Council Meeting Tonight

Tonight is another city council meeting. The agenda can be found here.

First up will be two proclamations. The first will declare April 2010 as "Sexual Assault Awareness Day." The second will declare Feb. 26, 2010 as "Richard Barker Day" (I always love how timely the proclamations can be). Richard Barker is a Pomona philanthropist and historian who presented a display on the citrus industry in early Pomona at Western U on Feb. 26.

With that important business out of the way, the council will next move to comments from themselves, the city manager and the public.


After that is the consent agenda. These are items which don't have to be discussed and can be just voted on en mass. They include:

• Finalizing the Pomona Valley Hospital Specific Plan
• Ordering an engineering report on street lighting and landscaping in the special assessment district (Phillips Ranch)
• Authorizing staff to apply for grants for recycling
• Approval of $125,000 for consulting services for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program
• A $38,040 contract with for the sweeping of the Vehicle Parking District parking lots downtown
• A resolution authorizing the receiving of local sales tax records and allowing certain city officials access to them
• A resolution amending the 2009-10 operating budget
• A resolution in support of the Local Taxpayer Public Safety and Transportation Act of 2010

Then it's on to old business.

• First up is an update on an application by Premiere Medical Transportation to operate emergency medical transportation vehicles in Pomona in a non-emergency capacity
• An appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of a second one-year CUP for a condominium project at 92 Rio Rancho Road.
• Consideration of options for enforcement of temporary signage (banners) violations citywide
• Proposed ordinance requiring a permit to use inflatable recreational structures (bounce houses) in city parks
• Designation of Paula Lantz as delegate to So Cal Association of Governments (SCAG) genearl assembly
• Then public benefit expenditures:
• $400 to support bus transportation to/from recreation activities
• $100 to Vejar School for purchase of school spirit T-shirts for students
• $650 to Community Wellness Partnership of Pomona for mailing of Care Packages to Pomona Veterans
• $700 to Pomona Heritage for expenses associated with the Old Home Restoration Workshop

The only public hearing this evening is on a resolution approving the city housign authority's 2010-2015 annual plan.

Interestingly, Item 11 was pulled prior to posting (according to the agenda currently on-line) but I seem to recall seeing it early and I could have sworn that this was to be regarding the formation of the Charter Review Commission. The last time the charter was amended (about 12 years ago), a provision was added Article XVII. Sec. 1701, which required that "Beginning in January of the year 2010, and in January of every tenth year thereafter, the Council shall appoint a Commission to consider and propose amendments to the existing Charter. No later than twelve (12) months from each inception, the Commission shall submit its proposals to the City Clerk for placement on the ballot at the next scheduled election."

The Charter Review Commission should have been APPOINTED in January (the council could have started taking applications any time previous to that in order to accomplish this). Here we are now in mid-March and not only has there been no appointments, but it's now not even on the agenda. The council only opened applications in January, then extended it to mid-February and still can't seem to create a commission.

I reading the item prior to it being pulled from the agenda, the city attorney had suggested that the council could constitute itself as the Charter Review Commission. HUH? There are currently three ways to amend the charter. The Council can do it through their regular process, the public can do it via initiative (collecting signatures to get it on the ballot), and the Charter Review Commission. If the council can already change the charter then why would they need to be constituted as a separate commission? I somehow doubt that was the intent of the framers of that section of the charter. Is the current council afraid of what a citizen committee might put on the ballot? According to the way that I read the charter section quoted above, whatever the commission decides on WILL be placed on the ballot. There is no provision for review by the council, just by the city clerk to ensure that it is in keeping with the requirements of election law.


Disclaimer: I have applied to serve on the Charter Review Commission. So, I've been following this with a great deal of interest.