HomeMy WebLinkAbout01 - Minutes - CorrespondenceApril 24, 2018, City Council Agenda Item 1 Comments
The following comments on an item 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 April 10, 2018 City Council Meeting
The passages shown in italics below are from the draft minutes with suggested corrections
indicated in s*��, out underline format. The page numbers refer to Volume 63.
Page 479, Item II: "SS2. Recognition of Eagle Scout ChandlerAirth" [note: The April 10 agenda
listed the honoree's name as "Alan Airth." "Chandler'' is apparently correct.]
Page 480, paragraph 5: "Maria Marsha Kendall, CAANP member, expressed hope that the City
will hire a national executive recruiting firm to find City Manager Kiff's replacement (Item 12)."
Page 480, paragraph before Item IV: "City Attorney Harp announced that the City Council would
adjourn to Closed Session to discuss the items as listed in the Closed Session agenda, read the
titles and announced that City Manager Kiff will be recusing himself from Items IV.A and IV.B
based on personal financial impacts." [note: Item IV.B was listed as a "Conference With Labor
Negotiator" regarding the contract with the City Manager. It is entirely natural and expected that
the City Manger would not take part in the Council's confidential conversation with their designated
negotiator (Mayor Duffield) — although in this case, it was evident from the signed contract
presented as Item 12 on the evening agenda that negotiations had already taken place, apparently
without direction from the Council as a whole. Item IV.A, on the other hand, was listed as a "Public
Employee Performance Evaluation" of "Dave Kiff, City Manager." While city councils may choose
to privately discuss their evaluation of an employee with or without the employee present for the
entire time, the idea that public employees need to recuse themselves from their own evaluations
because they have a financial interest in the outcome is highly unusual. It would seem to defeat
one of the primary purposes of the evaluation, which is to communicate with the employee and
offer suggestions for improvement — but then, this does not seem to have been a normal
performance evaluation.]
Page 481, Item E: "E. CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL" [note: On the April 10 agenda as
posted and distributed at the meeting, this was listed as "E. CONFERENCE WITH LABOR
NEGOTIATORS" but the topic was verbally announced by the City Attorney in the form shown in
the minutes.]
Page 485, last paragraph: "Tim Stoke Ls Stoaks stated he would like City Manager Kiff to complete
his current contract and personally thanked him for a number of projects he was involved with."
Page 488, entire page: This page lists in two sets the names of the many people who spoke in
support or opposition to the staff recommendation on Item 13. Since a video of the comments is
available, I have no objection to this, but it is a reversion to an abbreviated style of minutes that
has not been used in recent years. I hope future minutes will continue the current practice of listing
the speakers in the order in which they spoke and providing at least a hint of the points each made.