SH City Council, staff honor retiring city manager's 19 years of service

Sarah George:
Contributing Writer
No one knows how to take a meeting better than Signal Hill’s retiring city manager, Ken Farfsing.
In 19 years, he has been in more than 450 city council meetings and tens of thousands of hours in meetings outside the council chambers.

“There are times when a city manager is more than an eight-hour job,” said retiring City Manager Ken Farfsing. “You’re basically on call 24 hours, seven days a week.”
Farfsing attended his last city council meeting in an official capacity on Tuesday, June 16. Deputy City Manager Charlie Honeycutt will take over Farfsing’s position on July 1.
The council and other public officials took the time to honor Farfsing for his service to the city. Presenting plaques to Farfsing were: a representative from 70th District Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell’s office, Terry Rogers, president of the Signal Hill Chamber of Commerce; Chief of Police Michael Langston; and Suely Soro, a staff member from state Senator Ricardo Lara’s office. After the presentations, each councilmember praised Farfsing for his dedication.
“Ken successfully lead the city in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” said Mayor Larry Forester.
“He has the ability to get cities to work together when half of the time they didn’t even know they had a problem,” Councilmember
Michael Noll said. “Ken has worked with them, and he has received praise all over California, not just Signal Hill.”
Mayor Larry Forester and Director of Finance Terri Marsh also introduced the finance department’s new account specialist Wendy Kelley to the public.
“Wendy is a great addition to the finance department and the city of Signal Hill,” Forester said. “I want to welcome Wendy to the city of Signal Hill. She will be doing the water department billing.”
Biennial budget
The Council’s approval of the operating and capital budget for 2015-2016 is expected to have a potential surplus of $39,968. According to the City’s website, spendable surpluses are used for an unassigned fund balance to use toward other reserves. Some of Signal Hill’s reserves are allocated to capital improvements, library and park expansion. Both the operating and capital budgets were viewed by the council at a budget workshop on May 26 and were approved at the June 2 council meeting.

Farfsing began the budget discussion by telling the councilmembers that the first-year budget had $1.9 million in revenues over expenditures. He said the surplus is due to departments coming in under budget and the City gaining revenue from the improving economy. He explained that departments such as police, finance and public works are also working understaffed. Farfsing also said the city’s revenue has grown because of the Office Depot and Office Max merger. In earlier city agreements, a sales-tax agreement was made with Office Depot and the City to keep the sales tax at $2 million. With the loss of the sales tax, the city services’s budget would have been cut by 20 percent. Eight out of the nine revenues, Farfsing said, will experience growth from last year’s estimate in the upcoming budget.
“I would characterize the second-year budget as some really fine-tuning since the Council reviewed the budget in detail last year and a workshop took place last month,” he said.
Marsh then presented a slideshow. She discussed the coming year’s budget of 2015 to 2016 and said it will have a revenue total of $21,122,421.
Marsh also presented the upcoming projects for the city. Next year, the City plans to implement smart water meters, purchase new equipment at the playground at Discovery Well Park and replace two police vehicles. Future projects include water conservation, a Well 9 Advance Water Treatment Plant and the implementation of a new library and dog park.
To conclude the budget discussion, Forester asked Marsh if they could replace the current library’s carpet to make it more presentable until the new library is completed. He also said new computers would make it more inviting. Marsh assured the mayor that the upcoming budget would allow for new library computers and they will look into replacing the carpet.
City manager employment agreement
On April 21, the Council instructed the city attorney’s office to draft an employment agreement for Charlie Honeycutt as the new city manager. The employment agreement was presented at Tuesday’s meeting. Farfsing said the contract is very similar to his own but there are some differences.
Honeycutt will take a car allowance instead of being provided a city vehicle, and the City will not pick up his Social Security and Medicare payments. Honeycutt also will participate in the vacation buy-back program to reduce accrued vacation hours as required by the agreement. The hours will be paid at the current deputy city manager’s pay rate.
“There isn’t a person in this room who is more relieved and pleased to pass the baton to Charlie than I am,” Farfsing said.
Green City Report
On Nov. 16, 2012, the council approved the Green City Report and requested that the Sustainable City Committee continue their efforts in promoting the City’s sustainable efforts and address environmental issues. The 2014 progress report was presented to the council at its last meeting. Eight local goals were achieved in 2012. The goals were met again last year in the areas of renewable energy, green building, urban planning, green access, tree canopy, water conservation, water source protection and waste-water reduction.
Extension of contract services
ValleyCrest has provided citywide landscape maintenance services since 2003. A fourth extension of its services was approved in 2013 and is set to expire on June 30. Public works is satisfied by its performance and would like them to continue. The staff is recommending