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Home My WebLink About00 - Insider's GuideReceived After Agenda Printed January 27, 2015 Brown, Leilani Insider's Guide From: Kiff, Dave Sent: Friday, January 23, 2015 7:14 PM Subject: Insider's Guide - City Council meeting of Tuesday, January 27, 2015 A happy football -less weekend to you (is that ever a happy weekend ?). Here is the Insider's Guide to the Newport Beach City Council meeting of Tuesday, January 27, 2015. The City Council meeting is held on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of most months, with study session starting in the afternoon and the regular session at its usual 7:00 p.m. spot. The Council meets in the Council Chambers at 100 Civic Center Drive. There is plenty of parking - you are always welcome to attend! But you can also watch on TV (Channels 3/31) or on your computer. I do not summarize every item on the Agenda —to read the full agenda, click here: http: / /newportbeachca.gov/ modules /ShowDocument.aspx ?documentid =4414 You are always welcome to weigh in and contact the entire City Council with one email address — that's CityCouncil @newportbeachca.gov. They appreciate hearing from you, especially about any agenda item. Study Session begins at 4:00 p.m. Two items are worth your review: • possible changes to the past approach to Harbor Fees. Council member Muldoon has asked for a look -back of the Council's past actions on moorings, commercial piers, and residential piers. Staff will provide a brief history of those past actions, as well as a menu of alternatives that the Council can consider. The Council ro.ay at this meeting take some straw votes ( "I vote for straw versus alfalfa! ") on several of these issues, and can ask that they be teed up for action at a later evening meeting, possibly on February 10th. • We are a community with a lot of assessment districts for Utility Undergrounding. Many (over 100, 1 think) are complete, and several more are under consideration. Typically, in residential neighborhoods, the residents themselves instigate an assessment district's formation and fund the cost of the undergrounding. Along main thoroughfares, sometimes the City can use money allocated to the City by Edison to put the lines and transformers below- ground. Our Public Works staff will make a presentation on "undergrounding 101" to get folks up to speed on the basics. Additionally, the City is often asked how the City government will "vote" on City -owned parcels — sometimes that can tip the scales on whether a district is approved. Councils in the past have been reluctant to adopt a formal policy of always voting no or always voting yes— it's been done on a case - by -case basis. If all of this is way confusing to you, and you Five in an area that could be undergrounded, please listen in. We also have a web page /portal on the issue — it's here: http : / /newportbeachca.gov /index.aspx ?page =1171 Evening Session —starts at 7:00 p.m. I'll highlight a few items: • As a part of past efforts to increase amenities for mooring holders, there are new dinghy racks at the Balboa Yacht Basin. An item here would set up a process for renting these racks out to mooring users, for $25 /month. • If you've asked previously about replacing your turfgrass with artificial turf, you've discovered that the City doesn't make that easy or inexpensive for you. So at the request of the Water Quality Committee, we're changing that attitude and lowering the fee and permit requirements for artificial turf. A good thing to do given the drought and the fact that artificial turf looks a lot better than it used to 15 years ago. • We'll consider starting the design on a plan to limit how urban runoff impacts the beach at Little Corona. This is largely a grant - funded project, and one that still has some design, permitting, and other regulatory review to go through. • Two weeks ago, the City Council reformulated the Finance Committee to add four citizen members. The Council will consider appointing those four individuals on Tuesday, along with Council members Curry, Dixon, and Petros. 1 • Corona del Mar folks might want to take note of two special items involving property owner requests at 3225 Ocean Boulevard and 521 Orchid, respectively. • The Harbor Commission's goals for Fiscal Year 2014 -15 come before the Council for review and discussion. • In what can be a major public discussion item, the City is charged with reviewing the sufficiency of a mobile home relocation impact report for a mobile home park at 1560 Placentia Avenue. State law mandates that, prior to any mobile home park being closed, a report must be reviewed in public showing the impacts to the residents. • We save up funds on a regular basis to replace big vehicles like fire engines— they run about $600K each. Council will be asked to authorize the purchase of two new engines, in accordance with our regular vehicle replacement schedule. • Mayor Selich asked that Council discuss whether to have staff start work on a plan to better inform travelers from the south (Laguna Beach on down) coming up Coast Highway towards Corona del Mar as to what their options are — such as turning onto Newport Coast Drive to save time. The information could come via a changeable message sign eventually that noted travel times. The "bypass" plan works the other direction, too. • There are two linked items about Big Canyon Nature Park. These involve a settlement agreement worked out between Defend the Bay and The Irvine Company years ago, and would allocate $3 million towards Upper Bay improvements, including at Big Canyon. These two items ( #25 and #26) would complete the settlement agreement's fund dispersal ($1.5M to Big Canyon and $1.5M to the Santa Ana /Delhi Channel) as well as start work on a water quality improvement effort to help remove Selenium from Big Canyon Wash. A lot of water under this figurative bridge. O Other Notes: Fire Rings. Today is the first day when folks can officially burn wood in some of the fire rings. What I'll describe here is an "interim" plan between now and the time that the Coastal Commission reviews /permits a permanent plan (likely to be May or June). For those following this issue, the 18 fire rings to the West of the Balboa Pier parking lot remain charcoal -only. The ones on the east (near Peninsula Park) can have wood. In Corona del Mar, the rings that are more widely- spaced and closer to the water can have wood. The rings more closely spaced and close to the grass must have charcoal. The proper spacing is not complete yet — but more will be done Monday and Tuesday to bring the areas into full compliance. What about the Permanent Plan(s)? We soon (even as I write this) will place seven different "permanent" plans for fire rings on our "community engagement" web portal. If you haven't used it before, I hope you'll have some fun with it. We've used it for the West Newport Beach Community Center last year, and would like to use it more often. It gives anyone a chance to weigh in on ideas, ask questions, and see options (as well as see what others are saying). If you are someone who doesn't like using sites like this, you are always welcome to look at our main web page on fire rings (the plans are there, too), and just send in an e -mail about it. Or, you can always call me — I am happy (um, mostly happy...) to talk about it. I know that the plans have generated and will continue to generate a lot of discussion. As you contribute your thoughts, please remember this: This isn't an easy issue to solve. The Coastal Commission staff has told us in no uncertain terms that wood- burning rings are important to them, as the rings are an important low -cost amenity for the region's beachgoers. We are "out of compliance" right now. The City Council — and arguably the folks who went to the polls in November— has expressed a desire to bring wood back. But we can't put wood back in the rings where they sit today without spacing them out a lot more — that's now the law. Spacing them out means that more people could see rings nearby. Even if all of the rings were kept in the same general area as they are today (that's Plan #2), new groups of people would have rings nearby. But AQMD has also said that if they are spaced properly (100' from each other), then the health impacts of woodsmoke are lessened. People feel very strongly about their perspectives on fire rings, and things get cranky if we aren't civil in our discussions. So please help us by offering constructive, productive, neighborly thoughts. What might you do if you were making the decision? The websites you will want to look at here are: Weigh in on the alternative plans here at Connect Newport Beach: http : / /www.connectnewportbeach.com / More info about fire rings on the City's web page here: http: / /newportbeachca.gov /index.aspx ?page =2479 • Speaking of participation, Goal- Setting. The Council will have its yearly Goal- Setting discussion on Saturday, January 31, 2015 at 9:00 a.m. until about 1:00 p.m. here at the Civic Center Community Room. Please join us for free goodies and good opportunity to provide public comment. • The City and the American Red Cross will host a blood drive this coming Monday, January 26`h at the Civic Center Community Room —the link is here: http: / /newportbeachca.gov /index.aspx ?page =99 &recordid =3886 • If you see folks wandering around town early in the morning tomorrow morning (Saturday, Jan 24`h), they are doing an annual Point -in -Time Count of persons who are homeless. As we know, many beach communities are impacted by homelessness, including ours. The purpose of the Count is to ensure that our region gets the proper share of federal dollars allocated for homeless and transitional services. • The Aviation Committee has its first meeting of the new year on Monday, February 2, 2015, at 5:00 p.m. in the Civic Center Community Room. As always, thanks for reading. If you have any questions about this Guide, the Council's agenda, or any other City issue, please ask. I always appreciate it if you pass this along to others in town who might get value from it, especially if you represent an HOA or community association. If you would rather not receive this e -mail, contact me with a return email and I'll take you off the list. Sincerely, Dave Kiff City Manager 949 -644 -3001