The Battle of the Badges Chili Cook Off is an event that brings out our local public safety officers to show off their best cooking skills and compete for the title of best in Chili.
Well over the last few years Rialto Police have taken top honors at the yearly cook off held at National Night Out each year. Well this year the tables began to turn as there was a three way tie for 1st place one from the Rialto Police Department and two from Rialto Fire Department. Then Rialto Police took the second and third place spots.
The Battle of the Badges benefits the American Cancer Society with votes costing $3 each. This is one of the biggest parts of National Night Out which is the event that the Chili Cook Off has been a part of for the last five years. The chili is hot but the competition is hotter with both public safety agencies bringing their “A” game to represent for their agency.
When Mayor Robertson announced the first place trophy to the winners talk of where the trophy would reside showed the serious humor and competition that remains within this event. Councilman Palmer said “I voted for a number and so did City Treasurer Ed Carrillo makes sense that chili was made by a fellow Marine”
1st place winners were Cory Jung (fire) David Toupel (fire) and Andy Karol (police)
Very little change has occurred over the years on various commissions. What also hasn’t changed is the way that commissioners get paid to travel all over the state and country while not doing their duties at home. We have three major commissions that are dark this month, one that refuses to post their agenda within 72 hours of the scheduled meeting time and another that has applications and documents that have time received stamps manipulated with pen to change the date something was received.
What is worse is none of the current or former commissioners have ever undergone a background check. Earlier this summer the Mayor appointed some new commissioners and the lack of background check was brought up Councilman O’Connell spoke up at that meeting and asked why? Councilman Scott said that it was not right to ask them to undergo a background check since elected officials are not back ground checked. Councilman O’Connell said elected are vetted and that is basically the same as a background check.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a printed publication that reported these issues to us? So sad that the SB Sun ignores us all together and Rialto Record just writes puff pieces for the city. Well Rialto we are here for you doing the work others refuse to do.
***** Up dated info. We called twice and finally recived an answer to why the Utility Commission agenda was not posted until 8 am the day before the meeting. Apparently there were some last minute changes to the Agenda and staff left the agenda sitting on a desk all weekend and didn’t get it up until Monday morning. Why is this an issue? Well the Utility Commission is the commission that set the failed water deal into motion, approve your trash/water/sewer rate increases and they are big time in bed with all of the utility providers in Rialto. June Hayes the Vice Chair of the commission swoons all over the utility providers and holds each ones hands right up to the decision makers in the city. Also the Brown Act states that any commission/council or other open meeting agenda must be posted 72 hours in advance. Diane from the Engineering Department said that she didn’t get it posted until after 8 am on August 17, 2015 the meeting is on August 18th, 2015 only 34 hour notice not the 72 hour minimum required by law.
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?
One of the biggest problems with candidates with more money than they know what to do with is the pay people to place thousands of signs all over the city. The Baca family has prescribed to the election technique of the person with the most signs wins not the quality of work you do for the community. The problem with this is when you ask them why their signs are placed on private property without permission, attached to leasing signs or left up after the election to litter our city streets they say I didn’t put up the signs so I am not responsible.
Well I’m not sure about you guys but as we approach a presidential election year where here locally we will also be electing a Mayor, Two Council Members, City Clerk and other more regional elections the time is now to say candidates need to be more mindful about the placement of their signs and making sure they are removed in a timely fashion.
A large group of city officials, elected officials, community members and family gathered at the Johnson center meeting room to honor Mike Story city of Rialto City Administrator for his recognition of Mr. Story’s dedication to the community of Rialto.
Story after story was told about the Rialto Man of Distinction award recipient and they all spoke to a man of high moral character and a work ethic that never made Mr. Story feel like he was too good to help out his fellow city employee. Mayor Deborah Robertson spoke about Mr. Story and his dedication to making sure that Frisbee Park host site for the Rialto Jazz Fest be kept looking nice. Something very odd happened at this event that you would not normally see. Elected official after elected official gave Mr. Story the credit for bringing Rialto into a functional balanced budget something not all cities can say in todays climate.
As each speaker came to the podium a slide show played in the background showing Mr. Story in his various roles around Rialto. Many of the speakers spoke of Mr. Story wearing many different hats in his employment with Rialto and looking at the pictures he has worn a lot of aprons too!!!!
Mike story speaking to Greta Hodges long time Rialto resident and chair of the Friends of Rialto K9 Association.
Mike Story speaking with City Councilman Shawn O’Connell both men were smiling and having a good conversation. Councilman Shawn O’Connell spoke about Mr. Story’s character and dedication to being ethically balanced. Councilman Shawn O’Connell also spoke to Mr. Story being a person that works to make sure that city government is transparent and fair.
Mr. Story with Councilman Shawn O’Connell and Fire Chief Matt Fratus prior to the event beginning. Rialto Fire Chief Matt Fratus said he is newer to rialto but having worked in other cities under a lot of other city administrators that Mr. Story’s character makes working for the community a lot easier.
So next time your out and about say hello to Mr. Story and tell him how thankful you are that he is working so hard to make Rialto a better place to be.
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.
If you have been paying attention then you know that Mayor Robertson & Councilman Ed Scott want Rialto to have a sister city. A presentation was done on March 24th to show the council what this Cuba event would look like.
During the presentation the travel agent giving the presentation never mentioned the forming of a sister city with any city in Cuba because of the existing US policies that prohibit such an action. What the travel agent did say is that the Rialto sponsored trip to cuba would be an educational trip to learn about the food, culture and geography of Cuba. I wish I could show you that footage but the city has since taken down the video from that meeting.
I stood before our mighty elected officials and told them to just say what they really want to do. I told them especially Mayor Robertson let your yes be yes and your no be no were not stupid we will remember you lied come election day. Did anyone heed my warning? No they all stuck to the story that the sister city concept was not something anyone was actively seeking. Then I went to google and typed in Rialto Cuba Sister City and guess what I found:
Throught this interview with http://www.scpr.org Mayor Robertson speaks about a Sister City with a Cuban City. She tries to create the illusion of a cuban culture here in Rialto when most people who grew up here or lived here have never met a Cuban person connected to Rialto.
Here Mayor Robertson claims that Globus is acting on the cities behalf using the people to people program to solicit a Sister City relationship within Cuba.
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.
So apperently some of the candidates are going around town saying that thier are 2 odd front runners? Well I’m not sure which poll they are using but many of us here in Rialto have not been polled in any fashion. Needless to say it was time to put out our poll and see where our readers and fans fall on this issue.
Dont worry about your answers your information is not being stored and we are not tracking you in any way. I am just curious to see where our fans fall on this election and these 2 seats. Vote away and better yet share away!!!!!!
rialtonow 