HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Insider's GuideReceived After Agenda Printed
Insider's Guide
Brown, Leilani October 14, 2014
From: Kiff, Dave
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 5:19 PM
Subject: Insider's Guide to the City Council meeting of October 14, 2014
A good Thursday afternoon to you
Here are some of the issues coming up at the Newport Beach City Council meeting to be held on Tuesday, October 14`n
2014. Meetings are held at 100 Civic Center Drive, this time starting at 7:00 p.m. for the regular session. There is no
study session on Tuesday. You can visit in person, watch on TV, or view it on your computer.
I don't summarize every item — but you can see the full agenda here:
http: / /newportbeachca.gov/ modules /ShowDocument.aspx ?documentid =4414
One short news item before I delve into the agenda: You're about to receive information in the mail about more
stringent water conservation regulations. We hope the information is helpful. If you want to read more about it earlier,
much of the information takes you to this link on our website:
http: //www.newpo rtbea chca,gov /i ndex.aspx ?page =2406.
Not everyone who receives the Insider's Guide receives water service from Newport Beach. Some Newport Beach
residents receive service from Mesa Water or Irvine Ranch Water District. Not all of the regulations applicable to
Newport Beach water customers are applicable to customers of these special districts, but some do (how's that for
creating confusion ?). If you're a resident served by these other special districts, you can still contact us to help sort
through it, but I would also contact the district(s) forthe regulations applicable to you.
Back to the Council meeting....
As noted, there is no afternoon study session.
The regular meeting starts at 7:00 p.m., and includes these items. First, a couple of nice presentations:
• Our friends from Okazaki Japan will be here on a trip to celebrate 30 years of Sister City -hood with Newport Beach.
• The Orange County CoastKeeper gave the City one of two awards for CoastKeepe's 15" Anniversary —this one was
the "2014 Friend of the Coast" Award. We were the only city recognized this year. It's easy to forget the amazing
work that our community has done to improve water quality and to protect the Bay over the past many years. One
of CoastKeeper's first focused projects 15 years ago was to prompt us and others to remove 50- and 60 -years old
legacy toxic materials from the sediment at the bottom of the Rhine Channel (near the Cannery Restaurant) —we did
that about four years ago, having had the opportunity to save over $10 million by placing the material in a confined
aquatic disposal site up in Long Beach.
• Finally, the Insurance Service Organization (ISO) has again given our Building Division its highest designation —Class
1. What's in that for you? It assures your insurers that our plan review and building inspection is the best it can be.
Having the highest ISO rating can reduce property losses, save lives, lower insurance rates, and to us is very good
public policy. ISO says that a Class 1 designation means exemplary enforcement of a model building code.
Agenda items include:
The "end of the road" to adopt the next iteration of the agreement that protects us from an unfettered John Wayne
Airport comes through the City Council. We will ask the Council to ratify what the Orange County Board of
Supervisors ratified on September 30th. If approved, we'll be the final stop in our party of four (the County, the
Airport Working Group, and Stop Polluting Our Newport) to sign our names on the extension and amendment to the
settled litigation that keeps the curfew in place (now through 2035!) and allows a modest increase in passengers and
Class A flights over the next 15 years (through 2030). If you have questions about this important action, don't
hesitate to email me.
• A public hearing about allowing A -Frame advertising signs in front of businesses in Corona del Mar.
• Another public hearing will include a proposal to memorialize (generally) what we do now at Buena Vista Boulevard
(on the Balboa Peninsula near Bay Island) whereby a great public walkway traverses property controlled by private
property owners. The proposal is to maintain the public walkway, improve view protections, but also give some
certainty to the property owners as to uses of the land outside of the walkway.
In my quiet crusade to help folks understand how and why a modern municipality's budget is hard to boil down into
sound bites, I'll focus on two items:
• First is the City's required contribution to an emergency communications system that links together nearly all public
agencies in Orange County (called the "800 MHz" system). This system consists of radios, consoles, and antennas
across the county that will allow the PD, Fire Department, Public Works, and others to communicate in an
emergency (fire, earthquake, flood, tsunami, iPhone 7 release at the Apple Store, etc) when cell phone networks are
likely to fail. The upgrading of this system will cost our city about $7 million over the next 4 -5 years, with the total
cost across the county at $75 million. It's a,huge amount, but it ensures the reliability of a critical communications
tool that is approaching the end of its useful life. We've been setting aside some of these funds over time.
• Another other item is the completion of the 2014 Slurry Seal program — aka re -doing the asphalt on our roads and
parking lots. Slurry sealing is more involved and more costly than the "drizzle the black goo in the cracks" level of
repair but less costly than a full street reconstruction (where you rip out the entire existing street and grind it all up,
much to the chagrin of neighbors if this happens at night). At about $500,000.00, this annual slurryseal program is a
significant recurring item in our budgets. This year's work was done in Newport Heights, and included city parking
lots like the Central Library, San Miguel Park, Bob Henry Park, and more. It came in 15 days early and about $50,000
under budget. Every year, Public Works looks to our adopted Pavement Management Plan to make sure that we
are investing enough in our roads to keep them up to the high standard that the community expects. A Fun Fact:
The City Budget envisions spending $25.7 million this year for streets and drainage nrojects all arrnss town, much of
it from Measure M (the half -cent sales tax in Orange County for transportation), state gas tax, and the General
Fund. That's over three times what it costs to run our libraries for a year, and over 2x what it costs to run Recreation
and Senior Services.
Finally, out in Corona del Mar near the Goldenrod Footbridge, the Council will talk about designating the site of the
former Rex Brandt and Joan Irving (not Irvine) residence, school and studio (the "Blue Ski` structure — which no longer
exists) as a Point of Historic Interest. Former Council member and mayor Don Webb has been working on a historic
marker for this location, which is just on the inland side of the Footbridge.
If you want to weigh in to the City Council on these issues or any issue, use this e-mail address:
CitvCouncil newaortbeachca.gov. All seven of the City Council members will receive your comments that way.
Some calendar notes for the coming days:
• The Newport Beach Arts Foundation's 11th annual "Art in the Park" comes to the Civic Green at the Civic Center on
Saturday, October 11th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. — more information is here:
httn: / /newr)ortbeachartintheoark.com/
• Join many of our good folks from the Fire Department (including lifeguards) at the Fire Service Open House, set for
Sunday, October 12 from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. at the Santa Ana Heights Fire Station (20401 Acacia). Bring the
kids for fun tours of the station, fun fire helmets to wear home, and plenty of opportunities to sit on a ladder truck.
• Please join the Newport Beach Sister City Association in a presentation at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 14th at
the Central Library's Bamboo Terrace for the dedication of a donated Shogun statue from Okazaki Japan. The
Okazaki delegation will be there as well for what should be a fun celebration.
• The following weekend, please consider participating in the Mariner's Mile planning and design workshops
sponsored by the City and the California Chapter of the "Congress for New Urbanism." Events are over four days —
from October 17 to October 21. Most activities are held at the Civic Center, but there is at least one walking tour of
Mariner's Mile set for Sunday, October 19th from 5 -6:00 p.m. (meet at the corner of Tustin Avenue and Coast
Highway). For more information about the design charrette, go to this link:
http://www.newportbeachca.gov/index.aspx?page=99&recordid=3654 .
As I have noted before, the Orange County Sanitation District's work on Coast Highway through Mariner's Mile
continues. For regular construction updates, your source is http:llwww.newportbeachca.gov/index.asr)x?i)age=2410 .
If you don't get satisfaction there, please call us. We're trying to make this as smooth as possible.
Thanks for reading the Insider's Guide. As always, please pass along any questions or concerns you have about these
issues or any city issue to me by return e-mail or phone call. Also, please forward this information to others if you
represent a community association or HOA - I appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Dave Kiff
City Manager
dkiff @newportbeachca.gov or
949 - 644 -3001