What Does The Agenda For Tuesday's Council Meeting Tell Us?

THE NEXT DICTATORIAL SHOW
The Costa Mesa City Council will meet again next Tuesday, May 20, 2014 in City Council Chambers at City Hall for the next installment in government by imperial decree.  The closed session will begin at 4:30 and the open session is scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m.  The closed session - held in Conference Room 5A -  involves conferences with negotiators for all three of the employee organizations - the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association (CMPOA), the Costa Mesa City Employee Association (CMCEA) and the Costa Mesa Firefighters Association (CMFA).  You can read the entire agenda HERE.

CONVERSATION
There are no presentations presently scheduled so, after Public Comments, Council Member Comments and the report from CEO Tom Hatch, the Consent Calendar will be considered.  Typically, items on the Consent Calendar are of a routine nature so may be handled in one single vote.  That hasn't happened in a long time, though.  If someone - a staff member, council member or member of the public - requests an item be pulled for separate discussion Mayor Jim Righeimer has decreed by royal edict that those items be trailed until the end of the meeting.  That means if you are concerned about an issue you'd better pack a lunch and bring a pillow.

CONSENT CALENDAR - WARRANT 2515
Items of interest on the Consent Calendar include #3, Warrant 2515, HERE, which shows us payments that have been made recently to vendors.  I'll give you just a little taste with a few that caught my eye.

• Apple One Employment Services - $5,930.24 for nine separate entries for temporary employees for Planning, Development Services and Recreation.
• Albert Grover & Associates, Inc. - $78,517.01 for "Baker/Placentia TSSP" for February and March
• Liebert Cassidy Whitmore - $14,543.00 for legal services for the 60th Anniversary Investigation and more.
• Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth - $18,270.00 for legal services
• Accountemps - $2,874.51 for Finance temporary help
• Government Staffing Services, Inc. - $2,200.00 for Project Management Temporary Services
• Jones Day - $2,280 for CMCEA legal services thru 2/28/14
• Liebert Cassidy Whitmore - $8,570.00 for PD labor negotiations and CMCEA Labor Negotiations
• Melad & Associates - $5,490.00 for Bldg Permit Technical Services
• Meyers Nave - $2,600.94 for Fairview Park legal services
• Scientia Consulting Group, Inc. - $3,823.75 for IT Service
• Woodruff Spradlin & Smart - $1,115.70 for legal services for Benito Acosta v City! Still?!

ACOSTA?  STILL?
You'll note that we spent nearly $50,000 on legal expenditures on this warrant, including another $1100 on Benito Acosta - former Mayor Allan Mansoor's gift that just keeps on taking, and taking - a decade later.

ELECTION DETAILS
Number 5, HERE, is a group of resolutions regarding the November elections.  The staff report is interesting reading.

FIXING FIRE STATION #4
Number 6, HERE, is for architectural and engineering services for modification of Fire Station #4 to accommodate larger apparatus.

SQUEEZING A "PROBLEM MOTEL" OWNER
Public Hearing #1, HERE, is the appeal of the Planning Commission's recent revocation of the Conditional Use Permit for the Sandpiper Motel on Newport Boulevard that allows extended occupancy of rooms at the facility.

APARTMENTS AND...
Old Business #1, HERE, and #2, HERE, involve the second reading for the 240-unit apartment complex at 125 East Baker Street.  Despite the fact that the city has roughly 60% rental residents and 40% owners, the City Council seems determined to pass this project in a commercial/industrial zone.  This will almost certainly drive adjacent industrial businesses away in the very near future.  So much for being "business friendly"!

...MORE APARTMENTS!
New Business #1, HERE, is VERY interesting.  This is a General Plan Screening request to develop a 236-unit residential development at the site of one of Mayor Jim Righeimer's "problem motels" - the Costa Mesa Motor Inn.  This is request to re-zone the property from General Commercial to High Density Residential, permitting 59 dwelling units per acre.  Some will recall that the mayor has stated quite boldly that it was his goal to cause owners of "problem motels" to take a more realistic view of the value of their properties.  Well, apparently his plan has sufficiently bludgeoned the owner of this particular property that he is now considering a change in use.  Former Development Services Director Don Lamm will apparently make the pitch for what is being called "Costa Mesa Luxury Apartments".  Here we  are again with more apartments - this will make nearly 600 discussed at this meeting Tuesday.

RENEWAL OF HARBOR SOARING SOCIETY AGREEMENT
The last item on the agenda, HERE, is the renewal of the user agreement with the Harbor Soaring Society (HSS) for 5 years.  If approved, this is a good decision by the council.  The members of the HSS have been good tenants and good stewards of their little slice of Fairview Park.

New Ambulances, Presentations, Grants and Signs

LABOR AND LEGAL ISSUES IN CLOSED SESSION
Another interesting week ahead, kicked off by the City Council meeting on Tuesday.  This one, which officially begins at 6:00 in council chambers, is preceded by a Study Session at 4:00 which includes three items - labor negotiation conference with CEO Tom Hatch regarding the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association and the Costa Mesa City Employee Association, then a conference with legal counsel regarding the lawsuit with the CMCEA.

NEW AMBULANCES ON DISPLAY
However, before the regular meeting begins we will have a chance to see a couple of our brand new ambulances.  Read about them HERE.  These $200.000 machines will be on display in the parking lot of City Hall from 5:00 - 6:00 and the public is encouraged to come see these wonderful pieces of equipment that will be the cornerstone of the new deployment model created by former Interim Fire Chief Tom Arnold and implemented by new Fire Chief Dan Stefano.  See you there.

PICKING AT THE SCAB...
The meeting itself, the agenda for which can be read HERE, should be very interesting - and very long.  In addition to the complex items on the agenda, the very beginning should be worth observing.  It seems that Mayor Jim Righeimer plans to make some kind of a presentation to a Rabbi to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day - which was actually last week.  Since we have NEVER done this before - and I'm NOT saying it is not worthy of acknowledgement - it's curious that he chooses to do this now, immediately after he flew off the handle at the last council meeting and called me out for something I wrote on a Facebook comment thread.  Yes, I compared him to a WWII German "strutting dictator"... Yes, we all know who I meant.  No, I'm still not going to apologize for it.  I guess I'm not really surprised that he will continue to politicize this situation - such is life when you're a hack politician worried about being re-elected.

PLUS THREE MORE PRESENTATIONS
There are three other presentations on the agenda, too, which should make the first hour of the meeting quite interesting.

CONSENT CALENDAR
The Consent Calendar is fairly short this time around, but that doesn't mean folks won't pull something for discussion.  If they do, it will be trailed to the end of the meeting.  This scheme presumes that some of the folks with interest in a specific item may not wait until late at night to address it.  This, and the trailing of any Public Comments until the end, is one of Righeimer's methods of stifling criticism.

A FEW INTERESTING NUMBERS
Item #3 on the Consent Calendar is Warrant 2514, HERE,which includes some payments of note:

• Scientia Consulting Group - 2 entries,  $15,748.25 and $3,776.25 - consulting services.
• Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth - $16,609.54 - legal services.
• Synoptek LLC - 2 entries, $15,180 and $17,940.00 - CAD?RMS Implementation.
• CSG Consultatnts, Inc. - 2 entries, $9.845.00 and $4,999.35 -  Plan Review & Bldg Inspection Svcs.
• FTOG, Inc. - $6,525.00 - Interim Buyer.
• Hinderliter De Llamas &Associates - $3,000.00 - Mass Appeal Litigation.
• IntelliBridge Partners, LLC - 2 entries,  $11,355.75 and $11,205.75 - RFP Assistance.
• Interwest Consulting Group, Inc. - $10,822.00 - Bldg Inspection Svcs.
• Keyser Marston Associates, Inc. - 2 entries, $5,800.00 and $5,448.00 - Housing Consultative Support.
• Rosemary Nielsen Consulting - 2 entries, $5,087.50 and $19,055.00 - Community Outreach Consultant.
• Jones & Mayer - $157,374.00 - legal services (45 separate line items, including "Acosta Appeal" and something titled "Hosing" that I just couldn't resist commenting on.
• NexLevel Information Technology, Inc. - $24,440.00 - Interim IT Director. (This charge should end since the City announced the appointment of Steve Ely - who has been in this role since November - as Information Technology Director on May 1st, HERE.  We will pay him just over $150,000 per year)
• Accountemps - $4,191.05 - Temp Svcs.
• Accounting Principals, Inc. - $14,125.76 - Temp Svcs.
• Apple One Employment Services - $5,473.60 - Temp Svcs.
• City of Mission Viejo - $6,175.00 - IT Tech. Staff.
• Government Staffing Services, Inc. - $6,710.00 - Temp Svcs - Proj. Mgr.
• Melad & Associates - $5,872.50 - Bldg Permit Tech Svcs.
• Scott Fazekas & Asociates, Inc. - $3,183.59 - Plan Check Svcs.
• Stryker Sales Corp. - $12,312.00 - Foot Rest, Stair Chair.

THANKS, STEVE...
So, once again I want to thank Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger for his insistence on providing this information to us.  Without this "transparency" we wouldn't know just how much money we've been spending on legal services, temporary employees and consultants, among other things.

GENERAL PLAN
Item #4 on the Consent Calendar, HERE, it the 2013 review of the 2000 General Plan - 82 pages of fascinating reading.

GRANT FUNDING
The first two Public Hearings deal with Community Development Block Grand (CDBG) and Home Investment Partnership Act of Entitlement Funds (HOME).  The first, HERE, deals with the allocations.

WHO GETS WHAT, AND WHY?
#2 is where the rubber meets the road - the CDBG Public Service Grants for Fiscal Year 2014 - 2015, HERE.  Included in the staff report are three very interesting attachments.  The first, HERE, is the recommendations by the Housing and Public Services Ad-hoc Committee (formerly the Redevelopment and Residential Rehabilitation - 3R - Committee).  The second, HERE, reflects the Grant Application Summaries.  The third, HERE, is a fascinating spreadsheet that shows a 3-year Funding History.

MORE APARTMENTS?  REALLY?
The final Public Hearing, HERE, is the probable approval of the 240 unit apartment complex located in a commercial area at 125 Baker Street.  This has been brought forward at this time after having been "continued" from a previous meeting so the overworked staff could provide more detail.  This discussion should be interesting.

FUNDING THE CONFERENCE AND VISITORS BUREAU
New Business #1, HERE, is the annual assessment for the Business Improvement Area (BIA) - certain participating hotels and motels that collect a higher Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), the difference of which is then provided to the Conference and Visitors Bureau to promote the City.  You'll find several attachments to that staff report that provide details of this authorization, the history of it and the budget proposed by the Conference and Visitors Bureau.  Some may recall that the CVB bailed out the city in the 60th Anniversary Celebration debacle.  Some folks in town consider it to be a de facto piggy bank for spendthrift politicians.

BIGGER, MORE INTRUSIVE SIGNS COMING?
New Business #2, HERE, is a request by Mensinger to consider a review/revision of the City's sign ordinance. The report includes a Summary Table, HERE, showing a comparison of neighboring city's sign heights and a five-month old memo, HERE, from Economic and Development Services Director/Deputy CEO Gary Armstrong to Hatch on this issue.

ETHICS POLICY
The last item on the agenda is the long, long, long awaited new Ethics Policy, HERE.  The staff report has two attachments - Administrative Regulation A.R. 2.36, Ethics Policy, HERE - and Council Policy Nubmer 000-15, also entitled Ethics Policy, HERE.  I'm amused that it takes two, count'em, two policies to define ONE policy.  As you read down through them I suspect you'll do as I did - smile knowingly, because most of us can immediately think of probable breaches of this policy.  Anyhow, it's here now and EVERY member of the council and commissions should have a refresher course on it post haste!

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS...
That's it for the agenda items.  Of course, it's VERY likely that there will still be "pulled" Consent Calendar items to be considered and folks who were on the Public Comments list but failed to make the "first 10" cut.  Some will stick around - others will simply be too exhausted and head home, allowing the mayor to accomplish his goal - the stifling of criticism.

ANOTHER LATE NIGHT...
I suspect this meeting may wrap up before midnight, but not much before.   It will depend on how many times Righeimer prattles on about issues.  We'll see...