City Council - Regular Meeting

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Riverside City Council meeting for this is July 7th and this is a very special council meeting where we get to get a new council member so it's very exciting. We don't get to do that too often so it's a fun night for us too. So what I'm going to do is start the meeting with a pledge of allegiance. I would please all ask you to rise. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. So I will call the meeting to order. I'm Mayor Patricia Lackdawson, and this is a special meeting. So I am going to start our meeting with public comment, but here's the deal. Public comments tonight are not general public comments. Public comments are just to comment on matters only on this agenda. So anything on this agenda, because it's a special meeting and there's two items on this agenda. So if you want to speak to either one of those, we'd like to hear from you. But otherwise, there is no general public comment tonight. So with that, we will open public comment.

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. First up, we have Aurora Chavez. Welcome, Miss Chavez.

I know this is a special meeting. Let's see this little book. It says the Constitution of the United States, I should be able to speak publicly here at this meeting. But I'll wait till July 14. If I have to, I will do that. I'm so happy that Luis Hernandez won. We have representation now, which we didn't, we kind of had representation, but now we will officially have representation. Yay, Luis, thank you. I hope it will change, eventually have changes going on. This is the best opportunity to do changes for the better of Riverside. I can't bring it up because you wouldn't want me to bring everything up, but there are things that we did in the past in Riverside that we don't do anymore, and we should because that brings up PR in Riverside and pride in our city. So hopefully we can talk about this on the 14th, which I'll go ahead and let you do, and I'm so happy to see Sabrina Cervantes here and all the dignitaries here. If it takes that to bring you down here, I'm happy. Thank you, Ms. Chavez. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Next, I have Errol Kosiewicz. I think he left. Oh, he did? Okay. Then after that, I have Janice Ruths. And after Janice, I have Nancy Jimenez.

Welcome, Ms. Ruths. Thank you. Janice Ruths, for people who don't know, most of you do. Mission Grove. Congratulations to both Sabrina and Louise. We're very excited about that. As you go forward to tonight, have a closed session about the interim city manager and then eventually, obviously, a permanent city manager, I would like to put a few things on your mind. First, I would like to commend the mayor for planting her flag firmly on the housing hill. and being vocal and open about it. And I know you all care about it, but I would like to recommend that some of these things, maybe the interim city manager could get started, or the new one, when you go to select a new one.

And maybe it'll be.

First, I'd like to ask for a RHNA dashboard. Knowing there are things in the hopper and we can't see what that is, you know, we're complaining about a report that's at least months behind from the state, but we don't know what you're working on. So show what's done, show what's in the hopper that might be done, show that by ward, and then we can see what's going on, and we as community can even help.

We're not your adversaries. We actually want to help.

And then the second thing, which is something that you'll probably hear me do again and again and again, but the mayor being part of the big city mayors and still head of it, is public banking. We are digging ourselves in a hole if we do not seriously look at public banking. It is one of the ways we get leverage to do the things we want to do. I've heard developers in general plan meetings in here just for information saying, I wish there was funding. We can do that. And on top of that, a public bank is an income, a revenue-producing type of activity. And so instead of increasing taxes, we could just make money. And then the last thing is, I know that the interim city manager, I think who's gonna be, already has a big, huge full-time job. So I hope you're all deciding to give him a little bit more compensation for the work he's about to undertake.

Thank you very much, have a good night. Thank you, Ms. Roots. All right, next up I have Nancy Jimenez.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. I just want to congratulate the city of Riverside. You have an amazing steward of goodwill who's going to be joining the council. I can't tell you enough how happy I am to congratulate Luis Hernandez. This room is full, and it is telling of the 50-plus vote that was decidedly handed over by the constituency of Ward 6 and what a great and historic day this is. So, congratulations, Luis. We look forward to your steadfast support of your community, and congratulations, City of Riverside. You got a good one.

Thank you, Ms. Jimenez. All right, I have no more requests to speak, so we will close public comment, but I will take this last one. So, this is our last public comment. Don't go anywhere, sir. Who is it? Pete? Pete. Pete. Pete. Pete Benavidez. Come on down.

I'll just talk right here.

You've got to get in front of the mic, Pete.

All right. Congratulations, Louie. You know. I remember a few years ago, we were at, I believe it was Nicholas Park, for a Braver Angels meeting. And that was shortly after Louis announced his candidacy. And even at that point in time, people recognized him. Gosh, I'm thinking about in the last 24 years, this is only our third council person in Ward 6. It was an interesting campaign. I know everybody chimed in, including you folks in the dais. We all had our favorites and our picks and our choices. And Ward 6 has finally spoken because Their pick meant a lot. A homegrown guy who loves this town, who loves his neighborhood, got elected. And was the only person who was successful, as you know, this past June. November comes. And I'm wearing a shirt because November is my favorite month of the year. And good luck to all the candidates. Best wishes to you. And again, Louie, congratulations. Looking forward to you as you represent the ward for the next four years and who knows, maybe beyond. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Benavidez.

All right, not that I don't think public comment is exciting, but now we're on to the very exciting part of our agenda, which is our discussion calendar. And we will, let me ask our city clerk, we have a public comment item for this as well, or did we just do that? We did it. Okay, thank you. So this is tonight, this is to adopt a resolution reciting the fact of the general municipal election held and declaring the results thereof of June of 2026, June 2nd, 2026. Council, does anybody have anything they'd like to say, like as an emotion? Okay, well, do you want to say something, Don? Well, we have a motion and a second.

If you want to just move on. You can waive the staff report, Madam Mayor. Just approve staff's recommendation.

All right.

Okay. Motion and a second to approve staff's recommendation. Okay. Thank you. There was a second? Okay. There was a second, yeah. All right. Wait, she's got to run. She has to run back so she can get your votes.

Motion carries unanimous.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Now, item number three on our agenda, we will swear in Honorable Councilmember-elect Luis Hernandez for Ward 6. And his oath of office... His oath of office will be administered by Senator Sabrina Cervantes of the 31st Senate District. Senator, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Please raise your right hand. I do solemnly swear.

I do solemnly swear.

That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the State of California.

The Constitution of the State of California.

Against all enemies foreign and domestic.

against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion

And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter.

Discharge the duties that I'm about to enter.

Congratulations, Councilmember.

Yeah.

Council Member, would you like to say a few words?

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it. I want to start by thanking everyone here this evening and to all those watching who couldn't make it, thank you. As I look out into the room, I'm overwhelmed with, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude with all the individuals who are here tonight and their support. This race, this journey wasn't just about a race. It wasn't just about city council seats. As my friend Nancy put it, I think, best is this turned into a movement. that brought a lot of people together from different wards, different organizations, unions, community groups, leaders who all had a desire to make a positive change here in Riverside. wish i could sit here and thank everyone who was a part of this but we'd be here all night and i don't want to do that to you my first city council meeting answer the people up here on the diet i want to start by you know thanking a few people obviously diana my partner You were there from the very beginning. Even though you were a little scared at first, she was like, what are you thinking? What are you doing? But after an explanation and a couple of days, she was like, did you see what you know who said about so-and-so? And I was like. Babe, give me the phone. But she devoted a lot of time and energy into this, and she helped get it started, and she was there to the very end knocking on doors with us. I want to thank... my children for being mature and understanding of what we were trying to accomplish. I want to thank my old friends, Beto and Stella, who never hesitated to rally community leaders behind this movement. I want to thank family and friends who contributed and helped so that we could get this campaign off the ground. I want to thank all the tireless volunteers who dedicated so much of their time. Mireya, Annabelle, Edgar, Genesis, James, Maribel, and so, so many more that I couldn't name all of them tonight. I want to thank all the community leaders, Yolanda, Gilberto, Supervisor Jose Medina, Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, State Senator Sabrina Cervantes. Your endorsement and your support sent a clear message to the people that we care about this community and that we're on your side. As the underdog in this race, I couldn't have done it without all of you, without the community. You invested a lot of time, energy, and more importantly, your trust. And I take that very seriously and will do my best to keep my promises and follow through with

everything that we did in the campaign so thank you so much everyone for being here tonight wow okay um thank you councilmember hernandez we are so excited to have you join the dais and We are going to have to steal him for a bit because we do have to go into closed session and then y'all can party after he comes back and gets to do his first official business as a council member. So thank you. All right. Council, we will now adjourn to closed session and I will ask our city attorney to please announce our closed session items.

We will now adjourn to closed session to discuss item number four and all information required by the Brown Act is set forth on the agenda today. Thank you. Thank you.

We will return after closed session to adjourn. Well, good evening everybody welcome back from the council has returned from closed session and Tonight are we're now at item number five Which is our communications and I am going to ask our mayor pro tem from previous mayor pro tem service to please report out on closed session item and

Thank you, Mayor. The City Council has decided to appoint Edward Enriquez from acting to interim city manager effective immediately.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. And now we will... What's that? We need to... What? Oh, the vote was unanimous. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So that leads us to the close of our meeting. And our next regularly scheduled meeting is next Tuesday, July 14th. We will see you then. We're adjourned. Thank you.