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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 1994-11-30 Mayor Robert Yee Council: Jack Drago Joseph A. Fernekes ~lohn R. Penna Roberta Cerri Teglia MINUTES City Council Municipal Services Building Community Room November 30, 1994 229 SPECIAL MEETING CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER 30, 1994 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Section 54956 of the Government Code of the State of California, that the City Council of the City of South San Francisco will hold a Special Meeting on Wednesday, the 30th day of November 1994, at 6:30 p.m. in the Municipal Services Building, Community Room, 33 Arroyo Drive, South San Francisco, California. Purpose of the meeting: Closed Session: Pursuant to GC 54957.6, to meet with its designated representatives - Acting City Manager, Director of Personnel, City Attorney and labor negotiations consultant on labor relations matters and the employee organizations are AFSCME, Police, Fire, Operating Engineers, Management and Confidential Group, Public Safety Managers, and City Manager. Dated: November 29, 1994 City Clerk City of South San Francisco AGENDA CALL TO ORDER: (Cassette No. 1) ROLL CALL: Closed Session: Pursuant to GC 54957.6, to meet with its designated representatives - Acting City Manager, Director of Personnel, City Attorney and labor negotiations consultant on labor relations mat- ters and the employee organizations are AFSCME, Police, Fire, Operating Engineers, Management and Confidential Group, Public Safety Managers, and A~I!QN TAKEN 6:50 p.m. Mayor Yee presiding. Council Present: Drago, Fernekes, Teglia and Yee. Council Absent: Penna. Council adjourned to a Closed Session at 6:51 p.m. to discuss the item noticed. 11/30/94 Page 1 AGENDA ACTION TAKEN 1. Closed Session - Continued. City Manager. Councilman Penna Arrived at the Meeting: RECALL TO ORDER: ADJOURNMENT: Councilman Penna arrived at the meeting at 7:10 p.m. Mayor Yee recalled the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m., all Council was present, no action was taken. M/S Penna/Fernckes - To adjourn the meeting. Carried by unanimous voice vote. Time of adjournment was 7:41 p.m. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Barbara A. Battaya, City Clerk d_// ._._City of South San Francisco APPROVED. City of South San Francisco The entries of this Council meeting show the action taken by the City Council to dispose of an item. Oral communica- tions, arguments and comments are recorded on tape. The tape and documents related to the items are on file in the Office of the City Clerk and are available for inspection, review and copying. 11/30/94 Page 2 Mayor Robert Yee Council: Jack Drago Joseph A. Fernekes l'ohn R. Penna Roberta Cerri Teglia MINUTES City Council Municipal Services Building Community Room November 30, 1994 231' ~EEI~IAL ~EE!!_N~ CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO NOVEMBER 30, 1994 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, pursuant to Section 54956 of the Government Code of the State of California, that the City Council of the City of South San Francisco will hold a Special Meeting on Wednesday, the 30th day of November 1994, at 7:00 p.m. in the Municipal Services Building, Community Room, 33 Arroyo Drive, South San Francisco, California. purPose of the meeting: Discussion and direction on the Arroyo Study. Water Quality Control Plant Master Plan. 3. Terrabay Status Report. Closed Session: pursuant to GC 54957.6, to meet with its designated representatives - Acting City Manager, Director of Personnel, City Attorney and IEDA Representative Craig Jory on labor relations matters and the employee organizations are AFSCME, Police, Fire, Operating Engineers, Management and Confidential Group and public Safety Managers. Dated: November 17, 1994 City Clerk City of South San Francisco CALL TO ORDER: ROLL CALL: AGENDA (Cassette No. 1) ACI!Q_N !AKEN 7:43 p.m. Mayor Yee presiding. Council Present: Drago, Fernekes, Penna, Teglia and Yee. Council Absent: None Mayor Yee stated the Council will hear Item 2 first. 11/30/94 Page 1 AGENDA ACTIQN TAKEN _ 2. Water Quality Control Plant Master Plan. Interim Director of Public Works Wykoff recom- mended the Council give direction to staff to prepare a request for proposals for a detailed analysis of the waste water treatment plant as it relates to both capacity and efficiency. The analysis should include recommendations in the budget for treatment plant improvements and collection system rehabilitation in order to provide acceptable capacity and efficiency for current and future needs. He stated there are several reports which detail both general and technical provisions which were devel- oped in response to comments on this subject ex- pressed at a recent Council meeting. He related: based on a report in 1990 the plant should be capable of an average annual flow of nine million gallons per day and a biochemical oxygen demand of effluent of 22,000 pounds per day; for 1994, the plant has had an annual average flow of 8.1 MGD and an effluent BOD of 21,700 lbs. per day; taken at face value, this would indicate a 0.9 MGD excess flow capacity and a 300 lbs. per day excess BOD capacity; within the near future we will exceed plant capacity by a flow of approximately 2.6 MGD and approximately 5200 lbs. BOD. If steps aren't taken soon to start resolving the exit- ing problems, the potential for receiving cease and desist orders from the Bay Area Water Quality Control District becomes more likely. Any im- provements, once agreed upon, will require a certain period of lead time to construct and it is important that direction is given to staff to move forward with the next step in improvements and not be subject to a moratorium imposed on building activity due to the inability of the treatment plant to treat increased loads brought about by new development. He presented various options and stated that staff would be developing the RFP and would share it with the Council Subcommittee. Discussion followed: if the EIR had been resolved; Councilwoman Teglia wanted the EIR initiated early on; Mayor Yee was not certain that an EIR was needed and that question could not be answered until the final report was released; Mr. David Early spoke of the BODs serving a demand at the Plant and of effluents discharged from Genentech; if the analysis is to find out the conditions of existing operations, 11/30/94 Page 2 AGENDA ACIIQN TAKEN 233 2. Water Quality Control Plant - Continued. Discussion of the Arroyo Study and adoption of resolution. ~0~ OO t) A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN AGREEMENT WITH ARROYO ASSOCIATIONS FOR PROFES- SIONAL SERVICES why is an EIR needed; staff will review the RFP with the Subcommittee, the RFP will go out and then it will come back to Council; the Subcommittee consists of Councilmembers from S.S.F. and San Bruno; etc. Consensus of Council - To direct staff to prepare a Request for Proposals. Carried by unanimous voice vote. Mayor Yee stated Council will wait until the end of the meeting for the resolution but they wanted to talk about the Arroyo Study. He stated that Coun- cil had initiated the Study and had appointed Councilmembers Teglia and Fernekes as a Subcom- mittee six months ago. With limited funding every year Council was looking at reducing expen- ditures to balance the budget and, therefore, things have to be done better and with more efficiency than we had before due to the Study. He related: it is not the Council's intent to eliminate any job; the Council values the jobs very highly and intends to keep the jobs but needs employee cooper~ ation to make the Study work, because everyone was in it together; he did not intend to discuss every item on the report but to get input from employees and the Council; the intent is not to tear apart each item of the report and tell Council what is wrong, but give your positive cooperation; etc. Councilwoman Teglia stated the report says the City is committing to a high level of service for this community, but we are not getting that high level of service and no one wants to point the finger. She felt that management can improve by holding people accountable. She felt that some people will be shifted to other jobs, can do a better job in a differ- ent position and the City may not need the same kind and number of positions, which can be dealt with through attribution. Councilman Fernekes agreed that this needed to be done, was in support of the Study to find a way to do it better and find new ways and reiterated com- ments made by Councilwoman Teglia. Councilman Drago wanted to come out of this meet- ing with clear cut direction to staff on what to ex- pect. 11/30/94 Page 3 AGENDA ACIIQN TAKEN 1. Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. Mr. Keith Uriarte, AFSCME, stated he was con- fused with the Mayor's comments about employee support, when it is the Council's intent to adopt this Study. He stated there are flaws in the Study, you don't want us to go through each of these items but you are saying you are going to adopt the Study as being accurate. He stated parts of the report are flawed in figures and in its administration. He stated that Arroyo Assoc. admits to a lack of information and had to make assumptions. The good thing in there is the employees noticed that often they get called off the job, sometimes by Councilmembers, to fix something and the Depart- ment Head wants to respond to the request and pulls someone off the job. So, there had been a lack of direction, which the Study admits, in pulling em- ployees off the job. He stated one of his questions is in what forum do you suggest we do address each of these issues, because he did not think it is fair to see the kind of information put in print and to have the employees know it is inaccurate and have to look at the Council adopting it as accurate. Mayor Yee stated Council was dealing with the recommendations more so than the continuity itself. It appears Mr. Uriarte feels the recommendations are out of line, but there is no reason why Mr. Uriarte cannot address the issues tonight or put them in writing and have a fair exchange. He looked through the report and recognized certain facts were not there concerning Council requests and work orders are necessary for the future. Mr. Uriarte stated some of the recommendations would lead one to believe that the employees are not doing their jobs and the simple solution is to con- tract out work in parks. He felt this should be taken out of the public forum and sit down and talk about the specifics and the impacts of the Study. Mayor Yee stated the Council does intent to imple- ment the report based on the recommendations and, if Mr. Uriarte had a better way to deal with the recommendations, then address this to Council or to the City Manager. Councilman Drago suggested Mr. Uriarte be al- lowed to focus on the inaccuracies and that would 11/30/94 Page 4 AGENDA '""---- a t~_T I O__N TAKEN _.l.1. Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. 235 change the recommendations and would narrow it down to the crux. He stated Council would be fools if Mr. Uriarte can show there are inaccuracies - that the recommendations are based on false numbers, but it would only be on the total package, because they are interrelated. Discussion followed: part of the plans of the Study is to contract out for tree trimming, asphalt and concrete and custodial work; there are 115 recom- mendations in the Study; the garage is very compet- itive and doing a creditable job; effectiveness of the work crews; using one time expenditures for computers to make sure our work force is able to enter the information to keep track of how well we are doing, because we are losing too much in hidden dollars; the employees have an obligation to let the Council know if the data is faulty in the 'Study; Mr. Uriarte felt the Study contained issues that need to be negotiated; the action plan and its impact on employees, such as Item No. 27, contract- ing out in-house maintenance of parks and landscap- ing; Mr. Uriarte also had a problem with Item No. 28; the Union had not had an opportunity to review this material and negotiate various factors with staff and now it was before Council for adoption; the Union had only seen the document in draft form without benefit of discussions; etc. Mr. Rozzi stated the Union never received a final draft, the Steering Committee was disbanded and the Study was circulated without input from the Union; Mr. Rozzi stated the Study was given piece by piece to the affected departments; Mr. Rozzi was bothered by the inconsistencies and errors in the Study. He related that benchmarks are created that are not valid and he was very concerned on the Union's lack of input. Acting City Manager Martel stated the Steering Commission, made up of representatives of depart- ments and labor units, did see an administrative draft, however, what is before Council tonight is the final draft. She stated the Units did have an oppor- ' tunity to meet with the Consultant to provide input and clarify any clerical errors. Mr. Rozzi stated the Union was presented with a rough outline of what Arroyo Assoc. was going to do as they are still riding around with people. After the first meeting, the Union was told we 11/30/94 Page 5 AQENDA A~I!QN TAK~ ._.1.. Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. 11/30/94 Page 6 '23:6 would meet again but that meeting was cancelled. He questioned when the next Steering Committee meeting would be and got no response. Then, all of a sudden, the Council Subcommittee, Council- members Fernekes and Teglia, got the Final Draft, he stuck his nose in and then they had a meeting. AFSCME was given copies prior to that. At the Steering Committee meeting a lot of issues were raised: how the numbers were developed; how were the benchmarks created; the draft stated costs went up, when they had been stable; how could they substantiate the recommendation; Mr. Conway was to incorporate their comments into the draft, howev- er, they are not incorporated and he feels the Steer- ing Committee was left out of the loop. Mayor Yee commented that it appears the Union did not have an opportunity to review this document. Mr. Rozzi stated the Acting City Manager gave it to him on Friday night. Mr. Conway, Arroyo Assoc., explained that the pro- tess, technically, was one of reviewing the docu- ments from the six week study. He further ex- plained: an issue paper was issued to the Steering Committee in outline format of the issues we are examining; each of the departments under review got a preliminary draft of the document, but only for their departments; the departments were asked to review the documents and we subsequently brought back the entire document in draft for the Steering Committee; at that time there were discussions and much give and take on whether the data was accu- rate; he took it back to Arroyo Assoc. and where data was erroneous it was corrected;most of the preliminary conclusions were in the initial draft, although data was refined and defined based on better input, which was put into the final draft on 10/28/94. Discussion followed: the Council Subcommittee received the final draft on a Friday, it went out to Council and presumably the libraries. After that it was scheduled for a public presentation; there are problems in input and data checks, because it is a third party report; there is a disagreement in the Fire Dept. with one aspect of the report; Mr. Uriarte felt there should have been meetings with the Unions, if it was Council's intention to adopt the ~QENDA A~!!Q~ TAKEN r 1. Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. 11/30/94 Page 7 237 study; Mayor Yee felt it was important for the em- ployees and Unions to make comments to the City Manager and come back to the Council within 30 days; Acting City Manager Martel stated there has not been any effort to preclude any employees from providing a response to the Study; Councilman Penna felt this was an initial study to set policy for the labor force in the future and labor negotiations were another issue; Mayor Yee felt uncomfortable going ahead with this without employee input; Councilman Drago felt, if there were inaccuracies in the report, they should be documented by Mr. Uriarte; Mayor Yee felt that documentation should be given to Council by the Acting City Manager by 1/2/95 and maybe have a study session at the end of January. Ms. Lynn Long, Local 39 Stationary Engineers, stated she welcomed the opportunity to share their concerns, which are Items 103 through 110. She stated that, regarding page 120, it was her understanding this concern was given at the Steering Committee and it was not corrected in the report. She felt that Arroyo Assoc. had based a lot of their recommendations on their comparisons. She refuted statements in the Study: the plants they surveyed are not manual plants as is ours; all of the plants re- ceive only domestic waste, not industrial - which is not a fair comparison; the domestic is predictable; flows and numbers of employees in plants is inac- curate; a lot of their recommendations are based on the operations in other cities that we feel is grossly unfair to the employees and this City and greatly colors their figures; they recommend going to one operator, which you could only do if you are auto- mated rather than being a manual plant; there are OSHA requirements for two persons being present, otherwise it is a violation. Mayor Yee stated that bothered him, because it looks like the document was finalized before allow- ing the WQCP people to look at the report. Ms, Long stated that was brought to the Steering Committee's attention. Mr. Nichols, Arroyo Assoc., related: their review included a request for review of benchmark cities; they had looked at the number of people, the tasks performed and benchmark cities, compared this to AQENDA A~!!QN TAK~ _.L Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. 11/30/94 Page 8 '238 what it cost our City and made a recommendationto change the shift schedule. Discussion followed: Ms. Long asked how Mr. Nichols could explain that these plants are domestic and these are automatic in telemetry; Mr. Nichols stated no two plants are identical, so they looked at other agencies' operations with a focus on shift schedules; is S.S.F.'s plant the only one built in the 1970s that is a manual lplant; Mr. Nichols did not know. Mayor Yee asked Ms. Long to identify each of her concerns. Ms. Long stated she would contact the City Manag- er, sit down with her, discuss the points and come up with a document. Mayor Yee asked that all input be to the Acting City Manager by 12/2/94. Mr. Mark Martinelli, Street Dept., asked if it meant that the Council was going to have another Steering Committee for further input. Mayor Yee stated Mr. Mike Rozzi is the Union Representative and all employees should give their comments to Mike. Councilwoman Teglia stated that, if any employee had a problem with the recommendations and it's pertinent, they could write it down. Mr. Carl Brogger, 505 Elm Court, stated he had lived here 47 years and has admired the way our City has been kept, our parks are excellent. He though something is going wrong here, completely wrong. First thing you are recommending that you turn the maintenance of the parks over to a private contractor - what control are you going to have over them to maintain these parks the way these gentle- men have maintained them over the years. He stated, secondly, you are taking them out of these jobs and putting them on other jobs that they won't like and they will be poor employees. By contracting out the jobs what guaranty will you have for the people presently working in the parks. Are you going to have minimal paid immigrants or peo- ple paid under the counter. What guarantee or AGENDA AC_TIO__N TAKEN · ,.1. Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. control will the City have that the contractors willmaintain the parks in the same manner as City employees. He has seen employees patrolling the park daily and picking up trash from the parks, including sofas, construction materials, hypodermic needles and other things dumped in the parks - will the contrac- tor do that. Who is going to make sure there are no tapings or child molesters in the parks, .that the park employees have been handling so well for years. The Council said they were going to save $330,000 a year if they contracted, yet you are not going to lay off the employees - this doesn't make sense. If you transfer them you are still paying their wages; etc. Discussion followed: the recommendation is only for the small parks to be contracted out; there could be a special crew to respond to problems; Mr. Brogger felt the report indicated that the City of S.S.F. has been poorly managed from the standpoint of direction assigned employees in their positions, due to the frequent turnover of City Managers and a lack of training of supervisors and management; he had just heard that, if an employee has a complaint, he cannot give it to the supervisor, he has to give it to the Department Head - which is not the way it should be done; while working for United Airlines, Mr. Brogger noted that there was unscheduled main- tenance when something was wrong with an aircraft and the inspector would make a write up and pass it on to the foreman. He felt something like that should be incorporated and a work order processed to go through the chain of command; he felt, after reading the report, nobody knows what is going on. Acting City Manager Martel stated the Council had an opportunity to discuss with her and the consultant the possibility of examining other areas to gain opportunities to enhance productivity, efficiency and control costs. One issue is the annual cost of leaves and the impact on overtime and doing an audit on the leaves and accrual and see how it impacts the public areas in overtime; the consultant has a pro- posal to the Council to provide a recommendation as to how the City might improve on the leave usage and possibly reduce overtime. She stated that a resolution was before Council 11/30/94 Page 9 AGENDA ACT_ION TAKEN ...... .1. Discussion of the Arroyo Study - Continued. 3. Terrabay Status Report. ~'0 ~ ~ 11/30/94 Page 10 authorizing the contract to conduct the leave usagestudy. MIS Teglia/Drago - To adopt the Resolution. RESOLUTION NO. 138-94 Carried by unanimous voice vote. Discussion followed: Councilwoman Teglia wanted to go through and find what the Council agrees on that is not a meet and confer item in the park; Councilman Penna was concerned over the software used in the parks, which he felt was not good; May- or Yee felt that these should be put off for a month; etc. Acting City Manager Martel updated the Council: the winterization has been brought into conformance and was completed the first week of October; after the rain storm some minor repairs were necessary and were done this week; the slope on Randolph was repaired; the catchment basin was cleaned in November that had been a source of concern; Coun- ty is to notify City when work is to be completed; particular concern is for the landscaping adjacent to Sister City Blvd.; Sunchase, as the holding compa- ny, has indicated that a maintenance contract has been issued and hopefully there will be no further problems; there was a walk through by the County, City, State Fish & Game and Sunchase; Sunchase is to clean and upgrade the slopes in the habitat under the direction of the County and State Fish & Game; Sunchase has retained Geo/Resourees to review the slide areas and develop a proposal for remedial work and have agreed to on-going repairs until the project is completed; Sunchase representa- tives will provide staff with an outline of the master plan by the middle of December and there will be a presentation in January. Mayor Yee questioned if the Sunchase representa- tives were aware of the March deadline. Acting City Manager Martd stated they have been advised of the 3/15/95 deadline still being in effect and the City's expectation of the Project going for- ward with sufficient time for the City to go through the permits required for the deadline. City Attorney Mattas stated there were significant AGENDA ACTION TAKEN ~3. Terrabay - Continued. Closed Session: Pursuant to GC 54957.6, to meet with its designated representatives - Acting City Manager, Director of Personnel, City Attorney and labor negotiations consultant on labor relations mat- ters and the employee organizations are AFSCME, Police, Fire, Operating Engineers, Management and Confidential Group, Public Safety Managers and City Manager. RECALL TO ORDER: ADJOURNMENT: conditions and obligations on the Terrabay Devd-- opment Agreement and Specific Plan. The effect of those documents would be to remove the land use entitlement unless the Council extends those docu- ments; etc. Mayor Yee related, according to State law there are only so many extensions the Council can allow. City Attorney Mattas stated it depends on what the Council was looking at, these are discretionary agreements that can be extended out, but Council would be reapproving the Specific and General Plans and the Council is not limited as to how many times it can be extended. He stated staff has identified triggering actions for Sunchase to pull a number of permits for the various number of units to be built and there are public improvements tied to those actions; etc. Council adjourned to a Closed Session at 9:50 p.m., to discuss the items noticed. Mayor Yee recalled the meeting to order at 10:55 p.m., no action was taken and direction was given. M/S Drago/Penna - To adjourn the meeting. Carried by unanimous voice vote. Time of adjournment was 10:56 p.m. 11/30/94 Page 11 AQ~M~A A~I!QN TAE~~ ~ ~RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Barbara A. Battaya, City of South San Francisco APPROVED. City of Soutl. San Francisco I The entries of this Council meeting show the action taken by the City Council to dispose of an item. Oral communica- tions, arguments and comments are recorded on tape. The tape and documents related to the items are on file in the Off'lee of the City Clerk and are available for inspection, review and copying. 11/30/94 Page 12