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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Written CommentsReceived After Agenda Printed June 16, 2015 Written Comments June 16, 2015, Council Agenda Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( iimmosher(o),vahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949- 548 -6229) Item 1. Mooring Permits, Rent and Other Provisions: Harbor Commission Recommendations As the staff report indicates, the Harbor Commission recommendations are based on an series of well- attended public meetings, however the attendees at the meetings were almost exclusively current mooring holders -- so the result is a recommendation favorable for them, but not necessarily one favorable for Newport Beach taxpayers in general, or for the people of California in whose trust the City administers the Harbor. It sets a proposed rent whose only rational basis seems to be it is one many of the current mooring holders would be comfortable paying and it can be viewed as the cost of living adjusted version of an equally arbitrary earlier rate. The recommendation also continues the highly questionable practice of allowing private for - profit transfers of the `right' to a space on the public waters, as if the space were the renter's personal property. I strongly object to any proposal in which the City condones or facilitates the concept of private ownership of public assets. At least to me, the Council should think of the Harbor as if it were a public parking lot in which they rent spaces. In such a model it seems obvious the current renter should not be able to privately control who can next use the public space (as any private transfer arrangement does). It also seems obvious that when the renter changes there should be no transfer fee beyond the cost of the paperwork required to process the change. The remaining question is what "fair market' rent should be charged for use of the public space? Much as for a public parking lot, I would suggest using the free market to determine this by empirically setting the amount charged (per square foot of water used) to a value that creates a reasonable rate of turnover in the mooring spaces. This rate would then provide an indication of what the proper rate to charge is per square foot of public water used in front of private residences and commercial properties, rather than the other way around. Details of how to announce the availability of mooring spaces when an existing renter leaves should be easily worked out. In short, in the interest of the public in general, rather than just the current mooring holders, would reject the Harbor Commission recommendation, well- intentioned as it is, and craft something along the lines suggested above. June 16, 2015, Council Agenda Comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 2 Item 2. Civic Center Audit From the public's point of view, a major unknown in the Civic Center construction, not mentioned in the staff report, is the part played by the Council's so- called "Building Ad Hoc Committee." That committee of three Council members, originally created (by Council Resolution No. 2003- 30 in 2003) to play a role in the re- construction of the OASIS Center, and until quite recently annually re- appointed, played an unknown role in all phases of the Civic Center project. The role is unknown because contrary to the Brown Act principle that the deliberations and decisions of local elected officials are to be made publicly and with public input, to the best of my knowledge the Building Ad Hoc Committee never held a noticed public meeting nor publicly reported any recommendations to the full Council. Among other things, one might guess that the Building Ad Hoc Committee reviewed at least some of the "change orders" referred to in the staff report -- which incidentally, when I last checked, were not disclosed in enough detail for the public to be certain exactly what many of the changes were. One might also guess that staff and the contractor took an "OK" from the Committee as a blessing by the full Council — possibly with results quite different from what the public thought the Council had agreed to. But this is only guesswork, since there is little or no trace of the Committee in the City's readily accessible on -line records and it is unclear if minutes were kept of its meetings even though the Committee's decisions may have had a significant impact on the course of the project. For the reasons stated above, I feel any meaningful audit of the Civic Center design and construction needs to include a full review and disclosure of the until now non - public role played by the Council's Building Ad Hoc Committee. I have somewhat similar concerns about the three Council member "Working Group' proposed to interact with staff regarding the present audit. Assuming that group is also going to meet non - publicly, it seems set up to ensure that most of the substantive discussion about the audit will occur in the shadows, outside the glare of public scrutiny. Having the messy details of the audit cleaned up outside public view does not seem to me to be in the public's interest.