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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Written CommentsReceived After Agenda Printed July 8, 2025 Written Comments July 8, 2025, City Council Agenda Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( jimmoshera-yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item 1. Minutes for the June 24, 2025 City Council Meeting The passages shown in italics below are from the draft minutes with suggested corrections shown in str4keeu underline format. The page numbers refer to Volume 66. Page 339, Item III: The title "III. PUBLIC COMMENTS" is misplaced. The video shows Item III consisted solely of a reading of the notice regarding public comments by the Interim City Clerk, and seems to have been relocated in the agenda sequence by the Mayor. The clock visible on the wall confirms the reading took place after the Council returned at 4:30 p.m. from a brief recess and was not part of the earlier study session. It occurred between Items "VI. ROLL CALL" and "VII. INVOCATION." and should be so indicated in the minutes, not at the location shown in the draft. The public comment listed under the "III. PUBLIC COMMENTS" heading in the draft was not in response to the Item III reading. It occurred before 4:30 p.m. and was part of study session Item SS2. Moving the Item III heading (but not the comment) to its proper location later in the agenda will correct that error. Page 339, paragraph 2 from end (part of the misplaced comments described above), last sentence: "He also noted, independent of his role on the General Plan Advisory Committee, that there are additional materials 'i~L^^' at the end of the AAM staff report that there is a link to a Pape with very helpful additional information, including a link to a video of a symposium held in Palm Springs containing an in-depth discussion about AAM." [comment: I suspect the reason the staff report did not directly link to the additional materials, but, insteading, linked to a separate webpage ("newportbeachca.gov/AAM") containing links to the material is that, for reasons unknown to me, when staff reports (and comments such as this) get archived to the City's Laserfiche permanent storage system, the hyperlinks within them continue to display as hyperlinks, but become non-functional and (frustratingly) cannot be used unless the URL is spelled out in full for copying and pasting into a web browser. In the case of the AAM video, the URL is 81 characters long and likely could not have been displayed, in full, on a single line of the staff report.] Page 347, last appointment item: "3. Interim City Clerk Perry read the ballot votes for the City Arts Commission as follows: David Anastos - Barto, Blom, Grant, Kleiman, Stapleton, Weber, Weigand Rita Goldberg - Grant, Kleiman, Weigand Melissa Kandel - Barto, Blom, Grant, K4eiman, Stapleton, Weber, Weigand Tiare Meegan - Barto, Blom, Kleiman, Stapleton, Weber-,4Veig&md Laurel Tipett Rppett - Barto, Blom, Grant, Kleiman, Stapleton, Weber, Weigand Interim City Clerk Perry announced that David Anastos, Melissa Kandel, Tiare Meegan, and Laurel Tippett were appointed to the City Arts Commission." July 8, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 5 [comment: As of this writing, the ballots have not been copied to the meeting agenda's Laserfiche archive, but the votes shown in the draft minutes differ from those read at the meeting (as recorded in the video) as shown. In addition to correcting the misspelling of "Tippett" and the votes, it might be noted that the staff report indicated three of the City Arts Commission appointments were for terms ending in 2029 and one for a term ending in 2026.' Neither the Council nor the Clerk indicated which appointees were being appointed to which terms. The tradition seems to have been the appointee with the least votes gets the shortest term. In this case, that would be Tiare Meegan. However, since this was not discussed it is not clear that was the intent here.] Item 4. Resolution No. 2025-41: Adopting a Memorandum of Understanding with the Newport Beach Professional and Technical Employees Association and Associated Salary Schedule It is a bit confusing since there may be more than one version of the Council agenda posted in more than one place, but it appears that as of July 7, the MOU being presented for approval on July 8 as Attachment A to Resolution No. 2025-41 and promised to be "available for viewing prior to the meeting" is not yet available for viewing. This is particularly strange since a version of what purported to be the MOU was presented for review at the June 24 Council meeting. Is the present "Attachment A" any different from that? Why has it not been provided? Item 5. Resolution No. 2025-42: Adopting a Memorandum of Understanding with the Newport Beach Police Management Association and the Associated Salary Schedule Unlike agenda Item 4, the MOU being presented for possible adoption is included in the packet. What is peculiar about this one is that the document history on page 5-38 indicates the Mayor signed it on July 3, without the Council having acted on the item or having given the Mayor authority to sign. ' Retaining the ending dates of the board & commissioners' 4-year terms is important to ensuring a gradual replacement of position holders rather than a wholesale replacement in any one year. The ordinal City Charter Section 702, approved by voters on June 8, 1954, required the original members of 5-member boards to arrange themselves into something like a 1-1 -1 -2 pattern of yearly appointment numbers, and 7-member boards into a 1-2-2-2 pattern. Apparently in connection with a measure to expand the Planning Commission to nine members„ this was changed less than a year later when, at the April 10, 1955, Municipal election, voters approved an amendment requiring at least 1 appointment each year, but allowing up to 3. When the seven -member City Arts Commission was created by a Charter amendment that was part of Proposition 1 at the April 9, 1974, election, the original members may have used that to organize their terms into a 1-1-2-3 annual appointment structure (an additional Charter amendment in 1992 gave the Council discretion to change the number of members of the Arts Commission — and only it — by ordinance or resolution, but it is unclear if that has ever been used).The massive Charter changes wrought by Measure EE in 2012 rewrote Section 702, vaguely leaving the appointment rotation structure of new boards and commissions completely to the discretion of the Council at the time of the initial appointments. July 8, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 5 Item 6. Resolution No. 2025-43: Requesting a CalPERS Contract Amendment to Eliminate Section 20516(a) Cost Sharing for Citywide Miscellaneous Tier I Employees The staff report indicates that getting this amendment initiated "is a matter of great urgency" because of pending contract negotiations, but is less clear about the status of the cost sharing between now and when the amendment is completed, which it anticipates will be "at least a few months" away (and it says nothing about the amendment, if approved, being retroactive). Who will be paying the cost sharing amounts between now and then if the contracts with the employee groups say one thing and the contract with CalPERS says something different? Or are the employee contracts being written in such a way that they will pay whatever the CalPERS contract says (in other words, make no change in cost sharing obligations until after a change to the CalPERS contract is completed)? Item 7. Approval of a Professional Services Agreement with Arts Orange County to Manage Phase X of the Sculpture Exhibition in Civic Center Park The staff report implies the contractor will be working to a timeline set by the City Arts Commission. Since the contract does not seem to have been posted in a machine-readable format, it is a little difficult for me to verify, but I don't think the expectation that the contractor will be working to an Arts Commission dictated timeline is part of the contract. Another concern is with the agreement, in the Scope of Services on page 7-17, of the Community Input process by which applications for inclusion in the exhibition become part of the public survey determining the final selections. While there may be a need to reduce the entries to a manageable number for the public to evaluate, I believe that at one time the Commission's role in that was limited to eliminating entries that were unsuitable for objective reasons (such as use of materials not suitable for 2- or 3-year outdoor display). As has happened in recent years, Section 3.2 of the proposed Scope of Services appears to give the Commission unlimited authority to restrict the public survey to pieces that meet the Commission's tastes. To avoid the public being given no real choice, shouldn't the contract set a minimum number of entries to be presented for consideration by the public? Item 8. Irrigation Controller Replacement Phase 2 - Notice of Completion for Contract No. 9735-1 (25P02) This contract seems remarkable in that it was completed, according to this report, at the exact original contract price (not a penny more or less). That contract, as approved as Item 5 at the March 25, 2025, meeting, included a 5% contingency, but did not allow extra compensation for unforeseen difficulties. Usually there are either cost savings found or change orders made, but apparently there were none here. It also seems remarkable that the work was completed in 29 days when 120 were allowed. July 8, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 5 Item 9. Tentative Memorandum of Understanding with Newport Beach Lifeguard Management Association (NBLMA) The effort to provide a redline of the proposed MOU for review prior to final action on it at a future meeting is commendable. However, and while I may be confused due to possibly different versions of Council agenda posted at different locations, as of July 7, 1 have been unable to find the proposed MOU, but only a promise it "will be available for viewing prior to the meeting." Item 14. General Plan Update Steering Committee (GPUSC) Bi-Monthly Update to the City Council As a member of GPAC, but commenting as a private citizen, I would observe, as must be obvious, that it has been more than two months since the last GPUSC "bi-monthly" update to the City Council. As the report alludes to, I suspect the delay may have been due, in part, to the Council's decision in January and February to terminate all the existing GPAC appointments and re -appoint 24 of them. I can say personally that this had a quite demoralizing effect and significantly, and unnecessarily, delayed the effort. It also resulted in the loss of two of the most highly engaged members. Partially as a result of this, I believe the Council will ultimately be receiving a largely staff and consultant written General Plan, with relatively small pieces subjected to citizen review. Absent so far has been any real effort to compare the staff/consultant proposals to the current plan, highlighting what is new and what has been removed, and why. I hope that will be included when something eventually gets to the Council. Speaking as a citizen who attended all but one of the workshops detailed in Attachment B, I would observe participation was considerably less "robust" than it may appear from the report. At the earlier workshops, the few unaffiliated citizens in attendance were far outnumbered by staff, consultants and GPAC members. And even counting better attendance at the final one, the fraction of the Newport Beach population providing input remains extremely small. Participation through the Newport, Together website also appears to have been minimal, suggesting most of the public may not even be aware of the update effort. It looks like no comments have been added through it since December, and very few before that. Item 17. Fourth Amended and Restated Employment Agreement for City Manager This proposed Agreement, which was apparently developed in closed session, strikes me as fiscally irresponsible. The City already has a contract for Grace Leung's services through December 30, 2026. That contract provides for no extra or continuing compensation in the event she voluntarily ceases to provide those services; that is, if she retires prior to its end, such as on December 30, 2025. While it is true the existing contract provides an extremely generous severance package should the Council involuntarily terminate Ms. Leung prior that Agreement's normal end, Council members have repeatedly praised her performance. July 8, 2025, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 5 The present proposal allows Ms. Leung to leave at the end of 2025, yet be paid, in effect, through the end of calendar year 2026, without having to provide any services to the City during that final year of the current contract — a year in which City taxpayers will have to pay a different, and possibly higher -paid City Manager to provide the services that Ms. Leung will effectively be paid for but not providing. Given the Council's public praise of Ms. Leung, I see no reason to alter the existing contract and put taxpayers to this extra expense. If Ms. Leung wishes to retire on December 26, that is her choice, but neither the Council, nor Newport Beach taxpayers, should be under any obligation to pay her anything extra for doing so. Should the Council, alternatively, regard this as a retirement gift — a bonus for extraordinary service during her tenure here — I believe that would run afoul of the California Contsitution's Article XI, Section 10 prohibition against cities, including charter cities,2 granting extra compensation for work contracted for and already performed. As we have been frequently reminded, California courts have carved out exceptions to this rule allowing retroactive adjustments during a time of contract negotiation, but that is not the circumstance here, since this does not seem in any way related to retaining or continuing service. Similarly, we have been reminded that charter cities are not prohibited from making gifts of public funds unless such a restriction is self-imposed in its charter. But not being prohibited in general does not mean they are allowed to make a gift expressly precluded by the Constitution. Given all this, if the public praise was insincere, and the Council has found some reason it wants to terminate Ms. Leung, but cannot do so "for cause," 3 then the staff report should clearly lay out the options available. Of particular interest would be how the cost to taxpayers of an involuntary separation on December 26, 2025 (or some earlier or later date), subject to the existing severance provisions, compares to the cost of the present proposal. Item 18. Eighth Amended and Restated Employment Agreement for City Attorney It would have been helpful to provide a redline of the current agreement (contract C-7034-5) compared to this proposed one. I also have trouble deducing from either the staff report or Attachment C how the annual cost of the proposed agreement compares to the cost expected under the existing agreement. In view of the previous agenda item, the Council might wish to reconsider the extremely generous severance packages it is offering its employees. In the present case, the proposal will apparently roll back to 12 months the existing promise of 18 months severance, which roll -back, without the amendment, would not have happened until March 2026. However, one might wonder why even 12 months is being offered? It seems to significantly restrain the Council's ability to change employees even when it thinks a change would benefit the City. 2 The otherwise plenary authority to set employee compensation granted to charter cities by Section 5 is expressly limited, in that section, by the other provisions of Article XI. s Under the current Agreement, a "for cause" separation requires no additional compensation of any kind to be paid beyond the separation date.