October 13, 2026, City Council Agenda Comments
The following comments on items on the Newport Beach City Council agenda are submitted by:
Jim Mosher ( [email protected] ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229) Item IV. Matters Which Councilmembers Have Asked to be Placed on a Future Agenda (Non-Discussion Item)
This section of the agenda exists because of the part of Council Policy A-1 that prohibits Council members from being able to place an item on a future agenda for discussion unless at least two other Council members express interest in the same topic. The rationale for this seems to be to avoid City staff being forced to waste time preparing background information regarding a matter with insufficient Council interest.
While that rationale makes some sense, that it is a “non-discussion item” is particularly puzzling.
In a better-functioning democracy there would be a (possibly separate?) mechanism for a Council member, on their own sole initiative, to place an item on the agenda for discussion without a staff report so they, or members of the public they represent, have an opportunity to create interest in it.
Without such an opportunity, this policy encourages the generation of interest in a potential future agenda item to take place outside public view. A Council member, or members of the public, seeking a Council discussion needs to privately lobby other Council members to get the needed votes in support. This is fundamentally at odds with the most basic transparency goal that the public’s business be done in public: inaction by the Council is often as significant as action, yet when a topic of public interest does not appear on an agenda, the public does not know which Council members would have liked to see it, and which blocked it.
Regarding the current policy, since few questions about the proposals are ever asked, it is not obvious that all Council members understand that despite the “non-discussion” designation the policy actually says “Any Council Member may ask clarifying questions regarding the item to ensure understanding of the matter; however, the City Council will not discuss or debate the item” (the latter admonition presumably being intended only to indicate the time to “discuss or debate” what action, if any, to take on the topic itself – not the question of whether to prepare a staff report – will be when it comes back with that report and a possible staff recommendation).
The first of Councilmember Weigand’s proposals for future agenda items is certainly one where without asking clarifying questions it is far from obvious what the Council would be asking staff to do in preparation for that future item. The request is to “Consider reviewing the City’s Integrated Pest Management Policy and exploring to eliminate the spraying of synthetic herbicides in parks and greenbelt areas citywide.”
By way of background, the City’s Parks & Trees webpage provides a link to what it says is the City’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program. The document found at that link does not identify when or by whom it was approved. The fact that it identifies Dan Sereno, who retired in 2019, as the Superintendent in charge suggests it is not recent.
October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 9 Under Section 709 of our City Charter, the Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission is the body charged with advising the Council “in all matters pertaining to parks,” and arguably would be the body setting City policy regarding spraying of parks.
Despite this Charter requirement, as Item 6 on the April 29, 2025, consent calendar, the Council (without discussion) created a 3-Councilmember “Integrated Pest Management Ad Hoc Advisory Committee” to “review the City' s Integrated Pest Management program and make recommendations to the entire City Council regarding revisions thereto,” apparently bypassing PB&R (the creation of the ad hoc was itself the result of a prior “A-1” request for a future agenda item presented on the April 15, 2025, agenda)..
The Council ad hoc committee has so far made one recommendation, to halt synthetic herbicide use on sod athletic fields, which was presented and approved (without consulting PB&R) as Item 19 on the August 25, 2026, agenda. In doing so, the Council was said to have approved an “Athletic Field Sod Management Program,” although its relation to the City’s Integrated Pest Management program remains unclear. Since the IPM has not been revised to incorporate it, it may be regarded as a separate policy overriding any directions contrary to it in the IPM.
In view of this background, is Councilmember Weigand asking staff to work with the existing Council Ad Hoc to bring back as a future Council agenda item a revised IPM addressing his concern?
If so, would any recommendation of the ad hoc first be reviewed by PB&R? Or is the request to bypass both PB&R and the Council Ad Hoc, and have staff simply present as a future agenda item for consideration by the full Council a revised IPM eliminating the spraying of synthetic herbicides in parks and greenbelt areas citywide? As to Councilmember Weigand’s second proposal of a future agenda item, it is to install security cameras at the harbor entrance, apparently for use by law enforcement agencies, including the Border Patrol. While I think that is a topic worth discussing, should this return as a future agenda item, I don’t think the conclusion regarding the topic is so obvious as for it to come back on the consent calendar item to be approved without discussion. Given the recent blowback in some cities about the indiscriminate deployment of Flock cameras, it seems safe to say not every American is comfortable with the idea of the country becoming a surveillance state, or of their local government helping to make it possible for all human activity in all places to be surreptitiously monitored and recorded.
Item 1. Approval of Minutes
The passages shown in italics below are from the draft minutes, with suggested corrections shown in strikeout underline format.
2026-09-22 CC Minutes
(Newport Heights resident) presented a detailed review of 12 prior City undergrounding petitions, alleging that undergrounding proponents Michael Henn and Andrea Bird were October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 9 improperly allowed by City Engineer Michael Sinicori Sinacori to insert self-serving and misleading language—including phrases such as "nonbinding" and "no financial obligation"—into the AD 118-2 petition, language that does not appear in any prior City petition.”
Newport Beach's designation as an official Tennis Town by the USTA Southern California, and recognized the Lido Legacy Live charity concerts, which raised over $120,000 for the Junior Lifeguard Scholarship Program and the Friends of Oasis OASIS Senior Center.”
thanked Mike Zimmerman and the Friends of Oasis OASIS for their car show, recognized residents who attended his District 1 Town Hall covering topics including the 4th of July, sand replenishment, and public safety, and thanked City staff who participated.”
37-year-old paddler, a member of the Olsen Olson family, passed away during the Ben Did Go paddle event on Saturday after a medical emergency at mile 10, leaving behind a wife and two young children, and asked the City to rally around the family.”
Stahr argued that the curfew ordinance effectively applies year-round to minors between 10 PM and 6 AM Citywide and shuts down a large area on three designated days, voiced concern that the ordinance may violate the California Coastal Act, criticized the records retention policy for potentially allowing Council meeting videos to be discarded shortly after meetings, and questioned why the $4,500,000 drone purchase lacked a comparative analysis of alternatives.”
clarified that Title 21 of the Local Coastal Program governs land use entitlements and development, not law enforcement, and that the ordinance does not restrict public access to the beach.”
[comment: The minutes are accurate, but the statement recorded is not. Title 21 is intended to provide rules for entitlement of development, but, like the Coastal Act which it is intended to ensure compliance with, it is also intended to protect the physical and visual integrity of the coast and public access to it, including setting beach hours and requiring Coastal Commission approval of any revision to them.]
agenda..”
[comment: Item 11 was “Bonita Creek Park Athletic Field Turf Replacement - Award of Contract.” It does not appear to be on the present (October 13) agenda.] October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 4 of 9 2026-09-18 CC Minutes-Special
(The draft minutes do not have page numbers, so the numbers below refer to the 692-page revised agenda packet.)
approximately 6:17 PM and reconvened in open session thereafter.” [comment: With three public speakers preceding this, “6:17 PM” does not seem plausible if the meeting was called to order at 6:16 p.m. as it says on the first page.] Item 3. Resolution No. 2026-88, Authorizing the Use of the City’s Official Seal as Part of a Collaboration with Hoag Hospital to Wrap a City Fire Department Ambulance with Pinktober Wrap in Support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
This item made more sense when the nearly identical request for last October was presented as Item 11 on the September 23, 2025, consent calendar. That report said it would take “less than a week” to wrap the ambulance if the Council approved it.
But assuming the Fire Department has not gone ahead before obtaining this approval, with the present request coming on October 13, even if approved, the month will be more than half over before the wrapped ambulance goes into service.
That said, it seems commendable the Department is aware of NBMC Sec. 1.16.050, which it believes requires a Council ordinance or resolution before undertaking this activity.
That is probably debatable.
For those unfamiliar with its history NBMC Sec. 1.16.050 was last revised in response to then-Councilmember Scott Peotter’s use of the City seal on communications expressing his purely personal opinions on a number of topics (see Item 15 from August 11, 2015).
As I noted in written comments at the time of its adoption on the September 8, 2015, consent calendar, the resulting revisions left the code’s intent essentially unintelligible, such that it now possibly prohibits any use of the seal, even by the City.
One might note that many others do not seem to feel so circumspect as the Fire Department.
For example, a number of outside organizations who receive sponsorship money from the City seem to feel free to use the City seal in recognition of the City’s support, likely without benefit of an ordinance or resolution giving them express permission (see for example, the Christmas Boat Parade sponsors or the Newport-Ensenda Race sponsors). It would seem like the City Manager could be empowered to give that permission.
In any event, it would have seemed helpful to provide an image of what the wrapped ambulance is proposed to look like. If it is like this image, apparently from last year, the wrapped ambulance would seem to advertise Hoag Hospital, but it is not clear how it promotes awareness of the importance of early detection of breast cancer, or if it includes the pink ribbons flanking the NBFD seal described in the staff report:
October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 5 of 9 The wrapping looks very much like the a conventional NBFD ambulance with the exception of the normal red color altered to pink
1 and the word “Hoag” added to the vehicle:
Much as we admire Hoag Hospital, if the objective is to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am not sure why it is advertising “Hoag” rather than using the space to explain why this ambulance is pink.
I am also not sure the unusual color will be as reassuring as it might be to all the individuals in the high-stress, traumatic circumstances that receive the much-needed services provided by the ambulance.
Considering how many health-threatening issues could be advertised, might a little more understated yet at the same time more explicit recognition of this one be better? Item 4. Resolution No. 2026-89: Amending City Council Policy F-14 This item is disturbing to me.
As best I can tell, revisions to Policy F-14 were last reviewed by the Finance Committee as Item D at its November 10, 2022, meeting, with those changes adopted by the Council as Item 4 on the December 13, 2022, consent calendar.
Since then, changes have been made much more surreptitiously.
As part of Item 13 on December 9, 2025, consent calendar, changes were made that were supposedly limited to recognizing name changes to this and about two dozen other Council 1 It is not evident from the photo where the pink ribbons that the staff report says will be placed next to the NBFD seal are.
October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 6 of 9 policies associated with a major reorganization of City Departments. To the best of my recollection, the Finance Committee did not review or provide any advice on the reorganization.
Then as part of on February 24 of this year, Item 11 appeared under Current Business in which a Council ad hoc committee recommended without explanation substantive revisions to 17 Council policies, including 4 financial policies, none of which were reviewed by the Finance Committee. The revision to Policy F-14 was the insertion of the cost of living escalator to the dollar limits on staff contracting authority.
That revision, found in Section D at the end, had it been subjected to discussion or debate might well have been found problematic. In particular, rather than being written to adjust the dollar limits in response to CPI, as might seem reasonable, it is written to continuously ratchet up (and only up) the staff dollar limits. In particular, it explicitly states that an adjustment is made only when the CPI goes up, and the adjustment is always rounded up to the nearest $1,000 (never down). This means that in a year with a minimal amount of inflation, which would justify little or no increase in the limits, they go up by $1,000 anyway, and in years such as the present, when the 3.40% CPI increase would justify a $4,077 increase in the $120,000 limit, it goes up by $5,000 instead, effectively giving those subject to that limit a $923 “bonus” for no obvious reason. That “error” is compounded in future years, since the increase the next year is based on that inflated limit from the prior year, and not on the correctly rounded one.
The dollar limits presumably have some logical basis. Adjusting them only upward, and by more than can be justified by changes in CPI, would seem to ignore that basis. A better way would be to establish a base amount in a base year, and then in each subsequent year set the limit to the base amount adjusted by the most recent CPI compared to the base CPI.
More disturbing than the failure to correct the CPI adjustment that was inserted without adequate review in February, is the further insertion, again without any review by the Finance Committee, of the proposed new Section A.4. (Claims and Risk Management). The staff report asserts that this is simply implementing “claims resolution authority approved as part of the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget.” However, that is deeply misleading.
The budget adoption was Item 19 on the June 9, 2026, agenda, and as I indicated in written comments at the time, the proposed budget adoption resolution included without explanation two novel provisions. One established a "$150, 000 for a Performance - Based Incentive Compensation Program." The other, relevant here was:
“Section 9: Subject to the availability of funds budgeted or approved by the City Council for such purpose, the City Manager and Risk Manager are authorized to compromise, settle, and resolve workers' compensation matters, liability claims, disputes, and litigation matters on behalf of the City in amounts not exceeding forty percent (40%) and thirty percent (30%), respectively, of the City's self-insured retention, as established from time to time under the City's insurance or risk financing programs, or the amount of their respective City Council approved contracting authority, whichever is greater." Where this came from is unknown to me, and what it even means is unclear. Does it allow repeated settlements at 30 or 40% of the City’s nominal self-insured retention? Or only those percentages of the City’s remaining self-insured retention after prior actions using it? October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 7 of 9 That is bad enough, but the proposed revisions to Policy F-14 go well beyond this including a new provision not previously seen that the City Manager can settle workers’ compensation matters in any amount, and simply needs to report the settlement to the Council within 10 days.
These revisions have apparently not even been reviewed by an ad hoc committee. They should not be on the consent calendar for adoption without discussion.
Item 5. Resolution No. 2026-90: Accepting a Grant from the State of California, Division of Boating and Waterways for the Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange Program (SAVE)
It would have been helpful to provide a reference to when the previous grant for this service was before the Council.
The staff report (under “Fiscal Impact”) says this is a “two-year grant program and will conclude on September 30, 2028.” Yet the chart on page suggests the City is currently in the midst of executing a two-year grant for 2005-2007.
How do these interact? Will both grants be available in 2027? Item S.20. Resolution No. 2026-93: Ratifying the Proclamation of a Local Emergency Issued on October 9, 2026
Was the title of Resolution No. 2026-93, as presented in Attachment A, intended to read:
“A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA, (i) RATIFYING THE PROCLAMATION OF A LOCAL EMERGENCY ISSUED ON OCTOBER 9, 2026, BY CITY MANAGER SEIMONE JURJIS, THE
DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY SERVICES OF THE CITY OF NEWPORT BEACH, AND (ii) APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING CERTAIN ACTIONS RELATED THERETO” Otherwise, it seems strange to have a “(i)” without any following roman numerals.
Or was there some other part “(ii)” intended that was omitted entirely? Item 6. Witte Hall - Notice of Completion for Contract No. 7444-3 (19F11)
The staff report acknowledges the construction was “substantially completed on June 25, 2026, six months after the original contract completion date of December 23, 2025,” and that there was a dispute between the City and the contractor as to who was responsible for the delay.
Considering the frequently changing completion date was frustrating to potential users, it would have been helpful to detail the principal reasons for the long delay (something the staff report appears to be silent regarding other than “5 rain days”) Similarly, the “Fiscal Impact” section acknowledges that “the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation committed to funding 50% of the total project costs,” but the report does not clearly show this defraying the $20,498,664 contract total twice shown, or relate that to the $12.5 million check being presented under agenda Item II. Detailing the total project costs, in addition to those of Contract No. 7444-3 would have been helpful.
October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 8 of 9 Item 7. Crean Mariners Branch Library Fire Line Replacement - Award of Contract No. 10165-1 (26F02)
Staff is seeking approval of a month-long $352,500 contract to replace a fire sprinkler system that was installed with incorrect welding material at the Mariners Branch Library during its original construction in 2005-2006.
The report raises several obvious questions:
1. Was the correct welding material called out or implied in the construction drawings?
2. Should use of the incorrect material have been detected during project inspection?
3. What steps have been taken to prevent this problem recurring in future City projects? Additionally, will execution of the contract require closure of the facility to the public? If so, when and for how long? The staff report says “Work is tentatively scheduled to start on December 19, 2026, and to be completed by January 16, 2027.” But as Item 6 at its July 20, 2026, meeting, the Board of Library Trustees approved a schedule assuming the facility would be open to the public on all those days other than Christmas and New Year’s eves and days.
Item 8. Fiscal Year 2026-27 Traffic Signal Rehabilitation Project - Award of Contract No. 10209-1 (27T01)
The Attachment A map shows a “HAWK signal” to be installed on PCH at Orchid Avenue in Corona del Mar. This is apparently the “pedestrian hybrid beacon” referred to in the Abstract and on page 2, although there is no explanation of what a “HAWK signal” is. Will this be the first of its kind in Newport Beach?
Item 11. Professional Services Agreement with Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin for Hearing Adjudication Services
The staff report provides no explanation of how Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin was selected over, say, hiring an additional officer from a firm that previously bid for the services (or if Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin was one of those).
It also does not explain if the City charges any fee to defray this anticipated up to $187,500.
Additionally, it says this contract is needed to deal with “an unanticipated and significant increase in requests to appeal administrative citations issued during the heightened enforcement period associated with the Fourth of July Safety Enhancement Zone.” However, the contract is proposed to run through June 30, 2028.
But NBMC Sec. 1.05.060 requires appeals of administrative citations to be filed within 21 days of their issuance, and as the report says, the hearing must be conducted no more than 60 days after the date of filing, with the result issued (according to Sec. 1.05.065) no more than 45 days after that. That would seem to suggest all hearing officer business associated with citations issued on July 4, 2026, will be completed no later than November 7, 2026.
What is the rush to procure nearly two years of supplemental hearing officer capacity when the need cited is expected to end in barely a month? Does the City expect to continue issuing citations at a higher-than-normal rate? For what, specifically? October 13, 2026, City Council agenda comments - Jim Mosher Page 9 of 9 Also, how will the public learn the outcome of the Fourth of July citation appeals? Item 13. Appointment to the Finance Committee
Although the process by which citizens are chosen for appointment to the City’s Boards, Commissions and Committees is becoming increasingly opaque, with a single nominee being advanced for public consideration by the full Council, it is good to see the present staff report indicating at least the number of applications from which that single nominee was opaquely selected.
I would observe that before the Council awards contracts, the staff report lists the names of the vendors who submitted bids.
If we were to show similar respect to the persons who took the trouble to submit applications for appointment we might consider at least listing their names.
Item 14. Annual Review of Visit Newport Beach Audited Financial Statements and Expenditure Report
I seem to recall that at one of the recent Council Candidate Forums a question came up about how much of the $7.4 million per year that Visit Newport Beach receives from the City goes toward marketing the short term lodging industry in our town. It seems safe to guess one will not be able to find the answer here.