A few items of interest pepper the Tustin City Council agenda for Tuesday night. The Council apparently decided to split the Closed Session off to it’s own agenda and call it a “special meeting”. That is, presumably, so they may make decisions on hiring the new city manager. We’ll explain below.

Before that, however, the city has the second reading and adoption of the “new” PERS retirement tiers for miscellaneous and public safety employees. The cops will be returning to the old 2%@50 formula for all new hires. This tier actually should provide police officers deciding to retire at 55 with a rate of 2.6% or so. This is a pretty reasonable response and one that many other cities are taking as they grapple with rising pensions costs caused by changes in the way pensions must be accounted for. We’d go into it but that is fodder for another article, another day.

Also on the agenda is the final reading for the Body Art Ordinance. I may start a pool to see when the first tattoo parlor arrives in our fair town. This ordinance was actually well thought out by both the Planning Commission and the City Council with some good input from the community. A moratorium had been placed on these types of facilities when it was first found that excluding them was unconstitutional. Did you get that? “We can’t prohibit these nasty places from coming into the city, so we will temporarily prohibit them from coming in.” Oh, never mind. Some things city councils do are just beyond understanding.

Of course, there is the final reading of the “Ordinance Clarifying the Meaning of Legal Nonconforming Uses and Structures in the City of Tustin”. The simple title is, “How can the City of Tustin eliminate any historical building we wish, just give it time.” This is the culmination of Jerry Amante and Elizabeth Binsack’s war against Old Town, sparked by the simple act of a homeowner wishing to sell his property. That fight is still being held and is in the hands of a hearing officer who we understand offered his services to mediate a solution. The city, meaning Jerry and his talking head, Binsack, refused the offer. Hopefully, the hearing officer will be reasonable in his findings and will issue a just edict for Bret Fairbanks and his family. In any case, I suspect the entire issue is far from over.

As we said, Item 16 promises to be the highlight of the evening. It looks like Interim City Manager, Bill Huston, will be out of a job pretty soon. We hear he didn’t really want to come back anyway, and did it out of a sense of responsibility. It seems our double-dipper has some ethics. After all, who else could put up with Hizzoner? Well, we are about to find out.

The Super Secret Selection Committee

Rumors around City Hall are that the super secret committee charged with hiring a new city manager have found their candidate and have authorized the super secret headhunter to make an offer.

Hopefully, we will have the name of a new city manager Tuesday night. I just hope there is a clause in the new manager’s contract that limits the

amount of yelling and screaming from Jerry by decibel/time. Maybe there is a whip and chair involved.

Only one more City Council meeting this year. Not many more chances for Jerry and His Kids to blow up at Gavello.