City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to the February 3rd close session of the city council of the city of Mareno Valley. The city council receives a separate stipen from the community services district board of directors if any CSD business is conducted at this meeting. I now call this meeting to order on February 3rd, 2026 at 4 pm. Madame clerk, roll call, please. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Bernard here. Council member Delgado here, ma'am. Council member Baka Santa Cruz here. Mayor Prom Gonzalez here. And Mayor Cabrera here. Thank you.

Next is item C, public comments on matters on the agenda only. Madam clerk, do we have any request to speak on close session? No request to speak, mayor. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next, we will move to item D. And at this time, Mr. City Attorney, what matters will the council be discussing in close session today.

Mr. Mayor, the um council has three items on its close session calendar, and they include D1, conference with the labor negotiator regarding the unrepresented employee. Um that's your city manager, Brian Mohan. Your um your negotiator is Alana Jimenez, our assistant city manager of administration. The next item is D2, the public employee performance evaluation. That's pursuing to government code section 54957 and that it pertains to your uh manager of the office of the mayor and city council aka your city clerk. D3 is conference with labor negotiator regarding another unrepresented employee and that's your city clerk and Patricia Rodriguez and that's pursuant to government code section 54957 and your labor negotiator is again your assistant city manager of administration Lana Himenez. So those are the three items that will be discussed in close session and

thank you Mr. City attorney. So with that we'll go ahead and recess into close session.

Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome back to our close session here in the city of Moreno Valley. At this time, I will turn it over to our city attorney. Mr. City attorney, was there any reportable action taken in close session today?

Um, yes, Mr. Mayor. So although there's no requirement to make any close session announcements regarding the items that are listed on today's close session agenda, um in the interest of maximizing public transparency, I was directed by the council to announce that there was no reportable action on item D2, which is the city clerk's performance evaluation. But on item D1 regarding negotiations involving the city manager, the city council voted 41 with council member Baka Santa Cruz voting no to place on a future open session agenda a proposed annual salary adjustment of 13% commencing December 28, 2025 for the city manager. For item D3, regarding negotiations involving the city clerk, the city council voted unanimously to place on a future open session agenda a proposed annual salary adjustment of 24% commencing November 19th, 2025 and changing the term of her employment contract to 12 months. Again, these items have to be formally voted on in open session on a future city council agenda.

Thank you very much, Mr. City Attorney. So, with that, we will go ahead and conclude the close session for today at 5:32 p.m. We'll be back in just a moment for our special presentations. Thank you.

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's special presentations. We have one this evening. And tonight, the city of Marino Valley proudly recognizes February as Black History Month, honoring and celebrating the achievements, contributions, and enduring legacy of black individuals throughout history. February shines a spotlight on the leaders, movements, and the events that shaped our society while also acknowledging the resilience, culture, and ongoing impact of black communities. In this light, we recognize a distinguished community member, Dr. Mickey Grayson from Marino Valley College, whose work continues to advance educational equity and empower future generations. And at this time, it is my pleasure to welcome the recipient of today's proclamation for Black History Month, Dr. Mickey Grayson, to the microphone. Let's give her a nice warm welcome. Black History Month celebrates leaders like Dr. Mickey Grayson, whose dedication opens doors and creates lasting impact. With advanced degrees in education, leadership, and African-American studies, she works tirelessly to empower students. Throughout her career, Dr. Grayson has led programs like Marina Valley Colleg's TRIO program, Upwardbound, and Educational Talent Search, expanding opportunities for underrepresented students and shaping learning environments where all can thrive. It is now my pleasure to present this proclamation to my left to Dr. Grayson, honoring her leadership and the difference she continues to make. And if you don't mind, I'm going to read just a

little of the language before I uh pass the microphone over to you, Miss Mickey. The proclamation here reads, "Whereas February is nationally recognized as Black History Month, a time to acknowledge and celebrate the rich history, culture, and accomplishments of African-Americans who have formed the social, economic, cultural, and political fabric of the United States. And whereas African-Americans have played a vital role in the growth and progress of our nation and the state of California, contributing to achievements in education, science, business, the arts, public service, civil rights, and community leadership despite facing historic and ongoing challenges. And now therefore, be it proclaimed that the mayor and city council of Marino Valley do hereby celebrate February as Black History Month in the city of Marino Valley and encourage all of our residents to observe this month by celebrating the contributions of African-Americans and participating in activities that promote education, reflection, and community engagement. And so, at this time, I would like to present this to you, Miss Mickey. And um also if you'd like to share a few words, I can hold this for you if you want to uh bless us with some words, please.

Oh my gosh, I am. Thank you so much. Um Mayor Cabrera, to the amazing um city council, to the citizens, I'm very humbled. Um like ancestors who have come before me, I thought I was coming just to help with stuff in the community. I didn't know it was for me. And I'm humbled because of the shoulders that I stand on. Whether that be my mother, whether that be other um historic people who have opened doors. I have been a member of this community for over Jesus over 30 years. So to be able to be a part of it, to be able to build and to see the beauty that looks like me, that looks like you is is inspiring with all the things. I'm um so thankful that I get to work alongside you, our beautiful council um and so many wonderful people in the city who come and support whether it be a Martin Luther King celebration, whether it be a trio day, anything and everything to make sure that not only our African-American students are seen, but all our students are seen with the excellence that is what represents Marino Valley and that truly represents this nation there's a saying that we say we say a body and a body means what's the news and we say in ja a sante sana is good news so even in all the interestingness that's going on I pray blessings I pray um blessings upon this city I pray blessings upon every person thank you so much and um God bless you thank you thank you thank Let's go ahead and get you

I think two. One more. Congratulations. Okay. One more big round of applause for Miss Mickey Grayson, please. She's a pillar, a pillar here in our community and Marino Valley would not be what it is today if it were not for leaders like her. So, we thank Miss Mickey from the bottom of our hearts. And with that, we are concluding our special presentations for this evening, but we will be back in just a minute or two to get started with our regular council meeting. Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the regular city council meeting here in the city of Moreno Valley. The city council receives a separate stipen from the community services district if any CSD business is conducted at the meeting. I now call this meeting to order on February 3rd, 2026 at 6:07 p.m. The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Council Member Delgado. Please remain standing after the pledge for the invitation given this evening by Pastor Rudy Gonzalez from Oasis Community Church. Please join me by placing your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America. stand nation under God, indivisible.

Good evening, pastor. Welcome.

Thank you so much. So, it's my privilege to do this and Pastor Dave sends his regards. So, let's uh you know, as as we seek a blessing for the city, hear these words from the prophet Jeremiah. This is a message from God to a people who were afflicted yet called to live in peace. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Increase the in number there. Do not decrease. Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers, you too will prosper. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Join me in a word of prayer. Loving father, creator, all knowing God, we ask for your wisdom to rest upon the public servants and staff who lead this great city. Grant them the insight and perseverance to serve with integrity. We pray for the peace and prosperity of Mareno Valley. Lord, bring comfort to the afflicted and stir the hearts of the comfortable to pursue justice and equity. May your guidance lead us toward a future filled with hope. For we pray in the glorious and awesome name of Jesus. Hallelujah and amen. God bless Marino Valley. God bless you guys. Thank you very much for that beautiful invitation, pastor.

Next item on our agenda is item D, roll call. Madam clerk, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Bernard. Yes, I'm here. Council member Delgado. Here, ma'am. Council member Baka Santa Cruz, I'm also here. Mayor Prom Gonzalez, here. And Mayor Cabrera, yes, I'm here. Thank you. Next up, item E, motions to excuse. We are all here. So, we'll go ahead and move to item F. Staff introductions, please. Patty Rodriguez, city clerk. Sonia Gome, senior deputy city clerk. Steven Cintine, city attorney. Brian Mohan, city manager. Lana Himenez, assistant city manager of administration. Felicia London, chief financial officer, city treasurer.

Sean Keller, assistant city manager development. Angelica Fulipupo, community development director. Melissa Walker, director of public works. Jeremy Bubnick, director of parks and community services. Robert Cardinz, human resources director. Jesse Park, fire chief. Lieutenant Steve Rocher, Riverside County Sheriff, sitting in for Chief Sarah. Thank you very much, staff. It's always a pleasure to be in the chamber to conduct the people's business. Next item is G. Order approval of order of agenda. And I'll look to my colleagues to see if there are any questions. If not, a motion and a second. So moved.

Second. There's a motion and a second to approve the order of the agenda. Madam clerk, please call for the vote. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Bernard, yes. Council member Delgado, yes. Council member Bakasana Cruz, yes. Mayor Pro Gonzalez, yes. And Mayor Cabera, yes. Thank you.

Thank you. That passes with five yeses. Next is item H, public comments on matters not on the agenda. A friendly reminder that the city now offers language translation services through a free app called Wordly. The app automatically translates the variety of languages into English and vice versa. To use this service, please scan the QR code at the speaker signup table. For the visually impaired, please use your earphones or earbuds to listen to the verbal translation. If you do not do not have any such listening devices, please let the city clerk know and we will gladly let you borrow some for this meeting. Before we move on to the public comments, I want to remind everyone to direct their comments to the city council. For comments that are on tonight's agenda, each speaker will have a total of three minutes to comment. Madame Clerk, are there any requests to comment on any items not on the agenda?

We do, mayor. The first three speakers are Robert Fish, followed by the IE informer, followed by Mr. George Heg. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I introduce myself as fire chief, but my actual title is the fire chief's liaison to the city of Mareno Valley because we have one fire chief and as you know our fire chief Bill Wiser retired earlier this year and the board of supervisors sworn in a new fire chief and I'd like to introduce Chief Robert Fish.

Uh thank you council. Um I appreciate you taking the time to allow me to introduce myself. Um I'm it's kind of a um an interesting point of privilege. I get to return to my hometown uh to introduce you um introduce you to myself as the fire chief. I actually grew up here in Marino Valley and graduated from Valley View High School. Um so I'm a product of this city and uh the things that it has and the things that it values. Um so really just wanted to come to introduce myself. Um let you know that Chief Wiser has retired and that uh I'll be replacing him. Had some wonderful conversations with Brian city staff already. always amazed when I come to Marino Valley uh how much it is similar to where I grew up and how it is completely different and all the amazing things that are going on and uh to let you know that the county fire department uh values the city of Marino Valley and our relationship and that we are much stronger as a department because of the relationship we have with the city of Marino Valley and also the council that frankly the city provides to us to help us to ensure that we're meeting the needs of your citizens. So, with that, um, I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. If not, I just wanted to say, um, welcome and we're always here to serve you. So, if you have questions, please bring them forward and we're happy to, uh, redress any of them. Thank you.

Next three speakers are in former, followed by Mr. George Hey, followed by Franco Pacheco.

All right. Good evening, uh, city council, uh, staff. Excellent. Um, I want to address some things. Uh, when I go on my page, sometimes a lot of the citizens are like, "Well, how do you do this?" And, you know, there's all these complaints that come down the pipe after everything has been approved. But I want you, the council, to know that um and the citizens to know that the staff, like them or not, they go out of their way and out of their schedule to meet with you and answer any questions that you have. And I can tell you, as some of you guys already know, I meet with the staff when I need to meet with them and I get the answers that I want or the clarification. So, we have a A1 uh staff that is doing the best that they can when they can do it. So, I uh big big ups to Brian and his uh team. Um and also uh the new chief, welcome. I expect to get since you're a product of Marino Valley, we expect to get a few extra calls when we need them. So, you know, it's kind of good to be on the home field, right? Right. But, um we got a lot of things on the agenda coming up. Again, we're we're entering silly season, so a lot of things are going to be coming down the pipe that we need to uh push forward. Like what is going on or don't like what's going in? You got to show up. You got to show up. I mean, we come to these meetings all the time and it's the same 12 people that sit in the in the rafters and do what they do and say what they say. Nothing against my union brothers here like that, but when it's an issue that affects them, they're doing the right thing by being here and saying, "Hey, this is what we want." But I just get so tired of people who always have the answers, but are never up here putting it pen to paper, face to video, and saying it what it is they need. As much as I get on the mayor and all you council members, you guys can't

read people's minds. If you did, you definitely would not be here. you would win the lottery and you'd be somewhere else. So, um, as we go through this agenda, hopefully we could get through this very fast because we shouldn't be here 11 12:00 at night. But, uh, again, um, big ups to our, uh, first responders, big ups to our military personnel. A lot of stuff is coming down the pipe. I've been hearing at March, a lot of stuff that's going to impact Marino Valley if we make the right decisions. And, uh, Brian is on top of it already. So, I've heard things that Brian knows about and uh let's get let's get this money. Let's get this money. Thank

The next three speakers are Mr. George Hey, followed by Franco Pacheco, followed by Morgan Vay.

Good evening, George Heg. Um, still hope some of you will meet with me when I request. One of you did, which I appreciate very much. The city attorney has mentioned in the past that you're still working on the general plan update, working with the district attorney and working on warehouse issues. One of the things I found out during my meeting was not all council members are aware of the warehouses that are going through planning. I was able to point out three warehouses that are currently going through planning that require zone change. That means it doesn't make any difference whether they're on land designated for warehousing. They are going to probably go through planning and get approved if it's like others as warehousing. Planners may tell you that they must process everything that developers put in front of them, but and I say but again, they do not need to recommend approval. And yet every warehouse that has come through this city, zone change, general plan amendments, no matter where they are, planners recommend approval. Who in planning is orchestrating this and pushing this? It shouldn't be done. It is my understanding our city attorney has said with when zone changes or general plan amendments are needed then the city can legally justify recommending not to approve and yet our planners continue to do so. Last two warehouses required zone changes. The last two you approved required zone changes. where other words it makes no difference how many acres we have for warehousing because we just changed the zone and allow a warehouse. Compass Danby was one of these. Compass Danby

is on the south side of Alisandra Boulevard. What used to be there on the south side was all commercial between Frederick and Graham. Why was it commercial? Because it's supposed to act as a buffer. That commercial was a buffer between the warehousing all along Cactus and the homes residents and a charter school on the north side of Aleandro. Now that the city has approved that project, we have lost the buffer and chances are the commercial on either side of that is also going to be warehousing impacting the homes and residents that should not have been impacted. Another point very quickly I'd like to make is Homeland Security and ICE are going all over this country and making sure warehouses are available for detention centers. The Sierra Club wants to know if this is going to happen in our city as soon as possible. Please inform me if any action is taken by the The next three speakers are Franco Pacheco followed by Morgan Valet Bay followed by Christopher Baka.

Uh, good evening council. My name is Franco Pacheco. Um, I attended the Marano town hall and I think uh, Baka was there and the overwhelming sentiment at that town hall was people worried about ICE and their rights being violated. And just like um, the previous speaker before mentioned, George H, that ICE is beginning to buy warehousing for detention centers. article just came out from Bloomberg that mentions a lot of companies over 23 warehousing that um have direct ties to the Inland Empire and who are the same developers that are doing these detention centers in other states. So in the future when you guys uh deal with developers and um accept campaign donations from them, you got to think to yourself, where's this money coming from? you're continuing the cycle and allowing people to be imprisoned in these detention centers for the future. So, we really need to take a really good step on that and maybe even implement some sort of uh ordinances to prevent detention centers being bu being repurposed here for rare housing that's supposed to be providing jobs, not slavery. Thank you.

The next three speakers are Morgan Valley, followed by Christopher Baka, followed by Ryan C. Hi, my name is Morgan. Uh, and I have a couple things I want to talk about. So, I'm gonna try and get through them really quick. First thing I want to tell you is the bike park. Uh, Flight Deck Bike Park is amazing. There has not been a single day that I've gone by that it has not been absolutely packed. Uh, it looks great. It's fun to ride. Families are loving it. It's fantastic. Two things that would make it better is over the viewing area. Uh, that's where everyone kind of queues up to drop in. if we could get a shade structure or like the canopy kind of shade over that. As we get to summer, it's going to get really hot standing there waiting to drop in. The second thing is a lot of bike parks will have a little maintenance station with a pump for tires, some wrenches. So, if you're riding and something comes loose, you can fix it really quickly. Um, they often have them at bike trails at bike parks. So, that would be a really nice addition as well. Uh, if your tire goes flat, that kind of sucks. You can't if you don't have a pump with you. Uh, that leads me into Morrison. Now that the bike park is open, there are tons of people on bikes riding up and down on Morrison. Sports soccer seasons are getting ready to start soon and people are going to be parking on Morrison and on uh Eucalyptus there as well. There has not been a day where I've written down Morrison and there are just parking tickets already issued. There was one day that RSO came out preemptively. Every other time we've had to call it in for them to come out. RSO is the one who's responsible for doing parking enforcement on the weekends. And if they're not able to do that, because there's times where we call and they don't come out at all and the cars just stay parked on Morrison all day. If they're not able to do that on the weekends, we need to look at either amending that contract and taking that funding and hiring our own officers who can do weekend enforcement or figuring out how to get them to do enforcement in those hotspots where we know people are going to be parked illegally. I'm not talking fast enough. I have more things.

Um, the other thing I would like to see, we've seen a lot of really severe car crashes already this year. Um, I know in the last week, two people on bicycles or ebikes have been hit by cars. Um, one was a child and it just seems like every day we're seeing a lot of major car accidents. So, I would like to see some sort of monthly update on safety of where RSO is focusing for speeding, red light violations, if they're, you know, how many parking tickets they've given out, if that could be in concert with city staff of we know where our hotspots are. have our safety plan. We know where the issues are. If we could have some sort of monthly reporting so we could see where our tax dollars are going to, where are those safety improvements happening, what are we enforcing, um something like that so we can keep up. We really need to keep those numbers of how many crashes are happening at the forefront. We can't just ignore it and continue to think that this is okay. Like our streets are not safe. Everyone should be able to get where they're going safely, whether they're in a car, by bike, by foot. And right now that's not the case. So if we could get some sort of monthly reporting so we can see those numbers that would be really helpful for just sort of transparency. Thank you.

The next three speakers are Christopher Baka followed by Ryan C followed by Gina Giani.

Good evening staff and uh community and elected officials. Again my comments are my own and do not reflect the views of anybody else other than myself. Um, first I wanted to point out I mean uh mentioned what happened in uh the city of San Bernardino and their council meeting, a special meeting they had yesterday. But before I get to that, I just want to point out uh our city and as far as our electeds are concerned and being that the elections are around the corner. Personally, myself, one of the best um council members that I've we've had, although I do not agree with half of his ideologies, is Mr. Delgato as far as our public safety is concerned. Our city has never had a better public safety uh environment than we do at this time. Although there are some bad seeds and I've been a personal victim of them. But overall, I'm look I'm not looking at it as a personal thing. I'm looking at it as as overall our city is doing great as far as public safety is concerned. I'm not talking about ICE. I'm specifically talking about our um contracted sheriff's department with our uh captain here and I believe we're we're doing great and I believe that has a lot to do with Mr. Delgado being that he was directly involved with the sheriff's department and he can see exactly how previously we only had one or two officers on the street and our calls were probably two three hours now they're responding within minutes. So I commend that. I you know I believe uh Baka Santa Cruz had a lot to do with it. But as far as the others are concerned that are running for I I'm not supporting this mayor. I'm not supporting Shelinda as far as uh this city's uh how it's going as far as special interest as far as as far as the corruptions. I've come up here over and over and over and explained to you how this city is not responding to the community's uh questions as far as what's going on with the special

interest and uh paying for stupid things that should not be paid for that developer should be paid for and you're doing nothing about it. It's going in one ear and out the other. So, as far as I'm concerned, Shelinda and uh Bernard um Ulyses, you do not have my vo vote. And if you don't care, that's fine. But remember, I am some I am not being egotistical, but I do have some influence. So, you know, I hope you turn around and change things. But anyhow, as far as San Bernardino is concerned, their charter and uh uh special interest wants to eliminate their charter, eliminate the elected mayor, eliminate um um what are they called? Um primary elections. And those are all the things that I feel this city needs. We need a charter. We need uh primaries. And we need more districts. We need real uh representation here. We have nothing here but a rubber step uh console that is here simply. The next two speakers are Ryan C followed by Gina Giani.

Good evening, council members. My name is Ryan. I'm a Marino Valley resident. Uh over the past decade, policing has changed somewhat dramatically in our community. Pre previously, if police wanted to know the location of a vehicle, they either had to tail that vehicle or they had to go to a judge and get a warrant to sign off on it. Um this is a basic protection that was granted to us by the fourth amendment and has been confirmed by recent third circuit court of appeals which upheld US first cats. However, in today Marino Valley, every vehicle location is tracked and logged by an unaccountable third party through the security cameras all throughout our town known as flock safety. Last meeting, I read to you a collection of data breaches that has occurred over the past year uh primarily with ICE and this is creates a massive risk for residents who live here as well as immigrants who live in this community. As someone who works in cyber security and previously worked in big data, I assure you there are multiple unintended impacts of this. As often big data and AI is often factually incorrect or subject to interpretation due to the high stakes nature of these of criminal investigations. The implications for individuals caught in this dragnet can be staggering. These are emerging technologies. We should not be the test subjects for this emerging technology. We cannot opt out. Uh, as I mentioned, I am personally concerned about ISIS's repeated unauthorized access to this database. However, it is not limited to ICE. This is not a partisan issue. 75% of agencies participate in data sharing agreements. Uh, this has been used to track women who cross state borders to get an abortion. This has been used by officers who tracked their exes. Um, because there have been unauthorized access. This could be even used by uh nation states. I mean the there are no limits

on who could access this. It's just a matter of time and effort. Um once again, I'm asking that you vote to terminate our I believe it's $2.8 million contract with Flock. Um again, Mr. Cabrera should step out or opt himself out of this voting as he is an employee of the company. And in his lawsuit against them for wrongful termination, he stated that they sought what's essentially a quid proquo relationship uh which is further evidence that these are bad actors and should be removed from our community. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Gina Giani. Good evening to all. Um, I would like to start it off a little bit different than everybody else, but I give my highest respect to ICE. I am an immigrant myself and I support ICE in any way. I feel they're doing a good job. So maybe you want to rethink the warehouses because I would be for using those as detention centers. So maybe this this way you can see both sides because I'm an im immigrant myself. All right. But my main reason why I'm here is in regards to the warehouses. So I came to support Mr. George Hake. Um so specifically I'm addressing you Mr. Delgado. Um, I really urge you to reconsider your no vote on the proposed 45day warehouse moratorum. I also urge Miss Baka, however, sad to say, but your reputation precedes you as not being empathetic to the citizens of Morino Valley. So, as an educator here in Marino Valley, I work every day with children and families who are already

living with the consequences of poor air quality. children struggle with asthma, chronic coughs and other polluted uh or pollution related health conditions. As a parent, I worry not only about my own children but also about the children of the community. Um and this ever uh growing um pollution by diesel trucks and the traffic is um not helping our students at all. As an educator, I see firsthand how these health challenges directly affect learning, attendance, and overall well-being. The city of Paris has recognized the necessity of pausing to evaluate the true economic, environmental, and public health costs of warehousing, especially as automation reduces the long-term benefits once promised. The Redland City Council did even better and they voted a five to zero advance as citywide ban on new large-scale warehouse developments. Mr. Delgado, I plead with you to reconsider your vote and hopefully swing over to uh voting yes on the moratorum. And I'm speaking on behalf not only on my behalf, but I do have many people that are not able to come here themselves. Um, so I'm hoping I'm not speaking just for myself, but I'm speaking also for those that are not able to be here and standing for the same I'm standing for. Um, so I can only ask for you to do the right thing. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Luis Palomares. Oh, Mr. Mayor. So that item is on the agenda. So for future speakers if they wish to be have their comments as part of the administrative record on that issue they need to wait until that issue comes. Thank you.

Hold on. Let me get my thoughts here. I'm almost passed out right now with this. Wow. What country are we living in? We the people for the people by the people. The pledge of allegiance. Liberty and justice for all. Really, really, really for all. Let's not forget, let's roll back the clock 500 years ago. We didn't come on the ninta, the pinta, or the Santa Maria or the Mayflower. We came with the land here. And that's okay. We don't want it. We just want an equal opportunity in the land. And they're worrying about buildings. Okay, I get that, too. But what about people? People. They're worrying about a building that's going to kill us. What about what's coming all the way from the top down? That's killing us, our families, friends, neighbors, our businesses. How are we going to support all of this? You know, they pull the rug from under us from all the minorities and all the people that have come from every other nation. What about they come to America? Didn't Neil Neil Diamond say that? Where do they come from? They come on the planes, on the boats, everywhere to America. Like I'm saying, what country are we living in? I don't recognize it. I have never been felt unsafe in my country. Never ever. But now I do because the way it is. I've never seen in this state when we were marching in the 60s because of all the reasons why schools and the immigration and a lot of different reasons. I never felt like this when we were marching for the Vietnam War. You know that, hey, bring our boys home, a war we didn't start and we had no business in any way. It was all because you got the wararm mongers that, hey, they're going to sell food. They're going to sell everything, everything that you need to start a war. We got

involved in something we don't need to do. And we're doing that again now. Take care of America. What about we first? America first. Really? Really? Really? I don't think so. I don't recognize the country anymore. And we're not just messing with the country. We're messing with the world. The world. We're telling everybody, our allies, where to get off. Where to get off? Come on. China's saying, "Come on. That that was my oil that was going to Venezuela. Coming from Venezuela. You touched my oil. They paid for that oil. So, what's going to happen between China and the Hey, there's going to be a big mess here. We're headed towards World War II, but you know what? We're not going to even make it out of that war because all the nuclear stuff that's going on. You know, we're not even no matter what side of the fence you are with your politics or who's doing what and who's not doing what, we're in a bad place in our country. Pray for America. That's what we need to do. Thank you. The next speaker is Roy Blacker. Chris giving Mr. Ed a shout out keeps hope alive. A lot of the stuff that you've heard here in the past half hour or so, you want to talk about everybody wants to do this. I mean, I've seen this go from entertainment Riverside Raceway Military Town, biggest strategic air command, West the Mississippi in the 60s and 70s to the housing boom to the commercial booms to the population increases and all the changes in between. You know, as much as I would like to do it or everybody, you know what? You

ain't reversing the clock. Times change everything. You have to move on. As much as you'd like to bring back the past, it's not happening. And you hear all the different reasons and this and why. That's the reason why you have a general plan amendment or a general plan update or any of the other stuff that's going on or the cameras or anything else. It's a different society. I encourage those who and okay, let's get rid of the flock system and the cameras. Let's junk that. So, if your car gets ripped off, which car thefts, go look, it went down since we put that in. Then I don't want to hear no boohoohooing. If your car gets ripped off, there's a lot of things that go on. It's not a zero sum game. And what this is the biggest point, we cannot let the perfect stand in the way of the greater good. Yeah. Somebody people are always going to abuse things. I think we even had a deputy sheriff or something uh convicted of getting into people's personal information that they shouldn't have been doing. There's checks and balances to everything. But if you're if you're working for the utopia world, it ain't happening here. I can guarantee you that. We all got to coexist in the best way possible, moving with what's in front of us. You know, you can't play the hand you wish for if you're at the poker table. You got to play the hand you're dealt. So hopefully we will start coming together with that mindset and start working together. You see some of the

progress. You see labor and business working together where they were at each other's throats. See people in the community, but then again you still see the people who sew the seeds of hate and dissent and post it regularly on the social media networks right here sitting up on that deis. and that's what needs to stop. Mayor, that concludes all the public comments on items not on tonight's agenda.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. And before we move to our next item, I did want to just ask our city manager uh for clarification on a couple maybe one or two public comments that were made. Mr. City Manager, I'll turn it over to you.

Uh thank you, uh mayor, council members. Um I'm I'm probably assuming it has to do with um the comments related to heist ice and warehouses and so forth. So um yes uh thank you. Um US Congressman um of the 39th district had a recent um town hall and I believe this topic uh came up there as well. um to our knowledge uh through economic development as they work with all of the uh property owners uh of any warehouses that are uh vacant or up for lease. Um we are not aware of any of the federal uh departments uh or the federal government um seeking any type of lease uh or warehouses in u our city or jurisdiction at this particular point in time. Brian, would they be required to tell you? How would we know?

Um, as a um property owner is uh sole and distinct from the city, uh they wouldn't have to tell us, but it's based on the um partnerships and so forth that we have uh garnered through economic development. Uh just recently, just to for an example, recently we knew Poly Pies uh Pauliey's uh PIS was closing and we knew that um a new vendor was already coming in. Um so they they are meeting with uh property owners on a regular basis. Um but there uh federal government would not need to tell us or the individual property owner uh would not need to tell us. Also keep in mind that all these land use entitlements that are approved by the council come with a designated use. So one of the designated uses would not be a detention facility.

The ones that they're using, are they designated as detention centers? I I have no idea. Doesn't seem like they're following the rules. To our knowledge, there's an agenda. I'll just Yeah. To our knowledge, there's there's no uh facilities that are operating that way. Um the property owner uh as the city clerk or city attorney mentioned would have to uh go through a um a land use um uh action.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager, for the clarification. And I know um just for the public's kind of awareness um we usually we our standard practice is not to respond and go back and forth during public comment. We traditionally don't do this either, but uh just wanted to make sure we have some clarification and we're respectful of the Brown Act as well since this particular topic is not on our agenda. Uh I want to make sure that we're not going beyond our authority here as well. Um so yeah, I I I hope that has provided some clarification. Uh but we can certainly if the council would like to um you know at a future council meeting u add this to an agenda so we can have a full-on discussion about this particular topic. Uh but thank you thank you for the clarification and the questions. And so seeing that there are no further public speakers on non-aggenda comments, we'll go ahead and move into item I which is the joint consent calendars. And before I open the consent calendar for public comment, I ask my fellow council members if there are any items that they wish to remove from the consent calendar for any separate action. Seeing none, we will go ahead and move into public comment. Madam clerk, do we have any request to speak?

We do, mayor. Thank you. The first three speakers are Seth Cox, followed by Morgan Valley, followed by Roy Blacker. Evening, council, staff, public. Uh, Seth Cox, District Committee. Um, mine is on I9. Um, $420,000 to remodel this room. Um, I know you played the government code section 792 that you can't share with the public of all the details because the improvements outweigh the public interest. So, I don't expect many answers. Um, but I would like to ask our question, what brought this about? Were there ADA complaints that came out? That means we need to modify a for ADA. I don't see any wheelchairs getting in and we we have the ADA people come in here all the time. Yes, it's a little inconvenient for all of us to come in here. Uh construction of a pony wall. I get the optic that you're trying to separate them from us. That's bad optics. Okay. We're all community citizens of Marina Valley. We should be open communications. I know the staff member or the council goes out and talks to the audience, but yet you want to put barriers in between us. I have been up here many times over the last few years. Haven't really seen many safety concerns. Okay. If you're talking about safety for the staff, why do you advertise where they park in the parking lot? It it doesn't match up. Okay.

uh other things uh the acoustics and all that you're going to do. I hope this is including the cost that we're going to have to incur as a city to make remote participation, you know, via Zoom, via Teams, whatever you're going to do is included in that $420,000 and we don't get another $500,000 bill to make it remote capable. Uh what else? uh ceiling and floor repairs. I thought it was interesting until I looked around tonight about uh window treatment or window treatment upgrades. I tried to remember what how many windows we have in here. We have some in the doors, but they've been hid by curtains all all these years.

So, okay, I can go along with that. whatever that treatment is. But just think about what that $420,000 is going to be spent for. And is it for the benefit of the community or the benefit for you? Thank you.

The next three speakers are Morgan Valley, followed by Roy Blackard, followed by Fred Bano. Hi, I'm also speaking on I9. Um, and I had very similar concerns to Mr. Cox. Um, $400,000 is a lot of money and if that's what it takes to make this room safer and upgrade it, I understand that. But I also want to look at from a road safety perspective. Our road safety plan came out in uh 2022. So, it's been out for almost four years. On that plan, there are multiple streets that are highly recommended to have protected in this plan. They're called safety or they're called separated bike lanes put in. And in those almost four years, we have had zero of them installed. There's not a single protected bike lane anywhere in Marino Valley. On the safety plan, it says the average cost is $200 to $400,000 for implementing those. So, in four years, we haven't been able to find the money to put those bike lanes in, but we can find $400,000 to make this room look pretty. So, you guys have better social media. And what I want us to think about is how many people have been injured in this room in the last four years, 10 years, 15 years. How many people have died on our roadways in the last month? At least two or three in Marino Valley in one month. So, we're taking money that could be used to make our city safer, to make this room safer. Um, on the safety plan, it says the city of Marina Valley is committed to advancing transportation safety for all who share our streets by eliminating fatal and severe injury collisions on city roadways. It says, "We want to invest in programs and infrastructure that address the city's most frequent and severe collisions." I would venture if we look at the numbers from 2022 to now, those numbers have increased and not decreased. So, we're taking money that we could use to

make our road safer and using it for something that really is not helping the community in a real way like road safety improvements would. So, I'm sure we're going to vote to approve it. That's fine. But every time you come into that new room and you sit in those chairs, I want you to think about how many more people have been injured on our roads while you guys have a nice pretty room. Thank you. The next two speakers are Roy Blacker followed by Fred Beno and he thought I was the only one that had a concern. I4 the attendance on the subcommittee meetings and this may be a reason why you see a lot of the angst you come up with here. Look at the absenteeism from the council members on these subcommittees. I've come up here many times and put before this board and this staff 90 gazillion times a way to reform this and make it where it works better for everyone. and everybody is informed and we at least eliminated a lot of the excuse, well, I didn't hear about this or that going on. The the absentee part, like I've said, and this has been consistent, shows that the system is broken, where you should be getting to that and dealing with these. It's not getting done. And then you hear the myriad of uh concerns, let me put it nicely, that you hear almost every council meeting about what is not getting done or what is getting done that probably doesn't need to be done or could probably done in a lot more efficient way. Just like with the deal of coming on with the the meetings and people being

able to call in or roll in on Zoom, that should have never stopped after CO. And there is no freaking excuse for you not having it because you all had to do it for two years. But yet you want to claim, oh, we're just we're a number one aces. If that was the case, then why are you hearing what you're hearing today, 10 years ago, 40 years ago? Maybe this will be the impetus to start moving our elephantsized government into actually working for the people. Working to where we can all prosper with it. Working to make it simple, efficient, and effective. So, it's not bleeding every one of these people listening and in this audience dry, not only with the exorbitant costs, on top of that, all the fraud and waste and abuses that we're finally finally digging out. Where's the transparency? What's happening in this city? Maybe on Paris Boulevard. and you were warned, the county was warned and everything and nothing gets done. Look at the crime syndicate putting the hammer on people. They don't like their opinion. That's got to change.

The next speaker, Fred Bonos.

Hello everyone. I agree with Seth Cox and Morgan on item I nine. Um, you know, as far as this room, I think it's it serves its purpose. It doesn't need to be improved. ADA, uh, people who can't make it in here, if they can't make it in here, they can do that on home on Zoom. You guys had Zoom, uh, before during the, uh, pandemic. Um, if you can find money for this room, I, you know, I'm got to agree with the protected bike lanes. I gave an example of one in Riverside. Great example. I think we need one to start somewhere by our bike park. Um, I want to stay in the city. I want to be protected. I want to share the roads with everybody. And we need a bike protected bike lanes yesterday. I'd like to see kids riding to school on their bikes. Um, you know, I I this room's fine. I've been here for four or five years and I think the room's fine. and it get it it serves its purpose. Um but again I just want to strongly say that I believe was a seth and uh Morgan on I9. Thank you guys. The next speaker is Christopher Baka. My comment on um outsourcing for that employee um thing as mentioned before, why can't it be done inhouse? you're just paying um people to do what you guys are paid to do, staff, and you just uh just want to outsource it instead of just

doing your job, which you're being paid for. Especially Brian Mohan, $350,000 salary plus on the register, he's still nitpicking his little travel expenses. That's shameful. Greedy. Greed. Um, and that's for for um outsourcing. Now, as far as this here, there's uh on the on the improvements here, there's something uh I can't find it now that states that per government code, there's certain things that cannot be uh disclosed by uh this was written by um this uh Melissa Walker here that certain things cannot be uh disclosed to the public. Um, that was similar to what she told me about when I asked her about uh the Alessandro uh corridor improvements for Highland Fairview and also um some of the the requests that I made that the the the public is not entitled to know these things. You know, I think we are entitled to to know these things. now on the register. Uh, don't we have a public utilities? Why are you paying um Edison close to uh millions of dollars? You know, why don't you just run a line from from our utility company over here instead of giving out um incentives to developers that are never going to build nothing, but yet you're you're paying outrageous amounts to to Edison. Yet, our city has a a public uh utilities company. Um, I had a couple more on the register, but um, I lost them on here. But regardless, um, uh, it's just nonsense. Total nonsense. you know, this this whole city needs to be redone with

a charter, and we need strong um elected officials to overlook. What you're doing here is just handing over your responsibilities to uh over over uh uh you have checks and balances here, but you're just allowing the staff to do whatever's easiest for them, and they really could care less about uh our city being bankrupt or money being spent ridiculously. Like for instance, again the paving. Look at uh Sunny Meat. It's already falling apart. It was just paved last year. It already looks like crap. You were they were asked to look to see if you can get an in-house slurry uh program here by employees. But no, you just paying those um uh American asphalt to do to pay.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares. I thought I heard it all, but I guess not. Not in this meeting. Anyway, 400,000 plus. Let's start with the bricks that are falling off the back of the wall then. And I don't think that's going to cost that much money. Let's start with the flag that everybody almost bumped into. That would have been an accident ready to happen. Let's start with the little things. But to put drapes and all, that's a waste of our taxpayers dollar. Is this what you wanted the our penny for when you pass that bond? another penny. Come on. This is I agree with a lot of the speakers that had come up and talked about the things that we really need. I remember way back when Pete always talked about the pinky sidewalks all on Sunny Me Boulevard. They look they look awful. They're all full of gum and everything else. They always look dirty. They never look clean on front of all our businesses. Maybe you can get something going out there. Maybe paint them gray again. They look awful. Another lady came and talked about the bike lanes and the safety issues with that. That's what we can use this money for. We spend needlessly on a bunch of nonsense. I wonder whose bright idea was this one. Who's the brainchild that brought this one up when our kids are getting hit by cars on bikes or scooters or skateboards? Come on. Go back to the blackboard and figure this out. I don't know what's going on with who's the bright idea and the staff right here that brought this one up. That's what I want to know. They don't live in this community. So, hey, if somebody gets hit by a bike again, oh well. Uh-uh. There has to be accountability for this money. We can't spend off the charts like this. We got to do what we need to do first before we start spending to redecorate and safety issues. Really? Really? I don't think so. you know, our $2 million

mayor here, you know, $2 million. A lawsuit. The Thomas' sued him for $2 million because they took him to court to stifle the First Amendment right. $2 million. We could have done a lot of things with that money. Hillwood again, they're over there. I think Meny, I'm not sure. That was a lot of money for our city. And you're spending off the hinges like Hillwood came and gave us money. No, that went away a long time ago. So, come on. Go back to the blackboard and make this right and don't spend the money this way. And this should even be on the consent calendar because this is a controversial um decision we're all going to make here. Let's see what you do today. I hope not.

Mayor, that concludes all of public comments on tonight's agenda. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you to all of our public speakers as well. We'll go ahead and bring it back up to the deis for council questions, deliberation, and I would like to ask our city manager uh if he would like to speak on item I9 for any clarification, any background on how this came to the agenda, the reasoning, any anything that you would like to share?

Uh yes, thank you um mayor, council members. Um so I9 um there there's several comments made. So uh first let me go into how it was how it's placed here. So this is an extension of the city hall security improvement um capital improvement plan that was uh approved by council uh this past year in 2025. Um, if you go through the double doors and our main entrance, um, without giving up details, anybody who walks through those double doors is automatically safer if we have an active shooter incident, um, from uh, outside coming inside. Um there's bulletproofing and so forth that I can't get into uh because of uh governmental code 7922 as a public interest served by withholding the information clearly outweighs the public interest served by the disclosure. But as part of that CIP plan and making everyone who walks in this building uh safer, um th that morphed into conversations about the chamber um and uh talking with our public safety um both chiefs um as well as public works and our facilities um uh maintenance crews, uh this plan was developed um and everything we do um you know people People are talking about this is just beautifification. It's not. Um I actually worked for Sanino County on December 2nd of 2015 um just down the street from the Inland Regional Center where 14 people were killed that night uh or that that afternoon. So uh you never know when these types of incidents are coming um to your door uh to your building. Uh so we always look to try and mitigate um all of the active shooter um type of responses that could come to our area. In doing so um the uh

chiefs have identified that this would be um the best approach uh to make the remodel uh the remodel if approved tonight will occur during summer recess. Um so that when we come back uh in August from summer recess it will uh be implemented. Uh it is also funded by uh facility reserve funds which cannot be spent for anything other than our facility maintenance. Um so that is how uh the genesis of how it got here. Uh the specific governmental code 7922 the specific funding for this particular funding source only. Uh with that that concludes my comments but I'm available for any questions you may have.

Thank you Mr. City Manager. I was going to ask about the funding as well, but you did answer that question. So, I'll bring it back to the rest of my colleagues to see if there are any any questions, any comments on any other items.

I'll just make a quick comment on the public safety aspect of the new um way it's going to be set up. And yes, you guys are the public and we do not want a barrier to uh pre prevent that or or to give out the optics that we are separate. We are not separate. Um, we are a city, right, and we just represent you guys. Um, for me, it's a public safety issue for them. Their backs are towards the the public all night. So, if if this room was rearranged and the well was rearranged where they have a visual on everything, especially the the public safety folks, um, I think that's much safer. So, I don't look at it as we're getting new curtains because the curtains are old from the 80s. I I don't look at it like that. I look it as a a public safety issue.

And I guess I I will just add on to that as well that I I I agree and as the city manager mentioned the some of the upgrades that have been done over uh toward you know the the front entrance, the main lobby of city hall. Uh at the end of the day, it's this is it's it's almost unfortunate that we have to do this. Um now, if we were talking about allocating, you know, funding from our general fund, which can be spent on other things, absolutely, I I would um you know, think long and hard about spending this money this way. But at the end of the day, I think it's definitely about safety. Um really for the public uh and especially for our city staff, for all of our city staff that work here in this building. Um, we all are seeing the escalated tensions across the country, uh, which are unfortunate, but, um, I think it's our duty, it's our responsibility as a council to ensure the safety of all of our employees, especially that come here to work every single day, including any member of the public and all of you that are here to to watch our meetings. So, um, definitely this is not uh a beautifification effort. This is uh strengthening and increasing the security here within the council chamber. Um, so I will I'll leave my comments at that. Are there any further questions or comments from the council?

Okay. Um, I will entertain a motion in a second. And I would like to say for the record, I'm recusing myself from item I7 due to a potential conflict of interest, but other than that, I'm a yes on everything else. A motion to approve. I'll second. There's a motion and a second. Madam clerk, please call for the vote. Thank you, mayor. Council member Bernard, yes. Council member Dogado, yes. Council member Box Santa Cruz, I want to vote yes on I 1 through eight and no on nine. Thank you. And Mayor Prom Gonzalez,

yes. Thank you.

Thank you. So next we will go ahead and move into our next items. We don't have any public hearings on J. So next is item K, general business. And a reminder that public comments on each general business item shall be limited to three minutes per speaker and must pertain to the subject matter that is under consideration. Those wishing to testify are encouraged to complete a blue speaker slip to the city clerk staff. We do have a couple of items under K. The first one is K1 that is Valva Unified School District presentation to the city council highlighting ongoing educational initiatives in Mareno Valley. And we will start off with a staff report from our city manager.

Uh thank you, mayor, council members. Uh just want to introduce uh Deputy Superintendent Mark Lair. Um tonight uh unfortunately, Superintendent Emerson was unable to attend tonight due to an unforeseen conflict. Um as such uh deputy superintendent is here to provide um the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening Mr. Superintendent. Thank you for joining us.

Good evening. Um I would like like to first of all thank the city council and staff and community for giving me the opportunity just to give you a brief update on some of the things that are taking place in our school district. Uh tonight I'm just going to be talking about these four items here. Um just to give you a brief update of what's happening in the district. Uh first and foremost, there's plenty of initiatives that take place in education. Um our board has just made it increased emphasis uh of a focus and goal areas in these four areas. And that is improvement in our English language arts student achievement, improvement in our mathematics achievement, making sure we're doing everything we can to reduce chronic absenteeism, and to make sure our kids are actually showing up on a day in dayout basis. And while we have them just seeing what we could do to get them more engaged in the learning process, connected to school and just having an increased emphasis on their just their overall uh physical emotional well-being. Okay. Uh first and foremost, I want to talk about our community resource center in Valverie. We serve portions of the me valley, portions of the city of Paris, and portions of the city of Marino Valley. In Marino Valley, we have eight schools. Ranchervery High School, Lel Elementary, Vistaverie Middle School, Alpatro Preschool, Mary McCloud Bthoon Elementary, Rainbow Ridge Elementary, March Middle School, and Victoriao Elementary. Uh the community resource center that we opened up about a year and a half ago is centered in the Me Valley, but serves all of our schools uh in in our school district. Uh we have a laundromat there and uh since the opening we've done overif almost 53,000 loads of laundry there. Um our community store has given out uh close to 46,000 items. Our community store has food items and clothing items that are no cost to our uh students and their families. Um and they could pick up a number of things there. Uh so we're

pretty proud of what we've seen here. was an idea that we've talked about for seven years and to see it come into fruition uh is pretty amazing and since then we've had school districts up and down the state of California that are now trying to mirror this. So next um this is a picture uh we also paired up with neighborhood health uh we have a health clinic at the resource center um and in the first year they did over 5,300 medical visits um you over 600 immunizations 1,200 uh appointments for behavior health and uh just a number of just general medical items. They can come in here and see uh a few doctors that we have. These are full-fledged doctors. Um we just expanded uh this out um and it is in full swing and uh we're seeing a lot of things. We're hearing a lot of stories, but we're just proud to be able to see what we could do just to further support our community. Uh so we're really proud of this. Neighborhood Health at the end of June had 32 health clinics in Southern California. And what they told me, the CEO told me is that this center has gotten the best feedback than all 32 of the um community center uh clinics that they have. Okay. Nutrition services. So um you may or may not have passed by our district. This is not the best picture, but you see a little red pinpoint there. That's our district office that you're traditionally used to seeing off the 215 freeway. Well, when you pass the freeway now, you will not see our district office anymore because now it's overshadowed by our centralized kitchen. And the centralized kitchen provides food for all of our students at all of our schools. Um, just south of that, uh, we have some buildings there. That's our maintenance and operations. What we've tried to do is just make better use of our money and, uh, centralized services. With the centralized kitchen, now we're

able to minimize uh packaged products that our students receive. Uh more whole foods, more foods with nutritional values and decreasing costs. So eventually hoping that we're going to see just increased revenue saved because of all of these new uh emphasis on centralization. Okay. So with nutrition services, here's some data that we have. Um just alone in the uh 2420h 25 school year, we serve 3.6 million meals to our students. Um we have breakfast, lunch, and dinner that we provide. Uh actually in this past year, we increased the number of breakfast we served by 30%. Uh so we have something called second chance breakfast. if our students do arrive late, they have another opportunity to eat breakfast so that they are fully ready to learn. We're just trying to eliminate the barriers and maximize what we can do with our students while we have them. So, uh we're really proud of what we have going on here with our centralized kitchen. Um just a little bit more. Um it's about 19,400 square feet dedicated to our uh nutrition services. Um in the summer of 25 um we basically had an increased emphasis in making sure that all of our students and community members uh had access to food. So we gave out over 24,000 box meals and each of these boxes had five days of food and we distributed at different parts of the community and we did not limit this just to our school district. Anyone in the Inland Empire could come. We had a huge uh uh thing on the freeway advertising it and we saw people from all over coming uh to take advantage of this. At the Thanksgiving break, they our nutrition services gave uh 450 Thanksgiving meals to our

community. Uh we're real proud of what they're doing and just uh we have people from all over coming to take a tour of the facility. Uh it's very modern and it's very efficient. And uh if you have time and you'd like to take a tour, anybody here in the community or city council or staff, please let me know and I'd be happy to arrange that for you. Here's just a picture of one of our students having a meal. And this is what we want to see. We want to see kids happy with the meal offerings that they have. And there's a lot that goes into this, right? We survey the kids. We get their actual feedback before we start having uh our menu increase. We introduce the menu items to them, give them the ability to sample it and give us feedback. We have an increased emphasis not just in on nutrition, but making sure our offerings are culturally relevant as well. Um so, uh this young man looks very happy to eat. Um that's not to say that they still wouldn't like to have In-N-Out or Miguel's on the menu. Uh but I think they're pretty uh happy to see what we have overall. Okay. Social emotional learning and PBIS uh positive behavior interventions and supports. Um what we've done is uh quite a bit. I just got done saying we want to maximize the number of kids who are attending our schools. And while they're there, what can we do to get them engaged, get them to be part of the program, the clubs, the activities, the sports, whatever it may be. we have an increased emphasis on that. So over the past seven years, we've had an increased emphasis on making sure what we're doing just to maximize connection, reduce uh behavior issues, and as a result, all of our schools this year received the platinum awards from the California Coalition of PBIS. Now, we're one of six districts statewide that achieved that. uh the first uh in Riverside County and

we're the third third largest uh of the schools that have uh done this. Um we're pretty proud of this accomplishment. A lot of work went into it. When we first started this initiative, I said I wanted all of our schools to make sure they're platinum. And I I realized with time though, there's some things you can't force. You can't go too quickly. You want to make sure whatever you're doing is quality. And that was really the emphasis. So there was a time there for a while that a number of our schools were gold and I just said I don't really don't care. I just want to make sure we're moving forward and if you're gold you're gold but I don't want to advertise we're platinum unless we're platinum. So we're going to be true to the process. We're going to be true to making sure we're following everything so all of our kids are receiving the best. And so we had two separate county offices of education asked that our uh a few of our schools presented at the statewide conference for all schools in California uh to learn from. And then uh two separate counties also emphasized that one of our elementary schools present at the national conference and represented the state of California. So we're really proud of that as well. So a lot going on in Velvery. Um but these are just some of the things happening um in Velvery. Uh we there's always like I said a lot of initiatives but these are the goal areas that we're focusing on and I just appreciate you the opportunities to update the city council on this and thank you very much deputy superintendent Lenor. It's good to see you. I appreciate the presentation. If you don't mind sticking around just in case there are any questions uh from the council. Um so first I'll open it up to my colleagues to see if there are any questions or comments. Great job. Great presentation, Mark. Thank you very much for coming out. Um, and I will take you up on that tour, so I'll have uh I'll be in contact.

Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I'll save my comments for after public comments. Um, so I see everything that you all are doing. I know that your um your resource center is centrally located in Me Valley. Um, I know why it's located in Me Valley, but I know some residents that live in Marino Valley probably want to know. I am a a parent of Valverie. Can you explain the emphasis as to why it was focused in me valley?

Yeah, the me valley is uh an area that has the highest need. Uh we have a lot of families that are at the poverty level and so uh so that was one of the main reasons. The other thing is when we centrally located, we all of a sudden had access to this building that we could take advantage of. And so those were the two primary reasons. Uh why did we go with a laundry mat? What we know is nationwide 20% of the 20% of the students that don't show up to school do not show up because they do not have clean clothes. And when we looked the closest ones were in I believe Riverside from that area and then the other side of uh uh Noevo over there. Um so uh we definitely saw the need um and we're getting as you could see a lot of people taking advantage of it. Okay, I believe that's all the questions or comments for now. Thank you once again, Deputy Superintendent. And we'll go ahead and move into public comment. Madam Clerk, do we have any requests to speak on this item?

We do, Mayor. The first two speakers are Fred Bonuelos, followed by Roy Blacker. Uh great presentation. I live in the Valverie school district and I love uh one of the things they have there is they have their own Valverie District Police Department. Uh I want to share that they are doing a uh um a program the Valver USD empowerment initiative. uh program purpose is the Valverie empowerment initiatives designed to strengthen understanding and mutual respect between residents of our Valverie community and the Valverie police district. Participants will explore diverse career paths in public safety and gain insight on how our law enforcement agency operates. This program offers hands-on exposure to various aspects of police work, gives participants a deeper understanding of officers roles and responsibilities. Topics are selected to address real issues. students may encounter at school, at home, and in their neighborhoods. Where's the timer at you guys? Through uh um education and open dialogue, the Valverie USD empowerment initiative aims to shed light on these challenges and equip youth with the knowledge and confidence to navigate them safely and successfully. Uh the program topics are Valver Vverde District Police Services, controlled substance awareness, suicide prevention and mental health, social media safety tips, human trafficking awareness, know your rights, and community engagement and safety. So I love that I'm in the Valverie school district. Uh, I love that they have this program and just in case you want to sign up for because it's starting in February, Officer Abbott, uh, Abram Torres, who used to be with the sheriff's department, uh, his phone number is 951-610-5571. Great program. I love that that they have a police department and I I love that I live in the Valverie School District. Thank you.

The next three speakers are Roy Blackard, followed by Riley Peak, followed by Louise Palomares. Seems like we did not address the elephant in the room. Again, you saw student achievement. You know, if you want to have the next generation of orange vesters like you see back here or whatever that is, that starts with education. That starts with student achievement. Now before COVID, Valverie was up probably 30% higher than the crime syndicate. During COVID, they backslid back about down to where three out of four kids were not at grade level. That's what 40 50,000 kids are not at of total. What is that? for 35 37,000 kids in this area are not at grade level. And that's not a problem where we don't address that. All the other concerns of what you saw on there are mainly from that because and I know Sadique tries to keep throwing dirt on all this old fossils out here, but when you went to school here, you learned and had the opportunity and the skills and the talent to go out there and make it on your own. You did not have to depend on somebody else or something to hand you out. And what happens when that hap when that is the main part of your society? You see the opportunity for everyone go draining right down the toilet. We never talk about that. We never have a joint, as I've called for, study session between the city and both school districts or have a forum or talk about

these subjects. we don't talk about what's really going to fix the problems and give the opportunity that I had in this community that it breaks my heart every day that I see the kids and I tell them you're not going to have the opportunity I and my generation had moving forward and we've done this and we don't seem to have the will to fix it and that is very distressing to say the least and I'm trying to be kind. We have the ones up here trying to sew seeds of dissent in there to keep the power and to make them. And so you got to kiss the ring of those instead of giving the opportunity for everyone to succeed like the United States of America was built on the greatest country in the history of the world. Do we want to be the ones that destroyed that? We're working at it. I hope I'm getting your attention. I hope I'm getting everyone's attention because if we don't fix the fundamental problems, everything you see around it's going to get worse. Time to get it together.

The next two speakers are Riley Peak, followed by Luis Palomares.

Wow, what a school district. I wish I was in MVUSD every or VVUSD every day. They provide the most services to their students. Their money goes to the students. It doesn't go to executives. They didn't just get a raise last week. It's And they provided us with actual numbers. They didn't just provide us with vibes that were created by AI. They they care about their students. They care about their families. They care about their schools. Every single school, every single everything is up to date at Valverde. They care. There may be a smaller district, but they use they're mighty and their food services are phenomenal. Uh they provide all the food for my program because MVD doesn't provide much at the program. And there is never once an option where a hot meal isn't fresh. It's never it's never prepackaged. It's never all of that. It comes in every single day from the kitchen. It comes trucked in every day making sure everything is fresh. Nothing is reused. We get a new menu every week. They bring dominoes every week. This is something that you don't see typically in schools and it's crazy to think that we have this here in Marino Valley and it's just awesome and valerde just they provide for their students. For example, they when they leave high school they can purchase their Chromebook for $25 and MVUSD you turn it back in you and if you don't turn it back in you have to pay or else you don't get to graduate. Valverde they truly care about their students. They want to set you up for their future and they actively participate in their community. For example, uh Mr. Lenor, he participates in NBC's president's advisory board providing methods on how the college can partner with the community and he actively participates where Marino Valley superintendent leaves after the introduction. So, it's one of those things where Valverde, they are a small district and they are a small part of our community, but they are one of the biggest contributors to our community and they provide the most to their students and they truly care about every single one of our residents, even the ones not in their district. Thank you.

Next speaker is Louise Palomares.

Wow. Thank you, Riley. Wow. I'm impressed. I mean, you know, the last time Marina Valley Unifi came in here and they came with all their, you know, uh, people, board members, Brandy, Luna, all of them do nothings. Yeah, I'm impressed. Look at all the things this district's doing. I'm in the wrong district. I really am. If I would have known, but what did I know about Valverie? So, um, my hats off to them. They're doing a lot of things right. It looks to me like this superintendent is thinking out of the box because it's always bigger. It's bigger than us. It's bigger than just the family. It's all about the whole community as a whole because whatever helps one person in this community is going to help another person. So, I believe they're doing a lot of things right. I support them as far as uh the grades and all that. Yeah. Everybody across the nation has to get on on that bandwagon and make it right. Yeah. We're in a dilemma. We're in a dilemma as far as our test scores and everything that's everywhere. So hopefully, you know, the laundry man, all of that, it's it's great. Keep it up. My hats off to you. I want to go over there and look at what you got going on over there. Maybe we could bring it back to this deadbeat Marino Valley Unified School District that don't give a rip about anybody else but the next uh pay hike they're making. the staff and the superintendent over there, they're making the big bucks and they're not providing the services. When you have children that have IEPs and need speech and you know they need at least an hour a week, they're giving them 15 minutes in a group. That's wrong. So, you know, we got to we got to make things better here in our district. Maybe we could take some lessons from Marina um Valverie. Thank you. The next speaker is Kayla Cervantes.

Hi, good evening. My name is Carla Cervantes. I'm a parent with the Valver School District. Um, it's a really good district. I live in the Me Valley area, so there's any parents out there that want to donate clothes, um, you can donate it there. And um my daughter changes clothes all the time with like tags on it and still and we can donate it to that learning center and it can go to families that need it. I think um the only issue with Valverde um is that the app like PE kids will miss school and it it does correlate with a lot of the health issues that kids have such as asthma um and other respiratory illnesses. And so um that's not something that the school can necessarily do. Um, but there are um constituents that pay into this district that are in this city and just keep an eye out for projects that will be coming up such as Harvest Landing where they're going to be destroying a a Valverie elementary school to make space for more um warehousing. And so that does correlate because then who's going to be paying for that um school? It will be um every single person that is in that district including people in Marino Valley um Paris and Me Valley. Even though Valverde Elementary School has some of the highest resources for uh special needs children and autistic children as well, it's in a unique location. Um and I'm we went to the school district about it and I just wanted to mention that um we like the district a lot. They really helped out with my son and my daughter. Uh they made tons of improvements. Um but we need to keep an eye on those things because if it can happen there, it could happen anywhere. Thank you.

The next speaker is Bob Palamarez. Well, I got to throw my two cents in. I'm going back to school. This is a wonderful, you know, to come here and listen to this, you know, to the gentleman, the assistant superintendent or whatever his title is. You wonder why, you know, maybe it should be the measles so we this district could get infected because uh it's amazing that the things they're doing and they're reaching out to the community going beyond the way I see it. You know what they do, the food, the clothing, and that's the way it should be. You know, they're they're not looking at each other, I guess, when they're at the district. They're looking at the community and what's what we always talk about what's best for the kids and like they say when the kids don't have clean clothes. So, you know, they're looking beyond just what the school district is supposed to do and that's a blessing. Thank you,

Mayor. That concludes all the public comments on this item.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you to all of our public speakers. So, we'll bring it back up to the deis for any final comments from the council. And um would like to just Oh, yeah. I see deputy superintendent here. Uh if you don't mind coming back up to the microphone just in case uh there might be a question or two here. But I also wanted to mention that not that long ago, maybe a few weeks ago, uh the city officially was awarded a grant. It was it's about $27,000 that is going to uh go toward feeding students uh in the community. So, we have an existing partnership already for the summer meals program, and that funding is going to go toward that program so we can expand it. And so, just, you know, look forward to sitting down with you and your team and our team here at the city so we can uh get those uh students and families fed. So, just wanted to mention that. And I think we'll go to district one.

Thanks for coming in that for that wonderful presentation. Um, council member um, Shy Linda and I sit on our joint task force. So, we've been hearing a lot of your success and a lot especially with the laundromat and um, I'm glad you pointed out about the 20% of students who have missed school at least once because they didn't have clean clothes. Being a school district reading those survey results, you could have said, "Oh, that's outside of our, you know, sphere of influence. That's something that we can't do." But you didn't do that. You said 20%'s a big number. and those are the ones reporting. Very likely it might have been a higher number and that you worked outside the box, found a way, pulled the grant money in, staff it and make this available to reach these numbers is just astonishing and it's outstanding, extraordinary work that you're doing and I just, you know, I appreciate what you do to do this. I'm telling you to see that it's laundry. Most people is, you know, we don't do that. But um so that's just great. The second chance breakfast, another way to serve students. Most kids don't get themselves to school, so it's not their fault when they're getting there late. that second chance. Um, it can make a big difference in one child's day, their week, you know, and to be able to to see that as just as important as getting to class on time to let them eat. It it's it's um very student centered and again is extraordinary. And that you open your services to all. It's not a us first um just us ju you know show your ID that I mean they say it takes a village but you're really creating that um sentiment. So just thank you. Thank you so much for what you do and thank you for coming out here tonight and presenting this and being able to share

it with the community.

You a oneman army, huh? Well done. Council member Bernard. Um so I would like to um personally as a parent who's had two children um currently in Valverie who've both gone through El Puro are now sitting at Rainbow Ridge. Um I cannot thank you enough of how um just in general Valverie is um both schools my children have attended the teachers staffing has been wonderful. I'm always proud of the programs. Um my children both participate uh because there's there are gardens at their schools. So they both participate in the gardening. Um, we are doing sweet potatoes to cook and prepare. So, they get to actually go out there, work whatever it is, and then get it home and the focus that you all have on whether it is learning the texture of the food, how can they prepare the food? Um, one of my kids brought me home some greens from the green yard and was like, "Oh, you're supposed to cook this when we get home." Um, so I very much appreciate it. also as a mother whose child is in your autism program um over at Rainbow Ridge where there's the highest number of special needs children and on the A team is just um wonderful if there was an issue or something like that. What I can tell you is Valverie in general is very supportive. Um I worked in the me valley area for a number of years as a social worker and realized that a lot of the families because of droughts were living on wells and could not um wash their clothes. So you opening that was very important, very big. And to hear the amount of community members that I know of who go during the summer and get a food box and they don't feel like it's not a shame thing, it's not anything. They were like, "No, you drive up, you get your box, you leave, it's at a park typically is where they have them at." Um, so I very much appreciate all the work that you all do. I know you guys don't have all day um daycare that not daycare kindergarten but even the programs that have been started so that parents can still drop all their kids off at the same time whether those children are going to lop and waiting for kindergarten to start or switching out and waiting for the other um

siblings to get out so that the parent isn't like how do I get you here at 7:40 brother at 9:15 pick you up by by 11:45 and then I got to go back and pick the other one up by two something. So, I appreciate all the work that Valverie does, including all the corre extracurricular activities, um, which was not in the report, but I feel like every school, there was a basketball tournament this weekend, we have esports, we have choir, we have band, and um, for PBIS, both of my children have been PBIS student of the month, as well as um the kindness club, right,

where um, for those that don't know, the kindness club is very important. It's where children with special needs are typically matched with children in general population where they bring them in so that they're not afraid or or cur they're curious about what's happening. So they're more blended in and they're always working together. So I appreciate all the things that Valverie does for inclusion too.

Yeah. If I could just comment on what you said. So all of our schools now have uh gardens. Uh all of our elementary schools have tracks. Um, two of our schools just got chicken coops and the kids are actually tending to the chickens. Personally, I think I worry about us losing our way in education sometimes. You know, we care about the test scores. We care about the student achievement, but I also care that our kids are physically and mentally well. Um, and so I don't want to discount the importance of that. I don't want our kids to be 20 years of age and being diabetic. So I've had an increased emphasis along with the district of making sure that they are physically active as well. And if they're more physically active, generally what we see is they have a higher self-perception of themselves. They do better in school. So yeah, a little bit of outside the box, but getting back to our roots of just some of the things that I had experience when I was in school.

Absolutely. And then just to add another comment or two as well, you know, I my my children are not in school yet in the, you know, grade school system yet, but my son is soon to be. And so when I hear all of these things, you know, now as a as a parent of two young children, um I'm I'm finally at that stage now. And to hear all of these things and to, you know, um learn about all the amazing things that you're doing just, you know, really makes that decision, I think, easier. Um as my wife and I decide, you know, where are our children going to go to school? Um, but to your point about athletics and and health, um, also wanted to point out, it was mentioned briefly, but, uh, especially Rancho Verde High School, that's with within Marino Valley's boundaries. Uh, the Rancho Verde Crimson Regimen that was in the Rose Parade, right? Uh, and the amazing program that you have there. And then basketball was mentioned as well. Uh, just the amazing athletes that come out of Rancho Verde and go off into, you know, collegiate uh, sports and athletics is amazing. So, um, you know, just commend you and and and thank you and all of your colleagues as well, the superintendent and the board over there for the great work that you're doing and, uh, look forward to continued partnerships, you know, to explore what else do we do, right? Uh, how do we continue to improve and what else can the city do to be a better partner in all the initiatives that you have going on?

Yeah. And, you know, again, we really appreciate the support. We've had the summer internship program that we've worked directly with the city. So, we truly appreciate uh the partnership and the support that we get from the city here. It looks like there's no further comments. So, thank you once again. It's a pleasure. All right. And with that, we will go ahead and move. Well, actually, before we go to our next item, uh we'll take a brief recess, maybe five minute recess, and uh we'll be back in just a moment. Thank you.

Good evening and welcome back to our regular council meeting. We will pick up where we left off which was um actually just for the record wanted to clarify the item K1 was a receive and file hence why we did not take a vote. Uh so we have received and filed that item. Next is item K2, proposed 45day moratorium on logistics use developments as defined under Senate Bill 415. And I will turn it over to our city attorney and our city manager for a staff report.

Uh thank you um mayor, council members. Um this like you said is a joint uh staff report. So, I'll be pre uh giving a brief uh comment and then um a lot of the uh questions and and dialogue will be uh the city attorney. Um want to try and explain um where we are from the original motion and and how we came up with this particular recommendation. Um so basically the legal authority of the uh urgency ordinance is uh 65858. Uh that uh not only allows uh the ordinance to uh be on general business, not a public hearing or public notice um but it uh does allow uh if approved tonight uh adoption uh would occur immediately. Um based on the court rulings from the 2021 uh update of our general plan uh along with uh some of the state legislation that was enacted since uh those rulings occurred in middle of 2024. Uh there were some state legislation uh such as Assembly Bill 98 uh that was um adopted uh September 29th of 2024 as well as some cleanup uh legislation uh in Senate Bill 415 um from October 23 uh 2025. Um, as such, a lot of the legislation affects these things that we've uh been discussing in our update to the general plan and based on pending negotiation with the California attorney general's office. um in conversation with the planning uh department um as well as the city attorney uh and my office uh we have decided to have a staff recommendation uh in light of the foregoing um uh uh items on page one, two, and three of the staff report. Um it is a staff recommendation from uh the

city attorney, city manager, and the planning division uh to uh recommend a 45-day moratorum uh tonight under urgency ordinance um that identifies logistics and defines logistics um pursuant to Senate Bill 415, which the city attorney can go ahead and uh describe that or we could describe that uh if if um if asked. But uh that's how this particular item um has gone from uh a motion conversation uh last time to a staff recommendation to ensure that uh we don't have any issues with any um future applications within this time frame uh so that we can get through the general plan update. Uh with that, I'm available for any questions as well as the city attorney uh may have some comments. Yeah, I just like to follow up city manager's comments and um I think it's important to understand that our circumstances are very unique u because we are actually in the process of updating our general plan update and we and when we started that process back in June 2024, we had two new bills take effect um state laws take effect which were kind of dumped in our lap and so We had to deal with that as well and incorporate a lot of those requirements in the general plan update process and in our environmental impact report. We are also currently engaged in negotiations with the attorney general's office over some issues um pertaining to the application of both AB98 and SB 415 and those negotiations are going very well. I also like to emphasize that the purpose of this moratorum is not to buy additional time for getting that general plan update to the city council for its consideration. Rather, the purpose is to

avoid the complications associated with having to process an application for a logistics warehouse facility under our current 2006 general plan and our current zoning and development regulations, which many of which include provisions that are inconsistent with current state law under both Senate Bill 415 and Assembly Bill 98. So, um, I just wanted to clarify that I don't guarantee that we may we won't come back and ask for an extension, but I'm absolutely committed and I let the attorney general's office know that we are committed to bringing this general plan update to the city council as soon as possible um when you know when everybody's ready to move forward on it. So, that's really the purpose of the of the moratorum. And finally, I'd like to just clarify that tonight, the action that's being proposed or recommended to the city council is that we you introduce, approve, pass, and adopt this moratorum ordinance tonight. So, it does not have to come back for a second reading, and it's not subject to that 30-day referendum period. So, if you do approve it tonight, it's adopted and it takes effect immediately. And the reason why we tie the the ordinance to the definition of what constitutes a logistic type warehouse to how it's defined and described in Senate Bill 415 is because our municipal code like many other municipal codes do not break down their warehouses based on whether it's being used for assembly purposes or manufacturing or as a campus or a detention facility. But um so I think it's I think it was critical that we tie it to the description of logistic warehouse facilities as defined under state law.

Thank you Mr. City attorney, Mr. City Manager for the staff report. We'll go ahead and bring it back to the council to the deis for any council questions of staff. I have one or two questions. Uh you answered one or two that I had on my list. Um just for clarification, was was this proposed moratorum at all any point or at all requested by any any parties involved in the general plan update?

No, there was no request submitted or recommendation from the attorney general's office. um staff did not recommend um that we add it to an agenda. It was something was generated by the council. And on that same note, um so it it I think you briefly answered this as well, but even if a moratorum were to be passed, there's no guarantee that this will necessarily or materially help us in the ongoing negotiations with the general plan update.

No. And then one last question and I'll turn it over to Mayor Prom on the timeline. If you are able to answer this question, um, as far as the timeline with the general plan update since it's come up, um, do you have an approximate timeline on when you expect the general plan update to come back before this council for uh, final approval

or the 45 days expire? Yeah, I I can't predict that. I do have a a meeting this Thursday with the attorney general's office and so we'll get a better feel for you know whether or not we've um you know reached a consensus on some of the final issues that we're dealing with right now with the attorney general's office. So on Friday I'll have a better answer for all of you and I can send you a one-way email without violating the Brown Act.

Got it. Thank you. And I thought of one more question back to uh the question about if anyone requested this as far as you know outside of the city or the council. Um has the attorney general's office uh made any kind of opinion or given anything any comment or anything related to the proposed moratorum? Um, no, but I did send them a draft of the moratorum ordinance last week when I completed it and um the you know I I submitted it to them for their review and comment and their response was oh we'll you know thank you very much. We'll review it but we will not comment or make any recommendations on it which is something I expected from the AG's office.

Understood. Thank you. Uh, next up, Mayor Pro Tim Gonzalez.

And I don't know, this question is for uh Brian or Steve, but did staff evaluate if we could accomplish the same goals of a moratorum with our regular land use tools um that doesn't go a moratorum with our based on our development standards and regulations and whatnot. Can can the same goal be accomplished? Well, the concern, the reason why I support as a city attorney a moratorum right now is to avoid again avoid that complication of having to process any applications that comes in for a warehouse facilities warehouse facility while we're updating our development standards and you know for the purposes of you know providing protections for the community and the environment at large. And so it would be very complicated to have to accept a complete application and process it. We would have an obligation to process it. Not actually to approve it, but to process it.

And and when you mean process it, do you mean, you know, from the counter or from the initial application or for example, and I go back to Sean from the last uh council meeting, we we have, you know, 13 applications in the pipeline. Are we referring to those or like a brand new one that comes in tomorrow?

Anyone any application that comes in after it's adopted that has not been deemed complete. So basically what's going to be exempt from this moratorum are any applications for the development of a logistics warehouse facility that's been deemed complete by city staff. we have an obligation to apply those rules and regulations in effect at the time the application is deemed complete. Thank you. But again, you know, just because you get an application for any sort of entitlement, you do not have an obligation to approve it, provided that you can make the appropriate findings to deny it.

Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Are there any other questions from the council? Seeing none, we will go ahead and move into public comment. Madame clerk, how many requests do we have to speak on this item? Thank you, mayor. Currently, we have 14. Uh would it appease the council if just with 14 speakers, there may be more that submit speaker slips. Uh is there any interest or would it appease the council to uh look at reducing the time to two minutes per speaker? I'd be okay with that.

Okay. Just to ensure that we're able to move, we still have several items after this as well. Um, so seeing that there's consensus from the council, um, we'll do two-minute public comment for this item, Madam Clerk, and, uh, we can go ahead and call up the first three speakers whenever you're ready. Thank you, mayor. The first three speakers are Juan Sado, followed by Ismael Gonzalez, followed by the IE informer.

Hello. Well, good evening, mayor and council members. Uh, my name is Juan Sorado. Uh, I'm with the Labors International Union of North America. Uh, I'm here tonight to respectfully ask you to uh, vote no on this moratorum. Uh, this may be written as a temporary pause, but for working families, it isn't temporary. Uh, when projects get frozen, paychecks got frozen. Construction uh, construction workers depend on steady flow of projects to stay employed, support their families, and stay in this community. Uh Marino Valley has been a place where people uh come to work, build careers and move up. Uh this moratorum sends the opposite message. It tells investors and developers to wait and when they wait, our members sit at home. Uh California is one of the largest economics economies in the world because we build infrastructure and um and create opportunities. Uh Marino Valley should continue to be part of that growth, not putting up roadblocks that slow uh jobs and uh economic activity. I urge you to stand with working families, stand with local jobs, and vote no on this uh moratorum. Thank you.

Next three speakers are Ismael Gonzalez, followed by the IE informer, followed by Belle Fiero.

Hello. Good evening. Um, thank you so much for allowing this uh opportunity to speak. Uh, council members, more importantly, hello to everybody at home watching live. Hundreds to thousands of people across the Inland Empire who are uh in favor of this moratorum. Uh, nine cities have already passed a moratorum already. Uh, Paris has a 10-month moratorum. They're leading uh the the effort in this uh regard. Um, you heard from your own city staff. your city staff gets paid six figures. Uh probably all of them, right? It is their expert recommendation that you adopt this moratorum. To do otherwise would be a slap in the face to the residents who pay their their salaries, right? Um your own attorney has said he recommends adopting this moratorum uh just so that you guys can avoid complications with the the attorney general. Uh I've read uh AB98. There is a stipulation in it where if you do not comply with those California state laws, um the city will be penalized $50,000. I'm not willing to pay that. You have people already complaining about where where the money is being used in other regards, but why should you have us pay that when you could easily avoid it with this moratorum, handle business like council me council member Bernard said at the last council meeting. Uh that's why it was brought up to avoid complications, right? Exactly what your city attorney has uh has alluded to. Your ordinance here says that the the um health, safety, and welfare in the absence of a temporary moratorum is what's on the table. Uh you've heard other comments about public health. Your your guest speaker, the deputy superintendent for Valverie, look at the map in the back.

his district is like oversaturated with warehousing. He even admitted that his constituents his

next three speakers are a former followed by Belle Fiero followed by Tatiana Flores. All right. Good evening again. um this this issue a warehouse moratorum it seems when I went to the planning commission and they were trying to do a zone change right after they've already started building stuff wouldn't you want a zone change before you start building so here we are wanting a moratorum where where was this moratorum before all of these warehouses was approved during the WLC wars. Where was these these moratoriums? Where were these people who think that the health thing I mean we we councilman Baka you were there? A lot of you guys were there. All these studies went out there that was saying oh this is going to happen that's going to happen. Where were these people calling for a moratorium then? I'm going to tell you guys this. I am not I don't think you guys should have should approve a moratorum. You shouldn't do it. But at the same time, from my understanding, the city's built out. We're done. There there's nothing to to It's too late. We are built out. A moratorum is a waste of time at this point. It's a waste of time. So, I I I encourage you not to approve it because it's just a waste of time and it's a political wedge so that certain people could say, "Hey, look, I was against this." And they it's just getting votes. If you do your homework and you go to the city staff and you say, "Show me what is going on. How much land is left?" You're gonna find out Marino Valley is basically complete. Thank you.

The next three speakers are Bel Fiero, followed by Tatiana Flores, followed by Carla Cervantes.

Good evening. My name is Belle. I am a Valverie High School teacher, a mom, and a lifelong resident of the city. And I'm also in strong support of the proposed moratorum because the quality of the life of our children matters more than investor profits. Um, we see that studies from UCR show that warehouse expansion has already outpaced population growth and job quality growth. We are overconentrated and we're carrying more than our fair share. Data also shows nearly 40% of the imported goods coming in are coming through our IE warehouses which means our communities are absorbing the traffic. We're absorbing the pollution so that the rest of the country can benefit from two-day shop from two-day um shipping, right? Express shipping. No community should be treated as a dumping ground, especially not Marino Valley. Not for faster shipping, not for corporate investment, not for conveniences of ICE or border patrol. We keep being told that warehouses bring jobs but job count is not the same as job quality. Um we know I am have experienced myself warehouse jobs are among the lowest paying with some of the highest injury rates in the workforce. They don't keep up with the rising um cost of housing. Why are we building so many more beautiful houses if none of the workingclass families can afford them? The corporations are making the profits, not the people here in this room. And we are left with the health risks, with the traffic, with the lower quality of life. Um, and let's call it what it is. The moratorum is not anti- business. It is pro community, pro health, and pro Marino Valley. So, I urge you council members to please listen to the people who live here. Um, because it's us who are paying the hidden costs of fixing the roads, health, and emergency services. So please listen to the people who are here. Um thank you for your time.

The next three speakers are Tatiana Flores, followed by Carlos Cervantes, followed by Franco Pacheco. Mr. May,

just one second. Mr. C, I I neglected to um provide the description or definition of the type of warehouses we're talking about under Senate Bill 415. I apologize for for that. But it's defined and described under Senate Bill 415 as a building that is primarily used as a warehouse for the movement or the storage of cargo, goods, or products that are moved to business or retail customers or both that does not predominantly serve retail customers for on-site purchases and utilizes heavy duty trucks for the movement of such cargo, goods, and products. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Miss Flores, the floor is yours.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Tatiana Flores and I have been a District 4 resident since 2009. I am here once again tonight to express my support for a 45day warehouse/industrial moratorum and to urge you all to vote yes. I sent you all a detailed later letter letter explaining several reasons why a moratorum is the right choice for Marino Valley. Hopefully, you were able to read it. If not, I can briefly share. The city has slowly become surrounded by warehouses and industrial projects, especially in district 4. These developments are often approved with the premise of economic growth. However, they have brought significant challenges, including health risk from pollution, road deterioration, traffic congestion, and limited access to good paying and even unionized jobs. Studies have consist consistently shown that truck emissions from warehouse increase the risk of asthma, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted here in Moval by these issues. Additionally, the the logistics industry has not delivered on its promise of job creation. Despite building over 50 million square feet of warehouses in the IE since 2022, employment in the sector has flatlined due to automation plus vacancy rates. The rapid growth has also led to significant road damage and traffic congestion, not to mention the increasing number of warehouses being bought to become ICE IC ice attention centers, even if it hasn't happened here in the city yet or in the IE. This is a pressing matter that should be noted. And lastly, a merit-based approach fails to account for the cumulative public health impacts that occur when multiple projects are concentrated within the region. Something that the staff report itself mentions having occurred in the past um with the general plan update. If careful consideration was not insured in a document that will serve as a blueprint for the city's development for

decades, how can we be sure it'll be applied for every single project that is proposed? The next three speakers are Carlos Cervantes, followed by Franco Picheo, followed by Ryan C. Good evening, mayor, council member. My name is uh Carla Cervantes. I'm here with Sierra Club Sangonio chapter. I'm here tonight to urge you to support a warehouse moratorum. not to stop growth, the little growth that could be happening in Marino Valley because it's already built out. But this is to protect our community and plan responsibly for our future. Marino Valley has already done more than its share for the region's logistics industry. As the attorney general has been consistently reminding, we are surrounded by massive warehouses, constant diesel truck traffic, and some of the worst air quality in Southern California, some of the worst quality in the nation. Our children, seniors, and families are paying the price with higher asthma rates, respiratory illness, and long-term health risks. At some point, we have to ask, how much is too much? It's too much. A warehouse moratorium is about putting public health first. Every new warehouse adds thousands of truck trips to our streets. That means more pollution, more congestion, and more danger, especially near schools and neighborhoods. Our roads are deteriorating faster than we can fix them, and taxpayers are left holding the bill. Pausing new approvals gives the city the time to catch up before conditions get worse. We're often told warehouses bring jobs, but we need to be honest about the quality of those jobs. Many warehouse positions are low wage, physically exa exhausting, and often little opportunity for advancement, and they discourage unionizing. These are not the same type of warehouse jobs that were happening 20 years ago. These are the type of jobs that are being built next to black and brown communities. And we put the most money into taxes and diesel and gas because we have to commute out to get a job outside of car wash, fast food, and warehouses. And it's time to get better opportunities in Marino Valley. Marino

Valley deserves better paying, more sustainable jobs that actually build a strong middle class, not just more loading docks. There's also an issue of fairness. Warehouses are disproportionately placed near lowincome communities and communities of color. That's not accidental and it's not right. Marino Valley should not become the default dumping ground for regional pollution while other cities reap the benefits. Moratorium is not permanent.

The next three speakers are Franco Pacheco followed by Ryan C followed by Charlie Sakowski. Hello again uh city council. My name is Franco Pacheco, one of the co-founders of Alien Valley Alliance for Environmental Justice. I'm here supporting one of our members here in Mino Valley and uh trying to propose a warehouse moratorum for the area. Um there's a couple comments I want to make uh first to uh residents or people saying where were we when all these warehouses were getting built. I was in high school. I didn't know any of this stuff was happening, but I'm here now. A lot of those uh ne a lot of those warehouses are south of Marino Valley, north of Paris. Those used to be neighborhoods. So, I know the city council knows, you guys know this very well, reszoning is what created this warehouse problem in the first place. And it's kind of like a snake eating its own tail because nobody wants to live next to a warehouse. And uh it seems easier to expand warehousing than to build more housing, right? Um, we also want to address I think the council's missing a critical point here. Not just doing a pause, but actually instructing count uh staff to make u a report uh actually uh research the effects of warehousing in the area, the effects of other cities warehousing in the area, counties. There's over millions and millions of square feet that are being built already approved. They're already pass. So 45 days, you know, you hear, "Oh, 45 days is going to put my job in jeopardy." Um, there's over 20 years of warehouse projects in the area. So I don't think anybody's job is going to be in jeopardy in the 45day period. So please ask that you guys instruct staff to actually do some research on the effects that big house big warehouse uh logistics have on the community. And

when this comes back up, you know, a lot of people said that the the marino's already built out. will make an ordinance banning future warehousing. Thank you. The next three speakers are Ryan C, followed by Charlie Sakowski, followed by Christopher Baka.

Good evening. My name is Ryan. I am uh resident of Marino Valley and I am speaking in support of a 45day moratorium on new warehouse development. Uh first, if I may address the concern of my union brothers in the room. Uh first I find it sad that you believe you will not have a job if you don't have any project approved in the next 45 days. I believe last uh two weeks ago when this was brought up you said the time from approval to development is five years. I could be off on that. Let's say it's two years. Very few workers have two years of job security. So it's wild to me that you think in two years you cannot find any other opportunities. And it's even more sad to me that their boss has convinced them they can't build anything other than warehouses. All skilled trades person I know are very proud of their ability to build anything. So, I mean, come on. Support the other people in your community who are suffering with poor air quality, which is what I would like to spend the remainder of my time talking about. The last time I was here, I noted that the EPA says we have unhealthy air for a sensitive group approximately 120 days of the year. That's roughly onethird of the year. Uh we are consistently rated among the worst air quality in SoCal as well as in the nation. In a functioning society, that alone is enough to say let's just step back a minute like let's figure out what's going on. Uh so unhealthy air is uh particularly harmful for children and the elderly and it increases them to increased risk of death. uh increased sickness and premature death from asthma, bronchitis, emphyma, pneumonia as well as development of new disease like chronic bronchitis. There's other additional risk of sickness and premature death from coronary artery. Sorry, I hate public speaking. Uh increase sickness and premature death from coronary artery

disease, abnormal heart rhythms, congestive heart failure, and stroke. Thank you for your time. The next three speakers are Charlie Sakowski, followed by Christopher Baka, followed by Sandra Placentia. Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Charlie Sakowski, and I'm here on behalf of the property owner of the industrial property located at 17500 Paris Boulevard. I'm reading this statement into the record on the owner's behalf regarding the proposed moratorium on the logistics use development. The property owner understands and respects the council's interest in evaluating long-term planning goals and potential community impacts associated with industrial development. However, they are concerned about the effect of a moratorum could have on properties like this one that are fully consistent with the city's adopted general plan, zoning code, and development standards and that are already well within the city's review process. The site is located in an area designated for industrial uses and includes a fully occupied warehouse that is currently operating at this time. An application to develop the property was submitted in April 2025. Since that time, the owner has invested significant resources into moving the project forward, including technical studies, consultants, and engineering work, environmental review, including a preparation of environmental impact report and an application applications and processing fees. These investments were made in good faith based on the reasonable expectation that the project uh that a project consistent with the city's adopted plans and zoning and actively under review by city staff would be allowed to proceed with review. Applying a moratorium to a project that has been in process for nearly a year and complies with all current regulations to uh would create uncertainty undermining confidence in the city's entitlement process and impose a significant and unfair financial burden on a property owner who has followed all applicable rules. For those reasons, the property owner respectfully urges the city

council to exempt projects that have been already that have already filed applications with the city or deemed complete uh and consistent with the existing industrial zoning from the proposed moratorum. Thank you for your time. The next three speakers are Christopher Baka, followed by Sandra Placentia, followed by Emiliano Losano.

Good evening again. Um, obviously it's already been stated that it's needed by the staff in order to get the general plan uh passed and um it's obvious that it's also a political uh ploy po uh in order to get um some votes for their next campaign for whoever's um proposed this or in favor of this. It's obvious that this is nonsense. Um, I stand with labor and I stand with uh what I've said before as far as giving a easy way out for staff. They're they're getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a job and yet they want the easy way out. And I wouldn't be surprised if they're the one that planted the seed in the council members uh ear in order to get this on the agenda and passed in order for the people need to understand this is for um this is to get the general plan passed in which the attorney general has stated that it's not it's not correct and they need to do uh correction on it. And also that um 45 days is really not going to do anything in my opinion. What you really should be doing is uh um reversing the agreement with the Royal Logistics Center uh rescending the agreement for Aquabala and looking into these developers that get their projects um approved in order to sell them as approved project to make money on their land um deals. Uh there's a good example on Alessandro and Day Street where uh he was going to build some warehouse or something and now it's up for sale as a approved project. uh the guy was you know the person that that that came up with this and the cities also went along with this need to understand that this

is exactly what's going on with with world logistics and the next three speakers are Sandra Placencia followed by Emiliano Losano followed by Estean Moscada. Hello, good evening. Uh my name is Sandra Placencia Rodriguez. I am the climate justice organizer for United Domestic Workers. We are a labor union. um DOCO 3930 um and we represent inhome support services and childcare providers. We have around 220,000 members throughout the state of California and we are partnered with ASME. Our members take care of the most vulnerable populations. Those include children, right? We represent childcare providers and then we also represent the most vulnerable folks which are the folks that require some type of care inside of their home. We just heard from the superintendent talk about children, right? and the need to have resources for children. Um and we also represent childcare providers as I stated before. Um we stand in support with our EJ colleagues um against uh in favor of the warehouse moratorum. Um because warehouses are tedious, right? They are loud, they destroy roads, they cause pollution. Um on the contrary, we'd like to see the city invest in parks, traffic safety. I was talk it was talked um about bicycles, right? How do we transport safely? um and community resources, right? Invest in housing. We have a lot of uh members at UDW who have who live in the most horrendous housing situations here in Morirana Valley. That should not be okay. We should start investing in that. The superintendent also shared that we want our ch our kids to be physically and mentally well. Well, we can't do that with a bunch of warehousing. There's 40 million proposed fee of uh warehousing coming down the pipeline already. Pausing for 45 days, you know, is is necessary, right? We need to have that. We need to take a step back. I was shared earlier and look at how we can protect the folks in this city. Um I also wanted to share that I pulled some

data from your act from your environmental justice element that was on your website. Um and it was astounding to me that uh three of the census tracks in this area ranked within the highest percentile of the state for pollution burden. Another three were were in between the 90th to 100 100th percentile. And then every The next three speakers are Em Amelia Lozano followed by Estavan Moscada followed by Mr. George Hay.

Good evening council members. My name is Emilio Losano. I'm a third party planning consultant representing property owners and applicants in the city of Marino Valley. Uh I respectfully urge the council to review some of the language in the proposed moratorum particularly for areas currently designated for industrial land uses. Uh a moratorium in these locations would introduce uncertainty into planning and entitlement processes for projects that bring jobs, support local business and generate tax revenue. Uh it is for these reasons that we respectfully ask you to reconsider the proposed language of the moratorum. Thank you. The next three speakers are Estavan Moscada followed by George H followed by Omar Cobian. Good good evening everyone uh and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Esan and I'm here to speak in support of the 45day moratorum on warehouse and industrial developments. So first and foremost I believe that everyone here is already aware of like the health the health consequences that come from uh the new new developments such as these. So again um among them include respiratory diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular dis diseases such as stroke. Everybody knows these um and additionally everybody knows that the um downsides that come from come from new developments such as increased traffic. I mean, who here hasn't um has hasn't experienced, you know, being blocked on the on the freeway on the roads because of like two, three, four semis blocking the road, right? It's only going to get worse, truthfully. Um and then my uh my friends who are in orange vests and orange shirts, they're all in um they're they're all against the moratorum because it would um they they say that it would increase job stability and it would increase stable stable sources of income. I do want I want I do want everybody including these people to have a a stable source of

income and have a stable job. However, it does come at the expense of everybody here including themselves, including their families, including all of our families, right? Everybody here reaps the the consequences of of uh increased air pollution, right? So again, it's not just us, it's also the future generations. You wouldn't give a bottle of alcohol to a pregnant woman. You wouldn't give a cigarette to a pregnant woman. So why would you expo expose the next generation and pregnant women to uh hazardous air qualities? That just makes no sense. Again, it's not just me. It's not just you. It's everybody here, including our our our blue collar workers. Um, additionally, it doesn't make any sense because uh if even if you do have a stable source of income, you have to make expenses because maybe your kid has asthma, so you need to pay for their inhalers and things of this nature. Um, last but not least, I just want to quickly mention, actually, I think I'm out of time. Thank you.

Next three speakers are George Hay, followed by Omar Kobian, followed by Luis Palomares. George Hey, a couple of you stated last time that you were going to want to look at each warehouse individually and on its own merit as an individual project. Cumulative impacts of all the warehouses added together didn't seem to matter much. I want you now to just to think about your best breakfast you've ever had. And now pause. And now think for a few minutes about the best, wonderful full lunch you ever had. And then finally, I want you to think about that wonderful dinner that you would like to have, followed by your most favorite dessert ever. Now, we're going to think again. Now, do you want to go out and have your great, wonderful dinner followed by your wonderful dessert? If earlier in the day you had that wonderful breakfast and also earlier in the day you had that wonderful lunch, would you then also have room or would your appetite be full at that time and not have room for that wonderful dinner because you've already filled yourself up with your other two wonderful meals. That's where we're at with the warehouse issue.

We have a situation where we have the World Logistics Center, which is almost like an Las Vegas buffet that's out there that's already filled us all up all day. We do not need any more warehouses. It is complete. And I am a union member. I'm against what they are doing. The next three speakers are Omar Kobian, followed by Luis Palomares, followed by Roy Blacker.

Good evening, mayor, council, staff. My name is Omar Kobian, a 35-y year resident, former planning commissioner, and u representative for the carpenters union. I would like to express our concerns with this proposed moratorum. The message of this proposal uh is that the city is closed for business. That's the way developers are talking. That's the way we look at it. That is not value the development and open discussion on how we can grow the city. With the California bills AB98, SB415 passing it now created those guidelines for warehouse development. So I ask why a moratorum? Are we going to continue to let environmental groups like Sierra Club, CCJ, and all these other mom and pop environmental groups sue the city as they have Mno Valley, not to mention extort developers? And now, you know, according to Gina with the Sierra Club, they support ICE. So I ask with the continued attacks on union labor from the current administration cancelling over 10 to 50 billion dollars in infrastructure. Um we are constantly under attack. We have to fight for our future jobs. Now more than ever cities should not be creating more roadblocks. On the contrary, we should be creating incentives for development to come into our cities to pay a good living wage. In conclusion, I asked the council to vote no on this moratorum. Our city needs smart growth, good jobs, and opportunities that support working families, not blanket policies that slow progress without solving real issues. Thank you for your time. Good night.

The next three speakers are Louise Calamares, followed by Roy Blackford, followed by Nathan Urina. Wow. This gentleman behind me right here in the glasses put his hands on me and said, "Speed uh fill out a speaker slip." You know what? You keep your dirty hands off me, sir. Please. Okay. As far as a mortorium, I'm in support with the with the um unions here because you know Riverside, these people, the Nimby's all back here, they should be over there in Riverside when they built all of that stuff over there on the Mibian. And then you go all the way to the National Cemetery and make a ride and it's going all the way up uh Banverian too. And those trucks are on our freeway, you know, they're not coming through here when they go to Banning and Bowman. Yeah. But a lot of those Riverside trucks that go to the Meridian are on the 60 and the 215. That's where all the darn traffic is when we can't get through that intersection in there on the on the freeway there. So, how hypocritical. Come on. And what a waste of time. 45 damn damn days. What's that going to buy us? You know what's going to buy us? It's going to buy us. We're going to throw another monkey ranch and they're going to throw 60 days and then a year and then two. You know, come on. Where does it end? Like they were talking about Redlands. Redlands didn't do a moratorum. And it's a little city. They didn't do a moratorium. They're lying. People come up here with all these lying things that ain't factual. Everybody's dying. The sky is falling. We're all going to, you know, die and go to hell or heaven. One or the other. Come on. Give me a break. So, I'm here in support of the uh just uh keep it going like we're going. Who's to say the planning commission, they're

supposed to have 24 meetings a year, eight meetings? There's nothing in the pipeline. There's nothing coming anyway. There's nothing happening. I don't know why they're all crying the blues here. Nothing's happening. But we need to the planning commission. This mayor needs to bring some stuff here. Come on, mayor. Get with it. We're in 26 The next three speakers are Roy Blackard, followed by Nathan Urina, followed by Andrea Vidoi. despite the eloquent argument the C&M made about this setting aside that look at what it's doing and you heard from the development community and it puts the good the greater good of this is to not pass it because we're going to show that Marino Valley is open for business and we have a planning commission and we have a city council that's ultimately going to make these decisions like they did with Hillwood. We threw that. We voted down a warehouse. It went to me valley. You know, all those c you heard about the devastation that's going on there in that community and we sent the warehouse over there. The orange masters can tell because we were down at the county when that passed and I supported them with it because you know what? If there's a demand, somebody's going to build it. No matter what you talk about here, you can you can protest till the cows come home. it's going to go next door or anywhere else. You know what? You know what you did? You threw $60 million away that could have that could have counteracted the negative impacts in this city. So, no, you not only stuck it over there and they're all going to die in diesel spoken me valley, but maybe you don't care about those over there. Think about what what we're doing. We're taking opportunity away. We're

having arguments that you're not that is totally out in outer space. But the you know what Paris did it 45 days became 10 months became 10 years and whatever. And you know what? That's going to damage us all. So you don't think on day 46 you would if there was a demand you're not going to get 10,000 applications in or whatever. This is nonsense. You see what's happening. It's for the protest crowd that doesn't want anything and wants to kill our future.

The next two speakers are Nathan Urena followed by Andrea Bidari. Honorable mayor, members of the city council, city staff, members of the gallery, residents of Marino Valley,

you have heard me valley, Riverside, Paris, Redlands, numerous cities thrown here at this day. This is Marino Valley. We are here to support Marino Valley. In 2024, I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of California, and to support the city of Marina Valley as the environmental and historical preservation commissioner. I was tasked to preserve our city's environment. Though it's not in my purview, I cannot stay silent as this moratorum seeks to preserve our environment. For any individual who says they will lose jobs by this moratorum, I say instead of being here at this day and making those arguments every time this item is put forward, speak to the developers who have yet to develop those projects. Hold them accountable. Members of the city council, you are trustees of this city. You have been elected to it. I ask you this question. When 2050 comes around, when60 or 2075 and our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren are living in the city of Marino Valley, what will we do with the empty warehouses that will be scattered throughout the city? What will the city council do then? I would like to make a clarification that the previous speaker by the name of Gina who claimed to be a member of the Sierra Club and advocated for ICE is not a member of the Sierra Club. Members of the public might like to add false statements, but it doesn't help with their argument. Our main role here is to protect our environment, defend our city, and look forward to helping future generations. Thank you. The next two speakers are Andrea Vido, followed by Bob Palomares.

Hello. Sorry, finishing up. Um, hi everybody. My name is Andrea Vidore. I am with the People's Collective for Environmental Justice. We're a community- based environmental justice organization. And um, I just wanted to say it's incredibly important to see what you guys are doing here today. Um, it's incredible to see a city take this proactive and smart approach to economic development and environmental justice. Um, y'all are not just trying something that hasn't been done in the past. We can look at other cities like Coloulton which I was involved in with the moratorum and afterwards and spend some time to see how is it that cities can take two years and make the most out of it and come out with an updated zoning code and be able to update their zoning code so they can attract different businesses and ultimately raise um ultimately raise the quality of life for all people involved including the employees, the employers and the residents. Um now there's definitely a lot to learn from Colton. I wouldn't say do that directly. Uh there's so many opportunities to use this chance to get your community involved and active um and really raise the bar because at the end of the day we know that the vacancy rates are incredibly high for warehouses. We know they do not provide career jobs. Um and y'all can be really creative with what you bring in next, right? Um the city and and honestly the two-year pause um is also something well we're talking about 45 days now, but you know can be extended to two years. Uh what's it called? and it has been done and it didn't scare away the industry. It didn't it didn't keep them from coming back. There are warehouses still being developed in that city but in a place where they should be developed in an industrial area. And they were able to, you know, make up for the times of the zoning that needed to be changed. Um the city really could use this time to think about how are you guys going to handle the thousands of trucks that haven't even come onto the streets yet from some of these projects you guys have already approved, right? um you guys can take a chance to figure out what are your strategies to address the greenhouse gases that will come inevitably from the ones that haven't been built yet. Um and so it really

allows you to take a pause and figure out to plan in the future. We all like to do that in our business project management. Sometimes you just need to Our next speaker is Bob Palamarez. all set. Okay. Anyway, uh I support union work. You know, that's I'm behind that, but I listened to the city attorney and made a lot of sense to me and also to uh Mr. Sadi, you know, that were kind of built out. But here's the thing, like some people were mentioning about projects that are here. We've got 15 years worth of buildings that can come up with the WLC. So maybe we need to put uh Highland Fairview's feet to the fire because there it is. What you know, we never have heard what the problem is, why they're not getting it done. You know, I think all the litigation is over. So, you know, it's and it's up to you, the city council, to give the people the answers because this way we'll have 15 years worth of work for our unions. Thank you,

mayor. That concludes all the public testimony for this item. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you to all of our public speakers as well. We'll go ahead and bring it back to the deis for council deliberation if desired. Uh any questions or comments? So, uh, we'll go to council member Delgado.

So, I I just want to reiterate what I said two weeks ago is that I am not in favor of blanket moratoriums for anything, whether it be warehousing, uh, racetracks, whatever it is, blanket moratoriums are not good for any city or industry in my opinion. However, um like the city attorney and the city manager said, um this would help the city get through the general plan update that we do do not have complications associated with processing a logistic warehouse application um in the meantime while we're dealing with the uh attorney general. So, um I did a lot of research after, uh speaking to the city attorney and uh for those reasons, I I will most likely um vote yes in favor of a 45day uh moratorum, but uh not because of a lot of the stuff that was mentioned tonight, the the fear-mongering and everybody's going to die and and the world is coming to an end because we have uh another 500,000 to a million square feet of warehousing, but because it's going to help us get through um the general plan update with minor uh roadblocks for our our city attorney and our staff to get that general plan update complete. Council member Ivanka Santa Cruz

pretty much um the same. I am against moratoriums. I wouldn't want to put a ban on any business except maybe detention centers. Um but we need to get our business in order. We can't keep taking orders and expect us to be able to um do business. So, I as well would support a 45day pause in order for us to get our general plan updated and get our work done. But again, I am not in favor of a blanket exclusion on um anything. But I would be interested if we could do because we have like limited on what we can have. Is there any way to put moratoriums or block detention centers from being in our warehouses

through zoning? Through zoning. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, that's where I stand today. Thank you, Council Member Bernard.

Yes. So, um I know this has been a controversial thing because anytime it's someone hears a moratorum, everyone just comes out and everyone says everything they need to say and I sit at the intersection of of both groups. Um so there's a few things that I think I I think should be pointed out because sometimes I feel like when the motion was made, people didn't hear what the motion was, so everyone assumed it was a complete stop. Um it's 45 days. We've gone over this before about how much work comes down the pipeline. For whatever reason though, when it comes to it, um, people seem to miss that portion of it. One thing though that I do think needs to be addressed, the elephant in the room, I'm going to use the time to kind of address the EJ labor conversation because I have this conversation a lot in both my job um, that I have outside of here, but also when I'm dealing with other groups. And I know what some of you are going to say, which is we don't deal with the AFL CIO or labor council, but I still sit at the intersection of there, the labor institute, and a number of other places where I've been um where I've served on the board or even um the students that I work with at UC Riverside. at some point because I hear what everyone's saying in the the group and every at some point what I really think should happen and this is aside from whatever this vote is today. I would really appreciate if labor groups and environmental justice groups would just get in the room together to have the discussions because what I see is every time these things come up, everybody is here. But at no point have I ever seen both sides in the same room having this conversation because it's happening over at JP JTa. It's happening whenever there's something happening in the city of Riverside when the city of Paris. But at some point things work a lot better when everyone just sits in the room and hashes it out. So, I think that's one thing that I wish um people would do, but also fear-mongering um about, well, we won't have work. I've said this, the work is there. You're going to have work. Um we've also have a few bills coming down the pipeline. The work is

going to be there. So, this attitude that 45 days, whether it's 90 days or even a year, means that you're not going to have work is just it's simply not true. Um one of the things is guaranteed is that you're going to have work. But also, I know there are other things that you guys can build. I've had the same conversations with other unions. I was like, you know, at some point when everything's built out, because that's the other argument I keep hearing. Once everything's built out, so then what is the solution for that? Because once everything's built out, then does that mean that the union goes away and you guys have no other work? Does that mean you guys don't know how to build other things? Which I know is a lie because I know you guys know how to do other things. I know the infrastructure that you all are able to put in from hospitals to freeways. I know the other things you guys can do. So, please stop selling yourself short and saying that these warehouses because they're going up and they're coming down because I also think about because I was elected by constituents. What happens after that, right? We know the amount of warehouses that we have empty in this city. So, yes, you you built the warehouse, but then what happens after that? We know that automation is going to be 70% in some of these places by the year 2030. And I as I as a council member have to account for that at some point. So, while I hear everyone's concerns, I'm hearing what everyone's what everyone's saying. Um, I came this with this motion one because this general plan update situation continues to come up. I don't think people are at the mercy of environmental justice groups the way people think. If you really want to have this conversation about environmental groups versus labor, it's really just two crossway sections because you saw UDW was out here today. They deal with people that have COPD, people that have all of these things in these elements. And as a mother who has a child of severe asthma that they cannot figure out where it came from other than possibly the warehouses that we live around, I have to think about these things because I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to live forever. And sometimes for me, quick and fast money does not negate the fact that there are people's lives and people's health that we have to account

for at some point as a responsibility. So, um I'm going to wait to hear what the rest of, um my council says, but I'm always going to move forward with this. I'm not looking for it to be weakened with any exceptions. I asked for 45 days. I am going to ask that during those 45 days if staff could also draft reports just looking at some of the health concerns that were brought up here today because we do need to start looking at those things also. Now, if if some of you I'm not too worried because at the end of the day, you know, I've heard from different constituents, you won't be reelected. I don't worry about this because I know exactly what I've done and I know exactly that I've done everything that I was supposed to do. God has given me the seat and God can take me out of the seat. I am owed nothing. Marino Valley owes me nothing because they've given me the greatest gift of my life, which is to be able to serve outside of being a wife and a mother. Next up, Council Member Gonzalez.

So, I when when this uh motion came up, I my my initial question to to staff was what do we have left in the city? And I asked that was the first question I asked. Um and what's left in the city to build is 92 acres. That's it. The WLC was approved and I just looked it up right now on August 19th, 2015 on a 3-2 vote. Um, this this conversation should have taken place years ago. Um, Moreno Valley has two existing industrial areas, right? The the southwest portion of the city and of course the the east portion of the city, right? In district three. Uh, I'm, you know, uh, stones throws away from WL WLC. Um, so I think what we need to do is focus on the remaining land and focus on manufacturing, healthcare, something that's going to generate jobs for the uses there. And of course, no detention facilities, right? That's uh as as I mentioned land use zoning issues but and it and and furthermore um just to add the and as you know city attorney mentioned the the general plan update will continue whether this um moratorium is approved or not. Um so again my my focus is on what's remaining on the remaining land. What are we going to do there? those 92 acres and and also, you know, there's there's uh there's these applications that some are non-conforming to to the land use that

that we we potentially can look at. So, you know, I I I want to hear from if the discussion continues, but that's where I'm at at this point and focusing on what's remaining. And I don't think uh a moratorum at this time is is necessary. Thank you to my colleagues and to provide my deliberation just going back to the last council meeting. Most of us in this room were probably here so I don't want to repeat everything that I said at that meeting. I invite you to go back and and watch my my deliberation at at uh the last council meeting. Um but I very clearly stated where I stand when it comes to industrial development in the city of Marino Valley. So, I just want to go into a few newer points, some new information, new positions that were brought up at this meeting, specifically going back to my my questions before the public comment on this item. So, um, from what it sounds like, the negotiations regarding the general plan update are going well and they're nearing their conclusion here very soon. as the city attorney mentioned, that will be before us here in the near future uh for a final decision, which I'm glad to hear because we've been in litigation in in negotiations for a couple of years now, way longer than this should have been uh taking, but that's the reality. Um so within the next couple months, we'll have the general plan update before us. we can finish that up and move forward because there's a lot of major projects that are also on hold because the general plan update is still up in the air. And so that's another another thing that uh we need to keep in mind. And I just want to say for the record that in the past throughout my 8 and a half year career

here and my time here in public service uh on this day is first as a council member for district 4 living right next to PNG right there off of Indian and Iris for years. Um, I firsthand have seen, you know, the the positives and the negatives of industrial development in the city. Um, I've voted for warehouses. I've voted against warehouses during my time. And I think I've been very fair when it comes to asking for higher standards, asking for more from those that want to do business in the city as opposed to just accepting the bare minimum. whatever comes to our uh agenda, whatever comes before us, um if we would have had higher standards 5, 10, 15 years ago, more community benefits, more project labor agreements, more sticks in the ground, we wouldn't be in the situation where we are today. We would have had more environmental mitigation me measures. Our air wouldn't be as bad. The congestion wouldn't be as bad. But should have, could have, would have. We can't go back and change that. So, we have to look at what we're doing moving forward. And I if if there was some kind of letter that we received from the state that said if the city of Marino Valley implemented a moratorum on industrial development, then we will guarantee some kind of favorable terms or something as part of the negotiation. That's not the case. where we stand right now, we're essentially saying that we, the city of Marino Valley, according to this proposal, voluntarily will implement and impose a moratorium on industrial development with no guarantees of getting anything back. I don't think that's a good way to negotiate. If we're going to give something, there should be a guaranteed return. And there's no guaranteed return with implementing a moratorum on industrial development. And so I think that just at this time after more

consideration, more research, looking into the numbers, available land, talking to experts and staff, I I don't think and like I said at the last meeting, I don't support a blanket moratorum. I was very clear when I, you know, voted yes to bring it to this meeting that we still need to seriously look at new ways of bringing in advanced manufacturing, bringing in clean energy and technology, bringing in uh more of health care and medical uses. How do we look at our economic development plan and our playbook and what changes do we need to do so that we can take part of what Riverside is doing, what Long Beach is doing, what these other major cities are doing to bring in these industries I just mentioned, including aerospace, for example. We have March Air Reserve Base here, but what aerospace manufacturing do we have in the city of Mareno Valley? Name me two or three companies. Name me one. Why don't we? We should have that here in the city of Moreno Valley. And I believe it's because we're have the bare minimum standards. We need to aim higher and ask for better. And that goes hand in hand developing labor jobs and creating long-term careers and higher quality of life for our residents. We're at a crossroads right now where we need to figure out what that looks like. I don't believe it's a blanket moratorum and and we need to do something different. And so I want us to get through the general plan update within the next couple of months. Get that done out of the way. And as soon as that's done, I plan on making a proposal so we can have a full-on conversation about what that future looks like. What are we not doing right now that other cities are doing to incentivize these industries to come do business in their city? How do we become a major player in that space? And so at

this time I I don't support a moratorum and uh do look forward to having more extensive conversations about the future of economic development to make sure that we continue bringing in the right businesses to the city bringing in labor jobs, bringing in careers that will actually pay enough for people to buy their first home, to afford the rent, to put food on the table, as opposed to just settling for distribution centers and temporary jobs. We need to have higher standards for ourselves, y'all. And I think there's a middle ground, but this is the beginning of that conversation. Can we call for the vote?

I'm done with my deliberation. So, if somebody would like to make a motion, uh, the floor is open. I motion to approve a 45day warrior moratorium on all logistic and and use developments as designated by city staff's recommendation. I'm looking for a second. Second the motion. There's a motion and a second. If there are no alternate motions, madame clerk, please call for the vote. Thank you, mayor. Council member Bernard, yes. Council member Dogado, yes. Council member Paka Santa Cruz,

yes. Mayor Prom Gonzalez, no. Mayor Cabrera, no. Thank you. Okay, next up we have item K3, which is approve resolution revising policy 1.01, rules of procedures for city council meetings, sections 1.1.2.1, order of business, adding a land acknowledgement at the beginning of the agenda. and we will turn it over to our city manager for a staff report. Actually, mayor, is it possible if we could just take a few minutes uh so that uh we can clear the room? Yeah, let's take just a minute or two while folks

Thank you. clear the room here.

We are back to our regular council meeting and we will pick up where we left off. Item K3. Mr. City Manager, I'll turn it over to you.

Uh thank you, mayor, council members. Uh brief uh uh presentation just to uh describe uh what has transpired over the uh last few meetings. Uh January 6, we had an initial uh motion um to uh bring forward a land acknowledgement January 20th at a conversation. Uh there was also a motion um and uh a 40 vote at the time uh the mayor was away for the vote uh to formalize a uh land acknowledgement and bring it back to this particular meeting. So pursuant to um our policy uh 1.01 01, which is the rules of procedures for city council meetings. We're looking at specifically um modifying that particular policy uh to add a land acknowledgement um to the regular meetings right after the invocation. And uh the land acknowledgement is going to be um the exact verbiage that was provided by tribal council uh at one of our uh state of the city uh addresses. Um I will read it for you so that it is in the official record. We wish to acknowledge that we are on the unseated lands of the Kawia and the po the Pyam Kawi Cham or Lu Wiseno uh who as original inhabitants and now as sovereign tribal nations have continued to live and thrive upon these lands since the time immorum. Um so in reaching out to the tribal council um after this particular uh item came up in June 20th, we contacted uh Mr. Anttovaros who we worked with um back uh when we were prepping for the state of the city. Uh asked him um if this would still be appropriate in this particular scenario. Um they did state that uh this

language in this particular scenario and adding it to uh the agenda would be um would be appropriate. Uh they did thank uh staff for reaching out to them because most jurisdictions when they're developing land acknowledgements do not reach out to tribal council. Uh so with that I'm available for any uh comments or questions you may have. Thank you Mr. City Manager. We'll bring it back to the deis for any council questions of staff. Seeing none, madam clerk, do we have any requests to speak? Thank you, mayor. We do. The first two speakers are Riley Peak, followed by Nathan Ureina.

Hello. I just want to say this is a really good idea and I like how we're bringing this out here just to show respect and all that to all the people that were here on this land before us. I would just like to see maybe some pronunciation like the official pronunciations for the tribe names added to it just to make sure that we're showing extra respect and that we're because there are going to be multiple people that say this. It's not going to be one person becomes an expert in it. But let's say for example the mayor is not here and the mayor protime has to take over. That way we have the same like exact pronunciations and it's not just one person becomes an expert. Everybody can become an expert in all that. Thank you.

The next speaker is Nathan Urina. Thank you, Madam Clerk, honorable mayor, members of the city council. I ask that you broaden this item to include the land acknowledgement for all city commissions that the city commissions can pay tribute to the Luiseno and Kawia peoples during their official meetings. That way, these native tribes and indigenous peoples know that their importance is respected at all levels of city government and at official meetings. I believe that that is the very least we can do. Unless we are seating some of the 92 acres of land back to the native peoples. I don't believe that is the intention, but to respect the peoples, we should at least have this land acknowledgement read aloud during the city commission meetings. Thank you.

The next speaker is Christopher Baka.

Good evening. Again, this is a FYI um the WLC where the WLC is uh currently approved for. There's a large piece of land right in the middle of it that is Native American land and that was sold in the condition that it would not be built, that warehouses would not be built. that individual, the son of the Native American person that has uh confronted Ben Zevi and told him that he's uh not to build anything there was harassed and threatened. His life was threatened by Benzei and his thugs for bringing this up. There's court documentation on this. So, if you people are going to be looking into this, go further. Go further into this and and look exactly what's going on with the WLC. Not only is it a farce, but he's a bully and he is a part of the MSAT and he threatens people and he's a vicious individual that needs to be thrown the out of the city. The next two speakers are Luis Palomares, followed by Ismael G. And if I may say, as the next speaker makes her way up, just this literally happened to me. We've said it before, but um everyone has a first amendment freedom of speech, but if you can, I just respectfully ask not to use profanity. Um there are children that could be watching as well. Uh just, you know, respectfully request that. Please

hold on. Got to get my breath again. I got asthma. So, you know, all these trucks that are going to the meridian. So anyway, I I think this is a great uh policy to adopt, but you know how we say the pledge allegiance, then we say the prayer, I think it should be at least in the middle because you know we the the land came first before the flag came. So let's just kind of put it in the center. So I think, you know, that would be good. But uh some of the speakers said to exp, you know, do a little more research and and make it a little I guess better to go with. Thank you. The next speaker is Ismael G.

Hello again. Uh my name is Susan Gonzalez. Uh I've been a resident here for 20 years. My family's been here since the 1980s, uh like I've mentioned at previous meetings. Uh but my family descends from the Nait uh the Kora people of western central Mexico. And although we uh cannot say that California is our our true native land, but all the people here prior to colonization were relatives. They lived in abundance. They did not have borders. Um you know, uh this is Turtle Island in Abbyala. And so I completely endorse your uh resolution here to adopt um a land acknowledgement at the beginning of the agenda. I find it very um unfortunate that in this day of day and age uh the city council meetings from all all across the island or Inland Empire uh they usually start with a prayer a Christian prayer but what happens if you're a Muslim or some uh other um you know uh faith uh in the world and uh there's no representation for those people um but you know on top of that there's it's kind Um, unfortunate colonization still happens in these little ways where you are now acknowledging the the true natives of this land. Um, Mystic Lake, there's stories about Mystic Lake in those uh uh legends. And I think like the previous speaker said, this is just the first step. You should do more. Um, and uh maybe have an elder come here and speak before the city council meeting. I would really appreciate your attention. Um but um yeah, I think this is just a a first step. You should go further. This is an important step just to acknowledge the land and uh unfortunately uh this is interconnected with what just happened,

what you guys just voted. You voted for more development on native land uh disregarding the people that never gave it up in the first place. and you are approving already approved the world logistics center which is right adj adjacent to Mystic Lake. Legends have been told about that area. Think about that. You are you are hurting culture of the first people here. Do pass this resolution. Uh have the land acknowledgement. bring in uh an actual native elder of the tribe here to speak at every meeting. It's the only logical courtesy that can be made of this city. You know, uh reparations is a whole another topic. And uh I I completely support that land back, but that's maybe a conversation for another time, especially for how you guys are uh very uh you guys have declined uh what's in the best interest of residents like you just did. Please,

mayor, that concludes all the public testimony for this item. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you to our public speakers as well. We will go ahead and bring it back to the deis for any deliberation. I just want to um ask you did get I saw the staff report but you did speak to the tri was it the tribal leader. You did speak to them and show them the statement that was developed for the state of the city.

Uh yes. I didn't specifically speak to um Joseph Anttovarus who is the tribal uh tribal historic preservation officer but uh uh Angel Galachi our deputy city manager did um as she was the one that worked with uh Mr. ontoaros when we were doing the state of the city and we felt it appropriate to make sure that it was still appropriate and uh that the land acknowledgement would be able to be used in this manner and um he said definitely and if a tribal leader came and said they wanted to say it during that period we would allow that right we would welcome that right yeah I mean absolutely so

yeah everybody has a public comment but um we we could definitely um at this particular point in time Um uh Angel did not get that sense uh that anyone from tribal council wanted to come um tonight and or in the future but yes we do have a relationship now and I do support the pronunciation. I think that's an excellent idea because even I sometime it's not English and Right. So absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm supportive of this.

I I I just want to make a comment. I I think this land acknowledgement is is overdue. I I you know it and and thank you for was it uh council member Makasangurus that brought it up. I I think it's a it's a great idea um to pay respect homage to our um native and Aboriginal peoples from from from this area. Um like like he's my ally myself. I'm you know I'm 40% indigenous in my my blood. So, it's it's important that that that we acknowledge uh the the the original peoples in this area. And if and and by all means, if if uh if one of the um tribal members or or someone from from these nations wants to stop by and and and speak, um that that would be welcome.

Yeah. And I 100% agree. uh you know also um in addition to because council member box Santa Cruz made the motion originally and I think that was right after the school district had given their presentation it was their their shirts that in kind of their logo that that spurred that. Um I also want to thank council member Bernard because uh back when you were mayor prom for the first time that I can recall we had a land acknowledgement at the state of the city and that was because you know we both agreed and and it and it happened. Um, and then I want to thank uh former schoolboard president, she's now the vice president of MVUSD, Samuel Luna. Um, she made the proposal over at the schoolboard meetings and they've been doing land acknowledgements for the past several months, if not over a year now. So, I want to u thank them as well. And yeah, like Mayor Pro Tim Gonzalez said, this is long overdue. um if you know any tribal leader would like to at some point in the future come out to uh personally you know give the land acknowledgement would 100% welcome that and would actually love to see that you know just like we extend invitations for our invocations we could do the same thing for the land acknowledgement as well. So, um, yeah, I I I don't want to go too far into, you know, history, but, um, this is just a little bit, uh, that we could do to acknowledge all of the history, um, that indigenous peoples have endured, uh, the atrocities that have happened, colonialism, imperialism, you name it, not just here in the United States, but all across the world, uh, various indigenous, uh, communities all across Latin America and and Africa, etc. So, um I fully support this proposal.

So, I motion to Okay. I motion to approve um staff's recommendation. I second that motion. And if before we vote, if I may also just add if you would add to the motion um that we include allowing the commissions to also do a land acknowledgement per um commission request as the commission they set their own agendas. Yeah, the commission is under policy 1.10 and is not under policy 1.01. So they can do it. I don't want your numbers. It's not agendaized, but they set their own agendas, right? So, they don't need us to direct them to do this.

Yeah, we haven't structured their agendas. Correct. Right, madam city clerk. Actually, staff does have a structured agenda um amongst the commissions um and um they use a very similar agenda. Well, the comm the commission can vote on it amongst themselves if they wanted to add, you know, have this included on their agenda. So they could do that. So that would be a motion. We wouldn't direct them to add this to an agenda or allow them to act. Okay. They would have they could do it on their own. Okay. Perfect. Does that work? Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So there was a motion and a second. Yes. Uh madam clerk, please call for the vote. Thank you, mayor. Council member Bernard. Yes.

Council member Dogado. Yes. Member Baka Santa Cruz. Yes. Mayor PMP Gonzalez. Yes. and Mayor Cabrera. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. That passes with five yeses. Next up is K4, explore establishing an arts improvement zone. And we will start off with a staff report from our city manager.

Thank you, um, mayor, council members. On January 20th, uh at our last meeting, um Mayor Cabera motioned to uh council to explore establishing an arts commission uh sorry, an arts improvement zone or similar artsbased initiative that leverages the city's art fund and private uh public private partnerships to enhance uh buildings and properties within um the art uh zone. prioritize major corridors and gateways such as the 60 and 215 freeways, key arterials, and support beautifification and economic development citywide. Uh, which was seconded by Mayor Prom Gonzalez and approved uh with a 50 vote. Um, as uh originally motioned, it it uh discussed leveraging the city arts fund. Um I did include in the staff report uh the municipal code uh 3.52 which um is the art diff um and what is able to be eligible for projects and how that can be utilized um for any type of art related uh expenditure. With that I'm available for any questions.

Thank you Mr. City Manager. We'll bring it back to the deis for any council questions of staff. Seeing no questions, I have a question. Council member Bernard. Um, so when we're talking about putting this in an area, the question I have is, do we have an area that we think this would be able to go in that the city owns? Because when I think about Marino Valley, we don't have a traditional downtown. So, do we have an area where this would be able to go? would be my my initial question like have we looked at it explored it a little bit a suggestion

um as this is the benign staff report from a an original motion. These are um uh conversations that uh council would be um having to decide what ultimately um a staff report that would return at next meeting and and kind of craft uh the idea of what an art um uh improvement zone would look like. Uh at this particular point in time, uh city staff has not looked at a particular area uh related to an art improvement zone at this particular point in time until council decides to move uh this forward to uh the next meeting in which uh with some parameters established hopefully in the next motion if approved uh then we could go ahead and bring something back.

Yeah. And council member Dato. Yeah. real just real quick, I want to kind of piggyback off of that. A zone, if in the terms of a zone, that's a location. So, as we move forward and we discuss um this coming to to life or to reality, I think that it's it's very important if we're going to call it a zone, then someone says, "Hey, I want to go to the Marino Valley U Art Zone." They know where to go. It's a location. It's a zone just like any other specified area that someone considers a zone. So, thank you for bringing that up.

Yeah, and I would like to add just that, you know, we're initiating the conversation, right, to our city manager's point. So, we haven't yet gotten to the point where we can even explore and dive into the details. This is, you know, do we want to go and explore and and see what this is structured like, you know, get community input? uh do the commissions get involved, things like that. Uh and then this comes back at some point in the future uh once it's, you know, really um fleshed out and we have all the details. So, um I know we don't have a downtown. We we technically don't have a downtown. Um and initially I was thinking, you know, our major arterials just because it's where people drive the most. It's the most visible off of our 60 215 freeways, etc. But it doesn't have to be uh tied to a ge geographic area. It could potentially just be, you know, uh over the entire city. It could take the form of a program as opposed to a particular geographic area or zone. Um so I think this is just us, you know, giving direction hopefully uh to allow staff to start exploring what this looks like. How would this how would this be like equally distributing our resources and um you know programs throughout the city? You know we're moving towards bringing a fourth library so that we can have balance and access for the whole city. How would making one particular district the art zone serve everybody? Because I mean personally I'm saying if it's going to be on Sunny Boulevard, oh yeah, I'm all for it. Or if it's going to be in Edgemont, yeah, let's do it in front of city hall. But if you're talking on the east end or you're talking on the other end, how are residents from D1 going to um be able to,

you know, enjoy these districts?

If I could respond briefly, um again, it doesn't have to be a specific zone uh or a geographic area of the city. Um it could take the form of some kind of program that is, you know, across the entire city and open and available to everyone. Um, but the initial idea I think that that I was thinking about was, you know, how do we help our local businesses, our property owners that are here in the city, our mom and pop restaurants for example, um, you know, to increase foot traffic to their businesses, beautify the city in the process as well. So, the economic development uh, benefits tied together with the beautifification of our city and have those go hand in hand. May proto for I just want to give an example like the the the Mareno Beach on Maro Beach the Kia dealership has a some you know uh public art there on a mural on the on the face of the building. this might incentivize, you know, uh more other other um owners, developers to to put uh murals and art on their buildings, right? That that that was done voluntarily, but this this program might might change that and and guide guide that through maybe through the application process, land use application process. So, just just another tool in the toolbox. That's that's how I see it.

And Mr. city manager.

Uh thank you, mayor, uh council members. Um I think if if if it's talking about businesses and and to try and generate foot traffic and and and so forth and beautifification, um the economic development uh strategic plan that was approved in October of uh last year um uh does have uh some business beautifification as well as uh residential beautifification as well. Um, so I know that uh staff is currently working on a program uh to come up with uh res residential beautifification and and residential awards uh program and so forth. Um but uh there is in the strategic plan um the concept of uh frontage uh and beautifification within um various uh business areas. So, um, if that's potentially what this is, um, we can kind of mold that into economic development strategic plan, um, to not only talk about beautifification, but also include an art component. Um, I'm I'm just thinking off the cuff based on comments that are being made at the dis. Um but ultimately it uh will ultimately be your decision as to what um this is going to be. Um uh and staff is just looking for direction. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Yeah. Um I know we're not in deliberation yet. We still need to do public comments as well. So um Madam Clerk, if you could please call up any speakers.

Thank you, Mayor. The first three speakers are Ismael Gonzalez, followed by Christopher Baka, followed by Luis Palamarez. Hello again. Uh my name is Luan Gonzalez. Uh something that I haven't mentioned yet is I I'm an artist. Uh I've had my work zone at many galleries in Riverside as well as the San Bernardino County Museum. Um I think this is a great idea. I know from your discussion that this is only a brainstorming uh discussion. I would uh encourage maybe uh thinking of having multiple zones, right? It's only listed as one zone, but maybe this is going to go to what uh council member Baka Santa Cruz kind of mentioned. How can we uh make this uh um equitable for all districts here in Marina Valley, right? Um why not just have set aside an anchor of land in each district? have uh have you laugh but there's 40 million square feet of of warehouse developing uh on the east end alone but uh one anchor for a garden for art is too much you know according to the people heckling uh in the crowd uh that's surprising you know um there's a lot of walls because of all the warehouses here right um Riverside is now a California arts district uh we should be utilizing that since they're our neighbor, uh we are the second largest city in Riverside County. They're just, you know, uh a drive away on the freeway, there could be a lot of cross uh collaboration between the cities in this regard and and hopefully cultivating artistic um uh uh projects, um artistry, right? Um uh I would definitely recommend checking out the Garcia Center of the Arts in Sanino.

It's about a 1acre property. They have a garden that produces uh free produce to the community. They also cultivate and incubate uh professional artists. Uh there's art studios there. Um it was a converted uh old uh fire department building. Please take a look into something like that, you know. Um I'm in district 2. There's really not a lot of parks over here. And we would love to see more parks. Maybe a garden. uh maybe something like the Garcia Center, you know, and why not just why stop there when you guys can have a little parcel of of land in each district, you know? Um uh in Riverside, they were able to finance with uh with credit unions uh the development of murals on public works and public uh uh infrastructure. We could probably bring that here. Revitalize Sunnyme Boulevard. Why not? you know, you have nothing to lose in this regard. You've already established more uh industrial use, artistic use. You don't need a lot. You don't need millions and millions of square feet. You just need a simple anchor. So, please uh pass for this. Um, you know, deliberate and uh definitely use the Garcia Center as a beacon of hope. Thank you so much. The next two speakers are Christopher Baka followed by Luis Palamares.

Good evening again. Um, as a former arts commissioner, um, the flourish of many of my uh, ideals is something really nice to see. uh the amphitheater, the day of the dead, uh Elgito, and um something else. So, anyhow, those were some of my proposals that eventually were uh came into fruition. Uh, we had the Sunnyme uh, summer nights cruise. That never did happen. But I did propose uh, arts district. And lo and behold, we already have an arts district. Listen, we already have an arts district. We already have it. you need to work on the plan that you've already had for decades that has never been uh it this reminds me of what staff does when you have again the WLC uh a project that is supposed to be building all this stuff but yet the city is still putting in infrastructure because of whatever reasons they come up with which is probably corruption but whatever. Um, this this reminds me of that you have it already. I actually have the paperwork. I'm going to look for it and if I find it, I'll I'll forward it to council member uh Baka Santa Cruz and the city clerk. You already have an arts district. The arts district is postal between Heock and Back Street and Sunnyme. That square right there, that is our arts district. This is redundant. You can expand it or work on it, but you already have it.

The next two speakers are Luis Palomares, followed by Donovan Sadik. Wow. Luis Palmar's community activist. art zones. We're going to have them all throughout the city. Why don't we think out of the box? And I've been saying this for the longest time. We have land here in Marino Valley. We, the city, have land here. We don't have to buy a piece of land. Let's put a building on it and put the arts in there. All kinds of different arts, not just one art zone here, one. Well, how are we gonna pay for all these art zones? Why don't we just do that? I know we got the museum here at the mall, but how long is that going to be there? And how long is that going to last? You know, they're going to revamp that home out sooner or later, right? Put a building uh put a pool on top of the building, right? Come on. Uh let's just do something different here. I know that we have stuff here for the kids, you know, uh ballet lessons, music, whatever they got there, and we got to pay for that. Let's do this that they don't got to pay for it. They can come to this center, this art center, and do all kinds of stuff. Florica, mariachi, uh, music, dance, tap, ballet, sculpturing, art, murals, all of that. All of that they can learn to do there also. And, and you know how we'll pay for it out of the dit fees, the art fees. Okay, we don't got the money to put up a $20 million building, but we could start with a down payment and build it and pay on it like we're paying on a mortgage. And when we get the DID fees from all these developers that are going to come in, we can keep on paying on that building, you know, and we can have teachers to teach our students and our kids in the community how to do this, how to dance, how to sing, how to play an instrument. We can have teachers and

you know what that will come out of the did feast too. So let's start thinking out of the box and all these little little projects here and there throughout the city. Let's just make a central big place to make it happen. You know, I mean, we just keep on throwing a dollar here, a dollar there, a dollar here, a dollar there. Oh, that we're doing that because we don't got a lot of dollars to do the big thing yet. But we can still do it. We pay a mortgage on a house for 30 years. Come on. Hey, we could raise the taxes again, you know? Whatever it takes, I guess, huh? If it's going to benefit the community and our kids in the community, let's do it. Let's do something bigger than us. Let's do something better. I mean, all the little Mickey Mouse libraries. Oh, wow. Who walks to the library? They're all good, but we're gonna have to pay for staffing. We're gonna have Are they really that packed? And what about the one up there in my district? Still not even open. Let's build a state-of-the-art library, a real library like Fontana has, a senior center like Fontana has, like a new um city hall like Fontana has. Go look at it over there. Uh, Delgato, you'll be surprised what's going on in Fontana. We got to get on. Get on and go forward. Don't be afraid to make that. Do it. Thank you. Next speaker is Donovan Sadiq.

All right. Good evening. These meetings are going on way too long. Um, I agree with everything Louise has said because doesn't it sound familiar? We have a senior center since I was in since I was a kid here 1977 when I first came into the area and yet we don't have a youth center. Everything she described and the other person described would be something like a youth center but yet there's never any money for the kids. That's right.

There's never any money. We could go over here and spend money over here. We can spend $400,000 for the staff and you know all this other stuff, but there's never any money for the kids. And yet we have a graffiti team, which is great, that are left and right every other day taking off graffiti because we've got rogues of youth that have nothing to do but vandalize property and do all of these things, right? So the the previous speaker, and I'm not going to be disrespectful, but it's obvious he doesn't understand how government works. You just can't goat on private property and paint a mural there and you know all this other stuff. I mean it's a good idea in so in a socialist country I guess. I don't know what his back back mindset is and and that's why I was laughing because it shows you that the people who you know come here and say these things and and they're entitled to their opinion. Like I said I respect everybody's opinion to free speech. You know I I fought for that. But know what you're talking about. Know what you're talking about. when I when I have a question, I come here and I ask the staff, you know, I'm like, "Hey, I don't know what's going on here, you know, explain this to me, whatever." And I get the information, but it's like they watch these TV shows of whatever's going on, Payton Place or I know I'm I'm aging myself there. Uh 90210, how things are supposed to be. Yeah. You know, and they think that's how things work. That's not how government works. You just can't do that. And just like Chris says, I agree with Chris. Now, I'm not really an artsy person, but I've known for years that that area and postal area was designated an art zone.

How come, you know, only a few of us know that? So, why would we need to go through this thing again? Like I said, I'm not saying, you know, I want you guys to deliberate and, you know, take your time and do what you guys got to do, but there's a lot of redundancy we're doing here. That's right. You know, staff, I know you guys are doing a great job, but there's a lot of redundancy. Either you guys aren't doing your homework with the history of Marino Valley and what has been passed and what has not been passed because it doesn't make sense that we already have an art zone and now we're bringing it up for a zone over here and a zone over there. And you guys know how I feel. Anything that comes in front of this dis should go to Edgemont first.

That's right, Mayor. That concludes all the public testimony for this item.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Uh we'll bring it back to the deis and not to belabor the conversation, but um I I think you know we should just go ahead and give direction to staff to allow you know for example the arts commission uh to uh discuss this, see what recommendations they have, what things they what ideas they come up with. I've heard a lot of amazing ideas here. Thank you for bringing up the Edgemont the postal um uh area arts district. That's something that I was not familiar with. That was probably done before my time on the council, but certainly something that we should look at as well. So, I I don't want to again belabor it because I think we should allow the arts commission, allow the community, allow the business owners to give their input and then bring back some kind of recommendation to the council as opposed to us, you know, putting it all together. Um, because the community knows best. So, uh, that would be my recommendation. And, uh, council member Dogado,

I have a clarifying question is like, okay, so what do we do? give you give staff the direction to go reach out to the arts commission to do some research on what this would look like and that that's all we're doing tonight is voting on that then it comes back to presentation. We could start there. I think that's a good start unless staff has other ideas. Well, yeah, we're we're basically going to act on any motion that you guys um motion second and vote for. Um, so however you would like to proceed,

but if there's already an an art designated area, you're doing double the work. Why don't staff just tell us what it says, the what the actual original intent was, where it's located at instead of having them draw up a whole another a whole another report on it. Because if it's in the archives already, there's no use in reinventing the wheel. Let's just use what's there. That's what I mean as far as that's the direction we're going to give them tonight is, hey, go find go forth and conquer.

And also, I'm just I'm just going to be very honest. We have had a lot of conversations about one, we've been slowing up murals. So, now we're going to look for an art designated area for an art zone, but technically we do have an art zone. It's located off of postal. We just need to work through some of the details of it. Um, but also at some point we have continually talked to the community about the different ways of of doing art and how we're trying to change it in art. And I feel like putting another art zone in would just be because that's basically what a lot of these murals are. They're art zones. Putting another one in would just be redundancy on that. Also, we still have a museum that's coming. So, there are things that we're doing within the arts. don't just need to continue to find other ways to draw murals when we that was the whole point of a lot of the murals that we've done around here and we've done them and placed them throughout the city. So I I think we at some point it's it just needs to stop being redundant. I would prefer if staff just go back, check the archives, see exactly what it said on postal, what it all entailed, what the actual conversations were about, and see if there's something that we can move forward from there, and maybe that's something they can present at the arts commission, but I don't think it's something that we need to have staff drop up a whole report on.

Yes, I completely agree. I think it should go to arts, the arts. Um, they could look at what's already established. If they think it's not good, well then, you know, they're recommending body. They could bring it back. But it's in district one and just like I said, I wouldn't approve. Does that limit the other districts from getting art? Right now, we already have an art diff. We already have proposals. We've put murals throughout the city. We, you know, this I I don't think we need to specify a zone. We could say we've already said in putting our money our diff funds into this arts you know they say you know tell me what you believe in you know show me your budget and that I'll tell you what you really believe in. So we did put budget towards arts but to limit it to a zone even though it's in district one which means I would like to see it come come but limiting it just to one district I just don't think it's fair for the whole city. Arts should be for everybody. It should be in any place that you can find it. Find residents should be able to bring proposals. Um businesses, you know, they should go through the process that we have now because obviously there is a process. There's arts throughout the city, but it shouldn't be limited to a zone even if the zone is D1.

So, like I said earlier, I just want to clarify because I feel like we're getting caught up in this geographic approach to a zone um which is not at all what what was the intention. Uh it's not about confining it to a particular district at all. I think um we just can look next door to the city of Riverside where they have really strong public private partnerships with businesses. So far uh correct me if I'm wrong here, but all of our murals and it also doesn't have to be limited to murals. I know uh Council Member Bernard mentioned murals, but there's many other forms of art um uh outside of just murals. And I think where I'm going with this is for us to go beyond just limiting our public art initiatives to public property. You look at the city of Riverside where they're able to work with local businesses to also do art improvements in their on their businesses on their properties. That's something that we don't do yet. Why don't we do that? Why don't we open that opportunity? Um or if we don't if we already allow for it, we need to do a better job of advertising it and reaching out to local businesses to make sure that they're aware of this. Um, but I agree that we should direct staff to bring back more information on this arts district that uh sounds like it's already established on postal and also u send this to the arts commission for them to deliberate and bring back a recommendation if they desire.

So, do we need any action to do that? Isn't that what they can do as the arts council commission? I'm sorry. They're all commissioned. So, yeah, I think what we would do is um parks and community services. one, we're going to um search the archives, take a look at the uh previous arts district that was uh approved or at least discussed um and see in what form that is in and then uh parks and community services would take it to um the arts commission.

Thank I I just want to add and also if if they could analyze why why it kind of you know hasn't uh flowered, you know, into something else that arts district. Um, I'm curious to see why and you know what what we need to do to to make it thrive, make it, you know, throughout the city. So, um, I I think it was it was an idea of of that prior arts commission or or prior council um to be along postal, but it's it's definitely it it needs some um some investment there and and some improvement. So, definitely. So, with all that being said, I I would make a motion to direct staff to uh do their research on this u ex any existing arts zones or similar items that are in place already uh in the city of Mareno Valley. And so bring that back to us um at a at a future date at a upcoming meeting within the next month or two and also um take those findings to the arts commission for them to deliberate and come up with a recommendation back to the council.

I'll make an alternative motion just to let the the arts commission handle this and then they can present it to city council and then we can make a decision based on what they do. But um that's their job. That's literally they would love to do this and save staff time. And then once the arts commission comes back with a recommendation saying we discovered dot dot dot about Postal Avenue District 1 or whatever it is, then we decide, okay, that's enough um information to go off of to then direct staff to bring it back to us to make a final decision on because this is going to cost money.

Yeah. Money that is sitting in the art diff unused. We can we can allocate it for our children's programs and for students etc. But I agree with you. Let the arts commission do their job. I agree with then they bring it back to us. Motion for them to do their job just like we did with the um Marina Valley Hall of Fame, you know, sent it to the EHPC and then they come back with a recommendation. So that would that So I'll take my motion off the table. So yours would become the motion on the floor. Steve, would that be accurate to Okay. withdrew his motion which is on the Yeah. So, I'll second Delgado's motion. Thank you. And we can call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council member Bernard, yes. Council member Delgado, yes. Council member Baka Santa Cruz, no. Mayor Prom Gonzalez, yes. And Mayor Cabrera, yes. Thank you. Thank you. That passes four yeses. Next up is K5, explore establishing a veterans commission. and we'll turn it over to our city manager.

Thank you, uh, mayor, council members. Uh, at last, uh, council meeting on January 20th, uh, there was a motion and a second to establish a veterans commission similar to the arts commission, parks commission, etc. Uh, which was a motion by the mayor, seconded by council member Dougado, and approved uh, with a 50-0 vote. Um, so at this point, I'm leaving it to you to determine uh, where we go from here. Thank you. We'll bring it back to the Dis for any council questions of staff.

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any public speakers? We do. Mayor, the first speaker is IE and former.

All right, bring you guys home. All right, real quick. Um, I think this is a good idea. Of course, it makes sense, but I want to read you guys this. March Air Reserve Base in California serves as a critical strategic hub for the US Air Force, specifically focusing on bolstering global reach capabilities in to support Indo-Pacific command in the face of of pacing threats from China. As the largest reserve base in the Air Force, its strategic programs revolve around rapid mobility, aerial refueling, and serving as an intermediate staging base for rapid deployment into the Pacific theater. That means they have to build that base up to be ready for future conflict. It's very strategic. The only air mobility base that we have in Southern California is March Air Reserve Base. We have everything we need over there in regards to drones and planes and aerial refueling. Uh Travis comes down and all these Marines are out here. We got to get into the fight. But just like we just saw here with that arts commission because we don't have people and and and no shame to you guys that never served in the military, whatever, but you guys don't know all the acronyms and how to do this and how to do that. And I think it would help you guys when you guys do serve on the JPA and do these things that you have a board with experience with stars and stripes on their on their shoulders that can tell you what's really going on over there. And it not only just that, think about all of the veterans in this area that don't know where to go to apply for their benefits. They don't know, you know, transportation. They don't know what they're entitled to. They don't they don't know where to start. And we're not just talking about older guys like myself. We're talking about these younger uh veterans that are coming back from the these desert wars. So to me, this is a no-brainer to go ahead and get

this rolling. This is going to be I think the probably the third strongest uh commission that you're going to have because this board is not taking money from the city. It's going to bring money to the city. And I don't know how you guys are going to establish it or you know what things. Now, I would say, you know, a stipen in there would be nice. The planning commission is way overdue for a raise on their stipen over there. But if a commission is bringing the city money and going with the businesses and have these connections, remember these guys, they know Boeing, they know Rathon, these generals that are out here, these staff NCOs's, I mean, this is a a money maker here. But strategically planning for the future, as Edu, you you would know, the military doesn't sit and wait for something to happen. It's already been planned and this is the strategic area to where the Marines down in Camp Pendleton, wherever you want to, 29 Palms, they're going to the fight and the next fight is expected to be in China.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares.

I'm tired. Louise Palmar's community activist. Wow, this is scary. When I hear China, that that that says a lot already. Really? Really? Really? Because they're the ones gonna Yeah. Anyway, I agree with everything Sadique said. I didn't hear the very first sentence that came out of his mouth, but I agree with him. This is long time, you know, waiting. This is great. We got to do this. We got to do this. It's going to help our veterans a whole lot. A whole lot. You know, right now they are cutting our resources, our veterans, their resources. All these cuts. They're cutting. They're cutting from our veterans. I know that. And it's sad. You know, the VA hospitals, they're making cuts. It's sad. And maybe tonight you can close the meeting in that young man that got killed in Minnesota. Um, uh, golly, my name my I've heard his name all week long. I just thinking about it, it just Alex party or something like that. I mean, I get real emotional when it comes to the veterans. My grandson was a veteran. Um, uncles are veterans. Um, my father was a veteran. And we should never deprive our veterans of nothing. Nothing. Like, it's so sad that we're barely going to have this happen. Thank you, Sadique, for bringing it to the front. Thank you so much. and let's give them everything they need because they're the ones that keep us. They're the ones that keep us free. They're the ones that go fight the fight. My grandkids, if we break out in a World War II, my grandsons are going. I got 15 of them. 15 of them and some granddaughters. It scares me. We should all be praying for our nation because of what's going on in our nation all the way from the top. We should really I mean, it gets like I said, it it gets me emotional. What good are the big paychecks? What

good is all of that? We can't take it to hell with us. You know, all the Congress are screwing us over. They're cowards. We got students marching out of schools all across the nation marching out of school. Little middle schoolers that are age 11 to 13 marching out of school because of what's going on in our community. And where in the hell are our churches really, really, really? Where are they? They got more courage, these little middle schoolers to go out and march because they come home to where's my mom or where's my dad. They're coming home to that. This is reality. This is, you know, Matthew 24, we're living right in that the whole chapter. So, it's Yeah, it's very emotional to me. So, like I said, where is the Congress? They checked out. All they care about is the dollars. That's what I mean. They can't take the dollars to hell with them. They're there to enrich themselves. What about we the people that they supposed to be serving. So everybody gets a big paycheck, but what about us? Us. We're the little mayor. That concludes all the public testimony for this item.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you to all of our public speakers as well. I'll bring it back to the deis for council deliberation. Um, I'm all for a veterans commission. I'm not sure what's being requested when the public is talking is part is a veterans commission. So, I think we have a different understanding about what a commission does. So they usually typically the way our commissions are set up is um they they meet they bring forth ideas and they give recommendations to the council or advises. So, I guess I'm trying to figure out one um and the reason I'm trying to get this figured out is because I don't want the commission started and what we have as an idea of what a commission is based on the policy is very different from what the public is thinking it's going to be. So, I think that's my concern about it. I thought it would be more along the lines of how our um how our seniors and our arts commissions are, which is like programming where we could host things like, you know, a a benefits fair where we can say like we can call the congressman's office and they can sit down and be like, "Okay, so we want to come in and do a veterans affair, a veterans affairs, like this is how you're going to get here. This is how your resources should look." but not what's actively happening on base because I'm just not I like I just don't think we should be dipping into actively what's happening. They they have their own security concerns and I don't think they want the city of Marino Valley dipping that hard into what's happening on the base.

Not sure. Okay. Well, you know, you don't have to agree with it. I'm just saying I don't think what what's being expected of what a commission is versus what it really is is the same thing. Like I just need to know what we think they're going to advise on. And I'm I'm probably going to look guidance towards the mayor. I know you have something to say, council member Baka Santa Cruz, because this was the mayor's motion, so maybe he can help kind of guide it. Thank you, Mayor Proton. Yeah. Or council member Baka Santa Cruz.

Um yeah, I I think that this commission would be more like bringing programming like the way the library does set programming. we already do a lot um like at the Burke um at this you know throughout the city veteran issues. So I I envision that it would that's what I'm thinking and that's where why I voted to bring this forward would be of course there'd be resources mentorship because the other I assume that we would have only veterans eligible to be on this commission. So um but maybe we're looking at non veterans. So I think this is all something that we need to flesh out. Um, are the representatives going to be veterans or are um are we going to ask for a liazison maybe from the congressman's office to be part of this? I just I have no idea where this is going. But the idea of having resources and a commission to assist our veterans being that we're a military city is a good idea. But yes, I am also a little confused on what their work plan would be and their topics. I'm I'm I'm thinking about as as our my peers are speaking as to how the the the veteran community, right, can assist the city in in having more more services for veterans or how some of our, you know, our decision-m our policies can can can benefit the the veteran community or, you know, and and and have that relationship with with with the base, right? or and maybe look to other other jurisdictions that that are military cities that that have a a veterans board or commission. I'm I'm just thinking out loud.

I I think that we're all on the same page, but I I think that what this is, look, we have a lot of stuff going on in the city of Marino Valley. We have a lot we have a lot of programs. Um we have a lot of of kid things going on, youth things going on with Jeremy and and the parks and wreck. I think what the the thing is is we meet and this is just what what I'm thinking that we meet and we hear from them what they need their needs from the base. Maybe even guys from the base come down and and say hey this we are not even close to participating in this stuff the things that the events that are going in Marine Valley because of dot dot dot please include us and some something as simple as a flyer going out to the base. Hey, come visit Elgito or or some event that's going down. The the fatherdaughter dance or the father-daughter dance that just occurred. Include them. That maybe that's just it. Include the veterans in some of the stuff that we already have going on. It's not going to cost us a lot of money. It's just including them. Then they come in and say, "Hey, you know what would be really cool is if we had these veteran kids uh we have some sponsors for them to play T-ball here because their parents are deployed and they can't afford it or something like that." And I think that's what the idea is just to include them in some of the the current things that are going on in the Marino Valley and not so much um changing, you know, h how we do business, but include them and kind of give kind of a a back and forth hearing from them what their needs are. and then we bring it back to council and say, "Hey, we would like to um sponsor or you know do do this uh you know advocation or advocate for the the the parents that are deployed and their children or something like that. So I think there is a way to kind of develop this but yes it's I mean it was just thrown on us as far as a commission. So how is this going to look and I think that's that's a start as we gather these folks and say

what what are your needs and then kind of use the city and us to help them.

Yeah. And I agree with everything that has been said already. Um you I obviously want to make sure that we're respecting the boundaries of our authority as well. I'm sure legal can appine on on this probably at the next meeting, but I'm sure there's limits to, you know, what any commissioners can do. But yeah, what I had in mind was kind of at a minimum similar to all of our other commissions uh so that they can, you know, we can fill those seats, have folks that uh specialize in that that have the full life experience of serving in the military and can be those go-to experts uh for any veterans, any military personnel that live in our city and um are looking to get plugged in, more involved, need assistance, need advice, need guidance, etc. I think that would be very helpful. So, um I think there's consensus here to give staff direction to put this together and formulate it um and and come back with a recommendation to the council.

Um mayor, uh council members, so that's why I did include policy 1.10. So 1.1 uh 1.10 is the uh city council advisory boards and commissions and it specifies the attend establishment purpose and scope. Um, so if you recall when the homeless ad hoc subcommittee was created, it would be something very similar to that where there would be a uh maybe two council members uh that in the motion and the approval uh can work with staff to develop um basically the intent, the establishment and the purpose and the scope uh to bring back to council very similar like we did the ad um the the homeless ad hoc subcommittee. Although that was a subcommittee with two council leaison, this would be creating basically just the the uh framework for this particular commission. Um and it would be very similar to how previous commissions were developed.

Very good. I I I'll make that motion. Do we need to select the two council leazison tonight or will we do that when this comes back?

Uh it's up to you. I mean quite frankly instead in expedience of time and and not to bring back another staff report in which we don't have any type of scope or or um what we want to establish uh the uh commission as um I would suggest that if you uh can get a motion and a second and approval, let's just do it now. Um figure out who would like to uh be the two that would work with staff. I'll second that motion and volunteer to be one of them.

Yeah. So, I I'll I'll make that motion. According to what the city manager said, uh, Council Member Dogado seconds and he's volunteering to serve as one of the leaison. We still need one more of us to volunteer. I'll be the I'll be the second one. Okay, perfect. Seeing no further deliberation, let's go ahead and call for the vote. Thank you, Mayor Council Member Bernard. Yes. Council member Delgado. Yes. Council member Baka Santa Cruz. Yes. Mayor Prom Gonzalez. Yes. And Mayor Cabera. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. That passes with five yeses. And that brings us to item L, Regional Commission reports. We do have two. Uh, Council Member Bernard will be providing a report for the Riverside Transit Agency.

Thank you, Mayor. Tonight I'm providing updates from the Riverside Transit Agency board of directors meeting held on January 22nd. The board authorized to award agreement number C25136F um to Nicosisha Consulting International LLC for the replacement of four compressed um CNG dispensers. In the amount not to exceed $62,000, the board approved revisions to the agency's procurement policies and procedures manual. Additionally, the board adopted revisions to the agency's policy for transferring title surplus vehicles. The next meeting is scheduled to be held on February 26. And that concludes uh my report on the last RTA board of directors meeting.

Thank you, Council Member Bernard. and I'll be providing a report on the last regional conservation authority meeting on February 2nd. So at that meeting um several reports were received and filed and staff also provided an update on Governor Nuome's release budget proposal for fiscal year 2627 totaling approximately $348.9 billion. The budget proposal projects a shortfall of $2.9 billion this fiscal year increasing to more than $22 billion in fiscal year 2728. The proposal does not appear to cut funding levels for programs of interest or California Department of Fish and Wildlife staffing. Additionally, the budget proposal would invest $199 $199 million in Proposition 4 from 2024 climate and natural resources bond funds in biodiversity and nature-based solutions to climate change. 123 million of which would be directed to conservation, restoration, and habitat connectivity programs administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board. If enacted, this $123 million would fund WCB programs that RCA may compete for, land acquisition funding to advance the MSHCP reserve goals. And lastly, the board also received a presentation on the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan Reserve Design. The MSHCP reserve system consists of various components identified as proposed cores, extensions of existing cores, linkages, constrained linkages, and non-ontiguous habitat blocks. Uh the next RCA meeting is scheduled for March 2nd, 2026. That'll conclude our regional reports, which brings us to the employee association reports. We do not have one, which brings us to the famous city manager report.

Thank you, uh, mayor, uh, council members. Uh, in light of the late hour, I will forgo any comments tonight. Thank you. That's why it's famous. Now to letter O, closing comments. Uh, we'll go to District 4.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, as we're coming to a close, um, I would like to say that we had our official Daddy Daughter dance that happened on January 30th. It was well attended with over 200 participants. It sold out two weeks prior. So, it was a very good and established event and they are hoping um to do it again. Not hoping, they will do it again. They may add in a mother son event to rival it. But they said it was nice. They said the dads were out there in matching outfits with their little girls. They had 360 cameras and professional photos available. Um so that was a very good event there. Um, also, uh, Mayor Prom and myself had a conversation regarding the golf course, um, where residents were able to come out and we answered some questions regarding the golf course. Um, I will let Mayor Pro Tim give some updates on the golf course because I want to steal his thunder. So, I'll let him give some updates on the golf course and what happened there. Um, also, I want to say happy Black History Month. Um, it's a great time um for just celebration. I I always tell people like black history. Um, well, I'll I'll quote Malcolm Jamal Warner. Slavery is is is uh white history, but how we survived is what we would determine would be black history. So, I just want to congratulate everybody. Welcome to a very fun and exciting month. There will be a number of events happening. Um, the city of Riverside will be hosting their annual um, Black History Day parade. Please come out there. Please go. I'd love to go and take my kids. They usually have uh, drill teams and dance teams that come from all over the place and it's well attended. Um, I mean, some of the people already spoke about it. I could talk about this government. It's one of my favorite

things to do. Um, but I I won't because I think now that we see who was murdered for the last two rounds, um, and the words of of Malcolm X, America, the chickens have come home to roost. And so now that the chickens have come home to roost, I question what you think you're going to be able to do about that. So, um, while this president continues to enrich himself at over couple hundred billion dollars since he's been in office, he's exposing the grift on levels that you've never seen. Um, think about that when your neighbors are talking to you all about ICE. That's why I said I will never at the sake of my neighbors humanity say that it is okay for the things that are happening because once you start letting these lines get crossed, the lines are already blurred. Um, I'm I'm glad that Liam was able to go home, but there are countless other children that are there whose pictures weren't broadcast everywhere as a poster child, so they're still sitting in ICE, detention, and custody. Um, and I hope at some point America really looks itself in the mirror. And don't tell me this is not what you voted for. At least admit it. I know there are there are people here who at least admit like, "Nah, this is what I voted for." Because I like to see who you are. I don't want you to lie to me about who you are. Um, so with that I close. Happy Black History Month. If you don't know anything about uh Black History, please go do some research. There are plenty of Black History heroes out there. Um, including all the inventions that you guys see from the elevator to uh open heart surgery uh to just something as simple as a traffic light. So there are tons of things that we are famous for. So and with that I close.

Can you give us the date on the um parade? We'll come back to that, but in the meantime, we'll go to District 2.

Yes. Uh, happy Black History Month as well and and great job from the city to honor um our resident that came in today um to accept her proclamation for Black History Month. So, kudos to that. Um, I went to uh I attended Wake Up Moval and meet or met the new RCCD deputy chancellor and provost, Dr. Lacy Rivera. Um, that's her last name, Lacy Rivera. So, uh, she was really, really, uh, excited to be here. We're excited to have her to be a partner in our school district here. Um, I also went to, um, I attended the, uh, Cal City's public safety subcommittee meeting. um where they talked about uh public safety throughout the state and how the um governor's budget is going to affect uh public safety um and the nearly $3 billion deficit, nearly $3 billion deficit. Um and they did mention um in the next uh fiscal year it's going to be $22 billion and how that's going to affect public safety. It's not going to affect us down here because we're not uh state funded, but um it could eventually uh with that amount of deficit. Um in addition to that, we talked about uh creating a ebike um public safety subcommittee out of the subcommittee. Um and I and I uh I volunteered to to join it. Uh seven of us volunteered. They need three. So, they're going to let us know in the next couple weeks um who was selected for that and then start talking about safety on the ebikes because um when these ebikes started coming out uh there was no rules. So, these guys are riding on the sidewalks going 30 35 miles an hour opposite direction of traffic. Um and there's no rules. So, I suspect within the next six to eight months, um there's going to be some

rules on on ebikes and how to uh manage and enforce um the ebike world. It kind of it hit us uh pretty pretty quick um this whole ebike thing. So, um other than that, uh have a great week. Keep smiling, Donovan. Uh it's all past my bedtime, too, and Jeremy's. Um, be kind to one another. I know, uh, I say it every single meeting, but it's true. If you can, if you could put a smile on someone's face, uh, between now and the next meeting, do so. Uh, have a great week. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, or did we find the date?

It is not February 8th. It is actually Valentine's Day. So, if you have not planned anything for your honey, you can take her on down to the parade and you can say this was planned the entire time from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in downtown Riverside off of Maine. Thank you so much. You heard it here first. Now, we'll go to district 1.

Um I did attend um the same Wake Up Move as um Council Member Delgado and um we welcomed Dr. um Lacy Rivera to the college which is going to be an even more important role as um the chancellor has announced his retirement. So um we look forward to um all that Rena Valley College is bringing especially that bachelor's program. So that's exciting. Um I also um met with the boy um scouting scouting America um to participate in their elected official activity. We welcomed the scouts here to the chamber so that they could learn firsthand about local government civic leadership and the role the electeds play in serving the community. So I found that very um fun to do with the boys. Um I also attended the utilities commission and um utilities and um also the town hall meeting that was held by Congressman Takano. Um that was very well attended. Our residents are concerned about ICE. They're concerned for their neighbors. Um most of the residents that showed up that night said, "I'm not worried about myself. I'm worried about my neighbors. I'm worried about the kids that walk past my house on their way to school." So, um it's it's really um nice to see that those of us who can go out and speak up are doing so because um we really got to think about those who aren't going out um because it's a scary time to be in the country right now. Um Riverside keeps reporting um ICE kidnappings and um we continue to send any kind of concerns that we get from our residents to city. Uh we check with PD and um the stance continues that

our police is not helping ICE, but please keep um aware, notify people um and try to um be in community right now especially. And finally, I attended the um Chamber of Commerce installation this past weekend at the March Air Museum. And um that was always really nice to see the um citizen of the year. Our citizen of the year is actually the what is it? The lieutenant commander

base commander base commander. And um that is the first time in the hundred and or how many years of history of March that the commander is our citizen of the year. So um it was very nice to recognize the base and all their contributions to the city because like I keep saying we're a military town. Um that concludes my comments for tonight. Thanks. Thank you. Next up we will go to district three.

Thank you mayor. I I won't I'll make it brief. It's it's 10:17. I know everyone is tired. Uh similar things uh attended wake up mobile um as um May Mayor Prom. It was a great time to uh commensurate there with the chamber with with my peers with council member and and council member um Baka Santa Cruz and also with all our our chamber uh friends and and their network and it was it was a great time uh to be there. Um, also, uh, as as, uh, Council Member Bernard said, uh, we were at the community engagement there at Murray Valley College to discuss the, um, Ranchel Golf Course and, uh, just just informing the community of of what uh, that there's a potential, right, a potential uh, a buyer of the golf course component. and their um the the buyer is is someone that's wellversed in in in golf and in PGA type uh uh courses. So u they were excited about that part and also answering questions uh regarding city services. We had the whole staff there and thank you for staff that that attended. It was it was well attended from the staff side and also we had residents there and thank you for Mina Valley College to for for making that available. So, it was it was a good it was a good community engagement event and answered other questions. Let's see. U also was at the chamber dinner uh u with the installation dinner. The uh Mr. Bailey was, you know, his his speech, his um was was great. He he really it was it was moving and it made you think on on why we serve, right? So it it was it was important and um again just want to thank everyone who came out here

today um especially on the on on the on the warehousing um uh agenda item. Um thanking all the envir environmental just justice groups and and the union brothers and sisters for coming out. I know it's a complicated issue and um thank you. It's um that and my closing comments. Thank you to my colleagues. Uh long but successful meeting uh tonight. So appreciate you guys. I'll keep my comments very short. Um the only thing to add is that I had the opportunity to attend the winter meeting for the US Conference of Mayors uh last week. That's why I was unable to attend the chamber installation and the daddy daughter dance, which I would have loved to be at. So again, shout out to Jeremy and Parks for that innovative idea. Um, I had a couple people DM me on Instagram, can you get me in? It's sold out. Um, I'm like, hey, that's not up to me. But, uh, to hear that it's sold out, that was, you know, you want to see that. So, uh, hats off to you guys. But, US Conference of Mayors, you know, it was powerful just to be in DC in 10°ree weather. It was freezing, but to be there with a bipartisan group of mayors from all over the country and it was refreshing to see, although we do not agree on the specifics of what the solution looks like to how we move forward as a country, it was refreshing to see that at least we've finally have come to a consensus uh between Republican mayors, Democrat mayors, independent mayors that what is currently coming out of DC is not working. It's tearing our country apart. Finally. Finally, we've come to that consensus. Not from the left, but from the right. It took this long for folks to really start opening their eyes um and and speaking up. Some people a little too too little too late. Marjorie Taylor Green and Thun and all these guys that they're on their way out now. They find

the courage to finally speak up. Where were you when we needed you the most? So anyway, um the US Conference of Mayors, we were able to um secure the grant funding for the NoK Kid Hungry. Thank you to staff for making that happen. We'll be able to feed more students, more families here in the city of Marino Valley in collaboration with both school districts, uh which will be good. And there were a few other things that we were able to learn about like semi-professional teams, how we leverage and capitalize on those opportunities, uh and other things like the Olympics that are coming up. That's why it's so important to be in those rooms because you are in front of panels that have subject matter experts uh professionals in those industries and those fields that are meeting on a regular basis with people that are involved with the planning of the Olympics and the World Cup and all these other things. Um and and I was just you know so glad to be able to bring back that information and hopefully that will bear fruit for the future of our city. So with that um that'll conclude my comments for this evening. Next item P, future agenda items. I'll look to my colleagues. I I have I I I have one. Uh I want to place on on a future agenda item to discuss if hopefully I can phrase it right. If the city um our contracts and our investments, do we deal with companies that fund ICE or federal law enforcement?

Thank you. I'll second that motion. Madam clerk, please call for the vote. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Bernard. Yes. As opposed to a motion and it being brought back to council, could that just be something of a staff in a one-way um uh conversation, an email to council? I I just want to throw that out there. as uh as uh the city attorney mentioned something about a one-way um conversation and email to you guys. Um we could

yeah I could definitely take a look uh at all of the various uh investment vehicles that are part of our portfolio and be able to without providing you the portfolio uh advise that uh we are not invested uh in any of those types of uh companies or or vehicles or industries or but Uh if if you would indulge me in in letting me just be able to email that to you as opposed to a actual motion for an item back. Ryan, then that's fine. As long as it includes investments, contracts, vehicles that were not, you know, involved with ICE enforcement or

Yep. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. So with that, we'll move into adjournment at 10:24 p.m. Everyone have a good and safe night.