Except for a few items, the Tuesday City Council Meeting should be pretty routine. Because of the Strategic Planning Session, which we’ll get to in a minute, it looks like the Closed Session will be pushed off to the end of the evening. And, there are no surprises in Closed Session so I wouldn’t wait around for a report, especially since they are adjourning directly to the August 14th Special City Council Meeting. Besides, I’ll report on anything earth shattering.

The afternoon will actually start off with a Strategic Planning Workshop beginning at 3 pm. The agenda sounds more impressive than interesting. If you were ever involved in the aerospace industry, then you have been through this. In industry, it has gone by such catchy names as Total Quality Management, Quality Circles, and Zero Defects. Someone finally found a way to market the idea to government and they have managed to reinvent it. If you would like to see what your city envisions doing (as opposed to what they actually do, sometimes), take a look at the draft here. The workshop is put on by a nationwide firm called Management Partners, a consulting service whose laundry list of clients includes no less than 16 OC cities and the County of Orange. It may be interesting but I think I’ll just watch the video so I can skip the commercials.

One important item you may want to take a look at is the Analysis of Strengths, Limitations, Opportunities and Threats or, SLOT for short. It has already turned my initial impression of Management Partners around. There were no surprises in Tustin’s strengths: great parks, community pride, safe community, diverse business, strong staff, etc. All the things you would expect to see from a community like ours.

But, the “L” part. Well, let’s just say I thought it was just me. I mean, with the things I write about the city, I don’t expect to be invited into city hall and given a cool cup of water on a hot day. But, when MP ran their focus groups, guess what they found? Limitations included:

• Poor Relationship with TUSD
• City Hall not customer friendly (hint: cold cup of water?)
• Community outreach – needs improvement
• Not enough cooperation and civility between city council members
• Little to no staff development or succession planning

A big one has been that the city has been so focused on developing The District business area, they have neglected other businesses in the city; Old Town is not as vibrant as it could be. We can certainly agree with that although lately, we have seen more interest by the city in developing businesses in Old Town with the recent approval of two new buildings in the area that will bring people to the Old Town area for more than just the Art Walk and Chili Cookoff. The changes in parking requirements have been innovative, to say the least. We hope this is a trend and not an anomaly.

And, you know, it is one thing when this blog and certain community leaders are aware of the discord among councilmembers in both public and private. It is quite another when MP’s focus groups show the exact same thing. We had hoped that, when John Nielsen assumed the Mayoral duties, there would be new civility on the dais. Instead, we found Nielsen unwilling to speak out on the absurdities of his colleagues. Of course, he has no problem publicly lashing out at legitimate press sources who question his motives.

Ooooh, lookie. Under Opportunities, they seem to disagree with our City Council on the development of Tustin Legacy and the hangar re-use as well. Can someone make sure the councilmembers are awake and listening to this part of the presentation? We have been harping for years about the re-use of the hangar and the fact that this city has been more interested in tearing down what Community Development Director Elizabeth Binsack apparently considers an eyesore, rather than work with businesses and the community on generating interest in reuse. The County of Orange is going ahead with a plan to create a park around their hangar. Perhaps a partnership would be in order to save both hangars as a substantial and visual part of our history. It would be a shame to have to answer a visitor’s question, “The pictures showed two hangars. Where’s the other one?”

There is plenty under the “Threats” category as well. So, this may be an interesting workshop after all. And, this is all before the regular City Council meeting which, thankfully, should be short.

Item 7, Approval of an Exclusive Agreement to Negotiate with Regency Acquisition, may generate some interest from the Legacy folks. I have been listening to complaints that the city is now modifying plans to allow more apartments and fewer single-family homes than originally planned. All those folks the city says they are protecting with the TUSD lawsuits, are not happy about the new mix. It seems the city commands the TUSD to “do as I say, …”

Item 8, Legislative Report Affirmation of City’s Compliance with the Brown Act is probably one of the most important items they could have agendized. The Brown Act mandates that city’s follow certain rules regarding Closed Sessions. The city is reimbursed by the state for the cost of implementing the Brown Act. Unfortunately, what the State giveth, the State can taketh away (hey, I’m writing this on Sunday). In this case, they suspended parts of the Brown Act to save some money. This could give cities an opportunity to close their doors even more to the public than they already do.

In the case of Mayor John Nielsen, he has chosen to do the right thing (most cities have) and have the city continue to follow the Brown Act in its entirety. The resolution before the City Council reaffirms their committement to follow the Act. Let’s hope Hizzoner doesn’t see his chance and filibuster. Cost to the city to pay for full implementation is $38,000. I know that’s a lot of iPads. But, it is cheap to keep the windows open and the sunshine on government.

As I said, it  should be a long strategic planning session followed by a short city council meeting. The City Council meets again in special session on August 14th, the same day the Planning Commission is scheduled to meet. That could be for Closed Session only, however. We’ll keep you posted.