From: Jacob Patterson
To: City Clerk
Cc: Whippy, Isaac
Subject: Public Comment -- 2/26/24 CC Mtg., Item No. 8A Date: Friday, February 23, 2024 1:06:28 PM
City Council, City Manager & PW Staff,
This is an exciting project and it is so great that we have been able to secure outside grant funding for the full costs. That should help us reduce our water rates when they are updated, which is VERY overdue, btw, because we don't need to charge rate payers as much for future capital projects if we keep getting them funded by grants rather than accumulated rate-payer funds. If only the City prioritized reducing costs to residents...
I want to acknowledge that whomever wrote the CEQa portion of the staff report did a good job. I would love to see more staff reports with this type of basic but necessary analysis of why a particular exemption applies because a lot of reports don't. I am disappointed, however, in the consistency analysis section. That section is supposed to be where we explicitly evaluate a project's consistency with our planning documents, including but not limited to prolices in the applicable general plan, in this case the Inland General Plan. I think this project is likely consistent with the IGP but the City has not "shown its work" by laying out how that is the case in this staff report. I hope to see more fleshed out consistency sections of staff reports in the future. That is particularly important for capital project agenda items as well as land use public hearings but PW rarely incorporates such general plan consistency analysis in their staff reports.
Regards,
--Jacob.