City Council - Regular Meeting

You can keep chit-chatting. We're still waiting for two more folks. at this beautiful room full of excited people we're going to get started again apologize for starting late um but what a great evening to do some celebration so i hereby call the palm springs regular city council meeting of september 9 2026 to order you can please stand for the pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I acknowledge that the land we gather, live, and work on today, currently known as the City of Palm Springs, is the original homeland of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The sovereign band of Agua Caliente people have stewarded this land throughout the generations and continue to steward this land for all future generations. We honor and respect the many diverse indigenous peoples still connected to this land. Madam City Clerk, can you please conduct roll call?

Let the record reflect that all members are present.

And we do have a presentation today. Mr. City Manager, I know you like to introduce, reintroduce a special someone today.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of Council, it's my great honor this evening to introduce to you our newly appointed Chief of Police, Kyle Stern. I'd like to have him come up to the podium and say a few words, but I thought I would just first mention for the viewing audience and everyone else, just, you know, it's a great honor for me to make this appointment. I'm very excited for the Palm Springs Police Department in the future. We all know Deputy Chief Stern. He's had a long, multi-decade career coming up through the ranks of our police department. He's worked in just about every assignment you could think of as a detective sergeant. Many, many years running our SWAT team and working actively with SWAT as a team leader, as a commander. He's worked in internal affairs, always a tough position. He's been a police lieutenant, a police captain, and very recently, Chief Mills promoted him to deputy chief of police, where he was entrusted with all of our day-to-day operations of our police department. It's a department that has a $46 million budget, so it's one of our largest and most important departments we have. He's been in charge of numerous and many high profile police actions that we've been involved in. I will say when I asked the community for input on what they wanted to see in a new police chief, I got 1,300 responses from the community. It just goes to show how much our community cares about our police department. I read every one of those survey results that we've got, and it helped me put together the basis for the interview questions that we spent time talking to the chief about, and we spent a lot of time going over those responses and going over the things that were important to the people of Palm Springs. And I had experts in the field help advise me, and I was really proud to say by the end of that process, but they and I were very confident and excited about the choice that we made. We know that the chief has a long educational history as well. He has a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from San Diego State University. He's had management certificates from the Harvard Business School online and public leadership credentials with the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Management. And he's also participated extensively with the really esteemed Police Executive Research Forum, which is also based in Boston, Massachusetts. He's a member of the Riverside County Law Enforcement Administrators Association, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the International Chiefs of Police. He's also a member of the USO California Advisory Council. So it's a great pleasure of mine. I know the chief and his wife, who I know he'll introduce, and his kids are all here this evening. So without further ado on my part, I'd like the chief to come forward and say a few words.

I guess that's a good start, start at the right microphone. Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, esteemed members of council, Scott, our beloved city manager and all city staff, thank you for this opportunity. It really is the opportunity of a lifetime. Mayor Pro Tem Reddy was my city manager when I got hired here in 2002. It is the honor of a lifetime to continue serving the people of Palm Springs and this city as their next police chief. I really want to take just a few moments to really thank a few important people. I want to thank members of the community who took time to come today to support me and support our city. Distinguished guests from policing all throughout California, my buddies from SMIP drove all the way out from Orange County in LA. People from Riverside County who serve this county in policing every single day with honor. I have lifelong friends who've joined us. I have people who are near and dear, my mother and father-in-law are here, my beautiful wife and my two children. But most importantly is this team that you see behind this lectern and these seats, the Palm Springs Police Department. It has been the honor of my professional life to be a member of this team and now to have the opportunity to lead it into its next chapter and into the future is truly something I struggle to put into words how much it means to me. I can go on for a long period of time, but given the amount of things that are on the agenda tonight and the people from the community who are here to talk about important city business, I'm reminded by seeing my beautiful sister and my mother here. My mother taught us very early that actions speak louder than words. So I'm not gonna tell you about all the great things that the Palm Springs Police Department's gonna do for this city and these people. moving forward we're going to prove it to you and we're going to show you every single day that is my commitment the people behind us do all the hard work just today we had a tragic situation where someone decided to call a bomb threat into the high school This team stopped what they were doing, immediately responded, got a positive resolution to that situation. And the members of the school district, the members of our community have overwhelmingly already told them of how proud and how grateful they are to them. That is the type of service that we are gonna show and demonstrate to you every single day. So again, thank you for this opportunity. We intend to be the finest policing organization, not only in California, but hopefully the nation. So thank you.

Please repeat after me. I, Kyle Stern, do solemnly swear.

I, Kyle Stern, do solemnly swear.

That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance.

To the Constitution of the United States.

To the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

And the Constitution of the State of California.

That I take this obligation freely.

That I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation.

Without any mental reservation.

Or purpose of evasion.

Or purpose of evasion.

And that I will well and faithfully.

And that I will well and faithfully.

Discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.

Discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.

And if we could have Chief Stern's family come up for a quick photo, and then we'll take a council photo. And the whole family, this is a good time to take a photo. Anyone else who wants to join, you're welcome to. And then to our Palm Springs PD, there's gonna be a group photo right outside chambers. So thank you for that. Torres might actually. Can you tell Lieutenant Torres there's gonna be a photo outside if you want to? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now this looks like a normal meeting. Okay, we are going to move forward. Our next item is the acceptance of the agenda. The City Council will discuss the order of the agenda, may amend the order, add urgency items, no abstentions or no votes on the consent calendar items, or request consent calendar items to be removed for separate discussion. Besides, are there any items staff or council members would like to remove from the consent for a separate discussion and or votes? Mayor Plattem.

Mayor, just one. I'd like to have a staff report, if I could, on 1G.

Oh, okay, that was one of mine, great.

Thank you.

G, anybody else? F. A staff report or a comment?

No, a staff report, please.

Okay, all right, wonderful. We have a motion and a second to accept with the exception of G and F for a separate discussion.

Council Member DeHart, if you can vote.

Thank you.

Anything? Okay, motion carries.

At this time, I invite City Attorney Ballinger to provide a report on the closed session, please.

Yes, Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, members of the public, the City Council met in closed session to discuss those items that are listed on the agenda, as well as the two items that were added beforehand, and there was no reportable action. Thank you.

Next item is public testimony. This time has been set aside for members of the public to address the City Council on non-public hearing agenda items only. Two minutes will be assigned to each speaker. You are asked to please begin your time by telling us what agenda item or items you're speaking on. Please note that testimony for public hearings will be taken at the time of said public hearing. General public comments on subjects not on the agenda will be taken later in the evening. If you have any written comments you'd like to share, you can bring those to our city clerk who will distribute them to us. Our first speaker is Dominic. You wanted to speak on the presentation, please.

All right, whenever the timer goes.

All right, it's going, okay.

All right, well, I wanted to speak on the presentation for our fire and police 1st. I am sadly left, but we were really lucky to have our own fire and police. Not every city has its own fire and police and so. I miss Chief Mills a lot. I've talked with him several times, but I'm really excited for the new police chief, Kyle Stern, and he's really awesome and I'm happy for the department. We really have an awesome department. Not many cities have awesome departments, and I hope we become the finest police department and take that title from San Diego, go Bruins. But yes, we have an awesome police, we have an awesome fire, and I just want to congratulate our new police chief. And I also have a lot of memories with the police department, mainly on that famous TV show called cops um i i watched that i found a couple of episodes and i saw some of these police officers even chief uh when he was really young at the time and now they're now that now he's a police chief and i even saw a former uh chief uh reyes as well uh along with officer hutchinson he was known for that one famous episode i'll just i'll just leave it at that so uh but yes so um Yeah, and I think that's it. Can we clarify for other items for me? Or is it just presentation? That's it for my presentation comment. Can I speak on others?

I think you had 1D.

1D, yes. If we can please support that item, the second reading, so if we can support that item. I support the data center ban. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Next on our speakers is Mr. Hank Bates.

after hank will be albert duarte living there photo their program ready council members i'm here to talk about cannabis again believe it or not uh... sort of about the lines of this and i've been the staff report of the the documents that we left it and the only thing i found in there that was a little iffy for me was that it looked like only one lounge was being required to do a land use permit. And I think we want everybody to be treated the same. And I think when you look at land use permits, you're looking at another investment of money. Like I think a land use permit starts at $1,000. So these people are going to put on events where they don't even know if they're going to get an audience. Because this is something very new. So they may not have anybody even show up to use the $1,000. And if they're gonna do an event, are they gonna do a land use permit for every event? I mean, it just seems cumbersome and it seems like we have all these regulations and rules set up, So everybody should follow those without the land use permit and if they don't follow those rules or regulations, then they definitely don't get to do cannabis events anymore. That's the way I would look at it. I'm not a cannabis person, I'm here representing a landlord. But anyway, to me, it's like if you charge them $1,000, it's like giving somebody a new car, but you know they can't buy the gas, right? So you're having them get a $1,000 investment into something where they may not have the money to get it started. But let's have something fun. Let's have something good for Palm Springs. Let's do something new. Let's get these events going and just see how it all works out. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bates. Next, we have Albert Duarte.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Potem, and Council and staff. I came to speak on 3C. did you okay okay great um you know i wanted to thank uh thank the the council for um for their their vote on bringing in the the uh community workforce agreement uh four years ago it was a big step but it was a big step for our community in the inland empire it was uh for a lot of the trades and it made things easier for the construction and for the skilled and trained workforce of our county. So I wanted to come here and just address the agreement that is up for renewal and maybe answer any questions that you might have. But we're here to work with the community. We're here to work with the city and the staff especially. So any questions you might have, I'm here to answer any questions on that renewal.

WE CAN'T ASK QUESTIONS DURING PUBLIC COMMENTS BUT IT'S GOOD TO KNOW FOR LATER.

THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING AND LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU AND WE'RE HERE FOR ANY QUESTIONS. THANKS. THANK YOU. TAKE CARE.

NEXT WE HAVE SCOTT RUSSICK AND AFTER SCOTT WILL BE JESSICA MENDOZA.

Good evening, everyone. Mayor Soto, council members, Team PS, Scott Russick, Coachella Valley Cannabis Alliance Network. We are here on, I'm here on item 1F of the Lounge Act. We're on the cusp of greatness. This is very exciting. We're this close. I know everyone's done a lot of hard work on this, and it's very much appreciated. We did notice four items in the revised second reading, which we pointed out in our memorandum to you just very quickly. There is a restriction as to the number of ticketed events a lounge owner can hold for indoor events. We don't quite understand where this came from, and there are no other businesses that have such a restriction, so we'd ask that that be eradicated. Additionally, we've added some clarifying language about lounge owners who are in compliance not having to seek any sort of permit for indoor events. We believe that's the intent of the statute, but it's not clearly stated, so we suggested some language there. The other two matters are a little more serious, one of which is the land use permit issue in connection with Lounge owners who are next to an alcohol or tobacco establishment and requiring a land use permit. With all due respect, that's without basis in law in the state of California. We're not really sure where this comes from. There was quite a conversation about it at the last hearing. Obviously, I should say obviously, from a transparency standpoint, one of our members is directly affected by this. And so we request that that be changed. It also chills potential investment in the community by future people, folks who might come in and then all of a sudden a tobacco shop opens. Then finally, we think there's an inadvertent language effect where the consumer in a lounge cannot commingle cannabis and non-cannabis products, i.e. I buy a Sprite and a syrup and I can't mix them together. Not only is that contrary to the intent of the entire statute, but it creates a problem for the lounge owner. So we gave you some suggested language on that. Want to thank you all for your time and attention.

Thank you very much. Great job watching that timer. Next, Jessica Mendoza. After Jessica is Steven Wishtick.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council, members of faculty. My name is Jessica Mendoza. I am the director of creative marketing for Heightened Dispensary and Lounge here in Palm Springs, the best city on Earth. Also a member of CVCAN. We are so grateful to be here for you tonight, to be here tonight for the second and final conversation about this lounge ordinance. Over the past several months, we have put our hearts and our resources and our faith into this city, creating a beautiful, welcoming space designed to bring people together, but to truly thrive, we need our indoor lounge spaces to function the way that they were intended, as vibrant gathering spots for our community. While we were deeply grateful for this moment, the reality is that the journey to this evening has been incredibly heavy. We know that creating a level playing field for all local businesses is a delicate balance. We see how beautifully other spaces in our city have been permitted to flourish. All that we ask tonight is for the same warmth, openness, and opportunity to sustain our own dream. Time is no longer a luxury that we have. We are at a critical crossroads, and any further postponement or delay will have an immediate, devastating impact on our ability to keep our doors open and our staff employed. The urgency of this cannot be overstated. Our survival rests on the decisions made in this room tonight. We have done everything that was asked of us, and we are ready to contribute and to continue to contribute beautifully to the Palm Springs economy. please let us move forward tonight. We respectfully ask for your final approval on this ordinance so we can finally welcome you and all of our community in. Thank you so much.

Thank you. After Stephen, we'll have Caleb Raja.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council, staff, Steven Viatic, owner of Reefer Madness, also a member of CVCAN, commenting on 1F, the lounge ordinance. Thank you, everyone, for the hard work on this ordinance, and we're looking forward to events to promote business. That said, I feel there should not be a land use permit requirement. I'm sorry, I feel there should not be a land use permit for non consumption lounge attached outdoor events. Nearby uses come and go. The smoke shop adjacent to my business wasn't always a smoke shop. When I opened, they bottled water and sold cell phones. After my business opened, they began selling other smoke and accessories that don't require licensing. This is normal in a market economy where new opportunities arise. Now, all from the same plaza, a person may buy cannabis products from me, other smoke and accessories next door, and then a few doors down, convenience store items and liquor. It actually kind of makes sense that these options are nearby and they should not warrant a land use permit. A land use permit would be more appropriate for offsite cannabis events or outdoor consumption events, which is not addressed in this ordinance and perhaps something that the city can explore later. The state offers cannabis event permits and an organizer permits for these higher level type events. But again, this is not what this ordinance before you is about. The ordinance is about having a radio station at a tent outside promoting us on the air saying come find us or a food vendor outside or a brand outside. It only brings good things to the plaza. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Next we have Caleb Raja. After Caleb will be Melissa Dolores Silva.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council. It's actually Caleb Reagan, but maybe that was a spelling error there. But great to be here. And I'm just here to, you know, echo some comments from our executive secretary, treasurer of the Building Trades Council, Albert Duarte. And I'm here with the Inland Empire Labor Council. We represent over 400,000 working families across both Riverside County and San Bernardino counties, 93 unions and you know, we, the, um, all of the building trades are included within our union. So I'm within our, uh, within our jurisdiction with, within our council. So we're just here in solidarity with them, um, to support the renewal of the community workforce agreement. Um, and want to just thank you guys, um, for, you know, continuing to have this discussion and, uh, conversation with, with our building trades. You know, we're here, um, as, uh, sort of trusted partner with Palm Springs. This is, as it says, it's a community workforce agreement. This is not a building trades agreement. This is something where we want to make sure that it benefits the community with the local hire, with making sure that the construction of these public projects is done with pride and that it's done to last. Right. So we want to make sure that this is something that works for that works for the city council, that works for city staff, that works for the community and ultimately continues this trend of hiring local with our tax dollars. Right. Looking at that Solis report, there was with all those projects, we looked at about a 50 percent, a little over 50 percent local hire. If you average all of the projects together, obviously want to pump those numbers up. that's um you know we want to make sure that we can we can um you know change that and and bring that up i know that one thing that was discussed um potentially was uh expanding that and only at five seconds but expanding it from just being palm springs to also being uh the the wider coachella valley for local hire so thank you and uh have a great night thanks caleb next we have melissa

Hi, everybody. Hi, City Council. How are you? Nice to see you again. I'm here on Item 3D, and I'm here on behalf of Section 14 Survivors Incorporation, a nonprofit organization that was built a few years ago. I'm here in support of Item 3D, which is the... services agreement between, funding and services agreement between the City of Palm Springs and Caravisaray for the small business program. We have waited nearly two years for this program and although there have been a few delays and miscommunications, we are excited to have this move forward and we are excited to see this come into fruition. We have discussed with the co-CEOs of this organization and we are confident in our working relationship and believe this partnership can greatly benefit Section 14 survivors and descendants. And we are committed also to working with them in good faith and we look forward to collaborating in outreach, communications, and ensuring survivors and descendants are meaningfully included, centered, informed throughout the implementation of this program. We truly support Kera Visarai and we are so excited to have this partnership grow. We look forward to working together to create meaningful economic opportunities for Section 14 survivors and descendants while contributing to the continued economic development and opportunity in the city of Palm Springs. We appreciate your time and consideration.

Thank you so much, Melissa. Next we have, is there anybody else in person that wanted to speak? No? Okay. Next, we have one Zoom speaker, and that's Eric Christen.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes. You have two minutes. Thank you.

My name is Eric Christen. I'm the Executive Director of the Coalition for Fair Employment and Construction, where statewide organizations formed 28 years ago to oppose discriminatory project labor agreements like the one you're looking to extend tonight. We warned you when you were considering this five years ago, what it would lead to. And unfortunately, our predictions have been proven out. You've paid over a million dollars just to oversee this added layer of bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that locks out the ninety percent of the local construction workforce that is union free. That is in the state of California, that is in Riverside County, that's in Palm Springs, actually nationally as well. About ten percent of the industry is unionized by putting a PLA into effect. you make it almost impossible for those union-free companies, workers, and apprentices to work on your projects. So just to oversee this new bureaucracy that you implemented, you have spent over a million dollars in just an outside managing firm to oversee it. Your first project that was $15 million a year before it went out to bid came in at $40 million. That was a homeless navigation project. An utter disaster that was under the project labor agreement in October of 2024, you had to reject all bids received for the highway safety improvement program, which was cycle 9 traffic signal improvements. That was under a project labor agreement because the bids were so far over what had been estimated. The, of course, the pumps, the airport floor replacement project, which had a PLA on it. um had to be rebid because the bids that came in were so far over the engineer's estimate and it goes on and on this is what happens with project labor agreements that your pickleball court construction for heaven's sakes a pickleball court being placed under a project labor agreement and what that did to the cost more than doubling this is what the PLA does we would ask that if you're going to be negotiating the project labor

Thank you, Mr. Christensen, you are out of time. Madam City Clerk, are there any other online comments?

No further speakers.

Okay. Our next item is the consent calendar. I would like to entertain a motion to accept the consent calendar without items F and G, which were removed for separate discussion. Is yours frozen? Motion carries, thank you. We have two items from consent, starting with item F. Can we have a staff report, please?

Yes, good evening, council. My name is Patrick Clifford, and I'm the assistant director and currently acting director for the Department of Special Program Compliance. Item 1F before you this evening is a second reading for the proposed ordinance number 2121, amending chapter 5.55 of the Palm Springs Municipal Code regarding cannabis consumption lounges. On July 8th, 2026, ordinance number 2121 was introduced for a first reading following council discussion. The council voted to introduce the ordinance subject to several revisions. Those revisions are outlined in the staff report and include adding language, allowing cannabis lounges to host outdoor special events by submitting written verification of steps they will take to comply with applicable rules. adding language allowing cannabis lounge directly adjacent to a site that primarily sells alcoholic beverages tobacco or tobacco products to operate events with an approved land use permit removed some language in section five point five five five eight zero a Bless you and then removed some duplicate phrasing in sections 5.55, 585B. The proposed ordinance included as attachment A reflects the direction provided by the city council at its July 8th meeting. And that concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions. We do have our co-compliance supervisor, Mitch Nebhan, as well, to answer any questions. And our planning director, Hadwin, is here for any questions that might come up for land use permits.

Thank you. Council Member DeHart, you requested this item.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just some concerns from what the conversation that occurred at our last meeting and this might be more directed to our city attorney for guidance but I supported what was in front of council at our first pass because we were given some guidance that a special land use permit was coming and that there was a thought that there would be a lower price and that there was a thought that it would be able to exist over a period of time. I wholeheartedly supported a lower price land use permit and a special permit that was shared with us by the director then because I know how challenging it is for an event to get a land use permit and the burden that comes with that when you're trying to generate neighborhood excitement or additional business so not having lower price permit and one that maybe covers multiple events, not a permit that covers just one event. I'm challenged with the that we are now in the second reading and what we the guidance we were given previously is actually not what is happening with discovery through code and PERMITTING OR WHOEVER. WE DON'T HAVE A SPECIAL PERMIT AND THERE ISN'T A SPECIAL PRICE THAT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED AND THERE'S NO ANTICIPATED DATE THAT ONE WOULD BE ESTABLISHED. SO I'M CHALLENGED WITH THAT. WE APPROVE SOMETHING BASED OFF OF INFORMATION PRESENTED BUT WHAT WAS PRESENTED IS NOT REALITY. So are we able to continue with this reading and say we pass it and that we can pass it with the modification or with the understanding that until the point in time comes that we get this special land use permit, we waive the requirement to get a land use permit

That is a tough one. And I haven't had a chance to speak with staff to find out kind of what their timing is for implementing that specialized land use permit would be. I suppose the council could not as part of the ordinance, but as part of the motion should the council wish to do so, the council could provide that direction to staff if the council wishes to do so.

Okay, cool. I appreciate that. And I don't know if my colleagues were under the same guidance that I got, but I enthusiastically supported requiring the land use permit, special, available, valid for multi-use. So I hope and I look forward to that coming to play, because that will certainly make a difference for the operator. there was a question came up and it was mentioned in public comment again about the number of events that number I don't remember that number that number didn't change from the first reading to this reading did it that's correct it has not changed And then the language about commingling that was presented. Somebody can't sell a Coca-Cola inside the lounge?

So the non-cannabis food cannot be sold inside the place where the cannabis consumption occurs. It has to be outside of the cannabis portion of the lounge. It could be sold in the dispenser itself, but the non-cannabis food cannot be commingled with the cannabis consumption area.

So if somebody buys it over here on this side of the building or the room, and they could carry the soda over to this side of the room and it's okay?

That's correct, yes. It's all related around what the business is doing. They cannot prepare or serve non-cannabis food inside the cannabis consumption lounge, which is commingle. If the patron buys a Coca-Cola inside the retail dispensary parts, brings that into the cannabis lounge, that is compliant with the rules.

But the Coca-Cola would be commingled in the sense that food is present in the same area that cannabis is present.

Right. But it's the wording of the law is how the business is preparing or serving the food. They cannot commingle the cannabis food with the cannabis or non-cannabis food with the cannabis product. So they can't. do that inside the lounge where that activity is occurring, they have to keep that separate. So that's what the business is doing as far as serving or preparing. They cannot commingle the food.

Yes, what I'm getting at is pre-packaged is okay for one item, but it's not okay on other items. How do we draw that distinction? If I'm selling a pre-packaged sandwich or pre-packaged cookies or a can of soda pop, How am I not allowed to sell that packaged cookie, but I'm allowed to sell the Coca-Cola?

but you are allowed to sell that packaged cookie. It just cannot take place of where the consumption activity is occurring. So if you have the lounge, that's separate from the dispensary shop itself. The lounge activity is where the consumption is occurring, but the selling of the prepackaged food or the Coca-Cola, that's happening outside the lounge, and it cannot happen in the same location.

Yeah, okay, well, I understand that. Where is that in the ordinance? Can we point to that? Does somebody know where...

Yeah, I can pull that up really quick here.

Is it 55,500? 580?

I have the text I'm referring to is from the AB 1775 bill that we've brought into our municipal code, but section D of the CAFE bill, as you can call it.

Can you help me find it in our ordinance?

Yes, I can pull that up. Is it 580?

585. Okay, so if we're in 585...

And it must be 5.55585, section C, where it talks about the no commingling. It says, no cannabis consumption lounge operator shall allow any cannabis or cannabis product to be stored, displayed, served, or otherwise handled in a manner that results in contamination of or commingling with any food or beverage product. Food or beverage products shall be maintained, prepared, and served in compliance with all applicable state and local health laws and regulations.

Okay, so the first sentence is not the way I understood you explaining it to me. So the first sentence says that we can't store, display, serve, or otherwise handle. It just says food. And I understood it to be that we could serve it packaged if I'm just use the example of a package cookie and a sandwich. But this is saying that. We can't. And then that last sentence is applicable to regular health department rule guidelines on food safety and food preparation. So that certainly doesn't apply at all because that's not allowed.

Yeah, I see your point, Councilmember. No cannabis consumption operator shall allow any cannabis or cannabis products to be stored, displayed, or served, or otherwise handled in any manner that results in contamination of or commingling with any food or product. I think the approach is what we're relaying that from AB 1775 is a bill that says in Section D, no cannabis food or beverage products are not are not contaminated by or commingled with any cannabis products sold or served on the premise where consumption of the cannabis is allowed. And so my take from that is that there's no commingling allowed with that food that is non-cannabis allowed inside the lounge and outside in the retail space area that those products can be sold and served by the operator. And now if the patron then brings that into the lounge that is a kind of different approach but not subject to this where this is focused on what the operator is doing themselves okay i'm still not 100 clear but let's um let's look at the other item um

So we got the land use permit question, and I'd like to hear what my colleagues have to think about that. So on the fact that cannabis consumption lounge operators are not allowed to sell or provide for free, any cannabis or cannabis products inside the lounge area. That's clear. But how does that differ from state law?

And so that doesn't differ from state law. That's actually from state law that they cannot give out products for free. In fact, I have the language right here, and I'll pull it up. It's from the regulations, I believe, here. And that's California Code of Regulations 15411. It says that a licensed retailer should not provide free cannabis goods to any person. A licensed retailer should not allow individuals who are not employed by the licensed retailer to provide free cannabis goods to any person on the licensed premises. So that's state law. And that covers the whole premise.

Okay, thank you. That's it for me. Thank you.

Council Member Garner and then we'll go Bernstein.

I just have one thing that I wanted to clarify because I had raised this at the meeting. The LUP it was my intention that the LUP applied to all of the cannabis businesses. Maybe Chris Hadwin our planning director could ask answer but My understanding is that all outdoor events require LUPs. And so my desire was for us to be consistent in the way that we do outdoor events. So this was not, my intention was not for it to only apply to the one business, but to all of them.

That's correct. Currently, a land use permit would be required for most businesses. There's a little nuance to it in the city, regardless of whether they're a cannabis business or not. For example, all the bars and arenas, when they have the events where they're using their parking lots for events, they're also getting land use permits. We issue them fairly regularly.

Okay, great. And actually, while you're up here, can you address Council Member DeHart's comment about the pricing and all of that? Is there any update that you can just give us?

so it's not something that i'm actively working on we are of course in the midst of our zoning code update so if council wished we could look at the rules through that process uh just to clarify some of the comments that i've heard the the fee for a minor land use permit which is what we would charge for an outdoor event such as this is 647 um one of the things that we have talked about doing um which is something we can do more operationally is if the same kind of event is happening on a few different occasions looking at issuing sort of one land use permit that might cover multiple dates we do that for example for the arenas events where they're doing halloween and then they're doing pride and they might sort of take down and then reset up you know in the week intervening and we're generally only doing one land use permit in those instances so that's something that we can look at but further changes would be done through the zone and code update okay so in terms of those types of things would that be something that you would look at say one of the cannabis businesses that's here today came and said hey i want to start doing these outdoor events would you then consider that in that

application process or do we have to do a different action or?

No, I think that we could do it when I would maybe look to the city attorney to make sure I'm not misspeaking, but it's something that we're kind of already doing. So I would say, again, if the event is largely the same, for us, the issues that we want to look at are circulation, parking, security, fire occupancy, and emergency services, right? So the reason that we take the land use permit in and the reason for the fee is it does get circulated to our fire department, our police department, in this case to our special program. and we attach a series of conditions to make sure that the events are safe, that we have emergency access, that the parking isn't impacting surrounding businesses or neighbors. So again, if the event is largely happening in the same way with the same kind of occupancy and all of that, then we could issue it for multiple events under one permit, but it would just have to depend on the circumstances.

Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. And then city attorney, just one thing. So in terms of, one, just for the public, if we make any larger changes to this ordinance, then it would have to go back out for another 30 days, correct?

Any changes other than typographical, clerical errors, yes, we'd have to come back for another first reading and a second reading.

And a second reading.

And then 30 days thereafter.

So some of the changes that we're discussing would require us to have an additional reading.

Some of the ones that are proposed that I've heard, yes.

Correct. Okay. In terms of the one that I just stated about LUPs applying to all of the businesses and not just one, would that be considered a typographical error? Because that was certainly my intention, and I think my colleagues understood it to be all of those two, so I'm... You mean all cannabis lounge operations or all outdoor... No, all cannabis lounge operations. Sorry, the outdoor events. Yes, the outdoor events. In this particular ordinance, we said an LUP would be required for outdoor events, which is consistent with other industries. But in the ordinance that is in front of us, that got changed to only apply to cannabis lounges that are near places that sell alcohol, but that was never my intention for it to only be for those businesses next to alcoholic sellers.

I'm afraid you'd probably have to require another first reading.

Oh, wow. Okay. That's unfortunate. All right. Thank you very much.

If I can just clarify, if it's only for outdoor events when there's tobacco or alcohol that just would apply to this one other places who want lounges that want to do outdoor events that aren't near they don't need a land use permit any lounge that wants to do an outdoor event I would defer to the city attorney but the zoning code would require it today notwithstanding this ordinance

ORDINANCE DOESN'T.

I DON'T KNOW IF THIS ORDINANCE WOULD SUPERSEDE AND SET ASIDE THE UNDERLYING ZONING CODE, WHICH WOULD REQUIRE IT. I WOULD DEFER TO THE CITY ATTORNEY.

THAT SEEMS LIKE THAT'S AN ERROR. I MEAN, BUT WE'RE SAYING THAT ANY BUT NORMALLY ANYONE WHO'S DOING AN OUTDOOR EVENT NEEDS A THERE'S A BIT OF NUANCE THERE.

BUT YES, IF THEY'RE USING A PARKING LOT, FOR EXAMPLE, AND THAT'S THE REQUIRED PARKING AND THEY MIGHT BE CLOSING OFF A PORTION OF THEIR PARKING LOT, YES. WHETHER IT'S CANNABIS OR NOT. CORRECT.

So when this one doesn't say anything about that, does that go against our zoning code?

I think the zoning code would still apply, and so land use permits would be required for those activities, even if they aren't directly adjacent to it.

So despite this language, everybody still needs a land use permit?

as the zoning code is written today. Okay.

So that's okay. So that one's okay. My next question is covering multiple events. So if somebody says, I'm going to have a weekly thing outside with the radio station promoting us, whatever it is, and it's the same thing every week, could they get a land use permit for the year?

I'm certainly open to that. I don't want to say with 100% certainty because I think it's going to depend on what they're proposing. And again, the comments that come back from our emergency service departments and our other departments. But in theory, yes, I think that that's something that we're very open to. The zoning code doesn't speak to that level of sort of operational detail. So my opinion is that that would be fairly easy to implement administratively today. That would be easy to implement without changing this? Yeah.

Okay. Well, that seems like that would be a reasonable solution to the price if... I mean, we can look at a lower price once we do the zoning code is what you're saying we would do.

Yeah, we'll have to come back for an update to the fee schedule.

So it would still be expensive if they're doing a one, still $650 if they're doing a one-time event. But if they could do it among two or three or four or 10, it becomes much more reasonable. I'm certainly okay with that. Okay, but to do the one-time event special use permit and have a new type of permit, that would take you time and that would delay this whole thing longer. If we want to include...

Sorry, I don't know that I understood.

There was a council member at heart said we talked about a lower priced land use permit for these, but that would require a whole new process to go through and take time?

uh well we'd probably have to look at that and go through uh some kind of uh code change i think the question that i would have is as i understand it you know there's a process to go through to amend the fee schedule for the city and i'm not really sure how that process works i'm not the finance director but i do remember from when you all did it recently it seems uh yeah complicated so the options are either we don't require a land use permit for an outdoor event but that would be opposite of what we do that would be

that would be against what we do for every other business, or to say we're gonna make every effort to let these go across multiple events, and when we do our zoning code and fee structure, we can look at whether there's a lower priced option for things like this. So that might cover most of the issues of what we're doing.

Yeah, my opinion would be yes, that that's the way that we could do it.

Okay, well that seems like a way to handle this then, in my view, is that, It clarifies it, it helps these businesses, and it also gets this thing happening today without requiring another whole reading.

Councilmember Bernstein, the City Attorney just reminded me we had a similar situation earlier when we were looking at some of the golf course fees. And you'll recall there was some concern about the high nature of some golf fees, and we administratively paused those while we did some more review of the fee structure. And we, I think, committed to Council that we'd bring those back at a later date.

with some adjustments but we're talking this would be now pausing this would be lowering the fees for all land use permits because this this is a land use permit that any outdoor event has to have Is that correct? You're saying no, but he said yes.

Veronica told us specifically, counsel, that she was under the impression that there was a special land use permit that would be lower fee and for an extended period of time that was underway, that was being planned, talked about. that she was under that impression and that it was in the works. So hearing that it wasn't in the works, I go back to exactly what we did for the golf courses, The zoning code already requires a land use permit. So I beg the question, why are we singling out cannabis businesses? Why are we singling out cannabis businesses when the land use permit, you know, the zone code already requires it? So there's no reason.

That's a good question. There's no reason. They do require a land use permit, right? So we can't lower the fee for a land use permit. because everybody has the same land use permit. Anybody who's doing an outdoor event has the same one right now. Is that correct? Correct. In our fee schedule, the land use permit is- So to the city attorney and city manager, are you saying we just want to lower, we want to make them no land use permit fee for cannabis, but every other business has to have it? Is that what you were suggesting?

That's a policy decision for the council that give direction, not a legal question.

That seems to, I mean, that might be nice, but that would be like then- then the store next door who wants to do an event outside would have to have a land use permit. That's a non-canvas one. So that seems a little, I mean, I understand, but then covering over the multiple events, that's what we can do for now.

is that is that right yeah i mean working toward a lup that covers six months or 12 months and is a lower fee working toward that is what i totally support it and whether that takes us six months or 12 months or two years to get i think working toward that is a good solution for what code brought to us at our when this was first presented is it's still giving a sense of supervision and control but we're we're adding a level of protection for cannabis in particular who some are not allowed to operate next to a tobacco or alcohol site so

But let me just clarify, any business in our city, whether you're just a retail store or a coffee shop that does an outdoor event in the parking lot, they're supposed to get a land use permit, is that right?

Correct.

And it's the same one for the cannabis as it is for

Correct, but Council Member Hart and Council Member Bernstein, if I might, and I wasn't here for that discussion, so a little catch up, but what I believe the former director may have been alluding to is we have two fees in our fee schedule for land use permit. One is a minor fee of $647 and one is a major fee Which I can't remember, but is certainly over $1,000, which may be where some of these comments are coming from. Historically, I think when it's been a larger event where you have a lot of traffic in a parking lot and circulation may change, we were charging the higher fee because there's a higher degree of review. We've already operationally changed that a couple of years ago. in response to some questions and concerns that have been raised by this council and previous councils around are we sort of prohibiting events or prohibiting people and making it too difficult to do fun things in our community. So we've already been doing that, and I don't know if that's what she might have meant. So we're already giving the lower price. The lower fee is what we would charge in this instance.

The $6.50. And you're already... Covering multiple events if possible we've been doing that a little bit and we can certainly that that change can happen almost immediately And here we can do that so but what you were talking about mr. Scott was like you were saying well we can pause the fees, but then we're pausing fees Just for cannabis, but we any other play any other business that does the exact same thing would have to pay the fee I

Yes, and, you know, it would be a little more difficult, obviously, with the golf. It was more of an isolated situation, so I think.

So I think this makes sense. I think when we do our zoning code, understanding how people are using land use permits now that, like, and I'll just be honest, you know, a bar on Arenas that is doing an outdoor thing in the parking lot, there is going to be different crowds and different issues than somebody putting a, you know, a guitar player in the parking lot and having people listen to them.

And I do want to add just one more thing. Depending on the event, the scale, how they're using the parking lot, it may be that they come in and talk to us and we determine one isn't required. We try to use our discretion as well. So unless, again, there's an issue around circulation or parking or security or safety or fire access, those are the things that we're worried about and that we want everyone's eyes on. If it's a relatively minor event and, you know, I can't think of an example, but there are examples where people come in and ask, and we say, you don't need to go through it, it's fine.

Somebody has a guitar player outside their store or cannabis place because they want to draw attention to it from people walking by. Right. I mean, they may sit down and watch it, but that doesn't seem like it requires a lot of traffic.

Exactly. Are you saying strike C? Seems like we don't need C because the law is already there.

We already have to do it.

Yeah.

Is that correct in your opinion?

My opinion, yes, but I would also defer to the department in case there was an alternate motive.

From the conversation, yes, I would agree with the planning director as well. If land use permits are required for all businesses in the city of Palm Springs, I believe our intention is to make sure we treat all businesses fairly and equally.

Can we strike this and still pass tonight?

If the council is interested in passing this tonight and having that sentence removed, my recommendation would be for you to pass it as presented and give direction for us to bring back an amendment of just that one subdivision, which I think we could do at the September meeting.

Even though they would still have to have a land use permit? Correct. Under the current thing. Okay. So it doesn't seem, and I understand the issue, it doesn't seem in practical terms that we've got the lower price, you're going to do it over multiple times, and on cases where it's feasible, you will not require it. as opposed to just a blanket requirement. So you already do all of that. Okay, so, and I think part of the problem is that, unfortunately, you are not here. When we discussed this last time, we probably could have clarified it then. But it seems to me like we want to pass this tonight so that people can start having events and not have to delay that. And we can either come back and strike it, or we can say that it's already by default there anyway. And then, now that you're aware and your department would be aware, they could try to work with cannabis operators to ensure that they understand how to go through the process in a way that may minimize fees or amortize it over multiple events.

Absolutely.

That sounds like a good way to do it then. I mean, it sounded more onerous before, but now that you have spoken, it sounds more clear.

Yeah, but city attorney, so we're not just striking C. I heard you say something different than what I was saying. You said strike a sentence?

I'd recommend adopting the ordinance as presented tonight, then directing staff to bring back an ordinance amending just that subdivision C, the language in subdivision C, that last sentence, striking that last sentence. That's my understanding of what the council wants to do is get rid of that sentence so that it doesn't sound like we're calling out cannabis lounges that are directly adjacent to sites that are operating outdoor events.

no the whole paragraph so this is referencing you know you know so we're all cannabis lounges any business any business has to get an lup if they're going to have an outdoor event on public property if the council wants to direct us to remove all of subdivision c you can give us that direction but wait a second this is for a cannabis lounges this is the first time we're allowing outdoor events right or no

No, we've had in the past cannabis have outdoor events with an LUP. And we've had some grand openings in the past. And so there's always been a process for our cannabis operators.

And nothing's changed from what we've always done?

There's just an LUP process, yeah. So they would have to follow the steps and have that. Like, for example, we've had Code Supervisor Mitch has a good understanding of a few businesses that have applied for an LUP, but there have been LUPs. applied for and have events outside for those cannabis places.

Okay. So we're already doing this, so I guess we don't need it at all then. I mean, from a legal point of view, is that correct? We don't need C?

I honestly don't see what the benefit of having them submit written verification if we're going to have an LUP anyhow.

simply because it's outdoor yeah so i think i what my key the goal is let's do it the way you said it so that we can pass this tonight agreed that makes sense to everybody we're all in agreement okay any questions comments mayor proton yeah on the issue since they do have to have a land use permit

everyone's going to have to have a land use permit. The 675 fee or something per event would be expensive, but what's the criteria? That could be for the full year. That could be for, I presume they're going to have events the same way all the time when they have them. It'll be a template. So they get it once, they pay once, and it's good for the year, good for two years. Is that how...

I would say, well, I would imagine that it would probably be done on an annual basis just to reevaluate if anything's changed in the fire code, for example, or anything's changed in circulation patterns. But I think, and certainly I think that's probably direction council could give us as a matter of policy. I would say, yes, if the event is happening in the same way, multiple times and nothing's changing then you know we're going to circulate it to pd and we're going to get the same conditions back right so again the goal of that 675 isn't because we're trying to charge it every single time it's because it's the cost of city staff time to review the conditions under which they're hosting the event so if it's the same we've already done that so yes so that would seem to be a good policy measure the question is is it formal or informal do you need some formal guidance do you need a formal

Ordinance change, I mean just, we gotta figure out how to make this so it's definite.

So these details don't live in the ordinance, it's kind of more of an operational implementation thing, and land use permits are issued by the planning director anyways, so I think if this is the direction of council, I can implement this tomorrow. Okay, understood.

Okay. But are we supporting an annual?

What we're doing is if the planning director determines that there is no real change, then it can go annual. If there is some difference in event or circumstances that would require it go back to PD or fire, it would have to incur another fee.

And the other question, is there still an issue with that one location that couldn't do it, or that's been resolved? That's resolved. Okay. The number of events? Is that still an open question? Is that of anyone's concern?

No, it hasn't changed.

That hasn't changed. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. I move to approve.

But what about the food thing? Hold on.

That's basically the operator can't mix the food and not the cannabis and non-cannabis. But the patron can go do it themselves.

That's correct. I mean, the whole code is talking about the operations of what the business operator is doing. And with respect to what the regulations say, that notwithstanding the operations that they're currently doing, the lounge operator may also sell prepackaged, non-cannabis-infused food, non-alcoholic food and beverages if applicable to the local jurisdiction that allows such sales. And then when it comes to the AB 1775, their key component is that the non-cannabis food or beverages products are not contaminated by or commingled with any cannabis products sold or served on the premises where the consumption of cannabis is allowed. So our focus is that the operators are not contaminating the non-cannabis food and are not commingling the non-cannabis food with the cannabis products. So city attorney,

is what we're talking about, what is written down here on paragraph C under 585. To me, we're saying no, cannabis operator can have cannabis or cannabis product to be stored, displayed or served or otherwise handled in a manner that will result in contamination. Well, we're not defining what contamination is, but then we're saying any food or beverage product. We're clarifying it, food or beverage product. But a packaged cookie is a food or beverage product, and we're saying here that they can't do that. A wrapped sandwich is a food or beverage product. They're not preparing it on site. As the next sentence is saying, prepared or served, with applicable state and health regulations. So the second sentence clearly is talking about the preparation and handling of food. The first sentence doesn't, the first sentence just says no. Is that how you read it?

The first sentence as it's proposed, no cannabis consumption lounge operator shall allow any cannabis. So it puts the obligation on the operator, the lounge operator, to make sure that no cannabis or cannabis product is served, displayed, served, or otherwise handled in a way that results in the contamination or commingling with food or beverage. As I heard the industry representatives position, it was they don't feel like they should be responsible for monitoring the activities of the patrons, what the patrons do with the product and their food and beverage. And so they've proposed language that simply says the operators aren't going to commingle or contaminate food or beverage with a product. Unfortunately, the state law is stated in sort of a passive language. It says non-cannabis food or beverage products Cannot be contaminated by or commingled with any cannabis products sold or served on the premises where the consumption of cannabis is allowed So the state law doesn't really say Who it's directed at whether it's directed at the operator or if it's also possibly directed at the patrons so if the council wants to cover activities of both the operator as well as patrons, then you can adopt the language that was proposed in tonight's ordinance. If you want to kind of limit that responsibility to just the operators not commingling or contaminating, you can have the language that is provided by the industry tonight. Again, if you go with the revised language, it's either going to require another first reading and second reading, or you can give us direction to bring back a revision of that.

How do you interpret it? Can I have Coca-Cola and packaged product in my dispensary? To me, I'm commingling.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the scenario?

So in your interpretation, can we have packaged product in the cannabis lounge? So packages of Coke and food product on a shelf over here and cannabis being sold on a counter over here?

I think that would be allowed. I don't think that's commingling or contaminating.

Okay. And that's how we would interpret it? That's correct, yes. Okay, beautiful. And I'm okay with that one. Yep.

Okay.

So what was the motion? Approve. Did you make it?

Our motion is to approve and take out C, since it's already in. When it comes to do an amendment. To come back with.

To come back, approve as is, and come back with that removal.

So conduct the second reading of the ordinance and direct staff to bring back a revision of just subdivision C, removing all of that language. Yep.

Great.

Thank you, council. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate it. Patrick.

We have a motion and a second.

Oh, wait, wait, wait.

Mine's not working. It was.

Can we do it?

Yes.

NOTING COUNCILMEMBER BERNSTEIN, YES VOTE, MOTION CARRIES.

NEXT ITEM IS G.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the city council, Joel Montalvo, city engineer. The item before you is the approval of the professional service agreement for ALTA planning to prepare the comprehensive safety action plan. Did you want a full staff report or you wanted just questions?

Well, just maybe a summary staff report. I'm not, just a... The goal of this is to create one plan out of the many plans that you have?

That's correct. Yeah, we're going to, we've hired a consultant. We have a grant that we received to hire a consultant to consolidate and create a comprehensive safety action plan, essentially combining all the different plans that we have uh with the long-term goal of creating projects identifying areas that need improvement to secure grants so essentially the the actual safety plan is going to be our document that we're going to use to secure grants to improve safety throughout the city during multiple projects okay and and i guess maybe my question to you um is is you have a comfort level you know because there's is

almost a million dollars, and it's sort of an amorphous, it's sort of specific in some areas, more general in others, that the tasks they're gonna do, that the value of what they're doing is worth the task, the prices are in line, the hourly rates, et cetera, all that kind of thing.

Generally, yes, I don't have an issue with the way the consultant all the planning presented their proposal. They have a schedule. It's an 18 month schedule where they plan to do all the public outreach. They plan to do look at every single 1 of the aspects of our different plans. It is a level of effort that's required to produce this document that we're requesting. So essentially to unify everything, including the traffic calming program, which council has asked me to look at. There are certain issues that come up time and again with the traffic calming. We wanna revamp that particular document. to make sure that we have a process that's more in line with what council wants. So I'm very comfortable with the way the proposal reads and the way the hourly rates are distributed and how my team is gonna work together with this particular consultant to deliver the product that we want.

Okay. Two other questions. I know like for example, Flynn, you know, you're working with the active transportation group. How is what you're doing affecting like what you're doing? I presume there's some symbiosis there, symmetry, coordination?

Yes, absolutely. We've talked with our active transportation subcommittee about this grant, and they will be actively involved in the outreach, the input, and also plan review. And so they will be participants in this process, just as we will involve other stakeholders, for example, safe routes to schools, neighborhood traffic calming efforts. So, yes.

okay thank you and then my final question joelle and this was um actually what appears to be page 23 of 495 it's it's not in this the step where it's on the attachment it's on the contract uh page 14 uh section 4.4 it's just a compensation it's it's the the first sentence that says you know the work will be compensated on either a lump sum or cost

fixed fee basis I guess I was just a little concerned on the lump sum I I presume we're not doing that and if we're not doing the lump sum could we correct that language yeah we will we will we don't pay them on a lump sum it's generally billed on a percent complete basis as the project progresses and we see products uh we're able to review invoices that we play we pay as they they produce so we will correct that okay

So, I guess, City Attorney, can you, obviously, when you approve this finally before it's signed, can we take that portion out of 4.4?

I'm sorry, which section?

It's 4.4 compensation on, it's page 23. It's not in, it's on the link.

It's on the agreement. I think it's the boilerplate language that we use for compensation on the agreement always has lump sum or on the percent complete basis. And we always work, unless it's a, we don't actually do lump sum. Typically we always do on a percent complete basis and we always have the two statements in there.

So you're asking that the phrase lump sum be removed? Just removed. Yeah, we've done that before.

Okay, great, thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Council Member Bernstein, I think you had questions on this one too.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. So, Joelle, we had a letter today from the Little Tuscany neighborhood group, which has been had a. A safety plan on the Racquet Club Road that has been going on for about 10 years now, and I think it's been on other plans. And so my question is, when we're doing this comprehensive plan, are we going to take into account what's already been discussed and done or are they starting over again?

So we will not have the consultants start over. We will give them the documentation that we have for that particular area. But the one thing we want is the consultant to look at the entire city as a whole. And projects will be created or identified as safety issues or safety concerns or essentially projects like sidewalk gap closures, but they're gonna take a holistic look at the entire city and they will look at this area as well. And we will provide them the documentation that we have on the work that's already been done in the Little Tuscany area.

Okay, I appreciate it. I mean, it's been going on a long time, and I know there was some disagreement on what they wanted, but they're all in agreement now. It's very frustrated that it's taken so long, so I don't want them to think like we're starting over again with what their issues are. We've gone through it. The city's done studies. It should be included into this master plan, so...

Yeah and then I guess all for the benefit of the public the master plan is looking at safety corridors and things to improve safety not necessarily beautification or improvements to streetscape landscaping so the way this document is going to look at it is there a problem here are there accidents are there issues that we need to resolve in this particular community and then here are the different types of things that you could do to that to improve those and then from there we move to going after grants that address those types of issues. But they will not look at it from a streetscape or beautification perspective.

No, I understand. But as long as we determine that there is a safety issue or a speeding issue, then if we're then there may be an additional beautification that we have to look at something separately from this.

Yeah, it could be tied to a bigger project. If there's a capital project that's identified that is for beautification, then the safety aspects would be contained in that project as well.

Okay, well, I appreciate that. I don't know if you saw the letter today, but I'll make sure, if not, that you see it. It's in the public comment, so thank you.

Yes, Councilmember DeHart.

Thank you, Mayor. Joel, the $194,000 that the city's got to contribute is coming from Measure J. And is that something that Measure J already gave thumbs up to?

So Measure J contributed to the pedestrian walkability master plan and we've put aside money for pedestrian walkability from Measure J in our five year CIP. That's where the money is coming from. This is part of the pedestrian walkability master plan that we plan to use Measure J funds for this study as well as a matching fund. Thank you.

Joel, just for the community's awareness, can you maybe explain or give context as to why it is helpful to consolidate all of these and we can't just move forward on all these individual plans and pedestrian goals? the value of consolidating all of this work in terms of making it viable for federal funding?

So the biggest key here is that we received approximately $780,000 to do this study, the comprehensive safety action plan. which gives us the ability to consolidate existing plans that we already had. We've gotten grants to do like the local road safety plan for Caltrans. Caltrans won't give you funding for a project unless you have that local safety action plan. it benefits us to combine everything and have one firm look at the entire city holistically, including looking at bicycle routes, sidewalk gap closures, areas where there's hot spots, traffic calming. So to me, it's one, whole holistic look at our city and identifying projects that could be applied for grant for and documenting essentially we have a document that will help us move these projects to a five-year cip if we don't get grants we could also identify you know measure a funds or other funds that exist in the city to create those capital projects so i think it's it benefits the city to have one comprehensive plan that we could point to and we can direct residents to of what we're doing and what we plan to do about safety

THROUGHOUT OUR CITY. WONDERFUL. THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE THAT. AND THEN SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES HAVE MENTIONED PROJECTS THAT EITHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS OR NEIGHBORHOODS OR COMMITTEES HAVE IDENTIFIED OR THERE'S BEEN AN ACTIVE CONSIDERATION TO EXPLORE TO DO THOSE PROJECTS. HOW ARE WE DETERMINING WHAT KEEPS MOVING FORWARD DURING THIS 18-MONTH PROCESS AND WHAT IS MAYBE consider like maybe slow down a little bit to determine how it fits with the master plan. Like can you help community members maybe understand like this is so far baked it's still going to keep going. This is going to be part of the evaluation process.

The good thing is we have a schedule. We're gonna be on an 18 month schedule, maybe we can beat it, it's less than that. So it won't be too long before those projects that are existing are incorporated into this plan. But we already have capital projects and funding, as I mentioned earlier, the pedestrian master plan funding that I set aside, right now I don't have in my mind, but millions of dollars each year to try to create and build those projects. So we already have those projects identified in other uh... plans and we are actively pursuing those such as the racket club road reconfiguration, south palm canyon road reconfiguration, we're actively working on traffic calming uh... we have highway safety improvement program grants that are helping us uh... improve our traffic signals. So we don't stop. What we are gonna do is consolidate those projects that haven't started into this larger project, but still keep momentum going. So what I'm saying is that just because it goes into a plan doesn't mean we can't continue working on it if we're actively already pursuing it today.

And maybe this is something like as the community engagement process is starting, PUTTING A STARTER SLIDE, THIS IS WHAT IS ACTUALLY CURRENTLY UNDERWAY THAT IS IN LINE WITH SOME OF THESE SIMILAR PRIORITIES, THAT THEY ARE STILL MOVING FORWARD AND WE ARE TALKING ABOUT FUTURE PROJECTS OR OTHER NEEDS.

to give us an opportunity for the community to come out and say, these are the projects we want reflected in this plan. There's council members have all reached out to me and say, why can't we add sidewalk here? Well, because there's so many different issues with it, right? But this plan can identify them. We can say, this is how much it's going to cost. These are all the issues we need to overcome. And if it's important enough, we should pursue it. And then we start putting dollars aside during our five-year CIP or every. budget cycle to tackle those projects no matter what the cost is but to understand the bigger cost and if it's important enough we pursue those projects.

Right. And I guess as a community member I participated extensively in the pedestrian master plan of 2021. There are some sidewalks that I'm still really hoping they can happen. But I think it can be hard for a community member to participate in something five years ago and then ask to go to another community meeting five years later, ask for the same thing and not have maybe that context as to this is all the work we are doing that is reflective of this priority. And so I just, as much as possible, if we can in those communities meetings, share what we're doing now and also what the vision is for the future, because I know you all are hustling on lots of projects, and sometimes it's hard for people to keep up.

So one of the big ones is sidewalks, right? We get requests for sidewalks all the time. But this plan is going to actually overlap with our next budget cycle. And my plan is to put a lot of money aside, identify a capital project that looks at sidewalk gap closures. So I'll put the money aside. Council hopefully will approve it. And then when this gets approved, we would already have the funding in place. And then we've had the projects identified in priority. And then we start tackling those. So it's going to be, you know, we still have a plan going forward. This helps. The money, if we set it aside, will help. And it will all come together once we're done. Great.

And then my last question on this. So this was my understanding, especially for federal grant opportunities, but this master plan helps us also move forward, I think you said, for even state opportunities as well, because there's a master plan that brings all these together, correct?

Yeah, the state also offers a lot of money for safety improvements, and this grant is gonna be put together in such a way that we could apply for those grants easily, essentially. The projects are already gonna be identified, the studies are gonna be done, the public engagement is gonna be done, so we're gonna pretty much check a lot of the boxes that are required in these grant applications to move forward.

Great, that was the exact intention of my question is making sure it helps us expedite multiple types of grant opportunities, not just federal grant opportunities. So I appreciate that clarification. Okay, any other questions? No, we are seeking a motion to approve item G. We have a motion and a second and we vote. Motion carries. Thank you, Joel. Next item is item 2A titled conduct a public hearing under section 53083 of the California government code to approve a hotel operations covenant between the city of Palm Springs. I'm doing that. Oh, you're right. It's continued.

It has to be.

Yes, yes, yes. Even more exciting. Next item on the agenda is 3A, the adoption of the 2026-2027 legislative platform. May we have a staff report, please?

Thank you, Mayor, members of Council, Theresa Gallivan, Assistant City Manager, and we have with us this evening Niccolo De Luca, Vice President of Townsend Public Affairs. He's via Zoom this evening. He is our consultant, Townsend Public Affairs is our consultant and partner on grant writing and legislative advocacy for the city. The platform proposed before you, tonight's agenda item is for Council to provide direction and adopt the proposed 2026-27 legislative platform. It's a policy and funding guide for the City's advocacy efforts. It helps us with local, state, and federal levels. It outlines the key priorities and positions of the City and is reflected in the City Council's strategic goals. It allows us to proactively pursue funding and monitor legislation and engage with policymakers on issues that align with the city council's goals. Key areas of focus include homelessness and behavioral health, housing, economic development, infrastructure and facilities, public safety and community services, as well as climate resiliency. So last year the council adopted its first legislative platform and Townsend Public Affairs and city staff have worked on updating that platform to present the platform you have before you this evening. This platform builds upon the city's ongoing advocacy efforts and recent accomplishments with Townsend Public Affairs. We have been successful in securing more than $7.7 million in grant funding over the last four years, and we have nearly 8 million in additional funding requests currently pending. over the past two legislative sessions the city has taken positions on more than 30 pieces of legislation engaged in advocacy missions to sacramento and washington dc i'd like to turn it over to nicolo for a moment so he can share greater detail with you about the platform and what lies ahead for all of us

Wonderful, and thank you very much Teresa for that great overview. Madam mayor and council members, Nicolo de Luca vice president here at towns and public affairs. Thank you very much for the time this evening. I will be brief out of respect. To other items on your agenda in summary, we've had a great relationship with the city. And really proud of the enhanced efforts, both in Sacramento and Washington, D. C. we've really ratcheted up the intensity with advocacy trips to both the nation's capital and the state capital, which is definitely part of the formula in securing that over 7Million this past year and 8Million pending and applications just in a nutshell. 1 way to look at the legislative platform is it really gives. Our team here in Sacramento and in D. C. greater direction as to what to engage the city on and on behalf of the city as an example this past year earlier, a contingency came up to Sacramento. They were active on about 30 pieces of legislation, which we helped get the Palm Springs message out, but also help get our name out. And so this platform. Is clear by design, but also fluid gives us an opportunity to weigh in on various matters and once their address weigh in on other matters. So happy to answer any questions and also 1 other item. We're already looking at dates for a visit to Sacramento at the beginning of the year and to DC. So we can get those travel arrangements set. So in a nutshell, it's been an awesome partnership. Very grateful for all of you. Very grateful for the city manager, the assistant city manager, and the executive team. And just the flow of communication and the clarity on direction really, really helps us. And then in turn, definitely helps the city. So happy to answer any questions. And thank you so much for everything.

Thank you. Niccolo, I have some questions and a couple of comments. So one, just really grateful for having this kind of come back and having the opportunity to speak with council to make sure we're all in alignment on our legislative platform so you have clear direction on the city's priorities. I think it's... It's a productive tool for our relationship with Townsend, but also a really important communication tool to the community as well as to what we are keeping a close eye on. So I think there's a dual offer here. I don't have any clear issues with how the legislative platform is identified kind of by issue area. I guess where my question is is identifying key funding like real funding opportunities. So what I don't see is maybe like calling out Prop 4 and funding opportunities around extreme heat and water mitigation efforts and drought resiliency and having actual funding sources that we are watching really closely that align to the issues identified here, right? And so that's kind of one. Another one is looking at kind of keeping a close eye on strategies that Sacramento is exploring around HR1 mediations, right? So I'm thinking specifically CalAIM and the beefing up of CalAIM the last few years and how that can be a possible tool for us to be able to fund really important services that we are already doing at our navigation center, right? So I'm wondering, can you speak to, is that kind of like a tool you're already kind of have in your office or would it be helpful to call that out in our own legislative platform?

Madam mayor great great question. Yes to both. What we can do is, as you know, at the ledge platform, we call out kind of the policy priorities. And then the funding priorities, so happy to. Add on to that, whether it's items, like you mentioned prop for. Which we've been very active in and it's that's for the public. That's a climate bond. That's got a lot of different great funding pods. We could also call out I've got the platform in front of me. Cal aim under homelessness and behavioral health and also under housing. So happy to do that for both funding pops to make it more clear. So we can link the funding priorities with the actual. Dollar amount, so that's not a problem whatsoever. Definitely something that we've been engaged in the prop for back from when was it 2, 3 years ago when they were writing it as. The Senate bill from Senator Allen that then became the climate bond. CalAIM, very good relationships over at CalICH and other state agencies. We're happy to make that more clear.

Yeah, and I think it's just making... NO, I APPRECIATE THAT, NICOLE, SO MUCH, BECAUSE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THAT HERE AT THE LOCAL LEVEL ALL THE TIME, HOW TO MAKE SURE PALM SPRINGS IS CLIMATE RESILIENCE. YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT IT WITH OUR, YOU KNOW, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVES, AND SO IT'S IMPORTANT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE THAT WE ARE LINKING THOSE OPPORTUNITIES. ALSO, PROP 4 IS $10 BILLION, BUT THERE'S A LOT OF CLIMATE NEEDS ACROSS THE STATE, SO I DON'T WANT TO BE SLOW ON THAT EITHER. SO I APPRECIATE YOU BEING WILLING TO MAKE THOSE ACCOMMODATIONS.

absolutely anybody else on my colleagues come councilmember garner thank you thank you nicola i really appreciate this um i so one of the things that i really like all of the issues that we're looking at and obviously a lot of it is very similar to what we did last time was just some minor updates. These are still obviously our key priorities, but one of the things that I thought would beef this up and also give some more guidance to you is adding our vision statement for this city and this council. We do a strategic plan and we have a vision statement in that. The reason I mentioned that specifically in this is that there are bills that come forward That maybe don't fit into any of these little categories, but they're important to Palm Springs Palm Springs residents And just to give the council an example of that I hire summer interns and my my intern this year he has spent the entire last year with his colleagues and classmates I should say at UCLA advocating for ab713 for those that don't know ab713 is provides undocumented students who are in college an opportunity to work on campus. Students who are undocumented now, even if they came here as babies, are not able to participate in the Dream Act anymore. They're not considered Dreamers anymore. so they're unable to work legally. Right, they can intern, but they cannot intern for pay, they cannot work for pay. But this bill, which did pass, and hopefully the governor signs, will allow students to get, undocumented students in college to work on the college campus. So that's a really huge win, especially since we've seen a decline in undocumented students going to college since they can no longer get DreamWorks status. So this impacts our residents, it impacts my intern, and it's really amazing that we can support these things. So I was able to write a letter in support of this, but it was, I learned about it a little bit too late to get the full council involved, but luckily, it moved forward. But I want us to make sure that by having our values statement in this, that we're also pulling up these little, they're not little bills, they're huge bills for our community, but that we're also signing on, sending letters on behalf of council for things that are Palm Springs values. And thank you very much to my intern for raising this to me, for advocating for it. It really is going to make a difference in the lives of so many students and kids right here in Palm Springs. But otherwise, I'm really excited about moving forward with this again.

Awesome. Happy to add the statement. You add the vision statement, you can put that above the. Proposed legislative priorities and then just to be clear, because you all know, we recently sent a. Memo on it governor has until the end of this month to take action. And so the proposed legislative parties were for twenty six and for twenty seven going into the new year. Especially with a new incoming governor and a whole new administration. So the timing of this is perfect. And so, yes, happy to add the vision statement into this document.

Thank you Matt. Thank you Madam Mayor and thank you Niccolo for this and thank you for the advocacy trips. I've been on the Sacramento ones the last few years and they're very very productive and very good to develop the relationship with our policymakers and I think as Council Member Gardner has pushed for this. to be a council item regularly, so thank you for that. I have a number of things. I have sent in all of my comments, so you've seen them, but I wanted to just, for council, a couple things. We talk about in housing, the modified, the affordable housing formulas to create more equity for smaller regions. I think that had to do with the funding mechanisms was a specific thing but what i wanted to raise is something that we've covered with the arena numbers that we get assigned that don't take into account undevelopable land in palm springs as well as tribal land and so um to look at uh opportunities either for to remove some of that or to get the tribal wishes to be not included relayed up to the powers that be, but also potentially look at regional allocations as well. But even, I think, organizations like SCAG, they now have a committee that's working on RENA numbers, that's also the same kind of lobbying effort that's part of this that we need to sort of have have our arena numbers the housing assignments reflect what we can actually build in our city okay so that was one thing I wanted to raise another thing is I know this is all focused on state and federal lobbying I want to mention a couple other things that that There are things, A, I think we can do more collaboration with other cities, the tribe, the county, and other agencies here. You know, for instance, I know Visit Greater Palm Springs has a lobbying effort, and we can coordinate on that. I also wanted to mention, and I know we've done this in some ways, we've lobbied the county for things like funding on our navigation center, but it really should be, we should recognize that as part of it, and the same with the Desert Healthcare District, which, I know we've talked about as well. They have $600 million and it seems like whether it's and some of their strategic plans align perfectly with our navigation center or even medical programs at our College of the Desert. So I wanted to. raise that. And I can just tell you, I've sent these all to you, so then you can comment afterwards. We've talked about aligning with our strategic, with our economic development strategic plan, which Council Member Hart and I helped establish, and Mayor Soto and I are now implementing, but specifically, I think it might make sense to have a follow-up meeting to go through some of the specifics that we're really focused on. And I can just name a few. So arts and culture is one, and you talk about arts and cultural priorities, but we're actually also looking for funding. We have specifically called out diversity and specifically LGBTQ initiatives in our city. And I know money was allocated for community safety, for LGBT events. I think, and pride parades and things like that, so we should be lobbying for our share of that. Small business support, workforce development initiatives, and I also wanted to mention there's other things with health care and clean energy. There's that. Also, I wanted to mention PSUSD and College of the Desert are their own entities, but their success directly impacts ours to the extent that we can coordinate legislative advocacy efforts that they're working on.

Do we want to clarify, maybe, Niccolo, our school district and our community college?

Palm Springs Unified School District and College of the Desert, they're doing their own legislative and lobbying efforts, and we may want to coordinate because obviously their success of our of our K through 12 and college is our success as well. And we may be wanting to join efforts or support their efforts. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is that we have a lot of specific things with hospitality that issues that may not come up on our radar. Council Member DeHart and I are part of the Palm Springs Hospitality Association, the liaisons, and they have a legislative person in that group or team in that group that works on mentioned specific bills, whether it's related to PAGA lawsuits, whether it's entertainment districts, whether heat temperatures should be set different for the desert than it is for other cities, and perhaps someone from Townsend could consider an irregular annual, biannual meeting with some of those people who are very in tuned with the legislation that may directly affect our hospitality industry. Those were all my suggestions. I don't think there's anything surprising in there, and I think it sort of relates to everything we've talked about, but I wanted to make sure they were mentioned.

Yes, just one quick thing to add on to that. Coordinating with our partners was one of the things that came up at our DC trip because we ran into folks from Visit Greater Palm Springs who were doing lobbying. And that was, as I'm really glad you raised that because it was kind of a missed opportunity for us to maybe go and do a ledge visit together on something that was important to us. So thank you, thank you for bringing that up.

Great point.

And if I may just chime in happy to add all of that. The more heads around a problem, the better definitely understanding that the city of Palm Springs has many other needs. Tourism working with the hospitality industry. So happy to not only add that into. The platform to make it more clear, but to do that too. As you all know that that have come up to Sacramento a lot of the strength is building out. Organic coalitions and highlighting efforts amongst the region and knowing that Palm Springs has a loud voice within the region within the county. So absolutely happy to work with. Those advocates, whether here in Sacramento or in D. C. also.

Council member to heart yes.

I love the bow tie.

Thank you. My wife encouraged me to do it now. Stop with me.

Yeah, very good. So I have a couple that I'd like to either modify some of the sentences that we're using or add some points on the homeless and behavioral health section. um number five point five is uh supporting legislation efforts i'd like to see um that we advocate for funding directly to cities um you know supporting the legislation is good but we need the money to help pay for those uh programs the mental health substance number five homelessness and behavioral health the policy priorities on this side Oh, it can go into number it can go into, um, directly to cities, add it to, yeah, directly to cities and number six. Thank you. Um, uh, and I appreciate, uh, council member Bernstein pointing out, um, we really need, uh, to, to push, uh, for a clear definition in Sacramento when calculations are based on, um, and population that sovereign land is not included in those calculations for the city of Palm Springs, which a tremendous amount of our land isn't Palm Springs land to control. So it's not fair to implement a lot of these directives on Palm Springs when we really need to exclude tribal lands. Going over to economic development, the policy priorities, support for arts and culture, which has been mentioned, arts and education, which is very important, and these are all items that we've identified. But specifically, there is conversations happening in Sacramento on establishing and creating event zones. You know, we're very interested in, you know, exploring that whole concept for Palm Springs. So that's an area that I'd like to add. And under the funding priorities, specifically, okay, great, we've got LGBT security and support. How do we go and access that LGBT security and support? You know, so how do we make that real for Palm Springs? Uh, economic development, uh, number two, um, supporting the efforts to address the digital divide. Yes. And that includes specifically broadband infrastructure, uh, for, for our city and not just low, you know, uh, certain census tracks. Um, yeah, I think we need to look at those opportunities, uh, that are popping up in Sacramento and, and advocate for that. um i think an important if that we we don't have included and council member bernstein talked about it is we really need to be active in supporting any legislation that is going to restrict or make it more difficult for small businesses PAGA is one of them. That is just having a horrible impact in anything we can do to work on legislation that reduces the efforts to over-regulate our small businesses. We certainly would have interest in, I know I do. Okay. On number two, on public safety and community service, I'd like to just add so it's not forgotten, you know, Prevent violence such as mental health services supporting street outreach teams, gun safety legislation, and other legislation focusing on individuals before they're at risk. The gun safety activity and programs is very important for our police department and our city. So I think anything that's happening in Sacramento along those lines, we should be engaged with that. Did the, I think there's just a spelling or grammar in climate resiliency, item two. Support legislation efforts, the help. It just should be to help. not the help bring down. And I would like to specifically, where we say the cost of electricity and other utilities, I'd like to add the cost of electricity comma solar and other utilities, because that's incredibly important for our region and for our residents. I think I heard somebody talk about being engaged when there's opportunities to define calculations when grants are issued or funding is allocated that it's done on a pro-rata per capita basis. Some of these calculations don't treat smaller cities as fair as larger populated cities are and that just is not, it's not an equitable way to allocate funding. I saw we removed, I'm not sure why, but we removed cannabis tax reform and lowering taxes and working toward tax simplification. I'm not sure why that was removed, but that remains a key issue for our cannabis business. And we've been working on our tax collection, but the state shares is crazy. So if there's any effort we can bring to those businesses, that's important.

Absolutely, and on that, the reason why was, and we can easily add in cannabis taxes. As a, as another priority, but, you know, I've been watching the council meeting and earlier heard about the. The lounge is so happy to add that back. Just the reason why was because last year. It was somewhat addressed about lowering some of the taxes. And then take a look at it towards any event of next year, but happy to put that back in.

Yeah, just keep it as a priority or. Not a priority keep it on our radar. Okay, the, um. I'm not sure where this goes climate resiliency maybe, but anytime we can support efforts and legislation to, uh, to, to, to support rebate credit homeowners and businesses. Um. to support them when they're returning excess power back to the grid. So we need to make that equitable for everybody who may participate and produce solar, which it isn't necessarily that way today. And along with the same lines, any legislation that provides incentives to homeowners to purchase and install solar would be really important. And the last one I had that... we haven't had, but it's an issue that has certainly come to my attention this year. And I'd like to see that we at least have it mentioned that we wanna keep our eye on supporting legislation that can eliminate the backlog on the testing for rape kits and that we need to make sure that there's funding to get rid of that backlog that still exists. We're 120 days that a test has to be done, but that's just a horrible number that somebody has to wait 120 days and it's a funding issue. So any legislation that we could focus on supporting the mandate. For of the testing for those rape kits is important. And that's it for me, Mayor.

Thank you Council Member DeHart I appreciate those additions as well and one thing that you mentioned rebate programs again with making sure that we're looking at opportunities with other agencies as well AQMD has all sorts of opportunities for the rebates and a lot of times they don't apply to Palm Springs so I think you know what you're saying there is a really good opportunity and when we're engaging in these other entities too to send in and request information that Request that our Palm Springs residents are getting a fair share of those types of opportunities as well. So thank you very much for mentioning that Yes

Oh, I don't know what the best way to do this, whether it's Nicola or Teresa. We've had some really good comments and suggestions and additions, and some of this is just helpful for us to know. How do we get a document that has all of this in here? And some of this may not necessarily apply directly to Townsend, but it should be on our radar. So what's the best way to get everything we've done today and have it all documented?

I mean, 1 thought is working with the city manager's office to take all the suggested changes, put it back in the document and then work on some type of kind of final approval by the council. I don't think it necessarily needs to go back to the council for adoption. partially because i know that you've got a lot of other items and limited council meetings so the feedback that you've sent before that was written extremely helpful the feedback just now the clarity really really helpful i'm happy to work with the the manager's office make those changes finalize a document um and then you know let's figure out a way to kind of bless that and then let's move forward with this okay that'd be great and then just a follow-up meeting probably on the economic development

and then also with the Hospitality Association on them. And we can organize that.

Absolutely, and I'm really happy to do a 1 on 1. You know, with you all, whether coming down or over zoom. And if there's any introductions to any of the regional. Players, whether it's hospitality industry. Or, or what to have you to make those connections. And then make the connections with their advocates up here in Sacramento. And then, like I said, in D. C. so happy to. You know, do some 1 on ones offline and drilling down a little bit more on some of this. Um, some of these issues, I'm very familiar with others. I don't have the exact Palm Springs flavor, which I would would greatly appreciate.

Thank you.

Yeah, especially for education. That'd be helpful. Yeah. Um, the heart, do you have more.

i don't want councilmember gardner councilmember bernstein to be the only ones going twice so i forgot one and it's a really important one uh and and i'm sorry i forgot it because it is it is really an important one um uh nicola and i know there's there's monies there's significant dollars that are available and we just aren't getting them but that's uh urban forestation forestation programs um you know we are all about radical trees right mayor radical shade Radical shade, you need radical trees to have radical shade. But access to funding for trees, there's a lot of money coming to Coachella Valley, but we don't qualify for it. And again, we need that support just as much as anybody else does.

Yeah, and I think that's kind of a great call out to that prop for money, making sure that that's being distributed equitably. Great. Okay. Well, thanks for capturing all those notes, Niccolo. We'll make sure that we get an updated version that we can send out and just have publicly available to the community. So. Awesome.

Thank you. I really appreciate your time and focus on this too.

Thanks. We.

Mayor, members of council, if we could get a motion to adopt with the edits that you have, the direction you've given us.

Correct.

Thank you.

We get the motion. Do you guys see them?

Oh, I don't see it.

Hold on.

I, mine says yes. I've been quite frozen, so. Okay, great. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. I've been told I need to go back to 2A and verbally clarify that we're continuing this item and it will come back, right?

I believe we wanted to continue that to a date certain. Dean is here. We'll get the date certain and bring it back to the council later on in the evening.

So we're gonna do that again. Okay. I'm going to recommend that we move up item 3C and 3D as we have members of the public here on that. So we'll do 3B after both of those items. Okay, moving up item 3C titled discussion and possible direction regarding community workforce agreement. Can we have a staff report please?

Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the city council, Jeff Ballinger, city attorney, and Mr. Montalvo will be assisting me with this presentation tonight. This item provides the city council with an opportunity to discuss and provide the city staff and the city attorney with direction regarding a possible extension of the city's community workforce agreement. As indicated in the city's 2020 staff report, a community workforce agreement is basically a variation of a project labor agreement. A project labor agreement is a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement with one or more labor organizations that establishes the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project or class of projects. A community workforce agreement is a variation of that project labor agreement and includes targeted higher provisions that are designed to create local jobs or achieve other social welfare goals. Throughout 2020 and 2021, the city council held a series of discussions on a possible community workforce agreement. And in late May of 2021, the city council provided direction for the city staff to enter into a community workforce agreement with some local trade unions. The CWA was thereafter finalized and executed with an effective date of August 31st, 2021. It included a five-year term and so it has now come to an end and that is why this item is before you tonight. The city's current community workforce agreement applies to city public works projects that are valued at $1 million or more. As I mentioned, it has a five-year term. It had a goal of 30% of total worked hours to be local residents, those within the Coachella Valley zip codes, as well as veterans regardless of where they reside. It also included a number of other career placement goals, including having the trade unions coordinate and participate in city-based career and apprenticeship events and fairs, providing industry speakers for city programs and outreach events, and supporting local events and programs. The CWA also incorporates the city's pre-existing non-discrimination provision that's codified in our municipal code, and it provided that the city would designate a CWA administrator, either an existing staff member or hire a consultant. After the CWA was executed, the city did enter into an agreement with a third party entity, TSG Enterprises, also known as the Solus Group, to provide those CWA administrator functions to the city. Since it's been in effect, the city has undertaken 23 capital and airport projects that were subject to the community workforce agreement. In the staff report, there are a number of statistics in terms of the total local worked hours, the hours of workers, and the 30% local workforce goal. I believe mr. Montalvo is probably available to answer any some of those those specifics Should the council wish to extend the community workforce agreement some of the issues the City Council might want to consider and Include the following the term as I mentioned the current term Of the previous CWA was five years It contained no termination for convenience provision and so the City Council might want to consider whether it wishes to have a shorter or longer time period or the same five-year term. Another issue is the dollar threshold. The city's previous community workforce agreement had a threshold of $1 million. In staff's opinion, I believe that was considered relatively low and I believe staff would request if the council's inclined to extend this to increase that dollar threshold. Another issue that city council might wish to consider is the role of the CWA administrator. As I mentioned, the city's currently contracting out for that service. City council might wish to provide direction as to whether the city council is comfortable with that relationship or if the council wants to have that service provided in-house by a city employee. The staff report also identifies some issues that have recently come up based on federal policy impacts to community workforce agreements. Over time, different administrations have different approaches to these community workforce agreements or project labor agreements, and we are experiencing that now with the current administration. We've received word through Caltrans that the Federal Highway Transit Administration has requested that we remove some of the provisions from our community workforce agreement. as those provisions apply to federally funded projects. So we currently have a couple of federally funded projects, including the Ramon Bridge project. Specifically, the federal funding agencies are, are requesting that we remove provisions that are essentially what the federal government might consider DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion provisions, to the point of removing some provisions, including the titles of provisions, local small business enterprise goals, as well as goals for career placement of disadvantaged and at-risk youth, low-income unemployed residents, women, minorities, LGBT members of the community, and veterans. And so the council should be aware, at least under the current administration, some of those community benefits aren't gonna be available to the public for federally funded projects. For non-federally funded projects, these provisions are fully in force under our community workforce agreement. So those are some of the issues that the City Council might want to consider. Again, staff is available to answer any questions as am I.

Great. Thank you so much. I'm not sure if this is a question for Mr. Ballinger or for Joel, but can you speak to a little bit as we've been doing, having this relationship for, we have had a CWA in place for five years. We're now considering reviewing, renewing, extending, changing the terms of it. Just how, If we've talked to the stakeholders that are part of this, so the Solis group or any of our labor groups in terms of the recommendations that have been identified, has there been conversations around potentially any of these items yet?

No, I don't believe there's been any conversations with anyone yet as to what direction council would like to see us go with the CWA. Okay.

And then, okay, so that's helpful number one. Two, around, there was some questions around, right now it's for 20 miles, right, that the local workforce preference is set right now?

The 20 miles is from, so one of the things that we try to do is distinguish between what I would consider local workforce and in the tables and in the reports that Elise group created, they identified Palm Springs as what I wanted to call local and then Riverside. In the general terms of the CWA, local is Riverside and Palm Springs put together. So that's what they considered local and I wanted those, the data points to be separated so we and council was clear, has a clear understanding of what local really means and Palm Springs and the 20 miles is around the Coachella Valley essentially. The hours that you see before you in the examples and the tables that I provided and in the actual report reflect that Palm Springs is separated from Riverside. If you combine the two, that's what the CWA recognizes as local and the terms used. So it's- We're talking about Riverside County? Riverside County, yes. Zip codes within the Riverside County. So that's what the CWA, when the 30% local workforce goal was established in the CWA, it identified local as Riverside County and Palm Springs area zip codes, not just, and that's why I wanted to separate those two so that the council could get an idea of what local for me really meant, which is Palm Springs and the surrounding areas. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, I think not just in construction, but a lot of other industries, even hospitality. We have workers coming in from Hemet, Beaumont, Yucca Valley, Marengo Valley, and so not to mention the East Valley and Indio, Mecca, Oasis, where this type of work is really, really meaningful and it's not uncommon to travel to. So I think I'm I find it helpful to have the Riverside County comparison, but I would also say, I don't think just Palm Springs or 20 miles is probably enough. And then, and so then do we get reports around, can you share a little bit about the summaries that we get either from the Solis group or any of our partners around like the community outreach? And I know that was a big part of the original discussion on how much we want people to understand that this is a pathway. And so do we get reports on any regularity as to kind of how that's going, what the presentations are, or like how that's impacting future projects?

So I'd say we have not. I don't believe there's been the bullets that the city attorney mentioned about going to street fairs or city fairs and programs outreach. I don't believe in the five years that I've been here that has occurred. I don't know and I think Assistant City Manager Fagg also was working on some of that but I don't believe it ever produced any results.

Unfortunately, we were not able to bring those to pass.

So to answer your question, there is no reports on the efforts in the local community to get the folks involved in the union and with the trade. So I don't have a report in the five years that this has been in place.

Okay. And do we know if we've ever kind of asked for them or there's been any type of requests? on how that's going in our last five years?

So I, not for me personally, no. I've just been incorporating the agreement and establishing whatever I needed to do for my construction projects.

Okay. Lynn or Jeff, do you all know? No.

No, other than the periodic reports that we do receive from the Solis group.

those are just at reflecting the actual local higher achievements or correct okay okay um okay that's helpful i mean i think for me i'm i'm proud of the city for having done this i think there's some real improvements we can identify i have a lot more comments i want to say but i want to open up to my colleagues You know some of the terms I think are we learned a lot these last few years and I think if we change it to five years to three years or What that threshold is actually that that was a question for me. Do you have? Mr. City attorney recommended or said that there would be a Consideration for increasing that threshold. Is there a number in mind and which you would want us to consider?

So I think From my perspective and the projects that I've seen, I think the bigger dollar value projects might benefit. I will say that most contractors are union-based, so we are getting union workers regardless if the CWA is in place, but I'm not 100% of that statement. for me, a threshold of $10 million or even higher to incorporate into our projects, because $1 million doesn't go very far in that, you know, we have our airport projects, we have our public works projects, we have our capital projects, that any $1 million project triggers the actual workforce agreement. And in the staff report, it is mentioned that we've seen a decline in companies proposing on projects, you know, we've limited, we've seen it, I've seen it, But a higher value, a dollar value, I think would be best from my perspective, but that hasn't been really discussed with anyone.

Sorry, I'm just looking really quickly. Do you have roughly an idea of the 23 projects that this was applied to that are over 10 million?

I do not, but I would say a good majority are over $10 million, but let me see. I wouldn't be able to tell you right now.

That's okay.

Okay. Again, I think I'm supportive of the CWA. I think we can learn a lot from these last five years, but I think the having clear parameters and expectations on what that collaboration can look like, what community outreach can look like. It seems like we need a lot more mechanisms for keeping in the loop of what's happening, what they're learning from. And so that's something I would love to be able to see. I would also, this seemed something that we should hear directly from the Solis group, their party to this, from our labor groups to hear directly on how those conversations have gone. So I think that's also really important and would be open to making sure that that's part of the process to hearing their feedback on this.

I just had a couple questions. Joelle, you mentioned about, you know, maybe do we consider doing it in-house versus have a contractor do it. Have you analyzed that cost-benefit and what's your thoughts?

Yeah, my thoughts would be, first of all, that I personally don't have the staff to be able to manage the contract. Right, it would be additional. We would need to actually hire someone with those skills. And would it be one person, two person, three? I would say one person might be able to handle it. One, one and a half. But it would be distributed, the work would be distributed between all departments that have projects over a million, you know, whatever that threshold is, right? Airport, public works.

So let's just say maybe it was two people, so you got 250...

275 a year depending upon uh the positions how would that compare to what we pay the outside the solace group yeah right now over five years we've paid the what 750 000 so it'd be roughly i'd say maybe a wash Well, $750,000.

Well, we paid them over five years? Right. Yeah, okay. All right, so that was one question. The other one was you had mentioned, you know, obviously the outreach. Isn't sort of the burden, though, on the contractors to do that outreach more than us? Wouldn't they be in a better position to do that? Was that sort of how it was intended? Though contractors have bid.

Yeah, the contractors generally will have to go to the union to get local labor. To meet the labor requirements, they do go to the local unions to get those, the electricians, the different types of trades. But I think what this is referring to is actually having work fairs so that the union themselves get organized and come to our local high schools. and put events so that more kids are interested in the trades. And if I'm not mistaken, that was the intent of what the agreement was, right?

Okay. All right. That helps me making that differentiation. Also, you'd mentioned in terms of defining local. So were you making the case that local should be all of Riverside County or more Coachella Valley?

The opposite. Yeah, I was trying to get the data to reflect the Coachella Valley versus the greater Riverside, essentially over the hill. So the 20 miles for me essentially goes all the way to India Coachella. So those data points for Palm Springs to me is the Coachella Valley. and Riverside is anywhere outside of the Coachella Valley.

So you're saying it should be more restricted to Coachella Valley? Because currently it's more Riverside County as a whole?

Yeah, it's a whole for what we consider in the 30% goal to get the folks to work here. And you can see in the two tables that I produced, one table shows 30% local work goals, and a lot of them were met, but that's really bringing labor force from outside the Coachella Valley. And if you look at the second table, it shows Palm Springs and only one project was able to even get close to that goal, and that was the big navigation center.

And finally, and I don't know if you can answer this question, or if not you, maybe someone else, our public comment speaker had indicated they, as a union person, they were excluded, and I just wasn't sure why that was or how that... how that actually happened. He spoke online. Does that make sense?

I didn't hear the comment of him being a member. I think he was saying the opposite, that if you're non-union, you get excluded from certain from bidding on projects, and that's not necessarily the case. The way I understand the workforce agreement, you can propose on these projects, you just simply have to follow the rules outlined in the CWA, so it's onerous for non-union companies that are not set up that way to propose on projects, Like I said, it's something that I've noticed, a trend over the years that I've been here, less companies. And I also stated that of all the companies that proposed on these 23 projects, only one is local, and that's the one that proposed on the navigation center.

Okay. Well, those are my questions. And like the mayor indicated, you know, this was... a good policy idea that we put forward. We needed to learn from it. But it would be important, I think, to have some conversations with our union representatives and the labor unions just to see, you know, because so, for example, you know, Jeopardizing federal grants that we have to have for the airport and other projects, you know, obviously that that is a newer kind of development and I'm sure there's workarounds for that. And to the city attorney, I think you had mentioned that even though that's in our PLA, they just don't recognize it or we're going to have to make a carve out if we want to preserve those federal grants.

That's a good clarification. It's not that it's necessarily putting our federal funding at risk. It's just that if we want to apply federal funds, we have to either just not apply the community workforce agreement at all to that project, or we need to strike those provisions. And those provisions are, you know, four or five of them are really the ones that the city has bargained for in terms of the community benefits. So we still get the funding, we just don't get the benefits of this agreement for those federally funded projects. How does that work though when it's a mixed funding source, part federal, part city, how does that work? The more restrictive applies and that's the federal funding requirements that we take out those community benefit provisions.

Okay, so those are my questions for now, thank you.

Council Member, Council Member Bernstein.

The federal things, I mean, that's happening now. It could potentially in two years or be changed, right? That's... Correct, it could. Okay, so that's particular to what's happening right now. And Joel, I just want to clarify, because on the 23 contractors who bid, how many actual contracts fell under the CWA since we started it? Is that 23? Correct. Okay, so... We had 23 projects over a million. Correct. Okay. I thought we would have more than that in five years, but based on what we approve all the time.

It's like we approve one every week, every month. Yeah, we are busy, and we do have a lot of projects programmed, but those are actual projects that we bid out and under construction. I think 23 is... okay so um but you don't know yet how many of those would be five to you know 10 million or above i don't have a good idea i mean the navigation center was over 40 the plaza theater was 40 the storm brain line 20 was 11. uh south palm cameron south palm canyon bridge was like a 15 million dollar project the library renovation another 20 30 million indian canyon drive so I guess the real question then is how many are just like closer to the million where it was so very very few of them like I said a million dollars doesn't buy you a lot anymore so almost any project we work on is a million dollars plus but out of the 23 how many were just like close to a million not that many um a few of them maybe the the g not tree wind wall maybe um The podiums.

There wouldn't be, I mean, that's what I'm saying. If we went up a few million to five million or whatever, it wouldn't leave out a lot of these things.

That's probably a correct statement, but we also can get, we do have in the pipeline more projects that are within the one to $10 million. Okay, okay.

And so just to go back to the career and apprenticeship fairs and events, and the participation in Village Fest and 1PS and who is that? Is that Solis' responsibility to make sure it happens or ours or the union's or?

I don't have a clear understanding. Flynn, you kind of looked at that a little bit.

Don't either it didn't really specify who was responsible for that as I had indicated earlier we had had discussions with the unions about organizing a fair at Palm Springs High School for example and But unfortunately, our engineering staff, our development services staff isn't really equipped to put together these types of events. It's not our major line of business, if you will. And so if we were to reenter into a community workforce agreement, I think we would need to clearly spell out who is responsible and it should be an organization that has experience in organizing these types of events. It should not fall to staff to do that.

Yeah, no, I mean, I agree. And I think that's the, we've had this for five years. A lot of this was really good ideas. We have now it's sort of what worked and what didn't and how we fix it. And so, I mean, we have, there are places that do job fairs. We've had job fairs that I don't know who organizes our job fairs.

I think human resources does that for us.

There may be opportunities to do it in conjunction. I mean, things like Village Fest and 1PS seems like we could help coordinate outside of engineering. I am curious whether Solis Group, and we should talk to them because I don't know, but if we're not getting these things that we wanted, would it be more effective to go in-house, or do we just need to give them more direction and help or find out where the roadblocks are?

I'd have to go back to look at the actual agreement with the Solis Group. We may not have tasked them with doing that work, and I don't recall right now, but if we were to engage with the Solis Group, it'd be additional compensation, additional scope of work from what, if it wasn't included, and I don't believe it was. Would it be part,

possible to maybe like make a committee with some city staff, our labor groups, so lease group, discuss all these items, identify like who makes sense to do that, how we get report back. I mean, it seems like we need more information, but we're kind of missing some key voices on this or? Yeah, I mean, I'm in agreement with you.

And so I think we raise the issues now, we figure out how best to get them. Like even like this thousand, It's a, I mean, the hours, what was it? Total hours, like how much does this relate to economic impact for Palm Springs, or how many wages? So things like that would be helpful to know. What is the 255 and the 685? That's number of people. Yeah. And then we have the number of hours to the left. The local hours is 154,000. yeah so if you're looking at the first table yeah the total hours versus the local hours and then the the the amount of people that put in those hours okay so it might be helpful to understand what these numbers are in terms of wages that we're keeping local because if it's it's a fairly significant number then this makes a lot you know this is helpful for our community and and then we have to figure out how we make this more effective and then I guess the other question is for some of these local contractors who are being precluded, is there any support that, I don't know who to ask this to, it's probably, how do we help them get, be part of this process? Is there any way to do that? And maybe this is part of the working group.

I don't really have an answer for you. I know that it's just anecdotally and folks will really go on the record, but they do, we do hear from local contractors that just working on a contract that requires them to go use union labor if they don't have it creates additional problems for them and they choose not to participate in bidding for them because the workforce agreement does not preclude them from bidding, they just have to follow the rules and there are certain rules that they have to abide by.

So there may be things, I mean we have a local vendor fair that we have done just for established vendors to get city contracts so it seems like a sort of a natural extension like how do you, if you really want them to get local contracts, they have to be able to bid on everything and so I'm not sure how this happens, but again, this is part of the conversations that I think would be helpful to make sure that this is actually working the way it's intended to work. So I agree with Mayor. I don't know what kind of a working group. I don't want to be too cumbersome, but I want this to be effective and to get the answers and to hear from the labor unions as well as from Solis Group and then get a more in-depth understanding of what it is that we can do to make this better going forward and revise some of the issues that we've seen. So those are my thoughts.

Do you have any comments?

Joel, I think it's just your unlucky day because I'm not sure who should be managing this component. So I think that is one key question, you know, internally, you know, who should be managing it is the first step. You know, I wasn't on council when this was brought forward, but I certainly support the whole idea and concept and really embraced the opportunity for our local workforce and youth to be able to move into these trades and that was an important, I remember that was an important conversation when this first came up and that remains a priority for me and however we structure this going forward, is that the apprenticeships, there's huge value there, and that's gonna return lifetime work for our young folks entering into the workforce. But to see that we only had, You know, one fifth of all the jobs that were positions that were hired, it came from Palm Springs. It's not a very good number. And I agree. We need to figure out how can we measure the success? so we can share with the community that, hey, this community workforce partnership is really successful. And how do we know it's a success? Because we have these key performance indicators that we're watching. Apprenticeships, how many apprenticeships have we increased? How many of those apprenticeships uh... ended up entering into the trades journey and become you know uh... full-time ongoing employees that they've entered into uh... they've gotten uh... you know wonderful jobs we've talked about the subcontractors and that they have an opportunity to participate, but I think our business community would like to know, okay, we have an opportunity to participate, but what's the percentage of subcontractors that are awarded to minority and women and veteran groups? I think we need to show those numbers so we can show that the money that we're investing to manage the program. is worthwhile, first off. We're close to, we've said that we'll go up not to exceed a million, too. So that's a lot of, we gotta prove that that's a good spend. The first, for me, is is that an appropriate spend for the money that we're getting? And the only way we're gonna be able to find that out is we have real measurements to show the success of what the program is intended to do so that's very important to me um and and um the conversation how do we work with salisa or whoever this may be in the future we need to put measurements in place and define really define what our expectation is and and my expectation is that uh that we truly have a greater impact on palm springs jobs I agree with you, Joel. I think we have to, we want to focus on the trade in Palm Springs and pulling those folks into these union jobs if that's what it's all about. And I don't know how many of the 255 jobs or people are unique people in this chart.

Right, it could be repetitive. If they're electricians and they were local and they were hired. So we don't have a clear idea.

We don't have that. And that's an important measurement. Because it's really not 255 people that have benefited from this. And when we look at that, our population, and then you count all of our down valley cities, that's nothing. we should have much bigger numbers. If we just didn't pay Solis, took that million too, we could pay each of these 255 people $4,700 each. So I'm not sure of the success of Solis, but we all have a good feeling the community workforce agreement is working. Now we just need to prove it. We need those measurements to prove that it's working so our residents can love it too. Thank you.

You brought up one more idea. Sorry, I just thought when the conversations is that I think Flynn was talking about trying to do things at the high school is maybe the conversation should include College of the Desert and the high school about how they could facilitate a job fair and maybe they have trades, they have trade programs there. And so we may just need to talk to them about our community workforce agreement and the requirements and put parties in touch with each other. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate hearing from everyone. I just wanted to hear from everyone because I'm the only person on the dais that was here when we passed the first one. So just very curious what everyone thought. So I agree with my with my colleagues in the sense that there definitely needs to be better tracking and metrics of this so that we can have a full understanding of the impacts. And there are good successes that we can see from the tracking, but it's just so minimal that there's not enough to go on It just leaves us with so many more questions. And I think that's where making it very clear what we're looking for would be helpful, right? And having those conversations with the Solis group, with our union partners to be able to delineate what those things are. and and what's What we're able to track right because we are talking about the cost here of of administering the projects But we don't have Solis here to tell us Where and when would the cost go up if we ask them to track these certain? Metrics was that going to increase our costs in a huge way or is that going to be very easy for them to just? Add on right so I want to have a better understanding of this I really support having a working group and happily volunteer to be on that. But the other thing is just clarity and not just, especially in the agreement. So the agreement that we made last time is this really long 55-page document. It's hard to understand. And that was something that I know I struggled with the first time that it came to us. It was like what are we actually passing here? What are we actually talking about? And I think that's also where it gets really confusing when we're implementing and trying to determine, like everyone's saying, who's responsible for what, right? When you have to kind of weed through this big document. So I would really love to see how we can work together and just streamline this so that it's, even if the nuts and bolts of the legal part are long, where's the one to two pager that really breaks down how we're working together. Because in the past we did have conversations with the union partners about the union and the city working together and hosting all of these events, right? And so how do we, moving forward, have an agreement where we're actually stating very clearly this is who's responsible for each thing. This is what our union partners agree to do. This is what the city agrees to do. I know I've been in contact with Albert, who spoke earlier today from who represents the unions about making those connections, like you said, Council Member Bernstein, about connecting the school district, how we can work together to get those steps moving forward. And I think that's a really great use of our time, right? Is to be able to say, hey, I know the superintendent, let's see who we should talk to at the school district to get you into all of these schools that have these trade programs, right? um and not just in at palm springs unified but the other two school districts in in the coachella valley um where we we have contacts and we can be really useful to to each other in that process but i also think um making sure too that we have this one or two pager that the community understands. Because I think that's the other part of it when you start, when somebody asks, well, what is this? If we can have a really easy document that we can share with people so that also increases participation and interest when they say, oh, look. This is what it does. It's all about supporting local jobs. We want people to have these opportunities. Here's how you can get connected. Here's who your contact is at these different groups or at the city. All of those things I think would make a big difference. I agree that there's been a lot of things that we've learned since the last time that we did this. And just since my colleagues asked, If you count the number of projects that were over $5 million of those 23, it was 14 projects. If you were to do projects over $10 million, that's only six projects. So that's just something to keep in mind as we're kind of having these discussions. But I think we would all really benefit from that working group, really digging in, talking about what works for all of us, and then coming back and presenting that information and possibly attaching an agreement that we could review. And pass and if even if we couldn't pass it that immediate time, that's fine. I understand there's lots of questions But something for us to at least come back with that's a little more concrete rather than just a verbal update Okay, so that yeah, that would be my recommendation then Any other questions for us

I would recommend rather than the council creating this and turning it into a Brown Act body, maybe the city manager can simply select key stakeholders and community members based on kind of the direction that the council has provided.

With a council member on that group, the city manager could select at least one? Okay, I think that would be helpful.

I don't think so. I think there's clear direction.

It was clear pointing.

Thank you to the union folks, Albert, and your team that came out. Really appreciate you being here and talking with us about this and your continued cooperation. We really appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. You too, Joelle. Okay. Next. That's not a real break. Okay, I'm hearing a request for a break. We will get to the biz up program next. Five minutes, okay. Okay, next item on the agenda is item 3D, which is a request to approve funding and services agreement with Caravan Sarai Alliance for Entrepreneurs for implementation of the Small Business Support Program, BizUp Palm Springs. Can we have a staff report, please?

Certainly. Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of Council, staff is presenting to you this evening a proposed agreement with Kara Vancery for the Biz Up program. If I could have the PowerPoint, please. Just by way of background, Caravanserai is a nonprofit organization which assists with the development and training for small businesses and entrepreneurs. They're affiliated with a larger network, and so program participants who work with Caravanserai have access to a wide body of resources that's available to them in assisting with the development of businesses. The city has had agreement in the past with Caravanserai. We started off in 2024 with a program and extended that again in 2025. And so we do have experience with Caravanserai as a partner in assisting new businesses. During the two years that they operated the pilot program for us, they served over 70 entrepreneurs, funded 35 businesses, created 21 new jobs, and generated $1.18 million in revenue growth. And so they do have a successful track record with the program and with the City of Palm Springs. In particular, this program is being brought forward as one of the programmatic responses to the Section 14 settlement. While it's not part of the legal settlement, it is part of our response, which includes a first-time homebuyers program, a community land trust, and other programs which are currently in development. The city has committed $1 million over the period of five years, and so we would be spending $200,000 per year on this program. The way that Caravanserai has proposed to set up the program, it would be organized into four quarters each financial year, starting with the date of funding. In terms of preference for Section 14 residents and descendants, the first quarter of the financial year would be dedicated to Section 14 outreach before recruitment to citywide businesses would begin. And then following the first quarter, residents and descendants would continue to receive preference. And so while it is open to all businesses in the city of Palm Springs, there is a preference given to Section 14. The city and representatives from Care of Ansari held a meeting with the Section 14 organization back in July to begin discussing the program with them and to talk about components of the program. We do appreciate Ms. Delora Silva offering testimony this evening on their support of this proposed agreement with Caravanserai. Just discussing briefly the proposed program structure, 75% of the funding would be used for microgrants, so program participants who go through the program and successfully complete the program would be eligible for the microgrants, and then 25% of the program funding would then be used for administration outreach and evaluation. I'll get into that a little bit later in the presentation. Of the microgrant funding, any funds not used during the financial year would then be rolled over to the next program year. So depending on the number of participants in the program, if there is funding left over, we would be able to use that in the next financial year and it will roll over. One of the things that Caravanserai is offering to us is, in addition to the city putting funding into this program, they will also be providing one-on-one business consulting in the value of about $40,000 per year. for the five-year life of the program. So that adds an extra $200,000 of value to this program, and we do appreciate them extending that proposal. One of the things that is very important to the city council and to the city in general is reporting. As we've talked about earlier this evening, reporting helps us to make decisions about how we use our funding and how we manage our programs. As part of this agreement, we do have some rather specific requirements, both in metrics and in reporting. CARA-Vanserai will track the outcomes for all participants in the program through 12 months after each cohort is completed. And so not only are they tracking progress during the course of the program, but they will continue to check back in with program participants to measure their success. Some of the measures that they'll look at is the number of businesses funded, the number of businesses started through the program, jobs created and retained, revenue growth and how that contributes to the city's coffers, and additional capital secured by the businesses that have either been started or have grown through participation in this program. Most importantly, Caravanserai will provide to us quarterly financial reports and program reporting, and then we've also asked them to provide an annual impact report, which would then be delivered to city council. And so that is what we're proposing in terms of both metrics and reporting for this program. I would like to call forward to you our co-CEOs of Care of Ansari, Francine Minot and Bradley Chargualaf, and I'll have them come forward to the podium, and they will be available to answer any City Council questions as is staff. And with that, Madam Mayor, I turn that back to you.

Great. Thank you for being here. really exciting to see this work for the last two years and to see also the small businesses and entrepreneurs that you have all had supported. I think you all have a, there's real camaraderie among your participants of the Biz Up program that I think is like an intangible that can't be measured, but I just want to call it out as something that is very real and very cool. And if we can't figure out a way to measure it, that would be something I'd be really interested in seeing, because that's a really strong network. And when small businesses have another small business to ask questions or to learn from or share best practices, it's just such a value. I have a couple more comments, but I'm gonna open up to my colleagues to see if there's any other. Who wants to start? Council Member Bernstein.

Okay, so thank you for this, and I'm glad we have the results. It's sort of great from the first thing, and I remember we did the pilot the first time. We said this will help us learn. So you ended up with the 70 entrepreneurs, 35 businesses, 21 new jobs, 1.18 million in economic impact. And this was the 24-25, so that was the first year?

was the combined program years. So both 2024 and 2025, we sort of did a sort of summative impact report and survey for all of the programs that went through the both iterations of the program.

And do you continue to track those businesses over time?

Yes, we do our best to do so. So we do semiannual reports through our kind of standard structure, as well as annual reports. And so every year, all of the businesses that have gone through any of our programs receive those annual and semiannual reports so we can capture sort of longer-term economic impact.

Yeah, and I think that might be really helpful especially with what we're doing today if we can see if we can keep tracking those specific businesses over time to see how they're performing the economic impact are they still in business and And things like that so I think that would be helpful and just also to clarify that with all of this Whether it's a section 14 survivors and descendants or other businesses the businesses have to be in Palm Springs They don't necessarily have to live in Palm Springs. Is that right or I?

Correct, that would be our sort of recommendation and our approach to this program is that they demonstrate and obviously through a business city license but also through obviously their application as well as the work that they demonstrate not only through the program but in our consulting sessions that they're having business activity and business operations in the city.

Okay and so just when you talked about the annual report also it's actually a physical report do you have it online or?

Yeah it's something that we we don't have it published at least the the one we presented to council a few months ago is not online but But we'd love to. I think something that we're also planning to do, which we've done in the past for some of our other programs, is do a directory. And so we've done a Hispanic entrepreneurship directory as well as a women's entrepreneurship directory. And those are printed as well as hosted online. And so that's actually part of a longer sort of strategy that we have that we're looking to roll out in October. But we'd, again, love to continue that work for the city of Palm Springs businesses to have a sort of Palm Springs business directory that Palm Springs residents and community can access online, also have it printed, but also to our broader network that exists outside of the city.

Yeah, I think having, I think that would be great for our residents to be able to, and our local business community to see an online directory of the Palm Springs businesses out there. I also want to just to mention is that, you know, for these people starting a new business, there's, it's, it's kind of, I mean, there's a lot of challenges. And one of the challenges is also just how you create a community of within Caravanserai, but how to get them involved in our greater business community in Palm Springs. So, you know, one thing I would suggest maybe to the city staff, and maybe when we have a new economic development director is like, we do work with the Desert Business Association, the Chamber, the Hospitality Association, we sponsor them. Maybe there's a way that all these businesses, their first year could get a, you know, complimentary membership. And, you know, Chamber has an as an as a emerge group that's young people. And so getting them into the business community, it tastes they may not like it after a year. They might have to pay dues. But I would think if we talk to some of these associations, they might be willing to do that, too. engage them and so that's one idea. We also do things like our vendor fair or the chamber does the business expo which is happening next year and it might be great as a way for these businesses that start to introduce them to how to get involved, how to do work with the city which is the vendor fair or how to meet the community which is the business expo.

Yeah so and first thank you madam mayor mayor pro temp and the council for having us. And I think that with that we definitely agree and we were you know the Palm Springs Chamber they did offer for example with our seed lab cohort last year they did offer something like that of that kind of first year wave of chamber membership but I think particularly with the Palm Springs program. We've actually had alumni from the Palm Springs program ask if this is something that could be available to them. I think that would be a great, you know, further collaboration. And then in terms of the business expo and other ways to kind of showcase our vendors, we would definitely be interested in that. And we are also sort of collaborating with other partners that we have to kind of see Palm Springs as a place to host a lot of these, you know, convenings. So I think that's something we'd definitely be interested in exploring.

How do we make these businesses successful long term and how do we make the community aware of them is really what my goal would be. Thank you.

Council Member Garner. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited about this. I'm excited from our prior partnerships and just everything that we've seen from your group throughout the Coachella Valley and even the Inland Empire. I'm really in particular just wanting to make sure that as a city that we're working with Care Events to promote this. Obviously, I know you have a whole process that you've laid out of what you're planning on doing, but I think the city can really assist in getting that outreach done. Because I know that every small business that I know who's gone through your program just has nothing but good things to say about their experience. Like the mayor said, there's just really this incredible camaraderie among people who have participated. And the event that you host every year where people are able to give their pitches and really showcase their talents is another wonderful event. What time of year is it?

In April, yes, in spring.

Yeah, every year in April, to the point that I kind of forced a friend to just, sorry, I have to go to this event. It won't be too long. And then she couldn't stop talking about it, and she still brings it up. She was just like, this was like the highlight of her trip was attending this event that she was forced to go to. So I think anyone that gets a chance to really interact with your organization, they see immediately that this is an incredible opportunity. So I just want to make sure that the city is really doing what we can to highlight that and make sure we get all of these little small businesses that are in our city to be part of that. I know the newer owners of On the Mark, for instance, went through your program and again, have really good things to say about their experience. So I think that's one thing to highlight is that it's not just for people who are just starting a business, it's also for established businesses. Maybe your business has been around for five years and you're just feeling a little bit stuck or wanting to take it to the next level, you're able to participate in this program. So just really great impact. Glad to hear the Section 14 folks are excited about it as well. So I fully support this and look forward to getting all the new metrics in the coming year. Thank you. Any other questions?

Council Member DeHart.

Yeah, thank you. Anybody who has watched those conversations at council knows that, you know, I'm truly, I support how the successes of the program, but I have not supported the investment of money without measurements to tell us how successful it is for Palm Springs. and lots of conversations with board members and your predecessor and I'm really happy to, congratulations and thank you. This program that we're looking at today is including the measurements and really focusing on Palm Springs That's what I've been asking for from day one, that the money we distribute has an impact right here on residents that live in Palm Springs. I really appreciate you all getting there. I'm looking forward to the solid Metrics that you'll present on the successes that because we know there's going to be successes and it's really exciting that they're going to be homegrown. They're all going to be homegrown. So I'm really excited about that. So thank you for all the work that you put into it. And staff appreciate what you've brought to the table here.

Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

I had a question. First of all, thank you for what you're doing. And I'll direct the question to you, but there may be a staff question also. And I presume that I see there's a lot of reporting in here, which is all good. I was just curious, do you actually review the expenditures or how does that actually work? Do you reimburse them, the $3,800 grants, you reimburse them based on their expenditures or is it upfront and then you audit afterwards?

Yeah. So our process is typically the reimbursement style and they have to provide receipts. Um, and so the way that we verify is, is a very extensive internal process and controls that are in place where they sign first an award letter that stipulates again, how the funds will be used and, and, you know, outlines the requirements there and the, um, you know, the necessity of also turning in receipts to then confirm. that the appropriate use of funds were used for the business expenses. And then we have that saved internally. And that's the process that we will continue to follow because that is also what we do across all of our programs as well. And so we typically follow that reimbursement style model. of, again, providing receipts as proof.

Okay. No, thank you. Your attention to that detail is really helpful for oversight. One thing I would note, and it might be helpful, the $3,700 grant, you know, that's not a lot. And I'm not suggesting we change it here, but maybe we would be open to, you know, whether it's maybe as we get into this after the first year, open to if you don't have enough students that complete to use all the dollars, if there could be some mechanism that it may be you want to increase it for the ones you have, whether the current ones or the next year, there may be some mechanism that maybe that number gets bumped up if you have money left over at the end of the year. It's just a rhetorical question or discussion for now, but it's something that maybe we'd certainly be open to if you wanted to come back to us and say that you'd want to make that modification in the contract.

Yes, I think that that's, you know, that's a great point. And I think for us, the excitement of kind of this five-year plan as well, it gives us an opportunity to kind of think, how can we innovate? So we would definitely be open to that.

Thank you.

My one other comment is really an opportunity. I appreciate the report back in terms of the impact. I think there's also work and conversations you're doing directly with entrepreneurs and small businesses that could help shape and inform our work as well. And so I'm just kind of wondering if maybe there is part of those semi-regular reports or an end of year feedback, like if they are getting stuck at like, this spot on their business license or, you know, they that's my colleagues might not be excited, but like a frames, right, like whatever it is or even, you know, small home businesses. Right. So daycares and Miko, which are like micro entrepreneurial businesses and kitchen and home kitchens, like I would love for there to be a process in which we can make policy decisions that ease the burden on the small businesses that you are directly working with. So again, I'll leave it to you all on how best to structure that. But those are conversations that I hope that you're flagging to us. sooner rather than later so that we can make the changes if inappropriate as soon as possible so it's meaningful to that small business owner so you know if you're help if you're helping the same you know like admin issue with like half of the the program participants like maybe there's something that we can we can be doing so i just encourage that you know um to to track uh dialogue in terms of feedback and opportunity for improvement

Yes, and I think that that's a great point, and that's also something that we do track sort of internally with the feedback after each program. And so as we are even thinking about these quarterly reports, the annual reports, you know, we could have a section there just on, you know, entrepreneur feedback. If there's any of those opportunities to streamline, then we can work collaboratively to see if those could be addressed. So we would definitely incorporate that into kind of the new launch of this program.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Okay, I got one more thing there. I want to go back to the economic impact. We had $1.8 million for the $75,000 we invested over two years. And so I think it would be really helpful if we're doing this, if we can, if possible, to track the cumulative economic impact of this new program, because if we may decide with a new, you know, going forward, like, this is something we want to keep doing beyond the first five years, or we want to expand it, but if this is going to have If our $200,000 investment is going to end up having a $5 million impact every single year, and then it gets cumulative, we could end up with tens of millions of dollars in economic impact over time if they stay in business. And so I would like That kind of tracking would be helpful for us to learn how we can invest. Because $3,700 is not a lot of money, but if it actually works and we're getting this many businesses and this many employees and this much impact, then we can keep expanding the program. So thank you.

Yeah, and I think that is absolutely our intention and our game plan is to not only provide an annual report for the work that was done in that year, but also keep engaging the past participants and adding that information into each annual report about the economic impact since the beginning of the program.

Last minute comment.

Well I have to since Council Member Bernstein remembers. We've mentioned the 1.7 million dollar economic impact. Can you refresh us on how many businesses participated in those program that were based in Palm Springs businesses?

Yeah, so all of the businesses followed the same sort of recommendation that we're making in this proposal, which is that they operated in Palm Springs and held a Palm Springs business license. And so 70% of the entrepreneurs that went through the program not all got funded, 35 did. But yes, we're tracking all of the businesses that are in Palm Springs and have operations in Palm Springs.

And I don't think it's as much the $3,700, Mayor Pro Tem, even though the early money is incredibly important to somebody who's starting fresh. So having that early money to help get through some of the first stages is really important. The real value that I see in talking to the participants is the mentorship, it's the education, it's the opportunity to work with you all and go through the workshops that you present and the consultation that is provided. That's just priceless and that's where the real value is in the program. The money is an entry point and it helps determine those who are really committed and those who aren't. So let's keep it up.

We have a motion to support. We're looking for a second. Wonderful. Council Member DeHart, can you also vote? Motion carries. Thank you both so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. We're looking forward to working together.

Great. Thank you. We're going to go back to item 3B. The next item.

Mayor, members of the City Council, because my residence is located across the street from this project, I'm going to be recusing, leaving the chambers. My partner, Seth Merowitz, will be covering for the City Attorney's Office.

Thank you for that reminder. 3B, the report on the performance status of the Dream Hotel project. Can we have a staff report, please?

Mayor and members of Council, our next item on the agenda is the Dream Hotel project. Staff has provided for you a report on the status of the Dream Hotel. Let me just briefly talk a little bit about where the project is to date. As you may recall, we adopted a settlement and development agreement with the development team back in 2023. That was amended earlier this year, and as part of that amendment, we adopted a schedule of performance, and so it's been staff's job to monitor conformance with the milestone dates that are part of that performance schedule. I'm going to skip many of the things at the very beginning of this table that you see on your screens before you and get to some of the key things that have been done. One of the more important things was the submittal of construction drawings. The developer did meet that requirement in March of this year, developing to our building and safety department construction drawings. Mr. McAllister is here in the audience. I believe the initial set was around 600 pages. I think that's grown to about a thousand pages now. So it is a rather substantial set of drawings. This is a highly complex project. It has many technical components to it, such as structure, mechanical, et cetera. And so they have completed construction drawings. submitted those to the city. We've been through several rounds of plan check and so they have done that. They've begun their investigative site work. They are currently working on a model room. This is being built off site. They're using that to develop the interior finishes for each of the rooms, which will help them as they speed construction along on the development of those rooms. Site remediation has already begun. One of the things that they have not completed was they were to submit a guaranteed maximum price by July the 30th. They notified us that they were not able to do that. They had an estimated price, but not a final price. Part of the reason for that is relative to the design of the building. And in our plan check review, we discovered that they did not comply with life safety requirements. And part of that is due to the fact that they had changed the use. Part of their main tower was intended to be residential condominiums. They changed that to condo hotel units with the change from residential to a commercial use that also changes exiting requirements. And while they did try several alternate means and methods to try and address that, ultimately what they need to do is they need to redesign that wing of the building to include a proper staircase for exiting. So they are working on that now, but because they had to do a redesign, that prevented them from submitting their guaranteed maximum price. Per the development settlement agreement, because they did not meet that milestone, staff sent them a letter notifying them of that deficiency. So we put them on notice that they were in default relative to that milestone. So with that, we wanted to make city council aware of that issue. The developer has responded back to us. They've indicated that they still intend to move forward with the start of construction on October 1st. Despite the fact that they are still working on drawings, they can begin with some site work. working on utilities and things like that. And so they do intend to do that. As part of this settlement and development agreement, they're also required to hold community meetings. Their next community meeting is scheduled for October the 8th. at which point they'll report to the community on the status of their project they've also notified us that by october the 15th they will submit new drawings to us showing a plan that meets code requirements relative to life safety so they'll be adding that stairwell that our building department and fire department have noted is deficient They've also indicated that by March of 2027, they would submit the guaranteed maximum price. They are not requesting to extend the date for the completion of construction or opening. So despite the delay in the schedule, that puts them on a rather condensed construction schedule and just wanted to make council aware of that. With that, that completes my report to you on the status of the project and staff is here and available to answer questions you might have. WE ALSO HAVE MR. MAROWITZ AS JEFF BALLENGER HAS INDICATED HE IS AVAILABLE ONLINE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE ABOUT THE AGREEMENT ITSELF.

THANKS, FUN. THIS IS HUGE PRIORITY FOR THE COMMUNITY, FOR THE NEIGHBORS WHO HAVE BEEN WAITING A REALLY LONG TIME TO SEE PROGRESS ON THIS PROJECT. the investments we're making in the Convention Center, we really want to make sure we have the site developed, the hotel rooms bookable, and really that whole area We have a vision for it, and it's really important that we stay on top of it. So I appreciate the opportunity of flagging to us and having a public discussion on this milestone and the status of the project overall. Can you share a little bit about the change of use and how that impacts the stairway design, just like for the community's sake, what that really looks and means?

Certainly. As the developer has gone through the process of trying to refine the design, They've looked at the mix of both residential units. Unfortunately, we don't have a site plan here, but part of the project includes standalone residential buildings at the northwest corner of the site and the southeast corner of the site. The principal building on the site was originally designed to be hotel rooms on one side, on the southeast side, and condominium units on the northwest side. In looking at the financials for the project and trying to establish room revenue and how to make the project a success, they've changed that mix. And so condominium units are being converted to what we call condo hotel units. So they function essentially as part of the pool of rooms that can be rented out on a nightly basis, even though they might be owned by private owners. As I had mentioned earlier, this change from a purely condominium unit to a condo hotel unit changes from a code requirement that would be relative for residential to that of commercial. And the life safety requirements for commercial are different than they are for residential. So for example, the distance to an exit stair is shorter for a commercial project than it is for a residential project. And for that reason, they do need to make changes to their interior floor plan to accommodate the positioning of a stairwell in that wing of the building where the use has changed. And so that's the reason why they're having to go back and redesign that portion of the building.

And that was communicated to them? Yes. Can you just share a little bit about what that process has been like to make sure we're underscoring how important public safety is?

Certainly. So as part of our plan review, our building department team circulates the plans to the various departments that review engineering, planning, fire. In doing the plan review, it was routed to fire. Both fire and building have noted that the design as submitted with the change in use did not meet current life safety requirements under the California building code. And so they were notified that during the first plan check, That was done, and they were asked to respond and make changes accordingly. And so staff did their job in notifying the applicant as part of the initial plan check of that deficiency and asked the applicant to respond.

Got it. Okay. I work in public health and healthcare, so I don't, these might be basic questions, but my understanding of construction documents, they're pretty expensive, pretty complicated to make. And you mentioned earlier, they're like, it's now over like a thousand pages. Can you just kind of clarify what that means in terms of this is how far along they are in the next steps of design work?

So when you have drawings at this level where they're being submitted for a building permit and they've gone through an initial review, they're at a high level of completion. So it needs to have information wherein we can verify that the building will be structurally sound, that it meets basic structural requirements, that the mechanical systems are sufficient, that the fire sprinkler system, for example, conforms to all code requirements. So they have quite a level of detail there for us to be able to review and ascertain that it meets code requirements. I will say that there are other stages of the building, for example, they haven't given us their complete kitchen designs because that's something that will come later. So there's still work that needs to be done. They haven't submitted their interior finishes. That's less critical in terms of code compliance than structural, mechanical, electrical. So there is still work to be done, but they are at a high level of detail.

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then my last question, and I know this is important to my colleagues, and I'll open it up. Deadline for the guaranteed maximum price. Is there, and I don't know if this is a question for you or maybe for Seth around possibly exploring kind of what that looks like or how was, that's proposed by the developer, correct? Right now, what March?

Correct. That is proposed by the developer in response to our letter to them of the notification of default. To me, it seems a little bit extended. I would hope that if they're able to complete their new stairwell design and submit that to us by October 15th, that hopefully by the end of the year, January perhaps, they could get that to us sooner. We have not yet had that conversation with the developer, but at the direction of city council, we would be more than happy to see if that date can be moved up so that we have a guarantee that they know that they can build the project based on the financing that they have. Yes.

OKAY. THANK YOU. AND AGAIN, I'M NOT A DEVELOPER SO I'M NOT GOING TO THROW DEADLINES ON HERE WHEN I WILL CALL A HANDY MAN FOR LITERALLY ANY PROJECT IN MY HOUSE. BUT IF ANYWAY WE CAN KIND OF BE VERY AGGRESSIVE ON THAT TIMELINE, I'D BE INTERESTED IN THAT.

SO NOTED.

THANK YOU. ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM STAFF OR FROM MY COLLEAGUES TO STAFF? COUNCIL MEMBER TARGET.

YEAH, THANK YOU, FLYNN. YOU KNOW, I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT FOR US TO to acknowledge this isn't just one milestone. This is 20 years of missed dates, missed opportunities. And I think it's, I'm very sorry that neighbors have had to stay up until 940 to see what council conversation is gonna be on this. But it's kind of symbolic that this almost four hour wait, the neighborhood's been waiting 20 years. And we thought we put in some good teeth with the new milestones that were set in place. And the developer has been working on those milestones. We still don't have a completed model room. We're not even calling that out as a missed milestone. It's a missed milestone. That model room was supposed to be done in April. So it's one more missed milestone. It's important. We've always said this. I've always said this. I've said it to the neighborhood for forever. We want this project to succeed. Everybody wants this project to see success. It's going to be an incredible addition to our hospitality industry once it is completed. The developer has, they're doing a lot, they're doing an awful lot, but they've lost a lot of credibility with residents in the city. And I appreciate that we put milestones in place previously. I think we need to send a very, very loud message tonight that these milestones aren't just something on a piece of paper. I think we need to add more teeth into missed milestones and I would like to see my colleagues support and staff come back with a revised schedule now. Really, construction's gonna start on October 1st. All right, well, let's come back with what they're telling us, but put real teeth into missed milestones. And we cannot wait until March. for the guaranteed maximum price and then they start their financing. We just can't do that. So I think I'd like to see some kind of triggers added to the modifications that we're making now that if a date is missed, that triggers impacts on the amount of TOT they get for this project. So missing these deadlines will be incredibly meaningful to this developer. And we have to send a loud message to the community and to the developer. If they don't commit to meet these deadlines, it's gonna cost. And it's gonna cost in the form of lost TOT. And I think we need a schedule. How much does TOT drop? The first milestone, the second milestone, the third milestone. So the developer can see that this is a project that is going to get completed. We have all the confidence that it can be completed. Mr. Chatwell has proven worldwide We just need to bring that worldwide success to Palm Springs, and we need to see it. And I'd like to hear what my colleagues think, but I'd like to see some real teeth put into the next schedule. If we're being asked to change the schedule and come up with a new milestone plan, I want to see some teeth put into it that they start losing TOT.

Just to clarify, it's the TOT rebate. Yeah. So they're under a rebate program. We actually have a, am I correct, we have a better rebate program that exists now? That's not available. Well, what I'm saying is that will depend on making these, you're asking for the teeth. And so that's really where we've made a new rebate program to encourage development, which they would fall under. but they need to meet these deadlines or they don't get that. Is that what you were saying? So, I mean, I think, and I think where we're all hearing is that, you know, there's a thousand pages of construction deadlines. This kind of missed stairwell issue, there's a somewhat logical explanation, but it should have really been fixed a while ago. They still say they're going to start construction in October. That's correct? and which which is 21 days 21 days construction can mean a lot of things though it's not going to be going vertical in a building it's grading and other types of things like that but at least there will be work being done on site and so and they still say they're going to meet the same opening and construction completion date

Yes, that's what they've indicated is December 2028. Okay.

So, I mean, I think, and to Council Member DeHart's point, you know, we know they're doing a lot of work. I guess they're not here today because they're doing finish, getting more finishings. Is that what you told the city manager? Correct. They're out of town finalizing finishings that we heard. Okay. So, like, we see this, we're hearing, it seems like They have gone farther than they have before, but it has been 20 years. And so like Council Member Hart says, the neighborhood doesn't believe it. They're fed up. A lot of the community thinks this is never going to happen. And so the pressure we're under is obviously quite extreme from the community when we keep saying, well, we think this is finally it, they're doing it, and there's another delay. And so I think this is the message to relay is that we as City Council, as staff, want to see this done. I mean, it took the Thompson Hotel a long time to get done, and it's a beautiful hotel. And let's make the dream the same thing happen so that in two years we say, well, it took a really long time, but it's now a beautiful hotel and a beautiful addition. But I think that's the message we really need to send. But we may think it will be hopeful. The community is very skeptical, and the immediate community who lives around it is really frustrated. been going through a lot. So I think that's sort of what we need to convey.

Well, I think to all of your point, it was May 20th, 2004. The first meeting we had, it was Mayor Oden and myself with the same principal group. It's been about four or so different partners But but but I think to the point of the Thompson happened that the Thompson happened and if this this could be the same success story so And so from Steph's perspective, is there anything you need from us at this time? I guess I wasn't clear. Is this just a receiving file? I

We are asking for direction from City Council. You've provided some indicators of what you would like us to do. For example, Mayor Soto and Council Member DeHart asked us to look at the deadline for the guaranteed maximum price. Looking at moving that up. Council Member DeHart also suggested that the missed milestones need to be tied to TOT rebate. if we're going to modify the Sorry, the schedule of performance, we need to include real measures or penalties in missing those milestones and tie that to TOT rebate. And so we will have those discussions with the developer. So we're basically looking for any other direction you might have relative to the performance schedule and what staff needs to do to assist the developer to keep moving forward with the project.

Well, thank you for the clarification. And I think you've covered the waterfront here. So then obviously then you will bring that back if there's a new agreement that has to be made and then we'll deal with it another time. Correct. Okay, thank you.

Thank you to my colleagues I agree with with what you're proposing. I think it makes sense and it's it's true there There really has to be strict Requirements and penalties for for missing deadlines, so thank you very much Yes and why some of the confidence is lost I meant to mention this I

We're promised that they're gonna fix that construction fence every single week. I'm tired of driving by and taking pictures and sending them to the city manager. It is exhausting. Imagine how the neighbors feel every time they leave, they drive out of their house and they see that construction blight. I'd like to see, we can't allow that to continue. And I don't know if council's able to give the city manager direction, but if that fence isn't repaired today, tomorrow, the next day when it comes down, that we send our crews out there to fix it and bill the developer for that fix. We're doing it every week. Okay, great, yes you are, but you know what? The wind happens 24 hours a day. We can't have once a week, we need to have every single day. And it's not right that we're telling our neighbors that this is what they have to put up with. So if we're allowed to do the work and charge them, then I'd like to have that included in direction that we're giving staff.

I believe we start issuing administrative citations, and those are going to start adding up to like $1,000, $1,500 every time after the first few.

How many citations do you think we've issued?

Well, if they're the administrative citations, they should be paying $1,500 a citation.

How many do you think we've issued? I do not know.

Actually, to solve the problem, I like your idea, because citations are fine, but we actually want to get the defense fixed.

So if we can go do it ourselves... Right, but we, well, the attorney's not here. That's a little longer process, but we can do both. Let's do both. You do both. This starts adding up to be big numbers, and it gets their attention, and then ultimately we get the court allow us to do it and then put on the tax bill.

Seth, can we do both? You can absolutely pursue both. Yeah, let's do it.

Okay. Okay. Great. NO MOTION NEEDED. IS THAT ENOUGH DIRECTION?

NO, WE DON'T NEED A MOTION ON THIS. WE HAVE THE DIRECTION OF CITY COUNCIL. WE'LL WORK WITH THE DEVELOPER BASED ON YOUR COMMENTS THIS EVENING AND WE'LL COME BACK WITH A REVISED AGREEMENT SHOULD THAT BE APPROPRIATE TO DO SO. ALL RIGHT.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

OUR NEXT ITEM, OUR LAST ITEM FOR THE EVENING IS ITEM 3E WHICH IS THE DISCUSSION OF CITY MAYORAL POSITION AND REPORT FROM THE AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE.

No, there's no further update. Just a reminder for anyone who wants to attend the next meeting, it is September 16th at 6 p.m. at Cahuilla Elementary School. All are welcome. We hope to see you there. The one following that is September 24th here at City Hall, also at 6 p.m. So just look out for a date that you can attend, and that's it.

And Council Member, if I could confirm, that's in my district and I can attend?

Yes, you are scheduled to attend. I am moderating that for September 16th.

Thank you.

Correct. And if any of the Council Members actually want to attend the September 24th meeting, you are welcome to. Unfortunately, it does conflict with the Pride Honors event. I'm the moderator, so I will have to skip that event. But if there is a Council Member who wants to go to another meeting, that one is open because...

council member de hart will of course need to be at that pride event but do we have a schedule does everybody know when they're going it should be in your calendar yeah you so you know everybody knows when they're going on the yeah i just know my own meeting i don't know anybody else just to clarify other than that one you're going to be attending both

Yeah. One of you. Grace, Grace. Yes.

Okay.

Thank you for covering all of these. Yep. Appreciate it.

Okay. Next item is public comment on non-agenda item. This time is set aside for members of the public to address the city council on items of general interest within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. Although the city appreciates your comments pursuant to the Brown Act, we cannot generally take any actions not listed on the agenda. Do we? Hold on. Do we have any public comments? I'm not.

We have no public commenters.

Okay. Can we finish by 10? Okay, next item is City Council and City Manager's request for the upcoming agenda developments.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a few things we want to point out over the next couple meetings. At our next meeting, we will be giving you a presentation on the Desert Water Agency's turf conversion program. We get lots of questions about that and they're going to talk about that, how the city's Funding is interfaced with them over the years and bring you information about that. We've got a historic designation of a property at 550 Palisades Drive. That'll be a public hearing. At the request of council, we'll be bringing back a discussion item on a possible resolution for focusing council on local matters. That'll be under business and legislative. And then on October 14th, we'll have another presentation by Fine Food Bank. You'll remember we invite them to come each year and give us an update on their good work. And then we'll have a public hearing on the Old Las Palmas Underground Utilities Assessment Districts. Joel and his team, Diana Shea, will be bringing us an update on where that stands and the next steps. We anticipate having a discussion with our police department on an update on flock cameras, how that program's working. That was at the request of city council. And then I know you've asked us also for an update on the vacation rental house ordinance, specifically as it relates to the event houses. And we've gotten some inquiries about that. What I will point out is we'll have one meeting in November. And at that time, our finance department will be updating you with our first quarter financial report like we've been doing now over the past year. That's all I have, Madam Mayor.

Okay, great. Council Member Bernstein.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. And I just want to mention something on the event houses rental ordinance. Council Member DeHart and I are meeting with some of the event house operators to get their recommendations. So hopefully we can make this as smooth as possible so that we can, if we're in sync, then we can pass it on to staff and go forward that way. So I think we're doing that this week. I also wanted to raise two other things. One is that as part of our Serena Park settlement with the developer, they were paying $3 million that we agreed would be allocated for the purchase of open space. And as I understand it, we've already gotten about half of that with the other half coming at the end of next year. Is that correct? So I wonder if council is interested in having, just giving staff direction that if there's opportunities to purchase open space with those funds, that they bring it back to council, either in whole or supporting other efforts that are out there. So we had already decided to, this may have been before, this may have been the previous council. We had already decided to move forward with this. It's part of their agreement. And now we're seeing those funds come in. And if there's open space opportunities, we should be realizing we have these funds consensus on that i mean it's not not direction to come back just if it ever comes up that we have some open space and i think mayor potem and i have heard about one already i don't know if that would qualify under this but it's worth the matzner one oh oh yes yes It's another space that has very little opportunity for residential development that might make sense for open space if we could reallocate the density to someplace more useful, appropriate. The other thing is I wanted to ask council, there's a couple things that residents have raised regarding elections that I wanted to see if council was interested in bringing back for a discussion of a potential resolution or ordinance. Number one is to require the city to move forward with elections, even if there's only one candidate who qualifies to get their name on the ballot. And the other issue, which I don't know if separate or not, is whether we have a potential resolution or ordinance that would not allow election of a candidate position, which position was being voted on at that same ballot, if that makes sense. So I'm not saying we agree to do this, I'm saying we come back to have a discussion on these things.

Well, I support having a discussion on the first part, not the second part. So total support to have the discussion on considering some type of policy that we will hold elections regardless.

Yeah.

What was the second one?

The second one is if... Yeah, so the first one is... We would just bring back for discussion at a later date, and obviously there's not a great urgency for this year, to move forward with an election if only one person qualifies to have their name on the ballot. Is there?

I guess I'm wondering if it could be broader than that.

How people qualify. Sorry.

I think I'm in support of it, but I would love to see it brought in and thinking specifically on how we can make it potentially easier for people to qualify for the ballot rather than just if someone qualifies for the ballot.

So we would bring this for, if we have this, I'm not making any specific recommendations, just do we have this discussion on a future agenda? And we can decide specifics at that point. Do we agree on that? Okay. So we have the two points. This is the first point. I want to go back to the second one.

Could we just get a vote? We've been relying on kind of nods of heads recently. And so for the record, if we could just get a vote.

I have proposed it. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Agree. There we go. Three. I agree on the broader.

Thank you. Okay.

Yeah, on the broader. The second question was, which is unusual, if we are having a ballot measure for the creation of a new elected position, that we cannot simultaneously have the election for that position. Does that make sense? Yes. So if we are now deciding that we are going to elect our city attorney on the next ballot, we cannot have somebody run for city attorney on that same ballot?

Yes.

I say yes. Grace said yes.

Yes, I said yes.

Yes And this is not agreeing that we're gonna do it just to a conversation at a future date and obviously does there's no rush because it doesn't matter for this year So we're hearing three in favor of that

and two opposed at least one opposed one i'm do you get your three i don't i'm abstaining i'm not excited about that one yeah as excited about that one no okay thank you okay

I have one note, actually, Council Member McCartney, did you wanna, did you have a, oh. Just to flag, you know, there's only a few more meetings left, which is for 2026, which is wild, but earlier this year, maybe it was this year, maybe it was the end of last year, we talked about having, you know, there's a variety of organizations, that it'd be good to hear presentations on um you know major organizations in which we give major grants to key initiatives um and overall we you know we have this dwa um but if we can just kind of look at the our list and see what how many can be squeezed in uh before the end of the year and some might but make more sense in February just to get a sense of which presentations could be included in October and then in November. So I'd love to see those fleshed out a little bit. And we already agreed to those. So just seeing what the plan is for the next months.

We can send you that list, Mayor.

Okay, great.

All the council members.

Council Member Garner.

Thank you. Just one thing on the upcoming agenda, the discussion on the resolution focusing council and local matters. Upon reflection, I kind of, I withdraw my support on that one. I don't see how it's going to be productive for us. And so I don't know if that changes whether or not that item comes forward or not, but I just wanted to make that note for the record.

And I don't recall what the vote was on that. And so if the council wouldn't mind just reconfirming everybody's interest in bringing that back. We have three. One. Okay, no, I get it, I get it.

So the maker of that request is making it again then, we're starting again then, because we can undo apparently.

Apparently?

That's a new one. I mean, I'm not saying we can't, it's just.

Am I not allowed to undo?

Can we undo?

We don't have a policy. The theory is if we only have two people, one or two council members interested, we don't want to agendize a discussion. If there are three who are interested, we can bring it back.

I think the public deserves to have input. We agreed to do it. It's already listed as something that's coming up. So I don't know, how do we deal with that when there's expectation that there will be a discussion?

Just to clarify, though, our agendas change often. Things get moved. I mean, happy to discuss further with you if you'd like, Councilmember. I understand it's important to you and happy to talk to you more about it.

No, but it's not the discussion, it's the public. No, I understand, but I think... We're a very community-focused and involved council. So how do we tell the community now that we're...

Yeah, I think that, again, it's things change in our agenda all the time. Items move. Sometimes we end up not having discussions. Sometimes we add things. I don't think this is unusual. But, again, I'm happy to kind of discuss it more further with you and maybe, you know, maybe through talking I change my mind again. I don't know. But I'm really struggling with this one.

So we can make it clear that Council Member DeHart asked for it to go forward. And any other Council Member doesn't?

I would just note I've... I'm just going to say, sitting in your seat for a long time, Scott, I've heard Council talk about all kinds of things I don't think they really should have been talking about. So I've always felt, yeah, that's a good idea. So, yes, I still support that. There it is. I said it. Okay.

So there's no longer three. So does that change how? Yeah. Yeah, it's dead. And no longer have it moving forward? Can we just confirm that?

OK. OK.

Council Member DeHart.

All right. So, you know, there's been a little conversation about the sand wall on Gene Autry. You know, I think it's premature to call it out one way or another, but I'd like to prepare The anniversary is February 11th I think is what I found. But we have a presentation back to council in January on has it been a success and how did we measure that success based on closures? based on the amount of sand that we've removed versus prior, the prior year. I think we need to share with the public, you know, is it really having an impact or is it not? And if it is, great, we celebrate. If it's not, then council can have that discussion. What do we do next? You know, what's the next thing we try? Oh, is there support to have that conversation? Sometime in January. Yeah.

A written update would be great too. And we can have, during that conversation, we can update, we could make decisions on how to move forward. But I would like to get that update as well.

So we're talking about something more than just a presentation, a business item, a report?

Measurements to determine the success of the sand wall. So what would we measure to determine the success?

And if there's any recommendations?

Road closures, accidents, how many hours has crews spent removing sand this year versus last year?

So, Councilman, that sounds to me like a staff report with recommendations? Or not?

I think we just need an update on has it been, what are the outcomes of the wooden ball?

Maybe if we get the report and we can determine then do we need to make a discussion item on what to do? Yeah. Does that make sense? Because I don't know what the report's going to show either, but... That way, once we see it, obviously we'll see it in advance or hopefully we'll be ready to, or at council, discuss how we want to proceed.

And if I could add one other thing, and maybe it can be part of the discussion, If, because of the situation, if there's some temporary measures to get around the environmental issues, it was always environmental mitigation of dealing with habitat, given on a temporary basis some extreme measure we may be able to take, even though it's against the habitat. it rules on a temporary basis just it might be worth having that discussion i don't know if maybe the rules have changed and maybe joelle can enlighten us on maybe something new that's occurred or a tool or a mechanism that maybe we can use as a temporary measure even though it violates the habitat issues yeah

We'll plan to bring a report in January. Thank you. I see all five council members nodding in agreement.

Yes. The other item is, you know, we had a working group invest a considerable amount of time and they did some good work on the Martha's Village contract. And I think we've got a renewal coming up with an operator for the navigation center. but it would be beneficial for the community and for us to hear of the, I think there's several dozen measures that are ongoing that staff identified, the working group identified, and Martha's even shared with us that they're working on. So I'd like to get an update on how far we come from the last report to this report and what suggestions are still outstanding. We extended hours on the cooling shelter. So let's see where we're at with the other items. Is the Palm Springs shelter connected to the navigation center? Are we taking care of our animals there? So let's just get an update and make sure that the working groups effort is is we're following through with that and the. I don't know, that's just an update back to council. The other one is, we don't have any other place to talk about it, but I think we shouldn't hire the economic development director now. I think we should wait on hiring that position and possibly put a hold on our code, our special programs department. until we know what direction the new city manager is gonna have and that they are involved in that hiring decision.

Can we talk about that right now?

So you can, again, this portion of the agenda is for bringing items back. It's not for making decisions. So if the council wants to bring back a discussion about that topic, we can count to three.

Isn't that a personnel matter, though?

That's something that we can, Is that something that we can decide or?

I mean he's not gone yet If there's interest in the council considering that then we can work with the city manager to find an appropriate way to have that conversation Yeah, and I think it might be also helpful to

to know where we are at in this process, and maybe there is, because they've both gone out, as far as I understand, as has other ones.

Mr. I mean, obviously, the economic development position has just recently closed. Final candidates have been identified, and so,

So you don't want to be in a position of losing, potentially. And I don't want to go through all this. So we should find a way in which we can talk about this.

We'll have the conversation, yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. I just want to remind folks that next Friday, September 18th, the city will have the extreme heat summit. And I just kudos to the sustainability department for putting this on. It'll be at the convention center. It's an all day event with really interesting sessions on how we can be climate resilient for our quality of life, for our economy, for our business, for everybody. And so I will, we're going to definitely talk about radical shade. So I will see you there. And with that, this meeting, our next city council meeting is Wednesday, September 30th. Not, it's actually three weeks, not two weeks because we are pushing it for a Cal cities conference where so much of some of us are going to. So folks in the community September 30th at 5 30 and we are adjourned.