Money Tops Council Agenda Tomorrow

THE ONLY MEETING THIS MONTH
The Costa Mesa City Council meets for the only time this month tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5th, in City Council Chambers beginning at 5:45 - too early for many, but that's what the mayor wants.  Read the agenda HERE.


TWO CLOSED SESSIONS!
The meeting will be preceded by not one, but TWO closed sessions.  The first, beginning at 4:00 p.m. in Conference Room 5A, involved labor negotiations for the CMPD.  Both Mayor Steve Mensinger and Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer are forbidden to participate in this event.  The second one, beginning at 5:00 p.m. in the same room, involves labor negotiations and a lawsuit involving the Costa Mesa City Employee Associaton (CMCEA).

PRESENTATIONS
There are two presentations scheduled.  Apparently Mensinger will present the Mayor's Award to the Automobile Club of Southern California - one of the city's biggest employers.  And, although there is no indication of the nature of his presentation, Pension Oversight Committee Chairman Jeff Arthur is on the agenda.  Maybe he's going to tell us that his group has a solution to the pension issue - hopefully, something short of municipal bankruptcy.

CONSENT CALENDAR
As always, the Consent Calendar has some interesting items.  There are a total of fourteen (14) items on the Consent Calendar this time.  These normally are voted upon in one motion unless someone - a staff member, council member or member of the public - pulls an item for separate discussion.  If that happens, those will be trailed to the very end of the meeting.  I'm not going to discuss all of them, but will mention a few. 

WARRANT 2535
As has been my practice, I'll make a few notes from Item #3, Warrant 2535, HERE.  These are items I found interesting, either because of the amount of money involved or because of the circumstances of the payee.  They appear in order that you will find them in the many pages of the warrant, if you're actually interested.

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• Costa Mesa Conference & Visitor Bureau - $205,356.68 - BIA receipts for Feb. 2015
• PSOMAS - $15,913.75 - Initial Study/Mitigated Declaration (For What?)
• AMEC Environmental & Infrastructure, Inc - $6,964.10 - Inspection Services
• Data Ticket Inc - $7,400.11 - Parking Citation Processing, Feb. 15
• FTOG - $1,192.50 - Interim Buyer, 3/25-4/2/15
• Government Staffing Service Inc - $8.042.50 - Temp Svcs (various)
• Interwest Consulting Group Inc - $11,551.00 - Sr. Bldg Inspectr Svcs, Feb. 15
• Merit Specialities - $3.225.00 - Lions Park Restroom Repairs
• Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector - $11,184.25 - Parking Cit. Proc. 2//20/15
• State of California Dept of Justice - $11,342.00 - Fingerprint Apps for March, 2015
• Waxie Sanitary Supply - $12,690.34 - Warehouse Floor Stock (I smiled)
• Johnson Favaro LLP - $34,190.72 - Library & NCC Proj, 3/16-4/15/15
• Lilley Planning Group - $23,215.00 - Planning Consultant Svcs Feb. 2015
• Government Staffing Services Inc - $4,345.00 - Temp Proj. Mgr 3/23-4/3/15
• Scott Fazekas & Associates, Inc - $3,195.89 - Bldg Plan Check & Inspect.
• Tandem Exhibits - $5,800.00 - Completion of City Promo Booth
• Waxie Sanitary Supply - $2,729.61 - Supplies for Senior Center (I smiled again)

So, there you go.  I presume that next-to-last item is for the great Las Vegas boondoggle coming up soon.  Of course, there's a lot more on that warrant, including many more dollars spent on temporary services.  We've been doing a lot of that for the past few years... hiring temps instead of regular employees and those nasty pensions - then using the budgets dollars for other stuff without batting an eye.

UNUSED LAND ON CHARLE STREET
Item #9, HERE, is the proposed sale of unused city property on Charle Street.  It's a 50/150 foot strip adjacent to land owned by a developer.  The city feels we will not be able to use it, so...

SUNFLOWER AVENUE TRAFFIC SYNC PROJECT
Item #10, HERE, is the contract for Sunflower Avenue Traffic Synchronization Project - a necessary and long-awaited improvement to traffic flow in the north part of town.

LINARES CONTRACT
Item #11, HERE, is the renewal of Mike Linares' contract for managing our Community Development Block Grant/HOME process.  It's on the agenda down below.  Hope we renew Mike, or we're in big trouble.

FTOG CONSULTING SUPPPORT
Item #12, HERE, is a professional services agreement to FTOG, Inc, for a "Purchasing Performance Plan".  This one is interesting.  You may recall seeing FTOG on the warrants for months, receiving payment for providing a temporary buyer.  Well, now we apparently need to pay them another $50,600.00 to help implement procedures to streamline the purchasing process.  You may also recall that our "purchasing procedures" were part of the issue with the 60th Anniversary Celebration debacle.

NEW LAPTOPS FOR EMPG
Item #13, HERE, is the 2014 Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) Allocation.  We need to buy 14 new laptop computers to meet our obligations in this program.

STATE REQUIRED DESIGNATION FOR DISASTER RELIEF FUNDS
Item #14, HERE, is a required process to meet state demands if Costa Mesa is to be able to receive disaster relief funds.  No-brainer... gotta do it.

CDBG AND HOME FUNDS
There are two Public Hearings on the agenda.  #1, HERE, is the approval of more than $1.3 million in CDBG and HOME grant funds.  This is the time when the council will decide whether to follow the committee established for this purpose - formerly known as the 3R committee - or not.  If you look down the attachment which lists the grant requests, HERE, you'll find some interesting changes from the current year contributions.

28 UNITS ON VICTORIA STREET
Public Hearing #2, HERE, is the General Plan Amendment and Tract Map for a 28-unit residential development at 1239 Victoria Street.  This one promises to generate some discussion because of it's location and the variances requested to turn this site of an industrial building into home sites.  This project is not universally beloved by nearby neighbors, so I expect to see quite a few people attending this meeting.

PERPETUATING THE BIA

The final item, New Business #1, HERE, is the reauthorization of the Business Improvement Area (BIA) and related items.  Eleven (11) hotels participating in the BIA, according to the staff report, seems to have been reflecting occupancy rates and rates of increase similar to those of Orange County as a whole.  The BIA hotels collect an additional 3% on the Transient Occupancy Tax (bed tax), for a total of 11%.  That money is funnelled to the Conference and Visitors Bureau (see the entry under the Warrant above), which is used to market Costa Mesa.  Read the staff report.

COMING EVENTS
At the end of the agenda you will find a list of upcoming events.  Some of those that caught my eye are:

• Wednesday, May 6th, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. in Council Chambers is a Neighborhood Meeting on Median Landscape Improvements.  Call Engineering Division - 714-754-5323 for more info.
• Tuesday, May 12th, 5:00 p.m. in Council Chambers is a Study Session on the proposed 2015-2016 Operating and Capital Improvement Budget.
• Thursday, May 21st at 6:00 p.m. in Conference Room 1A at City Hall is a Community Meeting on the proposed budget.
• Thursday, June 18th at 6:00 p.m. is a Community Meeting on the Library/Neighborhood Community Center at the NCC, 1845 Park Avenue.

You can see the agenda for the rest.

AND THAT'S IT FOR MAY!
So, that's it until after the Memorial Day holiday.  No council meeting on the 19th and City Hall will be closed on Memorial Day, May 25th.  That's a LONG time for our decision-makers to be away... maybe things will run better.

Pitiful Turnout For Consolidated Plan Workshop

SPARSE TURNOUT FOR WORKSHOP
The second and final community outreach workshop for the City of Costa Mesa Consolidated Plan was held tonight at the Costa Mesa Senior Center and about a dozen souls attended the presentation.  One early arrival left a few minutes into the meeting for another meeting and four people arrived a few minutes late.  We were told by those in charge that it actually doubled the turnout for the first one, but that's the one with almost no notification in advance.  In fact, in response to a question, we were told that this is an excellent turnout for a city our size.  Now, THAT is depressing!  Among the residents who turned out tonight were two former council candidates - Jay Humphrey and Tony Capitelli and Crissy Brooks Nolf, who runs a social service agency in the city that has been a recipient of CDBG funds in the past.

CONSULTANTS
Mike Linares led off the discussion with a very brief overview.  He then handed off the remainder of the very informal meeting to John Oshimo, President of GRC Associates, the consulting organization assisting the city with the preparation of this plan - a critical, esssential requirement to meet the qualifications for Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant funding.  Among the things we learned tonight was that the funding for both Federal Grants Costa Mesa currently receives - the CDBG and HOME - is way down from previous years and is expected to drop another 7% for the 2016/2017 year.  We were told the complete slide show from this presentation will be uploaded to the City web site soon.

SURVEY PARTICIPATION IMPORTANT
The main point the consultants tried to get across was the need for residents to participate in the online survey, which can be found on the City website HERE.  The deadline for participation in the survey was to have been February 17th, but the consultants agreed to keep it open through the end of the month to provide the opportunity for more community participation.

CURRENT SURVEY RESULTS
As of tonight there had been 101 surveys completed.  Here are a few slides showing the results of the concerns of those participating.

As you can see from that final slide, the areas of greatest concern as compiled from those 101 surveys indicate that Anti-Crime Services and Homeless Services hold the top spots.

SCHEDULE
Here is the schedule of events for the completion of the Consolidated Plan:

The consultants will next meet with the Housing & Public Services Ad-Hoc Committee - the remnant of the old 3R committee - to gain their input.  That data, plus the survey data, will be combined with boilerplate information provided by HUD for the completion of the Plan.  The draft Consolidated Plan should be completed in March and be available for public review for a month.  Sometime in April the Plan will be presented to the City Council, who will adopt it and, prior to May 15, 2015, the adopted Consolidated Plan will be submitted to HUD.

PLEASE TAKE TIME TO DO THE SURVEY

I encourage you to follow that link above to the survey and complete it.  It doesn't take long.  Keep in mind, this survey is only for certain qualifying areas within the city, so follow the instructions carefully.  Thanks, in advance, for your participation.  The other nineteen people who took time out of their busy lives to attend the one of the two workshops also thank you.

Consolidated Plan Workshop Tomorrow Night

TOMORROW, 6-8 P.M.
Just a little reminder for you.  The City of Costa Mesa will host a workshop on the Consolidated Plan tomorrow, Thursday, February 12, 2015 from 6-8 p.m. at the Costa Mesa Senior Center.  I've attached their announcement with all the information about the workshop, including a map to the Senior Center.  Click on the image to enlarge it.  Call Mike Linares at 714-754-5678 for more information.

CHECK OUT THE "NEW" SENIOR CENTER
Join me at this event and check out the recently-renovated Senior Center.  See how two hundred grand of your tax dollars was spent.  See you there.

Big Week In Costa Mesa

A BUSY WEEK AHEAD
Another big week is ahead for us government watchers in Costa Mesa.  Here's a quick recap of what's ahead.

PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MONDAY
Monday, February 9, 2015 is the first meeting of the Costa Mesa Planning Commission, beginning at 6:00 p.m. in City Council Chambers.  You can read that agenda HERE.  First returning commissioner Jeff Mathews and new appointee Stephan Andranian will be sworn-in.  Then a new Chairman and Vice Chairman will be selected.  One presumes that current Vice Chairman Rob Dickson will be chosen as the Chairman.  That's probably a good choice since he seems to go about his job in a very business-like manner, always seems prepared and always seems able to frame a position clearly.  Vice Chair is another matter.  I won't be at all surprised if former Chairman Colin McCarthy is selected.

THREE PUBLIC HEARINGS
There are three public hearings.  I won't go into too much detail, except to provide you with links to the staff report and a short idea of what's involved.  I'll report on the meeting later.

Public Hearing #1, HERE, is the conversion of four rental condos into ownership units at 191 - 199 Orange Avenue, across from the Santa Ana Country Club, using the Small Lot Ordinance.

Public Hearing #2, HERE, is the demolition of the current Burger King restaurant at 3150 Harbor Blvd. and the construction of a brand new "Raising Cane's" drive-thru chicken place.

Public Hearing #3, HERE, is the request to demolish the kiosk at the 76 gas station at 2281 Newport Blvd. (at Fairview Drive) and erect a 1,190 square foot convenience store at the location.

SPECIAL BUDGET STUDY SESSION
Tuesday, February 10, 2015, beginning at 5:00 p.m. in Conference Room 1A at City Hall is the Special Budget Study Session.  You can read the agenda HERE.  This is a very important meeting because the council will discuss any mid-year corrections to be made to the fiscal direction of the city.  Public comments are much more limited during a study session.

TWO SEGMENTS - LOTS OF INFORMATION
The agenda is broken into two sections, the Financial and Budget Policies section, HERE; and the Fiscal Year 2014-2015 Mid-Year Budget Report, HERE.  Please follow the links on each of those for very informative charts and more data.  The second segment, in particular, has a number of additional attachments with very valuable information.

BIG BUDGET SURPLUS
When you read the staff reports you'll find a huge increase in the fund balance - to more than $9.6 million - and the staff's recommendations on how to allocate those dollars.  Interestingly, none include paying anything toward the much-bemoaned unfunded pension liability.  It will be interesting to see how the conversation goes Tuesday.  There will be as second study session on the budget on Tuesday, February 24th.

CONSOLIDATED PLAN WORKSHOP
On Thursday, February 12, 2015, the City will hold another Consolidated Plan Workshop from 6-8 p.m. at the new, recently spiffed-up Costa Mesa Senior Center at 695 W. 19th Street.  You may recall the first workshop received only short notice a couple weeks ago.  If you have questions call Mike Linares at 714-754-5678.  Here's the City graphic, including a map.  Click on the image to enlarge it.

CLOSED FOR PRESIDENTS' DAY NEXT MONDAY
Incidentally, the City Hall will be closed again next Monday, February 16, 2015 for the Presidents' Day Holiday.

A "Consolidated Plan Workshop" - With Enough Notice

CONSOLIDATED PLAN WORKSHOP
The City of Costa Mesa issued a press release today inviting community input at the second workshop on the Consolidated Plan.  You may recall the first one was announced with very short notice a couple weeks ago.  This will be an exercise similar to the many General Plan workshops held over the past couple years. (photo) This meeting will be held at a new venue - the Costa Mesa Senior Center, 695 West 19th Street, on Thursday, February 12, 2015 from 6-8 p.m.  (See map below)

COME CHECK OUT THE SENIOR CENTER
This should be a great opportunity for us to check out the recently-renovated Senior Center - to see how a couple hundred grand of our taxpayers dollars were spent on our behalf.

THE CITY ANNOUNCEMENT
The entire announcement is shown below:

Public input sought for city's Consolidated Plan at Feb. 12 meeting

Posted Date: 2/3/2015

The City of Costa Mesa Housing and Community Development Division—which is in the process of preparing the city’s Consolidated Plan—and will seek input from residents and other stakeholders at a community workshop from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12 at the Costa Mesa Senior Center (695 W. 19th Street).

The Consolidated Plan identifies needs and priorities related to housing, community service, public facilities/infrastructure, and economic opportunities that are funded with federal monies. Federal Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnerships Grant funds are utilized over a five-year period to address the needs outlined in the Consolidated Plan.

Residents and stakeholders interested in providing input may also submit an online survey available on the City’s website.

For additional information regarding the survey or workshop, or to learn more about the Consolidated Plan process, contact Mike Linares at (714) 754-5678 or mike.linares@costamesaca.gov.

 (click on map to enlarge)