City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good even everybody. Good evening. Ready to call to order our meeting. Sir, joint meeting of the city council, successor agency to the redevelopment agency, public finance authority, the public utility authority, housing authority, Paris joint powers authority, and the Paris community economic development corporation of the city of Paris this Tuesday, February 24th, 2026 at 6:31 p.m. Madam Cler, if you have a roll call, please. Mayor Prom Corona present. Council member Rab here. Council member Vjo here. Council member Naba present. Mayor Vargas

present. Thank you. Item three is our invocation which will be led by pastor Dr. Té Dver from the Carpenters Church. If you please stand and join us and remain standing for item four, which is our pledge of allegiance, which will be led by Mayor Prom Corona. All right. Mayor Vargas, esteemed members of the city council, thank you for this honor. Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus to thank you for this day and this opportunity where we can gather together to do business on behalf of this city. We're asking you for your wisdom, your strategy. For your word tells us in Psalm 37 that the steps of a good man are ordered by you. So I pray that everything that is discussed today uh whether it's competing agendas or not that it would be done with the goal in mind for the success and the health and the prosperity of Paris and her citizens, her businesses and everything that is involved and will benefit from this community. I thank you right now for uh bringing a place of unity as we endeavor to do what is necessary so that your name gets the glory and that this this community will be blessed in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you pastor. Uh ple please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one indivisible and justice for all item five is our report on close session items. Attorney Sultani,

the council met in close session pursuant to government code section 54956.94 to discuss three cases. No reportable action was taken. The council met pursuant to government code section 54956.9D2 and the council uh authorized initiation of one litigation. Thank you. Thank you. Item six, presentations, announcements. 6A is the annual public safety update provided by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. This will be introduced by our assistant city manager, Ernie Rea.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. For this item, we'll have our Captain Lamb uh make this presentation. Good evening, Mayor, council members, and staff. I'm Captain Kevin Lamb of the Paris Station. Uh I'm here to present the uh 2025 year end review um for uh the sheriff's department. So a couple topics I'll cover is our contract staffing levels, calls for service, uh population response times, community services, and uh problem oriented policing and what what I see moving forward with uh with our station. Uh so currently uh based on the contract we have 77 sworn deputies uh that goes from deputies up to lieutenant level 37 nonsworn uh consist of office staff counting uh community service officers and whatnot for a total of 113 staff for the city of Paris out of our Paris station. Uh current contract calls for 170 patrol hours per day which is broken out into the different shifts and current budget is just over $24 million. So with our uh outside of patrol with our dedicated uh contract service levels uh we have two dedicated sergeants, one for our special enforcement problem oriented policing team and one for our traffic division. Uh we have three dedicated accident investigators. One of them being our commercial enforcement for the for the trucks, truck routes, uh whatnot. Uh five dedicated motorcycle deputies. Uh that was increased by one this last year uh with your guys's approval uh to assist with the uh truck route um violations that we we encounter. Uh we have four special enforcement team deputies, uh four problem oriented policing deputies, one dedicated crime prevention and community

service deputy, and then our our homeless outreach deputy. Our our dedicated crime prevention deputy and our deputy our uh homeless deputy pretty much work together uh daily for ma mainly for the homeless outreach. So as you can see uh over the last five years, we've actually seen quite a decrease in calls for service. It's about 3,000 per year, which in the end is only eight or nine calls a day. So, it's it's not dramatic uh drastic, but it it does look like it when you look at the uh uh the scale of it. So, last year we handled just under 48,000 calls for service. And breaking it down compared to 2024, um 2024 was the blue line, 2025 the orange. Uh we did see quite a decrease over the last few months of last year. Uh I could I probably attribute that to just the political climate that was going on here in the city. uh response times uh on the left, priority ones, those are uh emergency life's in danger um that we need to get to right away. So when you see the the our you know units rolling code three, they're going to a priority one call. So we kind of hold steady in the six minute range. Uh priority four is uh generally uh you wake up and your car was broken into the night before. It's a low priority. Um, so we're just under an hour on those. Uh, within our community service division, uh, got the two dedicated deputies, one uh, cso. We currently have 22 volunteers and eight mounted posi members. Within our crime prevention, we continue to work with cityet on housing the homeless. Uh, we have our community partners. Um, we work with code enforcement daily. Uh we're still doing

uh off-road vehicle enforcement. Uh seems to have slowed down a little bit in the city, but I I I see it picking back up lately. Uh we've been doing an operation for that here shortly. Uh shot spotter is still key for us. Uh our flock cameras. Um are still an amazing tool and asset, you know, for us and on our investigations and our new uh drones, the new drone that we have or our drone for as a first responder program that we're running. Uh some of the bigger uh things we did for the community, we have our we did our annual shop with a cop. Uh it's kind of our biggest event of the year. Uh just about 30 kids. Um got to go to Walmart and do some shopping for the day. We have our national night out. Uh we do several breakfast with the cops, lunch with the cops, coffee with the cops. Uh we invite any business that wants to participate in that to do it. Uh we have one coming up uh just at McDonald's, but any business is more than welcome to reach out to us if they'd like to do that. Explorers. Uh these are our young men and women that that aspire to potentially be uh police officers, sheriff's deputies here in the future. Uh we've got about 30 right now. Um they help out at every function that we do within the community. Uh they also do explore competitions uh here in the state, Arizona, Las Vegas, and as you can see with those big old trophies, uh we tend to clean house everywhere we go. So it's kind of nice. So again, our our POP team has our eight dedicated deputies and a sergeant. our traffic team, the five motors, accident investigator, commercial enforcement, and the cso. So, as our far as our drones for first

responders, uh we were the first city in the sheriff's department um to to purchase this program and go live with it. We went live around mid November. Um, we've got up to about 15 pilots trained uh on it and uh it's already been successful in in apprehensions and in getting that bird's eye view when the helicopter's not available of of what's going on. So, that's just kind of some quick pictures we took with it. Shot spotter. Um, we had 213 calls last year. uh just a couple more than the year before. Uh this is, you know, another piece of technology that you guys have approved that's a huge huge advantage to us here in the city when these shots go out. Uh we had a great deployment today when the shot spotter went off. Uh sending that drone over, we were there within minutes. Um the two pieces of technology worked out very well and I and I think it's a huge uh benefit for the citizens here in this city. Those are just some of the big events we had in 2025. Uh we continue to do them year after year. Uh looking ahead, um I'd like to expand the DF the drones the drone program to uh it operates off a docking station, but it's it's limited to uh where it can go within the city and and the way the city's kind of linear and built uh potentially uh additional docking stations down the road. uh to have more drones to to launch to these uh calls for service.

And that's all I've got. Anybody have any questions for me? Thank you, Chief Console, Mayor Potm. Yeah, great great presentation. Um I I know recently in the in the news with everything that's going on. Uh people have been wondering about the with the flock cameras and uh who which agencies do you share this information with? I know that that that often times you share with with local municipalities because obviously a stolen car could be crossing uh uh city boundaries, but you also share those with federal agencies.

No federal agencies. It's only uh local cities. It's kind of like uh it's kind of like social media. You know, you you you request to be my friend, I request you be your friend, and we've got to accept it. So, we only we only share and we only share certain things with other agencies. uh police departments, sheriff's departments, no federal agencies. So, absolutely zero federal agencies are involved with the

zero. The the and anytime um anytime I'll say a deputy uh puts in a license plate, say we're working a robbery investigation and we put in that license plate to see where it's at, where it's going. Uh there has to be a case number, there has to be a reason. There's all kinds of criteria that they have to answer before they can even run that search. And then we we do audits. Uh I I as the captain do audits for my station of what's being searched and why and whatnot.

Okay, great. And and and you know, I'm not sure if you if you uh you know, you know, I was looking at the at some other information regarding this, but um how many stolen cars or property or or uh crimes have been solved with the flock cameras? Do do you have a rough est? I don't have that off the top of my head. I I can I can Are there plenty? It's it's daily. Daily daily. Okay. Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. Yeah. Thank you. Anybody else in the queue? Madam Clerk, do we have any requests for the public? No, sir. All right. Thank you, chief. All right. Thank you. All right. The uh 6B is the annual fire department update.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, for this item, we'll have uh Chief Scoville of Calire make this presentation.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council, and City Staff. Uh this is your 2025 annual report. Uh, as you can see, you guys contract with Riverside County Fire Department, which contracts with Cal Fire. It's a long ordeal. However, uh, at the end of the day, you'll see this patch running around all of your city, running all of your 911 calls and medical aids. I'll start out with our downtown station, station 101. We have one captain, one engineer, one firefighter on do on duty every single day. Uh they are an ALS piece of equipment, meaning that there's paramedics on it and every 911 call that's made in the downtown district, this this apparatus will go to. We have our North Paris station, which is where we have our quint or uh our ladder truck. Um that has one captain, one engineer, and two firefighters on duty every day. That is a BLS piece of equipment, meaning that there's not paramedics on it. However, at that station, we also have a squad. Uh, squad 90 is an ALS piece of equipment. It has one engineer and one firefighter paramedic on it daily. Uh, at that fire station, there is a six, I'm sorry, six total personnel on duty every day. And new to the city, the South Paris Station 105. Uh, I am excited for this. This is something that uh five years ago we started this this task uh as a uh as a planned need. Um we we were able to accomplish this get this temporary station in in Councilman Corona's district. We actually walked around. This is the temporary facility. We walked around and knocked on tons of doors. However, I think three or four people answered. It was a Saturday. You know, people were relaxing. It's no big deal. But uh we did try and get out there to do some community engagement.

let everybody know that a a squad was going to be running out of a residential neighborhood. This is unfounded for our department. We've never done something like this, but it was something that needed to be done. Uh we needed to take care of that south side of Paris. And in doing that, we put a medic patrol there. That medic, as you can see, my my my fellas and myself right in front right there in the driveway. Uh we by putting that in service within one month we have changed the venue from the city of Meny to the city of Paris running more calls in the city of Meny than we run in the city than Meny runs in the city of Paris. Um we knew that was going to happen. That was the goal and we've achieved that goal. Now let me get into a non-mporary station or some of the the timelines involved in this. So on 111 we came to the conclusion that we needed to rent a house. Uh, we rented a house in the Green Valley community of Paris. It took us two months to set it up. We had to purchase, set up a fire station. We had to put radios in a into a house. Uh, we had to make sure that it was feasible. Uh, because it's a public area now, we needed to make sure that everybody could go inside. There's fire extinguishers mounted. Uh, it's it's it was a a tremendous amount of work. It took us two months to get it done. Um, the first call for service was a seizures call. Um the incident number on there is uh it it should be 100 and thous,627 but that it's no big deal. That was my math error. Um but that was the first call that that that that apparatus ran on the first day it was opened. Um the land for the permanent station has been acquired. The design has been completed. The RFP for construction is being prepared and we believe, we hope, we cross our fingers that construction will begin in the summer of 2026. Um, this is an exciting time for the city's fire

services because that third station uh makes us it brings us up to the par that we need to be at. Our total calls for 2025 was 8,999. We had a 4% decrease in call volume. Um I I'll get into the next slide. We'll show you guys a little bit of why that decrease happened. And I have some accolades to throw out to the staff as well as the sheriff's department. Um there are a total of 33 firefighters assigned in the city. So that's not on duty every day. That's just who's assigned in the city. That's the the the the bill that we send you. You pay for 33 of us. Um there are 11 firefighters on duty every day uh for uh between the three stations and the four apparatus that the city now has. When I first came here to the city, we had two apparatus running in 2023 8560 calls.

Could you uh clarify? Yes, sir. 11 per 24 hours. 11 per 24 hours. Got it.

So our average call volume in 2024 was 6.4 four calls per apparatus per day. And in 2025, we dropped to 6.2 calls. The goal is to keep our call volume per apparatus at about 8.4 calls per day. So, we're there. We got a little bit of cushion right now. So, the 2020 I'm sorry, I copied an old slide. It's actually 2025, but the the information is correct. Uh for 2025 uh we ran 6,913 medical emergencies for 76.8% of the call volume that we have. Um that is down from 31 or down 31 calls from 2024. What that's attributed to is our dispatching system. Our dispatching system has now gone into a tiered dispatching system. So, our apparatus may not be going to um a a mental health facility on the corner of Ramona Expressway and Paris Boulevard every time as a dropoff center. So, now we will only send an ambulance. So, our apparatus aren't responding to those calls and it's not a call that's ticked towards us for call volume. Um 755 traffic collisions, which is 8% of our calls. We're down 34 calls from last year. Um, I'd like to attribute that to uh your guys's continuing support of the sheriff's department and putting in another motor officer. I think it slows down everybody. I think people understand that uh that there's plenty of officers out there to make sure that people are running uh keeping keeping their speeds down. Um 540 false alarms, which was 6% of our call volume, which is down 86% from 2024. I'd like to attribute that to uh Mr. Cabierro and his his team working towards the business inspections and ensuring that those business inspections are getting done on an annual basis which then makes

sure that the alarm companies and all of the other ancillary equipment that's installed that's connected to the alarm systems are are actually visualized and inspected on an annual basis. And that that that drops us down 86 calls. And that's an amazing feat. Um, so again, our total call volume for 2025 was 8,999. Our commitment to the city of Paris is protecting lives and property. It will and always will be, and we are proud to be a partner with you and the city, and we continue, we we'd like to continue that uh for years to come. I'd like to close this presentation out. Uh, tragically on 12:31 the mayor uh closed the last city council meeting or one of the city council meetings in memory of but I'd like to close out this presentation in memory of engineer Danny Cook. He was an engineer for you guys at the North Paris fire station uh and he tragically uh ran his last call on 123125. Thank you very much. Is there any questions?

Thank you chief m speak from the public. No, sir. council. Anybody? Mayor Pro Tim. Yeah, great great presentation. Uh I I definitely appreciate you you going out to the community and and and and walking. Uh you know uh I do believe that that that we probably would have got more people, but there was a uh a group of of of people knocking on doors before us. Sure. Sure. I'm sure that contributed to it. But um with with with the with the new um uh temporary fire station, has that has that seemed to reduce the uh the time it takes for throughout the whole area? Absolutely. Okay.

So So um what I send out on a monthly basis is our our average calls per or average response times per call. Um that average response time is always under five minutes. Um we went from 4.8 eight to about 4.5 minutes per call with just with just that station being put in. So, um I what I would like to do is as we go on, I present at the public safety committee meeting, I'll present the actual numbers for that and we can forward it on to you. Great. And do you have an update for the uh the firefighters explorer program? Is there is

I certainly do and thank you for reminding me. So, um, we plan, uh, fiscal year 27 or I'm sorry, 2627, uh, during the summer, we're going to start recruiting for an our first explorer program here in the city of Paris. Um, we're going to start doing outreach with, uh, the school uh, Orange Vista High School. They're going to, uh, start there because they have an RO program there. We're going to start there and we're going to start migrating everybody in. Um, we are excited about it. uh the public safety committee has has sponsored it and made it happen for us and we're ecstatic about making it start. We want to align it with the school or the the the dates of school so that way during the summer which is our busy season the kids are getting a break but during you know August, September, October they start coming back to school and we're going to start getting those guys ramped up for good things.

Okay. And and if you're not a student of Orange Vista then you have to wait. No, no, no, no, no. We're going to put the apps out everywhere. just Orange Vista was the is going to be the uh nucleus of everything just because of that. But we will be going to Paris. So, it's gonna be after school. Absolutely. Gotcha. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Thank you for reminding me. Anybody else? All right, Chief, you're off the hook. Thank you. Hey, thank you very much.

Item seven is our youth advisory committee communications. This report be given by Sha Deas Alas, our vice president. Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the city council, and city staff. My name is Shaina Delas Alas, and I am honored to serve as the vice president of the youth advisory committee. I am pleased to provide several updates on behalf of YAC. Tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25, the public services department will host the MLOG Scholarship Workshop at the Statatler Youth Center from 5:00 p. p.m. to 6:00 p.m. We encourage eligible students to attend this informative session to learn more about scholarship requirements, the application progress process, and tips for submitting a strong application. Our next YC meeting will take place on Tuesday, March 3 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers. We welcome youth who are interested in leadership, civic engagement, and community service to attend and learn how they can get involved. In addition, YAC will be assisting at the PEP parade event on Saturday, March 7, 2026 at Paragon Park, as well as supporting the Palms Elementary car show event at Palms Elementary School. Lastly, the YC application for the 26, 2027 is now open with a deadline of Friday, May 1, 2026. space is limited and we encourage eligible youth to apply and take part in serving their community. As always, we encourage our community to stay to stay engaged and stay connected. For the latest updates on YC programs and

events, please follow us on social media at Paris YAC. Thank you for your time and continued support. We truly appreciate your partnership in helping make Paris a vibrant, welcoming, and inspiring place for youth and families. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, moving on. Item eight is our public comment. It's a time when any member of our community may bring up a matter to the attention of the mayor of the council that is within our jurisdiction, but is not listed on our agenda this evening. Madam clerk, do we have any requests to speak? Yes, sir. JC Franco.

All right. Hi. Good evening, city council. My name is JC Franco, honorable mayor. Everybody, thank you for allowing me to speak this evening. Um we are roughly two weeks, we are two weeks away from the second hearing of Harvest Landing. Uh a project of which the community is just thrilled about to see finally a major amount of commercial development being introduced into the city and and just thrilled in general for how this is going to revamp the city and uh and I think nobody would negate that. Um, however, I do believe that uh it is our onus as a community at uh as a city council to provide the the most amount of transparency possible for this project. Um, so I've provided a few uh renderings uh and illustrations of the harvest landing from um a 3D point of view. Um the reason for doing so is that I believe when our lay audience, if you will, I am an architect, so I I can read floor plans very eloquently. I've done it my entire life quite literally. um and site plans like that that stuff makes sense to me. And when I show this to my neighbors who are not um in that same uh discipline of of or line of work, they don't really know how to comprehend what's going on there. And so I feel it's it's it's my obligation and and the obligation of city council to um dispose of that information to the best of our abilities. So um you'll see on the first page, this is literally from Harvest Lining themselves. Um just outlined um and I'll show it to camera as well for those viewers at home. uh the parcel hub next to uh Walmart. And then what I feel is most indicative of what we should be showing our actual community members is how the parcel hub situates itself along with its actual use of um of trailers that will be stored there by FedEx themselves, which would be identical to the Rialto FedEx facility uh and and many others. Um it it it isn't something that is necessarily depicted in any of the renderings from uh the developer. um for whatever reason. I'll show you yet another image which is the third one

listed here of how they would be seen from the 215 and Novo exit uh for a community. Sorry everybody, I wish I could show everybody here. I care as well. Um and so these these illustrations uh and that I took my own time to put together um I feel should be dispersed either by city council or requested of from the actual developer themselves. Um that's my first initial item and with the time I have left I want to just illustrate also um a line of respect to a community. I think while the developer isn't necessarily filibustering when they come and introduce a project which of they they deserve um the appropriate amount of time to to show what the project is about to the community. Uh it also is is slightly irresponsible to take over the entirety of the meeting and limit the amount of time that the community is actually allowed to respond. limit your time to digest the actual project itself and to make informed decisions about. So I think all of this is just to provide the most amount of transparency for our city for our community and I thank you for your time.

Thank you. That is all. All right. Item nine is approval of minutes. 9A is consideration to approve the minutes of the regular joint meeting held on February 10th, 2026 of the city council and all the other entities as listed on the agenda. Is there any public comment for this item? No, sir. All right, council. Nobody has any comments or questions. I'll entertain a motion to approve. Have a motion by Mayor Prom Corona, second by Councilwoman Naba. Please call the vote.

50. Motion approved. Thank you. Item 10 is our consent calendar. Consent calendar items are normally enacted in one motion. The mayor or city council may remove a consent item for a separate action. We will have public comment limited to three minutes. Madam clerk, do we have any requests to speak? No, sir.

Very good. Council, if anybody has anything they want to pull, discuss separate vote. If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve. I have a motion by Councilman Rav, second by Councilwoman Nava. Please call the vote. 50 motion approved. Thank you.

Item 11 is our public hearings. 11 A is a consideration to adopt proposed resolution number next in order specific plan amendment SPA22-05280 financing tenative partial maps 22-05279 TPM 38576 and 24-05150 TPM 38985 these are conditional use permits CUPs 22-05295 24-05 5141 and 24-05142 and development plan reviews DPRS 22-000028 and 23-0021. They proposed to consider the construction of Paris Gateway Commercial Center in two phases on 20.28 28 acres located on the north side of Ramona Expressway between the I215 freeway and Webster Avenue within the commercial zone of Paris Valley Commerce Center specific plan. The applicant is Mike Nagar, Associates on behalf of Optimus Building Corporation and the Pope Family Estate. This item be introduced by our director of development services, Mr. Kenneth Fun.

Uh good evening, mayor, members of the city council. This item be presented by our contract planner, Matthew Evans. Thank you, mayor, for the introduction. Matthew Evans, project planner for the Paris Gateway project.

The overall project site is located north of Ramona Expressway between I215 Freeway and Webster Avenue. The most westerly portion of the project area between Nevada Avenue and the I215 freeway is a remnant commercial property of the Optimus Logistics Center 1 or for short OLC1 warehouse project that was approved in 2016. This remnant area was set aside um for future off-ramp realignment. The remainder of the area was conceptually envisioned for a commercial project that included a hotel, retail buildings, but was not approved as part of that OLC1 project. So, just a little bit of background on the um project area. The proposed project originally consisted of six drive-through restaurants, two multi-tenant commercial buildings, a self-utomated car wash, two vehicle fielding stations, and of course, the self- storage facility. The project includes a reszone of approximately 7 acres from commercial to business professional office to allow the self- storage facility with a conditional use permit. So, a little bit of project history. Again, uh this went before the planning commission on um two separate occasions. Uh and a third time for um a consent item for a resolution. Um but here we'll just uh highlight those two items, those two uh meetings uh previous on September 17th, 2025. The planning commission continued the original project offc calendar um in order to allow staff and the applicant to address um concerns related to the project and those included um architecture and landscaping uh having three driveways on Ramona Expressway as opposed to across the street where you have two for the DECA project uh to the south um and two

driveways on Webster Avenue. uh one of which was um considered to be kind of close to that uh Webster Ramon Expressway intersection um as well as a discussion um and considerations for the completion of Ramona Expressway frontage improvements for the entire project. Um that um the applicant uh made those changes um and we rescheduled that hearing for December 3rd. Um and at that meeting the planning commission voted by a vote of 5 to zero. a recommend recommendation of approval for the project with additional modifications. Um those additional modifications include removal of the two drive two drive-thru facilities um within phase one um east of the self- storage facility uh which the developer supports removal of one additional fast food drive-thru use and a a removal of a vehicle gas station at the southeast corner of Webster Avenue and Ramona Expressway in phase two. Uh further recommendations from the um planning commission. The planning commission um wanted to make sure that um the applicant uh installed all street improvements, off-site improvements as well um for uh the Ramona Expressway um at the I215 at Webster Avenue uh without any phasing. So that's what you see in that red is all of those improvements installed in one at one time in one phase. um as um conditioned by uh city engineer um the applicant does have the option for Ramona expressway between I215 on-ramp improvements to Nevada. Um because this segment in blue is within CALR rightway. The following two options were provided to the developer. Uh complete the required improvements or provide a $1 million in lie of payment

to the city to complete the work. And that's due to CALR delays typically. So, um just a phasing clarification. So, after the um two planning commission meetings, the applicant reached out to staff and wanted us to um really kind of hammer home the uh the phasing of this project because there seems to be some confusion over that. It is considered one project. However, um it is two separate ownerships. So, it was shown as two phases. uh the applicant plans to construct the construct the entire project in just one phase. So there really isn't a phase one or phase two. That those phases were just to denote the two um different uh property owners on either side of uh Nevada Avenue. Um furthermore, um the uh developer supports again u the uh planning commission recommendation of removal of two drive-through restaurants um in phase one for a future hotel site. And um in phase two, the uh planning commission made those recommendations for uh removal of at least one of those fast food drive-through restaurants. Um and the piece the planning commission also recommended the removal of the gas station. Those two recommendations the applicant opposes. So here's a perspective of uh phase one. So, as you can see there, there are those two fast food restaurants um in this uh perspective. And again, as recommended by the planning commission and agreed upon by the applicant, uh those are no longer in play. Those are removed from will be removed from the site plan and is shown as a future hotel site. So, again, back to phase one, here you have the Maverick Convenience Store and Fuel Station. Um it is highlighted in that red box on the site plan just off to the right. That's a Maverick um branded gas station.

Phase two is the self- storage facility. Um this elevation that you're looking at is a west elevation from the I215 on-ramp. As you can see, um on the site plan, it's outlined in red. This sits right next to the I215 freeway just to the west of the remainder of the project. It's phase one. Again, back to the self- storage facility. So you have um really two product types here. You have a singlestory storage unit and a threestory self storage unit. The threetory elevation is what you see here. Um as you can see it's uh adjacent to or close to I should say I'll get into that in just a minute the I215 on-ramp from Ramona Expressway. And then here is that onetory um storage unit um uh that you see here. It's uh these are 14 ft tall and I'll get I'll show you something that kind of shows how that looks. So here's a line of sight perspective from the 215 freeway. So as you're driving northbound on that on-ramp to get onto the freeway from Ramona Expressway, what you'll see here is a 10-ft tall decorative screen wall adjacent to the I215 on-ramp. um you have a um a total of about 135 ft setback between that lane and the building. And as you can see here, you will see a portion of that the uh majority of that three-story storage uh building as well as the very tops of those um one-story self- storage buildings about four feet above that wall. And that's kind of illustrated in blue. So on to phase two. This is the folk the Pope family property. Um the first building we've kind of highlighted here in red um on the site plan is the multi-tenant building.

And this is just a perspective aerial perspective of that. So again that there's that multi-tenant building. Um just to give you kind of an idea of what that looks like, there is outdoor seating and um outdoor areas in the front of these buildings for people to gather. Um these are areas where restaurants can have outdoor seating or just tables um and um outdoor furniture for people to lounge and relax. And here is the specific architecture for both of those buildings, the two buildings. So this project also includes a self-mated car wash. And here are the building elevations for that. This car wash is located just to the east of that multi-tenant building. And here we have the drive-throughs. Um there are four buildings shown. Obviously, as um um proposed by the planning commission, one of these um buildings would not be a drive-thru. So, you would still have four buildings, but just three drive-throughs as um proposed by the planning commission. And all of these are located on pads adjacent to Ramona Expressway as you can see highlighted here on the site plan. Environmental determination um an environmental impact report was prepared with a notice of availability for 45day public comment review period. The EIR concludes that all impacts have been reduced to less than significant or have been reduced to below sign significant level with the implementation of mitigation measures except impacts related to air quality and cumulative greenhouse gas emissions both of which have been identified as significant and unavoidable. Adoption of a statement of overwriting consideration for air quality and GHG are required in order to approve the project.

A total of three letters were received during that 45day review period. None of them raised any squa issues. They were all information letters and um staff since the posting of the agenda has received three letters. They should be in front of you. Two are um in support of the project. One is opposed. So on to the planning commission recommendation. Planning Commission recommendation is to adopt resolution number next in order certifying the final environmental impact report adopting the mitigation and monitoring program statement of overwriting considerations and findings of fact for the project. It also includes a second resolution approving the project, um the specific plan amendments, the tenative parcel maps, um the two tenative parcel maps, the conditional use permit for the self- storage facility, uh the conditional use permit for the three drive-through restaurants in phase two, a conditional use permit for offsale beer and wine sales at the Maverick convenience store. Um in conjunction with the site plan and development elevations, we have a DPR. We have two DPRs for each phase um for the entire um Paris uh Gateway Commercial Center based on the findings contained within the resolution subject to conditions of approval which include again removal of two drive-throughs in phase one to accommodate a future hotel and removal of one drive-thru and the gas station and associated convenience store in phase two. So I should have said phase one for the hotel. phase two for the drive-thru and the associated sea store with the gas station. And that concludes staff's presentation. The applicant is here and would like to um speak to the proposal as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew.

All right, Mr. Nagar, you want to make your presentation? Good evening, mayor, members of the city council. Um, forgive the headphones. The Dodgers are playing the Angels, and I wanted to make sure that I can uh track the game while I'm giving my presentation. You guys are all looking at me like I'm serious. That's that's a that's a joke. But I want to thanks There's a little feedback. I want to thank staff um uh your your IT staff for helping me be able to hear tonight. Um, I getting a little feedback. Excuse me. I also want to um thank the planning commission. A lot of work went into working with the planning commission, three meetings, two ad hoc committee meetings. Um, we also worked diligently with uh staff for just about five years on this project. And we'll speak a little bit more to that later. Um, but I did want to thank them because it's been a a long and winding road. Um, we have a whole team here tonight uh to give the council information as they may desire. Um, I'd just like to introduce them real quick. No need for them to stand or anything, but we have Jim Zimmerman from the Zimmerman Group who prepared the fiscal impact analysis. We have Chris Frederick um who is our broker who's going to give you a leasing update and answer any questions regarding hotels and and what uh leases uh that are pending. We have Brandon Loftess from Stacks Up who will be our self-s storage developer. We have Brandon Deadman from uh SMS Architects if there'll be any uh architectural questions. Jose Liry from Urban Crossroads. He'll answer anything as it relates to uh CALR, road improvements, things of that nature. Chris Morgan flyed in from uh United Engineering

Group. He flew in from Arizona. He's here today. He's our civil engineer. Brett Dvalier is a uh Pacific Development Peninsula Development Partners. He's the shopping center uh developer on the Pope property. And let's see, we also have Kevin Dice. He's with Maverick. He's come in from Utah today. Um, as uh staff had mentioned, I represent uh two clients today, the Pope family and Optimus. Uh, during this past five years, uh, actually a little bit longer prior to even our application in early uh, uh, or late 2021-22. um they decided to collaborate um and join together for um mutual interest. They decided to collaborate on infrastructure uh costs to collaborate on signage obviously because they both are sitting together. They wanted to collaborate on common maintenance uh and the uh continuity between the two sites uh for cars to be able to go from one site to the other and uh also wanted to collaborate on the necessary easements that are going to have to be exchanged between the two of them and also bringing in utilities from Webster and widening the Ramona expressway. Most importantly as well um they decided to collaborate on SQA that was um without getting into the weeds here we had to go through three SQL renditions um uh guided by Michael Brown here your SQL consultant in order to arrive at a place where we needed to do an EIR for air quality. But in thinking about doing that um it would have been very difficult to to two environmental documents because it would have put us in a peace mealing situation and we

didn't want to go off foul sequa in that regard. Quickly about the hotel. When we made uh application to the city uh on the site plan that you see today, um we would have included the hotel except when we went to airport land use commission, they gave us conditions that said no hotel was allowed. And so we took out a proposed hotel, put in the two fast foods that you see in what's known as phase one. staff was very correct in that we're just calling them phases to delineate the ownership, but it's all going to be built at one time. So, they said no hotel. I remember um uh uh council member Mayor Prom Corona, you had brought that up and so did the mayor and uh staff checked with a look. A look actually uh apologized. They had made a mistake and sent us that apology and um let the city know that a hotel could go there. uh because this was many years down the line after all of our documents are prepared, especially the SQL document, you're not seeing a hotel application today, but we're going to work that out and put some security in uh in place so that you know that a hotel is coming. And we were very willing to remove the two drive-thru fast food restaurants um in lie of a hotel. That's one of the reasons why the Pope family is also concerned about losing one of the uh drive-through accesses on one of their buildings and of course the gas station as well. In that collaboration, losing the gas station on the corner of Webster. Um, and as you'll see in a moment with our leasing update, um, puts the entire project in jeopardy because they're codependent on one another, not only for synergy, but for infrastructure costs and, uh, cost sharing throughout the

whole thing. Um, the shopping center developer who's going to come up and speak here, he's put in a speaker slip, will describe what that means to him. And of course, Maverick is also going to uh, describe what that means to them. both of them feel that they're codependent and want to see each other in that shopping center for the purposes of synergy and they'll speak to that themselves. Um there's other exhibits that I could show you, but in the interest of time I'm not going to do that unless the council wants to see them. I have some nice graphics that show um uh night views of the center, different uh perspective 3Ds, anything that you want to see. Um it's quite elaborate, but um I'll wait for you to ask me for those things before I show them. Right now, I think um something that's very important um is that we go over what the uh fiscal analysis and the fiscal impact is in uh and what this city and what the shopping center brings to the city, especially as the city is considering going out for a sales tax measure to the public. So, at this time, I'd like to call Jim Zimmerman with the Zimmerman Group, very well-known uh um agency that handles CFDs and financial fiscal analysis, and he's going to go ahead and go over the fiscal impact analysis. Jim, I'll bring that up for you. That should be on your screen if everybody can see that. And Jim, I think you'll control that with the arrows. Okay. And if you need to make it bigger, I think you can just squeeze. Okay.

Yeah, it doesn't look like it squeezing, but hopefully Well, good good evening, mayor, city council members. Um, my name is Jim Zimmerman. As uh Mr. Gar mentioned the applicant asked me to put together really a a portion of a fiscal analysis which focuses primarily on just the major tax revenues that will be generated by this project upon buildout. Um these tax revenues include uh again not all the revenues that will come to the city's general fund but the secured property taxes and really three components of property taxes and secured unsecured and uh property taxes in lie of the vehicle license fee. um this summary on on table one. Uh well, I'll go into each item a little bit more as we flip through the tables, but in addition to the property taxes based on the the new assessed valuation that will be created, there will be tax revenues from the city's public safety CFD listed here. Um CFD number 2001-3. And the major tax revenues will come from the proposed hotel, the transient occupancy tax or or toot. That's that will generate nearly $300,000 in annual tax revenues to the city. Sales taxes are the is the other largest component. Um that's projected to generate $250,000 annually to the city. And just these six tax revenues are estimated to generate after build out of the project uh almost

$710,000 a year. Um Mike mentioned the uh potential voter approved sales tax the city's considering if that were to pass. That's another $250,000 annually that would be expected to come to the city. And so that that puts sales tax revenues and and these other tax revenues at almost a million dollars a year in tax revenues to the C's general fund which which is clearly significant. The last item uh on this summary table is just the job creation. I'll note that uh I'll talk about it again on table six, but these are just permanent jobs. This is not including construction related jobs that will be created by uh the construction activity on the project. So table two uh is just a source information for the um assessed valuation and what that is it shows essentially the the construction value estimated construction value for each of the product types the hotel retail self storage as well as the land value. And the the bottom line here is that after buildout, the project is expected to have an assessed value of approximately $64 million. And this this $64 million number is really what goes into this next set of tables, which um this top table shows, if you're familiar with the the general 1% property tax, it's broken down among several agencies. I've listed here in red the portion that goes to the city. It's about nine and a half percent of the the general 1% property tax. This 64 million will generate about 60,000 a

year to the city. Um what I've also done is shown because I think it may be of interest to the council is that the these highlighted uh rows in gray are what stay local to the school districts here. So, in addition to the 60,000 that will go to the city, uh approximately 390,000 will go to these local school districts. And that's that's a significant benefit to the community. Uh these next smaller tables show the uh the first is the unsecured property taxes, which is in comparison is insignificant, but it's about $3,000 that will be generated. um the property tax in le of vehicle license fee. That's one of the city's largest tax revenue line items and it is also based on assessed value for properties. Um that's expected to generate about $65,000 a year once the project's built out. And I I believe you're all familiar with your public safety CFD. At this point, it's for a project like this, it taxes on a rate per acre basis, uh, nearly $1,600 an acre, which is about $32,000. Um, moving on from property taxes, we get to the the largest tax generator, and that's the the TOOT or transient occupancy tax. This is based on estimated uh room rates and occupancy rates for the hotel. There's 93 rooms and with the $125 average daily rate and a 70% occupancy assumption, that's, you know, $2.97 million in annual room revenues. The city receives 10% of that in transient

occupancy tax. So, it's nearly $300,000 in in tax revenues annually to the city. Uh, table five shows the the sales tax and for this we used a recent Cosmon Company's report that was done on behalf of the city and used the estimated sales taxable sales generated from the type of proposed uses on the project. And so there you the two gas stations, the 10 food and drinking uh establishments generate annual taxable sales of north of $25 million. Um the 1% sales tax of that is $250,000 annually. And as I mentioned, should the uh proposed voter approved measure pass, that number would instead of being 1%, there would be an additional 1%. So that would be an additional $250,000. And lastly, the um not not a revenue, but I think of interest to the council would be the jobs that will be created. We estimate based on the assumptions noted here for this type of hotel, eight employees per 10 hotel rooms, one employee per 500 square ft of retail space, and then three employees for the self- storage facility would generate approximately 155 full-time positions upon buildout. And again, this does not include the the construction related jobs to build the project or all the economic stimulus that would be generated from from that activity. And with that, that that concludes uh the explanation the calculation of the table, but happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Thank you. But we're going to let the applicant continue on. At this point, I'd like to call up uh Chris Frederick, Strategic Retail Partners. He's the project's broker. Um there's been quite a bit of leasing activity. He's going to uh show that to you and give you some background. And let me bring his information up. Chris Here we go.

Good evening, mayor, city council members. Thank you for having me tonight. I'm Chris Frederick. I'm a commercial real estate broker. I've been uh I'm with SRRA, which is strategic retail advisors in Orange County. I mean, I've been working Riverside, San Bernardino, and the Inland Empire for almost 30 years as a retail, leasing, sales, and hospitality broker. I was hired on this project because of my background in hotels, retail, and restaurants. I've been involved in retail development, as I said, for at least 25 to 30 years. Right now, I'll provide you a leasing update as what we've been able to accomplish in the last couple years. We have Maverick on one end as you seen doing the gas and sea store. We have a Burger King drive-thru next to that heading east along Ramona. We have a Chipotle drive-thru next to that. Next drive-thru is a Black Rockck coffee. And then above the Burger King, we have an electric vehicle charging station. And on the corner of Webster and Ramona, we have proposed a 7-Eleven gas sea store combination. And at this point, since we just got the approval for the hotels on the western end, we are now in conversation with Marriott Hilton and IHG with various brands that they think can fit in the market. The the issue right now is coming up with a brand and then identifying the correct developer. Most of the leases that are pretty much the majority of the leases that we have on the table now, including the two gas stations are subject to the gas stations being part of the project. And that's primarily because of the infrastructure

costs and the traffic that they drive to the center. Gas stations are the highest traffic generator in a freeway commercial site and they spread the traffic through the entire site through the restaurants, the car washes, the gas stations, the sea stores, coffee shops. It's it's a quite a variety of options when you hit a site like that. In addition, we're now negotiating on a 12,000 square foot shop retail shop building with sitdown restaurants. Well, let's say we've targeted, we've just started this part. We've targeted sitdown restaurants, medical centers, urgent care, dental, retail services like salons, rental cars, and education centers. The most important thing we're targeting right now is the hotel. The hotel fits very well on the site. It is Impulse and Convenience Retail, which is the whole site. And hotel customers want to be next to the gas station first thing in the morning, the restaurants, the coffee shop, and the sea store or even in the evening for the same same exact reasons. When I first started on this property approximately 10 years or seven years ago, we had focus on destination type retail. Destination type retail is a planned a planned visit to a specific location like a mall where you're going to, I don't know, a Best Buy or a a Nordstrom. And um in the last five years, retail buying habits or let's say 10 years, retail buying habits have significantly changed. At that time when I first started on this, one in five Americans were buying online and now we're up to 80% of Americans buying their their retail goods online.

So the the site itself began to speak to us and it became clear that it was a freeway commercial impulse site where people would stop on spur-of-the- moment unplanned trips again to explore all the variety they can. If I'm going to get some gas, I might get some coffee. I might get some pizza. I might get a taco. These types of customers different than a destination. Like I said, they purchase an immediate they have an immediate desire and they make spur-of the- moment decisions. There's limited consideration as they are approaching the freeway and least likely going to get on the freeway and travel. And the most interested tenants we've had brought to the table at this point are the gas stations, hotels, coffee drive-throughs, restaurant drive-throughs, and the car wash. leasing interest has been very strong in including the EV charging. That's my basic leasing update. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I've been on the project for quite a long time and I'm very familiar with it.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Chris. You also have a letter on uh on your desk from another uh hotel purveyor that sent in a uh letter of interest right before the uh council meeting. Last speaker in our presentation um subject to whatever questions you have later um will be Gary Hamro. Gary, good evening. Mayor and council members. Um I think you all know me. My name is Gary Hamro and I'm really pleased to be here tonight. Let me start off with a disclaimer. Some of what I will be sharing may be redundant. That's what happens when you uh are later in the lineup. Um after approximately 13 to 15 years ago when we were processing the adjacent project we brought to you a concept of the shopping center we had great hopes in however between that time and now the retail market and people's buying habits have significantly changed as Chris pre previously shared and seven years ago when Chris joined our team we gained a better understanding of what our site was uh convenience and impulse retail as just described to include um movement online shopping um no doubt a gamecher which will continue. So having said all that I believe we have brought a great project here tonight. It is it it uh it is ready to go and um I'm hopeful we will be moving dirt within 15 months if approved. It's going to bring significant revenue to the city by virtue of as already has been been shared the toot tax sales and property tax. Not only that, but it is also going to bring a great deal of revenue to the local school districts. As previously mentioned,

I know you have a sales tax measure you are um contemplating um putting on the ballot this evening and I fully support that measure and I'm glad that our project would contribute significant significant re revenue to the city of Paris. Um, so, okay, one one last uh um or last but not least, I want to take a moment to address uh the an important question. Why did it take so long? Um, and I timed myself on this, so hopefully it'll take about three minutes, but I'll run through it quickly. In the first three years approximately 2012 2013 we were introduced to the property went under contract with the property owners and began the entitlement process. Years 2013 and 2015 we went through two entitlement consultants that landed us nowhere. In 2015 16 we were introduced to Mike Nagar and had to restart the entitlement process. I could go deep there but I won't. In 2017, we formed a partnership with the Pope Pope family to develop both properties, combining their 10 acres with our 10acres to master plan the properties for sequin planning purposes. Six months later, my partner, Kelly Olawson, lost his father um and my mentor, Willard Olawasan, founder of Optimus, unexpectedly. It took 18 months to resolve trust and estate issues. 18 months after Willard's passing, the patriarch of the Pope family, Brad Pope, suddenly passed away. Brad's wife Laura and son Kevin are here tonight. In 2019, we uh brought on board Chris Frederick, our broker, to market the property. In 2020, COVID hit.

Um in 20 uh in 2020, COVID hit. In 2021, user retail activity resumed. We received via Chris's hard work lois from Sonic, Burger King, El Poo Loco, Popeye's, Starbucks, Wendy's, Ono Hawaiian Barbecue, 7-Eleven, and a car wash. Late 2021, Optimus and SPMI agreed to um a self- storage partnership. In 2022, Maverick Es escrow was opened. Early 2022, the Popes decided to shut down Brookhurst Mills feed store located in Riverside, owned and run by four generations of popes that also served the Paris market. Meantime, the Popes received an unsolicited offer to lease the Brookers property for 15 years. Popes made the decision to put Paris Ramona on hold until they shut down their business and finalized the lease. Late 2022, Pope's greenlighted Paris retail project. September 2022, SQA challenges, as Mike had mentioned. And then mid 2023, the Pope family decided to sell Gateway 2 land for estate planning purposes. Late 2024, early 2025, our broker Chris brought in Peninsula retail partners to purchase the Pope property and assist in master planning both Optimus and the Pope properties. And of course, here we are today. I will conclude by saying it's been a long journey to say the least. No one knows that more than us. We never stopped working. We kept our word. Everyone else in our business would have bailed out. It did cross our mind, but we held true to our commitment. I wish we would have met Chris 15 years ago. I wish Willard and Brad had not passed away.

I wish I would have met Mike um long before I did. And so goes life. I wish we could get we we could give um everyone u everything they want, but that's not reality. It has to be a give and take because like everything in life, things happen and things are connected. Finally, I appreciate each and every council member for taking the time to hear our project and I want to thank everyone for their patience. Thank you.

Matthew, are you done? All right, council. Anybody have any quick questions before I open up the hearing? Going to open up the hearing at 7:42. Mad clerk, do you have any request to speak? Yes, sir. Redale valet.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for allowing me to up here. Um, my name is Brett Devalian with Peninsula Retail Partners. I am the developer for phase 2. I've been developing for almost 30 years. Uh, have a few projects here in the city of Paris. Now, I'm here to uh support the project uh phase one and phase two and uh also support the Maverick gas station as well as the gas station proposed on phase two. I'm here to answer any questions if you have any. Thank you. Thank you. Adriano Choa,

Jerry Seovva. All right. Good evening. Good evening, honorable mayor, council members, and staff. My name is Jerry Seovva, president of the Paris Valley Chamber of Commerce. Um, I'm here to express the chamber's strong support for the Paris Gateway project offer expressway. This kind of kind of smart revenue generating commercial development our business community has been asking for. The project includes retail, restaurants, fuel services, self- storage, 93 room hotel. um this the possible 700 to uh 900,000 with the taxes that it would generate. Um all in all the commerce that would be coming in onto this property uh we're very much in favor of. Um we sat down with the developer multiple times to kind of go over the project. Um definitely the hotel was the the one that we were advocating for and so now that it's back on the table um we're strongly recommending to approve. So thank you so much for your time.

Clarification. Does the chamber support this project more or the one from 10 years ago? Uh, I don't I wasn't here 10 years ago, but the chamber was, but they Okay. All right. That board's no longer here. I don't know. Okay. I don't know what the chamber supported 10 years ago. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kevin D.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Dice and I'm with Maverick. Uh I'm not going to repeat anything that already has been said about the so much about the project. Uh the one thing I did want to speak to is the elimination of the second gas station. Uh we don't have a problem with the second gas station. This is something that we look at as a business decision. We provide a certain product that is a very good product and we compete very well uh across the street, next door, down the street, whatever. uh with with any other type of gas station. So, you know, the idea that uh the area is saturated with gas stations is really not so much the number, it depends on the product. We provide like I said a very good product. So, uh if you would uh think about, you know, adding that back in, we do not have any uh any opposition to that and I would even support that idea. So, thank you. Thank you,

Marwan Alabasi.

Mr. Mayor, council members, good evening staff. Thank you for the time. I'm also a developer. I started in Paris 21 years ago. So, I love development. I have several projects right now in Paris, but I'm really confused. the two planning commission hearings we had in this one is to what is the project? We just got a little square now saying hotel. Two months ago there was none. I heard the broker saying, "Oh, maybe a medical center. Maybe I don't know. I didn't even hear a hospital. Maybe hospital." They're just bouncing around. I don't think they know what's going on. What we going to end up is what we did 10 years ago when I stood here and supported the Ferguson warehouse and we ended up with nothing. And now they're coming back with two gas stations. And that's all you're going to get by the way because that's as the broker said that's a hot item. So they're going to they're going to build two gas stations. So the project is really bad project but I think we have given enough information to support that and the rest is up to council. My biggest problem is really the traffic. Uh right now Ramona expressway which when I build my project I'm just east immediately east of this project. 20 years ago 21 years ago I was conditioned to widen Ramona expressway to four lanes. Everybody else since then has widened it to four lanes. At the first planning commission hearing, they did not propose to widen anything. At the second hearing, they accepted to widen up to Nevada. But that's the biggest problem because Ramona is four lanes up to Webster, then it goes to three and two, and they're not widening. They might widen the curb and gutter, but they're not widening up to the off-ramp. The biggest problem happens when the Webster traffic, which is trucks allowed in Webster North, and they make a left turn into Ramona. create a much bigger problem. So, adding 16,000 vehicles plus my project that just got approved last year that's going to add a lot of traffic, the hotel and the apartments, uh, we're going to end up with a with a bigger issue than we have right now. So, if this project was

to get approved, I hope it would be approved with full improvement adjacent to the entire project. and to also put a uh I'm developing two self- storage projects in Paris because I think they're good for the community, but to put them in the heart of Paris, right by the freeway. I did one on on Romanic Expressway and I took it all the way in the back by the warehouse because that's not something you want to have as your entry to Paris. You want to have what Corona has, what Riverside where I live has to have some showcases, some retail, something for people to hang out. The self- storage gener only employees. I'm building two of them. Two employees. So, you're not really bringing jobs and to bounce around with the idea of we're going to have different projects without even updating the SQUA or the EIR. I'm shocked because we had to go through the entire process. It took me a year to update my studies, but here everything is just getting pushed for some reason. Uh, CALR is not happy with this project. I talked to them and I provided some information to you. Thank you.

Thank you. Ramsey Alamasi.

Good evening, honorable mayor and uh council members. Um, first off, I just want to say hats off to the developer. That was a great presentation. They really provided some novel ideas there. Um they, as you'll notice, a lot of their uh parcels, they all said LOI versus PSA. Only one, only one parcel was labeled as PSA, which is Maverick, and that's why there's only one end user here. Uh I heard the brokers throw out a name, Marriott. Um as most of us probably know, there's a Marriott right on the other side of the freeway. Marriott's not coming here. He's reaching out to Marriott. He's going to reach out probably to Candlewood Suites, which we already also secured for the franchise down the street. So yeah, I'm sure he's reaching out to a lot of hotels. No hotel is going to land up coming there. Um there was a really creative chart about sales tax and buildout property tax. The buildout property tax, that's assuming a hotel that's going to be the highest use. Yeah, sure. You're going to have quite a bit of property tax revenues once there's a hotel there, if ever. That's very unlikely that's going to happen. The sales tax, he's failing to take a huge uh account for something massive, which is called cannibalization of, you know, like use sales. So, if you build three gas stations next to three gas stations, you're not going to get 300% increase in sales tax. You're not going to get any. You're going to be pulling business from, you know, the longtime gas station people that have been there, Mobile, Arco, Shell, and as uh Maverick said, the reason that they're not worried is with all respect to Maverick, you know, they're a lowerend part of the market. So, yeah, they're going to be competing with Mobile and Arco. And yeah, maybe he'll put one or two of them out of business. So, not really going to directly cannibalize our sales. But yeah, if you um when you see uh gas stations go out of uh business, it's not pretty. You know, if you go drive down Waterman Avenue or Baseline in downtown Sanino, you see all those canopies. That's when you're getting going to get in Paris. When you have uh four gas stations already, I think two more approved and then two more. You're going to have eight gas stations on Ramona Expressway plus two on the other side of the freeway, 10. You're going to start getting all those abandoned canopies all over the city. I think I was looking uh north of Noeo. So if you include Noeo

road frontage all the way to the north boundary of Paris, that's about 11 square miles. If I'm not mistaken, you're going to have 18 gas stations in that range. So 18 gas stations in 11 uh square miles. I know Paris likes to always be like a leader and you know, new development standards. If you look at what Harupa Valley did, they recently passed an ordinance that said one gas station per square mile. You're going to be closing in on double that. So yeah, you should expect to see a lot of those uh abandoned um canopies coming up in the future. And like I said before, you know, there's a lot of LOIs included. You know, if you gave me 500 bucks, I would have gave you an LOI that said, "I'm building a top golf there. I'll give you anything you want." So yeah, those LOIs are, you know, dime a dozen. They don't really mean anything. Uh the jobs number is really bad. Uh last time at uh Planning Commission, Maverick, I mentioned that they're based out of Utah and they chuck their fuel from Utah. So, I mean, even if you're getting a gas station from a local guy, you might get some local jobs. You're getting maybe eight jobs at the hotel once it's built. Six at the gas station, three at the storage, you're not getting 100 jobs. And lastly, there's going to be 11 minute delay at those three traffic signals. So,

yeah.

Tim Moore. Honorable mayor and city council, my name is Tim Moore. I'm a past president of the Chamber of Commerce, currently the commander of the American Legion here in Paris, and I'm a resident of the city of Paris. I'm for this project. Two major regions that we look at. Number one is I can see the repairs to that intersection being done for the freeway on-ramp and stuff on Ramona Expressway which is in bad shape and the fact of a hotel coming in. As being commander of the American Legion, we have a lot of people that come want to come in here and visit us. We have to send them to another city because there's nothing here to sit but one hotel and it's usually filled. But besides that, I'm not, like I said, I'm not a contractor. I'm not a builder. I'm a concerned citizen and I feel it's a good project for the city. Thank you for my time.

Thank you,

Kevin Pope. Good evening, uh, council. My name is Kevin Pope and I'm here tonight with my mom, Laura Pope. Uh we represent the Pope family side of the project as you heard about. Uh first of all, I want to thank you for your time in reviewing our project. I won't go into long arduous detail, but for what it is worth, myself and my family have been a part of this area for a long time. My greatgrandfather moved his business to Riverside County in the 1950s and we produced poultry feed uh for egg ranches all around this area. I was the last generation to run that business until poultry disease went through California and uh we were forced to close the doors in 2021 as as Gary said earlier. Uh all that to say uh we are not outofstate disinterested owners. My whole family lives 10 minutes from here and we have for decades now. So I hope that puts a little bit of a face to a name. Um, I wanted to mention as others have, the Pope family did file a separate development application for our property. It's our own project. And yes, we have partnered with Optimus, who you who you heard from, to share infrastructure and maintenance expenses. My mom and I are not developers, so we do need their help. But, uh, that being said, these are two distinct applications. So, I hope council bears that in mind. And regarding the gas station, as others have mentioned before me, the buyer has made it clear that he will likely not complete the purchase unless the gas station is included. So

for us, it isn't just a minor change. This is the difference between a deal or or no deal and whether this property gets developed or remains idle. Lastly, I know as Gary said, the city is considering a tax measure for residents and this project in front of us uh adds real tax revenue to the city. Uh tax revenue that then lessens the need for future tax burden to be placed on residents. So, my mom and I are here tonight requesting that the gas station be included so that the development can come to a close and the city and its residents can realize its full benefit. Thank you.

Thank you,

Evelyn Montes. Good evening, city of Paris mayor and council. My name is Evelyn Montes and I am a district manager of three local business in the intersection of Ramona Expressway and Paris Boulevard. I am speaking tonight on behalf of the owner Sergio Arizona. I am here today because I am I am deeply concerned about the proposed development along Ramona Expressway. Let me be clear. I am pro business and I support smart responsible development in our city. Growth is important. Economic investment is important. However, infrastructure must keep pace with that growth. Currently, traffic conditions along Ramona Expressway, especially near Nevada Avenue and Harley Knox Boulevard, are already severely impacted. Many of our customers regularly express frustration about visiting our business due to congestion, heavy truck traffic, and long wait times. I personally experience delays and several minutes just trying to pass through the area. This is not a minor inconvenience. It affects customers experience, local commerce, and the quality of life for residents and business owners alike. Adding additional com commercial development without first addressing the widening and improvement of the most congested portions of Ramona raises serious concerns. Increased commercial activity will almost certainly increase vehicle trips, delivery traffic, and truck circulation in an already strained corridor. My request to the council is simple. Before approving or allowing occupancy of new developments along Ramona Expressway, please require road widening widening, traffic me mitigation measures, and infrastructure improvements to occur first, not after the problem worsens. We cannot responsible we cannot responsibly continue to add traffic generation

projects without solving the traffic problem that already exists. I wish the developer success and I support economic growth, but growth must be planned intelligently and sustainably. Thank you for your time and for considering the needs of existing business and residents. Thank you. Thank you,

Michael Row. Good evening, mayor, city council. My name is Michael Ro, vice president of the Paris Valley Chamber and also owner operate Pop Ro Kitchen. I'd like to echo what Jerry said the president earlier and I am in support of this project. Um, growth comes development and our our city needs to grow. So, I think it's a good project for our city for growth. Thank you. That is all. All right. Thank you.

All right. This time we're going to close the public hearing at 7:59. And I'm going to turn to the council for discussion or questions or comments. She's not here right now. You want to start? Yeah, I'm started. Mayor Prom, I do have some questions regarding this project. Um, trying to see, do we have happen to have a a map of the whole area? I'm not just talking about this this project, but kind of like a zoomed out version. Wasn't sure if I saw that in the the staff report.

Yeah. Can you bring up the zoning map, Matt? Oh, yes. The zoning map. Absolutely.

That's a good one right there. Okay. So, so I do want to clarify that um that this commercial project, it's it's it's part of a bigger project. uh about 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago, um our our council uh the council at the time, they they approved the the the warehouses right right north of this and and but the whole sales point of of the of approving the the project at the time because I was here was that they're going to develop the commercial, right? and and that that the commercial was going to be the most beautiful thing and and I heard several times it was going to be do Lago style shopping center. Now now now I totally agree it wasn't the developers who said that. It was the council members who said it. I want to clarify it wasn't Councilman Rev. Um um but at at the at this at the time they they the commercial aspect was selling the warehouse. They said we need to approve this warehouse because we need the commercial. Right. and and that project was a lot different from the project that we see uh today. Um I'm wondering ever, can you put up a slide of of what that project was 10 years ago?

Is this familiar to the to people that were here? You know, you know, I I spent a lot of time reviewing old old uh um footage from uh from a long from a long time ago. I saw a lot of same people here. Some people had a little bit more hair. Uh so some some some of the people so long ago, some some of the people are no longer with us anymore. But if if you look at this right here, I mean uh can you go to different picture of kind of the whole the whole thing? Okay. So this is what it was. And it was it was sold as a as a as a wellness center um shopping center, you know, it was going to be just just amazing, right? So something that was that was that was at the the something that was deserving for the residents of Paris, right? And nowhere in there did I see the amount of of uh of fast food that I see now. I didn't see the the gas stations here. And and so I'm I wonder what took so long because in that meeting and you could go back to it even 2015 cuz they tried to do it and it got voted down and then it came back in 2015. But at that at that meeting the developers at the time or the applicants at the time they said it was going to be a lifestyle retail center, right? And that it was said at that time that the application would come within six months. Six months. And here we are 10 years more than 10 years later and we're getting a different product that what we were promised. And so it's it's it's a little concerning. Now it's not a terrible project that we're bringing, right? It's still some commercial components, but it's not the quality that we were promised. And and that's kind of the issue that I I do believe that part of the reason why I went so long that we want to somehow forget what what we what we were promised that we're going to forget about it. is so long. We're going to forget about it. And we saw we saw the people that came in support of it,

right? They came in support of this. The chamber was here. They said, "We're part of the chamber and we support this project." Now, the chamber, the people that were on that chamber, they've all gone. Now, we have a new chamber that doesn't that hasn't even seen this project. They don't even know what this project is. And and what what was so eerie about that meeting in 2015 that I remember Councilman Rav to his credit, he was a prophet at that time. He said he was concerned that this project was not tied to the larger development. And and I had to get this quote because it was so amazing. He said, "I'm concerned that a recession or a death or of a changing of a hand could stim the project." Right? That's exactly what we saw. We saw a debt stimuli the project. We saw excuses of the recession. Now, keep in mind things change economically, right? Our city has changed. Our viewpoints of our residents have changed. Certainly, the council has changed, but we still have the warehouses. The warehouses are up and running. They got trucks going from there. They got their traffic and pollution still going, but somehow we still can't get what was promised to us at that time. So, I I do want to make make this project better. I think we could, but I do have some questions. Um I guess the question I have for uh for our our director of planning at the time uh Miss Miriam Montes the uh the staff report mentioned that the land was not entitled for commercial or hotel use when the warehouse was approved. Do you know the reason why it was not?

Uh because that's the specific plan when it was approved. that area behind to the north of this commercial center where the uh Ferguson currently sits. Um and there's another industrial building was zoned commercial. So that was always been commercial. Okay. And they did do reszone at that change of of that land. It was it was originally zoned for commercial. Correct. Um and and how many acres was that that got zoned at that time? Oh wow. Um I think that um Kenneth will can answer that. Do you know what that is? Thank you, Mr. I would have to pull the record of you. You can give me a minute.

I think I might have done it. I think it was about correct me if I'm wrong. You could you could uh jump in later on, but I think it was about 69 acres total from commercial and business park. I I can ver you give me one minute. I can verify that. Now, now we do I do know that the um the the buildings were um there's two buildings. One is 900,000 square feet and the other one I believe is 600,000 ft. Yeah. Yes. Um, now now some of the land was zoned for industrial at the time, correct? I'm I guess that's a Mr. Fun question. I believe I believe that's all it was all commercial with the OC project. It was all commercial. It was all commercial. And they vacated the street. They took a street for all that. That's correct.

And and what we were told was, hey, but we're going to get this. And the quote that I had, and I had to get this, it's 2015. You can go back to it.

That the industrial drives commercial. That's what we were told at that time. And this was one of first big projects at the time. and and it's amazing how people change their opinions on a after this after this project. Um but but we were told, hey, if we approve the the warehouse component, then we're going to get the commercial. And here we are 10 years later. It's amazing. Okay. Um I guess I'll jump to the different questions. Um the the inloo fee that's kind of been an issue and and I saw that, right? Uh there's a condition for the developer to provide a million dollars um for the infrastructure in the surrounding area. Can you explain exactly what will that entail? Because I know it's it's it's widening or it's development of the area, but what exactly is that? Because my concern is this because in the past our city has has done this. We've took in money and then when things are finally ready to be built, we don't have enough money. And so now we're jumping into our general funds to pay the difference. So can you tell us what that entails and how much is that expected to cost?

Thank you Mayor Prom U Corona. So what we've done the the project actually is conditioned to do all the improvements from uh Webster all the way to the northbound on-ramp. Now the segment between Nevada and the northbound on-ramp that's within CALR right away. So uh we provide this option for council to consider. we can take in the inloo uh money that they're going to give us the million dollars to for the city to pres you know initiate the project go through CALR and get the improvements done. So so so just to initiate the process but who would pay for the ultimate

well the million dollars we did a cost analysis is about 500 uh feet of roadway improvements and sidewalk. Okay. So that's what it that's what it would include. Okay. And does that include the instru the construction? Would that cover the construction as well? Would include the construction. Correct. And that means we go through CALR, get the encroachment permit and do the improvements, the widening and widening is limited. So what it would do is actually provide an additional lane and the right turn lane onto on northbound. So for a million dollars, we're going to widen it. We're going to do all the improvements and that's going to cover it all because I I somehow I see other projects that seem to be smaller than that and they cost a lot more than that. per the per the cost analysis that we've uh done right now.

Okay. However, if council feels concerned and you want to go with that option for the developer to pay the city to do the work, we can add a condition that in the event that there's inadequate funding, the developer would be responsible to pay for the additional cost. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then for the uh I know it was mentioned by one of the speakers about the uh the full improvement. What does that entail compared to what this is the full improvement?

The full improvement. So basically from uh Webster to Nevada you'll see the same improvements you see across the street that Deca did. So it' be three through lanes a designated right turn lane uh for the turning into the at the signalized intersections. There'll be two signalized inter there'll be two signalized intersection lining up with what we have across the street. One at Gateway and one at Nevada. Okay. And if Yeah. And and and if if later on, a year from now, two years from now, it doesn't cover the cost, then who's going to cover the delta?

Well, we have some RBBD funds that we can cover or as I mentioned, u we can have the developer to pay in in the event that the cost exceeds that million dollar. Put down the conditions. We can add that condition. Okay. Yes. Yeah. And that could be tied to a certificate of occupancy as well before, but as of right now, if we were to vote on it the way it is right now, that's not how it is. That's correct. Right now, it does not include that additional language um for reimbursement, anything above and beyond the million dollars if we go with if if the inloo fee is an option.

Okay. Thank you. Uh my my question my next question is for our economic development. Is she is she down there? Okay. Sorry, I can't see you. Um uh so director Ogawa uh for economic development um and the staff report I was looking for. I never saw a hotel feasibility um study in our staff report. Um have you seen one? So the city commissioned a hotel feasibility study and this was one of the sites that that showed favorably for a mid-level hotel. The draft was finalized in February of 2020 and the final draft was completed in April of 2020. So we're talking about before right around COVID. I mean, yes.

Okay. So, so, so as the speakers have stated, things changed, the market's changed. Has the developer or the the applicant um submitted a feasibility study? I've not seen one directly for the site. I will add that in in finalizing the report uh with March being in between the the draft and the final they did attempt to HVS the the company that completed the study did attempt to project factoring in COVID related impacts. Uh but of course that was right at the start of the pandemic.

Okay. And currently I don't see I didn't see you know you know all I see is like a footprint of the hotel but do we have a layout is there is there a layout or a rendering of what it might look like? U we the applicant prepared some of the plans but it's not officially part of the record because they didn't submit it as part of the secret document. Okay. Okay. But can we say will it will it look like what was proposed what was promised in 2016? Uh I haven't seen them. So, okay. So, we can't hold them accountable to what they promised in 2016. Correct. That's correct.

Okay. Okay. Um, now, can the hotel be is a crow hotel currently part of the be part of the uh conditions of approval? Uh, there is a condition to remove the two drive-thru for the hotel. Okay. But building a hotel and operating the hotel is not part of the conditions of approval. It's not in terms of the timing. There's no timing for them to come back and Okay. But that's something we could include. Yes. Okay. All right. Um I guess my next question for the for the applicants is that is that do we have to open up? Uh we don't have to open up. Yes, I do. Okay. Well, I think we have to they already closed the public hearing. Okay. You need to ask them something. Yes, I do.

Okay. Going to reopen the public hearing at 8:13. So, so I do want to thank you for coming out. Um, it's not it's not a terrible, but I think we can make it better. We can make it better, but um, what incentives, you know, because what I'm seeing is is is almost guaranteed fast food, but what have we done to attract the sit down restaurants and and and the and the things that residents really want to have in in their community? Council member Corona, a lot was said and you said a lot of good things. I'd like to address them all and I could also bring up some exhibits. Um you uh the the the answer to the question that you first asked just now is the planning commission um covered this extensively. Um one of the commissioners uh commissioner Renee she was uh wanting to attract quality jobs and we had a discussion um from the podium to the deis and the commission was very engaged what is a quality job. We all landed um that a quality job described here for this project would be trying to attract medical dental some sort of professional even urgent care. So that was discussed at the September 17th meeting when we came back for the December 2nd meeting. Um and prior to that we had an ad hoc meeting with the two commissioners then brought it back to December 2nd. Um the ad hoc and the commission agreed that our marketing efforts toward those business uses medical, dental, etc. um would be present in our marketing material. Um, the very next day we inserted that there. I could show that

to you if you'd like, but it's currently out there being marketed to thousands of brokers right now. Everybody in that brokerage community is now seeing this advertisement so that we can attract those type of uses. So, that answers that question. Um, council member, may I continue? Um, no, no, let me just see you, you know, so some developers uh currently that we're working with right now, I'm sure you've seen some of their applications with the last meeting in particular, you know, they're they're they're bringing top quality stuff because they're offering incentives. They're they're almost subsidizing, right? And the warehouses have been there for almost 10 years, right? And and and and as as you stated before that the well, I think it was your partner who stated it, but that the commercial drives the retail. So, the commercial will help bring the retail and and I I don't know if I'm seeing that because I'm'll be honest and no disrespect to to to Burger King, but our our residents, they expect better from that.

Mhm. It's it's not at the level that we want. We don't want it's it's almost insulting, right? When I go when I drive off of uh you know, go to Tmccula or when I go to to other locations and and they're not just, you know, showing off a Burger King, right? But I feel like I feel like there wasn't enough efforts and and maybe desire to really bring those top tier locations. Can can you tell us what incentives you offered them in terms of maybe subsidizing um them to come come here? I can call up our broker Chris Frederick to answer that question if you'd like. Okay. He's not here right now. Oh, he is. He's right here. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. That's why we brought him. He's the the site's almost leased except for one pad and the 12,000 uh square foot in line. Um we're hopeful that the 12,000 square ft in line. If you noticed, and I can bring it back up. You notice that it's divided into 6,000 square ft pieces, it can also be further subdivided in 2,000 square ft sections. It could either be put together or separated. We're also going out um and marketing for a boutique market as far as incentives um to people. Now, I'm going to speak not as a professional broker in this area. Maybe Chris can, but people who are attend who are interested in the site based on all of our advertising, all of our marketing, they contact us. Also, our broker Chris makes phone calls to potential users. So, that's the extent of my professional knowledge there.

But, but what type of incentives are they bringing? Because some developers are are uh are offering, hey, we're going to subsidize your rent or we're going to we're going to build it for you. Um and then they attract it. But I don't I don't see any of that in here. Um I'll have to call up Chris. Okay. Okay. If that's okay with you. Okay. Um Chris, hi there. Is it the Burger King question you want to address or or the whole what's Yeah. What are the incentives that you're offering the the um with the retail and the restaurants for the incentive the incentives you're probably referring to are are our tenant improvement dollars is that so that's the only thing that we have as incentives and

you're not subsidi you're not helping subsidize the rent or anything or No. No. Okay. Is that something that happens regularly in Paris? No. But if they really want to do it, if they really want to attract the best, they seem to be doing it. Well, let's put it this way. We're open to that conversation, okay? Um the the the larger footprint restaurants that have come into Paris lately have landed at the Harvest Landing. So, we didn't have an option on those because we don't have any any residential surrounding our site, right? That's also why the plan from 10 years ago did not work. It's high traffic. It's high impact. Okay? Okay. And if you put that plan on that on that piece of property, your traffic would be five times heavier than what we're proposing. Okay. Because of the quality retail or is that

because of the amount of retail on that plan? Okay. Quality retail is great, but you've got to have rooftops to service it. Okay. But you're saying that it will create more more traffic in the area. Is isn't that the original plan would have created even more traffic because there was a lot more building uh retail space being built on that site. There was 10 buildings on that. Okay. And that's something we don't want. Is that what you're saying? No. What I said was the site will not service destination retail like a do logos because there's no rooftops and the traffic impact at the freeway is way too high. You have to have a very easy access to bring that kind of traffic into a property.

So, so, so the project that was promised to us, it was never going to work to begin with. Is that what you're saying? I'm saying as the traffic has come to the point it's at, it's very dangerous to put that much retail onto a site and expect the traffic to be able to move through it. We've they've reduced the amount of retail dramatically. Okay. All right. So, are you attracting any restaurants? Because I'm seeing a Burger King. Like, what else can we get besides Burger King? I think that uh Mike or Gary read the list of everybody that we had attracted.

Okay. All of them ended up at DECA because we were not we didn't have our permits in place. We could not finalize the deals. So all those deals started on with us. They went across the street. This is what we've now accumulated in the last two years. Now what restaurants do you have like like set to come? Are there any restaurants? Got Chipotle. No sitown restaurants. Oh no. No sitown restaurants at all at this point. Sit down restaurants are very difficult right now. Okay. The the demand in the market is for second generation empty restaurants. If you're looking for a large footprint sit-down restaurant, they're very expensive to build and the cost of construction is making it almost impossible. Now, if you incentivize them, if you have a whole bunch of of subsidy, maybe they work. And we're not offering any subsidies for them.

No, we don't typically have a subsidy for for a a retailer, unless we're going to bump up the rent and give them money. You don't lower the rent, right, and give them money. You raise it and give them money. Okay. So, $1.4 $4 million from commercial and retail were reszoned and we can't use any of that stuff, any of those incentives to help bring these commercial and restaurants here. Is that is that what I'm hearing? I'm not sure what you're referring to. $1.4 million. One, I'm sorry. 1.4 million square feet. Oh. Was reszoned from commercial to retail with the promise that we're going to be a top quality retail. You talking about the industrial in the back?

Yes. Yes. Th those two projects go together. I know we we have this uh we we we're building the narrative that those two projects are separate. Now for you guys 10 years you're trying to separate them, but for for the residents of Paris, those come together. Elections were made based on that project. I just want to make that clear. We can go back to it. But elections happen because of that. I know you weren't here, so I I don't want to target you, but but

he knows he knows exactly what we're talking about. We were expected to get a top quality retail center and right now we're getting Burger King and we're getting gas stations and we're getting uh self- storage. You really don't care about the other stuff. Let let's be honest. We don't care about the hotel because we don't have a hotel feasibility study. So, we're and and I guarantee the hotel that we're going to get if we do get one is not going to look like the picture that we were promised. I can guarantee you it is because that's what I do. It's going to have a I only deal with Marriott, Hilton, IHG, and you'll get one of those brands. But is it going to be the quality that we saw in that picture?

You mean the one that you just showed with with the hotel and the two that you want? You want the the architecture of it? Cuz that didn't show me any quality. That was just a building with a pool in the middle. Well, I want something with that footprint with the with the prestige that it looked like, right? I don't want something that just just a big box that looks like a apartment building, right? I I want something that was the new brands do not look like that. They are very professional. They're very upscale. Okay. Now, have we looked at be because at the time I know it was being thrown around of a dos logo style shopping center, right? Have we looked into the restaurants that they have at Dos Logos? Have we asked them whether they were willing to expand? Absolutely. Yes.

We we talked to uh Blackstone Kitchen and and Bar. We hit we probably have gone through direct mail and direct brokers for pretty much everybody in Riverside, San Bernino, Inland Empire. Okay. But we haven't offered him incentives. We are definitely open for an incentive if you want to talk about giving dollars to a tenant. Yeah. And he knows that his rent's going to go up. We're not we're not afraid of that. Okay. Right now, we're trying to keep the rents down. It's not it's not easy to get people to pay the rents that streetfront retail is demanding. Okay. What's the square footage that you have right now of uh retail in the whole center? Um let's see. You have a number on that? Approximately 40,000. 40. Is it 42?

Pardon? I think it's 42,000. 42,000. And then for the hotel, what's the what's the square footage? 75 to to 90,000. How many rooms is that? 90 to 110. 90 to 110. Okay. What about the fast food? Uh each you want the size to each one total of fast food. The fast food minus the 12,000 minus the gas. So probably let me think three five fast food probably 9,000 ft. 3 to 5,000.

No, 5,000. No, there's there's they're 2500 feet. They're 1,800 feet. They're 2,800 feet for Chipotle. and 2400 ft for Burger King. And none of them are just named as LOIs. Those are all negotiated deals taken to the end and signed and subject to approval here. We we had no incentive to go sign leases if we don't have permits. So, okay, they are all done deals. We do not have to complete all of them if you're not interested in the Burger King. That's a discussion. Okay. Um, quick question for Everett. Can you can you post up the uh uh one of the other pictures that listed the square footage?

This one right here. So, this was uh 2016, right? With the hotel, it was uh you said 90 to 110. We we were promised 120 rooms. So, we're reducing the hotel size. Well, the hotel it has to fit the demand of the market. You can't just say I want 200 rooms or 40. By the time at the time it said it said 120, right? I know you weren't here, but told that that's what was proposed. But you kind you can't just build what you put in writing one time. You have to meet the market, right? But the or else you'll lose your project. But the warehouse is still built right now. The warehouse is open up and running, right? Thank goodness. Yeah. Thank goodness. Okay. Restaurants. You have zero restaurants right now. There's no restaurants.

We have not signed an LOI with a sitdown restaurant. We have three or four restaurants signed LOIs like Chipotle and Okay. And then the fast food we we're at a we're at a little bit over 10,000 and right here it said only 6,000 and there was no there was no gas station. The gas station part of retail is that where what we're saying is the current gas station right now is that part of retail? Is that what you're included part of the retail in retail? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Not in restaurant. Okay. All right. I think that's all my questions right now. Thank you.

Council member, you you had brought up a couple other things. Um, if I may just take just two seconds to address it. You brought up something regarding uh widening Ramona Expressway. We're totally widening Ramona Expressway to its full half width. That's getting done. The item regarding $1 million and CALR, it it it goes two ways. Um, number one, again, as John described, uh, they calculated what that would cost. And the reason why it's probably more advantageous for the city to do it is that there's approximately $7.6 million in TU reimbursement sitting in the TU account for full analysis of that interchange. Add our 1 million to that. Now you're in the $8 million range. The other thing is since this is CALR right ofway um you're getting into a very very long time before Calrans makes a decision here. Um and we can get deeper into the woods. I have our traffic consultant here who can talk about CALR, but if you talk about delays, anything that has to go to CALR is going to take years and an analysis and that's what we're trying to avoid um doing. Now, if you wanted us to to bill it, um I would say that we could, but I would ask it to be subject to CALR approval within a certain amount of time and uh a certain permit. Um and in other words, they need to approve it in the next one, two years while we're doing development plans. But you see, everybody here who's familiar with CALR knows they're not going to do that. they're not going to get it done in one year or two years and they're going to want to look at it in a very broad view of the whole interchange. Something else as well and uh I won't

belabor this again. Our traffic people are here. The traffic that is being caused in that area is directly related that when you cross over the freeway bridge, you get to the railroad bridge and there's only one lane to turn into the southbound 215 and that's what's causing the backup. If that's widened, and that's the railroad bridge, all the traffic goes away. So, we're widening Ramona Expressway on our frontage. Absolutely. But that's where the pinch point is.

Yeah. Okay. And and why why while why while why while you're still here, um would you be open to a uh condition of approval based on the occupancy of the hotel? Cuz because the hotel is a big selling point. Define that. Yeah. The answer is yes. But let's define what you mean.

Meaning meaning that you can uh you can uh um operate the uh the self storage for example without having the hotel op in operation. that wouldn't work. And I'll tell you why. First of all, we're open to a discussion in that in that genre. Okay? But the hotel's going to look at this center. They're going to look at the retail. They're going to look at the gas station. They're going to look at the self storage and they're going to say, "Ah, we want to be here." So, all of those other things are going to drive the hotel wanting to be there. But um what I think we can do is if we put some sort of restriction on the property um that guarantees that it will be a hotel. Um that would work. Uh and would you be open to something like that?

You you know what I I think for other developers and applicants I would be. But I I got to be honest after 10 years of us being promised that we're going to get quality commercial and and I'm going to be honest. I I think I I said it to you before. We there's conversations that for other developers we always ask for the benefits first because the quote is I've heard it several times we don't want to be hamro and that's in reference to your partner Gary Hamro who told us he promised us that we were going to get the stuff and here we are 10 years later and we're getting a lesser quality than than what we were promised. So I I I I would say that for for you guys it's important that we we definitely get that stuff first in writing everything go going through the lawyers and everything you know because we want to we want to hold you guys accountable of what you guys promised to us

consider this if going along the pathway that you suggest is that everybody that we have currently signed up uh not only to buy the pope property and develop a shopping center, they would go away. They're not going to wait a year or two until a hotel comes. Then you wonder, the hotel people are going to wonder when is the rest of the project going to be built. They're not going to want to build next to a vacant lot. So So surely we could tie it to the self storage at least. That that that seems meaningful. Well, the self storage underwrites the hotel. See, follow Okay, go ahead. I'll let you finish because you're

follow my thought. Yeah, you you Optimus has agreed to take away two of the fast foods that that they applied for in lie of making that a hotel footprint. Okay. In order to hold that land, okay, the self storage carries it.

Okay. And so if if you were to tell Optimus, which is they have ma they have Maverick, they have the self storage and then they're going to hold the hotel land. If you tell them they can't do anything till they get a hotel, why would they promise a hotel? You see, and then the self- storage people were going to lose. Interest rates go up, things change, people move. We're here. We're ready to go. Um, you you did say that 10 years ago when you said you're going to start the process in six months. It never happened. And I think to be fair, Ham explained that now, but I will give you guarantees. We can we can hammer out guarantees.

Okay. So So you were saying that the that the self storage underwrites the hotel, but you said that with the warehouses, 1.4 million square feet of warehouses, and you said that that was going to underwrite the the uh commercial, and now you're telling me that's not the case. Council member Corona,

which one is it? I don't know that I I I remember and necessarily agree with what you're saying, but let's just let's just take this for face value with what we're looking at today. There's a tremendous amount of infrastructure that has to be done on the Pope property to widen the Ramona Expressway and also bring utilities in off of Webster all the way down to the future hotel site and the self-s storage site. There's also easements that need to occur. Now, both that expense is a heavy expense for either one of those developments to carry and Optimus can't can't carry that.

Neither it doesn't pencil out. It pencils out together with the 1.4 million square feet. That that that doesn't carry it over. Well, you're Let me be clear. We're trying to separate the projects. I'm saying they're part of it because you guys said that they're part of it. Let me understand if what you're saying is you're saying that that there was something a profit or something that came out of the sale of the host of the of the industrial that somehow should be put into the retail. Is that what I'm think? Yeah. Yeah. Because I I think the quote was from Mr. Hammer was the industrial drives the commercial.

Right. So, under the impression of all the residents that were there, myself included, we were thinking, okay, if this comes, then the commercial is going to come and they're not going to have any problem with it. But now I'm hearing it's going to have some issues. Yeah. What regarding the industrial, what what happened um with the industrial when we met uh Councilman Corona um is we when Willard passed away, it was no longer Kelly and I weren't comfortable building the industrial buildings, so we sold them. And that's what happened there. So we we didn't it's not like you know we were the big guns you know that that was a $150 million project. So um yeah that's that's just what happened there. And just you know another comment is in fact one sec. just a just a little history on on the retail that was done. Remember that was conceptual back in the day. Um because we just didn't know how everything was, you know, going to proceed and and uh and materialize. So, um I I just took some notes here. I spent some time thinking about this because it was a long time ago. Early on when we got involved uh with the project, I was introduced to a gentleman by the name of Bob Lacass. And um I was told um because we were looking at the con someone to lay out this conceptual site plan right for uh for the commercial and um and he was an architect who had been involved

in the Victoria Gardens project in Rancho Cukamonga. Now I I my partner and I weren't retail experts or specialists. we were learning along the way and um and and so uh we met with him um we showed him the site, brought him on board, you know, to help plan the the Pope. It's on the Pope 10 acres of property. Um uh which was one of several locations uh you know designated as a potential um uh I'm just trying to I'm kind of going out of context here, so let me let me just back up and read through it. Early when we got involved in the project, I was introduced to, you know, a gentleman by the name of Bob Lacos. Um, he was an architect who had been involved in the Victoria Gardens project in Rancho Cukamonga. We met with him, showed him the site and brought him on board to help plan the Pope 10acre property as our 10 acres was one of several locations designated as a potential midcount parkway freeway interchange, which ultimately ended up down at Placentia. Long story short, what his plan um consisted of was shops and sit-down restaurants. I thought it looked great. I thought, gosh, this would be great for the city of Paris, but I was extremely naive at the time. I'd never developed a a commercial retail development like that. Again, it was conceptual and then we were going to see where this went. So um uh you know given that uh you know time has taken the time that it took us and I I took that time to methodically go through the years of everything that happened and why it's taken so long. Most other people wouldn't even be around by now. But you know what? We we never gave up on it. just things happened and they happened and it pushed it and we're here today and pe people's buying habits have changed. Back then I

don't know one in five people were buying online. Remember it was it was four sitdown restaurants there and the rest were shops. So one out of five people were buying online. Now 80% of everybody is buying online. That project would have been a disaster for the city. It would have been a disaster for us. we would have lost it. And so that's just where the world is. That's what happened. This thing got pushed out 15 years and a lot happens in 15 years. But we didn't walk away. We're fulfilling our responsib We're doing what we said we were going to do. And because that whole because all of that changed over the last 15 years, that's why we are where we are today and we aren't there. And that's, you know, that's that that's that's what happened. And I'm speaking honestly and authentically. Um, no one was trying to pull anything away from anyone. Again, we ended up, you know, Willard passed away. So now we, you know, we couldn't handle building those two industrial buildings. So we sold it. We sold it to the Rockefeller group out of New York and they're the ones that build it and they're the ones that own it. So that's just a little bit of history of what what happened.

But but I but I listen I appreciate I appreciate the frustration and I get it and I understand it. Um that's the best way I could explain what happened. And you know I I don't I don't know what else to say but I mean yeah I I at least an apology to Paris residents maybe. I mean you know I know I know when when you go back to San Clemente and you go back to Tmacula our residents are the ones having to deal with traffic. Our residents are the ones having to deal with the with the truck uh all the trucks on the roads. Our residents have to deal with the street closure that you guys brought to our city. Right. Patter was a way for us to get out of here

and and and all you have to do is go back to the January 12th meeting. All the concerns of the residents that were coming here one at a time, they've all fulfilled. Every single one of all their concerns have came. So, and and at the same time, we're not going to get the best part of that project that was promised to us. I'm not sure it was the best part of the project. I'm going to say it again. Had Are you saying the warehouse?

What I'm saying? What I'm saying is this. Had we done that, the bank would have ended up with it and it would be very vacant today because the world has completely changed because of people buying online. It consisted of shops and sit-down restaurants. Deca across the street, right, that promised a sit-down restaurant. It's not there. My understanding is, as I understand it, it was Denny's and they ended up pulling out. Why hasn't that been replaced? Well, you know, that's why I had Chris here to come up and explain to you what's happening in that world. And you know, he just said, you know, um, you know, one of the things Denny's is doing is they're they're focusing on bee stores, right? Second generation, because it's a lot cheaper and there's a lot of that vacancy in the country. So, it's not a simple thing. DECA wants that to be built. They want a sitdown restaurant. By the way, that 12,000 square feet, it we talked about medical, but what I talked about was a sitdown restaurant, maybe two. And Chris as a broker um goes out, works with all the other brokers throughout the IE, right? And he sends them packages on our project. And all these guys are running around with all of the sitdown restaurant tours and all of the medical businesses and everything that gets that gets that we're focusing on. And they get sent that package and they look at it every morning. in the multiple that comes out electronically and they go, "Oh, wow. I, you know, I haven't seen this before." And they see a package on gateway one and two and they open it up and they go, "Hey, you know what? Denny's." I'm just using an example. And and so, you know, hey, yeah, Denny's. Yeah, I'm working with Denny's. And they're looking around and so they call Chris and they say, "Hey, Chris, I think I may have someone,

you know, that, you know, might might be interested in your uh, you know, in your, you know, restaurant pad." And then they send it to the the the the the restaurant owner, right, or corporation and they send them the package and they look at it and then they look at the demographics and they say, "Hey, it has to meet a minimum threshold. If it meets the minimum threshold of the demographics, then they go to the next step. It's not none of this is, you know, it's not like anybody's holding back." Like Burger King, I I don't eat a lot of hamburgers. I don't eat Burger King, okay? Not for any reason. I just prefer In-N-Out if I'm going to have a hamburger, right? Or Habit. But um we're reaching out. This is what we have. Um and and and and the other part of it was was part of an education for me was um is just the type of site it is. It's a convenience site. It's not a destination site where people say, you know, if it's a a shop or a mall or something, someone goes, "Hey, I'm going to Macy's because I want I need to buy some clothes or something." This is very as as you know, as as uh as Chris had had uh had defined it, but you know,

I get the I get the frustration. You know, I didn't want to come up here um where we get in this conversation, right? And it's a gotcha. I like I listen I developed and I talked I talked to you about this when we met. I have developed a lot of great friendships in the city of Paris. I like the city of Paris. You asked me why don't you move here? And of course I know you know it was it was banter and everything else. You know I live

that's a serious question. I mean, we there's I live in beautiful house. I live in Santa Committee because my wife lives there and we grew up there and my brother lives there and all of our friends are there and everything else and I'm going to be 69. I need I need to interrupt now. We need to conduct business here. We've given 45 minutes just to you, Mayor Pen, we got three other people I want to speak to. So, let's kind of move on. Councilman Corona, listen. I I I get it. And um we're doing the we are where we are today. We never left. We're here, right? And this is where we're at. And and those are, you know, we I we you know, we're just sharing with you, you know. I I I get it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just

No, I need to move on. Councilwoman Nava,

uh thank you, mayor. So, just a few points. Uh traffic concerns. The widing is obviously necessary. I don't believe that our commuters should be burdened with delays. Um and as Councilman Corona insinuated that the city should not be tasked with um the bill of fulfilling the applicant's responsibilities. So I I would I would uh be remiss if I don't mention that the applicant should be held responsible for for completing all off-site improvements and if there's concerns about CALR delays and the applicant as mentioned by city manager could be tied to uh a certificate of occupancy. gas stations. We have a concentration of gas stations and that's imprudent to uh add additional reszone. I don't know if that was touched on, but I do not agree with the reszone of almost 7 acres at a very prime location in our city. Um, so I don't agree with the self storage and its location. Um, and I also agree with my colleague regarding accountability for the hotel. I believe that that it is critical. That is something that we actually would benefit. Um, and we currently don't have that confirmation from the applicant. So, those are all my comments right now. Thank you,

Councilwoman Vallejo.

Yeah. So, I have one question before I make some comments. I guess the question is I don't know if it's staff for the developer but I know uh Mike you have mentioned that um you guys don't want to go through Calrans to widening to winding the road because it will be too tough and it's like a lot of timelines and deadlines like you're you're essentially saying that it'll take too long but how how is us doing it more efficient like are you implying that Calrans listens to cities more and like will do it faster or like that's what I'm trying to understand why you would make us do it compared to you guys.

That's a great question and I can pull up a graphic if we need to. I want to be sensitive to time. The frontage improvement that the city wants us to make in front of what we're calling phase one. That improvement is a road to nowhere. It doesn't do anything. It just is a widening of the road that when it hits the on-ramp, nothing occurs. The distance between Nevada and the on-ramp is is more is uh uh less than the 600 ft that Calrans requires. So, it's already out of CALR standard.

So, so that's why I said if uh um Council Member Vallejo, we'll do it, but I also know something in the back of my head. We'll apply for the encroachment permit and they're going to say no. They're going to say no. It already does not meet the CALR standard. It's a road that goes nowhere. The traffic light there will have to be moved. The traffic control box there that would have to be moved.

Um, having experience with CALR and your staff will support this as well. It's not a obscure thing I'm saying is that is not a simple encroachment permit. That immediately is going to be moved up to projects and they don't do anything fast. nothing fast. In fact, it's my opinion, just by my experience, that they're going to want to look at the whole interchange. At that point, this project doesn't move. We're done. You can give us an entitlement here, but if you hook us to that, you won't see anything there for years. And that's why

But you're saying that if the city of Paris does it, then will Calrans just what? Do it faster because it's coming from them or what?

Well, keep something in mind. This this road is not needed to mitigate traffic. This this I I want to be real clear. In fact, the DECA project was conditioned to widen this area as well. the very same area. But in their condition, which I have here tonight if you want to see it, in their condition, they were allowed to pay a $25,000 fee in Lou to not have to do it. So, what I'm asking for here is is not setting a precedent. In fact, it's over setting a precedent. We want to help the city, so we're willing to to contribute $1 million. I would suggest that the city take that access the tough money and put it to good use. That is why I think the city should do it. Now, if I'm maybe redundant, but I want to reiterate. Um, if the city wants us to agree to do it, I'm going to ask for the condition that says subject to Calrans approval within a certain amount of time because time is everything. And and um subject to CALR encroachment. And then

they're going to I know what's going to happen. They're going to march it up the chain. Okay. They're not going to approve my encroachment permit. And this thing's going to take years. Um, and nobody here wants that. Did I address it worth the darn?

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. And, um, what I wanted to mention just in general is I had the privilege to to talk to talk to you and Gary about the history and then just the explanation that you guys were giving me. After that, I had to talk with staff and council members and it was just this whole thing. And when I started realizing and when I started doing my own research um for staff to provide you that option of the inluff fee, I'm like, okay, that's nice. That's that is nice of them to do it. But if we're going to be giving you that opportunity, then I would want more from this project, you know, like I I can tell that staff really wants to work with you and I really want to work with you guys as well. I think you guys are nice, amazing people, but um the this whole council is headed to a new direction. Like we have another developer where we're demanding so many things and he's claiming that he could bring it all and that's and that is who you are dealing with now. you're dealing with a council where we are like we know what residents have been wanting and we are up to a good point now where we like you guys can offer something better and and I I know Gary you you mentioned that you weren't aware of how to make the commercial aspect at that time because it was many years ago and if if that's the case then we have no problem giving you the chance to restructure it to make it the way that it should have been 10 years ago. go. We're like, we're not going to flat out tell you like, "No, too bad. That's it." No, we are we're pretty much just saying we're going to give you a chance to correct it and say, "What can we do to find find some connections to bring some more more restaurants and some type of commercials?" I know it's hard because I know the market is just not doing so well, but we have an amazing economic development team that can help you and they can create partnerships on how can you guys brand for Paris, how can you

guys make sure like you guys are great great businessmans. I'm sure you guys can really sell how Paris is growing, how many homes we're building, like like what like we are rebranding our e our economic development department. So, I feel like we have such good things coming up for us that I I don't I think it will be hard for you to get some more commercial aspects, but I don't think it'll be too hard if you work with the right people and then if you really like talk talk with staff on what we really want because here my only uh my only I guess you can say my reason would be is how bad will this current council. Look, if we can't keep you guys accountable to what was supposed to be projected back 10 plus years ago, now we have just had a council that just preferred more uh warehouses in the past without offering anything. Now you have a new council that that's like we need you to build something and we need you to to build something fast that's worth saying yes to. And I feel like if you guys cannot give us this then I feel like oh well then I feel like you guys don't really care about our city who's trying to grow who's trying to be different. We already have a moratorum up. That was surprising but I'm glad that we passed it. But now we really want to try and compete with other cities. That is the trajectory that we are going and leading towards and I want you both to be a part of it. So, I have no problem taking a pause and just waiting for you guys to really develop what you think is best for us. We want Trader Joe's, we want a Sprouts, we want any like if you can't give enough sit down restaurants, then you can bring other commercials that people are willing to go in. Uh, but that's something that I really want you guys to

just listen to and and really think about what can we do to make Paris better because I don't think I can approve this where it's not being offered enough and we have too many gas stations here and car washes. We have too many here too. I want things that people are going to come to and if you guys can help us to have Paris reach that success, I I would say that we would have a great partnership. Council member Vallejo, and I know you're here, you want to say something. What if we can't? And and there's a presupposition here that somehow we don't want to or are not trying. I agree with you 100%. it it and and please there's a notion that somehow we're not trying or not going out to try to get these restaurants, but what we work with is what we have, what the market will demand. In other words, you mentioned the sprouts, you mentioned u you mentioned a number of things. We're marketing for a boutique market right now, but if we can't get it, what is our recourse? Um, if I understood you correctly, you mentioned taking a pause. What would that pause accomplish? What do you, and I mean this with all sincerity, we pause, we leave. What would we go do? I'm not certain that we aren't doing now.

And can I can I just mention one one thing just adding on top of that. Chris, you may want to come up here. Um through Chris, we've reached out to everyone. Everyone. And this is who showed up. Um early on Chris reached out to Trader Joe's because he has a great relationship with Trader Joe's. But it I mean I can I can you know I I I maybe it's better that you speak to this, but because Chris is the one that's been reaching out to the market. It's not Mike and I, right? He's the broker. He's in the business. Um, you know, we had a mandate. You know, that's why we we that's why we set aside the 12,000 square feet of space for a potential sitdown restaurant. I can't, you know, if you're going to I I can't guarantee that because all all I can do is say, "Hey, Chris, go find us a restaurant." And Chris then goes to the market, the entire market, you know, um, with the package of the project, and people either reach out or they don't.

It's just the the the tenants we have are the tenants that showed up. And remember, this is a, you know, listen, it's just part of the the the learning process. This is a convenience site. It's not a destination site. There's a big difference in the two. And this is what a convenience site looks like. Um what what what had been proposed be proposed before was a destination site, right? It was shops and it was restaurants. But you know, as I shared, you know, 15 years have gone by. Buying habits have have changed as far as sitdown restaurants are concerned. Listen, DECA hasn't found another one yet. I'm sure they're looking for one. It's not it's not not through people not trying, but if we have to sit down and wait for all of these things to happen, you know, the project will no project would ever come around. You know, you build it and you do it. When you do it, I don't know, there's probably $60 million of infrastructure that has to be spent on doing this and doing everything that we're doing and and and this is who showed up. But Chris, maybe there's a few things.

Well, I could just comment. We we wanted a Trader Joe's or Sprouts or a supermarket, but we don't have any rooftops, but that's the issue and that was the answer we got back.

And but I also hear what you're saying like you guys are telling me like, well, what if we can't make this project better? Do you think the correct answer is us approving a project that we don't like? Because when the residents find out the proposed project compared to now, they're not going to be mad at you guys. They are definitely they are definitely going to be mad at us and and we will be held accountable. So, how can we ensure cuz I thought this was a working relationship. I thought you guys also want to make us look good cuz we're trying to help you get your project approved. But for me to ensure that we have a great partnership and we can build something in the future. I need to sell something to my residents that hey, these two big warehouses was worth the wait and it doesn't look like right now it is worth the wait. Well, Council Member Vallejo, um, a couple of things, uh, that come to mind. The concept that was put forward 10 years ago cannot be built today. Nobody will build it. It It's not just us deciding not to build it. There's no market for it there. Nobody wants to, if I could chime in just for a split second,

please. Uh the Dos Lago shopping center was built in 2005 and 20 years later it has a Trader Joe's. It has plenty of sitdown restaurants, has plenty of shopping. So while you debate that that's not the industry that we're looking for, it's still existing. So So that's just something I wanted to put out.

And and Dos Lago is approximately I'm going to guess a good 40 acres or more. And this is 20 acres. Since you brought that up, let me just gently say that I hail from the Tmacula area. The Promodon Mall is practically vacant. There are restaurants empty in the ring road. I can take you through Tmacula where retail behind retail is vacant, which council member Nava, you had made a comment that this is prime commercial. This teardrop piece of real estate

has very little access. It has no commercial value as as you see commercial at all. Nobody is going to want to put their retail in the back. I think that's all I believe that's all perspective. You mentioned that the prominad mall is is out um maybe Marino Valley Mall, right? But I still frequent the prominade in Tmacula and I don't see any issues with that. Um and maybe you and I can go on a tour. The factory just opened up not too long ago, correct? So there's even additions coming to that mall. Oh, what? The Cheesecake Factory Restaurant, Sitown Restaurant. That was about 5 years. So that's not too far back. So they took over space from Macy's.

So I think it's all perspective, right? You claim that that's not prime location, but somebody who lives here would claim that that's the heart of the city and it's something that you see up and down the 215. So uh just different opinions. Thank you. Well, I don't know. You know, also also the last thing I want to mention because I don't want to go around in circles all the time is my proposal more is I want to work with you guys. Yeah, it may not be the project that it was 10 years ago, but maybe we can switch it up. We can do something just a little bit better cuz I don't want to have a sour working relationship with you. I want to work with you guys. I know you guys care, but please show us that you care so then we can approve something that's up to standard with what our residents want.

Well, share your idea with us. I'm totally open to it and I hope you don't get the notion we don't care. Um, okay. I mean, please, we got we got to move on, guys. I have uh Councilman Rab, you want to say something?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. This is a question for the developers. Just given what my colleagues have have expressed recently. I don't see you guys having the votes to get this as it's currently presented passed. I think one of the main issues is the $1 million in Luffy. Another issue is the two gas stations on the pad. I know there's two separate owners. There's the Optimus side and the Pope side. Would there be maybe a consideration to maybe set down and see if there's maybe one way to maybe shift the Maverick gas station over to the Pulp side? I'm familiar with Maverick Gas. I every other year I go through Utah through Colorado I7. So, I'm familiar with that gas station and it seems like there needs to be at least one gas station. And on the other hand, we've experience we've heard from uh established business people in the community that there is an abundance or proliferation of gas stations. Uh so my question would be just given the sentiments of my colleagues and I think a lot of it according you know Councilman Corona 10 years ago that was the project that was presented. I you know I believe the market has changed. I do believe you guys made a good faith effort. Um that's neither here nor there, but there is a lot of bad blood or a lot of feelings within the community that this is what was proud presented 10 years ago when the council voted 32 um to proceed with the with the warehouse project and not to the warehouse hasn't been a complete negative. Ferguson Plumbing has provided a lot of income to the city. So that's that's one positive, you know. Um however, I think given the sentiments of my colleagues, would there be any maybe sitting down with the Pope family, sitting down with Maverick? And I think the other issue is the Burger King. Now, personally, I don't I don't eat that. I used to eat it a lot in the 90s. Maybe another fast food place, a Bakers, Miguel Juniors, and I know it's a lot to wish, but I think maybe just opening up your minds for other uh fast food places. I do believe that the area is not suited for grocery stores just because there's no rooftops there. We've heard that heard that for 10 years. I find it hard to believe when people are talking further uh east when you get on

the other side of Ramon Expressway near Stratford Ranch, Villages of Avalon, the old May Ranch. Um but just given the concerns of my colleagues and the very um right concerns of my colleagues, would there be any maybe consideration to sit down and maybe get rid of one of the gas stations? Um, and the other question would be for my colleagues. If they were to maybe get rid of one of the gas stations, would you be open to the the BPL storage in the spirit of compromise? The Can you repeat that on the storage? Council member?

Yeah. But that was more toward my colleagues is is if you guys were willing to maybe uh work to get rid of one of the gas stations, maybe move the Maverick over to the pulp side, would my colleagues be okay in the spirit of compromise, not to expand the the BO land, but to what is currently constituted and maybe some other sort of protection to ensure I know you're saying the hotel cannot be conditioned to be built with the other parts, but what about the other commercial aspect, the 12,ou the medical facility? Because I do think there is I think Mr. Alabaski made a good point. We're concerned about we build these two gas st if we go forward with these two gas stations. Everything else is just is just vacant pads. And I think we see that in other areas of the city. You know, the WCO area, there's still vacant pads in that area and that's been open for tw 20 years. Where Dutch Brothers is going in, that's been vacant for about 30 years and we're finally getting to Dutch Brothers. So I think the question would first be is it something just given how this discussion is kind of going would it be something to maybe work to get rid of one of the gas stations and then for my colleagues if they were able to get rid of one of the gas stations maybe condition some of the commercial aspect would you be open to the BO area?

You you said a lot and let me try to back into what you said. Let's take the example. Let's say Maverick moved over to Webster and now there's no gas station there. Um I'm hearing if I heard you correctly removing the self storage or or not not removing it. It was just that would be the question for my colleagues. If you guys were able to facilitate that move or what the consolidation if the Pope family was okay with moving getting rid of the 7-Eleven, maybe putting something else on that corner, would my colleagues be amanable to moving forward with the reszone to the BO land? So it's one question to you and there's one question to the rest of the DAS because it just seems like the

the question the question to you Mike is only about moving the Maverick. Nothing about nothing about the storage. The storage is unveiled on your end.

Well and you know you know one thing that that we're talking talking about that would um I'm just trying to think through this. um then then we would um that would free up of course that parcel for I again for the market, right? We we just we market to all these different uses and we just see who shows up. Um so here's an I here's an idea. Okay, I I think Council Member Rap's going down a good path if we can get council support. um uh why it's not ideal and we're gonna have to go back and do some gymnastics, but if it pleases the council, here's what we can do. Um let's move the Maverick gas station so that there's one gas station, okay, on the Pope site. Uh we can do that. So storage stays intact. We'll reserve the land for the hotel. Okay. Um you guys want some certainty there so we can discuss what that certainty would be. Um the remainder of the pope site stays intact and now we have the space left over in phase one where Maverick was. What does the council suggest that we do with that? That's an honest question. What's in your mind, Council Member Nava, Council Member Vallejo, what are you thinking?

Well, one, I'm not a developer, but if I if I had to provide a suggestion, the city had a great incentive program to incentivize whether it be a small restaurant, cafe, and and they help uh with construction costs and then no rent. So maybe that kind of conversation could help you attract different type of customers.

Okay. I I have an idea um to see if this works. Um as just described uh let's go ahead and and do it as we described. Uh within six months we'll make application for the hotel. Okay. Now mind you that application will just be a footprint. It won't have design until we get ao actual hotel person on but we'll apply with a look and we'll start the application process with the city to get the plot plan for the hotel approved. Okay. That'll give you a comfort level. Got to it's got to pass a look. So we we need to go through that. They they'll do it but they got to do their thing. So, we give you the comfort level on the hotel. That's

and and also, you know, we committed when we were um uh when we uh Councilman Corona, when we were talking that, you know, we would um set that land aside for a period of time just to guarantee that a hotel goes in there and and certainly for us, we can't get a hotel there quick enough, right? So, yeah, I mean I mean that's something that we would absolutely consider. So, and so here's my next idea. If if you guys are with me now, we have the the site where the maverick is on phase one. Let's take I'm going to guess, let's just throw this out here. Um, we will market aggressively. Let's say for three years to get what you want. I will see to it that you get a report let's say every six months on our effort. Okay. That effort will include working with the economic development department. Um and any other thing that you suggest it will it'll show where we're marketing, how many flyers, how many contacts think things of that nature. I hear you. You if we'll make the effort. I I think we you know we are making the effort but in many ways what I'm hearing is we're we're sending out all this and waiting for people to come to us. Okay. So let's take a different approach. We'll go do that. Um, but I also want to put a time limit on it, but I will give you reports whether it's once a year or every six months so that you can I I'll write it to the council that you can see that we're making that effort. Um, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that if you guys are okay with that. Should I go over it again just for

clarity? Just does it make sense? We'll remove the one Maverick gas station. That's item one. Okay. Um the rest of the Pope site stays intact. Item two is the self storage goes forward. Item three is we'll make application for the hotel. Okay. We feel very confident about the hotel. That's why I'm really willing to offer that up. um the application for the hotel since we don't have an actual user yet. We expect to it it will be a plot plan. It won't have elevations yet until the user comes in because they're going to want to put their own touch on it. Um but we'll get that going. Uh so you see the sincerity of what Optimus is doing. There also need to be some SQL work in that regard. Um, the hotel wasn't contemplated in this application as I explained earlier. So, there'll probably need to be a SQUA addendum to the EIR, but we'll work on that. I I hope this gets it done. I hope this is a compromise.

I I if I may add, I just want to reiterate Council Member Rab's point of council. I don't know if it's worth discussing, but I for one am not willing to compromise the almost seven acres of reszone. And I know that that is a critical component of your project. So I he council member Arab asked twice. I just wanted to get some feedback. If not, it seems like that would shift our conversation. Does how does my colleague how do my colleagues feel about the BO resone?

So So I I do have my reservations about that as well. I mean I mean we've already reszoned 68 acres and now we're going to reszone another seven acres uh from the whole project. But um I mean wi without without having uh some guarantees on the hotel conditioning that to any other projects I I can't I can't move forward. I mean, tell me what condition, council member, you would like on the hotel

that it needs it needs to be built and operated before any any type of uh show, you know, I think I I was even open to the self storage, but even before that, I mean, but you're saying it underrides it. So, it just it doesn't make sense like the chicken before the egg, but I mean like like like we were told that the that the warehouses were going to underwrite all this stuff and and it didn't. It clearly didn't. I mean, you know, I brought up incentives and and you know, I I'm sure Chris is a is awesome what he does, but he wasn't there at the time. But we were we were we were promised that, hey, once the warehouses get built that all this stuff's gonna get built. So, I mean, but the hotel the hotel is only the selling point for me. I mean, without that, it's nice to get to get more shops in there to get possible maybe restaurants. Nobody here is excited about Burger King. I think maybe 1% of population would be excited about Burger King.

If the council I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Yeah, but for for me I mean it has to be the hotel or else you know and and and I think I think you mentioned something. I think it's important to to um to to note this. You say what what I think you asked the question. How about if we can't make it work, right? Then then then ultimately maybe maybe we're just not the the right type. It's not the right time. So maybe we're just not the right council. Maybe maybe you guys aren't the right developers. Maybe we set it aside for a future council, future developers. And and I'm open to that too. It's been empty for hundreds of years. I don't I don't think it's, you know, maybe 10 more years. I don't know. But if if we can't make a deal now, that that's okay with me. I think our residents are are be understanding of that. So, um,

hopefully that answered your question. I don't know. Well, I did. Thank you. You said a couple of things and I I I heard you. Um, if you if if you put a condition that says the hotel has to be built and open, you're literally looking at best case scenario three years from now. And that's best case. And and you have to keep something in mind. Go

ahead. You got to keep this in mind. the widening of the Ramona Expressway, bringing utilities into the hotel, all of those um uh subvert bringing in a hotel user. They somebody would have to underwrite those costs and by eliminating the shopping center. What you're doing is actually cutting the fee out from bringing the hotel. There's another aspect to this council member Corona and that is you know what is really going to help bring the hotel is the synergy of having the center knowing that this center is going to come. Now if it gives you a greater comfort level let's put a covenant on the property as we discussed so that the property cannot be anything other than a hotel for a period of time. So, covenant on the property for a period of time, an application for a hotel being filed. Okay. Um, that's some positive movement toward getting the hotel. I don't know. And I'm open if you have an idea to anything more positive than that to get you your hotel. I'm open. I'm I'm I'm stretching my brain here to see if there's more we can do to get it done.

Yeah. I mean I mean I'm I'm I'm not sure what what the deal was made when you sold the when you sold the land to uh to get built the warehouses, but I know Optimus uh building corporation. Are you guys involved with them still or is that is that your like whose company is that? That is that is my partner's company. Okay. It was his father's company. So So I mean I don't know how much.

Yeah. So, so, so this whole thing hasn't been disclosed to us of how much profits you made, but everybody was under the impression that the warehouse or the sale of the warehouse was going to help underwrite this project. So, so what I'm hearing though, it's is not the case. Somebody's running around with a lot of money and they're not using it to reinvest into into this project that was promised at the time. So, I I mean, I think I spoke too much already, but I mean, for me, it has to be it has to be more of a guarantee uh with with the hotel, more than what I offer,

more than a covenant. Yeah, it need it needs to be it needs to be conditioned uh to be operated. We're we're we're we're making these deals as as uh Councilman Vjo stated, we're making these deals, you know, and and and they're I mean, you you you know, a future developer here, he's he's he's in the audience. We have uh obviously Harvest Landing like like the the projects that that were brought up to us 10 years ago, this would never fly today. You know, our our level of standards for our residents are are much higher than it was. So, but you know, I'll let I'll let my uh council

every everybody has already spoken. I got two uh you guys can sit down. I have two public speakers at pull papers and then I need to close this public hearing so we could we still got more on our agenda. Go ahead, Ramsey Alabasi.

Uh good evening again. you know, apologies, you know, for coming up here twice and taking up so much of your time. You know, the thing is, as the council alluded to, it did become kind of personal for us. My whole family was here in support of the project the first time because we heard it was going to be a destination. It's going to bring more business for our businesses that we have. It was going to complement us. We would have never supported the first project if we knew that's what we were getting, two gas stations and a storage. Um, I think I could say this pretty confidently. I believe I'm the only franchisee and restaurant tour here. I own both restaurants and hotels personally. I'm the franchisee for the candlewood suites we're building. I can say with 100% certainty a hotel and a restaurant will never come into this site once you build Maverick and the storage. I don't know which way you're going to face that hotel pool. It's not going to face the freeway. It's not going to face the slope and Ramon Expressway. It's not going to face the threetory corrugated metal building. That's the storage building. And it's not going to face the gas station. Everything else, there's never a hotel coming there. Once that storage is built, any hotel person that drives that properties going to say, "We'll go check the next property." Uh, it was mentioned a few times and he keeps bringing up the Pacific brands. Marriott is right south of the um Circle K on the other side of the freeway. That's not coming here. IHG, that's who we're signed with. They're not coming here. Hilton is off Van Beern. They're not coming here. Holiday Inn, I don't know if they presented to the city, but we did reach out to Holiday Inn. They have a franchisee that tied up a location off Novo. They're not coming here. So, I can guarantee you those four brands are not coming here. Um, it's kind of ironic because it seems like everything is in a rush now, but as you guys restated over and over and over and over, it's been 15 years dragged out. I mean, even, you know, now all of a sudden it's a rush. We can't go to Keltran, so we can't wait 12 months. It's a rush. It's a rush. The whole project's going to fall apart. It's been here for 15 years sitting. I don't know why everything's a rush now. Uh, the the developers asking you guys to subsidize the improvements. We looked at it. I'm a contractor. It's going to cost

about $2.5 million to widen from Nevada to the on-ramps and developer can pull the permit. There's an expedited process now called QMAP which they can go to CALR and pull the permit. So, they will be able to get a permit and do that. And Kelr wrote emails to staff which we have copies to and we attached to our letter that we provided to the council and CALR requested that the improvements be completed before occupancy is given. and he mentioned DECA was given cash in loo. Those improvements that DECA paid cash in loo for are not their frontage. I'm not aware of any developments that have gone without developing their frontage. That's never happened in the city specifically. You can look up our projects. They always contain the phrase no phasing of off-site improvements. I don't know why these off-site improvements are being phased, subsidized, built by the city. This has never happened. Look at all your other conditions. They say no phasing of off-site improvements. So I don't know why you're permitting that now. It's going to add 11 minutes at the three signals approaching the 215 freeway from Webster. We totaled up all the signal calculations. 11 minutes to the Paris resident round trip each day.

Thank you. Marwan Alabasi.

I apologize for coming back again, but just couple of the comments I heard. I'm a contractor. Know nothing about hotels. When I met with the leadership, they said, "We want a hotel." I flew to Atlanta. I paid $50,000. I signed up for a hotel. We're coming to the city for a plan check. I hate to use the word lie, but I want to use misleading. We just keep hear misleading information again and again and again. There will be no hotel unless they go sign up a contract. I love the presentation by Chris, their broker. He said, "The sit down restaurant went to DECA. I'm part of Deca. There is no sitdown. Dennis is not even a sit down. and they bailed out. I being a contractor and not even having any sit down restaurants, I love the idea when the city said, "Get a steakhouse." The mayor said, "We need a steakhouse." So, I went and got two sitdown restaurants and I have two on standby. I'm not even a broker. I did not hire brokers. I have two. They want to come Italian, Middle Eastern, Mexican and steakhouse. I have four of them. And I got inspired by that idea. I'm building three steakouses. One in Victoria Garden. If anybody use know where TGIF was, that's my restaurant. Cashache 58. There's so much demand in restaurants. So you're hearing misleading information. I am building an office building in Vanurren. There's demand for office. There's demand for dental. A friend of mine's building in Marietta, a big medical center, but the gas station is the bread and butter because I'm in that business. So if if you really want to just approve two gas station, just move forward. But that is misleading information and really insulting information about the two lanes going to nowhere. Really, that's what we need. The two lanes going to the on-ramp. That's what's going to relieve the traffic. I take that route more than anybody. I'm there every day, 8 to 10 hours in my office. I go several times. I eat in Paris. I don't sleep in Paris, but I'm in Riverside because I'm a local guy. I'm not a mission VA trying to market. I market here. I was able to get sitdown restaurants. I was able to get a

hotel. I talk to the community on daily basis. The two lanes going to the westbound Ramon Expressway, they need to land on the on-ramp. We widen the wave of bridge for the city was a city contract and that's what it is. There's a lane that goes dedicated to the on-ramp here. There should be two lanes because it's a truck route. Now, Ramona westbound is a truck route from Webster West. So, you do need two lanes because if anybody drives it, I know a lot of you drive that route and you'll see the truckers maneuvering and going all the way to the left just to make a right. It needs to be widened. And this is the time and like Ramsey alluded to, Calrans is not what they used to be. They are miserable. But it doesn't mean we just say because they're miserable, let's skip them. This is part of what I do. We are developers. We have to go through the due process and there should not be a shortcut because CALR is miserable. If the project gets I I've done a project in Metife. It took me eight years to finish it. Is that good? No. But sometime that's part of doing business. That's why we make the money. That's where we live. Some of us in in nice places because we have to suffer through this. And I think it's the right time to do that. Thank you.

That is all.

I'm going to close the public hearing at uh 9:25. I I just want to say a few things. Um kind of like at a stalemate here with some of the things that are going on. I do understand the process and most of you up here should as well as we go to ICS and the struggles that we have when it comes to bringing in um certain retails or commercial properties. It is it is a process. Uh I understand I everything you you said the past but let's not dwell on the past. We need to move forward what we got to deal with now. Um, Mr. Engineer, at what point during this process will Calrans be involved and to what extent?

Um, Calrans does have a application mayor to uh, you know, to do projects such as this one. uh and Calturn's actually they're the correspondence that we have received they're requesting a pedestrian crossing connection. So uh it's not something that hasn't been done. Um again uh the option that we provided for council to consider is you know maybe city can take on the project but uh you know that's that's to the extent of it. If city wants to direct staff to proceed with that, we can do so. Otherwise, there is an application that

the other option was that they the builder does it but he won't be held back as permits. Is that true? That was one of the again uh that's something that we you know we provided for the council to consider if they wish. Okay. Uh but we can defer some of the occupations. I keep hearing about this QRP process. Q. Yeah. Is that the right terminology? That is correct. Q something Q something and that my understanding Q excuse me Q map maybe Q maps and that my understanding that's uh a process through Calrans that can approve projects in 3 to 6 months

no it would take longer mayor and the construction of it as well and something else I need to clarify is that the grant the funding appropriation for the t that's totally separate that million dollars that we provided the option is not for doing interchange improvement. It's just for the lanes additions and the sidewalk. Okay.

Um I don't know if the council has any questions what the what but I'm I'm not it's a statement. Let me finish. Um just based on the conversation here, I'm I mean it sound I mean it's almost like do we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what we're going to do to come back to this council or go forward from here? But um go ahead, Mayor Prom. Yeah, quick question for city engineer. Uh one of the speakers alluded to something about a phasing process. Is is that there is no phasing with this project? Uh mayor prom. Okay. The project is conditioned to do the improvements from Webster to the northbound on ramp. Okay.

We split up that segment of it because it requires Calr's uh approval, encroaching permit.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. All right. Uh, council, what's the pleasure? What you want? Because we've got two more hearings to go still. Two things can happen here. I'll make me make suggestions. We either get a motion to move on with this project or not or uh suggest we come back and give some opportunity for the uh applicant to work this out to a more favorable project. Wait, can you explain the options again?

I it's I'm just I'm throwing it out there. It's not I'm not saying that's it. My suggestion is move forward tonight and get and make a motion and and either approve this or not approve this or allow the applicant to go back and work hearing everything that you guys have been asked for and work on a project to come back continuing and and there's also and there's also denial that that's enough but that's not and and continue meaning date specific too I don't want to drag this out

I would say given the comments of my colleagues that we continue this to a date specified maybe three to four months out so the developers could work with the council and maybe get something that's more uh conducive to the comments that we've given the comments of the community and then come back maybe or June if that's not too late for everyone. Are you okay with coming back as opposed to taking a denial uh tonight? Of course. The only thing I do ask is Okay, Mike. It's a simple question. The answer is yes, but give us somebody to work with so that we're not throwing darts. In other words,

we can't I can't send some to you to make decisions, Mike. This decisions are made here. No, what I'm trying to say is perhaps there could be a subcommittee of two council members. No, I'm I'm and that's exactly what I'm going to finish is this. We're going to have to do like an ad hoc like the way we do the planning commission. Again, the ad hoc cannot answer for this day is they can you can you're going to work with the ad hoc team and they're going to make a recommendation to come back to full console. That sounds good to us. Fair enough, guys. Up here on the council. I just have one more question to clarify for council. Um the recommendation to come back, would that be including of the reszone of removing the commercial site?

It's it's that's up to the what the developer wants to do. I I don't want to make conditions here. Now, that's what has to be decided during this this time off period and with the ad hoc and then come back. Well, I I I think what you're alluding to if if it's even considered to be a uh a reszone, then it's not even an option. Yeah, that would help me decide whether I approve or deny the project. I just stand firm on the fact that I don't want to remove and reszone 7 acres of commercial.

Yeah, I I think I'll support that. I think I think the the commercial aspect of it was never originally part of the uh the commercial component that was uh publicized to our our residents. So So if you're immuneable to that, I would make it clear that that's not part of the uh that this condition is not part of the um the ad hoc committee even to to cons for redesign. Councilman Rab, they're kind of adding that to what you're recommending. I think what we can do is maybe make councilwoman place Councilwoman Nava and Councilman Corona or Mayor Pro Tim Corona on the ad hoc and then they can

but I mean just to make it really clear I do not plan to move forward with this project if it entails the self storage units. Well, I don't know if we can peace mill what's on the agenda right now. Madam City attorney, I to me it's it's it's either you vote on this or you don't or we come back. Exactly, Mr. Mayor. So, I I I think you That was my question then. Thank you. Are you uh Well, I can't even can't even go with you with that. So, back to you, Councilman Rab. Oh, go ahead. No, no. I I was just wondering if uh Counciloman Nava had a uh had a substitute motion.

Didn't I close it? I did close it. I did. I closed it at It's okay. 9:25. Mr. Mayor, could I I I need to say something. Let me I got I got to finish this up here and then we'll let bring you What were you saying? I'm I'm not sure if Councilwoman Nova had a substitute motion. Oh, but in in light of the information that our city attorney can can you clarify that again? We cannot we can't have ad hoc saying that we're not going to discuss.

Yeah, you you can't really say we cannot say we're going to not accept this tonight, accept this part of it, not accept that part of it. you either deny the project, approved a modified project and the developer doesn't like the modified project or you um form the ad hoc committee and allow an opportunity for the developer to work with the ad hoc committee. You can't just take but you could approve a project that has conditions that you want to incorporate in it tonight. That's an option. But saying we want to have an ad hoc but we don't want to talk about this part of it. That's not the option.

Okay. Well, in that case, I'd like to propose a substitute motion to reject the project as stands. Second. I second. I'll

vote. Mr. Mayor, I got to give a point of order. As far as I'm concerned, this was one item, one application. They're submitted as a project and and and I'm and that's very urgent

because because you have to consider they're not two separate items. A gas station on the Pope's site is permitted by Wright. He needs a cup for He needs a CUP for alcohol. But realistically, point of order to the attorney, are we I mean, are we following protocol right now? I feel like the public hearing is closed, so the mayor it's a order and due process. Madame Bam City attorney. Thank you, Mike. I did close public hearing, Mike. So that's the big question now. Two items or one item. This is presented. How

can we have Mr. Fong respond and clarify on this issue? Oh, sorry. Put point of order though. We We had a motion. We've already voted. Like what what are we doing now? We just We could always do a motion for reconsideration. Um if is there anyone motioning for that? I mean, is that Let me I need to get a clarification on this. Whether we have two I just want this to be laid out there. two or one applications. I mean this is one vote. It's one item. This is one project with multiple applications is how we we see it. So we and we don't vote separately. It's one vote.

It's one vote. This is one project for the SECO application. That's how it was presented to us. Okay. Not for the development plan. There is a separate development plan review for each one of these. They would you turn the microphone off, Michael? The the public hearing is closed already. All right. You've got uh anything else, Madame Attorney.

One item, one vote. All right. So, continue with this. So can you repeat the motion somebody? It's denied. Yes. The Corona Vjo Naba. Yes. I guess I asked to repeat the the motion please. The motion The motion is to deny the project. That's all I asked what the motion was. Relax everybody. All right. Now call the vote results of the vote. Corona Vjo Nava. Yes. Rab Vargas no.

All right. Thank you. All right, we've got to make some decisions. I got to make some decisions here with you. Um, did you want to bring something up about the second hearing? Yes, the um the applicant has

let let me this let me this is for item 11B consideration to adopt proposed resolution next in order um this is in reference to a proposal to facilitate the development of the AASIA appointe a 141 unit town home style condominium project to 11.6 6 acres located in the south located located south of Novo Road and east of Wilson. And my understanding staff has a comment to be made.

Yes. Um mayor, members of city council, the applicant sent us an email earlier today requesting continuence because they want to continue to work with the neighboring property owners um to the meeting on April 14th, 2026. Council, any comments, questions? So the only comment is is that uh in light of uh some of the speakers here came it's it's we can still allow people to speak. Okay. I do want to clarify that. Yeah, that's fine. I want to know we're going to offer the extension or not. Anybody have any questions or want to entertain a motion on that?

Councilman Rab, you're motioning to approve the extension. I'd make a motion to continue the project to the date specified in the developer letter. I believe it was April April 14th. April 14th. All right. Is there a second? I'll second that.

All right. Um, so let me finish that vote and then I'm going to open up the public hearing for the people that came to speak on this item um, and call a vote. 50 motion approved. I understand we have two people that wanted to speak or is there more now? Yes, we have two. Okay, go ahead and call them. Loose Gomez.

Hi, my name is L. Gomez. I am here because of um the property that I have on Shady Oaks Drive. Um I've been sending emails to the to Rey and to Jennifer about um the damage that I have. And I also um gave them a state uh estimate of the property damage. They did offer me some money, but it's not even near to what the damage is. So, I denied it and since then I haven't heard from them. I've been emailing them um I already emailed them maybe like three times and no respond. So, I'm just They're just waiting to see what's going to happen. They're saying that I'm being greedy. They were here. Uh, is there anybody here still here from the Dr. Horton project? All right. So, turn around, ma'am. And you can turn around. Look at that gentleman there. You can speak to him.

Um, well, I've been No, no, no, no, no. Afterwards. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Thank you. That's the person to talk to. Well, I've been trying to Well, he's I'm just saying he's here now in person. So, now you can talk to him and I have been doing it. Okay. And they just don't respond nothing back. But you said they're not responding. So, I have a gentleman here that you can give you an answer or at least talk to you. Okay. So, give him a shot first. I have been doing it, but that's why I'm here telling you guys that I have been doing it. Gotcha. and they've been not responding me with I've been emailing them because I don't call I email so I can have my proof. Okay.

And I've been doing and I haven't got no response. All right. Speak to him tonight and then send me an email. Let me know what happened. I will do that. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Who's the other person?

Angela Martinez. Can we get the translator out here, please? Do that. Okay. I am here because of a problem that happened in my home. Uh the people that are working behind my home um caused some damage. What I'm asking for is some repairs of my home because it's not right for them to come and destroy it and just leave it that way.

From the very beginning that they started working there, I had issues. because behind my home because uh they were constructing and had a lot of dirt. They had an excessive amount of dirt. The dirt was coming into my home. Uh my all my furniture was full of dirt. I let that go. I clean up and that was that. But now with the destruction that I have had in excess of uh my home that I cannot let go. I cannot tolerate that. And that's the reason why I'm here to try to fix this issue with the people that have caused this problem.

That's it.

Okay. So, I don't want I need you to translate this way. It works right. No, no, no. Well, I'm going to give you my answer and that is for her to work with loose to meet with this gentleman afterwards as well. Okay. Would you explain to them too? Well, there's one that speaks Spanish only momento. Explain to her that this item is has been postponed until April 14th. It'll be back here at April 14th as well. But she can talk to the gentleman tonight. That was it. Madam clerk.

Yes, that is all. Okay. Uh council, at the request of uh our uh city attorney, I need to go back to item 11B for the record and request staff to come back with the resolution of denial on the project. Yes, Mr. Mayor. So what what we will do because there was ample conversations and the council has made the findings and had ample debate but it's just cleaner to so your vote can stand. We're just going to bring a resolution of denial based on the discussion that took place that clearly sets forth all of that and it can be ratified at the next council meeting and it's an official resolution of denial for item 11. Correct? Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Um,

are we on a time sensitive issue, Madame City Manager, on item 11C? Yes. It has to be done tonight. Yes. Okay. Let's move on to 11C. Consideration to adopt. It's a proposal on the Paris Valley Commerce specific plan requiring conditional use permit. All right. So, we're going to we need to pull that move that to our next meeting. Move that to our next meeting which is uh

well, I don't let's not make it if this is not timesensitive. So, I don't want to be specific cuz there might be some other items we have, but let me work with staff when we do uh agenda approval. Okay. Pull at a at a when you don't say time sensitive. What's the other comment? At a later date. Later date. Later date. That's it. Not specific tabled for now.

Continued off calendar. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Then we have D is needs to be done. So D is consideration that's 11D consideration of an ordinance proposing a 1% general transaction and use tax subject to voter approval and adoption of a resolution number next in order calling a consolidating a special municipal election on June 2nd 2026. Ordinance proposing a 1% general transaction use tax is entitled an ordinance of the people of the city of Paris, California, approving an imposing transaction and use tax of 1% by adding chapter 3.17 transactions and use tax to title 3 of the Paris municipal code to be administered by the California Department of Tax and fee administration. And this is going to be introduced by our assistant city manager Ernie Rea.

Yes. Good evening and thank you Mr. Mayor and members of the city council. So we have before you uh the item which is the transactions and use tax. So by way of background um and just as a refresher back on December 9th uh the city council unanimously approved uh the fiscal emergency. So of course the goal was to maintain the same levels of services. Um and at that point council directed staff to look at different ways we could generate revenue. So at this point the city is not experiencing any kind of financial distress. um and we're not in the in the moment where we need to be uh having a structural deficit, but we're preparing and making sure that we're not going to get to that level. So, where we're at now, so as a revenue option that we have brought forward before the council, this is a 1 cent or a 1% general transactions and use tax. Um in dealing with our tax consultants at HDL, they have indicated that if we implemented a 1% uh sales tax that this could generate an additional $18 million per year for the general fund. Currently, the stat sales tax rate in the city of Paris is 7 and three/4ers percent, which is among the lowest in western Riverside County. The chart off to the left shows you the surrounding cities and where their sales tax rate is. Um, and you can see those there, and we're near the bottom at 7 and 3/4. So, if sales tax would be applied, then it would not be applicable to some items such as uh merchandise with exceptions of groceries, prescriptions, services, and utilities. So, they would not be applied to those items there. And this will just make us equal to the surrounding cities surrounding us. Why are we doing this? Again, decreasing revenues. Um, we mentioned in the past before the Bradley Burns, the e-commerce uh reallocation. We just recently got a decision by Cal's uh on on February 20th. So, luckily, this isn't going to move forward. So, that portion isn't going to happen. Um, but we do have uh re overall reductions in e-commerce revenues dropping down from 10.2 down to 4.8 8 in the current year as well as cannabis sales taxes at the peak of 5.7 million at fiscal year 21 down to 1.7 million uh in the current year which is

projected. On the opposite end we have increase in expenditures of public safety for police and fire. Uh those are going up exponentially as you can see from 16 million up to 25 million for police and fire million up to 10. The annual maintenance cost of parks has been increasing from a little over 900,000 in 2020. We're well over a million dollars in this current year as well as insurance rates more than doubling uh from 23 to the current year. So about 3.1 million. So real quick where we're at on the overview of this proposed transaction use tax um by declaring that fiscal emergency back in February. What this allows us to do is place this sales tax measure basically on the June ballot as a general tax rather than a special tax. Meaning that we need a simple majority to approve the general tax rather than twothirds of a vote. And that's where we currently stand now. next steps if we were to move forward. So before you are three resolutions um and in order to move forward to the June 2nd election, we need to have these three resolutions approved and considered. The first is the election calling and consolidating. The second is the impartial analysis and argument priority resolution and the third is the rebuttal argument resolution. So all of these uh documents need to be approved so they can move forward to the county of reg Riverside registered voters and they have to be in their offices by March 6 to be considered for the June 2nd election. So what have staffs done in this time that we've been uh looking at all this. So we we did have some town hall meetings. We did contract with the consultant who's here by the way, Rob of Grassroots Lab. Uh staff did participate in five actually six district town meetings including Copper Creek on uh January 27th, the bomb shelter on February 3rd, the Derby room on February 4th, Morgan Park on February 5th, here in the city council chambers on February 9th, and we did have a citywide Zoom meeting on February 12th. Staff also participated in the February Paris Valley Chamber of Commerce meeting which was held at February 4th at the bomb shelter. Now, with respect to the ballot question, as we were going through those

town hall meetings, we gathered feedback from residents and what we gathered is here on this particular ballot question. Um, they are limited. The ballot question itself is limited to 125 characters. So, it will read as follow follows. Shall the measure maintaining 911 emergency, fire, paramedic, medical response, preventing property crime, repairing streets, potholes, keeping parks, public areas safe and clean, addressing homelessness, retaining local small business jobs, maintaining parks, youth, senior programs, other general city services, long-term financial stability by establishing a 1-centent sales tax, providing approximately 18 million annually until ended by voters, requiring citizen oversight, audits, spending to closure, all funds used locally be adopted. So that's how the ballot measure will read. And notice we had in there citizen oversight as well. So the cost to put this ballot uh put this on the um ballot will be approximately $100,000 uh for the June 2nd election. And the recommendation tonight is uh that the city council adopted three resolutions submitting a 1% uh general t transactions and use tax to the voters and placing the measure on the June 2nd, 2026 ballot. Now, it's important to note that tonight's vote will allow this to move forward to the voters who will make the uh ultimate decision on June 2nd, 2026. And with that, Mr. Mayor and members of the city council, I'm open for any questions you may have. Mike Ernie.

Yes. Mor, if I may, um, it also includes an ordinance for the record. Yes. Oh, thank you. Yes. All right. I'm gonna open up the public hearing at 9:55. Madam Clerk, do you have any requests to speak? No, sir. Okay. We close the public hearing at 9:55. Uh back to the day council. Anybody have any questions or comments? I have a question. Councilman Rabb. Yes. Out of the cities that were listed at the 8.75, do any of them have a sunset provision? I believe maybe him or miny had one a while back. I'm not sure if they still have it.

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not for certain that they do or not. Most of them don't. Uh but you're right. There may be a few in there, but I could look at that and uh get back to you on that. All right. I don't see anybody else in the queue. Uh my position behind this is um this is something that is going to go to the voters and I let our voters make this decision on this. Um uh if no one has any more any questions, I would entertain a motion to approve. No, Mayor Prom.

Thank you, Mayor. uh you know see seeing in light of uh what what the residents um kind of expect of of our city and seeing what all these other cities are doing. You know, everyone says, "Oh, what you know, Mini, they're doing this and Marietta, they're doing this and and we're trying to do as much as we can with less." And uh you know, it's it's always been a sense of pride to say, "Hey, we're you know, we're we're we're like we're one of the only cities that don't have a sales tax, but I really feel like we're putting our city at a disadvantage." It's important that we maintain safety in our city. Part of that is is going to be allocated for uh public safety. Um, you know, at the same time, some of these other cities, they're doing their own economic development for their own cities. So, they're they're doing infrastructure projects to attract to attract businesses to come to their city. So, I'm I'm I'm in favor of of of of allowing the residents to to to do it. I know I know it's never popular, especially with rising costs, you know, for taxes and stuff, but if the money is going to stay within our community and and what I think was very important, what's very important to our residents, it it has the phrase in there, it must have a oversight uh oversight um

requiring citizen oversight, uh requiring citizen oversight. So, I I think I think it's important that our residents have a say on on how that money is allocated. And uh you know I I just can't imagine uh somebody wants wants our city to be better but how is that how is that going to be paid for you know and and and it's gonna be paid for us every time we do shopping in our own community is it's going to be paid for because people are already paying it when you go to Mini when you go to Marine Valley you're already paying it. Exactly. We're the only city that doesn't have it and uh I think we're we're we're really losing out. So I'm in support of this. Thank you Vallejo. Yeah.

Um I just want to quickly say that I am also in support of this. I went to about three town hall meetings and they were all great feedback from residents cuz a lot of them suggested that it was something different. So just knowing that we have the wording uh very simple and correctly I think that is what's going to kind of help this bit moving forward. But I I will say um as what I've mentioned in the past that the city is moving in a very different direction and as long as we can get something like this going on uh the city can really turn to a better place that every resident here has been longing for. Thank you, Councilwoman Nava.

Thank you, mayor. I also had the opportunity to participate in the town hall meetings and given that staff and we had a great presentation and and hearing the feedback there in person directly from some of the residents that they were in favor of this really helped shape my decision. So now I'd like to turn it over for the voters to have the ultimate decision- making and and voting for this on their ballots. So um I look forward to seeing those results. Thank you, Councilman Rabb.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor Vargas. While I respect the sentiments of my colleagues, I will be the lone no vote on this. I do believe that a ballot measure is premature at this time. I believe that we should work on cutting our expenditures. I really feel uh for the younger generation that they're having to pay more. I know it's only a penny allegedly for a dollar, but when you start going up there, it starts going more and more and more. Our sales tax is 7.75. I think um when you go out through throughout the state, there's cities such as Lancaster, Palmdale, a lot of the Bay Area cities, especially in Alama County, San Francisco, where it's well over 10%. My fear is if we send this to the voters, the voters approve it. There's no sunset provision and we'll increase our spending and then of 10 years from now, we'll be having to come back. I think we will have to come back because there's certain things that are factoring in. One, we have a declining birth rate. The average woman is having 1.6 children. We have increased pensions. Now, these are going to be issues that are going to be but if we're just going to approve the sales tax, increase our expenditures. This will be an ongoing issue. In five to six years, we'll be back saying, "Oh, let's increase it a little bit more." All these other cities are at nine something%. 10 years from that, we'll be coming back saying, "Let's increase it a little bit more." Um, I really feel that we as a city have been doing a good job budgeting. I think we should continue to live within our means. Uh, we should continue to cut costs where applicable. If it means going down to one council meeting a month, if it means cutting out uh services, I think a lot of the voters would rather have their money in their pockets, their money that they can develop and uh put forward to developing theirelves, their children. Um, at this time with the tariffs, with the increased cost of everything, with talks of the California state legislature moving toward taxing people per mileage gas tax in l of in addition to the gas tax and talks of get forcing homeowners to get rid of their gas lines and go electric, I think now is not the right time to shoulder an additional uh cost

on the residents of Paris and I will be voting on it. Thank you. Thank you. Uh I echo the same sentiments as Malcolm Corona and Nava and Vallejo. Um and the bottom line like I said earlier that's it's up to the voters if they want to do this. Um we are one of the last few cities that have not increased it and I think it's only going to benefit our community and uh having the oversight also will be promising us what we do with the funds. So, mayor, if I may add, um could we confirm that this is on our city's website for all our residents to be able to go look up and gain uh additional information as to what this would

Yeah, I believe we went live with the sales tax measure. So, on on the a certain portion of the website, there is a section labeled, you know, sales tax or whatever it may be, but there's information on there. The the meeting that was live streamed in Zoom, I believe that's also on there as well. So, residents can also watch that particular meeting. All right. If there's no um further discussion, I'll entertain a motion to approve staff's recommendation that's on the screen. Do you have a slide that says staff's recommendation? Oh, sorry. Oh, there it is.

Okay. All right. I have a motion by Councilwoman Nava, second by Mayor Prom. Call the vote, please. Corona Vjo Nava Vargas. Yes. Rab no.

All right. Thank you. The motion passes. Uh item 12 is our business items. 12A is consideration to approve the fiscal year 202526 midyear budget amendments. This will be introduced by our director of finance, Mr. Matthew Shank. Thank you, honorable mayor, members of the city council. I will make this extremely brief. Thank you, Everett. Uh 2526 fiscal year or midyear budgets. Obviously, we try to do all internal transfers before we come to the council for any requests. Uh however, tonight we are requesting a $580,800 increase in expenditures of the general fund. But to offset that we are increasing revenues of 833,000 for a net revenue increase of 252,000. These are some of the uh major items. Uh development services 110,000 for e-hub program for uh online plan check. Municipal enforcement services 100,000 for abandoned vehicle storage. engineering 200 and in-house engineering inspections offset by an increase of 500,000 to in-house engineering revenue and lastly it has two smaller items 163,800 so two requests of non-general fund monies 250,000 in public art diff uh requested by parks committee continue to p public art programs and public works is requesting 88,000 flood control maintenance for the basins and drainage areas uh to cover contingency if uh the contract is needed. Jumping up to our reserves, our we earlier tonight in consent, sorry, um we approved the audit uh for 2425 and our fund balance came back at 68.6 million. With that, uh 31.6 million is unassigned. That's the money

city council can do what they wish with. Uh however, we set aside 4.4 million to help fund the fire station with projected unassigned reserves at 27.2 million. Quick uh update on American Rescue Plan Act. Uh I've gone through this multiple times. We received uh 22.1 million uh for the CO 19. uh o August 26 21 city approved the uses of ARPA and as of 123125 the city has spent 94% of those funds or 20.8 million. Next going into our CalPERS uh this is a screenshot I took earlier this week or yesterday and uh you can see right there this is straight from the CPERS website the city has no unfunded acred liability.

Any questions? Thank you very much, Matthew. Council, do we have any questions? Madam click, do we have any requests to speak from? No, sir. All right. And I'll call for a motion on the 2025 2026 mid-year budget amendments. I have a motion by Councilman Rab, second by Mayor Prom. Call the vote, please. 50. Motion approved. Thank you. Item 13 is our council communications. Councilman Rabb.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor Vargas. This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend the uh Black History Festival at the uh Paris city lawn. I missed out on the the march, but I arrived a little bit later in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, and I think having it on a Sunday was a different vibe. So, I was able to see a lot of the students from the various elementary schools received certificates. So, it was a great uh ceremony. I just want to clarify regarding my no vote on the earlier item. My no vote was not a yes vote cart launch to the project that was presented. It was just a no vote to deny it. So, um we can have discussions. If you want to reach out to me regarding that, feel free to give me an email. Um otherwise, I'd like to thank my colleagues for a spirited meeting and uh hopefully everyone has a happy and a productive rest of February and as we head into March. Thank you.

Thank you. Vallejo. Thank you, mayor. The only thing that I wanted to add because I know it's getting late is um I would like to direct staff if we can have a workshop with um council and planning commission to see if we can just do a revision on our goals and how we want our economic development to be set up for the future. That'd be great. Thank you, Navala. Thank you, mayor. I'd like to um if I could please request for staff uh to bring back a discussion item regarding gas stations in the city with options as to how they could be limited. And that's all I have for tonight. Thank you everyone as to who would do what with them.

Um given uh the item tonight, I I'd also like an opportunity to uh to basically find some type of limits to gas station limits such as uh other cities surrounding cities have done. Okay. All right. Mayor Potm,

thank you, Mayor. Uh, I just want to thank everyone for coming out here and, uh, for the lively discussion. Um, you know, you know, I think I think uh, you know, I'm I'm really excited about our city. We're we seem like we're moving in a in a different direction where we're where we're setting the standard higher. Um, I too attended the uh the African-American uh the Paris Valley African-American Committee event on Sunday. It was be beautiful day as Councilman Rabb stated uh with the walk all the way from Ricardo Park to Paris. a beautiful walk. I know that the uh homeless task committee, we're doing a great job, but we but there are still some uh some some issues here and there that we're seeing and uh you know, I'll also be bringing stuff to public works about clean up in different areas, too. But it was it was a great event and I want to thank uh staff for helping them uh move along that project. Thank you.

Yes. And the mayor and Vallejo did walk too. Oh, did I not mention I'm sorry mention. I'm sorry about that. All right. The only one I just want to the only one I want to queue in is I just want to give a big shout out again to Goldstar Asphalt, a local company in our city who provided an in-n-out lunchon for all our city employees on February 12th. So kudos to Jeff Nelson and his team at the Goldstar Asphalt. All right. Uh that said, move on to item 14, city manager report.

Thank you, mayor. Um, want to announce that this Saturday, February 28th, we'll have our downtown market night taking place from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. City also launched the Paris citizens engagement program. And for more information, you can go online. And that concludes my report. Thank you. All right. Item 15 is our German. Thank you everybody for coming out or joining us on social media. We are adjourned at 10:09.