rialtonow

Hello Rialto Now readers hope everyone is doing well as we close out September and move into October. Our last council meeting had some high points and low points. First let’s start with the high points.

High points came in the beginning of the meeting when Rialto PD displayed the Rialto PD Breast Cancer patch that officers will be sporting on both their shoulders. The design and implementation of this patch was funded from donated work and money meaning no tax payer money was used for this program. You can buy one of these patches for yourself and the proceeds go to a charity called Michelle’s Place http://www.michellesplace.org a Breast Cancer Resource Center. Find the Pictures below for an example of the patch and how you can purchase your patch.

Another high point was the celebration of a well-known business and their 30 years in operation here in Rialto. Brothers Pizza is the best pizza joint around and that has to be attributed to the details that Maria and her staff put into every meal they produce. Brother’s pizza may have moved around the city having three different store fronts in 30 years but they never left Rialto. Below is a picture of Maria at the meeting next time you’re in congratulating them on all their success.

Now onto the Low Points, it began with TAB 1 when on the face it looked like the city was allocating money to a street widening project harmless right? Wrong TAB 1 was a attempt to take money from existing projects to funnel those monies into the Bud Bender Park rehab project. The money grabs consisted of:

• Taking money from the painting of the community center project.
• Taking money already allocated from CBG monies for the Maple street widening project.
• Money left over from a community block grant that didn’t meet the council’s targeted goals for this year.

Councilman Joe Baca Jr. appeared to be the driving force behind this money shuffle and his colleges were not on his side. June Hayes, David Phillips & Parks & Rec Commissioner Joe Britt all spoke out on this issue. Councilman Baca kept referring back to major safety issues at the park and even stated that the park was not safe and full of criminal activity resided there. Two million dollars of CBG money has already been allocated for this project. David Phillips gave the council the live within your means speech and it worked because council moved to keep everything the way it was and look at ways to stretch the money and make the park safe. It’s just sad that we still have some that are trying to do a back door shuffle of money but it was nice to have Council Members like Shawn O’Connell & Lynn Hirtz that have the cities best in mind.

The next low point was TAB 2 which was Client First the cities IT company looking for the last year extension on their contract and to add a $14,000 a month project manager to the contract brining the third year just over $500,000 for IT services. The first issue was with the services the company was providing. This was in reference to lost content on the city website, lost emails for city officials and the complication of getting information to the general public. City council did extend their contract for the last year but didn’t take on their project manager. Instead they directed George Harris to put out an RFP and look for an outside project manager that is separate from Client First.

The last low point of the evening was city councils decision to change the Renaissance plan from a beautiful residential/retail/community center area to a big collection of Industrial buildings. So city council sold away your water company, jacked up your rates, shut down one of the last airport hubs in the region all to build more warehouse space and drown the city in truck traffic. If you would like to know what the north end of rialto will look like just drive down cherry and see what it looks like at Cherry & Valley. As it is now the trucks are unsafe they run lights and drive way to fast and it seems we are powerless to stop them. This is one low point with no upside.