Signal Hill City Council fills three commission seats

At its June 13 meeting, the Signal Hill City Council filled three commission seats that had been vacant for a year. It also approved several other items, including extending Signal Hill Petroleum’s conditional-use permit for seven oil drill sites by one year, increasing EDCO’s waste-disposal fee, hiring a new auditing firm and extending service agreements that help children’s hospitals and provide food to seniors.
Commissioner appointments
To fill three vacant commission seats– two on the Civil Service Commission and one on the Parks and Recreation Commission– the council interviewed applicants and made appointments accordingly.
For the Civil Service Commission, the council unanimously chose to reappoint Paul Patterson and Steve Strichart– both of whom had been serving on that commission for one year past their previous terms’ expirations– and also appointed Tim Anhorn to the Parks and Recreations Commission.
These commission appointments are for three years until May 31, 2021, since a year has already elapsed during which the seats were vacant.
As previously reported in the Signal Tribune, the council had voted to postpone filling these seats last year due to disagreement over how to make the appointments. Then-mayor Edward Wilson had wanted to follow the appointment method laid out in the city charter, which authorizes the mayor to nominate candidates for council approval and, if he chooses, allow no other members to nominate.
Though Wilson had nominated enough commissioners to fill seats on the commissions that had openings, the council did not approve all of them, leaving vacancies for which Wilson did not make further nominations.
Wilson stated that he knew, according to the city charter, that existing commissioners have to continue serving until they are replaced, and his choice not to continue nominating candidates would therefore not cause the commissions to become inoperable.
At the time, however, Wilson’s method drew vehement reaction from council members and some members of the public.
“It was one of the most unfair procedures I’ve ever seen in my 20 years on council,” said Councilmember Larry Forester at last year’s meeting, noting that in the past, all council members were allowed to nominate candidates, even if that procedure is not specified in the charter.
The council ultimately decided to postpone further appointments until a new mayor was rotated in and the method could be changed. In the meantime, both Patterson and Strichart were asked to continue serving on the Civil Service Commission to ensure it would operate effectively.
Gary Dudley had been serving on the Parks and Recreation Commission but retired in December 2017 “in protest to the city council’s refusal to censure Mayor Wilson’s involvement in alleged domestic-violence abuse,” he wrote in a letter to the Signal Tribune. (Long Beach police have since dropped those allegations.)
Mayor Tina Hansen announced at this year’s meeting that all council members, rotating in alphabetical order, would have the opportunity to nominate candidates after their interviews, and if a candidate did not receive the necessary votes, members could nominate additional candidates.
The council interviewed four applicants for the Civil Service Commission– Kia Gaines, Lisa Huang, Paul Patterson and Steve Strichart (by phone)– before unanimously appointing the latter two.
“Being a part of that due process, where each of our employees, if they need to file a grievance with the City, […] we can […] listen to both sides of the argument and make a recommendation to the city council,” Patterson said during his interview. “This past year, I’ve served as chair, and it’s been a great responsibility.”
Wilson commended Patterson for his response to the events of last year’s commission appointments and the council asking him to continue to serve in the interim.
“You weren’t emotional; you didn’t threaten to resign,” Wilson told Patterson. “You took it as an opportunity to continue to the serve the city, wholeheartedly, with enthusiasm. […] You didn’t take it personally, and I appreciate that.”
The council interviewed Strichart by phone since he was bedridden following surgery. Strichart emphasized his experience of having served on the commission for 20 years, as well as his previous experience in law enforcement since there are several cases that come before the commission involving police officers.
“I am the senior commissioner,” he said. “We do have a couple of fairly young, new commissioners and one very new commissioner, so when it comes to experience and hearings, sometimes during deliberations they look to me for guidance.”
During that interview, Wilson jokingly asked Strichart whether he was glad Wilson didn’t accept his resignation during commissioner appointments last year.
“Yes, I am. It was an impulse type of thing,” he said of his response during last year’s meeting. “I was extremely happy the next day when I was told that you were not accepting my resignation and I would continue [on the commission] for the following year.”
After making the Civil Service Commission appointments, the council interviewed three candidates for the Parks and Recreation Commission– Anhorn, Huang and Pamela Dutch Hughes (who serves on the Sustainable Cities Committee)– before appointing Anhorn.
Anhorn expressed particular interest during his interview in making the city more walker-friendly.
“I know we’ve been working on making it more bike-friendly, but how can we also make it more walkable?” he asked. “We live in a small city of 11,000 people. If we’re going to be developing a downtown idea, like Signal Hill Petroleum wants to do, I think making it more walkable for people to get around and leave our cars at home is a great idea.”
Anhorn’s appointment, however, was not unanimous and depended on Hansen’s third vote.
“I’m really torn,” she said before deciding on Anhorn over Hughes, the other candidate she nominated. “I like having male and female members on all the commissions, if it works out that way. Right now, we have four female members on Parks and Rec and no male members.”
At the end of the meeting, Wilson commented on commission appointment methods and how council members should not take personally what is in the city charter.
“Our charter says that the mayor nominates, as I said at that time, and I said it prior to the meeting, and it was in the agenda the meeting before,” he said. “Unfortunately, not everyone reads their agenda package, […] and so I did apologize for that. [For] this meeting and this process, it was, as in all prior commission appointments, directed by how the mayor chooses to run it. […] I was looking to use the charter, [but] people took it personally and were emotional about it. […] It’s not a slight on you as an individual not to be able to nominate because that’s not the way the charter reads.”
He also called attention to how applicants were able to apply this year to multiple commissions, which he had favored last year but the council vetoed.
“I am very happy to see that, at least in this round, people that wanted to apply to different commissions were able to do so,” he said. “You took that away from the people applying [last year] and that should never happen.”
CUP extension
Following a public hearing, the council adopted a resolution approving a one-year extension to Signal Hill Petroleum’s (SHP) conditional-use permit (CUP) covering seven existing drilling sites and allowing storage, processing and transport of products. SHP has asked for this extension while it negotiates with the City in preparation for a long-term extension.
Community Development Director Scott Charney explained that the council has approved six CUP extensions since 1997, but council members and a member of the public expressed concern about the continuing short-term extensions.
Charney said that this current extension allows time to continue negotiating with SHP on its Heritage Square retail-and-residential development project, which fits the City’s vision of a central business district, to know if an economic-development type of model will work between the two entities. This will determine how to proceed with a necessary CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) documentation update.
“The ultimate constraint to the reason why we’ve been doing the short-term extensions is that if we’re going to retain the CUP model, the environmental document (CEQA) that was prepared for the original approval is outdated,” he said. “And so we would need to either use one document to cover the economic-development concept and [the CEQA document] or separate it and do essentially an entirely new CEQA document for CUP operations.”
Charney added that both parties would like a long-term commitment but need more time to see what that would look like, using the Heritage Square project as a basis.
“The template here is to demonstrate why the development-agreement concept is beneficial to both parties,” he said. “The expectation is that, if through the ENA (exclusive negotiation agreement), we have […] a development agreement, we would then have the template to do a broader, master-development agreement that would give them the opportunity to expand their oil operations in a way that they couldn’t currently with the CUP model.”
Charney said that, in the meantime, the City has already started the CEQA document update process.
“Some of the reports that are important for the initial outreach effort, like the traffic study, are already underway and nearing completion,” he said.
Auditor contract
The council approved a three-year contract-services agreement with White Nelson Diehl Evans, LLP for auditing the City’s finances, in the amount of $107,500. The City’s best practices dictate that it should rotate auditors every three to five years.
Wilson, who was on the selection committee, praised the company’s work ethic.
“They are committed to timely financials,” he said. “To make good decisions, you have to have timely information.”
EDCO rates
The council also adopted a resolution approving a solid-waste-collection rate adjustment for Signal Hill Waste and Recycling Services, or EDCO, for the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
The City’s 15-year contract with EDCO extends to 2024 and includes increases based on the consumer-price index (CPI).
City staff stated that the current increase would amount to 68 cents per residential home, with the overall rate still low compared to other nearby cities.
Charitable agreements
The council also authorized one-year agreements with two area hospitals and the Signal Hill Rotary Club to provide services to those in need.
The agreement with Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital and the Children’s Clinic, each for $5,000, will allow the City to continue to provide supplemental funding for underinsured children of low-income Signal Hill families to give them access to health care and hospitalization, as it has since 2004.
The council also authorized renewing an agreement with the Signal Hill Rotary Club to assist in the City’s Brown Bag Food Distribution Program to home-bound seniors.
“When we do deliver to people who are unable to get out of their house, it’s actually very fulfilling,” said incoming Rotary Club president Tom Benson.
Presentations
The council heard presentations on the new library and citrus-tree infections.
Public Works Director Kelli Tunnicliff shared a video of library construction in the past month, which mostly centered on erecting steel and pouring concrete. It is still scheduled for completion by March 2019.
Aly Mancini, community services director, shared a seven-minute video for the library’s capital campaign, through which it hopes to raise up to $1,000,000 for future library projects.
Having heard their presentation at a regional government meeting, Wilson had invited Paul Worlie, representing the Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Program, and Ken Pellman, public information officer for the County Agricultural Commission/Weights and Measures, presented about a disease killing citrus trees.
The representatives said that the disease, called Huanglongbing, doesn’t harm humans but is a bacterial infection that harms citrus trees and is carried by a foreign pest called the Asian citrus psyllid, which is only one-eighth of an inch long. So far, over 500 trees in Southern California have been reported as infected.
They added that Florida has been impacted even more severely, creating a $3.3-billion loss in that state because its orange crop has been compromised.
The representatives advised residents to inspect their trees and remove any on which psyllids are found and to cooperate with inspection officials.
Residents can also call the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) hotline at (800) 491-1899 with any concerns or visit its website at CDFA.CA.gov/plant.acp.
The next Signal Hill City Council meeting will take place Tuesday, June 26, at 7pm in the council chamber at 2175 Cherry Ave.