This week at City Hall

City Council

On the Consent Calendar

In today’s council meeting beginning at 1 p.m., the council members will vote to approve or deny issues on their consent calendar, including an agreement initiating the transfer of funds raised for building the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture (the Cheech).

Construction for the Cheech began on March 22 and has an expected completion date sometime in January 2022. The overall cost of rehabilitating the original Riverside Main Library into the Cheech is projected at $13.3 million.

The Riverside Art Museum (RAM), the organization taking the reins on the project, raised $2.6 million in private funding for the project costs. The city and RAM also secured two State of California grants totaling $10.7 million.

The city will not provide extra funding for the project cost.

On the Discussion Calendar

The city council will review and discuss the General Fund Transfer (GFT) and the wording of a potential amendment before sending the issue back to the Charter Review Committee.

The council will hear and review findings from a City of Riverside Community Issues Survey, which notes that two-thirds of the tested group support voter-reauthorization to approve the city’s GFT.

To ask for constituent authorization of the GFT on the November ballot, the council and Charter Review Committee will need to respond to and finalize recommendations before the August 6 deadline.

The city has transferred money from electric utility to a general fund since Riverside first established a city charter in 1907. Voters decided in the 1960s and again in the 1980s that the city could transfer 11.5 percent of the utilities’ total revenues. Today, this translates as $40 million a year transferred into the general fund, paying for services like 911 response, fire fighting teams, paramedics, police, street repairs, park upkeep and more.

Watch today’s city council meeting.