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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2/28/2006CITY OF DIAMOND BAR MINUTES OF THE TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION SPECIAL MEETING FEBRUARY 28, 2006 CALL TO ORDER: Chair Pincher called the Special Meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall Conference Room B, South Coast Air Quality Management Center, 21865 Copley Drive, Diamond Bar, California 91765. ► Review Future Role: Responsibilities of the Commission. ROLL CALL: Present: Chair Pincher, Vice -Chair Shah and Commissioners Mok and Shay. Also Present: David Doyle, Assistant City Manager; David Liu, Public Works Director; Lt. Joe Maxey and Robert Chou, Public Safety Committee. ACM/Doyle stated that the Diamond Bar Public Safety Committee was comprised of five members each from Diamond Bar (D.B.), Walnut and Rowland Heights. The Committee talked about crime statistics and other similar types of information. However, there was no ' real good connection back to the City and the statistics really did not deal with D.B. information other than the crime stats for each of the three cities. Staff decided to look at the possib0ity of forming a committee that would be more specific to D.B.; that would be more focused on D.B. and deal strictly with D.B. As a result, staff launched an effort to explore opportunities to merge the Public Safety Committee and the Traffic and Transportation Commission to create a Public Safety Commission that would deal not only with the Sheriffs Department but with public safety in general including animal control, fire, sheriffs department, CHP, code enforcement, emergency preparedness and so forth. Staff received commitments from the sheriffs department, fire department, animal control, and the CHP that they would participate. In addition to the paid professionals, the City needs a public component. In order to create an equitable base for the membership of the committee, staff recommended sectioning the City into six areas with a neighborhood representative on the commission to represent each of the neighborhoods. The current Commission members have indicated an interest in serving on such a commission and Paul Aiken from "The Country Estates" said he was interested so six residents have said yes to serving on such a committee. ACM/Doyle continued that the .body would meet four times a year and that the meeting would be public and televised from the SCAQMD Auditorium and meetings would focus on public safety and public education. Staff felt that the public members would serve as the eyes and ears of each of their respective geographical locations within the City and serve as the liaison between the Public Safety Commission and the neighborhood each member ' represented. ACM/Doyle asked if the members present were interested in participating in a Public Safety Commission. Currently, six individuals have indicated they would like to participate and although the Commission is envisioned to eventually consist of six members there would be FEBRUARY 28, 2006 PAGE 2 T&T COMMISSION room to incorporate a number of additional members at this time in order to move forward. rt C/Shay said that in his opinion, there were positives and negatives about the proposal. Conceptually, it is a magnificent idea because it involves the entire community and focuses on local needs. He said he was concerned about having too much on the plate for a given meeting because there would be too many items on each agenda and, the meetings are too infrequent. ACM/Doyle said that if a hundred people attended the meeting and each wanted to ask a question causing the meeting to last for six hours he would be thrilled. However, it was unlikely that a hundred people would show up and staff would be able to control the meeting from a public participation standpoint. In addition, many of the items that have been brought before the Commission on previous occasions would be handled administratively in-house. PWD/Liu said that staff felt it would be a better management of Commissioner's time and involvement to participate in proactive issues. Staff has established a Neighborhood Traffic Management program and meets with residents to discuss mitigation tools instead of reacting on a case-by-case basis. Staff's intention is to have the City work proactively to solve problems on a citywide neighborhood basis rather than to react with band-aid fixes. As an example, since the Neighborhood Traffic Management program went into effect the City has not received one request for a stop sign. C/Shay said that perhaps staff's solution was the middle-of-the-road answer because if there were not enough issues for a Commission to address on a monthly basis and staff could handle it on a quarterly basis he would have no problem with the concept. ACM/Doyle said he believed it would be true because the City was changing the way it did business. This becomes a public information campaign to get information out as well as bring information back in to the City. C/Shay said he did not want to see a communication breakdown between the public and the City. ACM/Doyle said the focus would be to improve communication between the City and the residents. VC/Shah was concerned that the public would not have a forum to raise issues of concern. He felt that staff should think through the process and make a presentation to the City Council. Emergency Preparedness is a completely different issue and this Commission has no authority over such matters including police matters and fire matters. Lt. Maxey explained that there would not be a "disconnect" between the commission and the public and what type of public safety would occur in D.B. As public safety professionals, law enforcement, fire service and animal control professionals serve on the commission as well to supplement the Traffic and Transportation Commission. In short, all areas of public safety and traffic concerns would be covered through the Public Safety Committee forum. C/Shay said he was on board with the concept but felt the meeting should take place every month. VC/Shah agreed with C/Shay. Lt. Maxey explained that it was very difficult for representatives of busy public safety entities to attend forums on a monthly basis and it was difficult to address traffic issues and provide results within a month's time. Other public agencies have the same considerations. VC/Shah said he would rather have six forums per year rather than quarterly forums and in order to guarantee attendance he felt the City would FEBRUARY 28, 2006 PAGE 3 T&T COMMISSION have to provide a public awareness campaign. At some point in the future as attendance dropped off the forums could be scaled back to quarterly meetings. Lt. Maxey reminded VC/Shah that this concept would) be different than a T&T meeting where the Commissioners would meet monthly. This concept includes an expectation that representatives would attend neighborhood watch meetings representing the Committee, for example; open houses at the sheriff's department or fire station. There is an expectation that the Public Safety Committee members would attend these types of events as the City's representatives in a public forum. Chair/Pincher said she was not sure that she was the right person to represent her area because she was not a block watch captain and that was the person who should be the City's liaison. She said she was no longer sure that the City needed a Traffic and Transportation Commission as it had come to be known. Lt. Maxey explained that a Neighborhood Watch Program was a very complicated and involved program and block watch captains were required to keep certain information confidential. If anyone were to ask him who the block watch captain was on their street because of the confidentiality aspect, he could not divulge that information and he would not, therefore, ask block watch captains to participate in an open forum. However, the Commissioners would be members of the Neighborhood Watch programs and would field their concerns and interact with the residents as the City's representative. C/Mok asked how specific the committee members should be when reporting problems. ' ACM/Doyle responded that any member who heard about an issue that needed to be immediately addressed the City should be called rather than waiting for the public forum meeting. In general, patterns of behavior would be addressed during the forum. C/Shay wondered if the City was looking to expand the committee. ACM/Doyle explained that in addition to the committee members, the public agencies would be reporting statistics, trends, etc., and advising residents on matters of public safety, animal control, and so forth. C/Shay asked how five committee members could cover 37 Neighborhood Watch meetings. Lt. Maxey said that Neighborhood Watch meetings average two per month and there may not be one in a particular area for six months. On the other hand, there might be four in one month and if a committee member were unable to make all of the meetings so be it. Lt. Maxey said that although he was focusing on the Neighborhood Watch Program it was a small part of public safety. In fact, the fire department is much more involved in public safety matters. C/Shay said that if the City took its quarterly meetings to the TV viewing audience the City would consider it an educational effort more than an exercise in problem -solving and one-on- one communication. ACM/Doyle ,agreed. C/Shay said that in addition, he understands that the City is saying it can solve most of the day-to-day problems in-house on an ongoing basis. Therefore, it would follow that there would be no agenda items for T&T because staff would have taken care of the concerns. PSC/Chou said that in his opinion the Public Safety Committee was a "disconnect" from the people and to a resident. There was nothing more valuable than a cheat sheet that provided emergency numbers for certain events. ACM/Doyle responded that the City's primary FEBRUARY 28, 2006 PAGE 4 T&T COMMISSION concern was education and that the City's website already contains all of the contact information. PSC/Chou said that to his knowledge not very many people watched DBTV. Lt. Maxey stated that after a seven minute presentation on public safety that was telecast on DBTV he had numerous calls telling him how fabulous the presentation was and how people did not realize there had been so many arrests and did not realize that the Sheriff's Department had issued 8,000 moving violations, that there were 700 traffic accidents, etc. etc. and thanked him for the information. The department produced a television show in partnership with the high schools on teen drinking and hundreds of people called and people still call to thank him for the presentation and tell him that it was a fabulous production. This forum is a way to impart public safety information to the residents and if no one watches so be it — at least the information is out there. PSC/Chou felt it would be better to have more people on the committee. VC/Shah said it was a good idea to have the information repeated via television. Lt. Maxey said the community would be flooded with information about the forum. PSC/Chou said that all residents wanted to know was who to contact when they have a problem and that they are long tbecause once thed in a dproblem is gone no oy or barbecue. That ls why ne cares neighborhood meetings do not last C/Shay said it would not happen that often but he did not want to run the risk of alienating the community. For example, when a streetlight was requested for his neighborhood 50 residents attended the T&T meeting to support the installation. How will the City handle that in the future? DPW/Liu said he would be going out to the community to discuss such issues and again cited the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program as an example of how effective this type of outreach has been. ACM/Doyle saidunderstood whether r not the curthat duals might retaliation rent com ss ones were interested insery ng on staff needed to know wh a Public Safety Committee. VC/Shah said that since this subject was introduced only this evening he felt it was necessary for the Commissioners to further discuss the matter. And, Commissioners are appointed by the City Council to make recommendations on behalf of the people. There is a clear definition about what the Commission does and about what staff does and one cannot replace the other. In his opinion, it is imperative that an independent traffic commission is a necessity because that is how the people communicate with the City. The Public Safety Committee concept is great and the City should pursue that venue as well but it should not abolish or preclude the Traffic and Transportation Commission. Chair/Pincher felt the concept of a public safety committee was very forward thinking. She said that the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program had virtually put the T&T Commissioners out of a job. The Public Safety Committee concept is so much better and will reach so many more people than the Commission could ever reach. For one meeting during 2005 may be 30 people attended. Generally, it was a Boy Scout or someone that the Commission had se arbefore and it speaks well to hNeighborhood concept that people e not attending the commission meetings t complain. When people are not complaining we should be happy. FEBRUARY 28, 2006 PAGE 5 T&T COMMISSION VC/Shah reiterated that he felt there was a tremendous need for a Traffic and Trans ortatio Commission for every city in the county and especially in D.B. in the next 10 years. PWD/Liu said that everyone seemed to be focusing on traffic. Staff has programs in place to handle traffic matters. In fact, the City has professional consultants who have expertise in traffic matters. There is a bigger picture that would be covered by a Public Safety Committee and traffic is just one component. Traffic continues to be an integral part of the public safety program because traffic is the City's number one issue. However, when residents speak to the Traffic and Transportation Commission they talk about speeding and cut -through traffic. In response staff has implemented the Neighborhood Traffic Management program to address these issues. There are other issues that need to be addressed under the umbrella of public safety such as emergency preparedness and staff would have to depend on the experts to impart the necessary information to the residents. VC/Shah said that all commissioners concur with the concept. However, there are a lot of other traffic issues that exist so his suggestion was that the public safety program should be pursued. C/Shay asked if the Commissioners would continue to have business cards and receive stipends or would the new positions be on a volunteer basis. ACM/Doyle said the proposed committee would be a City commission and Public Safety Commissioners would continue under the same guidelines. C/Shay pointed out that it was not a question of money but of ' how the commissioners would be perceived. PSC/Chou said that for him to decide whether he wanted to participate he would need to look at a written plan that would detail agendas and procedure for how the Public Safety Committee meetings would be presented. C/Shay felt that PSC/Chou was asking for a one- page job description. ACM/Doyle said that there was no problem having the Council pick other people to serve on the committee and the concerns expressed here tonight would be passed along to the City Council Members. Staff believes that the public safety committee would handle traffic issues. Staff believes that what the Commission used to do that was being delayed because the items were taken to the Commission first is now being done administratively at a much faster pace. Staff is merely attempting to improve the efficiency of its operations and improve the City's service to the community. Staff hoped to be able to tell the Council that the Commissioners felt it was a great idea, which is generally what has been stated here this evening. Lt. Maxey said he would not look at this process as the City losing something but gaining a much more effective method of imparting essential information and material to the public. He felt the program offered the Commissioners a unique opportunity for participating in a very innovative program. C/Shay said the worst-case scenario would be to discover that ther p ogram did not work and the City would go back to having a Traffic and Transportation Commission. Chair/Pincher felt that that would not happen. Lt. Maxey said that he and ACM/Doyle have discussed this program for four years and this is not a spur of the moment proposal. He said he felt the FEBRUARY 28, 2006 PAGE 6 T&T COMMISSION proposal offered D.B. a great opportunity for educating its residents. ACM/Doyle explained that staff would take this proposal to Council on Tuesday night during its study session and propose approval of a resolution for the following meeting. During that time the T&T meeting would be canceled and the Public Safety Committee members would be appointed at the March 21 meeting unless Council decided not to approve the resolution. VC/Shah and C/Shay agreed that the concept would provide an excellent educational opportunity for the residents. However, they feared that communication would break down between the City and residents were the Commission to be disbanded. C/Mok said he was a teacher and his students and their families lived at the north end of the City so he would prefer to be assigned to an area on the south end. Mr. Chou said he worked full time and did not know what would be required of him. ACM/Doyle gave him his card and asked that Mr. Chou email him with his questions. Chair/Pincher said she would like to discuss the matter with her Council Member before reaching a final decision. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business the special meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m. Respectfully, David . Liu, Secretary Attest: hair iana Pincher