City Council - Regular Meeting

I will call to order the August 18th special city council meeting, Madam Clerk. Roll call, please. All council members present. Madam Clerk, please read the notice regarding public comments on agenda and non-agenda items.

The City Council of Newport Beach welcomes and encourages community participation. Public comments are invited on items listed on agenda and non-agenda items. Speakers must limit comments to three minutes per person to allow everyone to speak. Written comments are encouraged as well. The City Council has a discretion to extend or shorten the time limit on agenda and non-agenda items. At this time, the Zoom connection is active for public participation. Anyone wishing to address the City Council during comment via Zoom should use Ray's hand feature. Speakers will recognize in the order received. When called upon, please unmute your microphone, state your name for the record and proceed with your comments.

We will now proceed with public comments on all agenda and non-agenda items. Please note the members of the public will still have an opportunity to comment on agenda items during current business and closed session later in the meeting, provided they do not comment on those items at this time. A speaker who comments on any calendar item will not be permitted to comment again later in the meeting. Is there anyone wishing to speak? Agenda or non agenda. Please come forward, thank you.

Is that the timer over there?

Okay. Hi, I'm Rick Weiss. Hello, everybody. I wanted to talk about an item that's not on the agenda, but will soon be on the agenda that we feel very strongly about. It's about the undergrounding project in Newport Heights. And there's a lot that we have to say about that. But first of all, by way of introduction, we don't feel it's safer. I'm representing myself and a lot of other people who will be speaking also at some point in the future. It's not safer. We don't think there's a fire risk in our neighborhood. And in the case of earthquakes, restoration of services will be much, much more long compared to overground facilities. utilities but anyway getting back to what the single point I wanted to make here it's I think it's kind of a waste it's been shown to be a waste of the city's money and resources because every time this fails which it has seven times in the past 13 years the city has and the out of the general fund has been responsible for paying for it so basically it's been when I looked over the maps over the past 13 years It's the same exact homes, the same exact districts, they're just called by different names. So there's now about 600 properties, and that represents about a $30 million unnecessary tax, let's call it what it is, on the residents. It's $50,000 a piece, and it may be longer, maybe more, because they started this project six months ago, and the estimates have gone up. They haven't been able to get the signatures so far after six months of trying. Next slide, please. Okay, so again, next slide, please. Okay, this is an overall view of Newport Beach, and you can see that this... District right now is way is the largest by area of any District that I see that it's ever been attempted in Newport Beach. So it's not a trivial kind of thing. We're talking about it's a major expense next slide Zooming in on it. The 118-2 is the same thing as 118 Prior and 114 that we fought against before and we won Next slide please. Okay. These are the districts that in the same exact area the same exact homes 8080, 107, 108, 109, 114, 114B, and 118, two of them went to a vote and it was defeated, and the other seven, they had to retract their names because they retracted the petition because they couldn't get enough. But for every single one of these, we had to pay. Everybody in Newport Beach had to pay to get these estimates and things like that. Next slide. Okay, there's 50,000 and there's additional private conversion costs So basically the question is how much money do we have to continually waste? from the city at these fruitless efforts to get Electrical wires put underground.

Thank you next speaker, please. I

Good afternoon. My name is Bertha Raines, and I'm resident of Newport Beach, and I reside in the Heights, Newport Heights. And I am opposed to undergrounding the utilities in our neighborhood for the following reasons. Number one, it's an unnecessary financial burden. Many of the residents are on fixed income and live in historic cottages. To retrofit these historic cottages or have this undergrounding would be a big expense. and the money would be better spent on health care, their own health care, medical needs, and family needs. It's not a safety issue because it's low risk to fire, but it could be, since we live in an earthquake area, the earthquakes, if it's underground, would be more costly if there was an earthquake to do the work that would be necessary versus being on the poles. And then our streets will be torn up for months and possibly years and all the polls will not be gone anyway because of Sony them for telecommunications and I am do not support the underground in our neighborhood. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my opinion.

Thank you next speaker, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Portia Weiss. I've been a resident of Newport Heights for 33 years, and I'm a veteran of knowundergrounding.com. There's so much to say, I don't even know where to start. There's just one... point i'd like to uh... emphasize tonight is that the petition that the city has put out is being marketed by an organization called Safer Newport Heights. This organization actually is doing a lot to help us, because anybody who lives in the Heights usually is pretty well educated. They know how to use the internet. When they look it up, they see that we're of low fire risk. It's an earthquake prone area, and it's We absolutely do not need to be undergrounding these poles and wires. The city's petition is about improving the aesthetics in our community. We're talking a minimum of $30 million of our personal funds. This is a big deal for us. I'd like to show you a mailer. That was blank, sent out to most people in the Heights. Unfortunately, I didn't receive it, but a lot of people who did contacted me immediately, wanted to know about knowundergrounding.com, and they shared with me what they were so upset about. This mailer, which was very expensive, $2 just for the stamps. I've put out mailers before, so I know how costly this was to send out. to probably 595 homes, because I know five of us who didn't receive it. I don't know why not. We were part of the community. But all of these pages talking about why these people, their opinion of why undergrounding is safer. And there's one page in here which is a signature page for the petition. There was no petition in here. I have done mailings before and I have to tell you when I'm going to spend the money, three to five or six thousand dollars on a mailer like this, I make sure that everything is in the petition. This was very disturbing to the neighbors who contacted me because they felt like safer was just trying to trick them into believing that this petition should be signed because this was a safer option and that's this it's not the safer option it's about the city wanting to improve aesthetics on our dime thank you thank you next speaker please

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Vito Big and I live in Newport Heights. I recently received a petition supporting the undergrounding of power lines in District 118-2, where supporters claim the project is necessary to improve fire safety. I would like to address that claim. First, Newport Heights is rated very low on fire risk, 0.2 on a scale of 5. Sparks from overhead lines require dense combustible vegetation to ignite wildfire, a serious concern in areas like Malibu or Altadena, but hardly applicable to our paved concrete alleys. Second, undergrounding in narrow alleys is exceptionally difficult and costly, which I'm sure many people know. The severe spatial constraints, proximity to building foundations, network of existing gas, water, sewer, fiber optic lines, require specialized equipment and structural shoring. This is why Southern California Edison estimates this work to be over $5 million per mile cost. Third, SCE itself knows that overhead lines are actually safer and more reliable in areas like ours, where the primary risk is an earthquake. Overhead lines allow for faster, safer power restoration following a seismic event. Furthermore, if fire mitigation is truly the goal here, there are far more cost-effective ways to address this issue. Replacing bare wires with covered conductors achieves safety goals at roughly one fifth of this cost. A practical option given that our transformers and local grid equipment were recently upgraded. Finally, the proposed $50,000 plus assessment per household is almost certainly an underestimate. Driven by inflation and surging demand for electrical equipment, predominantly from data centers, cost by the time of constructions could easily reach $80,000 to $100,000 per household, all for no tangible gain in safety or reliability. I strongly urge the city council to hold the initiative. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, Council, Mayor. My name is Chaley Hilkema. I'm a Newport Harbor, excuse me, a Newport Beach homeowner, a voter. and a mooring permit holder who doesn't like being treated like an unwelcome second-class boater. I live one block away from the harborfront homeowners with residential pier permits who have long enjoyed the financial favoritism of various versions of this council. Those of us who need to store our boats when they're not in use are similarly situated like users of the same public tidelands. As Newport Harbor's granted tidelands manager, the city is duty-bound to treat users fairly, but it hasn't, and instead it has disproportionately burdened mooring permit holders with substantially higher fees, unequal regulation, and strict monitoring and policing. Now the city wants to end only transfers of general public mooring permits. It wants us to believe that the State Lands Commission is requiring it to end the transfer program because staff determined that the practice of private mooring permit sales violates the California Constitution. The words like may and appears to that precede the word violate clearly suggest only possibilities. Besides the fact that the city has conveniently chosen a preferred understanding of what Staff Report 105 actually says, and that it has spread that mindset in city documents, it wants reasonable people to believe that its intention is to protect the public interest. If that were true, why would the city allow residential peer permit transfers to continue when they generate a million dollars and more of private value when homes are sold? And why would it continue to allow those with residential peer permits to rent dock space for private financial gain, which can amount to many thousands of dollars of profit per year? It seems highly unlikely to me that the city is truly concerned about the private monetization of tidelands, but what its policies do show us is that it has a preference for who benefits. If the city changes long-established harbor policy by arbitrarily ending only mooring permit transferability, its action would not only be indefensible, it would be discriminatory.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening Adam Leverins as I think you're all fully aware by now There's a lot going on in tidelands management in Newport if you recall back in February this body formed an ad hoc committee of council members Stapleton and Blum to later advise the full council on on these matters, but subsequently, I think it may have been realized this is a bad election year thing, so it was kicked back down to the Harbor Commission, the originator of many of the problems we face now over at least the last decade. These undergrounding folks talked about wasting money. Kind of touch on that, too. In May of last year, the city, I've uncovered a purchase order for a residential peer appraisal, $16,500. Multiple Public Records Act requests trying to see that have resulted in it being claimed a draft, which exempts it from public release. The state lands report in December last year, though, does appear to reference it, and it came up with a rate using, I'm presuming that appraisal, of 96 cents a square foot. The current rate is 59 cents a square foot for residential piers. And as I hope you realize, for at least 10 years, the city knowingly went against state lands policy and wasn't charging these people for the space that boats occupy. I don't have a problem with that, but the state does. Millions of dollars have been lost to the people of California. So residential peer rates NOT ONLY ARE THEY GOING TO GO UP, THEY'RE ALSO GOING TO INCREASE GREATLY THE AREA OVER WHICH THEY'RE CALCULATED. AND I'VE SUGGESTED TRYING TO PROTECT EVERYBODY'S AFFORDABLE COASTAL ACCESS THAT THE CITY ADOPT USAGE OF THE STATE LANDS COMMISSION SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CATEGORY ONE BENCHMARK RATE, WHICH IS ABOUT HALF OF THAT. it'll be adjusted again next june and it's surely to go up but there's also an appraisal for yacht club moorings ongoing that po may of this year for twenty eight thousand dollars And the city, in the time I've been paying attention, the appraisal shopping, the clear instances of persons with financial interests being involved, removing this to the state benchmark rate is going to protect everybody. It's gonna remove a lot of the potential for litigation. It's the best outcome. And yes, this is back down to the Harbor Commission, but you're gonna continue to hear from me about it because you are the ultimate decision maker body, thank you.

Next speaker, please. Yes.

My name is Valerie Carson, and I'm an artist in Newport Beach, and I gave the council members one of my cards that shows my telephone poles because I paint a lot of them, especially in historic districts.

Thank you.

And I also teach, so I have teaching of telephone poles for purposes of vanishing points and horizon lines and things like that. So I find a definite love for telephone poles. But for some reason, there's a few neighbors that don't like them. And my husband actually undergrounded a telephone pole at his mother-in-law's house. He paid for it himself. It didn't cost very much. But he undergrounded it. It took a couple of days. That was it. And so if someone really doesn't like theirs, If they get the neighbor's approval, I suppose they could do it. But as it stands now, mostly everyone's happy with their telephone poles, and the telephone poles work for us, and they don't require jackhammers and all those things that really aren't fun. I lived with that for a while on Balboa Island, and they're still undergrounding. I don't know how many years it's been, but it's very, very bad and very disconcerting to wake up 6 o'clock in the morning with a jackhammer. So I would just like to ask you to please consider the aesthetics of telephone poles because they are a major aesthetic to me and to a lot of people who love watching the birds on them and enjoying them. So I would appreciate it if you would vote no for undergrounding. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers?

My name is Linda Adams and I live at the corner of Aliso and Clay in Newport Heights. You've heard a lot of objections, most of them pretty well founded to the undergrounding proposal. So I'm not going to go over those other than to say that if everybody had $50,000 to do what they wanted, they could there's a lot more than just simply burying it in the dirt you could put solar on your roof which is what we did for a lot less than fifty thousand dollars you could put in a new put in a pool you know you might want a pool you could put in air conditioning there are any number of uh improvements or Discretionary expenditures of $50,000 that don't end up in the dirt Other than a swimming pool, but we'll leave it at that I'm looking at the the I think they call it a letter to An open letter to our Newport Heights neighbors, which by the way, I didn't receive because I'm an opponent so there's no attempt to Engage with me There's a paragraph in here that gives me pause. We also recognize, I'm quoting, we also recognize that this expense may not be equally manageable for every homeowner. That is why we, meaning the Safer Newport Heights group, spent the past year working with the city to develop a cost-deferment program for qualifying lower-income homeowners, modeled after programs already in place in Manhattan Beach and Laguna Beach. The City Council is currently considering that program, and we expect its details to be finalized before the project goes to a vote. This is not good to me, because it implies that the staff, if not the City Council, has given a degree of standing to this group of people that... is difficult to appreciate. I was part of the group that very actively resisted the 2016 effort and we came up with ideas and proposals and discussions and never had the sense that we had standing. So my question is that you don't have to answer it now. But my question is, who in the city staff is engaging with this group, which is just neighbors, right, to the point of developing something that will have significant impact in the development of whatever comes out of this vote. So that's very troubling. I find that very, very troubling, and I think it might be worth further discussion. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other speakers? Oh, please come forward.

Hello, Mayor and Council. My name is Jim Nost. My family has lived in our Newport Heights home since the mid 60s. Never during that time have we seen or heard of any power line failures or fires. Now we are on fixed incomes with limited savings to deal with future health issues. Digging into our savings for undergrounding is something we just can't afford. We are constantly approached by realtors wanting us to list our house. It's relentless. Telephone pole and all. We don't want to move. We are surrounded by new mansions replacing older residences. It's as if we're being forced into selling in favor of new tax revenue, real estate commissions, and such. Let us live out our remaining years and leave us be. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers at this time? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have anyone online? Mr. Jurgis, given the number of speakers on the undergrounding issue, do you want to just offer some words of clarification?

Certainly, Madam Mayor, thank you. So we recognize that there's a lot of residents concerned tonight with regards to undergrounding. The city is not pushing for an undergrounding program at all. We don't send out petitions. We haven't sent out any letters. We're not advocating for any undergrounding. Clearly, there are community members that may be petitioning or moving forward with an undergrounding, and they may be directly sending letters out to residents, but that's not a city project. That's not a city program. We don't do that. We're stewards. We'll review anything that comes to the city council, but we're not sending out any letters or mailers to anybody with an agenda to do any undergrounding. That is more resident-driven. That's a community-based organization that's doing that.

THANK YOU, MR. GERGES. WE'LL NOW MOVE ON TO OUR CONSENT AGENDA, WHICH HAS ONE ITEM ON IT THIS EVENING. IS THERE ANYONE FROM THE PUBLIC THAT WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK ON THE CONSENT ITEM?

Mayor Kleinman, members of the council, my name is Jim Mosher. I believe the one consent calendar item is your consideration of adoption of a resolution advocating for the adoption of resolutions before the Congressional House of Representatives and before our state legislature. And as I pointed out in this writing, the mystery to me is why staff is recommending if you want to support passage of those resolutions they are asking you to support only at the congressional level house resolution 1188 instead of house concurrent resolution 27 which if adopted would show support from both the House of Representatives and the US Senate. It would seem to me you would be wanting to be supporting both of those. And if you chose only one, it would be the concurrent resolution rather than the House only one. So why are they recommending that is a mystery to me. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers?

Good afternoon. My name is Laura Curran. I'd like to speak on agenda item number one. So the staff report and HR 1188 and Senate bill in the California Senate 192 categorize lifeguards as first responders, similar to firefighters, police, and emergency management personnel. And the staff report says this would align with the city's existing classification of lifeguards. But my concern is that we're being asked to approve this where the staff report doesn't explain, first of all, what the alignment is between the city's classification and the state and federal classifications referenced in the bills. We can all agree that the lifeguards provide valuable services with valor and bravery, with immense tremendous training and dedication. And I just heard Scott Muir speak at Witte Hall about his experiences with the lifeguards and how they saved his life. But that's not what this topic is about. The staff report says that there is no fiscal impact on the back page to this item. However, in my corporate life, if I handed in a document and said there was no fiscal impact, the first question would be, How did you come to that decision? I would be asked, what are the components which you're making an evaluation on? We frequently see this statement, no fiscal impact. But here we are talking about the classification of employees. And so that relates to salaries, which is often the largest item in the city budget, capital potentially, it could relate to expenses, and employment category, which ties into a bargaining unit. Do first responders, what are first responders in their employment negotiations? Do they get special contract terms? Do they have the right to negotiate with new labor unions if they become first responders? These questions should all be addressed in this financial, in the fiscal analysis. And we have many staff reports where it says, no fiscal impact. And this type of superficial analysis is really a disservice to the public. And unfortunately, it's a pattern. And we're seeing this pattern play out in a large way as we look at the police station headquarters project as well. So I would ask the Finance Committee, and we have members of the Council, Sarah Weber, chairing the Finance Committee, to really think about how are we evaluating the fiscal impact? What questions are our staff answering to address that question on each report? And I would ask the city manager to exercise more oversight when the statement says no fiscal impact and for the council members to ask the question because ultimately you are responsible for the fiscal health of the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Adam Leverins, I share some of those concerns. Agreed, lifeguards, open ocean lifeguards, important first on the scene in many instances. But previous discussions here where a city classification of employee was turned from a service worker to a safety officer, I think. We had discussions and Councilmember Stapleton noted that that particular change wouldn't require public safety pensions, which as I understand it are quite more generous than regular city pensions. And the no fiscal impact, I don't know if lifeguards get public safety pensions now or they don't get public safety pensions now. A lot of lifeguards I see, you know, they're part-time in the summer. The limited number of full-time ones are pretty handsomely compensated. But SUPPORTING THIS RESOLUTION, I UNDERSTAND, BUT IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE THERE'S BEEN A FISCAL ANALYSIS DONE ON WHAT THIS WOULD LEAD TO IF IT'S A CHANGE IN PENSIONS. AND AS MS. CURRAN MENTIONED AT A RECENT MEETING, I NOTED THE BULK OF THE CITY BUDGET IS SPENT ON PENSIONS AND BENEFITS. BLUM SAID WE'RE GOING TO SUPPORT OUR PEOPLE. THAT'S ALL GREAT, BUT YOU HAVE TO BE FIDUCIARY, YOU KNOW, RECOGNIZE YOUR FIDUCIARY DUTY TO THE TAXPAYERS AS WELL. AND, AGAIN, THE NO FISCAL IMPACT THING, IF THAT'S ACTUALLY TRUE, GREAT. BUT I DON'T SEE HOW THAT CAN BE POSSIBLE. THANK YOU.

ANY OTHER SPEAKERS ON THE CONSENT ITEM? SEEING NONE, MADAM CLERK, IS THERE ANYONE ONLINE? COUNCILMEMBER WIGAND?

YEAH, SEEING THAT THIS IS THE ONLY CONSENT CALENDAR ITEM, I DON'T THINK I HAVE TO PULL IT, BUT WE'RE ALREADY HERE ON BEING DISCUSSING THE ITEM. MR. MOSER BRINGS UP SOME VALID QUESTION ABOUT PERHAPS ANOTHER BILL THAT'S RUNNING. I'D LIKE TO ADD THAT IF THAT'S POSSIBLE, MR. ATTORNEY. and then as far as needing a fiscal analysis on this this is simply just whether something that we've left out of our legislative platform so every year the council adopts a legislative platform that says if x y and z are covered then bill or letters of support or opposition can automatically go out from the city council. So the mayor signs a whole host of letters throughout the year related to that legislative platform. This was lacking out of the legislative platform because it's a unique discussion here whether to identify lifeguards, which I believe they should as first responders. So this bill or this proposal or this resolution that we're saying, We're just saying add it to our legislative platform. The city council says we support this bill in the House and we support this bill in the Assembly, which it is now, but it's a Senate bill. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no necessary fiscal analysis. That'll come at a later time if that gets passed out of the Senate, out of the House. out of whatever legislative body so this simply is just saying city of Newport Beach we support these bills we support our lifeguards to be considered first responders because they should be so with that I'd like to move the item with those changes are we okay procedurally since there's only one consent agenda item we weren't really supposed to discuss but yeah I think that's why I've just incorporated the motion to include that house concurrent resolution 27 if someone wants to move consent include that

Thank you very much, Mr. Rupp. I'd like to move consent to include the adjustment from Councilmember Wiegand.

Do I have a second? Oh, I think Councilmember Bartow beat you to it. Okay, let's go ahead and vote.

Motion carried by unanimous vote.

We'll now move to current business. Item number two relates to the proposed ballot questions for three citizen-sponsored charter amendment initiatives. Mr. Harp, do you have a staff report?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In the litigation filed by the Newport Beach Stewardship Association regarding the initiatives related to the district voting, term limits, and regulation of public meetings, the judge in that case ordered the proponents and the city to work together to try to come up with ballot questions that they could agree upon. And so tonight what we're presenting is the ballot questions that the city attorney's office and council for the NBSA work together to form. And so I'll present those to you now. The first one deals with ballot measures to impose new regulations in addition to those required by state law. And that's the ballot question there. Second one deals with the two term limits on city council service. And I would note that that basically says it's a maximum of eight years, but it could be significant less if somebody fulfilled a temporary portion of like even four weeks, then they could only serve one other term, the four weeks plus another term. And the final one is eliminating citywide voting for city council. So this would basically eliminate the right to vote for six of the council members because everybody would be run by districts. So rather than voting every two years for a council member, what you would end up doing is you'd vote once every four years, and you'd only vote for one council member from your district, and you wouldn't be able to vote for the other six.

So those are the proposed ballot questions.

It doesn't address whether or not the substantive issues regarding publication in the lawsuit. We're not weighing in on that by the approval tonight. And also doesn't call the election, request consolidation, or do any of the other things under the elections law. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Council Member Weigand.

YES, I JUST WANT TO ASK A QUESTION TO OUR CITY ATTORNEY ON THE LAST TWO RELATED TO DISTRICTS AND TERM LIMITS. DOES THAT RESET THE CLOCK FOR THE EXISTING COUNCIL? SO SAY I RUN FOR REELECTION HERE COMING UP AND SAY I'M SUCCESSFUL, MAYBE I WON'T BE, MAYBE I WILL BE, BUT IF I AM SUCCESSFUL, DOES THAT MEAN THE CALENDAR IS RESET SO I CAN RUN FOR TWO MORE TERMS IN ADDITION FOR BOTH OF THOSE, SHOULD THEY PASS?

No, you would not be able to.

It's prohibited?

Yeah, so basically what the initiative says is that, you know, for instance, if you were basically running for a third term overall and you're on the council as far as January 2027, then you could finish up the term. But then after that, it's basically two terms and it looks back in time. So whether that's lawful or not, you know, that's something that may be tested in the future. But that's what it provides, is that basically it looks back. So if you've done two terms, then you wouldn't be able to serve anymore, no matter how long a break you took.

OK, thank you.

Seeing no other hands raised up here, we'll go out to the public.

uh... climate members of the council my name is jim mosher before reading the staff report i had the impression that to make it a non-political issue the writing of the ballot questions was a matter left to the city attorney but i have since read the references to the election code and i do agree with him that it is your responsibility as a city council to come up with the most informative non-partial language to help the residents who elected you vote on these issues. So you were supposed to come up with the best, most informative language that you can that does not bias the voting one way or another. That seems to be your responsibility rather than the city attorney or this other organization. I submitted in writing what would seem to me to be clarifications of each of these issues. The first one mentioned something about enforcement, and I think it would be helpful to indicate it's enforcement of the open meeting regulations, not enforcement in general. That would help voters understand what they're voting on. The second one, I read the plain language of that resolution to be different than the city attorney just explained to you. It seemed to be going out of its way to saying that it started after January and applied only to future terms. And my understanding is if it was adopted, Mayor Pro Tem Blum could serve for 16 continuous years with the clock being reset, allowed another eight years after his eighth that he will be finishing. without having to wait out a couple of years between running again. And I'm sure he believes we'd all appreciate that service. And then finally, the last one, In my suggestion, I think it's important to indicate that we don't currently have representatives who represent a single district. And I notice in offering the correction, I inadvertently crossed out the word member. My suggestion was intended to be that the measure would require the city council members to be elected only by voters residing within the district the council member resides in instead of by all the Newport Beach voters. And I think that would more clearly say what the measure is about than trying to say who represents who currently and in the future. I think it's understood people represent whoever votes for them. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers on this item? Madam Clerk, anyone online?

I do have people online, but they haven't raised any hands.

Council Member Grant?

Just quickly, I'm not opposed to the clarification in the first measure that was offered by Mr. Mosier that we add the provision or the term of these provisions. So I guess I would make a substitute motion to add that in. I think it does clarify it minimally, but enough that it adds something to it.

We don't have a motion on the table yet.

Well, that's my opinion that we should add that.

Any other comments up here? Or a motion?

I'll make that motion then, that we move forward with all three provisions as modified in the first provision, adding of these provisions to be adopted. Of these provisions.

So just to weigh in here, I agree with Mr. Mosher. The normal process is the city council adopts the proposed ballot questions. It's your duty to do it. In this case, the judge has made it a little bit more complicated because she basically orders to meet with them and agree on questions. And there's really no way for the city council to agree on questions except for through a public meeting. But what we ended up doing is counsel for the Newport Restoration Association and our office met. We came up with these questions. And those are what's presented to you tonight. Making modifications to that, you know, if they don't agree to that, then it potentially violates the court's order. So I just want to raise that as an issue, especially for something that's not really substantive.

Noted. Then I'll withdraw that. Mayor Pro Temblan?

Well, thank you, and I was very thankful for Mr. Mosier to support me for another eight years up here. That was wonderful of you, sir. We've had a great time together. Unfortunately, my wife might actually murder me, and that is on the public record now, so we'll all know if anything happens to me. Don't protect her. Shy of that. I love a good special meeting as much as all of us out here. That's why I wore flip flops today. We're sitting out here looking at something that puts us in a very precarious position. We are stewards, and I actually laugh sometimes at the name of the group that is fighting against us, that they're a stewardship association, when we've been elected by the public to be up here fighting for the stewardship of a town that we love, care about, and has entrusted us to be in charge of. And in a lot of these pieces, I have a hard time with If we ran for these offices and did not follow the rule of the law, do what we were supposed to do, then we wouldn't be up here. So instead, we're up here and we're complying, which is not always my favorite thing to do. But we are here and we are complying to make sure that these go forward as they're supposed to be. So I will actually second. COUNCILMEMBER GRANT'S MOTION TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS. BUT DID YOU RETHROW IT? NO. SHE JUST SUGGESTED HER MOTION WITHOUT THE CAVEAT. IS THAT CORRECT?

YES.

STAFF RECOMMENDATION? YES. I'M SECONDING STAFF RECOMMENDATION WITH MY SLIGHT DERESSE.

WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. LET'S GO AHEAD AND VOTE.

MOTION CARRIED BY UNANIMOUS VOTE 7-0. MADAM CLERK, PLEASE READ THE STATEMENT ON MOTIONS FOR RECONSIDERATION. A MOTION TO RECONSIDER THE VOTE ON ANY ACTION TAKEN BY THE CITY COUNCIL AT EITHER THIS MEETING OR THE PREVIOUS MEETING MAY BE MADE ONLY BY ONE OF THE COUNCIL MEMBERS WHO VOTED WITH THE PREVAILING SIDE.

ARE THERE ANY MOTIONS FOR RECONSIDERATION? Seeing none, we'll move to public comments on closed session. Do we have anyone who wants to speak on closed session?

Anyone online, Madam Clerk?

Mr. Hart, please announce our closed session items.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The City Council will adjourn to closed session to meet with legal counsel regarding the action titled Newport Beach Stewardship Association versus City of Newport Beach and City of Newport Beach versus Robert Page. All set forth on the agenda under item... 3 a and b.

We are adjourned closed. Mr. Hart, do we have a closed session report?

Yes, in regard to the closed session items, the Newport Beach Stewardship Association versus the City of Newport Beach and the City of Newport Beach versus Robert Page. And those actions relate to the questions whether the Newport Beach Stewardship Association complied with the election law and initiative publication rules prior to the gathering of signatures. A motion was made by the mayor and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem to authorize the filing on appeal if necessary. And that's primarily to ensure that we have all legal options available. All council members vote in favor of the action. Thank you.

We are adjourned.