Remarks by Jeff Baron
127 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 5 of 6
bid that they put in because the whole purpose of bidding law is for them to give their price not for it to be... Well if they're the selected bidder, I mean normally if we had four contracts, let's say if we didn't have an alternate and normally we had four contracts and we selected one and staff it would still be within their authority to negotiate right go back to the the bidder and say hey you know we'd like five thousand dollars off and we're going to give it to you but we'd like five thousand dollars off no you can't do that no your authority is under the public contracts code it goes…
OK. So let me ask a different question. We had this conversation an hour ago about your signing authority, which is $59,999. Can we approve the base bid and not this stuff? And could you then go back to Silicon as a separate matter, and negotiate a sole source contract with them not to exceed $59,999 and then just do that without coming back here?
Well, how do you think then that Wave Construction did the ad alternate of $40,300 given that you think the cost is $50,000?
Yeah, I have a comment. I want to be clear that my comments and what I may or may not do in 30 seconds are definitely not a reflection on the two of you or on any part of staff. I understand what Bob said, that we're caught in this sort of legal maze of trying to figure out how to balance the law with what I see as basically getting a better deal from someone else. And unless the motion contains instructions to staff on somehow reducing the ad alternate, what I'm looking at is a grand total that is, what I'm honestly looking at is a grand total that's $35,000 more than what we could have…
It's not okay with me, but I'm sure I'll be outvoted.
Thank you. I have a couple of comments. First, I am what I'm struggling with is the the reason behind doing this as an urgency ordinance and not as a normal ordinance. You know, Brandon, you sorry, Brandon. The staff presentation talks about putting these things off into the design traditions, which is admittedly sort of a long way away. But I think we have sort of a burgeoning problem in the city with regulations that are not really codified anywhere. So for example, we have a ban on beach fires which is codified in a coastal development permit, which doesn't appear anywhere on the city's…
Oh, so we have an urgency ordinance, right? Is that codified on the city's website? It is on the website. So we have these things that are, I'm corrected. We have these things that are like sort of done without like without going through the process. And so we also have like, remember, you know, back when, I don't know if you were here, we have an urgency ordinance that has to do with pushcards. you know, push carts downtown. Does anyone even remember those when the state allowed, when the state allowed push carts? So we have an urgency ordinance on the books that specifies the system for…
So I'm having a problem, correct it again, I'm having a problem with the sort of the fast track nature of this and not going through public comment, not going through sort of a more typical process, a couple of things. Number one, gravel adjacent to structures. That does border on the design tradition issue, whether you can have gravel adjacent to structures. Am I going to be corrected on this too? No. Well, I don't know. And what? I shouldn't say no. I don't know. Continue. And fire resistant windows, the sort of interference, the sort of intersection between fire resistant windows and what…
I'm interested in it. I'm definitely interested in it. So to answer the question, I'm interested in it. I think that the city would be better off if we slowed down and took two extra months to go through the normal ordinance process.
two hearings at the city council. I mean, some of these things would normally go to the planning commission first for their input, right? Isn't that right? If they're, if they're, if they were going to be codified as a regular ordinance, presumably in title 17, like they would sort of by definition go to the planning commission first. And so that would be a more, a more open process towards getting like planning commissioners feedback on what they think about putting gravel, how they think putting gravel next to structures affects the design ethos of downtown. That's the sort of process I'm…
I need to ask Bob a question. Go ahead. Do you remember? No. where gravel stands in the design guidelines discussion? The answer is probably no.
Thank you. Jeff, why don't we start with you? Just a quick question. Could you talk a little bit about what is currently in our municipal code regarding ADUs?
So there's a section, there's a section in our code, we can't find the number, 170850G, three that talks about ADUs, and it says, ADU shall conform to all requirements of the underlying residential zoning district. Any applicable overlay district and all other applicable provisions of this CAM chapter, including but not limited to height, setback, lock coverage, four area ratio, landscape, and historic preservation requirements, cumulatively with the primary residence, unless the unit is contained in a non-conforming structure. Do we do that now? Do we, so why do we not, why do we not enforce…
So we went back to recap, we went back to that requirement because we believe that the HCD We believe that the laws promulgated by the legislature regarding housing that were sort of enforced by ACD conflicted with our laws. Yes, that's correct. And so we made this decision eight years ago, however many years ago.
May I? Yeah. But don't we already have something on the books that was approved by HCD and the Coastal Commission? Or at least the Coastal Commission, I mean, as part of our LCP.
But they're not reaching back in time, are they, to go back to 2018 to say, well, we're going to retroactively say that your ordinance is bad. I mean, that's not how these things work, is it?
So when it conflicts with the Coastal Act, but we know that this doesn't... Where they don't exist.
Sure. The question I'm asking is, what do we need to do? Like, I'm asking sort of about the next year. Like, what do we do for the next, like, how do we resolve the conflict that we have? So granted that this, granted that this, you know, that we have a conflict with the Coastal Act, with the law, but where do we
asking my question than I'm doing, because I'm tired, sorry. So we, like there are two things we need to do. We need to update the ADU ordinance, which is somewhere in some process somewhere with the Planning Commission and whatnot. And we need to update our policy guidelines to, we need to update policy guidance to fix or possibly fix whatever hole exists now, because we haven't done this in eight years, since 2018. Yeah. And both of those things are allowed by the way this item is agendized? Yep. Policy direction on the ordinance and maybe policy direction on the policy? That's correct.…
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Yeah, it says all other applicable provisions of this chapter, including but not limited to, So it doesn't call out height. It doesn't call out volume metrics, but it calls out height, setback, lock coverage, for error ratio. historic preservation requirements, et cetera.
That's what I'm looking at. So I think it's code section 17.08.050.G. So the motion would be to instruct staff to interpret 17 blah, blah, blah, G in accordance with the words that are written on the page in our code. Strict adherence to section G, yep. So I'll look for a second and then I have a question.
And incorporating the comments on rooftop decks, which I support. With Alessandra, I see a lot of things going up and down. If that's your motion, I second. Okay, so now I have a question. What's the cutoff for, we had this discussion the other night, sort of what's the cutoff for applications that are in process?
Well, let me, while you're thinking about that, let me say that that might be a policy discussion for the five of us.
Because if the five of us want to treat applications that are in process under the old policy guidelines, then we don't need his answer to the question. It's only if we want to treat applications that were in process to the new policy guidelines.