Compared to Hemet, San Jacinto City Council meetings are brief and to the point. Scheduled from 6:30 to 9:30 PM they were and finished an hour earlier. After the usual preliminaries, invocation and pledge of allegiance Tuesday night’s session was a whiz-bang affair once everybody reported in. Each council member gave reports on their various committee assignments which is routine at every council meeting. No action is required since they are not on the agenda for action.
With no public input, the meeting proceeded to item one on the agenda; the first item was Adoption of Resolution of Necessity of Acquisition of a Fee Interest in a portion of that Certain Real Property, by Eminent Domain, more particularly described as Assessor Parcel No. 437-190-006, located in the City of San Jacinto, for the Shaver Street Signal Improvement Project, in Riverside County. More aptly described as the intersection of Shave Street and San Jacinto Street. There was much discussion over the issue since the property owner has not agreed to the offering price for the property.
Every council person had something to say, one praising the other for all the efforts, and it came down to the fact that the lawyers would end up either negotiating a deal or possibly going to court. In any event, nothing was resolved except to continue looking into the matter because a stoplight was becoming more necessary every day. There was no mention of previous accidents at the site.
Onto item two: Update 4 to the Local Development Mitigation Fee for funding the preservation of natural ecosystems in accordance with the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan and LDMF Resolution, all of which sounds like Greek to the taxpayer except it means higher taxes since no fees had been increased since 2004.
They introduced an ordinance titled 21-03 that states: An ordinance of the City Council of the City of San Jacinto to update the local development mitigation fee for funding the preservation of natural ecosystems in accordance with the western Riverside County multiple species habitat conservation plan which resulted in the following: A Resolution of the City Council of the City of San Jacinto Amending the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conversation Plan Local Development Mitigation Fee Applicable To All Developments in the Plan Area, without specifying what size area that would be.
Came last, Discussion Items: Annual Financial Report, SAS 114 Report and GAS report for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2020. Staff recommends that the City Council receive and file the Annual Financial Report of the City of San Jacinto for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020, as well as the SAS 114 Report and the GAS Report.
Also, approval of awarded funding to qualified businesses for round 2 of the San Jacinto Small Business Emergency Assistance Grant Program at a cost of $52,500, authorizing the City Manager to administer the individual grants and execute all necessary documents. Finally, staff recommended and it was approved that the City Council approve and they did, awarded a contract to Kyle Groundwater for professional hydro-geological support services for the development of a new municipal water supply well to be known as “New Grand Well” for an estimated cost of $174,738.
There were no future requests from City Council Staff and the meeting was adjourned. They finished with the ABCs and Numbers of each item; the average citizen often does not understand what is being done and perhaps won’t until they get their tax bills, but then all government agencies at all levels act in the same way. As they say down home, Get used to it. Just sayin’
Rusty Strait • Senior Reporter
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