Skimpy Council Agenda Tuesday

THE ONLY AUGUST COUNCIL MEETING IS TUESDAY
When the Costa Mesa City Council meets for its only meeting in August on Tuesday, the 6th at 6:00 in council chambers they will be staring at the smallest agenda in recent memory, HERE.  We presume the lack of other meetings is due to vacations during the month.

NOT MUCH HAPPENING TUESDAY

In addition to the Closed Session items - 3 of them - that will be heard beginning at 5:00, when the council meets at 6:00 they will have a couple presentations, some Public Comments, Council Member Comments and a Consent Calendar to deal with.  There is nothing scheduled under Public Hearings, Old Business or New Business.

GO FISHING FOR PEARLS...
The Consent Calendar includes several items that might be pulled for separate discussion.  Among those that probably will NOT be pulled are the three warrants - bills paid during July - that actually can be pretty darn enlightening if you take the time to scroll down through them.  You can view #2382 HERE, #2383 HERE and #2384 HERE.  Instead of me culling through them for pearls - I've already done that - why don't you take a few minutes and see if you can find out how much we paid to vendors for the 60th Anniversary Celebration or how much we've already paid to Management Partners for the audit of the Costa Mesa Senior Center operations before it even began?  Or, see if you can figure out how much we've paid to lawyers in these three warrants.  Hint - don't look for Jones and Mayer or Jones Day.

GIMME THE MONEY!
Item 6 is the request for a refund of $1220 by the president of the Catalina Shores Homeowners Association, HERE, for the appeal of the proposed development beside their location.

"BROADWAY" REVISITED!
The next item may get the attention of some of my Eastside neighbors.  Item 7 is authorization for funds for the design of "traffic calming" improvements on East 19th Street, HERE.  Those of us who drive the Eastside streets regularly already know what a disaster  a similar project on Broadway recently turned out to be.  The text of the staff report that has me more than a little nervous reads thus: "The implementation of these traffic calming measures will address speeding concerns by narrowing the street and enhancing its residential nature. The project includes construction of chokers at intersections along East 19th Street. The traffic calming devices will include landscaping elements that will provide features and visual effects of a narrower street." 

HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?
So, we're going to narrow an already heavily-trafficked busy street, which has been made even more so by the project on Broadway!  Yikes!  I suspect a few of my neighbors might wish to make their views known to the council BEFORE we proceed with spending the money on the design.

YET ANOTHER SPECIAL COUNSEL
Item 8 is the retention of a special legal counsel, the Enterprise Counsel Group, for litigation to challenge the State's position on prior payments involving the shut-down of the Redevelopment Agency and related matters, HERE.  Every time we hire another outside legal firm to wrestle with litigation of one kind or another I remember the reason we decided to abandon in-house counsel and hire an outside firm -Jones and Mayer - was because we needed greater litigation strength.  So what happens?  Practically every time we need litigation horsepower it gets farmed out to another firm - for more money.

OOPS!  CAN WE TAKE A MULLIGAN?
The final item, Item 9, is the purchase of 435 new desktop computers replacing old, outdated machines throughout City Hall, HERE.  If you're saying to yourself, "Wait a minute!  Didn't we already do this?", the answer is yes.  The contract for the new equipment replacing 10-year-old machines was approved for another vendor last May, but somehow the successful bid did not include sales tax.  When this error was discovered the city was not able to work out an arrangement with the bidder, so they've returned to request authorization to have the order filled by another vendor - at a higher price.

NEXT MEETING SEPTEMBER 3RD
While there will be a few committee meetings this month, the next council meeting will be way, way out there -  the day following the Labor Day holiday - and it will likely be a loaded agenda.  Seems like vacations have created this August void.