Number 1 is the proposed location of the new stop light. Number 2 is where the city is looking to extend the existing road median. MC is where the 4th Mc Donald’s will be and the GAS is the proposed location of the Food 4 Less Gas Station
Hello Rialto residents if you didn’t follow us on twitter ( http://www.twitter.com/rialtosnow ) on Tuesday night you missed a couple interesting agenda and consent calendar items. Below we have them listed out for your reading enjoyment.
Consent Calendar D. 10
So normally consent calendar items are rarely ever discussed the consent calendar is meant to approve a block of items that have minimal importance, low dollar amount or lately a way to slide an item by the public without any response from your elected officials. The only way these items are discussed in the open is if they are pulled by one member for separate consideration or a separate vote meaning someone has a issue, question or problem with any particular item.
So on this occasion there were three items pulled for separate consideration. The first two were uneventful and took minimal time D. 10 was not so easy. Councilman O Connell was the one that placed this item on the agenda and Mayor Robertson pulled the item. So what was D. 10? D. 10 was a request that council direct the clerks office to provide detail minutes versus ACTION minutes. What’s the difference? The difference is action minutes merely report the overall final vote 3-1, 4-0 ect. Over the last 6 months the Clerk has given the city ACTION minutes only. So when the Mayor was accused of giving preferred treatment to one security contractor over another. their is no record, or the funny way the money from the sale of our water company for 30 million dollars has been allocated and many other examples.
Mayor Robertson issue was that the city council was directing one elected official to do something? She went on about different branches of government and not over stepping boundries. It sounds good right council cant direct the City Clerk to do something right? Well if our City Clerk was only a City Clerk it would be that way. Our City Clerk is also a Department Head she makes a nice yearly salary department heads report to the city council and mayor as well as the city administrator. Councilman O Connell came prepared for the item to be pulled because he came with a power point that really drove the point home about why he was concerned about the ACTION minutes. There was a lot of back and forth where even the City Clerk tried to blame her lack of reporting on the moving of her offices, lowered staff and being ill. The city attorney said that the way this issue was handled was if the city had a Municipal Code directing what type of minutes were to be generated which Rialto does not have, so they fall back to state law which states that ACTION minutes were the bare minimum. The outcome was the City Attorney would draft a Municipal Code that would direct the Clerk to produce more than ACTION minutes. So this one is TO BE CONTUNIED……
Visit our twitter account and get a picture of Barbara McGee’s body language during the Councilman’s power point.
Agenda Tab 4
Welcome to Rialto the Home of Liquor Stores, Indoor Swap Meets & Mc Donald’s fast food chains. On Tuesday the City Council made this more of a reality. Apparently on the corner of Cedar & Foothill where the Verizon Store is and the empty video rental building is will now house Rialto’s 4th Mc Donald’s chain. But wait there is more that very busy and dangerous shopping center is also getting a Food 4 Less Gas Station Yay?????? But wait there is more to make matters worse the city is extending a median on Cedar North of Foothill & putting another stop light between Linden and Cedar on Foothill???????
Neighborhood Watch Liaison for the Flores Park Neighborhood Watch addressed his concerns on Tuesday that the city was spending a total of $150,000 on a project that is only going to make traffic worse not better yet Flores Park Can’t get 1 single stop sign in front of their park to slow down traffic and help the RUSD traffic guard assist the children across this dangerous street. Council Members were un moved by the pleading from the community because the new gas station and Mc Donald’s brings in revenue. So I guess street safety is only important as long as the city can make money off it. The sad part is that this new Mc Donald’s is less than 50 feet from a Head Start Pre School that is already flanked by a wienerschnitzel so much for healthy Rialto. Anyone that uses this area already knows its a mess inside the shopping center traffic wise now that the city is going to force people to turn south onto Cedar which will be further backed up by an additional light on Foothill is a recipe for a disaster.
As to Flores Park and their desire for a stop sign on Etiwanda no one on the council seemed to care. Especially Public Works Director Marcus Fuller who increased the speed limit on Etiwanda by 15 MPH from 25 MPH to 40 MPH. When asked why he stated that 80 percent of the people were speeding on the street so they increased the speed to accommodate the speeding public. There seems to be no law preventing turning our local streets into legal drag strips. Both Cactus and Cedar that run parallel to Etiwanda have speed limits of 50 MPH just 15 MPH shy of a freeway. Flores Park said the will continue to push on the issue and look into legal avenues to force the city to offer protections for our neighborhoods and community streets.
http://kec.rialto.k12.ca.us/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1391775088119
rialtonow 
Apr 22, 2014 @ 22:08:32
It is very puzzling as to why we need yet another mcdonalds in RIalto. Wouldn’t this be the fifth mcdonalds in rialto and not the fourth??
1. The mcdonalds inside the walmart
2. The mcdonalds in front of that walmart by the starbucks
3. The macdonalds on baseline and riverside
4. The mcdonalds on sycamore and foothill
5. The new proposed location
– 5 mcdonalds in a city over a little over 100,000. The city should fight to keep this location from being built, enough is enough! We should stop being subject to the corporate greed of mcdonalds in rialto. On the issue regarding the creation of the food 4 less gas station that is also an inconvenience, more traffic lights and the extending of the median call for huge problems in this area, yes we might see an increase in revenue as the council members see but at what societal cost? Auto accidents with increase traffic? An increase in loitering and panhandlers which in turn will cause a rise in petty crimes like theft? The council members who were enticed by the benefits obviously didn’t consider the cost that the citizens of rialto will incur because of these projects, again acting in self interest. Yes, some may argue that a mcdonalds is better than having that building sit empty, but is the increase in revenue really worth sacrificing the health and the safety of rialtos citizens? No way! On the gas station issue why are we going to build on land that is already developed? If want t build another gas station make use of the empty lots around foothill blvd. There are plenty there. We have great potential to make this city better but our politicians are not creative enough, they don’t think outside the box and when they do come up with a plan it accounts for their interest only, it’s simple cost-benefit analysis! public policy 101!!
UCLA student from Rialto
Apr 22, 2014 @ 22:20:18
Yes you are right this would make 5 Mc Donalds in Rialto (I never go into walmart anymore). Also I agree with everything you had to say. Rialto needs wise people making the choices of what types of businesses are allowed to fill our city. The median change will hurt the New Waba Grill going in at the old Satrbucks location on the Corner of Foothill and Cedar.