Ethan, every one of you, we're going to go and get our special meeting started. We'll be
led into a salute for our nation's flag by Councilwoman Merland, our crew. Please stand.
Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. Thank you.
roll
call please. Council
Member Noble is absent. All others are present. Thank you. I have a few
readings I must do.
Participation is invited.
If you wish to be heard on any item on the agenda
including any item on the consent column or please so indicate by filling out a request to speak
forum and to the city clerk part of the gen item being addressed. The special
accommodations are required a 48 hour notice must be given to the city clerk.
Code of Ethics.
As your elected governing body we will remember the code of ethics
that we voluntarily and yet actually approved. During this meeting we will
treat each other and the public with patience, civility and courtesy. The
sentence is made will be for the benefit of the Barch community and not for
personal gain.
Public comment closed session. This is the time and place for
the general public to address the governing board on matters on the closed
session agenda and within the city's jurisdiction. Speakers are asked to
and limit your comments to three minutes or less.
Our request to speak must be received
prior to the agenda item being addressed,
especially how many are required,
a 40-hour notice was given to the City Clerk.
City Clerk, do we have any public comments at this time?
We have no public comment for closed session.
Thank you.
Our closed session is an item this evening.
It's a Commerce and Legal Counsel
initial initiation of legal obligation, etc. Government code spelled out in the agenda that's
presented. I will maintain a motion and a second, and we'll vote.
I'll move to go to closed session.
All second.
Motion and a second.
Call for the vote.
Motion is passed.
Okay. It is 435.
Let's go over to the big conference room.
From closed session. So, Matthew, so I'm just the city attorney.
You want anything to report out?
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The city council met in closed session to consider one item,
initiation of litigation, and took no reportable action. Thank you.
Thank you. So we're out of closed session. This part of our meeting at 6.20 and we're going to
roll right into our Virgita special meeting.
So
in this meeting, we're going to go, it's 6.20.
We're going to be led, once again,
by Councilwoman Dyer-Cruz, Super Nations flag,
and I will then please an invocation.
Begin.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
You're in standing.
By your house, please.
Heavenly Father, we come to you this evening just to say thank you for the many blessings
that you continue to bestow on our lives and this beautiful community of ours.
I pray that you continue to give us wisdom and knowledge to be aware as we are aware
of what's best to move our community forward as well as to lead our families in a direction
of righteousness as well as remain humble and kind.
As we embark on our meeting tonight, please let us be led by experience, knowledge,
and decision making which is invested in all concern.
We ask this all in a gracious name.
that.
Roll call please.
Councilmember Noble is absent all others are present.
Thank you.
It would be appropriate for a motion to excuse.
Mayor Pro Tem Noble as I'm sitting here I remember there was a discussion I think he had with Christine and the one.
Fortunately isn't here now where he said this week he may be out of town.
When we talked about doing the special meeting that must be what occurred.
Okay.
So it would be appropriate to excuse him from this meeting.
I'll move the excuser of the AmeriCorps 10.
I'll second that.
So note it.
One vote to confirm.
And so let's go on this call for the vote of acceptance.
Motion is carried.
Thank you for that update, Dr. Hart.
A few readings by myself.
Participation is invited.
If you wish to be heard on any item on the agenda, including any item on the consent counter,
please still indicate by fail not a request to speak for them and hand it to the city clerk
prior to the agenda item being addressed.
If special accommodations are required, a 48-hour notice must be given to the city
clerk.
Code of Ethics.
As your elected governing board, we will remember the Code of Ethics that we voluntarily
and actually approved. During this meeting we will treat each other and the
public with patience, civility, and courtesy. Decisions made tonight will be
for the benefit of the Barge community and not for personal gain.
Review and
approve of the agenda.
This is a time for members of the governing board to
call for re-arranging the order of the agenda, add in items or to remove items
from the agenda or remove items from the consent calendar for discussion and our
separate action. Anything at this point from the governing board?
I'll move the
There's a request for item number six.
Do you want to move it up?
Mayor and Council, if I could jump in.
Yes.
Item six is not consent.
Item six is listening to the action item.
Right.
The business.
Right.
Number two is consent.
There's only one consent item number two.
Thank you.
Thank you for clarification.
Then I'll second Councilman Silver's.
OK.
Motion was to accept the agenda as presented.
Let's call for the vote.
Motion is passed unanimously.
Another reading.
General non-agenda public item, public comment.
This is the time and place for the general public to address
the government board on matters not on agenda
and within the city's jurisdiction.
Speakers are asked to limit their comments to three minutes or less.
Our request to speak must be seen prior to the agenda item
in address. Special formations are required,
a 48-hour notice, much to given.
Madam Cart. Yes we have one public comment. My Hernandez welcome
Mr. Hernandez. Thank you sir.
My Hernandez, Barcelona, California. My first item is is there going to be a status report on the
Marriott. It was requested by Miss Rose and second by Mr. Silver but nothing's been done on it.
I'm
consideration of his vote on the Marriott and I'd like to know when that's supposed to come back to the city
Now the thing is back to the tax brief
I'd like to know what the status of Channel 6 is
Now they said there was gonna be an update and nothing's been done
I did notice that the Planning Commission was on it
last Monday
It had problems static and so forth, but then it was taken off and nothing's on it again
So, does that mean that you're going to play Miss and Hit, you're only going to play Channel 6 when you have a meeting and nothing else goes on it?
I thought that was supposed to be a status report on Channel 6, so then I heard no, it's not going to be, it's going to be moved to the next meeting.
So, I hope all these items that they say are going to be moved to the next meeting are on the next meeting.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
The next meeting will be on the Tonya.
that is all public comment but I do need to make note that we did receive one
written comment that has been forward to you and will become part of public
record for tonight's meeting. Thank you. I see a notice in the queue. City
manager? I was just gonna let Mr. Hernandez know we have an update on
Channel 6 on the agenda for the 20th. So that report will be given by Tara on the 20th.
Thank you. So that moves us right into the business of the council, reports, etc. So we're
going to start with Councilman Tim Sova.
Yes, thank you, Mayor. I'm going to have
a question for the city attorney here. There was a post on Facebook by a Joe Jr., and
And in that post, he had knowledges to how I voted on a closed session item.
Now I don't have a problem on how I voted on a closed session item, but I-
I have a problem that somebody at this dais gave information to, and the real name is not
Joe Jr., it's an alias. So my question for the city attorney is, can the council give
direction for our law enforcement to inquire and check with Facebook as to whom Joe Jr.
may be, because that may tie him to a person on this council or this dais.
Thank you, Mr. Silva. So the city council, as this item is not on tonight's agenda,
It cannot give formal direction on it, but as is always common or allowable on items
that arise, the council can ask for a assessment to be made by staff, and in this case that
would be the police chief to investigate the matter and see what information can be provided
by Facebook.
So I would ask not for a vote, but the request alone from one council member sufficient
for that to be looked at as disclosure of any information from closed session is
a violation of the Brown Act and is a violation of the penal code, and that can be looked into
by the police chief and associated law enforcement agencies.
Okay, so there's no objection for the counsel, I will ask for that from the police chief.
Now he also posted on there, and this goes back about 14 years regarding the MAP program.
Now I'm going to be careful here because I've always tried not to disclose my business
what I do, but the MAP program ties into my business, and he posted there that
that he knew somebody that knew somebody and more information was coming, we all know what
that means.
That means there's nothing more.
If they had more, they would have put it right there.
So what I have for Joe Jr.
is a letter from the attorney December 23rd, 2006.
Now I was elected November 2006 and I was installed in December and I had this map
program and my business investigated right away.
The attorney took it to the FVPC, about a 14, 15 page letter, and basically attorneys'
legal way of saying nothing to see here, but attorneys do it, so it's a lot longer than
just saying nothing to see here.
So whatever document you have, Joe Jr., you said you have it, you said you know somebody
to know somebody, post it, because this is going to trump that.
And I got to say something, Joe Jr., you're a coward.
Mike Hernandez here brought this up in 2006 or 2007, and he came to that microphone,
I was over there, but he came to that microphone as Mike Hernandez.
He said who he was, and he didn't come in a nice way.
He tore into me, didn't you, Mike?
Yeah, so, and we've got the letter, FVPC attorney, nothing illegal was done.
And I would ask the city clerk to be sure this is my file.
I've asked for it to be in my file three times because there's been at least two or three requests
costing taxpayers money
So I like for this whenever someone puts in a request for information on the map program in my business
But they'd be given this and see if we can save the taxpayers the money
Showing that this has been investigated and again nothing to see here
That's all mayor
Thank you
I'm sorry, so this is time for our business and business and council business of the council and council opinion reports
Okay, well, I would like to share that on September 9th
I went with staff to desert hot springs and we toured four
cannabis facilities. Two were cultivation and two were retail. And the first
cultivation that we went to, they were not only cultivation, they were
manufacturing and retail sales and R&B, which is R&D, which is research and
development. They've been there for about three years, very state-of-the-art,
A very high, every facility that we looked at was very sophisticated in their security
systems, their cameras, their safety protocol.
One of the facilities that we looked at in cultivation was about six years old.
And the difference between the technology in three years and it's constantly changing
It was very impressive from how their process worked versus how the first one that we went
to.
And these are multi-million dollar facilities that we go to that we went into.
They have security outside.
You would never know that it's being in-grown cultivation.
It just looks like a big nice warehouse.
house, the facade looked nicer than just warehouse facility.
So they have security.
So only the employees can go in, or people that have already
got pre-approved to enter in their facilities.
The retail sales was very impressive.
We went to a smaller, I don't want to say mom and pop,
but a smaller retail facility.
And I was able to watch as individuals came in and how they process them, they take their
license, they're scanned into their computer, picture is taken, all of this is documented
all for the state, so the state knows exactly who goes in at what facility.
Not necessarily, I did not watch what they bought, but that is how they're scanned
into their system and how they're monitored.
The second facility we went to was, I believe they call it like an Apple kind of store setup.
We weren't even sure if we were right the location, so actually one went in just to make
sure we were at the right place.
That's how nice it was outside.
You would have never known that you were walking into a retail.
They were very, they were very sophisticated in their entire setup, their two security
guards, one inside the lobby, one inside for where they did the sales.
They walked us through their whole process.
What I was really impressed with with them is that they say that they start all of their
employees above minimum wage. They also offer benefits. They also offer education programs.
So whether just so they are, their employees understand word, excel, anything that's going
to help them with as an employee as well as moving up into other aspects of the business.
but they promoted that and they pay for that.
So we went to some very, very nice facilities,
very, very high-scale facilities,
and I have to say I was extremely impressed
under seeing the whole process,
the water conservation that they do,
and they don't actually do,
of my understanding, what the facility in Atlanta does,
which was totally repurposes all their water, and Atalanto, my understanding is they also
take all of the condensation that comes off of their AC and they actually repurpose that.
So it was really very informative and made me feel much better to know that the cultivation
part that these buildings that are literally going to be in my front yard, nobody would
really know. And that's also with any retail, they are going to just look like a regular
office building. And you're not really going to be aware of that. It has been a great resource
for Desert Hot Springs. They had to before COVID cut their staff, I think they said
20%. COVID, what helped them was the cannabis. That's the only thing that saved their city.
And so now they're prospering very well. They've put everything into their general fund,
their infrastructure, their streets, all their public services, their economic development
is what they're really trying to grow now. And they've built a new city hall. So they are,
And they've managed to hire their people back and expand their services.
So that's what saved Desert Hot Springs.
And they were so kind and gracious to set up the tours, go with us on all the tours,
give us and share all their information, what's worked for them, what hasn't, what
they see the challenges are, and they were very upfront with us explaining all of that,
which was which was really very helpful and very appreciative. I sent them an email the next day,
thanked them for their time, thanked them for all of their just just they're just being helpful
and they have reached out and said anything that that our staff would need, they are more than
welcome to welcome to help. They also expressed the fact that where we were telling them where
where our green zone is going to be, that the opportunity that we are going to have being
where the green zone is, especially the retail, is going to be huge, much larger than what
they have, because it's not really on a major freeway.
So they were very excited to hear that for our community that we were going to have that
opportunity to help us go down the road.
But it is the freeway that is going to really benefit us because we are people between
LA and Vegas are going to be stopping.
And that's going to be huge.
And that didn't only come from the city that also came from the two growers that we went to and the two retail
so the
Revenue from this is going to be
Pretty significant when it all gets up and running and it takes a while
But I really think that it's it was it was so beneficial to see it
I am so I thank the staff for all their work for setting it all up and going
because it was it was very enlightening and very encouraging to know that it's not
going to be I mean I I had visions of things but I'm very thankful that what
I the visions that I did have were incorrect so that's about all that I
just I was very I was very encouraged it was a very long day they managed to
get me back seven minutes before our special meeting that night so we left
at 7.30 and got back just before six o'clock, so we could get in here for our special meeting
last Thursday, but again, I think that when they come into the community, we will be,
I think will be very, I think the community will be very surprised and pleased at the
outside aesthetic, and they just, they just want to stay low-key, just low-key.
So that made me feel really good.
like I said this is literally in my front yard so that's all that I wanted to
share it was it was very it was very enlightening for sure and so I'm I'm
hopeful and looking forward to to what it will bring to us thank you thank
you
for that council member Rose
so I'd like to start off by saying that this past
Saturday, congressman J. Albert Nardi came to Barstow,
copied with him.
It was a well-attended event at a local restaurant.
And he briefed us on a lot of different topics,
and there was a lot of question and answers.
And what I loved about him is that he's real.
He comes to us.
We don't have to wait to go to him.
He actually comes to us.
He has proven over and over again that he cares about his constituents.
He cares about the people.
And so I just want to give him a shout out and say thank you for coming to Barstow.
Thank you for always remembering Barstow and for remembering the concerns and the needs
that we, that concerns the needs and the wants that we need here in our district.
I also want to say that he also spoke of illegal marijuana facilities, illegal facilities
He's in our in our own backyard and he spoke about the problems that come with it, the revenues
yesterday it could be good, but even our own police chiefs talks about the problems that
come with it and we have to weigh is the money worth problems that come with it.
So I just again want to give him a shout, give our congressman a shout out and thank
him and he will continue to come to us to hear our concerns.
So I hope that we can get the word out and it can be in a bigger bigger venue next time so that we can get a larger crowd
because
Every resident is welcome to come and meet him and to ask questions of him
He has a large staff and they answer every letter every email every phone call
And so it's very impressive of a man at that level to come to our area to
hear us I also
want to, again, I've talked about this before, I represent a District 3, and we, the committee
and I will be continuing to do some really good things within District 3. And Leonard
Williams is going to be the chair of this committee, and somebody had said, and I'm
I'm going to address this and nip it now.
And it was Benny Frederick.
Like he addressed, why would I use people that opposed our mayor? Why would I use our former
mayor to be part of a coalition, of a positive thing, of a committee that's doing good things
for our district? It's real simple. They're leaders too. And they can contribute a lot
of expertise and diversity and everything that a leader can do in a committee. And I
I have always been a firm believer is that you don't turn people away when they're willing
to raise their hands and they're willing to bring positive things to our city.
I believe that Mr. Williams and our former Mayor Julie and everybody else that's going
to be on this committee is going to bring something really good to Barstow, to my district.
We have a lot of things planned.
I'm excited.
And, you know, I challenge the other council members to do the same in their districts.
If we all do it in our respective districts, make a better Barstow.
So I just want to thank those that have raised their hand to want to help make Barstow better
and what better than to get leaders, people that have heart and people that have passion
to make it better.
So I just want to thank them.
and we will be reporting out as things progress.
I also want to speak of the concerns that Councilman Silva spoke of.
So, Joe Jr. has way too much information.
I also endorse an investigation because I believe that that investigation will confirm who I believe is the rat in closed session.
And I don't say that loosely.
We are a team. We're supposed to be a team. And we have specific items that we speak of
in closed session, personnel, things that are not meant to be put out into the public unless
there is a vote, until there is a vote. And when there is a leak out of closed session,
there are ramifications, correct, Mr. Summers?
Depending on the structure of the leak, yes, there can be.
Okay, so there can be.
So we've already had a violation,
a blatant violation of the Brown Act and nothing happened.
That was the first time.
I hope that this time something will happen,
that the person that is the rat in closed session
will be held accountable because this type of information
should never be out on Facebook,
should never be out anywhere but closed session.
So whoever it is, please look in the mirror
And it's not a personal game thing. You're hurting us. You're hurting us as a team
You're hurting us as a city and I do want to challenge this Joe junior that stopped being a coward
Come and speak to us about your concerns about what you know
Don't threaten us. Just come and speak to us. We're pretty reasonable. I want to hear your concerns
I don't want to hear your threats. I've been I have been a the victim of many threats by somebody on this diocee and
And I, personally, am very courageous to stand up and speak what I feel, stand up for my rights,
stand up for your rights.
So I'm asking for this individual to come and speak to us and tell us who you are.
And if this person is on this diocese, please stop.
Please stop, because I do believe it's on this diocese.
Please stop, because all you're doing is hurting the city, you're hurting us.
We will never ever be able to be a team. We've talked about team
Will never be a team until we can trust one of one of each other and personally there's
There's no trust here
Until you can prove that we can be a team and we can do our jobs in our roles
Our roles is to do the best thing for Barstow
It's in the benefit the best benefit of the residents of Barstow not for me or for anybody else up here
So again, I hope that whoever the rat is in this council that they are held to the highest standard of whatever
they can be held to for
Disclosing things that should not be out in public until the proper time
And I believe that's all I have to say
Thank you
mayor
So
Leads me to my comments, and I'll go to the city manager
Let's see. A couple things. Yeah, the U.S. Congressman, J. L. Bernalty, was here on Tuesday
morning for a chit chat. He was quite enlightening. He shared a lot. He had to
start with him along with his wife, Heather. It was wonderful. Prior to the
congressman coming into Barcelona with the chit chat this past Tuesday, he and
I made a couple trips out to Newbury to address an issue with
individual or proposed individuals to be released to our community who has no place in the Chit
Chat.
Well, the meet and greet with residents out there, I believe, are quite beneficial.
And we attended a court session with the presiding judge down in the city of Fullerton.
again. This was two-thirds years ago, along with several concerned elected officials as
well as residents. It was quite an adventure, and the turnout from the community was absolutely
extraordinary. I am looking forward to the findings on that particular case, and hopefully
there'll be something that will be shared publicly in this upcoming week.
I attended the AUSA, that's the military committee meeting, which was on Tuesday morning.
It was a great turnout.
The AUSA golf tournament is going to be on the 26th down in the Palm Springs area.
As of yesterday, the Tournament Director, Renita Wicks, is over at local AUSA.
AUSA is currently looking for additional sponsors as well as two more teams.
That's to the AUSA.
Some good news on the infrastructure money from the federal government.
Many have heard about the infrastructure money that our current POTUS, our President, has
set aside for the allocation to communities.
And our U.S. congressman net at Barsh, though, at this point in time, $7 million to aid
in our bridge completion, actually the bridge construction has actually started in the process.
You may not see buildings being torn down, anything new, but if you drive over the bridge
you will see stacks and stacks of concrete foundations, that's a clear indicator that
they're starting in the process, so I would definitely encourage the next time you drive
over the bridge you'll see stacks and stacks of these concrete pillar type of things that
are stacked on the north side of the bridge, which clearly shows that it's starting to
happen.
Next week I will actually be traveling to Sacramento on, or actually a red eye on Monday
early Sunday morning to attend the California League of Cities.
I'm really looking forward to going there as your elected mayor
to really embrace and learn all the things that are happening
throughout Southern California, but more specifically in Barstow.
I've been asked to do a PSA on Spectrum on Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock
in support of the Veterans Home here in Barstow.
So I will actually be doing that at PSA up in Sacramento as part of the conference in
our complete support of retaining the veterans home here in Barstow.
Let's see, I'll just look at my notes,
anything else?
I don't want to miss anything.
I will have additional information to report out on Monday the 20th.
There's nothing else at this time from myself. Thank you
Dr. Hart
You
know, I don't have anything to report tonight other than what I told Mr.
Hernandez in regard to channel 6 and we have that presentation on the agenda for the 20th
And I guess the only other thing is that
The community is probably aware that the council has appointed Willie Hopkins to be the city
Administrator he's going to be physically here beginning the 27th
And I'll be setting up meetings with staff and other people
to try to get him introduced to the community
and to the things that are going on.
So I'm looking forward to working with him,
getting him tuned in and getting him going on the things
that he needs to be involved with.
And that concludes my report.
Thank you.
Looking at nothing in the queue here.
OK.
Consent calendar, public comment.
This is the time and place for the general public
to address the governing board on all matters on the consent calendar.
Speakers will ask to limit their comments on all consent items to three minutes or less.
Our request to speak must be received prior to the agenda item
being addressed. Express accommodations are required. A 48-hour notice must be given.
City Clerk. Yes, we have one. Mike Hernandez.
Welcome
again Mr. Hernandez.
Thank you.
I just have one question actually.
Did staff do due diligence on this and was the 501C current?
Those are my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
I'd like to say something because we do have the person sitting in our audience that
that coordinated this, and we voted on this,
and can we ask her to speak at any time?
Yes, yes, yes we can.
Yeah, here go, just go ahead and come on up
and speak, no problem.
Hi guys.
Hello.
Okay, little history on me.
I am born and raised in Barso,
my grandparents moved here because of the railroad.
wrote, so I've been here my whole entire life, started a nonprofit back in 2006.
It actually became 5013 status in 2007 and have been current ever since.
We help out families that have disabled children with gas cards, food cards, lodging, whatever
they may need during that journey.
Sometimes it's not even hospitalization, sometimes COVID hits and you may not have money
have Christmas or you may not have money to buy medicine or I don't know maybe your child
dies and you don't have money to bury them. So that's what Baby So Special does. We help
with those things and kind of lost track. But it just really makes me emotional because
my little boy was born with half a heart and that's when I realized back in 2006 how
many disabled children there were in this world and how much help they need during
that journey with different things.
Every window is different.
Some people, it may just be a phone call of support.
It may just be a hug.
It may just be like, you know what, it's going to be okay.
And it may be hundreds of dollars of medical bills or medication or trying to get up to
Stanford or even just to Loma Linda because we don't have a lot of resources in the
high desert for special needs children.
So when we were in the hospital we would leave, I would see these families and I knew some
of these children were never going to leave the hospital and how could I as a mom and someone
with compassion not help them.
And so that's where God kind of put the thing of baby so special in my spirit.
And then I decided because so many nonprofits just help one illness like cancer or spinal
bifida or leukemia or whatever the case may be well baby so special we help
everybody if you need our help we should help you so I raise money I do a lot of
fundraising mostly I don't get grant money I don't I don't do anything like
that I just do stuff like light up the night so we can bring awareness we're
gonna we're giving away tickets to all the special needs kids that can
actually come and attend the event. I talked to Miss Muir which was Caleb's
home hospital teacher so she's kind of talking to all the teachers and figuring
out how many can attend and then the ones that can't we're actually I'm gonna
Skype them in. I know this is kind of a new thing for COVID but back in 2013 I
built Caleb a virtual classroom where he could Skype back and forth into
school. ABC News actually came here and we were on Skype's Facebook page
which was kind of a big thing.
So for the ones that can attend
and the other ones that want to be a part of the event,
we're gonna Skype them in that night.
And then to end the evening off,
Caleb would have been 15.
And so we're gonna let balloons go
and sing them up for a thing.
So it's gonna be fun.
We're asking all the, we need vendors.
We would like all the nonprofits to come out
For this group or this group, let's all come together as a community, as a people that
just love each other and put our differences aside, and let's just have a good time.
Okay. Now, this is the flyer, correct?
It is the flyer.
Okay, so I just want to make sure, because it is actually up.
This is the backpack?
Yeah.
We all have this up here.
Shirts.
Okay.
We got water bottles.
We got color.
It's going to be fun. And then Benny's chicken and wings, he donated everybody that does a VIP pack or a premier pack.
He's going to give them a free meal. So I think that's pretty, pretty exciting.
And then American Legion's coming. They're going to do a bear garden.
We're going to have dancing. Scott Figueroa is going to come and do a little skip for us after the thing.
and it's just going to be just a super fun event.
I'm really excited about it.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
In the queue, I have Councilwoman Barbara Rose.
Yes, I just want to say thank you for everything
that you are doing for so many.
You helped a family that I know during Christmas of last year,
and it's just amazing how many lives you have touched
because you have that compassion and that love, that heart, that heart that you carry with you.
And your little boy did not die in vain. He lives on through this and through so many things that you have done.
I just wanted to share with everybody that I had attended a national conference quite a few years ago,
and this is when you were doing the Skype for your child, for your little boy out of the classroom.
From my house?
Yes, and because you led the way, you were able to help somebody else nationally.
And I know this for a fact because when they presented their situation, I was able to raise
my hand and say, I know how we can help.
I know who we can contact to help this other child, so you have helped children nationally
and I just can't say enough how much we appreciate you and I'm so happy that we
passed this and I look forward to buying that package from you and I hope
everybody else does and just thank you for everything you do for touching so
many lives. Thank you. God bless you. Another thing we're gonna be running
legislation again in the federal government on that IHSS law that
excludes parents and spouses from being included
in collecting unemployment after their loved one dies.
So I'm just waiting for them to,
they're working on the language,
so as soon as they present it,
I'll be traveling again to Washington and advocating.
And we gotta fix that, that's not fair.
I think, you know, in life,
we all anticipate about living our spouse.
I mean, that's something we prepare for.
But how many times, if you're a parent,
have you said, oh, when my kid dies,
this is what I'm gonna do,
and this is how I'm going to prepare for it, that's not something that you might have life
insurance, you might do those things, but it's not something that any of us want to
ever happen or anticipate, but when it happens, shouldn't there be a soft place to fall when
it does?
So, that's what Baby So Special does.
Like I said, we help with final arrangements and, you know, an unfortunate event that
your child does pass away, I don't think you should be out doing bake cells or car
washes to do your final act of love for your child.
So I can do that, I'll cook, I'll clean, I'll car wash, I'll do whatever you need me to do to make sure that you can just stay home and embrace that moment.
Thank you guys so much, I really do appreciate it.
Thank you.
Mayor, I'm going to move the Consent Calendar which is solely the approval of the promotional fund and waiver fees for babies so special.
I second that.
We
have a first and the second will call for a vote and then I see the city attorney is
in the queue.
And as the vote is coming and I just wanted to confirm, either yes, the 501C3 non-profit
status with the federal government is current for the baby's so special non-profit and
deductions, any contributions made are federally deductible.
Thank you.
Motion has passed unanimously.
Honestly.
If there's no further discussion on the first item,
we'll go into business action items of the council.
So item number three,
adoption of the 2021,
2025, 26 measure,
measure I capital improvement program.
And the presenter is Domingo Gonzalez.
Thank you, mayor and council members.
Tonight what you have before you is the annual
measure I five year capital improvement program.
program. Every year we have to submit a capital improvement program to Measure I or SB, CTA,
San Bernardino County Transportation Agency. Without this being submitted, we don't get
the funds from them. So I hope that everybody's got the large printout of it because I was
informed that it was very small, so I apologize about that when it was put into the agenda.
But what this is, nothing has really changed from last year except for we included the pedestrian
and bicycle corridors. We received a grant for 6.9 over that, but we were obligated
for $496,000 local match. So that was the only thing that's been included into the
measure I program. Otherwise, pretty much it has the items or the projects is the same
from last year. With that, I'm here to answer any questions about the measure I, and that
concludes my presentation.
I see nothing in the queue. I don't have any questions. I appreciate what you do, as well
provide us with additional information. I actually see in the queue a councilwoman
from Maryland, Dr. Cruz. Well I just want to say that and when I got the agenda
yesterday I came in and talked to Domingo and had him print me off a larger
copy and actually kind of just went over the numbers so any questions that
I had he had already addressed so just so you know I had addressed those with
to Vingo and he did any clarification that I needed. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you Domingo.
Thank you.
We do have public comment on this item. Mike Hernandez please.
Welcome Mr. Hernandez.
Thank you. I see that we have six hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred ninety six
dollars and eighty cents and that's going to pay for the employees so we have no money to do
any streets again right was the debt paid already or is it still pending I know
it's supposed to be paid this year but when exactly is that debt supposed to be
paid off like you know that and did they ever come up they were holding a
million dollars back they were supposed to put the interest in with that
million dollars to pay the debt off but they've never reported out what it
was. So I'm kind of curious what the status of that is. And according to this paper, we're
not going to have any money until the following year. At that time, I would like the city to
consider for two years under the two-year budget all we had was enough money to pay the employees.
We had no money to do any projects with. So when you get that extra money, I'd like to see
you give some money to the street department so they can get streets fixed because we have
had nothing done in two years. And I know that's part of COVID and what went on and
I can understand that. But if the city is going to get extra windfall, I'd like some
of it come back to the city, streets because they took it all and nothing's been done.
And we need to keep the repair up. We spent too much money putting these streets in to let them
excuse expression go to hell. We need to keep the maintenance on them. Thank you. Thank you.
Michael, would you like to add a little more clarification on this director topic?
Some of those questions I want to refer back to you Mark here at the finance department.
department. The bonds I do know, like Mike says, are paying off this year. I just don't
know if Finance Department has actually submitted a check on that, and the 1.6 that Mike is talking
I did hear about it, but again, I'll have to refer that back to the Finance Department.
all right. Thank you.
So I would all entertain a mark.
Okay. Mark, did you want to come on
that mark?
If you don't have the information, it's fine. Sure. The couple of things. One,
the debt was paid off, the check was paid off for the heart of the Mojave Desert.
The Mojave Desert was recently ranked by National Geographic among the top 100 places to visit worldwide.
So come explore, dine, shop, and stay in the...
Those employees are employed in street repair. They're doing street repair work throughout the course of the year,
and that's an eligible use of the funds.
And it had been included, it previously had been paid out of the general fund.
It was paid out of measure I because it's an eligible use of those funds and there
was a need to utilize those funds because of COVID and those actions have been
budgeted appropriately improved by council for last year and this year and
And it's counsel's prerogative if you desire that change.
However, it's an eligible use of the funds,
and those employees can't appropriately
be paid out of those funding sources in the future
if you choose to do that.
Thank you.
I will entertain a motion and a second on a second call for the vote.
Motion has passed unanimously.
And then this way.
At a number four, Cali Pillar Equipment Purchase,
the presenter is the Environmental Services Manager, Mr. Cody
Tompkins.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council, staff, and community.
This evening, I bring forward a request
to purchase a backhoe out of the ARPA funds.
As previously has gone to council,
The backhoe was listed as an eligible item, and I've come here to request those funds
be appropriated.
About nine months ago, I was put in place as an acting supervisor over Public Works,
and during that time, I had met with the supervisors over the various departments, building
maintenance, fleet maintenance, street maintenance, and I wanted to talk to them and kind of
shake things up, knock the dust off outstanding concerns
and issues that the department was facing.
One of those issues is the outdated and soon
to be non-compliant off-road equipment.
Through the CARB airport, we're required
to report on our fleet through a diesel off-road online
reporting system.
And through that system, we have to put in various information, such as engine size.
And, I mean, it's a pretty complex reporting system that the fleet supervisor puts this data in.
And it calculates at the end our compliance of our fleet.
And the laws are continuing to ratchet down on the city of Barstow and California as a whole.
and is indicated that we have two pieces of equipment of concern and if if not
replaced we will soon have to reduce the running hours down to 200 operating
hours in a calendar year. One of those items is our 1994 backhoe which is the
request for this evening. So the city of Barstow works with a company called
Sourcewell and it's formerly known as the National Joint Powers Alliance and the
Sourcewell provides current member agencies the ability they do the RFP
for us or the city of Barstow so they get the the approved through State of
California the procurement process. We utilized them during this process.
The waste water treatment facility, a crack sewer that was purchased a couple years ago.
I do believe we've also used it to purchase fire engines as well.
And it's an extremely valuable tool. It provides a sense of speed to purchase equipment for staff.
We don't have to go through the procurement process because it's already been done for
us.
So this evening we're requesting that City Council
authorize staff to purchase the John Deere 310SL HL-BACCO
from RDO, which is the local RET for John Deere
for $116,000 from the American Rescue Plan Funds
and authorize myself to execute the necessary agreement.
Yeah, I'm here for any additional questions.
Thank you. I have Councilman Tom Silva. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, Mr. Tompkins. So you mentioned
that we're going to be going down to 200 hours. Do you know about how many hours we put on
that piece of equipment currently? I don't have that in front of me, but I do know that
when staff, when we talked about 200 hours, they kind of chuckled and said, well, so
it's going to be parked there for most of the time. The backhoe, the backhoe and
And again in our workhorse pieces of equipment, the Public Works Department has extremely limited
fleet.
We don't have a large fleet.
So the backhoe, the Ganon, and our dump truck are probably the most used pieces of equipment
for almost everything that Public Works does.
So it would be an extreme hindrance to our operation.
Is this a piece of equipment that could be used by other departments also or just public
works?
Absolutely.
As a matter of fact, the backhoe, I do believe, has just been recently used by both the wastewater
department and open spaces in the last couple weeks.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
With that, I see no one else in the queue.
Is there public comment on this?
No.
No public comment?
No.
Okay.
Have I moved approval or purchase?
I'll second.
The motion is second.
Call for the vote.
Motion has passed unanimously.
Thank you.
Which it takes us to the agenda item number five.
Approval of a community development inspector one position.
The presenter is our bill unofficial and farm worker Mr. Chris Heldreth.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor, council members.
What you have before you tonight is a request for an additional position in our Community Development Department, specifically the Building Department.
What this position is, is we, several years ago, as you've seen in the staff report, we took on fire prevention, we took on engineering inspections,
and so we created the job title of Community Development Inspector.
And what that physician does is it handles engineering inspections, fire inspections,
and also building life safety inspections for the building department.
Over the last few years, whenever we were taking on all these departments,
we never asked for additional staff.
During some of those times, things weren't, I guess you say, super busy.
So I've always had the motto, or I've always asked my staff to do more.
We're a smaller city, so one of the benefits, what we created was it's a one-stop shop.
So if a developer calls us for an inspection of before we took everything,
they would call us for an inspection.
We would always have to ask them, hey, did you call the fire department?
Did you call the engineering department?
We'd always be asking them to schedule additional inspections with other departments.
Now they just schedule the inspection with us.
There's no delays in getting inspections,
and so that's kind of what we created.
In doing so, it created a lot more workload.
And then there was two other engineering inspectors that had retired,
and so now we just continue to take on the workload.
I don't ever want to get in the position to where I have to lay somebody off
or do any of those things, so I've always just put on my boots
and basically made it work.
But at the time, about maybe nine months ago to a year, I had a conversation with the city manager,
the previous city manager, and I explained that a lot of these projects are coming up
and that in order to be able to provide the service to the community and these developers,
we were going to have to potentially hire another inspector.
At that time, I was given the go ahead to go ahead and do that,
but I wasn't comfortable until a lot of these projects pulled their permits and actually started to move forward.
So in the staff report, you see that there's a lot of additional information in there that
talks about the projects that are coming, projects that have pulled their permits,
and projects that we currently have in plan review.
And then the one that's in plan review just we just issued the permits today was KFC
and Dush Brothers, both of those were issued today.
They've been grading over there, but they actually got their building permits and everything today
and they'll be getting started the next week or so.
The same developer, that developer is the same developer that did Raising Canes,
and he has another location that he will be moving to right after this.
We're also getting a panda express over in the Walmart development area.
Also a wienersnitchels and a freddies out in Linwood.
So things are starting to really pick up and start to put a little bit of a damper
on us being able to perform some of our tasks.
As you see in here, I broke down every single department
and I broke down every single dollar amount that we collect.
and what I did was I went back over the last three years and I pulled those
funds so that I can and I use the lowest amount that has come through. So in fire
for example there's a hundred and thirty thousand a year that we collect and in
the engineering department we collect roughly sixty eight thousand dollars and
then in the community development department in 2020 it actually slowed
down just a little bit. The majority of the bigger permits pulled their or
projects pulled their permits in January in moving forward this year so we
didn't actually capture some of the larger projects with some of the permits
but that's a 373,000. The last two years before that we averaged over 400 but I
just used the low number just to be I'm conservative whenever I look at the
money. So if you go to the second part of it with the physical impact and
also right above that in the in the actual staff report the total salary
currently in the building and safety department is right around $425,000 a year with benefits
in everything, and that would be at the F steps of everybody.
The individuals in that department are not at the F step, they're at the lower, but I
always put the worst case scenario.
That department currently brings in $571,000.
So that leaves us roughly for, sorry about that, $373,000.
Adding the additional inspector would put us right around the $425,000 mark, which
which would still leave us with $45,000 left over in the general fund from the current,
that's our normal fees that we collect every year.
This does not take into account any of the new projects that were coming on, so all
that money would just go into the general fund.
So we currently have enough money in our revenue for the last three years to go
ahead and hire that position anyway, but I've just been holding off as long as
I can.
And now I'm here to ask for the consideration to go ahead and hire that position.
Okay.
I have the Q. Councilman Tom Silva followed by Councilman Barbara Rose.
Yes.
Thank you, Mayor.
Sir Hilders, yeah, not on the general position, but just in general actually.
So if any of these inspectors go out on fire inspection, because you mentioned general
fund but that would be paid from fire district, correct?
Well a couple, no, what happened was is whenever we took over fire, whenever the fire district
came in and then the community development department actually took over fire prevention,
for about, it just got corrected I think a year ago, where the funds that we were
collecting, the permits and all those, we were still shipping them up to the fire
district.
We were doing all the work but we were actually giving all the funds to the
fire district.
Okay.
So I believe it was about roughly a year ago miss pro-throwing them they fix that to where it would go into the city's general fund
So that the those numbers have now added to our general fund revenue
And but it's at the city's general the inspections go into general fund and we pay the
Okay, correct. Yeah, that's all. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you councilman Barber Rose
So I just have a question. So I'm reading that there's three positions currently in the building the safety department
they're all filled currently? Yes ma'am. My next question would be it reads that in
2018-2019 that two engineering inspectors retired. He used to have four
employees, currently there is one. So my question is, and it also says no
additional staff was asked for, so my question is the two that retired were
Are those positions frozen if they weren't filled?
What happened to those positions?
So what happened was the building and safety department, my department, there was a little
bit of a transition that was happening over the last three to seven years, I guess you
can say, whenever we took all fire prevention, I went out and got certified and all in the
inspections to do fire.
And then we made it a part of our job descriptions to ask our other staff members to get
those certifications as well.
Then when engineering was getting ready to have those individuals retiring, the first one retired.
The second one wasn't planning on retiring but then had some medical issues, so he went ahead and retired.
At that time what we did was we just absorbed all the engineering inspections.
And the reason why I volunteered, I make the mistake of volunteering for a lot of things,
I volunteered because I wanted to give the developers a one-stop shop.
So that way, if they call for an inspection, I can do their curb gutter, sidewalk, their street improvement, all those things.
And I can also go over there and look at their electrical at the same time.
It saves the city money in not having to have additional people just do one thing.
This way, what I did was I created the department to where one of my guys can do all three trades.
Instead of having it like in larger cities you have, you know, building inspectors, engineering inspectors, fire inspectors.
You have it all separate. I have one guy that can do it.
I have multiple guys now, but they all are getting trained in our train to be able to
do multiple different inspections.
So whenever they retired, I just absorbed the workload, and we did not ask for any additional
staff.
Domingo Gonzalez is the one remaining engineering person that has been there for the longest,
and we took over all the field inspections, and he handles the majority of the paperwork
We're excited to stuff in projects, but my staff and myself took over all the inspections
and we didn't hire any additional staff.
So you absorbed the work, but the funds stayed in the general fund.
So I guess this question would be for you, sir, Mr. Puckett.
Is this ongoing money that's still being built into our budget or were these positions
frozen?
That's what I'm trying to find out where these positions actually frozen so that money was cut out of the budget or they were currently ongoing
monies that we continue to have a vacant position,
unfunded position.
Yes, thank you.
Yes, it's an unfunded position.
So whenever the transition happened, we didn't ask for the body for the replacement and we just said that we'll handle it.
So what ended up happening was finance took the position out of being funded back in 2018 and then also in 2019
And so then if you were nor the your your other staff did not absorb any of the monies from that position
No, just the work. Thank you for doing that more for less, right?
Yeah, my staff's not too happy, but so my question is have you looked at this and
And can we absorb it, ongoing monies for this amount?
The, as Chris had indicated, it's an unfunded position.
The only positions included within the budget are funded.
We do not have any funded vacant positions other than the city manager
and finance position, which are currently filled on an interim basis.
So the position itself is unfunded in the general fund.
Revenue generated from that flows into the general fund and then is closed into fund
balance at the year end.
So any available resources, it would flow into resources in the general fund available
for any purpose as all other revenue in the general fund does.
is, any increase, this is a baseline spending increase when you add a position, so it does
increase the total appropriations in the general fund and would require that the position be
funded in order to fill it.
Maybe I can help.
Thank you.
Did I not answer the question?
It can be absurd if you choose to fund the position.
There is sufficient available funds to fund.
Right.
I think that's what Chris was pointing out in the staff report, is that the current revenues
that are coming into the department would fund this position right now, and we have other
project coming on that would add to that money, which would then sustain for a while those
costs.
us. So assuming, and this doesn't even include the inspection for the apartments and the rental
Thank you.
So you'll have sufficient funding for several years to cover the cost of this person. You
could do it right now at a fund you should have. So for several years, but we don't have
a, we don't know after the several years where potentially it'll have to come be absorbed
from our general fund. Yeah, so for the last two years, I'll clarify
So the last two years, basically, we've been generating over roughly right around $575,000
to $600,000 plus.
The cost of our department towards the revenue that we've been bringing in has only been
$373,000.
It's actually less than that, but that number is with everybody at their F-step.
So whenever people are at their lower steps, I shouldn't say we've been making money,
but we've been we've had a little bit we've been bringing in more revenue than
what we've been using for salaries and things like that in our department. I
never felt comfort even though we had the money to pay for another inspector I
never felt comfortable trying to get that position right it was right when
COVID was starting to happen and then I so I just kind of just dealt with it
and we just started picking up any of the slack and we just we handled it
staff and did the extra work and now that we're kind of turning to come out and all these more
projects are coming now is that that's why we're coming before you but we've always had the money
it's just I've never I never wanted to go lay somebody off or do any of those kinds of things
if for whatever reason COVID made the market go even worse and then we we had that situation so
I just held off and I even spoke with Miss Alice about this previously and she was said
that we go ahead and try to get the job or go to council and I just kept
holding off until everybody started actually pulling all their permits to
to have even more revenue than what we currently have.
Thank you. I'm the Q.
Councilman Silva again. Thank you Mayor. Yes so with the workload and the
positions not you know not a staff one there do you know what our overtime is
for that current department?
And would that be lessened with this position?
So I'm pretty strict on staff using overtime.
So what ends up happening is I would take some of it.
I would work late or I would do whatever I need to do
so that we would not incur cost in overtime.
I believe my overtime budget is $2,000 a year
and we come right around $2,000 a year
Um, with, with different projects and different things that are unforeseen.
Um, but I, yeah, most departments, especially public safety, when we're short over time goes up.
So normally if you're going to go full staff, they're going to supplement some of that expense by reducing the overtime.
But yeah, I'm a little, I'm a little different.
I just don't like spending the money.
Thank you.
That's all.
Thank you.
In the queue, Councilman Merlin, Dara Cruz.
So bottom line is you bring in ample amount and there'll be additional funds coming in
to fund this individual and that's pretty much the bottom line.
And now sitting on, when I was on Planning Commission, having what you're talking about
expedites, the PCUP process, the approval when we can go out and inspect and do all
the entities at one time instead of waiting for reports from each department. Is that correct?
Yes ma'am. Yeah that's what I thought. So basically you bring in plenty and that's even
being conservative and we do, we know we have several projects coming on board so I don't see
that so obviously your department will be able to subsidize this additional person with not a
Yeah, I didn't calculate any of the new projects into the fund or the revenue.
All right, thank you.
Thank you.
With that being no one else in the queue, I will entertain a motion and a second.
Before a motion, is there any public comment?
I do apologize on that.
Welcome Mr. Hernandez.
Thank you, sir.
I got a few questions for you.
First of all, you say that your budget is $373, you're going to $425, which is about $50,000.
Does that mean that the person you're hiring is part-time or full-time?
Which is, well, let me finish my questions if I may.
Another thing is that doesn't your department, like all departments, have a cost allocation
cost where each employee is allocated funding from your own department?
So why would they be any hesitant in doing this?
My primary thing is that if it becomes a full-time position,
that means retirement has to be put in.
What part, how much is the retirement going to be
when you're only calculating $50,000 for the employee?
Where's the retirement come out of it?
How much is that total to?
Because that should be considered in the budget
when you calculate it and that's primary my questions you know I'm just kind of
curious I know you have the money my point is if it's a full-time employee
what happens I mean right now I hope to God the barrister keeps on growing so
money keeps on rolling in but if it doesn't is that person a full-time
employee gonna have to be laid off or found another position for them which
just my main thing, what actually happens.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Go ahead, Chris Heldreth.
Yeah, so currently, the cost for myself and the other inspectors
is $373,000 and $373,187.51 a year.
That would be at our maximum payout, like our top pay.
That benefits everything included 100%.
What we approximately bring in every year is $571,699.24 a year.
And what I'm asking for is it's a full-time employee and it would be at the entry level.
I went ahead and I did the maximum and the entry level.
Entry level is right around $81,489.
$81,489.88, that's entry level at the A-step, F-step is $100,121.57, and that's with benefits,
everything included.
So that's the retirement, everything that's paid for, and that's at the F-step, 100%
what the maximum will cost the city.
If you take that $100,000 for the new employee at the F-step, plus all the other F-steps
of every other employee that's in there, that number totals up to $425,627.
627, which leaves us $45,949.79 of what our budget is currently.
I'm pretty sure.
Okay.
Excuse me.
Okay.
373.
More.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Nendez.
Like Chris, I'll just definitely, so note.
I will clarify it.
Okay.
I've got to clarify it because I misspoke.
Okay, so I read off a number of what the building department currently brings in which is 373
That's what the building permits are is 373. So I put that number wrong
totaling so all permits total
$571,000 a year
So that's what every permit totals
now
The salary range right now is
425,000 with fully loaded costs at the top of the salary range would cost the city approximately
425. I would increase that cost of $525,000, leaving approximately $45,900 left. So I'm sorry
about that, but that's a clarified. There's still $45,000 left over.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Eldridge. It was really important that you did clarify
the 88 pennies that were left on the table. Okay.
With no one else in the queue, I
Now I will have a motion in the second.
I will entertain the vote.
I'll make a motion to approve.
Second.
Let's call for the vote.
Motion has passed unanimously.
Which moves us to our last item, item number six.
And that's the cannabis business program.
Introduction of first reading of the ordinance
number 977-2021.
The presenters are as follows.
Bill and official farm marshal, Mr. Chris Heldreth, general manager and environmental
services, Mr. Cody Compens, and our city attorney, Matthew Summers.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council, staff, and community.
As most of you guys know, through a series of workshops, the planning commission, and
other discussions. Staff has worked tremendously in order to bring this ordinance that is now
before you. This is a revised and amended ordinance through the learnings and education
process that staff has gone through, through talking with other cities, trying to learn
as much of the failures as well as success stories that other communities have gone
through to bring the best possible revised ordinance to the council for consideration.
The revised and amended ordinance that is now before you is the first reading in the
introduction and the addition to the ordinance we've brought to council for resolution.
In June of this year we brought our first revision and through the workshops and discussions
staff kind of took a step back spent additional time talked to additional
cities and made some revisions to our ordinance before we brought it back to
you guys we've gone to the Planning Commission and through the recommendation
they they agree with our past workshop of the thousand foot rule and it is
here for your guys's consideration review well one thing I'd like to add is
And then I'll throw it over to Matthew, too, to elaborate a little bit more, is that what
we've done is listening to the comments and concerns of everybody, we, as you guys would
recall, we were trying to beat CEQA with our first ordinance.
That was an important thing to reiterate here is that we were trying to beat CEQA
and that's why we did it in June, and that's why we were trying to get it passed
and we basically counter the books of what we have on the ordinances now.
After that, doing that, we reevaluated, went through, went through other cities.
Matthew and them have worked on this diligently as well.
We've had a lot of meetings going back and forth with this, and we believe now that
we have a more solid ordinance.
The one thing to reiterate is that whenever we are speaking with Desert Hot Springs,
For example, they were one of the first cities to go into the cannabis business, and the
assistant city manager said that he would love to advise everyone that it continues
to grow.
And what he means by that is that you are never going to have a perfect document.
He goes, the one thing is that you always have to be able to come back to council
and speak with them and address issues that come up along the way.
They've been doing it for over five years, and they just changed their ordinance
again, I believe it was three weeks ago. He said that they've been through their
ordinance multiple times and made different changes and so that's the
one thing that he wanted to have us reiterate is that it's always changing.
We will always find flaws and we'll fix them and that's the one thing but the
main reason why we had to change a lot of this because we were trying to beat
Sequa and then I'll go ahead and throw it over to Matthew. And before
Matthew jumps in, the other thing that was that was stressed to a staff
staff is to ensure that we expect high standards for the city of Barstow through this process.
And as Mr. Heldruth mentioned, the industry does change and having that communication
and that collaboration with any business owners that do come to the city of Barstow
so we can ensure that our ordinance is friendly to the customer as well as protecting the
City of Barstow, so we expect to bring revisions back as we move through this process.
Thank you.
Before we go to Council, I see Councilman Tom Sullivan in the queue.
Mr. Mayor, I actually had a couple further comments.
Okay.
No, go ahead.
Okay.
Thank you.
So just to provide a brief overview of what's before you and what you requested to take
on two documents, three documents, an ordinance, a resolution, and a resolution.
The ordinance is intended to make a series of changes, largely administrative, governance-focused,
clarifying the permanent requirements, writing in expressly the requirement, as discussed at the workshop a couple of times ago,
that cannabis operations will need a cannabis permit under the cannabis ordinance,
a conditional use permit under the regular conditional use permit zoning ordinance, and a development agreement.
The development agreement, of course, is what creates the ability to require direct financial contributions
revisions to the city, offsetting their impacts without going to the people as the tax, and
without them as a legal requirement. The ordinance revisions also modify the original
sort of quick default language regarding application process and fees, dropping the default fees
that were listed in the ordinance, originally creating the ability for the council to
set fees by resolution. That resolution is not before you tonight.
If the council, who's the ordinance, then, will work with the consultant, Mr. Puckett and
Mr. Hoda and Mr. Tompkins to develop a suite of recommended fees. The ordinance also includes
provision for the zoning resolution and bakes in the buffers as discussed before, which
are roughly a thousand feet from residential churches, other houses of worship, schools,
daycare, public daycares, public parks, things like that. And it also bakes in the requirement
for any applicant to follow the forthcoming security and operating regulations and design
guidelines. The resolution, the first of the two is the zoning resolution that adopts
the green zone, which is a useful moniker but not a term we're using in the legal
documents. The legal documents is the portions of the industrial and commercial zones that
will allow cannabis. And on that front, I don't know if we have the maps to
pop up on the screen. But if we don't, that's okay. The maps are in the packet.
And they could be generally summarized as the areas
south of the 57 and west
of the 15 freeway for the
industrial zone types of cannabis uses, which is essentially all the cannabis uses.
So manufacturing dispensaries, I'm sorry, not dispensaries,
manufacturing, commercial, testing,
cultivation that is indoor only, not outdoor. And then to the east of the 15 Freeway, south
of the juncture with the 57, roughly, that area, 58, thank you, that area is the commercial
cannabis portion which would allow the same uses as the industrial plus dispensaries.
So that would be dispensaries in the Lennardwood area and South, South Outlet Center Drive
on the east side of the freeway and not dispensaries on the west side.
The last resolution is the application process resolution or the permit processing resolution
and that has two key components.
One is it bakes in the process that will be a three-step process.
Step one, staff will review the applications as they come in, sort out which ones do
not meet minimum qualifications and those will get a rejection letter.
The incomplete ones, of course, will be deemed incomplete.
Then the ones that meet minimum qualifications and are complete will go to the Planning
Commission for the first round of review because there's a development agreement involved
and review and hearing and confirmation that the requirements have been met, including
that will look for the most of these projects we will expect will include a design build
component for new buildings because much of the area that we're looking that we
have proposed for zoning for cannabis is undeveloped area. And the Planning Commission will also
look at the design components and the building, the usual site planning and zoning elements.
And then the Council will hear them and review and approve them, again, because there's
a development agreement. Council approves required. The intention is to depoliticize
the process by requiring those first two steps to make sure that it's not a picking
winners and losers, but it's a reviewing and approving applications that meet the
city standards and as Chris noted, one of the emphasis points that was emphasized in
the recent site visits is high standards. They can be met by this industry. It is extremely
well funded and they will meet exactly as high of a standard as we require. So if we
require higher standards, we will get higher standards out. And the last key component
of the application process is that it also creates what we're proposing to be a series
of windows for applications. The reason for that is that because we don't have
of a hard numeric limit.
Instead, the limit is baked into the zoning,
the areas that are allowed for cannabis.
We wouldn't want to have drip, drip, drip of applications
being forced to be decided in a vacuum,
where we're not comparing them to each other.
Instead, what we're proposing is to create
a series of windows.
Two months open, the first one will be December in January.
December 2021, January 2022, apply.
Anybody who wants to apply, apply in that window,
Then we review those as a batch go through the process take out those up that are the meet the minimal qualifications
And can be approved and then wait four months
Which provides time to go through that process and then reopen the window four months hence and rinse and repeat from there and
With that I'm available for any questions so to staff. I'm also joined by Nikhil Donnelly who you were familiar with
one of our cannabis experts and
With that we're available for any questions
And Nikhil do you have anything to add to my commentary?
You're on mute.
We still can't hear you.
We'll let the tech folks sort that out for a moment.
We'll take you.
Kaufman-Thompson, you're in the queue.
Yes, thank you, Mayor.
OK, so my original vote, because I'm very hesitant on this,
was to beat CEQA.
So have we beaten CEQA?
Or are there other steps, dates we
have to be at to still beat CEQA?
We beat it.
And what we're at right now is
that we're just amending the current ordinance
to be more friendly for the city.
So now we can take our time and do it right. There's no dates to beats. Okay, very good
my concern was when
The last time we put this out for vote and it failed but it failed by majority
We had 50% of funding for public safety. So I want to keep this the way
The majority wanted it so can that still be done when you bring this back the funding how we're going to fund it
Or does it need to be in this resolution now?
No, it is so right now what this is just we will bring back
We will bring back the fee structure, and we will then that's at that point correct me if I'm wrong Matthew
But that at that point that's when you would designate the revenue will go to you whichever count you want it to go to or council wants it to go
And I need to clarify with legal counsel development agreement would cover that okay, and we can do that without going to vote
Yes, the council can choose to designate the revenue that comes in from the development agreements for any particular purpose
so yes, council could do that by resolution.
And we can bring, if there's support,
we'll bring that back as part of the next round.
Now in section 19-27-040,
and you don't have to look it up,
but it just states in section D
that the council will approve the development agreement
in the conditional use permit,
and then it's again in section,
I gotta go back to many pages,
but it's in there again,
maybe section 5.
Aren't CUP's usually approved at the planning department?
Both of them will go to Planning Commission still.
Okay, so they're going to go both.
They'll go to Planning Commission first,
and then it'll go to Council for the final.
Okay.
And then it's in the cannabis permit application also.
So if you go to page 153 on the application,
number 9, I just need clarification.
It says council will approve, disapprove, or approve each permit.
That's a straight typo, and that should say approve, disapprove, or conditionally approve.
Okay. That makes more sense.
Thank you.
Okay.
Now, we're going to open a window for application December 21st.
21st, it will close of 2021, it will close January 31st of 2022, and then it's going to
reopen and then close permanently, so after July 31st of 2022, we'll never take applications
again.
We made a, so what happened, and I don't know what, maybe-
Yeah, I thought we had fixed that one.
I thought we fixed that.
So what we did was is we changed that verbiage to where it says it remains closed
after that, we've changed it to at the direction of council. So we're not we're
not locking ourselves out but we're basically going to be seeking council's
direction after that second round to basically say hey yeah go ahead and open
it up again or we will seek council's direction at that time. Yeah I never
like anything that limits business where you say okay we're gonna let so many in
and then we're closed and that brings me up to my next question we're not
going to there is a clause in there I've got it marked I won't go back to
It says we're not going to limit it, but basically it would be limited by the land once.
Absolutely. 100%. Yeah, it's limited by the land, and I apologize.
That revision was given in the clerk's office. I'm not sure.
We thought we fixed it. Yeah.
Let me just go through my highlights here.
I'm sure I didn't miss anything.
My cell phone, if you guys want to ask me a question, I would put it on the microphone.
Oh, he just, yeah, I was going to say, he just texted me that he, it says he's muted
by the host on his system.
I think staff can answer my questions.
Yeah, yeah.
So in section 5, 19-27-0-9-0, number 6, if I approve this, I'm going to motion, I'm going to remove the sentence in number 6, where if a background check can be obtained, then they can go get a notarized letter.
I want background checks on everybody. If they can't get it, they can't get a permit.
Can you tell me what page that one is?
That is on page 133.
And I'll add, I have no objection to that deletion.
Look, it would be up to the council, but that's, if I motion or if I have to subsequent motion, I will be removing that.
If you cannot get a background check, you've got no business in this business.
Yeah, I would second that.
Number six.
Okay.
Now on the calculation of time, and this is in 1927, 17.0, it's 30 days and of course if it falls on a holiday, it's not going to be that day, it's going to be the next day or prior.
Aren't all of these going to be brought to council at regular council meetings?
Yes, so the idea behind this is that this is the application process.
So if they submit paperwork all to us,
our idea is that we were going to work with Matthew and Nikhil and create a checklist.
Because the city manager is not going to be sitting here going through all these applications.
So staff will be assigned to do this.
And our idea is we'll have a checklist and we'll go down the checklist.
And if they don't have something on that checklist,
the city manager will then turn around and give them a letter saying that they've been denied
based on not having whatever they're missing, basically.
And I didn't see it.
I think I read the whole thing.
But what are the stage, not only the whole stage,
but as far as coming to council for development agreement and CUP,
is that the final step?
So we're going to be seeing everything.
There's not something else to come.
Yeah, you will be seeing.
So what would happen is the process will be
is that somebody will submit an application or other paperwork.
staff will review. We also have it baked in here. Let me keep going. The staff will
review the first wave of the application to see if everything's there. If
everything's good, we will take that paperwork and we will give it to the
city manager say, hey, our recommendation is that this is good. Let's go
ahead and go to the next level, which then they will be going to the Planning
Commission. They'll be having to create their DDA, all those types of
things, which I believe Matthew and them will have a sheet or
Yeah, like a template to where they would fill things in and and then we would take that to planning commission
They would approve that with the CUP and and put in whatever they wanted to put in
You know the color of the building or whatever else
Then we would bring that back and then they would all come to council at that time
And then council would make the final decision if they didn't like any of the terms
They would change it at that time because planning commission is not going to be approving it
So to speak they're going to be a recommending council approves it.
Yes
Thank you.
Okay, I see no one else in the queue. Public comment.
Welcome, Mr. Hernandez.
Hello. Question very simple. I know that the zoning went to the Planning Commission.
But I didn't see anything on the procedure to go forward with this, and I see it's on the adoption for tonight.
And I presume it went to rules and policy.
I don't know when it went, but I'm presuming it did.
And if it did, I'd like to know when exactly are you going to be holding these meetings
because I would like to attend them.
Now I've requested your employees to find out when a cannabis was coming in front of
rules and policy because I wanted to attend them to find out in more detail what's
going on.
And I would just like to know if there's a list so a person could submit their name,
if the rules and policies are having a meeting that we can attend.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hernandez.
I see in the queue staff seat number six.
I can answer that if you.
Go ahead, Mike.
So cannabis did not go in front of rules and policies because rules and policies is comprised of two council members.
We brought it to workshops in order to gain the direction of all council. So we brought it to two
workshops to and to clarify a little bit
We took the ordinance itself to rules and policy
They they looked at the ordinance itself now zoning and which is the maps of the restrictions and all that that is a land
Use so what we wanted to do and that does not go to rules and policy the land use stuff is 100%
planning commission
So what we did was we had the workshop so that we can get direction from council to make sure we're on the right path before we took it to Planning Commission.
Then after we got our direction from council during that workshop.
We put the maps together, finalized them, and then we took them to the planning commission.
But that doesn't, the maps and the zoning stuff does not go to rules and policy because it's a land use,
so it's strictly planning commission. With now they have recommended approval of their decision to council now.
I'd also like to add that the rules and policy has been meeting Zoom that we've met one live, I believe.
So would somebody be able to get Mr. Hernandez to the east schedule?
Yeah, so what we'll do is we'll go ahead and just all have Genesis. She'll just add you to the email chain.
So you'll get, you'll get the notification.
But it's, I believe it's the last Tuesday of every month. So last Tuesday of every month at nine.
And we will future be meeting either in this room or the large conference room depending on how COVID and all that stuff goes.
But we'll either we're gonna start meeting in person so it'll be in this room or in the large conference room
But it's the last Tuesday of the month and nine o'clock and I'll but I will send you the agendas
Moving forward and I assume those are available some on the website, too. Although I confess. I'm not sure entirely where I believe
I believe so. Yeah, okay. Thank you and the Q. I have a councilman Rowan dark who's
Well, I wanted to say that I went to the planning commission and just sat back in the corner to listen to what see what
Their concerns were going to be for the cannabis
Basically, they like the idea of 1,000 feet for the zoning.
Can I have orders or a question here?
Excuse me.
Continue.
Round our cruise.
Just go ahead and share and we'll address that.
Sorry.
I believe we're in council comment session.
Yes, we are.
Because we did questions in public comment.
Okay.
Right.
And so, Mellon, our crew was in the, was in the acute to make her, her comments.
So if you could just go ahead and continue, please.
I just wanted to share that I was at the planning commission so I could hear what their concerns were be.
I made no comment. I just wanted to know what their, what, what they saw.
Did they see something that we didn't see?
And they brought up some very good points and they wanted to see that the facilities were going to be
recycle all of their water so they brought up some very good concerns and
they also were concerned about the outside exterior the look of the
buildings and they made recommendations on that and that's why I went just to
go see what their concerns were and if we had missed something and just more
input that was all. Thank you. Okay I see no one else in the comment I will
I'll entertain a motion in a second.
If you have public, just not a problem.
Welcome, Lucille.
Thank you.
I could not hear very well the whole meeting
except for Mr. Summers.
But I've been living in the high desert since 2003.
And I ran a business in Henkley.
Now I live in Barstow for 10 years, 11 years.
and it saddens me to see the sad state of affairs I have been visiting in
Barstow for many many years before I lived here and it's very sad for me to
see the decline of the city and I wonder if someone here can
tell me who is profiting from the influx of the bad element that we are
receiving and it's very sad to see that Barstow wants to grow. There are businesses that come
in. I see businesses that come in and they open two or three days later, their windows
are broken up and it's very sad for me because I ran a business for six years and I know
that every little penny that we spend in the business counts terribly. And it's very sad
to see that other cities with so many people that we have in this world are progressing
and Barstow is regressing because of what has happened.
It's very sad for me to see
A lady that was born, raised and educated in Barstow, but then moved to Henderson one time
asked me.
She said, why is it that Henderson has grown so much and progressed and is doing so well
when Barstow has a lot of people but is not doing well?
I remember, she told me, how it was when Barstow was a great city to live in and
it was progressing. But in the last three years, we have declined. We have there is crime galore.
There is vagrants just dirtying the city. And to me, I wonder who can I address because
I don't I don't have a problem speaking up and asking who is profiting from the decline
of Barstow and allowing all the influx of people that are coming.
A philosopher said a home
is made by the people that live in it. A town is made by the people that live in it. A nation
is made by the people that live in it. And we are just allowing the city to be broken
and down by the people that live in it and it's unfortunate because like I said I have
lived here long enough to see that Barstow was progressing about four years ago.
It was progressing but then I don't know what happened.
I would like to know who is profiting from the bad influx that we have of the element
that is bringing the city down to a terrible decline.
If anyone can answer and can tell me where I can go to complain about who is allowing the bad element that we are receiving to bring Barstow down.
If anybody could answer me, I would really appreciate that.
And like I said, I live in Barstow.
I am the neighborhood watch of where I live. I ran a business in Hinckley and
pretty much everything was I
Can say somewhat of a gracious living
but not anymore and I would like to know if somebody can tell me where I can go and speak up and
Say stop what you are doing. Your profit is not
taking you anywhere good and
And if anyone can answer that, I would be all ears.
Thank you.
We have John Miller.
You
have three minutes.
Good evening.
Sorry for my appearance.
Just came from Aloncha.
At first I wanted to thank the council for considering the proposal for this new district.
I've worked as a real estate appraiser in the high desert region for the past 20 years
to specialize in the valuation of land.
I've appraised numerous projects that are significant to the city for outside entities
and I can tell you without hesitation having done numerous land appraisals in desert hot
springs prior to the cannabis ordinance being passed and having been in my previous
career of having been a law enforcement agent, excuse me, a deputy sheriff, very familiar
with what happened in Desert Hot Springs prior to cannabis coming in and after cannabis coming
in.
If you actually follow the crime stats for Desert Hot Springs in 2014, there was a decline
of almost 15% going forward to 2017.
So the crime level actually has gone down in Desert Hot Springs after cannabis has
come into the community.
This is not these illegal pot growers that you see out and out and about that are bringing in,
they're illegal primarily, bringing in all kinds of negative elements, dumping crap across my desert,
excuse my French. This is not who these people are. This is not at all what you're talking about.
You're talking about a very, very sophisticated operation and by, unfortunately, a lot of people
will automatically assume that cannabis is just people selling buds and joints and such
as that. That is not it at all. There is now drugs that are being used to treat pancreatic
cancer that have been approved by the FDA to treat pancreatic cancer that comes from
cannabis, one in particular is called cathlonon, which comes from a flavonoid, which is
a polyphenol that is found only in cannabis. It comes from a particular flavonoid
called Can Flavin B. I would strongly encourage, having been approached by the City College
and I've worked with the City College behind the scenes prior to COVID, which actually then
shut it down, I would strongly encourage that if you put this district in that you work
with the community college, with our workforce development department and do the training
necessary to get these people on board. These people are literally your training
scientists. This is no small, like we're going to go smoke some pot and make it a great time.
From a financial standpoint, I will tell you, you will see a dramatic increase in revenue.
If you guys put that retail where you guys are talking about putting it, it will put
barstow on the map, period. You guys will own the industry simply because of your
access the 15 freeway that that will put us a tremendous amount of
responsibility on you but I do think that if you handle it appropriately you
will benefit dramatically from it and I can appreciate your concerns as to the
crime and the criminal element for sure I live in Lucerne Valley we've been
overrun by it by illegal pot grows I spoke in 2000 in 2018 I told the sheriff
At the time, in public comment, exactly what was going to happen.
I speak all over the state of California.
They bring me to speak at conventions and such as that.
I'm usually the keynote speaker there.
You can't tell if I'm address now, but I assure you I am.
I told them what was going to happen because of the legalization of hemp.
And because hemp is also another form of cannabis minus the THC effectively,
it's going to make it very difficult to differentiate between the two
and it's going to encourage what we have now brought on.
So the other thing that I would ask you specifically to do.
Mr. Miller, you're at your three minutes.
I'm sorry, just to end it off, I would strongly
encourage you to talk to the police department in Desert
Hot Springs and see how they're dealing with,
see how many illegal potgrows they have in their city,
versus, for instance, Yucca Valley or 29 Palms.
My bet is that it's going to be significantly less.
Lastly, there is $100 million that Governor Newsom signed in so you guys can help streamline
your process.
I would strongly encourage you guys to take advantage of that money and thank you for
letting me comment.
Thank you.
Thank you, City Clerk, for the timer because there's no timer on our screens, okay.
And that was some great information that was shared.
My computer's down.
I'm sorry.
Not a problem.
Well, I see no one else in the queue.
Any other public comment?
We have no more.
Okay.
With no one in the queue, I would entertain a motion in a second, and you can also call for the vote.
I'm on a motion, and I'm going to ask that in Section 51927, 090G6,
we strike the second sentence that allows a path around getting the background check.
I will second that, because a background check is essential,
and I think that is definitely appropriate and necessary so
we have a
motion and a second any further comment if not it's called for the vote we are
going to do a voice vote because our computer is down okay so we'll start
with a councilman's silver and and I will conclude with myself councilman
Councilmember Silva? Yes. Councilmember Rose? Councilmember Cruz? Yes. Mayor Courtney?
Yes. The motion is passed.
With that being done and the motion is passed,
I'm looking at my agenda. It is a time to adjourn. I would like to adjourn this meeting at 812 with no objection.
If there's any injection, please speak at this time.
If not, meeting is adjourned.
Exhibition.