Highlights of the Meeting:
Retiring Port Commissioner Lou Smith honored; New Port Commissioner Garry Bonelli sworn in.
Council selected the Cays Entrance Safety Redesign Elements proposed by City consultant Psomas and approved starting the CEQA review. The preferred elements include lower entrance walls, guard kiosk relocation and “bicycle circles” on Bayshore Bikeway near the entrance.
Report on the free summer shuttle bus service showed a 500% increase in ridership at a cost of $64,000.
Bike corrals to be continued in 7 of the 8 locations (1st Street location to be eliminated) at least temporarily and Council authorized development of a comprehensive City-wide bike parking plan.
The Mayor reported on a recent School Board meeting at which the need to either make big budget cuts or raise revenue was discussed.
Port Commissioners
The meeting started with the Council honoring retiring Port Commissioner Lou Smith who was presented with a key to the City, followed by the swearing in of New Port Commissioner Gary Bonelli. Both are retired Admirals in what appears to be a long Coronado Port Commissioner tradition.
Outgoing Port Commissioner Lou Smith also presented a report on recent Port activities including Phase 1 of the new Port Master Plan process. Although several meetings have been held to elicit public input, none were held in Coronado. Commissioner Smith said that future public outreach meetings would include a meeting in Coronado.
Consent Calendar
This was an unusually short meeting and a good bit of the Council’s business was done by approval of the Consent Calendar which means that there is a such a consensus among the Council members that there is no need for a presentation or discussion.
The Consent Calendar included the second reading of the ordinance to change the rules for the Audit Committee to no longer require Audit Committee pre-approval of all City bills and to remove the requirement that the Audit Committee be comprised of the two most junior members of the Council. It also included renewal of a contract with the Sacramento lobbying firm used by the City. (Council Member Denny voted against these two elements of the consent calendar.)
Cays Entrance Redesign
Surprisingly, the Council agreed to add the Cays Entrance Redesign Elements to the Consent Calendar so there was no discussion except by one Cays homeowner who felt that the recommendations did not deal with the signage and safety issues and indicated that Cays homeowners want to be involved in the Cays entrance redesign; however, she did not ask that the item be removed from the consent calendar so it was approved without further discussion.
There had been a lengthy series of workshop meetings with Cays homeowners over a period of almost a year to explore a great variety of possible redesign elements to reduce the safety issues of possible bike/car collisions. Many controversial solutions were considered. As a result of this detailed exploration of alternatives, the Cays HOA was satisfied with preferred solutions endorsed by the Council which are designed to improve visibility and slow down bikes approaching the Cays entrance. For those who are curious, “bike circles” are described in the report as miniature bike roundabouts.
Report by Airport Authority Representative
Former Coronado Mayor and current Airport Authority Representative Tom Smisek gave a “state of the airport” report, including the opening of the newly redesigned Terminal 2, on time and $45M under budget. The Airport Authority is now turning its attention to putting in a rental car facility on the North side of the airport which will be reached by a circular access road. The Airport Authority is also exploring putting in a new high end restaurant on the top of the Airport Terminal which would be designed to attract the general public, not just travelers. Also on the drawing board is a redesign of Terminal 1 and the possibility of folding the Commuter Terminal into it.
City Manager Report
City Manager Blair King reviewed the many accomplishments of the Council over the past year – too many to list here – and Mayor Tanaka said most of the credit belonged to City Staff.
Golf Course Fees
City Staffer Roger Miller, Director of Golf Course Services, presented a report on a thorough review of golf course fees and a presentation of a proposed new and exceedingly complicated fee structure which involves slightly higher fees which were approved by the Council. The golf course is treated as a City “enterprise fund” and it is supposed to charge fees adequate to cover ongoing expenses. With golf course maintenance costs projected to increase by about 4% a year, it was necessary to review and increase fees for 2014 and again in 2017. The new rate structure is too complex to describe here and involves many types of discounts, but the big news is that for the first time there will be a special discounted rate for Coronado residents. This is a big deal because until now the Port Authority has never permitted Coronado to offer discounts for Coronado residents. The Mayor acknowledged the hard work by outgoing Port Commissioner Lou Smith in making this possible.
It was also brought up by Council Member Denny that the Air and Sea golf Course had water expenses that were less than half of Coronado’s golf course. Staff was asked to look into this.
Free Summer Shuttle Bus
Assistant City Manager Tom Ritter presented a report on the Free Shuttle Bus Service offered on a trial basis during the summer at a cost of $64,000. The purpose was to try to reduce cars trips on City streets. Mr Ritter reported that the shuttle was very popular and well used by both tourists (58%) and residents (37%) and surveys showed that while 34% said they would continue to use the shuttle only if it were free, 66% said they would be willing to pay something for the service. Cays residents would have liked the shuttle bus to serve the Cays but the costs of including the Cays might be prohibitive. The Council seemed amenable to considering some type of shuttle bus service next summer.
Bicycle Corral Trial
The Staff reported on the success or lack thereof of the bike corrals which had been installed at 8 locations along Orange Avenue. Some locations were barely used (especially at 1st Street) and other were well used (especially at 10th Street.) City Staff recommended that only 4 corrals be kept and the 1st Street location be relocated to mid-block on a trial basis. However, the Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) made a competing recommendation to preserve 7 corral locations, to create custom designed, permanently mounted corrals at these locations, and to identify additional locations for future bike corrals.
Rita Sarich, speaking for Coronado Main Street, said that bike parking should be relocated to sidewalks and that the same procedures used for selecting street furniture should be applied to designing bike parking structures. She stressed the need for a careful design process involving local businesses.
Another commenter expressed the view that it would be safer to put the corrals on the side streets rather than Orange Avenue.
In the Council discussion that followed, both the Mayor and Council Member Woiwode expressed support for the BAC recommendation. The Mayor stated that he was not interested in seeing bicycle parking on the sidewalks. Mr. Woiwode wanted to see a camera surveillance system set up to monitor the corrals. Mr. Ovrom expressed concern that the City had not involved the stakeholders and suggested that the local businesses might come up with better locations as they know their locations better than the City. Mr. Bailey was not convinced that the corrals were working and he wanted to consider some sidewalk corrals. Ms. Denny said corrals in the street are not safe. She wanted to explore alternatives used in other cities but she was willing to support the consensus of the Council.
Ultimately, Mr. Bailey made a motion to follow the recommendation of the BAC to continue corrals at 7 locations but to do so on a temporary basis and also to develop a comprehensive City-wide bike parking plan which would include sidewalk parking. Mr Woiwode said he wanted to have stakeholder input on what the permanent corrals would look like and the Mayor said he understood that the motion included that notion. Mr. Bailey did not dispute this and the Council unanimously voted to support the motion. While it sounded like the intent of Mr. Bailey’s motion was that the corrals should be temporary, his motion was apparently subsequently re-interpreted to include the concept of permanent design standards prior to the vote–a bit confusing.
School Board Meeting
The Mayor reported that he had attended the recent School Board meeting at which the School Superintendent had reported that the new State standards for allocating school funding were working to the disadvantage of Coronado’s schools which are receiving less per pupil than San Diego schools. The Mayor did not go into detail but he said that Coronado Schools will need to either make big cuts in expenses or will need to raise revenue. Obviously, this issue bears close watching.
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