City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right. Good evening, everyone. We'll go ahead and get started. I am Mayor Pro Tem Steven Robillard. I call this meeting to order. The Mayor of Patricia Lock Dawson and Councilmember Steve Hemingway are unable to make it tonight, so I'll go ahead and be leading tonight's meeting. First, we'll go into our... invocation, and I'll go ahead and lead us in their invocation. Bow your heads. Heavenly Father, thank you for the privilege of serving the city we love. Thank you for the people of Riverside who have entrusted us with this responsibility. Your word tells us that if we ask for wisdom, you give it generously. So tonight we ask for your wisdom. Help us to lead with humility, to speak with grace, to listen with open hearts, and to have the courage to do what is right, even when it is easy. Remind us that every decision we make affects real people, families, businesses, children, seniors, and those who simply want a safe and hopeful future. May we never lose sight of the people we are elected to serve. Bless this council, our city's staff, our first responders, and everyone who calls Riverside home. And above all, may your service reflect your love, your justice, and your mercy. We pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to our first item, which is public comment.

If you can go ahead and play the recording, please. 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.

Okay, we have our first speakers, Aurora Chavez.

Good afternoon, everyone. Spam is rising, and they're calling people saying that they won money. That's a lie. Know your address. You better be careful. Let your neighbors know that you're being contacted by strangers. And if they need to call the police, to call the police for them. There's been information about purchase cards and I've been coming over here telling you about ever since 2023 about the Arbor Grant finishing up back in 2003 about the COVID-19 and that the seniors need help and to have lunches at the other six senior centers, not just once a month, but throughout the week. Then I see all these purchase card information being thrown about. Some think of it as the expense. I'm thinking of it as reserve money, restricted reserve money that could be utilized for what the residents need. also too i've been going around riverside i've noticed a lot of empty business spaces we need to fill up those business spaces we need a campaign to bring in business to riverside so i hope our city council and and our economic development people will get together and start working on a campaign to bring businesses back to riverside thank you very much thank you next speaker is earl koshevitz

I want to post this today. I'm asking for my President of the United States to submit martial law to the criminals in California. I'm looking at the City Council of Criminals. Martial law needs to happen to save America. We're under the fall of communism. Communism is not good. Like I said, you're all Democrats up there. You've all ran under a democratic way of life. Communism is not good. Can you flip over to the second page? Thank you very much. Now, can you make it a little bit bigger? if you can well i'm going to discuss yet make it make it a little bit bigger now these are purchase cards provided by the city of riverside to riverside city employees there you go you can bring it down a little bit more okay thank you very much perfect that i'm gonna get you a raise now uh... i want to mention some of these purchase cards today because this is very annoying to me the city provides all the city employees not all i don't know i got to go through it i got so much with the county and the city going on right now but i want to mention a couple of them i got a minute 30 left my council member i want to mention him up there for personal reasons sean mill got a ten thousand dollar purchase card since 2024. Now, I asked public records from the city clerk's office to provide me bank statements of this purchase card. Can you flip over the third page? Now, if you put this up here, now, this is Sean Mills' purchase card, his bank statements from this purchase card. now they're redacted now I asked I have everything pertaining to what I've asked so far has been redacted now if you provide public funds to city employees for whatever I don't care what you provide them for but I have the right to see what you guys are spending it on Now, this was a $10,000 purchase card. I have many more in there. $100,000 for Jennifer McCoy is redacted. I have them all redacted. So I asked public records as a taxpayer, what are you guys spending this money on? What are you hiding? That's what I'm asking you for. I want to know what you guys are spending this money on. So I'm going to be requesting, is it a safety issue? I sent that question already in. What are we spending the money on? That's what I want to know from you guys. You can look down all you want, but like I said, martial law has to take effect to put you criminals behind bars. Thank you very much.

Okay, next speaker is Richard Miller.

Mayor, City Councilman, may you remember me from last month when I came over here to discuss about the project that we're doing over there on Mission Boulevard. Now it's beautiful that you guys put that center divider in there and it's two foot wide that you put it in there. But here's the problem. The problem is that you guys only had a little bit of room. So if somebody has a bicycle that wants to go through there, there's no way we could go through there safely. Now, it says on our website, Riverside website, that you guys are very on for safety. You're safety first for bicycles. You've made a nice bicycle lane on Brockton. Beautiful, beautiful. You know, I love it. But if somebody wants to go down Mission Boulevard, come from Rupa Valley, and come over here to downtown Riverside, there's only two ways that we can do it. either go around Rubino Mountain to the park through that way or you go through Fairmont Park and come around that way so you can have it safety. So we can no longer go through or you can go on to the sidewalk which is really not permitted because in the state of California in order to do that it has to be able to say that you can go on that sidewalk. So, we really need to look at this situation. Now, I don't know if you remember when I brought up this last month, that when you were making this divider, I had told you about how Irvine did it, and I was in the project of doing that, and they only made it six systems wide, because they had to redo it, because of having problems. So this is a problem that we really need to look into because I've looked on the website various ways on Riverside website and it specifically says that you guys are really keen on safety, especially with bicycles. And I know the state of California is too. So we really need to look at that and change it so bicycles can be safe as they go through there on Mission Boulevard through there. Now the other thing that we need to look at is from Redwood to Pine where you have that left turn lane in. Because we have a lot of traffic on Mission going through there, it's because you guys took a lane out and made it a left turn lane. So you need to look at that and take that left turn lane out, and that will eliminate the traffic so bad on Mission Boulevard. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, that concludes our public comments. We have no callers online. We'll now go ahead and move on to item number two, which is Mayor and Councilmember Communications, and I'll go ahead and call on Ward 1.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. The summer concert series at Fairmont Park has been very successful. The drone show was very successful at 4th July, and I know we have some folks from Parks who made that happen, so we show our appreciation to them. But the concert series continues back at it tomorrow, every Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the band show, so please come and enjoy that. The Downtown Area Neighborhood Alliance meets at 7 p.m. Monday the 20th, this coming Monday, at the Isaac Walton Building at Fairmont Park. We will actually be discussing Redwood Drive, University Avenue, the traffic intersections that just seem to always give back in more ways than we would like them to. That will be the part of the conversation on Monday if anyone would like to come and join us at that. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

All right. Thank you. We'll go ahead and move on to Ward 2, please.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. For us in Ward 2, we had the 24th Annual Backpack Drive Giveaway Resource Center that took place over at Bordeaux Park this last Saturday. So I want to thank all the groups that helped to contribute to that. I do also want to mention that we will have coming up in the coming weeks two more backpack drives, one by our Riverside Faith Minister group and then also with our Lincoln Park Neighborhood group. So we will have those flyers out soon to you all to share more information. And I did just want to take a moment to acknowledge the pain that there's a lot of us in the collective feeling. There unfortunately were two deaths that took place in different states, Lorenzo Salgado and Joan Sebastian Guerrero, who unfortunately were murdered. And just want to share that, you know, we are receiving and hearing comments from community that are in fear, that are continuing to be afraid just because of color of our skin and going and showing up every day to work and Just want to acknowledge that we hear you, we see you. And again, if you need support resources in Riverside, my office is available. But just want to take a moment to recognize those that we have lost. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you.

Go ahead and move on to Ward 4. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Been a busy week. Field Director Frank and I working with the issues with the citizenry. Just one thing I do want to highlight. I joined Council Member Falcone and Council Member Robillard last Friday at the grand opening of the California Indian Nations College. Right down there, the heart of Ward 1. Thank you, Mr. Falcone, for inviting us down to that. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go ahead and move to Ward 5.

Thank you, sir. On June 25th, myself, our Assistant City Manager, Gil Hernandez, and our Homeless and Housing Director, Michelle Davis, we went up to San Jose and we toured some of the homeless prevention things that they're doing up in San Jose. We're going to be working with... OUR INTERIM CITY MANAGER AND STAFF TO BRING SOME OF THOSE IDEAS HERE TO RIVERSIDE. WE DON'T NEED TO REINVENT THE WHEEL, FOLKS. WE NEED TO SEE WHAT'S WORKING ELSEWHERE AND ALSO WHAT'S NOT WORKING ELSEWHERE AND WHAT'S NOT WORKING HERE. SO MY OFFICE IS COMMITTED TO DOING THAT. On June, again on that same evening, came back here, was here in Arlington. We held another successful community connection meeting. And then last week on the 8th, for the first time, we had the NAACP Unity basketball game at Hunt Park. And it was a collaboration between RPD and the NAACP Youth Association. organization. A wonderful event, well attended, and we are hoping to have it out in Ward 5 again next year. Some events that are coming up this Sunday at noon, probably get there a little earlier, we're going to be hosting the World Cup Final at Vegas Park. We'll have a beer garden. We'll have food trucks. We'll have vendors out there. So it's a community-wide event. Hopefully everybody will come out and celebrate the world's game with us. We will be presenting to Inside Arlington, which will be held at CBU at 730 on July 21st. On July 23rd, myself, I believe Councilmember Hernandez will be joining Jose Medina to tour County Farm Road and the facilities that they have serving our community that kind of cover both Wards 5 and 6. And then I'll be having a town hall at the Barnes Family Youth and Innovation Center on July 30th. Real quick, I just wanted to, you know, if we don't answer some of these people that come up and make comments at the podium, you know, as if we're seating it as if it's true. You know, I noticed Mr. Kosowitz just spoke and ran because, you know, he doesn't want to hear the truth. So he just, you know, puts on his little shtick and runs back over to the county and pulls the same thing over there. But my office provided Mr. Kosowitz with all the statements that showing where all the money that we have spent has gone. He knows that, but it doesn't play into his narrative. So he likes to come down here and put on a little show for the people and get a little giggle from everybody where he's wearing his Trump 2028 hat and basically trying to spread misinformation. But just so the community knows, my office provided him with all the documentation that he asked for, all of the bank statements that he asked for, and I'm happy to provide them to anybody that wants them. There's nothing to hide. Now, I'd like to, Ms. Chavez, talking about vacancy. Well, let me just say, when I took office, the vacancy rate in Arlington for commercial and businesses was 11.4%. Today, it's 4.8%. In Ward 5, when I took office, the commercial and vacancy rate was 5.2%. Today, it's 1.8%. Since I took office, there's been 235 new businesses in Ward 5. and there's been 50 in Ward 5 alone. So facts do matter, and anybody who wants to know the facts, I'm more than happy to provide them to you. We have the numbers. That's what's happening in the city. Businesses are coming to our city. They are not leaving in droves. Don't believe what you read on the Internet. That's all I have for now.

Thank you. I'll move to Ward 6, please. I'll pass.

Okay.

All right. Ward 6 will pass, and I'll go ahead and give us updates on Ward 3. We recently celebrated the grand reopening of the Nichols Park Playground. Thank you to our Parks and Recreation Community Services staff for their work to deliver this exciting improvement to our neighborhood. A lot of things are happening at Nichols Park, and so I'm excited that we're spending some money there and refurbishing the park, and I know the residents really love having that new playground. And finally, this past weekend, I was at a conference with a lot of folks from across the region, including our education partners, our government partners, and talking about bringing advanced manufacturing jobs to our region. There is a lot of exciting stuff that is coming our way, and a lot of federal support is also on its way to help promote jobs in advanced manufacturing in our community. So very, very excited to be part of that event. And with that, we'll go ahead and move on. And I want to announce that we have the Housing and Homelessness Committee at 3.30 p.m. on Monday, July 27th here. And that's in two weeks. And we don't meet next week for City Council according to our summer schedule. All right. We'll go ahead and move on on our agenda to communications to item number three, which is city manager updates. Pass. No updates to city manager. And I'll look to my colleagues. Is there any declaration of conflicts of interest? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and move on to our presentations, which will have our first presentation will be. Number five, Parks and Recreation Community Services Department overview and employee recognition. And I'll go ahead and ask for our Parks and Recreation Department Director to come up, Pamela Guerrero.

Hello, it's my pleasure to be here. My name is Pamela Galera and it is my distinct honor to lead the Parks, Recreation and Community Services team. Today we are proud to celebrate Parks and Recreation Month and recognize the incredible impact that parks, recreation, arts, transportation and public spaces make on the quality of life in Riverside. Since the City Council first proclaimed July as Park and Recreation Month in 2018, the Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department has proudly partnered with the National Recreation and Park Association to highlight the essential role parks and recreation play in building healthy, connected, and resilient communities. This year's national theme is the power of parks and recreation. It recognizes that parks do far more than provide places to play. They strengthen neighborhoods, improve physical and mental health, create opportunities for lifelong learning, and preserve our natural resources and foster a strong sense of belonging. As our nation celebrates our 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Riverside is also incorporating this historic milestone into community events throughout the year, celebrating civic pride, community engagement, and our shared history. Throughout July, residents have and will experience the power of parks and recreation through the Summer Concert Series, two successful drone shows, Movies in the Park, Summer Splash, Star and STEM Day Camps, swim lessons and recreational swim, youth sports, senior trips and tours, Rec2Go mobile recreation, and community events and activities taking place throughout our park system. These programs create opportunities for residents of every age and ability to connect, stay active, learn new skills, and build lasting memories. During this past year, our department continued to demonstrate the power of PARTS through the recreational programming offered at 14 community centers, and that includes three senior centers, seven pools, and over 60 PARTS. We have over 200 part-time summer staff, and we're very proud that 80 of them are returning. So the kids go away to college, and they come back and work for us during the summertime. It's a great job skill. We've expanded youth sports, adaptive recreation, camps, after school programs, aquatics, and senior services. We continue to invest in nearly 3,000 acres of parkland and trails. Our transportation services keep seniors and individuals with disabilities connected to their community. Arts and Cultural Affairs programs supported over 100 community events and film permits. And the Festival of Lights this year is expected to be better than ever as we collaborate with our new partners, Yaha Viyatam of San Manuel Nation. These services collectively support healthier residents, stronger neighborhoods, environmental stewardship, and a greater sense of community. So our parts division has been very busy. They have managed projects that continue to improve parts throughout our system. We opened the Pickleball Complex at Arlington Park. We will begin construction on the Gage Canal Trail very soon. And the east side is being transformed. with a full renovation of Patterson Park and a new construction of the Odell Roberts Gym at Bordwell Park. Bobby Bonds Park will be reborn with a new library, a full renovation of the Cesar Chavez Community Center that will serve as an art center with input from the community about the name. We're going to renovate the skate park and do major renovations to the Sippy Woodhead Pool there at Bobby Bonds. We continue to work on the master plan for Fairmont Park and are looking forward to having more community input this fall. But we're still making improvements at Fairmont Park, such as the rose garden, the university wash improvements that are being paid for by the flood control district, the armory, and more pickleball courts. playgrounds are the heart of a park and the heart of the community. We have fully replaced nine playgrounds with two more to go and replaced the rubberized surfacing of over a dozen playgrounds. Well, we're going to be busy this fall applying for grants. And just to let you know, we are going to be applying for grants for Fairmont Park, for the vacant land at Mission Ranch Park in Ward 4, for a new pool at La Sierra, And for the Nichols Community Center that we envision will serve as a deaf cultural center with a resiliency center that will not only be a demonstration of sustainability, but will also prepare and support our community in times of disaster. We're also applying for additional grants for the Martha McLean Amzaneros Park that is a very important step of putting the river back in Riverside. We're also looking at a new grant for heat effects and looking at cool parks for health and wellness, putting shade in our parks. So none of these accomplishments would be possible without the continued support of of yourselves the mayor and the city council and our community partners volunteers and dedicated parks and recreation community services staff who work every day to make riverside a healthier and more connected community. Thank you for your continued support and for recognizing the power of parks and recreation. And at this time, we are pleased to share with you our 2026 Park and Recreation Month video celebrating the many ways that parks strengthen community.

Every day across Riverside, something powerful happens. Neighbors connect. Children discover new passions. Families create memories. Elders stay active and engaged. That's the power of Parks and Recreation. We create spaces where people come together. Our community centers welcomed nearly 1.8 million visits this year. Each visit represents an opportunity to connect, participate, and strengthen our community. Play builds confidence, creativity, leadership, and lifelong skills. More than 47,000 program registrations connected residents to recreation opportunities across the city.

Our pools have served over 30,000 residents, developing life-saving water safety skills.

Community is strengthened when people have opportunities to gather and celebrate. Through the arts and culture and recreation divisions, Riverside creates shared experiences that foster civic pride, cultural appreciation, and a deeper sense of belonging. This year, our parks team planted over 650 plants, including native species, added nearly 80 trees throughout the city, and improved more than 5,000 feet of trail in Sycamore Canyon. Mount Rubidoux welcomed more than 1 million visitors, creating more access to recreation, wellness, and connection to the outdoors. Strong communities ensure everyone has opportunity to participate. More than 3,100 scholarships helped remove barriers to recreation and enrichment programs for local youth and families. Parks and Recreation contribute to the overall well-being of our community. This year, Riverside Connect provided more than 67,000 rides for seniors and adults with disabilities. More than 4,200 food boxes were distributed to residents in need. Through Spark of Love, more than 1,000 children received holiday gifts. And Adopt-A-Family matched a record 51 local families' generous donors. The power of parks and recreation can be seen throughout Riverside in healthier residents, stronger neighborhoods, and public spaces where people have opportunities to connect, grow, and belong. This is the power of parks and recreation.

Thank you.

We are so proud of the work that we get to do, and many of our members are here in the audience. And so at this time, I'd like to recognize an exceptional employee whose leadership, innovation, and dedication truly exemplify the power of parks and recreation. During the department's Employee Service Award held on May 27, Victoria Koo Young was recognized as the 2025 Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department Employee of the Year. Victoria joined our department in 2021. and quickly became an invaluable member of our team. She played a critical role in launching and operating the Bourns Family Youth Innovation Center during the COVID shutdown, helping establish meaningful programs and services during one of the most challenging times for our community. Since then, Victoria has continued to lead the development of innovative STEAM and STEM programming, creating engaging educational opportunities that inspire youth and families throughout Riverside. Through her creativity, leadership and strong community partnership, she has helped transform the Innovation Center into a dynamic destination for learning, exploration and innovation. Victoria is widely recognized for her professionalism, her positive attitude, collaborative spirit, and unwavering commitment to public service. She consistently goes above and beyond in serving both our department and the residents of Riverside. On behalf of our department, We proudly congratulate Victoria Koo Young as being named the 2025 Employee of the Year and thank her for her lasting impact as she continues to strengthen our community every day. Congratulations, Victoria.

You want to say anything?

I will say thank you, and none of this would be possible. I would not be the employee that I am without the support of my coworkers and upper management and city management and council. So a team win for everybody, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Well, I think the council members have a few things they'd like to say, and then go ahead and call on Chuck Connery.

Panel, your director, your staff, and you are amazing. You know, I've said for all my years here, our parks are the haven for those that can't afford the Disneyland and those kind of locations.

They're safe. They're beautiful. We've done a lot of work on them.

You know, I came from a very small town, almost Mayberry RFD, almost pretty close. And, you know, we'd grab our bikes and our bats and our balls and get out of the park all day. And all of my moms would say, be home before the lights come on. but they knew we were safe at our parks. And I feel the same way about them now. And right now you are working on fixing another one of ones in Ward 4. We thank you for that. The people are waiting anxiously for that to be redone. And, again, to all the staff, to all of you, keep up the great work because this is where our kids can go. And we know they're not on the street doing bad things, getting in trouble. They're at the parks or they're having fun. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And go ahead and move on to customer.

Thank you. Yes. Echoing and building off that. Absolutely. Our parks are a safe haven. I love the emphasis in the presentation, the power of parks. You all are a powerful piece of our community. One of the things I always love to hear are the generational stories. So just know that. i love to see you highlighted in a share you know the impact you had and covet being mentioned and um just you know look where we are today but again you you all are truly having an impact every day on children families parents adults seniors um but thank you for doing great work and for making our park such a special place for us all to go across the wards in the community of riverside

Thank you and I just want to also mention this thank you for all your work on especially Nichols Park. We're getting a lot of work done over there and the idea of having the Deaf Cultural Center including our Deaf community as part of our parks programming was a win for them. I know they've been working on having a space for themselves and their community for a long time so I'm really excited about making that happen so thank you for your work on that and I want to go ahead and present you a certificate. If you want to invite you and your staff could come down here in the well. We'll go ahead and do the presentation. You guys are all welcome down here. I think we can fit all you guys.

We'll try.

Thank you. Do you want to take a picture?

Yes.

All right. We'll go ahead and move on to item number six, which is also parks related, and we're going to have the next presentation be from Rich Casford in recognition of the Riverside Live Streamers. Rich, go ahead and come forward.

Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and city councilmen and women. I am Rich Casford. I'm the city liaison for the Riverside Live Steamers who are located in Hunter Hobby Park. We have been there since 1966, taking over the railroad operation that was developed by Joe Hunter in the early 50s. And we are thrilled with the support that the city of Riverside has provided. the park and the railroad all these years we provide twelve to fifteen thousand rides a year to citizens of riverside at no charge in the surrounding areas we have had fourth generation train writers you can think about that We've had people continuously coming and some of the staff in the audience have mentioned to me when they've come out to the thank you lunch that we hold once a year that they used to come out and ride the trains when they were kids and now they're working for the city of Riverside. So on behalf of the the 140 members of the riverside live steamers we want to thank the city of riverside for continued support of a very unique recreational opportunity and as councilman Connor mentioned it's free. And we run second and fourth Sunday of every month, weather permitting, because if it's 110 degrees, most people don't want to sit around on a train car and go around the park. And most of our engineers do not want to sit on a steam locomotive at that kind of temperature. But we are looking forward to another 60 years. And remarkable changes in that park. When I joined the organization in 1970, there was a loop of grass around the outside edge, and the center of the park was dirt. And now you come out there. It is absolutely gorgeous with the remodel that you folks did in 2008 and 2009 with new sports fields, new restrooms. It was mentioned about playground equipment. Ours is themed. We actually have a Western theme and a train theme in our playgrounds. We have picnic shelters that are used every Sunday when we're there. And the nicest thing is it's now a destination park for families instead of a hangout park for people that didn't have anything else to do. but again i want to thank you the city council the citizens of riverside for allowing us to continue operating the railroad and we look forward to many more years of train rides thank you

Thank you for that presentation. And I know our council members have a few words I'd like to say. Council Member Condor.

Yeah, Rich, thanks. You know, that annual meeting we have out there is always one of my favorites. To you and all members of the live steamers, that you're showing the young people basically what steam did to help produce this country. And it's amazing that little train, what it can pull. And that steam is – it's amazing to watch that little machine run. Yeah, you guys do a great job in teaching the kids again. STEAM helped build this country, and they'll understand what it takes to run it. You guys, it's awesome. I love going out there every year. I'm looking forward to the next one. So keep it up.

Thank you so much. It's a love of all of ours. But more importantly, it teaches, like you mentioned, it teaches kids how this country was developed. If we didn't have railroads, we wouldn't be a country that we are today. Railroads really built the country. Absolutely. And they still do, even though the only time people think about railroads now is when they're delayed at a crossing and they're late for work. But railroads provide a lot for our American economy.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you all. Thank you.

Thank you, and I know for my son, he's four years old, and we read the book for bed, Hello Riverside, and the Riverside Steamers are in that, and he's always asking me, why are they sitting on top of the trains? And I explain to him, there's the small little ones that we can do at the park, but he loves the train ride there, and it's one of those unique things that very, very few cities have this kind of opportunity, and making Hunter Park a A destination park, as you said, is a really cool thing that we have. And so if you'd like to come down, you and your colleagues will go ahead and take a picture with us.

Okay. Yeah, I have over 100 years of seniority coming with me today. I claim the biggest one. I have 56 years of seniority. Yeah, I started when I was 18, and I have been coming out here before the Pomona Freeway was built because I live in Whittier. Come on.

I think I'll just jump in and take over.

Yes.

So item number seven, we are going to thank our Mayor Pro Tem for his duty. And we didn't think it was kind of good to have the Mayor Pro Tem give himself a plaque. So as the most prior Mayor Pro Tem, I have asked if I could do this. We want to thank Council Member Robillard for his six months of service. He spoke and is the speaker for the council. He did a fantastic job numerous times, including today, filling in for the mayor when she's out of town. And as a spokesman for the Riverside City Council, he has done it with honor. He has done it with professionalism. And we have a little plaque for him to thank him. So this is recognition of the Mayor Pro Tem duties from January to June 2026 to Mayor Pro Tem Stephen Robillard from all of us and from the mayor. So, Stephen.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Emeritus.

City Clerk, do I need to make a motion to appoint our new? Okay, I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Clarissa Cervantes, Mayor Pro Tem.

All right. Hearing a first and a second from Ward 1 to make Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes as Mayor Pro Tem serving from July through December 2026. Go ahead and vote.

Motion carries unanimous.

All right. Congratulations, Member Pro Tem Cervantes. We'll go ahead and you'll do as we start next meeting. All right. Thank you. All right. We'll go ahead and move on to our next item, which is a workshop for item number eight. And we'll have updates to the Brown Act pursuant to Senate Bill 707. And I'm going to call on Susan Wilson from the city attorney's office to lead the workshop.

Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor Pro Tem and City Council members. This is going to be a brief presentation on some more updates to the Brown Act. This is the same presentation we have been making to all the boards and commissions, and it relates to SB 707, which was signed into law in 2025, and it clarified some things in the Brown Act relating to social media, teleconferencing, serial meetings, and public participation. First of all, regarding social media, there's been a lot of attention paid to this. The one thing to be cautious about is that the law clarifies that you can still post things on social media You can respond directly to someone's social media post. You just cannot respond to where the entire public can see the post. So if you, for example, a Facebook post, if you post something on there and another council member does a thumbs up publicly, that would be considered to be a violation of the Brown Act. So just be very cautious with your social media replies. Secondly, there still is the ability, and the law clarified this, that you can meet with staff on a one-on-one basis if you want briefing on particular items. The only thing to be careful about is that the briefing cannot include how other city council members feel about a particular issue, because that would be considered to be a serial meeting. Again, public has the right to address during public comment anything underneath our subject matter jurisdiction, and the law now requires that there be allowed to do it through two-way remote access beginning July 1st, 2026, and we've been doing this for a number of years. Public speech, we can ask that people fill out speaker cards and that they give their name or sign a register, but we cannot require them to do so. And this now applies equally to the people that come to speak in chambers and the people that are on the phone. I just want to remind you about that. And then remote participation. There are two different ways that you can participate through teleconferencing. I just want to remind you about that. Traditional teleconferencing is where, for example, you're on vacation and you wish to teleconference in from your vacation location. Here are the requirements. You have to post the agenda outside your teleconferencing physical location. Each teleconference location has to be listed on our agenda. The teleconference location that you'll be participating from, it has to be accessible to the public who could come and also make public comment from that location. At least a quorum of you must be present in chambers or within the city of Riverside, and all votes must be by roll call. We can't do electronic voting, so that just means oral votes. and then there has been some clarification regarding remote participation for just cause again there must be at least a quorum of the elected body participating in person you are required to give notification to your body that you are going to be appearing remotely but it can be as late as just before the meeting You have to turn on both your camera and keep your audio on and because this body meets at least twice a month for 12 months, you can do this for five times a year. And the meeting minutes must disclose the reason to participate remotely. And here, there's been an expansion of the reasons. I won't read through all of them, but it's expanded to childcare, contagious illness, physical mental conditions that are not a disability, and the remaining ones, these are in your pack. And we also gave you a one-sheet primer in case you have any questions regarding these. And then if you have a disability that prohibits you from attending a meeting in person, this is an ADA issue and you have an unlimited number of times that you can do so. The only requirements are that you have a two-way audio and video, again, participating both with your camera on and audio. Before any action is taken you have to disclose if there's any adults over 18 with you at the remote location and again there is no limit on the number of meetings that you can do so but you do have to have a disability that qualifies under the ADA. We're not allowed to ask what the disability is, we just document it to make sure that

you're appropriately taking advantage of this and with that we ask that you receive and file this presentation on these updates to the Senate bill 707 and happy to answer any questions all right thank you Susan for that presentation and I don't see any comments from our colleagues so we'll go ahead and move on and we'll now move on to our consent calendar and I'll ask the city manager if he has any items he wishes to pull

No. Pass. All right. Ward 1.

Pass. Ward 2.

Yes, just a moment. There's one item.

Do it.

Pull item 31, please.

Okay. Ward 2 has pulled item 31. Ward 4. Ward 5. Ward 5.

Like to register a no vote on item 16 and abstain on item 18 as it pertains to my real property.

OK. Ward 6. Pass. And Ward 3 is passing.

Do I hear a motion? Motion to approve.

Second. All right. Motion to approve. Second. We're pulling item 31.

Just one moment. I'm trying to make sure I didn't have one item I need to recuse from. Just a moment. Just triple checking. No, we're good. Thank you. Apologies.

Okay.

All right. We'll go ahead. And with that motion, Ward 2 is pulling Item 31 for further discussion. Ward 5 is registering a no vote on Item 16 and abstaining for Item 18. Go ahead and vote.

Motion carries unanimously as amended.

All right. I will go ahead and move on to Mayor Pro Tem Cervantes to discuss item number 31.

Yes, thank you so much. And I did want to ask, thank you, Parks Director. I'm glad, happy you're here. You know, this item I've been excited about, of course, for us to see us get to work on creating this, the Gage Canal Multipurpose Recreational Trail Project. And I just wanted to ask, because I did hear from some members of our University Neighborhood Association members, and wanted to kind of ask what, and I see that the grant came, I think it was originally like 22, 23. We needed some time. The bids came back originally too high, so we had to do some changes. What I understand is I see this being listed as a phase one, and then it has a good breakdown in the report of what and how the funding would be broken up to. My question is, where did we, did we go out into the community to get any input from some of our residents or community groups that use these trails actively? And if so, what did that look like?

Yes, Council Member Cervantes, Pamela Galera, very happy to speak with that. We did have quite a bit of community input. It was required for the grant applications, so it has probably been a little while. Okay. Because as you mentioned, we did apply for grants quite a while ago. We believed that we were fully funded. We bid the project that came in too high, and then we went out and got additional grants. So there was a robust community input process, but it's been a couple years.

Okay. And did we ever bring this to the Parks Recreation Commission or any other groups for input in the last year or two?

We have, and I could look up those dates. Yes, we have.

okay because i i was i heard from my rep my commissioner just wanted to check in um and i i know that i heard from a couple other residents and one of the things i just wanted to ask is if we were able to move forward today um are we able to still go back to some of the groups um specifically una and uh even i know one or two maybe our ucr clubs and groups that use these trails a lot just to make sure that what council approves is still in par with what They're looking, and if there was any feedback we could have, minor changes or adjustments, is that something we could still consider?

Absolutely. We would be happy to do that. Okay. Their input would be very welcomed.

Okay. Wonderful. And I know it's phase one, so I did let groups know. So hopefully it will be a phase two and others to come down the line. But, of course, we never want community to feel that they weren't part of the process, and so I wanted to see just to check in on what that timeline looked like. And do we have to spend this money by a certain date or time?

There there are deadlines.

Okay.

Do you know the deadline for this one and I don't know that off the top of my head Okay.

All right well if they I'm comfortable before that today just with the caveat if we can still go back to our university group and check in with them and make sure that we get Any feedback? I think some were raised about the trails and how safety security and now that's gonna be managed which I think we can still mitigate and discuss the future with our pants team and our Riverside Police Department where appropriate and but I did want to raise, you know, just a couple questions I got in kind of the final hour. But with that, I'll move to approve. Just would love to still work with you and our team to bring you out to our community groups.

And I'll work with your staff on connecting with them, but we did consider safety in the design.

I trust you did. Thank you. All right. Have a great day.

All right.

We'll go ahead and open public comments for this. 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.

Okay. No, I have no public comments in chambers or online. We'll go ahead and move to the votes.

Motion carries unanimous.

All right, thank you. I will now go ahead and move to the discussion calendar, which is items 40 and 41, and we'll go ahead and open the public comment for the discussion calendar.

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, title number 40 is the Park Riverside Downtown Valet Program six-month update, and we'll go ahead with a presentation by Eric Liu.

Thank You honorable mayor pro tem Robillard and good afternoon City Council and see the city leadership Eric blue Public parking services manager. I'm here to present today the six-month update on the Park Riverside downtown valet program Please note today's presentation was prepared for the July 14th City Council meeting. It was postponed to today So you see the date here is incorrect The overall report and presentation continues to be relevant, though. And however, actual data will be verbally cited throughout the presentation. Just a quick background on November 4th, 2025, City Council number one approved the agreement with Ace Parking to operate a six-month pilot program for the Park Riverside Downtown Valley Program. And there are two one-year extensions for this program. Number two, you authorize the city manager or designee to execute the agreement, including making minor, non-substantive changes and contract extensions. Number three, conduct a public hearing on amending the city's master fees and charges schedule. Number four, introduced and subsequently adopted an ordinance amending the RMC, Chapter 3.30, Section 3.30030. And number five, adopted a resolution approving the proposed amendments to the fiscal year 25-26 Master Fee Charges Schedule. And six, direct staff to return to the City Council with a status update of the program by the sixth month of operation for future considerations. And that's what we're here today to talk about. So during the last six months we've been very, very busy. From November 2025 when you approved the pilot program to March 2026 we did a very extensive marketing and promotions campaign. This included a couple of businesses downtown that were generous enough to host the soft launch, Club Riv and Australia Cantina Lounge. We were very appreciative of those business owners to open up their facilities and to allow us to operate in front of their facilities and demonstrate how the valet program actually worked. City dignitaries, city stakeholders, city leadership and management and staff were in attendance. Mayor Lock Dawson was also gracious enough to offer her time to help create a social media post to promote the valet service during or for the State of the City event at the Riverside Convention Center. And the months of March, February through March, we did major adjustments to the valet program. This was based on business and consumer or customer feedback, the valet station performance, traffic patterns amongst the downtown areas, and other areas of observation. So during that time we made some significant changes. We moved from a five valet station locations to down to three. We removed Sunday evenings and we moved to Friday and Saturday only and we shifted the times from, I think we started, if I'm not mistaken, 4 p.m. and we shifted all the way to 7 p.m. and we operated all the way to 3 a.m. The three core valet stations, as we call them, Station 1 is right next to Tilden Coil, which is southbound Orange Street, south of Mission Inn Avenue. Station 2 now is in front of Estrella Cantina Lounge on westbound University Avenue. And Station 3 is operating in the Cal Tower Alley, which addresses the westbound University Avenue traffic and the eastbound Mission Inn Avenue traffic. There are event stations that we operate as well and station one, the one next to Tilden Coil is our flex valet station so we will shut that one down and move it to where the event is located. Most events are either at the RMA and that operates on northbound Lemon Street just north of Mission Inn Avenue and also at the Fox, westbound Mission Inn Avenue, west of Market Street. And then the third one, which we really haven't operated yet, is the Convention Center, and that's westbound 5th Street, east of Main Street. And then we have some non-standard event locations, but that depends on the events, and... Many of those that we operated are during the day, during the weekends. The program has not been successful during the daytime. And to share why, based on our observations, based on usage, we're fighting against daylight. When it becomes nighttime, people are uncertain where to park. A lot of people are coming from outside the area, and they are not knowing where to park, and they feel uncomfortable. So when they see valet, it's safe, it's convenient, and it's simple. And at daytime, they know where to park, they feel comfortable, so we're fighting against that. So, we're not going to operate during the day in the future. That's pretty clear after six months of operation. Fiscal impact, still a work in progress. As we mentioned in November, we didn't anticipate this program to be a moneymaker. Our goal was to make it cost neutral, and we're working on that still. If you look at the numbers, the budget was $334,000 and some change, and we anticipated the revenues to be $144,000, and with a net loss of $190,000. Well, we were a little off on both aspects. When we projected out back in May, when I had the numbers, we were anticipating expenses to be about 272 with revenues down at around 38,000, sorry, and with a net loss of 234,000. The actual numbers after June included is actually a little bit better. We had expenses down to $258,000, and our revenues were about $44,000, so with a net loss of $214,000. Now I know it's not on the screen here, but that's pretty much where we anticipated the program to end. Now it's not something that we wanted to be at and we don't anticipate it to be at, but because this is an enterprise fund, we can absorb those costs. And as we look at it, it's an operational cost to deliver a higher level of service. okay so this is where we get really excited about the valet program because these are the intangibles to the downtown community and to the visitors we sent out a survey through the help of the downtown riverside downtown partnership they sent it out to all the bid members of the businesses that participate in the downtown bid From that, we were able to gather quite a bit of data based on valet. So when it came to awareness of the program, 91% of the businesses that responded to the survey were very aware, or at least aware or very aware of the Valley program. And I think that speaks to the marketing efforts that were made publicly and on the Auto Center sign and also social media posts that we had. The next step, though, to take it to the next level is to get the businesses to participate in, which we haven't done so far. The other question we asked was, what's your customer experience? Is it affecting them in a good way? And 67% have indicated that their customer experience has improved, which is really remarkable that people are actually sensing that this is actually a value service. The other question we asked was based on access and convenience. So we asked, have your customers felt like this is making your business more accessible and is it more convenient? And 80%, when you add up the significant impact, moderate impact, and minimal impact, 80% of the businesses said that Valet has impacted their customer access and convenience to their business. This will be later discussed in a press enterprise article that I will share. The next question was to impact, and this is the real fun part, is has this impacted your revenues? And 60% of the businesses have said their revenues have increased at least 5% to over 10% since the Valley program was implemented. I don't know what we do in the city to impact things, but this impacts the downtown community. Now, how does that translate into tax revenues or anything? I can't tell you. I wish I had that granular information, but I could tell you if the downtown businesses and the customers are feeling positive about it, I think we all should be feeling positive about it. So obviously the media feels positive about it because we didn't even ask for anyone to write anything about it. But I know of four publications that have written articles about parking or the valet parking program. And one one was the Press Enterprise. I know it's a little hard to read this, but this was taken directly from the Press Enterprise article and they actually came out to one of the Fox venues and they actually took pictures, talked to the customers that actually used our service. I was astounded where people were coming from. L.A. City, L.A. County, Orange County. I think we all think that it's just Riverside County. It's not. We touch the whole Southern California region. That's exciting to me because that's where the growth is at. We're doing something right. But what people love is that they love seeing valet these these three people that were quoted here are women and they were coming to this event and they felt and this was at night okay so let's make that clear this was at night they were looking for parking and they could not they didn't know where to go but they saw valet right there and they said oh yes that's what i'm going to use and so that is when you read their their comments It's about convenience. It's about safety. It's about simplicity, making their experience great. And that's where we're taking parking at this point, is making the experience great for anyone that comes down here. And that's the future of parking. It's not just valet. Valet is a small part of it. It's the way finding. It's helping people find and go parking and find ways to park at a discount rate, which we'll talk about another time when I come back. So the next step for us is business participation. This is something that you guys approved in November, and we do have people that are interested in it, we just haven't had anyone actually sign up for it. And what it is is basically a business validation. So they could buy validations for valet at a discounted rate, and they could self-promote the service. And we have this already structured, ready to go. We just need some people to do it. Now, I know Palenque and Estrella's, no, sorry, Estrella's, Palenque and Mezcal, they want to do it. They just haven't done it yet. But we anticipate more people will do it, and that's our next step is to start talking to the businesses. OK, so the program will be budgeted in our enterprise fund. It will be part of the downtown parking operation. So to reduce costs out, it will be combined under that program. So it won't be a standalone piece of parking concepts incorporated, which is the current contract for downtown and ace parking operating the valley, it will be one contractor. And that will happen in January 2027. So recommendations that the city council receives and files a six-month update on the Park Riverside Downtown Valley program. And this concludes my presentation on the Park Riverside Downtown Valley program. I will be available for any questions and or comments. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for the presentation. We'll go ahead and see if there's any public comments.

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, seeing that we have no callers online either, I'll go ahead and go to our council deliberation and Ward 1, Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Council Member Robillard. Thank you, Eric. I know this was a lengthy process and has been very detailed, both from the downtown partnership side of things as well as the public works side of things. And I will say anecdotal evidence, of course, but I have not received any complaints or concerns from businesses or customers in the downtown related to parking in the evenings. Now, of course, I hear about parking issues during the weekdays all the time, and I know that's not when the valet operates, and I hear what you're saying about the fighting, kind of the daylight, and I recognize that. But I think for the anecdotal evidence for what it's worth is that it seems that people are pleased with the operations of it. So I see it's a receiving file, so that's the only comments I really have. I don't really have anything additional to add to that. So thank you, Councilmember.

Alright, thank you for that. And yeah, seeing as the receiving file will not call for a vote, so we'll go ahead and move on on the agenda. And we'll go to item number 41, which is the implementation update of a recently adopted amendments to chapter 9.60 of the Real Estate Municipal Code, which establishes liability for extraordinary police and fire department responses to certain emergency incidents and dangerous properties. I'll go ahead and ask for the public comment recording to play.

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, so I'll go ahead and call on Chief Brian Gazzetta to go ahead and give a presentation.

Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem, council, city staff, Brian Gazzetta, your deputy fire chief. I'm here to give you an update on the implementation of Riverside Municipal Code Chapter 9.60, the extraordinary responses to certain emergencies, incidents, and dangerous properties. So to refresh your memory, Municipal Code 9.60 has been established for a long period of time, and it typically or historically focused only on police incidents and police false reports. Back on 10-21 of 2025, Council approved an amendment to the ordinance that then included to continue to include police, but also add fire and community and economic development services and responses. So if we remember what the purpose of this municipal code is, it's when certain properties or businesses repeatedly generate emergency calls for service, those responses can exceed the Riverside taxpayer's reasonable expectations of part of the normal public safety operations. In these situations, public safety resources including police, fire, ambulances, code enforcement, and building department services may be diverted from other critical emergencies in the city to address reoccurring issues at a single property. To address these circumstances, the City Council adopted the amendment to establish a mechanism for the city to recover costs associated with extraordinary responses to certain emergency incidents and dangerous properties. So this ordinance is broke down into the various departments. I will be speaking on the fire department and I have my colleagues from the police department who will speak on theirs. So the changes to the amendment or the amendment to the chapter included a definition of what emergency incidents were and what extraordinary fire service responses. It also highlighted responsibilities for the fire department. The first of which is that we track repeated fire and EMS responses to these properties. We identify incidents that meet the extraordinary fire service threshold. We provide incident data and operational analysis. We assist with determining response costs. We support the city in addressing properties that repeatedly require emergency services. So there's two data sets within the ordinance that the fire department tracks. The first is excessive false medical alarm responses. And that is where there was response of fire EMS crews to five or more false medical alarms within one year period. So false medical alarm is where a resident at a property has a medical device that they either activate inadvertently or that when we arrive, it was the system that malfunctioned. So when crews arrive on scene, they find that there's no medical alarm. The second data point that we follow and track is repeated medical response or emergency responses to a single location. And this is the responses of fire and EMS crews to the same property or business five or more times within a 30 day period. As a fire department, we track physical addresses. So this is when we go five or more times to a single address. So to break down the data for each of those two data points that we follow, the first being the five or more false alarms within a one-year period, false medical alarms within a one-year period to a single location. There is one address within the city within our data set that we've responded to 54 times. Now the one thing I need to point out to you is that this data set is not an entire year. It is only from 6-11-25 to 3-19-26. 3-19 is significant because that's when we were tasked with putting this report together. And 6-11, historically the fire department never tracked false medical alarms. So once this ordinance was implemented, we then put that as a data point that our crews tracked on their reporting system. And so we have an abbreviated portion of data. But during that period of time, there was the one property, 393 10th Street, that fire crews responded to 54 times, in which they reported that there was a false medical alarm. The second data point that we look at is responses of fire and EMS crews to the same property or business five or more times within a 30-day period. So the table that you see before you captures a one-month span as an example. Obviously, these properties and the amount will vary from month to month, but to give you an idea of what one month looks like, this is a 30-day period starting January 29th and running through February 28th. As you can see, there is a list of properties that include Path of Light Shelter, the Illumination Foundation, Family Services, RCC, the Galleria Tyler, the Jail, the Sobering Center, Pacific Grove Hospitals, CBU, UCR, Franklin Residential Care Facility, the Jefferson Point Apartments, Riverside Community Hospital, Poly High School, ETS, Target, the Vita Dialysis, Sierra Villa Apartments, and the Neighborhood Health Clinic. In total, those vary from 18 responses in a month to the five as the threshold, with a total of 160 responses. And once again, that is just capturing one month, which would obviously vary from month to month. So with that, we broke that down a little bit farther for you to give a better perspective of what impact this does on the fire department. So when we're looking at the response of fire EMS crews to a single property, five or more times within 30 days. If you look at that top table, it shows what I broke down for you is our five units that are most highly impacted by going to the same property multiple times. That's Squad 2, Squad 1, Engine 4, Engine 3, and Engine 1. Of those 160 calls, they captured 101 of them. Of note, those five units are our five busiest units in the city. So multiple calls are impacting the units that are already the busiest and the most impacted with call volume. If we look at the table on the bottom, it'll break that down to specific time frames. So we see Squad 1, Engine 4, Engine 2, Engine 3, and Engine 12. We broke those down by the amount of time in a month that they actually spend on those calls. So we have 2,062 minutes. And then we could do the hour conversion in the next slides. So with that, we were asked to see what the projected cost of this issue could be on the department. Our fire department typically does not charge for services. So the cost per hour is what we utilize for our fire department. agreement that we have with our JPA. So these are the same costs that we charge Riverside County and the JPA when we respond per hour is broke down by squads, engines, and trucks. Those take into account the number of personnel and the equipment. They also take into account the impact on our dispatch center. So when we look at the repeated emergency responses to a single location, cost per hour impact, we see that in that one month, it's roughly $30,000 of impact for just one month. And then if we look to the table to the right, we see that that is the excessive false response for those false medical responses. And if we do that same based upon that fraction of a calendar year, it was nearly $5,000. And when we estimate that out for an entire year, it's right around $9,000 is the projected impact cost. And with that, I will hand it over to my colleague for the RPD portion.

Thanks, Chief. Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem, honorable council members, city staff. Captain Brian Crawford with Riverside Police Department, and I'm here to give a similar update, but from a police perspective. In order to do so, we have to go over a couple definitions in the RMC 9.60 that pertain directly to the police department, where emergency response is defined as the dispatch of one or more police officers to a business or property for a disturbance at the property, excluding alarms. Extraordinary response is three or more police officers and a supervisor to a single emergency response or a second emergency response to the same business or property within a 30-day period or a third emergency response to the same business or property in a 90-day period. Under 9.60 the police department is responsible for tracking the repeated police responses, identifying incidents that meet extraordinary police service or response, providing incident data and operational analysis, assisting with determining response costs and supporting the city in addressing properties that repeatedly require services. Incident tracking currently We do our best tracking it through our Motorola RMS Premier One CAD system. We typically run a particular address when complaints arise of nuisance activity, which generally come through our area commanders. The system's not designed currently to run blanket searches based on the criteria within RMC 9.60, and doing so is pretty labor intensive for our staff. So for some statistics from the police department, the response of three or more police officers and a supervisor to a single emergency response, we collected data from January through March of 2026, and 474 calls matched that criteria during that time. Of those, 39 locations had two or more such responses, and 11 had three or more within that three month period. Some of the addresses that were included are the James Apartments, the Galleria, Hooper Royale, et cetera. You guys, I believe, received all that. The other criteria we're asked to track is a second emergency response to the same business or property in a 30-day period. We had 3,028 calls that matched that criterion in that same three-month period. Locations with at least 20 responses are listed here, again, including the Galleria, RCH, the Shoe Store on Magnolia, Food for Less, Altura, our own police stations, Parkview, you guys see, et cetera, Canyon Crest. The third criteria we're asked to crack is a third emergency response to the same business or property in a 90-day period. We had 1,489 calls that matched that criteria during the same period. Locations with 40 or more responses are listed below. RCH, we went 102 times. Galleria, 85. Altura Credit Union, 79. And the list goes on. Just like the fire department, we're asked to calculate cost. This was done by listing the cost by rank or position that responded to these calls. And also on the right-hand side, you see what a single response per hour would cost for three hours, a sergeant, and that dispatcher to a call, which would be about $693 an hour. Again, these are rough estimates. They're based on top-step salary within each job classification and helicopter hourly rates based on fuel and advertised maintenance costs. Our current procedure is complaints of suspected nuisance properties are received from residents or city officials. They're usually vetted by our area commanders who are lieutenants who work under the community services bureau. If deemed valid, the area commander works with the owner or occupant to mitigate or resolve the conditions generating such responses, which can include implementing a safety plan or other mitigation measures. If the activity persists or the occupant is uncooperative in resolving, cost recovery for extraordinary responses can be initiated with the assistance of our city attorney office. This ensures the owner-occupant is given fair warning and assistance in resolving any issues. Assessments are appealable in accordance with RMC 1.17.400. I think I'm supposed to turn back over to Chief Gazzetta here. With you. Thank you.

We can just close with our recommendations that you receive and provide input on the implementation and the amendments to Chapter 9.60 of the Remissable Code related to the extraordinary response to certain emergency incidents and dangerous properties. Both of us are here. Welcome for any questions.

All right. Thank you, Fire Department and Police Departments. And I'll go ahead and move on. Do we have any callers online? No callers online and no requests to speak in chamber. I'll go ahead and move into council deliberation. I'll call on Council Member Falk County Ward 1.

Thank you, Council Member Robillard. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Captain Crawford. It's great to see Captain Crawford in City Hall. Chief, we skipped slide 16. I wanted to see about the automation. That one wasn't discussed, I don't believe. Can we talk... this is talking about what could be done for automate not whether it be captain or chief either one just how then because part of the question i'm going to be asked is about this automatic tool that we can be flagged when a certain property or address exceeds that threshold that's outlined by the by the municipal code yeah so currently our system does not automatically flag and it's not um

There would have to be major changes to our current computer system that we have. We have to manually search an address, and then it can automate from there, but it's not something that, or we can draw a report from there, but it's not something that's automatically flagging us ahead of time, which is why we rely on all our community relationships we have out there with the council members and all the community meetings we go to where we learn of problem addresses. And I can't speak for the fire department on that, but that's how the police department's currently handling it.

The fire department is similar. Remember, we look at it in two perspectives. One is at the conclusion of a month for the one month. So at the conclusion of a month, we can run data to see if there's anything that exceeds those thresholds. And the other is in a year. And so at the end of the year, we can run that similar report to see if anything hits those thresholds. Once again, no automation, but not a difficult report to run otherwise.

Okay, thank you, Chief. I asked for this item to come forward because, number one, I think as a data tool that is valuable to us, that in a perfect world, should be able to ask the police or fire chief, what are our three addresses of greatest need or greatest calls for service in the city, both for police and fire? And there should be a relative understanding of what those three are. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're billing them, that we're fining them, but I think we do need to, for the sake of awareness, know what some of those more challenging or service-heavy locations are. So that was really why I was hoping for some kind of, in today's technological world, figuring out a way that once a certain address exceeds that threshold of calls, whether it be four for police per month or five for fire per month or whatever it may be, that there's a that it's flagged and almost goes into a separate bucket that we then examine for if it warrants seeking to recoup some of those expenses because really the thing for me is not so much about the money side of it which of course is beneficial to recouping some of our costs it's more so about in particular when it comes to the fire department Addresses, locations, residents who are really abusing the services, of course, we will respond and we will assist those in need, but there are addresses, and it was visible here, I know quite a few in Ward 1, that frankly, it's an abuse of the system. It's a constant 911 call for things that are trivial and unnecessary. UCR dorms, this is a big problem for Station 4. It is a constant call of these students for things that You don't need to call 911 if your stomach hurts. These are certain things that it's just an abuse of the system. And the taxpayers, the larger taxpayers, are being stuck with that bill, and I think that's wrong. So I think that was what I was trying to get at with this. I think maybe thinking on it some more might help, but figuring out if we look at it at the end of the year, if we look at it at the end of the month, What would, from both of your maybe individual perspectives, separate from what we see here, what do you think would be a way, is it the end of the year, Chief, that we look, we go back and we do a, because I know RFD doesn't have analysts like the police department does, right? So it's largely would be on each of you to pull those numbers.

Definitely, definitely. Yes, we do not have an analyst to do this, so that falls on myself or EMS division to follow this. Oftentimes, by the time you hear something at the end of the year, that's 12 months to try to fix a problem, and that's a problem that has occurred for 12 months. So oftentimes, we try to fix problems before they've been lasting for 12 months. We do have... systems that give us these updates. I do believe that the municipal code, when it references individual addresses, as you can see, the fire department goes to locations that house a large number of people and a large number of sick people. That's where we go routinely. And I don't necessarily believe that that is the intention of the municipal code, so I think we could refine that. We will always go to UCR, to Poly High School, to Target, just because they have a large number of people that routinely go to them. That is where, at the end of the month, we can then refine those numbers to actually see what is the reason we're going to those. especially on the emergency medical side, we have our EMS division seek why is a patient needing to go to the hospital? Is it an adult protective service request? So it is information that's valid. Currently, we're using it more as an educational piece to the facilities to understand why these problems are occurring, how we can address them on the individual and at the address level.

Captain Crawford, do you have anything to add in terms of what would, some of these if it wasn't for me talking to police officers or firefighters i wouldn't have known of some of these uh issues in ward one of some of these problem properties not because of my lack of being involved with my other lack of residents telling me things just sometimes we don't know that there's this many calls at an address and it just happens from talking to our officers and our firefighters that they were that they that i am aware of it but but so without that it would just continue on

Yeah, and looking at the data here, most of the addresses we're looking at are large retail businesses, apartment complexes, hospitals, things we're always going to have to go to. 4747 Harupa has hundreds of apartments. We're going to have hundreds of calls. And again, like the fire department, we're always going to go As far as to your point, I'm going to speak candidly as when I was an area commander, my greatest information I got was not necessarily from the data that I would review each day, but more so from the community meetings we went to where somebody would, maybe they hadn't called 911, but they say I have a problem and then we're able to look into it, address it that way. And we had great success and we did some nuisance properties that way as a result. But yeah, I guess if we had a mechanism to flag things earlier, it would be beneficial, certainly for the area commanders to address, identify the problems before they're brought to their attention by the community members when they're already fed up. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. Thank you both. Thank you, Council Member Robillard.

Thank you, Council Member Falcone. Council Member Mill. Thank you, Mayor Portem.

First, thanks, Councilmember Falcone, for bringing this forward, and thank you, Chief Gazzetta and Captain Crawford, for the presentation. As we saw from the statistics, why this is on my radar is that you look at, in the fire department statistics, stations 2 and 12 are right at the top of the stations that these resources are located. going towards, you know, and then with RPG statistics, you know, the Magnolia Corridor. Look at time and time again all the properties along the Magnolia Corridor. And this tool is actually the extraordinary response has really helped us take receivership of currently one of the motels along Magnolia and hopefully more to follow. But why this is really important to me is that I don't think that our residents should be expected to continually subsidize these problem properties. The property owners themselves should take some of the responsibility. It shouldn't be a burden placed upon the residents when it's just a handful of properties time and time again where we're seeing the problem. And, you know, we're using the data. And I like, you know, because I noticed you, Captain Crawford, you talked about particular addresses. You know, we're looking at hospitals, schools, you know, other places like that that generate high call volumes. It's a huge apartment complex. We understand that. But then there's just one particular, you know, property. You'll see an ordinary number of calls there. So I think by using the data and having the data where we can show, I think this is a fair process. And, you know, also we're trying to work with the property owners. We're going to bring the data to them saying, hey, look, you've had X number of calls. This is, you know, time and time again. We're not trying to use this as a – to bash people over the head, but the statistics are the statistics. So, you know, this is, you know, our goal here is solving the problems and, you know, not generating revenue. As Council Member Falcone mentioned, it's not about the money. But it is also about the money, is that, you know, we see our resources in the city, our fire resources are stretched thin time and time again. It's just a few, like in my area, Station 2, Squad 2 is out dealing with just a few handful of areas, you know, handful of properties time and time again. And those are taking resources away from our residents. Just same with, you know, our PD. They're spending so much time on just a few properties along the Magnolia corridor, taking away, you know, when folks call, you know, I called PD and they haven't gotten here yet. Well, because we're time and time again dealing with the same properties over and over again. So I love this tool. I do think that we should be going after these problem properties. It's been a tool that's worked for us, like I said, with motels along Magnolia. We're starting to see some success there. But it's not fair to the residents who, you know, the taxpaying residents, when they call for our services, you know, the response times aren't as good. So, you know, keep up the good work. You know, keep the data coming our way. We need to see, we need to identify the properties where the problems are and, you know, deal with that. So thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Mill. Council Member Cervantes.

Thank you so much. Yes, and thank you for the report. Definitely, it's very helpful for us to understand the costs associated to the responses here. Did want a couple clarifying questions and maybe some input, but the first I would say is I wanted to also get the distinguished, because when I saw originally a list of group of ones that had the excessive calls, I saw Path of Life up top, and I'm like, oh, God, we're not going to be trying to go after, right, our nonprofits and partners now that are we we obviously understand why there's you know higher calls for those locations so um i appreciate it a little further in the report it says you know that there are some that are inevitable so for ones that are inevitable like hospitals and like the shelters um we're not going after those groups right or expecting them to have to pay when we have to respond correct

We're not going after anybody, Councilmember. Okay. That's not us. Just triple-checking. No, we're just showing the data, and that's why flagging is difficult, because you still have to look at every call and see does it qualify, and was it a necessary call or was it an unnecessary call?

right and that's where i think with all of course i assume with those it's like we know they're very likely necessary calls and so um uh just make you know think that's the important thing is distinguish and i guess i wanted to get a little clarification because while it didn't come to council there was one item that went recently to planning commission um that was very public about a downtown business and excessive calls for service and whether a renewal of a permit um just it was a downtown experiment i see your confused face And one thing when I took the liberty of just taking a look at the attached reports to the backside where I know I had questions was there was the parking garage behind them and certain activity that took place there. And then even other activity on Lyme University in front of on the public sidewalk where maybe some interactions or things took place. It wasn't in their business. It wasn't, you know, and even some of them were outside operating hours of their business, but they were tied to the report of calls for service to that location. So how are we making sure? I think my thought when I saw those was how are these tied to the built, you know, which I know there were some other things I think were tied specifically to them, but I felt there were add-ons that I couldn't see the connection. And I think that's where we're raised by, I think other members of the public, even other local small businesses that were, worried are we now going to be i want to do our target but kind of like how are we making sure there's a clear distinction between when an accident something happens for a call for service let's say our parking garage and it's not being latched to a business that's adjacent to it what are we doing to make sure that those are separate i can't speak specifically to

the exact calls you're talking about, but that's, I'm not.

That is still an active case, so I don't want to speak specific to that item, please, because that is still active, so if we can maybe macro, thank you.

This is the challenge that goes into parsing through this data that I'm talking about, is that regardless of what computer system you have, If you call the police and you say, I'm at 123 Main Street, and the problem, the dispatcher is going to put it in as 123 Main Street. If it ends up through interviews or whatever, being 456 Main Street, where was the problem? And how did you look at the data? So it comes down to the human who's dissecting the data and literally having to go through each and every call when it comes to looking for extraordinary police response.

Okay, and I think that's where my comments were just as we think about how, you know, reports are when if we need to pursue folks that, you know, think this is where addresses and I think particularly no, it's not my words, word one, but we have all these little very tight commercial places where there's multiple businesses. So I'll give one example for me, Chicago University.

Um, we have a million things.

Yeah. And so there's multiple, I know there's always calls in there and there's several businesses. So it's kind of like there's one business that might be attracting more of the calls, but then it's going to end up being put on the entire kind of like corridor. Um, and just thinking how we then with, with, and that's where I guess I was with that one questions of how are we making sure that in documenting, it is very clear where the incident took place and that hopefully we're not seeing, um, I guess it's like blame being put on. And I think our, I'm just thinking of our small businesses that are challenged, really facing challenges, right. With, um, the realities that we're, we're dealing with, um, you know, whether it's, you know, late night things or even it's just our unhoused community, mental health crisis and, um, incidents that take place. So that was for me, just as we think about the feedback of how can we make sure that reporting is being as clear as possible. Um, and that we're not doing like perimeter, like if this happened here in this whole block, um, Now we're putting it on this business or this group to be responsible. And I think we should want to be careful of that because I think that's what I had heard and seen from watching one of the planning commission meetings was folks trying to understand and distinguish the reports, which like you said, I know like we're all humans, we're all managing these. So there's going to have to be some discretion potentially, right? And kind of how that's determined. But I think we got to be a little mindful of that. I don't know if you have any thoughts or comments.

I can only speak how I did it when I was here at Commander, and to use a baseball term, the tie would always go to the runner for me if there wasn't some, I would, let's say it was, just for an example, Market University. Well, there's several addresses around there too, so the call could be entered as University of Market, Market University, or any number of those addresses. So I would pull all calls related in that whatever geographical areas you're saying, and then I would dissect each one, and if I couldn't definitively say it came from an address, I would exclude it. That's how I personally did it.

Understood. No, thank you for that. And kind of a question. I think we've had to work with our Eric matters in the past with this, but like when you get, and we've had this challenge up in Sycamore Canyon with someone calling anonymously and reporting a home and saying, we have a challenge here. There's they're throwing a party and this and that we have PD going, it's dead silent. There's no activity, even other neighbors confirming there's no incident. So let's just say, you know, you know, neighbor wanted to bully another neighbor or wanting to just, you know, or, or do a, frankly, a fake call. and we know that's excessive but they never say who they are and but we still have calls going when do we hit like a cap on like if this call keeps coming into this house but we can never track something at this house that you all are like we because it's frustrating I know it's like you don't want to not respond and then end up in a situation so how do how do those things manage because we've had a few of those challenges yeah over my career I've had a lot of those challenges and the answer is we'll go every time because the time you don't go is when it's real Yeah. Okay. No, understood. But I think just let the public know those are some of the challenges we do see. Unfortunately, anonymous callers repeatedly calling on something and we can't track, you know, who it came from and frankly hold them accountable. So I do understand and I always hate when that happens because it feels like it is a waste of our police and our fire's time having to go, you know, get up there and nothing's taking place. But... Overall, really thank you for your hard work on this. Just want us to continue to work together on the business aspects. And thank you for just, again, the response you all have from fire to police.

All right. Thank you, Councilor Cervantes. And I'll just add that the data and having the tools to get the data easier, I think, is a priority. It's not just for an RPD and RFD. This is a citywide issue that our software is dated. Our systems are dated. And we can't make the best decisions possible without having to use tons of man hours to manually do it and so I think the need for automation having more up-to-date systems to make these decisions quicker and I think also you know this is very helpful data to have for specific nuisance properties when we're going that we need to address but more than anything when you look at the cost of service when we're just looking at general services across the city it helps us to understand and to share with residents why spending so much money on police and fire and you can see like the thousands of calls just in 30 days for a couple of properties um it's not to go after the property owners because there's certain things that's beyond the control like the hospital and things like that but there is cost associated with these services and people need to understand that so having that data available quickly i think is very helpful to us to um when we talk about having the distribution of funds from the state and the county, I think those numbers are very helpful to us to argue why we need those additional funds. So thank you for that report. Again, that is a receive and file, so we'll go ahead and close this item. And that has finished us for the 1 p.m. session. We have a couple of minutes, and I would look to our city attorney. Do we have time to cover one or two of those closed session items?

Yes.

Okay, so council members, are you okay if we go back to closed session? We'll cover one or two of these items and ask the city attorney to report out on that.

So we will adjourn to closed session to discuss items 49 through 57, or at least the ones that we can get to, and then come back to it. And all information required by the Brown Act is set forth on the agenda today. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Okay, we are back from closed session, and we'll now start the 3 p.m. section of our council meeting, and we'll go ahead with the public hearings, items 42 through 48, and if you can go ahead and play the 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

Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to a presentation by Sergio Aguilar, and we're going to do this as one presentation for items 42 through 44. Go ahead.

All right. Good afternoon. Honorable Mayor Pertem and Council Member Serge Dragler, Deputy Finance Director. So today I'm presenting the fiscal year 26-27 annual assessment levies for the city's landscape maintenance districts and also the street lighting assessment districts. And this item is required as part of our annual process to continue funding maintenance and operations within these established districts. starting off a little bit of background the landscape and lightning lighting act of 1972 establishes legal process for living annual assessments within maintenance districts and each year the city must prepare and approve an engineer's report that documents the proposed assessments that verifies the parcel counts within each district and also confirms the assessment remains proportional to the benefits received by the properties within each district So the annual process consists of three different council actions. The first action is adoption of a resolution of intention and also an authorization to prepare the engineer's report. And this step occurred on February 24th. Second step is approval of the engineer's report and also setting a public hearing. And that occurred on May 19th. And third step is conducting the notice public hearing and also confirming the assessments. So today's hearing represents that final required step before the assessments can be placed on the fiscal year 26-27 property tax roll. So the city currently administers three different assessment districts. First being the Street Lighting Assessment District and that provides funding for street lighting services citywide that was formed in 1988. The second being the Sycamore Highland Landscape District that was formed in 1988 as well. And third being the Riverwalk Landscape Maintenance District was formed in 2002. And these districts fund the maintenance of improvements that provide a special benefit to properties within the district boundaries such as landscaping, irrigation systems, lighting, and other related infrastructure. And the assessments are restricted to the district purposes and they cannot be used for other unrelated city operations. So this next slide compares the maximum authorized assessments, the fiscal year 25-26 assessment, and also the proposed fiscal year 26-27 assessment, focusing on the residential units as an example. The street lighting assessment district, that remains unchanged at about $31.44 per residential unit. That assessment is capped by Measure EE, which was approved by voters in 1997, which does not allow an annual inflationary adjustment. The Riverwalk and Sycamore Highlands Landscape District includes provisions allowing for annual adjustments based on CPI for the Riverside-San Bernardino Ontario region. So for fiscal year 26-27, Riverwalk would increase by approximately $18.26 per residential unit, and Sycamore Highlands would increase by approximately $2.52 per residential unit. And these adjustments are consistent with the methodology that have been approved for these districts as originally established. And even with these adjustments, the proposed assessments do remain either at or below the authorized maximum levels. So while the assessments do provide an important funding source, assessment revenues are insufficient to fully cover the operation and maintenance cost of all three districts. So for the street lighting assessment district, the assessment has remained unchanged since Measure EE was approved. while utility maintenance and operational costs have continued to rise. So as a result for that district, there's a general fund subsidy of about $2.1 million that is projected for fiscal year 26-27. For the Riverwalk Landscape Maintenance District, annual cost adjustments are allowed based on a greater of CPI or 5%. And to improve the long-term financial sustainability, staff have begun incrementally increasing that assessment towards a more full cost recovery. This strategy has reduced the general subsidy being approximately $114,000 in 22-23, dropping to $84,000 in 24-25, and now being proposed subsidy of $55,000 in 26-27. The Sycamore Highlands Landscape District is projected to require about 32,000 in general fund support after available reserves. And today's action maintains the authorized assessment structure and also continues the operation of these districts for the next fiscal year. so that recommendation is that city council conduct the required public hearing for the three assessment districts receive any public testimony and then also adopt three resolutions confirming the engineer report and authorizing the placement in the fiscal year 26-27 assessments on the county's tax rolls approval of these resolutions will allow the city to continue the maintenance landscaping and street lighting services within these districts in this next fiscal year And this concludes my presentation and available to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you for that presentation. We have no public comment cards in chambers, so I'm going to ask if we have any callers online. Okay, seeing that we have no callers, we're going to go ahead and move on to discussion. Anyone like to speak on this? All right, seeing no requests to speak from our council members, I just want to confirm with Clark if I need to read these further.

Thank you Mister pro Tim Robillard just like to clarify for the record that the public hearings before you are to adopt resolutions confirming the diagram and assessment for the Riverwalk landscape maintenance district the street lighting assessment district number one and the landscape maintenance maintenance district number 88 dash one as indicated in the staff report. and levying assessments on all accessible lots and parcels of land therein for the fiscal year 2026 and 2027. And you're waiving further reading.

All right, thank you.

I'll make a motion to approve.

All right, go ahead and vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

All right, thank you. We'll now go on to our next item, which is item number 45. And we'll have the public comment go ahead and play for that.

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.

Okay. With that, I'll go ahead and call on our Code Enforcement Officer, Chris Pullen, to introduce the item and then pass it on to Jerry Ozedep.

Good afternoon, honorable Mayor Pro Tem, members of the City Council. I'm Chris Poling, your Code Enforcement Manager. Prior to the presentation of the recovery of unpaid administrative and abatement costs, I would like to give a brief overview of our division. The mission of the Code Enforcement Division is to protect the public health, safety and welfare through education, outreach and voluntary compliance. Our efforts help to preserve property values and the quality of our neighborhoods. When it comes to our processes, our goal is voluntary compliance through education. When that proves to be unsuccessful, we can issue violation notices, citations, administrative citations, administrative civil penalties and cost recovery methods that you will hear about later in the presentation. Our officers complete required training, which includes PC-832 certification. This certification is a 40-hour post-training that includes criminal justice, laws of arrest, and report writing. They also complete HR training, such as anti-harassment, ethics training, and cybersecurity training. New officers complete a robust training program that includes topics such as building and housing enforcement, public nuisance investigation, the street vendor program, case investigation and documentation, and an administrative hearing process. Throughout their time with the city, our staff also participates in ongoing training opportunities through KCO, which is the state association for code enforcement officers, civica law training and city human resources training, which also includes leadership and supervisory development. Recently, our division has had meetings to discuss accountability and expectations. We discussed public contact and will be participating in additional training, focusing on public contact and de-escalation efforts. We have instituted enhanced supervisor review and performance reporting, and we will continue to review our processes to identify opportunities for improvement. We're also improving our visibility in the community by increasing our attendance in neighborhood and community meetings, where we can provide information on neighborhood concerns. We're updating our website, which will help provide educational information and provide links for common questions. As I mentioned, we are reviewing our processes to identify opportunities for improvement. We're reviewing and updating our operations manual and we'll also be reviewing sidewalk vendor regulations. We are standardizing our enforcement and documentation procedures to promote consistency. We're expanding training opportunities and improving supervisory oversight. All of this is being done with the goal of consistent and transparent enforcement practices. This slide shows the number of cases the division has investigated the past two years. As you can see, over 12,000 cases were handled in 2024. Fewer cases came through in 2025, but we are on pace in 2026 to finish the year around the number of cases we addressed in 2024. This slide shows a breakdown of the types of cases the division addresses. As you can see, over 40% of the cases our officers address are public nuisance related. This covers topics such as weeds, trash, debris, and outdoor storage. Cases relating to homeless and homeless encampments comprise over 20% of the cases, building and housing cases 8%, and vendor related cases approximately 4%. The column on the far right of the chart is approximately 13% of the cases our officers address and comprises topics such as graffiti, green pools, and zoning issues. Thank you for allowing me to provide this overview, and I will now turn the presentation over to Jerry Ozetta to discuss the unpaid administrative and abatement costs.

Good afternoon honorable mayor pro tem and members of the City Council I am senior code enforcement officer Jerry ozetta. And I will be presenting the annual report for the recovery of unpaid administrative and abatement costs for this fiscal year twenty five twenty six. As a quick background the city is required to conduct a public hearing each year prior to transferring the unpaid administrative abatement costs balances to the county property tax rolls. Notices public hearing was published in the press enterprise on July first twenty twenty six. When necessary, the city conducts abatement work on private properties such as board ups to secure vacant buildings, weed abatements, and trash and debris removal. The cost for the work is then passed on to the property owners who have the right to appeal the abatement costs during this process. If an abatement is completed and the property owner fails to pay the invoice, it is placed on a list so it can be transmitted to the county to be placed as a secured property tax lien. This public hearing is a final step in due process and all opportunities to appeal the costs have expired. During this fiscal year, the Code Enforcement Division investigated 9,791 cases. Of those, only 55 cases include unpaid administrative and abatement costs, which translates to less than 1% of our total cases. This lies a summary depicting the breakdown of the unpaid amounts in the 4 payment categories. The total amount to be transferred to you and ultimately covered his 155,000 $260. At this time, staff recommends that City Council approve the accounting of administrative and abatement costs totaling $155,260, as set forth in attachments one through four, shown as exhibit A of each resolution, and to adopt four separate resolutions assessing the costs and establishing the liens upon the respective parcels to allow for cost recovery. This concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you for the presentation. We'll go ahead and see if there's any public comment on Callers Online. Uh, seeing no callers online, I know, uh, request to speak in chambers. We'll now go to the council for deliberation.

Move staff's recommendation.

Uh, motion by ward five, seconded by ward two. Go ahead and vote.

Motion carries unanimous.

All right. Thank you for that. We will now go ahead and move on on the agenda to item number 46. And we'll open the public comment recording.

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.

OK, we'll go ahead and have the presentation by Judy Aguez.

All right, let's see. Thank you and good afternoon. Honorable Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. Judy Guest, Senior Planner. The project before you this afternoon is to consider entitlements for a mixed-use development known as iron loss. The 7.03-acre project site is located on the east side of Commerce Street between Mission Inn Avenue and 5th Street and consists of 12 parcels, an alley, and a portion of 6th Street. The project site is partially developed with an appliance store in the historic Barley Mills building. The project site is a location of the former Riverside Scrap and Metal, which operated a scrap metal yard for over 45 years, consisting of a machine shop with above-ground and underground fuel and oil storage tanks. The United States Department of Toxic Substances Control, DTSC, identified the project site as contaminated brownfield, and in 2024, a response plan was approved to remediate the site for the removal of contaminated soil. Surrounding land uses include undeveloped land and industrial uses to the north, single-family residences to the east, multifamily residential to the south across Mission and Avenue, and the BNSF Railroad to the west. The photos here depict the existing conditions of the site. Photo 1 shows a site from Mission and Avenue. Photo 2 shows a site looking west on 6th Street. Photo 3 shows a site from Commerce Street. And Photo 4 shows a site looking south from 5th Street. To facilitate the construction of a mixed use development, the project proposes to amend the general plan land use designation from business office park to mixed use urban and to amend the Riverside marketplace specific plan to expand the mixed use marketplace sub area to include the subject properties. The project also proposes a rezone from business and manufacturing park with cultural resources overlay zone to mixed-use urban with cultural resources overlay zone. The project proposes a total of 300 units. Building A in blue is a four-story building containing 295 units, and Building C in yellow is a two-story building comprising of five townhome units. The project proposes nine live-work units, which will be fronting Mission and Avenue and are denoted here with the red dot. The project is served by a total of 388 parking spaces, and vehicular access to the project site is provided from Driveways on Mission and Avenue and 5th Street. The project proposes 19,650 square feet of common open space. Courtyard A will reuse the historic Barley Mills building as a fitness room and clubhouse with direct access to the pool area, featuring shaded lounge areas, barbecue grills, cabanas, and a spa. Courtyard B also features barbecue grills, a fire pit, and shaded lounge areas. And third and fourth floor terraces will feature similar amenities. And lastly, a dog park is planned for the southeast corner, replacing the historic Soda Works building after its unfortunate collapse during a 2023 severe wind event. The dog park will include a commemorative wall proposed along Michigan Avenue, incorporating salvaged concrete blocks from the original structure and include an interpretive plaque describing the history of the building and site. In addition to the common open space, over 80% of the units will include private open space consisting of balconies and patios. The conceptual landscape plan shows multiple species of trees, shrubs, and ground cover to complement and accent the architecture. The surface parking lot is screened for Mission and Avenue and 5th Street with the use of shrubs, trees, and decorative fencing. 24-inch buck trees are provided throughout the parking lot for shade. The project includes a tentative track map that proposes combining 12 parcels into one parcel, dedicates right-of-way, vacates an alley, and vacates a portion of 6th Street. The Cultural Heritage Board recommended approval of a certificate of appropriateness for the rehab and adaptive reuse of the Barley Mills building and for construction within the 7th Street East Historic District. The architectural palette of the new construction references the historical industrial character of the site with the use of light gray stucco cladding, burnished CMU block, weathered steel panels in rusted red and brown tones, perforated steel panels in similar finishes, dark gray corrugated metal, steel grate railings, dark gray framed windows. The renderings shown here demonstrate the views of the new construction along Mission Avenue. The new construction will be similar in layout to the mission lofts directly to the south, which was found compatible with the historic districts and issued a certificate of appropriateness. The stepping down in height from four stories to two stories along Mission Avenue will allow a softer transition from the more industrial portion of the street nearest to the railroad tracks to the single-family residences and allow the project to be compatible with the residences in terms of height, scale, and massing. As part of the rehab of the Barley Mills building, the non-original additions will be removed The original structure outlined here will receive structural upgrades to address unreinforced masonry conditions, including roof, diaphragm replacement, wall anchorage, and internal bracing. The proposed rehab uses historic photos to recreate the original appearance of the Barley Mills building. Overall, the proposed project will not be detrimental to the health, safety, or general welfare of the public or surrounding area. The project will provide housing opportunities and will activate an area that has been blighted by industrial uses. As proposed, the mixed-use development is appropriate for the site and neighborhood as it's located proximate to major job hubs such as Riverside Community Hospital, the California Air Resources Board facility, UCR, and downtown Riverside. It's located near educational facilities, local commercial, multiple high-quality transit options, recreational opportunities, and community services, contributing to a synergistic relationship between uses in the area and reducing vehicle trips while creating a pedestrian-oriented development. The project is consistent with all development standards of the zoning code, the cultural resources code, the riverside marketplace specific plan, and citywide design guidelines. Staff recommends that city council determine that the project will not have a significant effect on the environment based on the findings set forth in the case record and adopt a mitigated negative declaration and mitigation monitoring and reporting program, introduce and adopt the rezone ordinance, adopt the resolution amending the general plan land use designation, adopt the resolution amending the Riverside Marketplace specific plan, and recommend that city council approve the project based on the findings outlined in the staff report and subject to the recommended conditions of approval. This concludes staff's presentation. The applicant's team is present for questions and available, and so is city staff. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you for the presentation and seeing if you have any callers online for public comments. No callers online and no requests to speak in chambers. We'll now go ahead and move to our council for deliberation. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Council Member Robillard. Thank you, Judy, and to the team. I think it takes an act of Congress to get something through the Cultural Heritage Board and the Planning Commission unanimously, especially in a historic area. So I congratulate you on doing that. You must have the patience of a saint. I'm supportive of this. I think it's a wonderful project. I know Mission Lofts has been very successful. my comments to any of my architectural folks that would critique things that this is an industrial area, therefore industrial architecture makes sense here, or historically industrial area. So I think the architecture is strong in that way. The one very specific niche thing that I would comment just because I told one of our city urban foresters, I would say this, if you could use no palm trees at all, that would be wonderful, and only use shade trees. We're in a heat island there, and the less palm trees in Riverside, the better, the more shade trees, the better. Our public works director agrees. So that's the one caveat I would have but otherwise I think this is phenomenal and I would move staffs recommendation I wish that Everyone who comes down here every week and tells us that we don't build any housing in Ward 1 and we're never building housing in Riverside I wish they were here on the days when we approve these things as opposed to the other days.

I'll move staffs recommendation Okay motion by Ward 1 seconded by Ward 2 customer Cervantes I

Yes, thank you. And just want to say thank you to the developers, the team. I've been able to actually live at Mission Lofts at one point, so excited to see Phase 2 come in. And just wanted to share that what's happening here is very special. You're taking on a really challenging site, had done so with the previous one as well. um found really creative designs and ways to uplift this part of the east side community that um i think there's been a lot of overlook you know over this portion here there's a lot of history tied to there so very exciting to see ward one now be able to see phase two coming in and i was you know spoke to mr walker just to share i'd love to continue to see how we can now look at the metrolink station and just continue to support transit oriented development and housing that encourages us using Metrolink and supporting again folks coming in that want to commute in our community but excited to see this come to fruition happy to support today

All right. Thank you, Council Member Cervantes. And again, building more housing, definitely need to keep on doing more of that and finding all the creative ways to overcome the multiple challenges that are involved in redeveloping the sites is a difficult job to do, but I'm glad we found a solution to it. So go ahead and vote.

Motion here is unanimous.

all right thank you for that we will now move on to item number 47 um which is approved planning case pc two zero two zero two five zero one one nine zero um and we'll go ahead and play the public comment recording

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.

Okay, we'll go ahead and have a presentation by senior planner Matthew Taylor.

Thank you very much, honorable Mayor Pro Tem, members of the council. Before I begin, I wanted to note there is a missing image from the presentation. It was a map that was included as an attachment to the agenda packet. So I would like to ask the control room if when we reach slide seven, I can use the overhead projector to display the map, if that's OK. Thank you. All right. The item before you this afternoon is a zoning amendment to update our regulations for standalone tobacco retail establishments, more commonly known as smoke shops. So in 2006, the city established a permitting program operated through the Riverside Police Department for tobacco retail establishments of all kinds. In 2021, that was significantly updated and expanded to improve how that program is managed. Tobacco permits have to be renewed every couple of years, and there are operational requirements. Those permits can be revoked by the police department if there is noncompliance issues with compliance or violations. In 2024, the city partnered with the Blue Zones Project Riverside initiative to improve public health and wellness in the city of Riverside and achieve goals of enhanced longevity and well-being in the city. Part of that includes reduction of exposure to harmful substances, including tobacco, particularly for young people. At the same time, the state legislature passed AB 3218, which banned the sale of flavored tobacco in California. In 2025, at the request of the Council Land Use Committee, a moratorium was established on the issuance of new tobacco retail permits or renewal for specific types of tobacco retailers. That moratorium is still in effect. The Land Use Committee in 2025 did also provide staff direction to amend the code seeking to prohibit tobacco retail uses in the city. In February of this year, the Planning Commission did hear this item as a zoning amendment and did modify the recommendation to modify it from prohibition to establishment of regulations requiring minimum separation between tobacco retail uses and sensitive uses as well as other tobacco retailers. The Land Use Committee then did concur with that recommendation in April and that brings us to where we are today with this hearing to consider this code amendment. As of June, 2026, there are 214 known locations with active tobacco retail uses. Most of them are permitted, but not all of them. 41 of them meet the definition of smoke shops under the zoning code, a standalone tobacco retail use. And 24 of those smoke shops are known to have some kind of compliance issue, whether that's an expired permit or compliance with the regulations that apply to them or other issues. Title VI of the Municipal Code establishes the tobacco retail permit program. It's required for anybody who sells tobacco products. That could be a grocery store, a gas station, or a standalone smoke shop. They must be renewed every two years. They do prohibit the hours of sales for tobacco products. Permits can be revoked if there are violations, and operators that are operating without necessary permits are subject to investigation and potential closure by the Riverside Police Department if it does come to that. In the zoning code, tobacco retail is not treated any differently than any other retail use. That means it's permitted in any zone that permits retail uses like clothing stores or grocery items or anything like that, tobacco retail is permitted. There are no specific operating standards or site location and development standards applicable to tobacco retail uses. The zoning code does define a smoke shop as a business with sales of tobacco of any type or tobacco related products that constitute more than 30% of their gross sales or 30% of their lease area. The proposed amendments before you today would do the following. The proposal would amend the permitted uses table to identify smoke shops as a separately regulated use rather than lumped in with other retail uses. And it would continue to allow them in all zones that permit retail. However, it would also create a new chapter of the zoning code, chapter 19405, tobacco retail smoke shops. that would establish operations, site location, and development standards for these uses. They would require a minimum separation from residential uses, schools, parks, daycares, places of worship, and other smoke shops of varying distances. And this amendment would also establish an amortization policy for non-compliant locations, which means that any tobacco retail locations that exist today that do not comply with the new regulations would be required to either relocate or cease operating with over a two-year period from the effective date of the ordinance. The proposed amendments also do include provisions for a one-year extension in the circumstances of financial hardship. This is the slide where we had the issue with the map. My apologies. I'm going to put this up on the overhead projector if we can. I think you'll want to zoom out if that's possible. This map does show the sensitive receptors that are hatched in green here There are a total of 22 known smoke shop locations that do not meet the sensitive receptor receptor separation There are also 17 locations that do not meet the minimum separation from other smoke shops so those those locations would be subject to amortization if amortization is adopted as part of this ordinance and there are six locations that we have identified that would comply with the new regulations okay if we can pivot back to the presentation please All right. In terms of outreach, we did direct mail notifications to all tobacco retail permit holders, all registered business tax certificate holders for smoke shops, as identified by the finance department, and all owners of properties on which a smoke shop is located to give everyone an opportunity to be aware that these regulations were proposed and were coming. We also did the required general public notice in the press enterprise. In terms of implementation, if adopted, staff would then seek to identify and notify the specific businesses that are subject to amortization, including advising them of their financial hardship rights or opportunity, I should say, to apply for that if they qualify. We would coordinate with code enforcement, the police department, and economic development on compliance and relocation assistance. and we would explore a potential collaboration with the Blue Zones Project Riverside to develop a program to help businesses transition to other business models in order to transition away from smoke shop use. There are alternatives that the council can consider to this as well, which include modifying which sensitive uses the separation requirements would apply to. So you could, if you wish to do so, reduce or eliminate certain types of sensitive uses from those regulations. You could choose to modify the minimum separation requirements. Right now, most of them are proposed to be 1,000 feet. That could be any number that you choose. You could choose to extend the amortization period to allow more time to achieve compliance or you could choose to remove the amortization provisions entirely. So all of those options are at your disposal this afternoon. All right. With that, staff is recommending that the council determine that this planning case is exempt from CEQA, that the council approve this planning case based on the findings that we have presented to the Planning Commission and in the staff report, and to introduce and subsequently adopt the draft ordinance amending the municipal code. I'm available for questions. Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you for that presentation. We'll now go to a public comment, and we have a couple of callers and also speakers in chambers, and I'll go ahead and call our first speaker, Ciara Thrower.

Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor Pro Tem and City Council. Blue Zones Project Riverside is in support of establishing minimum distance requirements between tobacco retailers and sensitive receptors. Throughout our months-long process of community engagement and collaboration with the Planning Commission, the Land Use Committee, and City Council at large, we've understood the negative impact tobacco retailer density has inflicted on our communities. Areas with higher density of tobacco retailers experience increased rates of tobacco use among both youth and young adults, and higher rates of tobacco use initiation among young people. Standalone tobacco shops are especially dangerous. During the first eight months of 2025, RPD seized nearly 80,000 illegal tobacco units and various other illegal drug and drug paraphernalia from 13 standalone tobacco retailers. Given the proximity of tobacco retailers to Riverside schools, imagine the impact of thousands of students who pass by on their way to school every day. While the proposed changes to Title 19 will impact some existing smoke shops, the positive impact these changes will have on residents overall is far greater. Blue Zones Project Riverside is committed to working alongside the city and local partners to help existing smoke shops explore alternative models, such as healthy food markets or other uses that continue to serve their communities. In fact, there's precedent for this work. The Eastside Heel Zone Project has successfully transitioned a store selling cigarettes into a healthy corner store. Riverside is leading the way locally to address the dangers of tobacco retail, and your leadership is already making an impact. The decisions you make today will help shape a healthier environment for future generations. We respectfully ask that you vote to approve these proposed amendments to Title 19 as proposed in the staff report. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead and move on to our next speaker, which is Kuldeep Singh.

Good afternoon, council members. I'm representing myself, Baljit Singh, by Kajan Kuldeep Singh. Actually, we've been doing business from last 35 years in Riverside City. It's on the store, like Lucky One Liquor Store and Convenience Store. On Tyler Street, it's a very neighborhood store from last 35 years. But somehow, my cousin got sick from last four years. He had dialysis with a kidney problem. And somehow, he couldn't get the letter about the license for the tobacco. The city canceled the license, and somehow, He didn't get any letter or any information. They're getting inspection every three months and so and so. But it's not the new license. Somehow he's been running this business for the last 35 years and never got a problem with the license and every time they pay the fees on time. But somehow now the new rule or the new law, I don't know about it, but they said we're not going to get the new license. So my humble request to please help us out to this neighborhood store. We need the license. So I really appreciate it, sir. Thank you. So do you want to speak?

Do you want to talk?

Yes. Okay. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. All right. We'll go on to our first caller.

Yes, you're on. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. My name is Joseph Weska. I'm calling in support of item number 47, which is the minimum distance requirements for tobacco retailers. So the city of Riverside has like 233 licensed tobacco retail established for a population of 320,000 people. This means that there is one tobacco retailer per roughly 1,400 Riverside residents, which is incredibly high considering that public health experts recommend one retailer for every 5,000 residents. So 22 of the existing smoke shops do not meet the 1,000 foot buffer from sensitive receptors, which increase tobacco exposure to the youth of our community. And you have to think about the facts this has and the message that this has on the youth in Riverside who see smoke traps selling both legal and illegal products every day when they go outside. So with areas with a higher density of tobacco retailers, they have experienced an increase of tobacco use in youth and adults and higher rates of tobacco use among young people. This means that the more someone is exposed to the tobacco, the more likely they are to use it and keep exposing other people. So we should think about the health of our youth and the community as a whole. would like to add that according to change lab research it has been proven to the limiting tobacco retailer near school playgrounds and other youth oriented places can lead to improved health outcomes for all population especially the youth and then this shows that how it would create more distance between tobacco retailers and youth-centered places that help reduce exposure and improve public health long term and this ordinance is about protecting the next generation and ensuring that Children are not surrounded by tobacco in its marketing and having easy access to these products every day. So yeah, I respectfully ask you to vote yes on item 47.

Okay, thank you. We'll now go on to our next caller.

Hi, good afternoon, council members. My name is Michelle Duarte and I'm the public policy lead for Blue Zones Project Coachella. I'm here today in support of item 47, establishing minimum distance requirements for tobacco retailers. This policy is an important investment in the health of Riverside residents, especially our young people. Today, 22 existing smoke shops do not meet the proposed thousand foot buffer from schools and other sensitive locations. That means many children and teens are regularly Exposed to tobacco retailers on their way to school, we have to ask ourselves, what message are we sending when tobacco products are part of the child's everyday environment? Research consistently shows that communities with a higher concentration of tobacco retailers experience higher rates of tobacco use and youth initiation. According to ChangeLab Solutions, reducing the number of tobacco retailers near schools, parks, and other youth-centered spaces can improve health outcomes reduce reduce youth exposure to tobacco marketing and decrease the likelihood that young people begin using tobacco limiting to retailer density also helps reduce tobacco related disparities in communities that have historically been targeted by the tobacco industry the city of riverside currently has approximately 233 licensed tobacco retailers serving a population of about 320 000 residents that's roughly one tobacco retailer for every 1,400 residents, or exceeding the public health recommendation of one retailer for every 5,000 residents. This policy is a meaningful step toward creating a healthy balance. As a member of the Tobacco Coalition and through my work advancing community well-being, I've seen firsthand that our environment shapes our choices. At Blue Zones Project, we know that when we create healthier environments, we make the healthy choice the easy choice. I respectfully urge you to support item number 47 by adopting these minimum distance requirements. You're helping protect Riverside's youth, strengthen neighborhoods, and build a healthier future for everyone. Thank you for your time and consideration.

All right, thank you. Can we move on to the next caller, please?

Hi, good afternoon. Can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Temp and city council members. My name is Diane Morales, and I am calling from Palm Springs, California. And I am calling in support for item 47 of minimum distilling requirements for tobacco retailers. The city of Riverside, as Michelle had just mentioned, currently has 233 licensed tobacco retail establishments for a population of 320 people, which means that there's roughly one tobacco retailer per 1,400 in Riverside. Given the presentation that staff just mentioned, it would be incredibly impactful not only for youth, but also the community at large. Tobacco has had long reports of negative health impacts. Your decision today could be impacting future generations to come. I urge you to approve this ordinance as a participant of the county's tobacco coalition. I look forward to being a partner, a community voice, and a stakeholder as you engage on this topic, especially through a lens of how tobacco affects our youth and our community as a whole. Thank you so much.

All right. Next caller, please.

Good afternoon. This is Adrian Cowboy. I wanted to first thank the city council and the city leadership for everything that they do creating an inclusive city. I think that's exemplified through your everyday actions. I'm also appreciative of all the presenters who provided some very valuable data. I'm speaking from personal experience. I was someone who founded Probably the only teen nightclub business in the city of Corona. I did that at age 17. And I come from a background of what some people would call knuckleheads, right? I'm very open with my humble background and, of course, also my journey entering into college, first-generation college student, and then later first-generation business owner. I have been very involved with the city of Riverside, and I also own FC Riverside County. where we serve a very large youth soccer audience. Unfortunately, we were sabotaged by the Christian Nationalists, but that's a whole other conversation. I'm here to advocate to ensure that our youth are provided a community that does not get them on the wrong tracks. And I'm speaking more specifically for the at-risk youth. The at-risk youth, let me tell you this, when they're exposed to these businesses, it starts creating some, well, awareness and over time maybe some likability towards that and maybe some users within tobacco products. So it is vital that we make it as hard as possible for the youth to see these businesses. And at the same time, we don't want to create any goodwill for these businesses. One of the things I always advocate to the parents is, Don't take your child to the liquor store and then make this sort of like a common practice, right? A lot of families do that. They go to the liquor stores to buy themselves some beer and they take the students or the kids. And then the kids start saying, hey, let's go to the liquor store. I want to buy some chips. I want to buy a soda. Rather than saying, let's go to the market, they say, let's go to the liquor store. Similar to the tobacco businesses, I'm very pro-business. I want to make sure our businesses community is protected but of course there are some businesses that I hope will invite some regulation and in this case making it harder for them to be seen by the youth and hopefully to decrease usage and I'm advocating for the at-risk youth because again they're very impressionable And we don't want to make it to where they live in a world where it's easy to turn them in. Again, I come from the knucklehead, like, background, and I stand here today as a leader, and I want to advocate for the youth where we do not, you know, make it easy for them to build some likability towards this. So, Adrian, Cowboy, Aros, thank you all for listening to me. Again, thank you to the city council. Thank you to everybody who's presented.

All right, and that does it for our callers. Now we can go on to our council, Council Member Mill.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I've made no secret about the fact that I'm not a big fan of smoke shops. My staff and I regularly go out and visit smoke shops. We just stop on in and see what kind of things are happening. being sold. Through that effort, that led to me bringing our Kratom and Nas band, that thankfully my colleagues unanimously supported. I would love to see us be able to ban the sale of glass pipes and other materials, but the state of California doesn't allow us to do that. You know, these shops tend to be in communities that already have a couple strikes against them and kind of prey on lower-income communities. And it's kind of just... history repeating itself over and over again we see it time and time again that's where they put the liquor stores that's where they put the smoke shops they put them in in neighborhoods where where folks already have things working against them And I was all in favor of a moratorium across the board. I didn't have a problem with that. But, you know, our friends on the Planning Commission and others thought that, well, let's not be so draconian. So, you know, I look at what's before us today, and I support it's going to bring 1,000-foot separation requirements from schools, parks, child care facilities, and other sensitive uses. again people have mentioned you know keeps our kids from having to walk past place like this being exposed to to this time and time again and and it kind of supports we were getting a hundred percent behind the Blue Zones initiative and the supports that initiative to help improve community health And it's going to improve public safety. The ordinance requires security plans, adequate lighting, police trespass authorization forms being filed while addressing concerns involving illegal narcotics. Because we found in some of these shops, we found the sale of marijuana. This isn't a legal dispensary. They're illegally selling marijuana. The psilocybin mushrooms, magic mushrooms. They were selling nitrous oxide. They had untaxed tobacco sales in these places. And then just not to mention the fact that the majority of these businesses are operating without the proper permits and whatnot. You know, this is going, you know, the folks, you know, the businesses that are currently existing, this, if we pass this today, it gives them two years to get up to speed. There's a two-year amortization. period um and potential extensions for financial hardship so um you know i i i'm in full support of this um i think it sends a good message to the community public public health is uh is important to us um we can't talk you know we we're promoting the blue zones time and time again you know they've spoken on this we've heard other folks are callers you know this is something that we need to do as I said I'm not a big fan of smoke shops and if they were all gone I would probably be happier but I'm willing to compromise and go with the thousand foot separation requirements it's going to help protect our neighborhoods and our young people and with that I'd like to move staffs recommendations

Okay, we have a motion by Ward 5, seconded by Ward 1. Council Member Cervantes.

Thank you. And I do want to give, you know, commend my colleagues. I know that there's been good intention behind the work in bringing this forward to chairman of the committee where we had discussions of this. And I'm going to raise some of the just concerns from a small business perspective that I raised there. You know, and I think, you know, we have a small business, you know, owner that came down here and shared and, you know, that they're in the process of trying to see about getting a renewal of their permit. I guess I wanted to get a little clarity and I am very happy to see that we were able to send this to planning commission. And I think I'm still in my office is trying to get some clarity because we've had some owners reach out, whether in war two or even just other parts of the city asking again, how this is going to be implemented and what it can mean for their storefront and And so I wanted to just ask a couple of questions. So my first one, I guess, for clarification is because we have a moratorium in place, council moves forward today with enacting this, the moratorium would lift. I understand there might be some folks that applied for a permit were, and I think what we had was a challenge of some got approved and then were told by our PD later, oh, you were issued one, but actually the moratorium's in place. You can't be given it. What happens, I guess, if things were to move forward today, if someone paid for a permit but because it was on pause because of the moratorium will they still be able to have that approved after today and then they have the two years if they meet fall into this kind of criteria of the amortization or how does that work

So the way that I understand this is if they have a permit in good standing, then they will be able to renew that permit throughout the amortization period. But at the end of that amortization period, any active permit would become null and void, essentially. If they do not have a permit and this amendment is passed as presented and they no longer meet the minimum criteria, we would be unable to issue them a permit or a renewal for a permit.

Okay. And I know to see that the report says that the notice was published June 10th and that, you know, staff that they were notified. It looks like it went out to business owners, property owners of smoke shops, advising them of the changes. How long did they have in terms of notice in order to be like, Hey, you're on notice. This is what's coming forward. If they did, if they were in good standing, but needed to get a renewal, I guess what's that, what was that window? Was it 30 days, 60 days, 90 days?

So I'll confirm but I want to say that those notices went out just a little over 30 days before this hearing and

okay and i guess i'm just thinking again so let's say if there was a business um i think kind of what we have here was with one of the uh the small business i came up to share had they have their storefront they had continuously had a permit going for about 35 years had a personal health situation happen it lapsed so i guess if it lapsed and let's say they were in good standing but it lapsed and then they came back later to say we want to renew it again

Those businesses are I guess that's what's an example with them and how that would affect them If their location that they're in meets if this passes today and their location meets the new criteria Then they would be able to reapply for that permit if it does not then they would be unable to to receive and to renew or reapply for that permit if it does not comply with the new standards that we're adopting and

So even if I guess my clarification is if a permit's lapsed, that doesn't mean they're out of good standing per se.

They don't have a permit. It's expired, right? It's expired, correct. Right, yes. So it's not any different practically than if they didn't have one to begin with. They basically, when they're not renewing a lapsed permit, they're basically applying for a new permit if they've let it expire.

Okay, and I guess that's where I don't know how, when we think about this, you know, when we think about, again, small businesses and, you know, if they have potentially over time, whether it's unique challenges that have come up or if they let it expire and they're like, this is something that we've had as a part of our business off and on. I don't want to say, it feels that in a way, you know, everyone's watching and tracking our meetings and trying, you know, seeing the new ordinances or things that are happening. So I think what I'm catching and what I was worried about, and I had mentioned this at committee, is it catching people off guard that are coming forward and now are, you know, I think like this business owner who's sharing, like, we're just surprised because we weren't aware this was something that we could be denied if over all these years we've been working, you know, with the city coming forward. kind of haven't had challenges from our understanding with their business. So for a business to like them, I guess it sounds like if it expired, they wouldn't be able to. And I guess my question is thinking about what that impact could be for our small businesses. Have we had conversations about, because I know financial hardships mentioned, so would businesses like this qualify that are now being told you can't get a new permit? And how are we looking to support businesses to transition to

potentially other healthy alternative storefronts or you know to have different type of commercial uses or whatever it may be sure i will say that you know communication with this affected businesses is going to be a major part of the implementation phase of this the financial hardship provisions do allow for up to a one-year extension of the amortization period but that i don't know that that would help somebody that doesn't have a permit today that doesn't comply with the new standards, they wouldn't be able to get a hardship extension for a permit that they don't have. So there is that. As part of the implementation phase too, we also plan to continue to collaborate with our partners at Blue Zones to look at how can we find off ramps for these businesses that maybe want to transition to some other type of business. or through our Economic Development Division, decide that they would like to keep operating the city, but their location doesn't comply, we can help them look into relocating as well. So both of those things are really important parts of our implementation phase. Understood. And if this ordinance passes because there is a clock ticking, essentially, we'll have to start on that implementation right away without delay. Okay. And just to answer your earlier question, the notification letter did go out on June 4th.

Okay. And so I guess, can we go to one of the slides? I think let's look through. I had a question that came up. And it had the options for us so that we could have looking at that one right now, alternatives. I think for separation minimums, the items listed, so we're looking at about 1,000 feet, sensitive uses. And it looks like there were a couple different recommendations we had, but what landed was on K-12 schools, daycare facilities, public parks, and Are we still including the worship or community meeting spaces as well?

Yes. Assemblies of people non-entertainment uses, which is our complex zoning code way of describing places of worship, are still included in the list of sensitive uses in the proposed ordinance.

okay and i feel comfortable i think with thousand um the ones that i will say the one that has them within each other um so looks like there's 17 that exists not meeting the thousand from the other and that that's where in the amortization it's discussed of it the party would be given to those that have been established first and then the others that if they came later I feel a little conflicted about that. I just feel like that's giving favoritism because of time that they've maybe existed. And I don't know, sometimes we all know something can exist, be in our ward or city, and when business can still be doing better to work with us on challenges or issues in the community, maybe compared to another. i'm almost like i just feel i feel a little i guess i i wonder if there's appetite amongst the council if we want to even exclude that for those that are within proximity to each other um i think they're already having to probably compete if they're close and i think what i've seen is that when there's some that are so close to each other one often can't exist too long and they one ends up you know having to close down So I just don't know if that's something if we want to consider or extending the two year to maybe three or four years just to give them time to be able to actually transition. Because years go by really fast, I frankly will just say. And I mean, my biggest thing is we're just we're living in really challenging economy. And I think about the impact on those people's families and themselves and feeling again that, you know, and so trying to take away from I know the issue at hand. I think I'm just trying to think about the small business owners and those that we're already hearing from that are have shared to me plainly that if i can't do this we won't be able to stay open and i don't know what the future means for me being in here in the city um and i think that's that's where i'm coming from and from for this item so would love to just hear some of my colleagues thoughts on that um but i i do think i we we should we need more time i think to achieve compliance and i would just mention to our amazing partners the blue zones that are listening and here with us today i know we we did something similar in the east side through the hill zone project when we got a grant funding And it was to transform our liquor stores and to encourage them. And while many of the owners weren't willing to want to give up being a liquor store, you know, what we were able to do was get them to say, like, hey, well, if you agree to do X, Y, Z, take down all of the, you know, liquor, the flashing, you know, liquor brands that are promoting, attracting people, we'll give you X amount to install new coolers that bring healthy fruits and vegetables. And can you put a new mural that promotes healthy, you know, eating, living products? and those were the types of concessions and agreements that we worked with them to bring change and some of the what we felt as council member mill has said targeted communities that um and so i guess i wonder if there's like parity to how we could do something similar to this um i'll kind of leave it there i want to hear some of my colleagues thoughts but while i support the item i'm just concerned about some of our small business community and how we're going to work to not see some storefronts closed with people who've been in our community for a long time. Despite what they're selling, I'm not necessarily advocating for it, or I'm not, but thinking about the small business owners and the impacts to them. Thank you.

All right. We'll go ahead and move on to Council Member Falcone. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Robillard. I think in addition to, and thank you, Matthew, I think in addition to the comments that Councilmember Mill had shared about kind of how we got to this point, I think it's important for us to carry that in mind. It was, I believe, a meeting when we were discussing cannabis where someone came forward and said, you know, you're putting all these regulations on us, but what about all these smoke shops? You should be treating things the same way. I think this came out of that conversation. We said, yes, thank you, ma'am. We will also regulate this as well. And that's why I like a lot of the distances, the sensitive receptors, and other things really are, I believe, almost identical to what we have for cannabis. And I think that's a good way to keep it that way. I would be afraid to kind of start mixing and matching that. I think it's a good kind of level playing field across the board to treat them the same in that way. I really, I loved all that our friends from Blue Zones had shared in terms of that this has been a long, I mean, my gosh, we've discussed this it seems like so many times, there's been committee meetings, there's been so many opportunities for people to weigh in on this particular topic, and I really like the idea of finding that parity with what was done in the Eastside Heel Zone and other things that we've done this in the past, but the comment of this being about the greater good, I have great appreciation and respect for small businesses. But about the greater good of this, in some cases, this is a business model that might be outlived its use in terms of where our society and where our country is trying to go in terms of, our city is trying to go in terms of better, healthier alternatives. And, you know, our friends in Sacramento change laws on businesses constantly, and it's up for the business owner to be aware of what those law changes are. So as Sacramento does it, we do it. And I think that there has been opportunities for people to weigh in and be informed of that. So I think this is a good compromise overall. I wouldn't be in support of extending amortization greater than two years. I think that's ample time to do what needs to be done. I agree with my colleague, Council Member Mill. I would have preferred to go more draconian as well. That's what we've heard over and over again from folks at Blue Zones and others, that this is not a use that we want to see in our city, but I recognize the importance of compromise and the importance of having the input from the Planning Commission, and so we'll be supporting this. Is there a motion, Councilmember? Okay, thank you. I can't remember if I, I seconded it, yeah, maybe my mind is leaving me. Thank you.

All right. Council Member Condor. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I'm going to continue on with Councilwoman Cervantes' thoughts. So you've got a business that's been there 35 years. I don't care why it happened. They put their license to lapse. They forgot to pay it. They go in and they say, well, you can't repay it. You've got to reapply as a new one. But we have a moratorium. You can't get a new one. Get out of town. That's bullshit. We need to find a way around it. Their taxes pay for this building, the stuff that they do. So there's got to be some leeway here. So are marijuana cannabis shops considered smoke shops?

No, they are separate use entirely.

So you can't smoke tobacco, but you can smoke marijuana. Another problem. We need to have some common sense here with someone that has had a lapse. There are people in this building that make mistakes all the time, but they don't get thrown out of the building. So I'm having a problem with some of the things in this, and I'll hold it for right now.

All right, Council Member Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Temp. Just like my colleagues Cervantes and Condor, selling tobacco is not necessarily a hill I'm willing to die on, but I'm looking at it from a small business perspective. And a lot of these businesses that will be affected are in Ward 6. I think that nobody disagrees with the 100 feet away from residential, 1,000 feet from schools. I don't think anybody has a problem with any of that part of the ordinance. But these are a lot of small businesses that are going to struggle with transitioning because they are standalone smoke shops. If I'm not mistaken, smoke use is already on the decline given that first five funding is already being affected by the decline in smoking because the first five programs that a lot of nonprofits and other organizations benefit from to help families who have children under five years old. um is on the decline so you know i think maybe at least extending it to three years that way we can instead of two giving these businesses the opportunity to transition into selling something else or relocating um you know this is more empty buildings that'll uh you know be in Ward six and again just a lot of small businesses that's that's the approach that I'm taking it and you know again I don't have any other problems with the rest of the ordinance but you know I would appreciate maybe at least another year added on there to give these businesses the ability to transition into selling something else relocate or you know something of that nature I can't certain burnout is that amendment to the motion yes

Okay, we have an amendment in a second from Ward 6 of Ward 2. That would be an alternate motion. Alternate, sorry, an alternate motion. Yes, an alternate motion. Council Member Mill.

So if I could speak to that, there already is basically three years there. If you have a hardship, that extends it out to three years. So you're already getting two years. And to answer your concern that these folks are going to have financial hardship, that's already written into the ordinance as presented. So if they can show that that takes it out to three years. Adding yours into there would mean they can extend it out four years. So I think your concern is addressed by, in the ordinance already, it says that if after two years there's a financial hardship, it gets extended out four years. for a third year. So I think it addresses that. I'd like to address something my colleague from Ward 4 said. Nobody said you can't smoke tobacco in the city. You made a comment that it's OK to smoke marijuana but not smoke tobacco. Well, I'd be more than happy to take the rules that we placed on marijuana dispensaries and place them on smoke shops, which means there'll be one smoke shop per ward. I'd be thrilled if we could treat our smoke shops the same way we're treating marijuana dispensaries in the city, by we only have one per ward. That would be phenomenal. So we're not treating, I think smoke shops have They're treated a little bit better than we treat our dispensaries. Smoking tobacco and smoking marijuana, the health side effects of both probably are not good for you, but we know what the tobacco industry has done in this country and what they've done to the health of American people. But, I mean, if you'd like to make a motion that we, you make an additional motion that we treat our smoke shops the same way we treat dispensaries and we limit it to one per ward, you have my support for that. And lastly, you know, to my colleague from Ward, Six. You're right. There are quite a few dispensaries in Ward 6 along the Magnolia Corridor, an area that is probably the biggest problem that you and I are going to have to deal with time and time again. It's in an area that can least afford to have negative things going on. Where do you think the people get the torch lighters and the pipes to smoke the meth and do all the illegal drugs? For the most part, they're coming from these smoke shops that are along the Magnolia Corridor. I know that because my team and I go out and visit these smoke shops and we talk to the people that are out there. doing the drugs along the Magnolia corridor. We know where they're getting these pipes and other things. They're coming from these shops that are along that area. The fact that we're talking about, oh, they're all so close together. Yeah, right, that is the problem. There's a proliferation of smoke shops in areas that can least afford to have them. This is about doing what's best for the public health of our community. And history has shown us that communities of color and low-income communities are the communities that are most likely to be targeted with smoke shops and liquor stores. And I think we have an opportunity to do something to protect the health of communities that are preyed upon. And so I would not support the additional year because it's going to kick the can down the road. One more time, and again, to my friend from Ward 6, I do believe that currently, because the financial hardship piece in the ordinance as it's written right now, that gives them three years to get there. Otherwise, we're going to see it. get pushed out four years. And I'm sure that when the time comes, when we get to the end of the rainbow and that time period is up, we're going to have people coming down here asking, can we extend it even more and even more? So, you know, I understand the concern for small businesses, but, you know, not all small businesses are great for the community. And I'll leave it at that.

Right, I'll remind my colleagues that we have a motion and a alternate motion on the floor council members Avantis No, thank you.

I guess for clarification because I didn't see it in the report, but maybe I'm just start reading the attach Maybe it's in the third attached one of the resolutions ordinance But Matthew so is it explicitly say that if they if is what what it will determine a financial hardship for them first question I

Would you like me to respond to that before you continue?

Well, actually, part of it is also, and is it saying explicitly that it's a year?

It is maximum one year. Maximum one year, okay. Yes. So they must apply in writing to the city manager prior to at least no later than 120 days prior to the end of the two-year amortization period. So basically they have like a year and a half or so to submit that request and it can either be approved by the city manager or if it's denied can be appealed to this council.

Okay. So it's written in writing. It goes to city manager first. If the city manager, whatever may happen, let's say says no, it appeals and comes to council. Correct. Okay. So I guess questioner, thinking of that aloud, so I could give them up to three years. Let's just say, what if someone is in the process of transition? So they're phasing out their business and they have the hardship approval. They're at three years and they're in those final phases. Maybe they need six more months. Then what?

I mean, the ordinance is pretty cut and dry, so you would need to modify the ordinance to allow an additional extension. I will say that if at some point during that transition, their gross sales drop below 30% related to tobacco products are no longer considered a tobacco retail establishment per the code. So just keep that in mind.

Okay. Well, and I didn't know that there was the clarification of it being the year ability in there. I'm hearing you, Council Member Mill, and I'm trying to feel, you know, if I'm comfortable with supporting that, whether we want it to just be the three years automatically. I hear you that the extension could mean, depending, right, who makes that discretion, and then even this council and who's up here could go to four years. I'm a little on the fence about it because I and I think one other concern I mean I hear you and I don't disagree on where these are placed in communities I think what I'm thinking too is the faces of who are those small businesses which also part of our minority business owners and so Trying to think again of, you know, the impacts to those storefronts and also not wanting empty storefronts, including, of course, on the west side and your shared area five and six, where I know you have a plethora of them. I feel that I'm sorry for you, too. And I know I've been grateful that it took work for us to get a university specific plan that did not allow approval of new smoke shops because we saw that over concentration happening for a long time. So here in wanting to see and be supportive of this, just trying to figure out where we could be mindful of that small business piece. So I wait. I know we have a few other council members just to kind of figure out where I want to land.

All right. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Council Member Blart. I kind of feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. I feel like I'm in 1960 all of a sudden, where I never realized that after meeting and meeting and meeting of discussing this on the Planning Commission, this has been vetted so many times that it seems as if we're, I know we're not technically advocating for tobacco use, but I feel like I'm, you know, I'm in the, you know, the Kennedy administration or something at this point. I mean, it's just... I'm shocked at this idea. At least I can't speak for other wards, and I don't speak for the West End, but in the case of Ward 1, we don't see smoke shops, tobacco shops as positive economic development. I will take an empty storefront over having a problem property like that that not only harms the health of our residents that we are elected to advocate for and to protect, but also is really bad for property values, bad for the way in which our neighborhoods and our commercial areas look. So if you think that's positive economic development, then Godspeed to you. But that is absolutely not a use that the residents of Ward 1 would want to see in their commercial areas or residential areas. I do think, in commenting on what Council Member Mill had shared, that the sentiment of forcing businesses out, which I don't agree with, that's not what this is, or that two years is not enough, I think it stems from a sentiment that it's a financial burden, that there's going to be an undue financial burden on these businesses. That's exactly what that one-year extension would do. So if three years then, to Councilmember Hernandez's point, if three years is the kind of sweet spot, or more acceptable, maybe is a better way to put it, more acceptable to get the businesses the necessary support to relocate or to re-gear, re-establish their business model, that would likely meet that quota of that one additional year because it would be a financial burden on them. So I think it's really actually built in well. It's really not to exceed three years then in that way, and I think that that is still a good compromise. I'm just kind of like, after... You know, five or six meetings on this topic where we were supportive of this to kind of see such an about-face shift is really not only shocking and frustrating, it's really concerning. That's it, Council Member Robillard.

All right. Council Member Hernandez.

Again, something I don't appreciate is our words being turned around. I never said that tobacco shops are a great way to bring in new business and more money into the area. I never said that. I'm comfortable. with getting rid of the extension and just making it three years if that's where we can meet middle ground to give us the opportunity to help some of these businesses transition into or find other locations again these are small businesses and to you know paint all of these smoke shops as like you know participating in illegal selling of certain products I think is unfair as well. There are a lot of families who own these small businesses who are genuinely just trying to you know, be part of the system to be able to open a small business and, you know, make it. And again, I don't agree with what they're selling by any means. I agree with everything in here, but except just giving these small business owners the opportunity to be able to transition. If, you know, if getting rid of the extension and just making it three years just to be able to give us the opportunity to help some of these small business owners transition into selling something else, moving, just, you know, making it easier. Because, again, we're the ones in Ward 6 that are going to be dealing with a lot of these empty, more empty locations and, you know, the problems that come with that.

Yeah, and for clarification, I appreciate that, Council Member Hernandez, because I think that it might sound fair, just given that the two-year amortization period, Matthew, if I'm correct, it would only affect how many again? 16 of them? Tentatively, potentially?

Not necessarily. It may be more, if I can...

Looking at the report. Yes. It looks like 17 of them, existing smoke shop locations, not meaning the 1,000-foot separation from another smoke shop.

So it's 22 that are not meeting the separation requirement from sensitive receptors and 17 that are not meeting the separation from other smoke shops. So that's a total of 39, up to 39 that could be affected. It might not be exactly that number because there could be some overlap between those two categories, but it could be up to 39. Okay.

Thank you. And I remind our council members, if you've spoken twice already, you can only ask a clarifying question. And that's all that. Council Member Condor.

I'm only spoken once. So I have a lot of friends, male and female, that are cigar smokers. So if a cigar store right now is outside the 100 feet, but inside the 1,000 feet, they're going to have to move.

If they meet the zoning code definition of a standalone tobacco retail shop based on how they operate, potentially, yes.

Big brother. So the person owns the shopping center is going to lose a customer because they've now been there for 17 years, and you're going from 100 to 1,000, so they're going to move.

Potentially, if they do not meet the new requirements.

Okay. Okay, so the motion on the floor is the motion made by Ward 6 and seconded by Ward 2. And if you could just restate the motion for the record before we vote.

If you'd like to make an adjustment you can make the adjustment so I'd like to make him amendment to the motion to make it just the admiration three years rather than two and if it satisfies the other City Council members we can just get rid of the extension that way it's just three years in total to give them the opportunity

And just for clarification, so, Council Member, you're recommending approving staff's recommendations with just in regards to the memorization, not removing the extension, and it would be two and just to three years in general?

Yeah, removing the extension and just moving it to three years in general.

Okay. I will accept that and second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second on that. Go ahead and vote.

Motion fails for lack of a majority. Three no votes, Ward 1, Ward 4, and Mayor Pro Tem, Ward 3.

Okay, seeing as that motion has failed, we'll go to the original motion made by Ward 1, which is to approve staff recommendation. Sorry, Ward 5, seconded by Ward 1.

And we'll go ahead and vote on that.

pushing and it's not working please vote again what let me clear it now please vote again

We'll go ahead and do a roll call vote.

OK. OK, roll call vote.

Ward 1? Yes. Ward 2? Ward 4? No. Ward 5? Yes. Ward 6? Abstain. May I approach them? Ward 3? Yes. Motion carries.

Okay, motion carries. We will now conclude item 47, and we will now move on to item number 48. Please go ahead and play the public comment accordingly.

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.

Okay, we'll go ahead and have the presentation by Michelle Guzman. If we can have the communications staff update the PowerPoint to the new presentation.

Actually, Mayor Pro Tem.

This was the item actually I was looking for earlier. I will recuse myself just to be a safe abundance of caution of living, having real property within 1,000 feet of the site.

Okay, so noted. Thank you.

Okay, good afternoon. Honorable Mayor Pro Temp, City Council and staff, Michelle Guzman from the Housing and Human Services Department. The item that I am presenting to you today is an amendment to our 2526 annual action plan with HUD. Just a little bit of background. Okay, let me go back. On May 20, 2025, City Council adopted the 2526 HUD Annual Action Plan. The proposed amendment before you today will add various Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department projects, specifically four projects that will serve the income eligible areas of Ward 1, 3, and 6. HUD regulations allow that the City of Riverside retain a CDBG balance of 1.5 times the most recent allocation amount. Any funds in excess of this threshold could be subject to recapture by HUD. The balance is made up of program funds, which are to be used on current ongoing projects, and unprogrammed funds, which are comprised of remaining unspent funds from numerous projects over the past several years. The proposed amendment, as I mentioned, to the 2526 HUD Annual Action Plan will allocate funds to the following four specific projects. The first project is the Bobby Bonds Skate Park improvements, which will fund $175,000 to that area, to that park. Janet Goski Senior Center Flooring Replacement at $250,000. Sippy Woodhead Pool Pump Room Rehabilitation at $500,000. And the Tim Strack Park Lighting and Fitness Equipment Project at $340,000 for a total of $1.2 million that will be allocated to city facilities to our Park and Rec Department. The recommendations before you are that we approve the amendment to the previous action plan for 2526, and that we allocate 1.25 in unprogrammed CDBG funds to the projects we mentioned, which are the $175,000 to the Bobby Bonds Skate Park, $250,000 to Janet Goski for flooring replacement, $500,000 to Bobby Bond, Sippy Woodhead, and $340,000 to Tim Strack Park Lighting and Fitness Equipment Purchase and Installation. We also ask that you authorize that the Park and Rec Community Services Director or her designee sign the MOUs for the projects mentioned above as well. We also ask that we authorize the interim city manager or his designee to execute memorandums of understanding between the Housing and Human Services Department and our Park and Rec Department for the projects mentioned above, and that we authorize a transfer of CDBG unprogrammed funds as shown in the fiscal impact section of the attached report. With at least five affirmative votes and upon execution of the MOUs, we authorize a chief financial officer or designee to record a supplemental appropriation of $1.2 million in grants and restricted program funding for the following allocations. Again, $175,000 for Bobby Bonds Skate Park, $250,000 for our Janet Goski Senior Center, and $500,000 for Bobby Bonds Park, and $340,000 for Tim Strack Park. This concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions.

Okay, looking that we don't have any comments in chambers. We do have one caller, file number 48. If you can go ahead and play the caller, please. Caller, you are online. Caller, please unmute yourself. Okay, we're moving on. Motion by Ward 1. Seconded by Ward 5. Go ahead and vote.

Motion carries unanimously.

Okay, and that was an abstention from Ward 2 as well. All right, we'll now go ahead and conclude.

Hi, hello, are you able to hear me?

Sorry, that item has been concluded, sorry.

All right, we will now move into closed session, and the city attorney can now report out.

We will now adjourn back to closed session discussing items 51B through 57. All information, again, that's required by the Brown Act is set forth on the agenda today. Thank you.

when she submitted it for another proposal and when we

All right, we are back from closed session, and we'll go ahead and move on in our agenda. And the city, we will report out on closed session. And item number 54, city council authorizes the city attorney's office to file litigation to seek appellate relief regarding an order of the city recently received Once formally commenced, the action, the defendants, and other particulars will be disclosed to any person upon inquiry as set forth by Government Code Section 54957.1. All right. Do we have any other items for consideration? All right. Meeting is adjourned.