The City Council Tuesday approved hiring RBF Consulting to lead the design process for a village entrance park, a project that has been a source of controversy for years. Tuesday’s decision proved no different.
The vocal public denounced the move that the Council pushed through on a 3-2 vote, with Mayor Pro Tem Steve Dicterow and Council member Toni Iseman dissenting.
The agreement pays RBF up to $445,335 to prepare a concept and schematic design to transform and beautify a portion of the city-owned parking lot north of City Hall that also faces Laguna Canyon Road.
Once a more refined concept plan is approved, the Council will decide whether to continue with RBF for the final design and construction phase or to select another firm through a competitive process.
The Council also green-lighted an extension of the project management agreement with Griffin Structures, based in Laguna Beach, for a total amount not to exceed $244,005.
The total budget for the village entrance improvements is $7.8 million, according to the staff report, which excludes $6.7 million already spent to acquire properties at 479 Ocean Ave. and 725 Laguna Canyon Road. That budget allows for $2.4 million in design and management costs, of which about $630,000 was allocated to RBF and Griffin Tuesday.
Though staff vetted a number of proposals before selecting RBF, and insisted the Irvine-based firm would solicit public input before moving forward on a design concept, residents criticized the lack of public involvement in the selection process. They also decried the selection of what they saw as an engineering firm to start a project that had no design yet.
“Do we really think an engineering firm can design what the residents really need? Right now we need a concept,” said Ruben Flores, owner of Laguna Nursery.
Choosing a design engineer is “putting the cart before the horse,” said Village Laguna’s president Johanna Felder, who asked that the process include the community in “meaningful ways.”
Despite a growing sense of cooperation between the Council and the public, there “hasn’t yet been community buy in” for the design phase of this project, said Rita Conn of Let Laguna Vote, a grass roots group founded to oppose a parking garage originally proposed for the project site.
Deputy City Manager Ben Siegel defended the staff’s selection. RBF was selected in part because of its public outreach professional Susan Harden, praised for her role in leading public discussions about the city’s parking management plan, he said.
Likewise City Manager John Pietig didn’t see the need for potential vendors to be questioned in a public workshop, an exceptional process undertaken in the hiring of an urban planner.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding of the process,” said Pietig. “At some point you’ve got to appoint a team,” he said. The next step is not for them to draw up plans, but to first engage the community to find a consensus on the design. Harden herself promised a true collaboration with residents to come up with a concept and pointed out that RBF has a strong urban planning and design team.
Nevertheless, Dicterow resisted the proposal. “This has been one of the most controversial projects in the history of Laguna, and I feel that one of the things we’ve done right is that we’ve increased the amount of public input,” he said, urging for more time to allow the community to interview prospective firms.
“We find ourselves tonight still digging ourselves out of a deep hole of mistrust,” said Council member Rob Zur Schmiede, referring to the public outrage over a perceived lack of transparency at earlier stages of the project. While engineering is critical, it may be judicious to look at the concept first, he said.
“I think it is really important that we start with design and then move to engineering,” said Council member Toni Iseman.
Over $1 million has been spent on previous now abandoned concepts since 2000, said Council member Kelly Boyd. And he held some of the critics present in the room responsible for that result. “I’m not willing to spend another $600,000 or $700,000 and end up once again with nothing,” he said.
Mayor Bob Whalen respectfully disagreed with the critics. To back track now would just be “turning it into a greater folly,” he said.
He pointed out that extensive community input had so far shaped only “a partial concept,” an agreement to mirror the Festival of Arts’ improvements underway on the other side of the road when undertaking their own renovations. And those would amount to little more than some landscaping and potentially a bike path and pedestrian path along the edge of a parking lot in order to start the process of connecting the downtown to the canyon. It still leaves 80 percent of the surface parking untouched, which is not the optimum use of that space, said Whalen.
“I think we’re doing a 180 if we don’t approve this to move ahead tonight,” he said.
“I would encourage everybody who came here tonight to give the process a chance,” said Zur Schmiede.
“The agreement pays RBF up to $445,335″
“We find ourselves tonight still digging ourselves out of a deep hole of mistrust,” said Council member Rob Zur Schmiede, referring to the public outrage over a perceived lack of transparency at earlier stages of the project. While engineering is critical, it may be judicious to look at the concept first, he said.”
I stated at the first City Council candidate forum, in August of 2014:
“I am NOT the typical American Politician, who wants you to believe them, but when in office, they are someone you don’t recognize.
Rob showed he was the type of politician I was warning about when he said he possessed INTEGRITY, a word he obviously does NOT understand, as proven by ROB buying space on a Republican TOUT Sheet.
One of ROB’s selling(?) points was about all the money the city has thrown away for outside consultants. Less than 4 Months into his term, and he has already done a 180, showing that he is NOT who he said, and sadly thinks he is.
ANOTHER 455K for a project started in the last century. What is that Einstein INSANITY quote?
Rob is what Laguna beach gets by voting for the IN candidate, no matter the lack of ethics and honesty they possess.