Chamber contract extended two years

One of Yorba Linda's longest-lasting relationships – a more than quarter-century-old service agreement between the city and the Chamber of Commerce – has been renewed for two more years on a 5-0 City Council vote.

Terms of the six-page pact include the city's $25,000 annual payments to the chamber, with chamber officials agreeing to 14 performance measures to be updated in quarterly reports to the council.

The 102-year-old local chamber chapter has 324 dues-paying members, mostly area businesses and organizations but including two individual memberships, Mayor Gene Hernandez and school trustee Karin Freeman.

Among chamber goals for 2015-16 is increasing membership 10 percent to help move the chamber's budget out of the red, “an issue that the chamber Executive Committee is addressing,” according to a report from Phyllis Coleman, the group's executive director.

Aside from the city subsidy and membership dues, revenue comes from well-attended, city-wide fund-raising events and various sponsorships, with some income funding 12 scholarships that include seven chamber and three Fullerton College grants and First Bank and Jim Winder scholarships each year.

The city “continues to benefit greatly” by the chamber “supporting and promoting its local businesses,” noted city management analyst Allison Estes in a recent report to council members.

According to Estes, the chamber performs “the ministerial and administrative functions associated with promoting the interests of the city, including hosting a number of programs to promote small businesses in the community...and disseminating business, industrial and residential information.”

One major chamber endeavor, the glossy, quarterly “Insider” magazine, lost money the past year, with annual costs totaling $18,504 against $12,480 in revenue. The “E-News” newsletters cost $300 and garnered $50 sponsor income per issue.

Five annual events are more financially successful, including the popular Taste of Yorba Linda, which attracted 61 restaurants and 1,100 attendees and netted $33,319 last July. The September State of the City Address had 186 in attendance and 26 sponsors for $1,957 revenue after expenses.

An October Community Faire drew more than 2,000 people to view 65 car show entries, 39 business booths, nine chili cook-off participants and a duck race, netting $5,681. A First Annual Comedy Night, with 160 attending, made $3,000, and an e-waste collection brought in $612.

Interestingly, the chamber last year processed 175 “certificates of origin,” required for businesses exporting goods outside of the country, answered hundreds of monthly requests for business and other referrals and hosted Principal for a Day and recognition for police, fire and emergency personnel.

And in response to past controversy, the agreement states that chamber resources can't be used for political candidate or local initiative or referendum campaign activity.

Updates: gas station cleanup, trauma help

Updated information on two important Yorba Linda projects – cleanup of contamination from a long-closed Imperial Highway gasoline station just west of the public library and support services for victims of traumatic events and their families – has been provided by city officials.

First, remediation of groundwater contamination from the former, now-fenced Ultramar service station site at Lemon Drive and Imperial Highway could end in mid-2016, with “final case closure” in 2017, according to a recent report from Rick Yee, assistant city engineer.

Costs for the cleanup are expected to total $1.725 million, paid by the Orange County Transportation Agency through Smart Street funding. After cleanup, “closure phase” costs will be paid from $1.5 million set aside in the State Underground Storage Tank Mitigation Fund.

Yorba Linda is responsible for the cleanup under requirements administered by the Orange County Health Care Agency because the city purchased the property in 2004 for an Imperial Highway widening project.

According to Yee, the city “will continue to work with the county on the possibility of using the site as a building site, rather than limit it to parking of vehicles only.” A higher remediation standard must be met to allow buildings.

Remediation began in 2011 with the removal of floating gasoline from groundwater, Yee noted, at a cost of $422,000. The current phase involves removing the remaining dissolved gasoline mixed with groundwater and will cost an estimated $1.3 million when completed next year.

An additional $187,349 has been spent to monitor groundwater in the vicinity of the contaminated site, also performed by Stantec Consulting Services, the firm hired for the entire task, to ensure contaminant levels are not migrating from the project site, Yee explained.

Final closure needs to be approved by the health care agency and the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Second, the City Council has renewed for a 15^th year a contract with the Trauma Intervention Program designed “to provide emotional and practical support services to victims of traumatic events and their families,” according to a report from Allison Estes, a city management analyst.

The program involves 118 local volunteers who served 164 residents with 205 crisis services and contributed 17,520 “ready alert” hours last year. Annual cost to the city since 2001 has been $8,148, about 12 cents per resident. Orange County and 19 of 34 county cities participate in the program.

“Volunteers are called by police officers, firefighters, paramedics and hospital personnel to assist family members and friends following a traumatic event, including natural or unexpected deaths, victims of fire and violent crimes, disoriented or lonely elderly persons, people involved in motor vehicle accidents, people who are distraught and seeking immediate support and survivors of suicide,” Estes reported.

Current Yorba Linda City Council ignores sage advice about 'bloodletting'; ousts opponents

One of the more interesting documents from Yorba Linda's past – minutes from the final meeting of the committee that worked for the city's incorporation – is relevant today because of the sage advice given the soon-to-be-installed members of the first City Council.

Residents have been clear beneficiaries when the counsel has been followed, but, when ignored, political considerations have mattered most, with a climate of payback for opponents and their supporters influencing some decision-making.

The advice was simple: avoid blood-letting, as delivered by attorney Jim Erickson, who provided services for the Steering Committee for Incorporation and was named the first city attorney. It came during the committee's final session on Oct. 26, 1967.

Present were all five newly elected council members, other committee members and Erickson, who outlined procedures for launching the county's 25^th city. The meeting's minutes noted: “Mr. Erickson stressed the importance of the council presenting a solid front. It is important that there be no public blood-letting and dissension.”

Indeed, the members of that first body took his advice and set up a rotation policy, so all members would serve in the largely honorary mayoral post, despite their diverse views.

Proposed by Councilman Bill Ross, the plan was for each member to serve six months as mayor and vice mayor in order of vote totals in the 1967 election until all seats would again be on the 1970 ballot.

Most councils have followed that pattern for one-year terms with minor exceptions, but lately, councils have engaged in political payback by eliminating members on the short end of 3-2 and 4-1 divisions from the rotation for a post that signs documents and performs ceremonial duties.

Erickson also advised establishing a planning commission and other citizen advisory committees to deal with oil problems, beautification and parks and recreation “as an excellent way of involving more people in city government.”

The planning panel was formed first, followed by the parks and recreation, traffic and library commissions, along with several single-issue committees. In 47 years, only a half-dozen members were fired from these positions.

But the current council, on a 4-1 vote, changed all commission terms to expire shortly after council elections and vacated all positions – no matter when they were set to expire – and reappointed some members and dropped others.

If future councils follow this unwelcome precedent, expect biennial blood-lettings whenever the council complexion changes and new office-holders decide they don't want opponents to serve on city bodies.

Finally, another piece of Erickson's advice to the new council members: “As a general rule, reporters ask questions that would be embarrassing to the council or they raise issues that will sell papers. Smile a lot and don't say much. Cities are a particular target of newspapers.”

How water use cutbacks will impact city

Potential impacts on Yorba Linda's landscaping from state-mandated cuts in water use in areas maintained by the budget-challenged landscape assessment district and the public works and parks departments were reviewed recently by City Council members.

A report from Public Works Director Mike Wolfe noted that specifics won't be available until the actual regulations and restrictions are formulated by the State Water Resources Control Board, the state Department of Water Resources and the Yorba Linda Water District.

But he stated the initial directives “will certainly impact the aesthetics of the landscaping maintained by the city. Some places that have already seen a significant impact...due to the drought conditions over the past several years will be impacted even more.”

And, Wolfe reported, “In some cases, the existing landscaping will not be able to survive with the anticipated...restrictions” and “strategies to preserve established trees” will be needed because they “will not be irrigated once the automated irrigation systems are deactivated.”

A priority, noted Wolfe, will be for parks officials to “attempt to maintain the sports turf fields at their current condition....” Athletic fields are now watered three days per week, and further reductions will have “significant impacts to playability and long-term health of the turf.”

The parks staff, if allowed under new restrictions, “would be more aggressive with water reductions in non-essential turf areas, slopes and planter areas to balance out the overall water needs and maintain the current conditions of the athletic fields,” Wolfe added.

One anticipated restriction will be a “specific directive to prohibit watering of ornamental turf in street medians with potable water,” which can be accomplished by turning off a valve for most cases, but sometimes minor re-piping or re-routing could be required, according to Wolfe.

And despite cost savings from using less water and rebates for turf removal, “based on past analysis, the dollars saved combined with the refund amounts do not offset the cost to demolish and install a new drought-tolerant plant palette with irrigation and/or artificial turf,” Wolfe noted.

Interestingly, irrigation at the city-owned Black Gold Golf Club won't be impacted because restrictions deal with potable water and the golf course uses non-potable water for grass areas.

Wolfe stated Black Gold already has employed conservation measures, such as converting fairways and roughs to drought-tolerant Kikuyu grass, applying wetting agents for water retention and using computerized irrigation with individual head controls.

“However,” added Wolfe, “should the golf course be subject to watering restrictions for non-potable water, there could be significant impacts to both maintenance operations and loss of revenue due to reductions in golf rounds.”

Rules for landscaping in new developments also will be revised. 

Yorba Linda City Council opposes reducing number of Fire Authority board members; city-owned Bastanchury Road site updates

The Yorba Linda City Council strongly opposes a proposal to reduce the number of members serving on the Orange County Fire Authority governing board because, among other reasons, the city would likely lose a director position held for the past 20 years.

The proposal comes in the form of a bill in the 80-member state Assembly by Tom Daly, a Democrat representing Santa Ana and parts of Anaheim, Garden Grove and Orange. His legislation would knock the fire authority's board membership from 25 to 13.

Proponents claim the 25-member board with representatives from the city councils of the 23 cities contracting with the authority, plus two of the five county supervisors, is “too unwieldy.”

This city's council members noted that 13 would still be “unwieldy” and several of the contract cities – very likely the smaller cities – would be eliminated from representation under the formula outlined to choose 10 board members from the cities, plus three county supervisors.

Two members would be selected from each of the county's five supervisor districts, one on a population-weighted basis and one on a “one city, one vote” basis by a “city selection committee” made up of reps from the contract cities. Directors would serve two-year terms.

One problem with this method is the contract cities are not evenly divided into the supervisor districts, from two cities each in two north and central county districts to 11 cities in the south county district.

Ten of the county's 34 cities maintain their own departments and La Habra contracts with Los Angeles County. The remainder are in the authority, formed in 1995 and governed by a joint-powers agreement.

Until 1995, several cities, including Yorba Linda, were served by the Orange County Fire Department, administered by the supervisors. Before 1980, nine county cities, also including Yorba Linda, were under the state Forestry Department, with paid-call and volunteer fire fighters.

Now, some updates:

--Recent columns on citizen and developer suggestions for the city-owned Bastanchury Road site once planned for Friends Christian High School drew email, including one from Brandon Rainone, whose family owns Concourse Bowling, just off east La Palma Avenue in Anaheim.

He proposes a sports park, with fields, playground amenities, open space and a celebrity chef-run restaurant, among other ideas that can be viewed at yorbalindasportspark.com.

Rainone told me he'd pay $10 million cash for the “base” site fronting Bastanchury Road and lease the two other properties that are deed-restricted for public uses by seller Shell-Western at $300,000 monthly for 99 years.

--City-sought appraisals on the properties are expected soon. Currently, annual maintenance costs for the 40 acres are about $25,000, after an initial $61,000 outlay when the high school lease was terminated in 2013, funded by a $210,656 settlement from Friends Christian Church.