Sober Living Home Issues Top Agenda

LAST MEETING OF THE YEAR
The Costa Mesa Planning Commission, "guided" by Chairman Jim Fitzpatrick, meets for their final time this year on Monday, December 8, 2014 with an agenda that is certain to provide some controversy.  You can read it HERE.  The meeting begins at 6:00 p.m. in City Council Chambers at City Hall.  Although they will only hold one meeting this month, this highest paid Planning Commission in Orange County will get their full $400 per month stipend... Merry Christmas, guys!

CONSENT CALENDAR ISSUES
Right off the bat the Consent Calendar - items that theoretically can be considered without discussion with one vote - includes a couple items that might generate a request for separate review/discussion before the vote.

ORDINANCE POTPOURRI
#2, HERE, is an update on the smart phone app, Costa Mesa Connect and Nuisance Abatement Ordinance, Sober Living Ordinance(s) for R2 and R3 zones and recent motel inspection data.  Lots of information in there that will probably get some attention from members of the public.

SOBECA TRAFFIC AND PARKING
#3, HERE, is the discussion of the SOBECA Traffic and Parking Study.  According to the staff report, there's now too much of the former and not enough of the latter.  Attendees might wish to hear this issue expanded upon, too.

SCOOTER SALES REMOVED FROM AGENDA
There are five (5) public hearings on the agenda, but the first one, HERE, involving Scooter Sales, has been removed for later consideration.

LAWSUIT CENTRAL!
Public Hearing #2, HERE, should be very interesting.  It's the denial of a request for Reasonable Accommodation by Yellowstone Recovery.  Lawyers all over town are smiling...

BIG CHURCH EXPANDS TO COSTA MESA
Public Hearing #3, HERE, is the request by Saddleback Church to use a big chunk of space in the building at 1901 Newport Blvd. for church meeting and administrative purposes.  That 207 page staff report provides enough information and conditions for the staff to recommend approval.

SMALL DEVELOPMENT
Public Hearing #4, HERE, is a 3-unit detached residential development at 1817 Viola Place that includes a handful of variances, administrative adjustments and minor modifications.  I thought our Small Lot Ordinance was supposed to do away with all that stuff!

AND ANOTHER ONE...
The final Public Hearing, #5, HERE, is for a 5-unit residential development at 2661 Orange Avenue.  This, also, includes variances and divides the 19,800 square foot lot into five (5) fee simple lots.

NEXT MEETING NEXT YEAR
The Planning Commission will next meet on January 12, 2015 to begin another year of rampant development throughout the city.

Motel Police Calls And Nuisance Complaints Plunge!

NEW ORDINANCES EFFECTIVE?
In a press release today, HERE, the City of Costa Mesa, via Chief Executive Officer Tom Hatch, announced that police calls and nuisance complaints for motels and hotels within the city have dropped dramatically during the first quarter of 2014 when compared to the same period last year.

MANY RECEIVE CREDIT
Hatch credits City Council members, Planning Commissioners, the city staff, the Orange County Health Care Agency, community members and motel operators for this drop.

GOOD NEWS, BUT...
This, of course, is good news - as far as it goes.  Unanswered is the question of how many calls that should have been made were NOT made because of fears of very significant fines that would be levied against the motel operators.  The press release tells us that the city has not YET begun fining motel operators, but if they had, the fines would have totaled $2,880.

CALLS NOT MADE?
I watched the many hearings on the new ordinances set in place to manage this issue and heard the concerns from the motel operators about how the fines might severely hurt their businesses.  Many of them speculated that law enforcement might not be called because of the potential for fines and serious issues may not be handled in a timely manner.  We have no sense of that part of the equation from the city press release.

RIGHEIMER'S GOAL...
Still lingering in the back of my mind is Mayor Jim Righeimer's many statements about his goal of making motel owners take a more "realistic" view of the value of their properties - something he intended to facilitate by hammering them with code enforcement fines and, now, fines for violations of the nuisance ordinance and excessive calls for service.  It was very clear that Righeimer felt some of the motel owners needed to be made to see the folly of valuing their properties to high, making them difficult for his developer buddies to acquire.

 WHAT ABOUT AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEMANDS?
And, based on recent comments during Planning Commission meetings, it is clear that the intent is to reduce the number of long-term-stay units in motels to ZERO - a fact that negatively impacts those in the community who have no alternative source for affordable housing.

KUDOS, BUT NEED MORE INFO...
So, congratulations to all involved for making life easier for the public safety staff and, theoretically, making the community safer.  Perhaps some enterprising real reporter will help us with the other side of the equation - how many calls that should have been made were not because of the potential for "using up" their authorized number of calls?   That would be good information for us to know to fully assess the effectiveness of these new initiatives.

Homeless Housing Workshop A Success

GOOD INFORMATION FLOW
Last night Costa Mesa City Council chambers was the site of the Homeless Supportive Housing Workshop - a meeting designed to present information to, and gather opinions from, residents of the City on this issue.  It succeeded.

BIG, ENTHUSIASTIC CROWD
The auditorium held more than 100 people, eager to hear about the City's plans to provide some kind of Supportive Housing as one piece in the Homelessness puzzle.  The audience was attentive and respectful as City staff, consultants and residents expressed their views.  Unlike City Council meetings, where Mayor Jim Righeimer rules with an iron fist, expressions of support and appreciation - clapping - were not stifled.  It was a nice change.

FRANCIS MODERATED
Assistant Chief Executive Officer Rick Francis kicked things off, then handed the ball to Righeimer, who first apologized to the members in the audience from the local area, indicating that the City dropped the ball by not doing public outreach before announcing that the Civic Center Park might be the venue for a Homeless Housing Project.  He then gave a mini-pep talk and said he would stay in the audience as long as he could before he had to go tend to his daughters.  He did just that.  He stayed through the entire nearly 3-hour long meeting, sitting near the back of the room, watching, listening and tinkering with his phone through the entire event.

EXCELLENT SLIDE SHOW

Consultant Kathe Head from Keyser Marston Associates, HERE, presented a thorough slide show to the audience and answered spontaneous questions from the audience.  From my vantage point, it appeared that most members of the audience learned some new information.  She explained the formation and goals of the Homeless Task Force, and described the City's multifaceted approach to resolve Homelessness in Costa Mesa within 5 years.

STUDIES CITED
Head cited several studies - none of which were from California - that implied that it costs less to house a homeless person than it does to deal with them on the streets.  She explained "Transitional Housing", and described the benefits to the community of such housing.

FIVE OPTIONS
She also covered in great detail the five options the City sees available to it:

• Option #1 - Motel acquisition and conversion
• Option #2 - New Construction of a Project with 100% of the units provided to homeless tenants
• Option #3 - New Construction of a 50% homeless and 50% very-low income households project
• Option #4 - Acquisition and renovation of existing apartment buildings
• Option #5 - Tenant Based Rental Assistance Program

MOTELS IN PLAY?
In the recent past we've been told that there were NO properties available for purchase that might fit numbers 1 and 4.  However, Head told us that there may now be one or two motels "shopping to be sold".  I guess Righeimer's bludgeoning has had some effect.  So, the rule of governance in Costa Mesa appears to be just beat the crap out of someone until they go along or get out.  Nice...

MAKES MY HEAD SPIN
Head, who described herself as a "numbers person" closed her nearly hour-long fast-paced presentation by describing some of the financing options for several of the options.  Eyes glazed over around the room, but many people nodded in agreement as she spoke and some asked pertinent questions.

37 SPEAKERS
Then, at 7:15, Francis opened the meeting up to comments, indicating that each speaker would have three minutes - the City Clerk was in the front row timing them.  That led to a parade of more than three dozen speakers, each of whom stepped up and expressed their views.

MONTICELLO RESIDENTS - BOTH SIDES
We heard from several residents of the Monticello development that is contiguous with the Civic Center Park express support both for and against putting Homeless Housing at that site.  Each side made strong presentations of their views and opinions.  We were later told by Francis that the Civic Center Park site is no longer being considered.

FLO'S STORY
We heard from long-time resident, activist and former Daily Pilot columnist Flo Martin about her personal experience being homeless, twice, during her post-World War II life in Europe and Canada.  It was clear that she felt strongly that we simply must DO SOMETHING about this issue.  Her preference was Option #2.  She clearly touched many in the audience with her story.

FORBATH'S PRAISE
Long-time community activist Jean Forbath attended and spoke, stating that she was proud of the City for taking these initiatives and thanking the current City Council and the staff for moving forward with this process.

CAPITELLI'S SINCERITY
City Council candidate Tony Capitelli, a strong advocate for Homeless Housing, attended with his wife, Julie, and stepped up to briefly address the audience and staff, citing a "sense of urgency" to keep moving on this process.  No, he didn't use this as a campaign stop.

MORELLO'S ANGST
Resident Phil Morello stopped whispering loudly to his knot of Westside cronies long enough to step up and described his background as a long-time Westside activist and suggested that we "get it right" and should consider one of the Eastside motels as a possibility.  He also expressed concerns that HUD housing funds might be used to house illegal aliens - muttering could be heard around the auditorium.

HEYHOE'S GRATITUDE
Becks Heyhoe, Director of the Churches Consortium, has been on the leading edge of the battle to resolve Costa Mesa Homelessness and also spoke briefly, thanking all those who attended the workshop for their interest and participation.

CARTER'S CONSTERNATION
One of the last speakers was Russ Carter, a long-time activist on Homelessness issues.  He stepped up and acknowledged he was ready to scold participants for their views, but that he couldn't.  He, also, expressed admiration for the participants in the workshop on both sides of the issue and the process in general.

COMMENTS CONSIDERED AND ARCHIVED
Just before 9 p.m. Francis wrapped up the meeting by telling the remaining members of the audience - it had thinned considerably to around 60 people in the nearly three hours it took to reach that point - that their comments would be reviewed and archived for the City Council to consider.  The meeting had been taped, probably not for replay, but for archival purposes.  Councilwoman Wendy Leece, literally and figuratively a lame duck - she's hobbling around on a recently-replaced hip and is in the last year of her term - attended most of the meeting and paid close attention to the speaker's views.

WHERE NEXT?
It's not clear what the next step will be.  If the Civic Center Park site is out, then I presume the staff may attempt to pursue purchasing a motel site that has begun to weaken their resolve to fight City Hall.  It's funny how passing ordinances aimed directly at one type of business - the Nuisance Ordinance and the Excessive Use of Services Ordinance - plus the waterboarding effect of constant Code Enforcement and Police attention can weaken one's resolve, isn't it?

HUG A HOMELESS GUY
So, until the Homelessness issue is resolved, you may want do what some speakers suggested - get to know some of the homeless folks in town.  A pastor from the Lighthouse Church - across the street from Lions Park, which has become ground zero in the homeless issue - suggested we do just that.  Heck, apparently one woman has begun giving them housing in her home!

Mayor Wants A "Preserve Our Neighborhoods" Task Force

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER COMMITTEE
According to a press release by the City of Costa Mesa this afternoon, HERE, Mayor Jim Righeimer has announced that he wants to form YET ANOTHER committee!  This time he wants to form a task force that will examine ways to lessen the negative impact on neighborhoods caused by residents of some group homes.

A BIG PROBLEM...
Lately there has been lots of chatter by speakers before the council about this issue - it's NOT a small problem.  Since Newport Beach clamped down on their proliferation of rehab facilities some of the operators of those places simply moved across our common border, bought or rented several homes - many on the Eastside - and continued business as usual.

...AND GROWING LIKE THE BLOB
As you might expect, neighbors of these places are pretty darn upset - and I can understand why.  Issues like smoking, noise, increased traffic, parking problems, intimidation, trash (including discarded illegal drug paraphernalia have all been reported surrounding these kind of facilities.

LAWS NOT ENOUGH?
The city has a new Nuisance Abatement Ordinance designed to manage many of those issues, but we probably don't have enough enforcement staff to take care of it.

CONTACT CITY HALL
According to the mayor, he will provide more information on this task force at the council meeting on December 5th - like, maybe, whether he will get council approval to create it, for example.  In the meantime, folks interested in applying for the Preserve Our Neighborhoods Task Force should contact Sharon Rodelius at City Hall at 714-754-5107.  It's unclear whether folks who do not belong to the usual cadre sycophants that I now refer to as B.K.O.R (Butt-Kissers Of Righeimer) will be found to be acceptable candidates - but you can try.