It promises to be a busy afternoon at city hall next Tuesday. The council will discuss two controversial issues reconsideration of feasibility study for a multi-use path along Ocean Blvd and a report on how other cities fund community organizations. It will consider a councilman’s request to revisit two other controversial issues. There are also a couple of items of interest on the consent calendar.
Ocean Blvd Pathway
The council will vote on whether to proceed with a $100 thousand feasibility study for a multi-use path along Ocean Blvd from Naval Air Station North Island to the Paseo at the Hotel del Coronado. The city has already spent $6 thousand of the money allocated in June.
Not since the tunnel has an issue so galvanized residents. Dueling petitions supporting and opposing the concept have been circulated. Yard signs have sprung up across the island. Over 100 people showed up at the council’s August 18 meeting to encourage the council to bring back the issue for further discussion. Most at the meetings wanted the “bike path” as it had come to be known axed.
The idea was to build a “recreational facility that would improve beach access for the ADA community, joggers, pedestrians, and bicyclists of all types.” The feasibility study was intended to “examine the environmental, constructability, land use, recreational, and safety issues ” not a bike path per say.
The study was to be the first step in a long process that could well involve environmental review from other agencies, such as the Coastal Commission or Fish and Wildlife. Besides voting to continue on with the original feasibility study, the city council also has the option to modify its original vote by setting aside less money and evaluating a small project.
Community Grants
The decades old practice of giving stipends to various community organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce, The Fourth July Committee and Camp Able came up at the May 19th city council meeting. Questions were raised about the amount of money given, what the money could be used for, and the criteria for selecting which organizations to fund.
Councilman Richard Bailey questioned if the city were being too generous in it’s funding and asked the staff to prepare a report on how other cities distribute community grants. The council will discuss the report and vote on whether or not to accept it.
The city staff tried to get a handle on the way municipalities use discretionary general funds to support local groups by surveying all cities in San Diego County and 20 outside the county.
It discovered that there was no simple answer to the council’s request. “Many cities provide support in non-conventional ways that are hard to categorize [and] very few cities provide any guiding polices or procedures,” the staff reported.
Call to revisit other issues
After playing a major role the council decision to reconsider funding a feasibility study for a multi-use path along Ocean Blvd, (both he and Councilwoman Carrie Downey asked that the item be agenized) Bailey is not asking the council to consider reevaluating the entire Bicycle Master Plan (BMP).
In his letter to the city council he argued that, “the city council has been consistently inconsistent with the implementation of items contained with in the (BMP).” He acknowledge that while the BMP was “subject to public review and comment,” but that the opposition that has developed around each project suggest that public “did not adequately review the document” when it was adopted in 2011.”
He also requested that council consider uninstalling signs that are not “legally required” and that “create visual clutter and detract from our neighborhoods.”
As was the case with Downey’s and Bailey’s request to reconsider the multi-use path at the August 18 meeting, The council will voting onTuesday’s only to put the issues on September 15 meeting agenda. It will not vote on whether to adopt or reject Bailey’s suggestions until its next meeting.
Consent Calendar
Besides these high profile issues slated for full discussion, there are two items of note on the consent calendar.
There is a request to spend $150 thousand to replace the turf in Cay’s medians with drought tolerant plants, such as blue fescue, lavender and lantana. The cost would be offset by a $36 thousand rebate from California American Water.
The project to replace the grass complies with an executive order Governor Jerry Brown issued in April that bans watering grass in public street medians. Those along Orange Avenue were exempt from the order because City Manger Blair King persuaded state officials that these were parks where people often sat or strolled, not medians.
Coronado Cays Homeowners Association General Manager Nick Arther wrote a letter in support of the project. In it he thanked the King for “mitigating this issue well before we have to deal with unsightly landscaping.”
With its 25-year franchise agreement with Time Warner about the expire in November, the city plans to hire a public communication company to operate its cable television station (Time Warner Channel 19 and AT&T) 24 hours a day with a variety of public interest programs.
In addition to city council, planning commission and school board meetings already broadcasted, the city hopes to offer public service announcements, a comprehensive city bulleting board and original programs.
The city council meeting will be held at the council chambers,1825 Strand Way at 4pm on Tuesday, September 1.
