CITY OF HIDDEN HILLS
REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING
(IN-PERSON AND VIDEO CONFERENCE)
6165 Spring Valley Road
Monday, November 13, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.
NOTE: The Hidden Hills City Council and City staff will be participating in this meeting in-
MINUTES
CALL TO ORDER AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
A regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Hidden Hills was duly held via teleconference and in person on Monday, November 13, 2023 at the hour of 5:30 p.m. Mayor Steve Freedland called the meeting to order and presided thereover.
ROLL CALL
Council: Mayor Steve Freedland
Mayor Pro Tem Eniko Gold
Council Member Joe Loggia
Council Member Laura McCorkindale
Council Member Larry G. Weber
Staff: City Attorney Roxanne Diaz
City Engineer Dirk Lovett
Administrative Analyst Aaron Williams
City Clerk Deana L. Gonzalez
AUDIENCE
There were no comments.
City Council Minutes
November 13, 2023
CITY COUNCIL COMMENTS
City Offices will be closed on Thursday, November 23d and Friday, November 24" in honor of the Thanksgiving Holiday.
The City Council meeting scheduled for November 27" has been canceled.
Mayor Pro Tem Gold mentioned that last night, there was a large event in the City and apparently the City gave permission to the resident to use the Round Meadow parking lot for parking for the event. She believes that the Council was not notified and she would suggest that this discussion be agendized for a future agenda for the development of a vetting policy or policy on how to manage large events in the community. The rest of the Council agreed.
Councilmember Loggia reported that he and Councilmember McCorkindale met with the new housing consultant and attorney a couple of times discussing the issues the City has been having with the State. There is good progress being made and the Ad hoc Committee should have an update at a future meeting.
Councilmember McCorkindale stated that she and City Clerk Gonzalez attended a statewide zoom bombing seminar last week, with mostly municipal attorneys and Councilmembers. This was a very informative seminar. A lot of case law was referenced. and Cities are encouraged to develop rules against hate speech. Cal Cities, along with a number of other cities, are looking into working with the legislature to make some changes to the Brown Act so the zoom bombing can't continue.
It was a really interesting and again, she was happy to have our City Clerk there. Councilmember McCorkindale has extensive notes in case anyone is interested.
STAFF COMMENTS
There were no staff comments.
CONSENT CALENDAR
City Council Minutes - September 11, 2023 Regular Meeting Demand List
C. Disbursement List - October
D. Financial/Treasurer's Report - October
E. Investment Statement - October
Second Reading of Ordinance No. 390 entitled: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY
COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIDDEN HILLS AMENDING ARTICLE P OF CHAPTER 2 OF TITLE 5 OF THE HIDDEN HILLS MUNICIPAL CPDE
PERTAINING TO ACCESSORY DWELLING UNITS AND FINDING THE
City Council Minutes
П Nagember 13, 2023
ORDINANCE TO BE EXEMPT FROM THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL
QUALITY ACT
Upon MOTION by Council Member Weber, seconded by Councilmember Loggia, and unanimously carried by a roll call vote, it was resolved to approve items A-F on the Consent Calendar as submitted.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
Consideration of Adoption of Resolution No. 1018 entitled: A RESOLUTION OF THE
CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIDDEN HILLS ESTABLISHING APPLICATION
FEES FOR LOT LINE ADJUSTMENTS AND MINOR ACCOMMODATIONS, AND
AMENDING THE CITY'S FEE SCHEDULE
City Engineer Lovett presented the following report:
at the August 28, 2023 City Council meeting, Ordinance No. 387 and Ordinance 388, which implemented administrative (staff) review of all lot line adjustments and all minor accommodations, were adopted; stablishing a set fee, to cover staff's time, for either a lot line adjustment or a minor accommodation cannot be done with absolute accuracy, with so many variables that drive costs; however, staff feels that having established fees for these applications is preferrable to collecting deposits and billing final costs, and staff has evaluated the fees and has determined that those fees for "Council Level Review" would most generally cover staff's time to review all lot line adjustments ($2,580) and all minor accommodations ($1,613); a public hearing notice for this item was posted on November 3, 2023. No comments have been received by staff as of the writing of this report.
After a few technical questions by Councilmembers, Mayor Freedland opened the public hearing.
As there were no comments, Mayor Freedland closed the hearing. Upon MOTION of Councilmember Weber, seconded by Councilmember Loggia and unanimously carried, it was resolved to adopt Resolution No. 1018 entitled: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF
THE CITY OF HIDDEN HILLS ESTABLISHING APPLICATION FEES FOR LOT LINE
ADJUSTMENTS AND MINOR ACCOMMODATIONS, AND AMENDING THE CITY'S FEE SCHEDULE.
City Council Minutes
November 13, 2023
NEW BUSINESS
A. Consideration of Approval of the Purchase of Audio-Visual Equipment to Improve the Broadcast Quality of Hybrid City Council Meetings
Administrative Analyst Williams presented the following report:
as the Council is aware, there been technical audio difficulties in recent city council meetings, including difficulties in hearing and understanding important city discussions; complaints included the disparity and inconsistency in the quality of audio that's being broadcast and recorded between virtual zoom members, residents. those making public comments and guest presenters, and in council chambers, members, residents making public comment and guest presenters; at the September meeting, City Council directed staff to research a solution to remedy the audio technical issues; staff then met with NTT, the city's contracted broadcast partner to mitigate the audio problems and improve the overall meeting experience; additional supplemental materials. installation, and programming labor, are needed to facilitate the recommendations from the City's partner in an amount not to exceed $16,340; while the actual cost may be lower, a 20% contingency fee should be approved in case of an unanticipated overage.
The Councilmembers questioned if some of the items would be necessary to enhance the City Council meetings. It was also expressed the concern of not obtaining three bids to compare the costs. Darren P. Doerschel, the consultant working with NTT, the City's partner, stated that these are just budgetary numbers, and as a consultant he is not selling anything; he will bring in 3 different vendors and give them an opportunity to see the space and what the needs are to give an accurate quote.
Councilmember McCorkindale brought up the sound issues on the City' Government Channel 3.
Mr. Doerschel stated that everything is still analog on your channel, and what spectrum offers for the City's channel 3 is just analog; there is no opportunity to change that; however, with the funding of this equipment, everything will come in an equal level, which will help the Channel 3 feed overall, even though it will still be that analog quality, it will be much better than what it is currently or should be.
Upon MOTION of Councilmember McCorkindale, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Gold and unanimously carried, it was resolved for the consultant to obtain three bids the most economically City Council Minutes
November 13, 2023
prepared quote for an audio equipment expenditure to permanently fix the audio problems that have occurred during hybrid City Council Meetings, and authorize the Mayor to execute any required agreements or purchase orders with the recommended vendor in an amount not to exceed $16,340, with a 20% contingency for unforeseen costs.
B. Update and Discussion on Solid Waste Collection Services, Including the Agreement with Waste Management
At this time Mayor Freedland recused himself and left the meeting due to a conflict of interest on this item. Mayor Pro Tem Gold presided over this item.
City Engineer Lovett presented the following report:
after the last City Council meeting, the City Manager engaged R3 Consulting Group to review the city's solid waste agreement to provide their assessment. Carrie Baxter from R3 Consulting has reviewed both the 3-year and the 10-year proposals that Waste Management provided the City, including the rate adjustments for basic services, and the rate increases for organic waste (for the 1 1/2 and 3 cubic yard bins as well as additional add on services related to additional bulky item pickup day and an at your door Household Hazardous Waste Collection service); Ms. Baxter has provided staff with an overview of the SB1383 regulations; Ms. Baxter also analyzed the City's unique valet services provided in Hidden Hill in comparison to other cities; She has spoken with Waste Management regarding providing an extension of the current agreement and options for that, and they have informed her that they are willing to provide the City with an additional 3 months, (through the end of March of 2024); based on all this review that she's done, and that the bidding process will take about 18 months, which is standard, her recommendation is that the City Council extend the agreement for 3 years, and if the City Council desires to go out to a competitive bid process, we could do so during that time period.
City Engineer Lovett then introduced Ms. Carrie Baxter from R3 Consulting Group to present her report:
R3 Consulting Group was asked to provide the City with an assessment of its current agreement, to determine if it should renegotiate or conduct a competitive procurement process for new agreement; to accomplish this, our company met with Waste Management to get a clear understanding of the types of services that were being provided in the City, and the existing contract and extension options were evaluated; she gave an overview of what they found is that where many jurisdictions throughout the State do have on premise services offered for a premium cost. Waste Management is providing such services in the City Council Minutes
November 13, 2023
City of Hidden Hills to every customer in the city; what differentiates the service is, what we would call it a concierge service rather than on premise service, and that's for a couple of reasons; all the residents throughout the City are having every bin being collected from their residential property wherever it's located on that property; there is limitations between 2 to 4 hours for the amount of time that the container could actually sit on the street once Waste Management brings it to the street for collection, where in other jurisdictions the bins could stay up to 24 hours from the time it comes down to the street, and then well, most cities on premise service requires a short walk up a driveway to access the containers within the City. Some containers are stored in pastures, while others are behind security gates, and this takes more time to gain access to those containers. Many residents have 2 or more recycling, organics, and trash containers; in addition to that, the City's current rate adjustment is a flat $1 per month; annual adjustment for the City's basic residential services, which is about a 1% rate increase every year and this is compared to most jurisdictions where they use a CPI Index; rate increases that were proposed for your organic waste collection, which is a much higher increase that they're asking for between 32 and 45% were reviewed; while the increase sounds like a lot, it is really in line with industry standard right now, because of the changes in organic processing requirements that were brought on by SB1383; if the City so chooses to go out to bid for a new contract, like City Engineer Lovett mentioned, it typically will take about 18 months to complete that process; it entails conducting community engagement meetings to get input from public and residents, determining what services to include and draft into the new agreement, issuing the request for proposal, reviewing all those proposals once they've been received, conducting interviews, and then presenting those results to council, negotiating the contract and finalizing it; it takes a long period of time to get through that whole process, and with only about a month and a half left in this contract, it just doesn't seem feasible; it is common in both exclusive negotiations like we could have with Waste Management, or in a competitive process, going out to bid, to have that selected proposal or provider to reimburse the City for procurement costs.
City Attorney Diaz thanked Ms. Baxter for her thorough report. She also stated to the City Council that this item is just an update for everyone, and there's no action for the Council to take tonight.
However, typically in other cities, an Ad Hoc Committee is formed to assist staff with the negotiations and with the discussions with the solid waste provider. If this is something that the Council desires, that would be highly recommended and appropriate in this case, just given the time and circumstances that we have.
Steve Lee, the Waste Management District Director, addressed the Council, along with other team members of Waste Management. He stated that he has heard the concerns mentioned at the last Council meeting, and he wanted the Council to know, along with the entire team, that they took City Council Minutes
November 13, 2023
these to heart. They looked into the concerns that same evening, and spoke with every customer from the list the next day. They continue to have their route managers in the community on service day, since hearing these concerns to ensure all service expectations are met. He's proud of their service in the City of Hidden Hills, and they always strive for excellent service in the City of Hidden Hills, and the Council's and customers feedback matters to them. As a reminder, if issues do arise, the customers can contact Marilyn Gallagher, who has been their direct representative for decades locally at 805.210.0965. Waste Management takes great pride in serving the City and look forward to our continued partnership.
Rhonda Guthrie, the Vice President of Government Affairs with Athens Services. She stated that she appreciates the steps the City Council has taken to this point, and ensuring that the Council have all of the information needed to make an informed decision on the future of the City's solid waste contract. It is time to make sure the City is getting the best value for the residents, and they stand ready to compete for the City's business if the Council decides to move forward with a competitive bidding process.
Sandra Pursley, the Area Director for Waste Management addressed the Council stating that she oversees all of the municipal agreements on behalf of Waste Management and Southern and Central California. She just wanted to comment on the concept of testing the market. It's a common practice in our industry to sole source negotiate. The contracts are complex, with a lot of moving parts and potential disruption, and the City's agreement even accounts for that, with a 3- year optional term at the end of the agreement. Each jurisdiction makes the decision that's most appropriate for them, and they feel the 3-year extension that is already in the agreement is the best decision for the City at this time. She thanked the Council for the chance to serve them and do not take their time in Hidden Hills for granted, and they look forward to their continued partnership.
As there were no more public comments or technical questions, Mayor Pro Tem Gold asked the City Council who would like to serve on the Ad Hoc Committee. Councilmember McCorkindale and Councilmember Loggia volunteered.
City Council Minutes
November 13, 2023
City Attorney Diaz stated that R3 Consulting Group is on a short assignment with the City, so if the Council would like to have R3 continue to be involved in this process, staff will need to get a further proposal that would be brought back to the Council for approval.
CLOSED SESSION
Public Employee Performance Evaluation
Government Code Section 54957
Title: City Manager
Upon MOTION of Council Member Weber, seconded by Councilmember Loggia and unanimously carried, it was resolved to adjourn to closed session at 6:34 p.m. to address the items listed above.
The City Council returned from closed session and the City Attorney announced that in closed session the Council discussed the items listed above, and that no reportable action was taken.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned.
Eniko Gold, Mayor Pro Tem
ATTEST: UM
Deana L. Gonzalez, CMC, City Clerk