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HomeMy WebLinkAbout13B - COMMITTEE RPT - PREY MINUTES• MINUTES OF A REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PARKS, RECREATION, EDUCATION AND YOUTH CALL TO ORDER September 25, 2012 The regular meeting convened at 5:38 p.m. in the City Hall, 2nd floor conference room, 20 Civic Center Plaza, Santa Ana, California. ATTENDANCE Council members Present Michele Martinez (Chair); Sal Tinajero Vincent Sarmiento Staff Present: Gerardo Mouet, PRCSA Executive Director; Francisco Gutierrez, Executive Director Finance & Management Services; Nancy Edwards, Exec. Director CDA, Ron Ono, Administrative Services Manager; Jenny Rios, Community • Services Manager; Jose Perez, Community Services Supervisor; Frank Hernandez, CDA; Carlos Rojas, Police Chief; Jim Schnabel, SAPD; Ken Gominsky, SAPD; Tom Serafin, SAPD; Eric Paulson, SAPD. Public Present Jose Rea, Madison Neighborhood Association Alex Green Roany Rivera, O.C Regional Baseball League (OCRBL) Lalo Renely, OCRBL Jesus Herrera, OCRBL Jose Rivera, OCRBL • APPROVAL OF MINUTES o Minutes of June 4, 2012 accepted as presented. Michele Martinez excused herself for not voting since she was not present at the June 4, 2011 meeting. • PUBLIC COMMENTS: o Jose Rea spoke in support of CDBG funding for Pacific Electric Park. o Roany Rivera indicated the O.C. Regional Baseball League is a new youth league formed 1 '/2 years ago and needs access to Santa Ana fields. Reservations have provided a few fields when available, but the league needs • access to additional fields in order to grow. They are a for profit organization that provides scholarship funding for players and are open to improving the PREY Regular Meeting - MINUTES 1 September 25, 2012 13B-1 • fields in SA if they have access. Other OCRBL spoke in support for additional fields and provided letters requesting fields. • PARK CELL TOWER REVENUE STATUS UPDATE o Gerardo Mouet indicated the city council requested at a previous meeting an update of the cell tower revenue. A list of 19 cell towers in city parks was provided to the PREY committee, along with its annual revenue. Mr. Mouet provided a history of the cell towers and indicated in June 2009, when the city was in financial trouble, the city council approved the revenue of its current cell towers (15) be transferred to the general fund budget. This amounted to $344,175 annually to the general fund. Since then 4 additional cell towers agreements were approved and funding was not sent to the general fund. On October 1, 2012 another cell tower agreement will be presented to the City Council for approval. o Councilmember Sarmiento further added that funds generated at parks were to stay with the park that generated the revenue. This was represented to the neighborhood at the time the cell tower proposal was presented to the community. Is the additional funding needed to balance the general fund and can it be used or redirected to deferred maintenance to fix things in the park? o Francisco Gutierrez indicated the additional revenue are not being used to balance the general funds. o Councilmember Martinez indicated in FY 2009/10 when the cell tower revenue was directed by the city council to go to the general fund, was it a • one-time transfer? o Francisco Gutierrez indicated it was a policy direction to continue using cell tower revenue funds balance the general fund. o Councilmember Martinez indicated we need to find another way to balance the general fund and keep our commitment to the community. Need to recommend funds be moved back to parks deferred maintenance. o Councilmember Tinajero indicated it makes it more difficult to balance the general fund, but deferred maintenance revenue is needed to fix things in parks. Our park restrooms don't have stall doors and some of the restrooms need to be completely redone. Some of the best restrooms are in Thornton and Riverview Parks. o Councilmember Sarmiento indicated solvency is a priority for the city not to file bankruptcy. We need to solve the city's financial crisis first. Once this is done we need to locate funding to backfill the cell tower funding if we are to move cell tower revenue back to deferred maintenance. To do this we need updates on our financial situation. o Francisco Gutierrez indicated the city prepares quarterly financial assessments and we can provide this to the city council on a quarterly basis. After review there may be a way to divert funds back to parks. o Mr. Mouet indicated if funding was redirected to parks we need to spend it wisely. o Councilmember Sarmiento motioned: Apply funding of the 4 new cell towers • to the 4 sites and added the 5th site to the motion. Councilmember Sarmiento PREY Regular Meeting - MINUTES 2 September 25, 2012 13B-2 • also requested a list of deferred items to fix. Motion was approved by the committee. Councilmember Tinajero left the meeting at 6:15 pm. • FY 2013/14 CDBG FUNDING o Mr. Mouet indicated the City Council requested early discussions on the decision for the use of CDBG funding. Staff provided a summary chart of last year's funding and proposals for FY 2013/14 CDBG Programs and Capital Improvement request. o Councilmember Martinez indicated for several years the Social Services programs were dedicated to city programs. City programs needs to be part of the process and City Council needs to know about each of the Social Services programs. o Officer Tom Sarifin explained the need for the PAAL Program. This is the 5tn year of the PAAL program that provides services to 2,500 kids between the ages of 7 to 18 years old. PAAL partners with other organizations to provide the program free of charge to the children. o Councilmember Martinez indicated if the programs were to continue she would like to see evaluations on each of the programs. o Nancy Edwards indicated each program is evaluated quarterly in order to show progress to HUD. • o Ken Grominsky indicated the needs for the HEART Program (Homeless Evaluation Assessment Response Team). This program is partially funded by the Emergency Solutions Grant and matched with CDBG funds. o Chief Rojas indicated this wasn't a funded program. CDBG provides funding to work with agencies to be a solution to address homeless issues. o Councilmember Martinez asked if the programs are sustainable. Need to look at how CDBG funds are used to eventually make the programs sustainable. o Councilmember Sarmiento indicated City Council needs to assess each of the programs. Funding is limited and non-profit organizations are not being funded by CDBG. The County needs to step-up on some of these programs. o Mr. Mouet indicated if it is the council's desire to fund non-profit organizations we need to notify the non-profit organizations now. o Councilmember Sarmiento indicated city programs need to be explained to council so they can assess the benefits and success. o Nancy Edwards indicated her agency will be able to provide quarterly reports and information to City Council of the CDBG programs. o Councilmember Martinez asked about the Capital Programs and how are the Residential Streets identified. o Raul Godinez indicated the proposed request is to address the worst residential concrete streets in the southern part of the city. The concrete street would be removed and replaced with asphalt streets. These streets were not addressed last year, because they were concrete streets. PREY Regular Meeting - MINUTES 3 September 25, 2012 13B-3 • o Councilmember Martinez requested a list of Capital Improvements that are to be funded and a list of which streets are to be funded. o Councilmember Sarmiento asked about the skate park and wants to know what is SAPD's take on the skate park. Is there any down side? o Chief Rojas indicated it is good for its intended use. It does require more public safety resources to respond and enforce the skate park rules and regulations. o Mr. Mouet indicated the activity of the skate park helps kids so they don't go into a negative direction. If the city were to develop a second skate park it should be next to where staff is located, such as a recreation center. o Councilmember Martinez indicated we need to look at sustainability, maintenance, and staffing issues of the program before we provide CDBG funding. We also need to look into areas to provide additional bike lanes/trails. o Raul Godinez recommended we complete the Circulation Element before adding bike lanes. Currently, as we reconstruct a street we add the bike lanes that have been approved on the existing bike plan. o Councilmember Martinez indicated as we look at future projects for CDBG funding we need to focus on park restroom renovations (stall door installation), park security lighting renovation and additional bike lanes and trails. • NORTHWEST LITTLE LEAGUE PROPOSAL • o Mr. Mouet indicated at council's request this item will be continued for 2 weeks to October 9, 2012. • STAFF UPDATE AND COMMENTS o Mr. Mouet indicated the SA Zoo's Request for Proposal is moving along, but the development team needs more time. Next week we will provide a new time line. o Mr. Mouet indicated on the October 1, 2012 City Council agenda the council will be addressing the Land Zone Change on the Pacific Electric Park and the Verizon Cell Tower agreement at Jerome Park. o Mr. Mouet also indicated the SAUSD wants to have a Joint Policy Meeting after the holidays. Two items to be discussed would be 1) a concept for a Master Joint Use Agreement and 2) the development of a synthetic turf field on Godinez High School football/soccer field with the use of the soccer surcharge funding. • COMMITTEE MEMBER COMMENTS o No Comments ADJOURNED: 7:00 p.m. ?j ?A Gerardo Mouet • Executive Director, PR( SA PREY Regular Meeting - MINUTES 4 September 25, 2012 13B-4