What’s on the Agenda Tonight: April 21, 2026 City Council

Tonight the Costa Mesa City Council meets at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 77 Fair Drive. As always, you can watch live on Costa Mesa TV (Spectrum Channel 3, AT&T U-Verse Channel 99) or stream it online at youtube.com/costamesatv. Public comment runs 3 minutes per speaker, no sign-up required — just line up at the podium when the Mayor opens the floor.

Here’s what’s actually worth paying attention to tonight. Hint: With TNR on the agenda, the cat-activists are back.

Consent Calendar

I’m skipping the Consent Calendar rundown. Nothing on it is particularly noteworthy — it’s the usual procedural housekeeping: warrant approvals, meeting minutes, a completed City Hall IT remodel, a housing fund transfer for some rental rehab work, and an ambulance billing contract extension. The Council will likely zip through it in one vote. Moving on.

Public Hearings

Sober Living Home Appeal — 115 East Wilson Street (continued)

This one’s not happening tonight. The applicant is asking for a continuance, and staff is recommending the Council oblige — kicking the item to June 16, 2026. The underlying dispute involves an appeal of the Planning Commission’s decision to uphold a denial of a “reasonable accommodation” request to operate a sober living home run by the Ohio House. These cases tend to be legally fraught (federal fair housing law intersects with local zoning in complicated ways), so it’s not surprising this one is moving slowly. Nothing to see here tonight, but worth watching when it does come back.

Trap-Neuter-Return Program for Community Cats — First Reading

This is the most interesting public hearing tonight. Staff is asking the Council to introduce a new ordinance establishing a formal Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program for community cats — you know, the feral and free-roaming cats that are just… everywhere. The ordinance would add a new chapter to Title 3 (Animal Regulations) of the Municipal Code and includes a Community Cat Colony Tracking System. TNR programs are widely considered the most humane and effective approach to managing feral cat populations, and formalizing one in city code is a reasonable move. This is just the first reading, so no final adoption tonight.

Expect the pro-cat contingent of Costa Mesa to be out in force to support this one.

Old Business

Drainage Impact Fee Ordinance — Second Reading and Adoption

This one is the second and final reading of an ordinance updating the city’s storm drainage impact fees. The underlying nexus study has already been adopted; this ordinance just brings the Municipal Code into alignment with current state law and the updated fee structure. It’s a technical cleanup, but impact fees are always worth a look — they’re one of the main tools the city has to make new development pay its fair share of infrastructure costs. If it passes tonight (likely), it becomes law.

New Business

Falck Ambulance Contract Extension — $5 million+

This is the big-dollar item tonight. Staff is recommending a two-year extension of the city’s ambulance services contract with Falck Mobile Health Corporation (formerly Care Ambulance) — running from August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2028 — for a not-to-exceed amount of $5,020,000, plus a 10% contingency of another $502,000. That’s over $5.5 million in potential expenditure if you include the contingency.

Falck has been the city’s ambulance operator for some time now, and the extension keeps that relationship going for another two years. Whether the city has benchmarked this contract against alternatives or evaluated Falck’s performance in any rigorous way is worth asking about in public comment if that’s your thing.

Citywide Alley Rehabilitation Project — Contract Award

The city wants to rehabilitate alleys across Costa Mesa (City Project No. 25-17) and is recommending awarding a construction contract to Kalban, Inc. for $1,131,951 plus a 10% contingency. There’s a notable wrinkle here: staff is recommending that the apparent low bidder, Diamond Construction & Design, be rejected as non-responsive — meaning their bid didn’t meet the technical requirements — and that the contract go to the second-lowest bidder instead.

Rejecting the low bidder always warrants a quick look to make sure the rationale is solid and not pretextual, but bid non-responsiveness determinations are generally routine if the paperwork wasn’t in order. The project itself is a straightforward infrastructure maintenance item.

That’s your April 21 agenda. If you go tonight, public comment on the Falck contract and the alley award are probably the most useful places to show up and ask questions. As always, written comments can be submitted to cityclerk@costamesaca.gov by noon today.