HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-05-15; City Council; ; FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work PlanCAReview ~~
(i) CITY COUNCIL
Staff Report
Meeting Date
To:
May 15, 2018
Mayor and City Council
From: Kevin Crawford, City Manager
Staff Contact: Jason Haber, Assistant to the City Manager
Jason .Haber@carlsbadca.gov
Subject FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work Plan
Recommended Action
Adopt a Resolution approving the FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work Plan.
Executive Summary
This item presents a resolution approving the FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work Plan. The
staff presentation and City Council discussion will be segmented, in order to avoid any Council
member conflicts of interest.
Discussion
The City Council meets annually to identify strategic goals and priorities for the coming year. On
April 17, 2018, the City Council adopted Resolution No. 2018-052, affirming the following City
Council Goals for FY 2018-19, and directed staff to develop a proposed FY 2018-19 City Council
Goals Work Plan:
• Work with state legislators and California State Parks to execute a long-term
coastline management agreement by October 2018.
• By April 2019, amend the duties of the Traffic Safety Commission to include advising
the City Council on matters related to implementation of the General Plan Mobility
Element.
• Enhance the health and vitality of the Village and Barrio by obtaining all outside
agency approvals needed to implement a Village and Barrio Master Plan by 2020.
• By 2023, break ground on a new city hall at a site designated for a future civic center
complex.
• By 2023, break ground on lowering the railroad tracks in a trench through the Village
to improve safety, community connectivity, quality of life and economic value.
This item presents the FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work Plan for City Council approval. The
proposed Work Plan was developed through a collaborative process involving multiple city
departments, city consultants and partnering agencies. The Work Plan presents the strategies
May 15, 2018 Item #3 Page 1 of 14
and tasks that have been identified to operationalize the City Council's policy direction, and
provides schedule and budget information for each task.
Each goal has been assigned a Team Leader and resourced with the appropriate staff
support and expertise. Staff will continuously monitor and present quarterly status
reports to Council on progress made toward achieving the adopted goals.
Fiscal Analysis
No funding is being requested at this time.
Next Steps
Staff will implement the approved Work Plan and provide quarterly status reports to the City
Council.
Environmental Evaluation (CEQA)
The proposed action does not qualify as a "project" under the California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) per State CEQA Guidelines Section 15378, as it does not result in a direct or
reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, however, individual
projects developed pursuant to the City Council Goals Work Plan shall remain subject to CEQA.
Public Notification
This item was noticed in accordance with the Ralph M. Brown Act (California Government Code
Section 54950 et seq.), published and distributed at least 72 hours prior to the meeting date
and time.
Exhibit
1. City Council Resolution
2
May 15, 2018 Item #3 Page 2 of 14
RESOLUTION NO. 2018-070
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CARLSBAD,
CALIFORNIA, APPROVING THE FISCAL YEAR 2018-19 CITY COUNCIL GOALS
WORK PLAN
Exhibit 1
WHEREAS, on March 20, 2018, the City Council of the City of Carlsbad held a goal setting
workshop; and
WHEREAS, the City Council's workshop discussion focused on identifying SMART
(specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-specific), strategic and aspirational goals; and
WHEREAS, the City Council identified five goals to pursue over the 2018-19 fiscal year,
based upon the City Council's discussion; and
WHEREAS, on April 17, 2018, the City Council adopted Resolution No. 2018-052,
affirming the 2018 City Council Goals; and
WHEREAS, the City Council directed staff to develop a proposed Fiscal Year 2018-19 City
Council Goals Work Plan, by which to pursue the 2018 City Council Goals; and
WHEREAS, pursuant to Fair Political Practice Regulation 18706, the decision on the work
plan was segmented to recognize conflicts of interest in a manner allowing the entire city council to
participate in adoption of the City Council Goals Work Plan.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Carlsbad, California,
as follows:
1. That the above recitations are true and correct.
2. That the FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work Plan, attached hereto as Attachment
A, is hereby approved.
3. That the City Manager is hereby directed to pursue the necessary steps to
implement the FY 2018-19 City Council Goals Work Plan.
May 15, 2018 Item #3 Page 3 of 14
PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED at a Regular Meeting of the City Council of the City of
Carlsbad on the 15th day of May, 2018, by the following vote, to wit:
AYES:
NOES:
ABSENT:
M. Hall, K. Blackburn, M. Schumacher, C. Schumacher, M. Packard.
None.
None.
/)1, ,ail/If
~Mayor
{SEAL)
May 15, 2018 Item #3 Page 4 of 14
Core City Services
This plan does not describe the city's day to day services. These are addressed in the annual city
budget. Although these services remain fairly consistent from year to year, they are adjusted -
adding services and even reducing services -based on community needs.
( Public Safety
Police, fire, emergency preparedness, emergency medical, traffic
safety, crime prevention
Community Services
Parks, recreation, trails, open space, libraries, cultural arts, classes,
camps, special events, arts education
Community & Economic Development
Land use, development services, building inspection, code
compliance, affordable housing, neighborhood services
Public Works
Streets and traffic, infrastructure, water, sewer, drainage, trash,
environmental sustainability
Governance
Public records, community outreach and engagement, legal,
management, clerk services
Administrative Services
Finance, human resources, information technology, purchasing,
risk management, utility billing
2018-19 Work Plan
May 15, 2018 Item #3 Page 8 of 14
Faviola Medina
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Attachments:
FYI ...
Thank you,
Tammy"'
From: Council Internet Email
Tammy McMinn
Tuesday, May 15, 2018 10:51 AM
Faviola Medina; Sheila Cobian
FW: City Council Goals Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2018-19 (Transportation)
20180515 Letter to City Council re 2018-19 goals.pdf
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2018 10:44 AM
To: City Clerk <Clerk@carlsbadca.gov>
Cc: Morgen Fry <Morgen.Fry@carlsbadca.gov>; Jason Haber <Jason.Haber@carlsbadca.gov>
Subject: FW: City Council Goals Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2018-19 (Transportation)
City Council Members,
This email came in past the deadline for distribution for this morning's council meeting.
Andi
From: Steve Linke ~fm~ai~lt=o~:s~------
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2018 3:48 AM
To: Manager Internet Email <Manager@CarlsbadCA.gov>; Council Internet Email <CityCouncil@carlsbadca.gov>
Subject: City Council Goals Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2018-19 (Transportation)
Please forward the attached letter related to an agenda item for this morning's City Council meeting to the Mayor, City
Council, and City Manager.
Thanks,
Steve Linke
1
May 15, 2018
City Hall
1200 Carlsbad Village Drive
Carlsbad, CA 92008
Re: City Council Goals Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2018-19 (Transportation)
Dear City Council and City Manager:
I noticed the above-referenced item on this morning's City Council meeting agenda. I request
that this letter be made part of the public record for that agenda item.
I believe that the City Council is going in the wrong direction with its changes to the
transportation-related goal and related strategies and tasks. The annual Carlsbad Resident
Survey has consistently rated "fixing traffic congestion problems on city streets" one of the most
important issues in Carlsbad with one of the highest impacts on quality of life, yet it has one of
the lowest satisfaction levels of all city services (see below). Unfortunately, the transition from
the old goal and tasks to the new ones for the next fiscal year appear to demonstrate a lack of
interest by the City Council in its oversight of transportation-related policy.
For the last several years, the transportation-related goal has been:
• Become a leader in multi-modal transportation systems and creative approaches to
moving people and goods through and within Carlsbad.
And, last year, the tasks associated with this goal were:
o Update Traffic Impact Analysis Methodology
o Update Traffic Monitoring Methodology
o Update Traffic Impact Fee Program
o Implement a Transportation Demand Management Ordinance and Program
o Develop a Sustainable Mobility Plan
o Implement Citywide Adaptive Traffic Signal Program
o Develop a Traffic Signal Master Plan
Despite the fact that none of the above tasks has been fully implemented with demonstrated
success, and despite the fact that several of these tasks seem to have lingered for years, they
have all been removed and replaced with:
• By April 2019, amend the duties of the Traffic Safety Commission to include advising the
City Council on matters related to implementation of the General Plan Mobility Element.
Tasks:
o Amend the Municipal Code to revise the duties of the Traffic Safety Commission
and help them implement it.
o Report to City Council on traffic and mobility initiatives twice a year.
1
It is my understanding that the goals are supposed to be aspirational, and that the goals and
tasks are developed in meetings using the "SMART" approach (specific, measurable, attainable,
relevant, and time-bound). However, I urge you not to let project management tools with clever
acronyms constrain you from using common sense.
The old transportation-related goal was not very specific or measurable ("become a leader"),
and it contains opaque industry-jargon ("multimodal," "mobility"), but at least it was aspirational.
And the tasks associated with that old goal largely followed the SMART approach, and their
completion would demonstrate actual progress toward achieving a meaningful outcome.
In contrast, and unlike the other aspirational goals on this year's new list of goals (e.g., breaking
ground on a new city hall and breaking ground on trenching the railroad tracks in the Village),
the new transportation-related goal is not at all aspirational. From the outside, it appears to be
just a minor bureaucratic process change.
The City Council can claim fulfilment of the goal after passing the ordinance and having the
Traffic Safety Commission start overseeing transportation-related issues, but is that really an
aspirational goal that residents of Carlsbad would consider a meaningful outcome of fixing
congestion problems?
I would suggest that the City Council starts by adopting a jargon-free goal that is both
aspirational and specific, and which reflects the actual desires of Carlsbad residents, such as:
• Improve the safety and accessibility of bicycle and pedestrian transportation and
increase mass transit usage, while reducing vehicle traffic congestion.
The older task list is a good starting point to achieve this goal, and it is necessary to develop
new (or update older) methodologies, programs, and plans, as described in those tasks.
However, simply writing plans does not mean that the actual goal has been met (i.e., safer, less
congested roads). Therefore, I think it is important for the City Council to provide specific
guidance on requiring measurement of current conditions and final outcomes with additional
tasks, such as:
• Adopt industry-standard methods to assess levels of service for all modes of
transportation (pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle), including quantifying street usage by
each mode.
• Implement the methods for all modes on all streets typologies with relevant volumes
(regardless of exemptions or prioritizations), in order to measure vehicle congestion and
pedestrian/bicycle access and safety.
• Use the above methods to measure the effectiveness of various programs (for example):
o Increases in pedestrian and/or bicycle volumes as a result of improvements on
specific streets.
o Reduction in vehicle volumes as a result of pedestrian, bicycle, and/or mass
transit improvements on specific streets.
o Shifting of vehicle trips to non-rush hour times as a result of Transportation
Demand Management (TOM).
2
o Reduction in vehicle delay based on traffic signal programs.
Some of these approaches are going to work better in certain areas of Carlsbad than others.
For example, I live in an area in southeast Carlsbad that is a "sea" of residences for miles
around with no nearby commercial areas and relatively steep grades. Therefore, I think it is
highly unlikely that vehicle trips are going to be converted to bicycle or pedestrian trips with a
meaningful effect on congestion, but TDM, signal timing, and (less likely) mass transit are
possibilities. In contrast, pedestrian and bicycle improvements could have a more profound
effect in the Village area and other similar areas.
Accordingly, I also urge the City Council to have surveys of potentially affected users distributed
whenever major street projects are planned. Unlike some previous surveys I have seen, though,
the questions should be very direct about the willingness and ability of the respondents to use
the various modes of transportation for the specific types of trips they take, as well as the
specifics of the project.
Carlsbad Resident Survey summary
To support the point I made earlier about the significance of traffic congestion to Carlsbad
residents, I studied Carlsbad's annual Resident Survey Reports from the last 11 years
(2007-2017--after the general methodology changed from the 2000-2006 format). When ranking
the importance of city services, Carlsbad residents consistently rank "managing traffic
congestion" and "street maintenance" as the most important services after "police, fire, and
emergency services."
However, while police, fire, and emergency services receive some of the highest satisfaction
ratings from Carlsbad residents, management of traffic congestion has consistently ranked in
the bottom three, and it has ranked dead last for the last three years (2015-2017) among all city
services.
Further, while satisfaction with several city services has fallen a bit over the last several years,
satisfaction with "management of traffic congestion on city streets" has fallen substantially more
than any of the others--an over 17% reduction since its peak in 2011. I have prepared the
following graph with a red trendline to show the current trajectory.
3
Satisfaction with management of traffic congestion on city streets from 2017 Resident Swvey
0% +-----,--------,,------r-------r---,------r-------r---,------r---~
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
...-series! -Poly. (Series!)
As a side note, the 2017 Resident Survey Report has a figure that is supposed to be this graph as Figure 12
(page 12). However, I had to create it myself, because the consultant who prepared the report incorrectly
copied and pasted the same graph from Figure 11 (page 11 ), which is "Provision of arts and cultural
programs." So, all of the numbers appear much higher than the real data for traffic congestion. I would
recommend asking the consultant to correct this figure in the 2017 report to avoid future confusion.
4
The following graph from the 2016 Resident Survey report shows that "(2) traffic congestion on
city streets" should be a high priority issue given the combination of its high level of importance
and its low level of satisfaction.
Figure 5. Satisfaction -Importance Matrix, City Services3
QI V
C
~ a.. 0 0.
E
M
99%
97% CD
95%
93% 0
91%
89%
50% 55% 60% 65%
Satisfaction
Legend:
(1) Repair and maintain local streets
(2) Traffic congestion on city streets
(3) Healthy business climate in carlsbad
(4) Environmental sustainability
(5) Safe and convenient ways to get around on foot
(6) Trails and paths for hiking and running
(7) Recreation programs for kids
0
70% 75% 80%
When asked about the best ways to increase the quality of life in Carlsbad, residents have
consistently ranked "fixing traffic congestion problems on city streets" as one of the top ways to
accomplish that. It has swapped between first and second place with "limiting
growth/development" in most years, and the related "street maintenance" response is usually
with them in the top three.
The observations described above correlate with the increasing proportion of Carlsbad residents
who feel that the quality of life has been getting worse, and who have a decreasing confidence
in city government, over the last four years. Although other factors, particularly limiting
growth/development, also likely contributed to these recent trends, the correlation is hard to
ignore (see the following two graphs from the 2017 Resident Survey Report).
5
Flpre 16. Quality of Ufe Direct1on. 2007-2017u
-+-GettJng Better ..... Getting worse Staytng about the same
681%
64.7%
598% 61 9%
56.5% 57 2% 55.4%
52.8% 52.4%
47.9% 475%
26% 26%
11% 11% 10'¼ 11%
2007 2008 2000 2010 201 1 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
EillU:c H, ConfidcoB in C1Jfsb!!I CltvGomoment. 2001-2011•
76% 74%
18% 20% 22%
-+-Confident Unconfident
18%
84%
13% 14% 13% ---10%
21% 26%
15%
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20i 4 2015 2016 2017
When one combines the extremely high importance and quality of life improvement assigned to
"fixing traffic congestion problems on city streets" with the fact that it is now the service with the
lowest satisfaction rate in the city, I think it is incumbent upon the City Council to pay close
attention to the problem and the goals and strategies to address it.
6
Past problems
Carlsbad's traffic impact analysis and traffic monitoring have been tainted since 1990 with
methodologies that significantly under-estimated traffic congestion. The defective methods
formed the basis of the annual Traffic Monitoring Program reports, rendering them virtually
useless from monitoring or policy-setting perspectives. Numerous intersections and street
segments would have consistently failed over the years had valid methods been used.
Significant portions of the transportation-related sections of environmental impact reviews
included the defective methods, as well.
I first alerted the City Council in 2011 to the highly flawed methods. Despite that, and despite
the adoption of a new General Plan/Mobility Element in 2015, Carlsbad continued to use those
highly flawed methods through at least 2016 for its Traffic Monitoring Program, and as part of
environmental reviews of projects, including the very recent McClellan-Palomar Airport Master
Plan Update study done in 2017. This creates a great deal of concern on my part.
And the way the new General Plan/Mobility Element was written, virtually all of the numerous
streets/intersections that fail valid vehicle congestion standards are now exempted from the
vehicle standard, either because they have been re-prioritized to bicycle/pedestrian traffic, or
(ironically) because they are the busiest streets/intersections in the city that allegedly cannot be
further improved for vehicles. Following years of fake congestion reports with the prospect that
congestion now may no longer be assessed to a meaningful degree on many streets further
raises my concern.
I am not saying that additional vehicle lanes should be added or that the city can build its way
out of congestion. In addition, I support all reasonable efforts to make bicycling and walking
more accessible and safe on all streets. However, please compel the presentation of accurate
information on all modes of travel for all streets, and please engage in diligent oversight of
transportation-related policy development and carefully study all projects up for approval. I
believe putting such priorities into your transportation goal and task list would provide
much-needed guidance.
Sincerely,
Steve Linke
7513 Quinta St
Carlsbad, CA 92009
7
May 15, 2018
2018 City Council Goals
Work Plan
2018 City Council Goals Process
•Goals Workshop:March 20
•Goals Resolution: April 17
•Work Plan Adoption:May 15
2018 City Council Goals
–SMART Goals
•Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant,
Time-Specific
–Aspirational & Strategic
–Deliverable in 6 months to 5 years
2018 City Council Goals
Work Plan
Part I
2018 City Council Goals
•Work with state legislators and California State
Parks to execute a long-term coastline
management agreement by October 2018.
•Engage CA State Parks
•Engage State Legislators
2018 City Council Goals
•By April 2019, amend the duties of the Traffic
Safety Commission to include advising the City
Council on matters related to implementation of
the General Plan Mobility Element.
•Code Update & Workplan
•Traffic & Mobility Reporting
2018 City Council Goals
• By 2023, break ground on a new city hall at a site
designated for a future civic center complex.
•City Hall Space Planning
•Civic Center Scoping
•Site Selection
2018 City Council Goals
Work Plan
Part II
2018 City Council Goals
• Enhance the health and vitality of the Village and
Barrio by obtaining all outside agency approvals
needed to implement a Village and Barrio Master
Plan by 2020.
•Complete Master Plan
•Obtain CA Coastal Commission Approval
2018 City Council Goals
• By 2023, break ground on lowering the railroad
tracks in a trench through the Village to improve
safety, community connectivity, quality of life and
economic value.
•MOU & Funding Plan
•Alternatives Analysis (Short vs. Long)
•Grant Applications
Recommended Action
–Adopt a resolution approving the 2018 City
Council Goals Work Plan.
Next Steps
–City Budget Adoption
–Work Plan Implementation
–Quarterly Reporting