The City Council brought back a veterans' job-training deal on Tuesday two weeks after city staff pulled it from the agenda over a data center provision that has since been scrapped.
The council voted 4-0 — with three abstentions from Council members Clarissa Cervantes, Philip Falcone and Luis Hernandez — to approve an agreement with the Institute for Veterans & Emerging Technology Skills (iVETS) and StemWorx Inc. to train veterans and other Riverside residents for careers in fields like quantum computing, AI, robotics and semiconductors.
The original proposal included a second phase that would have explored building a data center in Riverside, run by StemWorx and staffed by veterans.
Staff pulled that item from the Aug. 11 agenda in response to council discussion and comments received after the Economic Development Committee reviewed the proposal in June, CEDD Director Miranda Evans told the council Tuesday.
The agreement still lists broader "emerging technology" fields the training program will cover, including AI and large language models, smart cities, fusion energy, drones, autonomous systems and advanced manufacturing — but Evans said Tuesday's vote doesn't approve any construction, infrastructure or land use changes.
Cervantes asked to pull the item for discussion, saying she still supports the veterans' training piece but wanted more clarity on how references to AI, drones and autonomous systems might change as the partnership grows.
"I'm going to personally abstain until we could see what other future items that we have coming from some council members around data centers and how that could impact Riverside and our constituents," Cervantes said, adding she still had "a little apprehension" about how drone and autonomous-systems technology is being used by law enforcement and other groups.
Falcone also abstained; he has been drafting a citywide data center ban that predates the iVETS proposal but picked up urgency after the project's original data center phase became public. He said that "there's too many things happening simultaneously" and called the timing of Tuesday's vote "bad."
Ward 3 Councilmember Steven Robillard, who chairs the Economic Development Committee, made the motion to approve the deal, seconded by Ward 4 Councilmember Chuck Conder. Robillard pushed back on framing the proposal as tied to a large-scale data center, noting the city already runs server rooms in its own buildings, and said the agreement is limited to the training piece.
"This MOU as it stands, which is phase one, it's not opening the door to anything that's scary," Robillard said. "It's just getting people the workforce training that they need in a changing economy."
Evans said the city's separate Land Use Committee conversation on data centers is expected in September, but that discussion is unrelated to Tuesday's vote. Falcone's proposed data center ban is tentatively set to reach the same committee Sept. 14, and any future data center proposal tied to the iVETS partnership would need separate council approval.
