The Los Alamitos City Council unanimously approved a motion to create a process to study requests for speed bumps in the city, however, from the comments made by the council and opposition from first responders, installing them looks a lot less certain.
Speed bumps come in many shapes and sizes, but they are literally bumps in the road designed to make drivers slow down and to prevent damage to the vehicles as they navigate over them.
Ron Noda, the city’s Director of Development Services, reminded the council that in 2019, the city received a petition from citizens in Old Town West requesting the installation of speed bumps. He said the citizens were told there is no speed bump policy, so they opted instead for a pilot striping project.
Noda said the new speed bump policy would, in fact, cover requests from anywhere in a city. He said the policy would eventually be in place “in case another neighborhood” wants to bring back the speed bump or hump policy.
“I want to differentiate the difference between speed humps and speed bumps,” said Noda, saying that they are different, but both are designed for the same goal, to “slow down speeding vehicles.”
Noda said there are disadvantages to speed bumps, “the biggest one that I believe is the impact of emergency vehicles,” whether it is a fire engine or a police vehicle during emergencies, “when seconds count.”
They too, must slow down, to avoid damage and first responders do not favor the installation of speed bumps, said Noda.
Moreover, Noda said in the research they have with other cities, years after they have installed speed bumps or humps, they seem to say, “this may not have been such a good idea.” Also, he said there was some questions pertaining to the city’s liability for any damages made to vehicles sustained crossing the bumps.
Nevertheless, he said the city needs to develop a neighborhood speed policy process, which perhaps defines what neighbors and/or neighborhoods would have to do to present a petition to the city and how the city should review said requests.
Noda said once the policy and/or process is developed, it will eventually be presented to the Traffic Commission for further review and action.
Mayor Pro-tem Shelley Hasselbrink moved to develop the policy but indicated voting to install them might be different.
“We’re not we’re not approving any speed humps here,” she said, “we’re just putting together a policy and we still have the opportunity even under this policy to say no to speed humps should residents request them,” said Hasselbrink.
The council voted unanimously to proceed.
In other action, the council voted to elevate three employees that had been serving in interim roles during the pandemic to formal offices, including Noda as Director of Development Services, Craig Koehler as Finance Director and Emeline Noda as Director of Recreation and Community Services.
According to city attorney Michael Daudt, Koehler’ base salary is $143,000 annually, Ron Noda will be paid a base salary of $122,000 and Emeline Noda $116,000 annually, which he said was clearly within the city’s approved salary and benefits resolution.
City Manager Chet Simmons praised the work of all three during the pandemic and their work in general. All three were unanimously approved.
In other action, the Los Alamitos Council:
• Heard Simmons say the city administrative offices are switching software and improving cyber defenses in the wake of other local governments suffering from cyber and ransomware attacks.
• Heard Mayor Mark Chirco suggest the city work with officials at Joint Forces Training Base to move the July 4 fireworks show closer to the city from the current location closer to Cypress.