Message from the Manager
May 2023
Thank you all for your hard work and for making this an aMAYzing month.
Please take a moment to review the following achievements, projects, and plans your colleagues have been working on recently.
City Clerk’s Department
AB 1234 Ethics Training and AB 1661 Sexual Harassment Training The City Clerk Services Department is responsible for ensuring that all City Council Members, Planning Commissioners, and Resident Oversight Commissioners receive certain training that is required by law.
Assembly Bill 1661 (AB 1661) is a California state law that requires all local agency officials to receive two hours of sexual harassment prevention training and education within the first six months of taking office and every two years thereafter if the agency provides a type of compensation, salary, or stipend to those officials. Barstow’s elected and appointed officials received training on May 11th.
Another required training for elected and appointed officials is Assembly Bill 1234 (AB 1234) training. AB 1234 is a California state law that requires certain local government officials to receive ethics training once every two years. The law was enacted to ensure that elected and appointed officials have a basic understanding of ethical principles, conflicts of interest, and other important topics related to the conduct of public officials. The training must cover a range of topics related to ethical conduct, such as identifying and avoiding conflicts of interest, maintaining confidentiality, and ensuring transparency in decision-making. Barstow’s elected and appointed officials received training on May 25th.
Overall, AB 1661 aims to promote a safe and respectful workplace for all employees by ensuring that supervisors receive training on how to prevent and address sexual harassment in the workplace. AB 1234 aims to promote ethical behavior among local government officials in California and to ensure that they are knowledgeable about their ethical responsibilities.
Code Compliance
Code is actively working with the two parcels on the 200 block of E Fredricks St . The understood goal is to have these completely demolished. They have sat in a dilapidated state for years. A contractor has been hired on one and is working on asbestos and Air Quality Management District (AQMD) requirements. The other is seeking to secure a contractor.
Did you know: Any advertising fliers, door-knob hangers, and trade-type newspapers that create litter are not to be randomly posted on public or private property? READ chapter 6.20.350 of the Municipal Code for more information.
Training is underway for the four (4) new Code Compliance Officers. Each officer will have an assigned beat to monitor and nurture—enforcing ordinances and cleaning up neighborhoods.
Community Developments
The Planning Department in partnership with our consultant team, Placeworks has been working on the City’s General Plan Update. April 26th was our first Town Hall meeting covering the incoming BNSF - Barstow International Gateway Project and an overview of the General Plan Update. With over 300 attendees, we are hopeful they all left with a better understanding of the General Plan Update process and how a General Plan impacts municipalities.
The Planning Department has created a General Plan Update page on our City website - General Plan Update | City of Barstow (barstowca.org) to keep staff and the public informed of where the update stands and upcoming General Plan outreach events. Though a General Plan Update is a tedious process, we want to assure we are sharing the process as it progresses.
Published along with the new web page is a General Plan survey. We encourage all staff to partake in the survey and hope you all share with other community members to do the same as all input provided is valuable to the process.
The survey link can be found here, https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BarstowGPU —Please partake and share!
Engineering
The North First Avenue Bridge Project continues with the construction of the bridge foundations, supports, and columns near the BNSF rail yard and retaining walls throughout the project corridor.
Work throughout the corridor may be loud and cause vibration at times. Please remember construction is dynamic and the schedule is weather-permitting and subject to change.
Cannabis
All current cannabis applicants that have been approved by Council are under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review. With the recommendations provided by AQMD, the staff is confident the remaining CEQA paperwork pending submittal will be processed with no additional issues. CEQA documents are prepared and ready to submit to the State, pending the remaining signed Development Agreements by applicants. Staff is also coordinating with AQMD to ensure applicants are obtaining the required permits through their agency. Inspections will be conducted in coordination with AQMD, Barstow Police Department, Building Department, and the Cannabis Division before projects are finalized and approved to open. Currently, two retail locations are in compliance and operational. Two additional retail spaces are under plan review and two are currently under construction. Out of the 24 cannabis businesses that have been approved by Council for the old Merchant Mall location, none are operational. Four of the buildings are nearing the end of construction and are close to scheduling their final inspections.
The remaining 20 buildings at the location are still in their construction phase and will not be operational in the near future.
Finance
The City of Barstow’s Finance Department is comprised of a Finance Director (currently vacant), an Administrative Services Manager (Heidy Riley), an Accountant (Gianna Peña), and four Accounting Technicians (Brenna Foster, Marisol Tolbert, Jessica Ceryan, and Ana Flores). The Finance Department is responsible for numerous recurring accounting functions, including procurement processes, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, debt management, and utility billing. Here are a few examples of the responsibilities of the Finance Department:
Preparation of the City’s annual budget, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), an annual update of the Master Fee Schedule, and other special audits and numerous annual reports.
Supporting all City Departments, assisting with Grant Management, Intergovernmental Support Agreements (IGSA), departmental budget monitoring, and City Council agenda item preparation, to name a few.
Completing biweekly payroll functions, including all required reporting to Federal, State, and retirement-related entities. In addition, processing all associated benefit-related invoices and annual functions that include employee W-2 preparation and required compensation reporting to State and Federal agencies.
Processing hundreds of account payables invoices each month, ensuring proper account coding and timely payment to vendors for goods and services that are purchased by or provided to the City.
Preparing over 800 monthly commercial and 5,000 bi-monthly residential utility bills for sewer and trash services and providing customer service to City residents related to sewer and trash billing and services. Additionally, providing customer service to hundreds of utility customers either in-person, by phone, e-mail, or via the City’s online portal. Preparation and recordation of hundreds of monthly journal entries to ensure proper posting of City revenue, including sales tax, Measure Q sales tax, property tax, grant, transient occupancy tax, and other revenues received by the City.
The Finance Department is always happy to assist City staff. Employees are encouraged to stop by anytime with questions or concerns related to any of the Finance Department’s functions.
Information Technology
The IT department continues working through the City renovations, completing Help Desk Work Orders, and handling media and audio-visual needs, while also managing multiple projects.
Kicking off in late May through June
The Police Department and IT Department will be training on the new Public Safety Suite Upgrade. The anticipated Go-Live will be in late June or early July.
Currently in work:
WWTP WiFi – Ongoing – stalled due to renovations - Anticipated completion Q2/Q3 Fire Dept - Fire Station Alerting – Ongoing Anticipated completion Q3 / Q4 IT Network Infrastructure Upgrade – Ongoing
Projects Upcoming:
Priority Dispatch - ProQA – Dispatch EMD server replacement Active Directory – Server upgrade
Exchange - Email Server upgrade
Lucity Asset Management Upgrade
On-Line Permitting Upgrade
Police Department
Sergeant Tom Lewis and Sergeant Jose Barrientos gave a presentation to Barstow High School’s CTE Criminal Justice classes. It was a great opportunity to provide the students with information and guidelines to help ensure safe and appropriate interactions with law enforcement officers.
We celebrated National Public Safety Tele communicator’s Week! We are grateful for our amazing communications team and all that they do behind the scenes to ensure the citizens of Barstow receive the highest level of service. The recruitment team attended the BCC Career Fair.
Our Special Response Team gave a presentation to the Chief’s Community Advisory Board.
We assigned two officers to our Crime Impact Team.
Officers and evidence techs participated in the Mojave XP Industry Coaching with students at Barstow High School and Central High School. Members of the department attended the National Crime Victim’s Rights Week High Desert Memorial Ceremony.
Our Barstow Police Explorers got to enjoy a trip to Universal Studios. We appreciate all of their hard work and dedication to the department!
We held interviews with Police Officers.
Public Works
The Public Works departments have been actively working on various projects. Sports Park Lower Snack bar - Staff has completed the demo of the deck to replace damaged lumber. Skanska will begin beam replacement next week.
On the 1st Overflow bridge, a vehicle had overcorrected on a left turn colliding into the pedestrian walkway.
Public Works continues efforts of removing weeds in the public right-of-way.
Blowing sand continues to be an ongoing issue due to high winds.
Public Works are clearing storm channels in preparation for summer storms.
Facility Maintenance has installed a new drinking fountain and LED lighting for the Upper Snack Bar.
Concrete was placed on the upper deck of the Sports Park. Parks reconditioned the Sports Park baseball fields.
Solid Waste
New Happenings
Hundreds of residents came out to the City’s Earth Day Celebration that was held on Saturday, April 22, 2023, at the Cora Harper Community Center from 10 am-2 pm. The event featured vendor booths, a compost giveaway, a kids’ art contest, music, and free food!
Free kitchen pails are still available to residents! The pails provide a convenient way for residents to collect food scraps in their homes and increase participation in the new green barrel program. Limit one per household, while supplies last. Residents can pick up their pails from Burrtec’s office located at 2340 W Main St from 8 am-4 pm.
In the Pipeline
A public hearing notice is being sent to property owners about the proposed solid waste rate increase. Visit www.barstowca.org/rates for more information. The hearing is scheduled for June 5, 2023, at 7 pm in the Council Chambers during the regular City Council meeting.
Burrtec’s Barstow office and operations facility will be relocating to 250 Elk Lane in the coming months. The official move-in date will be announced when confirmed.
Wastewater
The Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) had an inspection done by state regulators.
During the inspection, all compliance requirements were met, and the inspection generally went very well.
Wastewater staff performed 12 grease interceptor inspections, keeping our FOG (Fats Oil & Grease) program in compliance.
The pond pipeline project for alteration pumping of secondary un-disinfected treatment from ponds 4 and 5 is 80% complete.
Did you know the WWTP is currently at 4,114 days safe with no incidents reported? What an aMAYzing achievement!
Thank you for all of your continued hard work and dedication.
Best wishes,
Willie A. Hopkins, Jr.
City Manager