Judging from the length of the agenda, this week’s Tustin City Council meeting is liable to go a tad longer than the 52 minutes of the last meeting. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Closed Session goes into overtime.

The city council is still discussing the performance evaluations (and probably salary adjustments) for the City Attorney and the City Manager. I’m not sure why they have David Kendig under Public Employment as he is a contract employee placed there by the city’s attorneys, Woodruff, Spradlin and Smart. If they are unhappy with Kendig’s performance (face it, he’s no Doug Holland), they only need to make a call.

First up under Presentations is our old friend TyRon Jackson. Jackson is being honored for his Operation Warm Wishes project. Jackson is active with the homeless community as well as Tustin at-risk youth. His efforts have helped hundreds of families and kids in the Tustin-Santa Ana area and this award is well-deserved.

On the Consent Calendar, the city council will be asked to approve a $24 thousand dollar expenditure for Willdan Homeland Solutions to provide tech support for the annual Emergency Operations Center exercise. Not much money but one wonders about the justification for single sourcing the contract.

I hope one of the councilmembers will pull Item 5, Resolution for Completion of the Newport Bike Trail, for comment. I have ridden a lot of bike trails in the county over the years and I always thought the Newport trail was a pretty good one. The new trail is absolutely beautiful and functional. If you haven’t ridden it, it’s worth the trip. The contractor came in $53 thousand under budget, to boot. Pat yourselves on the back, city council.

I take issue with the John Wayne Noise Abatement Quarterly Report, however. The noise level at Columbus Tustin School was reportedly well below government thresholds. Perhaps they should move the monitoring station to my house where it is considerably louder. It should be noted, the city council took the easy way out by supporting the extension to the operating agreements, supposedly for fear it would open a can of worms. Note to Al Murray: sometimes you just have to take a stand on principle.

Hopefully a member of the public with some sense will bring up discussion of Item 11, Comment Letter Draft on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. In short, the city council is supporting the governor’s ill proposed effort to tunnel under the Delta to provide water directly from the Sacramento River to Southern California. Never mind we have been stealing their water since the 1930’s the proposal laughingly purports to be a conservation effort for the Delta when, in fact, it is likely to do the opposite. The city, which obtains nearly half it’s water by theft, is jumping on the Governor’s band wagon. I wonder if they see a value in his high speed rail project as well?

The final item on the agenda is a request for travel by Councilman Chuck Puckett to attend the re-accreditation ceremony of the Tustin Police Department. I haven’t asked but I presume Chief Celano (who should have the department webmaster remove the “interim” from his page on the TPD website) will be attending as well. Congratulation, once again, to Chief Celano and the men and women of the Tustin Police Department.

I have a feeling this will be a council meeting worth watching. And, as it seems the Orange County Register is slowly crumbling into the dust, I may be your only source for true, accurate and highly biased information. That means I will have to step up my efforts. I think I can, I think I can…