If you were not aware a lot of issues have been brewing on the West Valley Water Board. From rate increases to political positioning it looks like the trouble has boiled over into ratepayers actually attending meetings and calling out into the light some issues that appear to be more serious than anyone first thought. Over the last three years there has been a series of regular rate increases that have set off a firestorm of controversy and led certain people to act in ways that now that have people questioning certain board members agendas.
Board Director Linda Gonzalez, Recently Appointed Board Director Rafael Trullio & Vice President Clifford Young are leading the charge that they are the voices of reason and will be the team to lower WVWD ratepayers rates. Current President Betty Gosney said the rates were increased to make sure that WVWD could afford to deliver water to it’s customers.
Fast forward to today and the WVWB has approved the use of PUBLIC funds to investigate current Board Member Alan Dyer on his residency and former WVWD General Manager Butch Ariza on his ability to run for the water district. Clifford Young, Linda Gonzalez and Rafael Truillo are also calling into question where Mr. Ariza’s campaign funds came from. Clifford Young, Linda Gonzalez and Rafael Truillo claim that election funds came from people who currently hold contracts with WVWD. Well if this isn’t ok then someone better tell every other political person because sadly this is all to common take the money out of politics and this won’t be an issue.
There are two sides to every story and were asking for everyone for their statements. On the residents side of things Mr. O’Connell the Author of this flyer (see above) has gone on record See Below:
“I have said numerous times and I will continue to say it, the public doesn’t trust politicians and there are reasons why. You need to earned that back.
Some of the reasons were clearly visible at the West Valley Water District Board meetings that I attended on 10/12/15-noon and 10/15/15.
The first thing I noticed was a clear lack of effective leadership, poor decision-making and a form of bullying going on.
After exiting from close session, the first thing the board did was fire their attorney by a vote of 3 to 2 (YES – Young, Gonzalez and Trujillo).
Instead of having another attorney available to step in or even closing the Special Meeting until the next regular meeting – 3 days later, the board members continued without any legal help. Normally this shouldn’t be a problem but this board kept stepping into quicksand -potentially violating the Brown act.
On at least two occasions, myself and another citizen informed the board that they were violating the Brown act. (Brown act – a law that effectively states that elected officials must do their business in public. There very strict requirements and significant penalties for failing to follow it.)
I was surprised at what they were doing, since every elected officia has to take a class that teaches the Brown act.
This flyer is based on two meetings that I recently attended at the West Valley Water District. (10/12/15, 10/15/15)
I, along with 50+ private citizens were stunned buy what we witnessed by our elected WVWD Board members. We pay to much money to see it wasted at their level. Whether it’s them spending money on things that they have no mandate or doing things in such a reckless manner as to open the district up for Financial loss. They need to be good stewards of our money.
Not all was loss. I appreciated Director Gonzalez coming down and providing snacks for the children, as well as speaking with all of us. That showed a small level of commitment to community that I respected.
What I wrote below is just a small sample of the problems facing this board. I will be starting a Facebook page to link the YouTube videos, so you can see for yourself. Shawn O’Connell”
Keep checking back as we will update you as more statements come in and to keep plugged in visit https://www.facebook.com/WVWDBoard
On Monday October 12th West Valley Water Board held a “SPECIAL” meeting to address issues that arose from the October 8th regular board meeting. We covered the “SPECIAL” meeting in a previous post to give the public a better idea of what was going to take place at noon on a Monday workday. At the meeting we saw a powder keg of emotions and Electioneering going on while the Water Board of Directors went into an early Closed Session meeting to come to an agreement to fire their current legal counsel from the firm Redwine and Sherrill and to proceed down a path of a dangerous General Public Agenda that from the talk in the crowd was ripe with violations of the Brown Act the very set of rules that dictates how elected boards are to be run and handle themselves. This meeting never made it past the first item on their public agenda.
Here are videos of people that choose to address the Water Board prior to their closed session:
The water Board legal counsel was not invited into the closed session we found out later it was because there had already been a decision to fire him and his firm possible Brown Act violation #1
The first general agenda item was listed as Appointment of Special Counsel. Many in the crowd had an issue with the vague nature of the item in question and once the public began speaking out it was more clear what this “SPECIAL COUNSEL” would be tasked to do. This special counsel was apparently going to be given marching orders to put a negative shade on two people currently running for the water board. Clifford Young the Vice President of the Board had a very angry look on his face and his comments and body language were very aggressive. I spoke on record about the costs of hiring an attorney just to sully the reputation weeks before an election of two people seeking seats on the board and asked how that was fair to the rate payers. I also spoke to Mr. Young and his aggressive posture and the message that was sending to the audience.
After I spoke Mr. Young got up and proved that he was out to cast negative shade over current Board Director Alan Dyer and Former West Valley Water District General Manager Butch Arizia who is running for one of the three seats open for this election. See the whole video below and watch it to the end where West Valley Water Board President Betty Gosney sets the record straight further showing the Vice Presidents true intentions.
Even though the attacks on Mr. Arizia were proven false still on social media the group out to take total control of the Water Board still post these types of statements:
Demwomen SbcIn December 2012 the West Valley Water District. Board members Betty Doshier Gosney Earl Tilman,Jackie Cox,Alan Dyer, Don Olinger, Approved a 75% increase on the water bills in our community Bloomington, Rialto,north Fontana south Fontana. This was during a recession that hit the community, causing hard-working people that year 2012 to now, that are losing their homes and businesses going belly up! This information is in the WVWD minutes December 2012.
You may call 909-875-1804 to get a copy of the minutes,pulled from the file these minutes dated December 20,2012 resolution 2012-23 article 21.
This meeting had about 20 local residents out asking a lot of good questions and the two words of the day were TRANSPARENCY & BROWN ACT VIOLATION. Mr. Young was affected by these mentions of the Brown Act and the potential violations that existed within the make up of the Special Meeting Agenda that he started to call out the people making the accusations and the people he was speaking too should know their Brown Act pretty well they all have had to abide by it pretty recently. These people were former Councilwoman Lynn Hirtz, Councilman Shawn O’Connell and Private Investigator Thompson all had words of caution for the board if they choose to proceed. Here is video of the rest of the board not falling in line with any more poor decisions and further Brown Act violations.
The list of potential Brown Act violations are listed here:
The meeting itself and the timing of the meeting.
The appearance of more than two Board Members meeting and deciding on the issue of firing the current legal counsel.
Putting out information at a board meeting that would harm or sully the reputation of a fellow board member or other person running for a board seat.
Calling for a vote on allowing the General Manager of the Water District to find alternate legal counsel for the Thursday regular meeting without it being on the agenda or calling the meeting a emergency meeting.
The attempt to hire a person that would only report to the board of directors.
If you look at the agenda for tomorrow little has changed except the Confidential Assistant that will report only to the Water Board has gone from a public item to a Closed Session Item.
The meeting is tomorrow at 3pm at 855 West Baseline Road it appears this one will be just as exciting as Monday.
Dollahan Elementary gets a RUSD Public safety Officer
Parents at the local school of Dollahan Elementary watched school drop off and pick up times become a major issue. The issues were wide spread out on the street Etiwanda Ave, in the City Park that is in front of the school (Flores Park) and inside the enclosed oddly shaped parking lot. We have covered numerous stories of issues that almost led to dire consequences and we fielded a lot of calls from the city, school district and police.
Well the school district has had the appropriate reaction to our pleading for more safety at this Elementary school. Monday September 28th Rialto Unified School District Public Safety Department has had a Public Safety Officer on site keeping things safer inside of the school parking lot. You may ask what has changed by adding a Public Safety Officer? Well here are the changes:
No longer do parents double and triple park bringing the traffic flow to a dead stop.
The angry pushy bus drivers no longer come into the parking lot blaring their horns.
Areas that are labeled for buses or Day Care Vans no longer have parents parking there.
Staff and District vehicles are no longer driving on the side walks while kids are preparing to leave for the day.
Parents and children are now safer inside the parking lot.
What hasn’t changed is the total disregard for parking rules in Flores Park and traffic on Etiwanda Ave where the issue of angry parents and fighting over traffic supremacy and the ZERO enforcement of traffic by the city or police. Parents still speed up and down local neighborhood streets, road rage controls Etiwanda Ave, the crossing guard is nearly taken out on a daily basis and the city should remove all of the red curb paint and handicap markings because nobody pays any attention to them and Rialto PD seems to have an issue enforcing the CVC code.
One of the latest issues that sits solely on the shoulders of the city is the sidewalks. When Marcus Fuller was the Public Works Director residents complained about the 1000’s of lifted sidewalks in the Flores Park Area. Mr. Fuller’s remedy was to grind some of those sidewalks and the others they used black asphalt to create ramps. So like everything else Mr. Fuller did in Rialto it was a halfway attempt to fix a problem and now things are worse than before. Here is why:
When the asphalt was laid down it was allowed to spill over and damage residents lawns and properties.
The asphalt didn’t fuse together correctly so it has began to fall apart and denigrate.
Since parents that don’t want to fight the traffic that the police can’t get under control they walk their kids and there has been a recent spike in people falling and injuring themselves.
With speeding up and down residential streets at an uncontrolled high, the neighborhood street that should be a safe place for kids to ride bikes and skateboards isn’t an option so the kids have been pushed onto sidewalks. The pitted and uneaven sidewalks have left local children with an increase in injuries.
Calls and conversations with the new Public Works Director Robert Eisenbeisz have left us with no solutions. The only thing Mr. Eisenbeisz has said is that “IF” measure “I” money comes in from SANBAG then we can look at Etiwanda Ave.
Normally this is where I would tell people to speak up and demand action but that doesn’t work anymore. If your not in the political favor of Mayor Robertson or the “Liberal Park Councilman” Joe Baca Jr. or the “Pay For Me To Travel One More Time Councilman” Ed Scott your not getting ANYTHING!!!! The city leadership doesn’t seem to care about the community, the brown act or just being transparent. The city and the many departments don’t do anything all they do is point the finger at someone else.
So what is ironic about this is the School District is the only party here that had an appropriate response to issues within their sphere of influence and a level of appreciation goes out to the Public Safety Department for their quick and timely response.
So yesterday we issued a story on the fact that soon we would have five McDonalds in the City of Rialto. What we found out through comments on Facebook and conversations with city staff is that it looks like the planning department is allowing the franchise owner of the McDonalds on Foothill to vacate that space and build a new location on Cedar & Foothill.
Later in the meeting Ed Scott called out the community opposition to this development stating that the city can’t dictate or block businesses that are developed on private land he stated it would put the city in a tough spot, Joe Baca Jr. also echoed this statement. These two elected officials said that if McDonalds wants to build 10 of their fast food restaurants in rialto we can’t stop them. Well both these men have Facebook pages and I challenge them to engage with the large amounts of community members who disagree with this statement. People want better food choices and if they only can find those near the Super Walmart and the new retail pad at the old airport site we will continue to depress the other parts of Rialto.
We spoke to Rob Steel Development Services Director and he said that McDonalds Corporate was the one building the new location and that they were going to allow the franchise owner from the other foothill location to move into the new building. The problem we now have is there is a old empty building that will attract homeless, vandalism and further damage the appearance of Route 66. Rob Steel said that the old McDonalds is a desirable location for businesses like Tams, Albertos and Juan Pollo. With that being said that area is becoming oversaturated with those type of food options. One thing that Robb Steal said was that the city did have some say over weather that McDonalds would be constructed there. From what we can ascertain is that they choose not to. Rialto lost a Verizon Wireless location because of this and now traffic is a nightmare.
The other development issue on tap last night was the last available pad to be developed in the In & Out Burger Center. The final pad was originally slated to host a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf plus two other small retail businesses. That changed with space constraints to just a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and then Coffee Bean saw that the city had room on the price and began asking for a series of price reductions. This boils down to the “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” syndrome. The developer saw blood in the water and was taking advantage of the situation. Well when In & Out asked to purchase the pad to create a exclusive In & Out parking area Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf just walked away. What was ironic is instead of making a sale and letting In & Out develop the parking pad it seems as though the city wants to spend the money to develop the parking pad. It looks like control is an issue here and were wondering who is going to win and at what cost to the community? It looks like we sell it to In & Out for their exclusive use or the city pays to pave it for everyone’s use.
But wait there is more…… It appears that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf wants to steal the open pad just a stones throw away from previous site. Coucilman O’Connell said last night that the pad was prime location given its location (see image below) and that he had reservations giving Coffee Bean first stab at building on that site. Councilman O’Connell wants to make sure we get the best tenant for that location and for Rialto. From the vote he was not alone the vote was 3-2 with Councilman O’Connell & Palmer voting no to give an unfair first stab to the Coffee Bean developers.
The black box indicates the location of the new development site
Print this picture or show this photo on your phone when you pay for your food to be counted.
As the construction of yet another Mc Donald’s fast food restaurant nears completion on the corner of Cedar & Foothill in Rialto we ponder the Question does Rialto need five Mc Donald’s? Now I know what your going to say Rialto doesn’t have five Mc Donald’s and I am here to tell you soon we will. Below is a map:
The red dots are the three that come up when you Google Mc Donald’s in Rialto. Baseline, Foothill & Riverside Ave all have Mc Donald’s but there is also one inside of the Walmart across the street from the Riverside Ave location so that makes four. Number five is part of multiple deals to further burden the North West Corner of Cedar & Foothill. One of our readers posted this photo saying “Do we really need another Mc Donald’s in Rialto #healthyrialto
The multiple deals that happened to further burden the poor people of Rialto was put under the heading were trying to make things safer for Rialto. Later they admitted that it had little to do with safety and a lot to do with TAXES……. When a local community member from Flores Park Neighborhood Watch asked why this development was getting a new stoplight and cement median extension the council responded Neighborhood Watch Groups don’t make money Gas Stations & Mc Donald’s do!
Tonight the Planning Commission is going to show this off as a win during their annual report, is this a win in your eyes?
Tuesday June 9th at the regular city council meeting Robert Eizenbiez and his staff laid out a confusing and hard to understand plan on how to deal with water restrictions sent down by Governor Jerry Brown. Mr. Eizenbiez a new Public Works Director to Rialto is new to his job here but not new to public service working in the largest California city to file for bankruptcy San Bernardino as an engenier and as an interim Public Works Director. City Council moved the public works presentation up to the June 9th meeting as they were waiting for over a month to hear why they should approve harsh regulations on the community of Rialto when no presentation has ever been made? Councilman O’connell said at a past meeting that he would like to see a healthy education component before they started attacking the community. Councilman Palmer wanted to see language like no watering during high winds and no watering after measureable rain for 48 hours better outlined and Councilman Scott wanted to know why we had a green lawn ordnance if we are now telling people not to water their lawns?
Very few of these questions were answered but we did learn that the city will be asking you to do their job for them and turn in your neighbors via a mobile app that could be located online. Rialto Public Works Department is touting awesome numbers in getting the message out to Rialto water customers their first workshop in March 2015 had 45 people the workshop had 70 people. Ron a local business owner who watched the meeting online said “So a city of 200,000 people an increase of 25 people shows success?” The Rialto Public Works presentation did say that people are calling about rebate programs but are saying the the rebates are too low and don’t provide enough to accomplish the goals that were set. Local marketing professionals and Political Activists say that the rebates are just there to get you to purchase new items you can’t afford. Anthony from Rialto Watch Dogs says “take the Weather based irrigation timers they only give you a $100 rebate yet a inexpensive unit that isn’t reliable will cost you $200 and that’s not including the other materials or labor to install the unit.” Even the Public Works presentation stated that rialto water customers are saying that the $350 max rebate for turf removal doesn’t do much.
Rialto Public Works Department also stated that they will be TARGETING Schools and Local Businesses in an effort to force the 28% water reduction that the Governor laid out in his latest drought plan. The public works Department Presentation says it will begin with education but they can and will levy fines of $100 to $500 for each offense in addition to monetary fines Rialto Water can install water restrictive flow device or shut off the water.
The city of Riverside has sued a state agency over water restrictions intended to combat the drought, claiming the rules are unfair because the city has ample groundwater supplies. The Southern California city argues it has been unfairly ordered to cut water use by 24 percent even though it has groundwater supplies for four years and does not rely on any imported water, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Fresno County Superior Court. Riverside, a city of 317,000 people, wants to be allowed to cut water consumption by 4 percent along with some jurisdictions in Northern California that rely on surface water supplies, the suit said. (http://abc7.com/news/riverside-sues-over-california-water-restrictions/776794/ )
Why does it appear that Riverside cares more about their residents than Rialto? Rialto’s City Attorney will attack a citizens right to FREE speech but not protect the communities right to not be unfairly attacked by over reaching legislation.
We made calls to Clarence Mansell the General Manager of Rialto Water Services & Robert Eizenbiez the Public Works Director for the City of Rialto. Calls to Rialto Water Services were not returned but Robert Eizenbiez did talk to us click here http://wp.me/p1Otmn-Da to see what he had to say.
Local people in the City of Rialto are kinda tired of rialto trying to build the plane while in mid flight. This means it seems like every project is thrown together and the community gets to suffer while they feel their way around ill conceived poorly planned ideas.
What are your thoughts on this ordinance? Comment below or email us at rialtonw@aol.com
As Bill Carroll on KFI AM 640 has been saying “when will the people of California stand up to the regulations that our government are creating” I quote Mr. Carroll because he speaks truth. California has been wasting money, water & time for years and now it’s OUR fault and we must suffer the consequences? I will agree it is our fault that we have allowed lazy people to govern us here in California. It seems like less and less people are voting here and even less people are plugged into the issues of their elected system.
Tab #2
We bring up water in this post because the City Council will be setting in place some heavy regulations and fines for people that cannot meet those regulations. What is worse is that the baseline to determine if you are a rule breaker is 2013. So if your new to Rialto are you exempt? Who will be policing and enforcing these new regulations? What about people that can’t afford to fix the problem what do they do? Attend or watch but make sure you make it clear to your elected officials where you stand on this issue.
Here we are again at the disbursement of the Community Development Block Grant funds. Once again done behind a velvet curtain of secrecy with little transparency. This is a good Tab to watch because last year a organization was pulled from the funding block at the council meeting.
Looks like we had a few commission seats open and its time to fill them. If you look on the city website you will see two seats open look on the agenda and their appears to also 10 seats open from Parks & Rec to the new Historical Commission. There was a push to allow the whole council and community take a look at the People looking for a seat on a commission and it appears in a rush to put out the info the city put out the full applications that the prospective commissioners filled out EVERYTHING. There was an attempt to black out the personal information but it wasn’t good enough I could still read the personal information for the applicants. I saw Drivers License Numbers, Expiration Dates, Personal Phone Number and even Emergency Contacts No Bueno!!!!!!!! I called City Manager Mike Story and reported what I saw and can report the applications have been removed. I called Mayor Robertson & Councilman O’Connell and neither of them were aware of this miss step. To make matters worse I was interested in a commission seat so I called the city clerks office yesterday to get more information and I was passed around for 10 mins until someone decided to TRY and answer my questions. When I asked the staff member if my application would be considered if submitted today she said she didn’t know. One of the reasons I have not applied for a seat was these seats seem to be given away as favors by elected officials now that looks more true than ever today.
This is the multi housing tab and the issue here is why are we approving new construction plans when we are in such a major drought?
Tab #12
Apparently someone spent money they were not supposed to and got caught by the city treasurer according to City Manager Mike Story. We reached out to Mr. Story today reference this tab item and he said that PEG funds are “Are funds that the city receives for the capital operations of the Rialto Network. They come from a percentage the city receives from Time Warner & ATT U Verse”. When I asked why we were paying back over $110 Thousand he said “The City Treasuer observed through his review that some of the purchases might not of been authorized FCC PEG guidelines. City Attorney reviewed the items and determined that there might be some chasrges that could have been questioned over the past three years. So it is being recommended that we transfer the amount in the staff report from the general fund and back into the PEG account.” WOW so we can wait to see who approved these purchases and what will be done to punish them for such a gross miss step.
One of the items before the board of San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) is a draft on how toll lanes would operate and how money would be collected and spent at the board’s regular meeting that starts at 10:30 a.m. on the second floor of 1170 West 3rd St. in San Bernardino.
The Board is currently looking at two plans to bring toll lanes to the 10 freeway from Pomona to Redlands and the 15 freeway from Riverside to Hesperia. The current Toll Lanes and Toll Roads in Southern California go mostly unused and empty leaving more freeway unused when traffic is already so bad. To make matters worse lets not forget the lower economic status of most Inland Empire residents so to levy a new FEE on residents seems heartless. Their is mixed reaction to the idea and it seems the crowd against Toll Lanes has the most community support but is getting snubbed by the County Board.
Bryon Thornberry said via Facebook “Toll=Tax, CA is already one of the most taxed states in the US.”
Tressy Capps one of the leaders looking to halt this idea in it’s tracks said this “I discovered the CAG meetings for the 1-10 corridor project (TOLL lanes) on the website and went to the meeting in Colton on Mar. 18, 2015 I was stunned at the lack of transparency and secretive nature of the meeting. I was told I could not videotape the meeting. They mentioned checking with their attorney, which felt like some sort of threat. I did not feel welcome at all and now doubt they have any real intention to disclose their TOLL lane plans in a meaningful way that the public can legitimately engage in. The feedback I have received when discussing the prospect of TOLL lanes with the public is overwhelmingly negative. One needs investigative skills to even begin to piece together all the pieces of this TOLL lane puzzle SANBAG has so cleverly concealed.” Here is video of Mrs. Capps being shut down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bAfY5j5tcs
Councilman Shawn O’Connell City of Rialto – Said “I was not briefed of or made aware of Toll Lanes in the Inland Empire” & “I look forward to learning more about this issue”
The problem with these meetings is people with their own pocketbooks in mind are making decisions that affect the community at large and they don’t seem to care about the communities opinion or thoughts. A group has begun a page on facebook Called TOLL FREE IE ( https://www.facebook.com/tollfreeie?fref=ts )
Tim Watkins spokesman for SANBAG said in an interview with the PE
“Carpool lanes are being considered for I-10 because that freeway is more heavily used, said SANBAG spokesman Tim Watkins. Approving the toll policies will allow the project study process to move forward, he said.
Any new lanes are years away from being built, Watkins said, adding the final environmental document likely won’t be ready until at least 2017.” http://www.pe.com/articles/lanes-763532-toll-board.html
SANBAG is represented by a large group of local leaders. The city of Rialto is represented by Mayor Deborah Robertson a list of board members are listed below:
Member Jurisdictions and Board Members – 01/26/15
President L. Dennis Michael, City of Rancho Cucamonga
Vice President Ryan McEachron, City of Victorville
Rich Kerr City of Adelanto
Curt Emick Town of Apple Valley
Julie McIntyre City of Barstow
Bill Jahn City of Big Bear Lake
Dennis Yates City of Chino
Ed Graham City of Chino Hills
Frank Navarro City of Colton
Michael Tahan City of Fontana
Darcy McNaboe City of Grand Terrace
Mike Leonard City of Hesperia
Larry McCallon City of Highland
Rhodes “Dusty” Rigsby City of Loma Linda
Paul Eaton City of Montclair
Edward Paget City of Needles
Alan Wapner City of Ontario
Jon Harrison City of Redlands
Deborah Robertson City of Rialto
R. Carey Davis City of San Bernardino
Joel Klink City of Twentynine Palms
Ray Musser City of Upland
Dick Riddell City of Yucaipa
George Huntington Town of Yucca Valley
Robert Lovingood County of San Bernardino
Janice Rutherford County of San Bernardino
James Ramos County of San Bernardino
Curt Hagman County of San Bernardino
Josie Gonzales County of San Bernardino
Ray Wolfe Executive Director, SANBAG
Basem Muallem Caltrans District 8 Ex-Officio Member
March 24th at 6pm Rialto City Council will address many issues on the nights agenda. The public will be given an opportunity to see five presentations, three more approvals for more training, discussion on Fireworks and a $500,000 giveaway. If you only attend a few Council Meetings this one will be one you don’t want to miss here is what we see are the highlights:
Presentations & Proclamations:
Out of the five items under this heading we see three that stand out.
Rialto resident Don Griggs as Assembly Member Brown’s 2015 Unsung Hero.
Cuba Sister City Presentation
Introduction of new Rialto Police Officers
There are a lot of questions over the Mayor and Councilmember Scott pushing Rialto into a position that should be left up to our Federal Government. Also it will be nice to meet the three new police officer that Rialto recently graduated from the academy.
Consent Calendar & Miscellaneous:
The Consent Calendar is the place where large amounts of money is spent, more and more people are being sent to travel all over the country on the cities dime and policy can be changes without a serious vote. Items to watch for include:
$23,213.95 for purchase of office furniture for Rialto Police Detectives.
Travel request for City Clerk Barbara McGee.
Travel request to Vegas for two planning commissioners.
The office furniture for the Rialto Police Detectives what is a problem is $67,935 is being spent from within the Miscellaneous portion of the agenda. Many times this portion is quickly approved with little oversight so unless someone catches an item that is not in line with the communities needs. The travel on the other hand is getting out of control once again. Two years ago a special audit was done to find that Rialto officials were abusing travel in regards to public funds. The two years following travel has been at a minimum and under control. Now that Ed Scott is back on council it seems every single agenda has travel requests inside. We can’t afford to fix our own water system without jacking up water rates or fix our roads but we can spend thousands to send elected officials all over the country.
Tab Items:
This is a longer meeting agenda with 12 tab items this meeting won’t be short by any means. This agenda includes a discussion of Fireworks Enforcement in the city of Rialto, a $500,00 one time giveaway, road contracts and a contract to develop an affordable housing project.
Fireworks in Rialto are out of control and for some reason the city claims to be doing more but the community never sees any results. Last year there was talk of more money and resources that were utilized to reduce illegal Firework use. Even though the police and fire departments held their heads high our community suffered. Veterans suffer from serious reactions to the popular 4th of July activity as seen here in this news story.
The addition of Safe And Sane fireworks was to replace the aerial Fireworks that can be so dangerous. So when people decide to stay home from the major aerial displays they should not have to be bombarded with fireworks falling on their heads and military grade explosives shaking their homes. Many of the people who complain year after year have the same people breaking the fireworks law each year yet police seem to not be able to get them in line. Last year the community was further insulted by the addition of a special hotline where senior citizens that could not hear you or understand you feilding calls. Police dispatch would transfer you or just hang up!!!!! The main reason they give for not being able to shut them down is we can’t prove that they have illegal fireworks because they put them away when we arrive. So how are they going to cite property owners for what they claim they can’t see?
One time $500,000 give back.
For those employees that gave and sacrificed during the tough years of Rialto recovering from the housing recession the city is going to show them that their efforts did not fall on blind eyes well almost all employees. FULL TIME employees that are not currently on probation will receive a one time bonus.
Rialto City currently has 134 part time employees & 268 full time employees that are eligible for this one time bonus of 1,838.62. If employees have been with the city for less than 1 year as a full time employee ( which means you are on probation), they would not be eligible for the bonus.
This comes from six departments (excluding the City Administrator, City Attorney, City Treasurer and City Clerk. They are Police, Fire, Development Services, Administrative and Community Services, Management Services & Public Works. City Council, City Treasurer, City Clerk, City Attorney, City Administrator and department heads will not be receiving the bonus.
Why are the Part Time employees being overlooked? We reached out to Councilman Shawn O’connell and asked this very question. His response was that the original reason to give this to full time employees is they took pay cuts, paid more towards retirement & paid more for their benefits to help the city in a hard time. What people who have not worked in todays part time environment is we have part time staff doing the work of a full time staffer. When full time staff get squeezed full time staff dumps more work on an already underpaid, under compensated part time staff member. Also Rialto part time staff are at the lowest end of the pay scale. Rialto part time staff make minimum wage and climb up a small payscale ladder very, very slowly. Many of the people we depend on the most daily are part time staff from recreation, child services and senior center staff are part time but we count on them to provide us with top notch professional service.
Road Contracts
There are two different road contracts on the agenda tonight. What makes this stand out is Monday their was a information meeting for a road contract and it appears nobody was notified until after it was already started. Proving once again Rialto is behind in notifying the community.
New affordable housing projects
TAB Seven is a request to give some select companies access and ability to build a new low income project in the city of Rialto. Watch tonight as certain people are connected to these companies that may not be illegal but they look really bad and raise some serious questions.
These are the items that stand out to us here at Rialto Now but this is in no way a complete list of the entire agenda. We encourage everyone to go to http://www.rialtoca.gov and look at the entire agenda for themselves.
On January 29th the city held a community forum on a wide range of topics that matter to Rialto. The layout was different from other forums being people were given an opportunity to vote and speak on each topic. The evening wrapped up with Mayor Robertson asking if anyone from the crowd had any additional questions. The event was simple each person was given a clicker and was able to vote with multiple choice selections then make comments afterwards.
Looking back there were no questions on the failed water deal, on the distribution of Community Development Block Grants, on City Councils performance or on how the Measure “U” money will be spent. Why? Because the Mayor and her cohorts don’t want to hear what you feel on those issues. Well we want to know how you feel on one of those questions:
I was not able to attend due to my commitment to the Communities United Meeting that was the same night in Redlands but thanks to You Tube and Mr. Felton at Rialto Network we were able to see the results here:
Thanks to Mike Story you too can make your voice be heard in this online survey and answer the same questions that the people who attended to meeting did her:
Notice how none of the regular city people even gave them all excellant. Ask people this same question now that they see travel spending out of control, taxes being wasted and corruption poking its ugly head once again.
Here nobody gave the quality of life here in Rialto an excellent this is beyond sad because when I was a kid Rialto was a great place to be and live.
Yes shopping and eating are the greatest priorities to Quality of Life here in Rialto. So what does Rialto do they shove all the eateries into one small spot creating a traffic nightmare and further frustrate Rialto residents you see our City Council isn’t happy if you’re not upset.
This result worries me because with more warehouses comes more truck traffic and trucks don’t follow the rules of the road and they do major damage to our streets that will create another fee (TAX) and punish us because they refuse to allocate the proper funds to fix our roads.
You can’t read it but sit down restaurants once again led in the voting and I guess that is fine. You can only have so many restaurants before you need other business options to feed those businesses. I don’t know about you but I will shop at Target before I ever step foot in a Walmart or even a Super Walmart. With rude shaggy staff, dirty shelves and story after story of the crime a walmart brings due to their lazy policies on Loss Prevention. Oh and don’t forget even though San Bernardino leads the IE in deadly crime and gang activity they are getting a Golden Coral Restaurant later this year. Yes a restaurant that would do well in Rialto goes to San Bernardino.
Until the city figures out how to create a sales tax base for warehouses in Rialto I agree with None of The Above. The city wants to tax the residents to death because they see us as easy marks.
Rialto is easier to work with than most other cities and recent business owners to open up shop in Rialto attest to this fact. I’m sure after the recent elected officials settle in they will change that overnight.
Yes we think you should enforce property maintenance this is a silly questions. I love how someone doesn’t want to do their job they pass it off on the community to see if they need to enforce the rules or laws.
I would like to know what the city thinks Active Adult Community Housing is? Here is what google says it is:
Active adult communities are real estate developments that offer independent, relatively maintenance-free living to residents aged 55 and over. In “age restricted” active adult communities, 80% of homeowners must be 55 and over, while “age-targeted” communities simply market to the 55+ crowd. Many of the residents continue to work part or full time, which is why the term “active adult retirement communities” is less accurate. The residents are not opposed to children (or grandchildren!) either. Rather, the 55+ component simply assumes that people at the same stage of life probably share a few leisure-time interests and pursuits.
Not surprising that the largely elderly group voting would vote this way.
Wow you mean Rialto streets need to be worked on? Well of course they do but it seems like with the balance of power shifting to the side of corruption, money shifting and lavish traveling at the cities expense. Its so bad Councilman O’Connell had to eat his words when citizens told the council that the Trash Tax would not be an addition to current money spent on roads but a way to shift road money into pet projects to pay off favors to special interests.
Once again Street Maintenance wins out but good luck getting this council to do good things that will improve our lives here in Rialto.
If the 22 people want more free community events they need to bring their friends with with them our market nights had very low turnout numbers and our city refuses to work with anyone else to help make the Market Nights more appealing. Some of the community events are awesome and some are lame the lame ones tend to be the ones where outside help is not excepted at all.
Here is Joe Baca Jr. go to place he is Mr. Parks and he was MIA. The rails to trails is underway and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more than originally planned.
I would agree ask me about dispatch and thats a whole different story.
NO I don’t feel safe in Rialto. We are holding onto a low crime rate by holding back a flood with a bed sheet. We need to bolster our staffing within the police department, get our bars under control and finally get serious about the issues of San Bernardino crime rolling into our city.
Yes our police department is in a much better place with Chief Tony Farrar at the helm. He is an approachable person, a good leader and a great cop. One of the things I like most about Chief Farrar is that he doesn’t seem like he is on a fast track to a cushy political career like others that have recently left Rialto Police Department he is busy making our police department the best it can be with the resources he is given. Even as a big PD Supporter there are times I don’t see eye to eye with the police but the command staff isn’t against sitting down and hashing it out and talking about issues. In the end sometimes we have to agree to disagree but the respect remains because they took the time to hear you out.
I would agree with the 22 people that voted on this question. My question is why do we compare ourselves to other cities when it comes to safety or a justification to raise illegal taxes on the people of Rialto? Yet when you ask them to do a simple thing like figure out how to create a sales tax base opportunity from the numerous warehouses that are being forced on the community they throw thier hands up and claim they are trying their best? Well I’m sorry your best isn’t good enough anymore. If San Bernardino can get their warehouses to pay a separate tax to the city why can’t Rialto?
I believe our fire services are great. We use our own ambulances in most cases, fire fighters are kind men and women and Chief Mat Fratus is constantly working to make Rialto Fire an innovative part of Rialto.
I do believe one thing we need is a FREE class that teaches Basic CPR & First Aide because many people have no idea what to do when a friend or family member falls ill or is the victim of an emergency.
The Fireworks Enforcement in Rialto is horrible. The people we have working the Fireworks hotline could not hear or understand the callers, hung up on the callers and did not give the community confidence that our concerns were getting through. Then you have Rialto PD Dispatchers that kept pushing you off onto the deaf fireworks hotline operators it was a major fail. We owe it to our community and veterans to work much harder to:
Eliminate the use of illegal fireworks in the city by hitting our gang areas early and then looking at places where over the years there has been a constant flow of calls for service on a house or specific street. My street is a WAR ZONE every year with illegal fires, illegal fireworks and excessive drinking and drug use. Needless to say its not a family environment on my street the first week in July.
Create a major community event like Redlands does where the entire day is dedicated to family and community with a parade and fun zone ending with a massive fireworks show. We have massive stadiums at our High Schools and we can put together a quality event that people want to attend.
The Mayor made a statement that she is fine with taking the input of 22 people most of them city employees over looking for ways to get more input from more people. I can tell you why the numbers were so low:
No sense of urgency among the elected officials to get their camps excited about spreading the word about this forum. When the council wants something from you like funds for their campaign or your vote you can’t get them out of your face.
The Mayor and her council members don’t want to hear what you have to say unless its agreeing with them. If you disagree with them in any fashion they bark at you, make fun of you or try and shut you up.
It sucks but if you want people to show up you need to entice them with food and have their children involved in the event. They could have the recreation staff have a series of group activities for kids so parents could go and if we have some of our awesome young leaders involved in the process we could begin to expose them to the process and hear what they think Rialto needs.
To end it all you have Mr. Scott slamming Fontana saying that “they (Fontana) doesn’t care” he says this at 2:02 towards the end of the meeting well maybe they are not working with us because of comments like that Mr. Scott.
We need to get involved and show the Council that Rialto cares because if we don’t we will be on the fast track to being just like San Bernardino.
rialtonow 
