Looking over this week’s agenda, I figure we should finish this meeting sometime in 2017.
We start the meeting with a closed session to discuss a case of ongoing litigation. This is followed by a second closed session involving “significant exposure to litigation”. We then have two more closed sessions to review the City Attorney’s and City Manager’s performance (these are regularly scheduled at this time).
Pretty diverse agenda, as we try to wrap things up before the holidays.
We start the evening with a discussion of the pension trust fund. There has been a lot of news on this front, mostly at the state level, as the CalPERS board is wrestling with changes to the way it determines its expected rate of return and cities’ contributions. This has become more urgent since CalPERS has had a couple of bad investment years recently, including this year. This is a major concern for cities, since the most likely scenario has cities contributing more to make up the shortcomings in investments. And that would cost cities millions that are already needed to pay for core services.
We’re back. We’re holding a special meeting to handle a couple of time-sensitive issues and not add to the rather large agendas coming in the next two weeks.
We start the meeting with a closed session to discuss PSMA and SEA labor negotiations. The consent calendar is pretty small. There’s an extension of our existing banking agreement, an extension of a temporary staffing contract for our Purchasing Department, and a loan guaranty for Silicon Valley Clean Energy Authority.
Item 2 has us potentially entering into an agreement for the City of Milpitas to use our SMaRT Station for refuse disposal instead of Newby Island. This had to wait until after the election, because of a ballot measure involving garbage services in Milpitas.
And item 3 has us discussing possible action regarding the regulation of marijuana in the wake of the passage of Prop. 64.
That’s about it.
On Monday October 31st, the City of Sunnyvale received its final bill from the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters for the cost of our August Special Election to fill one council seat for three months:
That’s not a typo. In the next week, Sunnyvale will spend some $800k out of our General Fund to pay this bill, using money that would otherwise pay for public safety, roadwork, parks, and library services. Nobody wanted to hold this special election, but Sunnyvale’s voters passed a law that, however well-meant, prohibited all City Council discretion in the matter. So instead of just leaving the seat vacant for three months until the November General Election, we were forced to burn through some $800k of funds meant for city services to hold a special election.
Pretty short agenda this week. We start the evening with a joint study session with the Sustainability Commission to discuss the Climate Action Plan. And it’s not a short discussion, since we’ve allocated an hour and a half for it.
The general meeting starts with our ceremonial swearing in of new commissioners. I think we appointed two such commissioners at our last meeting. There are only three consent items, one of which is a second reading of an ordinance from our last meeting. But one of the items is a big one – approving over $1.6 million in new playground equipment for Braly Park, Fairwood Park, and Orchard Gardens Park. This includes not only replacement but also some park additions. The third item is an amendment to a urban runoff pollution contract.
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