City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. The time now is 3.47 on June 11, Wednesday, June 11, 2025. I would like to start out with a special session for today, which is study session. So at this time, I would like to ask Madam Clerk to roll call, please.

Thank you. Mayor Nguyen?

I'm here.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

I'm here.

District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Here.

District 4, Councilmember Nguyen.

I'm here.

Mayor, you have a quorum with District 1, Councilwoman Fan West absent.

Thank you very much. Salute to the flag today is going to be District 4, Councilmember Nam Quang Nguyen. Yes. And then we'll start with.

Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic

Once again, thank you very much for being here, especially our staff. I can see every one of you here this afternoon and ready for this study session. And I want to thank you all the council members also taking your time to be here for a study session. And so with that, I would like to go ahead and start with the oral communication for a study session, if you have anyone sign up for that.

thank you mayor this is the time of the meeting that members of the public may address the city council regarding any items on the agenda unless otherwise extended by a majority vote of the city council comment shall be limited to three minutes per speaker any person wishing to address the city council in person should complete a green speaker slip that is provided at the entrance to the council chambers and submit the card to the city clerk when your name is called please step to the podium at that time state your name and city of residence for the record our first and only speaker for a study session is terry rains

hello item 2 intergov isn' t a new permit software as stated the city purchased intergov years ago but failed to implement most of its features causing further consultant expense to get the platform functioning as intended compared to other cities the online portal does not provide the same level of transparency responsiveness and user friendly application Hopefully, this will improve over time and the e-plan review feature will be fully implemented sooner rather than later. The City commissioned the ORC study four years ago, but incorporating the recommendations has been slow as molasses. This statement is concerning. Staff is now ensuring these cases are deemed complete or incomplete within 30 days pursuant to state law. Many laws have been adopted in recent years to expedite application processing, but the 30-day deadline to deem a project complete or incomplete was first enacted in 1977, 48 years ago as part of the Permit Streamlining Act. the city has been in violation of state law for almost 50 years then this over time numerous e-mails and memos have accumulated that provide direction on how the zoning code is to be interpreted the problem has been that not everyone has the same collection of memos some of these older memos also contradict the updated zoning procedures and interpretations so the planning division has been operating without any written procedures since 1957 wow and this until recently questions about interpretation of the zoning code were resolved at a weekly staff meeting if a member of the public raised a question on thursday but the staff meeting was on wednesday that citizen would not get a response for a week planners now discuss any questions or interpretation with their supervisor so that answers can be provided timely So staff was really instructed not to ask their supervisors about code interpretation except at weekly staff meetings until now? Wow. And this, perhaps the biggest change of the planning commission is setting standards to hold staff members accountable to meet those standards. So planning never had performance standards for staff until now? Wow. Sounds like the better business license inspector hasn't really been doing inspections until now. Wow. Wish we also had a sales tax inspector in finance, but jurisdiction is an issue. The plan check process, applicants were notified of ready corrections from each reviewing party instead of one consolidated response until now? Wow. And this, the code enforcement and community preservation divisions did not have written policies and standards in the past. Zero case initiation, zero measurable productivity, and zero accountability until now? Wow. Christina Adolfo, you inherited a huge mess. that was decades in the making. Kudos to you both for having the balls, sorry, to commission the ORC study and prioritize badly needed changes. Also, thanks, Sherry, for implementing some of those recommendations. I can't believe how poorly these divisions were run in the past. No wonder so many developers wanted nothing to do with Westminster until now. That's a good wow, hopefully. No new comments on the budget today except where the hell was Amy for the first budget study session and where the hell is Amy today. Thank you.

mayor we have no further speakers.

thank you very much there will be two items on the study session tonight this afternoon. First one is strategic plan goal number four improve customer service delivered to the community and strategic plan objective is to provide an update to the city council in the study session on the progress of updates in the community and review progress on reforms metrics and next objectives. The second one is fiscal year for 2025-2026 proposed budget but let' s start out with number two strategic plan goal number four.

good afternoon mayor members of the city council as you know I'm here on an interim basis while you find a permanent director before I retired I managed planning organizations for more than 25 years. I worked and consulted in many cities several of which have provided outstanding service to the community the cities that provide great service tend to have a few things in common they set standards for their services and they meet those standards they have good internal procedures and systems the staff members approach their work with a sense of urgency good technology is also very helpful the supervisors are paying attention to the workload and shifting work if needed to meet the deadlines. The supervisors are also holding staff for too many years it appears that there was a lack of accountability in the community development department many of our staff members individually provide great service to our customers but collectively the organization has not delivered consistently good results the city manager and assistant city manager of course were keenly aware of these issues and had taken several steps to improve service in the department before i was brought in and we've continued to build on those steps. We still have a long ways to go, but I'm happy to share today the progress that we've made so far. Thanks to the City Council, we've made significant improvements to technology throughout the department. Technology makes a huge difference in our ability to track our work and monitor compliance with our new performance standards. It also improves accessibility to information and services for our customers. EnterGov is a centralized digital source for all of our land use applications, including building and grading permits and code enforcement cases. It's used in all three divisions as well as by the development divisions in the Public Works Department. It allows us to establish and track compliance with turnaround times, monitor our workload, quickly identify plans coming due, and even identify how many code enforcement cases each officer has generated. Intergov provides a digital record of the progress of plans, applications, and cases through our system that we didn't have before. Westminster build is the electronic customer interface for our building records It allows applicants to have remote access to check on the status of their cases They can even schedule building inspections and check on the results of those Inspections it also provides remote access to land use records if you want to find out if your neighbor has a permit for the work that they're doing you can just check from the comfort of your own tablet at your kitchen table and one of the council's goals was to implement the plan review which allows applicants to submit their building plans or their plane plans electronically we did a soft launch of this program with our regular customers including those who make multiple submittals each week back in december so far we've received one hundred and twenty seven the permit applications which is about fourteen percent of our submittals most of these were residential applications we think we have most of the bugs worked out of the system now and we're working with the city manager's office to advertise the availability of e-plan review to all of our customers. Unlike many of our neighboring cities that only accept plans electronically, we intend to continue to accept paper plans as a convenience to our customers. Implementation of all these systems is a really big deal. It involves scanning thousands of records, purchasing new computers and monitors, learning how to review plans with Bluebeam software, instead of writing corrections on paper plans, training to track our cases on Intergov, and creating the reports we need to monitor our workload. It's a huge accomplishment and something that took a lot of work on our staff's part. Our City Manager commissioned an organizational review by Kelly Associates Management Group in June of 2024. The Kelly Group assessed all three divisions. They interviewed staff members and they also interviewed the members of the City Council at that time. There were numerous findings that were relevant to customer service. First, the Kellys identified a lack of consistent policies and procedures and that technology was not being used efficiently. identified dissatisfaction among the council members with the level of customer service and the case processing provided by the planning division they also found that the building division is efficient but suffers from customer service issues the Kellys generated a report that included numerous recommendations some of these recommendations have already been implemented for instance code enforcement was moved from the police department to the community development department last fall we' ve also merged the community the committee has recommended that we create a development review committee which consists of staff members from all the city departments and the orange county fire authority and midway city sanitation district. This committee facilitates the review and evaluation of development and land use proposals. The committee has been established and provides a forum for staff members to discuss applications internally and for applicants to meet with the appropriate staff members to discuss we have designated an associate planner as the counter manager to oversee counter operations to improve consistency and coverage. We have delineated current and advanced planning teams to ensure appropriate resources are devoted to we placed a greater emphasis on technical training for our staff. We began to draft policies and procedures to promote consistency and accountability. And the business license function will be transferred to the finance department next fiscal year since business license is a revenue collection activity versus an enforcement activity. some of the recommendations haven' t been implemented due to budget or other limitations. For instance we haven' t been successful in recruiting we have another round of interviews next week so I hope you keep your fingers crossed for us that we will find good candidates in this round. We have also submitted a supplemental budget request to convert a part-time building inspector to a full-time inspector that was recommended by the kelly' s and I also believe is justified based on our workload. There are also other recommendations in the report will be worked on this coming year and some that need to be implemented once you have a full-time director here team building and other things like that. Now I'd like to cover some of the things that we've done in each division, starting with the planning division. We've made a lot of process improvements, most of which are based on the formulation of written procedures to set standards. Business license applications often took weeks to be reviewed. For the past several months, our planning division has consistently been acting on these applications within three business days. we' ve also created a new policy for processing discretionary applications those cases that go to the planning commission for review. As terry raines pointed out the state has adopted a law for us to redeem applications complete within 30 days unfortunately we were not always in compliance with that law we' re doing a much better job complying now we' ve also established a 45 day initial we're trying to limit our cases to two reviews whereas in the past sometimes it would exceed five reviews. Our planners are now required to check in with applicants at least once every 30 days. We've created schedules for public noticing and staff report review and under this policy it's possible to take cases to the planning commission in four months if our applicants cooperate. examples include the new h mart the proposed enterprise facility at the 405 in valley view and the pickleball club in the former sam ash building all of these cases were processed within four months under this new policy. Our principal planner is now meeting biweekly with the planners to review their case loads to monitor the progress of their cases and develop strategies to bring their older cases to completion. So far this year we have processed 213 permit applications for accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, so reducing the time frames for these cases impacts a large number of our customers. We used to have a separate zoning screening process for ADUs before a building permit application could be submitted. We recently eliminated that screening process. Now zoning compliance is done as part of the building permit application. this change saves weeks or even months for applicants. We' re still willing of course to provide a courtesy review if applicants have questions about their proposed adu. The city has also created architectural and construction drawings for free standing adus these plans are available at no charge. We have six different plans ranging in size from 748 square feet with two bedrooms and one bathroom to 1200 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. use of these plans can potentially save a big chunk of money for a homeowner in designing a freestanding edu even though they will still have to provide a site plan a grading plan and demonstrate how the new structure is compatible with their existing home. In many cases the zoning code requires applicants to obtain zoning clearance before an application for a building permit can be submitted. Our past practice made this review a little more complicated than it needed to be. We provided a detailed approval letter with findings even though that was not required by the code. We've now developed a simple approval form which saves time in getting these zoning compliance reviews through the process. We've also been looking for opportunities to do the zoning compliance concurrently with the building review. This has worked out really well for most of our residential applications. This concurrent review saves an applicant two to eight weeks of time. interpretation of the zoning code is can be very time-consuming and as terry raines told you there were lots of old emails and memos floating around so we now have tried to focus our staff on relying on their supervisors to interpret the zoning code we want to focus on consistency we want to make sure that everybody is that we have to be consistent and that we are relying on the code as opposed to some former direction that might have happened years ago under some different set of circumstances. We are no longer anyone from the public or anybody opposing a question can get an immediate response instead of having to wait a week. Sometimes questions are really hard and it might take a little bit more time to resolve them, but we're trying to get back the same day as opposed to making somebody wait a week. later on tonight's agenda is an update on phase two of the zoning code update which i think you're all familiar with many of the changes in that update are going to improve our procedures and that's the service that we can offer our customers for instance the update is going to clarify which cases have to go to the planning commission versus which can be approved at the staff level which isn't always clear right now we will also be reviewing the plan check process. It' s also going to clarify which cases have to be reviewed by staff before a plan check application can be submitted and which can be approved through the plan check process. Concurrent reviews save time whenever it' s appropriate. We also are going to clarify uses that can be approved with an administrative use permit versus a conditional use permit as the administrative use permit can save time and money. We will be revising the sign later tonight will also be asking the council to allow staff to initiate amendments to the zoning code to be more responsive to changing state laws outdated processes and the needs of the community and to amend procedures for expiring projects. now I don't expect you to read this chart I just wanted to put it up there as an example of things that we' re doing to try to make our processes easier for applicants to follow. I think the last time we spoke some of you recommended that we develop flowcharts so I took that information seriously. the other thing I want to tell you is that in the past it appears that most of our supervisors were focused on doing projects or doing code enforcement work and they' re not doing that anymore our supervisors now are supervising their monitoring compliance with their deadlines and time frames their responding to customer feedback their holding the staff members accountable so it' s different roles it' s a different mindset in how supervisors are behaving now in our department. We also have a lot going on in the building division. When reviewing paper plans, our building plan check staff was very efficient. They were meeting their time frames 90% of the time, and when they were late, it was generally less than a few days. With the transition to ePlanReview, the time frames have slipped a little bit as they've tried to become more proficient using the software. Our goal is to get back to or beat our prior performance standard as we accept more plans via ePlanReview. as you heard from terry rains I might have read in the report our building plan check coordination was not very good before applicants used to receive plans corrections back from all the divisions that were checking their plans we now have that all coordinated through our permit counter staff which is a much better service for our customers. The other benefit that we have from having somebody coordinating all of those plans is that we have another set of eyes on the deadlines. and that is a benefit for customers to and with the plan review we' re using the same system where all of the corrections are collected before the corrections are released to the applicant. This year we created a solar permit app that allows our solar permit contractors to submit applications online and our staff can review and issue the permits online and so far we' ve we also this fall moved our business license inspector from the office out to the field he' s been visiting new businesses to confirm the information on the license is accurate he' s been looking for businesses that don' t have licenses when he' s out there he' s been following up in person with businesses that are delinquent and paying their renewal fees hdl sends letters and makes phone calls jason visits in person and he' s also looking for work at those businesses that might have been done without permits including signs and spotting now once we fully implemented eplan submittal we want to start on some service enhancements in buildings and we hope to have these implemented by september. First of all we want to offer express online permits for work that doesn' t require a plan check such as a residential plumbing permit like changing out a water heater or a residential electrical we also want to offer over-the-counter or maybe I should say over the keyboard same day permits for projects like a residential patio cover or a commercial sign. And we want to offer express permits that would require a simple plan check meaning less than two weeks for something like a bathroom or kitchen remodel or a room addition that is less than 400 square feet. Meanwhile if somebody submits one of these types of plan Counter staff is watching for that to make sure it doesn't get into the normal queue that takes several weeks to get through We have a lot of positive changes in the code enforcement division that I hope you're going to be happy to hear about There weren't any written policies in the past and we have created a number of written policies and procedures for instance our officers are now required to respond to complaints within three to five days and we have a number of complaint excuse me a number of the reports that allow us to measure the officers productivity now. The council has made it clear that our past practice of just being reactive to violations is not enough you expect us to be proactive and identifying and abating code violations our officers have initiated more than 450 cases in the last few months. we also have increased the number of night time and weekend vendor sweeps that we do we used to perform two of these a month now we' re doing five or six each month in conjunction with the orange county health department the public works department and the police as part of our proactive efforts we're conducting focus sweeps in commercial and residential neighborhoods our first commercial sweep identified 43 code violations we plan to conduct these sweeps bimonthly focusing on a different area each time the past when responding to a complaint staff would focus on the reported violation only potentially ignoring other violations on the property now our officers not only address the reported violation but they're looking for other violations on the property so that by the time they're done all of the code violations on that property are addressed. Our community preservation team removes debris left behind when homeless encampments are removed from public property. We used to clean up private property too, but we're now requiring the private property owners to do the cleanup. And as part of that, we're providing education regarding the steps they can take to prevent future occupation of their properties by homeless persons. We believe this approach will be more effective in addressing homeless encampments in the long term. most of us have heard the saying what gets measured gets done. The introduction of standards and monitoring compliance with these standards has been a good first step to changing the culture in the community development department. We made progress in reducing the for the first time in a long time getting some recent planning commission cases down to four months and four months is about the shortest review time you will find in orange county when you look online at other cities most of them are four to six months. We dramatically improve the productivity of our code enforcement team during the first six months of during the same time frame in 2025 our code enforcement officers addressed 901 cases. The number of violations they addressed has similarly climbed from 280 to 829. We have enhanced the ability of the public to obtain access to information and to conduct business remotely to save time. There is still a long ways to go but we have laid a good foundation on which we can keep building. I'd like to introduce you to the management team in the community development department because they've been on the front lines writing policies and implementing our standards. Justin Wynn is our building official. Ken Fichtelman is our principal planner. You're going to see a lot of him tonight. He has several agenda items. And Sergio Verino is our interim code enforcement manager. So thank you very much. If you have any questions, we would be happy to answer them.

All right, thank you very much. Thank you for the updating. I'm pretty sure it will help us with this study session. So at this time, I would like to open up for the council comments and questions, if there's any.

thank you very much.

thank you very much for your

your efforts since you' ve been with us it' s very obvious that you' ve been very conscientious about doing a lot of quality work and bringing us to the modern age and making sure that we' re I don' t know if I have a couple of comments because I want to emphasize how important this department is. As a lot of you know this department is a lot of it is also revenue for our community and if we' re not producing and if this department is not running in all cylinders it can affect us as far as the revenue our residents need for the community. This is one of the really most important departments in our city. I' m not saying none of them are but it is also one of the most forward facing departments as well. I have been in the community since the late 80' s and I knew for a while that we had issues in our community when it came to code enforcement and when it came to planning and when it came to building See because I'm in the trade so I deal with this every day. I deal with building inspectors every single day for since I got in the trade, so I know I know how that works and how Different inspectors have different qualities experiences things that knowledge So I know that there's some missed things some don't know sometimes some don't even know some things they're even looking at but yet their code their building inspectors and thank you. that actually is just to full disclosure. That is why one of the main and the quality of life lacking for our community, just the aesthetics of our community, it was up to par where I thought it should be for our city. That is actually why I chose to run. One of my first cases on the Planning Commission, when I served on the Planning Commission, which is probably like 14, 15 years ago, was an expired permit that had that it was been so long that the owner took it upon himself to do permanent upgrades to this temporary trailer because he thought that was it, it was permanent. It's been so long since he heard from anybody and I just could not fathom how is that even possible. So yes, this department's had a lot of problems, and I'm glad to see that there's finally, we're moving in the right direction with everything, with the technology that we're implementing, with the standards that we're trying to meet for that. The other one that I still don' t understand why it' s taking so long was when I think it was my first couple of years on the planning commission we started on the sign code update and to this day which has been more than 10 years it' s still not done. I don't understand what's going on there. So, I mean, I would like to get some status updates on where we are with the sign code update. I'm going to cover that tonight. Okay. So that's another one. It's like, where are we? To me, that's kind of really unacceptable, really.

You're going to see that during your term.

Thank you. thank you. I had a question as far as I think resident raines brought up the permanent streaming act do you know is there a penalty for that or what is that about can you talk a little bit about that?

there are potential issues with it' s not like there' s a cash penalty or something like that.

you said you mentioned we' re monitoring each case and our supervisors are monitoring as well each step that needs to be done for each case correct? Oh, and then one day, maybe if one of the days I come in, I would like to see a sample of the ADU plans, just curiosity of what it looks like. I haven't seen one.

You can look at them online, or you can email us, and we'd be happy to walk you through them.

Yeah, thanks. What else do I have here? Okay. and then another one just curious as well i understand you' re going to be leaving us one of these days i wish you wouldn' t but it' s going to happen.

thank you but i' m going to be a grandma so i' m very much looking forward to that.

when that day happens what about a changeover would you be able to help with that so things don' you know fall off the tracks we're heading in the right direction i want to make sure that we're able to get the new person up to speed and the direction we're heading

So we're in the process of recruiting for a permanent community development director. As you know, it's been difficult over the years, given just the job market as it is and the expectations. We're confident that as we continue to grow the department, build the department, and just stay on the course, that we'll be able to attract someone. whether it's on an interim basis or a permanent basis, to really just keep, you know, to keep the progress moving.

But is there going to be, like, a time where Sherry would be able to work with that person?

Well, and that's really a discussion, you know, with Sherry that we're not sure yet, because obviously grandma vibes, it's really important to, you know, to take advantage of that time. It's... You know, we understand the amount of time that she's going to be dedicating to being a grandma. But certainly, you know, we do have resources outside of this, you know, the city that can help, whether it's an interim basis, contract basis, et cetera, just to keep things moving.

Okay. That's all I got for right now. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice-Mayor. And anything from any other councils before I... Okay. I do have a few questions, though. First of all, this planning department, this is my concerns ever since that I came in as an elected official and a council member here at the City of Westminster. And we've been working a lot with staff to make sure that we are doing improve the departments. And I'm glad that you, like you mentioned earlier, that there are a number of steps that you already implement in the system. And I appreciate all the hard work that you do. And also I have applause to all the people staff here in the planning department. I know that you've been working really hard over the years to get us to where we are right now. At the same time, I heard that you said it's still a long way to go. It's kind of a concern for me. When you say it's still a long way to go, What do you mean by that? Is there a lot of work that still needs to be looked at in front of us, even though there are a number of things that you already implemented over the year? Can you go back to the first slide that you put on earlier? Here, the second one. Yes, this one right here. I know that within each of their title, the subject there, there are a number of things that we engage in. Let's say in the Gulf, for example. and what seems to build an e-plan review i know that you go a little bit about it but can you uh give us overall just briefly overall of what undergov doing i understand i i know what undergov kind of doing but i don't know exactly what what they do so can you uh go a little bit into that so that we're gonna have a kind of understanding

intergov has the workflow for each application that we process so there would be a different workflow for a conditional well that' s a bad example there would be a different workflow for a case that goes to planning commission than there would be for a building permit for instance and there would be a different workflow for a building permit that has a four week turnaround versus one that has a two week turnaround. And there would be a different workflow for code enforcement cases. So there's a whole bunch of different workflows in Intergov. And that's why these process improvements that I talked about, we have to create a new workflow in Intergov to be able to do things like that.

I understand the intergov is the system that integrates among the different departments so they can see the schedule of the projects coming. Am I correct?

It does integrate the different departments.

At one time we implemented the intergov and it was stopped. for a while and then we restarted on that again, right? Am I correct on that? There was a period of time that we stopped. We didn't have integral of running because of the contract or because of something

Yeah, I would say that not all of the functions of Intergov were activated at one point. We've been moving forward in activating for quite some time.

Do we have all the functions working now?

There's still additional customized workflows that need to be done, but as far as the software and it running effectively on everybody's computer, that is much better than it was before.

Also, I know that along with these, you implement different ways of doing business. How do you notify the user or the people who need the system? Let's say, I know that we have the website, right, the city website, you have it on the website, but let's say the time, the review time, and all those that you mentioned earlier, how do you advertise or how do you inform the user or the people out there so that they know? Because 14% with the system implement, with 14%, I don't know when did we implement the system. But 14% is very low compared to, you know, we have to maximize the usage of this.

That was just a soft launch where we talked to some of our regular customers and invited them to use it so we could work out all the bugs with them.

How long was that?

We started that in December.

Okay.

And we had a lot of bugs, and they were very patient with us and helped us work out the bugs. So now we want to launch, do the full launch. Okay.

Okay. And since December until now, that's what we have, the 14%? Yes. Okay. And do you think that when we implement the system permanently, it's going to be more and more people are going to know about us? How are we going to inform them? Are we coming out with a press release? Yes.

We are working with the city manager's office to do a press release, to do social media, to do all the things that the city typically does to get the word out.

Okay. A couple of things. I know that we mentioned about that there are different designs for ADUs, and you just mentioned that we have six different standard design review. Are we ready to launch that program? Yes. And how do people respond to that? No one has used the plans yet. Do you know why? Do you know why we launched this? We have just launched it. Oh, just launched it, okay.

But it's not as easy as maybe people would think because the plan, the ADU still has to be compatible with the house. So if you have a house that's very unique, our standard ADU plan may not match your house. And you can't make any modifications to it. So if you don't like the standard plan, you can't modify it and still have it be a standard plan. So once you modify it, it becomes a custom set of plans now. So there are some potential drawbacks to the homeowner for using these plans. But if you like the plans, if they fit on your lot, you don't have to modify them to make them fit. And if they're compatible with your house, they potentially could save you a lot of money in having to design a freestanding ADU.

OK. From the second bullet that you have there, Westminster built. Under Westminster built, do you have the timeframe of when we are receiving the projects and the projects where people can track the projects? Correct?

If you submit your project online, you can track it online, yes.

Yes. When I'm saying that you can track online the users or the property owners or architecture, they can actually log in and know where the project is? Yes. Okay. Is it on right now going? Is it implemented already? System? Yes. Okay. How long ago on that? December, right?

Justin? was that available in december?

how do the people respond to that do we have a way of tracking people doing that or not?

Mayor and council member, if you submit a plan as an applicant, we will have an account for you, and then you can track your plans from the time you submit. We notify you to pick it up, and when you resubmit, every time of the state, you can track it with the bill.

One of the things that we discussed before, that when people submit the projects, we assign the time frame, and at a certain time frame, we make sure that we are not forgetting them. And then there will be a flag, a system that will flag us that this project is three months old, then we need to jump on it and then let the people know or work on it. Do we have that feature implemented?

Yes, we're working with IT now, so for the first submittal, the time frame will be 30 days for the first submittal. And then every time you resubmit the plan, so it's about 21 days.

So the system will flag us to let us know that?

We will have like a run sheet for inspector. We will have another run sheet for our plan checker. So I can print it out every week so I can look at the time to submit. And then when will be the time we need to return back to the applicant, we can do that now.

Thank you. One more question is about you mentioned that we scan the projects. When the first project come in, there are obviously different size of projects, big, small, medium size of the projects. When the person walk to the counter and submit the plan, how do you scan it?

With the eReview, they submit it as a PDF.

Okay.

So depending on the size or the scope of work, it can be like right now is 30 days for the first submittal turnaround time. But in the future, maybe we can have some like we call express plan check, which is like small scope. We can do it like within two weeks.

okay. Let' s say with a small project you can take a look at that and say this project doesn' t have to go through this different departments and then you can shorten the time.

we will work on it and then in september we will have another workflow we will work for the express plan check.

Okay, the last question that I have for you is the same thing that I have been questioning for a long time. Do we have You mentioned about the flowchart, which as an engineer, I've been working with flowcharts a lot. That's why I brought that up a lot of times. Flowcharts, do we have that or do we have a checklist for different projects? Let's say that you have a checklist for big projects and from that checklist, we are not going to miss anything. We can use this for meter-sized projects or we can use this for small projects and we can actually cross it out. That way, there was a reason why I'm asking this question. There's a reason why. Because a lot of time people complain that we submitted the plan check and then the city red lines and give it back to us. We took it back and then implement every red lines that was mocked up. three submitted, then the next set of red marks is coming back to us. And then we have to wait for two or three weeks again and then come back. It's the same thing happened. It happened three or four times. And that happened. I verified that was indeed happened. I just want to make sure that we improve from that process.

sure currently we have a generic checklist for commercial and residential and then for every time we do the plan check we try to minimize not create any other red mark for the second review but sometimes let's say the first correction we put the correction that you need to for example we see the missing calculation on some part of the the project when they submit back to us so it become a first review because we wish like it' s the perfect word when they submit they submit everything then we only have one time of the plant check correction and then we never have another new correction. Most of the time when they submit it they' re missing something and then when they resubmit it the second time the thing they submit is brand new and for us as a first review so that' s why you will see that' s a second new red mark on the plants.

Yeah, there's no question that, number one, we human beings, so, you know, we miss stuff here and there, right? If we miss stuff here and there, we understand that it's our mistake, then we can compensate them by, you know, if they resubmit, then we can, you know, speed up the process if we can. I understand. The second thing is if they are submitting a new edition to there, then we need to explain to them that this is new edition, then it's going back to the beginning.

For example, yeah.

Because if they don't understand, they consider that is the second set of red lines. And then we, from the city standpoint, we've been complaining for that. And I don't think it's fair for us either.

A lot of times, they submit it as a room addition. the first review we find out that not just that area of the room addition they submitted for us to review they have some remodel some other area too so when our correction come out you need to submit on the other area of the house for that when they resubmit to us we will have a second red mark on that area we never have a time or a chance to review

All right, I understand. But at the same time, I believe that you mentioned earlier in one of your slides that you can approve projects on the same day. Am I correct on that?

we will propose the e-review for same day plan check and issue the permit for example currently at the counter we have patio cover will be for example, solar system we do review and approve over the counter. For similar type of the project for e-review we also can do it at the same day.

should these are the newly implemented system that we just put in?

Right because right now with those type of permit we do it over the counter that' s very quick but in the future we have another option that they can submit that online so with those type of project we will try to do it review over we call it over the counter but we review it digitally.

okay so i can go out there and tell them that staff have done the marvelous job and you know you can submit the projects to the city of westminster and we can get it done very soon right okay so i just want to uh thank you for all the hard work that you guys put in and is there any question yep from council member margaret

I just want to say thank you for all the hard work and bringing the department up to par. I do feel that we are moving in the right direction. I especially like the streaming of the business process and implementing new technology like the workflow. That's going to help us streamline all the way we do business. I like how eventually a customer can submit the easy project online, like the paddle cover or the enclosure or the re-roofing and getting the food the same day. I mean, that's great. That'll make a lot of people happy. And I especially like the six pre-designed ADU design. I got to go up and check it out. All right, thank you.

Thank you.

I have a follow-up. I just remembered. You mentioned that for the code enforcement, you had 901 cases, and I forgot the span of time you mentioned. It was... the question is those 901 cases how many of those are reported do you know how many of them are reported and how many of them are our team are the ones that discovered it initiated it?

I don' t know if Sergio can you answer that one Sergio?

He' s on the spot.

good evening. For this year we have 961 cases that we were assigned and that were observed. That number is total 961 from January to today. As of last year we had 369. We have the number of cases this year has been 579. The proactive cases of this year has been 579. We are averaging maybe 40 45 50 cases a month per inspector. We have issued out 623 out of the community and there' s a lot more I understand that I think that' s why I' m emphasizing lots of proactive in three different areas I' m emphasizing proactive in residential I' m emphasizing proactive in commercial I' m emphasizing proactive in our encampment in our vacant lot in our graffiti areas. Currently that' s the response.

thank you I appreciate that that' s a good amount a big major difference from the past as well. Our staff is initiating those and I thank you for your efforts in making the big change that we' ve seen in code enforcement. Thank you for that. thank you.

thank you. if there' s no further question on this I move to receive and file this item. thank you very much. there' s a motion and second on the floor for receive and file this item.

do we need to vote?

we don' t need a motion for a study session it was just provide no direction so at this thank you. we will move to the next item which is fiscal year 2025-2026 proposed

thank you. good afternoon mayor and council at the may 14 study session the city council asked for information on three questions what is the cost to add what is the cost to add an additional adu meter installation crew and what would be the reduced waiting time and finally what are potential revenue sources not included in the current budget? This presentation is just a short presentation to answer those three questions. At the study session there was discussion regarding the effectiveness of code enforcement and caseload management and an inquiry was made regarding the cost of additional personnel. The proposed budget includes five code enforcement officers and one code enforcement manager which is currently filled by a contract employee. The fully burdened cost for an additional code enforcement officer is $97,400. there was also a need identified for administrative support in the division to answer and respond to calls provide consistent in office customer service and other administrative support to the code enforcement officers an administrative assistant would cost ninety four thousand two hundred ninety five dollars the code enforcement program is funded by the general fund concerns were expressed at the study session regarding the time it takes to install new water meters related to accessory dwelling units adus. The public works department' s water division currently installs one to two new water services for adus per week the current waiting list of 45 requests could take up to nine months. An additional crew of four staff members one foreman one equipment operator and two water technician one positions is the crew will be able to install three to four new services per week the waiting time for a new service request will be reduced from nine months to three to four months. These are the costs for that new meter installation unit a foreman would cost $103,000 water equipment operator $96,000 to water tech one positions for equipment needed is a backhoe loader $165,000 a foreman truck with service body $132,000 a work truck $45,000 and a dump truck $160,000 for a total equipment cost of $500,000 total staff and Finally, potential future revenues could include changes to the mixed-use areas currently in progress, Westminster Mall redevelopment, billboards, changes to zoning standards to attract developers, Bolsero development and high-density apartments, annexed areas, and revenue from other sources. For example, increased transient occupancy tax, business improvement areas, assessments, or cannabis. other than these questions of the budget will be brought back to the june 25th city council meeting for adoption and staff is available to answer answer any further questions from the council.

thank you very much and I would like to open for questions comments from the staff.

First question is the difference in what's more? What are we going to get more bang for our buck? with the Either the court enforcement officer or the analyst, but what's some what is the? admin assistant sorry Yeah, what's and it's not the money's there's not that much of a difference is I think was it 4,000 but what is to be more productive for us.

after being here for a couple of months I noticed that in order to capture all the complaints that we receive in order to have somebody on the phone picking up the phone calls and logging them which I created once I got here we are averaging over 300 phone it encounters a month we've started to document them as of three months ago we had 240 that it creeped up to 280 last month we had over 300 and and it's continuing to come for me to have an efficient effective division i would recommend that we have a full-time clerical staff to document all that information to capture the information to log those those complaints into the system into intergov currently right now the code officers are doing that that's taking them away from the field currently we have our code officers working ten hours eight hours answering foals my civic and doing the clerical function that's eliminated one position in a five-day period I have them scheduled daily doing these items. So for me I think it' s appropriate that we have a clerical staff their administrative staff to capture all the data to capture all the information to bring back to the dais. And to capture more important it' s the customer service. The customer service is my priority for the city of is important. I start with a staff member to do that function to get the code officers out in the field.

so the analysts think it would be more productive than another officer?

if you ask me I would like them all. I think capturing that data, we are doing more proactive. We are scheduling more sweeps in neighborhoods and everywhere else. And I think that would benefit the division.

All right. and yes I mean I like I said earlier there's a lot for a court enforcement to do in this city I think one of the other areas that we need more help in is it's our vendor sweeps that we I think we need to pick that up I wonder if there's a way for us, I think, maybe ask council and ask maybe our city manager and Aaron, our finance director, about the possibilities of adding both an officer and an analyst. I guess the numbers there was 94, 97 for each one, right? I don't know. It's something that maybe our council can think about. But definitely, we need to do something for this department, this division, when they need help.

So I just want to jump in, too. Currently, code enforcement has a vacancy. And so we're in the process of filling that. So once that's Once that position is filled, they'll be fully staffed with code enforcement officers. So really, it's the, you know, as Sergio has mentioned, and he's done a great job for us in the last few months kind of evaluating the division. It's really the administrative assistance that's lacking right now. When they were over at the PD, they did have someone that was doing this type of work for them to support with some of those administrative functions. And that's something that they're just lacking right now, which is why this was brought as an alternative.

appreciate that so yes I'll be very willing and support the adding of the admin assistant for this department so I'm for that the next question I have is regarding the water meter screw you mentioned on the staff report and mentioned that other cities do not offer this service and My other question my question for that is That's T the total total staff and equipment cost is 872 plus for that If we were to do that are we if the fees as the fees charged would be able to cover that I

I did a rough calculation so if we do based on the staff report it says six new requests per month. So 72 per year would bring in about $450,000, $470,000. So it's not quite covering the cost. Well, it covers about half of it. And the equipment costs are obviously one time. But it does cover the staffing costs of 370.

a three seven so the initial start up will be upside down. I know it' s a service to the community but if it' s taking nine months is it really a service to the community? Especially if other cities don' t offer this service is it something we can afford to offer?

it's just besides city of garden grove we the only one also offer this kind of services but they are in the same boat as us um they are doing pretty much one or two two a week and they have double of the additional adu service to our number but with the larger staff and they are able to do that within a shorter time frame than us i think we need to revisit that because if

if this is not a service we can afford to do I don' t know if we' re in the business to be given away money if we' re not recovering that cost.

the main function of the water staff was to maintain our infrastructure and our water system this is the kind of add-on service we had when the adu has been an issue or the law.

Okay, I think we need to revisit this again. I don't know right at this moment is the time to really get into the weeds of it, but if you can help us out with getting us some more information as far as the cost and the fees and Making sure that we're not upside down on that you know because it's the staff is you know fully burdened and then purrs and everything

Correct currently with the current fee schedule we charge about 6,500 per water meters and as you can see Within we are working up with a new fee schedule And that could come up to $11,000 that would reflect the true cost of the staff at this point Okay, then so then we need to come up with a solution because if we're we don't want to be upside down and we need to at least Recover the cost so we're even that' s correct that' s an option that we offer but the residents also have the option to hire their own contractor and like other cities that' s a burden that belongs to the residents.

how many out of all the adu' s that have been done in our city what do you see they' re hiring their own and how many are we doing?

we don' t have the number but we don' t have the number from what they came in and purchased from us for the year of 2025 we have 23 have been purchased and up to this today we install 21. If we don' t have a backlog of previous years we probably can catch up with those numbers already but because of the meter availability in the past it was to address the ADU immediately, so it's backlogged to nine months.

The applicants hiring their own contractors, it's quicker, is it not?

yes if the resident choose to hire their own contractor would cost more than with the cities but that' s an option that they have to they have the option there.

I think we need to look at that city manager and then my next question is on the potential Another bullet points there here in the staff report these all seem to be these are all would take years for any of these to be To for us to see any revenue out of those bullet out of those items, correct?

Yes, most of these are projects that will take years. I will mention that one of the strategic plan items was additional revenue, and that's coming with the last bullet, the transit occupancy tax and cannabis. And information is coming at the next meeting on the 25th on that one item.

Okay. And out of all these items here, Which one do you think would be the quicker path for us to see any revenue, all these bullet points you have here?

we' re moving steadily on most of them with the exception of cannabis obviously I would say that with the zoning and the standards and some of the good work that was done at icsc I think we could be seeing projects come online within the next couple of years but definitely nothing within the next six

and we haven' t really seen the numbers for the tot as far as the effort to get that implemented and then the actual what it' s going to yield.

that' s correct but I' m bringing an item at the next meeting on that one.

it seems to me out of these we need to be real and know where our expenditures are more than our revenue. And that's not good. It's just math. So we need to be conscientious and look at what we need to do to bring more revenue to our city and choose and know that time is not on our side. and I think it' s something that council needs to take serious. thank you.

thank you very much. Chair kemp could I ask you to come to the podium. just follow-up questions from I know that we have an option for the developer to order for the owner. Homeowners, when they build the ADUs, they can choose, when they install the water meters, they can actually choose from the option from the city provided, or it will cost them less, or they can go out and get the vendors. But for the city, it took nine months. That's the reason why we have the study option here. Now, have you understand that there's only one city, which is the city of Greengrove, is having this system right now? Have you touched base with them or find out how they do, what their process is, and did they recover the cost for what they are doing right now? And for us, when you present the cost for the system and the equipment, I don't think that we can recover from their ADUs even though we charge them, like you said, from $5,000, $6,000 to $11,000. we might not be able to recover that cost so that' s one option we will find out from them or is there anyhow that we can with the staff that we have right now currently right now either we are going to have them work overtime or can we share the resources from another city let' s say the city of people from there to work with us, you know, to implement the system. I don't know that those are the things that I would just sort out and, you know, instead of investing in getting people and equipment which we are not being able to recover the cost.

We have talked to City of Garden Grove. The reason they was able to have a less number or a shorter time than us because they do have a larger staff and they do allow their staff to work overtime on Friday to address the ADUs. we have a smaller staff and if we put overtime on every week on our staff my concern is we exhaust our staff and what happens is they call sick they' re tired they call sick and that does affect the regular work day which they should be addressing the water system. With the additional cost when we go with the new fee Again, we need to have some time to catch up because there was a backlog for several years. That's the reason why it takes nine months. Hopefully, like I said, with our staff consistently taking one or two ADUs a month, I would say the next six months hopefully will reduce that time frame back. Right now we have 45 compared versus in the past we have 50 and 60.

OK. You are expecting that we are reducing the number of ADU bill in the state of Westminster?

no we don't say we we kind of catch it on their number that on the waiting list okay and so you with that you expect that the time is going to be reduced hopefully reduce but like I said it just depends on how many coming in that's that's the number of 80 use it is not under our control have you ever considered option out to get the contractor to the work on this some kind of contractor yes what it does is going to cost more as far as getting the contractor outside help it' s the same way the property owner can do the same thing because the contractor working for us we want to make sure we pay them the premium wage on the private the contractor is charging less.

it seems to me there' s no way beside what you' re saying we catch up with the number of ADUs then we reduce the time frame otherwise we cannot do anything about it.

Because with additional crew that definitely will help but whether we can recoup all the money and what if we catch up with all the ADUs then we have extra crew that is not you know it's not like it's not built for our water system.

Okay if we hired part-time

Can we? These kind of work is not fit for part-time help. Like I said, if you're working on a water system, you have to be certified and you have to be trained. So this is not just a labor, hard labor work, but it's actually you have to have a knowledge of water system, how to dig, how to work on underground water line, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I was talking to staff, and I understand that there might be a possibility that we can talk to people who are doing these things at another city, let's say city of Garden Grove, and if they want to work. you know, part-time for the City of Westminster, they are trained, they are, you know, knowing what they're supposed to do already, so we don't have to go through that process again. Is it possible or not, staff? Or City Attorney?

Yeah, I was going to say, there... I think there are limits on our ability to do that we can talk about that but there are definite limits on what we can do.

I just want to identify some of the things we can do and see if we can do it but if not then hopefully I agree with we can't win the city business, and we can't afford to lose money for servicing the work that people want. But at the same time, nine months for the ADUs to get the water installment, I think it takes too long for them, because they built the ADU so that they can either rent it out or they're going to live in it, and if they can't, then...

correct but like i said we always communicated up front with the property owners you know want to come in and purchase and say you're going to take up to that nine months the big cities like city of hunter and beach they didn't have that you know service offer to their residents but then do they know how long will it take to to for them to get it done they don't have they don't have that service offered so the residents have to hire a car i see what's okay um

Nevertheless, I think that we still will see if we can try to look into different ways to see if we can help. What's come to us, I understand. We can't do anything else. Our hands are tied, and we have to live with it.

Like, kudos to our water staff. They work really hard, like, you know, addressing the water leaks, one of the main leaks. And then the day that they finish with all of those, they focus back on the ADU right away. We do have a list of 30 water valves that we need to replace or, you know, improve. But again, like, you know, we kind of focus on the ADU now so we can—at least we can do some kind of catch-up.

I have a follow-up question. Now that we' re on this subject, we know our staff is pretty much stretched thin, all of our divisions. Our staff, like you mentioned, their main focus is and they' re going to put more emphasis the other issues they need to work on every day and the adu' s when they' re free up that' s why it' s taking so whatever their cost is, whatever we're paying that team, it's actually costing us more because we're taking them away from something else they should be doing to go try to fill these ADU requests. So in the bigger picture, it is actually costing us more resources than what the number is showing because there's some things that we're not seeing because they're the other issues. I think that' s something that we really need to consider maybe not offering. Here' s the other thing most adus when they start they' re building them faster than 90 days. If there' s one in my street and by the time they do the foundation two or three weeks later they' re already wrapping the building so nine months is not feasible for them. If it' s costing us I don' t know exactly what the cost is for them to hire a

but like do you know if there's a cost if like what the cost difference is we've been hearing is difference in situations depends on you know how far away the water line with a property but we hear number range from eleven twelve thousand to twenty thousand dollars so so then we're actually is costing us more than the What would you say we're charging?

We're charging at this point which was about sixty five hundred so it's actually costing us more than sixty five hundred because we're taking them away from something else and and so we're right now it seems like we're in the loop where we're not recovering that that cost at all the other question I had is that the ones where they're hiring their own contractor is our our building inspectors are out there checking checking these correct no if they hired a private contractor for that work our water staff will be inspecting it yes so they're inspecting it Are they before inspecting the trench? Are they inspecting, then they're inspecting the work after?

We do every step of the way.

Every step of the way.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I know that we're running over, but I still do have questions for court enforcement. The quick one, would you please come to the podium? The question that I have for you is you mentioned earlier that the number of calls increased ever since that you came in. More and more every month, right? Yes. The number of calls.

That's correct.

It's going from 200 and something to 300 and something right now.

That's correct.

And is it because of you?

no it's it's not it's it's because we're documenting okay it's because we're documenting we established that log so that we can provide the dais with numbers and statistics okay in what area that you see the most that the the calls coming in in what areas it's just a variety the code enforcement division that you guys have here the city of west minnesota is literal it is a code enforcement program they seem to handle quite a bit of what a traditional division handles you typically they would handle land use and zoning, planning, and building, but they handle quite a bit of it all.

Basically, you don't have the answer for my questions. What I'm saying is I agree with you. If we have the administrative who can document those things, then you can answer this right away.

I don' t have that information. I would have it on the log.

are you looking at the most types in commercial versus residential or in what area?

for residential for commercial and you know for those but anyway I agree with your request to have the administrative and the only thing I question is you said currently you have one open rec yes for the code enforcement and you're trying to fill that you're trying to fill that for what

for the administrative or you know so there so there are there is a code enforcement officer position that's currently open um it's been vacant for probably about a month um and so that's what we're we're filling is that vacant position okay and then you are do you think you feel another position for administrative for well it's and so that's where you know it was based on the conversation at the last the discussion on the last study session was what if we added more code enforcement officers to manage the case load. It' s actually because of sergio that he' s been able to develop data or help put data into in front of us so we can see what the case load looks like. Because we have a vacancy once we fill that we feel we' to have an additional person out in the field managing cases etc. But what the need is truly what' s really needed behind the scenes is you would just have administrative support that would provide consistent behind-the-scenes customer service. Whether it' s answering the phone lines it' s taking the messages it' s inputting into the system we have a couple of different systems in which someone can receive a code enforcement case. Instead of having our code enforcement officers behind a computer desk for as long as they are now they get more field time and that' s really where you make the most impact in code enforcement.

thank you. I think that' s all I have for you thank you so much. If there' s no question. Council member margwin.

in support of hiring the admin for the code enforcement division in terms of the both the equipment and the staffing uh just like what vice mayor mentioned maybe in the future we should uh cease doing the installation of the water meter because it doesn't seem like we're getting we're seeing daylight We'll see where we're at in terms of how we can tackle this, but maybe that's an option where we no longer provide that service and just let the developer or the ADU owner get their own contractor. Okay, thank you. All right. Anything else?

Mayor, if I can actually add to that. Since we're going to be working on for next year's budget, so adding the admin assistant to the proposed budget, but then also not approving the request for the supplemental for the additional staffing for water. But if there is a time to discontinue that service, it probably makes the most sense to discontinue it as of the beginning of the fiscal year. if that works for the council. Like maybe just after June 30th, we're no longer taking requests in-house and we'll just continue to finish off the remaining on the wait list.

Yes, I like that idea. I don't know that we should consider it now. Last minute here, if there's a need for it, you can always bring it back, right?

Yes.

For discussion. At this time here, I would like to end the study section because we're supposed to start the closed session at five o'clock so I would like to ask I want to thank staff for the study section to attend the study section I think it's very informative for us to see all the angles and make decision on this so once again thank you very much and for the council would you please go ahead and stay where you are right now so we can start the