By Jorge Casuso
January 21 – The Bayside District may be getting its biggest management overhaul in two decades, but those who will steer Downtown into the future will be some familiar faces, the City Council decided last week.
The council on January 13 appointed six sitting board members to the new 13-member board and set the terms the City will use to negotiate a new services agreement with the Bayside District Corporation, which runs the Downtown.
The six will join another six – three of them also sitting board members – elected by the property owners who will pay the $3.5 million in new assessments to bankroll additional services for the new district. The final member was chosen by the City Manager. ("Meet the New District's Team," January 14, 2009)
“I think it’s appropriate for this first round” to appoint sitting board members “so we have some continuity,” said Mayor Ken Genser, who said he attended most board meetings in recent years.
The board members appointed by the council to serve a two-year term are Barbara Bryan, who owns a coffee shop Downtown; Rob Rader, a Downtown resident who also is a member of the College Board of Trustees, and Johannes Van Tilburg, an architect.
Serving a four-year term will be Kelley Wallace, who owns a newsstand on the Third Street Promenade, and Patricia Hoffman and Todd Flora, Santa Monica residents who are members of the Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights steering committee.
The council last week also approved the bylaws for the new Property Based Assessment District (PBAD) and provided City staff with direction on terms to include in an Amended and Restated Services Agreement.
Under the new bylaws, at least seven members must be present to constitute a quorum, with at least one member representing the property owners and another representing the City. All five members must vote in the affirmative for a Board action to be official.
Under the bylaws, the board may declare a seat vacant if a member has failed to attend two out of any six consecutive meetings.
Once seated, the board will need to approve a services agreement for the private maintenance crews that will provide an extra $1.2 million worth of cleaning and the ambassadors who will be paid $1.3 million to greet visitors and help keep the Promenade safe.
The council, which must ultimately approve the agreement, reiterated its position that the City must have final control of the contract workers.
“The City ultimately has to have the ability to control what happen on its property, so if the implementation were to go awry, the City would have the ability to pull the plug,” Genser said.
“We need to have more accountability for the ambassador program,” said Council member Kevin McKeown. The City needs “to keep an eye on how that evolves over time.”
Under the terms of the services agreement the council directed staff to negotiate, the ambassadors cannot “represent themselves as police officers” and cannot carry weapons or police radios. They will only serve as greeters and “eyes and ears” on the street.
Other terms the council directed staff to incorporate in the negotiations include the following:
· The Bayside District Corporation will indemnify and defend the City and its insurance will be primary in connection with indemnified claims.
· The City will pass-through to the Bayside District all the assessments collected through the Mall Maintenance fees on businesses, less an administrative fee, and all the assessments collected through the PBAD, less an administrative fee and reserve.
· The Bayside will prepare annually a Work Plan and Budget for submittal to the City.
· The Work Plan will include an Annual Maintenance Plan, prepared in coordination with the City’s Community Maintenance Department.
