City Votes Bonuses to Public Works Staff

A sharply divided City Council voted Wednesday to give an unusual bonus of $200 to public works employees because of their safety record.

The council also unanimously rejected, at least temporarily, school board proposals to cooperatively build a 1,500-seat theater and a swimming pool.

Director of Public Works Joe Palencia, Safety Officer Tim Bowers and 30 public works employees each will receive the bonus to recognize a “truly exemplary safety record,” City Manager James Wheaton said.

For the last two years, no injury to an employee of the city’s Public Works Services Division has caused loss of time on the job, Wheaton said, saving the city about $110,000 compared to previous years.

Mayor S. R. (Al) Lopez and Councilman R. Gary Miller dissented.

“I’d like to have them all lined up here and shake their hands,” Lopez said. But all employees, the mayor said, have “an obligation to perform in the best interests of (their) employer. . . . They do get paid.”

Public works employees, as a group, face the second-greatest risk of work-related injury in a city, after public safety officers, Wheaton said.

In other action Wednesday night, the City Council declined to promise its cooperation in building a theater and swimming pool for community use at a new high school planned by the Corona-Norco Unified School District.

Council members were unanimous in attacking the Centennial High School proposals as too vague because neither broad cost estimates nor proposals for the theater’s design and use were presented to them.

“You can’t design it or fund it or share in it if you don’t know what you want,” said Bruce Kelley, a theater design consultant who recommended that the city and the schools study their needs before making decisions.

The council sent both items to the city Parks and Recreation Department for further study.

The council also held a required hearing on the city’s proposed annexation of the 420-acre Sierra del Oro planned for the hills west of the present city limits.

No property owners protested, and the council ordered the annexation. It must be registered with the Riverside County recorder by the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission before taking effect, a process that could be completed next week.