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| The meeting man |
As Sierra Madre endures some of the most difficult times in its storied history, the City Council will now take a month leave after this evening's confab and not re-emerge again until sometime in September. Which makes perfect sense to me. After all, they have tried a lot of different strategies to get us through our water, financial and other crises. Perhaps their complete absence for six or so weeks will do the trick. One thing is for certain, it will be a lot easier on the ears.
There will be some legal issues discussed in private by the City Council, City Attorney and a few salaried employees. These really haven't changed much from the last few times I've written about them, so I am going to gloss over things a little. The City of Sierra Madre is suing somebody, but we do not know who yet. Or at least they are slowly getting to that point. There is also another law suit against the City, most likely the work of the SMPOA. Plus one of City Hall's several labor organizations seems to have a bee in their boxers about something. I suspect this has to do with retirement funding issues. It will be a true "blood out of a stone" moment for them I'll bet.
Once these three items grind to an inevitable halt the City Council will emerge from their smoke-free back room to face the ravening hordes. Which is usually me, a couple of other equally restless souls, a few persons with specific business to conduct with the City Council, and those who toil daily for us downtown. City employees generally outnumber the public about 2 to 1 at these affairs, but then they have to be there. You don't.
From there we get to some even more real stuff.
ACTION ITEMS 1. CONSENT CALENDAR
a) ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION NO. 13- 56 OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SIERRA MADRE APPROVING CERTAIN DEMANDS: This is the part of the meeting where the consequences of previous decisions to spend money become painfully apparent. This week's number is one of the biggest ever. Once the smoke clears a total of $1,877,560.86 in specie and checks will leave the building and head elsewhere. Why so immense a figure you ask? Tonight Sierra Madre pays its J.P.I.A. insurance payment, which totals a whopping $1,049,156. This includes "All Risk Property Insurance," "Pollution Liability Insurance," plus our annual contribution to some state insurance pool. All quite necessary since no for profit private insurance company in its right mind would ever insure small cities such as ours. It's shark infested waters out there. Another thing that became apparent to me as I studied these fascinating figures is that we the people shelled out almost $800,000 in staff salary this month. You'd think that in exchange for such generosity somebody downtown would adequately explain why the water department is carrying $19 million (with interest) in bond debt.
b) QUARTERLY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, FOURTH QUARTER AS OF JUNE 20, 2013 (UNAUDITED): Our Administrative Services Director will take a few moments to explain the City's current finances. My guess is that after going through a lot of numbers, funds, strategies and tax resources, Karin Schnaider will conclude that while things are OK for now, the City's financial future is cloudy and gray. In this way City Hall is really no different than the rest of us. Except that when you or I get into money trouble we can't run around town demanding that people fork over an ever increasing amount of their income or face arrest.
c) APPROVAL OF FINAL PARCEL MAP No. 09-02 (PM71125), 2219-2225 SANTA ANITA AVENUE: Property seems to be getting smaller all the time, while the buildings being put on them get bigger, and with more apartments and people living in them. This is called densification, and some interested people think that this is a good thing. Most of whom don't live here. However, in this case the division of these properties will not result in any of the stacking and packing we are now seeing elsewhere. Or so they say.
d) ORDINANCE No. 1342 AMENDING CHAPTER 13.24 TO CHANGE THE BASE PERIOD FOR CALCULATION OF CUSTOMER WATER CONSERVATION AND TO REMOVE THE FLOW RESTRICTOR PENALTY: While development projects such as The Kensington and Stone Crater seem to have received a carte blanche right to consume as much of our drinking water as they like (and for things such as dust abatement no less), you and I are looking at stiff fines for not cutting our usage back by as much as 20%. Go figure.
e) ELECTRICITY USAGE AND COST TRENDS: The City Council recently requested a report on how much is being spent on electricity by the city, and now they have it. The good news is that some City departments have cut down their usage over the last few months. This has helped hold any overall increase down to a bare minimum. The bad news is Third World Edison is now raising some of our rates, and in the instance of our beleaguered water department by as much as 22%. So much for our answering their call for energy conservation.
f)REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR 2014-2021 HOUSING ELEMENT UPDATE: This is one of those instances where Sacramento forces us to hire a consultant to do reports that everyone despises and nobody would ever willingly read. All so that the State of California can make believe that cities such as Sierra Madre listen to them. In this instance the Housing Commissars are demanding that we plan for 55 units of new RHNA housing, much of which is to be built for poor folks. Has anyone built you a house lately? And let you live in it at a cost far lower than what everyone else in town is paying? I didn't think so. This wretched mess will cost the taxpayers here $50,000. And what will they receive in exchange? A worse off city. But look, that's what you get for electing the likes of Chris Holden and Judy Chu.
g)SECOND READING AND ADOPTION OF ORDINANCE No. 1341 CREATING THE ENERGY , ENVIRONMENT, AND NATURAL RESOURCES (EENR) COMMISSION AND APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION No. 13-55 REGARDING THE ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMISSION (EENR): Maybe this time the City Council will finally figure out what these poor souls will be doing with their evenings downtown. Have you ever heard of a commission being formed before anyone knew what they are supposed to do? Usually the reason for forming such a thing is to take care of an obvious need. Not so much in this case. Of course, this could be because nobody in authority wants to discuss the actual purpose of the EENER. Which in my opinion is to act as propagandists and enforcers for such draconian and unfunded Sacramento hyper-development mandates such as SB 375. But this hardly matters, I guess. There are probably less than 50 people in town who actually understand what that means. It's enough to make you want to throw up.
2.PUBLIC HEARING – ORDINANCE No. 1343 – ADDING CHAPTER 17.18 TO TITLE 17 OF THE MUNICIPAL CODE TO INCORPORATE THE CIVIC ZONE (CIV), AND REVISE ZONING MAP TO CHANGE THE ZONING FOR 440 W. SIERRA MADRE BOULEVARD (CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY) AND 449 MARIPOSA AVENUE PROPERTIES FROM “R-P” AND “R-3” TO “CIV” ZONE: A "Civ Zone," in case you don't already know, is property owned by the City and, to borrow from the Staff Report, used to "support civic operations, and cultural and educational facilities." In this particular case we are talking about a piece of property out in back of the Library. This is actually a good thing. Hopefully the concept of the Civ Zone will soon be enlarged to include 1 Carter and the site where they plan to build the Kensington someday.
3.DISCUSSION – UUT OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE FINAL REPORT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011-2012: "Dogs and ponies, gather 'round. The oversight boys have come to town. They've read the numbers, ciphered them well, and now will tell us all is swell." - Burma Shave.
4. DISCUSSION – ATHENS SERVICES CONTRACT AMENDMENT PROPOSAL: I suspect that this one will sound a bit gruff to some, but it is actually rather benign. What Athens is asking is for their deal with Sierra Madre to be changed to a "Rolling Term" contract. At this moment it is a fixed deal for the industry standard 15 years. And why would they wish to do such a thing you may ask? It makes it easier for them to borrow money. Under the iron pinkie of the CPCFA (for the non-acronymic, the California Pollution Control Finance Authority), trash haulers such as Athens are forced to get their loan approvals via Sacramento. And given various bizarre state mandates they need a lot of dough to buy the required highly expensive equipment. But trash haulers still need a letter from a private bank to play. What a "rolling term contract" does is extend out a trash hauler's deal with a city, but also makes it something done on a year to year basis. This means we get to review their work performance every year, but they can go to the banks and say they have contracts that extend out beyond 15 years. There is no rate increase being asked for here. Sorry to not be snarky, but a lot of businesses are getting screwed in California, just as we are. Imagine being a trash guy in a state run by characters so self-involved and delusional that they think they're saving the world from an environmental Armageddon.
5. DISCUSSION – PROPOSED WATER AND SEWER RATE STRUCTURES: The City is getting ready to raise water and sewer rates again. This item would be a part of that "process." It is structured in such a way that the City Council will not be forced to explain things like who is responsible for $19 million dollars in bond debt (interest included), or the real reasons why water pipes are exploding all over town. However, I can tell you this. As the commenter said, it will take about 5 million of Josh's lattes to pay off the Water Enterprise's bond debts. They expect you to drink deep.
6. DISCUSSION – CONSIDERATION OF ORDINANCE No. 1344: LOW IMPACT DEVELOPMENT (LID) PLAN AND UPDATE TO GREEN STREETS POLICY: Streets by nature are not green. What is now under them was at one time green, but after they laid down about 10 inches of petroleum based paving materials these streets then became something else. "Green streets" is an obvious oxymoron, but then so many things are these days. That said, this one deals with topics such as storm water runoff and impervious paved surface areas. Impervious meaning rain water just runs down storm drains and straight into the Pacific Ocean. Which is a bad thing. As annoying as all of this sounds, it does beat some of the cash intensive plans the County has tried to snooker us into lately. By the way, the Staff Report for this lulu runs 233 pages. If you lead a bad life and go to the hot place when you die, this will be your required reading for all eternity.
7. DISCUSSION – PARKING ENFORCEMENT CONTRACT: This has to do with the possibility of replacing the risible Inter-Con with part time police cadets. Inter-Con, in case you were privileged not to know, is a kind of security guard outfit, except that they ride around town in little funny vehicles pounding out parking tickets. Kind of like malevolent blue Shriners. All done in a for-profit kind of way, with the City getting a handsome cut of the action. Which, I suspect, was a major factor in Inter-Con's hiring. However, there are some in town who don't think residents here should be exploited in this way. Thus the cadets. I personally think both ideas are bad, and the SMPD should be required to go back to writing parking tickets instead. Why should we be paying someone else to do their job for them? It's not like we're made of money.
8. DISCUSSION – STATUS UPDATE: MARKET DEMAND STUDY AND CITY MARKETING PLAN: This will likely be about 15 minutes of City Council happy talk designed to make Mayor Walsh feel good about herself. And she will need the ego boost as this program of hers is probably one of the bigger failures in recent Sierra Madre history. $30,000 down the tubes, and still City Hall has yet to explain how they actually paid for this nonsense. Here are my two questions: Can anyone name one instance where Buxton's Market Demand Study actually paid off for a real business here in town? And how exactly was the $30,000 paid? That is, if it has been paid. This was originally supposed to come out of our now confiscated CRA funds. Did the state actually allow that to happen? I personally have some doubts.
9.DISCUSSION – STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE FROM APRIL 4, 2013: This sort of item is always stuck at the end of the agenda where it is assured of being pushed off to a future meeting. It really should be.
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