July 3, 2024
Honorable Mayor and City Council of the City of Redondo Beach 415 Diamond Street
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
Subject: Recreation and Parks Commission’s consideration of the proposed consolidation with the Historical, Preservation, and Library Commissions.
Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council of the City of Redondo Beach, On behalf of the Recreation and Parks Commission (Commission), I want to express several concerns discussed by the Commission on June 12 regarding the consolidation of the city’s’ boards and commissions in reference to City Council agenda item P.1 on the May 7th, 2024 City Council meeting, which, in part, included the following recommendation:
Recommendation that the Historical, Preservation, and Library Commissions be consolidated with the Recreation and Parks Commission, with the new commission being renamed the Public Amenities Commission.
The Commission would like to highlight that no input regarding the consolidation of the Recreation and Parks commission was neither solicited nor sought out by the City Council or Mayor prior to the original discussion, which was concerning to the Commission. In the absence of any solicitation or feedback regarding the proposal, the Commission would like to highlight the following concerns:
1. The consolidation of the Historical, Preservation, Library, and Recreation & Parks Commissions would fall outside of the knowledge base of individual commissioners. • Each of the following aforementioned commissions, which have been recommended for consolidation, have commissioners with specified interests and backgrounds pertaining to their respective commissions. Consolidation of each commission would put commissioners in positions where they may have to deliberate and provide recommendations on subject matters beyond their knowledge.
2. The proposed name is too generalized.
• The proposed name of the new commission, the Public Amenities Commission, is too vague and the individual objectives of each existing commission would get lost with such a generalized name. Arguably, this name does not fully capture the current purview of the Commission including input on recreational programs, activities and potential programmatic collaborations.
3. Anticipated staff burden from interdepartmental coordination. • Similar to the commissioners, staff would have to operate outside of their purview to consolidate the development of Administrative Reports and presentations, depending on the topic of agenda items. For example, if the Community Services Department served as the lead staff liaison to the consolidated commission, that team would need to coordinate with the Community Development regarding preservation-related items. While the proposed consolidation would eliminate administrative time from teams that currently support commissions that have lighter agendas, this consolidation would be a heavier burden on the assigned staff liaison. There would undoubtedly take more staff time to coordinate the meetings across multiple city departments.
4. The new consolidated commission would extend past the purview of staff liaisons. • The four commissions mentioned for consolidation are currently overseen by different city departments who have a professional background to answer and respond to commissioner inquiries. With a consolidated model, it is unknown how staff would be expected to adequately respond to the commission on its full purview without each department being present at all meetings. As a result, there will be unintended delays in responses and information shared with the commission if only the assigned staff liaison were required to be present.
5. Specialized certifications to serve on commissions.
• It is our understanding that the Preservation Commission requires specialized certifications to serve. Will the consolidated commission require all commissioners to obtain those certifications?
6. Length of meetings.
• Considering recent agenda topics and the length of meetings for all four commissions proposed for consolidation, there is a concern that the meeting times will be greatly extended. Longer meetings impact the quality of discussion, especially when they extend into the later hours of the evening. Furthermore, later meetings may impact the willingness of volunteers to donate their time to serve on the commission as the burden of time would be too great.
These are the concerns expressed by the Commission at its June 12 meeting regarding the proposed consolidation. Overall, the Commission is not supportive of the consolidation of the four proposed commissions for the reasons outlined above. Should a consolidation occur, the Commission would recommend the consolidation with the Historical Commission only, considering its existing role in the Community Services Department and the existing synergy of its oversight remaining with the same team.
The two commissions have experience working collectively on a number of projects over the past few years and the Commission believes a potential consolidation to be the most efficient and effective should a consolidation need to occur.
It is the Commission’s hope that the Mayor and City Council will consider this input as part of their deliberation on this matter.
Sincerely,
Masood Yousufzai
Recreation and Parks Commissioner