Topping this week’s city council agenda are two items postponed from earlier meetings, one involves parking in the alley behind the post office, the other public memorials.
On Tuesday, January 19, the city council will vote whether or not to keep parking configuration in the alley adjacent to the El Cordova Hotel and Oxford Park Complex located next to the post office. The Brigantine, Miguel’s Cocina, the Emerald C Galley, the La Avenida Inn and several retail shops are also adjacent to the alley.
A little over a year ago the Oxford Complex Homeowners Association complained that delivery trucks were blocking access to many residents’ garages and forcing them to park on the street.
“Dozens of trucks (from vans to 10,000 food and beer trucks) park at the walkway area and routinely block the first three garages,” Tina Pivonka, vice president of the homeowners association said in letter to Fire Chief Mike Blood in March of 2014.
In the same letter she also pointed out that “many times, the trucks (large and small) double park and block the entire alley,” restricting access to emergency vehicles.
The city was asked to paint a fire line in the alley to help improve access.
Instead, the city council approved a staff recommendation to relocate the loading zones to areas adjacent to the drive aisles at the end of the alley and away from the garages and install “Keep Clear” pavement legends next to each loading zone.
For the past 12 months staff has been monitoring the new configuration and has deemed it a success. According to the report, there have only been a few access-related complainst: three about truck noise, three about deliveries before 7 am, and five about illegally parked trucks blocking the alley.
After the new configuration was installed, city staff visited the alley on several occasions, especially in the early morning when deliveries are commonly made. They also monitored a previous loading zone at the north end of the alley near B Street. During these visits the staff “never encountered a situation where access though the alley was blocked,” the report said.
To confirm their observations, staff tested access in and out of the alley with a truck parked in the loading zone. The report did note that leaving the alley was more difficult than entering, requiring in some cases a three-point turn.
In an agenda item continued from January 5, the council will discuss establishing a formal infrastructure memorial/recognition program. The Department of Public Services began one some years back. It allowed people to donate trees, park benches, picnic tables and plaques, without clear guidelines from the city council.
That program has now yielded 100 memorial benches, four picnic benches, a number of trees and plaques around the city, including one memorializing a couple’s first meeting. Not all of the memorials are known to the city. Some have been mapped. Others have not. There are also a number of rooms in public buildings that people assume they have naming rights to because of a donation that they made to a particular program. There is no official donation requirement. Some donations don’t cover the cost of installation; for example, recently the city received $3,000 for a bench that cost $4,000 to install.
To bring some order and clarity to the process, the staff has asked the city council to decide if it wants to continue the program; and if so, to articulate more coherent guidelines such as how much has to be donated before naming rights are granted, and if the memorial will continue in perpetuity or will sunset at some point.
In a related issue the council has been asked to approve donation levels for a memorial wall on the John D. Spreckels Center, formally known as the Senior Activity Center. The levels range from $2,500 to $50,000.
The council will vote on a proposed ordinance to amend the city’s storm water and urban management to comply with changes in the Regional Quality Control Board’s pollution discharge permit. The changes are expected to “enhance water quality and the city’s ability to maintain a clean coastline, ocean and bay as well has a clean city,” according to the staff report.
Other agenda items include:
Reports from Cultural Arts Commission on Coronado Celebrates 125 and from the city treasurer on investments for Coronado and the Community Development Agency for the quarter ending on September 15, 2015.
Awarding a $295,540 contact to NRG Building and Consulting for the Coronado Cays Entrance Improvement Projects and to appropriate $190 thousand of the Fund 400-General Funds Capital Improvement Program to the project’s budget.
A second reading of the Medical Marijuana Prohibited Activities ordinance the council approved at its January 5 meeting.
The council meeting is on Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 4pm in the council chambers at 1825 Strand Way.
