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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Insider's GuideJ U LY 24, 2018 INSIDER'S GUIDE From: Kiff. Dave Subject: Insider"s Guide for the Newport Beach City Council Meeting of Tuesday, July 24, 2018 Date: Friday, July 20, 2018 8:00:20 AM Another good Friday morning to you. Hard to believe we're already past the halfway point of summer (don't tell the young folks that!). This is the Insider's Guide for the City Council meeting of Tuesday, July 24th, 2018. This Insider's Guide is not an attempt to summarize every item on the agenda —just the ones that seem of specific interest to me. I encourage you to read the full agenda if you wish. So then, here's a summary of what's on the agenda of the next City Council meeting. It starts with a Study Session at 4:00 p.m. to cover: • Our annual presentation from Visit Newport Beach/Newport Beach and Company about the destination marketing organization's budgets and biennial marketing plan. VNB receives a portion of the hotel bed tax (as well as a portion of the share coming from residential short-term rentals) to help market the community as a destination for visitors. Hotels and short-term lodgings are a big part of our revenue, which means that visitors help ease the tax burden on all of us. Bed tax is projected to be $27M in this fiscal year, with another $2.7M coming from residential short term rentals. That's the City's third largest revenue source, following property taxes (nearly $100M) and sales taxes ($36M). This is on the evening session as well, to accept VNB/NB & Co's filed plans and budgets. • Police Chief Jon Lewis will give Council an update on our town's crime statistics after the first six months of the calendar year. During the 7:00 p.m. Regular Session, here's what jumps out at me: • Three Notices of Completion (NOCs) that are worthy of mention, as they are projects you will have seen and thought about. One is the recent capping of the Balboa Island Sea Walls. What a project that was — hopefully buying us all some time as storm overtopping and tides were getting to a point where parts of the Island appeared to be at risk. This project ended up costing $1.6 million and was completed actually a tad early. The project was completed within its budget, so we ended up adding some related work to it while the contractor was out there. I particularly want to thank the contractor, our Public Works staff, and the BI residents for being patient with this one. Second is the first phase of the Balboa Peninsula crosswalk project, which installed more visible "continental" crosswalk striping on many intersections along Balboa and Newport Boulevards. There is still more to come here in another phase, but I know I notice the crosswalks even more now. A good reminder for us all to go slowly as these busy summer days march by. Last but not least is the Newport Heights alleyways project — another one (replaced old, cracked concrete and asphalt patch with nice new concrete) that was not easy to live with for our good Newport Heights neighbors. Thank you, all for your patience. • New road rehabilitation is coming to Marguerite Ave in CdM and Hospital Road. Remember that a road rehab is among the most dramatic and costly type of road repairs. The scale goes from minor patching to slurry seal (ie. a new light coat of asphalt) to rehabilitation, which means digging the whole thing up, scraping off the top inches, and laying an entirely new road substructure. • A contract amendment for Police Chief Jon Lewis is on the agenda, one that I am presenting. Contracts for employees like Chief Lewis, Fire Chief Chip Duncan, Attorney Aaron Harp, City Clerk Leilani Brown, and the current and next City Manager all go on the Council's discussion calendar now. This is a State reform that occurred following the City of Bell scandal in 2010 — where contracts were approved outside of the public eye. A Recent Question: What's up with the schedule for the changes at Bayside Drive (actually, this was asked by Council Member Herdman). Currently, our Public Works staff says that the rehabilitation and redesign of Bayside Drive (recall that this would keep the same number of lanes each way, but add some traffic calming) is to put the project out for competitive bid in late August. We'd get the bids back for the work in October 2018 and bring the construction contract award to the City Council in November 2018. Construction could then start in early January 2019 (after Christmas and New Year's) and be complete hopefully by June 2019. As the Insider's Guide nears retirement in the wine country, here are Parts 4 and 5 of "So Please Don't Forget This": So Please Don't Forget This — Part 4 It's about pensions and Cal -PERS. With full acknowledgement that I will be a pensioner soon. So take this with those grains of salt. I do think that the City Council, next City Manager, and our residents should be concerned about and knowledgeable about what is still a pension problem. Benefits are very generous for the funding levels of the Cal -PERS plan. That's a problem. Don't put it on mental autopilot. As to specific and recent performance, PERS announced in recent days that the rate of return for July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018 was 8.6%. PERS' overall "funded status" is 71% (up from 68% last year). 8.6% of course beats PERS' long-term goal of 7.25% or 7.0%. But returns during the first six months of 2018 — incorporated into that 8.6% number — were dismal. Market instability ruled the day, and dampened returns. PERS' total fund performance has seen an increase in 8.1% per year on average over the last five years, and 5.6% for the last 10 years, 6.1% for the last 20 years, and 8.4% over the last 30 years. My point here is that the pension issue is both highly complex AND always something to follow. City managers will and should lose sleep over it. But please know that this City Council, as well as the prior one, has been very diligent about attacking the problem head-on. They have done so basically by paying more towards the unfunded pension obligation than the minimum requirement. This year we will pay about $9 million more, not counting a thing called a "Fresh Start" that also increased our minimum payments. And this has happened without jeopardizing public services. Other cities have not been as fortunate to be able to do this. On top of the amount the City government pays, employees will pay over $10 million a year as direct paycheck deductions, which can be up to 14% of a person's wages depending on their job. I spoke recently that I will miss two state elected officials a great deal. One is Jerry Brown (hear me out here please O). The other is John Moorlach. Both have been diligent about trying to address our pension issues. Yes, I wish Governor Brown would have gone further with it. But he was uniquely able to move the ball forward as a Democratic governor. As to State Senator Moorlach, he comes at the issue from a knowledge base and a firm determination that is unmatched in the Legislature. He'll keep trying. While a political fix may not be in the cards, a judicial one might be. Two cases are at the CA Supreme Court that might dive into the concept of the "California Rule" (whereby benefits granted at time of hire cannot be changed throughout that hire's tenure). The Court could find that a person's years not yet worked could be subject to a negotiated benefit change. This would be significant if it occurred. Please don't forget to stay knowledgeable about this issue — it's important to not be boggled by its complexity. So Please Don't Forget This — Part 5 I'm too wordy already, so I will be brief here. Trees. Trees get old, and we (me) have to direct that they be taken out sometime. I hated every time I had to OK the removal of one of our beautiful street trees, especially those many great Eucalyptus that graced our town for so long. But today I look at places like Poppy Ave and Irvine Ave and am reminded that (Chinese proverb?) the second best day to plant a tree is now. The best time was 20 years ago. Hopefully we will all remember that our trees have life cycles, and that includes both planting new ones and removing old ones before they cause harm. Thank you for reading. Please forward this Guide to family, friends and members of your HOA if you represent one. I always like hearing from you, too, so please don't hesitate to ask a question or offer a comment. Sincerely, Dave Kiff City Manager dkiff(@newportbeachca.gov 949-644-3001 City Council Meeting Information: The Newport Beach City Council meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of most months (the exceptions are August and December). Typically, there is a Study Session that starts at 4:00 p.m. Study sessions are times for the Council to take a deeper look at a specific issue, or hear a presentation, that might eventually lead to a specific and more formal action. A closed session often follows the Study Session. Closed sessions are typically to address legal, personnel, and other matters where additional confidentiality is important. The Regular (evening) Session typically starts at 7:00 p.m., and often has a specific listing of 20-40 different items ready for formal votes. Items on the "Consent Calendar" are heard all at once, unless a Council member has removed (aka "pulled") an item from the Consent Calendar for specific discussion and separate vote. If an item on the agenda is recommended to be "continued", it means that the item won't be heard nor voted on that evening, but will be pushed forward to another noticed meeting. Public Comment is welcomed at both the Study Session and the Regular Session. The public can comment on any item on the agenda. If you want to comment on a Consent Calendar item that was not pulled from the Consent Calendar by a Council Member, you will want to do so at the time listed on the agenda — right before the Council votes on the entire Consent Calendar (it's Roman Numeral XIII on the posted agenda). If an item is pulled, the Mayor will offer that members of the public can comment as that specific item is heard separately. Additionally, there is a specific section of Public Comment for items not on the agenda, but on a subject of some relationship to the city government. If you cannot attend a meeting and/or want to communicate with the City Council directly, this e-mail gets to all of them: CityCouncil(@newportbeachca.gov. Please know that I get a copy of that e-mail, too, because in almost all cases it's something that the City Manager follows -up on. It's my head -start. The Council meets in the Council Chambers at 100 Civic Center Drive, off of Avocado between San Miguel and East Coast HighwaX. There is plenty of parking in the parking structure behind City Hall. You are always welcome to attend in person, but you can also watch on TV Time Warner / Spectrum 3 and Cox Channel 852 or stream it on your computer.