[1:00:03] This was me also. Oh, no, this is Wes just joking.
[1:00:07] Creation of a capital improvement project entitled Corona Landfill.
[1:00:11] Corona Landfills. Landfill, Solar farm.
[1:00:14] I think Wes and Tony pulled. Yeah, I pulled it too.
[1:00:17] Yeah, go for it, Wes. I just wanted to get a report.
[1:00:21] I was excited about hearing that we're going to use a
[1:00:24] facility to generate some revenue. I think my questions were really,
[1:00:28] are we, is the idea for us to.
[1:00:32] Are we going to lease this to a provider? Are we
[1:00:35] going to own and operate ourselves? And then last is, I see that the funding
[1:00:41] for at least the RFP is going to be general fund.
[1:00:45] General fund project. And I was just curious why it wouldn't, why we wouldn't
[1:00:48] have it be utility funded. Because it's. Where would the money, where would the revenue?
[1:00:53] So if it's general funded, the revenue would go back towards general fund projects.
[1:00:57] So with some things like larger investments
[1:01:00] we have say with the new community center, other things, these could, these funds could
[1:01:03] help offset the electrical cost for those. But by
[1:01:07] using general funds as the revenue source, then the revenues generated
[1:01:10] from it will go back broadly to the source where it came from, which would
[1:01:13] be any city operations. Okay. All right. This was just curious
[1:01:17] about that. Can we start with a
[1:01:21] little report out just for the general public to hear a little bit more
[1:01:24] about the project before we dive into the Questions? That'd be great.
[1:01:28] So, as you know, the city of Corona has partial
[1:01:32] ownership of the old Corona landfill. This is an unlined
[1:01:36] landfill. Corona owns 56 of the 80 acres and
[1:01:40] the other is owned by Riverside County. As part
[1:01:44] of that, Riverside county does the maintenance of the gas system.
[1:01:48] So from the landfill, as that landfill is
[1:01:52] degrading, it creates that methane gas source. For a
[1:01:56] number of years, this facility was home to electric generation.
[1:02:00] It was, it was a corporation, a private entity that ran
[1:02:05] large methane gas driven engines that
[1:02:09] created electricity and provided that directly to the grid.
[1:02:13] So the site is ideally situated to be able to provide back
[1:02:18] energy into the Southern California Edison grid over
[1:02:23] the years. In 2004, we also created
[1:02:26] the Corona utility utility electric system, which is housed
[1:02:29] on that same site. It has infrastructure there, so the
[1:02:34] energy could be bought by the Corona Electric
[1:02:37] utility from the city operating facility
[1:02:42] and then we could utilize that to service our
[1:02:45] customers and decrease load off of Southern California Edison's
[1:02:48] grid. There are a number of options
[1:02:52] that, that this site will house.
[1:02:55] Based on initial layouts, the site has been identified
[1:02:59] as being able to handle between 5 and 8 megawatts.
[1:03:03] Additional megawatts could be garnered if the grading of
[1:03:06] the facility was allowable.
[1:03:10] And from that we've been able to retain the plans from Riverside
[1:03:14] county and we will be providing those outweigh
[1:03:18] with the rfp. So that number may go up a
[1:03:22] little bit as high as 12 megawatts. What we're looking
[1:03:26] for is a self generation bill credit type
[1:03:30] scenario where we would generate the energy, put that into
[1:03:33] Southern California Edison's grid, and then we would
[1:03:37] get credits at City hall or other facilities that
[1:03:41] are served by Southern California Edison that
[1:03:45] energy. The other alternative is that that energy could
[1:03:48] go to the Corona utility electric system to
[1:03:52] offset ours. And we would just buy that at the price per
[1:03:55] megawatt set by the city. Okay,
[1:03:58] so the RFP would be for somebody to
[1:04:02] do epc, engineering, procurement, construction,
[1:04:06] and then we would operate. At this point
[1:04:09] in time, there are a couple of operational methods, methodologies. So it
[1:04:13] could be a lease back. We might determine that the site
[1:04:16] is going to, is going to. It might be beneficial for us to have
[1:04:20] a lease option where we just lease the land and
[1:04:23] a company will come in and operate, own,
[1:04:27] operate the facility and take care of all of the maintenance and
[1:04:30] we just get a nice lease payment from that property for that.
[1:04:34] The initial direction given was that we would typically prefer
[1:04:38] to own and operate. Now own and operate does come with its
[1:04:42] own challenges and we want to make sure that the Consultant does look at and
[1:04:46] own operate scenario and we have a clear picture of what that would be.
[1:04:50] Excellent, thank you.
[1:04:54] The one thing that I didn't see on, on the staff report is what is
[1:04:57] the location?
[1:05:00] This is 1300 Magnolia, just across from
[1:05:04] the Lowe's shopping center and downs.
[1:05:08] Okay, thank you, Mr.
[1:05:11] Moody. I was wondering will we have the opportunity then to consider
[1:05:15] the option or will it be on? Okay. To consider
[1:05:19] how it is that we process these funds? Okay. Yep. And in terms of
[1:05:22] the final operating model, really what we're looking for is the greatest value proposition.
[1:05:26] Which one makes the most sense, that provides the greatest benefit.
[1:05:29] Obviously weighing some of the costs with that as well. But that'll be a decision
[1:05:31] that we bring back to council. Yeah, I thought this was a very. This is
[1:05:35] an innovative way, as my colleagues have said, to use that land that can't
[1:05:38] be used for anything else.
[1:05:43] Tom, I only had one comment and it was.
[1:05:47] I'm just worried about glare from the solar panels because the 15 freeway
[1:05:51] is right there. So I'm just hoping that it's taken very serious as
[1:05:55] the study goes forward. Forward. So,
[1:05:59] Sylvia, are there any speaker cards? Mayor, we do not have
[1:06:02] any speaker cards for this item. Okay, with that, public comments are
[1:06:06] closed.
[1:06:16] 50. Up next,
[1:06:20] 7.11 approval of the first amended and restated
[1:06:24] Mercy House agreement and the county of Riverside ARPA and
[1:06:27] Hip HIP grant agreements.
[1:06:31] Which one pulled that? Oh, Jim, you want to
[1:06:35] go first? I was just hoping we could get a report from
[1:06:38] Ms. Roper office. Ms.
[1:06:42] Roper. The great Ms. Roper. The floor. The floor is
[1:06:45] yours.
[1:06:51] It's a joy to see you. I have a friend with me and I'll tell
[1:06:54] you why. So I am super excited,
[1:06:58] as I always am, regarding the proposed contract
[1:07:01] with Mercy House. I'd like to start by saying that when
[1:07:05] you had the vision for your homeless strategic plan, you approved an
[1:07:09] entire system of services from A to Z, all the way from homeless
[1:07:13] prevention and outreach and shelter and housing and services and
[1:07:17] everything in between. And when you have a high functioning system, system like that,
[1:07:21] you can see a lot of people move from the streets and
[1:07:24] onto permanent housing. And as your council knows,
[1:07:28] every quarter we give you data that's connected to the strategic plan
[1:07:32] so that you can see how your system is functioning.
[1:07:35] This contract is an $8.2 million contract.
[1:07:39] And I just want to thank you for the flexibility that you've provided
[1:07:43] in the past where we've had sort of these interesting mid
[1:07:46] year where we're infusing the contract with money and that is because
[1:07:50] we're trying to leverage other resources
[1:07:55] from the county, the state and federal governments.
[1:07:59] And so this contract has multiple funding sources that
[1:08:03] are in it. So that's the first thing that I want to say and
[1:08:06] it really helps us to have a smooth functioning system.
[1:08:10] The other thing I wanted to say is, Mr. City Attorney,
[1:08:14] I wanted to thank you sir and Jamie. This is a
[1:08:18] complicated agreement and you know, as we built this,
[1:08:21] it's got many different funding sources. It's been a
[1:08:25] very complicated contract with a
[1:08:28] lot of different budget line items. And the city
[1:08:31] attorney's office spent a lot of time to help me to restructure
[1:08:35] this contract to make it easier to manage and
[1:08:39] really to align some of the budget categories to collapse them
[1:08:43] into bigger buckets. So that's the one thing that I wanted to mention
[1:08:47] to you that was really a big help. The other thing
[1:08:50] too is this contract contains a lot of funding sources.
[1:08:54] And I have Tanya here from the county with us. You've met her
[1:08:57] before, she's the deputy director that is over all of the continuum of
[1:09:01] care funds. You are able to have this
[1:09:05] high functioning system because we have great partners.
[1:09:09] And I want to take us back a minute. You know the county, if you
[1:09:12] think about the million dollar ARPA grant,
[1:09:15] the Vista Dorada project was like 20 million dollar
[1:09:19] project. And this particular contract has
[1:09:23] a million dollars of ARPA funding where the county's
[1:09:27] coming in to reimburse you the city council
[1:09:31] for the 3 million that we invested in Citi funds
[1:09:34] and CDBG funds. Thank you, Cynthia. I think she's here.
[1:09:38] So we invested 3 million and so the million is
[1:09:42] going to come back to reimburse us to then reinvest in your
[1:09:45] system. So that million dollars is being added to this contract.
[1:09:50] Then we also received a $400,000
[1:09:54] Housing Homelessness Incentive Program grant,
[1:09:58] $400,000 that is also going to be added to
[1:10:01] the this particular project. The county has been really wonderful.
[1:10:05] They like our concept. We're known across the
[1:10:08] region as a whatever it takes kind of city to
[1:10:12] address homelessness. And the county has really supported us.
[1:10:15] So the budget line items where we have certain funding
[1:10:19] gaps allows us to do whatever it takes to have that high functioning
[1:10:22] system. So besides our city general
[1:10:26] funds, this has state PLHA funds and then the million dollar ARPA
[1:10:30] grant, the $400,000 AHIP grant. So and
[1:10:34] I just want to thank you for the past flexibility. We're asking for
[1:10:37] that with this particular contract because if
[1:10:41] we maximize the county grants,
[1:10:44] we might be able to then stretch the city measure X funds
[1:10:48] to go a lot further. So we have this on track through
[1:10:52] June. But because of the county funds, we might be
[1:10:55] able to stretch the city general funds and carry them forward into another
[1:11:00] fiscal year. We'll see how the project goes. But we
[1:11:03] did have some hard deadlines because of the ARPA fund. So that's why we needed
[1:11:07] to get this before you. So I would like to just
[1:11:10] for a moment hand the microphone to the county because I
[1:11:14] know Tanya wants to say a few words to you about the great partnership.
[1:11:19] I truly do. Good evening Mayor, council members.
[1:11:23] Thank you again for the great privilege of being here.
[1:11:26] As Karen shared, I have the privilege of working alongside
[1:11:31] her in working with the county to coordinate responses
[1:11:35] across our five supervisorial districts.
[1:11:38] I truly, truly want you to know that the county is a proud supporter
[1:11:42] of all the work that you're doing in the city of Corona. And its for
[1:11:46] that very reason that we are very
[1:11:49] much trying to replicate what you are doing here across
[1:11:53] all other cities in the county.
[1:11:56] What you're doing, and I know I've been here on this stage
[1:12:00] to say this before, is truly evidence based. You guys have
[1:12:03] seen the results of your investments.
[1:12:06] And part of my, my job and our
[1:12:10] department's job is to make sure that we're continuing
[1:12:14] on this same plight to
[1:12:18] ensure that these resources and efforts are
[1:12:22] available countywide. What I also wanted
[1:12:25] to emphasize is that the level of
[1:12:29] investment that the city has made goes beyond our
[1:12:33] department and as was
[1:12:36] referenced earlier, is being noted by all of our County
[1:12:40] Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Spiegel, who was very intentional
[1:12:44] about setting aside the resources that she had for her district to
[1:12:47] the city of Corona because we recognized that
[1:12:51] the resources would be put to good use to expand shelter
[1:12:55] bed capacity for residents in the region. And again
[1:12:59] recognizing that if we invested this
[1:13:03] resource here, it could truly serve as a model for all
[1:13:07] 28 cities across our region. So no, we stand behind you,
[1:13:11] we stand beside you. And the work you're doing is a
[1:13:14] model not here locally, which I've overemphasized
[1:13:17] in the time that I've had, but truly across the state and the
[1:13:21] federal region. There is not a time where I have not met
[1:13:24] with state and federal partners and they have not noted the work that is
[1:13:28] being done in the city of Corona. So know that we are
[1:13:31] with you. And I know that you guys have all heard
[1:13:35] personal stories of what these investments have meant
[1:13:38] to your very own residents. And with that,
[1:13:41] know that it's truly a treasure to work alongside
[1:13:45] Karen Roper. And I mean that from the Bottom of my heart,
[1:13:48] I know the rest of our department and county departments from
[1:13:52] Behavioral Health and our Department of Public Social Services will
[1:13:56] stand behind me and saying she is a great champion.
[1:13:59] She's a subject matter expert. Expert and by far
[1:14:03] the best homeless czar that I have been able to work with. Thank you.
[1:14:07] And I would also like to council members, you know, we're very
[1:14:10] fortunate. We have an amazing operator, Mercy House. Not every
[1:14:14] nonprofit can do it all. This is an A to Z
[1:14:18] system contract. And we have with us in
[1:14:21] the audience, we have Pastor Charles Chapman,
[1:14:25] we have Timothy Hu, and we have James Brooks that are
[1:14:28] here. And I just wanted to acknowledge them because they
[1:14:32] live by one of my favorite Blessed
[1:14:36] are the flexible. They do whatever it takes to
[1:14:40] get the job done for the city. So council members,
[1:14:44] we're just super excited about all these funding resources to get
[1:14:47] the work done.
[1:14:51] Thank you, Czar Roper.
[1:14:55] Anybody have comments, questions, concerns?
[1:14:59] I just had a, just a quick question and thank you all so much.
[1:15:03] And, you know, I too, hear all the time about the good things
[1:15:06] that we're doing. And Tony, you've mentioned to me myself,
[1:15:10] and I'm excited about it. I know that, you know,
[1:15:13] I asked a question of staff about,
[1:15:17] you know, how does the source's revenue look coming for,
[1:15:20] you know, for following years. And we know that things are going to start getting
[1:15:24] tighter. You know, we've, we've had a
[1:15:27] firm commitment to ensure that, that we fund at
[1:15:31] this level to ensure that we continue to make this an effort for ourselves.
[1:15:36] But I'm curious about, you know, as we go forward with funding,
[1:15:39] is the idea going to be at least I hear, but I want
[1:15:43] to ask the experts, is as funds get
[1:15:50] restricted or lessened, will they be focused at
[1:15:53] places like Corona that are putting such
[1:15:57] a big foot in to make sure that we make a difference,
[1:16:01] or is it going to be kind of spread around? And then
[1:16:05] I'm asking you, look in your crystal ball, but. Well,
[1:16:08] you know, I can take off my city hat and put on my chair
[1:16:12] of the Riverside county consultant Continuum of care, Hatton. Tanya, of course, is with
[1:16:15] me. When we look at how our
[1:16:19] system across the whole region is functioning, what we've
[1:16:22] tried to do is to build incentives for
[1:16:26] efficiency and incentivize cities to work together and also
[1:16:30] to, you know, to have a system that functions. I think that there's for
[1:16:34] the future, funding sources. You know, there's opportunities for
[1:16:38] cities like Corona. We are going to be headed into probably
[1:16:42] some leaner years. But as far as where
[1:16:46] we stand, because of the city's investment measure X
[1:16:50] funds. It helps us to be more competitive, is the first thing that I want
[1:16:53] to say. Second thing is, is this contract is a good example.
[1:16:57] You know, we, we have our state PLHA funds and
[1:17:01] normally we were getting about a million dollars, but that money is a year
[1:17:05] that's tied to housing recording fees. And when the
[1:17:08] housing market fluctuates, we got a 50% reduction
[1:17:12] in this contract. But because of the investment from
[1:17:16] the county, we're not feeling the pain. So you have built a
[1:17:20] system that is flexible and scalable.
[1:17:23] So it is my duty to our city manager
[1:17:27] and to your council to present you with options as we move into
[1:17:30] the future. That's the thing about the budget and the way
[1:17:34] that the system is built. Built. You know, if we run into having
[1:17:38] to make some decisions, we can present you with options and we
[1:17:42] can present you with, you know, what those options mean if you have to take
[1:17:45] them. But you can count on us to do everything that we
[1:17:49] possibly can to be bringing home the bacon. How's that? I have
[1:17:52] no doubt at all. I, you know, I know that there's,
[1:17:55] it's a strange time out there. You know,
[1:17:59] I think I've talked to people in other cities and they're
[1:18:03] seeing an increase in homelessness. We're seeing, you know,
[1:18:06] new folks that we've never seen before,
[1:18:09] you know, putting a strain on our system and other people's systems.
[1:18:12] And, you know, frankly, I'm hoping that that push that is,
[1:18:16] you know, with that recent court case change
[1:18:20] and the direction that the governor has been giving, that, you know,
[1:18:23] there's, there's a place for people to go.
[1:18:26] And, and with the change with, with Prop 36,
[1:18:30] that's another, another step in the right direction. And I'm,
[1:18:33] I'm hoping that that turns into, you know, less folks on
[1:18:37] the street. And I know that that's what you all want. We want functional
[1:18:40] zero and happy to support this. And I
[1:18:44] know, like I said, I know you're, you're shaking every tree you can. And,
[1:18:47] and I appreciate it. I want to say thank you also to the county for
[1:18:50] your continued support. Thank you. And if I may, since you brought that
[1:18:54] up, you know, I would like to take a moment to
[1:18:57] recognize our city manager because he recently convened
[1:19:01] a number of different cities in the western region within this county
[1:19:05] and outside of this county to have conversations about
[1:19:09] communication protocols, good neighbor policies,
[1:19:13] and showcasing the model that we have.
[1:19:16] So I just want to take a moment to say, lot of the work
[1:19:20] that I have the privilege of doing is, you know, he's an amazing leader.
[1:19:24] And I just want to thank you, city manager, for the
[1:19:27] leadership that he provides. So, Mr. Mayor,
[1:19:31] if I could jump in, I'm taking advantage of the captive audience
[1:19:34] and the fact that this is on the agenda. Again, I'm in full support of
[1:19:38] this agenda item. And I really thank you,
[1:19:43] Tanya from the county, our partners and our folks
[1:19:47] here taking some time to
[1:19:50] come out and join us fully in support. And it speaks volumes to
[1:19:54] the plan. I want to just highlight
[1:19:58] addressing homelessness is so difficult
[1:20:01] and complicated because we're talking about human beings
[1:20:05] and think about how complicated your life is.
[1:20:09] Every person that's on the street, I has just as many issues, if not more
[1:20:13] so. And so we're trying to address homelessness with
[1:20:16] enforcement and compassion. And it means that
[1:20:21] we're dealing with, you know, in Spanish, escalacades, a sumundo.
[1:20:25] Every head is their own world. Every person is their own world. You're dealing with
[1:20:28] people. Every single one is complicated.
[1:20:32] And it's wonderful. We highlight these stories of getting
[1:20:35] people off the streets. And simultaneously we're hearing
[1:20:38] from my residents what Councilmember Speak mentioned
[1:20:42] this increased.
[1:20:46] We're seeing homelessness more and more in our communities,
[1:20:50] so there's an increase in frustration. What you have here
[1:20:54] is a city who's truly, truly data driven,
[1:20:57] who's has a. We have a
[1:21:01] great team all the way from,
[1:21:04] again, enforcement to compassion, the full spectrum, the full spectrum of
[1:21:07] services trying to address a very complicated issue.
[1:21:10] We're actually making progress, but the problem is growing
[1:21:14] faster than the solutions can.
[1:21:17] And so we're really asking residents
[1:21:21] to be compassionate, be patient, work with us,
[1:21:25] know that we're not sticking our head in the sand. Right. But you
[1:21:29] also can't just ignore this and you can't just,
[1:21:32] you know, turn it on to some. Someone else. And so we're having
[1:21:36] these larger conversations with our neighboring cities because unfortunately,
[1:21:40] not everyone is coming to the table doing this work in the same way.
[1:21:44] And so I just wanted to highlight that
[1:21:47] because this is such a complicated, multifaceted issue.
[1:21:52] And we have one shared. We have a shared
[1:21:55] goal, which is to get people housed, but there
[1:21:58] are so many diverging sense
[1:22:02] of opinions and whatnot along the way. But I fully,
[1:22:06] fully support our approach. Thank you for Member
[1:22:09] Casillas. Thank you for the leadership that you provided recently to
[1:22:13] convene all the cities in the region with Riverside County Cal cities
[1:22:17] to have the same conversations that our city manager was having also with
[1:22:20] all those. Thank you for that.
[1:22:24] Well, Karen, you and I talk all the time, so you know how appreciative I
[1:22:27] am of everything that you've done for us and for the community. Tanya,
[1:22:31] we couldn't do it without you, too, so we appreciate
[1:22:34] it very much. And Mercy House, you're doing a great job. Keep it up.
[1:22:37] Thank you. I love a good czar.
[1:22:41] Me and Ms. Roper graduated from the same Ivy League college,
[1:22:45] so we're good. Go to public comments.
[1:22:51] I know Don pulled a card. Yes, we have one speaker card
[1:22:55] for this agenda item. Okay, Mr. Fuller, the floor is yours.
[1:23:02] Hi, guys. Don Fuller. I'm a resident here in town. I just wanted to
[1:23:06] take this opportunity. None of you need to be reminded.
[1:23:09] Maybe some folks in the audience don't know what an extraordinary
[1:23:13] treasure Karen Roper is to have in this town.
[1:23:17] Very few people fit the category of irreplaceable, but she's
[1:23:21] pretty doggone close to it. And I remember when
[1:23:25] the homeless issue in this town was a mess.
[1:23:28] I remember specifically when there was an individual who was
[1:23:32] using the homeless issue to pad his own pocket.
[1:23:35] That's. We've come a long way since then and we should all be
[1:23:39] really, really thankful for the participation
[1:23:43] and the council and. And just the assistance and everything we
[1:23:47] get from Karen Roper. I just wanted to give her a pat on the back,
[1:23:50] that's all. So it looked. It's.
[1:23:53] And Mr. Steiner as well, deserves a big chunk of that because
[1:23:57] he was working with her through all of that. So, Mr. Steiner,
[1:24:00] Mr. Oprah, I just wanted to say thank you to all of them. That's all.
[1:24:04] Thank you, Don.
[1:24:10] Okay with that, we can vote on the public comments
[1:24:14] closed. We can motion second and vote.
[1:24:27] 5, 0. We're almost done with this.
[1:24:33] Up next, 7.14 approval of
[1:24:36] Corona del Rey apartments pass through funding agreement.
[1:24:39] Was this. Jackie? Oh, Wesley. I just
[1:24:42] had one question. One question and one. One statement.
[1:24:46] One just wanted to make sure I know that there's two different properties,
[1:24:50] that one has a 55 year limitation,
[1:24:55] the other one has some in perpetuity. Want to make sure that when combining
[1:24:58] these that those that doesn't change, that number is still the same.
[1:25:03] Yes. So part of the agreements that are being presented for
[1:25:07] the council's approval tonight is an amendment to the regulatory agreement for the property
[1:25:11] that has the 55 year affordability term that is going to be amended
[1:25:15] to be in perpetuity to match the term of the other agreement. So both properties
[1:25:19] will now be in perpetuity. Excellent. And then we just wanted to say
[1:25:22] a big thank you to Assemblymember Cervantes for champion.
[1:25:26] The $8 million to help us get this done, so otherwise it wouldn't have gotten
[1:25:29] done. And thank you and staff for, for detailing
[1:25:33] the. The ins and outs and dovetails to get
[1:25:36] to this point. So thank you. Very happy to see that.
[1:25:40] Thanks. Wes, Tony, Jackie,
[1:25:44] Jim, Sylvia, are there any speaker cards?
[1:25:47] Mayor we do not have any speaker cards for this item. Okay with that.
[1:25:51] Public comment is clean. Closed move. Second vote.
[1:26:04] All right, five, zero.
[1:26:09] Up next is community number eight, communications from the public. This portion
[1:26:13] of the agenda is intended for general public comment on items
[1:26:17] within the council's jurisdiction that are not listed elsewhere on the agenda.
[1:26:21] Please note that state law prohibits the city council from discussing or
[1:26:24] taking action on these item items. Please observe a
[1:26:28] 3 minute limit, time limit for comments and once called upon to speak,
[1:26:31] please state your name and city of residence for the record.
[1:26:36] Ms. Edwards, do you have any cards? Mayor yes, we have four speaker cards
[1:26:39] for communication from the public. Maddie, you want to kick
[1:26:43] us off?
[1:26:51] Good evening, Mayor Richens, Vice Mayor Steiner and council members.
[1:26:55] The first thing I want to bring up is the first RSO and
[1:26:59] stabilization ordinance. I want to apologize. I did a major
[1:27:02] faux pas sending out an email. I was extremely sick.
[1:27:05] And as soon as you hit the button, you go apologize
[1:27:10] for that. So that's what I wanted for that. The second thing
[1:27:14] is state of the city. I just wanted to commend
[1:27:18] Mayor Richens and Sean and his team.
[1:27:21] Outstanding job you all did that was just
[1:27:25] amazing and fun and just really depicted the way
[1:27:28] that our city is. So thank you very much on that. The third thing
[1:27:32] I want to bring up is another rso. This time it's Riverside
[1:27:35] Sheriffs Office. And we had our K9,
[1:27:39] the youngest, I believe he's the youngest member of our K9 officer
[1:27:43] team. Officer K9 Duncan, under handler
[1:27:47] Detective Clary participated in the 27th annual Riverside
[1:27:52] Sheriff's Office canine trials.
[1:27:55] And Duncan took first place narcotics building search,
[1:27:59] and he took fourth place for narcotics vehicle search.
[1:28:02] So I want to give them a little bit of credit.
[1:28:06] And let's see, what else do we have?
[1:28:10] Oh, just. I want to point out the screen again. We can't
[1:28:13] see any of it in the back, the timing, the votes like we used to.
[1:28:17] So if you ever have a chance to change that, please do so.
[1:28:21] And then the last thing that I want to bring up is recently
[1:28:25] we had a presentation by Yeta Kane, who's the Holocaust survivor.
[1:28:29] And I read about it the next day,
[1:28:31] Mayor Richens. And I was a little disturbed only because I would
[1:28:35] have loved to participate or at least attend that. Where I grew up
[1:28:39] in a very small rural town outside of New York City,
[1:28:43] my neighbors had the numbers tattooed.
[1:28:47] I take a lot of that personal, and I don't know, the library said
[1:28:51] they knew nothing about it. So I just. In future, if something
[1:28:54] like that happens, if we can open it up to the community, I would have
[1:28:58] been very grateful. So I think that's.
[1:29:02] That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Maddie.
[1:29:05] Maddie, can I give you some free advice? So it's
[1:29:09] the. The Temple Beth Shalom. If you go subscribe to
[1:29:13] their Facebook page. They do it every year, so then you'll
[1:29:16] see it for next year. Perfect. I appreciate that because I
[1:29:19] definitely want to attend that. If. If all of you guys can do it,
[1:29:22] they'll be wonderfully amazed. Why? A bunch of people just signed up for their Facebook
[1:29:26] page. Well, now you got it on record. So thank you very much, Mayor Richards.
[1:29:30] Thank you, Maddie. Up next, Kim,
[1:29:34] you're speaking.
[1:29:42] Welcome.
[1:29:47] Good evening. I'm Charisse Leonard, resident of city of Corona.
[1:29:50] Good evening, Mr. Mayor and esteemed city council members. I am Charisse
[1:29:54] Leonard, the proud treasurer of the Friends of the Corona Public Library.
[1:29:58] Let me begin with a bold statement. There's a Starbucks
[1:30:01] on every corner. I know there's three that I passed before I even get to
[1:30:04] city hall, but guess what? There are more libraries
[1:30:07] in the United States than there are Starbucks. Take that,
[1:30:11] pumpkin spice lattes. As of 2022,
[1:30:14] we had 17,454 public libraries,
[1:30:18] branches, and bookmobiles in the United States. Meanwhile,
[1:30:22] Starbucks only has 16,482.
[1:30:27] The numbers don't lie, my friends. Libraries for the
[1:30:31] win. And fun fact. More libraries call California
[1:30:34] home than any other state. What can I say?
[1:30:37] We love our books as much as we love our sunshine. Must be reading
[1:30:40] on the beach. Now, here's the twist. While Starbucks makes a lot
[1:30:44] of money serving up caramel macchiatos, libraries spend their money serving communities.
[1:30:48] Big difference. Libraries provide critical resources,
[1:30:52] programming, and access that people rely on daily.
[1:30:55] And despite what you may hear, libraries aren't relics.
[1:30:59] They're resilient. Take this for example.
[1:31:02] Even with the rise of ebooks and all things digital, the need for
[1:31:06] physical library books hasn't gone anywhere. In fact, the golden rule
[1:31:09] is that a library should have one physical book per person in
[1:31:13] the community it serves. For Corona, that's about 160,000
[1:31:17] books. That's a whole lot of pages, folks.
[1:31:20] To help meet that goal, the Friends of the Corona Public Library recently donated $20,000
[1:31:25] for new books, which translates to only about 1,500
[1:31:29] books. Think of those books as little treasure
[1:31:32] chests waiting to spark curiosity and expand minds.
[1:31:36] And speaking of expanding minds, here's a stat for you. Last year,
[1:31:40] 233,178 children's
[1:31:44] books were circulated at the Corona Public Library.
[1:31:47] Yes, nearly a quarter of a million books.
[1:31:50] I mean, if kids are putting down their screens for books,
[1:31:54] we must be doing something right. My daughter won't give up her
[1:31:58] iPad for anything. There's this pesky misconception
[1:32:01] that public libraries are fading away. Let me assure you, they're not going
[1:32:06] anywhere. Libraries are like your favorite pair of jeans,
[1:32:09] always adapting, but never out of style.
[1:32:13] Corona's library has embraced digital collections, added cutting edge
[1:32:17] technology, and launched programs like career readiness workshops and computer
[1:32:20] classes. And let's not forget the audio books. You can now take
[1:32:24] a great story with you on your morning jog or like I
[1:32:27] do, watching people do the jogging for me. But here's the thing.
[1:32:31] With every digital checkout or audiobook loan, the library's need to support
[1:32:34] both the physical and digital spaces growth.
[1:32:37] That's why the Friends of the Library remain dedicated to ensuring our library
[1:32:41] has the resources it needs to thrive. And we hope that you will echo our
[1:32:44] sentiments. So to sum it up to finish real quick,
[1:32:48] libraries are the backbone of our community. Outnumbering coffee shops,
[1:32:52] serving kids and adults alike, and constantly evolving. Thank you
[1:32:55] for your time and continued support of our library. Because while Starbucks
[1:32:59] may fuel our mornings, libraries continue to fuel our minds.
[1:33:03] You rock, Sharice.
[1:33:11] Yeah, Tony. Libraries are cool.
[1:33:17] Those two are done fighting. You guys can come on up some
[1:33:25] Starbucks puns back and forth. So. Good evening,
[1:33:28] council. My name is Mina Arnold and this is Tamara Copeland and we are both
[1:33:31] volunteers with the Trauma Intervention Program, our TIP program here in
[1:33:35] Corona. We work alongside our police department, our fire
[1:33:39] department, Corona Regional, and we are called to
[1:33:42] help support families, friends and bystanders who
[1:33:46] have experienced some sort of traumatic event.
[1:33:50] It's not easy volunteer work that we do, but it is needed and
[1:33:53] it is really important. We feel honored to be able to serve in
[1:33:57] this role and support fellow Kuroda citizens as they endure what is most
[1:34:01] likely the most terrible day or night of their lives.
[1:34:05] We are on call 24, 7,
[1:34:08] 365 days a year. We average about close to
[1:34:12] 40 calls a month and we have less than a 20 minute response
[1:34:16] time anywhere in the city of Corona. So I
[1:34:20] just wanted to kind of put out a plea there. If you're looking for a
[1:34:23] way to Give back. And to serve our community,
[1:34:25] please consider the trauma intervention program. For those of you listening and those
[1:34:29] of you who are kind of looking at different opportunities. Opportunities.
[1:34:33] There is. We were provided thorough training. So there is a training
[1:34:36] class that's beginning January 23rd.
[1:34:40] And if you go to www.tipcona.org
[1:34:45] and you scroll down to the very bottom, there's a link that says,
[1:34:49] click here to become a volunteer. It says become a volunteer, and it'll
[1:34:52] give you information on how to reach out. If you're interested in joining
[1:34:56] our next. Our next call. Jim, I know you're
[1:34:59] really familiar with this, so I would gladly. I don't know if you want to,
[1:35:02] if you're able to speak to it a little bit, but I'll gladly give you
[1:35:05] the rest of my three minutes if you do. Thank you, everybody.
[1:35:08] Well, thank you so much, ladies, for coming down tonight and just,
[1:35:12] you know, bragging a little bit about tip because you guys really are the unsung
[1:35:16] heroes in this community. And for those of you that aren't familiar with it,
[1:35:19] these are a group of volunteers that when the police or fire department
[1:35:23] get on scene, whether it's a structure fire, a full arrest, you know, death in
[1:35:26] the family, domestic violence, there's just so many
[1:35:30] different things. The police and firefighters have
[1:35:33] to eventually leave, and usually it's sooner rather than later.
[1:35:37] And early on in my career, it was always kind of a gut punch when
[1:35:40] we had to leave because we felt like there wasn't this sense of closure.
[1:35:44] And when we were able to call our TIP volunteers who have been trained to
[1:35:49] deal with this kind of stuff, to say the right words, to not say certain
[1:35:52] things, we felt so, so much better to be able to hand it off
[1:35:56] to you so we could respond to further emergencies. But we knew the
[1:36:00] family, the one grieving, was still in good hands.
[1:36:03] So thank you so much.
[1:36:12] Okay. Are there any other speaker cards, Sylvia?
[1:36:15] Joe?
[1:36:23] Not sure I can really follow the TIP program,
[1:36:26] so I want to. One really bright spot from last weekend,
[1:36:30] like literal and metaphorical was
[1:36:34] got to participate in the Circle City rideout. I've been trying to
[1:36:38] get a hold, trying to do that for the last couple of months.
[1:36:41] It was a lot of fun. Everybody met up in the parking
[1:36:45] lot out here and hopped on bikes. It was everything from
[1:36:48] little kids on little bikes to a bunch of people on E bikes to
[1:36:53] me on a BMX bike and Michelle on a mountain bike and rode
[1:36:57] up and around grand, up Kellogg down
[1:37:02] across Cottonwood to the shopping center down El Sprante.
[1:37:05] I don't even know how long it was. I do remember thinking
[1:37:09] his BMX seats are not that comfortable. But. But yeah,
[1:37:13] it was, it was a lot of fun. And the next one, I believe is
[1:37:17] December 14th. And I think they were talking about starting
[1:37:21] at Santana and then doing like a Christmas
[1:37:24] light kind of a thing, like a Christmas light tour.
[1:37:28] We had to kind of remind them that Corona kind of goes uphill. So you
[1:37:32] don't want to start down here and then ride all the way up to the
[1:37:34] top. So we're going to try to start in the middle. So it's kind of
[1:37:37] broke up a little bit. So not everybody's in
[1:37:41] extremists trying to. Trying to complete it.
[1:37:44] It was really fun because you drive through a neighborhood and people come out of
[1:37:47] the houses and yelling. And we went by Thomps.
[1:37:50] He didn't yell. But there was. It was, it was pretty fun.
[1:37:53] It was. You almost felt like a little, like a little bicycle amoeba
[1:37:57] thing. But so you're sort of bringing joy around to the
[1:38:01] city. It was kind of fun because you're just. You're just cruising along
[1:38:05] riding a bike and people will come out of the houses and they're clapping and
[1:38:08] people in cars are honking and. Not like that. The usual kind of honking.
[1:38:12] They were honking because they were happy to see you. They were going
[1:38:15] the other way, honking, you know, so it was, it was quite a
[1:38:18] lot of fun. So if you have a chance to do it, you know,
[1:38:22] you should definitely, definitely give it a shot. Can I add on? What was that?
[1:38:25] Can I add on? Yeah, they. People had lights
[1:38:29] all over their bikes and it was really cool to watch. And there's like over
[1:38:33] wild. It's like a little electric light parade.
[1:38:37] Said some boom boxes going and. Yeah, yeah,
[1:38:41] I. It had sort of a Mardi Gras kind of a vibe a little bit.
[1:38:44] Yeah. Yeah. I do it every month. It was wonderful.
[1:38:49] Yeah. Well, I got. I told you I have another bike, so. Cool. All right,
[1:38:52] thanks.
[1:38:56] Okay. Sylvia? Anybody? Mayor. We do not have any more
[1:39:00] speaker cards. Well, it doesn't get any better than that.
[1:39:04] Libraries are cool, bikes are fun, and the tip
[1:39:08] program rocks. So moving along,
[1:39:12] public hearings. The. The next two public
[1:39:15] hearing items will be presented together. 9.1 public hearing for
[1:39:19] city council and Corona Utility Authority consideration of an ordinance number
[1:39:23] 3405. Modifying the budget based water structure and
[1:39:27] establishing rates for portable water, reclaimed water and sewage service
[1:39:31] fees and charges. I'm guessing that's why most of you are here.
[1:39:35] Does. I think every council member is going to want to hear the
[1:39:38] report. So we'll just move into. Katie Hockett, assistant director of utilities will
[1:39:42] present the item. Thanks Katie.
[1:39:47] Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. Mayor and council, this is
[1:39:51] the culmination of a several month process that we've been working on.
[1:39:56] So the ask tonight is that council approve and implement the proposed water,
[1:40:00] reclaimed water, sewer and green field electric rates.
[1:40:06] Just a quick reminder of where we've been. Again, we started this process
[1:40:10] with with an RFP and an award in April
[1:40:13] and then we've met just about once a month with you to talk through some
[1:40:16] of the options. We're here tonight. This is the public hearing
[1:40:20] for the rates and then we'll have some next steps
[1:40:23] after this. Again, just a refresher of kind of some
[1:40:27] of the things that we talked about. These were the financial plan options that we
[1:40:30] discussed early in the summer. On the left hand side we have the lowest
[1:40:33] rate impact and on the right hand side we have the highest rate impact.
[1:40:37] So the lowest rate impact would be if we had only funded our operations
[1:40:41] and maintenance with no capital investment. On the right hand side would have been a
[1:40:45] full operations and maintenance and sorry,
[1:40:50] fully funding our capital improvement program. The city council
[1:40:53] directed us to move ahead with option number two which was
[1:40:57] to do our operations and maintenance expenses
[1:41:01] and then incremental capital improvements for our current critical infrastructure needs.
[1:41:05] This also includes debt issuance bonds
[1:41:09] in the second and third years if needed to complete some of those capital improvement
[1:41:13] projects.
[1:41:17] So again, we've talked about this before, but just a reminder of really how we
[1:41:20] got here and why our costs have gone up so much.
[1:41:24] On the water side, our electricity costs
[1:41:27] have gone up by 33%. So since 2019, those are
[1:41:31] costs from Southern California Edison, our raw water cost. This is water
[1:41:34] we get from Metropolitan Water District that we treat at our treatment plants.
[1:41:38] That cost has gone up 27.4% since
[1:41:42] 2019 and it's projected to continue to go up for the next three
[1:41:46] years in double digits. Our chemicals for water have
[1:41:49] gone up by 48, almost 50%. A lot of
[1:41:52] that is Covid impacts and cost of
[1:41:56] living. Our construction materials, in addition to being
[1:41:59] very hard to get, the costs have gone up by 53% and
[1:42:03] then our laboratory analysis has gone up by 29%.
[1:42:06] This is mostly because of increased laboratory requirements
[1:42:10] because of additional regulations. So some of the PFAS requirements
[1:42:13] require us to do quite a bit of sampling and those samples are very expensive.
[1:42:18] On the sewer side, our chemicals have gone up by a significant amount.
[1:42:21] Our Bleeding leach has almost doubled. Biosolids hauling has gone up
[1:42:24] significantly. And then on the electric side, our energy purchase
[1:42:29] costs have gone up. Those costs have been, have fluctuated over the
[1:42:33] years depending on the market, but the overall cost increase has been 19%.
[1:42:39] So these were the final rates for water that were presented to the city council
[1:42:43] and that were also distributed to the community. So we have
[1:42:47] fixed rates. That's the monthly cost, that's the fixed cost of
[1:42:50] providing the water. We call that the ready to serve charge. The cost is
[1:42:54] based on the size of the meter and then we have the variable
[1:42:58] rates. So you'll recall that we talked about reducing the water
[1:43:02] budget from 55 gallons per person per day to 47.
[1:43:05] That's for the indoor water budget. This is a requirement from the state of California
[1:43:09] based on legislation and new regulations that effective January 1st,
[1:43:14] Californians are required to use 47 gallons per person per day
[1:43:18] indoors. Required to use no more than 47 gallons per person per
[1:43:21] day. So this is our proposal to comply with that regulation is to
[1:43:25] reduce the indoor water budget. This is a net reduction of about
[1:43:28] one unit. Depending on the number of people that live in the home and the
[1:43:32] length of the billing cycle. It would be about one to two units.
[1:43:36] We are also proposing, you'll see on the variable rates, which is the bottom left
[1:43:40] table, that Tier 5 is proposed to be eliminated. We would
[1:43:43] only have those four tiers.
[1:43:47] On the reclaim side, it's very similar. Again, the fixed cost of providing
[1:43:51] that service is based on the size of the meter. And on the variable side
[1:43:55] we have, we're proposing to have two tiers based on the cost of service for
[1:43:59] the first tier and the second tier on
[1:44:04] the sewer side, those are currently charged based on the size of the meter or
[1:44:07] the time type of the of the account. We're proposing to have a
[1:44:11] fixed charge per month as a base charge. That would be what
[1:44:14] residents pay. And then all non residential accounts would pay
[1:44:17] this base charge plus a per unit charge for the
[1:44:21] water use. We're assuming that water in at the meter is sewage
[1:44:25] out to the treatment plant, to the sewage collection system. And so
[1:44:28] for all water used over eight units, it would be
[1:44:31] $5.50 per per unit.
[1:44:35] We do not meter sewage. We would also have a variance program
[1:44:39] for those customers that where their water in does not equal their sewage out,
[1:44:42] maybe they have a cooling tower or evaporation. We would have a variance
[1:44:46] program for that.
[1:44:49] On the Greenfield side, there's multiple different rate
[1:44:54] structures. For electric, I'm going to talk about the residential because this
[1:44:58] is by far the majority of our electric customers.
[1:45:01] You'll recall, we talked about that fixed charge per month is currently
[1:45:05] 88 cents a month. So hypothetically, if a customer
[1:45:09] was fully on solar and they had their own battery backup system
[1:45:12] and they were never pulling any electricity from Corona, they would currently
[1:45:16] be paying us 88 cents a month, but they would have the ability to
[1:45:19] use electricity from Corona. So we are proposing to increase
[1:45:23] that to $15.90, which is a
[1:45:26] more accurate reflection of the fixed cost of providing that service.
[1:45:30] Additionally, we are proposing a customer assistance program for
[1:45:34] electricity and that customer assistance program would pay
[1:45:38] for the fixed charge. So if a customer met the income eligibility requirements,
[1:45:42] they would not pay that fixed charge per month.
[1:45:45] We are proposing to eliminate tier four. So we would have
[1:45:49] three tiers. And then we're proposing to. We currently
[1:45:53] charge the public benefits charge. It's just rolled into the rates so customers don't
[1:45:57] see it. We're required by law to collect that and that's
[1:46:01] restricted revenue that we can only use for things like the customer assistance program
[1:46:05] for energy efficiency projects. So we're pulling it out so that it's
[1:46:08] more transparent to customers about what they're paying for.
[1:46:12] Again, these are all multiple different customer types for
[1:46:16] electricity. So I'm just going to kind of skip through them. These are
[1:46:20] minor customer counts. The bulk is in
[1:46:23] the residential.
[1:46:29] But on that last one real quick, we are proposing to add
[1:46:33] an electric vehicle charging rate. We don't currently have that.
[1:46:36] So for like an electric vehicle charging station where people are charging
[1:46:40] to have their have people come and charge their vehicles,
[1:46:44] we would propose to have this rate for that. That's a new rate.
[1:46:49] So our next steps, if approved tonight, then this item would go for
[1:46:53] a second reading on December 4. If it was
[1:46:56] approved at the December 4 meeting, then the rates would be implemented January
[1:47:00] 3. We would send out a bill insert or a reminder mid
[1:47:04] January to mid February because by the time that
[1:47:07] the rates would go into effect, customers wouldn't have seen
[1:47:11] those rates since they got those notices at the beginning of October. So we don't
[1:47:14] want that to become as a surprise when they get those bills in February,
[1:47:16] March. So we would send out a reminder and then bills with the
[1:47:20] new rates would start arriving in mid February to mid
[1:47:23] March. And again, the ask tonight
[1:47:27] is that council approve and implement the proposed water, reclaimed water,
[1:47:31] sewer and Greenfield electric rates.
[1:47:36] All right, thank you, Katie. Let's the people have been
[1:47:39] here a long time. Let's start off with public comments.
[1:47:44] I'm guessing a number of you have filled out blue cards. If you
[1:47:47] have, you're more than welcome to come up to the
[1:47:51] podium and speak. Joe, do you want to go first?
[1:47:56] Why not? So this
[1:48:00] just all the meetings? Oh yeah, we did all these meetings and that meeting and
[1:48:03] this meeting. All of them during the day, none of them in this
[1:48:07] room at this time, when a normal council meeting
[1:48:10] would be all of them in afternoon meetings.
[1:48:13] Sometimes, you know, I think, I think it was first discussed at a morning meeting,
[1:48:18] you know, so council workshops, you know, they're basically council meetings
[1:48:21] where you decide things out of the public eye.
[1:48:25] I think in a lot of cases, deliberately.
[1:48:28] I think these are done deliberately. They could have been done here, the discussion.
[1:48:32] If somebody would have come to all the meetings, I went to all the meetings,
[1:48:36] they would have seen exactly how thin the discussions were.
[1:48:40] It's the same game that happens every single time where we go, well,
[1:48:43] we've got a menu. One being completely disastrous,
[1:48:47] the five being everything's going to be great.
[1:48:51] And then everybody kind of scooches towards two, because we
[1:48:55] don't want to be disastrous, but we don't want to spend too much money.
[1:48:57] But there's never any real discussion about how any of these things come about.
[1:49:02] And you just take whatever the department says at face value.
[1:49:08] And I'm hearing all the numbers, they don't really seem to add up. And there
[1:49:11] seems. And what I see over and over again is
[1:49:15] the,
[1:49:28] and your allegiances are to the people that you work with regularly
[1:49:32] and you take their word and their needs or their,
[1:49:37] you know, they have the veracity and everybody outside
[1:49:40] doesn't. You're uncritical about
[1:49:44] what you hear and you don't ask the hard questions.
[1:49:48] You know, I had a discussion with one of
[1:49:51] you guys about what the job of a council is.
[1:49:55] Your job should be oversight and direction.
[1:50:01] And repeatedly in this room, what I see is it's a team.
[1:50:04] We're all a team. We're all pulling the same direction. No, your job is
[1:50:08] not to be the team member. Your job is not to throw rocks at everybody.
[1:50:13] Your job is not to bash on everybody unnecessarily necessarily.
[1:50:16] But your job is to ask the hard questions. Your job is to be
[1:50:19] our representatives up here on the dais,
[1:50:22] holding these guys feet to the fire in
[1:50:26] an honorable way, in a forthright way,
[1:50:29] in a well prepared way. But what I don't see happening
[1:50:33] is you guys bringing anything to the table from
[1:50:36] the outside. Because it used to be I used to see
[1:50:40] God in this room. I used to hear councilmember spiegel
[1:50:44] when she was here, used the we thing. It was
[1:50:48] we, you know, I was talking about, well, we did this and we did that.
[1:50:51] And she wasn't talking about us in Corona. She wasn't talking about us
[1:50:55] that she worked here. She'd be talking about rctc, she'd be talking about the
[1:50:59] county. And I hear the we thing from you guys
[1:51:03] referring to the city. Like we're the city.
[1:51:07] You're supposed to be our people up there, not the other. You know,
[1:51:11] we didn't elect you to be employees. We didn't
[1:51:14] elect you to be advocates or team members. We elected you to be oversight.
[1:51:18] Thank you very much.
[1:51:27] Welcome.
[1:51:34] Good evening, mayor, council members. Thank you for having me. My name is
[1:51:37] Kevin Fritchie. I'm at 912 Mangrove
[1:51:40] Circle. I've been a resident of Chrono since 1988.
[1:51:45] And I have to say, I absolutely love this city. I love what you guys
[1:51:49] have done for the most part, for all these years.
[1:51:53] When I got the pamphlet in the mail about the water
[1:51:57] rate increase, I have to say I was shocked.
[1:52:01] And again, I've lived here for many years, haven't seen anything like this before.
[1:52:05] But just to break it down, the pamphlet, it talked about the rates,
[1:52:09] it didn't talk about the percentage increases.
[1:52:13] So my understanding is the basic service
[1:52:16] fees, that they're going to increase 15% the first year
[1:52:21] and then 9% the remaining four years, which basically is
[1:52:24] a 62% increase over five years.
[1:52:29] The tier one rates is going
[1:52:32] to increase only 2% the first year and then 9 percent
[1:52:36] the remaining four years. So we have a 43%
[1:52:40] increase over five years.
[1:52:43] Now, tier two, this is really where it hits me. And my home or
[1:52:47] my homes, I have three properties in Corona.
[1:52:50] 19% increase the first year and
[1:52:54] 9% the remaining four years. So we have a 69%
[1:52:59] increase over five years for tier two.
[1:53:03] Now, I looked at my last month's bill. This is just September,
[1:53:06] October, I spent about $189
[1:53:10] in just the water usage. That's not sewer, $189 with
[1:53:16] the same usage. By 2029,
[1:53:19] that bill is going to be $309,
[1:53:22] $120 more than what I'm paying today,
[1:53:27] or a 63% increase.
[1:53:30] That's atrocious.
[1:53:33] Now, when I look back over the last several years, since 2020,
[1:53:37] City of Corona, the water utilities,
[1:53:41] they've had a standard 5 across,
[1:53:43] 5% across the board increase year over year,
[1:53:46] which is fine. That's for the service fee. Tier 1, Tier 2,
[1:53:50] I'm not talking about Tier 3 or 4 because my properties
[1:53:53] don't typically get into Tier 3 or Tier 4.
[1:53:56] So I do understand that there's infrastructure
[1:54:00] needs. I understand there's. We have to pay,
[1:54:04] costs will go up. But where is the accountability
[1:54:08] here? The rates that we pay right now,
[1:54:11] the city should be taking some of that and planning
[1:54:16] for the future. In my line of business,
[1:54:19] I manage almost a billion dollars of my clients money. I'm a steward of their
[1:54:23] money. I would hope and expect that the city is a steward
[1:54:26] of taxpayers money. So I hope that you reject this.
[1:54:30] Thank you. Thank you.
[1:54:41] Welcome. Bill Gagnon,
[1:54:44] 1176 River Road, Corona. I have a question and I would
[1:54:48] like an answer. Why call it a proposed rate
[1:54:52] increase? Why not just tell us
[1:54:56] you're increasing the rates? There's really nothing. Is there
[1:54:59] anything anybody here can say to make you change to
[1:55:03] percentage or the size or the increase to the water rates?
[1:55:07] Is there anything we can say?
[1:55:10] No. So why call it a proposed rate increase?
[1:55:14] It's just a mandatory rate increase like Joe
[1:55:18] said, that you guys are putting onto the taxpayer, the citizens
[1:55:22] of the Corona that we have to pay. We have no say
[1:55:25] in the matter. You guys don't take anything we say
[1:55:29] into account. So why call it that?
[1:55:33] It's not, is it?
[1:55:38] I agree. I think you should. I don't know how to do it.
[1:55:42] I'm not in city council. I just, I've been here as
[1:55:45] long as everybody else, it seems like. And you just continue
[1:55:48] to pay these fees. Why did you take the garbage out of the bill?
[1:55:52] So that when the rate increase goes up we, we don't see it as bad.
[1:55:57] Is that why you did that? That's why I think
[1:56:00] you did that. Because why else do it? Western Waste is now
[1:56:04] is going to lose my business. I'm going to cancel my waste service.
[1:56:07] So if Western Waste is listening,
[1:56:11] you can thank the Corona City Council for losing my money.
[1:56:15] I don't have to have trash. I got a way to take care of it.
[1:56:19] So I'm going to take that $30 that they were you guys
[1:56:22] automatically took out that I really didn't pay attention to. And I'm
[1:56:26] going to take it away from them and I'm going to have to put it
[1:56:28] towards the water. It's not a proposed
[1:56:32] rate increase. You should say it's a mandatory thing. You guys just
[1:56:36] suck it up. Citizens of Corona, you just take it and
[1:56:40] you pay it and there's nothing you can do about it.
[1:56:43] Am I wrong?
[1:56:46] Nobody. I'm not wrong. Am I wrong?
[1:56:49] No, I'M not wrong. So what do you do?
[1:56:53] What is a citizen Corona supposed to do besides move?
[1:56:57] I can't afford to live where I live. Only reason I can stay in
[1:57:01] my house if I had a long time. I can't afford to go anywhere else.
[1:57:08] So again, if Western waste is listening, you're losing
[1:57:12] my money because you guys take took the money out of the bill
[1:57:15] and now I'm going to put it towards the water and I'm not going to
[1:57:18] put it towards the trash. Thank you.
[1:57:31] Welcome.
[1:57:36] My name is Sean Browner. I live at 1557 Kellogg Avenue.
[1:57:40] I'd like to piggyback off a little bit of what Joe said.
[1:57:44] These meetings where you're talking about proposed rate increases should
[1:57:47] be held during the nighttime where most people can can
[1:57:52] attend. Also, the other gentleman saying that the
[1:57:55] proposed rate increases are ridiculous. I absolutely agree with that.
[1:57:59] Now, having lived in corona since 2014,
[1:58:03] yeah, the rates have gone up a little bit. But this report, rate going up
[1:58:06] exponentially is absolutely ridiculous. And as
[1:58:09] Councilmember Casillas did say that a penny
[1:58:13] saved is a penny earned. With wages
[1:58:17] the way they are, they're not keeping up with inflation. And this hits
[1:58:20] everybody in the pocketbook. You guys, me, everybody here.
[1:58:25] I'm a mortgage broker and I see people come in and out of the city
[1:58:28] every single day. I know people personally that refused to
[1:58:32] move to the city because of, because of the rates of the water and taxes
[1:58:36] in the city. I would humbly ask that you guys all vote
[1:58:39] no on this because most people can't afford it or
[1:58:43] people looking to move into the city refuse to accept the rates.
[1:58:48] Thank you.
[1:58:57] Welcome.
[1:59:02] Hi mayor and council members.
[1:59:05] My name is Lenore Law.
[1:59:09] I went to one of the meetings that was
[1:59:13] on a Saturday and no, it didn't really fit with my schedule, but I
[1:59:16] made it fit because I'm self
[1:59:20] employed and my wages have not gone up. I, I'm in
[1:59:24] the hospitality business. Hyatt lost 22
[1:59:28] billion that year. I bottomed out the
[1:59:32] following year. I was sick three times after that.
[1:59:35] I went through supply chain issues. So I was
[1:59:38] so busy with supply chain issues. And then 23,
[1:59:43] 2023, it was nothing but attitudes.
[1:59:47] 2024, it seems like we're back on track finally
[1:59:51] and I'm hoping that 2025 will be a lot better. I sat
[1:59:55] here and I listened to everything that you guys said. You are
[1:59:59] spending 7 million here, 8 million here,
[2:00:03] another 7 million here. Never looking
[2:00:06] at that solar farm that could generate
[2:00:10] money, yet you want to charge
[2:00:13] the people. I think she said 1590
[2:00:18] or something. My electricity, thank God, is with Southern California Edison.
[2:00:22] We're not part of that. My water bill when I moved
[2:00:25] here was $60 a month.
[2:00:29] I was billed $120 every two
[2:00:33] months. That's my house. I live now, which has a bigger yard.
[2:00:36] It's like 18,000 square foot.
[2:00:39] I've done everything in terms of. So our water
[2:00:44] can be less money if they have broken sprinklers
[2:00:47] or whatever, you know, we fix them. My bill is still over
[2:00:51] $200. It's more than my electricity bill,
[2:00:55] it's more than my gas bill. If we're going to have a solar farm
[2:00:59] and we're going to generate money, then why not generate money for the public?
[2:01:05] And then what really got me is I
[2:01:08] work in an industry that handles
[2:01:12] commercial water and is one of
[2:01:16] the main thing is PFAS.
[2:01:19] PFAS has been around since 1930,
[2:01:22] 1940, 1950s. It's not something that just happened.
[2:01:28] And I loved your presentation about the bridge,
[2:01:31] but you also talked about the reclaimed water that you were using
[2:01:35] to build that bridge. That's costing our money and our taxpayers
[2:01:39] money and all that reuse water is coming
[2:01:43] from underground in the bridge that has PFAS in it.
[2:01:46] And then you want to charge us 15% more in
[2:01:50] our water bills because you have more
[2:01:54] PFAS in your water. And yes, you're putting more infrastructure
[2:01:58] into the city and through. Thank God you're doing what you're doing
[2:02:02] with the homeless. I had a homeless brother and he lived with
[2:02:05] me for a number of years. He's now doing okay on his
[2:02:09] own. He's been clean and sober for 25 years, thank God.
[2:02:13] So, you know, there's more than one time that I pulled
[2:02:16] him out of that park in Corona. So I know what it's like
[2:02:20] and I know that we need.
[2:02:27] I know think
[2:02:54] I know. Thank. Thank you. Your.
[2:02:57] Your time is up. Thank.
[2:03:18] Welcome.
[2:03:24] 1561 Cherokee Road.
[2:03:28] My biggest thing besides, of course, I'm definitely against
[2:03:32] this rate increase like everyone said.
[2:03:35] Is that why this isn't a. It says if the majority
[2:03:40] of the owners submit a written protest
[2:03:44] that it won't go through. Why isn't it the opposite in saying that the default
[2:03:47] would be against, like we should have? The default being we're
[2:03:51] all against and if we all vote for it, then it'll be imposed
[2:03:56] instead of. Because there's a lot of people that don't know about it. There's a
[2:03:58] lot of people that haven't heard about it. There's a lot of people, they don't
[2:04:01] read this whole booklet. They just. I almost, I did throw it away and I
[2:04:04] pulled it back out because when my neighbors said, hey, did you know we have
[2:04:07] this thing, we need to write a, a protest against
[2:04:11] it. And I thought, well, why do we have to write a protest? Why can't
[2:04:14] we just have it defaulted to be not approved instead?
[2:04:18] And then if we wanted it, yeah, I'm sure we'd all go, okay, give us
[2:04:21] the information so we can go. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's a good,
[2:04:25] that's a good reason. We need to okay this or vote on
[2:04:29] it, even have a yes or no vote. But we need to have that.
[2:04:32] Not just a default. Oh, it's going, it's going to pass,
[2:04:34] obviously, because there's not no majority of the Corona
[2:04:38] people that are going to see this. Even half of them don't even know about
[2:04:41] it. I had a text on my friends and the neighbors and,
[2:04:45] and that's just a small area neighborhood. So that's my biggest thing,
[2:04:49] is that it should be defaulted to the. Against it.
[2:04:52] And then if, if you want it to be for it,
[2:04:55] then, then we'll vote that way. That's my,
[2:04:59] that's my. Anyways, please vote against it.
[2:05:03] Thank you. Thank you.
[2:05:12] Welcome. Thank you very much for receiving me
[2:05:15] then. My name is Oscar Romero and I'd like to address myself once again to
[2:05:19] the, to the mayor and also to the council chamber then.
[2:05:22] And also go ahead and express my objection that into this
[2:05:26] rate increase that's being proposed then for water rates and
[2:05:30] other services and things. And so it's unfortunate that
[2:05:34] maybe some of us should be following along with some of
[2:05:38] these proposals as they're being formulated. I should have been
[2:05:41] going ahead and maybe paying more attention. And it
[2:05:45] does seem like a very, very high increase
[2:05:48] in costs for us. And what I'd
[2:05:51] like to call is that this is going to be very
[2:05:55] much a burden that many of us will not be able to go
[2:05:58] ahead and afford very easily in things. What I
[2:06:02] worry about as well is that in a sense going
[2:06:05] on what one of the previous speakers said is that we need to prioritize
[2:06:09] needs of the residents here of the city of Corona.
[2:06:13] Then I know that you're going ahead and you're thinking about future needs that
[2:06:17] we might have in infrastructure. Infrastructure and things, and the air system for traffic
[2:06:22] signals and things. But these are basic necessities that we're going in, that we're
[2:06:26] talking about. And what I've seen is that, you know, monies from
[2:06:29] our public, you know, city budget are being distributed and approved
[2:06:34] very liberally right here then for, for these big projects.
[2:06:37] But these basic necessities that. That impact us so strongly then
[2:06:41] need to be addressed. And I think that maybe a sense they should have been
[2:06:44] prioritized, you know, more than the, you know,
[2:06:47] the way they're being, you know, the monies are being allocated now for, for these
[2:06:51] other kinds of rates and services. Now these are basic necessities,
[2:06:55] of course, water and, you know, the sewage and things like this that
[2:06:58] we have. But the, but the rates seem just too excessively
[2:07:02] high for me to be able to go ahead and feel in
[2:07:05] any way comfortable. I know that part of these are costs that you
[2:07:09] are going ahead and taking to account as well that are coming from
[2:07:13] the, you know, the state and things from the water providers that
[2:07:16] we have. But in a sense, could you have gone ahead
[2:07:19] and maybe I'd like to say, you know, kind of
[2:07:24] bargained in some way or something like this with the providers of these
[2:07:28] essential then materials and water resources
[2:07:31] that we have and things. And, you know, it seems like in a sense
[2:07:35] it was just a fait accompli, you know, where they went ahead and, you know,
[2:07:38] they said these are our rising costs. And there was no pushback from
[2:07:42] us to go and say, can you justify those tremendous costs that
[2:07:46] have been, that are now being, you know, that we're going to have to go
[2:07:49] and pay them right here. So I'd like to say very,
[2:07:52] very forcefully, very strongly then, that this is going to go ahead and impact
[2:07:56] many of us very strongly. I do not have
[2:08:00] then the resources to be able to go ahead and pay such high cost.
[2:08:03] And I think my needs were not prioritized in the needs of
[2:08:06] other residents of the city of Corona. Thank you very much.
[2:08:14] Thank you.
[2:08:18] Welcome.
[2:08:26] Carla Berger and I live in the city of Corona and
[2:08:31] I have a child that has left California because
[2:08:34] it's sort of more difficult to afford things.
[2:08:38] And I have another son that lives in San Francisco that has been laid off
[2:08:41] and moved home looking for a job. So my costs are going up just like
[2:08:45] that. I run a business. I understand materials cost increase.
[2:08:50] I would like to maybe see that there's some accountability from the
[2:08:54] providers, like no raises or maybe some
[2:08:57] pay cuts, things they could do on their end to sacrifice
[2:09:01] a little bit of the cost as we
[2:09:05] are sacrificing, I guess. I mean, I know that things do
[2:09:08] cost more, but I'd like to see if there's a little way to cut
[2:09:12] into that. And I also don't agree with the base charge ready
[2:09:15] to serve. I have a property that is un landscaped.
[2:09:18] I don't use 3/4 water, but yet
[2:09:22] I have that base charge. I'd like to see the base charges stay lower and
[2:09:25] the actual use for the water be charged more
[2:09:29] than. So you pay for more what you get, you know, what you're using.
[2:09:33] I think there's a lot of people that need assistance
[2:09:36] and there's a program there for that. And people get things that way cheap,
[2:09:40] maybe for free. I understand there's a
[2:09:43] need for that in places, but we kind of need to bring it a little
[2:09:46] bit back together. Maybe some less profits, maybe there aren't
[2:09:50] any. I doubt that. But yeah, if I see
[2:09:53] them moving down and us moving up for what we actually use, I don't like
[2:09:57] to see the increase in the base cost ready to serve charges. Thank you.
[2:10:01] Thank you.
[2:10:06] You did good for a first timer.
[2:10:11] Welcome the
[2:10:20] city Council. My name is Ray Mogul. I live on Rockwell Road here in Corona.
[2:10:25] And these water rates have me concerned.
[2:10:30] The those of us that have swimming pools,
[2:10:33] the industry standard is every three to five years you drain
[2:10:37] it completely and refill it after you completely clean the pool.
[2:10:40] And most pools are well over 5,000 gallons.
[2:10:45] That's a substantial charge. And with Social Security only going
[2:10:49] up 2.5% next year and
[2:10:55] listening to the presentation on the water rates for
[2:11:05] that, the sewer rate, Sewer flow
[2:11:08] is not metered. It sounded like that
[2:11:12] includes sewer feed. I'm on septic.
[2:11:15] I don't, you know, impact the sewer
[2:11:20] system here in Corona. So it's just,
[2:11:24] you know, big increase. And watching
[2:11:28] city parks, watering in the middle of the afternoon,
[2:11:31] which is the worst time of the day to water, especially when people want to
[2:11:34] use the parks. My sprinklers are all on timers
[2:11:39] and they go off at 5 o'clock in the morning,
[2:11:42] which is a better time to water. Less waste.
[2:11:46] I see too many people in town that water
[2:11:49] in the middle of the afternoon and the water's just pouring down
[2:11:53] the street. So I'm not
[2:11:56] happy with the proposed rate increases.
[2:12:00] Thank you. Thank you.
[2:12:04] What was your name again?
[2:12:07] Well, let me throw this out there. I don't think anybody
[2:12:11] should be draining their pool every four to five years. I think
[2:12:15] you'll save money by not doing so. Are there any
[2:12:19] more speaker cards?
[2:12:28] All right, come on down. I always wanted to
[2:12:32] say that.
[2:12:39] Good evening. My name is Alan Fot. I live at 429 Winola
[2:12:42] Court over in District 1, I believe.
[2:12:46] Okay to go? Yeah, you're good. I haven't heard any answers come
[2:12:50] back from the council tonight, so I'd like to know when the
[2:12:53] answers do come out.
[2:12:56] I thought that maybe my maths weren't mathing when I was figuring
[2:13:00] out the increase. 60 plus percent is
[2:13:04] extraordinary. What have we been doing with the ready to serve money that we're collecting
[2:13:08] every month from everybody in Krona? Why isn't that covering
[2:13:12] some of these costs that we're talking about? And we're going to increase that even
[2:13:16] more. Senior citizens, like we heard earlier,
[2:13:20] they're only getting 2 or 3% increase.
[2:13:23] Where are they going to take that extra
[2:13:27] charge from the city, you know,
[2:13:30] to pay you guys when they're only increasing a couple
[2:13:34] of percent each year? There's a giant gap there
[2:13:37] between what the seniors can afford and what you're asking.
[2:13:41] It's a giant ask. On the pool thing,
[2:13:45] switching your pool water out. I don't do it. My pool water is
[2:13:48] now about 15 years old because that's 15,000 gallons of
[2:13:52] water that is basically salty now because
[2:13:56] you still have to put the chemicals in. But if you're not taking
[2:13:59] them out by changing the water, you've got a saltwater
[2:14:03] pool and there isn't a solution other than draining
[2:14:07] it. Or I guess you could buy a reverse osmosis system and
[2:14:10] install it on your pool. Not practical.
[2:14:14] Thank you to the city for the RV dump that's over there on the Harrison
[2:14:18] street facility. I would ask that
[2:14:22] they do better maintenance on it to make it so that both stations
[2:14:25] work when you get there.
[2:14:30] It's okay to take money that we didn't spend on certain projects,
[2:14:34] like a million dollars here or there, and put it back into something
[2:14:38] like this increase that we're talking about.
[2:14:42] I can't imagine that traffic will actually improve. I drive
[2:14:46] down 6 or. Yeah. 6th street on Sunday morning at 6am
[2:14:50] and I hit a red light on the
[2:14:53] street at that time. I don't know direction
[2:14:59] there.
[2:15:03] So in the short time I have left, I'd like you to consider that
[2:15:08] this is just too much. It's too much.
[2:15:11] 5% a year, people can swallow that.
[2:15:13] 60% by 2029 is outrageous.
[2:15:19] You haven't made any arrangements for people
[2:15:22] who are on fixed income to be able to.
[2:15:25] Personally, I had to take out all of my turf. 100% of the turf gone
[2:15:29] at my own expense. And my water bill is still higher
[2:15:33] than it was before. You know,
[2:15:38] the maths aren't mathing for us. Thank you
[2:15:42] very much. Please turn down this proposition.
[2:15:46] Thank you.
[2:15:55] Welcome.
[2:16:02] My name is Christopher Dixon. I didn't really prepare to talk,
[2:16:05] but just a few things I'd like to share that I've been
[2:16:09] thinking about since. Since listening to everybody else talk.
[2:16:13] This readiness to serve charge. I think
[2:16:16] it really should be called the privilege of being your customer charge,
[2:16:22] because that's all it is. You know, if I use no water
[2:16:26] by. What is it, 20, 29, I'm not to be paying $60 a month.
[2:16:31] You know, even if I don't use one drop of water. I don't remember the
[2:16:34] numbers, but, I mean, it's just. It seems pretty ridiculous. And I think it seems
[2:16:38] ridiculous also, because my entire life I've been
[2:16:42] hearing, you know, we should conserve water. You know,
[2:16:45] this readiness to serve charge, you know,
[2:16:48] putting all the increases or most of the increases in that
[2:16:51] chart. That single charge doesn't incentivize anybody to conserve
[2:16:56] water. And I don't know if conserving water would help
[2:16:59] any of these, you know,
[2:17:04] you know, costs that you guys incur, but I think it
[2:17:08] would help, you know, it would help keep costs
[2:17:11] down if we could just conserve water. You know, the city used to do things
[2:17:14] like, you know, they would pay people to take out, you know, grass out of
[2:17:18] their. Or take, you know, lawns out of their.
[2:17:22] Out of their properties. I don't know if they still do that, but I haven't
[2:17:25] seen any. I haven't received any flyers encouraging people to do that
[2:17:28] recently. You know, if you go to other states, you know,
[2:17:32] like the south, Southwest, like Arizona, people have
[2:17:36] rock lawns. We don't. You know, you don't see that a lot here. You know,
[2:17:39] it would be. I think it would be a good idea if the, you know,
[2:17:43] if the city would incentivize people to actually save
[2:17:46] water and, you know, use it wisely rather than
[2:17:49] just keep jacking up our rates for things like readiness
[2:17:53] to serve. It's. It just doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, that's really
[2:17:57] all I got to say. Thank you.
[2:18:03] Are there any other speaker cards? Anybody want to speak?
[2:18:08] We covered the field.
[2:18:11] Okay, Sylvia, do you have any other speaker cards?
[2:18:15] Mayor, we do not have any more speaker cards. All right, I think
[2:18:19] you won it all. It's not easy to get up and speak, and I
[2:18:22] admire all of you for doing so. With that. Public comments
[2:18:26] are closed. We'll bring it back to the dais. Start off with council member
[2:18:30] Dadaria. Mayor, Sorry, I do need to provide an overview
[2:18:34] on the protest letters that we received. Okay, hang on one second.
[2:18:37] Let me read the script for that. That way we get it right.
[2:18:41] But we want to have Mr. Moody answer
[2:18:44] any of the questions that were answered or.
[2:18:49] All right, there were some questions. There was also some statements, but I didn't know
[2:18:52] if that was. Tom, were you taking notes on the questions?
[2:18:59] Yes. Okay, let's do that. Thank you.
[2:19:04] The floor is yours, Tom. Thanks, I appreciate that. I know
[2:19:08] it's always a difficult process when we're looking
[2:19:11] at those rates. And I think, as Ms. Hockett shared in the
[2:19:16] presentation, that our rates
[2:19:20] are going up. And we see that in those five categories.
[2:19:23] And I think if you look at just the basic categories of what we were
[2:19:27] showing for our water and our sewer,
[2:19:30] that equaled up to 58 to 66%
[2:19:35] of our basic costs.
[2:19:38] And so, obviously, when we're looking at those costs
[2:19:42] going up year over year, we have to project and
[2:19:46] plan for that. And those are just our operational costs that we're looking at that
[2:19:50] drive our business, in a sense. We talk a little bit.
[2:19:53] There were some questions. There were a number of people that talked about the readiness
[2:19:56] to serve charge. And the readiness to serve charge really comes down
[2:20:00] to the amount of infrastructure that we have to have in place
[2:20:03] place to be ready to serve every resident in Corona
[2:20:07] when they turn on their tap. That is water lines in the ground.
[2:20:11] That's transmission mains from the Colorado River
[2:20:14] Reservoir. That is our treatment plants.
[2:20:18] That's our operational staff. The majority.
[2:20:21] The majority of our costs are fixed costs to
[2:20:25] be ready to serve that water to the residents throughout
[2:20:29] the country, community. And. And that does make it a little bit tough.
[2:20:33] But what we were trying to do and what we try to do is try
[2:20:36] to balance that out between the actual commodity,
[2:20:40] which is the water, and what we
[2:20:45] do to make sure that that water is then available to every
[2:20:48] customer whenever they turn on their tap. As we're talking through
[2:20:53] that process. It's the same for the sewer, right? We have sewer
[2:20:56] lines, we have lift stations, we have treatment plants.
[2:21:00] And all of these things have to be up, running and ready to go
[2:21:04] whenever we are, whenever that water comes
[2:21:08] down the drain. So as that water is turned on from the faucet,
[2:21:11] it comes out. We have to have storage reservoirs, we have to
[2:21:15] have pipelines, we have pump stations to move the water through.
[2:21:18] All of those are just the basic infrastructure charges that
[2:21:22] are necessary to make sure that that is available.
[2:21:26] Why we don't put that on the commodity charge is
[2:21:30] because that really begins to be an unfair
[2:21:34] number, if you will, that then can be challenged
[2:21:39] through the rate process. So it's important,
[2:21:42] then, to understand that if you
[2:21:45] have, if you use one unit of water and
[2:21:49] you pay $6 for that unit of water and everybody's
[2:21:52] paying $6 for that unit of water. Well, if somebody's
[2:21:56] paying, if they have 15 units of water and they're
[2:22:00] paying that same charge, but everybody's got a really, really low
[2:22:03] ready to serve charge that does, that's not equitable because
[2:22:08] the majority, again the majority of our costs are fixed costs.
[2:22:12] And so we're always trying to balance out those two to
[2:22:15] make the commodity charge as low as possible. And we try
[2:22:19] to focus our rates on being the lowest possible while providing
[2:22:23] the highest quality service. And that's important.
[2:22:26] One of the questions that was brought up was the Prop 218 process.
[2:22:30] Why is this not voted on? And this was
[2:22:33] voted on, right? So from the Prop 218 measurements
[2:22:37] was voted on in California and this is the law and
[2:22:41] the requirement. It takes a majority of opposition.
[2:22:45] And that's why we follow the Prop218 process. We present
[2:22:49] a third party independent rate study that evaluates
[2:22:53] our overall rates from our revenues
[2:22:59] and our expenditures and looks at our capital improvement.
[2:23:02] We put provide that to the council and
[2:23:07] we then use that money to reinvest into
[2:23:10] the system. It's important then to understand that
[2:23:16] that is the process under Prop 218 is that we,
[2:23:20] it was voted on by the, by the communities
[2:23:24] and every, every person in California
[2:23:28] has followed that since Prop 218 was enacted.
[2:23:37] And, and, and to this point we don't have to
[2:23:40] send out a ballot every time that we follow this. This is Prop 218
[2:23:44] and it's what's in the California legislator. It's the process that we
[2:23:47] follow. Prop218 does not get voted on every cycle.
[2:23:51] It was voted on at one time enacted and that is the,
[2:23:55] that is the law that we follow now.
[2:23:58] So one of the, one of the residents talked about the
[2:24:02] challenge of being on Social Security and
[2:24:07] not having enough money for this. We do have a
[2:24:10] variance program,
[2:24:13] so we do allow for a lifeline program so residents
[2:24:18] that meet the qualifications have lifeline capability and
[2:24:22] we are able to provide that assistance to them with
[2:24:26] the proper documentation. A couple of
[2:24:29] gentlemen talked about pools.
[2:24:33] Good pool maintenance does request that you,
[2:24:37] you know or suggests that you change out your pool water
[2:24:42] a lot of times over time due to soaps and other
[2:24:46] things that get on our bathing suits, in our clothes, you will
[2:24:50] get large amounts of phosphate in your pool water. So it
[2:24:53] is recommended to periodically drain and
[2:24:57] change out some of your pool water from time to time.
[2:25:00] Now we Understand that and we provide a variance for
[2:25:04] that. As people are going through that process, we're not going to charge them
[2:25:08] at the higher tiers. We are going to provide them a variance.
[2:25:11] We ask that they make us aware of it.
[2:25:14] Is there a charge for the water? Yes, we do charge for the water that
[2:25:18] goes through the meter, but we do that at the lower tiers
[2:25:22] because we understand that that is not normal.
[2:25:25] It is something that they're doing for maintenance.
[2:25:29] And additionally, if somebody comes and has a broken sprinkler,
[2:25:32] a slab leak, any of these types of things, we have a
[2:25:35] variance program that we will work with customers on and
[2:25:39] then provide them that. Now we again, we always charge for
[2:25:43] the water that goes through the meter. We just do it at the appropriate tier
[2:25:46] and not the higher tiers because we realize that
[2:25:49] conservation is one methodology. Everybody we believe
[2:25:52] is going to be in Tier 1 and Tier 2. Tiers 3 and Tier
[2:25:56] 4 are excessive tiers. And so that's where we're charging for
[2:26:00] that.
[2:26:04] In regards to so lifeline
[2:26:08] variance RV dump maintenance, I will take a look at the
[2:26:11] RV dump station and make sure that both of those facilities are
[2:26:14] operating. I believe that's
[2:26:17] the meetings that I believe those are the questions.
[2:26:21] I think I had just a couple more that I wrote down. One is
[2:26:25] somebody mentioned that taking a profit. So if you could
[2:26:29] address that. And then second, the state,
[2:26:32] the increase in state regulation, I think that we've talked
[2:26:36] about that privately or in other meetings about
[2:26:40] the increase in state regulation in relation to the.
[2:26:44] We all want clean water. The state has additional
[2:26:47] regulations put on top of us and what that really costs.
[2:26:51] Sure. So we are not a for profit company.
[2:26:55] We. The money that we get goes back
[2:26:58] into, into our product and our processes.
[2:27:02] Right. So people, product and process. Obviously we have
[2:27:06] state certified operators on both the water and the wastewater
[2:27:09] system. Our infrastructure crews are. These are
[2:27:13] the guys that are. We refer to them as our below ground
[2:27:16] construction crews. They are the ones dealing with the pipes and the sewer lines.
[2:27:21] And we have our above ground team that deals with all the maintenance plant
[2:27:25] and the treatment options. They're certified by the state of California
[2:27:29] either for an operator license or a distribution license
[2:27:34] if they're working on water systems. And so
[2:27:37] obviously we have, we have a responsibility to have certified
[2:27:41] staff to be able to perform the duties to maintain
[2:27:45] a clean and healthy water system
[2:27:48] and ensure that our wastewater district or our wastewater
[2:27:51] treatment program process is being discharged appropriately
[2:27:55] to the environment. So we discharge our water to the
[2:27:58] Santa Ana river and or to our percolation
[2:28:02] ponds that are here in town. In regards
[2:28:06] to, in regards to regulation,
[2:28:09] California is one of the next to. New York is one of the
[2:28:12] most highly regulated agencies or
[2:28:16] states that there is. If you look at
[2:28:20] PFAS, for example, I think Ms. Law had
[2:28:24] mentioned that PFAS has been around since the 1930s and
[2:28:27] it has and we've had it. I fully believe my parents probably sprayed
[2:28:31] me down with Scotchgard at some point in my childhood to
[2:28:35] keep me from staining the couch. But realistically,
[2:28:39] Scotchgard and other products that had PFAS in it have
[2:28:43] been in our environment for, for a long time.
[2:28:46] That is water repellent. So when a,
[2:28:49] when a constituent like that gets in the water, it's very,
[2:28:52] very difficult to remove. And it is pervasive
[2:28:56] throughout the environment. California, when we started this process in 2013,
[2:29:00] 2014, when we were doing the UCMR 3 recording
[2:29:04] requirements, we had regulations
[2:29:08] at 70 parts per billion.
[2:29:12] We are down at, we are down at 0.4.
[2:29:17] So we went from 70 to 4.
[2:29:21] And from a regulatory standpoint, we have to
[2:29:25] manage, monitor, test and retest our
[2:29:28] water to ensure that we're in compliance all day long prior to delivery
[2:29:32] to our customers. If you expand that to, to the list
[2:29:36] of constituents that are in the UCMRs and the
[2:29:40] list of constituents, you talk about microplastics,
[2:29:43] you talk about TCP 1, 2, 3, you talk about 14 dioxane.
[2:29:47] Any of these things that we have that
[2:29:50] are in our water supply that have been in our
[2:29:55] communities for a long, long time,
[2:29:58] that is what we are up against in California. You add on
[2:30:02] to that that we have air regulations from CARB
[2:30:06] aqmd. We have one of the toughest
[2:30:11] regions for air quality. That means
[2:30:15] that we have to have Tier 4 generators. We have lots of different
[2:30:18] components. Regulations are probably one
[2:30:22] of our most significant hurdles. I know when the
[2:30:26] utility department was transferred to me, the departing general manager
[2:30:30] said regulatory is probably going to be one of your toughest challenges in the next
[2:30:34] 15 years. And that's held true.
[2:30:38] Those are just some of the things that we face for sure.
[2:30:46] Go ahead. Yeah, real quick. Maybe Jacob, this might be for you,
[2:30:49] but can you touch on not being able to
[2:30:53] come mingle the general fund money with utility money? A couple speakers
[2:30:57] talked about if we saved a million dollars on this on the street
[2:31:00] light project, why don't we just put it towards utilities?
[2:31:04] Yeah, Tom can address this one. Okay,
[2:31:08] thank you, Council member Steiner. That's a great question.
[2:31:12] The utilities are, are funded individually by
[2:31:16] the ratepayers. We, we cannot Commingle. We don't get property
[2:31:20] tax. We do not get taxes from the city. We do not get
[2:31:24] sales tax revenue. These are 100% rate
[2:31:28] based to the point where we do not even commingle.
[2:31:32] Water and sewer, electric or recycled water funds,
[2:31:35] they are individual. We run these as individual
[2:31:39] business units and we manage those funds
[2:31:43] individually. So sewer funds that are collected
[2:31:47] from the rates come in, they are accounted for,
[2:31:51] salaries are paid specifically from that fund
[2:31:54] to individuals that work within those fields
[2:31:58] for the sewer department. And we will look
[2:32:02] at any CIPs that are funded
[2:32:06] specifically from those direct funds.
[2:32:09] So we don't commingle with. With the general fund. We don't get property tax,
[2:32:13] sales tax revenue, and we do not commingle between the funds
[2:32:16] themselves. Mr. Moody, that's because legally we cannot.
[2:32:20] Legally we cannot. Correct. Now, for example, a position
[2:32:23] like mine, I oversee all four of
[2:32:27] the utility departments. My salary is
[2:32:30] made up specifically of all four of those
[2:32:34] funds. So a portion of my fund, every year, we look
[2:32:37] back and we evaluate certain positions
[2:32:41] within our department that provide support to all four utilities
[2:32:45] that we manage. And we appropriate the amount
[2:32:49] of funding specifically for those positions. So I get
[2:32:53] paid from all four funds in a sense, but we have
[2:32:56] to evaluate what that percentage is during the budgeting cycle
[2:33:01] process. And then I just had
[2:33:04] one more question. I don't think I saw it in Katie's presentation that MWD
[2:33:09] raised our fees 37% for just years
[2:33:13] 26 and 27. That is correct.
[2:33:16] Yeah, it was. Raw water has gone up.
[2:33:19] She showed the slide initially showing that raw water
[2:33:23] had gone up from 2019, and then made the statement that
[2:33:27] our water would be going up from Metropolitan in
[2:33:30] double digits over the next two years. And what that means is we
[2:33:33] don't produce our. We are the water we serve.
[2:33:36] We have to purchase to then give part of it. Part of the
[2:33:40] water that we. That we pass on. We purchase. That is
[2:33:43] correct. So Metropolitan Water District is the water purveyor
[2:33:48] over a large portion of the state. And there's a number of
[2:33:51] water purveyors in the state, but they are the one that primarily
[2:33:55] serves Southern California in this general area.
[2:33:59] And Metropolitan Water District imports water
[2:34:03] from the Bay Delta area. That's the state water project. And they
[2:34:07] also import water from the Colorado River. We buy
[2:34:12] Metropolitan Water District. Let me back up.
[2:34:15] Metropolitan Water District also takes water and
[2:34:19] like us, treats that water at a number of treatment plants
[2:34:24] throughout the Inland Empire,
[2:34:27] Southern California area. The treatment plant closest
[2:34:31] to us is the Henry J. Mills plant. That's up off of Alessandro Boulevard in
[2:34:35] Riverside. Now, we purchase
[2:34:39] throughout the year and we provide this in our budget. Every year we purchase
[2:34:43] imported water from Metropolitan. That water comes
[2:34:46] in treated. That's the water that we get from the Henry J.
[2:34:50] Mills plant that's treated water by their team ready to
[2:34:53] be delivered specifically to our customers. We also import
[2:34:57] what we call raw water. This is water that we either get
[2:35:01] from the state water project or it's water that we get from the Colorado
[2:35:05] river through the Lake Matthews system that comes into our
[2:35:09] treatment plant. This is Lester treatment plant and the Sierra del Oro
[2:35:12] treatment plan plants. Those are surface water treatment plants. And we
[2:35:16] then treat that water to the state specifications
[2:35:20] and then deliver that. So we have imported treated water
[2:35:23] and imported raw water, both coming from Metropolitan water
[2:35:27] district. And Mr. Moody,
[2:35:30] I recently we met with our state legislators and we
[2:35:35] showed them we're constantly advocating to find different
[2:35:39] sources of revenue to help offset and
[2:35:43] to really. Again, it's. We're. We're aggressively going for
[2:35:47] grants and other dollars. And we were
[2:35:50] asking. And I want to highlight the fact that when
[2:35:54] we're talking about water infrastructure,
[2:35:57] these aren't $100,000 projects.
[2:36:00] These aren't $1 million projects. We are, for instance,
[2:36:04] advocating for a reclamation facility. These are in the $35
[2:36:08] million range. So there was, there were comments
[2:36:12] by folks about what has money been used for? Can you
[2:36:16] talk about what has money been used for in
[2:36:19] the recent. In our recent past? Sure.
[2:36:22] Just over the last two years, we've replaced a number of pipelines.
[2:36:26] We replaced the Liberty Avenue water line, which is up off
[2:36:30] of out in El Cerrito. We've replaced water lines
[2:36:34] off of Carmelita Avenue. These are old AC lines that were put in
[2:36:38] 1950s era, 50, 60 era.
[2:36:41] They've met their useful life. And we're beginning to have multiple breaks.
[2:36:45] We've also replaced a significant number of water lines in
[2:36:49] the Sierra del Oro area.
[2:36:52] And up in.
[2:36:56] Off of Fullerton Avenue, there's a few water lines that we've been
[2:36:59] replacing. So our infrastructure money, the money that
[2:37:03] we get initially goes to operations and maintenance.
[2:37:06] We take care of those bills first. We need to operate and
[2:37:10] maintain the water so that we can treat it. Other additional
[2:37:14] funding, any excess revenue that we get that
[2:37:18] is above and beyond our operational and maintenance costs will then
[2:37:21] be diverted over to capital improvement projects. And we bring those capital
[2:37:26] improvement projects every year to city council and
[2:37:29] we will have those on the books.
[2:37:32] Now, one of the things with capital improvement projects is we have to have that
[2:37:36] money. It has to be fully funded and ready to go. We don't get
[2:37:40] to partially fund a water line. When we fund
[2:37:43] the cip, we fund it in its entirety.
[2:37:46] Now, through that process, then we will go through and engineer,
[2:37:50] design, develop and rebuild those types of things.
[2:37:54] We do process improvements at our water and wastewater treatment plants
[2:37:58] throughout the year, changing out chemical tanks.
[2:38:02] We will change out filter media. We will
[2:38:05] enhance analyzers and change out those types of things so that
[2:38:09] we stay up on our analytics. There's lots of efforts.
[2:38:12] Well, rehabilitation is one of the things that we do with our CIPs.
[2:38:16] We've rehabilitated four wells over the last few years
[2:38:20] that have helped increase our groundwater production and groundwater offsets
[2:38:24] our purchased water costs. So that's an important process for us to continually
[2:38:28] maintain our groundwater. And can you also speak
[2:38:32] a little bit about the difference between a city that
[2:38:36] has their own water department and a city city that, for instance,
[2:38:40] contracts with a special district?
[2:38:44] Where do the. Where does the money? Like how?
[2:38:48] Because residents are paying for these services. But a special water district,
[2:38:52] folks pay for it in a different way, and maybe they don't recognize that
[2:38:57] difference. Can you speak about those two? Two different things?
[2:39:00] Yeah, and great question. And I think this is a little
[2:39:03] bit that we were talking about about that Jim was talking about is financing
[2:39:07] and. And commingling our funds. And I mentioned that we
[2:39:10] do not get property tax. Special districts,
[2:39:15] Western Municipal Water District and other water districts,
[2:39:18] they actually get a portion of the property tax. And that's not something that
[2:39:22] we get. All of the money that we receive for the
[2:39:26] operations, maintenance and reinvestment into our infrastructure
[2:39:30] is done through the rate process. And then there
[2:39:34] was a question about the waste
[2:39:38] management bill and the water bill. Can you talk a little bit about that
[2:39:42] separation? Sure. We've had the waste management contract for
[2:39:46] a number of years, and we have been the water utility
[2:39:49] department because we have contact with
[2:39:52] the residents. We have between 44 and 45,000
[2:39:56] accounts. We have contact with the residents
[2:40:00] every month. And it was decided a number of years
[2:40:03] ago that we would just do the billing for single
[2:40:07] family residential properties for waste management,
[2:40:11] as that. As we were working through that, Waste management would
[2:40:15] then pay and subsidize our
[2:40:19] customer care call center because we were working with those
[2:40:24] residents. Anyway, we just
[2:40:27] renegotiated due to SB 1383, which is
[2:40:30] Organics recycling. We just reopened and renegotiated
[2:40:34] our waste management contract. And as part
[2:40:38] of that, waste management requested to
[2:40:42] take the billing back. They did no long. They no longer
[2:40:45] wanted to have the utility department proceed and
[2:40:49] perform that task for Them, they wanted to bring that back in house.
[2:40:53] And that was a decision they made. We had a number
[2:40:56] of discussions about that and the challenges,
[2:41:00] pros and cons that that would offer. And because
[2:41:04] of that, we then. And through the negotiation process,
[2:41:08] that was returned to Waste Management. You don't see
[2:41:12] it on the water bill because Waste Management now sends out their own bills.
[2:41:16] And that's the purpose of that. Yeah. And that was
[2:41:19] their decision. And just one, one final question.
[2:41:22] Can you speak a little bit about the.
[2:41:27] The study conducted, the length of time
[2:41:30] to reach the. I think it was power. The PowerPoint
[2:41:35] slide. Where is
[2:41:39] it? I think it was like the first or second where there was financial
[2:41:42] plan options, there were five options
[2:41:46] from lowest rate impact to highest rate impact. And these were all scenarios provided
[2:41:50] with the study. There was a lot of discussion
[2:41:54] from your council, a lot of pushback,
[2:41:58] and this was. But can you talk about the
[2:42:02] study and its recommendations?
[2:42:06] Yeah. It's important to understand that,
[2:42:11] you know, we, I feel we engaged the council early
[2:42:15] on in this process and got your
[2:42:19] input and feedback and really what the priorities were.
[2:42:23] And that really helped set the stage, I think, because you
[2:42:27] do bring the voice of the community. And I think that you
[2:42:31] initially and throughout this process have
[2:42:34] put pushed back on us quite a bit to.
[2:42:37] To best understand the rate scenario.
[2:42:41] And if you look at that, you know, again, we. We talked about
[2:42:45] only bringing in and doing a rate that
[2:42:49] covered the OM charges. And that's important
[2:42:53] to understand. Right. We, we had rate issues
[2:42:56] that needed to be addressed that were going to cover the operations and maintenance cost
[2:43:00] costs. We then talked about if.
[2:43:04] If we're just covering the operations and maintenance costs, revenue in equals.
[2:43:08] Equals expenses out. And. And what
[2:43:12] does that look like for us? And. And we talked a little bit
[2:43:16] about that process and then we talked a lot about
[2:43:20] the capital improvement that wouldn't get done,
[2:43:23] water lines that are aging in our infrastructure.
[2:43:27] And those are important things. And so we then
[2:43:30] looked at four other scenarios, and the highest
[2:43:34] of those scenarios is a fully funded capital improvement program.
[2:43:38] And I know Tony Daddario, Councilmember Daddario, brought this
[2:43:42] up a number of times and he just said, you know, I think from
[2:43:45] my standpoint, it's important to fully fund these things.
[2:43:50] And then he would come back and then he would say,
[2:43:53] but what is that gonna cost my residence? And I
[2:43:57] think each of you have said that throughout this process.
[2:44:00] And I think it's important then to understand that in
[2:44:05] finding the appropriate amount of investment
[2:44:09] that was the least impactful for the community,
[2:44:12] was the objective of the council. And that is where we settled then
[2:44:16] on RDN option two. And Mr.
[2:44:20] Moody, wasn't the original recommendation by the study option three?
[2:44:24] In fact, it was. It was option three. And the reason
[2:44:28] for that, and we talked through that. And the reason for that is that
[2:44:31] if we did not issue the debt, we then have to plan for those expenses.
[2:44:36] And we took the option of we can look at
[2:44:39] the debt over time and, and if
[2:44:43] we need it, if, if everything aligns and we
[2:44:46] get everything done that we intend to, and we
[2:44:50] can then pull that money through other resources, bonding that
[2:44:54] we can manage. And we wouldn't have to increase the rate so much at this
[2:44:57] time. Right. I think it was Mr. Council member Steiner who was like,
[2:45:01] what else can we push? What else can we defer just slightly? What else
[2:45:04] can we, you know, refurbish X, Y and Z? How can we stretch this
[2:45:08] out a little further? Thank you for answering those questions.
[2:45:11] I have comments later, but those are all for my questions.
[2:45:18] Go ahead, Mr. Moody. I have a couple questions that I wanted to just get
[2:45:21] some clarification on. How many miles of water infrastructure do
[2:45:25] we have in the city? Approximately 853 miles.
[2:45:29] Okay. And on page 14 of
[2:45:33] the Prop 218 notice, there's an interesting
[2:45:36] stat line in there. In 2023, Corona used 9.1 billion gallons of
[2:45:40] drinking water. Corona provided 45.8%
[2:45:45] through groundwater wells, and 49.7%
[2:45:48] comes from the Lake Matthews area, and 4.5 comes from state
[2:45:53] water aqueducts. One of the things that I've learned over
[2:45:56] the last four years that is very impressive is our ability to blend
[2:45:59] water. And that's essentially taking the water.
[2:46:03] I'm going to use very late terms, so please forgive me. It's essentially taking
[2:46:06] the water that we get from the ground and that we own and
[2:46:10] blending it with the water that we have to buy and that is
[2:46:14] able to be used for our customers.
[2:46:18] And what does it look like for municipalities
[2:46:22] that don't have the ability to blend water? Because I know that we're unique in
[2:46:26] that sense. There's not very many municipalities that have that ability.
[2:46:30] What are their rates like look like in comparison when they're 100%
[2:46:34] dependent on purchasing water?
[2:46:36] Expensive, right. And is
[2:46:41] it more expensive than a municipality that has
[2:46:45] the ability to blend roughly 50% of their own water or produce 50% of their
[2:46:48] own water? Yes. Okay. The other big
[2:46:53] point that a lot of residents made that we heard was,
[2:46:57] you know, it seems. It seems like we have these capital improvement projects that
[2:47:00] never. That we that are on the books that never sometimes get
[2:47:03] done. And I remember, I think it was, I don't know, four or five months
[2:47:07] ago we were having a discussion about this and
[2:47:11] a week or two prior, right on Main and Harrison,
[2:47:14] I want to say there was a break over by the ccc.
[2:47:19] Half Harrison. Yeah, half the half the
[2:47:22] street was shut down and there was water bubbling underneath
[2:47:26] the asphalt and kind of where the asphalt meets the curbing.
[2:47:30] And, you know, the street was flooded. And you know, almost jokingly
[2:47:34] I said, you know, we can't plan for breaks. Breaks happen
[2:47:37] with infrastructure, with 800 miles of infrastructure that is
[2:47:41] past its useful life. And, you know,
[2:47:44] that's a big challenge for us is because when we have a break, we have
[2:47:47] to get it repaired. It's, we can't foresee these breaks coming,
[2:47:51] so we can't really plan for them. And when you have $10 million set
[2:47:56] aside for a capital improvement project and then you have a break that we
[2:47:59] weren't anticipating, that takes up seven or eight million dollars to repair,
[2:48:03] that's a challenge. And that's why I said we should fully fund it
[2:48:06] and just get it all done. And I understand
[2:48:10] that part of the recommendation is that we're going to be setting,
[2:48:13] setting aside money to, to hopefully get ahead of some of
[2:48:17] these challenges that we have where infrastructure that is
[2:48:20] 50, 60, 70, 80 years old is being replaced
[2:48:24] on a schedule before it breaks. And that's kind of a challenge with
[2:48:28] our aging infrastructure is that it breaks unintended
[2:48:33] and unknown about. And so one of the things that I'm
[2:48:36] really keen on is making sure that with the capital improvement projects
[2:48:40] that we have that we're, that we're doing our best to get ahead of them.
[2:48:43] And I think that's part of the plan that we have is to kind
[2:48:47] of get ahead of some of these things before these unplanned breaks happen. And we're
[2:48:51] paying millions of dollars for capital improvement projects to make
[2:48:54] a repair. Do I understand that correctly?
[2:48:58] That's correct. Okay. Thank you,
[2:49:01] Leslie. No other questions.
[2:49:06] Okay, Jim, let me,
[2:49:10] let me do this with Sylvia. Read this thing and then we'll move on in
[2:49:13] the comments. Ms.
[2:49:16] Edwards, as the city's City Clerk's office received correspondence
[2:49:20] regarding this item. Mayor yes. We received 259
[2:49:25] protest letters opposing the proposed water and sewer rate
[2:49:29] adjustments. A majority protest exists if at least
[2:49:33] 20,20,596 WREN protests
[2:49:36] are submitted for the water rate increase and at least 18,666
[2:49:42] written protests are submitted for the sewer Rate,
[2:49:45] a majority protest does not exist.
[2:49:48] Okay. With that, the public hearing is now closed.
[2:49:52] Let's move on to questions from the colleagues. Tony,
[2:49:55] do you want to go first?
[2:49:58] No, Mr. Mayor. I just want to acknowledge that I, that I appreciate everybody
[2:50:01] coming out and speaking about this topic, and it doesn't go
[2:50:05] unnoticed, it doesn't go unheard. And we are all
[2:50:08] very sensitive that, you know, this could impact
[2:50:12] some people financially. And I think that, you know,
[2:50:15] Mr. Moody has answered a lot of those questions, that there are options for you
[2:50:19] and. But it is important to me to recognize it,
[2:50:22] acknowledge it, and to thank you for coming out.
[2:50:25] Wesley. Thank you. Yeah, I echo.
[2:50:29] Thank you for coming. Really. Do we appreciate when people come, even if you're,
[2:50:33] you're, you know, telling us we're wrong or we're making mistakes?
[2:50:37] I appreciate all of it. And I can tell you when,
[2:50:40] you know, Council Member Steiner and Council Member
[2:50:43] Casillas and I were sitting up here in, in 2018 or 2019
[2:50:48] when we heard that they hadn't adjusted rates for almost,
[2:50:52] what, 12 years, 13 years, something ridiculous,
[2:50:56] and we were having to vote on implementing a 25%
[2:51:00] increase over five years. And it was horrifying
[2:51:05] and probably one of the toughest votes that we made when we first
[2:51:09] sat in this chair. I think it was Mr. Ellis's first meeting. He got to
[2:51:12] sit through that. And then equally, when we saw the proposed rates
[2:51:16] under, you know, the suggested, you know, the staff supported,
[2:51:20] we all just said, no way, absolutely no way.
[2:51:24] Have to go back, have to try and find a different way to do this.
[2:51:28] You know, go look at every project that we have, go look at, you know,
[2:51:32] every opportunity that we have.
[2:51:35] And when there's only so much that's in our control,
[2:51:40] either quality suffers, which we, Mr. Moody, will not do. And we,
[2:51:44] and if we do, we basically wouldn't be able to, to develop, to deliver water.
[2:51:50] So it's a, it's a horrible position to
[2:51:53] be in. And I can guarantee that, you know,
[2:51:57] we tried to do that with the 5% a year to put money into our
[2:52:00] reserves to ensure that we wouldn't have this issue.
[2:52:03] But no one saw the fact that every single
[2:52:07] material, every single thing that we have to use would go up almost 60%.
[2:52:13] And it's, it's. It's. It's horrifying in every way,
[2:52:17] shape or form. So again, I, I can tell you that, you know,
[2:52:20] the, the five of us are, you know, all live here in Corona,
[2:52:23] are all going to be paying the same rate, all going to be paying the
[2:52:26] Same things. Well, ma'am,
[2:52:30] we make $800 a month anyway,
[2:52:35] so I'm just saying, is it. Is it is that we are. We are voting,
[2:52:38] ma'am, we are voting on. So we are voting. We are
[2:52:42] voting on this as. As residents, the same as you that
[2:52:46] we are. The. The amount that we pay is the same amount that
[2:52:50] you pay. And, and so I just,
[2:52:53] you know, there's not much else to I can say except for thank you and
[2:52:58] pass on to my. My colleagues. Guys,
[2:53:01] guys, we. We had public comments. We respected
[2:53:05] you. It works two ways here.
[2:53:08] Thank you.
[2:53:11] I also wanted to express my. My sincere thanks
[2:53:16] for you coming down, for you sitting through
[2:53:20] a long meeting. A lot of comments for you coming up to the mic.
[2:53:24] It's not easy to speak publicly,
[2:53:27] to speak publicly at a public meeting, to have your comments recorded.
[2:53:32] None of that is easy. I remember the first time I did
[2:53:35] it, my voice cracked
[2:53:39] multiple times. It was. It's not easy.
[2:53:43] As your council, you know, we are. We are neighbors. You know,
[2:53:47] when we're talking about these things,
[2:53:51] we're not talking about them in a vacuum. We're talking about these things
[2:53:56] impacting all of us. And I take my responsibility as
[2:53:59] your neighbor, as a council member, very seriously.
[2:54:03] So much so that we sit here
[2:54:09] and read and study and deliberate and
[2:54:13] ask questions and push back every chance we get.
[2:54:17] You've seen some of that tonight,
[2:54:19] and if you go back, you'll be able to see that
[2:54:23] every meeting, every meeting that we've discussed this water rate, there's been the same
[2:54:27] amount of critical thinking and desire
[2:54:33] to find solutions and creative solutions as many as
[2:54:37] possible. You know, I think about Southern California Edison,
[2:54:41] you know, a publicly traded company that provides utility
[2:54:45] that doesn't have to go to residents to
[2:54:50] vote on or be transparent about how much profit they
[2:54:54] can make. I think about,
[2:54:57] you know, water districts that pass along increases
[2:55:01] on property taxes, which, you know,
[2:55:05] folks may not even notice at the bottom of
[2:55:09] the line items of their. Of their property tax bills,
[2:55:13] and the fact that legally as a city providing these
[2:55:17] services, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to do
[2:55:21] so. But yet you find a team that is trying to find
[2:55:24] ways to blend water, to reclaim water,
[2:55:28] to find advocate at the
[2:55:31] state level, at the local level, to find grants, to find
[2:55:35] all of these ways to try and ease the burden for us collectively.
[2:55:40] And I'll tell you, the math's not math thing is absolutely right.
[2:55:44] As part of the generation that is for the first time in recent history,
[2:55:48] in a worse financial situation than my parents generation,
[2:55:52] with an advanced College degree and all
[2:55:55] the nine with two jobs. I can tell you the math's
[2:55:58] not mathing. And that's absolutely true. That's true
[2:56:02] all the way around. And it's very
[2:56:06] frustrating. It's very frustrating. But one thing
[2:56:09] that we cannot do is be negligent in the reality that we
[2:56:13] have to have clean water. There's a reason why people know
[2:56:17] the city of Flint, Michigan. Why do
[2:56:20] you know it? And I'm certainly not okay with Corona being
[2:56:25] Flint, Michigan. That's it for me.
[2:56:27] Mayor JIM I,
[2:56:35] it's, it's no secret I'm a nerd.
[2:56:38] And before I decided to ever run for office,
[2:56:42] I sat down there for 10 years for every council meeting
[2:56:46] and just geeked out on them.
[2:56:48] But I watched votes like this come and
[2:56:52] I watched citizens get up and speak their mind.
[2:56:55] And there's a guy here that said the vote's already
[2:56:59] done, right, because you feel like it. And you,
[2:57:02] I, I look at these Ready to Serve charges,
[2:57:06] and I just bought another house and I
[2:57:09] don't even have it rented out. It's sitting empty. So I'm paying a Ready to
[2:57:12] Serve charge every month for not even
[2:57:16] using any water. And so I get
[2:57:19] the frustration, and the frustration is real. And the
[2:57:24] gentleman that got up and talked about a 60% increase over
[2:57:28] five years, it's an alarming number.
[2:57:32] And I think the citizens have every right to be
[2:57:35] mad and frustrated and to come here. And I think
[2:57:39] for every one of you that's here, there's probably a thousand that
[2:57:43] should be here as well. So thank you for coming. And I think
[2:57:47] you do represent those thousands with
[2:57:51] that. There's realities,
[2:57:56] there's a. You can't let your water system
[2:58:00] go. It's not good to
[2:58:03] have a house if you have no water, if you have no shower, if you
[2:58:06] have no toilets, if you have no sinks. Water is your precious
[2:58:10] commodity. And it's our job, the five of us in the city,
[2:58:13] to protect that system. System. And that's why this is all
[2:58:17] done openly. I don't enjoy it. I don't think any of you
[2:58:20] enjoy it. But it's our job to protect that system and
[2:58:24] provide that system. And if you think about it, it's sacred.
[2:58:28] It's, you try to go two, three days without
[2:58:31] water and you'll pay whatever it takes to get
[2:58:34] the water back on our city needs to protect that system.
[2:58:38] And so those are my closing comments as well with
[2:58:42] that. Sylvia, I do have a question. Does the,
[2:58:46] does the motion need to be read twice for each item,
[2:58:50] or is it Just once. It just needs to be read once and
[2:58:53] it's the only motion that needs to be read is the ordinance
[2:58:56] portion of it. Okay, with that in mind,
[2:58:59] does anybody want to make a motion?
[2:59:03] Sure, I'll read it. Introduced by title only. And wave
[2:59:07] full reading of ordinance number 3405. First reading of
[2:59:10] an ordinance modifying the budget based water rate structure and
[2:59:13] establishing rates for potable water reclaim water and
[2:59:17] sewer service fees and charges.
[2:59:22] Okay, that vote your conscience.
[2:59:34] Okay. Five, zero.
[2:59:38] I was shocked. Okay,
[2:59:43] we're going to move to item
[2:59:47] number 10 administrative reports. 10.1 request from
[2:59:50] council member Steiner for. Sorry, we still have item
[2:59:53] 9.2. It's a public hearing. I thought we had that one.
[2:59:57] Okay, we're going to go to 9.2
[3:00:00] public hearing for consideration of a resolution amending the
[3:00:04] schedule of user service fees for the provision of electric energy, to update
[3:00:08] rates and tariffs and to make related adjustments to the electric energy
[3:00:11] rules and regulations. So moved.
[3:00:16] Okay. Is there. Are there any public comments?
[3:00:20] There's no public comments. Okay. With that public hearing is now
[3:00:24] closed. Wes has moved. Jackie second and you can
[3:00:27] vote your vote.
[3:00:41] Okay. Five, zero.
[3:00:44] Sylvia, administrative reports sound good to you?
[3:00:48] All right, this portion of the agenda is for council
[3:00:52] discussion and action on staff reports and new topics that may
[3:00:55] not be routine status reports or documents covering previous city
[3:00:58] council action. 10.1 Request from council member Steiner for
[3:01:02] arterial street media enhancements is.
[3:01:05] Keegan is here. Keegan, welcome.
[3:01:07] The illustrious CIP supervisor Keegan Olds will present this
[3:01:11] item. Good luck, Keegan.
[3:01:16] Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. As stated,
[3:01:19] I am Keegan Olds, CIP supervisor for our streets and Stormwater
[3:01:22] section of the Public Works Engineering section. I'm here tonight
[3:01:26] to present on the request from Council member Steiner for
[3:01:30] arterial street median enhancements. And so what I'll
[3:01:33] do is just briefly provide a quick overview of our
[3:01:37] current efforts. Currently, as part of design and
[3:01:40] plan planning for both currently programmed and potential
[3:01:44] future CIP projects, we are looking at installing 5.3
[3:01:49] approximately miles of landscaped medians.
[3:01:52] That includes efforts currently programmed on 6th street
[3:01:56] as part of the downtown revitalization Ontario at Lincoln
[3:02:00] and the Magnolia Avenue project east of I15.
[3:02:04] And in the early planning stages,
[3:02:08] we're also looking as per the request at Green River
[3:02:12] Road, Hidden Valley Parkway and Promenade
[3:02:16] Avenue for potential projects and future cip.
[3:02:21] There's no current program to install landscape medians as part of a specific
[3:02:24] effort and generally we include these as items
[3:02:28] in larger projects.
[3:02:31] But if desired, I would be happy to investigate
[3:02:35] and prepare a presentation on Potential
[3:02:39] plans, future efforts as maybe
[3:02:42] a program to install landscaped medians as
[3:02:46] a program or a series of projects on arterial
[3:02:50] streets. As part of this administrative report, I have
[3:02:54] also listed some potential benefits as well as potential
[3:02:57] challenges for installing landscaped medians on our
[3:03:00] interior streets. But again, just want to iterate that in the current
[3:03:04] design and planning stages, we're looking at about 5.3
[3:03:08] miles of landscape medians.
[3:03:11] So if you would like me to bring it back as a future agenda item
[3:03:14] or a presentation, whether part of a city council
[3:03:18] meeting or study session, I would be happy to do so and
[3:03:23] would like to open up to questions. Mayor, if I could.
[3:03:26] So I wanted to give a little background on how this ended up before
[3:03:29] us. I had a Sierra del Oro resident reach out to me, and she said,
[3:03:33] hey, you know, foothill is so beautiful. When you drive down, you know,
[3:03:37] from the 15, you got this beautiful center median.
[3:03:40] It just kind of makes everything pop. And then when you get up to Sierra
[3:03:44] delauro, there's nothing. So I'm like, man, I didn't even think of that. So I
[3:03:47] went and drove it. And she was right. When it
[3:03:51] does look great along Foothill in the center median. And then as soon as I
[3:03:55] got to Pradoview elementary, it basically turned into
[3:03:59] a concrete jungle from the school all the way to the 91
[3:04:03] Freeway. And as I was looking at the center medians,
[3:04:07] there's a huge portion of it that wouldn't require any turn
[3:04:10] lanes. It serves no purpose other than looking ugly.
[3:04:14] And so I thought, man, we could really make this
[3:04:18] area look so much more beautiful, along with the benefits of traffic
[3:04:21] calming on some of our major arterials. But then I started really paying
[3:04:25] attention to it and just driving down Lincoln and
[3:04:29] like, gosh, this is boring too. You could. You could make this area
[3:04:33] look so much more of a community feel. And I
[3:04:37] just started noticing it all, you know, all throughout the city, how nice
[3:04:40] that would look. Look. Now, I realize that our priority right now is downtown,
[3:04:46] but that doesn't mean we can't plan for something for the future.
[3:04:49] Maybe chip away at it. One or two medians a year, one every
[3:04:53] two, whatever. Whatever we can do. But I also was curious
[3:04:57] on would that come out of LMDs that the. The money would
[3:05:01] have come out of general fund. It's something we, you know, we can explore.
[3:05:05] Can you do a balance of each? So anyways,
[3:05:08] I just thought it was worthy enough to talk about to help beautify our city.
[3:05:13] And again, it doesn't have to be a day one priority. But I think we
[3:05:16] should look at it for the future without a doubt. So thank you,
[3:05:18] Keegan.
[3:05:26] I admire your moxy on this one, Jim. I,
[3:05:29] I, I don't disagree. I think it would help
[3:05:32] to beautify the city.
[3:05:36] Doing some quick calculations in my head.
[3:05:39] I don't know when there would be budget
[3:05:44] budget for an undertaking of something like
[3:05:48] that, even for smaller amounts.
[3:05:52] I would say that that's something and this is going to sound
[3:05:57] not great, but that's something, something that the future city council could probably
[3:06:00] consider in my opinion. I just don't see it in the next four
[3:06:04] years and I realize again,
[3:06:07] it's not a priority. But if we don't plan for something even
[3:06:11] for a future city council, then the ball's never going to get
[3:06:15] rolling. So I think there's some things we can do. I guess
[3:06:19] I would just be a little concerned about the cost of planning.
[3:06:21] Absolutely, absolutely. That's what I'd like to kind of explore.
[3:06:25] That's why it's just a future agenda item so we can talk about it if
[3:06:30] they want, if they wanted to come back and,
[3:06:34] and tell us what the, what the cost of something like that would be,
[3:06:37] I guess that would be okay. I just don't want, I just don't want staff
[3:06:40] to spend a whole bunch of time on something that I just don't think is
[3:06:43] possible within the next four years. And I think on the staff time or on
[3:06:46] the staff report, it did address the cost of staff time to put
[3:06:50] together a plan and I don't recall that being significant.
[3:06:56] Yes, I believe it states 40 hours of staff time. I actually
[3:06:59] did start working on a presentation already, so the impact to me personally would
[3:07:03] be, would be a little less. But it would require some investigation
[3:07:07] on potential funding sources since those can vary
[3:07:11] as you mentioned, LMDs, potential traffic safety improvement
[3:07:15] programs, that sort of thing. But as well as examining the financial
[3:07:19] cost, especially in regards to currently projects that are in
[3:07:22] design and what we're already looking at and grants may be available
[3:07:26] for something like that potentially. Yeah. I think Keegan railroad
[3:07:30] their daddario. I didn't know he was an overachiever like that.
[3:07:35] Leslie. Yeah, I like the idea. I'm a big fan of planning,
[3:07:40] you know, a flag in the ground flag and trying to make something happen.
[3:07:44] I guess it's, you know, being, being my Don Quixote
[3:07:48] where I, you know, want to tilt at the windmill. But I guess I got
[3:07:51] lucky with, you know, they said you could never get
[3:07:55] a, an improvement on the freeway either. And we did that in three years.
[3:07:59] So I, I'm, I'm happy to, to see this go forward,
[3:08:03] at least to get together a plan. I do think there's going to be some,
[3:08:06] there'll be some grant money because there, there are.
[3:08:10] I forgot the term. It's something
[3:08:15] about the rate of solar insulation versus concrete
[3:08:19] and anyway there's a, there's some grant money for that and, but I would
[3:08:23] like to find ways for us to prioritize
[3:08:28] and it being, you know, 6ft corridor would be really important to me.
[3:08:32] I think that we have some safety concerns in,
[3:08:35] in District 1 on Hidden Valley that I would really love to
[3:08:39] see those prefer, you know, preferably kind of go
[3:08:42] first because they, they've had some, some issues there and you
[3:08:45] know, if we're going to be looking at these areas and maybe a
[3:08:49] ranking system that would look at, you know, maybe safety first. In fact,
[3:08:53] I think there are some, some calsta money
[3:08:56] that they're putting forward for, for safety pro projects.
[3:09:00] So there might be an opportunity for us there to, to build some pieces in
[3:09:03] and if we can find other places that we can, you know, tweak, that might
[3:09:07] be a way to make it happen a little bit faster. So I think this
[3:09:10] is for sure an other people's money thing. Yeah, I love other people's money.
[3:09:13] It's my favorite kind of money. Yeah,
[3:09:17] that's it. Thank you so much. So, yeah, I'm, I'm in favor coming back and,
[3:09:20] and let's talking about it more and again, you know, putting a pl. A flag
[3:09:23] in the grounds of. Good thing. Jackie, do you want to follow Don Quixote
[3:09:27] over there? No, I don't, but I. Mr. Olds,
[3:09:30] thank you so much. I think one of the things that I
[3:09:34] liked about this idea was sometimes we go in there and we're already making
[3:09:38] improvements on the street or we're. And so it feels like if we
[3:09:42] knew or if we like hindsight's
[3:09:46] always perfect vision. Right. But one of the things coming into this council that
[3:09:50] we learned right away is that when you don't have
[3:09:54] this exploration, if you do
[3:09:57] have the opportunity come before you and you've never
[3:10:01] thought about it before, you're going to be functioning from a deficit
[3:10:04] of knowledge and you're probably going to, you know,
[3:10:08] severely under undermine
[3:10:12] like how much it'll take to get something done and could undercut
[3:10:16] yourself. So you just never know when
[3:10:19] there might be an opportunity for more funding or if we're already addressing something in
[3:10:23] the area, we can say, hey, actually we identified this as a possible street
[3:10:27] for medium beautification. And aha. Here's the perfect
[3:10:31] moment. So I like it as a plan that
[3:10:35] sits there ready for us to chip away at it.
[3:10:38] And so I. As an aspirational plan. Exactly. So I look
[3:10:41] forward to seeing what you come up with and you finish your presentation.
[3:10:46] Thank you.
[3:10:49] Well, when I'm fighting with my wife, she says I serve no other purpose
[3:10:52] than to look ugly. So that,
[3:10:56] that, that rang home with me. Hi,
[3:10:59] I'm with you, Jim. And it looks like Keegan already
[3:11:03] is gonna do it anyways. Can do what he wants anyways.
[3:11:07] So I think we're good with that. Do we
[3:11:10] need. We need a public comments on this, right?
[3:11:17] Yeah. So let's open it up. Up to public comments.
[3:11:21] Did you want to speak? Come on up.
[3:11:32] Amen again. No, you're good to go. Just want to comment
[3:11:35] on the,
[3:11:39] you know, landscaping things because who's
[3:11:42] going to pay the water bill for those plants that are going to go in
[3:11:46] down there? Is that a cheap shot? Because it's going to be a lot more
[3:11:49] expensive by the time we get to doing it, so that'd
[3:11:53] be a concern. Thank you. All right.
[3:11:57] I didn't think it was a cheap shot. Thank you for speaking.
[3:12:00] Sylvia. Are there any other speaker cards? Mayor, we do not have any speaker
[3:12:04] cards. Okay with that. Public comments is closed.
[3:12:09] Is there? Jim, do you want to make the motion?
[3:12:14] No motion needed. Thank you, Wes. Moving along.
[3:12:18] 10.2 Travel advance request for council member Jackie
[3:12:21] Casillas. Does any member want a staff report on this item?
[3:12:25] I mean, I could provide some comments if you'd like. Yeah, I'm at it.
[3:12:30] This is the one up north. Yep.
[3:12:33] This conference, it's a. League leaders, as you know, I'm the Riverside
[3:12:37] county incoming or I just actually the last meeting, same day
[3:12:41] as our city council meeting. I was presented, sworn in as the president
[3:12:45] of a Riverside county division. So at this.
[3:12:49] Of the League of Cities. Yes, of Riverside Division.
[3:12:52] Just our county, not the statewide organization. But this is
[3:12:56] an organization that advocates and lobbies for
[3:12:59] local control and for essentially lobbying
[3:13:05] for cities when Sacramento lawmakers
[3:13:09] are getting together and passing laws that affect us. So I
[3:13:13] want to assure you all
[3:13:16] that I'm going to be coming. I'm going to be attending this meeting with our
[3:13:19] legislative platform. And I'm doing everything
[3:13:23] in my power to make our platform be the
[3:13:26] league cities platform. So,
[3:13:30] you know, trust me that I.
[3:13:33] I'm not going to be shy. So I
[3:13:37] trust you. Any comments from anyone else?
[3:13:42] Jim, Leslie, me. Ms.
[3:13:45] Edwards, are there any speaker cards? Mayor we do not have any speaker
[3:13:48] cards for this agenda item. No. No cheap shots over there.
[3:13:52] So moved. All right,
[3:13:57] fair enough with that second vote.
[3:14:00] And off Jackie go.
[3:14:14] Council member speak.
[3:14:20] All right. 5.
[3:14:22] 0. 10.3. Vice Mayor Steiner's
[3:14:26] request for City Council's consideration to adopt a homeowner's insurance
[3:14:30] protection resolution. Amina.
[3:14:33] Amina Mirrors the assistant to the city manager.
[3:14:37] My bad. Dr. Amina Mears, assistant to the city manager.
[3:14:41] She will present this item. Sure. Thank you. Good evening,
[3:14:45] Mayor, Council. So staff received agenda
[3:14:48] item request from Vice Mayor Steiner for the city to consider.
[3:14:52] For City Council to consider adopting resolution advocating for home insurance protections
[3:14:57] for Corona residents. The city has received comments
[3:15:00] from. From residents regarding insurance plans being either cancelled or premiums
[3:15:05] increased due to fires and other natural disasters.
[3:15:08] Recently, the counties of San Bernardino, San Bernardino
[3:15:11] and Placer have adopted resolutions urging the State Insurance
[3:15:16] Commissioner Lara and the governor to declare a state of emergency and to
[3:15:19] act swiftly to restore stability to the insurance market.
[3:15:24] A resolution of this nature is in alignment with the city's legislative
[3:15:28] platform as we just recently added language expressing
[3:15:32] the city's advocacy and support for addressing insurance
[3:15:35] increases and rates. Insurance rates increases
[3:15:39] and cancellations due to natural disasters. So without further
[3:15:42] ado, I will now turn this discussion over to Vice Mayor.
[3:15:46] Yeah, and I'm not sure there's a whole lot to add to what Dr.
[3:15:49] Mears said. You know, we've all gotten the emails from our residents concerned that
[3:15:53] they can't get homeowners insurance or they're threatening to have
[3:15:56] it taken away from them and just the cost,
[3:16:01] you know, to find insurance.
[3:16:03] And I know our fire department's
[3:16:07] doing a lot with trying to get communities firewise
[3:16:10] and fire safe and getting hoas involved to
[3:16:14] understand, you know, defensible space and things
[3:16:18] like that. But, you know, it's, it's. It's really ridiculous
[3:16:22] because it's in high fire hazard areas, which I understand, and I
[3:16:26] understand the measures need to be taken. But so many of
[3:16:29] the homes in high. In high fire hazard areas are not going
[3:16:33] to catch fire from a, from a forest fire. So it's an overreach
[3:16:37] on what is identified as high fire hazard.
[3:16:40] But I know there's not a lot we can do about this. But I
[3:16:43] still think we need to make a strong stance. And I like what San Bernardino
[3:16:47] county and Placer county did with demanding that
[3:16:51] the governor make this a state of emergency and step in and get this
[3:16:55] taken care of.
[3:16:58] Okay, I'm with you guys. Want to do public comments
[3:17:02] or do you want to. Public comments. Sylvia Are there any speaker
[3:17:06] cards? Mayor? We do not have any speaker cards for this agenda item.
[3:17:09] Okay. With that, public comments is closed.
[3:17:11] Tony.
[3:17:15] No. No comments. No, Wes, I agree. My 300
[3:17:19] increase in the last four years. So anything they can do. And I
[3:17:23] know that, you know, again, tilting and windmills, but enough people,
[3:17:26] you know, write this letter then that the insurance commissioner
[3:17:30] is trying to work on it. But yeah, you're right. That that absolutely needs to
[3:17:33] happen. That high. Fire D. Your designation is
[3:17:37] far too broad, Jackie. I just
[3:17:40] want to add that, you know, we have a very active fire chief who
[3:17:44] is like sitting at all these tables and advocating and pushing
[3:17:49] every chance we get to to
[3:17:55] just lower the cost for residents to show that we're being proactive. I mean,
[3:17:58] we created these fire safe councils with a nonprofit. It's trying
[3:18:02] to make a difference and we're just trying to save people
[3:18:05] money wherever we possibly can. So, yeah, I'm in favor of this
[3:18:09] advocacy as well. I am as well. And the fact
[3:18:13] that you heard that it came from Placer and San Bernardino means
[3:18:17] people are talking about it and if we can join those
[3:18:20] ranks, there's value in that. So I'm a yes too.
[3:18:25] I don't think we're voting on it and I think we're good.
[3:18:29] Are you happy? Yeah. Thank you. Okay.
[3:18:32] 10.4 request from council member speak for the city
[3:18:35] council to consider an ordinance preventing unsolicited advertising or
[3:18:39] of printed materials on private property. Oh,
[3:18:43] once again, Dr. Amina Mears, the great assistant to the
[3:18:46] city manager, will present this item. Mayor Amina Spy.
[3:18:54] So staff received another agenda item. This one is from
[3:18:57] council member Speak wanting us to look into drafting an ordinance
[3:19:01] prohibiting solicited advertising circulars or other printed material
[3:19:06] on printed property except for purchase.
[3:19:09] Now, the city has an existing code, CMC 5.2
[3:19:13] 0.040, that regulates the distribution of
[3:19:17] handbills in the city. The ordinance does not explicitly
[3:19:20] prohibit the distribution of handbills on private properties.
[3:19:24] However, it does note that residents or persons who do not want to receive handbills
[3:19:29] can request so by displaying a visible no solicitation
[3:19:32] sign or anything that has similar language.
[3:19:35] So, staff, tonight we would like further direction on the next steps.
[3:19:39] Specifically, if the council wants staff to develop an ordinance
[3:19:43] or if you want us to amplify the current ordinance that we have
[3:19:46] through maybe some marketing, social media campaign push to
[3:19:50] make residents further aware or whatever else you might have in mind.
[3:19:54] So I will now refer to you.
[3:19:58] Thank you, sir. Yeah, I, I this is one of those things
[3:20:01] where, you know, I'm walking, I get out my, my front yard and
[3:20:06] there's this, the bag of garbage,
[3:20:09] paper that is in my, in my gutter
[3:20:14] that I'm having to pick out and put in the trash. And, and I'm making
[3:20:17] sure that it's not, you know, it's getting run over 15 times and
[3:20:20] the person next door, their stuff washes down. And to me, it's.
[3:20:24] It's litter, you know, and, and there's. My neighbors have
[3:20:27] no soliciting signs and they get thrown out onto their driveways
[3:20:31] just like everything else. And I think it's just a. It's a.
[3:20:36] It's litter. And frankly,
[3:20:40] it's wrong. And I think that it's impacting our water quality.
[3:20:44] You have these things in the, in the gutter in different parts of the city
[3:20:46] that just sit there. And I'd like to see
[3:20:50] a stronger stance. I know we have something. I did read that article or that
[3:20:55] ordinance and there is any teeth to it. I'm okay with taking our
[3:20:58] existing ordinance and tweaking it a little bit.
[3:21:02] I think the issue will be enforcement,
[3:21:06] nor do I want the. Not saying I want the city to go around and
[3:21:10] find people that are doing this, but I think if there's someone that
[3:21:13] says, hey, I don't want this, and the folks that are doing
[3:21:17] this would know, hey, don't do this, because you're going to get fined by
[3:21:20] the city of Corona. And so I think this is
[3:21:24] something that I talk to my neighbors and folks who live in
[3:21:27] different parts of the city, and some said the same thing. This, they hate it.
[3:21:31] They. They can't stand it. It's just one more piece of garbage they have to
[3:21:34] pick up and throw away. That's it. Thank you,
[3:21:40] Jackie. Sure. No, look, it's annoying.
[3:21:44] I agree. This just feels like fighting a losing battle.
[3:21:47] And I think that, like, I just, I think about the enforcement, I don't know
[3:21:50] how this is enforceable. There's so many things that are deemed
[3:21:54] and like,
[3:21:58] not. What's it called?
[3:22:01] Solicitation.
[3:22:05] And I think it's a pretty, like, porous line, you know
[3:22:08] what I mean? For instance,
[3:22:11] we just had an election and all of those papers
[3:22:15] are not considered solicitation. Yeah. And I specified
[3:22:19] that in the request that, that if it was on a porch. Well,
[3:22:22] you're okay if someone wants to get out of their car, wants to walk up
[3:22:25] and put something on your porch, totally fine with that. The person that comes by
[3:22:28] and throws the bag of rocks with, you know, with an advertisement
[3:22:32] in it at like three in the morning. Yes. Or the little
[3:22:36] newspaper that gets tossed out of the, you know, that's just some advertisement
[3:22:40] that frankly gets run over and ends up in the trash anyway.
[3:22:43] And so I don't want to infringe on the fact that, you know,
[3:22:47] if someone wants to actually get out of their car and walk and
[3:22:50] put something on your, on your door, on your, your porch,
[3:22:54] that's totally okay. Yeah. This just seems like again, like one of those things
[3:22:58] that's like, like a. Fighting a losing battle.
[3:23:01] But I, you know, I'd want to, you know, I'd be open to seeing
[3:23:05] like what a modification of. Sure. What we already have might
[3:23:08] look like. I just. It is that piece of enforcement that I
[3:23:12] don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think if people could, you know, I wouldn't necessarily
[3:23:16] put it on the city to go out and hunt these, hunt folks down,
[3:23:18] but if they, if you had an issue and said, hey, don't, don't deliver us
[3:23:21] anymore, we would let. I mean, I think there's only a few people
[3:23:24] that do this and if you told them, hey, by the way, this is not,
[3:23:27] you know, this is against the, against our, our code.
[3:23:30] It would be a pretty short list of folks to send to. And then if
[3:23:33] you had people like me that cared about it, then you would like
[3:23:36] a standard letter the city, you'd be self reporting and then, and then that
[3:23:40] way it'd be taken care of. But like I said, looking forward to there being
[3:23:43] an option to take a look at it.
[3:23:46] TDog Good.
[3:23:49] I'm in support of this. I too don't like the bag of rocks that I
[3:23:53] find on my driveway.
[3:23:56] I really appre. Oddly enough, I really appreciate the notepads
[3:23:59] that the realtors leave. I use those all the time,
[3:24:02] but more times than not, I find them. I find that
[3:24:06] bag of papers in the gutter that's usually
[3:24:10] soaked by the time that I have to get it and then pick up a
[3:24:13] bag of wet, nasty paper and throw it in the trash.
[3:24:16] So if we could somehow send a letter to him because we've
[3:24:20] got an ordinance that we could point to and that helps
[3:24:23] mitigate it, I'm all for it. Jim.
[3:24:28] I read an article that back in the day, Steve McQueen
[3:24:32] and James Garner were neighbors. Steve McQueen would drive by James
[3:24:36] house and throw his beer cans in his yard.
[3:24:40] Kind of reminds me of that.
[3:24:43] These are good 10 o'clock stories, so I
[3:24:47] think we're good there with that.
[3:24:51] No vote. Does anyone know
[3:24:54] the time? No, but I
[3:24:58] have a story about Paul Newman if you'd like to hear it.
[3:25:02] Okay, legislative matters there are none reports
[3:25:06] from board members and commissions there are none from library
[3:25:10] none from planning and housing receive and file a
[3:25:14] bunch of things. Regional meeting Wes,
[3:25:18] it's 10 o'clock but there's a an update from you on the Southern California
[3:25:22] association of Government Transportation. I'll just say that the
[3:25:25] five pages that I was going to read I'll just sum it up real quick
[3:25:28] with the state continue to hate you in your car
[3:25:32] and that will continue.
[3:25:35] SCAGG is giving money to the city of Marino Valley for
[3:25:39] a horrible project called the World Logistics center to put in a interchange
[3:25:43] improvement. We're a project that ever should have been approved and a
[3:25:47] really great project in the city of Beaumont to put in a great separation.
[3:25:52] That's pretty much it. Yeah. Except for you know, the hate of cars
[3:25:55] and people. Okay,
[3:26:00] part two Update from Council member west speak on the Riverside County
[3:26:04] Transportation Commission our CTC meeting of November 13th,
[3:26:08] 2024 again more hating of people people in their cars.
[3:26:12] There was a legislative update. We did a couple of votes but I'm not going
[3:26:16] to talk about them. But the the biggest thing was a legislative update from
[3:26:22] our the folks at our TTC about CALSTA and
[3:26:26] their update of the California Transportation Planning
[3:26:31] Basically cap ties what the initials are and I always forget what it's what
[3:26:34] it stands for but basically it's a this is
[3:26:38] the final nail. I think I talked to you guys about it last time.
[3:26:40] I will post the letter. The city is going to
[3:26:44] be thank you Mr. Mayor for signing that letter opposing
[3:26:47] these changes. And the most disgusting part
[3:26:51] of it is that the SB1 money
[3:26:54] that we've been paying, the additional tax that we've been paying on the
[3:26:57] gas tax that they said would only go toward transportation.
[3:27:01] One of the changes that they're proposing
[3:27:05] in this is to redirect that money to housing and,
[3:27:09] and it's, it's a lie and it's a flat lie
[3:27:14] that was voted on and I'm hoping that there are folks that speak out against
[3:27:18] it. I will put something out on my page and then hopefully the
[3:27:21] city when we finish our letter we are using
[3:27:25] RCTC is getting letters together from different cities to
[3:27:29] oppose that and that would go so far as to actually restrict the money
[3:27:33] that RCTC gets from measure
[3:27:37] A and maintain or make
[3:27:42] those improvements not happen on the road. There will
[3:27:45] not be any more lanes over a mile.
[3:27:49] They're going to start looking at arterials to limit the
[3:27:54] vmt the vehicle miles traveled accessed on those roads and
[3:27:58] it's going to get. It's going to get really bad. So hopefully enough people are
[3:28:02] going to notice this time of this, this final nail in the coffin for
[3:28:06] folks getting in their cars. And not that I'm opposed to public transportation,
[3:28:10] but we just won't have any. You won't have any here for probably 30 years.
[3:28:14] To continue to slam that point home is just horrible.
[3:28:19] And that's it. Thanks. Thanks,
[3:28:22] Wes. Ms. Edwards, are there any speaker cards
[3:28:25] from the public for the regional meetings? Mayor we do not have any speaker cards.
[3:28:29] All right. Steiner's appreciative of that.
[3:28:33] Okay, city attorneys, reports and comments. Dean, you want to get
[3:28:36] into that Paul Newman story now?
[3:28:40] Okay. Mr. Ellis, I see you're back from vacation.
[3:28:45] The orientation. How'd it go? No comments.
[3:28:48] Mayor thank you. Okay, City council member
[3:28:52] reports. Oh, we got to do something here.
[3:28:55] Designate, designate representative to participate on ad
[3:28:58] hoc committee for field rates. Does anybody.
[3:29:03] Tony.
[3:29:08] All right, Tony.
[3:29:11] Tony Jacob,
[3:29:15] do we need one or two people for the ad hoc?
[3:29:19] Just one. There you have it. So let
[3:29:23] the record state that council member Daddario has gladly volunteered
[3:29:29] voluntold.
[3:29:32] And with that. Does anybody have any comments?
[3:29:36] Tony? Yeah, just a couple comments. On November
[3:29:40] 9th, I was able to attend
[3:29:44] the veterans event at the Riverside National Cemetery.
[3:29:48] I was there with Vulcan materials and they were
[3:29:52] placing flags on all of the cemetery. They were one of
[3:29:55] many, many organizations placing flags on the
[3:29:58] cemetery out there. It's very, it was great
[3:30:02] to see everybody placing flags and all the flags flying and the events of they
[3:30:06] had going on. My grandparents are both at National
[3:30:10] Cemetery, so it was very special for me. By the time I got over there
[3:30:13] to pay my respects, their flags were already there and they were perfectly
[3:30:17] straight. So it was a beautiful thing to see.
[3:30:20] And I also wanted to give a quick shout out to our communications
[3:30:24] team and our digital team. They did a great job on the State of the
[3:30:27] City. The video was great. I believe it's available now on
[3:30:31] all of the city socials. It's a great video,
[3:30:36] some great acting by the mayor. I think if there's a
[3:30:39] category for State of the City addresses at the Grammy or the Oscars,
[3:30:42] I think you should probably be up for one. But,
[3:30:46] you know, it was a pretty much a packed house. And afterwards
[3:30:50] I was walking back to my vehicle and I was talking with
[3:30:54] a couple that own a business here in town and it's called DBZ
[3:30:59] Records and Books or Books and Records. And it's, it's a
[3:31:02] great Little store on 6th Street. It's owned by Dilver and Karen
[3:31:06] Lizama. They've been open for three or four years. And I
[3:31:10] went and I visited the bookstore and bought a couple
[3:31:13] of things that they had there. It's a really cool story
[3:31:17] of local folks that have entrepreneurs
[3:31:20] that have decided to take their love of books and records
[3:31:24] and, and open a store here
[3:31:29] in Corona and you know, just following their social media and
[3:31:32] just learning more about their story. They're kind of a big deal
[3:31:36] as far as an independent book and record store or
[3:31:39] independent bookstore and independent record store. The day that I ended
[3:31:43] up going, they were having a independent record release for the new
[3:31:46] Gwen Stefani record. And it was just really cool.
[3:31:50] There was. When I showed up at a little bit before 5 o'clock, there was
[3:31:53] a line of people out the door waiting to get in to
[3:31:57] buy this record. And I thought that that was really cool and just
[3:32:03] really something. You know, people talk about wanting something different here in the city of
[3:32:06] Corona and you know, they talk about arts and culture and
[3:32:11] boy, this store really hits on all of that. They've got a bunch of open
[3:32:14] open mic nights and record release album parties and all kinds of cool things
[3:32:18] they've got going on. And so I wanted to give them a shout out.
[3:32:21] I thought that they have a really cool niche
[3:32:25] they're filling. And if you are watching this and you get
[3:32:29] an opportunity to go check them out. Go check them out. That's it.
[3:32:32] Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, I can't wait.
[3:32:36] I got your little note about how awesome it was. I'm looking forward to
[3:32:39] going down, especially something on 6th street,
[3:32:42] which always, always makes me happy. Just a couple things. One, we're getting into
[3:32:46] the season, so both Dos Lagos and the Crossings
[3:32:49] will be having their holiday lighting event on the same day.
[3:32:55] But we're trying to figure out which one we're
[3:32:58] going to go to. But both seem to be, you know, kind of going big
[3:33:01] and trying to get people to come back. And again, I want to echo what
[3:33:05] Councillor Daddario said that, you know, Sean, the you and your team
[3:33:09] did an amazing job. It's the best State of the City video
[3:33:12] that you guys have done yet. And I, I, I can't
[3:33:16] wait to see what you guys do next year. It's getting better and better every
[3:33:18] single time. So thank you and please pass it on to your,
[3:33:22] to your team and good job. Mr. Mayor. You were.
[3:33:26] Yeah, I was exp. I did see you filming some things and
[3:33:29] I was very bummed. I didn't see see you on 3rd Street. I didn't see
[3:33:33] you. But, but it was a Nice job.
[3:33:36] Thank. Thank you, Jackie. You got anything,
[3:33:40] Jim? Just one thing. As an FYI,
[3:33:44] you guys know I sit on the, I represent the city on the Santa
[3:33:47] Ana River Advisory Group. So tomorrow the,
[3:33:51] the Coastal Commission, California Coastal Commission is having their public meeting
[3:33:55] in Oakland. And I've already registered, registered to make some public
[3:33:59] comments. But agenda item eight, which is actually
[3:34:02] about probably five or six hours into the meeting, is near
[3:34:06] the end. It's. They're considering allocating $9.2
[3:34:10] million for the 1.7 mile link of the
[3:34:13] Green River, Santa Ana River Trail for that connection.
[3:34:17] So I, I feel good
[3:34:20] about it, you guys. So we're finally getting these connections
[3:34:23] connected and this will, this will go a long way in making
[3:34:27] that happen. So I'll report back next. So is that like $500,000
[3:34:31] an hour for you to sit down there? Well, you know, they're going over waterways
[3:34:34] and stuff, so that's why it's so expensive. That's good stuff.
[3:34:37] Thanks for keeping your eye on that. Yeah, thank you.
[3:34:40] Thanks, Jim. Sean, you guys,
[3:34:44] you and your team knocked it out the state of the city. And Donna
[3:34:47] and her team, you, you guys were phenomenal.
[3:34:51] So the only heckler was my 8 year old daughter there.
[3:34:56] She let me have it. But it was a
[3:35:00] great night and a lot of fun and maybe one
[3:35:03] day Sean will release the stuff he didn't put in the video.
[3:35:07] So with that, the next meeting of the council
[3:35:11] is December 4, 2024, and this meeting is adjourned.