I don’t know if anyone noticed but the City Council just had a meeting and approved a ton of recurring spending. I’d forgive you if you didn’t; if you blinked, you would have missed it. Along with the hundreds of thousands of city dollars flying out the door.

But before I start ranting, let me say this first: generally I’ve been very impressed by this City Council, and in particular I’ve appreciated their engagement on a wide variety of difficult and complicated issues. As rocky as the inclusionary housing ordinance discussion was, for example, in lesser hands such a complicated item could have gone completely sideways. It didn’t because every member was, at least most of the time, paying attention, asking good questions, and digging into the details. So I know this Council is perfectly capable of generating robust discussions.

So with the obligatory stroking out of the way…

This meeting only lasted 2 hours and 25 minutes. That’s brisk as City Council meetings go. Forty five of those minutes were devoted to various proclamations and city acknowledgements which, while important, don’t involve any substantive decision-making. Public comment consumed the next 25 minutes, and then we had 30 minutes of Council, City Manager, and City Attorney comments. We’re an hour and forty minutes into the meeting — it’s more than 70% over at this point! — and not a lick of city business has been done.

Consent Calendar

Finally we get to the consent calendar. Possessing a curiosity that was lacking from anyone on the dais (and off: Council Member Don Harper is awarded zero points for being a budget hawk if he doesn’t show up, which he didn’t), resident and member of the Finance and Pension Advisory Committee Ralph Taboada pulled one of the items, one which would have otherwise seen the City Council approve a 10-year, almost $7 million contract without even reading the title.

Mr. Taboada raised great points and requested that the Staff respond to specific, material questions. And what was his reward for giving up his Tuesday night, being an engaged resident, and imploring the City Council to take an interest in the city’s own checkbook?

Zero questions from the City Council, zero support from City Council to get Mr. Taboada’s questions answered by Staff, and zero discussion. “Move to approve staff recommendation.” “Second.” “Call for the question.” “Motion approved 6-0, with Council Member Harper absent.” Done.

Honestly, that’s rude. It would be rude if any resident’s earnest questions were stepped over and ignored. But Mr. Taboada is a current or former member of several resident committees and he is always a thoughtful commenter. I’d go so far as to put him in my pantheon of Costa Mesa “super-residents”. So that’s a bit extra.

Now look, I can overlook a bit of rudeness when it comes to a consent calendar item that, although involving a lot of money, was already reflected in the City’s annual budget passed in June. The rest of the items, however, are another story.

Old Business Item #1: Council Pay Raises

After taking a ten minute break, the City Council and Staff spent a whole five minutes on the second reading of the item to give themselves a 65% pay increase starting December 2024. And three of those minutes were spent listening to a blistering public comment from former City Council Member Wendy Leece, another super-resident, upbraiding them for considering such a staggering pay increase while basic city maintenance is being overlooked. Fair point!

So did the City Council respond to her stinging criticism at all? Nope. Another motion to move the Staff’s recommendation, another second with no interest in discussion, and another trip straight to a vote. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Harlan — filling in as meeting MC for the physically absent Mayor John Stephens, who joined by Zoom due to illness — stuck to his position from last meeting and voted no. But, you know, it would have been nice for the public to hear why he was breaking with his colleagues. I guess we don’t have time for that.

P.S.: for all of y’all complaining in the last couple of months that the City Council hides material matters in the consent calendar when they should be agendized as separate discussion items, rest assured: Staff and City Council are perfectly capable of giving a regular agenda item the consent-calendar treatment, and pass it without hardly a moment of reflection! Be careful what you wish for.

New Business Items #1 and #2: Police Dispatch and Lateral Hire Incentive Pay; Bridge Shelter Service Provider Pay Increases

At this point we only have 25 minutes to go in the meeting. Spoiler alert: Staff presentations and reading of the titles of the items takes up approximately 14 of those minutes. And voting on both items took about a minute total, since Mayor Stephens’s physical absence required the City Council to do voice votes rather than the quicker button votes.

So the entire discussion of both items totaled 10 minutes. Council Member Arlis Reynolds gets the cookie for the evening for asking the only question from the dais the entire night, asking Staff to clarify the recurring impact of of the dispatch officer title changes. The rest of the “discussion”, if you can call it that, was every Council Member falling over themselves to pat Staff on the back for doing such a great job with both items.

I’m sorry: one clarifying question and 10 minutes of nauseatingly self-congratulatory discussion is not acceptable when you spend over $900,000:

• $24,690.12 in FY 2024/2025 to cover new City Council salaries from the prior item (which got zero discussion);
• $270,000 in FY 2024/2025 for retroactive dispatch compensation adjustments;
• $319,000 in FY 2024/2025 incentive and retention bonuses for police officers;
• $197,894 increase to the “not to exceed” maximum for FY 2024/2025 for Mercy House services at the Bridge Shelter; and
• $91,250 increase to the “not to exceed” maximum for FY 2024/2025 for Bracken’s Kitchen food services at the Bridge Shelter.

Total: $902,834.12. And that’s just this fiscal year — you know, the one we just passed a budget for less than 2 months ago. It’s also on top of the extra-budgetary $210,000 the City Council approved at the beginning of August to improve police officer recruitment.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE ITEMS is going to be a recurring cost that will need to be included in future budgets. And don’t get me started on our “one-time retention bonuses” — there is no way those bonuses will be “one-time”. Certainly that kind of spending merits at least one substantive question?

Hey, City Council Members: we hire you to hold the Staff accountable to the residents, not just rubber-stamp the items Staff puts in front of you. I get that it’s hard to stay engaged when it seems like the residents don’t care. It did not escape me that you were playing to an effectively empty house. The lack of public participation at City Hall is disheartening. A sign of the times, perhaps.

But remember a lot of people don’t show up because they trust you to be digging into the details on their behalf.

Y’all can do better.