City Council - Regular Meeting

1:41 – 2:21•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Welcome to City Council meeting for September 15th, 2026. I'm Mayor Patricia Sock-Dawson and I will call our meeting to order. And we will start our meeting with public comment. But I did want to announce we are having some issues with our voting system still, I believe. Isn't that correct? So Council, we're going to have to do, I think, raise hands or roll call. And the city clerk will prompt us when it comes to that point. Yeah. Well, no. I think your speak button I can see still. And now it wasn't? OK.

2:29 – 2:52•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Yeah. So now I got, Philip, did you put yourself up there for just to test it? No. Okay, all right, good. I'm going to clear that then. So we've got, so just stay tuned on that. We need to get that fixed, and it's coming, but we will start our meeting today with public comment, and this is for items in our closed session and any matters within the jurisdiction of the city council.

3:14•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, thank you. We have a few requests to speak in chambers, so we will start with those. First, I have Ruben Greg Soto.

5:19•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. Soto. All right, next I have Errol Kosiewicz.

8:40•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. Cox. You have a good day. All right, next I have Marcella Cook.

9:06•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Are you commenting on the e-bikes item? Yes. Okay, that is not until a little later on.

9:14 – 9:29•MDMayor Lock Dawson

So this is for general public comment, any items within the jurisdiction, and then also closed session items as well. I actually think that item is going to get pulled. Is it? It's going to get continued. Okay.

9:31 – 10:18•MDMayor Lock Dawson

I think it will be continued so you can pay attention to that. Okay. We haven't made that decision yet. Okay. I'm just saying. I'm here, right? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Cook. We appreciate that. Is it at 615? We'll be considering it tonight. Okay. Let me see. Do we have any speakers online? Okay. Do we have any speakers online? Okay, so we have no more additional requests to speak, so we'll close public comment and move on to item number two. This is our council member and mayor communications. So I'll start, as I always do, with Council Member Falcone and an update from Ward 1.

10:18 – 11:29•PFPhilip Falcone

Thank you, Mayor. Last week, we completed a town hall tour where we had six town halls in 12 days, and it was a world win. And I'm happy I came out alive on the other end of it. And I want to thank, in particular, our Fire Department Chief McKinster and Battalion Chief Reynolds, who came and joined us for one of them. And Chief Gonzalez was that one. So they were well attended overall. No shocker, the best attended one was one on. historic preservation that is what ward one cares about so that was our best attended one and thank you scott watson for being there and being our our support staff

11:30•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Councilor Falcone. Ward 3, Councilor Rogelard.

11:34 – 13:23•SRSteven Robillard

Thank you, Mayor. Wanted to give a quick shout out to the Mission Inn Foundation. I enjoyed an evening of a history on the rocks with my team. We brought our spouses with us. And great to visit some local restaurants and learn some local history. And if you guys are very interested in it, it's a great way to go to a restaurant, You get served a drink, an appetizer. You're going to learn a little bit the history of the restaurant, but also the the building that it's in. And they finished the mission in and it's a great couple hour experience to have a good way to burn some time with some friend

13:23•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Conner.

13:25 – 13:41•CCChuck Conder

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, the 9-11 on last Friday was very emotional. I've been working with these families for 25 years, and it doesn't get any easier. It's still a very emotional time, and I want to thank Chief McKinster and the Fire Department for hosting that over at Station 1. The parade, as he said, was...

13:43 – 14:47•CCChuck Conder

It was little raindrops at the end, but it kept it nice, and I appreciate all the effort that Councilmember Mill and the Labor Council put in to get that done. And this past Saturday, we had our 51st Annual Military Affairs Committee Picnic up at the base where we served about 5 000 dinners or lunches to family members the military and their their children um mayor was there she'll talk about it i'm sure but i really want to thank uh on the chamber nick adcock of course but uh young lady laney chirigo this is her first time in the chair as we said at running things she did fantastic albertsons

14:48•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thanks, Councilmember. Councilmember Vilsack?

14:52 – 17:28•SMSean Mill

Thank you, Mary. As some of my colleagues have mentioned, we had the very first ever Labor Day parade here in Riverside. A lot of folks don't know that outside of Los Angeles, the second highest number of union members in the entire state of California reside in the Inland Empire. And every year, those folks get in their cars and they drive to Wilmington. And I want to thank my office and my team for coordinating with the Inland Empire Labor Council, our friends from the building trades, the Teamsters, everybody working really hard to bring it here because let's keep these guys home. Don't mak

17:30 – 18:42•SMSean Mill

No, there's no, you know, no rivalry here. Also, I just want to say thanks to Chief McKinster, as Chuck said, about 9-11. But what was really awesome, and, you know, I look at Councilmember Robart, his dad Larry was there, and Larry was one of the volunteers that went to 9-11. And talking to him about his experiences with that, not to mention talking to our firefighters that were there after 9-11 happened there, Very humbling, very humbling. And knowing that people like that, heroes walk amongst us. And heroes don't always wear capes. A guy like Larry Robillard, guys like the firefighters that

18:42•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Hernandez.

I had the opportunity to attend several meetings over the last one or two weeks. One of them was the TCC community meeting, the Transformative Climate Communities Grant meeting hosted in the Arlanza Community Center. It was great to see the public come out, ask questions, get informed about the benefits, the potential benefits. of the grant, and there's always next year. And then I also had the opportunity to attend the Vision Zero community, Ward 6 and 7 community meeting with Steve Hemingway here, Councilmember Hemingway, and it was great, again, to see the public come out, get informed abou

20:53•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Hemingway.

20:55 – 21:53•SHSteve Hemenway

Thank you, Mayor. Just two quick things. As Councilmember Hernandez mentioned, we had a great turnout at our community meeting last Wednesday to share the Vision Zero Action Plan. Think about safer more walkable streets. So I want to thank our public works team. They gave a great presentation Councilman Hernandez gave some updates as well as Ward 7 office did as well and we had a great turnout So thank you all that made that successful The next thing coming up, we just want to pass along that Alvord Unified School District is having a community update meeting. It's going to be at La Sierra Hig

21:54 – 24:01•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member Henry. I love it that you've all said you've had town halls and met with people. So many opportunities to connect with your council member, not only through these town halls, but this is the least of the ways to do it here at City Council Meeting. There's so many opportunities to really be able to connect. So I appreciate you all doing that. So thank you. Just a couple things. Yes, Chuck, I did attend the Military Affairs Appreciation Picnic, and I slowed down the food line because I was really slow giving out those condiments. So I'm not super good at that. But Micha

24:05 – 24:20•SRSteven Robillard

Yes, I have one disclosure for the record. An applicant associated with item number eight previously made a $1,500 contribution to my campaign. Upon becoming aware of the potential conflict on September 3rd, I immediately directed my campaign treasurer to return the contribution, and the full $1,500 has been returned.

24:23 – 24:44•SHSteve Hemenway

Thank you, Mayor. Just want to mention about item six coming up that I've had conversation with both the developer, the community and the staff here, just as we've been wanting to make sure everyone was on the same page and hear input from the community. So just want to share those those communication efforts in our ex parte.

24:44 – 25:10•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Perfect. Thank you. All right, today's presentation, department presentation, is with one of my favorites. I can't say it's my favorite, but one of my favorites is our library department, which I use on the regular every week, if not every month. And here today to do the presentation is our library director, Aaron Christmas. It is Christmas.

31:35 – 32:09•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Director Christmas. And I have to say for folks that somehow think that the library is arcane and not necessary anymore, I think it's visited now more than it's ever been. And I have to give you a lot of credit for that. You've really brought us into the 21st century with a lot of your innovations and ideas So I appreciate all that you've done and a big shout out to all your staff too. Thank you guys for keeping the turnstiles moving. Yes, thank you. We do have a couple comments from council, so let me turn first to Council Member Falcone.

32:09 – 33:04•PFPhilip Falcone

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Christmas. I think the world of you and of your department. And it was particularly educational for me when Director Christmas and I, I had not been to all of our library branches. Of course, I'm a Ward 1 creature, and I stay in my little neck of the woods. But I had not been to all of our branches. So Director Christmas and I, she took me on a tour. of all the libraries and it was very educational and it was great to meet a lot of the team. I'm still biased. I love the archive at the main library, Ruth and Glenn at the archive, very appreciative of their

33:10 – 37:09•SMSean Mill

I remember as a kid, the library, and for you guys over there, it was before the internet, before everything was on the phone. But the library was our second home. As a kid, the librarians were basically the people who watched us after school. We would go there. They'd have all the newspaper, all the magazines, everything. And we'd spend our afternoons after school there. I so appreciate what you guys do for the community. The library was a place where you could go and you read a book and you escape from your life, from your reality. You could go anywhere. You could be anything in books. So th

37:31 – 37:49•SRSteven Robillard

Thank you, Mayor. I did, in fact, use the library growing up. And La Sierra Library was my home library, and I remember there was a clown that used to read story time when I was five years old, and it scared me to death. Fair, fair. Clowns were a thing in the 90s. I don't know why, but clowns were a thing, yeah.

37:50•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Are you sure it wasn't Council Member Mill? I'm trying to...

37:54 – 39:23•SRSteven Robillard

The big shoes. I can recognize the big shoes. But I remember I used to use it for the VHS rentals because Blockbuster was too expensive. Couldn't get any new releases at the library, but my favorite movie that I discovered there was The Attack of the Killer Mutant Tomatoes. If you're looking for a very, very campy 80s movie – It is hilarious, and the tomatoes eat everyone, and it's a fantastic movie. Thank you for that recommendation. Yes. You should check it out if you can ever find it. Probably not. But I think when people talk about the libraries, it's like, yes, there's books there. And I

39:34 – 39:55•CCChuck Conder

Yeah, the one thing that wasn't mentioned that we the proud members of the older generation remember is fighting over the encyclopedia Britannica when we all needed to get the damn T or S volume and everybody else had it and we would try to do things. You remember those days. So that was another thing we did at the library. We spent a lot of time there and it was a babysitting thing at times. So thanks.

39:57 – 40:41•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Oh, wow. Well, thank you again, Director Christmas, and congratulations to the Employees of the Year, you guys. Thank you very much, and I appreciate all you do. Thank you. All right. We are at our first public hearing this afternoon, and this is... I think this one is you, you referred this. This is a planning case PR 2024-001711, and this is a tentative track map planned residential development and design review of a planned residential development. So we will open public comment for this item.

41:03•MDMayor Lock Dawson

And I think we are tag teaming between Judy Aguez and Philip Nityama, right? So we'll kick it off with Ms. Aguez and good to see you. Thank you.

50:02•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. Thank you, Ms. Aguez and Philip Mitayama. We do have a request to speak on this item, so let's take our first caller, please.

50:57•MDMayor Lock Dawson

CAN WE PLEASE MAKE OUR COMMENTS ON THE ITEM NUMBER SIX, PLEASE?

51:32•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Sir, I don't see what the relevance are, so we would like to move on on public comment, please, if you are not going to address item six.

52:05•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you. That was our only request to speak, so we will close public comment and come back to council. Council Member Hemingway.

52:12 – 53:00•SHSteve Hemenway

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I refer this item, as was mentioned, the Planning Commission did approve this project and did make some... suggested conditions of approval and so we just want to take the time to get those right and I felt like it wasn't quite clear so I asked that to be referred to the the City Council just so that we could get very focused on what those conditions would look like and to make sure that it was the safest possible space if we are going to have to make a median break and And for a crosswalk, and it looks like city staff did a phenomenal job with that and worked with

53:02•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the item. I'm going to turn it over to our city clerk to conduct the vote.

53:24 – 53:51•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. We're going to move on on our agenda to item number 7. This is case number 202600796. This is a resolution amending our public safety element of the general plan to comply with AB 2140. So we will open public comment for this item.

54:17 – 54:28•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, with that, I would like to please invite Clarissa Mangus up to give us a staff report. Mangus, sorry. I do this every time. I'm sorry, Clarissa.

54:36•PFPhilip Falcone

Mayor, I don't think the microphone's on.

58:07 – 58:32•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you. All right. Thank you, Ms. Mangus. Let us see if we have any public comment on this item. Okay, we have none in the chamber, and we have one caller. This is the caller that was the same caller from earlier. Sir, if you are going to speak to the item, we would love to hear from you. But if you're going to not speak to the item, we will mute the mic. Go ahead and unmute, please.

58:51 – 59:09•MDMayor Lock Dawson

I'm sorry, this is not with respect to Item 7. So please mute the caller, please. Thank you. All right. Council, we have no other requests to speak, so we'll close public comment. We'll come back to council.

59:12•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. We have a motion and a second. City Clerk, please conduct the vote.

59:35 – 59:48•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Let's see. We are now at item 8. This is an appeal of a planning commission denial regarding establishment of Jazz's Wine and Spirit Shop. We will open public comment for this item.

1:00:14•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. Thank you. We have a staff presentation from Brian Norton. Mr. Norton.

1:08:19•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Perfect, thank you. And the applicant has 10 minutes, I believe, to present.

1:14:47•MDMayor Lock Dawson

I just want to do a time check for you. You have three minutes and 41 seconds.

1:17:44 – 1:18:27•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, thank you. And when you talk about spirits, I assume it's not the spirit of Halloween, which is in there right now. No, no. Thank you. Okay. I think what we'll do now, council has moved to public comment, and then we can come back and answer questions for the, ask questions of the applicant. You have to fill out a card, please, and bring it forward. Thank you so much. Okay, first I have Dave Lanham. Welcome, Mr. Lannan.

1:23:08•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. White. Next I have Doug Momberger.

1:24:21•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. Momberger. I have Aaron Sasse. Aaron Sasse. Welcome, Ms. Sasse. Nice to see you.

1:26:55•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Next, I have Eric Eichenberger. Welcome, Mr. Reichenberger.

1:37:14 – 1:38:08•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Ms. Park, and thank you for your patience regarding our public comment process. That was our last request to speak in public comment, so we will close public comment, and we will come now to council. And council, I need to step out for a little bit. Council Member Robillard is now the default mayor pro tem because our current mayor pro tem is not here, so good. Falls back on him as the previous one. So I'm going to just hand it. Oh, here she comes. All right. All right. So our mayor pro tem is here. Apologies. Yeah, okay, welcome, welcome. So let me switch places with you. So Counci

1:38:08 – 1:43:00•SRSteven Robillard

Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm thankful for Ameriproton to be here so I don't have to pull double duty right now. So I just wanted to start off that this, I am a neighbor of this property. I live about a three minute walk from here. This is a part of my daily, well, not daily anymore. I get home too late, but I, you'd be my wife and my kids. We walk this neighborhood and this is part of our walk home and it is been empty for a long time and it's been an underused asset here in our city and I was very curious to find out you know when Allen Party Supply went on a business I was really interest

1:43:03•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you, Councilmember. Next, we have Councilmember Falcone.

1:43:06•PFPhilip Falcone

Thank you, Mayor Pro Temservantes. A question, Brian, if it's for you or for the applicant related to landscaping, if landscaping for the parking lot in this site is in phase one or phase two.

1:43:32 – 1:43:54•PFPhilip Falcone

Thank you. Thank you. And just want to express appreciation related to the mid-century architecture. It's, of course, the character of that particular neighborhood. It makes sense. You're across the street from the most iconic mid-century dive bar in town, the Sire, with its awesome neon sign and mid-century architecture. So I appreciate that homage to the character of the neighborhood. Thank you.

1:43:57 – 1:45:17•CCChuck Conder

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I knew Jazz Patel before I knew Jazz Patel. And that's because I have friends in Corona, in Norco, in Western Riverside, that when we would have events, I might ask where they got it. And they went to Jazz's in Corona. It just kept happening. And when I met him, I said, oh, you're Jazz. I've heard so much about you over the years. And then I started getting calls from two of the council members in Corona. They called me before I even could call them. And one of them was extremely upset that Jazz was coming to Riverside because they wanted to try to keep him

1:45:21 – 1:46:31•SMSean Mill

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Well, as somebody who is, I guess the word was a two-totaler, I don't drink, don't particularly care for alcohol, so I wouldn't know what's good whiskey or what's rot good. I don't know. I mean, it's all, I have no idea. But what I did do was I went over to Corona and talked to people that live by your store and asked them and actually got a lot of good feedback. The name Jazzy's Bar, it kind of stood out to me too. It's not a bar. And so I understand where Dave, my friend Dave is coming from, you know, like, you know, calling it a bar kind of just like, I know it's n

1:46:41 – 1:46:54•SMSean Mill

Okay, I just Yeah, again, I'm, I'm having a conversation with people. I said that that's not a bar. It's a kind of explain what you were doing. So they're calling it Jazzy's bar. So it was just kind of confused. So I was just wondering why? Why?

1:46:59 – 1:47:22•SMSean Mill

Okay. Thank you. You know, I just want to confirm with, this is, the number of licenses are going to remain the same. This is just, we're going to be transferring, well, if this is approved, it would be the license from the Rite Aid transferring over to this location, so it would be the same number?

1:47:45 – 1:48:31•SMSean Mill

Okay. And for me, you know, overconcentration is an issue. It's a big issue to me. I mean, when they wanted to put all the marijuana dispensaries in Ward 5 at one time, I was concerned about overconcentration of dispensaries. So, I mean, and they're clearly, I mean, just looking at it, there's clearly an over concentration of licenses in this track. But I want to ask you this, you know, can you explain why that concentration exists? You know, particularly given the presence of we have Riverside Plaza there, we have the Brockington Arcade, we have restaurants, other entertainment uses, and whet

1:49:16 – 1:49:31•SMSean Mill

But just looking at raw numbers, if you're just thinking about like, wow, 11 liquor stores in the area. But we're talking about Ralph's. We're talking about Vons. We're talking about Trader Joe's. We're talking about major grocery stores in the area. So that adds to the number.

1:50:00 – 1:50:20•SMSean Mill

And then I've written one other question before I came. What specifically distinguishes this proposal from simply adding another liquor store or bar to an already over-concentrated area? And what conditions and security measures give us confidence that approving these licenses will not create additional public safety or nuisance problems?

1:50:56 – 1:53:42•SMSean Mill

As I said, I spoke to people in Corona about this. I'm not a big fan of liquor stores, your traditional liquor store, just like I'm not a big fan of smoke shops and things like that that attract folks. So I talked to the people that lived in Corona, and they're like, oh, no, that's not what it is. In fact, everybody I talked to that patronized the store, spoke very highly of it um i was blown away when this gentleman came and he said oh i'm going to get a a little sip for 20 so i don't spend thousands of dollars on a bottle i'm just like wow this is like it's pretty high-end stuff it's not goi

1:53:47 – 1:53:59•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Member. Perfect. Seeing that we've moved through, we're going to now think, we had a motion from Council Member Robillard, second from Council Member Condor. And just wanted to, it looks like we have to do a roll call vote. Council Member Piconi?

1:54:01 – 1:54:52•CCClarissa Cervantes

Council Member Robillard? Yes. Condor? Council Member Condor. Council Member Mill? Yes. Council Member Hernandez? Yes. Council Member Hemingway? Yes. And then I'm respectfully going to abstain since I came late. I didn't get to be here for the presentation and to hear the applicant speak, but wish you all the best of luck. Thank you. It looks like you got all the votes you needed. And now moving forward we have the next item up for discussion Is going to be council Robillard recommending establishing an ad hoc committee regarding artificial intelligence Strategy and policy and looking really q

1:55:15 – 1:56:39•SRSteven Robillard

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and get it started, and I'll kick it over to our Chief Innovation Officer, George Khalil. The reason I wanted to call this together is artificial intelligence is going to change the way we work, the way businesses operate, and the way cities provide services. I don't think Riverside should wait for those changes to happen to us. I think we should be intentional about how we prepare for them. That's why I'm proposing the creation of a city council working group focused on artificial intelligence. I want this group to look at AI comprehensively. That includes how the

1:58:23•CCClarissa Cervantes

We have one caller. We'll go ahead and take the first caller. Caller, go ahead.

1:59:07•CCClarissa Cervantes

Okay. Thank you, sir. We have one other caller. Go ahead, caller.

2:02:16•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you, caller. And we also have, we do have a common card in the chamber, Nicholas Adcock from the Greater Chamber. And then we'll see if we have any other callers online.

2:03:25•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you, Mr. Adcock. And let's see, do we have anyone else online? One more caller. Go ahead, caller.

2:05:13 – 2:05:27•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you, Ms. McKeith. I just think if we have any other callers. Okay, no other callers. We're going to go ahead and close public comment, and we're going to start off with Council Member Mill.

2:05:31 – 2:05:43•SMSean Mill

One question I guess it would be, uh, I don't know who, who directed to, but my question would be, uh, how are we determining the, uh, makeup of the, uh, of the council committee?

2:05:47•SRSteven Robillard

I was going to make a recommendation, but I'm also open to other recommendations.

2:05:58 – 2:06:24•SMSean Mill

i mean that's that's the thing i mean we had a full discussion amongst the group through government processes i don't know how you normally just i mean we're how we're going to draw it up that that's really my my concern is it i mean are we just going to select the folks or is it going to be you know have there been a discussion about whether this goes to mayor's dominating screening committee for maybe initial discussion recommendation or if it is a submission of council members who have interest or

2:06:24 – 2:07:02•SRSteven Robillard

So the basis of it was similar to how we did the Inspector General Working Group, where we selected amongst ourselves at the dais of who was interested in kind of doing off that. Since this is a working group, not a standing committee, I don't think it really applies for, you know, this is not an ongoing assignment, so to speak. And so I think if we added a committee to this, it would really screw up the chair, vice chair, member breakdown, because then we'd have... people that would be serving twice as chair, twice as vice chair, et cetera. So I think I'd kind of keep it the temporary working

2:07:03•SMSean Mill

Okay. So then my other question would be for meetings, is it as determined or is it going to be a particular?

2:07:13 – 2:07:28•SRSteven Robillard

The goal is to do it once a month. That's why it's a 13-month time frame. And have it on the same day at the same time once a month because it's just scheduling. It's going to be complicated. And that just is easier for everyone's schedules to do it that way.

2:07:29 – 2:07:40•SMSean Mill

And then is that something – question for the – so is this something that would be agendized through you? I mean, will we – is that how it works? Yeah.

2:07:54•SMSean Mill

Okay. And I would disagree. The Inspector General was like, we just picked on the people that we didn't like the most and put them on there.

2:08:10 – 2:08:25•CCClarissa Cervantes

Yeah, I think there was a, you know, it was interesting how some of us decided to step up and volunteer to do the Inspector General Committee. Well, I see we have Council Member Robillard on the board, so Council Member Wright, I don't know if you had any suggestions or recommendations, and then we can go to Council Member Falcone.

2:08:26 – 2:09:18•SRSteven Robillard

Yes, I do have some recommendations, and I wanted to suggest that I've suggested these council members out of a perceived diversity of opinions on AI and interest in AI, so that is not a dominated by one side or the other. And so the people I'm suggesting is myself, Councilmember Hemingway, and Councilmember Falcone, who bring different opinions and kind of notions on AI so that we are able to talk about more than just one type of thing. And because it's also a 13-month long commitment, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem Cervantes. That is also part of the consideration as well. Thank you.

2:09:19 – 2:09:30•CCClarissa Cervantes

I won't lie. I figured I wouldn't be considered for this given my term ends soon. But no, I think that's great. Thank you for the recommendations. We'll move to Council Member Falcone and potentially Council Member, okay.

2:09:31 – 2:10:24•PFPhilip Falcone

Thank you, Mayor Pro Temservantes. Typically, I'm not in support of additional committees and working groups, unlike my friend who called in on public comment, mainly because I believe in, as I've showed this with the clerk before, the committee of the whole. I think we should all be together and we just workshop stuff and we don't need to have all these council committees and all this stuff. But I think for this particular topic and the fact that we don't have a committee of the whole, that we kind of have no other option, I appreciate it. I talked to Council Member Robillard about this. I ap

2:10:24•SHSteve Hemenway

I'll just say I'm happy to serve if it's helpful, but also if there's others that have a desire, I'm open to that discussion as well.

2:10:35 – 2:11:15•CCClarissa Cervantes

Great. And just, I guess my only two sentences, I feel, you know, we were able to serve on an ad hoc committee with the Inspector General, and sometimes it's helpful and necessary to be able to work through some issues. And I really actually love the breakup of east side, mid, and midtown, and then the west side of representation across the city. But again, unless there's other interest from some council members, you know, that may want to be a part of this, we can open that up. Or if there's anyone who wants to make a recommendation, yeah. I will say I would have interest in serving, but agai

2:11:15•SRSteven Robillard

There's a motion by me. I make a motion to create the working group and to nominate myself, Council Member Hemingway, and Council Member Falcone to be the three members of that group. Second.

2:11:26•CCClarissa Cervantes

Great, okay. Do you want to do the roll call, Clerk? Okay.

2:11:46 – 2:11:59•CCClarissa Cervantes

Wonderful. Thank you everyone for the discussion and look forward to more to learn in the future. Great. And now we are going to adjourn and go to closed session. Looking to our city attorney if there's anything to report out.

2:13:12•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you so much. And we'll counsel a return at 615 for evening session. Thank you all.

2:26:01 – 2:26:27•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Good evening. City Council's returned momentarily from closed session. We'll be reconvening back in closed session to begin the evening portion of our meeting, our public portion of the meeting in open session. So we will start our 615 meeting. We will call the meeting to order. And I will call on Council Member Condor, please, to lead us in the invocation and pledge.

2:26:28 – 2:27:50•CCChuck Conder

Thank you, Mayor. Please, if you wish, pray with me. Dear Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to gather in friendship and harmony once again. Help us in unity to make this meeting a successful and effective one. Heavenly Father, help us to remember that freedom, like faith, needs our attention and our cooperation. Lord, be with us now as we meet. Be here to strengthen us, to keep us, to protect us, and to direct us. As we work together tonight, guide our thoughts and our actions to stay focused on what is important and to make good decisions for the betterment of all of our citizens. Lord,

2:27:58•CCChuck Conder

I pledge allegiance, please join, ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

2:28:16 – 2:28:43•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member Condor. Yes, ma'am. We will open our meeting now with, this is general public comment. This is not for items on the agenda. This is for the consent calendar and any matters within the jurisdiction of city council. So if you want to comment on the consent calendar or any matters within the jurisdiction of city council that is not agendized, please feel free to comment. Let's open public comment, please.

2:29:16 – 2:29:28•MDMayor Lock Dawson

It is most likely going to be continued We would speak to the continuance if the continuance was on the agenda, but not to the item it's a little different Sure

2:32:35•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. Bernal. We have a couple of requests to speak online. Let's take those.

2:35:14•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Ms. McKeith. We have another caller, please. Let's take our next caller.

2:38:22 – 2:39:08•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. Hunter. Thank you. That was our last request to speak for item 22. We will move on on our agenda. And we are now at the presentation portion of our agenda. this Tuesday we're going to present a proclamation to Latino Network for in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month which is September 15th through October 15th and I do have a proclamation here for Alex, but I want to let him give us a presentation from Latino Network. And please welcome Alex Cortez.

2:41:21 – 2:43:14•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Dr. Cortez. We appreciate you being here tonight. I'm going to read a little bit of the proclamation, if you don't mind, and then we'd love to have you come down and have a little picture with us. I'm just going to summarize some of it. Whereas the character of Riverside from its beginning reflected a diverse population of people of many ethnic cultural backgrounds, Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Week, which is now expanded to month, was established in 1968 to recognize and celebrate the heritage and culture of Latinos in the U.S. Whereas the objectives of Hispanic Heritage Month

2:43:21•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Would you take the proclamation on behalf of the Spanish Heritage Foundation as well?

2:44:06•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, Councilmember Cervantes, I know you wanted to say something.

2:44:10 – 2:45:24•CCClarissa Cervantes

Thank you. Yes, just want to say thank you to Professor for being here today and for your hard work and contribution to our community and echoing the same to the entire board, Latino Network, as well as to Spanish on Heritage Foundation. And there are so many unique contributions that each of your nonprofits and groups do to support and uplift the stories, the culture, the heritage, and just the power of what we've been able to see in the contributions of our community today. And so it's really special to be able to work with you all throughout the years. And there's so many different things j

2:45:25•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member Cervantes. Council Member Hernandez?

I'm honored to be up here on the council when this proclamation was brought forward to mark the recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. As the first Latino elected to represent Ward 6, it's deeply meaningful. It's a celebration of our vibrant culture, our resilience, and the contributions of our community. I just want to thank Latino Network and the Spanish Town Heritage Foundation for their deep commitment to their deep commitment to just making sure that our history and our culture are on the forefront and are remembered. So thank you very much.

2:46:34 – 2:46:54•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member. And thanks, Alex. We'll let you get back to your life. But I did want to say, just in general, thank you for your leadership on Latino Network. I think you've done a fabulous job steering it and taking it over in the past couple of years. And it's always a delight to work with you. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

2:46:58 – 2:47:14•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, we are now at item 24. And this was going to be a public recognition of Poly High School's athletic trainer, but I have a note here to pass it over to Councilmember Robillard for some comments regarding this presentation.

2:47:15 – 2:47:48•SRSteven Robillard

Yes, unfortunately the athletic trainer who is needed at an athletic event. It is sports season right now and is unable to be here with us to receive this recognition. Rather than recognize her in absence, we would like to postpone this item until a later date after the completion of the athletic season so that we can properly recognize her and the staff who were involved. This recognition is especially meaningful because their quick thinking, training, and immediate response played a critical role in helping save a student's life. And I look forward to bringing this recognition back once the

2:47:48 – 2:48:05•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Hernandez, did you have something you wanted to say? Your name popped up again. Okay. We are now on to item number 25. This is our Ward 7 Riverside Prosperous Success Report. So, Councilmember Hemingway gets to talk. Thank you, Mayor.

2:48:05 – 2:52:02•SHSteve Hemenway

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. It's always exciting when we get to... share about a person or an organization in our city that is doing amazing work. And I will say this started, I think, or at least when I got a firsthand glimpse was when I was invited about a year or so ago to read in the classrooms with the kids at La Granada Head Start. I was invited by Miss Patricia who does a phenomenal work over there and is it's always so fun to turn up and see all the you know activities and things happening so we thought well what better than to share a bit about that since I was so impressed with the amazi

2:52:49•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Wonderful. So you're the success, so you go down.

2:52:56•SHSteve Hemenway

So any other comments, or should we take a picture? Well, how about we take a picture down here, if that would be all right?

2:53:05•MDMayor Lock Dawson

And I will say, Mr. Nieto also started the Dad's University at RUSD, which I have to say was an amazing program.

2:54:14 – 2:54:33•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Council Member Hemingway. I couldn't think of a better recipient for that success. I appreciate you bringing that. Okay, council, we are now at our consent calendar. So we will go through now and ask our city manager and council if they have any items to pull. City manager.

2:54:48•CCClarissa Cervantes

Ward 2? Pass. Pass, but I do need to recuse myself for 42-43 due to real property within 1,000 feet. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Ward 3. Pass.

2:55:07•SHSteve Hemenway

Pass. Move to approve the balance consent.

2:55:32•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. Thank you. So now we're going to go to Council Member Mill for item number 26. He's pulled. So let's open public comment for item number 26.

2:56:04•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, thank you. Council Member Mill, I'm going to turn it over to you to ask your questions.

2:56:08 – 2:58:19•SMSean Mill

Thank you, Mayor. I didn't really have a question. I pulled this item because I want the community, I want people to understand what's going on here. This is a continual, you asked me, waste of taxpayer money. Now, I'm just going to, not all the outside council, I'm going to highlight one case and then it actually adds up to three cases. We continue to spend money going after Tony Platt. And just in this report alone, it's all fruit of the poisonous tree. That then leads to a lawsuit involving Councilmember Condren and former Councilmember Adams. Then I would argue that that leads to another l

2:58:20•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. Thank you, Council Member Mill. Before we vote on this item, we'll need to take public comment. We have a couple callers for this item. Let's take our first caller, please.

3:01:11•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you. Let's have our next caller, please.

3:04:08•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Ms. McKeith. That's the last request. We had to speak on this item, so we'll close public comment. Council, back to you.

3:04:15 – 3:04:33•SMSean Mill

I'll make a motion to approve the item. Again, to our new city attorney, just wanted to put it on record for you. You're a new guy here, but no disrespect to you or your office, but I'm a little tired of it, and I'll make a motion that we approve.

3:04:33 – 3:04:46•CCClarissa Cervantes

Second mayor just to add just for council member to mention. We are going to be bringing back the case regarding mr Platt and Condor soon to close session for discussion and I'm I do hear you and I look forward to hopefully getting this to a close in the near future.

3:04:47•CCChuck Conder

Thank you I'm gonna recuse myself on the item.

3:04:51•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion in a second with one recusal city clerk

3:05:08 – 3:05:28•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right, thank you. Council, we are now at, I believe, item 50, yes? Okay. So we're now at item 50, and... Councilmember Condor or Councilmember Mill, I think you wanted to say something.

3:05:29 – 3:05:49•CCChuck Conder

Yeah, Mayor, with the agreement of the council, we are going to continue this item to next Tuesday, the 22nd of September. There's some cleanup language that we need to get back in. We want to do this right the first time. We've worked hard for many months to get this to be right, so I will make the motion that we push this on a continuance until next Tuesday, the 22nd.

3:05:50 – 3:06:15•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Okay. Do we need a second? I'll second that motion. Yeah. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to continue, but I'm going to open public comment now. But this is to speak to the continuance. This is not to speak to the item. So it's not to talk about the value of e-bikes or what we're doing with e-bikes. It's whether or not you want to see the continuance. So that's what the comments are. So we'll open public comment for that.

3:06:37•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right again public comment is to speak to the continues in the continues only Fred bond with us.

3:06:57•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you, Mr. Bonwell. I appreciate that. John Arnold.

3:07:32 – 3:07:46•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, guys. All right. Council, I have no other requests to speak on this. So please vote on the motion to continue. Item 50. Ward 1? Yes. Ward 2? Yes. Ward 3?

3:07:52 – 3:08:06•MDMayor Lock Dawson

All right. Thank you, everybody. Council, we are now going to go back into closed session because we have additional items that we'll need to take care of. And we will come back out to adjourn after closed session items are finished. Thank you.

3:09:12•MDMayor Lock Dawson

We are back from closed session and I will call on our city attorney please to report out on closed session items.

3:09:23•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Okay thank you. Council anybody have any items for future consideration? Okay. All right, thank you.

3:09:47•MDMayor Lock Dawson

Okay, thank you. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.