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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12 - Modifying the NBTID Management District Plan - CorrespondenceReceived After Agenda Printed July 10. 2018 Item No. 12 July 10, 2018, City Council Item 12 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 12. Resolution No. 2018-54, Modifying the Newport Beach Tourism Business Improvement District's Management District Plan This item seems of more than usual importance since the Newport Beach Tourism Business Improvement District is the City's only "1994" BID (formed under the Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994), and the Council is encouraging the City's two "1989" BID's (the Corona del Mar BID and the Newport Beach Restaurant Association BID, formed under the Parking and Business Improvement Area Law of 1989) to re-create themselves in the 1994 model. As a model of the 1994 law, the NBTBID seems a peculiar example. First, by its own declarations (as provided in California Streets and Highways Code Section 36601), the 1994 law was enacted because "Businesses located and operating within business districts in some of this state's communities are economically disadvantaged, are underutilized, and are unable to attract customers due to inadequate facilities, services, and activities in the business districts." That hardly seems the description of the hotel business in Newport Beach. Second, by its very name, the concept of a "Business Improvement District" would seem to be to aid a class of businesses within a geographic "district." But the NBTBID aids no clear underperforming district or type -- Pelican Hill, for example, being in Newport Beach and sharing the characteristics of most of the NBTBID "members," but choosing to not be part of the NBTBID; and the Island Hotel formerly choosing to not be a "member" while its neighboring hotels were. This "opt in" philosophy seems quite alien to the 1994 law, makes a mockery of the current process (the stated purpose of the three Council meetings, of which this is the last, being to see if there is a majority protest to a proposal unanimously submitted by the "members"), and seems contrary to what the 1989 BID's were told they would have to do to form a 1994 BID: namely to get at least 50% of their current involuntary members to agree to be assessed. By the NBTBID philosophy, being "in" or "out" of a 1994 BID is completely voluntary. Individual business owners of the 1989 organizations could, under that philosophy, pick and choose whether they wanted to be assessed in a 1994 BID and the City would oblige by drawing a map (like the NBTBID one) featuring a discontinuous patchwork of boundaries including just those who asked to be assessed. Third, the fact that the sole activity of the NBTBID is supporting "nonprofit" employees acting as additions to the member hotels' direct conference sales forces is surpassingly strange to me. That conflicts totally with my notions of the proper involvement of government in the private sector. And it seems unlikely to me to have ever been the intent of the 1994 law. July 10, 2018, City Council Item 12 Comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 2 Moreover, it might once again be pointed out that the Owners' Association identified in the NBTBID Management District Plan, on staff report page 12-19, and the body which per S&H Code Section 36612 is subject to the Brown Act "at all times when matters within the subject matter of the district are heard, discussed, or deliberated," and to the California Public Records Act with respect to "all records relating to activities of the district," is Visit Newport Beach, which is governed by a Board of Directors. Yet the VNB Board never meets in accordance with the Brown Act, instead, as the present staff report implies, claiming it relies on a "NBTBID committee" (appointed who knows how, but apparently decided by someone to consist of the current general managers of the "member" hotels) to oversee TBID operations. Not only is it inconceivable that the VNB Board never discusses issues within the subject matter of the district, and therefore never has to comply with the Brown Act (especially since VNB management takes every opportunity to trumpet the successes of the TBID), but there is sufficient overlap between the membership of the VNB Board and the "NBTBID committee" that whenever the full VNB Board meets it is also a meeting of a majority of the committee (and therefore needs to be noticed).