The city of Los Alamitos and its newly constituted leadership have begun to introduce new ordinances that will give city officials more power following the results of the approval of Measure “X” by voters in November.
In its first meeting in January, the city Council member elected returning Council members Shelley Hasselbrink as Mayor and Tanya Doby as Mayor Pro-Tem.
Voters approved Measure X on the November ballot that authorizes changes to the city charter that will update some provisions that have not been changed since 1966, city officials said.
Before the measures were introduced, City Manager Chet Simmons reminded the public that all of the proposed changes had been given the thumbs up by voters.
“I just wanted to mention that this is actually coming out of the passage of measure X,” said Simmons, noting the administrative changes were approved by the voters.
“And what it does,” he said, “is it largely takes what the voters have approved and then put it into a framework that allows us to monitor the purchasing of public works projects,” he said.
Simmons asked Deputy City Manager Ron Noda to explain the new ordinances that were introduced for approval.
Noda said the first new ordinance will authorize Simmons to approve public works projects of $125,000 or less, without Council approval, adding that the ordinance gave him financial flexibility of a few percentage points of the $125k limit.
“This just gives us that five percent leeway to get projects done in a timely fashion,” said Noda.
Noda said the Public Works department will continue to use both RFPs (Request for Proposals) when necessary, but he added they plan to also use the information process of getting out and asking for three quotes from related service providers to expedite projects.
Such projects acquired using the “informal process” will then require the approval of a super-majority of the Council, which is at least four of the five Councilmembers to approve, he said.
Noda said the city’s current charter provision, established in 1966, limits the City Manager’s authority to projects costing not more than $10,000.
Noda said using the more formal Requests for Proposals process sometimes takes several months to implement, and that the new municipal code introduced would give the public works department greater flexibility, especially on expediting projects.
All requisite financial compliance policies remain in place, said Noda.
The Council voted to unanimously approve the first reading of the hew ordinance, which will eventually be added to the city’s municipal code.
In addition, the City accepted the first reading of an ordinance related to the enforcement of a municipal code on electric bikes, after which Police Chief Michael Claborn explained his staff’s plan of enforcement.
The ENE will have a follow up story on the emerging e-bike policies.
Finally, following a rigorous discussion, the Council voted to reduce all city volunteer boards and commissions from seven members to five, but not before engaging in a spirited discussion of the merits of reducing current member levels of seven members down to five.
Before the discussion began, Simmons said the current membership of seven members meant a quorum of four, while five members would mean a quorum of three. Having a quorum is always a concern for local governments, since without a quorum, boards and commission cannot any business.
In addition, besides the city’s existing boards and commissions, Simmons hinted that initiatives yet to be announced will offer additional input for citizen participation.
“I would also like to remind the Council that this year, there will be a number of different planning initiatives that are going to take place,” said Simmons, potentially some specific plans, potentially the initiating the general plan, depending on the pleasure of the Council, which only should open the opportunity for more people to become involved,” the city manager said.
Citizens will be given a chance to “participate in the different processes at the city, maybe not part of a traditional committee, but definitely as one of an ad hoc committee,” said Simmons.
With that, the discussion of the membership ordinance began. While the ordinance introduced cut the membership level to five, the vote came only after a spirited discussion.
New Council member Gary Loe, who served on the city’s planning commission before being elected to the Council, said he kind of liked serving on a board with seven members, in case one or more of the members could not be present.
The concern was echoed by Council member Emily Hibard.
“The challenge I think that we have in Los Al and we’re not unique in this way at all being a small city, is that civic engagement here in Los Alamitos is low,” she said.
“And so to get to what we’re talking about, a quorum. We need the quorum. If someone doesn’t come to the meetings, do we want to risk losing a quorum,” asked Hibard, concerned about lowering the attendance.
Hasselbrink suggested that real world experience has been that commissions with seven members have, in some cases, had multiple open seats at meetings with members don’t show up.
“So that actually hurts if they’re not showing up at meetings,” the mayor said, “because we’re depending on them to be part of the quorum.”
“I’m a fan of five,” said Doby, “I was on the Parks and Recreation Commission, and I’m more interested in how we get these people off these commissions if they’re not showing up,” she said.
Doby said attendance “was an issue when I was part of the commission,” suggesting fewer people on the commission leaves less “margin for misunderstanding.”
Simmons said there currently is a rule that if any appointed commissioner or board member misses three meetings in a row, or have three unexcused absences in a calendar year, they are automatically eligible for dismissal.
Missing three consecutive meetings or one-third of a year’s scheduled meetings was certainly an acceptable metric for dismissal, he said.
“I think the majority is in favor of five,” said Hasselbrink, “and I don’t want to keep extending this,” noting several boards and commissions need to be filled immediately. The mayor suggested a special meeting be called, if necessary, but asked for a vote on the overall ordinance.
The Council then unanimously approved the ordinance reducing all membership of the city’s boards and commissions to five as Simmons said he would reach out to other local governments to determine best practices and, as well, look back to check on routine attendance on past boards and commission.
During oral communications, Cathy Salai, a long time resident of the city expressed her displeasure with recent events. Salai is a former traffic commissioner in the city.
According to former Los Al TV officials, Salai was also a former producer for the local channel.
“As a long-term resident,” she said, “my recent experiences with the city have been more than disappointing. On many levels,” she said, “the residents have lost some of their stature. I’ve discussed my thoughts with other people and others have felt the same,” she said.
She also said the city has reduced its bi-monthly meetings to once monthly, the city has lost programming on Los Al Tv and she bemoaned the lack of home delivery by the Event News Enterprise. Salai said meetings shown on the channel are several months old.
As a result, she said the city “was doing things that the residents don’t know what we’re doing.”
She also complained about a new bike lane on Cerritos Ave., “because something is going to happen.”
Hasselbrink briefly responded that the city “still has Los Al TV, having signed a new contract and meetings are still being broadcast live on YouTube. The newspaper situation,” said Hasselbrink, “is not under our control.”
Simmons said later in the meeting that the bike lanes are part of the city’s active transportation plan and that he would discuss her concernwith the engineers in public works.
Another resident, who did not state his name, said during the open comment period that he thought the city was “doing a great job.”
In other Council action, Mayor Hasselbrink:
- Presented certificates issued by former Congresswoman Michelle Steel and former state Sen. Janet Nguyen, before leaving their offices honoring Simmons, Finance Manager Craig Koehler, and Deputy City Manager Ron Noda. Nguyen was elected to Supervisor and Steel was defeated.
- Recognixed Lisa Pettino from Motivated by Lisa women’s only gym on Bloomfield in the monthly Business Spotlight series.
- Recognized Louis Reyes of the City’s Public Works Department as “Employee of the Quarter.”
- Recognized Koehler for Certificate for Excellence in Financial Reporting.