary action by the council. There's no issue that Lamar's relied upon laws in place. The law in place says that the council can approve or disapprove. It's entirely discretionary. Again, Lamar has built, for example, a bunch of these signs on the 91 freeway. We're aware because we have other operators out there that the sign advertising rates have plummeted to about $2,000 per slide which is not viable. The signs can't maintain. and the other companies are going out of business. This is the equivalent of letting Costco come in and driving out smaller businesses. This is a major, major investment for AMG. Lamar's not even putting up two sides. They're spending a little bit of money to modernize one side because this is not This is only a dot on a national map for them. AMG is a Southern California company. We're in Corona. And we have a limited number of signs in premier locations that we've, for example, put one in Banning. And we've invested a great deal in the Inland Empire. And it's important to us, far more important as a local company than a national company. This is not about competition. This is about controlled growth. The city is going to put one large welcome to Beaumont sign on the 10 freeway, the major entrance to the city. Other growth should be planned. And if the planning commission is going to come up with an overall idea of how many signs you want, because you can't get rid of these. Again, you have static billboards in town, and I'm sure you would get rid of those if you could, but you can't. And you're going to end up with a situation if you do this piecemeal where you've got digital signs where you don't want them night. Okay.

All right. Thank you. All right. Councilmember Lara?

Thank you, Mayor. So just to verify, this relocation agreement is a discretionary action, correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. So just a couple of things. One is that, like, because I believe Lamar has reviewed the draft ordinance. Mr. Fisher, have you had an opportunity to review the draft ordinance as well? I just would suggest that you do that. We would appreciate any input you have, just as well as any other billboard company. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem White had brought up a point early on when we first started discussing this, which was the option for potential revenue sharing of electronic billboards. I would like staff to consider that, work with the developer to see if that's something that they would be interested in. I do think that the removal of at least three static signs or something else that the developer would agree to would be something we could work on. I like the sign, but I would like to see something a little bit more monument-type style that is coming into Beaumont. It is the only sign coming in off the 79. So I like the direction they're going, but I would just like to see maybe something a little bit more stylish, I guess I would say. And those would be the things that I would like the staff to give staff an opportunity to discuss with the developer. Thank you, Mayor.

Sure. Mayor Pro Tem.

Wow. I've been working on this for five, six years, trying to get a movement towards more billboard signs, or I'm sorry, digital signs. And I think one of the issues, as Mr. Lora just brought up, is the ability to share revenue. I know that that's happening in other cities. And I think, but at the same time, you know, he brings up my argument that now it makes sense, the revenue. I'm going to bring up his argument, which was that we believed that, let me back up for a second. What does our ordinance say now? Because my understanding is for years we had an ordinance that said no billboard signs or no digital signs. And then I thought we came up with an ordinance that said they were available in some cases. And if we have a draft ordinance, then the existing ordinance is in place at this point, correct? So any decisions that Lamar made was based on the ordinance at the time She brought up two dates. She brought up May of this year as far as the application, and she talked about working with the city in 2024. So I'm really, I'd like to get a better understanding on where we are as far as what's required and when it's required.

So I'll jump in first, and then they can correct me if I'm wrong. So council discussed a draft ordinance several times. And the last time council discussed it, you referred it back to the Planning Commission for further refinement. That has not occurred yet. We are continuing to work on the draft, and it's most likely going to go to Planning Commission next month. So today, the current ordinance prevails, and the current ordinance states that a relocation agreement is required. It does not, it's silent on digital billboards, but through the relocation agreement, excuse me, through the relocation agreement, a digital billboard can be approved. And Stephen can correct me if I'm wrong.

That's correct, Mr. City Manager, and the languages include that. the terms should be agreeable to the city council and that leaves it broadly open for your discretion and your your parameters for what an agreement should look like.

See, and in my concern or my issue is I don't I was a one in the one, four votes for, this is about the, maybe the fourth time we've addressed this, third or fourth time. And I thought originally we said no digital at all, and that's what I was trying to change. And I don't ever remember a vote coming forward that was in favor of digital. Other than the idea, I think originally we had the idea, is the ordinance the one that says, for every face you take down or you want to put up, you have to take two down?

That's one of the drafts that have come before you.

Okay, so what ordinance, what are we under right now? Is it... Just a question.

A very broadly worded relocation agreements should be agreeable to the terms of the city council and that that can authorize a digital or electronic, it's what it's called, but trending now market-wise, we call it digital, but it says an electronic billboard may be placed with approval of a relocation agreement.

So all the discussions and votes we've had in the past, I thought, were to allow digital boards in the city. And subject to.

Let me read you the relevant provision. This is our existing code. And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I'll read what I think goes to the point that you're. raising a question about notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter upon entry into a relocation agreement with the city in accordance with business and professions code section 5412 the owner of an existing billboard within the city may convert a static billboard to an electronic billboard subject to approval of a permit application and then it goes on then it talks about what a relocated billboard is a relocated billboard is an existing billboard that is located in the city that is relocated through a city council approved relocation agreement including the replacement of a static billboard phase with an electronic message the relocated billboard is not considered a new billboard then under state law business and professions code section 5412 It provides it defines what relocation is and as used in this section includes removal of a display and construction of a new display to substitute for the display removed. And then it talks about these relocation agreements. It says cities are and I'm paraphrasing I'm just cutting to the chase here. Cities are specifically empowered TO ENTER INTO RELOCATION AGREEMENTS ON WHATEVER TERMS ARE AGREEABLE TO THE DISPLAY OWNER AND THE CITY. SO AS WAS STATED BY THE CITY MANAGER EARLIER, THE AGREEMENT, THE RELOCATION AGREEMENT IS DISCRETIONARY ON TERMS THAT THE TWO PARTIES AGREE TO. NEW SPEAKER Okay.

AND THE TWO PARTIES AGREEING TO THIS IS THE APPLICANT AND THE COUNCIL? NOT APPLICANT AND STAFF? So but at this point, we do not have an application agreement until we make it official tonight. Is that correct? I mean, that was what I think that's what the representative from Lamar pointed out was that we're going under the original. the existing ordinance.

And what I just read is the existing ordinance. So what's before you tonight is the terms of a relocation agreement that would permit them to replace their static billboard face with an electronic one. But you have to agree to those terms. They have to agree to those terms. It's a negotiated agreement.

Okay. And a negotiated agreement, if it's not approved by both sides, can continue to be renegotiated, correct? A negotiated agreement requires two willing parties that agree on the terms. Okay. And I have a question for both representatives, if you don't mind. Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start with the gentleman from AMG, please. So you mentioned the sign in Banning. There's two signs in Banning, right? There's another digital. There's two digital. That's correct. Who's the owner of the other digital?

I believe. Actually, I don't know. That might be general. I'm not sure.

Okay. And so which one is closer to your sign?

Which of which?

Oh, I see. No, not Mr. Tako. The Welcome Beaumont, which branding sign is further west? Yours or theirs? Yours or General's? General's, I believe. Okay. So I just wonder, because you bring up the saturation issue, you're saturating yourself.

Yes, it's just a matter of how many signs you want. I'm just saying it might be a good idea to set overall parameters rather than do this piecemeal. That was my only suggestion.

Okay, because I think what we discussed, and even though it's not yet ordinance that's been drafted, it's the... position or the point of view of the council was what we wanted in the ordinance. And some of those things are not being applied in this agreement as far as I understand at this point. Thank you, sir.

If I could ask for the other representative.

My first question may be for you or for staff. I'm sure you probably know. Sure. The one that's coming in on the 79 is a much smaller billboard, correct?

It would be a 10 by 6 by 36, which is not, yes.

It would be the same size as it is now. And what is the size of a usual, like the other billboards we're talking about?

They're called bulletins, and those are 14 by 48. So this would be a smaller sign. The Mr. Tacos sign would be smaller than a freeway sign that you see. And if I may just make a couple of corrections to this gentleman's comments. The billboard, there is another digital billboard on the I-10 freeway besides the AMG sign, and it is a Lamar sign. And it was approved by the city of Banning under a relocation agreement, oh gosh, four or five years ago. I'd also like to point out that amg was i believe um here before council a few weeks ago or i'm sorry maybe at the last council meeting and had a extension to an existing relocation agreement approved to modify the sign that has been in existence for many years that unmaintained and at that point i don't believe that he brought up that council should possibly delay or, I'm sorry, approve his relocation agreement under the terms of the new ordinance as he's asking that ours be.

So I think that's, I just want to point that out. Not to get in a debate or an argument with you, but the ordinance was just read to us and the ordinance says that it's mutual agreement. Absolutely. And if the council here is of the mindset that we like what the direction the draft ordinance was going, that even though it's not, it's still a draft ordinance, We can talk about some of those those issues and those concerns in that Let me get the question. I wanted you brought that up. So the question I wanted to ask you is The concern that that we've all had and mr Laura has presented this many times over the years is the number of billboards on the tin not just digital but static billboards and they're all Lamar right well in Beaumont

In the city of Beaumont, the static billboards are Lamar. We are the largest stakeholder in the city.

And one of our ideas and one of our big concerns here was that, first of all, I have a problem with the language. And I don't know where it's coming in the draft ordinance. But I had a problem with the language that said, only the only owners of existing signs can can bring in new digital signs because that limits other individuals who want to come in who may who make who may make a better revenue offer to us than then then you might sure and and We bring in another digital off the 79 we still have I don't know how many. Do you know how many are on Lamar that are on the 10 by the train tracks and on the other side of the freeway?

You know, I'm sorry, I don't have that exact number with me. No, I don't know.

Will you make a commitment to eliminate some of those? If we start bringing in digitals?

And that is what the... Lamar has been involved and worked with Mr. Jones on the... the forthcoming Draft ordinance that would make those changes and we are in agreement with the three-to-one for future ordinance this This one that we're here forth tonight. Obviously as you were everybody is aware based on the reading Is permitted Without the takedown, but we absolutely would agree to any future changes Digitals by Lamar or any digital request or to the three-to-one takedown in fact when mr. Jones consulted us and our attorney we We were in agreement with that.

Well, I mean I miss I guess I misunderstood either that our attorneys opinion or your your opinion If you are an agreement to doing that actually our current ordinance says it's permitted and we don't put a restriction on how many you have but As we know, our current ordinance also says we can say yes or no to whatever we want to say yes or no to.

That is true.

And all I'm asking for is if Lamar would make a commitment going forward to reducing the number of billboards that are on the 10. Now, I'm in favor of the billboards, and I'm also in favor of the idea that we put one at each entrance. and yours in 79 I think makes sense to me. I think the welcome Beaumont coming in West makes sense. We've already agreed that the Regency Property is going to have one coming in from that direction We've all already agreed one coming into the 60, but it doesn't address the problem that I've been trying that I've been That mr.. Laura, and I have been discussing for years now is it doesn't bring down any additional Billboards at this point and we have an opportunity here to to get that kind of commitment from you And if we have to make it part of the agreement for me to vote yes on this, I'm in favor of that.

Sure. And I think I thought I had stated that we are in favor of the new ordinance, which...

But you're saying in favor. You're not... We are...

I'm not sure how you want me to say it. We are in agreement that the new ordinance should have a three-to-one ratio takedown.

So why not take down two now and we'll agree to your proposal?

Well, a couple of reasons. One, there's a financial impact that This sign, Mr. Taco, when we evaluate whether a digital makes sense, we look at all the factors and revenue and advertising dollars and the cost to Lamar and the cost to even upgrade this sign with the city pole wrapping, is what it's called, is about $45,000. So we consider all those factors on whether this digital makes sense. It made sense under all the parameters with the existing ordinance and with the existing parameters that the city has. We would have to take another look at this because there may be another sign or digital location that would make more sense if you're asking us to take down faces. So we have to look at the financial impact and then we also look at the impact of your local, you know, the local landowners who are going to be affected by this.

And I understand that, and that's the argument you brought up in the past. And we have a shot clock up here. It's an unspoken shot clock. And I'm over it, and I can see there's other lights up here. I'm sorry. But I do want to finish my thought, and that is when we talked to you about this before, and I've had a phone call with you as well, you've made the argument that those are properties that those current billboards billboards that are the property is owned by local landowners and we would be impacting them for taking them down which is a really good argument but it also tells me that if if we put this bill if we approve your billboard now on the 79 and then we change our we now have an ordinance in place we have to take two or three down you can't take them down anyways

Well, we would look at what locations those would be. You would have to tell us.

And like I said, I've overdone it.

But we look at, there's many considerations, financial considerations that Lamar takes into consideration as to what location makes the most sense for a digital. What's the financial impact? What's the financial impact on taking down other signs? Do we look at the railroad? Would that be a better, less impact so we're not impacting local residents? There's several factors. I mean, the city has a billboard. Do we look at taking this city's billboard down and reducing your revenue? I don't think that's something we'd want to do.

Not a great way to start talking about a negotiation in a development agreement.

But I think we're saying the same thing. We are definitely in favor of everything the new ordinance states. We are just trying to get this approved under the current ordinance because, honestly, I started this process with Carol Kendrick, I believe her name was.

I understand, but I really would like my colleagues to have a chance to speak.

No problem. All right. Council Member Fenn.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Staff, am I correct that there's only two billboards on Beaumont Avenue south of the freeway? I know that there's another one at the northeast corner of Beaumont Avenue and 4th Street, just a few feet away from the entrance to the freeway. So to my understanding, there's only two billboards on that whole part of Beaumont Avenue. Is that correct?

Based on Lamar's website, there's four, but it might be four faces. We'd have to validate. I would think so.

okay um and from a satellite photo i can tell that this is a two-face billboard the one that i'm talking about fourth and um and beaumont avenue um when as when you're driving up into beaumont coming from the south i think a monument type sign and a welcome to beaumont's a good idea um i think in the discussion with swapping billboards for other billboards that to me would be in higher saturated areas along the 10. I don't think we're overly saturated on 79 south of the freeway. And again, I think there's only the two billboards. Leslie, do you know if that billboard belongs to Lamar? Yes. It's on the city property. OK. And it's a small one. It's very close to the freeway. That's exactly right.

That is actually city property, and that is one that the city does.

We do a roughly share with the city. OK.

Have her use the mic.

And I would think that that's probably not a good place for digital billboard as people are trying to get on the freeway right there, and they're probably not even paying attention to that quite so much.

It's a size. There's a size limitation that's a smaller billboard, and it does not.

So is that even smaller than the Mr. Taco one? Yes, it is. Okay. All right. It's considered a poster. So to move forward to give some type of direction, I would support what's being proposed tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Martinez?

It baffles me that we're even having a discussion on billboards when we're in the process of revising our ordinance. You know, there was a comment made about the, we shouldn't be looking at the ordinance that's still in draft form yet because it's not finalized. But the whole idea of that is because our mindset was still in many different places. We still don't have an agreement on an overlay. We still don't have an agreement on how many we take down, statics, where they go. And to sit there and to start saying, yes, we'll approve this and that, to me is ahead of ourselves because we haven't seen the whole totality of what the ordinance looks like. I think we really should wait until the ordinance is done, see what it says, because I have a feeling we're still going to go through some debate on it. And then once we get to a consensus for those things that come up, we can start looking to see how are they fitting in this whole totality. Because what we're doing is one-offs. We're doing this one, yeah, and then what happens when the next one comes up? And then, well, is that a saturation? Is that a non-saturation? And that's what the whole idea of the ordinance revision is for, is to sit there and come up with a plan of how this is looking. So why would we sit there and start saying yes and no before that's done? It makes no sense to me. So I have an agreement to not pass anything right now until that's done so we can look at this in totality. Because I think, you know, we made a comment, which is a good comment. And let me be clear, I'm not for or against the sign or anything like that. I think it's a good place for one. I think it'll work. But to me, doing a decision or making a decision without having the ordinance in front of us doesn't make sense because it's a one-off, and I just don't know where it's going to stop. So I say, why don't we wait and get the thing here, get it fine-tuned, and then come up and say, okay, where does that fit in this totality? Because the comment is, well, it makes sense to them, but it doesn't make sense to us if we don't have an agreement of what it is we're talking about. Because we brought up saturation. We brought up zoning. We brought up how many to take down. And there's just too many questions. And to me, to make a decision on something that we don't even have clear vision and unity on doesn't make sense to me. So maybe I'm solo on that. But to me, I think the council got ahead of itself. And I think we should say, thank you for this, but let's wait until it's done. Then come back and let's see how it fits in with the ordinance. That's my comment.

Thanks, Council Member Martinez. Mr. Martinez, I do believe that we have the city attorney who has some additional information.

Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, I read earlier provisions that I think are relevant to this discussion from the existing ordinance, and that's the only ordinance or law that you have before you on which to deal with this application. And, you know, the... the provisions that deal with the discretionary agreement. If there are terms, if you're able to work out a deal with the applicant on terms that you find acceptable, that's the way to deal with it is through the mutually negotiated agreement rather than applying a rule that has not been adopted yet. You should work with the ordinance that you have on the books now.

So may I ask on that?

Yes.

So going back then, so when we look at something to our discretion as the ordinance is written now, we would be discussing what? Where it fits, where it stands? It's actually... What does that mean, our discussion?

Well, that's a good question, and it's very broad, both under the city ordinance, and I think intentionally broad under the city ordinance and under state law. to enter into relocation agreements on whatever terms are agreeable to the display owner in the city. So you can negotiate those terms, but do it through the agreement rather than trying to apply what might be adopted at a future date.

So then let me rephrase and say that I don't believe that we should have digital, any more digital at this moment, and that's what I would base my decision on.

So I think I'd like to step in for just a second. And I think when I'm looking at things through the lens of always trying to think about right reason, right time, right place, and for the right purpose, these are often things that we're thinking about and contemplating while we're up here. And we have to look at it right now, which is we have the opportunity to enter into an agreement and have a discussion. And I think that we can direct staff to go further out into that discussion and then to bring back what that agreement would look like. Now, at that point, there's negotiating power, and we do have the opportunity to come to a sensible agreement that says, hey, yeah, this might be the place to go. But currently, right now, I personally have an issue with not... looking at what is in place currently. So right now we are bound by this ordinance, which actually gives us great latitude, to be honest with you. And when I'm looking at policy decisions, sometimes it's nice to have great latitude because then I'm not painted into a corner. You know, they're in policy from a nursing perspective. I have what's called nursing judgment. And sometimes it's important to exercise my judgment because not everything is black and white. And sometimes we need to live in a gray area. And for this, this feels like a gray area. This is Is it the right project for the right reason for the city of Beaumont? I think that's really the question that we're grappling with. And I think that we all at this point, probably to Council Member or Mayor Pro Tem White's point for the previous discussion, don't have enough information to make that decision today. And I would like to see us go to the drawing board on what an agreement looks like. that has further parameters. And I don't know what the rest of the council looks like or to investigate. Right now, we don't know a revenue sharing. We've heard on the table a removal of other ones. And so for me, it makes sense to go out into an agreement and to start negotiating that process.

So yeah, just to tear off what you said, and of course staff can go back and further work with the applicant, the ideas that were brought up tonight include removal of additional static billboards in exchange for approval of this one, potential revenue sharing, looking at the opportunity to make this into more of a monument sign or aesthetic improvements to what's currently proposed. I believe that's all the, I believe that solidifies all the comments I've heard.

I just have one more that I forgot to add. I apologize. It kind of goes along the lines of revenue sharing or perhaps maybe. Public service announcements. Like if the city has something, projects that they could be on there, and then it's a trade-off, so to speak. So just something else to negotiate.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead, Mr. Mayor.

I just want to mention that I guess tonight I'm fickle. So I will say that I've never wanted to stop discussion and compromising. So I am also for going back to see maybe what we can do about this to see if this could work. So I'll go ahead and state that.

Okay, very good. Do we need a motion to move forward?

I think we, my sense is we probably have, the city manager just went over his understanding of some of the direction that was given and we could work, staff can work with the parameters that have been provided and then try to negotiate and see if there's an interest on the other side and then bring something back based on the direction given tonight.

Okay. Yeah, direct staff to move forward and I would table the item tonight and then we'll bring it back.

So I will make a motion to table the item pending further discussion. I'll second. Can we get a roll call, please?

Councilmember Laura? Yes. Councilmember Finn?

Yes.

Councilmember Martinez? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem White? Yes. Mayor Voigt?

Yes. All right. Do we want to take 10 minutes? Five. Five minutes? Okay. How about we take a five-minute break? We'll come back at, how about 8.35? 8.35 we'll come back. All right. all right we are back at 8 37 and we will be moving on to j3 adoption of the city of beaumont sponsorship policy and we have a staff report by mr craw mayor i'd like to interject if if it's possible to see if there's any public comments i'd like to make a motion if there are no public comments are there any public comments on this item

have no written requests simone do we have any colors on the line we have no colors at this time okay so i will move to approve the city of beaumont sponsorship policy and direct staff to administer future sponsorship requests in accordance with policy and subject to available funding i did read the right one this time right yeah okay before i've done it for the recommended action i'll second if it's the right one

all right we have a first and a second and it was the right one uh can i get a roll call then great job don wow council member laura yes council member finn yes council member martinez yes i'm sorry mayor pro tem wife i just want to know if you have a pool tonight which ones are going to get pushed through

YES, I APPROVE. AND IN AN EXPEDITIOUS FASHION, WE'LL GO TO J-4, 2026 BOMAUT NIGHT SEASON RECAP AND PROPOSED 2027 PROGRAM.

YES. MAYOR AND COUNCIL, WE DO WANT TO PROVIDE A RECAP OF SOME OF THE SUCCESSES FROM this last year and our Beaumont Knights program. This is our third season running the Beaumont Knights on Thursday nights in downtown. And we had some great successes. I have Ashley here from our staff to go over some of the exciting things that we saw this year to help provide just a little bit of context of some of the victories and things that happened out there. So I will turn it over to Ashley and I will pull up a PowerPoint as she goes through her presentation.

There we go. So our 12-week Beaumont nights ran from April 30th to July 30th from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m. We had approximately 130 vendors applied for our 94 available booth spaces, which did represent 1.4 applicants per available booth space. The 94 space figure represents our physical capacity, not a target of 94 vendors, because we do have food trucks take up two spaces. So that does impact the number of vendors we are allowed to take. For our visits, Placer AI estimated there are approximately 33,000 total visits across the 12 event dates, with an average of about 2,700 visits per event. The strongest estimated attendance occurred during Block 1, which is in April and May, with visits about 3,500 on May 7th and 3,100 on May 21st. We do estimate that some of the numbers for our events were a little underrepresented, specifically with National Night Out, due to how Placer AI uses their analytics based on cell phone data. Events that are heavily attended by youth may not be captured in that data because they don't come around with their cell phones. So we do anticipate that there were highly attended events later on in the year as well.

Next slide, Doug.

So your enterprise in downtown Civic Life, this whole event provided affordable opportunities for our small businesses, our food vendors, artisans, entrepreneurs to reach the residents, as well as our city departments and our nonprofits to engage with the community. You can also see, if you attended the events, that we had a lot of the downtown businesses came out to participate. You had Red Dragon Karate, the Modern Music Studio, Red Dance Spectrum, Chamber of Commerce is out there. The Antique Shop did little promos to get people to come inside. So it's really engaging, not for just the vendors, but also the downtown businesses as well. The family experience, we had live entertainment and activities with a broad range of ages, which encouraged repeat attendance. We do remain committed to providing a broad range of musical entertainment across a variety of genres, although we do typically see higher attendance when we have classic rock and country bands.

Next slide. Yeah, sorry.

So new for this year, we did have our Battle of the Bands, which took place June 11 through July 23 and added a participatory element to the entertainment program, providing emerging musicians of the opportunity to showcase their talents and connect with the residents. And this also tied in with our Blizzard Bash. So the winner of the Battle of the Bands, which was Crimson Rose, is now going to perform on December 12. We did learn that these local entertainments, they do bring out more attendees. They invite their family, their friends to come out and watch and to vote for them. So it does increase attendance earlier on in the evening, which was amazing to have that. Another enhancement we had this year was our kids zone and our extended shade structure. So we moved our kids zone from 7th Street over to the Shearwonders parking lot, which provided a little bit more area so we could have different types of games and activities. We also had Highland Academy Charter School. They attended with us, had a booth, did some outreach as well. And then our shade structure was a 30 foot by 40 foot extended shade structure, which provided a lot more comfort to our attendees, especially during the summer months.

And we had

The addition of a four-pod layout, the two previous years we had pods of six and fours as a variety throughout the event, but streamlining it to a four-pod layout made the whole event space just planned out a little bit better with a little bit more flow of traffic through the event. And then our July 23rd beer garden was a success, so we look forward to your feedback on bringing that back in the future. And I'll turn it back over to Doug for our 2027 plans.

Yes. And as we get into the 2027, Ashley and her staff did just a fantastic job. And I know each of you are out at different times and saw different things going on with the staff. I can't give them enough credit. And please continue to give them their praise because they worked hard. They deserve it and did a fantastic job. We did learn a lot of different lessons and a lot of things throughout the 2026 season. And going into the 2027, a couple of things that we are looking to change and to adjust is the offerings, the dates in which we offer the program. We are finding that the hotter summer months definitely impacts the attendance. As we have multiple years of data, we see that no matter what we do and what we offer, it's just hard to get people to come outside when it's 102. And so one of the things we want to do is adjust the schedule. We would like to introduce an opportunity to have a single night of a month dedicated to a Beaumont Nights program where that'll open us up an opportunity to have some other thematic programming go on during those nights. So what we're looking at is doing single nights per month in the months of March in April. In March, that would allow us to do some fun theming, maybe with St. Patrick's Day. In April, we have some fun opportunities with some partnerships that are coming to the city and hopefully an exciting event that's going to be able to happen on that day as well. And so we're going to kind of incorporate some of that as well. Then you go into the month of May where we saw our highest nights. That's when we would start our each week program. And so we would operate the four weeks in May and then offer the times in June as well. And that would be our consistent weeks that we would work through the summer. And then as we get into the July, we would have our 4th of July night tied with our weekend for the 4th of July event. And then we'll end it with a national night out event again as well. And as we go into the fall, open us up for some new opportunities, take the hot, hot time of August off and then get back into things in September and October. Perhaps do like an Oktoberfest themed night where we can have some of those fun things or a fall themed event. And then November 11th is Veterans Day and we want to do a fun, just a really great national themed day and honor our veterans and bring out some real special agencies and groups that can partner us with those days. No matter what day we do the market night event, we'll have some of the same formatting. So we're looking at having musical performance, we'll have the same type of closure, the same type of stage performance, the shade when we need it, and then be able to offer some of that other thematic opportunity. So the scheduling, we're looking at tweaking a little bit. uh we're able to absorb these into our current budget that we have right now and so we're not necessarily asking for additional funds to fix any of these right now we're just going to shorten some of the things that we have and this also we have in our budget some other events that are taking places at other places we've tried to do a saint patrick's day event up at the crc and it's been great and our staff's been doing a fantastic job but now this kind of opens us an opportunity to bring it down down and make it a little bit bigger So some of these things are already in the budget in different categories, and we're just going to move them into the Beaumont Knights category. And then one of the other enhancements, and Ashley mentioned too as well, is the beer garden. We did try a beer garden, and one of the Knights had operated on 7th Street, and we had a local vendor that operated that for us. We were only in charge of kind of setting up that area for them and then they operated that area, went through the necessary permitting and the process with ABC and the police department to go through that. And that was a great turnout. And I think people really enjoyed having additional areas to sit and enjoy the music and the environment and the fun. and they were able to make it successful on probably one of the hottest nights that we had out there. And so that is something that we want to look at if Council's in favor of that is figuring out ways to encourage that and expand that opportunity in the event. We're also looking at adding some specialty items to our market nights. One of those and one of the requests from community has been a certified type farmers market that sells vegetables and different foods and artisan eats and stuff. And so we're looking at carving out that. There's a few additional hoops that we have to jump through in order to have a farmers market on site, but we think we can navigate through that process. So there's some really cool distinctive programming and some different elements that we would like to encourage adding in 2027 so all in all has been a great thing mostly because we have such a great staff and I will say that I think over the three years our staff has become very proficient and efficient in putting on these events whether that's through building relationships with the county or different permitting agencies and getting this process done. We're also teaming with all of our other departments that we have here. We couldn't do it without public works and planning and building and everyone else who comes out and fire and PD and everyone who's there to help support us. But the community and the staff as a whole feels that those experiences have been really strong and it's just providing a great opportunity for our community. So we'd love to continue to operate it and offer it to our community and love to hear some comments from your experience.

All right, great, thank you. Do we have any public comment for this item? I have no written requests. Simone, do we have any callers on the line?

We have no callers at this time.

All right, great. First off, I'd like to start off with a huge thank you. As you said, I spent many nights down at Beaumont Nights this year and absolutely enjoyed myself thoroughly. The family time, all of the families that were out there, and even a date night out there as well. So I thought it was an excellent event. I think the entertainment was better this year as well, and that truly helped to step it up. I sat many times underneath that shade structure, so I can tell you that that was very much an added benefit. And in fact, the two nights I sat underneath the shaded structure, I met people from other cities who were there, who were coming to our event. And I think that not only is this a community event for us, but it also showcases our community to other communities as And I truly appreciate all of the work that has gone into that. On another note, I like beer and I like the opportunity to partake. And so I appreciate the addition of the beer garden as well. I think that it provides an area outside for... our community to be able to listen to the entertainment and enjoy it in a safe manner. And I appreciate all the work that went in for that night to try it out. I also like an Oktoberfest. And so I think that that is a great addition and a wonderful theme. to bring to the town. In fact, I had this vision for State of the City. I didn't really voice it to a lot of people, but I thought that I could string lights down a street one day and have picnic tables line it, and it would be like a coronation for me. But who knows, maybe we could do that at an Oktoberfest. In the beer garden downtown. But great work on this. I really like the addition. I have heard consistently that vendors would like more options throughout the year. And I also have visited numerous businesses downtown who have said that Beaumont Nights is what gets them through the summer when... it is slower for them. And so I think that being that partner with our community businesses is absolutely vital to their success as well. Um, and I really thank the team for you guys being such great partners with the businesses downtown because they can feel it. So great job. All right. Council member white.

Um, there was no way I was going to pass on this one to have the discussion. So sorry there, Doug. I'm happy to have it. Um, It's amazing. You guys have raised the bar significantly each year. It's going to be hard to continue to do that, but I know you will. And I'm not texting other people. This is how I write notes since I don't have a pen up here. WHAT HAPPENS, WE HAD LAST YEAR, THE VERY FIRST EVENT WAS I THINK IN MARCH OR WAS IT EVEN APRIL? IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF APRIL. AND IT RAINED ON US. AND WHAT HAPPENS IF WE DO A SPECIAL EVENT

earlier in the year and it just bombs because of the weather yeah and it is uh i mean weather as awesome as our staff is you know controlling weather is still a challenge for us and we have to operate within the confines of weather we get it um you know we do have some because we do a lot of events. And so when rain, for specifics, we have thresholds where it's got to be a certain percentage of rain guaranteed during the event in order for us to cancel it. So we try to do things, rain or shine, or in different weathers. We are counting on the, it will be a little bit of a challenge, I think, because we'll be out there when it's not just 102. And so we'll probably deal with a little bit cooler weather. We could deal with a little bit of rain or different things. We have some parameters that would be set. And if we had to cancel it, when most of our vendors know that, we're collecting a fee where we would usually give back 50% of that fee if the vendor comes to all those events. So obviously, if we initiated that cancellation, we wouldn't do that. If we still had the event and it was like marginal weather or not the best weather, we would still encourage that vendor to be out there because they paid that fee and they want to get part of that fee back.

THE SHADE STRUCTURE THIS YEAR WAS AMAZING. IF WE CONSIDER, I THINK WE NEED TO DO THE BEER GARDEN. SHE MADE FOUR REFERENCES TO DRINKING TONIGHT. think a second straight shade structure I don't know how much you know how much those cost it's something we're renting correct yes sir yeah so I you know maybe another one because the first the first couple nights when it was really hot there was there wasn't a whole lot of room under there yeah and I THINK THE FARMER'S MARKET IS A GREAT IDEA. I THINK PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING US FOR THAT FOREVER. AND IF YOU CAN PUT IT TOGETHER, I THINK IN THE PAST WHEN WE BROUGHT IT UP, THE RESPONSE HAS BEEN THAT IT'S NOT EASY TO DO. BUT I GUESS THERE'S COMPANIES THAT WILL PUT THOSE TOGETHER FOR YOU?

YEAH, WE'RE REACHING OUT AND TRYING TO BUILD SOME RELATIONSHIPS, AND THERE'S SOME SUCCESSFUL ONES IN THE AREA, AND WE'RE TRYING TO BUILD THOSE RELATIONSHIPS AND FIGURE OUT HOW THEY'RE DOING IT AND SEE IF WE CAN GET THEM TO COME OUT ON SOME OF OUR SPECIFIC DAYS.

Okay, and two suggestions. Even on the really, I missed one night, and it was ACDC, and I couldn't believe I missed that one night, but I had something else to go to. What about on the hot nights going later? Because even on the very hot night, one of the last ones was really hot, people started showing up at 7 or 7.30. We came late. And when we came there, it was sort of lower attendance. And then within an hour, everyone came out because the sun was down. And it was cooler.

Yeah. And that was one of our successes of this year. I think in 25, 2025 and 2024, we started at 5 p.m. And then after two years doing that, we realized it was just it's really, really hot on some days at 5 p.m. And so bumping it to six helped us do that. And then we extended it a little bit longer till 930. We were originally ending at nine. And then we kind of left it open until 9.30. But you're right. I think the later, once the sun starts getting behind those trees and heading down, it definitely makes a big difference. More people come out. So we can look at that and see if that's an option for us.

Yeah, and a lot of the people, especially if you do have a beer garden, a lot of people... are still hanging around after 9.30, watching you guys take the whole thing down. That's something fun to watch. And then one last suggestion. When we first started discussing Beaumont Nights, we still hadn't really decided what downtown was. And I think with all the investments we've made on Grace Street, trying one Beaumont Night there might be just worth trying. I know you're right by the freeway. I know all of that, but it's set up for for bringing in vendors there's a lot of you know the parking you don't really want to you you could use that parking for more vendors and more activities but just just think about it I thought that was an idea and that's all I had but good job and I really appreciate the fact that every year you're trying to make it better and you're doing it so thank you thank you yes and I echo the sentiment on the farmer's market I forgot to mention that Councilmember Martinez

Yes. So thank you, Mayor. So when I first saw that we were increasing days, my first thing is, oh, my gosh, we're going to burn the staff out. But you made it so clear that the efficiency is improved, that we're spreading it out. And, you know, they've. you got the routine now and best of all, they're motivated. They want to do it. And thank you for clarifying that, um, with me when we talked, um, because it makes me confident that we're not putting too much, you know, they're, they're handling it and I'm sure there was speak up and said, Hey boss, we're probably stretching it. So I encourage them to do that. But you know, we really have been upping the bar. um i'm supportive of the beer garden i think it's necessary because it has that and you know i wouldn't want to disappoint the mayor but it brings that element you know in uh for those extra and i think it was well done and and i compliment the public safety presence uh i sense a clear message that we're family friendly people felt comfortable because they were there and you know and it just it just had that overall fun feeling So, um, you know, I'm supportive of everything you're doing and I appreciate you thinking how to, you know, just here and there and so forth. And like I said, it just keeps getting improving and things that didn't work. We'll, we'll adjust that and maybe that time didn't work or so forth. Another shade structure would definitely be nice if it's possible. I know they're expensive. Um, but I just, and I like the data. the ability to go back and quantify things. So we're just not guessing. So that helps us with the decisions for money that we give into it, that it's substantiated. So I appreciate that. So I think everything's going in the right direction. I'm fully supportive. Just come back when you think we need to adjust things here and there, as you usually do. But I think we're on the right track. So I appreciate it. And thank you, staff, for all the hard work and everyone because it just takes this whole village to do to make those work every time not just one time but every time so thank you thank you all right council member fenn thank you mayor

Doug and your staff, thank you so much for the good work that you guys have been doing. I appreciate that. And I'm excited about the farmer's market. First year that we did it and I was mayor that year and was there nearly every night. And that was something I heard multiple times every night. Hey, can we get a farmer's market? So appreciate the effort towards that and look forward to hopefully that works out. TWO QUESTIONS FOR YOU. ONE, THE VETERANS DAY, WOULD YOU, WOULD STAFF BE PLANNING ON MAYBE BLOCKING OUT A CERTAIN NUMBER OF SPACES FOR VETERAN SERVICES OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT? IS THAT KIND OF THE VISION FOR IT?

YEAH, AND COUNCILMEMBER FEN, WITH OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE VET EXPO, WE HAVE JUST A REALLY GREAT connection with different vet groups that are wanting to either provide information or help provide services. And so that would be our one of the goals is reserve some of those spaces for them or maybe a little area for them, but then also incorporate some some fun recognition maybe before or after the concerts and get some folks on stage and maybe get some of our electeds from outside of even Beaumont to give some certificates and just really acknowledge some great people in our community. So tie that in. We'll still have a parade that day as well. And so we'll coordinate all those things together and just make it a real fun day where we honor our veterans. very good would it make sense to try to do the parade in the afternoon then we're working on some of those logistics so okay yes so we've we've that's the challenge we do is we during the week it's hard to get the folks out in the morning sometimes yeah so that's one of the things we're considering and we've we've in the past with blizzard bash when we do the blizzard bash and we also do the the christmas light parade uh we've changed that route to be able to have beaumont knights up and running but also allow for a parade route to kind of come in and around the uh the event area and so yeah that's one of the things what we would consider doing as well okay very good and then um if i understood you correctly you had more vendors than you had spaces is that right yeah we have a really large waiting list there's a lot of people that really want to be in beaumont and do we have events do we have a priority like pecking order like hey beaumont business gets the first dibs that kind of thing yeah if you're in the downtown if you're a beaumont business if you're local you get first dibs on things and then once we have that all settled we start moving

down that list but we do have a priority for everyone that comes in all right very good thank you thank you mayor all right well that leaves us to a motion for tonight so i will move to receive and file the 2026 beaumont knights season recap and direct staff to develop the proposed 15 date 2027 program calendar through the annual budget and contracting process as i'm doing this mr laura did you want to Okay, sorry. And to approve alcohol services within a designated beer garden in 2020, excuse me, at 2027 Beaumont Nights event in the town center area subject to applicable licensing and responsible alcohol service requirements.

I'll second.

Can I get a roll call, please?

Council member Laura? Yes. Council member Finn? Yes. Council member Martinez? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem White? Yes. Mayor Foy?

Yes. All right. Thank you for that. And that takes us, I don't believe we have a ledge update today. City manager report?

Well, in light of me losing my bet against Deputy City Clerk Wheelwright on what time this meeting will end, I'm gonna give you a really abridged version of my report tonight. So really, the biggest thing is I want to announce, just remind everybody that we're gonna have a ribbon cutting tomorrow at the sports park at 4 p.m. It's a great opportunity to recognize the completion of a $4.5 million investment to bring significant improvements and upgrades to the park and its athletic facilities. and we'll have a number of fun activities for anybody who joins. So we hope that the public can make it and we're looking forward to it. And that's it.

Great. I will be there and hopefully the rest of us can join as well. All right. Any future agenda items?

Council Member Martinez? No.

Okay. All right. That takes us to our council reports. We'll start with Council Member Fenn.

Yes, Mayor, thank you. Question for Stephen out there. When I asked about the e-bikes, he said there was state law that we'd have an update. Did I? It was next meeting. Okay. All right. Just making sure I heard that correctly. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. I JUST HEARD LATER AND I WASN'T SURE WHAT THE LATER WAS. SO THANKS FOR THE CLARIFICATION. ON THE 27TH OF AUGUST I ATTENDED RTA'S GENERAL MEETING AND AFTER THAT MEETING WE HAD A RIBBON CUTTING FOR A NEW HYDROGEN BUS THAT WAS DELIVERED AND A RIBBON CUTTING FOR THE NEW HYDROGEN FUELING STATION THAT'S THERE AT THEIR FACILITY ON THIRD STREET AND RIVERSIDE. we're all excited about that um trying to meet the mandates from the state in terms of zero or very low emissions and we think the the hydrogen way for now is the the best way to make that happen so that's my report for the evening all right councilmember martinez

Thank you, Mayor. I attended the library's books and brews and it was well attended. It was well attended and it's really nice to see how the new annex fits in the whole scheme of things being my mind couldn't get around it because I was still thinking Carnegie side and They explained to me several times what the difference was. They built a false wall between the two. So my brain's looking for the old and it's not there. And I know now it's behind the other side being part of phase two. So it's really nice to see. I think the community should be really appreciative of the modernization going on. and i'm proud to have it in the city because it really gives that feeling of you know we are really building up here and moving things so i just want to give kudos to lauren and and all the trustees at the library and all library and all of the volunteers because it takes a lot to get the library going and there are a lot of volunteers friends of the library and so forth and and kudos to all of them great mayor pro tem

okay council member laura okay um they moved the wr cog meeting to the 14th monday the 14th because of the holiday coming up um i did attend the senior citizen day at chutney center was uh well attended at least that i can remember you know so um and i did they did allow me to call a bingo game which was great um and then just just lastly the staff here you know with the beaumont knights and all the stuff that it takes to prepare uh the the ideas that they have for the different events for seniors and youth and it's just they do it with a great attitude just like a council member martinez referenced and it's just very proud to be a part of that so i just wanted to reference that and that's all i have mayor all right thank you mayor pro temp

I have nothing to report.

Oh, look at that. I attended the mayor breakfast. We were able to get it off the ground for Cala Mesa and Banning. It was great to see our colleagues. A lot going on in those areas as well, but always good to collaborate with them. And then today, I had the absolute honor to attend our Banning and Beaumont Unified School District Student of the Month. These four students that they... awarded today had every single one of us crying in the room today the dads were so proud um and it was just a great great experience to start off the day and i am so thankful that we participate in that as well so it was truly a wonderful day all right so with that we will adjourn to our next meeting at 907