YAWN...

Still bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, I'm back to report on some of the other things that happened at the marathon Costa Mesa City Council meeting last night/this morning.
MESA VERDE COMMUNITY, INC., SAYS THANKS

Right off the bat we had a couple nice presentations.
Darnell Wyrick, President of Mesa Verde Community, Inc., the homeowners association for that part of town, made a nice presentation to
Ernesto Munoz, Director of Public Services for the City. The presentation included a PowerPoint show of projects completed over the past several months that positively affected the Mesa Verde community.
JOHN SENDREY RECOGNIZED

Then Mayor
Jim Righeimer presented a certificate to
John Sendrey, the Costa Mesa resident who facilitated the rescue of
Kyndall Jack from her precarious situation in the Cleveland National Forest. His is an example of a person with a special skill set who saw a need and filled it. Kudos to him for taking the initiative and helping to save a life in the process.
WATER ISSUES
During Public Comments several residents stepped up with a litany of observations/complaints. For example, Ernie Feeney told the council that the city spends almost $635,000 to Mesa Water each year, so she's looking for some kind of intervention on the way that district spends their money. Geez!
PARKING AND POOCHES
Bob Dugan wanted more handicapped parking at the golf course.
Al Melone used his time to rave about the new Newport Beach Dog Park instead of griping about ours, as has been his practice in recent months. Every time he speaks I think how wise the voters were to reject him as a council candidate last November.
LOUD AND GRUMPY - AND WRONG
Then curmudgeonly John Feeney - the second part of the family tag team - stepped up and railed about "a blogger" (me, I guess) who "inaccurately" posted about the requirement for candidates for city appointment to the Senior Center Board to pony up $500. He was obnoxious in his own special way - but he was wrong. What we reported was on the City announcement - and that included the requirement for the payment. They later changed their entry... It might have been helpful for Old John to talk with me first, to save the embarrassment of being wrong at such a high volume. By the way, things are not good between the City and the Senior Corporation Board. The Board is having a tough time with fundraising and there seems to be no sympathy for their plight at City Hall.
BUSINESS LICENSE FEES
Perry Valantine stepped up to address the Business License Fee, which he reminded the council has not been changed since 1961. His three minutes was eloquent and accurate. There is
NO reason not to discuss changes in that fee - except for a political dogma being followed by the majority on the council.
ALLIGATORS AND SWAMPS
Then a grumpy old fella stepped up and gave us his "alligators and swamp" story again, using the recent gang stabbing as cannon fodder. He wants the city to stop spending money on silly essential stuff and buy up "slums" - his term for apartments where Latinos live in our city - so they can be torn down and replaced with pocket parks. I wonder if he realizes just how tiresome that argument is getting? Or, if he cares?
OC MARATHON
Gary Kutcher, the head of the OC Marathon, stepped up to thank everyone who supported that event again this year. He told us that more than 1,000 room nights were generated in Costa Mesa facilities due to the race, that more than $300,000 will be raised as a result and that 4,500 kids ran in the short race.
ADIOS, NAGHAVI
Cindy Brenneman told the council that she enjoyed cheering the marathoners on as they ran through her neighborhood. Her main reason for speaking, though, was to recognize
Peter Naghavi - who will finally leave the employment of The City this Friday. According to CEO
Tom Hatch, a replacement has been hired and is undergoing the background check and should start to work the first week of June. Naghavi will actually be impossible to replace. His dedication, tenure, skills and institutional knowledge have made him the perfect employee - as I've written here before. We wish him well. To learn more about this fascinating man watch the City Talk video clip from last December,
HERE.
LEECE INFORMS US
During Council Member Comments
Wendy Leece promoted the OCTA Citizen's Advisory Committee and the Relay for Life and tried to recruit members for her team. Righeimer said he'd sign up right then. She also talked about the Art in the Park event at Estancia Park on May 11 and the General Plan workshop at the Emergency Operations Center on May 15th from 6-7:30.
AT LEAST HE SHOWED UP
Gary Monahan had nothing to say.
LAS VEGAS BOONDOGGLE AND CHARTER RANT
Righeimer reminded us that he will be out of town with Mayor Pro Tem Mensinger and an entourage to Las Vegas from May 19 - 22nd, so he asked Leece to run the council meeting on May 21st. Let's just hope we have a quorum. After making a snide, backhand remark about the Senior Center requirement for $500 for Board members (you'll recall I said all is not well with The City and the Board) he launched into his little "why we need a charter" mini-rant. He dredged up his "$41 dollar an hour sign holder" and complained about how "the employees" refused to let him outsource certain operations. He also blamed the employees for the litigation. I looked, but didn't see his nose growing yet.
BIRTHDAYS, BRAIN DAMAGE AND WRITING CHECKS
Steve Mensinger used his time, in part, to wish his son, Hunter, a happy 14th birthday - and complained about how public service makes him miss these days. He also addressed Naghavi's pending departure, citing 587 meetings Naghavi attended in that venue and mentioned "
brain damage"! Somebody needs to remind Steve that the council chambers is not a locker room where every word that runs across his mind needs to be said! What a schmuck! He also told
Harold Weitzberg, whom he apparently had promised to participate on a team for the Relay for Life, that he couldn't make it, so he'll write a check. That seems to be a prevailing theme in his life - got a problem, write a check.
GENIS CORRECTS THE RECORD
Sandra Genis, among other things, corrected a misstatement made earlier by Righeimer concerning the need to outsource our Street Sweeping operations or we'll have to buy all new equipment. She reminded him that our equipment is grandfathered in. She also talked about Banning Ranch and also thanked Naghavi for his service.
HATCH'S REPORT
CEO
Tom Hatch presented us with a list of coming events over the next few weeks:
- Monday, May 13th in Conference Room 1A at 4:30 there will be a joint study session with the Planning Commission and the City Council so the commission can get its marching orders.
- Tuesday, May 14th, also in Conference Room 1A at 4:30 there will be a similar joint study session with the council and the Parks and Recreation Commission.
- Following that meeting, at 6:00, there will be a closed session council meeting.
- On Wednesday, May 15th, at 6:00 in the Emergency Operations Center there will be a General Plan Workshop.
- On Thursday, May 16th, there will be a 60th Anniversary Community Meeting at 6:00 in council chambers.
- On Tuesday, May 21st, there will be a council meeting in council chambers at 6:00.
- On Tuesday, May 28th there will be a Budget Study Session in Conference Room 1A at 4:30.
He also spoke about the recent successful Mayor's Celebration, which has been running on Costa Mesa Television, Channel 3 on Time Warner Cable and Channel 99 on ATT U-Verse. I don't have the link for it yet.
CONSENT CALENDAR
We finally got to the Consent Calendar - you will recall that Righeimer prefers that nobody pulls anything for separate discussion. However, life is full of unfulfilled expectations. Items 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12 were pulled and the remainder were passed with a 5-0 vote.
ESPINOSA'S LISTENING MEETINGS

Item #5, was pulled by Leece because of the payment of $14,000 to
Chip Espinosa. Hatch explained the charge. Espinosa is conducting a series of "listening sessions" among the employees to get a sense of how they are feeling about having to do more with fewer people, etc. I had correspondence with Assistant CEO
Rick Francis about this program last week. He told me that Espinosa is almost finished with the assignment and that it would cost no more than $39,500. He says a final report will be presented to the council and employees, so I hope it will also be made public. I've had some experience with these kinds of programs in the past. Typically, they create expectations on the part of the employees that "things will get better" as a result. If they don't, then whatever morale issues that existed before are only exacerbated. Quite frankly, from comments I've heard, Espinosa has been surprised with the results of these small group meetings - and not in a positive way. We'll see.
MANAGED INVESTMENTS
Genis pulled #7, the three year contract for Managed Investment Services,
HERE, for discussion and former employee and lawyer,
Eleanor Egan, stepped up to comment and basically read the council the riot act. She wondered about exparte communications between the vendor (s) and council members. She told them the contract attached had not been approved by the City Attorney as to form, that it included unlimited terms, there was an exhibit missing, that this kind of thing led to the county bankruptcy a few years ago and on and on. The upshot of the discussion was that this item was continued on a 5-0 vote until the June 4, 2013 meeting, at which the staff will have resolved the issues in question.
DEFERRED COMP.
Leece pulled Item #8,
HERE, the Deferred Comp plan issue, for clarification. After the issue was cleared up both Monahan and Genis abstained because they participate in the plan. It passed, 3-0.
435 NEW COMPUTERS

The grumpy old fella mentioned above pulled #12,
HERE, - which was taken out of order just because he was standing at the podium - the issue of purchasing 435 new desktop computers. He mixed his criticism with mis-information. Other community members stepped up to support the move and it was passed, 5-0.
HARBOR SOARING SOCIETY RENEWAL

Genis pulled #10,
HERE, the renewal of the Harbor Soaring Society agreement and appeared satisfied with the one-year renewal because the new Fairview Park Advisory Committee will soon begin doing an assessment of the entire park and its amenities. It was passed, 5-0.
A FINAL NOTE...

From there we launched into the Public Hearing on the development on Tustin Avenue, which was covered in my previous post. One amusing sidelight during that discussion I failed to mention was Steve Mensinger's apparent brain burp when he addressed Principal Planner
Minoo Ashabi as "Fariba" - apparently confusing Ms. Ashabi with City Engineer
Fariba Faselli. I guess all women look alike to him. That's OK - that's just "
Steve being Steve" - an excuse he's lived by most of his life. As I said earlier, what a schmuck!
Labels: Business License Fees, Darnell Wyrick, Gary Monahan, Jim Righeimer, M.H.Millard, Mesa Verde Community, Minoo Ashabi, Peter Naghavi, Sandra Genis, Steve Mensinger, Wendy Leece