The first thing you may notice about the Agenda for the Tustin City Council Meeting is the heading. Since redevelopment agencies have been effectively eliminated, the remaining responsibilities for RDA obligations has been remanded to the Tustin Housing Authority. So, now the city council will meet as the “Tustin City Council and Tustin Housing Authority”. Of course, we think the “authority” of Housing Authority should not rest on the shoulders of this group and they should seriously consider creating a separate housing authority and board to oversee it. That won’t happen in Amante’s (political) lifetime as we believe he still pulls the strings on the dais, regardless of who takes the center seat. Amante has shown little interest in light shining on anything he doesn’t want the public to know about.

Closed Session

Liability Claims – Several lawsuits the city is involved in are on the closed session agenda. It is unfortunate that T-Mobile has chosen to sue the city over the design review in Cedar Grove Park and we hope the city will do the right thing and fight this to the end. Citizen rights should never be abridged for the sake of corporations and corporations should never expect cities to abridge the rights of its residents.

Conference With Real Property Negotiators – This apparnetly involves the old Army Reserve base on the South side of the MCAS property. Rumor has it that attempts to move the Reserve Center elsewhere in Orange County hasn’t worked out too well.

Public Hearing

Ordinance Relating to Graffitti – The staff asked to have this placed on the agenda because the  public notice has already gone out. However, there is no agenda report to indicate what changes will be made. We will be at City Hall tomorrow so we may ask for a copy of the proposed ordinance at that time.

Consent Calendar

Expect Items 4 and 7 to be pulled for discussion. Item 4, RDA Status Report, because the Republicans will have to gnash their teeth and wail one more time about the demise of the evil redevelopment agencies. It seems even their champions in Sacramento who, curiously are Democrats, couldn’t muster enough votes to even extend RDAs for a few months. I have a few PRA requests in for an update on Tustin’s redevlopment and the overblown figures in their reports to be published soon.

I expect item 7, Quarterly Investment Report to be pulled simply because Councilmember Gavello is critical of the City Treasurer and his investment policy which has had some questionable moves in the past. If you want more on that, see the YouTube videos on Gavello’s site. Look for, City Treasurer violates city’s investment Policy – Tustin City Council August 4, 2009.

Item 14 Adopting a resolutionto add ICMA Retirement Corporation as a Plan Administrator to the city’s 401 and 457 plans has an interesting issue. The agenda report indicates that plan participants would be able to borrow against their investment in the plan with this company. It is interesting because, except for private 401(k) plans, it is almost unheard of to allow this.

Regular Business

I hate to say it, but the only thing of interest is the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the Year. Trust me, it is comprehensive and it is pretty boring for the most part. If you can stay awake, go for it. It’s only 161 pages long. Otherwise, watch the staff presentation. I am sure the cool media tricks they present will enhance the information. I plan on picking through it. But, I don’t expect to find any hidden iPads in there.