City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the City Council meeting for June 9th, 2026. I'm Mayor Patricia Lackdawson and I will call our meeting to order. And this week I'd like to ask Council Member Condor to please lead us in an invocation and Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay, please pray with me. Lord God, Father in heaven, we thank you for this day and we thank you for the gifts you bestow upon us. We ask this day for your guidance and wisdom as we work together to help make Riverside a better place for our citizens. Give us clarity of thought and the love and passion to help those in need. We bring before you our U.S. military members serving around the globe, putting their lives on the line for the love of their country. Protect them and bring them home safely to their families. We ask you to bless and keep safe our police officers and firefighters who daily work to protect the people of Riverside. We bring before you our doctors and nurses. We ask that you continue to give them the skills and the knowledge to help those who are ill and hurting. We thank you for the dedicated staff members that work for the city of Riverside and ask that you continue giving them the strength and the knowledge to handle the diverse issues facing them each day. Lord, you are a good and loving God, and we ask you to continue to bless our city and our country. We ask all these things in your great and glorious name.

Amen.

We stand. Veterans, you are allowed to salute the flag you served under. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

Thank you, Councilmember Condor. Council, if it is okay with you, what I'd like to do, we have quite a few public comments, so I want to switch the agenda around a little bit and take items. We've got two presentations today, items five and six, or sorry, five and 5A, so I would like to just take those first so those folks can get about their business, if that's all right with all of you. Alright, thank you. So we are now at item number five. We will return back to public comment after. This today is a proclamation to Marguerite Wheeler-Lara. who is the Chief Operating Office of True Evolution. This is for recognizing the month of June as Pride Month. I'm not sure who's here from True Evolution. I know I got Ariel. I got somebody else. Come on down. True Evolution. We have a proclamation to give you. I'll read a few things and then I will let you have a few words and then we'll take a photo if that's okay with you. Whereas the month of June is recognized as Pride Month, a time to celebrate and honor the rich history, contributions, and struggles of the LGBTQ plus community. Whereas the origins of Pride Month can be traced back to June of 1969, which serves as a catalyst for the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Whereas Pride Month not only commemorates the resilience of those who protested for equality, it also serves as an opportunity to raise awareness. Whereas the City of Riverside is committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable, and welcoming environment where all individuals are treated with dignity and respect. Whereas during Pride Month, we celebrate the diverse voices, experience, and contributions of our LGBTQ plus residents whose presence enriches our community. And whereas we acknowledge the ongoing fight for equality and reaffirm our commitment to supporting the rights of all people. Now, therefore, I, Patricia Black Dawson, do hereby proclaim June 2026 as Pride Month in the City of Riverside and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate, embrace the values of diversity and inclusion, and continue working toward a future where every person is respected, valued, afforded equal opportunity. Thank you, Ariel. I'll have you say a few words. Or whoever, I'm not sure.

And who is here from your team? I'll let you introduce them. So this is our chief operating officer and co-founder, Marguerite Wheeler-Lara. And then we also have all of our team and a few clients here if you'd like to wave.

Oh, hello. Yes. Hi.

Good afternoon, honorable mayor and esteemed council members. My name is Ariel Savage, and I serve as the director of strategy and advancement at Trovolution. On behalf of our organization, thank you, Mayor Lock Dawson and the entire city council for this meaningful Pride Month recognition. For nearly two decades, True Revolution has worked to advance health, housing, and equal opportunity throughout Riverside and the Inland Empire. Founded in 2007 by our CEO and founder, Gabriel Maldonado, True Revolution began as a response to support and elevate the needs of young people in health and educational achievement. Alongside our incredible COO and co-founder, Miss Marguerite, who's with us today, we have grown into an organization serving thousands of clients each year right here in downtown Riverside. As we celebrate Pride Month, we recognize the importance of building communities where everyone feels a sense of belonging. In 2023, True Revolution founded the Inland Empire LGBTQ Plus Center as a space where all communities can gather, connect, and be supported. And as someone born and raised here in Riverside, it's beautiful to see the city continue to demonstrate a commitment to ensuring every resident feels valued and welcomed. And I think of the incredible trailblazers, LGBTQ Plus trailblazers in our community who made this moment possible. And none of this work would be possible without partnership. We're deeply grateful to the City of Riverside, to Downtown Area Neighborhood Alliance, Old Riverside Foundation, the County of Riverside, the state, and many civic and community partners who helped bring Project Legacy and our vision to life. And you know, Trivolution is not only a space for service provisions and programs, but a promoter of entrepreneurship, workforce, and civic engagement. We actually have a few residents from Project Legacy who are with us today, and they actually organized and elected their very own client council through a resident-led election process that included candidate flyers, a series of debates, and voting by their peers. So today, I'm especially proud to acknowledge the client council members who have joined us. If you can please stand. Yes. We have Samaj, who's our vice president. We have Kamari, who's secretary. We have Jacob, who's a council member, and Astro, who is also a council member.

They're council elect, because Friday is their inauguration.

So we're very excited. And, you know, these incredible clients help guide our work and ensure that the voices of those we serve remain at the center of everything we do. And our campus is, you know, just a couple of minutes right in downtown Riverside. We're one acre. It's 48 beds of residential housing. And so we really invite all of you to come and visit or revisit our campus. And just thank you so much. And at True Evolution, we're really proud to be rooted in the LGBTQ plus community and in service to all. So happy Pride Month and thank you so much.

Thank you, Ariel. Thank you. I love seeing my kids' childhood friends grow up to be accomplished professionals. Clarissa Cervantes.

Thank you. Well, just want to express my gratitude, express happy pride, and just commend to Revolution all of you for the incredible work that you do. And we're so excited to hear of our new electeds within the space. We'd love to count. Please send the invitation for the inauguration. I hope to attend. But just really want to say thank you for the amazing work you do. True Revolution changes people's lives. It has transformed our community. We're just so grateful for the leadership and then everything that you do. So and thank you again to the residents and for your leadership in stepping up to represent those that live there as well. We look forward to continue to see the campus grow and the lives that you change. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. That was the first of two presentations that we have today. Our next presentation is to present a certificate of recognition to the California School for the Deaf as the first school in Riverside to become a Blue Zones project approved school. And I think, since this is his ward, I would like Council Member Robillard to make his presentation. Can you pass this down to the Council Member, please? Thank you. And I will turn it over to you, Council Member.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, this is for the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, but also Project Blue Zones. We have the pleasure of uh, celebrating their milestone achievement of being the first school in Riverside to be blue zones approved. And it's not just one school, it's an elementary school, a middle school and a high school. Um, so all three are already blue zones approved. Um, and what was really exciting to hear from the blue zone staff was how much of the, um, work of becoming a blue zone certified campus was already being done at the school for the deaf. Um, as many people know that the deaf community is very large here in Riverside and it's large, it's due in part to the school, the deaf being located in our, in our city. And so they are very, very focused on the whole student and the success that goes into it. And that's not just the academics, but it's the community and the, uh, The California School of the Deaf is the first school in Riverside to become a Blue Zones Project-approved school. This designation recognizes schools that foster environments where healthy choices, social connection, and overall well-being are woven into everyday life. thank you for the commitment to education wellness connection and accessibility and belonging the core principles of the blue zones project congratulations and i would like to invite uh both project blues uh blue zones up as well as the california school of deaf if they had some remarks

Thank you so much, Mayor and Council, for having us today. My name is Ricky Hubbard, and I'm the organization and well-being lead for Blue Zones Project Riverside. Congratulations to California School for the Deaf for becoming the first Blue Zones Project approved school in Ward 3. Yes, three schools in Ward 3, elementary, middle, and high school. Thank you Council Member Robillard and the entire City Council and the City of Riverside for recognizing their efforts and being such a champion of Blue Zones Project and the amazing well-being work we get to do in this city. First, what does it mean to become a Blue Zones Project approved school? We sit down and we look at what they're already demonstrating in the areas of well-being and look at their willingness to go farther and beyond. Then we look at what do you want to do? What energizes you? What excites you? What do you want for your students? And we identify that as well. And we get to work and roll up our sleeves in helping this milestone come to life. California's School for the Deaf Riverside is an extraordinary place that prioritizes health and well-being. Their Green Paw Committee took on the Blue Zones work by Earth Day programming for students around natural movement, one of Blue Zones' Power Nine, offering downshift opportunities, a yoga class for employees at their Welcome Back Employee Wellness Fair Day. printing and installing hydration signs to promote water drinking throughout the campus, and finally, working really closely with students and staff in creating downshift spaces, much like the one you have here called the Blue Zone. Blue Zones Project Riverside is here to support everyone, everywhere, to live better, longer. And just one year in, we have already approved schools, restaurants, worksites, and grocery stores in Ward 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, with projects and programming and ribbon ceremonies all across seven wards. And we would love to connect with additional large work sites, grocery stores, restaurants and schools. So please reach out to me and connect with me to share your ideas. But what we're all here for is congratulating the California School of the Deaf Riverside on becoming Blue Zones Project approved.

I am absolutely thrilled and honored as well as extremely proud to receive this recognition for our school, especially being the very first in Ward 3. I would also like to recognize our Green Paw Committee, the individuals here with us today. I'm very blessed to have this collaboration and this opportunity with the city. Thank you, Blue Zones, for all of the support and everything that you've provided for us in this huge honor. Thank you so very much.

okay if you can go ahead and join me in the well we'll present the certificate and take some pictures real quick

All right. Thank you. And thank you, Council Member Robillard, for helping with that. And congratulations to CSDR. And thank you to Blue Zones as well. Okay, so now we are going to go back to the beginning of our agenda and start with number one, our public comments. So to comment on closed sessions, consent calendar, and any matters within the jurisdiction of city council. That's right now.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star nine. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right, thank you. We will start with our request to speak in chambers. And first up, I have Councilmember Chuck Beatty. Welcome back, sir.

City manager, city attorney, city clerk, mayor, council. So happy to be with you. It's been a few years since I've been in this room. It doesn't quite look the same, but, you know, it's been a few years, 2004. Anyway, the reason I'm here today, along with a council person, Laura Pearson Dawson, is to thank you for this. You may have forgotten, although I hope you received it because I printed copies of what now is the public notice for the Joseph Neal hearing. That date has been around forever. You keep using it over and over again, but this time it seems more serious. He can still drop out. But I really wanted to thank you for this. This is so important, and I don't know who wrote it, but I know who approved it because your signatures are on it. And I know it's going to have an impact when it goes to that board to see the quality that's in this. It was written by someone who, almost like they were there with us. It's dramatic, it's accurate, it's quality, it's everything that I hope you were so glad to sign because it's so important. So anyway, I want to thank you on the part of everyone we're talking about that was in that room and maybe even some others. Maybe a quick update. since we're taking this one very serious. We've been through two failures before because you can always withdraw, but this time we're looking at that. I want to start by thanking someone I know you know as well as I know who And Jose Medina, who must represent much of the city, city manager. And he really cares about this city. And I've known him since he was a teacher at Poly High School. But he is so good and so devoted. So if you read what I sent you, you know a lot of questions, like video conference. Yeah?

Oh, mm-hmm.

Well, anyway. I went to him and he then called, of course, the county district attorney and he then made contacts. And we now have a person in the office of parole. The county has an office. for victims. And we have a person now. I talked to her, well, I talked to her supervisor yesterday and have a time tomorrow afternoon in which to talk to her again about the detail. We know a teleconference now will be held at the district attorney's conference room. That's a big deal to know where. Also, you have a choice, they said. You can do it at your house. I don't want to do it in my house by myself. You're kidding? No, I want to be with the people. that are going to be able to be there so uh i wish that uh kind of in closing i don't want to spend more time be glad to answer any questions i just wish that my wife had been able to read this thank you because we went through another stage with which was so disappointing. I wish she could have read this. Thank you, Council Member. Any questions? Laura's here, and I know she has comments to make. Laura is next up. If there's any questions for me, I'm here. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

All right, Ms. Densmore. Before you start, in the back, folks, the timer is not working up here. So we need to reset and the beeper is not going off and giving an indication that there's 30 seconds left.

It says three here.

Yeah, that's because I started it again. Okay, let's go. Thanks. Go ahead, Laura.

Well, there aren't many people like all of us, right, that get to serve public office and talk to many, many people and go all over the city and stay right here. Chuck and I got to share a lot of things. He sat at that end, and I sat at that end for quite a few years together, and I'm trying to think of one other. Oh, I had lots of dinners at his house that his lovely wife made that were just divine, and we all miss Sally very much. In any case, there's one other thing we have in common. He gave me away when I got married to Bill Densmore. One more, and it's not a joke. We both got shot in that room by Joe Neal, and we're both here. We lived through it. The thing is, as we were talking about safety and safe zones and everything, gun safety is no joke. I mean, when a man can just walk in and obliterate whoever he thinks he's going to get, he's wrong because he's pretty tough. But it's just an unnecessary thing that we have to deal with. And right after the shooting that we had, it was, which school was it? open got open fired on anyway it's never stopped it's increasing increasing and so you know you can live in fear or you can go to these parole hearings and try to do your best and you know by god we're going to try to do our best and we hope everybody has kind wishes for us and i don't wish anybody poorly except one man in the world thank you thank you counselor we appreciate you both coming down thank you

All right. Next up, I have Aurora Chavez.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. It's interesting how things happen. The first go around, we showed our love for our police, fire, and our first responders. But we found out that there was more to it than that. It was about raises, about controlling the monies and where it was going to be used for. Language was used against us. But worst of all, it broke the value system that we expected from our city. This time around, we held to our value system. We did not take money out of our neighbors' pockets. We didn't take it because we didn't know where it was going to go. We were being honest about it. And who would it affect the most would be the children. You know how our economy is now. It's increased. So for food, clothing, and denying them school activities because we can't afford it, they will be the ones that be affected. We've been noticing that there's been deception, lying, and divisiveness in our city. That's not the city we want. In fact, it crumbles our city when that happens. This is our home. It's not a game. It's involving people's lives. And they want their city back to the value system that they cherish. And they stood up and voted the way they wanted to, to get their city back. It's an important lesson for us all. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Chavez. Appreciate that. Thank you. Errol Kosiewicz?

Can I use the overhead projector?

Okay.

One after Mrs. Chavez, the day makes me, my heart feel bad, you know. I wanted to discuss some issues with the city of Riverside, what you guys have been doing lately. I you guys send me public records and Yeah, you can go right there and I want to explain this what you guys have done. You send me public records of purchase orders to my Gmail and what you guys have done you've Wiped out all my purchase orders, but I got some bad news for you guys I kept them all there although they're all on the hard drive and so it doesn't matter what you guys have done and Have all the purchase orders going back almost 20 years. Good luck guys getting them. Can you put the page? I want to show you one of them right now Okay, this is one of the purchase orders that you guys Provided I have thousands of them you guys so I could pick one We provided $200,000 to investigate services now We have a lot of problems guys. We have no accountability of our funding and Like I've said, you guys all should be in jail. I've said it many a times. I even told Medina yesterday he should be in jail. You guys honestly should be in jail. We have no accountability here. I've asked you for years actually to put all the money that you guys are misappropriation funds. On the website where all the money's going to you have no budget It's fake budget. You've lied about it. You've continuously lied about it forever Ever I can go back to mr. Leverage you guys I've been coming here. I think pretty close to 25 years you guys so I'm the worst one you guys actually should know And the accountability here is awful, guys. You've lied and you've committed serious fraud. OK, it's serious fraud. And I've said this for years up here. Everybody here should be in jail for fraud all the way down. Just like I told the Board of Supervisors yesterday Karen Spiegel. You got to be in jail to Karen you it is so horrible here in California the city of Riverside now I can go through this Democrat Democrat Democrat Republican Democrat Democrat Democrat Communist Okay, and we got problems guys. It is what they ran on and Don't tell them that you're nonpartisan because they've lied. They have committed so much fraud here, it's pathetic. I need the FBI to come in here and audit this place. It is that bad, okay? And you guys have a blessed day today. I couldn't even get the Medi-Cal people to pick up my mom, and she's in our retirement home today. They couldn't even pick her up. They get billions of dollars over there at the facility to provide a service. They can't even pick her up. You know, I just, I'm so upset with the state of California. It's trash, okay? And it's all ran by people that should be in jail. You have a blessed day, guys. Thank you, Mr. Kosh. Have a good day.

Thank you. Is the beeper not working? Could someone look into that, please? Because it's difficult. Could you, Gil? Thanks. Next, I have Christina Fuentes. Welcome, Ms. Fuentes.

Wow, follow that one, okay. Hello, I just wanted to address everyone. Thank you so much for letting me come up here and speak. It's finally my flex day on a Tuesday, so hey, it's going to be a good month. I was able, as a single woman, to purchase my home on my own back in 2009. So I've lived in Riverside my entire life, and what I'm seeing more and more lately is is a lot of street repairs that need to be done. And I live over in the area of Arlington and Central and Hillside and Phoenix over by Jefferson Elementary School, Adams Elementary School. I have called since at least 20,000 21 and I probably have called at least 10 times if not more in regards to the street of Phoenix Avenue which I understand might be in number five three okay nine two five oh four anyway um It's just there's potholes that happen in there, and they come and put a little Band-Aid on it, maybe. You know, got to get at least maybe five or six of them going at one time. The number 13 bus travels up there all day long, back and forth all day long. That can't be the issue as to why that street's not being repaired, because I used to work for RTA, and I know that there are go-arounds. So it really needs to be addressed in our city. I can tell you that I can probably drive up to Orange Crest and not see the streets look like they do down here in the Arlington area of Riverside over by the airport, over by Harvest. I drive on California Avenue. In fact, I grew up over there. And there was a water main break there maybe last year. It was just like if it was off-roading. And I know that was a quick fix. It had to be done. It was at night. I get that. But then they came back around and they fixed it again. And it's not. You're still going over bumps. If any of you drive in those areas, please. And if not, drive over there where the old Dairy Queen used to be. You'll see that so a third time we have to pay our our city people three times to go out and fix it When it should have been a one-time resolution That's a waste of money. It's a waste of money Adams Street over by the elementary school you have big lines and big cracks up and down that street So and I know it's a costly thing. I get that I get that fixing streets and so forth and Um, it costs a lot of money and it's a big ask, but I mean, how many times does someone need to call to get something repaired and just get a bandaid over it? Um, I understand it's a list called a control list or something. Thank you.

Thanks. And I'm not sure whose ward that is.

I'll just, I'll just. WE ACTUALLY HAVE THAT SCHEDULED TO BE REPAVED IN OUR NEXT FISCAL YEAR. I HAVE OUR PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR SITTING BEHIND YOU. HE CAN KIND OF GIVE YOU AN UPDATE. BUT IT IS ON THE SCHEDULE FOR PHOENIX AND ADAMS ARE BOTH ON THE SCHEDULE FOR REPAVING NEXT YEAR.

SO PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR, WANT TO WAVE YOUR HAND AND YOU CAN CHAT WITH HIM. THANK YOU.

AND TO FOLLOW UP ON THAT, NATHAN IS VERY UP TO DATE ON THIS BECAUSE WE ACTUALLY SPOKE TO SOMEONE ABOUT THIS YESTERDAY. We're trying to put it all together. So Nathan's already looking into it for you. Thanks.

Thank you. Looks like Leonardo Orozco. That's okay. They can, I mean, they have access to what the time is. They can see it. All right. Hi.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Leonardo Orozco. I am a third-year student at the University of California, Riverside, and the proud son of two immigrant parents. I am speaking today in support of Riverside street vendors. When we discuss economic development, the conversation often centers on major projects and large corporate investments. But we should also recognize the hardworking entrepreneurs who build businesses from the ground up, often with limited resources and support. Street vendors embody the entrepreneur spirit. They create opportunities for themselves and their families provide affordable goods and services to our communities and contribute to the local economy in meaningful ways. Recent reports, however, raise our serious concerns that some vendors may have experienced intimidation, mistreatment, and improper enforcement actions by individuals entrusted to serve the public. If these allegations are true, they deserve careful review, transparency, and accountability. According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, an investigator described a systematic pattern of unauthorized property seizures in which vendor equipment and merchandise were allegedly confiscated without receipts being provided, preventing vendors from reclaiming their property. The investigator further found that these practices were allegedly directed and repeated across multiple incidents. These findings raise important questions that the public deserves answers to. For that reason, I respectfully urge the council to take the following actions. First, publicly release enforcement data and complaints related to street vendor enforcement activities so residents can understand the scope of these allegations and have confidence that oversight is being conducted transparently. second ensure that all property damage and financial losses are restored and fooled to vendors who were impacted by any unlawful or improper enforcement actions small business owners should not be forced to bear the financial burden of misconduct that they did not cause finally support an independent investigation into these allegations and ensure that any findings are made available to the public Riverside should be recognized as a city that empowers hardworking entrepreneurs, protects civil rights, promotes transparency, and supports economic opportunity for all. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Orozco. All right, Eddie Torres. Welcome, Mr. Torres.

Good afternoon, mayor, city council, city staff. My name is Eddie Torres. I'm the policy director with the Yale and Coalition for American Justice. I'm also ECR and RCC alumni, former resident of Riverside, and my family currently lives in Riverside, Ward 6. The LA Times investigation alleges a systemic failure to protect immigrants in the city of Riverside, top down. For several years, your staff violated the rights of many street vendors, including their constitutional rights like the Fourth Amendment. Our organization is currently in litigation with another city and their third party court enforcement agency that they hired for similar violations that are alleged in the LA Times investigation. Since I have limited time today, I'm just going to get straight to the point. This investigation alleges shameful and raging and disgusting behavior that was allowed to persist for several years under your leadership. We demand a moratorium on code enforcement operations on street vendors. We demand the restitution of fines, fees, and the return of the property of all vendors that were impacted during this time period. We also demand a public apology from this council and a meeting with the mayor and city staff to start rebuilding the trust you lost with our community. There are several state laws, old and new, that I feel like your code enforcement agency described as a dumpster fire by your own staff needs to be updated on. You should hear from vendors directly themselves who have been impacted by your agents on how they've been impacted, not only economically, physically, emotionally as well. I expect to hear from the council soon, from the mayor, from city staff soon, in order to work in real faith and honest and good faith to work on redistributing the trust that you lost with our community and so many other folks, including housing as well. In this investigation, it also allegedly found that they were red-tagging homes, and then they would later be evicted from those homes with the help of police. The last thing that you all need is more issues with housing, I assume. You guys all feel that way. We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to make sure this never happens again in the city of Riverside. Like I said, I used to live here. This place is a very inclusive place to live. We just honored Pride Month. We just honored our death school. But we can't offer the same gratitude and inclusivity to immigrants, and that's an issue. We cannot call ourselves inclusive if we're not inclusive all the way around. When you pass the resolution, as you did last year in October, a really powerful resolution, we still thank you all for that. A lot of it goes out the window when things like this are happening under our noses for several years. It's unacceptable, and we need to work on it.

Thank you, Mr. Torres. I want to make sure that the record is clear that the city did the investigation and the LA Times just reported on it. It was not an LA Times investigation that exposed it. The city did it themselves, which was the basis for the report in the Times. All right. Daniela.

Welcome.

Good evening.

My name is Daniela Ramos. I am the youth organizer for the Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Collective. Our organization helps undocumented students gain professional development, community, and advocacy skills in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. I also live here in Riverside. Tonight I am here because I want to demand justice for the street vendors in Riverside. i left college four years ago and the thing that i missed the most about riverside was the street vendors los paleteros eloteros the people selling fruits and flowers they are a big part of our community they work every day extremely hard outside especially in the inland empire heat to provide for their families It's disturbing to hear that vendors in our community were attacked by city employees abusing their authority. Many times they wore tactical gear and did not identify themselves. They specifically attacked Hispanic and Asian communities. I can't imagine what they must have felt, especially when immigrant families already live in uncertainty and fear. We demand there be an independent investigation, full compensation to the vendors who were impacted, and a public apology from the city. These men scared and attacked our people, our community. The immigrant youth in this city are watching. We are taking notes on what the city does, and we want you to know that we will not stand behind a city that does not value the hardworking people that live here. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniela. All right, I have Alex Sandoval, followed by Patrick Maloney. Welcome, Mr. Sandoval.

Hello. Good afternoon, Mayor and Riverside City Council. My name is Alex Sandoval and I'm a resident of Ward 3. I'm here to support the street vendors of Riverside and to echo the very clear demands that many other community advocates and residents have already raised. I urge you all to stand up for our street vendors and because you clarified that it was actually the City of Riverside that did the investigation and not the LA Times. Now that you have your findings, it's imperative that you all ensure that the abuse of these vulnerable residents end today. And I think about the fact that the city of Riverside is already facing an investigation due to the rejection of the Homekey Plus grant. And this is just another stain on the city that must be rectified and must be changed. So thank you for your time. And I hope that you do the right thing.

Thank you, Mr. Sandoval. All right, I have Patrick Maloney, followed by Ugochi Anjabera-Nicholson. Welcome, Mr. Maloney. Thank you.

Good afternoon, honorable mayor, city staff, and council, and all that. First off, the shirt looks huge. I thought, like, I went to a concert the other night and put it on. I lost 20 pounds. I didn't know until I put this thing on. I'm like, oh, my God. So I don't think I'm a 2X anymore. Thank God. But I want to say this real quick. I want to thank the people that come out to the NAS meetings that we do and all the other stuff we've been doing over the years. So I just want to say thank you again for that. We did the Measure Z thing. We did some stuff recently. I'm always very happy about that. So I have something I normally am always Mr. Happy and friendly. There's been a video that's been sent to me several times the last few days. And it's made me angry. And then it made me concerned. And I didn't know how to really go about this because I don't have a solution to this. And I'm not throwing anybody under the bus. This is a situation. Everybody knows how much I love Riverside. I don't like when we get bad press. No matter what it is, it gets me kind of angry. So recently, I've been keep getting this thing. I don't know if it will play through here. But here we go.

flag that you hear mostly in the club nowadays um they usually call this place not just this place but everywhere in downtown riverside chlamydia because everybody messes with each other here and me working here for over a year there's a lot of people that i've seen like a lot of people here that like leave with different people all the time

So like your boyfriend, he's been in security here for a year?

Yeah, for a year.

For a year. So you guys both came and got the job together or did you meet him here?

No, we both met at the gym, but then we ended up working here. Oh, okay.

So you met at the gym.

Yeah.

And then like he approached you like, hey, how are you?

And then he kind of like... Yeah, he got the job here by his friend and then I ended up getting hired here in the front. So it just worked out.

Yeah?

Yeah.

So, if you had a message to tell this generation about how to properly date nowadays, what would it be?

I would just say keep it real, you know? And if you just don't want to be with them and you want to mess around, just let it go, you know? I don't know, I'm just, yeah, just be single.

That's probably the best way?

Yeah.

And this is shared by a certain club of ours in downtown a dance club I'm not gonna throw them under the bus, but the point is I was mad. I'm going wait So they're still calling us committee a town, you know, it used to be meth town It used to be hick town all these kind of things and I get a I see a hundred and seventy seven hundred seventy seven thousand views in three days I see over 800 views by my friends alone and they're just I hate when I see this stuff and But then I thought, well, what's the solution? Obviously, we've got to make sure we have condoms downtown, make sure people are safe because people are calling us a dirty town. And I hate when I hear that stuff, especially on Instagram, Facebook, and threads. We need to work on our town and making our town a more visibly cool place to visit, not a place to get an STD. Otherwise, thank you so much and hope to see you at karaoke tonight in downtown Riverside. Hopefully you won't get an STD. See you next.

Thank you. All right, I've got Ugochi Anjabir Nicholson, followed by Mireya Munroy.

Good afternoon. I don't think, is this mic on? Maybe it is. Okay.

Good afternoon. Mayor Locke Dawson and members of the Riverside City Council. My name is Ugo Chi Annaberry Nicholson. I'm an attorney and I'm also a resident of Ward 1. I'm here to speak concerning item number 13, the ordinance to amend Title IX of the Riverside Municipal Code concerning the transportation of persons who lack a fixed residence. In reading the ordinance, some things jumped out at me that are threaded in the ordinance that are quite concerning. The narrative that unhoused persons are flooding the city is simply unsupported by the data. Despite common assumptions that people come to California after becoming homeless, The research indicates that most individuals experiencing homelessness at any given time remain near the communities where they are last housed. Please see towards a new understanding the California statewide study of people experiencing homelessness, a comprehensive statewide study done in 2023. The perception that unhoused individuals disproportionately perpetrate crime is absolutely inconsistent with the available research. Studies have shown that people who are experiencing homelessness, such like individuals living with mental health disabilities, are far more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators of it. These narratives do nothing more than stereotype people who are living without shelter to be feared rather than people who are in need of our collective support. The narrative further distracts from the real needs and solutions to chronic homelessness, affordable, permanent, supportive housing, as evidenced by the proposed conversion of the Quality Inn that this council shelved, which is now currently under investigation. The ordinance further that would require 24 hours notice before transportation and says that rescheduled drop-offs from 8 to 5 p.m. likely would have a chilling effect that impinges upon the fundamental right of travel and freedom of movement that would violate the California Constitution, Article 1, Section 7, 24, and the decisional federal and state case law that interprets this fundamental right. It likely also raises equal protection concerns because of the registration of these individuals being transported and dropped off into the city that are not imposed upon other persons who are also entering and traveling into the city. Finally, the right to privacy under state and federal law would be abridged and likely preempted by federal laws that require the protection of private and sensitive data gathered by agencies that assist persons experiencing homelessness. For this reason, we respectfully request the city reconsider and reject the ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Anyabair Nicholson. Your handwriting appears to have a G in your name, which is why I said Anyabair. Thank you. All right. Mireya Monroy, followed by Kayla Booker.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Medea Monroy. I'm a resident of Ward 6. It's heartbreaking to hear the allegations involving the mistreatment of immigrant street vendors, especially as someone who grew up in Ward 6 and 7, where immigrant families live and our street vendors are part of our neighborhoods. I have bought food from these vendors throughout my life, and like so many others, they are simply trying to make an honest living and create better opportunities for their families. Across Riverside, immigrant families are already living with uncertainty because of increased immigration enforcement and the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric. Many people are afraid, and incidents like these only deepen the fear and make it harder for residents to trust institutions that are supposed to serve them. These allegations are concerning because they raise serious questions about how members of our communities are being treated. No one should experience humiliation, discrimination, or abuse while trying to earn a living. No family should feel targeted because of who they are or where they come from. I'm asking the council to support a thorough and independent... I KNOW YOU GUYS ALREADY DID THE INVESTIGATION. JUST HOLDING ACCOUNTABILITY TO STRENGTHEN THE OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURES AND ENGAGE DIRECTLY WITH THE VENDORS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS WHO HAVE BEEN IMPACTED. RIVERSIDE SHOULD BE A CITY WHERE EVERY RESIDENT IS TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT REGARDLESS OF THEIR IMMIGRATION STATUS OR OCCUPATION. Our actions in this moment, like this matter, they send a message about the kind of community we want to be. And I hope we choose to stand with the side of fairness, transparency, and accountability. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Monroy. All right, I have Kayla Booker followed by, it looks like, Annabelle Nevarez and then Alan Vargas. Welcome, Dr. Booker.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Pleasure. Many of you know me already, but my name is Kayla Booker, and I'm here today not only as a community leader, but as someone who runs a nonprofit and also supports entrepreneurship, Black-owned entrepreneurship in Riverside County. Our street vendors are entrepreneurs, their mothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, and hardworking residents who deserve to build generational wealth and create opportunities for their families. Yet in Riverside, many of these vendors feel like they're being treated as a problem rather than a small business that they deserved the support. Understand the importance of safety, reasonable regulations. However, Riverside must do a better job of creating a system that is accessible, affordable, and fair. Too many vendors are facing excessive fees, complications on requirements, barriers that make it difficult for them to operate legally. and that creates a barren sum in the neighborhoods and city. When we look at other cities around us, such as San Bernardino County, we can see that street vendors are being embraced by the city, the culture, the economical. Street vendors bring life to not only the communities, but neighborhoods, creating jobs, affordable goods, food, and often serving communities that traditionally can't reach businesses. I'm asking Riverside to shift their approach from enforcement to partnership, meeting the vendors where they're at, listening to their experiences, and creating affordable pathways to permits. Offer resources, education, instead of creating barriers that push entrepreneurs out. I brought this issue forward back in 2022, and we're still dealing with it today, so clearly it's still a problem. In Riverside, I truly believe that you guys do want to support small businesses and economical development as we are the city that has one of the biggest and most small businesses here in our county. But what we don't see is that the support for our street vendors and that oftentimes they feel like you guys just want storefronts and not our vendors. I stand here representing over 500 black-owned businesses, black-owned businesses, Vendors that have been supported by the black collective which I am the CEO of and continue to support them to be seen respected and Hopefully included in the future of the city of Riverside with that being said this weekend is our Juneteenth Festival and I would love for some of you guys to actually come out and talk to the vendors and See what they're dealing with every day In the last couple of years, we see our vendors come out to our Juneteenth. They have a great celebration, and then they go onto the streets, and they're hit with fines. And honestly, they're tired of it. So hope to see you guys there. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Booker. I have, it looks like Annabelle Navarez and then Alan Vargas.

ALL RIGHT. HI, EVERYONE. GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. MY NAME IS ANNABELLE NEVAREZ AND I SPEAK AS AWARD ONE RESIDENT AND ON BEHALF OF THE RIVERSIDE COUNTY YOUNG DEMOCRATS. ON JUNE 5, THE L.A. TIMES PUBLISHED AN INVESTIGATION DETAILING THE ALLEGED mistreatment, intimidation, and abuse by the City of Riverside code enforcement officers toward immigrant street vendors. These aren't minor complaints. They describe our city employees, people that are supposed to serve the public, allegedly destroying property, seizing goods, and humiliating working families who are simply trying to make a living. The Riverside County Young Democrats stand unequivocally with street vendors, their small business owners, their parents, taxpayers, and neighbors like my friends Don Enrique and Matt who work here in the downtown area as well as by Mount Rubidoux. They're part of our community and make it more vibrant and contribute to our local economy and that's why they deserve justice. You know, the city investigating is a great first step, but this, you know, begs the question, if this report was done in August 2025, how come it has not been released to the public? And more importantly, it's been 10 months. How come there's been no apparent corrective action? Right now, the officers named work for other cities, no charges are filed, and no public accountability occurred. The investigator had to request a report through a public records request. So it has not even been released to the public. So I believe the public trust requires transparency. That's why we urge the city council to push for an independent investigation, not just one through the city, and to make enforcement records public. We also ask the city that it to create a process to include vendors and community organizations to develop our more better solutions. The city should also issue a directive to the city manager. Sorry, the city council should issue a directive to the city manager to suspend code enforcement seizures and confiscations. and to restitute any property damages and losses. So this would just serve as a basic stopgap just to prevent further harm while the truth comes to light. I don't believe any more street vendors should lose their cards or coolers or their income today because of practices that the city itself is now being forced to scrutinize. right now immigrant families across riverside already face rising fear of deportations and federal enforcement local government has a choice do we want to add to that fear or do we want to lead with justice a public apology from the city would go a long way so that it can show that it values every resident every worker and every family here in riverside thank you thank you miss navarez all right i have alan virgus

Hello Council, I'm Alan Vargas. On behalf of our Riverside County Young Democrats, we also stand firmly with our street vendors and we are extremely upset and furious as many people of our community are over the report that was very damaging that the LA Times had reported. in which the city came to the conclusion that these two supervisors who were allowed to do what they were do allowed to do what they were able to do even when one of their subordinates filed a complaint they were ended up being fired before the investigation would be fully conducted and to the outside eye and a lot of our community members that would be blatant corruption if we weren't if we were wrong that was a retaliation against the whistleblower which is very illegal and very wrong And the report concluded that these supervisors targeted very vulnerable communities because they knew that they would be afraid to speak up. They targeted Latinos, Asians, and our undocumented community specifically. And as a city that proclaims to be inclusive, that is home to a lot of immigrants and latinos this is shameful it is a blight on our history that there was no accountability that was taken even as p as this was aware and every and a lot of people were aware that this was occurring there needs to be something that needs to be done including accountability the fact that they were able to go to other cities and not face accountability for what they did including an instance of impersonating a peace officer which is a crime you cannot go around and act as if you're a police officer dressed like a police officer and that is not and that is just seems to be the tip of the iceberg and the and y'all sat with this report for a while it's been out there for a while so there needs to be accountability and especially for our street vendors with everything that's going on right now we passed a resolution to protect our immigrant communities and we need to do that further as well to protect our most vulnerable communities including our street vendors not only do they make amazing food they add to the culture of our city but they are an integral part of the nation as a whole street vendors across this nation provide food for many people who sometimes might not be able to afford a brick and mortar and to see members of our community who are beloved respected and Some of the kindest people you will ever meet treated in such a manner is unacceptable to me and it is unacceptable to many members of our community because you don't have to go far to ask anyone on the street how beloved our street vendors are across the nation. So I ask for you to do something because this is serious. This is not something that... you can just brush away. There needs to be accountability and there needs to be action taken. So I request that you follow what the instructions were from our Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and take the necessary action so this never happens again because this is just unacceptable.

Thank you, Mr. Vargas. I have some online comments. We'll take our first caller.

Good afternoon. Jason Hunter, Ward 1. Not only did I read the Times article on the code enforcement issue. I read the entire investigative report itself, something I wonder if the council has done. It describes sadistic behavior. It also creates a lot of liability, quite frankly, for taxpayers. The questions that came out of that report after I read it, for me, that were obvious were, number one, was sustained findings against several employees for what appear to be criminal behavior. Were any of these folks referred to the DA for prosecution? I'd like to know that. Number two, if the investigation ended in August, Why were several of the supervisors and officers still working for the city seven months later, as late as March of this year? I've been through a number of these, not just in this town and others. I've seen a lot of these investigations. This has all the markings of a citywide cover. So stew on that for a second. Secondly, I want to talk about Measure Z. Measure Z is a colossal failure. It's failing in the polls 40-60, 60-60% against. It's karma for the last 10 years. Everybody's got their little pet peeve, whether it be the partnership compensation model or pension bonds or the new library or Aurora's favorite pickleball courts. It's not even necessarily this council. It's just the actions, the collective actions of the last 10 years. I don't mind the $200,000 of private money that was spent on this and wasted in trying to get this thing pushed forward. But we spent upwards of $200,000 in public money. And that was a really poor investment by this council, who just did not see or were able to read the tea leaves on this, quite frankly. And secondly, I was really disappointed by the city allowing all the yes and measure Z signs on its public property. I know that when other signs are placed on public property around town, their commercial signs or political signs, they're almost routinely taken down within a day or two. To see them all up after weeks and weeks and weeks on public property, kind of like, you know, it doesn't leave a good optics for the public who think that the city's in on basically... and quite frankly, in favor of this. So I think I've heard already that we're thinking about bringing it back as a special tax in five months. I think that's a very poor idea. It'll be very hard to go from 40% in favor to 66% favor in that short period of time. I think it'll be another waste of money. So your next shot, in my opinion, realistically, is going to be in 2026. And I really do hope that you involve the- Thank you, Mr. Hunter.

Let's go to our next caller, please. Hi, if you're online, go ahead.

Hello, I'm calling. My name is Kevin Bernard. I'm speaking to a sign language interpreter for the deaf. I'm sorry it took me a moment to join you on Zoom and then connect fully on the phone call. But again, Kevin Bernard, thank you so much for your time. I commend all of you for the city council members for supporting the deaf community through the Blue Zone activities. We're really excited about that. The institution for the deaf and hard of hearing school in Riverside, how that was set up, and amen, thank you for that. It really expanded our opportunities a lot. Ward 6, we're looking forward to more representation in the future for the Blue Zones and for the community as well. We encourage the community inclusion. We're looking forward to more of that as well going forward too. Thank you.

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

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Go ahead.

Mayor, first of all, I would like to thank all the residents that took tirelessly to defeat Measure Z that was on the ballot. Congratulations to all of you. Secondly, it's nice to tune in to these councilmen meetings and see former council members like Chuck Beatty and Laura Pearson Densmore joining the council meetings. Like something from the past and memories of old council meetings that I remember. And also nice to see residents, Carol Kosiewicz, Aurora Chavez, and Patrick Maloney there. Thirdly, I'd like to CONGRATULATE CHUCK CONDOR FOR HIS REELECTION. AND I'D LIKE TO THANK COUNCILMEMBER JIM PERRY FOR HIS SERVICE TO THE CITY ALL THESE YEARS. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO CONGRATULATE CLARISSA CERVANTES FOR HER UPCOMING BID FOR ASSEMBLY MEMBER IN NOVEMBER. And lastly, I would like to thank Councilmember Phillip Falcone for our conversation that we had yesterday. It was very informative and enjoyable. I really enjoyed that conversation and we got to know a little bit better. I got to know where he stands on issues and kind of get his perspective. And he has a very interesting story how he came to Riverside. If any of you don't know, maybe you should ask him of his story, how he came to be in Riverside. And that'll be all for today, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. We have one more caller.

Hello. Thank you. My name is Cassidy Bennett. I am an attorney at public counsel. And we work with vendors and organizers throughout California. So I am calling in in regards to the LA Times article on the report. And we were disappointed but unfortunately not shocked by this report on the treatment of vendors by enforcement officers. These are very serious allegations that dependent and transparent investigation to ensure that vendors can be made whole, that the public trust can be restored. Sidewalk vendors are small business owners and workers who contribute to their local economy and provide affordable goods and food for their communities. They are often already struggling with the rising costs of housing, food, and transportation, and many are currently struggling with increased immigration enforcement as well. So to know that they were also suffering from these criminal allegations from their own city is really sad to hear. We believe that Riverside's response should not only amend this wrong, but also actively take steps to ensure that immigrants in your city are treated fairly and equally. We would like to see an independent investigation, public release of the enforcement data and complaints, a moratorium of tickets and citations until the independent investigation is concluded, all property damage and financial losses to be restored in full to the vendors who were impacted,

an investment in permit assistance and vendor support programs for all vendors and a public apology from the city thank you thank you that was our last caller i believe so um we will close public comment and we will move on on our agenda and um i don't usually do this but i i want to go make some comments before I kick it over to council. First, I want to thank everyone who came here today and spoke out on this issue. Some of you may have even been impacted by the acts of these individuals, so thank you for your courage in coming here to speak out. And I want to thank the others who are here to speak on our community's behalf to ensure every person is treated with dignity and respect. I want to let folks know that that investigation was initiated by the city. It's all available on the portal, all 127 pages of it. So you can go look at it. The report is publicly available. And I can also share that all the employees involved no longer work at the city of Riverside. I want to be clear that the city of Riverside doesn't condone this behavior, but we are responsible for fixing the situation that led to it. And I'm really, really upset about this. And I spoke to the city manager about this. We need to fix our community and economic development department, which includes code enforcement. We have a new director there. I don't want her to fail as well. This has been going on for over a decade. So I'm calling on the city manager, city management team. I want to have an experienced and independent management consultant to come in, conduct a comprehensive review of our policies, procedures, staffing, rules, and organization in CEDD. We've had, I've been here, I'm going on six years here, two directors terminated in five years there, two terminated within five years. Multiple other terminations, recurring anonymous complaints and letters, employees out on stress leave, long running conflict, documented malfeasance that's resulted in dismissals. These all point to a very dysfunctional department We need to know when or we need to know where and what has happened, what led to this. Such an analysis would provide recommendations on how to fix the root of these issues and to prevent these inexcusable acts continuing to occur. But I have to be clear, this review needs to be conducted by an outside independent consultant, not someone in the building. It's been going on for over a decade. It's toxic. We need to fix it. Is this just going to keep happening? And every week, this counsel is in the paper and being called stupid because of just the malfeasance of this department. We have to fix it. So we need to find the money to do it. So I'm going to stop there. I want to thank everybody for coming down here today. I have heard people say, well, we should move code under police. We should move code out. I don't think we should do anything until we figure out what our rules, our policies, our organizational structure and culture, why it has led to this. And then we need to figure it out and we need to fix it. So I'll leave it there. So again, I want to thank everybody for coming down here today to advocate for our community. And I will go to Councilmember Falcone to please give us an update on goings on in the ward.

Thank you for those comments here, here. But being called stupid is usually the least of my worries every day. I do also want to echo the comments of, it was great to see former council members Densmore and Beatty. For anyone who does not know what occurred in this room on October 6th of 1998, where the mayor and the city council were shot, need to do some reading and research on that, really the darkest day in Riverside's history, and so to see them here today was a good reminder of a solemn and horrible incident, but a good reminder of that and the significance of everyone's safety, and in particular, the public order and the safety of those in this building. A few updates, though, switching gears. There's a great new exhibition at the Cheech Museum called We the People, commemorating America's 250th anniversary and focused specifically on the contributions of immigrants and the Chicano culture, of course, which is the focus of the Cheech Museum, so wonderful to see that if you haven't had a chance to check that out. there's several new and upcoming businesses opening in the downtown we the the farmers market was relocated to this end of the downtown there's many now new businesses that are opening around that footprint so it's great to see that the notebook cafe on 9th street opens this saturday at 10 a.m there's additional other forthcoming openings at the corner of market and 10th the corner of 10th and orange and others to really enliven this portion of the downtown when we have on the weekend it's usually not as busy but that will be changing now with the farmers market and other openings the rivers the downtown area neighborhood alliance meets at the isaac walton building at fairmont park monday night the 15th at 7 p.m and all are welcome to join us thank you mayor

Thank you, Council Member Falcone. Council Member Cervantes.

Thank you, Mayor, and I really want to thank you for sharing your comments right now. Many of us are frustrated with, of course, what we have learned and been able to be informed about, about what's been taking place in code enforcement, and um i just want to share as a as a granddaughter and daughter of those that have picked and sold fruits before on the side of the road it hurts me and it's very personal and was very proud for us to have back in 2022 had co-champion to pass a street vendor ordinance that really did work to uplift protect our street vendors in our community factoring in our brick and mortars, and we were very intentional with that ordinance, and we now need to assure that that ordinance is being sought through and implemented properly. At the end of this meeting, I will make an ask for an item to come to Economic Development Committee because we have CEDD under there, but where we review pass fines and fees issued to vendors we review code of conduct rules of engagement because while we need to have exactly what you said there also needs to be some immediate action taken now and for to ensure we have the public trust addressed and so i do want to thank those i came down to comment to speak because i understand where your pain and anger comes from so i really respect the community of course who has been reaching out and asking questions that are very valid um and i personally want to apologize to any of those that are impacted while we did not have some anything to do with that it is our responsibility as a city to take ownership of what does happen within the parameters of city hall and those that we send out into the public so i extend an apology to those who were impacted from the office of war ii and we are always here and available to help and support those that seek help and need help of course including our immigrant and document communities that are currently under attack and are trying to do their best to live every single day and be a part of our community here but with that i want to move on to some other good good news of things hiking place in the city in the ward i want to thank all my colleagues the mayor and those who are able to join us today for the grand opening of vol 2 motors i want to actually give an extension thank you to the greater chamber of riverside i see we have the president or president nick adcock in the house And I really wanted to say that it's been exciting to work with the Chamber to have several events that we've been able to have grand openings in War II. For Voltu and Chevy, both are green tech companies that drive innovation here in our community. So we're really excited to have those come and join us. And then we have the Behavior Lab focused on children's education in Canyon Springs Center. Again, just really exciting stuff. And I want to highlight an event that was mentioned earlier by a speaker, but Our office was proud to sponsor the Juneteenth Festival. That's going to be in Ward 1, coming back to Ward 1 at Fairmont Park. It is free for folks to join. It's from 2 to 7 p.m. That's 2601 Fairmont Boulevard. But there's going to be many vendors. There's going to be music, family fun. And so come on out and support and join us for a wonderful celebration for Juneteenth. We also will have a celebration at Community Settlement Association honoring Juneteenth and just really want to wish and extend again to our community a happy Pride Month. And I will say lastly that we've been receiving messages from folks in the community of people being taken, spouses, educators in our community from federal agents. And so we are working closely with our partners at CHIRLA, IC4IJ, and others. And so I just want to stress again that if you know or need anyone in help, if there's a family that's lost their breadwinner or someone and are impacted, we have been working with groups to make sure we can connect them with resources to help them so that they don't lose their housing they can get access to legal aid so just know that we are here to be a resource for folks that are impacted that capacity and also want to actually give a huge shout out to our city fire department and our emergency office services operations parks and recreation everybody who helped to step up with the fire that we had this about a week and a half ago now in war ii There were over 119 individuals impacted, students and other residents, but many GoFundMe links are up and we're sharing those. So if you have the capacity to even make a small donation, a lot of goods were donated to the UCR campus for those students. And so I want to thank every single person who helped to donate. You had students who lost everything right before their finals. And so just want to say thank you to our community again for how you all show up. But I really want to thank our city staff and our fire department for quickly moving in. And thankfully, we didn't lose anyone in that fire. I know we had a tragic loss over in Ward 5. But just know that, again, we're working hard to make sure we can keep our residents safe. And I really appreciate their quick response. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Robillard.

Thank you, Maren. I apologize for my voice. I'm losing my voice right now, so this is not normal sounding. We had a pleasure of welcoming RUSD students to City Hall. We recently hosted project team students, and they enjoyed a little bit about what it's like to do city council work, and they all got to sit up here, and we had a vote, and they all voted in favor of having a great day. We honored to host the visit from the members of the Chinese consulate and continue building relationships that support economic development opportunities here in Riverside. I also had joined Assistant City Manager Hernandez, Airport Manager Dr. Prather for a productive visit with the FAA to discuss opportunities at our airport. And it was also a pleasure to attend the Grand Opening of Chevy. and Vol 2 today and also last week, green tech companies coming to the city of Riverside. We had the grand reopening of T3 under new ownership and also want to again congratulate the California School for the Deaf for being the first school in Ward 3 but also the first state school in the country to be a Blue Zones project certified school. We also had the Midtown Classic Car Show. It was a great success in the Bronson Arcade, and we had a lot of people come out. And, yes, I did spend time in the dunk tank, got dunked three times. The softball players could really throw the ball really hard. And, finally, we're looking forward to another Sweet Moments of Midtown event. Join us on June 27th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Shadwell Park Pool as we celebrate America's 250th with a community pool party featuring free family fun, swimming, and treats. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Condor.

I love the deep voice.

ANYWAY, BEEN GONE FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS. LOTS HAPPENED. I WANT TO THANK MY FIELD DIRECTOR, FRANK, ALL THE WORK WE'VE BEEN DOING OUT THERE, BUT I DO WANT TO HIGHLIGHT A COUPLE OF THINGS. FIRST OF ALL, I HOPE EVERYBODY HAD A VERY BLESSED MEMORIAL DAY. I ATTENDED THE MEMORIAL DAY CEREMONY AT RIVERSIDE NATIONAL CEMETERY, WHICH IS EACH YEAR IS VERY EMOTIONAL, AND IT'S A WONDERFUL THING TO BE OUT THERE AMONG THE HEROES OF OUR COUNTRY. ON MAY 28th, I ATTENDED THE ATHENA AWARD LUNCHEON. And there was somebody who was recognized as the Athena, and that's our Mayor Patricia Locke Dawson. And congratulations. That is a high, high honor. So congratulations on that. Thank you, Council Member. June 4th, I was back at the cemetery for the funeral for retired police officer Kevin Schroeder. Kevin was an Army veteran, and he was on the... on the SWAT team here and served many, many years, just honored years. And it was tough to attend, but it was a good ceremony to send off for a great hero. The next day, June 5th, we had the re-grand opening of the Albertsons up on Troutwine. VAN BUEREN, IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TO THAT STORE, WOW, WHAT A DIFFERENCE. GO IN THERE AND SEE THE AMAZING THING THEY DID. JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE AS THE MAYOR SAYS, WHEN YOU CHOOSE RIVERSIDE, RIVERSIDE CHOOSES YOU. THIS IS ANOTHER GREAT COMPANY PUTTING A LOT OF MONEY BACK INTO THE CITY HERE. And then Saturday was the RPOA, Riverside City Firefighters Association, combined picnic out at the Orange State Historic Park. A lot of fun. They did a great job out there and got to see a lot of the firefighters and their families and the police officers and their families. So thanks for the invitation. It was a lot of fun out there. And that's it, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Hunter. Council Member Mell.

Thank you, Mayor. First, let me say thank you for your comments. We've had these conversations privately, and I'm glad that you expressed that publicly. Let me just say that I'm disgusted and ashamed about what that report showed. don't care where you stand on street vendors it's about upholding the law and from where I sit those folks use their position of power and abused it while wearing a city of Riverside logo and it's not acceptable and it's it's absolutely shameful I'm ashamed and you know as was pointed out none of those folks that are mentioned in that report work for the city of Riverside anymore, and that's a good thing. But it was absolutely shameful to see that, to prey on anyone in our community, especially the most vulnerable, is unacceptable, and they don't represent the values that I know that the folks on this dais bring, and they especially don't represent the values that I teach in my home. With that I also like to follow up on councilmember Cervantes comments regarding the May 29th May 29th was a was an awful day here in Riverside. I was actually out in Ward 2 at at the fire and It was awful and it was just absolutely awful to sit there and watch people's lives go up in flames. People coming up to me asking me about their pets that we're still in and it got so bad and that's why I got to thank our first responders because they do this every day. It was so emotionally draining for me. I had to leave because it was awful. It's the only words that can come to my mind. And as soon as I got home, I got a phone call from our chief to let me know that in my ward, right after the firefighters left that scene, there was another fire in Ward 5 where someone lost their lives. The firefighters left the apartment fire, went back to the firehouse, and immediately had to leave and go to another fire where someone had lost their lives. So I want to say thank you to all of our first responders for what they do because I just got a little taste of it for about an hour, and I was emotionally drained. I went home and just sat on my couch and just decompressed because it was so, so emotionally draining. So thank you, guys. I just want to say thanks to the Arlington Business Partnership and all the folks out in Arlington. We had another successful chili cook-off on May 23rd. Great turnout. All the smiles on the community's face. Really, really good job to everybody that was involved there. On May 26th, I was joined again by Councilmember Cervantes, her sister, and some other folks, and the community over at the Latino Network Celebration of Community and Justice Breakfast, recognizing our farm workers. Wonderful, wonderful event that morning. We had a great town hall at Vegas Park, good turnout, always good to hear from the folks out there. And then this past Saturday, got to do a ribbon cutting at Legacy Fitness, a brand new business in Ward 5 in the Arlington area. It's always awesome to see when new folks are embarking on a new adventure. And then like Councilmember Condor, I too got to go out to the barbecue, the picnic that the RPO and RFA put together in And it's just good to see our guys just be themselves, having a good time seeing their families out at the Citrus Park. It was a wonderful, wonderful event. Great job by Jason Alter and Mike Detoy and their organizations. A couple events coming up. June 25th, I will have a town hall at Arlington Library. It will be at 6 p.m. And then movies in the park are happening tomorrow. Now all of the city in Ward 5, there is going to be a showing on June 26, and it all begins at dusk. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Perry.

Thank you, Mayor, and I'll be relatively quick. Within the past two weeks, we had the Riverside Works Job Fair out at the Galleria. It was very well attended. A large number of people out there seeking jobs. And people can get resumes done. They did mock interviews. They did headshots for individuals. Our departments, HR and RPU, were extremely busy the entire time. This past week was a re-grand opening for Walmart there on Van Buren. The store is completely rejuvenated, completely remodeled. And if you missed it, you missed an opportunity to meet Tony the Tiger. So that's all I have this week. Tony the Tiger still exists.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'LL JUST ECHO THANKS FOR THOSE THAT TURNED UP TO SPEAK UP FOR THOSE IN THE COMMUNITY, AND ALSO THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS, MAYOR, AND THOSE OF THE COLLEAGUES, AND I SUPPORT THE DIRECTION THAT WE'RE HEADED TO RESOLVE THIS. JUST A FEW QUICK THINGS. All of us were at Vol 2 this morning. What a great ceremony and ribbon cutting. I want to also thank, pivoting over to the west side for our artist in residence program, our artist in residence, Mano, who worked together with our Terrace Elementary and Norte Vista High School students to paint a new mural in Rutland Park. great collaborative effort that turned out to be really an amazing project so if you get a chance please swing by Rutland Park and see that also thank you to the city staff who organized the every student deserves a bike program there Terrace Elementary It was just a phenomenal turnout, and it was a great joy to be a part of that and give away some well-deserved bikes. So thank you for all that put that together, including our community partners. This past weekend, as you all know, annually there's the Riverside Sailing Regatta at Fairmount Park, and I will say this every time. It's always great to win first place, one of one. That's more of like a challenge that maybe someone will turn up at some point and and challenge that it's really easy to win When you're the only one that turns up But it's a great program and it's always a fun and exciting event and then lastly I just want to talk about an event coming up at La Sierra Park Thanks to our Riverside Parks Recreation team uh we are going to host the uh we're going to kick off the the summer concert series um summer concerts at the park series at la sierra park um on june 17th wednesday june 17th um and the the concert will begin at 6 p.m but there's a special thing that'll happen after it's our first uh drone show um at 9 p.m., and it's going to be great. So if you have some time on June 17th in the evening from 6 to, I'll say 9.30 p.m., please go out and help us kick off this series and also enjoy a great concert and drone show. And that's all. Thank you, Mayor.

All right. Thank you. Maybe you could teach me how to sail, Council Member. Just real quick, I wanted to follow up on my comments. I had a question from somebody that said, isn't this what the Inspector General is for? That is not what this is. I'm not asking for an investigation. I'm not asking for an audit. I'm asking for a management consultant. This is different. This is a business person to come in and look at. AND REVIEW YOUR ORGANIZATION AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS ON WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN. SO I JUST WANT TO BE CLEAR ON THAT. LET'S SEE. WHAT DID I WANT TO SAY? REAL QUICK. LAST WEEK I ATTENDED THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS MEETING IN LONG BEACH. I did get to present on the Riverside Neighbors to Neighbors grant and talk about what a success that was. It was published in the Latino Alliance Playbook as a model practice program. I just want to let Councilmember Mill know that we're seeking money from Bloomberg to try to replicate that program in Casablanca. We'll see if we're successful. It was such a cool program to talk about. I know Councilmember Perry was INSTRUMENTAL AND COUNCILMEMBER HIM AND WAYNE MAKING THAT A SUCCESS. AND THEN I ALSO GOT TO SPEAK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF CITIES IN DESIGNING OUR FUTURE ECONOMY AND WE SAW THAT THIS MORNING WITH VOL 2. I GOT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR OPENING But just, you know, folks think our federal government, our state government drives so much. But really, cities shape, cities are shaping our future economy in more ways than people really realize. So I got to talk about that. And it was an interesting conversation with the mayors of Albuquerque. And I can't remember who the other one was. But anyway, that was an interesting conference. I want to introduce our new, is he here? Did he leave? He left? Oh, that's too bad. We have a new intern in our office from Pomona College, Jack. So he's here for the summer. So he'll be helping out in the mayor's office. And let's see, we've got two committee meetings coming up this week. We've got finance on June 10th at 3 p.m. And we've got mobility and infrastructure on June 11th at 1 p.m. That is all for me. So we will move on to item number three, our city manager update. City manager, do you have any updates you wish to give?

Yes, Ruby Castillo.

Welcome, Ms. Castillo.

Thank you very much, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm here again to provide my monthly update pursuant to resolution number 24310. So for the month of May 2026, 311 did not receive any community reports about federal enforcement activities. However, our PD did receive one. That concludes my update. If you have any questions.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Castillo. Anything else, City Manager? No? All right. Council, anybody have any conflicts of interest? Ex parte? They need to report? Okay. Perfect. All right. We've already addressed items 5 and 5A. So we will now move on to our consent calendar. City Manager, do you wish to pull any items? No, ma'am. All right. Council Member Falcone, word 1. Word 2. Word 2.

If I could pull item number 17, Mayor, please.

All right. Ward 3. Pass.

Ward 4.

Pass. Ward 5. Pass. Ward 6. Pass. Ward 7. Pass. Move to approve balance consent. Second.

Actually, Mayor, I apologize. Can I include 13?

Sure.

Thank you.

All right. Are you still okay with moving the balance of the consent calendar, the maker of the motion? All right. So we have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar without items 17 and 13. Please vote. All right. All right, well, we need to open public comment. Motion carries unanimous. I'm looking at our city clerk. Yes, we need to open public comment for item 13.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

Thank you. All right. Councilmember, would you like to address this?

Yes, thank you. I know we understand we had item 13 was on our consent last time. And so this is us was approved. And I will say at the time I this had not come to our committee for housing homelessness. And I had questions, but I ended up moving forward to vote. But I feel I need to abstain today. But I because I am looking and I will say we had a comment come in today from ACLU SoCal. raising questions and some concerns around this and um i have questions as well and so i i frankly this is a an item that we're gonna have to do a dive into so i i'd ask um i will won't get into that today i think looking ahead it's probably better we bring it back to housing homelessness just to make sure we can have a thorough discussion of it um and then figure out what implementation is going to look forward and what that data and items that is enlisted in here is going to include so Just for today, I don't know where my colleagues are, but I personally would like to abstain and then see in the future how we could just learn a little bit more of the intent of how this ordinance is to be implemented and what that impact could be in our community and in-house community. Thank you.

All right. So was that an abstention on the item, but was it a motion to take it back to committee?

Yes, I would like to. I mean, I don't necessarily think I'll make that request as the chair regardless, so I don't have to necessarily do that now, but I just wanted to at least make my comments for the item.

Okay, thank you. We have received no requests to speak on that item, so we will close public comment. And, Council, we can vote on both items 17 and 13. We'll note that Council Member Cervantes is... Abstaining from 13.

Well, for 17, I have this separate idea of questions for that one.

No, no. I'm saying we're going to take them together, but we're going to note that you're abstaining on 13. So now we're going to go to item 17. We will open public comment for 17.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right, thank you. Council Member? Thank you. Yes, and seeing this item, it is a request for the members of the public from our police department regarding an agreement to move forward with purchasing or upgrading our body-worn cameras and software licensing for all body-worn in-car cameras, storage, miscellaneous accessories, and warranty for a five-year term. And I wanted to just get clarification if we could have a representative from police department on this item and had a couple questions. My understanding is this is going to allow for us to have an update which would incorporate AI. Is that correct?

Good afternoon, Council. Eric Meyer with the Police Department. Yes, it would include AI.

Okay, thank you for that clarification. Thank you for being here today to answer questions. I guess my questions and, you know, there's been a lot of sensitivity, as you can imagine, as we're seeing evolution of AI and it's being incorporated into local government. And how are we going to be preserving the data to assure that it's protected? I don't know if you could speak a little to that.

Yes, we do have an AI policy before we adopted and allowed any AI to be used for police reports. And our policy currently follows state law, which includes that any time we use artificial intelligence to help draft a report, we have to save a copy of whatever AI generated. And we will retain that for the life of the report, however long we have that report for.

Okay. And so for access and retention, how are individuals able to get access? And, you know, we had passed an ordinance here tied to protections of our undocumented communities. And just knowing that in there, there was language about essentially individuals needing a warrant. Let's say if it was federal agents or agencies wanting to request access, would that apply to this? Or how does that work?

So the AI for this piece, for the body cameras, is used to help officers write a police report. So the body camera would have the ability, or the system that it's downloaded into, would have the ability to transcribe and then summarize that and help an officer start with a police report. An officer still has to review it. There's an attestation process for it. So that's all these body cameras would be used for in terms of AI.

Okay. Does it, and I guess I'm curious, does it apply, is the process for retention, so are we going to have this be something we keep on file for 60 days or 30 days or a year, or do we have an estimate?

So currently our retention schedule and our policy is that when officers record a video, they're supposed to tag it for a criminal event, non-criminal event, accident recording, something like that. Anything that is tagged criminal would be retained for a minimum of two years unless needed for longer. and anything that's a non-criminal event, we would retain for 18 months, unless we needed to retain it longer.

Would there, I understand, and I don't know if this is finalized, but I understand there's been some state legislation that has shifted for the flock cameras that it would reduce the timing that we retained that data. Do we know if this would potentially apply? I think that was looking to adjust the timeline you mentioned. I think the average is a year or two years for criminal, but it would reduce it. I think it's to six months and non-criminal three months. Do we know if that would be applicable to this as well?

This isn't related to Flock, and it wouldn't be capturing any of that data. It would just be capturing a video of what the officers are seeing. So I can't speak specifically to how Flock would impact it because the two aren't related.

Okay. But in terms of access to the information, again, we do have a process in place, and this is an information that could just be turned over to, let's say, our Riverside County Sheriff's Department or, again, federal enforcement. There's warrants or different things that are needed in the event they do need to access that for, let's say, a criminal investigation or things like that.

Yes, we would follow the same process and procedures that we have in place currently.

Okay, thank you. Well, I really appreciate the clarification. Thank you for that.

You're welcome. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilmember. I don't have any requests to speak for item 17, so we'll close public comment. And we will now move on to consider voting on items 13 and 17, if someone would like to motion. I have a motion, word five, second, word six, to approve items 17 and 13, noting an abstention for item 13 for word two.

Motion carries unanimous as amended for item 13 with an abstention. For more two.

Thank you. All right, council, we are now at our discussion calendar, right? So item number 22. Okay. Okay. So this is to approve a request for an agreement with all city management service regarding our crossing guards program. And this is multiple decision points here with MOUs with RUSD and AUSD. So we will open public comment for this item.

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call 951-826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press star 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

All right. With that, I have Diana Palato to give us a staff report. Ms. Palato.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council. My name is Diana Palato, Public Works Principal Management Analyst, and thank you for the opportunity to discuss the City Crossing Guard program. Today I'll be reviewing the history of the program, results of the request for proposal, and review the agreements with Riverside Unified School District, Alvord Unified School District, and the private entity. Historically, Public Works performed the oversight for the crossing guard program. There is an existing agreement with all city management system services that is expiring on June 30th, 2026. The vendor is responsible for scheduling and staffing for the crossing guard locations determined by the respective school districts. These costs are shared by the school districts and the city receives reimbursement through the memorandum of agreement. Currently, the agreement includes a staffing for 87 guard locations, and the MOU also includes full reimbursement for summer school. Since the existing agreement is expiring, we issued an RFP, which is bid number 2528, and 246 vendors were notified. During the RFP process, it was determined that ACMS was the most qualified company. ACMS has over 41 years of crossing guard experience. They are a California-based company currently serving dozens of agencies throughout Southern California. This agreement is for three years and exercising the two one-year options with an expiration of June 30th, 2031 for $9,124,546. This program includes crossing guards for Alvord and Riverside Unified School Districts and one private school within city limits. That is for 90 unique crossing guard locations as determined by the school districts, includes management, recruitment, staffing, training, coordination, scheduling, oversight for full service crossing guard services. The city manager and school districts agreed for the city to pay 45% of the cost for the schools in city districts would pay 55% for the schools in the city. Any future guards added will be fully reimbursed by the districts. And we have the table there showing the five years. And closed are the recommendations for this. Any questions?

All right. Let me see if we have any public comment for this item. No callers, so we'll close public comment. I've received no requests to speak in chambers. We do have a request to speak by Councillor Cervantes.

Yes, thank you. Well, thank you for the presentation. And just happy to see this come back and for us to have worked with the school districts to come to an agreement move to approve.

All right, we have a motion word to second word six. Please vote.

Motion carries unanimous.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Palato. All right, council, we are now adjourning to closed session, and I will call on our city attorney, please, to announce closed session items.

We will now adjourn to closed session to discuss items number 23 through 33A.

All right, thank you. And just to note for the public, there is no evening session tonight, so just to let you know about that. Thank you.