Anaheim 2060

City Council – 22 June 2010

On June 22, 2010, In City Council, Civic Participation, By Grant

Today’s City Council agenda is incredibly long, stretching to sixty items. Many of the items on today’s agenda were carried over from the June 8th meeting, including all of the items related to the Avon/Dakota neighborhood. Other than that, there are two items on the agenda that are of critical importance to the goals set out for Anaheim 2060. First, the City Council is going through its annual appointment process for the City’s various boards and commissions. Secondly, the City Council is looking at setting standards and guidelines for what time of day the boards and commissions meet.

Besides transportation, the biggest reoccurring theme on this site so far has been civic participation in our governance process. The City of Anaheim’s boards and commissions are a great way for regular people to get involved in the City’s decision making process. Each board makes recommendations to the City Council regarding a small range of issues. The thought behind the boards and commissions is not only does it get more residents involved in the process, but the board members and commissioners are able to spend more time than the City Council members are able to and hopefully provide recommendations that are the best thing for the city.

Finally, in my post two months ago, Public Meetings the Public Can Attend, I said, “One way the city can [increase public participation and engagement] is by holding public meetings at a time the public can attend.” At tonight’s meeting, it looks like the City Council is prepared to make our boards and commissions do just that. The City Council will be discussing the times that public meetings are held in order to “provide an opportunity for public participation.” Unfortunately, the staff report for this item recommends waiting to make any changes until the City Council decides whether or not it wants to combine the Budget Advisory Commission, Investment Advisory Commission and the Senior Citizens Commission. However, I see no good reason why combining these three commissions should hold up a directive from City Council that all boards and commissions should meet no earlier than 5:30 or even 6:00 pm.

The staff report indicates that this is a change that Mayor Pringle has initiated. It is clear, based on the Planning Commissions previous history discussing this issue, that he will face some opposition in this discussion. Hopefully there will be enough residents that see how this benefits them and their ability to influence what happens at City Hall who decide to show up to support the mayor. He is likely to need the support.

City Council – 8 June 2010

On June 7, 2010, In City Council, By Grant

It has been a while since I’ve had a chance to put anything up here on Anaheim 2060. Between work, vacation and a personal life, I’ve been a bit busy. However, there are a number of important items on tomorrow’s City Council meeting that I thought it would be important to point out.

Fiscal Year 2010/2011 Budget Hearing
First and foremost, is the continuance of the City’s budget hearing from the May 18th meeting. This portion of the City Council meeting is starting at the abnormally early time of 2 P.M. As has been mentioned here before, it’s important for the City to hold public meetings the public can attend. Most people aren’t able to get off work early enough to make a two o’clock meeting.

Especially in these tough economic times, the City’s budget is one of the most important issues the City Council must decide on. While I understand the challenges of making these meetings at a time everyone can attend, since it makes the meetings end so late at night, it’s important to allow the greatest participation from the City’s residents to provide input on budget issues.

Exclusive Negotiation Agreement with Uptown Anaheim, LLC
Currently, a parcel of land on the northwest corner of N. Anaheim Blvd. and W. Lincoln Ave. is for sale by Pacific Bell. Bill Taormina, through Uptown Anaheim, LLC, is currently in escrow for the property for $6.55 million. The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency is proposing to take over Uptown Anaheim, LLC’s position in the transaction and purchase the site for itself. Along with that, the Agency and Uptown Anaheim, LLC would have three years to negotiate a Disposition and Development Agreement for Uptown Anaheim to develop the Agency owned land.

Quite simply, I don’t understand the value that either party, Uptown Anaheim, LLC or the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency, gain in this transaction. The staff report says, “The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency would like to ensure the Site is developed consistent with the Redevelopment Plan and the General Plan.” A developer would need to request a zone change and general plan amendment if they wanted to build something that is not consistent with the current Redevelopment Plan and General Plan. These changes would need to go before both the Planning Commission and the City Council.

The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency already owns a number of parcels along Anaheim Blvd that are either vacant or under-utilized. The Agency’s money would be better spent on improving the land it already owns instead of buying an economically viable site that a developer would be happy to build on.

Revitalization of the Avon/Dakota Neighborhood
Of all of the neighborhoods in Anaheim, Avon/Dakota needs the most help. A while back, Dakota was the most crime ridden street in all of Anaheim. The Anaheim Redevelopment Agency is looking to shift some money to help revitalize this neighborhood.

This revitalization comes at the perfect time. Directly adjacent to the Avon/Dakota neighborhood, the City is looking to build an affordable housing development. These two projects, along with Colony Park directly across South Street, will make a significant impact and will improve the neighborhood substantially. This is a great investment because it will be able to leverage the improvements that are already happening around this neighborhood.

Affordable Housing Agreement for the South Street Site
Near the beginning of the year, the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency issued a Request for Proposals to build an affordable housing development on a site the Agency owns on South Street. A number of developers submitted proposals, including my employer, but the Related Companies put together one that was really great and therefore the Agency selected them to develop the site.

Not only does the proposed design fit in well with the neighborhood, they’ve also committed to doing some improvements in the neighboring Avon/Dakota neighborhood. As I mentioned above, this will allow for some synergies between the work the Agency and Related are doing and improve the “bang for the buck” that the City is expending.

November Ballot Measures
The Anaheim City Council is looking to amend the City’s charter in a couple areas. Charter amendments must be decided upon by the voters as a whole, so the City Council is looking at putting two such measures on the ballot in November.

The first item is a ban on all red light traffic cameras in the City of Anaheim. Many cities have been using these types of cameras as a way to raise money. There is no evidence that suggests these cameras make motorists any safer, and even some evidence that they cause more accidents than they prevent. This ballot measure will ensure future city councils aren’t able to take the easy way out of budget crunches by creating new fees on motorists.

The second item is to allow design-build contracts for public works projects. Under a design-build contract system, the contractor both designs and builds whatever needs to be built. This is different from a design-bid-build contract system where an architect or engineer designs something that is then bid out to contractors who then build what was designed.

There are some advantages and disadvantages to design-build vs design-bid-build. The advantages are largely cost and scheduling. Much of the time, design-build is both cheaper and faster than design-bid-build. The downsides are that there is less oversight of the contractor and normally less design skill from the contractors engineers.

What it comes down to is that design-build is great for things that are fairly basic and are built all the time. Things like roads and utilities are perfect for design-build. There is no reason the city should be paying more or wasting time being confined to a design-bid-build contracting system for public works projects that are done every day.

Public Meetings the Public Can Attend

On April 27, 2010, In Civic Participation, By Grant

One of the primary tenants for improving Anaheim is to increase public participation and engagement in the City’s processes. One way the city can do this is by holding public meetings at a time the public can attend. Unfortunately for city staff and our elected and appointed officials, this means that public meetings need to be held in the evening.

A couple of months ago this very question came up before the Anaheim Planning Commission. The Planning Commission is one of the two most impactful commissions in Anaheim after the City Council itself. Many important decisions are made regarding Anaheim’s future built environment at Planning Commission meetings. It is absolutely vital that community members be able to attend and have their voices heard without having to miss work to do so.

Unfortunately, when the Planning Commission addressed this issue, they decided no to move the time of their meeting from the mid-afternoon. While two of the commissioners did support the move, the other five offered a range of excuses for not wanting to change the meeting time. Most loudly heard, commissioners did not want to take that time out of their private lives to serve the community.

With that type of attitude towards public service, these commissioners should be removed from office. It is clear that they are putting their personal concerns over the public good, which makes me question why they agreed to serve on the Planning Commission in the first place. The City Council should make an effort to stress the need to have these meeting in the evenings. If the Commission does not voluntarily change their meeting time, the City Council should pass a policy, or even propose a charter amendment, that requires all public meetings to begin after 5:30 pm.

Let Election Season Begin

On April 1, 2010, In Anaheim 2060, By Grant

Earlier this week, I attended Jordan Brandman’s reelection campaign kickoff event. Cynthia Ward mentioned my attendance in her writeup of the event over at Red County, listing me as a blogger and mentioning Anaheim 2060. Because Cynthia is drawing a bit of attention to this site, I wanted to address two items about the site briefly.

First, I do plan on continuing to post here. I know there hasn’t been any new content in nearly two months. Thankfully, this has been because I’ve been very busy at work. In this economy, all work is good work, even when it pulls me away from my hobbies a bit. There have been a few interesting things going on in Anaheim over the past two months that relate directly to the topics addressed on the site. Over the next few weeks I’ll be circling back to address those.

Secondly, I don’t want to make this into a political blog. If you want to talk politics, about who’s running for what office, the latest dirt on the candidates, or whatever else you’re interested in, there are plenty of other sites to read that type of information. To me, that petty, partisan politics is boring. While there are definitely candidates I support, I’m going to continue to focus on policy and a vision for Anaheim that everyone can get behind.

Please continue to look forward to new posts here. I promise, I’ll continue to envision Anaheim’s tomorrow so we can start working on it today.

City Council – 9 February 2010

On February 5, 2010, In Business, City Council, Planning, By Grant

NOTE: The City of Anaheim has two primary decision making bodies, the City Council and Planning Commission. Anaheim 2060 will review the agenda for each Council and Commission meeting and discuss any issues that either support or oppose the goals of Anaheim 2060.

There hasn’t been anything of note in either the City Council or Planning Commission agendas over the past few weeks. However, there are two items of interest in the agenda for next Monday’s meeting. The first is a proposal Mayor Pringle first announced at the State of the City last month to refund half of all city sales tax on large purchases. The second is a zoning code amendment to help minimize the opportunity for graffiti in Anaheim.

Item #10 – Providing a partial rebate of local sales tax to encourage and promote major purchases

If approved, this new program called the Anaheim Purchase Initiative (API), will provide a rebate on all purchases over $20,000 made in Anaheim. The City of Anaheim receives 2% of the price of goods bought in the city as its portion of sales tax. API will refund half of its share of the sales tax, 1% of the purchase price, back to the buyer. The net affect for buyers will be a 1% reduction in the cost of goods in the City of Anaheim.

This program is a bit of a gamble, even the staff report says there is an unknown impact on the City’s general fund. The logic behind API is that businesses will take advantage of this program and start spending money now instead of waiting until the economic recovery is more established. In other words, this will move spending up and hopefully jump start new growth for Anaheim businesses. The risk is that companies will take advantage of this program now instead of spending money later. If Orange County faces a double dip recession, API might not spur the medium-term growth and renewed economic vitality that is hoped for.

Even knowing that API is a gamble, this is a good proposal. If we do suffer a double dip recession, and Anaheim doesn’t see the returns on investment that might be expected from this program, all that will be lost is a bit of tax revenue. An amount that will be a drop in the bucket considering the entire size of Anaheim budget. However, if we’re truly coming out of this recession and this program is successful, this will spur growth in Anaheim, buoy its employment base, and in the long run increase the desirability of Anaheim as a place to live and work. This, in turn, will raise property values and property taxes, which will increase the City’s general fund many times over the cost of this program. API has its risks, but they are risks worth taking.

Item #15 – Zoning amendments relating to various anti-graffiti measures

Over the past couple of years, Anaheim has been cracking down on the graffiti throughout the city. The City itself has the Anaheim Community Anti-Graffiti Effort and residents have made Anaheim Beautiful much more active in combating graffiti. Now, the City is working on finding ways to change our built environment to discourage graffiti. While I’m a big proponent of using design to change behavior, this specific proposal is too narrow in scope.

First, there is this change:

.020 Landscape Maintenance. All landscaping, including parkway landscaping, shall be maintained in a neat, healthy and clean condition. A regular maintenance schedule shall be submitted as part of the landscape and irrigation plans. Any dead or diseased plant shall be immediately removed and appropriately replaced in accordance with the requirements of this chapter. All pruning or trimming of required trees and specimen trees shall be in compliance with the standards for street trees adopted by the International Society of Arboriculture, and consistent with Chapter 13.12 (Street Trees) of the Anaheim Municipal Code.

If I’m reading this correctly, if a plant next to a wall or fence dies, the property owner will be forced to replace that plan with a non-deciduous vines or shrubbery to cover the wall. It doesn’t matter if the vines or shrubbery fit in with the overall landscaping of the property, or if the wall has been a target for graffiti, the property owner will have to comply with this section of the zoning code or be at risk of being cited for being out of compliance with code.

I do understand designing new developments to address the problem of graffiti and even to work towards reducing the amount of graffiti on existing buildings. But this proposal seem onerous and expensive for Anaheim’s property owners. This code amendment imposes a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing Anaheim’s graffiti problem. There are many ways of changing the existing built environment to reduce graffiti. The City of Anaheim needs to explore other alternatives for property owners. Additional vegetation on walls and fences is just one solution to this problem, it is not the only one.

The Purple Pipe

On February 1, 2010, In Infrastructure, By Grant

One of the world’s largest metropolitan areas has been built in the desert. We call that desert home. The only way the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, including Orange County and Anaheim, has been able to develop to the extent that it has is because of the efforts of William Mulholland and the California Water Project. The California Water Project has been able to provide for most of Southern California’s water needs over the years. However, because of increased demand, drought and politics, the supply of water has not been able to keep up with demand.

Over the past few years, many of the cities that are still expanding geographically have been building into their infrastructure a recycled water system, often referred to as a purple pipe program on account of the color of the pipes used. A purple pipe program both reduces demand for new water and increases the supply of water. Water from the purple pipe is used only for irrigation and a few other indoor uses, since it’s not considered potable (although in truth, it would be perfectly safe to drink.) But irrigation is one of the biggest uses of water, so reducing the use of “clean” water for this single purpose can have a huge impact on the overall demand for water.

Unfortunately, Anaheim is not still growing geographically. For the most part, we are a built out city. Anaheim has a huge challenge to build a purple pipe program simply because it will require the retrofit of many streets to add the new pipes. It would be cost prohibitive to build the type of large purple pipe systems that Irvine has built in their newer areas. Instead, Anaheim needs to build smaller systems that can serve limited areas and later be connected to one another to form a larger system.

To this end, later this month the city is planning on starting construction on a Water Recycling Demonstration Project at City Hall. This project will take waste water from in and around City Hall to provide not only irrigation but also water for toilets and urinals within City Hall West. In the future, this system will be able to provide reclaimed water for nearby developments and parks that have been designed to use reclaimed water.

The Waste Water Demonstration Project is a perfect example of how the City of Anaheim needs to identify future needs and implement solutions today for those needs. The lack of water will only grow in future years. Small scale purple pipe systems are the only way forward for Anaheim, and the City is out to prove it’s possible.

Encouraging Distributed Power

On January 27, 2010, In Infrastructure, By Grant

Anaheim has a unique position within the county, since it owns its own municipal electric utility. This benefits residents and the city in numerous ways. Just looking at the differences in rates between Anaheim Public Utilities and Southern California Edison nicely illustrates one of the biggest benefits: our rates are much lower. There are other benefits as well: investments in our power grid directly benefits Anaheim residents; Anaheim Public Utilities also has the ability to adjust rates and institute policies to advance certain goals that would benefit the city.

One goal that Anaheim Public Utilities should try to advance is the creation of distributed power generation throughout the city.

First, what is distributed power? Most of our electricity comes from large centralized power plants. Coal, nuclear and hydro-electric plants, such as San Onofre and the Hoover Dam, are where the majority of our electricity comes from. Distributed power, on the other hand, is a large collection of smaller electric facilities located much closer to where the electricity is used. The most recognizable is rooftop photovoltaics, or solar. However, solar isn’t the only way to produce distributed electricity. There are also micro wind turbines that would work very well in Anaheim Hills and The Canyon.

There are many advantages to distributed over centrally produced electricity. Distributed power is more efficient, resilient and sustainable.

Large central power plants must produce considerably more power than will be used since power is lost when transmitting the electricity over long distances. Because electricity generated in a distributed system doesn’t need to travel as far, for instance from your rooftop to your living room, or to your neighbor’s house, it doesn’t suffer from these losses. This makes distributed power more efficient than centrally produced power.

Another advantage of distributed power is its relicensey. The power grid across America is amazingly fragile. California saw this first hand with the power crisis and rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001, and then again in 2005 due to a key transmission line going down due to a faulty sensor. And while we didn’t experience it first hand, we saw the wholesale failure of the power grid in the northeast in 2003. While these issues are rare, they will become increasingly common as we continue to tax our power grid and fail to invest in it. Because of Anaheim’s unique position, it’s possible to mitigate these crises with a distributed power system. A distributed system does not have a single point of failure. If the power fails, but you have enough solar on your roof to generate as much electricity as you use, your power will still work. If your neighborhood’s subgrid generates enough power, your neighborhood’s power will still work. And if the City of Anaheim generates enough power within the city, and something happens to the rest of Southern California’s power grid, our lights will still turn on.

The final benefit of distributed power is that it is green and renewable. Fossil fuels, oil and coal, will become increasingly expensive as demand increases and supplies decrease. Most, but not all, distributed power systems are renewable, such as wind and solar. If we build these renewable systems, we will be able to ensure our electric rates stay low even as the price for electricity continues to rise for most of our neighboring cities.

While the advantages of a distributed power system are great and many, so are the hurdles to installing such a system. The biggest hurdle is two pronged: cost. For your average house, it will easily cost ten or twenty thousand dollars. For an apartment complex, a system can be a quarter million or more. This is a huge outlay of money for any home owner.

Coupled with the initial outlay of funds, a homeowner will never recoup their expenses from the savings they would expect to see in their electric bill because of Anaheim’s low electric rates. While some home owners will install such systems in an effort to be green, or because of other financial considerations that make such a system feasible, the majority of Anaheim will choose not to spend the money.

Another hurdle to adoption is the aesthetics of solar systems. While it’s clear that solar on the roof of one of Anaheim’s many historic homes would ruin the character of that house and neighborhood, newer homes can support solar without much problem. As solar becomes more prevalent, we will become accustomed to seeing it and it will therefore be less obtrusive.

Thankfully, there is a relatively simple solution to all of these barriers, although it will be unwanted by many. If Anaheim Public Utilities raises rates a little, not even to the same price as SCE or PG&E, just a little, and then uses that excess revenue to provide subsidies to homeowners who install solar or wind power systems, such systems will suddenly make financial sense. By attacking the cost issue from both sides, the initial outlay of money and its payback period, the city can minimize the burden on homeowners while still improving our power system.

State of the City – 2010

On January 27, 2010, In Business, Infrastructure, Transportation, By Grant

Yesterday was the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce’s annual State of the City event. There were a number of interesting initiatives that both the City and the Chamber are attempting that I hadn’t heard about before. I’ll post more about these once I have a chance to do a bit more research, but from the event yesterday, here is a short list of developments that were of interest:

The Chamber is trying to form an Enterprise Zone in Anaheim. They didn’t mention where in the city the Enterprise Zone would be, but I would expect that The Canyon would be the most likely place.
The Mayor announced an initiative that he is trying to get adopted by the City Council to refund one half of the City’s part of the sales tax on all large purchases of $20,000 or more. He wants this program to run from February until June, in order to help spur the local economy and encourage large purchases from local businesses.
The Anaheim Fixed-Guideway Transit Corridor has been renamed Anaheim Rapid Connection (ARC). Additionally, Anaheim has launched a new website and branding campaign for all of the City’s transportation related projects called A Connext. This is especially exciting because it shows the City’s understanding that all of our transportation amenities form an interdependent network for people to move around the city.
Finally, Mayor Pringle talked about the successes of AC-NET over the past year and also mentioned that the City received a $5.8 million grant to help create a smart grid for the City and encouraging the creation of renewable energy for Anaheim. This is particularly timely for Anaheim 2060 because there is a post on renewable energy scheduled to be posted later today.

High Speed Rail Public Meeting

On January 23, 2010, In Transportation, By Grant

As was discussed on Monday, the California High Speed Rail Authority held their first public meeting this Wednesday evening. OCTA has put together a short two minute video about the presentation.

A Unified School District for Anaheim

On January 20, 2010, In Education, By Grant

The City of Anaheim is currently served by eight different school districts. There are 65 public schools with grades K-12 within the City’s boundaries. While not all of these districts are comprised entirely of Anaheim schools, many of them are. This myriad of districts throughout the city requires more resources to be dedicated to administration and overhead—as opposed to education—than a single unified district would require.

The division of school districts within Anaheim started in 1913 when the Katella School District broke away from the Anaheim City School District. This was the result of politics and the fact that parents wanted more local control of the schools. This theme of local control is still alive and well in discussions about Anaheim’s schools.

Local control and the parental involvement that it presumes is admirable. A parent’s involvement in their child’s education is the single biggest factor in determining a child’s scholastic achievement. For this reason, local control is a very emotional issue for many. We all want the best possible education for our children. However, if we look at it objectively, we must realize the true costs of local control and how it has negatively impacted our children’s education.

Anaheim’s smaller school districts have been hurt primarily by two factors: resources being diverted from the classroom to administration and poor management by both the boards and administration of the school districts.

The first problem, that of resources being diverted from the classroom to administration, is inherent in the system we currently have in place. Eight districts require eight superintendants and eight payroll systems and simply a duplication of many of the functions that are required within a district. That is not to say we can cut the administration costs by eight, but it might be possible to cut the administration costs in half, or even a fourth of what they are today. This will free up more of our schools finite resources for the classroom.

While the second problem is not inherent in our current system, it is strongly influenced by it. Because our school districts are many and small, they do not have the resources to hire the highest caliber and most experienced administrators. This is not meant as a slight to those who currently work in the administration of our schools, they are all good people who care deeply for education, but the simple fact is that the best people will look for the challenge of a larger district.

Our school boards face a similar issue. Each of Anaheim’s school boards have one or two excellent board members who truly understand the issues that they have to decide upon. The rest of the board members, while well meaning, simply aren’t up to the task of running a top rate school system. In a unified district spanning the city, we would be able to pool those skilled board members to create a board that is up to the challenge of providing the best possible education for our schools.

Here is one example of the poor decision making we now see on our boards: Over the past decade, the Anaheim City School District has benefitted greatly from the housing boom over the past decade. When each of these houses and apartment buildings were built, the developer had to pay a development impact fee to the district to offset the long-term impacts of having additional housing units the schools had to serve. The basic logic is that, given enough new homes, the district can build a new school to teach those additional children. In any case, these impact fees are one time money that is intended to go towards capital improvements for the district. Unfortunately, Anaheim City School District did not spend the money on capital improvements. Instead, they spent the money on short-term leases for temporary, portable classrooms.

Thankfully, the Anaheim City School District has seen the error of its ways. The district is now looking at using the impact fees from the Platinum Triangle to fund the construction of a new elementary school to serve those new homes.

A large school district with more experienced administration and a more qualified board might not have made these same errors in the first place. Instead, it is likely that they would have looked to the long-term well being of the district instead of their immediate problems.

Of course, many Anaheim residents would want to preserve some form of local control of the school district’s board. A good solution would be to have districts for each board member to represent, similar to how the Los Angeles City Council is set up. If the Anaheim Unified School District’s board had seven members, one could be from each of the existing K-12 districts within the city.

Anaheim is a great city. We have a rich and colorful history, and we are one of the top tourist destinations in the world. But the quality of our schools is one of the biggest factors when people decide where to live. If we, as a city, want to continue to attract quality residents, we will need to improve our schools. Local control of our schools is nice, but it carries a heavy cost. That cost is detracting from the quality of education in Anaheim. While a unified school district isn’t a perfect solution, it’s better than what we have today.

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