S.P. City Council has budget, Animal Shelter, PERC ad hoc committee on agenda
June 17, 2011
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula City Council
The Santa Paula City Council will hold a regularly scheduled meeting Monday - before they take off for an extended summer hiatus - that will include finalizing the budget, receiving a report on attorney fees, addressing the ad hoc committee formed to address unanticipated costs to the new water recycling plant, and hearing a report on components of creating an animal shelter.
There will be a closed session before the meeting resumes in open session at 6:30 p.m. The meeting will be televised live on Time Warner Cable Channel 10 and be rebroadcast according to schedule. It will also be available for live stream online viewing before being archived for later watching.
Leslie Leavens-Crowe will offer a presentation on the Asian Citrus Psyllid, a pest that has the potential of destroying the state’s citrus production if it becomes a carrier of a devastating disease. The pest has been found in Ventura County in an uninfected state.
The council has an almost alphabet-long list of Consent Calendar items - A through U - those issues not considered controversial or requiring council discussion, but the council does have the option to pull items for further examination.
First up on the Order of Business is a report from Police Chief Steve MacKinnon on cost savings, projected fees and other components of the city creating its own Animal Shelter division. If the council adopts the resolution setting such fees, it will be the first step in creation of the new service.
The council will also consider several items related to the 2011-2012 Fiscal Year Budget, including setting new policy on annual budget preparation - including making formal the need for a contingency fund and ensuring fee increases are regularly addressed. The council will also be asked to adopt the Fiscal Year 2010-2011 budgets. The report details moneysaving steps taken by the council, as well the $1 million plus infusion of general tax revenues that came into city coffers for the 2010-2011 Fiscal Year.
Other agenda items include a report by City Attorney Karl Berger on attorney fees, and an oral report by City Manager Jaime Fontes on the Ad Hoc Change Order Subcommittee. The subcommittee is a body formed to consider cost overruns incurred during the construction of the water recycling facility. Councilmen Bob Gonzales and Ralph Fernandez volunteered to serve as an investigative team on the costs about one-year ago.
At a recent meeting Mayor Fred Robinson and Council members Rick Cook and Jim Tovias agreed the ad hoc committee was no longer needed, and that time had run out on the issue. But at the next session Robinson and Tovias sided with Gonzales and Fernandez when they objected to the dissolution of the committee.
City Hall is located at 970 E. Ventura Street.
