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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-02-09; Housing Commission; MinutesMinutes of: HOUSING COMMISSION Time of Meeting: 6:00 P.M. Date of Meeting: FEBRUARY 9, 2012 Place of Meeting: CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER Chairperson Smith called the Meeting to order at 6:02 p.m. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Commissioner Andrews led with the Pledge of Allegiance. ROLL CALL Present: Commissioners: Brian Andrews Susan Igoe Craig Kirk Bobbie Smith Absent: Emelda Bradwell Staff Present: Housing & Neighborhood Services Director: Debbie Fountain Housing Program Manager: Bobbi Nunn APPROVAL OF MINUTES Minutes of May 12, 2011, meeting were approved as written. VOTE: 4-0 AYES: Andrews, Igoe, Kirk and Smith NOES: None ABSTAIN: None ABSENT: Bradwell ITEM NOT ON AGENDA There were no items not on the agenda. NEW BUSINESS Debbie Fountain, Director of Housing & Neighborhood Services, said the item on the agenda is the Carlsbad Public Housing Agency Annual Plan. Bobbi Nunn, our Housing Program Manager, will make the presentation to you tonight. Ms. Nunn said tonight we will be discussing the City of Carlsbad's Annual Public Housing Agency Plan. Pursuant to Code of Federal Regulations 24 Part 903, the Housing Authority is required to submit a Five- Year and Annual Public Housing Agency Plan. The purpose of this plan is to provide a basic guide to the agency's policies and rules, the agency's programs and services they provide, and how they are operated. Most importantly, the agency's mission and strategies on how they are going to address the needs for extremely low, very low and low income households within the community. The Annual Plan must be adopted by the Housing and Redevelopment Commission. Then a copy of it is submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD. A copy of the Five-Year was submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development along with a certification of compliance back in April of 2010. As far as the Annual Plans, we just need to identify any elements which were changed since the prior year. Also we need to address any elements of the plan which are challenged during a public review period and the public hearing. HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9, 2012 PAGE 2 of 9 The public review period will actually start on Sunday, February 12*^ and it will be active through March 27, 2012, through close of business day. If there are any comments on the Plan, that would be the opportunity for someone to submit those comments to the Housing Agency. Tentatively we have a Public Hearing scheduled for the City Council meeting on March 27, 2012. That will be a public hearing so that if anybody would like to come, they can also provide comments at that time. Any comments that are provided will be addressed in the final Public Housing Agency Plan. The only things we need to address in the Annual Plan is anything that has changed since the prior year. So we have identified three sections that have been changed in the Agency Plan. One is the financial resources. The financial resources from the last financial plan are actually 7 percent less than they were for the prior year. Our payment standards, the standards we use to determine our client's share of rent, were also reviewed on October 1. 2012. We also have an updated fiscal year audit. The single audit report for June 30, 2011, reflected no findings, which is good. As far as the actual changes, the financial resources for calendar year 2011 for the Rental Assistance Program was $6,236,035.00. Again, the rent determination for the payment standards were reviewed and revised as of October 1, 2011. In our fiscal year audit for June 30, 2011, there were no audit findings. As far as progress from fiscal year 2010 through 2012, one of the Public Housing Agency's goals is to expand housing in the area. We did add during this last period, eleven affordable for-sale units through the Roosevelt Gardens project. Roosevelt Gardens was a partnership with the Habit for Humanity and those units were sold in 2010 and into 2011. In addition, we had the groundbreaking today for the Tavarua Affordable Senior Apartments, which is expected to be completed in early 2013. That development will add another 50 units. That puts the total of affordable units to right around 2,200. It is my understanding that is more units than any other city in San Diego County with the exception of the City of San Diego. That was a quote from the mayor at the groundbreaking this morning. Besides expanding affordable housing, in regards to implementation and approving the quality of the housing assistance program, we had a 97 percent reporting rate to HUD. We were ranked by HUD as being a high performing agency for the fourth consecutive year. We have continued to maintain and utilize our funding within the approved funding allocations. That concludes the presentation. Commissioner Igoe asked about under the Financial Resources, the funding was down by seven percent. Do you have any details about that? Ms. Nunn said the year prior to that we had about 6.6 million and the funding reductions are as a result of federal funds being cut across the board. We may even see more cuts for calendar year 2012. At this point we have not received our funds. We do know that funds have been appropriated for calendar year 2012, but the housing agencies have not actually received the numbers yet of what we can expect. At this point for January and February and probably for March, HUD is funding us based on what they gave us for calendar year 2011. Once they do the final calculations, they will make the adjustments for the months fonvard. We received about 93 percent of what we received last year in administrative money to operate the program; that is for salaries, maintenance and operations. We received 96 percent of the housing assistance payments funds that we received prior year. Commissioner Kirk asked if that was uniform across the agencies or was it based on some other revenue calculation. Ms. Nunn said once they determine what the approphations are, then they look at what the need is across the country and they take whatever percentage is available and then everyone gets cut across the board accordingly. Right now, as far as our administrative monies, we are actually only receiving 75 percent of what we are technically eligible for. The calculation is based on the number of units we have leased for each month and we earn a certain dollar amount for each unit leased on the first of the month. Because of the budget cuts and the need throughout the nation, we are currently receiving 75 percent of what our actual administrative funding should be. HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9,2012 PAGE 3 of 9 Chairperson Smith asked, with the funding being cut, how does this affect the overall process of helping the people? Ms. Nunn said it means our waiting list will continue to stay closed because we still have families on the waiting list that have been waiting since 2004 to receive rental assistance. Our waiting list will remain closed until we are able to assist those families. If HUD publishes increases to the fair market rents, we will probably maintain the current payment standards as a cost savings measure. Our families are able to locate affordable housing of an adequate nature within the current payment standards. This is a factor we look at when we determine the payment standards. It could end up that we may have to assist less people and that is the unfortunate part. In addition, we may not be able to assist any new people off of the waiting list. Chairperson Smith asked Ms. Nunn if she is saying that with the funding that is received each year, there are no funds that are carried over to the next year. Ms. Nunn answered, we have a little bit of reserve, but in accordance with the regulations, we are not allowed to have too much reserve. For 2012 those reserves are going to be off set. We will be operating on a cash basis. Commissioner Andrews asked how the new units are allocated. Do they go to the people on the waiting list? Ms. Nunn said when she speaks of units, she means funding. So when we have funding available, that is when we actually take applicants off of the waiting list and they go through the process to see if they still continue to be eligible. Once eligibility is determined, they would be able to get on the program for the first time. We have actually pulled about 100 people off of the waiting list this past year. Of that, we have probably added approximately 25 people to the program. Commissioner Andrews asked Ms. Nunn to give a brief overview of the changes to the payment standards made in October. Ms. Nunn said the payment standards are based on the fair market rent, which are published by the federal government each year and effective October 1, 2010. The Housing Agency has the ability to take a look at those fair market rents and can establish their payment standards anywhere between 90 percent and up to 110 percent of the fair market rent. The published fair market rents are for all of San Diego County, not specifically for Carlsbad. Since we are a higher cost area our studios, one and two bedrooms are a little bit higher than the actual fair market rent. Our three and four bedrooms are right at the fair market rent. Our three bedroom payment standard is $2,067, which is adequate for this area. People are able to find adequate housing for that amount. The four bedroom payment standard is $2,493. Our studios, and one and two bedroom amounts that we have established as our payment standards, are actually a little bit higher than 100 percent of the fair market rents. 1 think the two bedroom is up to 110 percent of the fair market rent. The payment standard is $1,559 for a two bedroom, $1,228 for a one bedroom, and the studio is $1,075. Commissioner Kirk asked how we make the determination as to how much they should be increased or decreased. Is that based on an index? Ms. Nunn said we look at the current market and look at what is available for the city. Also, the San Diego Apartment Association puts out a bi-yearly sun/ey of what the apartment rentals are for each city. Between the HUD published fair market rent, analyzing what the rental market is in our area, and taking into consideration the San Diego Apartment Association's data, that is how we determine whether or not we need to make any changes to our payment standards. Commissioner Igoe said congratulations on being a consistent high performer. Ms. Nunn said she has a great staff and great leadership. HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9,2012 PAGE 4 of 9 Commissioner Igoe said it is worth noting. Coming from the federal government, it seems it is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations. Chairperson Smith said the Commission certainly appreciates Ms. Nunn and her staff. It is an honor to sen/e on this Housing Commission. I have learned so much and being around people who are really into what they are doing. It makes you feel good to be a part of it. Commissioner Igoe made a motion to adopt the Public Housing Agency Annual Plan and requests the Housing and Redevelopment Commission to recommend approval of the Carlsbad Public Housing Agency Annual Plan for fiscal year 2012 for submission to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Commissioner Kirk seconded the motion. VOTE: 4-0 AYES; Andrew, Igoe, Kirk, and Smith NOES: None ABSTAIN: None ABSENT: Bradwell DIRECTOR'S REPORT Ms. Fountain said she wanted to share some information since the Commission has not met in a while. We had the groundbreaking for the Tavarua Apartments today. They had some nice things to say about the city and our participation in helping this project move fonA/ard. It is going to be very exciting when it finally gets built. It has reshaped the area down there. They have already removed the existing retirement home that was on that property and it is mounds of dirt right now. There is a construction fence around it so it is easy to identify where it is at. It is going to be a high quality development. This team that is coming in to do this has not done projects in Carlsbad before, but they have done a lot of work up in Orange County and Los Angeles area. They are very well known up there and specialize in senior housing. They have a passionate team that really want to provide a high level of sen/ices. It will be like resort living. They have a lot of activities, and they are also going to have ten units of supportive housing within the development, which are basically programs that benefit the developmentally disabled. They have some supportive housing money through the County Mental Health Services to be able to provide specific services to some developmentally disabled seniors. That is something new we were able to accommodate. It is an appropriate project to have that incorporated into. It has podium parking, so actually the parking is all within a parking structure. The units are built over that. They have done a really nice job in getting everything designed on site and being of low impact to others as visually so you don't see large asphalt parking lots and that type of thing. It is a.fairly dense project at 50 units. The Planning Commission and the City Council felt very comfortable that it was the right property and the right project to have that kind of density in it. They will have a grand opening celebration and all of the Housing Commissioners will be invited to that. You will then be able to go through and look at units. Ms. Fountain also wanted to share more information. She wants to keep the Commission up to date on some various housing issues that are going on throughout the community. Some relate to affordable housing. The Envision Carlsbad process is really an update to the city's General Plan. That has been going on for a while now, but they had some workshops last weekend to look at some land use alternatives. It is getting into a little bit more detail now about what types of land uses we want to see for the future because we are moving towards build out, although our Community and Economic Development Manager will tell you we are never at build out because you are always either rebuilding or doing something so you never are entirely at build out. The General Plan update is an activity to try and figure out how we want to develop in the future. As part of that whole process, there has been a turn of events, we have a piece of property in the Bressi Ranch area that was actually zoned industrial. It was part of the Bressi Ranch Master Plan. We have had the property owner and the developer who has indicated an interest in converting that land from industrial land to residential land. It has created quite an HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9, 2012 PAGE 5 of 9 uproar in the Bressi Ranch area because they are proposing about 450 units. There has been support from staff for it to meet our housing element goals and that we do need higher density and additional higher density property. A few years ago when we brought the Housing Element fonvard, we had a big issue with Quarry Creek because there were additional units proposed for Quarry Creek, substantially above what the current density. So there was a lot of concern about what that would do to the area. This is fairly similar, although Quarry Creek was already zoned for residential. This is taking an industrial piece of property and proposing it for redevelopment. What has happened as a result of that is there has been a petition of about 500 residents in the Rancho Carrillo/Bressi Ranch area who have submitted their petition saying they are opposed to this project and what their reasons are and their concerns are. It is not a formal application yet. It was a conceptual proposal that was presented, but it did become a hot topic pretty quickly. 1 handed out to the Commission a letter that we sent to the residents in Bressi Ranch/Rancho Carrillo and a fact sheet that is attached to it to give information to people about what was proposed, why it was proposed, what the process will be if they move fonrt/ard if the property owner and the developer move foHA/ard on it, and I felt as Housing Commissioners you might get approached about this project and about what your opinion is of it. Right now we do not have a formal application that we could submit to you with all of the information. All we have is the concept so we are just trying to share as much information as we have with people so we are not trying to hide any information. There are no public hearings on it yet or anything. People are concerned that it is going to move fonfl/ard and get approved without any public input. I think people feel the need right now to come fon^/ard and share their concerns, which is what they did as part of the General Plan update workshops last week. We had this happen a couple of years ago with what was known as the Pontebello Project in the Aviara community. We had to prepare a fact sheet, though it did not have a formal application either. Sometimes these things happen and they have a life of their own so we try to get information out as quickly as we can. The more people that have information of what is going on, the better. If you get any questions, you will be able to answer them. Another thing that is helpful in this handout is the last information item on there is the General Plan update. There currently is an online survey where people can provide input on land use concepts, including the site on Bressi Ranch. If you haven't done that yet, and you are interested in providing some input into that process, you are invited to do that as well. 1 would encourage you to tell your friends and neighbors that they have the ability to guide the future by participating in these surveys and participating in the workshops so you can be an ambassador for that process. In January, the City Council had their annual goal setting workshops. They talked a lot about these types of issues; Do we want to see more single family homes? Do we want to see more rentals? What kind of products do we really want to see? And what kind of mix of products and mix of affordability do we want to see? They are obviously speaking on behalf of the general public because they hear from residents what they want and don't want. Staff makes certain recommendations, but those all go through a public input process. That is what makes them better because it represents more people in them. If you are being approached by residents and need more information, please just let me know and we will gather the information for you. We definitely don't want anybody to feel like we are not sharing information. Sometimes we don't have the information to share because the projects haven't gone far enough in the process to know those answers. If we do know the information, we will happily share that with you. Commissioner Andrews asked if all 450 units are affordable housing? Ms. Fountain said no, it is not a 100 percent affordable housing project. We are actually currently negotiating with them as to what level of affordability we want to see. Obviously they have to meet the minimum of 15 percent, but we are actually trying to get them to provide more, which is our constant goal. For the level of density they are asking and the fact that it is converting non-residential land to residential land, which means the units come out of our excess housing bank because we do have a growth management plan that limits the number of residential units ultimately that can be built in the city. If we HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9, 2012 PAGE 6 of 9 don't have the units in the bank to pull out, then we can't convert any non-residential land. Generally when we are negotiating, we ask to make the units provided more affordable so instead of 75 percent of AMI, we might want to drop to 50 or 60 percent so you lower the rents and the eligibility or we ask for more units than the 15 percent. That is one misconception that because it is apartments, it is going to be 100 percent to low income. We may even get some moderate income units out of it, but it is really going to be a mixed income project. Archstone, which is one of the developers that has been looking at it, has done work in the city before and they do very nice work. We don't know if they would ultimately be the developer on this project, but if you had somebody like them come in, you usually know you have a really nice product and they incorporate the affordable into it and you don't even know which units they are. There is some concern from the residents in the area that when you build apartments or you build affordable housing, you have larger family sizes and they have more children which impacts the schools and the schools are struggling right now financially, cutting back, larger class sizes, so it just spirals into more concerns. Not so much they create a negative impact, it is just there is the likelihood to have more children and Bressi Ranch and Rancho Carrillo feel the schools are already overly impacted. When Bressi Ranch went in, these same concerns came from the community. We definitely have a bigger need than we can meet, even though we are doing really well on affordable housing and we are one of the best producing cities next to the City of San Diego. 1 read a news story we are the third most affordable city in North County. We are posting this information on our website under Housing. If you have people asking you questions, you can always direct them to that website. There is also other information and contacts like the specific project contact and we have identified the planner in Community and Economic Department that is the Project Planner. Another item you may be reading about in the newspaper, as of February 1, 2012, due to legislation that was passed last year by the State of California, all redevelopment agencies in the State of California have been dissolved. That has been a really big deal, because redevelopment agencies have had a life that has gone back to the early 1970's and late 1960's. Our Village Redevelopment Plan was adopted in 1981. There are a number of them that are even older than that. The governor decided the state needs more money because the state has financial issues. They see the redevelopment agencies taking the money they feel they need. We are getting rid of redevelopment altogether. The unfortunate thing that happened was that legislation was passed at the end of June 2011. It was challenged right away on its constitutional standing. That went to the courts, the courts didn't make a decision until December 29, 2011, so we had only a month to decide what we were going to do about the agency so we were given no additional time to figure that out. Legislation allowed the City of Carlsbad to become the successor for the Redevelopment Agency, which means it takes over the obligation of the Redevelopment Agency. The Carlsbad Housing Authority, which the Housing Commission makes recommendations on actions related to that authority has become the successor agency for the housing programs, which are part of redevelopment. The unfortunate part is none of that comes with any money. We get the obligations, but it doesn't come with new money. We can pay off any existing debt we have, so we have bond debt, we have different projects at different levels like Tavarua, we funded that with a low and moderate income housing set aside funds from our redevelopment agency. That was a 3.7 million dollar loan. We have not issued all the money yet. We have only issued about 1.8 million of that for predevelopment expenses. We still have money sitting there that is supposed to go into that project. The law says we can finish out that, we can finish paying those things, but we can't get any new money or start any new projects. That has led us to a scramble to figure out how fund certain programs. Fortunately for our city, and this is not the same for all redevelopment agencies, but for our city our largest part of money for helping with affordable housing is our housing trust fund, which is separate from our Redevelopment Agency. We had some amounts in our low mod fund, but whenever we have issued a loan out of that, it has usually been a big loan and it takes most of what we have available in that fund. There is some concern that if we still have some obligations to produce housing related to the redevelopment agency, if no money is coming in then HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9, 2012 PAGE 7 of 9 it doesn't seem right. It seems those obligations should go away if there is no funding source. There are- a lot of attorneys and consultants working through this to figure out how this will work for the future. We have had a lot of questions about what that means for our department. For our department, we are funded in a variety of different ways; redevelopment was one component of that, but we are funded in a number of other ways. We will be shifting our focus and some of our assignments within our department to go into different program areas and ending what we have been doing in the redevelopment area. As most of you know, a couple of years ago there was a realignment in the city and we actually had new duties assigned to our department of Neighborhood Services. We have been developing programs relating to that so we have already been moving away from redevelopment being a high priority because the Village Redevelopment Plan expired last year. We did have the South Carlsbad Redevelopment Area Plan that was still in effect, but there wasn't too much yet that was going on that was being funded through redevelopment. If it was going to happen, this is probably the best time for us because we were not right in the middle of a bunch of projects that had to be canceled. The Department of Finance for the state, the County of San Diego is going to take a big roll administratively in it and they don't know what they are supposed to be doing so it has a lot of people confused and uncertain. The expectation was that it would never happen. The Governor approved one piece of legislation that said all redevelopment agencies are dissolved and then he had another legislation passed that said if you make a voluntary payment to the state, then you get to stay in existence. The court found the first one was constitutional and the second one was not. The first one stood and it was the one that dissolved the agencies. There was a big effort to try and change that decision through legislative action, but it didn't occur. It is unfortunate as the state didn't have too many options. Ms. Fountain continued that we will need a meeting in March. As 1 mentioned earlier, we prepared a new Housing Element a couple of years ago. As part of that Housing Element, there were a number of new programs that needed to be implemented and the planning staff has slowly been working through implementing some of those programs. Some of them are increased densities in certain areas, we had a mixed use ordinance that was created to try to encourage residential with commercial development so many of the older shopping centers in Carlsbad could be redeveloped and be mixed use so they could have some residential integrated into the. We could look at the mall and see if there should be some residential at the mall and make it more a lifestyle center. There have been various programs coming through to try to increase the opportunities to add residential to our city inventory. There are a couple of new programs that we will need to bring to the Housing Commission to see how the Housing Commission feels about them. They are mostly related to the homeless; homeless shelters, homeless services, farmworker housing, farmworker sen/ices, and new programs related to that, and new ways of allowing those to be approved without having a big process involved with them so there is more chances of success. A number of those programs are going to start coming through fairly regularly because we have deadlines we need to meet to be able to prove to the state that we can implement what we put into our Housing Element. Next month Planning will probably bring a couple of those programs. It will probably continue that way either every other month or every month depending on how they are seeing the need to do that. As part of that, one of the exciting things is Catholic Charities, we have La Posada Homeless Men's Shelter out by the Safety Center and it was a 50 bed shelter. The city gave Catholic Charities money through the ag mitigation fund and through CDBG monies to build 50 additional beds for farmworkers. Catholic Charities has finally pulled all of their money together to be able to move fonward to build that development. They have approval for their permits and went to City Council and got approval to build that. That will be 50 dormitory beds, but the farmworker shelter will be shared studio apartments. We don't know all the details, but Catholic Charities just had a big anonymous donation to their organization to help them finish. Sister Remonda was going totally on faith that it would happen and it worked. We gave more CDBG money to the project and it is moving fonA/ard. They plan to start grading March/April and then moving fonA/ard with construction this summer. This past year Villa Loma, our first affordable housing project, paid off some overdue lease payments they had of about 1.8 million dollars so we had some additional funding to put into some projects. Most of it went into service type projects. Actually North County Health Services is going to be buying some HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9,2012 PAGE 8 of 9 property in Carlsbad to expand their services for low income households. We had a little bit of money to put into that for acquisition of property for affordable housing so we will be looking at opportunities to do that as well. We haven't had a meeting in a while because we haven't had anything to bring to you. It is not that we don't appreciate you, we are just trying to be respectful of everybody's time. Even though we may not be having meetings, I want you to.know there is still a lot going on when it comes to affordable housing and other shelter type things. There is still discussion about other potential projects that hopefully one day will get here and ask for some monies so you get to see them and make a recommendation. Commissioner Andrews asked on the Bressi Ranch project, how would that come to us? Would it ever come to us as a recommendation? Does it bypass us? Ms. Fountain said it probably won't, but 1 can't say it never would. It just depends on if the City Council wants to have another body look at it and review it. Technically, it is a Planning Commission approval because it is seen as a development project and a zoning issue, but sometimes in the past we have had the City Council ask the Housing Commission to be a sounding board for the community to get some feedback and then make some recommendation on these types of programs. Especially if it is conversion of industrial land to residential land or rental product versus condo product. It wouldn't be set up right now as part of the process to come to the Housing Commission unless they ask for financial assistance or some creative solution to their affordable inclusionary obligation. With your title being Housing Commission, there will be some expectation in the community that you will have input into that and you are more than welcome to share your input even if it doesn't officially come to the group. Commissioner Andrews commented that he lives adjacent to that community and was in on a large email thread from lots of the citizens. 1 stayed out of it. It is great to have the resources. Ms. Fountain said I wouldn't voluntarily put yourself in the middle of it, but if you get asked, it is probably not unrealistic that people would think since you are part of the Housing Commission, you must have an opinion on this. Commissioner Andrews said there has been a lot of publicity about the Envision San Diego. Does this Carlsbad one tie into that at all or is it separate? Ms. Fountain said it is a separate process. What we are doing is updating our General Plan. It is policies and programs related to our General Plan and the General Plan has several elements, the Housing Element is one of them. It has the Transportation Element, the Basic Land Use Element and Parks and Recreation so a lot of those are being updated through this process. The focus lately has been on the land use policies because that is the biggest part of it. The Housing Element always gets ahead of these updates because the Housing Element is the only one that has a set schedule to be updated every five to seven years, depending on what cycle we are in. Our General Plan hasn't been updated for 20 years. It is similar to what other cities are going through, but it is specific to Carlsbad. I think the Community and Economic Department has really been trying to get out there and get as much input as they can. They have been successful on these online surveys. They have had a number of people participate in them, which in some cities that is not very common. We have a very tech savvy population in Carlsbad. There are workshops so if you don't want to spend time on line, you can come to a workshop. It is good to have as many people out in the community that know what is going on so they can share information, even if they are not trying to change anybody's information. A lot of concern gets wrapped around rumors and they don't have the facts. We are working on how to do better through the Neighborhood Sen/ices, how to connect better with our neighborhoods, so that when neighborhoods have these kind of concerns, they can actually have somebody within the city they can connect to and that person is always keeping them in mind. When we did the city survey this last time, we saw a disconnect in the areas where the residents are newer because they don't have the history of where to go to for information. They don't know what department to call so they get it from each other. We are trying to figure out a better way to get new residents to HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES FEBRUARY 9, 2012 PAGE 9 of 9 understand where they can go to get information, how much information is on the city website. There are also subscription services so if you wanted to be on the Planning Commission agenda subscription, you just go on their email and get the agenda sent to you automatically. We have a Communications Manager that manages a lot of the information into the community. We have a Facebook page now, we have twitter, and we are into the social media. Commissioner Igoe commented that the website is much better now. Ms. Fountain said they have changed the process to where individual departments now can update their own pages so you can get information on quicker. Now we are responsible for keeping information updated. Ms. Fountain invited Brian Andrews to share a little bit about himself since he is a new Commissioner. Commissioner Andrews said he is a San Diego native, born, raised and grew up in the University City area. I even stayed through college and went to U.C. San Diego with an Economics degree and then San Diego State for a M.B.A. later. 1 married my wife, Jennifer, ten years ago and her folks were from Oceanside so she grew up and went to Rancho Buena Vista. We moved from Carmel Valley about a year and a half ago to Carlsbad. She had always wanted to live there as a youngster. We just love it. The community has been great so I wanted to get involved right away. 1 have two children, a daughter that is 6 and a son that is 4. The 6 year old just started Kindergarten at Poinsettia Elementary and we live in the La Costa/Greens area. 1 do work in the IT department so I love all the tech stuff. Ms. Fountain said there are statistics that say over 93% of Carlsbad have computers. Commissioner Andrews added that he is in a program called Lead San Diego. Two people in Carlsbad government are doing that right now. There is a session, one per month, where you get to go and experience different parts of the city. We have had recent ones on homelessness issues and what is going on with the health and human services, with the military and with how it all ties in. 1 am definitely getting a passion for the affordable housing area and the need to help. It has been an eye opener. ADJOURNMENT By proper motion, the meeting of February 9, 2012, was adjourned at 7:01 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Deborah Fountain Housing & Neighborhood Services Director PATRICIA CRESCENTI Minutes Clerk MINUTES ARE ALSO TAPED AND KEPT ON FILE UNTIL THE WRITTEN MINUTES ARE APPROVED.