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211016 October 16 Weekend News and Notes_REDACTEDFrom:Peter Grant To:Peter Grant Subject:October 16 Weekend News and Notes Date:Saturday, October 16, 2021 9:21:08 AM Mayor and Council (via bcc), + We do not have a meeting this week. Your next meeting is October 25. Currently, that agenda includes the Melia Homes CSD HQ housing public hearing and closed session on the CVRA challenge and performance evaluations for the City Attorney, City Clerk and City Manager. + Following our dusty boots tours of Lexington Park, Jeff and I brainstormed hosting an invitation only park preview for the neighborhood north of the park (think Denni on the west, Cerritos on the south, Myra to the north, and Moody to east) and leadership of the youth sports groups the weekend (or so) before the park’s grand opening. The preview will give us a chance to connect with the whole neighborhood (not just the anxious residents), introduce them to the RCS team that will be programming the park and the youth sports families who will be using the park, and give them RCS contact information they can use to alert us to any issues that emerge (and there will be some) when the park opens. As the park gets close to opening, it’s only natural for an existing neighborhood in which a new park is being added to have concerns about the change. We’re confident Lexington Park is the first big park in Cypress’ history to be built after the neighborhood that surrounds it was established and that’s extra uncertainty we want to try to address. You’ll recall even Mackay Park, which replaced a blighted school site as part of a new neighborhood, raised a lot of concerns from nearby existing homes (and we’ve never received complaints). New parks of Lexington Park’s scale in existing neighborhoods are extraordinarily unusual in Southern California because the region is built-out. + This week I observed one of the street vendors selling political paraphernalia was set-up with a significantly more fixed presence than we believe State law intends and reported them to Code Enforcement. It turns out the vendor is also likely committing an ADA violation by blocking the curb ramp and has not responded to our demand that they obtain a business license. Enforcement on these last two issues will take place next week. + The draft Housing Element was sent to HCD on October 12 starting the clock on the 60-day review. + At the last City Council meeting, Ed Kramer asserted the City Council should have allocated the mandated RHNA units onto/near Cypress College as dorms or student housing. While this may be a useful strategy to support the college, the State does not count dorms and student housing towards RHNA. Per HCD, only residential units available to the general public are eligible RHNA units. + + The OC Registrar of Voters will use of the Community Center and Senior Center for vote centers for the June 7, 2022 Statewide Primary Election and November 8, 2022 General Election. For both elections the Center will be open for about two weeks. + Three scoreboards at Oak Knoll Park have been replaced. While replacing the board on field #3, electrical issues were found and work is now taking place to repair the connection. + North Orange Continuing Education (NOCE), which offers many classes at the Senior Center, proposed an updated facility use agreement that includes COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements for in-person classes. As proposed, the agreement requires RCS to collect the vaccination status and/or proof of testing prior to allowing anyone into the facility. RCS is working with NOCE on this issue as we believe NOCE should collect data from its participants when they register for the class, RCS simply provides NOCE a venue. Stay tuned. + RCS’ recreation registration system will not support our credit card payment processing system as of January 26, 2022. RCS will switch to a system called Forte that provides a higher level of customer data security but may need to purchase new hardware with chip readers to match industry fraud protection standards. + Fall volleyball for ages 7-14 wraps up this week. Finals take place at Lexington Junior High on Friday and games start at 5:00, 6:15, and 7:15pm. + The foundation of our economic development efforts is a maintaining an excellent, mutually beneficial relationship with the majority landowners (Warland Investments and Cypress land) in the business parks. As part of that effort (and in response to concerns about minor crimes in the parks), night shift PD are conducting directed enforcement in the parks and providing more patrol checks (especially in the south end business complexes). We are developing tools to track and report these efforts and will be meeting quarterly with the majority owners to discuss our results and fine tune the public safety services we provide them. + We are expecting a $120,000(ish) grant to address homelessness, recidivism, and/or youth violence prevention from the North OC Public Safety Task Force. + The District Attorney’s Investigations Office provided PD a presentation on Officer-involved shooting protocols and changes in State law that govern Officer-involved shooting investigations. PD management and POA leadership attended the two hour meeting. + Marilyn Reames, the Ovation resident “spokesperson” on the Enterprise Drive traffic signal, called PW to report someone told her the signal was being installed. Turns out the Westmont project is relocating a street light (street lights often get confused with traffic signals). Marilyn also mentioned she plans to meet with county and state officials in the coming weeks. + Public Works met with Southern California Edison about the pole relocation along Lexington Drive which is scheduled for mid-November. Permanent power for the park depends on this pole relocation, and it appears permanent power will be connected at the same time we expect to have substantial construction completion. A lot of equipment/amenities (restrooms, sports light, security system, irrigation controllers, etc.) require power for commissioning prior to opening and PW is working with SCE to look into options for temporary power. + One of the comments at the tour of Lexington Park was about the location of the driveway entrance along Cerritos Avenue (across from Barbara Anne Street). Every design of the park included a driveway at this location and the speaker’s comment that the city committed to an offset driveway and that an offset driveway is safer is untrue. According to our traffic engineer aligning the driveways/intersections significantly improves motorist visibility of conflicting traffic and reduces the crash potential. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) publishes guidance showing potential conflict/crash points for offset intersections and stresses the importance of aligning driveways and intersections whenever possible to eliminate such scenarios and reduce crashes. You can see more here https://photos.app.goo.gl/usmcoihYSxs2NjDQ9. + Contractors began work this week on this year’s shrub infill project. We budget $5,000 annually to fill-in missing shrubs at locations throughout the city. This year, at the request of residents, the project is focusing on infilling bare areas of parkway on the south side of Orangewood from Manzanita Park to Halawa Lane. The contractor will complete construction by the end of the month. + The annual inspection of our stormwater pump stations on Myra is complete. Contractors found a natural gas leak for the backup generator at one of the pump stations and had to turn the gas off. When the gas if off, if there were a power failure, the backup generator would not turn on during a rain storm. To remedy the risk, PW performed an emergency repair so that we could turn the gas back ASAP. + Community Festival Association leadership asked to have a debriefing with me and Jeff next week. Please let me know if you have anything you’d like us to share. The Festival membership is still fighting on social media and we expect the Association to try to remove Friends of Cypress Parks and Recreation. + The contractor working at Amazon will pave Holder Street next week. The recently removed trees caused extensive damage to both the sidewalk and roadway and both are being replaced. + Civic Center and Senior Center turf renovation will occur next week. + PW met with VVS Tuesday to review and clarify franchise amendment language. Discussion included equipment allocations, recycling costs, kitchen caddy distribution, initial compostable bag allotment, active sponsorship for food recovery organizations, and recycling rates. We will meet again to continue work on rate calculations, equipment, etc. VVS is working on its equipment allocations and revised rate calculations. PW also expects to receive VVS’s financial statements next week – they are key to our ability review and make a recommendation on its organics proposal. + Monday’s wind created a lot of small tree debris and one stand-by call out. PW responded to a large privately owned tree down that was blocking the westbound #3 lane, bike lane and sidewalk on Katella at Meridian. PW cleared the blockage, leaving the tree debris on the adjacent property for the owner to clean-up and we noted no other damage. The Police Department filed a report and we will seek reimbursement from the property owner for the call out. Tuesday’s wind took down one of our large Melaleuca trees at the Senior Center and caused a medium size limb to break from a tree at Cerritos and Walker. The limb landed on a vehicle. The resident filed a report and PW removed the limb and found the rest of the tree to be healthy. PW spoke with the resident and they did not seem concerned with the minor damage (scratches in paint) as the vehicle was older and the paint was peeling/faded. + After a several months long disappearance, LARC has returned with its proposal to donate 11 acres of land zoned as public space in the Town Center and Commons 2.0 Specific Plan. We are reviewing the proposal and Frank Sherren asked to have coffee with me (I’m bring Alicia along) Monday. I expect the message will be the same: take this land, give us a break on future park fees. We also can’t think of much (other than the State potentially forcing us to reduce park fees as part of the Housing Element update review) that should change the City Council’s perspective of waiting until the city is negotiating with the eventual master developer because the city has the leverage to pick which land it takes for the park and the 11 acres LARC is offering has little value while the rest of the Specific Plan is worth $4M+ an acre. Melia paid $7M and acre – that would give the city about $50M of leverage (plus EIR exactions) to negotiate with. But LARC is going to try to intimidate/scare you with a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush approach. Thanks to a combination of the flu shot and allergies I missed this morning’s run. Staff from RCS and PW are beyond frustrated and embarrassed by the contracted traffic control screw-up. All our folks could do was try to fix it, but things like this are very personal to our team. I’m supporting them remotely (mainly trying to cheer them up). We won’t be paying the contractor and, clearly, in the wake of this and the sound system failure at State of the City, we need to review RCS contracting practices to better balance the lowest bidder with a reliable, professional bidder. Have a great weekend! Pete Peter Grant City Manager City of Cypress Office 714-229-6680 Cellular 714-335-1685 pgrant@cypressca.org