City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. Hi, everybody. All right. Let me just get my computer up so I can see. There we go. All right, everybody. Welcome to the City of Riverside City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 1st. And we have an afternoon-only session today, which means we have no evening session. When we go into closed session, we will come back and adjourn, but there will be no evening session. I will call our meeting to order now, and I will call on Councilmember Robillard, please, to lead us in an invocation.

Thank you, Mayor, if you would like to bow your heads. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to gather tonight in service of the people of Riverside. Grant us wisdom in the decisions before us, patience to listen to one another, and humility to remember that the authority entrusted to us carries our responsibility to serve. guide our council, our city staff, and all those who have come before us tonight. Help us look beyond the immediate challenges and make decisions that strengthen our community for the generations that follow. We ask for your protection over our first responders, our city employees, and all those serving our community tonight. May our deliberations be thoughtful, our disagreements respectful, and our actions guided by integrity. In your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Will you please lead us in the pledge? the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Council Member Robillard. And this afternoon we start with our public comment, as we always do, and this is public comment on the consent calendar, closed session, and any matters within the jurisdiction of the City Council.

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

All right, thank you. We have a couple requests to speak in chambers, and I will call on Dave Stolte, please. Who's first? Is Dave here? Hello, Dave. Good to see you.

Good afternoon, Mayor Locke-Dawson, City Council, and staff.

I'm Dave Stolte, speaking today on behalf of Old Riverside Foundation. Prior to the Mission Inn sale in May, three significant designated and protected objects were removed from the hotel. The Taft chair, plus two paintings, California Alps, and the charge up San Juan Hill. I want to address an idea that keeps coming up in community discussions about the removal of those three objects, and that is the idea that private ownership means an owner can do whatever they want with a historic resource. Private property rights are important, but private ownership does not by itself exempt a designated cultural resource from laws governing its alteration, relocation, or removal. That doesn't mean the government owns the property. It means that ownership and regulation are separate questions. California law gives local governments authority to protect historic resources, and Riverside exercises that authority through Title 20. Riverside's ordinance specifically requires review before designated cultural resources are removed. So, ownership isn't the question. The relevant question for the city is whether Title 20 applied to these three designated mission and objects, and if so, whether its requirements were followed before they were removed. Recent concerns about the city's treatment of street vendors have also raised broader questions about consistency in code enforcement. When residency highly visible enforcement involving small vendors, while a potential violation involving one of Riverside's most important historic resources appears unenforced, it naturally raises questions about whether our laws are being administered consistently. The city's responsibility to administer its ordinances shouldn't depend on the identity or prominence of the individual in question. Whatever one's view is of the underlying dispute or of preservation law in general, an adopted ordinance remains in effect unless it is amended, repealed, or determined not to apply. Other than Council Member Falcone's expressions of concern, the public has received no explanation from city leadership about the city's position. We deserve to know that Riverside's laws are administered impartially. We also deserve a clear explanation of what the city has determined occurred at the mission end, whether Title 20 applies, and what remedies are available. We ask the city to provide a clear statement to the public of its position on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Stolte. Next, I have Errol Kosiewicz.

Yeah, I'd like to use the overhead projector.

Good to see you, Mr. Cushman.

Oh, I love seeing you guys. I like to see you behind bars, but I love seeing you guys. I wanted to mention today the Brown Act. Now, the Brown Act was put into law years ago, years ago. The Brown Act. required the public to be in the meetings to see what you guys are doing it's not supposed to be behind closed doors so you can pay off your lawyers and pay off the lawsuits and everything else you know it's very very disgusting what you guys have done so I really think in the future you will be Like I said, you will be sued for this. This is crazy what you've done. This is the direct opposite what the Brown Act is. You are required by the Brown Act I don't care about your little amendments or resolutions or whatever you guys made up or anything like this. The Brown Act requires the public to be in your meetings. And you have never allowed people to see what you guys pay off to lawyers on lawsuits. That's a problem. Can you flip the page for a second? I just wanted to tell you that in the future. Now, you guys, I want to go through this purchase order because can you pull it down a little bit? I have thousands of these purchase orders, but I have one that there's a bunch of them that come out like this. Now, go ahead and put a little bit down for me a little bit. No, the other way. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks. Los Angeles Truck Center is LLC. Now, it's a limited government, so you're allowed to money launder money through it. Now, I wanted to see these vehicles and trucks and everything like this, just like AZ bus sales. When I went over to the facility at AZ bus sales, I couldn't go on the lot to see the buses that we purchased. We have a lot, a lot of problems in California, guys. Now, this one, I want to see the product. I don't care. I will go drive to see the product on the lot. I'm asking for an appointment to be set up so I can see all this product supposedly the taxpayers are billed for. This should not be allowed, but it's allowed under California. How should I say this? Gavin Newsom has allowed this. This is craziness, how you bill the taxpayers for a product that we may not even have or we've never even seen. um we got a lot of problems guys and and i i really think i'm counting the minutes that i i can see you guys behind bars i really do believe it's going to happen you guys have really stolen too much money it's insanity and you've gotten greedy thank you thank you very much all right we have a caller online let's take our caller please

Good afternoon, council, mayor, and city staff. This is Mark Elliott, and I live and work on University Avenue. I'm calling in this afternoon because I noticed a familiar pressure at a recent council meeting around the motel conversion that was voted down eight months ago. University corridor residents, workers, and business owners stayed silent on this project because participation carried real demonstrated risk. After the award was made and the project was voted down, corridor businesses were targeted by advocacy groups. That showed the corridor that speaking publicly could have real consequences. Their silence is not agreement. It's self-protection. So I wondered, why is the pressure returning? This is what I found. There are advocacy side mechanics involved. Advocacy groups operate inside a funding structure where program wins, grant cycles, and regional coordination create strong incentives to push projects forward once they enter a pipeline, even when major parts of that project don't work. And we're not talking lunch money here. We're talking hundreds of thousands to millions in incentives. This creates a kind of manufactured consent where coordinated messaging and organized turnout can give the appearance of broad community support that doesn't reflect the lived reality of the corridor. An advocate is someone funded to influence an outcome, unlike a resident who shows up simply because they care. Let me repeat that. An advocate is someone funded to influence an outcome, unlike a resident who shows up simply because they care. There are residents speaking this afternoon, and their voices matter, but the corridor is still underrepresented overall. Many of the strongest pressures around this project come from funded advocacy structures, not from the people who live or work on University Avenue. So my goal this afternoon is simple. make sure the corridor's position is understood clearly without pressure without distortion and without misrepresentation the people who live and work on university avenue deserve to have their reality reflected accurately in this process we remain in strong support of the council's decision to reject this project thank you

Thank you, Mr. Elliott. That was our last request to speak, so we will close public comment and move on on our agenda. We are now at item two. This is our mayor and council member communications. And I will first start with Councilor Falcone, as I usually do, word one.

Thank you, Mayor. Oh, loud there. Let me stand way back. There's a series of town halls that I'm doing on a town hall tour, and there's quite a few, so I won't necessarily list every single meeting that's happening, but sharing that we've had one last night, we had one today that both were well attended and successful, and having some still to come for students, for businesses, for Spanish speakers, as well as the general town hall for anyone who just wants to come and share what's on their mind so those are posted on social media for anyone who would like to get involved and this is in addition to of course the regular neighborhood group meetings which of which there are many in ward one for the wood streets the north side the downtown neighborhood and the east side and everything's happening the next two weeks so take a look at social media for many many ways uh to get involved uh and and be active in your neighborhood thank you mayor thank you councilmember councilmember cervantes

There we go. Sorry, I wasn't turning on. Thank you. Yes, for myself, a couple updates I want to share. The first being that this is in Ward 1, but the True Revolution Wellness Clinic grant opening is going to take place this Thursday from 6 to 8, which we're very excited about. And so I want to congratulate True Revolution, their entire team, and everyone involved to help to support the wellness clinic that is going to be brought to our community and service hundreds, if not thousands, of folks throughout many years to come. Additionally, we do have the Labor Day Inland Empire Labor Council is hosting their Labor Day parade and picnic that is going to be on Monday, September 7th. That'll be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The parade starts at 9 a.m. on Magnolia and Ramona Drive. And then there will be a picnic afterwards at White Park. So just want to share we'll be going out there. So come on down and join us as well. And then I also want to mention that we two things that we took place in this last week. Uh, this last Friday, I was proud to be the keynote speaker for feeding America of San Bernardino, Riverside counties at UCR, where there was a great group of folks that gathered who helped to address food insecurity, um, help service pantries and just do really good work across, uh, the region. Uh, was proud to be a speaker there to share about the work we've done in the office of war two and even in the city of Riverside. Uh, and so just really want to come in and think again, those partners for all that they do and very grateful to feeding America to ask me to come out to speak. We also had the grand reopening of our Walmart that's over off of Day Street. That was about two weeks ago, and I want to thank the Greater Chamber Riverside for helping to put on a wonderful success and event. I want to commend and congratulate Walmart and their employees. They do hire and promote a lot of folks that live here in our communities of not just Riverside but neighboring cities. It was great to see a wonderful turnout, and we wish them all the success. And that's all I have for now. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Robillard?

Thank you, Mayor. Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Riverside Police Department's awards and swearing-in ceremony at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Ward 3, along with Interim City Manager Tom Hatch. It's a great opportunity to recognize the dedication and service of our Riverside police officers and welcome those. Taking on those roles also attended the top and out ceremony with many of my colleagues here for the Museum of Riverside and that was a fun experience to see that last piece of steel being put together on the Skeleton of that new expansion of the museum and then with Labor Day just around the corner It's a good opportunity to recognize and appreciate the contributions of the workers throughout our community Including the city employees first responders public safety personnel and other essential workers who continue serving Riverside every day. Thank you

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Condor.

Thank you, Mayor. Unfortunately, I couldn't be at that ceremony with our police department because I was with our director, Michelle Davis, and I'm not going to say what I was doing because I think she's going to probably talk about it in a few minutes. So that was a great day with Michelle and her team, though. And just one more thing. We're not going to see you until after September 11th. This is the 25th anniversary on September 11th. of the murder of 2,977 innocent souls. Take a moment on that day. Remember them. Remember the families that are left behind and just say a quick prayer for them. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Mills?

Thank you, Mayor. Last week on the 27th, my team and I had a wonderful town hall meeting at the Riverside Country Club Mobile Home Park right in Ward 5. I want to thank all the city staff that came out there to bring City Hall to the community. uh football is back and we all know that and especially on friday nights um i'm so excited as a former high school football coach nothing i love more than a friday night high school football game and uh last friday i went out and saw arlington versus ramona and arlington and ramona are where most of the kids in ward five go to school and it was a great great event i saw some of the great uh arlington hall of famers they were all honored before the game and and then of course ramona always represents and On the field, though, it was Ramona representing 41-7, but great to have high school football back on Friday nights. It's a great community event. And then this morning, along with our mayor, we were out at Arlington Park to celebrate the end of summer and to thank our Parks and Recreation staff. Staff, they were out there enjoying the pickleball courts that are always packed. I mean, it was just a great event. We had to have it at 9 in the morning because we were expecting a little bit of heat. It was supposed to be a lunchtime event, but because of the heat today, we moved it to the morning. I want to thank my team, Damian, Selali, and Diane, for working with our friends at the AFL-CIO and the building trades to bring the very first Labor Day parade to the city of Riverside. We've been working very closely with those organizations and we're really excited to bring the Labor Day parade to Riverside. If folks don't know that the Inland Empire is the second largest number of union members in the entire state outside of Los Angeles. And our folks have been going out to Wilmington for years. And when I was approached by leadership at the AFL-CIO to bring... that to the Inland Empire. I jumped on it and I'm really thankful to my team for working closely with city staff and the folks at both the building trades and AFL-CIO to bring it to fruition on this Monday. On September 12th, we're going to be having a boxing show out at Vegas Park. And again, amazing to see the young men and women from our community get in the ring and mix it up. I am proud to say that the folks from the Casablanca Boxing Club, Vegas Park folks, usually walk away with the belt. So I'm always very proud of that. We have a town hall scheduled for September 16th. It'll be at Arlington High School. And the last thing, I just want to give a big thank you out to our county supervisor, Jose Medina, and his staff for always being our point person to get things done at the county. My staff, anytime we have any issues with the county, Jose and his team have been amazing and, you know, got us the answers and the results that we need. So thank you, Jose, and your team for all the great work that you do. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor. Only one update. This Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Arlanza Community Center, we'll be having a community meeting about the TCC, the Transformative Climate Community Grant that the City of Riverside is applying for. I encourage individuals, especially from Ward 6, to attend the meeting, learn more about the grant, and give their feedback. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks.

And last but not least, Council Member Hemmering.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank the Mayor for being at the RTA ribbon-cutting last Thursday. We were able to celebrate the next chapter of sustainable transportation at the RTA headquarters where they – had the ribbon cutting for their new hydrogen fueling station it was uh it's quite a thing there and um we were really excited to be a part of it and uh supervisor medina was there and the mayor thank you for your meaningful comments uh in celebration we got some good ice cream as well so um then the the last one is that uh for next wednesday september 9th Council Member Hernandez and I, our offices will be hosting a joint meeting where we'll look at the Public Works Vision Zero project. We'll present that to the community. And then we'll have some Ward 6 and 7 updates. That'll be at the La Sierra Senior Center from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, September 9th. And we'll look forward to seeing everyone there. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hemingway. I just want to share with everybody, it was like 180 degrees when we were at that RTA ribbing cutting. And they were going to do, like, you know, snacks, the charcuterie board. They had an ice cream truck instead, which I thought was just brilliant. So I'm going to steal that idea. And it was delicious ice cream. So maybe you and Council Member Hernandez should have it at your net zero. Yeah, no, that was great. And I had to twist Council Member Hemingway's arm to come up with me to present the certificate that Council Member Cervantes and I had signed. But thank you for doing that. I appreciate that. Real quick, I want to thank Dr. Robin Peterson and all of our museum staff for inviting us all to the Museum of Riverside's Topping Out Ceremony. Looking forward to that opening.

And I know Council Member Fox,

Connie is as well, so hopefully that will be done 27, yes? Oh, early 28, okay. Thank you. And also, where I was able to attend with Council Member Condor, the Regional Homeless Housing Subcommittee meeting that our Housing and Human Services, Michelle will talk about that, I think, today. But Michelle Davis and her staff did an amazing job bringing people together from across the county to talk about various solutions to our homeless and other issues around that, housing issues. And then finally, I wanted to thank the Building Industry Association of Southern California. They are recognizing me this Thursday with something called the Lewis Family Leadership Award. And the reason I mention it is not to brag about getting an award, but it's because I The BIA right now is really upset about a piece of legislation that is going through, and I have been supportive of that legislation. And it just goes to show you that I asked them, I said, do you still want me to get this award? Because they've been very upset about it. But they said, of course, we still want to honor you. So I think that's how government should work. You don't always agree on things, but you can be Agreeable when you disagree, so I just wanted to thank BIA for that recognition Okay Next up. We've got our Committee meeting coming up land use I think 9 a.m. On Monday, September 14th that's coming up and Oh wait, like oh, yeah, Monday, September 14th. So it would be a week of after this week from the holiday. Let's see, city manager, item three, do you have any updates you wish to share with us, Mr. Hatch?

Thank you, Madam Mayor, no reports tonight.

All right, thank you. Council, any conflicts of interest?

Yes, Mayor, and I do need to recuse myself from the public hearing at 3 o'clock, item number 40. This is due to a contribution I did receive through my campaign, not from Grapevine, but through a different entity, but that is tied to the developer. So I want to be mindful and be safe and will formally recuse. All right. Thank you, Council Member.

Anybody have any ex parte communications they need to report? Okay, perfect. All right, that brings us to our presentations. And first up, we have our Housing and Human Services Department overview and employee recognition. And I will call on our exceedingly competent director, Michelle Davis, to come forward and please give us a report. Ms. Davis.

Thank you. It's an honor to be in front of you, City Council, City Management, and our guest. I'm going to give you, I'm going to try and stay within my 10 minutes and give a quick overview as soon as a presentation. Just to give you a quick overview of the Housing and Human Services Department, it's made up of 52 full-time employees. Behind me, if I can have Stan, the Housing Authority staff, this is your team that oversees our affordable housing projects and programs. They make sure that our rental assistance programs are being funded. We have our case managers that ensure that our clients are stably housed and ensuring that they move on to affordable housing. So I want to recognize that team. We also have a landlord liaison and our housing locator who locates housing units for those that are participating in the program. Under our CDBG team, Michelle, led by Michelle Guzman in the audience, they oversee our community development block grants and our HOPWA grants, Housing for Opportunities with AIDS. And then our outreach services, which is our largest team, which is made up of our public safety and engagement team, which if I can have PSET and our outreach services team stand up. These are the... This is our largest group that goes out in the field, not all of them. Some of them are at the Access Center, but they engage our homeless population to try and convince them to seek services, whether it's shelter or housing. And sometimes we can convince them if they have family members or friends that are willing to take them in, we can provide trip homes. So I wanna recognize that team. And then our administration team does a lot of heavy lifting with our contracts and making sure those invoices are getting paid and those rental assistance are paid. So if I can get our admin team to stand up, I wanna give a big kudos to this team. that keeps the wheels running in our department. I do have a deputy director position vacant that will be opening up this Thursday. So if we have any internal city team members that like to fill that position, this position will be focusing on homelessness and getting in the weeds. So looking forward to filling that vacancy. Our mission statement is to provide a multidisciplinary services and support to the city's vulnerable populations and residents that foster resilience, self-sufficiency, housing stability, and enhance the quality of life for all. These are the most common causes of homelessness. I won't go over them all because of timing, but we always say that there's not one solution for homelessness. We need to get to the root cause, and so we need to make sure that we are addressing each of these pillars here. Our public safety engagement team is made up of two police officers, one code officer, two outreach workers, one substance abuse counselor, and a peer support specialist. It's only on two teams. They go out every single day in the city to address our quality of life issues that are on public property. And then we are also working with the police department to address when they get moved on to private properties. We also contracted for encampment cleanups with Riverside County Flood Control as well as Caltrans. Those contracts will be expiring at the end of this fiscal year, so our team will be working with the county as well as the state to see if we can extend those contracts out further. The PSET performance outcomes for the last fiscal year, we had 7,336 duplicated contacts, we had 241 that accepted services, we had 3,070 code notices, 225 citations, 671 arrests, and 33 vehicle tows, and 736 tons of trash that was removed. And if you notice, those numbers did increase because we did bring on the Caltrans contract, so we were covering a larger area, and we were also able to fill two additional PSET teams. And we also shared with the community of who to call. A lot of times, residents and business owners, when they see a homeless individual or an encampment, they're wondering, who should I call? So we've been sharing this out with the business groups, through the chamber, as well as our residents. The Heelan Homeless Service Campus, I want to give Megan Stoy a big shout out. She's led a lot of the rehab efforts on the cul-de-sac. The bottom right corner, the Riverside Access Center, we did an interior rehab project that will be done this October. So we'll be doing a grand reopening with city council. our teams here that will include a life skills in a training room as well as case conferencing rooms and then just north of that at the place which is at 2800 healing place we completed the 33 rehab of that building for 33 transitional housing units that will be operated by the county they did an rfp to procure an operator and that operator will be opening the doors in october as well The affordable housing projects, we have 3,500 existing affordable housing units in the city of Riverside. We have 336 in the pipeline. There are more forthcoming. We have, for instance, a project that we're working with NPHS on Lyman Fifth, and there are some other developers that have reached out to us for some potential projects. We have 24 permit supportive housing units, which are Sunrise at Bogart. We have 22 permit supportive housing units there. They will be opening their doors at the end of this year. We were expecting 2027, but they got construction moving quickly on that project. and then we have 41 transitional housing units um in the pipeline and then mulberry gardens consists of 59 senior units which um agrippina shared with the housing and homeless committee yesterday the application process will be opening so we'll share that out on social media and then the 150 units of family units will come online in 2027. The housing program performance outcomes. Under our housing programs in the last fiscal year, we were able to keep 105 households stabilized in their housing. We assisted 88 senior rental assistants, seniors through the rental assistance program. Through the rental assistance program, we were able to help 83 formerly homeless individuals achieve housing and housing stability. And then we have six full-time case managers, which will be coming back to council to see if we can increase and add another five. And then landlord incentive program, we give landlords up to $1,000 if they're willing to lease a unit to one of our rental assistance program participants. So we were able to provide 28 landlord incentives. And through our landlord locator, she was able to identify 193 housing units. So if we identify a housing unit and we don't have somebody in our program that can utilize that, we will share that with our county partners through their rental assistance programs as well. I also don't have a slide up here, but our outreach and shelter outcomes, we did 163 trip homes last year. Our interim housing, where we will place somebody in another shelter while we're waiting for vacancies on our beds, we assisted 72 individuals. The emergency shelter, we housed 376 individuals there. And then our non-congregate shelter, we had 104 guests that were assisted there. Regional collaboration, we are huge on trying to work with our city partners within the county to address homelessness within their own cities. We held a homeless forum back in February 25th of 2026, where we brought cities together to talk about what our current needs are, what the shelters' current numbers are within the region, and trying to encourage cities to partner when they don't have resources, similar to what City of Corona in Norco are doing. We also did a faith-based luncheon on March 25th where we brought faith leaders together. I know planning will be doing a follow-up where they're going to bring the faith partners together with developers to talk about how we can build affordable housing on underutilized land that churches own. And then we also, I'll talk about the event we did this week later on. The initiatives, we are working with the county on our MOUs. You remember council approved an MOU back in 2022, so we did meet with our county department leads to talk about what did we accomplish under that MOU, what did we not accomplish that we need to still pursue, and then what are some new initiatives and things that we want to work with the county on, being that the county has a lot of their programs and resources here in our city. We are also looking to collaborate with other cities within the district since the county tends to place a lot of resources by district boundaries. So we're looking to partner with the city of Paris as well as city of Harpa Valley. As you know, Paris got their sales tax initiative passed. So we're encouraging them to spend some of those resources towards affordable housing and homeless programs as well. So stay tuned for that. And then we continue the mayor's initiative to ending youth homelessness. We achieved that goal last year, and we continue to achieve it every two weeks with our team that lead the case conferencing meeting. We expanded that to include the county partners because we want to see our county partners achieve the same goal so that folks are, our youth are not remaining on the streets. And then we also, with our veteran homeless population, we are also achieving functioning still today. And then we also stood up our nonprofit collaborative. So we are bringing our nonprofit partners to talk about what are their needs to serve our residents as well as how we can help and support them. But we're also gonna pull our nonprofit partners that serve our homeless population to talk about how we might be able to leverage resources that we might have and expand some of the services to help our unhoused population here in the city. I want to recognize our departments within the city because not only the great work that our department does, but we rely on our city, other city departments to do the day in and day out work. The city attorney's office does a lot of contract work for us to get our affordable housing developments done, our subrecipient contracts processed, and they jump on loan calls as well. Our city clerk's office does an amazing job with tasking us and reminding us about our staff reports and getting those in on time. And of course, the city manager's office. I couldn't get my deputy director position filled without the support of Tom. So thank you for that, moving that forward. And then our finance department, they help us get the money out. And so I want to thank that team. And then general services, when we rehabbed Hewlin campus, we needed somebody, a project manager, that knew the ins and outs of construction. So we were able to rely on that. And then of course, everybody knows Nathan Mustafen, Public Works, does amazing work. Anytime we need help, Nathan's there to pitch in and help us out when we're dealing with trash and debris out in the community. And then, of course, the Riverside Police Department, as you know, PSET, we have team members that are on our team as well, so I want to recognize our police department that we rely on heavily as well. It takes a village and a team effort to address homelessness within the city. I know the date says 2025. I don't know if you know, every November we submit recognitions and nominations to the Human Resources Department. So for the 2025 year, I want to recognize Gabby Bustos. Gabby has been an essential team member of the Housing and Human Services. She first came on as senior office specialist with the CDBG team and has done an amazing job. She was promoted to administrative analysis, analyst, and she does contract agreements, requisition requests, payments, and projects, and she gets them to the finish line. So I want to thank Gabby for all her hard work and we have a gift for you up here. And also Jasmine Garcia, if you don't know Jasmine, she used to be one of our outreach workers and she got promoted to our lead and now she's a manager of our outreach team. So she actually works with our PSET and the outreach team that's at the Access Center. And so anytime you guys send me those requests of hey Michelle, I've got a homeless individual out here that is in need or PSET, I will send it directly to Jasmine and she's the one that gets the job done. So I wanna recognize these two ladies if they can come forward.

and give you guys a recognition and some flowers.

I forgot.

And that's just a little bit of all that Housing and Human Services does for the city. So that concludes my presentation.

Was I under 10? This thing doesn't move. It didn't move.

We're not timing as we should, so that's why you weren't. But you did a great job, Michelle.

I was wondering, but you did. I was looking at it, and I was pretty sure you hit it under there. So thank you for that. And wow, what a lot of work you all do. Thank you, all of you, for doing this very important work within our city. And can I add to you, Michelle, I thought that was very nice that you recognized your partners within the city and the different departments. That was very nice. Thank you. We have a couple comments from our council members. Council Member Condor.

Michelle, thank you to you and your very diverse staff for all the work you do on this very difficult issue. There's been homeless hell since the Egyptians built the pyramids. Everyone says we're going to solve it. It's a very difficult issue. If it wasn't difficult, we would have solved it by now. But you guys do a good job answering all these issues. And I think what is great about your presentation, we all hear every day about the homeless. And people will yell at us, you're not doing a damn thing for the homeless issue. They have no idea what your people are out there doing every day with the assistance of the other departments. The city is doing a lot to do it. It's just very difficult. You've got over 7,300 contacts. I mean, 163 trips home, that's pretty awesome. And, you know, those accepting services, we wish it was all. We know it's not. But it takes time. Sometimes it takes, what, eight, nine contacts before they'll accept? You're not giving up. You're doing a good job. Your outreach team is great. Your internal team, when we call, and I call you a lot, hello, Michelle, I got homeless guy in the corner of 14th and, you know, Millburg. It's great for what you're doing. So we'll keep educating the public on the great work you're doing. Keep it up. Keep all of you. Thank you. God bless all of you for the work you do because we really, really would be in a heck of a worse mess if you'd run out there every day on this delicate issue.

Thanks. Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Robillard. Thank you, Mary, and congratulations to the team. It's one of those very, very tough jobs that a lot of times the results are hard to find sometimes, and I think it's individual problems and issues that you're trying to deal with, and everyone's different. There's no silver bullet. If we had it, we would use it. But I think one thing I wanted to suggest for next year's faith-based gathering A lot of the churches I've talked to, they have ministries that they have within their churches that do outreach and have a heart to serve the homeless population. a lot of times it's a water bottle sack lunch kind of thing. And I think there's a lot of things that they could do that might be a little bit more helpful to the overall strategy we have for homelessness. And I think they are looking for, I met with a church yesterday about this, and they said, we don't want to stop this ministry, but we need to have a redirection. We want them to do something else. And having them kind of be our case managers on the ground where they say, hey, there's these 10 individuals who are around our church all the time. We're going to essentially step in to be their case manager and constantly do the outreach, build the relationships, build that bridge, but they just don't know what the resources are. They can't be a full-on case manager, but just build that relationship to kind of helpfully redirect some of these folks. And so I just suggest maybe that be also the topic of conversation next year because I think there's a really, really big network of people that want to help, and they just need to be directed in that direction. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Mill.

Thank you, Mayor. And first, how are we having a celebration without Marquise here?

He's on a well-deserved vacation. Wait, who? I didn't approve. I don't remember that coming across my desk.

But, no, Michelle, I got to say, you know, thank you, especially to the people who are out on the front line. You know, it's got to be just – it's a thankless job, for one. But it's just got to be tough. I mean, every day coming back after being out in the streets and sometimes you've got to come back and feel as if like, what did I get done today? But they get up tomorrow and they do the same thing. And that takes a lot. I know, you know, when I'm having a tough day, the last thing I want to do is revisit the day I had before, tomorrow. But your team does that every day. Our city's a better place for their efforts, so thank you. I just want to follow up on Councilmember Robillard's comments. We actually had a discussion about this in my office a little earlier this morning. You did have the faith-based event recently yesterday, And it was more about, hey, how you can build housing on your church properties. But I really do think that we can use these organizations that are within our community. We lean so hard on nonprofits. and the organizations out there but i think we need to you know reach out to to our churches uh i had the honor i i happen to be in montgomery alabama i own property down down in alabama and i happen to be there and i got a call from dave crane who runs the the auto center here in riverside and he made mention of my friend own uh just started a church in montgomery I have lunch next door to his church every day. He says, well, they do homeless outreach there. So I said, oh, let me go over and say hello. And I sat with him. And it was just one day. And I'm talking to him. Turns out that he was Stephen Robillard's youth pastor from Riverside. I'm in Montgomery, Alabama. It's far away from Riverside, California. And I start talking to Jason Powell. And he says, you know, Stephen Roblard was in my youth church group. But I was so impressed with what Jason was doing there in Montgomery, Alabama. Well, I admit it's on a much smaller scale than what we have. And the laws in Alabama are a little different than they are in California. But I was so impressed with the success. And I watched... um these folks who have been out on the streets for a long time come you know what he was giving him he was giving them back their self-respect and their self-esteem people were getting up and they were like i got a job interview or one guy i remember the one guy he had tears in his eyes as he was telling the group i got a job working the night shift at waffle house i haven't had a job in 20 years but because of the efforts of what you guys are doing and it was hard not to be uh emotional about it. It's just, you know, most of us take, you know, having a job interview or getting a job for granted. And this man, like, hadn't had a job in 20 years. I think we need to lean on our church. I want to bring Jason here. In fact, Dave Crane and I had a conversation with Ron Ellis from CBU the other day and Council Member Robard about, we need to bring Jason out here and have him talk to us about what he's doing down there. But I was so impressed. And now I'm down there. I had no intention on hanging out in church every day. But I was so impressed with what they were doing. I went back and spent the next whole day with them watching what they're doing. I think that we need to lean harder on these organizations because I do believe that they want to help. We have a lot of issues where a lot of the churches are going out and they're feeding people along Magnolia Corridor. I understand why. But it's counterintuitive to say you're not helping because you and I both know that by doing that, while they're doing the Lord's work, it's actually making it harder for your team. So I want to double down on Councilmember Robillard's comments that I do think we have a group of organizations here in town that are just hungry to help. And I'd like to see over the next year, let's bring them in the fold. Let's not just collaborate with nonprofits, but let's coordinate with these faith-based organizations that are so hungry to help. But I appreciate all you do. I know I always say this, you know, it doesn't matter what day of the week is, what time of day. If I call or send an email, Michelle Davis answers right away. And I appreciate your hard work and your shining example for your team. Thank you. Thank you.

Counselor Hernandez.

I just want to thank you and your team. I'll keep it short. I'm the council member of Ward 6. I know you guys are out there day in, day out. And although it may seem like a thankless job sometimes, I am very grateful and sorry to the residents of the area. So thank you for all your hard work.

I WANT TO TRIPLE DOWN ON WHAT MY TWO COLLEAGUES TALKED ABOUT. WHEN HE TOLD ME THAT STORY ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THAT CHURCH, I WAS FLOORED BY IT. I HAVE PASSED THAT STORY ON TO PROBABLY 35 or 40 people in town, including our church, and they want to get involved. They want to do that. I was going to talk to you, and this is perfect timing. I'd like to bring Jason up for the Inland Empire Forum and let him talk about how to do it. You're bringing pride back to a person. Even the money they earn, because they were earning $20 a day, even if they spent that on a pack of cigarettes... They earned it. They didn't steal it. They didn't beg for it. They earned it. And that's the respect coming back. Good job by you two, and I'd love to bring that here. Tom and I have talked about it. I'd love to bring that here.

Thank you, Council Member. Just a couple things. Michelle, we get a lot of money from the state every year, HAP funding, which is the Housing, Homeless, and Assistance Prevention Program. Can you just very briefly say what those funds are used for throughout some of the programs that you've used? What do they go to?

So we do shelter. We do rapid rehousing, rental assistance. We do homeless prevention. We do case management. We do affordable housing. We are also looking at doing a master leasing, which we'll be bringing forward to the council. I've also got a proposal on my desk for TAY youth that are pregnant that are no longer able to stay in the foster care system, so providing them treatment. That's transitional aged youth. Transitional aged youth. And then also a family shelter provider that is operating at a new location at a church and is looking for operation dollars to expand that resource. So we're looking to expand that as well. We're also looking at releasing a NOFA, a notice of a funding availability for round six and then probably round seven as well to make some of those dollars available to our nonprofits. And then we are also having conversations with the other cities within the region that aren't receiving any state or federal resources on how we can maybe assist them as well.

Thank you. And I know we have a dashboard. We're looking at a dashboard to see the efficacy of where those dollars are going to programs that work, which don't work, and which ones should we shed, which ones should we beef up. Correct. And I know someone in my office is looking at that as well.

Yes, and she's fabulous. Oh, good. I'm glad. I'm glad.

I think she's great. And then I know you mentioned TAY youth or transitional age youth. That's who we focus on when we talk about functional zero for youth homelessness. I think there was a comment made at a committee meeting yesterday. Council Member Mill said that someone said we hadn't solved it, youth homelessness, because there were so many issues. McKinney-Vento students in the school district, I think they said there was something like 2,000. That's an entirely different group, and they fall under different designations and all these other things, correct?

Yeah, they include the couch surfing, so we're having conversations with the school districts to quantify and separate that data out with truly homelessness that are, you know, unhoused versus those that are couch surfing. Or unsheltered, right?

I mean, that's part of the issue with that group, I think, so. And lastly I think one of the things I wish our public would know was we've I think all the council members up here got requests within the past couple weeks about why aren't we doing like other cities and doing police sweeps of our encampments and I think you showed we do them on the regular basis and we have done them every We do them a lot. So I think a couple cities around us have made it public lately that they've been doing it, but we've been doing it for a long time. And, in fact, I think your data show there was over 600 arrests within the last year, which were a result of those sweeps. So I appreciate it. And then lastly, I want our public to know as well that we conflate homelessness with a lot of other things, and we need to be clear on that. I mean, we do have a population of folks that need help. They need some bridge funding. They need rental assistance. They've lost their housing. We can get to them. There's a whole other group here. There's a criminal element on our streets that victimize the encampments, that live in the encampments. That's the PD's job. They're out there trying to crack down on criminal activity in our city. That's a whole other group. And then we have our behavioral and mental health group. That's under a whole other different group. The county and the state is responsible for addressing those. But all of those people conflate into one and see that as our responsibility. Thank you all for doing that work because I think folks don't understand the difference between the jurisdictions and nobody cares when they just see somebody suffering on the street. So I'm sorry that was long-winded, but thank you all. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Okay. Moving on to our agenda. Oh, wow. This is a fun one. We've got September is Deaf Awareness Month. So this is our last presentation, and this is in recognition of Deaf Awareness Month. And because CSDR is in his ward, I want to ask Councilmember Robillard to help make this presentation. But I just know our friends from the deaf community and CSDR, we worked very hard to get our commission established since I've been in office. We worked very hard to work with our folks at CSTR. We continue to. And thank you for sticking with us. We appreciate you just bearing with us. So thank you. And with that, I want to let Council Member Robillard. I don't know if you would like the. Okay. Can I pass these down, please? Thank you.

All right, before we present the proclamation, I wanted to make a moment to recognize Riverside's vibrant deaf community. Deaf Awareness Month is an opportunity not only to celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of deaf and hard of hearing community, but also to remind all of us the importance of accessibility, inclusion, and understanding. California School for the Deaf, Riverside, has played an important role in fostering that community for generations. CSDR has been a part of Riverside for more than 70 years and today serves more than 400 deaf students ages 3 to 21 from 12 counties throughout Southern California. Its 58 plus acre campus is much more than a school. It is a place where students learn, build community, develop leadership skills, and prepare for college careers and life beyond the classroom. CSDR does an incredible job of creating an environment where American Sign Language and English are both valued, where Deaf culture is embraced, and where students are encouraged to recognize their own strengths and potential. The school provides impressive career technical education programs, including food education and service training , automotive, biomedical, information technology, construction technology, and so much more. They also offer a tremendous range of opportunities outside the classroom, including more than 25 competitive athletic teams, and we all know about their outstanding football team. CSDR is also part of something much larger. Riverside has a long and proud history of deaf leadership, advocacy, culture, and community. The work happening at CSDR, the City's Commission of the Deaf, events like Deaf Festival, and many Deaf leaders and advocates who have dedicated their time to our community have helped make Riverside a place where Deaf and hard of hearing individuals can learn, lead, work, and thrive. We are fortunate to have those leaders with us today. And I would like to invite Lori Stretcher and Barbie Gomez to please come up to the to the dais, as well as three CSDR students who are joining us this afternoon. And I wanted to thank you for being here, and more importantly, thank you for the work you do every day to support these students and strengthen our community. On behalf of the City of Riverside, it is an honor to recognize September as Deaf Awareness Month, and to present this proclamation recognizing September as Deaf Awareness Month in the City of Riverside. And I'll just, I had a long description there, so you guys can read the proclamation, but we are proclaiming today as the Deaf Awareness Month, if you guys would like to come up to the dais and say a few words. And then someone's going to interpret for you.

Do you have an inter, yeah.

Hi, my name is Sarah Johnson, and I'm a senior at CSDR, California School for the Deaf Riverside, of course, and I'm here to represent our Junior NAD, Junior National Association for the Deaf. Hello, everyone. My name is Kalia Kent-Davis, and I'm a senior at CSDR, and I'm representing our Associated Student Body Government. First of all, we just wanted to express our gratitude for recognizing our community and inviting us here today. And we also appreciate so much this recognition of Deaf Awareness Month. And you guys are welcome to visit us and support CSDR at any moment. Thank you so much.

All right, thank you. And if you guys can go ahead, we'll come into the well right here, and we'll take a picture with the certificates. And everyone here, as well as our deaf commissioners as well, can come into the well.

Good.

Thank you everyone.

This is too hard. This is too hard.

So thank you all for coming, and also just congratulations to everybody, and thank you, Councilor Robillard. All right, Council, we are moving on our agenda, and we are at our consent calendar, and I will ask our city manager if you have any items you wish to pull.

Pass.

All right. Ward 1? Pass. Ward 2? Pass. Ward 3? Pass. Pass. Ward 4? Pass. Ward 5? Pass. Ward 6? Pass. Ward 7? Pass.

Move to approve. Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Please vote on the consent calendar.

Motion carries unanimous.

Okay, great, thank you. So, we are now at our closed sessions, right? Yeah, so, council, we're gonna move into closed session for a bit, and then we will come back out for our public hearing, which is scheduled to be 3 p.m. Do we, where is it? It's not on, sorry, it's not on my tab here. Okay, it's right here. Pardon me, it skipped on my notes here, so apologies. All right, so we are now at item 30A, and this is our interim city managers to execute a contract with two interim deputy community and economic development directors. So with that, I will open public comment for this item.

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

Thank you. With that, I will ask Miriana Gonzalez please to come forward and give us a staff report. Ms. Gonzalez.

Yes high good afternoon, madam mayor City Council and city staff Mariana can sell is that the HR director and just here to provide you with the brief overview of item 38 on the agenda which is requesting approval of the employment agreements and resolutions for bill guy are though and it's even Mendoza who are to retire new it ends and we're hoping they serve as interim deputy community and economic development directors. Per CalPERS regulations under government code section 21221H, the city is required to get approval from the governing body to appoint via resolution a retired new addend to a vacant position requiring specialized skills while actively recruiting for the permanent position. This item cannot be on the consent calendar. There are other CalPERS requirements notated in the resolution, including that there be an open recruitment, that the retiree can only be appointed to the position once, and that the retiree does not work in excess of 960 hours in a fiscal year. The HR department is currently recruiting for the two deputy director positions and will be working with the contracted executive recruitment firm to conduct the nationwide search. The recruitment posting can be found on the city's HR website. While the active recruitment is underway, it is imperative to fill the two vacancies with highly qualified individuals and candidates that can provide the necessary level of support. The two external candidates that have been identified to fill the vacancies on a temporary basis are both retired annuitants and they possess extensive knowledge and experience holding director, assistant city manager, and city manager positions in the past with a number of Southern California agencies. With that, HR is requesting that you approve the two enclosed resolutions and that you authorize the interim city manager to execute the employment agreements for Mr. Mendoza and Mr. Gallardo so that they can begin working with the city immediately. This concludes my brief overview of the report, and I'm open to entertaining any questions that you may have.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez. Let me see if we have any requests to speak on this item. Nothing in chambers, and I don't see anybody online. We'll close public comment. Council, any questions, comments?

Move style of recommendation.

All right, we have a motion of second, word three, word four. Please vote.

Motion carries unanimous.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez. Item 30B, this is a resolution establishing rules and regulations for a procurement process. So we will open public comment 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.

Thank you. And with that, I'd like to ask Jennifer McCoy, please, to give us a staff presentation on this item.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members. My name is Jen McCoy. I'm the purchasing manager in the finance department. Today, I will be presenting an update to our city's purchasing resolution. Sorry, I just ran to the restaurant. The proposed amendments address four primary areas of the increasing the procurement thresholds for good services and professional services, city manager delegated a signature authority, purchasing exceptions and definitions, technical and administration corrections, and the overall objective is to modernize the city's procurement framework based on operational experience while maintaining competition accountability and appropriate oversight the city's strategic procurement reform initiative the updated federal procurement thresholds and our analysis of three years of city procurement activity Before discussing the proposed changes, I want to briefly distinguish the different authorities involved. The city's centralized purchasing system is established through the city's charter and municipal code, while the purchasing resolution establishes the rules governing how our city procures goods, services, and professional services and construction. City Council also delegates certain contracting authorities to the City Manager. The delegated authority has changed over time. In 2005, the City established a uniform $50,000 threshold, and then in 2024, Council adopted and increased the City Manager's delegated authority from $50,000 to $100,000 for good services and professional services. This review connected to the city's broader strategic procurement reform initiative. In 2024, purchasing worked with Harvard Kennedy Business School, Government Performance Lab, and later transferred to its contracted Partners for Public Good. The work included interviews with more than 100 city staff, a survey of more than 400 vendors, and implementation of 21 procurement reforms. The three consistent themes came out of our work. To reduce duplicated efforts and unnecessary process delays, clarify roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority, and improve vendor access to city contracting opportunities. At the same time, federal procurement thresholds changed effective October 1, 2025. The one quote requirement called micro purchase threshold increased from 10,000 to $15,000 and the informal process called simplified acquisition threshold increased from $250,000 to $350,000. The policy objective behind today's recommendations is therefore to apply procurement requirements proportionately to the value, the risk, complexity and public significance of a transaction while maintaining competition, accountability and oversight. The procurement thresholds are alternatives that are being presented today are three options. Option one would establish a one citywide threshold, one quote through $15,000, informal competition between $15,000 and $350,000, and formal competition above $350,000. Option two, which is staff's recommendation, establishes one quote through $15,000. For non-federally funded procurements, we're looking for informal competition through $220,000 and for federally funded informal competition through $350,000 and formal procurement being required for those projects that are over those informal thresholds. And then option three is to maintain the existing thresholds in the purchasing resolution. So staff recommends option two. It provides many of the efficiencies associated with the higher federal threshold while maintaining a more conservative $220,000 threshold for non-federally funded procurements. Both option one and two allow the city to utilize the higher $350,000 federal requirement. When administering federal funded procurements, this improves flexibility, responsiveness, and compliance with federal procurement requirements. And establishing a $220,000 threshold also creates a logical policy framework should the city council elect at a future date to pursue charter amendments. And this would align with CUPCA, which is the California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act. And today's action does not amend Charter 1109. Any future charter amendments would require a separate review process and voter approval. Until then, all Charter Section 1109 construction procurement and approval requirements would remain unchanged. And I'd like to note that this change in informal procurement, it does not eliminate competition. Informal procurement is a competitive procurement process. The difference is the formality and administrative regulations associated with the solicitation. We evaluated over 8,000 procurement actions for fiscal years 23, 24, through 25, 26. Under the city's current thresholds, 1397 of those actions would have required formal procurement. Under option one, that decreases to 501 procurements, and under option two, it decreases to 669, a reduction of 728 formal procurements over a three-year period analysis. At the same time, approximately a little over $1 billion in procurement expenditures would have still been subject to formal competitive procurement under option two. And the important distinction is that these procurements are not being non-competitive. They are moving from the city's formal procurement process to a documented informal competitive process. Purchasing oversight document requirements, ethical requirements, budget controls, and applicable policies will continue. Option two does reduce the administrative timeline associated with formal solicitations while preserving competition and keeping more than one billion of the analyzed procurement spend within the formal procurement process. Next, I'd like to discuss the city manager approval authority. The second policy decision, again, is recommended as a separate from the competitive procurement threshold. A procurement can be competitively conducted and still require council approval because of the dollar amount or another legal requirement. Council currently delegates authority up to $100,000. The alternatives evaluated are option one, which is $350,000, option two at $220,000, and option three to maintain the current $100,000 authority. Staff recommends option two at $220,000. Our analysis looked at 624 affected non-charter Council purchase orders representing approximately $560 million. Under option two, 218 council actions would move to administrative approval and 406 would remain in city council. More importantly, council review would be retained for approximately 94% of the affected procurement spend. There are also 157 charter section 1109 purchase orders representing approximately 358 million in this analysis. Those are unaffected by this proposal. Our existing controls will remain in place. One of the important points is to remember that delegated authority does not remove the city's existing controls. Departments remain limited to council adopted appropriations and purposes of their spend. Signature authority does not create additional budget authority. Competitive requirements continue. Purchasing oversight continues. Documentation and ethical requirements continue. Required departmental purchasing contract management finance and city attorney review continue where applicable The recommendation changes the level of final approval for qualifying transactions not the underlying control structure The amendments also include specific safeguards to preserve council oversight and public transparency. First, delegated agreements and amendments will continue to be publicly reported, including their cumulative contracts value. Second, the resolution contains anti-fragmentation requirements. A contract cannot be divided into separate procurements phases or amendments for the purpose of avoiding procurement or approval thresholds. Third, if the cumulative value of an agreement exceeds delegated authority, it must return to council unless council previously provided additional not to exceed amounts. And nothing in the delegated authority removes the matter from council when council approval is independently required by the charter, municipal code, grant requirements, city policy, or other applicable requirements. And finally, staff will return to council within 12 months to evaluate implementation and recommend any necessary refinements. The goal is increased delegated authority is paired with transparency, cumulative value controls, anti-fragmentation protections, and continued council oversight. We also quantified the administrative impact associated with delegated approval authority. Based on the city's prior analysis, procurement-related council agenda items require approximately 13.7 hours across various departments and review levels involved. Under option one, approximately 119 council actions annually would move to administrative approval, represented at approximately 1635 hours of administrative capacity. Under the recommended option two, approximately 73 council actions annually would move to administrative approval, representing approximately 996 hours of administrative capacity. Those hours are not being presented as budget savings or staffing reductions. They are representing capacity that can instead be directed towards contract administration, compliance monitoring, strategic sourcing, vendor outreach, procurement planning, complex procurements, and supporting timely delivery of council approved programs. Option two provides measurable administrative efficiencies while maintaining a high level of council oversight. We also compared Riverside's current thresholds to comparable California public agencies. Riverside's current formal procurement threshold is $50,000 compared to a peer average of approximately $116,923. Seven of the 13 agencies reviewed have higher formal procurement thresholds. And Riverside's current city manager authority is 100,000 compared with a peer average of approximately $178,833. And nine of the 13 peer agencies provided greater delegated authority. The peer analysis supports increasing Riverside thresholds and delegated authority. However, the recommendation amounts are based on Riverside's own operational and policy analysis rather than simply adopting the peer average. The proposed resolution also adds or expands several narrowly defined purchasing exceptions based on specialized operational needs. For fleet, the amendments provide greater flexibility for vehicle acquisition, leasing, maintenance, repair, outfitting, and support. Vehicle procurement is particularly affected by model year timing, production allocations, limited availability, pricing windows, and specialized configurations. The amendment allows purchasing to use authorized procurements, methods appropriate to those market conditions. The next exception for certain employee benefits, the exception is limited to employee negotiation or employee authorized voluntary program paid predominantly by the participating employee. Human resources, legal administrative, and collective bargaining requirements continue to apply. And for police canines, the exception recognizes the specialized and sometimes time-sensitive nature of acquiring and caring for working animals, including veterinary services, boarding, equipment, supplies, and specialized training. These exceptions are intended to address specific operational circumstances. They are not a broad exemption from purchasing. And the resolution also contains several technical clarifications. We added the definition of piggybacking and distinguishing it from cooperative purchasing. We clarified the city's direct contractual relationship with the awarded vendor when utilizing another public agency's competitively awarded contract. Field order provisions were revised for applicable construction and design build activities. Professional service references were added to provisions where they were not previously included in the resolution. And section 1104 regarding change orders was reorganized to clarify cumulative authority and when approvals must return to original ordering entity. And these changes are intended to reduce ambiguity and make the resolution easier for staff to consistently administer. And finally, the staff recommends that council first approve the technical and administrative amendments, including the revised definitions, purchasing exception, and ministerial corrections. Second, we ask that you approve option two for the procurement thresholds, which is one quote through $15,000. informal procurement through 220 for non-federally funded projects or procurements informal procurement through 350 000 for federally funded procurements and formal procurement above applicable thresholds Third, approve option two for city manager delegated authority at $220,000. Fourth, repeal resolution number 24-101 and replace it with the amended resolution. And finally, direct staff to return to council within 12 months with an evaluation of implementation. That concludes my presentation, and I'm available to answer any questions that you might have.

All right, thank you, Ms. McCoy. Let me see if we have any callers. We don't have any requests to speak in chambers. I don't believe anybody's online. So we'll... Do we have any callers? Okay, I don't see any. Okay, we do have one caller. Let's have our caller, please.

Hello, Jason Hunter, Ward 1. Just over two years ago, this council, minus Mr. Hernandez, voted to double our city manager's signature authority from $50,000 to $100,000. I opposed it on the basis of how it limits transparency for both the public and the council, which inevitably would lead to lax fiscal soundness of the city. Was this evidenced this year by the proposal of Measure Z? In my opinion, almost certainly. Now we propose to double down on bad policy. I might even say triple down, given that we're not only looking to increase the signature authority of the city manager, we're also looking to lessen the competitive process of our bidding system, going with a lot more informal proposals versus formal bidding. I asked the council table this proposal until after the IG can study it. In fact, this is a great test case for our IG. Why do I say that? Because, you know, the report is written and recommended by the department, finance and purchasing, and the city manager's office. A stand to gain expanded authority and reduce administrative burden from the change. I think there's a conflict there, clearly a conflict. Let's talk about the actual impacts here. The city manager's signature authority, raising it UNDER OPTION 2 ELIMINATES ONE THIRD OF COUNCIL ACTIONS INVOLVING MONEY THAT THE FULL COUNCIL AND PUBLIC WILL BE AWARE OF. OPTION 3 ELIMINATES 60% OF THOSE ACTIONS. DON'T LOOK AT TOTAL DOLLARS, LOOK AT THE ACTIONS THEMSELVES. ALSO, STAFF IS PROPOSING TO QUADRUPLE THE FORMAL PROCUREMENT THRESHOLLS, ELIMINATING eliminating about two-thirds of our formal procurement under option one and 50% under option two and then option three. This is substantial. I might say tectonic shift in city spending and how it spends with almost no explanation given in that staff report and presentation to the council or the public as to exactly what the differences are between formal and informal procurement. I'll end with this. In my professional opinion, what we are proposing here are red flags to a precursor for insider-based fraud. Former RPU general manager David Wright, who is still, I believe, serving part of his sentence from home, would absolutely love this proposal. Number one, limits transparency to the public and council on government spending. It limits accountability to after the fact discovery of things. Thirdly, it reduces competition, eroding quality, timeliness, and cost containment. In my opinion, take option three, and let's get a less biased report from our inspector general. Apparently, they will be hired soon, so we're in the final stages of negotiation. This is a great thing to throw their way. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hunter. We have another caller. Please, let's have our next caller. Hi, if you're online, unmute, please, and you can start speaking.

Hello, this is Aurora Chavez. I'm getting better. I'm still a little bit sick, but I'm doing better. On this item, I'm just surprised. I think everybody was surprised by the amount of purchase cards available to everybody that was given one of those purchase cards and then the amounts on those purchase cards was surprising too. I'm glad that the council is going to be more addressing those issues. Hopefully they'll find out that the amount of monies that were given out might need to be reduced a bit and have somebody more looking into what was given out and hopefully what was approved or not approved by the council and what needs to be changed that way. Maybe procedures need to be changed. Also, the city manager, our last city manager, gave kind of approval for buses. And I don't know if the city will be on the hook for the amount to pay for those buses. and whether they're going to use those buses or not or if the contract needs to be canceled or not. So I'm just making sure that the city council is more aware of what was the city manager's what he was doing and then hopefully the next city manager we can make sure that they do the procedures correctly. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms. Chavez. I believe that was our last caller, so we will close public comment and come back to our city council for discussion. Council Member Mill.

Thank you, Mayor. You know, I'm all about reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, but I'm not willing to do so at the expense of competition, transparency, or council oversight. I think that's what this is asking us to do here today. I do have some questions I have for you. Thank you. My first question is, why is staff recommending a $220,000 formal procurement threshold when the peer agency average cited in the report is only $116,923? The goal was to have it align with CUPCA. So there are some

KEPCA allows for public works contracts to be informally bid if a member agency is a part of the organization. And so we were looking at the different authority levels, and where it made sense was to put $220,000 to align with that. If we decide in the future we wanted to do a charter amendment, it would easily align with the state laws already. So that was the decision of the dollar threshold.

OK.

Now let's talk about the informal procurements. What exactly do you mean by three bids if possible? And who decides when three bids are not possible? And are you planning to justify that publicly?

Sure, so informal procurement is currently done where a department is to submit three quotes from three different vendors. They follow the same procurement guidelines that we do for the formal procurement, minus it doesn't go on our city website. So, we do verify in purchasing when we're issuing a purchase order or a contract that the quotes were received and that they were apples to apples to make sure we're getting the same services. We do verify all of these through the purchase requisitions and purchase orders before they're issued. My apologies, I forgot the second part of your question.

So who decides, well, one, like... Oh, an exception.

Yeah. Okay, so the, if they do not get three quotes, they have to provide a justification of why they are using a purchasing exception. So it has to match the purchasing resolution as a possible option to not get three quotes.

Okay, so it is...

And that applies to formal and informal in some situations.

So help me understand, because I'm not... Sure. Help me understand, again, who makes the decision that three bids are not possible?

So typically the department presents it to the purchasing team and then I approve it. In the purchasing resolution, it does give me the authority to make sure that the exception applies, whether it's a single source, sole source, or another exception applies. And then all the requisitions that turn into purchase orders or contracts are then also approved by department heads, so it does have a chain of custody to make sure that everything's compliant.

Will every informal procurement between $50,000 and $220,000 be publicly posted or will the vendors be solicited privately?

So informal procurement is solicited privately by the department. The department will reach out to multiple vendors. Oftentimes, departments will reach out to the purchasing division to get a list of qualified or vendors that are pre-authorized, have been vetted through insurance and various aspects, licensing and such. And they will contact them individually by email typically is the process. And then they return all of the data to us in purchasing, and we produce a bid tabulation to compare everything, make sure they're qualified to do the work, and that they're compliant with the requirements.

Is there a local requirement? Do we give local businesses, you know, Let's say all things are equal, or are we giving preference to our Riverside-based businesses?

So we currently have a good faith affidavit form that if a department does not select or go with a local vendor, they have to provide justification why they are not contacting a local vendor. And the department approves that. We recently had an outreach network event for local businesses, so we do encourage and provide information to them through those type of events and workshops to get them publicly notice of opportunities. um so they would be reached in different manners we also do publicly put things out on social media to give local vendors and other businesses opportunities notifications because i can't stress it enough that we put banners on our signs about shopping locally and whatnot for our residents i think we as a city should set the example and

and shop locally as well and be reaching out to the vendors that are here in our community. So we're putting money into the pocket so that it gets put back into our community. So I'm always so disheartened when I see we're hiring vendors that are out of state, in fact, some that are on the other side of the country, I'd love to see us try to keep as much money as possible here in Riverside because it goes to people who live in our community and it puts money right back into our community. Just two more questions for you. Why are delegated contracts only reported annually? And will staff commit to quarterly public reports listing the vendor, amount, funding source, bids received, amendments, exceptions, and cumulative contract value?

Okay. In 2024, it was the decision of council for us to bring the contracts back annually. We can definitely increase the amount of times we do bring that information to you all, and we could do it for informal procurement, so you have a good idea of where the contract spend is and how it was procured.

And my final question would be, since y'all are acknowledging in the report that the estimated 996 redirected staff hours will not produce actual budget savings, what measurable taxpayer benefits must be achieved before the council renews these changes after 12 months?

I don't know if I have an answer for you on that. Julie? Excuse me.

Good afternoon, Council. I'm Julie Nemes, Finance Director. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding your question. You want to know what actual like taxpayer savings?

Yeah, I mean, you're acknowledging that what you're trying to do is to streamline the process, eliminate the bureaucracy. You know, it's going to save 996 staff hours, it's going to cut down on items before the council. What's what's the real benefit to the community?

So the benefit is that we'll be able to redirect those hours to provide faster services to the community. We'll be able to focus on other council priorities, other council programs. So that's what I would say would be the benefit, would be able to produce services quicker, services to the community quicker, work on higher priority council items, things like that. But it wouldn't be actual dollar savings.

Thank you. I agree with, again, as I stated previously, I'm all for reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. I think our residents deserve a government that's efficient, but I also think they deserve and I think they demand a government that's accountable. I think what we're doing here is we're taking away I actually don't like when I see, oh, we're going to reduce the number of items that come before council to a lower number. I'm not really in favor of that. I worked hard to get into this position. I don't care how long. I know people want to get out of here sometimes. We can be here all night. I think what's more important is that we discuss things publicly. And I think... This actually makes us less accountable to the public, I think. You have folks that come down here every week. One person in particular just spews a lot of silliness and nonsense. We can give him all the data. He wouldn't know what it means anyway because it just is what it is. More importantly, the average citizen in Riverside, they want to see how their tax dollars are being spent. I think, while I understand you're trying to make the process quicker and more efficient, I also think it gives the perception that we're trying to do things in the back room under the shroud of secrecy. So I can't support this item as it's currently written today. I'd love to hear what my colleagues think, but I think, again, I think we need to be more transparent. I think we need to be discussing how we spend taxpayers' money more often out here instead of trying to do it You know, y'all, no disrespect to any of the staff, but y'all weren't elected to spend the tax dollars of the city. We were. And so I can't support this as currently proposed.

Thank you, Council Member Mill. Council Member Cervantes? Yes.

All right, these mics are being a little funny today. Thank you for the presentation, and I appreciate some of the questions from my colleagues so that we could just get some more clarity. I think for myself in going through this, I feel most comfortable, and I'd love to hear from my colleagues. In looking at both options, I think I like option two in seeing on the procurement process, and I appreciate your elaboration on some questions I would have had as well. What I like about this one is that it provides the same, just reading from the report, same operational benefits through a dual threshold approach that differentiates between federally funded and non-federally funded procurements. Oh my God, that word. All of us are trying to emphasize it. And under both options, Charter Section 1109, construction procurement requirements remain unchanged. That one, I think, to me, I like the separation of the dual. I think it's always good we have that. And then looking at Exhibit B, I will say that I concur in that, you know, I do not mind keeping it status quo if that's how this council feels. I do feel it's our responsibility, fiduciary responsibility to oversee this. Every dollar because at the end of the day, we are the ones up here having to vote on the budget and we've been cutting things in our budget. We've had to make some very challenging decisions these last several years. But with that said, I also do know on the back end, especially as we have events and we do other things and just knowing how purchasing works and how we talk about red tape and processes. And being efficient with our time with our staff and even just knowing that as we're a big city and as frankly the cost to do business and the cost of in general have gone up for so many things. I think that's where we're seeing the cost of some of these items be higher than they probably would be in the past. but that would have probably been under the threshold of authority, but now they're higher. And so I do think if it means being efficient with time and reports and things and whatnot and getting things paid out, I lean towards option two a little bit because it does state here for the public, council still retains review of 94% of the affected spend while providing a more moderate reduction in council actions. But in both cases, all charter section 1109 construction procurements, again, remain subject to existing city council approval requirements and So I, I, I option one cuts us down to 87.4%, which that makes me kind of have a little bit of eye twitch, um, just cause you never know again, what could come forward. And I think my only question then would be to option two, let's say that 6%, is there a way that the department could still provide counsel with? I don't know if it's, um, a list of what has been approved or authorized prior to it going out, just for us to always be able to look at it in the event we want to bring it and put it on consent if we have questions or if we think we need to have a discussion. In that way, we still have that authority and ability, of course, to raise questions, concerns. I don't know if you've had any thought about what that could look like.

As far as bringing it before the action takes place, I haven't thought much about aligning it in that direction. I do know that the Public Utility Board does require RPU to bring items as reportable if it's over the 50,000 mark for panel agreements. So there is a mechanism where items can be reported, and we can pull the data to give you all that to report it. I just don't know the functionality of how it would happen prior to awarding a contract. If that was one of the stipulations to be able to do this type of process, it might streamline it a little bit. but we would have to work on the procedures of getting that to you all in a timely fashion before it happens.

I guess I'm thinking of kind of how like a planning has their DRC reviews where they run through things that then aren't going to come here, you know, and it's almost like if you're already going to have a list of, you know, that's going to be clear to be kind of cut out and it's going to be maybe authorized. Maybe there could be a channel through city manager's office that then it's like, you know, council, please see attached. These are the items that are already essentially authorized to go again, it almost could be like, let us know if there's anything you need clarification on, you know, and if there were again, I guess potentially as a red flag or question or even a yellow, just like, Hey, what is this? We can have that ability. But I think overall, I, um, i i think i lean towards option two again would love to hear my colleagues thoughts on for both of these and um yeah at the end of the day if we want to maintain status quo i'm comfortable with that as well but i i appreciate the desire for efficiency and i do think it could hopefully help us behind the scenes with a couple things thank you thank you council member uh council member roklard

Thank you, Mayor. I think efficiency is always good. People always say, why don't you run the government like a business? Well, if we ran it like a business, we wouldn't have any of this oversight and so forth. But there's importance to the oversight because it is not our money. It's the public's money, right? But I do want to echo some of the comments made by Councilmember Cervantes because we're seeing this kind of play out in real time in Ward 3. where we have this very long, complicated procurement process, and we're looking to replace flooring in a senior center, and they have purchased all the furniture they need, and they're waiting for us to replace the flooring, and the company that is holding the furniture is like, we can't hold this past the new year. We're saying, well, we have this very, very long, complicated procurement process to get the bids and everything else, and now we're going to be pushing out past the new year to even get them new flooring. And it'd probably be the same vendor we use every single time beforehand on that same building to replace flooring because they always come in at the lowest bid. And it's just an example of, yes, we want the process to be transparent. We want this process. But at some point, cost versus effect, it's not really getting there. And I think the comment was made about don't look at the dollar amount. Look at the number of items. Well, I think the dollar amount is what's really important because if you're talking about 94% of the dollar spend being still under council authority, you're eliminating so much of the smaller purchases that are needed to be effective, to move quickly, to get things done. That is a real cost that could potentially cost this senior center a lot of money and cause a lot of problems. We're going to have to find out. Alternative solutions of what we can store the furniture for them while we wait to get our act together and get them flooring It's a very very frustrating process and so it is Dollar amounts may not be like one-to-one ratios, but there is a whole lot of second and third orders of things that happen because of that efficiency. And so I like option number two for that reason. I think part of it too is lawyers use it all the time. If you're trying to hide something, paper the thing. Put tons of data in there. Try to sift through a thousand items. It makes it really hard to find the thing that you're looking for. I think that's part of this is we can reduce the efficiency because you're able to identify and focus on a smaller amount of things versus a laundry list of things that could probably escape by, I notice. And then those reports to city council become redundant. They become the same thing over and over again. You get council members not paying attention because there's 15,000 things on that list. And then nothing stands out and you're not able to actually identify the important pieces there. And so I think efficiency makes sense. I don't think there's a huge urgent need for this, but I think I can, I can see the efficiency's, being valuable. And then we, like we said, we had an inspector general coming on. Um, we'll should be talking about that in a couple of weeks here about having the inspector general on board who can then evaluate. And like I said, things can be changed if we need to change them. But I think that, uh, efficiency should be the goal of government. Cause that's one of the things that I think we struggle with the most is efficiency. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member, council member Hernandez.

Thank you, Mayor.

This one's a bit of a tough one. I appreciate the presentation and I appreciate you answering all of our questions. I agree kind of with a little bit of everybody. I agree with Council Member Mill. We were voted to go through the process and make sure that we are being held accountable for A lot of how our procurement process goes forward and the purchases that we make spending taxpayer money. I also understand on, you know, Councilmember Cervantes and Robillard is, you know, efficiency and, you know, I appreciate your story about, you know, the senior centers. Maybe I'm not comfortable with the $200,000 threshold. Maybe we could come down a bit. Maybe, you know, what was it, the one you mentioned, like 116 was the highest part of one of the purchases, maybe 120, maybe 130 to speed up the process. But I understand both sides. If it stands the way it is, if we can't make that adjustment,

i'm going to have to stay with leaving it the same i'm not comfortable with the 200 000 threshold uh so you know that's that's where i stand on the issue thank you thank you councilmember councilmember falcone thank you mayor i'll be brief i i see both sides of this i do think it's i definitely resonate with what councilman mill shared about that we we are elected to make these decisions and when we go to neighborhood meetings we get yelled at and held accountable and we get yelled out here too and get held accountable for things that sometimes we don't have any control or say in. So I think there's a complicated piece of, well, yes, we want to move quickly, and I think our main objective, and I think a lot of what the voters want, is we have to get stuff through this very clunky and weighed down bureaucracy of a city government. So I recognize the need for moving things forward, and I would appreciate that, but I also know that we're the ones that I think need to be making as many decisions as possible because that's what the voters expect from us, or we get held accountable for things that we have no control over. So I think everyone agrees on efficiency. It just always comes down to what is efficiency? and how do we get there i think is what it is everyone on in theory can agree with that no matter what someone's perspective may be but i think we people disagree on what that looks like um so uh you know i i'm kind of thinking i'm leaning more towards uh cervantes and robillard here but um but they can definitely see uh both sides as councilman hernandez had shared thank you mayor thank you councilmember him and way well it seems like there's a bit of um

uncertainty here. So sometimes that means there's a little bit more work to do. If it would be useful to send this to the Finance Committee for more fleshing out, I'd be happy to take it and do some more work. I would second that. And if other certain folks have an interest to sit in that space and to substitute in, Be happy to have that happen as well, so It sounds like there was a appetite so I'll move that we move take this to finance committee for more vetting apologies for the all the work and delay, but I Think that might be the better route than to try and make decisions on the fly up here

Could I possibly bring something to your attention? There are several other items on the recommendations. There are some amendments that include fleet exceptions, the canine exceptions, clarifying some of the language in the change order. It doesn't change the requirements of change orders coming to you all. It just clarifies and makes it clearer for a read. So there is... a couple of other recommendations that I would like to consider other than the city manager authority and the bidding thresholds.

Do you have a list of those? I do. Because I do think it's something that this council has to decide on the dais. It's always a very difficult thing to do, to parse out, which is why I think they want to study it in committee.

So the number one is to approve and adopt the technical and administrative amendments to the purchasing resolution, including revised definitions, purchasing exceptions, and corrections to the resolution. option two was regarding the bidding thresholds and option three which is the city manager approval and then option four is to repeal the purchasing resolution 2401 and then to direct staff is number four um to come back in 12 months

so are you meaning only one then would need to be i guess it would it would be option one that we would request that you consider just just clean up language yes please yeah so i would um approve item one and the remainders two through four two three and four will go to committee is that that that would be that'll be my motion i second that motion

All right, council, are you clear on what you're voting for? Okay. I have a quick question. Yeah. I have a quick question, if I may.

Sure, councilor. Is there a reason why that piece can't wait until, I mean, is there something pending that we need to do today? I mean, we can't bring the whole thing back. I'm not real big on slicing things up. And I'm really not big on unelected bureaucrats making decisions. But if you can tell me if there's a reason why we need to.

Absolutely. So one of the items that is the fleet exception. So we have had a real struggle with purchasing vehicles. And I know that a lot of departments are waiting currently for us to be able to do that for them. So that was one of the main areas that we're concerned with for item one.

I would, I agree with what you said, Councillor Mayall, but in the instance of fleet, poor general services, we need to help these people. We need to help general services get stuff across the finish line, and that's one department that this, I think, would help.

All right, so are we modifying the motion, or are we keeping it where it is, or are we waiting? It would be... Okay, so Council Member Hill's comments don't, and her answer doesn't affect that. Okay.

I don't know if we can repeal the previous resolution, although we have something to fill it, right?

We would reject, so the way that the red lines are, city clerk can correct me if I'm wrong, but the red lines do have the options of the thresholds that apply to item number two and three, but we would still need to repeal 2401 to do the other item number one, because they are combined.

When we say repeal, essentially we just mean modify. Repeal the current one and modify it to create a new one. With the new language, amend to modify.

I'm hearing, let me let our city attorney weigh in very quickly here. I think he has a suggestion.

Yes, Mayor and Council. I think for purposes of clarity, what we would recommend is to maybe table this for an hour or two, redline exactly what this would be. We go into closed session, come back to the item, and then everyone can see in writing what this would be. So I'm hearing basically that the will of the Council may be to approve and adopt the technical administrative amendments to the proposed resolution and basically postpone everything else so we could kind of put that in writing, come back to you, you could see it, and vote on that.

Or are you okay with the original motion?

Well, my gut says, why don't we then have this, the portion that you would like that has to do with the cleanup, why doesn't that come back to the next council meeting as its own approval where folks will have time to get through and read it, and then the other stuff will go to committee? I feel like that's probably cleaner than us trying to do stuff on the fly, unless there's an urgent, urgent thing in the next two weeks or three weeks.

Is there anything urgent? Is there time sensitive on this? The fleet vehicles is time sensitive.

That would be the main item.

And I think my suggestion would be then is that we just break these up into two votes so that if we could see if there's a majority that was willing to support item one, we take a vote on it, and then we vote on the item that's on the tape motion for the rest of the week.

Sorry, I'm not trying to belabor this I think that's what the motion was already is to move one through and put the rest But it seems like there's language embedded in the resolution that needs three to go through on some level. Correct. But not fully.

We need to rewrite the recommendations, I think, to reflect that is what the city attorney recommended. Okay. That's fine. Okay. We'll do that.

Thank you, city attorney. Thank you for that.

No, it's to... Take a break. Come back.

Continue until after close. That's it. Perfect. Sorry. Thank you. Yes.

All right. Do we need to take a vote on that? No, we're just continuing it.

Do we have to vote to continue?

I think if the will is just to continue, we can simply note that we're continuing and come back.

Okay. Let's do that then. All right, council. We're going to bring this back and city attorney's going to have a look at it and give you a written thing. Thank you, Julie. Or Jen. Appreciate it. Thank you. Council, we have a public hearing at 3 p.m. Let's just take a five-minute break and then we'll come back. We have returned from our break and we are now at our 3 p.m. public hearing and this is a Agreement with grapevine development and for the sale of a Housing Authority property Just a note councilmember Cervantes has recused herself from this vote because of a monetary or financial interest from a donor But we will open public comment for this item. I

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, and I have Agrippina. I don't see, where'd Agrippina go? She was here. Are you gonna give us a presentation? Assistant City Manager? I saw her earlier.

I'm gonna do my best to wing it. Michelle's not answering her phone. Agrippina's not here, so.

I'm gonna do my best.

I know a little bit about the issue, so I'll do my best to help present. Thank you for pinch hitting. I will pinch hit and talk slow until they get here. So, um. Thank you, Councilmember and Mayor and Councilmembers. I'll do my best to present this item. The Housing Authority owns a development site at 2882 Mission and Avenue. The size of the property is 9,900 square feet. Public works street dedication will reduce the site to approximately 7,000 square feet. By way of background, in 2006, it was a former redevelopment agency property acquired, 2731 to 2871 University Avenue, successor agency properties. Seven contiguous parcels of vacant land consisting of 1.9 acres. In 2008, the former redevelopment agency acquired 2882 Mission Inn Avenue, also Housing Authority property, which included 0.22 acres, former single family dwelling, was destroyed by a fire and demolished. In July of 2019, the County Oversight Board approved a purchase and development agreement with Grapevine Economic Development Fund. The proposed concept was for a mixed-use retail and multi-family housing project. In December of 2019, escrow was canceled after the required security deposit was not submitted. And then in April of 2022, the Economic Development Placemaking Committee reviewed Grapevine's revised proposal. And the committee unanimously authorized staff to negotiate a disposition and development agreement with Grapevine. There's a requirement for surplus land act compliance. In October of 2019, AB 1486 expanded to include successor agency and housing authority land. In April of 2020, successor agency declared the University Avenue parcels surplus. I'll let you get the next slide. May of 2020, initial 60-day notice NOA was issued. And the NOA required at least 25% of proposed residential units to be affordable to lower income households subject to applicable requirements. There were no interested buyers responded to the NOA deadline and in May of 2023, HCD acknowledged compliance with the applicable requirements for the proposed disposition. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Michelle who's gonna tap dance.

I'm sorry. I apologize. I had another staff person filling in, and they got delayed. So the RFP and selected development process on July 2021, the successor agency issued an RFP for the development of the University Avenue property. The RFP did require 15% of the residential units to be affordable. On October 2021, five proposals were received and evaluated. Grapevine Development LLC was selected as a preferred developer. And then the proposed overall project, 64 residential units within a mixed-use development were being required. And the proposal included 10 affordable units. In front of you is the proposed grapevine development. It's okay.

You're fired.

You're not fired. Sorry, I don't have my glasses. As you get older, you get blind. So in front of you is the site design for the 10 units on the corner. We did work with the developer to identify the setbacks that will be required on the property as well. The proposed project is, again, the 10 affordable units will be at 2882 Mission Inn Avenue, which will be conveyed to Grapevine pursuant to a disposition and development agreement for $1. The Housing Authority land write-down is $245,860.76 based on recent comparable property sales. And then the land write-down, we are going to recognize it and use it as Home Investment Partnership Program Home Match. Our home grant does require that we have to provide a match obligation, so this will help us fill that match. Ten of the affordable units will be developed on the Housing Authority property. Two of the units will be restricted at 50% AMI. Eight units will be restricted to households at or below 60% AMI. And the affordability will be secured through a regulatory agreement for 55 years, which our Housing Authority staff does monitor on an annual basis. Sources and uses, total development cost, the sources is approximately 5.7 million. The private permit loan is approximately 1.8 million. They'll be applying for low-income housing tax credits for 2.2 million. Home investment partnerships, they will be seeking a grant from the city, which we will have to bring back to city council for approval at a later date. They are also seeking permanent local housing allocation of 250,000, which is not included in today's request. a deferred developer fee of 250,000 and then a sponsor equity from Grapevine for 178,000. So the total development cost is 5.7 million. The current agreement approvals on January 6th of 2026. The successor agency approved the separate purchase, sell and development agreement for the University Avenue property. On January 15th, the County Oversight Board did approve the University Avenue agreement. So the current action today is for City Council and the Housing Authority Board to consider a DDA for the sale of 2882 Mission Inn. And again, the purpose is to convey the property for a dollar and establish requirements for the 10 affordable units. So right at this time I'm asking the Housing Authority Board to conduct a public hearing pursuant to California Health and Safety Code section 34312.3 regarding the proposed conveyance of 2882 Mission Avenue to Grapevine Development LLC for $1 approve a disposition and development agreement with Grapevine Development LLC for the sale of Housing Authority property located at 2882 Mission Avenue for $1 to facilitate the development of a 10-unit affordable housing project and to authorize the executive director or his designee to execute the DDA with Grapevine, including making any minor and unsubstantive changes. And that concludes my presentation, and we're available to answer any questions.

thank you to all the pinch hitting thank you you guys did great good work out there well done um let's see let me see if we have any callers um for public comment we have no caller so we'll close public comment we've received nothing in chambers and i will come back to council councilmember mill

Thank you, Mayor. And, you know, Michelle, I'm just, after sitting here and saying, oh, Michelle's always there, and then when we go, and then, you know, we gave you all these, you know, gave you your flowers, and then, but no, thank you, thank you. You know, as a member of the Homeless and Housing Committee, we've been chomping at the bit for this project for for quite some time. I know Councilmember Robillard's seen it and our colleague Councilmember Cervantes. We've been seeing this for two plus years. Every meeting at the end of the Housing and Homeless Committee meeting, that slide would come up and we're like, okay, when is it coming? I am so excited that we are here today, that it's here before the entire council. I strongly support this project. It's going to transform underutilized public property into new housing that we most definitely need in the city. It's going to bring 10 affordable units that are going to be affordable for at least the next 55 years, hopefully longer. I think this is an amazing use of public land. Again, it adds much-needed housing, creates long-term affordability in our community. So I'm very pleased to support it. And I asked Council Member Falcone if he didn't mind. I would love, as someone who has seen this project time and time again, I'd like to make a motion that we approve staff's recommendations and bring this project to the City of Riverside.

All right. Thank you. Motion and a second. Council Member Falcone?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Mill. Happy to second that. I just am appreciative to both Grapevine as well as to the team that make this happen. And I want to share what I always share when we have projects that come before us. This is, again, proof that when people come down here and tell us that there's no affordable housing happening in Ward 1, that Ward 1's not doing any of this. that it's fake news it's misinformation board one has the most so uh to all the news agencies in our city that love to share misinformation about um that we don't build anything that we don't approve anything this is another um i think a strike against that because this is proven that it does happen and it is true and very very happy to support it thank you thank you council member condor michelle could you go back to the dollar slide i think with two slides before this yeah that's what i want okay

So it's $5.7 million for the 10 units? Correct. Just for the 10 units?

Just the 10 units. This doesn't include the successor agency sites. That was a separate deal. The 10 affordable units will meet the requirement, obligation of the affordable housing units for the other site.

Okay. Well, I mean, I'm just trying to do simple math. If I take 5.7 and divide it by 10, it's $570,000 per unit. Yeah. Per unit.

When you include prevailing wage and the consultant fees and legal fees when you're applying for all the other funding sources that come into play. That's what increases all those development costs. Yeah, I hear a million in Los Angeles. Yeah, I'd be scared for that cost per unit. You're halfway there.

I'd go to Moe Valley and buy a three-bedroom house for that cost. All right, thank you.

You're welcome. All right, Council Member Ropard.

Yes, just back to those numbers. That's someone who knows what goes into building housing. The majority of that cost, what people understand is the carrying cost, if you go back to it, is because these are affordable units. They are offsetting the profits and the rent that you would have been making if it was market rate. They're subsidizing that amount. And so when we talk about affordable housing, that's what it takes to make affordable housing is all that extra money. pays the the subsidizes that that fee and so that's why it's not actual per unit cost it's the rent abatement or rent subsidy that is going towards it in the future that's what the extra money is for so thank you all right council we had a motion in a second to approve staffs recommendation please vote

Motion carries unanimous.

We have one recusal. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Now, counsel, we will go into closed session.

And I will call on our attorney, please, to announce our closed session items.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, we're going to close session. The description of the items is written on the agenda, so please take a look, and we'll come back and report any reportable actions.

Thank you. All right. Thank you.

She's picking them up. If I fall and get an N1, she's screaming her head off.

Lemon again for three. Swish! Oh, she's fired up.

Take me back to last season, your game against Utah Valley. You scored 39 points. Just talk to me about that experience and what it really feels like when you just get into the zone as a shooter.

everybody council is just returning from closed session and we're going to take up item 30b again which we continued from the earlier in the afternoon and our city attorney has uh helped us with a red line and i don't see him here is he he's coming back in Okay, so he'll be out momentarily, but Jen, or sorry, keep calling me Jen. I have a friend named Jen McCoy. I go by Jen. Yeah. Yeah. Another one. But if you would like to start, can you start without the city attorney, or would you want to wait? No, absolutely, I can start. Okay, let's have you do that then. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for having me again to go over the purchasing resolution modification. So I'm going to go page by page and point out the significant changes. I'll try to make it quick. So on page one, we're just changing the resolution number. So there's no modification there. We have a table of contents. We're updated as far as the page numbers go. Next. The next change is on page nine, which is under the definition sections. We added piggybacking definition, which explains what the difference is between, there's a piggyback and there's a cooperative, so they're two different definitions, so I wanted to clarify that for the departments. And then we had multiple updates on multiple pages due to the addition just modifying the reference to what letter it was in order. On page 12, under section 201, we had just a correction in spacing. same on page thirteen letter e we took out the letter a you'll see on page fourteen in section two oh five we put that back to the one hundred thousand dollars instead of the change that we discussed earlier on page 18 it is the utilities exception we added laboratory instruments as an exception to the list and That was requested by our end-user department On page 22, line 21 through 23, we added language about the professional services clarifying for formal and informal procurement, but it was a clarification. So it says, or professional services. If upon opening the bids provided good services or professional services, the manager determines that the actual expenditure therefore would appear to be $50,000 or less, the manager may convert the formal procurement to informal procurement procedures for award of contract. So that was just a clarification because it was not clear whenever people were interpreting it. The line 24 for construction not subject to provisions of section 1109 of the city charter the manager may convert the formal procurement and informal procurement procedures only when the actual expenditure, so we deleted determines the actual expenditure, added the word expenditure, therefore would appear to be 50,000 or less, and we deleted the manager may convert. So it was just a clarification section. On page 23, section 507, We added professional services on line seven and added or designed build services for clarification. On line 11 through 13, we clarified when the purchasing manager can reject all bids. There was some confusion with staff of when it's required to come to council and when it's not, so that was clarified there. on page 27 starting at 21 through 27 we added letter s which is the human resources exception the employee benefits negotiated where it that's an additional exception to procurement and then letter t was added of the canine city officers exception on page 28 line 14 we added professional services for clarification on page 30 starting at number 11 we added professional services to the list For clarification, line 23 through 24, we added the information about acquisition, outfitting, operations, maintenance, or repair for fleet vehicles. On page 32. Line 18, Section V, we added services and the word and for clarification to not just professional services. And then there was a punctuation correction on line 26. On page 33, starting at line 1, we added letter X and letter Y. X is for the HR exception, and Y is for the canine officer exception. On page 35, on line 5, we added construction services over $50,000 for clarification, modified some punctuation, and we also did that on line six and line seven. On line 18 in section F, we added by piggybacking to clarify the difference between cooperatives and piggybacking. On page 36, we modified line 11 by deleting a duplicate entry. Letter K was a duplicate of the letter I that was already there. On page 39, on line 9, we added professional services to the list of types of procurement. and the same on line 17. page 40 section 1104 change orders starting at line 15 we modified line 16 adding categories general just titles we added general requirements permitted uses we modified and added letter C starting at 25 and to, we basically reverted the whole section, so there was modification saying prohibited scope changes, a change order should not be used to add or modify goods, works, or services that are not reasonably related to the original scope of the contract. And on the following page, page 41, it continues to discuss purchase orders as determined by the manager. Such goods, works, or services shall require a separate procurement of an applicable exception to the competitive procurement. The sections... All the way through on page 41 was a complete rewrite of the section, but there were no modifications to the requirements. It was just making it clearer because the interpretation was often hard to understand whenever we were requiring a change order to come to council for approval. On page 42, it continues. we deleted, starting on page 42, line 26 through 27, following on page 43, we deleted the whole original section of the change orders since it was a complete rewrite. And I believe that is it.

Any questions? Thank you. Anybody have any questions for Jen? Or do you?

If we can go back to the staff recommendations page, because I think that's what we had to go back to now that we know what the changes are in the resolution.

Could you repeat that? I'm sorry.

They need to go back to the staff recommendation for this item because there's four different pieces to that recommendation. This is just one of those pieces.

Okay. So can we get the staff recommendation for the original item 30B back up? Is it B? Yeah.

All right. Okay. And so essentially what we just went over is the number one, which is all the changes that were made to the resolution. And then in order to adopt those changes, we have to do number three, which is the repeal. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And then, um, number four, um, I could still move forward cause that'd still be relevant whether or not we increased the, the authority purchase authority. Correct.

Yes, and it's not a change requirement. We already do that, so it would be just a reaffirming.

And so essentially what Council Member Hemingway is still proposing is to bring number two back for further discussion to the Finance Committee. Is that okay? I understand that. So if you want to clarify your motion, then yeah.

What you just said. No, I'm kidding. Then I guess we'll move staff's recommendations for 1, 3, and 4, directing 2 to Finance Committee for the review.

Okay. Everybody clear on what the motion is? You have a question?

I think going back to my questions earlier, we talked about potentially, because if Section 2 is passed, I had some questions about coming back more often than quarterly as opposed to yearly. Yes. So if we vote on number four today.

Do you want number four to say quarterly instead of 12 months?

Because it depends. I'm fine with it staying at 12 months if we don't make big changes. But if we're making changes that are proposed in Section 2, that's when I would like it to come back to us more often. So that's why, for me, in order to say, yeah, I'm good with number four, I have to see what happens with number two.

so i think maybe um if we're bringing it back to finance committee and we bring it back then we could make a new recommendation to bring it back quarterly or more often depending on what the finance committee decides that's fine okay okay everybody clear on that all right so go ahead and vote please motion here's unanimous

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Appreciate that. All right. Item number 41. I will call on our city attorney, please, to report on our closed session decisions.

Thank you, Mayor. There are no reportable actions at this time.

All right. Thank you. Council members, any items for future agenda?

Yes, Mayor, I have an item I'd like to request that we establish a three-member council working group on artificial intelligence strategy and policy. With the appointments brought back to council at our September 15th meeting, I envision the working group taking a comprehensive look at AI, not only policy governing the city's use of artificial intelligence, but also the broader implications of AI. for economic development, workforce development, data centers, infrastructure, land use, energy, and water, cybersecurity, education, and our local economy. These issues cross the jurisdictions of several of our standing committees, so I think a working group is the best way to develop a comprehensive strategy. Once that work is complete, the recommendations and proposed framework would come back to the full council for consideration.

All right. Thank you. Anybody else? Any other items? right thank you we will see you all on september 15th i think yeah okay bye-bye we are adjourned