Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout0 - Public CommentsSuggested Council Goals for 2013 In the absence of an any staff reports or other indications of what will be discussed, the following suggestions regarding items needing attention in 2013 are offered in advance of the Newport Beach City Council's January 12, 2013 Planning Session. The order is somewhat random, and the important on- going issues which I assume the Council will already be addressing have been omitted entirely. Suggestions by: Jim Mosher ( iimmosher(avahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949- 548 -6229) 1. Actively promote moving the Santa Ana / Newport Mesa Unified School District boundary in the airport area from Bristol to Campus. This part of Newport Beach is currently in the Santa Ana School District, which may seem of consequence it contains no residential uses; but residential development is planned, and in the interest of community cohesiveness it would seem important that the resident's children attend the same schools and participate in the same activities as other City of Newport Beach (CNB) residents. This is a classic case of a government problem which would seem trivial to correct, yet which is claimed to be impossibly difficult, and will definitely not happen without someone taking the initiative. Unfortunately the residents who will be impacted by this, are not there yet. The CNB Council should being taking an active role in insisting on good urban planning for the benefit of our future residents. 2. Review inequities in payment for basic municipal services. CNB currently appears to have an uneven system of paying for basic municipal services. For example, basic residential trash and sewer service for most CNB residents is an "entitlement" funded by their basic property tax levy through the General Fund; but some residents, for example those in Santa Ana Heights and the recent Emerson Island annexation, while funding the services elsewhere in the City through the same basic property tax levy, are expected to pay extra for their own trash service. Likewise, assessment districts have been formed to pay for such activities as undergrounding, that have been publicly funded elsewhere. This situation needs to be reviewed and corrected to the extent possible, and hopefully not by charging new fees for everything: the City should live within its budget and fund basic services with the existing property tax revenues. 3. Complete Local Coastal Program. This is a perennial Council goal which we never seem to make any progress towards. I am personally happy that the consistency of our planning decisions is being routinely reviewed by the Coastal Commission itself, but this is an inconvenience for many residents. It is time to do something about this. 4. Observe Robert's Rules of Order. Immediately before Council votes, the presiding officer needs to provide a clear re- statement of the motion on the floor. Audiences at CNB Council meetings are perennially uncertain about what is being voted on. "Move the recommended action" is hardly adequate for those who don't have the staff report before them. The Council also often fails to make a clear oral announcement of the items to be deliberated in Closed Session (as required by the Brown Act). 2013 Council Goal Suggestions - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 5 5. Provide instruction to Council and public on new options to respond to alleged violations of Brown Act. Government Code Section 54960.2, which was added effective January 1, provides local agencies such as CNB an option to avoid the threat of costly litigation in responding to alleged violations of the Brown Act. The public and Council need to be made aware, perhaps through a Study Session, of this change, and staff provided with a clear policy as to when this option should be used. 6. Require Council members to explain votes. Members of the public should be given the capability to require each of their seven elected representatives to explain briefly, upon request, their reasons for voting as they did on a particular issue. This would not only greatly improve "transparency," but also allow the public to make more intelligent decisions when those representatives come up for re- election. 7. Appoint a Charter Update Commission. If anything was to be learned from the 2012 effort, it is that it serves nobody's interest to wait to even start the process until three months before the due date for recommendations. In the present case, this reflected poorly on the Council and led to a botched result that 43% of the voters were uncomfortable with. We are left with a Charter that is even more difficult to understand than it was, and which staff does not follow, particularly in the financial sections. Among other possible changes, as I have repeatedly told the Aviation Committee, given the ongoing threat and /or benefit from John Wayne Airport, I think the enunciation of a clear citizens' Aviation Policy in the Charter would be helpful. If the Council is planning to make suggestions for further changes in 2014, the process needs to start in 2013. 8. Systematically review Council Policies. Council Policy D -3 tasks the City Manager with initiating a review of all Council Policies in the first quarter of each calendar year. I don't think this has happened since September, 2011, and I don't think the results at that time were carefully reviewed by either the Council or the public. I would suggest the appointment of a standing Council Committee for this purpose, with full public input. 9. Systematically review CNB Municipal Code. Although there is no formal requirement for its review, it is widely recognized that much of our Municipal Code is out - dated, contradictory or does not conform to current practice, leading to a society in which rules can be capriciously enforced or ignored. A clean -up of the code is another perennial item agreed to at goal setting sessions, but towards which progress never seems to be made. I would suggest that the above - suggested standing Council Committee could explore this task during the part of the year they are not reviewing Council Policies, again with full public input. 10. Clarify CNB policy on gifts of public funds. My understanding is that the City Attorney does not believe the California Constitutional prohibition against making gifts of public funds applies to CNB, except perhaps when acting as an agent of the state as in charging tidelands fees. If true, that means the entire City treasury could be depleted to gratify the personal wishes of an irresponsible future Council — an action that it would be too late to correct at the ballot box. A prohibition against this should be in the Charter, but short of that the City's policy should be proclaimed by ordinance so it could not easily be changed. 2013 Council Goal Suggestions - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 5 11. Review CNB contracting policies. Recent changes to the City Charter have greatly and vaguely (and I think unwisely) expanded the authority to delegate the responsibility for award and approval CNB contracts. I believe the Council needs to carefully review what is now allowed to ensure the public's money is protected with a proper level of accountability. I think a previous City Clerk's practice of affixing to each contract a cover sheet identifying how and when the person signing it received the authority to do so was a good one, but that is no longer done, and perhaps not even possible under the new scheme of automatic delegation. 12. Adopt enhanced conflict of interest policy. In November, the Council asked CNB voters to remove restrictions from the Charter which were claimed not to correctly achieve their original intent. It now seems incumbent on Council to formulate a new policy that does achieve that intent. For example, by affirming that the statewide prohibition against Council members taking an action that will personally enrich a fellow member (even if that member recuses himself) applies to CNB, even though the new Charter suggests that it does not. 13. Adopt clear policy on Council compensation. Although the recent Charter changes appear to provide an entitlement to benefits in connection with compensation for service, the level of the entitlement remains unclear. Even though the changes might affect only future Councils, the present Council needs to make that policy clear to the public. 14. Enact Charter- required ordinance defining policy for payment of demands presented to CNB. The recently enacted Charter changes deleted the sections defining the City's policy for paying and /or "registering" demands presented for payment by the City (routine bills, invoices, etc.), replacing it with a promise that those policies, unless overridden by State law, will be provided by ordinance. That ordinance needs to be formulated and adopted. 15. Adopt prevailing wage ordinance. CNB staff has apparently been negotiating contracts paying less than the prevailing wage, in defiance of statewide. The recent Vista California Supreme Court case confirmed that charter cities have the right to do this in very limited circumstances, but only if they have adopted a local law overriding the default state statute in those cases. If CNB wishes to continue to pay less than prevailing wages it needs to adopt such a policy with full public input. Charter cities are not allowed to simply ignore state law without clear laws of their own. 16. Revise Wireless Code. The City's policies regarding the siting and approval of wireless facilities (such as commercial cell sites) are generally recognized as in need of update. This process was started in 2012, but seems to have stalled. 17. Regularize annual Council Planning Sessions. I continue to fail to understand why the Council's annual planning sessions are conducted differently from normal meetings or Study Sessions. In the present case, the public was only made aware the meeting was coming some four days before the event, the agenda was posted just two days in advance, and beyond the agenda, no materials of any kind are available for the Council or public to review and comment on. The meeting itself is held at a location where the public at large is unable 2013 Council Goal Suggestions - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 5 to follow the meeting through a televised feed. It is difficult to see how this serves anyone well or leads to goals that reflect the will of the population that elected the Council. 18. Reevaluate CNB's relationship with Visit Newport Beach (VNB). The VNB organization (now "Newport Beach & Company " ?) spends millions of dollars of taxpayer money each year under contract with CNB. As a semi - public institution it has acted irresponsibly and opaquely, holding (to the best of my knowledge) no publicly open meetings for nearly year, even though such meetings are a legal requirement of its stewardship of the CNB Tourism Business Improvement District. CNB needs to ask VNB to reform itself, find another contractor, or take on its functions internally. 19. Review CNB Records Retention Policy. The CNB Records Retention Policy is, rather bizarrely, a document copyrighted by the consultant who prepared it, and which cannot be viewed other than in person in the City Clerk's office. To ensure its adequacy this policy needs to be converted to something more readily reviewable by Council and public. For example, it seems to be staff's current intention to retain the audio and video of Council meetings in perpetuity, but there is no policy guaranteeing this. Likewise, it appears (since it is not required by the Charter) agendas (as opposed to minutes) of past Council regular and closed sessions have been retained. More generally, staff does not appear to retain records of the City's many boards, commissions and committees in any systematic way, with the City Clerk normally acting as custodian only for those involving Council members only (and not even all of those). Some order has been brought to this chaos during 2012, but much more progress is needed. 20. Post audio recordings of all City meetings. As many other cities do, CNB should move to improve citizen awareness of, and ability to monitor, City meetings by adopting a policy of posting to the internet audio recordings of those meetings immediately after they occur. There may have been a time when technological constraints made this impractical, but I believe that time has passed. Such a policy would lead to better and more thorough media reports, which could then be easily verified by the public, as well as relieving the public of having to wait a month or more for summary minutes — often long after interest in the topic has waned, and not quite explaining what happened. 21. Complete and verify database transition. CNB residents are fortunate in being able to reap the benefits of staff having formerly taken the initiative to make all Council minutes, ordinances and resolutions back to 1906, and many other more recent documents, accessible to all on -line in its Alchemy database, but the Council needs to made aware that the transition from Alchemy to its successor has not been going smoothly. None of the Council ordinances or resolutions passed since mid - November have been posted (even though other departments, like Planning, still seem able to post), Alchemy is frequently "broken" (making all documents inaccessible), and its successor is not now expected to debut until at least the end of January. On behalf of CNB residents, the Council needs to stay on top of this in 2013 and verify that transparency has actually been enhanced, rather than reduced, and that the result is serving the needs of their constituents. 2013 Council Goal Suggestions - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 5 22. Wean City of consultants. I believe this suggestion, made at the 2012 Planning Session, remains valid. CNB has a highly competent staff intimately familiar with our circumstances, and, at least in my view, routinely wastes money by contracting out to consultants less familiar with our problems tasks that could be handled entirely adequately, if not better, in house. 23. Reduce number of committees. CNB is also bloated with boards, commissions and committees with confusing and overlapping roles. A small number of truly functional ones should be retained and maintained, rather than continually creating new ones. 24. Resurrect Finance Committee. The Council's Finance Committee plays a critical role by publicly reviewing financial matters in more depth than is possible at the full Council meetings, yet it has not publicly reviewed anything since September. Regular meetings need to be resumed.