City Council - Special Meeting

Five, four, three, two, one. Calling the meeting to order. Call the meeting to order at 6 o'clock. Uh, madame clerk, have you received any correspondence for tonight's agenda? Not tonight. All right. Would you please call roll? Council member Dinus here. Council member Dedric here. Council member Temple here. Acting Mayor [clears throat] Carwin here. And Mayor Estrada is absent. All right. Now, would Micah Orloff from the ministry ministry board member for Elevation Church come to the podium for our words of inspiration?

All right. Well, good evening, uh, council members and, uh, city staff, officials, and members of the community. Thanks for the opportunity and honor, uh, to be able to share some words with you guys tonight. Uh, for it, I'm going to be following one of my mentors, uh, practices for this, and that's the three Bs, which is to be brief, to be bold, and to be gone. So, this is going to be pretty short, guys. Um [clears throat] you know as we gather in this chamber you know we pause to reflect with gratitude of all those who serve this wonderful city and each decision made here carries a weight of responsibility and a promise of progress and that's through your collective efforts here and it makes me stronger safer and more vibrant each and every day. So may this meeting be guided by wisdom that seeks understanding, discernment that values fairness, and a spirit of peace that promotes unity for everyone who lives and works in this community. And that may every discussion tonight lead to actions that strengthen trust, that serve the common good, and honor the shared vision that we hold for Menife's future. So just want to say thank you for the opportunity again. Thank you for your service to our city and may you have a wonderful uh meeting tonight and a wonderful holiday season. Thanks.

Thank you, board member Arloff. Wonderful [applause] words of inspiration. I see uh now is a time for our uh flag salute. And I see we have Canyon Lake City Councilman Dale Welty with us tonight. So, we're going to ask our neighbors from across the border to lead us in the flag salute. To the flag of the United States of America to the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for that show of unity. All right. So now we've got a couple of presentations. So would city council please join me on the front of the dis for the two presentations.

[snorts] There we go. Now I got it. All right. Could I ask Dr. Hennings to join the city council up here? Great to see you, superintendent. So tonight we're going to be honoring uh so tonight's choice for citizen of the month or organization is our award was chosen by uh mayor Ricky Estrada and he's not with us tonight because he is deployed overseas. So we're going to present in his honor and I believe our city clerk has a little statement prepared by the mayor in your honor. So we'll let him speak first.

So I'm proud to recognize Santa Rosa Academy as my organization of the month. Santa Rosa Academy has been a pillar of excellence in Meny and this year they were named number one best public K through2 school in Riverside County. Additionally, the academy earned top rankings as best K- through2 charter school, best elementary charter school, and best charter middle school in the county. These recognitions speak to more than their academic success. It showcases their dedication to character growth, civic engagement, and the well-being of every student. Santa Rosa Academy continues to empower students to thrive through innovative programs. Their dedication to preparing students for lifelong success has made a meaningful impact on families throughout our city. For their exceptional work and their positive influence, it is my honor as mayor Estrada to recognize Santa Rosa Academy as December's organization of the month.

I want a round of applause for that. [applause] So, we've known each other for a little while. Got to know each other through Rotary and all the other organizations. I want to say Santa Rose has been a staple of our community. You've grown so much over the years. I remember when you stole away MIJ James to make her the principal over there and we missed her greatly. But um you've done a tremendous amount for this community. It's it you you've grown the facilities so it looks like a little college right there. You look across the street and go Mount Seno. Ha look at my new auditorium. And uh so done a tremendous job under your under your leadership and it's a a wonderful thing for all of our uh students and residents. O appreciate Santa Rosa Academy very much and I'm going to pass the microphone down to council member Dietrich to also say some nice things about you.

Thank you, acting mayor. Yes, Santa Rosa Academy long been a shining jewel in the city of Meny and so we appreciate all that you've done and it's you're only continuing to grow and thrive and strive for the future. And you can see with the quality of the students that you put out both academically and character, it's just a testament to what you all do. The staff, the board, the faculty, the students, everybody. So, thank you for all you do and keep up the good work. And now I'm going to pass it on to Dan Temple.

You know, um I know you know this, but my two my two kids are products of Santa Rosa Academy. And um over the years it's come such a long way from you know being a little little room in a strip mall to what we have now in our city. But the the character that has developed at Santa Rosa never changed. And you know the the the children that leave Santa Rosa grow into wonderful young men and young women. and you know the teachings of of character and integrity that you provide there support what is taught at the home which just makes our kids so much better and well-rounded. So you know keep up the good work. Thank you for what you do and thank you for being in our city helping uh the kids of Meny grow into wonderful adults. So thank you for that.

They took the words out of my mouth. This is this is a bad part being the last one to talk but uh no I just you know it's a great success story Santa Rosa Academy but you know success doesn't come without a lot of hard work. So I know there was a lot of hard work by a lot of people and it's just not a successful school but you're educating our future and that's the most important thing and you're doing it great. So thank you so much and and you deserve the recognition. [applause] Oh, here it is. So, we've got a little certificate for you. Um, I'm going to um award this to you on behalf of the mayor and then we're going to hear some words from you. I'll read it out loud. It says, "Uh, the award is presented to Santa Rosa Academy in recognition of your outstanding dedication, leadership, and lasting contributions to the city of Meny. Through academic excellence and enriching extracurricular programs, Santa Rosa Academy fosters leadership, belonging, and community engagement. The city council commends and thanks you for helping make Meny a premier place to be. [applause] Why don't you tell us a little bit about Santa Rosa and all the accomplishments there?

Well, I think you all did an an apt job in in covering that and particularly the mayor's prepared comments. Uh it it's poignant uh with tonight's words of inspiration closing with uh pointing out that we are here to work for the common good and I couldn't agree more that organizations like Santa Rosa Academy and the city of Meny uh do just that working together for the common good and we are just proud as as can be to be part of such a great community that wants to raise up an awesome citizenry that gives back to the community with a focus and a mindset to um render themselves for serving the community. And that's exactly what we do both uh throughout the city, other organizations in the city and uh organizations like Santa Rosa Academy. It's it's definitely a labor of love, but it's also a privilege and we love the the the privilege of being part of such a fine institution. from the uh founders, the core group of founders that launched this amazing organization to the amazing staff and parents and students that we have today. Uh it's been a great uh 20 years and I I look forward to the future when I get to uh sit a few seats back uh along with other folks like like David Faustst and and be part of giving back to the community and retirement and uh looking at the next set of leaders that have uh come to Santa Rosa Academy and celebrating them and their ongoing achievements.

All right. Well, let's take a picture and then we'll have the all of your supporters come up and take a group picture. Great. Why don't we have all the supporters come on up? We'll take a big group picture. That's it. Great round of applause for Santa Rosa. Thank you so much. [applause] All right, now it's time for our business spotlight. Could I please ask uh general manager Joe Moore with Kumalol to come join us at the dis and economic development manager Kayla Charters to introduce the business spotlight.

Good afternoon. My name is Kayla Charters. I'm the economic development manager here at the city of Menafi. I'm here to present our business spotlight. We do a business spotlight quarterly to highlight one of the businesses that make Menafe a unique place and a special destination and all the businesses that make Meny special. So this quarter we are highlighting common cell which is a bike manufacturer that is located over off of Scott and Ziders over at the Meny Gateway. Uh they have a showroom there where you can test out their bikes, get fitted. Um they have bikes for kids. They have specialty bikes that are made for mountain biking trails, which um the city of Meny just recently purchased 400 acres over the Meny Hills, which is going to have many trails for uh our mountain biking. And we're really looking forward to making that a regional destination so we can be known as a great place to mountain bike. And with that, you can go ahead and do some bike shopping over at Common Cell to uh make sure that we are utilizing all of the outdoor activities we have here in Meny. Um, as part of this spotlight program, we have a short little video. If you want to go ahead and roll the roll the clip

[clears throat]

I'm uh Joe. I manage our California location here at uh Commonsaw. We are mountain bike brand. Uh been around for over 25 years. Super high-end bikes. Very passionate company about mountain biking. We have two showrooms where you can come see the bikes, sit on the bikes, purchase the bikes in the showroom. We do have demos. We have a demo program. Um you can go online and read all about that if you want to reserve a bike, try it out. We have uh local trails right here, Greer Ranch. We also have Gail Web and we sell a dirt jumper that's perfect for the bike park. Also, you have Manip Hills, a couple other riding spots in the area here. Always passionate and looking uh looking for new people to to ride bikes.

Thank you. Please join me in congratulating them with our business [cheering] spotlight. [applause] And we've got this certificate for you so you can hang it in the showroom. And every time you look at it, you can see the Meny supports you and your business and your family. It says, uh, here it is for you in recognition of your dedication u your dedication to the Meny community and your continued commitment to improving the quality of life for our residents. One more hand for comments [applause] and we'd love to hear from you a little bit about your story and uh what you plan to do here. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, perfect. So, I think a lot of it was covered already, but um like you said, we're down on Zeters, so we're kind of hard to find. We are facing the 215, so I put a flag out front. If you're ever in the area, just drive around, you'll see us. But we're there Monday through Friday, 9 to5. Um yeah, please stop by anytime we're there. If you're new to riding, please come in. We can educate you, show you bikes, anything. So, a lot of times getting into biking can be kind of intimidating for newer riders, especially adults. So, if anyone's looking to come out, please come out, talk to us. We'll take you out. teach you as much as we can, but we have kids bikes, we have all kinds of range of bikes, so ebikes, everything. Um, yeah, so it's a French brand company, European company that came over here originally in 2015 to Carl'sbad. Um, they were there for three years, then moved to Colorado. The this is just the US location. Um, and then this came up a few years ago. So, we're super excited to be here. Um, Southern California is a huge mountain biking destination. popular riding spot. So, it's really easy to sell bikes for a lot of people here. But it's uh yeah, if you're curious, feel free to stop.

All right. Excellent. Appreciate it. Why don't you grab that? We'll get a couple of pictures.

[applause]

All right, everyone's settled back in. So, next up, we are at uh item number 5.3, our economic development quarterly update. I see the very busy economic development manager, Kayla Charters, is back for us. Take it away.

Thank you, acting mayor and council members. Again, my name is Kayla Charters. I'm the economic development manager here at the city of Menipi and I'm here to do our first economic development quarterly update. We are going to be coming to you quarterly to share about um some economic development activity we have going on in the city and also sharing our economic development programs, what we're doing and more importantly why we're doing it and the impact that it has in our community. So I wanted to start off and begin with what is economic development. I often feel like it's kind of this fancy word that gets thrown around and it often loses its substance and its meaning. But um so I want to kind of dive into what is economic development. You'll see here this is our definition from the the Kaled or California Association of Local Economic Development. And I still feel like it's a pretty complex kind of a hard pill to swallow but it's essentially saying it's generation of wealth in a community and that can look different for any every community. Every community's needs are a little bit differently. So we've kind of simplified it down to four frames of thought here for infection. We're trying to bring new businesses to our community. Business retention. We want to make sure that the businesses that are here have the resources and networks they need to thrive. Job creation. 90% of our res our comm our our workforce are commuting outside of our city. So, we want to make sure that we're creating jobs locally so that we can reduce the commute and get our our residents off the roads and spending more time with their family and revenue generation. We want to make sure as an organization we're creating revenue so we can pay for our police, fire, and infrastructure. And there's many ways to do that. One of the ways that that you can is valuing your land and making sure that we're getting the the large the maximizing our return on investment on the way that we're developing and why we do economic development. Of course, we love to bring in that brand new shiny business that we get a whole bunch of credit for and everybody loves

the ribbon cutings. But there's a technical reason why we do economic development is we have $2.2 billion in unmet need. So that's sales tax leakage that's leaking from our community into others. So our residents are shopping outside of our city and paying for other communities police, fire, and infrastructure. and we want to create those opportunities to keep those dollars local so that we can fund our critical city services that we provide. Um over the past year we have kind of been in this like rebuild phase. So we've recently rebuilt our team up and now we are fully staffed. We're spinning on all pistons and we have a full team. We are fully staffed and fully focused. Um recently we have been moved underneath not recently within the past year we have been moved under uh the assistant city manager Brian Jones who oversees all of the development departments and this is the city's strategic approach to make sure that we are streamlining all development services to make sure that we have um the highest quality service for our development and business partners. Um I've recently been taken over as manager and then we uh Christina Hernandez has been promoted to analyst. Corey Coburn, he's our business development um person on our team as well as we've recently had Eddie join our team as our marketing and then Darra who's our office coordinator. So we have a very energized and ready ready team to make sure that we are doing excellent uh quality economic development and it's not just our team. We are really making sure that we're um our whole entire team is focused on economic development. Over the past year, we've hosted a think like an economic developer workshop for our entire development team. That was in partnership with Cosmon, our one of our consultants. And we wanted to make sure that uh the excellent quality service and the tools that we use in economic development is woven through the entire fabric of our organization. So we're

really giving that white glove approach to all of our development services and we have been doing a lot of work on the behind the scenes to make sure that we are um laying the foundation and making sure that we're strategically planning with purpose. Um you guys in in November approved our placemaking unique identity and tourism master plan. Earlier during our our workshop, we you heard from our urban three land analysis and coming first quarter of the next year, you should be having our economic development strategy come forward to you for consideration. These are all the plans that we are laying the groundwork to make sure that we are laser focused on return on investment and uh outcomes for our economic development strategy. and we are looking forward to the future to make sure that we're executing these plans um and making sure that we are focused on outcomes. And although we've had this rebuild year, we still have had a lot to be proud of over the past year in uh 2025. So, I want to go over some of the the achievements that we've had as an organization with our fully staffed team. We've been able to have a more hands-on approach with our businesses. Um and we've been really had these boots on the ground approach to make sure that we're opening lines of communication with our businesses including the initiation of our business bridge pro or manip business bridge program which is anytime a business receives a certificate of occupancy. Our our team goes and handdelivers it to the business so that we can introduce ourselves the as the economic development team open the line of communication so they know who to contact if they have any issues or concerns. as well as we've greatly increased our business visits through our monthly visits monthly visits program. Um our annual keep walk and then our additional special times that we need to go visit our our businesses like for example when we have the the Bradley Bridge closure to make sure that we're giving information to our businesses so that they are equipped with all the information that they need. And of course we had 384 new businesses

that we're always w excited to welcome to the community. And throughout the year, we've had our um strategic initiatives through our our targeted industries that have been building momentum, such as our healthcare and innovation momentum. Um we've had quite a few uh grand openings within our medical industries and some new ones to look forward to such as the approval of Kaiser Permanente. We have our neighborhood health new building coming to planning commission soon. The grand opening of our Rancho Medical building of excellence and uh the Tmacula Valley OBGYn which took over the former uh Rancho family medical which was our first um of that kind coming into our community. And then focusing on job creation, we've had a lot of activity in the northern end of our city with a lot of the industrial uh moving forward. We've been working with our industrial developer partners to make sure that we're getting some quality tenants into these buildings. Um we are looking forward to maybe on our next quarterly or the next one after that to be announcing some exciting tenants that are going to be going into our some of those buildings. And then our placemaking unique identity and tourism initiatives. Um we've had uh the approval of our Fitwell Health. It will be a nationwide destination for competitions in the health industry. So, we're really excited about that. The purchase of our Meny Hills, which we are positioning ourselves as a destination there, and then some activity within our hotels that will um be driving some of our tourism into the community. And even through our rebuild year, we still have been receiving some statewide and international recognition for our economic development initiatives and um in our program here in the city of Meny, which um really helps tell the story of Meny being a great place to do business. So you'll see on the right, that's our team over at one of our conferences that we go to and having all these awards really shows that we are able to tell

the story of why Meen is such a great place to do business and that it's a great place to call home. And one of the messages we're really strong about here in Medafy is that every department that we have here is part of economic development and their success is our success. So I wanted to highlight some of the great awards that our other departments have won because they help tell our story that Meny is a great place to do business. It's also a great place to live and it's a it's I will just say the best of the best according to the Inland Empire. So uh we're really proud that everybody here is part of economic development. We have uh quite a few new incoming soon. Um looking to the future, we I'll be coming back quarterly to be giving economic development updates and announcing some exciting tenants. And I'm really looking forward to the next year or two to be uh announcing some really exciting businesses that are coming to our community. And then looking to the future, right now we have our shop local bingo going on. So, this is your friendly reminder to shop local to make sure that your your money is being spent locally on your own police department, your own fire department, and your own roads. Um, we have some really cool swag if you complete your Ringo card. Restaurant week is the last week of January. So, this is a a traditionally a slower time for our restaurants that are it's after the holiday season, so restaurants typically slow down a little bit. This is our city's way of making sure that we're giving them a little extra love. So, I encourage you all to v to visit Menipe Restaurant Week. We have some promotions going on there. You'll see some some activity on our social media highlighting some of our Menipe restaurants. Sorry, I'm out of breath. And then our award-winning citizens academy is starting back up March 3rd. This is our program, eight weeks that we go through every department in the city of Meny um and how we run as an organization. It's a great program. If you're interested in learning more about how the city of Manf operates, if you have anybody that's interested in

signing up, feel free to send them my way. Um, moving forward, I will be back quarterly to to share more updates with you. Um, and with that, I'm happy to take any questions that you may have. Thank you, Mr. Charters. Do you have any uh questions for economic development? I just have one quick question. Yes. Um, I saw the the sideby-side logos of Dutch Bros and Weiner Snitle. Are they part of the same development? Those are two separate projects. So, they're not coming at the same time, correct? All right. Is uh do we people have been asking about the Weini snitle? So, do we have do we have any idea when have they are they approved? Is is it all set? Do we know what they're waiting for?

Um, I can find out that information for you and follow up with you. All right. Thank you very much. All right. All right. Item number six on the agenda, approvals or modifications. Madame clerk, do we have any modifications for tonight's agenda? We do not. All right. So, can I ask the city council for an all in favor to approve the agenda? All in favor? I. All opposed. Hearing none. The agenda passes unmodified. Item number seven, public comments. Madame clerk, I see some familiar faces in the audience. I suspect we have public speakers tonight. We do.

All right. Well, this is the time for members of the public to address the council about items which are not on the agenda. The Ralph M. Brown Act limits council's ability to respond to comments or on non-aggendaized items and at such time such comments are made. Each speaker will be allotted up to three minutes on any single item. Madam clerk, please call the first speaker.

Adam Evanto followed by Lupe Jenkins. Honorable city council, staff, meny residents, my name is Adam Evanto, senior public affairs for SoCal Gas with a SoCal Gas winter message, which is why pay more than you have to. Why pay more on your utility bill than you have to? There are ways to save money. Some of them are just simple, such as if you turn down your thermostat by just five degrees, you may save up to 10%. Another thing you can do is examine your weather stripping your appliances, making sure that they're in good working order, making sure that your windows are not leaking, have people out to check your water heater to make sure that they're running okay. And you can save money. Another thing that you can do is if those appliances are starting to get old and you want to start shopping for something new, don't forget to visit the socalg.com website, type in rebates and you will find um a list of different appliances that may be subject to rebates. And those other guys, those electric guys, I won't name their names, but they also have rebates on some of those electric appliances as well. So, saves yourself some money and you can um I I actually save $50 on one of those smart thermostats and it's been saving me money ever since because it's programmable and it does take uh save some money. Uh, another thing is that u for those folks that might be struggling just uh please go to socalg.comass assistance where you can find programs such as our medical baseline program, our level pay program, our um customer assistance program. There's a lot of programs out there. Um if you got a little bit behind on your bills and such, there are ways of paying those down or even getting a grant from us. So, if you're not a big fan of football or if you're a Raiders fan and you just

can't take it anymore, can't watch anymore, visit socalg.com. Hey, listen. I'm a Raiders fan. I'm suffering. I'm suffering. Um, visit socalg.comither assistance rebates and find all these money-saving tips. And if you don't like websites, you can always give us a call at our 800 number, 1 800-427-22000. That number is something that everybody who's a gas company uh customer should have in their phone because whether it's billing or setting up a new service or whatever, just give us a call 1 800-42722000. And I thank you and I wish you guys all a happy, wonderful holiday season.

Thank you, Mr. Evat. Speaker, please. [applause] Lupe Jenkins, followed by Nola Drake. I'll find my note. Good evening, honorable Mayor Prom Carin and our Mini City Council. We want to tell you that we wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy new year. That's it. Oh, I forgot. We'll be back.

Should I wait the next two minutes and 30 seconds? Next speaker, please.

Nola Drake, followed by Moises Kova Rubius. Good evening pro mayor members of the city council community and staff. My name is Nola Drake. I'm a US military veteran, a small business owner and an active member of several nonprofit organizations. I'm here tonight because there's a growing disconnect between um what many states is their commitment to family educations and quality of life and what families and the community are experiencing. Many is a fast growing city yet we lack the community space to support impactful um programs and events for uh the community. The Menipe Library is one of the only true community hubs available and unfortunately they're having to turn away families and community partners because there's simply no space for them to offer programs and events that support uh the needs of the community. This directly conflicts Meny's state of commitment to families, education, and quality of life. I also want to address a disconnect with the Mini Union School District after um conferring with all of the middle schools um here in Meny um the free community-based program that I offer to support teen girls with uh special needs. They all said and they were excited, this is a great um you know resource and said go talk to the um school district specifically Melinda Kundai and Christina Vasquez and um after several repeated attempts and um kind of having to go up there and

um I ended up speaking with um Christina Vasquez who was um acting of Melinda Conde and I explained to her about the program and support from the school counselors. She told me thanks but will pass. No offer to discuss, no expiration, no collaboration. So um to me when a school district and their leadership rejects a free counselor recommended community supported resource um that's definitely a misalignment with um Mini's mission and vision. And so I'm here to respectfully ask the council to do a couple of things. One, to encourage alignment and collaboration between the city, the school district, and the community and explore solutions for um places for community partners um to be able to offer much needed community programs to support, you know, many of these growing uh world's current population, growing population. That's all I have. Thank you so much for the time and happy holidays to everyone.

Thank you. Hey Rachel, are there any copies of Meny Matters over there? If we can find one, I'd like to get one to Miss Drake because that's a magazine that we send out quarterly that lists all of the programs that are happening in the city for families and adults and everything like that. We'll see if we can find one for you. Next speaker, please.

Moises Kova Rubius. Good evening uh members of the council and mayor prom. Um I'm here again today um just talking about an issue that um is a difficult issue for to bring up and speak about um uh and it's the but it's not a controversial issue. This issue is the issue of government weaponization and electronic harassment. Um and basically the victims of electronic harassment suffer in three different ways. Uh this is voiceto technology which comes in the form of microwaves that bypasses a victim's ear go straight into a person's coia and into their hearing response and this is also referred to as the voice of god or hearing voices. Um the other way is through remote neurom monitoring and remote neurom monitoring is essentially mind reading through um a technology that translates um our brain waves into words, images and sometimes emotions. The other uh aspect of this is uh frequency wave attacks which are uh experienced in a victim as um uh emotions um moods and um kind of disturbances um and more on a vis visceral level. Um the other way that this is experienced and that people have been experienc this harassment is through um through community stalking or community harassment. Um, and so I'm raising awareness on how we can as a community, we've heard a lot about community t today and how to make communities safer. And the way that the that as far as this issue goes is through awareness, through uh technology itself by sharing on social media. Um, reaching out to our representatives.

Now, President Trump, like I said, has um uh brought this issue up to the forefront of our minds and also uh Representative Luna um even uh Kel Ken Calbert has been um uh we have raised awareness uh through Ken Calbert or to him. Um there are many members of our leaders uh who are are raising awareness. Um there is also a website called targetedjustice.com where you can go and you can inform yourself and you can share with your community um what you can actually do to make this um to help with this issue. Now this issue isn't controversial as I mentioned um this technology is actually being used in the medical field and um in many area arenas and it's at the forefront of what we're probably going to be using as um we move forward in technology. Um but we do need to be aware as a community um that we have a great responsibility to um to secure uh uh to secure u protections for um our citizens regarding and surrounding this type of technology. So um with that um thank you for letting me share and uh merry Christmas to everybody. [applause]

Any more speakers? No other speakers. No other speakers. All right. Uh, next we will go to oops, let me switch over there. Gonna go to council member updates and comments. This is a time for city council to provide any updates or comments on meetings or events they have attended. We'll start over to the far right with council member Dedrich.

Thank you, acting mayor. Um, since the last meeting, I was a able to attend the Chamber of Commerce gala and awards ceremony and the sweet team employee holiday lunchon. It was a fantastic event. Glad we were able to do that. That's it for me tonight. All right, Council Member Temple. Um, on the 11th, I attended the regularly scheduled meeting of the Riverside County Habitat Conservation Agency in Riverside. However, um, after waiting there, we were one short of meeting a quorum. So, meeting was cancelled. Um, and then yesterday, I attended the, uh, grand opening of the Jersey Mike sandwich shop in District 4. Speaking of district four, council

Vinus.

Um on the 4th of December, the acting mayor, city manager, assistant city manager, we went to and visited our new assembly woman, Assemblywoman Johnson. Uh we were able to share our concerns and our priorities with her for city of Meny. Uh that evening, acting mayor and I attended the McCall interchange public hearing. There's a lot of questions and I think we answered them. They're concerned about Bradley being closed when we started construction. We assure them that's not going to be the case. Uh along with everyone else on the six, I attended the the Christmas tree lighting and the uh and kudos to community uh services. The the tree was looking pretty good this year. Uh on the 10th, I attended student of the month. That same day after that, I headed up to Riverside for the RT admin committee meeting and the 13th uh again with the acting mayor attended the Chick-fil-A second anniversary and was treated to a seven course meal there. They try their new chips. Their new potato chips are pretty good. And then uh as well I attended the uh yesterday Judy Jersey Mike's ribbon cutting in the call there. in District 4. So, that's all I have. Thank you.

Excellent report. Active couple of weeks for you. The the the Chick-fil-A new chips, they're they're Chick-fil-A sauce flavored. They they turned it into a powder and they coated the Chick-fil-A chips with the It's Yeah, it's it's as good as it sounds. Uh so, uh I'll go through my list really quickly. Yes, Councilman Donis and I went with our executive team to meet with uh Assemblywoman Natasha Johnson, who was very receptive asking us what kind of legislative needs we need here in the city. Um, I'm confident we're going to get some action out of her team. Uh, Calrans meeting on McCall. Uh, I I had the honor of going to the Boys and Girls Club sports awards and handed out the mayor's award for sportsmanship. They've named their sportsmanship award after our mayor. Uh, so that that's fantastic. Uh, Chamber of Commerce awards gala, Christmas tree lighting, the employee award lunchon which was mentioned. Um, I I attended the WRCOG administration and finance committee meeting. nothing there to report menipy wise, but I also attended RCTC executive committee and I wanted to let everybody know a couple of things from that. One, um RCTC awarded the construction contract to improve Ramona Expressway in San Hinno from Warren out to Lake View. And if you've ever driven out there, it's one of the most dangerous roads in the world. There's 27 crosses, I've counted them, between Warren and the freeway. So that's going to get improved. $104 million project to um widen and improve and improve the safety on that stretch of roadway. Um also said the environmental reports were approved for the extension of the I-15 toll road which eventually is going to come all the way from Corona all the way down to Lake Elsenor. So early stages of that don't have the funding but that's going on. Um I I went to Senator Kelly Seardo. State Senator Kelly Seardo was hosting a toy drive and Christmas party over at Milvet. um at Samson was there. I went over and donated a couple of toys over there and got to shake the senator's

hand. That was a big thrill for me. Um NJOTC had their annual passin review over at Poma Valley High School. Uh that was that was great. Uh Commissioner Knighton's son was uh part of that process and that was excellent to see him. Very proud. Uh very spectacular event. I attended two sessions of the breakfast with Santa over at the K Center Service Center. Now I love that one. Um, I was over at Tiarra Bloom Nursery for a uh Chamber of Commerce style event put on by Meny Experience. Chick-fil-A 7 course dinner, which we almost couldn't finish. Uh, Teddy's Private Academy had a concert and second anniversary party over there. I get to go over there. Our fire truck was out there for the kids to climb on and run the lights. Um, sat down. We had a legislative meeting with Senator uh, not Senator Supervisor Chuck Washington here. Again, the same thing as Assemblywoman Johnson. Find out of our legislative needs and look forward to 26. Um, last night I attended our annual Manora lighting over at uh, Lazy Creek Park. I love that event, especially in light of everything that happened in Bondi Beach. I thought it was really important for our city to go out there and show that support. And, uh, also the Jersey Mike's ribbon cutting. And I think that's enough. All right. Anything else? Anybody forget anything that they said it? All right. Not like me always. Um, over to item number nine, approval of the minutes. There is one set of minutes for the council's consideration. Do we have any modifications to the minutes requested? Nope. Then we'll ask for an all in favor of approving the minutes. All in favor say I. All in favor?

I. All opposed. Hearing none. The minutes are approved from December 3rd regular meeting. We now move to the consent calendar. Item number 10 on our agenda. All matters on the consent calendar are to be approved in one motion unless a council member requests a separate action on a specific item on the consent calendar. If an item is removed from the consent calendar, it will be discussed individually and acted upon separately. So, madam clerk, are there any requests to speak on the consent calendar? There are none. All right. Does any council member want to pull an item from the consent calendar? 10.6, please. 10.6. Any others? Can I get a motion to approve the balance?

I'll move second. So, the remaining consent calendar items pass 40. Uh, council member Dinus, what is your pleasure on this item 106? We'll get a presentation then. I see our HR department coming up. Absolutely. Good evening, uh, acting mayor, members of the council, our city exec, and, uh, members of the public. Thank you for an opportunity to speak on this item tonight. With me I have uh Sano Rodriguez, our human resources manager, and he's going to briefly walk you through this item and at its conclusion, we'll be available for any additional questions if there are. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, council members, and members of the public. My name is Sana Rodriguez and I'm the HR manager, and I will be give a brief presentation on item 10.6. Item 10.6 6 is an update to the men salary schedule and authorized position listing to reflect the new California minimum wage law which impacts two part-time positions our community service leader one and the police cadet. This item also establishes the police corporal classification which was agreed upon during theou negotiations uh between the city of mane and the manifi police officer association. The police corporal will be the primary field training officer and will be responsible for training newly hired officers. And lastly, this staff report also establishes a police recruit classification. A police recruit program is consistent with other law enforcement agencies. We survey 10 nearby agencies including Hemet, Marietta, and Redlands and they all have a police recruit program. This program establishes a career path for other positions, including the police cadet, as they now will be able to apply to an entry- level role within our police department. The implementation of the police recruit program is a strategic effort to attract individuals at the beginning of their law enforcement career and retain high quality personnel. This addresses ex existing police officer vacancies and creates a sustainable pipeline for talent as we can invest in officers before they become sworn personnel. The police corporal position will support in providing training to the new officers and be the lead level in operational support. Lastly, the police recruit program will not add any additional positions to our city. Police recruits will underfill current police officer vacancies. Once the police recruits graduate from the academy, they will be promoted to the police officer position.

That concludes our presentation. Um, and with us today are Chief Carr, Captain Gutierrez, and Lieutenant Barbieri. And they will be happy to answer any additional questions you may have. Thank you for the presentation. Council member Dennis, you pulled this. Yeah. One question. What What will be the duties of the the police recruit? And they're not sworn officers. They'll be full-time positions. So, what will they be doing while they're on on duty?

So, uh the police recruit will not be doing anything at the police department while they're on duty. Their their sole purpose is to attend the police academy, go through the whole training program, graduate, and once they graduate, they become full-time police officers. They uh enter into one of our bargaining units, go through their field training program, and when they're done with that, then they will go to the street and and work as a full-time police officer. Okay, I I pulled this because I think it's worth the our residents to know the progression that we're making on our our police department that you now we're we're starting to do some homegrown ones. I mean, you have recruits that are from here, you know, they're familiar with your culture of the police department. They know the city real well and there's they're have a vested interest in in serving the city. So, uh I really appreciate and I'm excited to see this program being put into place. So, well done. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments from uh city council? Council member Temple.

No, I would just like to uh echo what Dean said. I think that um one I I really appreciate the corporal program uh being FTO's having that experience being able to um share that and train up new officers or laterals that come over. But um the recruit position I think is is really outstanding. You know, most all of our officers I think with the exception of one have come from other agencies. And this allows men to to watch somebody come up through maybe the explorer ranks and eventually become a recruit and then an officer and uh and be able to imbue that culture that we have in our city and uh and serve the citizens here. And I think that's just an outstanding program. So I'm glad it's been done. I I commend you guys.

Yeah, we've we've been working um and building this for a while now. We started with our explorer program. Um you started out with a few explorers. has become really robust and then we got the cadet position. So as these as these kids grow up in the police department now they want that extra opportunity to become a police officer and it gives them that that leg in basically to to to become a member of our department that they've they know the culture, they know how we are, they understand our processes and procedures. They understand what the community expects from from us and how we service the community. So it's we're excited about it. Yeah, in any position, upward mobility is so important to keep morale going and people see forward progress and they get more responsibility and that's having our own homegrown talent is is super. So, um, care to make approval,

right? Have a second. Second.

All right, that passes 40. Thank you very much. That takes care of the consent calendar. So now we move on to public hearing items. Uh we have three public hearing items on the agenda that are procedural formalities on the formation of a CFD community facilities district and annexation into a CFD. First item is 11.1 for the annexation into the maintenance CFD 2017-1 for Bailey Park. Does the city council wish to hear a presentation or go straight to the public hearing? Council member Dinus, [laughter] anybody have any objections to going right to the public hearing? All right, then let's do that. Uh, does the question Does the city council have any questions for staff on the item hearing? None. I'll open the public hearing at 6:50. Madame Clerk, can you confirm this public hearing was legally noticed?

Yes, it was. Is there any public testimony on this? There is none. There are none. All right. Any written protests received? There are none. Are there any persons registered to vote in the territory of the district? There are none. All right. Have all the owners of the taxable property consented to holding the special election immediately following the public hearing? Yes, they have. Do you concur that the special election may be held this evening? I do.

I'll close the public hearing at 6:51. Does the city council have any comments or would you like to discuss anything? No. Nothing that I said right there made you uh come up with some items for discussion. All right. Can I get a motion in a second to adopt a resolution calling an election? Second. That fails to pass.

My apologies. We all voted no. That's not true. Technical difficulties. Shane didn't freak out right there. [laughter] Uh, Madam Clerk, have you received the official ballots and waiverss from the land owners who can cast their votes on behalf of the owners of all of the property? Yes, I have, and it was a yes vote. Thank you. Can I get a motion and second to adopt a resolution declaring election results? Second.

That item passes 4 Z. Madam clerk, please introduce the ordinance. An ordinance of the city of Manifi, California, amending ordinance number 2017-231 and levying special taxes to be collected during fiscal year 2025-26 to pay the annual cost of the maintenance and servicing of street lights, parks, parkway, streets, roads, and open space in the operation and maintenance of storm drainage systems. Reserve fund for capital replacement and administrative expenses with respect to the city of Menipe Community Facilities District number 2017-1 annexation 33 for maintenance services. All right. Can I get a motion and second to introduce the ordinance, please?

Second. That passes 40. We got two more of those to go. Just like that. Their procedural. We have to do it this way. It's the law. Uh, next item is the annexation into the maintenance CFD 2017-1 for Nautical Cove. By the way, I drove by Nautical Cove the other day. It's coming along nice. Does the city council wish to hear a presentation or go straight to public hearing? Public hearing is what I'm getting the sense of. So, uh, do we have any questions for staff? No. All right. I'll open the public hearing at 6:53. Uh, madame clerk, can you confirm this hearing was, uh, legally noticed? Yes, it was. Is there any public comment or testimony? There are none. Do we have any written protests received?

There are none. Are there any persons registered to vote in the territory of the district? There are none. Have all of the taxable Have the owners of all of the taxable property consented to holding the special election immediately following the public hearing? They have. All right. Do you concur, Madam Clerk, that the special election may be held this evening? I do.

We'll close the public hearing at 6:54. Does the city council have any comments or want to discuss anything about the item? Hearing none, can I get a motion and a second to adopt a resolution calling an election? Second passes 40. Madam clerk, have you received the official ballots and waiverss from the land owners who can cast their votes on behalf of the owners of all of the property? Yes, I have, and it was a yes vote. All right. Can we get a motion in a second to adopt a resolution declaring election results?

Second. That passes 40. Madam clerk, please introduce the ordinance. An ordinance of the city of Beny, California, amending ordinance number 2017-231 and levying special taxes to be collected during fiscal year 2025-26 to pay the annual cost of the maintenance and servicing of street lights, parks, parkway, streets, roads, and open space in the operation and maintenance of storm drainage systems. Reserve fund for capital replacement and administrative expenses with respect to the city of Veny Community Facilities District number 2017-1 annexation number 34 for maintenance services. I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. Can you Can I get a motion and a second to introduce the ordinance? Second.

That passes 40. That's two out of three. Item [clears throat and snorts] number 11.3, the proposed formation of a CFD 2025-5 for Nautical Cove. Does the city council want to go straight to the public hearing on this one? As expected. Didn't think he'd go off the board there. will open the public hearing at 6:55. Madame Clerk, can you confirm this public hearing was legally noticed? Yes, it was. Do we have any public comments? We have none. Have we received any written protests? We have none. Are there any persons registered to vote in the territory of the district? There are none. All right, Madam Clerk, have the owners of all of the taxable property consented to holding the special election immediately following the public hearing? Yes, they have. Madam Clerk, do you concur that the special election may be held this evening? I do.

All right. Okay, we'll close the public hearing at 6:56. Does the council have any comments or discussion? Seeing none, can I ask for a motion, a second to adopt a resolution establishing CFD number 2025-5 and calling an election and a resolution determining the necessity to incur bonded indebtedness? Second. God, if I had a dime every time I did that. All right, that passes 40. Madam clerk, have you received the official ballots and waiverss from the land owners who can cast their votes on behalf of the owners of all the property? Yes, I have. It was a yes vote.

All right. Can I ask for a motion in a second to adopt a resolution declaring election results? Second.

Passes 40. Madam clerk, please introduce the ordinance. An ordinance of the city of Manafy, California acting in its capacity as a legislative body of the community facilities district number 2025-5 Nautical Cove of the city of Meny authorizing the levy of special taxes. All right. Can we get a motion and a second to introduce the ordinance? Second. That passes 4. That's all three. Great job everybody. We made it through. We have nothing on our discussion item section. City Mr. City Attorney, anything to report? Not tonight. Mayor, Mr. City Manager, anything to report?

Yes, just a couple of things. Uh, just a reminder that this will be the the last meeting of the year for us. And I want to wish the council happy holidays and a safe new year. Also, the residents. And also reminder that city hall will be closed uh starting uh December 24th through January 2nd. And our next city council meeting will be uh January 21st. We have to cancel the first meeting due to the holidays. So happy holidays and stay safe. All right. Any future agenda requests? Hearing none, we'll close the meeting is adjourned at 6:58. Thank you.