Updating issues that will impact city next year

Let’s update topics from past columns that will impact Yorba Linda next year:

--The City Council’s selection of a mayor and mayor pro tem for one-year terms in December is a harbinger of the five members’ ability to get along without allowing grudges and other personal animosities to take center stage during deliberations.

Whenever members depart from the rotation system wisely established by the first council in 1967 in selecting a presiding officer, the action accentuates the division between factions on the governing body that spills over into more serious business.

The best examples of personal discord among council members are periods in the 1990s and much of the 2000s, when three different majority factions isolated one or sometimes two minority council members from either or both of the mayor and mayor pro tem slots.

This year’s process had a promising start with the 5-0 elevation of Mayor Pro Tem Tom Lindsey to replace Mark Schwing as mayor. Lindsey was nominated by John Anderson with a second from Schwing.

But the unanimity didn’t last to the mayor pro tem selection. Gene Hernandez nominated Craig Young, who ran second to Schwing in the 2012 election, with Schwing nominating Anderson, who was mayor pro tem in 2009 and mayor in 2010. Young won 3-2.

The mayor pro tem slot is important, since whoever holds the post could be mayor in 2014, an election year. In 2008, 2010 and 2012, Jim Winder, Anderson and Schwing, respectively, won council contests after using the job as their occupation on the ballot. Young won’t be on the ballot in 2014, but Anderson might, if he seeks a third term.

--Two large residential developments on county land adjacent to Yorba Linda’s northern border near San Antonio Road are moving through the county’s planning apparatus, with nearby residents keeping a watchful eye on traffic, water and other infrastructure matters.

The 112-home Cielo Vista project on 83 acres will release a draft environmental impact report after the first of the year and the Esperanza Hills (Yorba Linda Estates) project of 340 homes on 469 acres will issue a notice of preparation for an EIR next month.

Community Development Director Steve Harris reported to council that city staff asked Esperanza Hills reps to “present their project to the city but they offered instead to meet individually with council members or to hold a study session after the first of the year.”

--Areas in Yorba Linda’s cash-strapped Landscape Maintenance Assessment District, which receives funding through assessments on property tax rolls and from this city’s general fund, were viewed by council members on a Dec. 15 bus tour.

Eight of the scheduled 12 stops were to view landscape areas, several of which require subsidies from the general fund because assessments paid by residents don’t meet total expenses incurred.

The annual shortfall was an issue in the recent council election, and if a solution is to be found, it needs to be in place before the next assessments amounts are sent to the county.

Next week: watch for my annual “best” and “not-so-best” list summarizing 2012.