City Council - Regular Meeting

that you feel once you enter these stores is just people smiling at you. You know, you feel you just feel family. We want you to be here, you know, and we want you to take advantage of what the city is providing for you. Lunch programs, activities, you know, for your mental health, physical health, but I enjoy the most to see transformations. I've seen seniors come in with tears in their face and then a year from now, you see them and they're line dancing. They're attending our parties. They are all dressed up, you know, with big smiles and and that's the most beautiful thing I can witness. I have grown a lot. I feel like I have more patience now. It makes me see the city I live in a different way. I love where I live and work. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hi, I'm Ash. All [Music]

[Music] right. [Music] [Music] Well, good evening everybody. Welcome to our city council meeting. We are going to start with an invocation from Pastor Shannon Scott from Grace Baptist Church. And after the invocation, could you please lead us in a pledge of allegiance, pastor? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate that. Thank you all for being here tonight. Uh let's uh let's talk to the Lord. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be gathered together as a city, as a community tonight. And uh just as I walked in the building, I was thinking about all the things that we have to be thankful for. Lord, we're grateful that our uh city has uh access to police and firemen and schools and hospitals and all these things, Lord, that sometimes maybe are in our city that we take for granted. I pray that tonight you would remind us about how fortunate we are, that there are places that don't have what we have. Thank you for the children that are laughing and and uh Lord, playing on our playgrounds. Uh Lord, just seeing that come back to our uh school system at this time of year is a blessing. I pray that you'll help uh families, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, Lord, aunts and uncles as they uh Lord encourage these young people. Uh they are the future. And uh we pray that you would help us even as we gather tonight to make uh this city be the best that it can be. Help us not to take for granted that we can come to a place like this and share grievances or complaints. Even

as we come together to try to make things better, I pray that you would give wisdom and discernment to our city leaders. Lord, in every decision that they have to make, I pray that you would help them to make it. Lord, give them the right words to say as they communicate to us. Lord, I pray that you'd help them to be accountable and thrifty with regards to uh to monies and Lord, yet make it a place where we're glad to live and that the quality of life here in our community can be very special. Be with those who Lord need a little extra attention tonight. There may be some widows and orphans and homeless people tonight that need a little extra attention. Help us not to forget them as well. And Lord, help us to do what we can in that regard. We love you. We thank you. Give wisdom now to all these that have part. Thank you for all these people that are gathered and every recognition that'll be done tonight. We thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen. Let's pledge together. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Good to see you.

All right. At this time, I'd like to convene the open session and call the meeting to order. Will the city clerk please read the special instructions? Individuals wishing to address the city council are requested to complete a speaker card and deliver it to city clerk staff prior to the item being heard by the city council. Please observe a three-minute limit for communications and once called upon to speak, please state your name and city of residents for the record. Mayor, there were two revisions to the agenda. Item 6.7, the staff report was revised and item 10.1, the staff report was revised. Okay, Miss Edwards, and I was told that maybe the agenda was missing a couple pages in the that were in the back of the room. Has that been correct? It's been updated.

Add a girl. Thank you. Okay. Well, we have a couple of recognitions. And the first one um is Miguel's 50th anniversary. So would the Vasquez family please come up to the podium for the recognition? [Applause]

Congratulations. How you doing? Good. All right. So couple things to talk about here. First of all, I'll say that all of my kids no longer live in the area. So, whenever they fly home, we pick them up at the airport, the first thing they say is, "We got to stop by Miguel's before we go home." So, that says something right there. So, all right, 50th anniversary. Whereas the the city council of the city of Corona is proud to recognize and congratulate Miguel's Restaurants on their 50th anniversary for their generous contributions throughout the years. And whereas Miguel's restaurant was founded in 1973 by Mike and Mary Vasquez in Corona, California, and named in honor of Mike's grandfather, Miguel, in 1960 1975, they leased a fast food restaurant located 2 miles from the current Miguel's and named it Miguel's Jr., which was an immediate success. And whereas Miguel's Jr. has remained committed to excellence in food quality and customer service, making them a source of community pride. Today, the legacy continues with Miguel's California Mexican cosina, a fullervice restaurant located at the shops in dolos and 23 additional locations have opened throughout the Inland Empire in Orange County. Very impressive. Whereas, the Vasquez family has continued supporting continuously supported Corona through generous donations. They really have a lot over the years. has sponsored dozens of locals events, school fundraisers, and food donation drives, and has community involvements in projects like the Citrus Park splash pad, emphasizing their integral role as pillar of the community. Now, therefore, I mayor Jim Steiner on behalf of the Corona City Council to hereby commend and congratulate Miguel's Restaurants on their 50th anniversary and their commitment and outstanding contributions to our community. And I can't not say this, Miss Vasquez, 82 years old. I'm allowed to say that, right? It was in the paper, right?

She just got her high school diploma.

Yeah, that was impressive. So, I would like to turn the mic over to you. You have a few words you'd like to say? Well, I just want to to thank everybody for being here and uh I hear so many stories about our business, but uh it's a long story and I know I have only a few minutes, but I just want to thank all of you to to support us all these years. And uh why they as me how you feel about being 50 years? I said, I don't know. when you open a business, you just concentrate and and uh do the best with the kitchen, the bills and and move on and we don't think about the future. So, I thank God for all these years that um he's given us and all the success. Thank you very much.

Great job. Say thank you.

So, my name is uh Javier Vasquez. I'm the CEO of Miguel Restaurants. I'm a my obviously my is my mother right here but as my mother aside she's t my parents taught us a lot about giving back to communities and trying our best what we've done we couldn't be here without the great team that's here that supports us that team members here today we couldn't be here without the great guests we have uh we serve about 3 million guests a year so with all the support and all that taught us also uh my parents taught us about giving back to the community as much as we can with the sister water park and those things I understand there's a championship team here today So, uh, I'll be Miguel's will host you for a dinner, uh, as as congratulations for your dinner. So, we'll find we'll find you somehow someway. So, uh, congratulations on what you've done. But that's a a testament to what we've done as a as a company from Miguel. We try to partner partnership with the people and create a fabric in the community we're in. And that's really a testament to what my mom taught us and my parents taught us as as kids. And we want to continue that tradition as we continue to grow. Migals and see a lot of faces, familiar faces that have been customers for years. Uh, and myself and thank you and really appreciative and we uh, thank you for the city, the support they've given us throughout the years and to help us grow our business. And it's been a great partnership and we continue to work with the city as we grow our business and the city grows with us. So, thank you again. And of course uh it's all started with a founder who you know no one thinks that uh after 50 years in business her mom's still very active and she still is there every day in day out make sure that we're doing the right thing. So thank you mom and thank you everyone appreciative get a picture

that was very generous offer for the softball players and you don't look a day over 50. Okay.

Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. See you soon. All right. Well, we mentioned softball players. So, we have a recognition for Corona Girl Softball Association, our all-star teams. So, I'd like to invite the all-star girls teams and their managers and coaches to the podium to receive the recognition. Come on down, everybody. [Applause]

Figure out a place. You guys all come You guys want to come back over here? All right. Is that everybody that's coming up? All right, ladies. All right. This summer, the Corona Girls Softball League fielded four all-star teams to represent both the league and the city of Corona in various tournaments throughout the area. The age groups participating were eight and under, 10 and under, 12 and under, and 14 and under. The teams competed in six invitation invitational tournaments, as well as the SoCal USA District's tournament. The 10 and under, 12 and under, and 14 and under teams qualified for the USA state tournament with the 14 and under team advancing further to compete at the USA Western Nationals Tournament. Each team recorded success reaching the semi-finals or finals in several tournaments. The 14 and under team led the charge, winning four tournaments in a row. So, congratulations you guys. Now, I've got a certificate for every one of you. Okay, that's signed by me. All right. Now, I want to thank um Angela Needto from the city manager's office and her team for doing all of this for you guys. So, I'm gonna let the coaches and managers pass it out to their to their players, but I would like to ask is is there one representative from the group that would like to say a few words?

Anyone? Ber. All right, here we go.

Come on, guys. Well, over the past few years, I've been president for the last two years, and the league is growing, getting more talent in the league, and this is probably the best group of girls I've seen in Chronog. So, these are the guys that did it right here. So, and couldn't do without the coaches. So, good job, guys. Let's keep it going. We're our numbers are up almost 60 girls this season. That's with other girls leaving the league. So, we are growing. So, awesome. Get your friends to come out.

All right. Thank you very much for this honor. I appreciate it. Let's get a picture. Okay. Congratulations, ladies. We're really proud of you. Way to represent. All right. Let's get a picture. contest.

There you go. Pretend you like each other. There you go.

Now the moms. Right.

Anybody else?

All right. Good job, you guys. How about a round of applause? [Applause] We'll give them just a minute to clear out or if you guys can stay if you want. These council meetings are really fun. All right. Well, say I didn't warn you.

Go ahead. All right. So, let's go ahead and get to the consent calendar. Or wait, Miss Edwards, were there any speakers for the um recognitions? Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for the recognition.

Okay. Thank you so much. Now, we're consent calendar. All items listed on the consent calendar are considered to be a routine matters, status reports, or documents covering previous city council action. The items listed on the consent calendar may be enacted in one motion with the concurrence of the city council. A council member or any person in attendance may request that an item be removed for further consideration. Would my colleagues like to pull any of the items for discussion? Uh just 6.7. I wanted to have a just make a clarification. Thank you. None. Okay. And I'm pulling 6.5. Is the uh any speakers from the public want to pull anything?

Mayor, yes, we have two speaker cards for the consent calendar, and it's for items 6.5 and 6.7. Oh, okay. That's convenient. All right. So, can I get a motion on all items except for 6.5 and 6.7? So, moved.

I'll second. Okay, please vote. That item passes 40. All right. 6.5. So I pulled that along with a member from the public. So, I pulled it just um this is the project that's uh going to be occurring on Ontario and Lincoln and I just wanted to ensure Mr. City Manager that there's regular communication that we have with the affected residents on Ontario. Um some of them have some questions. Um you know, what are the new retaining walls going to be for? How how do they go about hooking up to the sewer when it's time? How much of their property will be affected? What will the digging up plan look like? How are the um how are they going to get in and out of their driveway during construction? How are we dealing with the uh sharp grades that are at their driveways? And when is construction expected to start and stop? So, uh these are all reasonable questions. So, I was just hoping that um staff could maybe have them on a on a email blast or something a quarterly just let them know where we're at with the project, you know, and you normal Q&As's that are kind of related to what I brought up.

Thank you, Mayor. Absolutely. And as the uh design finalizes and we have a really clear picture, our staff will be doing door-to-door outreach, meeting with all of them to answer those questions, staying in regular contact and making sure that everybody has their their questions answered. So, absolutely. Thank you, sir. And then we had a uh someone from the public want to talk about 65.

Mr. Morgan, good evening. Uh Joe Morgan 206 Ren. So uh so I was at the meeting that public works came out last spring and you know they had the residents had a lot of concerns and it was actually a really good meeting. Everybody you know it felt like everybody was kind of getting along but the gist of the meeting was you know hey we're going to proceed. We're going to we're going to be at 60% and you know from you know from here on out you're going to be involved. this is going to go to council in like a month. This is last spring. And to now see this just pop back up and boom, retaining walls. No, nobody said a word. Nobody. That was the last that was the last contact anybody would have with anybody. And and you know, I was there going, "Oh yeah, this is going to be fine." You know, everything's going to be, you know, treat everybody's gonna be treated fairly and and being very attentive. And I don't know what the delay was, but the fact that it just kind of went silent. These people are kind of hanging there wondering what's going to happen to their yards, to their houses, how, you know, how what improvements could they make, should they make, what maintenance should they do, should they should they not do, when is this going to be done? And then to see that the contract's going to go through 28, you know, that's, you know, is that going to be construction's going to going to finish in 28? You know wh what is what's the story? Is there a timeline that anybody can count on that anybody can run their life around? I mean that's a long time to have a a a cudgel hanging over you and hanging over your house and hanging over your your mere existence. You know that's just not it's not it's not not right. It's not fair and they should be dealt with. I and and I I thought there was a clear direction from the council

in this that look these are like seven houses that you can handle keeping you know keeping in touch with these seven houses and let them know you know and this isn't just you know some normal project you know this is going to be very intrusive on their houses their lives their house you know their their existence and and so I I would ask that you know going forward that they don't go silent and and then to have more decisions made. You know, it sounds like there was some design work done that wasn't done in concert with them. So, I think I would, you know, you get my gist. Thank you.

Got it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. Um, so let's see. I'll make a motion for 6.5. Please vote. Try to push the second button. My glasses on.

All right. And that passes 40. Now we'll go to 6.7. Councilman Speak. Uh, thank you, sir. I I just wanted to I don't really have a question. Just wanted to thank staff for moving quickly for a contractor that wasn't doing a good job. Um, uh, I I see those areas on a regular basis and, um, I hear feedback from a lot of folks. So, really happy to see not happy to see anybody lose a contract, but uh, at the same time, I'm um, happy to see us moving quickly to correct something that people have to deal with every day. So, that's it. Thank you.

Okay. And then we had a speaker from the public, Mr. Morgan. Hey, it's me again. Did you miss me? Um, I I wanted to point out just how, you know, unusual this is. I there's been discussions in here about why, you know, why we have the same people over and over again and and and whether or not we would get rid of somebody that wasn't performing, you know, and and to see, you know, these guys got a contract and then got it yanked because they didn't do it, that that's that's unusual. I it's I'm I'm 100% here for it. It should happen probably more than it does. Uh, but I just want to point out to to everybody just how unusual something like this is to have, you know, a month, month and a half later to go, no, these guys are not cutting the mustard and to move on to somebody else. So, I I want I I appreciate it and I just wanted to come up and say thank you.

Thank you. Okay, Lesie, do you want to make a motion? Yeah, I'll move.

I'll second. Please vote. All right, that passes 40. Moving on to communications from the public. Persons wishing to address the city council are requested to state their name and city of residence for the record. This portion of the agenda is intended for general public comment only, which means it is limited to items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council that are not listed on the agenda. Please note that state law prohibits the city council from discussing or taking action on items not listed on the agenda. The city council will appreciate your cooperation in keeping your comments brief. Please observe a threeminute limit for communications. Miss Edwards, are there any speaker cards on the public?

Mayor, yes, we have seven speaker cards for communication from the public. Okay. So, if you want to speak, you can line up in that middle row there and or sit down and wait till the till the podium's free and then come on up. Hi, welcome. Thank you.

My name is Joyce Malay. I live in Corona on Berrero away and I was uh reading the skyline master plan and I was concerned about the bathroom. Not per se the bathroom, but the location of the bathroom is scheduled for our residential street. And um I had a few concerns about that. One, you know, bathrooms are often used by homeless people. Uh bathrooms are often vandalized and have graffiti on them. A bathroom reduces our ability to let our children play outside freely, safely, and it will negatively impact our property value. I was thinking, I know you have thought of many options. Um, but I have a couple options that I had thought of. Um, if you go to uh some hiking trails just have signage that say pack in, pack out, and they show you what you can buy. I looked online. There's a lot of things you can buy to properly dispose of your waste. Uh, a bathroom and a parking lot could be built uh along the flood basin on Chase. That was once suggested as a parking lot when Nelson Nelson worked here, which could be locked. The parking lot could be locked and um would reduce the breakins that are happening on Foothill and you could put a bathroom there. Uh another bathroom there would allow more handicap spots on Foothill which were probably necessary. Installing a bathroom at the intersection of Foothill and the trail head where the fountain and the dog water is. There's also utilities there. That location uh would be more visible and probably have less vandalism and it would help people who are coming

and leaving to be able to use a bathroom right away. And it would not directly infect our street. I don't think anybody here wants a bathroom on their street. Uh uh kind of an extreme example would be uh right up before you get to Chase on Foothill. There's places where people park up there. I don't know whose property that is, but possibly another trail head could be put there to kind of meet up with Skyline and a bathroom and a parking lot there. I did make a um a list of my things if you want a copy. I don't know if I can do that. You can submit it to the city clerk.

Okay. Um, that's um, I just wanted to voice my opinion on that. I'm I live by the trail and use the trail every day and love it. I like the naturalness of it and I would like it to stay that way. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Molly.

Good evening. Hey, how you doing? Good.

Ray Guchio again. Hi. Hey, Wes. Uh the reason I'm here is um a school parking issue again across from Santgo High School. Uh and I got a prepared speech so I don't go over 3 minutes. After the last meeting that I attended, the parking situation got better with police presence and tickets being issued. 3 weeks later, it slowly went back to being the circus it was. Uh the pictures that are on the screen right now are just from um middle of last school year until this last Friday. The violations are parking in the red zone, parking within 15 ft or fire hardened, and parking in a permanent only zone along with blocking sidewalks and stuff like that. Uh, the C see Cclick Fix app is a godsend. I get more done with the app than calling Corona PD dispatch uh because you get the same answer. We'll get an officer out there when we can, but officers never respond. I have learned that between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. is a magical hour where all the crime and other incidents occur. Apparently, the world as we know it goes to hell in Corona within that 1 hour time frame. We had an issue on Friday 8:15 around 3:30 p.m. A lady was about to hit my trash can. So, I walked up to her and advised her of that. I told her that she needed a parking permit to park. And I directed her where she could park legally. It was a pleasant conversation until a random guy parked illegally popped out of his passenger side of his truck and said, "You don't have to move because they are not going to do crap." And he used a different word, but I won't do that because of decorum. I called Corona PD dispatch and they advised me and advised them of the confrontational person. PD never responded, but I did get a call that night at 9:15 p.m. asking if the guy was still out there. Apparently, he was pitching a tent. Maybe I don't stalking me. I don't know. I was mad at first, but that random guy was right. They don't do anything. Cone is the do whatever you want city, whether it's legal or not. That should be the new city motto. We were told that because we live in a school zone that we're a top priority, but apparently that is incorrect. In conclusion, this is a very frustrating situation, but I'm not going

away. I will do whatever it takes legally to get the situation solved. Hopefully, you will help solve this problem. Thank you, sir. Thanks for coming down, Ray. Thanks, Wes.

Thank you for for sharing those pictures. I I will say that um the pictures that are people are blocking the the fire hydrants, the folks that are parking in the red zone on Boston that people can't see around it. I'm just really worried, chief, that I know that, you know, I saw the great the great presence that we had at Citrus today. That was a great show for us and I think it really helped. Um, I'm just worried about the about, you know, people are, you know, as you can tell some pictures, cars are moving, people are running in between and I'm worried that, you know, something's going to happen. So, thank you, Ray, for for continuing. The base is a safety issue. That's what we worry about. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. Hi, Miss Maddie. Mattie Paxton, 33 year resident of Corona. Um what I want to talk about today is thank you very much. I drove by um six and uh sixth in Maine and guess what? It's working. It's getting it's something's happening. So thank you very much. On the other side, however, um I spent a lot of time in Irvine. I grew up in that area and to see all these multi-story buildings, it's almost feeling like almost a small version of New York City. And I kind of fear that something is going to happen here trying to put so much into that one little area, especially with the fact that we now have um what is it? The tavern open on one side, you're going to put Northgate on the other. We have a huge amount of traffic and one lane in each direction. The the numbers, the math on that just doesn't seem to add up to me. Um, we had a famous saying in a house and I'm going to clean it up as well was my mother was known for putting 10 pounds of poo poo in a five pound bag. And that's kind of what I'm feeling is we're trying to do so much and condense so much in such a small area. I wish when you consider what's going on is please um the traffic and what's going to happen with our um Saturday morning

farmers market. I will miss that if we don't get to have that. But we're making progress and I just again I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Elise. I'm from Kingdoms New Harvest Outreach Incorporated here in Corona. Uh first and foremost, I would like to say that you guys have done a tremendous job with the homelessness. um you see a huge huge improvement especially on Sixth Street the Rim Paul Park um we used to do a lot of outreaching there and I just would like to commend you all and the continuous pro uh progress that you guys are continuous to make um in the community. It is um definitely seen and is heard. So I would just like to say thank you for that. and also um I am a ambassador in the community and um I just want to make sure uh let you all know um that we're here to help. Um we have a clothing drive coming up this this Sunday at our location 2363 California Avenue unit 106 is in the same um plaza as Miguel's. is going to be on the 24th of this month at 1:15 p.m. Um, we're going to have clothes, we're going to have shoes, we're going to have supplements and different things of that nature. We're going to launch our other project next month um that helps uh feed families. So, um as we know, California is very expensive and um there's no rent control. So, a lot of families are barely making it and they have to decide between paying a bill or prov or um getting their next meal. So, I'm just wanted to uh let you know that we are here to help as any way as possible. and I'll be m making sure that I'll go and um reach out to Karen Roer and also the city clerk to provide any information that we can do to help you all and make it easier for you all

because I understand leadership is very hard um and what you guys do. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good evening.

Good evening again. Um, so I wanted to come up here. Our friend uh Daryl Sailor, who's here pretty much every week. Um, his I spoke a few years ago when when his uh dad Carl passed away from Carl's Auto Machine. And so uh a few weeks ago he lost his mom as well. So he's not here uh because they're finalizing arrangements or services on Saturday at the the church at 8th in Maine. Starts at 10:00 if anybody wants to be there. Um, so that's why he's not here. And I just, you know, I wanted to, you know, say something about it here, you know, because we all know, we all know Daryl and we all know the kind of guy he is. And so, and his parents were the same way. I mean, it's it's almost like my almost feel like my adopted adopted automotive family. So, since since Carl's pass, she's sort of been the, you know, assistant manager of the machine shop. and uh she used to run the Dwiner Stitle on Main Street. She was there for quite a while. She's like the manager there. So she's OG Corona, you know, I want to say all through the 80s and the 90s she was there. So she was u kind of a fixture for a lot of us. So anyways, I just wanted to say something about her. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council members. My name is Kelly Montalvo and I'm a resident of Corona. I'm here to promote an event that my nonprofit Safe Inland Empire is sponsoring here in Corona. Safeie stands for streets are for everyone inland empire. We are a chapter of Safe Los Angeles. Our mission is to improve the quality of life for pedestrians, cyclists, vulnerable road users, and drivers by reducing traffic fatalities. SAFE addresses the problem through direct education, community awareness, community outreach, legislative advocacy, and victim support. We are excited to have been a part of the community pedestrian and bicycle safety training here in Corona in conjunction with cowwalks and UC Berkeley safe track. One of the action items that came from this was a desire to promote the new bike lanes on sixth street from grand to grand and to continue working towards making downtown Corona bike and pedestrian friendly and of course safe. As part of this effort, SAFE would like to showcase the new bike lanes with a bikewalk. With the downtown revitalization project in process, we believe now is a good time to act. And I don't know if you can see behind you, but there is a tenative flyer and our date is October 25th. Um, we it's a free event. We're planning to um hold it at the historic civic center lawn that I learned is in two parts now. So, I believe it's called the front lawn. Um, and we it is a um it's nothing we're raising money for. We're not trying to to sell any we're selling t-shirts, water, and snacks, but it's it's not a fundraiser event for us. In closing, we would like to invite you all

to attend and join us as we ride or walk the approximately two-mile loop. We appreciate any support and help, including a potential reduction in the facility reservation rate for the city hall front lawn, which is $284 for 12 hours, and that's the rate for a resident nonprofit. We do not need the 12 hours, but are pretty committed to that space as it is perfect to showcase the bike lanes. As I said, this event is not a fundraiser for us. There's no registration fee and we simply hope to express our appreciation for Corona in making our downtown pedestrian and bike friendly and we hope to grow in this endeavor. Thank you for your time and attention.

Kelly, before you walk away, I just wanted to say um I ran into Secretary Almakin um about three months or three months ago and he saw me he said Corona and then he said bean dip. Bean dip. So, I wanted to make sure that I pass it on to you and and I I uh I I think hopefully we can connect with um some of our folks from community services to get you applied for our um uh sponsor city sponsorship. We have the World Day of Remembrance co-sponsored. So, thank you all very much for that. So, I understand it's only one event per year. I understand. I I would like to cover your cover the the fees for that for you and I'll I'll follow up with staff. So, thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much and hope to see you guys there on a bike or walking the sidewalks.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Good evening. Hi there.

Rory Connell, District 5. I want to start by thanking the community. All 60,000 of you that watched the video that I put up last week. All almost 2,000 of you that liked it. All almost thousand people of you that shared it. And I really want to thank the council member that liked and unliked that. quickly. Instagram does send you notifications for that. Keep that in mind. So, I didn't get to the part last week because we only have 3 minutes and I got a lot of feedback from the community and it's pretty evident that the community is not really in favor of housing and the narrative still remains the same that we have to build housing. But digging deeper, health and safety code 43176 from the state of California states that there are exceptions to that. If we take those redevelopment funds and take money from the general fund and repay that, we are not obligated to build housing. Is that correct? Also, if that the city retains ownership and it's a community space, are we required to build housing? I'm asking that question genuinely. If I'm wrong and my understanding is wrong, so be it. But the thing that's really disappointing is that narrative keeps getting pushed that we have to build housing. I would just like you guys to own that the way that you feel the only way that we can redevelop the city is by selling out to a developer and building apartments on top of a strip mall. That's it. Own it. If that's the decision you're going to make, own it. Because it's pretty obvious from your community sentiment survey that housing isn't a top priority. All the things that we've been promised are the top priorities, not housing. Nobody wants housing. Nobody wants one lane on Sixth Street. Once again, Mr. Derith, Mr. Ellis, are those legal exceptions real? And have they been investigated by this council? Are we simply taking the easy route that this city has done time and time again and find the first buyer to sell out to to build more housing? That's a genuine question. Am I wrong in that? Will you answer that question?

Have you guys even discussed that as a council? Are there options to build and redevelop the city mall without building housing legally? I believe there is. Will someone here tell me I'm a liar? If I'm a liar and I'm wrong, I'll admit it. But I can't stand hearing the narrative that we have to do this and this is the old council's doing. You guys have chosen to do this because you feel that that's what'll pencil out. You said that we haven't had that conversation, Jim. I heard you say it in the last time. Right.

Right. But that's what I'm being told. Right. You're not saying it publicly. It's being said online. It's being said online. It's pretty obvious. It's being said in internal emails. for in order for this to pencil out and us to get our strip mall that we've got to build apartments on top of it. But are we legally obligated? Are there exceptions to that? Can we not build apartments? That's a simple and fair question that I think every single person in this city deserves. Your community survey stated that that is not a priority. You guys are elected by citizens for citizens. Please represent the citizens and ask the questions. That's fair.

Thank you. All right. Uh, let's just Was there any more speakers? All right. So, I'll recap the best I can here. So, Miss Malie, thank you for coming out. I know that um I get it. Okay. About the bathrooms of Skyline. I I believe we absolutely need a bathroom somewhere near a trail head. I think any significant trail head, you're going to have restroom facilities. I know the Orchard Glenn residents do have the luxury of walking out of their house and being there where many of us actually walk a couple miles just to get there. And as people get older, you know, it's you need to have a place to use the restroom. That's that's common sense. I think as far as the location, I think we're all flexible on where it would go. Um, you know, that initial conceptual rendering of of the approximate location I thought was a a reasonable location because it's right there at the trail head, but maybe there are other options. I really don't know at this point. I I do know that staff will look to see if that's something that could possibly be done. So, thank you for coming out. Uh, Mr. Luch Galuchio. So when you started talking I I remembered I had an email that after you had sent us an email I think in April. Uh he sends us a lot of emails but I asked the chief because you know in front of our schools all of our schools for the most part it's a disaster in morning drop off and pick up and drop off. It's this his complaints are exactly what's going on by my house on Ben Franklin or near Ben Franklin Elementary and it's going on pretty much everywhere. But to the point that PD's not doing anything, I did get some numbers. These are old. These are four months ago. In 2024, PD wrote 30 parking tickets specifically on New England, New Hampshire, and Salem. So, I think that's

right where he lives. Um, and then during that same time, officers issued 189 tickets for various moving violations around Santiago High School in general. Based on the efforts, the collisions around the school are minimal with only two occurring within 2,000 ft of the school. So, I feel like, yeah, it's it's a it's a drama for sure, but I feel like our officers are doing what they can because I want them at my neighborhood, too. Everybody that lives near a school wants them at their neighborhood, too. they just can't be everywhere. So, I I I'm I'm frustrated with you. Um but I just don't know how much more our our police can do. Really, it's it's people need to quit being idiots, right? That would that would solve a lot of the problems. Um Maddie North Mall, I I know there's um there's concerns about excess housing. We all have the same concerns and so I won't go there now. Um, Elise, thanks for talking about the homelessness and the improvements that you're seeing. Joe, thanks for talking about um Daryl Sailor. That was a sad thing that his mom passed. Miss Montavo, we're with you. I'm glad Wes offered that up to to cover your fees there. Um, I hope that we can all make it out on your event on the 25th. Um, Mr. Connell, yeah. Um, I did go back and look at that video and yeah, I did I there were a couple comments about um penciling out. Wes said something, Joe said something, and then Tony said something. I didn't recall that. I'm I'm 60. I don't recall everything anymore. It's going to happen to you, too, one day. But, um, as far as being legally obligated to build houses, I want to first say that, um, I want some. I do want some. Whether we have to or not, I want some. I want um condos that you can build. I want a built-in clientele. Do I want 400? No, I

don't. Um but I think that um some housing around there would be good just to have that built-in clientele. Um but I I appreciate your question. Are we legally obligated to build houses? And I would like um the appropriate person to answer that, please. Sure, Mayor. Um I think uh we're going to have Justin handle this one.

That's a I Mr. Mr. Connell's uh questions is really good is um is is the housing fund the key critical factor and um you technically could reimburse those funds uh with general fund money but the the predominant guiding problem or um statute is the surplus lands act. So if we dispose of property either in a lease of more than 15 years or we sell that property, that process is governed by the surplus lands act and HCD, the state um housing uh housing community development. They scrutinize all those sales. Um and under that law, 25% of any uh housing that's developed on that property, 25% um has to go to low-income housing. And so they look for for any of those things. And primarily in the first round of disposing that of of those properties, preference is given to developments that include housing with 25% affordable. So we as a city have to screen through all of those proposals first. And we have and HCD scrutinizes those decisions about whether or not those bids were reasonable. Um Anaheim just recently got into a mess about disposing of some of their property without going through that process. In the second round, if a if a development doesn't come through with a low-income housing developer, then it can be disposed of. But on that property, any property that the city owns will have a covenant that any any future residential that's developed there will be at least 15% affordable. So, it's not just the health and safety code, but the state's emphasis from HCD about building more housing is is driving a lot of our property deals. uh whether or not that's a sale or a lease in excess of 15 years along the lines of penciling out um if if we as a council community say, "Hey,

we want a 100,000 square feet of dining, retail, and entertainment space. Do you have to have a certain amount of housing where a developer would would even do the project?" Say that right. Oh, okay. Get All right, I guess I'm getting off track. That's okay. That's my question to you. And and when we do have this conversation next time, I would like those answers as far as if you're going to do 100,000 square feet, you generally would need a certain amount of housing to cover it. I I'd like to know those answers. So anyway, thank you to all the speakers for showing up tonight. We're moving on to Yes. Sorry. We have one more speaker card.

Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you out. No worries. Good evening, mayor. Good evening, council. Um, I am a realtor in I have a listing over on 3344 Dver Drive in the city of Corona. My seller has been very disappointed of the fact that there are no open house signs. I know that you guys have had open house signs for many years. Um, I actually had a client that I sold a home to um, a few years ago and I recall all of the signs and it was a little excessive to say the least.

To say this to say the least. Yes. Um, my question is that I was wondering if there would be a possibility of having maybe a permit of maybe a limit of four open house signs um, per openhouse, two at the entrance and two at the exit. Um, it's been very slow for me in regards to my listing and my seller has not been happy. I know quite a few people have um mentioned the fact that there are times that they're passing through the street and they stop by the open house due to the open house signs. Um I also know many people that don't have social media, don't have apps on their phones that um stop by from the openhouse signs. So my question is would it be possible to have a permit of a limit of four openhouse signs? um for for just a temporary time and once the open house is over to remove them because I I do know that I've been doing this for over 25 years and I see how um how business is done in regards to the um clientele, the buyers and the sellers and the signs really do affect um not having business. Thank you.

Thank you. So, realtor signs, uh, the realators are the reasons we banned signage on our on our rideways. And I recall at the time, this might be illegal for Jacob, but we um we were advised that you can't like pick and choose who gets to put signs out and who doesn't. So, I don't know as far as um I I haven't really I've heard from a couple realtors, but I've also talked to realtors who are selling a lot of houses, too, right now. And I don't know if there's just a greater inventory or what, but Mr. Mayor, yes. I would like to remind folks that signs are available to be put on private property, right, if you knock on somebody's door and ask them.

Yeah. Maybe if you give them a $10 Starbucks card or something. Yeah. But was is there anything I said that wasn't right? That's correct. You can't regulate based on content. So, you couldn't pick one group and say you can put up signs and another group can't.

That's what I thought I remembered. Okay. So, I I'm sorry, ma'am. I I wish you best of luck. Um got to get creative somehow, though. Okay. All right. Uh let's see. We are moving on to public hearings. Uh public hearing. There's no more speakers, right, Sylvia? All right. Uh public hearing first amendment first amended and restated affordable housing disposition and development agreement for second street family apartments. Does any council member want a staff report on this item? Miss Rober, she wants to talk about this. Where's she at? You want to talk about it, Karen?

Huh? say this the summarized version. How's that sound? That's your pleasure. I know. That's why I said please do the summarized version. [Laughter]

Thank you so much. Uh good evening, council members. It's an honor to be here. I'm super excited about the item that is before you. Uh I would like to take you back just a slight little walk down memory lane. Um, back in August of 2024, your council approved the affordable housing disposition and development agreement for the 5 acre parcel, which would be 115 units of multif family affordable housing. And then also that same day, you approved on that same 5 acres a separate project for 25 units of permanent supportive housing. And the item that is there are two separate projects, two separate LP. So, what is before you tonight is the 115 units. And since your council approved that development agreement, I am so elated to tell you that CNC development secured $40 million in tax credit financing. And we actually have CNC with us here tonight. You can see Todd Codle, Barry Codle, and Scott Bearing um that are here. um an amazing developer, highly competitive market and I know you you knew about this because you also had a recent TERA hearing, a public hearing that was connected to the taxexempt bonds and uh we're very fortunate that CNC was able to secure these funds in such a highly competitive market. We had a little tiny bump in the road. They had secured, I believe it was $13.5 million in greenhouse gas funds that were to support the financing of the project and the EPA clawed those funds back and when the tax credit financing was issued um or approved a 180day time clock started ticking. So, we were very nervous about that and I had the privilege of going with Todd to meet with Supervisor Spiegel and the

staff of Housing and Workforce Solutions and we asked the county if there was any possible way that they could find some funds to fill the financing gap to make sure that we didn't lose the $40 million in tax credit financing. And I just want to give a big shout out to the supervisor and the county staff. They are committing to $4 million in residual receipts loans as well as eight projectbased vouchers that will cash flow about $5.9 million over a 20-year period with an option to renew. So the bottom line is the problem for the gap was solved. When you secure tax credit financing, the investors have different requirements and uh this is very common in the affordable housing industry. So what is before you tonight is to there's an amendment to the agreement to comply with tax credit financing requirements. So we had to tweak some of the terms related to subordination. We also now residual receipts loans that um the the developer pays us out of cash flow and we're going to split that with the county now. So when we get paid, we might get paid at a slower rate, but there's 55-year loan terms. So there's a balloon payment, so we'll get our funds. The subordination terms, you know, it's common for cities and counties to be subordinate, and the project is affordable in perpetuity, but if there was ever a foreclosure, uh we would not be guaranteed to receive our money. But I can tell you that uh foreclosures and tax credit projects is extremely rare. And this developer that is here with us tonight that's such a great partner, you know, with two other developments. They've been in business for 30 years. They have over 50 developments. They've had zero foreclosures. So, and the county is agreeing to the same terms. We had some other minor

changes related to increasing our home loan funds. um the the property uh has appreciated, so we're increasing our loan by 30,000 for the land value and some other minor tweaks. We um we took the amended agreement to the planning and housing commission on August the 11th. It was unanimously supported and they are recommending to your council and the Corona Housing Authority to approve the amended DDA. and we are um contingent upon your council's approval looking forward to uh preparing for an October 15th close of escrow and maybe if all things go well because I've been asking Todd when can we get our council up there to you know push the shovel for groundbreaking maybe January. So that's it in a nutshell and I'm available for questions along with CNC development.

All right thank you so much Mr. Roer. All right, the public hearing is now open. Miss Edwards, has the city clerk's office received correspondence or any other speaker cards from the public regarding this item? Mayor, we did not receive correspondence or speaker cards for the item. Thank you. The public hearing is now closed. Any questions or comments from my colleagues?

Uh just one just one comment for me. You know, I've been following this this project for a while now from uh Barry and his dad over there that's sitting next to him. Um but uh I'm very excited. No, I know it's the other way around, but like to give Todd a hard time. Um, I'm very excited for this. This is going to be a great project, especially at that corner and it's really a much needed project in our community and with the 25 permanent supportive housing. We see how well that that's been going being managed by the illustrious Karen Roper. So, I have no doubt that that will that will be much needed and very filled very and and filled very quickly. So, thank you guys very much. We're looking forward to it and and having you in Corona again. Thank you. Uh, thank you and and thank you for continuing to invest in in Corona. Your your other locations that you guys have here in town are models. I always tell people if you want to look at what what good affordable housing is, look at the stuff that's along Sixth Street at the across from the park, look at the stuff that's along Second Street now that's I think close to 20 years old and it looks like it's brand new. So, um, thank you for continuing to invest and happy to see this project move forward. I know that been a few years since we we acquired it and uh really happy to see how we're going to have some spots for some homeless folks as well and um yeah looking forward to turning dirt.

I get a motion. Tony and Tom second. Please vote. All right, that passes. 408.2 is a public hearing for the report on water quality relative to public health goals for calendar years 2022 to 2024. Does any of my colleagues want a staff report on this item? Me neither. All right. Uh, public hearing is now open. Miss Edwards, is the city clerk's office received correspondence or any speaker cards from the public? Mayor, we did not receive correspondence or speaker cards for the item.

Thank you, Miss Edwards. public hearing is closed. Any comments or questions from my colleagues? Please mo motion please. Second, Tony and Tom. Okay. Okay, that passes 40. The next one is item nine, which is designation of voting delegate for the 2025 league of California city's annual conference. I'd like to get a nomination for a delegate and alternate. So, do Wes and Jackie want to do it again? And should Jackie be primary since she's not here or do you want to be primary Wes? No, she can be she can be Jackie and Wes. All right. M speaker cards from the public.

Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for this. Motion, please. So moved. Second.

Wes and Tom. All right. Congratulations to Jackie and Wes. Okay. Then we have 9.2 is a request by Councilman Speak to discuss amending the criteria in section 17.63-120D6 and the 17.63120E4 of the Kunal Municipal Code for demolishing or re relocating a historical structure. Miss Kleta, our planning development director, will present this item. Thank you and good evening. So staff is really looking for direction tonight from the city council if you want staff to explore and do an analysis on making an amendment to our historic resources ordinance specifically regarding the criteria we have listed for the relocation and demolition of historic resources. Just a really quick background for you. Um, this ordinance that we have on historic resources was adopted in 2001 and it really governs our historic resource preservation as well as provides some definitions that our the ordinance at the time also delegated some responsibility to the planning and development director under the original ordinance. Um, when it comes to demolishing anything on the Corona Heritage Inventory um that was actually given the responsibility to the director. However, anything that was going to be demolished on the Corona register was actually given delegation to our planning commission and then to our city council. If this council recalls, we did do an amendment in 2024 and that's because we wanted to establish duties for the newly established historic preservation board. We also established the structured of merit classification and in doing so we did change some of the responsibilities from the original ordinance. So what had happened is that the historic preservation board now looks at any

demolition requests when it comes to those Corona Heritage properties replacing the planning director which was under that original review. So when we got the future agenda item request from council member speak there were two concerns mentioned on that one being um the planning director's review of those demolition permits for uh historic resources on the heritage inventory. And the reason being is because there was no public review process and it wasn't subject to SQUA. Um the request was that this really should have a discretionary review and it should be under the historic preservation board. I'm here to say that that concern has been addressed in the 2024 amendment because we did delegate that entire authority to the preservation board and because that's a discretionary review that means that it does require a SQA analysis. So that will be taken care of with respect to the concern that was raised. Uh number two, this has to do with the criteria we have listed in the CMC. This is criteria that we evaluate when it comes to the demolition of our historic resources. There is one criterion within that section that talks about if we deny the demolition permit um then if it has an economically uh impact to the property owner, then that's a concern. So basically the request is that they want to take a look at that. Council member Speak would like you to take a look at that and see if we can amend that criterion. I just wanted to put this on the screen for you this evening. I'm not going to go over every one of these points, but as long as we make one of these findings when it comes to demolishing a Corona register property, which is a landmark structure or merit or district or when it comes to demolishing a heritage inventory property, we have to make one of these following findings. And the area of concern is what you see highlighted there, which is subsection C, which states that the denial of the relocation or demolition request would deprive the

owner of all economical viable use of the site. And that is what the concern is this evening. If the council chooses for us to evaluate this further and move forward, um this will require a zone text amendment to our zoning code, uh which is uh done through the public hearing process. it will have to go to planning commission and then to this council for review and it's approximately 3 to six month process and that's just depending on the workload. So really what we're looking for this evening is whether or not you want us to evaluate that. But with that being said, I'll turn it over to the council for discussion. Okay, Miss Edwards, are any speaker cards from the public?

Mayor, yes, I have two speaker cards for this item.

Okay, come on down. I forgot to submit my ecard to the clerk. Um reading reading that section, you know, that it's going to deprive somebody of all economically viable. Uh we basically don't have if we have that phrased that way. We don't have a historic resource code in Corona. we don't have one because you know that's such a wide openen thing that if somebody says well you know I can make more money doing this or I can make less money keeping the building there's nothing to stop them from from knocking down the building if that if that's the burden if that's the if that's the bar that's that's what is costing us the depot the fact that that the owner decided that well I can make$10,000 or $50,000 more on selling it to this person than selling than selling it to that person. It just the fact that you can make more money off a historic structure by getting rid of it. There's no point in having a historic resources code. There's no point in having even pretending that we even give two shits about any of the historic structures. So, that definitely needs to change. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. McCoy. Welcome. Good evening. Um, yeah, I pretty much Joe stole most of my thunder on that, but I have to I I have two concerns. Number one is the this caveat about being economically viable because it can be anything and you can say anything and then we have this paper tiger of an ordinance that is absolutely meaningless and all this time we spent putting in a historic commission and everything else is just a waste. Number two is the timing of this. It feels like this has taken forever and we still have no historic preservation. So if we if you decide tonight to move forward with this, give direction. asked them to move forward that this not be a 6 months then a year and then two years and three years because every one of these properties we lose is irreplaceable and it happens over and over and over and how many containers do we have to put up at Heritage Park shoved with wood that's meaningless that will one day just get disposed of in a landfill because we didn't have the right ordinance in place to handle this. So, I would ask you to put some teeth in this. Um, don't make this a paper tiger. Make this a real tiger. You went to all the trouble of putting a historic committee in place. So, let's use them. Let's give them some trust um and and empowerment and let's make something happen that's actually good for the community and good for our historic resources. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any more speakers? One more.

Yes, sir. So, I'm not a huge fan of telling people what they can do with their own private property. Um, that that I struggle with, right? I I'm a car guy. I work in the automotive industry. I see a lot of guys buy cars with the intent to restore them and preserve them and that plan drastically changes because of the cost associated with it, right? The same thing can be applied to a house. And then I look and see that you guys are willing to tell residents what they can do and businesses what they can do. But when you guys had the option to actually save the depot and buy it, you didn't. So it's slightly hypocritical in my opinion. It's like put your money where your mouth is. Like we could have saved the depot. You guys could have bought it, but you voted to pass on it. And now it's important when it's other people's money to make sure that we keep what they bought the way we want it. But when we have the option to buy something that actually was like what created the city, the depot, we passed on it. It doesn't make any sense. So that's my opinion of it. And I think a lot of people share that opinion. I do love history. I'm a huge history buff and I do want to see everything be preserved, but I don't want that to be at the cost of taxpayers by any means. You know, I don't want someone to tell me what I can do with my house unless it's a homeowners association and they tell me what color it's painted. You know, I knew that moving in. So once again, historic homes, it's a slippery slope, right? When you buy something, it it could just become unbearable financially for someone to get to what they need and you're telling them, "Hey, you can't do this." And then that person doesn't have the option to go buy something else, you know, because the cost of living is here's so high. So, I would hope that you guys would consider that you're telling people, "Hey, you you can't do this, but we're not willing to put our money where the mouth is." Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Uh any questions for my colleagues? comments. Wes, this is your thing.

I I I just wanted to I mean I I put it in my future agenda item and I kind of laid out a possibility that that right now is real that someone could come along and buy the the Corona the Corona theater and there is no requirement that would force them to sell to the city. Um, so somebody could come along, they could buy the buy the theater, submit a demolition permit and say that we, you know, we really can't can't make it pencil the way this works, so let's just knock it down and start over. And if the city was going to, you know, do eminent domain. There's a whole bunch of things that come with that. And and so I I this isn't like finding a, you know, a buried gas station in your backyard. It isn't like you're buying something and you're finding out like it's a surprise that this is this is an historic um an historic uh home or an historic building. Um and so just looking at that that uh that particular paragraph that particular section basically takes um you know and and Joe and and Chris are right. takes basically all you have to do is say that you make a dollar or less or all the word all makes it so that um you can't save anything. So um the city shouldn't have to play daddy to to to save historic properties. Um people are buying these properties and and uh they know what they're they know what they're getting into just the same as you're buying into as Mr. Connell said an HOA. um you you know what you're you know what you're buying into and and we should at least have uh uh not it shouldn't be the viability of um the financial viability of a project that could change at any moment um determine whether or not we have a history. So I'd just like to to explore that a little more and provide I'm really happy to see that we're going to have to go through SQA um and have a public hearing so

people can actually voice their opinion on both directions. Uh but uh you know I I I'd say also I'm not a not a big fan of telling people what to do with their property. However, we tell people all the time what to do with their property. We established a code here wiping out um uh the ability for folks to to rent their homes as Airbnbs. Um we tell people all kinds of things. So uh this is not necessarily a a slope that we've we've started. This is a slope that we the city uh and every other municipality lives on every single day. So, I just hope we get a chance to to talk about this and I get enough support to uh to do so. Thank you, Jim.

I uh I I honestly think this ordinance needs to be looked at whether it's next 3 months or 6 months, but hopefully sooner. I'd like to see it rewritten. I'd like to see it with teeth. I think Chris's analogy of a paper tiger is right on the money. Um so, I'd like to see it go back. And as it is with the theater, they did apply for a demolition permit in the 1980s. And it was to the credit of a city employee that just magically kept losing the paperwork. That is the only reason we still have the theater. And she she would say, um, there's no way I was letting that building go down. So, I'm not going to mention her name. But uh I we we took the wise steps of creating a Corona Historic Board and now it's time to give them the the right bullets in the gun to keep it going in the right way. So I'm all for redoing the ordinance.

Okay. So there's two Tony. The hater of pickle ball. The hater of trails. Enemy of history.

Yeah. So, um, I had a conversation with our city attorney because I'm concerned about the legalities of this, but that goes into giving them direction to explore it and figure about whether or not we can legally do that. So, I'm obviously not a fan of this, but I will say that I have a lot of trust in our city attorney to do his job and figure out if this is legal or not. And if it's not legal, then he will tell us. and it will make our decision a whole lot easier. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. There's the direction that you proceed. Got it. Okay. Moving on to 9.3. Continued particip continued participation in Cal Recycles.

Tony wants credit for being it's on record. Cal Recycles recycle program from home pilot program. Mr. Tom Moody, the director of utilities will present this item.

Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you for the opportunity. Um the ask for you tonight is uh just to provide some direction on the continued participation in Cal Recycles uh recycle from home pilot program. Um the CRV recycling challenges for California were beginning to decline and this was dropping those numbers down just a little bit. One of the reasons for that is the lack of convenient facilities. Um, here in town there are a few recycling centers, but we've also had one close recently that that does create some of that impact, but over the years that's a pretty common trend where recycling centers are not necessarily close to houses, and the lack of that convenience. We've talked about this with mattress recycling and other things. The lack of close recycling centers will deter people from uh doing that process and then just throwing it into trash and into landfills, which is where we want to see those diversion numbers. Um residents get some frustrated uh and they get frustrated with those limited options, so they just throw it away. And that's what we're trying to avoid here. what we uh what was presented to the city of Corona um was an option for recycle from home and this is a pilot program that was started by a company and coordinated with Cal Recycle and proposed to the city of Corona as one of the pilot partners. The uh what we did there's no cost to the city to be in the program. What we did is we wrote a letter um authorizing um cow recycle to name recycle from home as a pilot program for the city of Corona. So residents when they go on the cow recycle website will see that we are a participant in the pilot program. And we completed an application with Cal

Recycle as part of that. We also uh coordinate with recycle from home and sign on to letters from other cities and we also sign on to changes that the program goes through from its inception to its current progress where we're at today. Recycle from home has had what I think is is fairly good performance over the few years for a pilot program starting up. Um, we've had since it began in 2023, we've had 160,000 pounds of CRV that's been diverted from landfills. We have over 2,000 Corona residents that are signed up, regular routine pickups, and about 170 or $167,000 worth of CRV has been paid back to residents for that uh recycling process. The current program uh recycle from home retains 10% of the CRV. Um and this is to pay for the overhead costs associated with the program, fuel in the vehicles, maintenance. Um they mail a starter package to the resident when you go online and sign up and then they begin the pickups from your house. A few of the things that have changed is recycling from home really wants to grow and and from a financial perspective that's a little bit hard with the 10%. They're staying flat and they really would like to expand the program a little bit and that's where the additional change they're looking at increasing that value up to 30%. they're uh the in talking with them, they are, you know, hopefully going to try to use that in steps. Maybe it's 20, 25, and 30. And they're going to evaluate that based on the residential signups. Um once they once a resident has signed up, the first pickup will be with the customer's own bags and they will

deliver the starter pack after that where they can then talk to the customer and kind of get a little bit more information. They believe that one will save them some money um that they can reinvest into the program and two it helps with that early education and helps support the recycling program. Then the pickups begin to go through the same process. Everything's picked up from your door. Um one other thing is they are changing the way uh they're going from zel or direct deposit. So they will not be mailing checks out any longer. And then they are also offering an a monthly subscription of $599. And really where this is is if you have a lot of CRV um you can just pay that 599 rather than the uh 10 20 25 30% um uh retainer value for that CRV program. The proposed options that we have for consideration tonight with the council are the continued participation in the recycle from home pilot program or we would discontinue our participation in the cal recycles recycle from home pilot program. Um and with that I'll turn it over to the council for discussion. Right. Thank you Mr. Moody. Miss Edwards. Are there any speaker cards from the public on this?

Mayor. Yes. I have one speaker card for this item. All right. Come on down. Yes sir. Welcome.

Hi there. My name is Damen Hickman and I'm a uh one of the partners of Recycle from Home. Hi, Wes. Um, seven years ago, my 8-year-old son and I had a dream to make recycling easy for all residents and uh we were able to make that a reality when we started our pilot program with a grant from Cal Recycle. We began operating as a service here in the city. Um our proposed changes are uh our goal is to simply establish a service fee ceiling. Um you you spoke very well of kind of our intentions. Uh we want to keep our customers happy. We want to continue to uh be operational at approximately the same service fees or less than many services we all enjoy like Door Dash, GrubHub, um that you know uh home services like that. current 10% service fees are proposed u to be raised to get us to a level of profitability in the long run. Uh now that our grant funds from Cal Recycle uh have ended uh in the three years that we've operated here in Corona, we haven't raised uh rates, but um as you mentioned uh items like the rising costs of fuel, insurance, bag pricing, and such has continued to go up. So we're just we're looking to stay even kind of with u with our costs. And it's also my understanding that the largest CRV recycle center here in the city closed its doors um in June I believe. So I believe the city of Corona is even more underserved uh in terms of recycling options uh than it has been. And you know our goal is to work with the city and raise our service percentages uh only enough to cover the rising costs and cover our base costs. So we're not uh now that we're not getting those cow recycle uh grant funds. Uh the 30% service fees are proposed as a max uh ceiling and our fees may very well be raised less than that ceiling amount. You know, 20% maybe 25 depending on kind of the participation rate. We're proud to serve Corona and we we're proud to provide a convenient way to recycle

for our residents and uh we're also proud to uh partner with Corona in city events and to be able to support our nonprofit organizations here in the city through our charity give back program. So, we're really proud to be part of this and we hope that uh you continue to uh have our program here in the city. All right. Thank you, Damian. Thank you. Uh any comments from my colleagues?

Yeah, thank you, mayor. I just wanted to say um I actually really love this program. This program and the the recycling one that we're going to have in September where we the hazardous waste one. These are two of my some of my favorite programs and I absolutely have no idea why, but it is so simple to use their system, you know. Um, we don't have a whole lot of CRV, but um it takes us probably two or three months to collect enough to fill a bag, but I like to jam that bag full. And I'm not exactly sure what what type of money we get back from it, but I know that we do get some money back because my wife handles all the bills. Um, and I just have to make sure that they're out on the doorstep at the the appropriate time. But it is so easy, um, to, you know, you're collecting the cans anyway. You might as well just put them in a bag and call these folks and they come and pick them up. Whether it's 10% or 30%, it's worth my time not to have to go to the recycling center, which candidly, I don't even know where there is one near me. Um, and I've I've talked about this program to every single one of my neighbors, anybody that's asked, and um, I, you know, just kind of spread it like the gospel for you guys. It's a great program. I, and I'm all for us staying in this program. It's so easy to use. It's one less thing that I got to do on my weekends by just having this bag out there. So, the only thing is I didn't know that you had the first time that you have to separate the cans from the bottles. So, that was not fun the first time having to separate those. Thanks, guys. But that's okay. I'm well aware now. So, other than that, I I think this is a great program. We should continue with it.

Anybody else?

I'm um I'm really happy. I I you know, this when I first heard that Irvine was doing this program, uh and these guys reached out, I was like, "Wow, this is a no-brainer. This is something I used to do 30 years ago, ran a business like this, and and having somebody come and pick it up at your house is is incredible." Um, I agree. It's It's super easy. The app is is really easy. It it's, you know, it's it's great. They've been picking up my stuff, you know, the same thing. I think every every month or so or a couple of months, I have a three or four bags for them to pick up and and everybody that I've referred to it, they love it, too. Um, and not having to wait in a line and and put stuff in a dirty bag and or a dirty thing and have to like wait with a bunch of other people and, you know, get get your money. I this is just easy for me and and I'm kind of a little bit bummed that the state has cut off this as a pilot because I think that you guys didn't get a chance to get it to as many cities cities as possible because it I think right now and correct me if I'm wrong Damon, but the the state's holding on to something like $600 million worth of CRV. It's like $650 million something crazy. Yeah, it's it's nuts. And and so this is money that basically you have all paid when you go buy a a can a bottle, you pay to the government. The government's just sitting there with that money because we're, you know, they're we're not cashing it in. We're throwing in the trash because it's not convenient. And they're trying to come up with these this was a very innovative plan. Um and I was hoping it would continue a little bit more just to to see how how viable it can be. And the more folks that do it, the the lower the the cost will be for everybody. Um but I'm happy to put this forward. It's an option with people. Nobody's being forced to do it. Doesn't cost us a thing to administer except for we're just offering this as a free service to the to the uh uh to our residents and they get an option whether or not they want to subscribe. So, I'm all in favor of uh sticking with the program.

Thank you, mayor. I'm in favor of this program as well. I uh I we do this at the Richen's house and we have two bags, three bags and I I don't always get it in the right bag and then it get turns into a lecture from the wife and then then like everything else in the house it turns into multiple lectures from the wife cuz I never stop. So if you guys could like come out with a training video for wives like don't yell at your husband cuz he got the wrong bag. I I think that's all you need to do is better. Um and then uh my life will be happier and you guys will win. So that's that's where I'm at. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you. I also use it and it's super easy and and I think it's great. I don't know if I would keep using it if it was up to 30%, especially if I if I had a place to take it to. Did six-pack close? See, I didn't know that because I've been using you for the last many months. But um I think if I had options, it's easy for me because I'll get a truck and I can just throw it all in there and go do it. that what I really like about this program is for the elderly or the disabled who don't have that ability. So, u it's super convenient. There's no reason not to offer this to our citizens. So, with that, I'll make a motion to continue with the program. Please vote. Mayor, we don't need a motion or vote for this item. We just need the consensus. Okay. You got one.

I was going to vote yes. Sylvia, we'll continue participation recycles recycle from home pilot program. Thanks for being here, guys. All right. All right, moving on to legislative matters number 10. Okay, this one. So, um I want to try to save us a little bit of time on this one and from Kim from maybe having to go through it all again based on Hey guys, based on our um comments, they were all pretty direct. Oh, what did I miss? Open the public. Oh, no. I'll get

Yeah, I'll get that. No, I'll get that. Yeah. What I was going to say though is I felt like we were all pretty direct with what we wanted for the purchasing purchasing limits and that they the non-public and private should be the same amount of 125 for the city manager. Do you guys am I right? Yes. Okay. So, Kim, I'm going to save you from having to give the presentation, but I am going to go to the public for speaker cards. Anybody? Mayor, we have three speaker cards for this item. Come on down, Chris.

Um, so tonight I'm actually going to ask you um to either vote unanimously to kill this or to start pushing in that direction. Um, none of you originally asked for this. This wasn't a need from council. Um, none of you expected this when it came up on the agenda. Um, and consent calendar means um, they don't need this. Staff doesn't need this. They don't need a raise. Um, tonight consent was 38 seconds. With the two items that were pulled, it was 8 minutes. Anything they need to get spent, they can get done in an accountable manner. They don't need this. The only reasons I can come up with to give any staff previously a 220k or even a 25k raise, um, they're all not good. There there's there's no no compelling reason for this. There is still no why for this item. Why does our city manager need greater spending authority than Palm Springs or Anaheim? What is so unique about our staff's workflow that they cannot possibly operate with the same caps as Ontario, Pomona, or Brea? Um I in all these weeks that they've been talking about this, I have yet to hear a reasonable reason why. Um why can't we just use the consent calendar and allow you the tiny amount of oversight it provides over the people's money? Why does our city manager need less oversight than cities that have 10 times our size? All they've done with this revision is the 220K in the columns, which is not what you guys asked for, which means that they're still pushing for something you don't want. Um, and those two columns are going to talk about city structure and improvement, which is literally 70% of the purchasing a city manager would end up doing. Um, I remind you again, these purchases will need no council approval. They will not get daylight at council meetings. The bids will not be evaluated like other purchases that have scoring and transparency. none of that. There is

zero reason unelected and ultimately unaccountable staff should have that high of a cap. Expenditures of that size should require seated elected council approval or denial and be presented in the official agenda at a public session. Public funds require public transparency. Public money deserves to be spent in broad daylight with oversight. That's your job. They shouldn't be doing this. This is not a wise change to our purchasing policy. It serves no purpose other than to create opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse. I'm going to please ask you to vote no. Please kill this tonight if you have that ability and just tell them no. They they have perfectly fine spending ability uh spending limits right now. And there is no why. And I I wish I had a little bit more time to talk about San Diego, but they upped their limits and they ended up just finishing a um an audit and they ended up in from 2018 till now with 151 million in waste and fraud because they gave staff much broader um ability to buy. So please just kill this. It there's no reason for it at all.

Thank you. Now it's now it's my turn to say what yeah what he said. Plus Irvine just had a debacle where their city manager got to do some shenanigans and the count and the city had the city council ate a big poop sandwich over it. So you know and and I what I don't see in the agenda item is the requirement that there's regular reporting on it. I don't see that in there. So, I didn't see any changes. I haven't seen anything in the CMC or any anything in writing that that's actually going to happen. Um, these things, the anything that's done outside of a meeting should be reported regularly. should be even even possibly every council meeting just to have a summary like just a you know even something on consent just a a tally that this happened over the last few weeks or this happened over the last month maybe the first meeting of the month a summary from the previous month because otherwise the public is not going to know that any of this is happening. So, you know, so if you're going to, you know, use some private discretion, you know, and I say the one that frosted my ass is the one where Corona chose to hire the political consultant for the tax hike in private and not say anything about it. So, they spent 90 it was 96,000 and when the spending limit was a was 100,000, you know, and and and and that was the night that I got the measure of Mr. Ellis when he chuckled about it and thought it, you know, well, I got a good deal, you know, when he chose not to say anything about it, you know, that's that's game playing. That's the thing that makes people not trust government. That's that's why that that's one of a couple of reasons at least that I don't trust you. I do not trust you. I don't think you are trustworthy. I don't think you're honest.

So this is why because you think you can get away with things with this type of a spending limit. I've seen you do it. I've seen you in action. This should be disclosed clearly and obviously at a meeting. If there's an emergency, then do your emergency things, but we need to know about it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. My name is Rory Connell. I live in district five and I hope that the city manager's proposal to have a higher spending limit than almost any city in the state of California, including Anaheim, which has massive economic development raises a red flag to every single citizen in this community. I want you to ask yourself when you sit at home and you watch this video, who is driving the bus in this city? Is our city council driving or is the city manager driving? because this is the fourth time he's proposed this with little to no changes in an effort to get this passed through. Why do you need to spend $220,000 unchecked, unregulated, unvoted in the darkness of night? It makes no sense when towns like Anaheim don't do that. Towns like Palm Springs, Ontario, even Riverside, who is much larger than us and makes a lot more money than us, have lower spending limits. What makes you special? Is it the fact that you think you can get away with anything like telling people that we have to have affordable housing at the Cronin Mall? I think so. So, once again, residents, please pay attention to what is going on in your city because once again, the city is being driven by the city manager as always. Thank you very much.

Thank you. So, we're going to need to hear from Kim after all, I think. So, the city manager did not drive this. This came from a study through your office, right, Kim? That's correct. and the Irvine is a the city manager has a million dollar spending limit where we're talking 125, but I think it's important um to go through that presentation after all so we can get a full understanding so the public can get a full understanding on what it means. Thank you. Yeah, no problem.

Uh so uh mayor and council, thank you for the chance to bring this purchasing item back to you for discussion. The ask of the city council tonight is to discuss the proposed changes we've included in the ordinance as well as the authorization limits. So just as a refresher, uh this was a slide that was presented on May 21st, but we had gone through and identified some of the issues we were having in our purchasing process about it uh taking a very long time um being pretty complex for some of the end users, some documentation and reporting issues and some communication gaps. and we found some outdated language in the municipal code as well. So, we did a deep dive into our purchasing process and looked at like a whole host of things from beginning to end when a a department submits a uh request for purchasing um up until the point when it's completed and a purchase order is issued. So, uh we came up with some solutions to make the process quicker, more efficient, more simple to understand. uh enhancing some reporting and documentation. Um exercising that balance between control and efficiency though is very important and looking at some back best practices that are out there with other uh government agencies. Um like I mentioned, we've looked at insurance levels, uh the endorsements that we collect, um processes to update our agreements, um processes that we use for conducting research and if technology is able to assist us in that, approval sequences and our workflow. So there's a whole host of things that we looked at and it wasn't just simply focusing on the authorization limits. It was like the whole process from step one until the very end. So recap of the May 21st meeting uh as we discussed the proposed changes. Um and at that time we reviewed and discussed uh language cleanup as well as the authorization levels. And based on the discussion at that meeting um staff myself took away the understanding um that we were that council was okay with the higher limit of the 220,000 for that

that was in alignment with CUPka. um you know, hindsight's always 2020 and going back and listening to that that particular meeting and the comments that were made realized maybe there was some miscom miscommunication that I went away with and and so um the council had um not actually provided as clear a direction as we originally thought. Uh the council did request some additional changes to two sections of the municipal code from that May 21st meeting regarding the basis of awards and delegation of director authority. Uh so we came back at the June uh 4th meeting and presented um the council with those changes for the basis of awards and delegation of authority and we brought back additional agencies and compared uh the signature authorities for 22 agency as I believe the number was. But at that point again the the we were under the understanding that public projects and uh goods and materials and services that you guys were okay with the higher limits. again realizing that was maybe a misunderstanding. So we were focusing staff was focusing on the non-public projects at that time which are generally services. Uh one of the things that was discussed at that June 4th meeting is the council directed staff to provide a quarterly report of when the city manager authorization is exercised. Uh very similar to a report that uh RCTC provides on a quarterly basis. We've taken a look at that report and we can absolutely provide something that's very similar to uh to that one with our quarterly budget updates and that's included in the staff report as well that that was direction we received at that meeting. Um then at the June 18th meeting, there were some concerns that were brought up and again we'd had that $220,000 limit for public projects and goods and materials and services included in that staff report and so the item was not approved at that meeting and council directed us to to come back with um dignit signature limits. So this slide shows option A that's

included in the staff report. Um and this was based on the understanding of what we walked away from with that June 4th meeting. We thought the higher limits for public projects and goods, materials and equipment because of how those items are awarded to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. Non-public projects generally services are awarded in a different uh in a different way where you can consider other qualifications uh such as competence uh suitability for the project as well as cost. And uh so we're showing those three different categories here on this particular slide. And one thing to note is that most of these items that we're discussing are items that were already included in the budget process and approved um throughout that annual budget review. If there's something that's going to require extra money or new money that wasn't included in the original budget, that would of course come back to council for that budget authorization as outlined in our our annual budget resolution. Option B, this is the second option included in the staff report and this is based on the understanding of the direction we received at that June 4th meeting uh where the city manager's authority is at the 125 for all three types of purchasing items. And then this option which is not included in the staff report but this is option C. The council can provide direction to do something entirely different than the two options we've provided. uh you know if you want to give us a different spending authorization limits or even not change it at all those are absolutely that's something that the council can discuss and direct us to do. So the next steps are if if option A is the one that the council approves this would be considered the second reading and that uh change would go into effect 30 days from now. So it would be September 19th and if option B is approved uh this would be considered the first reading. Second reading would be September 3rd and the uh changes would be effective October 3rd. And if option C is is uh the direction and council

provides us with um other changes depending on how extensive those changes are uh we'd ask Mr. Derlith if he is able to make those changes on the fly. And so it would just depend on how extensive that is whether this would be considered a first reading or if it would need to come back at a future uh council meeting. And that concludes my brief presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have or um Okay. Thank you, Kim. Comments or questions? Any of you?

No, my only comment is just um I support your idea 125. There's no other reason. I don't I don't I don't see anything compelling to push it any further. And I I do want to make sure that that that quarterly as as what RCTC does um is included in in in the we didn't include it in the CMC because we we wanted a little flexibility is what if you see it quarterly and you want it now changed monthly or if there was some changes you wanted to see to that. So it's going to be absolutely documented in our process manual but we didn't include that uh reporting requirement in the CMC.

Okay. Can can we just put something there saying it has to be reported at an interval that's no less than a year? Is that is that okay? Everybody okay with that? What do you mean by no less than a year? Every year. Every year. It has to be every year. I would like it to be quarterly. And I get that there may be some some change, but I'd like it to be have it have something in the CMC that that has to the report. Can't we just all agree on quarterly right now? I'm down with quarterly. Yeah, that I'm fine with quarterly. Okay. And Kim, that works for you too, right? Yes, we would include it as part of those regular quarterly updates we do for the budget and the strategic plan. It would be at those same meetings when we would be presenting that information.

Great. And for my clarification purposes, exactly what is it that is expected to be reported? What information? The use of that that exception. Just the exception. No, I I I think it's anytime that that there's spending up to 100 up to the limit of 125,000, we would like we would like it recorded and we'd like to know what it is. So where it went. So it's all four categories, professional services, maintenance, public works, and materials and supplies. And it's any purchase from $0 to $125,000. Yeah. Every single one of those purchases, list out what information, the amount, the vendor.

Yeah. Yeah. List out the dollar amount and the vendor that it went to. And then if we have questions and we want a deeper dive, we could certainly ask for that. But, you know, if all of a sudden we're finding that 99.9% of our our spending is going to 125 or 124,999, we're just going to want to make sure we want to know why. Okay. Okay. Is that easy to do, Kim? Is that

It's going to be a large report. Um, we I'll work with staff to make sure that we can extract that information. um if for some reason it's it's going to be uh we'll work with it and the staff to to uh figure out how to make that work. Um but I'll definitely come back to you if that's problematic and suggest something else if if if we need to refine that a little bit. Okay. And I'll add that sentence if we're going to. So it sounds like we're going with option B, first reading tonight with your direction to add a sentence that requires the reporting of all those things I just described on no less often than quarterly. Mhm.

And I'll add that sentence in there. And when it when it comes back for the second reading, we'll make sure we highlight that sentence that's been added so you can know for sure that it captures what you wanted. If I remember the way that RCTC has it, it's not for everything. It's only when the executive director the executive director uses his authority, right? I don't want everybody's that'll be ridiculous. It's generally like a one-page report in the examples that we found from RCTC. Um, so yeah, that would be we just need to understand the clarification on the direction on do you want every single transaction or every PO that's issued up to that 125 or well it just be just be for the city manager. Oh,

right. Because you guys aren't asking for the city manager or his designate. You're saying for the city manager. Okay. Right. So how many times is the city manager going to spend up to $125,000? We we're going to find out quarterly. That's the same way that does RC. Can I get a motion? I guess it would be motion B or I guess I guess the motion would be to authorize the spending limit of up to $125,000 for the city manager and asking for a quarterly report on the city manager's spending up to $125,000. Sylvie, does it have to be read? Exactly.

It does have to be read because it's the first reading. Can I also can I also just clarify one thing so there's no misunderstanding.

The ordinance does say the city manager or his designate so he can push some of that authority to somebody else. So is it is it is what you're interested cuz on on every other level right it goes to the department has a certain amount and then it goes from the department head to the city manager and then from the city manager to you. So, are you looking for a you're looking for a report of everything the city manager actually approves or anything between the department head level and the city manager level?

Okay. This is actually a little frustrating, Dean, and I don't know. I don't think I understand that you're you're asking for clarification. Yeah.

But in this presentation, why doesn't somebody point out to me where it says the city manager or his designate? It doesn't. It says the city manager. So, why do why are we putting a presentation together that doesn't have all of the information that translates into the ordinance? This presentation, some would consider, myself including, a little bit misleading, which is why I clarified right a few minutes ago, city manager or his design is not in this presentation. Simply says the city manager. So, I'm left to believe that that the city manager is asking for for authorization up to $125,000. I want to see when the city manager is spending that type of money when we talking about a designate. Now, we're getting into a whole separate a whole separate situation here that this is misleading to. So, if the ordinance is the city manager or his designate, now I'm going to make it harder for Miss Kim and I'm going to say I want to see the city manager and I want to see when the the the authority was given to his to his design. Now, I want to see them both. So, unfortunately, Kim, it just made your life harder. Congratulations. So, now I want to see them both. So, mayor, I think uh from what I'm understanding from the broader discussion, what you're really looking for is after it's a director level, which is $75,000, anything that gets approved above $75,000 to that 125 at my level, those would all come to council to take a look at those.

That makes sense. Yes. But now, very specifically, I want to see them separated. So, when you spend $125,000, I want to see it. when you've designated somebody else to spend $125,000, I want that denoted because at in the beginning I was just this just says city manager in the presentation. So if you're going to designate something and I and I don't want the public to have the opportunity to say, well, the city manager hasn't spent anything. It's just going to his design. So

yeah, I I I'm trying to think of a time where that happens. I I don't know when I designate to someone else to I always approve anything that goes over a director level. So those those always stay with me. That's why they have to come to me for approval. So I don't think you'll run into that situation. That's it's always between that 75 and 125. Those always come to me for approval. Then it should be easy for Kim. The only thing would be like for instance if Mr. Ellis is out of the office or something like that and somebody else is acting in, you know, while he's out of the office, then his designate would be approving something while he's then it should be few and far between. That shouldn't be then it shouldn't sounds to me like you're telling me it's not going to be difficult to to to disagree or to to separate the two

because it doesn't happen very often. So if do do I understand that correctly Dean? Do you understand that correctly? I want I do. I do and I think city manager or his designation. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I just didn't want to get tripped up on the fact I heard you say that clarification and I wanted to make it abundantly clear that it does say designate in the ordinance for these unique situations. It's not routine, but it does say it in there and I didn't want to not point that out to you. Well, we're going to separate them in that quarterly report. Tony, do you want to read uh I'm so confused about where we're at, but

you have you have it down better than all of us right now. But essentially the the my uh my motion is to recommend option B spending limits up to 125,000 for all four subjects and we want to see a quarterly report specifically for the city manager and or if the city manager has a design for up to those limits. That clear you want me to if I can I'll just reread the technicality portion legalize it for us. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. So, the motion is to introduce uh by title only in wa reading of consideration of ordinance number 3419 option B in the agenda packet first reading of an ordinance amending chapter 3.08 08 of the Chronom Missile Code to update the city's purchasing regulations with the additional requirement that a pro uh provision be added to this language which requires reporting of the city manager or design purchasing authority on no less often than a quarterly basis. And where was the second? I'll second it.

Okay, second vote. That motion passes forward nothing. Go. Moving on to reports from boards and commissions. Uh for the library board of trustees. We're receiving and following the library board of trustees report update from July 22nd, 2025. From our planning and housing commission, we have natada parks and wreck. Nothing. We have regional meetings update from Westpak on the Riverside County Transportation meeting August 13th.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just uh we had just a a few items that we considered. one, uh, we had an amended agreement with the San San Bernardino County, uh, transportation authority to, um, basically marry up the I-15 toll segments between their their portion and the Riverside County portion to ensure there wouldn't be a, um, a drop in lanes there. Uh, they're they're of course paying for it out of their funds. Um, I think that was the only thing else that was actionable. There was a RCTC had a call for projects uh 17 projects totaling 327 million from 15 agencies including the city of Corona uh were uh were put forward however uh they were ranked uh according to the SC the SCAG criteria which decides who gets money for those projects and Corona's um was a little further down the list as recommended but not highly recommended um which means I think they're based on previous formula funding. Uh, Riverside County would have got 115 million, 115, you know, 20 something million, and we submitted over 327 million. Um, we issued a contract to H&TB for Highway 79 uh, uh, financing feasibility study to make sure that they can build it all at one time. And, uh, that was it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And then I'm giving my update. um for RTA. On July 12th through the 14th, I went to Washington DC with Riverside Transit Agency CEO Kristen Warzinski, the their planning director Jennifer Nuin and Riverside City Council member Steve Himmingway, who's also the current RTA executive board chair. Uh the purpose of the trip was to establish or build upon existing relationships that RTA has with our legislators and also lobby for funding to meet some of RTA's goals and for them to think twice about making cuts to public transportation. And RTA did fund uh the trip. We met with Congressman Ken Calbert and Mark Dano, Senator Alex Padilla, a representative from Senator Adam Schiff's office, and Tariq Bari, who's the acting administrator for the Federal Transit Agency. Uh, this was all done in in uh one day. The other days were late late arrival, early leave to come home. But we discussed the following. the autonomous shuttle pilot program that is currently operating in areas of Riverside, an ADA project that the RTA is spearheading at the Riverside National Cemetery, the crimerevention projects that are in the works or have been implemented already on the bus fleet to provide additional protections for the coach operators and the riders. RTA is advocating for NEPA reform for bus shelters and NEPA stands for the National Environmental Policy Act. We discussed the progress that RTA is making on developing a hydrogen fuel bus, a fuel cell bus fleet. We proposed that the FTA eliminate the spare ratio requirement to reduce the FTA regulatory burden. And we asked the legislators to consider a provision in the infrastructure investment and job acts of 2021 that would help the RTA get top dollar for their old assets. And that completes my update. All right. All right. Were there any speaker cards, Miss Edwards, on either of those?

Mayor, we do not have any speaker cards for the regional updates. Okay. City attorney, Mr. D, do you have any comments? City manager, Mr. Ellis? No, mayor. Thank you. All right. Any comments from my colleagues? Just one, mayor. Um, I talked about it earlier. Uh, and we'll have a meeting I I think we're going to have a meeting in September, but for anybody listening or Septeous waste collection is the weekend of September 13th and 14th. I think we'll have a city council meeting before that,

but just anybody that's paying attention, uh, to start gathering up your hazardous waste. Now, it'll be here at the city hall in the parking lot. And again, it's one of my favorite services that we offer. So, thank you.

Uh, just really quick, uh, two things. One, I wanted to thank, uh, Chris Gray again for that that presentation last week. I spent the the last two weeks kind of digesting it, and I have a couple of just things I I'm not going to talk about it today, but but just some interesting take takeaways from really diving into some of the numbers about how um that 15% of of Corona's workforce, they live they live here. And that's down from 18% in 2020 in 2002. It was very interesting to me. Um, professional services, we are below the target of folks that we would have that would would normally be living in a community and working in a community. So, I think that's something that we can focus on as part of our economic development. And then um uh the travel outside of the region was was uh much less expected than I I had certainly expected. Uh but I do think that I agree with um with Mr. gray that there's uh opportunities for us to uh support our existing businesses and help them grow and do all the things that we're already doing. And I I know that um that Mr. Belding is is on that. But I do think that I I disagreed with his um idea that only 25% of folks would actually work in the city if you created a job here. And I think if you could up that percentage, if you targeted um and understood the folks that lived here and wanted to work here, I think you could make that number. You know, it's never going to be one to one, but I do think there's a way to to improve the quality of life for our our residents. And I know we're continuing to do that with live work corona. And one of my dreams is to try and match that match that up with people who who want to tell us they want to change jobs. Um you can match that with people and I think you know more folks would live here. So, I I appreciated the information. It was really good to to uh to put out into the the public. I need to digest a little bit more to make it a little more palatable, but it was a good

thing. And then last but not least, and those of you were have sent me many emails about um uh Sawpaw's uh cloud seating program. I know that that there was quite a bit of of Facebook posts and about cloud seating and and how how bad it was. uh our uh SAPI has decided to conclude its pilot program that was launched in 2023 and uh they're not going to continue this because they're they're not concerned about the the results they were they were conclusive that they were beneficial. However, with the burn scars and some of the other things going on, they just think it's not a good time right now. So, it may come back at a later date. But, uh, those of you that are worried about, um, um, the con, the chemtrails that aren't a thing, um, that you, those aren't going to be coming from SPA anymore. So, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. I just, uh, want to give out a shout out to the street fairs this year. They wrapped up all five shows. They were perfect. I could hear them from my house or I could come down and go to them live. Um they were very well attended, very well organized. I got I had the opportunity to work the film crew this year. So I really enjoyed that and uh it was just a great experience and if you have never gone or haven't gone, you should go and want to go and they were really good this year. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I just got one item. Uh there was a town hall meeting that was held at fire headquarters on August 14th uh to meet with the residents of Sierra Deloro to discuss the recent uh fire up that they had off Palisades near Green River and just the associated homeless situation in the area. I want to thank about 50 residents who attended. We appreciate that. I also want to give a shout out to Fire Chief Young, Fire Marshall Schmidz, Lieutenant Griffith, and Lieutenant Snow and Sergeant Hubard from PD. All of them did an exceptional job. Uh while the residents likely are still frustrated with the situation, I I know they walked away with a better understanding of the challenges of dealing with the homeless and the extraordinary efforts I think made by both police and fire that to keep our residents safe. And I want to give a special thanks to our fires safe council for attending and and the future efforts that the CFD is going to be making to help the Sierra Delo residents in that neighborhood established a fire wise neighborhood. So that completes my report or my comments I should say. The next meeting is going to be September 3rd at 6:00. We're adjourned.