City Council - Regular Meeting

I called the special meeting to order for the January 31 planning session. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to see council chambers buzzing. We got a lot of good energy in here today. Thank you all for spending your Saturday morning with us. Madam Clerk, roll call please.

All council members present.

Okay. Now is the time for the invocation and pledge of allegiance. Council member Bartow will lead us in the invocation, and council member Grant will lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

Dear lord, thank you for this beautiful day, this beautiful city, and for our residents who we are blessed to have who give so much of their time and care. Please bless and guide this meeting today to lead our decisions and conversations towards the best outcome for the residents of Newport Beach. Amen.

Please join me in the pledge to our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The first planning session item is an update on financial status and budget development. Mr. Georges, do you have a staff report?

Certainly. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Good morning, council members. So today's presentation and council meeting is really important for us and this is where we kind of lay out the vision for the next year. Staff has some thoughts. We have a PowerPoint deck about 60 slides. There's opportunity to get comments and feedback from the City Council and from members of our public. We love the open dialogue. Again, we're trying to get feedback from the council, from the public, so we could set a path forward for this next year. I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to our finance director, Jason Aleman, and he'll go ahead and jump into our finances. Thank you.

Good morning, mayor and members of the city council. This morning, we're gonna review the general fund revenue and general fund revenues and expenditures for fiscal year 2627. This information is based in part on information from our long range financial forecast, which is a twenty year forecast of revenues and expenditures. And we discussed this in detail with the finance committee two weeks ago. So this slide shows that revenues are projected to be $12,000,000 higher, representing a 3.5% increase over the current year.

More than 60% of this growth is driven by property tax, which is the city's largest source of revenue. Roughly three quarters of the city's revenue comes from property tax, sales tax and transient occupancy tax. Sales tax revenue is projected to grow by 2% next year, while transient occupancy tax revenue is projected to decline by approximately 1%, which we'll discuss in more detail shortly. Let's first take a look at the economic drivers behind property tax growth. The property tax revenue is projected to be up $7,000,000 which is 4.5% higher than the current year.

Our property tax forecast is developed by a consultant who has access to the county's property tax roll, which is established on January 1 for the upcoming fiscal year. About half of this growth is from the 2% CPI adjustment allowed under proposition 13. The other half of this growth is from changes in ownership and new construction. The city received 17% of the 1% general property tax levy, which is the third highest city share of the 1% levy in Orange County. Having a higher percentage of the total tax and higher assessed values than many surrounding cities is a significant contributor to the city's fiscal sustainability.

Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that roughly two thirds of property tax is allocated to Newport Mesa Unified and Coast Community College. 85% of property tax revenue is derived from residential property. In the last ten years, the median price of a detached single family home has doubled from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000. However, it should be noted that we've seen a significant drop in the number of home sales since the Fed began raising interest rates in 2022. In 2023 and 2024, the median price of a home increased by 3% annually.

However, last calendar year, we only saw a half a percent increase in home prices. Taken together, these trends suggest that while residential property values remain high and continue to support property tax revenue, slower price appreciation and reduced sales activity may moderate future growth in property tax revenues. Sales checks revenue, our second largest revenue source is projected to increase by 1,000,000 or 2%. This growth is largely driven by strength in the autos and transportation category, as well as restaurants and hotels. It's important to note that the 6% growth in fiscal year twenty five-twenty six reflects several one time and timing related factors that boosted receipts and are not expected to reoccur.

For example, consumers accelerated vehicle purchases in the current year ahead of new tariffs and the expiration of electric vehicle tax credits. These pull forward effects temporarily inflated receipts, but are not expected to continue. As these effects roll off, sales tax growth in fiscal year 'twenty six, 'twenty seven is expected to return to more typical and sustainable levels, which is consistent with statewide expectations. This slide shows a comparison of sales tax growth over the prior year, the current year, and next year broken down into our four major industry groups, which generate 85 of our sales tax revenue. As you can see, sales tax revenue from autos and transportation increased from $11,000,000 last year to $12,300,000 in the current year, a $1,300,000 increase or 12%.

As noted previously, there were several one time and timing related factors that boosted receipts for this category. Therefore, the growth rate next year for autos, a growth rate of two there's a growth rate of 2.3%, which looks relatively small since we're looking at revenue on a cash basis, which is distorted by onetime activities. Nonetheless, when you strip it from those timing differences, the growth rate is consistent with the statewide forecast. Additionally, the new dealership that opened in its showroom in June also contributed to the increase in auto sales in the prior year. The 3% growth is expected from restaurants and hotels and the pools, while 1% growth is expected from general consumer goods.

General consumer goods is another category that benefited from new store openings such as restoration hardware, which boosted sales in the current year, and therefore growth is expected to moderate after these exceptional gains. Transient occupancy tax is the city's third largest revenue source and is projected to decline modestly by approximately 350,000 or 1.1% in the current fiscal year, fiscal year 2526. This follows a four and a half percent increase in 2425, which was influenced in part by a temporary increase in hotel demand related to regional displacement following the LA wildfires that took place last year. That elevated demand was non reoccurring and outside of our typical tourism patterns. As conditions have normalized, hotel activity has softened and in fiscal year twenty five twenty six, residential TOT revenue has remained relatively flat, while commercial hotel activity has declined largely due to reduced international tourism.

Despite lower lodging activity, sales tax revenue from restaurants and hotels is projected to increase by approximately 3% indicating that food and beverage activity is partially offsetting softer room revenues. Looking ahead, TOT revenue is projected to decline by 300,000 or just under 1% in fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven, reflecting continued softness in international tourism and a return to more typical demand levels following the temporary prior year factors. About three quarters of transient occupancy tax revenue is generated by hotels with the remaining portion from short term lodging. Hotel TOT revenue was significantly impacted by statewide travel restrictions during the pandemic. Most travel restrictions were lifted in June 2021, which is why we see hotel TOT revenue rebound beginning in 2022.

Growth in hotel TOT revenue through fiscal year twenty five was largely driven by higher hotel room rates. However, in the current year and the upcoming year, we are projecting a slight decline in hotel TOT revenue again due to reduced international tourism. Short term lodging revenue surged during the pandemic as travelers shifted away from hotels, but it has flattened in recent years as the market has returned to more typical demand patterns. At this time, we're projecting general fund expenditures growth of 2.4% or $8,000,000 increase in the operating budget. It's important to note that we're still at the early stages of developing next year's budget and this estimate could change as the process moves forward.

Personnel related costs make up about 58% of the operating budget. The current forecast incorporates the salary and benefit increases that were negotiated and approved by the city council last year through the adopted MOUs. Because these known cost drivers are already reflected in the forecast, we feel confident that the preliminary operating budget of 344,000,000 for next year is a reasonable and sound estimate. However, this figure does not include any potential program enhancement requests, which will be evaluated later in the budget process. About $0.40 on every dollar in the general fund is spent on public safety.

The third largest department is the new municipal operations department, which was previously a division within public works. And it should be noted that certain departments like the harbor department are funded by other funds like Tidelands and therefore are not reflected on this slide. The projected increase in general fund operating expenditures serves as the preliminary starting point for developing next year's budget. While placeholders exist for cost increases related to operations and capital expenditures, adjustments for specific services and program enhancement requests are still under evaluation and have not been reflected in the expenditure outlook. In the current year's budget, 46,000,000 has been set aside for capital including 13,800,000.0 allocated in October from the prior year and surplus.

The preliminary budget for next year includes 33,000,000 set aside for capital. Of the 15,600,000.0 proposed to be transferred to the FFP, 8,600,000.0 is dedicated to debt service. This leaves about 7,000,000 in the baseline budget for FFP capital funding. Later in this morning's presentation we'll discuss the FFP in more detail including how it serves as a comprehensive cost planning tool. Next year's budget includes a baseline allocation of 40,000,000 towards reducing the city's unfunded accrued liability or UAL.

In addition, a $5,000,000 discretionary contribution will be funded from the year end surplus. The pension pay down strategy is reviewed annually with the finance committee, which has supported targeting at 95% funded status and continuing to commit a total of 45,000,000 annually towards the UAL reduction. On Tuesday, the council reaffirmed its support for this pension pay down strategy in which we project to eliminate the pension liability in the next seven years. Of course, this assumes CalPERS continues to earn 6.8 each year on average. Currently, CalPERS is up 8.75% for the first seven months of the fiscal year, which is great news, but we'll have to see where they land at June 30.

At this, I'll turn it over to Simone.

That is it for that section, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Good to be Newport. Any council comments before we go out to the public? Councilmember Stapleton?

Yes. Jason, so TOT is $40,000,000 Is that what you're saying? $30,000,000 from hotels and $10,000,000 from STRs? Excluding

the payments to BNP. So that's on a gross basis.

Okay. And then we net

It's about $7,000,000 to visit Newport Beach, so it's about 32,000,033 million

dollars That's where the $33,000,000 comes in. Okay. Thank you.

Okay, we'll now hear from the public on this item.

Good morning. Happy New Year, Mayor, Council Dennis Brest, Belleville Island. Just cursory overview looks great. And Joe, I heard you speak about this when you were Mayor, whoever gets to be Mayor in seven years when we pay off the pension fund $45,000,000 holy cow, exciting stuff, but keep up the good work. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments?

Mayor Kleiman and members of the council, my name is Jim Mosier. I may have missed it or perhaps I didn't understand what Councilmember Stapleton was asking about. But on Slide 12, it shows that we expect the general fund expenditures in the coming year to be $8,000,000 higher than they are in the current year, which matches the expected new revenue from property tax, 7,000,000. And $1,000,000 from increase in sales tax, those add up to $8,000,000 matching the $8,000,000 increase in expenditures. But on the very first slide, we saw the finance department as expecting the revenue in the coming year to increase by $12,000,000 So what explains the difference between the $12,000,000 that we're expecting and only $7,000,000 coming from property tax, dollars 1,000,000 coming from sales tax, somewhere else, 4,000,000 is coming from on the first slide.

So where did it come from? Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the public? Do you want to address Yes.

So we a majority of our revenue comes from property tax, sales tax and TOT tax revenue, which is why we focused on those revenues. And that accounts for probably 70% of the revenue growth. The other 30% is those other 25% revenues that make up the balance of our revenues, like fees for services and those sorts of things.

Thank you for the clarification. Okay. Seeing no other public comments, I'll bring it back up here. Are there any additional questions or comments? The council, okay. Any direction needed from staff on this item?

No, we're okay.

Thank you.

Moving on to the next item, which is a discussion about city initiatives. Mr. Turges, do you have a staff report?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this section here, we're going to be talking about some of those initiatives that we're looking forward to. Besides myself, I have three additional department heads, we'll make presentations for this section of the agenda before you take public comments. But I'm going to go ahead and move forward with the next item here with regards to resiliency for our community. Over time, I've heard from members of the community about certain lacks or certain gaps in our resiliency program.

And I want to go back and say, we're really good with our public safety, with our police and our fire and our fire prevention. We're the best in the county. But I do want to focus on other areas besides just fire prevention, other areas that we can improve upon as a resilient community. And I don't just worry about natural hazards. I worry about geopolitical issues that come up.

So when we look at resiliency, we want to look at a kind of a broad context and addressing kind of those certain gaps that are in our organization. This is just a snapshot. This is just thoughts and ideas that I put up on the screen, so everybody just can kind of start kind of noodling a little bit. When we talk about resiliency, we want to make sure that we are addressing every issue that could potentially come up in the future. So looking at communication, we have a tsunami warning system.

Are there gaps that we need to improve upon? We've had already a study session on telecom where we can improve our telecommunications for our cell phone coverage. We have public information where we have our new public information manager that you've met today, Georgia. We So wanna kinda step into, lean into public information. Then we get into our our backup power. You know, for me, I'm I'm looking at our community centers. Our community centers aren't set up to have backup power systems. So if we have to displace our residents, you know, our community centers need to make sure that they have a backup power system. And it's not that we need to add generators. We just need to make sure that they're have the connection available so they can add generators.

We actually have power systems at our utility yard. Our JG Building needs a little bit of upgrade just for making sure that we have backup power. Then when we look at emergency management, we've done a really good job with emergency management, but we really need to focus on emergency management back into the fire department. And we've heard about the need to study evacuation routes. So we need to tackle that. Let's just go ahead and get that done through an RFP and get a consultant on board and start working on that. We've done training with our EOC. We just need to continue to lean into that. And cybersecurity is becoming a big, big deal in our world. We've already had phishing attempts against us.

They've already broken our network in the past and we've hired a cybersecurity manager and we're leaning hard into that. Again, this is not all inclusive, but I wanna have the council recognize the fact that we can do more. We're not gonna pay for all this in one year. This is probably a three to five year plan that where we can just kinda chip away at some of those areas of resiliency. And that that's it for this section of the the presentation, if there's any comments from the council on this.

I figure we'll work through all the presentations in this section and then take comments.

So we'll go to our, crime prevention and public safety with our police chief, Dave Miner.

Thanks, sir. Good morning. Mayor, city council members. Just wanna hit on a few of the projects that we are working on at the Police Department. I'd like to start with staffing. So we know Fashion Island safety and security for the business owners, visitors, residents, we have been meeting with representatives from the Irvine Company about increasing police presence at Fashion Island, still developing a plan of what that looks like, but that's high on our priority list to partner with Irvine Company, continue to partner with them as we have in the past to expand police presence throughout

the

year and not necessarily just during the holiday shopping season. Another project we're working on when it comes to staffing is continuing to provide increased police presence at Corona Del Mar State Beach in the adjacent areas and provide security presence during evening hours. Last year, City Council expanded the Safety Enhancement Zone designations to include Corona Del Mar on the busy holiday summer weekends. Lions Security provides we have a contract with them. They provide security already for the city in certain areas including the Civic Center.

And we have been meeting with representatives from Lyon Security to discuss a plan for security officers to supplement, not replace, but supplement our police presence down there. And that's also high on our priority list that we're working through a plan for that. We are discussing how to best staff and provide excellent services at the animal shelter. The animal shelter as it is now has been in existence for about three years, two point five years since May 2023. And we're working through the best way to provide those services account for staffing shortages.

One of the issues we've been working with, we had an ACO that was assigned to animal control officer that was assigned to the animal shelter. He retired in September and we have been working to replace that animal control officer. And within the next week or two, we have the new hire. But it's taken about five months and that's one of the considerations is animal control officers are highly trained. And if they are police department employees, it takes anywhere from four to six months to replace them when they retire or separate from the city.

So we're in discussions with particularly staff from recreation and senior services department to see if there's a way that we can partner for increased staffing and improve staffing and services what that looks like. But we're still working through that on what staff recommendations will be to City Council. Fourth of July, right around the corner. Fourth of July in 2025 was busy. We saw an increase in visitors and increase in activity and ever since fourth of July last year, we've been making preparations for this July 4, which is the 200, of the Independence Day holiday.

Some of the municipal codes that we are looking at updating are an expansion of the Safety Enhancement Zone. So it's been about fifteen years where we've had the current Safety Enhancement Zone in place. And as you recall, used to be because we from about 32nd Street to PCH, that was the heavy concentration of where we saw activity and the need for police services. We've seen that grow throughout the Peninsula since we've enacted that. So we're discussing expanding the size of the safety enhancements on the Peninsula.

One of the other issues and complaints that we saw last year particularly, but in previous years are the amount of shade structures and easy ups that prevent lifeguards from seeing clearly on the beach and in the water and from emergency services to navigate through the sand. So we're exploring municipal code updates, regulating those easy ups on the sand. We're also looking at enhancing short term lodging rules. As you see on the bullet points, two discussion items are requiring the owner or owner's agent and renter to respond within two hours of a violation and potentially imposing a mandatory one strike revocation rule for certain offenses. And as we've seen and it begins about March 14 with out of state school district spring breaks, Spring break is now becoming a busy time for us, particularly on the West Side and on the Peninsula.

And just for consideration when appropriate council could adopt a resolution declaring a safety enhancement zone during the spring break period, similar to the expansion that we did last year for the busy holiday weekends and for Corona Del Mar. Specific more towards city staff in preparation for July 4, we're looking at increasing outside agency assistance from our mutual aid partners, working on deploying a mobile booking station that's closer to the Peninsula area looking at perhaps the city yard on Superior. Partnering with Hogue Hospital, working with staff at Hogue Hospital for an expedited medical clearance procedure. So that was one of the slowdowns we'll call it during our booking process. We arrest somebody in it if they needed medical clearance before they were booked into jail.

As you can imagine, was a very busy day, very busy weekend and medical staff was stretched into. So we're looking at improving the efficiency of that. We're working on improving our social media messaging in preparation for that holiday weekend in advance. So visitors understand our expectations and the rules that we have in place that make us unique in Newport Beach. We're also working with Caltrans and CHP on congestion relief.

So on the Peninsula, within city limits, we can control the phasing of our traffic signals and we can take other measures. But as soon as they get onto state highway or out of city district or city boundaries, our control on traffic flow is limited. So we're working with our partners on how to provide some relief for congestion. Also, as I mentioned about the mobile booking station, moving some of our staging of equipment and resources at City Yard to make it more efficient to get it onto the Peninsula. And then in the weeks leading up to the holiday, working with other city departments, code enforcement, city attorney's office to collaborate on short term lodging, bar occupancy, street vendors, parking issues, etcetera.

And with that, that concludes at least the speaking points that we are going to address today.

Thank you for the thorough presentation, Chief. Are there any questions or comments appear on the dais before we go out for public comments? Mr. Stapleton?

Yes, Chief, thank you. Been on The Peninsula for twenty years and was part of the crew back in the early 2000s when it was a festival. We closed down the streets. We put out the porta potties. We created a vibe for everyone to come down and party in our city.

Obviously, you and your team with Chief Johnson back in the day have gotten rid of that and gotten away from that, and it's been a terrific effort. But this last fourth of July was the worst we've ever seen, at least in the last twenty years I've been here, and I think you would agree. So I'm happy to see these initiatives, but what I'm worried about, and I'm happy you talked about it, but it's spring break. So spring break for Arizona and Nevada and other surrounding areas seems like it's a month long now depending on what universities or high schools are out during a given time. So I would certainly encourage my colleagues up here to do all we can to support you with any ordinance resolution, whatever that looks like to help increase the safety enhancement zones throughout that spring break.

Because the better we attack that early, the better that's going to be throughout the entire summer break.

Yes, sir. That's a good point. As I mentioned, break particularly for some of the areas we've received a lot of visitors, Maricopa County, Arizona, Clark County, Nevada. Many of their spring break weeks for those school districts start March 14. We're already planning for that the best we can, increased police staffing, coordinating with code enforcement, and some messaging, with city staff at city hall to prepare for that and try to educate them in advance on what those expectations are when they arrive.

Yeah. And I think you saw it when I was down there with you, but I mean it wasn't it wasn't 21 and older. It was mostly 18 and up teenagers and a sense of what to

a

platforms. So I'm happy to see this and the look forward to making sure the Peninsula is safe and well enjoyed during the holidays.

Council Member Wigan.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Stapleton to some of those comments I wanted to echo on that sentiment. Yeah, because it's not just the spring break week, it's weeks. So and then also I'm learning there's a fall week as well too. So just kind of studying up on what other states offer, I think would be important just to kind of get an understanding on where they go.

Because in October, there's kind of this whole new surge of folks showing up in town with a similar atmosphere and vibe I've noticed down in the Peninsula. So yeah, I think it's a good idea on the July 4 updates there, support moving that. I would support moving the corporate yard to do some booking. And I know on Peninsula we used to have when City Hall used to be on-site down there that that was where the location was where they did the intake. And my mom was a part of those many years where they had those fuzz feeds.

One of the neighbors would open up their home and have officers over to have meals and whatnot. But I think it's important to kind of try to keep it as contained as possible instead of shuffling back over to the PD. I think there's a lot of time that maybe takes into that. So I appreciate you bringing that up. What was the missing agency too? Didn't we have an agency that was supposed to cover us last year that might have not had other things in their city? I know that we used to have all the surrounding cities helping us, CHP, Sheriff, was there a lack on that this last year of some agencies?

Many of the agencies were also stretched thin on that last holiday weekend for a variety of reasons. Particularly Irvine started an event for their Independence Day celebration at the Great Park. And they are always and continue to be a great partner of ours. But where they can provide increased staffing to us because their city didn't have an event, that is now one of the challenges. So we're looking at other agencies, larger agencies that are going to be able to provide us staffing on that holiday weekend.

I think I read an article too maybe that said that they canceled their idea and plan to do something this year. So they may be back in the fold for us depending on what they have for their event. I wrote some other notes down on a few other things. I noticed too that there's a lot more activity on the beaches of teams setting up the beach in advance of the day. So there's I think probably the Airbnb companies are going down there in advance at like 6AM and setting up lawn chairs and easy ups.

It's kind of an extra bonus for maybe renting with these you get to sleep in while somebody sets up and parks your place down on the beach. Maybe if code enforcement could pay attention to that a little more. I know that Simone we had shared some notes. I've even seen vans have advertisements saying, we'll set your beach up for you. I'm sure Coastal Commission doesn't quite love when that happens.

And then just touching on the other items related to Irvine Company. I know in Irvine at the Spectrum, they have like a police substation there. And I don't know if that's a popular thing with the officers to want to patrol or not. But that conversation, I think you guys have probably already been having just to study if that model works in Irvine, if it works for Newport or since we're so close that having that location nearby is more beneficial for us. So I do know that there's some of that that probably would help.

And then just noticing on the animal shelter, I actually adopted my dog from the animal shelter. But I have kind of noticed that when you go to visit the shelter, you don't get an opportunity just to walk in and see what's available to if you wanted to do something on-site or you just showed up and you wanted to see an animal. So I'd like to see us look to maybe to what, and I guess now I've gone three times now, but Irvine has a good shelter there. And I do like when you can just walk in, you can see the animals. If you want to take one for a walk or see what it how it interacts with you, you get to do that.

But here I feel it's like more of an appointment based for animals. And I don't think that that's a good model. I think if I want to see an animal today, I want to get in there right now and maybe that's my mindset at that moment. And you see it like it by mentality. And if you get to do that, I think we have a better opportunity of finding more homes for the animals.

But I go there and I feel like I'm kind of blocked out. Think you can go and visit the cats without an appointment, but the dogs, I don't know why we seem to be picking on them. But no, I really appreciate the hard work that's coming out of the police department and all of our activities. I really think that you're doing a great job and this council supports you and support the men and women of the department and we want to see you successful. So thanks for bringing these up. Thank you, sir.

Councilmember Grant.

Well, will echo that. We at the council level do appreciate all that the PD, fire department, all of our public safety does. Just talking about a couple of things that you mentioned in your presentation. I'll start with the animal shelter. I think that the PD has done an amazing job over these last couple of years in starting the operations at the animal shelter and carrying through all of the care and providing the services that the community needs for shelter.

But I'm very pleased to see that you're nimble, that you recognize that we can now reevaluate. It's been a couple of years and we're reevaluating those operations. It's an exciting opportunity for us as council member Wigand said to take a look at how we operate within the community. I personally think that more connectivity with the community can only be a good thing. We received a very nice support letter from the animal shelter support group, Fambas, Friends of Newport Beach Animal Shelter.

They were the ones obviously that raised the money, bought the property, built the shelter and then donated the entire operation land, building everything to the city. It was a very generous operation that happened. We had very prominent citizens that have passed on involved in it like Evelyn Hart and Jean Watt and that shelter is sort of a legacy to a lot of hard work from people. And now it's in the good care of the city and the police has done a great job. We have a wonderful staff led by Valerie Schomburg down at the shelter.

But again, being nimble and understanding, first of all, the needs because there are more requirements with the animals, it's not just putting out some food and taking them for a walk. There is a huge operation that goes on down there. And by adding to that with some creative staffing and new operations, I think it'll just be all the better for the community. So I'm 100% behind a relook and embracing some new opportunities. So thank you so much for working together with recreation.

They're uniquely situated I think to participate with the shelter. They interface with other communities that are kind of similar, I'm not gonna say that dogs are like seniors or dogs are like children, but there are other communities that require a little special care and a little special assistance. And so I think that marriage between animal control and community and recreation and senior services is a good match And I'm looking forward to the updates. One other thing that you had mentioned was in your July 4 presentation, some comments about short term lodging. And I'm pleased to see that not only I see it's in July 4, but I'm hoping that these again being nimble and re looking at some of the code enforcement and some of the opportunities that we have to tighten up our short term rental program will extend past July 4, especially one strike revocation.

I'm interested in hearing what that means. I know that there are some fairly not terrible violations and then there's some really egregious violations, maybe Councilmember Stapleton mentioned where you have too many people concentrated, Councilmember Wigand mentioned that they're extending out past the confines of the actual lodging. So looking at really being firm about what we allow and what is community oriented versus more selfish kind of operations. I think it's a really good thing not just for fourth of July, this is one of the areas where we get an incredible amount of community input, a lot of dissatisfied people in our community relating to short term lodging. So I think that we can work together with your team and community development, the city manager whatever to also take a relook at what we're doing with short term lodging in general.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now open it up for public comments.

Mayor, Counsel, Dennis Brez, Balboe Island. I would just add Chief, great presentation. Our public safety is just paramount and it's just phenomenal the job that you guys do. I would add that our investments in the flock camera and the drone seeing the success with partnership, I believe just recently on social media you had success with crime in regards to working with the city of Irvine. So the partnership using that technology that council has invested in is already paying dividends. And then I met our new public information officer, great to have her on board and having that social media and that presence of your success using the new technology is paramount for all of us to know what you guys are doing. So thank you for the good job.

Thank you. Next speaker.

So I'm Virginia Anders Elmore, I live in Newport Shores and I wanted to really thank you for looking into that emergency evacuation route. When I look at the map, it looks like I'm having to join everyone from the peninsula to go up the hill or do you want me to go over to Huntington Beach and go up Brookhurst? And then I don't know. I just think it would be I really am happy to hear that you're going to look into that. The other thing is and I'm not sure whether there's something later that would be appropriate, but the resilience part.

I live near the river and if we had a five hundred year flood which would be like 14 inches up against the mountains coming down to us, I don't know whether Prado Dam is really ready for that or if they ever had problems or how much would be coming down and so this is one of my like worries because of climate change. I think we're going to see more atmospheric rivers and more potential for that. And I was thinking that we could use the tsunami warning. We get like one long blast for tsunami and two beep beep beep beep for river flooding. And that way, the people from the Peninsula won't be trying to come up superior with me.

The other issue I think we have experienced this last year about the oil fields and the old capped oil fields and the leaks there. And I don't know if we might need to look into that a little bit more and see what potential problems there could be since especially in Newport Shores just north of us, we have a huge oil field and the technology wasn't really as good as it is today to make sure it doesn't corrode and start leaking. So I was hoping that we could keep that area in our sphere of influence so that we could kind of monitor it on some level. I'd appreciate that. You.

Next speaker.

Morning. Adam Leverence. I just have a few thoughts. When partnering with the Irvine Company to provide increased police presence at Fashion Island and then providing police presence at Corona Del Mar, at some point when that presence kind of exceeds what you'd consider normal police activity, does the private property owner or the state pitch in something, wherein you become more of a like a security, a second security force. And then the Chief mentioned a mobile booking station on Superior Avenue.

I'm familiar with some members of the public that think rather than building a I think I saw $163,000,000 police station, perhaps a whole substation over at that location would be more cost effective where you get quicker access to all the activity on the Peninsula. And I just had opportunity to make my first visit to the police station last week. I mean, it looks like a great location. I know the building is a bit dated, but just think about the fiscal, you know, what's possibly wiser to have substations and whatnot. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good morning. I'm Lee Pearl with Balboa Island. And it's my one unusual visit to the council. I had to find my long pants so I could come today and speak. But I was gonna make just a really brief comment and then I'll save my other comments for the public comment period.

But Balboa Island is changing and we noticed that in December where it was almost like Disneyland in terms of visit and tourist activity on the island and also fourth of July is getting to be a little wild on Valpo Island. So I wanted to number one thank the chief for we got some great support during the boat parade. We on the island appreciate that and I just wanted to make sure that the council kind of paid attention to what's happening on the island because it is we're getting changing clientele and maybe two to tenfold more than we've ever experienced during the last three weeks of December. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council members and chief, my name is Jaylee Hilkema. I'm a Peninsula resident, way too close to the fund zone. And what I would like to see because what I've noticed since COVID is we number one don't have our winters like where we were so excited to be able to get super easy parking. But what we're noticing a lot is that not only is East Bay, the street I live on a through way for I think sometimes maybe more partiers than maybe want to travel down Balboa Boulevard. But also we have a lot of people that come around Coronado and East Bay and other main streets where they're getting a Lyft or an Uber.

And what I would like to see is perhaps some sort of a regulation limiting idling because what happens in our neighborhood in the wee hours usually, somewhere around two, 02:30, is people are coming away from the bars and then they want to get an Uber and then the Uber drivers wanting to make everybody happy so the radio goes way up And then they're there for sometimes ten, fifteen minutes while everybody's trying to gather up their group to jump in the car and you know. So if they're I don't know if it's possible to make some sort of a regulation about you know hanging out in a spot and idling your car. Just on that note though too, we get people that don't live there that use their cars all day and sometimes they just hang out at their cars and it's the party zone and they got ice chests in the back. So it's a little bit of a I live in a party zone. Anyway, thank you for all your efforts.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good morning. I'm Scott O'Brien. I live on Ocean Boulevard. These are my neighbors, Jack and Alan. And first of all, we want to just thank the police department, the chief, for what you guys have done on the beach and controlling the we live across from the ramp. So we see a lot of stuff. So the extra security and the stuff that we've done during the weekend has been great. The work that they've done to clear the beach at 10:00 has been awesome. But that solves most of the problem. But there's another problem that you need to be aware of, and this is where the security would help that we're talking about doing.

So clear the beach at ten and then about eleven, 11:30 people start to filter back in and they go down to the beach. And they come off the beach about 03:00 in the morning and these guys can tell you it's not always pretty. People throwing up on our property, urinating, you name it, noise, burnouts, it's not good. And we understand that we live on the beach and we need to share it, and we're happy to share it until 10:00 at night. But after that, it gets a little annoying.

So really, we would appreciate the support of the council to do the extra security that they're talking about doing. We actually went and talked to Laguna Beach about what they were doing and they're using the security and they're using Lions that the Chief talked about and it's been very effective. So appreciate the support if we can get that. Thank you.

And I just second the comment. We've lived there for twenty four years and obviously depending on what time of year it is that crowds can get pretty crazy. My wife has health issues in the middle of the night at 02:31 people are out playing their radios and drinking beer out front, makes it a little difficult for everyone on the street. So we appreciate any help and support. And I know the police department has been doing a good job of coming down during the days and trying to keep things turning over, but it's been a challenge for several years.

I only have an observation, a temporary resident in Corona Del Mar on Ocean Boulevard having been displaced from Altadena by the Eaton fire. The foothills of San Gabriel all night long are completely peaceful and quiet. We're awakened maybe by a wild animal once in a while. Living on Ocean Boulevard above the beach is completely understandable, the congestion and the noise up until ten. But as Scott said, like after 11:30 to two, three in the morning, it's just it's hard to comprehend.

And even last night, 02:38 in the morning, I think the loudest car I've ever heard raced south on Ocean Boulevard and up Marguerite. And so it's just it's there, it's happening.

You. You for your comments.

Nancy Gardner. Don't forget Little Corona. Because we often get fires there and with Buck Gully right there, that can always be a hazard. Yes, Big Corona needs more, but don't forget Little Corona.

Thank you. Any other speakers on this item? Okay. Seeing none, I will bring it back up to the dais. Are there any other comments from council members up here?

I just had one, and it was reminded by the last gentleman that spoke. There has I have heard recently from a lot of residents in The Heights and surrounding areas of the concern about loud cars and road noise and significantly, you know, mufflers or engines or whatever is causing that. And I know we did some extra enforcement efforts a few years back, and I know we've done some targeted enforcement, but it might be time to add that back to our plan because I'm hearing more frequently that that's becoming a recurring problem. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Blom.

Thank you. And I just wanna echo some of the things my other colleagues have set up here, but once our police force have been doing an amazing job. I always say I'm bicoastal in Newport. I have a place on the peninsula and one on this side of town, so I get to enjoy the peace and quiet of of one of the first dumps, the ditch in Big Canyon. And then I also get the full breath of the peninsula in Cannery Village. And I think we've had an amazing presence down there. The officers have been extremely helpful, and just kudos and I'm fully supportive of any of the recommendations you have, chief.

Thank you. Do you have additional comments?

Just one more thing. I I felt like it would be remiss in not congratulating the police department in general as well when we're talking about all of these, how the big drop in crime and everything overall for the past year. So I would like to kudos to you guys. Well done.

Okay. That just leaves me then. I'll just kind of go through the items in the presentation, starting with Fashion Island. I see our continued partnership with the Irvine Company as a necessity there at Fashion Island. This is our city center.

It's our lifeblood outside of the harbor and beaches, and I think we should do everything that we can to maintain a safe and secure environment for both our residents and our visitors. CDM Beach, of course, continued support for these recommendations, and I appreciate my colleagues' support in the past and going forward for the dedicated resources to Corona Del Mar, which we've never had. We are stewards of the public beaches and we also have an obligation to maintain law and order and protect the quality of life for our residents. And they do endure the mistreatment of our coast and our city and often their private property as well. Of course, we welcome everyone as we've heard some of the comments that were made as long as they are appreciating our beaches within the confines of our municipal code and during the hours that the beach is open.

I think just one additional mention, we do need to update some of our signage down at CDM and probably on the other side of the town as well to reflect our current code changes. Animal shelter, I'm glad to see the animal shelter moving potentially to parks and the rec department where it can be managed and get the attention that it needs to thrive and to allow the police department the ability to focus on law enforcement. Speaking of which, I think it's a common sense trade for the police department to take over park patrol and parking enforcement to especially enhance the efforts during these kind of more difficult periods and beyond. Fourth of July and spring break, I am extremely supportive of all these proposed changes for the summer holidays and spring break, including the expansion of the safety enhancement zone and the one strike rule. Again, as well for spring break even if we don't get it in place in time for this year's spring breaks or for all of them.

They'll be in place going forward. And I think we need to focus on the things that we can tackle in the near term that don't require a one year or more lengthy process of going through Coastal Commission for an amendment to our LCP. I do want to note that I think our police department did a tremendous job this year on July 4, containing the really impossible situation and that we up here and just leadership in the city need to give them the support, the deterrence to allow them to prevent the types of scenarios that we we saw happening. So, again, fully supportive of all of those recommendations that we heard from the chief today. Thank you.

Steph, do you need any additional direction from us up here?

None on this section, no.

Okay. Moving on to item number four, a discussion about the updates on community development and projects.

Actually, Mayor Kleiman, we still have a couple items. So let's we'll have Tara Finnegan, assistant city manager, go ahead and address technology and communication.

Oh, great. Thank you.

Good morning, mayor, members of the council. One of IT's key priorities this year is to introduce artificial intelligence, AI, into our daily work. Have Avery McGlinti, you see here today, and his team have been studying this and talking to some of our consultants. And we know that a thoughtful strategic AI integration will be a successful integration. So we have a program that we're embarking upon.

There are a number of benefits to AI that most people are aware of. It's an excellent research tool, helps with data analysis. We're also very aware of some of the drawbacks to AI, accuracy, plagiarism, maintaining making sure that our systems are secure and our our data is kept private. And most of all, especially in the line of work that we do, is maintaining the human touch in what we do. So Avery's put together a policy and a program that will cover those areas and we're starting out with a test group of about 40 employees to begin to use the tools for our staff report writing, for research, and for data analysis.

The two tools that have been identified is probably one of the most recognized in AI, ChatGPT. They'll be using that for their general research. But a new tool that we're bringing in is called Madison AI. And this is a tool that will be trained on our city documents. It'll know our policies. It'll know our municipal code. So that, for example, when staff goes to write a staff report on the animal shelter, they'll be able to use that tool to bring up all the time that issues come before council, what the recent decisions were, and that's just a great launching point for our staff reports. So that's our new AI implementation. And again, that's starting in February. And then communication.

We understand how important good communication is to the council and the community. We're always endeavoring to make sure our tools hit the right audiences at the right time, but we know that social media is an area that we can do more on. And we know that strategic social media use, better video coming from the city is important not just to the council, it's one of the mayor's priorities this year. So we actually went out and retained a new firm to kind of pull back the curtain on what we do and help us to find a better way to reach those audiences. I read something, a study Deloitte did last year that said the average person spends about six hours a day on media, and that's different types of media.

And of course, where that media is differs by generation. So we want to make sure we're hitting the right generations that we need to with the right message in the right way. Chief among those, spring break and fourth of July. So our new firm is called the brand AMP. That is their initial focus is helping us get our messaging together for the fourth of July and spring break.

Once we feel we have a good command of those, they're going to reach out and help us with our public safety messaging and just general city messages about the services we offer to the community. We're very excited you met Georgia Rios today, our new public information manager. Georgia just finished her master's in digital communication and strategy, so we feel we have the right person to oversee this program for us. So that's a quick overview of two of the things we're working on this year.

Madam Mayor, we'll go ahead to the next section and bring up Harbor Master Paul Blank to talk about the Department.

Good morning, Mayor and council members. I am Paul Blank, your Harbor Master. And the 172Slip and 33 has been under professional services agreement for management for the last fifteen years, two different providers. It was time to go out to bid and test the market, etcetera, and evaluate the current provider and see if another provider could do it even better. We did that.

The results came back very expensive, variously two and five times more than we're paying currently. Conveniently, about two years ago, we began working on a plan with some of the tenants on an arrangement that the harbor department would provide services there. We think that the harbor department can provide better services, and we know we can provide it for considerably less. So that is the proposal that will be coming forward in the next fiscal year. There's just a comparison of the two qualified proposals versus the expense for the Harvard department to provide these services for next fiscal year and then over the next five years.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Blom.

Thank you. You, Harvard Master Chair, Paul. That's amazing. And I think we really appreciate the strategic look into that. You know, one, having the fiscal look is really important, but also bringing into kind of the city's umbrella on the managing of that marina, I think, is huge. It's been a little undersupported, with some past contractors and even talking to some of those original contractors. We heard from them they just didn't want to do it anymore. And I think that's really not what we wanted to see. So I really appreciate you guys bringing this forward. I have full support for that.

Thank you. Any other councilmember questions or comments? Councilmember Grant?

I should probably know this, but a few years back, we were looking at a revisioning of the entire area. And I just would appreciate an update on where we sit with that, maybe it's from our city manager. But where are we with those ideas that we considered or moving forward, are we going in any direction?

So we do have an E and A with more development. It is a two year E and A. So we're in our second year now. So we're still working through kind of the terms and the pro form a and we hope to be back to the council probably in the next six months on that.

Let's go back out to the public.

Nancy Gardner. With communication something really small, but it's just typical. If you went to the city website, you saw a special council meeting. And as of Thursday afternoon, there was nothing else. There was no agenda. So you had no idea, there's nothing about planning or anything. So let's not forget the small things. I think this could have been better publicized just even on the city website by saying this is a planning session, this is when the council looks at various ideas. There was nothing.

Adam Leverence, I echo former Mayor Gardner's comments and I also want to thank the clerk at least there's papers this time. But the last couple of council meetings, there haven't even been agenda materials out front. As far as Bellevue Yacht Basin, when I saw this material late, I echo council member Grant's curiosity about the exclusive negotiating agreement with Burnham Ward. As I recall, they were going to do the garages and manage the garages, so that brought something to mind. And in my experience, typically I'm for coastal access.

I'm for affordable coastal access in regards to boating that applies to people with residential peers, people with slips and commercial marinas, people in city marinas, people that bring their boats on the trailer, people on moorings. And and I envision that Balboa Yacht Basin would remain more affordable under city management. But I also recall at a recent Harbor Commission, the harbor master explaining how the Orange County Sheriff's Harbor Patrol managed mooring several years ago for 363,000 or 300 yes, 363,000 I believe. And the harbor department took it over and did it for 316,000 a year, which sounds great until you recognize that the harbor, the city harbor department is providing 63% less hours of coverage for a 14% reduction in cost. And in spite of advocating for, you know, reasonable boating costs, I also look at value.

So it needs to be looked as the current staffing levels of the harbor department allow them to manage a facility of this size. If not, what cost would be included with that? Will there be expanded hours, additional staffing? As you know, the sheriff department has a higher level of qualifications and more capable boats and all. So there's not enough information in this little chart to determine what is the best fiscal choice.

I would hope that it would turn out to be the city, but more data is required to actually make that analysis. And then on the AI observations, I don't know how many have used AI. I kind of follow a lot of stuff and they say students that use it to write their reports 60% to 70% accurate. I've heard recently a news item that if you say please, AI is 81% accurate and if you're rude, it's 87% accurate. So where we're at right now, any city use of this really needs human review. I've got people sending me AI stuff all the time to look at And it's a great resource, but it clearly needs human review. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other speakers?

Jim Moser again. Regarding the technology and communication, one currently active city initiative that we didn't hear about is the redesign of the city website, which is our main communication tool, or at least for me it is. So I'm wondering, would this be an appropriate time to get some update on when the new city website is going to roll out? And also with the public survey ending last weekend, is the public going to have any opportunity for input, further input regarding the proposed redesign before it rolls out? Or as has happened in the past, will we just one day go to the city website see an entirely new thing?

That we had no real input on the actual product before the product was delivered. That is, we had no preview of what was coming up. So, what is the timeline? Will the public have any preview of that and chance to comment on it? Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments on this item? Mr. Georges, do you or Ms. Finnegan want to give an update on the city's website?

We don't have all the details right now. We did go out to the public and do a survey. We're still in that process right now. We will come back to the council and the public with an update on what our expected rollout is and opportunities to comment further.

Okay, thank you. Okay, any other last comments up here? Seeing none, we will now move on to item number four, discussion about the updates on community development projects.

Madam Mayor, we'll have our new Community Development Director, Jaime Murillo. I think this is the last time I'm going to say new, Jaime.

Thank you, Simone. Good morning, Mayor Kleinman, members of the council. Jaime Murillo, your Community Development Director. And so for my portion of the presentation today, I just want to focus on some community service initiatives that we'll be focusing on and then highlight some of the major advanced planning projects we'll be embarking on this next year. So starting with customer service, I just want to start off by saying that the expectation for our staff and community development is that we provide platinum level customer service.

That's something that was ingrained in me as I kind of rose the ranks here in the city, and we continue to ingrain in all new staff. It's something that we take great pride in. However, we are a very busy department. We issue thousands of permits a year. Our goal is to issue those permits as quickly as possible and kind of help facilitate development through that process.

We do have an expectation that 80% of plan checks are reviewed in one day. And then as well as inspection, we want to make sure construction projects continue to move forward and there's no delays. And so our goal is 99% of inspections can be scheduled the following day. In terms of how busy we are at the counter, here's statistics from 2,000, 25 for the course of a year, over 18,000 in person customers. And you'll see online, we kind of have a new virtual counter where as we transition to online plan checking, we assisted over 10,000 customers through this online plan checking system.

And we do value the feedback from our customers. So with every customer that comes to the permit center or secures permit, we do issue a survey. And we all know it's easy for someone who's frustrated, or upset to fill out a survey and give us bad comments. But usually when people are happy, they don't take the time. But I'm proud to show that over the course of last years, you know, we averaged just under 500 survey results every year.

And with the exception of time, when we look at the various metrics for quality of service, courtesy of our staff, time it takes to complete their visit and then completeness of their request. About 90% of survey results come in at excellent and another 5% for good. And so about 95% good or excellent, think is a excellent statistic. However, there is still needs improvement, and we value those comments and we read those comments and we use that to better our service. And time is something I'll talk about in a further slide.

In terms of our ability to provide excellent customer service, I think it's important to kind of note workload and how that factors into our staff's ability to provide that service. As you know, over the past couple of years, we've had some significant milestones with the adoption of our housing element and our zoning overlay to implement the housing element. And we're now seeing an influx of housing development projects. And so, you can see we currently have 24 major housing development projects that staff is dealing with at some sort or some area of the process. That's over 6,000 units.

The lower rows is entitled pre overlay. This is before six cycle housing element. These are projects that were approved or we called pipeline projects. Some of these still haven't secured building permits or started construction. The preliminary applications and applied, these are projects that mainly affect our planning staff.

This our planning staff is kind of facilitating and managing the projects and working with the different departments and getting them ready for public hearing in front of the Planning Commissioner Council. Entitled projects are those that are either in actively in plan check. And so these are construction level details that affects our building engineers, public works, fire and planners as they review these projects. And then once building permits are issued, there's heavy demand on our building inspectors. And so we're going to see a big influx on demand for their services as well and the need for competent and experienced inspectors.

I highlight the number of affordable housing units that are included. So this also affects our real property administration division. They are heavily involved in the creation of the affordable housing agreements that restrict the affordability levels and for the term. And then we do annual monitoring of these units as well. So the areas of improvement that we hear back, time is number one and it's time with how long we spend at the counter and that's because we have a very busy counter and so it takes time to kinda get through and meet with the different department members.

We also are now serving two counters, right? We have the physical counter and then the online counter. And we have permit technicians trying to service both during their day. And then the complexity of these projects, it takes more time for our engineers to review these plans as well as our inspectors. Over the last three years, we've been refining our online permitting system.

We've done an excellent job and we think this part of the council for giving us the resources to really refine our system. It's become the model for other cities in the county. We've actually hosted a number of cities to come check out our software system and they're amazed. One thing that still stands out is how long it takes for a revision to be processed. So revisions are those projects that are under construction on the field. There's a change to the project. The architect needs to bring that change to the city. It needs to be reviewed before that project can continue. So it's really important to get these revisions processed quickly. But it takes time to the online process to create the intake and distribution.

Another area for improvement is just project review and that's reviewing our entitlement applications. We do have this permitting software, but not all departments are using the software. So we need to expand the use of that software to all departments. And it's just not customers asking for quicker time. The state as well is demanding and placing more mandates on staff.

So we have new changes to the permit streamlining act and housing accountability act that states that we only have a limited amount of time to identify deficiencies in projects. And if we don't meet those deadlines, the project is assumed to comply automatically. And if we don't get them to hearing in time, there is opportunities for a project to be automatically approved. And so we don't want that. We wanna make sure we retain that control and oversight of these projects and ensure we can promote high quality projects.

And so solutions moving forward is to continue with customer service training and then prioritizing these revisions. So we know that that's priority. We already started kind of triaging the intake, pulling out the revisions, processing those first. But we're looking at other ways to improve that speed and time. Definitely expanding the use of our permitting software to all the departments involved in the review process.

And then also since we are have this virtual counter now is there's look at opportunities to expand our software licensing and use off-site consultants to help us with the intake. So we don't need to rely on our in house staff for that. And then to help us with the construction side, focus on the recruitment and retention of experienced building inspectors. And now just shifting over to some of the major advanced planning projects. This is something we're very proud of.

And this is completing the general plan update. So our general plan was last updated in 2006. We started a comprehensive update in 2019. Unfortunately, we had to put a pause on that, and we pivoted to the six cycle housing element in that effort. But the general plan effort was restarted in 2022 and over the last three and a half years with the help of our general plan advisory committee and our steering committee, including the leadership of former mayor Nancy Gardner and many of our advisory committee members are here in the audience.

They put a lot of time and effort. They've had over 47 Brown Act meetings and another I'm sorry, 57 Brown Act meetings and 47 subcommittee meetings in that time. And so our goal has always been that the general plan update reflect the values of our residents. And these committees reflect a cross section of our community. And so recently, both the GPAC and the steering committee voted to conclude their efforts and move the draft general plan update elements to the various boards and commissions.

And so that's our next step. And our goal is to bring that general plan update for city council review and approval hopefully by May. So significant milestone and just thank you for all the community members involved. Another major effort is the wireless streaming improvements. As Simone mentioned earlier, one of our initiatives is to improve access and availability of wireless telecommunications coverage throughout the city.

The wireless ordinance was last updated in 2014, and there is very restrictive standards in place that has really been to a detriment of our community and our residents as we have significant gaps in coverage. And so we are working on code amendments to streamline the review of installations in the public right of way and on city property, as well as improve the regulations for installations on private property. And so we're in the process of making those edits and are ready to move that forward for review and consideration by the Planning Commission in March. And then later, it will be presented to the council. Just update on the Corona Mar Corridor study.

This is something we've been studying for the last two years with the intent to increase the vibrancy within Corona Mar, encourage private reinvestment in the corridor, improve walkability and safety within the corridor. And so we did provide an atlas that was shared with the city council with a number of action items that the council did green light for us. And so this year, we are actively working on implementing all those action items. So for the first part of this year, we're working on the code amendments to incentivize priority uses and look at parking management strategies. And we're gonna kick off two pilot programs.

One is to use valet parking within the right of way. And then also unlock private parking that's available in the area and utilize it for public use. So that's gonna be through leasing a private property. The second part of the year will focus more on public hearings to adopt those code amendments, And then complete the plans for a number of infrastructure improvements, which I'll share in the next slide. And then we also wanna launch a parking phone application.

So this will be a way for our residents or visitors to be able to use an application that would help guide them to find available parking locations within the corridors, they're not circling through the residential streets. And then exciting for May 2027 is the goal to launch trolley service within the CDM corridor as well. On this slide, just a number of examples of the public improvements that we're studying. In the upper left hand corner is MacArthur Boulevard Intersection improvement. That's a major intersection with a lot of speed.

And so this improvement would slow down the right turn lanes from highway from the Coast Highway up to McArthur and enhance the safety for pedestrians crossing that intersection. Orchid And Coast Highway Intersection is another intersection that was identified as a need for safety improvements. And so ideas include enhancing the crosswalk and the installation potentially of bulb outs. On the right hand side of that slide, you can see examples of bulb outs and those can be used at other intersections as well. That helps reduce the distance for pedestrians crossing and makes them feel safer and also helps improve the aesthetics of the corridor as well with additional landscaping or seating areas.

We also wanna improve signage, both for pedestrians and for, vehicles. So, in terms of way finding signage and trolley signage, here's some examples. And then we also want to leverage the ability for technology to have signage to direct visitors to where parking is available and also help with management at the beach parking lot. Next up is an effort that we wanna undertake, and this is related to the Newport Coast Local Coastal Program. Just to provide a little background, in 2017, the city received its certified local coastal program.

And what that means and the importance is we're able to issue coastal development permits for projects within the city. Prior to that, property owners undertaking development within the coastal zone would have to submit applications to the state, California Coast Commission, and that would take time. It was a frustrating process. And so in 2017, we're able to provide this enhanced ability for the city to process these permits, but it didn't include Newport Coast. So the Newport Coast area highlighted in pink, that remains within the jurisdiction of the County Of Orange.

And the reason for that is Newport Coast was originally developed and processed under the County Of Orange jurisdiction, and they created the local coastal program for Newport Coast. And although we've annexed Newport Coast in the city and we are transitioning to having building a permanent authority, we still don't have coastal development permit authority. So that's caused some frustration and issues with property owners having to process permits in both the city and the county. And so we're looking to amend the LCP to incorporate that jurisdiction away from the county back to the city to increase our control. But it's gonna require a lot of coordination with the Coastal Commission, county and city staff and the need for some consultant help.

And then my last slide, talking about local control and housing, the seventh cycle housing element is coming up. And although that period is from 2029 to 2037, a lot of the work that goes into that and the preparation in creating that next housing limit, that work is starting to begin this year. So the process for developing the regional housing needs, we call the housing mandate. It all starts with the Southern California Association of Governments, that's CAG, and working with our Orange County Council of Governments and their work with local cities and agencies to develop projections for housing, employment, and other factors that then feeds up to a regional projection for housing need in our region. That all starts now and in 2027, the state officially will determine what the regional need is for our region.

So last time they determine an extraordinary amount, it was 1,300,000. We don't know what the number is gonna be this year. Hopefully, it's lower, but we don't know. Once that number comes out, then SCAG has to develop the methodology to distribute the regional need to all the various agencies. And then once that's done, the city will receive the new mandate and it'll be our responsibility to create the new housing element and identify additional sites if needed.

Hopefully not. Our hope is that a lot of the sites we've identified in six cycle can satisfy the seventh cycle. But it's gonna be very important for our staff to monitor every step of this process so that we can stay engaged and advocate on behalf of our residents and ensure that it results in a number of mandate that works for the city. And likely, we'll have to reach out and start RFP process for housing consultant next year to get this next housing element period going. But that concludes my end of the presentation.

Hi, May. That's a lot. You must be super bored.

Okay, Council Member Grant. I agree. That is a remarkable amount of projects that our new community development director is tasked with. I know that there's good succession planning, you've worked so long and well under our prior community development director now our city manager Simone Georges that you're ready to step into this role and that's clear from just your report, you have such a mastery of everything. Just a couple of things, one on the new housing element, I'm relieved as I'm sure everybody in the city is that we have our eyes on the ball right now, well before mandates come down that we understand and that we are considering ways that we can be more proactive in managing any additional housing mandates.

It was shocking to learn about the mandate for the last cycle in a city that's completely built out that we would have to build so many thousands and thousands of units and really being creative and we got through that cycle. But hopefully we won't have the same big lift that we did last time. I wanted to go back to page where you have the affordable housing and the build out, I guess, I don't know which page that was, maybe well, can pull it up. The numbers are the numbers and I think that the things speaks for itself, if you want to say it that way. I'm encouraged that we do have a certain level of affordable units.

When I talk about that, I think there's always a little concern in the community, what does affordable mean? In this context, the way I look at it is we do need workforce housing in our city. It's imperative for us to retain, to hire and retain good employees and public safety and medical professionals that they have an opportunity to reside either close or within our city. And these units that we're calling affordable, but really when you look at the underlying numbers are sufficient for workforce housing, I think that's encouraging. Even four zero seven if that's the number, that's a good start.

I know it's very difficult, I've worked closely with Simone and with you and others in community development and in the community itself with what makes it difficult in our city, which is that land is very valuable, we're very built out and so eking out as many as we can get as we move along without mandating ourselves, but hoping that the community, the development community embraces this and does it in a thoughtful and mindful way that they can be rewarded for developing, but also provide this valuable amenity for our employees. And so I appreciate the efforts that you have. And I'm wondering just within the lawful sort of framework, if there's ways as we sort of lean into these affordable units coming online, if there's ways that we can prioritize public employees or residents of Newport Beach or people that work here so that we're giving back to the community just like we're adding to the community. And again, there's a lawful framework and that has to be very carefully managed but I like to see that sort of initiative considered in the ways that it can be so that these four zero seven plus as we keep moving forward affordable units go to our nurses and our fire department and our police department city employees, our city staff and they can enjoy the beautiful community that we have as well.

Thank you.

Council Member Wigan.

Yeah, thanks Jaime for that good presentation and yeah, you do have some tough shoes to fill because we'll probably reach out to Simone and then he's going reach out to you. The first slide there was really on this customer service aspect and I really do appreciate the attention to detail on that. A lot of times, homeownership and buying your home is the biggest expense your household will ever have. But probably coming in second is when you need to remodel it and do additions or any fixing up or anything. So that might be the only time that a resident here in Newport Beach interfaces with the city.

And so I really think that having this be at your top forefront when it comes to that desk. We walk by it every time that all of us show up to City Hall, we see how booming that section is in City Hall. It's the most popular place to come to. So I really appreciate that attention to detail. When it comes to that, and I really appreciate Simone and I had a conversation because I think that's the most calls I get usually from residents is, hey, I've got a remodel I'm doing and this process is really arduous.

So I appreciate that staff put together a one pager and that kind of manages expectations. And you look at that and you say, okay, here what you're getting into and it kind of says step by step what to expect, timeframes, how much it's going to cost, what the permits are, how the everything works. So I appreciate that staff took that effort and gave the public some idea on what they're going to need to have there. So I appreciate all the updates. And then our mayor, Mayor Kleiman, she's on SKAG and O'Coggin.

We're really going to probably lean into her to help us here. Big shoes that you have to wear for that, but this next Rina cycle is going to be complicated and it's arbitrary. These numbers coming from the state on the last cycle and likely on this next upcoming cycle. So I'm going to appreciate the hard work in advance that she's going to undertake because it's going to have to apply pressure to those forces at that higher level that will just throw out random numbers just like they did the last arena cycle. I appreciate the hard work.

Mayor Pro Tem Blom.

Just really quickly, and I wanted to thank new development for the amazing amount of work that's going on over there. Truly, you know, we are a city building nonstop in every way. But the two things that were amazing, and I'm so happy to hear, the expanding of the software licensing so we can start getting consultants on that, I think, is amazing and wonderful. My 100% support for whatever I can do to help with that. And then the amended LCP at Newport Coast, which is just one of the greatest things I've ever heard. So anything more we can bring in is always helpful. And thanks for constantly innovating and trying to get this to be a faster process. Thank you.

You. Okay. Bring it out to the public for comments.

Nancy Gardner. You can see from the slide we've already met our renum requirements in terms of market rate, but we're woefully behind on our workforce housing, and thank you for the nice comments on that. What the city needs, if we just rely on developing enough market rate to get the workforce, we're going to have more units than we need. What we need is a plan that focuses completely on getting this kind of housing to make our rena numbers. And the Newport Beach Housing Fund, that is essentially our mission is to provide senior and workforce housing.

And we are willing and ready to make a plan. We've talked to developers and to funding sources, but what they want to make sure is that we are not working at cross purposes with the city. And so I think a rather well obviously you could all stand up and go, we love the Newport Beach Housing Fund, but more practical would be for the city to appoint a liaison to work with us as we develop the plan. So we will be sure that we are in sync. So I hope that you will consider that.

Hurl with Balbo Island. I just wanted to say as a person that works with your staff, great promotion. City Council, City Manager, you've made a great decision and all of your staff promotions recently are great. Thank you very much.

Evan Leverence again, Mr. Murillo, all those pages, great job. Council Member Grant's concerns about affordable housing, market rate housing, whatever we call it. You've heard from me before some of the development agreements I've seen here, it's more cost effective for someone to not build them. You know, within eighteen months they recoup the penalty.

So you've heard, you know, possibly encouraging more of these things to actually be built up the penalties where it's not so easy, where it's cheaper just to pay the fine than to actually build the units. And as far as the local coastal program for Newport Coast, I'm curious, is that you can't say anything simple with the Coastal Commission, but is that an overlay of Newport's or would there be substantial amendments to the Newport's local coastal program to get that through? Thank you.

Council, Dennis Brest, Bellevue Island. I would just add on the category of the workforce housing for sure vitally important, I mean key. So we know that city of Irvine for UCI made an agreement for people working at UCI to be able to have reduced housing. So whatever we have to do to get more workforce housing in. And then second, the trolley, Noah, going to be awesome to have that trolley in town.

One of the terms that's been used quite frequently now in regards to transit that I think is very prudent is frequency is freedom. So to be able to have the trolley eventually be able to connect into OCTA, we have the bus line that goes through town, Lauren all the way through CDM. And I'm starting to use some of the public busing now just as a matter of learning about what we have within the city in order to connect. Now, city of Irvine, I've spoken in regards to Metrolink. Now it's been approved that the city of Irvine has retracted their lawsuit against a repair facility at the Great Park.

So what that's going to do is give the frequency of Metro Link through Orange County the frequency of about every fifteen minutes. So to be able to get through public transportation either through the trolley locally to the bus system and eventually to one of the Metrolink stations, say Tustin or to Irvine, we're going to have the ability to get up to Los Angeles and then hopefully with the Olympics looming and all of this tourists that we're going to get coming down here to be able to use public transportation to get around especially to go to Los Angeles and not to have to get in the car. So great presentation, keep up the good work.

Jim Bossier again. Regarding the CDM infrastructure improvements, I was pleased to see that there is a proposal to rework one of the two free right turn lanes in the intersection of McArthur and PCH to make it safer pedestrians to cross. One thing I have noticed crossing free right turn lanes throughout Newport Beach, and especially there, but most all of them. My recollection is when we first started introducing free right turn lanes as a traffic improvement, there were signs telling motorists that they were supposed to yield to the pedestrians crossing the free right turn lane. And a few years ago, all those signs disappeared.

And my observation is motorists feel it's free for them. And if they want to yield for a pedestrian, they're giving them a great gift. And I really think they are supposed to stop when they see people waiting to cross. So I think we could do better educating the public about how those are supposed to work. Regarding the slide about housing development, I guess it is commendable that we have entitled or planning to build four zero seven affordable or workforce units, that that is still though far short of the number that we promised in our housing element.

And I think it would be good to have clarification if we end the current sick cycle in a few years from now, without having fulfilled the state mandate that we currently have, which we're still far short of, we promised we would build 2,700 instead of 400. Will that unfulfilled number carry over and be on top of any additional assignment to us in the seventh cycle? I believe that it will. And then additionally this chart is telling us our current overlay strategy, which incidentally the courts have now told us, and the Supreme Court has decided not to review the decision. Overlays really are not adequate.

But the overlay system we have now from the chart, it takes 20 market rate units to produce a single affordable unit. And that is clearly not working. And at the 20 to one ratio, to build 3,000 of those is going to take a huge huge number of units. And I don't think our general plan that we have in the works is anticipating that. Actually, was surprised to hear at the last GPAC meeting, which I'm a member of, but for for the next week, but speaking as an individual, I was surprised to see the introduction from our general plan consultant says our plan is tailored to a population increase over the next twenty five years of 7,000 people.

And so there's some disconnect between what we're gonna have to add, what we're actually planning to add, and what our general plan is looking towards. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other public comments, I'll bring it back up here. Any other comments from the dais? I'll just add, in terms of the customer service initiative, obviously, CDD handles an incredible volume of city business. So I'm glad to see that we're looking at how we can improve that experience for many residents and others who are bringing projects through city hall.

I think it's equally important for city employees to receive customer service training, anyone who deals with the public from calling dispatch to trying to pay a water bill. So hopefully we can look at ways to get everyone trained there. And of course, CDM Commercial Corridor, I'm really excited to see these changes moving forward, especially the real time parking app coming online and of course, those open air red trolleys on our streets. Any direction needed from us? Okay, great. Moving on to item number five, which is a discussion about updates on public works and capital improvement program.

So we'll have the public works director, Dave Webb, join us. Fantastic.

Good morning good late morning, actually, Mayor, Councilmember. My name is Dave Webb, Director of Public Works, and we wanted to take some time today to go through capital programs and projects that we've been working on and get some input from you. But we're going to start with basically we've been talking about customer service. I wanted to inform you on some customer service enhancements the Public Works department is doing. We've had some vacancies recently.

We've had some retirements and people moving out, so we're taking the opportunity to realign some of our programs. In our development processing section, we were going to go ahead and take a vacant principal engineer operation and move that into oversight over the development section that works closely with the CDD and Jaime's group. So that will we hope to add some strength in there and some more customer service. And we're going to basically take the current senior position in there and relocate that. We're also requesting an additional associate this year.

There's just such a large workload, as you know, in the development process, and we've been working with Simone and trying to get that worked in there. There's plenty of development fees for that. So we're going to see if we can get another associate engineer in there to provide more assistance and actually help with the processing. Under our stormwater quality, Beach Tidelands area, you're familiar, we had a couple retirements in that area. So we're going to reposition Chris Miller, who's our administrative manager and has a lot of experience in that.

He's going to come back over that section and be working on that. He runs the Water Quality Committee Council Water Quality Committee and various programs in there. And then with that, we had an assistant city engineer position under there. We're going to reassign that into our development program. As you know, our development program in the city is very huge, and we're looking for ways to obviously always move projects quicker and faster.

So we're going to put that position in there to give some more manpower in there. We're also like I mentioned, we're going to take a position out of the senior out of development, put it up in the capital program and backfill that with that principle. And we're also looking hopefully, we can add another associate engineer in this area. Probably we're working on paying for that through like water and sewer fees, and he'll be working on that program. We have so much water and sewer program work that we can surely accommodate that, particularly the new well coming on board and other things.

So we're looking to make those corrections and help move things along. Also before we get into the programs, I just want to talk about some program cost adjustments. We have a large facility maintenance master plan. We usually put about $2,500,000 towards that project. This year, we're asking we had some residual in our balance on a designated fund, work with the finance department. We're going to add about another $1,000,000 so we'll do $3,500,000 hopefully this coming up year. There's just quite a lot of backlog. As you know, last year, we did the air handlers for the library. That was the big project, took a lot of that revenue along with some other HV and other projects that absorbed that. When we met with all the departments this year, there's a lot of need for additional carpeting, painting, HV work and some other things.

So this extra million put in there will basically help catch that up. Want to note too under our refuge collection program as we have a refuse ad hoc committee. They've been looking at this. The county is just going through now to read up their agreement on how we pay for our disposal at the landfills. It's called WISE. You'll be seeing this soon if you haven't heard about it. We hope to bring that to council probably in April year. The key takeaway from this is they're dramatically increasing the tipping rates on the agreement. So you're going to see this first year coming up, we'll probably see another $1,500,000 additional cost to the city. And within a few years in 2029 to 02/30, we're going to be up to $2,500,000 Why is this significant?

Remember, the city, unlike many cities, doesn't have a refuge fee, we pay directly out of the general fund for our disposal costs. So I know the refuge ad hoc, Councilmember Grant

and

Balta have already looked at this and basically are focused on how we can recap some of this revenue and the things we're looking at. We have a refuge recycling fee we want to look at, maybe update that. We're also a big cost reduction would be reducing the amount of material we go to the landfill. So getting our diversion percentages up will actually help drive these numbers down. But you'll hear more about that in the future, but know there's some looming costs out there.

And then just a couple of notes on the capital program side. This year, because as Jaime just alluded to, we're going to be going into cycle seven of the housing, we're going start putting some money towards that. So we expect three years coming up with an additional $300,000 a year programming to pay for all the consulting work and various items in there. And then we're going to start adding some money in for the Corona Del Mar improvements that you just daylighted some of the projects in there. We're going to add $500,000 to next year's budget that will start the designs and start the construction. That will be the end of it, that will definitely get it going. So those are just some finance updates coming up. So getting into the projects a little bit, and I put this slide in here. A lot of folks at home wonder where our projects come from. I get asked that a lot.

So a lot of our projects come out and they're identified by council and community and staff. They're developed by our support groups, our council policies, objectives. And actually, today is a key element because a lot of those ad hoc committees and folks have been building up, and we're going to talk about that later on various ideas and things they want to look at. Some of them come through us through federal or state law or legal actions we have to do. And lot of our projects come out of our we have a lot of master plans and they dictate kind of the flow like the facility finance plan we'll talk about later today, the harbor beaches and master plan and the pavement plans are the big generators of a lot of work out of there.

And before we go into coming projects, just want to touch a little bit on the current projects, particularly this one project. This was McFadden Plaza Newport Pier rehabilitation plan. This has been in the works for some time. It's currently in our twenty fivetwenty six budget. It's budgeted at $1,600,000 It's Tideland's money.

We formed a council working group with Mayor Pro Tem Blom and Councilmember Stapleton on this sometime back to start exploring this and working on how to move forward. They conducted various meetings with select folks, particularly the business owners in the area to try to get some thoughts on vision and moving it forward. Unfortunately, what we kind of came up with is we really couldn't get to a consensus on this. And the council members worked really hard in trying to bring the groups together, but we didn't quite get the vision we were looking for. So the recommendation at this point, there's just so much work and this probably needs some more outreach and time, is to deprogram this funding this project for now.

And this would include just maybe coming back in a few years or reconsidering it. We will have to keep an eye on the pier and the lifeguard billing. The pier is, as you know, aging. In fact, a project will be coming to you next meeting doing the maintenance for this year. And we have a lot of maintenance on our piers, they're old and they're wood. We had to add some additional money on the next coming up cycle. We had a pier snap, a pile snap just recently with the storms. We'll have to include that in this year's maintenance project. And the lifeguard building is aging and it's also in the FFP in the future to be replaced. So probably be getting back to this, but that would be a recommendation with regard to this program this year.

So turning our attentions then to facility financing plan. This is the plan that really dictates a lot of our big projects when we get into facilities and things over $1,000,000 As you know, the city owns a lot of buildings. Off the top of my head, I think we're now around 80 major buildings that we have. And this plan kind of looks at that and facilities and guides that. The plan looks to reconstruct or put in new construction of facilities, usually over $1,000,000 is kind of the range we look at for being in the plan.

And the plan is primarily funded through development fees and then the general plan puts a 3% allocation towards the plan every year in revenues. And that's kind of how we look at it. And then the finance department works on this and tells us what we need when we look to build these new facilities. The current facility plan, I apologize and just for the record, your slide deck, the wrong slide got in here, so I switched this out now just so you see it. This is the plan that was adopted and currently on So file.

We adopt this usually through the finance committee in February. This was February, and then this works its way through the approval process of the CIP. The plan on here is basically $1,400,000,000 in expected cost as is proposed at all those projects going out. So I wanted to keep this just in mind because we're going to be talking about this and looking for adjustments we're going to look at recommending to this plan coming into this next year. Jim, do you I'm sorry, I think you handed out or yes, why don't you this is really tight numbers and just we have some handouts in front.

I'm going have Jim just give the council members one copy, two, if you want to copy, they're out in front. Just if you want to follow along on the proposed plan because we will be talking to various projects within here in this next set. So in this plan, looking going through our ad hocs and various committees coming up to this meeting, we've been looking at a couple of buildings we know we need to probably adjust. So there's three on here that I've listed I'm going talk a little more detail on. We have the aquatic center down at Lower Castaways we've been working on to see what we want to do down there.

We have a new police station in the plan that is probably needing more attention. And then we know we also have to look at Fire Station three, that's the one over on Santa Barbara that might need some adjustments. So I'm going go through these real quick and then we'll look for some council input on that. So with the Aquatics Center at Lower Castaways, the council formed an ad hoc committee on this, and that's Councilmember Stapleton, Mayor Pro Tem Blom and Councilmember Bartow. And they've been working with their ad hoc committee on this, looking at this for some time. They've reviewed a couple of sites. There's a couple of schematics on the screen. We've looked at Lower Castaways, how we could do an aquatic center there. We were finding challenges there. So we looked over at some other opportunities.

Recreation pointed out that we have some opportunities maybe over Beneath Creek Park, so we looked there briefly and had some public meetings. Both of them kind of had site constraints that are controlling it and also some public opposition to the point that we felt like this may not be a good fit. The ad hoc kind of looked at this and said, maybe we ought to redirect. So moving away from an aquatic center, there was still the desire to do something at Lower Castaways, so they had another meeting on that and they wanted something more harbor centric, but still a nice project on that. So the direction was given to our landscape architect to come up with a further plan that would maybe adjust that, not an aquatic center, but have a nice civic use here.

This plan here is the latest concept and we wanted to talk to you about that plan today. The ad hoc looked at this, likes this plan. They need to take it back to their ad hoc for maybe some more details. But the gist of this plan is adding us a significant parking area in there so that people can use the center. There's about 100 plus stalls that we're looking at here. Two major components. They wanted to look at a small footprint restaurant, about 3,500 square feet. That's five in there, if you look at the plan. I don't know if I have a pointer that gets to it. If you look towards the corner of Dover and PCH, you'll see another set of buildings up there. We talked about maybe doing a kiosk type thing. I'm sorry, thank you. We'll do a kiosk. Thank you. I don't know if there we go.

Let me get my pointer so folks can follow me. Right down in the corner here, maybe a coffee kiosk. We'd also have a public restroom down here. Our bicycle master plan is asking for bicycle note in here, so we thought something around here might work because we have bike trails that come along here and along Coast Highway and maybe that would work out well with the restrooms. We also have a need for storage of the canoes and outriggers down there.

So the Area 4 would be keeping with that, and they could use that area. It is a big hand launch popularity area. So we have a hand launch beach right under Coast Highway Bridge here. We can also expand to the current beach here on number one here up at the top and improve that. We also wanted a viewing area, a play lawn, but some place that folks could picnic or see just utilize the park and maybe look out over the ISO Harbor views there.

So we have that in here. And then a couple of things the committee felt strongly about, not sure we can get this. We think these are positive things, but they wanted to still try to connect Lower Casa with Upper Casa with We have a staircase option here of some sort we'd like to explore. And then there was kind of strong feelings about because we're on the harbor, putting another public city public pier here on our property. I know we have some challenges there, but I think it's something doable we can work with.

So people on the harbor side could access the park, the restaurant and various things like that. So that's where the plan stands right now as it's heading out of that committee towards you. So this harbor eccentric plan we're kind of putting out today because I think the committee would like to see what the rest of the council thinks about it, the public, if they'd like to maybe pursue this. The estimated cost for this new park plan is about $26,500,000 compared to the aquatic center that's in the FFP now, which is about $47,000,000 So it would be a decrease in cost, but it's still significant. Again, this is what we're looking for is then if you want to do this, we would replace Item 40, which is the FFP, the aquatic center in the current FFP for this park.

And then we'd move the aquatic center to the unfunded projects. Basically, those are projects that council has an interest in, but hasn't really figured out how to approach them for whatever reason, sites, costs, things like that. So we'd want to replace this project in there with that. And if you decide to move this project forward today or maybe a later discussion, we'd want to reallocate. There's $500,000 in the CIP now towards Lower Castaways, the aquatic center effort.

We'd like to reallocate that towards the Castaway Park effort. And then we'd like your direction to talk to staff and a consultant to move forward. Our typical process then would be to develop the concept plan, work with the ad hoc, shape that up, develop the environmental documents and then return to council with the entire package, the final concept for your approval. From there, it goes to coastal permitting, etcetera, and then to construction. So that's this particular project that I mentioned that probably needs some review and your direction in the FFE.

Next project I kind of pointed to is there's been some well, actually a lot of discussion on this recently. The council formed an ad hoc to review our police station. And again, we have council member Weber and Balto on there and also Mayor Probetin Blom, and they've been looking at this with their ad hoc. And goal here is to review the police facility sites and design options and kind of come up with recommendations back to the council. So they've been looking at a lot of sites, and there is a lot on this project.

We've evaluated some other sites. Remember, we own 1201 Dove Street. That was originally thought to be bought for and maybe put the police department there. But there's been a growing interest in expressing a desire to have the police facility closer to the Pacific Center. So again, Dove Street is kind of further away, it's up in the airport area. But to do that, we had to look at some other areas. So they hired a consultant. We looked around. They checked her out around the Civic Center area, and they also looked at 1201. And then the Civic Center Park came into view and they wanted to think about maybe looking at reallocating some of the space in the current Civic Center Park right next to us here.

So you'll recall at 12:01, we own this property and again it's a good property. The property is owned by the city. It's not civic centric. It's quite always up in the airport area. The good news is the property is a positive cash flow position. It can be sold. It can be used to pay for new police facility. Should you want to put a facility at this, it's about $150,000,000 is the estimate to build on this site. Again, we've already paid for the land on this site. The next area that the ad hoc really looked at trying to get more civic centers is in the area of the civic center, and my circle down below kind of shows that.

And they screened it out for various properties and things we could afford. The trouble, as you can imagine, is most of this property around here, it's all taken and spoken for. It's private property, and they spoke with a couple. There's a high cost of acquisition to build in this area. So it's really a big deterrent. But if we were to maybe find a lot in here that would fit appropriately, the cost estimate for that was about $153,000,000 to build a new facility. That doesn't include the cost of land, though, so you'd have to add that on top of that cost. And then one other area that the ad hoc started exploring, and again, this is the Civic Center Park here. It's adjacent to the Civic Center. We already own the property.

In order to do something here to construct the facility, the cost is about $162,000,000 for what we're looking at right now. And that cost is up again. We wouldn't have land cost, but we'd have a little higher building cost, particularly because there's a to So So

do

with the basic structure we need, you'd need basically two structures. They this slide shows. They did a couple versions, but this is the favorite one right now, showing a police building towards the entrance to Civic Center and the plaza there. You'd enter the police facility just like you enter Community Room and Civic Center here. Be a little entrance part we found. We could probably do two entrances into this. You could come off Avocado for one and you could come off McArthur. Again, we'd have to work with our traffic folks to do this. Just into a parking structure behind the building. In there would be all the employee parking, the police vehicle parking, etcetera.

And then there's some ancillary buildings maybe building in there. I haven't quite figured this out, but that little building area there could be the shooting range. We currently have a shooting range within our facility. It's important for our police officers to have other tactical things they need. So that might be able to be built in there.

So the ad hoc was wanted to basically bring this before the council and the public at this meeting to start to think about what do you think about something like this and have that discussion. And we'll look for that a little further once we get to the end here. But if you do choose to go forward with the civic center option here, what we'd be looking for is, again, we'd want to update the FFP. That's Item eight in the FFP currently. It's currently shown at $96,000,000 It would be basically adjusted to 162,000,000 And then the current start date schedule on this is it was out in 2030 to start design, construction 2033.

We'd like to move that up. They're recommending you move it up to start design phase on this year, 2026, which would hopefully get the construction started about 2029. And again, we'd have to include if you want to do this, we'd want to include $1,500,000 in this current fiscal year. We'd have to make a budget and adjust on that to go ahead and start the consultant team to develop the concept further, prepare the final environmental documents. And again, like the Castways project, this would all be developed and brought back to council's full review and approval of the concept before we went into the final construction.

Yes, the 1.5 is just the seed money to get that going, it's not the full design. And that we're asking for it for this fiscal year. And then just lastly on a note, Fire Station three I mentioned, there's been a lot of talk. Fire department was looking to try to move this station as we're looking at various buildings here more towards the Port St, more towards McArthur because they have a time deficiency there. We've been looking at various sites, and you've heard talk.

We've been talking to OCTA about maybe co locating on their center. They have we think they have some room on that site. Maybe we could get a station in there. We currently have a study we've entered into with OCTA to look that. It's going to take twelve to fifteen months just to get through all that to see how we could reallocate their space that might provide for the fire. So what we're doing in this case is we're just recommending that we modify our FFP for Station 3 to basically move the timeframe up. It's currently scheduled to start design in 2032, but we'd like to move that up. So it probably if we could get all the agreements and studies and agreements done, probably starting construction 2029. That's rough. I can't give you a real hard thing.

There's a lot of moving parts in but we surely would want to move that up. If we could do it quicker, that would be fine if that's the council's desire. So with that, and I've given you this hand up. This is what you have for the public and it's small numbers, but I just wanted to kind of go. The red is the proposed changes that I went through, and then it affects the bottom line in this.

It went from basically, what I say, 1,300,000,000.0 to 1.483. So it does add about $85,000,000 into our FFP costs. And as you, ma'am, this is a financial budget document that finances use, and the finance committee usually works through this. Every February, they usually go through this and kind of figure out what how they can fund it. So there's a lot of moving parts that I can't answer that, but you guys would want to look at the numbers and the budgets and how we can fund this.

I do know if you look at this document and talking to finance, again, we contribute 3% revenue to the FFP annually to support it. We also put year end surplus into the FFP when we can. Just as it stands today, Jason advised me that the FFP's total free dollars is $18,500,000 and that's including the 13,800,000.0 that was in last year's surplus that was added, but it excludes minority program for the new Balboa Librand fire station. So you have about 18,500,000.0 to work within there. And again, if we move this plan at this direction, I think what finance is suggesting, we're going to need to figure out how to fund these things.

There'll be a mix of developer fees, debt financing and property sales and things. So those details we'd want to probably get into a little more detail on so you understand how this move would change things. So with that, able to talk about these projects. We also have Jim Houlihan here. We can talk about any other capital projects if you have specific things you need to talk about.

Thank you. Councilmember Grant.

Thank you. Just a couple of quick questions. Going back to Page 29, it's very compelling to think about expanding our civic center to include a state of the art police station here on this campus. Would be, I can see so many synergies and I'm excited to hear more about this as it develops. I realize we're very early in the process.

But one thing I did want to ask you about was this reference on Page 29 that the 162,000,000, which I might mention, obviously we're going to have to invest a lot in a new police department. There's so much new technology and we just need to take every opportunity now to build something that's generational, right? So I want to make sure that we're adequately considering a budget for this project and I see that you've got excluding significant mitigation. I remember from the small part I had when we developed this site originally and built the city's hall here and added the park that there were a lot of specific mitigations, I think federal restrictions to the park land. I think what's called an NCCP, I don't really remember exactly but I know there were some national federal or national regulations that we really had to comply with and I guess that's maybe what you're talking about here, significant mitigation.

So if you don't have an answer, but I'm wondering is there a ballpark on what we're looking at, it's 162,000,000 for the build, that seems pretty reasonable, but really what do we need to be thinking about in the bigger picture with this mitigation?

Well, quickly and to answer your first part, we did work with a consultant who's briefed in this and we worked with the police department. They identified all the needs they need in new buildings. So the communication centers or jails, their technology. So all that is in the cost of the 162,000,000 The significant mitigation, we just don't quite know of all the impacts yet. There's a lot of drainage facilities that run through there that might have to be relocated. There is probably some environmental mitigation in the center of the park that we might have to do. Hasn't been identified because the studies haven't been done yet. So but we do know there's something there. And I don't have a number of that. It's not going be more in the building, obviously, but you can expect in the millions to deal with that.

Yeah, know we probably obviously wouldn't have current studies, but I know that we did significant study when we did the original construction of the park. And so it'd be probably of some value to go back and just see what was an impediment before that we had to deal with so that we kind of have a head start on that. The other thing I wanted to just mention briefly was the Lower Castaways. I am fully on board with a park concept there. I think it's really important as we have expressed at this council many times, that's our last big open space on that corridor.

It's a historic site for the city of Newport Beach as one of our original landing spots. And having a large park element, pool was also very interesting to consider there and now that we've kind of tabled that and we're looking at a park concept, feel that we can embrace that really well. I know there's a small ad hoc, so we don't really talk about that and what's coming out of that committee. But I'm just wondering if we can at some point get an analysis of the value of a large restaurant there. Obviously, it would be so enjoyable to go and sit and enjoy a restaurant and I'm not against that.

But what's the value of that versus other park or launch aspects or other ways to use the park that would be embracing just that really last piece of open space, that little window that we have on that corridor. We are fortunate to be a very well financed city and I think that we do need to have a balance and make sure that we're constantly planning for the future and our fiscal stability. But these resources once they're gone, they're gone. And I love that we have that postage stamp right there that could be a beautiful green spot, bike trails, all of that. And whatever we need to do as far as adding a commercial aspect of it to make it make sense is a great idea. So I'm looking forward to more information.

Councilmember Grant, my apologies, one of the things that the committee came up with it got cut out of this presentation, it's adding a historical element to that park. They want to move the monument for Lower Landing back into the park and they want to have a theme built into the park that you could walk around and find some of the Lower Castaways history in there. So that's a significant thing. The ad hoc is going to have to work further on that with the consultant to figure out what that would be.

I love that and many of us travel around the world, we see different things in different parks. There's different ways to use parks like for athletic purposes, having different stages of working out or ways that incorporate like you said bicycle and other amenities that would be a benefit to our residents. So thank you for the work on that and I look forward to more.

Council Member Wieggen.

Yeah, on the Castaways Park, probably count me as more of the naysayer on this one. Know, womp womp, sorry. But this 26,500,000.0 seems like a pretty hefty price tag when we have this other Really more important aspect to us and that's the police station facility. Mean, Santa Barbara, we're literally just putting a band aid on it every time there's something. I think I went in there when they're redoing the lockers. It looks nice from the outside. We're doing everything we can possibly to keep it in the best condition possible. But I think it's time we start really, really digging deep into what we want to do about that. And I appreciate the ad hoc really studying this concept. I mean it's our land.

So that really makes a really neat and interesting component having it right here, right out this window here. So I want to continue looking into it. It does look like we could save some of the Sculpture Garden while we do this. So I really would like to move forward more with that than I would with the Castaways. I think there's some good stuff to it.

But the 100 plus stalls concerns me. I think the egress ingress was already a challenge when it came to the pool. So I'm more interested in a passive park concept that has less parking, less folks coming and going and more maybe that's walkable, rideable, less vehicle traffic there. Because I drive that every single day coming off of Coast Highway onto Dover and it's a danger. There's no way around it.

I think the ad hoc looked at it from the aquatic center and that was their biggest challenge was people coming in and out. So I don't want increase car traffic there, but there's got to be something where the neighborhoods can walk to Bay Shores, Cliff Haven, Dover Shores. There's a lot of folks that go there. We exercise on the upper part. So I am supportive of a staircase that brings people down.

So maybe encourage more parking above and then you walk down to the park. So that would be something I would be concerned with. What's the traffic count today, folks going in to recreate there versus what it will be tomorrow. I think that really is something we need to study. And then Orange County Sanitation District, we have an agreement with them through 2029 to redo that pump station there on the Bay Bridge. And council member Stapleton did a good study or a good video there. In fact, at the sanitation meeting the other day, everyone was pretty stoked on it. So I appreciate him coming out there to raise attention to what that is. But they're going be there till 2029. So maybe we can just punt this down the road and save a little bit money.

I know we're repurposing some dollars here, but maybe we can focus more on that police station. But historic just doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be something grandiose. We can still have some type of monument, some type of attractor. But I do worry about the egress ingress that's coming in there. And then as far as a pier, I think the tides kind of whip around there, especially with the bridge. It's a little challenging in navigation. So I don't know if a peer would get good there for motor craft. Yes, for maybe handheld bringing in and out for kayaks and paddle boarding and things like that. I'm all in favor of it. But boats, don't know if that if anyone studied that from Harbor Commission.

But I feel like the tides kind of prevent boats pleasure craft from coming in there and docking. So again, I think the focus should be police station here. It's definitely intriguing at this Civic Center. I'm really supportive of having the police station be here at Civic Center. I think we're onto something. And I look forward to what the study would bring us.

Councilmember Stapleton.

Yeah, thank you. Great job, team. I would say bummer about the Newport Pier, but totally understand. We got a lot of the people in the room. Couldn't get to a common agreeance on that. But I think the reality is Mayor Pro Tem Blom and myself will continue to move the needle as much as we can on that. The reality is a lot can be done, maybe not at this given time, but keep it on there as a future in my opinion. When it comes to the aquatic center, agreed. There's no path to victory right now in the community. We spent a tremendous amount of time over the last two years trying to find a home.

But the reality is right now, I think we send that down the FFP for a potential future solution if one were to come about. And then lastly, Lower Castaways Park, I agree to disagree with the councilman Wigan. I do believe this is the most historic site in the city. I do believe there's a tremendous amount of traffic already on that site on the weekends. When I drive by there on a daily basis as well, I'll see a 100 cars in that parking lot with different handcraft for kayaks, canoes, paddle boards, everything else.

I maybe Simone, you can talk about it, but I don't see this as an either or when it comes to a police station or fire station. I think this is an addition too. We have the right team and and yeah, OCCN has this site till 2029. But the reality is if we started today getting through coastal and everything else, we wouldn't even start construction till after that anyway, in my professional opinion. This would be in my mind generated from in lieu of fees, like park fees.

We have a tremendous amount of development happening in the community in the not too distant future. And some of these projects over by the airport area are gonna be putting more and more money into our funds when it comes to park fees. So maybe Simone, you can talk briefly about what that would look like. But this is something that I think is caught on far too long. I've been working on this project for almost fifteen years now from my time on Harbor Commission.

I know a lot of other people have before. But I think enough is enough. This is a terrific opportunity to connect the bay with the land, with the neighborhoods, with the community, activating the site. So it's not just another passive destination, but really activating it where we can have people from all over the community continue to enjoy this location. Some of the best views in the city with the water and Fashion Island in the background and everything else. So I do think going on the ad hoc committee, I think we looked at a lot of things with other input from the community. And I think this strikes a blend between what the residents are looking for in that area and win win for the community. So I would definitely suggest moving forward with that project.

Councilman Roberto.

Yes, thank you. I have the luxury of sitting on both committees, so I'm grateful for that. And I just wanted to say what I if it's an eitheror, of course, I think we need to prioritize the police station. But if it's not, I think that what gets lost kind of in this presentation

is a lot of the

same points that Councilmember Weigand and Grant made. This is built to have bike access. This is designed to have a historical element, a passive element. This is like a hand launch kind of area using what is already kind of the purpose of the site, people launching their kayaks and paddleboards, and allowing for that with parking that's not that gravel parking. So the anticipation is it's not gonna bring a ton more visitors than are already coming and going based on kind of like having the hours of the coffee shop.

You know, this is like a coffee shop idea for people to walk and bike to, and then having a restaurant with limited hours as well. So again, it doesn't have to we, you know, if it is an either or, I think I know I've said where my priorities are, but I would just say that this maybe the drawing kind of loses something in the presentation of what I think we're all on the same page with wanting for this site. Council member Weber.

I was on the wrong screen for the record trying to request to speak. Thank you, Dave. And obviously, thank you to staff for all of the presentations today. I certainly can't imagine Newport Center without a police station. To say I'm excited about this potential project would be an understatement.

I love the direction we are going with keeping it by city hall. I'm grateful for staff and obviously my ad hoc colleagues for the creative thinking and collaboration that basically is shaping this plan. I think creating a true Civic Center with city hall and public safety is an amazing vision and I would absolutely be supportive of including them. Is it the 1.5 in the budget to kick this off and and see where it goes? I know we have an insane list of projects here, but, know, in my opinion, I I can't think of anything more important right now than a new police station.

So thank you again for all your work on this.

Mayor Pro Tem Blanc.

Thank you. And to echo some of my colleagues' comments, when we started, you know, I actually sat up here when we bought the Dove Street project, so it's been a long time now. And it's great to see that we've not lost money, we've actually done the opposite, made money up there, and the value has only increased with some of the other re envisioning that's happening in our new airport district. So when we started looking around here, you know, I thought, wow, it's amazing. We had some great community members reach out to us and say, we this is what we're looking for.

So, you know, kind of in my personal opinion, building out this civic center, finishing it off with the fire station at the top, running through some of the passive park areas, down to a police station, city hall, a library, a lecture hall, mean, just feels like this is Downtown Newport, which really is. I think it makes it a lot easier, a lot more collaborative to get all of those pieces together. We fully understand that this is a very very heavy lift. It's a huge cost, but the full support I have behind it. When it comes to Lower Castaways Park, I was on that ad hoc as well.

I fully believe that it needs to be turned into something. I do understand that having like a 1.6% cap rate on that for the restaurant might not be very good, but we're also a municipality. And sometimes activation for those things makes them more enjoyable. And I do think some of that cost is actually mainly park, if I'm not mistaken. I think we had discussed maybe building pads and having secondary operators come in and actually build the facilities.

So in that shot, I think we're both a little amazed at about $26,000,000 is what it takes to build a brand new park in Newport, but I think I'm always amazed at how much it takes to build things in Newport. So you know, I hate either ors, but obviously the Civic Center is my number one goal in getting this police station wrapped up and moving, but I'm also fully supportive of Lower Castaways.

Okay, let's go ahead and go out for public comments.

Dennis Brez, Belleville Island, Mayor Council. Great presentation, Dave. Yeah, so first of all, Lower Castaways. We tried in regards to a pool. We could use the additional pool for the community.

But I have coffee down there every Friday with my dad and son, Friday coffee. And it is one of the most beautiful views from right there, hollowed ground for sure for Newport. And I like this concept. In regards to ingress and egress, yeah, anybody that goes in there knows that it's an issue. But I think Dave, by having a larger span to be able to go in and go out because right now it's very narrow, which causes some of that problem, especially when we go to McDonald's and get senior coffee for our Friday coffees and then we come back down Coast Highway South and have to make that left and then you have to merge into that right.

Being that it's so narrow there, it does make it very hard to get in there and with a bigger entrance I think is probably going to solve that. But that's a key area right there and I'm all for that. That's going to be an amazing project. In regards to police station, holy cow, this is amazing. I love walking up and going to see the rabbits and everything up there.

But I mean to use that property that we already have to interconnect and to give the police department the resources and the new facility that they really require to move forward is just phenomenal and the fact we own the land. So I would just make the comment I didn't hear anything about if we move in that direction, what do we do with the current location? And I take it we own that land where the current police department is at. So if we look at the money and offset that on something too, there's cost savings there. So I'm happy with both of these projects. I think it's an amazing opportunity to show synergy with what we've got with the new lecture hall all the way up to Dog Park here in this beautiful part of our beautiful city. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers?

Back to Slide 53 please. I've attended a number of meetings on Lower Castaways and has gone from the iteration of a possible site for a $47,000,000 pool to now this to some school things with exhibits and touching pools and whatnot. The concerns I've expressed at these meetings, various meetings that I don't know if you've heard from me. As I understand it, the Irvine Company kind of gave the city control of this land and the strong desires for a dock or appear there are because Kitty Corner across PCH, there's Newport's biggest unusable dock, which has no parking, no fishing, a three hour time limit, no bike racks, no restrooms. So some way to tie these in and a desire for a dock somewhere where people can stop and use a restroom on the harbor, another location.

And then the Irvine Company at that big beautiful dock had plans for a 14,000 square foot restaurant. And given that they have some level of approval of what's constructed here, you know, I encouraged by hearing coffee shop and 3,500 square foot restaurant. But then as council member Blum and Stapleton know, getting some private entity to pay for some of this is a great idea. But there has to be some acceptable level of square footage that the Irvine Company doesn't think is competition with them and then also passes the coastal muster of water dependent use. And I don't know if those conversations have been had yet, but before a whole bunch of money is spent on design, I think seeking at least tacit approvals from the Irvine Company and reaching out.

I remember Simone saying at one time they had reached out to Coastal. But just not throwing a bunch of money on a bunch of beautiful pictures for something that, oh, the restaurant is too big, the Irvine Company doesn't accept it. Thank you.

Bernie Swalsed, President Newport Beach Historical Society. Want to congratulate Joe Stapleton and Lauren Kleiman on the last couple of years on making a presentation and emphasis on history. It's the first time in my twenty five years of the city that that's happened. And so I want you to consider that in the next year or so you all look for a permanent museum spot for the Historic Society because the historical laureate Bill Lobdale and Robin Grant and I had Bellevue Island had a meeting. And basically we all have concerns about a permanent location for a museum in the city.

So, if you all think about that when you're going around at your jobs, I would appreciate it. I think you need to increase your grant program, which isn't the subject here today on this subject. But you should have a larger grant program for this type of thing too than you have. But I think there's a great emphasis thanks to Joe and Lauren. So, appreciate that.

But you need to look most cities are involved in museums. Costa Mesa, Laguna, Irvine, all most cities have some involvement. Mill Valley where I was the part of the library and the museum were together in Mill Valley. So, you should think about that. If you don't think about it there won't be a history in Newport five, ten years from now because this expensive land Belleville Island has expensive situation down there.

And we're going to be torn down in the next year or so. So, thank you.

Thank you.

Kim Moser again. First I would observe on the agenda, this is actually a staff update item rather than a decision item. So I assume you're just discussing the ideas and not going to be making decisions today. Regarding the police headquarters, I would observe that the council has made significant investments, including locker rooms and other things, in the current facility on the assumption that the police would be using that facility for some time into the future. That's why we were making the improvements.

And I did not hear the explanation of why it has suddenly become so urgent to move on an accelerated time scale. And then secondly, regarding the specific proposal to put the police headquarters right here next to where we are today, I understand that makes sense financially. I'm not sure historically it makes a whole lot of sense. Like Lower Castaways, the parcel from the city central library up to San Miguel was donated to the city by the Irvine Company in return for rights to develop elsewhere. And a city council in 1999 accepted this whole parcel from the library up to San Miguel as open space.

The intention was this was to remain the open space portion of the Newport Center statistical area. In 2008 the voters of Newport Beach kind of overrode that additional concept with Measure B, for those of you who recall that city hall in the park. And we were considering then other locations for a City Hall, which was then located on Newport Boulevard on the Peninsula. And voters agreed to use this location by a small majority. The assumption though was that the city hall was going to be smaller than it turned out to be, and a large part of this reserved as public open space.

And then the city hall has grown, and now we have the proposal to take still more of the open space. So the idea for open space in Newport Center, which we don't have a lot of, is kind of getting constantly eroded. So that is a consideration, and especially with our new housing mandate, we are expecting the Newport Center Statistical Area to become a much more larger population center than it has been in the past. And so we're taking away the little public area, and our view location up there, which was part of the park concept, is now going to be looking at a police parking lot. And so the new population in Newport Center is losing their recreational area.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. It's still morning, I guess. Debbie Stevens with Corona del Mar. Have thank you, Jim, for that. It's the background of what happened at the Civic Center and I have mixed emotions about it and some of it's very selfish because I live across the street.

What you're moving the the police department from what is a commercial area over to what's half residential and more residential with what's going on in Fashion Island. I'll never not support increasing our public safety. So I can't say I'm against it, but what I will say what happened here is that there was a lot of public outreach and in the end while there was people who didn't like it at first, the public supported putting Civic Center here. So it asked that if this comes around that you do the same kind of outreach and that there be public meetings and design meetings and all that kind of good stuff. Because there was a lot of public support in the end for putting the Civic Center here.

Yeah, I think I would prefer it remain a park, but I do understand some of the public benefit. And Councilman Grant, it was riparian habitat there. How you would mitigate that now? No clue. But there were some sensitive habitat, which I suspect could be mitigated. But I do appreciate the information. And this was a great informative day for me on what's going on in the city, so I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers on this item? Okay, seeing none, we'll bring it back up here. A few comments from my end. The police station, this project is, of course, a big undertaking both financially and logistically, but it is long overdue and definitely needs to be in the city center.

Fire station, I'm fully supportive of the relocation. Obviously, it's subject to OCTA's approval. I do wanna note that sharing or co locating on the site is not an option. Buses and emergency vehicles, fire trucks and paramedic vehicles don't go well together. So it was in fact removed from the feasibility study that is now moving forward.

I think we should go ahead and take a straw vote just for staff direction. Hearing some support for various things at lower castaways, but given that that ad hoc committee exists and has yet to make a formal recommendation to the council, I would say it's probably a little premature to give any direction or dedicate funding for a project there. But that obviously, again, will come back to us probably in the near term. So let's go ahead and take a straw vote for support funding set aside for the police and fire stations.

The motion this is passed by a seven zero vote.

Okay. Last up. Running a little bit late, but we'll get on get you on your way shortly here. Now is the time for public comments on non agenda items.

We made it. Fantastic. First of all, what an informative. This is one of my favorite meetings of the year for the city of Newport Beach because this really does lay out what it is that the city is working towards. I want to thank the council out of the chutes.

Happy New Year and all the best to you and your families for 2026. I just wanted to add to the record some great news. So in regards to how much we love John Wayne Airport in the fact that we all know when you're traveling and you're in say Chicago and you walk by that gate that says Los Angeles, you're like, man, I'm glad I'm not going to that gate. And you see the Orange County gate and you see people in shorts and Hawaiian shirts and we're all headed back home, right? So nothing better than our wonderful airport.

It's a vital community resource for sure. But what we have to bear as far as residents of Newport Beach and some people in Costa Mesa is that 97% of the departures from John Wayne come through our community. And so what we're trying to do is create an environment by which we have an airport director in Charlene Reynolds and who's really taken the case on behalf of the residents of Newport Beach is our supervisor, Katrina Foley, and I'm on the advisory group for Foley. And then also the great work with now you, Lauren and Noah in regards to the city's work and advocacy from the city of Newport Beach in the advisory committee. The good news is this, in the category of these commercial let me just set the level here.

We've done this graphic just to show that there's about 200 jet departures every day. So you can do the math starting at seven a. M, it's our alarm clock. That's a lot of jet departures coming through. Only do they depart north if it's like the Santa Anas.

So we really do our quality of life is negatively impacted by how that airport functions. So if you have 200 daily jet departures, about 134 are commercial jets and 65 per day are general aviation jets. So Supervisor Foley with Charlene Reynolds has put in the Flight Friendly program. Basically what that is, is to get the GA pilots educated as to how they can fly and we've coined this term high, slow and therefore quiet. And we have great success with that.

In regards to the commercial, the greatest success is and here's the numbers. In the category of next gen, which is new generation aircraft, the Boeing MAX and the Airbus Neo, those new aircraft are about five decibels quieter. 10 decibels as a rule of thumb is double the noise, so five is significant. With the deployment of next gen aircraft into commercial departures, we are seeing a tremendous decrease in noise. And what we've been able to do is get next gen from 2019 at the 1.8% of that configuration to now in 2025 to almost 30% of all the jet departures in the commercial are the quieter next gen aircraft.

And we'll continue to advocate for quieter departures. And thank you very much for all you guys do and have a wonderful rest of the day in our beautiful city of Newport Beach.

Thank you, Dennis.

So I'm Virginia Anders Elmore. I live in Newport Beach Shores. The other thing I was hoping you might pay some attention to. President Trump has decided that it's a good thing to do offshore drilling. And I guess according to some of the news articles about five days ago, he's taken the first steps towards offering new offshore oil drilling leases.

And I would hope our council would not support this. I mean we have a beautiful view. We've had a history of oil spills along our coast, which devastate our beaches and the wildlife and our commercial businesses here. So I just I would hope that you guys would stand for not having any offshore drilling off our shores and communicate that to the administration, please.

Thank you. Any other comments?

Last but not least, Lee Pearl with Balboa Island and the reason I came today is I am presenting my annual Balboa Island wish list. And this year we did a community survey and it was pretty, it was a wide outreach and very, we received a lot of responses and it was eye opening to me and therefore the wish list that I'm presenting has a lot of new items on it that I was really not aware of either. And Mayor one of them is we're open to security cameras at the ferry and maybe on the fire station. So there's a lot of ideas that we'd like to work with the city on to improve services and the quality of life of the people on Balboa Island. Thank you for your time today and I'll turn this over to the clerk.

There's eight copies or nine. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments?

Mayor Kleiman, I I just wanted to thank the city staff for not only putting the presentation online in advance of the meeting, but also providing paper copies of it so that people in the audience could follow along. Thank you for that.

Thank you. Okay, seeing no other public comments, just an official warm welcome to our new public information officer, Georgia Rios. And with that, we are adjourned.