HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Insider's GuideMarch 22, 2016
Insider's Guide
From: Kiff, Dave
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 4:15 PM
Subject: Insider's Guide for Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Good evening to you. I'd say Good Friday evening but that's next week. I hope your Easter break is a good one. I'm
looking forward to getting further and further away from this past week when we move our clocks forward. Anyone else
feel sleep -deprived?
That would be a good transition for an insomnia joke about city government, but I did that before and someone chided
me for making light of municipal affairs. So, with no clever segue, here's what's on the schedule for the Newport Beach
City Council meeting of Tuesday, March 22, 2016. There is both a Study Session and a Regular Session. The City
Council's meeting information and a link to the full Council agenda is at the end of this e-mail. I don't summarize every
item on the agenda.
Here are a few items worthy of highlighting. During the 4:30 p.m. Study Session (a half-hour delayed time) we'll hear
about:
• We'll talk about updating our records retention information. An important issue and a complex one.
• We'll ask the Council to weigh in on how often the City's boards, committees and commissions could meet directly
with the Council in open session. I know that the Council and the committee members find reports back to the
Council helpful to align ideas and strategies.
The nighttime Regular Session at 7:00 p.m. is a little quieter, but has a few items worth telling you about:
• For folks who enjoy Little Corona beach (and who doesn't?) our Public Works staff has been working on a design to
try and get seeping fresh water from Buck Gully off of the beach. The Council could adopt the design on Tuesday.
• There's a small modification to the design of one of the Peninsula's undergrounding districts —this one is numbered
22a and has a slight change from the previous UUD #22. This is Balboa Boulevard between West Coast Highway and
22nd Street, including Court Street.
• The proposed wastewater rate increase is back. Yes, I know — and it's all my fault that it's back. You'll recall that
Council Member Selich, a few meetings ago, voted yes at the first reading of the ordinance adopting the wastewater
increase but no on the second reading. Mr. Selich later stated that he objected to the tie within the ordinance to a
rebate. So this time the ordinance has no tie to a rebate. This is not a public hearing to measure protest, but the
public can always speak about it. Protest was previously officially measured, and it was very small, though we did
get about 125-135 e-mails objecting to the increase citing various concerns.
Some notes:
• We will soon have a new Police Chief. it's current Deputy Chief Jon Lewis, and Chief Lewis gets sworn in this
coming Tuesday, March 22 at 2:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers. I'll talk more about Chief Lewis in a future e-mail,
but I'll take this chance to honor departing Chief Jay Johnson, whom I will miss very much as he heads off into
retirement. Chief Johnson led the department through some challenging years, where we saw budget reductions
early on, then AB 109 and Prop 47, a few challenging labor negotiations, traffic concerns, some pretty crazy crime
events, a new animal shelter, coyotes, ABC issues, and much more. All through that, he helped take an already very
good department to the next level. His work to build a strong farm team is why it made it straightforward to select
the next chief from the internal ranks of the Newport Beach Police Department (following an outside and open
recruitment). I'm going to miss that guy.
• Vacation rentals. Those who hold a short-term lodging permit or who have concerns about STLP holders or airbnb-
ers or vrbo-ers (how many —ers can I make up?) might want to mark Wednesday, March 23rd on your calendar. We'll
host a community meeting at 6:00 p.m. at the Community Room here at the Civic Center to get feedback and
provide information about current regulations on short-term lodgings. This is part of the Council's outreach to
inform current permit holders of their obligations as well as to hear more about how other vacation rentals might be
impacting our community — for good or not so good. For more information, link
here: http://www.newportbeachca.gov/government/departments/finance/revenue-division/short-term-rentals
• The Mayor's Spring Egg Roll is tomorrow morning (Saturday, March 19, 2016 starting at 10:00 a.m.) at the Civic
Green at the Civic Center. Eggs and bunnies will abound.
As always, thanks for reading. 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
City Council Meeting Information: The Newport Beach City Council meets on the 2nd and 4t" 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.
The Council meets in the Council Chambers at 100 Civic Center Drive, off of Avocado between San Miguel and East Coast
Highway. 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 (Channels 3/31) or on your computer.
This Insider's Guide is not an attempt to summarize every item on the Agenda —just the ones that seem of specific
interest to Dave. You are encouraged to read the full agenda if you'd like —to do so, click here:
https://newportbeach.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx