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HomeMy WebLinkAbout00 - Written CommentsRECEIVED AFTER AGENDA PRINTED OCTOBER 10, 2017 October 10, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( jimmosher(c)yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item 1. Minutes for the September 26, 2017 City Council Meeting The passages shown in italics below are from the draft minutes with suggested corrections indicated in c4r°�u:t underline format. The page numbers refer to Volume 63. Page 361: add to end of Item SS3: "Allan Beek recited the opening lines of the poem Winken, Blinker; and Nod and complimented the City on creating "a river of crystal light." [see video at 19:30] Page 363: Item 111, paragraph 2: "Jim Mosher believed that more information should be provided about the Closed Session item and the written FAA arguments should be made available online." Page 369: paragraphs 3, 5 and 10: "view nIp ane" [misspelled in three places] Item 4. Resolution Affirming the City Manager's Authority to Administer and Manage the City's Employee Deferred Compensation and Health Savings Plans and Authority to Sign Related Contracts It seems odd the Council is being asked to make a decision about this quintessentially financial matter without a recommendation from the Finance Committee. The report makes it sound like the plans have been administered in something like the requested fashion since 1973 for the Deferred Compensation Plan and since 2006 for the Retirement Health Savings Plan. The motivation, after so many years, for giving a formal Council blessing to what seems to be the existing arrangement appears to be the hope it may "limit plan sponsor exposure to fiduciary liability in connection with plan losses" (staff report page 4-4, and I assume the City/taxpayers are the "plan sponsor"), even though the proposed resolution seems much more focused on indemnifying the members of the City Manager's Deferred Compensation Plan Committee. The wisdom of affirming the present structure would seem to depend on whether the decisions made by the City Manager and his Committee on these matters have any impact on City taxpayers, or are purely an internal employee matter. The staff report suggests the latter is the case for the Deferred Compensation Plan, however from the chart at the bottom of page 4-3, the Health Savings Plan appears to involve the investment of substantial amounts of taxpayer money. While what the employees do with that money would seem their concern alone, one certainly wouldn't want the resolution to give employees control over the taxpayer contribution formula shown in the chart. October 10, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 5 The staff report and resolution could, then, be much clearer on what aspects of the plans the Council retains control over, and what documents, if any, that formerly went to the Council for approval will no longer be doing so. In particular, although mentioned nowhere in the staff report or resolution, this seems related to City Charter Section 421 ("Contracts. Execution."), whose opening paragraph, since Measure EE in 2012, has been almost impossible to understand, but the essence of which seems to be that City employees can enter into contracts only when expressly authorized to do so, sfor the City Manager, through the budget. If the former of these is indeed what Section 2 of the resolution is doing, then it should probably be clearer that it is not authorizing the City Manager to change the plans. Finally I am unable to understand a part of the last sentence on the bottom of page 4-7: "employees ... shall receive all indemnity, immunity, insurance, and other rights and privileges afforded to public employees under both the law and the City for..." Was it intended to say "by' instead of "under"? Otherwise, I don't know what "afforded ... under ... the City' means. And more importantly, if the resolution is intended to absolve taxpayers of responsibility for bad investment decisions by these people, it would seem to me it should say so. Item 5. Resolution Designating the Streets, Days, and Hours on which the Parking or Standing of Vehicles is Prohibited to Improve Street Sweeping Effectiveness Since trash collection both creates litter and involves containers on the street, it seems a no- brainer that street sweeping should come on the day after trash collection, not on the same day, or the day before. The staff report explains, and illustrates in Attachment A why on Balboa Boulevard from A Street to G Street there is a conflict between Monday trash collection (indicated by the green properties) and Monday street sweeping (indicated by the green lines) which can be resolved by moving street sweeping to Tuesday. I am unable to find any explanation of why the same conflict remains acceptable and does not need to be resolved from G Street to Channel Road (a portion of which is visible to the right of Attachment A). I am similarly unable to find any explanation of why in the area depicted in Attachment B, street sweeping is scheduled a day or two before trash collection, rather than after. That would seem to ensure debris left by the trash collection will be left unswept. The proposed resolution continues the commendable practice of keeping all the street sweeping related parking regulations in one place. The title to Exhibit "A" of the resolution (staff report page 5-31) is, however, a bit misleading, for, to the best of my knowledge, this is not a comprehensive list of all no -parking restrictions in the city — only those related to street sweeping. There is presumably somewhere else a resolution (or resolutions?) specifying streets with parking restrictions imposed for different reasons. This, curiously, argues for the value of keeping such lists, even if lengthy, in the municipal code, rather than relegating them to resolutions. If in the code, a new ordinance can modify only a few lines of a table, which will October 10, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 5 then be corrected by the "codifying" service, keeping the list always in one readily -accessible place and current. Item 6. Central Avenue Plaza Revitalization - Award of Contract No. 8197-2 (17H12) The staff reports mentions (page 6-2) that the proposed contract is being funded, in part, by the amount of the $350,000.00 of Newport Harbor Yacht Club mitigation money that was not used to build the Central Avenue Public Dock. I am unable to tell how much that residual is, and how much of the present project is being funded by the general Tidelands Capital Fund. Item 7. MacArthur Boulevard Slope Landscaping Project - Award of Construction Contract No. 8176-1 (15L01) I recall this project being championed by then -Council member Ed Selich. I do not recall if this is City property or private property that the City is offering to clean up for some kind of perceived public benefit. The statement (on page 7-2) that "Public Works and Municipal Operations staff came up with a creative solution to find a reclaimed water source for the slope area and adjacent median to make the project feasible and conserve potable water' could use further explanation. Is the City offering to buy back some of the reclaimed water we sell to Big Canyon? Or is Big Canyon offering to supply water to the median in return for the City rehabilitating what looks like their slope? City mapping continues to show most of this as part of non -City -owned golf course parcel APN 442 032 58. Is Big Canyon contributing anything toward the cost? Item 9. Request for Waiver of City Council Policy L-6 at 3235 Ocean Boulevard The statement on page 9-2 that "These proposed private improvements will not diminish the rights of the public, present and future" may be literally true of the proposed temporary and permanent caissons. It nonetheless seems a bit disingenuous in view of the extensive private improvements which already occupy and will continue to occupy what looks like far more than half the public right of way between the Ocean Boulevard curb and the actual private property line — an area that could, presumably, be reclaimed as public greenbelt. That said, the encroachments into the public realm are at least less extensive than on the properties to the right of this one in Attachment A (page 9-4), where essentially the entire public area beyond the sidewalk has been allowed to be made private. One wonders if the encroachment agreements (which the Council apparently doesn't see) require any annual payment of rent to the public? Such a feature would seem to make this system of waivers more equitable. October 10, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 5 Item 10. Approval of Amendment No. One to Agreement with Mariposa Landscapes, Inc. for Landscape Services for Parks and Facilities This contract has multiple problems, not the least of which is that big ticket items like this have recently been placed on the regular agenda, but this one is slipped back into the consent calendar. The staff report makes clear the Council is being asked to add money to an existing contract, but how much is extremely difficult to deduce from the numbers quoted in the report and whatever that new investment might be, the report gives no hint as to how any new trees those dollars might buy us. The amended contract itself, on page 10-4, suggests the requested increase is $1,516,461. But to verify that the public has to locate the existing contract, C-6375, which says it is for a not -to - exceed amount of $1,975,000 per year over the whole term from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2018, plus three possible one year extensions, but then inexplicably sets the not - to -exceed amount for the full six years not at 6*1,975,000 = $11,850,000, but rather (and without any explanation I can find) at $12,458,539. Assuming the intent is to add $425,000 per year for tree planting (as the staff report suggests on page 10-2) and the total amount of the increase is $1,516,461 (per the contract, on page 10-4, and indeed the difference for the number quoted as the new contract total versus the old: $13,975,000 - 12,458,539 = $1,516,461), that would pay for just $1,516,461/425,000 = 3.57 years of enhanced tree planting service. Yet there is a potential of 4 years and 11 weeks left on the contract, so barely enough is being requested to pay for the three extension years, let alone the 1.2 years left of the original 3 years. So this is very hard to reconcile with staff Recommendation b (on page 10-1), stating that $850,000 is being added to the existing three years plus a $425,000 per year increase in each of the three extension years. Instead, it looks like the amount being added to the present non -extension years is capped at $1,516,461 — 3x425,000 = $241,461. Beyond this inscrutable math, it is difficult to understand how the proposed new Exhibit B (Schedule of Billing Rates) — staff report page 10-10 — integrates with the Exhibit B of the existing Contract C-6375. First, the new schedule contains an unexplained new table listing the not -to -exceed amounts for each year, and implying these are not just not -to -exceed amounts but amounts Mariposa can bill the City, and they are even subject, it says, to CPI increases. That was never the intent of the original contract, in which the billing was limited to reimbursement for actual services performed (such as a tree planting or maintenance of a specific park), and only those specific agreed -to billing amounts, not the contract's not -to -exceed limits, were subject to CPI adjustment (with, it might be noted, the odd provision that amounts charged could be increased by up to 2% per year, but never decreased even if the CPI went down). Second, the existing contract provided for 24" box plantings at $200 each, and 36" boxes at $700 each. The staff report implies enhanced services justify increasing these to $296 and October 10, 2017, Council Consent Calendar Comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 5 $859, but neither the staff report nor Exhibit B explain what circumstances would justify charging the "premium" rates of $367 and $1,076. Item 13. Balboa Peninsula Pedestrian Crossing Study This matter appears to also be the subject of Study Session Item SS4. Although the staff report for Item 13 recommends the Council endorse specific improvements, one hopes the Council will retain the flexibility to take different actions depending on what they hear and discuss at the study session. In that regard, it seems odd that, to give Council and staff to respond to what they hear, the actual Council action would not be scheduled for a different evening from the study session. Or at least that the action would be scheduled as a regular agenda item, rather than hidden in the consent calendar.