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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04a_02-20-2019 Action MinutesGP Update Steering Committee - March 6, 2019 Attachment 1 NEWPORT BEACH GENERAL PLAN UPDATE ®n A 46 Civic Center Community Room 100 Civic Center Drive GENERAL PLAN UPDATE Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - 6 p.m. STEERING COMMITTEE ACTION MINUTES I. Call Meeting to Order - 6 p.m. Chair Nancy Gardner called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. II. Welcome and Roll Call Chair Gardner welcomed attendees and announced that all Committee Members will have a City of Newport Beach email address to which the public should address any correspondence for the Committee. The following persons were in attendance: Committee Members Staff Members Nancy Gardner, Chair Seimone Jurjis, Community Development Director Ed Selich Jim Campbell, Deputy Community Development Director Debbie Stevens Ben Zdeba, Associate Planner Larry Tucker Paul Watkins III. Public Comments There were no comments on non -agenda items. IV. Current Business a) Discussion of Draft Request for Proposals for Consulting Services Recommended Action: Provide direction to staff on any changes to the draft RFP. Deputy Community Development Director Jim Campbell provided a brief overview of the makeup of the draft RFP. Community Development Director Seimone Jurjis indicated that the community has expressed interest in splitting the scope into two separate RFPs: (1) the Listen and Learn; and (2) the actual update. He asked the Committee to offer direction on that interest. 3 General Plan Update Steering Committee Meeting February 20, 2019 The Committee discussed the matter and reviewed each page of the draft RFP that was included in the agenda packet. Public comments were also taken throughout the discussion. The Committee unanimously decided to provide direction to staff to redraft the RFP to reflect the Listen and Learn component only for the next meeting. b) Steering Committee Schedule Discussion Recommended Action: Review the proposed frequency and timing of meetings. Chair Gardner acknowledged the difficulty of scheduling meetings around every conflict, but clarified that there would be no general, standing meetings in conflict with the prospective Steering Committee meeting dates. The Committee unanimously decided to keep the March 6 and March 20 meeting dates (i.e., the first and third Wednesdays of each month). V. Committee Announcements or Matters Which Members Would Like Placed on a Future Agenda for Discussion, Action or Report (Non -Discussion Item) Chairperson Gardner desired to discuss the General Plan Advisory Committee's involvement in the process at the next meeting. There were no other announcements. VI. Adjournment The meeting ended at 7:17 p.m. Next meeting date: March 6, 2019 at 6 p.m. in the Friends of the Library Room at the Central Library Page 1 2 4 General Plan Update Steering Committee - March 6, 2019 Item No. 3a. a1. and b3 Additional Materials Received March 6, 2019, GPU Steering Committee Comments These comments on Newport Beach General Plan Update Steering Committee agenda items are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( limmosher(o-)yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 Item Ill. Public Comments (non -agenda items) 1. I remain curious about the status of staff's efforts to produce a readily -accessible copy of the current General Plan. I see nothing new posted on the City website. Instead, the link to the GP on the City's GPU web page continues to go to a page with links to 73 separate PDF files constituting what it says is the 600 or so pages of the General Plan. It might be noted that every two weeks the City Clerk is able to consolidate numerous disparate documents and post them as a single electronically -indexed PDF Council agenda packet, often containing more than 1,000 pages. It does not seem like it should be difficult to do the same with the current GP. 2. To the extent they are interested in the current General Plan and the degree to which it needs revision, I hope the Committee members will track the City's Annual General Plan Status Report as it wends its way through the Planning Commission on March 7 and the City Council on March 26. The report details the City's progress in fulfilling the promises committed to in the GP's 2006 Implementation Program and the goals set forth in the current Housing Element. The Implementation Program (Chapter 13 of the GP) was itself supposed to be reviewed and updated annually. Needless to say, it has not. Item IV.a: Review Action Minutes of the February 20, 2019 Meeting I would like to suggest the following grammatical correction: Page 2, paragraph 2: "The Committee unanimously decided to provide el rovide direction to staff to redraft the RFP to reflect the Listen and Learn component only for the next meeting." I would also like to observe that action minutes of the sort being presented here provide a very bare -bones record of what happened at the meeting, particularly as to such matters as who said what. This is likely inconsistent with most people's notion of the "fully transparent" General Plan update process we have been promised. By way of comparison, during the 2000-2006 General Plan Update process, the Council's eleven -member General Plan Update Committee (the equivalent of the present Steering Committee) produced fairly extensive written minutes which, although not readily available on the City website, seem to have been preserved in the City's archives. In 2013-2014, the Land Use Element Amendment Advisory Committee (which seems to have served as both a steering and drafting body) kept more cryptic minutes, similar to these, but on the motion of Committee member Paul Watkins, they were consistently approved contingent upon the City retaining a complete audio recording as a supplement to them (see, for example, Item II from August 6, 2013). Unfortunately, those recordings do not seem to have been retained in a publicly General Plan Update Steering Committee - March 6, 2019 Item No. 3a. a1. and b3 Additional Materials Received accessible location, and it is not obvious they have been preserved at all. If they have not been, the record of what the LUEAAC discussed, and what public input it heard, is very incomplete. If the Steering Committee wishes to proceed with "action minutes," only, I would suggest there be some commitment to preserve the audio or visual recordings we have been told will be made, and that the written minutes provide a somewhat more complete indication of what may be found, and where, in those recordings. Item IV.b: Discussion of Draft Request for Proposals for Consulting Services Page 2: paragraph 1: "The summary will be a consensus perspective, but it will include all the various voices and thoughts expressed, provided the., ire Felevant and re sonab1e.01 I don't think it should be up to the consultant to decide what comments received are "relevant and reasonable." The public may well misunderstand the scope and capabilities of a general plan, but that does not mean the comments the consultant deems irrelevant or unreasonable should be ignored. Since others may disagree with that judgment, I believe they should be preserved in a separate section of the reports. paragraph 2: "The term "community" is the entire community living and working in the City, including residents, special interest groups, homeowner's associations, property owners, the business community and regulatory agencies; the term is all-inclusive." Does "community" include visitors? For decades we have supposedly had 10 million of them a year, but the RFP does not appear to include outreach to them, nor have I ever heard them referred to as an "interest group," outside of the small subset of visitors promoted by "Newport Beach and Company." Do we assume the interests of everyday visitors have been adequately addressed by our Local Coastal Program and do not need to be further considered in our General Plan? paragraph 4: "The City Council has created a 7 -8 -member ad-hoc committee called the General Plan Update Steering Committee (Steering Committee) to guide the Listen and Learn process." Isn't it 8, with the Mayor as a non-voting ex officio member? Page 3: Proposal Evaluation Criteria: Since it says it may change it may not matter, but I think I would give more weight to references from cities for which the proposer has performed similar services.