At the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Larry Forester excused himself from the council dais and asked Vice Mayor Lori Woods to officiate so that he could speak as a citizen. Forester then approached the public podium and spoke about the loss of Ward, who had received much recognition for her work in the LGBTQ community and served as councilmember and mayor for the City of Signal Hill.
Ward died in her home on Tuesday, Aug. 11 at the age of 78. She was the first openly gay woman to serve on the Signal Hill City Council, after having served as a member of the Parks & Recreation and Civil Service commissions. Ward was elected to the Signal Hill City Council in 2001 and served through 2013. She served two terms as mayor, from March 2004 to March 2005 and from March 2009 to March 2010.
“I want to speak as a citizen of Signal Hill, as a member of the LGBTQ community, and as somebody that has the highest respect for a person by the name of Ellen Ward,” Forester said. “I really want to thank this city for your honors to her during this trying time last week when she died.”
Forester thanked several City employees for their contributions to Ward’s memorial the week before.
Rooftop solar systems
During a public-hearing portion of the meeting, the council discussed adopting an ordinance to expedite permitting procedures for small residential rooftop solar systems, in response to the Solar Rights Act, under which cities and counties must enact an ordinance that creates a streamlined permitting process for those solar-energy systems by Sept. 30, 2015.
The law also requires California cities and counties to substantially harmonize their processes so that they are consistent with recommendations in the current version of the State’s Solar Permitting Guidebook.
In his report to the council, Community Development Director Scott Charney said that, under the State mandate, only projects that are under 10 kilowatts (KW) in size would qualify.
“Larger projects are allowed,” Charney said. “They just don’t qualify for fast-tracking. We have prepared an ordinance using the State’s model ordinance for your consideration tonight.”
Charney explained that the overriding goal is to lower costs and expand solar share of the State’s energy portfolio.
“The most common question we get on the subject is, ‘How big is a small system?'” Charney said. “To qualify, a system must be under 10KW, but most people aren’t familiar enough with solar to really understand or visualize what that kind of system is. To help with that question, we need to remember there’s a variety of things to take into consideration, but, ultimately, a project of that size could consist of 40 rooftop panels and cover up to 50 percent of the roof area.”
He also noted that the output of a system is also a variable, but, in theory, it can be designed to provide the daily energy needs of a household operation, exporting energy during the daytime and importing at night.
“In a typical system, to provide for daytime use, you end up selling back the energy to [Southern California] Edison, and, at night time, because they don’t include a battery system, you’d be relying on the grid.”
Vice Mayor Woods asked Charney about assuredness regarding quality of solar-systems products and installations.
“That actually was the historic concern,” Charney said. “There were a lot of variances in those types of concerns, but the industry is fairly standardized, and the reality is we’ve been implementing the provisions of this code by policy for the last six months and haven’t encountered any problems.”
Councilmember Edward Wilson motioned to adopt the ordinance, and Councilmember Michael Noll seconded it. All four councilmem- bers who were present voted in favor of adopting it. (Councilmember Tina Hansen was absent.)
Audit report
As an effort in keeping with best practices concerning municipal transparency, City Manager Charlie Honeycutt presented the Auditor’s Management Report and Communication Letter regarding the audit of Fiscal Year 2013-2014.
“Back in 2012, the Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury conducted a review of 23 charter cities in Los Angeles County, and the purpose of that review was to address the relative financial health and practices of the charter cities,” Honeycutt said. “Signal Hill was determined by the grand jury to be in the top 10 of cities in excellent financial health and received a 94-percent positive response to following best financial practices.”
The city manager noted that one of the recommendations the grand jury made was that cities should undertake a full-scale competitive process every five years for the selection of an independent external auditor. Honeycutt said that, thereafter, the City’s Auditor Selection Committee chose Moss, Levy & Hartzheim, a Santa Maria certified public accoun- tants firm. Honeycutt said the firm conducted an independent audit of the City’s Fiscal Year 2013-14 financial statements and RDA Successor Agency, and it issued an unqualified opinion considered the highest rating.
In addition to the audit, the firm conducted an evaluation of the Successor Agency’s accounting and internal-control system.
“The auditor has prepared a series of recommendations that are welcome by staff and will help us identify areas that can be improved,” Honeycutt said.
Signal Hill Finance Director Terri Marsh presented the auditor’s recommendations and reviewed the actions that City staff had already taken or are planning to take on two documents: the auditor’s communication with those charged with governance and the auditor’s report on internal controls.
“Those two documents are usually considered in the finance profession to be in-house guidance for council and for the departments, but, in the interest of financial transparencies, they are being brought forward in a public meeting where the council and the public can examine them and ask questions about them,” Marsh said.
She explained that the eight topics on which the auditor commented were not findings or discovered deeds of misconduct, but merely suggestions to City staff to improve as an organization. Marsh said City staff have taken all of the topics under advisement and will be implementing them.
Of the eight areas, two emerged as the most prevalent: filling all open mid-level management positions; and updating, rewriting or creating new policies and procedures. Marsh said these two concerns are common areas for improvement in many cities, and she discussed the ways that the City of Signal has indeed addressed them.
OPEB
Six years ago, the City established the Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) Trust to safeguard and invest those assets. An OPEB Trust investment policy statement was also developed to guide investment decisions. At Tuesday’s meeting, the city council discussed adopting a resolution that would revise and update the policy statement as outlined in a June 15, 2015 memorandum from Public Financial Management Asset Management LLC.
Carlos Oblites of the asset-management company presented the proposed investment policy revisions and provided an update on the performance of the trust fund. Oblites said the main purposes of the updates are to: categorize existing asset classes into three broad asset types; expand some of the ranges allowed for certain asset classes to provide more flexibility to diversify the portfolio; and include some alternative investment classes that are not correlated to traditional investments to provide further diversification for the portfolio.
“In general, these changes and updates are following current industry standards that we observe in multi-asset-class investments,” Oblites said, adding that his firm proposed reclassifying investment classes into either a growth, income or real-return investment.
After further discussion, Councilmember Michael Noll made a motion to adopt the resolution, Woods seconded it, and all four councilmembers in attendance voted to adopt it.
Transportation infrastructure
In response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s call for an extraordinary session to address the underfunding of the state’s transportation infrastructure, the Fix Our Roads Coalition has developed a set of funding priorities. The city council adopted a resolution urging Brown and the State Legislature to provide new sustainable funding for state and local transportation infrastructure.
Storm-drain catch basin cleaning
The city council authorized Honeycutt to extend the City’s existing contract services agreement with Ron’s Maintenance, Inc. for catch-basin cleaning services, for an extension of three years.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”300px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2015-08-21-at-10.42.33-AM.png” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”During the Aug. 18 Signal Hill City Council meeting, Suely Saro (far right), field representative for State Senator Ricardo Lara, introduces high-school students Saumyah Bedford and Kyle Thurmond, who are participating in the 33rd Senate District Young Senators Program. The students gave a presentation on their experiences in the program.” captionposition=”center”]The next Signal Hill City Council meeting will take place Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 7pm in the council chamber of City Hall, 2175 Cherry Ave.
