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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Written CommentsReceived After Agenda Printed January 28, 2025 Written Comments January 28, 2025, City Council Agenda Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( iimmosheraasyahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item III.A. CONFERENCE WITH REAL PROPERTY NEGOTIATORS I continue to think the City could improve transparency by disclosing why it is interested in leasing or buying properties under negotiation in closed session. It is a particular mystery to me why the City would be interested in the 1.2 acre office parcel at 3848 Campus Drive, a property facing the airport at the corner of Campus and Quail. According to the Clty's What's Going on in My Neighborhood? map, the owner is pursuing an application, PA2023-0145, to build a 78,000 square foot self -storage operation on the site. What is the City's interest in the property? If it is considering building a new fire station to serve the residential development anticipated in the Airport Area, this seems unusually close to the existing station in Santa Ana Heights. Item 1. Minutes for the January 14, 2025 City Council Meeting The passage shown in italics below is from the draft minutes with a suggested correction shown in format. The page number refers to Volume 66. Page 242, Item X, line 3: "Captain Samuel Samuel Dunn ells' discovery of the `new port" in 1870, ..." [see presentation, slide 6 Item 6. Bay Crossing Water Transmission Main and Sewer Force Main Rehabilitation — Award of Contract No. 8487-3 (16W12) The Location Map provided as Attachment A (page 6-4) is unusual in that the background image of streets is so faded that when printed it is nearly invisible, looking more like a watermark than a reference image intended for study. Item 7. Approval of Amendment No. Two to Professional Services Agreement with Corrpro Companies, Inc. for Cathodic Protection Program, Contract No. 9483-1 (24W11) This started as a staff -approved $59,855, contract C-9483-1, entered into on February 1, 2024, which, according to its preamble, was to cover an evaluation of the City's vulnerability to corrosion in its steel water transmission lines and preparation of a project that could be bid to improve it — although the contractor, in their Scope of Services and Billing Rates, seems to have understood the latter to be an extra, separately -charged task: Task 4 — Design of CP System and Repair Services ■ Fee to be Determined Based on the Required Design Effort ■ Feesfcosts to be negotiated and added, if necessary, by way of an amendment_ January 28, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 4 It has now ballooned into a $247,610 proposal based largely, it seems, on the contractor's own recommendations. Could the size of this effort (going over staff approval limits) have been anticipated at the beginning so it would have been subject to a more transparent award process, with Council approval? Or, assuming there is more than one company that does this kind of work, should this large next phase be separately bid? Item 8. Approval of Amendment No. One to Residential Solid Waste Collection & Recycling Contract (Contract No. 8823-1) with CR&R Inc. - Addition of 5% De -Escalation Maximum I understand the logic of this request, but I have a number of problems with it: 1. Since I assume CR&R is not requesting this amendment to receive less money from the City, I am completely baffled by the statement under "FISCAL IMPACT" on page 8-2 that approving this action "will lower costs to the City by approximately $436,000 for FY 2024-25 relative to last year's FY 2023-24 cost." Isn't the real question, and the fiscal impact, how much more the City will pay if the Council approves this than it would without an approval? 2. The proposed amendment, page 8-3, indicates the Council is being asked to approve a complete replacement of Attachment J to the original contract C-8823-1, but the new Attachment J is not provided in redlined format, so it is difficult for either the Council or the public to be sure exactly what changes are being made to it. 3. Far more concerning to me is the statement in the staff report, which seems to be that "This decrease would be applied retroactively to the beginning of FY 2024-25, July 1, 2024." Does this mean CR&R will be expecting a refund for services already performed, using a higher rate, re -computed using a smaller adjustment starting July 1 of last year, as if the decrease had been capped back then? While I have no problem with changing the terms "going forward," an increased payment for past services seems completely at odds with the general principle, enshrined in Article XI, Section 10(al, of the California Constitution, that entities contracting with cities are expected to provide the services they promised at the cost agreed to, and cannot demand extra compensation, not anticipated in the contract, for them. It might be noted that no system of price adjustments based on year-to-year CPI changes with arbitrarily imposed caps is ever going to be fair and equitable because, as the examples in the staff report confirm, there is not symmetry in the long term errors introduced when the actual change in a given year exceeds the caps by unpredictable amounts. If the City wanted a fairer system, it might consider setting rates each year based on the rate in the contract's start year corrected by the ratio of the true CPI (not a capped one) in the current year compared to the CPI in the contract's start year. If there is a wish to insulate both parties from unexpectedly large fluctuations, the increase or decrease in any one year could be limited to a maximum of 5%. Unless the changes are all one-sided and larger than that limit, the series January 28, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 4 of 5%, or smaller, yearly rate adjustments would eventually produce a rate in correct alignment with the contractor's true, total change in costs since the contract started.' Item 10. Approve Professional Services Agreement with Environmental Compliance Inspection Services Corp. for Grease Control Device Inspection Services As the staff report indicates, only one proposal, from the current incumbent, was received for this contract. It seems the same incumbent was also the only proposer when the existing contract was awarded as Item 7 on February 11, 2014. And that may have been the case for over 20 years (see, for example, Item 9 from November 25, 2003, and Item 4 from January 25, 2005). Is there really no competition in this field? Item 12. Lease Agreement with Basin Marine, Inc. for Use of a Portion of the Real Property and Tidelands at the Balboa Yacht Basin Located at 829 Harbor Island Drive I can partially see the justification for collecting less than fair market rent from the operator of what the City considers to be an essential service. But I am unable to see why the choice of operator would not be subject to competitive bidding. The Abstract to the staff report implies that Basin Marine has had its operation at this site since the 1940's, an assertion repeated on page 12-3 ("The Tenant has operated the Premises under various agreements since the 1940s"). However, the earliest contract, C-2490, on file with the City Clerk indicates they have been involved "only" since September 20, 1973 (as seems more correctly reflected in Recital D of the proposed lease, on page 12-7). Item 13. License Agreement with The Regents of the University of California for Operation of a Coastal Observation System at the Newport Pier Is there any relation between this and the probes producing similar information about water in the harbor, operated under the eyes of the Harbor Department? Item 14. Planning Commission Agenda for the January 23, 2025 Meeting As Item 3 on its agenda, the Commission heard an item of considerable public interest — involving allowing areas in Newport Center currently limited to 32 feet in height to go to heights ' The City instituted a similar system for the biennial adjustment of electoral campaign contribution limits with Ordinance No. 2019-19, choosing a fixed reference year of 2019. Because the limit is rounded to the nearest $100, the former system based on short-term changes in CPI did not accurately capture the cumulative effect of small annual changes in CPI. Possibly to "save" words, or possibly unknowingly, the City reverted to what looks like that flawed former system (see NBMC Subsection 1.25.030.C) somewhere in the ill-conceived 471-page Ordinance No. 2023-22. January 28, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 4 up to 270 feet for residential development. Yet it passed largely unknown to the general public (the only speaker from the general public, other than myself, being someone I had told about it). I believe the lack of public involvement was due both to the very limited amount of information provided in the agenda announcement (which refers only to height "adjustments" and not to amounts) and to an antiquated system of noticing which, for proposals where there are more than 1,000 people within 300 feet of impacted properties, requires only publication of a small, one-time ad in the "Legal Notices" section of the City's "official newspaper," the Daily Pilot. I think it is fair to guess very few people see those notices, especially if they read the "paper" online (where that isn't even a section with a link to it). Since the Item 3 proposal will be coming to the Council for final action, it is probably not necessary to comment on its substance at this time, but in my view increasing heights allowed "by right," rather than allowing them as an incentive for incorporating affordable units, is counter -productive to meeting the City's RHNA obligations. It removes that incentive and, instead, encourages construction of the large, luxury units which are not being requested by the state. While it has been said that the City only has to plan for affordable housing, not build it, a failure to produce what has been promised puts the City at risk of de -certification of its Housing Element and the consequences that flow from that, including loss of local control over the construction of those lower income units. Item 16. General Plan Update Steering Committee (GPUSC) Bi-Monthly Update to the City Council In the four months since the last "Bi-Monthly" Update, one of the main developments has been the update committee members' discovery that all their memberships will end on February 11. As a GPAC member, but speaking as an individual, I can say that has been very discouraging and somewhat put on hold plans to continue meetings of the Noise Subcommittee mentioned in the last bullet on page 16-5, since its future membership is unknown. In that respect, if there is, indeed, to be a change in membership, I see a lack of plan as to how the current committee members are expected to pass on any insights they have gained to the new members. With regard to the consultant's recommendation to change the format of our General Plan, as mentioned in GPUSC Chair Gardner's memo on the final page, which includes a proposal to adopt a "primarily web -based" format, I have some misgivings about that. While progress and innovation can be helpful, other cities' and counties' efforts in that direction have been less than successful. Online projects started with the best of intentions tend to fall into neglect. And while new, official documents and amendments are approved in printed, PDF form, the web -based products may or may not be accurately and timely updated to reflect them, so they become unreliable. One of the most complex efforts of this sort in California is the San Bernardino Countywide Plan, which, after changing its URL, seems not have figured out how to incorporate their changing Housing Element and has a "Tracking & Implementation" section (hidden under the "Business Plan") that is still, at least four years after its debut, in a "coming soon" state.