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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Written CommentsRECEIVED AFTER AGENDA PRINTED OCTOBER 24, 2017 October 24, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( jimmosher(c)yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item 1. Minutes for the September 26, 2017 City Council Meeting The passages shown in italics below are from the draft minutes with suggested corrections indicated in c4r°�=:t underline format. The page numbers refer to Volume 63. Page 371: Item SS2, paragraph 2, starting at line 8: "..., were involved in the ma4rrrake-he!u make - whole call decision, Ms. McCraner and himself were in the pricing room in Irvine, and Ms. McCraner called former Mayor Curry and City Manager Kiff from the pricing room. He reported that PIMCO pseel offered to purchase a portion of the bonds for $70 million. He explained SB 1029 and how the underground assessment districts will likely need financing in June, what Buildin Build America Bonds (BABs) subsidy is,..." Page 371: last sentence: "If given the opportunity, Finance Director Matusiewicz indicated he would have continued with the Make -hole► make -whole call, but would have negotiated a better out clause." Page 373: Item SS2, paragraph 3: "Kelsey Brewer, ACC -AG Association of California Cities - Oran_ge County Policy Manager, reported that the ACC -OC developed a model drone ordinance that was reviewed by the FAA to assist cities in dealing with preemption issues." Page 375: last paragraph: "Jim Mosher requested the minutes be amended as he suggested in his correspondence (Item 1)." My comment was more specifically a request that the Council agree to amend the draft minutes of the September 26, 2017, meeting to include mention of Allan Beek's comment complimenting the City on its transition to LED street lighting, which I thought had been inadvertently omitted. Since Mr. Beek's comment is absent from the approved minutes signed by the Mayor, it appears the City Clerk took the Council's lack of response to my comment as a decision NOT to mention Mr. Beek's comment in the minutes. Whatever the reason, I believe that if the Council has the discretion to omit from the minutes any mention of testimony presented to it, even after the omission has been pointed out to it, that creates serious and reasonable doubt about the credibility of the Council's minutes in general. Without reviewing every minute of the video, I, for one, could easily miss something that is not mentioned. Mr. Beek's comment just happened to be exceptionally memorable, and its absence exceptionally inexplicable since it was complimentary to the City and the Council. Page 378: Item 4, paragraph 3: "Jim Mosher pointed out the 457 Health Savings Plan was adopted by the City Council and a portion of it uses taxpayer contributions, and believed the City Manager's authorities should be made clearer." [I actually said I thought the Deferred Compensation Plan (the "457" one) did NOT involve the Council or taxpayer dollars, but the Health Plan DID.] October 24, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 5 Page 378: Item XVII ("Public Comments on Non -Agenda Items"): The format (here and at the bottom of page 373) of creating a summary of all comments made regarding the proposed Corona del Mar High School Sports Complex, and listing who spoke, but not who said what, was occasionally used by City Clerks many years ago but is atypical of recent minutes. It is good that at least the names and the video will be preserved so those interested in their specific comments can find them there. Item 3. Resolution Affirming the City Manager's Authority to Administer and Manage the City's Employee Deferred Compensation and Health Savings Plans and Authority to Sign Related Contracts The discussion of "Funding Requirements" on staff report page 3-1 (and the previous staff report as shown on page 3-8) is inscrutable in as much as the first sentence assures the public "[p]articipating employees make all contributions" into the plans, while the third sentence says "[t]here are sufficient funds budgeted for the City's portion of the annual contribution" to the plan contractors. One might reasonably ask: is there a City contribution or is there not? And if there is, where is it budgeted? Item 4. Adopt a Resolution Supporting an Application by the City of Irvine for the OCTA Measure M2 Regional Traffic Signal Synchronization Program for the Culver Drive - Bonita Canyon Drive Project The title of the resolution (staff report page 4-3) is missing a comma after "CALIFORNIA." The map on staff report page 4-5 confusingly shades the triangle of land between MacArthur Blvd., Bonita Canyon Dr. and the (unlabeled) 73 Tollway as part of Irvine, and hence makes it appear four of the six intersections in question are either in Irvine or on the border. I believe this triangle of land is part of Newport Beach and the intersections are entirely within our city. Item 5. Resolution Authorizing CalRecycle Rubberized Pavement Grant Program Application The noticing of this item seems very problematic to me. The casual reader of the agenda would assume from the above caption, set in bold type, that the requested action is confined to something having to do with grants for rubberized pavement. Only after reading the fine print of the title of the proposed resolution in recommended action (b) — only a portion of which title is printed in the agenda — does one discover it isn't just about rubberized pavement, but a rather a request to authorize someone to pursue all possible grants from CalRecyle. And only after reading the actual resolution does one learn that the person being authorized is the City Manager, that the authorization will continue for five years and that the resolution doesn't even mention rubberized pavement. October 24, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 5 All this may be well and good, as there may be other CalRecyle grants we might wish to pursue in the next five years, but the noticing is certainly misleading, as is the failure of the staff report to suggest the resolution in any way goes beyond an application for rubberized pavement. Beyond this, the report does not explain why staff expects the City's FY2017-8 rubberized pavement request to be limited to $254,000, and I believe page 5-2 was intended to say "The purpose of the Program is to promote markets for RAC products with crumb rubber derived from California -generated waste tires and divert tires to from the landfill." Finally, I believe that in addition to diverting used tires from landfills, it is hoped that rubberized pavement will reduce road noise. In that regard, the portion of Irvine Avenue adjacent to my home was recently resurfaced with what I understood to be rubberized pavement. All I can say is the difference in tire noise, if there is any, is appreciated, but it is certainly not dramatic. Item 6. Bonita Creek Sports Park Pickleball Courts - Notice of Completion for Contract No. 8130-2 (Project No. 17P12) By chance, I happened to pass by the recently completed pickleball facility on October 11, a Wednesday, at roughly 4:30 in the afternoon. The courts were open and are beautiful. I observed six people using the adjacent basketball court, four people enjoying the adjacent play equipment, three practicing kicks on the closest soccer field and two at the nearby tennis courts. Despite this new sport's popularity and the claimed overwhelming demand for facilities, I observed zero people using the pickleball courts. Item 8. Corporation Yards Painting Project - Award of Contract No. 7153-1 (18F02) $1 million (the "engineer's estimate") sounds like a lot of painting. Is it safe to assume the bid amounts are not just for labor, but include the cost of the paints and sealants to be applied? And if so, did the City set standards for the quality of the materials to be used? Or did variations in that contribute to the variation in bid amounts? Item 9. Approval of Purchase of BlueTOAD Bluetooth Traffic Monitoring System This is one of two items for which the City Council and public are scheduled to hear an explanation at an afternoon study session, followed by approval of a pre-set action, deemed so "routine" and non -controversial as to warrant placement on the evening consent calendar. One might think that if the study session is truly for study, a longer time would be needed to digest what is heard and discussed there, with the possibility it might result in a different conclusion. October 24, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 5 Item 10. Marina Management Services - Amendment to Agreement with Basin Marine and Budget Amendment The new "Harbor Operations Division" appears to have been created, with no clear statement of its function, through approval, on June 13, 2017, of the Budget Detail providing funding for it within the Public Works Department. This method of creating new divisions may not be inconsistent with NBMC Chapter 2.12 on "Administrative Departments," but I'm not sure it's consistent with the more important Section 601 of the City Charter. The idea of the Charter appears to be that the City Council completely controls the structure of the City's administrative service through its public actions, and then chooses a City Manager to independently run that structure, consistent with rules established by the Council. Per Section 601, it appears that "departments, divisions, offices and agencies" not set forth in the Charter are to be created, consolidated, altered and abolished by ordinance. Resolutions (such as that adopting the budget) are to be used at most to assign "additional functions or duties." Adding funding to a division that has not yet been formally created or assigned duties in conformance with the City Charter seems a bit strange. But then it's not clear (at least to me) which ordinance created any of the many divisions within the departments set forth in NMBC Chapter 2.12. However the above may be, the prediction near the end of the staff report that the slip rentals "will soon achieve full cost recovery' seems a bit optimistic. The projected revenue for FY2018 appears to fall $33,000 short of the cost of the new management contract, alone, and I would assume there are other expenses. While they revenue has grown, that for FY2016 was understandably low because Marina Park was only open for half the fiscal year, and the growth from FY2017 to that projected in FY2018 is less than $17,000. Filling even the $33,000 gap at that rate may take a couple more years. It might have been helpful for the staff report to identify what other costs, if any, the City incurs in connection with the slip rentals. In addition it appears more than the term and dollar amount of the current contract (C-6333) are being amended, as there seem to be new "Staffing" and "Scope of Services" sections. Of those, the "Scope of Services" appears to be an addition, while "Staffing" appears to be a change. Especially with regard to the latter, it would have been helpful to provide a redline highlighting what the changes are (I am unable to find any explanation in the staff report). Item 11. Planning Commission Agenda for the October 19, 2017 Meeting The Planning Commission Action Report indicates that as Item 2 the Commission approved a Conditional Use Permit that "runs with the land" allowing the rental of a portion of the Newport Dunes parking lot along Back Bay Drive to be used for employee parking for a car dealership on PCH. October 24, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 5 That approval is doubly strange. First because it was not evident the true owner of the land — the County of Orange — had been consulted as to whether they wanted to allow such a use on their land. Second because the issuance of the CUP required a finding that the requested use was consistent with the City's General Plan. Under our General Plan, the designated use of the Dunes land — which is a County park operated by a tenant under a long-term contract — is "Parks and Recreation." Rental of a part of that land for parking by needy non -park -related businesses elsewhere in the city, with no parks and recreation component to the use at all, is clearly not consistent with the "Parks and Recreation" designation. The theory seems to be that if the full extent of the acreage of a property is not needed to a provide the use allowed by the General Plan, then the unneeded acreage can be used for any purpose the owner desires as long as the Planning Commission is able to find that use "compatible" (i.e., doesn't materially interfere) with the designated use. Thus we have uses with no marine -related component on land designated for marine commercial use. And non -park -related commercial parking in a public park. I do not personally think CUP's were ever intended as a mechanism for allowing uses not allowed by the General Plan. Item 12. Appointments to the Aviation Committee The Aviation Committee has long been a strange bird, with its lifetime appointments of citizen members, including both a "representative" and an "alternate" from each district, as well as representatives from three interest groups provided by them without Council action and with no certainty who they may be at any particular moment. Having the City Attorney as a voting decision maker is also quite unusual. The Committee meets (on the rare occasions that it's met in recent years) with no rules I am aware of, and since both the "representative" and the "alternate" frequently sit at the table, it has never been clear if they both vote, or what. Item 13. Balboa Peninsula Pedestrian Crossing Study This is noticed as a "Balboa Peninsula" study, but it seems more of a "Balboa Boulevard" study, with no clear explanation of why crossings not on Balboa Boulevard were not deemed worthy of study or improvement. Even then, from Attachment A, someone has a peculiar idea of where Balboa Boulevard, and its crosswalks, are, strangely depicting much of it as meandering close to the surf line on our City's sandy beach. This is the second of two items scheduled for a study session followed by the Council directing staff to implement an already prepared set of recommendations on the Consent Calendar. While it is true the Council could choose not to approve the recommendations, or alter them, having the final decision on the same night's Consent Calendar suggests an expectation that what happens at the study session will have little influence on anything.