By Conner Everts
Desal Response Group

Drinking water from the Sea?

Sounds like a great idea. JFK once said that it would be a greater achievement than putting a man on the moon, and most polls have shown a 70 percent acceptance rate of the idea.

So what is the problem?

The corollary to JFK’s statement would be “when economically and environmentally feasible” and therein is the challenge.  However, the first question that should be asked is do we need ocean water desalination (often called desal) in California and would it hurt or harm the environment compared to its alternatives?

In 2006 there were 29 proposals for ocean desal projects along the California coast, with many attached to old coastal power plants, now there are only nine.  While industry proponents blame California’s protective environmental regulations and a few environmentalists’ opposition, there were three main issues that stalled the proposals.

First, despite the State Desal Task Force convened by legislation, there is no consensus on a regulatory order or state-wide direction. So each proposal lumbered through the multi-agency process.

That’s as it should be because if there is a large scale desal plant built in California it will be the first on the Pacific coast and largest in the Western Hemisphere.  The first proponent out of the gate was Poseidon, a private corporation from Connecticut that failed with its first desal project – the largest in the nation at 25 million gallons a day – in  Tampa Bay, Florida, and then proposed two more plants, each with twice that capacity, one in Huntington Beach in Orange County and the other in Carlsbad in north San Diego county.

While working hard to gather political support for its southern California desal projects, Poseidon failed to respond to repeated information requests by the Coastal Commission or to follow its permitting guidelines. Meanwhile, local opposition grew and water agencies weighed into issues of the marine environment, which they little understood, and were forced to navigate California’s complex and arcane water supply laws as well.

Second, conceived in a time of drought, the most recent crop of desal proposals depended on a fear of limited water supply while demand was high for new development. This was especially true where desal plants were proposed on the coast, thus allowing entry points for previously undeveloped areas with limited water supply.

With the collapse of the global economy, developments now sit idle and the need for desal as a redundant water supply for more growth is being questioned.  Promoted as an offset to water pumped over the Tehachapis and therefore reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the opposite is true. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) states in its subsidy contract that the water produced by desal would not curtail deliveries of any imported water source.  Rather blood would be let on the floors of the MWD boardroom before anyone at MWD would give up any sacrosanct water rights.

Furthermore, the promises that these proposed desal plants would offset water taken from the SF Bay Delta turned out to be false. Given the long history of getting water back to fish and the environment, there is no regulatory process to make that happen. Just look at the 20 years of litigation that has taken place over Mono Lake.

Third: first things first. There are untapped and cost-effective local water resources that must be developed and that have environmental benefits, unlike desal, such as maximizing serious water conservation and water reclamation, capturing and treating urban and storm-water runoff, expanding now legal greywater and rainwater cistern systems, and fixing leaky infrastructure or pipes.

Combine that with a systems approach with watershed management and we begin to get to the point that Australia, Spain, and Israel did before they invested in desal – which meant reducing per capita water demand to 30-50 gallons per day. Compare that to 174 gallons for California as a whole and 121 gallons for Los Angeles.

Many areas across the state, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, have had serious reductions in water demand and eliminated the need for desal—it’s not in Los Angeles’ 20 year supply plan and Long Beach is reconsidering after careful research.

California spent $50 million of Prop. 50 water bond monies on researching this issue and while not all the grant results have been revealed the emerging consensus is that proponents’ promise of a technological breakthrough that makes desal feasible or necessary hasn’t been realized. This is a case of its not the technology, stupid, it is the lack economic considerations and available capital.

And then it rain, and rained, and continues to rain.  Reservoirs filled and spilled.  Snow pack reached record levels in the Rockies, from where a portion of our imported supply originates.  If we had only realized the potential to capture rainwater and redistribute stormwater back into our depleted underground aquifers, this would have been a great winter to replenish the bank of locally stored water.

A quick historical perspective shows that ocean water desal plans come and go in California.  In the 60s and 70s it was twin nuclear power plant islands to be built offshore and provide all the water we needed and a small plant that was sent from the navel base in Point Loma to Guantanamo in Cuba.

In the 80s and 90s it was the Santa Barbara plant that was built in the middle of the six-year drought and was idled before it ever was connected by El  Niño spring. While it is still being paid for it is more cost effective not to run it.

At Catalina Island in the late 80s a small plant was built as a back up to allow a developer to build condos.  It sat idle for many years until Southern California Edison took it over, and in the only place where they sell water it takes 70 percent of the island’s electricity to produce 20 percent of its water.

Internationally, where there is often no other choice, limits have been reached but with a price. Australia is now deeply indebted for billions for plants that sit idle and have been flooded.  Even the Middle East is having problems with desal with huge demands for energy and subsidized water in Saudi Arabia and discharge levels that increase salinity and therefore energy demands in enclosed areas.

Ocean desal is promoted heavily by a cabal of membrane manufacturers, including GE, power plants operators hoping to keep their old fish-killing machines operating, water agencies looking for large capital projects built with some else’s money, engineering consultants and even Las Vegas.

But the bloom is off the issue. It looks good on the outside but once you delve into the inside there are problems, like fast food might sound good at the moment of hunger but the results of eating it are negative.  Investing in the current crop of desal plants is like buying an old Hummer with today’s gas prices.

Concerned citizens who organized statewide and locally to inform the public and fight the desalination surge can now declare victory and focus back on appropriate multi-benefit local water resources.  It does not mean we won’t continue to monitor these projects but to focus on only the fight would validate an issue that, once again, has passed away. After ten years, this time, we should celebrate a successful fight that brought this to the light of day and the fact that California is not ready for ocean desal and it is not ready for us.

There are many other issues around desal including energy intensity, huge marine and fishery impacts and the alternatives, drinking water quality, sea-level rise with industrializing the coast and the true costs of water. Go to the website www.desalresponsegroup.org for more than you would want to know and links to the many references made in this article.

Sundays at 5 PM – Free

Huntington Beach Central Park behind the library

The Huntington Beach Concert Band has been performing for Southern California audiences for thirty-eight years. Founded by John Mason in 1973, this non profit volunteer community concert band today is conducted by Thomas Ridley and provides concerts to the greater Orange County area throughout the year.  The Band’s purpose is to provide a creative opportunity for all musicians age 18 or older to share musical talents and bring enjoyment to others through public performance.  We are formally organized as a California Non-Profit Corporation.

The band plays 12-15 concerts a year throughout Orange County.  This includes two concerts as part of the annual Sunday Summer Concert Series  The band is proud to have organized and sponsored this series for many years, increasing the number of concerts  from a low of four to eleven for the past four years.  Another highlight is playing a concert on the grass at Verizon Amphitheater and then joining the Pacific Symphony Orchestra onstage for the 1812 Overture.

June 26         Huntington Beach Concert Band ♫ Americana and patriotic band favorites for everyone….Let’s wave the Red, White and Blue!

July 3             Orange County Concert Band ♫ Favorite selections for concert band, something for everyone

July 10           Henebry’s 1920’s Crazy Rhythm Hot Society Orchestra ♫ The original musical sounds of the Golden Age of Radio with Flapper Vocalist Ginger Pauley

July 17           Bones West ♫ A trombone choir performing in the Big Band style along with more traditional brass favorites

July 24           Los Angeles Police Swing Band ♫ Jazz standards for all to enjoy

July 31           Huntington Beach Concert Band ♫ An eclectic program of film music, marches and classic & popular melodies

August 7     Laguna Beach Community Band ♫ Performing a variety of music from marches and classics to swing and jazz

August 14      Swing Cats ♫ Sure to get you off your feet swingin’ to sounds of the Big Band era

August 21      Night Blooming Jazzmen ♫ A traditional Dixieland band

August 28      Bob DeSena ♫ A program of exciting Latin jazz and fiery rhythms in the legendary tradition of Tito Puente and Cal Tjader

Sept. 4            Mike Henebry Orchestra ♫ An internationally acclaimed orchestra authentically recreating music of the famous Big Bands of the Swing Era

“A Huntington Beach tradition for years”

Bring your whole family, friends, chairs, blankets and picnic dinner!

For additional info www.hbconcertband.org – or 714-891-6856

Click the map below, then click it again after it reappears to see a large version.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

Photo: Visitors find a use for the Strand, otherwise largely devoid of business on a Sunday afternoon (June 16)

Surf City planners and council members got a step closer to realizing their dream for a supersized downtown tourist mecca last Wednesday (June 15) when the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved the revised Downtown Specific Plan (DTSP) with mostly minor modifications.

The city’s new plan would increase allowable commercial densities, according to the commission—up to 400,000 square feet in the core Pier/Main Street area—while decreasing the ratio of required downtown parking spaces in the same area, based on a previous study showing that many visitors go to multiple venues during their stay.

The city’s previous parking downtown master plan has already maxed out at 715,000 square feet of development in a current 42 acre area, so that plan will be replaced with the new lower ratio parking plan in order to allow additional development in an enlarged core area.

The DTSP is the subject of a lawsuit by a local residents group, Huntington Beach Neighbors, which claims that the city violated the Coastal Act by inadequately studying its potential effects on the environment.

Neighbors is concerned with quality of life issues for downtown residents that would be raised by increased commercial densities and tourist traffic called for in the revised plan—adding to the current problems with drunken behavior from visitors to the area’s many alcohol serving establishments.

But the commission’s legal jurisdiction focuses only on beach access for residents and visitors, so it was concerned only with whether the city’s new plan hindered access to the beach area, not if it would make life more miserable for residents tired of excessive traffic and rowdiness outside their homes.

Still, there was some good news for those residents because the commission, skeptical of the assurances of sufficient parking, will require the city to reassess its parking plan after the first 150,000 square feet of development are completed. If parking is deemed inadequate at that time, the city would be required to take other measures to ensure that visitors have adequate access to downtown commercial services and the beach.

The commission would prefer to solve parking problems through any combination of alternative traffic control plans that the city has suggested but has not committed to using rather than by wasting more coastal land for parking lots.

Those alternatives include additional bike lanes and bikeways, additional bike parking, street realignments for more efficient traffic flow, improved access to transit stops, a trolley system and remote parking with shuttle access.

Last summer, the city operated a bike valet program and a shuttle service that traveled between the City Hall parking lot at Yorktown and Main and downtown. The shuttle service is operating again this summer through Labor Day on weekends, as well as every Tuesday for the weekly Surf City Nights street fair.

Weekend and Labor Day operating hours are 10:00 am to 10:00 pm and on Tuesdays the operating hours are from 5:30 pm to 10:00 pm. Parking at City Hall is free and so is the shuttle, which also stops at Main and Orange streets and at Orange and 5^th at the Strand. The shuttle runs every 30 minutes.

The only other significant problem with the DTSP that needs to be resolved from the Coastal Commission’s point of view is the city’s current 10 pm to 5 am beach curfew.

Tidelands, submerged lands, and public trust lands cannot be subject to curfews, which means that the city cannot legally stop access to the portion of the pier that extends over the tide nor can it stop people from walking or fishing within 20 feet inward of the tide’s edge. Even beach closure after that point requires a permit that must ensure public access to the tidelands.

City officials said they are concerned that ending the curfew would present public safety problems and make it harder to keep the city’s beaches clean. But commission staff said that the problem is solvable—as it proved to be in Laguna Beach—and an expected arrangement is in the works with the city that would presumably ensure a balance between required coastal access and public safety.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

Surf City’s now infamous reputation for drunk driving and rowdiness, most of it stemming from its bar infested downtown, is usually expressed in statistics and as a necessary side effect of the city’s plan to stimulate economic development through tourism.

An HBPD study released last year clearly implicated the high concentration of combined restaurant/bars in the downtown area as a major cause of the problem.

Huntington Beach has the highest number of DUIs for any California city in its population range, is ranked third for DUIs of any California city and is ranked seven in the state, regardless of population, for drunk driver collisions as of a year ago. Last year five people died in drunken driving crashes in the city.

Police tend to a downtown visitor who seems to have had too much to drink. Photo courtesy of Paul Edward

“Drunk driving is clearly the most significant public safety problem we have in Huntington Beach,” HBPD Chief Kenneth Small told the City Council last January.

Mayor Joe Carchio recently gained headlines for “cracking down” on downtown bars. Critics say his plan is a good first step but much more needs to be done to deal with the problem.

At a recent meeting of the California Coastal Commission when the city was seeking permits under the Coastal Act for its revised Downtown Specific Plan, Councilmember Keith Bohr said that the downtown area was a victim of the city’s successful program to attract tourists to its 8.5 miles of beaches and to its downtown attractions.

“We’re a very popular area,” he told the commission. “We have lots of folks come and our police force does a great job of enforcing our DUI [laws], hence our numbers are higher than others probably because we take advantage of the grants and enforce that and it makes people comply with our laws.”

Even accepting Bohr’s unlikely scenario—that other California cities don’t also take advantage of grants and try their best to enforce DUI laws—for downtown area residents the problem with drunks goes beyond statistics and affects their quality of life.

Richardson Gray, a downtown resident, complained to the commission about drunks overrunning downtown and waking up residents while walking back to their cars after the 2 a.m. closing time for bars. Other residents have long complained about late-night wandering drunks having sex in their front yard bushes and urinating, defecating and fighting on their lawns, or recklessly driving through their streets at high speeds while drunk.

“We have to live with the headaches of too many drunks on our streets and crime in our neighborhood,” Gray complained.

Surf City tourist looks skyward. Photo courtesy of Paul Edward

A recent late night tour of downtown Main Street conducted by the HBPD for members of the Huntington Beach Downtown Residents Association, Planning Commissioner Mark Bixby and Councilmembers Joe Shaw and Connie Boardman helped illustrate – literally – those headaches.

Photographer Paul Edward captured the essence of the problem with video and in 24 photographs taken in less than an hour on what Bixby described as a “slow night” starting at about 1:30 a.m. Some of Edward’s photographs are within this article. The entire batch and the video can be viewed at http://pauledward.smugmug.com/Street-Scenes/HBDRA/.

But Bixby’s tour notes help give the context for Edward’s photographic essay. “It was an eye-opening experience for me,” he wrote. In his own words, this is what he witnessed just before and after the final call for alcohol downtown:

• Males fighting and being arrested, with one being taken away in an ambulance;
• Females having a loud altercation on the verge of fighting;
• People staggering around under the influence;
• At least one establishment allowing people to finish their drinks after the posted closing time;
• People making out in dark shadows;
• A guy being arrested after passing out;
• Code-required sidewalk clear passage area being used for entrance queuing at Sharkey’s/Killarney’s (sic);
• Definite uptick in altercations at the 2 am witching hour;
• An inebriated guy standing in the middle of Main throwing fist-fulls of hard candy into the ari landing with a scatter onto the asphalt and subsequently crunched with a “pop pop pop” as a police cruiser slowly drove by;
• A guy helping his near-unconscious buddy into the DRIVER’S Seat (!) of their vehicle;
• And all of this was on a relatively “slow” night.

Although tax revenues establish the fact that downtown Surf City’s bars and alcohol serving restaurants help bring in the money for their owners as well as the city, no study has been done yet to study the costs to taxpayers of the kind of law enforcement Bohr touts but that is—as Edward’s photos show—woefully inadequate, no matter how valiant, for the task. Perhaps even more important to the residents of downtown and the rest of the city is the human cost of the city’s habit of only measuring success in dollars and cents.

By Angela Rainsberger

Editor: Rainsberger is the director of Huntington Beach Neighbors.

Dear Mayor Carchio:

Thank you for the letter regarding your proposed solutions to reduce the DUI fatalities coming from the downtown establishments. I believe this is a step in the right direction to reduce the DUIs and I hope that we will see some meaningful reduction over time. I believe the key is to make certain that these voluntary suggestions become requirements of entertainment permits as they come up for renewal or as new EP are issued.

In addition for new restaurants it is important to find a way to add restrictions to the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to prevent restaurants from morphing into bars. I expect you will see far less protests and activism from citizen groups in the downtown if we can insure that a restaurant stays a restaurant.

There are other cities in Orange County that have areas of heavy concentration of establishments serving alcohol who have found ways to manage the consumption to reduce the risks to life and quality of life. I would encourage you to meet with the city staff of Fullerton who crafted their successful ordinances and policies to understand what has worked for them.

In addition to your bulleted suggestions, I would add the following requirements:

• No drink specials should be sold after midnight. This would include redemption of coupons such as the ones being sold on Groupon for two times the value of anything purchased. A managed decrease in the volume of alcohol consumed after midnight will decrease the level of intoxication at 2 am.
• Maintain a full listing of establishments with the details of their entertainment permit restrictions, allowances, occupancies, and closing times to be used as a planning tool and reviewed in total, before any new establishment or any entertainment permit renewals are approved. Adjust closing times to stagger them as entertainment permits come up for renewal. This will reduce the 2 am flood of intoxicated drivers into the streets, by batching them in smaller more manageable groups, that the police will better be able to control.
• Work with BID to increase the number of cabs available at night; as a cab shortage is a current problem. Taxi vouchers add no value if one must wait for an hour in a taxi queue.
• Drinks need to be served to the person who will be consuming the drink. Currently there are establishments where drinks for large groups can be ordered by a single person at the bar and then carried back to a group. This prevents the servers from being able to apply the RBS/TIPS training and ABC max drink limitation or to monitor the ratio of drink per person. Require that the serve can verify that drinks are being sold are at the 1:1 ratio per order.
• Require restaurants to clearly post occupancy permits for each area of their establishments (sidewalk patios, back patios, inside dining room and balconies) so that the police can clearly see when the occupancy of a given area has been exceeded. Currently, many establishments are not posting their patio max occupancy signs and in the evening hours are clearing tables and chairs off the patios and converting the patios to standing room areas with significantly more people than allowed. By posting these signs clearly the police will be able to quickly identify when occupancies have been exceeded.

By Joe Carchio
Mayor of Huntington Beach

Editor: The following letter was sent by Mayor Joe Carchio to all restaurant/bars with entertainment licenses in downtown Huntington Beach.

One of my primary goals during my term as Mayor of the City of Huntington Beach is to enhance and improve public safety for our residents and visitors. Information released by the California Office of Traffic Safety revealed that there were 195 fatal an injury related traffic accidents in our city involving driving under the influence in 2009. That number resulted in Huntington Beach being ranked number one out of fifty-six cities our size in California. It is my hope that through a combination of enforcement and education, we will be able to reduce the number of intoxicated drivers on our roadways, and thereby reduce the number of fatal and injury related traffic accidents, in future years.

I have been advised by the Chief of Police, and data maintained by the police department supports, that may people arrested for driving under the influence have been drinking in downtown establishment that offer entertainment prior to their arrest. As the owner, or manager, of a downtown restaurant that serves alcohol and offers entertainment, I request that you strongly consider adopting the following policies. I believe implementation of these policies by all downtown restaurants that serve alcohol and offer entertainment would help to achieve my goal of enhancing and improving public safety for our residents and visitors.

Proposed Policies:

• No new customers allowed 30 minutes before closing.
• “Last Call” at least 15 minutes before closing.
• Only single sized drinks, and no multiple drinks after midnight.
• Signage, posters and advertising “Do Not Drink and Drive.”
• Mandatory “Responsibly Beverage Service (RBS)” training and certification for new employees within 90 days and existing employees every 12 months. The training shall be provided by an ABC approved RBS training provider.
• Installation of a high quality video surveillance system that is available at all times to the police department.
• Provide taxi vouchers through the night and to customers leaving at the end of the night.

It is my hope that all downtown restaurants that serve alcohol and offer entertainment will voluntarily implement these policies. IN my meeting with Chief of Police, I formally asked him to impose these policies on any establishment where the Police Department has determined there is a problem related to intoxicated customers. If these conditions are imposed by the Chief of Police, it will occur at the time your Entertainment Permit is renewed.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

A handful of residents sat in the audience section of the city council auditorium in the early evening of May 11. The room was dimly lit and the ambiance was boring, even a bit depressing.

Each person in the tiny group waited quietly for a turn to tell the Community Services Commission to reconfirm the name—Triangle Park—given 99 years ago to a 1.1 acre triangular-shaped patch of parkland that encloses the historic Main Street Library on the northern end of downtown Huntington Beach.

Sitting quietly among them was Richardson Gray, a 56-year-old downtown resident and retired Boston real estate developer turned Gothic novelist. He lives alone in a second-story condo that overlooks the park.

Gray is thin and stands at average height with shoulder-length grey hair. He dresses plainly and there is nothing obviously Goth-like about him, but he calls himself a “Goth of the Electric Chair variety,” referring to the Main Street clothing store that caters to a younger clientele more commonly associated with the Goth lifestyle.

“My life is like a Goth romance novel,” he confides, describing his novel in progress as “Sid and Nancy with a happy ending.” Even his car license plate reads GOTHS.

Gray goes to the podium to speak, carrying a stack of papers under his arm. It’s not the draft of his novel but a petition he wrote signed by 7,000 downtown residents. Gray gathered most of the signatures himself two years earlier.

The petition says nothing about naming the park, but calls upon the city to save the library from a grandiose plan to replace it with a large tourist center. But Gray tells the commission that “I am convinced that all these 7,000 people would want Triangle Park to keep its historic name.”

Gray reminds the commission that 7,000 approximates the number of residents living in the downtown area and that it took about 14,000 votes to elect someone to the city council in the last election.

“In my opinion,” he concludes, “voter sentiment to preserve Triangle Park is overwhelming. Triangle Park, so named in 1912, doesn’t need a new name.”

The name, however, seems to have fallen out of use after the library was built in 1951. Until recently, the park area was commonly referred to as the Main Street Library, although its original name has never been officially changed.

After a short discussion, the commission unanimously voted to recommend to the city council to keep the current name—an important symbolic victory for local residents who value the few bricks of the downtown’s history that haven’t been replaced by redevelopment with restaurant-bars and mall boutiques.

Gray’s initial efforts to save the park evolved into much larger and well organized efforts to stop the developer-controlled council from super-sizing downtown’s residential and commercial density and to deal with neighborhood disturbances caused by the growing overabundance of bars and wandering drunks.

Gray’s activism, like his writing, is more personal than ideological. “My work to Preserve Triangle Park absolutely is a self interested NIMBY issue,” he explains. “I am trying to keep my home as a nice place to live for the rest of my life.”

But Gray understands the value of historical preservation for its own sake as well as anyone. While living in a Victorian neighborhood in Boston’s south side for seven years he worked for a real estate firm that did historical renovations. After that he moved to North Carolina and worked for three years with a real estate endowment firm.

Four years ago Gray decided to retire in Huntington Beach because of his life-long love of surfing and to write his novel.

He bought his $525,000 condo because of its view of Triangle Park—which he assumes accounts for about one-fifth of its purchase value. He also believes that his dream home has lost 20 percent of of that value due to the housing market crash, and possibly more from the effect of the city’s “threats” of developing a “major tourist attraction” on the park.

As a self-professed NIMBY, Gray was understandably outraged when he saw the specs for the new Downtown Specific Plan (DTSP) that went public in late 2008.

It’s proposed revisions would result in more than 1.3 million additional square feet of commercial development in an area that technically covers 336 acres, but much of which would be in the Main Street area. Not to mention Pacific City a few blocks to the south which would bring 512 condos and a 165 room hotel/spa resort, according to previously approved plans.

The original DTSP revision plan would have allowed the library to be replaced by a 30,000 square foot cultural arts center—a tourist attraction that would draw between 300,000 – 400,00 visitors a year and provide a counter “anchor” to the pier located at the other end of Main Street on Pacific Coast Highway.

“I went nuts,” Gray recalls, and within a week he was gathering signatures for his petition. But Gray does not shut the door completely on change.

“If the library does not survive long term,” he wrote in an e-mail blast, “I think that most residents are open to another neighborhood-friendly, modestly-sized cultural center to take its place. But I do not think most residents want a major tourist attraction and parking garage in the middle of our established residential neighborhood.”

The Mime
Standing perfectly still on a sidewalk Gray looks like a mime artist, usually holding his notebook-paper-sized sign that says “Save Triangle Park & Main St. Library: Sign Here” or some other sign expressing support for a related cause.

He never speaks to passers-by until he is spoken to. But given the opportunity to explain his cause it can be difficult for his audiences to get a word in edgewise. When going house to house he is no less determined, as this writer discovered when he visited my home.

In less than a month Gray had gathered almost 250 signatures on his own, prompting the Independent to report on his fledgeling crusade in January, 2009.

He told the paper, aptly enough, that he was involved in a “David and Goliath battle.” City officials reacted by claiming that nothing specific was planned, that the library project idea would be fully vetted in public hearings and that Gray’s concerns were premature.

But Gray knew that the conceptual dreams of city planners tend to become runaway trains. So naturally he continued to sound the alarm. Eventually he walked to every home in the downtown area, personally gathering over 5,300 signatures to save Triangle Park. Another 1,700 signatures were collected by other local residents who jumped on his bandwagon.

Richardson Gray demonstrates his signature gathering technique on a downtown street corner. Photo Surf City Voice

One of those residents was Kim Kramer, who also lives across the street from Triangle Park but on its other side. Together, they revived the Huntington Beach Downtown Residents’ Association, a citizens group that had been active in the 90s in response to Fourth of July inspired riots on downtown streets. They gathered with several other activists, formed a steering committee and began talking to city officials with a sense of urgency.

“We had this terrible threat that the council was coming up with,” Gray recalls, adding that he wouldn’t have had the courage to meet with city leaders without the help of Kramer and others.

Gray signed up the group’s first official 587 members in the same way he gathered signatures to save the library, laying the foundation for a group that could become influential in future city elections. He also contributed $7,000 to help pay for a letter written by the group’s attorney to the city in opposition to the DTSP revisions and he gave another $5,000 toward fliers and mailers associated with the group’s political efforts, he says.

If Gray is hard working and generous with his time and money, he is also determinedly uninterested in—and perhaps incapable of handling—personal political power. His mild mannered ways were no match for Kramer’s top-down leadership style and domineering personality, so policy disagreements quickly developed between them.

Gray wanted to sue the city and investigate alleged conflict of interest by Steve Bone, the hotel developer and president of the city-funded Marketing and Business Bureau who was promoting the Cultural Center (Bone wanted to build an aquarium on a 50,000 square foot site).

But Kramer disagreed on both counts. Then Gray was booted from the steering committee. A few months after that Kramer registered HBDRA with the county recorder’s office under his business name, KSK Financial Group.

Despite the apparent betrayal, Gray shows no animosity toward Kramer. He lightly scolds him for not being more democratic and tolerant of other voices, and he was “annoyed” about the fictitious business name coup—it was a “momentary lapse” on his part—but he dismisses accusations of Kramer’s bullying of downtown business owners as “much ado about nothing” and praises him to the limit.

“I just think that Kim Kramer has done great things for our downtown neighborhoods and I want him to keep doing it,” he wrote in an e-mail message to other local activists. Gray says it’s hard for him to call Kramer an ally after their differences over the years, but that their goals are the same and they work parallel.

In Dec. 2009, the city council blessed the DTSP revisions, including the potential cultural arts center. A month later, in response to the complaints generated from Gray and HBDRA, the city downsized the cultural arts center to 24,660 square feet (still a 14,700 foot expansion) and wrote in a provision encouraging, but not requiring, preservation of the library. Underground parking and retail amenities, such as a gift shop and small cafe, were still part of the plan.

In September 2009 a new downtown residents group was formed, in part by former and current allies of Kramer who were displeased with his tactics and wanted to expand their reach to other downtown issues besides the library and park—something that both groups have long since done. The group named itself Huntington Beach Neighbors and today it is a registered non-profit with about 2,000 members.

HBN president Angela Rainsberger, like Kramer, has high praise for Gray’s contribution toward the formation of her own organization and to building public awareness of important downtown issues.

“He single-handily dedicated time and resources to researching and defending the [library] site against the threats of redevelopment.” If not for his efforts, she says, “citizens would have lost this community library to developers.”

But Gray’s fight to save the library and the rest of downtown from over development has not been won.

HBN filed a lawsuit in Feb. 2010 challenging the compliance of the city’s DTSP to environmental law. The court ruled in favor of the city on all counts, but HBN will probably appeal, informed sources say.

Gray, who contributed $23,000 to pay for HBN’s lawsuit, is not discouraged despite the city’s first round knock out. His time and money have been well spent, he says.

“I feel like they [city officials] deserved to be sued,” he says. They need to get the message that the city should take a “more friendly neighborhood approach” in its plans.

Gray is hopeful that the public involvement in downtown issues that he helped to build will pay off in the near future. “In another election cycle or two, we will have a resident friendly majority on our city council,” he predicts. And the city “will finally get serious about improving the downtown for residents.”

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

On May 16 the City Council directed City Attorney Jennifer McGrath to craft an ordinance that will limit the presence in city parks and beaches of convicted sex offenders who have been released from prison.

The intended ordinance, introduced on behalf of the Orange County District Attorney by Councilmembers Matt Harper and Mayor Joe Carchio, models after a recently passed county law that bans all sex offenders from using county parks and beaches without written permission from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and offers jail time and a $500 fine for violators.

During public comments, Deputy District Attorney Brian Fitzpatrick assured that “This will go a long way to protecting children in parks” and that it was consistent with the state’s ongoing trend to increase restrictions on the movement of sex offenders who have served their time.

“We noticed that there was a hole in the law protecting our children and that was with respect to our parks,” he said.

“Just because somebody hasn’t molested a child in the past, doesn’t mean that he won’t do it in the future as a registered sex offender,” Fitzpatrick warned, lumping all sex offenders into one category while arguably implying that the presumption of innocence—which extends from the 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—is an obstacle to justice.

“Constitutionally, we have researched this [ordinance] and we have found that it would pass Constitutional muster,” Fitzpatrick said, trying to head off arguments that that the ordinance would lead to lawsuits as similar laws have in other locations. “It’s narrowly protected to tailoring places where children regularly gather.”

But neither Fitzpatrick nor his proxies Harper and Carchio mentioned what criteria would determine which offenders, if any, will receive permission to visit parks or how non-compliant offenders would be monitored. Nor did they say how much it would cost the city to maintain the program or upon what research, if any, it had been determined that it would produce any overall benefit.

Contrary to Fitzpatrick’s contention that the law passes Constitutional muster, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ruled last November in a lawsuit brought by four registered sex offenders that the portion of Jessica’s Law that restricts released sex offenders to live more than 2,000 feet of parks and schools is unconstitutional. Enforcement of that portion of the law has been suspended by the state’s Department of Corrections.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the judge also noted LA Chief of Police Charlie Beck’s finding that the living proximity of sex offenders to schools does not determine the likelihood that a sexual offense will take place and that Jessica’s Law has forced sex offenders into the streets in droves.

That “sharp rise in homelessness rates in sex offenders on active parole in Los Angeles County actually undermines public safety,” Espinoza wrote in his 10-page legal opinion, according to the Times.

Other lawsuits have popped up around the country to challenge laws that restrict released sex offenders. Legal issues include violation of the ex post facto prohibitions in Article 1, Sections 9 and 10 of the U.S. Constitution (that a person can’t be punished twice for the same crime), First Amendment rights, and the right to public access.

Outside of the courts, cost is another issue. McGrath estimated that it would cost the city about $250,000 to defend against a lawsuit in its lower court stages, not to mention taking it all the way to the State or U.S. Supreme Court.

Critical Analysis
Predictably, Carchio and Harper were short on critical analysis and not about to challenge the Republican DA’s game plan, which offers them political capital and public image enhancement in return for their enthusiastic compliance.

True to form, Carchio took that opportunity to the limit. In a blustering speech, he referenced the brutal sex-related kidnapping and murders of five-year-old Samantha Runnion in 2002 by Alejandro Avila and 12-year-old Huntington Beach resident Robin Samsoe 23 years ago by serial-killerRodney James Alcala, then promised that “I will not sit idly by, not in this city—and not at the expense of our kids and their families.”

A bit later he reached a crescendo, declaring that “I don’t want sex offenders to think that they have the run of the city. Not in Huntington Beach. Not when I’m mayor.”

Attempting a more logical approach, Harper warned that if the city didn’t pass the proposed ordinance sex offenders, who are banned now from going to Harriet Weider Regional Park located on county land, could visit Harriet Weider City Park nearby.

“Why should it be that sex offenders are allowed in one of those parks and not the other,” Harper asked. Huntington Beach should follow suit with the county and “take steps to protect children and families,” he argued.

But neither Harper nor Carchio gave any indication how their proposed ordinance would give added protection to children and their families or why it wouldn’t make problems worse considering the known history of similar laws. Boardman, however, asked Chief of Police Ken Small for the statistics on sex offenses in city parks and what he thought of the DA’s ordinance.

There were 141 reported alleged sex crimes in the entire city in 2010, according to Small, and only six of those incidents were alleged to have taken place in city parks or beaches. Not all of the six were prosecuted and all of those reports were made by private persons, he said.

“The problem is, there is such a strong emotional appeal to this type of legislation that it’s hard to speak against it without looking or sounding stupid,” Small explained, adding that “this legislation paints a very broad brush in terms of what it prohibits.”

Illustrating the potential scope of the ordinance, Small pointed out that “Members of the council have been contacted by parents who had offenses decades ago [and] who are now raising children, who would be prohibited from going to the park.”

Small also has concerns about how the ordinance would apply to city libraries and to employees who work in the city’s parks.

Small suggested adopting an ordinance like the city of Tustin did that prohibits sex offenders from loitering (being without purpose) in the parks instead of strictly following the DA’s plan.

“That’s an ordinance that would accomplish very much the same thing without the broad prohibition that the Orange County ordinance does,” he said.

That idea set well with Councilmembers Boardman, Joe Shaw and Keith Bohr. The loitering version would allow parents who are former offenders but now law abiding citizens to go to the city’s parks, beaches and libraries with their kids “because they are there with a purpose,” Boardman said. “But it would prevent sex offenders from just loitering.”

But loitering laws have also been successfully challenged in court on Constitutional grounds because they didn’t specify what types of behaviors loitering entails. Specific behaviors that might be targeted in the city’s ordinance were not discussed by the council.

Harper, with Carchio tagging along, neither acknowledged the legal issues riding with their joint proposal nor considered the Chief’s concerns. He conceded only that the ordinance could be tailored to Huntington Beach because “there are some cases in which our facilities are a little bit different than those offered by the county.”

Without explaining the relevance of those supposed differences, Harper moved as originally planned to ask the city attorney to “draft an ordinance prohibiting registered sex offenders from entering city parks and beaches similar to that adopted by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.”

The motion passed 7 – 0.

Shawn Roselius also contributed to this story.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

A Superior Court judge has issued a temporary ruling against all counts of a lawsuit challenging the city’s revisions to its Downtown Specific Plan (DTSP) approved in late 2009 and early 2010 and its environmental review of those revisions.

The lawsuit was brought by Huntington Beach Neighbors, a 2,000 member citizens’ group concerned with living conditions in the downtown area. The case had its day in court last March.

The area in question covers a patchwork of about 336 acres of downtown land extending outward from the intersection of Goldenwest Street and Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) at its north end to Beach Boulevard and PCH on the south, including the Main Street and Pier area.

In an eight page ruling filed on May 5, Judge Nancy Wieben Stock noted that “In a shotgun approach to litigation, and leaving no stone unturned, Petitioners argue that in approximately 33 categories of environmental review, the EIR process was wholly deficient.”

Neighbors had a difficult task because from the start the court assumed that “a public agency’s decision to certify the EIR is correct,” as Stock explained, and it was up to the plaintiffs to prove otherwise.

Stock ruled that the plaintiffs did not show that they first exhausted administrative remedies—part of the burden of proof; in other words, their issues were not brought up during the public hearing process.

“In not one instance in its Opening Brief has Petitioner met its burden here,” Stock wrote.

Stock eliminated some challenges forthwith, for the most part without further explanation, including the assertion that the EIR did not study the cumulative effects of other nearby projects or the DTSP’s effect on downtown aesthetics, noise, public service and land use.

The lawsuit claims that the EIR “does not review the entire action that is contemplated” and thus violated CEQA by “piecemealing” its environmental analysis.

Stock agreed with the city that specific projects that could bloom from the DTSP may require separate EIRs in the future, but that a conceptual or “program” EIR is sufficient for now.

Disputed Development Area
From Nov. 2009 through Jan. 2010 the City Council passed revisions to the DTSP that allowed increased densities downtown, resulting in a potential for more than 1.3 million additional square feet of commercial development in the area.

Those revisions were in addition to Pacific City, a moth balled mixed-use project south of Atlanta Avenue on PCH that covers 31.5 acres and, at its inception in 2004, included 512 luxury condos and a 165 room hotel/spa.

Pacific City combined with the DTSP revisions increases the amount of allowed downtown development by 375 percent over former plans, the lawsuit claims.

Finding that the previous DTSP had been maxed out, the 2006 City Council decided to super-size it, calling into question the purpose of development planning in the first place: what good is it if city councils can drastically change their master plans on nothing more than a political whim?

But those changes required public hearings and environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The city was required to study the environmental affects of the Downtown Specific Plan modifications and publish the results.

CEQA guidelines require a “sufficient degree of analysis to provide decision makers with information which enables them to make a decision which intelligently takes account of the environmental consequences,” according to guidelines published on the state website.

CEQA also requires decision makers, in this case the city staff, to answer concerns that are part of the administrative (public) record.

The city violated that process broadly, according to HB Neighbors, without providing reasons for its lack of environmental review. Nor did it respond to complaints that were part of the public record—despite attempts by Neighbors “to achieve reasonable, resident-friendly modifications to the DTSP.”

The lawsuit asks the court to revoke certification of the final EIR for the DTSP and all its updated project approvals.

Some key assertions of the lawsuit are:

1. The city’s EIR did not show that it examined traffic impacts for summer weekends when visitor numbers are highest;

2. Solid waste impact projections considered residential but not commercial impacts;

3. In an illegal “11th hour amendment” the city council passed a measure increasing downtown density;

4. Parking impacts were not properly considered;

5. The EIR did not adequately consider the cumulative effects of nearby projects, including Pacific City.

6. Impacts on cultural resources, including the Main Street Library, were not properly considered in the EIR.

Main Street Library
Stock’s ruling largely bypassed the most controversial downtown issue of all – what will become of the historical Main Street Library located in Triangle Park.

In that case, the lawsuit contends, the Main Street Library qualifies as an “historically significant” resource under CEQA, but the EIR does not list it as such. Nor were the impacts of the DTSP revisions upon the library examined as required.

The city’s EIR states that “specific development proposals are not contemplated for the project, including development on the library site.”

But the first revised plans allowed for replacing the library with a combination cultural arts center and tourist attraction that includes a gift shop, restaurant, and event rentals and would attract up to 400,000 visitors each year.

In response to thousands of complaints, the city revised the DTSP to provide for a “community oriented cultural activity area that encourages preservation and enhancement of the Main Street Library” rather than replacing it.

But that plan still allows a 24,660 square foot structure, three stories and 35 feet tall, for an additional 14,700 square feet that could hold a gift shop, small cafe and other retail uses – still in conflict with the city’s General Plan – changes that the lawsuit claims should have undergone environmental review.

Lacking that review, the public and city council were denied information vital to the decision making process; therefore, the EIR must be revoked, the lawsuit contends.

But Judge Stock made short work of those arguments. Regarding cumulative effects, they “were not raised at the administrative level by any person.” In any case, she added, the DTSP doesn’t propose any projects yet and any future projects will face environmental review.

Traffic Problems Dismissed
The lawsuit contends that the city’s traffic studies were methodologically flawed and that it made sure to “drastically” understate traffic impacts in its EIR.

The EIR failed to demonstrate that it had analyzed weekend traffic conditions during summer, despite acknowledging the “at-capacity conditions occurring during peak summer days, particularly on weekends.” Nor did the EIR consider the added traffic congestion from tourist buses, the lawsuit alleges.

But Judge Stock called the city’s traffic study exhaustive, encompassing 1,000 pages, and said that the plaintiffs failed to offer expert counter-analysis.

Furthermore, it is not the role of the Court to attempt scientific analysis of the city’s traffic study, Stock said.

Nor is it important “whether the studies are irrefutable or whether they could have been better, she explained. “The relevant issue is only whether the studies are sufficiently credible to be considered.”

Despite the EIR’s alleged failure to demonstrate a specific analysis of peak traffic periods, and without citing specifics herself, Stock concluded that the city’s analysis showed a “full appreciation of the summer and beach-proximity issues.”

Eleventh Hour Changes
If Stock’s traffic ruling doesn’t stretch credulity, her ruling on Plaintiff’s claim of a CEQA violation by “11th hour amendment” illuminates the thick line that often separates legality from morality.

At its Nov. 16, 2009, meeting the city council voted to reconsider revised density standards for one section of the downtown that it had approved at its Nov. 2 meeting.

The issue was placed on the Jan. 19, 2010 council agenda for discussion and a vote, but a slight of hand by Councilmember Don Hansen changed the purpose of the meeting.

Instead of considering a reduction in density, which was the intent of putting the issue on the agenda in the first place, Hansen made a surprise motion.

Previously in District 1 a site area of 25,000 square feet or greater was needed to build a 45 foot high, four-story building. Any lot less than 25,000 square feet was allowed a maximum building height of 35 feet and three stories, according to the Jan. 19 staff report.

Hansen’s motion shrunk the required square footage to 8,000 square feet, creating a huge increase in density. The council passed the motion, but nothing like his proposal was in the staff’s usual list of recommended actions or in the rest of its public report.

Nor was Hansen’s proposal based on information in the EIR, the lawsuit claims, despite having significantly changed the DTSP. And it violated the city’s General Plan. Therefore, Hansen’s DTSP revision must be denied, Plaintiffs argued.

Stock issued a harsh rebuke. The possibility of a four-story building on a 25,000 square foot “or less” lot had already been discussed in the Draft EIR, as well as in numerous staff reports, she wrote.

The same thing for building height. “[T]he EIR process was designed to reveal the outcomes of any amendments to the General Plan in this area,” she added.

Reactions
Councilmember Joe Shaw called portions of the DTSP “severely flawed,” despite the court’s tentative ruling. “I think the residents of our downtown neighborhoods have spoken clearly about the plan and they’re not happy with it.”

The revised density, building heights and neighborhood uses are “out of sync and out of character” for the downtown neighborhoods, he said. “I hope that this city council or the next will address some of these issues.”

Councilmember Keith Bohr had a different view.

Citing numerous stakeholder interviews, community workshops, study sessions and public hearings held in the five years since the city council directed staff to update the DTSP, Bohr told the Voice that he is “pleased that we are finally nearing the finish line for this much needed update to our Downtown Specific Plan.”

Just how close the city is to that finish line remains to be seen. HB Neighbors spokesperson Angela Rainsberger told the Voice that her group will file objections with the court next Monday. If Stock rejects those objections the group will have 30 additional days to appeal, according to City Attorney Jennifer McGrath.

Editor’s note: At a public meeting on March 31 City Manager Fred Wilson and Mayor Joe Carchio were asked about the city’s budget, contract negotiations with public employees unions and “unfunded liabilities” for employee pensions.

“Absolutely not. I think what they did wasn’t the right way to do things. I think that what we’ve done is to try to address the budget challenge more methodically. We’ve looked at outsourcing, but it’s on a very limited [basis], but trying to do it very inclusively with everybody at the same time. There’s been no one who’s said we need to do what Costa Mesa has done.”

Fred Wilson, when asked if any city councilmembers had suggested to him that Huntington Beach should take the same course as the city of Costa Mesa, i.e., to outsource and lay off half of its public employees.

“Probably, collectively, it’s over $100 million. That’s a big number. It sounds big and it is big, but just so you know, what that number is based on is what CalPers, which is a state agency, what they tell us it is.”

Fred Wilson, on the city’s “unfunded liabilities.”

“I think we’ve done a fair amount of contracting out. If you compare what we do to what Costa Mesa does, I think you’re going to see that a large number of services that we provide are contract services. We’re moving in that direction but we’re trying to do it more responsibly, more balanced, and not take that hard-line approach to say that this is the solution. And we’ve discovered that contracting isn’t the solution to every single one of the services that we provide.”

Fred Wilson, more on outsourcing.

“Part of the answer is that the pay difference between that Authority (Orange County Fire Authority) and our fire department isn’t much different. The real question about saving is what level of service do all of us want as residents. For example, we have, I think, seven fire stations. We respond in five minutes generally 90 percent of the time…So the solution to really balance the budget is to cut back on the local services that we are providing residents and nobody wants to do that.”

Fred Wilson when asked about outsourcing fire protection services.

“I would disagree with you completely. There’s no proposal to increase any taxes. I gave you one proposal for storm drain fees that the city council has to approve. And just to let you know, at the last meeting the city council considered an increase to our trash rate. And part of that increase was a 7 cent per month increase to cover our costs and they said no. But that direction that’s coming back to us is that they’re not prepared to increase fees. The point is, it’s symbolic. And they’re not prepared to increase fees and we’re looking at employee concessions and we’re looking at reductions in our budget…”

Fred Wilson, responding to a question about alleged city tax increases.

“The city’s not becoming insolvent. I think if you look at our three-year projections for the impacts of pension costs, the numbers are, I think, $5 million, $8 million and, I think, anther $4 million. But overall our budget is over $175 million. So, if you’re putting it into percentages, you’re talking anywhere between two to three to four percent we have to cut incrementally each year. If we can do that the next two to three years, I think that we can manage our budget with those pension costs. But far more, I think employees have to pick up the larger share of the pension costs. We’re working on those. And I think between the two approaches we’re nowhere near insolvency at all.”

Fred Wilson, when asked if any study had been done to determine at what point the city would become insolvent if it didn’t take drastic action on pension reform.

“Everyone of our employees knows what the situation is. They know. And they’re working really hard with us in being great partners in trying to make this work. Because they all know that we’re in a situation. They read the newspapers. They watch TV just like you do and just like I do. So, you know, they’re not playing hard ball. They’re trying hard to cooperate and we’ve found that they’ve been really decent about it…”

Mayor Joe Carchio, speaking about the city’s public employees unions.

By Gus Ayer
Analysis and commentary
Special to the Surf City Voice 

Is Huntington Beach following the Costa Mesa train to Crazy Town, opting for confrontation instead of common sense with their employees?

On Monday, May 2, the Huntington Beach City Council, in closed session, voted against a proposal that would save the city almost $1.3 million in pension costs over the next two years and would also create a second pension tier for future public safety employees.

On May 3, Councilmember Devin Dwyer told city employees that if they hadn’t been there very long they should start looking for another job. He also said that negotiations with the Huntington Beach Fire Department had broken down, but he was quickly corrected by the Huntington Beach Fire Association (HBFA) president, Darrin Witt, who expressed an interest in continuing to talk.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Orange County right-wing politics, where ambitious young pols like Don Hansen and Matt Harper seem poised to try to get some of the publicity that Jim Righeimer has been garnering in Costa Mesa. Term limits will open up one seat each for state Assembly, state Senate and Orange County Board of Supervisors, and the players want to be seen as pension fighters and union busters to appeal to the hard core of Republican primary voters.  

As Mayor Pro Tem Don Hansen said on his Facebook page during the last city council election: 

“Let’s take our city back! If you see a police car or fire truck on the mail – that’s code for ‘union owned.’ We need taxpayer advocates not union puppets now more than ever!”

Mailers supporting Hansen’s endorsed candidates echoed the attacks on public safety employees and their pensions.

After three months of bargaining, HBFA members thought they had a deal that would save Huntington Beach $640,000 a year for the next two years. The proposed side letter to their existing agreement would also change the retirement formula for new hires in order to lower pension costs in the future. After three months of negotiations with staff, Witt felt that “We had met all of the council’s goals set out in the strategic planning session at the beginning of the year.”

Instead of taking two scheduled 2 percent raises, one of which had already been postponed for 18 months, sworn fire officers would apply that money to their pensions thus increasing their pension contribution from 2.25 percent of their income to 6.75 percent of their income.

In return, the firefighters asked for guaranteed staffing levels so that they wouldn’t have to cut the number of paramedics and engine companies that were available to respond to emergencies.  

As the council kept moving the goalposts, the paramedics and fire fighters included a budget trigger which would void the guaranteed staffing levels if revenues drop, expenses rise unexpectedly or if CalPERS increases pension rates.

Monday, May 2, in closed session, the Huntington Beach City Council voted against the savings, moving instead toward further service cuts that would increase response times.

Cutting the budget could mean service cuts that might idle one of the eight paramedic engines or one of the two ladder trucks. Budget cuts could also reduce availability of one of the cross-staffed specialized engines.

Do you cut one of the paramedic engines that respond to over 12,000 (911) medical calls a year? Or do you leave partially idle one of the two ladder trucks that have the ability to put firemen at roof level and carry additional equipment like the “Jaws of Life”?

Even without more personnel cuts to HB Fire, the annexation of Sunset Beach, coupled with fewer available units for mutual aid in surrounding cities, will put pressure on response times in Huntington Beach. The HBFD has already cut six full-time employees, including a battalion Chief, after the city’s revenues dropped substantially during the Great Recession.  

In neighboring Costa Mesa, Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer pushes the party line with staunch ideologue Steve Mensinger at his side and a bumbling mayor following along. Their hasty decision to issue layoffs to half the city has made Costa Mesa a laboratory for right wing political experiments in California. The result is clear: the continued exodus of police officers, firefighters and managers is crippling the city.

In Huntington Beach, it’s Mayor Pro Tem Don Hansen calling the shots, with Republican Central Committee member Matt Harper, and former Central Committee member Devin Dwyer as comrades. All three are close allies of party boss Scott Baugh, a lobbyist and perennial meddler in Huntington Beach politics.  Joe Carchio plays the role of the bumbling mayor whose deal to accept that office a year ahead of schedule has been repeatedly questioned.

Don Hansen, his Red County buddy Chip Hanlon, and their Tea Party allies were big losers in the 2010 election. Two Team-Hansen candidates who hired Hansen’s wife’s consulting business, Red Zone Strategies, lost in the 2010 election. Measure O, a ballot initiative that would have shifted money away from public safety, also lost decisively.

At the core are Hansen, Harper, and Dwyer, who have walked away from the deal that would reduce the city’s current and future pension costs, forcing service cuts instead of compromise.

Councilmember Joe Shaw, elected in 2010 without support from the fire union, refused to comment on what happened during closed session but indicated that he strongly supported the recommendations of the city’s pension consultant, John Bartel.

“We hired an expert who recommended that we work towards a second, lower pension tier for all new hires and move toward getting employees to pick up a greater share of their pensions while holding salaries down. That is exactly what the Fire Association proposed, and it could have been a model for our negotiations with all of our employees,” he said.

The public needs to see this choice debated in public, not hidden behind closed doors. Writing at Chip Hanlon’s Red County, Don Hansen seemed to agree as he expressed his love for country music. 

One effective strategy is to adopt a set of financial policies that would be debated publicly. These policies would set the parameters for labor negotiations. For example, you could adopt a policy that says “The goal of all labor negotiations will be to increase the employee’s contribution to pension costs.”  

 In Huntington Beach, the city recently gave direction to negotiate the elimination of pending salary increases by the end of February. Taking a public vote in a meeting keenly observed by many of the union leaders sends a signal that there is a solid vote for such a solution.

By setting a more transparent policy goal prior to the commencement of labor negotiations, elected officials become more accountable for the ultimate result. Further, if your community leaders are not committed to fiscally sustainable labor policy their position will be publicly vetted as well. The economic consequences of these decisions are too great to allow them to be hidden.

Because no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

There are three simple questions for the councilmembers who rejected the fire union’s concessions:

1)      What policy are you advancing by refusing exactly the type of pension reform that your own expert recommends?

2)      When are you going to have the public debate on whether the residents and business owners in Huntington Beach want to sacrifice response times for your ideology or not?

3)      Are you looking for sustainable budget solutions or just pandering to Republican primary voters so you can get some of the attention that Jim Righeimer has been hogging?

Photo: L – R: Don Hansen, Matt Harper, Devin Dwyer. Courtesty of Calitics

Gus Ayers is a former mayor of Fountain Valley. He writes for Calitics, where this column was originally published. Huntington Beach Councilmembers Hansen, Harper and Dwyer have been invited by the Surf City Voice to respond to Ayers.