The Los Angeles Civil Grand Jury Investigative Committee conducted a report called “Appointed Commissions: Transparency will maintain the public trust.” According to City Manager Charlie Honeycutt, the report was partially based on a series of questions sent via email to city managers in December 2015.
The investigation was prompted following a scandal in the City of Compton. City officials there who were appointed as commission members received unreasonable compensation raises, according to Honeycutt.
The committee examined 88 city websites for information regarding each commission’s membership, mission statement and compensation.
According to the staff report, Signal Hill’s government website was judged “satisfactory.”
“The recommendations made by the civil grand jury were not extensive,” Honeycutt said. “They were pretty simple enough for us to make the modifications to our website. The civil grand jury was just responding to the way a couple bad-apple city leaders had conducted business. They want to make sure that cities are not hiding anything.”
Adjusting compensation
City councilmembers read and adopted ordinance No. 2016-07-1489, which adjusted the compensation for both the city clerk and city treasurer positions from $300 a month to $405 a month. The ordinance is not active until after the March 2017 elections.
Brewery
Zoning ordinance No. 2016-07-1490 was also adopted. The ordinance allows alcoholic beverage manufacturing with or without tasting rooms in all of the industrial zoning districts.
Daniel Sundstrom, owner of Ten Mile Brewing Co., said he was happy with the city council’s decision.
“The council has been very supportive,” Sundstrom said. “We like the smaller-town feel in Signal Hill. We didn’t want to deal with big-city government like Long Beach’s.”
Presentations
Mayor Lori Woods presented Administrative Services Officer/Finance Director Terri Marsh a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting in recognition of the City Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into the annual financial statements,” Marsh said. “It takes a team, and I want to publicly thank my team for helping. No leader stands alone without the people that are behind him.”
The next Signal Hill City Council meeting will take place Tuesday, Aug. 9 at 7pm in council chambers, 2175 Cherry Ave.
