But on August 13, the City Council's Mayor-chosen "Budget Oversight Committee" (Mungo, Price, Austin) is slated to discuss a City Management memo requested by the Mayor, sent to all Councilmembers a week on August 6, that offers the Council the "option" of paying all of the Mayor's choices for advisory commissions AND doubling the meeting pay for his choices for Charter Commissions (Harbor, Planning, Water, Parks/Rec, CPCC) AND enabling Councilmembers to continue collecting $50 each time they're present for current monthly meetings of LB's "Housing Authority." (As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, as of July 2019, one such Housing Authority "meeting" lasted one minute; another lasted two minutes, one was three minutes; three lasted about four minutes and one lasted 22 minutes. Management's August 6 memo now invites conducting these "meetings" up to twice a month.

The memo speaks for itself at this link. It says the following "options are available to better reflect workload and to ensure pay consistency across all advisory bodies."

Increase the Charter Amendment Commissioners' compensation to $200 per meeting, $1,000 maximum per month (five meetings per month.

Compensate all City Council Appointed Committees at $50 per meeting and set a consistent maximum of meetings allowed to two per month ($100 maximum per month.)

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As to Fiscal Impact:

If updates to the advisory body members' compensation are implemented as described above, the total amount paid to advisory bodies would be approximately $261,750 per year, depending on number of meetings. The impact to the General Fund would be a structural increase of $78,850 per year, and an increase of $100,800 per year impacting other funds. Funding in FY 20 could be possible through identification of one-time funds through the FY 20 budget process, however on-going funding beyond FY 20 would need to be addressed as part of the FY 21 budget along with other anticipated employee compensation costs. Should the City Council wish to proceed, direction would be needed through the FY 20 budget process.

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The Mayor-sought memo comes in the context of a brouhaha that ensued after LBREPORT.com reported on a July 10, 2018 Council agenda item that sought Council support to change LB's Municipal Code in ways that could effectively tighten control over subjects discussed or voted on by Mayor-chosen/Council-approved "Advisory Bodies."

The Council avoided voted action on the item when Councilman Roberto Uranga, seconded by Councilman Austin, laid it over to an unspecified future Council meeting (passed 8-1, Richardson absent) but roughly six months later (after the Nov. 2018 special citywide election on four Mayor/Council sought Charter Amendments), the issue resurfaced.

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On January 8, 2019, City Manager West advised Councilmembers that the offices of Mayor Robert Garcia and the City Manager had taken the following steps:

[Jan. 8, 2019 memo]...To conduct a thorough review of the City's advisory bodies and receive information from a diverse cohort of stakeholders, the City Manager's Office collaborated with the Mayor's Office to create an informal working group of current Commissioners to review the status of the City's advisory bodies and report back to the City Council. The working group will conduct a comprehensive review of the proposed changes to the City's advisory bodies, as well as provide input and recommendations to the City Manager. Members of the working group will be selected by the Mayor and City Manager.

On June 14, 2019, city management sent a memo to Mayor Garcia and the Council suggesting a plan to recommend paying sums to "advisory commissions" and discuss the cost in the context of the upcoming FY20 budget. The June memo indicated that city staff plans to move forward with putting select changes into effect "that address common administerial enhancements" including compensation changes before moving forward to implement "the full menu of proposed changes to the advisory bodies..."

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In other words, any future limits on what Mayor/Council approved advisory Commission members may or may not be able to discuss may come after the appointees learn they'll be paid or paid more for attending their meetings.

Developing.

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