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.

 
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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.

 
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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.

 
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City Council – 12 January 2010

On January 9, 2010, In City Council, Infrastructure, Parks, 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 are two items on this week’s City Council agenda that are worth discussing.  The first is a grant request to help fund the construction of a new part and the second is an increase in electric rates charged by the Anaheim Public Utilities Commission.

Item #23 – Miraloma Park Grant Application

There is a lack of easy access to parks in much of Anaheim.  The City’s Community Development Department is applying for a grant under the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Grant Program.    This grant, if awarded, will work in conjunction with a Section 108 loan the city has applied for to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  (I’ll be talking more about the Section 108 loan in a future post.)  This application is just one example of the many ways Anaheim is finding to fund the improvement of resident’s quality of life without over exerting the City’s general fund.

(more…)

 
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