On the Agenda – July 6th, 2010

Happy 4^th of July!  Coming off of a nice three-day weekend for city staff we are faced with a council meeting tonight wherein we can expect to see our millions of tax dollars senselessly squandered away. View the agenda.

If you haven’t seen the agenda, please do.  We start off with the usual property negotiations to gobble up more low-income housing so we can give it away to a private developer.

In open session we have the consent calendar which no sane person would actually consent to – but we already knew that.

Item 2 is the Public Works 7-year Capital Improvement Program wherein PW Director Hoppe concocts a way to spread some money over all of the broken infrastructure.  Doing so shows the Feds that we mean well but have no money.  The truth is if we wanted to, we could fix a few serious issues now and delay some of the more minor ones.  But we won’t.  We will wait and watch more roads crumble, precious water resources bubble up from broken water mains, and our sidewalks lifted up by city trees.  Worth noting is that the Harbor Boulevard slope failure that has been threatening pedestrians and motorists for more than a year has been pushed back until FY2012-13.  Oh well; what do you expect?  The 7-Year CIP covers $70,874,000 of tax dollars.

Item 3 is a wireless carrier lease for the Euclid Tank Farm for $1,577 per mo with 4% increase each year.

Item 4 is an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant of $1,246,100 to build a compressed natural gas station at the Basque Maintenance Yard and the use of solar panels in the Library’s expansion project, all of which is provided courtesy of President Obama and the taxpayers of the USA.

Item 5 is the 2010-2011 investment policy.  The 74 page document describes how the city should invest.  Good luck with that one!

It looks like item 6 shows we blew it with the Tennis Center Pavilion’s renovation.  The City’s consultant estimated it would cost about $740,000 to renovate the center but the lowest bid came in at $1,063,000.  The blame, according to the staff memo, is that the two bids received “were not as competitive as anticipated.”  That’s code for “we have no idea what we are doing but we are getting pretty good at it.”

Item 7 is the Raymond Avenue NO STOPPING ANYTIME ordinance.

Thanks to Nelson’s resignation from the council, the City supposedly now has $8,000 more they can allocate towards…DRUM ROLL PLEASE… the Library Fund, according to item 8.

Item 9 tackles “Personal Service Facilities”.  “Staff” would like to remove tattoo parlors from the municipal code’s definition for Personal Service Facility.  According to a staff memo, this change will help the City regulate where tattoo parlors can open up and how they are operated.  The memo identifies a Planning Commission meeting on February 25, 2009, wherein the city staff noted that Fullerton has roughly twice as many tattoo parlors as other cities in Orange County.  Leave it to staff to come up with a useless statement that sounds like a statistic but isn’t.  First, consider how many college/university students are in Fullerton on average.  Then consider how many college/university students are in oh let’s say Mission Viejo or Cypress on average.  Drive down PCH and you will find HUNDREDS of tattoo parlors spread out through Sunset Beach, Huntington, Newport, and places in between.  I hope the tattoo parlor owners and patrons drop in for this meeting.  Maybe they’ll upset Ol’ Doc to the point he gets up and leaves for good.

Item 10 is a fee increase for vehicle release.  The current fee for cars is $120 with the increase being $171 when impounded or stored as a result of DUI or other violation.  There is also an increase in the fee for vehicles impounded from private property from $25 to $33.

If you operate a tow service in Fullerton, you will want to take note of item 11.  This is an amendment to the Fullerton Municipal Code and will regulate the standards and operations of tow companies designated as police tow operators.

Item 12 establishes guidelines for public street residential parking permits.  If you live near a school, you might want to read more on this.

Item 13.  Oh lucky number 13.  The council will vote on a resolution to hold a special election for Nelson’s vacated council seat.  Expect to hear one of the old guys push for an appointment.

Item 14 is an amendment to the Fullerton Municipal Code which will ad a chapter on truck routes and terminals.  This was initiated by the PD but is presented to the council by PW Director Hoppe.

Agenda Forecast  for July 20, 2010

• Contract Award – Building Demolition – 130 W. Santa Fe

• Contract Award – Grandview Sewer Replace. – Woods to Fern

• Affordable Housing and Disposition Agreement Richman Court 466 W. Valencia

• Closed Session – Property Negotiations – Richman/Valencia/West

• Committees and Commissions

• May Financials

• Personnel Management System Changes

• Grant Writing Status Report