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From: Kiff, Dave���� %�
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 201411:59 AM
Subject: Insider's Guide - City Council meeting of April 22, 2014
A happy Thursday to you. This version of the Insider's Guide comes a day or so earlier than usual, as the author will be
out of town tomorrow.
Here's what's coming up that may be of interest to you at the Newport Beach City Council meeting set for Tuesday, April
22nd I don't summarize every item. You can read the full agenda for this meeting here:
Full Meeting Agenda: http: / /www.newportbeachca.gov/ Modules /ShowDocument.aspx ?documentid =4414
Afternoon Study Session (starts at 5:00 p.m.) —The items on this week's study session are:
• Delving deeper into records retention. What records do we keep? How long do we keep them? (that episode of
Seinfeld where George is listening to "Risk Management" as a book on tape is now replaying in my brain — What is
risk? How do we manage it? ... ). The City has a formal policy, developed to comply with State law as well as
common practice, that tells us what records to hold and how long to hold them. I will resist being disrespectful and
calling this a snooze -fest. Resist. Re -sist. Don't do it. There — I didn't. FYI, Insider's Guides should be held forever
given their incredible historical import. O
• Landscaping plans for Dover Drive medians. Someday, when all of us are long off this earth, there will no longer be
construction going on along Dover Drive. Really. Mostly. Anyway, as that time approaches, we have been working
on better landscaping for this road, and we'll discuss that with the City Council and community during this item.
Regular Session at 7:00 p.m.
Items on the evening session's agenda are not many— but some of note are:
• Awarding a contract for a renovation of much of San Miguel Park — this is about a $330K improvement that folks in
the neighborhood anxiously await.
• Moving along to plan the dredging of Semeniuk Slough. Yes, people spell it differently. We even spell it differently
in the same sentence. It's the water area behind Newport Shores, at least the easterly half of it. It needs to be
dredged, and we were rolling along ready to do the dredging until some sediment samples showed something toxic
in there. That means that the price went up, and the permitting changed, because the sediment now has to go to
some type of disposal site. Anyway, this item on the agenda hires a contractor to help us with the permitting for the
project.
• Council member Gardner asked if the Council will want to examine the duration of parking limitations on street
sweeping days — where parking is restricted (recall that almost all streets are swept, but not all have parking
restrictions to make folks move cars) — should it be 2 hours or 3 hours instead of 4 hours? It is a little -known fact
that you CAN park in the road immediately after the sweeper goes by, even if the four hours are not complete yet. If
you ever get a ticket when the street sweeper has passed, call me.
• Do you know CPR? Do you know how to use an AED? Would you like to be in a position to help a bystander? We'll
hear a presentation from the Fire Department about "PulsePoint" — an app that notifies CPR - trained folks that a
cardiac arrest is occurring nearby. It also allows you to know where automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are
located. We'll also be adding more AEDs to local public facilities. PulsePoint is available for Apple and Droid, and
downloadable at their respective app sources.
• The Quarterly Business Report for Q2 (the October — December 2013 quarter) is now on -line, and will be presented
to the Council as a consent item. This is a good resource if you want to be updated about many of our longer -term
projects. The financial section is also a good read for budget and finance wonks.
• This item may or may not remain on this 4 -22 agenda, but I wanted to highlight it regardless. At the last meeting,
the Council discussed a proposal put forth by a private property owner at 191 Riverside Avenue (currently the site
of a US Post Office branch) that would change the underlying land use. During roughly the same period, the private
landowner told the USPS that the USPS lease at the 191 Riverside site and the site behind it (where most customers
go) would not be renewed past November 2014. At the April 8, 2014 Council meeting, the City Council asked the
staff to return at this April 22nd meeting with "findings for denial." In other words, the Council told us that the
Council is not inclined to change the zoning and instead may reject the private property owner's request. If the
Council denies the land use change, the land use designation would remain "Public Facilities," not "Mixed Use."
While that denial does not force the property owner to re -up the USPS lease, the Council stated that it believed that
changing the land use was at best premature until such time as the USPS has another lease signed in a nearby area.
Random Notes
• Thank you for your patience (I only heard sporadic swear words) with the East Coast Highway road closure in CdM
last week. The main work is now done, with some remaining vault work on Dahlia. When complete, CdM will have a
very reliable water transmission system — far more reliable than it had in the past. Bayside Drive is done, too,
except for some striping.
• As I write this, Avocado is all torn up between PCH and San Miguel. This major reconstruction of the street will be
done very soon, with a shiny new bike lane coming as the surface is completed.
• Please take a look at the remaining events for National Library Week — a great time to remind yourself all of the
good things that libraries do for our community— more information is here: http: / /www.newportbeachIibrary.org /.
Every now and then, people ask me "who uses libraries nowadays, anyway ?" And that to me means they haven't
been by to see the amazing things going on at our libraries, which are the second most visited resources in town
(after the beach). The library is closed this Sunday.
• April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Officers are ticketing people for texting, non - hands -free phoning, and
similar distracted activities all April long. And boy, have they issued a lot of tickets. So far this month, officers have
issued 337 (!) tickets for distracted driving just here in Newport. Remember, you can get a ticket even if you're
reading your phone at a stoplight. And that odd assumption of if I hold my phone in my hand 3" from my face it's
OK actually is not OK (why do people think this ?). I know that no one reading the Insider's Guide violates these rules,
so maybe pass this along to those relatives or friends (you know who they are) who could use the reminder. The
arrival of May does not mean that ticketing will stop, by the way.
As always, thanks for reading — and have a good holiday weekend.
Sincerely,
Dave Kiff
Hands -Free City Manager