5/7/2013 Council Preview – WPCP Redesign and HUD Funding

Pretty full agenda on Tuesday.  We start with a closed session for the six-month performance review of the City Attorney.

We then have the general meeting, which has three special orders of the day and a presentation.  One recognizes Municipal Clerks Week (which I believe means we’ll be honoring City Clerk Kathleen Franco Simmons).  One recognizes Foster Care Month.  And the third is a great event – Public Safety Awards.  This recognizes both officers and citizens who perform extraordinary tasks towards Sunnyvale public safety.

The presentation involves Cupertino Union School District and its plans to revise its Open Space Master Plan.  This is important because of sharing agreements we have with the school district involving their open space (which we maintain in exchange for public use of it).  There has been ongoing friction over the school’s desire to reduce open space for expanded classrooms, and the city’s interest in preserving the open space.  I don’t know what is proposed, so we’ll see.  Then it’s on to business.

Pretty big consent calendar.  We’ve got a couple involving grants or potential grants, the purchase of six pickup trucks and an asphalt paver, an agreement involving demolition on Onizuka including the Blue Cube, another easement, and second reading of last Tuesday’s ordinances.

Item 2 is the Action Plan for 2013/2014’s Housing and Urban Development funding.  This is when we allocate Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and supplemental funding for low income housing and non-profit organizations.  This is always a tough issue to deal with, because of the stories of the organizations, what they’re dealing with, and how, no matter what we do, it’s never enough.

Item 3 is a big one – approving a major engineering contract for design of the Primary Treatment Facility and the Master Plan of the Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP).  This is the big initial step leading to complete replacement of the WPCP, and it’s indeed a big one – an $11 million contract as first part of a $318 million, 10-15 year project, and the most significant public works project in the history and in the foreseeable future of the city.

Item 4 is one I’m only just getting into – updates to our municipal code to tweak the handling of criminal and administrative citations.  It appears to be clean-up, to firm up our legal footing on some issues and to give us more flexibility to downgrade some cases from misdemeanors to simple infractions, particularly for some minor first-time offenses.

Item 5 involves a possible censure of Councilmember Meyering and sanctions related to violations of the Sunnyvale Code of Ethical Conduct for Elected and Appointed Officials, and Council Policy.

And Item 6 is either an extensive debate or not much of anything, and I’m not sure which – possibly creating a campaign ethics committee for the November election.

That’s about it.  Long night, indeed.

Comments

5/7/2013 Council Preview – WPCP Redesign and HUD Funding — 2 Comments