This was me also. Oh, no, this is Wes just joking.
Creation of a capital improvement project entitled Corona Landfill.
Corona Landfills. Landfill, Solar farm.
I think Wes and Tony pulled. Yeah, I pulled it too.
Yeah, go for it, Wes. I just wanted to get a report.
I was excited about hearing that we're going to use a
facility to generate some revenue. I think my questions were really,
are we, is the idea for us to.
Are we going to lease this to a provider? Are we
going to own and operate ourselves? And then last is, I see that the funding
for at least the RFP is going to be general fund.
General fund project. And I was just curious why it wouldn't, why we wouldn't
have it be utility funded. Because it's. Where would the money, where would the revenue?
So if it's general funded, the revenue would go back towards general fund projects.
So with some things like larger investments
we have say with the new community center, other things, these could, these funds could
help offset the electrical cost for those. But by
using general funds as the revenue source, then the revenues generated
from it will go back broadly to the source where it came from, which would
be any city operations. Okay. All right. This was just curious
about that. Can we start with a
little report out just for the general public to hear a little bit more
about the project before we dive into the Questions? That'd be great.
So, as you know, the city of Corona has partial
ownership of the old Corona landfill. This is an unlined
landfill. Corona owns 56 of the 80 acres and
the other is owned by Riverside County. As part
of that, Riverside county does the maintenance of the gas system.
So from the landfill, as that landfill is
degrading, it creates that methane gas source. For a
number of years, this facility was home to electric generation.
It was, it was a corporation, a private entity that ran
large methane gas driven engines that
created electricity and provided that directly to the grid.
So the site is ideally situated to be able to provide back
energy into the Southern California Edison grid over
the years. In 2004, we also created
the Corona utility utility electric system, which is housed
on that same site. It has infrastructure there, so the
energy could be bought by the Corona Electric
utility from the city operating facility
and then we could utilize that to service our
customers and decrease load off of Southern California Edison's
grid. There are a number of options
that, that this site will house.
Based on initial layouts, the site has been identified
as being able to handle between 5 and 8 megawatts.
Additional megawatts could be garnered if the grading of
the facility was allowable.
And from that we've been able to retain the plans from Riverside
county and we will be providing those outweigh
with the rfp. So that number may go up a
little bit as high as 12 megawatts. What we're looking
for is a self generation bill credit type
scenario where we would generate the energy, put that into
Southern California Edison's grid, and then we would
get credits at City hall or other facilities that
are served by Southern California Edison that
energy. The other alternative is that that energy could
go to the Corona utility electric system to
offset ours. And we would just buy that at the price per
megawatt set by the city. Okay,
so the RFP would be for somebody to
do epc, engineering, procurement, construction,
and then we would operate. At this point
in time, there are a couple of operational methods, methodologies. So it
could be a lease back. We might determine that the site
is going to, is going to. It might be beneficial for us to have
a lease option where we just lease the land and
a company will come in and operate, own,
operate the facility and take care of all of the maintenance and
we just get a nice lease payment from that property for that.
The initial direction given was that we would typically prefer
to own and operate. Now own and operate does come with its
own challenges and we want to make sure that the Consultant does look at and
own operate scenario and we have a clear picture of what that would be.
Excellent, thank you.
The one thing that I didn't see on, on the staff report is what is
the location?
This is 1300 Magnolia, just across from
the Lowe's shopping center and downs.
Okay, thank you, Mr.
Moody. I was wondering will we have the opportunity then to consider
the option or will it be on? Okay. To consider
how it is that we process these funds? Okay. Yep. And in terms of
the final operating model, really what we're looking for is the greatest value proposition.
Which one makes the most sense, that provides the greatest benefit.
Obviously weighing some of the costs with that as well. But that'll be a decision
that we bring back to council. Yeah, I thought this was a very. This is
an innovative way, as my colleagues have said, to use that land that can't
be used for anything else.
Tom, I only had one comment and it was.
I'm just worried about glare from the solar panels because the 15 freeway
is right there. So I'm just hoping that it's taken very serious as
the study goes forward. Forward. So,
Sylvia, are there any speaker cards? Mayor, we do not have
any speaker cards for this item. Okay, with that, public comments are
closed.
50. Up next,
7.11 approval of the first amended and restated
Mercy House agreement and the county of Riverside ARPA and
Hip HIP grant agreements.
Which one pulled that? Oh, Jim, you want to
go first? I was just hoping we could get a report from
Ms. Roper office. Ms.
Roper. The great Ms. Roper. The floor. The floor is
yours.
It's a joy to see you. I have a friend with me and I'll tell
you why. So I am super excited,
as I always am, regarding the proposed contract
with Mercy House. I'd like to start by saying that when
you had the vision for your homeless strategic plan, you approved an
entire system of services from A to Z, all the way from homeless
prevention and outreach and shelter and housing and services and
everything in between. And when you have a high functioning system, system like that,
you can see a lot of people move from the streets and
onto permanent housing. And as your council knows,
every quarter we give you data that's connected to the strategic plan
so that you can see how your system is functioning.
This contract is an $8.2 million contract.
And I just want to thank you for the flexibility that you've provided
in the past where we've had sort of these interesting mid
year where we're infusing the contract with money and that is because
we're trying to leverage other resources
from the county, the state and federal governments.
And so this contract has multiple funding sources that
are in it. So that's the first thing that I want to say and
it really helps us to have a smooth functioning system.
The other thing I wanted to say is, Mr. City Attorney,
I wanted to thank you sir and Jamie. This is a
complicated agreement and you know, as we built this,
it's got many different funding sources. It's been a
very complicated contract with a
lot of different budget line items. And the city
attorney's office spent a lot of time to help me to restructure
this contract to make it easier to manage and
really to align some of the budget categories to collapse them
into bigger buckets. So that's the one thing that I wanted to mention
to you that was really a big help. The other thing
too is this contract contains a lot of funding sources.
And I have Tanya here from the county with us. You've met her
before, she's the deputy director that is over all of the continuum of
care funds. You are able to have this
high functioning system because we have great partners.
And I want to take us back a minute. You know the county, if you
think about the million dollar ARPA grant,
the Vista Dorada project was like 20 million dollar
project. And this particular contract has
a million dollars of ARPA funding where the county's
coming in to reimburse you the city council
for the 3 million that we invested in Citi funds
and CDBG funds. Thank you, Cynthia. I think she's here.
So we invested 3 million and so the million is
going to come back to reimburse us to then reinvest in your
system. So that million dollars is being added to this contract.
Then we also received a $400,000
Housing Homelessness Incentive Program grant,
$400,000 that is also going to be added to
the this particular project. The county has been really wonderful.
They like our concept. We're known across the
region as a whatever it takes kind of city to
address homelessness. And the county has really supported us.
So the budget line items where we have certain funding
gaps allows us to do whatever it takes to have that high functioning
system. So besides our city general
funds, this has state PLHA funds and then the million dollar ARPA
grant, the $400,000 AHIP grant. So and
I just want to thank you for the past flexibility. We're asking for
that with this particular contract because if
we maximize the county grants,
we might be able to then stretch the city measure X funds
to go a lot further. So we have this on track through
June. But because of the county funds, we might be
able to stretch the city general funds and carry them forward into another
fiscal year. We'll see how the project goes. But we
did have some hard deadlines because of the ARPA fund. So that's why we needed
to get this before you. So I would like to just
for a moment hand the microphone to the county because I
know Tanya wants to say a few words to you about the great partnership.
I truly do. Good evening Mayor, council members.
Thank you again for the great privilege of being here.
As Karen shared, I have the privilege of working alongside
her in working with the county to coordinate responses
across our five supervisorial districts.
I truly, truly want you to know that the county is a proud supporter
of all the work that you're doing in the city of Corona. And its for
that very reason that we are very
much trying to replicate what you are doing here across
all other cities in the county.
What you're doing, and I know I've been here on this stage
to say this before, is truly evidence based. You guys have
seen the results of your investments.
And part of my, my job and our
department's job is to make sure that we're continuing
on this same plight to
ensure that these resources and efforts are
available countywide. What I also wanted
to emphasize is that the level of
investment that the city has made goes beyond our
department and as was
referenced earlier, is being noted by all of our County
Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Spiegel, who was very intentional
about setting aside the resources that she had for her district to
the city of Corona because we recognized that
the resources would be put to good use to expand shelter
bed capacity for residents in the region. And again
recognizing that if we invested this
resource here, it could truly serve as a model for all
28 cities across our region. So no, we stand behind you,
we stand beside you. And the work you're doing is a
model not here locally, which I've overemphasized
in the time that I've had, but truly across the state and the
federal region. There is not a time where I have not met
with state and federal partners and they have not noted the work that is
being done in the city of Corona. So know that we are
with you. And I know that you guys have all heard
personal stories of what these investments have meant
to your very own residents. And with that,
know that it's truly a treasure to work alongside
Karen Roper. And I mean that from the Bottom of my heart,
I know the rest of our department and county departments from
Behavioral Health and our Department of Public Social Services will
stand behind me and saying she is a great champion.
She's a subject matter expert. Expert and by far
the best homeless czar that I have been able to work with. Thank you.
And I would also like to council members, you know, we're very
fortunate. We have an amazing operator, Mercy House. Not every
nonprofit can do it all. This is an A to Z
system contract. And we have with us in
the audience, we have Pastor Charles Chapman,
we have Timothy Hu, and we have James Brooks that are
here. And I just wanted to acknowledge them because they
live by one of my favorite Blessed
are the flexible. They do whatever it takes to
get the job done for the city. So council members,
we're just super excited about all these funding resources to get
the work done.
Thank you, Czar Roper.
Anybody have comments, questions, concerns?
I just had a, just a quick question and thank you all so much.
And, you know, I too, hear all the time about the good things
that we're doing. And Tony, you've mentioned to me myself,
and I'm excited about it. I know that, you know,
I asked a question of staff about,
you know, how does the source's revenue look coming for,
you know, for following years. And we know that things are going to start getting
tighter. You know, we've, we've had a
firm commitment to ensure that, that we fund at
this level to ensure that we continue to make this an effort for ourselves.
But I'm curious about, you know, as we go forward with funding,
is the idea going to be at least I hear, but I want
to ask the experts, is as funds get
restricted or lessened, will they be focused at
places like Corona that are putting such
a big foot in to make sure that we make a difference,
or is it going to be kind of spread around? And then
I'm asking you, look in your crystal ball, but. Well,
you know, I can take off my city hat and put on my chair
of the Riverside county consultant Continuum of care, Hatton. Tanya, of course, is with
me. When we look at how our
system across the whole region is functioning, what we've
tried to do is to build incentives for
efficiency and incentivize cities to work together and also
to, you know, to have a system that functions. I think that there's for
the future, funding sources. You know, there's opportunities for
cities like Corona. We are going to be headed into probably
some leaner years. But as far as where
we stand, because of the city's investment measure X
funds. It helps us to be more competitive, is the first thing that I want
to say. Second thing is, is this contract is a good example.
You know, we, we have our state PLHA funds and
normally we were getting about a million dollars, but that money is a year
that's tied to housing recording fees. And when the
housing market fluctuates, we got a 50% reduction
in this contract. But because of the investment from
the county, we're not feeling the pain. So you have built a
system that is flexible and scalable.
So it is my duty to our city manager
and to your council to present you with options as we move into
the future. That's the thing about the budget and the way
that the system is built. Built. You know, if we run into having
to make some decisions, we can present you with options and we
can present you with, you know, what those options mean if you have to take
them. But you can count on us to do everything that we
possibly can to be bringing home the bacon. How's that? I have
no doubt at all. I, you know, I know that there's,
it's a strange time out there. You know,
I think I've talked to people in other cities and they're
seeing an increase in homelessness. We're seeing, you know,
new folks that we've never seen before,
you know, putting a strain on our system and other people's systems.
And, you know, frankly, I'm hoping that that push that is,
you know, with that recent court case change
and the direction that the governor has been giving, that, you know,
there's, there's a place for people to go.
And, and with the change with, with Prop 36,
that's another, another step in the right direction. And I'm,
I'm hoping that that turns into, you know, less folks on
the street. And I know that that's what you all want. We want functional
zero and happy to support this. And I
know, like I said, I know you're, you're shaking every tree you can. And,
and I appreciate it. I want to say thank you also to the county for
your continued support. Thank you. And if I may, since you brought that
up, you know, I would like to take a moment to
recognize our city manager because he recently convened
a number of different cities in the western region within this county
and outside of this county to have conversations about
communication protocols, good neighbor policies,
and showcasing the model that we have.
So I just want to take a moment to say, lot of the work
that I have the privilege of doing is, you know, he's an amazing leader.
And I just want to thank you, city manager, for the
leadership that he provides. So, Mr. Mayor,
if I could jump in, I'm taking advantage of the captive audience
and the fact that this is on the agenda. Again, I'm in full support of
this agenda item. And I really thank you,
Tanya from the county, our partners and our folks
here taking some time to
come out and join us fully in support. And it speaks volumes to
the plan. I want to just highlight
addressing homelessness is so difficult
and complicated because we're talking about human beings
and think about how complicated your life is.
Every person that's on the street, I has just as many issues, if not more
so. And so we're trying to address homelessness with
enforcement and compassion. And it means that
we're dealing with, you know, in Spanish, escalacades, a sumundo.
Every head is their own world. Every person is their own world. You're dealing with
people. Every single one is complicated.
And it's wonderful. We highlight these stories of getting
people off the streets. And simultaneously we're hearing
from my residents what Councilmember Speak mentioned
this increased.
We're seeing homelessness more and more in our communities,
so there's an increase in frustration. What you have here
is a city who's truly, truly data driven,
who's has a. We have a
great team all the way from,
again, enforcement to compassion, the full spectrum, the full spectrum of
services trying to address a very complicated issue.
We're actually making progress, but the problem is growing
faster than the solutions can.
And so we're really asking residents
to be compassionate, be patient, work with us,
know that we're not sticking our head in the sand. Right. But you
also can't just ignore this and you can't just,
you know, turn it on to some. Someone else. And so we're having
these larger conversations with our neighboring cities because unfortunately,
not everyone is coming to the table doing this work in the same way.
And so I just wanted to highlight that
because this is such a complicated, multifaceted issue.
And we have one shared. We have a shared
goal, which is to get people housed, but there
are so many diverging sense
of opinions and whatnot along the way. But I fully,
fully support our approach. Thank you for Member
Casillas. Thank you for the leadership that you provided recently to
convene all the cities in the region with Riverside County Cal cities
to have the same conversations that our city manager was having also with
all those. Thank you for that.
Well, Karen, you and I talk all the time, so you know how appreciative I
am of everything that you've done for us and for the community. Tanya,
we couldn't do it without you, too, so we appreciate
it very much. And Mercy House, you're doing a great job. Keep it up.
Thank you. I love a good czar.
Me and Ms. Roper graduated from the same Ivy League college,
so we're good. Go to public comments.
I know Don pulled a card. Yes, we have one speaker card
for this agenda item. Okay, Mr. Fuller, the floor is yours.
Hi, guys. Don Fuller. I'm a resident here in town. I just wanted to
take this opportunity. None of you need to be reminded.
Maybe some folks in the audience don't know what an extraordinary
treasure Karen Roper is to have in this town.
Very few people fit the category of irreplaceable, but she's
pretty doggone close to it. And I remember when
the homeless issue in this town was a mess.
I remember specifically when there was an individual who was
using the homeless issue to pad his own pocket.
That's. We've come a long way since then and we should all be
really, really thankful for the participation
and the council and. And just the assistance and everything we
get from Karen Roper. I just wanted to give her a pat on the back,
that's all. So it looked. It's.
And Mr. Steiner as well, deserves a big chunk of that because
he was working with her through all of that. So, Mr. Steiner,
Mr. Oprah, I just wanted to say thank you to all of them. That's all.
Thank you, Don.
Okay with that, we can vote on the public comments
closed. We can motion second and vote.
5, 0. We're almost done with this.
Up next, 7.14 approval of
Corona del Rey apartments pass through funding agreement.
Was this. Jackie? Oh, Wesley. I just
had one question. One question and one. One statement.
One just wanted to make sure I know that there's two different properties,
that one has a 55 year limitation,
the other one has some in perpetuity. Want to make sure that when combining
these that those that doesn't change, that number is still the same.
Yes. So part of the agreements that are being presented for
the council's approval tonight is an amendment to the regulatory agreement for the property
that has the 55 year affordability term that is going to be amended
to be in perpetuity to match the term of the other agreement. So both properties
will now be in perpetuity. Excellent. And then we just wanted to say
a big thank you to Assemblymember Cervantes for champion.
The $8 million to help us get this done, so otherwise it wouldn't have gotten
done. And thank you and staff for, for detailing
the. The ins and outs and dovetails to get
to this point. So thank you. Very happy to see that.
Thanks. Wes, Tony, Jackie,
Jim, Sylvia, are there any speaker cards?
Mayor we do not have any speaker cards for this item. Okay with that.
Public comment is clean. Closed move. Second vote.
All right, five, zero.
Up next is community number eight, communications from the public. This portion
of the agenda is intended for general public comment on items
within the council's jurisdiction that are not listed elsewhere on the agenda.
Please note that state law prohibits the city council from discussing or
taking action on these item items. Please observe a
3 minute limit, time limit for comments and once called upon to speak,
please state your name and city of residence for the record.
Ms. Edwards, do you have any cards? Mayor yes, we have four speaker cards
for communication from the public. Maddie, you want to kick
us off?
Good evening, Mayor Richens, Vice Mayor Steiner and council members.
The first thing I want to bring up is the first RSO and
stabilization ordinance. I want to apologize. I did a major
faux pas sending out an email. I was extremely sick.
And as soon as you hit the button, you go apologize
for that. So that's what I wanted for that. The second thing
is state of the city. I just wanted to commend
Mayor Richens and Sean and his team.
Outstanding job you all did that was just
amazing and fun and just really depicted the way
that our city is. So thank you very much on that. The third thing
I want to bring up is another rso. This time it's Riverside
Sheriffs Office. And we had our K9,
the youngest, I believe he's the youngest member of our K9 officer
team. Officer K9 Duncan, under handler
Detective Clary participated in the 27th annual Riverside
Sheriff's Office canine trials.
And Duncan took first place narcotics building search,
and he took fourth place for narcotics vehicle search.
So I want to give them a little bit of credit.
And let's see, what else do we have?
Oh, just. I want to point out the screen again. We can't
see any of it in the back, the timing, the votes like we used to.
So if you ever have a chance to change that, please do so.
And then the last thing that I want to bring up is recently
we had a presentation by Yeta Kane, who's the Holocaust survivor.
And I read about it the next day,
Mayor Richens. And I was a little disturbed only because I would
have loved to participate or at least attend that. Where I grew up
in a very small rural town outside of New York City,
my neighbors had the numbers tattooed.
I take a lot of that personal, and I don't know, the library said
they knew nothing about it. So I just. In future, if something
like that happens, if we can open it up to the community, I would have
been very grateful. So I think that's.
That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Maddie.
Maddie, can I give you some free advice? So it's
the. The Temple Beth Shalom. If you go subscribe to
their Facebook page. They do it every year, so then you'll
see it for next year. Perfect. I appreciate that because I
definitely want to attend that. If. If all of you guys can do it,
they'll be wonderfully amazed. Why? A bunch of people just signed up for their Facebook
page. Well, now you got it on record. So thank you very much, Mayor Richards.
Thank you, Maddie. Up next, Kim,
you're speaking.
Welcome.
Good evening. I'm Charisse Leonard, resident of city of Corona.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor and esteemed city council members. I am Charisse
Leonard, the proud treasurer of the Friends of the Corona Public Library.
Let me begin with a bold statement. There's a Starbucks
on every corner. I know there's three that I passed before I even get to
city hall, but guess what? There are more libraries
in the United States than there are Starbucks. Take that,
pumpkin spice lattes. As of 2022,
we had 17,454 public libraries,
branches, and bookmobiles in the United States. Meanwhile,
Starbucks only has 16,482.
The numbers don't lie, my friends. Libraries for the
win. And fun fact. More libraries call California
home than any other state. What can I say?
We love our books as much as we love our sunshine. Must be reading
on the beach. Now, here's the twist. While Starbucks makes a lot
of money serving up caramel macchiatos, libraries spend their money serving communities.
Big difference. Libraries provide critical resources,
programming, and access that people rely on daily.
And despite what you may hear, libraries aren't relics.
They're resilient. Take this for example.
Even with the rise of ebooks and all things digital, the need for
physical library books hasn't gone anywhere. In fact, the golden rule
is that a library should have one physical book per person in
the community it serves. For Corona, that's about 160,000
books. That's a whole lot of pages, folks.
To help meet that goal, the Friends of the Corona Public Library recently donated $20,000
for new books, which translates to only about 1,500
books. Think of those books as little treasure
chests waiting to spark curiosity and expand minds.
And speaking of expanding minds, here's a stat for you. Last year,
233,178 children's
books were circulated at the Corona Public Library.
Yes, nearly a quarter of a million books.
I mean, if kids are putting down their screens for books,
we must be doing something right. My daughter won't give up her
iPad for anything. There's this pesky misconception
that public libraries are fading away. Let me assure you, they're not going
anywhere. Libraries are like your favorite pair of jeans,
always adapting, but never out of style.
Corona's library has embraced digital collections, added cutting edge
technology, and launched programs like career readiness workshops and computer
classes. And let's not forget the audio books. You can now take
a great story with you on your morning jog or like I
do, watching people do the jogging for me. But here's the thing.
With every digital checkout or audiobook loan, the library's need to support
both the physical and digital spaces growth.
That's why the Friends of the Library remain dedicated to ensuring our library
has the resources it needs to thrive. And we hope that you will echo our
sentiments. So to sum it up to finish real quick,
libraries are the backbone of our community. Outnumbering coffee shops,
serving kids and adults alike, and constantly evolving. Thank you
for your time and continued support of our library. Because while Starbucks
may fuel our mornings, libraries continue to fuel our minds.
You rock, Sharice.
Yeah, Tony. Libraries are cool.
Those two are done fighting. You guys can come on up some
Starbucks puns back and forth. So. Good evening,
council. My name is Mina Arnold and this is Tamara Copeland and we are both
volunteers with the Trauma Intervention Program, our TIP program here in
Corona. We work alongside our police department, our fire
department, Corona Regional, and we are called to
help support families, friends and bystanders who
have experienced some sort of traumatic event.
It's not easy volunteer work that we do, but it is needed and
it is really important. We feel honored to be able to serve in
this role and support fellow Kuroda citizens as they endure what is most
likely the most terrible day or night of their lives.
We are on call 24, 7,
365 days a year. We average about close to
40 calls a month and we have less than a 20 minute response
time anywhere in the city of Corona. So I
just wanted to kind of put out a plea there. If you're looking for a
way to Give back. And to serve our community,
please consider the trauma intervention program. For those of you listening and those
of you who are kind of looking at different opportunities. Opportunities.
There is. We were provided thorough training. So there is a training
class that's beginning January 23rd.
And if you go to www.tipcona.org
and you scroll down to the very bottom, there's a link that says,
click here to become a volunteer. It says become a volunteer, and it'll
give you information on how to reach out. If you're interested in joining
our next. Our next call. Jim, I know you're
really familiar with this, so I would gladly. I don't know if you want to,
if you're able to speak to it a little bit, but I'll gladly give you
the rest of my three minutes if you do. Thank you, everybody.
Well, thank you so much, ladies, for coming down tonight and just,
you know, bragging a little bit about tip because you guys really are the unsung
heroes in this community. And for those of you that aren't familiar with it,
these are a group of volunteers that when the police or fire department
get on scene, whether it's a structure fire, a full arrest, you know, death in
the family, domestic violence, there's just so many
different things. The police and firefighters have
to eventually leave, and usually it's sooner rather than later.
And early on in my career, it was always kind of a gut punch when
we had to leave because we felt like there wasn't this sense of closure.
And when we were able to call our TIP volunteers who have been trained to
deal with this kind of stuff, to say the right words, to not say certain
things, we felt so, so much better to be able to hand it off
to you so we could respond to further emergencies. But we knew the
family, the one grieving, was still in good hands.
So thank you so much.
Okay. Are there any other speaker cards, Sylvia?
Joe?
Not sure I can really follow the TIP program,
so I want to. One really bright spot from last weekend,
like literal and metaphorical was
got to participate in the Circle City rideout. I've been trying to
get a hold, trying to do that for the last couple of months.
It was a lot of fun. Everybody met up in the parking
lot out here and hopped on bikes. It was everything from
little kids on little bikes to a bunch of people on E bikes to
me on a BMX bike and Michelle on a mountain bike and rode
up and around grand, up Kellogg down
across Cottonwood to the shopping center down El Sprante.
I don't even know how long it was. I do remember thinking
his BMX seats are not that comfortable. But. But yeah,
it was, it was a lot of fun. And the next one, I believe is
December 14th. And I think they were talking about starting
at Santana and then doing like a Christmas
light kind of a thing, like a Christmas light tour.
We had to kind of remind them that Corona kind of goes uphill. So you
don't want to start down here and then ride all the way up to the
top. So we're going to try to start in the middle. So it's kind of
broke up a little bit. So not everybody's in
extremists trying to. Trying to complete it.
It was really fun because you drive through a neighborhood and people come out of
the houses and yelling. And we went by Thomps.
He didn't yell. But there was. It was, it was pretty fun.
It was. You almost felt like a little, like a little bicycle amoeba
thing. But so you're sort of bringing joy around to the
city. It was kind of fun because you're just. You're just cruising along
riding a bike and people will come out of the houses and they're clapping and
people in cars are honking and. Not like that. The usual kind of honking.
They were honking because they were happy to see you. They were going
the other way, honking, you know, so it was, it was quite a
lot of fun. So if you have a chance to do it, you know,
you should definitely, definitely give it a shot. Can I add on? What was that?
Can I add on? Yeah, they. People had lights
all over their bikes and it was really cool to watch. And there's like over
wild. It's like a little electric light parade.
Said some boom boxes going and. Yeah, yeah,
I. It had sort of a Mardi Gras kind of a vibe a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah. I do it every month. It was wonderful.
Yeah. Well, I got. I told you I have another bike, so. Cool. All right,
thanks.
Okay. Sylvia? Anybody? Mayor. We do not have any more
speaker cards. Well, it doesn't get any better than that.
Libraries are cool, bikes are fun, and the tip
program rocks. So moving along,
public hearings. The. The next two public
hearing items will be presented together. 9.1 public hearing for
city council and Corona Utility Authority consideration of an ordinance number
3405. Modifying the budget based water structure and
establishing rates for portable water, reclaimed water and sewage service
fees and charges. I'm guessing that's why most of you are here.
Does. I think every council member is going to want to hear the
report. So we'll just move into. Katie Hockett, assistant director of utilities will
present the item. Thanks Katie.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. Mayor and council, this is
the culmination of a several month process that we've been working on.
So the ask tonight is that council approve and implement the proposed water,
reclaimed water, sewer and green field electric rates.
Just a quick reminder of where we've been. Again, we started this process
with with an RFP and an award in April
and then we've met just about once a month with you to talk through some
of the options. We're here tonight. This is the public hearing
for the rates and then we'll have some next steps
after this. Again, just a refresher of kind of some
of the things that we talked about. These were the financial plan options that we
discussed early in the summer. On the left hand side we have the lowest
rate impact and on the right hand side we have the highest rate impact.
So the lowest rate impact would be if we had only funded our operations
and maintenance with no capital investment. On the right hand side would have been a
full operations and maintenance and sorry,
fully funding our capital improvement program. The city council
directed us to move ahead with option number two which was
to do our operations and maintenance expenses
and then incremental capital improvements for our current critical infrastructure needs.
This also includes debt issuance bonds
in the second and third years if needed to complete some of those capital improvement
projects.
So again, we've talked about this before, but just a reminder of really how we
got here and why our costs have gone up so much.
On the water side, our electricity costs
have gone up by 33%. So since 2019, those are
costs from Southern California Edison, our raw water cost. This is water
we get from Metropolitan Water District that we treat at our treatment plants.
That cost has gone up 27.4% since
2019 and it's projected to continue to go up for the next three
years in double digits. Our chemicals for water have
gone up by 48, almost 50%. A lot of
that is Covid impacts and cost of
living. Our construction materials, in addition to being
very hard to get, the costs have gone up by 53% and
then our laboratory analysis has gone up by 29%.
This is mostly because of increased laboratory requirements
because of additional regulations. So some of the PFAS requirements
require us to do quite a bit of sampling and those samples are very expensive.
On the sewer side, our chemicals have gone up by a significant amount.
Our Bleeding leach has almost doubled. Biosolids hauling has gone up
significantly. And then on the electric side, our energy purchase
costs have gone up. Those costs have been, have fluctuated over the
years depending on the market, but the overall cost increase has been 19%.
So these were the final rates for water that were presented to the city council
and that were also distributed to the community. So we have
fixed rates. That's the monthly cost, that's the fixed cost of
providing the water. We call that the ready to serve charge. The cost is
based on the size of the meter and then we have the variable
rates. So you'll recall that we talked about reducing the water
budget from 55 gallons per person per day to 47.
That's for the indoor water budget. This is a requirement from the state of California
based on legislation and new regulations that effective January 1st,
Californians are required to use 47 gallons per person per day
indoors. Required to use no more than 47 gallons per person per
day. So this is our proposal to comply with that regulation is to
reduce the indoor water budget. This is a net reduction of about
one unit. Depending on the number of people that live in the home and the
length of the billing cycle. It would be about one to two units.
We are also proposing, you'll see on the variable rates, which is the bottom left
table, that Tier 5 is proposed to be eliminated. We would
only have those four tiers.
On the reclaim side, it's very similar. Again, the fixed cost of providing
that service is based on the size of the meter. And on the variable side
we have, we're proposing to have two tiers based on the cost of service for
the first tier and the second tier on
the sewer side, those are currently charged based on the size of the meter or
the time type of the of the account. We're proposing to have a
fixed charge per month as a base charge. That would be what
residents pay. And then all non residential accounts would pay
this base charge plus a per unit charge for the
water use. We're assuming that water in at the meter is sewage
out to the treatment plant, to the sewage collection system. And so
for all water used over eight units, it would be
$5.50 per per unit.
We do not meter sewage. We would also have a variance program
for those customers that where their water in does not equal their sewage out,
maybe they have a cooling tower or evaporation. We would have a variance
program for that.
On the Greenfield side, there's multiple different rate
structures. For electric, I'm going to talk about the residential because this
is by far the majority of our electric customers.
You'll recall, we talked about that fixed charge per month is currently
88 cents a month. So hypothetically, if a customer
was fully on solar and they had their own battery backup system
and they were never pulling any electricity from Corona, they would currently
be paying us 88 cents a month, but they would have the ability to
use electricity from Corona. So we are proposing to increase
that to $15.90, which is a
more accurate reflection of the fixed cost of providing that service.
Additionally, we are proposing a customer assistance program for
electricity and that customer assistance program would pay
for the fixed charge. So if a customer met the income eligibility requirements,
they would not pay that fixed charge per month.
We are proposing to eliminate tier four. So we would have
three tiers. And then we're proposing to. We currently
charge the public benefits charge. It's just rolled into the rates so customers don't
see it. We're required by law to collect that and that's
restricted revenue that we can only use for things like the customer assistance program
for energy efficiency projects. So we're pulling it out so that it's
more transparent to customers about what they're paying for.
Again, these are all multiple different customer types for
electricity. So I'm just going to kind of skip through them. These are
minor customer counts. The bulk is in
the residential.
But on that last one real quick, we are proposing to add
an electric vehicle charging rate. We don't currently have that.
So for like an electric vehicle charging station where people are charging
to have their have people come and charge their vehicles,
we would propose to have this rate for that. That's a new rate.
So our next steps, if approved tonight, then this item would go for
a second reading on December 4. If it was
approved at the December 4 meeting, then the rates would be implemented January
3. We would send out a bill insert or a reminder mid
January to mid February because by the time that
the rates would go into effect, customers wouldn't have seen
those rates since they got those notices at the beginning of October. So we don't
want that to become as a surprise when they get those bills in February,
March. So we would send out a reminder and then bills with the
new rates would start arriving in mid February to mid
March. And again, the ask tonight
is that council approve and implement the proposed water, reclaimed water,
sewer and Greenfield electric rates.
All right, thank you, Katie. Let's the people have been
here a long time. Let's start off with public comments.
I'm guessing a number of you have filled out blue cards. If you
have, you're more than welcome to come up to the
podium and speak. Joe, do you want to go first?
Why not? So this
just all the meetings? Oh yeah, we did all these meetings and that meeting and
this meeting. All of them during the day, none of them in this
room at this time, when a normal council meeting
would be all of them in afternoon meetings.
Sometimes, you know, I think, I think it was first discussed at a morning meeting,
you know, so council workshops, you know, they're basically council meetings
where you decide things out of the public eye.
I think in a lot of cases, deliberately.
I think these are done deliberately. They could have been done here, the discussion.
If somebody would have come to all the meetings, I went to all the meetings,
they would have seen exactly how thin the discussions were.
It's the same game that happens every single time where we go, well,
we've got a menu. One being completely disastrous,
the five being everything's going to be great.
And then everybody kind of scooches towards two, because we
don't want to be disastrous, but we don't want to spend too much money.
But there's never any real discussion about how any of these things come about.
And you just take whatever the department says at face value.
And I'm hearing all the numbers, they don't really seem to add up. And there
seems. And what I see over and over again is
the,
and your allegiances are to the people that you work with regularly
and you take their word and their needs or their,
you know, they have the veracity and everybody outside
doesn't. You're uncritical about
what you hear and you don't ask the hard questions.
You know, I had a discussion with one of
you guys about what the job of a council is.
Your job should be oversight and direction.
And repeatedly in this room, what I see is it's a team.
We're all a team. We're all pulling the same direction. No, your job is
not to be the team member. Your job is not to throw rocks at everybody.
Your job is not to bash on everybody unnecessarily necessarily.
But your job is to ask the hard questions. Your job is to be
our representatives up here on the dais,
holding these guys feet to the fire in
an honorable way, in a forthright way,
in a well prepared way. But what I don't see happening
is you guys bringing anything to the table from
the outside. Because it used to be I used to see
God in this room. I used to hear councilmember spiegel
when she was here, used the we thing. It was
we, you know, I was talking about, well, we did this and we did that.
And she wasn't talking about us in Corona. She wasn't talking about us
that she worked here. She'd be talking about rctc, she'd be talking about the
county. And I hear the we thing from you guys
referring to the city. Like we're the city.
You're supposed to be our people up there, not the other. You know,
we didn't elect you to be employees. We didn't
elect you to be advocates or team members. We elected you to be oversight.
Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Good evening, mayor, council members. Thank you for having me. My name is
Kevin Fritchie. I'm at 912 Mangrove
Circle. I've been a resident of Chrono since 1988.
And I have to say, I absolutely love this city. I love what you guys
have done for the most part, for all these years.
When I got the pamphlet in the mail about the water
rate increase, I have to say I was shocked.
And again, I've lived here for many years, haven't seen anything like this before.
But just to break it down, the pamphlet, it talked about the rates,
it didn't talk about the percentage increases.
So my understanding is the basic service
fees, that they're going to increase 15% the first year
and then 9% the remaining four years, which basically is
a 62% increase over five years.
The tier one rates is going
to increase only 2% the first year and then 9 percent
the remaining four years. So we have a 43%
increase over five years.
Now, tier two, this is really where it hits me. And my home or
my homes, I have three properties in Corona.
19% increase the first year and
9% the remaining four years. So we have a 69%
increase over five years for tier two.
Now, I looked at my last month's bill. This is just September,
October, I spent about $189
in just the water usage. That's not sewer, $189 with
the same usage. By 2029,
that bill is going to be $309,
$120 more than what I'm paying today,
or a 63% increase.
That's atrocious.
Now, when I look back over the last several years, since 2020,
City of Corona, the water utilities,
they've had a standard 5 across,
5% across the board increase year over year,
which is fine. That's for the service fee. Tier 1, Tier 2,
I'm not talking about Tier 3 or 4 because my properties
don't typically get into Tier 3 or Tier 4.
So I do understand that there's infrastructure
needs. I understand there's. We have to pay,
costs will go up. But where is the accountability
here? The rates that we pay right now,
the city should be taking some of that and planning
for the future. In my line of business,
I manage almost a billion dollars of my clients money. I'm a steward of their
money. I would hope and expect that the city is a steward
of taxpayers money. So I hope that you reject this.
Thank you. Thank you.
Welcome. Bill Gagnon,
1176 River Road, Corona. I have a question and I would
like an answer. Why call it a proposed rate
increase? Why not just tell us
you're increasing the rates? There's really nothing. Is there
anything anybody here can say to make you change to
percentage or the size or the increase to the water rates?
Is there anything we can say?
No. So why call it a proposed rate increase?
It's just a mandatory rate increase like Joe
said, that you guys are putting onto the taxpayer, the citizens
of the Corona that we have to pay. We have no say
in the matter. You guys don't take anything we say
into account. So why call it that?
It's not, is it?
I agree. I think you should. I don't know how to do it.
I'm not in city council. I just, I've been here as
long as everybody else, it seems like. And you just continue
to pay these fees. Why did you take the garbage out of the bill?
So that when the rate increase goes up we, we don't see it as bad.
Is that why you did that? That's why I think
you did that. Because why else do it? Western Waste is now
is going to lose my business. I'm going to cancel my waste service.
So if Western Waste is listening,
you can thank the Corona City Council for losing my money.
I don't have to have trash. I got a way to take care of it.
So I'm going to take that $30 that they were you guys
automatically took out that I really didn't pay attention to. And I'm
going to take it away from them and I'm going to have to put it
towards the water. It's not a proposed
rate increase. You should say it's a mandatory thing. You guys just
suck it up. Citizens of Corona, you just take it and
you pay it and there's nothing you can do about it.
Am I wrong?
Nobody. I'm not wrong. Am I wrong?
No, I'M not wrong. So what do you do?
What is a citizen Corona supposed to do besides move?
I can't afford to live where I live. Only reason I can stay in
my house if I had a long time. I can't afford to go anywhere else.
So again, if Western waste is listening, you're losing
my money because you guys take took the money out of the bill
and now I'm going to put it towards the water and I'm not going to
put it towards the trash. Thank you.
Welcome.
My name is Sean Browner. I live at 1557 Kellogg Avenue.
I'd like to piggyback off a little bit of what Joe said.
These meetings where you're talking about proposed rate increases should
be held during the nighttime where most people can can
attend. Also, the other gentleman saying that the
proposed rate increases are ridiculous. I absolutely agree with that.
Now, having lived in corona since 2014,
yeah, the rates have gone up a little bit. But this report, rate going up
exponentially is absolutely ridiculous. And as
Councilmember Casillas did say that a penny
saved is a penny earned. With wages
the way they are, they're not keeping up with inflation. And this hits
everybody in the pocketbook. You guys, me, everybody here.
I'm a mortgage broker and I see people come in and out of the city
every single day. I know people personally that refused to
move to the city because of, because of the rates of the water and taxes
in the city. I would humbly ask that you guys all vote
no on this because most people can't afford it or
people looking to move into the city refuse to accept the rates.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Hi mayor and council members.
My name is Lenore Law.
I went to one of the meetings that was
on a Saturday and no, it didn't really fit with my schedule, but I
made it fit because I'm self
employed and my wages have not gone up. I, I'm in
the hospitality business. Hyatt lost 22
billion that year. I bottomed out the
following year. I was sick three times after that.
I went through supply chain issues. So I was
so busy with supply chain issues. And then 23,
2023, it was nothing but attitudes.
2024, it seems like we're back on track finally
and I'm hoping that 2025 will be a lot better. I sat
here and I listened to everything that you guys said. You are
spending 7 million here, 8 million here,
another 7 million here. Never looking
at that solar farm that could generate
money, yet you want to charge
the people. I think she said 1590
or something. My electricity, thank God, is with Southern California Edison.
We're not part of that. My water bill when I moved
here was $60 a month.
I was billed $120 every two
months. That's my house. I live now, which has a bigger yard.
It's like 18,000 square foot.
I've done everything in terms of. So our water
can be less money if they have broken sprinklers
or whatever, you know, we fix them. My bill is still over
$200. It's more than my electricity bill,
it's more than my gas bill. If we're going to have a solar farm
and we're going to generate money, then why not generate money for the public?
And then what really got me is I
work in an industry that handles
commercial water and is one of
the main thing is PFAS.
PFAS has been around since 1930,
1940, 1950s. It's not something that just happened.
And I loved your presentation about the bridge,
but you also talked about the reclaimed water that you were using
to build that bridge. That's costing our money and our taxpayers
money and all that reuse water is coming
from underground in the bridge that has PFAS in it.
And then you want to charge us 15% more in
our water bills because you have more
PFAS in your water. And yes, you're putting more infrastructure
into the city and through. Thank God you're doing what you're doing
with the homeless. I had a homeless brother and he lived with
me for a number of years. He's now doing okay on his
own. He's been clean and sober for 25 years, thank God.
So, you know, there's more than one time that I pulled
him out of that park in Corona. So I know what it's like
and I know that we need.
I know think
I know. Thank. Thank you. Your.
Your time is up. Thank.
Welcome.
1561 Cherokee Road.
My biggest thing besides, of course, I'm definitely against
this rate increase like everyone said.
Is that why this isn't a. It says if the majority
of the owners submit a written protest
that it won't go through. Why isn't it the opposite in saying that the default
would be against, like we should have? The default being we're
all against and if we all vote for it, then it'll be imposed
instead of. Because there's a lot of people that don't know about it. There's a
lot of people that haven't heard about it. There's a lot of people, they don't
read this whole booklet. They just. I almost, I did throw it away and I
pulled it back out because when my neighbors said, hey, did you know we have
this thing, we need to write a, a protest against
it. And I thought, well, why do we have to write a protest? Why can't
we just have it defaulted to be not approved instead?
And then if we wanted it, yeah, I'm sure we'd all go, okay, give us
the information so we can go. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's a good,
that's a good reason. We need to okay this or vote on
it, even have a yes or no vote. But we need to have that.
Not just a default. Oh, it's going, it's going to pass,
obviously, because there's not no majority of the Corona
people that are going to see this. Even half of them don't even know about
it. I had a text on my friends and the neighbors and,
and that's just a small area neighborhood. So that's my biggest thing,
is that it should be defaulted to the. Against it.
And then if, if you want it to be for it,
then, then we'll vote that way. That's my,
that's my. Anyways, please vote against it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Welcome. Thank you very much for receiving me
then. My name is Oscar Romero and I'd like to address myself once again to
the, to the mayor and also to the council chamber then.
And also go ahead and express my objection that into this
rate increase that's being proposed then for water rates and
other services and things. And so it's unfortunate that
maybe some of us should be following along with some of
these proposals as they're being formulated. I should have been
going ahead and maybe paying more attention. And it
does seem like a very, very high increase
in costs for us. And what I'd
like to call is that this is going to be very
much a burden that many of us will not be able to go
ahead and afford very easily in things. What I
worry about as well is that in a sense going
on what one of the previous speakers said is that we need to prioritize
needs of the residents here of the city of Corona.
Then I know that you're going ahead and you're thinking about future needs that
we might have in infrastructure. Infrastructure and things, and the air system for traffic
signals and things. But these are basic necessities that we're going in, that we're
talking about. And what I've seen is that, you know, monies from
our public, you know, city budget are being distributed and approved
very liberally right here then for, for these big projects.
But these basic necessities that. That impact us so strongly then
need to be addressed. And I think that maybe a sense they should have been
prioritized, you know, more than the, you know,
the way they're being, you know, the monies are being allocated now for, for these
other kinds of rates and services. Now these are basic necessities,
of course, water and, you know, the sewage and things like this that
we have. But the, but the rates seem just too excessively
high for me to be able to go ahead and feel in
any way comfortable. I know that part of these are costs that you
are going ahead and taking to account as well that are coming from
the, you know, the state and things from the water providers that
we have. But in a sense, could you have gone ahead
and maybe I'd like to say, you know, kind of
bargained in some way or something like this with the providers of these
essential then materials and water resources
that we have and things. And, you know, it seems like in a sense
it was just a fait accompli, you know, where they went ahead and, you know,
they said these are our rising costs. And there was no pushback from
us to go and say, can you justify those tremendous costs that
have been, that are now being, you know, that we're going to have to go
and pay them right here. So I'd like to say very,
very forcefully, very strongly then, that this is going to go ahead and impact
many of us very strongly. I do not have
then the resources to be able to go ahead and pay such high cost.
And I think my needs were not prioritized in the needs of
other residents of the city of Corona. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Carla Berger and I live in the city of Corona and
I have a child that has left California because
it's sort of more difficult to afford things.
And I have another son that lives in San Francisco that has been laid off
and moved home looking for a job. So my costs are going up just like
that. I run a business. I understand materials cost increase.
I would like to maybe see that there's some accountability from the
providers, like no raises or maybe some
pay cuts, things they could do on their end to sacrifice
a little bit of the cost as we
are sacrificing, I guess. I mean, I know that things do
cost more, but I'd like to see if there's a little way to cut
into that. And I also don't agree with the base charge ready
to serve. I have a property that is un landscaped.
I don't use 3/4 water, but yet
I have that base charge. I'd like to see the base charges stay lower and
the actual use for the water be charged more
than. So you pay for more what you get, you know, what you're using.
I think there's a lot of people that need assistance
and there's a program there for that. And people get things that way cheap,
maybe for free. I understand there's a
need for that in places, but we kind of need to bring it a little
bit back together. Maybe some less profits, maybe there aren't
any. I doubt that. But yeah, if I see
them moving down and us moving up for what we actually use, I don't like
to see the increase in the base cost ready to serve charges. Thank you.
Thank you.
You did good for a first timer.
Welcome the
city Council. My name is Ray Mogul. I live on Rockwell Road here in Corona.
And these water rates have me concerned.
The those of us that have swimming pools,
the industry standard is every three to five years you drain
it completely and refill it after you completely clean the pool.
And most pools are well over 5,000 gallons.
That's a substantial charge. And with Social Security only going
up 2.5% next year and
listening to the presentation on the water rates for
that, the sewer rate, Sewer flow
is not metered. It sounded like that
includes sewer feed. I'm on septic.
I don't, you know, impact the sewer
system here in Corona. So it's just,
you know, big increase. And watching
city parks, watering in the middle of the afternoon,
which is the worst time of the day to water, especially when people want to
use the parks. My sprinklers are all on timers
and they go off at 5 o'clock in the morning,
which is a better time to water. Less waste.
I see too many people in town that water
in the middle of the afternoon and the water's just pouring down
the street. So I'm not
happy with the proposed rate increases.
Thank you. Thank you.
What was your name again?
Well, let me throw this out there. I don't think anybody
should be draining their pool every four to five years. I think
you'll save money by not doing so. Are there any
more speaker cards?
All right, come on down. I always wanted to
say that.
Good evening. My name is Alan Fot. I live at 429 Winola
Court over in District 1, I believe.
Okay to go? Yeah, you're good. I haven't heard any answers come
back from the council tonight, so I'd like to know when the
answers do come out.
I thought that maybe my maths weren't mathing when I was figuring
out the increase. 60 plus percent is
extraordinary. What have we been doing with the ready to serve money that we're collecting
every month from everybody in Krona? Why isn't that covering
some of these costs that we're talking about? And we're going to increase that even
more. Senior citizens, like we heard earlier,
they're only getting 2 or 3% increase.
Where are they going to take that extra
charge from the city, you know,
to pay you guys when they're only increasing a couple
of percent each year? There's a giant gap there
between what the seniors can afford and what you're asking.
It's a giant ask. On the pool thing,
switching your pool water out. I don't do it. My pool water is
now about 15 years old because that's 15,000 gallons of
water that is basically salty now because
you still have to put the chemicals in. But if you're not taking
them out by changing the water, you've got a saltwater
pool and there isn't a solution other than draining
it. Or I guess you could buy a reverse osmosis system and
install it on your pool. Not practical.
Thank you to the city for the RV dump that's over there on the Harrison
street facility. I would ask that
they do better maintenance on it to make it so that both stations
work when you get there.
It's okay to take money that we didn't spend on certain projects,
like a million dollars here or there, and put it back into something
like this increase that we're talking about.
I can't imagine that traffic will actually improve. I drive
down 6 or. Yeah. 6th street on Sunday morning at 6am
and I hit a red light on the
street at that time. I don't know direction
there.
So in the short time I have left, I'd like you to consider that
this is just too much. It's too much.
5% a year, people can swallow that.
60% by 2029 is outrageous.
You haven't made any arrangements for people
who are on fixed income to be able to.
Personally, I had to take out all of my turf. 100% of the turf gone
at my own expense. And my water bill is still higher
than it was before. You know,
the maths aren't mathing for us. Thank you
very much. Please turn down this proposition.
Thank you.
Welcome.
My name is Christopher Dixon. I didn't really prepare to talk,
but just a few things I'd like to share that I've been
thinking about since. Since listening to everybody else talk.
This readiness to serve charge. I think
it really should be called the privilege of being your customer charge,
because that's all it is. You know, if I use no water
by. What is it, 20, 29, I'm not to be paying $60 a month.
You know, even if I don't use one drop of water. I don't remember the
numbers, but, I mean, it's just. It seems pretty ridiculous. And I think it seems
ridiculous also, because my entire life I've been
hearing, you know, we should conserve water. You know,
this readiness to serve charge, you know,
putting all the increases or most of the increases in that
chart. That single charge doesn't incentivize anybody to conserve
water. And I don't know if conserving water would help
any of these, you know,
you know, costs that you guys incur, but I think it
would help, you know, it would help keep costs
down if we could just conserve water. You know, the city used to do things
like, you know, they would pay people to take out, you know, grass out of
their. Or take, you know, lawns out of their.
Out of their properties. I don't know if they still do that, but I haven't
seen any. I haven't received any flyers encouraging people to do that
recently. You know, if you go to other states, you know,
like the south, Southwest, like Arizona, people have
rock lawns. We don't. You know, you don't see that a lot here. You know,
it would be. I think it would be a good idea if the, you know,
if the city would incentivize people to actually save
water and, you know, use it wisely rather than
just keep jacking up our rates for things like readiness
to serve. It's. It just doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, that's really
all I got to say. Thank you.
Are there any other speaker cards? Anybody want to speak?
We covered the field.
Okay, Sylvia, do you have any other speaker cards?
Mayor, we do not have any more speaker cards. All right, I think
you won it all. It's not easy to get up and speak, and I
admire all of you for doing so. With that. Public comments
are closed. We'll bring it back to the dais. Start off with council member
Dadaria. Mayor, Sorry, I do need to provide an overview
on the protest letters that we received. Okay, hang on one second.
Let me read the script for that. That way we get it right.
But we want to have Mr. Moody answer
any of the questions that were answered or.
All right, there were some questions. There was also some statements, but I didn't know
if that was. Tom, were you taking notes on the questions?
Yes. Okay, let's do that. Thank you.
The floor is yours, Tom. Thanks, I appreciate that. I know
it's always a difficult process when we're looking
at those rates. And I think, as Ms. Hockett shared in the
presentation, that our rates
are going up. And we see that in those five categories.
And I think if you look at just the basic categories of what we were
showing for our water and our sewer,
that equaled up to 58 to 66%
of our basic costs.
And so, obviously, when we're looking at those costs
going up year over year, we have to project and
plan for that. And those are just our operational costs that we're looking at that
drive our business, in a sense. We talk a little bit.
There were some questions. There were a number of people that talked about the readiness
to serve charge. And the readiness to serve charge really comes down
to the amount of infrastructure that we have to have in place
place to be ready to serve every resident in Corona
when they turn on their tap. That is water lines in the ground.
That's transmission mains from the Colorado River
Reservoir. That is our treatment plants.
That's our operational staff. The majority.
The majority of our costs are fixed costs to
be ready to serve that water to the residents throughout
the country, community. And. And that does make it a little bit tough.
But what we were trying to do and what we try to do is try
to balance that out between the actual commodity,
which is the water, and what we
do to make sure that that water is then available to every
customer whenever they turn on their tap. As we're talking through
that process. It's the same for the sewer, right? We have sewer
lines, we have lift stations, we have treatment plants.
And all of these things have to be up, running and ready to go
whenever we are, whenever that water comes
down the drain. So as that water is turned on from the faucet,
it comes out. We have to have storage reservoirs, we have to
have pipelines, we have pump stations to move the water through.
All of those are just the basic infrastructure charges that
are necessary to make sure that that is available.
Why we don't put that on the commodity charge is
because that really begins to be an unfair
number, if you will, that then can be challenged
through the rate process. So it's important,
then, to understand that if you
have, if you use one unit of water and
you pay $6 for that unit of water and everybody's
paying $6 for that unit of water. Well, if somebody's
paying, if they have 15 units of water and they're
paying that same charge, but everybody's got a really, really low
ready to serve charge that does, that's not equitable because
the majority, again the majority of our costs are fixed costs.
And so we're always trying to balance out those two to
make the commodity charge as low as possible. And we try
to focus our rates on being the lowest possible while providing
the highest quality service. And that's important.
One of the questions that was brought up was the Prop 218 process.
Why is this not voted on? And this was
voted on, right? So from the Prop 218 measurements
was voted on in California and this is the law and
the requirement. It takes a majority of opposition.
And that's why we follow the Prop218 process. We present
a third party independent rate study that evaluates
our overall rates from our revenues
and our expenditures and looks at our capital improvement.
We put provide that to the council and
we then use that money to reinvest into
the system. It's important then to understand that
that is the process under Prop 218 is that we,
it was voted on by the, by the communities
and every, every person in California
has followed that since Prop 218 was enacted.
And, and, and to this point we don't have to
send out a ballot every time that we follow this. This is Prop 218
and it's what's in the California legislator. It's the process that we
follow. Prop218 does not get voted on every cycle.
It was voted on at one time enacted and that is the,
that is the law that we follow now.
So one of the, one of the residents talked about the
challenge of being on Social Security and
not having enough money for this. We do have a
variance program,
so we do allow for a lifeline program so residents
that meet the qualifications have lifeline capability and
we are able to provide that assistance to them with
the proper documentation. A couple of
gentlemen talked about pools.
Good pool maintenance does request that you,
you know or suggests that you change out your pool water
a lot of times over time due to soaps and other
things that get on our bathing suits, in our clothes, you will
get large amounts of phosphate in your pool water. So it
is recommended to periodically drain and
change out some of your pool water from time to time.
Now we Understand that and we provide a variance for
that. As people are going through that process, we're not going to charge them
at the higher tiers. We are going to provide them a variance.
We ask that they make us aware of it.
Is there a charge for the water? Yes, we do charge for the water that
goes through the meter, but we do that at the lower tiers
because we understand that that is not normal.
It is something that they're doing for maintenance.
And additionally, if somebody comes and has a broken sprinkler,
a slab leak, any of these types of things, we have a
variance program that we will work with customers on and
then provide them that. Now we again, we always charge for
the water that goes through the meter. We just do it at the appropriate tier
and not the higher tiers because we realize that
conservation is one methodology. Everybody we believe
is going to be in Tier 1 and Tier 2. Tiers 3 and Tier
4 are excessive tiers. And so that's where we're charging for
that.
In regards to so lifeline
variance RV dump maintenance, I will take a look at the
RV dump station and make sure that both of those facilities are
operating. I believe that's
the meetings that I believe those are the questions.
I think I had just a couple more that I wrote down. One is
somebody mentioned that taking a profit. So if you could
address that. And then second, the state,
the increase in state regulation, I think that we've talked
about that privately or in other meetings about
the increase in state regulation in relation to the.
We all want clean water. The state has additional
regulations put on top of us and what that really costs.
Sure. So we are not a for profit company.
We. The money that we get goes back
into, into our product and our processes.
Right. So people, product and process. Obviously we have
state certified operators on both the water and the wastewater
system. Our infrastructure crews are. These are
the guys that are. We refer to them as our below ground
construction crews. They are the ones dealing with the pipes and the sewer lines.
And we have our above ground team that deals with all the maintenance plant
and the treatment options. They're certified by the state of California
either for an operator license or a distribution license
if they're working on water systems. And so
obviously we have, we have a responsibility to have certified
staff to be able to perform the duties to maintain
a clean and healthy water system
and ensure that our wastewater district or our wastewater
treatment program process is being discharged appropriately
to the environment. So we discharge our water to the
Santa Ana river and or to our percolation
ponds that are here in town. In regards
to, in regards to regulation,
California is one of the next to. New York is one of the
most highly regulated agencies or
states that there is. If you look at
PFAS, for example, I think Ms. Law had
mentioned that PFAS has been around since the 1930s and
it has and we've had it. I fully believe my parents probably sprayed
me down with Scotchgard at some point in my childhood to
keep me from staining the couch. But realistically,
Scotchgard and other products that had PFAS in it have
been in our environment for, for a long time.
That is water repellent. So when a,
when a constituent like that gets in the water, it's very,
very difficult to remove. And it is pervasive
throughout the environment. California, when we started this process in 2013,
2014, when we were doing the UCMR 3 recording
requirements, we had regulations
at 70 parts per billion.
We are down at, we are down at 0.4.
So we went from 70 to 4.
And from a regulatory standpoint, we have to
manage, monitor, test and retest our
water to ensure that we're in compliance all day long prior to delivery
to our customers. If you expand that to, to the list
of constituents that are in the UCMRs and the
list of constituents, you talk about microplastics,
you talk about TCP 1, 2, 3, you talk about 14 dioxane.
Any of these things that we have that
are in our water supply that have been in our
communities for a long, long time,
that is what we are up against in California. You add on
to that that we have air regulations from CARB
aqmd. We have one of the toughest
regions for air quality. That means
that we have to have Tier 4 generators. We have lots of different
components. Regulations are probably one
of our most significant hurdles. I know when the
utility department was transferred to me, the departing general manager
said regulatory is probably going to be one of your toughest challenges in the next
15 years. And that's held true.
Those are just some of the things that we face for sure.
Go ahead. Yeah, real quick. Maybe Jacob, this might be for you,
but can you touch on not being able to
come mingle the general fund money with utility money? A couple speakers
talked about if we saved a million dollars on this on the street
light project, why don't we just put it towards utilities?
Yeah, Tom can address this one. Okay,
thank you, Council member Steiner. That's a great question.
The utilities are, are funded individually by
the ratepayers. We, we cannot Commingle. We don't get property
tax. We do not get taxes from the city. We do not get
sales tax revenue. These are 100% rate
based to the point where we do not even commingle.
Water and sewer, electric or recycled water funds,
they are individual. We run these as individual
business units and we manage those funds
individually. So sewer funds that are collected
from the rates come in, they are accounted for,
salaries are paid specifically from that fund
to individuals that work within those fields
for the sewer department. And we will look
at any CIPs that are funded
specifically from those direct funds.
So we don't commingle with. With the general fund. We don't get property tax,
sales tax revenue, and we do not commingle between the funds
themselves. Mr. Moody, that's because legally we cannot.
Legally we cannot. Correct. Now, for example, a position
like mine, I oversee all four of
the utility departments. My salary is
made up specifically of all four of those
funds. So a portion of my fund, every year, we look
back and we evaluate certain positions
within our department that provide support to all four utilities
that we manage. And we appropriate the amount
of funding specifically for those positions. So I get
paid from all four funds in a sense, but we have
to evaluate what that percentage is during the budgeting cycle
process. And then I just had
one more question. I don't think I saw it in Katie's presentation that MWD
raised our fees 37% for just years
26 and 27. That is correct.
Yeah, it was. Raw water has gone up.
She showed the slide initially showing that raw water
had gone up from 2019, and then made the statement that
our water would be going up from Metropolitan in
double digits over the next two years. And what that means is we
don't produce our. We are the water we serve.
We have to purchase to then give part of it. Part of the
water that we. That we pass on. We purchase. That is
correct. So Metropolitan Water District is the water purveyor
over a large portion of the state. And there's a number of
water purveyors in the state, but they are the one that primarily
serves Southern California in this general area.
And Metropolitan Water District imports water
from the Bay Delta area. That's the state water project. And they
also import water from the Colorado River. We buy
Metropolitan Water District. Let me back up.
Metropolitan Water District also takes water and
like us, treats that water at a number of treatment plants
throughout the Inland Empire,
Southern California area. The treatment plant closest
to us is the Henry J. Mills plant. That's up off of Alessandro Boulevard in
Riverside. Now, we purchase
throughout the year and we provide this in our budget. Every year we purchase
imported water from Metropolitan. That water comes
in treated. That's the water that we get from the Henry J.
Mills plant that's treated water by their team ready to
be delivered specifically to our customers. We also import
what we call raw water. This is water that we either get
from the state water project or it's water that we get from the Colorado
river through the Lake Matthews system that comes into our
treatment plant. This is Lester treatment plant and the Sierra del Oro
treatment plan plants. Those are surface water treatment plants. And we
then treat that water to the state specifications
and then deliver that. So we have imported treated water
and imported raw water, both coming from Metropolitan water
district. And Mr. Moody,
I recently we met with our state legislators and we
showed them we're constantly advocating to find different
sources of revenue to help offset and
to really. Again, it's. We're. We're aggressively going for
grants and other dollars. And we were
asking. And I want to highlight the fact that when
we're talking about water infrastructure,
these aren't $100,000 projects.
These aren't $1 million projects. We are, for instance,
advocating for a reclamation facility. These are in the $35
million range. So there was, there were comments
by folks about what has money been used for? Can you
talk about what has money been used for in
the recent. In our recent past? Sure.
Just over the last two years, we've replaced a number of pipelines.
We replaced the Liberty Avenue water line, which is up off
of out in El Cerrito. We've replaced water lines
off of Carmelita Avenue. These are old AC lines that were put in
1950s era, 50, 60 era.
They've met their useful life. And we're beginning to have multiple breaks.
We've also replaced a significant number of water lines in
the Sierra del Oro area.
And up in.
Off of Fullerton Avenue, there's a few water lines that we've been
replacing. So our infrastructure money, the money that
we get initially goes to operations and maintenance.
We take care of those bills first. We need to operate and
maintain the water so that we can treat it. Other additional
funding, any excess revenue that we get that
is above and beyond our operational and maintenance costs will then
be diverted over to capital improvement projects. And we bring those capital
improvement projects every year to city council and
we will have those on the books.
Now, one of the things with capital improvement projects is we have to have that
money. It has to be fully funded and ready to go. We don't get
to partially fund a water line. When we fund
the cip, we fund it in its entirety.
Now, through that process, then we will go through and engineer,
design, develop and rebuild those types of things.
We do process improvements at our water and wastewater treatment plants
throughout the year, changing out chemical tanks.
We will change out filter media. We will
enhance analyzers and change out those types of things so that
we stay up on our analytics. There's lots of efforts.
Well, rehabilitation is one of the things that we do with our CIPs.
We've rehabilitated four wells over the last few years
that have helped increase our groundwater production and groundwater offsets
our purchased water costs. So that's an important process for us to continually
maintain our groundwater. And can you also speak
a little bit about the difference between a city that
has their own water department and a city city that, for instance,
contracts with a special district?
Where do the. Where does the money? Like how?
Because residents are paying for these services. But a special water district,
folks pay for it in a different way, and maybe they don't recognize that
difference. Can you speak about those two? Two different things?
Yeah, and great question. And I think this is a little
bit that we were talking about about that Jim was talking about is financing
and. And commingling our funds. And I mentioned that we
do not get property tax. Special districts,
Western Municipal Water District and other water districts,
they actually get a portion of the property tax. And that's not something that
we get. All of the money that we receive for the
operations, maintenance and reinvestment into our infrastructure
is done through the rate process. And then there
was a question about the waste
management bill and the water bill. Can you talk a little bit about that
separation? Sure. We've had the waste management contract for
a number of years, and we have been the water utility
department because we have contact with
the residents. We have between 44 and 45,000
accounts. We have contact with the residents
every month. And it was decided a number of years
ago that we would just do the billing for single
family residential properties for waste management,
as that. As we were working through that, Waste management would
then pay and subsidize our
customer care call center because we were working with those
residents. Anyway, we just
renegotiated due to SB 1383, which is
Organics recycling. We just reopened and renegotiated
our waste management contract. And as part
of that, waste management requested to
take the billing back. They did no long. They no longer
wanted to have the utility department proceed and
perform that task for Them, they wanted to bring that back in house.
And that was a decision they made. We had a number
of discussions about that and the challenges,
pros and cons that that would offer. And because
of that, we then. And through the negotiation process,
that was returned to Waste Management. You don't see
it on the water bill because Waste Management now sends out their own bills.
And that's the purpose of that. Yeah. And that was
their decision. And just one, one final question.
Can you speak a little bit about the.
The study conducted, the length of time
to reach the. I think it was power. The PowerPoint
slide. Where is
it? I think it was like the first or second where there was financial
plan options, there were five options
from lowest rate impact to highest rate impact. And these were all scenarios provided
with the study. There was a lot of discussion
from your council, a lot of pushback,
and this was. But can you talk about the
study and its recommendations?
Yeah. It's important to understand that,
you know, we, I feel we engaged the council early
on in this process and got your
input and feedback and really what the priorities were.
And that really helped set the stage, I think, because you
do bring the voice of the community. And I think that you
initially and throughout this process have
put pushed back on us quite a bit to.
To best understand the rate scenario.
And if you look at that, you know, again, we. We talked about
only bringing in and doing a rate that
covered the OM charges. And that's important
to understand. Right. We, we had rate issues
that needed to be addressed that were going to cover the operations and maintenance cost
costs. We then talked about if.
If we're just covering the operations and maintenance costs, revenue in equals.
Equals expenses out. And. And what
does that look like for us? And. And we talked a little bit
about that process and then we talked a lot about
the capital improvement that wouldn't get done,
water lines that are aging in our infrastructure.
And those are important things. And so we then
looked at four other scenarios, and the highest
of those scenarios is a fully funded capital improvement program.
And I know Tony Daddario, Councilmember Daddario, brought this
up a number of times and he just said, you know, I think from
my standpoint, it's important to fully fund these things.
And then he would come back and then he would say,
but what is that gonna cost my residence? And I
think each of you have said that throughout this process.
And I think it's important then to understand that in
finding the appropriate amount of investment
that was the least impactful for the community,
was the objective of the council. And that is where we settled then
on RDN option two. And Mr.
Moody, wasn't the original recommendation by the study option three?
In fact, it was. It was option three. And the reason
for that, and we talked through that. And the reason for that is that
if we did not issue the debt, we then have to plan for those expenses.
And we took the option of we can look at
the debt over time and, and if
we need it, if, if everything aligns and we
get everything done that we intend to, and we
can then pull that money through other resources, bonding that
we can manage. And we wouldn't have to increase the rate so much at this
time. Right. I think it was Mr. Council member Steiner who was like,
what else can we push? What else can we defer just slightly? What else
can we, you know, refurbish X, Y and Z? How can we stretch this
out a little further? Thank you for answering those questions.
I have comments later, but those are all for my questions.
Go ahead, Mr. Moody. I have a couple questions that I wanted to just get
some clarification on. How many miles of water infrastructure do
we have in the city? Approximately 853 miles.
Okay. And on page 14 of
the Prop 218 notice, there's an interesting
stat line in there. In 2023, Corona used 9.1 billion gallons of
drinking water. Corona provided 45.8%
through groundwater wells, and 49.7%
comes from the Lake Matthews area, and 4.5 comes from state
water aqueducts. One of the things that I've learned over
the last four years that is very impressive is our ability to blend
water. And that's essentially taking the water.
I'm going to use very late terms, so please forgive me. It's essentially taking
the water that we get from the ground and that we own and
blending it with the water that we have to buy and that is
able to be used for our customers.
And what does it look like for municipalities
that don't have the ability to blend water? Because I know that we're unique in
that sense. There's not very many municipalities that have that ability.
What are their rates like look like in comparison when they're 100%
dependent on purchasing water?
Expensive, right. And is
it more expensive than a municipality that has
the ability to blend roughly 50% of their own water or produce 50% of their
own water? Yes. Okay. The other big
point that a lot of residents made that we heard was,
you know, it seems. It seems like we have these capital improvement projects that
never. That we that are on the books that never sometimes get
done. And I remember, I think it was, I don't know, four or five months
ago we were having a discussion about this and
a week or two prior, right on Main and Harrison,
I want to say there was a break over by the ccc.
Half Harrison. Yeah, half the half the
street was shut down and there was water bubbling underneath
the asphalt and kind of where the asphalt meets the curbing.
And, you know, the street was flooded. And you know, almost jokingly
I said, you know, we can't plan for breaks. Breaks happen
with infrastructure, with 800 miles of infrastructure that is
past its useful life. And, you know,
that's a big challenge for us is because when we have a break, we have
to get it repaired. It's, we can't foresee these breaks coming,
so we can't really plan for them. And when you have $10 million set
aside for a capital improvement project and then you have a break that we
weren't anticipating, that takes up seven or eight million dollars to repair,
that's a challenge. And that's why I said we should fully fund it
and just get it all done. And I understand
that part of the recommendation is that we're going to be setting,
setting aside money to, to hopefully get ahead of some of
these challenges that we have where infrastructure that is
50, 60, 70, 80 years old is being replaced
on a schedule before it breaks. And that's kind of a challenge with
our aging infrastructure is that it breaks unintended
and unknown about. And so one of the things that I'm
really keen on is making sure that with the capital improvement projects
that we have that we're, that we're doing our best to get ahead of them.
And I think that's part of the plan that we have is to kind
of get ahead of some of these things before these unplanned breaks happen. And we're
paying millions of dollars for capital improvement projects to make
a repair. Do I understand that correctly?
That's correct. Okay. Thank you,
Leslie. No other questions.
Okay, Jim, let me,
let me do this with Sylvia. Read this thing and then we'll move on in
the comments. Ms.
Edwards, as the city's City Clerk's office received correspondence
regarding this item. Mayor yes. We received 259
protest letters opposing the proposed water and sewer rate
adjustments. A majority protest exists if at least
20,20,596 WREN protests
are submitted for the water rate increase and at least 18,666
written protests are submitted for the sewer Rate,
a majority protest does not exist.
Okay. With that, the public hearing is now closed.
Let's move on to questions from the colleagues. Tony,
do you want to go first?
No, Mr. Mayor. I just want to acknowledge that I, that I appreciate everybody
coming out and speaking about this topic, and it doesn't go
unnoticed, it doesn't go unheard. And we are all
very sensitive that, you know, this could impact
some people financially. And I think that, you know,
Mr. Moody has answered a lot of those questions, that there are options for you
and. But it is important to me to recognize it,
acknowledge it, and to thank you for coming out.
Wesley. Thank you. Yeah, I echo.
Thank you for coming. Really. Do we appreciate when people come, even if you're,
you're, you know, telling us we're wrong or we're making mistakes?
I appreciate all of it. And I can tell you when,
you know, Council Member Steiner and Council Member
Casillas and I were sitting up here in, in 2018 or 2019
when we heard that they hadn't adjusted rates for almost,
what, 12 years, 13 years, something ridiculous,
and we were having to vote on implementing a 25%
increase over five years. And it was horrifying
and probably one of the toughest votes that we made when we first
sat in this chair. I think it was Mr. Ellis's first meeting. He got to
sit through that. And then equally, when we saw the proposed rates
under, you know, the suggested, you know, the staff supported,
we all just said, no way, absolutely no way.
Have to go back, have to try and find a different way to do this.
You know, go look at every project that we have, go look at, you know,
every opportunity that we have.
And when there's only so much that's in our control,
either quality suffers, which we, Mr. Moody, will not do. And we,
and if we do, we basically wouldn't be able to, to develop, to deliver water.
So it's a, it's a horrible position to
be in. And I can guarantee that, you know,
we tried to do that with the 5% a year to put money into our
reserves to ensure that we wouldn't have this issue.
But no one saw the fact that every single
material, every single thing that we have to use would go up almost 60%.
And it's, it's. It's. It's horrifying in every way,
shape or form. So again, I, I can tell you that, you know,
the, the five of us are, you know, all live here in Corona,
are all going to be paying the same rate, all going to be paying the
Same things. Well, ma'am,
we make $800 a month anyway,
so I'm just saying, is it. Is it is that we are. We are voting,
ma'am, we are voting on. So we are voting. We are
voting on this as. As residents, the same as you that
we are. The. The amount that we pay is the same amount that
you pay. And, and so I just,
you know, there's not much else to I can say except for thank you and
pass on to my. My colleagues. Guys,
guys, we. We had public comments. We respected
you. It works two ways here.
Thank you.
I also wanted to express my. My sincere thanks
for you coming down, for you sitting through
a long meeting. A lot of comments for you coming up to the mic.
It's not easy to speak publicly,
to speak publicly at a public meeting, to have your comments recorded.
None of that is easy. I remember the first time I did
it, my voice cracked
multiple times. It was. It's not easy.
As your council, you know, we are. We are neighbors. You know,
when we're talking about these things,
we're not talking about them in a vacuum. We're talking about these things
impacting all of us. And I take my responsibility as
your neighbor, as a council member, very seriously.
So much so that we sit here
and read and study and deliberate and
ask questions and push back every chance we get.
You've seen some of that tonight,
and if you go back, you'll be able to see that
every meeting, every meeting that we've discussed this water rate, there's been the same
amount of critical thinking and desire
to find solutions and creative solutions as many as
possible. You know, I think about Southern California Edison,
you know, a publicly traded company that provides utility
that doesn't have to go to residents to
vote on or be transparent about how much profit they
can make. I think about,
you know, water districts that pass along increases
on property taxes, which, you know,
folks may not even notice at the bottom of
the line items of their. Of their property tax bills,
and the fact that legally as a city providing these
services, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to do
so. But yet you find a team that is trying to find
ways to blend water, to reclaim water,
to find advocate at the
state level, at the local level, to find grants, to find
all of these ways to try and ease the burden for us collectively.
And I'll tell you, the math's not math thing is absolutely right.
As part of the generation that is for the first time in recent history,
in a worse financial situation than my parents generation,
with an advanced College degree and all
the nine with two jobs. I can tell you the math's
not mathing. And that's absolutely true. That's true
all the way around. And it's very
frustrating. It's very frustrating. But one thing
that we cannot do is be negligent in the reality that we
have to have clean water. There's a reason why people know
the city of Flint, Michigan. Why do
you know it? And I'm certainly not okay with Corona being
Flint, Michigan. That's it for me.
Mayor JIM I,
it's, it's no secret I'm a nerd.
And before I decided to ever run for office,
I sat down there for 10 years for every council meeting
and just geeked out on them.
But I watched votes like this come and
I watched citizens get up and speak their mind.
And there's a guy here that said the vote's already
done, right, because you feel like it. And you,
I, I look at these Ready to Serve charges,
and I just bought another house and I
don't even have it rented out. It's sitting empty. So I'm paying a Ready to
Serve charge every month for not even
using any water. And so I get
the frustration, and the frustration is real. And the
gentleman that got up and talked about a 60% increase over
five years, it's an alarming number.
And I think the citizens have every right to be
mad and frustrated and to come here. And I think
for every one of you that's here, there's probably a thousand that
should be here as well. So thank you for coming. And I think
you do represent those thousands with
that. There's realities,
there's a. You can't let your water system
go. It's not good to
have a house if you have no water, if you have no shower, if you
have no toilets, if you have no sinks. Water is your precious
commodity. And it's our job, the five of us in the city,
to protect that system. System. And that's why this is all
done openly. I don't enjoy it. I don't think any of you
enjoy it. But it's our job to protect that system and
provide that system. And if you think about it, it's sacred.
It's, you try to go two, three days without
water and you'll pay whatever it takes to get
the water back on our city needs to protect that system.
And so those are my closing comments as well with
that. Sylvia, I do have a question. Does the,
does the motion need to be read twice for each item,
or is it Just once. It just needs to be read once and
it's the only motion that needs to be read is the ordinance
portion of it. Okay, with that in mind,
does anybody want to make a motion?
Sure, I'll read it. Introduced by title only. And wave
full reading of ordinance number 3405. First reading of
an ordinance modifying the budget based water rate structure and
establishing rates for potable water reclaim water and
sewer service fees and charges.
Okay, that vote your conscience.
Okay. Five, zero.
I was shocked. Okay,
we're going to move to item
number 10 administrative reports. 10.1 request from
council member Steiner for. Sorry, we still have item
9.2. It's a public hearing. I thought we had that one.
Okay, we're going to go to 9.2
public hearing for consideration of a resolution amending the
schedule of user service fees for the provision of electric energy, to update
rates and tariffs and to make related adjustments to the electric energy
rules and regulations. So moved.
Okay. Is there. Are there any public comments?
There's no public comments. Okay. With that public hearing is now
closed. Wes has moved. Jackie second and you can
vote your vote.
Okay. Five, zero.
Sylvia, administrative reports sound good to you?
All right, this portion of the agenda is for council
discussion and action on staff reports and new topics that may
not be routine status reports or documents covering previous city
council action. 10.1 Request from council member Steiner for
arterial street media enhancements is.
Keegan is here. Keegan, welcome.
The illustrious CIP supervisor Keegan Olds will present this
item. Good luck, Keegan.
Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. As stated,
I am Keegan Olds, CIP supervisor for our streets and Stormwater
section of the Public Works Engineering section. I'm here tonight
to present on the request from Council member Steiner for
arterial street median enhancements. And so what I'll
do is just briefly provide a quick overview of our
current efforts. Currently, as part of design and
plan planning for both currently programmed and potential
future CIP projects, we are looking at installing 5.3
approximately miles of landscaped medians.
That includes efforts currently programmed on 6th street
as part of the downtown revitalization Ontario at Lincoln
and the Magnolia Avenue project east of I15.
And in the early planning stages,
we're also looking as per the request at Green River
Road, Hidden Valley Parkway and Promenade
Avenue for potential projects and future cip.
There's no current program to install landscape medians as part of a specific
effort and generally we include these as items
in larger projects.
But if desired, I would be happy to investigate
and prepare a presentation on Potential
plans, future efforts as maybe
a program to install landscaped medians as
a program or a series of projects on arterial
streets. As part of this administrative report, I have
also listed some potential benefits as well as potential
challenges for installing landscaped medians on our
interior streets. But again, just want to iterate that in the current
design and planning stages, we're looking at about 5.3
miles of landscape medians.
So if you would like me to bring it back as a future agenda item
or a presentation, whether part of a city council
meeting or study session, I would be happy to do so and
would like to open up to questions. Mayor, if I could.
So I wanted to give a little background on how this ended up before
us. I had a Sierra del Oro resident reach out to me, and she said,
hey, you know, foothill is so beautiful. When you drive down, you know,
from the 15, you got this beautiful center median.
It just kind of makes everything pop. And then when you get up to Sierra
delauro, there's nothing. So I'm like, man, I didn't even think of that. So I
went and drove it. And she was right. When it
does look great along Foothill in the center median. And then as soon as I
got to Pradoview elementary, it basically turned into
a concrete jungle from the school all the way to the 91
Freeway. And as I was looking at the center medians,
there's a huge portion of it that wouldn't require any turn
lanes. It serves no purpose other than looking ugly.
And so I thought, man, we could really make this
area look so much more beautiful, along with the benefits of traffic
calming on some of our major arterials. But then I started really paying
attention to it and just driving down Lincoln and
like, gosh, this is boring too. You could. You could make this area
look so much more of a community feel. And I
just started noticing it all, you know, all throughout the city, how nice
that would look. Look. Now, I realize that our priority right now is downtown,
but that doesn't mean we can't plan for something for the future.
Maybe chip away at it. One or two medians a year, one every
two, whatever. Whatever we can do. But I also was curious
on would that come out of LMDs that the. The money would
have come out of general fund. It's something we, you know, we can explore.
Can you do a balance of each? So anyways,
I just thought it was worthy enough to talk about to help beautify our city.
And again, it doesn't have to be a day one priority. But I think we
should look at it for the future without a doubt. So thank you,
Keegan.
I admire your moxy on this one, Jim. I,
I, I don't disagree. I think it would help
to beautify the city.
Doing some quick calculations in my head.
I don't know when there would be budget
budget for an undertaking of something like
that, even for smaller amounts.
I would say that that's something and this is going to sound
not great, but that's something, something that the future city council could probably
consider in my opinion. I just don't see it in the next four
years and I realize again,
it's not a priority. But if we don't plan for something even
for a future city council, then the ball's never going to get
rolling. So I think there's some things we can do. I guess
I would just be a little concerned about the cost of planning.
Absolutely, absolutely. That's what I'd like to kind of explore.
That's why it's just a future agenda item so we can talk about it if
they want, if they wanted to come back and,
and tell us what the, what the cost of something like that would be,
I guess that would be okay. I just don't want, I just don't want staff
to spend a whole bunch of time on something that I just don't think is
possible within the next four years. And I think on the staff time or on
the staff report, it did address the cost of staff time to put
together a plan and I don't recall that being significant.
Yes, I believe it states 40 hours of staff time. I actually
did start working on a presentation already, so the impact to me personally would
be, would be a little less. But it would require some investigation
on potential funding sources since those can vary
as you mentioned, LMDs, potential traffic safety improvement
programs, that sort of thing. But as well as examining the financial
cost, especially in regards to currently projects that are in
design and what we're already looking at and grants may be available
for something like that potentially. Yeah. I think Keegan railroad
their daddario. I didn't know he was an overachiever like that.
Leslie. Yeah, I like the idea. I'm a big fan of planning,
you know, a flag in the ground flag and trying to make something happen.
I guess it's, you know, being, being my Don Quixote
where I, you know, want to tilt at the windmill. But I guess I got
lucky with, you know, they said you could never get
a, an improvement on the freeway either. And we did that in three years.
So I, I'm, I'm happy to, to see this go forward,
at least to get together a plan. I do think there's going to be some,
there'll be some grant money because there, there are.
I forgot the term. It's something
about the rate of solar insulation versus concrete
and anyway there's a, there's some grant money for that and, but I would
like to find ways for us to prioritize
and it being, you know, 6ft corridor would be really important to me.
I think that we have some safety concerns in,
in District 1 on Hidden Valley that I would really love to
see those prefer, you know, preferably kind of go
first because they, they've had some, some issues there and you
know, if we're going to be looking at these areas and maybe a
ranking system that would look at, you know, maybe safety first. In fact,
I think there are some, some calsta money
that they're putting forward for, for safety pro projects.
So there might be an opportunity for us there to, to build some pieces in
and if we can find other places that we can, you know, tweak, that might
be a way to make it happen a little bit faster. So I think this
is for sure an other people's money thing. Yeah, I love other people's money.
It's my favorite kind of money. Yeah,
that's it. Thank you so much. So, yeah, I'm, I'm in favor coming back and,
and let's talking about it more and again, you know, putting a pl. A flag
in the grounds of. Good thing. Jackie, do you want to follow Don Quixote
over there? No, I don't, but I. Mr. Olds,
thank you so much. I think one of the things that I
liked about this idea was sometimes we go in there and we're already making
improvements on the street or we're. And so it feels like if we
knew or if we like hindsight's
always perfect vision. Right. But one of the things coming into this council that
we learned right away is that when you don't have
this exploration, if you do
have the opportunity come before you and you've never
thought about it before, you're going to be functioning from a deficit
of knowledge and you're probably going to, you know,
severely under undermine
like how much it'll take to get something done and could undercut
yourself. So you just never know when
there might be an opportunity for more funding or if we're already addressing something in
the area, we can say, hey, actually we identified this as a possible street
for medium beautification. And aha. Here's the perfect
moment. So I like it as a plan that
sits there ready for us to chip away at it.
And so I. As an aspirational plan. Exactly. So I look
forward to seeing what you come up with and you finish your presentation.
Thank you.
Well, when I'm fighting with my wife, she says I serve no other purpose
than to look ugly. So that,
that, that rang home with me. Hi,
I'm with you, Jim. And it looks like Keegan already
is gonna do it anyways. Can do what he wants anyways.
So I think we're good with that. Do we
need. We need a public comments on this, right?
Yeah. So let's open it up. Up to public comments.
Did you want to speak? Come on up.
Amen again. No, you're good to go. Just want to comment
on the,
you know, landscaping things because who's
going to pay the water bill for those plants that are going to go in
down there? Is that a cheap shot? Because it's going to be a lot more
expensive by the time we get to doing it, so that'd
be a concern. Thank you. All right.
I didn't think it was a cheap shot. Thank you for speaking.
Sylvia. Are there any other speaker cards? Mayor, we do not have any speaker
cards. Okay with that. Public comments is closed.
Is there? Jim, do you want to make the motion?
No motion needed. Thank you, Wes. Moving along.
10.2 Travel advance request for council member Jackie
Casillas. Does any member want a staff report on this item?
I mean, I could provide some comments if you'd like. Yeah, I'm at it.
This is the one up north. Yep.
This conference, it's a. League leaders, as you know, I'm the Riverside
county incoming or I just actually the last meeting, same day
as our city council meeting. I was presented, sworn in as the president
of a Riverside county division. So at this.
Of the League of Cities. Yes, of Riverside Division.
Just our county, not the statewide organization. But this is
an organization that advocates and lobbies for
local control and for essentially lobbying
for cities when Sacramento lawmakers
are getting together and passing laws that affect us. So I
want to assure you all
that I'm going to be coming. I'm going to be attending this meeting with our
legislative platform. And I'm doing everything
in my power to make our platform be the
league cities platform. So,
you know, trust me that I.
I'm not going to be shy. So I
trust you. Any comments from anyone else?
Jim, Leslie, me. Ms.
Edwards, are there any speaker cards? Mayor we do not have any speaker
cards for this agenda item. No. No cheap shots over there.
So moved. All right,
fair enough with that second vote.
And off Jackie go.
Council member speak.
All right. 5.
0. 10.3. Vice Mayor Steiner's
request for City Council's consideration to adopt a homeowner's insurance
protection resolution. Amina.
Amina Mirrors the assistant to the city manager.
My bad. Dr. Amina Mears, assistant to the city manager.
She will present this item. Sure. Thank you. Good evening,
Mayor, Council. So staff received agenda
item request from Vice Mayor Steiner for the city to consider.
For City Council to consider adopting resolution advocating for home insurance protections
for Corona residents. The city has received comments
from. From residents regarding insurance plans being either cancelled or premiums
increased due to fires and other natural disasters.
Recently, the counties of San Bernardino, San Bernardino
and Placer have adopted resolutions urging the State Insurance
Commissioner Lara and the governor to declare a state of emergency and to
act swiftly to restore stability to the insurance market.
A resolution of this nature is in alignment with the city's legislative
platform as we just recently added language expressing
the city's advocacy and support for addressing insurance
increases and rates. Insurance rates increases
and cancellations due to natural disasters. So without further
ado, I will now turn this discussion over to Vice Mayor.
Yeah, and I'm not sure there's a whole lot to add to what Dr.
Mears said. You know, we've all gotten the emails from our residents concerned that
they can't get homeowners insurance or they're threatening to have
it taken away from them and just the cost,
you know, to find insurance.
And I know our fire department's
doing a lot with trying to get communities firewise
and fire safe and getting hoas involved to
understand, you know, defensible space and things
like that. But, you know, it's, it's. It's really ridiculous
because it's in high fire hazard areas, which I understand, and I
understand the measures need to be taken. But so many of
the homes in high. In high fire hazard areas are not going
to catch fire from a, from a forest fire. So it's an overreach
on what is identified as high fire hazard.
But I know there's not a lot we can do about this. But I
still think we need to make a strong stance. And I like what San Bernardino
county and Placer county did with demanding that
the governor make this a state of emergency and step in and get this
taken care of.
Okay, I'm with you guys. Want to do public comments
or do you want to. Public comments. Sylvia Are there any speaker
cards? Mayor? We do not have any speaker cards for this agenda item.
Okay. With that, public comments is closed.
Tony.
No. No comments. No, Wes, I agree. My 300
increase in the last four years. So anything they can do. And I
know that, you know, again, tilting and windmills, but enough people,
you know, write this letter then that the insurance commissioner
is trying to work on it. But yeah, you're right. That that absolutely needs to
happen. That high. Fire D. Your designation is
far too broad, Jackie. I just
want to add that, you know, we have a very active fire chief who
is like sitting at all these tables and advocating and pushing
every chance we get to to
just lower the cost for residents to show that we're being proactive. I mean,
we created these fire safe councils with a nonprofit. It's trying
to make a difference and we're just trying to save people
money wherever we possibly can. So, yeah, I'm in favor of this
advocacy as well. I am as well. And the fact
that you heard that it came from Placer and San Bernardino means
people are talking about it and if we can join those
ranks, there's value in that. So I'm a yes too.
I don't think we're voting on it and I think we're good.
Are you happy? Yeah. Thank you. Okay.
10.4 request from council member speak for the city
council to consider an ordinance preventing unsolicited advertising or
of printed materials on private property. Oh,
once again, Dr. Amina Mears, the great assistant to the
city manager, will present this item. Mayor Amina Spy.
So staff received another agenda item. This one is from
council member Speak wanting us to look into drafting an ordinance
prohibiting solicited advertising circulars or other printed material
on printed property except for purchase.
Now, the city has an existing code, CMC 5.2
0.040, that regulates the distribution of
handbills in the city. The ordinance does not explicitly
prohibit the distribution of handbills on private properties.
However, it does note that residents or persons who do not want to receive handbills
can request so by displaying a visible no solicitation
sign or anything that has similar language.
So, staff, tonight we would like further direction on the next steps.
Specifically, if the council wants staff to develop an ordinance
or if you want us to amplify the current ordinance that we have
through maybe some marketing, social media campaign push to
make residents further aware or whatever else you might have in mind.
So I will now refer to you.
Thank you, sir. Yeah, I, I this is one of those things
where, you know, I'm walking, I get out my, my front yard and
there's this, the bag of garbage,
paper that is in my, in my gutter
that I'm having to pick out and put in the trash. And, and I'm making
sure that it's not, you know, it's getting run over 15 times and
the person next door, their stuff washes down. And to me, it's.
It's litter, you know, and, and there's. My neighbors have
no soliciting signs and they get thrown out onto their driveways
just like everything else. And I think it's just a. It's a.
It's litter. And frankly,
it's wrong. And I think that it's impacting our water quality.
You have these things in the, in the gutter in different parts of the city
that just sit there. And I'd like to see
a stronger stance. I know we have something. I did read that article or that
ordinance and there is any teeth to it. I'm okay with taking our
existing ordinance and tweaking it a little bit.
I think the issue will be enforcement,
nor do I want the. Not saying I want the city to go around and
find people that are doing this, but I think if there's someone that
says, hey, I don't want this, and the folks that are doing
this would know, hey, don't do this, because you're going to get fined by
the city of Corona. And so I think this is
something that I talk to my neighbors and folks who live in
different parts of the city, and some said the same thing. This, they hate it.
They. They can't stand it. It's just one more piece of garbage they have to
pick up and throw away. That's it. Thank you,
Jackie. Sure. No, look, it's annoying.
I agree. This just feels like fighting a losing battle.
And I think that, like, I just, I think about the enforcement, I don't know
how this is enforceable. There's so many things that are deemed
and like,
not. What's it called?
Solicitation.
And I think it's a pretty, like, porous line, you know
what I mean? For instance,
we just had an election and all of those papers
are not considered solicitation. Yeah. And I specified
that in the request that, that if it was on a porch. Well,
you're okay if someone wants to get out of their car, wants to walk up
and put something on your porch, totally fine with that. The person that comes by
and throws the bag of rocks with, you know, with an advertisement
in it at like three in the morning. Yes. Or the little
newspaper that gets tossed out of the, you know, that's just some advertisement
that frankly gets run over and ends up in the trash anyway.
And so I don't want to infringe on the fact that, you know,
if someone wants to actually get out of their car and walk and
put something on your, on your door, on your, your porch,
that's totally okay. Yeah. This just seems like again, like one of those things
that's like, like a. Fighting a losing battle.
But I, you know, I'd want to, you know, I'd be open to seeing
like what a modification of. Sure. What we already have might
look like. I just. It is that piece of enforcement that I
don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think if people could, you know, I wouldn't necessarily
put it on the city to go out and hunt these, hunt folks down,
but if they, if you had an issue and said, hey, don't, don't deliver us
anymore, we would let. I mean, I think there's only a few people
that do this and if you told them, hey, by the way, this is not,
you know, this is against the, against our, our code.
It would be a pretty short list of folks to send to. And then if
you had people like me that cared about it, then you would like
a standard letter the city, you'd be self reporting and then, and then that
way it'd be taken care of. But like I said, looking forward to there being
an option to take a look at it.
TDog Good.
I'm in support of this. I too don't like the bag of rocks that I
find on my driveway.
I really appre. Oddly enough, I really appreciate the notepads
that the realtors leave. I use those all the time,
but more times than not, I find them. I find that
bag of papers in the gutter that's usually
soaked by the time that I have to get it and then pick up a
bag of wet, nasty paper and throw it in the trash.
So if we could somehow send a letter to him because we've
got an ordinance that we could point to and that helps
mitigate it, I'm all for it. Jim.
I read an article that back in the day, Steve McQueen
and James Garner were neighbors. Steve McQueen would drive by James
house and throw his beer cans in his yard.
Kind of reminds me of that.
These are good 10 o'clock stories, so I
think we're good there with that.
No vote. Does anyone know
the time? No, but I
have a story about Paul Newman if you'd like to hear it.
Okay, legislative matters there are none reports
from board members and commissions there are none from library
none from planning and housing receive and file a
bunch of things. Regional meeting Wes,
it's 10 o'clock but there's a an update from you on the Southern California
association of Government Transportation. I'll just say that the
five pages that I was going to read I'll just sum it up real quick
with the state continue to hate you in your car
and that will continue.
SCAGG is giving money to the city of Marino Valley for
a horrible project called the World Logistics center to put in a interchange
improvement. We're a project that ever should have been approved and a
really great project in the city of Beaumont to put in a great separation.
That's pretty much it. Yeah. Except for you know, the hate of cars
and people. Okay,
part two Update from Council member west speak on the Riverside County
Transportation Commission our CTC meeting of November 13th,
2024 again more hating of people people in their cars.
There was a legislative update. We did a couple of votes but I'm not going
to talk about them. But the the biggest thing was a legislative update from
our the folks at our TTC about CALSTA and
their update of the California Transportation Planning
Basically cap ties what the initials are and I always forget what it's what
it stands for but basically it's a this is
the final nail. I think I talked to you guys about it last time.
I will post the letter. The city is going to
be thank you Mr. Mayor for signing that letter opposing
these changes. And the most disgusting part
of it is that the SB1 money
that we've been paying, the additional tax that we've been paying on the
gas tax that they said would only go toward transportation.
One of the changes that they're proposing
in this is to redirect that money to housing and,
and it's, it's a lie and it's a flat lie
that was voted on and I'm hoping that there are folks that speak out against
it. I will put something out on my page and then hopefully the
city when we finish our letter we are using
RCTC is getting letters together from different cities to
oppose that and that would go so far as to actually restrict the money
that RCTC gets from measure
A and maintain or make
those improvements not happen on the road. There will
not be any more lanes over a mile.
They're going to start looking at arterials to limit the
vmt the vehicle miles traveled accessed on those roads and
it's going to get. It's going to get really bad. So hopefully enough people are
going to notice this time of this, this final nail in the coffin for
folks getting in their cars. And not that I'm opposed to public transportation,
but we just won't have any. You won't have any here for probably 30 years.
To continue to slam that point home is just horrible.
And that's it. Thanks. Thanks,
Wes. Ms. Edwards, are there any speaker cards
from the public for the regional meetings? Mayor we do not have any speaker cards.
All right. Steiner's appreciative of that.
Okay, city attorneys, reports and comments. Dean, you want to get
into that Paul Newman story now?
Okay. Mr. Ellis, I see you're back from vacation.
The orientation. How'd it go? No comments.
Mayor thank you. Okay, City council member
reports. Oh, we got to do something here.
Designate, designate representative to participate on ad
hoc committee for field rates. Does anybody.
Tony.
All right, Tony.
Tony Jacob,
do we need one or two people for the ad hoc?
Just one. There you have it. So let
the record state that council member Daddario has gladly volunteered
voluntold.
And with that. Does anybody have any comments?
Tony? Yeah, just a couple comments. On November
9th, I was able to attend
the veterans event at the Riverside National Cemetery.
I was there with Vulcan materials and they were
placing flags on all of the cemetery. They were one of
many, many organizations placing flags on the
cemetery out there. It's very, it was great
to see everybody placing flags and all the flags flying and the events of they
had going on. My grandparents are both at National
Cemetery, so it was very special for me. By the time I got over there
to pay my respects, their flags were already there and they were perfectly
straight. So it was a beautiful thing to see.
And I also wanted to give a quick shout out to our communications
team and our digital team. They did a great job on the State of the
City. The video was great. I believe it's available now on
all of the city socials. It's a great video,
some great acting by the mayor. I think if there's a
category for State of the City addresses at the Grammy or the Oscars,
I think you should probably be up for one. But,
you know, it was a pretty much a packed house. And afterwards
I was walking back to my vehicle and I was talking with
a couple that own a business here in town and it's called DBZ
Records and Books or Books and Records. And it's, it's a
great Little store on 6th Street. It's owned by Dilver and Karen
Lizama. They've been open for three or four years. And I
went and I visited the bookstore and bought a couple
of things that they had there. It's a really cool story
of local folks that have entrepreneurs
that have decided to take their love of books and records
and, and open a store here
in Corona and you know, just following their social media and
just learning more about their story. They're kind of a big deal
as far as an independent book and record store or
independent bookstore and independent record store. The day that I ended
up going, they were having a independent record release for the new
Gwen Stefani record. And it was just really cool.
There was. When I showed up at a little bit before 5 o'clock, there was
a line of people out the door waiting to get in to
buy this record. And I thought that that was really cool and just
really something. You know, people talk about wanting something different here in the city of
Corona and you know, they talk about arts and culture and
boy, this store really hits on all of that. They've got a bunch of open
open mic nights and record release album parties and all kinds of cool things
they've got going on. And so I wanted to give them a shout out.
I thought that they have a really cool niche
they're filling. And if you are watching this and you get
an opportunity to go check them out. Go check them out. That's it.
Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, I can't wait.
I got your little note about how awesome it was. I'm looking forward to
going down, especially something on 6th street,
which always, always makes me happy. Just a couple things. One, we're getting into
the season, so both Dos Lagos and the Crossings
will be having their holiday lighting event on the same day.
But we're trying to figure out which one we're
going to go to. But both seem to be, you know, kind of going big
and trying to get people to come back. And again, I want to echo what
Councillor Daddario said that, you know, Sean, the you and your team
did an amazing job. It's the best State of the City video
that you guys have done yet. And I, I, I can't
wait to see what you guys do next year. It's getting better and better every
single time. So thank you and please pass it on to your,
to your team and good job. Mr. Mayor. You were.
Yeah, I was exp. I did see you filming some things and
I was very bummed. I didn't see see you on 3rd Street. I didn't see
you. But, but it was a Nice job.
Thank. Thank you, Jackie. You got anything,
Jim? Just one thing. As an FYI,
you guys know I sit on the, I represent the city on the Santa
Ana River Advisory Group. So tomorrow the,
the Coastal Commission, California Coastal Commission is having their public meeting
in Oakland. And I've already registered, registered to make some public
comments. But agenda item eight, which is actually
about probably five or six hours into the meeting, is near
the end. It's. They're considering allocating $9.2
million for the 1.7 mile link of the
Green River, Santa Ana River Trail for that connection.
So I, I feel good
about it, you guys. So we're finally getting these connections
connected and this will, this will go a long way in making
that happen. So I'll report back next. So is that like $500,000
an hour for you to sit down there? Well, you know, they're going over waterways
and stuff, so that's why it's so expensive. That's good stuff.
Thanks for keeping your eye on that. Yeah, thank you.
Thanks, Jim. Sean, you guys,
you and your team knocked it out the state of the city. And Donna
and her team, you, you guys were phenomenal.
So the only heckler was my 8 year old daughter there.
She let me have it. But it was a
great night and a lot of fun and maybe one
day Sean will release the stuff he didn't put in the video.
So with that, the next meeting of the council
is December 4, 2024, and this meeting is adjourned.