While the California count drags on — a practice which, in my opinion, undermines faith in the process more than bending over backwards to count every stray mark towards a candidate ever could augment it — the business of the city continues, with some interesting discussions coming up. So if you are ready to, ahem, turn the page on the last election, let’s see what’s on the docket before everyone gives up for the holidays.

A real estate breakthrough leads to a possible Shalimar Park expansion

Tonight the Planning Commission will consider a General Plan conformity screening for a potential purchase of an apartment building abutting the very small Shalimar Park, The hope is that the city could demolish the site and turn it into additional parkland. Although this will result in the loss of (presumably) affordable housing, signing off on the expansion seems like a no-brainer.

First, this area is even more park-poor than some of the metrics may indicate, as many neighbors to the West of Shalimar Park don’t have reasonable walking access to any other playgrounds.

And second, the park is already in the process of undergoing a substantial renovation thanks to state grant funding, so now is the time to pursue the expansion (rather than after the renovations are done). However, that does lead to a question that isn’t answered in the agenda report: what effect will this acquisition have on those renovation plans? If you recall, these plans have already been passed through the Parks Commission, the Planning Commission and the City Council, as well as the subject of several resident meetings. I would think the city would want to put the renovation project on hold while it determines the ultimate scope of the park space, but I don’t know if that works with the grant conditions. Hopefully Staff will provide an answer tonight.

The bees are poised to return at the next City Council meeting

Although we don’t have the agenda yet, Costa Mesa spokesperson Tony Dodero spilled the bee(ns) to the Voice of the OC that the residential beekeeping ordinance is likely to be discussed at the next City Council meeting. When this first came up a month or two ago, the support from the dais was overwhelming. Maybe too overwhelming: in its zeal, the City Council suggested that staff remove a lot common sense restrictions on the practice, such as having the city issue notices to neighboring properties and limiting the permits to single family homes. So I look forward to finding out how much the Costa Mesa Police Department, which has jurisdiction over this matter, was able to stomach when recrafting the original ordinance.

The City will report on its impact fees, and the story is decline, decline, decline

This one is going to get me ranting. The City has put out a notice containing it 2023-2024 impact fee report, and unsurprisingly our tepid development has resulted in tepid development impact fees. Do you know what this miserable chart says to me?

It says, “reduction in service.”

There is no other way to interpret this. When your park’s equipment is hilariously outdated and worn, when our streets flood when it rains, when our sidewalks are lifted and when our street paint is chipped or fading, the amount of service you receive from your government has been reduced. And that’s because these projects, even though they are slotted under “capital improvements”, are still services that the residents expect to be maintained.

And here is the part where I start ranting. There are some in this City who think that the way you build a town is you build everything perfectly the first time and then you never, ever touch it again. But the “we are built out!” crowd forgets that time eats everything. Time will eat your drain pipes, it will gnaw on your your playground equipment, and it will grind down your pavement. Who will pay for this? If we want to adopt no-build ballot initiatives and halt all infill construction, then we’d better have an alternative funding source for all of these capital needs. Did we do that?

No we did not. And sadly, nothing in life in free. Not even standing still. You still have to eat. And the city, frankly, decided to slowly starve itself to death.

Now, while Measure K looks like a glimmer of hope, you actually have to carry out the rezoning for it to be worth a damn. We’re going on 2+ years since Measure K was voted into law and the city hasn’t even bothered getting started on that effort. What a feckless mess.

Loose ends: Will there be a meaningful update on the City’s major projects?

In addition to the rezoning, which will get a non-update from Staff as part of the Housing Element overview at the Planning Commission today, there are several other major projects that should be getting updates at some point, if not now then in the first quarter of 2025:

• Fairview Developmental Center: What is going on here? We have heard very little about this gigantic project for months. I did notice that the FDC website has quietly updated the estimated completion date for the “visioning” part of this project from the end of 2025 to the end of 2026, a full year of delay. This process is costing the Californian taxpayer $3 million. Can the city audit this process in any way?
• Fairview Park Master Plan: Where are we on this? This process has been plodding along in fits and starts for over a year. There is basically no information about the project on the City’s website. Helloooooooooo… this is only the city’s largest park and a showcase of its environmental stewardship. No big deal. Is anyone going to ask any questions about this?
• Brentwood Park: Another Parks and Community Services Commission agenda, another complete miss on updating the city on any of the parks capital improvement projects. The Brentwood Park redevelopment project was supposed to start this Fall, but if it doesn’t come up this month, I’m guessing it will be punted to 2025. Which is ridiculous given that this project has been stuck in development hell for over a decade.

And finally: will the City ever get its park rangers back from Harper Park?

As far as I know the city is still patrolling Harper Park daily, even though the “pilot program” that brought the rangers in to address off-leash dogs ended many months ago. It would sure be nice to get a park ranger report to see if our resources are being used wisely, but alas, the Costa Mesa Police Department no longer gives those reports to the Parks Commission.

The use of our rangers as full time dog nannies has to come to an end. It is is a ridiculous waste of our resources. It was supposed to only be used as a bridge to a permanent solution that the neighborhood could accept. As far as I know, nothing has been done to make such a solution a reality.

That’s all I have in my notebook for now.