City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to tonight's special presentations. Tonight we begin by recognizing Juneteenth, a day that carries both the weight of history and the strength of generations who continued forward. On June 19th, 19, oh, 19, sorry. Well, technically, 100 years later, it's kind of the same thing. That's when we got the Voting Rights Act. June 19th of 1865, United States troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed more than 250,000 enslaved African Americans that they were free. Although President Abraham Lincoln had declared their freedom more than two years earlier, many enslaved people in Texas did not learn of their freedom until that day. Juneteenth is a reminder that freedom was not simply declared. It had to be carried, protected, and lived into by generations of people who endured, rebuilt, and contributed deeply to this country. Here in Moreno Valley, we honor that legacy with honesty, dignity, and respect. Tonight, we are proud to recognize the community partners who have helped carry this recognition forward through their work in planning this Friday's Juneteenth celebration. And at this time, I'd like to invite the members of our Juneteenth committee up front. And I'm going to name them off as they're coming up. Rachel J. Taylor of Rachel J. Taylor, LLC. James Harris, event host and community organizer, also our emcee at, if not all of the events, 99.9% of them. Dr. Hillard, who is also our library commissioner. Val Stewart, president of the Moreno Valley Southern California Black Chamber of Commerce, who was unable to join us this evening. So please join me in a round of applause for all of them. So to the members of the Juneteenth committee, I and the city council and mayor would like to thank you for your work and commitment to bringing our community together in recognition of Juneteenth. And on behalf of the mayor and city council, it is my honor to present this proclamation recognizing June 19th, 2026 as Juneteenth, a day of observance in the city of Merino Valley.

Who am I presenting this one to? You'll take it?

I told you. OK. So I would like to invite any members of the Juneteenth committee to share remarks and invite the community to this Friday's celebration, including, because I don't know if they told you all this. Did they tell you guys in the talk? No, they didn't? He's not going to talk. It's one of y'all. They were not prepared, were they? They don't know how this works. Okay, I'm just playing. If you guys aren't gonna, he can do it. Please let everybody know what's happening and invite the community out.

I'm used to having a mic in my hand. First of all, I just want to, on behalf of the committee, I just wanna thank the city of Monroe Valley for acknowledging Juneteenth and this proclamation because it not only has cultural relevance, it has historic significance. Because you may not realize this, but this is the first time in America in that June 1865 that all Americans were free. That's why it's such a historical event that we all can rally around and all come. I want to thank the committee members. They were just simply awesome. But also, I would like to thank the staff, the recreational staff. Claudia, Esmeralda, Liz, Jonah Lee did a phenomenal job helping us with trying to implement some of the recommendations that we had. And I'm really excited about this year, but even more excited about next year, because we had so many ideas, we couldn't get them all on the plate. SO I JUST WANT TO SAY IN CONCLUSION THAT I'M TRULY EXCITED. HOPEFULLY EVERYBODY, I SEE EVERYBODY OUT HERE ON FRIDAY AT 6 O'CLOCK, BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO BE COOLER, RIGHT? 6 O'CLOCK TO 10. AND WE'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME AND CELEBRATE THIS FEDERAL HOLIDAY. SO ONCE AGAIN, I WANT TO JUST THANK THE MAYOR AND THE COUNCIL AND MY COMMUNITY MEMBERS AND SHELINDA, MS. PINARD, AND JUST THANK EVERYONE FOR BEING HERE TODAY. THANK YOU.

This time, I'm going to invite all council and mayor to come up and take a photo. Did you get it, Claudia? Okay, come on. Yeah, one more, one more. If anybody else needs to come up now. All right, and with that, that concludes our, not our ceremony, because I was getting ready to say that. That concludes our first presentation. Our next recognition is for July as Parks and Recreation Month, which will be presented by Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez.

Thank you, Council Member Bernard. And we'll now continue with our second presentation and a very important one for our city. We recognize July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month and acknowledge Moreno Valley Parks and Community Services Department. Parks and Recreation support public health, quality of life, and community connection. Through youth sports, senior services, trails, aquatics, events, and open spaces, this department serves residents of all ages. At this time, I would like to invite Jeremy Bubnik, Director of Parks and Community Services, and his amazing team to join us on stage. Please welcome the Parks team. Come on over, come on over. Under Jeremy's leadership, the department continues to expand programs, maintain city facilities, and provide safe and accessible spaces for the community. This work supports recreation, wellness, youth development, nutrition services, environmental stewardship, and emergency preparedness. Without parks, we couldn't do what we do, and they are the front-facing department for all our residents and our community members. So without parks, we wouldn't be what we are here in Myrna Valley. So Director Bubnick, if you would like to share a few remarks.

Thank you. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the City Council, and members of the community, thank you for this proclamation recognizing Parks and Recreation Month. On behalf of our Parks and Community Services Department, I am honored to accept this recognition. The mission of the Parks and Community Services Department is to enhance the quality of life in Moreno Valley by providing safe, welcoming parks, trails, and open spaces, and by offering enriching recreational opportunities through high quality facilities, programs, services, and activities for our residents. I hear all the time that there's nothing to do in Moreno Valley. Come see us. We'll find something for you. Trust me. There's lots to do. You just got to come see us. I want to thank my staff for their dedication to this mission and their commitment to public service. I'm inspired by each of you each and every day. I also want to thank the City Council for their continued support of Parks and Community Services and thank our residents for allowing us and the privilege to serve you all. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeremy. And in recognition of the important role parks and recreation play in the health, safety, and quality of life of our community, it is our honor to present this proclamation recognizing July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month in the city of Marina Valley. Now it's time for the group photo.

Three, two, and one.

This concludes our second special presentation. Our next and final recognition is Volunteer of the Year, presented by Mayor Cabrera.

Well, good afternoon, everyone. Buenas tardes. Thank you for joining us here for today's special presentations for our third and final special presentation for today. It's actually a surprise. So this person has no idea that they're being recognized. They're probably sitting in the audience thinking it's just another regular day at work and maybe wondering, why do I have to be here? Why did my boss send me an email? I can be at home getting ready to watch the Argentina game, but it's a special surprise. I hope nobody gave you the heads up about this and you didn't read too far between the lines, but for our third and final special presentation today, we are recognizing the 2025-2026 Volunteer of the Year, and that title goes to Bonnie Alexander. And if you'd like to go ahead and make your way up to the microphone, we definitely want to recognize you, Bonnie, if you'd like to join us up here so that we can share a little bit more about some of the work that you have done. So as Bonnie makes her way up here, You know, her and the team that she works with, right? Emergency operations, Diana, it's good to see you. Bonnie, congratulations. Good to see you. And the rest of the team here as well. We can't say enough about the work that you do. And we see you everywhere at all of our city events from, you know, 4th of July to Juneteenth, you name it. You are always there and we cannot express our gratitude enough. Just a little bit more about Bonnie's service here in the community. Over the past year alone, Bonnie has dedicated more than 240 volunteer hours to serving our community. Yeah, that deserves a round of applause right there. Her work has supported hands-only CPR training, emergency management training, event planning, logistics coordination, and the launch of the City's Volunteer Information Management System. As a team lead, Bonnie is known for stepping up, helping where needed, and encouraging others to serve as well. That kind of commitment matters so much. It helps residents feel prepared, it ensures that they are as prepared as possible, it strengthens our emergency response efforts, and it makes Moreno Valley a safer and more connected community as a result. Bonnie, your service truly reflects the best of what Moreno Valley has to offer. With appreciation for your dedication, leadership, and impact, we are proud to recognize you as Moreno Valley's 2526 Volunteer of the Year. If we could give Bonnie another big hand please. And we do have the proclamation here that I'll hand over in just a second, but I would like to ask if you would like to share a few words. It's up to you. All right.

I just want to let everybody know that I have enjoyed working with our group. Like I tell everybody that we try and recruit in that we're just like one big happy family. We all get along together. We work together really well. And we have fun doing it. And I want to thank everybody. Thank you.

Bonnie is absolutely amazing, and I know we have Diana here in case if you wanted to share anything else, expound on what has already been said. The floor is yours.

I will. I'll just say, Bonnie, you are the epitome of service to community. Without our volunteers and our eight citywide programs, We couldn't do a lot of the things that we do. Our parks department, our animals, all of the different services that we offer through our volunteer program are all as equally important, but none of them are possible without people like Bonnie, who was just here earlier today serving an event. And so just to Bonnie, thank you. for your 240-plus hours. Thank you for your spirit and the drive that you bring that makes all of our programs thrive. On behalf of Brian Mohan, our city manager, right, who he always says, how many volunteers do you have, right? So we thank you, and to Diana Serrano, I have to thank you. You are driving this program citywide forward, and we are better because of both of you, so thank you.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, as my colleagues from the council join us here for a nice group photo, we will officially present this proclamation recognizing Bonnie Alexander as a Volunteer of the Year for 2025-2026. Congratulations.

One more.

Let's give Bonnie another big round of applause and the entire team there for the work that they do day in and day out. They are leading by example and push all of us to strive to be better public servants as well. And so with that that officially conclude our special presentations for this afternoon and we will be back in approximately 10 minutes to start our regular council meeting. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the joint meeting of the City Council of the City of Moreno Valley. The City Council receives a separate stipend from the Community Services District if any CSD business is conducted at this meeting. I now call the meeting to order on June 16th at 6.03 p.m. Would any of my colleagues like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this afternoon? Councilmember Delgado will lead us in the pledge. Please remain standing after that for the invocation given this afternoon by Pastor Mark Oriana from Victory Outreach Church.

Please join me by placing your right hand over your heart and stand if you can. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to

Good evening, Pastor. Welcome.

Good evening. I want to thank all of you guys and city directors for inviting me to do this. I really take it as a privilege to pray over a city for every decision that's made. You know, the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 29, 7, to seek peace and prosperity for our city. So with that being said, why don't we go ahead and pray? Lord, we come together tonight with gratitude for our city, for all our residents here in Moval, and the opportunity to be able to serve them. I pray that you give every decision maker tonight clarity and humility as they consider complex issues. Give these leaders discernment and courage in every decision they make. We pray for our city to be that city that stands on the hill reflecting your goodness, your love, your compassion. Throughout the years, our city has always been a place of fresh beginnings for many, and we pray that it continues to be so. I pray that you continue to bless our city with favor, unity, wisdom, and peace. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.

Thank you once again, Pastor Mark Orellana from Victory Outreach Church for the invocation this afternoon. Item D is the land acknowledgement. And at this time, we wish to acknowledge that we are on the unceded lands of the Cahuilla, the Paiocahuicham, or Luiseno, who as original inhabitants and now as sovereign tribal nations have continued to live and thrive upon these lands since time immemorial. Item E, roll call. Madam Clerk, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Here. Council Member Delgado?

Here, ma'am.

Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez?

Here.

And Mayor Cabrera?

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you. Item F, motions to excuse. We are all present. So we will move to Item G, staff introductions, please.

Sonia Gomez, Senior Deputy City Clerk.

Paul Bradvica, Management Analyst. Stephen Quintanilla, City Attorney. Brian Millahan, City Manager.

Angel Galache, Deputy City Manager. Felicia London, Chief Financial Officer, City Treasurer.

Sean Kelleher, Assistant City Manager, Development. Sergio Madera, Planning Official, Community Development Department.

Kyle Worsinski, Economic Development Director.

Melissa Walker, Director of Public Works.

Jeremy Bubnick, Director of Parks and Community Services. Robert Cardenas, Human Resources Director.

Jesse Park, fire chief.

Sarah Mack, chief of police.

Thank you very much. Staff, it's always a pleasure to be here in the chamber to conduct the city's business. Next is item H, approval of order of the agenda. And I'll look to my colleagues to see if there are any changes requested. If not, we can entertain a motion and a second to approve the order of the agenda. So moved.

I second.

Motion and a second made. Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next is item I, public comments on matters that are not on the agenda. And a friendly reminder that the city now offers language translation services through a free app called Wordly. The app automatically translates a variety of languages into English and vice versa. To use this service, please scan the QR code found at the speaker's sign-up table over by the double doors. For the visually impaired, please use your earphones or earbuds to listen to the verbal translation. If you do not have any such listening devices, please let the city clerk know, and we will gladly let you borrow some for this meeting. La ciudad ahora ofrece servicios de traducción de idiomas a través de una aplicación gratuita llamada Wordly. Si gustan usar este servicio, por favor avísele a la secretaria y entregue una tarjeta para hablar. Para usar la traducción, escanee el código QR que está en la mesa junto a las puertas. Before we move on to the public comments, I'd like 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. Madam Clerk, are there any requests to comment on any items that are not on the agenda?

We do, Mayor. We have four public comments. The first public comment is Fred Buñuelos, followed by Deanna Hargreaves, followed by Christopher Baca.

Good evening. Hello, everyone. One of the things I was going to talk about, Councilmember Bernard told me I was concerned about the Planning Commission meeting if it was going to be televised, and I heard that it was, so that's good. Well, it's in a new location, so I didn't know if the whole team was going to go over. The other thing is there's three meetings tonight. How am I supposed to be at all of them? You know, I have concerns with Val Verde School Board, Moreno Valley Unified School Board, four meetings. Okay, four. So that's why I'm kind of asking about if they're going to be televised. I think we have a new Senate bill, SB 707, where it's going to change things. I'm curious if the school boards are going into that too. It might be better to... Stay at home, you don't see me here, and I get on four different devices and get in line to queue to talk to all these meetings. You know, if that works, it works. So we'll see how that comes. Juneteenth, you talked about it earlier. I'm glad they're still doing this in our city. Looking forward to it. I think the hours are later at 6 o'clock, so it'll be a little bit cooler. I'm enjoying that. And yeah, I'm just if you can let me know how we're doing on that. When do we start being able to call in from home or zoom or however that's going to work. I'd like to see that shared with instructions on how to do it. That way it goes smoother when it does happen. Alright, that's it for now. Thanks.

Thank you. Before we call the next speaker, just briefly, I believe we're going to start the virtual option when we come back from summer recess, which would be our next council meeting in August. Mr. City Manager?

That is correct, Mayor and Council. August 18th will be the first meeting back from summer recess. SB 707 implementation date is July 1st. So our first meeting back will be with the virtual meeting. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. The next speaker is Deanna Hargreaves.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I am speaking tonight regarding PEN25-0136, the proposed 24-hour McDonald's project at the Pigeon Pass Road in Ironwood Avenue. On May 28th, after a lengthy public hearing, the Planning Commission voted unanimously 4-0 to deny the project. That hearing drew extraordinary public participation. More than 40 residents spoke. Two rooms were filled with members of the public and numerous written comments and submitted into the record. Just one week later, on June 4th, McDonald's filed an appeal of the planning commission's decision. The applicant also requested that consideration of the appeal be delayed pending the outcome of appellate case E088143. Today, the project remains unresolved. No city council hearing has been scheduled, and residents who invested significant time participating in this process are left waiting for information regarding what comes next. Tonight, I simply want the public record to reflect the community interest in this project has not disappeared. The Planning Commission's decision was not a close vote. It was unanimous denial following extensive public testimony, review of evidence, and deliberation by the Commission. More than 40 residents took the time to appear before the Commission. Many waited for hours for the opportunity to speak. They did so because they believed their voices would be heard and because they believed their participation mattered. A project that generated this level of public participation that resulted in a unanimous 4-0 denial should not quietly disappear between hearings. Residents deserve clarity regarding where the process stands, what the next steps will be, and when decisions affecting their neighborhood may ultimately be made. The public is still paying attention. The community remains engaged. And the residents who filled these rooms on May 28 have not gone away. We are still here. We're still paying attention. And we will continue participating in this process until it's complete. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you all very much. The next speaker is Christopher Baca.

Good afternoon again. Again, my comments are my own. They don't reflect the views of anybody else but myself. Here, I'm looking at the City of Moreno Valley organizational chart. On the top is the citizens. Below that, city council. HOUSING AUTHORITIES, SECTOR AGENCY, COMMUNITY SERVICE DISTRICTS, LIBRARY TRUSTEES AND SO FORTH ALL BY THE CITY COUNCIL. BELOW THAT IS THE BOARDS AND COUNCIL, CITY ATTORNEY, CITY MANAGER, CITY CLERK AND COMMISSIONS. BELOW THAT IS CITY MANAGER AND IT GOES DOWN THE CHART. SO THEREFORE THE CITIZEN'S VOICE SHOULD BE THE MOST VALID AND SHOULD BE RESPECTED. On August 12, 2025, Brian Mohan sent a letter of agreement concerning lead agency status of Rancho Belago Estates. This was from Juan Perez. And even though it says here, the county doesn't usually do this, but Brian Mohan created an MOU REQUESTING THAT THEY TAKE LEAD CHARGE OF ANNEXATION OF THE GILLMAN PROJECT FOR HIGHLAND FAIR VIEW, BENZIVI ESTATES OR WHATEVER THE HELL HE'S CALLING IT AT THIS TIME WITH ALL HIS FAKE LLCs AND CORPORATIONS AND THAT'S BENZIVI WITH THE WLC AND TOWN CENTER. I'VE REPEATEDLY ASKED FOR CLARIFICATION HOW THIS MOU CAME ABOUT, HOW IT WAS WRITTEN AND WHO APPROVED IT. HE BASICALLY GAVE TAXPAYER MONEY, INCENTIVES AND SO FORTH TO THIS DEVELOPER. THIS IS A CITY, BRIAN MOHAN, ALONG WITH, I FORGOT WHAT HIS NAME IS, SEAN KELLERHER AND this other woman i forgot what her name is angela something or another but regardless uh i've made several requests as far as a timeline as far as how this occurred how did an mou written by uh the city manager who is below the city council below the uh uh REQUESTS FOR PUBLIC INFORMATION FROM THE PUBLIC, AND HE REFUSES TO GIVE ANY INFORMATION ON THAT. WE WERE ABLE TO GET THE ACTUAL MOU THROUGH OTHER SOURCES, AND AFTER WE HAD IT, THEN HE WENT AHEAD AND RELEASED IT, BUT HE REFUSED TO RELEASE IT. HE REFUSES TO GIVE US INFORMATION AS FAR AS HOW THIS MOU BECAME, HOW THIS MOU CAME ABOUT. HE WAS NOT GIVEN ANY DIRECTION FROM THE CITY CONSUL. THAT IS, YOU KNOW, HE'S bisecting the organizational chart as far as his authority. He doesn't have the authority to do such a thing. Neither do the other staff members below him. Why do they do this stuff? I've reportedly asked about this and it falls on deaf ears. Right now, all four.

The next speaker is Nevaeh.

hey council i'm back and i'm here this evening to discuss my concerns on the flock ai safety cameras that are popping up all around the city if anybody here doesn't know what flock is it is a surveillance company that claims to only be license plate readers they state that with these license plate readers they could drop the crime rate down to zero percent in cities this is a slippery slope especially in a city where the population is mostly people of color Because in order to drop the crime rate that low, you must predict crime before it happens. And how do you do that? You start profiling people that only look suspicious. And although this company claims to be only license plate readers, they have microphones and they track you wherever you go. And they scan bumper stickers. They scan dents in your car. They create a whole database on people. And that's just insane. I mean, this company is co-owned by a man that's been mentioned over 2,000 times in the Epstein files, and that's just disgusting. And if that's not crazy enough, our own mayor was employed by this company for six months before he put it on his Form 700, which, why didn't you let us know that? It's weird. And I mean, you're spending our taxpayer dollars, how much? Two million on your civil rights lawsuit and then another three million to give this company to surveillance your citizens of the city you're supposed to be taking care of. That's wild. Where could we have spent this five million dollars to actually benefit our community? I mean, and... I just, there's so many other things that we could be funding. And not to mention that these cameras cost $3,000, just the camera, and that's not even considering the labor, the installment, the maintenance. I mean, we are wasting money here instead of actually improving our city. We can have arts programs for children. We could have tutoring free. tutoring for kids that are struggling academically. It's just a ridiculous waste of money. And I'm tired of seeing it over and over again. And this isn't new. Canceling your contract with Flock is not new. I mean, there were so many cities in San Diego County recently that just canceled their contracts and decided not to waste money anymore. I mean, we need to start thinking in terms of how we can better our community for our youth, not only for ourselves. It's ridiculous. And I hope you listen. Thanks.

The next two speakers is Shatam Odom, followed by Nikita Wilson.

Good evening mayor, council members, and members of the community. My name is Shetam Odom. My husband and I chose Moreno Valley as the place to raise our family and build our lives. We made the decision intentionally because we believe in the community and its future. I want to begin by acknowledging something important. Over the years, I have personally witnessed Mayor Cabrera support our community. As an educator, I've seen him show up for students. When I've served as an assistant principal, he came and spoke to our students before state testing to encourage them. I have also seen his support of minority-owned businesses and community events throughout Moreno Valley. Because of those experiences, I know the desire to see Moreno Valley succeed is genuine. That's why I'm here tonight. Recently, I attended a planning commission meeting regarding a proposed storage facility. While I understand that every project must be evaluated individually, I was left with a larger concern. What is the long-term vision for Moreno Valley? For years, residents have heard discussions about making Moreno Valley a place where families want to live, work, and thrive. Yet many of the projects that continue to come before the city are warehouses, storage facilities, car washes, and fast food establishments. As residents, we are trying to understand how these projects move us closer to the vision that has been shared with us. Moreno Valley already carries a significant environmental burden. We are known around the country because of the logistics and warehousing. We have experienced tremendous growth in that industry. At the same time, many families are concerned about traffic, air quality, and health concerns. My own family, my three children are asthmatic. They live here. The people who live here experience every decision collectively. We don't experience projects one at a time. We experience the cumulative impact of warehouses, traffic, air quality, challenges, storage facilities, and commercial development over decades. When a proposed project creates only a handful of jobs, I hope we are also asking what we are giving up in exchange. Land is our most valuable resource. Once it's developed, we can't go back and do anything about it. As an educator, I spend my career preparing children for the future. As a resident, I'm asking for us to prepare our city for the future with the same intentionality. Just miles away, right over there, Loma Linda is known as the Blue Zone. I'm not saying we're trying to be Loma Linda, but I'm saying, gosh, can we have a future towards that? Residents are looking for evidence that their health, quality of life, and long-term interests are being given equal consideration alongside economic development.

Thank you.

The next three speakers are Nikita Wilson, followed by Roy Blackard, followed by Luis Palomares.

WELL, GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE, COMMUNITY, EVERYONE ON A DIET, CITY STAFF. MY NAME IS NIKITA WILSON, AND MY COMMENTS ARE OF MY OWN. RECENTLY, I WAS ABLE TO ATTEND THE HIGHLAND FAIR VIEW CHAMBER EVENT ON JUNE 11TH. THE PRIMARY CHALLENGES FACING AQUABELLA INCLUDES LEADERSHIP ALIGNMENT, CITY PROCESSES, INFRASTRUCTURE COMPLETION, MARKET UNCERTAINTY. I'M NOT HERE TO SAY WHETHER THAT'S FACTUAL OR NOT. I'M JUST STATING WHAT WAS STATED. I REVIEWED SOME OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS AND WHAT I CALL THE BRAIN, LASER FITCH, STAFF REPORT 24-0617, DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT PIN 23-0119, RELATED AQUA BELLA APPROVALS. and what was shown is approximately 15 000 residential units mixed use town center parks and recreation amenities public art turnkey 24 000 square feet senior center trying to still figure out if it's the senior center that just was expanded but still looking into that so my question is one Since approvals in 2024, what Aquabella applications, plans, permits, or enforcement documents have been submitted to the city? Two, what milestone triggers constructions of Promise Senior Center? Did I say that right? Let me restate that. What milestone triggers construction of the Promise Senior Center? Three, what enforcement mechanisms exist for the public benefit identified in the development agreement? And lastly, what Aquabella community benefits has been completed, started, or formally submitted since approval? Approvals are only the beginning. I'll also be sending a public records request for all of these questions, thank you.

The next public speaker is Roy Bleckard.

Congratulations, Mayor, in the city of Marina Valley. We are in the top 10, not just Riverside County, not California, but in the nation, in the top 10 of top 10. areas of carrying credit card debt for our citizens you have systematically in eight years since you've been up there on that dais ran the city into the ground on top of that you recommended in 2024 that we increase the sales tax you know who hurt who who that hurts the most those of low income, because more of their income goes to pay sales taxes than anything else. You systematically run them into the ground. The decisions made of that, you know that slogan? X and U are bad for you. You got the crime syndicate over there with their structural deficit. You can't perform. Versus promises made where promises kept. Despite record, record. Amounts of money coming into the treasuries of the syndicate, of this city, of the county of Riverside, of the state of California. And we can't get the job done. Time and time again. I get three words for you. Prove me wrong. This is more serious than a heart attack. This should be your number one. You swore an oath to defend the Constitution and not only the United States with California. More importantly, you asked the people of this city to provide us with the opportunity, the once opportunity we had when we were leading in all these education, economic demographics, and everything else. And now we're at the bottom. 40 years later. When do we get the cooperation from the city to the ones running the nuts and bolts of this to fix it? When do you get that phone call saying, hey, Man, it looks like some of you were right about X, Y, and Z, and we weren't. Maybe we should listen. Maybe you should listen. Do like Tom Owings did, Mr. Mayor. Put me in with all these guys and see who is right. We'll have a different outcome.

The last two public comments are Luis Palomares followed by Bob Palomares.

Wow, we're in bad shape here. We're in bad shape here. And it's this council, some of these council members that made us help get here, helped get us here. Our mayor, the $2 million mayor here, has had us in one turmoil after another. you know, the Brown Act violation, the censoring twice, the $2 million lawsuit, et cetera, et cetera, sending good projects away, like the one over there that was gonna be a gas station slash store over there by the Kaiser Hospital. It would've been perfect there, but you voted it out. You don't want that here. That would've been a good project there. So how long are we gonna be in the desert? Another 40 years? I mean, Egypt, let my people go now. But hey, it gots to do with who's running the city here, our mayor, and then his sidekick here, Gonzalez, that don't even, say anything he just votes what he votes the way the mayor votes so i mean i am so sick of coming here the money the money you asked us for a penny okay i said i don't want to pay this penny but yet 30 million dollars a year you get of our penny and i don't care about the penny i care about what you're going to do with the penny you're giving yourselves your pay raises your your uh you know, pensions, your stipends, you're traveling all over the moon, Mr. Mayor. You go all over like a vacation on us, the taxpayers here. What are you bringing us back? That's all I wanna know. What do you come back with, any bright ideas? Mayor, County Supervisor Exxon Gutierrez used to bring something always back when he went out there, but you don't bring anything back. You know why? Because you're too busy on a campaign trail. Always campaigning. That's why you're all over the map at every school, everywhere you're there. because you're just campaigning and campaigning and campaigning. God, how long are you gonna campaign for? You know, here you go again. So, I mean, all the money we spend here in this community, this city, and we still can't get it right. All the way from every county, the city, the school board, they're in a real train wreck over there. They have spent our money so needlessly. They can't give to the special needs students or the kids that are really needy, because they're too busy worrying about their pensions over there, Sammy Luna over there, one of the board members you supported, not a pension, but Sammy Luna, Clark, Brandy Clark, and then also that no good superintendent over here, he don't even have a clue what's going on. Our kids are, they don't, right now as I speak, OVER THERE, THEY WANTED TO DO SEED MONEY, YOU WANTED TO DO SEED MONEY HERE, $5 MILLION OF OUR MONEY, AND THEY SUGGESTED THEY'RE GONNA DO IT OVER THERE. WE SAID NO HERE, BUT THEY WANTED TO DO IT, AND WE DON'T EVEN GOT MONEY TO PAY THE BILL OVER THERE. THEY'RE RIGHT NOW PULLING ALL THEIR HAIR TO FIND OUT HOW THEY'RE GONNA FIX THE MESS OVER THERE. I HOPE IT GOES INTO RECEIVERSHIP. because they have misused our money, and our special needs students don't get what they want, and there's a whole bunch of parents over there right now about a student that hasn't even had an IEP or anything since February, and got hurt, so now they're over there at that meeting trying to make noise to see if they could get on deaf ears.

The last public comment is Bob Palomares. He's not here, he's on the freeway.

Is Mr. Palomares here? Just want to make sure we double check. It looks like he's not here. So if there are no further speakers, Madam Clerk, we'll go ahead and bring it back up to the dais. And that'll conclude non-agenda public comment. Thank you to all of our public speakers. And I see some new faces. So just as a refresher, during public comment, we typically do not go back and forth. So I know there's questions coming up from speakers. Staff always follows up with those after the council meeting. It's just not our practice to answer questions during public comments. So it's not that we don't want to answer the questions. It's just not what we ever do. So just a quick refresher there for everybody in case you're new. So our next item is item J, the joint consent calendars. And to just make sure we read this into the record, staff has advised that for item J16, Staff has informed the council that the agreement contains a few typos that staff will correct if approved to reflect 135 units and the correct tract number as well. Before I open the consent calendar for public comment, I will ask my fellow council members if there are any items that they wish to remove from the consent calendar for separate action.

I would like to remove J24 for separate action.

Item J-24 for separate action. Are there any further requests from the council?

And J-10.

Item J-10. Is this also for separate action? Yeah.

I'll comment.

Okay.

Are there any further requests?

I'll do J-9.

J-9 also for separate action. Okay, so that's J24, J10, J9. We'll take those first in order, and then we'll go back to the rest of the consent calendar. And so item J24, we'll go ahead and move to that. I guess in order as they were called here. So J24 is an award in agreement for professional consulting services for professional consultant architectural and engineering design services for the Moreno Valley Public Safety Campus. And we'll turn it over to staff to get us started with a staff report.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Members. The item before you this evening is to authorize an agreement for professional consultant services to Steinberg Heart in the amount of $4,319,611 to provide architectural and engineering design services for the Marina Valley Public Safety Campus. The voter-approved Measure U was passed in 2024, which allowed the City to expand the City Council adopted budget for fiscal year 25-26, 26-27. With the additional Measure U funding, the City is moving forward with the public safety campus project designed to meet current and future service demands. The project will include a joint use fire and police station on the east end of the city, along with any necessary public improvements to support the project. That concludes my report. I would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director Walker. We'll bring it back up to the dais for council questions of staff.

I don't have any.

OK, seeing no questions at this time, we will move into public comment.

Sorry, Mayor. Just one thing. Just want to mention that the Recommendation 1 has included some contingency language, and so this particular contract would be contingent upon the successful closing of the escrow of the real property located on the northwest corner of Redlands and Cactus, in which was disclosed at the last meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go ahead and move into public comment. Madam Clerk, do we have any requests to speak on J24?

We do, Mayor. We have two public comments. The first one is Rebecca Perez, followed by Roy Bleckert.

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Rebecca Perez. I guess I more just had like a question because I know when we had gone over this several meetings ago, the land was like in a covenant with Highland Fairview or something. But I heard him say that it was going through escrow. So I just wanted to follow up with the fact that is the land going to be the city's land before we start building on it?

DIRECTOR HERSEY- Thank you. Great question. We'll make sure to answer that when we come back after public comment. DIRECTOR RIVERA- OK. Thank you. DIRECTOR HERSEY- Any other questions. DIRECTOR RIVERA- No.

Thank you.

DIRECTOR HERSEY- OK. Thank you.

The next speaker is Roy Bleckard.

So we're going to spend $5 million and throw it down the toilet again. You have no plan, despite, and we'll get into this, despite record numbers and twice the budget that we've had on public safety and money coming in, and you talk the people into, measure you $30 million. And you have no plan. The last time we heard, you're going to pass a bond to build the freaking buildings. That's going to cost us more. Now we're buying property. In 2024, when you got you passed and you said, oh, you promised the people, oh, you're going to get a public safety campus and all this stuff. Tell me you didn't lie because you put that little part in any government use. which means you can screw the people and enrich yourselves. And that's what you do at every meeting, at every time, with practically every government agency, and that's why we're in the predicaments we are. The numbers don't lie. That is, the great Mark Twain said, figures never lie, but liars figure. And we are tired of getting lied to, deceived. Oh, yeah, didn't you see the fine print on page 97 of the contract that said exactly what you're doing. You're doing this to 200,000 people in Marina Valley. We paid. We have paid utility taxes since 96 when we were promised, oh, it's going to take care of public safety. And every time we fought it, we had the same false narratives that came out from everybody that's sitting up there or was sitting up there. You were upholding the tradition. A mayor snidely whiplash any burger but knee burger. Dickie stew the flick in the dick. Tell me. And again, I got those three words. Prove me wrong. Sit beside me and I will give you every opportunity to make your case just like every one of you. The fact that you won't do it or haven't done it, that's an agreement that came from Dickie Stu, Mr. Attorney. If you're aware of it and you don't refute it, you are agreeing. So from this point forward, every one of you is agreeing with everything I'm saying until you have guts enough to stand beside me and make your case because you're killing our future and it's absolutely criminal.

The next speaker is Christopher Baca.

good afternoon again so my questions again were regarding the previous attempt at this safety campus that was to be built on the aquabella land so my question is does this CORNER HAVE ANY CONNECTION WITH ANY ENTITIES RELATED TO THE WORLD LOGISTIC CENTER, BENZIVI, HIGHLAND FAIRVIEW AND SO FORTH? THAT'S MY QUESTION. GOING BACK, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED PREVIOUSLY WHERE I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW MR. MOHAN made an agreement with Highland Fairview regarding the Aquabella project and putting this campus on his ground, giving him the campus so that he can use it as though he is building something on Aquabella and just stagnate the project and saying that he built that safety campus and the campus belonging to him. So therefore, the question, like the previous speaker, ask IS THIS TIED TO BENZIVI? IS THIS TIED TO ANY OF THE OTHER PROJECTS? THIS ONE PARTICULARLY IS CLOSE TO THE WLC. I'M NOT SURE IF IT'S WITHIN THE WLC, BUT IT IS CONNECTED SOMEHOW. SO I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE'S ANY CONNECTION TO THAT. I'VE ALSO ASKED HOW IT CAME ABOUT THAT OUR CITY MANAGER MOHAN CAME ABOUT IN GIVING BENZIVI BUILDING THE PREVIOUS ATTEMPT AT BUILDING THE PUBLIC SAFETY CAMPUS ON THE ALCOBELA DEVELOPMENT, HOW THAT CAME ABOUT. THAT WAS ALSO MY QUESTION THAT I NEVER GET ANSWERED THAT FALLS UPON DEATH EARS. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? WHAT IS THE CONNECTION WITH MOHAN AND HIGHLAND FAIR VIEW WITH HIM GIVING HIM PUBLIC FUNDS, GIFT OF PUBLIC FUNDS TO A DEVELOPER WHO IS OBVIOUSLY corrupt, who is obviously here to do nothing but drain the taxpayer of their money for his benefit. Thank you.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares.

Luis Palomares, community activist. Wow, it's been a long time. We should get this damn show on the road. What are we waiting for? You know, if we can't do it one way, let's find another way to do it. Let's think outside of the box. As far as, you know, our $30 million a year we're getting, you know, from the penny tax, why don't we just do it that way? Whatever it takes, we gotta do it. Maybe they're taking from that money, I don't know. I'm not sure, but yeah, it's time. It's time to stop putting the city on hold. We need a police station out there. We need a fire station out there. As we speak, there's a fire going on right there by the 60 through the canyon over there. Timoteo Canyon, thank you firemen. Thank you, my hat's off to you. Say a prayer for them. They need our prayers because they put themselves on the line every day for us in all kinds of different ways. Drownings, heart attacks, everything, et cetera, et cetera. So let's just get this show on the road. How many more times is this? I hope it's the last time it's gonna come here and make it happen because it's been needed a long time, you know? Clean it up, get all the kinks out, whatever you got to do, just make it happen. It's time. Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes all public comments on item number 24 of the consent calendar.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you to all of our public speakers as well. Before we bring it back up to the dais, I know there was a couple questions that were asked by members of the public, so I'll just turn it over to staff or city manager to answer some of those. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Potem. Councilmembers, I hopefully will be able to answer all four of the concerns. So very similar to Ms. Paula Morris' comments of let's get this done. We are bringing this back. This hopefully potentially is the last particular item of this. The land issues. So The Public Safety Campus Covenant was previously negotiated by my predecessor, City Manager Mike Lee, before my arrival in this particular position. So I do not have any negotiations related to HF as one of the speakers spoke about. It is related to that particular area that we were discussing beforehand. Due to the problems with that, that was discussed at a previous meeting, we had decided that we would provide an alternate site to council as an opportunity or possibility. There was roughly some vacant land that was abutting roughly seven and a half acres that we own on the north east corner of Redlands Boulevard and Cactus. And so As part of that, we went before council in closed session to identify negotiations for parameters with Pasco Pacifica. It has no relations to the other developer that was mentioned by certain speakers, and council directed city staff to move forward with purchase and sale agreement and entering into escrow for roughly 35 plus acres in which escrow is currently open and we're going through due diligence now. And that should close sometime in July on a 30-day escrow. With that, that will then provide the roughly 15 acres that is needed for the public safety campus. And in order to identify what that will cost us, we need an architecture design firm to come in and design it based on the needs assessment for public safety, which not only includes fire protection, law enforcement, but there very well could be an animal services, animal control perspective, as well as looking at other things such as certain emergency shelters for large animals and so forth. So forth is one of the things that we're missing, especially if the fire is up in the northeast corner, very similar to the shore fire. It's hard to use equine center that we have up there for our shelter. So all of those things are part of the design specs that we're looking at for approval tonight. So the land issue has nothing to do with the prior location or prior developer. Do you want to mention something about Measure M? Sorry, Measure U. Sorry, Measure M was our cannabis tax. Measure U. So as part of the ordinance, there is an audit. potential or review that could be brought forward by any resident. As such, staff created a new fund for Measure U and so that is completely separate than the general fund and we're able to identify all of the revenues coming in and any expenditures going out and so predicated on the Measure U plan that council approved in May of 2025 as part of the One of those items was the public safety campus. And so that's why we're looking at that. The other items such as the 18 deputies, the four patrols from fire, the 24 fire paramedics, all of those are going through amendments with the respective contracts. but we're needing this public safety campus in order to ensure that we have space for all of those individuals. Hopefully that has answered all of the questions that were brought up, but I am available for any other questions you may have.

Members of the public, let's keep it respectful. Everybody had their three minutes to speak on this item. I think, Mr. Baca, I've already asked you once, please, let's keep it respectful, please. Mr. Baca, I don't want to have to ask you again, please. Let us continue to conduct the city's business here. I've already asked you multiple times. Just need to give you one warning, but I'm being very generous here. Let's just lead by example, please. So let's go ahead and bring it back up to the dais or any of my colleagues have any questions any comments I Don't have questions.

I just have a comment on This past week, you know, it's summer kids are swimming or or the pools are open this past weekend one of my friends Friend so they called me and said that four-year-old nearly drowned so he was in a pool dad got him out fast enough Paramedics got on scene, transported him, he's fine. But it was the amount of time that they were able to resuscitate and perform CPR, get him out of the pool, et cetera, that saved his life. The public safety campus on the east end To me, a city this size is required. And it's eventually going to happen, because the city has grown to 214,000 people. We're the second largest city in Riverside County. Riverside County is huge and we are the second largest city in Riverside County next to Riverside. So to say that the fire stations that are throughout the city and the police station right here next to City Hall is sufficient in a city this size and growing when the Aquabella gets built out and SOME OF THE OTHER HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS GET BUILT OUT, IT'S ONLY GOING TO BRING MORE RESIDENTS TO OUR CITY AND ESPECIALLY ON THE EAST END. SO THIS IS NOT JUST SOMETHING THAT WE WOULD LIKE OR LIKE TO HAVE. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT IS exactly what it is and it's public safety it's for you guys it's for the safety of our public and it's it's the city's responsibility to protect the public and this is just one way of doing it in addition to police services fire services the training location that it's going to bring to that area is is invaluable for our firefighters and police And then the storage area for the, Brian calls it equine, I call it horses, or even donkeys that we can store. I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, Chief, that they were really close to evacuating the northeast end today due to the shore fire. If they have horses, where are they going to go? We could utilize that area for The storage for horses when I remember in Temecula when they had the huge fire down there They were using local ranchers ranches to store their horses. So this is a very important decision for sure it is your money that we are working with but I think it's an investment for our city investment for our public safety throughout this large city that we have so I just just I'm thankful that I'm still here in this time to be part of this so thank you thank you we'll go to Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez I just have a few on

I have a few comments on this item. So this discussion started, what, two months ago, two and a half months ago. And it was necessary because the previous, how it was structured, how it was modeled, didn't produce the community benefit that this 35-acre piece of property that has site control that will give the city, as Council Member Delgado mentioned, the necessary services and community benefit that will benefit different not not only from the public safety perspective from but also from different uh public uses that that the city needs especially as as we're growing and developing so um it's definitely a better a better model or better alternative that was previously presented with the previous developer and with um highland fairview so i just want to make that comment that we're we're in a better position now than we were Two months ago. I know it takes time. I know difficult questions were asked but but we're here now.

Thank you Thank you, are there any other comments questions councilmember Bernard yes, and as it was pointed out I'll just kind of Co-sign what my colleagues are saying up here as it was pointed out. This is what the measure you funds were for This is what we are using the measure you funds to do is to get this this public safety campus completed so I Especially with the fire that we had, we absolutely do understand and see the need for the expansion and it being in that area. It's the only area that does not have a fire station. And so if something were to happen over there, we have to get all the trucks over to that area. And the same when we're talking about even hiring another CBAT unit, which is one of our mental health units that goes out or anything else. We've run out of room at this facility. And in order for us to continue to expand and provide the services, we've got to be able to do these things. And this is not something that I think we've populated in the last year. This is something as the city has grown Other other councils have known is a necessity. It was going to have to happen at some point. And they are correct. One of the biggest issues we do have also is if there is an evacuation and we do have the larger the larger animals, the horses and things. We can't house them here. And council member Delgado is is being very generous when he says, you know, we could expand to that. But not only just that, our animal shelter here when it reaches capacity. and that does happen it reaches capacity and so to be able to be able to move them back and forth or to be able to say okay you can't not at this one but maybe we have more space down there i think that is something else we're thinking about so it's not just the public safety as in fire and police but we're thinking of all the other services that we can use it to expand for um and so i i very much um I'm in support of this. I just knew that there were questions out there. That's why I had it. One of the main reasons I had it pulled is I know there were questions. As people came up, they wanted to know if this was part of the covenant. Was it separate? Did this have anything to do with that? And so I just wanted to make sure that it was clear and how it was being paid for and just make sure that everyone had an understanding of how this project was coming about and where it was going to land.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Magasana-Cruz.

I think a lot of what I wanted to say has been covered, but this came about from the last meeting where concerns were raised and we absolutely heard your concerns. We went into closed session. We took care of it, but we continued on the same path, which is to keep our residents safe. We all knock on doors. It's campaign season. A lot of us may be out there right now. We know public safety is the number one concern. We want to be safe in our city. We leave the city and we see how the roads and the crime is outside of our city and we're dedicated to keeping the crime rates low and our response time fast. That's one of the number one concerns that we hear when we knock on doors. So doing it the way you want, making sure that we own the land, making sure that we're addressing all of the concerns that we're looking and considering that we have residents of different very diverse residents. We have people who have large animals and we hear you when you come to the council and that was also taken into consideration. A lot of us have been considered when we looked at this so I'm also in support and I'm very happy that it's come back and that all of your concerns have been taken into account and the diversity of our residents has also been taken into account by the location as well as what services they may need. So everything else I wanted to say I think has been covered by my colleagues, so thank you.

Yeah, thank you to all of my colleagues. And I agree with pretty express my support for this as well. I think all of us supported from the beginning. The question was the location and the property and who owned it and covenants, et cetera. So, you know, a few meetings ago that was pulled off of consent that allowed all of us the opportunity, not just the council and staff, but also members of the public. to come out and express your concerns, ask your questions, and make sure that you're aware that this practice is happening, and it is much needed. Look forward to the day when it's gonna get built. It's gonna take a few years at a minimum. These projects take a long time, but this is step one. Yeah, if we could do it tomorrow, that would be great, but things just take time. Even if it's private development, it takes years. In this case, it's a public project, but much needed. Look forward to seeing it get built, For years and years, these discussions have been had in different ways, shapes, and forms with our fire department, with Chief Park, Chief Mack, and their predecessors that have served in those capacities as well, to public works and planning and everyone else that plays a role in emergency operations centers, etc. So really glad that we've gotten to this point and Fully support this and look forward to moving to the next step. So with that, if there are no further questions or comments, I'll make a motion to approve staff's recommendations.

I'll second.

There's a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado? Yes. Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Can we take just a five-minute recess? A five-minute recess and we'll be right back. I'm just going to take a brief break. We'll be back in just a few minutes. good evening welcome back to our regular council meeting we will pick up where we left off we will move into the second item that was pulled from consent for separate action that is item j10 the fiscal year 25 26 third quarter operating and cip budget and so we will go ahead and turn it over to staff to get us started with a staff report good evening mayor mayor protib and council members this is a quarterly routine item

The FY25-26 and 26-27 operating budget was approved by Council in May of 2025, and the CIP budget was approved by Council in June of 2025. During this two-year period, the City Council is updated of the City's financial condition through the process of quarterly budget reviews. This ongoing process ensures a form to review expenditures and revenue changes from the estimates made in the budget document. Any significant changes in the projected revenues or unanticipated expenditures that may occur will be presented to the City Council. Third quarter provides a summary of the first nine months of the year but is presented to Council in June so that staff has time to make any adjustments necessary through

needed through the end of the fiscal year this concludes my report and i am available for any questions you may have thank you very much felicia we will bring it back to the dais for any council questions of staff okay seeing no questions at this time madam clerk do we have any public comment we do mayor the first public speaker is roy blackard

When I went to school at the syndicate, J-10 came before J-24. Here's how a proper report of the budget overview should be rolled. Adopted budget in 21, and I'm using round numbers, about $300 million. Today, $71 million over half a billion in the city of Marina Valley. The General Slush Fund, $110 in 2010. 2,110 million.

Today, over 200 million.

Sales tax revenue, 60 million. MeasureU provided you 30, as we've said. Here's the kicker, and that's almost twice as much. 21, police and fire budget, $64 million. Go look at your number today, 128 million, twice as much. So how much did police and fire boots on the ground go up? Maybe 3% or 4% if we're lucky. We can't provide for the ones that were promised under Measure U because we don't have a public safety campus. We don't have the facilities. We were promised it. And then, oh, we got it here. We're going to pay more than that. We said it in 96. We said it in every one of them. You pass that and you could have passed measure you as a special tax only dedicated to public safety. Like we've said, we would have supported the utility tax and everything else if that was done. No, you shoved it right up the rear end of the 200,000 residents of Marina Valley just with your last vote. We pay for this four times over and we get, we pay three times as much for half the service. Prove me wrong, your numbers. Have you ever heard of artificial intelligence? In January 2025, you should have presented, you should have put together a report, and you should have put together a plan of how we're going to have a public safety campus, how it's going to be built, how quickly it's going to be built, because we've given you unprecedented amounts of money to build it. It's not in this budget because you are incapable of doing it and you just proved it. Prove me wrong. I'm for public safety, support police and fire, and we need it, but we need competent people to put it in and not screw us over because that is why we're in the top 10 in credit card debt and we're going downhill and you guys are doing it.

Prove me wrong. The next public speaker is Luis Palomares.

Luis Palomares, community activist. What the hell's really going on here? I seem to believe Roy more than the room here. Do any of us really know? Because I don't know. I'm just taking your word for it and the staff's word for it. And then Roy says something else, and he does all the numbers. So something's wrong in this picture, like Measure M, like he was saying. Hey, safety, police, they said do it, do it, we did it. Now they got the 30 million. Here we go. So when are we gonna get this right, or are we all wrong? Maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I'm gonna still come up here and say something because It don't seem right to me. It doesn't add up, and year after year, it's not just this council, it's the council before, and the council before, we're going back to the 90s, that a lot of this should have been done a long time ago, or we wouldn't be here right now paying quadruple for the same thing we needed way back then in the 90s. They promised self-measure and money, but wow. Hey, they did whatever they wanted with that money, and then now they got this new big fund. So come on, get it right, because I'm not just confused. The people in the room are confused. The people that are out there watching are confused, and maybe even some of the council's confused. Maybe Gonzales might be confused, you know, because he goes by what the mayor says, so who knows? If the mayor gave him the, you know, hey, do it this way or whatever way, but... And the staff, well, I gotta start calling the staff and asking them the hard questions, because I don't get it all. And not only me, there's a lot of us that don't get it all. All I know is we do need a police station out there, and we do need a fire station, but we don't got nowhere to house them. We wouldn't be here talking about housing them. There should have been a house over there for them already, a long time ago. Like Shalinda said, you know, we wanted to hire, and we got the money to hire, but there's nowhere to put them. When were we gonna find this out? We just heard her say this a few times already, but last year it wasn't said, this year it's being said, so now we're finding out we don't even got a place to put them, even if we did hire them. But we need them. There's a lot of things that, maybe we can get rid of those flock cameras. Because that's a lot of money that we're spending on that, too. A waste of money to know everything, all my whole life history? Wow, really, really, a dent on my car? Bod's bumper sticker, Redskins go? Come on, come on, we gotta get this going right. Somebody tell us what the hell's going on, because all of us, these people in the room, I don't think they get it, because I don't get bits and pieces of it. So let's do this right, let's make it happen, and spend our money the right way. We should have had all this a long, long time ago. God, I feel like vomiting right now because, you know, I'm finding out, oh, wow, really, really, really. Do it right. Don't think about yourself. Think about we the people for the people, the ones you came to.

Thank you, thank you. We will go ahead and bring it back up to the dais. And just a friendly reminder, this is about the CIP, the Capital Improvement Plan, and the operating budget. It's limited to that, but I appreciate the public comments and I'll just double check with my colleague from District One, since you requested to pull this, if you had any questions, comments. Okay, and if there are no further questions or comments, we'll entertain a motion and a second to approve this item.

I motion to approve. I second that motion.

There's a motion and a second. Please call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Bacasana-Cruz? Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez?

Yes.

And Mayor Cabrera?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. And the next item that was pulled, the third and final item that was pulled from the consent is J9, and this one pertains to, or is titled Adoption of Resolution Number 2026. designating and authorizing certain city officials to execute applications and documents for the purposes of obtaining federal financial assistance. And we will turn it over to staff to get us started with a staff report.

Thank you. I appreciate asking the questions on this. This is really an enhancement to the city process. It authorizes the city to apply for and receive the DHS emergency management grants. for a period of three years without having to come back each year. And it also authorizes the budget to be adjusted to the account for that award for each of those three years. And so really it's just there to help streamline the city processes and reduce the amount of reports that has to come back to council.

Thank you very much, Chief Park. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez.

And Chief Park, just on the record, I saw the name DHS, Department of Homeland Security. It's not tied to any ICE immigration enforcement. It's purely emergency management grant administration.

Yeah, that's correct, sir. It's two grants, the EMPG and the SHCHEP. So Emergency Management Performance Grant and the State Homeland Security Performance Grant. Both of those go to funding our EOC and the CERT classes. and helping with that. That's really what it's for.

Thank you.

And just for abbreviations, EOC means Emergency Operations Center. It's the one that's just right here next to the police department, just as a point there. Are there any other questions from the council? Seeing no questions, Madam Clerk, are there any requests to speak on this item?

There is, Mayor. The first public speaker is Nevaeh.

Thank you and again just a friendly reminder that public comments should be focused on the item that is before us at this time. Thank you.

Okay, so I wanted to speak on it because I was just a little bit confused. You know, I'm new to this whole like city council wording, whatever. And I saw Department of Homeland Security. I was like, hell no, we're not taking money from them. But it got clarified from, you know, people that are more educated on the wording of, you know, these meetings. So I'm cool now. Thanks.

Thank you. With that, we'll bring it back up to the dais for any final questions or comments. If not, a motion and a second.

I'll make a motion to approve J9.

Second. Motion and a second. Please call for the vote.

Thank you. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. So those were the three items that were pulled from the consent. So now we will go back and take the rest of the consent calendar all at once, all together. And we will first start with any council questions of staff before moving into public comments. No questions at this time. Madam Clerk, do we have any requests to speak?

We do, Mayor. The first three speakers are Kevin Salen, Christopher Baca, and Roy Blecker.

And again, these are public comments on the consent calendar items that we have not already discussed. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and honorable members of City Council. My name is Kevin Shillian, and I'm the general manager of Ottaway Towing. I'm also a property owner in Morena Valley and had held a business license since 2018. I'm here tonight because of deeply concerned about the lack of transparency, fairness, and due process surrounding our exclusion from the city rotation toll service program. AutoAid has probably serviced Riverside County and the Inland Empire for decades. We operate second secure towing storage facility located less than one mile outside the Moreno Valley limit. We provide light duty, medium, and heavy. services. We currently have nine enforcement agencies including Police Department, Riverside, CHP, Sheriff Department, Paris PD and Menifee PD. Also we have, we want to the City Council to know something that we chose years ago, 35 years ago to be exact, not to ever do a private property impound altogether and we only serving the public and assisting law enforcement agencies. according to the city on RFQ prospective bidders to be evaluated and ranked based on technical capability, equipment readiness and respond time and rotation services coverage, financial strength and demonstrate similar experience and not to be fail or pass. I respectfully submitted our application and qualification. We have decades of law enforcement towing services and experience, large diverse fleet, demonstrate financial stability and extensive experience handling police impound evidence vehicles and heavy duty recoveries. During our RFQ inspection on May 28th, several items were discussed and I want to be very clear, every item discussed was minor, cosmetic in nature, none involved public safety concern, operation deficiencies, our equipment, our response time, our ability to store vehicles, and our ability to perform this contract. The program requires one acre secured storage facility, consists nearly, we have two acres. In addition, our property was inspected by the city of Paris on March 14, 2025, and we were issued a certificate of occupancy approving our facility in entirety. Following the inspection of the city of Moreno Valley, it was completed. Every item brought to my attention was obtained. Our fire department knocks box permitted completely and it was done. And all the requirement and improvement that we were, we felt that they, it was, they're requesting and finalized. And we send the documentation to Mayra Gonzalez. on June 9th and several other phone calls and emails. Throughout this process I repeatedly request. Thank you.

The next public speaker is Christopher Baca.

And for the public that was item J6 that that was pertaining to and I invite any public speakers if you can just let everybody know which item you're speaking on if you can please.

Okay, I'm going to be speaking on J7, J8 firstly. And I just want to commend that it's out of the open. We have something here that states regarding an MOU on both the Moreno Valley with Moreno, the school district and about the sports complex. There's an iota of transparency, at least here, that there's some type of MOU that has been created. My question is, why doesn't this fall for all MOUs? AND PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE SAME MOU THAT WAS CREATED BY MOHAN WITH THE GILMAN SPRINGS PROJECT. HE CREATED AN MOU WITHOUT ANY PUBLIC INPUT, GAVE AWAY PUBLIC FUNDS AND STARTED A PROCESS THAT'S WORTH MILLIONS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS BUT YET THERE WAS NO TRANSPARENCY. SO WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THAT MOU AND THESE TWO MOU'S ON J7 AND J8? THAT'S MY QUESTION. WHY DO I CANNOT GET NO ANSWERS? I CONTINUOUSLY ASK HOW THE PROCESS ON THAT MOU WAS CREATED. ISSUE WITH THE PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING WITH THE TOWN GATE WAS CREATED BY MR. MIKE LEE. HOW IS IT THAT THAT TOWN GATE PROJECT WAS APPROVED IN 2024 AND MEASURE U WAS PASSED IN NOVEMBER OF 2024? So that just doesn't make any sense. If it was Mike Lee had anything to do with it, it was a previous Aquabella. And when they approved the new Aquabella, that was irrelevant. So, you know, that's, in my opinion, Mr. Mohan is delusional or he's a liar. BUT ANYHOW, NOW ON J-6, I REMEMBER WAY BACK, WAS IT 2010 OR 2012, THAT THERE WAS SIMILARLY A TOW SERVICE THAT WAS NOT GETTING A ROTATION AND IT WAS DISCRIMINATION BECAUSE IT WAS A MINORITY OWNED BUILDING AND THAT WAS BEPAS TOWING. THAT WAS WAY BACK THEN WHEN IT WAS A PREVIOUS OWNER. AND VICTORIA BACA, MY SISTER THAT WAS ON THE CITY COUNCIL, HELPED FINALLY GET HIM A ROTATION. I THINK SHE WOULD BE OPPOSED TO AND APPALLED BY THE PROCESS OF THE CONDUCT THAT CURRENTLY PEPAS TOWING SERVICES CONDUCTING THEMSELVES IS. COMMISSIONER JOANNE STEFFEN AND MRS. SHALINDA BERNARD BROUGHT UP THE PREDATORY TOWING, BUT YET YOU CONTINUOUSLY AND CONTINUOUSLY GIVE THEM THE ROTATION WHEN THEY ARE PREDATORY TOWING COMPANIES. SO I ASK THAT THE J6 be removed or not approved and you relook into this other gentleman that came up and stated that he's not being put on rotation. He needs to be put on rotation.

The next speaker is Roy Blackard.

I would hope that you would actually read the reports that come up on the consent calendar and As you will see, the numbers I refer to are in those reports. G, the sports complex. The Crime Syndicate in 2014, Measure M talked us into the largest bond at the time in the area of $398 million. Yours truly put together a proposal Not even doing that or taking that, but putting a joint deal in between the syndicate, the city, Val Verde and RCC or Marina Valley College. Let's build and let's put our resources together and put a plan together of how we could have a 15 to 20,000 foot sports complex stadium and doing it with that. Guess what we have today? Zero. If you're putting together a sports complex before you even do it, why don't you come up with a coherent plan of what you're going to do and how you're going to do it and if it's viable? It's infinitely easier today. Back then we didn't have AI when you could go bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep and get all sorts of pretty pictures and stuff. You had to actually put the time in to do it. But as 12 years ago, as today, it's a big freaking waste of time because you will not do it. When do we stop? When do we see the error of our ways? When do we stop repeating the mistakes of the past? Or are we going to still do it until we've dug the hole so deep that the walls cave in. That's the sad part of what we've got going on. It's like J18 through 23. Why are all these 500 bucks? Why were the first ones like $2,500 on these wraps for the same style wrap? You know, my dad got damn near assaulted out here because of this stuff. and questioning it, and questioned from the dais, and questioned our integrity, it's on videotape. I will defend, if I have to be the last person here, I will defend my native land. because it just breaks my heart to see it going down the toilet each and every day.

The next speaker is Nevaeh, followed by Rebecca Paris, followed by Manny Acosta.

Okay, so I wanted to speak on J-19 and J-27. I think that it's a super good idea to fund the Public Arts Commission. I think that'd be great because our city is pretty damn bleak, especially around the warehouses over here. We got to bring some color, some life to our city, you know? And arts is a perfect way to do that. So I'm totally in favor of that. Also bringing arts programs for the youth. Like, that'd be super cool. That should be another agenda item. Also, J27 for Caltrans Clean California Community Cleanup. That needs to happen, dude. Our streets are disgusting. And we have, like, illegal dumping going on around Seneca Elementary School, that open space. That open space doesn't need to be developed anymore. it needs to be um it needs to be designated as a hiking biking trail and definitely cleaned up dude i mean there's people that live around there there's so much trash so much so many tires rusty nails i mean it's absolutely disgusting we need to start taking care of our community and these two bills are perfect to do that um Yeah, and we could also get the funding from canceling our contract with Flock AI, because that'd be amazing. And you know they're a dirty company, Cabrera. You do. I mean, have you read your lawsuit? It's... Right there. Proof in the pudding, babe. All right. But yeah, those are super cool agenda items. Love to see funding for public arts and for cleanup projects. That'd be great. I'd be so on board to be like leading some of those too. That'd be cool. Thanks.

The next speaker is Rebecca Perez.

Hi, again. My it's more of a comment slash question is regarding j six. So I know that I don't remember exactly which council meeting it was. But I know like there was a really long discussion up there about Pepe's towing and their towing practices. And then I know we like postponed it. So I was reading in the thing that They did expand to look outside of Merino Valley for additional towing companies, but it was only one mile outside of the city limits. So that kind of seemed like for what, you know, like for one mile, like in like a large area of the city, like one mile is empty land outside of the city. So I just feel like why even put that in there? Like, did it actually include other applicants then by only being one mile, like where other people able to apply? And did we put any sort of complaint metrics or anything like that in the thing that if the towing company has a certain number of complaints or something, then we cut the contract with them? Because I know that was a really big issue during that council meeting, and it seems like these things come back and then we don't actually talk about them. The same with J24. It was put for separate, and we did talk about it, and that's great, but why was it in the consent calendar when people were gonna have questions about that? Those are just my comments on that. Hopefully we can get some clarification, but thank you. The last speaker is Manny Acosta.

Good evening, Mayor, Honorable Mayor, City Council, staff, and general public. 14351 Veterans Way. This item has been extended, overlooked by fine staff that has come back and given you a clean report along with its police department, its fine department. And the allegations against Pepe's Towing are nothing but allegations. We are in excellent standing with the City of Riverside and all of our municipalities and state and local federal agencies. We are in great support of item J6, and we ask that you please honor the recommendation of your fine staff and police department, and we are very happily and looking forward to serving you an additional five years. Thank you for the opportunity. Good night.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares.

Somebody left a little guy here, I don't know who he belongs to. Anybody wanna, oh Pepe's toying? Somebody, anybody? Rebecca. Okay, here we go. He would've been crying later, right? Anyway, Luis Palomares, community activist. I'm gonna talk about J19, about the Arts Commission. All the things that are coming up with that. As far as the utility boxes, they're beautiful. Hey, I've seen them all over, they're great. And they come down a lot, a lot of money compared to when they first started. I think one was 1,800 a wrap. I think, I could be wrong. Anyway, and you know what? We got to think out of the box. You know, we got enough murals for a while, and that's all good. We got all these wraps coming, and we're probably going to get more, and okay. But let's do something. Let's do a state-of-the-art library. We're going to have all the art. Maybe a two-story. Oh, we don't got the money. We don't got the money. We got to find some land, use the next 30 million next year, and put a state-of-the-art library so we can have a lot of arts there. All kinds of different stuff. It'd be great, because our students and our kids in the community need something like that. As far as the museum that... Wild Museum at the mall? I mean, how long have we been building it? How much money have we put into that money pit? And who's even going there to see it? Because you're passing by on the freeway, you can't see it. Nobody goes to the mall. Is it going to do something there? I mean, come on. When is that going to get up and running? That's considered the arts. That's considered the arts. So we got to think out of the box. Think bigger than that. Not just to make this little stuff so we can put it on our mailers. You know, look what I did. Uh-uh. And also, another thing, as far as these little libraries all over the community, I think we got five, four or five. I'm going there anyway, because that's considered the arts, library, books. You see stuff in the books. You see this. You learn a lot about your country, about people, about your culture, about a lot of things in the world. That's considered the arts. We need to make the state-of-the-art library like I was saying before. I just said that right now. You know how much it costs to staff those little baby libraries? The one at the ranch up there is still not open. How much are we spending of our taxpayers' money in that mess? And it costs like almost $80,000 to staff them? That's a lot of money. You go in there, go sit in there a day and see how many people go through those doors. That's a lot of money. We need a state-of-the-art library that really works for the whole community, not because I don't want to walk, I don't want to take my kid, they can walk two blocks up. Come on, the parents don't even let their kids walk two blocks, believe it or not now. It's too crazy out there. So we need a state of the art, under the art, we got the money, we got the debt fees for the arts, maybe we could do the library with that. Maybe could we do a real museum, because how long is that mall gonna be open, and how much are we paying them for that museum? It's not even built yet, and how much money are we gonna pay to have that museum there? I mean, we're working backwards. Come on, like I said, we can send a man and a woman to the moon. So let's do something better with our money than all this Mickey Mouse, I don't wanna go to Disneyland. Come on, let's do it right.

The next speaker is Chris Navarro.

Good evening. My name is Chris Navarro. I'm the operations manager at Bepis Towing. I just wanted to touch on predatory towing since that word got thrown out there. Predatory towing is illegal, and our company, Bepis Towing, has never had any criminal charges filed against us for predatory towing. Bottom line is we follow all the guidelines. I recommend everyone read up California Vehicle Code 22658. That's all the rules and regulations of private property towing. And no one is ever going to be happy when their car is towed off a private property. I've been towed myself, and I wasn't happy about it. But bottom line is I didn't follow the rules. And even when the police department impounds vehicles, you know, those people aren't happy about having to get their car impounded and going to get a release. We follow all the rules and regulations. And, you know, unfortunately, if you're in violation, you will get told per your property managers or police department. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes all public comments on items on the consent calendar.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you to our public speakers. We will bring it back now to the dais for any final questions, comments, before we vote on the consent calendar. And we'll go to Councilmember Delgado.

Yes, I don't know if Brian can answer this question for me regarding J6. And how many, I think it was one to three, and I know the staff report says one mile, but I think it was one to three. That's my first, is it one? Okay, and then how many applicants applied after?

So for the record, as my mic wasn't on, yes, it was one mile. This particular second RFP yielded five bidders, and three of which were non-qualifying for various reasons. And There were two that were qualified, and those just happened to be the same two that we discussed last time. And the reason why we discussed one mile and not further out is because 52, a little less than 52 square miles, one mile in Paris could be, you know, 15 miles. miles from somebody coming out on the east side or the northeast side and coming all the way across. So that was discussed at that one meeting and council did decide on one mile.

And then on the process for vetting a company that may qualify or may not qualify, is that equal throughout your process, the Marina Valley process, and you have different entities go out. You have the code enforcement, you have fire, you have fire inspectors, you have all these different entities. Is that the same to every entity?

So we have different city departments that go out to all of the various bidders as part of the RFP, and we take a look at their property predicated and pursuant to the municipal code. And if there are violations and so forth, then that would exclude them from the process.

All of those violations documented and transparent to the property owner?

Yes, and in this particular case, there were 29 violations that were disqualifying, and there was a letter that was provided to that particular tow operator.

Okay, thank you, Brian. Thank you. We'll go to Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez.

And Brian, of those 29, were they, how can I word it, did they know the inspection or the requirements was coming and was there a period of trying to address that or there's no way to rectify that?

So pursuant to the municipal code and the RFP, all of the bidders knew that there was going to be an on-site review to ensure that they all complied with the municipal code. Yes, so I would assume that if there were bidders, that they would have read the municipal code and the RFP prior to bidding. I don't know, I can't tell you for sure, but they should have done their due diligence and identified whether or not they would be qualifying, yes.

I have a question. Were any of those like correctable violations or are they things like the distance was beyond where you know or they didn't have sufficient space to store or like were they correctable actions or these are things that disqualified them?

So based on the site visit and the municipal code and the RFP, these particular violations are pass-fail. And so they're not able to be rectified. And regardless of whether or not Paris, a different entity, different city, which potentially has different municipal codes, different laws and so forth for their jurisdiction. Although they might have approved this particular site for their purposes, we have to comply with our municipal code. And during this particular process, it's a pass-fail.

Was there a retest? Is there a second opportunity? Because, I mean, the direction was for you to expand the services, and if you did an inspection and they failed, was that it? Like, oh, sorry, it's on the agenda tomorrow, or can they still?

All five of them were reviewed, and if all of them had violations, we would be bringing back a report that all of them had failed and that we don't have anybody as far as our tow operators. It is a pass-fail.

Is it only one time that they can be added or is like for the year or is this ongoing application that can be reapplied and then brought to us that we would be adding a third or fourth rotational towing company?

This is a five-year term, very similar to the last five-year term. And so this would be for five years. Those agreements would be in place with the two tow providers. And we wouldn't be able to open up another RFP until that five year is done. Sorry, that might be my phone. Can everybody hear me? move their phones away from their speakers, please. But yeah, so there would be a five-year term for the agreement.

I have a clarifying question on that. So what you just said was like, is this very common that no entity no matter what, gets an opportunity to correct an issue. So it's a one and done inspection. That's what you're saying is that this inspection that we performed on any towing, any. No matter what, like you said, if any towing company or any entity out there, because we shouldn't change our processes because it's a towing, we should be changing our processes or we should maintain the same process for any entity. So are you saying that for any entity, it's a one and done on any inspection?

Related to our rotational tow? Yes.

On all the tow, it's one and done.

Yeah, because it's a fund. So basically, the way it works is this. And this happens when you're going for funding proposals or you're applying for grants. There's a review process. They review it. If you, for whatever reason, make it, some grants, if they have time, will say, if it's written in the rules, that they can go back and be like, here are the corrections that you're able to make, right? A lot of grants, and this is the same thing for the funding proposals, It's the same thing, which is like, okay, we're coming out to do the inspection. We've got the application. We're coming out to do the inspection. These five companies, we went, here are the various reasons, like, okay, you passed, you failed. Had they passed, they would have been in the running. Now, When this goes out again in five years, they're able to reapply. They just take the list of whatever happened previously and correct it.

I get all that. I get all that. I was just wondering if this process was a one and done thing for the toe issue. And then were they like they were told during the RFP process, here's our qualifications. You must meet them. then come out for the inspection and assume or expect the instructions on the RFP to be read and to be met in order to pass. That's basically it. Okay, thank you.

I just think it just sounds restrictive, again, that the bar is high. And there should be, in my opinion, it should be a period of allowing the next five years. They could study and prepare for the next five years until that opportunity comes up again. It just sounds, at the bar, set too high for someone coming in new in this process, just my opinion.

Do we put something into their agreement saying that we won't recruit any other companies?

We are just following the municipal code and the five-year requirement.

Do we put something into their agreement that says that we won't recruit other companies or could we come back in August and decide that we want to add additional companies?

The agreement is a five-year agreement.

With them.

But is there any exclusionary saying that they get the only... Like the city attorney has stated in our previous conversation, you want to be very careful of liabilities potentially here. We changed the municipal code. We went out based on your direction and did an RFP. We are following the municipal code. And if we do anything different here, there is potential liabilities that the city attorney could speak to.

Okay. Steve, is there any liabilities that could possibly come up if we, in August, take another look at adding one, two, or three, or none, additional companies into the rotation?

Simple answer is yes. This is similar to our public works construction contract award process set by state code and it all has to do with fairness. So everybody's subject to the same eligibility requirements and if they meet those requirements and they qualify for a five-year basically an exclusive contract, And so the council, we're operating under our ordinance, our municipal code regulations, which was apparently adopted by the council, and we just have to be fair in the process. And so just like a public works construction contract bidding process, they don't get a cure and correct opportunity. They come in and they're either eligible or they're not. And we apply the same rules, eligibility requirements across the board. And everybody who meets those requirements are entitled to, in this particular case, a five-year contract. So that's my concern, is that if we deviate from our regulations, which are set forth in our municipal code, it creates potential liability for us based on the issue of fairness.

Thank you, Mr. City Attorney, and just wanted to chime in here as well. I completely understand where the two different sides are coming here, and I agree with both. This is why we kind of pulled the tow rotation contract, went out, reissued the RFP, changed the criteria a little bit to give a wider... range of companies that maybe fit that new criteria to apply and possibly get awarded and end up on the total rotation. But I also, I understand, the reason why we did that was because we had so many, we had limited applicants that qualified and made it through. I think it was only two and we're back at two again. We gave it a shot, we tried, and staff is coming back and recommending these two again for reasons that they have stated, the others didn't qualify. And I think at the same time, as the city attorney and the city manager just said, we do run the risk of liability if we were to change this again, you know, pull the RFP, go out and change the criteria again. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place at this point. So while I understand both sides, I think maybe one potential way to try to mitigate this in the future. I don't know if we're able to do it at this time. It might be just too late at this time. maybe reducing part of the motion for future councils, because it's probably gonna change and I don't think any of us will be here in five years. Maybe some of us, but I won't and you won't. Before going on a tangent, maybe we include in the motion to approve this contract that future RFPs will be reduced to maybe two year terms, right? So that we're not waiting five years. So when this comes back in five years, Maybe it's a two-year term or it's a shorter timeline so that we kind of address that issue where it comes up more frequently and there's more opportunities. And maybe there's other options out there that I haven't thought of, but that's one that comes to mind.

Yeah, the council can actually consider adopting an ordinance that reduces it to two years, but it won't be applicable until the five-year term expires. Mm-hmm.

Or another thing, going along that, in the future, you know, change the municipal code so it's not like a pass-fail, right? That you have a time to address these concerns. You know, what if you had one violation? You're done, right? So just thinking outside the box here.

And you can also include that in the ordinance as well. Provide a cure correct period.

Okay so is that something I think there might be maybe some other ideas that come out but for now I think we have to move forward with the item on the agenda go ahead and award the contract to those two that made it through and then I don't know if we need to tackle the second part now maybe staff can bring back another item is that okay if you bring something back at a future upcoming council meeting to talk about a potential ordinance.

You can add it as a future agenda item. Yeah.

OK. So we'll do that then. We'll include that for staff to bring it back as a future agenda item as part of the motion. But we'll go ahead and entertain a motion in a second if there are no further questions or comments to approve staff's recommendations

Due to the fact that we need it before July 1, I will motion to approve.

Excuse me, I spoke too soon. I'm thinking we're still, yeah, we've been going on this for a while. We're still on the entire consent calendar. I got ahead of myself here, yeah. So we'll just bring it back to the rest of the consent calendar. We should have just pulled it. Okay, are there any other questions or comments on this particular item? No? Okay. Any other items? I do have a couple comments on some of the other items.

Yeah. So I just want to, before I pass it on back over to my colleagues, I have reviewed all of the art that was submitted, so I would like to thank you all. I would like to thank Jeremy, his team, and the Arts Commission for Going out, the designs are all good. They're very bright, lively, and showing different aspects throughout the city. I appreciate the work that all the artists put in. There was one with, it's a peaceful day in Moreno Valley, which for some people, if they show up here at this meeting, you think we don't have any. But they were outside at a park with a donkey pinata. Also, we've got a few in here that are butterflies, which always, because I am a true child of the 80s, always reminds me of reading Rainbow. And then there is the... The autism design that will be located on Heacock and Alessandro. As a mother of a child on the spectrum, I appreciate these things. So I just wanted to make sure that I notated all of the work that the artists put into these wraps and that they're going to be displayed around our city. And this is actually, as I always say, these designs always wow me, amaze me how you incorporate the different elements of the city in everyday life that you all see. That concludes my comments on that.

Thank you. Next up, Mayor Prozama-Gonzalez.

Just quick comments. I want to echo Council Member Bernard's comments on the utility boxes. Yes, they're beautiful. I myself have family members on the spectrum as well with autism. So it's definitely something that's needed to be addressed. illustrated, especially there on that corner of Hugok and Alessandro, and also the one by the Yottle Mall with the butterflies there in D3. Just want to mention another, the neighborhood park, right, that's going to be there in the Yarhorton development there on Cottonwood and Mason and Bay. So that's an added amenity. and last but not least right the just want to say the sports complex it's moving forward it's finally getting traction again there's no um financial mechanisms in the in the item but it's very exploratory research oriented and hopefully we get something here in the near future because the The community really needs something that's more than neighborhood parks. Those are super important, but the sports complex will definitely be that cherry on the top that brings everything together. So I wish everyone, ourselves here and staff and the public, that we continue pushing the sports complex for the community. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll echo some of the comments that have been said and add a few. J7 is the Marina Valley College MOU. This is basically renewing it, refreshing it. And for those who may not be aware, just a couple of highlights of collaborations between the city and Marina Valley College. are the Mobile Learns program, where the city actually helps subsidize some of the student tuition for some of the students that are going through CTE and STEAM certificate programs, degrees, et cetera. And that's been going on for, I wanna say, maybe five or six years now. But also the MOU, this one's more specific to the Innovation Center, the Makerspace, that's over at Marina Valley College. They have 3D printers, laser cutters, a tool, a tool, a wood shop area. They have flight and driving simulators. Anyone that's really kind of interested in any of these tinkering and creating, highly recommend that you go out and check it out. The MOU allows for any Moreno Valley resident to use those facilities for free. And in some cases, they even will give you some material. If you want to use the really high quality advanced sewing machines, for example, or the 3D printers, they even have carbon printers. they will let you use some of the material before you have to bring and purchase your own, right? But that's an opportunity for the community to really get their hands on. So really excited about renewing that MOU with Marina Valley College, the sports complex as well. I don't know, I'm gonna look at staff here and ask if we can share or, share who we're signing the MOU with, or if it's too soon, I won't go there. It's not that important. I think the most important part here is that we are entering into MOU and exploring building a sports complex, as Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez said. it is much needed. We know that we need recreational activities and facilities for our community, in particular our youth, the young ones. And our two biggest sports, or three biggest, I would say, are baseball, football, soccer. Those are our biggest sports in terms of numbers. And we don't have enough fields for playing or practice. we need to expand capacity and hopefully this will allow us to identify a site a location where we can build a sports complex ideally enter into a public private partnership where the city partners with a private entity like a developer and maybe even hopefully leverage the relationships that we have here in the city with folks like Kawhi Leonard, who plays for the Clippers, or Kenyon Barnard, three-time Super Bowl champion with the Eagles and the Buccaneers and the Eagles. These guys that live here in our community and we have relationships with, so hopefully we can put our minds together and put those relationships together and build something big and beautiful for our city. So Sports Complex, really, really glad to see this MOU on the agenda. Mayor Pro Tem also mentioned the park over in District 3 in that new development behind the new Moreno Elementary. Wanted to highlight, it's not just any park, it's gonna include a splash pad as well. So I don't know if we have timelines at this time as far as construction, but that is happening, so we're gonna get a new splash pad in the near future there off of Nason and Alessandro. Also, a new fitness court that's coming over to District 4. That's item J17. So that's a word of a contract there to purchase the equipment, trying to add these new facilities, and that is shaded as well. And I want to take just a moment to highlight two more ribbon cuttings that are actually coming up. Grand openings for new playgrounds also in District 4. Vista Lomas Park, it's just... east of LaSalle and Iris, brand new playground with shaded structures as well. And then Pedrarina Park, smaller park, smaller playground, but also brand new, shaded as well. And then the public art, that's the last one I wanted to comment on. Won't repeat everything that has been said, but I invite all of you, if you are interested, if you know anyone, or maybe you yourself are an artist, I'm sure some artists are here with us this evening, You probably have friends or know people that also are artists or want to explore programs. It doesn't just have to be painting a mural or designing a vinyl utility box wrap. It could be programming like we're gonna see later in the agenda with an art program, a conference for arts for the youth. So, you know, there's so many different opportunities. There's funding available. We just need our residents to apply. And you can be anywhere from Riverside County, right? Is it San Bernardino County as well or just Riverside County to apply for? Yeah, anyone can apply for that funding. So really excited to see this. Congratulations to all of the artists. Thank you for stepping forward, submitting your artwork, and I look forward to seeing it around the city. So then I'll conclude my comments and if there are no further comments. Now we can entertain a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar.

I motion to approve the consent calendar as is. I second.

Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Paca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Patem-Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we will move into item... K are public hearings. We'll start with K1, municipal code amendment. And we will start with a staff report from Sergio, right? I gotta get your name. It's your first meeting seeing you here, but we'll pass it over to community development department for a staff report.

Thank you. Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. The item before you is the Spring 2026 Omnibus Municipal Code Amendment. This Municipal Code Amendment revises and updates various sections of Title IX of the Municipal Code for the purposes of clarifying and streamlining various entitlement processes and development standards related to temporary uses and multifamily residential projects. These amendments include an update to Section 9.02.150 to add homeless resources fairs slash outreach events, including those with mobile shower units to the list of permitted temporary uses. The amendment also includes an update to Section 9.03.040 residential site development standards associated with landscaping. After a meeting on May 28th, Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the municipal code amendments. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions that the council may have.

Thank you, Sergio. I appreciate the staff report. Are there any questions from the council? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any requests to speak?

We do not, Mayor.

Thank you. We'll bring it back up to the dance for any questions, comments. If not, a motion and a second. So moved. I'll second. Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez?

Yes.

And Mayor Cabrera?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is K2, Amendment to the Village Specific Plan 204. And we will turn it back over to Sergio for a staff report.

thank you again uh honorable mayor uh mayor pro tem and members of the city council uh the item before you is a proposed amendment to the village specific plan it's also known as specific plan 204. this specific plan amendment serves to implement various updates associated with adoption of the moval 2040 general plan update the proposed amendments include an update uh that modernizes development standards and aligns parcels with the village residential designation and the R20 zoning district with the density consistent with the MoVal 2040 general plan. It also implements housing element program 3D. Together, these actions help to remove local constraints, promote reinvestment, and help deliver a more diverse and attainable housing supply for the community and are in alignment with the city's pro-housing designation. At their meeting on May 28th, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the proposed specific plan amendments. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions that you may have. We also have project manager Claudia Manrique here and our consultant Sohab Mahmoud from DUDEC available for any questions as well.

Thank you very much, Sergio. We will bring it back for any council questions of staff. Seeing none at this time, Madam Clerk, do we have any public speakers?

We do not, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll bring it back up for any final deliberation. If not, a motion and a second.

I make a motion to approve staff's recommendation. I second.

There's a motion and a second. Please call for the vote.

Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Item K-3, Annual Assembly Bill 2561, Staffing Vacancies Report. This is a routine annual item that comes forward, and this one will turn over to Dr. Robert Cardenas for a staff report.

Good evening, honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, city staff. Natalie Potter, Human Resources Manager, will be providing the report tonight.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and council members. My name's Natalie Potter, the Human Resources Manager. We'll wait a second while my presentation uploads. We can get started, though. So tonight we're here to fulfill our AB2561 obligations, taking a look at where we stand with staffing and recruiting, and more importantly, we're going to look at how we build, nurture, and maintain our workforce of the future. I'm switching the slide. Next slide, please. So tonight I'm going to walk you through a little roadmap, what AB2561 is, what our workforce numbers look like, where our vacancies are, and how recruiting is going for the City of Moreno Valley. So what AB 2561 is, basically at the core, it's what the city requires to report on as far as our unfilled positions for the previous calendar year. So we're going to be looking at calendar year 2025. A quick picture of our, if there was a picture of our workforce, we have 462 full-time employees, staff, budgeted. We have three associations. One is our general unit, which is our International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, IBW, and then we have Moreno Valley Management Associations, which is our professional unit, and then we have Moreno Valley Confidential Management Employees, which is our confidential staff. All composed of these units are from parks and community, public works team, economic development, and to our city administrative staff. So for our vacancies as of 12-31-2025, keep in mind this magic number, it's 20%. That's the threshold that the city is well under. And I'm proud to present to you our number for calendar year 2025 is 14.5%. We had 67 unfilled positions by the time of the end of the year out of our 462 budgeted positions. Next slide, please. I'm like, where am I? I'm looking right here. Bringing on a new hire is a delicate process, and we have a recruitment process, and it's a 10-step process as far as we're bringing on a new hire. What we do, we begin with looking at the job description. We want to make sure the job description is in lines with market. It's up to actually what the employee's doing. We partner with our hiring managers so that we know exactly what the operation needs are for that position. Then we work on a posting and marketing. How are we going to get that job posting out to the community? Whether it's going to be a job fair or if it's a posting that's going to be on LinkedIn. or social media. Once we get all the candidates in, we start our screening process of the applications to make sure that the applicants are meeting the minimum qualifications on that job description. We do an assessment, we do an interview, and then finally we get to the offer letter and we do background checks. That takes us through the whole process. In 2025, we invested a lot in our training for staff. We created partnerships with those hiring managers so that we can find employees that align with our values, which is collaboration, innovation, and customer service. Next slide. The results, you would be seeing a number here. We filled 141 positions within the year 2025. Our fastest recruitment included 22 days because we were able to promote internally. On average, we average about 67 to 100 days per recruitment. Some of the issues that we have with hiring is just by figuring out that position, what are the actual needs of that department when we're looking at that vacant position. Our ideal candidate pools sometimes are specialized roles, so we need to really understand what that is. The time sometimes we do background checks, by the time a candidate gets through background check, it can take some days as well too. So that, all those days encompass into those 22 to 100 days for recruitment. Right now, we are really focused. Oh, there it is. Look at it. All right. Thank you, guys. So that's our, we met 14.5% for calendar year 2025. And right here is where I'm discussing the process, And here we're talking about the hiring issues we're having. And so sometimes, like I said, the candidate pools, it's a specialized role, so we really want to understand what it is, what they're doing. We want to get the recruitment right, where we need to post. Is it a specialized job board that we need to look at? Right now we're looking at We participate in university career fairs, so say we're looking for a childcare worker, we're going to Moreno Valley College because they have childcare classes to get those CE units and we want to recruit that way as well for our city. We expanded our LinkedIn strategy. We are retooling our tough to fill recruitments and training managers so that we're proactive when we're looking for our ideal candidates. Something I'm really proud to talk about is our 50% number. With the vacancies that we had, 50% of our vacancies in 2025 were promotions due to our staff growing within the city themselves. So right now we're in our career development, we're investing in their professional development, and we're promoting within the city itself. So what we're doing when we recruit and retain top talent, one of the recruitments, what we did, or we embraced an idea called building, nurturing, and maintaining our workforce from Mr. Roberts. And we love that because we're aligning our staff. They're aligning themselves with why they come to work here. And then we invest in it as they grow here within the city of Moreno Valley. So with that framework, we rolled out NeoGov. We're using our governmentjobs.com tools. We created benefit summaries so candidates truly understand the value of working here at the city. On the retention side, we structured an onboarding program, which includes a tour of all of our facilities. We launched a mentorship program. We expanded our internships. We enhanced our wellness benefits, including mental health resources. And oh yeah, we celebrate our employees as well. We have appreciation events, we celebrate their milestone awards, and we just want the people to feel that they're valued and we're making sure they do. So vacancies by bargaining unit. We have three, as I mentioned earlier. IBW, their vacancy rate was at a 9.3%. And remember, vacancy is the unfilled position. So within that general unit, 9.3%. Our professional unit, MVMA, was 16.4%. We did have a little threshold where we went over the 20%, which is the confidential unit. And the reason because of that is where we were teetering on that 20% was because these are specialized positions and we had internal promotions happening. I can say now the practices that we've implemented were well below the 20% threshold now. Thank you, this concludes my presentations. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you very much, Natalie, for the staff report. We will bring it back up to the dance for any questions of staff.

Mayor, just before, I would like to thank Natalie for persevering through some adversity there with our technical difficulties. And I'd like to apologize to Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, Council, and all of our residents for not having that particular presentation available. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the Council?

Was there any information on the slides that you'd like us to back up on or that we should share with the public?

No, I think there were the data points that I presented to you just about our recruitment, that it's building, nurturing, and maintaining our workforce. We value that from day one as we're planning that recruitment, and we carry it through the life cycle of an employee.

Appreciate you.

Thank you. If there are no further questions from the council, we can go ahead and move into public comment. Thank you again, Natalie. Madam Clerk, do we have any public speakers?

We do, Mayor. The first public speaker is Angel Orellana.

I get paid by the hour. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Peltier, council members, city staff. I'm Angel Rihanna, I'm the president or head steward-right of IVW 47. Honestly, the relationship that that the union association has with the city has actually gotten a lot better over the last year or two. I think a lot of it has to do with the relationship that the HR director has brought towards the city right with. um listening to pretty much all of our concerns the vacancies uh i'm glad to say that that my association slash union has or my bargaining unit has the lowest uh vacancy report out of all three associations out of 9.3 i think that's that's really good um and pretty much it's you know from all the city staff right that does all the hard work um a lot of it also has to do with um pretty much what we negotiated through our PR and R with doing like trying to get more internal promotions. I know that Natalie I think said it was like 22 days was the fastest recruitment that we did. That was because of the internal promotion opportunity that we gave to our candidates. With that, that builds, just that alone builds morale amongst the employees, right? Sometimes you have a 20 year veteran that can't get promoted because the outside, you know, sometimes it just makes it a little bit more difficult. So doing an internal promotion definitely helps build the morale within the city, and it keeps the retention here, which I think is really good. I know Robert's going to be retiring here pretty soon, which kind of sucks because me and Robert have a pretty good relationship, right? So all I can ask is hopefully that whoever takes his replacement, right, we can continue to move forward in the right direction and take a few steps forward and not backwards. So, yeah, hopefully you guys, whoever makes the decision of the new candidate makes the right decision because I definitely enjoy coming to work. I definitely enjoy being the head of our unit, right, and pretty much talking to a lot of the directors. With that, also, I want to pretty much acknowledge you know, try to get to know the rest of the directors and managers just to, you know, try to make the city and the workforce pretty much better. Other than that, thanks.

The next speaker is Roy Blackard.

In your report, Building and Nurturing and Maintaining the Workforce, This is the kind of tutti-frutti stuff that's got us into the condition we are in. I'm going to use the words in your own report. The reason you can't fill the positions, unqualified talent pool. Where does that come from? You know why I call it the crime syndicate? Because that's where our unqualified talent pool starts. Look at the student achievement rates down there. And you guys today, just like that, are sitting here. We can't be over there trying to correct that because we have to be here to try to watch you. And we can't be at two places at one time. This is why we're in the condition we're in. 67 out of... 460 unfilled. A turnover rate of 120 a year out of that, that's not raising any question marks or something, or there were no questions about that from the dais. Maybe we should examine the talent pool on the dais. As the late great comic George Carlin said, we didn't elect our officials. They didn't come from Mars. They didn't come from under the sea. They are us. And if you're ever going to correct, like the last report you heard, or the deficiencies in there, because those same things keep coming up year after year, decade after decade, and they get worse. We have a mayor up there who's been on that day twice as long as anybody, running this thing into the ground and leading the charge. When do we stop? When is that cooperation, when is that, oh, when is the cooperation gonna come that we're gonna work together to make it better instead of building walls and no communication? My door's always been open. It's up to you to walk through it.

The next speaker is Shetam Odom.

Good evening. It's late, but I just wanted to say this, that I'm just at awe at the power of what everybody has here. It's scary. And it's scary in a sense that we trust you, and I'm not saying anybody's doing anything wrong. I just realize, oh my goodness, here I am working hard, doing all these things and people are making decisions about my children and my life and it's scary and um the the commission that um oh is k3 i'm learning this stuff i want to talk about the vacancies i went to a planning that planning commit yeah the one that's on second or third thursday for you know that and I noticed that on the, I guess the agenda, it had like the names of the people. And I noticed that their terms were up. And I'm like, and then I saw a lot of vacancies. I'm like, okay, they have a very important job to do. They're building the city of Moreno Valley and they have a lot of power. They're the ones who get the car wash. I know that people, you know, have like money and they are trying to build up. But I kept hearing this word conditional, conditional, LIKE THEY HAD CONDITIONS TO MAKE ALLOW FOR BUSINESSES TO NOT GO THROUGH THIS BIG PROCESS. AND I'M LOOKING LIKE, OH, MY GOODNESS, THIS IS SCARY. AND SO I WANT TO KNOW, WE HAVE A LOT OF QUALIFIED PEOPLE. WE HAVE OVER 200,000 PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN MARINO VALLEY. WHY ARE THOSE VACANCIES THERE? Why can't we go and try to hard press people who are serious about making sure that this city is growing in the future, 20 years down the road, that they are in these positions. It's a powerful position. So that recruitment I want to see. I'm going to keep coming back because I realize, oh my gosh, I'm an educator. I want to see my city grow. I can see the future of the city. we have small children we can do so much with this beautiful city um and we have the the people here in the city who want the same thing and so i just realized the power that you guys have oh you guys i need to talk to you i want to make sure that we are part of it so please if you can recruit for people for those commissioner vacancies i would really appreciate that thank you so much thank you

Mayor, that concludes all public comments.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you to our public speakers as well. We will bring it back up to the dais for any council comments, questions before we take a vote.

Yes. So I just want to thank Natalie for learning very valuable lessons, which is sometimes you have to call an audible and keep it moving. So I want to, as Brian stated, thank you for continuing to go and not letting that fluster you. I also want to thank Angel for coming up. I understand previous human resources directors, it was a little rough. And I know as someone that's had to do negotiations and with their union and things, that sometimes your relationship with human resources really does influence whether or not you're able to retain staff. and whether or not we're constantly having issues and being at odds. So I also, even though you are leaving, Dr. Cardenas, I would like to thank you for working and taking the time and rebuilding that relationship. I also wanted to thank yourself, Natalie, and your entire team for continuing to invest and pour into our And to our staff, it's extremely important. I know one speaker mentioned the turnover rates and things like that. I don't think people realize how high it was previously. How high it was previously and to see those come down and to know that there was that rodeo show that Yeah, I'm listening to them. They put on and there was actually a recruitment session in the morning where Natalie put on like how to promote yourself or how to advance in your career. And that session started early and it wasn't just a session that they did here for City of Moreno Valley employees because they had employees coming from different agencies throughout San Bernardino and Riverside County. It was something that was also offered to them. It was well received. So things like that of like, how do you interview? How should you be building your resume? What should you be doing to help people with advancing is extremely important because as some people have mentioned, not even just us, but in general, everyone on this E-Team will not be here forever. And you have got to start to train and teach from within to grow and move people up and down so that they can figure out, hey, maybe I don't really want to be in management. Maybe I'm OK where I'm at. Maybe I prefer to try another department, which we know happens too. So I think that's the other part of attrition that I don't think we fully discuss and account for. When people have been promoted, It does look like a high rate, but we've had a lot of people, and poor Jeremy had a time a few months ago where Jeremy's team was being promoted all throughout, and Jeremy is picking up new people, but they didn't leave the city. They were promoted from within and started moving around to management in different departments and areas. And I know I see Claudia here who has been knocking at the door waiting for Jeremy to retire also.

And so...

I was messing with her. She would never do that. And so I appreciate everything. I appreciate all the staff that we do and all the things that HR, as well as staff, does in general to raise the morale. Some people think coming to work should not be fun. I, on the other hand, think it's a lot more fun to come to work when you enjoy being there because it's hard to go to work when you're miserable every day.

I just want to say it's very rare that the president of any union comes and praises HR in any organization. He's not doing it for accolades or anything like that. He's actually doing it because you guys had a great relationship. I hope your folks are paying attention to how you run things and your succession plan is in place because I have noticed every council meeting or the agendas, we have a staff report on staffing, and it has gotten so much better since you've been here. So, Robert, you know, kudos to you for what you've done, and we will miss you. So that's not your goodbye, but I'm just saying we will miss you.

Is this your last meeting? It is. Well, yeah, speech. I just want to thank you for all you've done with the department. It really shows I'm around the city a lot. I talk to a lot of people, so I do hear things, and you're doing an excellent job, and I want to thank you for what you've done for the city, what you've done for the employees. As a union leader myself, I understand how important it is to have a good relationship with HR and for HR to see the staff that work for the city as people not just numbers that and I see that you invest in them I see the engagement that you do the the pictures in front of City Hall the employee appreciation multiple times throughout the year, the professional development opportunities. I see all of that, and I really appreciate it because as we serve the public, we've got to remember that we have people serving the public. So the Human Resources Department has done really well. And I understand that when we promote from within, it doesn't close the gap in the vacancy because it just creates another one. So we see that, and I think the internal promotions really show a lot for – what it means to work at the city when people aren't looking to leave, but they're looking to move up and stay here. And that really helps with some institutional knowledge. That helps me up here, knowing that I've been in this chamber for Longer than all of you. None of you have been here as long. So knowing that our employees continue to want to stay on, that really speaks volumes for your leadership. So I appreciate you and Natalie. And it comes from the top. So your whole division is outstanding. And you see it by the customers that you serve, our employees. So thank you.

I just want to say, Robert, thank you for everything you've done for the City of Myrna Valley, and just from everything I've heard from past individuals and current, you've created a different culture here in the city, and I'm confident that that will continue into the future. And best of luck to everything you do in your new phase in life. And I know it's a milestone, you know, me and myself being a public employee as well. So it's something to look forward to. And I wish you the best and happiness with your family. Thank you.

I'll second everything that has been said and won't repeat everything. We run a tight but mighty ship here in the city of Moreno Valley that delivers time after time. It's not always pretty. It's not always easy. It's probably more difficult most of the time, but we figure it out. We find a way. We persevere. We make it through, and we move the city forward, and we're all better because of it. Yeah, thank you, Dr. Cardenas, for the few years. I think it's been maybe three years, plus or minus, somewhere around there, that we've been able to work together in this role. And Natalie and the entire team, just hats off to the great work that you've done, and likewise, wish you all the best in your retirement. I think this is, is this your last meeting with the City of Moreno Valley? So if we can give Dr. Cardenas a big round of applause for his last meeting here with the City of Moreno Valley. Thank you. We wish you all the best. Enjoy retirement. I'll get there one day. Still some time. All right, y'all. Well, we'll bring it back for a motion and a second. Is this receive and file? OK, perfect. So then we will skip motion second. We will receive and file this item. And we will go to K4, public hearing to adopt a resolution to vacate a portion of Alessandro Boulevard west of Moreno Beach Drive. And we will turn it over to Director Walker for a staff report.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council Members. The item before you this evening is to conduct a public hearing to consider the adoption of a resolution ordering the full vacation of a southerly portion of Alessandro Boulevard for Pen 23-0103. The developer is required to vacate this portion of right-of-way as part of the project's conditions of approval. The area proposed for vacation is approximately 200 feet in length. The five-foot-wide strip of right-of-way will be vacated and returned to the underlying property owner. This action will reduce city maintenance costs and liability associated with the area. That concludes my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director. We'll bring it back for any council questions. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment?

We do not, Mayor.

Thank you. So we will bring it back for any final deliberation. If not, a motion and a second. Motion to approve.

Second.

Thank you. Please call for the vote.

Yes. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado? Yes. Council Member Bacasana-Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. And that brings us to general business. Item L. And we do have a few. The first one, L1, discussion on potential support and funding for child programming startup businesses. And we will hand this over to our city manager, Brian Mohan, for a staff report.

Thank you, Mayor Murpatam, Councilmembers. As motioned at the May 5th, 2026 Council meeting, this item is being brought back to you to agendize future discussion regarding potential support and funding for businesses seeking to establish programs and or services for children within the community. So as part of that conversation, as the motion had stated, would be potential components that could potentially include expedited plan reviews, flexible fee payment options, business license fee waivers or deferrals, and other incentives intended to encourage the establishment and expansion of youth serving programs and services within the community. As this is the first item to come back based on this motion, staff is seeking any type of direction as deemed appropriate by council. With that, that concludes my comments, but I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. City Manager. We'll bring it back for any council questions of staff. And just a clarifying question, you mentioned it there, but just to reiterate, Mr. City Manager, this particular item is just for us to kind of have an initial discussion, but we're not allocating any funding, creating any new program. If we decide to move forward with this, it would have to come back for a future agenda item to have a lengthier, more in-depth discussion to actually take action.

Yes, consistent with our future agenda item process, this is in essence a benign staff report to be able to have the conversation that was motioned. Staff would be seeking some hopeful direction from the deliberations at the dais to be able to bring back a staff report based on your comments to try and provide what is directed and the sentiments of the majority of council. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'll have some comments for deliberation, but we'll just double check for any additional questions. And seeing no further questions at this time, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment on this item?

We do, Mayor. The first public speaker is Roy Bleckard.

Not establishing whether it's a good idea or bad, is you come back with these directions and 27,000 times of doing anything, and you wonder why we're in the situations we are. When do we get to the point of efficiently getting the job done? If this is what you want to do, then bring a freaking proposal in front. Why don't you come up? Your job, you should have. All of your jobs is to put those proposals forward. We even put it on the agenda, future agenda items to put all this in. This is my proposal.

I want to be heard for funding a child programming or creating businesses.

Or is it a good idea to make businesses dependent on the government? Or should we create an environment where businesses can survive on their own like they used to? And they were sustainable at that point. And overall were more successful and provided more benefit for the community when that was the process. That's the kind of things that should be brought up and the kind of presentations that should be proffered forward. I'll take you back to Henry Garcia about 15 years ago. He put together a proposal that says, hey, we're going to do a medical corridor down Dayson Street. That's the kind of things that should be. That should be the start of these things. Not how we're going to do the bureaucracy, how we're going to slow down the process, how we're not going to make things work. Proactive on how we make them work. The reason that it isn't, and like with that, we had a bunch of tutti-frutti's that wanted to shoot that down for a bunch of reasons that we don't need to relive again. The history's out there. And you may think it's harsh that I come up here and say these things, but sometimes you need a little harsh to get things done. If you got a mule, sometimes you got to kick him in the rear end to get him to move. So, you know, sometimes, and I get, you know, you can talk about, you know, puppy dogs and kitty cats and roses, and that's fine. But sometimes you gotta grab people by the shirt collar and say, this is where we're going, and this is how we're gonna get it done.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares.

Oh God, I'm tired. Luis Palomares, community activist. I'm curious about this. I know the staff said, gave their presentation, but is this something like the $5 million seed money? That's what I wanna know, because it sounds all great, but is it something like that? Or it's not anything to, that's my question. I know you can't answer it, but I'm just asking. There's not enough in here, unless I read the book over there, then I'll get more information. Now, I wanna stand corrected on the, The gas station up there on Iris, where the hospital is, Oliver, it is gonna happen. I was confused what it is. They're not gonna have smoking or liquor there. That's what they voted against. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes all public comments.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll bring it back up to the dais for deliberation. And if it's OK with the council, just because I was the one that made the motion, if I could just kind of introduce it and then would love to hear from the entire council. So this, I appreciate staff for bringing this back. And this really came about because, as many of us know, Moreno Valley is on paper, median age is 35, about one or two children per family, and in terms of incorporation, we're what, 36 years old as a city since we incorporated. We're a young city relative to the rest of the county, and because of that, I just thought it was a good idea for us to at least have a discussion, hopefully move it forward and identify tangible items that we can implement to expedite, assist, further go above and beyond to help any youth serving, children serving businesses, organizations, programs, whether it's athletics or arts programs or businesses like Tiny Toes or Kids Empire, those type of places that I really think we need more of. You talk to any parent that has young children here in the city, any of the parents that have children at our local schools and they will tell you that we need more activities, more facilities, more amenities for our youth to enjoy here. And so this is just an opportunity for us to explore how we can expedite some of these processes and potentially if the council is open to it, maybe even exploring funding behind it. That's not what the original intent was. Tonight's discussion is not about creating a program or spending money today. It's about exploring those ways that we can make it easier for quality youth-focused programming providers to establish and expand here in the city of Moreno Valley. And if we can bring more of those opportunities for our youth while supporting local entrepreneurs, creating jobs, that's a win-win for our children, for our families, for our community. And I look forward to hearing feedback and ideas from my colleagues on the council as well. So that'll conclude my comments and we'll open it up to the council.

Yeah, I just have a couple comments on that. I think it's a great idea. I think that overall our city should strive to expedite all plans and all inquiries or any applications that come through, but especially for our youth. And if there's a business out there that's willing to supply that or to provide that for our city, I think that it's a great idea. And I get your point as far as what you're trying to do. So it's not about opening up child carers or having the Marina Valley City pay for the child care, nothing like that. This is just... physical expediting permits or reviewing plans or, oh, you're bringing another dance company to Marina Valley? Oh, well, let's talk about how fast we can get this done for you. And maybe there's some incentives down the road. So I understand this, and I think it's a good idea. And I think this came out of a council meeting when there were several people that complained that there was just not enough for our youth to do, and this is just one step closer to providing stuff for our youth to do. So, yeah, I like it. Thank you.

Is that a concern? How many days does it take for one of these companies to... Do we have delays and we put them on the back burner? Is there something that our staff is not doing right now?

Everybody should be.

Yeah, why are we needing to come to council because there's delays in processing business licenses?

Thank you, Councilmember. It's not a matter of business license. There's also, well, potentially business license, but there's also potentially various inspections and permits that are needed if they're coming into a space and trying to open a business within Moreno Valley. That's what I'm hearing when I hear streamlined processes and so forth. not necessarily just the business license aspect. There are a lot of processes related to any business that is trying to open in the city, and so we have to go through the building and safety, the permitting of planning, and so forth. I do have... Sean here, Kelleher, the assistant city manager, if you would like to add anything else. But I think that's what we are hearing is streamlining the entire process for these particular types of businesses, not just necessarily the business license.

The delays, how long does it usually take? How long are we talking about reducing it to? Are we putting them in front of like, if somebody wants to open a Zumba class and if they have one class a week for children, will that put them at the front of the line in front of the neighbor next door? Like, what is it? What are we going to do with this? Like, actually.

I think that's a great question, Council Member, and that would be part of the next steps, right, to identify exactly what you're asking and other similar questions is where do those maybe gaps or delays exist and what are potential solutions that staff can bring back to the Council for us to deliberate?

I think it would be better to look at our services and streamline for all businesses. Why are we focused on one particular group? Why don't we help any business that wants to come to Myrna Valley? I thought we were already streamlining and getting our code and fire inspections done as fast as we could. I thought we were already doing that. So are we asking them to skip the line? Are we looking at hiring more people? filling the vacancies we just talked about like I don't just don't understand why this business should skip the line or why we shouldn't streamline for everybody

Well, and I think these are great conversations for ultimately what staff would bring back in some type of proposal for council to determine whether or not they want to move forward on. We process all applications received by businesses, regardless of business type and category, and we work as fast as they're able to work. whether it be the applicant as an owner or the applicant who has hired consultants. But we work through as quickly as possible. The other aspect that we heard from the motion was potentially fee reductions, credits, those types of things as well related to this particular category. So that would be conversation for the dais and whether or not that is something that would like to proceed with this particular category of business.

Yeah, thank you. And I'm going to go to Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez next. I would just add to that that I think this is more big picture about kind of prioritizing our youth and children and businesses that serve them primarily. Just kind of going above and beyond for those particular organizations, programs that we really need here in the city. Mayor Pro Tem.

And I think, again, kind of the two-step process, right? Sometimes it's not the best way, but that's a different discussion. What's the last provider that Had these type of services that provide services to children and the youth that is it the is that the one that's going to tiny tiny toes tiny tiny toes is that the most recent one or is there one prior to that or is.

So Tiny Toes would definitely be the most recent one that we're processing. When it comes to Tiny Toes, they actually were already a permitted use within the specific plan they were located in. So they went straight into our building permit process. And as part of our building permit process, we do have a couple of different ways that we review a project, or we do offer a couple of different speeds for which a project can be processed. We offer our standard review processing time, which is 10 business days for first review, and then subsequent seven and five business days for review for subsequent resubmittals and re-reviews. The architects, the designers, they try very, very hard, but I've not ever seen a project go forward without a second plan check. We're all human, we all, yeah. So that is the first, that is one option. Second option is we do have an expedited review process where we are able to reduce those review times down to five days, starting from the very first review. There is an extra cost associated with that that is assessed to the applicant at that time. So it's five days for each and every single review, and that's five business days. The third option is they can actually, through our services, contract with Will Dan, who is a consultant inspector on behalf of the city. They ultimately pay the city the standard plan check review fee, and then they are actually able to negotiate with WLDAN for an expedited review fee of whatever that may be for those reviews to occur. Ultimately, WLDAN certifies the plans, and then a final review is done by the building official after WLDAN has certified it. So we have policies and programs in place for these reviews. I get a monthly report from all of our divisions relative to how quickly permits are turning around. And our average is... beat those numbers regularly for first, second, third review, whatever it may be. The other thing the city always does as part of our process is if an applicant ever gets to a fourth review, whether that's a planning entitlement or a plan check, we always require the developer to meet with us. So we are very insistent on that. And then the last thing I would say, coming out of Kyle Warsinski's shop, the economic development, we have a concierge service that we offer to every developer. And ultimately that Melissa McLean or another member of our economic development staff ultimately is in regular contact with the developer to shepherd them through the process especially when it's their first time.

Maybe one or two follow-up questions on that. And then I think Council Member Bernard also has a question or comment. What are the costs, even ballpark? You mentioned maybe the two options, the five-day expedited review and then the well-done option. Even just kind of baseline, what are the costs that an applicant would be looking at paying there?

I do not have those exact numbers, Mayor. It is dependent on what the plan check is, the number of pages. There's a lot of variability in that. And then the number with when we talk about the third option, ultimately, that is they pay the city's base plan check fee for the traditional 10-day review. Whatever agreement they enter into with Wildan, that is between that private company and the developer to make that determination on what that value is. But again, it varies depending on the type of permit they're seeking, what those fees would actually be.

What would be a minimum, just, you know, 10-day standard minimum? Are we talking a couple thousand, several thousand dollars, just a ballpark for a minimum?

I really would not be comfortable answering that because, again, it is just so varied on what, you know, Is this a brand new build? Are they coming in to just do a very, very simple TI? Is it just a water heater? It's so varied that it's just very hard to put a single number on it. It's just not practical.

Do we make a profit on those fees or is this just paying for the student, I mean the student, the services that we're providing?

Does the city make a profit?

The cost that we charge, they're in alignment with how much it costs for the city staff, right?

The fees that the city charges align with the hours of service that the city provides relative to an application. In most cases, the fees, or in a lot of cases, the fees could be less than the time that staff ultimately implements into them. And certain projects, ultimately, based off of the type of projects that they are, we will actually have them go on to a pay-as-you-go type rate to ensure, because of the complexity of the project, that they are literally paying as they go for those services and staff is billing at an hourly rate against those applications.

And is there any fee waivers or reduced fee applications available?

The only fee waivers that the city truly gets involved in is related to development impact fees for the most part, and that's associated with affordable housing. Those are the traditionally where we would look for fee waivers.

Mr. Mayor, so state law prohibits the city from recovering any more than our cost incurred for processing applications.

Additionally the hourly rate that was set that particular rate hasn't changed in a few years so with the inflation and If we were to do a cost study based on today's Costs they would be significantly higher. We we have not raised them Thank you.

We'll go to a council member Bernard

So I just have a few questions. So I know this is to gather information to put together a staff report. So I see here, I think it's a great idea. It's something that I have been pushing for and saying to think outside of the box. So while I understand we're talking about little children, I think that we should also have a discussion about maybe we should add a component about being able to attract. So if we were to, for instance, decide I don't know how we do our other program. If we were to say, can we put a couple hundred thousand away to allow for someone that may not have the money? I know we have a pay as you go system, but may not have the full funds, which I think is kind of where Mayor may be leading to. Would we be able to do something to that effect where they would be able to apply, have it reviewed whether or not it would meet certain criteria for that? And I'm asking because while we're talking about tiny feet, things like that, we have buildings around the city that I think are can still be used and reutilized that I think that we need to look into. I think that we have buildings that can be converted to all types of things. One thing in particular that I will always harp on because it's not just for children but just families overall is converting some of the spaces that we have around here to a skating rink. which would bring in a lot of revenue. There is a skating rink in Riverside County that I can think of any longer with the one that burned down. So I wonder if we can do something to that effect. And that's just, because I'm thinking, hearing everything Mayor's saying, hearing some other conversations, I'm thinking that's kind of where this was leading. If it's not a fund, fine, but is there a way for us to assist with getting it off? Yeah, to promote it, something like that. Because I also think it's not just the fact that we need to put something together, but we need to figure out how to attract recruit and bring them in specifically if this is what we want to focus on, is that we have to attract and bring in specifically something more aligned with children and youth programming or just family entertainment altogether, like if that is something we should really hone in on.

So council member parks and community services as part of their fee schedule, they have certain either fee waivers and or discounts for certain categories of businesses such as nonprofits and so forth. So we could also take a look at that. But I think Realistically, we could also take a look at the economic development strategic plan because I do believe the youth – there was a bunch of youth initiatives in there related to the October – 2024 council approval of that particular strategic plan and as part of that we can potentially develop a proposal in figuring out how we can utilize economic development to attract, recruit, retain, which is what they do for all businesses now.

Yeah, I think, um, just to kind of add on, and then I'll come to Mayor Pro Tem, because I was, uh, Council Member Bernard, I think those are great ideas, uh, 100% agree with, with that, and that's kind of, you know, again, we're just exploring the different options, right, what are the possibilities, and I didn't want to hone in on funding because i know that always becomes trickier where are we going to get the money from and things like that but if that's where this ultimately goes that was actually to your point councilman that's where it originally came from it was a dance studio that wanted to establish itself here in moreno valley but they were brand new mom and pop brick and mortar They didn't have the funds to go through the entire application process. They would have had to take out loans and all of that. So those barriers that some of these new programs encounter and that was the point of this to explore how we could potentially help them. And so I agree that putting that together, you mentioned Council Member Bernard and then City Manager mentioned and some of the other comments as well. If we could kind of package this together maybe through economic development and use that as a tool to incentivize those like skating rinks. I know that's something you've been talking about for years. So how do we incentivize and further offer more to attract those type of businesses to come here to the city of Moreno Valley? I 100% agree with that. So yeah, we'll go to Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez.

I just wanted to bring that ED component, right? I think with Kyle and his team, they can have a niche type of concierge services for those types of businesses. So something just to be more creative, think outside the box.

Yeah, as we're saying that, I'm thinking, can we maybe add a new facet to the higher mobile program or the Moreno Valley utility incentive programs that we have? Can we add a new category that kind of falls in line with what we're talking about here for attracting these particular type of businesses, whether it's hiring employees or if they serve the demographic that we're talking about, they can get discounts on their utility bills, et cetera. So yeah, I think a lot of great ideas and great suggestions. Would invite any further deliberation, any other questions or comments? Okay. If not, I'll make a motion to move forward to direct staff to explore options. Do you have enough information from us in this deliberation to kind of put something together and bring it back to us?

Yes, as you guys are talking, I'm going through the strategic plan that was approved in October of 2024 as well. But yes, I think we do, but it's dependent on how the motion is stated, but yes.

Okay. IF THERE'S NO FURTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS, I'LL GO AHEAD AND MAKE A MOTION THAT WE DIRECT STAFF TO EXPLORE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES, INITIATIVES, OR OTHER FUNDING OR PERMITTING PROCESSES, ET CETERA, THAT COULD POTENTIALLY INCENTIVIZE AND ATTRACT MORE OF THESE YOUTH AND CHILDREN SERVING BUSINESSES, PROGRAMS, ORGANIZATIONS HERE TO THE CITY OF MARINO VALLEY. AND I'M SEEKING A SECOND FOR

I second that motion.

There's a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado? Yes. Council Member Paca-Santa Cruz?

No.

Mayor Protean-Gonzalez?

Yes.

And Mayor Kerbera?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. That passes 4-1. Thank you to my colleagues. I appreciate that. And that will bring us next to item L2, Review and Consider the Public Arts Commission's Approval for Public Art Request for Funding Application. Terrell Hill for a Media Arts Conference. And we will get started with the staff report from Parks Director Jeremy Bubnik.

Mayor Pro Tem and city council members, I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Hill to give his presentation.

Okay. Good evening. Welcome.

Hey, how you guys doing? Good to see you guys.

This is my first time at a meeting. Very nice to meet everybody. Hello, everybody who stayed for this part of the meeting. My name is Terrell Hill. I am a Moreno Valley kid through and through. Went to Honey Hollow, Palm Middle, Canyon Springs, the whole nine. Went to school in Atlanta, Georgia, Clark Atlanta University. Got my film degree. And I'm about six months from finishing my master's program with my MFA so I can be a university professor at local universities. But I also work in the world of television and film. Right now I'm on a show on Netflix called All American. I've been working in the industry for about 10 years. I have a media company called Everybody's Inc. And I've also recently taken home an Emmy from a documentary that we were able to produce in-house with Power Speaks Louder. I imagine a friend to the room, a documentary called Still Standing. So I've been working with the world of TV and film for a while, and I've been educated in this place for quite some time. And when I was moving here in 1999, it was basically a dirt road from what I can remember. Obviously as a kid, I was five years old. So for me, it looked like a really big city, but I also would always look to see what was around and how we could potentially put some fire behind the dreams that we had. And as I grew up, I recognized being involved in student leadership that many of the things that I was interested in and a lot of my friends were interested in, there were no actual resources for those things. So to make a long story short, the reason why I'm here today is because with the information I've been able to garner Over the last 10 years of working in the world of TV and film, I propose a media arts conference that's free to the public. It's a single day event designed to expose high school students and possibly their parents to real paths in the world of TV and film. This is going to be consisting of a full day experience. All forms of media will be covered. Those six areas that are going to be covered are screenwriting, television and film production, artificial intelligence, and media and beyond. below the line production, an acting workshop, and we're gonna have fireside chats with professionals that came to the city of Moreno Valley to take part in this actual conference and hopefully pour something into the students who are taking part in this actual conference. We're gonna basically use the ballroom as our main facility. Obviously, this is where everybody would be. Half of the conference will stay there during the workshop while the other half will be broken into Alessandro A and B right here next door in the facility. And then, of course, on the second half of the conference, after lunch, the conference will flip and whoever was inside the ballroom will break off into breakout sessions while the other half of the conference will stay in. for the larger presentation that takes place that 50% of the room can actually hold. So this is something that we're looking to potentially get going in the middle of the next semester. That looks like October 17th as of now. The budget that's listed includes all of the necessary items in order to pull this off. That includes the rentals of the actual venue, multiple facilitators, production staff, and of course all the things that the students will be walking away with. That includes QR codes, uh the phrase swag which stands for stuff we all get at conferences qr codes brochures and a levy of information and contacts from and with everybody involved and of course your food and your catering this is a event that i would like to see happen mainly for the city i have a lot of great relationships with the city of merino valley and other surrounding cities been traveling and doing conferences and workshops around the country for the last 10 years And from my experience, I think if we're looking to improve attendance and overall morale post pandemic conferences like these are one of the best ways to do that because you give people tools and a vision for something that maybe they have an idea of, but don't have a point in the right direction. So that is essentially the presentation. And of course, I'm here for any questions that need to be answered.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hill, for the presentation. And if you could just stick with us there for just a moment in case there are any questions at this time. Actually, I'll look to staff if there are any further questions or presentation. If not, we will move into questions from the council.

Question as far as, Jeremy, would this be coming out of the Parks and Rec DIF funds? It would be coming out of the ART DIF funds, yeah.

And was this recommended by the Arts Commission?

Yes, it was approved and recommended by the Arts Commission.

Very good.

Any further questions from the council?

Okay. I don't think there's any further questions at this time. Thank you again, Mr. Hill, for the presentation. We will do public comment, and then if there's any further questions, we'll call you back up. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Madam Clerk, do we have any public speakers on this item?

We do, Mayor. The first speaker is Roy Bleckert.

This is your pro tip of the day. Go back and watch yourself on videotape like this meeting. It's very enlightening. This seems to be something that should have been proposed to the syndicate. Education of kids, doing that, getting them involved with the schools. It goes to the point of just what we had in the last one. What's the responsibilities of what you should be doing? We have a lot of different government agencies, and everybody seems to be tripping over everybody else's jurisdiction. Maybe this is why we have the confusing one of the last one of where... It seems like everything's already getting done or whatever it is, and we're coming up with a new proposal. This may be a great deal, but again, is this the proper area for this to be in? Mind you, well, you're catching up. But the syndicate has a lot more money than you do to work with in these areas and that's in their purview. Just like with all the other stuff in the utility wraps and all that. It was supposed to be a joint deal or we're gonna get the kids involved and we never do. And it would even seem to me if you're working with the school districts, Moreno Valley and Val Verde, which you always seem to leave out, That would be a much more effective venue for them to actually get the kids out to participate in something like this if that was the ultimate goal. So what I'm asking is, make it make sense. Does it make sense? Are we doing what's best with the resources we have in our communities? I think in a lot of cases, probably 111%, that doesn't happen. That's why you see the things happening as in today. Or do you hear the questions that you hear? It's very interesting as I look back, and you know, A Stitchbank Okies had a skating rink in Edgemont back in the day.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares.

The Luis Palomares Community Activist. Gee, Roy, I didn't know about that, skate me. How many years ago was that, 40? Wow. Oh, wow. Okay, it's catching up to me now. Okay, as far as, the guy did an excellent presentation. My hat's off to the guy. He knows what the hell he's doing. I want his card. Anyway, it all sounds great, but, you know, let's make it work that it's going to, across everywhere, like he said, Val Verde and Moreno Valley, and you know, it looks like it's a campaign year, because I've been talking about a lot of this stuff for the longest time, but hey, we're on a campaign trail, so let's throw it out there, let's leave that last thought, you know, this meeting could run over and over, and oh, wow, we're gonna get, hey i'm all about it let's bring bring it on but let's do it the right way and as far as uh golly golly on another note the young lady over here said uh let's fill the commissions yeah i'm all about it let's do it and there's a lot of commissions that ain't filled like the planning commission we put a Gabby Melendez in there, she wasn't a registered voter. She was undocumented. So let's do it the right way this time when we fill these commissions. And we came out here and talked about that. So let's do it right when we do it. Thank you.

The next speaker is Bob Palomares.

Thank you. Just a friendly reminder, we're talking about the art initiative, the program here on the agenda.

You don't have to tell me twice. This is a great program here. They want, what, $28,000 to make this happen? Look at it this way. Down the street, I think it was Cottonwood and Parris Boulevard, we spent $18,000 on a utility wrap. For 10 more thousand, we got them. So look at that. But this is exactly what we need. You know, we got to... GET OUT OF THIS SMALL TOWN ATTITUDE THAT WE HAVE HERE WHERE, YOU KNOW, THIS CITY HERE WAS SUPPOSED TO JUST BE A BEDROOM COMMUNITY. WE'RE BIGGER THAN THAT. BUT WE'VE GOT SMALL THINKERS SOMETIMES UP HERE THAT ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS PUT EVERYTHING IN ONE BOX. KIND OF LIKE THE MUSEUM AT THE MALL. that drives by on the freeway is going to know that we have an arts or a library or a museum in the mall. They're not going to know. Who's going to stop? The only ones that are going to be there are the people here. But this is a great thing, so go for it. Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes all public testimony.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. And thank you to our public speakers. We'll bring it back for any council deliberation. Council Member Bernard.

I think it's a great idea I think being that it is on a Saturday it is I think it's something that can easily be recruited between the two school districts as I know the Val Verde where my children are go all the way to Meade Valley in the city of Paris I think it's something that could be recruited in especially with it being our surrounding media and arts I don't think it's it would be an issue to fill that with the 300 if you have parents coming and things like that guess can you come back up real quick I have a quick question yes you sir yes you mr. Hill Emmy award-winning mr. Hill so I know I do I see in here that it is geared towards high school students but the question that I do have is if this would be something where you would possibly be open to opening it up to middle school to middle school students also

You're talking about this particular one on October 17th? Yeah. I am open to whatever you all are open to. I will say that high school and specifically when we're talking about these particular workshops, what I found and I'm saying this because I actually have programs with middle schools. The way that we would frame things for middle schoolers is very different than how we would frame things for high schoolers, because high schoolers, the stakes are a little bit higher. I would even at one point, because I mean, I also do independent workshops on my own through my own company. So transparently, I could work with people of all ages, adults included, because people have the idea that because you've above the age of 18 or 21 or even 30, that the idea that working in TV and film media and all different forms are no longer existent. And that's just not the case. So in a traditional sense, this can expand to all ages, but specifically for October 17th, especially with the facilitators that I've had communications with, I know that the people that are coming are coming to talk to people who are more than likely considering going to college in the next couple of years. You know, over time, you know, we could definitely see what it looks like to put something together. But specifically on the 17th, I think that's perfect. I also expect to be doing different pop ups at different high schools. So the recruitment will be very easy, too. But I just think it's different when you're talking to 10 year olds versus 17 year olds. Acting workshops look very different. Screenwriting, all of those things are just different levels. You know what I mean?

Okay, thank you.

Of course. Should I stay up for any additional questions just in case?

You may. I don't know. It was just a question that I had. So I appreciate you explaining it. I think it is a really good idea, an innovative idea that expands upon the exact uses that we wanted to do with the art fund. So thank you.

Okay. No, of course. Thank you so much.

I think this is a great idea with using the art funds for. So like someone said, I don't know if it was a member of public, that this is outside the box of wraps and murals and statues around the city. So I think this is our return on investment may be greater than any of that stuff. So great investment. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you.

And I'm just kind of thinking outside the box. I think Mr. Hill is an example of going back to L1, you know, how if somehow he's, you know, he could tie that in his creativity, his offering something to the youth, you know, I think it's really important to make that connection. So maybe, I don't know if staff can tie it in somehow, but thank you, Mr. Hill.

Yeah, I agree with that, and also just wanna say thank you to you, Terrell, for bringing this forward. I know you've been working on this for a long time, so I'm glad to see that it got the recommendation, it got the Arts Commission's blessing, and that you took the various steps to get here. It's not every day that we have an Emmy Award winner here proposing to give back, and homegrown, because if I remember correctly, you grew up here, you went to our schools here, You mentioned Honey Hollow. I think you went to Canyon Springs as well. I think you were there when Kawhi was there as well.

I went to school with his cousin because he was just a couple years older than me. But yes, I remember he left when I got there.

So I just mentioned Kawhi because there's, again, so many Moreno Valley residents that are homegrown success stories and not all of them come back and pour back into the community and you're doing that. So I agree with all the comments that my colleagues have said. Council Member Bernard, I agree with that as well. If we can explore... potentially other ways that we can create programs more geared for our younger kids that would be great as well and and maybe that could be a branch off of this program that we're putting together so yeah just really excited about this thank you again for for bringing this to our city thank you guys so much appreciate it all right if there's no further deliberation i'll make a motion to approve staff's recommendations I'll second. Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado? Yes. Council Member Pagasana-Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. Mayor Cabrera?

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next item is L3. We're almost there. We're getting closer to the end here, folks. I know it's late. It's 923. But L3 is a discussion to evaluate layered security measures to enhance safety at City Hall. And we'll turn it over to Director Walker for a staff report.

Yes, and I'm going to have our Fleet and Facilities Division Manager, Joe Maddox, come up and give a presentation.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the Council. My name is Joe Maddox. I am the Fleet and Facilities Maintenance Division Manager, and I'm here to talk to you tonight a little bit about some security screening and threat detection systems. And just for the record, this is an item that was taken before the Public Safety Subcommittee on May 19th, where a motion was approved to bring forward a discussion item to the City Council, including consideration of a pilot program specific to City Hall and the Council Chambers. Hopefully I'll have some luck with this. This is as part of the city's ongoing efforts to enhance safety and security at public facilities. Staff is evaluating security screening technologies as one component of a broader layered security approach. The goal is to improve safety for employees, residents, and visitors while maintaining accessible and welcoming public facilities. This discussion is intended to evaluate potential options, operational impacts, and long-term feasibility before any implementation decisions are considered. When we talk about the threat detection systems, more commonly known as metal detection systems, there's three key items to consider, and I'm going to go over these in separate sections here, but on a high level it's technology, space and infrastructure requirements, and of course staffing. We'll start off with technology. There's two main components of technology that we consider. First would be what we consider traditional metal detection systems. And some of the pros are the proven technology, lower acquisition costs. These are widely used in government court and courthouse settings, lower maintenance and subscription costs. Some of the cons are their higher nuisance alarm rates, more secondary screening and slower throughput. Nuisance alarm rates mean they're going off every time they detect any metal object. They're more intrusive, public experience. They detect metal generally, not intelligently assessing threats. And there's more staffing interaction required But approximate costs in these systems can run anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000 per lane. That's for the units themselves. There's, of course, additional costs for infrastructure and construction and any staffing requirements, staffing being a huge consideration because there's at least two required for each lane. The second common standard in the technology realm is AI-assisted screening systems. Pros of these are there are faster throughput for better high-volume entry. You'll see a lot of these more like stadium events or areas where we're moving a large amount of people in a very short period of time. There are more refined public experience, so they're a little bit less intrusive for our visitors. They are better suited for civic and public environments. They have reduced nuisance alarms, meaning they're capable of distinguishing likely weapons from common metal objects. So keys and those types of things aren't setting these systems off. They can say, this looks like a knife or this looks like a weapon of some sort. The cons are, of course, they're significantly more expensive. There are ongoing subscription and licensing costs because this is an investment in software as well as the hardware. They do require stronger infrastructure and network integration. Approximate costs on these systems can be anywhere from 75 to $200,000 per lane, depending on system configuration. And in addition, there's annual software and service costs, construction costs, and again, the staffing component. We talk about space and infrastructure requirements. There's several things to consider here. There needs to be a defined queuing area, meaning anywhere you've gone to an event and you've gone through any kind of assessment, Even TSA at the airport, you're going to line up in lines and they're taking people through. So you need space for that. You need a controlled ingress path. There's going to need to be a space for secondary screening. So if we do have an alarm that goes off, we need to pull that person aside and do further assessment. We need to consider ADA compliance. There needs to be a bag check area. Typically, you'll have stanchions and barriers. There needs to be power network data. Security will typically need a workstation, camera coverage, and emergency egress as well. And the final component to consider when looking at these systems is, of course, the staffing component. We say there's a minimum of two staff per lane because one person alone cannot safely monitor the alarms, conduct the secondary screening, observe surrounding activity, maintain public flow simultaneously, and typically additional staff is often required due to breaks, lunches, and leave time. And just a quick photo there, you can actually see a common setup. I think there's a total of four people running that one lane. The next steps for us would be to continue evaluating layered security measures to enhance safety while maintaining accessible and welcoming public facilities. We could look to, with direction of course, pursue pilot programs, even utilizing existing security contractors. and we would look for policy direction and security assessment. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you very much for the presentation and we'll bring it back for any questions from the council if you can hang there with us for just a moment. Are there any questions from the council? Council Member Delgado.

So thank you for that presentation. It was very brief, very thorough. On a pilot program, Would you go rent the detector, or how does that work? If we choose one or it comes down the pike that we want to get a particular one, whether it be one of the expensive AI ones or just a metal detector, would you go borrow one, and how does that work as far as a pilot?

That's correct. We'd be able to rent them, and we've actually checked with our existing security contractors, so this is something they already do for us at certain of our large events, some of the 4th of July events, etc., Lion security is one of our current contractors and they have already provided similar services at those large-scale programs And so we did check with capabilities to see if we were given direction to pursue that Would they have the capability of providing the different types of systems for pilot programs at different locations?

So certainly we could and Staffing for those as well. That's correct.

Thank you Here brother have these detectors I made sure that these events have been safe and have they caught any type of malfeasance there in these events that you could share?

Yes. I think that they're widely regarded as successful. And I think the harder thing is to say what didn't they catch if they weren't being used. So we know when they have been deployed, they have been successful in identifying threats. We did a lot of research so far in preparation for this and looked at a lot of different case studies. in different areas where they have been deployed. And obviously they reported after deploying having, you know, they have been able to identify threats and reduce that. But the bigger question is what got through before they were deployed. That part we just don't know. It's an unknown.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any further questions from the council? Seeing no further questions at this time, thank you very much for the presentation. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comments?

We do, Mayor. The first speaker is Fred Buñuelos.

Hey, guys. The staffing. in those videos i didn't see any a good guy with a gun so how are you going to stop the active threat when you find somebody that has the gun that's my first question uh the next thing i want to know is uh are you going to have two deputies with guns you know you got to stop that threat and there's got to be somebody that's going to take out that active threat we had an assassination attempt And the bad guy got past those detectors. So that's something else to think about. People are going to get past these systems. I mean, take the jails, for instance. People get drugs into the jails. These are just questions that you need to ask. You're trying to protect everybody in here. You're trying to protect people at City Hall. I'd rather see my money go to our kids, protecting our kids that are a soft target. But that's a whole other story. Why do you need these? Especially in here, I want to see what's going to happen after the remodel. But you have six deputies, six good guys with the guns here already. Why do you need these detectors in this room? Why do we have all these deputies? You should feel safe. When we have our special awards for our deputies, the whole place is packed. You guys should feel safe in here. Just questions in here. I don't know why we have all these deputies. I'd rather see the deputies at our schools that are soft targets. It's just questions that I want to bring to you. I'm very adamant about protecting our kids at our schools. I'd rather see these things at our schools than here. That's where I want our tax money to go to. You know, the problem isn't with the... Excuse me. The problem is... isn't with the one person, the active shooter that has a gun. The problem is with the people that don't have a gun to protect themselves. So I hope you guys ask them these questions. It's really... I don't know. I'm always adamant about protecting our kids first, and I don't see it that we need to do something like here when you have all these deputies here, six good guys with a gun. And in those pictures, the staff, none of them that was checking for the metals detectors had a gun. How are you going to stop these people? Simple question. Thank you.

The next speaker is Roy Bleckert.

As we look at this, and as is pointed out, we got more cops with guns around here. What is the purpose of that? I mean, I know Hurricane Louise is dangerous, but I don't think she's a threat. Fred brought out an absolutely fantastic point. If we're going to spend these monies for security, let's spend them at our schools protecting our kids, not protecting you. You put in all these security members in this, and again, where's the cost? Even at the rental stuff, how much is this going to cost? To put it in, to maintain it, to provide the staffing, Again, even if you vote for it, how many times have I come up here and said I'm perfectly comfortable with any decision you make as long as you're making it on complete and accurate information? It doesn't seem to get here. You wonder why the frustration is of the community? You pretty much beat this community into the freaking ground. That's why I get this more times than anything. People say, I just give up. There's nothing you can do. And that is extremely sad. And it's because of the processes and the things that we do. Again, I encourage you. I encourage all of you. to go back and rewatch this videotape. And then come back and give just a small report on what you observed. Because like with this and everything else, even when you're seeing it and living it in real time, When you go back and watch and see what you thought you said or didn't, it comes back as a different thing. And why I say that is we won't, in most cases, we will not be up here doing this or the last 27 things we did here. Because we will actually be looking forward and coming up and saying, you know, hey, this is really how we should do it. Or this is really how we can improve it. Sadly, we disregard this at our own peril.

The next speaker is Luis Palomares.

I agree with a lot of what Fred said and Roy too. I mean, come on, we're old enough we can hit the deck. I mean, I'm worried about our kids in the schools. I agree with some, but not all of it. And you know, our mayor here had a restraining order on a couple because he's afraid, fear for his life, but I really don't think so. Two million dollars, it cost us. You know, so what is it, are we afraid? If you're afraid to be up there, and the staff is, if you're for the safety, oh wow, what about us here in the room too? It's a lot of money, it's a lot of money. I'm all about safety, and I'm all about, but come on. Come on, how much it's gonna cost us? Like you said, is it gonna be somebody, the security gonna be out there with guns? No. We got how many deputies in the room? I mean, we used to only have one or two, but since the mayor wants, you know, More in here, we have them in here. Really, sometimes there's six deputies. And there's 100 people in here and 50 out there. I mean, there never been an incident. Only the restraining order one, the mayor was afraid of a couple, reading him the riot act and he called fall. Oh, wow. We had to walk him to his car. And if you feel that afraid, mayor, get the deputies to walk you to the car every single time. But I don't even think it's even that. I just think it's, huh. Well, I'll leave it at that. I better quit while I'm ahead here. Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes public testimony.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll bring it back up to the dance. Council Member Bernard.

Hi, so Councilmember Delgado and I sit on the Public Safety Committee. And this came from the Public Safety Committee. This is, and that's why it's here. It came from Councilmember Delgado, myself, and the Public Safety Committee. And it is not because we don't, we, if you go back to those notes, It's not that we are afraid or anything like that. What we were coming from was we felt like we needed metal detectors for the public because you go to plenty of other places. The County Board of Supervisors does it. So things like that. So that's what we were thinking of. We do it when we have big events. when we are talking about not just coming here in the council chambers, but next door with city staff, having something come through there. Who knows? Having the metal detectors may take us back down from meeting five, six deputies back down to one or two. So that's where when we were having the discussion, that's where this came from. was should we start looking at putting in metal detectors? As for everyone wanting them at the school districts, again, that's not our jurisdiction. Wrong department. You would have to talk with them about expanding that. So I understand that, too. But that's where this came from. It came from that, from the perspective of the public, city staff. That's where it came from. No concern, especially... with Ed. As all of you know, Ed always tells us, don't worry about me. You just get down first and I'll take care of everything else. He's got it. That's where it came from. So this isn't a request that was, I just want to clarify because this is not a request that came from anybody else up here on council. This came from the Public Safety Committee when we were having a discussion. and so we wanted to bring it forward to council so that we can get out and open have a discussion is it a pilot program we want to test out and again it's a pilot program if we test it we don't like it then we can say okay we tried it we didn't need it but we can't test these things out in our minds and be like this might be how it works we at some point would need to actually actually test it out and we figure since we already do it for a lot of the events that we had it would we should transfer it over to here and try it over here because other council offices, county board of supervisors, they have it too. And it doesn't hold up the process, because that was the other thing. Would this hold up the process of us getting people in and out? So we asked all those questions. So that's where it came from. I just wanted to give that background a little bit.

And a little bit more on that, I think this, yes, besides the money-saving factor that it would reduce the amount of deputies, this came out of a, I mean, besides that, of course, but a member of the public said, what about us? When we decided that we were going to vote on clearing this room out starting tomorrow, I believe, and redoing it safety-wise for the well, for the way it's configured, because I think it can be configured a little better anyways, right, for safety, It was told to us, what about us, members of the public? What about us? What about our safety? So we thought, well, you know what? We could save money and put an additional layer of security for our public, as requested by the public. We thought that would be a great idea. We used these, like Councilmember Bernard and... The presentation said that we use these at events. The county board of supervisors use them every day. It takes two people. Sometimes the one person is there. They just make you put your keys in the thing. They walk you around, and you're good to go. And there's only two deputies in the chambers at the county board meetings. Roy knows them by name, every single one of them. And I think they even rotate one at a time, correct me if I'm wrong, Roy. But I think that's where we were coming from, added layer of security for the public. And obviously, if it saves us some money by, you know, kicking some deputies out to patrol, then that's what we do, so.

Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem. If one safety mechanism fails, then the other one kicks in. So that's how I see it. I think it's a win-win for all. And it's a pilot program.

Yeah, I do want to thank my colleagues as well. Council Member Delgado, Council Member Bernard on the Public Safety Subcommittee, our staff for just being proactive and exploring ways of how we further secure everybody from members of the public, our residents, to every single person that's here on staff within City Hall every single day. And so we're exploring these options, looking at what we could potentially do. and we can't put a price on a life. And I will reiterate what was said about the County Board of Supervisors, because I think all of us on a regular basis almost, we enter into that building and there's those two metal detectors at the front. I mean, that does make me feel safer. You know, sometimes I go in there, I forget my badge. With my badge, I can just get right through. But if I don't have it, I have to go through like everyone else. And it does make me feel safer when I'm walking into that building. And, you know, they do it at the Capitol and Sacramento and many other buildings. So, you know, this is trying to just add that extra layer of protection for everybody. And I appreciate this coming forward. Are there any further questions, comments, motions or seconds? Motion to approve. Second. There's a motion and a second. Please call for the vote.

Thank you. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado? Yes. Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez?

Yes.

Thank you. And Mayor Cabrera?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. That passes with five yeses. I believe Council Member Bacasana-Cruz is going to... Okay. Sounds good. We will move now to L4, discussion of the potential incorporation of various alleyways into the city's maintained road system, and we'll turn it over to Director Walker once again for a staff report.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members. The item before you this evening is the discussion of potential impacts, liability and maintenance costs associated with the incorporation of 21 alleyways located throughout the city into the city's maintained road system. So this is a map showing the various 21 alleyways that we found throughout the city. And these are all within districts one and four. So a little background on this issue. The 21 alleyways were developed prior to the City's incorporation. They were never accepted for maintenance by the County of Riverside when they were developed. They were mapped by developers as separate legal letter lots. They legally remain under the ownership of the original developers. The original developers do not appear to be in practice anymore, and no successor companies were found when we did do research. They are considered private property currently, and the maintenance responsibility rests with those property owners. So some of the concerns we have with considering whether to take these alleyways in or not is one thing, the alleyways were not built up to city standards. The cost to bring them up to city standards is estimated at $6.4 million. There's estimated $335,000 annual cost if maintenance costs, if they're taken in as is so in other words we don't bring them up but we want to take them in anyway and then the last big concern that we have is if we decide to not take them in but go out there and do like one-time repair to fill potholes things like that that it sort of assumes that we are taking some responsibility and it also starts placing liability on the city placing the city at risk So the options that we looked at, there were four options. One is the city does not accept any maintenance or doesn't accept the alleyways for maintenance. The alleyways would remain private and they should be maintained by the private owners. Number two is the city does not accept maintenance but does a one-time pothole type repair which is estimated at $10,000. Again, that does place the city at risk for liability and there's still the continuing issue that they remain private and any annual maintenance beyond that one time would be the private owner's responsibility. Option three is the city could incorporate the alleyways into the city's maintained road system, then bring them up to city standards, which again is estimated at $6.4 million, with the annual estimated maintenance cost of $36,000. That last option is the city could incorporate the alleyways in maintenance, but not bring them up to city standards the maintenance cost annually would be significantly higher just because of the amount of Not being up to city standards. There's a lot more that work is going to go wrong on an annual basis So we're estimating about three hundred and thirty five thousand annually if we do that as is type incorporation So in summary just so these alleyways are considered privately owned and maintained They were not built to city standards the staff report actually recommend the recommendation is based mainly on Liability and trying to reduce and avoid liability for the city but two things where we really want you to consider is uh... in your discussion is uh... that number one momentum mobile which sets our priorities uh... the priorities of beautification in infrastructure really show that these alleyways should someday be brought up to standard and accepted for maintenance especially with the fact that the private property owners really don't really exist anymore there's not really a way to go after them and try to get them to bring things up to standard. And then lastly, that second option thing is that it could be done over long term. So they could be brought in, we could bring in alleyway as the capital, through the capital improvement project process. We could do an alleyway every year, a couple alleyways every year, depending on how much we wanted to spend every year to bring these up to standards. and it could be done as a long-term project to accept those alleyways as funding becomes available. And with that, I will accept any questions.

Thank you very much, Director Walker. We'll go to questions. Mayor Pro Tem.

Melissa, thank you for the presentation. So I kind of want to focus on the summary because it kind of illustrates kind of the medium to long-term, right? Yes. The private owners are either we can't, what do you say, are difficult to find, we can't find them, or it takes a lot of research.

So basically what we found with – so they were developers that were done – it was before the city was incorporated. So these are developers from long, long ago. The companies don't exist anymore, and we could not find any successor companies. So it wasn't like they got eaten out by, you know, some other company and got taken over. So basically – plus they're not like an APN. They're a letter lot. So we can't really go to county and say, here's this APN – We need to charge X amount for them. Their county would have a difficult time with a letter lot trying to figure out how to go after that property owner.

So what would be the way to bring them into the family, right? Into the city maintained, right? But in a phased way so it's not, you know, I understand the expense. It's not part of our city maintained road system. What's... what's those options there as far as getting towards that? Because in the summary, it kind of paints the picture, but in the other slides, it really, it goes the other way, in my view.

Yes, no, exactly. So what we could do is, obviously, again, through the capital improvement process, what we would do is through that budget process, you could set aside X amount of dollars, like $200,000 every year, we could see how like how many alleyways that would bring in it might only be some years depending on the length obviously of each alleyway we might be able to do one long alleyway or a couple of short ones every year but if we wanted to do it that way we could set a certain amount every year per the budget to bring that number of alleyways in using that amount of expense to bring them up to standard and then they would just then be we would bring an item back to council to accept them for maintenance and operation, and then we would have a project to go to repair them, bring them up to standards, and then they would just be part of our normal maintenance after that.

And last question, which alleyway of the 21, are there some that are just public safety hazard, if that makes sense?

The alleyways vary in how – some of them definitely have more potholes, more cracking, more issues. I don't know that there's – I would be – like to stay away from some of those words.

I mean extreme, sorry.

Yeah. But definitely there are some alleyways that are in much rougher shape, I will put it that way, than some of the other alleyways.

And are they adjacent to dwellings and residents?

All the alleyways tend to be adjacent to residents of some kind.

Okay.

Thank you.

So if we were to do the option number four, this could be a long-term project and accept it year by year, put in a CIP, you would prioritize and do the worst first and move forward like that and just kind of...

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we could look at either worst first or biggest bang for buck, just depending on how we wanted to do it, yeah. But definitely worst first would probably be the easiest way to go. Obviously... You can't do as much because you're doing more for a shorter amount.

Incrementally as well, so.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Would we be annexing these and they would be permanently city property?

Yes, so the idea would be with whatever ones that we have that we would want to bring in, we would bring an item to accept them. So, yeah, so then they would be in our system after that point, and we would go out and repair them and bring them in, yes, before we did any work on them.

I have more of a... Can you bring the map real quick? And as that comes up, I have more of a legal question for our city attorney. I'm just curious. I would assume there has to be out there somewhere, case law, even prior to case law, European law or something, that speaks to this type of property issue. We're seeing as, let's assume, every single alleyway here the property owner, the developer is no longer in existence, any subsidiaries or anything like that, they're no longer around. Legally, how does this play out? Are there just no solutions other than the ones that we're entertaining here?

Yeah, if this were to happen with the city in control, what we would have done is that we would have required the developer to have an HOA form. and have that HOA as an obligation to maintain those streets. And unfortunately, in a lot of situations with development projects, developers will create an LLC just to get that project done and walk away, dissolve. There's no one to go after right now. So essentially, it sounds like those lettered lots, and lettered lots are usually common area lots, or they're like private roads, like in this particular situation. And unfortunately, the adjacent property owners, it doesn't sound like they have a legal obligation to maintain them. So we're kind of stuck right now with the situation where you don't have to accept them, you don't have to maintain them. And if you do, then to avoid any claims that this is a gift of public funds, we'll have to justify why we're maintaining them. And that can be easily done because it's facilitating the movement of traffic. But it's a very difficult situation at this point because there is no one out there that we can go after because these LLCs probably dissolved long ago.

And additionally, Mayor, just to add, as the City Attorney mentioned, HOA, another funding mechanism for the maintenance of these types of things in the past would have been some type of an assessment district. And that would have then been recorded amongst the adjacent property owners of an alleyway. The other thing that could potentially be done if you're thinking of of providing a direction to staff. There are multiple ways to potentially fund this as well. An assessment district is a means to potentially fund the alleyway maintenance in the future, but now you're burdening households that have not had this burden forever. The other thing is, is that the prototypical revenues that we receive for gas tax, whether it be the highway users tax, whether it be SB1, whether it be Measure A, they provide funding for maintenance of roadways in our jurisdiction. So that would be probably the best way of funding some type of capital improvement plan over time with our standard revenues that we have now so you're not burdening any one resident. And it would then, based on the city attorney's comment about gift of public funds, it is the same way that we distribute those funds amongst all of our center lane miles throughout our city.

I've worked with one jurisdiction where there was an alley because they had above ground utilities. And then the city had underground the utilities, which did not require the alley anymore. And so the city ended up vacating that alley, and it just went to the adjacent property owners, and they were able to move their fences. So I don't know if they're not using that alleyway for any reason. there's a possibility they can have it declared abandoned, those lots, those lettered lots, and have that land like revert or be transferred over to the adjacent property owners and they have more backyards.

Thank you. Thank you for that additional information there. I'll save my comments for deliberation. I know we're still on questions, but appreciate the additional info there. Are there any other questions from the council? Okay. Madam Clerk, are there any public speakers?

Yes, Mayor. The first public speaker is Roy Blackard.

Wilson Street, a private road. The city decided to, oh, we're going to pave it. It caused the flooding of Dunleavy and the millions of dollars or whatever we paid out on that little fiasco, and I'll tell you why it happened. The late Charlie White, who sat on that dais, wanted to screw the Roy Bleckert because I own property and told them, and Pete did too, what was going to happen. But they said, we don't care just because we want to go after somebody, this will happen. Do not! Do not. Get involved in any of this. Option number one is this. Stay the hell out. City Attorney brought you perfect solution. If the people around there want the property, vacate it and we're done. If we take the—as soon as you don't even fill the pothole, as soon as the city moves a rock over there, we're all on the hook. And who's got the dollars? Us. The $571 million freaking dollars we put in this city every year, some ambulance-chasing attorney is going to go after them. And it's happened. We have a history of it. Are we going to repeat the mistakes of the past? There should not be any more questions or deliberations. Just take option one and be done with this. I don't know why you guys got to make everything so freaking complicated. It's amazing. It's like, you know, we haven't done stupid good enough yet. Let's add some more to the pot. When you look at this stuff, do you see? I hope you can see why. I have to bring a roll of duct tape over here to put it around my head so it doesn't freaking explode. So we're going to see maybe, maybe this can be the impetus of where we finally turn the image of Marina Valley around. They could say, you know what? These guys finally did something that made some sense. Again, option number one, do not get involved in this and we will all live happily ever after.

Mayor, that concludes all public testimony.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll bring it back up to the dais for council deliberation.

My first initial thought process was, why are we doing this? And then I said, well, I kind of want to hear what the rest of the dais thought. Because I don't know why we would do this if I mean, unless they're so bad that people are getting hurt and suing us already, or I don't know, but there's not a property, right? So, I don't know. But I wanted to hear from what you guys thought, because it's actually in 1 and 3? 1 and 4. So I kind of wanted to hear what you guys thought.

Yeah, I've heard, had a lot of emails regarding the alleyways in District 1, and I've been told over and over their private property, we... Not only can we not pave them. We shouldn't be going over there and inspecting them They're not our property and to take on more liability right now I just don't see it being fiscally responsible for tax dollars And I know they're in district one and if we were to be able to get them, you know up to You know the way that they're supposed to be then maybe but these are these are literally private properties and private roads for us to go in there and then who's to say that somebody doesn't come up out of the woodwork and say hold on a second. Thank you very much but I'll be taking that now and I just don't see us it's just it's not our lane I don't think we should be out there.

Any further deliberation?

Yeah, I'm kind of leaning towards, it is private property. And I know that we don't know who actually owns it. Unless I'm missing something, did someone happen to complain about these alleyways? That's the question I have. That's the question I have. Did a resident say something about having to have it maintained or something like that?

The request came from council regarding a particular alleyway. I guess they had a constituent that had approached them about potholes within that alleyway. And so we looked at it further, knowing that there were more than just that one alleyway. We wanted to sort of see what the scope was, because I don't want to take one in and then next week have to look at another. Okay.

Right, but the council, the inquiry was from outside the district. The alleyways are on D1 and D4, and neither of us, we were aware of those alleyways and the fact that they're private property, just like when I responded to your email and saying, hold on a second, don't put a lot of city staff time into this. We know that those are private alleyways. And so, yeah, no, we knew, we've known.

Yeah.

You know, I think that there's an opportunity to correct, you know, something that's deficient in our city, and we should definitely... No, they're not ours. They're private property that we're never going to find out the property owner. So... And the majority, yes, are in D1 and some in D4, so... It's... I think we should... At the... At the maximum, include them in our CIP and phase them in. At the minimum, we don't want someone being hurt just because they live in an area that has no funding, no access, and they're full of potholes. It's a disservice.

The roads are funded through the city.

We're a fiduciary of the city, so be the bigger person.

Because people are gonna get hurt because they don't have they live in a part of the city that doesn't have funding But we fund citywide and don't we do it equally throughout the whole city on all of the roads that the public owns Yes, or all the center lane miles there are Reports that come annually for the pavement rehab refurbishment program. Yes, I

look at like where the funding, like the taxes come from a particular area, like more affluent homes will pay more taxes and property tax. We don't fix those roads first, right?

Correct, yes. Our sales tax, property tax are not broken down by district jurisdiction zip code, nor is the gas tax. Gas tax isn't broken down. It just is based on any gas purchased within our jurisdiction.

But there is an option of the city doesn't have to accept them for maintenance, but we can do a one-time pothole repair. Which would be, if you were to ask me, which would be better than nothing, and I understand what Mayor Pro Tem Delgado is saying, I'm sorry, Gonzalez is saying, I understand what he's saying, which is to incorporate it, I'm so sorry. To incorporate it in the CIP to make it so that it's ongoing. But what if the compromise is that they remain private, we do the one time of just to get the – to do the initial. And that's – we're seeing the estimated cost is $10,000. That's not something that's going to necessarily impact anyone. But as they are also pointing out, that they don't differentiate the taxes that are coming in for – For the gas tax and things like that like someone in this district gave more versus it's spread evenly So I think that is one option if we choose not to fully accept it one option is to at least do the initial $10,000 repair because that's an option that we are provided On that option it says it would burden the city with potential exposure to liability.

What would that look like? What would we be liable if we just did? The pothole and didn't take it over. What would we be possibly exposed to?

Well, if somebody was injured or harmed for whatever reasons and they managed to convince a court that it was because we were negligent in patching up that pothole, we didn't use the proper materials, it eroded really fast, then we can be on the hook, liability-wise. Oh, you think we can defend that? Anything we touch and take control over, even just for an hour or so. Yeah. then we could be held responsible for any harm that allegedly has been, that results from touching that or getting involved with it.

I would like to add here, I guess, just kind of hearing everything and kind of the various sides of this. I understand the liability side of this, and I'm pretty familiar with most of those alleys, just like when I was a council member in D4, I remember we always had problems with, it was, I think it's Elm Street or Emma, I forget which, it's right off of JFK and Hecox. We had issues in those alleys with trash and dumping and rats and the city had to go in with waste management and it was a big public safety issue. It was different. So I completely hear the issues and the concerns about liability and I want to respect those because I think they're serious, right? I think someone used ambulance chasers. That is another thing. Even if we're well-intentioned, somebody could make something up and we find ourselves in court. Would hate to be in that position. But I think where I certainly would be comfortable with exploring is if we were in a position, let's entertain a hypothetical here, where let's say we go with option one and we just fill these potholes that are public safety issues, like they're detrimental to safety and health because the potholes are just so massive and wide and deep that you can't even drive through. Maybe, because some of these alleys have more property owners, or excuse me, tenants and property owners adjacent to the alleys, some have less, right? Like right here in the horseshoe, right across the street, you're talking dozens and dozens potentially of property owners, or half a dozen, we would have to verify. But some of these other alleys, it's less property owners, it's less parties that are involved or potentially involved. So if there could be a scenario where let's say we entertain filling those really ugly, nasty potholes and we're able to secure some kind of waiver from the property owners that are adjacent to the alleys, waiving their rights to pursuing any kind of legal action. knowing that we're going to go in and fix those potholes they will not come after the city like that would be the ultimate win-win for option one right if that's something that we could secure i don't think that it's a long shot i think that's doable so i think i would be comfortable with you know going down that route

I think in talking with the city attorney, I think it would also be wise potentially because we do live in a very litigious state and there's been some recent legislation that's caused tort claims and lawsuits to balloon. I think as we are self-insured, we do have risk pools. And we might want to reach out to that risk pool and give them the scenario and potentially what we're planning on doing to see if they will even support us in our self-insurance because we are self-insured up to a certain dollar amount and then they pick up the claim above that. And we also have access Claims through various providers and pools it might behoove us and talking with the city attorney to go that route and ensure that they would at least support or or Back us if there was a claim to come through In other words try to negotiate a lower deductible Yes

then would we could we do alternate one where we don't incorporate it and then ask you to come back and after speaking with them or if we voted on that that'd be done no right we could bring it back again but you need us to make it yeah I mean there's a multitude of ways to do it but in speaking with the city attorney I think we we should reach out to Burma give them a scenario we get that part but how do we go about tonight Should we just hold? Because for now I don't want to do it.

It would be easiest for us to bring it back, but that's up to you as a body.

Okay, so then I think there's consensus here with that to let you go inquire with PERMA and then bring it back to us.

A motion to continue L4 until a later date.

Just a quick question because I know we're all worried about the legal implications but so I understand that nobody we cannot find an owner of this but here's the legal and I haven't gotten a full answer and forgive me if it was answered and maybe I missed it. How do we know that they wouldn't be able to sue us even though legally there's a private? And the reason I ask is because if there's a private but they can't find an owner and technically it is located in the city of Reno Valley, like we are 100% sure.

In the state of California, you can't be 100% sure of anybody not suing you. Obviously, I mean, the way a certain resident would put it is deep pockets, right? So we are deep pockets. Most likely, if somebody was to trip and fall over a pothole, they would sue the city. That would come through the city clerk. It would be denied. It would then go over to PERMA, our risk pool. It would also be denied. then they could go and sue us through the courts, and then that now becomes a risk management decision. Do you want to fight it, which is going to cost you money, or do you want to go ahead and settle for something much less than it's going to cost you?

So I'm glad we're going to PERMA, but what I just heard at the end of the day is that we could get sued either way. Okay, I'm just making sure that I got that clarified. So that was the thing. So it doesn't absolve us whether we take it or not. It doesn't necessarily absolve us. So I'm fine with us tabling this for more information, but I did just want to get that out there that if you can't locate who the owner is because it's private, per se, they're going to find an owner and they're going to probably tell us it's the city of Moreno Valley at some point, however they go through the system. And it's... Or am I wrong?

No, I mean, if we think about... We can get a case like that dismissed by just arguing that we have no ownership interest in it. We have not touched that property. We have assumed no potential liability. Now, in order to get there, it may cost more than just paying them off, but how many other property owners will come forward and try to do the same thing?

Okay, yeah, I think there's consensus to just kind of table it until you hear back from perma and then come back to us And if you can maybe share with us, you know, if you have a list of which ones are, you know Pose a serious life-and-death issue.

I would doubt most of them do but and another possible solution is an assessment district Response from perma motion

What? A second. Oh.

So just to clarify, it was a motion to table this, continue it, bring it back once you hear back from. I'll second that. Okay. There's a motion and a second for that. Please call for the vote.

Council member Bernard? Yes. Council member Delgado? Yes. Council member Baca-Santa Cruz? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last item on L is L5, the Traffic Safety Commission Annual Report for fiscal year 25-26. And we will turn it over to Director Walker and the Traffic Commission.

Yes, so we have a presentation, and we are going to have Traffic Safety Commissioner Seth Cox give the presentation.

I thought you were here because you just enjoyed spending time with us here. It's pretty late.

He's always here.

Believe me, I bit my tongue all night long, okay? I'm Seth Cox, here to give the Traffic Safety Commission annual report for 25 and 26. I'm a suitable substitute for our, if I can remember how to work one of these things, up or down, left or right? Hey, it went right. David couldn't make it tonight, so I'm a suitable substitute. This is one of the commissions that is staffed with all the commissioners, and we have our other representatives. I'll let you read those. I will not go over every one of them. But I will take more than three minutes, okay, because I've waited for a couple years to get more than three minutes, all right? So if it's 3.05, I'm going to keep talking. um briefly on the commission roles uh rolling composition uh the commission is made up of appointed commissioners currently eight uh school district representatives um uh law enforcement personnel we usually have uh you know a deputy or two that comes and sits and listens and we ask questions if we want to ask questions and then the city staff report Mr. Zamora is not here tonight, but him and Mr. Annette have been very valuable in working us. I will not forget also our council liaison is Council Member Delgado. He does show up, okay? And he adds a lot to the conversation. The next one. I should go on to the next one anyway. That's the roles and compositions. I'm terrible at presentations. These are the major planning items that we reviewed this year. Of course, the AB 98 and SB 415 are the truck routes. We've had several discussions on them. Many different people, public came out and spoke on them. And I will, I've always said that our traffic people were very bold in the way they adjusted our route tracks from a commissioner standpoint. The other one was the pedestrian action plan. A lot of people have probably never heard about that one, but it's about the pedestrian traffic through the city and how to get people to the easiest way to get them, whether it's via a vehicle, a bike, motorcycle, whatever, public transportation. And then the third one is the Transportation Demand Management Plan. Big, long title for basically more travel options. And I think the note down here, a real small note, it says position the city for compliance grants and safer multimodal improvements. And that's what we're looking for is more ways to cut down on vehicle miles traveled. Numbers. You know I'm a numbers guy, so this is probably my favorite slide. Visibility and maintenance work that was performed, it's been mentioned a couple times tonight. 37 miles of lane striping in one month. You guys realize how much 37 miles are? 724 traffic signs replaced in one month. 108 lane miles of striping tracked by October. So there has been a lot of traffic, work being done and if you're wondering what the signal visibility is if you drive around town you'll see the lights that have the new reflective things around so there you can see them better that was a project and it looks good one of the major one was where cottonwood and merino beach which is very good because coming down that hill at a high rate of speed you don't see that light very quickly NEXT SLIDE IS ABOUT SCHOOL AND ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION. THE CROSSING GUARD PROGRAM STAFFED ALL 23 MARINA VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND THEY REMAIN FULLY STAFFED. AGAIN, LOOKING OUT FOR OUR KIDS. THE MARINA VALLEY PD CONDUCTED SCHOOL ZONE ENFORCEMENT AT EVERY SCHOOL WITH FOLLOW-UP AT HIGHER NEED LOCATIONS. And then the third bullet there, bike lane parking concerns were advanced through coordination with community enhancement, Marina Valley Police Department, and public education, and through traffic control implementation. That continues to be an ongoing discussion project with e-bikes coming on, not just the old, in my heyday, pedal bikes. Key takeaways from the city... Council, the Traffic Safety Commission supports public transparency, resident engagement, and coordinated traffic safety review across planning, enforcement, and infrastructure maintenance. Future focus, we're still focused on the truck routes. We want to advance the pedestrian access plan and the traffic, the TDM. Priorities toward grants and implementation. Again, traffic takes money, and traffic safety is not easy, people, okay? Because you can't get three people to agree to what is safe in traffic. The other one that we're going to do is the e-bikes and bicycle safety education. Again, it's going through other channels within the city, police departments working with us, other people working with us to come up with some of those education, you know, what would you call them, public service announcements. So I'm up here. I'll stay up here, but I don't have any answers for you.

Thank you so much, Commissioner. Really appreciate you staying with us here this late and providing the presentation. This is an annual report to the Council. So yeah, any Council questions for Commissioner Cox?

Just to thank you. Thank you for coming out today and all your service on the Traffic Commission. I know you take time away once a month to head over here and like Ed, you're always there as well. So thank you very much.

Since you brought that up, I'll do some recruiting. Awesome. Traffic safety meets the first Wednesday of every month from starting at six o'clock here in the chamber. Come out. Talk with us. Tell us your concerns about the city. I'm mostly talking about most of the people that left, but if you're listening online, come out first Wednesday. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I'm out.

Okay, excuse me, Council Member Baca-Santa Cruz is excusing herself from the meeting. So we will go ahead and move into public comment. Madam Clerk, are there any speakers on this item?

Yes, Mayor, we do. The first public comment is Fred.

Hey, guys. Hello, everyone. Traffic, you know, there's cameras on our traffic poles, and I want to kind of say that I strongly like our flock cameras. But getting to the report, I like everything that he said about the e-bikes. Of course, I'm going to love that, the future things that they plan to do in the future with the police department. I just want to remind people that anything that goes greater than 750 watts is not an e-bike. And we don't need any new laws. We need the ones that we have enforced. When I go on my rides, I've gone by high schools, and I've seen e-motorcycles there. So we need to get with the schools to make sure that people know what is legal and what is not. And... You know, get these bikes, the e-motos off our roads. With that being said, I recently went to Lake Paris, the general plan, a public workshop, and we gave suggestions. These e-motos are not going to go away. We need a bike park for these e-motorcycles. I would love to get one in our city, like our pump track. I would love to see that they would get an exemption where they don't have to register them with the DMV, that they can use these parks. Going back to Lake Paris, you couldn't ride them in, but the parents would have to transport these bikes in a certain area for them to have a good time. You that have state contacts, talk to our state representatives. I'd love to see that for the kids. I mean, they're not going away. They need a place to ride. They just can't ride with me on the public roads. It's very dangerous, and you see all the things that are happening in our state. There's a raceway in Paris that's kind of jumping on the bandwagon. I need to do more research, but they have a night where they have emotos where the kids can go race them. And they're telling them, you got to dress up. You got to have all the equipment, you know, the pants, the boots, the helmets, full face helmets. uh that's another thing that i like to see we need to get these kids to have fun to get out of the house and uh to enjoy the outdoors um let's see what else um you know but again when i've gone to ride by high schools i see surrounds there i see the illegal bikes you need to get with the schools to make sure that these kids are not riding those to school and figure out what you're going to do with those whether you're going to give them a ticket whether you're going to get an impound uh it's an issue you guys so but yeah i'd love to see a bike track for them in our city somehow you know that'd be a great we'd be the first city that are catering to e-motos and do it in a safe way for them enjoy riding the next speaker is roy blackard

I got a chuckle when Mr. Cox said, I'm going to take more than my three minutes. I think he's going to need a little work on that. The one time I got called up by Tom Owings in the famous 2014 redistricting hearings, they had to pry the microphone out of my hands because I was up there so long. On this, and Fred mentioned it, let's have some fun. Let's put some fun back in the kids. Let's work to traffic safety or all this stuff so kids can enjoy what I did way back in the day in the barrio of Edgemont, the freedom to roam. I don't know what the pedestrian thing is going on down there, but we had no problem. And you know what? Edgemont looks almost exactly the same as when I rolled in there, well, a couple weeks shy of 65 years ago. There's a lot of problems on there. It cracks me up about the congestion. and the roads and the traffic safety. We poured more money into this in unprecedented amounts and it gets worse. We should be coming up with comprehensive plans that are going to fix these issues that affect our daily lives, not trying to make them worse. It's just like that. Oh, you want to take in the alleyways? Well, now we're going to have to have the Traffic Safety Committee deal with this. We're going to have to have the police officers patrolling them. I thought we could make some progress. Well, maybe we made it very slight. You tabled it. But just like with this, we don't get what we should have as citizens. to make this place work, to make it work like it should and like it did, like when we had a skating rink in Edgemont. So when we're doing this, it's just like, I will tell you this, if you would take my plan to reschedule these meetings and these committees and do it properly, You know, maybe we could turn these things around and maybe we wouldn't be here past 1030.

Mayor, that concludes our public testimony.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We'll bring it back up to the dance for any final comments.

I would like to thank Seth. I do attend all the meetings and they're very interesting actually. Because of the information that we receive in these meetings like the striping, I know it might may not be that exciting, but the stuff that they do is is really, really cool. So thank you for that presentation. Thank you for stepping up for David Seth and. Yeah, maybe we should do at the beginning. Next time she have a bigger audience.

Thank you Seth.

Yeah, likewise, thank you, Commissioner, and I extend our apologies to your family, your wife, for keeping you out so late. You'll be home soon, but thank you for that. And only other thing, only other thing I would add, Fred already left. I think he just took off, but I do agree with him. I was thinking about this the other day because I'm sure all of us see it on a daily basis. at least once a day or every other day. These youngsters, usually teenagers, sometimes even younger, you're stopped at a traffic signal, one or two of them pull up on their motorized bikes, thinking they're in Gratafato or something, and it's just so dangerous. i agree with fred that like a solution is not just the enforcement yes that is a major component of it but we also need to be creative maybe it's a city or not maybe it's some other jurisdiction or private entity that provides an outlet for those kids for those youth those anyone that uses motorized bikes they have them they purchase them and if they can't use them for whatever reason they're still going to find ways to use it. So how do we guide them toward a proper place, location so that they can safely use those things and learn how to safely use them? So that'll conclude my comments. And this one, it looks like we do have to vote just to kind of receive and file it. So I'll make a motion to approve staff's recommendations. I'll second. Madam Clerk, please call for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bernard? Yes. Council Member Delgado?

Yes.

Council Member Bacascena-Cruz is absent. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez? Yes. And Mayor Cabrera? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, Item M, the Regional Committee Commission Reports. We'll go to Council Member Delgado for the JPA and WRCOG.

Thank you, Mr mayor tonight, I'm providing an update from the March joint powers commission meeting that was held on June 3rd, 2026. The commission approved agreements for various maintenance services as well as for law enforcement and falconry. Services authorized March joint powers authority staff to work with the 1 63rd air national guard on a military construction cooperative agreement to identify projects scopes. funding opportunities, scheduling considerations, and other operational requirements necessary to advance future military construction and facility improvement projects. We approved budget adjustments for the March Joint Powers Authority, March Inland Port Authority, and March Joint Powers Utility Authority, and that concludes my update from the June 3rd, 2026 March Joint Powers Commission meeting. moving on to do wrcog the meeting was held on june 1st 2026 reports for fiscal department activities committees agency activities and various external committees were received and filed additionally the executive committee discussed the following key items number one was nominations for executive committee executive committee chair vice chair and second vice chair positions for fiscal year 26 27 And that came out as chair would be Jackie Casillas of Corona, Vice Chair Mike Lara of Beaumont, and Second Vice Chair Christian Dinko of Eastvale. And the second bullet item, updated personnel policies related to employee leave benefits, electronic communication, internet, email, and mobile devices, and employee expense reimbursement. The next executive committee meeting is scheduled for Friday, June 19th, 2026 at 10 o'clock at the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula. And that concludes my update from the WRCOG meeting that was held on June 1st, 2026. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Delgado. Next up, I'll be providing just one report for the Riverside County Transportation Commission. That is for the meeting held on June 10th. The annual short-range transit plan update serves as a key mechanism for identifying, analyzing, and recommending productivity improvements and coordinating transit services throughout Riverside County. As part of the fiscal year 26-27 program, one of the planned projects includes the design phase of the Paris Valley Line Double Track project. which will extend from Moreno Valley to downtown Paris. And this is the Moreno Valley Station, which is over just on the west side of the 215. If you're driving down Cactus Boulevard heading west into the city of Riverside, as soon as you cross over the freeway, the 215, and you get onto Meridian, if you make a right, you'll see on the right-hand side about a half mile down the Moreno Valley Station where you can get on public transportation via the metro there. So this project is intended to enhance rail operations and improve transit service reliability within the corridor. The next meeting is scheduled to be held on July 27, 2026. And the last thing I'll mention, it's not in here, but if anyone here is interested or you're attending any of the World Cup matches that are taking place out toward LA or any across the coast there, and you're thinking about taking REL, there are extended hours and different schedules that they're implementing throughout the duration of the World Cup. So I just invite you to go to Riverside County Transportation Commission's website, social media pages, and look up that information on their sites. That'll conclude my report for the last RCTC meeting. And we'll head to Councilmember Bernard for RTA.

Thank you. Tonight I'm providing updates from the Riverside Transit Agency Board Administrative Operations Committee meeting held on January 3rd. The committee supported adoption of an amendment to the agency's conflict of interest code and forwarded the item to the full board of directors recommending approval and adoption of amendments. The committee also received and filed the updated personnel report for April 2026 in compliance with the Federal Transit Administration regulations. Lastly, the committee supported award of agreement with facility builders and erectors. Inc for construction services for the Wentworth facility in Hemet and forward the item to the board for full consideration we are dark for the month of July and the next committee meeting is scheduled for August 5th and that concludes my report Thank You councilmember next up item n employee association reports

Yes, Mayor. Yes, Mayor, Mayor Patam, council members. Angel Ariana is here from IBEW.

Still here.

Welcome back.

This ain't even a late night, Angel.

Clever. Not at all. Cold, man. So I just wanted to talk to you guys real quick about Honestly, just about like the training that the city has provided, right, for a lot of the, just like a lot of the trainings that pretty much the city has brought forward to the employees. Staff development, right? I know that like, I talk about Robert all the time because I literally talk to him all the time, and Natalie. One thing I really like about our HR department right now, I can tell you right now, we don't always agree, but we can agree to disagree. And that's why I kind of like the relationship that we have with the city, because even though we don't always agree, Robert and Natalie and the staff is always, you know, keeps it very professional, right? And I've actually learned a lot professionally and personally from Robert and Natalie, and I really appreciate them both. I'm also, you know, the group is actually real happy with the class and comm studies, right, where everybody's hoping for more money, at least especially all my members, right? So that's going real good. And honestly, we don't have any major complaints except everybody just wants to get more money. But other than that, I think everybody's here is great. I have a great, good relationship with everybody here. Even you guys on the council, Mayor, Mayor ProTap, everybody, right? You guys are all great. So I appreciate you guys. I hope Robert stays another like four hours because this is his last meeting. But that's it. I appreciate you guys. Thank you.

Thank you, Angel. Appreciate it. With that, we will move to item O, the famous city manager's report.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. I know it was mentioned earlier. In fact, we had a proclamation on it, and I just want to remind all of the residents that we do have the Juneteenth event here at our amphitheater at Civic Hall, and it's this Friday from 6 to 10 p.m. I think he might have just left, but I also... Oh, he is. OK, great. I would like to thank all of our staff, IBEW, MVMA, and the confidential group, along with all the contract employees, because this year is the first year in which we've had a Top Workplace 2026 Professional Development Award. And it goes to all of the comments that you heard earlier. related to Natalie's presentation on the 2561 legislation, as well as on Angel's comments from IBEW. And it goes to the testament of the culture and the professional development programs that Robert, Natalie, and their staff have created. So I'm going to embarrass Robert for a second. Just one last time, so we will have officially this particular award up in our second floor in the HR department. And would wish Robert a wonderful retirement after 32 years of public service, last three years with us. I thank you for all of your leadership with your team and building out your team. as well as the culture that you've established through the various documents and so forth that you have prepared so that they live in perpetuity with your group. So congratulations. I know that this is the last meeting technically, but you'll be here through July. So wish you all the luck in your next endeavors. Thank you.

Thank you, and with that, we will move into the City Council closing comments, and we will go to District 2, Councilmember Delgado.

And Robert's a pretty good softball player. We played last week, he's pretty good. Were you sore a couple days after? I was. Showing my age. I'm not going to speak very long. I just want to thank everybody. I only have six more meetings left. And thank you to the teachers out there. Thank you to the crossing guards that kept our kids safe this school year. I know you're probably packed up and already gone, but you'll be back in the fall with your box, you know, redecorating your classrooms. But thank you. Thank you for taking care of our kids. Pool safety this summer. I know we're going into summer break here, so please do whatever you have to do. Fortify your backyards if you have a pool, and if not, get your kids swimming lessons. And the last thing, We will see you guys on June 19th, 4th of July, and I think State of the City is July 31, so 30th. You know what I meant. So we'll see you guys at those events, but not until August here. But please be kind to one another and share a great day. story with your friends and family during these times that we get together the fourth of july juneteenth and um other barbecued backyard but it would just be uh be kind to one another and be happy about it good sean very good sounds good next up we'll go to council member bernard

I, like Councilmember Delgado, will keep it short. I will see you all, hope to see you all on June 19th. We moved it to the evening, one, because it's always 1,000 degrees outside, and two, to help because we know that there are many events between us, Murrieta, Menifee. So please, ours starts at 6 o'clock. It goes till 10 o'clock. It's going to be a really good event. We have a lot of vendors, and we would love to see you out there. As some people probably may or may not have noticed, we will be on summer recess. That does not mean we're not available. You can still feel free to email, call, and for some of you, text. We are still available. It just means that we will be on summer recess and we'll see you all. one on July 30th for State of the City, and then our second meeting in August, we will see you. For those that have inquired about the funds for the swimming program, I was informed by Director Bubnick that all of the funds were spoken for, which is a good thing, and that was after we got more funds to come in. That was a good thing. Please utilize that for your children learning how to swim. It's extremely important. And I don't think we do it this young here, but I will tell you that my niece at seven months, she just turned 10 months, she even took her own little swim class. And so she knows how to sit on the edge of the pool and jump in. She's a little off-centered. We can't get her to jump straight. But the point is, she's not terrified when she falls in the water. And so these skills are very important to do. My kids and her, they've all passed even their testing. So please make sure your children know how to swim. I know Councilman Delgado pointed it out that if your children, water safety, but one of the most important things to do is to teach them how to swim. I think it's even important for them to learn how to swim in full clothes too. Because swimming with your swimsuit is one thing, but in full clothes when you're weighed down is something else. So it's a skill that I think all of our children should learn. And with that, please enjoy your summer. Hope to see you all on the Fourth of July at our Fourth of July parade on that Saturday, because the Fourth of July falls on a Saturday and it's the 250th year of this country. And with that, I close. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez. I'll keep it short. First, happy Father's Day this Sunday. Feliz a los padres and hug your dads. You know, if you still have them around, please give them a big hug. And for all the dads that do multiple roles and hats, shout out to them. So happy Father's Day. Juneteenth, please join us this Friday for all the festivities, and I look forward to seeing everyone there. Of course, you know, July 4th is around the corner, our 250th anniversary, a big celebration, so I'm very grateful for the U.S. of A in this country. World Cup. Continue watching the World Cup. It's so much fun. Root for your teams. I'm going to say it. I'm rooting for Mexico and also the U.S. and all these other teams that play great and all these small teams that, you know, I just want to say the match versus Germany versus Curaçao. The Curaçao team was just grateful to be there. Even though they lost 7-1, they were super grateful just to be in the World Cup and be on the international stage. So it was just beautiful. Soccer just unites people, and it's a beautiful sport. My son's been playing it since he was three years old, so it's nice that it's World Cup season. I know the elections, right? Great turnout. Democracy at work. And congratulations to everyone that moved on, is moving on to the general election in November. And let's continue pushing that. Democracy is something we should protect. And with that, that's it. And see everyone on the second meeting in August. And enjoy your summer. Be safe.

Thank you, and appreciate my colleagues. Thank you everybody for joining us, sticking around with us. It is now 1051, so we're getting close to adjourning here, but congratulations once again to all the graduates. I was able to attend the commencement at MVC once again. That was really, really nice. I also was able to go to Landmark Middle School for their white coat ceremony. That was also very nice. Thank you to Gabrielle Pina from Loma Linda Medical Clinic and RUHS and all of her colleagues for putting that together. Very, very nice. So congratulations to all the graduates. Wish you continued success. Also, congratulations, as Mayor Pro Tem said, to all those who either won their elections outright, as we saw just neighboring city here in Riverside, one of their council members got over 50%. or one of the candidates so he's going to get sworn in here within the next couple weeks and then you know everybody else who made it out and on to the general election in november uh congratulations to to everybody and wish everybody the best heading into that november election Also, just a couple highlights. The mall announced that they're going to be opening soon. Dodger Zone, it's an official Dodger club store that's going to open up there at the Moreno Valley Mall in the near future. Also, Sky Zone officially opened. The grand opening is taking place this Friday at 11 a.m. Ribbon cutting ceremony. If you have not checked it out, amazing. Well done, staff. I know that one took a little longer than we maybe would have liked, but that first day, the soft opening, That was like the grand opening. That thing was packed full of people and it's really, really nice. A lot of fun. So thank you. Hats off to staff for making that happen. Mentioned before, but I'll say it again, the new dog park in District 2 that's coming, hopefully opening up by the end of the summer. And we have those two new playgrounds in District 4, Vista Lomas Park and Pedrena Park. Also just want to give a shout out to our public safety personnel, police and fire. If you did not know, I invite you to take a deeper look at our public safety subcommittee reports. They get monthly reports and the data shows. I know people on social media like to say that crime is out of control and all those things, but I think social media really just puts everything in our face and it makes it seem like things are happening more than they are. If you look at the numbers, if you look at the data, Crime in Moreno Valley has been down 17% compared to 2024 and about 14% compared to last year. So consistently, especially part one crimes, especially property crimes are going down exponentially. So hats off to our police department, our chief, our rank and file, our troops boots on the ground and our fire chief as well for all of their continued work. Happy early Father's Day to everybody as well. I hope you enjoy the weekend with your family. And last but not least, enjoy your summer. Please be safe. Stay cool. Look forward to seeing you out there at Juneteenth, the MoVal Movies, MoVal Rocks, the 4th of July Parade and Festival, the State of the City if you can make it. There's a lot of fun activities happening this summer, so look forward to having fun with everybody out and about across the city. So with that, we will move into future agenda items. Do we have any public comment on this, Madam Clerk?

We do, Mayor. We have a public comment from Bob Palomares.

Is Bob here with us? He is here. We get one minute for this one.

Real quick. If you could bring back, explore the new senior center. I'm always gonna be pushing this. You know, 19% of the population here in Moreno Valley are senior citizens. We've got an 18,000 square foot senior center. There's a city that I went to and theirs is 44,000. Same population, same square miles. You know, We keep throwing the senior citizens at the back of the bus. I know we put six million in there. That ain't gonna cut it. I think you need to get serious. The campus is great that you're doing the safety campus. I like that. The sport complex is good, but don't forget about the senior citizen. We've had some senior citizens come up here and say that, hey, we gotta do something here. Don't put them in the closet. Get serious and think about them because they're a big part of this city. And that's it. Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes public comments.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. And last but not least, we will move into adjournment and thank the city manager for the reminder here that we want to close tonight's meeting in honor and memory of the eight lives that were lost this week at Edwards Air Force Base in the B-52 accident this week. And we will close tonight's meeting in honor and in memory of those eight lives that were lost. We will officially adjourn at 10 56 PM. Have a good summer.