Rancho Palos Verdes council rips Marymount expansion intiative

Wolfy wrote:

I want to know how much the RPV council lackeys are getting paid? 800K?

Judged:

1

1

Bruin Supporter in PV wrote:

<quoted text>
$400 per month...

Judged:

2

1

1

Concerned Citizen wrote:

If Marymount is stipid enough to hire a bumbling clown like Kuykendall, they deserve to lose. On the other hand, if the moronic RPV city council unanimously opposes Marymount, this too raise concerns since between them they are incapable of rational thought. What's a concerned citizen to do? As soon as I read the headline, my inclination was to support the initiative. But upon seeing the two-bit lobbyist hucksters name...I need to rethink. If Marymount shows such poor judgment in retaining someone like this (who I might add achieved such great result with his former Council), what kind of judgment will they render during expansion itself?

Tom Long wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually, RPV councilmembers get a little over $67 net every two weeks after deductions. Works out to way less than $10 per hour. I would get more flipping burgers.
Tom Long
Mayor Pro Tem, Rancho Palos Verdes

Mark Wells wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually and truthfully, Concerned Citizen, the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council approved The Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project that Marymount brought to them. The Council approved every item of new building construction brought before them by Marymount College, after the Planning Commission also approved every building construction item Marymount left in their request.
Marymount College officials removed from consideration any on-campus student housing before even the Planning Commission voted to certify the E.I.R.
The Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project has been approved and is ready to move forward without any real need to have residents vote for anything.
Marymount wants you to believe that the initiative is for more new construction, not already approved, other than on-campus student housing and that is simply not true. Marymount also wants voters to approve a new ordinance that allows Marymount to have opportunities to supersede current municipal codes and a law that allows them to offer for-profit activities on the campus and a probably third party administration of any new on-campus housing that could provide even more revenue to the College, while R.P.V. taxpayers could be saddled with remaining costs to provide mitigation necessary with both The Project and The Plan.
The vote is not needed because all but dorms have already been approved and are awaiting for Marymount to move forward rather than spending more time and money on what should be considered a needless ballot measure.

Tom Long wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually, RPV councilmembers get a little over $67 net every two weeks after deductions. Works out to way less than $10 per hour. I would get more flipping burgers.
Tom Long
Mayor Pro Tem, Rancho Palos Verdes

PV Homeowner wrote:

<quoted text>Excessive salaries are clearly not an issue right now in RPV. Nevertheless, the issue of salaries is an important one as the residents consider the City Council's proposal to change to a Charter City.
A state law enacted in 2005 limits the pay of general law cities (which covers the vast majority of cities in California). Curiously, that same year the Bell city council authorized a special election to convert to a charter city. Just as here in RPV, the bill was pitched as a way to give the city more local control. Neither the bill nor related literature made any mention of the effect the change would have on city council member salaries. But, lo and behold, after Bell converted to a charter city, the salaries of the Bell city council members suddently jumped to almost $100,000 a year.
So, Tom, I implore you - do not try to pass off your Charter City proposal as a simple measure to obtain more local control. You must be completely honest with us, both as to the real reasons you have suddenly decided to move forward with this measure right now and the full consequences of becoming one of the few cities in the state to convert to a charter city. I'm not suggesting that this is a money grab by the city council. But if the residents are going to lose the benefit of the salary cap, they should fully understand that before they are asked to vote on this measure.

Tom Long wrote:

<quoted text>
A city charter can be customized and the limits on city salaries in the state's Government Code can be left in place despite the adoption of a city charter. The city attorney for RPV has confirmed this and the proposed city charter will almost certainly have this limitation in it if I have my way.
And no, we will not be one of a "few" cities to convert if we do so--many cities have done so. And RPV started the process before all of the publicity about Bell came up.
While I guess I can understand the cynicism, I am a bit unhappy to be lumped in with Bell's councilmembers. And since you are an RPV resident, I'd be a bit unhappy to be lumped in with Bell voters if I were you.
Tom Long
Mayor Pro Tem, Rancho Palos Verdes

Tom Long wrote:

Here is a list of charter cities in California:
http://ceres.ca.gov/planning/bol/1999/charter...

PV Homeowner wrote:

<quoted text>Thanks Tom. That's helpful. It looks like the majority of the cities on the list are among the largest cities in the state. While there are some in the South Bay (Inglewood, Torrance, Redondo), they again are pretty large cities (Redondo is closest, about 60% larger than us, and perhaps the best case study of the three). There are also some very small cities on the list, which is curious.
RPV's population is in the 40K range. Upon quick review it looks like there are 10 charter cities in Southern California with a population of 20,000-60,000, including Adelanto, Arcadia, Bell (which is omitted for some reason), Cerritos, Culver City, Cypress, Loma Linda, Placentia, Seal Beach, and Temple City. We know how Bell turned out. It would be worth some time to research how those cities are functioning. My sense is they're mostly doing okay, but I haven't looked into it.