Tuesday, May 20, 2025

The council approved six spending items, all on 5-0 votes (Duhart, Spicer, Bowers, Darden, and Mayor Sharif), including $4.20M in annual lighting and landscape district assessments and $913,641 in sewer service charges for FY2025/2026 — both recurring levies collected via the county property tax roll — a $2.73M contract with HASA Inc. for chlorine chemicals structured across four line items ($1.14M, $681,711, $681,711, and $227,237), a $200,000 purchase order for fleet gasoline from Jankovich, SC Fuels and Wood Oil, and a $320,760 contract with Clinical Laboratory of San Bernardino Inc. for water sample testing. Three speakers addressed the lighting assessment public hearing and four spoke during the sewer public hearing, with multiple residents questioning whether the recurring $54 annual sewer charge constitutes double-taxation given the city's outstanding 2009 sewer bond; no public comment was taken during the votes on items 11 through 13, though during the general comment period one resident questioned whether the chlorine purchase served pools and another asked what information residents receive from water sample results. Two vendor patterns were flagged: HASA Inc. accounts for all four line items under a single agenda item totaling $2.73M, and Clinical Laboratory of San Bernardino Inc. has three of its four payments structured below $100,000 — $80,190, $80,190, and $26,730, summing to $187,110 of the $320,760 total — identified in the structured agenda as a possible split payment. The meeting's largest dollar figure, $300.64M, is the city's investment portfolio balance reported by the city treasurer, not a spending decision; the $2.74M mentioned represents interest earned during the third quarter of FY2025, not an expenditure.