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MONDAY, DECEMBER 04-DECEMBER 10, 2023
Riverside City Council finalizes deal with all-electric autonomous shuttle company By Staff
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As man faces sentence for 2020 murder, search continues for 4th suspect
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By City News Service
s a 27-year-old man convicted in the 2020 murder of a father of four in Cathedral City was set to be sentenced Friday, the Riverside County District Attorney’s office Thursday asked for the public’s help in locating the gunman who fired the fatal shots. Jose Sanchez-Casas was found guilty Oct. 18 of one felony count each of murder and shooting at a dwelling, according to court records. He was also convicted of one misdemeanor count of possessing more than 28 1/2 grams of marijuana. He was set to be sentenced at the Banning Justice Center and faces up to 15 years to life in prison, according to the District Atorney’s Office spokeswoman Brooke Beare. “That justice was served brings peace to me and our four children,” said the widow of the victim, 43-year-old Ruben Hernandez, in a statement. “It is my hope that the other suspect who has fled from authorities will soon be found.” Gabriel Hernandez, 24, of Indio — the alleged killer — has not been located and has a $1 million warrant out for his arrest, Beare said. Anyone with information on his whereabouts or related to the fatal shooting was asked to call the Cathedral City Police Department at 760-770-0300. The defendant is not related to the victim. He is charged with one felony count of murder, two of
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he City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a contract with the autonomous shuttle company Ohmio to move its international headquarters from New Zealand to Riverside and manufacture the all-electric vehicles here. The company is visiting several possible properties in Riverside for its facility, according to a statement by city spokesman Phil Pitchford. Ohmio also will move to Riverside its research and development function, test vehicles in the city and designate Riverside as its point of sale, resulting in a portion for the city of all Ohmio-generated sales tax revenue. Ohmio chose Riverside partly because the city hosts the Southern California headquarters of the California Air Resources Board, Pitchford said. Ohmio also plans to work closely with representatives from UC Riverside, the university’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology, California Baptist University, La Sierra University and the Riverside Community College District. “Riverside is emerging as a global center for clean and green technology, and Ohmio is the next step in that evolution,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in a statement. “This company provides an important building block for Riverside’s future economy.” The city will spend a maximum of $2.5 million to facilitate Ohmio’s move to Riverside, including approximately $1.5 million to lease or purchase three autonomous shuttles for testing on Riverside streets in a two-year pilot program. All-electric autonomous shuttles sell for about $300,000 to $400,000, which would generate $26,250 in sales taxes to the City for each
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New county fire station opens in North Shore
An Ohmio autonomous electric shuttle. | Photo courtesy of the city of Riverside
vehicle, Pitchford estimated. The company’s estimates call for the manufacture of 550 to 750 shuttles in the first five years, which will contribute $1.65 million to $2.25 million in sales taxes to the city. Ohmio shuttles built in Riverside “will be the first endto-end, all-electric autonomous shuttles manufactured from the ground up in the United States,” Pitchford said. “They seat eight people and have room for six more people to stand with the ability for different seating configurations. Ohmio shuttles travel up to 25 miles per hour and have never been involved in an accident.” The driverless shuttles in Riverside will be limited to specific locations and routes within the city, which officials have not yet identified, according to Pitchford.
Ohmio shuttle service will not compete with routes operated by the Riverside Transit Agency. Each shuttle will have a safety operator who can take control of the shuttle if necessary and assist passengers with getting on and off the shuttle, Pitchford added. Ohmio shuttles currently operate in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Luxembourg and New York, and the company has expansion plans for the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Finland. In Riverside, Ohmio plans to establish an “advanced manufacturing facility,” with the first locally produced vehicles slated to start rolling out next year, Pitchford said. The company expects to create seven engineering and technician jobs initially, then
expand its Riverside staff during the next three years to at least 25 jobs. “Experts estimate that every job created in advanced manufacturing spurs the creation of 2.5 jobs in other sectors needed to support advanced manufacturing, meaning more than 100 total jobs could be generated by Ohmio’s relocation to Riverside,” Pitchford said. “There is a great promise in these autonomous shuttles complementing our existing transit system by bridging gaps and improving connectivity,” Mayor Pro Tem Erin Edwards said in a statement. “Riverside has an opportunity to show the world how autonomous shuttles can improve public transportation and reduce the environmental impacts associated with travel.”
By Staff
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he first new fire station in Riverside County’s unincorporated communities in a decade went into service and opened its doors to the North Shore community in a grand opening celebration Saturday. North Shore Fire Station 41, located at 99-054 Sea View Drive, replaced the fire station that has served North Shore since 1964, according to a county statement. “The modern and energy-efficient facility will be a significant upgrade in improving conditions for the fire personnel stationed in North Shore, as well as in fire response,” officials said in a statement released in advance of the grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony that was held at 11 a.m. Saturday. “This new fire station is a state-of-the-art station for our firefighters and community,” Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said in a statement. “Our firefighters are our first responders and they take care of our communities, and we need to do our best to make sure we take care of them as well. I want to thank our Chief, and our firefighters for the good work, as well as our constituents for advocating for this effort and I appreciate my colleagues and our county staff for finding a way to build out this much-needed fire station.” The Riverside County Facilities Management Department See Fire station Page 23