LAKEPORT — The city council and its staff discussed timelines for business plan goals for the city at a workshop Thursday afternoon. The council discussed future goals in engineering, utilities, public works and police departments.
Last year the council determined it would try to keep track of its goals with a process that assigns tasks to specific staff members with updates made periodically to the council.
“I think we over-committed with the first round of dates,” Councilman Ron Bertsch said in response to staffers comments that they should not take on too many assignments and set “unrealistic” due dates.
Up for discussion was how to keep track of “non-compliance land-use circumstances” ? or the laundry list of previous planning commission decisions regarding “about 15” properties in violation in the past that were never followed-up on, according to City Attorney Steve Brookes.
Among those is what the council referred to as the “Epidendio” property on South Main and C Streets. The city allowed the property owner to change the large tent once used as a produce stand to an auction yard with the requirement he improve the curb, gutter and sidewalk. The work was never completed and the property is now in disuse.
“In other words, we don”t follow-up on what the planning commission says to do,” Bertsch said.
Community Development Director Richard Knoll ? one of the staffers with a long enough history working for the city to recall details from Epidendio ? said the instructions were part of the property owners” use permit.
“But it got delayed for several years. Now it”s not really being operated there, so the question is about whether or not he has a requirement [to complete the street-side improvements],” Knoll said.
“He shined us on. Perhaps it”s an enforcement issue at this stage,” Knoll said.
Brookes said there are an additional “half-a-dozen” once-promised projects that need to be cataloged and checked-into by the city, some of them 30 to 40 years old.
Knoll said the planning commission no longer has the authority to defer the construction of curbs, gutters and sidewalks. “When it was deferred they were doing that as a matter of standard operating procedure,” Knoll said.
The council determined as part of the business plan update to research previous non-compliance land use circumstances and have staff bring a report back to council for direction on Aug. 2.
But the council decided not to allot too much staff time to the task due to the amount of time that needs to be spent by staff on the up-coming budget, which will be a tight one with the city recuperating from a $1.5 million deficit. The city achieved a balanced budget for the first time last year, but only because of the city”s sale last fall of Vista Point Shopping Center for just over $1 million.
The council set a date of its May 6 council meeting to hear a staff report regarding how to move forward in resolving the Epidendio property.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
