Community Services and Youth Committee - Regular Meeting

all right it is one o'clock it's june 17 2026 i'll call to order the safety wellness and youth committee meeting for today committee members are here staff is here we have a few people in the audience as well and we will start with public comment

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

All right, I have nobody racing up here for public comment, at least for this portion of the agenda. We'll see if any calls come in. There's no caller, so we will close public comment, and that will take us to item number two, which is a receive an update on police-related tow fee of $70 to contracted tow companies, and if we can open a public comment.

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

All right. And I'm looking, I think, at the city attorney's office, Jacob Castron, for the presentation. And before you start, there's probably a little bit of a snafu here, and it's going to fall upon me. With this item, we specifically wanted to discuss the towing of, you know, pieces of cars, trailers, scrap, so to speak. And so you can do your presentation. I think public comments, some of those comments will come out as well. Because I understand there's a Brown Act issue there, and so let's see how the meeting progresses, and you can give us some direction on Brown Act as we progress, if that sounds okay. All right, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Councilmember Perry, and good afternoon, chair, committee members, and city staff. My name is Jacob Casterhone, and I am a deputy city attorney with our city attorney's office. And I'm presenting today at the behest of Councilmember Perry, who requested the following report be submitted to the Safety, Wellness, and Youth Committee. It's intended to provide general information about the $70 per tow fee that the city has and currently still requires from tow companies that contract with the Riverside Police Department. As I stated, the Riverside Police Department has and currently still does contract with various different tow companies that provide tow services for police-related incidents around the city. Generally speaking, if a police-related incident occurs and a vehicle at the site requires a tow, RPD will contact one of these contracted tow companies to provide the assistance. As part of this contractual relationship and pursuant to Riverside Municipal Code Section 5.15.095, each tow company has agreed to pay the city a per-tow fee for each tow referral that RPD forwards to them. According to the city's schedule of fees and charges for the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year, RPD charges a $70 per tow fee, both for tows made at the request of a vehicle owner and for any other vehicle tows as well. When the per tow fee was first implemented by the city in 2021, it was set at $70 at the recommendation of a city-retained consultant. In practice, however, that $70 per tow fee helps to pay for several different facets of RPD, specifically as it relates to the requesting of tows or vehicle related cases. That $70 per tow fee helps to pay for officer responses, time spent at the scene by officers, the salary and total benefits package of RPD's tow coordinator position, and several functions that the tow coordinator is involved in. And by the way, the tow coordinator is the RPD staff member whose job it is to contact these tow companies and facilitate different tows for RPD around the city. Technically speaking, it is possible for the City Council to vote to reduce the $70 per tow fee or change it in any other way. However, doing so would mean that the City would have to subsidize many of RPD's existing tow-related functions from the General Fund. If the City Council wishes to avoid subsidizing money from the General Fund in order to help pay for RPD tow functions, that $70 per tow fee should not be reduced. At this time, staff is requesting that the Safety, Wellness, and Youth Committee receive this report providing an update regarding the $70 per TOFI and also provide direction on whether the $70 per TOFI should be changed, and if so, to make a motion to refer the following report and presentation to the City Council. This concludes my presentation, and thank you for your time. I am available for questions.

All right, thank you. Sergeant, do you want to be here now, maybe wait until after public comment to see which kind of, or if you make a decision at that point if you want to be heard? Okay, thank you. Any phone calls? We'll go to public comment. No callers. We'll go in-house here. And I think Ruben Ayala would like to be heard. I think his card is probably up here. We probably have a couple cards. All right. The floor is yours, Ruben. Yeah, definitely.

I think there was some miscommunication in the presentation.

And that falls directly on us.

Yeah. So I'm just going to, since we're here, I'm going to just go ahead and clarify what it is we're looking for. It doesn't, even though it pertains to the Pertofi, not in this manner. So we're looking for two things. One, what we're looking for is an increase in the towing and storage rates that we're able to charge for the services that we perform. Over the last decade, the cost of doing business and everything has gone through the roof. So insurance, labor, equipment, taxes, fees, including the per-tow fee, which was originally $25, which is now at $70. But what hasn't increased over the last 10 years is the towing and storage rates that we're allowed to charge. We have been stuck at those rates for, I think, the better part of 10 years. And so the packet that I provided you with, it shows you what some of the surrounding areas of law enforcement are charging for law enforcement towing. And so if you look at those rates, you'll see that those rates being charged by RPD towing or by the towing companies for RPD tows, the towing rates are between 40% to 50% below the area average. And the storage rate is 30% to 40% below the area average. And part of that is due because we haven't had any increases over that 10-year period. we've the gap has gotten wider and wider and so uh additionally the requirements to provide services for law enforcement they've also continued to go up with more requirements so in order to continue to provide the level of service needed to service that contract in the city i think the prices need to be adjusted to be somewhere closer to what area averages are And then the second item has to do with the per tow fee, but not for every tow. What we're focused on is the towing of junk, low-value items. So, you know, it could be a motorhome, an RV, a boat, trailer, watercraft, vehicles, miscellaneous equipment. It could be a motor that someone left on the street. It could be lots of things. These are items that nobody's going to come and claim that nobody's going to come and pick up. We are never going to receive any payment for any of these items because nobody's coming to get them. And so we're going to take a loss virtually on every one of those junk items that that we tow. As of July 1st of 2024, the city prior to that did not charge us. But from that date forward, started to charge us that $70 fee on junk items. And so We remove them. Nobody wants to tow them, but we do. But why should I then be charged for helping to clean up the city street as well? And so if you look in the packet, I think it's page four. I gave you some photos. You'll see a picture of a boat stacked on top of another boat stacked on top of another trailer. All complete low value junk. Cost me money to get rid of. So not only did I clean up the street, the city charged me not one fee. At that time, the fee was $69 when I happened to tow it. Now it's $70. But the city charged me three fees at $69 apiece. So not only did I go out. Remove the junk from the street. I Paid the city two hundred and seven dollars for the privilege of removing junk and help cleaning up the street I just think that that's unfair I don't see how we should have the burden of not only cleaning up the junk But then paying the city to clean up the junk that just doesn't seem fair to me. So we're asking for a you to please remove that $70 fee on junk and low-value items, not on everything. And then we're also asking you to adjust the rates accordingly. That's what we're looking for. And then if you have any questions, of course.

Sure. And while you're standing there, because I think it would be difficult, and don't correct me if I'm wrong, it would be

I think, especially with the junk pieces that were, we'll just call it junk for easy reference. Yes.

I think for the PD to see how many of those tows have taken place, they probably would have to hand search that would be my guess. Now, does your company and do the other tow companies If you're given some time, would you be able to show us how many, by month, how many of these tows take place during the course of a month? Yes. Maybe a period of a few months?

We would, but my concern is that we started this request like in January, and we're already going to be in July, and every month that goes by, I mean, it's really a burden for us to pay on those. But, yes, the answer is yes, that we could get you those numbers.

And I understand that, and I apologize for the delay, but I think also to make some confident decisions here, we would have to be looking at some numbers, knowing if we're talking a few, if we're talking hundreds. And are tow companies still getting reimbursed for the RVs when they're demoed?

Yes, if there's an out-of-pocket cost on the RV portion or motorhome, and I think I included them. Sorry, I think I had that listed. It still is a junk car or vehicle, but yes, there is a reimbursement process. And when Richard comes up, he probably can provide more on that. And so, yes, the answer is yes, we could. But maybe we could try to move forward on the rate part and then get you the – I'm just –

Whatever works best for you. Okay. Let me call up Richard and then, because I'm sure my colleagues are going to have a few questions as well.

Okay. Richard Barba.

Yes, sir. You have three minutes. Good morning.

I'm with Certified Towing. So we're here again to talk about the fees and the rates, but... Again, we want to raise the rates. They're at 252, I believe. I personally tow for every or probably 80% of all the police agencies in the city. I have three different facilities. So all the other rates are in the $350 range or higher. I have some that are 385. Um, but it costs me to send a driver out. He's about 35 bucks an hour. So I'm just going to give you a real quick hourly rate. It's $35 an hour for the driver. The fuel in the truck for that hour is about $50 or 75 bucks. When it comes back, I got to lean it for 70. I'm talking about junk. I got, I got to lean. I got a city fee for 70. I'm sorry. Then I got to lean it. My cost is.

Gabriella here and joining us today Teresa with the Museum of Riverside for another episode of Inside the Vault and today quite literally. So we have an object here that I'd love for you to kind of get into.

Yeah so we are talking today about Rin Tin Tin. He was a I'm a famous dog in TV, film, and this hat was possibly worn by a child who was a really big fan of the TV series that ran in the 1950s, from 1954 to 1959, The Adventures of Ren Tintin.

Now people might not be as big as fans as we are here in Riverside and might not know the history and why it is actually here in the museum. So can you kind of walk us through that?

So long history, Rin Tin Tin who appeared in this program from the 1950s was actually Rin Tin Tin III. He was the descendant of the original Rin Tin Tin that lived in Riverside. Lee Duncan was his trainer and he found this Rin Tin Tin in the fields of Wartour in France and brought Rinty home. That was his nickname, Rinty. Brought him home and decided he would make a good movie star. So in the 1920s he starred in several silent films and then later in the 1950s is when we see Rin Tin Tin III starring in a television show.

Okay, so there were several different dogs that played this role of Rin Tin Tin, not the original sometimes, but I understand there's kind of a cute, quirky story with the third. I understand he was a little unruly on camera.

So Rin Tin Tin the third, maybe not the movie star that his... grandfather, great-grandfather was. He did not show well on film, so he was relieved of some of his duties, though he got to play this role and he brought many visitors to Riverside to see him because so many people were a fan of this show, especially in the 50s.

Yeah, why do you think that was? Why do you think this was such a hit in that time?

That is a great question. There was a lot of reasons. I think the relationship between the boy, Rusty. Rusty was the character who would have worn this hat, and he's featured on this cap here with Rin Tin Tin. I think it's really the relationship between a boy and his dog. It really boils down to that really... archetypical storyline so they did just about everything together in the show so he was a really important first dog or dog in the movies. Definitely easy to love for sure. Absolutely and as Rin Tin Tin he's starring in these movies early on and in the 50s German Shepherds became really popular as pets as a result of Rin Tin Tin. he really was an ambassador for the breed as well.

How important is it to display these items here and keep them so sacred and protected?

Yeah, so because of this relationship, the relationship of Rin Tin Tin to Riverside, these types of objects become our treasures and we treasure every object. But certain things we take extra care. This has just gone through a process of conservation because there were some things on it that were a little unshapen here and so we have conservators that we bring in for certain things and this was stabilized and the top was reshaped to how it may have looked when it was worn in the 1950s.

How does an item like this get selected for the vault and maybe not on public display?

right now as you may know that the museum is closed to the public so all of our things unfortunately are off display but um we do rotate all of our objects even if we were open to the public so we don't want everything on display because that can also lead to damage and long-term light exposure those sorts of things so the hat being in here tucked away usually inside a box and wrapped really nicely with all of our conservation materials helps to keep it stabilized for many many years to come.

So for anyone watching in the vault is there anything else you'd like to share about Mr. Rin Tin Tin?

Oh he was quite the charismatic dog and from the first Rin Tin Tin all the way to today these dogs are really special to people. Absolutely. I don't think you have to be a dog lover or a Rusty fan to appreciate this story. Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Teresa, for your time. Thank you. I look forward to what we have next in The Vault.

Hi, I'm Chis Marina. You're watching Riverside TV.

The story of the game so far has been Chloe Lemon climbing the charts. She just established the Division I era record for 10 made threes. She now has 11.

What makes Chloe Lemon a great scorer?

I think the biggest thing for Chloe is that she just has great confidence. She has a lot of belief in her ability to score. That just doesn't seem to waver very much.

Chloe is always moving on the court. She's quick in transition. She just has a lot of different ways she can score.

She's balanced. She uses the defense on her back. The contact and able to finish.

Chloe Lemon is such a good scorer because she can shoot the lights out.

I'm in for three. Another swish. High arcing and nothing but nylon.

She keeps her high energy and just feeds off of that energy. So we all feed off of it in a way. If she's fired up, we're fired up for her. Someone else scores, she's tearing them on, she's picking them up. If they fall and get an and one, 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.

That game, I was definitely feeling it. So anytime I touched it, I just shot it.

Lemon again. Why not? A swish. Lemon drops all day long from Riverside.

It's really less about me. That game, I wouldn't have got half of my shots without my teammates. I'm definitely like a play finisher, so I couldn't get the opportunity to score without all my teammates just having confidence and trust that I'm going to finish the play.

A related public comment, so I think we can talk about it briefly. I understand we're not voting on anything or making any decisions about this. Perfect. Thank you.

So I do want to address specifically the 69 and change dollar junk fee. We originally did add that to the fee schedule in 2024, but last year when we brought the update to the master fee schedule, we did remove it. so currently we do not have the junk fee uh in our master fee schedule thank you any do you have any other questions for me not right now let me well let me go to council member connor here i don't have one for you okay thank you um am i allowed to bring mr ayala back up and ask him a question yeah would you please come back

So I'm just curious, on your example of the boat on top of the boat on top of the trailer, when you removed that, did you incur additional costs? Were you able to take it to a disposal area and dump it for free? Did it cost you additional things or did you just pay the 206 and you were gone?

No. All the fees that Richard mentioned. So, I mean, I'd pay my driver. Had to pay for their space involved. I had to store that thing for 45 days before it cleared. And in addition with boats, you can't... You have to cut the motors out. You have to cut all the fuel tanks out. You have to cut all the lines out. You can't just take it to a disposal place and go, here you go, and... So man hours was probably to cut up two boats, the trailer I didn't have to cut up, but to cut up the two boats, probably spent 10 hours taking everything out, removing it, cutting it up. So there's a figure to that. And in addition, when I did go take it to the dumping ground, they did charge me, at that point was a nominal fee because I had done all the work already. so i probably paid them another two hundred dollars just to take them off my hand and that's not the trailer that's just the two boats you were probably over a thousand dollars oh easily yeah easily probably more than that if you're counting all the what i paid my driver and all the cost of doing business i would say it's over it was over a thousand dollars yeah okay yeah i totally agree with council member mill um i've talked about this for a couple years with

You help keep the city clean and taking the junk off the street. And again, in talking with you and other members of the community, total community, what you've gone up in your insurance alone, never mind the fuel costs, never mind. Just the insurance alone is crippling. And unless you're allowed to recover that, in some way or another, then eventually some of you were going to go out of business. I mean, that's just the fact others can't do it. So, um, yeah, Mr Mill, I think is reading my notes, everything he said. I agree with and we need to take a look at all this. You do an important thing when when a car accident occurs in the highway, we get to get the highways reopen. You guys are there to do that. It's it's health and safety. It's critical to the to the highway infrastructure to get you out there as fast as you can. So we need to look at all of the subjects we've talked about. Thanks for coming back. Thank you.

All right. Pete, do you want to be heard on this item? Don't have to. Okay. All right. Anybody want to take a shot at a motion here or? Or we can bring this back to we probably would be best to bring this back to committee. I think what we are going to need from the tow companies is the number of junk tows that you do. And I would probably go back and look at at least maybe this year if that's possible. That would be almost six months worth of data. And then perhaps finance could maybe do a little bit deeper dive with some options on how to proceed or how we can adjust the fees accordingly, if that makes sense. I'm getting, people are nodding their head, so it sounds like they're understanding me. I can make that as a motion and bring it back as quickly as possible.

And I'd also like us to look into the towing and storage fees. I mean, they haven't been allowed to raise in close to a decade, but our fees keep going up. So I think that's something we need to look at and do a comparison as to what surrounding communities, including departments that work right here in our, you know, like CHP and RSO. I think we need to... at least look and see what other cities are doing as far as these fees, because these folks haven't been able to raise any of their rates in about a decade, as Ruben had pointed out.

All right, so I'll incorporate all that into a motion. Do you got that? So there's a motion, there's a second by Councilmember Condor. All those in favor? Passes unanimously. So if we can bring that back as quickly as possible, that would be great. All right. That will bring us, item number three, agenda item number three has been removed from the calendar. So that will take us down into communications. I don't believe we have a legislative update. That brings us down to our last item, items for future consideration.

I don't have any items for future consideration, Chair, but I just want to take it. Today will probably be your last meeting as Chair. I want to thank you for your leadership at this level. I want to thank you for your passion, especially you and I share a passion about doing something about the fireworks. And I just want to thank you for your leadership on this committee and for all you've done for the community to help make it a safer place. All right. Thank you for the kind words.

Thank you for the kind gestures. All right. We will be adjourned at 128. Thank you, everyone.