July 12, 2011 - Laguna Hills City Council Meeting
All Council Members were present
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*** City Council Meetings have now advanced one more step to Video as well as Audio on the City Web Site. - Continue to see information for Win-Win -Wednesdays under - INFORMATION, COMMENTS QUESTIONS and CONCERNS from Watch Dog Readers: Contact Laguna Hills City Council Members at - ccouncil@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us
Headline for this meeting - City Staff Creates City Policy for their own Compensation - see below under Administrative Reports.
PRESENTATIONS and PROCLAMATIONS - 15 year Anniversary Awards of a pen and pencil set and certificates of recognition for City Employees Jan Thomas Frainie - Parks Supervisor and Janice Reyes - Finance Manager. Congratulations to both of them!
PUBLIC COMMENTS - Allen (couldn't hear his last name clearly) Resident of Laguna Hills who lives across from the High School in the Aspan Creek Community requested a study of speeding on the streets where he lives. He said they have a down hill slope problem and it is not safe for to exit the community and there is the noise related problem. This resident was referred to the Traffic Commission, that meets every 2 months - next meeting with me July 20. He was also referred to Ken Rosenfield, City Engineer/Director of Public Services. Ken said he would contact the Resident to hear the complaint to start a process.
LHHS STUDENT LIAISON REPORT by Kylie West alternate Jeena Bonutto. - No more reports until school resumes in the Fall.
MINUTES - Recommendation that the City Council Approve the Minutes of the previous City Council Meeting for publication on the city web site. The minutes from tonight's meeting will not be approved for publication until the next city council meeting so there is a long delay for the public related to timely documentation of information from the city.
CONSENT CALENDAR - Warrant Register = $551,559.79
Items of interest from the Warrant Register - None
Items of Interest from the Consent Calendar: **Items on the Consent Calendar are placed there by City Staff:
Item 4.3 - Extension of Tentative Parcel Map - On Sept. 8, 2009 the City Planning Agency/City Council approved a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for CT Realty Corporation to make improvements in and around an existing 2 story building (currently used by the Superior Court) for condominium purposes. Once the condominium ownership is established, and the Superior Court moves out, the applicant intends to sell and the convert the existing general office space to occupancy and ownership by medical offices. The superior Court has not moved out so the applicant requests a 2 year extension of the CUP.
Item 4.4 Solid Waste and Recycling Consulting Services Agreement with EcoNomics, Inc. Staff is requesting another 2 year contract with this same company for $70,000. This cost is reportedly funded by the City's re-cycling funds. Staff report says this company assists the City with solid waste franchise administration (with CR&R), compliance reporting to the State, and recycling program administration. A representative from CR& R was on the panel that interviewed applicants for this service.
Item 4.5 Amendment to City's Landscape and Maintenance Service Contract with Nieves Landscape, Inc. According to the Staff Report the City made an error in the contract agreement with Nieves that became effective on July 1, 2009 which has now resulted in what originally appeared to be a potential $250,001.08 increase to the contract but after further explanation now appears to be a maximum increase of $55,001.08 or about 22%.
(Staff Report states " In reviewing the contract agreement, however staff has determined there was an inadvertent cap placed upon the total compensation value in the Contract Agreement that is inconsistent with the intended scope of work and regular practices of the City. Specifically, the Contract Agreement used the base service cost as the maximum compensation of the Contract Agreement which did not take in to account such regular expenses such as addition of new landscape areas for routine maintenance, non-recurring extra work as needed, and a contemplated cost of living adjustment in this fiscal year.")
(Editor's Note - From the Laguna Hills Watch Dog Report of the June 9, 2009 City Council Meeting we found that there was a change from Spectrum Care to Nieves Landscape Inc. for citywide landscape maintenance beginning July 1, 2009 at a cost of $869,998.92. That contract amount will now be increased to a maximum of the amount allotted by the current Fiscal Year City Budget of $1,120,000 broken into $925,000 for landscape maintenance, $175,000 for tree services, and $20,000 for rodent and pest control. Although this is confusing apparently the cost for the Landscape Maintenance portion of this Contract can now be increased by a maximum of about $55,001.08 as needed including the Cost of Living Increase for Nieves employees and additional work orders as needed. So the increase is from $869,998.92 to $925,000.00 rather than from $869,998.92 to $250,001.08 because $175,000 of the $250,001.08 is for tree services and $20,000 is for rodent and pest control services. Nieves does only the landscaping.)
Council Member Bressette pulled this item from the Consent Calendar for an explanation by Ken Rosenfield, City Engineer/Director of Public Services. Ken Rosenfield explained staff identified a potential inconsistency in the initial landscape contract with Nieves. He said in the contract format the City used at the time (2009) the project specifications take precedent over the contract agreement if there is a dispute between the 2 instruments. There was no dispute but Nieves recently requested a consumer price index adjustment to their contract and in reviewing the contract there appeared to be a conflict in the maximum payment cap which is inconsistent with the format of the specifications. He further explained that they worked with the City Attorney's office to draft a contract amendment to clarify those issues and established a contract agreement. He said this was an administrative clean-up. The current Fiscal Year City Budget of $1,120,000 broken into $925,000 for landscape maintenance which Nieves specifically addresses.
Item 4.6 Civic Center Budget - The Staff report says the budgeted net income is $107,427 and there will be no drain on the City's General Fund in there 2011-2012 budget for the Civic Center.
Office Space 320A is expected to be leased effective Oct. 1, 2011
Office space 200 is expected to be leased effective January 1, 2012
Office Space 320C is expected to be leased effective March, 2012
Office Space 330's lease is expected to be renewed effective May, 2012
Office Space 301 will remain vacant after Aug. 2011
Office Spaces 100 and 205 will remain vacant throughout the year.
Items 4.7 and 4.8 - Claim of Ralph Colombo for Damages of Unreasonable demolition of improvements to personal property at Saddle Rock Place in Laguna Hills. Report states City of Laguna Hills is denying this claim stating the claim is late, not presented within 6 months of the event.
VOTE - All items in the consent Calendar were passed 5 - 0, except Item 4.5 which was passed 5 - 0 after being pulled for explanation by Council Member Bressette
Items Pulled from the Consent Calendar for Discussion - Item 4.5 Amendment to City's Landscape and Maintenance Service Contract with Nieves Landscape, Inc. was pulled by Council Member Bressette for an explanation.
PLANNING AGENCY PUBLIC HEARINGS -
Item 5.4.1 - Conditional Use Permit to establish a Grades K- 2 Charter School at 25201 Paseo de Alicia in the Alicia Office Park, a Neighborhood Mixed Use Zoning District. School will be doing business from 7 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday with 100 students. Staff Report states this school has decided to occupy an alternative site within the Capistrano Unified School District which will better serve their needs, so their request for a CUP is withdrawn.
Item 5.4.2 - Site Development Permit/Master Sign Program Conditional Use Permit request by Hodgdon Grp. on behalf of Ashley Furniture to redevelop commercial property at 24001 El Toro Rd. (the former Circuit City Building).
The remodel will have 2 tenant spaces, one for Ashley furniture and one for another tenant through a large addition to the existing building - plus a separate drive through Chick-fil-A restaurant in addition to all new signage and landscaping. Staff report says 3 comments have been received from the community - One from the City of Laguna Woods with concerns about traffic, noise and air quality. One from the Golden Rain Foundation asking for an extended period for public comment and another from United Laguna Hills Mutual with concerns about traffic, air quality aesthetics and glare.
Staff Recommendation - Conduct a public hearing and overall the project makes a positive improvement in a key commercial area of the City.
Council Member Bressette recused himself from listening, discussing and voting on this item because of a possible conflict related to having a client associated with Chick-fil-A.
There was approximately a 2 hour discussion of this item which boiled down to the City Council Members rejecting the Ashley Furniture's Trademark 40 x 40 foot 4 sided tower structure over the entry to their store. Ashley's argument was that this was their trademark structure on the other stores they had built, the tower displayed their name on all 4 sides and could be seen from the freeway and the nearby streets. They agreed to all other restrictions but stated they did not want to give this up because it is recognized by the public as their trade mark, is good looking and their stores that have this trademark design are more successful than their rented stores that don't have it. The City Council Members argued that the tower was out of balance with the rest of the building and 5 times larger than City Code permits. There was a deadlock and the applicant was sent literally back to the drawing board to redesign the tower and return at a later date. The council is in recess until August 23.
VOTE was 5 - 0 to reject the proposed Tower Structure on the remodeled building.
Planning Agency Public Comments - The only objections from the Public to the building were from Carol Moore representing an HOA in Laguna Woods and the Coralee Newman representing the Golden Rain Foundation with complaints that they had not been notified of the Mitigated Negative Declaration and were neighbors in this area. They inquired about additional noise, flood control in the parking lot, increased traffic, agreed that the tower element was too large and asked that signs/lights on the building be turned off daily by 10:00 pm.
Laguna Hills City Attorney, Greg Simonian explained that the City of Laguna Hills is currently and has at all times been in full compliance with CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) with respect to Notice Requirements. Golden Rain Foundation United, Third Laguna Hills Mutual, none of these neighbors are in compliance with public resources code section 21092.2. For purposes of record he referred these interested neighbors to public resources code section 21092.2 and added it would be advisable that they refer their counsel to this code section now and in the future because we have heard this same argument before from Golden Rain Foundation and from United that they are not receiving notice. They are not in compliance with CEQA standards and with the notice of requirements themselves. It's a special noticing provision that once triggered legally obligates the City for a one year period to these concerned agencies with respect to any and all CEQA notifications concerning the City not just the Urban Village or other special projects. He noted he believes there is an inherent disconnect between what CEQA requires and what the neighbors are expecting.
(Editor's Note - There are many opinions about the City's Building Code. It is necessary to have some kind of uniform code that is applicable to all, equally enforced to avoid significant problems, that keeps the City looking good, keeps businesses in business and residents happy, but in the 6 years we have been attending Laguna Hills City Council Meetings we have frequently heard from business owners and developers that Laguna Hills is one of the worst cities to work with. This huge Circuit City building has been vacant for years and this is an excellent opportunity for 3 new businesses to occupy this space and bring much needed tax revenue and jobs to this city, so as Council Member Kogerman said perhaps the City's needs to look at some code changes?
Another example of the City Code problem was a struggling strip mall on La Paz and Mc Intyre at the June 14, LHCC meeting when Mr. Ron Bamburger, retail developer, told the City Council that the old sign for the strip mall he is re-developing looks dated but conforms with City Code at the 20 foot height limit so will be left as is rather than replaced unless the City might be willing to look at the possibility of allowing some exceptions for this location. He emphasized that he did not mean to be disrespectful in any way and this was simply an economic reality. Before that when Total Women's Gym came to the Laguna Hills Mall they requested their company's trademark color of approximately Kelly Green letters on the sign on their building, but the City Council argued for white. The Gym eventually changed their letters from green to white.)
CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARINGS - Confirmation of 2011 Weed Abatement Cost Report Approx. 550 property owners were identified in this program and through City notices and reminders, etc. only one property owner did not comply and the City was forced to perform the weed abatement at a cost of $415.15 to be added to the owners tax bill.
Fiscal Impact to the City - Total Weed Abatement Budget for FY 2010-2011 is $40,000 for private and public properties.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS - **These Items are authored by City Staff
Item 7.2 - 2011-13 Salary and Benefits Resolution for City Staff
City Staff's Recommendations for City Policies for City Staff's Compensation - Establish Salary Ranges and Benefits for classes of City Employees to replace Resolution No. 2009-06-23-2
Staff sited the recent City Employee Compensation Study from Ralph Anderson & Assoc. commissioned by City Management Employees and approved 4 to 1 by the City Council (Council Member Kogerman was the only No Vote, and said she wanted to address policy first). Council Member Bressette stated that he voted yes to receive and file so he could open the matter up again if he wanted to. He said a yes vote made no comment about the validity of the report, only whether or not to receive and file.
City Staff Compensation Policy Recommendations were:
1. Maintain 5% above market average position
2. Monitor health insurance costs and market trends
3. Consider administrative leave for management positions
4. Monitor market changes in retirement formulas as agencies introduce tiers for new employees
5. Staff report states in the past the City's policy was to pay 5% above the County average and Ralph Anderson & Assoc. suggested using the approved comparator agency average (meaning using only the 17 cities used for this study in the future instead of the 33 cities in Orange County that were previously used.)
Staff is recommending that cost of living adjustments be granted to all non-management and extended part time employees on their current salaries and retroactive to July 1, 2011. The maximum adjustment is 2%. Future increases will be subject to annual performance evaluation and be based on merit and budget constraints.
Non-Management Employees (full time) - Staff recommends that these 21 salary ranges be benchmarked to 5% above the market average. Staff states 13 of these employees salaries are currently below the 5% above the market average benchmark. 8 of these employees are currently at or above the benchmark. Staff also recommends that one position be re-named from Assistant City Engineer to Associate Engineer and given a 10% raise.
Management Employee Positions - staff is recommending that the benchmark adjustments be deferred for 2 years. For full time management positions staff says the City's study supports adjustments for 4 of the 6 management positions and cost of living adjustments for all 6. Staff says there have been no benchmark or Cost of living adjustments for management staff since July 1, 2008 but staff does not mention raises or bonuses since 2008.
Extended Part time Positions - hourly ranges have been increased by a 2% cost of living allowance with the exception of Administrative Assistant 1 that has been increased 0.66%.
Part Time Positions - Staff says hourly ranges for Community Services Leader 1 and 2 have not been adjusted and another part time position has been of Administrative Intern. has been added related to a maternity leave.
City Manager's Discretionary Power to grant up to a 5% salary adjustment to all employees who have reached their top step - Staff report says this power has been deleted because the new City Compensation Study provides up to date benchmark comparisons.
City Manager's Discretionary Power to grant both salary and cost of living adjustments for the 2nd year for the budget cycle has been revised to allow the City Manager to grant cost of living allowances based on the April 2012 consumer Price Index.
Retirement - There are no recommended changes to the City's retirement plans.
Insurance - Staff Report states the study found the City's expenditure for Ins. benefits is generally higher than comparator agencies, but no changes are recommended over the next 2 years.
Vacation, Holidays and Leaves of Absence - Report says the City's Compensation Study noted that the City did not have Administrative leave for management employees but no changes are recommended at this time.
Additional Compensation (Auto Allowance) - 4 employees are given a monthly auto allowance from $300 to $650. The City's Compensation Study noted the market average for auto allowances among comparator agencies was $375 a month and 76% of private employers have auto allowances ranging from $500 to $842 a month so no changes are recommended. (Editor's Note - Only in this one isolated case did both the City Employee Compensation study and the City decide to look at and use Private Sector information that was more favorable to them regarding Auto allowances.)
Additional Compensation (Management Incentive Program - annual bonuses - Report states the City's Annual Management Incentive Program began in 1992 and allows management employees to earn 0 to 10% of their annual salary for outstanding performance. This was reportedly defunded in the current Biennial Budget 2011-13.
Fiscal Impact to the City - According to City Staff total budgeted personnel costs are $4,525,904 in 2011-12 and $4,690,156 in 2012-13 or 27% of the operating budget.
(Editor's Note - What the Staff is suggesting is to correct, through increases in compensation, what their city employee compensation study reports as everything below the 5% above the market average point in the 17 cities studied (in their recent City Employee Compensation Study) and to leave in place but not add anything for 2 years to what their study reports as everything above the 5% above the market average point. They propose to use the private sector info. from the study only for car allowances that their study said were much higher in Laguna Hill than in other cities and they failed to mention the "provided cars" that are paid for by taxpayers but given to the City Manager and the Assist. City Manager for their exclusive use. This was a practice which their study reported to be "not common" in other cities. The taxpayers/City will continue to pay all of the employer's and the employee's contributions to Employee Retirement Plans for management employees with 10 years of service and for Employee Health Ins. Premiums including those for the City Council Members.)
City Manager Don White restated the information above from the Staff Report and added that possibly sometime in the future the City would add having employees contribute some of their employee portion of their retirement benefits plans after we see how other cities are operating.
Council Member Bressette asked Assist. City Manager Don White where it is stated or suggested in print that from this time forward the City is now supposed to use the average annual compensation of only the 17 cities chosen for this study rather than all the cities in Orange County to calculate the 5% above the average pay for Laguna Hills employees? The report only states maintain 5% above the market average position.
Assist. City Manager White responded "In the Consultant's mind the market is the Comparator Agencies" and those comparator agencies are the 17 Cities that were approved by the City Council. White said he talked with the Consultant and he clarified that our market is always now the 17 cities.
Council Member Kogerman asked Don White what the difference in numbers would be with using just 17 cities rather than all the 34 cities.
White responded no studies were done but it is close.
Bressete responded that previously we had all 34 cities so just using these 17 would likely result in a higher average compensation amount.
Mayor Songstad said, "I would disagree with that as pure speculation."
Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth said all 5 Council Members approved the 17 cities for the study so why a complaint now?
(Editor's Note - The reason to complain now is that there was never any public suggestion during this entire process of a mandate to always use only these 17 cities, that were selected for this one study, in the future to determine the average salary ranges for calculating the average salary + 5% for Laguna Hills Employees. Additionally of the 17 Cities studied only one was smaller in population than Laguna Hills and that was Laguna Beach which much more complex full service City. 16 of the 17 cities studied were larger. Only 2 of the larger Cities Dana Point (2010 population of 37,000) and San Juan (2010 population of 34,593), were close in size to Laguna Hills (2010 population of 31,178) The 17 Cities studied were Yorba Linda, Tustin, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange, Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Fountain Valley, Dana Point, Cypress, Buena Park, and Brea)
Council Member Lautenschleger said he was happy with this recommendation and thinks the compensation study was accurate.
Council Member Barbara Kogerman proposed a substitute motion for a Revised Resolution containing the following compensation revisions for council consideration but did not receive a 2nd to discuss her motion so none of her proposed changes were discussed. Mayor Songstad insisted these changes would make Laguna Hills not competitive in the market place.
Council Member Kogerman's revisions that were suggested but not allowed to be discussed at the Council Meeting for lack of a 2nd to Kogerman's motion were:
1. RETIREMENT
Strike the current practice of the City paying “. . all employees’ contributions to PERS as deferred income.”
Substitute “. . . require all employees to pay an additional 2% of the employee’s share annually until the employees and the City are each paying 50% of the total plan cost.
”Will read: “The City shall participate in the California Public Employees Retirement System’s (Cal PERS) 2% @ 60 Program and require all employees to pay an additional 2% of the employee’s share annually until the employees and the City are each paying 50% of the total plan cost.”
2. RETIREMENT
“Retirement benefits shall be calculated based on the highest 36 months’ pay.” [Not final year]
3. VACATION
Change language to read, “Upon termination, all employers shall be compensated at their current pay scale for their accrued vacation leave balance at the pay scale for the year in which the leave was granted . . . ..”Add at end of paragraph: “Accrued vacation leave which the employee elects to cash out shall be compensated at the pay scale for the year in which the leave was granted.”
4. VACATION
Paragraph E: Strike entire paragraph. (Refers to granting management employees a one-time allotment of 40 hours of vacation leave to the employee’s vacation leave balance every ten years)
5. ADDITIONAL COMPENSATION
Paragraph A (monthly automobile allowance granted by the City Manager in lieu of mileage reimbursement): Cap at $400.
Council Member Bressette reminded the council that the Compensation Study Consultant insisted that employees want to retire at 55, but the CalPERS web site shows the average retirement is age 60 so if the Consultant had more accurate information his conclusions would have been different. Also, contrary to what the consultant said, there actually is additional financial benefit for waiting until age 60 to retire. He noted that at the 2% at 60 formula, if you retire after 30 years of employment at 55 your % of your last year's salary is 43.8% but if you wait another 5 years you go from 43.8% to 60%, and if you waited another 5 years your retirement would go to 70%. Bressette said in view of this he could not vote for the Staff's Resolution because the Compensation Study the Resolution was based upon was not accurate. He noted other problems with the salary ranges and made a substitute motion to adopt the staff recommendation with the exception of using all the other 33 cities in the future rather than just the 17 and he also received no 2nd for his motion and his proposed change was not discussed.
Mayor Songstad challanged Bressette with what if the survey of all the cities turned out to be higher, you would be good with that?
Bressette responded, Yes he would.
VOTE was 3 to 2 to accept Staff Recommendations For City Compensation Policies for Their Own Compensation as presented by City Staff. The 2 NO Votes were Kogerman and Bressette
Public Comments - CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARINGS – None
Item 7.3.1 Designation of Voting Delegate for League of CA. Cities annual Conference - Mayor Songstad was selected with Lautenschleger as the alternate.
OTHER BUSINESS - **These Items are authored by Council Members - Appointment of a Labor Negotiator
Item 8.1 - Appointment of Labor Negotiator for the City Manager's Contract - Agendized by Council Member Kogerman and continued from the June 28 City Council Meeting
At the June 28, 2011 Council Meeting the council directed the City Attorney to return with names of 3 qualified labor negotiators to facilitate negotiations concerning the Contract of the City Manager. The City Attorney brought back these 3 names of attorneys who specialize in labor relations: Daniel Cassidy, Mark Meyerhoff and Jeffrey Freedman from the law firm of Liebert, Cassidy and Whitmore. The professional hourly rate for these attorneys is $300 and hour. The City Council has the option of selecting a City Council designated labor negotiator that can be a City Council Member or Members, an agency counsel, a human relations staff, a professional facilitator/labor negotiator or a special labor counsel to serve as the City's designated representative. The Report also states - In the event that City Council votes to retain special labor counsel, it is recommended that the City Council also authorize the City Attorney to execute a retainer Agreement for special counsel services.
City Attorney's Dept. Report states The City Council must first place the appointment of a labor negotiator on the open and public session of the agenda and select a labor negotiator prior to discussing compensation in Closed Session. Under the Brown Act the Council must take final action of changes to compensation in Open Session after conferring with the council designated representative during Closed Session.
Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth selected Dan Cassidy from the list of labor negotiators selected by the City Attorney and made a motion for a 1st meeting in September. Council Member Lautenschleger protested that this may be a duplication of effort because this is always done at the end of the year. Council Member Kogerman reminded Lautenschleger that the City Manager's contract provisions have not been changed since his new contract was approved by the council in 2003. Mayor Songstad insisted that this is a total waste of time and he is a Contract's Attorney and negotiates contracts for a living and unless there are 2 parties that both want to negotiate there is no negotiation. (Editor's Note - Many citizens have expressed to the LH Watch Dog - Where was Songstad, the Contracts Attorney, in 2003 when the City Manager was given his current contract and why was Songstad not serving the voters he was elected to serve rather than the City Manager?)
VOTE was 3 - 2 in favor of the attempting to negotiate the City Manger's Contract to see if any common ground can be found for negotiation. The 2 NO votes were Lautenschleger and Songstad.
MATTERS PESENTED by MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS - Nothing
CLOSED SESSION – Conference with Legal Counsel - Initiation of Litigation - 1 potential case.
The City Council is taking a recess on July 26 and August 9. The Next regular City Council Meeting is Tuesday August 23, 7 pm, at City Hall. Contact Laguna Hills City Council Members at - ccouncil@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us
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City Council & City Manager Report Card - Categories - (T) Transparency for Citizens, (A) Accountability to Citizens, (CI) Championing Citizen Related Issue, (AG) Achieving Citizen Related Goal Grades - (P) Pass, (A) for Authoring a Citizen Friendly Item, (F) Fail, (A+) Extra Credit. City Manager will be scored related to online and agendized Staff Reports and Requests.
Bressette - P for Voting against the Resolution by the City Staff to determine their own Compensation Policy for the City. A for authoring a City Friendly alternative Resolution for City Employee Compensation Policy. P for voting for the Citizen Friendly Appointment of a Labor Negotiator to attempt to re-negotiate the City Manager's Contract.
Carruth - F for Voting for the Resolution by the City Staff to determine their own Compensation Policy for the City without discussing alternative Resolutions from council members. P for voting for the Citizen Friendly Appointment of a Labor Negotiator to attempt to re-negotiate the City Manager's Contract.
Kogerman - P for Voting against the Resolution by the City Staff to determine their own Compensation Policy for the City. A for authoring a City Friendly alternative Resolution for City Employee Compensation Policy. P for voting for the Citizen Friendly Appointment of a Labor Negotiator to attempt to re-negotiate the City Manager's Contract. A for authoring the citizen friendly Item of re-negotiating the City Manager's Contract and A+ for getting that item passed.
Lautenschleger - F for Voting for the Resolution by the City Staff to determine their own Compensation Policy for the City without discussing alternative Resolutions from council members. F for voting against the Citizen Friendly Appointment of a Labor Negotiator to attempt to re-negotiate the City Manager's Contract.
Songstad - F for Voting for the Resolution by the City Staff to determine their own Compensation Policy for the City without discussing alternative Resolutions from council members. F for voting against the Citizen Friendly Appointment of a Labor Negotiator to attempt to re-negotiate the City Manager's Contract.
City Manager - F City made an error in the contract agreement with Nieves that became effective on July 1, 2009 which was not discovered until 2011 and has now resulted in a maximum increase of $55,001.08 or about 22%. F for not volunteering to re-negotiate his City Contract and Compensation that makes him the highest compensated City Manager in all of Orange County.
INFORMATION, COMMENTS QUESTIONS and CONCERNS from Watch Dog Readers:
City Staff Dictates Their Own Compensation Policy?
Letting the city staff dictate their own compensation policy to the city council is letting the inmates get to run the asylum. Is that what we voted for in Laguna Hills? Thank you to Kogerman and Bressette for NOT voting for that! Kathryn
Total Disregard for Taxpayers by City Council Members
I am just disgusted with this whole compensation issue because it clearly demonstrates total disregard and lack of respect by the City Council (minus Barbara Kogerman) for the taxpayers of the City of Laguna Hills who trusted and reelected them in good faith. Now, we find that the same City Council members are beholden to the management of the City, especially the City Manager that they are supposed to supervise, guide and direct on behalf of the hard working taxpayers of the City. I continue to be appalled that we are giving higher than market salaries and COLAs while some of our neighbors have lost jobs, homes and/or have been furloughed in this recessionary economy. In addition, the situation is compounded by the fact that our State and federal budgets are out of whack, not to mention that the European economies are crumbling around us. It appears that our City Council operates without a vision and, in fact, in a vacuum or a bubble that will burst in time. Only Barbara Kogerman on the City Council is thinking ahead about the best interests of the City and planning ahead for the rainy day. I wish they were more focused on the quantity and the quality of services the City provides now or could provide in the future based on the real needs of our people, especially our youth. Disgusted in Laguna Hills
No More Hired Experts - Do It Yourself!
No more experts. That is what the City Council is supposed to be. All they have to do is think about how they would like to be compensated or how they have been compensated when they worked or hired people. It's not that difficult. How can it be that a City Council who has, for the most part, worked with this City Manager and Assistant City Manager for twenty years is unable to talk about and negotiate fair compensation? What kind of rapport exists or is missing from this picture? They might even say, "Bruce, you are too talented for a city of our size and complexity." "Bruce, you do deserve $500,000 a year because you can move mountains, but we don't have any mountains that need moving." "Bruce, we wish you well, we owe you the generous severance package approved by prior City Council's, now help us find a more economical replacement." Bill Enholm
More Pets are Killed - What's it going to take to get the Coyote Problem Agendized for a City Council Meeting?
I would really like the City Council to address the problem we have in Nellie Gail with coyotes!! I have several neighbors and friends who have lost loved pets to coyote attacks. We lost our beloved dog “Millie” Tuesday evening to a coyote who was with a pack and my husband chased them while they had our dog in their mouth. We never found her and my family is heart broken!!!! My son searched for 2 days all along the trails looking for some sign of her so we could bury her!!! THIS NEEDS TO BE TAKEN CARE OF!!!!! How many people have to lose their pets before you all take notice!!! I want answers, I have friends that have gone to meetings and had been promised something would change. WE NEED HELP!! I have two other dogs and I don’t want to lose them to our backyard preditors!!! Kathie Lauderdale
WIN WIN Wednesday! - Make it a habit! - Here's the lineup for - WWW Global Cuisine - Please Download your flyers to give to each restaurant to get the 20% for Win-Win-Wednesday's Safe & Sane Grad Night for LHHS at http://www.winwinwednesdays.com/
JULY - SUMMER's THEME
July 20 - Subway (LH) at Mcntyre/La Paz
July 27 - Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ (LF) El Toro Rd.
AUGUST
Aug. 3 - Beach Pit BBQ (AV) – 26541 Aliso Creek Rd.
Aug. 10 - Baja Fish Tacos (LH) – 23020 Lake Forest Dr.
Aug. 17 - King’s Fish House (LH) – Laguna Hills Mall
Aug. 24 - Chick-Fil-A (LN) – Greenfield @ Crown Valley Parkway
Aug. 31 - Mimi's Cafe' (LN) - La Paz Rd. Breakfast Lunch or Dinner - all day
HOW TO SUPPORT THE 3rd BATTALION, 5th MARINE DIVISION - Adopted by the City of Laguna Hills
Donation checks can be made specifically to "Laguna Hills Team Dark Horse" and mailed to - Team Dark Horse, 27251 Lost Colt Dr., Laguna Hills, CA. 92653. The Non-profit Corporation 501 (C) (3) status has been approved so all donations are tax deductible. E-mail Mike Bland at 35bland@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, etc. The city's e-mail for the 3/5 is 3/5-support@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us City Clerk Peggy Johns is the City Liaison to the 3/5 Support Committee. Go to the City web site by clicking on this link - http://www.ci.laguna-hills.ca.us/
Please see the Laguna Hills 3/5 Adopted Marines Facebook page by clicking on this link - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laguna-Hills-Team-Darkhorse/132765660119128 and share it with your friends!!
NEWS STORIES AND BLOGS ABOUT LAGUNA HILLS: Click on the links below to see the stories.
**NEW - Which city council makes the most money? http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/07/11/which-city-council-makes-the-most-money/88311/#comment-169311
LA Times: Laguna Hills City Manager Salary
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oc-salaries-20110621,0,1126677.story
In O.C., city pay can be steep, but it’s not ‘abusive’ June 20th, 2011 http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/20/in-o-c-city-pay-can-be-excessive-but-its-not-abusive/85631/#comment-165059
June 9, 2011 ORANGE COUNTY GRAND JURY REPORT - Compensation Study of Orange County Cities http://www.ocgrandjury.org/pdfs/comp-study-oc-cities/Compensation-Study-of-Orange-County-Cities.pdf
City manager says compensation is fair
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-303264-channing-compensation.html
Political rebel faces an uphill battle
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-303262-kogerman-channing.html
Councilwoman: Public pay report inaccurate, self serving
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-299908-report-council.html
OC Watchdog Lavish health benefits slashed in Laguna Hills, Tustin http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/05/12/lavish-health-benefits-slashed-in-laguna-hills-tustin/82833/
After attacks, city-manager-compensation sleuths win state award March 21st, 2011, posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/03/21/after-attacks-city-manager-compensation-sleuths-win-state-award/78545/#comment-139633
Click on http://www.publicceo.com/ for more of this story.
No more $60,000 SUVs for city manager?
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/02/09/no-more-60000-suvs-for-city-manager/75030/
Gold-plated benefits? New councilwoman just says ‘no’ http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/01/18/gold-plated-benefits-new-councilwoman-just-says-no/72532/
OCREGISTER: Laguna Hills councilwoman says no to health benefits http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-282972-benefits-council.html
O.C. cities lavished health benefits on council members http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/12/06/oc-cities-lavished-health-benefits-on-council-members/69544/
Who has the best-paid city council in California? (updated) http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/12/02/who-has-the-best-paid-city-council-incalifornia/69418/ In Laguna Hills the Taxpayers pay the entire cost of heath care premiums for the elected part time city council members and their families. In addition, the City Manager's contract states "To the extent that payment of all or any portion of the dependent rate of premium, is not approved by the city council for all city employees, Channing shall be entitled to a salary increase or cash payment sufficient to cover the amount of premium or rate for dependent coverage not provided by the City plus applicable income taxes on that amount."
OCREGISTER: Kenneth Frank: In defense of city managers http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/city-277030-manager-laguna.html "Citizens, in turn, must do their part to foster civic pride. They should demand that city council and planning meetings be televised and streamed online. And they need to become involved. In Laguna Beach, we have numerous homeowners associations and environmental, business and labor groups that encourage the exchange of ideas and enhance the interactivity between residents and elected officials.
OCREGISTER: Chris Norby: Local officials susceptible to 'Bell syndrome http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/elected-276253-city-syndrome.html "Bell syndrome thrives where elected boards vote in lockstep, where groupthink is elevated, and skeptics are ostracized, and where top staff are seen as irreplaceable experts – with rubber-stamped salaries to prove it. Bell syndrome thrives when self-congratulation trumps self-examination."
OC has two of state’s best-paid city managers
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/09/17/oc-has-two-of-states-best-paid-city-managers/64492/
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS SAY the DARNDEST THINGS IN PUBLIC? Memorable and surprising Public Quotes from City Council Members
June 10, 2008 - Mayor Allan Songstad said "We have to go through a bidding process and sometimes the low bidder is not always the best contractor, but sometimes that's what we're stuck with."
Thank you Mayor Songstad, that is exactly what we have been trying to tell you about the Laguna Hills City Council "sticking " the residents with the same bad vendor - The Orange County Animal Shelter for the past 19 years.
October 25, 2005 - Mayor Allan Songstad, speaking about the Laguna Hills City Council said, "When you've been doing business in a certain way for 13 years you're not likely to change that."
So true, Allan, so unfortunately true unless you change members of the city council.
August 19, 1994 - LHCC Member Allan Songstad - From the Los Angeles Times Newspaper Article Collections - Orange County Focus - August 19, 1994 LYNN FRANEY - Laguna Hills Councilman Declines to Run for Reelection With Councilman L. Allan Songstad Jr. declining to run for reelection, at least one newcomer will gain a seat on the City Council this fall. Songstad said he never intended to run for a second council term and that he is not a "career politician." That leaves space for at least one of the challengers, Cindy Greengold, Saeid Hariri, Grant R. Marcus or Charmane Riggs.
Now, in 2011 with 18 years on the Laguna Hills City Council we are guessing Council Member Songstad has changed his mind about being not being a "career politician."
CRIME IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
For a roundup of Laguna Hills police calls - published May 11, 2011 click on: http://www.ocregister.com/news/block-300013-disturbance-drive.html and go to - www.ocregister.com/saddleback for more.
OCREGISTER: A roundup of Laguna Hills police calls http://www.ocregister.com/news/block-306743-thursday-tuesday.html
WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR of the Orange County Register
Letters to the Editor: E-mail to letters@ocregister.com Please provide your name, city and telephone number (telephone numbers will not be published). Letters of about 200 words will be given preference. Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
June 28, 2011 - Laguna Hills City Council Meeting
All Council Members were present
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*** City Council Meetings have now officially advanced one more step to Video as well as Audio on the City Web Site - There was no announcement about this but we were able to see video of this meeting on July 1, by clicking on http://www.ci.laguna-hills.ca.us/ then clicking on "agendas and minutes," then "city council," then choose the June 28 meeting and click on "audio" to see and hear the meeting. - Continue to see information for Win-Win -Wednesdays under - INFORMATION, COMMENTS QUESTIONS and CONCERNS from Watch Dog Readers: Contact Laguna Hills City Council Members at - ccouncil@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us
Headline for tonight's meeting - The Final Report from the City of Laguna Hills Employee Compensation Study - see below under Administrative Reports Item 7.2.1
PRESENTATIONS and PROCLAMATIONS – None
PUBLIC COMMENTS - Paul Stanislaw, Laguna Hills Resident since 1993 stated he had a request. He said he has been coming to these meetings for 3 or 4 months and enjoys the presentations but after he hears them and has questions or comments he doesn't get to make them because of the way the meetings are set up. It always seems he has to make comments prior to hearing the information. He added he would like to see the procedure changed so that the public could make comments and ask questions after hearing the presentation. Mayor Songstad responded that when an item is on the agenda there is a staff report, then the council asks questions and then the public can ask questions or make comments. Mr. Stanislaw made a point about the last meeting and the signage application confusion that was not clarified until the presentation was actually completed by the applicant. Mayor Songstad continued that the public can fill out a "Request to Speak" and make comments to staff after the report and after the council members have asked their questions. He added that you don't get to ask a question of an applicant who is applying for something like a Conditional Use Permit. Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth pointed out that people who come here frequently check the agenda posted on the City web site, prior to coming, where they can also get the staff reports. Then when they get here they can check the final printed agenda, fill out a request to speak and speak when the item comes up. However, if you here listening to the meeting and are struck by something that was said and want to speak about that you can approach the dais, ask to be recognized and fill out the request to speak at that time. Mr. Stanislaw thanked the Council for their time and said he was glad to know this. Council Member Lautenschleger added that the public can comment on every item in the agenda as the item comes up except the consent calendar which can only be commented on in the beginning "Public Comments" section of the Agenda unless one of those items is pulled from the agenda and then comments can be made at time.
(**Editor's Note - We are also very glad to hear this stated publically and will keep it in mind because we have previously seen members of the public denied the opportunity to speak at times other than the times listed in the agenda for "Public Comments.")
LHHS STUDENT LIAISON REPORT by Kylie West alternate Jeena Bonutto. - No more reports until school resumes in the Fall.
MINUTES - Recommendation that the City Council Approve the Minutes of the previous City Council Meeting for publication on the city web site. The minutes from tonight's meeting will not be approved for publication until the next city council meeting so there is a long delay for the public related to timely documentation of information from the city.
CONSENT CALENDAR - Warrant Register = $806,911.42
Items of interest from the Warrant Register - None
Items of Interest from the Consent Calendar: **Items on the Consent Calendar are placed there by City Staff:
Item 4.3- Records Retention Management (Annual destruction of City Records) more than 2 years old that are no longer required by the City, are not court records, required to be kept by statute, not in the minutes, ordinances or resolutions. This year there is an online listing of the records to be destroyed.
Staff Recommendation - No longer retain records with disposal date of June 29, 2011
Item 4.4 - Adoption of Annual Appropriations Limit for FY 2011-2012 CA. State Constitution placed limits on the amounts of revenue that could be spent by public entities from proceeds of taxes through the Gann Initiative/Prop. 4 in 1979 Article XIIIB
City Staff has determined the City will be under that limit by $18,686 for FY 2011/12. Staff Report says - In the City's 1st year of Operation voters approved an Appropriations Limit of $9,102,336 which is adjusted by the City annually based on population and inflation. The allowable appropriations for FY 2011-12 is stated to be $29,022,451 which is to be made available to the public for 15 days prior to its adoption. City says that requirement has been satisfied. Section 9710 was added in 1980. Proposition 111 was approved in June 1990 to address complaints by Govmt. Agencies providing local governments with adjustment formulas. Staff Recommendation - Adopt the appropriations limit for 2011/12
Item 4.5 - Renewed Measure M2 Compliance Reporting - Staff report says City anticipates receiving $500,000 in annual revenues, for streets, sidewalks, traffic signals, highways, under Measure M through 2015-16
Staff Recommendation - Comply with requirements
Item 4.6 - 1st Amendment to Joint Cooperative Agreement for pilot commercial food waste diversion pgrm.
Only 4 food establishments are participating - King's Fish House, Saddleback Memorial Medical Ctr., In-N-Out burger, Farmer's Market at Laguna Hills Mall on Fridays. Staff Report states no fiscal impact to the City because there is a grant for this now but in the future funding will expire. The participating food service organizations are not charged now. CR&R has issued a proposal to the City for a future rate structure for commercial food waste collection.
Item 4.7 - Governmental Accounting Standards Board - (GASB) a new Fund Balancing Component Designation Title "assigned fund balance" replaces the old designation title of "unreserved, designated" in the general fund. The amount in this fund has been historically designated in this City by the City Manager. There are 4 other new fund balance components to replace older components - Nonspendable Fund Balance, Restricted Fund Balance, Committed Fund Balance, and Unassigned Fund Balance.
Staff Recommendation - Delegate the authority to the City Manager to assign amounts to be used for specific purposes for the purpose of reporting in the annual financial statements and balance amounts to be used as reserves.
Item 4.8 City Views Publication Consulting Services Agreement with Faubel Public Affairs - Annual Cost for the production, development and design of the Quarterly Publication of City Views 9x12 inch, 28 page, full color, glossy City Magazine without the cost of postage to 14,000 residences in the City is $105,000 or $26,250 per issue.
Staff Recommendation - Another 2 year contract for $210,000 with $95,000 annually coming from the General Fund and the remaining $10,000 from Recycling Accounts related to the environmental-related public information contained in City Views. The first 8 to 10 pages are dedicated to the City, the rest is dedicated to Community Services.
Item 4.9 - Sports Complex Snack Bar Agreement with Laguna Hills High School Music Boosters - City Report says the Snack Bar has been run by the Music Boosters since 2004 and they made a profit of almost $800 in May of 2011. Staff says the Music Boosters provide them with a monthly report but there is no mention of any fiscal impact to the City or any profits for any other months or years, etc.?
Staff Recommendation is to extend their agreement for another year.
Item 4.10 - OCRA Senior Mobility Prgm. Funds for the Dial-A-Taxi transportation Program for Seniors.
Staff Recommendation - Continue to participate in the program with a new 5 year agreement for eligible participants who are 80 years or older or 65 years or older and are disabled or 60 years or older with a revoked license or otherwise unable to drive. One way rate of $5 (customer co-pay) within the service area. To date only 24 seniors are eligible to use the program and only 8 seniors have actually used it since it started on August 1, 2010 through May 30, 2011. Staff says they have dropped off flyers at the Florence Sylvestor Memorial Senior Center, included information in 2 issues of City Views, hosted a Senior Transportation Fair in Oct. of 2010 (7 months before the program started). Fiscal impact to the City - from $4000 to $6000 over the current year. Because usage is so low some Transportation Development Act funding may have to be returned in the amount of approximately $27,300.
Staff says they will continue to monitor the use of the program to determine of program requirements should be modified or services enhanced.
Item 4.11 - Progress Payment for La Paz widening at I-5 of $133,699.74
Item 4.12 - License Agreement with So. CA. Edison to allow the attachment of City Signs that are non-electrified traffic regulations signs and related equipment to streetlight Poles. So. CA. Edison owns the street light poles. Fiscal Impact to the City - None if the agreement passes but City could be required to remove all their signs currently on street light poles which would be a significant cost related to removal and re-installation of signs. Staff Report states that in the past So. CA. Ed. has allowed the City to attach signs to their street light poles but is now requiring a formal license agreement. The report continues that the City recently reviewed their internal records and determined that the City never had a formal agreement with the utility company. There is a list of specific regulations (terms and conditions) in the agreement for the installation and maintenance of each type of sign/banner attached to a pole to protect the poles and the City cannot make any money from any of the signs.
Staff Recommendation - Approve the Agreement.
Item 4.13 - Trauma Intervention Program Agreement - $3,641.28 for FY 2011-1
Staff Recommendation - Execute the Agreement.
Items Pulled from the Consent Calendar for Discussion - Items 4.8 - City Views and 4.11 La Paz Rd. widening were pulled by Council Member Kogerman
Vote - The rest of the Consent Calendar was passed 5 - 0.
Council Member Kogerman asked about using social networking in addition to City Views to notify the citizens about what is going on in the community. Assistant City Manager Don White responded people seem to really like City Views and don't seem to like to social network with the City. Vote - Item was passed 5 - 0
(**Editor's Note - Question - Does City Views need to be a 9x12 inch, 28 page, full color, glossy City Magazine? Could taxpayers not save money by reducing the size of the oversized City Views, eliminating the "glossy" and decreasing the number of professional photographs, and are Citizens paying too much for 28 pages, some of which are less informational and more PR for the City Council?)
Council Member Kogerman asked about the contaminated soil in the La Paz Rd. widening project. Ken Rosenfield, City Engineer explained that during the excavation comtaminated soil was found but the nearby Arco Gas Station responded and agreed to accept responsibility for that soil. There remains a need for more careful work and better equipment to protect the workers. The contamination took 10 days to clean up so the project is currently set back about 30 days considering the previous set backs. Vote - Item was passed 5 - 0
(**Editor's Note - No one pulled Item 4.10 - OCRA Senior Mobility Prgm. Funds for the Dial-A-Taxi transportation Program for Seniors which has been in effect for almost a year with only 8 seniors using it. Staff says they will continue to monitor the use. Other than counting to 8 what does that mean? Why are they not checking with seniors to find out if the majority of the seniors in the City are aware of this program and if perhaps program challenges that make it less than useful for a majority of citizens require changes, etc.? If the City assists to provide programs should those programs not be useful for the targeted citizens?)
PLANNING AGENCY PUBLIC HEARINGS -
Item 5.4.1 - Conditional Use Permit to establish a K-Grade 2 Charter School at 25201 Paseo de Alicia in the Alicia Office Park, a Neighborhood Mixed Use Zoning District. School will be doing business from 7 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday with 100 students.
** This item is to be continued to the July 12 City Council Meeting.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS - **These Items are authored by City Staff
Item 7.3.1 - Santa Maria Ave. Improvement Project - Staff report says this project is under construction by the City of Laguna Woods and Laguna Hills is participating in less than 25% of the project. The project covers pavement rehab. of the street and construction of a raised median island to complete a continuous median island along the length of Santa Maria Ave. 4 travel lanes will remain with completion of the projects and will eliminate parking over a portion of Santa Maria Ave where the existing road narrows. The street improvement project is consistent with the policies of the City of Laguna Hills for raised median islands on all arterial highways and eliminating parking along most arterial highway locations. The City of Laguna Woods is also constructing a cart path within their jurisdiction and has agreed to evaluate the need for a stop sign at 2 intersections with Santa Maria Ave. - San Remo Dr. and Santa Vittoria Dr. There was a lengthy discussion of the problems with this construction among the council members and the City Engineer, Ken Rosenfield, The City Engineer stated there is no reason for people to park on Santa Maria because there is so much parking on Santa Vittoria and reasonable parking on Barbera in front of the school and near Santa Vittoria park.
Staff Recommendation - Receive and file this report.
Public Comments - Ed Krause, Laguna Hills Resident said when you turn onto Santa Maria from Moulton that stretch of sidewalk they built is too big. They put 2 lanes in there and he said he drives a large tool truck and hit a sign and a tree making a turn with his large truck because there is so little room to turn now. He also noted Semi Truck tire tracks on the side walk. He said the side walk is too big so there is not enough room to make that turn. He added that everything should be put back the way it was because he can foresee larger trucks than his having more problems there and hitting other cars and golf carts, etc. He also noted that stop signs are needed not for volume of traffic but for safety. Stop Sign at Santa Maria and San Remo needed because vegetation, construction, trucks, etc. block the view and his daughter was almost struck by a car there just the other day. Ed also mentioned in response to Council Member Kogerman's question, there was no notification to him prior to this construction by Laguna Woods. He said the single lane down by the school will work but on the other side of the street there are constantly big trucks because the retaining wall is always falling apart. He added that people are using that big sidewalk for golf carts. Council Member Bressette noted that in the future we need to be more sensitive and cautious about street construction on our borders in the future.
Vote was 5-0 to accept and file this report.
Item 7.2.1 - Final City Employee Compensation Report presented by Doug Johnson from Ralph Anderson and Associates (This 167 page report was posted online prior to the City Council Meeting.)
Staff recommendation - Receive and file the report
Brief Synopsis of Doug Johnson's (from Ralph Anderson & Assoc.) Final Report from the City of Laguna Hills' $24,500 Employee Compensation Study - The other Cities studied in this study were: Yorba Linda, Tustin, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange, Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Fountain Valley, Dana Point, Cypress, Buena Park, and Brea.
(**Editor's Note - Because this is a 167 page report with layers of often confusing information, many of which are strongly tied to charts that you cannot see here we will start with only a brief synopsis of the conclusions, however if anyone wishes to review the entire report the Laguna Hills Watch Dog has saved it in a file and we will e-mail it to you as an attachment if you specifically request it at BlandMJ@AOL.com or you can request it at City Hall or check to see if it is still posted on the City Web Site. Also you can listen to the complete report in the Audio portion of the council meeting on the City's web site. Relevant information in Doug Johnson's report is revealed through the following dialogue with questions from Council Members and answers from Mr. Johnson that will give readers a good idea of presentation points and arguments for and against them.)
Doug Johnson concluded that Laguna Hills maintains a market position at approximately the 62 percentile related to the other cities in the study. He said the Health Insurance Benefits Costs paid by the City were higher than commonly found in the market place even after the City found lower Health Insurance Premium Rates this year. He said cash benefits were consistent with the market place. Labor rates aren't moving right now but in the short answer is maintain your position as long as it's something you can afford. He said he didn't think it was an unreasonable market position, other agencies are moving and you are just always maintaining that 62 percentile position with about 38% of the market above you and 60% below. He said he thinks there is a cost advantage to being fair and not having to deal with the problems of labor relations/unions that you might have if you suddenly go back to the 40th percentile.
Council Member Bressette - When you talk about Public Data only table 3 talks about private sector data, is there anywhere else in the report that private sector data has been considered?
Johnson - There's only 2 spots, a base salary analysis which is table 3 and our objective there is to respond to a common question I'm getting these days which is how do private sector wages compare to public sector? We compared the data from the 17 cities in our study with the data base published by the Economic Research Institute which in the report says there is a 2.9% difference. The 2nd place is Car Allowance.
Bressette - In the Executive Summary under core benefits point 3 it says when benefits are added to the base salary the City's compensations were 6.5% above market average this is primarily due to higher Health Insurance premiums paid by the City. Does the report consider the new lower Health Ins. Premiums we are paying effective July 1?
Johnson - Yes.
(Editor's Note - See more about Health Insurance Benefits for Laguna Hills City Council Members at - http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medical-costs-20110704,0,6684658.story Many small cities pay officials hefty health benefits - Laguna Hills council members, for example, receive medical benefits worth an average of $24,300 a year. Some other cities don't offer any health benefits.)
Bressette - As I understand it the current range maximum of base salaries from cities is what we are using in the majority of the data.
Johnson - That's correct, we are looking at the full value of the job after a 3 to 5 year period somebody through satisfactory performance has attained because 90% of our employees are at range maximum.
Bressette - Please explain base plus cash.
Johnson - Base is just base salary. Plus cash is deferred compensation that's paid by the employer and retirement pick up and those are often treated as cash. It's important to treat PERs pickup as cash because some organizations, as they do market surveys, they "PERs up" the base salary such that when the employee pays their retirement contribution, which they're normally supposed to pay, they have a salary that's equivalent to market. So the common practice is to add it in to all numbers. So it's base salary, deferred compensation and retirement pick up paid for the employee by the employer.
Bressette - So we would commonly refer to retirement pickup as the employer's portion of PERs.
Johnson - It's the employee's portion that's paid on behalf of the employee by the employer. Bressette - and deferred comp is that like a PARs plan?
Johnson - NO, It's like the 457 additional compensation plan.
Bressette - Since we do pay PARs contribution why wouldn't that be part of the cash that's in this?
Johnson - We analyzed that and it's because by design you created a way to address a difference between your retirement program - 2% at 60 and what the vast majority of market agencies are doing. You had a choice of increasing your formula with PERs or giving this PARs supplement and this looks brilliant when you look at it now in terms of minimizing those long term obligations so we though it was important to include it in that analysis.
Bressette - but you did not include it in this table.
Johnson - No, it's not in that table, it's in a later table because we are treating retirement as a separate component to look at.
Bressette - As you described it we chose PARs as a retirement benefit in lieu of a decision for a different PERs retirement formula, so I still don't understand why it would not be included in cash as a retirement benefit.
Johnson - We could have and if you look at the series of tables in appendix C. I could move the PARs contribution column over to cash and re-run the numbers but the end result isn't going to change.
Bressette - What was omitted in table 4B, that is crossed out, is what we look at as the employee retirement contribution by City. There is a footnote mission and the footnote says in addition to a 3.5% a 6.5% PARs contribution is provided by the City. Now that changes that 10.3% number from 13.8% to 16.8%.
Johnson - That's correct.
Bressette - So that would not make us one of the lowest cities in employee retirement contribution, but if you used the highest number which you used in prior tables that would make us perhaps the 3rd highest. Why isn't that number relevant?
Johnson - My objective was to show that these percentages are all influenced by these factors which are PERs controlled or decisions that you made years ago or workhorse demographic related. PARs is a pure defined contribution and that's it. You don't care about any of these factors and none of them are relevant to it. So my point is we can't use PERs contributions with any comfort that it has some equating value to what the retirement formula is. We see agencies that have a 2.7% at 55 that have an almost 25% contribution rate. There is a lot of variability there and that's what's frustrating is that column does not equate to what we know the benefit value is. Table 5 shows the combined impact of PARs and PERs retirement benefits and that's more frustrating because you have the percentages that you correctly stated and still with those combined you are still about 11.8% off the market in terms of that current value and that's what employees look at.
Bressette - The first assumption you made on page 24 was that retirement age is 55 but isn't our work force again and aren't people generally retiring generally later than age 55?
Johnson - Possibly not if they have a 2% at 55 not only in terms of an earlier retirement on the golf course but 5 more years of getting that defined benefit in the future. If we used 60 it would soften it a bit and make it more advantageous to you but we would completely lost out on capturing those 2 elements - the value of early retirement and the value of those 5 years of additional pay received.
Bressette - Did staff tell you that over the years we have created some of our benefits to retain our valuable employees. We have a 10 year anniversary date where a sizeable amount of money is put into retirement health savings for the particular objective of retaining our employees. I would suggest if you look at retiring employees you would find a greater number retiring at ages 60 and 62 simply because in the calPERs formula that percentage at age 60 is substantially higher than at age 55.
Johnson - My value is that if I have 5 more years to play golf, I'd leave a lot on the table for that. It's hard to capture a personal decision like that. People who have a defined benefit program may want to retire earlier than the general population that retires later but does not have the defined benefit program.
Bressette many of my clients are public employees and still choose to retire at 60 or 62 because that's how the system rewards them and would you please tell me what assumptions you used for the supplemental retirement - I see it's a 5% return - how many years and what percentage of salary?
Johnson - We are looking at that 5% at age 79
Council Member Lautenschleger asked if the 2% Cost of Living Allowance built into the budget was a logical way to approach things or should there be a dollar amount?
Johnson answered 2% is very reasonable. Many cities had done years of furloughs or salary freezes and are now coming back with increases they can afford. From 1 to 2.5% is a very common figure being bandied around. If it's going to be something defined by market parameters he suggested a percentage base.
(**Editor's Note - Fact Check - In the new biennial budget adopted June 14, 2011, the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) for 2011-12 were adjusted to 2% and for 2012-13 to 2.2%) plus defunding the Management Incentive Program (bonuses) for the next 2 years but Nothing Was Noted or Mentioned About Raises and according to Resolution #2009-06-23-2 the City Manager, at his discretion may grant up to a 5% salary adjustment for meritorious performance to any employee who has reached the top pay range in his /her position. The City Manager, at his discretion, may grant up to a 5% increase in salary and cost of living adjustments effective July 1, 2010. City Manager is authorized to create and administer a Management Incentive (bonus) Program for management employees ranging from 0-10% of annual salary at the end of each calendar year. ** At the June 23, 2009 City Council Meeting Council Members Carruth and Bressette called for city council approval or at least for a report to the City Council when the City Manager gives employees raises and bonuses in the interest of transparency but the vote was against them 3 to 2. The 3 who were not in favor of City Council approval or even a report to the City Council were Songstad, Lautenschleger and Craig Scott. )
Mayor Songstad asked - If we were to eliminate something like the PARs program would that have an effective on our competitiveness in the market?
Johnson - It wouldn't have an effect on incoming employees who had never worked for a City but would impact getting anyone from another City and for management positions he questioned whether this City could get a highly skilled top level manager because he had trouble in the past recruiting especially older top level employees for City's with 2% at 60. He said having a defined contribution element in the retirement program sends a very positive message.
Council Member Kogerman - Is there any issue in this City with employee turnover? Did anyone leave and in their exit interview say they were leaving related to retirement benefit issues or compensation or have we tried to hire anyone and failed because of compensation or retirement benefits issues?
Johnson - We did not look at that or ask that question, did not get into that.
Kogerman - Seems that one of your major conclusions was that the retirement benefits make us less competitive so would like to have seen data to back that up especially in today's environment with all the unemployment issues.
Kogerman - Related to comparability with other cities studied you say in the report you would look at Historical Practices, Geographic Proximity and if additional information is required you would look at Numbers of Employees and Operating Budgets, did you do that?
Johnson - For this study we focused more on population, we do look at Numbers of employees and Operating Budget but 9 times out of 10 the Operating Budget, not the number of employees, correlates fairly strongly with the population. The number of employees won't show if you have contract services like this City does so it will make your City look low compared to the market in terms of services provided by a city that are more like larger cities with more employees.
(**Editor's Note - An example of this would be full service City such as Laguna Beach that was compared with Laguna Hills in this study. In Laguna Beach the City employees provide most of the services compared with a Contract City such as Laguna Hills where most of the services are contracted out to service providers. The 2010 population count for Laguna Beach was about 22,700 and the 2010 population for Laguna Hills was about 31,000 - Laguna Beach's City Manager John Pietig recently citied the different levels of service provided in Orange County cities related to compensation levels in his City. Laguna Beach, he said, Laguna Beach is a full-service city, providing not only its own public safety services but also transportation, sidewalk sweeping, an animal shelter, a community center and more. In other cities, “these services, if provided at all, are handled by special districts, service contracts, or homeowner associations, which were not considered in the report,” Pietig added that additional complexities were that beaches and attractions draw tourists year round – sometimes up to 100,000 people a day, then add the high cost of living, and staff responsibilities of working with active resident advisory committees and a clearer picture of employee compensation emerges. http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/23/laguna-beach-responds-to-pay-report/86659/
Newport Beach was also one of the 17 Cities compared with Laguna Hills in this study. Newport Beach's 2010 Population was about 70,000 and it is also a full service city. Newport Beach's City manager David Kiff stated Wherever you live in Orange County, you likely receive the same menu of basic municipal services – drinking water delivery, wastewater collection, fire suppression, legal services, police protection, and access to public libraries, parks, senior services and community centers. In Newport Beach, the city government provides most of these services plus lifeguarding, trash collection, disaster preparedness, and a number of other services due to our coastal location and the expectations of our citizens. If you live in a “contract city” such as Lake Forest (with a 2010 population of about 77,000 this City is included in the Laguna Hills Employee Compensation Study) or Aliso Viejo (with a 2010 population of 48,000 this City was NOT included in the Laguna Hills Employee Compensation Study) , the city government provides fewer of these services. http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/21/newport-beach-fires-back-on-pay-report/86239/ )
Kogerman - expressed that she was not aware, when the 17 cities were chosen for this study that their budget, population and employee numbers were not going to be relevant.
Johnson - We have a balance, some smaller, some larger, and some about the same size. (**Editor's Note - of the 17 Cities studied only one was smaller in population than Laguna Hills and that was Laguna Beach which is full service City. 16 of the 17 cities studied were larger (Dana Point (2010 population of 37,000) and San Juan (2010 population of 34,593), though larger were closest in size to Laguna Hills (2010 population of 31,178) . Johnson said the numbers of employees were not relevant so the study looked at Operating Budget and Population. He said what they did not do was look at any correlation by budget, by employees or by population that quantifies adjustments in salary. There is another type of study that considers the most cost effective ways of delivering services but for doing a market survey of wages we do not look at those factors.
Kogerman - asked why did this study use a control point at the top of the compensation range for each employee position studied in all the cities?
Johnson - answered that the object was to see how this city's pay ranges compared to the pay ranges in the market. It's possible to do an average of actuals type of survey that is commonly done in the private sector but in a situation like this you have a set of organizations like this with pay ranges that look relatively similar then you look at that. You are trying to measure the competitiveness of your pay range. He added that these agencies are not set up for and very resistant to giving us "per employee" types of information.
Kogerman - said her concern is Senior Management employees and that is a major reason for doing this study.
Johnson - Many of those employees have contracts with contract rates so a salary range could not be used. In a couple of agencies there is a wide pay band for senior employees then we would get individual salaries for those managers because that is a more reliable indicator of what they are paying those individuals. We are not focused on individuals as much as functions such as Community Development, Public Works, Finance, etc.
Kogerman - How many cities have the 5% above market average practice as Laguna Hills does for the non-exempt employees?
Johnson - We did not ask that question. He said some cities in OC choose to be at the 60th or 75th percentiles, etc. but we did not survey that.
Kogerman - Some cities are requiring employees to pay all or a portion of the employee's contribution to the retirement benefit. How many cities are doing this as opposed to Laguna Hills that pays the entire employee's contribution for the employee?
Johnson - Agreed that is a trend that is happening but will take a while to put in place and he did not know how many cities are doing this now or what the recent changes have been.
(**Editor's Note - We have some of the answers to Kogerman's question about the changes in employee contributions to retirement plans from recent Newspaper Stories in the OC Register. From Newport Beach regarding employee contributions to retirement benefit plans. Additionally, base compensation has been impacted (generally lowered since 2009) thanks to additional pension contributions from employees that are directly deducted from base salary. Non-safety employees will pay 8% of their salary towards pension costs in January 2012. Some safety employees (our lifeguards) may begin to pay 9% (up from 3.5%) of their base salaries in July 2011. This is more than $3.7 million in FY 2011-12 coming off of base salaries, and it’s not part of the Grand Jury’s analysis either.
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/21/newport-beach-fires-back-on-pay-report/86239/
From Mission Viejo and other Cities regarding employee contributions to retirement benefit plans - The new plan also lowers the required share of retirement contributions paid into the California Public Employees' Retirement System, to 7 percent from 8 percent. Existing employees give a 3 percent share of their pension contributions with the city paying 5 percent. Future employees will be responsible for a 4.25 percent share, with the city contributing 2.75 percent. City staff estimated the annual cost savings of the new plan would be approximately 4 percent of payroll once all employees are in the second tier. Using a 5 percent turnover rate, it is estimated to take about 20 years before all city employees are on the new tier.
Mission Viejo is not the first Orange County city to implement a two-tiered pension plan; it follows models adopted by other cities including Cypress, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Rancho Santa Margarita. City staff indicated Fullerton is also considering a similar pension reform. For Mission Viejo - The changes are expected to go into effect on July 6. (By the fiscal year 2014-15, all employees will be paying their entire shares of CalPERS contributions, with none coming from the city. The change will begin with the 2011-12 fiscal year. Existing employees will begin paying an additional 1.25 percent share each fiscal year until they are paying their full 8 percent in 2014-15. Future employees will begin paying an additional 1.25 percent share each fiscal year until they are paying their full 7 percent in 2013-14.
OCREGISTER: Mission Viejo OKs pension reform, employee raises http://www.ocregister.com/news/-300803--.html )
Kogerman - About the Assistant City Manager are you telling me now that these are the actual figures paid to the Assistant City Managers?
Johnson - These control points could be a maximum, a defined point within a pay range, a contract amount or an actual salary. In this case these are all pay ranges. Kogerman - So we don't have actual salaries for the Assistant City Managers?
Johnson - No
Kogerman - What about the City Clerk? Did you use the actual amount or a range on that one?
Johnson - Two of the agencies only have an actual figure, they don't have a range and the rest apparently have ranges.
Kogerman - So we don't know if the figures are correct?
Johnson - Some of these agencies may have a true maximum, some have a working and a performance maximum, so there may be some of that in here and we don't look at bonuses at all because it's a very uncommon practice. We are not here to ascertain individual performance or employee salaries we are here to look at salary range structures.
Kogerman - In our case the City Manager got a bonus every year except 2010 and all of the other Management Team are subject to annual performance based increases so it's common here so questioning why bonuses given in all cities are not included in the study?
Johnson - Trends within organizations are inconsistent. It's intended for high performance but if in practice everybody gets it, I would question the value in that. Bonuses were not included because I don't think they are applicable to you current salary range structure. We are not looking at what somebody made in a calendar year or a fiscal year we are looking at what the range structure and policies provide for in terms of pay. If you start mixing a City Manager contract with salary range and salary administration there are going to be differences. If you hired us to provide apples to apples knowledge of City Manager's Pay with the full value of all the elements in their contract that is a different study that what we did here. We are focusing on the standard or macro policies and practices for pay within the organization.
Kogerman - So is that the same for City Engineer/Public Works Director, City Manager, Community Development Director, Community Services, etc.?
Johnson - Yes all those are contract rates except 2.
Kogerman - Regarding the 17 Cities in the study according to what you said we are basically looking at geographical location here.
Johnson - Yes, because that is the market you are competing in.
Kogerman - Related to Auto Allowance our City Manager reports the taxable value of his auto but no auto allowance, so I don't know if that includes maintenance, gas, insurance and everything else the City pays for him. In the study you just say "provided" regarding the auto but provide no value there whereas there is a value provided for car allowances. Johnson - We are looking at 22 jobs here, so getting the potential auto allowance value for all those jobs that have some kind of auto reimbursement or assigned auto use is difficult and too difficult to compare with other cities when we can't pin them down to get their information. Johnson closed with saying there was not enough detail in the Grand Jury Report or the State Controller's Report for him to see why his numbers did not match with their numbers.
(**Editor's Note City Resolution # 2009-06-23-2 states Auto Allowances will range from $200 - $750 per month are at the discretion of the City Manager as is the practice of providing a city owned/leased vehicle or a mileage reimbursement.)
Council Member Lautenschleger asked if in the opinion of Doug Johnson from Ralph Anderson & Assoc. was our compensation reasonable and competitive.
Johnson responded that he thought the totality of the package is a good balance of what your community wants and what the political pressures are and what is reasonable in trying to balance your costs.
Mayor Songstad - Are your conclusions based on your experience in the industry?
Johnson - Yes, I've shared my experience as a recruiter. He continued that his company is going though tremendous challenges now with working with city councils in hiring city managers, and "there's a great amount of attention to City Manager Contracts and so I think there's a lot of discussion, a lot of negotiation going on interestingly in 2 categories, one is trying to be more responsive to those things that people have raised concerns about and the other is finding creative ways to hide money".
Council Member Kogerman stated she agreed and said she has heard from people all over the County that certain employees are asking for more in benefits than salaries because that compensation is more difficult to ferret out. She also asked how much time he spent with the staff and with the council members in this process.
Johnson - responded the scope of his work was well defined so there were no discussions about that and he spent about 30 minutes with each employee and no real time with City Council Members.
Public Comments - Bill Enholm, Laguna Hills Resident and Community Banker and past President of the Nellie Gail Ranch Homeowners Association HOA had plenty to say after listening to the Compensation Report from Doug Johnson of Ralph Anderson & Associates. He said he comes from an environment where people are asking him for loans to keep small businesses afloat and in this room he is surrounded by people who at age 60 are going to get 6 figure lifetime retirement benefits. He said he is an expert on private industry compensation and the amount of attention given to private industry compensation in this report is laughable. He asked to share some real numbers such as the City Clerk gets $116,000 a year and a total of $164,000 in benefits, The Deputy City Manager $128,000 in salary + $174,000 in benefits, Community Development Director $162,000 in salary + $235,000 in benefits, Director of Public Services $169,000 salary and $241,000 in total compensation, Assistant City Manager $193,000 salary and $273,000 in total compensation, The City Manager $233,000 in wages and $341,000 in total benefits. He said he can answer the question from the $20,000+ study, the amount of turnover we have in this City is Zero. He noted that the City Manager and Assistant City Manager have been here 20 years and most of the others for many years as well but he is supposed to believe that they could easily go the private sector or some other public sector job and get more pay. He said that is unbelievable and regarding the report all he could say is the overused quote there are lies, damn lies and statistics and we just listened to a bunch of statistics that were damn lies.
Mr. Enholm then offered suggestions to balance Public Compensation with the Private Sector. Cap wages at $150,000 a year + benefits, Increase the retirement age to 65 years, lets give any future increases in the form of discretionary bonuses, end Cost of Living increases and award only merit increases, stop the practice of the City paying all the Employee Contributions to retirement plans, cap sick day accrual at 60 days and stop allowing cash outs for excess sick days or of contributing them to your health care account such as a recent incident of the $60,000 the City contributed to an employee's retirement savings account because the employee had been with the City for 10 years. Change to use it or lose it vacation days and cap carry over to 2 weeks. Eliminate all City owned vehicles and car allowances and pay only reimbursement for actual business miles. Cap contributions to employee health insurance and fund future increases with employee contributions or seek out lower cost alternatives. He noted that his wife runs a business with 300 employees and told him our insurance costs $15,000 a year, why is the City paying $24,000 a year for Mayor Songstad's insurance? Eliminate supplemental health and life insurance benefits and enhanced long term disability from the management benefits and cap severance benefits at 6 months salary and 6 mos. health insurance as opposed to the half million dollar package that our City Manager has today and cap employer paid life insurance at 1 times the annual salary. He ended with one last question for the presenter from Doug Johnson of Ralph Anderson & Associates, "When have you ever conducted a survey where you determined that a City was in fact overpaying their employees and can I please see that report?"
Mayor Songstad said he assumed that last question was rhetorical. Mr. Enholm stated It was not rhetorical. Mayor Songstad then asked Mr. Johnson if he had a response and Mr. Johnson responded "No, thank you, I'm good". Mr. Enholm questioned why we could not get an answer to a question like that.
Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth responded to Doug Johnson of Ralph Anderson & Associates - While there were a couple of things where I would want to make a few adjustments, your conclusions reinforced all the policies and philosophies that we established 20 years ago when we established the City. Thank you and I particularly enjoyed the data.
Council Member Kogerman handed out graphs and other information she prepared for the Council Member's related to discrepancies between this City's Compensation Report from Ralph Anderson & Associates and the other 3 compensations reports, one done by Council Member Kogerman with help from the Bradman University grad students who won the Public CEO's Service to the State Award for the Study, The State Controller John Chaing's Office Report and the 2011 Grand Jury's Report of OC Cities Employee Compensation.
Kogerman pointed out that in her study, the State Controller's Study and the 2011 Grand Jury Study Laguna Hills compensation was reported as higher than all of the 17 cities (studied in the Ralph Anderson & Assoc.Study) for the Laguna Hills City Manager, Assistant City Manager, City Engineer/Public Works Director and Community Development Director. She also noted that the average variance in the Anderson Report was about $21,000 less than what was reported by the other 3 other studies. The variance in the Anderson Report related to the City Manager was about $99,000 under what was reported in the other 3 studies. She said this suggests to her that there was significant under reporting in the Anderson Study. She also noted a failure to compare complexity measures in other cities studied such as other cities being full service cities compared to a Contract City like Laguna Hills, cities with significantly larger budgets - which were all of the Cities studied except Rancho Santa Margarita, and last she noted that, unlike Anderson & Assoc., she was able to obtain the City Manager Compensation packages for all the Cities and she recorded them for the City Council to see. Council Member Bressette asked what conclusion did she reach and Kogerman stated, Laguna Hills is at the low end of the scale related to complexity, population, size of the City in land area, budget, etc. and this needs to be recognized in a compensation study especially when compensation that is provided is higher than in other cities.
(**Editor's Note - Thanks to a very alert reader it was noted that at the November 9, 2010 Laguna Hills City Council Meeting a labor negotiator for the annual performance evaluation of the City Manager was chosen by 2 members of the City Council and that labor negotiator, John Goss, was from the same company that did this City Employee Compensation Study - Ralph Anderson & Associates. Many citizens spoke out against a raise and bonus for the City Manager in 2010 and after some time in closed session it was announced that there would be no bonus and no increase in salary. In a public statement City Manager Channing concluded it would be "unwise and imprudent to expect" a bonus and a raise. Though he noted council members have said he has met or exceeded their expectations on "85% or more of the goals. To that point, I believe that I have clearly 'earned' a bonus," he said. "Nevertheless, I am certainly cognizant of the reality that two members of this present City Council and Council Member-elect Mrs. (Barbara) Kogerman are steadfastly opposed to the City Council conferring upon me a reward for the high achievement of my employment related goals." http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-275655-channing-council.html The 3 council members who asked that the City Manager not accept a raise or bonus were Kogerman, Bressette and Carruth.)
Vote was 4 to 1 to Receive and File the Report. The No vote was Council Member Kogerman
CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARINGS – None
OTHER BUSINESS - **These Items are authored by Council Members - From Council Member Kogerman - Item 8.1.1 - Appointment of Labor Negotiator for the terms and conditions of the City Manager's Employment Contract.
Council Member Barbara Kogerman said in earlier discussions the Council Stated stated that when we received the City Compensation Report we would look at the City Manager's Contract and that time has come. She said that could be done in a open session such as a City Council Meeting or appointing a labor negotiator or negotiators has been suggested or possibly 2 council members could speak informally with the City Manager to see if he would be willing to voluntarily scale down some of his total compensation. She suggested that Council Member Bressette be one of the 2 council members to speak with the City Manager. Council Member Bressette said he had to respectfully decline due to an urgent family situation that we later learned was a significant and urgent medical complication for his elderly mother. Bressette explained that there could be a friendly discussion with 2 council members and the City Manager. Council Member Lautenschleger declined without stating a reason as did Mayor Songstad who argued against doing this, said this process was supposed to be done at the end of the year Performance Evaluation for the City Manager and if done the City would have to pay for legal representation for the City Manager. Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth said she realized that the community wants the City Manager's Contract reviewed and asked some questions of the City Attorney, Greg Simonian. After much discussion involving the triggers in the city manager's contract that allow him to begin looking for another position or begin a count down to a large severance package, etc. A motion was eventually made that the City Attorney will return with 3 names of labor negotiator attorneys and a procedure for doing the contract review.
Vote was 3 - 2 in favor The 2 No Votes were Lautenschleger and Songstad.
MATTERS PESENTED by MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS -
Council Member Lautenschleger stated he had attended a Sustainable Community Strategy Meeting put together by OCTA.
CLOSED SESSION – Conference with Legal Council re. anticipated litigation - 2 cases.
Next regular City Council Meeting is Tuesday July 12, 7 pm, at City Hall. The City Council is take a recess on July 26 and August 9. Contact Laguna Hills City Council Members at - ccouncil@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us
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City Council & City Manager Report Card - Categories - (T) Transparency for Citizens, (A) Accountability to Citizens, (CI) Championing Citizen Related Issue, (AG) Achieving Citizen Related Goal Grades - (P) Pass, (A) for Authoring a Citizen Friendly Item, (F) Fail, (A+) Extra Credit. City Manager will be scored related to online and agendized Staff Reports and Requests.
Bressette - P - Voting for Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
Carruth - P - Voting for Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
Kogerman - A for authoring Citizen Friendly Item of reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes. P for voting for that item. A+ for getting that item passed.
Lautenschleger - F for voting against Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
Songstad - F for voting against Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
City Manager - F for continuing the OCRA Senior Mobility Prgm. Funds for the Dial-A-Taxi transportation Program for Seniors as is (Item 4.10 above under the Consent Calendar) without learning why more seniors are not using it. Services are supposed to be useful for Citizens.
F for 20 years of never checking with CA. Edison to see if the City needed a License agreement or some form or written agreement to hang City Signs including Traffic Signs on their poles. License Agreement with So. CA. Edison to allow the attachment of City Signs (Item 4.12 above under the Consent Calendar)
INFORMATION, COMMENTS QUESTIONS and CONCERNS from Watch Dog Readers:
COMMENTS ON COMPENSATION & COMPENSATION STUDY & THE BUDGET
Send kudos to Kogerman for her position on health plan enrollment. Let's get rid of the golden plans. Let's get the plan recipient to pay for their family and why should anybody get 100 % coverage for a part time job? Private industry doesn't even have health insurance for part time jobs in most cases. We need to cap pensions at 70% as in Europe. Cities cannot sustain 90% of highest year earned for pensions. We all know its manipulated by cashing in sick days and vacation days which should also be illegal. It's a matter of plain math, let outsiders determine what is healthy financially, get the Brandman graduate students back again to look into this.
Maybe Caruth and the 2 other old boys should remind themselves of past deeds that need to be undone and are no longer just forgotten. Since we now have more transparency and we've learned more about how the system works regarding taxpayers and their goals. Prudent spending includes not pension painting us all into a corner. We've experienced what it's like to have a different perspective in favor of citizens with consistency behind the decision making process. Citizens are looking deeper at long term ramifications and the rainy day periods we now have. The 2012 election is coming soon and look at what happened last time, we got some accountability on the city council and we WILL get more. I personally think more fresh fruit in the basket would be a good thing. Right now the fruit flies are hovering because the fruit's over ripe. Mr. C
My, My, My….It seems our Mayor Pro Tem is doing what most insincere politicians do, say anything to get elected and then forget the platform they campaigned on and who elected them. I have a long memory and her vote on the budget without all the information, we the people paid for, will be remembered by the citizens of Laguna Hills and especially by me. The apple doesn’t fall far from the Nellie Gail Tree does it? Dr. “J”
As newly elected Mayor at the Dec. 14 City Council Meeting - Songstad said his next goal was to increase transparency and trust and that out of this challenging election cycle will come new and good ideas - How's he doing with that? I would also like to thank Council Member Bressette for his citizen advocacy which is what the majority of Laguna Hills voters voted for in the last election but have seen little of this year outside of Kogerman and Bressette. The At A Glance Compensation Report on the City web site is still a humorless joke on the voters in this City. Kathryn
Another excellent report on the goings on of our City Council and City Management. Council Members Bressette and Kogerman should be applauded for their effort to watch out for the citizenry of Laguna Hills - the rest of the council certainly doesn't appear to be doing so, especially on the budget. Alan, Joel and Channing's touting "that we have had surpluses, so what's the beef?" attitude is troublesome at best. Carruth's comments about shifting surpluses from one budget category to another, is certainly not in the best interest of the City. I have a thought....if there is a budget surplus, let's reduce the budget, reduce fees on residences and businesses and provide more services (like to seniors). Why is it that people "infected" with the Government bug, feel it necessary to spend everything, all the time....then feign surprise when money isn't there for serious issues?
Alan, Joel and Melody....you can't possibly be serious on the compensation study and budget, can you? You have each said that everything for Laguna Hills compensation looks OK, based on the preliminary report given by the consultant, therefore let's go ahead and pass the budget without further considerations or debate....you can't be serious. Come on, that was one low level admin position.....one. That is not where the residents of Laguna Hills have issues and concerns. You know what they say, "as fish smells from the head down", so let's examine the head. I have supported this council for many years, but now I feel that they don't have their priorities right anymore. I think it is now time for a change...bye, bye Alan and Joel. A long time Laguna Hills Resident
I especially liked a comment in the OC Register Story about the Grand Jury Report - Rob Goodfellow said - Can anyone explain to me why these fat cat city managers deserve more than anyone employed by the federal government, except for the President? The only reason I can see is that elected city government officials are temporary and not really familiar with the running of a small city so in order, in their minds, to make sure they don’t look stupid by not keeping or getting the “best city manager” to cover their butts would ruin them. This naivety allows these managers’ tactics to hoodwink these part-time council members into believing they are worth it. And, they got away with it during those years of plenty before the recession. Now, the cities tax bases are eroding and finally somebody is paying attention. So, it there anyone out there who can tell me why any city manager of an Orange County city mentioned in this article deserves more than our senior fed officials like the head of the FBI or DEA? Please, someone enlighten me. Please! LHBlog Reader
COMMENTS ON COUNCIL'S REACTION TO GRAND JURY REPORT and other ISSUES
This kind of compensation is not deserved for running the City of Laguna Hills. I'm going to remember Alan Songstad's quote, "this budget is about a ceiling not a floor" when it comes time to cut some fat. A few observations follow:
Why should the City of Laguna Hills spend even one penny on a 20th Anniversary Celebration? Lapel Pins? Really?
Coming in "at budget" does not equal prudent fiscal management, if the budget is flawed'
If the City wasn't spending so much on compensation we could have a model Animal Shelter.
How do you think I can find out over the last 5-years how many building permits were issued in Laguna Hills and their dollar value, by year and month? I'll bet some months not a single building permit is pulled. I'm wondering why existing staff can't process building permit applications and do plan check?
Does anyone go to the Laguna Hills mall?
Bruce Channing certainly has his story and he's sticking to it.
It's not management's fault it is the City Council's fault if no action is taken based on the Grand Jury report.
Why are we eliminating Senior Management's incentive based compensation? They should cut base pay and keep the discretionary incentives. Why don't we start some baby steps toward executive compensation parity with the private sector?
Cashing in Vacation Pay isn't a one time event when you get 6 paid weeks (sometimes more) and cash some in every year.
Barbara Kogerman is impressing me and the rest of the council seems to be waking up.
Bill Enholm
WIN WIN Wednesday! - Make it a habit! - Here's the lineup for - WWW Global Cuisine - Please Download your flyers to give to each restaurant to get the 20% for Win-Win-Wednesday's Safe & Sane Grad Night for LHHS at http://www.winwinwednesdays.com/
July - Summer's Theme
July 6 - Flamingo's Mexican (LH) on McIntyre at La Paz
July 13 - Cafe Rio (LF) El Toro and Rockfield
July 20 - Subway (LH) at McIntyre/La Paz
July 27 - Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ (LF) El Toro Rd.
This year’s LHHS PTSA Grad Nite was a huge success thanks to the tireless effort of so many people. Thank you Stacey Ellis and Melissa Koch for your leadership and dedication. Anyone who was a committee chair, donated boxers, constructed decorations, participated in WWW!!, came to Preview Nite, helped sell tickets, volunteered the night of, and all who helped clean up made PTSA Grad Nite 2011 a night our graduating class will never forget! Also, many local businesses and the City of Laguna Hills were very gracious with their donations, services and equipment. Please support all the people who supported us! Here is a long list of the families and businesses that contributed to PTSA Grad Nite 2011 (PTSA Grad Nite Corporate and Family Sponsors). A special thanks to US Marine, Sgt. Freddie Real who kept a watch over our event. Thank you! Alice would be proud (Natalie Gregory LHHS Alumni ’94, 1988 CBS Movie Alice in Wonderland). Meg Gornham
HOW TO SUPPORT THE 3rd BATTALION, 5th MARINE DIVISION - Adopted by the City of Laguna Hills
Donation checks can be made specifically to "Laguna Hills Team Dark Horse" and mailed to - Team Dark Horse, 27251 Lost Colt Dr., Laguna Hills, CA. 92653. The Non-profit Corporation 501 (C) (3) status has been approved so all donations are tax deductible. E-mail Mike Bland at 35bland@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, etc. The city's e-mail for the 3/5 is 3/5-support@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us City Clerk Peggy Johns is the City Liaison to the 3/5 Support Committee. Go to the City web site by clicking on this link - http://www.ci.laguna-hills.ca.us/
Please see the Laguna Hills 3/5 Adopted Marines Facebook page by clicking on this link - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laguna-Hills-Team-Darkhorse/132765660119128 and share it with your friends!!
NEWS STORIES AND BLOGS ABOUT LAGUNA HILLS: Click on the links below to see the stories.
LA Times: Laguna Hills City Manager Salary
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oc-salaries-20110621,0,1126677.story
In O.C., city pay can be steep, but it’s not ‘abusive’ June 20th, 2011 http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/20/in-o-c-city-pay-can-be-excessive-but-its-not-abusive/85631/#comment-165059
June 9, 2011 ORANGE COUNTY GRAND JURY REPORT - Compensation Study of Orange County Cities http://www.ocgrandjury.org/pdfs/comp-study-oc-cities/Compensation-Study-of-Orange-County-Cities.pdf
City manager says compensation is fair
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-303264-channing-compensation.html
Political rebel faces an uphill battle
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-303262-kogerman-channing.html
Councilwoman: Public pay report inaccurate, self serving
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-299908-report-council.html
OC Watchdog Lavish health benefits slashed in Laguna Hills, Tustin http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/05/12/lavish-health-benefits-slashed-in-laguna-hills-tustin/82833/
After attacks, city-manager-compensation sleuths win state award March 21st, 2011, posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/03/21/after-attacks-city-manager-compensation-sleuths-win-state-award/78545/#comment-139633 Click on http://www.publicceo.com/ for more of this story.
No more $60,000 SUVs for city manager?
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/02/09/no-more-60000-suvs-for-city-manager/75030/
Gold-plated benefits? New councilwoman just says ‘no’ http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/01/18/gold-plated-benefits-new-councilwoman-just-says-no/72532/
OCREGISTER: Laguna Hills councilwoman says no to health benefits http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-282972-benefits-council.html
O.C. cities lavished health benefits on council members http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/12/06/oc-cities-lavished-health-benefits-on-council-members/69544/
Who has the best-paid city council in California? (updated) http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/12/02/who-has-the-best-paid-city-council-incalifornia/69418/ In Laguna Hills the Taxpayers pay the entire cost of heath care premiums for the elected part time city council members and their families. In addition, the City Manager's contract states "To the extent that payment of all or any portion of the dependent rate of premium, is not approved by the city council for all city employees, Channing shall be entitled to a salary increase or cash payment sufficient to cover the amount of premium or rate for dependent coverage not provided by the City plus applicable income taxes on that amount."
OCREGISTER: Kenneth Frank: In defense of city managers http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/city-277030-manager-laguna.html "Citizens, in turn, must do their part to foster civic pride. They should demand that city council and planning meetings be televised and streamed online. And they need to become involved. In Laguna Beach, we have numerous homeowners associations and environmental, business and labor groups that encourage the exchange of ideas and enhance the interactivity between residents and elected officials.
OCREGISTER: Chris Norby: Local officials susceptible to 'Bell syndrome http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/elected-276253-city-syndrome.html "Bell syndrome thrives where elected boards vote in lockstep, where groupthink is elevated, and skeptics are ostracized, and where top staff are seen as irreplaceable experts – with rubber-stamped salaries to prove it. Bell syndrome thrives when self-congratulation trumps self-examination."
OC has two of state’s best-paid city managers
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/09/17/oc-has-two-of-states-best-paid-city-managers/64492/
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS SAY the DARNDEST THINGS IN PUBLIC? Memorable and surprising Public Quotes from City Council Members
June 10, 2008 - Mayor Allan Songstad said "We have to go through a bidding process and sometimes the low bidder is not always the best contractor, but sometimes that's what we're stuck with."
Thank you Mayor Songstad, that is exactly what we have been trying to tell you about the Laguna Hills City Council "sticking " the residents with the same bad vendor - The Orange County Animal Shelter for the past 19 years.
October 25, 2005 - Mayor Allan Songstad, speaking about the Laguna Hills City Council said, "When you've been doing business in a certain way for 13 years you're not likely to change that."
So true, Allan, so unfortunately true unless you change members of the city council.
August 19, 1994 - LHCC Member Allan Songstad - From the Los Angeles Times Newspaper Article Collections - Orange County Focus - August 19, 1994 LYNN FRANEY - Laguna Hills Councilman Declines to Run for Reelection With Councilman L. Allan Songstad Jr. declining to run for reelection, at least one newcomer will gain a seat on the City Council this fall. Songstad said he never intended to run for a second council term and that he is not a "career politician." That leaves space for at least one of the challengers, Cindy Greengold, Saeid Hariri, Grant R. Marcus or Charmane Riggs.
Now, in 2011 with 18 years on the Laguna Hills City Council we are guessing Council Member Songstad has changed his mind about being not being a "career politician."
CRIME IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
For a roundup of Laguna Hills police calls - published May 11, 2011 click on: http://www.ocregister.com/news/block-300013-disturbance-drive.html and go to - www.ocregister.com/saddleback for more.
** See this June 29,2011 News Round Up of selected Items from the OC Sheriff's Dept. for the most recent Crime in Laguna Hills. - OCREGISTER: Neighborhood flyers raise suspicion - click on http://www.ocregister.com/news/block-306419-caller-disturbance.html
WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR of the Orange County Register
Letters to the Editor: E-mail to letters@ocregister.com Please provide your name, city and telephone number (telephone numbers will not be published). Letters of about 200 words will be given preference. Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity.
All Council Members were present
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*** City Council Meetings have now officially advanced one more step to Video as well as Audio on the City Web Site - There was no announcement about this but we were able to see video of this meeting on July 1, by clicking on http://www.ci.laguna-hills.ca.us/ then clicking on "agendas and minutes," then "city council," then choose the June 28 meeting and click on "audio" to see and hear the meeting. - Continue to see information for Win-Win -Wednesdays under - INFORMATION, COMMENTS QUESTIONS and CONCERNS from Watch Dog Readers: Contact Laguna Hills City Council Members at - ccouncil@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us
Headline for tonight's meeting - The Final Report from the City of Laguna Hills Employee Compensation Study - see below under Administrative Reports Item 7.2.1
PRESENTATIONS and PROCLAMATIONS – None
PUBLIC COMMENTS - Paul Stanislaw, Laguna Hills Resident since 1993 stated he had a request. He said he has been coming to these meetings for 3 or 4 months and enjoys the presentations but after he hears them and has questions or comments he doesn't get to make them because of the way the meetings are set up. It always seems he has to make comments prior to hearing the information. He added he would like to see the procedure changed so that the public could make comments and ask questions after hearing the presentation. Mayor Songstad responded that when an item is on the agenda there is a staff report, then the council asks questions and then the public can ask questions or make comments. Mr. Stanislaw made a point about the last meeting and the signage application confusion that was not clarified until the presentation was actually completed by the applicant. Mayor Songstad continued that the public can fill out a "Request to Speak" and make comments to staff after the report and after the council members have asked their questions. He added that you don't get to ask a question of an applicant who is applying for something like a Conditional Use Permit. Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth pointed out that people who come here frequently check the agenda posted on the City web site, prior to coming, where they can also get the staff reports. Then when they get here they can check the final printed agenda, fill out a request to speak and speak when the item comes up. However, if you here listening to the meeting and are struck by something that was said and want to speak about that you can approach the dais, ask to be recognized and fill out the request to speak at that time. Mr. Stanislaw thanked the Council for their time and said he was glad to know this. Council Member Lautenschleger added that the public can comment on every item in the agenda as the item comes up except the consent calendar which can only be commented on in the beginning "Public Comments" section of the Agenda unless one of those items is pulled from the agenda and then comments can be made at time.
(**Editor's Note - We are also very glad to hear this stated publically and will keep it in mind because we have previously seen members of the public denied the opportunity to speak at times other than the times listed in the agenda for "Public Comments.")
LHHS STUDENT LIAISON REPORT by Kylie West alternate Jeena Bonutto. - No more reports until school resumes in the Fall.
MINUTES - Recommendation that the City Council Approve the Minutes of the previous City Council Meeting for publication on the city web site. The minutes from tonight's meeting will not be approved for publication until the next city council meeting so there is a long delay for the public related to timely documentation of information from the city.
CONSENT CALENDAR - Warrant Register = $806,911.42
Items of interest from the Warrant Register - None
Items of Interest from the Consent Calendar: **Items on the Consent Calendar are placed there by City Staff:
Item 4.3- Records Retention Management (Annual destruction of City Records) more than 2 years old that are no longer required by the City, are not court records, required to be kept by statute, not in the minutes, ordinances or resolutions. This year there is an online listing of the records to be destroyed.
Staff Recommendation - No longer retain records with disposal date of June 29, 2011
Item 4.4 - Adoption of Annual Appropriations Limit for FY 2011-2012 CA. State Constitution placed limits on the amounts of revenue that could be spent by public entities from proceeds of taxes through the Gann Initiative/Prop. 4 in 1979 Article XIIIB
City Staff has determined the City will be under that limit by $18,686 for FY 2011/12. Staff Report says - In the City's 1st year of Operation voters approved an Appropriations Limit of $9,102,336 which is adjusted by the City annually based on population and inflation. The allowable appropriations for FY 2011-12 is stated to be $29,022,451 which is to be made available to the public for 15 days prior to its adoption. City says that requirement has been satisfied. Section 9710 was added in 1980. Proposition 111 was approved in June 1990 to address complaints by Govmt. Agencies providing local governments with adjustment formulas. Staff Recommendation - Adopt the appropriations limit for 2011/12
Item 4.5 - Renewed Measure M2 Compliance Reporting - Staff report says City anticipates receiving $500,000 in annual revenues, for streets, sidewalks, traffic signals, highways, under Measure M through 2015-16
Staff Recommendation - Comply with requirements
Item 4.6 - 1st Amendment to Joint Cooperative Agreement for pilot commercial food waste diversion pgrm.
Only 4 food establishments are participating - King's Fish House, Saddleback Memorial Medical Ctr., In-N-Out burger, Farmer's Market at Laguna Hills Mall on Fridays. Staff Report states no fiscal impact to the City because there is a grant for this now but in the future funding will expire. The participating food service organizations are not charged now. CR&R has issued a proposal to the City for a future rate structure for commercial food waste collection.
Item 4.7 - Governmental Accounting Standards Board - (GASB) a new Fund Balancing Component Designation Title "assigned fund balance" replaces the old designation title of "unreserved, designated" in the general fund. The amount in this fund has been historically designated in this City by the City Manager. There are 4 other new fund balance components to replace older components - Nonspendable Fund Balance, Restricted Fund Balance, Committed Fund Balance, and Unassigned Fund Balance.
Staff Recommendation - Delegate the authority to the City Manager to assign amounts to be used for specific purposes for the purpose of reporting in the annual financial statements and balance amounts to be used as reserves.
Item 4.8 City Views Publication Consulting Services Agreement with Faubel Public Affairs - Annual Cost for the production, development and design of the Quarterly Publication of City Views 9x12 inch, 28 page, full color, glossy City Magazine without the cost of postage to 14,000 residences in the City is $105,000 or $26,250 per issue.
Staff Recommendation - Another 2 year contract for $210,000 with $95,000 annually coming from the General Fund and the remaining $10,000 from Recycling Accounts related to the environmental-related public information contained in City Views. The first 8 to 10 pages are dedicated to the City, the rest is dedicated to Community Services.
Item 4.9 - Sports Complex Snack Bar Agreement with Laguna Hills High School Music Boosters - City Report says the Snack Bar has been run by the Music Boosters since 2004 and they made a profit of almost $800 in May of 2011. Staff says the Music Boosters provide them with a monthly report but there is no mention of any fiscal impact to the City or any profits for any other months or years, etc.?
Staff Recommendation is to extend their agreement for another year.
Item 4.10 - OCRA Senior Mobility Prgm. Funds for the Dial-A-Taxi transportation Program for Seniors.
Staff Recommendation - Continue to participate in the program with a new 5 year agreement for eligible participants who are 80 years or older or 65 years or older and are disabled or 60 years or older with a revoked license or otherwise unable to drive. One way rate of $5 (customer co-pay) within the service area. To date only 24 seniors are eligible to use the program and only 8 seniors have actually used it since it started on August 1, 2010 through May 30, 2011. Staff says they have dropped off flyers at the Florence Sylvestor Memorial Senior Center, included information in 2 issues of City Views, hosted a Senior Transportation Fair in Oct. of 2010 (7 months before the program started). Fiscal impact to the City - from $4000 to $6000 over the current year. Because usage is so low some Transportation Development Act funding may have to be returned in the amount of approximately $27,300.
Staff says they will continue to monitor the use of the program to determine of program requirements should be modified or services enhanced.
Item 4.11 - Progress Payment for La Paz widening at I-5 of $133,699.74
Item 4.12 - License Agreement with So. CA. Edison to allow the attachment of City Signs that are non-electrified traffic regulations signs and related equipment to streetlight Poles. So. CA. Edison owns the street light poles. Fiscal Impact to the City - None if the agreement passes but City could be required to remove all their signs currently on street light poles which would be a significant cost related to removal and re-installation of signs. Staff Report states that in the past So. CA. Ed. has allowed the City to attach signs to their street light poles but is now requiring a formal license agreement. The report continues that the City recently reviewed their internal records and determined that the City never had a formal agreement with the utility company. There is a list of specific regulations (terms and conditions) in the agreement for the installation and maintenance of each type of sign/banner attached to a pole to protect the poles and the City cannot make any money from any of the signs.
Staff Recommendation - Approve the Agreement.
Item 4.13 - Trauma Intervention Program Agreement - $3,641.28 for FY 2011-1
Staff Recommendation - Execute the Agreement.
Items Pulled from the Consent Calendar for Discussion - Items 4.8 - City Views and 4.11 La Paz Rd. widening were pulled by Council Member Kogerman
Vote - The rest of the Consent Calendar was passed 5 - 0.
Council Member Kogerman asked about using social networking in addition to City Views to notify the citizens about what is going on in the community. Assistant City Manager Don White responded people seem to really like City Views and don't seem to like to social network with the City. Vote - Item was passed 5 - 0
(**Editor's Note - Question - Does City Views need to be a 9x12 inch, 28 page, full color, glossy City Magazine? Could taxpayers not save money by reducing the size of the oversized City Views, eliminating the "glossy" and decreasing the number of professional photographs, and are Citizens paying too much for 28 pages, some of which are less informational and more PR for the City Council?)
Council Member Kogerman asked about the contaminated soil in the La Paz Rd. widening project. Ken Rosenfield, City Engineer explained that during the excavation comtaminated soil was found but the nearby Arco Gas Station responded and agreed to accept responsibility for that soil. There remains a need for more careful work and better equipment to protect the workers. The contamination took 10 days to clean up so the project is currently set back about 30 days considering the previous set backs. Vote - Item was passed 5 - 0
(**Editor's Note - No one pulled Item 4.10 - OCRA Senior Mobility Prgm. Funds for the Dial-A-Taxi transportation Program for Seniors which has been in effect for almost a year with only 8 seniors using it. Staff says they will continue to monitor the use. Other than counting to 8 what does that mean? Why are they not checking with seniors to find out if the majority of the seniors in the City are aware of this program and if perhaps program challenges that make it less than useful for a majority of citizens require changes, etc.? If the City assists to provide programs should those programs not be useful for the targeted citizens?)
PLANNING AGENCY PUBLIC HEARINGS -
Item 5.4.1 - Conditional Use Permit to establish a K-Grade 2 Charter School at 25201 Paseo de Alicia in the Alicia Office Park, a Neighborhood Mixed Use Zoning District. School will be doing business from 7 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday with 100 students.
** This item is to be continued to the July 12 City Council Meeting.
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS - **These Items are authored by City Staff
Item 7.3.1 - Santa Maria Ave. Improvement Project - Staff report says this project is under construction by the City of Laguna Woods and Laguna Hills is participating in less than 25% of the project. The project covers pavement rehab. of the street and construction of a raised median island to complete a continuous median island along the length of Santa Maria Ave. 4 travel lanes will remain with completion of the projects and will eliminate parking over a portion of Santa Maria Ave where the existing road narrows. The street improvement project is consistent with the policies of the City of Laguna Hills for raised median islands on all arterial highways and eliminating parking along most arterial highway locations. The City of Laguna Woods is also constructing a cart path within their jurisdiction and has agreed to evaluate the need for a stop sign at 2 intersections with Santa Maria Ave. - San Remo Dr. and Santa Vittoria Dr. There was a lengthy discussion of the problems with this construction among the council members and the City Engineer, Ken Rosenfield, The City Engineer stated there is no reason for people to park on Santa Maria because there is so much parking on Santa Vittoria and reasonable parking on Barbera in front of the school and near Santa Vittoria park.
Staff Recommendation - Receive and file this report.
Public Comments - Ed Krause, Laguna Hills Resident said when you turn onto Santa Maria from Moulton that stretch of sidewalk they built is too big. They put 2 lanes in there and he said he drives a large tool truck and hit a sign and a tree making a turn with his large truck because there is so little room to turn now. He also noted Semi Truck tire tracks on the side walk. He said the side walk is too big so there is not enough room to make that turn. He added that everything should be put back the way it was because he can foresee larger trucks than his having more problems there and hitting other cars and golf carts, etc. He also noted that stop signs are needed not for volume of traffic but for safety. Stop Sign at Santa Maria and San Remo needed because vegetation, construction, trucks, etc. block the view and his daughter was almost struck by a car there just the other day. Ed also mentioned in response to Council Member Kogerman's question, there was no notification to him prior to this construction by Laguna Woods. He said the single lane down by the school will work but on the other side of the street there are constantly big trucks because the retaining wall is always falling apart. He added that people are using that big sidewalk for golf carts. Council Member Bressette noted that in the future we need to be more sensitive and cautious about street construction on our borders in the future.
Vote was 5-0 to accept and file this report.
Item 7.2.1 - Final City Employee Compensation Report presented by Doug Johnson from Ralph Anderson and Associates (This 167 page report was posted online prior to the City Council Meeting.)
Staff recommendation - Receive and file the report
Brief Synopsis of Doug Johnson's (from Ralph Anderson & Assoc.) Final Report from the City of Laguna Hills' $24,500 Employee Compensation Study - The other Cities studied in this study were: Yorba Linda, Tustin, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Rancho Santa Margarita, Orange, Newport Beach, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Fountain Valley, Dana Point, Cypress, Buena Park, and Brea.
(**Editor's Note - Because this is a 167 page report with layers of often confusing information, many of which are strongly tied to charts that you cannot see here we will start with only a brief synopsis of the conclusions, however if anyone wishes to review the entire report the Laguna Hills Watch Dog has saved it in a file and we will e-mail it to you as an attachment if you specifically request it at BlandMJ@AOL.com or you can request it at City Hall or check to see if it is still posted on the City Web Site. Also you can listen to the complete report in the Audio portion of the council meeting on the City's web site. Relevant information in Doug Johnson's report is revealed through the following dialogue with questions from Council Members and answers from Mr. Johnson that will give readers a good idea of presentation points and arguments for and against them.)
Doug Johnson concluded that Laguna Hills maintains a market position at approximately the 62 percentile related to the other cities in the study. He said the Health Insurance Benefits Costs paid by the City were higher than commonly found in the market place even after the City found lower Health Insurance Premium Rates this year. He said cash benefits were consistent with the market place. Labor rates aren't moving right now but in the short answer is maintain your position as long as it's something you can afford. He said he didn't think it was an unreasonable market position, other agencies are moving and you are just always maintaining that 62 percentile position with about 38% of the market above you and 60% below. He said he thinks there is a cost advantage to being fair and not having to deal with the problems of labor relations/unions that you might have if you suddenly go back to the 40th percentile.
Council Member Bressette - When you talk about Public Data only table 3 talks about private sector data, is there anywhere else in the report that private sector data has been considered?
Johnson - There's only 2 spots, a base salary analysis which is table 3 and our objective there is to respond to a common question I'm getting these days which is how do private sector wages compare to public sector? We compared the data from the 17 cities in our study with the data base published by the Economic Research Institute which in the report says there is a 2.9% difference. The 2nd place is Car Allowance.
Bressette - In the Executive Summary under core benefits point 3 it says when benefits are added to the base salary the City's compensations were 6.5% above market average this is primarily due to higher Health Insurance premiums paid by the City. Does the report consider the new lower Health Ins. Premiums we are paying effective July 1?
Johnson - Yes.
(Editor's Note - See more about Health Insurance Benefits for Laguna Hills City Council Members at - http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medical-costs-20110704,0,6684658.story Many small cities pay officials hefty health benefits - Laguna Hills council members, for example, receive medical benefits worth an average of $24,300 a year. Some other cities don't offer any health benefits.)
Bressette - As I understand it the current range maximum of base salaries from cities is what we are using in the majority of the data.
Johnson - That's correct, we are looking at the full value of the job after a 3 to 5 year period somebody through satisfactory performance has attained because 90% of our employees are at range maximum.
Bressette - Please explain base plus cash.
Johnson - Base is just base salary. Plus cash is deferred compensation that's paid by the employer and retirement pick up and those are often treated as cash. It's important to treat PERs pickup as cash because some organizations, as they do market surveys, they "PERs up" the base salary such that when the employee pays their retirement contribution, which they're normally supposed to pay, they have a salary that's equivalent to market. So the common practice is to add it in to all numbers. So it's base salary, deferred compensation and retirement pick up paid for the employee by the employer.
Bressette - So we would commonly refer to retirement pickup as the employer's portion of PERs.
Johnson - It's the employee's portion that's paid on behalf of the employee by the employer. Bressette - and deferred comp is that like a PARs plan?
Johnson - NO, It's like the 457 additional compensation plan.
Bressette - Since we do pay PARs contribution why wouldn't that be part of the cash that's in this?
Johnson - We analyzed that and it's because by design you created a way to address a difference between your retirement program - 2% at 60 and what the vast majority of market agencies are doing. You had a choice of increasing your formula with PERs or giving this PARs supplement and this looks brilliant when you look at it now in terms of minimizing those long term obligations so we though it was important to include it in that analysis.
Bressette - but you did not include it in this table.
Johnson - No, it's not in that table, it's in a later table because we are treating retirement as a separate component to look at.
Bressette - As you described it we chose PARs as a retirement benefit in lieu of a decision for a different PERs retirement formula, so I still don't understand why it would not be included in cash as a retirement benefit.
Johnson - We could have and if you look at the series of tables in appendix C. I could move the PARs contribution column over to cash and re-run the numbers but the end result isn't going to change.
Bressette - What was omitted in table 4B, that is crossed out, is what we look at as the employee retirement contribution by City. There is a footnote mission and the footnote says in addition to a 3.5% a 6.5% PARs contribution is provided by the City. Now that changes that 10.3% number from 13.8% to 16.8%.
Johnson - That's correct.
Bressette - So that would not make us one of the lowest cities in employee retirement contribution, but if you used the highest number which you used in prior tables that would make us perhaps the 3rd highest. Why isn't that number relevant?
Johnson - My objective was to show that these percentages are all influenced by these factors which are PERs controlled or decisions that you made years ago or workhorse demographic related. PARs is a pure defined contribution and that's it. You don't care about any of these factors and none of them are relevant to it. So my point is we can't use PERs contributions with any comfort that it has some equating value to what the retirement formula is. We see agencies that have a 2.7% at 55 that have an almost 25% contribution rate. There is a lot of variability there and that's what's frustrating is that column does not equate to what we know the benefit value is. Table 5 shows the combined impact of PARs and PERs retirement benefits and that's more frustrating because you have the percentages that you correctly stated and still with those combined you are still about 11.8% off the market in terms of that current value and that's what employees look at.
Bressette - The first assumption you made on page 24 was that retirement age is 55 but isn't our work force again and aren't people generally retiring generally later than age 55?
Johnson - Possibly not if they have a 2% at 55 not only in terms of an earlier retirement on the golf course but 5 more years of getting that defined benefit in the future. If we used 60 it would soften it a bit and make it more advantageous to you but we would completely lost out on capturing those 2 elements - the value of early retirement and the value of those 5 years of additional pay received.
Bressette - Did staff tell you that over the years we have created some of our benefits to retain our valuable employees. We have a 10 year anniversary date where a sizeable amount of money is put into retirement health savings for the particular objective of retaining our employees. I would suggest if you look at retiring employees you would find a greater number retiring at ages 60 and 62 simply because in the calPERs formula that percentage at age 60 is substantially higher than at age 55.
Johnson - My value is that if I have 5 more years to play golf, I'd leave a lot on the table for that. It's hard to capture a personal decision like that. People who have a defined benefit program may want to retire earlier than the general population that retires later but does not have the defined benefit program.
Bressette many of my clients are public employees and still choose to retire at 60 or 62 because that's how the system rewards them and would you please tell me what assumptions you used for the supplemental retirement - I see it's a 5% return - how many years and what percentage of salary?
Johnson - We are looking at that 5% at age 79
Council Member Lautenschleger asked if the 2% Cost of Living Allowance built into the budget was a logical way to approach things or should there be a dollar amount?
Johnson answered 2% is very reasonable. Many cities had done years of furloughs or salary freezes and are now coming back with increases they can afford. From 1 to 2.5% is a very common figure being bandied around. If it's going to be something defined by market parameters he suggested a percentage base.
(**Editor's Note - Fact Check - In the new biennial budget adopted June 14, 2011, the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) for 2011-12 were adjusted to 2% and for 2012-13 to 2.2%) plus defunding the Management Incentive Program (bonuses) for the next 2 years but Nothing Was Noted or Mentioned About Raises and according to Resolution #2009-06-23-2 the City Manager, at his discretion may grant up to a 5% salary adjustment for meritorious performance to any employee who has reached the top pay range in his /her position. The City Manager, at his discretion, may grant up to a 5% increase in salary and cost of living adjustments effective July 1, 2010. City Manager is authorized to create and administer a Management Incentive (bonus) Program for management employees ranging from 0-10% of annual salary at the end of each calendar year. ** At the June 23, 2009 City Council Meeting Council Members Carruth and Bressette called for city council approval or at least for a report to the City Council when the City Manager gives employees raises and bonuses in the interest of transparency but the vote was against them 3 to 2. The 3 who were not in favor of City Council approval or even a report to the City Council were Songstad, Lautenschleger and Craig Scott. )
Mayor Songstad asked - If we were to eliminate something like the PARs program would that have an effective on our competitiveness in the market?
Johnson - It wouldn't have an effect on incoming employees who had never worked for a City but would impact getting anyone from another City and for management positions he questioned whether this City could get a highly skilled top level manager because he had trouble in the past recruiting especially older top level employees for City's with 2% at 60. He said having a defined contribution element in the retirement program sends a very positive message.
Council Member Kogerman - Is there any issue in this City with employee turnover? Did anyone leave and in their exit interview say they were leaving related to retirement benefit issues or compensation or have we tried to hire anyone and failed because of compensation or retirement benefits issues?
Johnson - We did not look at that or ask that question, did not get into that.
Kogerman - Seems that one of your major conclusions was that the retirement benefits make us less competitive so would like to have seen data to back that up especially in today's environment with all the unemployment issues.
Kogerman - Related to comparability with other cities studied you say in the report you would look at Historical Practices, Geographic Proximity and if additional information is required you would look at Numbers of Employees and Operating Budgets, did you do that?
Johnson - For this study we focused more on population, we do look at Numbers of employees and Operating Budget but 9 times out of 10 the Operating Budget, not the number of employees, correlates fairly strongly with the population. The number of employees won't show if you have contract services like this City does so it will make your City look low compared to the market in terms of services provided by a city that are more like larger cities with more employees.
(**Editor's Note - An example of this would be full service City such as Laguna Beach that was compared with Laguna Hills in this study. In Laguna Beach the City employees provide most of the services compared with a Contract City such as Laguna Hills where most of the services are contracted out to service providers. The 2010 population count for Laguna Beach was about 22,700 and the 2010 population for Laguna Hills was about 31,000 - Laguna Beach's City Manager John Pietig recently citied the different levels of service provided in Orange County cities related to compensation levels in his City. Laguna Beach, he said, Laguna Beach is a full-service city, providing not only its own public safety services but also transportation, sidewalk sweeping, an animal shelter, a community center and more. In other cities, “these services, if provided at all, are handled by special districts, service contracts, or homeowner associations, which were not considered in the report,” Pietig added that additional complexities were that beaches and attractions draw tourists year round – sometimes up to 100,000 people a day, then add the high cost of living, and staff responsibilities of working with active resident advisory committees and a clearer picture of employee compensation emerges. http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/23/laguna-beach-responds-to-pay-report/86659/
Newport Beach was also one of the 17 Cities compared with Laguna Hills in this study. Newport Beach's 2010 Population was about 70,000 and it is also a full service city. Newport Beach's City manager David Kiff stated Wherever you live in Orange County, you likely receive the same menu of basic municipal services – drinking water delivery, wastewater collection, fire suppression, legal services, police protection, and access to public libraries, parks, senior services and community centers. In Newport Beach, the city government provides most of these services plus lifeguarding, trash collection, disaster preparedness, and a number of other services due to our coastal location and the expectations of our citizens. If you live in a “contract city” such as Lake Forest (with a 2010 population of about 77,000 this City is included in the Laguna Hills Employee Compensation Study) or Aliso Viejo (with a 2010 population of 48,000 this City was NOT included in the Laguna Hills Employee Compensation Study) , the city government provides fewer of these services. http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/21/newport-beach-fires-back-on-pay-report/86239/ )
Kogerman - expressed that she was not aware, when the 17 cities were chosen for this study that their budget, population and employee numbers were not going to be relevant.
Johnson - We have a balance, some smaller, some larger, and some about the same size. (**Editor's Note - of the 17 Cities studied only one was smaller in population than Laguna Hills and that was Laguna Beach which is full service City. 16 of the 17 cities studied were larger (Dana Point (2010 population of 37,000) and San Juan (2010 population of 34,593), though larger were closest in size to Laguna Hills (2010 population of 31,178) . Johnson said the numbers of employees were not relevant so the study looked at Operating Budget and Population. He said what they did not do was look at any correlation by budget, by employees or by population that quantifies adjustments in salary. There is another type of study that considers the most cost effective ways of delivering services but for doing a market survey of wages we do not look at those factors.
Kogerman - asked why did this study use a control point at the top of the compensation range for each employee position studied in all the cities?
Johnson - answered that the object was to see how this city's pay ranges compared to the pay ranges in the market. It's possible to do an average of actuals type of survey that is commonly done in the private sector but in a situation like this you have a set of organizations like this with pay ranges that look relatively similar then you look at that. You are trying to measure the competitiveness of your pay range. He added that these agencies are not set up for and very resistant to giving us "per employee" types of information.
Kogerman - said her concern is Senior Management employees and that is a major reason for doing this study.
Johnson - Many of those employees have contracts with contract rates so a salary range could not be used. In a couple of agencies there is a wide pay band for senior employees then we would get individual salaries for those managers because that is a more reliable indicator of what they are paying those individuals. We are not focused on individuals as much as functions such as Community Development, Public Works, Finance, etc.
Kogerman - How many cities have the 5% above market average practice as Laguna Hills does for the non-exempt employees?
Johnson - We did not ask that question. He said some cities in OC choose to be at the 60th or 75th percentiles, etc. but we did not survey that.
Kogerman - Some cities are requiring employees to pay all or a portion of the employee's contribution to the retirement benefit. How many cities are doing this as opposed to Laguna Hills that pays the entire employee's contribution for the employee?
Johnson - Agreed that is a trend that is happening but will take a while to put in place and he did not know how many cities are doing this now or what the recent changes have been.
(**Editor's Note - We have some of the answers to Kogerman's question about the changes in employee contributions to retirement plans from recent Newspaper Stories in the OC Register. From Newport Beach regarding employee contributions to retirement benefit plans. Additionally, base compensation has been impacted (generally lowered since 2009) thanks to additional pension contributions from employees that are directly deducted from base salary. Non-safety employees will pay 8% of their salary towards pension costs in January 2012. Some safety employees (our lifeguards) may begin to pay 9% (up from 3.5%) of their base salaries in July 2011. This is more than $3.7 million in FY 2011-12 coming off of base salaries, and it’s not part of the Grand Jury’s analysis either.
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/21/newport-beach-fires-back-on-pay-report/86239/
From Mission Viejo and other Cities regarding employee contributions to retirement benefit plans - The new plan also lowers the required share of retirement contributions paid into the California Public Employees' Retirement System, to 7 percent from 8 percent. Existing employees give a 3 percent share of their pension contributions with the city paying 5 percent. Future employees will be responsible for a 4.25 percent share, with the city contributing 2.75 percent. City staff estimated the annual cost savings of the new plan would be approximately 4 percent of payroll once all employees are in the second tier. Using a 5 percent turnover rate, it is estimated to take about 20 years before all city employees are on the new tier.
Mission Viejo is not the first Orange County city to implement a two-tiered pension plan; it follows models adopted by other cities including Cypress, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Rancho Santa Margarita. City staff indicated Fullerton is also considering a similar pension reform. For Mission Viejo - The changes are expected to go into effect on July 6. (By the fiscal year 2014-15, all employees will be paying their entire shares of CalPERS contributions, with none coming from the city. The change will begin with the 2011-12 fiscal year. Existing employees will begin paying an additional 1.25 percent share each fiscal year until they are paying their full 8 percent in 2014-15. Future employees will begin paying an additional 1.25 percent share each fiscal year until they are paying their full 7 percent in 2013-14.
OCREGISTER: Mission Viejo OKs pension reform, employee raises http://www.ocregister.com/news/-300803--.html )
Kogerman - About the Assistant City Manager are you telling me now that these are the actual figures paid to the Assistant City Managers?
Johnson - These control points could be a maximum, a defined point within a pay range, a contract amount or an actual salary. In this case these are all pay ranges. Kogerman - So we don't have actual salaries for the Assistant City Managers?
Johnson - No
Kogerman - What about the City Clerk? Did you use the actual amount or a range on that one?
Johnson - Two of the agencies only have an actual figure, they don't have a range and the rest apparently have ranges.
Kogerman - So we don't know if the figures are correct?
Johnson - Some of these agencies may have a true maximum, some have a working and a performance maximum, so there may be some of that in here and we don't look at bonuses at all because it's a very uncommon practice. We are not here to ascertain individual performance or employee salaries we are here to look at salary range structures.
Kogerman - In our case the City Manager got a bonus every year except 2010 and all of the other Management Team are subject to annual performance based increases so it's common here so questioning why bonuses given in all cities are not included in the study?
Johnson - Trends within organizations are inconsistent. It's intended for high performance but if in practice everybody gets it, I would question the value in that. Bonuses were not included because I don't think they are applicable to you current salary range structure. We are not looking at what somebody made in a calendar year or a fiscal year we are looking at what the range structure and policies provide for in terms of pay. If you start mixing a City Manager contract with salary range and salary administration there are going to be differences. If you hired us to provide apples to apples knowledge of City Manager's Pay with the full value of all the elements in their contract that is a different study that what we did here. We are focusing on the standard or macro policies and practices for pay within the organization.
Kogerman - So is that the same for City Engineer/Public Works Director, City Manager, Community Development Director, Community Services, etc.?
Johnson - Yes all those are contract rates except 2.
Kogerman - Regarding the 17 Cities in the study according to what you said we are basically looking at geographical location here.
Johnson - Yes, because that is the market you are competing in.
Kogerman - Related to Auto Allowance our City Manager reports the taxable value of his auto but no auto allowance, so I don't know if that includes maintenance, gas, insurance and everything else the City pays for him. In the study you just say "provided" regarding the auto but provide no value there whereas there is a value provided for car allowances. Johnson - We are looking at 22 jobs here, so getting the potential auto allowance value for all those jobs that have some kind of auto reimbursement or assigned auto use is difficult and too difficult to compare with other cities when we can't pin them down to get their information. Johnson closed with saying there was not enough detail in the Grand Jury Report or the State Controller's Report for him to see why his numbers did not match with their numbers.
(**Editor's Note City Resolution # 2009-06-23-2 states Auto Allowances will range from $200 - $750 per month are at the discretion of the City Manager as is the practice of providing a city owned/leased vehicle or a mileage reimbursement.)
Council Member Lautenschleger asked if in the opinion of Doug Johnson from Ralph Anderson & Assoc. was our compensation reasonable and competitive.
Johnson responded that he thought the totality of the package is a good balance of what your community wants and what the political pressures are and what is reasonable in trying to balance your costs.
Mayor Songstad - Are your conclusions based on your experience in the industry?
Johnson - Yes, I've shared my experience as a recruiter. He continued that his company is going though tremendous challenges now with working with city councils in hiring city managers, and "there's a great amount of attention to City Manager Contracts and so I think there's a lot of discussion, a lot of negotiation going on interestingly in 2 categories, one is trying to be more responsive to those things that people have raised concerns about and the other is finding creative ways to hide money".
Council Member Kogerman stated she agreed and said she has heard from people all over the County that certain employees are asking for more in benefits than salaries because that compensation is more difficult to ferret out. She also asked how much time he spent with the staff and with the council members in this process.
Johnson - responded the scope of his work was well defined so there were no discussions about that and he spent about 30 minutes with each employee and no real time with City Council Members.
Public Comments - Bill Enholm, Laguna Hills Resident and Community Banker and past President of the Nellie Gail Ranch Homeowners Association HOA had plenty to say after listening to the Compensation Report from Doug Johnson of Ralph Anderson & Associates. He said he comes from an environment where people are asking him for loans to keep small businesses afloat and in this room he is surrounded by people who at age 60 are going to get 6 figure lifetime retirement benefits. He said he is an expert on private industry compensation and the amount of attention given to private industry compensation in this report is laughable. He asked to share some real numbers such as the City Clerk gets $116,000 a year and a total of $164,000 in benefits, The Deputy City Manager $128,000 in salary + $174,000 in benefits, Community Development Director $162,000 in salary + $235,000 in benefits, Director of Public Services $169,000 salary and $241,000 in total compensation, Assistant City Manager $193,000 salary and $273,000 in total compensation, The City Manager $233,000 in wages and $341,000 in total benefits. He said he can answer the question from the $20,000+ study, the amount of turnover we have in this City is Zero. He noted that the City Manager and Assistant City Manager have been here 20 years and most of the others for many years as well but he is supposed to believe that they could easily go the private sector or some other public sector job and get more pay. He said that is unbelievable and regarding the report all he could say is the overused quote there are lies, damn lies and statistics and we just listened to a bunch of statistics that were damn lies.
Mr. Enholm then offered suggestions to balance Public Compensation with the Private Sector. Cap wages at $150,000 a year + benefits, Increase the retirement age to 65 years, lets give any future increases in the form of discretionary bonuses, end Cost of Living increases and award only merit increases, stop the practice of the City paying all the Employee Contributions to retirement plans, cap sick day accrual at 60 days and stop allowing cash outs for excess sick days or of contributing them to your health care account such as a recent incident of the $60,000 the City contributed to an employee's retirement savings account because the employee had been with the City for 10 years. Change to use it or lose it vacation days and cap carry over to 2 weeks. Eliminate all City owned vehicles and car allowances and pay only reimbursement for actual business miles. Cap contributions to employee health insurance and fund future increases with employee contributions or seek out lower cost alternatives. He noted that his wife runs a business with 300 employees and told him our insurance costs $15,000 a year, why is the City paying $24,000 a year for Mayor Songstad's insurance? Eliminate supplemental health and life insurance benefits and enhanced long term disability from the management benefits and cap severance benefits at 6 months salary and 6 mos. health insurance as opposed to the half million dollar package that our City Manager has today and cap employer paid life insurance at 1 times the annual salary. He ended with one last question for the presenter from Doug Johnson of Ralph Anderson & Associates, "When have you ever conducted a survey where you determined that a City was in fact overpaying their employees and can I please see that report?"
Mayor Songstad said he assumed that last question was rhetorical. Mr. Enholm stated It was not rhetorical. Mayor Songstad then asked Mr. Johnson if he had a response and Mr. Johnson responded "No, thank you, I'm good". Mr. Enholm questioned why we could not get an answer to a question like that.
Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth responded to Doug Johnson of Ralph Anderson & Associates - While there were a couple of things where I would want to make a few adjustments, your conclusions reinforced all the policies and philosophies that we established 20 years ago when we established the City. Thank you and I particularly enjoyed the data.
Council Member Kogerman handed out graphs and other information she prepared for the Council Member's related to discrepancies between this City's Compensation Report from Ralph Anderson & Associates and the other 3 compensations reports, one done by Council Member Kogerman with help from the Bradman University grad students who won the Public CEO's Service to the State Award for the Study, The State Controller John Chaing's Office Report and the 2011 Grand Jury's Report of OC Cities Employee Compensation.
Kogerman pointed out that in her study, the State Controller's Study and the 2011 Grand Jury Study Laguna Hills compensation was reported as higher than all of the 17 cities (studied in the Ralph Anderson & Assoc.Study) for the Laguna Hills City Manager, Assistant City Manager, City Engineer/Public Works Director and Community Development Director. She also noted that the average variance in the Anderson Report was about $21,000 less than what was reported by the other 3 other studies. The variance in the Anderson Report related to the City Manager was about $99,000 under what was reported in the other 3 studies. She said this suggests to her that there was significant under reporting in the Anderson Study. She also noted a failure to compare complexity measures in other cities studied such as other cities being full service cities compared to a Contract City like Laguna Hills, cities with significantly larger budgets - which were all of the Cities studied except Rancho Santa Margarita, and last she noted that, unlike Anderson & Assoc., she was able to obtain the City Manager Compensation packages for all the Cities and she recorded them for the City Council to see. Council Member Bressette asked what conclusion did she reach and Kogerman stated, Laguna Hills is at the low end of the scale related to complexity, population, size of the City in land area, budget, etc. and this needs to be recognized in a compensation study especially when compensation that is provided is higher than in other cities.
(**Editor's Note - Thanks to a very alert reader it was noted that at the November 9, 2010 Laguna Hills City Council Meeting a labor negotiator for the annual performance evaluation of the City Manager was chosen by 2 members of the City Council and that labor negotiator, John Goss, was from the same company that did this City Employee Compensation Study - Ralph Anderson & Associates. Many citizens spoke out against a raise and bonus for the City Manager in 2010 and after some time in closed session it was announced that there would be no bonus and no increase in salary. In a public statement City Manager Channing concluded it would be "unwise and imprudent to expect" a bonus and a raise. Though he noted council members have said he has met or exceeded their expectations on "85% or more of the goals. To that point, I believe that I have clearly 'earned' a bonus," he said. "Nevertheless, I am certainly cognizant of the reality that two members of this present City Council and Council Member-elect Mrs. (Barbara) Kogerman are steadfastly opposed to the City Council conferring upon me a reward for the high achievement of my employment related goals." http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-275655-channing-council.html The 3 council members who asked that the City Manager not accept a raise or bonus were Kogerman, Bressette and Carruth.)
Vote was 4 to 1 to Receive and File the Report. The No vote was Council Member Kogerman
CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC HEARINGS – None
OTHER BUSINESS - **These Items are authored by Council Members - From Council Member Kogerman - Item 8.1.1 - Appointment of Labor Negotiator for the terms and conditions of the City Manager's Employment Contract.
Council Member Barbara Kogerman said in earlier discussions the Council Stated stated that when we received the City Compensation Report we would look at the City Manager's Contract and that time has come. She said that could be done in a open session such as a City Council Meeting or appointing a labor negotiator or negotiators has been suggested or possibly 2 council members could speak informally with the City Manager to see if he would be willing to voluntarily scale down some of his total compensation. She suggested that Council Member Bressette be one of the 2 council members to speak with the City Manager. Council Member Bressette said he had to respectfully decline due to an urgent family situation that we later learned was a significant and urgent medical complication for his elderly mother. Bressette explained that there could be a friendly discussion with 2 council members and the City Manager. Council Member Lautenschleger declined without stating a reason as did Mayor Songstad who argued against doing this, said this process was supposed to be done at the end of the year Performance Evaluation for the City Manager and if done the City would have to pay for legal representation for the City Manager. Mayor Pro-Tem Carruth said she realized that the community wants the City Manager's Contract reviewed and asked some questions of the City Attorney, Greg Simonian. After much discussion involving the triggers in the city manager's contract that allow him to begin looking for another position or begin a count down to a large severance package, etc. A motion was eventually made that the City Attorney will return with 3 names of labor negotiator attorneys and a procedure for doing the contract review.
Vote was 3 - 2 in favor The 2 No Votes were Lautenschleger and Songstad.
MATTERS PESENTED by MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS -
Council Member Lautenschleger stated he had attended a Sustainable Community Strategy Meeting put together by OCTA.
CLOSED SESSION – Conference with Legal Council re. anticipated litigation - 2 cases.
Next regular City Council Meeting is Tuesday July 12, 7 pm, at City Hall. The City Council is take a recess on July 26 and August 9. Contact Laguna Hills City Council Members at - ccouncil@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us
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City Council & City Manager Report Card - Categories - (T) Transparency for Citizens, (A) Accountability to Citizens, (CI) Championing Citizen Related Issue, (AG) Achieving Citizen Related Goal Grades - (P) Pass, (A) for Authoring a Citizen Friendly Item, (F) Fail, (A+) Extra Credit. City Manager will be scored related to online and agendized Staff Reports and Requests.
Bressette - P - Voting for Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
Carruth - P - Voting for Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
Kogerman - A for authoring Citizen Friendly Item of reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes. P for voting for that item. A+ for getting that item passed.
Lautenschleger - F for voting against Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
Songstad - F for voting against Citizen Friendly Item of Reviewing the City Manager's Contract for possible changes.
City Manager - F for continuing the OCRA Senior Mobility Prgm. Funds for the Dial-A-Taxi transportation Program for Seniors as is (Item 4.10 above under the Consent Calendar) without learning why more seniors are not using it. Services are supposed to be useful for Citizens.
F for 20 years of never checking with CA. Edison to see if the City needed a License agreement or some form or written agreement to hang City Signs including Traffic Signs on their poles. License Agreement with So. CA. Edison to allow the attachment of City Signs (Item 4.12 above under the Consent Calendar)
INFORMATION, COMMENTS QUESTIONS and CONCERNS from Watch Dog Readers:
COMMENTS ON COMPENSATION & COMPENSATION STUDY & THE BUDGET
Send kudos to Kogerman for her position on health plan enrollment. Let's get rid of the golden plans. Let's get the plan recipient to pay for their family and why should anybody get 100 % coverage for a part time job? Private industry doesn't even have health insurance for part time jobs in most cases. We need to cap pensions at 70% as in Europe. Cities cannot sustain 90% of highest year earned for pensions. We all know its manipulated by cashing in sick days and vacation days which should also be illegal. It's a matter of plain math, let outsiders determine what is healthy financially, get the Brandman graduate students back again to look into this.
Maybe Caruth and the 2 other old boys should remind themselves of past deeds that need to be undone and are no longer just forgotten. Since we now have more transparency and we've learned more about how the system works regarding taxpayers and their goals. Prudent spending includes not pension painting us all into a corner. We've experienced what it's like to have a different perspective in favor of citizens with consistency behind the decision making process. Citizens are looking deeper at long term ramifications and the rainy day periods we now have. The 2012 election is coming soon and look at what happened last time, we got some accountability on the city council and we WILL get more. I personally think more fresh fruit in the basket would be a good thing. Right now the fruit flies are hovering because the fruit's over ripe. Mr. C
My, My, My….It seems our Mayor Pro Tem is doing what most insincere politicians do, say anything to get elected and then forget the platform they campaigned on and who elected them. I have a long memory and her vote on the budget without all the information, we the people paid for, will be remembered by the citizens of Laguna Hills and especially by me. The apple doesn’t fall far from the Nellie Gail Tree does it? Dr. “J”
As newly elected Mayor at the Dec. 14 City Council Meeting - Songstad said his next goal was to increase transparency and trust and that out of this challenging election cycle will come new and good ideas - How's he doing with that? I would also like to thank Council Member Bressette for his citizen advocacy which is what the majority of Laguna Hills voters voted for in the last election but have seen little of this year outside of Kogerman and Bressette. The At A Glance Compensation Report on the City web site is still a humorless joke on the voters in this City. Kathryn
Another excellent report on the goings on of our City Council and City Management. Council Members Bressette and Kogerman should be applauded for their effort to watch out for the citizenry of Laguna Hills - the rest of the council certainly doesn't appear to be doing so, especially on the budget. Alan, Joel and Channing's touting "that we have had surpluses, so what's the beef?" attitude is troublesome at best. Carruth's comments about shifting surpluses from one budget category to another, is certainly not in the best interest of the City. I have a thought....if there is a budget surplus, let's reduce the budget, reduce fees on residences and businesses and provide more services (like to seniors). Why is it that people "infected" with the Government bug, feel it necessary to spend everything, all the time....then feign surprise when money isn't there for serious issues?
Alan, Joel and Melody....you can't possibly be serious on the compensation study and budget, can you? You have each said that everything for Laguna Hills compensation looks OK, based on the preliminary report given by the consultant, therefore let's go ahead and pass the budget without further considerations or debate....you can't be serious. Come on, that was one low level admin position.....one. That is not where the residents of Laguna Hills have issues and concerns. You know what they say, "as fish smells from the head down", so let's examine the head. I have supported this council for many years, but now I feel that they don't have their priorities right anymore. I think it is now time for a change...bye, bye Alan and Joel. A long time Laguna Hills Resident
I especially liked a comment in the OC Register Story about the Grand Jury Report - Rob Goodfellow said - Can anyone explain to me why these fat cat city managers deserve more than anyone employed by the federal government, except for the President? The only reason I can see is that elected city government officials are temporary and not really familiar with the running of a small city so in order, in their minds, to make sure they don’t look stupid by not keeping or getting the “best city manager” to cover their butts would ruin them. This naivety allows these managers’ tactics to hoodwink these part-time council members into believing they are worth it. And, they got away with it during those years of plenty before the recession. Now, the cities tax bases are eroding and finally somebody is paying attention. So, it there anyone out there who can tell me why any city manager of an Orange County city mentioned in this article deserves more than our senior fed officials like the head of the FBI or DEA? Please, someone enlighten me. Please! LHBlog Reader
COMMENTS ON COUNCIL'S REACTION TO GRAND JURY REPORT and other ISSUES
This kind of compensation is not deserved for running the City of Laguna Hills. I'm going to remember Alan Songstad's quote, "this budget is about a ceiling not a floor" when it comes time to cut some fat. A few observations follow:
Why should the City of Laguna Hills spend even one penny on a 20th Anniversary Celebration? Lapel Pins? Really?
Coming in "at budget" does not equal prudent fiscal management, if the budget is flawed'
If the City wasn't spending so much on compensation we could have a model Animal Shelter.
How do you think I can find out over the last 5-years how many building permits were issued in Laguna Hills and their dollar value, by year and month? I'll bet some months not a single building permit is pulled. I'm wondering why existing staff can't process building permit applications and do plan check?
Does anyone go to the Laguna Hills mall?
Bruce Channing certainly has his story and he's sticking to it.
It's not management's fault it is the City Council's fault if no action is taken based on the Grand Jury report.
Why are we eliminating Senior Management's incentive based compensation? They should cut base pay and keep the discretionary incentives. Why don't we start some baby steps toward executive compensation parity with the private sector?
Cashing in Vacation Pay isn't a one time event when you get 6 paid weeks (sometimes more) and cash some in every year.
Barbara Kogerman is impressing me and the rest of the council seems to be waking up.
Bill Enholm
WIN WIN Wednesday! - Make it a habit! - Here's the lineup for - WWW Global Cuisine - Please Download your flyers to give to each restaurant to get the 20% for Win-Win-Wednesday's Safe & Sane Grad Night for LHHS at http://www.winwinwednesdays.com/
July - Summer's Theme
July 6 - Flamingo's Mexican (LH) on McIntyre at La Paz
July 13 - Cafe Rio (LF) El Toro and Rockfield
July 20 - Subway (LH) at McIntyre/La Paz
July 27 - Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ (LF) El Toro Rd.
This year’s LHHS PTSA Grad Nite was a huge success thanks to the tireless effort of so many people. Thank you Stacey Ellis and Melissa Koch for your leadership and dedication. Anyone who was a committee chair, donated boxers, constructed decorations, participated in WWW!!, came to Preview Nite, helped sell tickets, volunteered the night of, and all who helped clean up made PTSA Grad Nite 2011 a night our graduating class will never forget! Also, many local businesses and the City of Laguna Hills were very gracious with their donations, services and equipment. Please support all the people who supported us! Here is a long list of the families and businesses that contributed to PTSA Grad Nite 2011 (PTSA Grad Nite Corporate and Family Sponsors). A special thanks to US Marine, Sgt. Freddie Real who kept a watch over our event. Thank you! Alice would be proud (Natalie Gregory LHHS Alumni ’94, 1988 CBS Movie Alice in Wonderland). Meg Gornham
HOW TO SUPPORT THE 3rd BATTALION, 5th MARINE DIVISION - Adopted by the City of Laguna Hills
Donation checks can be made specifically to "Laguna Hills Team Dark Horse" and mailed to - Team Dark Horse, 27251 Lost Colt Dr., Laguna Hills, CA. 92653. The Non-profit Corporation 501 (C) (3) status has been approved so all donations are tax deductible. E-mail Mike Bland at 35bland@gmail.com with questions, suggestions, etc. The city's e-mail for the 3/5 is 3/5-support@ci.laguna-hills.ca.us City Clerk Peggy Johns is the City Liaison to the 3/5 Support Committee. Go to the City web site by clicking on this link - http://www.ci.laguna-hills.ca.us/
Please see the Laguna Hills 3/5 Adopted Marines Facebook page by clicking on this link - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laguna-Hills-Team-Darkhorse/132765660119128 and share it with your friends!!
NEWS STORIES AND BLOGS ABOUT LAGUNA HILLS: Click on the links below to see the stories.
LA Times: Laguna Hills City Manager Salary
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oc-salaries-20110621,0,1126677.story
In O.C., city pay can be steep, but it’s not ‘abusive’ June 20th, 2011 http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/20/in-o-c-city-pay-can-be-excessive-but-its-not-abusive/85631/#comment-165059
June 9, 2011 ORANGE COUNTY GRAND JURY REPORT - Compensation Study of Orange County Cities http://www.ocgrandjury.org/pdfs/comp-study-oc-cities/Compensation-Study-of-Orange-County-Cities.pdf
City manager says compensation is fair
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-303264-channing-compensation.html
Political rebel faces an uphill battle
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-303262-kogerman-channing.html
Councilwoman: Public pay report inaccurate, self serving
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-299908-report-council.html
OC Watchdog Lavish health benefits slashed in Laguna Hills, Tustin http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/05/12/lavish-health-benefits-slashed-in-laguna-hills-tustin/82833/
After attacks, city-manager-compensation sleuths win state award March 21st, 2011, posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/03/21/after-attacks-city-manager-compensation-sleuths-win-state-award/78545/#comment-139633 Click on http://www.publicceo.com/ for more of this story.
No more $60,000 SUVs for city manager?
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/02/09/no-more-60000-suvs-for-city-manager/75030/
Gold-plated benefits? New councilwoman just says ‘no’ http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/01/18/gold-plated-benefits-new-councilwoman-just-says-no/72532/
OCREGISTER: Laguna Hills councilwoman says no to health benefits http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-282972-benefits-council.html
O.C. cities lavished health benefits on council members http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/12/06/oc-cities-lavished-health-benefits-on-council-members/69544/
Who has the best-paid city council in California? (updated) http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/12/02/who-has-the-best-paid-city-council-incalifornia/69418/ In Laguna Hills the Taxpayers pay the entire cost of heath care premiums for the elected part time city council members and their families. In addition, the City Manager's contract states "To the extent that payment of all or any portion of the dependent rate of premium, is not approved by the city council for all city employees, Channing shall be entitled to a salary increase or cash payment sufficient to cover the amount of premium or rate for dependent coverage not provided by the City plus applicable income taxes on that amount."
OCREGISTER: Kenneth Frank: In defense of city managers http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/city-277030-manager-laguna.html "Citizens, in turn, must do their part to foster civic pride. They should demand that city council and planning meetings be televised and streamed online. And they need to become involved. In Laguna Beach, we have numerous homeowners associations and environmental, business and labor groups that encourage the exchange of ideas and enhance the interactivity between residents and elected officials.
OCREGISTER: Chris Norby: Local officials susceptible to 'Bell syndrome http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/elected-276253-city-syndrome.html "Bell syndrome thrives where elected boards vote in lockstep, where groupthink is elevated, and skeptics are ostracized, and where top staff are seen as irreplaceable experts – with rubber-stamped salaries to prove it. Bell syndrome thrives when self-congratulation trumps self-examination."
OC has two of state’s best-paid city managers
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2010/09/17/oc-has-two-of-states-best-paid-city-managers/64492/
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS SAY the DARNDEST THINGS IN PUBLIC? Memorable and surprising Public Quotes from City Council Members
June 10, 2008 - Mayor Allan Songstad said "We have to go through a bidding process and sometimes the low bidder is not always the best contractor, but sometimes that's what we're stuck with."
Thank you Mayor Songstad, that is exactly what we have been trying to tell you about the Laguna Hills City Council "sticking " the residents with the same bad vendor - The Orange County Animal Shelter for the past 19 years.
October 25, 2005 - Mayor Allan Songstad, speaking about the Laguna Hills City Council said, "When you've been doing business in a certain way for 13 years you're not likely to change that."
So true, Allan, so unfortunately true unless you change members of the city council.
August 19, 1994 - LHCC Member Allan Songstad - From the Los Angeles Times Newspaper Article Collections - Orange County Focus - August 19, 1994 LYNN FRANEY - Laguna Hills Councilman Declines to Run for Reelection With Councilman L. Allan Songstad Jr. declining to run for reelection, at least one newcomer will gain a seat on the City Council this fall. Songstad said he never intended to run for a second council term and that he is not a "career politician." That leaves space for at least one of the challengers, Cindy Greengold, Saeid Hariri, Grant R. Marcus or Charmane Riggs.
Now, in 2011 with 18 years on the Laguna Hills City Council we are guessing Council Member Songstad has changed his mind about being not being a "career politician."
CRIME IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
For a roundup of Laguna Hills police calls - published May 11, 2011 click on: http://www.ocregister.com/news/block-300013-disturbance-drive.html and go to - www.ocregister.com/saddleback for more.
** See this June 29,2011 News Round Up of selected Items from the OC Sheriff's Dept. for the most recent Crime in Laguna Hills. - OCREGISTER: Neighborhood flyers raise suspicion - click on http://www.ocregister.com/news/block-306419-caller-disturbance.html
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