Prior to the city council meeting on Wednesday February 6th, the appointment of the Colton City Council seat took place on Tuesday, February 5th. Colton resident, Ken Koperski, was unanimously pronounced the new third district City Councilmember. “I promise to the best of my ability to represent my citizens and work with you gentlemen,” Koperski said. Mayor Frank Navarro backed Koperski, having complete confidence he will lead the city to victory. “I’m very happy that the council supported (Koperski), he has a passion for the community and I’ll show him the ropes to the manual procedures of the office,” said Navarro.
On February 6, 2018 the city council meeting of San Bernardino was held, but it did not last long. After three San Bernardino Councilmen left the meeting, they were forced to adjourn and reconvene the following Monday, February 11th.
The meeting took a shift when Mayor John Valdivia did not support a friendly amendment made by Councilman Henry Nickel. “I would be willing to entertain the motion on the floor so long as the Chief of Staff is a position that is selected by the mayor and council collectively. That will be my substitute motion. . . Through HR correct,” stated Nickel, in response to Valdivia’s initial motion to appoint the chief of staff who is in charge of all city employees who work in the assembly. Valdivia’s response was, “So Mayor Protem I am not supportive of the substitute motion by councilman Nickel.” After the Mayor Protem respectfully declined the motion, Nickel gets up, along with councilmen Fred Shorett and Jim Mulvihill and all 3 councilmen walk out. Due to not having a complete quorum the meeting was adjourned and rescheduled without discussion of the pivotal city needs.
The meeting reconvened on Monday, February 11th, with actual discussion of the city’s needs. One of the main topics of discussion was the city’s need for new animal shelters, better care for the animals, and proper licensing revenue. The City Manager, Andrea Miller, explained about some improvements they have made to the San Bernardino Animal Shelter. “During the mean time we have made several operational changes to the shelter. We have added staff members, we have addressed some long standing faculty issues. Still a lot of work to do, but we have addressed some of the facility maintenance issues,” said Miller. The civilians also were concerned about the cost of these facilities; Captain David Green was able to provide some clarification. “We don’t have any formal estimates on what the shelter would cost. What we have done to try to arrive at an estimate is use an instrument created by the Humane Society of the United States and it’s based on intake numbers and some other variables to make an approximation. Using that instrument we came up with that $18 million figure,” stated Green. Green also talked about a long term plan to work with neighboring cities to enter in some type of joint powers arrangement, which would take a long time to plan out an execute.
James Mulvihill invited Chief Veterinarian Dr. Allen Drusys, from the Riverside County Animal Shelter, to the meeting to respond to issues pending. “Because the impound of the dogs have decreased so much we actually have capacity to absorb, in the case of Rialto, Fontana, and Colton, and if the city of San Bernardino so chooses we have the capacity to accommodate your animals as well.” Drusys mentioned that the proposal would call for five animal control officers and one sergeant to help the city.
Regarding the COPPS strategy, to provide more safety to the community, the councilmembers voted six to zero, passing the motion. As for California cities transportation, communication, and Public Works Policy, the council is waiting on a number of reports to get back to them about this to see what they actually need as far as creating new facilities for the staff. Also, to see if it is fiscally in the budget. Andrea Miller stated, “Our goal in presenting this to you this evening was really just to begin to expose you to the idea that we have serious concerns with the facilities especially that we have in the downtown core.” “I think our options that we would like to bring back to you certainly are reconstruction, are there opportunities to sell.. . we will explore that and bring that back to you so hopefully you have a whole list of options and can provide direction on those with good cost estimates and what some of those options are.”
The second to last subject of the meeting was the staffing proposals, the same topic that led to the three councilmen walking out of the previous meeting. Mayor John Valdivia expressed his disappointment, “I was disappointed in the decision of a select number of councilmembers when it became clear that there was not a majority consensus for their particular position. As I stated last week, we don’t always have to agree, but we should always show up and do our job.”
The councilmembers continued to discuss the proposals and ultimately came to a conclusion of passing it with a five to one vote, with Councilmember Fred Shorett declining the pass.