An interesting week...

It was an interesting week in Marina, without a doubt. The reason to start this blog all emanates from the actions of our Marina City Council, specifically the current majority. This is a long entry but it’s important to read it all. There were three meetings on successive nights that resulted in some good communication, some incredibly incomprehensible behavior and decisions, and even the threat of escorting a City Councilman out of the building by the police. I guess the best place to start is on Monday.

On Monday night the Cal PERS Ad Hoc committee met to look at options for City employee retirement plans. Since this is a negotiated area there are no immediate changes possible or really even desired. It is however important to look ahead at options that could help our City’s employee’s and the City’s long term budget. This work will continue with both Councilmen O’Connell and Ford at the helm. I hope they keep on this and really research the options.

The big issue was the City Council meeting on Tuesday night. Here the Council majority voted on what I see as an elaborate ‘bait & switch’ that will affect the City of Marina for years to come. The majority overlooked the most qualified developer group for the Cypress Knolls project and tried to shoehorn in a developer that has way too many faults to name here but they include allegations of bribery, lack of financing, legal, and environmental issues. Once the majority realized they could not make the Mayor’s choice they decided to start all over with a different RFQ and RFP process. They did this rather than choose the most qualified developer that could start negotiations tomorrow. Now a whole new process must begin that is more in line with what the Mayor wanted 2 years ago but was over ruled then.

The result of this process will likely be expensive lawsuits against the City and a development community that cannot trust the City of Marina to follow through with what they promise. Especially after the two development teams spent well in excess of $600,000 and almost two years of time doing what the Council wanted. Now our Council said forget it we changed our minds. Are you kidding me!

This action will directly affect our City’s budget now and well into the future. There will be no project funds now and no new major development that could contribute to the budget in the future. No reimbursement for monies already spent, no new monies for the fencing around Cypress Knolls and no monies for staff time to approve a new ENA nor DDA. Marina we need to do better than this.

All that said, we move to Wednesday nights ‘special’ Council meeting where the majority is deciding to spend monies we do not have to annex more land to the City. It will likely cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the all the reports needed to accomplish this goal of our Mayor. Even the Mayor’s most ardent supporters are questioning this action. This is also the meeting that caused the police to be called to the Council Chambers (watch the end of the meeting on AMP to see it yourself). I may address this sometime later but it’s too bizarre to describe. Let’s just say it ended with cooler heads, thank goodness.

Now we need to look ahead to this Tuesday night when the Council goes back into session to hear how each City department is going to cut another 20% from its budget to decrease the overall budget deficit. If we can’t fund the things we have now why are we looking to annex more land and people into the City? If departments are going to have to cut deeper into our core services (contrary to the wishes of measures M & N) and put our City at risk why wouldn’t you bring in new revenues to the City and choose a qualified developer for Cypress Knolls now?

You just can’t make this stuff up. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I never would believe it. I would encourage you to look up the Council meetings on AMP and see them for yourself.

More later.