Torrance City Council – A Town Hall Style Conversation About Local Politics

This coming Tuesday the City Council will consider whether to adopt an urgency ordinance extending a moratorium on alterations and demolitions of structures located within the Original Torrance Tract. The moratorium was first imposed at the January 12, 2016 Council meeting.  That moratorium was only in effect for 45 days.  The current proposal, however, would extend the moratorium for an additional 10 months and 15 days and requires at least 6 affirmative votes from the Council.

The moratorium will prevent the demolition or exterior modification of any structures while the City undertakes further studies and implements initial steps to develop a Historic Preservation Program. To that end, the Council recently appropriated $50,000 to hire a consultant to assist in the preparation of a historic preservation ordinance.

The staff report identified 5 properties that are currently in process of being modified that would potentially be adversely impacted by extending the moratorium.

The Council is relying upon the authority granted by California Government Code Section 65858 in order to impose the building restrictions. That statute allows for such action in order to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of the community.  The proposed ordinance states that allowing additional alterations or demolitions presents “a current and immediate threat to the public health, safety and welfare due to the following reasons:

• Exterior modifications could result in structures that are not compatible with existing residential, industrial, or commercial areas;
• Existing regulations do not require notice to residents prior to making modifications thereby resulting in inadequate public review of potential impacts;
• Need to further evaluate cumulative impacts of property alterations before approving more projects; and the
• Need to complete process of studying Historic Preservation Program that could require review of building permits to ensure any new development is compatible with the architectural character of the neighborhood.

The moratorium would not apply to structures zoned commercial or industrial.

Newly released metrics provided by the City confirm that McCormick Ambulance exceeded the critical emergency response time requirement over the course of several months in the latter half of last year.

Prior to winning the City’s emergency services contract, McCormick had committed to meeting Torrance’s requirement of an 8 minute 92% of the time emergency response. City staff cited that commitment by McCormick as a key differentiating factor in scoring McCormick higher than the other offerors.  McCormick had struggled to live up to that promise in the initial months after beginning the contract in December of 2014.

Those challenges prompted some City officials, while deliberating upon extending McCormick’s contract last July, to question whether the response time requirement was reasonable.  Councilmember Rizzo, in particular, wondered if the requirement was an unrealistic standard that possibly never should have been applied in the first place.

McCormick’s recent performance may have put an end to that debate as it has demonstrated a consistent ability to not only meet but exceed the requirement.  The data released by the City shown below reflects continued improvement as McCormick was even able to meet an impressive 95% on time percentage last October.

• May 2015 (92%)
• June 2015 (93%)
• July 2015 (93%)
• August 2015 (93%)
• September 2015 (94%)
• October 2015 (95%)

The City provided the data in response to a public records request submitted last November.  It took the City over two months to respond to the request seeking the data even though they are legally obligated to do so within 24 days.  In responding to the Public Records request, the City also said that McCormick had yet to implement the contractually required CAD to CAD interface/communication link stating that, “progress is continuing, although slowly.”

That status, however, appears to be outdated as Joe Chidley, CEO of McCormick Ambulance, provided an internal McCormick memo indicating that the communication link had recently been established.  That memo signed by Michael Jones, McCormick’s Managing Director, is as follows:

I am pleased to announce that the interface connection between the McCormick Ambulance Communications Center and the Torrance Fire Department Communications Center has been completed.

This project was lead by McCormick Ambulance’s Chief Information Officer Gareth Chin. Gareth overcame what seemed like impossible technical challenges. Although this interface was a contractual obligation, Gareth took the challenge personally and worked day and night for more than a year to see this project to its successful conclusion. Thanks to Gareth’s perseverance and ability to rally both CAD manufacturer’s to find a workable solution on January 24, 2016 the two computers successfully sent and acknowledged messages to one another.

Throughout the entire project Gareth kept the McCormick management group, Torrance Fire Department administration, and Torrance city leadership constantly informed on the progress of the project. As a result of Gareth’s hard work and tenacity we have now not only met the terms of our contract but improved communications with our fire department partner and provided 100% transparency to the community. Words cannot express the amount of hard work and dedication that went into this project. Few people will ever know the amount of effort that went into this project by all participants. On behalf of the entire McCormick Ambulance family I thank you for a job well done and wish you some well deserved rest and relaxation.

Twenty-Four Commissioners were sworn in to their offices after the Council appointed them to their positions last Tuesday night.  Among those twenty four were seven individuals selected to the represent the City on the newly created Social Services Commission designed to address concerns such as veterans affairs and homelessness.

The appointees to the respective Commissions were as follows:

Airport Commission – Anne O’ Brien

Cable TV Advisory Board – Maureen Mauk

Civil Service Commission – Bridget Lewis and Keith Montoya (Incumbent)

Commission on Aging – Kathleen Davis (Incumbent) and Bea Virobik (Incumbent)

Cultural Arts Commission – Jane Kang and Toni Sargent

Environmental Quality and Energy Conservation – John Stecker

Library Commission – Rosie Javaid and Raymond Lambert

Planning Commission – Sarah D’ Anjou (Incumbent) and Robert Rudolph

Social Services Commission – Robert Chiota, Jimmy Gow, Aurelio Mattucci, Mark Ragins, Mei-Ling See, Cindy Scotto, and Charlotte Svolos

Traffic Commission – Mario Obejas and Dan Thomas (Incumbent)

Water Commission – M. Kent Kawai (Incumbent) and Linden Nishinaga (Incumbent)

Several other members of the community had applied for Commission posts but were not selected at this time.  Those not selected were Omar Navarro, Clint Paulson, Kay Grundhaus, Arthur Schaper, Scott E. Gobble, Shirley Jones, and Carol Jean Olney.