Mar
15
Waste bids, Cancellation of July 4th Fireworks on tonight’s Council agenda
Filed Under City Council, City Council Meetings, The Base, Trash contraact
(3/15/2010, Los Alamitos) Several interesting items are on tonight’s Los Alamitos City Council’s Regular meeting agenda, including two items relating to the bidding for the new ten year Solid Waste contract:
- First, in a “Consent Calendar” item, staff is requesting the Council authorize a seven day extension of the deadline for Proposals from solid waste contractors. (Click here for staff report) The city’s consultant reports that three contractors have requsted extensions of 7 – 10 days, with two giving no reason and the third it was due to “a personal family matter of one of the consultants.”
- In a separate item for Discussion, staff recommends the Council accept recommendations from a Council ad hoc committee on the “weighting of the criteria” for evaluating the solid waste collection proposals. (Click here for staff report on this item. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the attachment that contains the actual recommendations, the second missing attachment I’ve encountered so far today.)
4th of July Cancellation
City staff had planned on achieving more of a break-even on the 4th of July event this year and in future years by charging a nominal entrance fee of $5 per vehicle and $1 per pedestrian. Here’s what happened, according to the staff report on this item in the Council’s packet:
JFTB staff had given preliminary approval to the vehicle and pedestrian charge shortly after the conclusion of the 2009 event.
[City] Staff began discussion with Cypress and Joint Forces Training Base staff for the 2010 event in early February. The new command staff at the JFTB made it clear from the onset of our discussions this year, however, that charging vehicles and pedestrians to enter the base for the event was not an option and could not be a source of revenue.
Staff discussed asking for donations outside of the entrance to the base, but JFTB staff indicated that practice was not allowable as well. It should be noted, however, that JFTB personnel have allowed the Chamber of Commerce to recover some of the costs of the Wings, Wheels and Rotors event through donations from vehicles entering the Base.
Staff started negotiations with the JFTB on the vehicle and pedestrian issue immediately after the 2009 event because the identification of a dedicated revenue source was the only way to guarantee the event expenditures would be 100% offset by revenue. Expenditures for the event this year were automatically going to be higher than last year because July 4, 2010 falls on a Sunday, which necessitates overtime for certain city employees [public works staff].
Bottom line: to save an estimated $14,930 in the city’s budget for the next fiscal year (7/1/2010 – 6/30/2011), city staff is recommending cancelling the annual 4th of July celebration.
The Regular Meeting should be broadcast live on LosAlTV 3, and rebroadcast through the week.
I will not be able to view or attend the meeting tonight, so once again, you can help fill your neighbors in on what happens with your own report. Of course opinions and insights are also welcome, but don’t assume that the reader has seen the meeting–please try to first report the item you wish to comment on.
These are challenging times, and a diplomatic approach politely expressed tends to go far.
Related posts:
- Recycling Truck Ban, Medical Center Project, Fees for the 4th on Council Agenda for Monday, August 3
- Trash, Fireworks, General Plan, Rossmoor, & Council PC Review all on Monday, 8/16 Agenda
- Schedule for JFTB’s Big 2009 July 4th bash
- Council Agenda for Monday, June 15, 2009: Waste disposal, Grose replacements, budget, pool & more!
Comments
34 Responses to “Waste bids, Cancellation of July 4th Fireworks on tonight’s Council agenda”
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How about in the winter reducing street cleaning to once every TWO weeks (since the rain does a fine job of cleaning the streets).
That should save about $15K
To waste money on a 50th parade so Queen Poe can ride with her tiara and then to cut the fireworks that have been here for the last 15 years that I know of is this side well short of a full deck.
This city needs to charge for parking for the 4th of July event, close Carrier Row to the off site parkers, and ticket all the violators. Then Los Al would be able to afford enough tiaras so that Troy could also wear one. Isn’t that what’s important?
Hey, wait a minute, what did the city do with all that money they saved by taking away council member Mejia’s cell phone?
We may be able to get Dean a tiara before long.
Hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. good one!!!
Charging a nominal per car fee to park is a great idea, the carrier row idea not so good. Carrier Row 4th of July block parties are some of the best I have ever attended. I went to the base event once and swore I would never go again after the +1 hour departure crawl. You are under the misconception that if “Carrier Row Parkers” were not able to do so, they would flock to the base for their firework fix, not so, I’m afraid.
Mejia said it best.
The deal that was cut 22 years ago was that we would get rid of “fireworks in the streets of our city” and the city would provide a massive display.
If the City is going to renege on their end of the bargain I see no reason why the citizens should keep up theirs.
Even Poe was able to add two-and-two together and get four on this point.
According to a member of the Parks and Rec Committee this was not brought up to them at their meeting two weeks ago. So where did all the push come from to have this solved immediately? And why the arbitrary 4/15 deadline? There are City Council meetings on the 5th and the 19th of April, why wasn’t this continued to the 19th with a report on how things are going on the 5th? This would allow the members of the Council to hear how things were going and to revisit it with a vote on 4/19. But no, they punted.
The vote tonight was a vote to kill it. Period. But they left themselves wiggle room to say that they didn’t kill it… it couldn’t raise the funds… BULL! Let’s say that by the 5th we were able to get four sponsors and community support of $7,000. Well that means that we have reduced the size of the deficit to LESS than last years. But that isn’t enough. Nope, by the 15th if we are just $1.00 shy of $15,000 it’s cut off and shut down.
Just remember the four that voted to end the 4th of July celebration with their vote tonight.
Dean, Troy, Marilyn and Ken.
Tonight’s vote was not well thought out if they were attempting to keep it alive, only if they were trying to kill it and not leave their fingerprints on the body of the victim.
“Mother, apple pie, and the 4th of July”. There was something Un-American about that vote.
The city could sell watermelon slices after the parade for a fund raiser. That would be consistent.
That is a great fund raiser. Have Dean buy all the watermelon and sell for $1.00 a slice. That should raised a few bucks.
If they really want to raise money, they could put Dean Gross in the dunk tank adjacent to the watermelon sales. Then stand back and watch the money come pouring in. If they were to advertise this, they might get people from all over the country to participate..
Oh, and My idea of keeping cars out of Carrier Row, is directed towards all the people that use this neighborhood to park only. The Residents who live there, could request parking permits for the holiday, so they can still have all their friends and family park without hassle. All cars parkied in the neighborhood without the holiday parking permit could then be cited.
Folks, I know that I am no longer moderating this, and I know that bashing the racist is a fun game to play, but to quote Dave….
There are any number of ways that this could be paid for. From the simple “bucket brigade” on Lexington, before the base entrance, asking for donations to creating a handout fliers with the days events that we get printed and sell advertising on (8×10 80# folded in half – 4 color printing – 25,000 copies). Outside 1/2 page front (lower half of page) $2,500. Outside rear 1/2 page top or bottom $2000, Inside right or left side 1/4 page bottom $1,000. Right there is $10,500 in income for about $950 (on-line quotes with free shipping, I’m sure we could get a local printer to give one that is as good if not better).
My point is, that we have a lot of very bright people in this town that understand marketing and could help the city develop potential income revenue streams. The fact is that the City Council didn’t even let that happen.
Rather than beating on Dean Grose (no mater how much personal pleasure one may derive from it) let’s focus on what we can do to stop this absolutely awful decision by the four councilmember majority from becoming a fact.
Hey, it may be a bad idea, but it is an idean none the less. Which is more than I can say for the council majority.
I would like to write a check to support the 4th of July Firworks Spectacular. Where do I send the check/donation?
Well everyone who is pissed off at the City Council for cancelling our 4th of July Fireworks show (especially our mini mayor Poe) and Troy (Oh how I love my new red hair) here is a chance to show them how much you appreciate them.
50 Year Celebration DUNK TANK at Laurel Park on:
March 28th- Sunday
1:00 to 2:00 Marilyn Poe, Mayor
2:00 to 3:00 Troy Edgar, City Council Member
3:00 to 4:00 Ken Stephens, Mayor Pro Tem
4:00 to 5:00 Jeff Stewart, Los Alamitos City Manager
COME AND DUNK YOUR FAVORITE PERSON!
Oh and bring your own balls because due to budget cuts the City Council had to cut their own balls.
Now that was funny!
What!!! Nobody on that council HAS any balls except Poe.
She has quite a pair for wanting to have her party, but not wanting to have the 4th of July party. The natives are getting restless in Poeville.
Her performance was heart wrenching.
A couple of weeks running this place and I feel all “Dave”-like in trying to keep the peace.
Madam Poe is allowed to have her party as long as it’s revenue neutral. Now, understand what the phrase revenue neutral means. It means that not one penny of city funds was spent by/from the City of Los Alamitos, and not one cent of positive cash flow revenue generated will be provided to the City of Los Alamitos as profit from the event (unless it is donated to the city by the event organizers).
So, a forensic accounting of the event will find that any services provided by an employee of the City of Los Alamitos to support, organize, operate, etc. this event will be paid back to the city by the event organizers (unless such services were provided by the employee on their time and donated to the event organizers as a volunteer service). If additional police are required for the event, the event organizers will pay for those additional police services. If the city staff has to block off the street, the event organizers will be billed for the staffs time. Not one red cent (or any other coloured for that mater) will be spent from city funds for services to the event without the city receiving full compensation from the event organizers.
That is defined as revenue neutral. And that is what was agreed to for Madam Poe to have this little party.
This will be the first party I will attend that is BYOB, Bring Your Own Balls! Must be something new?
HOw is a $5000 budget, cost neutral? I does not sound like the majority understands this concept.
They didn’t understand revenue neutral.
Either they are LYING to us, or that $5,000 is going to be repaid back into the budget.
See, with that $5,000 back in the budget, the “shortfall” for the Fourth of July would MATCH what it was last year.
My guess is that it is costing the city way more than $5000?
There are alot of people out there that do not know anything about the posibility of canceling the 4th fireworks. You all need to tell all of your neighbors and friends to get the word out.
Where do we send the donations?
I haven’t heard this much whining since i’ve had my 6 year old granson at the house.
I just think it makes sense for George “The Trash Man” Briggeman to pay for the fireworks, if he can dump 100K into campaigns for our current majority (not a tax write off) than I am sure he can pick up the measly 15K to keep our towns biggest event alive. It is no secret that Consolidated WILL get the next 10 year contract so he will owe it to us, take it out of your royalty check from consolidated George.
If I remember correctly in the past profits from the race on the base had been ‘earmarked’ for the pool and other Rec Dept items. Why not charge the $15K fireworks shortfall against the Rec Dept. pool budget and then direct the City Attorney to pursue the $50-70K in funds sitting in the Los Alamitos Aquatics Foundation Account.
The citizens of Los Alamitos spent about $10,000 in legal fees to the then city attorney to create the private non-profit Aquatics foundation. Incidentally this was done without a vote of council.
The foundation’s purpose according to their by-laws is to raise funds for the maintenance and operation of the pool. Since they do not follow their by-laws the city should move to force the Secretary of State to dissolve the corporation and thus receive the money that has been sitting there for the last 7 or 8 years. That would pay for the fireworks for the next 2 or 3 years.
If the previous city council majority hadn’t wasted $6 million of the taxpayers dollars we could pay, not only for the fireworks, but cover the city’s defecit for the next ten years. What about that Mr. DeBolt?
What! $6 million has been wasted! When Parker and Driscoll left office there was about $6 Million in cash reserves. Don’t tell me it is gone. Just when I thought it was safe to buy watermellon in Los Alamitos you bring me this bad news that the current majority has spent all of our reserves.
If I am wrong can anyone tell us how much is in reserve right now. If it is more than $15K then we should have the fireworks show. Technically speaking, every dollar in reserves represents a dollar of overpayment of taxes and fees by the citizens and should be returned.
Oh yea, that’s right it cost 6 million for a toothbrush and a newspaper…give me a break!
More got done during the Parker/Driscoll council than ever got done in this town during previous councils.
Oh wait…I forgot Mr CPLA got us a Dennys. thank you so much for that, but where is it now??
When the residents pay taxes they like to see some bang for their buck. So what do we have to show for the last 50 years???
The ONLY thing this city has going for it is the school district and the police department. Get rid of any one of those two things and you’d be living in Cypress/HG and your house would be worth squat!!
I disagree with Art about reserves. I believe having reserves is a good thing. I would like to see us have about 1.5 years worth of operating budget as reserves. But that is just me and my progressive belief that having a rainy-day fund makes it possible to survive downturns, and there will always be downturns.
In order to “build” our “reserves” for many years the city councils didn’t “spend” when they should have spent. This lead to a need for a more costly “spending” down the road. A great example of that was keeping up with street maintenance. By putting off lower cost options, as time progressed we had to expend MORE to make repairs that would have cost far less if they had been done earlier.
And before we laud the school district too much, they too have had their fair share of bad decisions that have come to bite them on the ass. How much better would the district be if they had not self-insured? How much better would the district be if we had found some way to keep Performing Arts HS as part of the community?
Has the district done things right? Yes, otherwise we wouldn’t be the premier educational location in OC. But, they have made bad/costly decisions in the past, and I suspect they will do so in the future. My hope is that they don’t make errors that will have a detrimental effect on the quality of education, but there is no way to be assured that they won’t.
As to our police department. We have been very fortunate that we had a very capable person leading it for the last few years. He has done an excellent job in getting highly qualified officers with excellent skills in working with the community. His actions have shown that he believes he is dealing with lawful community that respects his department, and his department has shown respect for the community. We are lucky that Todd decided to take on the job as chief, and he has been a very good one (as he was also excellent in the position he held prior to taking on the job as chief).
If I were to take a look at what was accomplished FOR the city and it’s residents in the four years that Driscoll was on the Council and then look at the years before or after, it is quite clear that the progressive leadership she brought to the council was in part responsible for a city council that was responsive to the needs of the city. I don’t agree with everything that happened on that dais while she was there. From the decision to not follow procedure and grant Edgar a free ride instead of charging him the fees for his political stunt against Parker’s landlord, to the offensive plaque on the council chamber wall I do disagree with some of the decisions that that council participated in. But overall it was a good progressive council that did a great deal of good for the city. Moreso than the ten years before or the two years after.
LAUSD is far from perfect, but the data shows it’s the best in OC. If you want to live here everyone is the community needs to support the school district in any way they can.
Residents live here because of the school district. Even kids who went to school here and moved away for awhile come back because of the schools.
It was very disturbing to me during the last election, when some older long time members of the community and cronies of the Poe regime spoke against the measure for the school bond. They think because they are old and their kids are grown the schools don’t matter.
They are dead wrong. It’s not just for the property values. I’m not going to list the other reasons because if you are educated you know what the reasons are. If you are the older Poe cronies you are incapable of listening to reasons.
The one thing most supporters did agree on was Todd for the Chief. It was pretty amazing that people from both sides of the aisle were happy about that move. It was the best choice.
About the reserves…the word is “prudent” reserves. When Parker and Driscoll were on the council more than the recommended amount was in the reserves. If all of that money is not there then you should talk to Poe and Mr Balanced Budget Edgar about that.
If we have more than a “prudent” reserve then we are being robbed.
The question is what is a reserve and when should it be used? A “rainy day” what is that? A deficit? What is that?
In your own household, if you do not have any savings, do you ever operate with a deficit? The answer is no, unless you are writing bad checks. You cannot spend more than you take in.
In your household if you have savings do you ever operate with a defict. The answer better be occassionally or you will drain your savings and be back to writing bad checks or issuing IOUs as the state of CA does.
You and I generally spend within our income and if we are able to spend less, we are able to save. That savings is hopefully used for the rainy day emergency, the unexpected expense like a roof repair, major auto repair or even a planned expense in the future.
When the city talks of a deficit it is because they have failed to budget properly or failed to project accurately future income. When the economy is good the sales tax, propety tax, permits etc increase and if city spending has remained fairly constant you run a surplus and reserves grow.
With our present economy in the toilet, sales tax is down, property tax is down, permit fees are down yet spending remains fairly constant. The result, “deficit”.
There are only one action that can be taken to “reduce the deficit”… Reduce the spending.
The biggest expenses in the city are employee wages and benefits. Unlike the private sector, there is no incentive for the City Manager or Department heads to reduce employees or the employee expense.
In fact just the opposite is true. A city manager or department head’s ability to “move up’ to a larger city or department is enhanced when he can state, ” When I came to my current city I managed a budget of $5 Million and 20 employees. Now I am managing a budget of $10 million and 40 employees and that is why I am now qualified to manage this larger city or department”.
With high unemployment this is the perfect time to negotiate further reductions in wages to bring them closer in line to what is comparable in the private sector.
I forgot, there is a 2nd action to reduce the deficit.
Punish the people:
Save $15K by taking away the fireworks show that probably 80% of the citizens watch either from their homes or on the base.
Art,
in most cases the single largest “expense” people have is home ownership. In that case they have created a debt by purchasing an item of value for a fraction of the value and accepting debt financing for the balance.
In addition people routinely accept revolving debt (credit cards) that are not associated to assets, but are based on anticipated earnings to offset future debt obligations.
Thus saying that “we” operate like a city would be incorrect. Expecting a city to operate like “us” would be incorrect.
A better metaphor for a city is a business, rather than a personal perspective.
In a business you have known costs. Thus you have to establish the service levels to be absorbed by those costs. For instance, when discussing the fireworks and the general fund it was made clear that this years fireworks would have increased costs due to manpower and labor issues associated to the fireworks.
This information shows that the city can associate manpower and labor costs to a cost centre or line item.
If the city can do this we can see where revenue has to offset costs. So, an event has net costs that include things like labour, facilities, products, etc. In the case of the fireworks we can see that there were costs that could be trimmed, like they eliminated the grandstands last year and thus they were able to reduce costs associated to the event.
In much the same way they stated that the $15,000 in costs associated to the event were generated by the event being held on a non workday (I could have sworn that the Fourth of July was always a traditional non workday for city employees, but maybe we don’t give them the federal holiday when it falls on a weekday). As may be, the fact that they could assign costs to this line item for services provided by city employees means that there is a line item in events that details costs to be applied to the event by employees.
This brings us back to Poe’s party. If the event is revenue neutral then the event should not take any money from the general fund. Thus, all employees from the city that did work on that event should be line-item’d to that event. In that case the event organizers have a responsibility to offset the costs to the cities general fund for those employee hours. Especially since those employees were so exclusively working on the Poe Party event that there was no time from their “work hours” available for March 15th through March 29th for them to put any effort into looking for funding for the Fourth of July event (per Angie at the March 15th Council Meeting).
So, by computing the time worked by employees in support of Poe’s revenue neutral party and properly billing the organizers for the time of the city staff on that line item, I see no reason why the city should not recoup the general funds spent on those employees from the organizing group that operated Poe’s party in the spirit and the word to keep Poe’s party revenue neutral to the City of Los Alamitos.
To not recoup the costs for labour from the organizers means that the City Council didn’t keep their promise that Poe’s party would be a revenue neutral event, but in fact did spend quite a bit of General Funds money in support of Poe’s Party after clearly stating that the party would only be done if it was revenue neutral to the city.
You can not state that “labour costs” are a valid reason to cancel one event that was planned and has been going on for over 22 years, while at the same time not charging another event that was not supposed to receive any money from the general funds the costs for labour that was paid from the General Fund.
Do you really expect us to listen to the advice of Art Debolt and JM Ivler? They are both losers. Debolt because he couldn’t win re-election and Ivler beacause he couldn’t win an electoin.
Los Al Resident,
First, a positive comment: Thanks for using only “family friendly” language.
However, on the whole, your comment is an example of the sort of comment that I personally would rather not see here:
First, it is a personal attack rather than a discussion of issues.
Second, the language is incendiary rather than diplomatic.
Third, it is not a discussion of issues.
Forth, at least in regard to Mr. Ivlar, it is based on speculation, not fact.
Fifth, and possibly most importantly, your comment tends to divide and polarize rather than bring us together for the common good of Los Alamitos.
Unfortunately, much of the same could be said of other comments made here from time to time criticizing other individuals, ranging from current and past Council Members to people posting here.
Let’s all try to focus on issues and factual matters first and foremost, and to do so in a manner that promotes the common good. That is not to say there isn’t a place to criticize individuals. But it is to say the manner in which you approached such criticism in your above comment is not constructive to the community or even to your position.
Mr. or Ms. “Resident,” (and I believe you are not the only person posting here under that name), your viewpoint is valuable and is appreciated, whether I agree with it or not, but please try to adhere a little more closely to a constructive, diplomatic, issues-oriented approach in your postings. Of course, the same applies to all who post here, in my opinion.
But, as always, that’s just my opinion. And all opinions are welcome here, especially if they’re constructively and diplomatically expressed.
JM Ivler on March 15th, 2010 5:32 pm
To waste money on a 50th parade so Queen Poe can ride with her tiara and then to cut the fireworks that have been here for the last 15 years that I know of is this side well short of a full deck.
The above was posted by Ivler and sure sounds like a personal attack against Marilynn Poe. How come you don’t take Ivler to task? Oh yeah, I forgot. This is a website for all your friends to personally attack the ones they hate. And you try to pass the website off as a fair one. Goodbye.
Well,Los Al Resident, it appears that you hit the nail right on the head when it comes to judging the character of Dave Emerson.
Don’t you mean “Douche” ???
I love it when people pick one quote I made and use it to prove a point
JM is a peacemaker!
Hey, Los Al Resident you silly anon poster… I fail to see any post above where YOU try to get everyone to focus on the issues.
Oh that’s right, anon flame throwing is a good thing. Posting with your name is not. And attacking posters who use their names while you’re an anon poster is the height of being a responsible citizen in the community in your very limited view. In my opinion I think it would be filed under “is this side well short of a full deck”.