City Council - Regular Meeting

Only 31 years. Good afternoon, everyone. This is the City of Desert Hot Springs in the regular meeting of the City Council and the City Council serving as a successor agency to the former Redevelopment Agency Board for Tuesday, July 7th, 2026. It's our 4.30 p.m. closed session. Roll call, please.

Council Member Garger.

Present.

Council Member Pitts.

Present.

Council Member Pai. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Voss.

Present. And Mayor Mattis. Present. present I will be making this announcement multiple times during our meeting but we are now participating in its SB 707 that passed public participation through virtually say first weeks i don't know what platform we're using um and it will be remotely virtually if you are watching uh there is an option for you to raise your hand for public comment um it is live we will be working out the bugs over time So if we miss something, it's not on purpose, it's just working the system out. All right, with all that said, do we have any public comments? I have nobody in the audience, so there'll be no in-person public comments. Do I have anybody online?

I do not see anyone on Zoom either.

Thank you very much. Before we move to closed session, our city attorney, Tuan, is here today to announce our closed session items.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We have four items today. The first one concerns anticipated litigation, three potential cases. The second one concerns existing litigation, the case of Louis D. O'Farrill v. City of Desert Hot Springs. The third matter is also existing litigation in the matter of City of Desert Hot Springs v. ERE Investments LLC. And the fourth matter is real property negotiations for property located at APN 644-08-011.

Thank you very much. We'll recess to closed session. All right, I'm going to get everyone to have a seat. We're going to get started. We have one presentation tonight, but it's well overdue for a presentation. And I'm going to ask my city council to join me. I'm also going to ask our public works director and our deputy city manager, Daniel Porras, to join me up here. And Mr. Whitting, I'm going to ask you to join me up here. I've been there as long as I have. It feels like it, but not as long, almost. So we're going to honor someone tonight. It doesn't have to anymore. Mr. Witte has spent 31 years with the city of Desert Hot Springs and he is officially retiring. So we wanted to honor him tonight and say some kind words about him. And obviously we've got a lot of people that have spent time working with him and working for him in the city here in Desert Hot Springs. And he knows where all the bodies are buried, right? That's a figure of speech. So he's worked here long enough, a lot longer than I've been on the city council, but he's worked here long enough to know when there was probably two people in the department, 20 people in the department, back to two people in the department, and how many things did you fix in the city over that time? Too many, right?

Yeah, can't even count.

So before I give him our presentation that we want to give him and recognize him tonight, I wanted to open it up to our Public Works Director, Deputy City Manager, Daniel Porras, to say a few words.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Scott, you work here for 31 years. I've had a pleasure working with Scott for about a little more than 15 of those. And since the day I started, he's always been somebody I can count on. Scott has been the most respectful, hardworking individual that I have ever worked with in any city. So I just want to say thank you, Scott. No matter what was going on with our overwhelming work orders, With our major storms, with our dangerous accidents, and with changes in city priorities. Some changes in city administration over there. Scott never changed. He has never changed his attitude. He has always been ready to come to work, no matter what. He has always answered my phone call, 3 o'clock in the morning, on a Sunday, 5 o'clock in the morning, on a Monday, it didn't matter. The entire time that I have been here, he has always, always answered a phone call, and always has showed up to work, and I am extremely thankful for that. And I just want to from the department of public works i just want to thank you for always been there for your co-workers and for the residents of their hot springs thank you thank you thank you thank you

it's not an easy task to work at any any company for as long as you have and have you know i don't know how many city councils you've worked for and we're we're even though we're the easiest city council to ever work for city councils change priorities all the time which trickles down to everybody in the city trying to make those things work and you were always there for us you always made sure that it worked for us and i think someone was telling me that there's a broken door handle on the way out just in

Give me three hours overtime, I'll do it.

With that said, we wanted to give you a plaque, and I'm gonna read it. It says, presented to Scott Whittington in grateful appreciation with heartfelt thanks for 31 years of loyal and dedicated service to the Public Works Department for the City of Desert Hot Springs. Through your leadership and commitment as Supervisor of Public Works, you have helped shape and sustain the essential services that keep our city running smoothly. Your hard work, integrity, and devotion to excellence have made a lasting difference in the lives of residents and colleagues alike the impact of your service will be felt for years to come congratulations on your retirement and thank you for your remarkable career of service with our deepest appreciation the city of desert hot springs may 28th 2026. and we got a couple more things for you one it would not be a presentation without giving you something that relates to your career here in desert hot springs so the City Council is gonna help grab something that we've hidden back here for you you've got your own street sign for the city of desert hot springs Charlie it has his name and the 31 years of service and we don't want to get stolen so he's gonna take it home with him Yes, absolutely. We'll get three hours overtime for that.

I'll put in a work order.

And lastly, you know, something that I want to do as mayor is something I don't do very often, but I try to give something to people that do go up and beyond for the city of Desert Hot Springs. And you have done that with 31 years of service. So even though this key probably won't work, but it is a key to the city that you can have to memorialize your service here in Desert Hot Springs. Awesome.

I'm not much for public stuff, so thank you, everybody, my crew, Nick, great department head right there. I learned a lot under you. Thanks for showing up tonight. My kids, my family, my wife putting up with me when I come home late at night and go back out. Again, I couldn't have done 31 years without the managers, the department heads, my staff, my crew, Judith, Lynn. Others, sorry, I'm just at a loss. Dana, you got me out of a lot of binds, taking care of ACs in an instant for city managers and others. So thank you. You made us look good. Not just me, but everybody. So James, Caleb, Armando, Victor, you guys are awesome out there. Keep it up. It's all yours. And with that, I'm done.

With that said, we're going to have Scott stand here and take some pictures. If you guys want to come up and take some pictures, I know they have some refreshments and some cake back there. We'll enjoy the next 25 minutes on your behalf.

Great. Thank you all.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the City of Desert Hot Springs, the regular meeting of the City Council. The City Council serving as a successor agency to the former Redevelopment Agency Board for Tuesday, July 7th, 2026. This is our 6 p.m. regular session. Roll call, please. Council Member Gardner. Present.

Council Member Pitts. Present. Council Member Pai. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Voss. Present. And Mayor Mattis.

Present. I do want to make an announcement before we get to the invocation of the Pledge of Allegiance. This is our first meeting of the City of Desert Hot Springs participating in SP 707, which is public participation options. So you don't actually have to be here in person anymore. According to the state legislator, they passed a law that allows virtual participation so you may call in to the meeting i see that we have two on call right now we are using the platform zoom when we come to public comments we will use the in-house public comments first so i'll offer for anyone that's filled out a card or wants to come up and speak during public comment and then we will go to the zoom and we have uh we have two individuals running this system now to try to make sure we stay on track. And you'll need to use the hand raise option when it comes to that item to speak. So if you raise your hand in the Zoom option, they'll know that you want to speak. If for some reason we get off track a little bit, we only have two on so far, and it should be manageable for us to figure it out. And we're going to do our best to make sure that we comply with SB 707. With that said, we're going to start with the invocation. Tonight, Ms. Pai is going to give our invocation. OK.

This is by Reverend Dr. Sonja Cantrell-Smith, and it's an excerpt, and it's, Love Extends to Sacred Activism. Today, reflect on where you love naturally moves you toward action. Maybe you stand for fairness. advocacy for the margin marginalized comfort the afflicted or foster community where division once stood sacred activism ask us to bring more than just passion i asked us to bring your our presence wisdom and compassion into our responses Love keeps our heart open even through challenges. It steadies our intention and invites solutions that uplift rather than divide. Remember that every act of kindness, every voice raised in truth, every compassion choice is part of a larger field of transformation. Love and sacred activism together create a force for good that honors life at every level.

Thank you very much. And before we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, everyone should know that the United States of America just celebrated its 250th birthday. I want to thank our staff for throwing on a great event. Miss Ernie, thank you for all your hard work with that. If you did not get to see our fireworks display, It was really wonderful and really celebrated what we all want to celebrate, our freedoms. As we know, we have a very busy meeting before we take our summer break tonight, and this is your opportunity to speak to your government to make the changes that you want, and that's what our freedoms are about. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please join me in pledging to our nation's flag.

Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic Mr. City Attorney, would you report on closed session, please?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There is no reportable action.

all right at this time the city council may amend the order of the agenda approve the consent calendar remove items from the consent calendar for separate discussion and action and add urgency items the brown act which governs public meetings permits the city council to take action on any items that does not appear on the agenda only if the two-thirds of the city council if all are present are members of city council if fewer than all members are present determine there is a need to take action immediate action on these items and they need to take immediate action come to the city council's attention after the agenda was posted we have our consent calendar which is at the back items 12 through I have public comments on a few of those. I'm going to allow those public comments, and if the City Council chooses to remove items from the consent calendar at that time, they will do so. Mr. Hedrick, you have item 15 you want to speak on. Item 15 is public services agreement with Race John Rood for tourism and business-related services.

All right.

Hello, my name is Joshua Hendrick, and I'm a resident here in Desert Hot Springs. On item 15, I've got three questions and one ask. One, the council authorized this agreement to not exceed $50,000 on January 20th. The city's own contracts report as of June 1st, showing $100,000 total and $85,000 already spent. I've located no council action between January and June increasing that authorization. What authorized the spending above $50,000 you approved? Two, the new agreement recites that it was made and entered in this first day of July, 2026, and commences July 1st, six days before tonight's vote. Why is a contract effective before the council has approved it? And three, the agreement pays a flat $8,500 a month, but Section 5 requires invoices stating, quote, the number of hours spent and by whom. These terms contradict each other. Which governs and where were the hour records or what's already been paid? My ask is to continue this item, bring back the authorization history, the invoices already paid, and the corrected agreement that doesn't take effect before you vote on it. Thank you.

Senator, stay right there. You're the only person that's turned in cards for the consent calendar. Item number 19, John H. Furby Aquatic Center Improvement, City Project Number 2023, Notice of Completion. All right.

Well, you already know who I am, so I'll just jump right into it. You're asked to accept this project and record a notice of completion dated tonight. Well, the staff report says the splash pad is currently being tested prior to being open to the public. Many of you may remember the scalding burns on children at that splash pad. We need to test this before it is approved. You're being asked to certify done on work that your own report says is not yet done. That's not a paperwork point. Regarding the notice and releasing final payments starts the retention clock and warranty clock. And the history matters. The fire splash pad was taken out because the water became scalding. That's in the city's own meeting record. Accepting and paying out before thermal and commissioning testing is finished surrenders your leverage over the exact failure mode that disabled our last splash pad. The project also carried 10 change orders totaling over $300,000, several approved between mid-May and mid-June after the pool opened on May 23rd. I ask you to not record the notice of completion or final payment tonight. Continue the item until testing and turnover are complete and staff confirms in writing. Thank you.

Mr. Hedrick, the last item you have to speak on the consent calendar is item number 20, reflection park phase 2 project, city project number 4002, notice of completion.

Yep. So I'm asking you to continue final payment on this as well until staff answers these three questions. First, the budget. You initially authorized $469,500 plus a 10% contingency, $516,450 total. Tonight's report shows eight change orders totaling $120,000, a final cost of $590,000, and $73,500 beyond what the council originally approved. I can't find any council action authorizing that. I want to know who approved each change order, on what date, and under what Chapter 3.44 authority. Second, and this is new, who actually did the work? The staff report certifies completion on May 18th, but Landmark, the contractor who won the bid, their own certified payroll filed with the state under penalty of perjury state that the company performed no work at all from March 9th through March 17th. 10 consecutive days sworn no work performed statements ending the day before the completion date you're asked to certify. Yet more than $74,000 of change orders are dated inside that same window. Landmark's bid listed exactly one subcontractor, Mariana Landscape, for irrigation only, 8% of the job. And Mariana's payrolls run through June 28, six weeks after the completion date. So if Landmark swore it wasn't on site and the only listed sub was limited to irrigation, who performed the change order work? And where are their certified payrolls? On a federally funded project, that's a federal payroll requirement, not a technicality. And third, the award record. The 2025 staff report told you a single bid came in below $475,000 engineering estimate. The city's own bid documents state that the estimate twice as $426,000. The bid was 10% above it. I filed records request 26-391 for the change order backup payment records and inspection logs. Recording the notice of completion starts retention clock. There's no harm in a two-week continuance so we can answer all of the questions before we make payment. Please continue the final payment. Thank you.

Sorry. Any other comments, Mr. Hedrick, on any of the consent items? No, sir. Thank you very much. Does anybody else in the audience want to speak on the consent item calendar? Is there anybody online that wants to speak on the consent calendar item?

Yes, there's one.

Okay. Mr. Betz, on a consent calendar, which item?

The Dillon Road. Thank you for taking my comment.

Mr. Betz, do you know which number that is? Yeah, it would be item 12. Thank you. Let me announce it really quick. Approval of the Riverside County Service Agreement for the construction of Dillon Road Reconstruction Project. Mr. Betz?

Yeah, I was hoping to get a staff report on this so we can see what this is about before, you know, so I could know if I have any questions on this. Is that all your comments? No, I might have comment, but I was hoping to see a staff report on this item.

Okay, thank you for your comment. Any other comments online?

No. So that's it?

All right, we're going to move to the City Council. Any City Council members want to pull any items from the consent calendar? Is there a motion to accept the consent calendar? There's a motion to accept the consent calendars or a second. There's a motion and a second. No further comments. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right, we're going to move to city manager's report.

good evening mayor city council we have one update tonight from our deputy city manager christina newsome good evening mayor and city council since our last update we've had seven animals adopted out of animal care and control and five sent to rescue and with us tonight is solo he's a charming shepherd who's just over a year and a half old and loves going for walks with our staff and volunteers and he's eager to find a loving home if you're interested in bringing solo into your family please reach out to the city hall today

Sorry, I skipped the general public comments, but I'll let you finish your report. Was that anything else?

That actually concludes our updates for tonight. Thank you.

I'm going to go back to general public comments. Sorry, I have a lot here. I'm just trying to organize them really quickly. Let's see. General public comments. We're going to start with Mr. Hedrick. Do you have a general comment?

Yes, sir. Just one moment.

All right. I'll come back to you. Ms. Davies? Yes.

Hello, how are you? My name is Tabitha Davies and I'm a resident of Sky Valley and I wanted to take the public comment time to discuss both some water issues related to possible cannabis waste discharge things and while I understand that that falls under the jurisdiction of Mission Springs Water District, when we have known non-compliance or known compliance issues and we're testing our well water and we know that we're having industry-related issues that our testing has failed, why are we not testing the groundwater at the city level or making sure that that's being done proactively so that we don't have contaminants from industry that is happening in the city? And I'm gonna preface with it, I have no problem with the cannabis industry existing. I do have a problem with the fees, and maybe that's something that the city brings to Mission Springs, being lower than it costs for them to properly dispose of their off stuff. So I think that's an issue because what is going to happen is it's going to end up back into the aquifer, which is already being recharged, and into everybody's drinking water and bathing water. And if no one's testing for it, how long is it going to take before we find out that it's causing issues with our kids, with ourselves, with our animals, within our parks, everything, right? Also on top of that, I think flock is unconstitutional and I think that it needs to be removed. And I'm going to add to the fact that if you look at the polls that the flock hammers are sitting on and you look at the state regulations in California for how polls for stop signs within a certain amount of distance from the road have to be, someone's going to hit that and they're going to impale themselves. guardrails are done in a manner in which if we hit them they basically collapse a lot of our cars are designed the same way because we know being impaled by a piece of an item that we hit is going to potentially kill someone so why are we allowing cameras that are essentially cops playthings to be installed in a manner that puts public safety directly at risk, it seems to be a little bit contradictory. And I think that that should be heavily taken into consideration if you guys are going to keep it by some means, which I can't fathom why you would, that they be put on proper spacing from the street, not on people's private property, and with proper poles that if somebody hits them, we know the amount of accidents we have, they're not going to die from impaling a flock pole. Thank you and have a great night.

Thank you. Our next public comment is Mr. Hedrick.

Thank you. I wanted to raise something that's not on tonight's agenda but should really be here. How this city governs surveillance systems that it already runs. I've spoken about this at multiple council and public safety commission meetings, but nothing has changed except the posting of a few new lexical policy templates. On the top of tonight, you heard about money leaving this building without authorization. This is that same oversight failure. This city operates a license plate reader network through FLOC. Last month, a resident was removed from this chamber during public comment for criticizing it, despite not disrupting the meeting. Here's what the city's own records show, because criticism has a basis. DHSPD has illegally censored Facebook comments that are critical of their flock and drone use. I have those records. I've asked the police department for its place reader records back in April. The city produced the complete search logs only yesterday, July 6th, the day before this meeting. And there's a reason why they did that. Separately in June, when I asked who the city shares this data with, the city handed me a single blurry screenshot with 16 agencies all within California. Now that I have those actual logs, they show more than 370 different agencies have searched the network the city feeds. 16 is what the city told me, more than 370 more than the city's own logs show. And the newest records show some of the most recent problems. Just last month, a regional fusion center, a law enforcement intelligence hub, searched our network on June 26, 10 days before my request was closed. And on June 22, another department searched our cameras records to assist with a CBP, a Customs and Border Patrol case. This city's own policy, 461, which the police department posted an updated version compliant with SB 34 back on June 10th of last month, is for California state and local agencies only, not federal or out of state. And all of this is just from June of this year, not old history. And it goes back further. Other departments have searched the shared network, including our cameras, for, quote, ICE protests and, quote, no kings. Hunting protesters' vehicles on last year's national protest days. And on the city's own side, 88% of their own plate searches carry no case number and no attached investigation. There's literally hundreds that are just labeled tests. I'm not asking you to act tonight. Obviously, the Brown Act does not allow you to. But I expect you to look into this problem and put this item on a meeting agenda so that the public can speak about this. DHS told me 16 California agencies. Its own logs that they stonewalled for months show more than 370, including two of the vendor itself flags as federal, including U.S. Post Inspection Service and Veterans Affairs Police Department. Out of state, the Houston Police Department.

Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker will be Mr. Donovan Jackson.

Hello. My name is Donovan Jackson. I'm 18 years old. I just graduated from Desert Hot Springs High. And back when I was 16, me and my family started a nonprofit organization that grants kids guaranteed scholarships. And it's based off their hours of community service. So I was wondering, what has the city of Desert Hot Springs done to provide more opportunities to young people here in Desert Hot Springs? so that they can become successful leaders and help out their community in the future and my second question is how is the city partnered with local schools non-profits and businesses to empower the youth so that they can be more engaged inside of desert hot springs unfortunately doesn't allow us to have a back and forth but i'd love to meet you if you talk to our city staff right there and get your name and number we'll set up a meeting okay perfect thank you sir do i have anyone else in public comments tonight on items not on the agenda yes sir

Hi, my name is Patrick Ougassian. I'm a licensed nurse, and I work full-time in the Valley. I received an award for my compassionate care, and today I need compassion of my own. I am homeless. I am homeless not because I don't have a home. Not because my home is unsafe. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm homeless because the city of Desert Hot Springs is denying me residence in my home. Let me tell you about my home first. It's a manufactured home. This type of home has all the safety features already built into the home and fully complies with federal, state, and local building codes. It even has indoor fire sprinkler system, a feature that very few homes in town have. It's a new home built to the very new strict safety standards. The guaranteed safety aspects is one of the reasons I chose the manufactured homes. There's more you should know about my home. My home is one of the most rural, isolated homes in Desert Hot Springs. My home sits on one and a half acres of land, and the house itself is 250 feet from the roads. And it's quite literally, look it up, it's the last house in town. I am of bother to no one. So why am I not allowed to live in my home, you might ask? Well, because I haven't built a detached accessory structure, a garage, a garage that would sit 150 feet from the street and would be barely visible. The garage is not related to the safety or habitability of the residence and would be located well away from public view. I'm not asking to avoid building the garage. I'm asking time to build it, and there are two California codes that specifically allow a home to be occupied before what the city deems complete. The City Code Regulation 25, Section 118, it says, the use and occupancy of a portion of a dwelling prior to completion of the entire structure shall be allowed. Long story short, My house is completed. They're saying that even if the house isn't completed but it's safe, you're allowed to live in it. This is the law. This is California law. There's another law. So... So, you know... I can't think of a better candidate for these law than myself. And I completely agree with the garage mandate, so cars can be hidden and people don't store junk in their front yard. But in my home, my home is rural and is so far set back, So what you call junk and cars, it's already hidden on my lot. Please, no, this is an emergency. I am homeless. I have nowhere to go because of a garage. And I did a beautiful job. You can barely see my car from the roads. And I wanna do the garage. I just need 12 months to do it. This is- Thank you for your comments. It's three minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Do I have any other comments for public comments, items that are not on the agenda? I see no, yes, sir.

Good evening, sirs and madams. My name is Ojo Wadia. I'm a resident of San Jacinto, but I do have a property here in Desert Hot Springs. I noticed last year that I was cited and a lot above $30,000 was taken from my mortgage.

I don't mean to interrupt. I'll give you more time. Are you speaking to the public notice abatement cost? yes okay that's going to be on item number five and i'll bring you back up for that one okay thank you sir any other public comments and items that are not listed on our agenda all right uh anyone online want to speak on non-agendized items no i don't show anyone all right thank you very much um city manager did you finish your report sorry i cut you off here all right i'm gonna mayor and council member comments miss pie uh mr pitts

All right. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and fellow City Council members. This is my City Council update for July 7, 2026. On June 24, I attended my regular Sunline Transit Agency Board meeting. The meeting was very informative. We heard from several members of the public who expressed the need for additional covered bus shelters throughout the East Valley. Also, improving rider comfort and accessibility continues to be an important priority, and I appreciated hearing directly from our residents. The board also had the opportunity to recognize the Ophelia Project, a program of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation for its outstanding commitment to empowering young girls through mentorship, leadership, development, and educational support. to celebrate the occasion, Sunlight unveiled a specialized wrapped bus honoring the organization and its impact throughout the Coachella Valley. The bus features several local community leaders, including our very own neighboring colleague, La Quinta Mayor Linda Evans was on that bus, in recognition of their support for mentoring and our youth leadership. The Ophelia Project currently serves students in 20 schools throughout the Coachella Valley and has positively impacted more than 7,000 girls. The program proudly boasts a 100% high school graduation rate among its participants while encouraging college preparation, career readiness, and leadership development. It was an honor to be part of recognizing this organization that continues to make such a meaningful difference in the lives of young people throughout our region. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That completes my report. Mr. Gardner.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. a rare chance to attend the do the right thing ceremony along with our chief and this month we had an amazing desert hot springs high school student who we just heard from donovan jackson so let me read a little bit about mr jackson um this was written by the person who nominated him to the do the right thing award says donovan is an exceptional kid I don't want to call him a kid, but call him a kid.

Take it as long as you can.

There you go. And there we are doing the award ceremony there. After losing a close friend to cancer at age 12, Donovan knew he needed to make a difference in young people's lives that would help ensure success after high school. At just 16 years old, Donovan established a youth-led nonprofit called Empowered to Achieve, ETA. Through ETA, students choose a path that represents their goals after high school. Paths include college, vocational school, workforce, military, or entrepreneurship. The students engage in skills that will help them succeed in their path. Donovan also believes that students should engage in community service, and when a student meets a milestone, they qualify for scholarship opportunities through ETA. To help fund the scholarships, Donovan and his family have recently formed a mission-based fundraising food business that donates its funds back to his nonprofit, Empowered to Achieve. Donovan deserves to be recognized for his contributions to the community and for his unselfish acts of kindness that he actively demonstrates on a daily basis. His positivity has impacted the lives of the youth in the Coachella Valley by assisting in ensuring their success after high school. I heard from... from Mr. Jackson the other day and invited him to come tonight. And we heard from him briefly earlier. And Ms. Pye and I would like to sit down and take you to lunch and discuss some opportunities for your nonprofit and how we can help you out there. And maybe have the mayor along, might violate the Brown Act.

We'll meet at a separate time.

Yes. So anyway, so congratulations, Donovan. And I think we should all applaud his success. Thank you for coming. A couple of other quick little things. We had a Visit Greater Palm Springs board meeting, approved our budget for the coming year, approximately $35 million, the bulk coming from the Tourism Business Improvement District, paid by hotels and short-term vacation rental fees. Overall tourism in the valley, last year up 3%, or 15 million visitors total. Tax revenue from tourism up 5% across the valley. and attended the monthly SCAG Regional Council meeting in Los Angeles. Nothing directly impacting DHS on that agenda except to make me very glad that we aren't subject to Senate Bill 74's development requirements for areas around high-capacity transit stops. Also, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's going to take up some time. I was appointed to the Riverside County representative for the next cycle of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment Committee, which starts meeting next month. I will ask for prayers. Thank you.

Mr. Voss.

Sir, I have two items. So on the 22nd and 23rd of last month, I went to the PS Next Summit meeting Expo conference thing that they had at the convention center, which was really good. They discussed technology, A&I chat, GBT systems, those type of things. And the group of courses and things that I took there, along with some of our executive staff that were present as well, So we did have a City of Desert Hot Springs presence that was there. They were showing things of how you can incorporate ANI and CHAD-GBT and all these other types of things into city government operations and how it works in that way. So it was pretty informative with that kind of thing. So I think we'll probably eventually at some point see some of that perhaps rolling into our system. The other, Gerald, you wanna pop that one up? So last month we had the Desert Community Mobile Veterinary Clinic, which was the first one that Palm Springs Animal Allies had put together, and they let me know about this. And when they did theirs in June, just a few weeks ago, they had 43 people showed up for the day, and they had 36 people from Desert Hot Springs show up. So some good numbers. So they're going to be doing this again on, as you can see in the flyer there, on July 16th from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. It's at the First Community Baptist Church at 66272 First Street. and desert hot springs, and they're probably anticipating almost double because of the interest that was there. And they do things like vaccines, well checks, exams, microchips, those types of things, nails and what have you. Um, and if it needs further examination, then they kind of defer you where they need to go. But for the basic type of things, this is a wonderful place. This is not a spay and neuter, but it's a wonderful place to, to at least have the vaccines and basic things for your, for your dogs to go to and cats to have them checked.

and they'll do it over there and it's pretty exciting to see it's right in our city and just to know that we had 36 i'm probably anticipating we'll have more and that's all i have thank you miss pie mr jackson i wasn't going to talk that much today but here you are a community service we do community service at the senior center we also do help me um Dora, where you can come and find out about government, all a part about government.

The Civics Academy program.

Yes. And then also Regional Access Project. I think I talked to you about this before. Okay, have you talked to Regional Access Project? Yes. Yes? Yes. okay you need to talk a little longer with them we give grants to nonprofits we particularly have NPO that if you're starting and you need to find out about how to get grants what to do to get grants we do that we I will talk to you there's a way for you to do that also you're sitting in front of two people with mission springs water district they do internships they're right there in front of you i'm done so any questions about water they're right there

Thank you, guys. I just again wanted to say thank you to our city staff for putting on that great event for the Fourth of July. It's the nation's 250th birthday. I'm sure you saw a lot of celebrations. We always have ours the day before, day after, so that you can enjoy your time with your family. I hope it was safe for you, and I hope you enjoyed it. We hope there's many more to come in the future for the City of Desert Hot Springs. It was a great gathering of individuals and people from outside all over the community and even some from outside the community. So thank you again for all the hard work our staff put in that. It's not easy to come in on a holiday weekend and have to work almost a full day. It is a full day. And put that event on for everybody. So if you see a public works person out there, you see some of our city staff, say thank you to them because they do do a lot of extras that you don't really realize. We always realize when we ride into that pothole or we see that stop sign down or something like that, that we don't realize all the extra work they do to keep those things from us having to run into those potholes and stuff like that. So thank you, staff, for all the hard work you do. With that, we have a very busy agenda, so I didn't have any other public meetings that were pertaining directly to Desert Hot Springs business, so I'm just gonna skip the rest of my report for tonight and move on to our public hearings. So item number five is a resolution affirming the report of public nuisance, abatement costs, and authorizing placement of unpaid charges on the county tax roll. Emily, I'm gonna mess up your last name. How do you say your last name? Granados? I wasn't going to mess it up. I didn't want to take a chance though. Alright, it's all yours.

Good evening, Mayor Mattis, council members, and members of the public. The item before you is a resolution affirming the report of public nuisance abatement costs and authorizing submission of unpaid costs to the Riverside County Treasurer Tax Collector for placement on the 2025-2026 property tax rolls. The Code Compliance Division began this process on May 1st, 2026, when administrative staff generated the Outstanding Collections Report identifying unpaid administrative citations and abatement costs assessed between May 1st 2025 and April 30th of 2026. Based on that report, the City initiated the required noticing process for affected property owners. A total of 112 property owners were notified of outstanding balances related to administrative citations and property abatement costs totaling $440,754.57 including fines and penalties. Notice was provided through two certified mailings advising property owners of the amounts due and the city's intent to recover those unpaid costs through the tax roll process if not resolved. Copies of those notices are included in my staff report. Property owners included in this report will have the opportunity to pay their outstanding balance with additional penalty, without additional penalty, my apologies, through August 10, 2026. This concludes my report, and I'm available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Before we get to opening the public hearing, we'll entertain any questions to staff from the City Council. I see none. We're gonna open the public hearings this time. I'll start with the blue cards. You don't have to fill out a card during the items if you don't choose to. I'll call you up after we finish the blue cards. Mr. Hedrick.

Good evening, I'm back again. Tonight you're asked to place $440,754 in unpaid code enforcement and abatement charges onto county tax rolls as liens. You've already seen money and surveillance leave this building without controls or rules they require. Item 5 is where that looseness lands on residents, as a lien on a home. Before you confirm these, look at how they're generated. The record shows a two-track system. You'll see absentee out-of-town investors carrying large balances the city's let build for years, one parcel over $45,000, while their properties stay in the condition the code is meant to fix. And you'll find working residents with small balances on fast tracks to lean on their homes. This isn't small. In about seven weeks, in the summer of 2023, the city generated more than 300 notices and citations across roughly 224 properties. To even contest a citation, a resident generally has to deposit the fine up front, pay first, argue later. And the citation is processed through a citation processing center, a private vendor in Newport Beach. Not anyone accountable to this room. Someone of modest means can't front the cash to be heard. An investor that treats the balance as a line of credit and waits for the tax roll just uses it as a cost of doing business. Same code, two very different experiences. And this ties to the city's finances. Your own auditor rated the City in their 2024 and 2025 audits, quote, not a low-risk auditee. Your own staff reports filed this item under Strategic Goal 11, Financial and Operations. When a City leans on citation abatement revenue to close a gap, the incentive quietly shifts from fixing blight to booking the charge. I ask you to pull the parcels where the city's own remediation is incomplete and continue them. Apply the same enforcement timeline to absentee investors that residents faced, and direct the staff to report publicly how much of this budget depends on the citation and abatement revenue each year.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. City Clerk, I don't have a timer up here. I know we're working the two screens today. Ms. Velasquez, is it? Joanna? Davies, are you speaking for Ms. Joanna?

Not for her. My name is Juana Vasquez. So I met Juana in the lobby.

Does she need translation?

Yes.

We have someone that can translate.

You have a Spanish speaker?

We do.

Is that you? You want to come here?

He's going to translate from there. So if you want to speak in Spanish, you may do so, and he'll translate for you, if that's easier for you. Ms. Davies, you won't have to.

Can I mention one thing first?

Ms. Davies, you won't have to be here for her. She has her three minutes, so I'll have to give it to her. If you want to speak after that, you can on this item.

Let me start this off with one thing.

Ms. Davies, this is Ms. Velasquez's time.

Can I say something for you for one second?

Okay. Ms. Davies, I'm not going to ask you again. Please sit down after she's done. You can speak on her behalf if you'd like to, but she's going to be traveling.

If I can say something after she's done speaking, that's fine.

Yes, absolutely. I've told you multiple times you can. Thank you.

She's asking about a letter that she got in the mail. Yes. So I needed to be explained several times to the right person and I could never answer. My question is, what is the reason that I have to pay $300? I don't work, I only live off what they send me, a little bit of Social Security. So my work, my question is,

She said that she received a letter in the mail. It's in English only. She speaks Spanish, and she wants information on why she received the letter. The fee or the fine is about $300, and she does not have the money. She's actually receiving money from Social Security, so she's wanting information regarding the letter itself.

yeah i'm showing property address just let me know if it's correct one three six nine five cuyamaca yes

because if I have to pay for it, it's okay, it doesn't matter, but I need to know.

Yes, she wants to know why she needs to pay that. If she needs to pay, she will pay. She doesn't know the reason. What's the total amount? ¿Qué es el número total que debe decir?

¿Cómo?

¿Cuánto es la cantidad?

300. Y luego me dicen que si no cubro esa cantidad, aquí me dicen que iban a ser 1,652.54. And if she doesn't pay the 300, it goes to $1,552. Okay. Something like that.

Does she have any other comments she wants to make about it?

She just wants to know what the reason is and why she needs to pay for it.

If there's no other comments, we'll take action on that after we've heard from everybody.

After we take action, you'll meet her in the back and explain to her. All right. I have no other blue cards.

Ms. Davies, did you have more to add?

So I believe it's California DiMali-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act that requires that you guys provide notices like this in multiple languages, not just in English. And I think that if this is something that you're doing to multiple people, and clearly it's a problem, that that should be addressed. Maybe you should do an internal audit to see, I mean, if she hasn't even had notice other than, hey, you owe fine, what was it the abatement for? She has no idea that that's something that you should be looking at across the sphere of what you just sent out.

That was it. Thank you for your comments. The gentleman in the back there, you had a comment on the abatement. I remember you came up. Yes, sir, it's your turn.

Good evening again. My situation is that I am an investor here and I do my best to run the property well, but I had challenges. because I had tenants that were very bad tearing down the place. The city police and the court enforcement could not help me. They say it's a civil matter. My hands were tied. I could not deal with the situation except through the legal system. While I was doing that, the property was looking, yes, a nuisance. And in fact, at some point, I had to, I was even arrested trying to marry my property because I had a tenant who was lying and the city believed. And the city also has a way of giving notices to the tenants and not giving me notice. Now, I bear responsibility for that in that I was not successfully able to change my address in the system. The city had my address. The court enforcer had my address. We were communicating. Suddenly I found that almost $30,000 was placed on my mortgage. And I called my escrow. Why did you do that? They said the city took the money. It was not on the tax roll. I'm still trying to get my tax bill to show it the way it should be shown. I have not been given an official tax bill. I asked my mortgage company, give me the bill that you paid on. They said no, that they just went, the city took the money. Suddenly my mortgage went three times up. That happened last year. This year, I was trying to do things to change my finances. I couldn't do anything because the city, again, put new liens there. I had no notice. So I called, and they gave me notices sent out. And I heard earlier it was said that notices were sent out by certified mail. There's none that came to me. Can you give us the address? 13405 Ocotillo Road, Desert Hill Springs.

And what's your current fine?

Well, currently I've paid out almost $8,000, apart from the $30,000.

What is currently going to be leaned on your property with this action tonight?

With this lien, I have... $1,076 plus $4,164. I just had to pay because it was delaying things. I couldn't move forward.

I just paid it. Thank you for your comments. We'll take this under consideration when we talk after the public comments.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on this item? Yes, ma'am. Can you give us the address of the abatement?

12380 Palm Drive. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ashley Valenzuela. I was raised here in Desert Hot Springs. I stayed here all throughout my college years and I currently am proud to say that I still work here in Desert Hot Springs. I operate a property management office on Palm Drive. I love it here so much. Even on my free time, I come to the desert nights on the boulevard to sell food in my food truck. But besides that, the reason I'm here today is to ask for grace regarding our project on Palm Drive. We have some fines that are due to be put on the tax roll. I'm asking them to be dropped completely or at the very minimum on hold for 90 days so that our new architect that we hired can submit new plans for approval. I'm confident we can have this done before the end of July. We're currently stuck in a cycle of getting repeat fines for code violations while at the same time not being able to correct the violations because there's a stop work order on the building. All violations have the same exact correction listed, which is to obtain building permits for unpermitted alterations. we have been working towards this goal but obviously have had some hiccups along the way that's why it's been taking so long one of them was getting scammed by an architect which i actually provided proof of to the city we have still have always had great intentions for this building when we purchased it we didn't purchase it with the intent to get rich we have no intention to get top dollar for the apartments that we built or the commercial spaces. We purchased it because we have a huge housing shortage that I personally witness every single day as a property manager. We created beautiful apartments and we partnered with the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission as well as the Riverside County Housing Programs to house single mothers and struggling families in our community. Currently, more than 70% of our tenants in all of our properties around the town are moved in with assistance programs. And we have complied with all of the city's requests, which included removing all of the county people that we had moved into the building and rehousing them. in a timely manner. The building is vacant now. It poses no threat to the general public. And it's a very structurally sound building. Over the years, I've been happy to see the improvements in our city and the small businesses that have opened up. We want to be a part of that, too. We want to help revitalize the vacant buildings on Palm Drive and give young business owners the chance to thrive. We have two young ladies that have been eager and patiently waiting to open a thrift shop in that specific building and the commercial building downstairs. So we're asking council to please work with us to help remove the fines from hitting the tax rule so instead we can use the money to help the homeless more.

What is the total fines?

I am not too sure because we have multiple papers, ones for $4,000 and two are for $1,600. I'm not sure if... I'm not sure the total. The total amount owed is $1,600.

$1,600? Correct.

I have one that says $4,000.

Okay. What's going to be leaned is $1,600 for tonight's item.

Okay.

All right. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Is there anyone else that has any comments on this item? Yes, ma'am. If you can give us the address.

Danny, can you? Buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Leticia Albertin. Estoy aquí con ustedes para presentarle mi caso. Tuve un ticket a mi dirección por una violación por un aparato que se llama chipper. Es una máquina que usa mi esposo para moler árboles.

She got a correlation for a chipper, the one used for landscapers to chip trees. What's the address? 65974 Estrella Avenue. 65974 Estrella. How much is the total fine?

Here I have a ticket that arrived in October for $100 and another in December for $200. The reason we couldn't move that machine in time is because my husband had a surgery and that machine is heavy to remove it from there.

In October it was $100, in December it was $200, and the reason she hasn't been able to move is her husband had surgery and was not able to move the machinery due to the weight.

What's the total fine on that account? $300. $300, thank you.

Sí. La cantidad ahora que yo tengo que pagar es $300 en julio, y si no va a ser una cantidad de $1,000. And she's seeking relief on moving it. Not that she doesn't want to move it, she just couldn't move it due to the weight. And since then, now they have moved the chippers. They're no longer there. Everything's clean.

Anything else you'd like to add? We'll make a decision at the end and we'll let you know. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak on the abatement items? What address, sir? The address is 66595 Pearson.

And do you know the total amount that's going to be leaned? If not, we can look it up real quick for you.

$13,500. Okay, go ahead. My name is Victor Monterroso. I speak English, but I feel better if I have some translator.

You've got faithful Danny here. He'll help you.

Okay. Yo compre el edificio en esta dirección, aquí en la Pearson. Yo me dedico al construction business. So I was bringing some materials that were visible from the street to the parking lot inside my building. The city was sending me some emails that I had to clean and that nothing was seen of things inside the parking lot, but I didn't get those notifications because they had a wrong email.

He purchased this property on Pearson Boulevard. He has a pool business, and he was storing materials where they're visible from the street. She was receiving emails through notifications or emails, but it was sent to the wrong email or incorrect email, so he didn't receive the notices. Siguele.

Y hasta que recibí una carta que me dijeron que si no limpiaba eso ahí, que me iban a cobrar esta cantidad. Entonces, mi esposa vino y ella le aclaró que el correo electrónico no estaba correcto. So they told me that I had to clean everything there and I recognized that it was bad so I cleaned everything. The building, they told me to put wood of the same color as the paint. All the defects that there were, the homeless break the windows and then they told me to put wood of the same color as the building. I did everything, everything is in compliance with the building. But now I would like to know if it was already inspected by the same agents, Mrs. Lonnie? Was it with other people to check my building inside? Everything is in compliance, but I just want to know if you can remove this fine because the building has no violation right now.

So after he received the emails, he received certain notices, he came to a counter, spoke to our staff here, he understood the violation, so he cleaned the property, he had damages from broken windows from homelessness, and he boarded up the windows, painted everything the same color, and since then everything has been cleaned up in his property. He even had re-inspection, so everything is now ready for re-inspection if needed, and he's just asking for forgiveness on the fines themselves.

Okay, anything else to add? We'll get back to you as soon as we're done here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other comments on this item? Any other abatement? Yes, sir.

Just need the address first. Yeah, my address is at 66394 Granada Avenue, Desert Hot Springs. um i've been getting cited for uh trash and debris and plants dead plants and palm trees i took care of everything i trimmed the palms i took out the trash the only thing that i haven't haven't done is do a nice garden which i can't afford because uh but i got cited for eight thousand dollars in 2022 went to my mortgage i paid for it now i have to pay another fifteen hundred I did everything except for having a nice yard. That's it. And I'm still getting inside it still. Lonnie Brock, she's been checking my property, but, you know, why do I have to have to pay since 2022? So $1,500 is going to be currently leaned or is that?

Yeah, it's currently. Okay. All right. Anything else you'd like to add?

No.

Okay. We'll make a decision at the end. Thank you. Any other comments on this item? Any other concerns? All right, last call before I close the public hearing and the City Council makes a decision. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Online. Do I have any hands raised?

No, we do not.

Thank you very much. You have to keep reminding me of that. All right, so we're going to close the public hearing at this time, and as the City Council has done in the past and will always do, is we'll talk about these items and ask questions, and then we'll make a final decision at the end, starting with the property on 65974 Estrella that was for a chipper, I'm assuming sitting in the yard or the street area. Is that the reason for the fine?

Yes, Mayor Matters. So the case was opened in August of 2025. Officer Towner observed construction equipment being stored in the front landscape area. A notice of violation was issued to the property owner. After several reinspections and no visible signs of improvement, several administrative citations were issued. In October of 2025, Officer Towner made direct contact with the property owner who requested additional time to remove the equipment due to its size and the difficulty of relocating it. A 30-day extension was granted. However, the follow-up after the 30-day extension confirmed that no progress had been made. An inspection was conducted in February of 2026, confirmed that the construction machinery had been removed from the property. There is a total of $800 owed in citations, but $300 is proposed to be assessed.

But it's currently been, they've cleared the- Yes, the case is closed now. Thank you. 13-695 Kiyokuyamaka. I didn't understand what the fine was for. Could you enlighten us?

Yes, for 13695 Cuyamaca Drive, the case was opened in June of 2025 after receiving a complaint regarding overgrown weeds, possible farm animals, and concerns about rodents. The inspections confirmed multiple property maintenance violations, including junk and stored items, broken and unpermitted fencing, weeds, and general blight. A notice was sent to the property owner. Staff later met with the property owner to discuss the required corrections. The fencing and the outside violations had been cleared and the case was closed.

Okay.

So it has been adhered to with a $300 fine? Correct. Let's jump down to 66394 Granada.

Yes, 66394 Granada. The case is now complete. The case was opened for the presence of trash, junk, debris, household items, dead vegetation, and other combustible materials throughout the property, along with overgrown palm trees and the absence of a city business license for the rental property. City records reflect that Officer Brock maintained ongoing communication with the property owner regarding these violations and granted five extensions to allow time for corrective action. Despite these efforts, the violations remained on the property during each follow-up inspection. Due to the prolonged duration of this case, the repeated extensions provided, and the continued failure to bring the property into compliance, three outstanding administrative citations totaling $2,700 were issued.

Is that what's due now, $2,700, not $1,500?

$2,700.

Okay. Has it been cleaned up by... Has the violations been cleaned up?

The violations have been cleaned up. The officer did close it based on the significant corrective actions that had been completed.

Thank you. 66-595 Pearson.

66595 Pearson, Officer Brock initiated enforcement action after observing significant trash and debris, dilapidated building conditions, broken windows, improper boarding, visible storage of vehicles, and indications that portions of the property were being occupied despite the property being registered as a vacant building. Multiple notices of violation and administrative citations were issued over the course of the case to the property owner. The owner has made partial progress in addressing some of the nuisance conditions. However, significant compliance remains, including unpainted and nonconforming window boarding, broken windows, visible storage of vehicles and miscellaneous items in the interior courtyard and continued indications of unauthorized occupancy or activity on the property.

13-405 Ocotillo. Can you tell us how much are the fines on that one?

$2,500.

And what are the violations?

The violations are constructed of mixed and non-compliant materials of a dilapidated fence, including wood, chain link, plywood, and makeshift sections. So the fence is dilapidated and it's pieced together with different parts, different materials.

Has any progress been made on bringing it into compliance?

So the property owner that came, he no longer owns the property. It was sold. So the new property has gained a new owner, and they signed a buyer's agreement to get the corrective actions done. And as of recent, the new owner submitted a building permit application to construct a new rear block wall. As of today, the permit application is progressing through the process review. So $2,500 was proposed to be assessed, but the new property owner has paid those fines.

So is there any action on this property at this time? So it's not even going to be leant?

It will not be assessed, no.

Okay. So then 13-405, there's no action to be taken. There is no assessment on that property at this time. 12-380 Palm Drive.

So this case has $1,600 owed. Eight extensions were granted. The case involves an unpermitted conversion of a commercial building into residential apartments. In August of 2024, the city determined that the building contained multiple life safety violations, including unpermitted electrical, plumbing, and fire protection work. Red tag was placed on the property, making it unsafe for occupancy. The owner was ordered to relocate the tenants and obtain the necessary permits to either restore the building to its original condition or to legally convert it to residential. Since then, the owner has remained in communication with the city and has been working through the permit process. Multiple inspections have confirmed the building remains vacant and secured, and the city has granted several extensions while plans were revised and reviewed. The case remains open pending approval for the required permits and completion of all corrections.

Thank you very much. Um, before I open up city council, just what we've done in the past, obviously on some of these, we waived the fees. Others, we give extensions to my recommendation to the city council is to waive the fees on six, six, three, nine, four Granada waived the fees on 13, six, nine, five. We have Mucca waived the fees on six, five, nine, seven, four Estrella, a grant, 180 day extension on 12, three, eight, 80 Palm drive and 6, 6, 5, 9, 5 Pearson, 180 days on those properties at the city council joins me in this discussion would allow this to be placed on next year's tax roll. If you don't adhere to the, the corrections that need to be made. Is there any discussion or recommendations? There's a motion a second. Is there any other discussion on this? Please vote. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want to add something? Yes.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't be possible. We can't add something from this fiscal year to next year's property tax assessment. So what we've done in previous years is we have granted an extension until the last day that we can add these current fiscal year's assessments to the property rules, and that's August. August 10th August 10th is what we typically do give them that opportunity to be compliant by that day and then at that time we would bring that back to you and if they're compliant we would remove them from the pending assessment if they're not they would go on to the pending assessment or we could do this we could waive the fees today and then give them 180 days to comply within 180 days if multiple checks will be made in 180 days you'll open a new case and it'll start over

essentially the case will remain open the the citations will remain outstanding in the system they just will not be able to be assessed okay all right then we'll go with that so my recommendation on six six nine five five nine five pearson and twelve three eighty is to uh how'd you wear that the the case will stay open but we can't assess the fees correct that means we're giving you another chance on those two properties those two properties and if you do not adhere to that eventually a code case will continue to rack up and you'll be back here in another year or so here with the same issue so please comply and please work with our staff there's a motion a second please vote oh sorry

Motion passes unanimously.

And anyone in those properties that want clarification, the deputy city manager will meet you in the back. Sir, you can talk with the deputy city manager. All right, we're gonna move on to item number six. This is the extension of an urgency interim ordinance of the City Council of the City of Desert Hot Springs adopting a moratorium on the issuance of any licenses, permits, or entitlements for the establishment of data centers or other similar high intensity computing uses within the City of Desert Hot Springs. How many are here to speak on this item? Just a quick raise of your hand. if you're just going to say something to this item. I want to be fair to everybody, give everybody enough time. Right now I have item number six. I have one, two, three comments. Mr. Hedrick, Mr. Dickman, Ms. Davies, Mr. Beverly, and Brian, 1990. Anyone else going to speak on this item? All right, we'll allow three minutes for the public speakers. I'm gonna first open it up to our staff report. Ms. Murata, he's not here today. Mr. Vu is here today, so. Oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Wells is gonna be given the report. Go ahead.

All right, thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council residents. At the June 16th, 2026 meeting, the City Council adopted a 45-day urgency ordinance establishing a temporary moratorium on new data centers and other similar high-intensity computing uses. At that time, the Council also directed staff to return with an ordinance extending that moratorium for an additional 22 months and 15 days. And the item before you this evening is that proposed extension. As discussed previously, while the City's Municipal Code includes a definition for data centers, currently the General Plan and zoning regulations do not comprehensively address the unique operational and infrastructure impacts that these facilities can have on the community. Data centers can generate significant electrical demand, require extensive utility infrastructure, cooling systems, backup power generation, and may create concerns related to land use compatibility, public safety, environmental impacts, water consumption, and infrastructure capacity. Because the City does not yet have a regulatory framework specifically addressing these uses, the proposed extension of the moratorium would allow more time for the Council and staff to evaluate and develop comprehensive regulations. If adopted, the extension would continue the city's current temporary prohibition on accepting, processing, or approving permits or other entitlements for new data centers and similar high-intensity computing uses while this work is completed. Adoption of the urgency ordinance does require a four-fifths vote of the city council and includes the required findings that the ordinance is necessary to address a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety, and welfare. Staff recommends that the council adopt the proposed urgency ordinance extending the temporary moratorium for an additional 22 months and 15 days. I do want to note that in the ordinance itself, although almost all throughout the ordinance it does reference the 22 months and 15 days, there is one whereas that references six months. so if this adoption does occur i would ask that the council also approve for staff to take that one whereas and make sure that the six months is aligned to the 22 months and 15 days that concludes my staff report we're happy to answer any questions do we have any specific questions for staff before i open the public hearing all right we're going to start with the public hearing open the public hearing we'll take testimony in favor opposed or neutral position you can

State your position if you choose, you don't have to. Mr. Hedrick.

Good evening, thank you again. I do support the temporary moratorium, but that is not enough. It's only a pause, and the residents were very clearly at the last planning commission and the last council meeting asking for a ban. We want to take data centers off the table for good. They do not work and are not compatible with our desert environment. Your own staff report itself calls out the need for extraordinary electrical demand, substantial cooling systems, water and wastewater capacity. Around the clock, more than a million gallons of water a day in a city that hits 110 degrees on the regular, that is just not sustainable. And this valley is already moving past pauses. Coachella terminated its data center deal on June 4 and directed staff to draft a permanent ban. Monterey Park has put a ban on the ballot for their citizens to decide. Look at all these deals actually delivered because this city's already run this play. They approved an Amazon for a fulfillment center with 3.4 million square feet that was supposed to bring in millions of dollars of tax revenue. And what got built was a much smaller pass-through shipping warehouse under 650 square feet with a minimal tax base. We booked maybe four or $500,000 in fees at the construction. The city itself conceded that those are tiny, tiny fractions of the property tax rolls in Arc City. And data centers deliver even less. Nationally, about 157 permanent jobs on average. One $136 million data center in Ohio produced 10 jobs. A Microsoft took $38 million in tax breaks for 20 jobs. Now the accounting. Tonight's items are five and six figures, and there's already been inconsistencies with those. Think of a seven, eight, or nine-figure project and the city's fingerprints on it. Reflection Park went 14% over on consent with no discussion. 14% on a $100 million data center is $14 million. The same machinery, just more zeros. This is exactly why this decision should not sit with a staff report and a vote tonight. We need a permanent ban on data centers, and if this council will not approve that, we wanna ask them to put it on the ballot. If it's no longer tenable for November, then put it on the ballot in March. The residents have spoken. They want the city to reflect their desires and their public servants to reflect those as well. Please put a permanent ban on the ballot. Thank you.

Mr. Dickman.

Give my timer going. Good evening. My name is Jeff Dickman. I'm a resident of the City of Desert Hot Springs. Last month, the mayor pushed back on a speaker who called us desperate hot springs. He was right to push back. We are not a wealthy city. We are not a desperate one either. We have options, real proven paths to growth, new housing, thoughtfully planned mixed-use communities, business centers, resort destinations. These are the building blocks of a city with a future. Data centers are not part of that picture. They don't integrate any of the kind of land uses that have actually built the city's character. So let's say it plainly, DHS is not desperate hot springs. We don't need to grab the first deal that walks through the door. When you invite an outsized business into a small city, you don't just get a tenant, you get a permanent shift in power, in this council, in our politics, and who the city answers to. Data centers are the clearest expression of raw corporate scale. They arrive marketed as a neighbor, but they operate with the leverage of a giant. A memorandum isn't obstruction, it is breathing room. It protects our civic balance while we decide on our own terms if and how we want to engage. Here's the test I'd ask the city to apply. What does this city need and does a data center provide it? We need parks, open space, housing, jobs that support families. Data centers offer none of that. They're economic islands which the community has to build around. They have high water demands, high power demands, minimal local employment, zero contribution to daily neighborhood life. If it doesn't improve our streets, our schools, our families, it's not solving any problems. There's no prize for being the first city in this position to consider a data center application. Let another city, one with less to lose and less vision for its future, be the test case. Let them absorb the growing pains, the legal challenges, the unknowns. We can afford to be patient. Patience here is a strategy, not a weakness. For all these reasons, I am asking the City Council to extend the moratorium for full two years, and if you are willing to go further, I'd ask that you consider extending it far beyond that to give this city lasting protection from a use that doesn't reflect who we are or where we're headed. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Davies?

Hello again. To ensure use of my time, I'm going to read. My name is Tabitha. I'm a Sky Valley resident and your choices impact me as well. You have a moratorium in front of you and I'm asking you to make it permanent, not extended. And I want to talk about why temporary doesn't work. I'm going to use an example from down the road. Look at Coachella. A company called Stronghold told the public that they were building a technology center. That's what went on the city's materials. On May 11th, their attorney said on the record in front of residents, it's a data center, not a technology campus. They also communicated that in very clear language to the Coachella Valley Water District in early 2025, but lied to the public. This is the playbook in action. And I'm not telling you this because it's Coachella's problem. I'm telling you because it's a preview of what a vague ordinance invites. I'm also going to mention that they were using a closed loop system at 6,000 acre feet per year of water. So that's 50 times, I believe, the water supply assessment trigger in California. And speaking of, you've already approved a warehouse project without one. So not quite sure why, since we also know that Mission Springs Water District knows how to do them. But they chose not to. So when we look at how a moratorium expiring or temporary one becomes the rule and the permanent framework, if we don't do it right, developers aren't going to meet you halfway. They're going to rename the project, redefine the use, and find a door that was left open. Then they're going to drive a truck through it. That is why specificity matters, and I don't have to say that to your attorney because they know why. It matters more than intent. A ban says that no data center, hyperscale, or at home is only as strong as its definitions. Define the use by function, not by the name, and have an improper enforcement body on it because if you can't enforce it, there's no reason to have it. Close the loophole where a logistics or warehouse permit gets quietly repurposed and the city ends up unable to do anything. Require actual enforcement mechanisms, not just the prohibition on paper. If you do that, it's just a suggestion. And require water numbers up front, not promises, but numbers. We've already seen what happens without them just a few miles from here. Desert Hot Springs has a real chance to get ahead of this instead of cleaning up after it. And extension just moves the deadline. It doesn't change the incentive for a developer to come back with a new name in the same project, make it permanent, make it specific, make it enforceable. That's what protects this city, not a clock that resets every time it's convenient for somebody else. And I'm also going to say thank you so much for the amazing accessibility that you made for tonight's meeting. Everybody in the city should be patting themselves on the back for that because there are people that I already know that are on this meeting that would not have been able to attend otherwise. Thank you.

Next speaker. Next speaker. Anyone else in the audience? Yes, sir.

Go ahead, as soon as you start talking, the timer will turn. Hello, my name is Caden Cross. I'm a resident of Desert Hot Springs. For a year and a half, I was on the Public Safety Commission. And I've worked in IT for all of my adult life. And data centers, generally, they target communities with limited political power, communities that are poorer. And Coachella showed that this was a miscalculation. And I think that that would necessitate passing this moratorium. Generally, data centers, they create limited economic prospects. If they're designed well, they should run autonomously, creating limited jobs. And they're energy hogs, right? So in Virginia's data alley, the area in the country with the most data centers. Residents have seen electric bills go up 25% in the past two years. And as AI advances, energy consumption has gone up. It has not gone down. It's only ballooned. And all of us know how bad our electric bills can get in the summer. What you may not know is there's also a 7% flat utility tax. So on every electric bill, every $500 electric bill, that's an additional $30 tax that goes to the city. And so if a data center were built, it would exacerbate already high electric bills and the city's already regressive tax system. So in conclusion, this boils down to whether city officials whether they prioritize residents or warehouse-sized computer facilities with limited prospects and speculative economic gain. I would support a permanent moratorium, but I would also say let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. And that's all from me. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.

Next speaker. Anyone else in the audience want to speak to this item? All right. Yes, sir. Can someone assist with the mic?

It should lean down far enough. Thank you, sir. Hello, my name is Ezekiel Felix and, um, I would like to, um, I'm sorry. I just speak on three things that I, uh, spoke on last time that we were here and it's doesn't benefit any of us whatsoever. Like they said, the energy spike is one thing that I don't think any of us here can afford. Um, the second thing is, uh, the water consumption. I haven't heard anybody speak of that. I have been watching a lot of videos. I hope that you guys have been watching videos as well as what's been happening in Texas, as well as I believe it was Arizona where they have the most data centers. And there is videos that you guys can check online if you guys want. Um, it's even been, uh, brought up to Congress as well. Um, there's people that show jars of water that the water doesn't even look appetizing. I don't think even to shower for anything. um so those are like two main things that i think would really affect us as a small community and it would be hard to try to um if the data centers were to implement themselves here it would be hard to try to redirect the city so all of these things don't happen as we have seen due to the other um states and stuff so i think that is something that doesn't benefit any of us and as well as the taxes going up so i think it's just um something that isn't like shouldn't even be up for discussion honestly Thank you, sir.

Anyone else in the audience wants to speak on this item? All right. Final call before I go virtual? All right. On virtual, do we have any public speakers?

Yes. Walker Beverly.

Mr. Beverly, can you hear us? Just unmuted. Everybody can hear me? We can hear you. Go ahead. I think I'm the first one doing this. Hi, Mayor and City Council. Walker Beverly here, a resident of Desert Hot Springs, going on 19 years. Unbelievable. I'm just in favor of the moratorium for the data center. I agree with the earlier gentleman saying, let's be patient because technology moves so fast. We can remember when our cell phones were huge. We had to break phones. We can remember when our TVs were huge. We can remember when our stereos, we had big stereos. These things are going to trim down so much in the next few years. And let's think about that. Also, we're a city with a median income of a little over $32,000. We can't afford our bills to be raised by Edison or even cut off like the Tahoe did, going to lose their electric company. We can't get dirty water like a county in Georgia. Let's just be smart about this. Take our time and do our research and make sure this thing doesn't come in. This is a big grab coming into a small town. Let's not do it. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Anyone else?

Virtual?

Brian had his hand raised, so I'll go ahead and allow him to speak and see if he wants to speak.

Brian, can you hear us? It's our first time doing this, so give us a break here. Give it a shot. Brian, you're in the queue. Can you hear us? All right, we'll come back to him. We have another hand raised.

Yes, Michael Shadman.

Mr. Shadman.

Am I on mute?

There you go. We can hear you now.

Oh, sorry. Good evening, Council. Mr. Mayor, this is Michael Shadman. I own a business on Palm Drive. My office is there, but I live in Rancho Mirage. And I am an architect, engineer, and a developer. And so I am very sensitive, obviously, to a lot of the news that's been spread across the country on the water pollution, on the high consumption of electricity, and potential impact on rate hikes and so forth. But I think there are a lot more advantages, there are a lot more benefits to the community by looking at another industry. And by the way, I do quite a bit of work in Silicon Valley, and I'm currently working designing a data center in Silicon Valley. I think there is a lot of misconception on that water gets polluted and the amount of water goes up. This all can be regulated through the ordinance. There are various multiple systems that you can use the cooling throughout the system, both with water cool and air cool. And that's very common up here. And, you know, Silicon Valley does not have a lot of water. So there are a lot of new concepts and designs. I think there is greater benefit lays out there for the Desert Hot Springs to be one of the pioneer in the industry. I think we should. Yes, we should study it. We should understand it. We should look at the impact. We should look at the benefit. Yes, it doesn't create a lot of jobs, but all those construction jobs that's going to come in and the infrastructure that these companies would pay to bring in higher speed internet, I think this is all benefit to the community. And the other thing that we should really look at Edison over the past several years, they brought a lot of circuits to the area with the hope that cannabis industry will continue to grow. So for the fact that I was involved in several projects and I developed over over half a million square foot in Desert Hot Springs, in industrial cannabis, there is a lot of power that Edison already invested and brought the area. So I can't see that Edison will be increasing the rate just because the demand on power goes up. There's no shortage of power by any means.

Ladies and gentlemen, hold on, Mr. Shadman. You will give respect to any speaker in this room or you'll be asked to leave. We've respected your opinions. You'll respect all opinions while this meeting is going on in this public hearing. Thank you very much. First and final warning. Mr. Shadman, you can complete your thought. You have 30 seconds.

Thank you. So basically, I want to make sure that we understand this is another lucrative industry for the city. And we should really allow this study to go on and never put a ban on it until the complete study is done. And by regulation, again, we can control the number of data centers that come in. We can control the amount of water that gets used. There's so much that we can do within the regulation to control this industry, and we don't have to bring in the hyperscaler. We can bring in low to medium. We know the AI is going to be... Thank you, Mr. Shetland.

That's going to be your three minutes.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you. Do we have any of your hands raised?

No, that's everyone.

All right. We're going to close the public hearing this time, and we'll go to city council discussion. I will start with my cue. Go ahead, Mr. Vos.

I said quite a bit at the last meeting, and so I'm ready to make a motion that we move forward with item number six, amending the one whereas to from six months to the remaining 22 months.

I will second that, but I want to add just one quick comment, if I may. I want to echo a little bit what Ms. Davies said. You were right on. But we have to do this right. And I'm going to give you an example. This moratorium allows us two years to get this right, to do a ban. That's the program that the city would want to go down. The city of Imperial did a ban, and they're now under a lawsuit because they didn't do their ban correctly. I'm not going to expose this city to the opportunity for a developer to sue because we did not do a ban correctly. Let's take this two years to really make it effective. That's why I'm supporting this.

Mr. Pitts, any?

Sure, yeah. I also want to circle back again and say while we appreciate everyone's comments tonight, either online or here in person, obviously thank you again for expressing your views and concerns. But I also still support this proposed two-year pause on data centers and other high-density computing uses. It is not just about being against technology or economic development. It's about making sure we get it right before allowing a new land use that can have significant long-term impacts on our community.

I'm still against it, but I do believe that we do need to do the moratorium for two years. Some people talked about specificity. Yes, this is what we have to do. Investors are going to come out with new things, like they came out with... the small data centers on people's homes. And then they're going to come out with something else. In the resolution, there is stuff already there and I want to compliment staff on doing that because you made it clear as to what we need to do. And we need to put, not in the desert, not here, but we need to be specific. We need to stay ahead of the investors. I understand what Mr. Stratum said. And I'm going to leave that at that. But we need to be specific. We need to do it right. Ms. Duff and Gardner already did something regarding conservatorship in correcting stuff ahead of time, before data centers were even talked about saving our water. No, we don't want it, but we need to be ahead of the investors and do it right.

Thank you. I'm going to make some comments. I again don't believe this is an urgency and these are the reasons why. We don't have any applications here today. I don't mind putting a moratorium on this, but I don't think it qualifies for an urgency. What I would have liked to seen is someone to come forth and say, let's partner with our water district, our planning commission, and do a real study on this to prove what the individuals that mostly come out on these items are saying, because they're most likely right on a lot of this. I think when we talk about the residents of Desert Hot Springs, the last meeting we had 15, less than half were Desert Hot Springs residents. And tonight we've had seven, which I believe five were Desert Hot Springs residents. So yes, desert hot springs is speaking, but it's a small group. So should we do our deal diligence as the public aid or the public body here representing our community and really finding the data to prove that it would not be sustainable in our community. We spent a lot of time a few years back, putting together a general plan and really focusing on our industrial area and buffering that from communities, meaning residential communities. So we put a buffer on with the multi-species habitat plan, Interstate 10, Palm Drive and Indian, make sure that our residents weren't disturbed by the warehousing and logistics that will come in in the future. But there are other opportunities in the future, and what are those? Should they be data centers? Probably not. But we don't know what the study should be. I have a very good friend that I met with and talked with this, and He's adamant against data centers, but he, he agreed with me that this isn't the right process. We should not be making decisions and that is our job. And as one of the first things we learned when we're up here and after 19 and a half years on the city council, I've listened to this multiple times in the state of California. When we've gone to these workshops that we as public officials should take all the information that we receive and then do all the work before making a decision. And what we're doing is we're doing it backwards. We have not partnered with mission Springs water district to see the impacts it would have on our water. We have not partnered with DWA, the other water district that replenishes our water. We have not partnered with our planning commission to do the research that they should be doing and then making those decisions. We skipped all those processes because of a political advocacy that's been going on in the Coachella Valley, which again, it might be correct, but we are not Coachella. We did not approve anything. We did not be transparent on a warehouse that's coming in that's going to be a data center and call it something else. If anyone was to process today or try to change their specific plan or any of their development plans, they would have to go through CEQA, which again would be a great process for these data centers to go through because we would have the real facts from the studies that are done by independents that would show how big of an impact it had on our community. And then we would have the data in our hand. Detroit did something that a friend of mine over here sent me, and I really appreciate that. They put a moratorium. And they're doing a study and putting together ad hoc committees. So I would ask my council, I think 22 months is too long. I would love to see in 16 months to a year that we come back with a recommendation on the real facts on what data centers will do to our economy, what the data centers will do to our environment, and really have the impacts. Because this is what too many people in the state of California have done for so long in our legislature, to make decisions based on political needs and not do the real data. And you know, there's a lot of people out here with a lot of great information, and they might be right on all this. But I do think there is a lot of information. I know there's a lot of people who have used AI to find out this information. You can see it when they send me their comments via email, that they've processed this through AI. And AI has all kinds of opinions about data centers, sometimes positive, sometimes not positive. So again, it's a mixed bag. When we started taking the steps to bring cannabis to our community, we were one of the first cities in the state of California to do that. And some of the arguments were it's gonna use a lot of water, it's gonna use a lot of power, but the overwhelmingly need for, at that time, they were calling it medicine, was really a big issue. And we took a chance as a city to do that, knowing that the development would get more technology over time and allow for this to be used in a better way. And I believe it has. Um, there was a lot of different opinions on that. A lot more support for us doing that at that time. This is a little opposite of that, but what will it be like in two years when we do the full study or are we actually going to do this study? Because I think some people have made decisions, which they shouldn't have up here right now. They should have the information in front of them before they make a decision. So I know political pressure. I've been sitting here for 19 and a half years. It's I've had political pressure before. And sometimes it takes our common sense away from us when we're making these decisions. My suggestion would be to send this back to the Planning Commission, put a moratorium on it for six or 12 months, have them do the work because they're intelligent, have our staff work with them to find a mixed group of individuals from both sides of the aisle, and to be able to talk about these issues and put the facts, put the concerns down on paper, fact check them, have studies done, partner with our water districts, and really see the impacts. We have a good relationship with SCE. We could have them do the impacts. SCE was against us opening up cannabis when we were moving towards that because they thought that there was gonna be too much power and they didn't have the infrastructure. So there's all kinds of opinions out there based on what it is. I would love to hear the residents speak out on this, We are there yet. I don't want to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on an election to find out the vote because publicly we know how that would go. The individuals that would go out there and advocate against it most likely would put the information out there to get their way. So I know I'm the lone person up here for the most part thinking differently. I respect my colleagues for their opinions. I just think it's a little backwards. All right. Any other comments before we close the vote?

Your thoughts are well taken, Mr. Mayor, and I appreciate what you're suggesting we do with the Planning Commission and the process, and I don't see a reason why we can't do that on top of this, and I would suggest that we do that. I don't know if we need to have a resolution or something in the motion with that, or if we can just direct staff here to do it.

If the council chose to add that, it would just be direction to staff as part of the motion.

The friendly amendment to your motion, I'll go for the 22 months.

I'm not interested in doing a bunch of back and forth amendments and discussion on this. It's pretty simple.

Well, let me do this first. Because I'm making an amendment, I get the choice to ask for the amendment first before you cut me off. Thank you. So my amendment to your motion, if you guys would listen to it, would be to continue with the 22 months. and to add the direction to the Planning Commission to put together an ad hoc committee and a study on this with our agencies that would help bring the full light to it at the end of the moratorium. Do you accept the motion, the amendment?

I don't think it's necessary. OK, so you don't accept it, so it dies. I don't think it's necessary. I think that the whole purpose is to give it to staff. We add some direction to that through what our feedback is, and they're supposed to go through and vet this topic, research this topic, and go through this, which could include a subcommittee that wants to study this more. It could be a planning commission study. It could be a council one. It could be a community one, and these type of things. It's to have 22 months for them to be able to take this on and research it out. I don't see why we need to add anything in addition to this.

Any other comments? No.

We need to give direction to staff and I think we need to do that in a motion. Even if you're okay with that, I think we need to do it in a motion so we're directing staff and the audience knows what we're doing.

So in the current resolution, it doesn't give you any direction to do any work, right?

Correct. The current ordinance is just the extension of the moratorium for 22 months and 15 days with the correction to the whereas. So if there would be further direction on what staff is to do during that 22-month period. we could take that as part of the motion.

If not, it would just come back in 22 months. If we did our own research, we would make an argument to either make it a permit or not.

Right. It would go through the council member process for putting items on the agenda.

It's up to the council. If we just want to go with what it is today and leave it in 22 months, we'll revisit it.

I think. without actually having it formalized and memorialized in a motion, you and the citizens of Southern Hot Springs have heard the direction that we want to go with this. I'm going to hope that if the Grendley Amendment does not be adopted, that staff has heard that and will take that into consideration moving forward.

Any other comments?

Your mic's off. Your mic's off. I can't vote for it without giving direction to staff.

If this was voted down because we didn't get four-fifths of votes, the next item, could we have another motion made?

Yes, I believe we could have another motion made.

Okay. I just prefer to do, I prefer to do direction a little bit differently. I don't think we need to do it this way, but I mean, I don't have a problem with necessarily adding this. The assumption I had was, is this would go back to staff. They would review this. They would look at the resources they've got through the various department heads and over the course of the next, you know, year and a half or what have you, they would be, you know, analyzing this, researching this and coming back. I don't think this would be plopped, sit on a shelf and that we'd come back 22 months and say, what do you want to do? That's the thing. I mean, if we want to elementary it, and that's what I will call it, if we want to elementary this and say we need to tell you what to do, then okay, we can. Then we'll just go ahead and do that, and I'll go ahead and accept it. I don't think it's necessary, because I think our staff's very capable, but the key part is really is to get the 22-month additional moratorium part in here so we don't have to worry about that part of it, and then we can actually step back take a breather and truly analyze this thing analyze the future of it analyze the impacts analyze land use areas around her and what the potential impacts are including the negative impacts of ones there what would not be built after the fact that kind of thing too so that you know it's a bigger picture than all than just a simple send it back to a committee so i'll simplify the amendment then i'll leave it to staff to do a study based on how they they fit

They think it's needed. So you can use a planning commission. They can use staff time. They can use whatever they choose to just as long as a full study is done when brought back sometime over the next 22 months, which would probably take you 22 months to do all that. If they choose to work with the Water District or choose to work with Edison or whomever they choose with, we'll leave it up to them. Is that fair? Correct. I'll accept that. Friendly motion. Is the second accepted? clarification I apologize no clarification but can if that is the new motion can you also add the addition of the correction of the whereas please in the original motion plus the amendment perfect please vote motion passes unanimously the ordinance goes into effect immediately see you in 22 months All right, we're gonna take a 10 minute break. We'll come back at five minutes to eight. All right, if I can get the city council back to the dais. All right, we'll reopen the meeting. We're gonna go to our administrative calendar. Our first item is item number seven, Street School Safety Plan for Avenida Jalisco and Painted Hills Middle School and Bella Vista Elementary School. Mr. Porras? Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Members of the council, let me set up the PowerPoint real quick. This item is regarding the Street School Safety Plan for Avenida Jalisco. This project or this plan is based out of Avenida Jalisco, Mission Lakes Boulevard, West Drive, Sonora Drive, and the surrounding major arterials surrounding the schools of Painted Hills Middle School and Bella Vista Elementary School. They're shown here on the map. Some of the existing improvements around this location are some public improvements, but there are a lot of public improvements that are missing. There are paved roads, but there are missing some sidewalks. There are missing some curb and gutters. Some street signs are outdated. Some crosswalks are outdated. There are some speed humps that have been installed throughout the years. And in an effort to try to improve all of these improvements, there was a safety plan that was developed. So a little background over the past few years, the city and the Palm Springs Unified School District have been working on addressing safety concerns, mostly dealing with pedestrian and vehicle safety during the morning and afternoon school peak hours. During the morning and afternoon, there's vehicles that are either dropping off students, picking up students, and they are getting picked up and dropped off in various areas, which caused pedestrian vehicle conflicts during the major hours of school peak hours. So this safety plan was going to analyze the traffic data, the accident data, do a field analysis of existing infrastructure, some field observation on traffic and pedestrian patterns during peak hours and provide recommendations for future safety improvements. The safety plan is now complete. It did go through various iterations. We were reviewing various scenarios. Some of those were one-way streets. Others were completely closing down the street. Others were installing pedestrian crosswalks, doing speed humps. So there's a lot of different scenarios that we evaluated, and the safety recommendations here are where we are at today. In order to implement the safety recommendations, it was recommended to implement in two phases. Phase one would be our short-term immediate impact and phase two would be a long-term plan. The phase one short-term improvement plan is first would be to update the drop-off and pickup vehicle operations so we can further utilize the parking lots to shift queues out of the street as much as possible. This is for each individual school. As I explained earlier, Avenida Jalisco is used as almost the entire roadway as a drop-off area. This circulation plan tries to utilize the actual on-site parking lot, on-site circulation of each school to try to avoid and limit how much pedestrians are actually picked up and dropped off along Avenida Jalisco. This shows the dual use driveways, the in driveways and the out driveways. This is a circulation plan that can be implemented by the school with our assistance and one that will be presented to a school district where the existing infrastructure can already be utilized to try to help the vehicle circulation during peak hours. The second part of the phase one short-term improvements are installation of the following signs. There will be 25 mile per hour speed limit signs. There's two of them. There will be no parking signs. We do have parking or parked vehicles there. They're not supposed to be parking there. There's a total of 13 school crossing signs and four different types that either are new or will be replaced. The current signs are either outdated or are not enough, so there will be additional signs and replacement of existing signs. And there will be flashing beacons, a total of eight flashing beacons on the signs to remind the pedestrians and the vehicles that there are these signs in place. The estimated total for phase one is $68,570. This is just estimate based on the total number of signs. phase two long-term improvement plan provides infrastructure improvements where there will be new driving lanes a actual parking lane shifted on the north side and dedicated pedestrian pathways there will be six new high visibility crosswalks or be new pavement markings again with lane lines stop legends keep clear legends there's also proposed multi-use pedestrian trail and widening the sidewalk with new ADA curb ramps for accessibility, new curb and gutters, and new chicane, an all-way control stop sign at Jalisco and West, and a new light study for the lighting improvements during the early daylight savings time when it gets dark in the morning and in the evenings. The total of this is estimated at $2.7 million. This is, again, the initial engineer's estimate. We do not have design plans, but the next one will show some conceptuals. Again, the improvement plan is to have two driving lanes and one parking lane and then create a wide sidewalk and a multi-pathway or pedestrian multi-trail on one side of the road. This will be the cross section of the road. And this is the design of the improvement plan for phase two. As you can see this currently on the south side, there is no improvements. This would install a multi-use trail on the south side that could have a dual path. On the north side, it would widen the sidewalk, install signs on both sides. It would shift the center line south and have a parking lane that can be used for vehicles to actually park and utilize that, but not on the south side. These improvements will continue to the front of the school where we will have dedicated crosswalks, flashing beacons, and little chicane where vehicles will not be allowed to utilize that, and a dedicated crossing area for both schools. So the pedestrians and the vehicles know exactly where to cross, and we help avoid some of the crossing that currently exists. There will be keep clear for all these driveways to allow for vehicles to get in and out without being stuck inside of the actual schools or not being able to enter those driveways. And then as you move further along, it continues the improvements all the way to West Drive where again a parking lane, a new and widened sidewalk and a multi-use trail can be used to get to the West Drive and Jalisco intersection where additional signs, high visibility crosswalks will also be installed and ADA ramps. A additional improvement that was recommended would be some type of crossing at Mission Lakes and Sonora. Currently there is no improvements on the south side, but there is a residential neighborhood that has been planned there. Although there are no improvements at this time, in the future this needs to be evaluated to utilize that crosswalk because that residential neighborhood will be required to access those schools as well. Some improvements to the west and mission lakes would be high visibility crosswalks and more ADA ramps around the four corners of that intersection. The fiscal impact phase one of the safety plan is estimated to cost $68,570. The city can utilize measure A funds from fiscal year 26-27 for these expenses. Phase two of the safety plans, we don't have any expense at this time. We will need to first complete the engineering design that could be presented at a future city council meeting. And the recommendation is to adopt the street school safety plan for Avenida Jalisco, which is actually the entire safety plan and all the calculations and all diagrams are shown as an exhibit on your staff report. And two, to authorize staff to implement phase one of the safety plan now and explore how to secure funding sources for the implementation of phase two for the future. That concludes my staff report and I'm glad to answer any questions.

um can we do public comments first or you want to okay i'm going to do public comments first this stuff i'm just going to let you speak first this stuff's been a huge advocate for this project uh probably moved it more than i've moved it in two years so please press the button it goes off thanks

Sorry about that. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm Amber Duff, and I'm speaking to you tonight as a resident and as a mother of a scholar attending Bella Vista Elementary School. First, I want to thank our city manager and our city assistant manager and all of the staff and the consultants who identified the safety challenges facing students, teachers, parents, and residents in this particular area. The report confirms what many of us families have been witnessing and experiencing for years. Unsafe mid-block crossings, vehicle congestion, frequent U-turns, speeding concerns, limited pedestrian infrastructure, and the recommended improvements are representative of thoughtful and comprehensive approaches to addressing these issues. However, I want to urge City Council not to allow Phase 2 to become an indefinite future project. Our students and teachers have already waited 14 years. We have a security guard that is a crossing guard that signs a waiver of his safety for the school district to go on the street and ensure safe crossing every day. The long-term improvements are not optional. They are the core safety investments that will permanently address many of the issues identified in this study. Tonight's recommendation authorizes staff to explore funding resources for phase two, and I respectfully ask that council go further and make funding for phase two an immediate priority. The report itself identifies several potential grants and other regional and state transportation resources. I myself was told by Dr. Funches that he was willing to throw in some school district funds or flashing stop signs and et cetera. So I think that we have partners there that we could probably get joint grants with as well. School starts August 5th, and every school day that passes is another day that hundreds of students and families navigate these conditions that the study has already determined are in need of safety improvements. Some of you may not know, but Bella Vista is the largest elementary school in the entire Palm Springs Unified School District. It has over 800 students just at that elementary school, and not half of them bus, which means there's more than 400 parents just at that elementary school twice a day. That is not counting the middle school, and it is not counting all of our kids that live north of Mission Lakes that need to go to the high school and cross at West. I strongly support the adoption of the school safety plan and I again thank all of staff's hard work and council's participation in this process and I respectfully request a clear commitment from council that phase two funding will be actively pursued and prioritized without any unnecessary delay. Thank you all.

Thank you. Anyone else want to speak on this item?

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry. We have a film going on in town. I've been up since 3.30. My son goes to Belle Vista Elementary. He just graduated. But it is a mess every day. But they're doing a pretty good job because you go in and pick up your kid. I've almost been hit three or four times dropping off my child at school. Okay. People get in a hurry. They want to get their kids to school and they want to get to their jobs. They get in too much of a hurry. So some of those plans are great. I look at them, but how are we going to get people in and out quickly, especially in the morning? In the afternoon, there's a crossing guard and he directs traffic. You go in and you drive through and you drop off your child and then they get people out quick in the afternoon. In the morning, they don't. It's not safe, but there's also an ice cream truck there, and all the kids love to go to the ice cream truck, and it's parked there. They're trying. Maybe some of these things will work, maybe some of them won't, because people got to get in and out and get to work in the morning. They all have jobs, most of them. I like the fact that you're actually looking at it and because Jan Pye and I talked about it several times and thank you very much for doing it and keeping the children safe. But I won't let my child walk to school for fear he'll get hit by a car because everybody's crazy out there these days trying to get to work. Maybe if we put a camera out there and send them tickets, maybe they'll finally slow down because of the stop signs and different things. They don't really seem to work, all the signs and everything. But guess what? If you hit somebody with a traffic violation, that's going to work. They're going to say, whoa, I just got charged $100, and I don't want to pay $100 for speeding and keeping children in danger. All it takes is one bouncing ball and a kid walks off that's the the sidewalk there gets hit it's all over none of us want to see that right anyway thanks for looking at it and addressing it i appreciate it thank you anyone else in the audience want to speak to this item all right anyone online want to speak to this item we don't have anyone all right thank you all right so we're going to move to council member comments

thanks uh mr porras one quick question um on the map that you were showing the uh the routes across school property um we don't control that that's something that the school does now are they okay with the changes with this that have that looping all over the place on their property i mean or if we implement these and they say nope nope we're not going to let you do that

Yeah, so we want to control those specifically. Their property, we will meet with them and explain to them the routes that should be used and can be used. We've done some various ones for the high school. We try one, we change it, we've done it. So this is just one, the first one to say this might work, this could be a solution, but it's obviously not the end. But we haven't met with the school district yet on that?

We actually have. So we have met with them. They have seen this study and they have actually given their, well, the superintendent has reviewed it and the assistant superintendent and neither one of them had comments or changes. So while the board itself has not formally adopted it, we have been working very collaboratively with staff there. And to Ms. Duff's point, the superintendent The superintendent did actually mention several times that he would like to collaborate with the city on some funding assistance to assist with phase one and then longer term for phase two.

Thank you for that, and I appreciate it. It's been a long time coming. My only concern was that we were imposing on the school district a route that they may not like on their property, but if they're cool with it, we're cool with it.

Yeah, I just want to say Dr. Funches has been at the table. He's been working with us. He's been a great superintendent. We've had these conversations with multiple superintendents and never got a commitment of partnership. And it is a funding issue to a certain extent, but I like the phasing issue. I would request that we add another phase to it or add to phase two. Sonora and Mission Lakes needs a four-way stop. Ms. Duff and I live in the same area and we drive the same road which is sonora it's terrible in the morning and it becomes two or three lanes in a one-lane road people trying to merge and get across and make right-hand turns and then people trying to make left-hand turns can't see and that road obviously tapers in and so it's unsafe So I think we should study the fully. I mean, we know the bigger plan is that Sonora needs to be connected with Desert Eagle or Eagle Way. at the high school so that the traffic from our schools could really cycle correctly and then west and mission lakes you know we should really not talk about thinking about it we should do it we should add better crosswalks to that area too because a lot of kids cross over from the south side of west to the north side of west when walking to school there are a few that still do walk but Man, when the school districts changed their policies 10, 15 years ago, The elementary school, I think you have to live over two miles away before you can get bused. And with five elementary schools, it causes over half of them to find a way to school, and they're getting into cars. And so it becomes really hectic. And when I don't plan my day right and leave too late or come home too early, it's not easy getting home. So I've seen a lot of near misses. We've been having a lot of reported near misses. I also have two more suggestions. speed hump signs are way too small the paint fades over time and for those of us that live in that area we know the speed humps are but you watch people all the time hit those speed humps going 30 miles an hour and they don't realize they're there they're way small the four-way stop at Sonora Mission Lakes I think is really important and I wrote down, oh, no, I already talked about that. So I will support this plan with an effort that we work with the school district on phase two, see what funding they have, and then try to get match funding through whatever state's Safe Routes to School. It's not called Safe Routes to School anymore. It's SB 826 or something. It's one of the SBs. But if we start now, By the time Ms. Duff's child's going to high school, maybe we can have this done. I know, I don't want it either, but the way that funding happens through the state, you know this. Sometimes, I mean, maybe we'll be lucky and be able to find some real funding. But $2 million is not a lot of money, respectively, so let's see what we can do. That'd be my recommendation. Yes, sir.

So I would concur with you, Mr. Mayor. You know, I take that route to Five Star Gym all the time. And, you know, there are a lot of residents in that area, and I agree with the stop sign at the Sonora. in there because people start getting up and going and the next one isn't until west and I see a lot of parents coming and going through west through that area and I've actually jokingly but not jokingly have said hello Mr. Stop sign and I've watched the car just kind of come right past me as I'm At the stop sign, you know, and they buzz through it because there's just going there's not that interim Slowdown period once they get past Little Morongo and start taking off there and so I could see where maybe like a solar Because at nighttime, it's pretty dark there. So one of those stop signs that's got like a little solar thing on it That's got the red stuff around it, you know, I would recommend for that specific intersection

I just want to say the superintendent yes well first of all what you asked is not forever it will not be forever and the superintendent is very good he asked me a question and I told him you need to talk to Dora and from there the mayor and Dora have been working with them and he's serious very serious

the and i want to recognize the principals too have done a fantastic job on trying to put plans together to circulate traffic they've changed that circulation plan multiple times multiple principal well lisa has been the principal at bellevista forever but um the multiple principals at the middle school have all had these same concerns and they've tried they never built those schools in a way that ingress and egress would be done properly for the growth that it was meant for so my motion would be to approve this item As presented with the additions to the speed hump signs being larger, a study to put a four-way stop at Sonora and Mission Lakes and to fully crosswalk the west and Mission Lakes area correctly as a school zone. and to bring back a report on this in six months with maybe some movement or at least a report that we've tried and seek some funding for phase two. Second. Oh, I guess I should move it. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right, thanks for hanging with us. For those of you who came out for that item, now we're going to move to item number eight, which is a Desert Hot Springs Police Department staffing analysis and recommendations. Chief Shaw.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, community. Tonight we're going to talk about Desert Hot Springs Police Department staffing analysts and recommendations. So Desert Hot Springs Police Department is operated at a budgeted sworn staffing level of 33 officers for over 20 years. This figure represents all sworn positions from the chief to the newest patrol officer. The department staffing level has not kept pace with the city's growth and complexity, resulting in increased patrol time, investigative limitations, high overtime expenditures and a negative effect on morale and officer wellness. So in 2025, I requested the commission on police officers, peace officer standards and training post to conduct an independent organizational review of the desert hot Springs police department. Uh, the post study analyzed, uh, several things, which included organizational structure, staffing levels, workload data, operational needs, and community expectations. The POST management study did identify several gaps and gave several recommendations to the police department. The POST study most significantly focused on understaffing, shift coverage gaps, high overtime costs, and community expectations. So POST provided the following recommendations. To fill two lieutenant positions that were being created, to fill a void within the department's administration. Those two positions were filled with internal promotions in February of this year. POST recommended filling vacant task force officer positions. We currently have four task force that we would like to participate on. We have filled one of those task force positions with the PAC team, which is the POST Release Accountability and Compliance team, and that was filled in February of this year also. Post recommended filling the open deputy chief position. This is currently ongoing with the department. And then post recommends addressing a 12% sworn vacancy rate. Through extensive recruiting over the last year, we have reduced that to a 1% vacancy rate, and that's the deputy chief position that we currently have. And then post recommends providing shift overlaps, and this is currently ongoing. So when you look at police staffing and what the appropriate staffing level should be, traditional staffing models used for law enforcement staffing are based entirely on population. So the national average using this method is 2.4 sworn officers per 1,000 residents, with the western United States cities averaging 1.6 sworn officers per 1,000 residents. And this has traditionally been the staffing model that's been used by police agencies. And while this method is efficient, it does not take into the complexities that are unique to each city. So POST applied the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services staffing methodology to calculate Desert Hot Springs Police Department's minimum sworn staffing requirement. This model uses the shift relief factor and net annual work hours to determine how many officers are needed to staff a position during a shift and the number of officers are available to work per year. SRF and NAWA provide a more in-depth analyst of sworn officer staffing customized for individual cities. So that method takes the actual number of hours officers are available to work every year. They look at vacation time and training time that takes officers out of their normal work and then calls for service and the average of calls for service that officers have to attend to. So post concluded that the Desert Hot Springs Police Department requires a minimum of 37 sworn officers simply to meet the current call volume. This post recommendation of 37 sworn officers does not account for department administration, task force officer positions, school resource officer, or expanding the department's community response team, traffic division, or detective bureau. Post recommendations included the following. Sworn staffing of 37 officers, not including those positions I just identified. Patrol staffing should consist of 70 to 80% of sworn allocations. Currently we are at 52% of sworn allocations for patrol. Patrol staffing of four officers and a sergeant per squad. We're currently at three officers and a sergeant. POST recommends a mid-shift overlap officer with each shift. Currently we do not have any mid-shift overlapped officers. Post recommends filling the task force officer's positions. As mentioned, we currently have one filled and three unfilled. And then post recommends expanding the traffic division. Currently we do not have anybody permanently assigned to our traffic division. So on the slide in front of you, on the left side is our current staffing and where those assignments are placed. And then the right side is the proposed staffing with 45 officers. So the department's current sworn staffing budget is 33 sworn officers with approval to overhire additional three officers, which we got last fiscal year and we have completed. Department staffing is currently 34 officers, two currently in the police academy. Based upon post recommendations and department priorities, I recommend increasing the department sworn staff to 45 sworn officers. Department sworn staffing of 45 officers includes those positions not accounted for by post, fills patrol and patrol mid-shift positions, fills task force officer positions, fills the traffic division positions, and increases our community response team. Now going up to 45 officers, it is recognized that increasing and funding department sworn staff to 45 is not an overnight process. Working with the city manager and administrative service director and within the confines of the current budget and future budget, our priority will be to add two sworn officer positions each fiscal year over the next five years to achieve the staffing matrix of 45 sworn officers. With the current positions already added and adding these additional positions, we have seen a reduction of overtime costs and will continue to reduce department overtime expenses, which will help with the funding of those permanent positions. And once the established staffing level of 45 sworn officers is achieved at five years, it is further recommended that the following policy be considered to ensure the department's able to keep pace with anticipated population and business growth. The recommendation is annually review increases in the public safety parcel tax. Starting with the anticipated fiscal year 33-34, every $500,000 increment increase in revenues from the public safety parcel tax would trigger the hiring of an additional sworn officer position or police operations position to be determined by the chief of police. So giving you all that, the department will work within the confines of the current budget and future budgets. Specific fiscal impact will be presented to the city council by staff through regular budget presentations. This initiative supports the goal four, public safety, staffing, and community policing of our city's strategic alignment. the recommendation tonight is to approve and direct staff to draft a resolution that does two things one establishes current department desert hot springs police department sworn staffing level at 45 sworn officers to be achieved via the hiring of two sworn officers each year over the next five years the second recommendation is once the staffing level of 45 sworn officers is achieved establish a process we're starting with The anticipated fiscal year 33-34, every $500,000 increment increase in revenues from the public safety parcel tax would trigger the hiring of an additional sworn officer position or police operations position to be determined by the chief of police. If approved, staff would bring forward a resolution to the city council in the fall for review. And that completes my report. Happy to answer any questions.

Great report. Thank you, sir. Is there any public comments on this item? Anybody like to come forth and make any public comments, in-house public comments? Yes, sir.

Let me just turn it off. Good evening, Mayor, council members, city staff, and Chief Shaw. My name is Jose Santos. I'm a property owner here in Desert Hot Springs in District 3. And I also serve as the president for the Coachella Valley First Responders Coalition, the president for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 951. I'm also the president for the Riverside Sheriffs Association. I'm here today to speak in strong support of this much-needed public safety staffing ordinance and the direction to move forward with the formal resolution. First, I want to applaud Chief Shaw, the city leadership, and city council for taking a responsible, data-driven approach to public safety. This proposal is not based on politics or emotions. It's based on a post-staffing analysis, operational needs, call volume, shift coverage, overtime concerns, and the reality facing the Desert Hot Springs Police Department. For more than 20 years, again, as Chief Shaw mentioned, the department has operated with a budget sworn staffing levels of 33 officers. During that same time, the city has grown. Calls for service have increased. Community expectations have changed. and demands placed on law enforcement have become far more complex. The staffing levels have simply not kept pace with the needs of this community. The post analysis makes clear that the department needs a minimum of at least 37, with the intention of eventually going up to 45 to fill those other task force positions. One that I was also a task force officer assigned for the Desert Hot Springs because they didn't have a officer assigned particular to the team of Git within the last three to four years. This plan strengthens patrol staffing, improves shifts coverage, support traffic enforcement, specifically as mentioned regarding the previous agenda item with the school as we talked about, the congestion on that road, the children's safety. I also appreciate this ordinance creates accountability for future public safety revenues and allows for the continual growth for the community and the much needed service that this community needs. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Any other comments on this item? In-house? All right, we'll go to virtual. Any comments virtually? I'm excited about this. So I'm gonna go with my comments first. I know there's other council members probably want to make comments on this But this is something that 18 years ago. I was placed on an ad hoc committee by the mayor at that time It was a study it was called a proly ad hoc committee because we were talking about having a program in our community that would support the When people come out of jail and they're put on parole, there's no real programs for them. And so we really wanted to talk about this because there was this big discussion that parolees were being dropped in the city. At the same time, we did a study to find out if our police department could support something like that. And at that time, the FBI stats showed that Desert Hot Springs needed 42 or 44 police officers. 18 years later, we finally got a great plan by our police chief to get us there. Back then, our crime stats were probably a little different and probably supported a stronger police department. Today, getting to 45 police officers in the way you've structured it, Chief, is amazing. I think it's a great plan. Whatever we can do to get you there, I think we have to support it. This has been talked about multiple times. In 2008, we were all gun-ho and ready to move on that, and then the recession hit, and There was just a long downtime of no funding. And so we have kind of talked about this, I think, a couple of different times. I think with the past police chief, I had a conversation with him at one point over lunch about really pushing our city councils to really think about how we're going to fund more police officers. And he really brought it to fruition. So I really appreciate the report and all the hard work that you and your staff put into this. I'm in full support of it. I think I had Mr. Voss and then Mr. Gardner.

Thank you, sir. So I remember some of the distance past when I've been out here in the desert now since the mid two thousands. And then when I moved here in 2012 and I remember those discussions taking place, uh, trying to figure out how we were going to continue to increase. And then, you know, when I ran for council in 2024, this was, The issue of public safety, police specifically, the issue of traffic, and of course economic development were the top three issues that I kept hearing about. And policing was the staffing. And as some of you might remember, we had the incident of the burglary that happened at one o'clock in the morning In my district of the lady that lived alone Where the three officers responded to the house and there were no more officers and patrolling our city at the time That was not a good thing, but it was a good thing They were able to catch the guy but also recognized that the importance of this and so what was great is that I saw is the enthusiasm of this council during our strategic plan was is we got to do something and we have to do something positive look this and we saw this and I mean what this really does is This is now like part two. Part one was getting a chief that could actually see the light of what we need to do, review policies and do things, and then begin the recruiting process of what we've done, which has been very successful, but actually to see smiles on our officers' faces because they're not working know 16 18 hours a day all the time and getting burnt out or losing them potentially too but the second part was is that we had to come up with some kind of resolution into how do we figure this out and the first thing is is that if you notice also in here is that every five years we'll have posts come in and do a standard you know come in and do a check on us which is good that holds the standards high it holds to state standards it holds that accountability So it's not like we're just doing something without any official capacity. There are some folks that are state standards that are in place that they have in place there. Well, this continues to bring us up because things like the traffic, the task force, the community response team, these are all important things. Every single day on social media, we hear about traffic, traffic, traffic, traffic all the time. The task force are super crucially important and we see them and to be a part of that. And then of course the community response team, which many people may not understand, but that's part of the homeless enforcement. along with other activities that we do. And so in addition to not only seeing the morale of the officers has increased since then, which is important, but we've also seen the higher standards now in what we've got. And that's because of the management team and the executive team, what they've done with that. And I think they even improved that greatly with the promotions you've done as well. You've got a really well-rounded team of leadership over there. But having a funding mechanism here, and this is what's great about this, is this allows the city manager, the administrative director, and the police chief to forecast this stuff years in advance, and so they can prepare for this. And we don't have to go back and forth. I'm sure Jeffrey's happy now, right? But we don't have to go back and forth from a council here and political-size it or debate whether we should have this and this and what have you. And this is for recruitment and retention. But the one thing I will say too is that when we were at ICSC and Madam City Manager and I were making contact with different people and she would talk all the great things about our city and our development services and all this. And then I would brag about our council and our planning commission. and the stability of it, but they're not going into the police department. I'd say that, you know, we're fully staffed and we have a new chief and he's done these great things and we have over hires and we're on task force. And why I'm saying these things, they're taking notes. And these weren't just low level people. These were high level managerial types, executive types that were taking this. And I remember one of them that we spoke to, he had said, I'm glad you said this because I'm going to take this to the board of directors and let them know because they want to know these things. And so having this in place makes that even better from an economic development part because economic development, public safety truly is economic development. It's been a proven fact. And so with that, I'd love to make the motion on this, but I know we've got other comments too. You can make the motion. Is there a second?

Second, Mr. Gardner.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Chief, I don't think I've smiled as much reading a staff report as I did after this one. You did a great job. And it aligns perfectly with our strategic plan and our city values. The whole reason cities were formed in the first place is public safety and public protection. And you knocked it out of the park on this one. I particularly like the formula in there for increasing our staffing as tax revenues come in. That, I thought, was a great part of that. The one thing, and we can't address it in this, but I want you to down the road perhaps look at it. we're we're talking sworn officers we have all of that you have a civilian staff there too and as that grows you need to grow the civilian staff too we've got to need we've got to have administrative people there because i know sometimes they get there you got you got officers off the street that are digging through file cabinets which you really need to have admin people doing stuff like that so we need to really look at that in conjunction with this but moving this ahead just make sure that uh really continues to make sure that the desert hot springs police is the leading police force in the valley and i think it is and we're really proud of you and i i think this is a fantastic program

Mr. Pitts. I will be fast. Thank you for your report, Chief. And I think you know this by now, that you can have whatever resources you want. This council is going to give it to you. So you want 45 more sworn officers over the next five years, you have it. So anyway, thank you. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Pai. I'll speak louder.

I wanna ask, as our population grows, what are you gonna do then?

I'm gonna come back to you and ask for more.

That's not what you told me.

We do have this set up, yeah, with the initial 10 to get us to the 45, and then with the plan using the tax and that $500,000 increment. If we're finding that the population is going and we're not keeping up and that we need more officers, then we do have the ability to come back to council and present with you another plan that, hey, hey, it's going too fast, and one officer at every 500,000 isn't working. It may be two officers that we need at every 500,000, but we do have that ability to come back to you and present that to you.

First time you said it quick, but that's what I was looking for. Thank you. Also, community expectations, and what are those?

Well, first and foremost, the community expects to see the police officers. They expect to see them on the streets. They expect them when they call. The officers are there in a speedy manner. And the other part is that the officers are out there working with the community and making those relationships. And we've started to do that with our community policing. The fact that we already have more officers out there, more officers on a patrol shift, it's getting the officers out of the car now and working with the community. And we're already seeing that take place, and we're just setting a span on that as we get more officers.

And that happened on Sunday, where the officers were tossing footballs. At the youth.

They were in 110 degree heat. Yes. That's what they were doing.

So I thank you for your report. And I have one question. Yes or no? Drones are not playthings for cops. No.

Thank you. Even though it looks like it.

Thank you.

Mr. Voss had one more quick comment.

you know one of the great things in here though is that every five years we do that post study again of course and when they do that they'll do that evaluation of personnel which is part of that but we've talked about first isms and that we would be a first ism in riverside county that's adopted this type of staffing policy just so you all know i love it just saying i love it um

So before we vote, I know that getting to the staffing levels are so important. I think Stan only has so much more time on this earth before we can bring him back 16 times to help us out. But hopefully you'll be around to see that 45 officers here. But I wanted to say thank you for all your service and everything you've done. What's that? Yeah. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. With that said, please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right. Thank you very much. We move to item number nine, the rental registration ordinance. Ms. Newsom.

Please, before you say anything, can I make a comment?

Absolutely.

I just want to say we got comment regarding whether or not the council should approve this. The council did approve it. When we approved the strategic plan, and that's why it's under everything that we approved, we already approved it. We didn't need two people. And that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening again, Mayor, City Council. The proposed rental registration ordinance establishes a new Chapter 5.58 within Title V Business Licenses and Regulations of the Desert Hot Springs Municipal Code to address widespread issues in the city's rental housing stock. With over 50% of local homes functioning as rentals, the city is seeing increasing complaints about unsafe, substandard, and poorly maintained housing conditions. These include inoperative systems, sanitation issues, hazardous environments, and chronic nuisance activity, which collectively impact public health, safety, and neighborhood quality. To proactively address these issues, the ordinance requires all rental property owners to register their properties, provide updated ownership and emergency contact information, and obtain an annual rental registration permit. The program establishes clear operating requirements to ensure habitability, outlines violations and penalties, and authorizes periodic and compliant-based inspections to monitor compliance. a renewal and self-certification process supports continued oversight while acknowledging responsible property owners overall the ordinance is designed to reduce blight protect tenants improve living conditions and promote responsible property management it supports the city's strategic goal of community beautification and provides a structured fair framework for enforcement and accountability that concludes my report and i'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you very much. We'll take public comment first. Would anybody like to speak on this item? Just come forth and state your name, and your three minutes will begin.

Good evening, council and everybody present and on the internet. This is something that is more addressed towards the owners of properties, but it is going to affect the tenants. With so many people, their only option is to rent a property. Whereas I can see this will be a very positive thing for problem, um units or addresses it could pose problems for people who are otherwise not having problems people who are on government subsidies are already subjected to and again i don't know how invasive this is supposed to be when you say inspections annually and that they'll be subjected to them what does that include who is going to oversee these are you working with the housing authority with riverside county Is it just going to be a city and a coding issue? Is it going to be outside inspections? Is it going to be inside inspections? So getting back to that part about people who are already on public housing or a government subsidy or any of those kind of programs are already subjected to an internal and usually annual inspection, which has to do everything from finances to come in and inspect the property to make sure that the landlords are maintaining these rentals. Again, I know that there's a bunch of problem properties and problem landlords people who live out of town with the introduction of Rental companies that are taking over for owners Where owners might not even know their property is in distress or how those rental companies are handling that issue I can totally see how that would be an amazing process to subject to you know, to put people into, to make sure that they're responsible. However, um, I would, I would really appreciate being a renter, being a disabled person, um, uh, being a tenant, being government, the privacy of tenants, to have to be subjected to these kind of things if there's not a problem. So that's more so, you know, again, I feel like it will create other problems depending on what gets seen, what gets looked at, what gets addressed at these situations. And then if there are violations to the home, what kind of system will you be working with to be able to cure those? Because in a lot of housing situations, let's just say something is not maintained. Let's say the air condition is out when you go visit there's um you know tripped uh wire or a paint or on the ceiling it could put somebody out of their home you know fair housing and housing authority you can't live in a house that's not inhabitable so these things are just things that i think that while this is being established and and and started please look into those kind of things um because they are very important and that's all i have for now um i'd be interested though to look at the whole um information and you know you guys know me so have a good night thank you everyone thank you next speaker

I'll be very quick. I just ask the City Council if we could ask for a continuance on this. I really feel being a real estate guy and representing a lot of real estate owners in the desert, marquee properties that I feel is really going to affect our real estate investment opportunities in the future, violate a lot of civil rights, create a lot of opportunities You know, where people feel the ice, oh, we come in, oh, let me see some identification and other things that might be, even as our last person spoke about, find things that they might be happy with that might not meet. the city ordinance but I just please ask for consideration with this. I just feel that it's not a good thing. If we could have a continuance and take a little deeper dive and look at it, I'd appreciate it. Thank you everybody, appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you for your time. Next speaker please. You have to push the button there.

Jeff Dickman and a resident of Desert Hot Springs. In my prior life I was a member of the City of Santa Ana's Rental Housing Task Force. I was a representative for my neighborhood because the city had been divided into four quadrants and the city's inspection group had wanted to have representation from both the business community and the neighbors and I thought that was an excellent idea because it allowed us to meet around a table and and kind of hear and listen to our concerns to the business community, their concerns back to the owners and the neighbors, and the city kind of administering and overseeing some of that. But it was a good process. And the city's inspection process has been in place for, I think, over 35 years. The Rental Housing Task Force, I think I was one of the first people from my neighborhood to participate. That was in 2010. And we were able to give direction to staff and then bring that back to the neighborhoods in other meetings. So in kind of reviewing the document, I was just looking at it. I was here for item number six. There is a pretty elaborate violation schedule and with some pretty substantial fees. Those, to me, would seem to be the very egregious side of health and safety violations that you'd have to take action. But for a lot of owners, small owners, as we encountered, duplexes, fourplexes, they needed a little bit more handholding and education. And the city of San Antonio didn't particularly do this very well, but public education would be some sort of outreach where you have dedicated people, not just online stuff, but people that can actually help the city implement these programs that that really gonna be very beneficial for the city, but you don't want to injure the owners, particularly the large owners. We would meet with them because we would have apartment owner association reps and then city staff. And we got to hear their issues. So we weren't heavy handed, but we really let them know we want these plans to be implemented, these programs to be implemented. And I think with some outreach, robust outreach, if such is even possible anymore, and a public sort of task force committee. I know the mayor of Santa Ana, they had a task force neighborhood standards and preservation program, and then from that they had their inspection program, and then a couple of years later they finally got down to having a task force. And that's when I think things started to get more useful to the community. People understood what the city wanted to do. And so I know you're at the first reading of this, but perhaps a little reflection on public involvement, task force. And the first speaker was right on. I was really concerned that she said things I wasn't thinking of. The tenor in all of this really needs to be accommodated, and the businessman prior to me speaking on behalf of the business industry. I agree with them, too. I felt like our task force helped bring together all of these different parts, although the tenant's rights were not a part of it and should have been. And I thought we ended up with a pretty good result. And I think you have a chance from all of the other failings and successes from other agencies to tie it together and really have a very useful program. Great. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it.

Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Ashley Valenzuela. I'm a long-term property manager here in town over eight years. I've seen and heard a lot and I understand why this is coming up now and I've heard horror stories of landlords that prospective tenants come in and tell me stories about. They come in scared. They tell me all these stories. It's obvious that the position I have is not admirable. We're always known as the bad guys. However, I do love my job and I work every day to fight the stereotype. I have great relationships with a lot of my tenants and that's why I'm here today. I'm here to speak up for them, the ones that can't show up, the elderly that have no transportation, the single moms that have no babysitters. We know obviously how this is going to affect landlords negatively, but let me tell you how it's going to affect tenants negatively. Privacy is a huge concern. I don't like disturbing my tenants' privacy and peace, especially not forced and unnecessarily. If they have a problem in their apartment that they want addressed, they can tell their landlord. If their landlord doesn't follow through, they're welcome to call code enforcement and work with the city as well as the landlord to get the issues resolved. This is going to cause rents to increase in this town and a lot of people that live here are low income and can't afford the higher rents that landlords are obviously going to end up charging a higher fee. This could cause many people to lose their housing if code enforcement or whoever's going to be doing these inspections comes in and finds things. They could be losing their housing for their kids, their pets and themselves. I'll give a couple examples of things that I've noticed. I've had tenants that are in place longer than I've been alive inside these apartments that are old. Sometimes tenants don't like change. I have one tenant that has a toilet that's probably older than me and he doesn't want a new toilet. We want to buy him a new toilet and he does not want one. He refuses for us to put a new toilet in and we've made multiple repairs on it to let him keep his toilet that he loves so much. We have tenants that we want to put mini splits in their apartments but they don't understand that they're more energy efficient than these wall units and they're so used to the wall units and they want to keep their wall units. What if a tenant wants to keep their apartment as is but it goes against something in the code but they're happy with their apartment and we want to fix it for them and comply with the city but these tenants are stuck in their ways and they love their apartment the way that it is and they don't want anyone coming in and disturbing them this is ultimately going to cause higher rents in the city vacant buildings possibly break-ins higher homelessness that we already face currently higher crime rates with break-ins and possibly unnecessary evictions that are going to stay on these people's records for seven years and cause them to not be able to rent anywhere else.

Three minutes are up. You want to wrap up? You good? No, I'm good. Thanks. Next speaker, please.

goes on hi everybody i'm back again well uh... you all know who i represent uh... the largest landowner i believe in the largest taxpayer in the city and this thing up fast-tracked we haven't had time to have our legal representation take a look at it, but we're definitely going to have that done. So I wanted to let you guys know that you should probably pass on this maybe till the next sometime in the future because we need time to have our legal representation take a look at this and see if it's constitutionally correct, see if it fits into all the different laws and legalities. Anyway, that's it. Thank you very much.

Next speaker, please.

right nobody coming forth from in-house is there any online speakers nobody in line all right who wants to start mr garner thank you mr mayor um this is something that has been brewing for some time since i got elected back in 2018 uh that i've been pushing for we have a tremendous amount of substandard housing in this city. Tremendous amount of substandard housing in this city. We need to address that. We simply cannot have our residents living in substandard housing, in housing that wouldn't pass code enforcement. I'm sorry, even if they like it, I would love to have a wooden fence in my backyard. We don't allow wooden fences in our backyards. They're a lot cheaper. They're not nicer. They're not a lot nicer. But we have code for a reason. And it's safety and human rights. Everybody deserves to live in a house or an apartment that is up to code, that is up to standard, that is safe and works and where the appliances work. I can tell you I've got neighbors on either side of me, two rental homes on either side of me, both of those would fail code compliance right now. The lady on one side of me has five kids, single mother, the roof leaks, three of her four toilets do not work, and her landlord will not take care of it. We have to be able to hold these landlords accountable for the stuff that they're doing to our residents that are living in substandard housing. So I am excited to see this. I'm glad it has finally come to this council, because we've been working on this for a long time. And landlords that have standard housing, they're not going to have a problem. It's those landlords. those slumlords, I'm going to use that term, slumlords, that have these substandard houses that people are forced to live in because they can't find anything else. We've got to address that problem, and this is the first step to do it. I commend our staff. They've looked at ordinances from cities across California to cobble together this ordinance. I'm confident it will withstand any court challenge, and I'm going to urge our fellow council members to pass this tonight.

Mr. Pitts?

So, as always, thank you so much for making your voice known and coming down here and speaking. That's important. But I actually have a difference of opinion on this. I am a proud supporter of this proposed rental registration ordinance because I believe it's a win for our residents and our neighbors in our city. As a former code enforcement official myself, I have seen firsthand how proactive rental registration programs improve communication between property owners and the city, encourage voluntary compliance, and to help resolve problems before they become larger, public health and public safety issues. And we all know this, and you all spoke to it. As an underserved community, we need every available tool to ensure rental properties comply with building, housing, and health and safety codes. These codes exist for one reason, and that one reason is to provide a resident access to a safe, healthy, and habitable place to live.

Ms. Pai? Is it underserved? I didn't have to tell you this time.

He said underserved community and others say we don't make that much money. So what? We deserve better. So stop with the underserved community and people not making that much money. this council has tried and is trying to do a lot of things to make our city better you talked about parks we're we're doing parks and we're creating a new downtown we're trying to get people to live here and not go across the freeway So we should have licenses. We once did have licenses. I called them good housekeeping signatures. But we had them, and people knew where to go to have good apartments. and and nice apartments and so what what we're trying trying to do we also need to have housing that is good housing and I hope that some of you have read the staff report that we have you can go to the website and at the bottom subscribe and you will get exactly what we're getting for the staff reports you can read through that and We're not talking about ICE coming. We're not talking about the problems that you have. We're not talking about that. We're talking about good apartments and Just like we have low crime rate now with the police, we should also have acceptable housing. That's all I have to say.

Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Clean, safe, and prosperous neighborhoods. That's what we're looking for. That's what we said in our strategic plan. what I said every time I knocked on doors and I was asking people to vote for me and I saw some of the bad properties that were here in town and people pointing out violations and didn't know what to do with them and so we were helping them with that but I'm very familiar with the Santa Ana program I've been in the code enforcement development services injury industry etc I've also personally put together one of these type of programs and so very aware of these type of programs. And I can tell you that all the negative impacts that people perceive to be there that made the comment today are, in fact, unfactual. They're not true, simply not true. You're not going to see increases in rent. You're not going to see people kicked out to the curb. You're not going to see people threatened. You're not going to have these things. The fees are nominal. Landlords need a long-term good tenant. They're going to stay in there with a good tenant. uh you know they will adjust and they'll find that it actually is for the better of them this isn't going to have anything to do with ice or anything like that matter of fact we won't even know the name of the tenant it's just a landlord so you're dealing with you'll be introduced to the tenant when you knock on the door that's the only way we're really going to know their name it's not intended for that it's intended to be clean safe and prosperous neighborhoods and it's intended to have a habitable location where a person can find a place that's safe to live. One of the large cultivators here in town last year made a comment to me and he said, Dirk, I'm having a hard time keeping staff. And I said, well, what's going on? And he says, well, the problem is is that you guys don't have enough good quality housing You have newer housing, but you have people that are there, and once they're there, they stay there. And then what's available is marginal to best, mostly substandard housing, but nonetheless, staff would go, they'll rent it, they don't like staying there, so then they move to Beaumont or they move to Indio, and they decide that they don't want to drive 25, 30 miles one way and do the commute kind of thing, and so they eventually quit. And so they have this high turnover because we don't have that type of checks and balance here. The state and county don't do this. Some folks had made comments about that. The state doesn't deal with this stuff. The county only deals with it if it's a health department related to the pool or if it's somebody that's getting a housing voucher through there. So then where do you go? And that's where you go with your city. And your city provides a rental inspection type of program here of this. You know, this, even if people who, if they read what was here, they would see that we have a streamlined process that allows for self-certification. You could literally self-certify, take pictures, walked in every unit, fill out a form, email it over, send your payment in, and you're good for however many years you're good for. And with that, and so this is all part of, again, what we're trying to do. We're trying to take the town, to a city that's prosperous. We've done this. It fits within the strategic plan. It fits with what people want. And I'll just go, I'll finish with again, clean, safe, and prosperous neighborhoods.

Yeah, what's the fee for the program?

So over the summer, we're going to have the fees proposed. We have to investigate any sort of software that will be implemented, the amount of staff time that it's going to take to facilitate the program. So we'll bring forward the fees at a later date.

Is there any other cities that have a program like this, a charge-a-fee somewhere?

There are lots of cities. I don't know their fees off the top of my head, but Coachella has a program, Indio, Banning, San Jacinto, Hemet, and then lots of the larger cities. Santa Ana was mentioned, Oceanside, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Stockton.

I work in property management also. Obviously, this is my full-time job, and I work on the HOA side of things, and we require in most CC&Rs that People register their rentals and put it in our system so we know that it's a rental home. Because absentee owners, for the most part, especially large investment groups, aren't good property owners. They're just not because they don't pay attention. They hire the cheapest property managers they can. They go out and they do the job they can. Now, the responsible ones that are here today, you're not going to be bugged. You are going to have to fill out some paperwork. You are going to have to pay a fee. And I know that your boss, Emery, is one of the largest owners, and it's going to impact his bottom line. But he's been a lot of money in the city. So, you know, he can give back a little bit. And to rent his properties. And if he doesn't have any complaints, then he's not going to be bugged. I've fielded more complaints in the 19 years that I've been on the city council than probably any other complaint have to do with bad landlords. 50% of our housing stock, it has fluctuated from 40% to 60% over the 19 years I've been here. Have been absentee owners and not a lot of them are great at all. It's just bad properties You can drive through the streets behind us here and you can see the ones that aren't being taken care of So I hear the argument You know our staff would never put together any ordinance that isn't leak that isn't legally South solid so I Encourage you to go get it checked and and that's your right to do so to the young lady that came up here and talked about the issues with her, you know, I you're not gonna be bugged, you're not. Just register the program and register for your property owners and they're not gonna be bugged unless your tenants come to us and start saying, you know, there's problems. Am I correct on this? We're not gonna go out and just randomly seek properties to look at, right?

no so as councilman boss mentioned the initial inspection will be thorough and then thereafter they can participate in self-certification and that'll last for five years until they need to be inspected again also as you mentioned no information regarding the tenant is requested in the application process

And if they find a toilet from 1932, we're unfortunately going to force them to upgrade. But if it's a code issue. But this was an issue when we started doing the STVR inspections. A lot of people didn't want them coming in, and there was all these rumors about these different ways we were going to go in and cause problems. That's not the issue here. The issue is here to handle the multiple complaints we received as council members on bad landlords. And that's what we want to avoid in the future. So I apologize there'll be an extra fee. I apologize there'll be extra work. But for the most part, I think it's time we move towards this. This has been talked about for a long time in different fashions. I've had a long time member of this community been bugging me about this for a long time. And so I think I'm gonna support it.

I'll make a motion then that we move forward and adopt the rental registration ordinance as presented by staff.

I'll second. Excuse me. Any other comments? Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously. This is the first reading of an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Desert Hot Springs, adding Chapter 5.58, Rental Registration Program to Title V, Business Licenses and Regulations of the Desert Hot Springs Municipal Code. The second reading will take place on September 1st.

Thank you very much. Move to item 10, award the construction agreement to DBX Inc. for the traffic signal at Palm Drive and 20th Avenue project, city project number 3001. Mr. Garcia.

Good evening, mayor, city council, and residents. My name's Elias Garcia. I'm your city engineer. Tonight I'm presenting the recommended award of construction for the traffic signal at Palm Drive and 20th Avenue. I could give you the short version or I could give you the long version. Short, we're building a traffic signal at Palm Drive and 20th Avenue.

You're my favorite employee.

I'll make it short. Basically, the project consists of a traffic signal at Palm Drive and 20th Avenue. I do have to mention a couple of important items that are assignments that took place. County engineering staff completed a traffic engineering evaluation which consisted of a traffic signal warrant analysis in accordance with California MUTCD requirements and the analysis determined that the intersection satisfied the state established procedures. and warranty criteria. It's also important to note that this project is one component of the broader palm drive improvements interstate 10 to Camino Aventura project. The city successfully secured approximately 8.975 million in California active transportation grant program a few years ago, ATP cycle six. So the project before you tonight represents the first construction phase of those improvements. This map up here illustrates the location of the proposed traffic signal with the larger Palm Drive corridor. The blue highlighted corridor represents the larger Palm Drive improvements project that extends from the ITN to Camino Aventura. This area photograph provides a closer look at the intersection. You see Riverside County on the east side and Desert Hot Springs on the west. Needless to say that we're working with the county with an agreement to share the construction costs for this. Staff is working alongside with them as well. This slide shows the engineering plans for the proposed improvements and construction includes underground infrastructure, the traffic signal foundations, conduit systems, vehicle detection, accessible pedestrian signal equipment, ADA curb ramps, roadway reconstruction, signing and striping, and all the associated improvements to place the intersection into a full operation. fun part here the project was competitively advertised on june 3rd 2026 and bids were publicly opened on june 25th 2026. four responsive bids were received after reviewing the bid documents and all the qualifications engineering staff determined that dbx inc is the lowest responsive and responsible bidder with a bid amount of eight hundred sixty three thousand six hundred and forty And based on the anticipated project schedule, construction is expected to be completed during the summer of 2027. I'd like to have that sooner, but there's long lead times for these poles and equipment that needs to be in play. So with this, staff is requesting approval of the total construction phase authorization of $1,040,000. This amount includes the construction contract, 10% construction contingency, construction inspection services, and materials equipment testing to successfully administer the project. Again, while tonight's requested authorization totals to 1.04 million, it's funded through the city's larger ATP Cycle 6 construction grant. Staff recommends that city council find the project categorically exempt from CEQA and direct staff to file the notice of exemption, award the construction contract to DBX Inc., authorize city manager to execute the construction agreement, and approve the total construction phase authorization of 1.04 Zero million. That concludes my presentation, and staff respectfully recommends approval of the post-action. I'll take any questions.

Do we have any comments first in the public on this item? Any comments online? A couple concerns, or not concerns, questions. One, is the county pitching in on this at all, cost-wise?

Maybe I can just butt in a little bit. In 2023, we have a co-op agreement with the Riverside County. They're paid 50%, 50%. But since then, we actually received a grant that would pay for the actual traffic signal. So we are going to amend the agreement to, instead of pay the portion of the traffic signal, they're going to pay the pavement portion of the Palm South project, which will be extending... curb gutter sidewalk and doing some rehab to the asphalt from Camino Ventura to I-10. So we're working on that right now and that will return after summer.

Fair enough. My only other concern is $200,000 less than the other bids. I hope we don't see a bunch of change orders. I'm hoping for the best as well. It would be disappointing to see them come in as a low bidder and then pump it up with a bunch of change orders. Just one quick question.

I know this is an important intersection light for you too from your previous year's accident and stuff. Question I have, just one quick one. West side of 20th is gated and blocked. So is this going to be a three-way intersection or is it going to be a four-way?

It's a four-way intersection, but the west leg will remain closed.

So there will not be any... Nobody's going to come in that way? Not until development.

No, not until then. That's correct. Okay, that's all I have.

Thanks.

Mr. Pitch, you have anything? Mr. Boss? No, I'm ready to make a motion. Mr. Pie? No.

All right, go ahead. Move that we adopt item number 10.

Motion and a second. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

All right, we've made it to the last item on the agenda, street road subcommittee recommendation. Mr. Porras?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, the Streets and Roads Subcommittee, and some recommendations that are to be presented today. On April 21, 2026, City Council appointed Mayor Pro Tem Dirk Voss and Council Member Daniel Pitts to the Streets and Roads Subcommittee. On May 12, 2026, the Subcommittee met with City staff where we reviewed our current road maintenance budget, our capital improvement plan, and some funding options. um the road maintenance priorities that were presented by the subcommittee recommendations were to prioritize city-wide residential streets with crack seal slurry seal grinding overlay as a type of maintenance and then prioritize our major arterials as pearson two bunch palms little morongo road mountain view road indian canyon road and varna road as the priority priority major arterials and the type of maintenance for those would be crack seal sturdy seal grinding overlay Then move on to full reconstruction and complete streets and striping. Our current funding sources and uses. The city currently has gas tax funding. Gas tax funding is a limited, restricted fund that is used only for road maintenance, road repairs, and street improvements. This cannot be used for any other type of expenses. The two gas tax fundings are Measure A and SB1. SB1 funding is currently used as a matching fund or a matching source for all of our grant funding that we have received for all the Palm Drive street improvements, the Hacienda Avenue street improvements, the one that was just completed, the one that's coming up this year, and also any other traffic signal or any other active transportation grants that we have applied for the past few years. Manager A is also currently used as a matching fund for grant fundings for large projects and small reef road repairs such as sidewalk repairs. We get a lot of lifted sidewalks in the summer and in the winter. We have large potholes. We have road shoulder work and some minor striping or re-striping that's required. We use Manager A and we have budgeted some of those projects for the next five years. Some possible new funding sources that were discussed and recommended by subcommittee were to reallocate a portion of cannabis reserves for road maintenance for a five-year paving plan of residential streets. Currently, there's about $4.4 million in cannabis reserves or in the cannabis reserves. Each year, 25% of the cannabis revenues is piloted into the cannabis reserves. That's estimated about $1 million per year. The second of funding or possible funding source would be to cut out bonds or do bonds proceeds in 2028 for a citywide paving project at residential streets. And the reason these two were discussed is we are currently utilizing all of our road maintenance um budget or maintenance funding for matching funds for large projects but we don't have a set or independent funding source where we can utilize a specific amount of money for the next five years to continue to one keep up with the maintenance and two upgrade the existing road maintenance of the current road systems we do have a pavement management plan that has been in place but we haven't had any type of plan that we have for the next five years on how we're going to actually implement it reallocating a portion of cannabis reserves would give us that budget necessary to correct the road maintenance or install the road maintenance and complete our minutes four or five year plan where designated roads are set up every year and in the next five years certain roads get paved every year the one-time project would be a a way to bond for a project where we can instantly increase the ratings of the streets and repair some of the roads that have been neglected or some of the roads that need some road maintenance city-wide this was done a few years back as part of the trip bonds i'm not sure if you guys remember the trip bonds and it increased all of the pci ratings to a a very high number for the whole city Possible action plan would be to improve an annual budget amount to be used for road maintenance of residential streets. That's the one I just discussed. To update the paving management plan to complete a five-year paving plan based on the approved budget amount and priorities. That includes five-year residential paving plan, crack seal, slurry seal, granite overlay, and in that same plan have a five-year major interior project plan where we identify the priorities and actively pursue to secure funding for those. The third one to direct to issue a bond in 2028 to utilize bond proceeds for a citywide paving project based on the same pavement management plan. So recommendations are to review, discuss these subcommittee recommendations and provide staff direction. Mayor Pro Tem Dirk Voss and Council Member Daniel Pitts can elaborate a little more on some of the discussions that we had and some of these recommendations. Thank you.

Mr. Voss, Mr. Pitts, who wants to go?

OK. So appreciate that. Thank you very much, Mr. Assistant City Manager. Streets and roads, we hear about it all the time. We hear about it when we run for election, and we hear about it when we're at the grocery store, when we're at the gym. But wherever we're at, it's always an issue, right? our staff works really hard out there and they kind of playing whack-a-mole with with the potholes and with the cracks you know they fill it up and three months later it's empty again and they come back you know and this kind of thing and we don't have a plan we're doing the best we can we're addressing things but because we don't have that funding mechanism for one aspect of this What could be every year, it's taking every other year because it takes two years of the funding to be able to fund matching funds towards certain grants and what have you. Plus this also gives staff the direction of is these are the priorities as far as what roads we should be addressing for what type of grants and whatever and what type of the thing is. The bonding, we're already paying for bonding. It's just basically a continuation of that. You know, the residential neighborhood areas, we see it now. I mean, even my own street, I've got cracks big enough that I can put my fist through it. And so, I mean, it's important to do that. And this shows investment. It's an infrastructural thing. It shows investment in our town. It's a one-time expense kind of thing, which is important not only from wanting to attract people to move into our community, but also from an economic development point. When we say that we have a traffic management plan or streets roads management plan that's involved here transportation that's that's they want to hear those kind of things and So for us, you know when we were talking about it Not a lot of options You know didn't go that didn't want to go the tax route. So what's what's a good route to go and we're already doing the bonding resource so that's one task and that would handle all the residential streets and and you know over and we're basically looking at a five-year plan maybe you know could be done sooner depending on on the timing and everything but then the other part was is looking at the two gas tax and the other funds that we've got how is it being used and and what we really saw that stood out the most with that was is that we were almost there but not quite there when it came to what we needed for matching funds And so how do we plug that in? And this is an infrastructure need. It's a one time expenditure need. And so we've got, you know, the cannabis thing and I know, understand what the, and understand the history of it. I understand the reason for it. I support the reason for that thing, but also this is not putting it towards salaries and benefits or ongoing expenses. It's just one time. This is just a five year thing too. So it would come back to council if we wanted to extend it further. But the goal is to tackle this roads and street stuff before it gets worse and to get in place the matching grants that can go to the various streets so we can get those. And it may take longer for some of them to be completely done. But nonetheless, we will have the matching fund in. We'll have the application in. And so we know the project will, in fact, be done. we know that our residential streets will be done because the funding's there with that. And that's gonna be huge for our community with that kind of thing and this kind of investment. So we're just reinvesting those funds into our city as a one-time expenditure. And again, five years. And I think we're gonna be pretty darn good.

Mr. Pitts. Mr. Pitts, anything to add? Yes, so thank you, Deputy City Manager Danny and Mayor Pro Tem. You've both framed that so well. So obviously, I am pleased to support this item because improving our roads and transportation infrastructure continues to be one of the highest priorities, and you just spoke to this. We all know it. As city leaders, we hear from our neighbors on a regular basis about the conditions of our roads. And so I had the privilege of serving as co-chair of the Streets and Roads Subcommittee alongside Mayor Pro Tem Dirk Voss. Together we work closely with city staff to evaluate our current road maintenance program, identify funding opportunities, and develop practical long-term solutions rather than simply just reacting to problems that arise. The recommendations before us present a thoughtful, well thought out process that will put a priority on both our residential neighborhoods and our major roads while creating a sustainable, and you just spoke to this, paving strategy based on updated pavement conditions and available funding. Our residents deserve safe, reliable streets and investing in infrastructure is one of the most responsible things we can do as City Council well-maintained roads, improve public safety, protect property values, reduce vehicle maintenance costs for our residents, and enhance the overall quality of Desert Hot Springs. This plan demonstrates fiscal responsibility by identifying dedicated funding sources, leveraging grant opportunities, and establishing a clear roadmap for future improvements instead of relying on short-term fixes.

Any public comments on this item? Anything online? Mr. Gardner?

Lots to digest here, and it is very late. And I did want to just point out that you guys have done a fantastic job of boiling it down, Danny and the subcommittee. And it's obvious it always comes down to money. It's just money. We've not had the money. And as a guy who lives on a street that was last paved when Cabot Yerxa was here, you know it's true.

It's your fault for getting elected. No one wants to pave your street.

I know. I have to recuse myself if we're going to pave my street. It's desperately needed in some certain parts of our residential streets. And I don't deny that. And you've made some great recommendations. Now I'm going to rain on the parade just a touch. I'm not a big fan, though, of attacking the cannabis reserves. And we put those cannabis reserves in at the suggestion of Ms. Pye way back, way back when she suggested it at a 25% raise. This city had no money. To me, that is the last resort of money. That should be the last piece of money we use. It's if we have nothing else left That's what that cannabis reserve is to be used for. And I am okay with bonding. I think we can do some stuff with that. But I do have a heartburn over using the cannabis reserve. But let me shine a little light that might help with that. I think at one time the council had a goal of having the cannabis reserve reach X percent of our general fund budget. We haven't reached that. But if we get to the point where we get to that point, then that becomes a little bit more surplus and we can reallocate that to things like streets and roads um which we like i said are desperately needed i also think we can think outside the box a little bit i know we're exploring tax increment financing now that could be another alternative for this stuff and we're not as i understand this not making a vote on anything in particular just giving staff our our our feedback on it and my feedback is you know i think you guys a great job your priorities are good i think it's all there i have some heartburn with the using the cannabis tax revenue for for part of that that's where i'm at well let's get some answers to that um cannabis tax 25 of our um jeffrey's been sitting here all night welcome wake up

He was like, don't make me think now.

So 25% of our cannabis revenues, we have about $4 million saved up.

Is that about right?

Yes, so currently we have $4.4 million in the cannabis reserve. It is, we have, in 2019 we set a resolution, a cap of 17% of the general fund appropriations. 17%. So, one seven. So with the cap over, say, $35 million general fund appropriations, which I think is for 26, 27, that's about $5.9 million. So, In the next year or two, we're actually going to meet up with that. We're going to hit that, if we don't need to use the money, we're going to hit that ceiling. I believe part of the, I believe the intention for youth cannabis reserves was not to actually use what we have in cannabis reserves, but to say, take a portion of that 25%. And so instead of the full 25% going to cannabis, saying, you know, 20 going to cannabis and five going, or whatever the percentage is. or in a couple of years when we do hit that ceiling. As the general fund grows, we'll always be adding something to it, adding something to the reserve, but at that point when we hit the ceiling, it'll probably be only around one, 200, maybe $300,000 a year.

So getting back to that, and I recognize we weren't tapping the reserves right now, but we were looking at taking, you guys had recommended, I believe, half of the incoming cannabis reserve portion. putting it into another account. I'm going to amend what I said before. I could live with that after we reach the amount of 17% of the general fund budget. And so I think at that point, you actually maybe could even increase that a bit much, because as Jeffrey pointed out, as our general fund grows, we're going to have to grow that 17%. So you grow it up to the 17% cap, and then everything else can get bumped into... Let's walk that through.

So let's say we reach that, you said, in about a year?

About a year or two. So for next fiscal year, we're... Let's say it's dragged out two years.

We get to $5.96 million, round it up. 25%... Jeffrey, where's your little cap in your calculator? 25% of $6 million is $2 million? $1.... Let's just work with round numbers.

25% is gone.

You're not following me here. So we get to the cap. We have $6 million in cannabis reserves, right? Yes. So they want to take 12% of that maxed out.

Is that correct? No. I don't think they want to take the maxed out part. They want to take it. So once we're maxed out, we won't be adding 25% of the cannabis revenues to it anymore.

we'll be only adding enough to keep it at that 17% so it could be maybe we're only adding like one or two percent of the cannabis right I get that part but let's let's just go with the 25% already been in there we only want to use half of what's been put in there so half of what's been put in there is 12% of the 25% are you gonna go with the 12% are you asking for 50% of what's in there

Just to clarify, I don't think you guys were just please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think the idea was to utilize any of the funds that are currently sitting in there. It was just to build a long-term fund to accrue money so that we could potentially bond out to do the initial percentage and put it into another reserve account so we can stay on top of road maintenance.

I'm trying to figure out what that amount's going to be. So it's, It's not 12.5% every year anymore because we're not accruing that.

We figured it was around $600,000 a year that we would take from there that would go to. Correct. That's the number I'm trying to get to. All I'm trying to do is get to a number. $600,000 a year every year? For five years. For five years. And that would go to the gas tax account coupled with that account. And it's only to be used for the matching funds, not for maintenance or anything else, but to be used for the matching funds so we can apply for these grants every year and put in the matching fund for them. The problem we've had is there's a matching fund that says $800,000, but we only have $450,000. So we have to leap over a year and take the second year. So it takes two years to get to the matching fund, which this would give us one year. And you know transportation costs have been, and so instead of 10 years, we could in five years apply for these grants with the matching funds and at least have them in the queue.

So five years from now they would give you, what, about $3 million? No, more than that.

More, essentially, because we'd use those funds to match it, so we'd be able to be much more aggressive.

So the total drain on the reserves, if you had to match it and pull that out in the five years, would be? what's six times 530 is that three three million dollars three million that's it I just want to get this in the obviously this is all conceptual this is if it all worked perfectly I just want to get some real numbers everybody understands what we're talking about so let's say it's three million dollars now there's been discussion I think I brought this up with city manager what was the intent of the City Council when we did this years ago Was there a, do we need a four fifths vote to pull this money? What was the emergency defined as? Have we done the research on that yet? Or will you do the research on that to find out if we can use this?

So we have done the research on it. So it would require four fifths vote. It is designated as a rainy day fund that is to be utilized in the event that the city is unable to pay its bills for 60 consecutive days. It can be modified per the council because it was the council that put this in place. But I do want to just clarify something to ensure the intent. The intent is not to touch any of the monies that are existing, correct? It would be to take future years and take a portion of the future amounts that would have gone into that and have it go into a designated fund for street and road.

Correct. So they would start 27 or 2627.

Correct. So what is currently in cannabis reserves would remain in cannabis reserves.

My backwards thinking is we're going to get to $3 million. Yes. Correct. yep so whether it's taking three million out of the current reserve or accumulating it accumulating it over years and accruing it for needs that's fine correct um i just i i would support this as long as we do the research and bring it back to us that we can do this without having to go back and change something in the resolution ordinance whatever we put together so i think it's a creative way to find funding for our roads and man if you could pave your road oh i know you'd be a hero i'm i'm there yeah your mic's on this pie i'm sorry did you have comments on this yes if we get to the cap

then you can take what you want.

Don't say that, because he'll take it all. He'll make every road gold-plated.

But we at least need to get to the cap, because we don't know what's going to happen with cannabis, period. We don't know what's going to happen. We reduced taxes already, and we don't know when the... Tobacco company is going to come in, and what that's going to do, will we have any taxes? So that's my thing on the cannabis tax. You're doing five years. What's going to happen after five years? Because streets will still need to be done.

Okay, good question. So five years, by that point, we'll have our streets, the residential streets all redone. Slurry's a little down like that. We will, at a minimum, we will have grants, application with matching funds submitted on the list of major ulterior roads here, hopefully all of them, but we'll do our best to get all of them and begin starting if it's possible. We'll see what the time frames are on those. And I think that was the whole part is, is to get in there and get the application in, get the matching fund in, because then the matching fund then allows that funds to go to us. And it's just a matter of how quick that date is that we're able to get that fund and the staff processing the, you know, what, what they need to do to, to move that forward. So conceivably Pearson, two bunch of palms could realistically be done, I would think in five years. Along with the others and then the residents of course would be able to know what the game plan is So they'll be able to utilize that as far as our our outreach stuff Afterwards, you know the funding if we feel there's additional needs as a council We could always continue it or say we know what the maintenance amount that we're getting from the gas tax and the measure a are sufficient enough to Maintain what we need to do that. We don't need to do anything We might be able to just default back to that So there's a few different options there.

Can I answer your question? No. Five years and side streets are done. Then five years, Pearson and all of that is done. Now it's time to do the other five years. I'm asking what's going to happen in the

Let me try to answer that. So if we do our job right and public works keeps moving, the pace are going, the five year plan should start to re you should revitalize that plan starting in four years for the next five years. And then that dictates what's been done and puts into another five year plan what needs to be done and then they can come back. make new recommendations on what needs to be done so if this money if this works and they're able to leverage this money and be able to do a lot of what the plan says now then great and then that plan updates and a road like pearson doesn't need to be reconstructed anymore but it does need to be maintained so slurry seal crack fill those types of things so it lasts 20 years, 30 years.

That's what I was looking for.

So the more roads we do, the more reconstruction we do, and the preventative maintenance that happens for these roads, the longer they'll last. Our issue has been in 2008 when we redid 20 roads in the city, There was no real preventative maintenance program behind it, and now we're going back and now having to look at these roads.

That's what I was going to say. I mean, like, ultimately, and I'll give you an example.

I got it.

Okay. I mean, you know, I just want to, like, you know, an example would be, like, Vistachino and Palm Springs or Highway 111 going into town. You know, it's on a set program. Danny and and our assistant city manager has that set program kind of in place and the goal would be is is that this kind of Potentially just becomes a permanent ongoing thing where we're just maintaining our pro and we're never behind It where we where we have it and then it just continues keeping and met the quality part of our problem in 2008 was a recession hit right after that so after we spent bond money to do redo all these roads and

then we didn't have the money to do preventative maintenance. So now we're, you know, 20 years later, we're finally back there. And if, you know, Danny works a program like he's supposed to, in four years, he's going to come back and say, we're hiring a new company to come out and do a new study. And you'll have the next five years, right?

So real quick. So I remember when I was running for election, and I remember sitting with a certain person. And that certain person across the table said, the reason why I want you to get elected is because you understand long-term planning. And so, this is part of that. And that's what I'm looking at, is long-term planning.

It's how you answered the question.

It's late, okay? All right, someone make a motion to support this?

No, but I still want the cap first.

Yes, I think we need to support it. I think everybody's on the same page. Can you make a motion to support the recommendations along with after the cap has been met?

Correct. Move that we adopt number 11 with the cap Once we reach the cannabis cap, that's when we meet the tax. Once we meet the cannabis cap, and then it's got everything else but the bonds and stuff, so I think we're good.

It encompasses the bonds and everything else?

Yes. Mr. Pitts seconded it, and then not to throw any more water on the parade, but we all know that Measure A and the gas tax money is going down as gas... Mileage gets better and more people buy plug-in cars.

Well, there could be a vehicle miles travel tax soon. Don't worry, California will be ahead of that. Please vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right. We've had no items pulled from the consent calendar. Anyone that didn't speak at the beginning of the meeting on items not on the agenda may speak now. Would anybody like to come forth and do so? Seeing nobody, before we adjourn, just want to announce that the Public Safety Commission is canceled this month. The next City Council meeting and the two after that, we come back to this. Okay, so we've got three meetings off, so don't come visit us later this month and don't visit us in August. Unless there's an emergency, we're going to give our staff some time to catch up and hopefully take some deserved time off. The Planning Commission will meet on the 14th at 6 p.m. We are adjourned.