Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the study session of the city council of the city of Moreno Valley. I now call this meeting to order at 6:03 p.m. on April 14th, 2026. Would any of my colleagues like to lead us in the pledge? Mayor Prom Gonzalez will lead us in the pledge this evening. Place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America for which it stand.

Thank you, Mayor Prom. Next up, item C, roll call. Madam clerk, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Bernard here. Council member Delgado is absent. Council member Baka Santa Cruz is absent. Uh Mayor Prom Gonzalez here. And Mayor Cabera here. Thank you. Thank you. Item D, staff introductions, please. Sonia Gomez, senior deputy city clerk. Paul Brada, management analyst. Steven Kane, city attorney. Brian Milan, city manager. Lana Himenez, assistant city manager over administration. Felicia London, chief financial officer, city treasurer. John Keller, assistant city manager development.

Angelica Fel Stallupo, community development director. Kyle Warski, economic development director. Melissa Walker, director of public works. Jeremy Bubnik, director of parks and community services. Diana Rocket Sykes, division manager, emergency management. Gassie Park, Fire Chief. Brandy Swan, Lieutenant Rene Valley State Sheriff Station.

Thank you very much, team. As always, a pleasure to be here in the chamber to conduct the people's business. Next up, item E, public comments on matters on the agenda only, and we do have two items on this study session agenda. Just a brief reminder here, pursuant to the Brown Act, public comments shall be limited to only those items on this study session agenda. Each person shall be allowed a total of three minutes to comment on each item on this agenda. The mayor and council may however reduce the total amount of time for all speakers to comment on any given item if there are numerous persons requesting to comment on the same item that may hinder the city council's ability to complete its business. Another 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 at the speaker signup table 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. QRT. Finally, in order to preserve the meeting to quorum, council and staff will not respond during public comment. The first item of business is item F1. That is a transportation update, truck routes, AB98, community engagement, pavement program, and bike master plan. And uh before I turn it over to our

public works director, Melissa Walker, uh just a friendly invitation for any anyone who's going to be speaking um on this particular item. uh just in consultation with staff and the recommendation that uh anyone who wants to speak on the truck routes go ahead and um speak on those first. Uh but of course you're welcome to speak on any of the items listed under this agenda. So uh with that, Director Walker, I'll turn it over to you for the presentation. All right. Uh, good evening, Mayor uh, Mayor Pro Tim and city council. Tonight, I'm going to be giving updates uh, on some different transportation topics. Uh, first one is an update on the uh, truck route uh, revisions that we are working on. The next item is the citywide pavement program update and then the last item is a brief discussion about bike master plan. So moving into the truck route update, as you may know, there have been uh several state laws that have come into being in the last few years that have dictated certain uh things that we need to look at and uh basically thereby needing to update our truck routes. Those laws need to uh make us need to look at ensuring that the safe there's safe routes for goods movement. Uh there's prioritization of the use of freeways, highways, and major roadways. Uh minimize exposure to sensitive receptors to truck routes, which sensitive receptors are things like um residential, housing, schools, those are the big ones. and also uh provide community engagement

opportunities to give input to the various truck routes and the changes. There is one thing I really want to note that federal law, regardless of state or county truck designations, allows for heavy duty trucks to travel along local roads when necessary to whether it's serving businesses or to obtain food, rest, and repairs in the most uh practical and safest route.

Excuse me, Melissa. Um yes mayor um we just noticed that uh D4 uh just stepped off the dis um right now technically we don't have a quorum so can we uh just get her back and be able to move forward with the meeting when she's returns. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, if that's staff's recommendations then we will go ahead and follow suit and maybe we just take a brief break. Yeah, we'll take a brief recess and when the council member is back, we'll resume. Thank you.

All right, welcome back. Good evening to our city council meeting. We will pick up where we left off. Director Walker, I'll pass it back to you.

All right. Uh, so tonight I'm going to be giving updates on various transportation topics. uh basically truck routes, citywide pavement program update, and a bike master plan. So, uh we'll start with the truck route update. Uh as you may know, there's various state laws that have been enacted in the first uh last couple of years that have required us to look at where our truck routes are and look at revising them. Some of the things that the state law requires is to ensure uh that there are safe routes for good movements. That there's a prioritized use of freeways, highways, and major roadways. Minimize exposure of sensitive receptors to truck routes. sensitive receptors being residential areas, parks, schools, hospitals, and make sure that the community had plenty of opportunities and engagement to uh get public input into where those truck routes should and should not be. One thing to note is that federal law uh states that regardless of whether a state or county truck route designation uh federal law allows those trucks to travel along local roads when necessary to serve both businesses and to obtain food, rest, repairs in the safest and most uh practical route and manner. So the existing truck routes that we have are shown on this map in the dark black lines. So that's what we had to start with. Um what we did then is we uh pulled the all the sensitive receptor information. So you could see that in the uh the orange patches and orange and yellow patches that sort of shows the residential and other types of zoning that we had to consider as sensitive receptors. So what we did is you can see the the red lines those are the ones that we looked at removing because as you can see they go right through many

of those sensitive receptor areas. So after uh looking at those um various items and receptors and really concentrating on where are the logistics and the industrial areas in the city. uh we sort of came back to what this map is which and you look at the black lines uh which again are part of what the existing routes are but it's then removing all those other lines. So this is the proposed um map of what we're looking at for the truck routes and again it's very focused on the logistic area and the industrial area. Uh there's also a similar uh one that's sort of a cleaner version that is available for the public out on the desk and also um on your dis. Next subject is the citywide pavement program update. So as you may remember uh we did a historic investment back in 2022 uh where the city council approved $50 million towards paving. Uh subsequent to that, you were generous enough to give us 10 million a year in that next budget to again assist with trying to get a lot of that deferred maintenance that we had for these uh roads down and get them back up into good condition. So that allowed us to touch over 1,300 street segments throughout the county. And this is sort of a picture of what streets that we were actually able to touch. So to the results of these investments though is is the great part. So results of these investments have allowed us to um strategically shift from a reactive uh system to a more balanced management strategy. It's improved safety uh ride

quality noise pollution. Nearly twothirds of the city street network has been treated. long-term investment of the city's largest infrastructure asset. It basically cuts long-term costs by 40 to 60% and reduces maintenance costs by as much as 77%. To sort of further that notion, let's look at uh potholes, one of our favorite stats that we love to give out. Um so our our potholes um looking at the potholes that we had number and amount um back in 2020. If you assume the cost to repair a pothole is about $130. Uh we went from handling 6,386 potholes in 2020, which is a cost of just over $830,000, to handling 1,357 potholes in 2025 for a cost of uh a little more than $176,000. So that's a reduction in 5,000 potholes a year over that time period. It's also an approximate savings of almost $654,000. So, one thing that you've probably heard of is pavement condition index. Um, back in 2024, we did a whole study to see where our roads were. Uh, we usually do these studies about every five or six years. So, this was our updated study. Um, our study in 2020, uh, 2018 actually had an overall pavement condition index, also known as PCI, of 65. With this latest, uh, study in 2024, especially after all the historic work was done, we

actually came up with a pavement condition index of 77. Uh, the chart you see sort of gives you an indication of what those numbers mean. good being uh 85 and above satisfactory is 70 to 85. Just so you uh know that per state uh bill uh state senate bill one u which is where we get a a large percentage of our funding for roads a PCI of 80 is considered the standard. If you reach and maintain a PCI of 80, the funds from SB1 can be used for other types of projects, not just road maintenance. So that's sort of the grand goal of most cities and counties is to try to reach that goal to sort of Oh, so this is the pavement report map. A a lot of different things. You could sort of see all different colors, but again, so the blues and the greens sort of indicate the good streets. The the few reds and yellows you see in there are the ones that still need work. U this sort of gives you a deep dive into some of what uh the numbers actually mean and how that 77% um is developed. So almost 74% of the roads were found to basically be satisfactory or good. But again, we still have work to do. We're only at 77. We want to try to reach to that 80. Um, looking at about a third of the city still needs to be touched. It still is part of that deferred maintenance that we have. So, this map actually shows those roads that are in most need and really are the ones that are next on some of our lists to to try to hit and bring back up to speed. So, uh, and again, just like this, uh,

this iceberg, you may remember from prior presentations, it's just the tip of the surface with these roads. Uh, we have 1,250 lane miles of road within the city. That's an asset of over $600 million. Uh, we still have that historically deferred maintenance we're trying to still catch up with. uh and the $10 million annually that we've gotten for the last budget cycle, it basically is what's needed to just maintain the current state of the roads. It it digs in a little bit to that deferred maintenance, but it really doesn't address a lot of that deferred maintenance. So, and this is a map of the next proposed five-year plan. This will be coming to council in the next few months, so you'll see it again. Uh but this is sort of the game plan for the next five years. This is based on 5 million a year. Again, not what we've been getting, but um a lesser amount. Uh and the last subject that we're going to touch is the bike master plan. So this is uh the original bike master plan which was last completed in 2014. very basic map uh sort of shows you uh you know where where things are proposed. Um I want to explain a little bit about what's the difference between bike paths. So there is a class one bike path uh which is completely separated right away uh very similar to what you would think as biking along one Batista trail. There's a class two bike lane which is restricted right away but vehicles can be permitted to park. Um there's an example the example of the picture on there is Indian street class three bike route which is shared facilities with no

separation. Uh the photo on there is an example from Ironwood. And then class 4 which is called a cycle track uh which is physically separated bikeway adjacent to traffic. Uh there are no current locations for uh cycle waves in the city. Uh the example shown there is from a CALR manual. So updating the master plan. This is a effort that we want to do in the next couple years. Uh there's been a lot of changes. We've had some Senate bills that have come through that have made some changes. Uh Senate Bill 1216 bans class 3 bikeways or those shared uh bike paths with roads uh for speed limits that are more than 30 miles hour. Obviously the change of truck routes and where those are going to be is something that we need to consider for where bikes should and should not be. Uh and then we're always looking at safety, both wind turbulence, goods movement, and of course, finally, uh National Highway Safety, uh Administration recommendations, including rerouting, uh bikes to parallel low stress areas to improve safety and quality of life. Those are all things that we're going to be looking at when we uh redo the master plan in the next year or so. We are currently looking for funding um to take care of that. So, we've we've heard many times at council uh discussions about Morrison Street. So, we did a little deeper dive onto Morrison Street and looked at what kind of options there were for uh resolving the parking conflict with the bike use on that road. Uh so, there basic four basic options that we looked at. One is allowing parking on Saturday and Sunday only. Another is to just remove the bike lane on that stretch.

Another is to build a parking lot which you can see in the corner along Morrison uh in Cottonwood. And the last one is to remove a travel lane and but keep the bike lane and the parking both. So for a little more uh discussion on these options, we really looked at the pros and cons for each one. So that first one, allow parking on weekends. Obviously, it's very cost-effective. It would just need uh different signage. It alleviates the parking issue for the park, but it doesn't leave the bicycle issue for weekends, and enforcement would still be required during weekdays. Uh removing the bike lane is another cost-effective option, obviously, just getting rid of some signage and striping. It alleviates parking uh the parking issue because they can still park but it does not alleviate the bike issue. It also there are very few alternative route options uh for that area. Also uh the new parking lot option it alleviates the bike issue, alleviates the parking issue, but it costs over a million dollars from our estimate and enimers would still be required in case the the parking that we did was not enough. And then the final option again is reduce uh vehicle travel lane. So basically use one of the travel lanes between Cottonwood and Darcia. Uh that would alleviate bike issues. Uh it would alleviate the parking issues because it would allow both bike and parking within that travel lane. So the travel lane would go away, but we would have a bike lane and allow for parking within that space. The cost is over $100,000. And uh but it could cause uh traffic delays during high volume times. Most of the time it would be a problem, but for definitely school drop off and pickup it

could cause some delay because of the reduced um travel lanes. So uh the last little discussion that we'd like uh related to bike master plan is with the concept of ebikes. Now obviously ebikes are a big subject right now throughout the state. There's uh legislative challenges for municipalities on bike ebikes uh both regulation and enforcement safety concerns infrastructure. Uh the state has recently focused on ebikes making a various requirements. As you can see there's some assembly bills that have already been passed. Assembly bill 544 which requires certain equipment on uh electric bikes. Assembly bill 545 which prohibits selling application to modify speed on electric bikes. Assembly bill 965 uh is a age restriction for class three electric bikes. And just so you know, class 3 electric bike is pedal assist with up to 25 28 miles per hour. Um there's also other potential legislation that's going that's being looked at in Sacramento right now. Uh there's a bill on ebike speed limits. There's one on ebike registration. Uh and another one on ebike reclassification. So, uh, we as staff is looking at all of these and sort of seeing where they go within the state, uh, legislature, see if any of them passes and see how it could affect the city and any, uh, both bike master plan or any other projects that we have going on. Uh, and with that, I uh, conclude my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

And Mr. Mayor, I just have a couple comments to make.

Yes, Mr. City Attorney. Um um first of all, sensitive receptors are are described in AB98 as residences, preschool through high schools, daycarees, publicly owned parks, playgrounds, and recreational areas or facilities primarily used by children. It also includes nursing homes and related facilities and hospitals. Um also, um there's two components to our truck this truck route issue. one of which um our public works director just discussed. It's the truck routes map. The truck routes map will come back in the context of an ordinance that's going to go to planning commission first for a recommendation to the city council, then eventually gets to the city council. But um what we're going to suggest the council do concurrently with the truck route map is also consider an amendment to our upcoming new general plan update that addresses um the truck route situation or issue in the context of an amendment to our circulation element of our general plan. AB98 requires that the city of Marino Valley and other cities that are located um in the warehouse concentration zone or area that was created by AB98 amend their circulation elements of their general plan by January 1st of 2026 to address this whole truck route issue. Uh we have been in negotiations with the um attorney general's office over our general plan update and one of the issues that we've discussed has to do had to do with this upcoming deadline back in November. And so they agreed to refrain from taking any action against the city of Marino Valley because we were going to be participating in good faith negotiations over our u over certain mitigation measures pertaining

to warehouse development. So I I know certain members of the public know that, but I'm not sure they're aware that we got the green light to bypass that January 1st deadline. Well, that's the only comments I wanted. Oh, and and last thing is that we the city council has all been provided a copy with the truck route map, the draft truck route map. We also had copies made available for the public. If the public wants copies, there are copies here on the desk here. And we also have a copy placed on the um at the po speaker podium. So if anyone wants a reference make a reference to a particular street, they'll have the map before them and the council will have the same map.

Very good. Thank you very much uh Mr. City Attorney. Thank you Director Walker for the presentation. We will go ahead and move into public comment if there are no questions or comments from the council. Madam clerk, do we have any requests to speak on F1?

We do, Mayor. Thank you. The first three speakers are George Hake, Ismmail Gonzalez, and Tatiana Flores. Give me just one second. Yeah, I'm not sure if the mic is on. Let's make sure that that's on. See if media is picking it up in the back. George Hey, Marina Valley resident. Sorry there isn't a map up here. You do, I guess, have a small map in front of you that I can refer to. I'm still willing to meet with all three of you individually at some time. I keep putting the request in. It's I hope one of you will select to meet with me in the next few days. Peacock Street that you're looking at between Cactus and Aleandro on the map. Going south is fine. Going north, I wish we would remove the northern half of that section. There are homes immediately to the right. And it only takes you up to Alisandro where they can make a left to go to 215. And again, there are homes and

apartments all along the edge of the northern half of Aleandro. There's no reason for them to go north on Peacock at between Cactus and Alisandro because they can make a left to Cactus and go out to the 215 at that point. So, it would be great to remove the northern uh going north on Peacock between Cactus and Alisandro and the north side of Alisandro so you don't pass sensitive receptors along those places. Eucalyptus at one time eucalyptus between um Marino Beach and Redlands was on this map. There are free there are warehouses there. Um, I would not like the trucks to use Redlands to either come to that area or to exit from that area. The roundabout is not friendly at all to big rig trucks. Uh, there is home designations on the south side of Eucalyptus in that area. So ideally there will be signs up that'll discourage people to use uh Redlands uh has a way to either come into Eucalyptus or to leave. The overpass is very small. So they need to head the other direction and go towards Marino Beach. Fines enforcement. I've mentioned this before. City of Chino had fines of first defense 500, second 750, and third $1,000. I would hope that would be in place here in our city also and actually put the dollar amount on the signs to help with enforcement. There is a rumor that I am not sure is true. I'd like somebody to track it down, and that is the city plans to do a study to see whether Cactus and Alisandra can handle the truck traffic. And if they can't, they're going to look for a relief valve for additional uh truck use, and that could be Peacock

Street, which would pass three elementary schools. So, I hope that rumor can be tracked down, and that study is not going to result in that. I would hope as part of what you're doing with bike lanes, you would have what are called complete streets and hopefully the city will talk to you. The next speaker is Ismail Gonzalez. Hello everyone. Uh hello city council, city staff, everybody tuning in. Uh my name is Osman Gonzalez. I'm the vice chair of the Box Springs Group of Sierra Club here in Mville. Uh I want to begin by giving some credit to the city council uh to the city staff um especially the transportation uh department uh and Harold uh I want to say that um we've been assessing all the truck route efforts in the Inland Empire Valley is at the forefront. So kudos to everybody here uh you know uh organizing the workshops here um uh you know developing uh the website that you guys have uh there's a nice uh GIS map on there which brings me to my first point. I'm not sure why we're using this one. This one only tells half a story. Um it tells you where the truck routes are but it doesn't really show you why they're there. it doesn't show you the sensitive receptors uh that were mentioned in the staff report. Um even uh the attorney general he elaborated that there's more than just humans as sensitive receptors. There's schools, there's hospitals, hospice care uh facilities. Those all need to be considered when thinking

about truck routes and AB98 uh S um uh SB 415. Um and this is great this is a great start. Uh so kudos to everybody who got us to this location uh to to this placement, right? Um my my concern here is regarding the general plan. Um I think this relates directly uh into it and I would suggest you know with all due respect to the attorney uh here um there is an amendment. I understand that there is an ordinance being considered. Uh but the whole general plan should be reconsidered, should be recirculated back to this planning commission because like the attorney said, you guys have been in negotiations for about I don't know more than 6 months since November, right? We're in April of 2026. You guys have been in closed room negotiations with the attorney general. It needs to be heard again by the public. It needs to be um you know spoken about um by the public. Again, you have a room full of uh bicyclists here who are dedicated to uh their recreation and who would love to speak on these issues like we're doing today, but it needs to be open to the wider city. Um, and in terms of truck routes, um, at the truck route workshop that was here, a big component that keeps coming back up and up is enforcement. Uh, like your staff report mentioned, uh, there is a federal law that says a trucker can go anywhere they want as long as they have some kind of excuse as to where they're going, right?

Thank you so much. The next three three speakers are Tatiana Flores, Morgan Vay, followed by Jennifer Gilman. Hi everyone. U my name is Tatiana Flores and I'm a resident here in Marino Valley. And I also wanted to start off by saying thank you to the city staff and city attorney even for all their work that they've done with AB98 implementation. I've been here since the start and have been like following the implementation itself. And I just wanted to show my support for the proposed amendments that have been discussed in the traffic safety commission meetings including Paris, Allesandro, Sunnyme, Frederick, Ironwood, Peacock and Moreno Beach Drive. Um, I want again to thank the city attorney for attending our Fright Communities Action Coalition meeting back in February 21st and sharing more about the process to community members and, you know, everyone else that was there at the meeting. But I did want to highlight a bit more of the concerns that have been brought up at these meetings, including, you know, sensitive receptors, which has been addressed by a lot of these proposed amendments. So, hopefully you guys are able to approve them. And um as Ishmael was mentioning, there's been a lot of conversation about citation and enforcement. A lot of residents, while happy with the proposed amendments, are concerned about trucks that will continue to drive outside of those truck routes and how they will actually be enforced. So that's something that I wanted to highlight here and you know get some more input on that. Additionally, as George mentioned with Peacock and the sensitive receptors there, I was reading the circulation element and thought that there was a lot of good ideas, including the restrictions on vehicle weight limits and um the accommodation for truck

parking. That's something that I think can be emphasized in streets where there's still a lot of sensitive receptors, including HECOK, where there's actually commercial parking right there on the street. And additionally, I wanted to highlight for the bike lanes that there should be a push for more class 4 bike lanes where there's actually separation to avoid issues like they mentioned on Morrison Street. Um, just because not only would it protect bikers, but also it would ensure that people are still able to park so there's no conflict. And you know, we've I've seen it happen more in LA and I would really want that here in the city. And yeah, thank you. Our next speaker is Morgan Vaya. Hello. Um I'm wanted to say thank you for first off having this meeting and bringing this up so we can talk about it because I think it is really important that we have a discussion about some different fixes. Um, for the longest time, our transportation systems have been built on getting cars from point A to point B as fast as possible. And what we really should be focusing on is getting people from point A to point B safely. But because we've been so focused on cars for so many years, driver convenience is really what everyone looks at as the most important thing. And even with some of the options here on Morrison, we see that where we're asking cyclists to sacrifice their safety for the convenience of drivers. And I would really like us to not go that route because that's something that we see all the time. Oh, well, you guys just go ride on the sidewalk. Well, then we're endangering pedestrians, but the drivers are not inconvenienced, so this is what we want. But then the pedestrians are upset with the cyclist. Oh, you know, get out of the road. Well, there's a big green bicycle there. That's where they want us to be. Drivers don't want to be inconvenienced and so

they're asking us to sacrifice our safety, pedestrian safety, everyone's safety so that they don't have to walk as far that they don't have to sit in traffic as much. Um, looking at the four options for Morrison, um, the first two for allowing parking on the weekends or for removing the bike lane, which would allow parking all the time, the bike lane currently is no more than 5t wide on that entire stretch. A parking lane has to be, I believe, 8 to 9 ft wide. So, even if you wanted to do that option, you're still going to have to restripe the whole road and you would have to take out the center turn lane in order to fit a parking lane on the side there. Um, so it it it won't work. Uh, and just allowing parking on the weekends, the cars are hanging out into the travel lane. Uh, some of those trucks that are out there, the dual trucks are, you know, much wider than 5t and they're fully blocking the lane next to it. Um, I don't love the location of that new parking lot, but I know the sports parents and especially for Morrison, we need more parking. I would hate to lose that little grass patch that we have. Uh, but if that's the only spot, it is what it is. Um, yeah, as we have this discussion, I would really like us to stop focusing on the convenience of only people in cars, but look at the safety of everyone because we shouldn't have to get in a car to go a mile or two miles. like everyone should be able to get where they need to go in the way that works for them and if that is biking, walking, that should be an option for everyone and everyone should be able to get where they're going safely. So, thank you so much for having this discussion and I hope we can get something that works well for all users, not just drivers. Thank you. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. I have 20 seconds left. Ah, I just wanted to show you guys real quick some of the safety equipment that we all use. So, we have my helmet, blinky light on the back. I ride with a radar, which also has a blinky light on it, so I can know how many cars are coming up behind me, how fast they are. I ride with a 360 camera, so if someone does hit me, I've got it on footage. And I've got this that tells me where the cars are, how many, and how fast. So like, this is how much we're doing to keep ourselves safe. Thank you.

The next three speakers are Jennifer Gilman, followed by Jill, but followed by Richard Gate.

Hi. Um, I've been a resident here for 25 years. Uh, raised our kids here. Um, recently found um, Lake Paris and you can actually ride all the way around now. I didn't used to be able to do that. Um, we're new bike riders since like 2019. We ride up and down all the time. We actually don't ride right past here because the bike lane stops and we go left on Aleandro because there isn't one between on Frederick between um it's not a a white lane. There's no white lane. I don't know which which one that is. One, two, three, or four. But um I just I don't know. We we love biking. We like to do it safely. My husband years ago watched someone get hit on his bike as he was out biking and the guy just went through the stop sign, which I mean that's going to happen. people are not always driving carefully. But um I would love to see some dedicated bike routes. If we could have some place where we're not going to get hit and where a car can't come. I honestly I don't know why we don't put up poles. I mean even rubber poles. Nobody wants to hit those in their car either. You go bump, you know, and they're just I don't know. Um yeah. And like on Peacock, not Peacock, sorry. on Frederick traveling north between Cottonwood and Darcia. That's where that park is, the soccer park. That is wonderful. We travel that all the time. Mostly, I don't know, multiple days a week. Going north, it's great. Coming south, it's not. People park in the bike lane all the time. And um so, thank you for looking at it. And thank you. Our next speaker is Jill guys.

Bikelanes. Yeah. Um, we appreciate you guys taking the time to to examine it. Um, Morrison is a nightmare, but it's not the only nightmare in the town, and we've talked about that before. But I want to also encourage us that as we're talking about putting in protected lanes, slowing traffic down, doing the the road diets, what happens when people get out and they feel safe moving about, walking, riding their bikes, they start to notice their community. They start to notice those fun little shops and the the little strip malls that you don't see when you're driving. They start to notice the other people who are out and about and start to feel a sense of belonging. And that's part of what we love about riding is that the guy with the two really adorable beagles around Morrison all the time. The older gentleman that has the cutest, most well-groomed, fluffy dog I've ever seen. He's out there every day. There's a couple that walks on Iris that hold hands the whole time they walk. They're out there every morning. You don't see that when you're in a car. When we give people safe places to start moving around differently, they start to feel like they belong to the community and the city. And I want us to get to that point of when we do start to put in the protected bike lanes, let's give them a chance. Let's leave them there for a while and see how many people start utilizing them. In so many cities now, what is happening is they're putting out these great um bike plans. They give them six months and they're like, "I've seen two cyclists. let's take it out. And I don't want to be that city. As we're doing this, we're trying to build community. We're trying to build a place where people want to live and move and frequent the local businesses. So, just get that in the back of your head. When we start doing this, let's give it a real chance to succeed before we start

listening to those car people who are going to complain. Thank you guys so much. The last three speakers are Richard Gate, followed by Christopher Baka and friend Banualos. Uh, hi, thank you everybody. Um, my name's Richard and I own one of the two bicycle shops that we have in town. Um, I think something that gets lost in the discussion on bike lanes is the people riding them. Um, it's stereotypically the speed and spandex crowd, but those aren't my customers walking in the door. It's people writing to work, uh, and people writing to class with with UCR, MNO Valley College, you know, high schools. So, I think that gets lost in it is who's actually doing it. And I think we we could get more people out there if they felt they were safe. I fix a lot of bikes from people riding on the sidewalk because they're worried they're going to get hit by a car. And if we had protected bike lanes, we could alleviate that. Injuries would go down. Um, and I, you know, it's a big part of us is fixing something that just broke because they hit a bunch bench, they hit a sprinkler, they went off and on the grass because they're trying to avoid somebody just out walking their dog on the sidewalk. I mean, there's there's a toll to this because people are just terrified about being hit by a car. Um, and in regards to Morrison, I don't see the big deal. We I mean, Cottonwood in front of Reno Valley High School, I ride it, I drive it. I think it's great when we when the city changed Cottonwood. It's It's a lot safer driving it, riding it, even if you don't have a kid in Marino Valley High School. It It's slowed it down. It's more orderly. I know there was push back on it, but I don't see the big deal about doing that on Morrison and and other streets in front of schools. I I think we should uh ebikes aren't going away and as it costs a lot to live here and a lot to living anywhere in California and

uh people are turned into the ebike and instead of gassing up the car and and how much it pays to register it. They're here to stay. They're they're not going away. I think it's time we start to look at our neighbors over at Riverside. They've got a cycle track. They're putting in protected bike lanes. they started with next to UCR. I think it's time for us to catch up and and have the same standards and start treating the person on the bike the same as, you know, value their life and their safety as much as we do people in the cars. Um, and just on a quick side note, that pump track has been awesome. Uh, I cannot tell you how many old bikes got drugged into my shop, dusted off. Uh, mostly from dads trying to keep up with their kids. It's just been terrific. Um, I think we should get another one on the other side of town. Um, and I, you know, hats off to you guys for for hiring that company that did it. Um, it's just, I don't know, it's just like a point of pride. I get people who've never been here. they're going to write it and they come in the shop and they're getting food at the Green onion and the safe house and you know it's just been it's just been a point of pride and it's it's been awesome. So, thank you guys.

The next speaker is Christopher Baka. Good evening. Um, as mentioned before, uh, you did provide this little, uh, chart here of the of the of the proposed, uh, truck lanes, roads. Um, but uh I would really like to see as I mentioned many times, why can't we have the full presentation in print so that we can, you know, reference it back and see exactly what, you know, you're talking about rather than having the, you know, the presentation on the screen and, you know, you really can't see it and you forget about it.

And uh, so I would really like to see you um, um, have that provide that for the community. your presentations, all presentations when it comes to uh city council meetings, study sessions, and so forth. But anyhow, on the truck roads, I commend that. Um a surprise, but again, my surprise and I don't understand why um public works cannot work on the cutthroughs for Peacock uh to Harley Knox and Indian over that canal. that would help alleviate a lot of traffic coming into Cactus and Alessandro and all that. They would just end up going off of the freeway onto Harley Knox and into that area or Ramona Expressway into Indian and up to wherever they're going. Like that you guys mentioned, you can't stop it by federal law, you can't stop them from going wherever they're going. So, those would be the best uh alternate routes rather than cutting through cactus. So, I would, you know, that's what I would really like to see is those cutthroughs. Now, on the pavement, uh you mentioned uh the potholes and your charts and all that and I don't think they're worth anything because there was what 10 years of absolutely no infrastructure investment and fixing the roads and then suddenly you had that and it was done by a outside contractor which I believe the city should you know do it in-house and it would alleviate a lot of this uh redundancy of fixing something that was done cheaply done by your contractors. And she mentioned uh you're at 77% and your goal is 80%, why not 100%. That just shows what your train of um thought

is in as far as uh your concern on fixing and doing that. Also, the WLC, I saw something there on the pavement. And there we go again with uh why are you going to fix something that's within an approved project by a developer. Now, as far as a back bike lanes, I would really like a public safety campaign to educate the public. It's true. This is an absolutely worst city in the area to ride a bike in. People are not educated as far as a shared light light u lanes, especially if you go under. Our last public speaker is Fred Bonados.

Hello everyone. Um, thank you for SB1 to get that pavement program in here. Uh, I'm loving the roads in my area. Um, they're beautiful. Uh, bikes. Uh, I'm not happy with number one or two. I think there's four different choices. Three, I'm okay with the parking lot, but I don't like where the parking lot's at. I don't want to see that park removed. I think there's an area south of that park where I would like the parking lot to be better. I love option number four. Uh the other thing that uh these proposed legislation uh AB uh 1942 ebike registration, I'm not for that. We don't need it. uh if the laws that were on the books were already being enforced and these cities wouldn't be going crazy for the emotos, those are the ones that are uh the problem. And I thought I hope that there's a big education program with emotives because they're not supposed to be anywhere on the highway, on the public uh roads, on sidewalks. Um, I'd like to see uh no parking signs by Rancho Verdie High School. That's another problem area. That's right on the bike path on Juan Batista. And uh um I think that if the people that are using the area would see more signs, they would not park there. I love that uh enforcement's getting better with that. I'm also wanting to have a full-time parking control officer so we don't have to ask uh you know call on the non-emergency number to get somebody to come out there and enforce what the law is. Uh recently I didn't have to call this weekend. I loved it because they were already out there um enforcing the law by um

Morrison Park. I I don't want to see our city have to make any ordinances, you know, to control this. Uh you just got to enforce the laws that are already out there. But um I spoke at the city of Meny. They have a great ordinance that I can live with. It was a compromise. I spoke at their council member. So if it ever gets to that point, please look at the city of Meny because they have a great ordinance how to control the ebikes and the e-motos with speed. I I noticed that I'm going to have to look into these other assembly bills. Ebike speed limits and ebike reclassification. Yeah, I have to do more research on that, but ebike registration, we don't need it. And then I I hope that we can all get together with the school boards to figure out something. School boards, uh the city, and there was one other group. just get all together and figure out something cuz we got to find parking for these people that are trying to enjoy the sports on the weekend. They just need to exercise more and walk a little farther where the parking spots are.

Our last speaker is Roy Blickard. in my travels around and that's pretty much most of my driving is in town. I don't see I don't have see a big problem with the trucks. The biggest issue I find with talking to people all across the board is truck parking. That's one thing you should really be concentrating on. And like what George says, "Well, I don't want them over here." Well, then come up with a solution for the problem. If there's going to be traffic, you got to route them somewhere. So, if we got a demand, let's fix it and come up with solutions. On the pavement part, one thing I'd like to emphasize is Lake Atwood just east of Paris Boulevard. It it gets a big lake there every time we have five inches of rain and that's five dots and you measure five inches. So, every time and that really needs to be addressed for those poor people over there on top of that. So, I hope that gets looked at someday for that. And part of the next thing of of dealing with all the rest of it. Measure M, hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds, $30 million in measure U taxes per year, and everything else charge. We get highest gas taxes, almost 250 a gallon. We're paying in various taxes and charges. And none of this stuff gets fixed. And one thing I will invite team Richard over there like I've told them, go down to the crime syndicate or the school district and gripe at them because there Why don't you take some of them tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and fix the parking lot like I've been hollering about down there for years. They do this Bear Valley. I ride by there by Fur and Lasel. They use the bike lanes for parking. I got car doored there once in 95 million times almost. It's ridiculous. If the crime syndicate

had parking spaces for people to park, we'd alleviate 90% of this whole problem that we're talking about in my view. And but I bet you you look at that. Just say when the school's out, look at the difference in traffic. There's where most of your problem is. It's not with the trucks. is from the moms in minivans going 90 mph and everything of that, you know, individually taking their kids to school for the for the bike, you know, would support another bike track if we build it in Edgemont. I hope we can get support of that. Again, we pay you guys keep digging at the well and you say we can't do this and we can't fix that. If we really put our collective heads together, we should we shouldn't have a care in the world for the amount of money as taxpayers are paying.

Mayor, that concludes all public comments on the on this agenda item. Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you to all of our public speakers as well. We will go ahead and bring it back up to the deis for any council questions uh comments. So I'll look to my colleagues here to the left. Mr. Mayor, I just have a few comments. Maybe I'll answer some questions before.

So with respect to the fines, that's an issue that will be presented to the council when the ordinance is brought forward. But we are a general law city and in California as a general law city, which basically means we have to comply with the general laws of the state. the state sets our fines and so the recommendation will most likely be to charge the maximum fines a general law city can charge for violations of our truck route ordinance because some I've been hearing from some um some residents that um you know this city or that city imposes $10,000 fines and I remind them that you know there's a distinction between charter cities and general law cities. Uh Redlands is not a it's it's being proposed in the map that's before you to remove Redlands as a designated truck route. So um if this is eventually adopted by the council, Redlands Boulevard will not be a truck route. Um there was some reference to um some rumor that there's this plan to do a study later on and that will reach the conclusion I heard more about this than what you heard tonight that we'll reach the conclusion that we need to readjust our truck routes and because the truck routes that are being proposed aren't going to be sufficient to handle the truck traffic. I am not aware of where that came from. There's no discussion as far as I know about doing such a study. We would be very hardressed to make any changes u without engaging the attorney general's office over those proposed changes since they are the ones vested with enforcement of AB98. Um in regards to enforcement speaking of enforcement officers, it's just want to clarify the AB98 simply provides that we have to have at least one. This is what ABI 98 provides. We have to have at least one enforcement officer with proper training by the

California Highway Patrol. That does not and but we I understand that we actually have two officers with that CHP training, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're limited to one or two. When you decide on the number of enforcement officers, that's something you would take up in your budget proceedings. And th those are those are the only comments I have. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. We'll bring it back to the deis. I'll look to my colleagues.

Um, city manager, can you address there was a resident um who requested why we couldn't just punch through um down through Holly Knox. Can you please explain why we are unable to punch through down to Harley Knox, please?

Yes. In conversation with the um March Air Reserve Base and the airport uh land use commission, uh they stated that uh heck will never be punched through. Um and this is something that from a public safety perspective, the city has been trying to do for some years because of the um the response times and so forth, especially with fire uh having to go into North Paris. So, um, with that being said, um, HECOK will, at least from our knowledge, will never be, uh, terminated all the way through. Thank you.

I have some, uh, comments uh, questions. Is is is the parking lot part of any of our U CIP? Is it has there ever been included in the CIP as far as an infrastructure project slated for uh improvement there?

Um no, in fact, it's going to be added to uh third quarter um with the uh estimate of a million dollars. Um so as part of the third quarter budget adjustment uh as we bring back uh budget information every quarter uh there'll be a multitude of uh CIP pages that uh will be added uh most likely as an unfunded project but at least it will be in there and uh then uh we will be uh from that perspective um all of our staff and our grants division will be um looking for additional funding. it it based on one of the comments from the from the audience. Is is the configuration layout that corner is that the best um location the corner can mean is there a different location that was considered or is that just like a draft?

Staff looked at the uh site and determined that that would be um uh the most um possible um location. uh we might be able to fit just north of 100 spaces and so therefore uh within the parking lot and therefore be able to take um the traffic that is parking on the street um off the street. And and going back to one one of the options drive the reducing the drive lanes has has more analysis been done as far as the impacts of having because because right now I was looking at Google Maps it's there's four um how the configuration of two would look um and the flow of traffic again the inconvenience of vehicles right um how how that would look

yeah at this point um what staff wanted to do was provide um a a study session presentation of the various options. Um we're going to need to uh evaluate each of those options uh to see um other than the uh parking lot to see what might be plausible um with cost. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you to uh our staff for working in on these various items from the truck routes and AB98. I know you all have been doing extensive work and community outreach on those items. And I also want to say thank you to all of our residents that are here and also those that couldn't make it for your advocacy for coming out consistently. Uh I know you're very active online as well. So thank you for being those champions for safety at the end of the day, right? That's that's ultimately um you know the number one priority and of course we can talk about all the other things like circulation and congestion etc. Uh but I I I definitely agree that you know we need to take a closer look at things like enforcement. I know we're limited by things like um being able to use certain things like camera or pictures from cameras or videos and things and how that's you know admissible or not in in the uh in a court uh you know in the judicial process. So that's something that might be outside of our reach. But if that's an option that, you know, maybe through state legislation or something that that can be changed or amended, I think those are things that we should explore. Um because again, it's it's about ensuring compliance with our truck routes. And the difficult thing is even though we've invested over the past few years into more commercial enforcement teams, they're out there all the time. You see the the Rams, um they they do great work, but they can't be everywhere at the same time, right? They can only respond to so many calls at the same time. So, um, you know, just exploring other other options, other avenues that might require changing, uh, the law. Also, fine amounts. The city attorney touched on that, so uh, don't need to go into that anymore. Fully support PSA campaign as well. I think that definitely is something we need to do in conjunction with the school districts, especially uh, again safety with the students especially that are driving, whether it's the scooters or the bikes, whatever it is that they're riding. Every school year, you see it more and more. And that's only going to continue.

And so I think we definitely need to educate uh the parents, especially the parents, but also the students about, you know, when you're what things to look for when you're even considering buying a bike or a scooter for your child. Make sure they have a helmet. Make sure that they know where the the actual bike uh lanes are and all those types of things, right? And I think with the school districts, we can um uh better get that information out to them. Um in regards to the roads and the pavement, that's amazing. That's years and years worth of work that has gone into that. So, you know, you'll hear comments uh from members of the public about how just the roads alone changes, you know, the perception of the city. Whether it's when you're driving on the road to work and you're hitting those potholes, now you're not hitting as many anymore. Uh so I I've gotten those calls about, hey, my alignment is off and you know, what can you do about that? Um or you know, just just how how the city is really perceived, right? the aesthetics of the city. So, hats off to our staff, you know, public works, uh, everybody, every department that that plays a role in that. It's it's really great to see the progress. And then just, you know, to kind of wrap it all up, uh, going back to the bike lanes and all that, specifically that Morrison area, I know that's one that in particular has just stood out, uh, because I think that really speaks to the crossroads that we're at as a country that for hundreds of years we've been we've run on automobiles. that that's you know for the for the longest time that's how we've worked but times are changing and we're living it now and that's that tension right now between that transition right from going to automobiles to more walking and more cycling and all all that those things and we're seeing it here play out in Marino Valley so yeah I I you know always defer to the subject matter experts which is our staff and any any partners that you work with but just looking at the map you open up Google maps or if you go out there and look at

it yourself um in person. There are some areas that where if we end up moving toward a redesign that includes the sidewalks and the pavement on the road itself, I I think we should also take a look at any areas where there are grassy areas that are underused and underutilized uh to see if uh what I think about is um in Long Beach where you have the kind of bike bike bike paths that go along the beach like is it possible to do something similar to that instead of going onto the actual road or maybe in conjunction with redesigning the the road, we also do something out into the grassy areas um adjacent to the sidewalks. Is there a way for us to redesign something there? Uh the fire station is there. There are already dirt paths. If you look at the aerial view on Google Maps, there are dirt paths that already, you know, cross over the Morrison Park area and behind the fire station. Is there something that we could do there to to make a different or an additional connection between, you know, Cottonwood and Morrison over to Dracia and by the the baseball fields? Um, and then this one I I just noticed it, so I don't know if it's an option, but there is what looks like maybe one and a half uh one and a half worth of width of a parking stall. So, you know, a parking stall plus half uh worth of u area directly to the east of the school, that old school that runs from Cottonwood up to behind the baseball field, which is a city park. Is there something that we could do with that, you know, like can we can that be redesigned? So, I'm just throwing out a bunch of different ideas because I'm not the expert. I'm just, you know, trying to help fix it, you know? So, again, just thank you everybody that's working on this. Thank you to my colleagues for helping to to figure this thing out and um I'll leave my comments there.

Uh Brian, what was what was the cost of a pump track just out of if you remember just

obviously I don't have that number in my head. I've got a lot of numbers but not that one. Okay. Um I'm going to round it. Okay, let's round it. 6 million.

Okay. Thank you. And it was originally supposed to go on the base over at that park and it had to be moved. But oh, and one other thing also agree with the proposed or at least on the slides where it had the the parking lot as an option. Um hopefully we could find a better spot for it, you know, so we don't also create another issue where we're taking away playing and practice fields from the sports, right? Um okay. So, if there are no further questions or comments, we will go ahead and move to our next item, which is F2. And this is the Springs Fire update, and we will go ahead and start by turning it over to our fire chief, Jesse Park, for a presentation.

Great. Thank you. Um, myself and Diana, our city's emergency manager, going to present on the Springs Fire tonight and then also relay some information that's good to understand for all emergencies. Um, so here is the incident summary. April 3rd, 2026 at 10:59 is when we started getting reports of a large fire. Uh, it was 100% contained the next day, April 4th, thankfully. And that was uh due to some lucky factors. Um, we had some good people on, we had a lot of equipment. Uh, we weren't competing for a lot of resources like sometimes we are late in the season. And uh we also were able to catch the fire in the rocks on top of Lake Paris and that slowed it down because of the fuel. This was a wind driven fire, 4,176 acres, mostly grass and brush. Uh we had zero homes damaged or destroyed. So that's a fantastic result. Uh Lake Paris did lose a bathroom. So the winds were recorded at 23.8 8 miles. These are Santa Ana winds, a normal wind pattern. We're going to have that wind pattern again coming this week um at 20 foot level. That's where we measure our our winds are at the 20 foot level. So gusts at the ridgetops are a lot higher. Important thing about that is once we start getting over 25 mph winds, we start to lose our ability to fly aircraft because it gets too difficult. It's too gusty and also the water and the retardant that's dropping it just kind of spreads out. It can't do its its effectiveness. For the Springs Fire, we used 28 type one city, county, and surrounding jurisdiction engines, 17 state brush engines, five department of correction hand crews, four bulldozers, three conservation crew hand crews, three drones, and then we had a rotation

of what are called S2T and then C130. Those are the big airplanes that are dropping. and then fire Hueies and fire Blackhawk helicopters cost about $2.3 million. That's our estimate. Most of that is on aircraft. So, I know this is this is a little bit wordy in there, so I'm going to explain a little bit of it, but while the fire is being dispatched, the CalFire intel group is creating a simulation using all the known factors that we have. This is wind, temp, fuel type, the fuel moisture. All of this is collected from remote automated weather stations and then it's put into AI which generates a fire spread map and it's a prediction of what could happen if we don't try to stop the fire. In other words, it's a simulation that takes into account fire nose fire suppression activities like our fire engines or our bulldozers or planes. And I'm going to point out a few items, but you could see that the time on top was 11:01. So, it's just a couple minutes after we started getting reports. I'm getting this. And that's when we're starting to assemble our team. So, I'm on the phone with Diana Rocket. I'm on the phone with our city manager. We're putting together text threads. We're getting our activation going of who's going to be needed to help. Not on the response side so much, but on the city side, what is this going to do to the city? Because the map right there is accurate, right? It's a very accurate map. Even with the suppression activities, you can see where it's going. So, it gives some crucial factors up top there on what we're in. And obviously the red means we've got trouble. Right on the the left hand side is the first uh initial action report that came out and there's two maps. One is the fire spread map. The second one that's kind of a colored map that shows the direct protection areas. So basically who owns what, right? The blue there is the state direct protection. So that's SR and the fire came mostly through the SRRA and so Cal Fire pays for the fire. Right? So fires in a local

jurisdiction that stay in a local jurisdiction are the responsibility of the local jurisdiction. Whereas this type of fire was uh CalFire foots the bill. And then there's fire spread. Those numbers are kind of too small to see, but if you go down to the total, there's 7,000 acres and we kept it at 4,000 acres. So you can see there is a difference. the map on the right, the simulation on the right, that happens later on after we've uh basically done a lot of attacking of the fire. And so they're putting in control points that have already occurred and giving us an updated calculation. So later in the day. Okay. So that on the left is a screenshot of my phone. My phone and tablet are attached to fire dispatch and um I can see all the current incidents that are going on within Riverside County. You can see where the evacuation zones are when I push onto the map and the equipment there is in the blue. So I can see exactly where our fire engines are. You can see st engine 91 from the college. They went right to the top of Lake Paris, right? They didn't they didn't mess around. They knew the fire was coming. So they just went right to the top and they're they're fighting fire up there. You can even see there's a little helicopter there so I can see where the aircraft is kind of spinning around and the air tankers so we know what's going on. And also um I can place all these pieces of equipment. I I log in and I can place the equipment where I want them right on the computer and it tells the firefighters where to go. Right? So, I'm saying to them, I need you to go here and I'm doing it on the computer and they're seeing it on their computer so that we have that accountability, but I'm also voicing it out over the radio because it's a recorded dispatch. It's a point of record that people can can pull from, but anybody can listen to this record, right? This is not private

information when we're talking about the fire. And so, other third parties are listening. So, the screen on the right is watchd duty. Okay, Watchd Duty is listening to us all the time and they're posting it and when we see an error on Watchd Duty, we get it corrected, but it's still an unofficial source. It's a very useful source, but it's an unofficial source. It's not controlled by us. So, this just something that we should know. So, your first responder agencies, really what we're doing, police, fire, animal control, our roads folks that are out there, MVU, we are addressing the incident needs, the life safety, the public information as it relates to the incidents, the evacuations acreage, but our city also has a very robust office of emergency management. So, I'm going to turn it over to Diana now to speak on that response. Good evening, mayor, council members, u members of the community. So, while first responders are doing their thing, as I like to say, putting the wet stuff on the hot stuff, and our law enforcement is protecting and evacuating the community, the city response on the emergency operations side is doing and coordinating all of the other activities, and it's a lot. So we are addressing non-life safety issues primarily and then we are coordinating again all of those ancillary services sheltering care and shelter for both humans and pets donations management. A lot of people want to help. We always appreciate that but it can become a an incident within an incident if it's not coordinated uh early on. So we're doing that. Um and then working to meet the needs uh of the community and any unmet needs. Um, as you can imagine, when you know people are evacuated from their home, they are in crisis and there are things that they need, medications,

mental support, uh, medically fragile. Uh, we had 92% of our uh, population at the shelter for this fire. 79 was our top capacity. 92% of those individuals in that shelter were medically fragile, medically dependent, or required some form of physical assistance or uh uh med durable medical equipment. Um so for you guys as stakeholders and other members of the community, uh stakeholders, our partners, um you add value to the incident when the city is responding by supporting the the overall effort, right? supporting not only the first responders but supporting us in the emergency operations center through allocation of resources uh personnel and and things like that. So we become as the emergency operations center we become the voice of the city uh during an incident beyond our first represent. So we become connected to our first responder partners and essentially take over that lead role as uh for the city. So when we look at what the city is doing, the emergency operations center is coordinating a lot of different factors. So public information and messaging is probably one of the premier things that we do in an incident. We have a lot of sources coming at the public. The uh social media aspect is moving much faster than we can. So, it's important that we're coordinated trying to send unified messaging to the extent possible. Um, continuity of operations. So, continuity of operations entails a lot of different things from the perspective of the emergency operations center. It's not only ensuring that business and government can continue operations, but it's also ensuring continuity of operations with our state, federal, and local partners, both uh border partners, Paris, Bowmont,

coordinating those things, CALR, um but also with the county of Riverside who uh in this case uh was serving uh needs as well and they often do during these incidents. So, we're working on feeding the community there, taking care of not just providing food, but providing healthy uh stable meals uh based on individuals needs, donations management. I touched on that. We're working on stakeholder coordination. As you guys know, uh there were regular updates coming out to you and that's important to us because we know your constituents are looking to you. So, we're working and coordinating all of that uh with support with the city manager's office. Um so pet evacuations at uh Saneno Animal Shelter were also taking place. That's part of the operational area level coordination. Um they're able to take on a lot more animals. Our city animal shelter is is near or at capacity every single day. So it's important that we have those relationships in hand and ready to uh support when needed so that we have additional capacity to support. Um, and then pet evacuation support at the Marino Valley Animal Shelter, although they were not officially listed as a support uh to the community. They did still even uh keeping their doors open past uh normal business hours, they took in 22 animals. Uh people just showing up in desperate uh they didn't know what else to do uh with their animal while evacuated. So, kudos to the Marino Valley animal folks. Um, and then of course they supported at the shelter providing food, water, and care for those pets. And then of course our partners in public works supporting the sheriff's department while evacuations were occurring and providing uh resources to make sure that those roads were closed to keep the public out and keep them safe. And then of course Marino Valley Utility, our partners uh were working uh and monitoring infrastructure and ensuring uh partnership with SoCal Edison if any impacts were realized to deenergize or

whatever was needed there. So, a lot of moving parts. So, what you're seeing here is essentially just a graphic representative of what I've just said. So, the fire you have, you know, the folks in the field, the professional responders, first responders doing their thing. We are pushing and pulling information constantly from the incident, uh, listening to the dispatch as chief said, processing that, vetting that, and making it, uh, tangible in how we can support the community. So between us, the incident is providing the actual incident updates, rapidly changing dynamic information. Uh they are pushing the evacuation messaging, right? They are the ones out there seeing what zones are impacted or potentially impacted and issuing those evacuations warnings and orders, which we'll talk about more in a minute. And then together we are guiding public action. So ensuring that the the community is getting the message we need them to get when we need them to get it to guide that action which is all built on the premise of public safety and keeping the community safe. And then of course public trust. The community is looking to us. They're trusting us with their loved ones, their their you know their kids and all of that. And so public trust is what we must continue to maintain during these incidents. and being uh forwardleaning and uh responsive to their needs is something that the EOC uh is definitely doing. Looking at that from a whole community perspective and then of course as I mentioned stakeholder engagement it's it's a priority for us to keep you informed so that when you're getting the those calls that you're you're able to amplify what it is that we're the message that we're putting out.

Okay. I'm going to talk a little bit about uh evacuations. Um so sometimes people ask how do we decide who's going to get evacuated and and how does this work? Um we're taking a lot of different things. We're taking ground level information from the fire engines meaning like hey it's going to hit this road. I it's already passed this road. It's going to that road. So we're taking in that information straight from the firefighters. We're also taking the aircraft. They're looking at it from the top down and they're they're gauging a rate of spread and they're saying it's moving this fast. But they're also able to see when spot fires take off, right? Because that ember cast that comes up, it's not just the flaming front. That embercast will come up and it'll hit what we call little jackpots. These are little areas that have are highly fuel receptive and it'll start a new fire and that can happen way out ahead of the front of the fire. And now that's the new fire, right? So we're looking at that. Then we're looking at the computer modeling as well. Um, and then what is occurring is I am going on there at the time exactly with my partner RSO. We're like we're just like this where we are right now. We're at the command post. We're sitting there right next to each other. It's called CERT is their team. They've got their command vehicle. We've got our command vehicles and we're I'm telling them it's going to bump this road. We need to do an evacuation order for this area. And we're talking about roads. When we're talking with RSO, we're talking about roads. Okay? And then I say and that and because it's going to bump this area, then we need to warn everybody out to this area that that's our warning. Okay? So those are our order streets and warning streets. Then what I'm doing is I'm actually putting it into the computer and that articulates to the zones that you see. We'll talk a little bit more about the zones. We'll get a picture, but that's how that's how it goes out. And then it goes out. We do a wireless emergency alert. Those zones go out. They're reflected into places like Watchd Duty and Genesis Protect. So everybody gets notified and your phone

starts dinging and I'm in the Oh no, I'm in the area. Right. Okay. So, but here's why we have the three levels of ready, set, go. Because honestly, seem things seem fine until they're not. Okay? Uh everybody thinks that they can do just fine um using a garden hose and flip-flops and putting out their fence until night turns day turns into night because of the smoke. And now people are having a hard time breathing. They're starting to panic. People don't know where to drive. They're getting out of their cars. They're running. And now it's we have a a real situation on our hands. And we have plenty of examples of that. I don't need to, you know, point you to any YouTube. So get ready. Get ready means load your emergency kits, important documents, heirlooms, medications, all those things. A lot of times people call it a go bag. Execute your plan. Notify your family, your employer, your daycare, your school, things like that. And then stay informed. Follow those official sources. Okay. The next is the yellow. That's the warning. When you see yellow on a map, that means you're in a warning. What we're saying there is load your pets, children, elderly, get ready to leave. The fire is coming that way. We're going to try to stop it, but be ready. Secure your house. Close your windows. Close your drapes. You can leave your power on. Turn off your HVAC. Okay. Uh, now's the time when you're in the yellow, now's the time to get on the road before it's choked. Right now's the time to get get moving. Go to someplace safe. If we get into the red and we say go, that means go. It's It's as simple as that. We are asking RSO to go and make those orders. I always want to say our fire engines are there to put out the fire, but you know who's in head of those fire engines? RSO. They are in danger, right? When we are telling them

to go evacuate places, they're putting themselves in danger. So follow them. Follow those official sources. Get out of the area. And then we are going to coordinate the way that that rolls out. We always do a warning if we can and then an, you know, an order. So, we have the order, then we have the warning, and that moves to an order, then we have a warning. And we back it out that same way. And it takes some time to back it out because now we have to make sure that the area that the fire burned through is safe for you to go back. People are like, "There's no smoke in the air." Yeah, but guess what? The natural gas lines burned down. Power lines fell. There's lithium-ion batteries in people's garages that need to be assessed. We have to see if people were fatalities. That means we have dogs go through there to find out if there was fatalities in this fire. So the roads may be buckled and cracked. We may have no guardrails. Trees may be down. The area is not safe just because there's no smoke in the air. So that's why sometimes it'll stay into a warning or an order and then we'll slowly back that out. So the incident takeaways mainly the coordination between the stakeholders and the EOC is critical to a full city response. The firefighters can do what they're doing, police can do what they're doing, but it's critical that we have that EOC component. The EOC becomes that unified voice of the city during an incident. And together we build that cohesive response channel to support the affected communities. So now I'm going to turn it back over to Diana to talk a little bit about our continuity of operations and some of the things that stakeholders meaning electeds and city officials should do. So touching on continuity, one of the things that that any stakeholder whether elected um or other stakeholders in our

process because there are stakeholders at all levels. One of the most important things that you can and should do uh is is be educated about the disaster process, how this unfolds, what is happening, what are the terminologies. Uh chief touched on it, understanding about the zones, which he'll touch on in a minute. Uh just really just understanding how the city is supporting the first responders, just understanding the general disaster process. So some takeaways uh just generally during an incident again voice support for our uh res uh the response as a whole and our response partners um understanding the disaster process as I talked about and how best to support it is critical encouraging disaster preparedness. Uh we always want to inform you know make a kit have a plan stay informed uh those are you know it's catchy it's fun and uh it's it's effective. So, if you get an opportunity at any point before, during or after disaster to spread that message, please do that. Um, and then of course, we cannot say this enough, rely on and encourage constituents to use official sources for incident updates. We always want to rely on the the professional sources. And people ask, well, you know, why is that? And well, that is because in incidents are dynamic. They are rapidly changing. And what is yellow right now as a warning could very well in 30 seconds be in order because of a windshift or a gust or a spot fire as the chief chief mentioned. So, and so really the main takeaway here is what any stakeholder can do to support the city and EOCC operations in general is to amplify and encourage residents to go when they are told to do so. We always want to strongly encourage people to go in the yellow if you have that opportunity. you may not uh you may go from nothing to ready and in and whatever the case. Please take that time to get out if you're given it. Uh pack your things,

have your plan, and don't wait because not only do roads get congested, we've seen that in some major fires in the last couple of years uh where roadways are jammed and people become trapped. That becomes a disaster within a disaster. Um, so don't wait, especially if you have pets, don't wait until you're under order to get your pets in the kennel. I don't know about you, but my cat does not like to go in the kennel. Uh, so don't wait for that. Do it early. Uh, and even if you know, thunder, that's my cat. Uh, if he has to stay in the in the kennel for a little bit until you're told to go. If not, you can open the kennel and let him out. Uh, but don't wait to do that until you're in panic mode and the sheriff is knocking on your door telling you to go now. So, uh, Chief, back to you.

Okay. Thanks. So, I'm going to go over some potential pitfalls. I just want to let everybody in the audience know none of these things happen. These are not things that we're not complaining. We're just saying that uh, as we get to fire season, some things to think about to avoid potential pitfalls that we have seen in the past from other examples throughout the country. Okay, that's what these are. They have nothing to do with anybody here in the well or on the dice. Okay, but first I want to tell you a saying that we have on our big fire incident management teams uh when we put together these big teams like when I went to the Palisades. And that saying is the most important person on the team is the person who needs the most help. Okay? And I say this because one of the best ways to avoid these potential pitfalls is to use your team. We are your team. Okay? Um, and we are here to help you navigate what can be a very serious incident affecting our community because you should have a presence. You are the faces of the community. You're seen as leaders and you should be there. You should be able to be providing information and updates and show that you care, right? It's very important. But presence at emergency scenes can be a little difficult sometimes. Um it can it can there can be an implied responsibility, right? Uh you know how could you let this happen to our city, right? And and we know that it's not your fault and and you know that it's not your fault, but there are going to be people that can try to use that against you, right? So understand that. Uh also, it can be daunting to those in crisis to see an elected official. They may not be looking so hot. They may be this may be midnight. This may be something they may be highly affected and if you're there and they wanted to

meet you looking polished or in a in a situation where they could actually engage in conversation, it can be daunting. So, just understand that how that can be. Um, avoid being in areas that are under an evacuation order because it sends that conflicting message, right? If you want to go, we'll help you. I'll take you there. Right? You want to go see the burnedout area? That's what we're what we're here for. We'll we'll provide you that escort so that you're able to go and view those areas that you want to see and be that presence on the ground. Also, avoid overpromising actions or outcomes. I'm going to tell you, it can get emotional when people are thinking about loved ones or pets that they may not see again and you're trying to help out and you're you're there and you're and you want to say something and you can blurt out. It happens to firefighters too all the time, right? We go to an emergency and we say they're going to be okay. You know what? They may not be okay. That that's that's life. Also, avoid individual messaging. instead amplify the first responder and city messaging. So, put your spin on it, but utilize your messaging as we the team, this is what we are doing. This is how we are all helping you and this is how we as elected officials are going about about the process. Uh, finally, detracting a away from the incident and that can be for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's political. We don't want anybody speaking on something until they know the facts, right? So sometimes you can you can get into a mode where you're again you're wanting to help or you're you're speaking on an an item that we don't have the full facts. We don't want you we don't want to give you the opportunity to not have that full information. Let us provide you the full information because then you can speak on it honestly and truthfully and that'll help everybody out. So that is our stakeholder uh and we've just learned these things over time. Again this didn't happen to anybody.

There's no one person that we're we're singling out or looking at anywhere in here in this room whatsoever. Um, but we have seen this happen in different counties and cities throughout California and over history. And there they're just good lessons to learn. So, I'm going to turn it back over to Diana for our community call to action.

So, for the community call to action, as I as I mentioned earlier, it really is important that you just start with a simple conversation with loved ones around the dinner table. Um, and what is the plan? What if? Talk about the what if scenarios. What if this happened when mom's at work, dad's at work, grandma's at work. Talk about what if the kids are at school. Do you know what your school's your children's school's emergency plan says? Um, and so these are questions that you want to ask now in steady state. You don't want to wait till you're in crisis to ask these things. Um, most people have all of the things that they need or a good percentage of what they need to make a solid emergency kit at home. They just don't have it all in the same place, right? So, there are kits you can buy online and if you're financially able to do that, that's, you know, that's completely up to you. But we encourage you to use what you have at home. Use the items that are comfortable and familiar to you. Um there are ways to um that you can get tips at uh ready.gov. You can come to uh moal.orgm. We have free resources on there that can guide you through making a kit and having a plan and then staying informed. Um registering for city, county, and national alert and warning systems, being familiar with those, what they are. And um I would like to point out to the members of the council and the community that after the Springs Fire um the my team and I in coordination with city manager's office and the chief are putting together a community forum. We are going to bring the message of wildfire resiliency to the to the springs fire impacted community. uh we want to talk to you because this is we were we were very lucky during this incident as the chief mentioned had some of those conditions changed even slightly we might not be having the same conversation. We know this will happen

again. The threat is real. So we are coming to you. We are going to bring the message of preparedness. We're going to talk about takeaways, things that that people can learn and give them tangible resources that night. Um so stay tuned. That will be happening in the next 30 to 45 days. Um, Chief, I think that's you.

So, here's some of the ones that these are the official sources. City alerts. Moveal.org backalerts will take you to alert mobile. Um, and we're working on updating that page to provide a a single point of access for the city so that everybody has all the information that is needed. Alert Rivco and then Genesis Protect and then Watchd Duty. Like I said, it's an unofficial source, but it's a good source there's. So, uh, Genesis protect is where the zones come from. So, you may like, what is the zone? Why do I need to know my zone? Okay, so again, we may say something like everything to the east of Lasal, right? That's what we're telling RSO. But then that corresponds to zones. Well, where do we get the zones? Those zones are based on population, right? So that we know what type of size of population that we're evacuating. So, anything that says, that's Marino Valley, that's city limits. the RBC, that's Riverside County stuff. So, you can see the Riverside County zones are quite big, right? Because it's there's not a lot of people there, right? But then you get intoe and we got a lot of people. So, that's what the zones are and that's where they come from and that's what I'm selecting. And so, sometimes people say, well, why am I okay to stand on this side of the street because it's in a warning, but on this side of the street, it's in order. Well, because we have to divide it somewhere. we we don't have we don't have the luxury right all the time and and so these are divided and so that's that's how we do it and then these are also more official sources that we want to provide to everybody for the incidents you have the fire.ca ca.gov and that's the CalFire one. Um, and they're they're real quick. Those ones are real quick. Uh, PIO's are not always real quick. Sometimes because it's an official source and they're getting conflicting information, watch Duty will pop off real fast, right? And that's because again, they're listening

to us. Whereas our PIO is confirming, right? When when sheriff and I are working together, we're confirming all the information through the sources before it goes out. And if you're a social media influencer, you can just put out whatever you want. You're not liable for it. Um, the sheriff station mobile and then Genesis Protect. And the one thing I didn't I'm going to click back to Genesis Protect because you can't really see it, but what it says up there in the little thing of the app is Humbult. Okay, it's looking at Humbult County in the little phone one. This is what's cool about Genesis Protect. It's nationwide. Okay. So, if you are going to go camp up in Idle Wild, you're going to get that. But if you want to know if Idle Wild's going to be under evacuation, you can plug in Idle Wild and save it in your phone. If you have a family member that lives in Malibu Canyon and you know that's a bad spot, right? You can put in Malibu Canyon. You can do those zones and you'll get noticed even if you're out of the area. So, that's why Genesis Protect is a good thing and I'm glad the county went to it. It's countywide. That's our end our report, but both Diana and I are available for your questions.

Thank you very much. Yes, a round of applause for our first responders, fire chief, emergency operations team, uh everybody that um took care of that situation. It was a very difficult situation, but uh certainly a model to follow for everybody else that is in these situations. Um, so thank you for the presentation and I'll look to my colleagues to see if there are any comments. If not, we can go to public comment first. Madame clerk, do we have any requests to speak?

We do, mayor. The first three speakers are Ismail Gonzalez, followed by Christopher Bako, followed by Bob Polar. Hello again. I want to begin by stating uh once more thank you so much to fire chief uh Park and all your colleagues uh that helped in the Springs fire. Uh just to uh go over some of the facts that were uh mentioned in the staff report. Two uh 2.3 million uh dollars, right, gone because of uh this fire that could have been uh well, you know, your own city staff in the general plan told you it's a very high fire risk, right? It only takes upwards of 25 miles per hour for it to go downhill. um as it did with the Springs Fire, the uh classification of M OE, it reached all the way to Gilman Springs Road. Uh even across it for a little bit. Thank you, Fire Chief Park. Um the cause is under investigation to this day. Um as another colleague of mine in the back has uh said before, who benefits most from a fire in that spot? I will just say that you are considering adding 3,000 new homes, a school, golf course on that side of Gilman Springs under the Rancho Belio annexation project which is owned by Ido Benzi and Highland Fairview. Edo is already getting 40 million square feet of warehouses which will increase the fire risk in that area. uh according to your own uh truck route map, the truck route is already in the map over there approved.

Why if you're going to AB98, why are you going to do that if you're going to have 3,000 new homes out there right next to a truck route, right? Um, these are all hypothetical uh houses, but you need to be considering that they are also, even though they're hypothetical, they are sensitive receptors. So, you're putting people lives at risk. No one was harmed in this fire, but like your staff stated, it's only a matter of time before it happens again. And um, you want to go ahead and give $5 million to some architects to design a public safety campus on that end. That's ridiculous. Um, it's it's going to be owned by Ido. That land right beneath it, owned by Ido. This guy needs to get the out, please. Um, just to put it, you know, bluntly, this guy needs to leave, go back to his own country, um, do whatever he wants in his own country, but he's not uh he's not from Ren Valley, so I'm not sure why he's trying to put people's lives at risk. 3,000 new homes, a golf course, a school, on a fault line, and a very high fire risk. Only a matter of time. Um, you need to recirculate the the general plan update because of this. This is another reason to do so. Send it.

Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Christopher Baka.

Good evening again. Um, I just want to commend um our fire um departments and all the resources that we had available. It was awesome watching it, watching how they uh contained it and the loss of uh homes and so forth is just I was actually getting depressed thinking this is going to go downhill real fast and I just didn't want to think about it. The next morning I was just overwhelmed with it being contained and no property damage. But it was dangerous and it could have been it was godscent that the winds didn't pick up and it was later in the season when the brush was drier. So that was either a warning or a godscent whichever one. But anyhow, um the Benzi fire, um I was hoping we can get an update as far as investigation is concerned because this is very very very very very questionable to me where it started, how it started. In my opinion, that whole area on the other side of Gilman Springs, if it would have burnt down, who would have benefited? But uh and then we'd have Mr. Mohan burning rubber to pay for his infrastructure to get stuff up and running in uh for that uh illegal for the Gilman Hills area. So, it's very suspect. Um you wonder why I we I can say we now would be talking like this. The man is evil. You can go back and read some of the stuff that he did up in Vasilia where he firebombed his brother firebombed the political opponent. My personal experience with this man is horrible. I mean, he is evil, dirty, and

beyond. You know, I believed wholeheartedly, uh, wholeheartedly, God help me, that he had something to do with this fire and it went wrong. And it could have went real wrong. Imagine homes being burnt down if this would have went bad. And this is the person you're dealing with. And you people really need to understand what evil demon you people are dealing with. I'm not kidding. God help me. He is dirty and evil. The next speaker is Bob Palomar.

Good evening, council. Uh first I'd just like to say that we owe a great deal of gratitude and everyone knows that to uh the fire department, sheriff's, emergency response and all the agencies involved. You know, they had a a war plan to fight this fire as a fires burning. And it's amazing listening to the fire chief of how they were going about it, you I mean, it was it's moving here, it's over here, you know, and you got to stay on top of it as close as it got to the homes, you know, there was a potential for property loss and maybe life. You know, when the Palisades fire was burning, I was watching the news because I was also seeing the one here and there was some wind burning by the homes over there by I guess it's where the homes and the brush was real close to them. But in the Palisades, there was showing the wind blowing and the flames and the winds were burning homes 100 yards every 60 seconds. Now, if you think of a football field and starting at the one yard line and going to the other side in 60 seconds, burning everything in its path, that's a challenge. You almost got to let it burn and get on the other end and hope you can stop it. But, uh, it's just a coordination like the chief said that, you know, they were doing and man, that's amazing. So it's, you know, we're not here talking about a great amount of loss of property or life or animals, whatever, you know. So just a great great job and I thank all of you involved. Thank you.

The next speaker is Fred Bonos.

Hello everyone. So, I'd like to give uh thanks to our public safety team for that day. Um fire department, sheriff's department. Um luckily, I'm working from home during this fire and I was in a better position to kind of see what was going on. Um the sheriff's department came through my neighborhood around I think it was 3:00. Loudspeaker told us basically to get out. Uh unfortunately, I didn't leave right away. Um and the reason for that is because I wanted to make sure that people on my street knew what to do. Um, a lot of people there on my street that are a little bit older than me and I wanted to make sure that they were going to uh get out. Um, I also had uh my cousin Linda, she knew that I was live lived in that area and she sent me some information, great information about these apps which I didn't know about. I didn't know where to go to get regular updates of what was going on. Uh, I want to say that I'm going to give kudos, you know, where it's warranted. Um later I went back and I saw on social media that our mayor and Chelinda put some posts out. I appreciate that. Um you know I haven't watched the whole thing but in that type of situation where it's happening in real time um I didn't know where to go at first but these apps are great. I got new information of the uh what is it? Watchduty and Genesis. Great apps. Now I know what to do in the future. I'm glad that you guys are going to come back later and uh do some more information to let people know what to do in this situation. Um we went to Lel Sports Park, stayed there, we watched it, and yes, I'm guilty of coming back when we're still in the red zone, but um I I use my ebike. Let me throw my ebike in here. During this time, I was riding around the neighborhood making sure watching the fire myself, you know, and just like it was my wife that said, "We need to go, you know, and she was

getting worried and I said, "Okay, dear. We'll we'll leave." And I think I think we left around 6 maybe to Lasell Sports Park and we were watching everything from over there. But it it's a stressful thing. And I like to think that we did very well, we did good. We can get better. We just got to know where to to put our important stuff, be able to grab it, put it into our vehicles, and and have it ready to go in case that ever happens again. I think this is our second fire that I've experienced uh since I lived here. And uh again, I just I appreciate you guys putting whatever you did on your social media. I got to give you kudos for doing that. Um but I just need to know where to get my regular updates. And I hope in the future that we uh um get some more information of what to do. I love your presentation that you presented. I want to get a copy of that and take a look at it. That was just amazing stuff to take a look at of how you guys deal with this fire. But I want to thank you and uh yeah, thank you.

Our last speaker is Tatiana Flores. Hello again. My name is Tatiana Flores and I'm a District 4 resident. And so I was I'm near Bethun Park, so I wasn't in the evacuation zones, but I'm not going to lie, I panicked for a good hour. Started to get stuff ready. So, I just wanted to thank, you know, all the fire staff that were, you know, present at the fire and helping a lot with that. Um, I wanted to emphasize that I really like the idea of the community wildfire resilience forum. I think it would help a lot of residents. I know that Moreno Valley is very and like places in the IE are very prone to wildfires, but I don't think a lot of us are actually prepared to like leave, evacuate, or even deal with them. So, I think it's a great idea to, you know, really inform residents about what their next steps should be. Like, even I myself like bought a firebox before the fire and was able to put important documents in there. But like even knowing what should be in there is something that can be really helpful for people. Um, but I also wanted to connect this to, you know, general problems of like pollution and climate justice. You know, we have a lot of air pollution concerns in the area and they just become worse and this is going to make wildfires worse as well. We have issues with the ozone, higher temperatures, climate change. So, this is something that I wanted to highlight to really show that, you know, these are why resources need to be spread because this problem will just get worse. Like we heard right now that the conditions ended up working out. So, you know, they

were able to put it out in a day. But we've seen how the LA fire happened and that's the reason why I panicked for a good hour because yeah, I wasn't in an evacuation zone, but we saw how the fires in LA went. And so, yeah, I just want to emphasize that point and really plead the council to consider that in future decisions that are made here in the city. Thanks. Our last speaker is Roy Blickard. Calire as they usually do and pretty much everybody involved did an absolutely fantastic job fighting that fire. You would see from myself and broadcasting in on the deal. You didn't see no big panic coming out of me because there really wasn't no need to it and without giving away any trait secrets from the observations and things I seen look like they had everything pretty much in control. But this is where the ecoaks get out sideways with practicality and the really reality of the situation. First, fires one put a lot of carbon on the ground and that is very beneficial to our whole ecosystem. I know this because my native people used to burn do control burns 500 years ago all across this valley and everywhere. So, while fire can be destructive, fire can be used as a very beneficial tool. Second thing is being on the old Cat Skinner crew. You saw the $2.1 million. Well, you know, if you just spent $50,000 cutting fire breaks and stuff through here that a lot of them protest about or were ruining the

environment, you wouldn't you if things got out of control or if there were a whole bunch of things and they couldn't dedicate as much resources they had to this fire, that's where you can run into problems. and you know tragedies and as we seen here very recently whole communities getting wiped out. So from that standpoint, everything looked pretty good. Trying to demonize or like was going through the last meetings or so with the fire station and that first the head fireman over there may have different numbers, but most of your fire stations, 90% of their calls are medical calls. On top of that, just having a fire station out there would not necessarily prevented a humongous fire like that. Not saying that it isn't needed, but people, as was pointed out in the report, the political and agenda exaggerations on a lot of this stuff just go absolutely crazy in no basis of fact and/or reality. So hopefully in days to come, we should all look to peel some of that back so we can all live in a safe community. We can all have a good community. We can all have an environmentally friendly committee community one that even the traffic flows right if we would do that. And Chris Bach is right. 10 years ago, 12 years ago, we had all this stuff where all the reports were done. Why has that been changed? That needs to be fixed.

Mayor, that concludes all public comments on items on on the agenda. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. We'll bring it back up to the deis for any council questions or comments. Mayor Proton,

I just I just have comments. Uh first uh just just thank uh Calire and uh first responders, sheriff for everything they did to to address the fire, mitigate it, and and you know that no no lives, no structures were impacted or damaged. And that is uh fantastic. and and I got so many um um comments from residents, from family of the of the diligent hard work that was done by by everyone involved in in the fire. So So hats off to to everyone. I I I do have a question for um uh uh Jesse. What what was the most critical time of you know was mentioned it could have gone certain ways of the fire. what was the most of dangerous time or or part of the of the event? And also a followup question, what was the last time this mountain kind of the mountain range or uh was impacted by by fire in the past? But

so second question first, I'll have to look into when the last true good fire was. Um we're safe for right now, but it grows back every year, right? Because it's mostly grass. Um, so it's something that we have to keep on top of. Dangerous wise, so it was very dangerous for the firefighters in the beginning because it was moving so fast. The most crucial time though was in the it was in the early evening. As it got dark, the fire kind of squirted out of the control lines and back down the hill. And that's when it backed into the neighborhoods. And that's when things get a little bit serious because not only is it dark, now it's smoky. And fires at night look great, right? They're that they're they're spectacular at night. So, it heightens everybody's senses. Even the firefighters, you know, we will we will mistake our acreage at night by a lot. You know, you go to a fire in the day and we'll be like, "That's a 5 acre fire." You go at night, you're like, "That's a 25 acre fire because it looks so cool." But it's it's a so things happen though in the dark, right? You trip over things. Um people's dogs get loose. Uh people are running around. fire engines back into mailboxes, things, all those kind of crazy things happen in in the middle of the night when we're trying to fight a fire. So, that's really when the most dangerous time is.

And I and I did notice that in the evening, like you said, at that time, the the fire just looked more menacing, right? Especially along Championship around that area. It was Championship. Yeah. And then it, you know, you guys knocked it out of the park and it it got um addressed. And um also I noticed one of the comments in the slides was that there cities working all the agents are working on an app, right? Kind of a one-stop shop. Is that is is that what I read in the in the small print there?

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh it's going to be Diana's team with our media team and we're doing some workshops. So, we're you know, again, this is I appreciate everybody, you know, giving me kudos, but it really it's a team effort, right? It's everybody together and I'm I'm just honored to be able to to lead such a great team.

But Diana is like she's to totally on top of it. We're working on this kind of a one-stop shop. We've recognized the need to be able to provide consistent alerts and have a consistent spot on the city site. It's actually there. It's already there. I mean, we've had it for for quite a while. It's just that we're reworking it. You know, everything needs to evolve. We look at how well it's working. What kind of usage is it getting? We look at the data and the analytics from our team and then we say how can we improve it and that's what we're doing now. Thank you.

Um I know that um a few of the residents uh mentioned fire breaks. Um I know what a fire break is and I also know what a controlled burn is. as someone that's had to do some work with some fire camps um with CDCR. Can you explain whether or not this mountain um had had any any controlled burns or fire breaks in recent years because I know when there's visitation if there's not a break in between that's usually how it um it climbs or jumps.

Yeah. So, not the mountain. The mountain is state parkland. And so when we're when we're talking about this, it's the responsibility of the property owner to either do the fuel modifications or apply for grants to do the fuel modifications because it's terribly expensive. Um you a lot there's and there's different ways to do it. So you can use you can do a masticator and and kind of chip it up. You can use a chipper, you can use a hand cut, and then you can you can do control burns, right? as well. The area below the the kind of the ecological preserve, the upland game, that gets burned off on a pretty regular basis. It's flat grass and we utilize it for control burns. Um we do that out at Lake Matthews as well. We do it at Lake Skinner. Uh there's several places throughout the c the the county that we do regular controlled burns. We do not have permission and it is not our land to do the state park. That is the state park's responsibility. Um, and it it is up to them. Now, they can request it is because it's state land, it's protected by CalFire, right? But it is not Calire's um ownership to be able to to do with. So, it would just be like we we just can't go in there. And if you think about what the city of Marino Valley owns and what we have the ability to just go out and do fuel modifications on, it's not it's not a lot, right? It's the same thing with Box Springs, right? Box Springs. There's an environmental group that owns Box Springs. A big portion of it. It's protected by CalFire. There's the radio repeaters up there, but we don't have the ability to just go around Box Springs and do things. We can we can assist them. We can apply for grants and we can help them if it but it's a now you're talking about a lot of stakeholders coming together to make sure that the environmental impact report is done. All the parcel owners agree. If it's a

checkerboard property, like this part's BLM, this part's state, this part's uh uh uh property owner, they're all going to have to agree to that fuel break that we're talking about. And when we get outside, so you go up like Locust is another area, top of Locust, top of Lasal, those are areas where Rechie Canyon is starting to run in, Rechie Vista, but the areas there are either owned by property owners or then they'll transfer into Riverside County land. So Riverside County is going to be the property owner that we're going to work with to create those fuel modifications. So we would like to be able to just cut fire breaks wherever, but it's more it's it's a complicated issue.

Thank you. Um and I'd also um wanted to um give you all kudos. It was a rapidly changing um situation. It went from at 10:59 from from what appeared to be um not so serious to very serious and then the wind started whipping up. Also, I appreciate how you put in um the stat in the report how and when you are able to fly um planes and helicopters because I know that was something that residents and I'm sure the the mayor can attest this as well as MPT that they were like you need to get planes in the air and you know you you just can't because once the winds hit a certain amount it's doing absolutely nothing. So, thank you for putting that in the report, including all that information. Um, as well as, um, knowing that we need to, um, always prepare everyone. Um, my I myself have a, um, a fire safe a fireproof box at home that has everything in it. And to remind people, um, in in in the words of sugar-free, if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. Uh, because it will change on a dime at any at any point, in any moment. Um and and we learned a lot from that. So um just thank you for that report and thank you for all the work that all of you did. Um Diana, which they don't know because they don't see your emails, is extremely thorough. So Chief Parks is very correct when he says like it is a group effort. What he basically means is it is Diana writing

thank you writing extremely thorough emails that Brian because this is all Diana and that command center. So, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yeah. And uh once again, want to just say thank you to to everyone involved. You know, Diana, fire chief, RSO as well, uh all the deputies that were out there, uh resources that were allocated. And I want to give also a special shout out to um you know, all all of those agencies even outside of Marino Valley and Riverside County. I I recently found out just a few days ago that there were resources, specifically aircraft that were sent down all the way from Sacramento. Uh so just want to you know give a shout out to all all agencies that were involved from the governor's office all the way down uh you know that responded to the fire and um the the question came up about when was the last time that the fire occurred out there. This might have been before you took over as as chief uh Jesse but I believe it was under Ahmad. Uh I was a council member at the time and the reason why I remember this is because I was out there. I was up on championship and it's something you'll never forget, you know, when those kinds of things happen. Um, it didn't get as bad as this one of course, but it was pretty bad. It still got real close to championship. It was uh threatening some of the structures up there. Uh, but you know, that was put out and and no one was harmed. No structures were damaged either. So, uh, that that's one that I recall. I want to say right around COVID, sometime around CO, but we'll have to double check the dates on that. And then uh yeah, just really uh looking forward to glad to see in the slides about the forum. That'll be really really good. And then all the information about the various alerts you can sign up for the apps that you can download to make sure that we get up-to-date, accurate, verified information as quickly as possible. And uh last but not least um or second to last, also want to thank all those the EOC. I think first and foremost it was the EOCC and also um you know the Red Cross was out there as well at Valley View High School uh for for the shelter there that was used. Um I was out there as well and you know got a chance to

talk to some of the families and one of the families mentioned how uh they've unfortunately been involved in different evacuation situations and this Valley View High School site they said was the most wellorganized site that they had ever seen. So, just again a testament to the work that Diana, your team, everybody did that day. Um, and then lastly, also want to thank all the residents as well, all of our community for heeding the orders and following, you know, law enforcement's evacuation warnings, orders, all that good stuff. You know, the community really rallied together to make sure that everybody was safe. So, um, you know, just, uh, look forward to the continued work all of us together, the council, all of our staff, all of our partners to ensure that, uh, we we mitigate as much as possible any of these type of situations in the future. So, with that, we don't have any other items on our agenda for this evening. Uh, it is 8:15 p.m. If there are no further questions or comments from the council, we can go ahead and officially adjourn our study session at 8:15 p.m. Have a good night.