It’s a short agenda tonight — no public hearings, no old business — and I, for one, am exceedingly grateful. It happens to be my anniversary tonight (14 years and counting with my beloved hubby) so, no… I will not be at City Hall.

As I think business may move briskly tonight, I wonder if there will be more action in the presentations and in public comment tonight than the actual agenda. First, City Council will honor the athletic achievements of various local schools. I’m guessing that they’ve been sufficiently successful to eat up the first hour or so at least.

Then, this past weekend also included Love Costa Mesa Day, a city-wide service day that saw all kinds of public-spirited projects get some volunteer love, so I expect electeds (and wannabe electeds) to talk about that if they participated. And the Flock cameras, which I wrote about a month or go, are still drawing public comments, so I would expect a few words against those as well.

Consent Calendar: Red Cross contract for city spaces during disasters includes a pet addendum (?) and a contract to get the mattresses off the curbs

There are only two items of mild civic note on the Consent Calendar tonight: the City is approving a facility use agreement with the American Red Cross to allow use of city facilities as disaster shelters, including a “pet addendum” so displaced residents can bring their animals. Woof.

The City is also awarding a bulky item collection contract to Ware Disposal for $104,832 annually to clear abandoned items from rights-of-way near multi-family properties. This is actually a really important service for many neighborhoods for whom bulky item disposal is a significant burden, which results in these items getting dumped on corners or in alleyways. That, in turn, becomes a burden on the whole neighborhood.

New Business #1: High Gas Prices Hit the City

The Council is being asked to approve a five-year unleaded fuel agreement with Merrimac Petroleum for $700,000 per year (!), piggybacking on the County of Orange’s cooperative agreement. This covers the city’s annual petroleum consumption of about 150,000 gallons, which fuels up everything from city vehicles to emergency generators.

The last time Costa Mesa signed one of these contracts under the county co-op was in 2021, and the estimated cost then was around $400,000 per year — at an estimated wholesale price of roughly $1.91 per gallon. The proposed contract tonight is priced at roughly $4.66 per gallon. That’s a 144% increase in per-gallon cost, and the annual spend has grown by 75% — even though the city has actually reduced its petroleum consumption from 175,000 gallons/year in 2021.

A ~14.2% consumption reduction is actually pretty remarkable. For a Council feeling a bit down on itself for not doing more “climate action”, I hope this makes them feel a bit better.

The fuel bill radically going up anyway is, of course, bad news.

While I’m sure some will seize on this as an opportunity for the city to go “all electric”, I don’t think that’s actually a good idea. Gasoline is extremely reliable in an emergency and it would be rough to have an electricity disruption take our police or fire vehicles out of service even for a short time. And while battery capacity might one day serve this backstop role, I don’t think we’re there yet.

So here’s one question I’d love to hear asked tonight: what is the city’s petroleum storage capacity at the moment? Merrimac’s pricing structure apparently offers meaningful discounts for bulk purchases. If the city can’t take advantage of those because it lacks tank capacity, that’s a conversation worth having. More storage infrastructure could pay for itself over time through better pricing access — especially on a five-year contract at these price levels.

New Business #3: Bridge Shelter Operator

The next one up following removed New Business #2 will be the approval of a three-year agreement (with two optional one-year extensions) with Volunteers of America Los Angeles (VOALA) to operate the Costa Mesa Bridge Shelter, at a not-to-exceed amount of $2,066,864. This is somewhat noteworthy given that Mercy House, the current contractor, has been the Bridge Shelter’s exclusive operator for quite some time and I believe it holds contracts to assist with certain other areas of the city housing assistance programs (I vaguely recall Mercy House being connected with the city’s rental assistance program a few years ago, and I believe it has a role in the converted Motel 6/Project Homekey supportive housing site as well). Mercy House submitted a bid to continue its Bridge Shelter work but lost out on scoring to VOALA.

As to why Mercy House got a tepid score from City Staff, we can only guess. Mercy House was the subject of a less-than-glowing review of its services in CalMatters, so perhaps the issues raised in that piece contributed to its defeat.

Staff is also asking for authorization to approve compensation increases tied to VOALA employee salary adjustments, capped at 5%.

It will be interesting to see how the questioning of the new proposed operator goes. The shelter’s overall funding situation remains precarious, especially in light of Council Member Jeff Pettis’s ominous comments during the last study session that he wanted a readout comparing the costs of the city’s “essential” and “non-essential” services (notably I did not register the shelter in his “essential” category). I know many in the city, including myself, have not been particularly satisfied with the level of transparency regarding substantive outcomes to address the city’s homelessness issues. So this might be an opportunity for some to press bit on what the new operator might be able to provide in that regard.

New Business #4: SB 707 and the AV Policy

This one sounds perfunctory and, to a large extent, it is. The Council will receive a report on Senate Bill 707 — which requires cities to adopt policies for handling disruptions to telephonic or internet service during meetings — and is being asked to adopt Council Policy 000-15 governing exactly that.

SB 707 compliance is straightforward and the policy is fine. But as part of that compliance, the city is going to spend almost $100,000 to replace its AV equipment in the City Council chamber to enable it to comply with the new policy.

So, I wonder: is there an opportunity here to reuse the old equipment to broadcast and/or record its committee meetings? A lot of meaningful deliberation happens at the committee level — active transportation committee, finance and pension advisory committee, and others — but those conversations can only be accessed in person and there are no recordings. If any of the older AV equipment being rotated out at the Council level is still serviceable, there’s a case to be made for repurposing it to livestream or record committee meetings. Committee meetings are exempt from SB 707 so no need for anything fancy.

Just a thought.