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Home My WebLink AboutSupplemental Questions from Robert Goldberg1 Gloria Harper From:Robert Goldberg <rgoldberg@live.com> Sent:Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:22 PM To:Thomas Moore; Schelly Sustarsic; Mike Varipapa; Sandra Massa-Lavitt; Joe Kalmick Cc:Jill Ingram; Gloria Harper Subject:Comments for Monday Night's Open Session and Public Hearings Attachments:10.14.19.Questions Comments.doc; Resolution 6929.pdf Dear Council and Staff, Please find my attached my comments and questions on Items C, F, and G for Monday's open session meeting. I have also attached the Resolution referenced in my comments. Thank you for your consideration and service, Robert Goldberg Questions & Comments for 10/14/19 (Open Session) from Robert Goldberg Item C: Quarterly Report of City Manager Authorized Contracts I applaud the City Manager’s decision to resume issuing this Quarterly Report after a hiatus of over two years. However, the stated purpose, “to further increase transparency,” could be advanced to a much greater degree if subsequent Reports included not only contracts that she has personally authorized, but also those authorized by Department Heads. This is particularly relevant since the FY 19-20 budget resolution (#6929) included new language in Section 5 (attached) which authorized the City Manager to delegate her contract-signing authority to Department Heads. The broader inclusivity that I am recommending seemed to be the practice when the Quarterly Reports were initiated in 2015. As can be seen in the table below, the first two Quarterly Reports mostly consisted of contracts to be utilized by operating departments. The scope of the reporting then appears to have narrowed with the third and subsequent reports as these only included contracts related to the City Manager’s Department or the City Council. This change resulted in a decrease in the number of reported contracts from a total of six in the first two Quarterly Reports to a total of only four in the subsequent five Quarterly Reports. Period Covered Report Date Contracter Amount Purpose Department June-Sept 2015 10/12/2015 Khouri Consulting $28,500 Sacramento Lobbying City Manager JWA Urban Consultants $22,500 Audit SB Shores Rental Subsidy Planning/ Finance McErlain Investigations $25,000 Employee Investigation Police Oct- Dec 2015 2/2/2016 Bucknam Group $20,659 Pavement Management Plan Public Works Grover & Asso $6,880 Traffic Surveys Public Works AKM Engineers $9,880 Pump Station Improvements Public Works Jan-Mar 2016 4/25/2016 Snider & Asso $3,975 Goals Workshop City Council Apr-June 2016 7/25/2016 Traub & Asso $5,000 Personnel Investigation City Manager July-Oct 2016 11/14/2016 Snider & Asso $4,200 Goals Workshop City Council Nov-Feb 2017 3/27/2017 "No Contracts to Report" Mar-June 2017 8/14/2017 Snider & Asso $4,200 Goals Workshop City Council Without a directive from the Council for the Quarterly Reports to include contracts approved by Department Heads, it is likely that number of disclosed contracts will remain very low and only a small percentage of the total number awarded. This is exemplified by the recent experience of the Sun Newspaper. Last spring, the Sun requested all professional service agreements and/or contracts authorized by the City Manager and various Department Heads in the month of April. The result was zero contracts authorized by the City Manager, but two contracts approved by the Community Development Department and six approved by the Public Works Department (Sun, 6/20/19). Since members of the Council are often curious as to how other cities handle similar issues, I would like to share one example from the City of Carpinteria (population just under 14,000) that I came across by chance. Sub-section 2.08.150(C) in their Municipal Code requires that “A list of contracts, if any, executed by the city manager or his/her designee pursuant to subsection B (referring to the City Manager’s authorization limit of $30,000) shall be presented to the city council for their information via a subsequent report.” (Italics added) A staff report present to the Carpinteria City Council on 2/11/19 included the following table which listed 12 contracts for a variety of departments over a period of less than three months. Vendor Purpose Amount Clear Water Engineering Resolve drainage issue $19,300 MNS Engineers Grant writing for CALTRANS grant $9,300 The Buske Group Consultant services regarding TV agreement $1,500 Everywhere Right Now, Inc.City website $10,000 Best, Best, Krieger Legal services regarding Verizon matter $300/hr ZWorld GIS GIS mapping services $30,000 WIP Cabling at City Hall/Sheriff Offices $22,593 Hillcrest Security Security install at City Hall/Sheriff Offices $12,891 COM3 Consulting Interim Public Works Director services $25,100 Canon Copy machine lease $429 Monthly Shaw Contracting Replace storm drain and repair road $17,750 Ganicus 3-Yr Agreement for streaming of public meetings $24,726 Report of Contracts Executed by the City Manager Period of November 21, 2018 through February 4, 2019 In comparison, our last six Quarterly reports (counting the one on Monday’s Agenda) covered over 18 months, but only listed a total of five contracts. Moreover, three of these were for the same consultant (Snider & Associates). Clearly, our Quarterly Reports could provide much better transparency. Therefore, I ask that the Council direct the City Manager to list not only those contracts that she personally authorizes, but also all contracts authorized by Department Heads. Item F: Application Fees for 5G Installations (Public Hearing) Per the staff report, the FCC allows cities to charge an annual fee of $270 “per individual SWF attached to specific City infrastructure in PROW.” However, staff’s proposed Fee Schedule does not include a line item for an annual fee. Are we intending to not charge an annual fee, or is an equivalent already levied by our existing Fee Schedule? Item G: Energy Tubulars (ETI) Sales Tax Rebate (Public Hearing) The Financial Impact section of the staff report states that “It is estimated that the City tax revenue generated by ETI would average approximately $1,000,000 per year. Accordingly, it is estimated that financial assistance provided by the City would average approximately $200,000 per year.” However, in FY 18-19, the quarterly tax rebates paid to ETI result totaled only $22,278 (see table below). This implies that the total City tax revenue generated by ETI in FY 18-19 to be only $111,391. In fact, the total City tax revenue generated by ETI tax revenue has not been $1,000,000 or more since FY 12-13. This appears to largely be due to a sudden (and sustained) drop in sales beginning in the January-March quarter of FY 2014-15. 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 July-Sept 71,506$ 33,718$ 14,940$ 2,422$ 903$ 3,066$ 7,223$ Oct-Dec 62,337$ 38,295$ 15,276$ 4,708$ 2,653$ No Warrant 8,002$ Jan-Mar 62,839$ 15,343$ 2,481$ 213$ 3,061$ 6,570$ 3,625$ Apr-Jun 36,011$ 21,665$ 4,127$ 173$ No Warrant 7,357$ 3,428$ Total Rebated Tax 232,694$ 109,022$ 36,825$ 7,516$ 6,617$ $16,993 22,278$ Tax Retained by City 930,775$ 436,088$ 147,298$ 30,063$ 26,466$ 67,970$ 89,113$ Total Tax Generated 1,163,469$ 545,110$ 184,123$ 37,578$ 33,083$ 84,963$ 111,391$ Rebate Warrants Fiscal Year How soon does staff anticipate that City tax revenue generated by ETI by will “average approximately $1,000,000 per year?” Regarding the BB supplemental sales tax: Will ETI be required to pay the BB tax? If so, then do we expect the total sales tax revenue and the rebated amount to double in FY 19-20 vs. FY 18-19 (assuming the same level of gross sales)? If so, then why is was the amount of the tax rebate for April-June 2019, the first BB quarter, less than half of April-June 2018?