Last time we discussed the Village Pond Park we noted that the so-called workshop wasn’t a workshop at all. The City contracted for a third workshop and the agenda listed it as a workshop, but it was in fact a PowerPoint presentation of a series of ideas which the City staff determined would be sent to the City Council. Following the final public speaker, Gary Magill announced - “The next opportunity the public will have to look at the Master Plan will be at a City Council meeting…”
Actions by the Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) and the staff appear to be at odds with the Brown Act as well as the “scope of services” as agreed to by the City and the Consultant. Let’s start with the scope of services.
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BREACH OF CONTRACT
The City and the consultant agreed to a contract which set out a long list of receivables that the consultant would provide, along with a list of procedures they would follow. Anyone interested in reviewing the contract can find it on the City’s website for the May 21 Council meeting (Item 12), which particular reference to Exhibit A entitled “Scope of Services”.
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No Third Workshop
Among the many things they agreed to do, the consultants agreed to conduct “4 public meetings and a presentation to City Recreation and Parks Commission and City Council…” Two of these 4 public meetings were to be held prior to drawing up of “the draft conceptual plan” and “input from the City” and the third “community meeting…will further refine the conceptual plan…”. After this, a third workshop was scheduled to so that the "conceptual plan" would be turned into a draft "Master Plan" and then forwarded to the Council. In fact, they held only 2 workshops, not 3, and this step was completely eliminated, although it’s obvious in hindsight that the false labeling of the presentation as a “workshop” may have been an attempt to fulfill the contract’s requirement without actually doing anything. Bottom line – we were promised 3 community workshops/meetings before the plan went to the Council and we only got 2.
No Inventory of Lake Characteristics
One of the major receivables agreed to by the City and the consultant was an “inventory of lake characteristics”. (BTW – the consultants continuously refer to the Pond as a “lake”, which gives you some idea of their performance) One might expect such an inventory to contain at least the following information –
- Size
- Volume
- Depth
- Water quality
- Number and type of aquatic life
- Equipment
The document handed out at the meeting contains none of this information.
No Cost Estimates
The consultants promised “A preliminary statement of probable construction costs…” but in fact there isn’t a single word about costs anywhere in their report. This is another major breach of contract.
No Recommendations
The consultants promised “our recommendations as it relates to the lake at Village Pond Park” would take into account a host of factors including “lighting, topography, circulation, recreation uses, passive uses…” etc. In fact, the report contains almost no recommendations at all. Instead, it lists a collection of possible actions the City could take (e.g., “encourage dogs at the park, install monofilament line across pond forming a grid, remove nesting material daily…” etc.) but offers no information about any of these alternatives, no data about possible side effects, no implementation challenges, and no cost estimates. Instead of recommendations the consultants offer an unsupported list of possible actions.
There are plenty of other omissions, but you should get the point.
PLAN OR FIRST DRAFT?
What the consultants delivered to the PRC was a good first draft of what might turn out to be a good conceptual plan. Why it took 5 months to produce what could have been done in a few hours is beyond me, but their report isn’t a plan, and the substantial difference between what was contracted for and what was delivered is an indication of the difference.
What’s wrong with the PRC and the City staff that they accept a first draft in place of a plan? Did no one read the contract? Does no one on the PRC or in the Department of Community Services care about how our money is spent? If you pay for a Mustang do you accept a Yugo?
In the past I've talked about how many of the reports done by our City staff contain major errors. Recently I pointed this out with regard to the CNG fueling station and with proposed changes in residential parking. This is the first time I actually did a comparison between what was delivered and what was promised, and the results are distressing, to say the least.
Next, let’s look at the Brown Act and see whether or not the actions taken by the PRC and the City staff constitute a breach of the law.
