Good evening. Thank you for joining us this evening for our City Council meeting. Before we get started and before I call our City Council meeting to order, I wanted to invite our chief fire chief up, Liz Brown. She's going to come and give an update on what's going on out there. We know there's a lot, but I appreciate you coming by and updating everyone. Thank you very much for giving us opportunity. Louder? Is that better? Okay. Thank you for giving us opportunity to address the council. There's been a lot going on and right now as it stands the fire, we saw significant increase in fire activity today. We anticipated that with where the fire was, winds that were coming. So there's going to be a significant increase in acreage, probably by tomorrow morning, just as it's heading toward Big Bear. As far as the Highland component, there's a lot of good containment going in along the black area. There was a hotspot so there was a decision not yet to open up the or lift the evacuation just to make sure that it is cold because the last thing we want is to say It's okay to go in and then have to do do that again So right now it's sitting at about 5% containment as of Going up the 330 that's looking really good. There's a lot of good hardware going in there. The terrain is just extremely difficult. And the weather's not helping and the heat's not helping. And then you have the earthquakes and the rain and the downshracks of lightning. And next is the locus, I think. So a lot of challenges. And as you've seen on the news there's more starts and these fires are just as big. The community has been phenomenal as I see and if you're okay with it what I'd like to do is take these signs back to our instant command post. It is in Beaumont but there's nothing better than driving up on your shift and you just have a little burst of inspiration by the you know, the thankfulness of the community. And this community has banded together, was falling over themselves to try and help the firefighters. Your firefighters here in Highland were up for 48 hours straight, making sure properties were protected. Nobody's house burns. We had minimal damage. And considering the ferocity of the fire, considering the fuels, considering the weather, it is a miracle and is by the grace of God and the hard work of your firefighters here in Highland that we had no structures damage or destroyed. So I'm very thankful for that. As we move forward, we had incredible help and partnership with San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office. Lieutenant Dupor was instrumental in helping coordinating everything. When we started to see that this could impact homes, I called him and he said, okay, contact this, the sergeant, he'll do whatever you need. We coordinated that with the sergeant. Fail came in and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the community and we talked about the I'm very thankful for the community and thank them, you know, from the bottom of our hearts to let us focus on the mission and not have to worry about trying to get people out. As we move forward, there's a lot of communities impacted by this. And once this fire gets mitigated, you know, there's a lot of work to be done with rains. As we saw a long time ago, we had another disaster with flooding and things like that. So, those are all at the very forefront of everyone's mind as we move forward and working with incredible partners with the Forest Service. They have really taken care of us as well as Cal Fire, San Bernardino. Chief Littlefield has been incredibly generous. And as a smaller partner, we have a contract with Cal Fire, but there are responsibilities we have as a city. And they've just really wrapped arms around the city and have made us feel very welcome. And said, don't worry about it, we got you. So that has been very enjoyable. Anything we needed, it was ordered. There was never, nope, you guys can't have that or nothing, it was never like that. So that has been a very incredible working environment to know that our citizens in Highland are gonna be protected. Our firefighters have skin in the game. They absolutely want and take pride of protecting our citizens. And on a personal note for me, it's been wonderful to have Carlos visit the ICP, be engaged, ask questions, want to understand how this works. And in the beginning, it's very chaotic. As you know, what about this? What about that? And there was a lot of locations we talked about for an ICP. But as we were doing these orders and the terrain we're dealing with and there was always this theme if there's if there's a place you don't want to fire it's there. So you have to plan big and at the scale when Carlos came to the ICP it is a city it's absolutely absolutely a city. Now there's about 500 engines there. And that is just engines. Now we're not even talking about all the other accessory equipment. You have about 3,000 people there. So it's on a scale that really you have to plan big. And so they did. And it is a little remote. But to be honest, it would have impacted our community in a negative way. So we really have to take that into consideration. And so there was a little concern about it being so far away, but I think it worked out for the veteran. And we are still in unified command with the Forest Service, Cal Fire, Sanrio County Fire, the sheriffs. And part of that is because until Highland is completely cold, no hot spots, there's actual containment lines around it, we're not going to exit because we want to make sure that when we step back, we can definitely say it is safe, you're good, now let's focus on some other communities. So if you guys have any questions, I'd be more than happy to take them. Thank you. I just I do have a couple of comments. I wanted to thank you and Carlos for keeping us so abreast and updated that any rumors that we sell on social media we were able to squelch and just everything the the closeness that I felt that I never had any questions of what was going on because I felt that you and Carlos kept us so in the loop but it was really nice to know what's going on just because we don't like it. It doesn't mean we don't want to know everything that is going on so I appreciate it I appreciate you taking me out and all the agencies out there in cooperation with Cal Fire so It really took a village on this so any any comments from our questions for Lazy. Yes. Oh, God. Oh. Oh. I want to extend my personal thank you to you and all of the firefighters because my house is up clover hill and there was a lot of fire going on. A lot. A lot. A lot. I was confident that you guys would take care of it. And I appreciate all of the hard work and please thank everybody. And to that point, I will tell you it's a personal pride for me to see some of these younger firefighters that have an experience this ever in their career. And obviously, Chief Timber has and you guys lived through it through the old fire and several fires after that, but a lot of these kids have not. And to see them come back after 48 hours of being awake and faces are dirty, they're exhausted, but they're smiling. Like that's pride. So I'm very proud of the work the firefighters have done here in this city. Well, I have a question on what's on your badge? What's the issue? We had an engineer in Riverside pass away. On the fire? No, it was not on shift, but at home, and he was only like 34. So he has yet to be buried, so we're worried. I'd also like to think the fire guys, from what I saw personally up close, the job they did was amazing. Law enforcement was instrumental in helping the traffic issues. And another run sun here, I got a mention state of the city staff with all the barricades that provided it with system that went very smoothly. And I know the sheriff was working very closely on those traffic issues talking to the folks letting them know what they can and can't do and I just want to thank fire law enforcement and the city staff and all the workers that were working and putting up barricades and stuff in the middle of the night and doing all those things. I second that. It really does take a village to Mayor Lilburn's point. It really does take a village and if anyone piece or anyone person or any one ask wasn't fulfilled, then something would fail. So everyone banded together. And that is like my greatest honor to serve this city is because of the volunteerism, the sense of pride that people have in this community. And it really shows in the lack of damage we had other than some plastic fencing I can live with. I can live with that. No one was hurt. It, again, it's incredible and this community is incredible. Yeah. I'd like to also talk to that issue. One of the unsung heroes on this is, of course, we talk about firefighters and law enforcement. What the cities done over the last 20 something years in the design of our projects and the infrastructure that we've put in makes the job for the firefighter so much easier and safer and it protects the community when you've got good fire buffers between the wildland and the houses. Without that we can all talk about the scenario would have been a lot different. If you just look back to the old fire example, again, we lost no structures in Highland. The city of San Bernardino had over 900 and something houses burned to the ground. And that's primarily because they are in all the community that hasn't incorporated a lot of these design features. And we should continue to make sure They're an older community that hasn't incorporated a lot of these design features. And we should continue to make sure that projects develop in Highland. I complement what we've done in the past. And that really helps the firefighters do their jobs much more safely and a protected citizen. So just a tutor, the engineering and the planning staff over the years putting it designs on those projects and making them really safe is really what it was done. Very well said chief I couldn't say that any better absolutely. Good point. Any comment? Good. Okay. Well again thank you. Please thank all the firefighters and the fire staff and police. Thank you guys for your hard work and dedication to the city for this hard time. Thank you. Okay. We're going to ask Al Lebron to come up and lead us in a pledge and then and Ellie will lead us in our invocation and and Ellie will lead us in our invocation and and Ellie will lead us into our pledge. Thank you Mayor Lillburn. Members of the council thank you. Let's pray. Gracious Father we thank you so much for what we've heard, Lord, and just just past few minutes. Thank you for the fire, chief, Lord. Thank you for all of the agencies, Lord, and the way, the unity that they have shown, Lord, through the last several days. And, Lord, I thank you for the fact that it is by your grace, Lord, that we are standing here and being able to acknowledge some of the things that were just said. And, Lord, we thank you for taking care of so many, Lord, who are in harm's way. And they're not just fire fighters Lord. They're also policemen. They're also volunteers. They're also people that without names known to us, Lord, we thank you for the fact that you have protected them. We also pray for the evacuees Lord and we pray for their properties. And Lord, we're looking to you, Lord. We ask that you would guide and direct in every way. We know that, Lord, there's a lot of different things that are part of this entity for fighting a fire. But, Lord, we pray that you would give wisdom, continued wisdom, as has already been shown. Lord, to all of those that are in leadership, we also pray, Lord, that you might too much to ask, Lord, might change the weather. It would help. Lord, we love you, but we know you love us even more. We thank you for all of these things. In Jesus' precious name, and everyone said, Amen. Thank you for coming down here in given us our invocation today. Appreciate that. We'll do Roku. Councilmember Jesse Chavez-Cordova. Councilmember Penny Lulbury. Councilmember Larry Chavez-Cordova. Here. Councilmember Penny Lulbury. Here. Councilmember Larry McCallan. Here. Councilmember Annalee Solano. Present. And Councilmember John Timmer. Here. Thank you. We have no report from closed session. As we did not have a closed session this evening. And we do have a few special presentations. So is there anyone here from Childhood Cancer Awareness Month for? No. I do have a proclamation here and we will make sure that they get this, but it is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And so we do proclaim today that it is awareness month and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino and we have a presentation from the county of San Bernardino, the development and housing department for the CDBG community block grant for the five-year call consolidated plan. It's a mouthful, I know. Right? Usually we just say CDBG around here. So we know the acronyms, right? Welcome. Thank you very much. Hello everyone, my name is Brian Anderson, and I'm from San Bernardino County Community Development and Housing. And I'd like you to thank you for the opportunity present today. Our department manages various HUD grants that you've kind of mentioned that support infrastructure, public services and revitalization projects throughout the county. Today we'll discuss the development of the San Medino County five year plan that's due, we're in the process of preparing that right now. We'll also talk about the analysis of impediments that we have to do as far as the study that we have to prepare as part of this process. And so these plans outline the strategy for addressing the most urgent community development and housing needs in the county. And we're here because we need your help by participating in the surveys that we have, which gathers input to identify communities which can assess the survey through survey monkeys. So we have a survey monkey that's available. We have the flyers in the back that you can scan. The QR codes, we also have it on our website. And we also have physical copies here. Because our overall intent after I go over the high level overview of a common plan and an AI real quick. Because I know I don't have a lot of time. It's really to make sure we get this out to the public to do, to basically help us make those strategies in here input from those. Let's go ahead and make it. So, the five-year consolidated plan serves two key purposes. As it says up there, it's basically identifying and prioritizing community development and housing needs and it serves also as an application for both our which he said in acronym CDBG home and emergency solutions grants which we call ESG our goal is to direct federal grant funds to areas with the greatest needs within the county and this city is one of our participating cities as part of that program and that's why we're here to basically ask for those to actually complete that survey. As you can see the three grants these are some of the priorities that we've addressed both with CDBG home and ESG. With CDBG the slide examples identify basically some of the services that we've done in the past. Here, I know we've done some senior service programs. We've done infrastructure improvements, a lot of like sidewalk and ADA improvements in the low income communities working with that. And we also do some enhanced code enforcement activities that you guys have identified to make sure that the neighborhoods are staying revitalized. In regards to our home, our strategy also focuses on affordable housing. That includes acquiring or rehabbing and construction new multifamily housing is what we do with home. Through the emergency solutions grant, we support essential services such as emergency services, emergency shelters, rapid rehousing and street outreach for those experiencing homeless and Basically all of our participating cities and everywhere throughout the county on a regional basis Next is our analysis of impediments Study the analysis impediments for fair housing is a vital is vital for identifying barriers to fair housing and what it's doing. The examinance patterns of segregation and highlights disparities in access to opportunities and identifies just proportionate housing needs. Our goal is to set fair housing priorities and goals to guide our future in these actions and through this survey, we get that input and we put it all together as part of the county process. Some of the demographics I'm going to show kind of together as part of the county process. Some of the demographics I'm going to show kind of talk about some of the impacts both for housing and also looking for affordable housing. So this slide shows the changes in racial makeup of the inland empire. All racial groups have increased except for white and non-Hispanic which has decreased. With our community evolving the need for for housing and affordable housing is more critical than ever. This slide shows changes in age demographics within the empire. The largest increase in the empire is the 65 and older, as you can see. As housing costs rise and seniors aren't fixed income, they face increasing challenges in affordable housing and we all see that a lot. Also poverty is a huge issue and creates a barrier to housing in itself. And the overall property rate in the empires is 11.9%. By racial group, the property rates are 13% for Latinos, 11.8% for Asian Pacific Islanders, 10.6% for blacks, and 10.1% for whites. Poverty remains a major barrier, as I said earlier, to housing and highlighting the energy and need for affordable housing in our communities that we try to do. Also, in regards to poverty against that 11.9%, another statistic which shows this slide further examines poverty's impact on seniors who have the highest poverty rates among age groups reinforcing the need for senior housing. So those that are in fixed income, it really is difficult for them to have housing. When you're additionally, the 11.6 of San Bernard County residents have disabilities, that's another thing that have impact through fair housing issues because as they go to rental properties, sometimes they're dissuaded from at those rural properties because they can't assist them basically in the needs that they need for their actual home. So sometimes they have that impact through fair housing. Of that 11.6 percent though, 6.3 percent are ambulatory. That's the biggest group that are impacted through that. And so this issue really impacts both fair housing and also affordable housing because some of the costs that are associated with that create higher cost for rent. And so the idea of creating affordable housing for them gives them that opportunity and access. So this is one that I think is the most impactful for me. If you look at the statistics here, in basically San Bernardino County, the one bedroom is 1600, approximately 1600 a month. But if you look at someone who's basically on minimum wage, they have to work 77 hours a week in order to afford that one bedroom. The thing that you notice too, if you have a larger family, as things go up, it significantly increases increases how many hours they have to work per week, basically. So this definitely pushes the issue with, again, affordable housing and poverty as one of the barriers that we're seeing. So what's next? So this is kind of our planning process. So looking ahead, we'll gather at community input. That's what we're doing right now through the workshops and surveys from September, October. This feedback will help identify community needs and fair housing barriers and develop actionable recommendations. The draft reports will be available for public review in January with the final, basically, ready for final approval in late March. How do we get involved? As I mentioned earlier, we encourage everyone to get involved in this process. Please take the survey, share it with others, contact us with any questions or feedback. Your input is essential in shaping this plan that reflects our community's needs. Again, I, as I mentioned, we have flyers in the back that have the QR codes for those that want to take it today. We also have the hard copies that they can do at their own time and mail-in. We're open to that as well. So again, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity and appreciate your time. Thank you for your presentation. CDBG is great program, fun city programs that we wouldn't otherwise be able to afford and put to those organizations. Any questions for Brian? Okay, thank you Brian. Appreciate you coming by and giving that presentation. Thank you so much. Okay, we're going to move on to public comment. And this time is for people who'd like to speak for items not on the agenda. Chris Nielsen and Jane. And no one can coordinate her out. Yeah. I'm going to go to the court. He just looked at me said, did you get the memo? Good evening, City Council mayor. I would like to address some of our upcoming events. October 5th, we're going to jump ahead to October 5th. It is going to be our 5k 10k run, walk jog, I say crawl if you have to. And following that at 11 a.m. at the Highland Senior Center, we're going to have a new re-grand opening. So we're excited to come out and do that for you. Our last mixer of the year will be on Wednesday night. Our calendar originally said Thursday night, but as I said at our lunch last lunch and we would be conflicting with men's tones chamber of commerce doing a casino night. So we've moved ours to Wednesday, September 18th, and it's going to be at the American Legion post 421. It's gonna be a taco night and it's from 5 to 7. So that is coming. Also we have our luncheon coming up on the 24th. We're gonna have Mark Gibbs from the San Bernardino International Airport. He is the director of aviation. So he'll be our guest speaker. And let's see. Um, that's it. That is it. I'm looking at my memo here. Yes. Any questions? OK. October 9th, we also have on our calendar, which will be our last breakfast for the year. That will be determined because we don't have, we have it on our calendar, but we don't have it set up yet with any restaurant. Last one we had was at Cooke's and we really enjoyed that. They opened an hour and 15 minutes early for us to have it there. So we're really grateful. Yes. Thank you so much. Very good. And I just want to say to Liz Brown too, I was out of town and I got home Saturday evening facing the big fires that had happened in our area. And I got a couple calls from a couple chamber members and they were complaining that there was not enough things happening in our community to calm down the fire. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me just say, I just got in town. And he goes, well, ask the president of the chamber. You should know. And be on top of this. So I did reach out to Liz. And I said, this has nothing to do with me. You guys are doing a wonderful job. And of course, she said, all the resources are out of your Jane, we're doing everything we can do. And we really, really, really appreciate that. And Liz, your quick response back was very helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jane, we understand people don't stay in their own lane. You know, some people are the smartest people on earth. And the fire department has no idea what they're doing. No, I know. And then on next door, I'm like, I see on there is Sam and Well helping. Do they have their fire trucks out here? And my stepson's a fireman up there. He's an engineer. And he called his dad on Sunday morning. He says, I'm the only one up here, dad. I am manning the station. Everyone is out here in our trucks and helping. You know, so I put that on there like hello, get a grip, people, you know. I'm gonna tell you what they tell me. Do not respond to people on Facebook. Oh, no, this is on next door app thing. I don't know how I got on that as well. That's just as bad, right? Anyway, and thank you guys. Sorry, I do not know who put that on our chamber page about donating things for the fire when you called me Sunday morning. And to drop off the American Legion, I could not find that on my page. So I don't know where I was looking, but I did send, I did send it out to all of my board members. And I said just in case, you know, nobody needs anything. The American Legion's under evacuation. So please, you know, stay safe and we're all good. So I did send that out on your behalf. Good. Thank you very much. Just trying to get the word out there. Okay. Chris Carrillo with East Felly Water. Hi Chris. Chris Carrillo with East Valley Water. Hi Chris, I'm Miss Phil tonight. You're kind of sitting in for him? Yeah, Director Goodrich is out of town, so he asked me to come in his place. So good evening mayor, good evening city council. Just a couple quick comments. I wanna thank you as a resident of Highland for over 30 years for your leadership. You guys have kept this community safe from the decisions you're making by putting Fire Chief Brown and Cal Fire in charge of keeping us safe. Our emergency response has been amazing. I've lived through a few fires in Highland and I remember that we always put out the best effort but we're really fortunate this year that there have been no structures lost. On the water side I want to give you the quick update that there's been no disruption because again of a cowfire and our emergency response team no disruption in water service or wastewater service. So I just want to give you guys that update and then also I attended the State of the City last week. State of the City in Highland is always a fantastic and formative event. I thought it was really cool. You guys came to Sterling and had it there. And hopefully, we welcome you guys to have it there every year. And I personally can tell you that I really love the presentation. I loved Mayor Brown and Fire Chief Lover. And I love the great feedback when you guys are moonlighting and those are all so. Just thank you for everything you guys are all doing. Appreciate it and great to see you guys. Thank you. That was a great vid new up there by the way. Loved it. So thank you guys. Thank you, Chris. And everyone who attended, so it was great. Yeah. They didn't know it existed. Yeah. Nice. Fatima. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening all. Before I start can I ask for this round to come to the front? Sure. Thank you. Okay. So, good evening everyone. I am Fatima Lohi, your microphone just a little. Thank you. Perfect. Good evening, Council and Mayor Penny and Chief Vell and our sheriff. So I work as a Director in Healthcare and I'm here to represent the people of the city of Highland. So I'm going to start with one quote, that Highland is one city, one community, and one heart. The Highland community has expressed immense gratitude to the firefighters and to the police for keeping our homes and families safe. My novelist 82 years old said to me, Fatima, I haven't slept last few nights and hearing the fire planes, God bless those young men and women who are saving our homes and our families. The Highland community came to me and said, Fatima, we really want to help our firefighters and our police with food, donations, giving time, whatever they need. I said to them, they don't know anything further, and then I called Chief Brown, and she said to me one word, she said signs. We need thank you signs for our firefighters so that we can really help make them smile and increase their morale and let them know how much our island community loves them. So 18 families in East Island, including elementary kids, the high schoolers, cottage students and families curated these sounds to say thank you to our emergency services. So one thing I do want to do is present this to the sheriff and to Chief Brown. We're printing 100 cards to donate to all of the emergency personnel that has all of the cards that you see here printed on it. Now I want to finish with one poem that I wrote dedicated to our emergency services and the City of Highland. The community said, Fatima, write something. Write something that can express how we all feel. The police and the firefighters who protected us during our time of need, their college, their sacrifice of endless hours, rocking an extreme heat. Putting their lives, our lives before theirs, they will never be forgotten. As they continue to fight the line, the community of Highland will stand behind them. Firefighters have left their family and homes behind, working through the night, in high-triple digits with no end yet in sight. The police have protected the homes of those who had to leave with fires burning, smoking air and difficulty to breathe. The people of Highland are eternally grateful for all that you have done and we will remind you your sacrifices and services for many years to come. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Thank you very much for recognizing the hard work of our public safety and the community of the city of Highland. It means a lot to Fatima. Thank you so much. Okay. I have no more speaker slips in. City clerk, do you have any? I don't. Okay. We'll move on. We're going to move on to our consent calendar. But before I do, I wanted to look to see, I wanted to pull off item 15. We have set on the consent that item 17 that needs to get pulled and put on to the consent calendar. Thank you, Larry. Appreciate that. Mayor, if I may, what we'd like to ask the council to do is to make a motion to move item number 17, which is currently a legislative and move it to the consent calendar. Thank you. Item number 17 which is currently a legislative and move it to the consent calendar Second thank you all those in favor are thank you will move item Well because it's an item that there's no contention on it It's declared two seats and it was put inadvertently put on the legislative agenda rather than the consent calendar. So is there an issue with it? No, we've always had it on the regular calendar for when we make a motion. But if you want to change that's why not. Well, we've always had it on consent calendar declaring seats. Yeah, this is my mistake. so I'll take full responsibility. I meant to put it on consent but I didn't do that and so that's why I requested this. Thank you. May this request. Okay. So we're going to move on to the consent calendar with item number 17 pulled from the legislative putover on the consent. I'd like to, I'm going to announce a front I'm going to recruit myself from item 12 on the consent calendar. So we'll do items one through 14 now with, well, it would be items one through 13 with 17 added and with 17 added and- With 17 added. Correct. Or a contract. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. We'll do, can we do a roll call just so I can recuse myself? Council member Jesse Chavez-Cordama. Yes. Council member Penny Lover. Yes and and I'll request myself on item 12. Councilmember Larry McAllen. Yes. Councilmember Ann L. Lee, Solano. Yes. And Councilmember John Timmer. Yes. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to item 14 on the legislative Octavio. Good evening Mayor City Council. The item before use, the approval of a five year CPNA, known as the Capital Project Needs Analysis, and this is an annual item that's required to be eligible for SBCTA measure eye funding and this is separate from the item that was brought to council last month. This is specifically for the interchange and the arterial program and there are two projects listed in the analysis, same projects that were included in NACIRA's report. That's the Victoria Avenue Improvements Project and the Fifth Street Interchange Project. And details of those projects are included in the report, but I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. With that, we're recommending that council move to adopt the resolution, approving the CPNA. Thank you. Any questions for staff? Move the approval of. Thank you. Any questions for staff? We have a motion from John and the second from Anna Elling. All those in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Item 15, the construction and the management services for the Highland Natural Parkland Trail project. And this is an item that I've been asked possibly to pull because of the fires affecting the project currently going on. We'd hate to apply the funding and not know where we are on that. Yes, Mayor. If I may, just to prevent little clarification. So we'd like to pull this item from the agenda simply because this project was directly affected by the fires. And so now it's a change condition. And therefore we really can't proceed with construction because the contractor that was awarded this project now would be looking at a different project. So we have to re-evaluate it. And so we're asking council to remove this item so that staff can further evaluate and bring this item back to the city council. I'll have a little later time. Thank you, Carlos, for clarifying that. Yeah, sure. Thank you, Anna. Only we have a motion to pull it. I'll say good. And a second from Jesse. All those in favor? All right. I thank you. Item 16, the resolution of intention to establish the City of Highland Community Facilities to district. And that's Octavio again. Good evening. So this silence related to the formation of a community facilities district known as CFD, and it's for the Highland Park Development Project, the projects located north of baseline, just east of Club View Drive, includes 46 single family homes. And as part of the, well, I guess to give you some background really what the CFD is, it provides a mechanism for agencies to collect a special tax to be able to fund maintenance for improvements that are installed by new development. So as you're approving these development projects, you're building streets, sidewalks, landscaping, and cities need funding or agencies need funding to be able to perform proper maintenance on those new improvements. So the first step in the formation of CFD is the resolution of intention and that outlines what the assessment is and the amount of the assessment and what's included in the assessment. And the annual assessment for this specific project is $1,058 per year per property. That includes dorm drains, streets, curb gutter sidewalk, and street lights. This project actually has an HOA and that HOA is maintaining the water quality basin and the landscaping so those costs aren't included in the CFD but as a contingency it's included in the we included what's called the dormancy class so if the HOI fails to maintain the CFD the city will take over and through through the CFD no additional action will be needed in the future we just have to establish the fact that HOA is not performing proper maintenance and again, city would kick in that special tax and start collecting the funds from the future property owners and take over the maintenance. So if the items approved tonight, really the next step in the process would be to bring the item back for public hearing and consider the formation of the actual CFD. And that would be a public hearing set for November 12th. So with that, we're recommending that the Council adopt the resolution initiating the CFD process and authorizing the lobby of a special tax. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Okay. Yes, sir. Question is, with a special tax. We're going to read. Right. With a special tax for street lights and park lights and storm drain facilities, does this mean the ownership will be retained by the developer? Because normally some developments this the homeless association continues to maintain the streets and other infrastructure. Is this, these are going to be city-owned facilities now or are they going to be continued beyond by the developer and the assessment covers them ongoing maintenance costs and so forth? Yeah good question just to clarify so the streets will be public streets and wall-owned streets lights will also maintain all those what will be owned by the by the H.O.I. is really the basin. Even the landscaping issue said that. Yeah, so the landscaping, there's two portions, right? There's the intract, which is what you see in front of homes. If it's within the public right away, which actually in this project, you don't have any, I guess, curb adjacent improvements That will be maintained by the property owner the HOA will actually maintain Along the project frontage so you have baseline. You have some landscape in there That's public right away, but it'll be maintained by the HOA Just to clarify in my mind the revenues from these special assessments, A and B areas, will that provide funding to the city to maintain the streets and the street lights and stuff? So the plan is that they will be paying to help maintain this stuff? That's correct. So special tax A will be, I guess, assessed B is the what we call the dormancy. Yeah, so that's not being assessed unless we need to in that later time. And you know the hope is that the HOA will do their job maintaining and we won't have to enact that. So for example the storm drain facilities, the money will be collected, put in an account when repairs need be done. The city will take care of that. That's correct. And the same applies to the streets and the street lights and all those things. So hopefully this development will pay for the maintenance that infrastructure within the project. That's correct. Okay. And if I might met a mayor also, there is a maximum of 6%, and a minimum of 2% escalation of those amounts. Thank you. Do we have a motion? Almost half report. Okay. I'll second. We have a motion from John Timmer and a second from Anne Alley. All those in favor? All right. Any opposed? favor? In the opposed. Okay. Okay. No, for the record we have the one proposition. Okay, we'll move to item 18. And until is the resolution number one? Sorry. Mayor? Yes. Mayor, can I interrupt for a minute? There's an issue I'd like to bring up and before we get into the city managers report and other things, something, in fact, the fire chief briefly talked about the issue that's gonna be facing our city. And that is flooding into brief flows and mud flows. Anyone who has lived in Highland or in other areas knows what happens after the fires. They call it specifically the flood, the fire flood sequence. There's no relationship in the sense, but one follows the other. So we can anticipate in Highland this winter we will have probably significant water flows, mud flows and debris flows coming out of the mountains after the fire. We have five major drainage in Highland, City Creek being a large one, Cook Creek, Bloodsoe drainage system, Oak Creek and Plunge Creek. Some of them are maintained and owned by the County flood control others are owned by the city. However, what I'm looking at is or I'm proposing assing City Council to support that we start looking at the potential for these issues and I would recommend that public works work with staff, engineering and gym staff to look at what we put in place after the old fire because we all remember what happened with the fatality and the bridge washing out and palm washing out and all the other issues that we had. I would like to be proactive and do put some effort into planning before the rain starts and start talking about it because that's only two months away, winter starting. So I'd recommend that public works, work with staffs, engineering and the street crews and so forth. Looking at what we have in place, looking at what we can do because I think this the runoff in city creek specifically and plunge creek are going to be more significant in the old fire because much more area burned and a burned hotter and some of the upper reaches up there running spring so that whole watershed drainage that flows into city creek is going to think I is going to have some significant flows. And last time we had logs 2 and 3, 4 feet in diameter come flowing down and over the bridge. And then we had the fatalities associated with that. I would like to ask the mayor to authorize staff and the public works committee to start looking at this. And another component, we need to look at some of the equipment we have and look at the things we need to purchase in advance. So we have them in place that we don't run around at the last minute. I know in the past we've put K-rail and stuff along Highland Avenue where cook read flow down, we had three and four feet of mud across Highland Avenue which flowed into that project south of that and we left that there all this time knowing this is going to happen. And the same thing on baseline for example we have barricades preposition on both sides of city creek so if it happens we can close it down real quickly. And a part of the review would be of what we've done, how we can do it, what we can anticipate is a special equipment we need to buy or have agreements with vendors on certain things pre-predeense and we don't have to do it all the last minutes so that would be my recommendation. We'd be proactive to this issue. Look at what we can do to help minimize because we know it's coming what can we do to minimize the impacts on the citizens of Highland thank you so with that being said can I we can't add this because it's not on the agenda but can I give staff direction to put on the agenda to possibly create a subcommittee? No, it's already I'm saying we put it to the public works committee it already deals with the West. Don't we have to? No, we can just get committee. I think if the committee already exists we can just provide direction to the city manager to have this on a future agenda item of the public works. Of the public works. Subcommittee. Correct. So many. Correct. Thank you. And I think that's the direction that is, yes. Thank you. Any further? There is some urgency with this process. Also, we can't wait till it's not doing this in November. We need to start putting effort. I know staff as busy as can be. I want City Council to be aware that we may have to change some priorities on this is a higher priority than maintaining some brushes or bushes or Cleaning up some some sidewalks and so this is a higher priority. I think it's gonna be a significant event this year that we have coming out of those mountains Absolutely Thanks for bringing that up John and before we move on the resolution number needed to be read into the record. Item number 16. Resolution number 2024, 042. Did I move along too fast so you couldn't give that resolution? How you interrupted the process, please. Okay, thank you. Good cauldron and I know you've been out there driving the streets and looking at everything. So in fact I went and looked at these valley water tanks up on the hills and said oh they come through real well. They've protected well. Appreciate the fire department taking care of those water tanks. Yeah. Okay we'll move on to item 18, the City Manager's report and comment. Yeah. Thank you Mayor and City Council. So before I get into the report of the items that I wanted to share, I wanted to start by letting the council know that I will be taking action as the City's Director of Emergency Services to prepare a resolution to declare a local emergency so that we can ensure that the city's interests are protected. And so I will initiate that tomorrow. But what I would like to do is to ask that the council then ratify this through a special meeting that I'd like to call for this upcoming Thursday. So if the council is open to this request, I'd like to ask that the council provide the availability for a special meeting on Thursday to in order to again ratify that resolution to declare the local emergency here in Highland again to protect our interest. I'm available in the afternoon. The 12th? Yes, that would be this Thursday. That's because we want to make sure we have enough time to do the noticing that's required for the special meeting. How's everyone's? I could do the afternoon as well. From noon to three so you can do mornings. I can do either or it doesn't be unanimous does it? It was a lot of a quorum. Yes, lines. There's a quorum or after four I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think the after-nan would be a good time to consider. I know Jesse, you're not available, but are you available after three correct? Yeah, but it's fine. Okay. But at the council's pleasure, we'd like to schedule that meeting for Thursday. Do you have a specific time that you're looking at? Maybe three with that work? It's up to the council. We will make ourselves available to whatever. What do we work for you? Three is fine. Well, to accommodate, just see if we need to do it after three, can you do after three? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, I just, I just, so the recommendation here I'd like to make would be four o'clock if that works for the council. Yeah, we'll be fine. Four o'clock. Okay, okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you for that. So now let me get into the details and I'll try to keep this brief. Just for the council, This emergency declaration will be very important in the future if we have significant damage from water flows and so forth. If federal government declares an emergency, if we don't have this in place, it will jeopardize from them authorizing payment to compensate for those things. So this is an extremely important document at this time. Okay, let me go ahead and get into the report then that the Council normally gets out of every Council meeting. The Highland Police Department for the period of August, 3,977 calls, made 427 reports, 154 arrests, 76 citations, 343 traffic enforcement stops, 64 traffic collisions which included hidden run, hidden runs, 21 towed vehicles, and 33 transient related calls. So if the fire wasn't enough, the fire department has been busy too for the month of August, they responded to 655 calls for service, some of which included 514 medical aids, 18 traffic collisions, 14 structure fires, 10 vegetation fires and four vehicle fires. Next, I'd like to give a few updates from public works. We have another project that will begin advertising soon, and that's because we've received approval from CalTrans to advertise the Highland Regional Connector project for construction. This project will rehabilitate the pavement on various streets at the east end of the city, upgrade curb ramps, install bicycle markings and signage to provide pedestrian and bicycle connectivity to Arroyo Verde Elementary School, Highland Grove School, and Bating Middle School. The street segments for where this project's gonna be is on Orange Street from Green Spot to Tonner Drive, and on Tonner Drive from Orange Street to Glen Heather, street or Glen Heather from baseline, all the way to church street. And then the coldest sack, which is Love Street, right next to Roya Verde. So that's where these and proposed improvements would be done. Next, city staff submitted an HSIP or Highway Safety Improvement Program, federal grant application. This is a grant application, the amount of 1.7 million for safety improvements to our local traffic signal citywide system citywide These improvements include installation of a new traffic signal at Glen Heather Drive in church street right at Roya Verde Elementary School and installation of yellow reflective Backplates at various signalized intersections. So if you driven through the intersection of Palm and Fit Street, it would be that reflective that we're talking about, that reflective yellow. Applications were due yesterday. We expect to find out if our project is awarded grant by the end of this year. For the month of August, Berthick completed 147 illegal dumping work orders. And then I have one event that I wanted to comment on, and that's the blood drive at the Highland Police Station located at 26985 baseline. That'll be held on Monday, September 30th, from noon to 5 p.m. In the community development department, the planning division received an application from diversified Pacific for a proposed development of a 12 acres at the northeast corner of Green Spot, Road and Alta Vista. The proposal will include 113 single-family detatch tomes on small lots with recreational facilities. The application includes zone change request from single family zoning to plan development zoning to achieve increased density and flexibility with development standards. Finally, this is something that is hot off the press. We just got it this afternoon. We received notice that the city's annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year in June 30, 2023 was awarded the government finance officer's association certificate of achievement for excellence and financing reporting. So this is a great accomplishment for the city and I want to commend the finance department Tish for this award. And that concludes my presentation. Good job, Tish. Thank you. Good report. Thank you, Carlos. We'll move on to City Council Member Comments. No report, Mayor. I just want to say again the fire service into the law enforcement. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. We forgot to mention no houses were burned, no firefighters, no people were killed. So you guys did a fantastic job and continued to do. So Larry was just pointing out that 32,000 acres have been burned so far and only 14% containment. Yeah, right. So, um, and I just wanted to mention the Highland Senior Center's re-ground opening is on October 5th. Everyone is welcome. And are there any other announcements? Hearing none, I'm gonna do we have a closed session Okay with that I'm gonna adjourn this meeting and I'm going to Call to order our housing authority special meeting and ask for a while call. Housing Authority Chair Jesse Travis Kordoba. Housing Authority, I'm sorry, Housing Authority member, Jesse Travis Kordoba. Sorry. here. How's the authority chair, Penny Lulbrin? Here. Housing Authority Vice Chair, Mary McCallan. Here. Housing Authority Member, and Elise Alano. President, and Housing Authority Member, John Timmer. Here. Great. Business items, the approval of the minutes. Approval. We have a motion and a second. I'm going to turn this over to you, Larry. I live within a too close of a distance to be involved in this project, unfortunately. So I am going to leave the room and record the room. I'm going to leave the room. I'm going to leave the room. I'm going to leave the room. I live within a too close of a distance to be involved in this project, unfortunately. So I am going to leave the room and recruit myself. That's all yours. Thanks. So, Ken, it's your turn. All right, let's go. Good evening, councilmembers. So this item is an amendment to the ground lease and the regulatory agreement associated with Jeffery Court's senior apartments and the Lese Housing Ventures one. So Housing Ventures partnered with the city's redevelopment agency in 1998 to finance and to construct Jeff Record. They are the ongoing Lessee and the manager for the past 26 years since the project was constructed. Housing Ventures approached the City's Housing Authority to request to refinance their primary loan on the project and to make available about $2.3 million that's going to be used for onsite repairs including a repyping of the unit and repair to the Fire Sprinkler system. To enable the refinancing, the Housing Authority is being asked to extend the ground lease for an additional 26 years. This is going to restart the project's initial 55 year commitment to providing affordable senior housing in Highland. The established lease rate of $120,000 a year will also continue for an additional 26 years. This is a very positive result for the city's housing element and the state will acknowledge the city's commitment to extending affordability, covenants in the community. The program documents have been reviewed by the city's consultant, TKE, and the city attorney. We have tonight with us a representative from Housing Ventures One in the audience and and we're all available to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. I'm Mark David. I'm the co-managing partner of the entity that owns the apartment complex. If you indulge me, I'll have a subject for a minute. I don't know if I can answer it. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to-managing partner of the entity that owns the apartment complex. If you indulge me, off subject for a minute, I don't live here. But listening to you all tonight is very heartwarming to see this community and how they come together and the real heart that you have. So anyway, we built this project 26 years ago. We hope that we've been good partners to the city, providing affordable housing for seniors all these years. As is the case with property, it deteriorates over time. We've done all we could within the cash flow that we have to maintain it. But unfortunately, we're the victims of a piping problem that's caused by a flaw from the manufacturer and this is a nationwide problem and it just overwhelmed our ability to fix it without financing and our lender required that the lease be extended to give us that financing and it'll benefit the the residents so that everything's fixed and new and the fire sprinklers which which of course is very important. And also we've agreed to continue to maintain the property as affordable for an additional 20 some years, like 26. 26 years. So I'm here for any questions you might have. Thank you. One question I have is we get a lot of complaints about people living there that shouldn't be living there. What are you doing about that? I'm not sure exactly the nature of those complaints we follow the law in terms of age and eligibility to rent. We follow the federal law. I think most of it may be seniors have grandchildren or children living with them. So I'm not an expert on the federal laws that relates to this, but my understanding is that if someone in the unit is 55 and older, they have the right to have younger people live with them. And again, I'm not an expert, but that's my understanding. And I'm sure your city attorney or something would be more of an expert, but that's what I understand. Any other comments or questions of the applicant? Go ahead, John. Just a finance question. Sure. Sorry. Just a financial question. It says you currently have three secure loans. And this new loan you're looking at getting is going to pay down those three loans. So you'll have one loan left or was this just a wrap around all to bring all the loans together? So one of the loans is to the city, which we continue to pay off in addition to the lease fee, so that will be in place. And then the other loan is, it's actually technically bonds because this is an affordable housing project and the lender who credit enhances those bonds has given us a letter of intent to increase the amount and that's money will be used as I mentioned earlier. Another question, please. This is a public hearing. I'll open the public hearing and I don't have any speaker the other questions. This is a public hearing. I don't have any speaker slips but is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak either for or against this project. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the council for discussion and action. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Mark that for zero with one abstention. City council resolution number 2020403 and housing authority resolution number 2024-002. Very good. Well we can go ahead as Mayor Lohburn returns we do have some announcements. One is John Baker we want a closing memory of John Baker, violence contract building in Spectu. Also in honor of Bill and here, US Air Force veteran served in Korean War and Vietnam War and the American Legion member. I'll say the American War of Independence. And Sarah Culpepper, who's another of the Director of Missions Although you see the American War of Independence. And Sarah Culpepper, who's another of the director of missions for a man-upad is church. And Jim Stark, who is also a member, a long time member of the church, and we want to close a memory of those four people with that. I'll turn it over to the mayor. Okay. I guess with that we are going to adjourn.