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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Insider's GuideReceived After Agenda Printed August 11, 2015 Insider's Guide From: Kiff, Dave Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2015 11:41 AM Subject: Insider's Guide for the City Council meeting of Tuesday, August 11, 2015 A good Friday morning to you. Here is the Insider's Guide for the Newport Beach City Council meeting of Tuesday, August 11, 2015. The City Council meeting is held on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of most months (but not August! No second meeting). The Study Session starts at 4:00 p.m. (normal time) and the Regular Session will start at 7:00 p.m. The Council meets in the Council Chambers at 100 Civic Center Drive. There is plenty of parking, and you are welcome to attend. But you can also watch on TV (Channels 3/31) or on your computer. I don't summarize every item on the Agenda — but to read the full agenda, click here: http: / /newpo rtbea chca.gov/ modules /ShowDocument.aspx ?documentid =4414 If you are so inclined, please weigh in on these issues by contacting the entire City Council with one email address — that's CityCouncil @newportbeachca.gov. They appreciate hearing from you, especially about any agenda item. We have a couple of items on the afternoon Study Session's agenda that may be of interest: • Our friends from Visit Newport Beach /Newport Beach and Company will attend and present their annual report to the City Council. Visit Newport Beach is the destination marketing organization for the community, and helps market our hotels and other fun resources to our visitors. This is important to the overall economic success of the community, as hotel bed tax alone is our third - largest revenue source at about $23 million this year. • Our Municipal Operations staff will present the Parks, Beaches, and Recreation Commission's recent work to review and propose amendments to our two major Tree Policies. Yes, trees — City -owned trees. We have policies on trees that tell us what to plant where, what sizes of trees to plant, what species, and how they are removed if they are dead or dying (or sometimes if the trees are interfering with pipes and other important infrastructure). If you've ever wondered about trees, this is your meeting. As this is Study Session, the Council will listen to the report, take public comment, and provide direction to us for later formal action at a night meeting. Here's what's on the evening session at 7:00 p.m: • Adoption of a labor agreement with the Association of Newport Beach Ocean Lifeguards (ANBOL —one of our several employee associations). • Acceptance of a passel of completed bikeway projects — I mention this because we've got a lot of great new bike lanes (with some separation, even!) in town thanks to our innovative and hard - working Public Works /Engineering staff. • We're proposing to amend our landscaping maintenance codes to basically allow brown lawns. Well played, drought. • A proposed change to the Muni Code would specify how the City seal can be used. • Mr. Peotter asked for Council discussion about the tradition of having each Council member allocated $6,000 per year to provide to community -based events and organizations (referred to as council district discretionary grants and Policy A-12). • After a couple of attempts, we'll try to award the special events grants that had been on previous agendas. • Newport Crest residents have asked Mr. Petros for Council consideration of vacating an easement on Ticonderoga Street in their community. • There is an item requested by Mr. Curry to waive Council Policy A -6 (this is in regards to how things get on the agenda) and consider a resolution relating to Mr. Peotter, use of the City seal, and same -sex marriage. Some notes: • The Drought. June's data showed us that we've got to do a bit more. Our June 2015 water use data compared to June 2013 show that we all made a healthy 21% reduction (actually, we'd round it to 22 %) in our water use per resident. That's good, but it's not where we need to be. We need to be at 28 %. Our goal for our residents has been a 25% cutback, with the City's activities cutting back enough to eke out another 3% (the City gov't cutback of 3% of total community -wide water use really means a much greater reduction in the city government's water use, if that makes sense to you). How can we do better? One simple way is better compliance with our two -day a week outdoor watering program. If you see violations, we'll follow -up nicely. Please contact us at 949- 644 -3388 or you can report it with the MyNB app. If you don't know your watering days, look here: http: / /newportbeachca.goy /trending /projects- issues /Conserving- water. There is no second City Council meeting in August, so that's a good time to take a break from a -mails and sometimes even from work (as I will be doing O). 1 hope you have a good, fun - filled, and safe remainder of August. Thanks for reading. Please feel free to forward this e -mail 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